Living with strength and kindliness

Yesterday we joined together as a community to mark the beginning of Lent with our Ash Wednesday Liturgy. Along with considering the start of the reflective season, we marked the 5th anniversary of Kildare Ministries and our senior school leaders initiated our Project Compassion Mission for 2019 with a challenge to ‘Give 100% for Lent.’ This Lent we are inviting our community to stand in solidarity and reflect upon how we can make a difference to the most vulnerable among us.

Through their community Works, Kildare Ministries regularly meets the most vulnerable people in our community.  In solidarity with those who are poor we commit to serving the needs of those whose daily lives are a struggle, as well as addressing the systemic cause of injustice robbing people of their inherent dignity.

In 2018 the book ‘No Friend but the Mountains’ by Behrouz Boochani was released. Behrouz is a Kurdish refugee who has been detained in an Australian immigration centre on Manus Island for six years.  As a writer Behrouz has been committed to sharing his story with the world beyond the walls of his confinement.  Unbelievably, he wrote this book via whatsapp and text messages, sent to a translator and compiled into a very moving story.  Renowned author Richard Flanagan has described it thus:

                “… the one thing that his jailers could not destroy in Behrouz Boochani was his belief in words:   their beauty, their necessity, their possibility, their liberating power…   This book is a profound               victory for a young poet who showed us all how much words can still matter.”

In January 2019, Behrouz was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Literature and Non-Fiction.  We are fortunate to have his acceptance speech, sharing what this prize means for him, and indeed for us.

The fifth anniversary of Kildare Ministries falls in the Year of Hospitality, a value central to our mission to ‘build inclusive communities’.  This past week we have been reflecting on those within our communities who feel excluded, who feel trapped in isolation leading to despair.  There are moments when all of us can feel isolated by loneliness, grief, fear or anxiety.  And there are many people in our world rendered isolated by unjust structures which rob them of their dignity.  It can feel hopeless, and yet Behrouz Boochani offers an inspiring story of hope found within great tragedy.  In his refusal to allow his jailers to rob him of his greatest gift he has pointed the way to freedom – a freedom that encourages us all to use our minds, our imaginations, our intellects and our voices to shape a world where indeed all people are valued, where all creation is recognised as sacred and where hope, justice and courage are our hallmarks.  A world where people flourish.  A world where all are welcome to the table, for the fullness of who they are. 

As a part of the Kildare Ministries community, the college is joining with the other nine school communities and three community works to take action and send a message about the mental health of people indefinitely detained in Australian immigration detention centres which has deteriorated to a critical level.  Kildare Ministries calls on the Australian Government for an immediate response to this humanitarian crisis. Together our numbers are significant and your signature will make a difference

You can sign this petition online here.

God bless all our families,

Renee.