Liturgy

Community Mass

Thank you to the wonderful group of Year 9 students, as well as Chapel Choir, who prepared Community Mass this morning. Next Friday the liturgy will be prepared by Student Leaders in Year 12 and we welcome all Year 12 students and families to participate by your presence. 

During Lent our Friday Masses will have the Scriptures that will be read in the Sunday liturgies. All students and families are welcome – just come to the Chapel at 8:00am on a Friday morning. The Chapel Bell sounds across the College a few minutes earlier as a reminder.

Students go to their homeroom when Mass ends at 8:30am, while family and friends are welcome to the adjacent Circle of Friends café – whether for a quick espresso before rushing off or for a chance to linger and talk over a latte.

Community Mass details:

• College Chapel
• Fridays in term time
• Starts: 8:00am and concludes 8:30am.

Lent at Home

There have been many conversations in classroom and in the yard this week where students have shared what they are planning to do for Lent. Many families make a commitment to Project Compassion; some families participate more regularly in the Eucharist, some commit to a particular behaviour, and of course, many families decide to ‘give up’ something.

For families who are looking for new ideas for their Lenten journey, the free ‘Family Lent Calendar 2023’, from Evangelisation Brisbane, has some fun, diverse and creative ideas for each day of Lent, for individuals and for the whole family. 

Do you have a child in Year 3, 4 or 6?

It is a special year for these students as they look forward to celebrating the sacraments in their parish with their family. 

It is the parent’s right and responsibility to enrol their child in a parish sacrament program, and you are encouraged to get this done at the earliest. It is worth noting that even children preparing for sacraments in a Catholic school still need to be enrolled in the parish if they intend to participate.

Please be mindful that, due to numbers, some parishes (eg Saint Thomas, Claremont) will not be able to accept enrolments from families living outside the parish geographical boundary. Parish sacrament programs may vary, but usually include a workshop and commitment Mass as well as attending the rehearsal.

Please see the College website for enrolment information received from City Beach, Claremont, Doubleview and Subiaco parishes.

The sacrament program is family-focused, parish-based, Catholic school-supported. This means that parents are respected as first educators in the faith of their children and celebrate the sacraments in their parish with their children. 

The family is supported by the College Religious Education program. In Year 3, students are taught the content for First Reconciliation; in year 4, the content for First Holy Communion and in Year 6, the content for Confirmation. 

If you would like further information about the Sacrament Program please contact:

• Your parish priest or Sacrament Coordinator
• The Archdiocesan website;
• Mary-Anne Lumley mary-anne.lumley@cew.edu.au   08 9383 0513

Good News for Ash Wednesday & Lent 

Ash Wednesday is not a stand-alone day. It is part of a process.  It marks the beginning of Lent, which in turn prepares for the central Christian remembrance of Jesus’ death and rising from the dead at Easter. Belief in Jesus who died and rose for our salvation lies at the heart of Christian faith. It also takes us into the depth of our human life – our hope in a blessed life, its testing by rejection, isolation and painful death, and our hope vindicated by Jesus’ rising from death. To enter into these depths demands serious reflection. 

Ash Wednesday is the gateway, suitably solemn, to the forty reflective days of Lent which culminate in the exuberant celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. The colour of church drapings and vestments changes to a sombre purple. Ash Wednesday also introduces a time of fasting and abstaining from animal foods. Fasting is common in many religions, usually associated with a serious focus on what matters most deeply in life. It is also associated with an awareness of sin and the desire to change one’s way of life. Ash Wednesday highlights these things. It takes its name from the practice of marking our foreheads with ashes.

The symbolic actions of fasting, of spending forty days in prayer, and of putting on ashes, echo central stories in Scripture. They recall the forty days that Jesus spent fasting and praying in the desert as he prepared for his life’s mission. For the first readers of the Gospels, too, this story would also call to mind the forty years that the People of Israel passed wandering in the desert as they awaited their entry to the Promised land, and the forty days that Moses spent in prayer and fasting as he asked God to pardon the people for their rejection of God by worshiping a golden calf. 

Ash Wednesday is a Christian celebration. But it speaks also to the situation and anxieties of all human beings. The ashes evoke the violent bushfires associated with climate change, and confront us with the certainty that they will be more destructive and occur more regularly unless we address the causes of climate change. 

Ashes are also a symbol of the seasonal regeneration that follows burning. After bushfires tree trunks remain black and leave marks on us if we brush against them. Green shoots, however, gradually emerge from ashes and sprout from blackened tree branches. In the forest death yields to life. That, of course, is also the whole point of Lent. Its ashes do not have the last word. Life continues, regenerates, and spreads from the ashes. In the Christian story the ash of bare and sinful humanity reflects the love that leads God to share the ashes of our life, the humiliation of dying naked on a cross, and to rise green from the ashes. The ashes of Lent look forward to the green and spreading vine of Easter by which in Christ we are received into the happiness of the kingdom of God.

© Andrew Hamilton

This reflection for Ash Wednesday is from Father Andrew Hamilton SJ. Father Andy is a Jesuit, a theologian, a writer and, among his many other roles, the Media Officer for Jesuit Social Services.