Kia ora e te whānau
There is plenty going on this week especially with preparations for all of our players and teams competing in Winter Tournament Week and other associated events. I would like to thank all of the staff and parent volunteers who are giving up their family time to attend and support as coaches, managers and support crew. A special thank you goes out to our unflappable and amazingly organised sports coordinator, Rebecca Chittock - nothing is ever a problem and the behind the scenes planning and paper work that goes on is phenomenal so we thank you very much, Rebecca! We wish all our teams luck; we hope you play with pride and humility and that most of all you enjoy yourselves!
As you read this, I will be winging my way through Singapore on the way to Rome in Italy and then Lyon and Paris in France on a Marist Catholic pilgrimage. I am very lucky to be one of 18 other pilgrims travelling over there to experience important religious sites and experiences in community with our fellow Marists overseas.
Just like our Olympians, our preparations are almost done, with excitement building as we head towards the starting blocks in Roma very soon. As Jesus led his disciples, we too are invited to follow during these days of pilgrimage to new places of discovery and moments of encounter as we set out on our Marist journey of faith. It is with all the excitement and anticipation that we undertake this adventure of discipleship, being led to places that captures the heart of our Christian and Marist story. We do not travel alone on this journey. Our time together will be an opportunity to build an authentic faith community as we gather around the same table, break bread and share in both mission and life.
The Gospel of Luke speaks to the spiritual need for a ritual such as pilgrimage. The story of the Road to Emmaus provides an unusual example of pilgrimage with all of the elements of transformation and spirituality for which one might be searching. Cleopas and his unnamed companion are in some ways making a pilgrimage in the wrong direction: away from Jerusalem, a statement of lost hope. Yet Jesus walks with them in the wrong direction, opens the scriptures to them and guides them to undertake a pilgrimage of (what becomes for them) burning and transformed hearts. Our fascination with adventures, where like Cleopas and his companion, we face challenges we don’t understand at the time and overcome them, where we pursue the ultimate happiness even if we cannot recognise it, is given expression in countless stories, told over and over.
Edith & Victor Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978)
And now, just as St Marcellin would sign off to his dear brothers, I too leave you all in the sacred hearts of Jesus & Mary.
Charity Fulfils the Law