Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: Be filled with the Spirit

Be very careful about the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people. This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it. And do not be thoughtless but recognise what is the will of the Lord. Do not drug yourselves with wine, this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit. Sing the words and tunes of the psalms and hymns when you are together, and go on singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts, so that always and everywhere you are giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:15 - 20

I have a son who sports a scar on his forehead, an unwanted gift from a senseless attack on the streets of Launceston some few years ago. His assailant was drunk. Both he and the scar have healed, but it will remain a very physical reminder of that night, that incident, that moment.

Thank goodness no one can ‘read’ our lives when we meet them face to face. Knowing each other’s darker sides, or less flattering parts of our lives is something that will only occur with familiarity, friendship, quality time – unless it is splattered across the pages of your daily read. I truly admire those whose adolescent and young adult lives were blameless and pure. That wasn’t quite me and despite a desire to rewrite my early years, I had a good time. We were all young once. I’ll leave it at that.

It’s not a betrayal of family secrets, but alcoholism has touched my wider family with devastating effect – ruptured families, brain damage, death. It’s one of my greatest fears for all those I know who are somehow affected by alcohol. Our young people’s obsession with binge drinking is a cultural aberration I link to the 6 o’clock swill mentality introduced into Tasmanian in 1916. They appear to have no fear of the consequences, of whose lives they will impact, of what damage they might cause. It is easy to close our collective eyes, because it is our common drug.

St Paul is utterly inelegant in his criticism (Ephesians 5:18): Don’t drug yourselves with wine, this is simply dissipation. Instead, he exhorts: be filled with the Spirit. Paul cautions that we should be careful about the lives we lead – ‘like intelligent and not senseless people’. And to be intelligent means being able to make good choices, to be able to think through and be responsible for the actions we take. When we do this and discern God’s will, then despite the wickedness that permeates our world (there are names we can give to these sins), our lives are empowered with the capacity to redeem the world in which we live.

During a week in which we celebrate Catholic Education Week, St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, we also remember St Maximilian Kolbe, a convert from Judaism and a Conventual Franciscan friar who died a martyr’s death at the hands of the Nazis in Auschwitz. How apt, then, it is that Pope John Paul II appointed him as a patron against drug addiction, and patron of drug addicts (because he was killed with a lethal injection). Here are but two lives which have contributed to the redemption of our world, wrought for us by Christ himself.

We each have such a role; we each have our contribution to make to build up the whole. It begins with you and me, with the choices I make. The bread and wine Jesus offers us is truly eternal life.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

A matter of choice by Joan Chittister

…Most of us know when we’re at a crossroad in life, when old answers have gone dry, when our souls have gone dry here, when nothing but another choice is possible. Then come the struggle and the dickering, the pain and the fear over which of the many directions we could take, over which we ought to take.

Indeed, the big decisions in life are hardly ever clear—except for one. And that one is piercingly clear: life is a series of dilemmas, of options, of conundrums, of possibilities taken and not taken. Negotiating these moments well is the essence of the life well lived.

As a result, we know now that this search for the whole self is no longer resolved through an educational process alone or even the choice of a good career. This search for the whole self is a process of making spiritual choices between the good and the better, the holy and the mundane, the essence of life and the cosmetic. We have built change into our futures, our educational options, our lives. We have come to understand that no life is set in stone anymore. On the contrary, life is a slow-won evolution of the self that taps every level of our lives and touches all its great questions.

Choice is the holy-making stuff of life. There is no such thing as the inconsequential. Everything we do affects something and someone. Choice, therefore, is a spiritual skill of great import.

—from Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy by Joan Chittister (Random House)

PETER'S WHEREABOUTS FOR NEXT TWO WEEKS:

MEETINGS COMING UP:

CATHOLIC EDUCATION WEEK 2015

4 August 2015

Dear Colleagues
2015 TCEC Recognition Awards and 25 Years of Service Awards
It is with much pleasure that I announce that the following people will be recognised for their contribution to Catholic Education in Tasmania.
TCEC Recognition Awards:

Mary Grundy, St Joseph’s Catholic School, Rosebery – Outstanding Service as an Employee within Catholic Education
Rodney Steele, Guilford Young College, Hobart – Outstanding Service as an Employee within Catholic Education
Donna Miller, Larmenier Catholic School, St Leonards – Outstanding Service as an Employee within Catholic Education
David Bracken and Mary Bracken, St Therese’s Catholic School, Moonah – Outstanding Contribution as a Friend in Catholic Schools
TCEC 25 Years of Service Awards:

Jennifer Mitchell – Holy Rosary Catholic School, Claremont
Shirley von Stieglitz – Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, Devonport
Simon Wood – Sacred Heart Catholic School, Launceston
Helen Halley – Sacred Heart Catholic School, Launceston
Varieta McKenna – Stella Maris Catholic School, Burnie
Barbara Bickerstaff – Stella Maris Catholic School, Burnie
Mary Hord – Stella Maris Catholic School, Burnie
Joy Matar – St Brigid’s Catholic School, New Norfolk
James Taylor – St Mary’s College, Hobart

Geraldine Bellchambers, St Patrick’s Catholic School, Latrobe
Belinda McGee – St Patrick’s College, Prospect
Di McIvor – St Peter Chanel Catholic School, Smithton
Jacquie Wood – St Thomas More’s Catholic School, Newstead
Damian Messer – St Virgil’s College, Austins Ferry
John Waldock – St Virgil’s College, Austins Ferry
Rosa Connell – Fr John Wall Centre, TCEO, New Town
Their contribution will be acknowledged at presentation functions at Burnie, Launceston and Hobart during Catholic Education Week, 9 - 15 August 2015.

North West: Tuesday 11 August, Cloud 9, Marist Regional College, Paraka Street, Burnie commencing at 4:00pm.
North: Wednesday 12 August, St Thomas More’s Catholic School, 125 Abbott Street, Newstead commencing at 4:00pm.
South: Thursday 13 August, Guilford Young College, Barrack Street, Hobart commencing at 4:00pm (parking off Patrick Street near their oval).
Family, friends and colleagues of the recipients are warmly invited to attend the presentation functions to mark and celebrate their contributions to Catholic Education. For catering purposes your attendance can be advised directly to:
Miss Mary Preston
Phone: (03) 6210 8848
Email: mary.preston@catholic.tas.edu.au
I know that Catholic Education and the Catholic community at large join me in congratulating all the recipients for their outstanding contribution to Catholic Education in Tasmania.
Yours sincerely
Greg McNamara
Chair
Tasmanian Catholic Education Commission