Crescent College celebrates Catholic Schools Week

Brian Cowhey, Chaplain and RE teacher at Crescent College Comprehensive SJ in Limerick, shares some of the ways students and teachers marked Catholic Schools week, which took place from January 21 to 27 this year.
Catholic Schools Week at the Crescent
“During CSW had a visit from Fr. Gabriel Scott Losambe S.J from Educate Magis. Fr. Gabriel attended some RE classes and did a Q&A session with students. They spoke about Crescent College in light of it being a Catholic and a Jesuit School and what this meant to them. Fr. Gabriel also observed a number of classes and school activities to get a sense of the ‘Cura Personalis’, a Latin phrase meaning “care for the person”, offered in Crescent.
“Inside the RE classroom, teachers covered the topic of Catholic Schools Week and the theme of Communities of Service. We looked at the themes of the day, specifically at communities of friends, school community, local community, family community and faith community. We looked at reflection questions on each of the themes and got students to reflect on the communities in their own lives and how they are important to them. Different teachers took different approaches but in my RE classes students reflected on communities in their copybooks. I also looked specifically at Grandparents Day on Wednesday and I brought my class to the school chapel where the students wrote their own prayer for their grandparents. We also prayed for students who might have lost a grandparent and we prayed for the students whose grandparents still play an active role in their lives.
“Weekly Friday morning prayer takes place in the school chapel before classes commence. This week prayers were centered around the themes of CSW. Grainne Delaney, Deputy Principal of Crescent College published a prayer book last year ‘Occasional Prayer for the School Year’ and In 2016 5th Year students of Crescent wrote their own set of Beatitudes which were also published in Grainne’s book. I brought both of these to a Senior RE class and we broke down and the meaning and importance of the prayers especially in the context of Communities of Service but also in the context of the world we live in today. We had a really powerful and mature conversation around this.”