Staff and students gathered for the Open year mass on Friday 23rd September in the Church of Our Mother of Divine Grace, Ballygall. The theme of the mass was ‘Our Talents’ inspired by Pope Francis’ tweet:

Our Ember Team received their badges and introduced the theme by bringing symbols to the altar representing the different talents of all students.

 

The Parable of the Talents was our gospel reading which reminds us that God created each of us with special gifts and he expects us to use those gifts for the purpose for which he has given them to us. The Parable of the Talents teaches us that God has given us everything we need, to do what we are called to do. So we must generate a return for our talents, by using our talents towards productive ends.

 

Fr Richard spoke about the Rio Paralympics table tennis player Ibrahim Hamadtou who has no arms highlighting to us that God has given us all unique talents that we must find and nurture.

Each first year class reminded the whole school community that they are named after powerful 20th century women who used their God given talents for the betterment of our society, Countess Markievicz Countess, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Grace Gifford, Elizabeth O’Farrell and Dr. Kathleen Lynn

During the mass ten students were commissioned as ministers of the Eucharist and our prefects received their badges.

Thanks to all the students who were involved in this special occasion for our school community.

Days like this show that St Mary’s encourages all students to use their God given talents and as a school we encourage and nurture each student’s talents.

 Please click on the one of the links below to view Neave D’souza’s PowerPoint Presentation of the Ceremony.

 school-mass-sept-23-2016

or