Faith Friends and The Pope John Paul Awards

   Pope John Paul Awards 

                   This year, I decided to sign up for the Pope John Paul the second awards which is like The Gaisce awards but with a religious aspect. I chose do these awards as I felt that it was something I could connect with my religious faith throughout Transition year. The golden Rule of Morality is ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ and I feel that the golden rule ties in perfectly with the religious values of the Pope John Paul awards. There are 11 of us partaking in the award and we are all working alongside Ms. Buckley to receive the award while doing valuable things for our community and parishes. 

                  For the community part of our awards we are participating in a thing called ‘Faith Friends’ which we do with second class in the Junior School who are making their communion this year. Just after Christmas we held a small service for them in the chapel helping them to understand the religious value to making their communion. I was meant to sing some hymns alongside Mia but unfortunately I was sick and had to miss the service. Thankfully Anna took my place and sang with Mia, which I was very grateful for. I was told that the service went very smoothly and all of second class really enjoyed all the readings and singing and definitely learnt something from it. 

                Every week, we try and meet with second class and do an activity with them as their faith friends. Our idea of a faith friend is someone who is there to help support you as you grow with your faith. One of the activities we did with them was everyone coloured in and designed a paper hand and then we stuck them all on a paper tree as leaves and the TY’s hands were on the trunk to show that we were supporting our faith friends throughout their communion process and general faith.   

                  Partaking in faith friends and The Pope John Paul Second awards is a really rewarding and fulfilling experience which I am so glad I chose to do. It is really helping all of us to strengthen our faith and ‘Treat others as we would like to be treated’. I can’t wait to continue working with our faith friends in our last term and hopefully completely the awards.