Dear St John's families,

Be on earth the heart of God

This is our charism, taken from the same charism of our Missionaries of the Sacred Heart parish.

Before 'being' the heart of God, we need to try to understand what is the heart of God?

Firstly, to assume I can understand all there is to know about God is simply unthinkable. I do not pretend to intimately know the heart of God.

I grew up in a large, practising Catholic family (I am the second of ten children) and attended Catholic schools throughout my childhood. These experiences do expose me to many of the teachings of our Catholic faith and of those who have gone before me. Since then I have pursued and grappled with many challenges to my faith that each stage of life brings, including personal identity challenges, the sickness and loss of people I have loved and the knowledge that, throughout history, horrible things have been done to people in the name of religion (this is another topic to explore at another time, N.B. I used the word 'religion', a very human word).

Throughout this time I have deliberately kept myself tied to my Catholic faith, never loosening the knot and giving up despite the strain on it. Rather, I have spoken with mentors, read and prayed to seek greater understanding and clarity about God, hopefully gaining just a little wisdom. I think this persistence and connection has allowed me to stay somewhat attuned, despite my many flaws, to noticing God's presence in our world.

What is the 'heart of God'?

At this point in my life, my understanding of the heart of God rests on two scriptures that have sat firmly in my very being since my early twenties:

God is love

(1 John 4:16)

I love the simplicity of this. God simply is love, not 'God loves'. Rather God IS love.

Love is freely self-giving. Love is not conditional. Love is centred on the other and not on the self. Love nurtures and nourishes. Love has unconditional positive regard for others and creation because love has positive regard for itself in the first instance.

So, if God is love, then re-read the previous paragraph substituting the word 'love' with the word 'God'.

I find one of the most poignant and inspiring scriptures that describes love is the following written by St Paul to the early Christian group forming in Corinth:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13: 1-8)

For me, if I want to understand what the heart of God is in order to then I need only to look to these scriptures to guide me.

God is love. God is in my family in the ways we love each other unconditionally. God is in the way I garden and nourish nature around me. God is in the way a person stops to help me when I trip over. God is in the way I take a breath and patiently wait for my children to learn what I already know. God is present when a person speaks angrily to me and I maintain a positive regard for them. God is present when I feel joy in celebrating the growth and achievements of every child I work with. God is in the simple shared love I have with my dog. God is in the long, always evolving, love shared between life partners.

For me, wherever you see and experience love, as it is described above, you find God.

What is the heart of God? What is God's purpose, desire, wish, want? God is love. I think that's why the following words are true:

'the greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.'

Tune in to where you experience and see love this week. You will tune into the heart of God.

Staffing update

Sadly, Mr Iwan Lawalata, has resigned from our Janitor/Groundsperson position to take up a new opportunity in another industry. Iwan has been a very happy and productive member of staff during his short time here. The position has been advertised. If any community members know of someone that might be interested please direct them to the application site. They are also welcome to contact me directly matthew.garton@cg.catholic.edu.au. 

We are still in the process of finding a replacement teacher for Year 5 Blue. As you would be aware, there is a significant teacher shortage in the ACT and across Australia. We expect to appoint someone before the end of term. In the meantime Rebekah Brown and myself continue to share teaching this delightful class.

Kind regards,

Matthew Garton

Principal

Parent Teacher Interviews

In Week 9, we will be offering Parent Teacher Interviews prior to Semester One Reports being distributed. The Parent Teacher Interviews will be an opportunity for you to meet with your child's teacher to discuss your child's progress so far this year. Bookings for Parent Teaching Interviews will open on Monday. 

Attendance

Every minute and every day counts – Missing just one day a fortnight can amount to four weeks of lost learning over a year. Over a students school life, this can equal one year of missed learning. Regular attendance helps students to:

• develop a sense of belonging
• develop and maintain friendships
• be more engaged at school
• progress with their learning
• be more aware of career and life options.

2025 Fete Committee

I know we aren't even half way through the year yet, however I am calling for volunteers to be on the 2025 Fete Committee. Stephanie Juskevics (Kindergarten Parent) has offered to be the Fete Coordinator. Thank you Stephanie!

The Community Council has decided to structure the Fete Committee differently for 2025. We are asking for one volunteer per year group to be on the Fete Committee. A volunteer's role will be to convene one larger/a few smaller stalls for their child's year level. Each year level Fete Convenor will also support organising volunteers from that year level to volunteer on the stall/stalls they are convening. 

If you are interested in being a year level Fete Convenor, please email Stephanie at stephanieh1978@hotmail.com 

Rebekah Brown

Year Six Service Outreach

Our focus for Year Six is 'acts of service'. There's an enthusiastic group of Year 6 girls that love to do crochet and craft, and are keen to vounteer in the community. You may have seen them at the fete where they sold their creations and donated to Save the Children Gaza appeal.  

They are hoping to work with eldery people or people who live with disabilities. 

If you have any suggestions of where they should go, please contact stephanie.stewart@cg.catholic.edu.au

Saint of the Week by Felicity Baulch

St Rose was born into this world on the 20th of April in 1587. Little did she know she would be known for her kindness and beautifulness.

St Rose would do a thing called penances. She would do these to remind herself of Jesus' sacrifice. St Rose would do things like burning her face and hands, and once she put a heavy silver crown onto her head. One of the crown's spikes engraved into her head and was removed with considerable difficulty.

Her miracles to become a saint include:

1. After her death she smelt like roses.
2. Roses started falling in the city she was living in.

St Rose would invite the hungry, poor or sick children into her room and help them. I choose her as my saint because she was striking in her kindness.

I saw a little flower fairy growing in our garden a few weeks ago!

At St John’s we pride ourselves on growth, I am not sure this is exactly what we are talking about but I do love seeing our future students playing at school, especially when in the background is a symbol that they will become so familiar with, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

We have had several visitors and new inclusion staff in the past week or so. Each one has commented in different ways on how welcoming and loving our community is.  How they can see it in our inclusion support, our artwork and mostly in our students and staff. The charism of the MSC’s is both easy and challenging, to be on earth the heart of God. 

It is a commitment to each day building God’s kingdom. Some days this is a large gesture like raising money for the poor. On other days it is as simple as getting down low and taking a photo of a small fairy in the garden and chatting to the family.

John 13:34-37

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

God bless,

Stephanie Stewart, Religious Education Coordinator

Happy Birthday to Olivia Ayton, Charlotte Stanton, Ryan Dixon, Xavier Bonny, William Miles and Kelden Tshering who all celebrated a birthday over the last week.

This year we will be presenting a number of awards to students. Please see below the scedule for this term. Most awards will be handed out on a Friday morning.

At St John the Apostle we teach a number of programs that focus on mastering particular knowledge and skills in literacy and numeracy. Students are taught based on their individual, current level of mastery. Two of the programs we teach are Spelling Mastery and Rocket Maths. We regularly collect data from students in both of these programs so we can track that they are having continous progress. Students work hard to achieve mastery in these programs, so we celebrate the students who show mastery in these programs by giving them awards.

Students will receive Spelling Mastery Awards once they reach mastery three times at their Spelling Mastery level. For some students this is 10/10 and for others it is 25/25. For Kindergarten students will receive Spelling Mastery Awards when they receive 10/10 for each unit they complete in Sounds~Write.

Students will receive Maths Mastery Awards each time they beat their Rocket Math Two Minute Goal.

This year we will also be presenting Brag Tag Awards. These will be handed out each time a student receives 20 brag tags. 

Brag Tag Awards - presented on Friday 21st June, 8.50am (Week 8)

Spelling Mastery Awards Awards - presented on Friday 21st June, 8.50am (Week 8)

Kindergarten

Year 1

Year 2

Julia TRAN

Year 3

Year 4

Samuel O'DONNELL

Year 5

Year 6

Oz HAURELIUK

Second Hand Uniform Donations

The Uniform Shop would love to receive second hand uniform donations. If you have school uniforms at home that you no longer need please send them into school. Thank you.

Opening Hours

Are your children able to tie their shoes? Are they practising on their shoelace pencil cases kindly donated by Paul from Ascent Footwear at our Shoelace Tying Workshop? 

Please continue to help your children with their shoelace tying, so that the process can be embedded in their long term memory. Below, you will find the link to the video to help practise with your children. 

A friendly reminder that St Johns is a nut free school. Thank you.