Catholic Identity 

Stephen steps into leader’s  role

As I step into the big shoes that Ebony has left to fill, I would like to thank her and acknowledge the tremendous work that she has done as St Anne’s College Catholic Identity Leader. Since commencing in this role with the opening of our college, Ebony has had to develop the spiritual, sacramental and physical components of St Anne’s College Catholic Identity essentially from scratch. Thank you very much Ebony for your passion and commitment.

During this week, the church has celebrated the feast days of two saints who are patrons of religious orders which have had a significant impact on the nurturing of the Catholic faith in Australia and the development of the Catholic school - Saints Patrick and Joseph. As the patron saint of Ireland, the significance of St Patrick is borne through the priests and religious who came to Australia to minister to a growing number of Catholics. Australia’s homegrown religious order, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, was founded by Saint Mary of the Cross Mackillop, who chose St Joseph to be the patron saint of an order that not only established Catholic schools and charitable organisations across the country, but also has a presence in several countries across the world. St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17 and St Joseph on March 19.

Caritas Ks and coin line challenge to raise funds

Caritas is a Catholic charity which focuses on delivering programs and projects locally and overseas that support people in the restoration of their human dignity. Many of these ventures include providing clean water and sanitisation, providing simple devices to assist with food preparation, establishing farming practices for self-sufficiency, education around the creation of small industries to generate a basic income etc. Caritas relies entirely on monetary donations to fund its work and Lent is the time when this focus occurs.

This year St Anne’s College is raising money for Caritas through a modified version of the Caritas Ks program. On Wednesday, March 31, our students will take part in a college house-based coin line challenge to be held in our college car park. Our aim is to see if we can lay out enough loose change to make lines that would add up to one kilometre – a real Caritas K! After this challenge all of our students will be heading down to Victoria Park Lake where we will take on the walking part. So . . . start looking under those cushions, dig through the car console and check under the fridge for those lost coins and help us to help Caritas!

 - Stephen Kealy, Religious Education Leader