Religious Education News - Erika Tokich
CSYMA Junior
Catholic Student Youth Mission Australia
What is CSYMA? CSYMA stands for Catholic Student Youth Mission Australia. It is a student formation model that is integrated into the heart of the Religious Education curriculum. Its vision is to enable the work of evangelisation in Catholic schools and to draw students and staff into a life giving and changing relationship with Jesus. This model also promotes wellbeing and student leadership.
Last Friday, staff from the Catholic Education Office led an inclusive retreat day, ‘Journey with Jesus’, which is phase one of the CSYMA model. The retreat was a time to stop, listen, reflect and act on God’s message of love, salvation and forgiveness. The day involved listening to stories of faith, fun activities and small group work; all which helped open their hearts to listen to God. At the end of the day, the students wrote a prayer, reflecting on what stood out to them from the day and were invited to consider being part of a junior ministry team next year to help lead future faith experiences.
Congratulations to the Year 5/6 students who participated with enthusiasm, reverence and openness to God’s message. A special thank you to the Catholic Education staff for mentoring our St Michael students.
In 2025 we will build on this experience in our prayer life and form a junior ministry team. We ask God’s blessing on the students as they begin this journey.
St Michael’s Vinnies Christmas Appeal
St Michael’s, as part of the Parish, is once again showing its support for the Vinnies Christmas Appeal. The appeal helps those less fortunate in our community over the Christmas and New Year period. On Thursday, teachers will be allocating to each of the children an item for a class basket of food and festive items. These baskets will be distributed to our companions by our Vinnies Conference members before Christmas. The generosity of the school community, within the parish, demonstrates both a practical application of the values of the school and commemorates the gift of Jesus to the world by God the Father at Christmas. Please provide what you can to this appeal. We sincerely thank you on behalf of St Vincent de Paul and St Michael’s School for your support of this very needy and important service to our community.
St Michael’s Youth Group 2024
This term the Youth Group has a change in day and time. The next two sessions will be Monday the 18th of November and Monday the 2nd of December. Both sessions will be from 3:30-5:00 pm in the St Michael’s Parish Hall. Our Parish Youth Coordinators, Geamila and Aghil will run the sessions that are based around ‘Food, Fun and Faith’. All Year 5 and 6 students are warmly invited to attend. Please see the flyer with QR code to register or for more information or email YOUTH.NORTHBELCONNEN@CG.ORG.AU
