Prayer Garden

Bishop's Visit to Open our New Prayer Garden

On Friday 20th September Our Lady of the Rosary was visited by Bishop Declan and Fr Colin to open our prayer garden.

The whole school participated in a service led by Year 6 and the new OLOR stewards, who will care for the prayer garden along with a gardening team, were commissioned by the Bishop. Each child wrote a prayer that was displayed around the garden to show their love and commitment to being stewards of creation. This is particularly important in the current climate emergency declared in Parliament in May along with Pope Francis's recent encyclical named 'Laudato Si' which discusses the need to care for our planet.

Thank you to our governors and St Bede's chaplaincy for joining us; Year 6, who led our service; and their parents who attended. The service ended with the Bishop saying this prayer over our garden to bless it:

"Creator of all things and giver of all life, let your blessings fall upon our seeds and bulbs, our hands and tools, our soil, our potted plants, our gardens, and our allotments. Bless our labour with rain and sunshine, that new life might spring up, that we might be truly at one with the integrity of all creation. Convict us as stewards of your magnificent garden to cry out when it is being abused and misused, to stand firm in our conviction to be your appointed custodians. This we pray as your humble servants and stewards of this amazing planet. Amen. We welcome you to come and have a look at the garden and each class will have an allocated slot when they will visit the garden for collective worship."