​ Michael Whelan SM, Parish Priest of St Patrick's, Church Hill,  Sydney established the St Dympna Community in May 2018.   The purpose of the community is to provide a hospitable gathering for victims an  survivors of sexual abuse who want to be part of the Catholic community, but do not feel comfortable attending Mass. The community, of about 12 people,  meets once a month for prayer, sharing scripture, and anointing with oil.   St Dympna is the patron saint of the nervous, emotionally disturbed, mentally ill and sexually abused. Her feast day is May 15th. Saint Dympna (also: Dymphna, Dimpna ) was the daughter of a pagan Irish king and his Christian wife ...

Paul Murphy fms, Marist brother writes on a mission in Thailand:   The sweet smell of the sea and the pristine azure sky creates a positive impression. Sattahip is just 30 minutes south of the sex tourism playground of Pattaya - not that it counts for anything to our migrant families. So, take a right turn off the highway onto a long, narrow, winding road and you soon realisethat this road to the coast is a one way in but a no way out for scores of Burmese migrant families. ​ Somehow, they survive in absolute destitution and squalor, eking out a living drying hundreds of tons of silver-sided sardines for Asian markets. There is no factory here as all the salting, cooking, dryi...

​This week we   share the address of Pope Francis to participants at the International Conference on Religions and Sustainable Development Goals held at the Vatican from 7 to 9 March 2019. I greet all of you gathered for this International Conference on Religions and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability and Inclusion When we speak of sustainability, we cannot overlook how important it is to include and to listen to all voices, especially those usually excluded from this type of discussion, such as the voices of the poor, migrants, indigenous people, the young. I am pleased to see a variety of participants at this conference bringing a wide range of voices, of opin...

Fr Christian Abongbong writes from Africa:  Giving meaning and orientation of life to street boys in Dakar - Senegal In the year 2005, the Marist family (Fathers, SM Sisters, SMSM and Lay Marists) in Senegal started an association for the rehabilitation of street boys in Dakar city and also for home economics for girls in the poor neighbourhood. Keur Nazareth, as it is known now as "Nazareth Centre", takes care of street boys in Dakar. Since obtaining legal status from the Senegalese government, the team at the Centre has been working tirelessly for the rehabilitation, family and social reintegration of street boys. It is worth noting that this phenomenon is a big social problem in Sene...

​ Beginnings In 1998, Marist Mission Centre Australia began supporting a small hostel in the remote refugee camp of Maera Moo in the jungles of the Thai-Burma border.  Since then, a generation of Burmese youngsters have had somewhere safe to live – and the beginnings of education. In 2011, several young men and women from Maera Moo, 'graduates' of MMC Hostel, sought help to bridge the gap between their rudimentary camp high-school education and the possibility of tertiary studies.  In the meantime, in 2004, MMC had helped set up Australian Catholic University's ambitious initiative of an online diploma course on the Thai-Burma border. 'How can we get into the ACU course?' , the Mae...

Fr Albert Kabala sm, District Superior of Africa, writes: The creation of the agricultural project at Nkoloman in the heart of the central African forest in Cameroon, by the African Marist District started in 2015 by the buying 5 hectares of land. Till date we have planted 7,000 plants of cocoa, 13,000 plants of banana plantains, 75 fruit trees (oranges, plums, avocado, pawpaw) in addition we have a vegetable garden, pineapple farm, a poultry farm, cocoa, yams, maize, sweet potatoes and a fish farm (2,200 three species of fish) where we are using natural methods respecting nature and without chemical products. We have started a well for drinkable water at the farm. " One particularly se...

Lent is upon us, this coming Wednesday, 06 March.  In our Eco-Aware Age, and with the Call of Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, for us to grow in our Ecological Conversion, what can I do to make a difference?  One way is to eat less meat, or go without it for a selected number of days.  Global Catholic Climate Movement -  https://catholicclimatemovement.global/lent-2019/   tells us that according to Yale University and other experts, cattle ranching accounts for approximately 80% of deforestation in Brazil. Cattle ranchers cut down the forest–often illegally, and often by taking it from indigenous people–in order to graze cattle. Sources of deforestation in Braz...

