Julian Tenison Woods: A Life – Chapter 4th

Chapter 4th

Passion Sunday 2020

Ours is an age when pilgrimages, processions and trekking have made a comeback.

Ours is an age when pilgrimages, processions and trekking have made a comeback. Whether we walk for our health, to enjoy the countryside or to take a spiritual journey, people usually walk with a purpose. Many walk the Camino, tracing the ancient way of pilgrims through the centuries.  Others follow nature tracks made by Aboriginals or early Europeans. One memorable walk I’ve taken was the track around Uluru. My companions and myself found ourselves becoming completely silent and reflective as we realised that were walking on holy ground.

We know that early Christians also took pilgrimages because we have diaries and letters that describe their journeys. One such journey was taken by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, the journey of a prisoner on his way to his execution. One hundred years before, Jesus of Nazareth returned to Jerusalem to also face his death. Once a year we remember this final journey, also waving palm branches and singing hosanna. We take this ritual procession on Passion Sunday, the day that marks the beginning of the holiest week of the church’s calendar.

Here at the Pacific Regional Seminary in Suva, Fiji, palm branches are in plentiful supply. On Passion Sunday we gather at the edge of the compound and, after hearing the Gospel of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem we begin our own journey through the coconut trees accompanied by unified strong and beautiful Islander voices that makes our procession triumphant and hopeful. We enter the chapel via an arch of palms and take our places to hear three powerful scripture readings: the Suffering Servant passage from Isaiah, the message to the Philippians of a Jesus who emptied himself, and yet one more Gospel – this year the story of the passion and death of Christ according to Matthew.

Each of us will hear the Word of God that we need to hear at this stage in our journey. Some of us have celebrated many Easters and wonder if this will be our last – especially those who are old and frail, or facing terminal illness. Others are full of youthful fervour and enthusiasm and feel only exhilaration and excitement as they prepare to take this final journey with Jesus towards Easter.

The tone of this liturgy is triumphant. We know the end of the story – Jesus suffers and dies and rises again to new life. After being fed by the word we will come to the table of plenty to share the bread and wine of suffering and joy. But that story hasn’t ended. Neither are we simply recreating a series of historical events that culminated in the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Now its Christ we commemorate. And the sign of Christ is us.

We are Christ’s Body who are caught up in the Paschal Mystery of dying and rising.  And we reach out to our sisters and brothers who may not know that Jesus has gone before them. The refugees that we continue to deny life, the homeless who are unable to find shelter, the lonely who are crying out for love and those caught up in addictions who can’t find a way to lasting peace. We bring these members of Christ Body with us on our journey to death, but with the hindsight of Easter hope.

Carmel Pilcher rsj

Images:
Thumbnail & Palm Sunday image obtained from Pxhere. Used with permission.
Christ’s Body is taken from the cross image obtained from Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

Josephite Justice Network Weekend

In March 2020, the Josephite Justice Network (JJN) gathered at St Joseph’s Spirituality and Education Centre in Kincumber South, New South Wales.

We were so blessed to be able to have our Josephite Justice Network gathering just before the COVID-19 lockdown crisis occurred. Thank you to all of you who were able to attend. We missed those of you who couldn’t be there. Weekend gatherings such as these are truly life-giving as we come together to learn, share our ministries and identify ways we can move forward, supporting each other and each other’s work.

Our major theme for the weekend was “wisdom has built herself a house.” We spent the time listening to the wisdom of group members – in awe at all that’s happening around the congregations, and reflecting together on the wisdom and possibilities up for grabs!

Sr Susan Connelly began our session revising academic theories around scapegoating. There is a real world example being lived out in the Australian Courts whereby truth-tellers, Witness K and Bernard Collaery fight for justice to have their cases dismissed. If you would like to read more about this issue and how you can support these brave men, read here.

Saturday evening saw the group gather to sew hoods to be used in the Canberra protest in support of Witness K and Bernard Collaery. It was a team building session with a purpose and an urgent message to the Attorney General to #DropTheProsecutions.

This weekend seized the opportunity for JJN members to share progress and hurdles facing us in our work. JJN participants shared many stories – of political lobbying to assist Sudanese Youth find employment; Financial counselling to release families from irresponsible lending loans in New Zealand; an update of the Sydney Alliance initiatives and the JJN membership actions; Caritas work in light of continued government aid cuts; West Papua’s freedom struggles; and First Nations projects and studies published by The Baabayn Project. A submission to the United Nations concerning the Australian Government’s human rights agenda over the past 4 years has also been prepared and edited by the JJN group.

Finally, as an alternative to our current anthem we shared, in prayer, a more inclusive and reconciliatory Anthem for all Australians. You may like to view and share this offering here.

Wisdom was shared and it is abundantly evident that our houses are blessed with the people we work with, so that we might influence changes necessary to ensure that all people can live a life of dignity. Surely there will be much to share next time we meet.

We are investigating ways we can continue to come together while adhering to our responsibilities according to COVID-19 restrictions. However, in the meantime, let us keep each other in mind and heart. Let us all rejoice in our work that gifts us the wisdom to build a house that is a kingdom for all.

