Director of Mission News

“Catholic schools evangelise, that is to say, share the good news of Jesus Christ through personal and communal witness and word. It is hoped that this witness and word will lead each person in the Catholic school community to encounter and engage with Jesus and His message; becoming missionary disciples who live and proclaim the Gospel in all that we do and say.”

- Catholic Education, Diocese of Wagga Wagga

Mission Moments – iCare = Marian Cares

Recently in my homeroom a student entered in a little shy and quiet. When I asked her how she was, before I could get a response another student jumped in and shouted “you actually did it”. After a little questioning she let the whole homeroom know that she had just donated most of her long hair to charity. The whole homeroom gathered around her in celebration. This was Mission at Marian fully alive.

The opening statement has been extracted from our overview of the diocese missionary discipleship vision. It also states that we (Catholic schools) exist to ‘form and educate young people’, ‘to create the conditions for students to become fully alive’. Here at Marian we strive to share and echo this vision for staff and students.

The Mission work at MCC is about creating a kingdom of kindness and compassion built around the five values of service, care, faith, learning and stewardship. When these elements are clearly active in our community then we know that we are ‘fully alive’. This term we have had a chance to witness many encounters of our staff and students in our Catholic school community with Jesus and his message. I would like to highlight our recent encounters and mission moments in this weeks newsletter.

On our latest Spirituality Day for staff, a large display board was created that was covered in Mission Moments from this year. It featured the charity and generosity of our students contributing over $3300 to Project Compassion and supplying a full ute load of bottled water to the town of Louth who were in desperate need of water in term 1. Our students continued to identify and respond with action to community need by also raising money for the Marela family due to their tragic loss. The family then sent a beautiful letter of gratitude to the compassion and kindness of our students. Our Year 11’s continue to run the Legacy Assistance Program where they remove all of the bins out for collection every Tuesday for the ladies in the Legacy Care homes, they too sent a letter of thanks this term!

Marian students are using these moments to create a difference in the community, with the community. We know this because the community is now telling us with every chance they get! We are blessed and clearly witnessing the qualities of a holistic Catholic Education growing in our students through the guidance and examples of kind hearted Marian staff/community.

Our latest charitable initiative this term has been no different. Term 2 has been dedicated to bringing awareness to the issue of local homelessness and poverty. Our Community Action team guided by our Pastoral Officer, Sue Hone, carefully selects over 20 separate items from towels to toothbrushes that go into an iCARE kit. We have managed to make over 30 of these individual kits with an astonishing abundance of generosity in the last couple of days leaving us with boxes of soap, shampoo and other miscellaneous items that will also be donated to the cause.

The kindness does not stop there… students on Tuesday will place a note of love in each kit to the anonymous recipient with a river stone as a symbol of building new foundations in life. These stones were also handed to our staff as a reminder of the foundations of kindness, care and faith we lay every day in our communities on our Spirituality Day. The bags were purchased by students from the local Cotton On (run by ex students) with all proceeds going to a charity in Uganda. More details on this magnificent initiative can be found on Sue’s page in this newsletter and I encourage you to read it for the finer details.

We are extremely proud of our Marian family in times like this and we would like to thank every student and member of the community who has made this generosity possible so far. Thank you to the staff and families like Donut King and Cotton On. Thank you to the parents who have sent their child to school with a ‘gift’ for someone in need. Thank you for what you have encouraged us to do next…we are Marian and we truly do care.

Holy Today – Staff Spirituality Day

On Friday the 7th of June we held our 2019 Staff Spirituality Day. The program was run by the Marist Faith formation team and it was called Holy Today. It consisted of three sessions that ask us to “grow in awareness of the life in and around us” (Water from the Rock, 68), to live more fully, “not to settle for a bland and mediocre existence” (Pope Francis, Gaudete Et Exsultate).

We were invited to get in touch with our inner selves to be able to discover a God of love who is revealed in the ordinary events of our lives. Explore key skills that cultivate awareness and attentiveness to the presence of God in everyday life and also draw on expressions of contemporary art and music to share moments of the divine with others, especially young people. The day finished with a mass outside in front of our statue of Mary with the whole staff. It was a beautiful experience and many thanks to Elizabeth Falconer and Mark O’Farrell from the Marist Team. We look forward to next year.

Celebrating Marcellin Feast Day

On Thursday the 6th of June MCC celebrated the feast day of Marcellin Champagnat. We recognised this day by conducting a handball competition hosted by the Marcellin house leaders. We congratulate the winners of each division who received a gift voucher at the Griffith City Cinema complex;

Junior Winner: Samuel Foggiato

Intermediate Winner: Kelemte Maiava

Senior Winner: Juan Allanic

NAIDOC Poster Competition

NAIDOC day is fast approaching. Details of our Annual poster competition can be found below. Remember to hand in your designs to Mr Neville or the front office in order to be proudly displayed on the day.

Community Service Legally Blonde - The Musical

A big congratulations to all the staff and students involved in the community musical: Legally Blonde. A shout out to the volunteers behind the scenes who did a fantastic job and represented their school extremely well. Well done everyone it was a great show!

That concludes this weeks newsletter. Once again I remind you “We must strive to do ordinary things extraordinarily well”

Have a great weekend.

Heath Neville

Director of Mission