Blessing of Stella Maris School, Point Cook

Celebrated By Archbishop Denis Hart
at Stella Maris School, Point Cook
on Sunday, 10th September at 2.30pm

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am delighted to be with Father Ian Ranson, Father Peter Vojtko, and with all of you, as we bless this new school of Stella Maris at Point Cook.

Stella Maris is a reference to Our Lady, Star of the Sea, and as we look out to the sea we are reminded that Mary is the help given to us in negotiating the seas of life.

With thankfulness for builder, architect, educational officials and all who have done so much for this project, we proceed now to the blessing.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we come to bless this school under the title of Our Lady, Stella Maris.

For those who have been on the sea on a dark night we are reminded that a star is the only object by which navigators are able to plot their course.  Mary, as the one human being preserved free from sin and as the one who gave us the Redeemer, is very much in our lives the one by whom we plot our course.

This school is dedicated to Catholic education.  The presumption for all who are admitted here is that they are baptised Catholics, that they value formation in faith and the Church’s sacramental life above all else, and that their coming to this school is not merely as a matter of convenience or better secular education, but in order to see God and his Blessed Mother as the full expression of the life which God has shared with us and to which he invites us.  Pope John Paul often quoted Saint Ireneaus as saying that the glory of God is human beings fully alive.

The life that we have is one that comes from God and is illumined always by truth, by justice and by divine revelation through Scripture and the teaching of the Church.  Our schools are not ordinary schools then.  They make a presumption of those who come here that they want above all to know Jesus and Mary, to be educated in and to practise the Catholic faith.  It is not merely a matter that our schools are seen to offer a better secular education, although as followers of the God, who is the author of all good gifts, we must offer the very best in the educational field.

Nevertheless, the values of God above all, of his truth as the light for the world, of the dignity of personhood as the expression of how we live that truth, and of the respect that we have for each other and the search of learning, which is our challenge, remain the bases of our formation here at Star of the Sea.

Mary’s words, “Be it done to me according to thy word, I am the servant of the Lord”, her total submission to God’s purposes for her, is the challenge that is given to us, that in our secular learning, in our religious faith, in our daily life, we might always be nourished by the truth which comes from God and the objective reality of human and divine existence which is the watchword of who we are and who we present ourselves to our society to be.

While we congratulate all who have constructed this building and thank them, let us remember that we are but at the beginning of a great project in building Christian hearts and minds and that we must leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of learning, of truth and of the vision of God, appropriate to those who are baptised, living and practising Catholics.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne