COVID-19: A Tumultuous Year
November 8, 2020COVID-19: Lessons from a Tumultuous Year.
As I glanced through the headlines in today’s paper (4 November), I was really struck, not for the first time, by the treasure trove that this period will be for future historians. I’ve been riveted by the debates, the diverse views, the reflections, even some of the terrifying possibilities of these days. Since Mary Kirrane sent me Fintan O’Toole’s article in March, I’ve reflected often on his compelling reminder that it should not take COVID-19 to remind us of the fragility of our lives. And I’ve realised that it’s more than COVID that’s calling us to the truth of this fragility.
The vulnerability and precariousness of life has been intensified by the bizarre happenings in the U.S., and more immediately in our own country – by an inadequate budget, the sports and other rorts, and the legislation aimed at limiting the strength of democracy. The refusal of the Australian Government to support those most in need, such as asylum seekers (and the number of people needing help from the House of Welcome has gone from 150 to 500 in one week), the impacts of racism, the failure to deal with the climate crisis, or with housing and homelessness, aged care, education and health, have only exacerbated the already conflicted situation in which Australia finds itself. Additionally, we are now faced with a government plan to establish an anti-corruption body which is seen from the outset to be manifestly flawed. The coronavirus began with assertions that “we’re all in this together”, but it has been especially the generosity of non-Government bodies and individuals that has witnessed most clearly to the truth of this axiom.
We continue to rejoice in the ways that so many Australians have acted with big-heartedness and generosity:
- the couple who donated to the Sydney Alliance the refunds from their failed overseas holiday to pay for three asylum seekers to be trained as community leaders
- the employers who retained staff, even though they had to pay wages from their own resources
- the religious community who donated their extra Government payments to asylum seeker charities
- the restaurants who prepared meals for international students and those made homeless
- the young people who helped prepare accommodation for homeless refugees, and the businesses who released employees to donate time to paint and clean
- the parishes, students and community members who gave time to deliver food and goods to families in need
- the fruit and veggie business which was closing down and donated all its remaining stock to the House of Welcome
- the community which has taken a deliberate decision to employ asylum seekers rather than use employment agencies.
As Mary MacKillop has reminded us, we have much for which to be grateful. And much also for which we need to remain vigilant. It was widely agreed in March that our country and our world would never be the same again. This seems to have been forgotten as leaders endeavour to return to past territorial skirmishes. Nonetheless, as so many political debates slide back into ‘much of the same’, we’ve also been gifted with insightful writings and interviews urging us to keep alert to all that COVID has exposed, and encouraging us, individually and as communities, to look again at all that might be possible.
The fragility of life and the forced isolations of COVID call us again to prioritise society over the economy and remind us of the gift of going beyond our own needs, of the imperative of the gospel to see each person as sister and brother. The terrifying possibilities of political mayhem, and the temptations to corruption and soft autocratic government have tested our commitment to the strong social democracy to which Pope Francis is calling us in Fratelli Tutti. Laudato Si focussed on the interconnectedness of the whole of life. This encyclical speaks of the urgent imperative to reach out to each other in love. Francis invites us to move from ‘the dark clouds over a closed world’ to a vision of life as encounter, and to kindness as the star “shining in the midst of darkness”. Only in this way, he reminds us, will we free ourselves “from the cruelty, the anxiety, the frantic flurry of activity” that prevail in this otherwise chilling time”. Only in this way, he says, can we live hope.
Not bad goals as we review, re-evaluate, and recommit in this extraordinary COVID era.
Jan Barnett rsj
Image: Coronavirus Teenager-Cat by Orna Wachman obtained from from Pixabay. Used with permission.
Julian Tenison Woods: A Life – Chapters 21st to 23rd
November 6, 2020
Chapters 21st, 22nd and 23rd
This year [1870] the schools were not so successful and complaints were many.[i] About this time Father Woods had a sudden attack of illness. The Doctor recommended absolute quiet and rest. But it was not easy to follow this prescription.[ii]
Seeking God Wholeheartedly
November 5, 2020In an ecological reading of Psalm 63 Veronica Lawson* reflects on how all living creatures yearn for the bounty of God.
More often than not in our Sunday liturgies, a contemporary hymn replaces the responsorial psalm after the first reading with the result that we are becoming less and less familiar with a deeply significant part of our Jewish-Christian tradition. The Book of Psalms has been called a “school of prayer” or a “book of praises”. While prayer and praise are key features of this collection of 150 songs or poems, there are other genres represented such as meditations on the Law and celebrations of the Jerusalem Temple. Sadly the music is lost. Fortuitously, the lyrics have survived.
