Living Catholic e-News February 2024

Lent is a time to make a difference

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'For all future generations’ is the theme of the 2024 Project Compassion, the annual Lenten giving program conducted by Caritas Australia. At the launch of this year’s campaign at a prayer service in the Church of the Nativity, Aberfoyle Park, students from six Catholic schools brought symbols of the ecological action they are taking to help ‘future generations’.

Archbishop Patrick O’Regan referred to the “dream” that a group of parishioners had 60 years ago to “make a difference” which was the start of Project Compassion. “Since then Project Compassion had been embedded deep in our understanding of what we do in Lent and what it does for us,” he said.
“What it says to us is that each and every one of us can make a difference.
“Sometimes we feel like giving up, with 8 billion people in the world we think what can we do?
“But actually we can do a lot… Lent reminds us that God is here to help us do that.”
Representatives of each school – Nativity, Stella Maris, St Anthony’s, Cabra Dominican College, St Bernadette’s and Cardijn College – wrote and read prayers of intercession and received candles to take back to their school as a sign of Christ’s light that would help them on their Project Compassion journey.
Guest speaker Nathan Leber, Caritas Community Engagement representative (WA & SA) presented the Caritas ‘travelling candle’ to St Bernadette’s School, which will host next year’s Project Compassion launch.
St Bernadette’s has played a significant role in the Caritas story as it was families from their school and parish who started what is now known as Project Compassion.
Held on Shrove Tuesday, the launch concluded with students and staff enjoying a pancake morning tea prepared by Aberfoyle Park and Blackwood parishioners.

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