Courtney McGrailCatholic faith camps are helping Munster children to build relationships with Jesus, writes Rachel Beard
Rachel Beard
“In January, I get phone calls from parents, ‘when is the camp? We can’t book a holiday until we know when it’s on,’” Margaret Meehan, the founder of St Declan’s Summer Faith Camp and main organiser of all of its sister camps, says. “It’s hugely positive feedback. They see the joy, I think. They find joy and happiness at it, really.”
Margaret was inspired to start St Declan’s Summer Faith Camp in Ardmore in 2005. Her idea for it began in 2004, when two of a friend’s children travelled to America and attended a Catholic faith camp there.
“By the end of the week, I realised that this was something that Heaven wanted us to do or wanted me to do,” she says. “I feel it was an inspiration from Our Lady to start it.”
Margaret shared her idea with others who were passionate about sharing their faith with the youth, and her camp was up and running within a year.
“I approached a priest that I knew was in Youth 2000,” she says. “And I also went to a Youth 2000 meeting and I asked them for volunteers and local helpers as well. And then we had two friends, two teenage friends who had great experience at the faith camps in America, they also came for the first couple of years.”
Optimism
Since then, the camp has spread to four other parishes: Mitchellstown, Mallow, Abbeyfeale and Midleton.
“This was the first year in Midleton,” Fr Eamon Roche says. “We had 31 children this year and that number should grow. The Ardmore one started with a small number and that grew.”
Margaret has about 90 children at her camp this year, and she shares Fr Eamon’s optimism for the growth of the Holy Rosary Faith Camp.
“When we started, the first year, we had 65 children I think,” she says. “It varies depending on if there’s another camp on as well. We’ve had up to 100 children, but swimming is on this week as well, so we’ve probably lost 10 to that.”
Fr Eamon brought the camp to Midleton after working with St Declan’s Summer Faith Camp.
“Well, I used to help Margaret, and Margaret’s camp in Ardmore has been going for 11 years,” he says. “So I helped her out for two years, maybe seven or eight years ago before I went to seminary to study for the priesthood.”
Faith
The camps is offered for children ages five through 14 and are focused on building their faith. “The aim of the camp was to give the children an opportunity of a personal relationship with Jesus,” Margaret says.
All the camps are based on the same model as originally created by Margaret, and although they can vary slightly from parish to parish, the focus is always the same.
“Everything is Bible-based,” Margaret says. “Everything is relevant to improving their faith and their prayer life as well, like the rosary.”
St Declan’s Summer Faith Camp was held last week, and the leaders of the camp made sure to keep all the children busy.
“Children come at 10 o’clock in the morning and they’d leave at three in the afternoon,” Margaret says. “Here, we have over 90 children, but we have up to 30 leaders and we have Mass every day, too.”
In Midleton, the children have plenty of faith-based activities to engage in at the week-long camp.
“I suppose you could break it into maybe four or five areas,” Fr Eamon says. “There would be catechesis, which would consist of reading Bible stories. There would be drama, which would be acting out Bible stories or the lives of the saints. There would be arts and crafts, which could be painting scenes from the Gospel.”
Music is another big part of the day. Children are also given the opportunity to participate in the more traditional aspects of their faith.
“Usually at the camps, Mass would be celebrated so just to give children a sense of the sacred,” Fr Eamon says. “Confessions would be heard. The rosary would be prayed. The camps generally would have a lot of traditional elements of our Catholic faith: devotion to Our Lady and the rosary, the sacraments, Mass and confession. Quite often, there would be Eucharist adoration for children.”
The leaders who help with the camp are all volunteers.
“The aim would be for the leaders to all have a personal relationship with Jesus themselves,” Margaret says. “Because you can’t give what you haven’t got.”
Some of the leaders at St Declan’s are teachers who have helped Margaret to come up with lesson plans for the Bible study part of the camp.
“We’d have lessons aimed at the junior level, and the same story, a lesson for the intermediate level and a lesson for the seniors at their level,” she says. “They’d have it all prepared.”
Fr Eamon feels the camp is a great faith-building experience for children in the parish.
“So it’s a good chance for children to get away from television, iPads, smart phones and just be shown the value of prayer and silence and just the beauty of the Gospel stories,” he says. “Children generally have a great time. They really have a lot of fun at these camps. There’s a good atmosphere, and they build up friendships.”
At St Declan’s Summer Faith Camp, the children enjoy the camp so much, they often stay on even after turning 14.
“First of all, the same children keep coming back,” Margaret says. “And lots of the children, when they reach 14, they ask can they come as junior helpers because they want to keep coming. This year, we have a little girl who is 14 and she started out at the very first camp in 2004. We were taking them at age 4 then. We changed that to 5. So she has been at every single camp and she’s helping as a leader, a junior leader, this year.”
This devotion from the children at the camp allows the camp leaders to help build on the children’s faith year after year. “Every year, most of the same children will come back, so every year, their faith has been built,” Margaret says. “They learn more and more about their faith.”
It also promotes a sense of community that Margaret says is “all very positive”.
“I’m called the mammy of the camp,” she says. “That’s what the leaders say, ‘Margaret is the mammy.’”
In Midleton, the camp has not only affected the way the children interact with their faith, but also the way their families do.
“I think what happens a lot is the children tend to bring stories of the camp back home to their parents,” Fr Eamon says. “And parents are generally surprised by the amount of fun the children have at the camp and the amount of joy that they experienced and the parents are often taken aback by the level of appreciation that they see their children having in faith. So it does grab the attention of parents, certainly.”
This reaction from those involved in the camp has been echoed across all the parishes that the camp has spread to.
“So we find that the feedback from the parents is the children are so happy,” Margaret says. “They’re so happy coming out in the evenings. They have smiling faces, and they can’t wait to get back in the morning. They’re up early, can’t wait to get back in. They just seem so happy at camp.”
This was the camp’s first year at Midleton, and Fr Eamon is looking forward to holding it again.
“Certainly [we’ll] hold it next year and just hope that it will grow and I’m sure it will,” he says.
The camp continues to spread to other parishes outside of Ardmore and Midleton.
“This year, we have mothers from Tramore here,” Margaret says. “They want to see how it’s done because they’re planning on doing it next year.”
The camp has been very successful in the five parishes it’s currently held in, but Margaret has high hopes for the future.
“At this stage, what I’d like to see happen is it spreading to many of the other parishes, all over the country really,” she says. “I think we’ve got the template at this stage. It’s ready to move.”