Mission and Identity
- Feast of Mary MacKillop
- Year 10 Formation Day
- Year 10 RE - The Story of the Church
Feast of Mary MacKillop
Ever generous God,
You inspired Saint Mary MacKillop
to live her life with faith and courage.
May we follow her example of kindness,
seeing a need and doing something about it.
Help us to act with compassion and hope
in our families and our community.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Mary of the Cross MacKillop… pray for us.
Mary MacKillop (1842–1909) is celebrated as Australia’s first saint who was a woman of courage, compassion and deep faith. Born in Melbourne to Scottish parents, Mary grew up in a family that often struggled financially, which helped form her lifelong commitment to those doing it tough.
In 1866, alongside Fr Julian Tenison Woods, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a religious order dedicated to educating and supporting children and families in rural and poor communities. Mary travelled extensively across Australia, opening schools, visiting families, and encouraging her sisters to live simply and serve generously.
Despite difficulty throughout her life, she remained steadfast, forgiving and hopeful. In 2010, Mary MacKillop was canonised in Rome, becoming Australia’s first recognised saint. Her belief that every person deserves dignity, opportunity and love is something that we could all strive for this week as we remember her.
Year 10 Formation Day
Last Friday, Year 10 travelled to Oxford Falls for our Formation Day. The day was centred around the theme of hope and how we can apply it to our lives. We heard from guest speaker Matt Caruana, who became a paraplegic after attempting to take his own life at the age of 16. He shared with us his inspiring journey of how he turned his life around from that moment, becoming a Paralympian in Para Climbing, a mental health advocate and speaker and a world record holder. Following Matt’s presentation, we heard from Ms Scanlon about the importance of hope and split into groups to create and share our personal representations of hope on a canvas. To round out the day, we reflected on everything we had learnt from Matt, Ms Scanlon and each other in prayer with Mr Balboa, completing an inspiring day which taught us all the value of hope in our lives.
by James Hocking - Year 10 student
Year 10 RE - The Story of the Church
Year 10 have been working on a unit called 'The Story of the Church', which includes exploring the four eras of the Catholic Church in Australia. Year 10RE3 completed a collaborative group activity that ended up covering the whole wall of the classroom in a timeline of key events. The collaborative skills and mixing of individual abilities was an impressive sight and the boys deserve full credit as every student contributed to the class product.
Mrs Gabrielle Scanlon - Assistant Principal, Mission and Identity