‘Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.’

– James 1:22

What a term it has been. Term 2 has asked a great deal of all of us, and given back even more. Week by week, our community has been invited not simply to speak about Justice, our College theme for the year, but to live it: in the liturgies we celebrated together, in the retreats our young women gave themselves to, in the food we gathered for those who have nothing, and in the willingness to sit with hard questions and not look away. We close this term with full hearts.

Refugee Week – Whole School Liturgy

Last week our whole school gathered to mark Refugee Week, and it was a genuinely beautiful and moving occasion. World Refugee Day is an annual reminder that more than 100 million people are currently displaced from their homes, and that our response to that reality is not, in the end, a political question. It is a human one. It is a Gospel one.

Our students answered it through prayer, through presence, and through the care they brought to preparing and leading the liturgy. A very warm thank you to Rhiannán M, Sophie M, Elizabeth J, Pratima T and Amelie B, who led us with real grace and conviction. To stand before your community and lead it in prayer takes courage. These young women did it beautifully.

BASP Winter Food Drive – Continuing into Term 3

We are so grateful for the generous response our families have already shown to our BASP Winter Food Drive. The Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project supports people seeking asylum in Melbourne who have no work rights, no Medicare and often no other source of food. They receive no government funding at all. Every item that has made its way into a Homeroom collection bin this term has been, simply and literally, an act of welcome.

The good news is that the Drive continues into the first weeks of Term 3, so there is still time to help. Non-perishable items are most welcome: tinned goods, rice and pasta, long-life milk, honey, toiletries and household essentials. These can be dropped into Homeroom collection bins each week once school resumes. The scripture that has anchored this whole campaign says it simply: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’ Thank you for making room at the table.

Year 10 Reflection Day – Saltbush, Balnarring Beach

On Monday, our Year 10 students spent the day at Saltbush, Balnarring Beach, and by all accounts it was a wonderful day.

Saltbush is worth knowing about, because it is not simply a venue. In 1989, the Presentation Sisters of Victoria saw the toll that poverty, illness and hardship were taking on families across our city. They did something about it. They purchased a farm property at Balnarring Beach, built six houses and a welcome space and opened the doors. Since then, more than 30,000 people in hardship have found rest and renewal there, including families escaping violence, carers who had forgotten what rest felt like, people with disabilities and asylum seekers. In 2017, the Presentation Sisters entrusted Saltbush to Kildare Ministries, the same body that governs Kilbreda College. Our students were not visitors on Monday. They were family.

Across the day they moved through three experiences: a reflective session in the Nano Centre, named after Nano Nagle, founder of the Presentation Sisters, where they explored the story and mission of Saltbush and its connection to our Brigidine values; a volunteer session on the grounds, working alongside Saltbush staff on the gardens, the labyrinth and the property; and a reflective walk to Balnarring Beach, with time to sit at the water’s edge in the quiet of a June morning.

The day closed with small group reflection and a whole-group closing liturgy. Part of the liturgy was a candle lamp ritual, reflecting the flame of St Brigid and Nano and our commitment to adding our words and deeds to the community moving forward. Our students left having given something real to a place that exists for others and we hope having received something in return.

It was a privilege to be there with them. Our thanks to every staff member who gave their Monday to make it possible. We would also like to thank our Principal Stephanie Smyth who, not only attended the day with our Year 10s, but also ran one of the rotation sessions for our students. Her presence highlights the important nature of this Retreat.

Year 9 Reflection Day – Seeing With New Eyes

Yesterday our Year 9 students gathered for their Reflection Day with guest presenter Scott Darlow, under the theme Seeing With New Eyes.

Scott is a proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta people, an educator, artist and activist who speaks across Australia, the United Kingdom and Asia. He weaves music, storytelling and lived experience into something that is genuinely hard to describe in advance: it has to be experienced. What we can say is that his sessions led our students through the story, culture and Country of First Peoples, and into an honest engagement with truth-telling, solidarity, and what human dignity actually requires of us.

Through Scott’s framework of FLUTE (Forgiveness, Love, Understanding, Tolerance and Empathy) students were given a language for living in response to what they heard, not just understanding it. Small group discussion, personal reflection and a closing liturgy rounded out a day that asked something real of our young women.

We are deeply grateful to Scott for his generosity, his passion and the gift of his presence with us. And we are proud of our Year 9 students for the openness and genuine receptivity they brought to the day. Seeing With New Eyes is not something that happens once. It is a commitment made again and again, in ordinary moments. We trust the day planted some seeds.

End of Term – Thank You

And so, with gratitude (and some relief!), we bring Term 2 to its close.

To our students: thank you. Thank you for the energy and generosity you brought to this term: for the bracelets you made, the liturgies you led, the food you collected and the willingness to sit with Scott Darlow for a whole day and really listen. You are young women of strength and kindliness, and it is a genuine privilege to be part of your journey.

To our families: thank you for your trust, your partnership, and your very practical generosity in the Homeroom collection bins these past weeks. This community is remarkable, and we are always grateful for it.

We wish everyone a restful and restorative winter break. We look forward to welcoming you all back for Term 3.

Prayer for the End of Term

Loving God,

we come to the end of this term

with hands that have been busy,

hearts that have been stretched,

and minds opened to things

we could not have anticipated.

We thank you for our students,

who prayed and planted and walked to the sea,

who listened to stories of a Country

older and wiser than our own,

and who gave what they had

for people they will never meet.

We thank you for our families,

for their trust and their generosity,

and for every act of quiet kindness

that has fed a stranger this winter.

As we rest now, may we be restored.

As we return, may we be renewed.

And may the justice we have glimpsed this term

become, slowly and faithfully,

the justice we live.

Amen.

With gratitude for all that this term has been and warmest wishes for a truly restful break,

In Strength and Kindness,

John Riddle

Director of Catholic Identity and Mission