Religious Education News

Mr Andrew May

The Gospel reading for the Tuesday of the third week of Lent recounts a conversation between the Disciple Peter and Jesus. During the conversation, Peter asks Jesus how many times a person should be forgiven. Should he forgive his brother as many as seven times for an offence? Jesus’s response is confrontational. Peter should not forgive his brother seven times, but seventy-seven times. In choosing this number, Jesus was making the point that forgiveness is not something that has a limited lifetime, rather it is something that is ongoing and should have no limits.

During the season of Lent, we ask for forgiveness for the things that we’ve done that we’re not proud of, and we are called upon to grant forgiveness to those who have offended or hurt us in some way. This is not an easy thing to do at times, but through prayer and with the help of others, we strive to become the sort of people who can forgive.

This week we came together as a school community to celebrate a family evening. Our College community is a family, and like all large families, sometimes we have our differences. More often than not, our similarities outweigh the differences, but it is the differences that can sometimes dominate our lives. Like Peter, we need to learn to forgive, not just seven times, but always. Through forgiveness we are able to move forward with our lives and not let our grievances dominate us.

One of the great things about being an REC is being given the opportunity to help our students demonstrate their wonderful community spirit. Last week Deacon Paul Manvell spoke to a room full of Year 10 students about the opportunity to become Assistant Catechists, helping members of our Cathedral Parish community teach scripture in State schools. So far over 20 students have put their hands up to help out which is an amazing demonstration of their desire to give something back to our community. The program will commence in Term 2, with notes to go home to parents in the near future.

We will continue fundraising for Project Compassion this term, with some great ideas for fun activities coming from our student leaders. It is a great demonstration of their desire to build our school community, following the teaching of our school motto, “the fruit of the Spirit is love”.

Mr Andrew May

Religious Education Coordinator

Our Founders - St Angela Merici and St John Baptiste De La Salle

Saints Mary and Joseph Cathedral Parish

Keeping in touch with what is happening in the Cathedral Parish is easy through their website and Facebook pages.

With such a difficult year and a half it has been harder for parishioner's to give to the parish through the plates, particularly when the church is closed as it is at present. The Parish account details are available on the Parish bulletin.