Retreat Program
Time Apart
Our retreat program continues to grow and mature. Boys are welcomed into Year 7 with a retreat day early in the year. In Term 2, Year 8 boys spend a day pondering the question of what it means to be a good man. Our Year 9 boys are guided in a day of reflection on some of the struggles they have already come through in their life, a day whose theme comes from the story of Jesus walking through a storm to meet his disciples. One of the features of this day is the involvement of mentors from Year 11, boys who are thoughtful and generous in sharing their own story. It also involves a walk to the Yarra to get water and bring it back to school in buckets, a reminder that this is how most of the people in the world get their water.
The Christian Living Camps for Year 11, which take place in August, are as popular with the boys as ever. We go away to eight separate camp sites along with girls from both Loreto Mandeville Hall and Korowa Anglican Girls School. The spirituality of this camp is built around the belief that God meets us in our personalities and in the details of our unique lives. We don’t believe in an abstract God. The participants in the camps are touched by the sharing of each other. There are times in teenage years when the most effective ministers of the Gospel to young people are other young people. Teachers do well when they help this process along.
The head of the Christian Brothers in the world, Br Philip Pinto, speaks often about moving to the edges of society in order to find Christ.
Over the last couple of years, our Year 10 boys have been involved in a day-long retreat experience which involves spending time in parts of Melbourne they seldom see. In particular, they visit areas with significant groups of recently arrived refugees, hear the stories of some of those people and spend time in the primary schools where some newly arrived children are beginning to find their way in Australian culture. The day also involves lunch in one of those fine cafes which bear witness to the cultural brew which produces such delicacies as ‘kangaroo with sate sauce.’
A number of our Year 12 boys take part in a demanding street retreat which demonstrates, among other things, that there’s a lot you can fit into a single day. In the course of 24 hours, participants help tutoring refugees at St Albans, spend an evening with Rosie’s at Flinders Street, sleep on the floor of the pavilion at school and then have a day with frail, elderly men at Corpus Christi, Greenvale, most of whom have experienced years of homelessness. One Year 12 boy, Keith Brick, wrote the following reflection:
Two weeks ago, with five mates, I was involved in the Year 12 street retreat. This really opened up my eyes to a part of society, which I always knew existed, but had not been involved with. However, the street retreat soon changed this situation.
We started off by spending a few hours tutoring some delightful and very friendly Sudanese children from St Albans, followed by piggybacking them around and playing some soccer and football with them. Then we headed to Flinders Street to speak to people gathering to receive some coffee, tea and biscuits from Rosie’s van. The first person that I spoke to was a woman who was about forty years old. She spoke of her brother who had been to St Kevin’s. To put this into perspective, think of your sister at Loreto or wherever she may be, and fast forward 25 years and that could be your sister on the streets. A perfectly nice and normal person, however, a few wrong decisions along the track and she is in a situation where she is either lonely and looking for some company, or is struggling to the extent where she needs free food to get through the day.
The next person I spoke to, Kerry, took me by surprise. Firstly, when I asked him how he was, he replied with, ‘oh not bad, pretty chilly though.’ Then when I asked him how his day had been and what he did, I was expecting an answer along the lines of ‘not much, just trying to stay out of the rain and cold.’ But much to my surprise, he told me that he had been to Melbourne University. Hang on, I thought, university, that probably means he’s got some money, and I wondered why he was getting free drinks and food. I was not rude enough to ask him that, but it soon became as clear as crystal. He was an Iraqi refugee, and in his homeland he had done very well at school. He had also commenced studying at a top university in Iraq to become a construction engineer. He spoke of an Iraq that is rarely seen or heard of today, a place where he and his family had been very content and happy. Unfortunately for Kerry, he had been forced to flee from Iraq to Jordan, and then from Jordan to Australia, from everyone and everything, not because he had done anything wrong; but rather the corrupt and dictatorial government forced him to leave his homeland and come to a country that he knew very little about. Once in Australia, he had to spend around a year in Woomera detention centre in outback South Australia. He has since had to start over completely, in a country with a foreign language. Currently he is studying engineering at university and he is hoping for a job in the near future. It was clear that he is not well off; however, at least he has clean clothes and a small apartment to return to. It is loneliness that causes him to come to Rosie’s for a cup of coffee, as he knows virtually no one in Melbourne. He just wants to talk to someone who doesn’t pass him off and reject him because of his nationality.
Our street retreat programs for Years 10 and 12 are one of the truly big-hearted aspects of life at St Kevin’s. They owe a great deal to the vision and dedication of Tom Purcell.
