In Rice’s twenties he could easily support himself after becoming an apprentice for his uncles ship supplying business, and in 1779, he married Mary Elliot whom sadly died 3 years giving birth to their premature daughter who was also named Mary, she was born with a disability and Edmund relied on his stepsister to help raise his daughter. 

To Rice, this was a turning point in his life, after having lost so much and having gone through so many hardships in his life he realized that there we many people who had experienced much worse than he had. He decided to sell his business and use his money to create schools for children who couldn’t afford schooling, starting with an outdoor school with only two to three hundred students and eventually evolving into a school without over seven hundred students, after he and 7 brothers became ‘The Brothers of Presentation’ followed by the creation of the ‘Christian Brothers’ which helped spread news of Rice’s work in schooling causing his school population to grow. The school was named Mt Sion. He taught the students at his school about the Catholicism and about his teachings and values (e.g. giving to the less fortunate). His schools became to be known as some of the best school in Ireland at the time. Rice’s work also expanded out further than schooling, he was also known to provide food, clothing and other resources to the poor peoples in his community.  
Looking at Edmund's values and morals it is clear why he was so devoted to helping the less fortunate. He values poor people being given a chance and did all he could to help them receive the same opportunities middle-class people received. Furthermore, he highly valued the gospel and all its teaching: love, peace, joy, justice, prayer, trust, hope, faith and peace and community. he was so devoted to the gospels he wrote his own version of the bible including quotes from the real bible which he became known for: Exodus 22:25, Psalms 15:5, Proverbs 22:15 and Matthew 25:35-45. 

Rice retired in 1838 at age 76 and later died of natural causes at age 82 on the 29^th of August 1844 on Mount Sion. The work he did in his life – giving money, support the poor, educating the less fortunate, helping build communities in places like the Philippines and helping the less fortunate when they were ill – means that him-self and his work remains visible in the works of charity to this day. Numerous charities were named after him and, today, he has more than 48 schools with more than 35000 enrolled students around the world devoted to his teachings and values.

As an already spiritual and religious person, Rice attending mass every day only increased how spiritual Rice was and how much cared for his religion, his increasing spirituality could be seen in the way he taught at Mt Sion, he created a Catholic education curriculum and considered the religious instruction (30 minutes) lesson as one of the most important lessons.

 

Rice had a high moral compass mainly devoted to supporting and providing for less fortunate people and while teaching at Mt Sion he always encouraged this way of thinking, one of the ways he did this was to quote and use lines written in the bible explain why helping others is so important. Some of these lines Rice became known for.

Whoever does these things
    will never be shaken.

Proverbs 22:15
¹⁵ Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

    but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

The priestly work of Jesus is how Rice brought people together, what sacrifices he made for his goals and how he worshipped and prayed. One-way rice brought people together was how he brought men with similar beliefs as him together and created both ‘The Brothers of Presentation’ and later ‘The Christian Brothers’, this allowed him to further spread his message. Furthermore, Rice is most well known for how he brought children together by starting schools, he brought them together to learn, find God and to understand and follow his teachings. He was a very spiritual man who wanted to help the less fortunate people in his community and world and to do this gave up his business to create his schools and spread his message. And although not much is known about how Rice worshipped and prayed, it is known that he attended mass daily, often prayed the rosary and quoted the bible to his students and acquaintances these did not directly help his students, although he made sure that there was a prayer before each lesson at his schools and that all of his students attended a religious instruction lesson (30 minutes) every day.

 

The prophetic work of Jesus is what and how Rice spoke out against injustice and what injustices Rice had to accept. The most common injustice Rice spoke out against was the corrupt schooling system; It wasn’t uncommon for Catholic children not to receive a proper education and children who couldn’t afford schooling also didn’t receive an education at all. Rice also commonly spoke out against the mistreatment and the lack of resources provided to the poor; this was one of the typical teachings that Rice taught to his pupils. Rice made sure that he spoke to his students and crowds of people about the school system and mistreatment of poor people and later went over to Britain to speak to the Pope about corrupt schooling and about sending his schooling system global, which was successful, but only after Rices death. Rice spoke out about a great deal of injustices to a great deal of people, there were still injustices Rice had to accept. One of these injustices was the death of his wife who died during the birth their daughter who was born premature and with disabilities, and although this was something Rice had to accept, this event became a turning point in Rice’s life that inspired him to start creating schools. 

 

The kingly work of Jesus is how Rice used his influence to promote Gods kingdom to love one another. Rice always used his influence as an educator to spread Gods messages and teachings to his students, predominantly young Catholic boys who were not allowed to receive a proper education at the time. Rice also used his influence to travel to the Pope to have his messages and schools sent global, Rice was influential enough for this to become a reality but, sadly, only after he passed away. 

