Mission
Project Compassion 2023 - For All Future Generations
This year, Caritas Australia’s Project Compassion theme is ‘For All Future Generations’. In Homegroups over the next few weeks, students will hear continue to hear inspiring stories from Nepal, Australia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, highlighting the importance of working hand in hand with communities around the world through the Project Compassion Appeal.
This Lent, we are encouraged to make simple lifestyle changes to allow us to donate small change, and thus enable greater acts of social and environmental justice. Our challenge is to respond as Mary did, with a yes, expressed with love and hope, now, and for all future generations.
Vinnies Easter Raffle supporting the Vinnies Family Fun Day
Each year, Mater Dei selects a local Vinnies initiative to support through our Easter Raffle. This year, the Vinnies Family Fun Day will be the recipient of our fundraising efforts. The Family Fun Day out will be held during the April School Holidays - 22 April 2023 and will showcase the huge impact Vinnies has in our local community.
It will be a wonderful opportunity to invite vulnerable families from different backgrounds, language groups and cultural backgrounds to come together with their children and share in a fun experience. These children, who may not attend parties or go on family holidays will be able to experience a petting zoo, pony rides, face painting, food and drink stands and a jumping castle. The Vinnies Family Fun Day provides a unique opportunity for us to support a local cause, close to our hearts.
As always, we need your support through donations of Easter eggs, baskets and gift bags to make this possible. One raffle ticket booklet per family has been distributed in Homegroups, with tickets to be sold for $1 each. Please return these to the College Office, as soon as they have been sold.
Please get behind this wonderful cause. Together at Mater Dei, we have the capacity to make a direct impact on the lives of vulnerable members of our community and extend this support to the global human family. Let’s take these steps to make our intentions a reality, this Lent.
The Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord - Saturday 25 March
With the Feast of the Annunciation on Saturday, Pope Francis points us to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as a model of prayer that has the capacity to transform our inner restlessness into openness to God's will.
"Mary accompanied Jesus' entire life in prayer, right up to His death and resurrection; and in the end, she continued and she accompanied the first steps of the nascent Church." (Pope Francis, 2020).
"Everything that happens around her ends up being reflected on in the depths of her heart … The Mother keeps everything and brings it to her dialogue with God," he said.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, “The Annunciation,” 1898
In this season of Lent, Pope Francis’ message of simplicity and openness allows us to be reinvigorated by prayer and experience a transformation of heart. "A simple prayer, but one in which we place ourselves in the Lord's hands, so that He might guide us. All of us can pray like this, almost without words," he said.
Calming restlessness and shaping our availability to God’s word is a powerful message for us to consider in the haste of our life and work.
God of goodness,
God of surprises,
Send angels of inspiration
to guide and enlighten as you did Mary.
Awaken us again to our true calling, our true mission:
to walk with you on the paths laid out for us.
Teach us to listen for you in every corner of our
lives and to await your messengers in the most
unexpected situations and conditions.
We ask this prayer in the name of Your Son,
Jesus Christ.
Amen
Pope Francis said that the Virgin Mary's prayer at the Annunciation, in particular, exemplified prayer "with a heart open to God's will." Doing God’s will is not always easy. We usually have our own plans for our lives, however, an openness to God’s will in leading and guiding us can provide us with reassurance and great sense of purpose. Let us follow the example of Mary and call upon her to help us open our hearts to say “yes” to God!
Mrs Amelia Bright | Acting Leader of Mission