Education: Giving Wings To the Soul

In early July this year, I listened to some moving stories about education. We were hosting some guests from Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins – a consortium of Jesuit universities and colleges established in 2006 – which now offers higher education to camp-based refugees in ten different sites around the worl

The Greatest Gift of All

This time of the year can often seem to revolve around gifts, and by gifts I mean presents, gloriously wrapped in boxes with expensive cards and ribbon. Yet the paradox is that as Christians, we celebrate the birth of one who was laid in a manger, whose parents had to travel by donkey and had no place to stay once they arrived in Bethlehem.

Our Community of Prayer - September, October, November

Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network

Homo homini lupus – ‘man is a wolf unto man’ – is one of those lapidary phrases that has been passed down to us in a most interesting lineage. Originating with Plautus, the Roman poet, and approvingly cited by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, and later by his spiritual heir Sigmund Freud in his Civilisation and its Discontents, it is a phrase that captures a deeply pessimistic, and sadly, popular view of human nature

Faith & Spirituality in Review

God in the Top End

When I first arrived in Darwin, my family took me for fish ‘n’ chips at Cullen Bay. We sat in the grass before the beach and ate golden snapper. As I watched the sun go down, the sky went from blue to pink to a dark purple: God the artist at his canvas

From little things big things grow

Anne Lanyon, Coordinator of the Centre for Peace Ecology and Justice, had been running the formation program Growing a Culture of Peace for about seven years when Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment was published. ‘I’ll tell you what it felt like,’ said Anne of the moment when Laudato Si’ was unveiled. ‘It felt like pushing a barrel of bricks for years, and then suddenly you’ve got someone helping you push it.

The zero waste home

Meet the Carter family. Parents Oberon and Lauren and their three daughters live on an 850-square-metre, flat, suburban block, 15 minutes outside of Hobar

Everything is connected

One of the qualities I most appreciate about Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’ , is his commitment to the very Ignatian belief that everything is connected. Everything belongs. Unsurprisingly, the Pope reveals his Jesuit connection by linking all of us to creation: ‘We are part of nature, included in it, and thus in constant interaction with it (LS 139).

Praise be to you, caring for creation

‘Praise be to you’ is the English translation for the title of the Pope’s encyclical (Laudato Si’) a 184-page document that was released on 24 May, 2015

Our Community of Prayer - June, July, August

The Pope's prayer intentions, calendar of saints and reflections on the liturgical readings for each day of the month. Click here to visit the website

Do gooders and justice doers

There is a distinction between a do-gooder and a person who lives guided by values of mercy and justice. Do-gooders can be motivated by giving from their surplus and simply offering short-term relief. This often keeps the victim indebted. Justice requires us to stand with those who suffer. In such solidarity we are affected and…