AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD – March 2006

The promise and the fulfilment

While Jesus was asleep in the boat, the disciples were almost shipwrecked. Jesus was sleeping and the disciples were in a state. This wind was howling, the waves were breaking, the boat was sinking. Why? because Jesus was sleeping. So also with you; when the storms of temptation are raging in this world, your mind, your boat so to say, is in a state. Why, if not because your faith is asleep? You see, that's what the apostle Paul says, that Christ lives in our hearts, or minds, through faith. So rouse Christ in your mind, get your faith awake, and let your conscience be calmed, your boat delivered.

Realize that the one who made you the promises is truthful and trustworthy. He hasn't yet shown you everything, because it isn't yet time for him to do so. He has already shown you a great many things, though. He promised you his Christ, and he gave him; he promised his resurrection, and he gave it; he promised his gospel, and he gave it; he promised his Church, spread throughout the whole world, and he gave it; the very afflictions and disasters piled one on top of the other in human affairs, he foretold and has shown. How much is left? What was promised has been fulfilled, what was foretold has been fulfilled. 

Youth festivals

At the youth festival.

During 15-19th January 2006 on the Gold Coast Hinterland in Queensland, the eighth Australian Augustinian youth festival took place.

It centred on the theme that "We are the Body of Christ". Over the course of the week the participants from various Augustinian parishes and from St Augustine's College (Brookvale) explored their faith and their life in the Church. With the site adjacent to the rainforest it was a perfect environment to come to terms with oneself, with nature and with God.

This series of Australian Augustinian youth festivals began in 1988. Another festival is being planned for January 2007, as a prelude to participation in World Youth Day in Sydney on 15 th - 20 th July 2008.

During the past twenty years, Augustinian international youth festivals have taken place at Lecceto (in Tuscany, Italy) twice, at La Vid ( Burgos) in Spain, at Abbeyside (Dungarvan) in Ireland, at Munnerstadt in Germany, at Rome in Italy, and at Guadarrama ( Madrid) in Spain. Young adults and at least one accompanying Augustinian from Australia have attended every one of these festivals.

Kyabram farewell

Farewell Mass at Kyabram.

Saint Augustine 's Parish, Kyabram, Victoria has said goodbye to the Augustinians after nearly 120 years of ministry in the area, 103 of those years as a separate parish, and 132 years since Bishop Martin Crane O.S.A. was appointed to lead the new Diocese of Sandhurst in 1874.

The Farewell Dinner took place at the Bocce Club in Kyabram on Friday evening, 27th January 2006. It was attended by 300 parishioners, clergy and friends from Kyabram, Echuca, Rochester and other places.

The Mass on Sunday in St Augustine's Church, Kyabram, attended by 350 people, was the occasion of farewell. Our partners in parish and school ministry over the years, the Brigidine Sisters, were there in support.

On Monday 30th January, the Augustinians and a small group of parishioners gathered in Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bendigo, for a leave-taking Mass in the Chapel of St Augustine.

After the final prayer, they processed to the nearby chapel where the Augustinian Bishops Martin Crane and Stephen Reville are buried, for a final prayer of farewell.

Later in the day, Bishop Joe Grech and the clergy of the diocese hosted a formal dinner in Bendigo where a presentation was made of a framed icon of St Augustine and a framed chronology of the history of the Order from the time of Augustine.

Fr Joe Taylor, a native of St Mary's Parish Echuca and the current Parish Priest of Kennington, spoke of the many Augustinians he had known and who had served the diocese over the years. Bishop Joe again thanked the Order and Fr Pat Fahey O.S.A. responded with thanks for the presentation and the many words of appreciation expressed.

50th Anniversary

The Order's college in Brookvale (Sydney) celebrated its golden jubilee in February 2006. Saint Augustine's College is now fifty years young! Its enrolment is 930 male day pupils between the ages of 12 and 19 years.

