AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD – July 2007

Count ourselves fortunate

The times in the past you think were good were only good for the simple reason that they weren’t your times. If you have now been delivered from the curse, if you have now come to believe in the Son of God, if you have now been introduced to the sacred books, or become learned in them, I’m astonished that you should reckon that Adam had good times. And your parents carried Adam on their shoulders.

Certainly it was that Adam who was told, In the sweat of your face shall you eat your bread, and you shall work the ground from which you were taken; thorns and thistles shall it produce for you. That’s what he deserved, that’s what he got, and that’s what he received from the last judgment of God. So why do you think that times past were better than your times?

Has a flood ever befallen us? Have such harsh times of famine and war ever befallen us, which were written about precisely to stop us grumbling against God about the present time? Has that time of our ancestors ever befallen us, so very, very remote from our own times, where the head of a dead donkey was sold for such a great amount of gold, when pigeons’ droppings were sold for no small amount of silver?

And who could possibly remember all the wars and famines of that time? So what dreadful times they must have been! Don’t we all shudder with horror when we hear or read about them? So we’ve more reason to count ourselves fortunate than to grumble about our times.

St Augustine: Sermon 346C,1

The Augustinian Order in the Asia-Pacific

The Order of Saint Augustine has a total of seven jurisdictions based in Philippines (two), India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Australia. The leaders of six of these Asia-Pacific jurisdictions met earlier this month in preparation for the General (international) Chapter of the Order, which they will attend in Rome during most of September 2007.

In compiling a regional presentation for the General Chapter, these Asia-Pacific leaders intend to call for a special focus of the Order upon this region for the next six years, just as the Order did previously with Africa during the six-year period now ending.

The Australian Prior Provincial, Fr Tony Banks O.S.A. (pictured above), was a participant in the recent preparatory meeting. He has commented, “The European / Western influence is in decline in our region, but will the unique qualities of Asia clash with or nourish the Augustinian Order?”

Augustinian Solemn Profession in South Korea

Within the Delegation of Korea of the Order of Saint Augustine, the solemn profession of Brother Salesio Lee took place on Saturday, 26th May 2007. The ceremony was conducted at St Rita's Spirituality Centre of the Augustinian Priory at Incheon, South Korea.

After graduating from high school, Br. Salesio completed a two-year college degree in business management. After compulsory military service he found employment in the city of Jin-Hae. He continued to be involved in his local parish, where he was a voluntary catechist for five years.

It was during that time that he began to feel the call to be a religious brother. He happened to read about the Augustinians in a book which had a photograph of the community praying in the chapel of St. Augustine’s Priory in Incheon. He then joined the Order in 1999.

Since entering the Order he has completed a course of studies in scripture and theology at the Seoul Seminary Catechetical Institute. As well, he studied psychology and social welfare part time, and for the past eighteen months has been an assistant pastoral worker in the “No-Rang Na-Rang” Group Home in Incheon – a community for boys from broken families founded and looked after by the Augustinian Delegation of Korea.

About 170 people, including Korean Augustinians, Br. Salesio’s parents and family (see photo above), many religious, priest, and lay friends, attended the Solemn Profession Mass. Principal celebrant of the Mass was Fr Michael Sullivan O.S.A., who is one of the pioneer Augustinians who came to Korea and established the Order there over twenty years ago.

During the ceremony Br. Barnabas Jeong Dok Kim O.S.A., the Korean Delegation superior, received Br. Salesio’s vows on behalf of the Augustinian Prior General, Fr. Robert Prevost O.S.A.

Letters of congratulation from the Augustinian Order in Australia were read aloud during the reception after the profession Mass.

Sixty photos of the Order of Saint Augustine in Korea are available on the Internet by selecting the photo gallery named Korea after you click on http://www.augnet.org/default.asp?ipageid=6

Augustinian Diaconate Ceremony in South Korea

On 5th July 2007 the Augustinian Delegation of Korea joyfully celebrated the ordination to the diaconate by one of its members. On that day Jonah Kyu-Dong Kim O.S.A. was one of eight young candidates in a ceremony conducted by Very Rev. Joseph Han-Teak Lee DD S.J. of the local Uijeongbu Diocese (see photos), which is north of Seoul.

