De La Salle School, St Helens, are inviting applications for the position of School Chaplain. Closing date is Thursday May 13th and an application pack is available from the school website at www.delasalle.st-helens.sch.uk
On Thursday February 25th two video conferences took place in relation to the Commitments of Association organised by the Secretariat of Association. In these meetings the brief testimonies of eight Lasallians were heard.
The Secretariat of Association would like to thank all those who participated, for their involvement, for such interesting vocational expressions.
The videos are available to view here.
Following the conference Lasallians were invited to share their own story of what has helped them in their journey of Association and commitment, and what structures they considered necessary in the future to help Lasallians in their journey of Association and commitment.
The results of those contributions have been shared by the Secretariat and are available here.
Also shared are the conclusions of the conversations that the representatives of each Region of the Institute in CIAMEL have established in order to move forward on the area of Association. Click here for more details.
With lockdown still in place, we have not been in a position to welcome groups to the Centre. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, this will change and we will once again be able to welcome students to us.
In the meantime we have created an online Confirmation Programme which runs over four weekly sessions. Our 'Bua O Dhia ' (gifts from God) programme looks at the 'Fruits and Gifts of the Holy Spirit', 'Being called by name', 'Counting our blessings', 'Celebrating our greatness'.
The programme is interactive and incorporates elements of our traditional retreats: fun, discussion, reflection, mindfulness/meditation, and prayer.
Each session lasts for 45 minutes and is delivered over Zoom. The creation of the programme has been a learning curve for us and has helped us to improve our technology skills. We are by no means experts yet - but have developed enough to be able to confidently and competently deliver the GOOD NEWS to the students. We have worked together to create something we are proud of and have made use of our recently improved wi-fi system. We pray every day to be delivered from poor signal and freezing pictures!
Having created the programme it was time to launch it and we were privileged to be invited to Zoom into a classroom in rural Tipperary for our first virtual Confirmation retreat. The children engaged fully with us and the programme and the feedback has been so positive and affirming. It has truly gladdened our hearts.
We have held two sessions with this particular school and will deliver the final two sessions after the Easter break.
Having dipped our toes into the virtual water, we then emailed schools in the surrounding counties and were hopeful of a positive response. What began as a ripple has now become a tide and we have been inundated with bookings for online Confirmation Retreats. A lot of schools who have never visited the Centre, due to distance or cost, have now signed up for our retreats. Teachers have told us how thankful they are to have this resource and we are so grateful to know that our hard work is paying off.
While online retreats cannot fully replace in-person retreats, we hope that our online presence will supplement what we do and keep us connected with schools and students. In the online world, physical distance is not a barrier and we have been able to reach out to schools far and wide.
If anyone would like more information, please feel free to contact us at the Pastoral Centre, Castletown, Co Laois. email:[email protected]
- The Pastoral Team
On Tuesday April 27th Lasallians will celebrate the Feast Day of Blessed Nicolas Roland.
Born in Reims on December 8th, 1642, he became a Canon of Reims Cathedral in 1665 and two years later was ordained. In 1672 he met the young Canon, John Baptist de La Salle and for a time became his spiritual advisor. Roland has a great influence upon De La Salle especially with regard to spiritual detachment.
He was keen on education of poor children and on July 13th, 1673 he opened, at his own expense, a school in Reims for teaching of girls, with the help of two religious Sisters.
He died in Reims on April 27th, 1678, aged 36, and was buried in Reims Cathedral. On his deathbed, he named De La Salle as the executor of his will, thus engaging for the first time the newly ordained Canon to the ministry of Christian education for the children of the poor.
He was beatified on October 16th, 1994 by Pope John Paul II.
On
March 11th, the Transition Year students of St Gerald's DLS College in
Castlebar, Co Mayo attended a webinar entitled 'Minding your Mental Health'.
This webinar was organised and run by MSc students of Project Management at UCD who are representing the Donal Walsh Life Foundation.
The
purpose of the webinar was to remember Donal's message and learn how to deal
with our mental health during lockdown. They were aiming to raise funds with a
target of €10,000 for the Wicklow Hospice to build a "Donal Den"
.
The
speakers for this event were Conor Stone, Elma Walsh, Rory O'Connor, and Tom
Parsons. They all told their stories of their struggles. Conor
completed some simple breathing exercises with the group which were most
beneficial. The students really enjoyed the talks and found them most
helpful.
The
organisers have shared the link to the webinar and would like it shared as much
as possible, to raise awareness about mental health issues, especially in
younger people at this time.
Link
to webinar: https://qsblc.ucd.ie/permalink/v1261947990ac44l0rxv/iframe/#start=540
Link to donate: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/donal-walsh-live-life-foundation
The TALK group in Beneavin De La Salle College organised Mental Health Week 2021 and held it between February 8th and 12th. T.A.L.K. stands for Talk About, Listen, Kindness. This group is made up of students from TY, 5th and 6th year. The aim of this group is to promote positive mental health among the school community. Recently the TALK Group were awarded the Ambassador School Award from Cycle Against Suicide. This is a student-led group. They meet throughout the year with some teachers who help them to plan events.
The group recognised that at this time, more than ever it is important to look after our mental health. This year they had to move their events online. There were workshops, challenges, guest speakers, challenges and lots more lined up. Each day we had a different theme.
