St. Mary's Kids' Pages

Colleen Kennedy, a member of our Parish Schola Cantorum and a talented director of children's music, is working with our Sunday School children every Sunday from 9:30 to 9:50. She is teaching the fundamentals of music, as well as introducing them to the Church's musical traditions.

Presently the children are looking at Old Testament stories and right now we are studying Israel during the time of King David. Children's Sunday School meets in the "cottage" behind the Parish Hall from 9:00 until 9:50 a.m. and is open to all children ages 3-12 yrs. old. Come and learn about God's great care and provision of all His children!

            Do you know what an "inheritor" is? An inheritor is someone who inherits something. We inherit things that are left for us, or given to us by somebody else. An inheritance is a gift someone has given us. Sometimes we say things like "I inherited my mother’s eyes," and we mean our eyes look just like our mother’s. But usually we inherit things when someone dies and leaves us something (none of us want to "inherit" our mother’s eyes that way!). An inheritance may be money, or a house, or a beautiful painting. It’s something special the dead person left to us because they cared about us and wanted us to share it with them.

            The Prayer Book tells us that we are "inheritors" of the Kingdom of Heaven. You became an inheritor when you were baptized. You know that when you were baptized you were made a "Member of Christ" and "a Child of God." You are forever part of His family, and He always loves you. We are inheritors because the Lord Jesus died and "left" us His kingdom. That means you are His heir. So what do you get? Did He leave you a bank account or a condo? Where do you go to pick up your inheritance? Who do you see? What do you have to do?

            If I told you that you had to go to downtown Los Angeles every week to get a $100 inheritance, you’d figure out a way to do it. You’d take a taxi or a bus or ask a friend who had a car to take you.   What Christ has left you as "an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven" is worth much more than $100 or $1,000 or $1,000,000. You have inherited the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s worth more than any amount of money. You didn’t earn it and you don’t have to do downtown to pick it up. He gives it to you as a gift because He loves you. But what is the "Kingdom of Heaven"? What makes it worth more than a million dollars? It’s this: one of the reasons people leave us things to inherit is because they’re dead. They’re not alive any more to spend money or live in houses or look at beautiful paintings. If people lived forever, nobody would inherit anything! When the Lord Jesus came to earth, He came to make us part of His family, the Church. His heavenly family, which we belong to because of our baptism, is not like an earthly family. In our earthly families people die. We don’t live here on earth forever. Bad things happen to us and we sometimes do bad things ourselves. In Heaven, this isn’t so. No one dies, or is ever afraid or sad. Those people we loved and cared about on earth we will be with again to love and care about again in Heaven (you may be surprised to find some people you didn’t like who will be in Heaven too, but that’s something we can discuss another time). If you have a parent or grandparent who has died, would you give $1,000,000 to be with them again? I would, and I’m sure you would, too.

            But we don’t have to. God has made us “inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.” That means you, and all those you love, will be with the Lord Jesus, His blessed Mother the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints forever, where sorrow and fear and death have no place. That is because you are an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.

St. Mary’s Kids’ Pages