Julian McDonald

What Follows are a few extracts from an address given by Br Julian McDonld

While these thoughts are addressed to principals of the EREA Schools, much of it applies to the total membership of the Edmund Rice Network.
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Let me say at the outset that the Christian Brothers' Oceania Province Leadership Team (OLT) has great confidence in you and in the EREA executive and endorses the value and expertise of our lay leaders. The fact that the Brothers have moved to establish Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) is eloquent testimony to that, despite the fact that our action in establishing EREA would appear to make some of our Church leaders just a tad nervous. The OLT subscribes to a belief in a lay Church and is committed to pursuing shared leadership with other lay men and women. I say "other" because the Congregation of Christian Brothers is itself lay in character....

We also subscribe to the belief that Christian Brothers do not have a monopoly on the charism of Edmund Rice. His charism is living and ever-evolving and will, as a consequence, find a variety of new expressions according to the insights and decisions of those people who generously take responsibility for nurturing and applying that charism. By accepting leadership of an EREA school, you have generously embraced such responsibility. You are also aware of the fact that every responsibility has a corresponding accountability....
The Edmund Rice charism is a gift of God's Spirit. It is an insight into the Gospel of Jesus given to a particular man who lived his life in an Irish social context in which Irish Catholic youth had little or no access to basic education. Edmund Rice put his talent, his energy, his insight and his material fortune into righting that injustice....

Now, let me say a little about the context in which you lead your school. You and your school are part of a Church in which many of your students and their parents are not at home. Indeed, many of them are quite simply unchurched. You are part of a Church that is very clearly in transition and, in many places, is struggling for credibility. It is a Church that often seems obsessed with religious observance and forgetful of the Gospel. On the other hand, you are dealing with a generation of young people that is fearful about the future, concerned for the health of the planet yet paradoxically intent on instant gratification of felt needs as it yearns for an experience of real community. They likewise look for guidance that will assist them to make meaning of their lives and to deal with loss, grief and the prospects of a bleak future. Deep down, they long for a coherent value system that will guide them to live meaningfully in the present, that will help them to make their relationships and marriages work and will give them guidance in raising their children. Practical expression of the Edmund Rice charism can offer some degree of hope for this current generation of young people who fill the classrooms of your schools.

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