On Mission Hill, Kensington

The Kensington community knows Mission Hill.  Perhaps some of the rest of us may not be too sure what it is or where it is.

Mission Hill is one of the missions, mission alive, of Roger Purcell, Director of the MSC Mission Office. It is a conservation, recycling project. Compost, digging, planting. And where? In the space between the Monastery and the Chevalier Resource Centre, near the wall of the Centre.

With the recent blessing of the Mission Office, there was also a gathering, MSC community and visitors, to celebrate Mission Hill. 

Photos thanks to Sean Donovan of the Mission Office.

Miriam Rose Ungenmerr, Senior Australian of the Year, Her painting at Mingarra.

When our seminary at the Croydon Monastery was sold to the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1991 and became the Croydon parish centre, the chapel extended to become the parish church, a flourishing primary school in the grounds near the cemetery and the building of homes and a residence for the elderly,

a painting by Miriam Rose Ungenmerr and its explanation were exhibited at Mingarra.

The MSC later sold Mingarra (where there are streets names after Jules Chevalier and other MSC names), but for some time chaplains included Peter Harvey Jackson, John Walker, Roger Duggan and Peter Curry.

With thanks to Brian Gallagher for the photos.

Bulletin News, Darwin, Vicar General Malcolm Fyfe MSC

As some of you may know, Father Leo Wearden has been down South since early January, initially on Annual Leave from Wadeye and for a medical check-up. Covid-19 travel restrictions have complicated his movements and extended his time there. Father Leo has authorised me to say that he will be undergoing relatively minor surgery next Wednesday but will hopefully be out of hospital after a couple of days.  He has been advised to recuperate fully down South before returning to Wadeye a week or two after Easter.

Meantime ministry at Wadeye and surrounding communities is being managed on a FIFO basis, thanks to the MGLs and the MSCs.

Following on a consultation of priests working in the Aboriginal Ministry, Bishop Charles has appointed Father Leo to be the Dean of the Indigenous Deanery and Co-ordinator of the Aboriginal Apostolate. In this capacity he will be assisted by Regina McCarthy who will attend to the Aboriginal Ministry Desk one day a week at the Diocesan Office.

THE TIWI ISLANDS

Father Francis Jayakody, who is a priest from the Colombo Archdiocese and who was working for some time in the diocese of Sale VIC, volunteered to work in the diocese of Darwin for the remainder of his Visa period. We were very fortunate in being able to arrange for this transfer, especially as we were losing the services of Father Danh Doan msc and Father Pat Mara msc (on study leave during 2021). Subsequent upon his appointment by Bishop Charles, Father Francis has settled in at Wurrumiyanga and has commenced his ministry on Bathurst Island. 

As regards PIrlangimpi and Milikapiti on Melville Island, the diocese has again been fortunate in that Father Joseph Pullanappillil CMI has chosen to return to the Top End after a number of years in Queensland. He has accepted a ministerial appointment from Bishop Charles and will be based at Garden Point. Father Joseph will arrive in Darwin on Monday March 1^st and plans to move across to Melville Island within the week. Welcome back Father Joseph!

NORTHERN TERRITORY COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Congratulations to Bishop Charles who at last week’s Annual General Meeting of the NTCC was elected to be Chairperson. This appointment is essentially a year by year one but usually turns out to be a longer term one.

AND FINALLY SOME HISTORY.

After I sent out the notice about Regina McCarthy’s appointment as Catholic Dean at Nungalinya College and mentioned her father, Peter’s lay missionary work at Daly River, I received this message from Margaret Flynn:

“I read your email about Regina McCarthy.

I just wanted to add something about the McCarthy connection. In the mid-sixties 5 McCarthy men came up to Darwin from Sydney as lay missionaries. They were Terry and his brother Eris and their 3 cousins, Peter, Bob and Harry. All of them were tradesmen and built numerous mission buildings, mainly schools. 

When I first went to Bathurst Island in 1969 Terry and Eris were both there and the other 3 men were at Daly River. Of course some stayed in the Territory a long time - Peter and Bob married women from Daly River and Terry married the lay missionary Mary Neville who was teaching at Port Keats.

So Regina comes from a wonderful family who have given so much service to the Diocese of Darwin.”

RIP, Joseph Heggelin MSC

Sad news from Issoudun

Ad Vitam Aeternam...

A few days ago, we received news that Fr Joseph Heggelin MSC,had contracted covid-19.

