Year 7 at The Briars

Last week, four staff and 50 Year 7 students made their way to The Briars Catholic Youth Retreat Centre in Crich for three days of prayer, food and friendship.

The first evening started with a wonderful welcome and tour of the site followed by dinner and some time in ‘small groups’ to get to know each other, rounded off with night prayer, led by the programme leader, Sophie.

The following morning the day started with spiritual feeding in morning prayer and physical feeding through breakfast. We then spent the morning getting to know what a disciple is and how we can become missionary disciples. After lunch we went on a beautiful walk. Once we had warmed up we helped prepare Mass and celebrated it with Fr Paul. This kicked off our evening of celebration. What followed was dinner and a disco! Once we had done all the dancing we could ever do we shared night prayer as a group about how we are called to work together.

Friday morning came with more prayer, more food, and an opportunity to share kind words with one another in the form of ‘affirmations’. We celebrated the final liturgy together and got back on the coach to make our way back to school. It was a wonderful three days spent together and we can’t wait to get back to The Briars again soon!

Mr Archer, Lay Chaplain