The eight verses of the responsorial psalm for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time are taken from Psalm 63, which combines elements of lament and praise. The three verses not included in the selection (verses 9-11) identify the speaker as a king who praises God as his protector on the one hand and, on the other, identifies God as the agent of vengeance on those who seek to destroy him. While these verses fall outside the scope of this reflection, we can critique the inference that the suffering of evildoers is a function of God’s retribution. We might bring these verses into dialogue with other passages from the Book of Psalms that present a different attitude to suffering. In Psalm 65:3, for instance, the psalmist is overwhelmed by personal “deeds of iniquity” and is aware of God’s forgiveness…
Continue reading the article below:
Tui Motu Issue 254, November 2020 (PDF)
*Veronica Lawson RSM is an eco-feminist biblical scholar and author of The Blessing of Mercy: Bible Perspectives and Ecological Challenges, 2016.
Image Mother Dog Family by Nimit Naik from Pixabay obtained from Tui Motu.
Celebrating 140 years of Josephites in Aotearoa New Zealand
November 4, 2020Celebration of 140 Years since the arrival of the first Josephite Sisters in Aotearoa New Zealand (at Whanganui on 24 April 1880)
The Anniversary of 140 years since the arrival of the first Josephite Sisters in Whanganui, Aotearoa New Zealand was planned to be celebrated in Whanganui on Sunday 11 October 2020.
Because of uncertainty around COVID-19, the physical gathering was cancelled and instead the anniversary presentations were shared via Zoom.
You’re invited to watch two presentations for this occasions provided below:
Anne Burke’s History Presentation
Ann Gilroy’s scriptural reflection and challenge for the future
Photo: Whanganui River obtained from pxhere.
Sr Rita Joins ‘The Life’ Sisters Panel
November 3, 2020Featured in the Global Sisters Report (GSR) is a series called The Life.
Sr Rita Malavisi is part of the 2020-21 panel of 20 sisters from around the world that will contribute to the monthly The Life series. The series is in it’s fourth year.
You’re invited to read an introduction to the series and Sr Rita’s contribution provided below:
Meet the new sisters panel for the fourth year of The Life
Lessons from religious life: oppression, conflict, babies, noodle cake, flip-flops and pajamas
Footnote:
[1] Global Sisters Report – Feature Series: The Life – www.globalsistersreport.org/gsr-series/the-life/stories
[2] Photo shared with Sr. Rita Malavisi showing the sunrise from inside Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation, a detention center in Australia (Photo by a detainee)
All Saints and All Souls Day
November 1, 2020
Part 1: November’s feasts of All Saints and All Souls.
Lives taken and lives given: We will remember them!
Each November, we Christians remember the Saints and Souls who have gone ahead of us. It is part of our tradition, a distinguishing aspect of our communal identity. We celebrate what we cannot afford to forget and ‘play forward’ our hopes to become, as Christians, living expressions of the communion of love and connectedness in which God created us, and for which Jesus lived his life among us.
First Foundation in Callan, Ireland
Josephite Sisters Among 2000 Young Women Missionaries from Callan, County Kilkenny.
In 1884 St Brigid’s Missionary School was established by the Sisters of Mercy in Callan and existed until 1959. The aim of the secondary boarding school was to provide an opportunity for young girls to test their desire for religious life and prepare for their chosen vocation. The length of time spent at Callan depended on their age, education and abilities and other unexpected occurrences e.g. sea travel during war time.
2000 young women, mostly between the ages of 16 and 21 and some in their 30s and early 40s, graduated from St Brigid’s and most became missionaries. Religious congregations in faraway lands approached St Brigid’s, recruiting candidates for their missions and Bishops on home visits to Ireland also appealed to the students.
The young women decided where, and with whom, they would answer the missionary call. ‘The greatest number of them travelled to Australia (169), followed by the United States of America (164), Ireland (140), South Africa (64), England (60), Canada (18), New Zealand (15), India (14), Holland (13), France (12), British Guiana (7), Argentina (7), Java (5), British Honduras (5), Belgium (4) and Burma (1)’.[1] They arrived in their host country well-educated and ready to embrace religious life in various religious orders. The larger numbers joined the Sisters of Mercy, Presentation Sisters, Dominicans, Holy Family, St John of God, Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Good Shepherd Sisters, Sisters of St Joseph, Franciscan Sisters, Ursuline Sisters, Our Lady of Charity and Bons Secours Sisters.[2]
According to my research, the Australian Josephite connection with Callan, commenced on 10th January 1930, with graduate, 20-year-old Mary Hennessy, entering the Sisters of St Joseph in Bathurst NSW and becoming Sr Finian. She had delicate health and sadly died far away from home, on 12th August 1937, age 28.
