Religious Education News

St Paul wrote to the people of Galatia (in modern day central Turkey) that The Fruit of the Spirit is Love. These words to the early Church are the motto that was chosen for our school fifty years ago, when O’Connor Catholic High School (now O’Connor Catholic College) was founded. They are as relevant today as they were when the school was founded, and almost two thousand years ago when St Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians.

Our Catholic faith is central to everything that we do at O’Connor. In addition to our timetabled Religious Education lessons in Years 7 - 10, and our Religious Studies subjects for Years 11 and 12, students are given many opportunities to participate in our faith. We are fortunate to have a beautiful chapel on our school grounds, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year. This enables us to celebrate regular yeargroup and whole school Masses every term. Our Wednesday morning Masses are open to all members of our Parish community, not just students and staff. If you wish to come along and join in with us for our Masses, you are more than welcome! So far this year we have held a welcoming liturgy for our Year 7 students as well as our whole school opening Mass, and this week our Year 9 students participated in Mass with Fr Anthony.

We are very lucky to have our own branch of St Vincent de Paul at our school. This is a student led group which works closely with Vinnies in Armidale to support a number of appeals including our Winter and Christmas appeals. These appeals have been run for decades now and have helped to raise thousands of dollars for the needy in our local community. 

Our Year 10 students have the opportunity to serve as Assistant Catechists in terms 2 and 3, supporting the work of parish members teaching scripture to primary students in Armidale state schools. Information about this will be passed onto Year 10 and their parents in the near future. Moving on from this, many of our Year 10 students then choose to continue to serve as Lasallian Youth Leaders in Year 11. The LYL Formation day was held this week, with 19 enthusiastic and committed young leaders coming together to learn more about themselves and their faith, and how they can help shape the future of our school. 

Every member of our school community proves the worth of St Paul’s words all those years ago, that The Fruit of the Spirit is Love. As we move into our Golden Jubilee, we are reminded that this year is also a Jubilee Year for the Church as a whole, joining in with the wider Church community as ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. 

Mr Andrew May

Religious Education Coordinator

Our Founders - St Angela Merici and St John Baptiste De La Salle

Saints Mary and Joseph Cathedral Parish

Keeping in touch with what is happening in the Cathedral Parish is easy through their website and Facebook pages.

With such a difficult year and a half it has been harder for parishioner's to give to the parish through the plates, particularly when the church is closed as it is at present. The Parish account details are available on the Parish bulletin. 

Cathedral Parish Website

Information about our founders

La Salle Website

Ursuline Sisters Website