The Record Newspaper 21 December 1989

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Cassidy 1110VeS Up AUSTRALIAN-BORN PRIEST NOW IN TOP VATICAN POST VATICAN CITY: The Australian born diplomat who has understudied the Holy See's chief strategist in Eastern Europe will now head the Church's ecumenical thrust in the same direction.

Former Wagga diocesan priest Archbishop Edward Cassidy, 65, succeeds Cardinal Willebrands in the critical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

He thus becomes the chief Vatican negotiator in the discussions that will have to take place with the Russian Orthodox Church in the process of the legalisation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church (see stories on P. 12 and 13) expected after Gorbachev's Vatican visit.

As assistant to Cardinal Casaroli, Archbishop Cassidy went to Moscow last month along with Cardinal Willebrands to set up talks with the Orthodox Church.

"There are a lot of problems which have to be faced," said the archbishop.

"There are churches which have to perhaps change from one church to another. There are people who go to worship now in the Orthodox Church who would, if they had the possibility, worship in the Christian Catholic Church," he added.

The situation has been complicated by Catholic takeovers of several Orthodox churches formerly belonging to the Ukrainian church. This has angered Russian Orthodox officials and sparked a joint Vatican-Russian Orthodox communique pledging peaceful solutions to the problems.

Archbishop Cassidy helped draft the communique.

"The Orthodox Church has expressed its anxiety about a peaceful development and that there not be violence and confrontation or aggressive attitudes," Archbishop Cassidy said.

"We don't want this to develop into a religious struggle," he said.

The aim is "to develop along the road of sister churches working out their problems in dialogue and Christian brotherhood", he said.

Archbishop Cassidy has gained world experience in his Vatican diplomatic postings to India, Ireland, El Salvador and Argentine and later as delegate to Taiwan, Bangladesh, Burma, Lesotho, South Africa and a final four years in Holland before getting his Rome posting in 1988 as chief co-ordinator of the pope's departments and commissions.

Cardinal Willerbrands, 80, who he succeeds has towered over the Church's ecumenical work for 20 years from the days he was credited with steering through the Second Vatican Council its decrees on ecumenism, religious liberty and non-Christian religions.

Here's my wish A message from His Grace Archbishop Foley to the people of Perth, Christmas 1989.

As I prepared for my recent 10 day visit to Cambodia, I reflected on the sufferings of the people there, a people that have known death, fear, poverty and the division of friends and even family. What does the celebration of Christmas mean in such a context, for us, for them?

The small number of Catholics in Cambodia have survived the horrors of civil war and of systematic persecution. They

have been deprived of Church leadership and yet they have kept their faith alive prayer through groups, without the direct help of bishops, priests or religious.

Australian Catholic Relief has been involved in developmental work, particularly in health, agriand culture education, for the people of Cambodia as a whole.

We are one of many international agencies working to assist the Cambodian people reconstruct their lives and their economy.

Our work is not missionary work in

LOVE RESPECT PEACE the traditional sense of seeking converts but is the missionary work of sharing the burden of the poor and being Christian in what we do.

To visit Cambodia is to recognise the need for a real expression of the universal love of God, the need for reconciliation with the many refugees in camps on the Thai borders, the need for respect for human dignity and human values.

The yearnings of the Cambodians are part of the deep yearnings of the world for Christ and his message of true peace. This is indeed the message of Christmas.

The coming of Christ on earth, true man and true God, is the ultimate expression of the universal love of God. Christ brings reconciliation between God and mankind. He demonstrates the value of each human person, apart from wealth or strength or power.

My wish at Christmas is that: • we reflect on the infinite, limit-less, universal love of God

for all men and women wherever they are, whatever they do; • we recognise and respect the human dignity of each person, no matter how bad, or how different they may be; • we experience peace, not just the absence of war, but peace that flows from good relations with others, that is based on respect for God's love, recognition of the dignity of each human person, and willingness to reach out in love to others in our family, in the neighbourhood, in the nation and in the world.

olin early kick off...

CATHOLIC MIGRANT CENTRE TREATS 100 REFUGEES TO PICNIC AT THE PARK 66.

