Education in Faith

Time for a Feast 

We understand a Feast Day  as a special day that is set aside in our Catholic Church to commemorate or celebrate a special event, or figures within our church. 

Next week we look forward to celebrating our Feast of St Anthony and reflecting on our namesake. 

It is a busy time of the year in our church calendar, as we celebrated an important feast last week and will celebrate another one this week. 

Thursday the 29th of May marked this years Feast of the Ascension. Coming from the Latin word ascendere, which means to climb or rise. The ascension celebrates Jesus return to Heaven, 40 days after his resurrection at Easter. 

It is an important date to celebrate the life of Jesus, but also the implications of his return to heaven. Our students reflected on the elements of Stewardship in this story. This recognises that all things are a Gift from God, and as humans it is our responsibility to care for these gifts!  

Our students reflected on how Jesus might deliver this message, but also what it means for our everyday lives. We have a responsibility to care for our planet, care for all of the animals on it and importantly care for each other!

Some wonderful art work on this was hung up in our church and represented the reflection and learning taking place across all of our classes. 

This Sunday, the 8th of June, marks the Feast of Pentecost. 

This story picks up soon after the Ascension. Without their leader, and feeling nervous and concerned for their own wellbeing, the disciples gathered in a room to pray. They heard a mighty wind outside, before they suddenly spotted licks of flame above each others heads. 

The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit., empowering them to perform miracles much like Jesus. In this case, it was the ability to communicate in different languages they could not speak before. Given this power, they quickly rushed to the street to find anyone who would listen! 

Our students loved reflecting on the end of this story. We know the disciples did not rush out to discuss the weather, the football scores or what they were planning to have for dinner!  We understand that they were given this miraculous power to teach and inform others all about the wonderful life of Jesus. 

Again all of our classes across the school worked on this important story this week. Students unpacked important symbols from the story, as well as hypothesised how the disciples might exactly share about Jesus. Please see some examples below, our students have even used their computers to translate their messages into different languages!

We look forward to more learning and celebrating for our feast next week! 

A Time to Reconcile 

Last week we celebrated our first Sacrament for the Year, with Year Three students celebrating their First Reconciliation. 

This was a wonderful intimate evening, and students were very well prepared to take part! They were supported by their families who modelled reflective and thoughtful behaviour. Again the name of this sacrament stems back from Latin, the word reconciliāre which means to come back together. 

We believe that when we make poor choices, we actually turn away from God. We don't mean small mistakes, we mean the times we know how to act, but don't do so. Students read some prayers that help explain this at the ceremony: 

For the times I have made choices only thinking of myself. 

For the times I have been impatient, quick to anger and took out my frustration on others. 

For the times I have been dishonest to those I love, the Lord and even towards myself.

For the times I have been asked to do something, and instead do what serves myself. 

For the times I have not done enough to help encourage and support everyone around me.

Through Reconciliation we believe we return to God. We reflect on these times when we could have been better, apologise sincerely, and strive to do better in the future. We know we will act poorly again, we are only human! 

However, God is always ready to listen and more importantly forgive. 

Our Year Three students did a wonderful job with this entire process! May they inspire us to be better at saying sorry when it is needed, but also working towards forgiving those who upset or hurt us. 

We sincerely congratulate our entire Year Three cohort for taking place in this wonderful learning! Well done to parents who again were just the most wonderful supports and guides for our students as well! 

Thank you as always for reading! May you all have a blessed long weekend. 

Take care

Tim O'Mahoney

Education in Faith Leader

tomahoney@santglen.catholic.edu