Last Sunday’s Gospel highlights the challenge of what it means to be a disciple: Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, give to those who ask, do unto others, lend without expecting repayment, judge not lest you be judged. These are all big asks especially in the time of Jesus where an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, life for life, had been the practice for centuries.

Loving one’s enemies is asking a lot. The word ‘love’ is explained by the words that follow: ‘do good,’ ‘bless,’ and ‘pray for.’ Even today, blessing our enemies and praying for them might be all right for saints but expecting this of every Christian seems to be going too far. Asking for a blow on the second cheek while the pain on the first cheek is still hurting badly seems fit for a martyr. Not to try to take back what is stolen from us looks very foolish. Before we give up in despair and decide this type of Christianity is not for us, we need to look a little more closely at what this really means.

To love our enemy does not mean that we must throw our arms around them every time we meet them. It tells us that we must do all in our power to rid of our minds of hatred towards them. We should not and must not judge them or condemn them. We must look at the other person as the image of God and see the good in them. We must have spiritual attitude when demanding back property and not in any way injure or hurt them. If someone offends us they offend God which is much more serious. Our charity must help them to seek God’s forgiveness. That they should seek our forgiveness is of very minor importance in comparison with divine forgiveness. 

When we pray for those who do us wrong, we break the power of hate in ourselves and in others and release the power of love.  

While hanging on the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Lord, give us the strength to ask for help in praying for those who do us wrong.

Catholic Schools Week

Next week is Catholic Schools week. The theme for CSW 2019 is ‘The future has a name, and that name is hope.’ This has been inspired by the core values, “All who contribute to Catholic education in the systemic schools of the Diocese of Wollongong are called to act with: hope, integrity, justice and compassion”.

We will be participating in a number of events throughout the week:

Tuesday 5th March
Caritas Launch of Project Compassion at Gwyneville - a number of the Year 6 Mission Group will be representing the school.

Western Region Swimming Carnival.

Wednesday 6th March        
Ash Wednesday Mass 9:30am.

Thursday 7th March          
Staff attending the Diocesan Education Mass 6:30pm at Fairy Meadow.

Friday 8th March              
We will be holding a special prayer liturgy, followed by assembly from 2:20pm down in the prayer space on Friday afternoon.

During the week students will be participating in some activites in their classroom, some of which will be on display in an "art gallery" style in the hall for the following week's assembly.

P&F / Uniform Committee Meeting

The first meeting for 2019 will be help in the Library on Friday 8^th March from 1:30pm.  All are welcome to attend.

Have a lovely week everyone,
Kayleen Petzer