4.1 A few refugee kids playing soccer with a group sponsor.

Christmas came early Salvador and Cambodia get themselves tied up in on the ground in shaded What's more they As the spirit of Christ- side the country of his for more than 100 — began arriving in knots as the boys cleverly areas and at their meals. treated their "guests" mas rang out one could nationality andis unable n ewly -arrived steady streams from dribbled the ball past Some preferred to eat with warmth, concern, not help but reflect on or, owning to such feat, is refugees. them and passed the ball standing. and respect — irrespec- the circumstances under unwilling to avail him- " 11am.

They were treated to a The picnic spot swelled on to their mates like There was plenty to eat tive of race, colour or which most of these self of the protection of people came here. that country; or who, not and drink and no matter creed. picnic, organised by the with smiling faces by little professionals.

Catholic Migrant Centre, noon and the children of Soon it was time for what they chose, one Most of the refugees Perhaps the definition having a nationality and at King's Park late last these refugees were seen some tucker and in an thing was evident — they came to Perth less than of refugees as spelt out in being outside the counmonth. running all over the organised and orderly all had a hearty meal and six months ago and most the 1951 United National try of his former habitsprawling King's Park fashion, the refugees enjoyed the outing. such first the It was of them spoke little Convention, might be a ual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, is picnic organised by the grounds as they let helped themselves to an It must have been a very English, fractured Eng- sad reminder It says: range of food appetising unwilling to return to it." themselves go. all.

CMC. satisfying and rewarding lish or no English at "Owing to well-founded tables. across three laid the CMC experience for concentrated Present there were The boys But with the sustained fear of being persecuted Happily, however, one group sponsors and staff on soccer while the 0•Is Included on the "menu" staff and the local group help of the CMC and for reasons of race, can walk away knowing : occupied their time on was roast chicken, meat supporters. of the CMC. group sponsors it won't religion, nationality, and feeling, that we have 0`4 cuts and salad.

They obviously derived be too long before these membership of a partic- people in Perth who care.

Driven to their venue, skipping ropes. the newcomers — they Occasionally the girls And in true Australian immense happiness to refugees will be able to ular social group of People who are Christian get their message across. political opinion, is out- in words and in deeds. came from Chile, El would join the boys and style the newcomers sat see others happy.

It's time for some tucker and Catholic Migrant Centre's staff, group sponsors and refugees help themselves to a hearty meal.

e pleasure that caring brings

What joy does one get helping refugees or migrants in a new environment?

"Plenty," said John Cochrane.

John is one of the many caring people in Perth who volunteered his services in refugee work.

As such he Oyes moral support and practical assistance to refugees whenever possible.

2

John said that getting involved in refugee work has helped open his eyes more to the plight of such people.

A father of four, John said that he was so much involved in work as group sponsor that he even neglected his family.

"When they pointed this out to me, I was forced to withdraw from some assign-

ments and call on other members of the group to help out," he said.

But John is still active and interested in refugee work because he cares.

Being a member of the Focolare (a Christian formation), he answered a plea by the Catholic Migration Centre for volunteers to help out in refugee work.

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

He attended a few lectures conducted by the CMC and soon was able to tackle the task ahead with greater confidence.

Before he was in direct contact with CMC, John as member of the Focolare, had looked after an Asian couple. That was in early 1987.

But he has found working hand in hand with the CMC a

"tremendous challenge".

His most recent responsibility was to look after a young Chilean couple with a baby.

His job has been to make them feel at home and as part of the community.

And that work involved making sure that the family had a

roof over their heads, furniture and some money via the Social Security system.

John said that part of the group sponsors job was also to help these refugees out with their personal problems.

"It has been a real eye-opener. I have derived a lot of satisfaction in making

these people feel at home," he said.

He felt that his involvement in refugee work has also helped open the eyes of his children whose ages range from 13 to 23.

"They have not said anything to me personally, but I would like to hear their comments in 10 years' time," John added.

More on our cover Our cover, Mother and Child, relegated to the background of by well-known West Austral- national consciousness. ian artist Elizabeth Durack, "It is heartening to know that follows in the tradition of at last we are becoming alerted interpreting the Madonna to the importance of Aboriginal and Child theme symbolically welfare in its many aspects, through cultural expressions beginning with family life and appropriate to the age. the family, such as has always

In this case the medium is been the centre of missionary Aboriginal, derived from the endeavour.

Durack family's long associa"Around 40 years ago my sister tion with Aboriginal people in Elizabeth painted a series of the North West.

