Ministry Coordinator's News
Welcome back to Term 4. Please continue to keep our Year 12 students in your prayers as they navigate their examinations. This term, we start our preparation for the coming of Jesus through the Advent Season and Christmas.
Restore us, O Lord, we pray,
bring us back to that place
where we once met,
as shepherds to the stable
after hearing angels sing.
Bring us back to that place
when our love was fresh,
not embarrassed
to express itself in praise
to our heavenly King.
Restore us, O Lord, we pray.
Student Leaders Retreat
Years 8, 9 and 10 will be taking time this term to reflect on how they have grown throughout the year, and we look forward to hearing from them later in the term.
Our newly elected student leaders will attend The Annual Diocesan Bishop’s Secondary Student Leadership Retreat, where they will interact with fellow student leaders from diocesan secondary schools.
They will engage in activities and discussion such as:
• personal faith and leadership development
• an in-depth exploration of servant leadership, focusing on its principles and practical applications
• celebration of the Eucharist with student leaders and their principals, followed by a formal dinner
• networking, friendship, peer learning, and collaboration with other student leaders from around the Diocese
• exploring Catholic Social Teachings and the See, Judge & Act model, including immersion visits to local Diocesan Catholic Social Justice Agencies
A Prayer for Peace
We were invited to join with Catholic communities Australia-wide to Pray for Peace on Monday 7 October. It is still important to pray for peace and remember those who are caught up in conflict.
Loving Father,
Our community prays for peace in our time. We pray for those who suffer at the hands of those who bring war and violence, longing for the day when, as Isaiah prays:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the panther lie down with the kid, calf, lion and fat-stock beast together, with a little boy to lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like the ox. The infant will play over the den of the adder; the baby will put his hand into the viper's lair. No hurt, no harm will be done on all your holy mountains’. (11:6-9)
We hold before you, Lord, the innocent victims of violence: the men, women and children whose homes are lost, whose security is abandoned, whose futures are uncertain and whose homelands are torn and destroyed in times of war.
We stand, Lord, with the peoples of the birthplace of your Son, our Saviour, and pray for the softening of hardened hearts, the forgiveness of wrongs, and an end to vengeful acts so that all peoples may live in peace, together.
We pray for human dignity lost to war, the blindness that fails to see the human face in an enemy, and the common createdness of each one in your image, Father.
We pray for those whose lives are cut short in times of war.
We pray for peace and an end to war.
May your healing and peaceful breath, Lord, rest in places of conflict so that your world may know only peace, the peace your Son came to bring.
We make this prayer, Amen.
Vincent Cooper
Ministry Coordinator