Mission News

Prayers

We pray for people in our community who are struggling with ill health and those who have died recently. May God welcome those who have passed into eternity and be with those who remain who are grieving. 

Community Mass 

Community Mass will be held on Wednesday morning at 8:00am and Friday at 1st break. All are welcome!

Gospel and Reflection

Excerpt from Mark’s Gospel from 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, 'There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.

At this time of the year, we celebrate achievements and milestones and reflect on transitions, endings and new beginnings. Students are readying for the journey into the next year of school. Our Year 12s are facing the world beyond school… Life is calling them. This week, our Year 6s have spent time reflecting on their primary years and on the journey to secondary school.

For millennia, humans have practiced ways of culturally initiating boys and girls for adult life in their community. These rites of passage bring young people into privileged, even sacred experiences of knowledge, responsibility and leadership.  

As adults responsible for shaping and supporting young people through education, we work to ensure that the ground is well prepared, that positive behaviours are fostered, and that gifts and potential are given the opportunity to thrive and grow. We walk alongside for a time, but it is their journey. 

Sunday’s Gospel invited us to consider the young man who is well down the path on his own spiritual journey. He is following the Torah yet is experiencing a kind of spiritual emptiness and has come to Jesus for answers about inheriting eternal life. The young man walks away devastated because he can’t yet bring himself to do what Jesus says is needed - to let go of all that he’s attached to ... His commitment to his faith is outweighed by his commitment to his wealth.  

The earliest followers of Jesus were followers of “the Way”. It’s a reminder that Christianity is less an identity than a road followed. And pilgrims need to pack light. This calls for simplicity. It is this spirituality of simplicity that is at the heart of our own Marist way.  

We pray for the grace and wisdom to choose simplicity and to 'travel light’. 

+ Loving God  

We pray that your spirit of wisdom will flow into our lives

And into the lives of our young people

May we have the courage to let go in order to gain

a deeper experience of life

and the peace of your presence  

May we strive

To let go of our attachment to possessions

By living with simplicity and integrity

To let go of our need for status and approval

By living with gratitude and humility

To let go of jealousy and envy

By living with wonder at other people’s gifts

To let go of the regret of who we are not

By living with joy of who we are

We ask you, Loving God, to show us the way. 

Amen. 

Mary our good mother                          pray for us

St Marcellin Champagnat                    pray for us

St Mary of the Cross MacKillop          pray for us

And may we always remember          to pray for one another

+ 

Paddington Community Centre

Last week a group of Year 7 Ephrem students visited the Paddington Community Centre to socialise and play games with the elderly patrons. A game of boules was in full swing when we arrived, and our boys soon joined in. The students enjoyed sitting down for a chat with the seniors, one of whom had recently turned 100! The Paddington Community Centre visits have been a wonderful way for our boys to connect with older folk.

eWaste Permanent Collection and Drive

Report by Luke Garvey, Year 10

Last weekend, we hosted an e-waste drive and had an outstanding turnout from the wider Ashgrove community. This is part of a larger effort of the Environment Group to tackle e-waste both in the school and in our local community. 

My name is Luke Garvey, and together with James Dee, and Joel Dargusch, am a part of the Lord Mayor's Young Environmental Leader's Network (LMYELN). We chose e-waste as our environmental issue which consists of electronic waste like headphones, chargers, laptops, computer mice, batteries etc. In a student survey, we discovered that 57% of students didn’t know what e-waste was and 51% of students didn’t know of somewhere where they could properly recycle their electronic waste. We will survey again and are hopeful that we have changed these statistics for the better.

Our project began with the addition of a permanent e-waste bin in the science centre. We spread awareness through various means such as: posters, flyers, newsletters, and an assembly segment.

At the Assembly, James and Joel spoke about the hazards of e-waste and how it is a pressing environmental issue. Some of these hazards include when e-waste is incorrectly disposed of harmful chemicals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium are released into the environment. These are damaging to human health and the Earth’s ecosystems, resulting in e-waste being a pressing issue that we need to combat. What’s more, when properly recycled, the elements of e-waste can be reused and help to reduce the number of resources our planet produces. In fact, did you know that if laid flat, the discarded phones from 2022 alone could cover an area larger than 600 football fields? 

Later, we had the House Sports Captains compete in the ‘Great E-Waste Race’ where they had to run a piece of e-waste to the new, permanent e-waste bin to the Science Centre Foyer, and run back again to high-five Bumbles. We had cameras set up to stream the race back into Assembly, making it our most successful Assembly yet (there was a memorable incident with a fish tank wherein no fish were harmed). 

Our community e-waste drive at the McMahon Oval was a tremendous success. We quickly filled the two 1100ltr CleanAway bins and ended up filling the 12-seater bus to take the rest to the Ferny Grove refuge centre. In the end, we received 10 TVs, 19 monitors, 14 hard drives, 6 printers, and a vast assortment of cables and electronic accessories. All of which would have otherwise been sitting around as clutter or entered landfill. This is nothing but some of the first steps to making Marist a more sustainable place. We now have plans to make the community e-waste drive an annual event. 

FareShare

Last Tuesday, we took our 2025 Mission Leaders along to a FareShare shift. It was a great bonding experience for them and a reminder of another great initiative that the College is involved in. In total they packaged up 1300 meals which will be sent out across Australia to people most in need.   

If you are over 16 and would like to volunteer for FareShare on the 12th of November, please email Ms Kathryn Badini at badinik@marash.qld.edu.au. We will continue going to FareShare three times a term next year as well.

Stationery Aid

We welcome volunteers to come along to help at Stationery Aid this Friday 18 October at 7:30am in Room 801. 

Stationery Aid headquarters is in need of extra shed storage space. If you have storage space available, please contact the Mission office.

To find out more, visit: https://stationeryaid.org/.

St Vincent de Paul 

The Vinnies group meet this Wednesday Break 1 in Room 801.

There will be no Thursday breakfast BBQ this week. Back next week!