Of the water colour, Eliza- Mother and Child studies beth's sister Mary Durack which the noted writer Henrietta Drake-Brockman said writes: should be called 'Bush "This year's Christmas cover Madonnas'. reminds us of a facet of Australian life that should be 'This picture suggests itself close to the hearts of all our not only as a suitable theme for readers — namely, the indigen- the Christmas season but for ous people, for too long what we hope will prove to be

a true renascence in Australian thought and action."

The picture today holds pride of place in the Kensington home of Mr and Mrs Ron Evans.

A renowned Record editor, Keith Spruhan, selected the painting from the Durack collection as a Christmas cover for The Record in 1949 and was disappointed when his suggestion received little sympathy from his superiors.

Ron Evans was in those days one of The Record's team of associate writers in the arts and the admiration of his wife Lorene for the painting led Keith Spruhan to donate the work to their keeping.

Mr and Mrs Ron Evans admiring in their home the painting reproduced on our Christmas cover.

Don't make it a pagan festival

By Bishop Hickey Don't turn Christmas into a pagan festival.

It's so easy to do, as we all know.

Christmas can be such a beautiful time — children gaze at the crib with eyes of wonder, families find each other again, and good will is extended to everyone we meet.

It is so good to

celebrate the birth of the Christ Child.

Unfortunately, it can easily become very pagan, with excessive and drinking squabbling.

So many families Christmas begin happily but finish in arguments. Women and children often Christmas fear because of what happened last year.

The good will of Christmas needs to go

deep, because the superficial gloss of feigned friendliness will not do.

What do I mean by going "deep"? I mean that our hearts must be open to real conversion and change, to a healing of relationships and hurtful encounters.

There is no better way of achieving such a conversion than by meditating on the crib of Christmas, on the

Some changes are good and some are bad. Some changes mean we have made progress, others mean we have gone backwards.

The birth of Jesus was a point of change in the life of the whole world. The coming of God's Son as Saviour to a needy human race meant there was at last hope for growth improvement and fulfilment.

receiving Him or just passing by.

humility and love ot the Christ Child who "emptied himself" of his divine prerogatives to become one of

US.

Humility is needed for healing. It requires an admission of our own faults, and our own contribution to the painful rifts with friends or family members. Only so will we be open to true reconciliation with others, open too

to the power of Christ who calls us to be one.

Now that communism appears to be rapidly disintegrating in Eastern Europe, and perhaps with it the Marxist theories that supported it, there is a great ideological vacuum that needs to be filled.

Millions of people will now be looking for a new vision and a new hope for the

future.

They will do well to look again at the ancient and even new faith in Jesus Christ that can fall hearts with peace and fill lives with meaning.

It is up to us and to followers of Christ everywhere to live lives transformed by the power of the Gospel. May Jesus of Bethlehem touch us again this Christmas.

Changing life reminder Christmas brings with it an annual reminder that life is always changing.

Everytime we celebrate a Christmas we

have passed through another 12 months of our life journey. Every 12 months brings with it something new and something different. Certainly it brings with it change.

Not that change is always for the better.

Sometimes we hear people saying "things aren't like they used to be, oh for the good old days!" while others say "how did you survive without TV and refrigerators not to mention decent wages and a comfortable house to live in?".

Whether the change He brought results in growth or not depends on how He is received.

We cannot know Jesus Christ without a change in our lives.

But what sort of changes depends on

It was this way in the beginning and in the first chapter of his Gospel St John writes: "He came to His own and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them He gave the power to become God's children."

In Christian history we have seen so often dramatic changes in the lives of people.

Saint Peter, firstly his chosen and most enthusiastic follower and then denying the Lord three times when challenged in public. Yet later to change back as a most courageous preacher who died crucified upside down in Rome in loyalty to his Lord.

Emperor Constantine heard of Christ and persecuted the little

By Bishop Quinn

Christian community that wanted to change life in his empire according to the teachings of Jesus. But he changed after his saintly mother Monica led him to faith in Jesus and in His cross of salvation.

Great nations like France became communities of Christian faith and holiness producing in its time so many saints and Christian spiritual writers. Yet by the 1930s the Archbishop of Paris was writing a hook about their religious crisis called "France Pagan?".

