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

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