“You must live the faith to share it well” – Pope Francis
Collective Worship is at the heart of everything that goes on here at St. Joseph’s because we live and breathe our faith. We are unashamed in our love for Jesus and we are passionate about sharing our faith and worshipping with our fabulous staff, students and community.
The centrality and variety of Collective Worship
We believe that prayer should be vibrant, meaningful, reflective and engaging. Students begin every day with morning prayer during tutor time which follows this weekly set pattern of prayer:
- Monday – Gospel reflection prayer
- Tuesday – Silent prayer Tuesdays
- Wednesday – Student-led prayer (prayer warriors)
- Thursday – Creative/Musical prayer
- Friday – Cultural prayer
At the end of every day students end their day with a 2:58 prayer to reflect upon key issues in the world, key themes for the day or holy days of obligation. These prayers often include prayer star jumps, compliment prayers, musical prayers and prayer challenges to make students reflect and take their faith out into our wonderful communities.
Every RE lesson also begins with an exciting range of prayers such as musical praise, video reflections, prayer snowballs or formulaic prayers. We love to encourage the students to celebrate their faith and worship with passion. As St. Augustine said, for example, when we sing “it is like praying twice.” As a result, you will regularly hear our students singing their prayers throughout the corridors.
Liturgy and Worship
We are blessed to have such fantastic support from our parish clergy who regularly come in to celebrate Mass with our students. This ranges from Year 7 and Year 12 Welcome Masses, Advent Masses and Feast day Masses, through to leading us in Celebrations of the Word and leavers liturgies. We have even had a British Army Catholic Padre lead us in a Celebration of the Word in our school chapel.
Student-led worship – Prayer Warriors!
We ask our students to be prayer warriors by planning and delivering their own Celebration of the Word services. We have implemented a new structure to these, following the ‘we gather, we listen, we respond, we go forth’ structure and students enjoy working with their peers to plan meaningful acts of Collective Worship, celebrate their Celebration of the Word and then evaluate the impact it had upon them.
Every week we offer students the opportunity to attend prayer writing workshops during tutor time on a Thursday and Friday to support them in planning their own student-led prayer for form time the following Wednesday. Tutors have prayer rotas for which students will be our weekly prayer warriors and students use their gifts and talents to support their form groups in Wednesday worship.