Spirituality is the experience of God through liturgy and prayer, and the reflection of Gospel values in daily life.

At St Lucy's, spirituality is developed through daily worship, classroom prayer and the formal Religious Education curriculum which includes knowledge of the life and teachings of Christ and of the workings of the Holy Spirit.

Our goal is for the children to develop their own relationship with God and with Jesus, and to become part of a Church community, so that they will be embraced by hope, love and strength throughout their lives. 

We also teach them to see the needs of others and to do what they can to help.

Tribute to the Sisters

St Lucy’s has unveiled a plaque to commemorate the continuing legacy of the Dominican Sisters who founded St Lucy’s and Prouille. Around 15 nuns attended a liturgy to celebrate their commitment to education, particularly the education of children with vision impairment.Read on

Pentecost Sunday 2011

HOMILY BY FR DAVID RANSON

Last Friday evening we celebrated a wonderful Family Mass at St. Lucy’s school, here within our own parish. 

It is always a great privilege for me to be present on such occasions and I have been involved now at St Lucy’s for several years.  Often I get to the end of the week, along with everyone else, quite tired.  However, I never come away from such celebrations at St. Lucy’s without both being profoundly humbled by the extraordinary self-sacrifice of parents of children with autism and uplifted by the spirit of the school community and its celebrations.

It has always struck me that we are quite amazingly gifted as a parish by having not one, but actually two, schools for children with special needs.  Even though St. Lucy’s and St. Edmund’s are not parish schools, it must be unique in Australia that a parish would have within its neighbourhood two such communities.  What goes on in these special communities never stays within their own walls but overflows as grace to the wider community in which they are situated. Thus, our own parish of Holy Name is blessed beyond identification by the daily miracles that take place within St. Lucy’s and St. Edmund’s.  In ways that can never be measured the witness of heroic love and the dignity of care which provide the ground for such quiet miracles to occur make us a community far richer than we might otherwise be.

Every occasion at St. Lucy’s leaves an imprint on me.  However, the Family Mass last Friday, during which we baptised five young children, was particularly special for me.  It was not just the welcome of many newcomers that made such an impression, though.  It was the sight of young William dancing on the carpet in front of the altar during the hymns of the Mass which stays so alive in my memory.

When I first met William some years ago the tension within his frail body was quite visible.  It would be almost impossible for him to stay present during the whole Mass.  His body could go rigid and his parents would most often have to take him from the room.  A beautiful boy, the pain of his condition would be so striking.  Now, a couple of years later, William comes to Mass and his joy is palpable.  As we gather and celebrate the Mass mainly through song and music, William spontaneously takes to the centre of the gathering and dances his way through each of the songs with a freedom and a flexibility that is at one and the same time both so simple and so sacred.  Though it may not be possible for any of us to know what goes on in William’s mind during these times, there is no doubt that his unseen partner is the Spirit of God who overflows with delight and laughter during these times.

Last Friday, William taught me the meaning of Pentecost.  He teaches me about the nature of the Spirit of God.  The Spirit of God makes present the dynamism of the Resurrection.  This is why the celebration of Easter and Pentecost go together. That promise of life unleashed at Easter now stirs within our own hearts, now becomes something real in our own experience.  That declaration of the power of life over death at Easter begins now to transform the deathly places of our own lives, now brings something new into being, now changes us.

The dark places are changed into places of light; the places of fear are transformed into places of love; the places of despair are made new with hope; the places of paralysis are remade into movement and dance.

Easter and Pentecost.  Promise now realised. 

A promise not realised in an ethereal kind of way.  Rather, a promise realised tangibly as we discover within ourselves renewed courage to make decisions once again for love and for hope, even in the face of our losses and our fears. 

A promise realised tangibly as whole communities begin to open up to a new sense of purpose, direction and future even in the face of its hurts and mistakes of the past. 

A promise realised tangibly as small frail and rigid bones find spontaneity and movement, even in the face of such limitation, and as pain transforms into delight on a carpet in front of an altar.

Last Friday William became for me the symbol of the Spirit’s genuine capacity, a living symbol of the power of what we celebrate this Sunday.  In these living symbols of the Spirit’s design and delight, lies the source of our hope and our future as a living Church.

Daily Prayer at St Lucy's

At St Lucy's our goal is for the children to develop their own relationship with God and with Jesus so that they will be embraced by hope, love and strength throughout their lives. Click here to see how the children celebrate this.