This Sunday is the feast of the Ascension. This is the feast where Jesus raised Himself under His own authority to heaven. This event had the potential to be one of great sadness and despair as the disciples realised that the person they had followed for three years, had left them. They had witnessed His miracles and His teachings and eventually were present at His torture and death. But this was not a time of negativity. The final line in this section of the Gospel from St Matthew reads; “know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time”. This simple statement underlines one of the most important concepts of our faith. The notion that we are a people of hope and that we have God always with us – yes, to the end of time.

Over the past three days, I attended the NSW Catholic Principal’s conference where the theme was built around hope and growth. Our focus as a Catholic community is clearly that belief in Jesus enables us to always know that hope is present. This ‘hope’ however, is not a futuristic ideal. It is part of our thinking in the present. Hope is an optimism that is based in action. As I had stated in last week’s newsletter, we are bearers of Christ to others and following from this, hope is the recognition that each of us has this capacity to bear Christ. Our challenge is to ensure that we become hope for another by the way that we bear Christ to them.

On Monday we hosted a small number of parents and students to help celebrate Mothers’ Day. This started with a light breakfast and was followed by a liturgy in the morning. We did keep this early in the day to ensure we did not ask parents to take time off work to attend. Thank you to Mrs Meharg and the staff for organising this and ensuring that our mothers were recognised.

This week we conducted our annual ‘Tell Them From Me’ survey where parents, students and staff were able to provide feedback on our school as a faith and learning community. Thank you to the over 1,000 students, parents and staff who submitted a response. This is important for us to gain an understanding of the impact of our work and where we might look to move in the future. As always, we are happy to accept any feedback during the year through our normal communication processes directly with teachers or through our front office.

On Tuesday May 23 (this coming Tuesday), we will be holding our next P&F meeting. This will commence at 7pm and will take place in room I3. I have invited Mrs Clare Murphy to make a small presentation on Literacy at Mount Carmel. This year and last, Mrs Murphy ran a few specific evenings for parents detailing how literacy and English are taught at the College. This is another opportunity for parents to gain an understanding of our work in this vital area. One of our goals this year is around increased parent engagement, and the P&F is an opportunity for parents to engage with the College.  As always, all parents are warmly invited and encouraged to come along and hear what is happening.

Ite in Veritate

Mr Steve Lo Cascio