Compassion- St. Joseph's College

‘Incontro’ - Together

At the commencement of the 2022 school year  our Senior Student Leaders worked together to devise a theme that combined the value of compassion with the wisdom and good counsel of Pope Francis. Inspired by the words of Pope Francis, in his heartfelt Ted Talk, ‘Why the only future worth building includes everyone!’ these students were seeking a theme that would motivate the actions of all students actions that they might be more fully present to one another. The result of their work together was our theme: ‘Allow compassion to be the lens of your heart’, a theme intentionally set to have both an invitational and an imperative tone.

There have been many opportunities across the 2022 school year where our St Joseph’s College Community has been able to explore more fully the theme of ‘Compassion’. Here are some examples:

Through Liturgy

We had limited opportunity in the earlier parts of this year, due to ongoing Covid restrictions,  to engage in Masses and Liturgies. However, notably in our two major celebrations, “Opening School Liturgy’ and our ‘Foundation Day Mass’ we were able to break open two very important scripture passages taken from the New Testament. We chose A reading from The Letter of Paul to the Colossians (3:12 – 17) and the Parable of the Good Samaritan taken from the Gospel of Luke (Luke 10: 25 – 37) as our hallmark scripture readings.  On each occasion the students listened to these two readings students they were invited to find ways they could live out the value of compassion, in both word and deed, with the people they encounter in their everyday lives.

Through Professional Development

In March of this year our Staff were fortunate to hear from Dr Kevin Lawlor who led our staff through a formation experience with a focus on the Compassion of Mary. Mary plays a major role in the Catholic Tradition and we learnt that despite being referred to in very few scripture passages, we have been blessed with some very detailed examples of her compassion in the scripture stories that are available to us. Examples include, the care Mary showed to Elizabeth during the Visitation in the Gospel of Luke and Mary’s song based on the song of Hannah 1000 years before, which directly appeals to God to heal, redeem and liberate all people. Another clear examples is the wedding feast at Cana where Mary shows great concern for the hosts of the reception party,  the wine has run out Mary calls on Jesus to intervene to save the family from stigma and scandal that may have been associated with an inability to provide for the feast!

The key ‘take homes’ on the theme of compassion come from the words of Pope Paul the VI who tells us that Mary heard the words of God and acted on them, and, ‘that her charity and spirit of service were the driving force of her [compassionate] actions’.

Through good works

The theme for Refugee Week in 2022 was ‘Healing’. Notable to the service leadership exhibited by our Year 12 Student Leaders was the work undertaken to raise awareness of the perils of Human Trafficking including their financial support of ACRATH. The Year 12s were also instrumental in raising awareness during Refugee Week. Our Year 12 Leaders organised a Circle of Solidarity, where the whole Year 12 cohort gathered at the front of our College, stood in a circle together, and observed 8 mins and 24 silence for the 8.24 million refugees across the world.

Our Year 12 Student Leaders devised a campaign during  the week where they informed our community about the positive contributions made by refugees to Australian society. Their aim was to help people understand the many challenges faced by refugees and to focus on how we as a community can provide a safe and welcoming environment for them.

In addition to our awareness raising campaign the College also raised $1500. These funds were donated to the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project for the purchase of myki cards and phone cards for BASP clients.

Additionally,

In October and November of 2022 our town, Echuca, and its surrounding districts experienced the worst floods in over 100 years. Sadly many people in our local and our school community lost their homes and their livelihoods. For  over two weeks our school community was unable to return to ‘normal’ school life as the town was under evacuation orders which meant school was a ‘no go zone!’.

Amidst the devastation, it was inspirational to see the acts of good work that members of our staff and student body undertook to show compassion and to walk in solidarity with our local community. During the days when we were not onsite our people were out filling sandbags, building levees, providing comfort and support, helping to reorganise or organise household items, preparing and serving food, working in the relief centres amongst many other activities. We were very proud that our Year 12 students, who missed their final ‘Celebration Day’ as it fell during the peak of the floods, chose to come together to contribute to local working bees in support of the flood effort, in lieu of other festivities. Their efforts were definitely an example of faith in action and were a vivid representation of our students giving back to their community.

Kirrilee Westblade

Catholic Identity Leader