Catholic Life and Mission

Saint Martin

At the young age of 10, Martin chose Christianity over his Roman gods. Unfortunately, he had to join the Roman army and he refused to fight because he was a ‘Soldier of Christ’. When he told the emperor this he was charged with cowardice. In order to prove that he wasn’t a coward, he said that he would go onto the front line armed with nothing but the cross. He was put in prison but was soon released. During his time in the army, it was said that he cut his cloak and gave it to a poor beggar. That night, he was visited by Jesus in his dream wearing that very same cloak. He instantly woke up to find his cloak restored! Moved by this miracle, he went to get baptised at the age of 18. When Martin was able to leave the Roman army, he went to Poiters under the guidance of the Bishop Hilary. Martin lived there for a long time before being forced out by Arianism, a religion that didn’t follow Christ.

Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians and Church music because, as she was dying, she sang to God. It is also written that as the musicians played at her wedding she ‘sang in her heart to the Lord’.

Saint Abraham

Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews and God. He is also known as the father of all the people of the Earth and his descendants were told to be more than the stars as a promise from God. It means that his descendants will be many and they will fill the Earth.

The story of Abraham is told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. At age 75 he journeyed to Canaan (the land that is now Israel) with his wife, Sarah, his nephew, Lot and many others. God told him that he and his children would inherit that land. At first Abraham an Sarah thought they were too old to have children. Abraham’s first child, Ishamel, was born to a servant of Sarah’s, Hagar. But Isaac was born later to Sarah. The Bible says that Abraham died at the age of 175 and was buried with his wife, Sarah.

Abraham was obedient to God – he was a man of faith, putting his trust in God, listening to God and followed in his way.

St Therese was popularly known as ‘The Little Flower of Jesus’ or simply ‘The Little Flower. Growing up, she didn’t like school, so she was home schooled. She became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15 in 1888. St. Therese devoted her life to God. She scattered flowers and each flower was a little sacrifice and a little action for God and love. After not feeling well for some time, she became very ill. She remained silent and cheerful until she died aged 24.

A Heart that Sees is a Year of Mercy legacy project. When the official Year of Mercy came to an end, Pope Francis asked that we continue the legacy in some way. In our school, we introduced the ‘A Heart that Sees’ award which is awarded fortnightly and presented during our Shining Lights celebration assembly. This award ties in nicely to the Bishop’s themes as when we show love and kindness to others, we are living out Jesus’ teachings just like his disciples and are therefore helping others to encounter God’s love.

Our ‘A Heart that Sees’ award recognises those children who are outwardly living our Gospel Values. As recognition and thanks for their exemplary behaviour, the child who has been chosen for the award from each class will be invited to attend Hot Chocolate Club with our Head Teacher, Mrs Gleed-Thornley. During this time, they enjoy a hot chocolate with their choices of toppings, including whipped cream and marshmallows, and they get to spend time talking to and playing games with our Head Teacher.

At St Mary’s we care for other people and show a Christ-like love. We support our neighbours (locally, nationally and globally) who are less fortunate than ourselves or who are in need of support for any reason.

Here is a list of some of the charities and projects we have been involved with in recent years:

• CAFOD
• Macmillan Cancer Support
• Children in Need
• Centrepoint Outreach Boston
• Boston Foodbank
• India Project (with the support of one of our parishioners)

In the Advent term, Mrs Williams set the school council a task to ask each class to vote on which local charity we will support through our Harvest collection in 2024. We look forward to sharing the result here soon.

This term, we are hosting a coffee afternoon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and have invited parents and parishioners to attend.

A group of pupils have approached Mrs Williams and Mrs Gleed-Thornley about doing some fundraising for the local Butterfly Hospice. After some thought, we have decided to hold two film nights in the Lent term, one for KS1 and one for KS2.

Below are some of the responses collected from our pupil voice questionnaires.

Why does your school support charities?

“Because we care about everyone.”

“Because we acknowledge that there are less privileged people in the world than us.”

“We understand human dignity and try our best to show it to everyone.”

“Because we are followers of Jesus and we want to make the Earth a better, happier place.”

“To be a follower of Jesus, and help the poor or sick.”

“Our school supports charities because we believe that it is important to share our love to others just as Jesus has done to us.”

At Saint Mary’s, we are working hard towards achieving CAFOD’s Live Simply award. We have made nine pledges and as we work towards each of these we are teaching our children to live simply, live sustainably and to live in solidarity with our global family.

If you would like to find out more about our nine pledges, as well as more about what we have done so far, please click here (opens in new tab).

Below are some of the responses collected from our pupil voice questionnaires.

How does your school care for the environment?

“We have a club called Eco Warriors to help us improve the environment.”

“We have two bins, [one for] paper and card and a normal bin.”

“We reuse our equipment. We recycle materials.”

“We are trying to make a prayer garden.”

