Opening Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral

On Tuesday 25 March our College community travelled to St Mary’s Cathedral, also known as The Minor Basilica and Cathedral of the Immaculate Mother of God, Help of Christians. This Cathedral is the seat of our Archdiocese.

Over the past few years, as our numbers have grown, we have been unable to have Mass in one venue and invite parents and community to attend. We simply do not fit in Merici when we have parents and special guests, as seen when we celebrate Year 12 Graduation and year groups need to watch on live stream and sit out. Therefore, it was a priority, in this Year of Jubilee, that we find a venue where we can all come together. In a year when the church is calling for us to be Pilgrims of Hope, we made the journey to the Mother Church of our faith and celebrated the beginning of our academic year.

We are very blessed that Fr Emmanuel Lubega from Our Lady of Fatima, Kingsgrove had worked for a number of years at the Cathedral and he was a great source of knowledge and support as we prepared for the Mass. He generously gave of his time in meetings and even came on the early bus with staff and students who were involved in ministries at the Mass. 

It was a mammoth task for our music department who had to prepare all our students for Mass in the Cathedral. It was St Augustine who said when we sing at Mass we pray twice! With the help of Mrs Watson, Mrs Olsen, Ms Josifoski and Mr Valente, our students rehearsed and brought to life a beautiful music ministry with the assistance of the Cathedral organist.

During the Mass we heard the readings for the Jubilee Year. Firstly we heard from St Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 5:5-11) about how “Hope does not disappoint” and how “God proves his love for us”. Then in Gospel (Luke 4:16-21) we have the story of Jesus opening the scroll at the synagogue and reading from the book of Isaiah – 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

What a wonderful reading for a school devoted to the motto of Serviam!

Our Extraordinary Ministers of Communion were commissioned at the Mass after undergoing weeks of training with Fr Peter from Beverly Hills and we congratulate the following staff and students on their service to the Church – 

Amelie Villiers
Sarina Chou
Stephanie Paino
Michaela Khoury
Gemma Canu
Talija Cakarun
Veronica Karam
Verity Chambers
Valarie Le
Erica Pedisic
Courtney Carey
Mrs Rebecca Bombaci

I’d like to thank Mrs Nader for her ongoing support and assistance in preparing our students for Mass and Ms Cairncross for all her help with the logistics and organisation of the mammoth task of getting nearly 1200 people into the city for Mass.

Many staff and students have commented on how nice it was to be together for Mass, especially with our 2025 College theme being “Together we Rise” and many have also told me they had not visited the Cathedral before and commented on its beauty and grandeur. I’d like to thank the students and staff for their reverence and behaviour at the Mass – they certainly made me a very proud REC!

Julie Monk
Religious Education Coordinator