From the 14th of November to the 18th Holy Cross welcomed five new members to the Holy Cross family from the Evangelist community of ‘Sion’. The Sion Youth group are part of the Sion Catholic Community for Evangelism which was formed in 1984 by Father Patrick Lynch, from the Diocese of Nottingham. He was given permission by his Bishop to work full-time in Evangelisation. Within a year, Father Lynch had brought together seven other people to create the Sion Community. Today, the community works at the centre of the Church under the authority of the Catholic Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales.
During mission week, the pupils were offered a daily service called ‘Prayer 4 u’ where a member of the Sion Youth group and a trained pupil assisting them would pray for the person who chose to attend the service in the chapel. A pupil in year 11, Megan Muller, stated, “I really enjoyed the service ‘Prayer 4u’ because it helped me through my day and made me less stressed about mocks and GCSEs”. This positive feedback shows that Sion Youth group made an impact on at least one pupil, which is what they were trying to achieve. Later in the week the pupils were involved in various workshops, all run by one of the members of Sion Youth Group. These workshops included: #LikeAGirl aimed at years 10-13, True Love for years 9-13, God on Paper for Year 7-13, and 3D Gospel aimed at Year 9-10. From the feedback, I believe that the workshops which had the most impact was “#LikeAGirl”. Kate Moroney said, “Society’s idea of beauty changes constantly and it does have a negative effect on teenage girls. It was good to discuss what we believed a woman should be like and not what the media tells us a woman should be like.” The workshop “True Love” made the pupils of Holy Cross reevaluate what true love is. I spoke to pupil Imogen Paton, who spoke strongly about this workshop: “It was refreshing to hear an honest opinion from a Christian man about sex outside of marriage”. This pupil's feedback shows that Sion Youth group clearly informed the pupils about what a Christian's life should be like, but also included their own honest opinions, which showed a new and refreshing aspect of Christianity. The Liturgy at the end of the week was a sad but happy time because the pupils were saying goodbye to the Sion Youth members, but were also celebrating God and the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to everyone. However, as the pupils said farewell to the community, they also cherished the new ideas the group had taught them and the gifts they had gained during the week.
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