“This is my body. This is my blood.”
This week we celebrated the solemnity of Corpus Christi - a day of observance that honours the gift of Eucharist. We are celebrating that the Eucharist is truly Jesus' Body and Blood. He was the last and greatest sacrifice to let us attain eternal life with God! The importance of the bread and wine become the focal point of our faith this week, and we are reminded of the solemn importance of the sacrament of Eucharist.
St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal
This year we will again be supporting the wonderful work of St Vincent de Paul through their annual Winter Appeal. Students will be focusing their prayers and support over the next five weeks to this cause. The Social Action team will be visiting Academic Care classes over the coming days to remind students of the importance of this charitable organisation. St Benedict reminds us in his rule to “have equal charity for all” (RB: 2), and our support will help those in our local and extended communities who are doing it tough this winter.
How can we help? We will be collecting new and clean good quality blankets, socks, winter clothes and scarves to give to those who are living rough. Additionally, we will be asking for coin donations to give to the charity, which will be used to support local projects that are needed.
We will be holding our annual ‘Bennie’s Bring a Blanket’ on Friday 29th June, and students are encouraged to get involved in this evening to not only help us raise funds, but to help build awareness of these social issues within our community. Thank you to the families in our community who have already brought in beautiful hand made blankets! Your support is greatly appreciated.
Year 12 Bishops Gathering
Last week, our Year 12 students were invited to spend the day with Bishop Brian Mascord. The students, along with Mr McAteer and their Academic Care tutors spent the day at St Patrick’s College in Campbelltown. They had the opportunity to get to know the Bishop and his life, as well as having the chance to ask him questions. Year 12 represented our College with dignity and respect and I thank them for their time and engagement. I extend a special thank you to our College captains who delivered the Gospel and Homily for the Bishop.
HOMILY - BISHOPS GATHERING - Maddison Crawford 2018
“As students we often forget to look at the true meaning of the scripture. In most cases we only ever use the scripture when we need a good quote for our Studies of Religion exam. However, passages like the one we heard here today speaks volumes to us as we undertake our final year of schooling. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians explores the complexities of the body and its many parts. He states that these many parts come together to create one body, in spite of their differences so that they can walk together with Christ. To place this in terms in which we as students understand, I will compare it to the challenge that is the HSC. I know that at my school, a great level of emphasis is placed on the way in which we must work together as a cohort, just as the parts of the body work together. Our results in the HSC, whilst based on how we work individually as our own “part”, are also dependent on the greater performance of our grade as whole; as a body. This is what Paul means, that working together as one is complex, we know this. There are ups and there are downs; friendship struggles and bad marks, yet we are unable to do this alone. Just as Paul creates the image of a body needing all of its parts to work, we are not made to live the Christian life alone, or to undertake our HSC individually, we need each other.
As I speak of our cohorts as a body, I must speak to each of us as individual parts. Each of us are unique different parts that create a greater whole. Paul says in verse 18; “But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” This asserts that we are each unique, we have different talents, different interests, different passions and yet as a whole we work as one. So whilst, we often wish to be as smart as the person besides us or just as funny, we forget that we have our own role within the body and within society. In this we find that we need each other because that is the way God wished and designed it to be. This is the point of Paul’s passage, to value our unique role within everything we do and recognise that each member of the body can use their unique gifts to serve each other and our community, just as we serve each other in the HSC.
On a more poignant note away from marks, the HSC is a stressful time. It is a time in which we must care for one another as human beings. Paul refers to this in the passage by stating that “there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it, if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it”. As we leave here today and head back to school counting down the days until our Trial HSC, we must remember to look after ourselves and to look out for our peers.
I’m sure many of you who sit before me today watched Toy Story as a child and took great pleasure when Mr Potato Head’s body fell apart and was put back together the wrong way. So I will leave you this today, I’m sure there will be days where we feel like our parts are in the wrong places and not working the way we wish, but rest assured, just as we saw Mr Potato head put his pieces back together with the help of his friends, we can come together as individual parts to work together to place our pieces back in the right place, to make one cohesive body.”
