As we continue to make our way through Lent, the students and staff of Good Samaritan have embraced the challenges of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In particular, the students involved in our Encounter Youth Exodus 40 Lenten Challenge have used the season to enter more into the Catholic life of the College and the wider Church community. It has been such a blessing to see students begin to attend the Thursday morning Mass at Good Shepherd. Despite the early start of 7:30am many of our students have started attending and supporting the Mass at readers. Similarly our Friday lunch masses have been extremely successful with last Friday requiring the addition of several rows of chairs just to squeeze everyone in. Seeing our Chapel so full of life during a celebration of the Eucharist is a wonderful sight to behold and demonstrates the strong Catholic identity of the College.
In addition to these events the Religious Education Leadership team along with other members of our Faith in Action team have created a huge weekly calendar of events to provide our students with ample opportunities to explore and participate in their faith. Everything from Holy Rosary, Adoration, Praise and Worship, Christ Chat and Stations of the Cross occur throughout the week along with many other activities such as our first Encounter Youth Group afternoon held on Friday 1st March. Recently a number of staff along with our Catholic Life leaders were involved in a special afternoon tea with our local parish priests to discuss even more ways of ensuring that our students and staff can connect with their faith and the Church.
To coincide with these events, our Encounter Youth website has been updated and now provides a more comprehensive look at the various Catholic Life activities of the College. I encourage everyone to visit the site at www.encounteryouth.net to become more informed about the Catholic Life of the school and consider ways of being more involved.
God Bless!
Mr Matthew Bradbury
Religious Education Coordinator