Marco Carvalhoย
Three Masses in May and as many in June. The Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School will host, starting from this month, a weekly Eucharist on a trial basis. With this initiative, the all-girl college aims to contribute to the spiritual growth of its students.
From now on, the Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School will celebrate a weekly Eucharist. Brought forward by the school’s chaplain, Father Eduardo Agรผero, the idea of holding a weekly Mass was readily accepted and well-liked by the school’s Board of Directors, who will test the initiative during the final stretch of the current academic year.
In the schoolโs premises, located on Avenida Dr Rodrigo Rodrigues, there will be three Eucharistic celebrations in May and as many in June, Margarida Io told โO Clarimโ. The liturgical celebrations will take place on Fridays, with the aim of contributing to the spiritual growth of the students of the all-girlsโ school: “Father Eduardo brought forward the suggestion that the school should consider holding a weekly Mass to encourage our students to participate in the Eucharist and to foster greater involvement in the life of the Church. Father Eduardo made this suggestion, and we decided to organize a series of Masses in May and June. We will celebrate three in May and three in June, to be precise, the head of the school’s Religious Education Department says. โWe realized that it would be good to offer our students, especially the teenagers, moments of peace and introspection. Nowadays, teenagers face various forms of stress and social pressure. By offering them this opportunity, we are promoting evangelization, but, at the same time, we are helping them to grow spiritually through these liturgical activitiesโ, adds Margarida Io, which is also the coordinator of the school’s Catholic Students’ Association.
The Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School already offers teachers and students
the opportunity to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament every Thursday, in prayer and devotion. A weekly Eucharist, Mrs. Io claims, reinforces the Catholic identity of the college. The Holy Mass will allow the bonds between the schoolโs students to be strengthened, by calling the new generations to be witnesses to Jesus Christ: ‘Currently, we have organized moments of Eucharistic Adoration every Thursday at lunchtime, but we don’t have regular Masses. Adding these weekly Masses would be good, both for the students and the teachersโ, she says. โSome of the students in our school are Catholic. Our aim is to invite a group of students from different grades to help out at Mass. They’ll help with simple things like the mass readings. We hope that our proposal will be accepted. The invitation, nevertheless, is also open to teachers. We know that some of them are interested in taking part in the Eucharistโ, Margarida Io adds.
At Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School, however, the spiritual nurturing of the younger generations is cultivated through various means. The school has been trying to instill in its young students the key principles of the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi, the school’s patron saint: โOur patron saint is St Francis of Assisi and we try to pass on to our students the message of simplicity and love for God’s creation that Saint Francis of Assisi shared with usโ, Mrs. Io explains. โWe also try to provide different experiences for those who study at our school. During this Lenten period, we invited some of our Catholic students to visit the Chapel of Our Lady of Penha and the group of Trappistine sisters who live there. We were offered this opportunity and helped to clean the chapel. For our students, it was a truly precious experience, the director of the Religious Education Department of the college recalls.
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