The Christian Orthodox church of Russia was for centuries a dominating force in that nation's history but the gospel challenge was forgotten and the vitality of the faith changed into a veneer of culture,

pomp and royal patronage. Then there was the bloody change to atheistic communism and a whole nation lived through enforced change and militant purges forcing change upon the souls of a people who had always believed.

And now some seventy years later what are the latest changes going to bring about in the lives of a damaged and suffering Russian peole? Jesus was born to bring about the most radical change imaginable.

But it calls for a response that is unconditional and an acceptance of his values that is unquestioning.

When we are tempted to say we are different now and the Christian way of life must change we run into a dangerous dilemma.

So many aspects of life are different, so many religious customs are changed, we can run the risk of saying all is change and there is nothing absolute.

Behind all the change there is a changeless Saviour who has spoken c hangeless words of truth and salvation.

In the burly burly of life we must cling to Him, get to know Him as our personal Lord and hear the call He makes to be His kind of people.

He can be the anchor we need and if we have him there to hold onto we can change many times over but the changes will be changes that we made and not just changes that make us lose our way on our pilgrim way to God in heaven.

The joy of a little child

By Bishop

Healy A few weeks ago, after the conclusion of the Bishops' Conference, I travelled back by plane from Sydney.

Those who have experienced the journey will know that it is a long and tedious one.

During the trip, a hostess came along the aisle carrying a

few

"A child is born for us, a son given to us."

The child was happy, smiling, waving to the passengers.

We are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ who became man for us. It is difficult for us to the appreciate wonder of it all.

baby just a months old.

The effect on all those on the plane was marvellous to behold. Everybody responded to this happy laughing little person.

When I was requested to prepare a Christmas message, this incident came to mind. It is Christmas.

What does help us in our appreciation is the fact that Jesus came as a little child. nobody Nothing, more readily brings smiles of joy to our faces than a little child. That is what

Jesus

was at Bethlehem.

The crib helps us to appreciate this great truth. Before the time of St Francis of Assisi cribs were probably unknown.

He not only introduced the crib but he and his friars popularised it.

The crib not only reminds us that the Son of God became man, it also reminds us that He was born a small child of the Virgin Mary.

That simple fact must attract us to Him, just as we were attracted to the beautiful smiling baby on the plane.

Some people see Christmas as a time

that belongs to children. It does of course but it also belongs to the grown-ups, to everybody.

The only other child on that plane was asleep on the seat next to mine, all through the flight.

She never saw the baby in the arms of the hostess but all the adults did and were a ttracted by her happy disposition.

Perhaps all of us can pause awhile to allow the reality of Christmas to sink in and the reality is a beautiful child, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I pray that He will bring to you and to all of us that joy and happiness which is :he special gift of the Feast of His Birth.

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

3

Crib of St Fra cis

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The Christmas crib is a universal feature of the celebration of Christ's nativity.

What many people do not know is that this widely observed custom of Christmas cribs was started by St Francis of Assisi.

Francis was only three years away from his death in the year 1223. He was ill, nearly blind and burdened with the affairs of his growing order.

He decided to spend Christmas in the little Italian town of Greccio.

True to his love for the poverty of Christ, he thought it appropriate to have midnight Mass that year in a cave outside the town, surrounded by the animals mentioned in the gospel account of Christ's nativity.

He desired, in short, to create a living nativity scene.

No words I could write could capture the simplicity of that scene, so perhaps it would be better to simply quote his ear-

liest biographer, Thomas of Celano.

This Franciscan knew the friars who attended that midnight Mass with the saint. In describing the first nativity scene, Thomas writes: "The joyful day came with great happiness. The friars came from their different places. Neighbourhood people prepared with joy, according to their capacity, bringing candles and torches to illumine the night that has been the light for the world through its start.

"Finally, the saint of God arrived and saw it and was glad. The manger was ready, hay was spread and the ox and ass led in.

Thus simplicity was honoured, poverty exalted, humility praised.

"Greccio was made a new Bethlehem. The night became as day to the joy of men and animals. The people were happy at this great mystery.

"The forest echoed

with the voices of the congregation; the rocks cried out in jubilation. The friars sang their debt of praise to God and the night echoed with their hymns.

"The saint of God the stood near overmanger, whelmed with love and swelling with happiness. . . The gifts of the Almighty distributed were there as a holy man in the congregation saw a vision.

