Co-Curricular

Unqualified 

This week at St Patrick’s was marked by celebration, grief, and hope.

We honoured the achievements of our rugby, football, and tennis students – along with the care and commitment of their staff and coaches – at their awards evenings. Later in the week, those same boys gathered in playing kits one final time for their season photos. Our First XI Football then faced the First XV Rugby in the annual Oz-Tag match, before many of them experienced their last day of classes and their final Friday Mass.

On Saturday, our Athletics Squad competed in their last invitational carnival in preparation for yesterday’s ISA Championship at Sydney Olympic Park, which brought the 2024/25 sport year to a close. On Sunday, our Senior Social Sciences team represented the College at the Tournament of Minds finals at UNSW and rallied around a teammate in need.

Yet alongside these milestones, our community carried some burdens. A number of staff, students, and families mourned the loss of loved ones. The timing of these losses was poignant, coinciding with R U OK? Day, when SPC Old Boy John Brogden addressed our College Assembly with courage and vulnerability. Our Principal, Dr Vittoria Lavorato, also shared a moving reflection on the power of reaching out – even through the smallest of gestures.

I learned from my wife that our daughters’ GP assistant – someone my eldest was particularly fond of – had been killed in a road accident, leaving behind two children of similar age to ours. News also came from the United States, where a young political activist and social commentator was shot and killed on a university campus in Utah. It was disheartening to see that in some media responses, compassion for him and his family was clouded by politics.

During afternoon Bus Duty, I asked some of our Year 11 Leaders if many of their year group knew of the victim. One boy replied, “I think we all did, sir.” He then spoke with genuine concern for the victim’s very young daughter, who had reportedly heard the gunshot and immediately reacted in fear by looking for her daddy. 

In a small moment, a young St Patrick’s College man reminded me that compassion needs no qualification.

It is so important to communicate and engage – to encounter the other in their opinions, perspectives, and humanity. In today’s digital age of misinformation (and worse, disinformation), it is all too easy to dehumanise one another. 

The experiences offered at St Patrick’s – through sport, music, performing arts, and service activities – are vital in helping our boys see each other in new light. They discover the diversity of perspective, courage, passion, and talent that exists beyond the classroom and playground, and learn that we share far more in common than we might first assume.

As we enter the final days of term, I wish the St Patrick’s College community every blessing as we farewell our Year 12s with pride and gratitude. May we remember in hope that God’s love for us is unqualified - without reservation or limitation; total.

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Galatians 3:12-13)

Adam Watson

Director of Co-Curricular