During this past week we have celebrated Catholic Schools Week in Ireland. A key focus of this week was the call to holiness in everyday life. But what does that actually mean? In essence, it means understanding who we are in the depths of our being, as children of God and living out our daily lives from that deep understanding.
Meditation awakens the heart to who we are in God and who God is in us. The children in my doctoral research said that meditation helped them to be themselves and to feel the goodness deep inside themselves. As part of our meditation with children project we produced an album of songs – Meditation with Children: Songs and Reflections – all of which are suitable for children and which point to some aspect of the deep spiritual fruits of meditation.
The album is available on Spotify, You Tube Music and iTunes/ Apple Music so why not play one of those songs for your class before your next meditation. The song ‘There is Goodness Inside’ teaches that the goodness they experience in meditation is their true nature. Click here for a video of the song with the lyrics displayed. Click here for the sheet music
Click here for the sheet music. And now that you have the lyrics and the music score, why not teach the song to the children as part of your music class or SPHE or RE? Understanding who they are in the depths of their being, as children loved by God, is vital to their spiritual and overall wellbeing and this song really helps to deepen their appreciation of this deep truth.
I hope the practice of Christian Meditation across the school is alive and well where you teach and that you create opportunities for meditation with your class at least twice each week. If not, why not begin again at the start of 2026? Christian Meditation is ultimately a form of prayer – silent, imageless, wordless prayer where the children can simply be in God’s presence and where they open their hearts to God. You may recall the words of Alex, a twelve-year old girl from Ontario, Canada who tole me that when she hears the chimes ring at the start of meditation, she imagines God is ringing her doorbell and she opens her heart to let God in. What not shar that with the children in your class when you next meditate with them?
The Irish Bishops Conference reminds us: ‘In his teachings, Jesus promoted the practice of taking time out for silent, interior prayer‘ and that Jesus ‘was familiar with prayer as a form of silent communion with his father.’ Their document, ‘A Reflection on Mindfulness: Rediscovering the Christian Tradition of Meditation and Contemplation‘, notes that, ‘with two thousand years of experience, the Christian tradition has a deep vein of spirituality that encourages us to focus on living the present moment in God, taking time out for meditation, and developing a lifestyle of contemplation in action.’
Whole-school meditation is an ideal practice today in our multi-cultural schools which are attended by people of all faiths and none, because it is a universal practice across all religious traditions, yet find particular expression in our own Catholic tradition. The bishops’ document suggests that ‘Schools may wish to consider introducing a form of Christian meditation on a whole-school basis. Christian Meditation Ireland is currently promoting meditation with primary schools in the dioceses of Kildare & Leighlin and Cork & Ross.
Poem and Reflection: Goodness Knows by Carrie Newcomer
Let those who
Remember
Light candles
And look up
On this cloudless evening,
With the stars shining down.
Let us lean in and listen,
For what only
The heart hears
Let Goodness know
It’s got cousins
Right here on earth
Alive on in this planet
Awake as the world leans
Back on its heels.
Let us lift up our single matches
Our old flashlights and new phones,
Because every day, every single day
There is a reason
To weep,
A loss or cruelty that is sure
To break your heart.
And so we illumine,
The places hope dwells
Put a lamp in the window,
Invite Mercy over for tea
Or coffee
With hot rolls.
Let us hold hands and
Sing
Because music
And laughter
Is bread for this brilliant and battered
Beautiful and bewildered world
And still
Even now, when
The source is at its furthest
Love is still at its closest
For always in the dark
Stars show up
In sharpest contrast,
A reminder to anyone
Who longs
And then
Looks up.
Carrie Newcomer observes that this poem arose as she asked herself ‘What are the necessary actions we can take in order to realize justice for all? And how do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?’ Her poem Goodness Knows focuses on illuminating the darkness of our lives through greater awareness of connection and presence. Instead of turning away from all the noise and confusion of the modern world, our poet asks us to lean in and listen, for what only the heart hears. Our opening prayer asks God to open our hearts to the silent Presence of the Spirit of his Son. Meditation quietens the mind and opens the heart. Our practice teaches us that we must let go of our monkey mind if the heart is to open fully.
To lean in during contemplation calls us to be receptive to that Presence – for the time of our meditation we turn away from our preoccupations, worries and incessant doing. We aim to tune in to a frequency that is usually drowned out by noise; to awaken our spiritual sensitivity, what Newcomer describes as that which only the heart hears. In silence, we practice a form of listening that doesn’t seek to respond, argue, or fix. We simply witness the joy of our being, the innate Goodness that is our essence.
Our poem recalls that suffering is an integral part of life: every day, every single day, there is a reason to weep, a loss or cruelty that is sure to break your heart. But, as environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams reminds us ‘We need not lose hope, we just need to locate where it dwells.’
In the stillness and silence of meditation we become a lightning rod that grounds our innate Goodness in the world and so we illumine, the places hope dwells. As Howard Thurman wrote ‘Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’ This is why we meditate. Because even when it seems to the world that the source is at its furthest, our practice teaches us that in reality Love is still at its closest because always in the dark stars show up and the light of awareness overcomes the darkness of despair. While we cannot resolve the suffering of the world, we can keep our own small light of awareness burning and know that if enough people do so, our world becomes brighter. When we refuse to hide from the pain of the world, we discover that our undoing is also our becoming. I close with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s entitled ‘One Reflexive’ I think it captures beautifully why we are drawn to meditate. It reads: the way the pupil knows/ to widen in the dark in these darkening days,/ this heart
