Many years ago, I was watching a TV show about newly wedded husband and wives. It was a fun show about how well do you know your partner. They would have questions like, “What’s your favourite ice cream flavour?” “What’s your favourite footy team?” “What’s your kind of food that you like your wife to cook for you?” Sometimes, both partners would get the answer correct and sometimes they would get it awfully wrong and that’s the fun part.
The SVD Australia Province is hosting two General Visitators over the next month, who will make their way around the various districts in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand to spend time getting to know the confreres and observing our ministries in action.
Fr Yosef Masan Toron SVD, who is currently serving as the General Chairperson of the Indonesian Biblical Institute, is one of the Visitators appointed by the SVD Generalate in Rome. He is joined by Fr Jose Antunes da Silva SVD, who is Vice Superior General and was the provincial superior of Portugal.
Today is the First Sunday of Lent, and today’s Gospel is taken from the opening of Matthew, chapter 4. We hear the well known, dramatic story of Jesus’ temptations in the desert which takes place before he begins his public ministry.
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was asked, “How can we get rid of our enemies?” He then asked his generals about their war strategies so that they could win battles. Then Abraham Lincoln said, “We can get rid of our enemies by making them our friends”.
Jesus, through the Gospel this 6th Sunday of ordinary time, reminds us to live out our Christian life in the light of the moral values inspired and grounded on love, because God is love.
Sometimes I ponder what sin I regularly commit? We commit sins “in my thought, in my word and in what I have done” as we often confess and ask for God’s forgiveness before Mass.
The friends and partners in mission of the SVD Australia Province raised more than $70,000 in recent months for two special mission appeals – one to assist the people affected by the war in Ukraine and the other, to purchase a campervan for ministry to remote communities in Central Australia.
“We are very grateful for the generosity of people who donated to these special appeals,” says Mission Secretary Fr Viet Nguyen SVD.
Here in Australia the idiom “turn something on its head” is used quite a lot, especially in sports. When a team is leading by a big score and then the opponent rallies and is now in the lead, you can hear commentators saying, “The game has been turned on its head”.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
In the spirit of reconciliation, the Society of the Divine Word, Australia Province, acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, sky, and community.
We acknowledge their skin-groups, story-lines, traditions, religiosity and living cultures.
We pay respect to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all indigenous peoples of New Zealand, Thailand, and Myanmar.
We are committed to building with them, a brighter future together.