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Primary education

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Original poster

Good grief. Our girls go to a Catholic school ....

53 replies

2sugars · 01/11/2007 10:09

... and today the whole school is going to Mass as it's All Saints Day. Which means dd1 is missing swimming.

When H found this out, he was fuming. I said (although I'm certain it's not)"It's All Saints Day. It's a Holy Day of Obligation"

To which he huffed and puffed and replied "It should be a holy day of education."

When we enrolled dd1 with the school, we were told in no uncertain terms that if we didn't like it we could take our children out? So why is it such a huge surprise to him now?

BTW I'm Catholic and he's very anti.

OP posts:
Anchovy · 01/11/2007 13:22

Isn't Annunciation 25th March - 9 months before Christmas? I think it's the other one - Mary being born without original sin. Immaculate Conception, I think.

ChippyMinton · 01/11/2007 13:22

I'm a non-Catholic with DC at Catholic School (DH is). Ash Wednesday was funny as several of the parents (me included) were wondering how so many children could've fallen and bruised their foreheads in the course of one day, until someone exclaimed that it was Ash Wednesday

maggotandjerry · 01/11/2007 13:24

You all have to read Frost in May by Antonia White if you haven't already - about a convert at a convent school. I thought it was the MOST ROMANTIC thing ever when I was a child - it was always going on about novations and the holy days of obligation and all sorts of things I had never heard of. Not a catholic but wanted to be one

Tinker · 01/11/2007 13:25

Yes, I have read Frost In May. Can't remember it now though

Anchovy · 01/11/2007 13:26

Ooh - Tommy, good that we both got the Immaculate Conception point. I had the redoubtable Miss Kelly for RE, who as well as giving us a robust drilling of the liturgical calendar used to spend a lot of time lecturing us on the evils of the flesh and wiping off make up - real and imagined - with barely dampened paper towels.

(Tommy and I were at the same school).

MaryAnnSingleton · 01/11/2007 13:27

strangely, I longed to be Jewish - I think I felt I could relate to all the rituals

EmsMum · 01/11/2007 13:35

Curious why your DH agreed to your DD going to an RC school if he's very anti?

If he willingly agreed to it, well, he made his bed and should lie in it.

If he was unwilling but overruled or there was no other viable alternative... you will have to put up with some resentment I'm afraid.

You both have my sympathies in what must sometimes be a fraught situation.

stleger · 01/11/2007 15:51

Yes Immaculate Conception. My two teenagers get that day off (should we need a trip to town) and our primary school, not Catholic, takes it as an inset day! My dd1, not Catholic, is singing in a mass for departed souls next week, as allsaints and all souls has fallen in midterm this year.

hanaflower · 01/11/2007 15:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bossybritches · 01/11/2007 20:30

Good grief!!

memories

Sorry 2 sugars..... THREAD HIJACK

Ash marks on the forehead

Crusade messenger MAS?? AND the collection boxes!
I must have saved a whole colony of lepers!!

Weren't there little ticky boxes with random pathetic pictures every time you'd saved another 10 souls or something like?

Sr Mary Anthony (Big A) gawd bless her...6'4" in her jesus boots & hearty laugh.

....and sweet Sr Mary Stella who was only a few years older than us when she started teaching (think Julie Andrews in SOM) &, we found out years later, we were her first 6-form Home Ec class. (a small group of 6)

We talked her into taking us to see "That'll be the Day" at the cinema on the grounds that if it had David Essex in it it must be like Godspell!!!

I seem to recall the lovely David having a jolly time romping with 2 naked blondes at which point SM Stella frog-marched us out & never quite trusted us again

Sorry to interrupt the discussion that was a real flashback you started there ladies!!

off to find her old rosary beads

MrsLynetteScavo · 01/11/2007 20:38

Ds is at a Catholic school. but I'm not Catholic so this is all very new to me. I didn't reaslise it was All Saints Day (Duh!) - I'm not even sure what goes on at mass- Can anyone enlighten me?

