Father Julian Tenison Woods.

Father Julian Tenison Woods’ memoir records a dejected figure slipping out of Adelaide on the evening of 1 August 1872. Few witnessed his departure, and he left “without a word of adieu except to the Administrator of the diocese and the head Sister of St Joseph” (Tenison-Woods 1887, 102). He was carrying deep wounds, very little luggage, and even less hope that he might return soon.

Fr Julian had returned to Adelaide to appear before the Bishops who had been appointed by the Holy See to looking into the unusual circumstances of the diocese. He had left the diocese about eleven months earlier and during that time his furniture had been sold, his horse and buggy wrongly repossessed, and many private papers lost. Fr Julian divided his precious library sending his spiritual collection to the diocesan library and his reference books to the Jesuit community. He left behind a career as a parish priest, and took on the life of an itinerant missionary far removed from the people and places he had come to love.

Some 150 years later, the fracture of leaving in haste with a few meagre possessions continues. Violence forces many to slip away under the cover of darkness not knowing when or if they will be welcomed elsewhere. Might they be able to return ‘one day’? Have they chosen wisely what to bring and what to jettison? What contribution will they go on to make in their new location?

Let’s pause and remember
Those who bear wounds of inadequate farewells and closure
those who escape domestic violence and warfare
those who carry little hope
those who welcome and resettle
those who facilitate reunions and mediate impasses.

Mary-Ann Casanova rsj

Reference: Tenison-Woods, Julian. 1887. Memoirs of Reverend J.E. Tenison-Woods. Unpublished.