One of the key points of this chapter is in the first paragraph I believe. Starkey says that " If God is at the centre of the Catholic School, then prayer and liturgy play a unique and critical role int he formation of the school's Catholic Identity. God can hardly be at the centre of teh school if staff and students do not spend time with God in prayer. I think this aspect of our faith is becoming more important as time goes on. We all acknowledge that we are living in a very busy noisy world and the act of stilling the mind and refecting on our day, on our lives is both life giving and healing. This morning Iistened to a leading neurologist and he was commenting on his theory that we need to spend more and more time stilling our minds, [Praying] for our mental well being. I agree with this hypothesis not only for our mental well being only but also for our spiritual well being. Our personal encouneter with Christ through prayer is paramount to our image of God and thus our Theology - in my opinion.
I particulary like the Ignation structure of prayer. I find this is a very practical and authentic way to engage our soul within a spirit of gratitude. Father at mass one day said that he felt Gratitude is the cure of all evils. I think there is something profoundly true about this statement. When we commence prayer with gratitude it transports us to a place that allows us to see beauty first and in that light we are better positioned to understand - the other - ourselves .
Thank you God for...
Help me to understand why ...
I look at my day and ....
Next time I will ...
Keep with me Jesus as I .....
" Catholic schools teach their students something powerful for life when... they lead them into the inner world and when they teach them about sacred times and places."
It provokes me to ask if we are teaching our students enough, to access this inner world in regular sacred times and places throughout the day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Chapter 3 delves deeper in the difference between the 'Bypass' and 'Engage' approaches and also reinforces the need to reduc... -
The first chapter focuses heavily on reducing change to increase improvement. The most interesting point I took out of th...
How can we slow down? Teachers are already struggling with a crowded curriculum and may unfortunately see time spent in prayer as time being taken away from everything else they have to do. We need to help them see that this will ultimately assist them in their role and will not only benefit students but them as well. God knows we need IT!!!!Perhaps we can do some PD on meditation for all staff and eventually take it into the classroom as well.
ReplyDeleteWhile I love having a whole school morning prayer I sometimes wonder whether it really has the desired effect! We have some students crying, preschoolers running around and adults sometimes speaking. Is the message of the prayer really getting across or has it become routine and cute having the little ones out the front. I personnally find it difficult to reflect in the morning with locking the gate and late comers arriving after the bell. Could we have morning prayer on Mondays and one other day and then have some prayer in our classrooms on other mornings. I Like the experience of morning prayer shared in the quieter setting of the classroom shared in the reading.
I echo the comments of Elly - however I find the afternoon prayer far more disengaging. Often it is loud and spoken over the top of students still packing up. Last year Year Six organised afternoon prayer and the prayer over the speaker interrupted it. Maybe a discussion and feedback from staff and students around the impact on prayer is worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteThe data I collected at my previous school around mediation was very valuable - agin doing it in a small intimate setting had a more profound effect on the participant.
Silence and just being is so important and goes beyond the curriculum.
It is also interesting data to see how many teachers say morning prayer agin when they are in their spaces - if that is a regular practice does it cancel out the morning prayer? Definitely worth thinking about.