From the Chaplains

I can’t believe we are already at the end of Week 7! Tonight we will be attending the performance of A Chorus Line, a performance by our Secondary School students. Many hours have gone into preparing and rehearsing and we want to wish all the performers and backstage crew all the best.

This Saturday is the Head of the River, always an exciting day for our rowers. It has become part of our tradition to visit the rowers and offer them a blessing. It is a ritual that both Reverend Bent and I enjoy and it is always an exciting day. No matter the weather there is always a great turnout, so come over to the Sydney Regatta Centre and watch some exciting races and support the Pymble crew.

We are still currently in the season of Lent. The text for this coming Sunday is the blind man being healed in John’s Gospel, Chapter 9. John the Apostle is a mystic theologian, wanting us to think and calling us out of our comfort zones. This story is challenging preconceived notions and prejudices and deals with power and the use of power, calling us to live in the awareness of our blindness, or our blind spots, in a guilt-free way. There is no blaming or finger pointing as to why things are the way they are; it is a story which invites us to live honestly and self aware. It calls us to be part of the solution rather than supporting the status quo.

The Lenten journey is about becoming aware of our own darkness, which may refer to our blind spots or to the darkness we may carry in the shape of shame or fear. Lent is a liberation exercise, a call to let go of those oppressive elements in our own lives which hold us back from loving who we are and perhaps being better at loving those we have around us. Lent is also an exercise that invites us to see the need for all people to be freed from oppression, whether in the shape of self-doubt, lack of self-worth or oppression by others.

May we walk humbly as individuals and as a community – may we practice justice and may we love mercy for ourselves and others.

Blessings to our Muslim community members as you prepare to start the season of Ramadan next week.

Reverend Lorenzo Rodriguez Torres

College Chaplain