A Lenten reflection on peace
In this last week our school has enjoyed a time of both celebration and reflection. On Friday 5 February our Senior School International Committee gave an informative assembly about the Chinese New Year, in which girls of different nationalities emphasised the importance of families coming together and making time to reflect on the year gone and the year to come. This week, the focus across both Junior School and Senior School has been on the anticipation and arrival of Lent and, similarly, the opportunity it provides for personal edification as preparation for Easter.
Lent is the Christian celebration, lasting for 40 days (in accordance with the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry) – commencing on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday – which is a time when our school community continues to focus on peace, through the traditional Lenten disciplines of fasting, prayer or reflection, and almsgiving.
GIVING UP LUXURIES
On Tuesday, Senior School students enjoyed a delicious pudding of pancakes for Pancake Day or, more traditionally, Shrove Tuesday, which is considered by many to be the last day of ‘gorging’ before the fasting period of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.
‘Shrove’ is derived from the word shrive, ‘to absolve’, and refers to the multi-denominational practice of making time to reflect, to self-examine, to consider what wrongdoings need to be repented, and in which areas of life changes must be made – often through giving up a certain type of luxury in order to make space and time for reflection. This process typically begins on Ash Wednesday, and the Senior School held its annual CAFOD Hunger Lunch, at which students and staff alike are invited to forgo the usual hot lunch option with pudding and fruit accompaniments, and instead receive a humble bowl of soup and bread roll for lunch (enabling students to participate in ‘fasting’ without going so far as to encourage them to miss out on essential sustenance). Participants then contribute the usual cost of school lunch to CAFOD – the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales which works to bring hope and compassion to, and an end to poverty and injustice in, poor communities.
Mr Daniel Bennett, Head of Religious Education and Director of Christian Life, has previously suggested that another way to mark the 40 days of Lent is through making positive behavioural changes, for instance:
DOING 40 ACTS OF SERVICE (ONE EACH DAY OF LENT), RENEWING YOUR MIND-FRAME TO CHALLENGE OR CHANGE YOUR OUTLOOK IN A PARTICULAR AREA OF DIS-SATISFACTION OR CONFLICT, OR READING A DAILY DEVOTIONAL – ALL OF WHICH ARE INTENDED TO DRAW THE INDIVIDUAL NEARER TO GOD.
PRAYER AND REFLECTION
Before Christmas we started an initiative in the Senior School which we hope will continue for many years to come, and will be taken up by our sister schools across the globe.
Originally introduced following the devastating Paris attacks last year, the girls are encouraged to spend one minute each day praying for, or reflecting on, global peace. The girls have taken this on in an enthusiastic and conscientious way; all are quiet, ensuring those who wish to take a moment to focus on peace are able to do so. By holding these regular moments of reflection at a point when the girls have completed half of their school day, and have socialised and refuelled at lunchtime, it enables them to break up the day’s busyness and gather together quietly, to refocus their thoughts, before tackling the afternoon’s activities in a refreshed frame of mind.
On Tuesday last week Upper School students heard Mr Bennett’s assembly which built upon Fr Denis McBride’s Community Day of Reflection, which had concluded with Derek Walcott’s poem Love after love. The poem describes the importance of learning to love and know yourself, rediscovering the little child in each of us who, unaffected by self-doubt, fear or cynicism, has complete faith in their ability to love and be loved: “You will love again the stranger who was yourself... who has loved you all your life… who knows you by heart”. Learning to love yourself is an achievement which requires a commitment to self-reflection, and Mr Bennett highlighted the season of Lent as providing an opportunity to reflect inwardly, but also the chance to respond to God’s wider invitation, as heard in the reading from the prophet Joel, given for Ash Wednesday, to “come back to me with all your heart”.
Junior School and Senior School pupils enjoyed separate Mass services on Wednesday, which included the imposition of ashes (hence the term Ash Wednesday) for all who wished to participate. The imposition of ashes is based on the New Testament practice of blessing palm branches which have turned to ash, and placing the ashes on the heads of participants (now commonly marking a cross on the forehead of participants) accompanied by the words from Genesis 3:19: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return".
In this dedicated Year of Mercy there is no better time to encourage each other to reflect outwardly, as well as inwardly, on our own place in the wider world; on issues affecting our local and international communities. I recently wrote a blog on the urgency of teaching our young people to question the status quo in areas such as the effect of the first world’s treatment of nature on the most vulnerable communities around the world, having spoken on the topic of Development Education on Monday at the GSA Global Forum on Girls’ Education in New York. This sentiment is also shown in Malcolm Guite’s sonnet Ash Wednesday, from his sequence of sonnets Sounding the seasons, which encourages us to reflect on the link between a Christian faith and the treatment of the environment.
The BBC1 programme The Big Questions is to be filmed in Cambridge on 21 February, offering an excellent opportunity for students, teachers, siblings and parents alike to make a valid contribution to just such important areas of debate.
ALMSGIVING
The third Lenten discipline practised at our school is almsgiving – the giving of material possessions or acts of service to others – which our students and families continue to generously support throughout the year. Our combined charitable fundraising efforts last year raised £20,025 which was allocated to the school’s chosen charities, including the Congregation of Jesus (CJ) sisters’ work overseas, with support for rebuilding sister schools in Nepal after the terrible earthquake last year.
Wednesday’s Hunger Lunch also raised money for the CAFOD Lent appeal, which provides essential, safe sources of water for rural communities. On Friday this week Mr Bennett will introduce this year’s Fundraising Fortnight – taking place annually, the school raises money for the Glanfield Group which takes sick and disabled children to Lourdes. We’re looking forward to seeing what imaginative and generous ideas the girls come up with this year to achieve their fundraising goals during the fortnight.
HOLY WEEK
Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and the 40 days of devotion during Lent prepare Christians for the annual commemoration of Holy Week, in which we mark the death, burial (on Good Friday) and resurrection (on Easter Sunday) of Jesus. Our Lenten hope and prayer is for peace for others; individuals suffering from conflict, terror, and poverty, in Syria and other war torn countries, and for those making the dangerous journey in search of a safe-haven.