We have now reached the half-way point of the term and what a busy term it has been so far!  Looking back, we have celebrated St Benedict’s Feast Day, Mulkadee Youth Arts Festival, Catholic Education Week, School Camps, science week and the list goes on!  Just writing this list can be exhausting! However, I think here at St Benedict’s, the contemplative nature of our school puts us in a great place to deal with the ‘busyness’ of life.  At times the busyness is unavoidable, however, through contemplative practices that take place in our school such as Christian Meditation, we are equipping our students with the skills to be able to cope and deal with this.  These practices give our students the time out of the day to be still, silent and alone in their thoughts. This is truly a life-long skill and one that as adults we definitely benefit from as well.

I would like to leave leave you this week with two short pieces of writing.  The first taken from a paragraph of “Put Into the Deep”, an article by Ernie Christie about the contemplative approach to improving wellbeing for students.  

The path of meditation is a path of self-knowledge. To fully know ourselves we must go deeper, beyond the images today’s culture paints for us of the perfect being. We must seek peace in ourselves first. Teaching children to meditate, giving them the safe space to learn and experience this prayer of the heart is deeply transformational. I implore you not to let the speed of the world wash over us and our students. We owe it to the next generation of youth to lead them to the slow path: to the joyous insights of the contemplative pilgrim on the journey of life, to lead them to another way of knowing: another way of being. 

E Christie - Article originally published in Principal Connections (Ontario, Canada), Fall 2017, Volume 21, Issue 1

Access the Full Article Here: http://www.meditatio.co.uk/a-contemplative-approach-to-improving-well-being-for-students/ 

Finally, I would like to leave you with a prayer written by Michael Leunig about finding the “slow path”.

Have a great week and God bless,

Nick