So much of how I define myself is as a mother. But what if my children were no longer here – what’s left then?

It is a parent’s greatest fear. But, as Emily Rapp writes so poignantly in her article on page seven, none of it is forever.

Emily’s 18-month-old son doesn’t offer her a future and doesn’t have one himself. He has a rare genetic disorder which means he will likely die before his third birthday.

She writes: “Parents don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever”.

So where does that leave us? Though painful to read, Emily’s piece is tender and full of wisdom; reminding us that our lives really are a gift from God, as are our children.

As a Catholic, what I believe, and

what gives me such strength and my life such meaning, is that God has a wonderful plan for me, and my family.

What God asks of me is to live a life of joy, of charity and hope. What he wants is that I draw closer to him so that he can mould me and help me to realise the fullness of life that he promises.

For me, my husband and children are gifts from God – today - to love me and teach me how to love, and to challenge me and help me to grow. For parents, as Emily Rapp tells us, that’s all there is.

But as Catholics, we know there is more, as our page five article “My Son” make clear. The moving story reminds us that whoever believes in God and accepts him in their life, “has everything”.

As I slowly grow in faith and wisdom, I am realising that Jesus is the one I really need. And the more I open myself and my life to him, the more blessed I am – in so many ways.

Wishing you and your precious family a peaceful Christmas,

Felicity de Fombelle

A PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE

by Angus Tulley

IN THIS EDITIONA Daggy Dad at Christmas ........2

Celebrating Christmas, without all the extra stuff! ..........................3

The Best School of Learning is the Home ................................................4

My Son .............................................5

Christmas Cheer minus Santa ...6

Notes From A Dragon Mom .......7

The ABC of Faith ............................8

One of the joys of being a teacher is that by the time Christmas comes around, work can take a back seat. December is always a busy time in schools and sometimes Christmas can almost catch you by surprise. This can happen even if you have been able to enter into the spirit of the Advent journey and listen to the reminders to slow down and prepare for the real joys of Christmas.

Many schools give students the message that Christmas is about giving by asking students to bring

EDITOR’S NOTE

Making it Meaningful

in food or gifts for charities. At our Staff Christmas party we always put the hat around for a good cause. The money goes to those in need in our community – one year it was the children of a staff member’s brother who had died, on other occasions we identify families within our school community and quietly give them a Christmas boost.

Part of the Christmas story is making connections. My mother lived for over nine years after suffering a debilitating stroke – one of my tasks

Continued over...

Your Family, Your FaithIssue Six

There’s no place like school .......4

FEATURE ARTICLE

A DAD’S PERSPECTIVE“BLESSINGS OF A DAGGY DAD AT CHRISTMAS” By Shawn van der Linden

A father’s perspective on Christmas for the Your Family, Your Faith newsletter? In pondering this challenge some precious childhood memories about my own father’s role at Christmas came flooding back to me.

My father emigrated from Holland with his family of ten brothers and sisters at the age of eleven. For myself and my two bothers and sisters our father was a very reserved character, hardworking and dedicated to his family. He was never overly expressive about his Catholic faith, but we all knew it served as a foundation for his life.

I think one of the things we loved about Christmas was the way our Dad would “break out” a little and take the family into an atmosphere of celebration, fun and spontaneity. On one occasion I was about 10 years old and we were on our way home from the Christmas Vigil Mass. I distinctly recall the sense of the specialness of the moment having just come out of the Vigil Mass, and also the anticipation and excitement that goes with being a 10 year old heading home to Christmas presents!

As was the tradition in our family, the drive home from Christmas Mass was usually longer as we drove a different route home, trying to spot as many Christmas tree lights as possible. Everything was just fine as it had been every other year. Suddenly my Dad slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a screeching halt. He yelled out, “Did you see that?”, and then jumped out of the car and ran into the darkness calling out “over here, over here”. We were all completely shocked and wondered what on earth had happened. Dad then returned to the car to explain to us that he had seen Father Christmas on his sleigh flying through the sky and had ran out of the car to get him to stop by and say hello to us.

We were amazed at our normally reserved Dad’s sudden outrageous behavior. From that year on each Christmas Eve drive home was never quite the same, as we wondered if he would do it again. Of course once we grew older we came to describe this event as one of those quintessential “Daggy Dad” moments. Which brings me to a reflection on the place of the Daggy Dad in family life.