"He spied a child lying in the manger and he saw the saint go to the manger and rouse it from sleep.

"This vision was a fitting one, for the infant Jesus has been a by forgotten number of people, but through the merits of St Francis he was brought back from sleep and the scene was etched in the memory of many.

Finally the solemnities of the night were over and everyone joyfully returned home."

This was the start of the crib tradition.

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Christmas and the rosary

This is the season of ,the joyful mysteries — the season when God sent his only Son to dwell among us. }.1 So long ago, it was a !sl time of great joy, yet }'‘ as I reflect upon these :‘‘ mysteries, it was a time of anxiety too.

The first joyful mys/ tery is about a wond/ erful beginning — new life — the Annunciation.

How many couples face the same situation Mary and Joseph faced: to have a child?

Is Today the pill and ease of abortion complicates the matter of whether or not to have a child.

But the answer is still the same as Mary's: "Thy will be done."

VISITING: The second mystery, the Visitation, is about bringing and sharing joy with another. I think of this one as I visit an elderly patient alone and lonely, in a hospital room.

Where are the relatives? How the old man or woman would be cheered by the visit of a young niece or grandchild like Mary.

Elizabeth was old,

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

and certainly she appreciated Mary's visit.

She saw in Mary a visit from God himself. That is what happens when we visit someone in the hospital.

NEW LIFE: In the third mystery, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, a new life full of promise — how many new parents today face the same problems as Joseph and Mary: little or no money, the need for both parents to work or worse, no job?

If the young single mother chooses to bring her child to term, she often suffers a persecution equal to Mary's when Herod sought the child to kill it.

For the young single mother is either berated for being loose enough morally to find herself pregnant or, by worldly standards, for not being "wise" enough not to have been "caught" or not having enough sophistic.atior to have an abortion.

TO GOD: Difficulties bring their own wisdom, but only if

we do as Mary did. take them to God, as his will: "Mary reflected on these things in her heart."

And as I walked by the newborn nursery, I see before me so much promise. Each new life there has so much to reveal.

In the fourth mystery, the Circumcision. Joseph and Mary follow the prescription of the law to the letter by offering the required pair of turtledoves — an exception for the poor — and offering their son up to undergo the the of pain circumcision.

Many young couples struggle today over whether to follow the directives and laws of the Church, or go it alone.

"Living together" is the fashion, although we find it nowhere in Scripture.

True, many young couples both must work today to make ends meet.

Certainly Mary and Joseph have something to say to us in the mystery of the in circumcision, which they submitted

their wills to the law and will of God. And they continued in this direction, even though Simeon foretold that a sword would pierce Mary's heart for doing so.

And I remember the baby who was baptised this morning in the hospital because we feared for his life.

His parents, too, followed the letter of the law.

And I am reminded to say, 'Thank you, Jesus", for this afternoon there is hope that he will live.

PAIN: The last of the joyful mysteries, the finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, culminates in relief.

How many parents today are at their wit's end trying to understand where their children are?

We are witnessing the pain of drugs, disobedience, outright disrespect.

But even Mary and Joseph did not understand why Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

God did not promise perfect understand-

ing between parent and child.

As the children become teenagers and go through the necessary stage of "breaking away", even at best, it is never easy.

PROMISE: Still, teenagers do well to remember how that incident ended: "And Jesus went down to Nazareth with them (Joseph and Mary) and was subject to them.

"And he grew in wisdom, age, and grace before God and men."

My reflection is interrupted as a young nurse stops me in the hall to wish me a Merry Christmas.

I watch her as she turns into an elderly lady's room.

Then I hear the ripple of laughter and Iglance into the room.

The lady's face is radiant.

The world is still full of promise.

Jesus is still present.

Christmas is here to stay.

By Father Jerry Fuller, OMI NC News Service

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3

Magic in the name

by Father LEON L. MITCHELL There is a magic in the name of Christmas which has enthralled men and women through the c enturies. Among all nations and peoples Christmas has been a particularly holy time.

In our own culture we have Christmas trees, Christmas presents, Christmas cards, and Santa Claus — all to mark this season.

Most people know Dickens' Charles "Christmas Carol", with its story of the man who did not keep Christmas. His very name, Scrooge, has become a household word for those who are mean and narrow.

