Eleven-year-old Mustafa is a beautifully-spoken, polite boy with an infectious smile. His older brother Mohammad is articulate and engaging but when you look closely at his big brown eyes there is a seriousness and sense of responsibility that no 15-year-old kid should be burdened with.
As I enter Mariam’s house I’m greeted with the familiar smell of baked goods cooking in the kitchen mixed with the fresh scent of a house just cleaned. She steers me into our usual meeting place, her front lounge room where the sun shines through large open windows that look out onto the shopping centre across the road.
My dear sisters and brothers, it is just over two months now since I was installed as Archbishop and I am still in the process of learning about the Archdiocese. I hope that I shall always be doing so.
Sickness and death are often hidden or denied in contemporary culture yet everyone encounters ill health at some time in their lives, whether in short-term conditions such as appendicitis and the common cold or chronic illnesses such as diabetes, arthritis and mental illness.
He taught us how to pray while not knowing how to pray. That’s a comment sometimes made about Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen.
Opinion
We recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ call to Catholics, and the whole world, on behalf of God’s suffering creation and peoples.
Opinion
Opinion
In December 2018, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart announced they would be withdrawing their administration of our parish after providing religious ministry for the previous 105 years. At the time I was chairperson of our PPC and in consultation with our community we formed a transition team to steer our community into uncharted waters.
Many years ago now, our very own Fr Denis Edwards wrote a book entitled Called to be Church in Australia, describing an approach that could bring about a renewal of life and faith in our local churches. In this book, he suggested that as an Australian Church we need to learn from and approach Aboriginal experience of the land as ‘apprentices in faith’
I was fortunate, privileged really, to be educated by the Mercy Sisters at Mercedes College from the age of 10.
Three years ago, at the age of 23, Maddie Kelly boarded a plane bound for Arusha, Tanzania, and began working in the School of St Jude. Here she writes about her experiences, including the impact of COVID-19 on the local community.
In the continuing series on the Professional Standards Office, the pastoral response to historical complaints of abuse, known as Towards Healing, is explained.
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