The theme of our Foundress Week this year is Celebrating our past with gratitude. Students from the Catholic Formation Core Team marked the opening of the eventful week in the presence of Sr. Veronica, our Principal, Miss Florence Kwok and Ms MY Lam, our Vice-principal, Ms Priscilla Kwok, our Assistant Principal and representatives of religious groups.
The board decorated with figures of the Principal, Vice-principals, Assistant Principal and students was subsequently put at the kiosk for teachers and students to draw and stick their own figures on it. This simple collaborative work, named We are Canossians, sent a clear message that we are connected to the same Canossian family.
To engage our schoolmates physically and spiritually in the theme, there were a series of thoughtful events during the Foundress Week: board displays of S1 OLE Activity: Our Foundress’ Act of Love, S4 Service Day snapshots and reflections, song dedication, Foundress Day celebration on 8 May and visits to Canossian sisters in the afternoon.
On 8 May, we gathered at the College Hall to commemorate our Canossian Feast Day. The celebration opened with a review of the missionary life of St Magdalene of Canossa, our Foundress, and the Canossian Sisters who established SHCC in 1860.
Sr Franca Bozzini, a Canossian missionary who served in Sacred Heart Canossian College in Macau for 17 years shared her uplifting experiences as a missionary. She clung to the Gospel as a means to find inner freedom and true love. She took on difficulties as challenges and opportunities to see God’s blessings. Sr Bozzini kept us entertained with her sense of humour and passion for life.
Followed the story about God’s blessings, we celebrated the Foundress Day with a Eucharistic mass. Rev Father Philip Chan conducted the thanksgiving mass with a parable on charity and small act of kindness. He appealed to us put into practice an act of forgiving someone who have wronged us.
In the mass, we contemplated on Jesus’ Words about humility and kindness. Our Secondary One students dedicated their hand-made collages about the charity of St Magdalene of Canossa as thanksgiving offerings on the altar. Likewise, Secondary 4 schoolmates organised service in the spirit of St. Magdalene during the last few months. Sacred Heartists have been learning and living out the Canossian spirit of charity and humility in their own fashion.
We are told that we need not initiate a project to serve the one in need. Just start with small deeds of kindness, including helping an absent schoolmate to take note of the key points covered in the lessons and homework due dates.
Sr Veronica gave the audience a challenge to get prepared for one’s plan and have it shared with the whole school in the morning assembly the following week.
