This is truly an exciting time for our College community as we begin our 25th year. I don’t think anyone who was involved in the foundation of our school back in 1999 could have envisioned what our wonderful school would look like in 2023 but we are very fortunate to be part of the school as it continues to grow and expand in both numbers and facilities. Later this year many of our Year 10 and 11 students will join hundreds of thousands, if not more, young pilgrims from around the world to celebrate World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal. Meanwhile here at home we will continue to celebrate our 25th Anniversary and with it the return of a much more normal school year after a few years of Covid interruptions. It is therefore very fitting that our school theme “Mary arose and went with haste” should encourage us to follow the example of Mary our Mother who so humbly accepted God’s plan and immediately went about doing God’s work.
This week we came together as a whole school community for our Opening School Mass. It had been three years since we were able to have every single student and staff member present together for this occasion. Once we count the additional parents and family members who were also in attendance we would no doubt have had around 1500 people in our College Hall celebrating the Eucharist together. If you were not able to attend or watch via the live stream, I encourage you to watch the recording of the Mass which can still be found on Compass. It was a wonderful occasion and the perfect way to begin our 25th year. The Mass included readings surrounding the Visitation of Mary to tie into our College theme with Br Pat delivering another one of his exceptional homilies that provided additional context surrounding this important part of scripture. Br Pat revealed that the journey taken by Mary to visit Elizabeth would have been equivalent to travelling from Hoxton Park to the Blue Mountains. The fact that Mary did this on her own and in the early months of her own pregnancy demonstrates just how much we can learn from her example. Throughout this year we are challenged to follow that example and look for opportunities to not only say yes to God’s plan but to actively live out our Catholic mission to journey with compassion. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the entire school community for the way that they entered into the Mass, especially our choir, band, and media team who all contributed to the success of this important event.
To say that I am excited about the year ahead is an understatement. I hope to communicate more of the great events taking place at the school throughout the course of the year. Also included in this week’s newsletter is an article from one of our Catholic Life and Spirituality leaders Michael Abou Fram. Until our next newsletter I hope and pray that everyone in our Catholic community will have a great 2023. God Bless!
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