July 1, 2023 : "The Almighty touches in a way which no one else can....."

A two days'retreat / prayer day for the Catholic and Non Catholic students at Carmel school was an enriching and wonderful experience of God’s liberating Word. Fr Noel Mascarenhas CSSR led the Spiritual Sessions and enriched the gathering with the Word of God. Niyathi from grade X welcomed all the resource persons with a floral welcome and a memento. The retreat commenced in the presence of Fr Gabriel Lobo, Fr Noel Mascarenhas, Fr Dony Cardoza and Fr Ashwil Dias, Redemptorist Fathers belonging to the Alangar community.

Fr Dony began the session with action songs and the students enthusiastically participated in it. The students also engaged themselves in a fruitful discussion with Fr Ashwil on Moral Values of life. He emphasised on the beauty and importance of nature. Fr Gabriel Lobo mentioned the importance of prayer through a narrative story. Interactive quizzes and activity based puzzles, games etc kept students busy throughout the session. Effective feedback was asked by the students. Video presentations on topics like motivation, Disadvantages of Social media and many more such were more impactful on the young minds.

Elements of these two days sessions also included some other interesting topics like

• To discover the meaning of their name.
• Reflect on who they are.
• Affirm their friends and peers.
• Have time to play.
• Have some quiet reflective time.
• Sharing of good qualities with each other.
• The ways to seek happiness in ourselves.

The goal of the sessions was to encourage and enhance ethical and moral values at a young age, thus to attain inner peace and stability. The session was duly appreciated by the staff and the students. The two days retreat was concluded with Holy Eucharist for Catholic students.