St John Community
The St John Community is a core community of pupils who lead Lectio Divina groups for younger pupils. Lectio Divina is a prayerful way of reading of the Bible. They meet every week to deepen their relationship with God as disciples of Christ, their sense of belonging to a community of friends, and their awareness of having a mission in the school. Nourished at St John’s Community, they are then able to share these gifts with younger pupils in their charge with whom they strive to build strong Lectio groups with Christ at their centre. Fourteen Lectio groups of pupils, one for boys and one for girls in each year group, meet every week at Downside.
Service in the form of sharing the gift of Scriptures in the context of a community of friends has been the very heart and identity of what St John’s is and strives to achieve throughout the school community. The message of the Gospel has truly reached the heart of each pupil who has experienced the power of God’s message. “Lectio helped me to get closer to God and brought me calmness… It helped me to understand the importance of faith… Through Lectio I made amazing friendships that will stay with me forever”. These are words of members of St John’s as they reflect upon their experience of weekly Lectio Divina with the community at the end of their time at Downside as Upper Sixth pupils last year.
The testimonies of the pupils are very powerful to listen to. In their Lectio Groups they find an oasis, as it were, within the school’s sometimes frantic rhythm. Lectio Divina is also the perfect complement to Sunday Mass, as they pray with the Gospel of the upcoming Sunday. Hence when Sunday comes, Lectio brings alive the Liturgy of the Word and guides them deeper into the mystery of the Word spoken and the Word that feeds them in Holy Communion. St John’s Community’s service is no less than bringing the living person of Christ to the heart of each pupil of Downside through the Word of God in the context of a community of friends. They, therefore, truly achieve what St John Henry Newman said about ‘Heart speaks unto Heart’.
