AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD - for August 2011

Love, and the Lord will draw near

Don’t look for a high mountain, where you may kid yourself that you are nearer to God. If you lift yourself high up, he withdraws far away from you; if you humble yourself low, he bends down to you.

The tax collector stood a long way off, and that made it all the easier for God to draw near to him; he didn’t even dare to raise his eyes to heaven, and he already had with him the one who made heaven. In view of this, how are we to take delight in the Lord if the Lord is so far away from us?

But don’t let him be far away! It’s you who make him be far away. Love and he will draw near; love and he will live with you. The Lord is very near; do not be anxious at all.

Do you want to see how he is with you if your love? God is love. Why let your thoughts and fancies fly far and wide, as you say to yourself, “Can you imagine what God is? Can you imagine what God is like?” Whatever you suppose, he isn’t that: whatever you grasp with your thought, he isn’t that. If it were what he is, it could not be grasped by thought. But so that you may have a taste of him, God is love. You are going to say to me, “Can you imagine what love is?”

Love is what we love with. What do we love? A good beyond words, a good that does good, a good that is the creator of all goods. Let him delight you from whom you have whatever else delights you. I don’t mean sin, because sin alone you do not have from him. Apart from sin, it is from him that you have whatever else you have.

St Augustine: Sermon 21, 2 ...

Fr Michael David Morahan O.S.A.  (1952 – 2011)

The death of Fr Michael David Morahan O.S.A. occurred unexpectedly in Cairns on Saturday, 25th June 2011 at the age of fifty-eight years.

An obituary appeared on the news page of this web site for the month of July 2011.

Copies of a complimentary memorial card are available by contacting the Province Office, P.O. Box 679 Brookvale NSW 2100, Australia. Phone: 02 9938 0200 (business hours), or e-mail: osaadmin@bigpond.com

Villanova College, Coorparoo

As soon as the Villanova student body returned from holidays to commence the present school term, a memorial liturgy for Fr Michael Morahan O.S.A. took place in Goold Hall on the College campus (see images below).

As well as being a past pupil of Villanova, Fr Morahan was the College's longest-serving Principal from 1995 to 2009 inclusive.

The college web site is: http://www.vnc.qld.edu.au

Augustinians in South Korea

The Order of Saint Augustine first went to South Korea in 1985, and two Australian Augustinians were in the group of four priests initially sent there. The Order in Korea accepted its first Korean-born candidates in 1990, and still regards the task of training its Korean-born Augustinians as a primary ministry.

The Augustinian Delegation of Korea has three communities, located at Incheon, Kanghwa Island and Yeon-Chon (north of Seoul).

Two Koreans, Matteo Cho O.S.A. and Francisco Park O.S.A., took Solemn Vows at the Augustinian Centre, Incheon, South Korea on Saturday, 25th June 2011. The presider at the ceremony was Fr Tony Banks O.S.A., the Provincial of the Australian Province, which includes the Delegation of Korea.

For a summary elsewhere on this web site of Augustinian involvement in South Korea since the Order's arrival there in 1985, click here.

Augustinian Youth Pilgrimage 2011

This is a great opportunity for young adults to attend World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid and as well to experience the Augustinian traditions of Spain and Italy at the same time.

The twenty-nine members of this 33-day pilgrimage departed Australia on 28th July 2011 with Fr Michael Belonio O.S.A., and are visiting some Augustinian centres in Italy before reaching Spain.

The website of Augustinian Youth Ministry Australia is http://www.aymaustralia.org.au

St Thomas of Villanova Parish, Mareeba

The Parish of St Thomas of Villanova in Mareeba has been staffed by the Order of Saint Augustine since it began a century ago. Mareeba is located on the tableland behind the tropical tourist city of Cairns, in northern Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Diocese of Cairns.

The Mareeba Parish celebrated its centenary on the weekend of 11th-12th June 2011.

