Mission Report – May 2, 2019

Happy Easter. He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed!

I hope and pray that your Easter Sunday was filled with every grace and blessing, and that this continues throughout the Easter Season. Let us remember that Easter lasts fifty days, and with it, the duty of joyfully celebrating the Gift of God’s love so that it outweighs the solemn forty days of Lent. –

On Tuesday the students of our VCE Theatre Studies class presented a performance of LOVE AND INFORMATION by British Playwright Caryl Churchill. Congratulations to Ms Monique Allen and the students for the outstanding quality of their production. I would like to share with you a little of the power and beauty of this performance. In this play-¦

-¦nineteen actors take on the roles of eighty-eight characters in thirty-six standalone vignettes addressing contemporary issues about knowledge, technology and communication, and our capacity for love. –

In some scenes, information-saturated dialogue was delivered with rapid-fire precision, offering an insight into relationships that emerge when we share our wonder about this world. Sometimes information promotes a genuine interpersonal relationship, but sometimes focusing on the information blocks an encounter with the heart of another person. Other scenes examined how love and friendships are tested when we encounter misunderstandings or disputes about information. Another group of scenes showed how the commitment of love offers a bridge between people when communication, for whatever reason, has become almost impossible. This included a scene between an elderly couple where the husband, suffering from dementia, was unable to recognise his loving wife and interpreted all information as an act of deception and betrayal. –

The creative power of information and the healing tenderness of love was the powerful insight emerging from all the scenes. Both love and information place us in relationships, so we encounter our deepest desires not through radical individualism by in the giving and receiving of friendship. The quality of our friendships manifest in us the courage to share our deepest desires and transform our life into a work of transcendent beauty: –For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life-. (John 3:16)

In Jesus, God has communicated the love and information we need for a flourishing life and the transformation of evil. The Gospel is the call to love without limit because love transforms everything into good. Our Catholic faith communicates that love is the inner nature of our God: The One God who IS the perfect love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To give and to receive love is the perfection of our capacity for communication and the fulfillment of our desire for friendship. The performance of our students offered this positive message by confronting the challenges we face in directing the drama of our own lives. It was brave performance that was a joy to witness.

So much is at stake in the education of our young men. It is too easy to sometimes downplay this truth because it is a terrifying and mysterious thought. The Christian response to the terror and mystery of life is the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, which boldly proclaims that no terror can ever overcome the light, mystery and joy of love. He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed! What a joy it is to be at a Catholic school in the Season of Easter.