From the Headmaster

Dear Members of the Marist College Ashgrove Family,

It almost seems impossible to think that in the two weeks since the last newsletter that it has hardly stopped raining!!  Our Australian climate certainly can be quite confounding!  Again, as I did in the last newsletter, we pay tribute to the State Emergency Service Workers volunteers who constantly respond to Jesus challenge of ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Luke 6:31.

On December 9 a huge volcanic eruption on White Island (Whakaari) in the Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand resulted in a death toll of twenty-one.  Victim Lisa Dallow woke from a two-month coma to the news that her husband Gavin and fifteen-year-old daughter Zoe had not survived the eruption that inflicted burns to 60% of her body.

An article in The Melbourne Age newspaper on December 16 struck a chord.  The efforts of rescue and recovery teams was extraordinary.  Reporter Rob Harris and Ellen O’Dwyer reported the NZ SAS ‘waded through boiling, knee-deep acidic sludge … underneath three layers of special garments, their bodies drenched in sweat, gas masks fogging up, claustrophobic heat attacking their resolve …”.

They certainly went beyond ... their understanding of the situation and not wanting to leave bodies on the island, they pushed themselves beyond their limits in order to help the families who had lost loved ones.  They were willing to sacrifice their own health and safety because they wanted to help others.

It’s this sense of selflessness that we should emulate.  Doing good for others, like the widow who, by putting in two very small copper coins to the temple treasury had put in everything … all she had to live on. (Mark 12:41-44).

Let’s all practise doing all we can for others in the coming weeks.

Yours in Jesus, Mary and St Marcellin,

Peter McLoughlin

Headmaster