The Bishop of Cairns, Most Rev. James Foley, presided and preached at the Centenary Mass. The Augustinian Provincial, Fr Tony Banks, along with four other visiting Augustinians, travelled from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne for the celebrations.

The parish web site is: http://www.stthomass.com.au

MAREEBA CENTENARY BOOK

The first one hundred years of the parish of St Thomas of Villanova, Mareeba, has been penned into book form by parishioner, Jeanette Hartley. The title of the book, “Where the Pelican Builds,” pays tribute to the Irish Augustinians who travelled so far from their homeland in Ireland to carve out what would become a diocese in Far North Queensland, with Mareeba being part of that diocese.

The book's title links with Saint Thomas of Villanova himself, who featured a pelican on his episcopal coat of arms.

The book has 211 pages, and is filled with anecdotes of the parish of Mareeba, profiles of all the priests who have ministered there in one hundred years, details of the three churches, the work of the Sisters of Mercy, the many (and changing) committees and societies throughout the years and the celebrations, both religious and secular.

It was written as a three-way tribute to the Augustinians, the Sisters of Mercy and the parishioners.

Interspersed with many photos and naming well-known and hardworking families of the one hundred years, the book is proving to be popular with its readers.

To obtain a copy
..........Available at St Thomas’s Priory, P.O. Box 308, Mareeba, Qld 4880.
..........For mail orders, please calculate the cost of the book ($25.00) plus postage:
..........Posting Australia wide: $3.50. Posting overseas by airmail: $25.00
..........Cheques should be made out to St Thomas’s Catholic Church.

Augustinian Centre for Spirituality, Sydney

A small oasis of quiet and hospitality in western suburban Sydney, Australia, the Augustinian Centre for Spirituality at Greystanes assists persons and groups of all faith backgrounds in their spiritual journey.

Some members of its Augustinian community offer spiritual direction, reflection days, courses in prayer and meditation, and individual residential directed retreats.

On four consecutive Thursday evenings beginning on 4th August 2011, Fr John McCall O.S.A. will conduct a series entitled The Parables of Jesus, explaining how Jesus reveals himself in his parables, and the way our image of Christ needs to be deepened the more we read them.

The sessions are from 7.45 pm to 9.00 pm at a cost of  $80 (concessions available). Booking is recommended.

To read the full program of the Augustinian Centre for 2011, click here.

For bookings, or for more general information about the Centre, please phone (02) 9896 6794, or e-mail osaspirit@bigpond.com.au

St Augustine's College is an Augustinian day school for almost 1,100 male pupils in the upper primary and secondary years of education. Founded in 1956, it is located at Brookvale (Sydney), Australia.

St Augustine’s College has an active Social Justice syllabus, incorporating the SEA (Service, Education and Awareness) program.  Students and staff have travelled on many occasions to the TMMR Orphanage of the Augustinian Sisters of Consolation in the Philippines, as part of a building and vegetation programme to support the orphanage. Students will return there later in the year.

An additional program in 2011 involves the Who Will Village Orphanage in Cambodia, which was begun a year ago by the grandfather of one of the students at the College. In November 2011 a group of twenty Year 10 students and staff are travelling there for two weeks to complete the building of a cottage for an additional ten children...................

A group of students, staff and parents from St Augustine’s College will be running and walking in Sydney’s annual Northern Beaches Walk/Run from Dee Why to Newport on 28th August 2011. They are doing so in memory of a classmate who died of a brain aneurism in April, and also to raise funds for brain research through the Brain Foundation.

These students (including the two of them in photo above) from Year Nine will be participating in this Northern Beaches Walk/Run just two days after competing in the 10 km College Walkathon to celebrate St Augustine’s Patron Day on Friday, 26th August 2011.

The College's web site is www.saintaug.nsw.edu.au

St Joseph's Parish, South Yarra

In Melbourne, the capital city of the Australian State of Victoria, the Augustinians have care of the Parish of Saint Joseph, South Yarra. The parish also has a second church, dedicated to St Thomas Aquinas, at Bromby Street, South Yarra. The Order of St Augustine has ministered in the parish since 1976.

