Next week we begin the season of Lent.  We will mark two significant days in our Church calendar Shrove Tuesday and the start of Lent, Ash Wednesday.

Shrove Tuesday - The  day before Ash Wednesday is marked as Shrove Tuesday – the feast of the fast in the church.  Shrove is the past tense of the English verb “Shrive” which means to obtain absolution for one’s sins by way of confession and by doing penance.

With Shrove Tuesday taking place before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, it was the day when Christians were encouraged to go to confession in preparation for the penitential season that would end 40 days and 40 nights later with Easter Sunday.

Dating back to 1000 AD, over the years Shrove Tuesday not only became a day for Confession but a time for Catholics to feast on eggs, sugar and dairy which are traditionally restricted during the Lenten fast.  Shrove Tuesday remains an important day of observance for Catholics and Christians to prepare for Lent and the Lenten fast.  Pancakes will be on sale before school next Tuesday to mark this occasion.

Ash Wednesday – Marking the commencement of Lent, a season of fasting and prayer, Ash Wednesday is one of the most important holy days in the liturgical calendar.  Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter Sunday.  The tradition includes wearing ashes on the head.  the ashes symbolise the dust from which God made us.  Each class will join in prayer throughout the day and be sprinkled with ashes of burnt palm leaves from last year’s Good Friday service.  As we are blessed with ashes the priest reminds us:

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

LYF @ OLSCC – Religious Education

LYF @ OLSCC is about Living Your Faith in everything we do.  We aim to embed our faith development across all elements of College life, as well as in structured time each week.  All students at the College study the curriculum area of Religion.  Religion, like all learning areas, has designated curriculum that builds students religious understanding through the Catholic lens.  In 2021 all teaching staff at the College are taking part in the Religious Education Strategy, with TCS, called “Illuminate RE”.  Illuminate RE aims to deepen our understanding of the Religion curriculum and ensure that we have the strategies to allow our learners to develop their own understanding.  This year as a staff we will revisit, refresh, refine and renew our implementation of RE across our College to ensure our students have the skills to encounter Christ in their lives beyond school.   During our professional development week staff focused on the use of Scripture in RE lessons and began to explore ways to deepen both our and our students understanding of scripture in the modern world.

Open Classrooms

It was great to see so many families join us for Open Classrooms and Parent sessions this week.  Although we may not be able to open our College up fully for parent access like pre-COVID it is great that opportunities like this evening were supported by families. 

Back to School – implications of COVID in 2021

Whilst the occurrences of COVID-19 in Queensland have been limited in the past few months very few of the guidelines and restrictions placed on us as an education service have changed from 2020.  We must still maintain high levels of cleaning and hygiene (a positive), physical distancing between adults, reduced number of adults based on square metre rules in indoor locations, and not encourage congregation.  As such last week we released three detailed documents via SZApp and on our website about our guidelines in relation to this.  Please ensure you have familiarised yourself with these and support our College by adhering to these so we can focus on the teaching and learning in our classrooms. These three documents can be found under the ‘Back to School’ section of our website.   I understand the frustration this causes many parents who feel they are missing out on milestones and opportunities to be involved in College Life.  We miss the freedoms of pre-COVID-19 too but we aim to do the best we can for our families and in particular our students as we travel this road together. 

Cate Brennan

Deputy Principal Religious Education