Good morning Your Grace, my name is Mark McGuigan and I am in sixth year and I would like to talk about three aspects of the Catholic faith within St Ninian’s High School – the Caritas award, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and the schools participation in the Year of Faith.
In our school, there are currently 24 people who are taking part in the Pope Benedict IV Caritas Award. The three aspects of this award – Learning, Reflection and Witness – are part and parcel of everyday life in our school.
For example, there are several opportunities for learning which are incorporated in the Caritas Award. By reading Scripture and Gospel Teachings and listening to teachers, members of various religious orders and leaders of the Catholic Church, we are encouraged to take forward the key messages presented and incorporate them into our daily life. We attend meetings and actively seek out more knowledge of our faith from books and by listening to the words of the Pope. In this way, we are constantly developing a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Catholic.
This naturally leads onto Witness. Within our school the Caritas members lead and actively encourage all other members of our community to engage in activities such as Reading at Mass, Buddying, Mentoring, Eucharistic Adoration and Community Placement.
The members of the Caritas group and I have reflected on the cyclical mature of the work involved in this award. We are constantly reflecting and learning from events we engage in to help us make a more positive contribution in further activities and we strive to carry what we have learned with us after school.
This is not however, unique to the Caritas group. We have learned throughout our time at ST Ninian’s in RE and PSHE classes and from examples set by staff and senior pupils of the school. We have always been encouraged to reflect on what we have learned in assemblies, lessons, services and masses. And we have acted on our faith witness both in school and our local parishes with participation in diocesan activities, community placements, fundraising for charity and by speaking to others in our school community. The ethos and values of St Ninian’s have always had a clear focus on these characteristics of our faith. What we do now in the Caritas Group is simply more structured and formalised. This school is a place where the Caritas award is actively lived out on a daily basis by everyone. The second area I would like to speak about is the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion within our school. I, along with 145 others, were commissioned at our inaugural mass in August. We regularly assist with morning masses in school, and at holy days of obligation. This is a clear example of Witnessing our faith and provides excellent role models for younger students.
Finally, as we have reached the end of the Year of Faith we have reflected on the participation of St Ninian’s in this extraordinary year for our Church. This year, we have engaged in many activities, for example, Youth to Lourdes, the Year of Faith mass at Motherwell Cathedral, pilgrimage to St Ninian’s Cave and Scotland’s Rio for World Youth Day. This year has also given a focus for all students to engage with faith within our school and projects such as Lourdes, Lasallion and Ghana. It has provided a perfect vehicle for our school to further develop the three aspects of our Catholic faith – learning, reflection and witness.
