Â鶹´«Ã½AV

“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

– Matthew 18:20

We are in the final stretch of Term 3. It has been a good term, a full one, and we are glad to have shared it with our community. Last Sunday’s Gospel gives us a useful place to stand as it draws to a close: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” That is true of Father’s Day Breakfasts. It is true of Brigidine Day. It is true of every ordinary day in a school.

Father’s Day Breakfast

On Friday 4 September we held our Father’s Day Breakfast and it was a wonderful morning. Fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers and the many other father-figures in the lives of our students came together and the school felt full in the best possible way.

To every father and father-figure who came: thank you for being present. The time you give to your daughters matters in ways that are hard to measure and easy to underestimate. Thank you for showing up.

And thank you to the staff and students who made the morning run. It is a much-loved occasion, and it does not happen without real effort.

Year 12 – In Our Thoughts and Prayers

Our Year 12 students are now in the final weeks of their classes. The end of school life as they have known it is very close, and with it the weight and the anticipation of exams. This is a significant moment for them and for their families.

We hold them in our thoughts and prayers as they prepare. We ask our whole community to do the same. They have worked hard and, whatever the weeks ahead bring, they carry with them everything that Â鶹´«Ã½AV has given them: not just knowledge, but the strength and kindliness that have shaped their character throughout their years at Â鶹´«Ã½AV.

Brigidine Day – Friday 18 September

Next Friday 18 September, we will celebrate Brigidine Day. It is one of our favourite days of the year: the whole community together, celebrating what makes Â鶹´«Ã½AV what it is. We look forward to finishing Term 3 in true Â鶹´«Ã½AV style.

This year’s fundraising focus is Saltbush, Balnarring Beach, and donation details have now been published. We warmly encourage our whole community to get behind it.

Saltbush was founded by the Presentation Sisters of Victoria in 1989 to provide, in their own words, “a place of welcome, comfort and rest to all who call upon it and a retreat within which they might regenerate their spirits”. It grew from the Sisters’ long commitment to education, hospitality and social justice. Seeing the impact of poverty, illness, grief, disability and family hardship on real families, they created a place by the sea where people could simply rest.

Since 1989, Saltbush has welcomed over 30,000 people experiencing hardship for a restorative holiday, program or retreat. In 2017 it was entrusted to Kildare Ministries as one of its Community Works, sitting alongside BASP and Wellsprings for Women. It is, like both of those, a living expression of the hospitality that lies at the heart of the Presentation and Brigidine traditions.

Many of our students have already been to Saltbush this year, through the Local Indigenous Immersion the Net Zero Camp and Year 10 Reflection Day. It is a place that stays with you. Brigidine Day is our chance to give something back to the work that makes those experiences possible, and to the 30,000 families who have found rest and renewal there.

A Reflection for the End of Term

This coming Sunday, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive someone who has wronged him. Seven times? Jesus answers: seventy-seven times. In the Jewish world of Jesus’ time, seven was the number of perfection and completion. Seventy-seven – or seventy times seven, as some translations have it – was not a count at all. It was a way of saying: there is no limit. Forgiveness, for the follower of Jesus, is not a quota to be filled. It is a way of life.

It is a demanding thing to hear at the end of a long term. But it is also, in its way, a freeing one. The invitation, as the holidays begin, is to go into the break lightly. To let go of what needs letting go. To make peace where peace is possible. And then to rest.

A Restorative Holiday to All

Term 3 concludes after Brigidine Day on Friday 18 September. It has been a good term. We are proud of our students, grateful for our community and ready for a break.

We wish every young person in our community a genuinely restorative holiday. Rest well. Come back ready. Term 4 will be worth it!

Prayer for the End of Term

Loving God,

we give thanks for this term.

For the mornings that worked,

and the ones that didn’t quite.

We hold our Year 12 students before you now.

They are at the threshold of something new.

May they know that they are ready,

and that they are not alone.

As we go into the holidays,

may we leave behind what needs leaving.

May we forgive what needs forgiving.

May we rest. Properly, without guilt.

And may we return in Term 4

in the spirit of Brigid:

with strength, and with kindness.

Amen.

In strength and kindness,

John Riddle

Director of Catholic Identity and Mission