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Sung Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints

On the 1st of November, our school community participated in a beautiful Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints. In his homily, Fr Alex reminded us that we are made in God’s image and becoming more like Him leads us to become Saints.

The liturgy was enhanced by the leadership of our young people. Our excellent S1 altar boys helped the Mass flow smoothly, our readers proclaimed the word of God with clarity and Orla (S3) accompanied the hymns. The young people, fresh from hymn practice, sang out the parts of the Mass using the Missa Simplex chants and the hymns were sung with enthusiasm.

May we continue to offer worthy worship to God through the Sacred Liturgy and in our daily lives as we strive to become, as Pope Benedict XVI put it, Saints of the 21st Century!

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An RE-Treat for effort in RE!

An RE-Treat for most improved pupils!

Week in and week out, we are impressed by the dedication and enthusiasm of so many of our young people. We are especially proud when pupils try their hardest and make improvements to their learning habits, behaviour or engagement with the faith life of our school. So we have decided that it is time that these young people received an RE-Treat! Miss Morrison has kindly invested in a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN and young people who have been really trying hard in RE can expect to receive a golden ticket to attend one of our RE-Treat lunchtimes starting very soon.

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Margaret Sinclair Pilgrimage 2023

2023 Margaret Sinclair Pilgrimage

For the first time since Covid, The feast of St Mark saw a group of 30 S1 pupils travel to St Patrick’s in Edinburgh.

The home of Hibs is also home to the shrine of Venerable Margret Sinclair who’s life in early 20th century Cowgate and holy example are becoming an inspiration to many.

Joined by the Margaret Sinclair Education Adviser, our former PTRE, Mr Hughes, our young people learned about this ordinary girl who is on the path to sainthood and how they can follow Christ in their everyday lives too. Fun activities and times of prayer made for an uplifting day and a chance to seek the intercession of Venerable Margaret for all members of the Turnbull family.

We are very grateful to the volunteers at St Patrick’s for making us so welcome and to Fr Monaghan for offering the Mass so beautifully at the shrine altar.

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Mid-term update

Lenten Almsgiving: Give us this day our daily bread.

Building on the immense generosity of those who donated to the Advent foodbank collection, Miss Morrison and her Leadership class launched a Lenten effort to support those who are in need. When we pray the Our Father, we say ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Inspired by the self-gift of Our Lord in the supersubstantial daily bread of the Eucharist, all who contributed enabled the group to provide daily sustenance to those who are in need. This is faith put into action.

 

Well done also to our S1 pupils who undertook a sponsored silence during RE and raised a substantial sum for Mary’s Meals.

 

Sacraments at Turnbull High School

This month we completed our programme of Class Masses and Confessions. Every class in the school has had the opportunity to receive the sacraments throughout the year. Please keep them in your prayers and encourage them to nourish their faith in this way in their parishes. Our thanks go to Fr Monaghan, Canon Hill, Fr Alex and Fr Mackle for their support of such an extensive programme. Without their ministry, we would be unable to celebrate the sacraments.

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Caritas 2023, in their own words

Overall, Caritas has had a big impact on me and aided in strengthening my faith. It has given me the chance to reflect more on my own life and discover new ways of thinking that help me to grow closer to God. It has enhanced my understanding of scripture and the teachings of the Church and even caused me to make new friends. So ultimately, Caritas has been and will continue to be an extraordinary force in my life.

 

True loving mercy requires complete self-sacrifice, the ability to halt your own life and desires completely in order to help someone else, just as the Samaritan did in the parable. And we have not only to do this with people that we find it easy to love.

 

The “decisive direction” that the late pope speaks of is of course towards Heaven, and I think that the word “decisive” does give a very accurate description. We can have no hesitancy or doubt in our Faith if we wish to truly live the lives that God wants us to and must have complete trust in God, confident that He will guide us perfectly through the trials of this life and into the next.

 

“Love and truth are inseparable. Without love, truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive for people’s day-to-day lives.” (Pope Benedict XVI) Pope Benedict taught us that in order for truth to be valuable, it must be founded in love – a two-way relationship. Furthermore, the pursuit of truth must always be guided by a spirit of love and compassion. Without love, truth can become unnecessary, harsh or dogmatic, lacking the kindness and humanity that is needed for it to be truly meaningful and positive in people’s lives. The depth added to this idea by things I learned through Caritas is just one of many ways the award has impacted my outlook on things fundamental to my faith.

 

As Pope Benedict says in Deus Caritas Est: “Love is an act of the will, and it can survive even when the feelings have disappeared.” This can make loving difficult and may even require us to make sacrifices or compromise. The ultimate example of love is the sacrificial love of Jesus, who died on the cross for the sins of humanity. Similarly, we are called to love others without prejudice and even when it doesn’t suit us – even, most radically, to love our enemies.

