This week we celebrate "Catholic Schools Week", children in Catholic schools across Ireland, will be celebrating the fact that they attend a Catholic school. Isn't that a great idea! Our children should be processing to Church for Mass, and having a little party afterwards, and our clergy should be walking around our schools with buckets of holy water, drowning everything and everyone they see, especially the teachers and of course the school principal ;-).
But "Catholic Schools Week" seems to have morphed, into something else in Drogheda. We appear to be celebrating "Catholic Grandparents Week???". So instead of going to mass as a school, and having a party afterwards, we are having Mass, and the grandparents have been invited. We even got invitations! My lot are a little put out, as no grandparent will be travelling from Donegal and Belfast for the occasion.
But "Catholic Schools Week" seems to have morphed, into something else in Drogheda. We appear to be celebrating "Catholic Grandparents Week???". So instead of going to mass as a school, and having a party afterwards, we are having Mass, and the grandparents have been invited. We even got invitations! My lot are a little put out, as no grandparent will be travelling from Donegal and Belfast for the occasion.
Catholic education in Ireland is in a crisis and we are making tea for grannies. Our secular government is currently looking with greedy eyes upon our Catholic schools. It wants to take half of them! and what are we doing???? Nothing, well, other than making tea. How typically Irish!
How can we seriously celebrate "grandparents handing on the faith" in Ireland today, when many of their children and grandchildren rarely see the inside of a church? We should be gathering the grandparents of Ireland together to atone, and offer penance, for their poor success in handing on the faith. It should be ashes and sackcloth, not tea and buns.
Meanwhile down the road in Dundalk,
Meanwhile down the road in Dundalk,
The Seinn 2012 event, will take place in St. Patrick's Church, Dundalk on Tuesday 31st January to celebrate Catholic Schools Week.
Blessing of a School
Father of truth and wisdom, we thank You for making us so wonderfully
and for endowing them with the limitless capacity for intellectual,
experiential, and moral learning.
We thank You for sending your Son as the Teacher par excellence
to teach us the way to You. He instructed a group of unlettered disciples
and sent them out to teach all nation. He taught them so well that they
eloquently spread his teaching throughout the world of their day.
Bless this school and all who pass through its halls of learning.
May its teachers be filled with love and skilled in imparting true knowledge.
May its students be open-minded and imbibe the teachings with joy and eagerness.
May this school always be the home of truth and wisdom,
faith and good will toward all, helping to build up our community
and your kingdom of justice, love, and peace. We ask this
in the Name of Jesus the Lord. Amen.
and for endowing them with the limitless capacity for intellectual,
experiential, and moral learning.
We thank You for sending your Son as the Teacher par excellence
to teach us the way to You. He instructed a group of unlettered disciples
and sent them out to teach all nation. He taught them so well that they
eloquently spread his teaching throughout the world of their day.
Bless this school and all who pass through its halls of learning.
May its teachers be filled with love and skilled in imparting true knowledge.
May its students be open-minded and imbibe the teachings with joy and eagerness.
May this school always be the home of truth and wisdom,
faith and good will toward all, helping to build up our community
and your kingdom of justice, love, and peace. We ask this
in the Name of Jesus the Lord. Amen.
