Tuesday, 21st April 2026

9:00 am-12:00 pm

St Venera

STMC Maria Goretti, Middle School, Tarxien – Year 8 students

This session promotes spiritual development and provides a distinctive and enriching experience for Year 8 students in State schools.


The SDS team hosted students of St Thomas More College, Tarxien Middle School for ‘Living Love Joyfully’ – a seminar that aims at empowering students to navigate crucial transition periods in their academic journey and in their life.

Engaging Welcome


The morning began with a warm welcome, creating a friendly atmosphere through introductions and an engaging icebreaker game.



Animated Storytelling


The sessions took off with an animated storytelling session called ‘The Courageous Camel‘, who also had to face inevitable changes and challenges during his life journey. Followed by a workshop, the story aimed at helping students to reflect on their stages in life, their identity, attributes, relationships and the significance of faith in uncharted waters.

Prayer Space and Spiritual Reflection


At the heart of their time at Dar San Ġużepp, students were invited to explore and experience prayer space. The prayer activities aimed to promote personal connection with their spirituality, together with the invitation for a thoughtful-prayerful response with regards to one’s four relationship – with the self, with others, with the world, and of course with God. The below are some of the prayer activities set up for this session.

Being Brave

This space is to help one think of the situation where bravery is needed and to ask God for courage.

Big Questions

During this prayer activity, one is given the space to ask his honest questions to God.

Hopeful Journey

In this prayer activity students undergoing a school transition are invited to reflect on past school experiences and to hope and pray for positive future ones.

Mirror

This prayer activity encourages one to identify the positive aspects of oneself as one looks at one’s own self-image created on the image of God in the mirror.

Sorry Sand

In this prayer space one is given the opportunity to reflect on the unkind actions we made and invited to pray for forgiveness.

Fostering Gratitude and Joy in Holy Mass

The seminar concluded with the celebration of Holy Mass. The themes chosen from the readings and the priest’s short homily weaved themes utilising personal qualities for the greater good, learning from mistakes, asking forgiveness, embracing gratitude, and joy in love. As students joined in songs and prayer, they were reminded of the importance of their relationship with God and his love for them.  A special session for those students who could not celebrate was provided.

The ‘Living Love Joyfully’ session empowers the students to navigate this crucial transition period. This experience is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Education, the Office for Religious Education and Spiritual Development in Schools. The National Literacy Agency supported this training session.

Explore more about this morning session and other programmes offered by SDS:

Apply to participate here for your school >>

This event is part of the Living Love Joyfully session programme.