Week 1 Term 4

On Wednesday Week 2 we celebrated our Opening School Liturgy in the St Raphael Church with Fr Tony. It was a beautiful way to start our school year in such a prayerful way with the children all participating with such reverence and respect. We also learned the wonderful news of Fr Tony’s appointed to the position of Auxiliary Bishop Sydney by Pope Francis. We are fortunate to have had Fr Tony as our Parish Priest and he will be remaining in our community until later in March. Fr Tony will be here for our Year 3 student’s First Reconciliation before moving on to Sydney. I am sure you will join me in wishing Fr Tony all the best for this amazing appointment and will keep him and the St Gregory’s Parish in your prayers.

On Friday Week 2 our Year 6 students were blessed by a visit from the Honourable Linda Burney MP, who provided them with fabulous insights into the strugglesfor rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. The students asked very considered questions and were so engaged and listened with respect and interest to her presentation. This visit was a wonderful experience for the students and it was made possible by Mrs Kate Wigg who reached out to the MP office and invited Linda to St Gregory’s to address our students and add to their learning. I thank Mrs Wigg for her effort in enriching the learning for our students.

Thank you to all the parents who were able to come along for our Open Classrooms last week. It was a great opportunity to see where your child spends much of their school day and to be able to touch base with their teacher. If you were unable to attend, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher to touch base via email or make an appointment to come in if you would like to meet with them. Following the Open Classrooms we also held a very well attended ‘Think U Know’ parent session. Thanks to the parents who took up this opportunity to learn about way of supporting and keeping your child safe in the online environment in which they interact.

After our successful swimming carnival in Week 1, last week we hosted the Northern Region Swimming Carnival. Congratulations to all our swimmers who progressed to this carnival and to those who have successfully made it through to the upcoming Archdiocesan carnival. A special thanks to Mrs Spackman, Mrs McAuliffe and their support team for their work making the carnival such a wonderful success. This was only made possible by the amazing parent community and Swimming ACT volunteers, Di Silk and Lorraine Wuth, Kerry Johnston Stroke Judge and students from St Mary Mackillop College. We can’t thank them enough for giving so kindly of their precious time to help. The support was greatly appreciated and crucial to the smooth running of the day.

This week our parish family will celebrate the life of Fr Kevin Flynn aged 94 years, with a Mass of Christian burial to be held at St Raphael’s Church on Thursday at 1pm. Fr Kevin would have celebrating 70 years a priest this year and had a very special connection to many of our staff and families due to the years he spent at Sacred Heart, St Raphael’s and many parishes around the Archdiocese. We pray for his eternal rest.

We anticipate there may be some impact to our usual pick-up arrangements as it is expected a number of people will be attending the mass. We thank you for your patience and understanding if this is the case.

Next week we will enter the liturgical season of Lent which starts on Ash Wednesday (March 5^th) and concludes on Holy Thursday (April 17^th). Lent is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We are all challenged during this time of preparation for Easter to draw closer to God through our actions that will enrich our lives and the lives of others. Reach out to others through acts of kindness, goodwill and giving, spend time with God through prayer which could include going to mass, praying as a family, reading the Bible, attending Stations of the Cross, praying the Rosary just to name a few. It is through fasting we have more time or money to give to others thus fasting provides opportunities to enrich the lives of others and ourselves during the Lenten season and in turn draws us closer to God.

The Gospel reading from this past Sunday, Luke 6:27-38, challenges us to ‘Love your enemies and do good for others even if they haven’t done good for you’. This calls us all to have an attitude of positive regard towards all people and their well-being. It is a one-sided love in the sense that a return is not expected. God reaches out in infinite love to all without exception. To love as God loves, we must try is to focus on the needs of others. This upcoming Lent is the perfect time to try to focus on this call. Together we can pray.

Bless us with Love, O Merciful God;

That we may Love as you Love!

That we may show

patience, kindness, tolerance, care and love to all!

Help us to be full of compassion, so that we can find it our hearts to be giving and non-judgemental.

Amen

Have a blessed fortnight.