Catholic Identity & Mission News
St. Thomas the Apostle Parish Mass
Last Sunday I had the privilege of attending the final St. Thomas the Apostle parish mass to be held in our Lyons building on the Clyde North campus. It was a moving celebration (I did shed a tear or two!) as the 12-year journey towards a Parish and Parish church in Clyde North entered a new chapter. As a College community, we are very fortunate to enjoy excellent relationships with our local parishes, St. Agatha’s and St. Thomas the Apostle. ‘Our’ Parish Priests, Fr Joseph Abutu and Fr Denis O’Bryan are extremely generous in their support of the College, especially in our liturgical celebrations.
Romero House Feast Day
This week we celebrated our Romero House Feast Day and as is fitting for a Catholic school, we offered mass in thanksgiving for the life and legacy of St. Oscar Romero, the Romero House Patron. For our CLN Romero cohort, we were hoping we might have been a part of the first or second mass in the new St. Thomas’ church but unfortunately, it wasn’t quite ready in time so it was back to upstairs Lyons for that mass! But from now on, we’ll celebrate our Clyde North House masses with the parishioners of St Thomas’ in their beautiful new church.
At the Cranbourne campus, we moved the Romero mass to a period 4 timeslot as Fr Joseph, now the only priest in residence at St. Agatha’s, was unavailable in period 1 due to his commitment to the morning mass in his parish. Despite being incredibly busy, he was insistent that he could ‘make it work’ for us and ensure that we were able to celebrate the Eucharist together on this special day. It is important for us to take this time to remember and pray through the intercession of our patrons because they have demonstrated for us how the Good News of Jesus can be lived in our world. Sometimes I think we forget that like us, they were human beings too!
The Jesus Story and Catholic Tradition
In our own human experience, we often make meaning of the Jesus story in our own contexts - the situations we find ourselves in. We try to encourage this understanding and meaning-making at the College – it’s part of taking a ‘recontextualised’ approach to the Gospels. During this week, staff completed a Professional Learning session on just this topic. We looked at examples of recontextualisation so that we could better understand it ourselves. For instance, as we approach Easter, we read parts of the Gospel about the death of Jesus and considered those two great themes of human existence: love and suffering. Over 500 years ago, Michelangelo did the same and created his sculptural masterpiece, the ‘Pieta’ (which you’ll still find in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome).
Michelangelo Buonarroti
The Madonna della Pieta 1498-1499
He took the context of Jesus’ death and the grief of Jesus’ mother, Mary, and made this sculpture from his own perspective. Mary is young and strong; her shoulders are broad and she is sad and yet serene as she holds her dead child. It’s a devastating scene but incredibly beautiful.
This same scene has been recontextualised by others – brought into their own context, made relevant to their own experience too (do a Google search and you’ll see what I mean!). These expressions are free responses to the great story and themes of the death of Jesus. In a Catholic education, this is what we hope to achieve too – a free response to the Gospel where members of our St. Peter’s College community recontextualise the Jesus story and Catholic Tradition so that they are relevant and meaningful in their own lives. Art is just one of many ways this can be done but we hope that our staff, students and graduates, benefit from having the opportunity to engage in and discern just how the Jesus story and Catholic Tradition can inform their own lives today.
Fiona McKenna
Deputy Principal - Catholic Identity & Mission