Faith & Identity

The love of God has been poured into our hearts

through the Spirit of God dwelling within us, alleluia. (Cf Rom 5:5)

Pentecost Sunday marks the end of the Easter Season 

Last Sunday the Church celebrated Pentecost, one of the most important feast days of the year that concludes the Easter season and celebrates the beginning of the Church. Pentecost always occurs 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and ten days after his ascension into heaven. In the Christian tradition, Pentecost is the celebration of the person of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles, Mary, and the first followers of Jesus, who were gathered in the Upper Room.

The Holy Spirit gave the apostles the gifts and fruits necessary to fulfill the great commission – to go out and preach the Gospel to all nations. Pentecost fulfills the New Testament promise from Christ (Luke 24:46-49) that the Apostles would be “clothed with power” before they would be sent out to spread the Gospel. This is the Tradition from which a Catholic school in the Edmund Rice heritage draws is motivation and direction. 

Pentecost is considered the birthday of the Church – Peter, the first Pope, preaches for the first time and converts thousands of new believers. The apostles and believers, for the first time, were united by a common language, and a common zeal and purpose to go and preach the Gospel. Quite the inspiring vision for a Catholic school. (cf Everything you need to know about Pentecost – EWTN Great Britain 

Catholic Education Week 

Catholic Education Week 2026 invites our communities to reflect on the theme “Peace be with you all.” These are first words Jesus spoke to the disciples who were hidden away in fear in the upper room. These simple yet profound words are both a blessing and a call to the fullness of life. We are to be people of peace to all we meet. Our responsibility as a Catholic school is to be witnesses to God’s creative and healing peace and so bring hope, compassion, and understanding to our communities.

At St Patrick’s College, this celebration is enriched by reflecting on education as friendship. As part of this Catholic Education Week theme, we will be creating a whole school Tree of Friendship display. Every student is invited to write a brief response (1–3 sentences) on a paper leaf using one of the following prompts:

• Something I’ve learned because of a friend…

• A friend helped me grow by…

• I show friendship at school by…

All responses will be publicly displayed. This activity aims to highlight the role of friendship in learning, strengthen our faith connection, and create a shared visual representation of the bonds that unite the SPC community. Importantly, this is ultimately an invitation to reflect on the Trinitarian nature of God who, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (One God in Three Persons), offers love as his first gift, revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.(cf Catechism of the Catholic Church, 733). “Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1829).

Thanks also to Year 11 students, Paddy Casey, Charlie Geddes, Angus McNamara, and Sioeli Fangaloka who attended the annual Catholic Education Week Mass at the Sovereign Hill St Alipius Diggings School. It is quite an experience. Of special note this year is that Paddy Casey is a direct descendant of a student of the original St Alipius school who was attending classes at the time of the Eureka Rebellion. I am pleased to report that none of our students incited a rebellion on the day and represented our College in fine fashion! Thanks to Mrs Ebony Corden for travelling with the students. 

Edmund Rice Day

Edmund Rice Day is such a big day with so many moving parts. From our Mass led by Fr Eladio Lizada OSJ, through to the Walkathon and St Pat’s Has Talent, only through a community that comes together with everyone playing their part can such a moment live is transforming and creative potential. We are right to acknowledge all those whose presence contributed to the sense of community created on the day, with students making the defining and unique contribution. 

However, the level of student attendance is a concern, as it has been for our major community days for some time. Community is first grounded in shared experiences. The hope of our community being united through shared understanding and shared judgments is an illusion if we do not encounter each other in key moments of our College life. Without experiences, there is nothing to understand or judge. 

The gift of families who trust their son s to an SPC education, in all its many forms and opportunities, is the gift that creates the historical SPC community. Ultimately, an SPC education is not a commercial contract but a shared commitment to discover together the joy of this life, built on the trust that everything offered by the community is important in manifesting the gifts that flow from that shared commitment. Each young man at SPC possesses infinite dignity. The gift of your son’s presence cannot be measured by earthly scales. 

Pope Leo XIV

Our new Pope has been very busy. First, I invite all in our community to invest time reading the recent Apostolic Letter from Pope Leo: Drawing New Maps of Hope. In it you will find an inspiring vision of the good we do here at SPC. 

Educating is an act of hope and a passion that is renewed because it manifests the promise we see in the future of humanity. The specificity, depth and breadth of educational action is the work - as mysterious as it is real - of "making the being flourish [ ... ] is taking care of the soul", as we read in Plato's Apology of Socrates (30a-b). It is a "profession of promises": it promises time, confidence, skill; it promises justice and mercy, it promises the courage of the truth and the balm of consolation. Educating is a labour of love that is handed down from generation to generation, mending the torn fabric of relations and restoring the weight of promise to words: "Every [person] is capable of truth, yet the journey is much more bearable when one goes forward with the help of another" Truth is sought in community. (at 3.2) 

Secondly, on 26 May Pope Leo released his first Encyclical Letter, titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity). This Encyclical, which is a letter to all people in the world, has the explicit intention of “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.” It is not a short read. I invite all in our community to engage with such an important question for our world.