Welcome back to our Junior School, Year 7, 11 and 12 students! 

It definitely feels good looking out from my office and seeing students playing on the oval or playground. However, we still miss the presence of our almost 300 Year 8-10 students and look forward to them returning soon. In our Staff Commencement Chapel service for Term 4, we focused on the theme of hope, considering what gives us hope and sustains us. Earlier this year, well before I had really heard of the coronavirus, I purchased an artwork for my office. It says, ‘There is always hope’. Through an unpredictable year, I have found myself returning to its message. 

Last week, my husband was cutting some of our hedges with an electric hedge trimmer. As he was just about to shave down the side of one of the bushes, he noticed a tiny little nest with three birds; so new they were virtually translucent. Having never seen birds so freshly from their shells, I was fascinated. 

Each day, we have gone out to check on them, praying that the cat next door would not discover them as we had! We were astounded at how quickly they grew feathers and matured. Yesterday, as I was about to leave home, one was standing at the edge of the nest, the other two safely tucked up against each other. Yet, by the end of the day when I checked on them again, there was nothing but an empty nest. Our little birds had left and were out in the world. Sometimes, I find hope in these symbols of nature, as I have in my many walks around the Cranbourne Gardens recently. The striking array of plants and flowers in a triumph of colour reminds me, as did our little interaction with those birds, of the hope in the cycles of the seasons. Indeed the whole experience with these small birds felt like a metaphor really, albeit a dramatically sped up one, of our Year 12 students who prepare to conclude their final classes this week. Every year our Preps arrive, many unable to line up in a line, or sit in a circle or organise their bag. Yet, their skills quickly grow and as they journey through the years with us, the opportunities to develop and symbolically stretch their wings are many. We know that this year has not been how they, or any of us, would have planned it. Yet, they have made it through and it is exciting to think where they will go and what they will do once they leave the Casey Grammar nest. 

In an adaption of Numbers 6, we pray that the Lord will bless and keep them, shining the Lord’s face upon them, being gracious to them. We pray that the Lord’s face will be turned towards them and that they will know true peace.

Mrs Monique Riviere-Pendle

Chaplain