Catholic Schools Week in Moate Community School.

Every year Catholic Schools Week is celebrated nationwide during the last week of January. It is a time when schools celebrate the gospel message and look at the different ways we can contribute and enhance the life of our school and parish.

This year, the Religion department organised various events to celebrate the week. Part of the theme was faith as inter-generational so we tried to incorporate activities with the primary school and with the parish as a whole.

This year we are working with St Brigid’s and St Olive Plunkett’s second class students as part of their “Do this in Memory” first communion programme. Some of our transition year students work with Ms Feeley on the theme for the month. This month the theme was baptism. The younger students came over to MCS for an afternoon and engaged in different activities around this theme, games, video clips, colouring and power points. It is a great way for our TY students to play an active role in our church and parish and maybe have some positive influence on the younger children. All of us get something from the experience as the younger students often have a new way of looking at things and we learn from them as well.

We invited Fr PJ Hughes in to talk to our 6^th years about how his faith has brought him to where he is today. During this insightful talk, he spoke to our students about his life, his work in Ecuador and now his work as PP in Boher.

The ten students who went to Lourdes as helpers in September wanted to do something for the week so we organised with St Brigid’s that they would talk to 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th class about pilgrimage, the reasons why they had wanted to go and the work they did while they were there. These students had such a positive faith experience and their time in Lourdes was about helping others and spending time with people. They spoke to the younger students and really engaged with them. The younger pupils had so many questions and interest in what the Lourdes group had done.

On the Thursday of Catholic Schools Week, all TY students went over to the parish church for 10.00 mass. The students provided music, did the readings and prayers of the faithful. They played an active role in the liturgy. After mass all parishioners’ were invited back to school for tea and chat. It was a great opportunity for our students to mingle and chat to the people who attend mass most days…the school String Ensemble and Traditional Irish group provided entertainment. There was a great atmosphere and a true sense of community. This is what parish is all about, young and old getting together, learning and getting to know one another.

It was a great week and we hope that everyone involved got something from it that they can carry with them. As a religion department, we hope that our students see that our faith should be active and that we all have a role to play.

The activities of this week would not have been possible without the help and co-operation we get from Fr Noonan and Fr Farrell. We are very grateful. We would also like to thank the two primary schools in town for allowing us to become involved and giving MCS student’s opportunities with the younger classes.