Mission News
Mrs Anna Nasr
Welcome back, and Welcome to 2023
The Mission Team hope you all managed to have a restful and rejuvenating break and a peaceful Christmas.
Our Marist Theme for 2023, imagined by the Mission and Life Formation Team is:
Created & Called - a revolution of love and tenderness
St Catherine of Siena compelled others to “Be who God created you to be and you will set the world on fire.” What an image, its drives us to get up and act!
God creates us out of love and calls us to be fully alive.
Jesus reminds us in scripture that he came so that we may have life and have it abundantly.
In 2023 how do we plan to respond to this?
In 2023 what are we called to be and to do?
In Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium he refers to a revolution of love and tenderness by explaining that there is a Marian style to the church's work of evangelisation. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness.
In her, we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves.
Contemplating Mary, we realise that she who praised God for “bringing down the mighty from their thrones” and “sending the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53) is also the one who brings a homely warmth to our pursuit of justice.
She's also the one who carefully keeps “all these things pondering them in her heart: (Luke 2:19). Mary is able to recognise the traces of God's spirit in events great and small. She constantly contemplates the mystery of God in our world, in human history and in our daily lives.
She is the woman of prayer and work in Nazareth, and she is also Our Lady of help, who sets out from her town “with haste” (Luke 1:39) to be of service to others. This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the collegial community look to Mary as a model of evangelisation.
We implore her maternal intercession that the church may become a home for many peoples, a mother for all peoples, and that the way may be open to the birth of a new world.
It is the Risen Christ who tells us, with the power that fills us with confidence and unshakeable hope: “Behold, I made all things new” (Rev 21:5).
Let’s begin the year remembering that we are each of us created and called by God, to be people of love and tenderness.
Prayers
We pray for those called home to heaven especially
- Fortunata Currenti (mother of Josephine Garbellini)
- Michael Howse (father of Andrew Howse)
- Cardinal George Pell
- Emeritus Pope Benedict
May they be welcomed into the loving arms of our loving God.
We pray for all in need in our community.
Mary our Good Mother Pray for us
St Marcellin Champagnat Pray for us
St Mary of the Cross Pray for us
And may we always remember To pray for one another
May our loving God, with Mary and Champagnat, walk with all members of the Marist family. Amen