The QCS Test for Year 12 students this week has distracted us from normal routines, however, with the support of our staff 121 students tackled the papers, well prepared and confident. Last week’s Dates and Deadlines has alerted you to the key time lines for exams and significant activities as the Term draws to a conclusion.

As we hear more about the canonisation of Mary MacKillop in October, we grow increasingly excited for those of our Clairvaux MacKillop College community who have the opportunity to attend this historic event in Rome. Congratulations to Emily Weeber and Gervais Naidoo of Year 11 who will travel to Rome with 42 pilgrims from other Josephite Affiliated Australian Secondary colleges. They will be accompanied by our Campus Minister, Ms Sandra Stadhams and Senior Centre Coordinator, Mr Tom Mills. Mr Gary Conwell will attend the canonisation as part of the Brisbane Catholic Education representative group. Of course we look forward to sharing their stories on their return.

My recent studies have reminded me of the growth of Christianity across the globe today. At Clairvaux MacKillop College we espouse those values we label ‘Christian values’ and we encourage a prayer and faith life for each individual. We provide opportunities to express that faith life in our community through assemblies, liturgies, Eucharistic celebrations and a Retreat program. These expressions should not be limited to what we provide at school, but should become an important part of life, hopefully including Sunday worship and involvement in parish life.

Following is an extract from the article ‘Empty Spaces in the Pews’ written by Judith Lynch, a freelance writer who lives in Melbourne. I include it for your reflection and invite you to explore the nature of faith.

I’m sure most of us can remember clubs, organisations or groups that we have joined, been part of for a time, then, through boredom or changing circumstances, we drifted away.

Our churches are a bit the same. We look at them, large buildings often with seating for several hundred, and we assume that because we don’t fill it three times over every Sunday, then something is very wrong. The reasons our churches were so large and easily filled lies partly in geography and the way society was back when these same churches were built.

In our grandparents’ time and earlier, young people were socialised into the faith. The church was the centre of faith life. Generally speaking babies were baptised, went to a catholic school, then married someone from a similar community. Today, because we are such a mobile society, the way we live, work, recreate, communicate and worship has changed enormously.

When we look at the empty spaces in the pews we’re inclined to believe that it’s the fault of the people who we think should be there.Maybe they should. I don’t really know. What I do know is that Jesus fed 5000 people then ended up soon after with just a little band headed by Peter.

What Jesus had to say, the blunt way he expressed it, was seen as intolerable by those men and women, and they walked away just as many walk away from their faith community when they come up against things that they find intolerable. In any gathering there will be one or more who no longer “go to church”, or call themselves a lapsed catholic. The reasons are legion: “I had enough religion at school to last me a lifetime”, a remarriage after a divorce, a case of sexual abuse by a familiar and trusted Church figure, a choice to use contraception, Sunday sport and shopping, the list could go on and on.

In the years after Jesus died it took faith, not to mention courage, determination and a strong will, to join the fringe movement that gathered around the apostles sharing their memories of him. Becoming a follower of Jesus, a Christian, was an adult thing, a deliberate choice that involved struggle and conflict. Twelve hundred years later St Thomas Aquinas said that every choice is a renunciation. That informed choice to follow Jesus through Baptism has eroded through the centuries. We baptise babies and trust that the personal choice will follow later. Often it doesn’t and baptism or christening has just been a cultural rite of passage that has lost its real meaning.

We baptize and hope that faith will follow.

What if it was the other way around, and Baptism was the sealing of a freely chosen and informed following of Jesus? Are we brave enough to begin to face these kinds of questions as we live out our own faith journey?

Courtesy of CathNews

Wishing you God’s Blessings