Living with Strength and Kindliness
What a joy to gather last Friday with our Year 7 Mothers and celebrate everything that is treasured in our St Joseph’s community with a morning of love, connection, creativity and fun. It is with much anticipation we look forward to other opportunities to gather as a community in the coming term.
This week is Laudato Si Week. Laudato Si 'Our Common Home' is an encyclical written by Pope Francis in 2015. It urges us all to take action and care for the planet. This annual celebration has become a way for Catholics to unite and rejoice in the progress made in bringing Laudato Si’ to life and to commit ourselves to further prayer and action for our common home.
This year, with the theme of 'Listening and Journeying Together' Catholics on six continents will work on 'bringing the human family together to protect our common home' ( #13), which is the guiding Laudato Si’ quote for the weeklong celebration.
For our St Joseph’s community, our staff and students will engage in reflections and learning about what it means for us. Some of our Year 10 students have been engaging in learning about this church document and practical applications for this in their lives. Below are three examples of their beginning thoughts for this application.
“This relates to our common home ( earth) because it’s all of us sharing the same home. We should look after it and make sure our actions don’t impact others.”
“Care for the world and care for others.”
“We can show our gratitude for the world’s beauty by appreciating it and caring for it in our daily choices."
Next week we begin Reconciliation Week. We are blessed to be able to begin this week with a Social Justice immersive experience with some of our Kildare Ministry schools.
Students will gather in Echuca to explore the Barmah National Forest and listen to storytelling and reflections from some Aboriginal Elders. I look forward to sharing more about this experience in the coming weeks.
Lee Pethybridge
College Leader - Faith and Community