The vision statement of St Joseph’s Parish calls for the parish “To be a vibrant and welcoming Church community of mutual care and support sustained by the Gospel."

It continues, "As an expression of our social concern, we walk with people who are marginalised and alienated – our faith in action. We are responsive to, and engaged with, the needs and issues of our times.”

With this vision to the fore, a revised Pastoral Plan was adopted earlier this year.

Its section headings are: liturgy/worship, community, outreach/service, Witness/Evangelization, Pastoral Structures/Leadership, Communication/Promotion, Property/Finance/Administration, Faith Development & Enrichment, and Pastoral Care.

A report received from the parish on 30th June mentions an ongoing routine of sacramental preparation, visitation of homes by the priests (which includes the anointing of the housebound), and constant demand for the crisis shelters and emergency housing that are administered by the parish.

The South Yarra parish website is: http://www.parishofsouthyarra.org.au

Augustinian Parish, North Harbour, Sydney

The Catholic Community of North Harbour in the Diocese of Broken Bay is the union, which happened on 1st July 2006, of the two previous adjacent Augustinian-administered parishes of Manly Vale and Balgowlah in the northern beaches area of Sydney, Australia's largest city.

The Augustinians began their pastoral leadership at Manly Vale in 1952 and at Balgowlah in 2004.

To assist the older parishioners in the coming months, Masses with Anointing of the Sick will be held on 10th August at 10.00 am at St Kieran's, Manly Vale, and on 23rd October at 9.00 am at St Cecilia's, Balgowlah and 9.30 am at St Kieran's Manly Vale.

Over 150 children completed their sacraments of initiation at nine different Sunday Masses at the Balgowlah and Manly Vale churches during June (see some photos at right).

The parish website, now extensively renovated, has received many plaudits. A new feature is the addition of video clips. The most recent inclusion in that regard is a four-minute presentation on Celebrate Sunday, which centres on the 6.00 pm Sunday Mass at St Kieran's Church, Manly Vale.
Go to http://www.vimeo.com/15978171

Augustinian Parish, Coorparoo

The Parish of St James, Coorparoo (Brisbane) has been in the care of the Augustinians since 1952. Villanova College, also conducted by the Order, is located within the parish.

The next meeting of the Social Justine Forum of the parish will be held on Monday, 1st August at 7:30pm in the parish hall. The topic is the Community Care Unit, which is located across Old Cleveland Road from St James’s Church.

Fifteen additional new volunteers have been trained to visit the sick, and to offer them Communion.

The priests of the parish offer these people for anointing each month

You can view the parish web site: http://www.stjames-coorparoo.org.au/

Augustinian Parish, St Clair

Holy Spirit Parish at St Clair in western Sydney, Australia, was established in 1981, and has been administered by the Order of Saint Augustine since 1995.

An Enquiry Night will be held in the Parish Centre at 7.30 pm on Friday, 5th August for adults wishing to make enquiries about joining the Catholic Church.

For those who wish it, the Enquiry Night leads to the program called RCIA - the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which is a rite of passage leading to full membership in the Catholic Church.

Those who undertake the RCIA program take a path that leads to full reception into the Church at Easter 2012.

Further details about parish life appear on the web site of Holy Spirit Parish: http://www.holyspiritstclair.com.au

Augustinian Formation Association (A.F.A.)

The Augustinian Formation Association prays for and raises funds for the formation of current Augustinian candidates and for future Augustinians.

It has now fulfilled this role for a number of decades.

Based in Sydney, Australia, its current office bearers are Trudi McFadden (president), Eddie Robinson (treasurer), Lesley Sing (assistant treasurer) and Yvonne Clark (secretary).

The AFA is hoping to expand its membership, especially seeing that the number of Augustinian students in formation is increasing, meaning that additional support would be very timely.