The Tasmanian Josephite connection with Callan began in 1931 when Archbishop Hayden of Hobart returned to Kilkenny for a home visit. He canvassed in Irish parishes for volunteers for his diocese, resulting in ten Callan graduates joining the Tasmanian Sisters of St Joseph between 1933 and 1938. 4 came from Clare, 2 from Galway, 1 from Kilkenny, 1 from Limerick, 1 from Meath and 1 from Roscommon. They were between the ages of 16 and 20. The last two graduates for the Tasmanian Josephities, who arrived in 1947, were sisters Anne and Mary Healy from Kilkenny aged 17 and 18. Prior to the arrival of the Callan graduates, there were nine Irish Josephite sisters amongst the Tasmanian Josephities, 4 had entered in Tasmania and 5 had transferred from Bathurst.[3]
The Callan Josephities dedicated their lives to the Tasmanian people, and they appreciated the training they received at St Brigid’s from the Sisters of Mercy. Sr Colman Fallon remarked in 1991, “ Now that I have lived the life of a nun for 56 years I can say that the training received at St Brigid’s was more intense and stricter than the novitiate training, it prepared us for emergencies!” [4]
Of course, all Callan graduates knew that Edmund Rice, the founder of the Christian Brothers, was born in 1762 in the little cottage down the road from St Brigid’s.
Sr Clare Ahern
Sources:
[1] sistersofmercy.ie
[2] ibid
[3] Further Reading: For more on the Callan Josephities read pages 207- 211, The Letter Under the Pillow by Clare Ahern. For more on the Tasmanian Story read: St Joseph’s Island, Julian Tenison Woods and the Tasmanian Sisters of St Joseph by Josephine Margaret Brady.
[4] The Letter Under The Pillow by Clare Ahern page 208
Amalgamation of WA Sisters
Amalgamation of WA Sisters with North Sydney 1912.
On 1 November 1912 a special ceremony took place at the Boulder Convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph on the goldfields of Western Australia.
In the presence of Bishop Clune of Perth the 26 professed sisters of this isolated diocesan group renewed their vows making their commitment to be united with the main congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. This amalgamation meant that these sisters were now supported and managed as part of the centralized institute rather than being dependent on the local bishop. As part of this change, they took to wearing the brown habit rather than the black habit of their diocesan group that had them known as “Black Josephites.”
This was a momentous day for the Boulder sisters that comprised 6 Australian born sisters, 20 Irish born sisters and one Irish born postulant. The Sisters of St John of God based in nearby Kalgoorlie came to celebrate with them, while the Sisters of Mercy at Coolgardie, another important goldfield town, sent a letter of congratulations.
Two letters written at the time by members of the Boulder Convent to Mother Baptista Molloy, the Congregational Leader, have survived. These letters are written in a happy, relaxed way and express the excitement of the individuals at being part of this amalgamation. It is known, however, that not all members of this group welcomed the transition to the centralized order.
The first Sisters of Saint Joseph to come to Western Australia had made their foundation at Northampton, a copper mining town located 500 kilometres north of Perth, in December 1887.
As a result of a dispute with Bishop Gibney of Perth, who wished to control the activities of the sisters as a diocesan institute, most members of the small group returned to the Mother House in early 1890. Just one professed sister and two locally born postulants remained to continue their ministry at Northampton.
In the 1890s gold was discovered in the inland desert areas to the east of Perth attracting fortune seekers. In early 1897 the three Sisters of Saint Joseph were sent to the goldrush town of Boulder where they began their teaching ministry. Initially the sisters lived in hessian tents until a wood and iron convent could be built for them.
The goldrush resulted in a great increase in population. Priests, nuns and young religious women willing to take up a missionary life were recruited from Ireland to serve the Catholic population in this faraway place.
The climate on the goldfields was extremely harsh with hot dry summers and wild dust storms. Water was scarce and had to be purchased. The sisters did not have any holidays away from this tough environment. They persevered in their ministry teaching and supporting the local Catholic community.
Following the amalgamation these Boulder pioneers had the opportunity to meet with other Sisters of Saint Joseph. They now gradually moved to take on ministries in other locations in Western Australia and in other states.
Their stories are part of Josephite legend in Western Australia.
Sue Sondalini
WA Archivist