The secular Christmas 'songs and traditional Christmas carols blared from a public thousand address systems in the most crassly commercial way to promote Christmas sales, remind us of how deeply Christmas has penetrated our secular society.

When Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century forbade the celebration of Christmas the people of London rioted against him.

Christmas is not only a part of our faith, but of our life, and the world would be a very different place without it.

Of course, the secular world frequently tries to blind us to the real meaning of Christmas, and to obscure in bright coloured lights and sentimental music, the eternal truth to which Christmas bears witness.

The story of the birth in Bethlehem becomes simply another beautiful Christmas story, a

AMC-WM

When God saw that did not respond man 'last Gospel' throughSt Luke's Nativity to His completely out the year: story is not just love, and had allowed another beautiful In the beginning was himself to become so Christmas legend, it is the Word: completely estranged the account of how the Word was with from his Creator that the eternal Word of God the gulf between us God took flesh. and the Word was was impassable, He God . . .

It is a beautiful story, did not cease to love The Word was made because God is the us. flesh, Supreme artist, and He called us again he lived among us, whatever he does, he and again through and we saw his does with perfection, His prophets, but we glory, but most important, it did not listen to their the glory that is his is a true story. words of life and love.

This does not mean as the only Son of the So God acted again, that all of the details Father, and the Word was are necessarily accufull of grace and made flesh. rate, but that it destruth.

The Word was incarcribes the truest and nate in a human baby It is this, and this most important event whom his mother alone, which gives in the history of the named Jesus, which meaning to the other world. means the Lord is Christmas story.

Victory.

The Word which we did not hear began to act — to love, to suffer, to die, and then to rise again, "and we saw his glory". what is This at happens Christmas.

On this day we celebrate the action of God which made it possible for us to have a share in that "glory", to be immersed in the Paschal mystery of December 25 was the death rising again apparently chosen of Him whose taking because it was already Christmas flesh a festival. It was, celebrates. calendar before One of the ancient reform straightened prayers of the Christthings out, the date of mas Mass prays that • •01P O .0..Ir . the winter solstice as He took a share of when the days begin our humanity, so we 0 0411":4.00.• to increase in length. may have a share of his Godhead.

This seemed an The Word was made appropriate date to the early Roman flesh, so that flesh, 0.0a 0.0m0,,,0.0•••IL• Christians to celethat is men and ew• ••••0. w•w brate the birth of the women, might be • • • • •— di-aSun of Righteousness.

• • •••••• • 0. o •.0w • raised up to have a • ww— part in God's eternal In their celebration life. they read, not St No wonder the Luke's beautiful story sang! angels of the birth in Bethleworth all the is It 4 come IL hem which has fuss and commotion, so appropriately to be • • •• •• • •• • •• ir,.0 W the Gospel of the • • • • •••• 00 w 00 • and even the commercialisation, for midnight Mass but "The Word was made the powerful words of flesh and lived among St John, which for us, 0 come, let us many centuries were adore Him." — NC read not only at Feature Service.

Christmas, but as a -,Z-V\V IVVVVVVVVVVV

part of the "myth" that makes the wonder of the season, with its message of peace and love.

Perhaps what we Christians need to do is look behind the glitter of the tinsel and the sentimentality of most Christmas cards to consider what it is which gives substance to the celebration of Christmas.

The English word itself bears a unique witness to the meaning of the feast, Christmas: the celebration of the Eucharist in honour of Christ.

But Christmas is not simply a birthday party for the Baby Jesus, although that would fit in quite well with the sentimental picture which our secular society paints for us every year.

We do not, in fact, know when Jesus's birthday occurred.

The Church was never particularly concerned about the date.

• - •• ••• ,411511, 1 ••• •••••••-••• • ••111,.

• ••You •••• .•

Duchin F RANCISCANS and the Lord sent me among t hem And as I went among t hem, what had seemed to be bitter before, turned for me into sweetness (Testament of St Francis)

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.44

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

5

THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION OFFICE HERE REPORTS ...

The lack of funding problem

Table supplied by Laurie Eastwood, secretary and executive officer of the Parents and Friends Federation of WA. The following extracted from State and Federal Budget papers show that the percentage of total schooling funds provided by Governments for every 100 of the WA school population accommodated in nonGoverenment schools has declined from .6924% in 1987/88 to .6685% in 1989/90; and that the State Government would need to provide a further $5 million to $6 million for non-Governemnt schoolchildern in 1989/90 in order to restore the situation to the 1987/88 level.

