As we come to the end of a very long year we would like to thank all of our families and our young men on the way in which they have engaged this year and shown such resilience and flexibility in what has been an experience like no other. We wish you a safe and blessed Christmas and we hope you are able to relax, spend time with family and enjoy restrictions being lifted for Christmas. We look forward to seeing all of our community in the New Year.
Throughout 2020 we have spent more time together as families and while there have been some lovely moments, we can all agree that sometimes this has not been the case. The added stress of a global pandemic has often made this time frazzled and interactions have not always been positive. In preparation for the upcoming break we thought it timely to share an article about relationships and the power of sorry for our young men. We hope our ...
Community News
Recently in The New York Times, an essay by Pope Francis was published. As you would expect, it is a rich read, and one that I encourage you to spend some time with (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/pope-francis-covid.html). In this final Eagle article for 2020, I’d like to share with you a couple of the points that stood out to me.
Throughout this year, we have seen expressions of gratitude around the world for people who have put others before themselves and done all they can to care for the sick and otherwise affected. Pope Francis declares that people who serve others “are the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves, not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service.” If we can remember the call of the Catholic and Marist traditions to reach out to others, to serve others in need, we too ...
Read more...The Beginning of Advent:
This Sunday we begin the Season of Advent in the Catholic Church. At the beginning of Advent, we light one candle in the midst of all the darkness in our lives and in the world. In the midst of our sadness, that candle symbolizes our longing, our desire and our hope. This year, perhaps more than ever, we may embrace the hope that is celebrated in Week One of Advent. As we prepare for Christ’s coming at Christmas, may we be renewed in our commitment to bringing Jesus to birth for others each day, and may we experience his coming to us now, in our everyday lives, to help us live with meaning and purpose. Advent encourages us to let God’s will be done in our hearts and to have faith in the love of God reflected in the Incarnation of God’s Son. Week by week, candles are lit on the Advent wreath signifying our longing for the light of Christ. Each week paves our way...
Read more...2020 has presented a number of challenges. As we have done across the last few articles we are sharing with families resources to help guide and support you when navigating through many of these challenges with your sons.
The time our young men have spent online this year has been unprecedented. As we all are aware, while there is much excellent content online, there is also a lot of inappropriate and graphic content that is available at the click of a button. Conversations around pornography and gratuitous violence are happening in schools and homes earlier in a child’s development than ever before due to the accessibility of the content. They are not easy conversations and can often, for obvious reasons, be quite emotional for all involved. The question is how to have those conversations in a meaningful, honest and safe way. The conversations become even more difficult when we ...
World Day of the Poor
In his apostolic letter to close the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis suggested the Catholic Church set aside one day each year when communities can “reflect on how poverty is at the very heart of the Gospel.” He designated this day as the `World Day of the Poor’. This day is celebrated annually on the thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary time, which in 2020 was last Sunday. When introducing this Word Day of the Poor, Pope Francis proposed that
“It would be a day to help communities and each of the baptized to reflect on how poverty is at the very heart of the Gospel and that, as long as Lazarus lies at the door of our homes (cf. Lk 16:19-21), there can be no justice or social peace. This Day will also represent a genuine form of new evangelization (cf. Mt 11:5) which can renew the face of the Church as She perseveres in her perennial activity of pastoral conversion and witness to mercy.”
This year, he encouraged us to discover Jesus in the needy. Pope Francis said:
“At times, we think that to be Christian means not to do harm. And not doing harm is good. But not doing good is not good. We must do good, to come out of ourselves and look, look at those who have more need. … There is so much hunger, even in the heart of our cities; and many times we enter into that logic of indifference: the poor person is there, and we look the other way. Reach out your hand to the poor person: it is Christ.”
To be Marist is to come to know and love Jesus: may we be ever conscious that loving Jesus is to love those in need and reach out to them – that they too may know Jesus’ love through our actions.