hotscaredoffireworksbunny · 01/11/2007 20:45

I taught at a catholic infant school for a few years which was an eye opener, not being catholic myself. When I changed schools I went to a C of E school and kept asking the children when we needed to pray, as in the catholic school it seemed to be for much of the dayWas shocked when they said in assembly and before lunch. Heathens

nickToD · 01/11/2007 21:04

I went to a catholic primary school and we seem to have a prayer for everything. Before play- (to pray for a nice time) after play (to thank God for having had a nice time) before lunch (to pray for no rice pudding or even worse SEMOLINA which we were forced to eat and had to stare at for the whole of lunch time if we refused) , after lunch (to thank for the jelly and ice cream or at least opportunity to get rid of semolina in nearest pot plant)and after school (to pray we wouldn't snuff it before the next school day and if we did pray for our journey through the pearly gates.)
Am now staunch atheist , just as well as my poor knees would not take any more piousness. Needless to say I no longer attend church (I gave it up for lent )

MrsLynetteScavo · 01/11/2007 21:39

So What exactly is mass?

professorplum · 01/11/2007 21:56

here Lynette, its basically readings from old and new testements plus gospel reading and celebration of the eucharist. There are hymns during sung masses which most Sunday masses are. There are special masses for the dead, days of obligation, nuptial etc.

MaryAnnSinglebang · 02/11/2007 10:22

I have to say that I loved every bit of being at a Catholic school - both prim,ary and secondary,where I was at a convent and taught by nuns as well as ordinary teachers. The nuns were on the whole lovely..an ancient one seemed to live in a tuck shop cupboard (Sister Peter) and dispensed the boxes of crisps etc. We once had a screening of Audrey Hepburn in Thew Nun's Story in the school hall (as the English teacher knew the director or something) which was fab - I still love that film - though lived in fear as a school girl of receiving a 'calling' which would mean I'd have to be a nun too.
I was scared of Confession as I felt obliged to make up sins for something to say in there - I even said I'd stolen things when I hadn't !! - and found it acutely embarrassing because I felt sure the priest could tell who was behind the grille.
I loved Benediction and reading the stations of the cross during Lent.
I grew away from it all after about the age of 15 but still occassionally go into Mass or into church to light candles by St Teresa (favourite saint)- it certainly sticks with you and I think I can recite the entire Mass from memory !!

Tortington · 02/11/2007 10:26

you know the poor bastard who has done something VERY wrong at confession - they are the ones who are doing the stations

me and my nan always used to ask each other wwhat we had got and if you got a couple of hair mary's - it was an indication of a steady "sin" baseline - nothing to bad

if you got a couple of hail mary's and a couple of our fathers - OMG you have done something outragous.

a rosery - and you must have had an affair

the stations - and you've killed someone

MaryAnnSinglebang · 02/11/2007 10:46

what earns you a Novena ?

Hallgerda · 02/11/2007 10:49

Are the penances all prayers, essentially, or might there be other actions?

lemonaidtreasonandplot · 02/11/2007 10:56

When I was little penances tended to be prayers plus something concrete (volunteering to help out extra at home, for example). I don't think I've been since I was nine so don't know how they change later...

themildmanneredjanitor · 02/11/2007 10:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MaryAnnSinglebang · 02/11/2007 11:05

I used to love saying Hail Holy Queen....but could never remember the end bit which seemed to be uttered very quickly - have figured it out now !

Hallgerda · 02/11/2007 12:10

I asked my question as DH has a theory that the man kneeling to do his rosary on the pavement outside our local abortion clinic must be doing penance for something really dreadful. (I try to stop such speculation as people seeing me litter-picking at the nature reserve tend to think I'm on a community service order, and steer their small children away with a look of "you don't know what she's done".) I'd wondered about pilgrimages and those small shrines in Italy which give a stated time off purgatory, but had assumed they were options one might take if one felt the need but would not be actually stipulated at confession.

lemonaidtreasonandplot · 02/11/2007 12:16

Technically, I believe, an indulgence (time off purgatory) doesn't give you "X years off purgatory", it gives you "the same amount off purgatory that you would have got through X years of prayer or good works".

Very unlikely he's doing a penance -- as you surmise, those kinds of things are all options rather than stipulations (although I think in the Middle Ages people used to get told to go on pilgrimages sometimes).

erniecrackles · 02/11/2007 12:30

I thought purgatory didn't officially 'exist' anymore? (Which means many hours of my childhood wasted on worrying about how to pray enough to get all the poor souls out of there!). I used to think it was like a Doctor's waiting room -- 'Mrs Smith, you've been prayed for enough, please come to heaven now'! But wasn't purgatory a medieval construct to get ££s off people?

Bossybritches -- you didn't go to school in Slough did you (I know that might be an offensive suggestion to most people!!)? We had a Sister Mary Stella who taught HE and a Sister Mary Anthony. Maybe there are 100s of them though!

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