Feast of Saint Joseph 2023
Greetings on the feast of Saint Joseph. Currently, the Church worldwide is engaging in the Continental Phase for the Synod on Synodality. As Patron of the Universal Church, we might pause to reflect on the spirit of Synodality in the life of St Joseph. The word ‘synodality’ means ‘walking together’. Through the Gospel stories, we […]
Epiphany: Christmas Camels
When asked to write about the feast of 6 January called ‘Epiphany’, I discovered that Eastern and Western Churches emphasise different aspects of the theme ‘manifestation’, which is the meaning of the Greek word ‘Epiphany’. Eastern Churches focus on God’s manifestation of Jesus’ divinity at his baptism and at Cana, where he begins his public […]
Feasts of All Saints and Souls
The feasts of All Saints and All Souls are celebrated on 1 November and 2 November respectively. Over the first two days of November, we are invited to pray with and for everyone. We can pray with one another and the saints, as we are also reminded to remember and pray for all departed souls.
Mary MacKillop Feast Day Celebrations 2022
Mary MacKillop Place and the Sisters of Saint Joseph extend a warm invitation to celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop on Monday, 8 August 2022. “After two years of disruption due to COVID, we look forward to welcoming pilgrims and supporters to Mary MacKillop Place in North Sydney,” says Sr […]
Feast of the Sacred Heart
For us as Josephites, celebrating the feast of the Sacred Heart (24 June) is intimately connected to God’s compassionate love. The Constitutions of the Sisters of Saint Joseph remind us: Mary MacKillop believed that God’s compassionate love symbolised by the Sacred Heart would become a reality for her sisters and the people with whom they […]
Celebrating June Feast Days with Mary MacKillop
During the month of June, we have the opportunity as followers of Mary MacKillop, to recall and celebrate the great feast days of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (24 June) and St John the Baptist (25 June). Our Josephite constitutions expresses Mary’s hope that: God’s compassionate love, symbolised for Mary MacKillop by the Sacred Heart, […]
Feast of St Joseph 2022
Joseph, a Man who Engaged with his Neighbours Over these past few weeks, we have seen and experienced the gift of being a neighbour as Ukrainian families flee into neighbouring countries. Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus knew this experience when they were forced to go to Egypt fleeing the wrath of Herod. In Australia […]
The Baptism of Jesus, A Story of Two Cousins
The baptism of Jesus, celebrated on 9 January, reminds us of two cousins; Jesus and John the Baptist and their mission, their relationship, their lives and their God consciousness revealed in their ministries. The relationship touchingly begins with the meeting of their pregnant mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, who were delightfully surprised by their unborn babies, […]
Saint Mary MacKillop Feast Day 2021
Greetings on this feast of Mary MacKillop as parts of Australia and our world are in lockdown which means that celebrations for this feast need to be held in homes. Mary’s mother Flora and her siblings had to enter a period of quarantine when they arrived in Australia in 1839. I imagine that Flora shared […]
Feast of the Sacred Heart 2021
Greetings as we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart. This is a special feast day for the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart which calls us to give expression to a spirituality of the heart. It was a feast important to both our founders Julian Tenison Woods and Mary MacKillop and still […]
Feast of Saint Joseph 2021
Sr Monica’s video message. Feast of Saint Joseph (19 March) Be creatively courageous like Joseph.Pope Francis, Patris Corde, No. 5 On 8 December 1870, Pope Pius IX declared Saint Joseph as the Patron of the Universal Church. Pope Pius IX was the Pope with whom Mary MacKillop met in Rome in 1873. On 8 […]
From Darkness to Light
A reflection on the Feast of the Epiphany (3 January). The moment of the big bang, or more poetically, great flaring forth, is for scientists a moment to explore, rationalise and quantify. For those who believe in a God it is a moment of epiphany, a theophany and the moment when God released life and […]