This week, Reverend Creed shares an Easter reflection as we head into the Term 1 school holidays.
Dear Parents and Guardians,
With the final week of term upon us, I would like to thank families for another very productive and enjoyable term. We shared many events together to celebrate our community, and our students have made great contributions in so many areas.
Our Chaplain, Helen Creed, is sharing with us her reflection on Easter, this significant time in our Christian calendar.
I wish you all a very happy and safe holiday, and I look forward to welcoming everyone back for Term 2 on Tuesday 22 April 2025.
With best wishes,
Debbie Dunwoody
The swoosh 
, is, of course, the logo for the sports company ‘Nike’. The company was started in 1964, when it was called Blue Ribbon Sports, but 14 years later BRS became Nike. “Nike” is an ancient Greek word that means “victory,” related to the goddess called Nike (the swoosh can be taken to represent her wings). She flew over the battle-fields and brought victory to the side favoured by the gods. She was also believed to give victory to athletes and artists competing in the ancient games at Olympia. Hence her appearance on modern Olympic medals: she has a laurel wreath in one hand (the crown placed on the head of the winners), and palm leaves in the other (a symbol of peace after the battle or competition).
About 2000 years ago the word “nike” was also carved into the walls of Rome: ancient graffiti! The people who were responsible for this graffiti were not athletes or soldiers celebrating their victories: they were some of the early Christians in Rome. Members of the early church reached for this image to express what had happened in the life of Jesus. This was a victory over all the things that make human beings turn on each other: jealousy, fear, envy, prejudice, greed, hard-heartedness, injustice and self-centredness. A victory over all those attitudes of heart and mind that obscure the reality that we are, each of us in our own way, bearers of light. This fifth centry mosaic depicts “Christus Victor”.
Holy Week, the week preceding Easter Sunday, is an opportunity to ask the question: What counts as victory? Whether we are looking for victory on the sports-field or on the battle-field, there are as many ways to claim victory today as there were in ancient times. Victory is sometimes the result of physical power or superior strategy. Sometimes it the result of sheer hard slog. At other times it’s due to cheating (think of the athletes who have been stripped of their medals), or pure luck (remember Steven Bradury!). What the Christian tradition asks us to behold is another kind of victory: the victory that is won by sacrificial love, a love that is prepared to suffer to the utmost for the beloved. This is the peculiarly Christian contribution to our understanding of the divine life: that the power of the one we call “God” comes from a love that does not count the cost, a love that has the power to defeat the powers of darkness, so that we might live in everlasting life.
May I wish you and your family every blessing this Easter-tide. I include a prayer below that you may like to pray, on Easter day, and on each of the fifty days of Easter that follow!
A prayer for Easter: the day and the Season
Risen Lord,
We rejoice today that you have triumphed over death
and that the victory is yours.
Help us to re-discover what it means to be Easter people.
May we be messengers of hope
and heralds of righteousness.
Deliver us from fear
So that we may speak your word of peace
as we live your risen life.
(from “The Little Book of Lent”, William Collins, 2014, p. 155)
Helen Creed
School Chaplain
This week, Reverend Creed shares an Easter reflection as we head into the Term 1 school holidays.
Term 1 ended vibrantly with the House Dance Competition last night and numerous exciting learning opportunities.
Junior School students are excitedly heading into the Term 1 break after a busy final fortnight of the term.
The PFA was delighted by the support shown at their most significant event of the year—the Moonlight Movie Night.
