AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD – OCTOBER 2007

The poor person’s patrimony

Look at Job himself, challenged to love God freely, for nothing --- because this was the challenge the devil threw down to him, when all his possessions were destroyed, when he had lost the comfort of his children, and was left only with his wife, to tempt him, not to comfort him; when he was also smitten with terrible sores from head to foot, so that he was deprived even of the poor man’s patrimony.

The poor man’s patrimony, you see, is health, which if the rich man doesn’t have, whatever he does have is gall and wormwood to him.

Perhaps you can find a poor man who doesn’t need a rich man who isn’t also in need of the poor man’s patrimony. It was the poor man’s patrimony, that is to say, health, which Job lost when he was smitten with terrible sores from head to foot. He wasn’t for all that induced to ascribe folly to God, and in his troubles to be displeased with God; he was always pleased with God.

At the promptings of the serpent with whom he was invisible wrestling, the new Eve suggested he should blaspheme: Say something against God, she said, and die. And he said, You have spoken like the silly woman you are. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, can we not endure bad things?

St Augustine: Sermon 359A,6

Death of Fr. Ralph Cameron O.S.A.

After a brief illness, on Sunday afternoon, 21st October 2007, the death occurred at Manly Hospital of Fr Ralph Raymond Cameron O.S.A. of the Catholic Parish of North Harbour. He was eighty-two years old, and in his fifty-first year of priesthood.

He has lived and served at Manly Vale almost continuously for the past twenty years, and was active in ministry there until a month ago.

Born in central Queensland in 1925, he received his primary and secondary education in Cairns at St Monica’s School and St Augustine’s College respectively. From school in 1940 he became a clerk in the Court House at Cairns.

Joining the Royal Australian Air Force in 1941, he became a member the aircrew in the RAAF 100th Squadron of B-29 Liberator bombers. The squadron was awaiting assignment to the Pacific conflict when progress in the Second World War made this deployment unnecessary.

After his demobilisation from the RAAF he returned to his position in the court house at Cairns, and then in 1948 successfully applied to join the Order of Saint Augustine,

He was then sent to the United States for university studies, Augustinian novitiate and the required studies for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He obtained a Master of Arts degree there, and was ordained a priest in Washington D.C. in 1956.

Upon his return to Australia in 1958, he was sent to Brookvale to teach at St Augustine’s College, which was then only in its third year of existence. He soon won particular acclaim there as a teacher of mathematics.

A decade later, he was appointed as the third Rector (Principal) of the College, and held that post for seven years, beginning in 1968.

Following four years of teaching at Villanova College, Brisbane, Fr Cameron in 1978 was elected to the office of Provincial, to lead the Augustinians in Australia. Of the six Australian-born Augustinians who have held the Office of Provincial to the present day, Fr Cameron is the first of them to die.

After returning to the staff of Villanova College from 1983 to 1986, he was appointed in 1987 for the first time to the staff of St Kieran’s Parish in the Sydney metropolitan suburb of Manly Vale, which parish is now part of the Parish of North Harbour, centred on the former Manly Vale and Balgowlah parishes.

Except for a number of years at Echuca, Victoria, Fr Cameron has been based at St Kieran’s Priory at Manly Vale since 1987.

Although officially retired in recent years, Fr Cameron nevertheless continued to preside at a number of church services, and remained as chaplain to some parish groups and to local nursing homes.

Australian Augustinian Youth Encounter 2007

“So what exactly is happening in 2008? There’s World Youth Day and then there’s this other thing. The Augustinian what!?!

Want to know what’s happening next year after World Youth Day week? Come to the National Augustinian Youth Encounter (NAYE) which is held from 7.30 pm Friday19 October 2007 to noon on Sunday 21 October 2007 at the Collaroy Conference Centre, in the northern beaches area of Sydney.

The NAYE is a great way to get a brief insight into St Augustine and to know what exactly is happening next year at the Augustinian International Youth Encounter 2008. It will also give you an opportunity to meet other young people and to become part of a team that will help run the event next year.