As the father of four children I have come to understand the place, and dare I say, the real importance of these special Dad moments in family life. There is a fantastic short video clip that was produced by a Church in America to celebrate Fathers Day, which does a great job at capturing the essence of this important role. Do a YouTube search for “It’s the Dad Life” and you’ll see what I mean. The clip has it all and celebrates Daggy Dad things like socks with sandals, petrol station sunglasses, belt holsters for mobile phones, the BBQ expert and being emotional while watching Disney’s Aladdin with the kids. More than 4.5 million people have viewed this short YouTube clip, so clearly there is something to this Daggy Dad thing!

There is something so ordinary, unsophisticated and hidden about life as a Dad. However, we should never underestimate the impact this ordinariness can have on the lives of our children. In your family this Christmas, what opportunities will there be to do something crazy and fun?

Happy Christmas everyone!

prior to Christmas was to write a chain letter to family and friends in which I would bring them up to date on her welfare. At times it was challenging to find the space to write a one page letter but the effort was worth it. There would always be little surprises in the feedback I received and the messages of support that were sent to my mother. There was the opportunity to remember people who were part of our extended ‘family’.

Christmas Day has had much the same pattern for me over the last 30 years. Opening presents before going to 8:30am Mass; lunch with my wife’s family and dinner with my brothers and their families. My wife has eight siblings in Australia so the lunch gathering is always ‘huge’. Many years ago we ditched the idea of buying lots of presents and these days we get away with buying a small present for our Secret Santa. The focus is on presence rather than presents and that is the way it should be.

We have family overseas so one of the ‘musts’ on Christmas Day is to call our relatives. A couple of times I have been in Scotland on Christmas Day and have even experienced a White Christmas. On those occasions I learned that Bing Crosby had it wrong. I don’t find myself ‘Dreaming of a White Christmas’. We are blessed with the weather we have in Australia at Christmas.

What I most value about Christmas is the time to be with family. Every Christmas there remains the hope that the world will finally get the message of Christmas and learn to live in peace.

A PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE...continued from cover

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A MUM’S PERSPECTIVE“CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS, WITHOUT ALL THE EXTRA STUFF!” by Annabelle O’Connell

A time to chuckleA teacher asked her students to write the words to their favourite Christmas Carols. Here are some of the humorous lines she received:

• Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly

• We three kings of porridge and tar

• On the first day of Christmas my tulip gave to me

• Noel. Noel. Barney’s the king of Israel

• With the jelly toast proclaim

• Olive, the other reindeer, (all of the other reindeer)

• Sleep in heavenly peas

• Oh, what fun it is to ride with one horse, soap and hay

• You’ll go down in Listerine3

In the last school holidays, my husband Anthony spent a few days clearing out the kid’s rooms with them. The haul of stuff that went to Vinnies was bordering on obscene.

So, the people that live in this house do not need another thing. And here comes Christmas.

It is a lovely thing that we want to give gifts to each other to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And the thought of Santa coming is SO exciting to kids – I still remember that feeling from my own childhood, many, many, many years later.

My memory of Christmas Eve as a kid is one of the most lovely I have. We would go to Mass, where my Nan would, as always, be playing the ‘big’ organ at the church, and my Mum would be singing in the choir; both of these things meant that we got to sit upstairs (the choir loft)! It was great. The whole church was in fine voice, and then afterwards we would go to Father’s house with many of our family friends for a bit of a do. We would get home VERY late and head straight to bed full of lollies and the excitement of Santa already humming

along in his sleigh.

Pretty idyllic, huh?! Very blessed.

As an adult, and a Christian, and now being aware of the poverty and hardship that people in our community, let alone the world, are facing, I would really like to find that balance between making Christmas a lovely time for my own children and family and trying to focus on the incredible gift of Jesus Christ to us, and his message. Part of that, for me, is about how we don’t need so much stuff, and to help others who need it. The opposite of what modern society tells us.

Over the last couple of years in my extended family, we’ve been transforming our gifts to each other into the form of those wonderful, very practical Charity Gifts. Some gifts we’ve given each other so far include donations to Indigenous programs, school bags to kids in Timor Leste and chooks and a goat to families in third world countries. All chosen with the awareness and help of our children. This is something I really hope they continue to do, once older and away from their parents.

These gifts are a great idea. They tie in beautifully with the meaning of Christmas. They’re a great way for older kids to really think about others less fortunate. They’re perfect for those of us who just don’t want any more STUFF, Christian or not.

