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St Joe’s Journal Oct 2024

Today, our students in year 7 celebrated the start of their spiritual journey here at St. Joseph’s with their welcome Mass. It was celebrated by Fr. Simon who led us in prayer, scripture and reflection and all the students have spent the past two weeks preparing banners, hymns, prayers and readings for this special service.

Reflective music was played by our very talented musicians and our future guild of St. Stephen Altar served with passion, confidence and dedication. Thank you so much to Fr. Simon for his spiritual guidance and devotion to our school and students, to the students who worked so hard to prepare for this special day and for our staff and community who live out the Catholic Ethos in all that they do.

God bless and have a lovely weekend.

On Monday 1st July 2024, we were truly blessed with a visit from a member of the Buddhist faith community, Wendy Gray who came in to explore her faith, her beliefs and her practices. Wendy is also a PhD student in Astro-physics and works at Durham University school of Astro-physics exploring the cosmology of the universe so students got to explore Buddhist beliefs about the creation of the universe, our purpose in it and the theories of the Big Bang and Evolution.

Wendy also showed us how she prays through Buddhist chanting which wowed students with the power of this type of prayer. Thank you as always Wendy for your steadfast support and commitment to our students.

God bless.

On Thursday 27th June 2024, RE students had the opportunity to visit the Newcastle Gurdwara and explore key beliefs and practices in the Sikh faith. Students had a guided tour, engaged in musical meditation, served in the Langar (community kitchen) to help the local community and also tried the delicious food.

At St. Joseph’s we are deeply passionate about exploring religion first hand and understanding the amazing diversity of beliefs and practices in our local communities and around the world. Thank you to the Newcastle Gurdwara for hosting us and we look forward to bringing more students again next year.

God bless.

On Friday 14th June 2024, we were blessed with a brilliant visit from Jaswinder Singh from the Newcastle Sikh Gurdwara. Jaswinder Singh is also a hospital and university chaplain and spends his life serving the community, devoting his life to God and those in need.

Jaswinder explained about his life in the Sikh community, the key beliefs and practices of Sikhs and the role that the Gurdwara can play in the community. At the end of June we are really excited to take some of our students up to the Gurdwara to see these beliefs and practices lived out and to serve in the Langar (community kitchen) at the Sikh Gurdwara.

Thank you Jaswinder for your amazing support and dedication to our students. God bless.

On Monday 3rd June 2024, we were blessed with a visit from 4 American Christian students who are doing a post-graduate Christian internship in the North East of England. The college students, supported by Hope Family Church, Rev. Gavin and Suzie came in to give our students the opportunity to explore American faith, culture, beliefs and practices.

Students had the opportunity to get to know the interns, pose theologically challenging questions ranging from ‘when have they experienced Jesus in their lives’ to ‘why would an omnibenevolent God allow the existence of evil and suffering’. Then students had the opportunity to have lunch with them in the refectory. We will be welcoming the American interns back several times over the next coming weeks and we are really looking forward to working closely with them in the future to help share our faith and explore their faith through our inter-faith dialogue programme.

Thanks again to Rev. Gavin, Suzie and Hope Family Church for supporting us with this opportunity.

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