Assistant Principal - Mission

Fourth Week of Lent

This Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday

We warmly invite our College community to join our St Agnes’ Catholic Parish community as our school hosts the music ministry for the 5:00 pm Mass on Sunday. Encounter Youth will be on after Mass from 6:00pm to 8:00pm as you will see in a promotion below.

This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday for the first word of the Entrance Antiphon Laetare (rejoice); it is a Sunday of joy. The priest will typically wear rose (pink) vestments as a sign of joy because we are on the downhill run through Lent in our journey towards the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This Sunday, we hear the Gospel that sits at the very heart of Christianity. It is a passage from the Gospel according to John (3:14-21). This contains the famous John 3:16 quote - “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

This is the absolute core of Christianity. We worship the Creator of heaven and heart, who loves us so much that God gives us Jesus’ life so that we may have salvation. So as a parent’s love for their child is unconditional, God’s love for us is also unconditional, universal, forgiving, and merciful. During the last few weeks of Lent, the challenge for us is to try to live out these qualities as we love others including those who we might see as enemies.

The other key point in this Gospel is that Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. This man was a Pharisee. A member of the Jewish leading class. It was the Pharisees who are often pitted against Jesus throughout the Gospels. Here, he is very representative of us - seeking to understand the theological implications for the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Nicodemus’ mind was ‘half-opened’ to what Jesus was saying - and in the end, that was enough for the love of God through Jesus to enter this man’s heart.

Perhaps all we need is a heart and mind half-opened to the possibility of accepting Jesus’ teachings, and that will be enough for us. So this Lent, may we all try to be opened to the possibility of accepting Jesus into our hearts.

Project Compassion

Memory's story - Malawi

As the eldest child in a low-income farming family, Memory faced many barriers to her education. But with the support of Caritas Australia and CADECOM, she enrolled in a technical school and became the first female carpenter in her village.

This is Memory's story.....

https://youtu.be/wTr5U4ns2oE

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