RECURRENT FUNDS ONLY

1989/90 BUDGET % OF TOTAL $M

1987/88 ACTUAL % OF $M TOTAL

1988/89 BUDGET % OF $M TOTAL

580 61 641

93.4% 45.2% 84.8%

647 63 710 _

231200

78.1%

234263

41 74 115

6.6% 54.8% 15.2%

Non-Govt enrolments (E)

65088

21.9%

45 82 127 68029

TOTALS Expenditure: State C/Weahh Total

621 135 756

692 145 837

769 170 939

296288

302292

310200

Govt. school children 1.1\ penditure: State C/Wealth Total Govt enrolments Non-Govt. school children Expenditure: State C/Wealth Total (I')

Enrolments

Percentage of funds N.G. School (P) --t- Percentage of enrolments (E) Equals % of budget funds allocated to each 1% of school population accomodated by non-govt schools

1989/90 BUDGE' SHOULD BE % OF $M TOTAL

93.5% 43.5% 84.9% 77.5%

719 77 796

93.5% 45.3% 84.8%

714 719 77 77 791 796

92.8% 45.3 84.2%

239540

77.2%

239540

77.2%

6.5% 56.5% 15.1%

50 93 143

55 93 148

22.5%

70660

6.5% 54.7% 15.2% 22.8%

7.2% 54.7 15.8% 22.8%

56 93 149

70660 796 775 170 170 939 945 310200

15.211 21.967

15.173 22.504

15.228 22.778

15.767 22.778

.6924%

.6742.7%

.6685%

.6922%

New Catholic primary B y 1996 almost 10,000 Catholic child- schools will open in ren will be unable to South Lake and Ballajura obtain places in West- in 1990 but to date, ern Australian Catholic approval has been given schools, unless more and funding obtained for Commonwealth capital only one other new development funding is school, a primary school which will open in High provided.

to.

Minister said.

Acting Deputy Director of the Catholic Education Office of WA, Therese that says Temby, Catholic schools in WA have a particularly urgent need for additional capital development funding.

"Already the state's population rapid increase is placing extra demands for student places in existing

Already the provision of Wycombe in 1991. new places for students is The statistics relate only falling behind demand to the metropolitan due to the State's rapid region and do not indipopulation growth and a cate the need for new reduction, in real terms, student places in of capital development Catholic schools in the funding by the Common- rapidly growing country areas. Estimates suggest wealth Government.

Statistics prepared by a that at least a further Education seven schools will be Catholic Commission working needed outside the Perth party show that within area within the same six years there will be an period. estimated shortfall of In response to the needs almost three and a half of Western Australia for thousand primary school new schools and refurplaces and almost six bishment of existing thousand secondary schools and of other school for school places within the states the Catholic schools. Some Perth metropolitan area. improvements, The figures are based on National Catholic Educa- students have not been projected population tion Commission was placed because there growth in the outer prompted earlier this have been no places suburbs. The working year to ask for urgent available. We need to party has identified a additional Common- build at least two or three need for new primary wealth assistance for schools each year, just to keep pace with the secondary capital works. and/or schools to be built in 13 In November the Minis- existing demand. locations including the ter for Employment, "Although the Catholic Hills area, Wanneroo, the Education and Training, community has contribSwan Valley, Gosnells, Mr john Dawkins told uted almost $56 million Armadale and Rock- the NCEC that no extra (or 71 per cent of total would be capital expenditure) funds ingham by 1996. since 1983, we are not It has estimated the forthcoming. places "Given the current tight able to make adequate of number required based on an economic circumstance, provision for all students average of 60 per cent of I am unable to accede to who wish to attend eligible Catholic children your request to increase Catholic schools. enrolling in Catholic funding under the capi"A particular problem is tal grants program," the that the Commonwealth schools.

• Government, the prime source of direct capital these funding for schools, has reduced. rather than maintained its overall funding levels for capital program. The Commonwealth has also restricted the extent to which the capital funds it does provide can be used for new student places.