Christian Brothers College, Adelaide

Christian Brothers’ High School, Lewisham 

Ignatius Park College, Townsville

Parade College, Bundoora & Preston 

Rostrevor College, Woodforde  

St Dominic’s College, Penrith

St Edmund's College, Ipswich

St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace College, Spring Hill

St Joseph’s Nudgee College, Boondall

St Kevin’s College, Toorak 

St Patrick's College, Shorncliffe 

St Virgil’s College, Hobart 

Waverley College, Waverley

There is one particular line in the Rerum Novarum which says: ‘The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; Whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the State.’ When we put this statement in words that we can understand more clearly today it basically means that richer people don’t need or take help from the state and usually shield themselves from the poor and less fortunate people that they could help by using their money and that need money to survive. The richer people, although they have plenty of money, only use their money on themselves in selfish and unnecessary ways and leave the masses poorer people, who need resources and education, for the state to become overwhelmed with. 

This line for the Rerum Novarum encyclical is very similar to the work that Edmund Rice did. Rice spent his time using the money he had earned from selling his late uncles’ business to create schools and give, predominantly, young Catholic boys a full education. Due to Rices family and his uncles business, he had quite a bit of money, but instead of using the money on himself in a stereo-typically greedy and self-centred way, Rice wanted to do the work of God and to teach everybody to look after each other and care for each other. The work that Rice did with his money is what Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical asked him to do, his work and the work of others who followed the Popes encyclical created a path out of the typical conditions of the time of the Industrial Revolution and on to a newer life.

The Edmund Rice Foundation Australia works with disadvantaged communities to bring dignity and education to the children and adults of the community. They use their work to connect people and give them new opportunities. They do this by teaching the people of the community normal educations as well as skills that they need such as, finance literacy, farming, trading, health and human rights. All the skills that the ERFA teach bring the people in the community together along with the volunteers forming important bonds and friendships. The volunteers work very hard to help and support the people in these communities as Edmund Rice would, and although they don’t pray very often the volunteers really care about making Edmund Rices dream a reality. The ERFA also rely on donations to support the communities they have helped all over the world and plan to help in the future. This does not necessarily count as something that the ERFA has sacrificed, it is still something the ERFA must handle and rely on to support the less fortunate people in our community and communities across our world. 

 

The Edmund Rice Foundation truly care about helping the people who need it, they see the problem of poverty for what it truly is, an unfair injustice that needs to be prevented and fixed in any way possible. They see the unjustness of poverty and are fully involved in help people below the poverty line by providing much need for education and resources. ERFA can see all the poverty through the world and how horrendously unfair it is and work as hard as they can to remove it, but, they do know that with everyone on earth and everyone living in poverty it is an impossibility to remove all of it. But even with this knowledge they still work as much as they can to remove as many people from poverty’s grasp as possible, trying to give everyone they can the chance at a normal happy life above the poverty line.

 

The Edmund Rice Foundation uses their influence to gain donations which they then use towards their work with poverty-stricken communities. Once they have entered the communities that they want to reform and improve, they use their influence to promote the kingdom of God, to teach the children and adults about God, Jesus Christ and Catholicism. Volunteers also make sure that the work of Edmund Rice is reflected in their work with the less fortunate. Volunteers make sure that both the adults and especially the children know about Rice’s views of helping the less fortunate and always help those who need it in any way that you can.  

When we further look at the world behind the text, we can see that the story was told after an expert in Jewish law asks Jesus how eternal life is granted. This slightly changes the message of the story (to be granted eternal life you must love your neighbour as you love yourself) and bring new characters into the story (Jesus and an expert in Jewish Law).

Finally, when we look at the world In front of the text, the message of the story still says repetitively like the world of the text (love your neighbours as you would yourself). When we look at the world In front of the text we can see that even to this day the message still applies and that even though this text is centuries and centuries-old we can still follow its meanings.

It is also clear that Edmund Rice saw this too, the work Rice did, although not physically the same, was what the text asked him to do. He loved his neighbours as himself and devoted his time to supporting and improving their lives and giving poverty-stricken families middle-class opportunities.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’^[b]”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

³⁰ In reply, Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Three quotes from Edmund Rice’s letter Bryan Bolger in 1810:

By reading the quotes of Rice’s letter it can be interpreted that the letter was written with the purpose of explaining Gods presents in everything and how everything we do – even if we are to fail – should be purposed for God. The letter that these quotes are from was written for a man named Bryan Bolger, after researching his name, any identification of who he is was unsuccessful and resulted only in current day men with the same name. although we cannot find out about the man who received this letter, we can assume this man was either very religion and a follower of Edmund Rice’s work (possibly one of the brothers of presentation) or nonreligious and was understanding God and possibly converting. Now having a basic idea of what this letter may have been about and who it may have been so we can try to understand the importance of this letter. If we can assume that this letter was being written to a convert or one of the brothers and that the letter was written – from the quotes we can guess – purely about God and his work, we can assume this letter either had great importance to Rice or Bolger or both men.

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Edmund Rice Foundation Australia. (Producer and Director). (2018) Erfa overview. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA_UnJH3A0M

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