REFLECTIONS AND NOTES SPRING 2004

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Making connections
Environment—the Great Barrier Reef

Teacher notes page 2-3
Praying in the garden/Little Italy
Fresh air
Mining Mercy
Why Sunday Mass?
Using Australian Catholics at primary school

Principal reflections prepared by Chris Gleeson SJ
For the school assembly
For the newsletter
The rose
A prayer

This edition of Australian Catholics features several articles on caring for and appreciating the environment. We hear about a primary school project in environmental reclamation, the Jesuit winery in South Australia’s Clare Valley, memories of an Italian-Australian family’s farming working and feasting at harvest times and the experience of gardening as an encounter with God.
Reading these articles reminded me of boarding school years. The school grounds boasted a garden of stately trees, secluded paths and a fishpond overhung with wisteria; behind the school building was an orchard of apples, pears and quinces. I remember too a poem I was required to memorise, which I then disliked
because it lacked smoothness and elegance, but which I now love for its angularity and directness as well as for the sentiments it expresses.

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot:
Rose plot, fring’d grot’,
The veriest school of peace.
And yet the fool
Contends that God is not.
What, not God in gardens
When the eve is cool?
Aye, but I have a sign
’Tis very clear
God walks in mine.

The Great Barrier Reef

Containing some 2,900 individual reefs and covering an area greater than the United Kingdom, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest natural feature on earth. U.N.E.S.C.O lists it as a World Heritage Area because it is one of the last natural wonders of the world.

Many human activities compromise the health of the Reef, including:

• the emission of greenhouse gases
• overfishing
• poorly planned development
• some tourist recreational activities
• nutrient and toxic chemical run-off

There has been significant progress in protecting the Reef, especially with the recent increase in Green Zone sanctuary to protect more than 11 million marine hectares. But more action is necessary if the Reef is to be preserved for future generations.
Many of the environmental problems harming the Reef are harming the planet in general. Pope John Paul II calls us to an ‘ecological conversion’—to authentically live out our ecological vocations so that we ‘prepare for future generations an environment closer to the plan of the Creator’.

This information is taken from a pastoral letter on the Great Barrier Reef released by Catholic Earthcare Australia in conjunction with the Catholic Bishops of Queensland. For more information see their website at www.catholicearthcareoz.net or phone (02) 9956 5782

Further information

• The Australian Government Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: www.gbrmpa.gov.au
• Educational resources that can be integrated into key learning areas: www.reefed.edu.au

PRAYING IN THE GARDEN/LITTLE ITALY
pages 9 & 21 of Australian Catholics

Students may like to read Andrew Hamilton’s In the Garden and jot down in their journals three things in the article that they can relate to. This could be followed by a discussion in which class members recall and share their experiences of gardens: what they looked like and how they felt in them. An example of this can be found in Emily Marson’s article Little Italy. What is meant by the words: ‘The prayer of gardening is not for the perfect or the holy but for messy human beings’?

The teacher might then like to take the class for a walk in a garden and allow the students to find a special place in which to think, pray, meditate or contemplate for a short time.

FRESH AIR
page 8 of Australian Catholics

On another occasion, students might be asked to read the article, Fresh air. This could be followed by a short discussion of the achievements of this small group of primary school children. The discussion might include a hypothetical makeover of their own school grounds, perhaps in pairs or small groups of five or six students.

To broaden the scope of this exercise, students could collect items from newspapers and magazines relating to environmental issues. These might then be collated under suitable headings, such as global warming, dying rivers, salt destruction, logging in old growth forests; groups of students might then produce wall hangings or information leaflets on a chosen topic.

Students could look into the work of AirCare as a preliminary step to deciding how they might make a practical difference to the problem of global warming. A brainstorming session could follow, in which each person in the class is asked to suggest a project through which to tackle problems of global warming and environmental degradation locally. These could include personal solutions like growing plants at home or taking part in a local Landcare project. Some of the suggestions might be of practical ways to start a school project that could involve the class or smaller groups of students.

Alternatively, students might answer the following questions in their journals after reading the article Fresh air:

1. How many trees need to be planted to soak up the harmful carbon dioxide emissions produced by a single car during a year?
2. Apart from tree planting, what other environmental projects are the Holy Family children involved with?
3. What is the title of the recent Australian Catholic Bishop’s Statement on the environment?

MINING MERCY page 18 of Australian Catholics

In our work against injustice we must act in many different ways. Sr Pat Pak Poy is involved in landmine action—the removal of landmines to stop further injury. Some countries have been slow to sign the Mine Ban treaty and Sr Pat has also been active in collecting signatures on petitions urging governments to sign the treaty.

Students might like to read Mining Mercy and consider the different ways to eradicate landmines. They could answer the following questions:

1. What important Asian power has agreed to stop exporting landmines?
2. What countries are the greatest landmine producers?
3. What is the position of the US government on the signing of the Mine Ban Treaty?
4. What year did the Australian Government sign the Mine Ban Treaty?
5. Online component: Students could research the topic of landmines (the International Campaign to Ban Landmines website below has some good information). Students may choose to sign the petition at www.petitiononline.com/mjebsb1/petition.html

WHY SUNDAY MASS?
page 13 of Australian Catholics

People often ask this question. Those of us who do attend Sunday Mass realise only too well that there are very few young people in the congregation. Because of their rarity, young people can feel conspicuous and even disapproved of because of the assumed censorious attitude of their elders. Yet it is their church too.

Students could read the article, Why Sunday Mass? reflectively and answer the following questions:

1. What percentage of Catholics attended Sunday Mass in 1954, and what percentage do so today?
2. In what ways did 1950s Sundays differ from those in our own time?
3. What is meant by the words ‘people went to church to meet’?
4. Why was it easier to find community in the 1950s than in the present?
5. Does the opportunity to choose make life easier, better, more complicated, or ... ?
6. What is your response to the statement, ‘Like the early Christians, too, our deepest question is not whether to go to church or not, it is whether we belong to the church at all’?
7. How would a decision to be a Christian affect your daily life in Roman times?
8. What was the effect of having received Christ within you as your food?
9. In what way did attendance at Mass encourage people to live generously and to befriend the lonely?
10. Explain why the Mass matters today?

A follow-up exercise might be to interview two older Catholics who they know well: one who is still going to Mass regularly and one who attends only occasionally. These interviews might then be written up in report form, ending on a more personal note.
Frances Brook

Using Australian Catholics at primary school

As part of the daily Literacy Block at St Patrick’s school, grade six students Rebecca, Serena, Hannah and Danica often read, reflect and respond to articles from Australian Catholics magazine. Their collaborative response to the article Simon’s story (Winter 2004) appears in the letters to the editor section of current Spring edition.
‘It is often difficult, particularly in a small school, to find challenging reading material for high-achieving primary students’, says teacher Jenni Hindson. ‘Australian Catholics is an excellent source of "real life" reading material for the students to engage in.’

To share your ideas for using Australian Catholics as a classroom resource email us here

FOR THE NEWSLETTER

For us Christians, we need effective symbols and a healthy imagination to understand the many paradoxes of our faith death and resurrection, a God who is both human and divine, the riches of poverty, triumph through suffering, freedom in commitment, strength in weakness, the power of service. With young people particularly, we need the hope and trust offered us in
Bette Midler’s song, The Rose:

When the night has been too lonely,
and the road has been too long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong.
Just remember in the winter,
far beneath the bitter snow,
lies the seed that, with the sun’s love,
in the spring becomes the rose.

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