Year 7 visit to St Illtyd's Church

On 3 July almost all year 7 pupils visited St Illtyd's to meet with Father Edwin for a short 'experience' of worship at the church. Our first station was at the font. Father Edwin explained the significance of the font being at the entrance to the church. Pupils asked the question "how does water become holy?" and so as part of the response, Fr Edwin blessed the water that was in the font and then proceeded to sprinkle us all with it!

The next focus for us was the altar. We all took turns to say what our favourite meal was and Fr Edwin got us to think about a meal that we had enjoyed recently. We quickly realised that the enjoyment of a meal relied not upon the quality of the food particularly, but the people with whom the meal was shared. Father Edwin explained that part of the significance of the Last Supper was that it was a meal that Jesus had shared with 12 of his closest friends. He meal was simple: bread and wine, but the symbolism is of upmost importance to Christians; that the bread signifies Jesus' body, broken and given in surrender of humanity and the wine, his blood shed to absolve sins.

Our third station was to have a moment to reflect upon the magnificent Celtic crosses in the Galilee chapel. We were impressed to learn that St Illtyd's is home to some of the finest examples of Celtic crosses in Europe!

We also had an opportunity to smell and see incense being burned. This really helped to create a memorable experience. Diolch, Fr Edwin and Fr Craig!