Fervorino For Blessing And Opening Of New Hall And Refurbished Learning Spaces St Ambrose Catholic Primary School
St Ambrose Catholic Primary School, 8 December 2024
Today the Parish of St Ambrose has celebrated a century of service to the district. It began as a few dozen Catholic families coming together in each other’s homes to celebrate the Eucharist. They bought some land and built a temporary church that doubled as a school. One hundred years ago, Archbishop Michael Kelly came to bless and open this church-and-school, and Sisters of Charity came from St Mary’s Concord to run the school during the week and clear everything away in time for Mass on the weekend. By 1929 numbers warranted a new parish. In due course there were better school buildings and a permanent church, and the Catholic people of the district built a genuine community of worship, education and other outreach. It’s a proud history.
Today we installed a relic of St Ambrose in the church. He was born in 339 AD in Trier Germany, son of a leading bureaucrat in the crumbling Roman empire. He prepared for a similar career by studying literature, law and oratory in Rome. He rose quickly to being governor of the province centred on Milan. Though raised Christian and enrolled as a catechumen, he was unbaptized. But when the Bishop of Milan died, the Arian party and the Catholic party fought over who would provide the new bishop. He went to the cathedral to help quell a riot where a child who could have been from this school cried out, “Ambrose for Bishop!” As if at a football match the mob started chanting the same, electing him bishop on the spot, even though he was not yet a Christian! Children can sometimes be inspired, sometimes precocious, sometimes randomly wise, but should always be taken seriously.
Flabbergasted, Ambrose appealed to the emperor to be excused from such duties. But the emperor thought it a very good idea. So Ambrose was baptised, confirmed, communicated, ordained deacon, priest and bishop all in a week! So extraordinary is his story that we celebrate his feast day not on the day he died (Good Friday 397), as we do with most saints, but on the day he was consecrated bishop—7th December 374.
Ambrose brought his whole personality, experience and gifts to his new ministry, as each young person brings their own strengths and weaknesses. The school then seeks to discern the gifts and cultivate them, supply for defects, developing the whole child physically, emotionally and intellectually, aesthetically, morally and spiritually. On election as bishop, Ambrose had to go back to ‘school’ to study Scripture and Church teaching.[1] He proved to be a natural teacher, and was partly responsible for converting a sceptical young Algerian named Gus. St Augustine (as we know him) went on to be a champion of ‘faith and love’, the motto of our school. He shows what a good influence a teacher like Ambrose can be, not just as an instructor but as mentor and example of faith and ideals.
Our school motto ‘faith and love’ goes all the way back to St Paul (1Cor 13:13; Rom 5:1-2,5; 1Thess 1:2-3; 5:8; cf. Heb 10:22-25; 2Pet 1:5-8). But what might these ‘theological virtues’ look like in the context of a Catholic school?
Well, St Ambrose thought young people should be tutored in respect for God, elders and country, in purity of heart and life, in humility and forbearance in difficulty, and in mercy in everything. “The Lord is always near to those who call on Him from their heart,” Ambrose said, but “especially those who do so with true faith, sure hope, and perfect love.” Good schooling, on his account, is as much about building character and ‘soul’ as knowledge and skills.
Still, there are things to learn as well. In this NAPLAN-focused age, we might recall that to the astonishment of his students Ambrose could read with his mouth shut. In those days people read aloud, as reading was for proclamation and hearing aided the reader’s own understanding.[2] But Ambrose could scan a page with his eyes alone, which suggested a very good NAPLAN result. Ambrose the teacher, philanthropist and administrator was also an outstanding reader, and shared our passion for secular and religious literacy in our schools.
Now our students and teachers will enjoy the best modern facilities for teaching and learning. Facilities matter. Teachers matter even more. But if “it takes a village to raise a child”, Catholic education is the work of a whole community: of the children, their families and peers, of the educators and wider community, of the government funders and regulators, of the parish and diocese.
With its new facilities the village that is St Ambrose school community will be an even better place to grow young people in faith and ideals, knowledge and skills, love and virtue. To bring hearts and minds to the One who promises life in abundance (Jn 10:10). To cultivate the gifts of all for the glory of God, the perfection of the child, and the building up of our families and society. Congratulations, St Ambrose Catholic Primary School!
[1] Pope Benedict XVI, “Saint Ambrose of Milan,” Catechesis, 24 October 2007.
[2] Ibid.