How do Christians respond to the variety of Christian festivals?-(

Another festival which Christians respond to is the Epiphany. During the festival of the Epiphany we remember when the three wise men came to Bethlehem to visit the baby Jesus and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. This effects our lifestyles, attitudes and behaviour in many different ways e.g. it makes us think about the gifts we gave other people at Christmas and the significance of the gifts that Jesus was given. His gifts represented different things-gold(king of the Jews), frankincense(son of god)and myrrh(lamb of God). We can also reflect on how we can try to change our behaviour and attitude to follow his example more often in our own lifestyles. The main message of the Epiphany is that the gospel or 'good news' is for every nation. This message helps to change the way we treat people in our community who are usually discriminated against such as refugees or immigrants. Another message of the Epiphany is about treating people from other religions equally. This helps to change our behaviour and attitude towards people with different beliefs to ours, even if we do think there beliefs are wrong. My lifestyle has changed because of this festival by making me aware of the fact that people from other countries should be treated the same as you would want to be treated.

The festival of Pentecost is another festival that changes our lifestyle, behaviour and attitude. The festival of Pentecost is when we remember when the disciples were afraid and hiding in a room and the holy spirit appeared to them as a roar of flames. It filled them with courage to spread the word of God and were given the ability to speak different language so they could spread the word to all nations. We will learn about Jesus' teachings related to how we should forgive our enemies, show mercy and turn the other cheek. This effects our attitudes and behaviour towards people who harm us or skit us because instead of retaliating and causing a fight, we just ignore it and offer our forgiveness. Also when we look at how the disciples were effected by the 7 gifts of the holy spirit, our attitude and behaviour changes because we are encouraged to speak out against unjust things that shouldn't be happening. For example-discrimination, bullying, skitting, stealing, drug abuse, verbal abuse , violence etc. it also encourages us to make the right decisions and lead a good life.

Lastly, the festival of Ascension is one more festival that causes Christians to respond in a positive manner. During this festival we remember how Jesus ascended to heaven to go sit at the right hand of his father God . This makes think about death and that there is life after death because one day we will all go to heaven. This changes our lifestyle, behaviour and attitude because it makes us think about how we should live our lives for the better and make the most of life by trying to follow Jesus' teachings. We have been taught that one day we will all be judged on how we have treated others based on the teaching "when I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty you gave me a drink." CAFOD are an organisation who believe that all people should be treated equally no matter what. They help third world countries by educating them and teaching them methods to produce their own food. They also build well and give them tools for things like farming and building. CAFOD educate the children about HIV and aids because they are common diseases in under-developed countries and it will reduce the risk of the children getting them.