Mission and Identity

Mother's Day Mass

‘A mother loves like a candle - a candle extinguishes itself in order to give light to those around it. A mother’s love is all consuming and sacrificial to its core’.       

On Wednesday we celebrated the vocation of motherhood with over 1,200 mothers, grandmothers, sons and grandsons through our Eucharistic celebration and Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser.

We thank God for the women whose faith, gentle strength, resilience, adaptability and constancy form the bedrock of our upbringing.

We thank God for those women who hold us and feed us, who care for us and kiss away our pain. We pray that our lives may reflect the love they show us, and that they are pleased to be called our mums.

The McDonald Gym was filled to capacity with our Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser. We are deeply grateful to all our generous supporters who assisted us in surpassing our fundraising goal with over $4,000 raised. This has helped provide the equivalent of 2,631 children with a SunSmart education or 56 calls to cancer professionals or 35 days of a PhD student’s research.

We wish all who walk the vocation of motherhood a beautiful day this Sunday. May your love and care be returned tenfold.

Founder’s Week

This week the College has focused on unpacking the narrative of our founder Blessed Edmund Rice and his legacy. 

The essence of his legacy was coined beautifully by our CEO, Mrs Maura Manning, when referring to the way in which he served the marginalised, she affirmed that he maintained the ‘smell of the sheep’. He was serving alongside them with deep solidarity and authenticity. A faith that knew sacrifice.

Part of this week is assisting our parents to familiarise themselves with his story.

The Feast of Blessed Edmund Rice is held on 5 May.  Edmund Rice was an Irish businessman who was so moved by the plight of children in the port city of Waterford where he worked, that he founded schools and eventually a religious order to serve them and to liberate them from poverty through quality Catholic education. 

Edmund was born in 1762 in Callan, Ireland. As a young man, he moved to Waterford and began to work for his uncle in the shipping business. He became quite wealthy, and when his uncle died, he took over as head of the company.

Edmund encountered personal suffering through the death of his beloved wife. In this tragedy he experienced pain, grief and heartache. The joyous, secure and comfortable world he had once known was now visibly shaken. In his words, he described feeling as if half of his own soul was gone. He was left feeling alone, dislocated and vulnerable. In the wake of this event Edmund searched for new meaning.

Prayerful reflection and daily Eucharist supported him in this time of uncertainty. But above all, it was his baby daughter, growing and developing, that awakened him to new possibilities for expressing love, tenderness and care. Perhaps, it was this experience, born out of crisis, that opened his eyes and heart to see beauty and possibility in the faces of those who were so often forgotten and ignored by the community around him. It certainly offered him a new perspective from which to act! 

But like most of us, Edmund needed an internal nudge from God to get him to take that final step into action. When sharing his thoughts about potentially leaving Waterford to join a secluded Monastery, a valued friend led him to the window, threw back the curtains and, pointing to the streets of boys living in poverty below, declared 'Can you see, Mr Rice – there is your Monastery in the streets.' From that moment, Edmund’s view from his window, motivated his work to bring hope to the lives of those young boys.

We need to pause and put this into perspective. During the ‘Great Hunger’ in Ireland, one in every two people left Ireland to avoid starvation and death. That means that 4.2 million people fled Ireland during the 1800’s.

For these young boys in Waterford, living in poverty meant no education. No education meant no work. No work meant no food or shelter. If you were lucky enough to survive to have a family of your own, it meant your children would be imprisoned in the cycle of poverty. Their minds went unnourished. Their faith went unnurtured. Their lives disappeared into the shadows.

Edmund took the conversation as a sign from God. He read his Bible daily and heard the repeated call from Jesus through the Gospels to feed his sheep. 

He realised that he needed to feed not only their stomachs, but their minds were hungry for an education and their hearts were hungry for a nourishing faith. 

To answer this call, in 1802 at the age of 40,  he used his personal funds to transform a disused stable into his first small school, moving the following year to the monastery and school he built at Mount Sion in Waterford.  His dream of liberating them from poverty through education and faith development had begun!

At Mt Sion children would be fed, clothed, and educated while also being trained in how to bake bread, make clothes and to develop a deep relationship with God.

He realised the need to collaborate to achieve his dream of alleviating mass poverty, and so founded the Presentation Brothers as well as the Christian Brothers. Religious orders of men dedicated to education. By 1825, Edmund and his 30 Christian Brothers were providing free education, clothing, and food to about 5,500 boys in 12 different towns.

He died in 1844, and was beatified in 1996 by Pope John Paul II, who called him 'an outstanding model of a true lay apostle.'

Since 1802, when the first school began in Waterford, Ireland, Edmund Rice education has grown in over 20 countries. Across the world, over 170,000 students are educated to build a better world for all.

In Australia, there are 55 Catholic Schools in the Edmund Rice Tradition, teaching 41,000 students by 4,500 staff across 16 Dioceses.

We look forward to sharing with you our Founder’s Day celebrations in our next Woodchatta issue.

Conclave

As we join with our global Catholic community and wait in prayerful anticipation for the election of a new Pope, we thank the Benedictine Sisters at Jamberoo Abbey for this prayer as Conclave begins.

As the Cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel for the Conclave, we pray for an outpouring of the Spirit on all their deliberations and discernment...

God of resurrection light,

we pray for the Cardinals

as they gather to elect a new Pope,

that they may be open to the Spirit

and filled with wisdom and courage.

May the Shepherd they choose

be a builder of bridges,

a witness to the dignity of all people,

a steward of the precious gift of the earth,

who will lead all your people

to bring to life your love and justice.

Pope Francis, pray for them...pray for us.

Amen.

Mr Daniel Petrie - Assistant Principal, Mission and Identity