St Saviour’s College, Toowoomba
Our Lady of Mercy Day
St Saviour’s College, Toowoomba, celebrated Catherine McAuley Day on May 10, commemorating the day in 1861 when the first Sisters of Mercy arrived in Brisbane. The day included a shared morning tea, liturgy and quiz.
Because of an earlier postponement due to bad weather, the school’s cross country competition was staged in the morning so we began our focus on Catherine after this event with a shared morning tea held in Homeclass rooms. Teachers and students all brought in goodies to share and so the community building had well and truly begun by the time we gathered for our liturgy at 11am.
Our liturgy took as its theme, “Imagine the Spirit of Catherine in our lives.” The focus was on recognising the enduring Mercy values of Compassion, Hospitality, Excellence and Justice as they are lived out in each person.
Prior to the day, each Homeclass was allocated a letter from these Mercy values and issued with a piece of cardboard on which to inscribe and decorate the letter. During the liturgy we focussed on each value in turn and representatives from each homeclass brought forth their letters to form a banner across the front of the stage. We listened to readings, sang songs and said prayers, each helping us to understand more about how the Mercy values are relevant in our world.
A student and a teacher then shared powerful stories of where they had encountered the spirit of Catherine in their lives. The girls were spellbound by the realities that each speaker recalled. We concluded the liturgy with an anointing ceremony, challenging the girls to go out to the world imbued with the spirit of Catherine.
Off then to Homeclass where the quiz was completed, with a variety of questions about the school, its history and the life of Catherine. As well as factual information there was a light-hearted element to the quiz, requiring the girls to count bricks in specific locations, locate objects around the school and identify faces in photographs. Fun and laughter could be heard all over the school and few were overly concerned with winning the (food) prize for the best result on the quiz.
There was a definite buzz around the college on May 10 and the spirit of Catherine was clearly evident in the heightened sense of community that was produced.
Margaret Lee leem@stsav.qld.edu.au |
