Catholic Life and Mission

Jubilee 2025

As we head towards the Jubilee Year of 2025, we are focussing on Bishop Patrick’s theme of Encounter. At Saint Mary’s, we encounter God in many ways every day for example through our daily prayers, through our Celebrations of the Word and through the way we treat one another at school. We also aim to help others encounter God too through our words and actions and we share God’s love by taking part in various fundraising activities throughout the year for our local, national and global neighbours.

Pope Francis has dedicated this year, the year preceding the Jubilee, as the Year of Prayer.

Below are some useful Jubilee links and resources:

Official website for the Jubilee Year.

Family prayer resources provided by CAFOD.

Diocesan Guide To The Jubilee.

The Year of Prayer

In May 2024, it was brilliant to see our pupils engage with the Diocesan Lord’s Prayer project which invited us to focus on the prayer which Jesus taught us and to pray this in different languages too. Pupils, along with their families, spent time creatively presenting the Our Father in different languages including Italian, Portuguese and Ukrainian.

We have several sacred spaces around school for the children to use for spontaneous personal prayer. Our pupils embrace these, and they also make good use of prayer groups when they are offered such as Rosary Club and reflection sessions in Lent and Advent. Pupils like to get involved in leading prayer groups for their peers.

Bishop Patrick’s Spiritual Themes

The pattern in which we usually focus on each of the three Bishop’s Themes has currently changed due to the upcoming Jubilee. You can find out more about these changes below.

Encounter:

Bishop Patrick McKinney invites us to find opportunities to encounter Christ in all that we do and to grow closer to Him through these connections.

Since Advent 2023, we have been journeying through a whole year of Encounter, to tie-in with the Year of Preparation focusing on Prayer in its many forms.

Discipleship:

A disciple of Christ is to become like Christ in all that we say and do. Being a disciple means we have to take the time to get to know Jesus through prayer, action, reaction and interaction. At Saint Mary’s, we spread and celebrate the word of God through our prayer and liturgies as well as through our actions and words.

We will focus on the theme of Discipleship during the Jubilee Year, beginning on Christmas Eve 2024 and lasting until the Feast of the Epiphany (6^th January) 2026. The Jubilee Year 2025 will be a whole year of Discipleship, looking at some of the themes of the Year including care for creation, food poverty, forgiveness, and rest and worship.

Missionary Discipleship:

With a greater recognition of, and openness to, the help, guidance, and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we can all become Missionary Disciples; faith-filled, joyful and outward-looking Christians. At saint Mary’s, we are Missionary Disciples when we bear witness to His love through our service of our brothers and sisters, especially those most in need. Our pupils are always incredibly generous, and we are delighted to be able to support a range of charities throughout the year.

The theme of Missionary Discipleship will be our focus from 7^th January 2026 until the end of Ordinary Time (28^th November 2026).

Here is our whole school display which we made initially to celebrate the Bishop’s theme of Encounter.

Helping Those in Need

Our pupils and their families always respond generously to any charity work we undertake in school. Often, our pupils suggest charities or projects which they want to support. For example, some of the children in our school wanted to help raise funds to help families from Ukraine. They organised a bake sale to raise as much money as possible. Parents brought in donations of cakes, biscuits, cookies etc and the children sold them to their peers at break time. As there were so many donations received, the children were also able to hold a further sale to parents after school!

We have also taken part in the Mission Kenya appeal and Big Lent Walk for CAFOD along with many more charitable projects.

The Liturgical Year

Every year during Lent, we reflect on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the ways we have done this in recent years is by creating a video with our family of schools in our CMAT. The Stations of the Cross video liturgy can be found here: https://seedsthatgrow.co.uk/stations-of-the-cross-video-liturgy/

During May, we organise a Living Rosary in school. This is always a beautiful event and something which the whole school community enjoy.

During Advent 2024, our pupils all designed and created a decoration which were used to decorate the Christmas tree in Church. We also changed our prayer stations to reflect the liturgical season, we enjoyed performing nativity plays to parents and visitors and we made Christmas cards for our families and for a local care home.

This photograph shows our pupils at St Mary’s Church for the Living Rosary

Additional Examples of Prayer and Liturgy at St Mary’s

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament