“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Matthew 16:24

Last Sunday, the Gospel placed before us one of the most direct questions Jesus ever asked: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered from the heart and was named the rock on which the Church would be built. This Sunday, the Gospel takes the next step. Having named Jesus, the disciples are now told what following him actually costs: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

These two Gospels sit either side of our community this week, and they feel significant. Because this week, our own community has been asked something similar. Not just to name what we believe. To decide what we are willing to carry in service of it.

Our New Student Leaders for 2027

This week, Kilbreda College announced the student leaders who will serve our community in 2027. Congratulations to all of those who were successful in their applications. We are proud of them, and we hold great confidence in what they will bring to this community in the year ahead.

But we also want to say to every Year 11 student who applied, regardless of the outcome: The decision to put yourself forward for leadership is itself, an act of courage. It asks you to name who you are and what you stand for. It asks you to imagine a community larger than yourself and to offer your gifts in service of it. That is not a small thing. In the Brigidine tradition, that willingness is already leadership.

Our model of leadership at Kilbreda is not built on status or seniority. It is built on the example of Jesus, who washed feet, who ate with the excluded, who gave his life not in a moment of power but in a moment of total self-gift. Service, humility and sacrifice: these are not abstract ideals here. They are the measure by which we understand what it means to lead.

Every act of welcome, every moment of kindness to someone who is struggling, every time you choose the harder and more generous path: that is leadership in this tradition. We call every one of you to that, with or without a title.

Brigidine Day – Support for Saltbush

Brigidine Day is fast approaching, and we are looking forward to it enormously. This year, the fundraising focus for the day is Saltbush, Balnarring Beach. Saltbush has already been a site of formation for so many of our students this year, through the Local Indigenous Immersion, Kildare Ministries Net Zero Camp and the Year 10 Reflection Day.

Saltbush was founded by the Presentation Sisters of Victoria in 1989, created 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 and family hardship on families and individuals, they created a place by the sea where people could rest and regain their strength. 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, and it now sits alongside BASP and Wellsprings for Women as a living expression of the Presentation and Brigidine traditions of hospitality and care.

For our students who have already been there this year, Saltbush is a place that stays with you. For those who haven’t, Brigidine Day is a chance to support the work that makes those experiences possible, and to extend that welcome to the 30,000 families who have found rest and renewal there. More details on how to contribute will be shared in coming days. We hope our whole community will get behind it.

A Reflection for the Week

The Gospel for this coming Sunday asks a question that does not age well if you sit with it too long: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit life?”

It is a question worth giving our young people and ourselves. The world tells us, constantly, that success is measurable: by grades, by followers, by status, by the size of what we accumulate. The Gospel says something different. It says that the life worth having is not the one most admired from the outside, but the one most fully given from the inside.

At Kilbreda, we believe that. We try to build it into everything we do. And in a week when we have named new leaders and invited all our Year 11 students to lead in their own right, that question sits at the heart of it. Not: What can leadership give you? But: What are you willing to give?

Prayer for the Week

Loving God,

we give thanks for the courage of our young women

who put their hands up this week,

who named what they believe

and offered it in service.

For those who were named as leaders:

may they lead with humility,

with their eyes on those who are most in need,

with the basin and the towel close at hand.

For those who were not:

may they know that their courage was seen,

that their gifts are real,

and that the invitation to lead

has not passed them by.

May we all learn, slowly,

what it means to take up the cross

and follow.

Amen

In Strength and Kindness,

John Riddle

Director of Catholic Identity and Mission