P. P. Jozef Hegglin, MSC passed away tonight in Nitra, Slovakia.

Born in 1946 in Lucerne. He studied philosophy in Freiburg and theology in Strasbourg, where he graduated from ThLic. He was ordained a priest in 1972 and worked in Switzerland, France, Kiribati and Slovakia.

Tribute from Robati MSC, Kiribati

He studied spiritual accompaniment for a year at ISL Institute Chicago. He has completed several courses and training in ignatian spirituality and psychology in Nebraska and Philadelphia, USA, Paris and Munich. For the past 15 years, he has been conducting spiritual exercises and various programs in the ′′ House of the Heart of Jesus ′′ in Nitra.

We entrust our brother to God's mercy.

About 13 years ago, Joe Heggelin produced a video about the new foundation in Slovakia, in 2014 he wrote to us – it is a memoir of his life and ministry.

Thanks for sending me regularly the Australian MSC Province News! I appreciate, that I am not forgotten in Australia! During my time in the Pacific Union I was for 15 years very much connected with your Province, that is why I enjoy reading its “News” and hearing from and about old acquaintances!

It might be up to me to tell you and those, who remember me, a bit about my life and work. After leaving Oceania in 1993, I was six years leader of the French Province, spent a sabbatical in Chicago and have been working since the year 2000 in Nitra. The MSCs came to Slovakia in 1994 and opened four years later a spiritual center in Lukov Dvor, two kilometers outside of Nitra. It is a very beautiful, house surrounded by a big park. We can take in some 30 people at a time.

Since 2002 four OLSH sisters from Kiribati look after the “House of the Sacred Heart” as it is called. Together with a team (Pavol, our superior, three psychologists-psychotherapists and three sisters of the Congregatia Jesu) I give courses and retreats. Several times a year we offer a 6 day "Life's Healing Journey", individual retreats, a “home made” weeklong program about self-esteem as well as weekends with various topics such as “Nonviolent Communication" etc.

We consider teaching the language of the heart - of the human heart and of the divine heart – as our mission. Jesus' heart is open to all who come to him, especially to those, who search for love, for understanding, for healing. And many people come to Lukov Dvor with wounded hearts. For the last 10 years I have been working with women, who were as children sexually abused. I am very grateful to your MSC Mission Office which has supported this apostolate financially.

Besides accompanying quite a few people in spiritual direction I got involved in still another ministry: last year the bishop asked me to become the diocesan exorcist. He knew, that I had some experiences in this area while in Kiribati. Thanks to the Australian Annals I heard about a famous Spanish exorcist, Jose Fortea, who gave a couple of talks in Sydney. I got in touch with him. In some way he has become my mentor!

Chevalier College, RE and the Eucharist, John Mulrooney MSC

Many of our students arrive at Chev without any experience of religious ritual or church involvement

and so we slowly introduce them to our ways of doing things.

At the beginning of the year, we take the Year 7 students through the experience of Eucharist

step by step explaining the purposes and significance of the ritual.

New book on Paul Stenhouse, Kensington launch, author, Wanda Skowronska

On February 27, 2021, MSC Superior, Fr Steve Dives welcomed around 70 friends to the launch of a biography entitled Paul Stenhouse MSC : A Life of Rare Wisdom, Compassion and Inspiration (2021) by Wanda Skowronska. MSC Provincial Fr Chris McPhee  read a message for the occasion from a former student of Father Stenhouse, Julian Leow, Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur who said that Fr Stenhouse had inspired him to become a priest.

Professor James Franklin launched the book saying Fr Stenhouse had a unique style of being a conservative Cultural Warrior. He added that the book expressed many sides of an "intellectual who delighted in conversation on almost anything", adding, "I remember in one conversation we moved from the alphabeticity of Ugaritic to the survival of the Lollards." 

Wanda, centre, with Paul's cousin Tricia Kavanagh

The author remarked in her speech that the scholarly nature of Fr Stenhouse co-existed with compassion for others, a little recognised poetic nature, and a gift for unmasking the illusions of the age.  She recounted stories of his journeys to China, the Ukraine, Armenia and Lebanon - and how his friends from the Caribbean had miraculously drawn him, previously uninterested in sport, to become interested in cricket.  

Chinese flautist, Chai Chang-Ning, flautist who played in films The Last Emperor and Mao's Last Dancer played the flute during the launch. Chai had met Fr Stenhouse by 'chance' and was converted by this priest whom he called 'The messenger of the living God' and played gentle melodies for him as he was dying in November 2019.  

