Advent 2020
November 29, 2020Advent Reflection.
Take a moment to close your eyes and go on a journey of remembering. Think back to when you were a little child and some special event was to occur in the very near future. You may have been awaiting a birthday or a holiday or Christmas. As you remember, tap into the anticipation that you experienced at this time. Each day brought greater excitement and expectancy even though it felt as if the anticipated moment would never arrive.
For us Christians, the anticipation of the birth of Christ in the season of Advent resembles our childhood experiences. The word, Advent, derives from the Latin adventus, which means coming. While it is a period of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas, it is also a reminder of the Second Coming of Christ.
Fortunately for us, rather than having to endure the agonising wait of the child, there are symbols that make the anticipation of the birth of the Christ Child a little easier. The Sunday readings break down the period into two specific sections, those of remembrance and anticipation. On the first two Sundays we look forward to Christ’s second coming and on the remaining two we look backwards to the story of Christ’s first coming in the Bethlehem of long ago.
The Advent candles, which are usually placed in a wreath, highlight the significance of each of these Sundays. The wreath, which is created out of evergreens, symbolises everlasting life. The circle reminds us of God’s unending love.
As we light the first one, the candle of hope, we have a beautiful reminder to prepare our hearts even as we prepare our homes to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is hope that keeps us from despair and urges us to be compassionate, kind and loving towards one another. It is hope that encourages us to believe and trust in a merciful God.
The second candle represents faith. It is sometimes known as the Bethlehem Candle, as it serves to remind us of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. It symbolises the expectation and utter confidence felt by all who are anticipating the coming of the Messiah. It is
While three of the Advent candles are purple, the third one to be lit is a pink (rose) colour, and that is the liturgical colour for joy. This Sunday is known as Gaudete Sunday, that is, it is a day when we rejoice that the world has experienced the birth of Jesus and that we have reached the midpoint of this Advent season.
The final candle, which brings us a a message of peace, is lit on the fourth Sunday of Advent. It reminds us of the message of the angels:
Jesus brought about peace in the most unexpected of ways. Today he brings us inner peace and thus encourages us to put aside our differences and do what we can to bring about his peace in today’s world.
As we move into this coming Advent season, may we capture the excitement and anticipation of the child as we prepare for the birth of Jesus in our hearts and in the world around us.
Maryellen Thomas rsj
Image: Advent Wreath by Ursula Fischer obtained from Pixabay. Used with permission.
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
November 25, 202025 November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
2020 marks the thirtieth year of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign, which ends on 10 December with Human Rights Day. It was initiated in 1991 and coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. This year the focus is on women workers in the informal economy.
Slavery represents the most common form of violence against women and children. Women and girls accounted for 28.7 million (11%) of Modern Slavery and one in 4 victims were children (2017, International Labour Organization).
Pope Francis reminds us, “it is not possible to remain indifferent before the knowledge that human beings are bought and sold like goods!”
In 2015 Sr Margaret Ng, together with members of St Joseph’s Enfield Parish, New South Wales established Parish Against Trafficking of Humans (PATH) to raise awareness of slavery locally, nationally and internationally.
Rosie Hoban from Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) interviewed Sr. Margaret Ng about PATH. The article will be published on 6 December 2020.
To read the interview please click on the link below:
Activism in Parishes (available 6 December)
Margaret Ng rsj
Image obtained from Deposit Photos.
Ella Wins Gold in History Challenge
November 20, 2020A good news story from Mount St. Joseph’s Girls’ College in Altona West, Victoria.
One of our Year 12 students (in a very difficult year) has won a couple of major awards in a national competition.
The National History Challenge is a research-based competition for students. It gives students a chance to be an historian, researching world history, examining Australia’s past, investigating their community or exploring their own roots. It emphasises and rewards quality research, the use of community resources and effective presentation.
Ella Bibby won a gold award (state champion) for the senior category and using primary sources category. On top of this, she was also won a platinum award (overall national champion) in the “using primary sources” category.
The college is extremely proud of Ella and her achievements.
Nicole Magee
Marketing & Communications
Mount St. Joseph Girls’ College
133 Maidstone Street, Altona VIC 3018
Birth of Fr Julian Tenison Woods
November 15, 2020From Southwark, England to Southport, Tasmania.
