COVID lockdowns and restrictions have not stopped the Spanish chaplaincy community in Auckland from getting together for spiritual support and fellowship, but rather challenged them to find new ways of gathering.

Chaplain to the Spanish community, Fr Alejandro de la Sotta says the pandemic restrictions in New Zealand have resulted in the birth of a new YouTube ministry for the community.

The SVD Australia Province has launched a special appeal to raise funds for relief and rehabilitation activities for people hit by Typhoon Rai in the southern Philippines in December.

The Provincial appeal supports a worldwide fundraising effort by the Divine Word Missionaries to assist those in the Philippines who lost lives, homes and livelihoods when the typhoon caused widespread devastation.

As many Australians enjoyed a holiday break, two Divine Word Missionary students from Dorish Maru College have spent their summer in Melbourne’s hospitals, completing their Clinical Pastoral Experience.

Neftali Velasco Fabian SVD from Mexico and Cuong Quoc Dang SVD from Vietnam, who are training to be missionary priests, have been learning how to support patients in hospital – all during one of the most challenging periods for our healthcare system, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Divine Word Missionary communities throughout the AUS Province and the world have had much to celebrate in January, with the commemoration of two SVD saints – St Arnold Janssen and St Joseph Freinademetz.

St Arnold’s feast day was on January 15, the date of his death in 1909 in Steyl, Holland. He was the founder of the Divine Word Missionaries, as well as two orders of Religious Women, the Servant Sisters of the Holy Spirit and the Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration.

Welcome to our first edition of ‘In the Word’ for 2022 and the second edition of the new and refreshed design of our e-newsletter. We hope you like it!

The re-design extends right across our digital communications, including our website and our Society Matters mission magazine. It signifies the importance we place on communications as one of the key pillars of our mission.

The account in Luke’s gospel of Mary going to visit her cousin Elizabeth tells us that Our Lady “arose and went with haste” to share the joy she carried in her heart and in her womb, reflected Pope Francis in last Sunday’s Angelus address.

“She arose and went. In the last stretch of the journey of Advent, let us be guided by these two verbs. To arise and to go in haste: these are the two movements that Mary made and that she invites us also to make as Christmas approaches.”

The Arnoldus Family has this month celebrated the 125^th anniversary of the founding of the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP).

The Sisters were founded by St Arnold Janssen, who also founded the Society of the Divine Word and the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters (SSpS) in Steyl, Holland in the late 1800s.

Staff, residents and hospice patients came together at the SVD’s Mother of Perpetual Help Centre in Thailand this week to celebrate Christmas with a shared meal and fellowship.

The Mother of Perpetual Help Centre, located in Nong Bua Lamphu, in the North-East of Thailand, about 100km from the Mekong River on the Thai-Laos border, works to make a difference in the life of people living with HIV/AIDS. The Ban Mae Marie Home for Teenagers began as a home to care for orphans of AIDS, but has now been opened up for care of non-HIV-related teenagers and the elderly.

It is exactly one year since I was ordained a priest, writes Fr Clement Baffoe SVD. What has the experience been in this first year of my priesthood? For me, it's been a time of great learning. I have tried to unlearn some things and learnt new things. I have experienced love from people ranging from parishioners to many others who are not even parishioners. I have laughed with families at baptisms and weddings, I have been privileged to share in their sacred stories around meals, and also I have cried with some at hospitals and funerals. I have equally been privileged to celebrate many school Masses and liturgies and they've been opportunities for 'encounter' as I get to share stories with our beautiful students.

My first year of the priesthood has been a ministry of presence. That is, being where I am most needed at any point in time. 

The remote community of Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte) in Central Australia has once again lit up the desert sky with its now-famous Christmas lights display.

For more than 20 years the people of Santa Teresa have gone all out on the Christmas lights front, bringing the joy of the season to the Indigenous community of around 500 people.