Prayer Walks

A local mini-pilgrimage

Creating your own prayer pilgrimage in your local context can be a great way to offer a retreat experience.

Choose some special places within the school that can become prayer 'stations' - places to walk to, then pause and pray. Some examples could be a school chapel, church, school foyer or beside an expression of the school motto or vision statement.

Walk and pray

For each place or prayer 'station' along your pilgrimage path decide on a particular prayer focus such as:

1. Start in school chapel or church – pray for hope for the world. (Hope)

2. Near the school motto on a wall – pray for love in our hearts. (Love)

3. Quiet place in the school grounds – pray for peace. (Peace)

4. Corner of the library – pray for the gift of wisdom (Wisdom)

5. In the playground – pray for forgiveness in our world and in our own hearts. (Forgiveness)

Pray with a mantra

Teach students how to pray using a mantra; for example, focus on breathing and imagine breathing God’s love into the world.

Use the words listed above for mantras:

• hope
• love
• peace
• wisdom
• forgiveness

Ask the students to say the mantra as they walk to the next prayer station.

Add in the use of meditation beads to help keep the students on track.