The seminarians in the Divine Word Missionaries’ Australia Province have been hitting the road recently to spend time getting to know some of the youth in SVD parishes in Queensland and sharing their vocation stories with them.

The road-trip from Melbourne’s Dorish Maru College to the parishes of St Maximilian Kolbe in Marsden and St Mark’s, Inala, is part of the mission outreach of SVD Youth, which was established in the Province earlier this year.

SVD student, Shehan Fernando, says his pastoral experience in Central Australia has been a great learning experience in his training for life as a missionary, as he encounters Christ in the people and the land.

Shehan, who is Sri Lankan, and has been undertaking studies and formation at Melbourne’s Dorish Maru College, arrived in Santa Teresa in March, and will be based there until September when he moves on to Alice Springs.

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is one of those passages of Scripture that is very hard to understand. Jesus seems to be contradicting himself. 

Today we celebrate a feast that is central to our faith. We celebrate the real presence of Christ in the bread and the wine that we consume during Mass. We believe that after the priest says the words of consecration during Mass, the bread ceases to become bread and it becomes the body of Christ.

This Sunday, we celebrate the feast of The Most Holy Trinity, one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity. This is a celebration not as a theological discourse to be understood completely, but rather good news to be celebrated and enriched by.

With the arrival of Pentecost Sunday, our Easter journey is almost over. The concept of Pentecost as a culmination of the spiritual journey from Resurrection to the gathering in the upper room, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the reluctant disciples, rather than simply an awe-inspiring theophany, is intimated in John’s Gospel as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to the disciples, that The Advocate will come and remain with the fledgling Church for all time.

Religious are stronger when they work together in fostering their prophetic gospel voice in society, says SVD AUS Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass, who has been elected to the National Council of Catholic Religious Australia.

Fr Rass was appointed to the Council at the CRA National Assembly in November and says he has been impressed by the scope of the work being done to support Religious in this country.

More than 20 years ago, the SVD established its presence in Thailand by creating the Mother of Perpetual Help Centre to assist people with HIV-AIDS. Today, the Centre is still providing its much-needed care, along with a range of outreach services to help poor families and school students, while also educating the local community about HIV spread and prevention.

On top of that, SVD confreres are serving the poor and marginalised in rural parish ministry, supporting Vietnamese migrants in Bangkok in a series of ministries described by the Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass SVD, on a recent visitation as “truly missionary and truly inspiring”.

Parishioners from a group of small parishes across Melbourne took part in a six week ‘Breathing in the Spirit’ Lenten retreat offered by Divine Word Missionary priest Fr Gilbert Carlo, with many saying it was a life-changing experience.

Fr Gilbert says he chose small parishes like St Timothy’s in Vermont South, St Luke’s in Blackburn South, St John the Baptist at Ferntree Gully and St Peter’s in Epping, where parish retreats had not taken place for decades.

As we prepare for the special feast of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, I believe it’s more important than ever for us to be alert to the movement of the Spirit in our own lives and in the Church today.

For some time now I’ve been sensing the Spirit at work in the growing move towards synodality in our Church – that movement based on deep listening, discernment and sharing of gifts.