Prayer is central to life at SMC. We love to pray is so many ways, at different times and in different places. We know that God is present in all things and so all we do is a prayer – our thoughts, words and actions – but we also like to take special time to be quiet, still and reflective and speak to God in our own way, in our hearts.

You can follow the prayer life of the school by using our hashtag SMC_PraiseAndWorship on Facebook.

Praying in class

Our teachers help us in understanding Scripture and learning different ways to pray. We learn to prepare our sacred spaces and transform our classrooms in a place of reflection. As we get older, we develop our own prayers to share with our classmates. We really enjoy prayer journalling. This is a wonderful way to talk to God in our own way and be creative, sometimes writing our prayers from methods we have learnt such as breath prayers and litanies.

 

Prayer around school

We enjoy using spaces all around school for prayer. This might be our ribbon prayers on the corridor, our ‘Pause for Prayer’ stops around school, the outside shelters, the library bus, the Care for our Common Home garden, our Marian garden, or simply outside on the field where we can appreciate God’s wonderful Creation. At times in the Church’s year, we have special focussed Prayer Stations which we can use in our break times. Mrs Kelly has chaplaincy time in the shelter at lunchtimes.

Praying with our families

We enjoy praying with our families – at home and in school. Our families are invited into school for Mass, Stay and Prays, Remembrance services, our May Procession and other occasions. We bring home Travelling Nativities and Rosary bags so we can pray together and write prayers into a class prayer book. Sometimes our families send in photos of us praying together at home or work with us in creating beautiful prayers for us to share with our friends.

Mass and whole school prayer

Mass is such an important and wonderful way for us to come together as a community of faith. Canon Loughlin is so kind and thoughtful in the way he helps us understand the Mass and the liturgical seasons. In Lent, we had a ‘Last Supper Mass’, Canon John taught us the events of Maundy Thursday and the importance of Jesus’ disciples that day and after Pentecost when they went out and made more disciples.

We enjoy coming together as a school family to pray. Miss McNicholas teaches us about the Sunday Gospel and how to live this out. Mrs Nestor leads us in prayer through song and we know that ‘when we sing we pray twice’. Everybody loves our last coming together of the year for our traditional Carols by Candlelight – it is the perfect way to welcome our Baby King and be ready for Christmas with our families.