STANNIES www.stannies.com
NEWS 25 MARCH 2022
FROM THE HEAD OF COLLEGE Dear Members of the St Stanislaus’ College Community, This last weekend we marked the third Sunday in Lent. At Mass, we heard The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree from Luke’s Gospel. There was once a man who had a fig tree growing in his vineyard. He went looking for figs on it but found none. So he said to his gardener, ‘Look, for three years I have been coming here looking for figs on this fig tree, and I haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it go on using up the soil?’ But the gardener answered, ‘Leave it alone, sir, just one more year; I will dig around it and put in some fertiliser. Then if the tree bears figs next year, so much the better; if not, then you can have it cut down. As parents and teachers, the first part of the story is easy to connect with. I am sure we all know our frustration and impatience when our boys and students do not bear “fruit” in the ways or the timeframes that we think they should. It is important to recognise that this comes from a place of love - we know the enormous potential and great gifts our boys have had since birth. We can’t wait to see them in full bloom. The second part of the story is more challenging. Sometimes our boys need us to “dig around” their roots and fertilise them. There will also be seasons where our boys need us to “prune” them back quite heavily in order for them to flourish later. This can be an unwelcome process that can be painful for both the tree and those of us attempting to garden. Sometimes this pain makes us question our own abilities and lose our nerve. Sadly, some relationships are “cut down” in frustration and anger well before they have had a chance to bloom. Like in the Parable, we often need to wait a year (or maybe years) to see fruits we have always known are coming. To be honest though, it’s not just our boys who need pruning and fertilising to bear fruit. We need it too. Not just as children and adolescents but repeatedly as adults.
As adults, we must move beyond having someone else tend the garden of our life and do it for ourselves. A priest, partner or trusted friend can help guide us, but ultimately we need to do our own work. This is why the season of Lent is such a blessing. In recent times, Lent has lost some of its importance to Christians, but a Church that celebrates only the joyful times, like Christmas and Easter, leaves us with a distorted relationship with God, each other and the world. We need to have the balance of being challenged by the sometimes harsh truths of human life – our weaknesses and failings. A point American James E. Faust makes in his book, Finding Light in a Dark World: If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens. We must partake of the bitter with the sweet. There is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day. They prepare, they purge, they purify, and thus they bless. We need to work out for ourselves what it is in our lives that needs to be pruned and die, to be no longer part of our lives, that which makes us ready to receive the forgiveness that Jesus gained for us on Good Friday. If we can achieve this, to sweep out the negatives, then Easter will not be a shallow, commercial celebration but one full of meaning, for we will be totally aware of the new birth as shown in the resurrection of Jesus. The season of Lent is a time to review the past, admit to our shortcomings, reaffirm our commitment to the higher values that we had actually lived and prepare ourselves to be more Christ-like in the year ahead. It is a time to acknowledge our less-than-best choices and seek reconciliation; it is a time to mulch and prepare our soil for the new life of Easter. As we go about our own Lenten season, may we cut our boys some slack, for they are on the same journey as their parents and teachers. Mr Lindsay Luck, Head of College Stannies News | 1