Jesus said to his disciples, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” (Mark 6:31)

On Thursday 4 March and Friday 5 March, Year 10 girls experienced the first of their three Senior Retreats. The Year 10 girls and the Year 10 Pastoral Team, headed by Mr Ashkar, gathered at Winbourne, the Christian Brothers Retreat Centre at Mulgoa. There they participated in two days of prayer, discussion, reflection and sharing. The themes explored during the Retreat were “On the Journey” and “Go and do the same”. “On the Journey” was the theme of the first day of the Retreat and was focused on an examination of life as a journey. The girls reflected on their life’s journey so far, considered where they find themselves at the moment, and contemplated what future they might be envisioning for themselves. “Go and do the same” was the theme of the second day, which focused on the Parable of the Good Samaritan and its lessons about being of service to others, including serving those whom we might perceive as our enemy. This enabled the girls to develop a better understanding of what is expected of them when they undertake the Year 10 Community Service Program.

As a year group the Year 10 girls are to be commended for the way they engaged with the Retreat Program by being respectful listeners and attentive contributors to discussions.

The following is a recollection of the retreat experience from a Year 10 student, Monique R:

"My expectations of the Year 10 retreat 2021 was at first that it was just going to be about worship and prayer the entire two days we were spending at Winbourne, Mulgoa. But as we got off the bus and played our icebreaker games I quickly came to the realisation that this wasn’t going to be like our usual camps, because I saw it as a perfect time for reflection and reconnecting with God. The site was beautiful and helped us to destress.

The first session was an introduction to what the retreat was going to be like. We gathered as a grade and then separated into smaller groups with a teacher who would be our group leader. My leader was Mrs Singles. A few lessons we were taught were that we are building our life story and we read a story about a man and a builder, to make the point that every little thing we do in life goes towards building the person we become—just like building our own house. Our main focus of the retreat was life as a journey. Mr Gattone introduced us to the  concept of cross roads and signposts, advising us to use this analogy for making sense of our own lives. There are things in life that we choose for ourselves (picking what high school to go to etc…) and things that happen to us that are beyond our control (but things we can choose to deal with using our inner qualities). We shared the story of our life journeys with each other and some stories were especially powerful to hear about.

Overall the experience of the retreat was mindful, reverent, peaceful and reassuring, And on behalf of my Year 10 cohort, I would love to say thank you to the teachers Mrs Bleyerveen, Miss Stapley, Mr Quigley, Mrs Wilson, Mrs Lahood, Mr Lord, Mrs Singles and especially to Mr Ashkar and Mr Gattone".

Monique R - Year 10 Student

Angelo Gattone - Mission Coordinator