Be large-hearted people in large-hearted schools, Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has said on the occasion of the 180th anniversary of Mercy Education.
Archbishop Costelloe was speaking during Mass on Monday 20 July at Santa Maria College, Attadale, where staff and representatives from Mercedes College, St Brigid’s College and Santa Maria College gathered in the College’s new Cultural Centre.
The day, titled Walking Forward Together as People of Mercy, marked 180 years since the first Sisters of Mercy arrived in Western Australia.
Concelebrating the Mass with Archbishop Costelloe was Jesuit Fr Frank Brennan SJ.
Sisters of Mercy Australia and Papua New Guinea Institute Leader, Sr Karon Donellan and WA Institute Leader, Sr Helen Nolan were also present for the occasion, together with 16 fellow Sisters from across WA, many of whom had been teachers in Mercy Schools during the foundational years.
Joining them for the occasion was Catholic Education Western Australia Ltd Executive Director Annette Morey and Director, Religious Education, Deacon Mark Powell.
The Mass commenced with an introduction and welcome to country from the three principals – Santa Maria College Principal Jennifer Oaten, Mercedes College Principal Dr Lucie McCrory and St Brigid’s College Lesmurdie Acting Principal Marsha Pengilly in addition to music led by a combined choir of the three schools.
Six sisters and one lay woman landed at Fremantle on 8 January 1846, led by Mother Ursula Frayne, who had known Catherine McAuley in Dublin and was with her when she died.
They opened a school within weeks – going on to become the now Mercedes College, and the work that grew from it now runs through education, health, aged care and social justice. St Brigid’s followed at Lesmurdie in 1929 and Santa Maria at Attadale in 1938, all three now Mercy Education schools.
Speaking about the book by Australian Scripture scholar, Fr Brendan Byrne SJ, on Matthew’s Gospel, Archbishop Costelloe referred to Fr Byrne’s commentary which speaks about Jesus looking at humanity and seeing it weighed down.
“Far from adding to humanity’s burdens, Jesus comes to bear and lift them,” Fr Byrne wrote.
That phrase, Archbishop Costelloe said, might sum up the mission of Mercy Education in society and in the Church today.
Archbishop Costelloe also spoke about the Year of Mercy that Pope Francis proclaimed in 2016, and the line Francis used to open it: ‘Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy’.
“During the Year of Mercy, I found myself speaking of the large-heartedness of God as a way of explaining a little more what this theme of Mercy actually means,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
He then turned to Pope Leo XIV, who recently asked a gathering of Italian bishops what face of God they allowed to shine forth in their life and ministry.
Anyone working in Catholic education exercises a form of leadership, Archbishop Costelloe said, so the question belongs to teachers and support staff too.
“Pope Leo does not ask what face of God do you think you should allow to shine forth or what face of God do you wish you were able to allow to shine forth? He simply asks what face of God do you actually allow to shine forth?” he said.
“In your encounters with your colleagues in the school, in your meetings and engagement with the parents of the students, and especially in the ways in which you relate to the students under your care, is it the mind and heart of Jesus which they are encountering in you, or something or someone else?”
Staff can only pass on what they have themselves, Archbishop Costelloe emphasised.
“We will need to encounter Him ourselves if we are to have any hope that He can then meet others through us,” he said.
Each school has its own ways of helping staff do that, the Archbishop continued, and a readiness to take them up marks someone who has understood what a position in a Catholic school carries with it.
In a Mercy school, he continued, it all points back to one instruction: be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.
Archbishop Costelloe called it the urgent challenge and the great privilege in front of them and closed with the words of the prophet Micah from the first reading; “Act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God.”
Institute Leader of the Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea Sr Karon Donnellon RSM followed the Mass with an address titled “Carrying Forward the Mercy Story.”
Fr Frank Brennan SJ spoke later in the morning on Faith in a Changing World.