Chaplaincy

An active chaplaincy team of students and teachers who are committed to Jesus' vision of building God's Kingdom leads the community's spiritual development at Bishop Allen. All of us are called to be channels through which the Risen Christ continues to be with, and for, the margainalized and disadvantaged in our time and place. Our chaplaincy team fosters and encourages the Biblical imperatives of social outreach, prayer, spiritual growth and community support through a variety of activities throughout the school year.

At the heart of a Catholic Christian school is the chaplaincy team: students and teachers together making a difference. Together they are working to make this school, and the world, a better place to live. Students and teachers who are striving to live and witness to the values of compassion, commitment, building community, hope, respect for the other and all the other values that makes us Catholic Christians. Jesus, before he left us for the second time, said that we are now his hands, his voice, his feet, his heart, his body.

The staff also is part of the chaplaincy team. We have a team of over 30 teachers who are an integral part of the life of chaplaincy here at BAA. The chaplaincy department could not begin to function without their help and support.

There are over 60 students involved in what we are calling Students' ACT (Students' Allen Chaplaincy Team) which has representation from each grade. Students participate in a variety to liturgical and outreach projects, for example, the 12 hours of service in which our ACT team assisted at over 30 different social agencies. Other members attended Leadership workshops; some are involved in the preparation of our school masses. Students organize our Thanksgiving food drive and our Christmas Basket collection.

We are beginning an exciting project at Bishop Allen…we are partnering with “Friends of the Orphans” and together we are bringing students to visit an Orphanage in Guatemala to have an experience of living with young people of another culture…seeing life through others’ eyes and bringing back home a greater appreciation of what we have and with a sense of the call to do more to share the world’s resources with all. We are excited about the possibilities of sharing these stories with students at our school and hopefully all with get involved in letter-writing and learning about this Orphanage and about the country and its politics and history and religion. Our plan is to bring students down every two years and to do fund-raising and awareness-raising in between trips. You can find out more about this project by going on-line to http://www.fotocan.org/about-us/ and see the amazing things that other schools have done and that we hope to share in from March 7 to 16, 2012.