St Ninian's & St Clement's, Catholic Churches Together
For the month of September the children are thinking about their favourite things in creation and in what ways they will make a difference to help save our beautiful Mother Earth. We are saying the Children’s Creation Prayer and special eco bidding prayers to help us think more closely about the world’s problems.
Today we had a lovely visit from the ladies at Hogs Croft hedgehog sanctuary. We really enjoyed it! We had lots of great questions to ask such as “how fast can hedgehogs run” (and wow it’s fast!) and “what do they eat” and “how many babies do they have” ! We have learned a lot and we are doing very well with our little area to encourage a hedgehog to come and live in the church orchard 🙂
We are very pleased to see all the flowers this year in the church gardens. Here we find Charlie sitting amongst the sweet peas that the CC Juniors grew from seed! It’s been a poor summer so the plants are not as tall as we hoped but they smell lovely and Charlie was happy to pick some to take home. The more we pick the more they grow! We have grown lots of alstroemeria which have appeared on the Altar recently as well as other lovely flowers and Judi picked this bunch as her prize in the raffle! 🙂
This year, Pentecost Sunday is also the 9th anniversary of the letter from Pope Francis to every person in the world, asking us to Care for our Common Home – to look after our beautiful planet! The Holy Spirit fills us with everything we need to make a difference every single day. The Pope’s letter is called Laudato Si’ (which means Praised Be) and we are going to make a big effort in the following week to do as our Pope asks.
Here is what WE will do in Our Laudato Si’ week 2024! 🌍
that the Church gardens aren’t just about the flowers and veg! We have lots of bird feeders and bug hotels around the area to encourage and protect wildlife and we made a “pond” from an old sink. We make our own compost and, from the leaves we sweep up in Autumn, we make leaf mould to spread on the raised beds. We have water butts to collect all this rain that seems to fall daily and there are several varieties of fruit trees in the orchard which are now really beginning to blossom. As well as growing flowers for the altar and the tables in CCs, we grow herbs and vegetables which are often added to hearty soups to be served up on Thursdays. The garden gang are heavily involved in all sorts of garden maintenance; cleaning, painting, digging, chopping, sweeping and building. So, if you can spare an hour or two over the summer to come and help with some essential jobs such as watering and weeding then it would be much appreciated! Oh, and one more thing…. Did you know … there’s always tea and cake 🙂
Today we have been planting out our sweet pea seedlings around the wigwam. We filled the bird feeders and the hedgehog dishes, we planted sunflower seeds in the Mary Garden and we enjoyed some flower shaped snacks! Our little robin enjoyed our company too and he says that, even though the wigwam doesn’t look like much at the moment, it will definitely be very pretty by the time summer arrives! Fingers crossed for some warmer weather to really get the plants growing! 🙂
As Spring (slowly) begins to make an entrance, work begins again in the Church gardens. Time to clear up after the wet Winter, to admire the first of the flowers – the crocus bulbs that the children planted and our annual daffodils ready for cutting, to look at the new additions such as the Sweet Pea Wigwam, the Hedgehog House and the beautiful Memorial Cross. Our little pal Bob the Robin is ever present and generally spends the whole afternoon with the Garden Gang. Please do come along and visit or lend a hand as Spring progresses.
Our March CC Juniors had a litter theme! On a wet and miserable afternoon we first of all tucked in to some “litter free snacks” with fruit which we peeled and put in the compost bin and blueberry muffins baked in washable moulds! We watched some videos about caring for our world and the importance of not dropping litter! These are the links to the short videos.
As the rain had eased a bit, we braved it and headed out to do some litter picking – we had such a lot of fun, everyone was very enthusiastic and we think we did a great job! On the way we checked to see if a hedgehog had moved into the house yet and left some food just incase. Looking forward to next month – wonder what the children will be up to next! 🤩🌍🌸
