AUGUSTINIAN BULLETIN BOARD - September 2005

Call on the Lord for help  

When you begin to find the going hard in your fight against the lusts of the flesh, walk by Spirit, call upon the Spirit, start seeking the gift of God. And if the law for your members is fighting back against the law of your mind from the lower part, that is from the flesh, and is holding you captive under the law of sin, even that will be corrected, even that will be changed into the rights of victory. All you have to do is cry out, all you have to do is call upon him. It is necessary to pray always and not grow slack. Just go on calling on him constantly, calling on him for help. While you are still talking, he will say, Look, here I am. Next, try to understand, and you hear him saying to your soul, I am yoursalvation.

So since the law of the flesh has begun to fight back against the law of the mind, and to take you prisoner under the law of sin which is in your members, say in prayer, say in confession, Wretched man that I am. What else, after all is man? What is man, except that you remember him? Say, Wretched man that I am, because unless the Son of man had come, man would have perished. Cry out from the fix you are caught in, Who will deliver me from the body of this death, where the law in my members is fighting back against the law of my mind? For I take delight in the law of God according to the inner self. Who will deliver me from the body of this death? If you say this faithfully, say this humbly, you will receive the truest answer there can be: The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST - Augustine on the Eucharist

Manly Vale Parish Assembly

Sr Kerin Caldwell S.G.S.

The last weekend in August, which marked the annual feastdays of the mother and son saints, Monica and Augustine, saw a parish assembly begin in the Augustinian Order’s Parish of Manly Vale (Sydney). It was held in conjunction with the adjacent St Cecilia’s Parish, for which the Augustinians at Manly Vale have pastoral responsibility. Two sessions of the assembly took place on Saturday, 27 th August and the final two sessions will be presented on 4 th and 14 th September respectively.

The facilitator of all four sessions is Randall Lindstrom, who is an author, facilitator, architect and teacher. Invited guest speakers are Fr Richard Lennan, a theologian and author from the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, and Sr Kerin Caldwell S.G.S., who is the Director of the Leadership office of the local diocese. A Sister of the Good Samaritan, she has studied overseas in systems of parish development renewal.

Augustinian Formation Association (A.F.A.)

OSA student and AFA president.

The annual dinner of the Augustinian Formation Association (AFA) took place on 20 th August in St Kieran’s parish hall, Manly Vale (Sydney). As usual, the dinner was preceded by a Mass in St Kieran’s Church, Manly Vale, in which all present and deceased AFA members were remembered. The presider at the Mass was Fr Patrick Fahey O.S.A (Provincial) and Fr Peter Jones O.S.A., (Director of Formation) was a concelebrant.

St Augustine's Parish, Kyabram

St Augustine ’s Priory, Kyabram

Kyabram , Victoria must be a healthy place for, although Augustinians have lived in Kyabram for over a century, but only two have ever been buried there! The old section of the Kyabram Cemetery contains the graves of Frs Thomas Mulqueen O.S.A. and Thomas Walsh O.S.A., who died at the age of forty-two years and thirty-nine years respectively.

The inscriptions on each grave are written in Latin. Thomas Mulqueen was the first parish priest of Kyabram, and built St Augustine’s Priory (since renovated after a subsequent fire) and moved the original wooden parish church to the present parish property from its former site in Unitt Street.

He attended the blessing of the foundation stone of the present St Augustine’s Church on 3 rd July 1910, and it was a great shock to the parish when he died in a Melbourne hospital in the following November, at the age of forty-two years. His body was brought back to Kyabram for burial.

Fr Vincent Thomas Walsh O.S.A. was sent from Ireland to Rochester in 1927, and moved to Kyabram in ill health in 1933, and died there in 1937 at the age of thirty-nine years.

Under the direction of the present parish priest of Kyabram, Fr David Austin O.S.A., the graves of his two early predecessors were recently renovated. The stone work was steam cleaned, and the metal railing around the plot was given necessary minor repairs.

Commenting on the graves, Fr Austin said, “The headstones are certainly impressive, and are worthy monuments to these pioneering Augustinians in Kyabram.”

An explanation of the relative lack of Augustinian graves in Kyabram is that most of the priests there have been of Irish birth, and retired to their homeland for their final years. This was so with Fr Austin’s immediate predecessor, Fr Donal Paul Dempsey OS.A., the parish priest of Kyabram in 1988-1999, who is now retired in his native Dublin.

Villanova College, Brisbane

Through the co-operation and generosity of Fr Brendan Quirke OSA parish priest of St James Coorparoo Brisbane, Villanova College has for the past two years been able to conduct the Secondary School Choral sections of the Queensland Catholic Schools & Colleges Music Festival in the church. The remarkable acoustics of the church have drawn many compliments from participants and their conductors.

