Siena Catholic Primary School
Last Thursday and Friday evening some of our Siena students received their Sacrament of Confirmation in a beautiful liturgy celebration at Stella Maris church and at Our Lady of the Rosary, Caloundra. Bishop Heenan led the liturgies and confirmed over 100 candidates from both parishes.
We continue to prayer for all children who received their Confirmation. They spent many weeks learning about the Sacrament and showed commitment to understanding the gift that Confirmation brings to building of their faith. During the ceremony we witnessed these children being blessed with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit through the Oil of Chrism and also renewing their Baptismal vows declaring to be people of faith spreading the Gospel through their words and actions assisted by the Holy Spirit.
Our Year 5 students prepared beautiful Conformation gift bags to give to the children who were Confirmed These gift bags included prayers, drawings of the signs & symbols of the Holy Spirit and mementoes of the steps involved in making the Sacrament. Many thanks to the Year 5 teachers and the effort and dedication that our year 5 students gave to this endeavour. The are priceless keepsakes for our children who received the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Stella Maris Primary School
We have been continuing to promote our Vinnies fundraising efforts, highlighting the Winter Appeal and Mr Ballam’s involvement in the Vinnies Sunshine Coast CEO Sleepout. The donations are coming in, with students looking forward to the opportunity to be “Principal for a Day” and to being able to wear their team colours to school on the next two “State of Origin” days. Sometimes we wonder though, do the students really understand why we need to support such a cause as Vinnies?
Hence, we were so grateful to have had a visit from the Queensland St Vincent de Paul Society’s School Engagement Officer, Kate Everlyn, this week. Using a simple balloon game, Kate managed to capture the energy, enthusiasm and hearts of the students in the Year 4C class, while simultaneously assisting them to come to a deep understanding of why the work of St Vinnies is so essential for those who are sleeping rough. Now, the students of 4C are inspired to share their learning with all classes across the school and have offered to visit all classrooms next week to do so. What a great way to put their learning into action!
Siena Catholic College
Our Year 12s joined Fr Peter, Deacon Isaac, and the Parishioners at the Community Mass on Wednesday. In his homily, Deacon Isaac shared some of his own story and challenged our Year 12s to be very purposeful in discovering their life’s vocation.
A small group of teachers travelled to Sydney on Thursday on a Pilgrimage. The aim of the two-day event was for us to walk in the footsteps of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop – in order to deepen our understanding of who she was and why her story remains relevant, particularly to educators. We were reminded that we should “do all we can with the means at our disposal, and calmly leave the rest to God”.
