Caritas Magdalene School

Graduation 1999
This year, the 25th anniversary of Caritas Magdalene School, 19 boys and girls will graduate at the Form Five level.  On Monday, 28 June, the students celebrated with a traditional buffet dinner at one of the hotels in Tsim Sha Tsui.  The principal, Sr. Theresa, and the faculty who taught Form Five this year also attended.  Here is one table enjoying the evening together. Graduating students at a buffet dinner
Every year the HK Catholic Pastoral Association of the Deaf invites the graduating class of CMS to visit our centre and meet our group. Very few if any of the graduates are ever Catholic but we want them to feel they have a place to go and friends to be with as they leave the school environment which has sheltered them for more than 15 years. Here they are gathered with some of our leaders for a group photo. Deaf graduates at our centre
This year is the 25th anniversary of the founding of Caritas Magdalene School (originally Canossa School for the Deaf) and the celebration was scheduled to coincide with the graduation activities. On Saturday, 10 July 1999, school students and faculty, school supervisors, former students, and many friends of the school gathered to celebrate. It was a very joyous occasion but also a time for tears for some former staff meeting their now grown-up former charges. This picture is from a souvenir mouse pad I received--a sign of how different things are from 25 years ago!
CMS school anniversary photo

Graduation Ceremony

The actual graduation ceremony took place on Sunday afternoon, 12 July at the school. I didn't see many tears but I'm sure there was a lot of relief on the part of some parents that their son or daughter has made it this far--and anxiety about the impending future without the security and guidance of the school. I gave the graduation talk, a simple exhortation to the students to replace the rules of the school with Jesus' law of love to guide their future. 		[Picture not yet available--but it's coming!]