As the remote Aboriginal community of Santa Teresa in Central Australia grapples with its first COVID-19 outbreak, forcing many families into isolation, the parish is reaching out to support the people with online prayer and other pastoral care.

More than 150 people from a population of just 500 are currently isolating, either because they are infected by COVID or have been classed as close contacts.

The SVD recently led a Youth Retreat in the northern part of Fiji aimed at helping tackle the growing problem of cannabis use among young people, while also calling them to action on the issue of climate change.

The retreat was facilitated by SVD AUS Provincial, Fr Asaeli Rass, who was in Fiji on home-leave.

SVD student Shehan Fernando has become the first person from Sri Lanka to become a Divine Word Missionary, after taking his first vows in Melbourne on Sunday.

Shehan took his vows at Dorish Maru College (DMC), in the presence of his formators and fellow students, while friends and family at home in Sri Lanka watched online.

As I write this message, we have just received news that Russia has begun attacking its neighbour, Ukraine with military force.

We, in the SVD AUS Province, pray for the people of Ukraine and the whole world as a period of great instability stretches before us and we join in Pope Francis’ call for a day of prayer and fasting for Ukraine on Ash Wednesday, March 2.

Australia has gained its first Divine Word Missionary bishop with the episcopal ordination of Bishop Tim Norton SVD as Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane.

Bishop Tim was ordained at St Stephen’s Cathedral on February 22 by Archbishop Mark Coleridge, who said the appointment of an SVD bishop was in some ways unexpected, but timely, because the Church needed to be more missionary.

There’s this story about the US Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln was being briefed by his generals on the state of the war. His generals said to him, “In order to win this war, we must destroy our enemies”. The president replied, “I agree fully. We must destroy our enemies to win the war”. Then he added, “Let us make them our friends”.

Being a Christian, in this time, is not easy. To be a disciple of Jesus is very challenging, but not impossible. We call ourselves disciples because we have identified ourselves fully with Jesus’ mission; with His vision of life.

Over the past few Sundays, we have heard in the first readings a focused theme – that of ‘Hearing God’s Sacred Word’. On the Third Sunday, in the reading from the book of Nehemiah, we heard the prophet Ezra proclaiming God’s Word in the assembly of the people, after their return from exile.

COVID lockdowns and restrictions have not stopped the Spanish chaplaincy community in Auckland from getting together for spiritual support and fellowship, but rather challenged them to find new ways of gathering.

Chaplain to the Spanish community, Fr Alejandro de la Sotta says the pandemic restrictions in New Zealand have resulted in the birth of a new YouTube ministry for the community.

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.