The Janssen Spirituality Centre in Boronia, Victoria, was host recently to a series of five workshops on interculturality, attended by both interested lay people and religious, including SVD students from Dorish Maru College.

The workshops were presented by Sr Cathy Solano RSM, who has a background in education and spent several years working in Africa. She also has a Master’s in Intercultural Studies from Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.

Sr Cathy says the workshops had a series of sequential themes which flow from concept and practice of interculturality.

“We began by talking about culture, explaining our understanding of what that is and discussing other terms such as multicultural and enculturation and looking at the good and bad and sometimes humours bits about cultural differences,” she says.

“Then we looked at the Culture of Encounter which Pope Francis has been talking a lot about, so this idea of being open, vulnerable and looking at things like power structures and racism.

“And we began to dig down into thinking about some of the themes if we want to be serious about being intercultural – that it’s more than just tolerating and accepting, it’s more about encountering, understanding and really, loving.”

Fr Thien Nguyen SVD, who is the Coordinator of the Interfaith and Cultural Program at the Janssen Spirituality Centre (JSC), said the workshops received wonderful feedback from those who took part, and he himself found it excellent.

“For me, it was on of the most helpful workshops I’ve done,” he says. “Because it really touched every aspect of life.

“It showed us so much about personalities, our relationships and our spirituality.

“It really helped me to be more aware of myself and what I think and feel and how I react in terms of relationships, to be attuned to my own prejudice and how this affects my thinking, feeling and actions, and how to then deal with that – to accept, embrace and transform it.

“Sr Cathy is a very down-to-earth but very creative facilitator and the people who attended all appreciated that.”

Fr Thien says he was delighted that the SVD students were able to attend some of the workshops, because interculturality is at the very essence of SVD spirituality.

“We talk a lot about interculturality in the SVD, but how to live it is another story, and sometimes we’re not that good at it,” he says.

“But these workshops helped us to go deeper into our living and into our intercultural reality and helped show us how we can put it into practice.”