A highlight of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations will be a Mass at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney at 10.30am on Tuesday, 7th February 2006 - the date of the first classes of the College fifty years ago. The presider and preacher at the Mass was past pupil, Bishop Chris Saunders (Diocese of Broome, Western Australia).

At a reception in the Brimson Centre at the College after the Mass, the Provincial of the Augustinians in Australia, Fr Patrick Fahey O.S.A., launched a college history written by John O'Brien, a former principal of the College.

The book is entitled Together in Truth and Love. It is available from the College for $50 plus postage. Phone 02 9938.8200 (office hours) or e-mail adm@saintaug.nsw.edu.au

750 Years

The ancient hermitage of Lecceto, 1256-2006.

On 9 th April 2006, the Order of Saint Augustine achieves the 750 th anniversary of its Grand Union. On that date in the year 1256 a Papal decree officially constituted the Order. Although independent communities had been living by the Rule of Augustine for the previous 650 years, there was no integrated or formalised Order of Saint Augustine during that earlier period.

The Order was officially named as the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, not because the members were then hermits, but because it had emerged from a previous tradition of up to 150 years of hermitages (communities founded in isolated areas, where members were devoted to contemplation and local ministry).

Villanova College

Community Centre under construction.

Villanova College (a day school for approximately 900 male students aged from 11 to 18 years) is conducted by the Order of Saint Augustine at Coorparoo (Brisbane), Australia. At Tingalpa, a few suburbs away, it has its sports fields called Villanova Park. The extension and redevelopment of Villanova Park was the second part of the One Mind One Heart (fundraising) Project. This task is at last under way after lengthy delays in securing planning approvals from the Brisbane City Council for the work to be done.

Korea

The Order of Saint Augustine has now served in Korea for just over twenty years. By coincidence, the number of Augustinians there is now twenty. Five of these are Koreans in solemn vows (two lay brothers and two ordained brothers, and one brother studying theology at the Augustinianum in Rome).

Koreans in Initial Formation number ten (four lay brothers and six clerical brothers). There are two Augustinian priests from the Cebu Province ( Philippines), and three Australians: Frs Michael Sullivan, Brian Buckley and John Sullivan.

Among those in initial formation are three newly-arrived postulants at St Nicholas of Tolentine Priory, Kang-hwa , Korea : Francis, a 34 year old motor mechanic who will be auditing courses at the seminary, plus Salesio (20) and Martino (20), who both are commencing First Year at the diocesan seminary.

For more information elsewhere on this web site about the Augustinians in Korea and in other areas of the Asia-Pacific, go to

http://www.augustinians.org.au/apac/bulletin_02.html

International Young Adult Encounter

Planning group in Pavia.

An international Augustinian Encounter for Youth (aged from 18 to 26 years inclusive) takes place every three years. Australia has always been represented at these encounters, even though all of them have taken place in Europe. The next gathering will take place five months from now, on 1st-8th August 2006.

The venue has been chosen for the Eighth Augustinian International Youth Encounter on 1st - 7th August 2006. The encounter will take place at the outdoor summer conference facilities in the grounds of the fourteenth-century Visconti Castle at Pavia in northern Italy. The building is now managed by the City of Pavia, which uses it as a museum and as a conference venue.

Pavia is the city in which the tomb of Saint Augustine is located. The tomb is located in an ancient Augustinian Church dedicated to Saint Peter. In the photo (above) taken early in March 2006, the Augustinians who will be involved with the forthcoming Youth Encounter are seen outside this church.

A group is being organised in Australia to attend this Youth Encounter, which will bring together between 300 and 500 young adults (under 30 years of age) from all continents. To see three hundred photographs of the previous youth encounter in Spain in 2003, go to http://www.augnet.org/Guadarrama .

Background information on Pavia's centuries of Augustinian connections can be found by going to the "Order of St Augustine / News" section of the web site http://www.augnet.org/index5.html

FOR SOME CURRENT NEWS ABOUT THE ORDER OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA Click here

AUGUSTINIAN CENTRE FOR SPIRITUALITY PROGRAM 2006
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Greystanes 2145
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