Our Lady's Catholic College: Chaplaincy News

 Our Lady's Catholic College: Chaplaincy News

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The Spring Term newsletter 2024 shares some of the highlights of the Lent Term including the Year 7 Savio Retreat, a visit from Bishop Paul Swarbrick to those involved in the Uganda Project, International Women's Day, Fairtrade Fortnight and Holy Week Services.  Plus details of upcoming events including the schools Charity Concert for the Uganda Project.  For a copy of the Chaplaincy Newsletter

Charity Concert in aid of St John's Hospice and
Our Lady's Catholic College Uganda Project

19th April 2024 at Our Lady's Catholic College starting at 7.00pm.  

Tickets £6 with £4 concessions.

Poster of the Charity Concert. 

Our Lady's Catholic College Ugandan Project

 Our Lady's Catholic College Ugandan Project

Fr Steve Pearson and students from Our Lady's Catholic College

On Sunday 10th March, 3 young people from our Lady's Catholic College came to talk about the Ugandan Project which the school has been involved in for a number of years.  This is a project providing opportunity to learn for all the students involved, those from England and Uganda. 

Fr Steve wearing his rose coloured vestment because it was Laudate Sunday a day to celebrate we are getting closer to Easter talking to the students who had shared food and taken a collection to support their work. 

Below a video of the trip in 2022 which shows what a difference the project is making.

Reposting with an update: 

Students and staff from Our Lady's Catholic College would like to say a big thank you to all parishioners who made us feel so welcome last weekend. The amount raised was just over £720 which is extremely generous. This money will be allocated to the two health clinics we are visiting on the trip so they can order some much needed equipment. Thank you again for your wonderful support.

Advent prayer and reflection

Advent reflection at St Thomas More
A reminder about our time of prayer and reflection Thursday 13th December at 7.30pm till 9.00pm.  All welcome.

Upcoming advent services and times of reflection

Our Lady's Carol Service is also taking place on Thursday evening at St Joseph's 

Sunday 16th December

Rosary and devotions at 4.00

Vespers evening prayer of the church at 4.40  

Monday 17th December

Reconciliation Service at St Mary's Morecambe at 7pm.  Fr Steve and Fr John Paul as well as other priests will be involved in the penitential service at St Mary’s Morecambe. Parishioners from our parish are welcome to attend this service too.

Meditation - a time of quiet amongst the hustle and bustle ... at 7.00 to 8.00pm at 25, Barnacre Close, Hala.  

Parish Christmas mass times

Monday 24th December

6.30pm : St Thomas More (Vigil mass of Christmas)

Children and families from across the parish are invited to join us for this vigil mass.

11.30pm : Cathedral (Carols for all)

Midnight : Cathedral (First mass of Christmas Day)

Tuesday 25th December

9.30am : St Thomas More (Mass of Christmas Day)

10.30am : Cathedral (Mass of Christmas Day)

OLCC Uganda 16

Poster with details of the Uganda 16 project

One of our familiar faces -
sharing news of the Uganda 16 project 

Last Sunday, one of our altar servers and a student at Our Lady's Catholic College explained with Mrs Monaghan about this year's trip to Uganda.  The first trip was in 2014 and there have already been lots of benefits.  This year the school have gained financial support from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the school have been fund raising to buy Chemistry resources and support the delivery of workshops that will be led by the OLCC students and staff.

Students at the school are making a DVD of life here in the UK, and will be making a video of their time in Uganda which we hope they will be able to share with us on their return.  
Thank you 

Students and staff of the OLCC Uganda16 Schools' Project would like to thank parishioners for the warm welcome and generous support shown to us last weekend. The total for the collections was £551. This contribution will make a big difference to our partner schools in Uganda.

Spring Term at Our Lady's Catholic College

The new spring term brings with it busy times, especially for our older students who are studying their GCSE, A Level and BTEC courses. We feel it is important to not only offer our young people academic support but also time for spiritual reflection. 

Our Year 10 students have the opportunity to attend a Castlerigg retreat this February and the 6^th form students have the chance to visit Boarbank Hall. The Retreats allow the pupils to take a step back from busy modern day living, to enjoy each other’s company and to take some time to reflect on mind, body and spirit.

Inside chapel at Boarbank

We also find value in enriching our curriculum outside the classroom – this term a group of Year 8 and 9 students will be visiting the Velodrome in Manchester and there is a Travel and Tourism visit to Liverpool. 

We will be holding our Dance Show in school from 24^th-26^th February and inviting the local primaries in to make use of our stage and hall to perform their own Dance Show on 29^th February. We hope they'll be able to send some photos but in the meantime image from of their own performance at the Lancashire Dance Festival.

Our Lady's Catholic College - at the Lancashire Dance Festival

So looking ahead we have a lot on at Our Lady’s – and we wouldn’t want it any other way! 

FPF - Our Lady's Catholic College

The first of what we hope will be a regular feature, news from our local Catholic secondary school, Our Lady's Catholic College, where Fr Andrew has started as Chaplain this term. 

For further news please see the School website, a link is on our permanent links section.

For young people from the school they may be interested in Lancaster Cathedral Young People's Facebook page 

News and Events

It has been a busy half term so far at Our Lady’s, with the open evening, an engineering day, theatre trips, cross country running and dance workshops to name just a few happenings! 

Pupils sorting out canned food for the foodbank

We've posted this today as an example of Friday Photo of Faith, the school recently held a big event to raise money for The Olive Branch in Lancaster, a fantastic local charity which offers help, advice and emergency food to some of the most vulnerable people in the area.

Our Lady’s pupils have recently celebrated the Harvest Festival, a time of thanksgiving. In doing so they also learnt about those less fortunate within the local area. 

Therefore as a school it was decided that instead of just learning about those in need, they would also help them – putting the phrase ‘faith in action’ into use!

Both staff and pupils worked together over the following few weeks to organise the fundraising, culminating in over £600 being raised for this worthwhile charity as well an amazing amount of food donations.  The logistics of dealing with hundreds of cans and packets was quite a task! All of them needed to be checked and marked with the sell by date on the top to make it easier for the charity volunteers when distributing, and it took a number of trips to transport it all to the Olive Branch offices.  The school as always were overwhelmed by the generosity of the students and their families, they never fail to go above and beyond to help and support those in need.