On 15 November 1832 in Southwark, England, Henrietta St Eloy Tenison, wife of James Dominick Woods, gave birth to a son, Julian Edmund Tenison Woods.
As in any family the birth of a child is received with great joy and perhaps even wonder at what this child might do with his God given life.
In the decade of the 1830’s the world saw a rise of imperialism and colonialism. Britain saw a surge of power and world dominance. New settlements commenced in 1803 and flourished in Australia. Tasmania’s early history tells of crime, punishment, hardship and survival in some of the harshest, yet most beautiful places on earth. Between 1803 and 1853 approximately 75,000 men, women and children from British and Irish ports were transported to Van Dieman’s Land.
Remembrance Day 2020
November 11, 2020In Flanders Fields.
To acknowledge Remembrance Day on 11 November this year, we would like to share the poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’ with you. It is written by the Canadian poet, soldier, and physician John McCrae. He wrote the poem in 1915 as a memorial to those who died in a World War I battle fought in a region of Belgium known as the Ypres Salient.
For additional information, please feel free to visit The Australian War Museum website.
A Day in the Life: Rural Ministry
November 8, 2020I might begin with today, 5 October 2020, in Cloncurry, “the friendly heart of the great North West” of Queensland.
Where is Cloncurry? I hear you ask – 120 kilometres east of Mount Isa. Of course, the day’s activities depend on which day of the week, which month and which Season of the year one is describing… and it’s mulberry time here – and a public holiday! So this morning, after feeding the school chooks, also the Corelas, with Bakery leftovers, and watering the garden, I delighted in thrusting my face into and among the lovely cool, new green leaves of my numerous mulberry bushes, searching out the sweet fruit! Friends make jam, tarts etc – a joy in this drought-stricken area, with Spring temperatures already up to 40°C.
As in many rural ministries, I am the sole Sister remaining, as I was also in Mount Isa while still teaching secondary. In these cases, especially where there is no resident priest, the Sister is very busy doing many different works (not even including housework!). Hence, here I am Parish secretary, treasurer, sacristan, musician, Liturgy planner, visitor of the sick and elderly and taking Communion where needed etc, etc.
I also teach keyboard and guitar, but thankfully most of my pupils over the years, have seen the light and moved on – but five youngsters persist – so at 8:05am Monday – Friday, I teach music.
On a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday mornings, I head for our Vinnies op. shop – the only op. shop in this town of about 3,000 people and in a large area east of Cloncurry.
Ten years ago, I attended a meeting in town, when the Vinnies shop was about to close, and came out as Manager (or Supervisor the technical term!) A learning experience indeed! The work necessary to make the shop a “going concern” then, and currently, takes up many of my waking hours – evidenced by the bags and baskets of Vinnies stuff in this room in the convent, as I write! But I love the work, catching up with the locals and meeting visitors, hearing of problems, providing clothing help for needy children in Mount Isa, men’s groups, and surrounding communities. We, the volunteers and I, delight in preparing and providing great items cheaply for the town and surrounds. P.S. Obviously lacking humility, I will boast that a few visitors have written in our Visitor’s Book: “One of the best op. shops in Australia!”
The convent is adjacent to St. Joseph’s Primary and Secondary School, Prep – Year 9, as our Sisters opened and ran the Primary School from 1910 till recently, when lay Principals took over. Indeed, the school can boast that it was the last one founded by Mary MacKillop just before she died. Sr Cecilia, one of Mary’s nurses, was one of Cloncurry’s founding Community of Josephites.
I am often asked by the teachers here, to speak to their class on various topics e.g. Mary MacKillop, Parish life etc – and rocks (I am a retired science teacher, and love rocks!)
Please continue reading below:
A Day in the Life – Rural Ministry (PDF)
Sr Lynette Freestone
View photos of Cloncurry in the photo gallery below:
Rural Ministry
The Constitutions of the Sisters of Saint Joseph reminds us that Mary and Julian in founding the Congregation were responding to needs they perceived in the ‘misery and wretchedness’ of the ‘bush children’ and ‘the afflicted poor’.
