Golden Jubilee

Mercy Day

24 September 2007

The first reading strikes a very appropriate note as we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Scoil Mainchín Naofa. It reminds us that each individual person has been given his or her share of grace; each individual has his or her distinct gifts.

That is not only appropriate; it suggests an amazing richness. Because what we are celebrating above all is the flourishing of the gifts of all the hundreds of young people who passed through this school since 1957. What the school has contributed to their lives could never be fully measured.

They left here with friendships and aspirations, with values and commitments, with skills and interests, with a deeper faith that will have affected their lives in ways that perhaps even they do not fully recognise. Perhaps some of those past pupils who are here today are now parents and grandparents. What this school contributed to their lives is now enriching the lives of their children and grandchildren. Three of those past pupils are here as teachers in the school – which is in itself a high tribute to what the school has given to them.

Many of those who are here with us today must have a rich picture of the variety of ways in which those gifts have flourished. Former and present staff and principals have seen hundreds of pupils pass through the school and using their gifts in all sorts of different contexts and places and often in ways that made their feel teachers feel great pride and satisfaction.

Scoil Mainchín Naofa has a tradition that it can be proud of. It owes much to an outstanding succession of Principals: Sister Louis, Sister Aquinas, Bean Uí Chriagáin, Paddy Flynn and the present Principal Ms Linda Scully. From the beginning it has been aimed at recognising and encouraging and developing the great variety of gifts that the children have. And that tradition is very much alive today. Looking at the school’s website you can see, even in the first weeks of the school year, that there will be an interest in art and poetry and music and the environment. In recent years there has been great work done in the area of Information Technology. I notice that St Munchin’s Catholic Primary School in Western Australia has a link on its website to Scoil Mainchín Naofa, so presumably you are in touch with them! [For those who would like to look them up, they are at: http://web.stmunchins.wa.edu.au/ ]

That school, like this one, is in the Mercy tradition. And that reminds us of the most important thing about the gifts we celebrate today. Those gifts are not our own doing; they are gifts that come from the merciful, generous love of God. As the reading says, each of us receives a share of those gifts ‘given as Christ allotted it’. That was the vision that inspired the foundation of this school by the Mercy Sisters.

What they wanted to share above all with the children was an awareness of “the love that the Father has lavished on us”. They wanted the children to know that they are already children of God and that God’s endless and glorious life is already in them. The pupils who went from this school went into an uncertain world and many of them faced sorrows and crises and suffering that they could never have imagined. They went out into a world of ever increasing pressure and complexity where there seems to be little room for reflection about the deeper things.

The faith that has always permeated the school is the best preparation for living in a world which can eat away at people’s sense of meaning and purpose in life. It can give them the sense of being called into the one hope which is strong enough to look that uncertain world in the face.

Hundreds of past pupils have grown into adult life, and yet the Gospel tells us to be like children. It is telling us to trust in the love that is lavished on us. That is the faith and hope that inspires this school. That is the trust expressed in the prayer of Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Mercy Sisters:

My God, I am yours for time and eternity.

Teach me to cast myself entirely into the arms of your loving providence.