Welcome, Pope Leo XIV

We ask God to guide and bless Pope Leo XIV

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected as Pope Leo XIV. He is the first pope from the USA, but he has spent many years working in Peru.

Prayer for Pope Leo XIV

Faithful God,
You guide us on the path of life
and your goodness is our constant companion.

Be with our new Shepherd, Pope Leo XIV,
in his service of the Church.
Fill him with the power of your Spirit,
the peace of your presence
and the compassion of Christ.

May he walk with you,
in wisdom and humility,
and lead us, together with all God’s people,
to embody your love for the world.
Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto Pope Francis

You have been the voice of the voiceless, the champion of the poor.

May perpetual light shine upon you, just as you have shone on this world.

 

2025 Pilgrims of Hope Jubilee

 

Our Jubilee Pilgrims of Hope banner from CAFOD has arrived!

Today Year 6 went outside and spent some time carefully noticing all they could see, hear, and smell, to help them notice hope in our beautiful world.

LAUNCH DAY

Mrs Harrand, along with our Y6 Liturgy Leaders, led a whole school assembly on Friday 24th January to launch the Jubilee Holy Year. We were also joined by our Vice Chair of Governors, Mrs Rae, who had been lucky enough to be in Rome over Christmas and had seen Our Holy Father opening the Jubilee Door. A wonderful way to begin our whole school pilgrimage of hope.

2025 Pilgrims of Hope Jubilee

Pope Francis has announced that 2025 will be a year of Jubilee – an event that happens every 25 years. The theme for the upcoming Jubilee is

“Pilgrims of Hope”.
The 2025 Jubilee will begin in Advent 2024 and will run until the Feast of the Epiphany in 2026.

More information is available on the Jubilee 2025 website: Jubilee 2025

What is a Jubilee?
Taking place every 25 years, a Jubilee year is a tradition that is recognised and respected throughout the world as being a significant part of the history of our faith.

Excluding the Extraordinary Year of Mercy in 2016, the last Jubilee year took place in 2000, marking an historic moment as the Church entered into her third millennium. A Jubilee is a special year of grace, in which the Catholic Church offers the faithful the possibility of asking for a plenary indulgence – a remission of sins for themselves or deceased loved ones. The year begins with the well-known custom of the opening of the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica, following the other three papal basilicas in Rome. The Pope grants permission for Holy Doors to be situated throughout the world for Catholics everywhere to take part in this most special rite.

Year of Prayer
Every 25 years, the Catholic Church celebrates a Holy Year of Jubilee. The Jubilee year will begin in 2025, but in preparation for this, Pope Francis wants us to undertake a year of prayer with a particular emphasis on the Lord’s Prayer. He asks us all to join in a great “symphony” of prayer, “to renew our desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and to adore him.”

“Prayer unites us; it makes us brothers and sisters. It is in prayer that our hearts find the strength not to be cold and insensitive in the face of injustice. In prayer, God keeps calling us, opening our hearts to charity. ” Pope Francis

The Year of Prayer started on the first Sunday of Advent, 2023. 

The Our Father is the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. We will focus on this prayer in school over the next year and hope that you can spend some time as a family praying it together too. 

A prayer from Pope Francis ahead of this special celebration.

The Jubilee Prayer

Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.

May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within

both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.

May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.

Amen

First Holy Communion 

A video made by our Liturgy Leaders