With my time as Provincial drawing to a close at the end of this year, and still plenty of things to cross off the ‘to-do’ list, there hasn’t been much time for reflection on these past six years.

But as I write this column, it is a chance to take a few moments and consider what God has done in our Province and to give thanks for blessings received.

At the scene of the Ascension, St Luke, the author of The Acts of the Apostles, makes mention of two men dressed in white who say to the Twelve:

National Reconciliation Week in Australia is observed in the last week in May, beginning this year on ‘Sorry Day’ (Sunday 26) and continuing through to the 3rd of June. The dates for NRW remain the same each year, yet they are not random: they commemorate two significant milestones on the reconciliation journey: the successful 1967 referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision respectively.

NRW in 2019 also coincides with the second anniversary of the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’ – a statement issued by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders at their gathering in Central Australia in May, 2017.

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.