I have made a deal with Scottish Lorraine. By the end of this month, we will have hammered out the details of our initiative for primary schools and have things in place to begin to offer it to schools from September. No more pussy-footing around; we mean business! We have already done a fair amount of work, but it is time to tie up loose ends and make some difficult decisions to make the offering come together. This will, no doubt, involve finally deciding on a name for the initiative! We have narrowed the choices down to two, but we are going to have to take the plunge. This small step will, in fact, be for me a huge relief as I have begun to talk about this to my bishops, various parish priests and some teachers I know. You can imagine how much more convincing it will all sound once it actually has a name.
As hard as making that choice will be, it will be nothing compared to finalising the text and design for all of the supporting materials and making sure that all of the web-based resources are in place. Then there will be exploring the various methods we have to publicise the offering and the follow-up support that we will need to offer to interested schools. Implementing a system for monitoring and evaluating as well as establishing further contacts with each school to give our thanks and keep them aware of similar offerings in future years will occupy us once things get moving. We’ll also have to re-evaluate all of the materials regularly to keep things fresh and work in any new developments within the project in Lebanon that this initiative has been designed to support. We also plan to generate monthly news bulletins for participating primary schools to keep awareness of the current problems and issues surrounding persecuted Christian communities on the children’s ‘radar.’ Developing this sort of offering is definitely not for the faint-hearted, but Scottish Lorraine and I are committed to helping Sister Hanan and the Syrian and Iraqi refugees with whom the Good Shepherd Sisters work. We will prevail; no need to worry!
This week has been going very well so far. The Parish of Our Lady of Eden in Carlisle is on board for a Prayer Vigil for Religious Freedom (thank you, Canon Watson!) and I am awaiting responses from a number of other venues throughout the North West and North Wales. As of yesterday I am the proud possessor of three options for ‘scripts’ for the vigils—with advice from some ‘liturgically minded’ friends, I have managed to put together a Eucharistic Holy Hour, an ecumenical Prayer Vigil and an informative hour of prayer and reflection for multi-faith communities. Once the final touches are added—lists of suggested hymns and readings—and the drafts of the prayers are edited, these are good to go. All I need to do is finalise the dates and times of the Vigils and sort out a list of ACN speakers to offer witness at each one. Throughout my region we will offer all interested parties the chance to reflect on, and pray for, religious freedom and to learn more about ACN and what we do to help. I have set myself the challenge to try and attend every single one of these vigils—there should be a minimum of fifteen!—your thoughts and prayers to support me would be much appreciated.
Off to the post office to send a parcel of Persecuted but never Forgotten booklets to Tabor, the Carmelite Centre in Preston; these little books are a great summary of the current situation in some of the most troubled parts of the world. On Monday one was posted to each Parish Priest in the Archdiocese of Liverpool following my recent meeting with Archbishop McMahon. My secret stash in my basement is running low…
This just in: Wrexham Cathedral is on board for a Prayer Vigil for Religious Freedom—now it’s back to Bishop Brignall to try to sort out a date and time!
Thanks for reading! Caroline
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