“Let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works.” Hebrews 10:24-25
Dear families and friends of St Edmund’s College,
The College community celebrates the Feast Day of Blessed Edmund Rice – Founder’s Day on Thursday of this week. St Edmund’s College Canberra is one of many schools in the family of Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) schools offering a Catholic education in the tradition of Blessed Edmund Rice. EREA schools strive to offer a liberating education, based on a gospel spirituality, within an inclusive community committed to justice and solidarity. I will share details about our specific celebration of Founder’s Day next week.
It is important at this time to reflect on Edmund Rice and his powerful story. The Edmund Rice story is one of faith and commitment. Edmund Rice was born at Westcourt, the family tenant farm in Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland, on 1 June 1762. As a young man, he was lucky in that he was educated and then apprenticed to his uncle in Waterford City. When his uncle died he inherited a thriving business in provisioning ships that birthed in Waterford. Edmund married, but was left a widower with a daughter after his wife died in childbirth when he was twenty-five. In Edmund’s grief and the turmoil of these circumstances, his commitment to God developed to the stage where he considered entering religious life.
Having decided that education was the greatest gift he could provide for the great many of those who were under-privileged, Edmund sold his business and began instructing boys of the poor living on the streets of Waterford. In 1802, the project commenced in a stable in the town while a new school was built on the edge of the city closer to where many of the poor reside. He was determined that school will be conducted according to his improvements on the best standards of the day.
The free school, known as Mount Sion, opened in 1803. Edmund and his first couple of helpers were soon caring for two to three hundred students, providing food and clothing as well as an education that would help them in the work places of business and commerce and that would build their prayer life and knowledge of the Bible. Edmund was following the call of the Spirit into a religious life that would impact both Church and society. He and his helpers lived at Mount Sion and this was the beginning of the Christian Brothers.
The Congregation spread as other bishops sent men to join the work and begin schools in other towns. Edmund continued to be involved in Irish nationalism, helping new orders of sisters with finances and investments, works of charity involving orphans and children of alcoholic parents as well as helping slaves to escape and hide. His life was more and more about liberation which begins with ‘welcoming strangers’.
By the time of Edmund’s death in 1844, his work had begun to spread through the English-speaking world. The message of Edmund for each of us is the reminder to use our gifts for those who are poor and without means, whether that is spiritually, emotionally or financially.
Pope John Paul II beatified Edmund Rice at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, Rome, on 6 October 1996. He became known as Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice. (This brief biography of Blessed Edmund Rice is an adaptation of the original by Br Richard Walsh, http://www.ercrs.com.au/edmund_rice_story.php.)
I feel a strong bond with the charism of Edmund Rice, having now worked in two Edmund Rice schools. In 2014 I was quite privileged to be part of a pilgrimage to Ireland and visited many sites important to the Edmund Rice story, especially his birthplace in Callan, the first school in Waterford and Edmund’s final resting place in the Chapel at Mount Sion School.
Inspired by the spirit of Edmund so alive in this College today, we as members of the wider Edmund Rice family dedicate ourselves to work together in our continuing mission, to tell the story of Edmund, to share his vision, and to nurture the response in those who are moved by his example.
MOTHER’S DAY
Our annual Mother’s Day Mass is being held this Friday in the College Hall. I hope all mothers, grandmothers and significant women in the lives of our boys have a lovely day on Sunday. I would like to share with you a beautiful reflection I came across last year on the importance of Mother’s Day by Fr Andrew Hamilton as found in Madonna Magazine, “It is easy to be cynical about Mother’s Day. Many older people grew up seeing it as a foreign import, introduced by big businesses to fill their own pockets. That view might gain support from the way in which Mother’s Day is marketed. But it is an important day because it offers an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the lives of people who are often forgotten.
Underlying this neglect is the human reality of self-centredness. We all stand at the centre of our relationships to people and our world. It takes effort and training to see other people as their own centres rather than by reference to ourselves. We see waiters and doctors as just waiters and doctors, not as persons with their own wives or husbands, their own children, their own enthusiasms. In the same way it is also easy to see our mothers only as mothers and not as persons with their personal lives and other connections.
Mother’s Day reminds us of the many and varied shapes of relationships that make up women’s lives. It honours their work in business, in music and other creative fields, their contribution to public life through committees and political allegiances, their sporting interests and all the trying, achieving, relaxing, enjoying and grieving that make each person’s life distinctive.
