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Virtues In keeping with one of the faith formation goals of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, this year we will be celebrating a year of virtues. By focusing monthly on different virtues, we will continue to build a safe, caring, and inclusive school community. Each department within the school will be invited and have the opportunity to actively participate in the organizing and implementation of each virtue through announcements, an event, assembly etc. The virtues highlighted are the following; faith, empathy, conscience, hope, self-control, respect, kindness, love, acceptance, and fairness. SEPTEMBER ~Faith To begin the new school year, we’ll focus our attention on the first of our virtues – faith. Faith is the great virtue of believing in God and trusting that God is with us. A faithful person believes that we are created, guided by and destined to be reunited with God. A faithful person believes that God’s plan for us includes the right to be safe, especially at school. A Faithful person… · Prays regularly and reverently · Learns from Scripture stories · Honours people’s God-given names · Assumes that there is good in everyone · Accepts the God-given worth of themselves and others OCTOBER ~Empathy This month we will focus on the virtue of empathy. God has given us the ability to form connections with each other - to live together. Empathy helps us to connect and live together in safe, caring, inclusive communities. We understand empathy to mean the ability to identify with and feel other people’s concerns. We believe that in a faith community we are nothing without relationships. Relationships that grow in a spirit of communion- an understanding that we share an identity based on being created in the image and likeness of God and being imbued with one Spirit. We are many parts of one body. An empathetic person believes that we all share one Spirit; that we are many parts of one body because we are all created in the image and likeness of God. An empathetic person… · Listens attentively · Watches people’s body language · Notices and responds when someone is upset · Can name her/his feelings · Can see a situation from another person’s point of view · Knows that different people may feel differently about the same thing NOVEMBER ~Conscience This month we will celebrate the virtue of conscience. God has given us the ability to know the right and decent way to act and then to act that way. We trust that the common Spirit we share inspires us and guides us to make good decisions if we allow our conscience to be well-formed. A person of conscience allows prayer and scripture to influence him/her. A person of conscience… · Chooses to do the ‘right thing’ and feels good about it · Can see how his/her actions may hurt others · Admits his/her wrong-doing and feels badly · Says ‘sorry’ and tries to make up for mistakes · Keeps promises DECEMBER ~Hope (Advent) This month, we will celebrate the virtue of hope. We believe that God comes to us as a real human who can show us the way of life. We understand that both the world and its people are from God and so are essentially good. Furthermore, God has given us this Advent season year after year in order to focus our minds and our hearts on the good all around us. Year after year, we are reminded the God chose to send his Son to us because we are worth it. God knows how great we can be when we all come together. When we look at the world through the eyes of God we see it becoming more and more like the reign of God that Jesus describes. People of Hope… · Keep up a positive attitude · Can bounce back from tough situations · Set and stick to their goals · See the good in others even when they make mistakes · Work to include others · Let others know that they are good people
This month we will celebrate the virtue of self-control. God has given us the ability to choose. We are able to control how we react to what happens around us. We me feel pressure from inside or from outside ourselves to react violently to a situation. We’ve all “lost it” at one time or another. We are never proud of those moments. As soon as they happen we make a promise that they will not happen again. Through prayer and concentration, we can get better at controlling our reactions. We can get better at showing self-control. Self-control helps us to resist the temptation to do something that we will regret. Self-control helps us to resist the temptation to do something that will harm ourselves or others. Self-control is one of the marks of a spiritually mature person. When we all use self-control, we can be sure that our school will be a safe, caring and inclusive place to live and to learn. A person with self-control… · Is patient · Knows how to wait his/her turn · Can calm him/herself down and think before reacting to situations · Knows how to avoid physical aggression (hitting, kicking, pushing, fighting, etc.) · Can think things through and do what is best for everyone FEBRUARY ~Respect This month we will celebrate the virtue of respect. God has given us the virtues of friends and companions to keep us company and to help