The use of St James just down the street from Villanova College, has enabled the organising committee to more effectively manage the huge Festival which attracts 5500 students from Catholic Schools & Colleges throughout the State.  Previously the Secondary Choral sections of the Festival were held at Loreto College some two kilometres from Villanova. To present the Festival in three days every August, performances occur concurrently in three venues; The newly completed Hanrahan Theatre and Goold Hall at the College and St James Church.

Students from St Laurences College Sth Brisbane performing in St James.

St Augustine’s College, Sydney

At the Father and Son Dinner 2005

The myriad activities of a busy school continue at St Augustine’s College, Brookvale (Sydney). The required process of state assessment for the renewal of the college’s public accreditation took place recently, and a maximum five-year period of registration was accorded.

A Father and Son dinner in the college’s Brimson Centre was attended by over 500 participants. These dinners have been a regular activity in recent years. Also frequently-held with a “father and son” motif has been a “sleep out for the homeless.” Students and staff erect tents on the field in front of the college and sleep there overnight. As is the practice with college walkathons, the participants obtain sponsors, and the money raised in this instance goes to charity groups that aid the homeless. Over a hundred “slept out” this year on the chilly night of 20 th August, younger students in the company of their fathers.

Seven hundredth Anniversary

St Nicholas O.S.A.

The first member of the Order of Saint Augustine to be officially canonised (i.e., officially declared by the Church to be a saint) was Nicholas of Tolentino O.S.A. (1245-1305). The year 2005 marks the seven hundredth year since his death. Numerous ceremonies and publications have highlighted this anniversary in various parts of the Augustinian world.

In the Australian Province of the Order of Saint Augustine, a special issue of the quarterly publication, “The Augustinian” has been released. Printed in colour, it details the life and works of Nicholas. This publication is reproduced on this web site. Go to http://www.augustinians.org On the home page, click on “Current News”, and then click on “The Augustinian September 2005.”

Copies of “The Augustinian” are distributed free of charge in Augustinian parishes and schools. Anybody else desiring a paper copy can request one by e-mailing the Provincial Office at osaadmin@bigpond.com

Australians go to Cebu

Fr Laurence Mooney O.S.A.

An association called the Order of Saint Augustine in the Asia and Pacific (OSAAP) includes the Augustinian jurisdictions in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. In the second half of August it is offered members of the Order a five-day course in Augustinian Spirituality, which is open to both Augustinians in initial formation and to those who have already completed their initial formation.

The venue for the course was the Talavera Retreat House, Cebu, Philippines. Five Augustinians from Rome, the United States, Australia and the Philippines are making presentations. From Australia, Fr Laurence Mooney O.S.A. (Centre of Augustinian Spirituality, Greystanes, Sydney) spoke on the topics, Prayer in Augustine, and The Search for God. So as to make it possible for more to attend, the course was repeated twice during a three-week period.

A second member of the Australian Province at the course was Brother Min Tan Hoang O.S.A., who was attending as a participant. Tan’s attendance gives him the additional bonus of meeting - and in some cases re-meeting – other young adults in Augustinian formation.

The involvement of two Augustinian presenters from Rome was made possible by a decision of the Augustinian International Institute of Spirituality in Rome to offer speakers to Augustinian spirituality courses elsewhere in the world during the Augustinian jubilee years of 2004-2006. At Cebu from Rome were Fr Miguel Angel Keller O.S.A. (chairman of the Roman institute) and Fr Eusebio Berdon O.S.A. (Assistant General).

Augustinian Spirituality Centre

Misty morn, Greystanes.

The Centre for Augustinian Spirituality at Greystanes (Diocese of Parramatta) not only offers a schedule of retreat days and courses that are open to the public but also caters for specialist groups such as the members of the Order of Saint Augustine and the lay staff at Australia’s two Augustinian colleges (upper primary and secondary education).

Over the past three years, at least five programs a year have been presented by the Augustinians at Greystanes to staff members of these two colleges, viz., St Augustine’s College at Brookvale (Sydney) and Villanova College at Coorparoo (Brisbane).

In recent times special three-day programs at Greystanes have been undertaken simultaneously by staff of both Augustinian schools. Having staff from both colleges at the same programme offers the added advantage of the staff at both colleges coming to know one another better.

For details about forthcoming activities at the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality, click here.

International Congress on the Laity

Fr Paul Maloney and Margaret Bourke

The second international Augustinian Congress on the Laity will take place in Rome next year on 12 th-18 th July 2006. This has been announced in Australia by Fr Paul Maloney O.S.A. (Greystanes), who will accompany to the congress a number of participants from Australia.

