All schools in the Canberra/Goulburn Archdiocese use the Brisbane Diocese Religious Education Curriculum. The  distinct and complementary nature of both dimensions of religious education has been​ conceptualised in the following Model for Religious Education. To reflect this duel focus, the RE section of the newsletter will now be presented with the two headings, Religious Life of the School and Religious Curriculum.

Opening School Mass

Our whole school community gathered yesterday to celebrate the beginning of the school year in Eucharist. Thank you to all who contributed to making it such a beautiful celebration. Particular thanks to our readers from Year 6 and Mrs Pearson and the choir for leading our singing.

Whole School Prayer

Thank you to Year 5 for your wonderful efforts with the first Whole School Prayer for 2023. You have introduced us to some new songs about walking on a journey that we will no doubt hear again throughout this year. Thank you for breaking open the scripture, Luke 24:13-53 (The Emmaus Story) with your creative play. Read more below about our core scripture for the year.

Ash Wednesday

Our next whole school Mass will be in Week 4, on Wednesday 22 February. This will be at 9.30am in the St Monica’s Church. You are all invited to join us in prayer and reflection on this very special day as we begin our own Lenten journeys.

The Emmaus Story - Luke 24:13-53

The account of the journey to Emmaus is a story of journeying and discipleship. For the author of Luke’s Gospel, ‘journey’ is one of the key images of discipleship. It is a story about faith in resurrection reality. The eyes of faith were opened only after:

1. The Scriptures were interpreted
2. Bread was broken and a meal shared
3. A stranger was welcomed

Most Bible Commentaries suggest that these are the essential conditions upon which recognition occurs.

The Emmaus Story highlights several key aspects of the Resurrection reality, or bringing about the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Kingdom is about welcoming strangers, eating with outcasts, listening to stories of Jesus and of God’s interactions with God’s people and praying and responding to Scripture. That Jesus shared a meal with the disciples seems to be more of a reference to the importance of table fellowship than to a Eucharistic connotation, although this is always a key Scripture used with First Communion candidates.

During his ministry Jesus often practised table fellowship as a visible means of making Kingdom forgiveness and acceptance a reality. In other words, Jesus often chose to share a meal with women, outsiders, the poor, marginalized and the rejected sinners. In this way he offered the hand of acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, compassion and love as an example of the Kingdom lived here in our present.

Faith is presented by the author of Luke’s Gospel as a key condition of discipleship. The disciples in the story had lost their faith in Jesus when he died. For them, death was the end, not only of life but also of hope. In this account, Jesus presents a different interpretation. His presence is a reminder that death and resurrection are part of God’s plan for all. Death will not have the final say. Resurrection reality will.

Adapted from Rina Wintour

Religious Curriculum

This year at St Monica’s our staff continue our educational journey in Catalyst. For Religious Education this means examining where we embed our High Impact Teaching Practices in the teaching of RE, as well as exploring opportunities for a diocesan wide low variation scope and sequence to provide alignment of teaching and learning across our system. In the coming weeks I will share with you some of the superb learning being done across the grades at St Monica’s.