Campus Ministry Campus Ministry
In 2005 we had thirty-four Year 12 boys volunteer for training to serve as Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist; eighty-four seniors volunteer for the three fully subscribed four day Kairos Retreats; many Year 12 boys applying for Cadré to train the sixty plus volunteer Year 11 Peer Ministers for the Year 8 Quest Retreat. There was no shortage of boys offering to join Music Ministry, Altar Serving, and to train as Lectors for each of our Masses.
THE MISSION OF CAMPUS MINISTRY We, Campus Ministry at Trinity College, as part of the Body of Christ, are called to glorify God in all aspects of our lives. We are called to create and foster an environment where all can develop an understanding and awareness of and a personal relationship with God, who dwells in and around our neighbour and us. In this environment we strive to provide opportunities for spiritual growth and the building of community. Through our worship, prayer, service, study and reflection and even our leisure activities, we reach out to our campus community, the greater Perth community and the world. Within the Trinity community, we hope to engender a commitment to life-long spiritual growth, to realize the deepening of a love relationship with God and to instil an understanding of the interconnectedness of our human family, a family characterized by mercy and divine justice, by peace, love and joy.
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ampus Ministry at Trinity College is quite unique! Since its introduction and the implementation of its many programs Campus Ministry has transformed the culture of the whole school, especially the Senior School.
Students are eager to be involved in all of the faith development initiatives offered at Trinity. They are proud to profess their faith. In the last four years students have gone from a quiet apathy towards faith and Religious education, to boys from all Year levels volunteering to lead in all areas of faith within the College. Br Robert Callen Director of Campus Ministry
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Again, teachers will attest, as will the students and their parents, that the Retreats offered from Year 8 to Year 12: Quest, Galilee, Emmaus, Encounter and Tabgha; have all been very successful and enjoyed by the boys. So what has happened at Trinity that has brought this about? Why do we hear so much bad news about students in Catholic schools shunning their faith, not attending Mass and teachers wary of using the “J” word or the “G” word? When Mr Tony Curtis invited me to introduce Campus Ministry to Trinity College in 2001, he was not sure what he was taking on, but as he readily admits, he knew it was time to introduce something new and something quite ‘radical’ as far as Faith Education was concerned. The current model was in drift. I had the opportunity to visit the U.S.A. and spend a week in each of eight different Jesuit and Christian Brothers High Schools which had been recommended to me as having ‘best practice’ campus ministry programs. My visits took me from Seattle, Tacoma, San Jose, Portland in the West, to Chicago, Fairfield, Boston and New York in the East. The key insights that I gained from my time spent in these schools were: 1. That Faith Development was unashamedly and unapologetically the top priority of the school; 2. That Religious Education (Theology) was taught by highly competent teachers and that the subject was given at least equal status to all other academic disciplines; 3. That Campus Ministry (Spirituality) was a deliberate and systematic program of Retreats, prayer and liturgies which pervaded the whole school; 4. That Christian Service (Faith in Action) was also a comprehensive and very obvious program throughout the whole school community. 5. That students were offered and encouraged to take up leadership opportunities in every aspect of Faith development programs – a very big emphasis on peer ministry. In each of these High Schools there was a very different “feel” as far as faith education was concerned. I spent a lot of time mixing and talking
