Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, recently I have visited two museums with what might be called a religious theme, and an educational sub-theme. One, the Mary MacKillop Museum in Kensington, and, second, more recently, the Jesuit Retreat Centre’s historical display at Sevenhill. Both well worth a visit.
It is 50 years since the SA Parliament debated and passed legislation relating to abortion. A lot has changed since then and the Attorney General Vickie Chapman has decided it’s time to ‘modernise’ the legislation.
As we approach the end of the year, a challenging one at that, there is a sense of rounding out the year liturgically as well as with our everyday calendar of events.
St Bernard of Clairvaux 1090-1153 once wrote ‘A saint is not someone who never sins, but one who sins less and less frequently and gets up more and more quickly’.
In 1902, at the age of 60, Mary MacKillop suffered a stroke. Her mind was unaffected and her speech intelligible, but with her right side paralysed, she had to make major adaptations to her life.
Opinion
Perhaps the three most important words that children can learn are ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’, but the attitudes behind these words – respect, gratitude and forgiveness – only develop when they are lived out in the family, in the school, in the parish, and in society at large.
Opinion
Ten years ago South Australians turned out in their thousands to celebrate the canonisation of Australia’s first saint, Mary of the Cross MacKillop.
As time permits I have been attempting to visit as many Mass centres in the Archdiocese as possible. I’m told there are around 143 different places where Mass is celebrated so this will take some time.
Vocations to the permanent diaconate are growing faster than any other vocation in the Church.
There is no doubt we are living in unprecedented times, where the new ‘normal’ encompasses social distancing, hand washing and Zoom meetings, not to mention the need to get tested as soon as you have a sniffle.
In his first major statement, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis spoke bluntly about the challenges facing Catholic parishes: ‘We must admit … that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented.’
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