Mary O’Donnell examines a school programme based on faith, hope and love
Young people in the Derry diocese are being encouraged to become Ambassadors of St Paul, through the promotion in post primary schools of a religious education programme based on faith, hope and love.
The Ambassadors of St Paul Programme, first introduced in St Paul’s College, Kilrea, to mark the Pauline Year, has now been launched for the whole diocese and a growing number of schools are encouraging their Year 10 students to get involved.
Launched by Fr Edmund Power OSB, Abbot of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, Rome, the programme is based on the example of St Paul who challenges everyone to be ambassadors for Christ, and it aims to enable young people to experience the love of God in a positive and life-giving way.
Delighted at the response, Fr Paul Farren, Director of the Derry Diocesan Catechetical Centre where the programme evolved, says that it helps young people “to engage in a lively way in the living out of their faith”, and allows them “to become more and more aware of the call to be people of faith, hope and love in practical and real ways”.
He added: “It encourages young people to look at the future as something with boundless possibilities, focusing on family life, faith life and future plans, and to see that God is a central part of that faith for them.”
The programme gets underway with the celebration of Mass and an enrolment ceremony, with the young people receiving a prayer book and journal. The prayers are then said at the beginning of the day and the hope is that, by the end of the year, each young person will be able to say the prayers unaided.
The prayer book includes the Order of Mass, which Fr Farren says helps the young people “refresh themselves in the responses for Mass”.
Commitments
It also has a section in which they can write out a one-year and five-year plan for their lives, under the categories of family, faith and future, and at the end they are encouraged to make three personal commitments that will help them to become a better ‘Ambassador for Christ’.
In encountering hope, the young people are encouraged to look at and explore three role models in the areas of family, faith and future. Through this, they will look at their hopes and aspirations for the future.
The third encounter is that of love and involves the students meeting with an organisation that helps others less fortunate or more vulnerable than themselves. They are required to arrange a speaker from the organisation to visit the school and talk about what they do, as well as coordinate a special event which will raise awareness about how the organisation has helped others, and plan ways to raise money to help it.
One of the schools to have enthusiastically embraced the programme is St Mary’s College, in Derry, and the principal, Marie Lindsay highly commended it as “a wonderful opportunity to help young people re-examine their faith and relate it to their lives”.
Remarking that there were more opportunities to focus on the Faith in primary schools through the preparation for three sacraments, Mrs Lindsay said: “We try to revisit the sacraments here in junior school. The young people understand them as children do, but there is a lot of work to be done to help them to see these sacraments as young adults.
“Like the Pope John Paul II Award in sixth form, the Ambassadors of St Paul Programme for Year 10 is supporting us with its focus on faith and the global aspect in a practical way. Both programmes are wonderful.”
Enriching
Roisín Rice, head of RE at St Mary’s, also finds it enriching and commented on how easily the young people were able to align themselves with the core elements of faith, hope and love, and enjoyed working through the programme.
Regarding prayer as a vital part of the programme, Ms Rice remarked on how it let the students see the place of prayer in their lives, “not just in times of sorrow or need, but also in thanksgiving”.
She added: “We link in real world aspects to prayer and have the Pope’s intentions displayed each month in our oratory, where the girls can go during lunch-time to say a prayer.”
Encouraged by the response from the Year 10 students, Ms Rice spoke about how the girls had helped to prepare for the enrolment Mass: “They really took ownership of the Mass, doing the readings and prayers of the faithful, and choosing lovely gifts for the offertory procession, which made it more significant for them.”
In choosing faith role models from their every day lives, the St Mary’s girls favour their grannies, says Ms Rice: “They talk about the nurturing spirit of their grannies and how they want to be like this, which is lovely.”