"Dear Mary: please never let me forget this special grace, this moment when I was lost and found. Help all of us to understand you and your son are always there. Help us to quietly and without fanfare convey this possibility to others."
- Danika W., Grade 12 religion student, Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts (CCAA), Writing contributor, DevotionsTV
We are proud to announce that our students at Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts have successfully co-produced and completed a new round of creative endeavours with DevotionsTV, a national TV program, in honour of Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help.
DevotionsTV (in honor of Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Perpetual Help), owned and produced by Redemptorists of Canada, has been on the air for 30 years as a music, prayer, and reflections weekly national TV half-hour (VisionTV {VTV}, Salt+LightTV {SLTV}) program centered on Mary, Mother of God.
For the past ten years, the program's musical offerings have been produced exclusively with Canadian Catholic student choirs, including a first round of music from CCAA in 2017.
"We produced six songs for DTV with CCAA. These productions began broadcasting Fall, 2018 on VTV and SLTV and also online on Redemptorist.TV (RTV), the web-based companion to DTV, says DTV producer Dawn Deme.
"Over the eight-year period, the songs have been broadcast 48 times; reaching approximately 2 million viewers."
When DTV's producers approached CCAA for a new round of collaboration, the invitation was widened to include student recitation of the prayers for the program (Prayers of the Faithful, Prayer to Mary) to be filmed at the Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, St. Patrick's Redemptorist Parish in downtown Toronto.
"It was a delight to see these young people from all over the city come into the Church and offer their voices and energy to these prayers," says Redemptorist Father Thomas O'Rourke, pastor of St Patrick's Redemptorist Parish, also the home of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Shrine.
DTV producers also wanted to work with young Catholic writers in this new chapter for the program. "We want to help students turn their religious study writing into the TV audiovisual form and with compassionate awareness toward TV viewers who are often isolated and in need of encouragement." Says Deme.
Grade twelve student Danika Wo. rose to the challenge, writing for a multi- generational audience about the stresses of everyday student life and how her prayer life with Mary provides guidance for now and for the future.
Mr. Mark Huang, music teacher, was a guiding light behind all of the productions of this new round of CCAA participation in DTV. Mr. Huang produced the first round of Catholic hymns for DTV in 2017. For this new round, he put together a special choir of 27 Grades 11 and 12, male and female students, and together they produced five new hymns for the program, including the musically complex Tota Pulchra Es.
Grade 12 student Georgia F. performed a special version of Ave Maria for the opening piece of DevotionsTV for the coming years of broadcast.
The results of this six-month collaboration with CCAA will be televised over several years on DTV broadcasts on VTV, SLTV, and they are already available on www.redemptorist.TV (RTV), the online companion site to DTV.