The principles of Catholic Social Teaching are promoted at Saint Mary’s and both pupils and staff actively make links to these in day to day life. We recognise ways in which we already live these out and we look for new ways to put these into action for the good of our local, national and global communities too.

We are always delighted to invite Ann from CAFOD into school and the pupils and staff enjoy the engaging way in which she delivers her assemblies and workshops. The children particularly like the CST animals!

Within our Celebrations of the words, including when thinking about our missions, we often link in Catholic Social Teaching. For example, before the General Election in July 2024, the whole school was encouraged to share their views on what issues were most important to concentrate on in order to make a difference for those most in need. This helped them to focus on the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Each class had a discussion and displayed their ideas on a poster which was displayed in their classroom window for parents and guardians to read and reflect on.

Embedding Catholic Social Teaching at School:

Please see below how we are currently embedding Catholic Social Teaching at School. Look at the different ways we are living out each principle.

On Tuesday 10th October 2024, we held our Harvest Festival in school. Pupils and staff made donations which were given to Boston Foodbank. It was a lovely occasion during which we focussed on the scripture of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Classes each contributed something during the ‘respond’ section of our Celebration of the word, for example: EYFS produced artwork, Year 2 sang a song and Year 5 wrote their own psalm.

Look at our wonderful collection of donations for Boston Foodbank.

Here are some of the fantastic examples of work contributed from each class.

As we head towards the Jubilee Year of 2025, we are focussing on Bishop Patrick’s theme of Encounter.

Bishop Patrick said, “I would like to ensure that people of all ages in our parishes, schools, and chaplaincies are helped to discover, or discover more deeply, the importance of a personal encounter with Christ; so that they can become convinced that they are each loved by God and are invited to grow in their relationship with him.”

At Saint Mary’s in Boston, we encounter God in many ways. Our mission statement emphasises this; ‘We love, we learn, we grow; walking with faith in the light of the Lord’. God is with us in all that we do. Through prayer and liturgy, charity work, RE learning and the way we interact with one another, we encounter God and we help others encounter Him too. In moments of stillness and silence we can encounter him more personally.

On Wednesday 18th September, we held an encounter retreat in school. Everybody came off timetable for the day and we invited Hannah Leech (our Lead Lay Chaplain) and Tom Baptist (the Director of Chaplaincy for our CMAT) to lead the day. Mrs Wright, our Lay Chaplain, was there too and together the three of them led us in a day filled with faith and fun! We focused on the theme of encountering God through creation. Through prayer and liturgy, arts, crafts, singing and reflection we were able to take time out of our busy day-to-day school life and recognise the many ways in which we can encounter God and his unending love.

Following our retreat day, we used some of the beautiful artwork created by our pupils to create a new whole school display based on the Bishop’s spiritual theme of Encounter.

A disciple of Christ is to become like Christ in all that we say and do. Being a disciple means we must take the time to get to know Jesus through prayer, action, reaction and interaction. At Saint Mary’s, we spread and celebrate the word of God through our prayer and liturgies as well as through our actions and words.

With a greater recognition of, and openness to, the help, guidance, and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we can all become Missionary Disciples; faith-filled, joyful, and outward-looking Christians. At Saint Mary’s, we are missionary disciples when we bear witness to His love through our service of our brothers and sisters, especially those most in need. We are always grateful when we receive such incredible support for our charitable work throughout the year from our families and wider community. One highlight of our year is our harvest festival which is always well supported.

The theme of Missionary Discipleship will be our focus from 7th January 2026 until the end of Ordinary Time (28th November 2026).

In October 2021, Pope Francis launched a Synod of the whole Church, in which he asked that everyone in the Church listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, dreaming and thinking of the type of Church we wish to be a part of.

An extract from Bishop Patrick’s Pastoral Letter for the children of our Diocese:

Today, I really want to listen to you! I want to hear all about what you think and what you feel about being part of God’s family. As His children you are loved and cherished by Him, so it is very important that we listen to you. I’d love to know, most of all, what your dream is for God’s Church. How would you like it to look? What do you like about God’s Church? What would make it better? Who would you like to invite to church? You can share this dream in a poem or a picture or a story if you like.

In October 2024, two of our pupils joined Mrs Allan along with a teacher and two pupils from Saint Norbert’s in Spalding on a journey to Lincoln for our Our Lady of Lourdes Multi-Academy Trust’s own Synod. Once there, they met with pupils and staff from across our Trust and engaged in both opportunities for discussion and contemplation. Our pupils were excellent and gave some thought-provoking responses to the questions that were put to them.

Following on from our Trust Synod, we were asked to commit to one concrete action that we, as as a school community, would pledge to carry out in response to our discussions and the feedback from these. At Saint Mary’s, we have chosen to focus on the theme of community and will be introducing a coffee morning style drop in session once a month for parents and parishioners to attend. We have named this ‘Together on Tuesdays’ and look forward to getting this up and running soon.

The next Synod meeting for our Trust is on Tuesday 19th November and we are excited to send representatives from our school to Lincoln to engage with this.