Faith and Mission

As a faith community, Lent invites us to pause, reflect and respond more intentionally to God’s call to prayer, almsgiving and action. Over the past week, our school community has lived this call in meaningful ways through Live Simply Day, our commitment to ethical choices in the lead‑up to Easter, and our Community Mass with a Procession of Palms.

This week we celebrated Live Simply Day, raising funds for Caritas Australia’s Project Compassion as part of our Lenten almsgiving. Live Simply Day is an opportunity for personal reflection and prayer, combined with learning and action, and encourages us to fast, give alms and pray.

Students and staff were invited to make small but intentional choices such as consuming less, taking shorter showers, walking or riding to school, limiting screen time, and enjoying a simple lunch. These actions remind us that living simply helps us refocus on what truly matters and opens our hearts to the needs of others. We thank our students and families for their generosity and support, knowing that the funds raised for Caritas Australia will make a real difference in the lives of people experiencing poverty and injustice.

In the lead‑up to Easter, our school is also promoting the Slavery Free Chocolate campaign, encouraging families to shop ethically and make informed choices. Easter is the busiest season for chocolate, yet many cocoa products are linked to child labour and unfair working conditions, where children are denied education and safe childhoods.

Choosing slavery‑free, ethical chocolate is a practical way to live out our school's call to seek justice. It reminds us that justice means caring about how our everyday choices affect others, standing in solidarity with children across the world, and choosing fairness over exploitation. Ethical choices also reflect care for creation, as many responsible producers prioritise sustainable farming practices.

Our Community Mass this week was held on Thursday, during which students and staff participated in a Procession of the Palms, enacting Palm Sunday, which will be celebrated this coming weekend. Through this procession, we remembered Jesus’ joyful entry into Jerusalem and the crowds who welcomed him, marking the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred time in the Church’s year.

Palm Sunday invites us to reflect on the contrast at the heart of Holy Week, between celebration and sacrifice, praise and suffering, and prepares us to journey with Christ through his Passion, death and Resurrection.

As we move into next week, Holy Week liturgies will be celebrated across both the Primary and Secondary schools, providing students with age‑appropriate opportunities to pray, reflect and engage more deeply with the events at the heart of our faith. Together, these celebrations help our community to walk with Christ in hope, compassion and love as we approach Easter.

Janeen Murphy

Deputy Principal Faith and Mission

Community Mass

Holy Week begins this Sunday – Palm Sunday. This morning our community prepared for the coming week by participating in a blessing and procession of palms as well as a narration of the Passion of Christ, according to Matthew. Thank you to Year 12 students Chapel Choir and Homeroom Leaders who participated today.

Jesuit, Father Richard Leonard, notes how the procession of Palm Sunday ‘starts with hysteria and ends in death’. See below for a slightly adapted version of Fr Richard’s homily for this Sunday.

Next Thursday evening, on ‘Holy Thursday’, parishes will celebrate the first part of a three-day liturgy, known as the ‘Triduum’, which concludes on Easter Sunday. Mass times for various parishes in Perth may be found at this link: - Parishes & Mass Times.

WEEK 9 COMMUNITY LITURGY

At the College, a shortened version of the Way of the Cross will take the place of Mass on Thursday, 2 April. This liturgy will take place in the Chapel at 8:00am and will be led by students and families, as well as Chapel Choir.

WEEK 10 LITURGY (first week of Term 2)

Friday, 24 April is the day that John XXIII College will be host to the Migrant Jubilee Cross.

The Cross is a gift to the Church by migrant communities and symbolises the Church as a place of refuge, welcome, integration and solidarity. Our liturgy will celebrate in tangible ways the faith, gifts, contributions and resilience that migrants have brought and continue to bring to the College, the Church and the wider community. Families will lead prayer and proclaim readings in their mother tongue, and all will be invited to pray the Lord’s Prayer in their own language.

After Mass, the Cross will be processed to the Library, where it will be on display for the day. All who can stay are welcome to morning tea in the Library.

Do not be afraid to ask if you have any questions regarding Community Mass. Contact: Mary-Anne Lumley: mary-anne.lumley@johnxxiii.edu.au

Sacraments

Do you have a child in Year 3, 4 or 6?

Families are encouraged to enrol their child in their parish without delay. Next week, many parishes will be closing their enrolments for 2026. The College website has links to sacrament program information from some of our local parishes.

Students will be preparing for the sacraments of Reconciliation in Year 3, First Holy Communion in Year 4 and Confirmation in Year 6.

Preparing for the sacraments is a three-way collaboration of family, parish and school. This means that parents exercise their right in choosing to enrol their child in the parish; the school provides the learning experiences to prepare the children, and the parish arranges the celebration of the sacrament. Parishes require that students be enrolled.

Parents often have questions about the Sacrament program, so please don’t hesitate to ask. Below are some useful points of contact:

The priest or sacrament coordinator in your local parish
John XXIII College website
The Archdiocesan website: Parishes & Mass Times
Mary-Anne Lumley: mary-anne.lumley@johnxxiii.edu.au or via phone on
08 9383 0513

Good News for Palm Sunday

The reflection is part of a longer homily by Jesuit, Richard Leonard.

The point of religious processions is not just to get us from one location to the next. It is also to mark a rite of passage. The Palm Sunday Procession recalls Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, but this procession is not meant to be an historical pageant. Like all liturgical moments it’s meant to intersect with our own lives and speak to our journey of faith. What makes this procession so powerful is that it starts with hysteria and ends in death. And that tells us something we need to hear.

The Gospel of Matthew shows how the crowd in Jerusalem receive Jesus like a pop star, shouting Hosanna, and acclaiming him as their own. By week’s end the Chief Priests and elders manipulate the crowd’s enthusiasm to force Pilate to execute Jesus. And throughout it all, during the adulation of the crowd, their change of allegiance to Barabbas and at his trial, Jesus hardly says a word. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus’ silence is deafening.

In the journey of faith we should always be on our guard against being part of a manipulated crowd. The unchecked enthusiasms of a crowd can carry us away to places, people or things we would not ordinarily choose and should not embrace. If we are vulnerable, a gifted guru through his or her version of eternal life can whip us up into a frenzy. We only have to look at the power of the media and advertising to see how susceptible we are to becoming a slave to fashionable ideologies, dress codes and what and who is in or out. Every time we buy something because someone else has it or because we convince ourselves that our wants are really our needs, the crowd has won. The story of Passion Sunday is that manipulation of a crowd, even by legitimate authorities, can be the beginning of spiritual death. Hype often distorts priorities, blurs good judgment and can choose expediency over integrity.

So what’s the remedy to being manipulated, to regaining a sense of what really matters, to standing up against the crowd for the values we know are right? Jesus shows us in Matthew’s Gospel. It starts with silence. It’s being contemplative in a manic world and praying for the courage to dissent from the crowd’s hyped-up madness.

As we process into Holy Week, this annual rite of passage for our faith, may we model our lives on Jesus in every way by creating the silence we need in our lives to sort out our priorities, by using silence powerfully in a world that loves words but has very little to say about our meaning and destiny and allowing our sacrificial love, even to the point of death, to do all the talking.