Fairly obviously, whenever two hundred and fifty people gather to share experiences and to be challenged by experienced and thought-provoking speakers there will be two hundred and fifty different responses and memories.

Something of the richness of the experience of the recent NCP convention in Parramatta is conveyed in the pages of this Spring edition of The Swag. Peter and I thank those who have taken time to write down their reflections on the convention experience and made them available to publish in our magazine. There’s a wide range of responses – all valuable.

In this short editorial section, I want to share some of my own reflections.

Firstly, on behalf of all who participated, and indeed of the sponsoring body the National Council of Priests of Australia, a sincere thank you to the Parramatta organizing Committee and to all who contributed to the gathering. Be assured it was all very worthwhile!

I carry away from Parramatta a few special things:

• There is a renewed sense of being part of a brotherhood – not in any way over or against the sense of being part of the Body of Christ through Baptism – but special in its own right. To spend time, quality time, with 250 others who share the responsibility and the gift of ordained priesthood renews my energy, challenges my faithfulness, opens up new paths and rekindles the fire!

• I was captured by Donald Cozzens’ opening remarks about living fully in the present time. The past with all its treasures and limitations is past: the future is only dreams. What is God asking of me/us in the now of today?

• A number of times and in a number of different ways, spurred on by our keynote speakers, I found myself questioning again why we so often condemn or want to distance ourselves from the “secular” world. Is not the real world “full of the goodness of God”? Is it not the real flesh of the world that God embraces in the incarnation of the Son? I am very happy and privileged and challenged to be a “secular priest”! Being faithful to Jesus surely means entering fully into the Incarnation.

• There were other reminders too – Karl Rahner’s prediction and dream that the Christian of the 21st century will need to be a contemplative person and the underlining of the value of being humiliated and embracing our frailty and humanness with scrupulous honesty. Before every Easter Sunday there is a Good Friday: before every Resurrection to new life there is a death of what was.

Please God this issue of The Swag will be a useful contribution to the renewal of energy and the clarifying of vision within the ordained Priests of Australia and New Zealand – and beyond them to the whole Church.

Hal Ranger, co-editor

For me the NCP convention was a profoundly challenging, inspiring and disturbing experience all at the same time.

Donald Cozzens’ dual challenge to recall times when we felt the brotherhood of the priesthood both strongly and as a sham left me feeling disturbed because it was clear that this valued “brotherhood” could be a sham. Bishop Geoff Robinson receiving an award to the lengthy standing ovation of over 250 people present at the NCP dinner will long live in my memory as a moment symbolising the importance of authentic and honest leadership in church. Geraldine Doogue’s careful analysis of the failure of the church to embrace the standards and values now found in the corporate world’s restructuring processes was a shocking indictment on our church practice.

It was Thursday morning’s Reconciliation Service that offered space to make connections and integrate ideas. Michael Whelan’s careful breaking open of the Emmaus journey invited us to let the unreconciled edges of our church and ministry touch us. This caused me to think about two painful events in my life that came from Donald Cozzens’ questions about the “brotherhood”.

I recalled being told by the bishop that I could not be made a parish priest because he “had no confidence in my pastoral care of people”. After 25 years of commitment to the diocese it is no wonder that I felt hurt. This was not because I wasn’t becoming a parish priest, but because my commitment to the people was my passion. Of course it was a bully tactic to punish me for standing alongside the people. That it was untrue made it no less painful and somehow added to the disappointment – it was an example of clerical power misguided. It showed the brotherhood of the priesthood to be a sham. The second was being told by the next door parish priest that I was “not welcome in his church” as he waved his finger at me. This did some violence to any notion of “brotherhood”. I was angry not because he didn’t want me in his church, but because his actions were such cause for scandal amongst the parishioners, who as it happened, did want me in “his church”.

Those quiet moments in St Patrick’s Cathedral were healing for me as Michael Whelan reminded us that when the disciples were downcast on the Emmaus road, Jesus walked with them for a while in the wrong direction so he could accompany them through the pain into the light and on their return to Jerusalem to be with the community. I didn’t realise how much these events held me downcast, even though the first was 20 years ago.

The power of this moment of recognition made the convention worthwhile for me, but there was so much more. I was delighted by the challenging talks and forums and yet the dysfunctional church was never far away. Who are we when we gather without the women, lay folk and children of the church? What does it mean for us to discuss these matters of importance still firmly in the clerical cast? It had a strange comfortability, yes at the edge at times but not edgy enough when we think of what has happened to the “brotherhood”, but more tellingly, what has not yet happened.

Peter Maher, co-editor