In this ceremony, six young men (including the Augustinian, pictured above) became deacons, and another two were ordained to the Catholic priesthood. The venue was the indoor sports stadium at Uijeongbu, which was large enough to hold more than 230 priests and 4,000 laity who attended the ceremony.

Almost all members of the Augustinian Delegation of Korea witnessed the ceremony, as well as Jonah’s mother and family members. A visitor from England at the ceremony was Father Jacob Heang-Kwon Choi O.S.A., a Korean Augustinian who was ordained in England, and who ministers there. Father Jacob is a member of the St. Mary's Augustinian community at Harbourne in Birmingham, England.

The date of the 5th July was chosen because it was the feastday of St. Andrea Dae-Gon Kim, a martyr and the first Korean priest.

The new deacon, Jonah Kyu-Dong Kim O.S.A., is a member of the St. Augustine's Priory at Chon-dong, Incheon. On his path to priesthood, he has studied at Inchon Catholic University for the past six and a half years, and will continue classes there until the end of this year.

Now that he is a deacon, he will also help at one of the local parishes in Incheon on the weekends. This will continue until he is ordained priest sometime in 2008.

Within the Order of Saint Augustine, Jonah professed his solemn vows on 10th September 2006. He is the fourth Korean-born Augustinian working in Korea to have received the diaconate.

Sixty photos of the Order of Saint Augustine in Korea are available on the Internet by selecting the photo gallery named Korea after you click on http://www.augnet.org/default.asp?ipageid=6

Seventy years a priest.

The Augustinian who presently has the distinction of having served in Australia the longest time ago is Fr Henry Leahy O.S.A. (pictured), although he has not been in Australia for the past fifty-seven years.

An Irish Augustinian, Fr Henry Leahy was ordained to the priesthood in Rome at the age of twenty-three years in March 1937, and recently celebrated his seventieth anniversary of priesthood.

After ordination, he was immediately assigned to the Vicariate of Cooktown (now the Diocese of Cairns) in far north Queensland, Australia. Arriving by ship in October 1937, he first served for two years at Innisfail, and then for four years at Mareeba.

Mareeba was then the starting point of the Gulf Mission, which meant that, as the junior priest there, Fr Leahy had the task of making five-week journeys of priestly visitation by truck into the Gulf Country as far west as Normanton and Burketown.

During the Second World War, he was assistant priest at Tully for three years. In 1946 he became the Parish Priest there, and in 1949-1950 was Parish Priest of Mossman, north of Cairns.

On 13th March 2007 Fr Leahy celebrated his seventieth anniversary of priesthood at a Eucharist in Dublin, in the presence of the Augustinian Prior General.

Now aged ninety-three years, Fr Leahy regularly rode a bicycle in Dublin until quite recently. Memories of him still linger particularly in Tully, where his lack of skill as an automobile driver - possibly exaggerated over the years! - is still part of the local folklore.

Happy anniversary, Fr Leahy.

Augustinian Parish, Mareeba.

 On Sunday 13th May the Catholic Aborigines of Mareeba Parish invited everyone to join them in celebrating Mass at an ancient camping site of the Muluridji people, situated on the banks of the Barron River near to Biboohra. The sun was shining as people gathered to celebrate Mass under the shade of the gumtrees and beside the flowing water of the Barron River.

Fr Rob Greenup O.S.A. celebrated Mass with Lyn Harris leading the singing playing her guitar. After Mass we enjoyed billy tea and damper and some special friendship and sharing. This is an annual event in the Mareeba parish and our wish, prayer and hope is that people everywhere could all live in harmony like this at all times.

