Dear Parents and Carers

“…then we hauled on the ropes
and he rose in the hot air
like a diver just leaving the springboard, arms spread
so it seemed
over the whole…[of] creation
over the big men who must have had it in for him
and the curious ones who’ll watch anything if it’s free
with only the usual women caring anywhere
and a blind man in tears.”

Bruce Dawe, A Good Friday Was Had By All

These confronting words come from the last stanza of the Australian poet Bruce Dawe’s poem, ‘A Good Friday Was Had by All’. https://lentproject.wordpress.com/resources/poetry/and-a-good-friday-was-had-by-all/

It is a poem of lament and mourning, told from the point of view of one of the soldiers who crucified Jesus. This Friday Lent comes to near-culmination as we mark the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Part of the confronting nature of the poem is in the way that Dawe describes the almost casual way that Jesus was put to death and the indifference from the crowed that witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion. It invites the reader into an honest self-reflection about the ways we might have responded had we been there at the time. We know of course that Good Friday is not the end of the story. As Peter Steele SJ has said, Easter is the story of promises made good, and Easter Sunday is the story of Jesus’ experience of love triumphing over death. Again, as Steele says, bitter experience does not have the final word. In these difficult times, this message is more vital than ever.

On Monday I sent home a long letter detailing the way that Term 2 will work at Sts Peter and Paul. It probably needs to be stressed that all children, be they at home or at school, will undertake the Remote Learning program. If your child attends school, he/she will not be in the same classroom as their normal teacher, who will be focused on delivering the Term 2 curriculum remotely. All children who attend will be grouped in broad age groups and be supervised by a member of staff (e.g., a member of the Leadership Team, or a relief teacher) while he or she undertakes the Remote Learning program relevant to his/her grade. This is the policy of all Catholic and public schools while this period lasts. Catholic Education’s position is a preference for all children to remain at home, where possible, and of course where that is not possible, they can attend school. Please contact me at school if you have any queries.

This is a very trying period and I appreciate that many families may be undergoing particular stress and hardship of one or more kinds: financial, emotional, marital and the like. I strongly encourage all parents and families, while maintaining social distancing, to not maintain or start social isolation. Please monitor the mental health of your friends and family, and your own health as well. Depression and anxiety can creep up slowly. Please be alert to early warning signs. The school certainly aims and intends to maintain regular contact with its students and parents and I hope, even if it is only in a small way, that this lessens social anxiety and isolation amongst the community. The school staff are missing the students greatly and we look forward to their return – sooner rather than later, we hope. Again, I would like to thank the parent community for their extraordinary kindness and support. We have been buoyed by the many words and messages of support and the gifts of cakes and chocolate – thank you all. We are deeply grateful.

I would like to wish all Sts Peter and Paul families a very happy and Holy Easter and that you all know the peace of the Risen Christ. I would like to leave you with another stanza of a very different poem, written by the 19^th century Jesuit poet Gerald Manly Hopkins. Without referencing Easter directly, it speaks to God’s creativity and love of the world, and through that, new life:

“And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

God’s Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins

Have a wonderful Easter and an excellent holiday.

Best wishes

Cameron Johns

Principal