Well, here we are, at the end of the Advent season and about to approach the crib of the Christ-child with awe and wonder.

How are these days for you? Are they hectic and frantic as you finalise preparations for Christmas gatherings and buy those final gifts for the tree? Or will you be able to carve out even a small amount of time to ponder quietly the miracle that we celebrate.

Today I was reading the Gospel story from Luke (18:35) on the blind man who called out to Jesus and then to our amazement, Jesus asks him “what do you want me to do for you?” and the man answers, “Lord, please let me see?”. If you spend some time with this ‘parable’, and I really mean it is a parable and not simply a nice little story, you can see that it can push you to different levels of understanding, writes Fr Nick de Groot SVD.

Another way of talking about “spending some time with the parable” is contemplation. In the quiet and silence of your heart, the Word of God will bring you to a different place, to a wider and bigger understanding, a more inclusive and compassionate understanding of many things – self, others, God, and everything.

The SVD AUS Province marked All Soul’s Day this month by holding a special Remembrance Ritual for all confreres who lost loved ones during the pandemic and were not able to say goodbye in person.

In the ‘Pause to Remember’ ritual, Provincial Fr Asaeli Rass SVD invited some confreres from different countries to share their experience of loss during the period when people could not return home due to border closures.

Pope Francis has announced that former Provincial of the SVD Australia Province, Fr Tim Norton SVD, will become an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Fr Tim, who has been in ministry in Italy, will early next year join Auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell in supporting Archbishop Mark Coleridge in serving the Catholics of Brisbane Archdiocese.

Young people in SVD parishes and migrant chaplaincies in Australia will be invited to join an exciting new initiative, ‘SVD Youth’, which launched in Queensland on Sunday.

The SVD Youth is an offshoot of the SVD AUS Province’s Vocations Ministry and aims to gather young people together for mission formation and to nourish and support them in their spiritual journey.

Five young Divine Word Missionaries have been ordained to the priesthood and, if international borders remain open, will soon leave for their missionary assignments in countries across the globe.

Duc Le from Vietnam, Edward Teye from Ghana, Hai Nguyen from Vietnam and Francois Andrianihantana and Marius Razafimandimby, both from Madagascar were ordained on Saturday, November 27, by Bishop Terence Curtin, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, at the Our Lady of La Vang Shrine in Keysborough, Victoria.

Bula from Fiji, where I am at home, visiting my family, especially my mother who is struggling health-wise. What a gift it is to have our travel borders beginning to open up again.

The pandemic lockdown period gave us missionaries and many others, a taste of what it must have been like for our first missionaries, including St Joseph Freinademetz, who left their home and family knowing they would most likely never return.

Pope Francis has this evening announced that Society of the Divine Word priest Fr Tim Norton will become an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Fr Norton, who is currently in ministry in Italy, will early next year join Auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell in supporting Archbishop Mark Coleridge in serving the Catholics of Brisbane Archdiocese.

I am delighted that Fr Tim Norton SVD, a member of the SVD Australia Province, has been appointed by Pope Francis to be Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane.

Tim will be an exciting and extremely capable bishop. As a missionary and a former Provincial, he will bring to this ministry a wealth of experience in Church leadership both at the universal and local level.

Recently I was reading the book “Seeking Spirituality” by Ronald Rolheiser, reflects Fr James Aricheera SVD. I found this book to be a good guide for those who are seeking spirituality. According to him, three main things hinder one from interiority and spiritual experiences. They are “Narcissism, pragmatism and unbridled restlessness”.

To get a general understanding of them he writes, “Defined simply, narcissism means excessive self-preoccupation; pragmatism means excessive focus on work, achievement, and the practical concerns for life; and restlessness means an excessive greed for experience, an over-eating, not in terms of food but in terms trying to drink in too much of life”. When I reflected further on this, I realised that many of us have those things in us, but we are not aware of it.