Catholic education celebrates the Spirit

TORONTO - Catholic schools will be “celebrating the Spirit” when the annual celebration of Catholic Education Week arrives in May.

The theme for this year’s week, May 1-6, borrows from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

“Our Catholic schools celebrate the life-giving Spirit within us and call on that Spirit to renew the face of our Earth,” said a statement from the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, event organizers.

The purpose of the week is to celebrate the unique identity and distinctive contributions of Catholic education. More than 600,000 students attend about 1,500 publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario.

Catholic Education Week is celebrated in Catholic schools across the province where elementary and high schools organize prayer services and reflection activities. OCSTA provides a resource kit to all school boards.

In advance of the week, activities are suggested in the five months leading up to the event.

The sub-themes of the 2011 Catholic Education Week are: “The Spirit of Hospitality” for Advent, “The Spirit of Understanding” for January, “The Spirit of Wisdom” for February, “The Spirit of Justice” for March and “The Spirit of Gratitude” for April.

Schools can incorporate prayer services which reflect the suggested theme, a scriptural reading, personal reflection related to the Scripture reading, questions for discussion or reflection based on the reading and a theme-related reading taken from contemporary Catholic spiritual writings.