By Emilie Ng
CONCERN for children living in poverty brought more than 500 Brisbane Catholic school students together for World Children’s Mission Day celebrated in Australia on October 22.
Representatives from more than 20 Catholic schools in Queensland gathered for a World Children’s Mission Day Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral organised by the Church’s international mission aid agency, Catholic Mission.
This year Catholic Mission is supporting young Jamaicans living in one of the most violent countries in the world, according to Catholic Mission advocates.
Brisbane archdiocese’s Catholic Mission director David McGovern said the annual World Children’s Mission Day Mass stressed the Church’s mission work as a “shared responsibility”.
“Anyone engaged in mission needs to know they are part of this journey with others, that the load, the responsibility, is being shared,” Mr McGovern said.
“Schools are responding to the invitation to come and celebrate mission and today, we celebrate the fact that they contribute to mission.”
St James College Spring Hill teacher Chris Zammit, who helps run the school’s various outreach ministries, agreed that World Children’s Mission Day Mass gave students “an opportunity to see that they’re part of the bigger picture”.
“While they might be in a small school, they’re really part of a bigger movement that’s really important for making change in the world,” Mr Zammit said.
St Dympna’s Primary school asistant principal for religious education Tanya McNeil said students needed a greater understanding of how other children lived.
“Many of these children live so comfortably, they don’t understand how hard it is for other people,” Mrs McNeil said.
“I just think we have to do all that we can to increase that awareness and get them interested in supporting long term mission work,” Mrs McNeil said.
St Dympna’s primary school will hold their annual Silly Sock Day, part of Catholic Mission’s Socktober campaign ‘socking it to poverty’.
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