27 March 2026<\/p>\n
Dear Parents\/Carers<\/p>\n
Father Dominik (St Kevin\u2019s) gave a beautiful homily this morning at mass that linked directly to the concepts of forgiveness and revenge. And it linked perfectly to a conversation I had with some Year 10 boys in the yard the other day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Year 10 boy was being addressed for throwing some food in the playground at lunch. As an isolated incident, it was a silly choice and a poor decision from the student, but nothing major when you take a look at what is happening across the world at the moment. When the student was challenged, his response was \u201cHe threw it first\u201d (insinuating he was simply responding to another person’s poor choices). Now I\u2019m a realist and I understand the frustration that comes with potentially being the victim of someone else’s poor choices. But as a Catholic school with a strong Marist charism, are we controlled and motivated by revenge? I hope not.<\/p>\n
I recognise it is hard to \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d when you feel wronged. We live in a society with a strong sense of justice and victim advocacy. And social media is a great forum in which to share with the whole world the faults and wrongs committed by others. But the reality is, life is challenging and in most cases, there is no intent from other parties to hurt.<\/p>\n
I like to encourage students to assume positive intent. I watched a clip online the other day that put it simply (I apologise for the inaccuracy of the quote and lack of author acknowledgement):<\/p>\n
| \n “When someone cuts me off in traffic, rather than get angry, assume they were rushing to the hospital or something tragic has happened or they were desperate to get to the toilet! Don\u2019t make the assumption that they were intentionally trying to frustrate or annoy you. Assume positive intent.”<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Consequences are a part of life and sometimes the best way to teach young people right from wrong. But as we continue to move through Lent to the climax of our faith, let’s not focus on revenge, but rather forgiveness and assume \u2018positive intent\u2019 in those around us.\u00a0<\/p>\n Respice Finem<\/p>\n Mr David Sullivan \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letter from the Principal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","class_list":["post-5496","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/5496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/mce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |