Dear Parents

This week we enter the season of Lent, a 40-day season that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. Lent is a period of preparation to celebrate Jesus' Resurrection at Easter.

Lent is a good time for self-renewal; a time to accept and challenge what we may be holding onto that is not serving us. It’s a time we are invited to grow closer to God through prayer, fasting and helping others, as Jesus did.  

PRAYER is our conversation with God. In these exchanges we develop a closer and more intimate relationship with God. This relationship fosters gratitude for our blessings and provides support during challenging times. Prayer can be experienced through mass, individually or with a community.

FASTING: Fasting is an ancient, sacred Lenten tradition. Fasting involves abstaining from certain foods or activities as a form of self-discipline and sacrifice.  Traditionally Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays for the duration of Lent.

ALMSGIVING: acts of charity or generosity for those in need.

Some ideas our students and staff have previously engaged in to participate in Lent:

• Attend mass each week during Lent
• Do set jobs without being asked
• Give up barista coffee and donate the extra money to a charity 
• Volunteer at a local organisation (YAPS, St Vincent de Paul, Lifeline)
• Write a letter of thanks to friends and family
• Give up ice cream, lollies, fast food, alcohol, chocolate
• Clean out cupboards and donate to a charity
• Don’t eat meat on a Friday
• Help mum and dad around the house
• Meditate
• Reach out to someone you’re estranged from
• Reduce screen time and play a family board game instead
• Enjoy silence in creation - walk on the beach, sit and listen to sounds of the Red Arrow

Dear Lord
Guide me as I humbly seek to repent and return to your love. 
May humility guide my efforts to be reconciled with you 
and live forever in your abundant grace.
Transform me this Lent, heavenly Father. 
Give me the strength to commit myself to grow closer to you each day.

Amen.

Katherine Boot
Principal