Mission Report

by Director of Mission, Mr Geoff Brodie

Next week we shall farewell the Year 12 students of 2021. There will be joy, memories, a focus on the final exams and the life beyond. In recent years this significant moment has been marked by a Thanksgiving Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral. We will not be following these traditions for obvious reasons. But let us not fall into melancholy because some things change, because the joy of our community is undiminished. Our students will once again be invited into a spirit of thanksgiving for all the gifts they have received during their St Patrick’s College education. We have a constant tradition that no challenge will overcome, because the tradition is the love and friendship that unites us.

Blessed Edmund Rice envisioned his schools emerging from parents’ invitation to share in their hope that their son will grow to take responsibility for his life and to make wise and loving use of his freedom. Let us pray that the graduating class of 2021 will know all the joy that this wonderful life offers and to witness this joy to others.

One of the key moments in the Thanksgiving Mass was when the students gathered around the sanctuary to sing for the community. Though our students will not offer us this gift this time around, I offer the words of that song below. May the vision they evoke inspire a spirit of thankfulness in our community.

Standing on the Shoulders

I am standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before me.

I am stronger for their courage, I am wiser for their words.

I am lifted by their longing for a fair and brighter future.

I am grateful for their vision, for their toiling on this Earth.

 

We are standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us.

They are saints and they are humans, they are angels, they are friends.

We can see beyond the struggles and the troubles and the challenge.

When we know that by our efforts things will be better in the end.

 

They lift me higher than I could ever fly;

Carrying my burdens away.

I imagine our world if they hadn’t tried.

We wouldn’t be here celebrating today.

 

I am standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before me.

I am honoured by their passion for our liberty.

I will stand a little taller, I will work a little longer,

And my shoulders will be there to hold the ones who follow me.

 

They lift me higher than I could ever fly;

Carrying my burdens away.

I imagine our world if they hadn’t tried.

We wouldn’t be so very blessed today.

 

I am standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before me.

I am honoured by their passion for our liberty.

I will stand a little taller, I will work a little longer,

And my shoulders will be there to hold the ones who follow me.

My shoulders will be there to hold the ones who follow me.

 

©1995 Rouse House Music, ASCAP. Used with permission. Word of Life International. Licence no. 709