Message from the Rector
The week culminated in two events, the Sacramental Mass, and secondly the International Food Market at lunchtime today.
There is a link between the two as I pointed out in my introduction to assembly.
This assembly has an international theme to it forecasting our day tomorrow and reminding us that New Zealand is becoming more and more a multi-cultural nation.
The international flavour links to our sacraments of initiation celebration tomorrow. The reading centres round Pentecost. Pentecost is the celebration of the birth of the church. In a sense the Church's baptism. Six boys are to be baptised tomorrow.
On the feast of the Pentecost, the apostles and disciples of Jesus were all huddled together waiting for the advocate or the friend that Jesus had promised would arrive.
Remember Jesus had died 50 days earlier; his followers had been persecuted so needless to say they were very frightened.
Then the Holy Spirit arrived, the friend or the advocate that Jesus had promised.
Everyone understood each other despite the different languages they spoke and despite their different cultures and how wealthy or not they were. None of that matters because we are one in Christ.
All of a sudden everyone understood each other and their purpose. They had the strength to go out and spread the good news preached and lived by Christ.
So they celebrated…
And so will we tomorrow…
We will celebrate those boys who receive their sacraments tomorrow and we will also celebrate our diversity. Among the boys receiving the sacraments are 2 from Ireland, I from Spain, I from Hungary, I from Holland, and 1 with Welsh in his heritage, so it is a true mix of cultures who are receiving the sacraments and hence a reminder that the Church is truly universal.
We will begin the mass in Te Reo, the Pacifica group will sing in Tongan and Samoan ‘Thy Word’, and the prayers of the faithful will be read in Te Reo, Spanish, Japanese, Welsh, French and English.
As the boys are about to talk about we will have an extended lunch to sample the dishes of the world and celebrate our cultural diversity not only as citizens of Aotearoa but citizens of the world!!!
That cultural diversity was well constructed by senior students helped by Mr Thorn. As part of this 20 boys in their native language introduced themselves and where they were from. One of them, Sion Davies, gave an amusing but pointed description of his first few weeks in New Zealand. He is Welsh, and couldn’t speak a word of English. His tales of the school yard as a small boy, gave the assembly an appreciation of how difficult it can be for international boys to fit in, and reminded us of the importance of our acceptance of cultural differences.
In the assembly we awarded Community Pockets to a number of boys listed below. Mr Entwistle gave a short reflection about happiness. He is a great story-teller – I’ll leave your sons to relay the story. The message though, was about happiness and how true happiness is found in the service of others.
Students who were awarded a Community Pocket:
- Andrew Kennett
- Ben Mattingly
- Ben McCloy
- George Chambers
- Harry Staples
- Henry Wynn-Williams
- Isaac Schimanski
- Jack O’Neill
- Jaime Sequeira
- Johnny Fitzgerald
- Joma Mabazza
- Josh Dolan
- Josh Read
- Justin Lee
- Keane Harrington
- Matthew Pemberton
- Maui Brennan
- Michael Morris
- Sanjay Phal
- Sion Davies
- Will Connell
- Yohan d’Cunha
Mathew Pemberton also received a Bishop Lyons Pocket and Ben Blair, a Chapel Band Pocket.
Finally, congratulations to the following students who received sacraments at this mornings Mass. There were:
- Thomas Arscott
- Rhys Balchin
- Matty Barr
- Zac Bates
- Matt Boyle
- Adam Burgess
- Ewan Callaghan
- Luke Cunningham
- Andy Dalkie
- Sion Davies
- Zeke de Gouw
- Josh Dolan
- Jamie Elley
- Devon Ellis-Bradbury
- Ashton Fraser
- Finn Hanlon
- Miguel Hernandez
- Edward Jermendi
- Callum Jones
- Andrew Kennett
- Findlay Knox
- Joe Loughnan
- Callum McArthur
- Sam Mulholland
- Blake Murch
- Will O'Brien
- Lachlan Owens
- Oli Plunkett
- Odhran Redmond
- Caleb Reeves
- Sam Robb
- Harry Robb
- Shaun Rooney
- Angus Staniford
- Robbie Staniford
- Findlay Staniford
- Fionn Sullivan
- Ciaran Thomas
- Baily Walsh
- Bailey Watson
- Harry Wilson
- Henry Wynn-Williams
Until next week...
Justin Boyle