From the Acting Principal

Welcome back and thank you

A warm welcome back to the College. I trust that everyone feels refreshed and ready to resume an important and busy Term 4.

Thank-you for ensuring our learners were well-prepared, equipped and ready to start Term 4. We also appreciate the many conversations that parents had with our learners regarding their goals for Term 4 following Term 3 Interim Reports.

Welcome

We welcome Mrs Nadine Luhrs back to St Jospeh’s College from Term 4. Nadine will be joining the Student Engagement Team as a College Guidance Counsellor.

We also welcome Rani Deane to the Enhanced Learning Team as a School Officer - Assisting Student Learning. 

Year 12 Final Studies

Best wishes are extended to the Year 12 students who are now completing their final studies, masterclasses and preparation for the external ATAR examinations to be held from Monday 23rd October.  Students not completing an ATAR are finalising their assessments in Week 1 to 3, engaging in Work Experience, commencing additional work or undertaking their school-based apprenticeships. Teachers are available to assist the students with their subject-specific studies right up to their actual external examinations. All the best to the Year 12 students as they are preparing for these important final exams.

Student Leader Induction

This morning we celebrated the induction of our Student Leaders for 2024. This celebration was one of great significance. The induction of student leaders and the passing of the symbols of student leadership from the current leaders to the new leadership group strengthens and inspires the Year 11 leaders for the challenges of leadership, both individually and communally.

The challenge of ‘Serving Him in Others’, being selfless, community minded, welcoming and caring is one that all leaders face each day, and it is now the turn of our current Year 11 students.

It is with great pleasure that we announce that our Student Leaders for 2024 are:

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We wish this wonderful group of young people all the best for their tenure as the Captains of St Joseph’s College and we look forward to working with them as we continue to engage with ‘The Joeys Way’ over the next year.

Finally, I would like to thank our Year 12 cohort who have done a wonderful job in leading our community this year.

Listening to the Community

There is much positivity in the Catholic Church with Pope Francis at the helm. He is aware of the decline in church attendance worldwide and is in turn, listening, addressing the hierarchy, and enabling the views of the groundswell community of the Church to be heard. To do this in a practical sense, Pope Francis has called for a synod at the Vatican. The Synod on Synodality was launched last week on 4 October. The global meetings, to be held from the 4th – 29th October 2023 in Rome, are the culmination of two years of preparation. At its conclusion, a synthesis report will be read and approved at St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday 29th October, marking the conclusion of the Synod.

On this synodality, Pope Francis has said many statements over the past years which give meaning, purpose and focus to these assemblies. Below are a few for your perusal:

“…..this may seem excessively technical, of little interest to the general public, but it is something truly important for the Church.”

“Walk together. Question together. Take responsibility together for community discernment, which for us is prayer, as the first Apostles did: This is synodality, which we would like to make a daily habit in all its expressions.”

“There is no place for ideology in the synod. It’s another dynamic. The synod is dialogue between baptised people in the name of the Church, on the life of the Church, on dialogue with the world, on the problems that affect humanity today. But when you think along an ideological path, the synod ends.”

“Precisely at this time, when there is much talk and little listening, and when the sense of the common good is in danger of weakening, the Church as a whole has embarked on a journey to rediscover the word (Synod) together”.

“Synodality, as a constitutive element of the Church, offers us the most appropriate interpretive framework for understanding the hierarchical ministry itself. If we understand, as St. John Chrysostom says, that ‘Church and Synod are synonymous,’ in as much as the Church is nothing other than the ‘journeying together’ of God’s flock along the paths of history towards the encounter with Christ the Lord, then we understand too that, within the Church, no one can be ‘raised up’ higher than others. On the contrary, in the Church, it is necessary that each person ‘lower’ himself or herself, so as to serve our brothers and sisters along the way.”

“The world in which we live, and which we are called to love and serve, even with its contradictions, demands that the Church strengthen cooperation in all areas of her mission. It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium,” Pope Francis stated.

We pray that this synod is a game-changer in the Church as it attempts to listen to the community of God within the Church in a most humble and open manner.

May God’s blessing be upon this synod and our young people of St Joseph’s College who are part of the community of the Church into the future. Amen.

2023 Presentation Night – Save the Date

All students and families are welcome to the 2023 Presentation Night!  The evening will acknowledge the student’s academic, mission, sporting, cultural and engagement & leadership achievements of students across the College.  As in previous years, we look forward to a range of performances.  We invite all members of the College community to join us for a night of festivity and entertainment as we celebrate the achievements of our students across SJC in all areas of college life. Tickets will be available shortly via a link from the Empire Theatre – stay tuned and save this date.

Brendon Willocks - Acting Principal - bwillocks@sjc.qld.edu.au