Also present were friends from Malaysian, Armenian, Guyanan, Lebanese, Singaporean, Vietnamese and Lebanese backgrounds who will never forget the many kindnesses of their friend and many of whose stories are recounted in the recently published book. 

International Women's Day, March 8th, Chevalier Family

Acknowledging the day and its challenges, a focus on some of the women in Australia and in the Trigeneralate, Rome.

Margaret O’Loughlin

Lay MSC, Melbourne, invitee to MSC General Chapter 1999

Alison McKenzie

Secretary General, Lay MSC

Rachel Davies

Principal, Daramalan College

Michelle Vass

Director, Retreat House, St Mary’s Towers, Douglas Park  

Pauline Compton OLSH, Retreat House, Douglas Park

Anne McAtomney

Director, Chevalier Institute

Bridget Hawthorne

PA to Chris McPhee

Meta Jackman, Anne-Marie Snelling, Professional Standards and Safeguarding, Treand House

Marian England, Narita Perrotta, MSC Parish Committee

Anne Gardiner, OLSH

Bathurst Island, Senior Citizen of the Year 2017

Robyn Reynolds, OLSH

Heart of Life, YTU Staff

Mary Drum, MSC

Provincial Superior

Philippa Murphy, OLSH

Provincial Superior

Marife Mendoza, Philippines.

OLSH Superior General, Trigeneralate meetings

Barbara Winkler, USA

MSC Superior General, Trigeneralate meetings

First Friday in Lent - re-imagining 'reparation'

We hope that many of us have come across Sister Gerardine Doherty OLSH and her important article on what reparation could mean in our 21st century world.

Here are some reminders.

We used the word ‘reparation’ in a sense of penance and mortification. How can it be understood more challengingly now?

Jules Chevalier was intensely aware of the “evils of his time” and he urgently desired to restore to those wounded by such “evils” their rightful dignity, the truth of their personal value and worth.  He longed to “repair” the “image of God” where he saw it had been damaged, mutilated, de-reverenced. 

To live reparation today, I believe, is an invitation to imagine the world and one’s place in it as quite different from the existing order.  To live reparation has something to do with grieving over what has already been lost and the possibilities that have never actually been realized.   To live reparation is to feel in one’s own heart the enormous tension contained in the paradoxical truth, “Redemption is complete but not yet finished.”

I believe that the quality of our reparation would be considerably enriched if we constantly made the effort to examine, not only from the economical, ecological, and political viewpoints but also from the theological stance, the grassroots of the evils of our day.  This I think would empower us to act with greater creativity, effectiveness, and awareness of the real anxieties and urgent needs in today’s world.

Downlands MSC Pilgrimage2021

Each year Downlands College Leaders have spent the weekend on pilgrimage in Sydney and Douglas Park, furthering their understanding of the MSC mission and the role they have been called to play as leaders of our school.

At Kensington

At Treand House

Vice-Captain Max Corfield sits in the chair of MSC Provincial Fr Chris McPhee.

At St Mary's Towers

At the Ashram

Annual gathering of MSC ordained in the last decade.

Last week, under the guidance of Frank Dineen, there was a gathering for MSC’s who have been ordained within the past 11 years. They gathered at St Mary’s Towers, Douglas Park.

Two speakers facilitated sessions on ‘transition’ as many are dealing with this issue. The facilitators were Br Darren Burge fms and Eileen Glass of L’Arche.

It was a week of open and honest sharing and acknowledges the importance of ongoing formation.

Chris McPhee joined us for the last evening.

Those participating:

Patrick Mara,  Wurrumiyanga/ Bathurst Island, 2021, ACU Aboriginal Studies

Tru Nguyen, Blackburn, 2021, full time Siloam, Spiritual Directors’ program.

Krish Mathavan, PP, Moonah

Kimi Vunivesilevu, PP, Kippax

Khoi Nguyen, Blackburn, 2021, part-time Siloam program.

Thang Nhu Nguyen, Vocations Director, Coogee

Peter Anthony, from India, Randwick parish

Michael Nithin, from Indida, Kippax parish

Partholomai Paniyadimai, from India, Nightcliff parish

Doan Nguyen Danh, from Vietnam, 2020 Wurrumiyanga, 2021 full-time Siloam program

Peter Hendriks, Deputy Provincial, Treand House

Ordinarily, the young ordained come from Vietnam, not this year – covid situation.

Photos thanks to Peter Hendriks