Each year the St Patrick’s community chooses a particular Benedictine value to focus on. In 2016, for example, we focused on the Benedictine value of peace (in Latin: PAX). This year, under the direction of the Good Samaritan Education Mission Team, all Good Samaritan Colleges have focused on PAX through the lens of justice and stability. In 2016 to draw our College community’s attention to peace on a daily basis, the sounding of a Peace Gong was introduced. Since then, each day at midday, the Gong has been struck and it serves as a gentle reminder to take a few moments to experience peace by stopping and being silent.
From the Benedictine point of view, peace is an action. The aim of Benedictine life is to find peace. We must pursue it and work for it. It is our mission. As St Benedict states in The Rule, “Let peace be your quest and your aim” (RB Prologue v17). In other words, peace does not just happen. Peace has to be worked for. Benedict places the pursuit of peace within the social context of daily life. Peace comes from seeking God in the present. Sister Joan Chittister asserts that “The Rule of Benedict offers a model of peace that depends on being gentle with ourselves, gentle with the other, and gentle with the earth.” Peace comes from regularly putting the needs of others ahead of our own and it starts in our own small world of family and community.
May PAX be our legacy, our mandate and our mission for living life—life to the full.
The St Pat’s Peace Gong is sounded every day by student volunteers who carry out their duty faithfully.
Angelo Gattone - Mission Coordinator