Karen Oxley
Volunteers Coordinator – Josephite Justice Network

P.S. Save the Date for a FREE fun-filled night of entertainment – Josephites Got Talent! We have to have something to look forward to… right? View a promotion video for Josephites Got Talent here.

View more photos from the JJN weekend in the gallery below:

Our Precious Earth is in Need of Our Protection

While watching Q+A recently I was inspired by the statement:

I began creating the sculpture with the conviction that healing our broken and wounded Earth depends on us now, one with all vulnerable species, to “learn the way forward from the First Peoples of all our countries” (27th General Chapter, Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart. October 2020).

People from every country across the world are bearing witness to the death of their loved ones. This pandemic is bringing us closer on a global scale as we are all in this place and space together. The virus that is taking our breath away is also awakening our evolving consciousness to our common humanity.

Aboriginal culture calls us to Ngapartji Ngapartj – a reciprocal kindness and absolute obligation to each other. We receive from Earth and we are seriously obligated to pay back in kind… Ngaparti Ngaparti.

In the sculpture we all share the protective mantle of Earth protecting all life. The pouch, water font and/or chalice shape in our lap depicts our growing consciousness that divinity is within us, and within our shared humanity. We hold all creation in God’s love. Communion is Holy and is the only way forward.

The heart image behind Earth represents our Sacred Heart. The footprints on the back invite us all to ‘learn the way forward from the First Peoples from all our countries’… the First Peoples who held Earth gently, and tenderly cared for her and all living creatures for thousands of years.

Together let us unite and act “on new possibilities, wherever we are that will heal, include, untether, set right and serve” (27th General Chapter, Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart. October 2020

Kenise Neill rsj

Sr Mary Canny Rite of Committal

Sister Mary Canny passed away peacefully at Calvary Flora McDonald on March 28, 2020.

Mary Canny rsj was born in Orroroo, South Australia on April 29, 1924. She was the loved daughter of the late William and Mary, and sister of Bryan and Fr Nick (both deceased).

Loved and loving member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. A gracious and beautiful woman remembered with affection by the many people whose lives she touched.

Rest in Peace, Mary.

Please join in private prayer for the Repose of Mary’s Soul at 11am on Thursday April 2, 2020. 

We Celebrate and Give Thanks for the Life of Mary Canny

Sr Mary Canny Rite of Committal

Earth Hour 2020

Earth Hour Saturday 28 March 2020.

Earth Hour was begun in Sydney in 2007 and has spread as the largest world movement working for climate change. We turn off our lights 8.30-9.30 pm local time with millions of people around the world in 7,000 cities in 180 countries and territories as a pledge to help fight for our planet. The amount of electricity we save is not the main issue. It’s the statement that our action makes that matters, the conviction in our hearts that such an action makes visible.

Laudato si’ (LS) offers some motivation for the exercise. Pope Francis suggests:

I wonder could we use the hour to reflect on our efforts to measure and reduce our personal carbon footprint. You can download a carbon calculator free. Does using my iPad negate turning off lights?

Or we could invite some friends over and use the hour to chat about our efforts to reduce-reuse-recycle, or the latest article or podcast on earth care or Pope Francis’ final chapter in Laudato si’ where he appeals to us to consider a covenant between humanity and the environment. LS Ch. 6, part 2. We could consider, as Francis suggests:

Francis continues:

Maybe star gazing could help to fill the hour!

Francis suggests then that what we:

The whole of Chapter 6 of Laudate Si makes beautiful and challenging reading to encourage us to participate in EARTH HOUR. Towards the end Pope Francis encourages us:

Let’s spend EARTH HOUR celebrating and perhaps singing of the joy of our hope with the millions of others who share our concern for our “common home”.

Photo: Landscape photo of mountian with polar lights by Lucas Ettore Chiereguini obtained from Pexels. Used with permission.
Photo: Planet Earth close up by Pixabay obtained from Pexels. Used with permission.

Junior Joeys Making a Difference in Tassie

Junior Joeys from Sacred Heart School, Ulverstone and Our Lady of Lourdes School, Devonport came together recently at MacKillop Hill, Forth.

Facilitated by Sr Carmel Jones, the 35 Grades 5 and 6 students learnt more about Saint Mary MacKillop, Father Julian Tenison Woods and the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Through interactive activities, they reflected on how important Saint Joseph is in the Josephite story, pondered in nature like Father Julian and chose Mary MacKillop quotes that really spoke to them about their role in their school communities in 2020.

Taking as their theme Never see a need without doing something about it, considerable time was spent planning activities across the year. Many creative ideas emerged, from assisting those who might just need a smile or a word of encouragement to fundraising for community projects. It was wonderful to work with such an enthusiastic and responsive group of boys and girls who are committed to making a difference in their school communities as Junior Joeys for the next twelve months.