To enquire about the National Augustinian Youth Encounter, if you are already associated with an Augustinian ministry please email michael.delacruz@augustinians.org.au

Ninth Augustinian International Encounter for Young Adults 2008

This Encounter will take place at Collaroy (Sydney, Australia) from the evening of Monday, 21st July to noon on Sunday, 27th July 2008, which is immediately after the conclusion of World Youth Day 2008.

These Augustinian international encounters have been regularly held for the past twenty years. The previous ones all took place in Europe – four in Italy, two in Spain, one in Germany and Ireland.

Assigned to occur in Australia, the ninth Encounter will be the first of the series to occur outside of Europe. To co-ordinate the planning and preparation for the event, the Australian Augustinians have employed a full-time Projects Officer, Michael Dela Cruz. He can be e-mailed at michael.delacruz@augustinians.org.au

The venue for the Encounter will be the Collaroy Conference Centre. It is located overlooking the Pacific Ocean and some of Sydney’s northern beaches. As well it is not far from an Augustinian parish (North Harbour) and primary/secondary school (St Augustine’s College, located at Brookvale).

Images of the conference centre and of Collaroy can be seen on the Internet in the photo gallery of http://www.augnet.org that is entitled Augustinian Encounter 2008.” General images of Sydney are in a separate gallery named “Australia: Sydney.”

From talk about the Encounter at the Augustinian meeting of youth animators in Rome last month, it is already known that groups of Augustinian young adults will be coming to Collaroy in July 2008 from parts of Asia, Europe, Africa, the United States and South America.

More information about the Encounter is available on the special web site http://www.aye2008.org or from Michael Dela Cruz at the e-mail address listed above.

Augustinian 182nd General Chapter 2007

Every six years, the Order of Saint Augustine has a General Chapter. It involves a review of the Order's progress and initiatives, and begins with the election of a person to fill the office of Prior General, the international leader of the Order.

the 182nd General Chapter took place in Rome during September 2007. A Prior General can have a maximum of two consecutive terms of office. The present Prior General, Fr Robert Prevost O.S.A., (see photo at right) on this occasion was re-elected for a second term.

Every major legislative region of the Order – which is usually called a Province, a vicariate or a region – sent one or more delegates to the General Chapter, depending on its number of members.

To learn more about the administrative structure of the Order, click here.

The Province of Australia (into which the Augustinian Region of Korea is presently incorporated) was represented by Fr Tony Banks O.S.A. (Provincial) and Bro. Barnabas Kim O.S.A. (the person immediately in charge in Korea).

An outcome of particular interest at the General Chapter was an approved proposal to make Asia and the Pacific a special focus of the Order’s attention during the six-year term of office of the re-elected Prior General.

Within the Asia-Pacific area the Order has communities in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, and one Augustinian is working in Thailand. Photographs of Augustinian ministries in all of these nations can be seen on the Internet in the various photo galleries of the web site, http://www.augnet.org

Real Life, Real Power

The Catholic Community of North Harbour (a parish conducted by the Augustinians in metropolitan Sydney, Australia) is bringing an internationally-acclaimed religious songwriter, guitarist and singer, Jesse Manibusan from Texas, USA to Sydney, Australia in March 2008.

He will be offering a series of liturgical workshops for adults, a youth festival for young adults and educational events for school groups from Monday 24th March to Sunday 30th March 2008 inclusive. These events will take place at St Kieran’s Parish Centre, Manly Vale (Sydney, Australia) and at St Augustine’s College, which is located nearby in Brookvale.

Jesse Manibusan (see photo below) is a pastoral musician in Grapevine, Texas, where he resides with Jodi his wife and their three children.

He engages his audience with a mix of rap, rock, pop, reggae, gospel and other musical styles in order to bring alive the Good News of the Gospel. He holds a master's degree in multicultural ministries from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California.

Jesse describes himself a Catholic lay evangelist who uses music, comedy and stories to connect with people. Very much in demand in the United States as a motivational speaker, Jesse’s uplifting message touches all generations.

He says, “God gives us life. We may have disappointments, we may be really angry or depressed. It’s good we can have a moment to say to God, ‘Thank you for life.’”

He has a unique gift of being able to engage and reach out to any audience – at a retreat, or within a large group of adolescents at a youth festival, and with a crowd of 500,000 people who heard him in Toronto during World Youth Day 2002.

