Sue Jury
7 June 2011
At a recent Catholic principals and directors of religious studies conference Archbishop John Dew shared his dream for stewardship across the archdiocese.
He reminded us that in baptism we were called to be intentional and to make a disciples’ response daily.
We ask ourselves:
• Do we live the life of Jesus?
• Do we tell the truth of Jesus?
• Do we walk the way of Jesus?
We are called to create communities that nurture God’s entire gift through spirituality, hospitality, talents and treasure, service and mission.
As primary schools we are entrusted with the lives of children and their families – we know we are the face of the church for many families and the need to be intentional disciples is critical in this role.
Many schools already have excellent pastoral care practices but the archbishop’s call gives us a common language and allows for greater sharing between school and parish.
Schools were given the opportunity to develop many of their ideas later in the day when time was set aside for action plans.
We all came away with a great desire to become more intentional in our response to our baptismal call.
The idea that ‘belonging does not come from believing but that believing comes from belonging’ is a clear reminder of the important role we fill as Catholic schools in the archdiocese.
We look forward to attending the Stewardship Institute in August (26-28) for a follow up to this development.
We thank Archbishop John for sharing this time with us and we reassure him that we are well on the way to becoming a community of stewards.
Sue Jury is principal of St Claudine Thévenet school, Wainuiomata