From our Mission Leader

First Nations Network Gathering

The key staff who support our First Nations students and our community celebrations and learning about First Nations gathered from across our ministries for our third Network meeting in August. This group was a key part of the consultative process in the Trustees’ development of their Statement on First Nations Peoples: Living Justice that was released last month, and we took time to reflect on how we could encourage authentic engagement with the Statement across our broader Kildare Ministries’ communities.

Our Network’s three primary goals are building relationships, creating cultural safety and ensuring our school students have the opportunity to explore, learn about and value the history, culture and understanding of First Nations Peoples. We are concerned by the dominating discourse in the media that projects our Australian society as a binary reality of “us” and “them”. This kind of perspective dangerously closes our society’s collective imagination off from wonder and curiosity about anyone who is different to ourselves. This leaves us as a society of individual pockets, locked into their own rigid view of the world, with no openings or pathways towards open, respectful dialogue. None of us grow or flourish, and we all lose by remaining ignorant of all that we don’t yet know.

Australia has such a short history since colonisation, but this land has a much longer history – 250 times longer than the story that most of our country have been taught.

The Elders of this land have been patiently waiting and continuously inviting us to learn about them and Country all this time, and our First Nations Network of Kildare Ministries asks that we all listen deeply to each other - First Nations or not - and to approach the story of Australia’s Indigenous people with courage, wonder and hope. We want to educate our First Nations students from a strengths-based approach, encouraging them to lean into their strengths, cultivating pride and confidence in their own learning journey.

The Elders – both our First Nations Elders and our Kildare Ministries Trustees - are asking us to see the beauty, strengths and realities of the First Peoples of this land with respect and an open-heart. May we all have the wonder and courage to prioritise this in our responses to the conversations we witness in every context, and celebrate the gift that First Nations Peoples are to our lives.

Kildare Ministries Ecology Alliance

Our Ecology Alliance gathered online recently to celebrate the wonder of Living Water, making the connection between the physical nourishment water offers us with the spiritual nourishment we gain by connecting to our local waterways. The official lyric video of Vika and Linda's recent song This Is How I Pray features beautiful photographs by Fiona Basile of people connecting with Port Phillip Bay. The was a beautiful introduction to Living Water as the theme of this years' Season of Creation, and wonderful way to start the Schools' Wetlands Challenge launched by Catholic Religious Australia. Communities are invited to establish a conscious relationship to their nearest wetland, be it a bay, a stream, or a polluted creek bed. We are encouraged to increase our community's awareness and appreciation of our local wetlands, explore and understand their role in our local ecology, and research what interventions could support its thriving.

The Wetlands Challenge has its own webpage where we can upload our progress and explore the work of other communities on the interactive map of Australia. We have already added Balnarring Beach as a place where our schools and Saltbush celebrate the wonder of beach sunrises and swimming, and Saltbush staff member Amy Campion will write about the regeneration work and impact on wildlife of the Merricks Creek and billabong that run through the land at Saltbush.

Brigidine Sisters continue celebrating 140 years in Victoria!

The Brigidine Sisters continued celebrating their 140 years in Victoria with a beautiful ritual and lunch at Kilbreda College Mentone in July. The organising committee of Brigidines met fortnightly since the beginning of year, to plan and prepare the telling of their story through a beautiful ritual. Four of the key symbols for the Brigidines were used to draw together the threads of connection from the time of Brigid through to today:

Brigid’s Lamp: the fire of hope and learning, the presence of Christ, the warmth of wisdom, healing and hospitality and the flame of peace that Brigid of Kildare set alight over 1500 years ago.

Oak Tree Leaves: the ancient land of Ireland and the young sapling that was the beginnings of the Brigidine ministry, in a time of great change for Ireland and the Catholic Church. Bishop Daniel Delany responded to the Catholic children and families who in the early 1800s were denied education, the right to practice their faith, and the capacity to earn a living to escape poverty. He saw the capacity of the young women around him, and empowered them by creating a formal religious congregation through which they could live their untamed passion for justice, faith-based education of the poor, and hospitality to all. The Oak Tree is also symbolic of the journey of each of those women, growing in their inner strength with each adaptation to changing circumstances, and together creating stable, life-giving communities to that welcomed all who came.

Brigid’s Cloak: the widening of the Brigidines’ horizons as they responded to needs that took them to the other side of the world. Arriving in Coonamble in 1883, and Echuca in 1886, these women exemplified Brigid’s courage not only by stretching their resources to start more and more schools, but also to look at how they lived and governed themselves. The Second Vatican Council called religious orders to respond to the needs of the changing world in ever more relevant and modern ways, and this included encouraging collaborative leadership with the laity. Videoed interviews with a range of Brigidine Sisters captured their moving personal stories of responding to such seismic change.

Brigid's Cross: hung in homes throughout Ireland to protect families, it symbolises care, peace and the dreaming of a world renewed with hope. The Brigidines spoke of their courageous and deliberate choice to pass on their ministries, with hope for their future, despite the anxiety that accompany uncertainty and change. The gentle weaving of the Brigidines' story of gentleness and kindness through the symbols was a prayerful weaving together of memory, friendship and faith.

The generous dedication of all Brigidines, past and present, was acknowledged and celebrated with gratitude, and the celebration left us all light with joy and gratitude.

The light of Brigid has shone in and through these women for over 140 years. We have been blessed to receive it through our relationships with you, and honour the responsibility and opportunity we have to share it with others as it lights our way now and into the future. Thank you for such a precious gift.

Learning to celebrate joy is one of the great practices of the spiritual life. It confirms our trust in God. It affirms the greatness of creation. It seals our dependence on God. It attests to the beauty of the present and asserts our confidence in the beauty of the future. It recognizes the mercy and love of God.

Joan Chittister

Jane Collopy

Mission Leader