Gratitude is a characteristic trait of the heart visited by the Holy Spirit. To follow God's law, begin with gratitude. (Pope Frances 2017)

 As Catholics, living a life rooted in gratitude is essential to growing in our faith. St. Paul offers us this challenge: “Be filled with the Spirit . . . giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20)

The Year 3 students have taken up this challenge and are learning to Grow in Gratitude with one-another. We have been using the Growing with Gratitude program to help us practice the act of Gratitude. We have learnt that not only are we called to show gratitude, but gratitude is a key feature of our own happiness.

We were lucky enough to be a part of the Growing with Gratitude Big Live Event. Together with students from India, Sri Lanka, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand the year 3 students participated in a lesson taught by  Ash Manuel, founder of the Growing with Gratitude, where we practiced gratitude and promoted the importance of our personal wellbeing.

Here’s what some of the Year 3’s thought about the online lesson.

On June 17, our class joined The Big Live Event with 38 other schools around the world. Ash taught us to be grateful. One of the activity’s was to put a sticker on something you were grateful
I put my sticker on hand sanitizer to help stop coronavirus I found the activity really fun. - Jack

Gratitude means being grateful for what you have and there is always something to be grateful for. When I was online and learning with all these other people at the same time, I felt amazing and happy and just so excited that I was with all these people. The meaning of this event was that we learnt about what gratitude really means. – Siri

Growing with gratitude has been an amazing website that teaches you how to be grateful for big and little things. It has been a big experience for me and made me think about the most important things: me and earth! I’m especially grateful for my education,3 sisters, mum and my dad and my friends for supporting me through the way. May god bless all the people who hurt me.  - Abany

On June 17, we all got together and learnt what gratitude meant. We also put stickers on what we are grateful for. "I was grateful for light to see in dark places and some people put theirs on water and hand sanitizer and some more stuff. I learnt that gratitude is being thankful for what I have, and that if I want to be good at it, I have to practice gratitude just like practicing to play soccer. - Isaac