St. Leonard’s Day 6th November 2019

St. Leonard’s C of E (A) Primary School

Syerscote Lane

Wigginton

Staffordshire

B799DX

‘Growing in Faith and Learning’

Hello from St. Leonard’s inWigginton- Staffordshire

Our walk to churchOur church is about a 5 minute walk from our school through the village of Wigginton. In our school our year 5& 6 pupils have ‘buddies’ from Nursery and Reception. The older children help to look after the younger children on the way to church and help to set a good example of how to behave both in church and during the walk.

Our Worship for St. Leonard’s Day

We have worship in school every day but once a month we go to our church (St. Leonard’s Church) to have our worship. We also go to church when it is a special occasion such as today- St. Leonard’s day. Today in our worship we learned about and celebration St. Leonard. Here is an image of him from our church today.

How we start our worships.

Reverend Debra led our worship today. She is the Reverend at our church and she is also one of our school governors. At the start of our worship we light candles so that we can see Jesus the light of the world. Today, Elijah had the job of lighting the candles.We also say together:

‘God it good, all the time. All the time, God is Good’

Singing

Today we sang ‘Peace perfect Peace’ as our hymn. We thought this hymn would be perfect as St. Leonard is the patron saint of prisoners and we want to live in a peaceful world.

The hymn also celebrates other gifts that we get from God. Gifts of Love, Faith, Hope and Joy.

St. LeonardSaints teach us to PRAY and DO. They always love and serve God.

St. Leonard lived in France in the 11th Century. Although there are stories about St. Leonard dating back to times before this.

St. Leonard is the patron saint of Prisoners, sick people, poor people and pregnant women.

In our worship today, we split into 4 groups to represent each of these categories. We did and action and a sound throughout the story each time our group was mentioned.

The story of St. Leonard.

St. Leonard lived in France hundreds of years ago. He was a Christian who really cared for the poor.

The King at the time (King Clovis) was away fighting a foreign army. Leonard, prayed for the King and King Clovis won the battle. As a thank you for Leonard’s work, he wanted to make Leonard a Bishop but Leonard didn’t want to be a Bishop, he wanted to continue his work caring for the poor and the sick. So he went off into the forest.

Whilst in the forest Leonard prayed for prisoners who had no hope. One day Clovis and his wife, who was heavily pregnant were travelling through the woods and he wife went into labour. Leonard prayed for the family and also helped to look after Clovis’ wife and she and the baby were well. King Clovis wanted to thank Leonard so he told him that he would give him lots of land. He said that he could have as much land as he could ride around in a whole day- this was a lot of land.

Leonard asked the King to release some prisoners, especially those whose crimes were debatable. Leonard taught the prisoners to farm the land so that they could look after themselves and make a living.

We are all Saints….

Saints help us to follow God. Saints help us to be kind to others and to look at God and teach us to be like him. We serve God by loving and caring for each other.

Colossians 3: 12-14

God has chosen you and made you his holy people.

He loves you

So your new life should be like this:

Show mercy to others.

Be kind, humble, gentle and patient.

Don’t be angry with each other, but forgive each other.

If you feel someone has wronged you, forgive them.

Forgave others because the Lord forgave you.

Together with these things, the most important part of your new life is to love each other.

Love is what holds everything together in perfect unity.

Elsa, from year 6 read a reading from Colossians 3:12-14.

PrayersOur first prayer was a little different to the way we usually pray as Reverend Debra helped us to say it as a rap.

We want to pray for those in trouble

We want them in your loving care

We pray in faith for we know you will hear us

Just like you heard St. Leonard when he came to you in prayer.

Like him we pray to you for people who are sick

We pray that they will cease to suffer

We pray that nothing will be wrong

With mothers and their babies when they give birth

Bless them and keep them in your loving care

Please Lord Jesus, hear our prayer.

We pray for water, food and warmth

For those who cannot make ends meet

We pray for people who are struggling

In the developing world or in our street!

You can bring good from what is bad

We pray for justice for prisoners too

That lives will be transformed in every place

And your saints will help reveal your love and grace

The Lord’s Prayer and blessing

We finished our worship today by saying together the prayer that Jesus taught us and receiving a blessing.

Goodbye

Goodbye from our Headteacher, Mrs Young, too who was taking the video.

We really hope you enjoyed sharing our St. Leonard’s Day celebrations and we look forward to seeing your photographs too. Goodbye and God bless- everyone at St. Leonard’s Wigginton.