Earlier in the week I received a letter from the charitable trust, Good night sleep tight, commending the College for organising the 24 hour multi sport charity event, which I read to the assembly yesterday and made some comments which follow;

I want to pass on a couple of comments on this letter… First to congratulate the initiative of our SVO group to organise the event, the way in which you welcomed and encouraged all those who came, not only our own staff and boys, but also the manner you embraced the students from the 12 other schools.

In the letter the word “humbleness’ was mentioned ….or humility.

I want to dwell for a moment on this because it points to a quality that I think is a reason why we get involved with activities like this. Firstly it’s not to pump ourselves up, and when this organisation made the suggestion that St Bede’s College should endeavour to have the event published in the media, I was impressed by our boys response. Namely to respectfully suggest that this is NOT about our actions, rather about the cause. In this case, raising funds to assist and to help ensure that every child in this city will not go to bed cold. The funds raised go to buying blankets for those who cannot afford to……..SIMPLE…. and no need to broadcast how great we are in raising the funds to do it, because it is not about us.

In the same vein, I want to give all of you a general pat on the back for the manner you welcomed over 500 people to our College last week. To the 80-90 of you who volunteered you were terrific hosts who made those newcomers to St Bede’s most welcome.

Could I share with you a story from open day that is related to what I talked about earlier. Two of our boys that volunteered took a considerable amount of time patiently escorting a mother, slowed up considerably because she was on a crutch, and her son, who was a very shy, timid young man and who had very little to say, and who perhaps may have been a bit intimidated by the prospect of going into a big high school.

The long and short was, that this boy was so moved by the manner in which our boys treated them, that he took the time to write a card in appreciation for the extra mile our 2 boys took in making he and his mother feel so welcomed.

Now I can imagine some of you are listening here and saying, well so what? School is all about getting qualifications, playing or performing on the sports field, having a good time, but it is also about something more and both these stories speak a lot to me of the type of values we are trying to instil into you guys, values we hope you will take into your adult lives. Yes we want you to achieve, and we also want something more.

To reiterate….what are these values or qualities we are trying to encourage in you?

Doing for others less fortunate springs to mind with both examples. Those wee charitable acts of kindness given and not expecting anything back, are qualities we want to see in all of you. They are qualities of a good man.

And small acts of kindness repeated often shape you as a man. It means you are an other centred person rather than a self centred person.

That other centred attitude to life is the reason why we do CanTeen. By helping those less fortunate, we teach you also the attitude to live for life.

I note on Sunday the auditions for the CanTeen concert occur – remember everyone can contribute to this cause, realising there are three ways to do this. Performing or going to the concert, participating in the home CanTeen event on the last day of the term, or applying for one of the 160 places for the 5-day run. Everyone in our community can be other-centred as we learn the life lesson of giving to others less fortunate than ourselves.

This week we began the Sacramental Programme, which this year involves over 60 boys, many of whom will receive their sacraments at the College Mass on 29 June.

On Wednesday evening, a large number of the parents of those boys receiving the sacraments attended a meeting at the College to inform them of the process and to encourage them to support their sons on their first step of their faith journey. We were most heartened by the way the parents participated in the evening.

Until next time

Justin Boyle