I sound pretty great don’t I? Please go back to the paragraph that says ‘I would really like to…’. Anthony and I will be buying our children Christmas presents, I’d say Santa will be visiting our house for a few more years yet, and going off previous years, I’m fairly sure I will be receiving some Very Nice Things, for which I will be most delighted.

The gifts I give and receive will be done so with much love, to and from my most favourite people in the world. Given along with those gifts will be a most sincere prayer, that I might continue to be mindful of those who are in need, and in the words of St. Mary of the Cross, never see a need without doing something about it.

From this Mum, may you and your favourite people have a very Merry Christmas. And may you truly know the peace and joy that Jesus came to give us all.

Trinity Catholic College Goulburn

Trinity is a Year 7-12 Co-educational College. Enrolments for 2012 now being accepted.

We are always happy to take you on a tour of the College.

Contact Teresa Shepherd on 4824 1207 or email Teresa.Shepherd@cg.catholic.edu.au

The pathway to your future....

Jenny Anderson’s four school-aged children have never been to school.

Instead, Jenny has educated them herself, at home. She has a poster which provides her with encouragement and inspiration. It says, “The Best School of Learning is the Home”.

The decision to home educate began after Jenny and husband Brett met some teenagers who “seemed to be different”.

“They were articulate, they were interested, they were interesting,” Jenny explains. “We wondered what the difference was, and it turned out to be home education.

“For me, home education is about being able to be the biggest influence in our children’s lives, taking up the challenge to train them and raise them with our values and beliefs.

“You have to know in your heart that you’re doing the right thing. If you look at the teachers you’ve had, you can remember those whose heart was really in it.

“That’s particularly important when the dishes are piled up, the children are tearing around and you want to throw your hands in the air and say I can’t do it! Home education is a vocation. You have to have that sense that this is where I am supposed to be.”

Jenny recalls the mad rush to get everything done when her children were in childcare for a time.

“We were always flying out the door in the morning, and in the evenings you’re trying to get dinner on the table and the kids to bed,” she says.

“There wasn’t time to sit down and have proper conversations. Home education gives you those teachable moments.”

Jenny and Brett, who works as an IT consultant, have been home educating a long time. Their eldest child, Kira, is now 17, and

doing a Bachelor of Arts (Internet Communication) online through Open Universities Australia. Lachlan is 15, Alyssa 11 and Dania, 7 – so the journey is far from over.

Like any path, it has not always been easy. Most families live on one income and Jenny has had to sacrifice her own time and some ambitions.

“I struggled with that at the beginning,” she admits. “I look at it as a sacrifice for a season. There is only a small window of time I can invest in my children and there will come a time when that ends and I move on to something else.”There is no classroom in the family’s

Tuggeranong home. Kira works at the computer; Lachlan likes quiet so works at a desk in his room; Dania is always at the kitchen table while Alyssa moves between her bedroom and the kitchen.

Jenny’s home education approach has changed a lot over the years. In the early days there was a strict timetable but now it is more relaxed. She also used to join other home educating families for regular excursions to museums and galleries, but that happens less nowadays.

The children do bookwork in the morning – using set curriculum for maths, english and science – while Jenny adopts a ‘natural learning

approach’ to other subjects. The afternoons are free to pursue individual interests, for example Alyssa has just planted a vegetable garden. All the children are actively involved in CircXtreme (a circus group in Kambah), play musical instruments and are involved in a community theatre group. In the past, they have done gym, scouts and dancing. In 2005, the family spent seven months travelling around Australia which Jenny says was an amazing learning experience.

So what about assessment, and what about socialisation?

“The purpose of assessment is to determine how much they’ve understood,” Jenny says. “When you have regular conversations with your child, you know how much they know.

“In terms of socialisation, a child who is properly socialised can interact with people of all ages and in different situations.

“Of course our children have friends, but their first friends are their family. We also have an extended family network, friends, and we are very involved in our local church.

“Some people see home educating as strange and seem to think I might be judging their choices, which I am not.

“I am challenging society’s assumptions and opting out of a system but that doesn’t mean I am judging others. Our decision is counter-cultural, that’s all. While there are many benefits to home education, there are equally many benefits to other choices, such as being a full-time parent, working part-time and working full-time. All have rich opportunities for developing our children and we should all embrace the journey we are on.”