The most recent AFA event in Sydney was a Multicultural Dinner on Saturday, 23rd July 2011 at the Parish Centre beside St Kieran's Church, Manly Vale. The Augustinian professed, novices and postulants presented some of the food and entertainment. The evening was well attended.

To obtain more details about the Augustinian Formation Association generally, contact the staff of the Provincial Office at Brookvale on (02) 9938 0200 during office hours.


Augustinian Friends

Augustinian Friends is a lay group conducted in Australia for those wishing to learn more about the spirituality of Saint Augustine of Hippo, and to have contact with others who share this goal. Branches of the Friends operate at a number of Augustinian venues in Brisbane, Mareeba, Melbourne, Northern Victoria, and Sydney.

The Friends' newsletter, Amici, has now reached its tenth anniversary, and much has happened within Augustinian Friends during this decade. For example, there have been four Lay Congresses: in Echuca in 2001, in Brookvale (Sydney) in 2004, in South Yarra (Melbourne) in 2007, and in Coorparoo (Brisbane) in 2010.

An annual meeting of the National Committee of Augustinian Friends took place at the Augustinian Centre for Spirituality at Greystanes (Sydney) on the weekend of 6th-8th November 2009 (see photo below). The most recent annual meeting took place there on 17th-19th September 2010.

These meetings approved a parish programme for the Easter period developed by the Augustinian Spirituality Team. Local Augustinian groups have offered to run the programme in Augustinian parishes. It is particularly suitable for those who have just completed the RCIA program.

The leader of the Augustinian Friends for 2011 is Sylvia Phillips, and Fr. Paul Maloney O.S.A. is the chaplain of the group.

The English and U.S. Augustinians are involved with generally similar Augustinian Friends movements in their respective nations.

In England, “Friends of Augustine” has now begun its own website:
http://www.friendsofaugustine.org In the United States, the web site is http://www.augustinianfriends.org

For an Amici newsletter subscription or for any additional information on the Friends, contact Fr Paul Maloney at Greystanes (Sydney) at paulmal@bigpond.com.au or phone him on (02) 9631 0340.

For additional information about Augustinian Friends on this web site, click here.

Augustinian Volunteers Australia 2011

Horn of Africa Famine Appeal: We encourage you to donate online to Cartias Australia. Go to www.caritas.org.au 

In February 2008, Augustinian Volunteers Australia was launched with a group of five part-time co-workers. These three women and two men offered their assistance to Church ministries in the poorer suburbs of Western Sydney. This was subsequent to a formation course which included an immersion experience in that same region of Sydney.

.............................................Report of July 2011.

Augustinian Volunteers Australia provides supervised placements for those who complete the three week course in Justice & Peace at the Augustinian Administration Centre, Brookvale, each February. In 2011, ten completed this Formation Course (see photo below) and were inducted as Augustinian Volunteers by early March. Since then three new Volunteers have been operating in Brisbane and six in Sydney and one has been studying. Adding to the two in Queensland continuing from last year, this has meant a total of eleven Volunteers currently in service out of a possible thirteen at the end of the Course.

Augustinian Volunteers work in edge ministries in close proximity to Augustinian Parishes. In Sydney this has meant service occurs at Redfern in the city, supported from the Augustinians at Brookvale and at Western Sydney supported from the Augustinians at St Clair Parish and at the Augustinian Spirituality Centre at Greystanes. In Brisbane, Volunteer sites are spread across the city with the Augustinians at Coorparoo being the focus of Volunteer community and support.

Redfern is a particularly challenging site for Volunteer service since it occurs this year at De Porres House, run by the Cana Community. De Porres House accommodates people from the streets as well as those recently rehabilitated from prison. Our volunteers, Catherine and Dom along with Sarah their mentor, have joined with those of Cana in providing meals, Eucharist and conversation on two days per week. Augustinian Novices work a third evening in the same residence to provide cleaning assistance and a meal.