​ Pat Brophy sm, NZ, writes:  I've always been interested in beekeeping. At the beginning of last year, reflecting on the call of Pope Francis, to go out to places, people and groups where the church isn't really present was an opportunity to begin beekeeping. ​ I began by attending a beekeeping course presented by the Wellington bee-keepers association .After completing the course I bought a hive last November. We now have four hives and two 'nucs'. The 'nucs' (nucleus hives) are five frames in a smaller box made up of bees, pollen and honey, and a queen cell. These are taken from an overcrowded hive, which is in danger of swarming. Out of the queen cell her majesty will emer...

Karen Dessables is Executive Director of Reach for Excellence at Marist School Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She writes from there to share about a fine initiative for students with limited opportunities and resources … "Reach for Excellence" has begun its 18 th year in Atlanta! As a program of the Society of Mary,  it prepares talented middle school students, who possess limited opportunities and resources, to succeed in college preparatory programs. "Limited opportunities and resources" means that the student's family income is "low income". Usually that will also mean that where the family lives, the public school for that area is a Title I school where a certain percentage, ...

Australian Marist Sister,  Noelene Simmons , locates human trafficking close to home. She writes...  Did you know that millions of women, men, boys and girls are trafficked each year into situations such as domestic servitude, forced labour, sexual exploitation, organ harvesting, force marriage and child slavery? Many people believe that slavery was abolished in the nineteenth century but unfortunately that is not the case. Slavery today does not involve physical but psychological chains as people are convinced they, or their families, will be harmed if they escape. Pope Francis has referred to human trafficking as "a crime against humanity". In 2015 he proclaimed the feast of St J...

  As Peter Chanel, the pro-martyr of Oceania was dying he said "Death is good for me" and this week on the Southern border, in this parish begun by the Marists in 1996 we will hear a similar refrain on this our patronal feast, from the young Felipe de Jesus, our patron and a migrant, the Proto- Martyr of Mexico, one of the Nagasaki martyrs of February the 5th, 1597. He was a Franciscan seminarian returning from Manilla to Mexico to be ordained and was shipwrecked and joined Pablo Miki and companions. He died repeating over and over again the name of "Jesus" "The night is slipping by so quickly. Tomorrow I will die executed on the cross, but I am not afraid." Here in the Rio Grande Valle...

Peter Healy sm , New Zealand Marist, names a "blessed unrest" and how a global perspective on Climate Change calls for 'ecological conversion' and the development of low carbon living…. The latest Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change Report (IPCC 2018) tells us we need to move to low-carbon lives immediately. In a prophetic appeal, this Panel of scientists is inviting humanity to transform. They are saying we need "rapid, far-reaching changes in all aspects of society". The IPCC is an international panel of scientists set up in 1988 by UN agencies to assess the science that helps us understand the risk of human-induced climate change. Since 2014 the reports have been saying we can see ...

A special project of the Marian Ecological Centre, Suva, involves the regeneration of mangroves on the shore fronts of Suva, Fiji. Director of the Centre, Fr Donato Kivi, recruited staff and students of the Marist College community for a working bee to plant mangrove cuttings on the low tide mud flats by the shore.

Fr Donato Kivi sm, the Superior of Formation House, Marist College, has embarked on a mission to create a Marian-Ecological Centre and opening a door for people to learn that through a Marian spirituality, one can grow in awareness that our Marist Charism can provide an answer to our ecological crisis today. Marist Spirituality Based on Constitution 228: The spirit of Mary is the Spirit of Humility: "Intimate union with God, and the most ardent love of neighbour." We can add a third dimension which is the care and love of all creation. The Approach: The approach begins with the Spirit of Mary, the spirit of humility. Mary the humus, the soil of God from which the WORD was made flesh and beca...