AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD – April 2006
Desiring the inward healing
Just as misers are like people with dropsy - they are always wanting to drink - so the self-indulgent and extravagant are like the bloody flux. Misers slog away at grasping, the self-indulgent at spending; in the one case it's grabbed in, in the other it flows out; in either case it kills. We need to get hold of the doctor, who came for the diseases of the soul; but he was also willing to heal diseases of the body, precisely to show that he was the saviour and healer of the spirit, because he is the creator of each. It's not the case, you see, that he is the creator of the spirit and not of the body; and that's why he wanted to encourage the soul to get itself healed inwardly. That's why he cured the body: the soul was so intent on the body, that what it saw Jesus achieving outwardly it might perhaps desire him to achieve inwardly.
What did God achieve? He healed the issue of blood, he healed the leper, he healed the paralytic (these are all diseases of the spirit), and the lame and the blind - because everybody limps who isn't walking straight along the road of life, and everyone is blind who doesn't believe God, and the self-indulgent and extravagant suffer from a bloody flux, and everyone false and fickle is marred by leprosy. And we need him to heal us inwardly, yes him, the one who healed people outwardly precisely to get us to desire his inward healing.
Augustinian 750 th Anniversary
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Augustine |
In the thirteenth century a number of Popes promoted the founding of the Order of Saint Augustine by ordering the amalgamation of various religious congregations that largely were centred on Tuscany in northern Italy. On 9 th April 1256 the Holy See formally confirmed the Augustinian Order that still exists today.
By this amalgamation of April 1256, the Order began with about 2,400 members, who were distributed among as many as 200 communities of varying sizes in ten different countries. The most probable list of communities reads: Italy 148 houses, Germany 29, France 12, England 9, Hungary 7, Belgium 6, Spain 4, Portugal 3, Switzerland 2, and Austria 2.
In Augustinian history, the event of April 1256 is known as the Grand Union, in distinction to an initial so-called Little Union that began the process in 1244.
Provincial Elect
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Provincial Elect |
Internationally the Order of Saint Augustine is made up of Provinces. Every Augustinian priory (community residence) and every member of the Augustinian Order belongs to one or other of the Provinces.
The Australian Province was canonically initiated in 1952, after Augustinians had been in Australia - coming predominantly from Ireland - since 1838.
Each Province elects a Provincial every four years. A Provincial can have a maximum of two terms in office. After eight years as Provincial, Fr Patrick Fahey O.S.A. completes his term as Provincial in June 2006.
An official ballot has determined that his successor will be Fr Tony Banks O.S.A., who is a member of the Augustinian community at Brookvale. He first met the Augustinians when in 1976the Order accepted the staffing of the Parish of Saint Joseph at South Yarra, Melbourne.
Leaving his career in merchant banking, Tony entered the Augustinian Order, made his first profession in 1978, and was ordained to the priesthood at Manly Vale in 1984. Since then most of years of service have been spent in the parish at Manly Vale and in the Order's two colleges at Coorparoo in Brisbane and at Brookvale in Sydney. Beyond Australian shores he has responsibilities as Vice-President of the Augustinian Asia Pacific Conference and as a member of the International Youth Commission of the Order.
Manly Vale
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Parish Priest |
In the area of the northern beaches of Sydney, the Augustinians have pastoral leadership of the adjacent Parishes of Manly Vale (since its foundation in 1956) and Balgowlah in recent times.
As part of pastoral planning in the Diocese of Broken bay, the members of these parishes have consented to amalgamating into a single new parish on 1 st July 2006. Many of the steps necessary in this process have been in train for months, e.g., the joining of identical groups and organisations that have until now existed separately in both of the parishes.
The new parish will still have as its patrons Saint Kieran and Saint Cecilia. As well, the bishop has suggested that all amalgamating parishes in the diocese be described by a geographic name that would express its locality.
Cyclone Larry
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Innisfail church |
The most destructive cyclone in the Innisfail region of Queensland, Australia since 1918 struck late last month with winds in excess of 300 kilometres per hour.
For people with Augustinian associations, Innisfail is remembered as an area where all the Catholic churches and most of the Catholic schools were built during the Augustinian presence there from 1898 to the 1990s.
The Church of the Mother of Good Counsel (pictured) in Innisfail was completed in 1928 by the legendary Father Martin Michael Clancy O.S.A. He built it to replace the previous wooden church that was destroyed by the cyclone of 1918.
Father Clancy promised the people that no cyclone would ever blow down the church he built! He was almost correct, for Cyclone Larry last month blew in some of the leadlight windows along the eastern side of the church. As well, a part of the vertical section of the magnificent marble altar of 1928 was blown down and smashed.
The Australian Augustinian Province and various Augustinian parishes and schools in Australia have raised contributions for relief funds for Innisfail.
Additional donations can be mailed to the Augustinian Provincial Office, P.O. Box 679 Brookvale NSW 2100, and will be promptly forwarded to north Queensland.
FOR SOME CURRENT NEWS ABOUT THE ORDER OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA Click here
AUGUSTINIAN CENTRE FOR SPIRITUALITY
PROGRAM 2006
2 Hewitt Avenue
Greystanes 2145
Enquiries 9896 6794
www.augustinians.org.au/communities/greystanes.html
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