Religious Education News
Beginning School Year Mass
On Friday we celebrated the beginning of the 2025 school year with a whole school mass led by our Parish Priest, Fr Jeff. It was lovely to have parents and parishioners joining us as we begin a new school year, full of hope for the opportunities that lay ahead. Our leaders were also presented with badges before doing an amazing job of leading the school in our final song - Pilgrims of Hope.
This year is a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church. The theme for this year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.
What is a Jubilee?
A Jubilee is a special year of grace and conversion, involving prayer, pilgrimage and sacramental repentance, held every 25 years, or during other years as called for by the Pope. Through a series of concrete rituals, acts and commitments, the goal of a Jubilee year is to inspire and encourage holiness of life among the faithful and therefore to strengthen the Church’s witness to God’s loving mercy in and for the world.
The word “jubilee” is derived from the Hebrew word jobel, which means “ram’s horn”; since it was precisely that horn which was used as a trumpet, whose sound indicated to everybody the beginning of the jubilee year. The book of Leviticus, in the code of holiness, is the source which tells us of the significance of the jubilee year, a year of liberation “par excellence,” which is at the end of seven weeks of years, the fiftieth year.
