I hope that Mothers’ Day was well celebrated in all homes yesterday. Good mothers deserve every bit of recognition and appreciation that we can give them. Yesterday was probably filled with a lot of reflections on the warmth, support and love most of us have felt from our Mums. As I think about that, there are a lot of those memories I hold but others that I share with Calvin in the cartoon below. Mums (and Dads) find their greatest contribution to the life of their children in the guard rails they create and the guidelines to which they hold firm for impressionable young people. For all of those guard rails and guidelines, lovingly implemented – thanks Mum.

For those who are looking for a great ‘Mothers’ Day’ gift (on top of what was purchased for yesterday), tickets are still available for the visit to Shalom of Lauren Jackson on Thursday May 22 and Tom Busby May 23. Lauren played Basketball for Australia in every Olympic Games from 2000 to 2024 and medalled in each. She is the all-time leading scorer at the Olympics in Women’s Basketball. Hers is just an extraordinary story of perseverance and resilience.

Tom Busby will headline an acoustic concert at Shalom. Tom is half of the very successful Busby Marou duo and is touring Queensland currently. For the Bundaberg event, he will be joined by up and coming talent Jaymon Bob who made the final six of this year’s Australian Idol competition. It will be a great concert.

We have a new Pope and I hope that Pope Leo will carry on the work of Francis. The following reflection on his life was one of the better one’s I read in recent weeks.

He carried so much. The wounds of a divided Church. The ache of the poor and the forgotten. The weight of hope—for a world more merciful, more human, more like Christ. He walked with a limp, both in body and in spirit, but never without grace. He wasn’t perfect. But he was present. And he kept showing up.

And he was different.

He chose the simple path when grandeur was expected. He rode the bus. Paid his own hotel bill. Lived in a guesthouse instead of the papal palace. His first act as Pope was to bow and ask for our prayers. From the beginning, he showed us that true authority kneels. That greatness can look like humility.

He disrupted systems and comforted outcasts. He spoke boldly on justice, embraced the disabled, welcomed migrants, washed the feet of prisoners. He didn’t just talk about mercy—he embodied it. He made the Church feel like a place where the last could be first, and the forgotten, finally seen.

He taught us that holiness isn’t perfection—it’s presence. That the Gospel is clearest when it sounds like compassion. That faith, at its best, looks like love with skin on.

And now, just after Easter, he’s gone. So yes, we grieve. But we also remember.

We remember how he made us believe again—in a Church that walks with the wounded, in a Gospel wide enough for the doubting, in a God whose love meets us right where we are.

He reminded me that faith isn’t something we hold onto for ourselves.

It’s something we hand off—with open hands and open hearts.

Pope Francis has finished his race.

And what he leaves behind isn’t just a memory—

It’s the echo of a life poured out.

The kind of life that makes you want to live differently.

More gently.

More boldly.

More like him.

More like Christ.

He waited for Easter—because he believed in the promise.

And now, that promise is his.

Light has found him.

And Love has brought him home.

Mr Dan McMahon
Principal
Daniel_McMahon@rok.catholic.edu.au