Third Week of Lent
Lam is 27 years old from a small village in rural Vietnam who faced significant challenges due to his short stature. Growing up, Lam often felt isolated due to limited job opportunities and difficulty moving around his community. While his friends started jobs after high school, Lam stayed home with his parents, unsure if he could ever achieve his dream of becoming a graphic designer.
Everything changed when Lam joined the I-SHINE program, supported by Caritas Australia. Through this initiative, Lam completed a six-month course developing his graphic design skills. Along the way, he built confidence, made friends and gained a sense of connection.
Today, Lam runs a successful freelance graphic design business from home, serving clients worldwide and earning a steady income. Lam hopes his story will encourage other young people with disabilities to overcome obstacles and pursue their dreams.
Lam’s journey shows how your support of Project Compassion empowers individuals to break barriers and transform their lives.
Watch Lam’s story here
Will you walk alongside people like Lam this Lent?
Please donate today. You can support Project Compassion 2025 through the donation boxes in our classrooms or front office or by scanning the QR code above. Or online at: caritas.org.au/project-compassion
Thank you for standing with us, as we Unite Against Poverty this Lent.
CARITAS Australia
Don't forget our Water Walk will take place on Thursday April 3. Students are invited to wear casual clothes and bring a gold coin donation. We will be walking, carrying buckets of water, to show solidarity and support people in Africa, Asia and the Pacific who walk long distances to collect clean water every day. Our walk, and every dollar we raise, will create lasting change and help empower people to lift themselves out of poverty.
A water droplet template has been sent home with the eldest child in each of our families. You are invited to decorate the droplet with your family name and return it to school with a $5 donation. The droplets will be used to create a Water Wall display at school. Please note, this activity is totally optional. If you would like to donate towards another water droplet, these will be available in the classrooms. Thank you to those families who have already decorated and donated!
This Sunday's Gospel - Fourth Sunday of Lent
Luke 15:1-3. 11-32
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke
Your brother here was dead and has come to life.
The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to them:
‘A man had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
‘When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So he left the place and went back to his father.
‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. “Your brother has come” replied the servant “and your father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got him back safe and sound.” He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father, “Look, all these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property – he and his women – you kill the calf we had been fattening.”
‘The father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it is only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.”’
A beginning point for discussion of this week's Gospel with children:
Who has seen real pigs? What are they like?
The boy who left home and spent all his money ended up looking after pigs and wishing he could eat as well as they ate. How sad must he have been?
How did his father show he loved his son when he returned home?
When we return to God because we are sorry how does God treat us?
Julie Cornwall
Deputy Principal | Catholic Identity Leader
