“If you want peace, work for justice.” – Pope Paul VI

“Christ dwells in every creature.” – St Brigid of Kildare

What a remarkable term this continues to be. Each week seems to unfold with a new opportunity to live our Brigidine values more fully, more courageously, and more joyfully and Week 4 is no exception. As I write this, our community has paused to honour the mothers and women of care in our lives, preparing to mark Laudato Si’ Week with prayer and action, and looking ahead to a season rich with reconciliation, retreat and encounter. There is, as always, so much to be grateful for.

Mother’s Day – Honouring the Women Who Shape Us

Last Sunday, our community joined the whole of Australia in celebrating Mother’s Day. I wish to take this moment, on behalf of our entire Kilbreda family, to offer our warmest and most heartfelt love and gratitude to every mother, grandmother, aunt and woman of care in the lives of our students. In the Catholic tradition, we understand motherhood as a vocation of extraordinary depth: a daily, self-giving love that reflects the very love of God. St Brigid herself is often depicted as a mother-figure, a woman of fierce tenderness, open handed hospitality and unwavering care for all who came to her. May the mothers of our community know today and always, how deeply they are treasured.

Our Mother’s Day Breakfast was a beautiful and tender moment of thanksgiving and celebration of the women in our lives.

Laudato Si’ Week Begins This Sunday (17 – 25 May)

This Sunday 17 May marks the beginning of Laudato Si’ Week, a week of prayer, learning and action celebrated by the global Church in response to Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical on the care of our common home. At Kilbreda, we will be entering this week with genuine enthusiasm and purpose, guided by the conviction that care for creation is not a peripheral concern but a central act of justice.

Our Student Environmental Action Leaders will be at the heart of the week. We will also be trial running BYO containers at the canteen, encouraging ‘nude food’ choices throughout the week, and reintroducing our popular bucket-of-rubbish challenge. These practical, visible gestures are our community’s way of saying that the cry of the earth deserves a real response, not merely a prayerful one.

National Reconciliation Week (27 May – 3 June)

National Reconciliation Week is fast approaching, and our community is preparing to mark it with the depth and intentionality it deserves. Bookended by two landmark dates in Australia’s reconciliation journey, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum and the Mabo decision, the week is an invitation to every Australian to reflect on our shared history and to ask honestly what genuine reconciliation requires of each of us.

Our students who participated in the Kildare Ministries Wathaurong Immersion in this week, will take a leading role in the week, sharing their experience and the stories entrusted to them, and inviting our community into the same spirit of deep listening that shaped their days on Country. Our Living Justice Leaders will coordinate activities including prayer, storytelling, craft and visible signs of solidarity across the College.

We are also using this term to revisit and renew our College Reconciliation Action Plan, ensuring that our commitment to walking alongside First Nations peoples is not merely aspirational but lived, accountable and growing. In the Brigidine tradition, we believe that justice is not something we speak about, it is something we do, together, day by day.

Year 9 and Year 10 Retreats

Later in the term, our Year 9 and Year 10 students will each take part in their annual retreats which are one of the most formative experiences of the Kilbreda year. These days away from the ordinary routines of school are, in the deepest sense, food for the soul: spaces of prayer, friendship, reflection, and growth that our young women carry with them long after they return.

Loving God,

we give you thanks for the mothers and women of care in our lives,

and for the love they pour out so freely each and every day.

As we enter Laudato Si’ Week, open our eyes to the beauty of your creation,

and open our hands to care for it with reverence and courage.

As we prepare for Reconciliation Week,

open our ears to listen deeply,

and open our hearts to walk alongside with humility and hope.

May we be, in the spirit of St Brigid,

a community of light-bearers and bridge-builders

tending the flame of justice, wonder, and compassion

in all that we do and all that we are.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

In Strength and Kindliness,

John Riddle

Director of Catholic Identity and Mission