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pathways, February 2010

In preparation for Easter 2010, the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference has initiated an unique journey - The Reflection - in which families parish groups or communities can spend quality time together exploring the Scriptures. Each week during Lent the Bishops of Australia will share their thoughts and reflections on the Sunday Gospels leading to Easter through a free, Internet-based resource that will comprise six short pre-recorded segments. Each segment will follow a lectio divina process (an exploration of the Gospel through reflection and prayer).  The segments will be posted online each Monday at 7pm, starting the Monday prior to Ash Wednesday -  February 15. A final segment will be posted during Holy Week and will involve a small number of Bishops and lay people who will share thoughts and reflections of their Lenten journey around the celebration of an Easter meal. For this pilot program, 12 bishops have agreed to participate in the series: Archbishops Philip Wilson (Adelaide), John Bathersby (Brisbane), Denis Hart (Melbourne), Mark Coleridge (Canberra-Goulburn), Adrian Doyle (Hobart) and Bishops Michael Putney (Townsville), Christopher Saunders (Broome), David Walker (Broken Bay), Greg O'Kelly SJ (Port Pirie), Eugene Hurley (Darwin), Gerard Hanna (Wagga Wagga) and Jo Grech (Sandhurst).

Evoking times past, two nuns, dressed in traditional Franciscan brown habit and black veil turned heads in Kedron (Brisbane) at the BEginning of the school year.  They reminded the staff of Mt Alvernia College that 80 years had passed since the first arrival of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in the Kedron parish.  Sr Pauline Robinson MFIC, currently on staff at Mt Alvernia College and Sr Patricia Treacy MFIC(pictured), a past principal of the college, braved the sweltering Brisbane heat, donned the habits and led staff on a pilgrimage walk back to significant places for the MFIC Sisters.  "Our sisters were always a very visible presence in the area" Sr Pauline said. "So we led staff on a pilgrimage walk to the Kedron parish hall, which had been our first convent, Padua Primary which holds our first school building and to Delamore which was our beautiful historic convent for over 65 years."  

An Australian nun is saving the lives of children living with HIV/AIDS in a remote parish in Zambia . Sr Marie Bourke FMDM, from Melbourne, is one of three Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood working with children in the remote Kasaba region, Luapula, in northern Zambia, 730 km north of the capital Lusaka. One in five people have HIV/AIDS and 50 per cent of children at the local school have lost their parents to the disease.  Catholic Mission funds Sister Marie's work and she says many orphans would not have survived beyond infancy without the nutritional food and medicine provided by the Franciscan Sisters.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) has created a new page on Facebook which will contain information, media releases, photos and forums about the work and ministry of the ACBC.  The ACBC is responding to the Pope's call to engage with digital media and make use of it to promulgate the word of God. A number of the bishops have been on Facebook for some time, and have found it an invaluable way of communicating with people in their dioceses and beyond, especially young people. This year's World Day of Communication will focus specifically on new media, with the theme "The Priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: new media at the service of the word."  

To engage with the ACBC on Facebook you, either search Facebook using the words Australian Catholic Bishops Conference or USE THIS LINK 

A Sydney-based South African journalist marks the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.         EUREKA STREET ARTICLE

For 40 years, the Catholic Church has engaged in dialogue with the Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist Churches. In this article from The Tablet, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity Cardinal Walter Kasper reflects on that dialogue and warns against dismay about ecumenism's future in STILL A PLACE FOR OPTIMISM.     Read also the National Catholic Reporter's John Allen Jnr BLOG from Rome.

Francis R. Herrmann, SJ, in a homily at a Mass for the victims of the Haitian earthquake at Boston College, USA, on January 28, speaks about the people of Haiti, about their character, their strength, their hope, and their faith in the midst of immense and unrelenting hardships in the light of the experience of Boston College students who have regularly visited Haiti for many years.  He concludes: