St Malachy's 
Prayer Liturgy
OUR COMMUNITY
As a worshipping community, we actively encourage our parents and carers to join us for our Masses and liturgies across the year.
The feedback from both parents and children is always very positive!
Our Year 6 children are all included in our Prayer Liturgy Teams. We have one team each half term.
Each team takes the lead in helping to plan, lead and organise liturgies and school-home worship throughout the year.
We value their contributions and know that will do a wonderful job!
Scroll down to see some of the different things we celebrate through the year!
We are adding thigs all the time so do come back and have another look!
AUTUMN TERM 2024
At our first Prayer Liturgy of the new school year we reflected on our school Mission and what we need to do to live by this each day. Each child and each member of staff placed a bead in our heart bowl.
Just as the heart bowl keeps every single bead safe, our school keeps each one of us safe as we work and live together, one family in Christ.
Our PLT for Half term 1
Our school year began with Mass celebrated for us by Father Michael. We sang hymns, prayed together and reflected on what kind of person we want to be. Father reminded us to do and say everything with love for one another as we follow Jesus' command.
In the month of October, the month of the Holy Rosary, our Prayer Liturgy Team prepared packs for the children to take home. Each pack contained a leaflet explaining how to pray the rosary, a rosary picture to colour and a set of rosary beads. We wanted to encourage the families to worship together.
The Holy Rosary
We have been reflecting on those who have died in the wars defending our right to freedom. We have held remembrance liturgies in school and spent some time praying for those who lost their lives.
Our PLT sent home our remembrance prayer bags with paper poppies and asked our families to pray for those they have loved and lost. We asked them to write the name of a loved one they wanted us to add to our Wall of Remembrance.
St Malachy's feast day is a special day and Father Michael came in to celebrate Mass for us. Our PLT for this half term helped Father before and after Mass and led the readings. It was a wonderful time shared with some of our parents and carers,
As we began the season of Advent we asked Father Michael to come into school and bless our class Advent wreaths. We all gathered in the hall and spent some time in prayer. Father sprinkled holy water on the wreaths and blessed them. We lit the first purple candle on each wreath which represents hope. We said a prayer for hope together. What a wonderful liturgy we shared,
The Blessing of the Advent Wreaths
At the end of the last day of term we gathered together in the hall for a special liturgy where we lit each candle on the Advent wreath in turn, reflected on Advent and the birth of Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem.
We listened to readings, sang hymns and spent some time in silence thinking about the true meaning of Christmas.
Time in Advent reflection
WHAT WE DO
Each day in school begins and ends with prayer and of course we pray at other times of the day too.
We gather in Key Stages to worship together in prayer liturgy. These prayer liturgies are led by Mrs Hodges and Mr Harper. Each prayer liturgy is based around a piece of scripture from the Bible which reflects the particular Virtue we are focusing on.
Read our Prayer Liturgy Policy here
We focus on different virtues each term as part of our Character Education. Find out more by clicking this link:
St Malachy's Catholic Primary School - Virtues (stmalachysprimary.org.uk)
All the Virtues link to our Mission which underpins our worship throughout the school year which of course is linked to the Liturgical year!
SPRING TERM 2025
Our Prayer Liturgy Team for Spring 1 are excited to be helping to plan and organise things this half term!
Watch this space for information about what is happening in school.
Christingle Liturgy
Our Prayer Liturgy Team for this half term helped to lead the Christingle Liturgy. It was a wonderful reflection on Jesus, the light of the world, and the feast of the Presentation in the Temple.
Christingle
All the children in school made a christingle as part of our worship. Our Year 6 children brought their christingles to the front of the hall while we spent some time in silence and then in guided reflection.
Our Year 6 children created some reflective art work on one of the strands of the 'Pilgrims of Hope' theme for the Jubilee Year in preparation for our school launch. Our strand was 'At Rest and In Worship'. The work, along with that of our other Calderdale Catholic Primaries, will travel all the parishes of the Deanery in the spring term. Have a look on our Parish Links page for more information.
Confirmation
Some of our Year 6 children received the Sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop Marcus.
It was a truly wonderful celebrati0o with lots of family members there to support the candidates and of course staff from school too!
We are were so proud of our Year 6 children who were brilliant as always.
LENT
We marked the start of Lent by attending parish Mass on Ash Wednesday.
We joined the parishioners and as part of the Mass, we said sorry for all the thing we had done wring and asked for God's courage and strength to make the right choices.
During Lent, each class goes to church for parish Mass. We love going to join the parishioners and enjoy being in our beautiful church.
Reconciliation
We were so proud of our Reconciliation Group who received the Sacrament of Confession along with other children from St Joseph's Halifax and Sacred Heart.
It was so lovely to be able to share this wonderful time with them.
Stations of the Cross
Our Prayer Liturgy Team helped to organise the Stations of the Cross Liturgy held on the last day of term.
We reflected on Jesus' journey to the cross by listening to readings and prayers and taking some time to think in silence.
At the start of the liturgy we lit 14 candles to represent the 14 stations. As each station was visited we extinguished a candle in turn until all were dark.
We ended our liturgy with one of our favourite hymns, Servant King. What a special time it was.
OUR PRAYERS
Morning Prayer O my God you love me, you are with me night and day. I want to love you always in all I do and say. I'll try to please you Father, bless me through the day. Amen.
Prayer before Dinner Bless us O Lord as we sit together; bless the food we eat today; bless the hands that made the food; bless those who have no food; bless us O Lord. Amen
Prayer after Dinner O Lord we are so grateful for every cup and plateful, forgive us if we're wasteful, we are your family. Amen
End of Day Prayer God our Father I come to say thank you for your love today. Thank you for my family and all the friends you give to me. Guard me in the dark of night and in the morning send your light. Amen.
SUMMER TERM 2025
The summer has arrived very quickly and this is a short term but we continue to develop the prayer life of our school community.
May Devotion
We had a lovely May Devotion where we gathered in praise of Jesus' mother Mary. We same hymns and listened to readings after processing with flowers to the worship table.
Well done to our wonderful readers and those who helped to organise this special May Devotion.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
June is the month of the Sacred Heart and, as we come towards the end of the school year, we will focus on how we can live out his commandment to 'love one another as I have loved you.'
Our virtues this half term are Friendship and Generosity - rooted of course in love.
First Holy Communion
Some of our Year 4 children made their First Holy Communion at our parish church. The did the readings and the offertory during Mass and we were very proud of them.
After Mass they shared a communion breakfast prepared by the parishioners.
It was a very special day.
