Dear Parents and Carers,

As we prepare to celebrate Fathers' Day this weekend we wish Happy Fathers' Day to all Our Lady Help of Christians fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers and uncles! Thank you to our P&F for supporting our students to celebrate this special day with the special men in their families.

This celebration gives us reason to pause, to pray for, and to reflect on the Fathers’ we honour. On this Fathers' Day, we celebrate, congratulate, and pray for the men who continue to reflect the Divine qualities of fatherhood as they lovingly establish, nourish, and maintain their families. Fathers are a blessing, and we thank them for blessing us with lives of dedication, endurance, and love.

Every father is a work in progress and each father is unique. There is no one-size-fits-all pattern for fatherhood. Fathers-to-be, have often developed a clear sense of the kind of parent they intend to become. They know, at least, what kind of parent they don’t want to be. But the first days after a child’s birth, these thoughts are challenged by the realisation that fatherhood is a real-life role that is influenced daily by the unexpected.  A new father, in a sense, embarks on a pilgrimage of sorts. As the child grows older, a father is repeatedly challenged to understand, support and always love his child, who, it turns out, is nothing less than the complex web of humanity that all of us are.

The pilgrimage into fatherhood has one big starting point followed by a thousand new starting points along the way. The journey is long. Over time a father finds himself tugged at and urged along both in welcome and unwelcome ways. The journey into fatherhood challenges a man to grow and change in ways he could not imagine on the day of his first child’s birth. Slowly, life transforms for parents ~ fathers and mothers.

A father’s pilgrimage is a vocation, calling him to discover each child as a unique individual and to nurture that. But he discovers something else too. Little by little, astonishingly, he discovers himself along the way ~ someone whose hidden gifts have been unearthed by his children.

We remember and gratefully keep in our prayers all the Our Lady Help of Christians fathers and father figures as they continue their daily pilgrimage.

May we pause, pray for, reflect and remember those Fathers who have loved, nurtured and inspired us. May we also pray for those Father’s who are enjoying their heavenly reward.

We pray to  Mary Help of Christians, to intercede for us and bless those special men in our lives who instil love, gentleness, patience, compassion and joy.

CAMP AUSTRALIA

Have you redeemed your $500 BASC (Before and After School Care) voucher yet?  Please see attached flyer for more information.

CATHOLIC CARE COURSES

Our range of groups focus on strengthening relationships, parenting, post-separation, supporting parents with children in care, managing challenging emotions and loss and grief.  Click on the link below for the current courses available.