RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Last Friday we celebrated Catholic Education Week with a very special Mass led by
Fr Micheal. Students and staff from Sacred Heart, St Mary’s, St Brendan’s and Trinity College came together with this year’s theme:
“May the Words you Speak always be full of Grace” (Col 4:6).
This week we celebrate National Reconciliation Week, a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements. Last year Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann spent the day with us at Sacred Heart. Yesterday she had a meeting with the Pope- From Colac to Vatican City!
The Australian Embassy to the Holy See is proud to feature Aboriginal art to promote the 50th Anniversary of Australia-Holy See diplomatic relations (1973-2023). God with us down on the Daly was painted by Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann, who is an Aboriginal elder from the Nauiyu community on the Daly River. She is an artist and educator whose life’s focus has been helping young Indigenous people ‘walk in two worlds’. Dr Ungunmerr Baumann was the first fully qualified Aboriginal teacher in Australia’s Northern Territory and was the founder of the Miriam Rose Foundation, a charity advancing educational outcomes in Indigenous communities, as well as Merrepen Arts, an internationally known arts centre. In 1998, Dr Ungunmerr Baumann was appointed as Member of the Order of Australia for her services to Aboriginal education and art, and to the Nauiyu community, and further recognised as 2021 Senior Australian of the Year. The image, like much of Dr Ungunmerr Baumann’s body of work, blends Aboriginal elements with faith traditions. It incorporates symbols of openness and encounter (for example, a hand reaching out to groups of peoples of diverse make-up and colour) as well as symbols of exchange and fusion. |
Julie Leonard - Religious Education Leader & Wellbeing Leader