In the book, Ten Years in the Bush, 1866 we read that Julian “thought it (Penola) was a very pretty, retired spot for a township, with a sedate air of prosperity upon it, which became its small dignity immensely well. I counted the houses … there were exactly thirty-seven of them, but I include in that enumeration such outbuildings as stables …”
Rural Ministry goes to the heart of who we are as Sisters of Saint Joseph and those who minister with us in isolated communities scattered across Australia and beyond. Like Mary and the early Sisters, I endeavour to go wherever the poor, neglected little ones live, to share their poverty and way of life and to make human dignity a reality for them. For me living and ministering in the Riverina and before that in the beautiful hinterland of northern New South Wales a word that describes rural ministry is Presence – admittedly, a word that is overused and misunderstood. For me the ministry is about being – being with the people, experiencing a little of their daily life, their joys and challenges, being available to listen and engage, to support in times of new life, hardships of drought, sorrow of death; visiting people in their homes or meeting them for a cuppa in the local and only coffee shop; gifting others with a welcoming place in which to gather, to talk, to be heard, to share and to rejoice and to live the Gospel with a hope that embraces all.
On a practical level an image that comes to me is that of a sunflower that follows the path of the sun. It is the Son that draws forth my gifts to listen, to lead, to pray, to console and to offer a prayer in times of need as well as when gratitude overflows into words of praise and thanks.
Days in the week revolve around people – the parishioners, the locals, the children, the bereaved, and those associated with community activities e.g. monthly senior’s luncheon or the fund raisers for everything that occurs from Can Assist to the local show, Lions Club, Mary Gilmore Festival, Museum etc.
Planning for and participating in ecumenical events flows from the meetings with the local churches e.g. APCAT, Ariah Park Churches Acting Together and ACAT – The Ardlethan Churches. These group come together for combined liturgies, lead local school church services e.g. Christmas, Easter and Education Week and provide SRE (Special Religious Education) in the local schools…
Please continue reading below:
Maureen McDermott rsj
Provided are photos in the gallery below:
In the Footsteps of Mary MacKillop
For the past twenty-five years, the Sisters of Saint Joseph have invited people to participate in the ‘Australian National Pilgrimage: In the Footsteps of Mary MacKillop.’
Unfortunately they have not been able to offer this opportunity of journeying with Mary in 2020.
Mary reminds us that ‘We are but travellers here.’
You are invited to read and reflect on the following article ‘St Mary MacKillop – The Pilgrim’, written by Mary Cresp rsj.
The theme of journey was never far from the thoughts of Mary MacKillop.
As the words printed around her tomb remind us, she saw life as a journey. Remember we are but travellers here, she said. The many journeys that made up her life were both actual and metaphorical. Perhaps one expressed the other. From the time Mary was a little girl moving from one relative to another to when, in her last years, she was confined to a wheelchair, she was still ‘on her way’ towards that intimacy with God that ‘heaven’ represents.
When we go on a pilgrimage, we have to ‘let go’ of the certainties of life as it has been. We have to be open to receive the unknown and to receive the hospitality of others. Mary MacKillop’s attitude to God was like that. She learnt to be open at all times to what God wanted to do in her – she called that ‘doing God’s Will’. It meant letting go of personal hopes and ambitions, entrusting them into God’s hands. With gratitude she accepted the hospitality of others – when she was vulnerable, as she was during her journeys overseas. Our journey, too, has involved a letting go that will continue into old age and finally at death, when we enter into our final journey. During our Mary MacKillop pilgrimage we can join with her as, following her footsteps, we open ourselves to receive with gratitude God’s bounty in the hospitality of others.
A pilgrim has to ‘live into the now’. Because we can’t guarantee what lies around the corner, we have to learn what it means to live life fully where we are. Don’t be troubled about the future of the Institute, Mary MacKillop said, I am not. He whose work it is will take care of it. The Gospel of her feast proclaims Jesus’ words: Do not worry about tomorrow … today’s trouble is enough for today. (Mt. 6:34) Being alive to the moment meant that Mary was alert to the needs of her time. The aspect of God’s love characteristic of the charism given her was compassion – God feeling with us in the situation of our lives. Being with another is part of being a pilgrim.
Even if travelling alone, a pilgrim is never independent. We meet others along the way, we depend on them for food and lodging, we are invited to listen to the stories of the people we encounter. In this way we learn of a God who is ever present and who, Mary knew, walks with us each step of the journey…