A dynamic speaker, Jesse shares from the heart the love of Christ and the call to live out baptism in every aspect of life! He challenges every age group and generation, "You're Catholic, so what?"

Jesse has released a number of CD collections of religious music, and was named Artist of the Year by the United States Catholic Music Association (U.S.A.)

Awards and recognition aside, Jesse puts everything in perspective. “It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about God. And it’s not an issue of whether we believe. It’s an issue that we know God believes. Every time we mess up God says, ‘Get up. I believe in you. Don’t be afraid to be who you are. Get over it. Know who I am. Look to me and see a reflection of yourself.’ This is about God believing in us.”

He says, “Our song is our prayer. So let's pray our words and our deeds point to Christ...anything else and it's just entertainment."

Precise details of specific Jesse Manibusan events, their date and venue during 24th-30th March 2008 are available on a special web site: http://www.realliferealpower.com.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.

On 26th September 2007, Fr Peter Jones O.S.A. facilitated a seminar on Mary at Holy Spirit Parish.

Fr Peter Jones is the director of the Centre of Augustinian Spirituality at Greystanes, not far distant from St Clair.

Following on from Fr Laurence Mooney’s seminar last year which focussed on the Scriptural perspective on Mary, this year’s seminar centred on Augustine’s theology of Mary’s vocation. As well, it dealt with references to Mary in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

The seminar marked the beginning of a novena at the parish in which the various cultures take responsibility for a day of the novena according to their culture’s particular Marian devotion. The novena concluded with a fiesta in early October.

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

St Augustine’s College, Sydney

St Augustine's College is an Augustinian day school for approximately 1,000 male pupils in the upper primary and secondary years of education. Founded in 1956, it is located at Brookvale (Sydney), Australia.

The Graduation Mass and Dinner of the Year Twelve Class of 2007 of seventy-six pupils took place on Thursday, 27th September. The Mass took place at the Augustinian Church of St Kieran at Manly Vale, two kilometres from the college property. The presider was Fr Peter Tangey O.S.A., who is a member of the college chaplaincy team.

The Graduation Dinner was held immediately afterwards at the Brimson Centre (see photo), which is the largest building on the school campus at Brookvale. In the course of the evening, there were student and staff musical performances, a graduation ceremony, and an address and the presentation of special awards by Mr Tim Cleary (Principal).

These Year Twelve students will now sit for the State-wide HSC (Higher School Certificate) public examinations in the coming weeks.

And now to sport! In its third year in the Independent Schools Association (ISA) Division 1 Rugby competition, St Augustine’s College has recently seen an overwhelming achievement.

After joining the ISA, St Augustine’s College has improved their position to win the 1st Division ISA Rugby title and were awarded the ISA Champion School in Rugby. This season, the 1st XV, 13A & C’s, 14A’s, 15A’s  teams were undefeated which was due to a combination of intensive coaching programs and coaching camps.

St Augustine's College enlisted Mr John Papahatzis in 2005 as its Director of Sports & Co-Curricular and Rugby Coaching Director. He comes from an extensive sporting background, including coaching at St Edmund’s College, Canberra where current Wallabies George Gregan and Matt Gitteau started their rugby careers under his guidance.

St Augustine’s College is successful in both its academic and sporting achievements. The College offers a variety of sports to their boys and currently boasts over 17 rugby teams, 25 soccer teams, 15 cricket teams, 24 basketball teams, 12 water polo teams and success with rowing teams. The College is also exploring participation in the various Rugby League schools competitions on offer, to cater for the talented rugby league players  at  the College. 

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

* The College’s Orphanage Project 2007. A daily blog of the infirmary construction project during April 2007 at the orphanage in Bulacan, Philippines is uploaded on the internet. Go to:
http://augustineorphanageproject.blogspot.com

Augustinian 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 has been present in the parish since 1976.

As well as responsibility for leading the pastoral and sacramental care of these two parishes, the two Augustinians on the parochial staff at South Yarra are the principal priests for the Alfred Hospital, part of which is seen in the photo at left. "The Alfred" is a large metropolitan public hospital, and has a busy 24-hour accident and emergency department.