Eight of the Augustinian Friends group of the Mareeba Parish, along with Augustinian parish priest Fr Rob Greenup (see photo at right), took their annual trip to Cooktown with an overnight stay from Tuesday 22nd to Wednesday 23rd May 2007. The main reason for the trip was to ensure that the grave sites of the two Augustinian bishops and seven Sisters of Mercy buried at Cooktown cemetery remain in good order.  

Over the last three years the fence has been welded and painted, grave stones cleaned, weeds pulled out and gravel laid, during our annual pilgrimage. This year was more relaxed with the gravel being raked, the leaves gathered up, and the fence and graves brushed down

Relaxation was then the order of the day with the ladies browsing in the shops, the men resting at the presbytery and Fr Rob walking up Grassy Hill. We celebrated Mass in the evening and returned to Mareeba the next day.

Augustinian Parish of North Harbour

St Kieran’s Church is located within the Augustinian Parish of North Harbour, which is in the Northern Beaches area of metropolitan Sydney, Australia.

On Tuesday, 10th July 2007 St Kieran’s Church was the venue of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon that have moved progressively around the world and are now visting the the Catholic dioceses of Australia.

The photographs (above and below) show the arrival of this large wooden cross in the grounds of the church, and in the sanctuary of St Kieran's Church. The crosss and icon were welcomed by a capacity congregation, and during the day persons came forward to reverence the cross.

In the meantime, religious activities were conducted in the adjacent parish hall.

The pilgrimage to Australia of the cross and icon are a prelude to the next World Youth Day, which Pope Benedict XVI will attend in Sydney in mid-July 2008.

Centre for Augustinian Spirituality

In February 2007 Fr Peter Jones joined Frs Paul Maloney and John McCall on the Augustinian Spirituality Team. They conduct the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality, which is based at St John Stone House, an Augustinian priory at Greystanes, in western metropolitan Sydney, Australia.

During June 2007 the Centre has hosted two Augustinian Spirituality retreats. The first was for a staff group from Villanova College, Coorparoo (pictured above) and the second was in the form of an Augustinian induction for the employed youth workers from the Order and North Harbour parish.

The components of the Augustinian Spirituality retreat include reflection on what brings us to retreat, spirituality in our lives, Augustinian spirituality, the life of St Augustine, the Augustinian charism, the Rule of St Augustine as guide to Christian living and the Augustinian family in Australia and throughout the world.

Input, personal reflection, group discussion, liturgy and conversation around the meal table are important dimensions of the experience. If any group associated with the Order and its ministries are interested in such a retreat please contact Fr Peter Jones OSA (Director) at (02) 9896-6794 or osaspirit@bigpond.com.au .

Villanova College

Villanova is an Augustinian day school for approximately 1,000 male students in the upper primary and secondary years of education. It began at a smaller location in Whinstanes (Brisbane) in 1948, and moved to its present site at Coorparoo in 1954.

For quite a few years it has won an especially high reputation for music education and performance.

Beginning on 4th July 2007 during a recent school holiday break a Villanova musical touring party of eighty-eight students, seven staff and six parents undertook a musical performance tour of Sydney, 1,000 kilometres south of Brisbane. The Villanovans performed outdoors in Manly (site on an annual jazz festival), and at Darling Harbour, a spectacular tourist and entertainment area in central Sydney.

Indoors they performed at Paddington Town Hall and in Sydney’s permormace venue par excellence, the famed Opera House (pictured above).

The Sydney tour was under the direction of Dr Peter Morris, Villanova’s Director of Music.

Villanova College has a proud academic tradition throughout the fifty-nine years of its history. Certainly the beginnings of that tradition were cemented in place by the impressive line-up of Augustinian staff sent from Ireland to open the College in Brisbane in 1948

In recent times, Old Boy (past pupil) Greg Wildermuth, returned to Villanova to offer the archives the prize he received from Villanova’s founding Rector, Fr Ben O’Donnell OSA, for being the very first “Dux of School” in 1948. Greg also presented another prize he received for Classics. (Classics, especially Latin,was taught by the illustrious Fr John Louis Hanrahan O.S.A., who was known even then among the boys by the sobriquet of “George”).

