Last week, staff participated in an afternoon reflection where we recognised the connections to the land on which our school resides. The session aimed to challenge our staff to view the land on which we work, in a different way.

The session began with us acknowledging the First Nations Peoples land on which our school resides: our 1st nations people the Wurrendjeri of the Kulin nation. They saw in the land all that was sacred; that the land knew the story of what had been, what was in the present, and held the possibility of what could be.

For the 1st Nations people the land that CRC St Albans now resides would have been the place of stories, rituals, language and rules, that go back tens of thousands of years. It is part of our mission as a Catholic community  to understand how their spirituality continues to enrich us today. For feast day this year students explored the totems, creation stories and language of the Wurrawong Wurrendjeri people to build a connection to this sacredness.

The story of the land of CRC St Albans does not end there. When Father O’Reilly turned the soil to create the first of a Federation of Catholic High Schools he continued the tradition of this place as one of story, ritual, language and rules. In new words, with new imagery he imagined an expression of the sacred which was different. 

Those who work with the land know it has its own sense of time, its own needs and its own end point. It has its own experience of death and destruction and its own unique ability to regenerate and restore itself, even within its own body. Land is not an island; it responds to the elements, to weather, to activity. And it responds to us, it holds us, somehow it contains us - even after death - those who walk on it. 

The new building gives us an opportunity to stop and think about our land and space.  We work hard to make our students time on this land significant - personally, educationally and spiritually. 

Staff reflected on how the land of CRC St Albans has fed us spiritually and professionally. The session concluded with staff discussing how they can continue to create more sacred spaces at school.