Our whole school assembly this week focused on Pope Francis’ call to look after our common world.
Our assembly reinforces our need to be intentional and prophetic. Pupils reflected upon how we can be good global neighbours by making right choices. We have also thought about how we can help others to make better choices.
| Understanding the Virtues: Intentional & Prophetic | |
| An intentional person is someone who lives deliberately; someone who builds up their own worldview and then tries to live by it. To live intentionally is to march to the beat of a different drummer.The busy-ness of life can sometimes feel overwhelming. It is no different for young people: demands made by schoolwork and examinations, the many activities to which their parents ferry them, peer pressure and social media, and just growing up and finding their place in an increasingly complex and fractured world. Of course there is excitement and often fulfilment in all this. But the pressure to conform and go along with what everyone else thinks and says and does is immense. The effect is to lose control – a feeling that this whirl of activity is not allowing me to be me. Living intentionally is not about stepping away from the world but is rather about trying to achieve a balance where you know what is important for you and what you want to spend your time and energies doing. Living intentionally can only happen if one is attentive to one’s experience, noticing the influences which drive us along and discerning which are good and which not so good, guided by conscience. It means living ethically, with a set of values.Jesus Christ was a person who lived intentionally and is a model of a good human life. (CJE n.61) His words, actions and example reflect his values.Intentional living is about the choices I make and the ethical code I live by. But this can have a positive impact on others if I share it.Being prophetic is about being seen to do good and about speaking out for what is right. Good news is only good news if it is announced. Being prophetic isn’t about telling the future; it is about living out God’s future for me today.However much the values of the world, the assumptions and prejudices of those around us, seem to be unassailable, Christ calls us in a different direction to a life characterized by compassion, faith, hope and, above all, love. Trying to live in an intentional and prophetic way is what ultimately makes us human. |