*For more information about home education go to www.chec.org.au or www.hencast.org.au

Jenny and Brett with children

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“THE BEST SCHOOL OF LEARNING IS THE HOME”

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael.

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father grieved deeply for his son.

About a month later there was a knock at the door. A young man with a package in his hands said “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day. He often talked about you, and your love for art.

“I know this isn’t much. I’m not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.” The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by this young man. His eyes welled with tears and he offered to pay him. “Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. Please accept it as a gift”.

The father hung the portrait over this mantle piece. Every time visitors came he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of his other great works.

The man died a few months later and there was an auction of his paintings.

Many influential people came, excited about the opportunity to purchase one for their collection.

On the platform sat the painting of the Son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. “We will start the bidding with this picture of the Son. Who will bid for this picture?”

There was silence. Then a voice shouted, “We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one”.

But the auctioneer persisted. “Will somebody bid for this painting?”

Another voice angrily said. “We didn’t come to see this painting. Get on with the real bids!”

But still the auctioneer continued. “The Son! Who’ll bid for the Son?”

Finally, a voice came from the back of the room. It was the long time gardener of the man and his son. “I’ll give $10 for the painting”. Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.

“We have $10, who will bid $20?”

“Give it to him for $10. Let’s see the masters”.

The auctioneer pounded the gavel. “Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”

“Now let’s get on with the collection!”

But the auctioneer laid down his gavel.

“I’m sorry, the auction is over.

“When I was asked to do this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will that I was not allowed to reveal until now. Only the painting of the Son would be auctioned. Whoever bought the painting would inherit the entire estate. The man who took the Son gets everything”.

God gave His Son 2,000 years ago to die on the cross.

Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: “The Son, Who’ll take the son?”

Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything. “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, WHOEVER BELIVES IN HIM, WILL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE”.

Whoever has the Son has everything.

* This article appeared in the UK Catholic Campion.

Meet Umbert the Unborn, the feisty comic strip character who demands respect. His mother’s womb is his private universe, playground and think-tank.

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UMBERT THE UNBORN

“MY SON” by Fr Francis Maple OFM Cap M.B.E

FAMILY MATTERS“CHRISTMAS CHEER, WITHOUT SANTA” by Cathy Drumore

Santa doesn’t come to our house. My children are obviously deprived (not naughty!) but that’s just how it is. I have no particular objection to Santa but people often ask why we’ve excluded him. When I tell my students, they’re often aghast. “That’s terrible, Miss! They’re missing out! You’re so mean!”

When I was growing up, Santa used to come to our house. I often received a set of pyjamas, sometimes a book, always something simple and useful. My favourite was a set of carefully hand-crafted dolls clothes. But these unfortunately contrasted with my friends’ presents. Santa used to bring them bikes or stereos or dolls’ houses. I wondered why Santa was so unfair.

One set of my cousins didn’t have Santa come because my Aunt didn’t approve of the hype. They received no Christmas presents and replied non-committedly when stray adults

stopped them in supermarkets and said, “And what’s Santa going to bring you this year?” I began by feeling embarrassed for them but then I noticed that they seemed to have a nice Christmas anyway. For frankly, the part of Christmas I most enjoy has always been our huge family gatherings (and the food!) And you don’t need Santa for that.

Puzzling over this as parents, we decided on a compromise. Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, not ours, so we don’t need individual presents. Our kids would receive large birthday presents instead. For Christmas, they would decide on a present to share, which has ranged from a trampoline to cubby house furniture, sporting equipment and a wii.

In my family we’ve had a Kris Kringle for the last five or six years but are finding it increasingly difficult to purchase a gift for a sibling (or sibling-in-law) we haven’t seen for

months. So this year we are going to pool our money to give to a designated charity instead.

Don’t get me wrong - purchasing gifts can be fun and rewarding and I love knowing that a pressie of mine is appreciated. But I’ve found that my kids really get into the spirit of Christmas as a celebration of Jesus’ birth and revitalisation of family instead of worrying about what’s in it for them. We enjoy attending Carols in the Park and going for our customary drive to see the Christmas lights afterwards. And not only is the family present well utilised, the kids have to use the valuable skill of sharing as they do so.

So, while I respect the rights of others to have Santa bring presents, I hope that when they become parents, my children will appreciate why we made this choice for them. Have a great Christmas, everyone!