It was a great day and we are looking forward to our role as Junior Joeys.Student – Sacred Heart Catholic School

Since this day Junior Joeys at Our Lady of Lourdes have responded to the current pandemic by holding a Feel Good Friday. This involves encouraging students to wear casual clothes and organising activity songs to be broadcast into classrooms during the day.

There are a number of Catholic schools in the Josephite tradition across Tasmania who have established Junior Joey groups or who are in the process of forming groups for the first time.

Carmel Jones rsj

(Since writing this article, it is noted that Junior Joey activities may well be curtailed due to school closures. However, congratulations to Junior Joeys for such a positive start to 2020!)

Opening of Mary MacKillop Place Museum 1995

On 26 March we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of Mary MacKillop Place Museum.

Over four years had passed since notifications from the fire department, the water department, pest control and building advisers prompted the necessary renovation of the whole complex of the Mother House, 7 – 9 Mount Street, North Sydney. Around the same time, the Congregation had been advised of the imminent beatification of Mary MacKillop. A Secretariat to prepare Australia for the latter event was formed and a process of consultation about the future of the Mount Street site was launched. One proposal being mooted was that we should sell the property and relocate the Mother House to a more Josephite i.e. underprivileged area. It was a group of Aboriginal people who informed us that this was Mary MacKillop’s place – she had lived and died here, this was where her mortal remains were buried, here her spirit lived on, and there was no way any of this could be re-located.

During her lifetime, Mary MacKillop had been the instrument through whom God had given a sign of compassionate love to our world. Over the years, it had become obvious that God was still working through her. Hundreds of people were visiting her chapel and tomb each week and in recent times they had regularly squeezed through narrow passages to view the Mary MacKillop artefacts that were on display in a small room near the administration offices. It was our job, surely, to facilitate what God was continuing to do, by providing a safe and contemporary environment so that pilgrims could experience God’s message made through Mary MacKillop for our times.

Helped by financial opportunities afforded by “the recession we had to have” and the generosity of wonderful people, we were able to embark on the complete repair of condemned buildings and the replacement of facilities. What is now the central area of the Museum was entirely gutted and reconstructed. Our advisers told us we must aim for the best and through their guidance we were able to engage at nominal rates the services of first-class technicians, artists, writers and other experts needed to set up such a venture.

This was to be a museum with a difference. Not only would it display objects and tell the story of Mary MacKillop but it would involve visitors in the story of how God works in all our lives to bring goodness into being. We hoped that everyone who would come to this place would leave inspired and energised.   The focus would be on the pilgrim People of God:

The message would be addressed to people of all ages, relating to mid-primary-aged children as well as to adults. Some museums at that time demanded a lot of reading but this one would instead engage a variety of senses i.e. touch, hearing, sight and even action. It would to be alive.

By the end of 1994 all was ready. Before the Beatification on 19 January 1995, we had had Open Days where Sisters and other friends could sample what the Museum had to offer and try it out. While the hope had been that Pope John Paul II could at least put his foot inside the building, authorities told us that the security required and the precision of his itinerary would not make this possible. However his route during the Mount Street visit could incorporate walking past the Museum and blessing it from the outside. The Pope prayed, then, for all who would come here as pilgrims, and that God’s grace would envelop this place.

My diary entry for 22 January, three days after the Beatification, reads simply: “Opening of Mary MacKillop Place. Steady stream of people all day.” A highlight for me was when I went over to the coffee shop to see how things were going. I noticed a woman sitting at a table, tears streaming into her cup. I sat beside her and quietly asked if she was okay. She told me then of an argument she had had with a priest many years ago and therefore had left the Catholic church. “But, Sister,” she said, “going around today I’ve realised that Mary MacKillop could keep her faith no matter what priests or bishops or anyone else threw at her. If she could do it, so can I.” I came away from that encounter musing to myself, “If nothing else ever happens here, it’s been worth it all.”

The opening of Mary MacKillop Place was a beginning and an ending. It was the end of a long journey that had involved setting a vision, drawing up policies, engaging personnel, dealing with legal and professional requirements, ensuring fiscal and human resources and above all, taking the risk that God would provide for its future at a time when many people thirst for spiritual nourishment. It was the beginning of another journey that continues to this day. About ten years after it had opened, I met a man who approached me as he was leaving the Museum and asked if I were a Sister connected with it. He then explained he was from England; he was not a Catholic but had heard of the Museum in his travels. “Sister, I want to tell you”, he said, “that this place is world-class. It has something I’ve never come across before, and you should make sure that everyone knows about it. It’s a real spiritual treasure.”

For Mary MacKillop Place to be known around the world is indeed a wonder. The wonder is that God continues to work in this place. Indeed, the place would be nothing if it weren’t for the people who are part of it. They are the witnesses of a God who worked through Mary MacKillop and who now works through them. I thank God for them and rejoice that what began as a problem with leaking pipes, broken walls, rising dampness, white ants and tinder-dry, unsafe housing has evolved into a ministry that throbs with vibrancy and meaning.

Mary Cresp rsj
Former Congregational Leader, 1990 – 1996