On any given day there are between 80 and 110 patients at the Alfred Hospital who are registered as Catholic. The Augustinians assigned to the South Yarra Parish, Frs John Barry O.S.A., P.P. and Gerry Dullard O.S.A., answer every call from the hospital that is seeking a priest, unless it is physically impossible for them to do so.

Two priests from the neighbouring Toorak and East Saint Kilda parishes assist them with the hospital’s emergency night call roster. A religious sister is Catholic Chaplaincy Coordinator of the hospital, and is present at the hospital for twenty hours per week.

St Joseph’s Parish web site is www.ozemail.com.au/~osasthyarra

Centre for Augustinian Spirituality

For the past ten years the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality has been in operation at Greystanes, in western metropolitan Sydney, Australia. Four Augustinians live there in community.

After eight years as Director of the Centre, Fr Laurence Mooney O.S.A. was farewelled at the end of 2006. Since February 2007 Fr Peter Jones O.S.A. has been Director.

The ministry of the Centre is accountable to the Australian Augustinian Province through the Province’s Commission for Formation. The mandate of the Centre remains that of service in the area of spirituality and education with an Augustinian focus to Augustinians, Augustinian communities, Augustinian laity and ministries, and the surrounding Diocese of Parramatta.

On the feast of Mary, Our Mother of Consolation (4th September), the Spirituality Centre hosted a retreat day for fourteen members of the Augustinian Formation Association (see photo). As well as using the occasion of the feast to reflect on Augustine’s perspective on Mary, the day provided the opportunity for participants to deepen their appreciation of key themes in Augustinian spirituality.

The course Growing into the more of who I am facilitated by Fr John McCall O.S.A. concluded during the month of September 2007. Participants appreciated the invitation to grow in their sense of God’s love for them and their value as persons helped through integrated insights from spirituality and psychology presented in the course.

For full details and dates of the entire 2007 program at the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality, go to the bottom of this page and follow the prompts.

If any group associated with the Order of Saint Augustine and its ministries is interested in a program or retreat by the Centre staff, please contact Fr Peter Jones O.S.A. at Greystanes at (02) 9896-6794 or osaspirit@bigpond.com.au .

Villanova College, Coorparoo

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, Qeensland, Australia) on 25th January 1948, and moved to its present site at Coorparoo (Brisbane) in 1954.

On Friday, 14th September 2007 a student art show called Villavisions 07 was opened in the Hanrahan Theatre on the school campus (see photo). It featured almost 300 digital images, paintings, prints, sculptures and drawings that were the work of Villanova students. One section displayed creative work on wheelie bins.

A musical quintet also played during the evening. Villavsions 07 was also open on the following day.

The Villanova College web site is located at http://www.vnc.qld.edu.au

Augustinian Parish, Mareeba

On Thursday, 20th September 2007 the World Youth Day (WYD) Cross and Icon were in the Parish of St Thomas of Villanova in Mareeba, North Queensland, Australia.

Arriving the evening before, the team travelling with the Cross and Icon was hosted by Augustinian priests Fr Joseph Walsh O.S.A. and Fr Abel van der Veer O.S.A. at St Thomas’s Priory, beside the parish church. 

The WYD Cross and Icon reached Mareeba for celebrations commencing at 5.30pm. About two hundred people, of all ages, attended the celebrations with the majority walking with the Cross and Icon from St Thomas’s Church to St Stephen’s Catholic College – a distance of six kilometres. The Cross and Icon were carried through the main streets of Mareeba by different people sharing the privilege of carrying them.  A guard of honour welcomed them at the St Stephen’s Catholic College, Mareeba.

A special bus brought parishioners to the event from the adjacent St Anthony’s Parish in Dimbulah (which is served from Augustinian Priory, Mareeba). A shared liturgy was presided over by Fr Chris Ryan, one of the travelling Cross and Icon team members. He spoke about the significance of the Cross for young people in the world today, and retold how it had been presented to the youth of the world twenty-three years ago by the late Pope John Paul II.

Another one of the travelling Cross and Icon team members, Jacinta Healy from Adelaide, shared her experiences about her growth in faith. She also described places and incidents during the movement of the Cross and Icon around Australia. 

