School in the Parish and Parish in the School is a relationship we need to foster and take responsibility for.
Our parish relationships with our school are generally excellent. We are seeing this in the celebrations of Baptism and Reception into the Church this weekend and next in the celebrations of the First Reception of Holy Communion. We saw it also in St Peter’s College Leaver’s Mass, where the work of many came together in a spirit-filled experience of worship.
Congratulations to all the children and the parents, Godparents, friends, the school communities, the school leaders and students for all this.
Congratulations, too, to Donna Brown and Meg de Joux, the teachers, parents and family members working with Meg and Donna and not least to the Music ministers who contribute skills and time to the liturgical encounter.
We have three primary schools, St James’ in the Cathedral Parish, Our Lady of Lourdes in our Lady of Lourdes Parish and St Mary’s in St Mary’s Parish, Foxton. We also contribute to St Peter’s College from our three schools.
The parishes and the schools have invested heavily in building the school-parish relationship. It has taken a lot of work over the years. The interrelationship of school and parish comes about because people give their time and energy to it for the sake of the children, who are the visible sign of this relationship.
Primarily the relationship is maintained and strengthened through the catechetical processes for children receiving sacraments, visits to the school by parishioners and the pastoral team, visits by the school children to the churches, participation in shared activities and most of all, through the continual flow of information and invitation between the school management and the parish management.
It is heartening to see school staff present at Masses when children from the school receive sacramental initiation. It is heartening to be present in the schools and wandering the classrooms.
Each school-parish relationship is different because each school is different. Each school is another aspect of the parish’s “pastoral face”, and each “school face” is a unique encounter with parents, children, and families and their needs and aspirations.
Schools are dynamic environments of pastoral care and learning. Each primary school is unique because it serves a distinct community of families and children. The school’s management and governance set the unique character of the school. In each school, the needs of the staff, children and families change over time, and nothing stays the same. Learning and care for others are substantive elements of education in the Catholic tradition.
Ours is a reasoned faith. We take reasoned leaps into faith; for us, faith is not an unreasonable leap into the dark, as the great teachers of the Church like St Jerome, St Augustine, St Edith Stein, St Thomas Aquinas, St Anselm, the Venerable Bede, St Teresa of Avila, St Catherine of Seine, show. Scholarship, learning, and intelligent debate are the hallmarks of an authentic catholic approach to faith and learning.
The working relationship between the principals and Directors of Religious Studies (DRS) and the Pastoral Life Coordinator and Pastoral Coordinator is critical to the success of the pastoral relationship. The clergy support this relationship in various ways, but they are not the primary holders of the relationship.
There are challenges in the school/parish relationship predominantly around the conflict between the Church’s Liturgical or Sanctoral Calendar and the School Year Calendar, especially concerning the Sacraments of Initiation and Easter.
Our school communities (staff, students, and families) have faced enormous stress and additional pressures over the last several years. They have provided pastoral care to many families. They have had to adapt their teaching processes to meet new demands and technologies while dealing with the continual disruption to classroom schedules, illness and fatigue.
Coming to the end of the year, we look forward to wishing students leaving our primary schools for high school and those St Peter’s students leaving for work or further study the best of success and blessings.
We are looking forward to welcoming new students into the schools and college and the Catholic framework of learning, debate and thinking in places of pastoral care, authentic faith-discovery and nurturing of God-given gifts and talents.