Fr Maloney is a member of the international Augustinian Commission of the Laity, which comprises Augustinians and laity from different nations. The Commission conducted its first international congress in Rome in July 1999, which seven Australians attended.

Since that time Fr Maloney and a local committee has organised two national Augustinian lay congresses in Australia, which took place at Echuca, Victoria in April 2001 and at Brookvale (Sydney) in October 2004.

Fr Maloney is offering the 2006 congress participants a ten-day group experience in Italy, being five days at the congress in Rome and five days at this famous Augustinian monastery in Tuscany. For further details, he can be contacted at the Centre for Augustinian Spirituality, 2 Hewitt Avenue, Greystanes, NSW 2145 (phone 02 9361 0340) or by e-mail at paulmal@bigpond.com.au

World Youth Day

Relaxing in Korea on the way to Germany.

At the time this is being written, World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, has not yet happened. Three Augustinians priests from Australia are participating with a total of twenty-two young adults from three Augustinian parishes: St Clair (Diocese of Parramatta), Manly Vale (Diocese of Broken Bay) and Mareeba (Diocese of Cairns).

The fourteen young adults and their four adult supervisors from Manly Vale and St Clair stopped with the Augustinians in Incheon, Korea as they changed flights. The accompanying photo indicates that the World Youth Day experience had its karaoke moments in Korea!

Two of these young adults, Michael de la Cruz (St Clair) and Louella Granquist (Manly Vale) have been selected in a group to meet the Pope. There are 2,000 young Australians among the anticipated 800,000 participants. A report of the Cologne experience will appear here next month (early October).

In Korea for twenty years

The three Australians

At the time this page is being prepared, the Augustinians in Korea are approaching the twentieth anniversary of their arrival in that ancient nation. The three Australian Augustinians in Korea will be very much part of this anniversary. Two of them have served in Korea for all of these twenty years, and the third for the past seventeen years.

Augustinians from Spain and Mexico sailed the Pacific from Mexico to settle in the Philippines from 1565 onwards, and later moved to Japan and China, only eventually to be persecuted and expelled from both of that nations. American Augustinians brought the Order back to Japan in 1953.

Presently the most recent Asian nation to receive Augustinians, Korea in September 1985 saw the arrival of Augustinians from the Australian and Anglo-Scottish Provinces, and subsequently the replacement of the Englishmen with members of the Province of Cebu ( Philippines). By now, however, the majority of Augustinians in Korea are native-born.

Two Augustinians and two persons twenty years of age

The adjacent photograph of four persons was taken especially for the twentieth anniversary. The fact that there are no Australians in the photo is a sign of the growth and Koreanisation of the mission in the twenty years since its inception. This is especially seen by the presence at the left side of the photo of Brother Barnabas Jeong-Dok Kim O.S.A., who is superior of the Augustinian Region of Korea. The two young adults in national costume are twenty years old – born in 1985 when the first Augustinians arrived. At the right of the photo is Very Rev Robert Prevost O.S.A., Prior General

Three student Augustinians gardening.

To commemorate the Augustinian twentieth anniversary in Korea, there will be a Mass of Thanksgiving in Incheon on 5 th September. As an indication of the Koreanisation of the Augustinian mission, the photo shows three of the numerous young men in Augustinian formation all ready for gardening at the Priory of St Nicholas of Tolentine at Kang-Hwa, under two hours’ drive from Incheon.)

Asia Pacific Augustinian Conference (APAC)

An APAC delegate from Australia

Two members of the Australian Province were delegates at the APAC convention in Incheon, Korea 24th-30th July 2005. Elected as the new APAC President at that gathering was Fr Michael Sullivan O.S.A., who is Australian-born and now serving his twenty-first year in Korea. Since the convention, Augustinians of the Province of Australia have been appointed to the APAC Executive and to every one of the APAC commissions: Spirituality/Formation, Communications, Social Justice, and Youth. For current news of the religious congregations within APAC, click here.

Augustinian Sisters in Sydney

(At right) Sr Joan in the Philippines.

For the past three years, Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation have worked in Sydney at the Augustinian parish of Manly Vale and at St Augustine’s College in the adjacent suburb of Brookvale.

FOR SOME CURRENT NEWS ABOUT THE ORDER OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA Click here

AUGUSTINIAN CENTRE FOR SPIRITUALITY PROGRAM 2005
2 Hewitt Avenue
Greystanes 2145
Enquiries 9896 6794
www.augustinians.org.au/communities/greystanes.html