Young Adult Group, Korea

The Korean Augustinian Youth Group was ‘relaunched’ with a three day retreat experience in July 2007, summer time in Korea. The retreat was held at the Augustinian retreat house in Yeon-Chon, which is north of Seoul near the border with North Korea. The retreat’s theme was “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). Fourteen young people attended, coming mostly from Seoul and Incheon. (See photo below.)

Since then a monthly meeting of the new youth group has been held at the Augustinian Priory in Seoul, with about sixteen young people attending each month. Those attending range in age from 18 to 32 years: two are in their last year of high school, the others are university students and workers.

Seoul is the capital of Korea and has a population of 10 million, ten percent of whom are Catholics. (The area within a 60 km radius around Seoul includes several large cities, Inchon, Buchon, Suwon, Uijeonbu etc. which also have a combined population of around 10 million.) The total population of Korea is about 47 million, and about 8% Catholic.

The organizer of the Seoul group, Fr. Thomas Dae-Ho Kim O.S.A., has asked three in the group to take on the tasks of group leader, secretary, and treasurer.

Monthly meetings last about three hours. Time is allotted to the presentation and discussion of an Augustinian-Gospel theme, discussion of issues of importance to young Koreans, a time of quite meditation in the priory chapel, and coffee-friendship time.

Among the members of the group there is a keen interest in the Augustinian Youth Encounter and World Youth Day being held in Sydney in 2008. So far eight young women and six young men have indicated their desire to attend one or both of these events.

The group has also discussed the feasibility of holding two meetings each month and the possibility of some kind of social service outreach, but no definite decisions have been made regarding these topics.

APAC Cross-cultural Immersion Program, November 2007

APAC is the Asia and Pacific Augustinian Conference. APAC is offering for the first time a six-day Cross-cultural Immersion Program. This will take place near Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Philippines on 11th-19th November 2007 (See maps below).

It is expected that participants will be both APAC religious and educators involved with social justice.

The program is being prepared by the APAC Commission on Justice and Peace, and will be centred at the Mother Rita Homes II at Candau-ay, Dumaguete City. Two of a number of addresses during the program will be given by Sr Carmeli Ma. Catan of the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation (Commission Chair) and Fr Tony Banks O.S.A. of Australia (Commission Vice-Chair).

The Immersion Program aims to offer the participants four benefits.

The first benefit is an experience on how to install a responsive and relevant induction program for agents of community development;

The second is an initial opportunity to develop and write an effective community development curriculum focusing on fostering cross-cultural understanding, peace and sustainable community development;

The third is an experience in planning to install an efficient and effective implementation, supervision and evaluation system for the project and expand the prototype model for wider community replication.

The fourth benefit is an exposure to a cross-cultural experience of immersion to a sustainable community development model.

Three full days of the program are devoted exclusively to a direct immersion experience.

Persons in Australia interested in further information or enrolment procedures for the program, contact the Order's Justice and Peace Co-ordinator in Sydney at holyspiritparish@holyspiritstclair.com.au

.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 1,300 pages of text, which also contain over 1,750 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 2,450 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 42,416 separate (distinct) visitors have used Augnet at least once, in a total of 253,380 visits (i.e., an average of eight visits each). These persons have made a total of 664,994 Augnet page visits. There was a monthly record of 37, 613 visits to Augnet during July 2007, which is an average of 1,210 visits a day.

On 12th October 2006 Augnet received 1,000 visits within one 24-hour period for the first time. On 9th June 2007 there was a new daily record of 2,314 visits attained.

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

Augustinian Ministry Websites 2007

• St Augustine’s College – Brookvale NSW Australia
  Website: www.saintaug.nsw.edu.au

• St James’ Parish – Coorparoo Qld Australia
  Website: http://www.stjames-coorparoo.org.au/

• Villanova College – Coorparoo Qld Australia
  Website: www.vnc.qld.edu.au

• Parish of North Harbour – Manly Vale & Balgowlah, NSW Australia
  Website: http://www.northharbour.catholicau.com

• St Joseph’s Parish – South Yarra Vic Australia
  Website: www.ozemail.com.au/~osasthyarra

• 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/en/default.htm

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