Director of Identity 

A Spirituality of Justice and Peace

“Starting from our roots, let us sit around the common table, a place of conversation and of shared hopes. In this way our differences, which could seem like a banner or a wall, can become a bridge. Identity and dialogue are not enemies. Our own cultural identity is strengthened and enriched as a result of dialogue with others” 

Papa Franceso, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon) 

Last Friday June 10 the Junior school and Senior school staff of St Virgil’s College, joined with the staff of the St Francis Flexible Learning Centre to participate in our Staff Spirituality Day. The purpose of this day was to deepen our understanding of what it means to be Gospel people, and to engage in the charism of our founder Blessed Edmund Rice, a man of compassion, service and faith. Our day was structured around the EREA Framework for Justice and Peace, Head, Heart Hands and Feet.

Palawa staff member Jamie Graham Blair welcomed us to Country and Brother Peter Flint cfc led us in our Opening Prayer. We then moved into the critical and reflective practice of the Head: Reading the Signs of the Times and were led by the director of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, Mr Phil Glendenning. Phil challenged us to hear and respond to the voices of First Nations people, refugees and asylum seekers and our friends in the Pacific seeking Climate justice. Afterwards we nurtured our Gospel Spirituality with our Hearts as we celebrated a Mass of Justice and Peace with Fr Richard Ross and at lunchtime we shared an Afghani Feast, catered for us by Zafira Fine Foods. 

In the afternoon we were involved in different experiences of service and solidarity, enabling us to really engage with the lives of those who have been made marginalised. We worked with our Hands, Undertaking Prophetic Actions as we moved into smaller groups, some remaining on site at the school caring for Country, making soup for St Vincent DePaul’s Louis Van and learning about refugee rights with the Tassie Nannas and Afghani staff from Zafira Fine Foods.

 Others of us went out into the wider community working with organisations such as Friends of Wellington Park Bushcare, Hobart City Mission, Hobart Salvation Army and others visited our friends at the St Francis Flexible Learning Centre. 

Finally, we used our Feet, in Moving to Solidarity by making the time to be courageous and quiet, talking quietly with each other in deep thought, reflecting upon all we had heard and been witness to throughout the day. We focused on the words in the Gospel of St Mathew,

 ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  

I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Matthew 25:35-36 

and considered the meaning of these words in our own personal and spiritual lives.