Marist College Ashgrove | College Newsletter 2012
News from the Assistant Head (Mission) St Vincent De Paul Sleep-out 2012 The College Vinnies Conference pulled out all the stops on the evening of Friday 3 August when 56 Marist students from Years 8-12 attended the sleep-out here at school. To coincide with National Homelessness Week 6-13 August, the sleep-out is an opportunity for students to learn more about the issue of homelessness as a fact of life for too many people in our community. It is also a chance for boys to share something of the experience of sleeping in uncomfortable circumstances (in the undercroft, on cardboard, in winter) as well as a way of raising some funds for the St Vincent De Paul Winter Appeal. As part of the awareness-raising the boys walked from Vinnies QLD headquarters at South Brisbane, past the newly-built Common Ground accommodation block to the Queen Street Mall, where for a brief time boys contemplated what it would be like to be alone on a cold night in the middle of the city. The debrief done in Year level groupings in King George Square revealed how illuminating the experience was, with a great many learnings achieved in a very short space of time – what it’s like to be ignored, or worse, to be treated with suspicion, who cares and who doesn’t, and how it feels to be vulnerable even in a simulated experience, to name a few. Thanks to 56 very generous students, to staff members, Fr Pius Jones, Br Mark Fordyce, Paul Kearney, Mena McLean and Richard Ward and to the families who supported the sleep-out through sponsorship. It is wonderful to report that as well as raising awareness about the causes of homelessness, the Vinnies Sleep-out raised more than $1300 for the Winter Appeal. Thanks and congratulations. Luke McMahon Students who attended to SVdP Sleepout Liam Adams, Brock Alston, Tom Andreas, Hugh Behan, Fraser Brydon, Joseph Byrne, Rory Campbell, Sam Carran, Pat Cenita, Sam Clarke, Latham Collins, Tom Copley, Seamus Coulson, Oliver Darwin, Josh Deocadez, Nic Eddy, Luke Eddy, Izaac Ellings, James Ellings, Dominic Fielden, Charlie Fox, Max Frisby, Lachlan Goves, Alfie Green, Jake Hallam, Beau Harvey, Patrick Hoey, Andrew Hoey, Trent Kay, Sam Kiernan, Sam Knynenburg, Jon Manthey, Darcy Marks, Rory McHugh, Connor McHugh, Tom McLean, Will McLoughlin, Fergus McMahon, Will Moodie, Laim Mulcahy, Nicholas Murray, Jordan Nelson, Jordan O’Connor, Jerome Pang, Nicholas Perry, Angus Porter, Will Ramsey, Dom Smith, Patrick Smith, Tom Stewart, Rory Van Den Brink, Tim Wengenmayr, Alec Whyte, Lachlan Young, Jacob Young August 15 – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Patronal Feast of the Marist Brothers Mass for the entire College Community is to be held in the Champagnat Centre at 9.00am on Tuesday 14 August. Parish Priest of Jubilee Parish, Fr Peter Brannelly will be the Celebrant. The Feast of the Assumption offers some challenges to those whose responsibility it is to teach the faith to the young. What follows is an edited discussion of the Assumption by Rev Laurence Hemming of Heythrop College London, and first published in the Catholic Herald in August 2003. The ideas here allow us to understand something of why St Marcellin chose the Assumption as the patronal feast of the Institute. It makes clear for Catholics and Marists our belief that Mary is the First Disciple, our Model in Faith. “Where the Mother of God goes, we must follow If we see the Assumption as a purely spiritual event we will never grasp its significance for our own lives, argues philosopher Laurence Paul Hemming ere Mary goes, we follow. How are we to understand this? Marian piety and Marian theology have always been at their most vigorous when concerned with the meaning of salvation. Mary is entirely creature: what happens in her is the full promise of what creation can and will receive from God. It is for this reason that there was so much emphasis on the person of Mary in working out the doctrine of salvation in the early Church, and since……….. Not for nothing is Mary known as Mother of the Eucharist. She is the first to receive the sacred body and blood of Christ into her very body — tabernacled in her very womb." Blessed is the womb that bore you!" — and this is why. We who receive the body and blood of Christ receive what she was first to know. She who gave flesh to Christ and carried Him in her person did physically what we do sacramentally — so that the physical and the spiritual are united in our person as they were in hers. The Assumption is confirmation for her and for us, of what it means to receive the body and blood of Christ into our bodies, into our lives. Mary rises naturally to be with God because she has given birth to Christ in her person, through her very being, and fulfilled the meaning of that giving birth in her sinless life. Sinless means