PRAYERS AND ACTIVITIES FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATION WEEK
SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Catholic Education Week 2016: Opening Doors of Mercy
Introduction
Each year, the Catholic community of Ontario engages in a week-long celebration of the unique identity and distinctive contributions of Catholic education during Catholic Education Week. This year’s celebration is entitled, “Catholic Education: Opening Doors of Mercy” and will be held during the week of May 1-6, 2016. The overall scriptural theme is taken from Matthew’s Gospel, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” –Matthew 5:7. We are hopeful that as the body of Christ, we, too, feel our hearts embracing mercy in our community.
The five sub-themes for Catholic Education: Opening Doors of Mercy are:
Monday:Mercy that Welcomes
La miséricorde qui accueille
Tuesday:Mercy that Loves
La miséricorde qui aime
Wednesday:Mercy that Forgives
La miséricorde qui pardonne
Thursday:Mercy that Lives the Gospel
La miséricorde qui vit l’Évangile
Friday:Mercy that Rejoices
La miséricorde qui rend grâce
The purpose of the Secondary School Resource Kit is to provide opportunities for students to engage in meaningful activities and reflections to deepen their awareness and understanding of both the gift and the responsibility of Catholic education. The Secondary Resource Kit contains:
- Daily Prayers
- Further reflection on the daily gospel readings
- An outline for a one-day secondary school retreat
- A suggested movie list
- Scripture readings and quotes, organized by sub-themes
- Details of the May 3 Province-Wide Student Mass and Social Justice Activities
Feel free to adapt any of the materials in this package to suit your school’s specific needs. Materials may be found on the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA) website at: We encourage all our partners in Catholic education to reference past issues of the Catholic Education Week Resource for prayers and activities, as many may be appropriate for this year’s theme.
Furthermore, the retreat outline offered for use with students, may be used at any time during the year and can easily be modified in whole or in part for use with adults (staff retreats, parent meetings, board office meetings, etc.). This or other retreats from past Catholic Education Week resource packages can be kept for use in future years.
Sincerely,
Catholic Education Week Resource Committee
Paul Beaudette
Janet Bentham
Sr. Pat Carter
Nancy Davie
Paul De Vuono
Amy LaFroy
Stephanie Maher
Cindy Morgan
Katharine Stevenson
Sebastien Lacroix, Conseiller aux communications, Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud
Catholic Education Week Partners Group
Neil MacCarthy, Archdiocese of Toronto, Director, Public Relations & Communications
Dan Smith, Archdiocese of Toronto, Liaison for Catholic Education
Kris Dmytrenko, Archdiocese of Toronto, Communications Coordinator
Carole Allen, Friends & Advocates for Catholic Education, Project Manager
Roger Lawler, Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, General Secretary
Luke Stocking, Catholic Development & Peace
Matthew Marin, Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, President
Natasha Iaboni, Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, Vice-President
Geoff Grant, Toronto CDSB, Faith Superintendent
Nick Milanetti, OCSTA, Executive Director
Sharon McMillan, OCSTA, Director of Communications
Brian O’Sullivan, OCSTA, Director of Catholic Education
CEW Song – Words and Music
Nancy Bodsworth, Dufferin-Peel CDSB
CATHOLIC EDUCATION: OPENING DOORS OF MERCY
SECONDARY SCHOOL RESOURCE KIT
Table of Contents
- Morning prayers
- Further reflection on the daily gospel readings for each of the five sub-themes of Catholic Education Week 2016
- An outline for a secondary school retreat
- Movie resources related to the five sub-themes of Catholic Education Week 2016
- Scripture readings and quotes for student use related to the five sub-themes of Catholic Education Week 2016
Morning Prayers, Scripture Analysis and
Reflection Questions
Students
You are a most significant educational influence on each other.
We invite you to become active participants in the process of Catholic education. We urge you to bring your energy, enthusiasm and generosity to the task of building a Catholic community within your school and to shaping the vision of Catholic education. Your strengths and your weaknesses, your joys and your fears, your struggles and your searchings, will be welcomed in this community. Whatever your age, you are not too young to assume responsibility with and for your fellow students. You are a most significant educational influence on each other. You can help each other become disciples of Jesus Christ or you can hinder each other from becoming everything you are called to be. How you are with one another now, will significantly influence how you will be with others as adults. The future of the church and its mission of service in the world will be yours. For this, you will need courage, self-discipline and all the love you are able to give. Take up the challenge of growing into a sense of who you are as Christians, so that you can develop the talents you have been given and bring the best of yourself to the society in which you will be living. (Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, This Moment of Promise)
Depending on your school’s practice, these prayers can be used in a variety of ways. Some schools have daily prayer over the school intercom, while others invite prayer within the community of the classroom. Each day, schools are invited to offer their own prayers and special intentions, specific to the particular needs of their community of faith.
Each prayer emphasizes a sub-theme of Catholic Education Week. Following the daily prayers the gospel reading is broken open in a more fulsome way. Individual classes may choose to expand upon the prayer by delving deeper into the gospel that was proclaimed. Reflection questions have been provided for personal student reflection and/or to facilitate further classroom discussion.
