“Come away with me and rest a while…”

The Religious Education Department had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Christian Brother, Terry Casey. He facilitated the afternoon and provided opportunities for us to connect with our own faith and spirituality so that we can evangelise to our students with authenticity. He reminded us that God is at the heart of everything we do and that our vocation as teachers should be Christ centred.

Brother Terry allowed us to engage with parts of the Gospels, which focus on discipleship. The Gospels of John and Mark show the difficulty and hard work required to be a disciple of Jesus but then Matthew reminds the reader that often, with perseverance, the hard work will produce a good crop. In the midst of this, Brother Terry took us back to the Old Testament, which is rich with scripture about the importance of rest and reflection. Patience, listening, waiting, prayer, calm and quiet; these are often overlooked in the busyness of the life of a teacher. How can we tell our students to ‘rest a while’ if we never afford this to ourselves?

A simple way we can teach students to be calm and reflect is to ask them to think about the following…

• Where do you find your quiet place to rest a while?
• What do you reflect on when you get there?
• What conversation (if any) takes place?
• What feelings, memories, issues arise for you?

“If today you hear his voice”…open up your heart. (Psalm 95)