FAMILY & FAITH“YOUR FAMILY IS A MANGER FOR GOD” by Archbishop Mark Coleridge

Christmas in Australia has become what

Thanksgiving is in the USA – a time for families to get together and celebrate. This has become especially true since the religious significance of Christmas has diminished in our increasingly secularized society. If the real meaning of Christmas – the birth of the child who is God-with-us – evaporates, all we are left with is family celebration and the shell of consumerism. Mind you, Christmas can also be a difficult time, as old family tensions surface and people with little or no family are left hung out to dry.

Yet even those with close families can find Christmas strangely one-dimensional, if not quite empty. This

is usually because God is no part of the celebration and no part of the family’s life. I’ve heard of atheist parents who have tried to create for their children (who want something!) a kind of secular Christmas, focusing on the gift that the family members are to each other and the way in which this is symbolized in the giving of gifts to each other. Yet can this ever be enough? I doubt it.

If the child lying in the manger is more than just a pretty folkloric-touch, if he is really God-with-us, then God is always part of family life, and always part of the Christmas celebration, whether we recognize it or not. Gifts become more than a consumerist charade; they become a simple gesture which speaks of the superb gift which God gives in the love of family.

In the end, Christmas is the celebration of God as the source of all love. It is a love which makes God one of us – not confined in some far-distant heaven, but a God who in becoming part of a family becomes part of every family. To see the truth of the baby who lies in the manger is to see the truth of God who lies at the heart of every family. Every family is a manger in which to lay the baby who is God. If we recognize this, then the human family can be full of a radiant and joyous presence in the midst of all that is ordinary and even tawdry; and Christmas becomes a moment when we sense and celebrate how rich and peaceful our life can be in the midst of all that is one-dimensional and soul-destroying. A very Happy Christmas to you and your family.

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“NOTES FROM A DRAGON MOM” by Emily Rapp

My son, Ronan, looks at me and raises one eyebrow. His eyes are bright and focused. Ronan means “little seal” in Irish and it suits him.

I want to stop here, before the dreadful hitch: my son is 18 months old and will likely die before his third birthday. Ronan was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder. He is slowly regressing into a vegetative state. He’ll become paralysed, experience seizures, lose all of his senses before he dies. There is no treatment and no cure.

How do you parent without a net, without a future, knowing that you will lose your child, bit by torturous bit?

Depressing? Sure. But not without wisdom, not without a profound understanding of the human experience or without hard-won lessons, forged through grief and helplessness and deeply committed love about how to be not just a mother or a father but how to be human.

Parenting advice is, by its nature, future-directed. I read all the parenting magazines. My husband and I thought about a lot of questions they raised: will breast-feeding enhance his brain function? Will music class improve his cognitive skills? I planned and plotted and hoped.

We never thought about how we might parent a child for whom there is no future. The prenatal test I took for Tay-Sachs was negative; our genetic counsellor didn’t think I needed the test. Being somewhat obsessive about such matters, I had it done anyway, twice. Both times the results were negative.

Our parenting plans, the advice I read before Ronan’s birth make little sense now. No matter what we do for Ronan – cloth diapers or disposable; attachment parenting or sleep training – he will die. All the decisions that once mattered so much, don’t.

All parents want their children to prosper, no matter. Traditional

parenting naturally presumes a future where the child outlives the parent and ideally becomes successful, perhaps even achieves something spectacular. Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” is only the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along this path. It’s animated by the idea that good, careful investments in your children will pay off in the form of happy endings, rich futures.

But I have abandoned the future. We’re not waiting for Ronan to make us proud. We don’t expect future returns on our investment. We’ve chucked the graphs of developmental milestones and we avoid parenting magazines at the paediatrician’s office. Ronan has given us a terrible freedom from expectations, a magical world where there are no goals, no prizes to win, no outcomes to monitor, discuss, compare.

But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feeding, naps. He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal. We are a very permissive household. We do our best for our kid, feed him fresh food, brush his teeth, make sure he’s clean and warm and well rested and … healthy? Well, no. The only task here is to love, and we tell him we love him, not caring that he doesn’t understand the words. We encourage him to do what he can, though unlike us he is without ego or ambition.

