Deputy Head of College News

Water & Rocks

Water, rocks, tables. We had them all. These simple physical and literal items pathed the way to powerful encounters to these items as powerful and ever-relevant metaphors which are at the heart of our Catholic and Marist traditions.

How would you describe the heart of Christianity? How about the heart of the Marist tradition? In answering these we bring our own understandings, some facts and some figures. Most significantly, we bring our experiences.

Our science and geography lessons teach us the cycles of water and rocks - water evaporates, condenses, falls from the sky, trickles downstream from a source into a body of water which sustains an array of life. Rocks form through the conditions under which they exists as minerals - weathering, heat, pressure, cooling. Plenty of facts to digest, recall and share.

Our human experience can use water and rock to tell human truths. Rocks and water commonly feature in truth telling stories, parables and rituals. Rocks can feature to affirm the importance of our existence being grounded in something solid, unwavering and sustaining. You a likely to be the 'rock' for another! Water can feature as a symbol of life, cleansing and calming. Our Marist traditions brings the water and rock together to share a powerful metaphor of how we are called to be with one another. We are water from the rock.

My Easter holiday was spent with 24 Marist staff from across the country, alongside four Marist Brothers, on the other side of our world. We shared three weeks together connected with and physically retracing the footsteps of St Paul, St Marcellin and the Marist Brothers. Not only was it an experience which I am most grateful for, it was an experience which enable the heart of our Christian and Marist traditions to be discovered and rediscovered.

Our experience of baptismal renewal in the very stream of the very first Christian baptism of a woman by St Paul in Ancient Philippi, was not only unexpected (I must read itineraries a little more closely!), it was profound. We didn’t need the small amphitheatre downstream with the purpose built steps. We just had the flow of the stream and the gentle slope of the bank.

A moment of silence and reflection under a tree amongst the ancient ruins of Ancient Corinth was special. This was the place where Paul was persecuted and put to trial. A place of courage and conviction.

Mass around St Marcellin's table at La Valla was a galvanising moment for our group. We gathered around the very table Marcellin built, shared meals, conversations and wisdom, in the very place of the first of Marcellin's schools. A school in the adjoined buildings continues today.

Then there was the Gier. The stream that flows down the Gier Valley, from the mountain hamlet of  La Valla to the Hermitage, the place Marcellin and his followers built from the rock of the cliff face in which it has resided for 200 years. For now two centuries it has been the place of learning, training and forming countless Marist Brothers and lay Marists from across the world. It was just this for the 28 of us. The Gier stream gave literal and physical representation of the Marist metaphor - Water from the Rock.

Water. Rock. For me, these now bring on a new meaning. Water from the Rock is our Marist way of joining together as water does into a stream, going out into our world as 'people who bring love to life, seeking to heal, to educate, and to accompany people to discover fullness of life.' (excerpt from our Hermitage Pledge to one another)