17/09/2026
As we approach our 70th anniversary next year, we're sharing reflections from former students, faculty and staff.
Daily chapel is a formational memory for many, as Heather shares with us:
I was at St Marks from 1992 to 2014, first as a student (BTh, Masters (Hons) and PhD) and then as a lecturer in theology.
During all of that time, it is the rhythm of the day that has stayed with me. The teaching day would begin with lectures at 9am and break for morning prayer at 10.30am, before morning tea and resumption of lectures at 11am. Building morning prayer into the life of the college was significant. Staff and students would meet together in the beautiful, simple chapel at the centre of St Mark’s and pray ‘with one heart and mind’.
Whatever we had been teaching and learning about God would be brought into our relationship with God. It was not our cleverness or wisdom that mattered most, but how our lives were being shaped by the wisdom and love of God. This was the right order of things. In a university setting, there is a lot of pressure on both students and staff to perform well, to meet certain standards, to work hard. And it is good to take our responsibilities seriously. But if we lose sight of the goal of the whole enterprise – to grow in the wisdom and knowledge of God, to be cultivated in the spiritual life – then something is wrong.
Chapel reminded us that our lives are lived under God, that God’s Spirit led us to St Mark’s in the first place and will guide us into our vocations as we are formed there. One simple line from the morning prayer service has stayed with me. It is a way of acknowledging in prayer that our time is a gift and we wait on God to know how best to use it:
‘The night has passed, and the day lies open before us…’