You may wish to select one or two individuals per homeroom class, prior to Catholic Education Week, to serve as prayer leaders each day. These students could be trained by the school’s Chaplaincy Leader to facilitate a prayer experience within the classroom. The prayer leaders could serve to deepen an understanding of some, or all, of the sub-themes, by continuing the prayer begun in the morning and leading a deeper reflection, as suggested in the questions provided.
However you choose to use these prayers, scripture analyses and reflection questions, there is plenty of room to experience the gift of Catholic education. In each corner of this province there are young people being shaped by their Catholic educational experience and opening doors of mercy!
A Note about the Structure of the Daily Prayers
TheSub-theme each day is introduced with a citation from Pope Francis’ Papal Bull on the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus (“The Face of Mercy”).
Each day the Call to Prayermakes the connection between the sub-theme and one aspect of the Year of Mercy, to strengthen students’ awareness of the unique character of this extraordinary Jubilee. Here are the links that are highlighted for each day:
Monday: Mercy that Welcomes: the Opening of the Holy Door on December 8th
Tuesday: Mercy that Loves: the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican
Council, a council characterized by “the spirituality of the Good Samaritan”
Wednesday: Mercy that Forgives: the sending out of “Missionaries of Mercy” to offer extraordinary absolution during the Season of Lent
Thursday: Mercy that Lives the Gospel: the call to be more conscience of and to practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
Friday: Mercy that Rejoices: the holding of special Jubilee days for recognized groups within the church, including young people and catechists
The Contemporary Musical Interpretations offer an artistic way to engage the broad themes each day. Teachers may wish to look up the lyrics of each song and make connections to the Scripture passages. Songs and lyrics are easily accessed on the internet.
The Opening Prayer, addressed to Jesus, speaks with the voice of the individual student, asking for a particular grace or growth. These prayers lead into the Scripture Passage.
The Scripture Passages from John and Luke’s gospel provide illustrative examples, through the actions or parables of Jesus, of the various aspects of mercy represented in the subthemes.
The Closing Prayers, addressed to God, the Father of Jesus and Our Father, are more expressive of the faith we share as a Catholic community. They call to mind the special events of this year in the life of the universal church and also make a link to the quotations from Laudato Si' in the further reflections on the daily gospel reading.
These prayer liturgies are offered in the hope that they might strengthen our own faith during this special week as we celebrate Catholic Education: Opening Doors of Mercy.
MONDAY – MERCY THAT WELCOMES
“In this Holy Year, we look forward to the experience of opening our hearts to those living on the outermost fringes of society: fringes which modern society itself creates… Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help! May we reach out to them and support them so they can feel the warmth of our presence, our friendship, and our fraternity!”
--Misericordiae Vultus, 15
CALL TO PRAYER
At the beginning of Catholic Education Week, we gather as a community of faith in the midst of this Jubilee Year of Mercy, which began on December 8th when Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at the Vatican in Rome. In his homily on that occasion he declared, “To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them.”Let the opening of the Holy Door be for us an experience of God’s mercy, and may this experience of divine mercy open the doors of our hearts to others, especially those in need.
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SUGGESTION:
I’ll Be There for You (Theme from “Friends”) by the Rembrandts
You’ve Got a Friend by James Taylor
Stay for a While by Amy Grant
Home by Phillip Phillips
Let us begin with the Sign of the Cross: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen +
OPENING PRAYER
Jesus, Son of God, we read in the Gospel how you encountered a foreigner, a Samaritan woman, and shared the Good News with her. In recognizing her as a person and a believer, you touched her heart in a transformative way. May we be like you in your willingness to reach out to others, especially those who are not familiar to us, and share what we have with those in need. We ask this grace through your Holy Spirit. Amen +
SCRIPTURE: John 4:1-42
A reading from the Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord.
Now when Jesus* learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— 2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)*10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
16Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you* say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,* the one who is speaking to you.’
27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,* can he?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him.
31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving* wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayers of the Faithful Reflecting the Needs of Your School
CLOSING PRAYER
Merciful Father, you who blessed the Samaritan woman with the gift of living water offered by your own Son, guide your Church during this Jubilee Year of Mercy, that we may come to a deeper appreciation of the sacredness of all Creation, and our call to share its gifts with all people. We make this prayer through you, both Source and Goal of our faith journey. Amen+
TUESDAY – MERCY THAT LOVES
“The mercy of God is his loving concern for each one of us. He feels responsible; that is, he desires our wellbeing and he wants to see us happy, full of joy, and peaceful. This is the path which the merciful love of Christians must also travel. As the Father loves, so do his children. Just as he is merciful, so we are called to be merciful to each other.”
--Misericordiae Vultus, 9
CALL TO PRAYER
The opening of the Jubilee Year of Mercy in December coincided with the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. In the words of Pope Francis, “Before all else, the Council was an encounter: a genuineencounter between the Church and the men and women of our time… It was the resumption of a journey of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces… The Jubilee challenges us to this openness, and demands that we not neglect the spirit which emerged from Vatican II, the spirit of the Samaritan, as Blessed Paul VI expressed it at the conclusion of the Council.May our passing through the Holy Door today commit us to making our own the mercy of the Good Samaritan.”
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC SUGGESTION:
Photograph by Ed Sheeran
Colour Blind by Michael W. Smith
Footprints in the Sand by Leona Lewis