Well it’s summer time and Christmas is almost upon us. Even after all these years as a missionary in the southern hemisphere, I still love the novelty of Christmas in summer. The tradition of sitting outside on warm evenings at carols by candlelight, with children running around joyfully is a beautiful one.

And yet, we are aware that elsewhere in the world, things are not so happy this Christmas. As I write this message we are seeing unimaginable scenes of human misery coming daily from the besieged city of Aleppo in Syria. And in Berlin, people have been killed in a truck attack on a Christmas market.

Parishioners of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart parish in Alice Springs celebrated the Feast of Christ the King by coming together for Mass and then gathering at the historic Telegraph Station for a fun family picnic and barbecue.

They were celebrating the end of the Year of Mercy and the beginning of the Year of the Family which is taking place across the Diocese of Darwin as a way of responding to Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Amoris Laetitia.

SVD students from overseas who arrive in Australia for formation and theological studies are joining other priests, religious and students for specialised English language studies offered in a theological context.

The English Language School for Pastoral Ministry (ELSPM), located on the Yarra Theological Union campus in Melbourne, aims to develop skills in English in Christian and theological environment and to improve communication to a level which will enable them to participate effectively in a pastoral ministry of the contemporary Church.

The SVD AUS province has welcomed two young men into the Postulancy program in Thailand, with a view to them entering the Novitiate next year where they will begin their journey of training to be missionaries.

Chalerm Naruemankanthon and Cuong Quoc Dang have been walking with the SVDs in Thailand for some time and are now ready to deepen their commitment and discernment as Novices. Their Novitiate will take place in the Philippines, after which they will continue their formation in Australia.

Well here we are at the beginning of a new Church year in the wonderful season of Advent – those precious few weeks of reflection and preparation of heart and mind, before the great feast of Christmas.

I love it that, at this time of year, when the world is telling us to hurry up and get through the list of things to be done before Christmas – shopping, food preparation, social events – the Church is telling us to slow down, reflect, wait, repent. What a breath of fresh air that counter-cultural message is.

Brisbane’s Vietnamese Catholic community came together at St Mark’s Inala last weekend to observe the feast day of the Vietnamese Martyrs and to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the establishment of the Vietnamese Catholic community in Brisbane.

Their chaplain, Fr Joseph Vu SVD, says the celebration was an opportunity to look back and give thanks for the flourishing of this faith community which began in 1976 with the arrival of boat people who were fleeing their war-torn homeland.

I live and work in the megacity of Bangkok, which one can arguably say has some of the worst traffic in the world. In certain areas and at particular hours of the day, it can take up to an hour just to go a couple of kilometres. The many different modes of vehicles on the road—cars, buses, motorbikes, tuktuks, minibuses, and so on—make the road even more chaotic. This is not to mention that a lot of time, one has to share the road with food peddlers and pedestrians on the side of the road.

Give and take is a big virtue often practiced in this city where drivers often stop for a pedestrian to cross in the middle of the road where there is no crosswalk, or for another vehicle to turn left or right into an alley.

Life as a remote area nurse in the Northern Territory’s indigenous communities of Canteen Creek and Epenarra has its challenges, but Br John Alting SVD says he loves his work there because of the opportunity to share in the lives of the local people.

“What I love so much about my work in Canteen Creek is the ability to share in the lives of the local Alywarra people who are very fine people and work in co-operation with them to find ways that are acceptable to them to improve their health and well-being and that of their children,” Br John says.

An Acculturation Program for recently arrived priests and Religious opened new doors of understanding and acceptance for Fr Kommareddy Rajasekhar Reddy SVD (Fr Raja) and Fr Alfonsus Nahak SVD, bringing an awareness of Australian culture which they say has already had a positive effect on their ministry.

Fr Raja and Fr Alfonsus were part of a broad group of Religious women and men, and diocesan priests who took part in the Winter Acculturation Program at St Joseph’s Centre for Reflective Living, Baulkham Hills, in the Parramatta Diocese.

Fr Bernadinus (Bedi) Asmon SVD, a young missionary from Indonesia, who undertook his formation in Australia, is now living and ministering in Brazil where he has discovered that music is the common language with the people he serves.

Fr Bedi, who spent five years studying in Australia, before his final vows and ordination in 2014, has been in Brazil since March 2015.