Ronan won’t prosper or succeed in the way we have come to understand this term in our culture; he will never walk or say “Mama,” and I will never be a tiger mom. The mothers and fathers of terminally ill children are something else entirely. Our goals are simple and terrible: to help our children live with minimal discomfort and maximum dignity. We will not launch our children into a bright and promising future, but see them into

early graves. We will prepare to lose them and then, impossibly, to live on after that gutting loss. This requires a new ferocity, a new way of thinking, a new animal. We are dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell. Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now, for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to traditional wisdom and advice.

Parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever.

I would walk through a tunnel of fire if it would save my son. But it won’t. I can roar all I want about the unfairness of this ridiculous disease, but the facts remain. What I can do is protect my son from as much pain as possible, and then finally do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: I will love him to the end of his life, and then I will let him go.

But today Ronan is alive and his breath smells like sweet rice. I can see my reflection in his greenish-gold eyes. I am a reflection of him and not the other way around, and this is, I believe, as it should be. This is a love story, and like all great love stories, it is a story of loss. Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.

This article appeared in the New York Times on October 15, 2011

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Emily Rapp with son Ronan

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Published by the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra-GoulburnProduced by CatholicLIFEPO Box 7174 Yarralumla ACT 2600 Tel: 02 6163 4300 Fax: 02 6163 4310 Email: info@catholiclife.org.auWebsite: www.catholiclife.org.au

SO, WHO IS JESUS? by Shane Dwyer

When you hear the name ‘Jesus Christ’ I wonder what comes to mind? If you had to explain these words to someone who had never heard them before, what would you say? Having worked with children and adults

in the area of faith education I can tell you that the answers to that question can be many and varied! Even among those who have just completed years of Catholic secondary education I’ve learned to expect an answer like “he was a good man who lived 2000 years ago. He taught us to love one another and be kind”. Yes – that is a quote from an earnest 18-year-old Catholic school graduate I was once discussing these things with.

So, what is wrong with that answer? On the surface, it is fine. It expresses some truth – the sort of truth that human beings are normally comfortable with. Yes, Jesus lived 2000 years ago (or thereabouts), he was a good man and he taught us to love one another. In this way he was like many other good men and women who have lived and are alive today.

But this understanding of Jesus is so limited as to be almost embarrassing! It also fails to explain why proclaiming belief in him is at the heart of your school’s mission. To understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to Jesus you need to know: 1. That Jesus is God (in human form). 2. That after he died he rose from the dead. 3. That he is alive today and at work through the various people who proclaim their faith in him – including the people who work at your child’s school.

This turns the work your school is doing on its head. No longer is it something the school does under some sort of vague inspiration from the long-dead good man called Jesus. Instead, our faith tells us that Jesus is intimately concerned with the formation of your child. He is calling your child into a relationship with himself. In order to do this he requires the assistance of those who agree to participate in his mission. This forms the heart of why a Catholic school exists: in response to Jesus’ mission to bring your child to a deep relationship with himself in the context of your child’s ongoing academic, social and personal formation. The degree to which your school is doing this is the degree to which it is fulfilling its mission. Just thought you should know!

*Shane Dwyer is Archdiocesan Coordinator, Faith Formation & Spirituality. This is his third column about the Catholic faith.

www.cdf.cg.catholic.org.au

JOIN US FOR CHRISTMAS CAROLS

Bring the family to Carols at the Archbishop’s House on Sunday Dec 18 from 2-4pm. Parking/entry via Albert St, Commonwealth Park. Food and drink

for sale. See you there!

Your Family, Your Faith is proudly supported by the Australian Catholic University

SUN, SURF AND GOD Have you made plans for the Australia Day long weekend?If you’re aged 16 to 35, are interested in a beach holiday as well as meeting some great people at the same time, Turn the Tide is for you.

Turn the Tide is the annual Archdiocesan summer retreat which, next year, will be held from January 27 to 29 at “The Pines” Retreat Centre at Tuross Heads in NSW.

It’s a popular event for young people as it is a relaxed weekend with good food and plenty of time for the beach, relaxation and sport.

Of course spirituality is also part of the mix. Archbishop Mark Coleridge will be there for the weekend which means there will be ample opportunity to thrash out those big questions of life: How am I travelling? What is God’s plan for me? How can I make my life more rich and meaningful?

The summer retreat is a terrific opportunity to meet and mix with other young Catholics, to bring faith, friends and fun together and to discuss the many issues challenging young Catholics today.

To register, or find out more about Turn the Tide, call CatholicLIFE on 02 6163 4300.

THE

OF FAITH