Lunar New Year is a time of celebration for many across Asia and the Divine Word Missionaries in Bangkok helped Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand to mark the occasion with prayer and fellowship.

Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD says there are tens of thousands of Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand, but many of them return to Vietnam to celebrate Lunar New Year because it is close and easy to do so.

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.

As I write this reflection, we are in the early days of the new year. So I would not be far off to assume that many of us are in the middle of carrying out our new year resolutions—that is, if we chose to make them. The occasion of a brand new year has always been a popular and suitable opportunity to make some changes in our lives for the better—perhaps putting more effort and commitment into work, relationships, or personal projects than what was seen from us in the past. 

As a priest who listens to confession on a weekly basis, I am keen around this time of year to incorporate the notion of new year resolutions into the little advice that I give to those who come to me in the sacrament of reconciliation.

The SVD AUS Province has begun the work involved in joining the National Redress Scheme to support survivors of abuse by Church personnel, as part of its ongoing commitment to professional standards and safeguarding.

Fr Michael Hardie SVD, the Professional Standards Coordinator for the Province, has moved from Melbourne to the Provincial administrative centre in Marsfield, Sydney to take carriage of the work.

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.

“Be it done to me according to your word.”

This wonderful fiat, this powerful ‘yes’ to God from the Blessed Virgin Mary was the theme explored by the young people of the world at World Youth Day in Panama in recent days and it reminds me that each of us has to continually make our own ‘yes’ if mission is to thrive in our world today.

The “Visitation” story told in today’s gospel has become one of my favourite passages – thanks to two school girls.

Fr Joseph Reddy SVD is heading to Panama next month with 24 young people from the Wollongong Diocese to take part in his first World Youth Day experience.

Fr Joseph, who is assistant priest at Mary Mother of the Church Parish in Macquarie Fields, will be a chaplain to the group, which is mostly made up of teachers, aged in their 20s, from Diocese of Wollongong schools.