ADVENT 2021

Dear Lord,
Advent is a time of waiting for the arrival of your Son, Jesus.
Guide us to prepare our hearts through small acts of kindness.
Help us to forgive those who have hurt us.
Open our hearts that we might see You in the everyday.
Amen

The Advent Season starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day or the Sunday that is closest to November 30 and it ends on Christmas Eve or December 24th. If Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, it is considered the fourth Sunday of Advent and the time after sundown is considered to be Christmas Eve.

The children from St. Mary’s are coming together with other local schools within the diocese to produce an ‘Advent Mass Power Point’. Children in Class2 have produced a stunning piece of art work, with the theme ‘Love’. With Covid not allowing the schools to come together to celebrate, creating a virtual Mass, showing the art work from each school, still allows us all to come together this advent. The advent mass will be send out to all schools in the Lancaster diocese so it can be watched in each school.

To prepare for the beautiful celebration of Advent, let us reflect on the most wonderful gift we could ever receive.

The True Meaning of the Advent Season

The word Advent originates from a Latin word “Adventus” which means “coming” or “arrival.” Advent Season is focused on preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ in all ways, from His birth in the past to His Second Coming in the future as the Messiah.

Advent is a meaningful season that reminds us of the reality of Jesus Christ and that He has come and He is present in our world and lives. As the greatest gift we could ever receive, God sent himself in human form as Jesus.

The Solemnity Of The Annunciation | Pope Francis Daily

When Mary was told she was the chosen one, she was frightened but gracious and accepting. In a world where we need hope, peace, joy and love more than ever, we may feel frightened but we continue to have faith in Jesus and support others. We think about our global family and pray for the millions of people face hunger, sadness, loneliness, extreme poverty or struggles in life. Let’s reach out in solidarity to our brothers and sisters around the world with our prayers, liturgies and reflections.

As we cannot send home our travelling nativities, I have attached some family activities, prayers and reflections you may wish do share at home. The CAFOD Advent calendar explores many world issues and we are using this in school to remind children of our quest to care for our common home.

We light our advent candles of hope, peace, love and joy and keep in our minds that we are stronger together and we have one common factor… the love of Jesus.

Please click on the links below for advent activities and reflections. We wish you all a holy and peaceful advent season.

Prayer_family_Christmas
Prayer_family_4th-week-Advent
Prayer_family_3rd-week-Advent
Prayer_family_2nd-week-Advent
Prayer_family_1st-week-Advent

FAIRTRADE

THE GREAT BIG GREEN WEEK SEPTEBER 2021!

We welcomed Michael from the local Garstang Fairtrade Community Group, who came to talk to the children about the importance of going green and supporting  Fairtrade. The children have a lot of knowledge about climate change and the importance of ‘going green’ where we can in order to support the eco-system of our planet. The children learned about the potential impact of climate change on farmers around the world. The children putting plans in place for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), taking place in Glasgow in November 2021, which will bring together world leaders to commit to urgent global climate action.

We are going to look at what we can do as a school to care for our planet – watch this space. If anyone would like to get involved, please get in touch – we really want to make a difference!