In Western Sydney, Sarah volunteers at Mamre Homestead, a venue providing employment opportunities and services for refugees. Sarah’s work is with Sudanese children in the Mamre crèche. In another operation in the West, two of our Volunteers, Patrice and Theresa, have been volunteering in the Tongan Homework Centre in Mt Druitt, providing assistance to young people struggling to complete homework in a language that may be their second or third major language, or at least at odds with the language spoken at home.

Brisbane Volunteers have taken longer than their Sydney counterparts to be suitably located and to commence service. The Brisbane floods earlier this year have had a continuing effect on the work of welfare organizations and support services in Brisbane, largely because of the disruption to the extensive tracking systems required by the State Government.

Liz is working well at her venue with Micah services in South Brisbane and is also a significant member of the Coorparoo Parish Justice and Peace Committee. Arya and Anjali are both at present completing first Semester science exams, but will return to volunteering in early July, one with St Vincent de Paul refugee services operating also from South Brisbane and the other in Reconnect community development services based in Nundah.

This vibrant group of Volunteers has already met twice in six weekly Community Gatherings. It has been keen to consolidate the work of the Augustinian Volunteers in Australia. With so many Volunteers commencing across the two Eastern cities, and with new Augustinian ministries promised connection to the Volunteer movement next year in Melbourne and Mareeba (Far North Queensland), there is hope for significant growth in the Augustinian Volunteer movement through 2011 and 2012.

Mr Paul Wilson, who is employed full-time as the Justice and Peace Officer of the Australian Augustinians, said, “Augustinian Volunteers situate themselves at the most needy places in our society. They come to this program looking to help others, but soon learn that their own transformation is tied up in the change they are seeking for our world. Much reflection is needed by the Volunteers to understand all that happens during their service. Hence the emphasis on the spiritual as much as on the social dimension of Volunteering. The social and spiritual form one process.”

A young man named Tada, who has volunteered with Augustinian Volunteers over the past three years, is about to return to his home in Thailand. A final text message from him is indicative of what the Volunteers have meant to him, “Sorry I couldn’t be at your Volunteer gathering. I will go back to Thailand next month on the 24th.  Hope to see you before I leave here. Thank you for the many opportunities provided for me by the Volunteers.”

More details about Augustinian Volunteers Australia are available on the social justice section of this web site.

For further information go to http://www.aymaustralia.org.au/ministries/augustinian-volunteers

Contact:

Mr Paul Wilson, Justice and Peace Officer, c/- St Augustine’s Priory, P.O. Box 679, Brookvale NSW 2100, Australia. Mobile phone: 0438 646 294 Email: paul.wilson@augustinians.org.au Website: www.augustinians.org.au

Augustinian Ministry Websites 2011

• St Augustine’s College – Brookvale Sydney NSW Australia
  Website: www.saintaug.nsw.edu.au
  
• St James’ Parish – Coorparoo Qld Australia
  Website: http://www.stjames-coorparoo.org.au/
  
• Villanova College – Coorparoo Brisbane Qld Australia
  Website: www.vnc.qld.edu.au
  
• St Thomas of Villanova Parish – Mareeba Qld Australia
  Website: http://www.stthomass.com.au
  
• Parish of North Harbour – Manly Vale & Balgowlah, NSW Australia
  Website: http://www.northharbourcatholic.org.au
  
• St Joseph’s Parish – South Yarra Vic Australia
  Website: http://www.parishofsouthyarra.org.au
  
• Holy Spirit Parish – St Clair NSW Australia
  Website: www.holyspiritstclair.com.au
  
• Augustinians in Korea
  Website: http://www.osakorea.or.kr

FOR SOME CURRENT NEWS ABOUT THE ORDER OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA Click here

The Augustinian international web site is:
http://www.osanet.org/home.asp

AUGUSTINIAN CENTRE FOR SPIRITUALITY PROGRAM 2011
2 Hewitt Avenue
Greystanes 2145
Enquiries (02) 9896 6794
www.augustinians.org.au/communities/greystanes.html