Both prizes were novels written by Charles Dickens. The books, suitably inscribed by Fr O’Donnell at the time, have now found their own very special place in College archives. So began the tradition of encouraging students in the pursuit of academic excellence – a proud tradition that has continued to the present day.

If we fast-forward this story of focus on academic achievement to the present day, the College is delighted to acknowledge three Villanovans from the 2006 graduation (Senior) class, who were awarded an Australian Students’ Prize (see photo). The prize recognises the top 500 senior students across Australia.

The Prize this year has been re-named the Lord Florey Student Prize in honour of the Australian Nobel Laureate.

To be named in this elite group of students represents an outstanding achievement, since in 2006 approximately 200,000 students completed Year 12 (Senior year) across all States and territories of Australia. One of the three has been accepted to study for a Bachelor of Engineering in Aerospace Avionics, another is about to begin a Bachelor of Music at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, and the third is commencing a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Queensland.

These three young men join the list of nine other Villanova past students in recent years who received this national honour on completing Year 12.

The college’s web site is located at http://www.vnc.qld.edu.au

Holy Spirit Parish, St Clair

The parish at St Clair in western Sydney, Australia, was established twenty-five years ago, and has been administered by the Order of Saint Augustine for the past eleven years.

Nine months after the celebration of Parish Silver Jubilee, the jubilee gift to the parish – a new baby grand piano - has arrived (see photo).  The old piano had originally been purchased, second hand, by the founding Parish Priest, Fr Brian Rooney.  It was only to be a ‘make do’ arrangement until something more substantial could be afforded.  

Twenty-five years later, the much anticipated upgrade has been realised. The final service of the old piano when offered to parishioners in a silent auction was to realise $1000:00 for parish funds.

The Holy Spirit website is located at http://www.holyspiritstclair.com.au

Affiliates’ meetings

The series of meetings for Augustinian Affiliates continues. A meeting was held within the Parish of Mareeba, North Queensland on 14th June 2007.

With the 1967 revision of the Constitutions of the Order of Saint Augustine, the affiliation of laity to the Order was approved.  This has provided Provinces with the opportunity of taking the initiative of binding more closely to the Order those laity who have, over many years, identified with the ethos and ministries of the Augustinians in a significant way. Today, there are more than sixty laity affiliated to the Order in Australia since that time.

The need has been expressed for providing the affiliates with a deeper knowledge of Augustine, Augustinian Spirituality and of the Order itself. For this purpose the present Prior Provincial, Tony Banks, together with his Provincial Council, appointed Father Pat Fahey to be chaplain to the Affiliates of the Province.

Fr Fahey is in the process of meeting with the Affiliates throughout the Province.  Prior to the gathering at Mareeba in mid-June, earlier meetings ewere conducted at Manly Vale (Sydney), Adelaide (see photo above) and Brisbane. 

To complete the series of gatherings, other meetings are being planned for Northern Victoria and Melbourne.

The structure of the meeting is simple: (1) celebration of Mass; (2) sharing a meal; (2) presentation of some aspect of Augustinian spirituality; (4) discussion; and (5) prayer.  It lasts no more than about two hours.

What is further envisaged is the publication of a simple Newsletter in which the Affiliates themselves will receive news of each other and be encouraged to share in each other’s lives by prayer and even by direct contact (through letter or visits). 

St Augustine’s College, Brookvale

During twenty days of the school vacation in April 2007, six staff members and twelve students from an Augustinian secondary school in Australia travelled to the Philippines to erect an infirmary (see photo below) in an orphanage for street children conducted by the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation.

The travellers were from St Augustine’s College in Brookvale (Sydney, Australia), which the Order began in 1956. Sister Joan O.S.A., an Augustinian Sister of Our Lady of Consolation, is a member of the school’s chaplaincy team.

The “Augustine Orphanage Project” has involved the entire school community. Sufficient funds were raised to buy all the necessary building materials in Australia, so that many students could pre-fabricate the building in Brookvale before shipping it to the Philippines for assembly.

