PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
Matthew O'Brien, Principal
Dear Parents, Guardians, Staff, Students and the wider St. Joseph’s Primary School Community,
St Joseph’s School Prayer
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Invitation to pray Welcome Our invitation is for you to pray with us, To be as you are and if not in faith, to be with us respectfully. We acknowledge that many in our community are of other religious beliefs and traditions Thankyou for being with us. |
God of love, creation and wisdom,
Thank you for our Catholic school, St Joseph's.
We are grateful for our space.
Our space to think, ...
our space to be ...
and our space for silence.
Pause - allow time for people to reflect on this. Do not rush to start the next part
God our friend, you help and guide us in good and bad times.
Help us always to find our way to you
We are all learners in our school community.
Help us to open our hearts to others even when it is challenging,
and celebrate that we are all different in so many ways.
On this land of the Gunditjmara people,
Guide us to look after each other and our environment - both beautiful and fragile.
Journey with us as we create a happy and safe place where we respect and accept each other.
A place where we work together and learn from everyone.
As we try our best in everything we do,
May we be inspired by St. Joseph to be caring, honest and brave.
Amen
New School Prayer Launch
Over the last 18 months or so our school community has been rewriting our school prayer to create an inclusive yet distinctly Catholic prayer which is unique to our school community here in Warrnambool. We have been led by Dr Gina Bernasconi, Cara Chisolm and Mark Hyland who, along with a team of teachers and students have consulted and re-consulted, drafted and re-drafted and now finally published our prayer.
I would like to thank everyone who has participated in this process for their generosity, creativity and wisdom. I am particularly proud of our commitment to seeking out and listening to “student voice”. At its heart this is a prayer by children for children.
Over the course of this year (and beyond) we will unpack this prayer and pray it in many creative and varied ways. Our next step is to publish the prayer with artwork from our community. Please see the details in this newsletter.