The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
19 October 2003
Home
Archive
Subscribe
Links
Contact
Peace
in our hands
Jubilee
week for Pope
Special
guests at Mother Teresa’s beatification
School
insurance hike
Honoured
by university
It’s
truly feminine and truly beautiful
Spiritually
renewed by Lourdes
$1.75m
for Caritas
Catholic
Women’s Network
Board
short bonanza for Vinnies
Advice
to lectors, acolytes
Much
deeper reality
Editorial:
Time for tribute
Letters:
Barrel of a gun
Conversation:
Terry Hanley, lay missionary who has spent nearly 15 years in the field - Happy
to ‘spend rest of my life in Africa’
What
is peace like?
Religion
test upsurge
Malouf
on campus
Ministry
of Jesus to the sick and dying
‘Father,
this is your life’
‘Priest
in residence’ honoured
Bushland
setting for Thurgoona church
Full-on
disciple of Jesus
Active
practice of faith
Requiem
Mass for ‘Bacon Priest’
What is peace like?
Children from different age groups and school years joined together in different activities to sheet home the message of peace in celebrations to mark Peace Day at St Brigid’s Primary School, Marrickville
By Damir Govorcin
“If there are no unpleasant thoughts of other people, our world will become a world filled with peace, with people showing their love for everyone and everything in nature,” says Jenny Pham, a school captain at St Brigid’s Primary School, Marrickville.
Jenny made these remarks in a speech titled We know what war is and what it looks like. But what is peace, and what does it look like? to celebrate Peace Day at the school.
The inspiration for the day was the International Day of Peace, which had the theme: “Peace is in our hands.”
Jenny said: “Peace is when there is no conflict in your heart, community, or world.
“Peace means calm, quiet, stillness, tranquillity, or silence. But it can also signify harmony or serenity.
“Peace comes in many forms. A dove or the peace sign with your fingers or a circle with three gaps can represent peace. But these are just some of the things that can show what peace means, and what it can look like.
“Showing peace to or with other people can be in lots of different forms. These can be shaking hands, hugging, being friendly and kind, or welcoming and playing with others who are lonely.
“You need co-operation and teamwork to do lots of things. And, by working together, you show peace to each other by getting things done as a group.
“Doing that also tells people that you must agree on things, so, by having the same opinion as other people, show peace. If you do that there will be no hatred, anger, animosity or other bad feelings towards different people.”
The students raised more than $300 on the day. This will be donated to Catholic Mission, which financially supports children in countries of war.
The symbol for the Day of Peace was a picture of hands reaching to each other to remind the children that they are called to action to achieve peace.
Preparation and planning for the day was led by a committee of teachers and the school’s student representative council.
The council thought it was important to emphasise that we need peace in our hearts, peace in our community and peace in our world.
They wrote a peace promise that they thought the school should use as its belief statement about peace.
The school captains led the whole school in this oath during the prayer celebration: “We the students of St Brigid’s, as children of the world, believe that we should respect everyone and everything.
“We believe that we should help others, play together happily, and live in harmony and peace.
“We the students of St Brigid’s promise to keep peace in our hearts and to respect others and their feelings.
“We promise that we will try hard to be like Jesus and remain peacemakers for the rest of our lives.”
The day began with the school community, including students, teachers, parents and parish priest, Fr Tom McDonough, gathered to share a prayer for peace led by the Year 2 children.
The children divided into cross grade groups, with children from Kindergarten, Years 1 and 2 and children from Years 3-6 mixed together in groups.
Each group of children participated in three different activities with a peace theme:
• craft/make-and-do type activities emphasised symbols of peace, pictures and designs of peace or with a peace message.
• movement, role playing and games supported co-operation, sharing, trust and recognising feelings, moods and emotions.
• story, viewing and discussion highlighted social justice issues, tolerance of differences, personal stories of injustice and messages of hope.
The school’s assistant principal, Diane Nilon, says world peace or the lack of it has been a prominent topic of discussion in the media, in the community and in the school.
“Over the past couple of years the children have been bombarded with stories and images of war and terrorism,” said Diane.
“Children are receiving a distorted or very narrow understanding of the mean ing of peace and ways in which peace can be achieved.
“We believed that it was important for the children to gain a broader understanding of the concept of peace and to foster their hope for a peaceful world.
“The theme developed for the day was ‘Peace is in our hands’.
“Working with this theme we wanted the children to understand that each one of them could make a valuable contribution to bringing about peace in our world; that this peace begins with us having peace in our hearts, which in turn can lead to peace in our communities and eventually to peace in our world.”