September 2010
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.
June 2010
I’m sitting down to write this little editorial contribution on Trinity Sunday. So among other thoughts my mind is trying to uncover something of the Mystery of God, and hoping to share that during today’s celebration of Eucharist.
March 2010
I am looking forward with enthusiasm to sharing with Peter Maher the responsibility for editing The Swag for the next two years. This provides a new opportunity to offer a contribution to our lives and ministry as ordained priests across Australia and New Zealand. My own journey in life began in Toowoomba, Queensland, nearly 75 [...]
December 2009
G K Chesterton once wrote that Christianity may be right or it may be wrong, but it is uniquely right or wrong. Alone among the world’s faiths Christianity has as pivotal to its understanding of God’s revelation to humanity the historical fact of the birth of a baby in a stable in an outlying province of the Roman Empire.
September 2009
History shows that the message of the Gospel has been best radiated by the Church when Christianity has been persecuted or greatly at odds with the culture of the day. Pope Benedict has chosen the counter-cultural John Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars, as Patron Saint for the Year of the Priest.
July 2009
Benjamin Disraeli in 1845 launched his book Sybil, The Two Nations. It spoke of the chasm between the gentry and the working class in England. As Disraeli saw it, there were two nations in one England. In Australia today can we speak of two classes in one Church? The gap is not between the haves [...]
April 2009
The oft quoted words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador are even more relevant today than they were in 1980, the year of Oscar’s martyrdom: “We are workers, not master builders, ministers not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