By definition, of course, the day focuses on women as persons who are mothers. In doing so it also honours all the relationships which through their motherhood shape their lives. These include the relationships to their children as babies, children, adolescents as adults, moving from relationships of dependence to mentoring and to equal friendship, and perhaps towards the end of their lives to accepting care and mentoring from their children.
Associated with these relationships, too, are those made through their children with other mothers in schools and so with their families, and the relationships they form through their workplaces and care of the household budget, and in the local campaigns to demand a more just society. Mother’s Day celebrates the ways in which women grow as persons through their relationships as mothers.
As with all relationships, those of motherhood make their own demands and these demands are primarily of love, moving from the protective and all-embracing love of very young children, to the mentoring love of older children and the freeing love of adolescents. Each stage of love involves sacrifice. The personal sacrifice of the gradual separation of the child into an independent adult, and the sacrifice of other possibilities that they might relinquish when taking on commitments in the home. The maternal love celebrated on Mother’s Day is not automatic or cost-free.
Ultimately, however, the significance of Mother’s Day is not confined to women’s lives as mothers but extends to the persons who are mothers and to the gift they are in themselves and with all their other gifts. It reminds us and pays tribute to the commitments that women make in their professional life, their interests and in their commitments to public life. It invites us to see our mothers’ lives not just in their relationship to ourselves as their children, but in all the wider relationships in which they are the centre.
Mother’s Day is worth celebrating. It may be best celebrated by spending time in exploring the larger world of our mothers from their own perspective” (reproduced with permission from Madonna Magazine, a publication of Jesuit Communications Australia).
In Catholic tradition, the month of May is dedicated to Mary. Chosen by God above all other women, Mary’s example teaches us faith, obedience, humility and most of all, how to love.
“From Mary we learn to surrender to God’s will in all things.
From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone.
From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God.”
St Pope John Paul II
At the foot of the cross, her heart broke for Jesus, yet she accepted God’s will not only for her Son, but for herself in her new role as mother to us all (John 19:25–27). As we honour our earthly mothers and mother figures, let us honour our heavenly mother as well. Those devoted to Mary are always led to her Son. For her wise counsel tells us, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).
UPCOMING EVENTS
Below is a list of some of the upcoming events at the College. I would ask that you have a close look at these and respond accordingly. You may like to pass on some of this information to your friends and family who may be considering enrolling their son at the College next year. You might like to get together with friends for some of the other events, especially the Blue and White Ball.
On Wednesday 1 June we will be holding a special social event for the families who are new to the College this year. We normally hold this event in about Week 3 of Term 1, but Covid restrictions prevented us from having such an event at the time. Even though we are well and truly into the year, it is still important for us to welcome our new parents and carers and have them get to know some of our staff in a more informal relaxed setting with food and drink. This is also a great opportunity for new parents and carers to get to know each other and perhaps start some good friendships. Specific information regarding this event will be released very shortly.
The Blue and White Ball is being held on Friday July 29. The Ball has always been a highlight of the year, but unfortunately has been postponed for two years in a row due to Covid restrictions. I am looking forward to this year’s Ball being bigger and better than ever. Please click on the link below for booking details. The Blue and White Ball is proudly co-hosted by the Old Boys and Friends Association and the College.
- Experience Eddies Day (for students in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 in other schools to experience typical day at St Edmund’s) Monday 9 May click here
- New Parents Function, Wednesday 1 June (to be advertised shortly) – this is for families new to the College in 2022 (delayed from early Term 1)
- Blue and White Ball, Friday 29 July click here
PRAYER FOR MOTHER’S DAY
Lord Jesus Christ,
You chose to put yourself, tiny, needy and helpless,
into the nurturing and watchful hands of a human mother.
Since then, every act of mothering,
both physical and spiritual,
in every time and every corner of the world, recollects Mary’s.
Inspired by this example,
we, too, honour our mothers and mother figures today.
Bless these women,
that they may be strengthened as mothers and nurturers.
Let the example of their faith and love shine forth.
Grant that we, their sons and daughters,
honour them always with a spirit of profound respect.
We ask this in your holy name. Amen.
Blessed Edmund Rice, pray for us
Live Jesus in our hearts, forever
Joe Zavone
Principal
Christus Lux Mea