The orphanage is Tahanan Mapagkalinga ni Madre Rita (TMMR). It is located in Bulacan, about 56 kms from the central Manila.

TMMR houses and cares for up to eighteen children aged between four and fourteen years. The separate infirmary building is important because previously any sickness could easily spread to all children in the dormitories of the orphanage.

The infirmary, five metres wide and 12 metres in length, was completed on schedule. While in the Philippines, the staff and students from St Augustine’s College also attended the final profession of Sister Joan O.S.A.

The volunteer team at Bulacan was able to keep in daily contact with the entire school community at Brookvale by means of a daily “blog” on the Internet. The text and photographs are still able to be seen at http://augustineorphanageproject.blogspot.com

The college’s web site is http://www.saintaug.nsw.edu.au

Fr Tony Banks O.S.A., Australian Provincial, visited the TMMR orphanage at Bulacan during the construction phase.

Augustinian Formation Association (AFA)

The AFA prays for and raises funds for the formation of future Augustinians. Based in Sydney, its office bearers for 2007 are Trudi McFadden (president, pictured), Eddie Robinson (treasurer), Lesley Sing (assistant treasurer) and Yvonne Clark (secretary).  

Along with two new members, they form the AFA Executive.

The AFA has agreed to an increase in fund-raising activity in 2007, accompanied by a membership drive.

Coming events in Sydney are the annual AFA Mass, barbeque and Dutch Auction, beginning at St Kieran's Church, Manly Vale at 12.30 pm on Sunday, 26th August, and a Retreat Day on Tuesday, 4th September. A chartered bus will depart St Kieran's Church for the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality, Greystanes at 8.30 am on that day, and depart Greystanes on its return journey at 3.00 pm.

For more details about these events, or about the Augustinian Formation Association generally, contact Fr Laurence Mooney O.S.A. (AFA chaplain) or the staff of the Provincial Office on (w) 02 9905 3049.

Augustinian Friends in the eastern U.S.A. has a web site: http://www.augustinianfriends.org

.Augnet: what's new?!

Augnet, a comprehensive web site on Saint Augustine and the Order of Saint Augustine, was fully redesigned and renovated in May 2006.

It now carries over 1,280 pages of text, which also contain over 1,720 illustrations. The Augnet web site was officially "launched" at a ceremony in Sydney in August 2002, with the Augustinian Prior General from Rome as the guest of honour.

New technical features in the renovated Augnet include a search engine, which searches every page of Augnet for any word or phrase that is nominated by a user, and a site map, which quickly allows a visitor to see and understand the local arrangement of Augnet's sections and sub-sections.

About 2,180 large images in extensive photo galleries illustrate Augustinian events and places internationally. The photo galleries most recently added illustrate Sydney, Australia, and three galleries of Augustinian ministry in India, London (England) and at the Escorial (Spain), and additional images are regularly added to other galleries whenever they become available.

Since May 2006, over 41,307 separate (distinct) visitors have used Augnet at least once, in a total of 304,546 visits (i.e., an average of seven visits each). These persons have made a total of 632,235 Augnet page visits. There was a monthly record of 37,486 visits to Augnet during June 2007, which is an average of 1,239 visits a day.

On 12th October 2006 Augnet received 1,000 visits within one 24-hour period for the first time. On 6th June 2007 there was a new daily record of 2,314 visits attained, and since that time Augnet have been averaging over 1,000 visits per day.

Because of the international usage of Augnet, the web site has almost an identical usage rate in each of the twenty-four hours of the day, and also equal usage on all days of the week (except for a slight decrease on Saturdays). The average duration per visit is three and one half minutes.

Visit this web site at http://www.augnet.org

FOR SOME CURRENT NEWS ABOUT THE ORDER OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA Click here

The Augustinian international web site is: http://www.osanet.org/en/default.htm

AUGUSTINIAN CENTRE FOR SPIRITUALITY PROGRAM 2007
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Greystanes 2145
Enquiries 9896 6794
www.augustinians.org.au/communities/greystanes.html