Local students celebrate Catholic Schools Week together

On Monday January 20 three schools in Mullingar celebrated Catholic Schools Week highlighting this year’s theme, ‘Alive in Christ’.

The Ember teams and students and teachers of St Finian’s College, Loreto College and Coláiste Mhuire CBS worked together with parish priests and representatives to organise the Mass held in the Cathedral and celebrated by Fr Barry, Fr Andrei, as well as seminarian Mark Caffrey.

The Mass celebrated the importance of understanding how our actions and behaviour should reflect our faith and morality, reminding each other to be alive in the life and teaching of Jesus.

The ceremony considered the importance of living to our potential and ensuring we use the skills and talents we were born with.

Students prepared and read reflections, readings and prayers of the faithful. Each school was represented by a candle, St Finian’s College Schola Cantorum choir added greatly to the spirit of the event, and a balloon representing each school was released to symbolise the message of the Mass.

Many of these students are working within their own schools’ Ember programmes, towards achieving their John Paul II Awards in November.

The following day, Concepta Foley spoke to the Ember Faith Development Committee from each school, about what being involved in Ember entails, and suggested many activities that students can get involved in at their schools and in the wider community, to keep the faith alive among young people and adults in Mullingar. It was a fun and informative afternoon, hosted in the Parish Community Centre. Huge thanks to the school chaplains, RE and Music Departments, as well as school management for facilitating these important events, and all involved look forward to more in the future.