Leadership for mission is based on inclusivity, dialogue and encounter and it must be deeply anchored in a trusting relationship with God and a desire to share the joy of the Gospel, a visiting US religious sister told the recent Mission: One heart many voices conference in Sydney.

Dr Carol Zinn ssj, a Sister of St Joseph from Philadelphia and Executive Director of the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious, was a keynote speaker at the conference co-hosted by Catholic Mission and Catholic Religious Australia.

It’s marvellous the power that words can have to focus our attention and efforts, especially when they are distilled down into a motto.

This has certainly been the case for me since learning of the new motto for the Society of the Divine Word: ‘Faithful to the Word, One with the People’.

The SVD Thai District recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Divine Word Missionaries’ presence in Thailand.

The anniversary was marked during a gathering of the confreres for their quarterly recollection, where, in a spirit of prayer they gave thanks to God for blessing the Thailand mission over the years.

There’s nothing quite like on-the-ground experience for young missionaries in training, and the SVD Overseas Training Program aims to provide exactly that.

The Overseas Training Program (OTP) started in the AUS Province and is now seen an important part of SVD formation around the world.

The chaplaincy relationship between the Divine Word Missionaries and Melbourne’s Indonesian Catholic community recently notched up its 25th anniversary, with the links between the two having grown strongly over the decades.

Fr Frank Gerry SVD was the first Divine Word Missionary assigned as chaplain to the Indonesian community in Melbourne during his time as Rector of Dorish Maru College from 1993-1999.

Among the new missionary students to arrive in Australia for the start of the academic year are two young men from Mexico.

Neftali Velasco Fabian and Ruben Aguirre have travelled across the world to continue their SVD formation and academic studies with the AUS Province at Dorish Maru College in Melbourne.

About 25 years ago while on retreat I read a book by the Scripture scholar, Dominic Crossan, entitled The Historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.

The SVD AUS Province is heading into a year of transition in 2019 with the election of the new Provincial and Provincial Council.

Fr Henry Adler SVD has served his two terms as Provincial and the process will soon get underway to elect his successor.

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.

The SVD formation house, Dorish Maru College (DMC) in Melbourne, is a ‘full house’ as students begin to return for the start of the academic year and new staff arrive to take up their assignments.

Rector of DMC, Fr Michael Knight SVD, says that when everyone returns from their summer home leave and retreats there will be 21 people in the house, from all over the world, including four new missionary students.