R.E. News
ANZAC Day
Last Friday, the students in Year 6, acknowledged ANZAC Day with a respectful and prayerful liturgy. The students brought forward symbols to commemorate ANZAC Day - a wreath of poppies, rosemary for remembrance, the Australian flag and a hat worn by Australian soldiers. They concluded the liturgy with the ANZAC prayer: Today we pray for all who have died in wars. In a special way, we pray for the brave men and women from Australia and New Zealand, who died in Gallipoli many years ago. We pray for all men and women who travel far from their country, so that the world can be more peaceful. Amen.
Our Social Justice Student Leaders have been selling ANZAC badges, for the cost of 20 cent each, on behalf of Werribee RSL, as a fund-raiser to support Defence families in need.
Term 2 Units of Work
This term, we will be exploring the Bible and the books and stories of the Old and New Testaments during Religious Education sessions:
Foundation / Year 1: Stories of God’s People
Year 2: Signs of God’s Love: Exodus Story
Year 3/4: The Bible - Old Testament; The Word of God - Parables - New Testament
Year 5 and Year 6: My Story - Old Testament Sacred Stories
The Christian Bible has two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the original Hebrew Bible, the sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith, written at different times between about 1200 and 165 BC. The New Testament books were written by Christians in the first century AD.
Catholic Identity / Prayer and Meditation Survey
This year, we are participating in a Prayer Collective “Encountering the Sacred” with three other HTCEC schools in our Parish. The overall aim of the collective is: To develop strategies and deepen understanding of prayer so that we can present meaningful prayer (and meditation) that brings in and links to interfaith aspects while maintaining our Catholic identity. We are asking the families in our community to complete a quick survey to assist us with collecting data for our school. Please use the below link to access the survey:
Family St Martin de Porres Five Minute Prayer Survey
Thanking you on behalf of our school Prayer Collective. If you have any questions about this survey, please contact Lauren, Louise or Marg.
Sacrament of Eucharist
We will be celebrating the Sacrament of Eucharist (First Eucharist for YR 4 and 5) on Sunday 2nd May at the 10:00 am Parish Mass in St Martin de Porres Church. We ask you to pray for our students who will be receiving the Eucharist for the first time, and pray for their families and teachers who have supported them and helped them prepare for this important Sacrament.
Mother’s Day
Mother's Day is a celebration honouring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the months of March or May. On Mother’s Day, let us pray for all our mothers. Let us remember that we have a Mother in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary. May the Mother given to us by Jesus on the cross be ever at our side!
Prayer for Mothers
Loving God, we thank you for the love of the mothers you have given us, whose love is so precious that it can never be measured,
whose patience seems to have no end.
Help all mothers to raise their children to be
the people they are born to be.
Thank you for mothers who gave birth to us, and women who have treated us
as their own children.
We ask you to bless them with
your own special love.
God of mothers, who created mothers,
who came as a child and had a mother,
hear our prayer, Amen.
May 13th Our Lady of Fatima
The feast of Our Lady of Fatima is celebrated on May 13th. Our Lady of Fatima is the Church’s title for Mary due to her apparitions to three shepherd children, Lucia Santos, and her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. The apparition is believed to have appeared at the town of Fatima in Portugal, on the thirteenth day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13. Mary told the children to say the Rosary every day to bring peace to the world and the end of war. This is why Our Lady of Fatima is also called Our Lady of the Rosary. She also requested us to pray the following prayer at the end of each mystery or decade of the Rosary: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen.”
Margaret Cronin
Religious Education Leader