Living with Strength and Kindliness

Catholic Education Week

This week, in the Sandhurst Diocese, we celebrate Catholic Education Week. For us at St Joseph’s College, this means we are invited to reflect and celebrate who we are as a Catholic Learning Community in the Brigidine Tradition. This week we also mark the Feast Day of St Joseph who Pope Francis described as a father who worked hard to support his family.   

In 2021 Pope Francis offered this prayer to St Joseph:

St Joseph you who always trusted God, 

And made your choices guided by his providence, teach us not to count so much on our own plans but on His plan of love. 

You who came from the peripheries help us to convert our gaze and to prefer what the world discards and marginalises. 

Comfort those who feel alone and support those who work to support human dignity. Amen

On Monday night I was privileged to be part of the Year 7 Information Evening, which showcased the educational journey that members of our community partake in.  What an amazing journey our community is on! This year as we embrace our Kildare Ministry core value of Courage, we are challenged to bravely step forward, and let the little things be stepping stones for growth. In my reading I found this extract that I now share with you from Jim Quillan about the gift of a shared journey towards growth.

“One of the great journeys of life, if not the greatest, is discovering that each one of us has been entrusted with a unique and beautiful story – and it is still unfolding. No one else has been entrusted with that story – it is uniquely mine. We come to discover that God is at work in that journey. We come to discover over time that each one of us is unique, each one of us is individually gifted, each one of us is individually called to be what God wants us to be, to use the gifts which God has uniquely endowed each one of us."

(Jim Quillinan, Along the Track, October 5 2022.) 

Lee Pethybridge

College Leader - Faith and Community