 

Knowing myself more deeply has allowed me to consider what I want and what is important in my life, something valuable beyond words at this stage in my life, where I will soon be leaving school and becoming an adult. I know the regular chance provided by Caritas to think not just academically or scientifically but spiritually has helped me tremendously through such a transitory stage in my life.

 

We may have opinions and perspectives that differ from others to the point that we may consider them enemies, but we need to remember that God created us all in His Own Likeness, which means that we are all Children of God. God has a place for us all in the world, and loves us all unconditionally.  If we are to be true followers of Christ, we need to listen to His words and follow His example.

 

“The expression of love of neighbour is not just an individual responsibility, but something for the whole Church” Pope Benedict

This Deus Caritas Est quote has guided me along my Caritas year to explore the importance of love. It is first and foremost that the obligation of each individual believer is to love their neighbour as themselves, but it is also the responsibility of the entire Christian community at every level, from the local neighbourhood to the specific Church and to the Church universal as a whole. The Church must practise love as a group.

 

When we love our brother we also love God. We cannot love God and not love our brother because he is the love that God has given us. We love our neighbours because as Christians we follow God. It is crucial to emphasise that the greatest Commandment is to love God with all my heart since, without doing so, I cannot love my neighbour. The ability to love my neighbour as myself depends on how much I love God. Only when I love God is the only relationship that can spill over into other relationships.

 

I feel we live in a world just now which is extremely materialistic and some people have lost a focus on looking out for others and appear to have a more selfish outlook on life, concentrating on their own needs rather than the needs of others. I feel the Pope’s teaching (Deus Caritas Est) should be taken on board by more people as this would make the world a better place.

 

“Love grows through love.” This is a quote directly from Pope Benedict XVI and seems simple at first glance when you take it literally….the more I think about it the more amazing it is to me. I interpret it as God saying how he will always love us as we are his children and in order for his light to shine in our lives, we need to open the door and let him in so he can spread his love to us.

With Caritas, I have somewhat put aside the writings of Camus and Sartre and come to more greatly enjoy the Holy Scriptures and writings of Catholic philosophers and theologians. Love may be irrational to our meagre human minds but given the context of God – from whom it comes, by whom we may enjoy it – the Mystery of Love becomes much more perceptible to me. I have come to realise, the call to Love is a calling to be closer to God and to know Him more fully (1 John 4:16). Our love is but a manifestation of God and His love (1 John 4:19).

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Catholic Education Week Article 2022

At the end of Catholic Education week, we would like to share the article that was read at Mass in the parishes by our CREDO pupils.

CEW 2022: Communion, Participation, Mission

Catholic Education Week provides the perfect setting for two significant events in the life of Turnbull High School this year. Firstly, our Patronal Feast Day (21st November) gives us the opportunity to renew our consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as our guide to knowing, loving and serving the Lord Jesus. Secondly, 2022 sees a significant review of our School Vision Values and Aims; the climax of several years of prayer and discernment involving all members of our school community.

As we consider the theme of Catholic Education Week – Communion, Participation, Mission – we reflect on how these headings give expression to our common identity and shared mission as a school with a uniquely Catholic identity.

Communion

As the young people, parents and teachers of Turnbull High School, we are united by our common choice for Catholic Education. In ‘coming together as a community’, as our school prayer says, we pledge ourselves to growing together in faithfulness toward our calling from God to be a ‘Community Of Faith Engaged In Learning’, ‘Centred on Christ’. The vision of Catholic Education put forward by the Church has been richly enhanced in Turnbull High School in recent times by the process of renewing how we articulate our shared identity. Guided by the Charter for Catholic Schools, input from Australian Catholic University, Notre Dame University (Ireland) and partners closer to home, we have all engaged with the key themes of what it means to be a Catholic school, bound together by our common values. Remembering that communion relies on love and that true, self-giving, sacrificial love comes from God, we are called to reflect on our level of communion with Him and how that unites us to each other as brothers and sisters of the Kingdom. This process gained new depth when, as a whole school, we engaged in the final consultation phase of our Vision, Values and Aims review as part of our feast day this week.

 

Participation

Our school brings together many people from varied backgrounds and offers a wide variety of opportunities for all of us to develop our academic achievement, skills and, most importantly, our life of virtue; that is, the habitual commitment to The Good.

The Second Vatican Council taught that the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. It is in the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus that we learn the extent of love, a life laid down, a body broken and risen to new life. Just as many grains of wheat form the Host set aside for consecration, so Jesus’ Mystical Body in the world is formed from all who share the life of grace and are united with the Lord in Holy Communion. In this way, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Adoration of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament signify and bring about the deepest participation that we can have in our common life. Those who do not yet share this level of communion with the Church are no less called to participate in prayer as far as they are able and are invited to open their hearts to the Lord and one another.

Through our varied chaplaincy programme, the whole school community has opportunities to participate in the life and faith of Turnbull High School. Through formal and informal prayer, traditional and contemporary devotions and music, everyone is called to participate in prayer and discipleship.

