St Wilfrid’s Catholic school in Crawleyon Saturday the 19th of November saw the celebration of the Arundel & Brighton Youth Service’s 30th anniversary. The event was well attended by people who had been youth over the years, as well as youth leaders and youth groups from schools and parishes around the Diocese. It was a fabulous evening with photos, Mass, the chance to chat and a tasty spread of food. The band providing the music for Mass and afterwards was from Chatsmore School in Goring and they did a grand job, as did the singers from The Towers, who sang a beautiful rendition of ‘The Cry of the Poor’, post-communion.
At the start of Mass, thirty people carried a pebble for each year to the front of the hall and built a cairn. This represented how the Youth Service had been built up; cairns are used as a way marker on footpaths, just as this anniversary is a marker for the journey of the Youth Service group. Bishop Kieran and Fr. David Parmiter both said how much work and support had gone into building and maintaining the youth service over these past 30 years and how now it was the turn of today’s youth to carry on. During the mass Bishop Kieran officially introduced the specially commissioned candle stand that is the youth symbol for our Diocese.
Following Mass there was the opportunity to view the thirty years of photos, with Youthgather serving as a constant timeline throughout the years. Other displays included Redshirts inLourdes, World Youth Days, Papal Visits, weekend retreats and camps at Maryvale and a ‘Guess Who?’ style quiz with Priests and parents in their younger years. The evening ended with a short liturgy, led by Ray Mooney. All present were invited to take a candle and light it from the Youth Symbol, taking this light out with them, as a sign of the continuation of youth ministry in the Diocese, as they left. Posters and prayer cards with the Youth Symbol on them were then distributed and will also be sent to each parish not represented at the evening.
By Charlotte & Hannah Moon
