On Tuesday 28th January 2020, over 1000 people gathered in Leicester for the St Thomas Aquinas feast day celebrations.
The Briars team joined us for the day and provided some fantastic music. Bishop Patrick spoke to us about being Disciples and about how we are called to look after our shared planet by God.
Christine Allen, the director of Cafod, also talked to us about how we can look after or neighbours, the ones close to us and the ones across the world, by taking more care of our planet.
Students contributed to the day in all kinds of ways; dancing, drama, artwork, reading, sign language, actions and altar serving.
We learnt that the trees in the Amazon rain-forest are being chopped down at a rate of a football pitch-sized area every minute. This is very serious as the trees take the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and replace it with oxygen.
We need to plant lots more trees and to look after the ones we have. One way the students in our schools are going to do this is through recycling more and becoming more environmentally friendly as well as through fundraising for Cafod for their ‘Defend the defenders’ campaign.
Each of our schools was given a tree to commemorate the day we spent together and to remind us of the messages we heard. The trees was blessed by Bishop Patrick and are going to be planted in each of our schools. Each person was also given a recycled plastic wristband, to remind them that it is our mission to care for our neighbour in need.
It was a fantastic day, lots of fun was had by all! Here are some more photos of the day.
