Friday November 2011

Vocation: a personal encounter

By Fr Binh Le

Our Catholic life is an intensely personal matter. There are certainly mass gatherings – for example, WYD – yet even within such large crowds, still people’s experience of prayer and presence manifest something that is not just communal.

Friday 16 September 2011

By Laurel Hill

On 28 July 2011, our family had the honour of attending the First Profession of Vows of our eldest daughter, Michelle – who has taken the religious name Sr Mary Helen (after Mary of the Cross MacKillop) – in the congregation of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia, in Nashville, Tennessee. This took place at the beautiful Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville.

Friday 22 July 2011

Fr Binh Le

The Archdiocese of Melbourne will celebrate National Vocations Awareness Week from 31 July to 7 August. National Vocations Awareness Week offers the faithful an opportunity to explore the meaning of the word ‘vocation’. In discovering and following one’s vocation, a person will find life fulfilling and meaningful, whether as a married or a single person, as a consecrated or an ordained person.

Friday 22 July 2011

Sr Katherine Stone MGL

I think I always knew I had a vocation. The first time I remember consciously admitting it to myself, though, I was about nine years old and, to be honest, the idea scared me. My ambitions in life involved a husband and children, and I knew that to become a Sister meant letting go of that.

Sunday 5 February 2012

2011 was a special year for our brother, Fr Andrew Hrdina, who celebrates 75 years of Religious Profession and 70 years of Priestly Ordination.

Friday 16 March 2012

Friday 22 July 2011

On 13 April 2011 the Conventual Franciscan Friars welcomed two young men into their formation program as postulants. Alfred Soliman and Greg Westenberg are both from the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary in Kellyville, New South Wales. They now reside at St Joseph of Cupertino friary, Dingley Village. Later they will continue their postulancy and, God-willing, their novitiate in Chicago. Fr Paschal Corby OFM Conv is their postulant director until then.

Friday 22 July 2011

The vitality of the Church depends on individual Catholics fostering vocations in their homes and parishes, said Pope Benedict XVI in his annual message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations on 15 May.

Friday 22 July 2011

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s population now exceeds 22,671,380. This represents a huge mission field.

Here is the maths: about 5.9 million say they are Catholic (26 per cent), but fewer than 20 per cent of these go to Mass. This means only about 1.2 million Australians go to Mass weekly, leaving almost 95 per cent at significant risk of not making it to heaven.

Friday 22 July 2011

Christine Burke IBVM

Ten years ago, the young teacher contemplating joining our congregation would never have thought she would be organising a Golden Jubilee celebration with a cast of more than 200 in East Timor!

Friday 22 July 2011

Fr Michael Casey OCSO

The Cistercian monks of Tarrawarra arrived at their beautiful location in the Yarra Valley in 1954. They brought with them an ancient tradition of monastic living based on the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict. The name ‘Cistercian’ derives from the abbey of Citeaux, or Cisteaux, in France, where, in 1098 a stricter and more contemplative observance was initiated.

Friday 22 July 2011

Susan Neylan

The spirit of the Little Company of Mary pervades my life.

What makes work in Little Company of Mary Health Care different from other health-care facilities? It has all the same ingredients that are necessary to function and for accreditation. The difference lies in the rich heritage from the lives of the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary.

Friday 22 July 2011

Taaremon Matauea

Three years ago, when I was a seminarian in Chicago, the Columban Missionary Society asked me to go to Taiwan for two years. The purpose of this overseas assignment was for me to live and work side by side with experienced Columban missionaries, learn one of the local languages (Chinese Mandarin), get to know the Taiwanese people, and learn about their life and faith.

Friday 22 July 2011

Fr Mario Zammit mssp

‘I will follow you wherever you go’, was the motto presented by Joseph De Piro to his first missionaries. In different parts of the world, the Paulist Missionaries still today take these words as their guiding light in their ministry.

Friday 22 July 2011

By Fr Jude D’Rozario

I was born in a southern state of India called Kerala. Kera means coconut and therefore the state could be called the land of coconuts.

At one time the whole life and economy of this state was dependent on the coconut tree. The leaves were used to thatch the roofs of homes, and as brooms. The wood was used to build homes, as fuel for the fire and the husks were used as coir to make ropes, doormats, carpets and so on. Even the shells were used as spoons for cooking.

Friday 22 July 2011