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