Our policies and shared practice in our day to day work offers additional opportunities to participate in the shared mission of the Catholic school since everything we do should aim to reflect Jesus, to seek the face of Christ in others. Most recently our journey towards the use of restorative practice seeks to enable us to imitate the mercy of the Father, practice reconciliation and inspire virtue.

Participation in our Christ-centred community extends beyond our families, associated primaries and parishes and partners through our charity and outreach work. Through our commitment to upholding the dignity of others through meeting their physical and spiritual needs, our shared values impact all those who we seek to support through Mary’s Meals, Aid to the Church in Need, Pro-life work and most recently in our efforts to support the Shoebox Appeal and local foodbanks, to name only a few.

 

Mission

In Redemptoris Missio, Pope St John Paul II said that

“The time has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to the New Evangelisation. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.”

Turnbull High School is a centre of the New Evangelisation, a place where the Good News of salvation through Christ Jesus is proclaimed with renewed ardour, the only path to authentic human flourishing.

In every aspect of school life, we are called to help our young people to engage with the Gospel on personal and societal levels, to develop a life of discipleship and to become missionaries in whatever circumstances they find themselves, now and in the future.

At this exciting stage in our communal life, may we, by our reliance on the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church, continually grow in our fidelity to Jesus and in our enthusiasm for participating in the mission of bringing others to the joy of a life lived in Him.

Please pray for us as we continue on this journey to know, love and serve the Lord. Thank you.

 

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CEW 2021- Celebrating and Worshipping

The theme for this year’s Catholic Education Week is designed to help us reflect upon how our schools are communities of faith and learning, characterised by our celebration and worship. 

We can list many things that make Turnbull High School a distinctively Catholic place of learning, but they are summed up in three phrases that you can see around our school: 

  • We are a Community of Faith Engaged in Learning. Our Catholic faith is woven into all that we do from starting the school day with prayer to seeking to discover truth, beauty and goodness, the finger prints of God, in every subject that we study.  
  • We are Centred on Christ. This is not just a phrase that is mounted above the main entrance, but reflects our desire to witness to our faith in the Lord Jesus by living the sacramental life, by sharing a life of prayer and by reaching out to others in and beyond our community. Our Oratory is on the middle floor of the school and so Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is close to us in all we do and living our consecration to the Immaculate Heart leads us to follow the Lord more faithfully. 
  • Our motto is Respice Finem– Look to the Goal. At Turnbull we have the opportunity to receive a spiritual and academic formation which prepares us for our short term aims- our exams, further education, careers and vocations but also for our ultimate goal which is to know love and serve God in this life and be forever happy with him in the next. We are a centre of the New Evangelisation which seeks to proclaim and witness to the Good News and walk in the path of discipleship. 

 

The circumstances of the last two years have posed real challenges for so many in our schools, parish and wider communities. We saw the closure of our schools and parishes, and worked through the tentative attempts to reopen or to reimagine how we could function safely in an ever-changing landscape. Celebrating our Faith and Worshipping God have taken on new forms at Turnbull High School. We have responded to the difficulties around assisting at Holy Mass by exploring the richness and variety that is to be found in our Catholic devotional heritage. Online and in person we have rediscovered the power of the Holy Rosary and Novenas, the stillness of Eucharistic Adoration and the richness of Letio Divina.  

In the preface to the weekday Mass we find these beautiful words: 

 

Father all-powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give thanks.

You have no need of our praise,
yet our desire to thank You is itself Your gift.
 

Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to Your greatness,
but makes us grow in Your grace,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

We see here that there is never a wrong time to turn to God in prayer and worship. There is never a wrong time to celebrate his unending love for us. Those words from the preface remind us that the purpose of celebrating and worshipping is to Adore God and to be Reconciled to him. ‘Ad Ora’ means to mouth and so to Adore God is to turn to him and be filled with the breath of life as was Adam in the garden. Giving thanks and praise is not only right and just but is the realisation of our destiny as beings made in His Image.  

The Latin root of ‘Reconcile’ comes from the word for eyelash, meaning that by turning away from sin and towards the face of God through the sacraments, we are drawn into the most intimate of relationships with our creator. Indeed, in so doing, we strengthen our relationship with God, our loving Father, and with our brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we celebrate- ‘and to you, my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the Lord Our God’ We are made to know, to love and to serve Him; it is here that we find our purpose, and we can do that through joining together in celebration and worship.  

This is why the prayer and sacramental life of our school is absolutely central to who we are and to how we grow as a community. It is also why the links we have with our parishes are so important to us.  

Today, on behalf of all the pupils of Turnbull High School we would like to thank you, our family, friends and follow parishioners, for your support and prayers as we continue to encounter Jesus and discern God’s dream for our lives. We also offer our prayers for you who are united with us in Celebrating the Good News and Worshipping God on our pilgrimage through this life towards our ultimate goal. 

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