Catholic Identity & Mission News

On Thursday, February 12, the College celebrated the beginning of the 2026 school year with an Opening School Mass on each campus. These were wonderful celebrations which witnessed to the Eucharist being the source and summit of our Catholic life. Presided by Fr Antony Rebelo at Cranbourne and Fr James Fernandez at Clyde North, our masses also featured the official launch of our annual theme, ‘Let all that you do be done in love’, welcome and blessings of new students and staff, and presentations of House prayer card bookmarks to our Year 7’s and other new members of our College community. Our campus liturgy teams, featuring our Liturgy Captain, altar servers and mass helpers, did a fantastic job in preparing for these masses, and they went off very smoothly. It is always wonderful to see everyone involved in the mass when they reverently process forward to either receive the Eucharist, or a blessing, at communion time. We are so grateful for our multi-cultural and multi-faith community and the engagement and participation in these masses reinforced the work of the Spirit in our College.

With Lent, the period of penance and preparation leading to Easter, commencing so early this year, we moved on quickly from the Opening School Masses to the launch of Caritas’ annual Project Compassion campaign on Shrove Tuesday, February 17. A contingent of 14 of us travelled to St Mary’s Cathedral at Sale to join other Diocese of Sale schools, clergy and Bishop Greg Bennet in launching this vital fundraising program. The Project Compassion campaign advocates for those in need both in Australia and around the world and raises much needed money for them. At St Peter’s, our Social Justice teams will now go into overdrive (!) to ensure that our College community supports the work of Caritas as much as we are able. I’ll continue to provide updates in this newsletter but hope that we will continue to respond with generosity because it really does make a difference. During this week, I heard from the Cranbourne Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies) about how our Term 4, 2025 Christmas donations of food, toys and money, aided them in assisting 116 families at Christmas and provide over 1300 toys to children in need. This is something that all members of our College community can be proud of and inspired by – long may it continue!

With Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, February 18, our community participated in liturgies during an extended tutor group to start the day. I have enjoyed hearing about how people are marking their Lenten journeys - some are fasting, some are paying fines to Project Compassion each time they swear, others are giving up social media or fast food. Our Ash Wednesday Liturgy invited participants to not only give up things though, it invited them to ‘feast’ on things that make a positive difference. Written by the Enhancing Catholic Identity Project Team in Belgium (and offered to schools to use), I conclude with the ‘Fast and Feast’ reflection here in the hope that we can all take some inspiration, and perhaps direction, from it this Lent:

Fast from worry about things beyond your control.

Feast on trust in yourself, in others, in the possibility of goodness.

Fast from the constant noise of social media.

Feast on real conversations, the ones where you actually listen.

Fast from irritation when things don't go your way.

Feast on patience with others, and with yourself.

Fast from giving up when challenges arise.

Feast on perseverance, trying again, differently.

Fast from pessimism, expecting the worst.

Feast on optimism, looking for what's possible.

Fast from always putting yourself first.

Feast on generosity, noticing who needs what you can offer.