Dear Friends,

As we all embark on the season of Lent, we Divine Word Missionaries of the Australia Province are also about to undertake our Provincial Chapter.

The theme of the Chapter is ‘“Your Light Must Shine Before Others” (Mt.5: 16): Faithful and Creative Disciples in a Wounded World’ and it is a theme which gives us much to reflect on.

The Provincial Chapter theme is taken from the theme for the next SVD General Chapter in Rome and it calls us to focus on three things: God, ourselves and our neighbour.

Sound familiar? Of course, it brings to mind Jesus’ great commandment: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

We can’t have our light shine before others if we do not first have that light of Christ within us. As missionaries, therefore, we cannot be of service to people unless we are firstly people of prayer, Word and sacrament. This is true for all baptised people, not just missionaries.

Once we open ourselves to the light of Christ, we are called to share that light with others. We are called to become missionary disciples. That is, followers of Christ, who are charged with sharing the love of Christ.

And, we are asked to do that here and now, in the world in which live at this moment in history. We don’t have to listen to the news for long, or look around in our communities, to realise that we live in a wounded world. People are hurting in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons. We live in a world of war, hunger, huge disparities in income, health care, education, housing, family violence and relationship breakdown. We are all called to bring Christ’s light to the wounded people and situations we encounter.

As we gather in Chapter from March 6-10, we ask for your prayers, that the Holy Spirit will help us see clearly the way forward in our individual, community and missionary lives in a way that will call us afresh to be “Faithful and Creative Disciples in a Wounded World”.

And, perhaps this Lent you could join us in reflecting on our Chapter theme in your own personal circumstances.

We are all missionary disciples, called to bring Christ’s light to others. Lent offers us the opportunity to return to the source of that light, casting aside those things that can stand between us and Jesus, so that we come to Easter, bathed in resurrection light and ready to share it.

Yours in the Word,

Fr Asaeli Rass SVD,

Provincial.