THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION 

This coming Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord (the day when Jesus went to heaven). Not that many years ago we traditionally celebrated the Ascension of the Lord on a Thursday, exactly forty days after Easter Sunday. It has since been moved in Australia and elsewhere to the 7th Sunday of Easter. 

In marking the Ascension on the fortieth day of the Easter season, the church took literally Luke’s account of events in Acts 1:3. Liturgical history indicates that the Lord’s ascension and the giving of the Holy Spirit were originally celebrated together on the solemnity of Pentecost. It was not until the end of the fourth century that the Ascension became a separate feast from Pentecost. Celebrating the Ascension on a Sunday of Eastertime helps give this solemnity its rightful position. The Ascension is not a farewell nor a time of sadness at Jesus’ departure from this world. Like every Christian festival, the Ascension celebrates the on-going presence of the risen Christ in our midst. 

In the gospel on Sunday, Jesus’ Ascension will be recounted. Rather than experiencing great sadness as he left the disciples he experienced ‘great joy.’ Paradoxically when Jesus was no longer present the disciples seemed to have a greater capacity to appreciate his presence. To do this they were forced to look within themselves to recall the essence of who Jesus was and what he meant to them. They needed to be more attuned to the ‘Jesus moments’, the moments of grace in their lives. Unlike the disciples, we as modern followers have not had the opportunity to actually see Jesus, but we do share with the disciples the search for the moments of grace that allow us a glimpse into who Jesus was and the ways he can still be present with us in our daily lives. As his followers today we are challenged also to go out and to confirm Jesus’ presence in our world through our own words and actions. 

Enjoy your week and the moments of grace that may come your way as you strive to make Christ your way and life.

Mrs Tina Murray

Principal

 NATIONAL FAMILIES WEEK WEBINAR SERIES

To celebrate National Families Week CatholicCare is running a five-part webinar series to celebrate family and make the most out of family life. Each webinar will have a different focus. 

Family Resilience - Understand what a resilient person and family looks like, and how you can build resilience within yourself and your family.

Family Values - Understand what values are and why they are important. By identifying our family values, we can better understand and connect.

Family Connection - With our lives so busy we can struggle to keep connections within our family, learn why connection is important and how to sustain or build family connections

Family Self-Care - Learn why self-care is so important and how looking after ourselves, has a flow-on effect on the whole family.

Family Mindfulness - Learn what mindfulness is and the benefits it provides, not just for ourselves, but also the benefit it has on our family.

See the link here to register: 

We understand that in some instances students may not be able to wear part of their uniform  (e.g., they have outgrown shoes or misplaced their hat). If this occurs we ask parents to please send a note to the class teacher explaining the circumstances so that students have permission to be ‘out of uniform’ for a short period of time as the issue is rectified.

BUILDING PROJECT - At this week’s P & F Meeting I had great pleasure in sharing the proposed plans for our next building project. Although we are still awaiting confirmation regarding the additional proposed building project, we were excited about the announcements by the Government in the press regarding the likely progression of important construction projects at our school. The exact scope and timing of any development however is still subject to formal offers from the Government via the Catholic Block Grant Authority and of course final tenders. We are currently awaiting further information regarding the specific grant amounts for components of our planned projects and look forward to sharing the detail with the whole school community once the detail has been finalised with the support of CEDoW. In the meantime, we are proceeding with the planning process and the latest version of the draft plans are available for parent viewing in the noticeboard near the Admin entry.