As a new approach in 2023 0ur Year 9 Reflection Day took place over two dates on Thursday 9 November and Friday 10 November. On these days our Year 9s spent time with guest presenters from Jesuit Social Services, McAuley Services and Young Mercy Links. These presentations, and the class workshops that accompanied them, invited our Year 9s to develop hearts of hospitality in response to the issues of homelessness and housing insecurity. Our care for the homeless is neither incidental nor accidental. It goes to the very core of our faith as a Mercy community. The Christian story has always been a story of homelessness and hospitality. In the Hebrew scriptures, we hear the repeated declaration that we must welcome the stranger, and take care of the lost. From our Jewish heritage, we learn that ‘Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full’ (Proverbs 19:17). And in the Gospels, we hear Jesus declare that he has ‘no place to lay his head’, as his radical vulnerability promotes radical hospitality.

Threaded through our time together was the following wisdom from the prophet Isaiah, which was shared with our Year 9s as part of their liturgy:

“Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Is it not your calling to share your bread with the hungry?
And to bring the homeless poor into your house?
When you see those in need, share with them,
And do not turn yourself away from your brothers and sisters.”
(Isaiah 58:1,7)

As part of the event, we also launched a new social outreach initiative, with a group of Year 9s choosing to take part in our inaugural ‘McAuley Sleepout’. The sleepout took place as an act of solidarity with those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, and also served as a fundraising activity for McAuley Services. All participants in the sleepout are to be commended for the wisdom and insight they have gained from this experience.