2. Special Character Week 5 2019

Welcome & Malo e Lelei

Each year since 2007 the New Zealand Catholic Primary Principals' Association (NZCPPA) have partnered with Caritas to run a Mufti Mania day, building solidarity through raising money for poor and vulnerable communities.

                     This year our focus is on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea-5th July

Bougainville is a province of Papua new Guinea.
Consisting of a number of islands, it’s full name is the Autonomous Region of Bougainville

Bougainville is more than 4,300 kilometres from New Zealand.

It is not an easy journey by plane as stops are required in Australia and Papua New Guinea before arrival in Buka or Arawa – the two largest towns in Bougainville.

May the 31st is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates the visit of Mary, the Mother of God, with the child Jesus in her womb, to her cousin Elizabeth. The visit took place when Elizabeth was herself six months' pregnant with the forerunner of Christ, Saint John the Baptist.  Arriving at the house of Zachary (or Zacharias) and Elizabeth, Mary greets her cousin, and something wonderful happens: John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth's womb (Luke 1:41).

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
31st The Visitation of Mary
1st St Justin
2nd Feast of the Ascension

The story Ascension of Jesus is described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter one. Jesus ascends from the Earth to Heaven. This happens 40 days after the Jesus resurrection and the disciples were there to see it.  As he raises, a cloud obscures him from their view, and two men in white arrive to tell them that he will return "in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Every year Christians across the world gather in prayer for growth in unity. We do this in a world where corruption, greed and injustice bring about inequality and division. Ours is a united prayer in a fractured world: this is powerful. However, as individual Christians and communities, we are often complicit with injustice, and yet we are called together to form a united witness for justice and to be a means of Christ’s healing grace for the brokenness of the world.

5th Commandment “You shall not kill”.  The fifth commandment is very direct and very brief!  But this commandment asks us that we open our eyes wide to reality and reflect on the fact that there are many ways to take someone’s life.  Certainly the most obvious way is by causing someone’s death, and killing another person is the gravest wrong anyone can do.  But is refraining from killing someone enough to keep this commandment?  No. The fifth commandment invites us to care for every human life: that of a baby inside its mother’s womb, that of someone who is sick or of an elderly person nearing death, that of anyone throughout the world who doesn’t have necessities like food and water; even that of a criminal who has harmed others.  The fifth commandment asks us to defend, protect and promote life.  Because all life comes from God, we should always choose life.

Thank you

God Bless

Tua Misiloi Co DRS