us out along the way. Every person in our lives carries the Spirit of God – and so every person is our brother or sister through Jesus Christ. As brothers and sister who share one Holy Spirit, we are all valuable to God. We all deserve to be shown courtesy, consideration, sensitivity and thoughtfulness, which are different ways of saying respect. That respect should come first and foremost from ourselves. We have to respect our selves and then we will be able to respect others. We should also be able to expect to be treated with respect by everyone we meet – our brothers and sister in Jesus. Through prayer and concentration, we can get better at respecting ourselves as well as respecting those around us. A respectful person… · Treats himself/herself and everyone else with equal consideration and courtesy · Uses a positive tone of voice and body language · Avoids swearing, name-calling, put-downs, and inappropriate gestures · Says ‘Excuse me’, ‘Please’, ‘Pardon me’ · Avoids gossip MARCH ~Kindness (Lent) This month we will celebrate the virtue of kindness. God has given us the gifts of friends and companions to keep us company and to help us out along the way. Every person in our lives carries the Spirit of God – and so every person is our brother or sister through Jesus Christ. As brothers and sister who share one Holy Spirit, we are all valuable to God. We all deserve to be shown concern for our welfare and our feelings. We have all been given the fruit of the Spirit called kindness. Kindness can only be seen through actions. It’s not enough to say I will be kind or I am kind. We must show that we are kind by our words and our actions. Through prayer and concentration, we can get better at showing kindness to everyone we meet. A Kind Person…
This month we will celebrate the virtue of love. God has given us many guidelines and examples of how to live our lives. He sent his Son Jesus to make sure that we could see what life could be like. Jesus made one lesson clear above all other lessons – the lesson to love. Love is not about us – it is about forgetting ourselves and looking out for the good of the other. That’s what Jesus did – he forgot about himself on purpose. He chose to give up his life for the good of others – us! Becoming a truly loving person is challenging. It takes prayer and concentration to get used to making little sacrifices for the good of others. Making little sacrifices on purpose so that others will have a bit of food, a bit of shelter, a bit of peace, a bit of quiet, a bit of fun, a bit of friendship. Through prayer and concentration, we can get better at showing love to everyone we meet. A Loving Person… · Wants the best for others · Is willing to make sacrifices for the good of others · Learns from the heroic lives of saints & holy people · Knows that we are all lovable · Prays for others This month we will celebrate the virtue of Acceptance. One of the great wonders of the world we live in is that no two people are exactly alike. We may share biological families or national identity or cultural and ethnic identity but we are all very unique and distinct creations. God breaks the mold every time! And that is a fantastic fact of life! It can also be a challenging fact of life if it makes us afraid. Sometimes differences are scary – especially if we haven’t learned about or don’t understand how people are different. The virtue of acceptance describes our ability to look at the attitudes and actions of those around us and then just stop and consider without judging them. The virtue of acceptance means that we look beyond what we see- a person’s skin colour, ethnic background, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, and see a person created and loved by God. It’s especially important for us to stop and think if what we are made uncomfortable by seeing or hearing others act differently then we might choose to act. An accepting person…
JUNE ~Fairness When we spend a lot of time immersed in a variety of different media – TV, movie, magazine, radio we can sometimes forget that life is not a competition We are made by God to live together, to share and to help each other. You can’t be a Christian alone. Christianity is all about living together in community – ideally, one big happy family. When the urge to be superior takes over a person’s life then fairness can go out the window. Fairness, the belief that everyone deserves an opportunity to succeed, is not always about making things exactly equal. Some people need a bit more time, space, money, and support to have an equal chance to succeed. And they deserve that chance. Jesus spent a major part of his time on earth showing us about the preferential option for the poor and weak. He spent an extraordinary amount of time showing how to follow God’s rules, the rules of the kingdom. The sick, the lame, the blind, the bad sinners all need a fair chance to succeed – to overcome their disadvantages and disabilities in order to succeed. In today’s terms, that could be called good sportsmanship. A good sport makes sure the rules of the game give everyone an even chance to participate.
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