Divine Word Missionaries played an active role in the ‘Mission: one heart, many voices’ conference, held in Sydney this month, offering presentations and reflections as part of three days of exploring the themes of truth-telling, reconciliation and synodality.

Bishop Tim Norton SVD, who was a keynote speaker at the conference which was presented by Catholic Mission and Catholic Religious Australia, invited those present to not only seek truth-telling at a national level, or in the Church, but also to look for truth-tellers in their own lives.

“Truth-telling is this idea of openly sharing historical truths, particularly after periods of conflict to allow societies to move forward in an inclusive way, based on justice and based on human rights,” he said.

“Truth-telling can involve activities at all levels, local, state, national. And you can do this in schools, you can do it in ceremonies, and you do it with public art. There are all sorts of creative ways in which to do truth-telling.

“And whilst it’s very important nationally for any country, it’s really effective if you can do it locally, because locally is when you actually involve relationships between people, leading to deeper respect and deeper understanding.

“The more we can do that at local levels, the more chance we have to do it at national levels. So, it sort of comes from the ground up.”

Bishop Tim said truth-telling and dialogue are integral parts of the synodal process being put forward by Pope Francis and that mission is at the heart of that process.

“It’s a path for mission,” he said. “And indeed, the theme for the Synod on Synodality is ‘Communion, Participation and Mission’.

“There are various ways we can think about reconciliation, but this absolutely is mission. And this will often involve story-telling and this has to be synodal, it has to be all of us working together.”

Bishop Tim pointed out that Pope Francis has said that mission also requires prophecy.

He said in his own life he enjoys “rubbing shoulders with people who have a bit of prophet in them”.

One of those people was Sr Anne Jordan PBVM, the former director of Cana Communities, a Christian community providing friendship and support for people living with mental illness and addiction, and with whom Bishop Tim has had a long association, including living in a Cana Communities house in the period leading up to his ordination and first mission assignment to Mexico.

Another prophet he had met since becoming Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane last year was Deacon Gary Stone, a former military veteran who works with veterans in Brisbane, many of whom have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other challenges.

“Almost every week, one young veteran commits suicide. So, Gary is galvanised to do something about that,” he said.

And over Easter, Bishop Tim said he was invited to take part in a walk from Brisbane to Cherbourg with Brisbane man Roby Curtis, the founder of the Emmanuel City Mission drop-in centre.

Cherbourg is a largely indigenous community and Roby had met a number of people from there over the years at the drop-in centre and he wished to honour their story by walking the 300km journey to their country, raising funds along the way for Emmanuel City Mission.

“So, I did five of the seven days of the walk,” Bishop Tim said. “We did 50km a day, and no one was more surprised than me that we actually did it.”

Each day of the walk, they had a different prayer intention.

“One day it was for people with mental health, another day for people suffering addictions and the next day it’s about families who’ve lost people to the streets or lost people to addictions, praying for those family members. It was very, very meaningful.

“There’s a touch of prophet in this young bloke (Roby) and he’s not afraid to talk about his faith and how it determines who he is in life and that really teaches me something.”

Following the walk, they returned to the drop-in centre in Brisbane and celebrated Easter Sunday Mass.

“Surrounded by our indigenous brothers and sisters, it was as if Jesus was saying: Tim, this is why you just walked to Cherbourg, because of this, because I’m here, I’m right here.

“And it all just became clear to me. So, the prophet, in a sense, led me to that point of clarity. We need these prophets in our lives.

“We need them to tell the truths that they know from their mission spaces. They’re trying to truth-tell to us and we need to listen to that truth.”

On the final day of the MOHVM conference, SVD Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass, was asked to give a reflection on the three days of the gathering.

In his reflection he drew from the gospel story of the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35), when the disciples encounter Jesus on the journey and ask, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us when he spoke?’

Fr Rass said the speakers, who also included Dean Parkin from The Voice ‘Yes’ campaign and Chiara Porro, the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See, along with a range of workshop presenters, including Fr Prakash Menezes SVD and parishioners Dolores Furber and Paula Turner from Alice Springs Parish, all elicited a ‘Road to Emmaus’ response from those attending the conference.

“I think that as we listened to all the speakers, we felt as though they were explaining the scriptures to us in our daily life,” Fr Rass said.

“It was very powerful, the sharing of these people.”

Fr Rass said the authentic gospel testimony of the speakers was all the more powerful, coming in the context of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, the impact of institutional clericalism, the struggle of how to involve women more fully in Church leadership, and the reality of many religious orders whose numbers are going down and the call to for all lay people to live out their baptismal vocation.

“But despite all this, the disciples walking back to Emmaus from all that had happened in Jerusalem with the suffering and death of Jesus, found life and resurrection in sharing what that they had seen in Jerusalem,” he said.

“Who knows if this crisis and our woundedness is providing a good launching pad for a healthier, more compassionate Church?

“The message from our speakers was not to give up on the walk to Emmaus, that hope can be found in the experience. They found Jesus in all of this and so will we if we look for him, if we engage in honest dialogue with the people we meet along the way, such as Bishop Tim’s walk with his lay prophetic friends in Brisbane.

“It is a holy process. We need to keep tending the missionary flame, keep listening, don’t give up, stay faithful, even when the walk becomes difficult because that’s where the hope is.”

Ten SVD members, from Australia and PNG, attended the conference.

PHOTOS

TOP RIGHT: Bishop Tim Norton (bottom lefthand corner) giving his presentation to the MOHVM conference in Sydney.

MIDDLE LEFT: The SVD contingent at the MOHVM conference (missing from photo, Fr Prakash Menezes SVD).

BOTTOM RIGHT: The mission conference attracted delegates from ministries across Australia and beyond.