Mission and Identity
- Founder's Week
- Unity through the rhythm of the heart
- Mother's Day Mass
- Biggest Morning Tea Fundraiser
Founder's Week
This week we commenced Founder’s Week to celebrate our identity and our mission as a Catholic School in the Edmund Rice tradition. Founder’s Week celebrates where we have come from in order to know where we are going. It celebrates our collective ‘why’. We draw our ‘why’ from Jesus, and how Blessed Edmund Rice responded to Jesus’s call to transform the world through love of God, neighbour and self. As we gather to celebrate our ‘why’, we acknowledge that that land on which we gather is sacred.
May 5th is the Feast of Blessed Edmund Rice, an Irish businessman who was so moved by the plight of children in the port city where he worked, he founded schools and eventually a religious order to serve them and to liberate them from poverty through quality Catholic education.
Edmund was born in 1762 in Callan, Ireland. As a young man, he moved to Waterford and began to work for his uncle in the shipping business. He became quite wealthy, and when his uncle died, he took over as head of the company.
He married the love of his life and celebrated her pregnancy. Tragically, she passed away during childbirth.
While his daughter survived, he entered a period of deep pain and grief. Through daily prayer and the Eucharist, he began to see a path to healing and began to feel the call of God to a new path. Edmund began to contemplate the next direction he should take in life. He thought about leaving everything behind and joining a monastery. However, one day, as he was talking about his vocation and his future with a friend, a ragged group of poor boys walked by on the street. Inspired by the sight, his friend exclaimed: "What! Would you bury yourself in a cell on the continent rather than devote your wealth and your life to the spiritual and material interest of these poor youths?”
Edmund took the conversation as a sign from God. He took on the mission of improving the lives of poor children through education. He used his personal funds to found his first school in Waterford, Ireland in 1802 with the intention of liberating them from poverty through education and faith development.
Selling his business, he immersed himself fully in this mission, built Mt Zion, a school and monastery where children would be fed, clothed, educated while also being trained in how to bake bread, make clothes to develop a deep relationship with God.
He realised the need to collaborate to achieve his dream of alleviating mass poverty, and so founded the Presentations Brothers as well as the Christian Brothers. Religious orders of men dedicated to education. By 1825, Edmund and his 30 Christian Brothers were providing free education, clothing, and food to about 5,500 boys in 12 different towns.
He died in 1844, and was beatified in 1996 by Pope John Paul II, who called him “an outstanding model of a true lay apostle.” Since 1802, when the first school began in Waterford, Ireland, Edmund Rice education has grown in over 20 countries. Across the world, over 170,000 students are educated to build a better world for all.
In Australia, there are 55 Catholic Schools in the Edmund Rice Tradition, teaching 41,000 students by 4,500 staff across 16 Dioceses
Unity through the rhythm of the heart - African Drumming Workshops
Our College candle reminds us of the flame of faith that burned brightly in the heart of Blessed Edmund. That flame that burned with a desire to witness the face of Christ in the poor, the voiceless and the forgotten. A flame that flickered to a rhythm - a rhythm of unity - a rhythm that is drummed by the beating heart of every living soul. A heart rhythm that beats to remind us that all who are in need or suffering, are our brothers and sisters.
The Founder’s Week ‘Unity in the rhythm of the Heart African Drumming Workshops’ aimed to assist us to identify our common humanity, and move towards identifying a shared responsibility for our brothers and sisters suffering beyond our borders.
As students and staff drummed and learned the power of a unifying rhythm under the expertise of our facilitators from Rhythm Culture, we connected musically and spiritually with our brothers and sisters in Kenya, the volunteers at the Ruben Centre in the Muruku slums, and the Edmund Rice Foundation Australia.
Mother’s Day Mass
On Wednesday we gathered at the Christian Brothers Centre at the Oxford Falls Campus to honour and remember all dedicated to the vocation of motherhood and to give thanks for them. We gathered in gratitude that God chose to give us life through our mothers, and that our mothers received the gift of life from God’s hands and gave it to us. Our celebration honoured their sacrificial love and all they do that is unseen and unthanked, for they are sculptors of the next generation.
Over 800 mothers and sons gathered with aunts and nephews along with grandmothers and grandsons. The Mother's Day Mass and Cancer Council's Biggest Morning Tea was celebrated by Fr Joey who shared in his beautiful homily that the grace of motherhood, that most precious and divine gifts was given to women, not men. That the feminine was the doorway in which the incarnation enters the world through Jesus being born to the Virgin Mary. That motherhood and womanhood is proof of God’s love in the world.
The atmosphere was filled with love, gratitude, and reflection, as students and families gathered to celebrate the remarkable women in their lives. Through poignant prayers, heartfelt music, and touching tributes, the mass beautifully captured the essence of maternal love and appreciation. It was a touching reminder of the profound impact that mothers and caregivers have on shaping individuals and communities.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the College Music, Audio, Maintenance, Support, Canteen and Mission Teams.
St Pius X Mother’s Day Biggest Morning Tea Fundraiser
Thank you sincerely to our most generous community who have once again rallied behind a worthy cause. Thanks to the continued generosity we have exceeded our goal with $4,425 raised towards cancer research. Please read below a message we have received from Associate Professor Raelene Endersby, Cancer Researcher:
“I'm Associate Professor Raelene Endersby, a cancer researcher working to develop better and more gentle treatments for children with brain cancer.
Researchers like me depend on the fundraising efforts of Australia's Biggest Morning Tea hosts like you, so thank you for everything you’re doing!
Right now, our team is on the brink of a significant breakthrough for the treatment of medulloblastoma – the most common type of brain cancer in children.
Improving treatments for childhood cancer are so important, as current treatments can be extremely harsh on young bodies, and they are absolutely heartbreaking for parents too.
With support from Cancer Council, we’re investigating a new treatment using two experimental cancer drugs combined with low-dose radiation.
This innovative approach aims to minimise the devastating side effects young cancer patients endure from high-dose radiotherapy. In lab trials, one of the drugs has proven to kill more cancer cells than radiation alone. The other is an immunotherapy drug, which has also proven to be exceptionally promising in early trials.
Morning teas like yours help make important research like mine possible, which ultimately means better and less harsh treatment for childhood cancers like medulloblastoma.
Every cup of tea poured, every donation received, brings us one step closer to a breakthrough.
If our lab work confirms the effectiveness of these drugs, we will move swiftly to clinical trials. It would mark the first new treatment development for brain cancer in three decades.
Thank you for standing with us through your morning tea to help make breakthroughs in cancer research and treatments possible. We’re so thankful for you!"
We wish all who offer maternal love to those in the care a most joyous and love filled Mother’s Day this weekend.
Every blessing for this special time,
Mr Daniel Petrie - Assistant Principal, Mission and Identity