Eucharistic Adoration and Christian Meditation in our Schools by Wendy M Louis

I wish to make a few comments as we consider doing Eucharistic Adoration and Christian Meditation in our Schools: The meaning of ‘Catholic School’ in Australia or France or almost anywhere else for that matter is that the majority of students and teachers are Catholic. Even in such schools where the majority are Catholic the introduction or practice of any form of prayer is voluntary. A.      On the question of Eucharistic Adoration, we note that parents should be the ones enabled and encouraged to pray with their children as first educators in the faith.If this is introduced in school the following points should be noted:1.       It is always advisable to bring make Eucharistic Adoration voluntary. It should not be scheduled and imposed on Catholics.2.       It would be very important to prepare the children / students adequately for such an event. This means that enough time has been given for appreciation of what the Eucharistic bread is and why we adore the bread in the monstrance.3.       The atmosphere of beauty, reverence and quiet should be pre-requisites for such a practice. Preferably a chapel away from disruptions.4.       The setting up and removal of the monstrance should be done under the supervision of a chaplain who in most cases should be a priest. Only with special permission may someone handle the Blessed Sacrament.5.       The notion of Adoration lends itself to silence, quiet music and very few words (preferably from Scripture). All forms of ‘devotional prayers’ should be avoided. B.      On the question of Christian Meditation please note the following points for your consideration:1.       The practice of Meditation has as its primary purpose to centre on God, in Jesus Christ. It helps one to have a much closer relationship with Christ and to rely on God in a very real way everyday.2.       Any reduction of this wonderful aim of meditation to ‘reducing stress’ or ‘creating children who are more focused’ etc is doing a disservice to the purpose of Christian Meditation. Please do not encourage participation based on outcomes that are material and related to academic success. The focus is a deeper union with God.3.       Christian Meditation has Jesus Christ as its intentional and explicit focus. We should be very careful not to gather children of all faiths and teach a generalized meditation which could end up being emptied of its Christian content.4.       If we want to have calmer, happier children of different faiths we can certainly introduce some times of quiet or silence with quiet music but we do not call it Meditation as this could be very confusing. I hope you find the above useful and if you have any further questions I will be happy to discuss them with you.Once again, I hope you are able to find teachers or parents to attend the workshop listed above.

Yours in Christ,
Wendy M Louis
ACCS ED