"The lack of new student places causes great frustration in many

The 1988 Nairn report on Non-Government School Building Needs indicated to the Department of Employment, Education and Training that 75 non-government schools in Western Australia did not meet the Commonwealth's area guidelines. Most of these schools are Catholic schools.

Fee increases Capital programs

Warning from acting chief

More education stories on Page 21 6 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

areas,- said Therese.

"There are long waiting lists, parents become upset and the Catholic community generally is losing faith in the opportunity of Catholic parents to choose for their children a Catholic education.

aside, WA Catholic schools will need to increase fees by a minimum of eight per cent next year in order to inflationary cover increases. Some schools may need to go above this level in order to meet increased costs.

"The increase in fees is "The need for new student places has com- necessary for schools to pounded the problem meet their share of Catholic education is recurrent costs, includalready facing of many ing the recently awarded schools requiring refur- three per cent salary bishing to bring them in increase for teachers," to line with the area said Therese. guidelines set by the The increase was Commonwealth," said granted after an AgreeTherese. ment was reached

between independent funding arrangement schools and teachers and through which Comwas ratified by the WA monwealth funds were Industrial Commission distributed from the in October.

Catholic Education Negotiations are contin- Office on a needs basis. uing over the granting of The allocation of these a second three per cent funds was overseen by increase in six months. the School Resources Because the October Committee which made increase is in line with recommendations to the Education Wage Fixing Guidelines, Catholic C ommission. government recurrent The remaining 23 funding will be increased to cover part of the schools, owned by reliadditional expenses to gious orders, received their funds directly from schools.

Commonwealth However, Therese the Government. sounded a warning that any future increases Community outside the guidelines in assistance any system would lead to "The contributions pressure on other sysmade by school comtems to grant similar munities continued to increases. prove a significant Should this occur there resource for schools in would not be an indexa- 1989," said Mr Barry tion flow-on.

Alfirivich, acting Senior Schools would have to C o-ordinator of the bear the full burden of CEO's School Resources such increases resulting Section. in parents having to pay "These contributions bigger fees. have not only been financial, but have Statistics included the provision of In 1989 enrolment in time and services. It has Catholic schools in WA been particularly evident grew by three per cent to in communities involved a total of 48,201 students. in the establishment of The opening of two new new schools where parschools, one primary and ents have provided both one secondary, brought m anpower and funds for to 151 the number of such things as grassed Catholic schools in the areas, landscaping, pathstate. These schools ways and playground employ 2877 teachers, an equipment. These all increase of 325 on 1988 help to create an atmosstaffing levels. phere which is conduIn 1989, 128 schools cive to the education of formed part of a group our children," said Barry.

Wealth of Church may rest with poor In spite of Brazil's crushing economic problems and land & '-:1 injustice, the poor may yet turn out to be the hope of the there, c hurch .;‘ according to its fi most senior bishop.

Whereas being rich • brings on selfishness, A isolation, suicide and loss of the meaning of life the poor have t; other values to offer ▪ ItNI„,, the world says ArchAlmeida, bishop aki chairman of the Brazilian Bishops' Confer• ence, the largest hie• rarchy in the Catholic " Church.

It is not so much a • matter of what we do for the poor as what we do along with • them, says the Jesuit bishop who built up a reputation amongst • a r the one million street kids of the city of Sao i Paolo.

The poor have much to say to us, he says, - because they have the P,I qualities of sharing OP. and friendship that tm will attract others to the message of Christ. i The poor are not jj without their faults A but they have hospi2 tality, forgiveness and A hope — virtues that we need but which we are unable to find in other cultural • ways.

The poor as the hope of the Church was the • theme talk of Archbi• shop Almeida during tti4 a recent visit to Australia.

He said the first . presidential elections A "%11,, in Brazil for 29 years .„ 0741 — 20 of them taken over by military • government — give • the country the chance for reform, but '2 Archbishop Almeida is not too confident of d-

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how the challenges will be met.

Problems facing Brazil he said are land reform, support for the remaining aboriginal Indians and the massive problems of the big cities.

The Church had to be involved in these issues he said because injustice social touched on the Church's mission to evangelise the people.

One per cent of Brazil's population owns 46% of arable land and there are 12 million people waiting for land, with absolutely no other of prospect employment.

Over the centuries the aboriginal Indian population had been reduced from five million to some 200,000 today and they needed the support of the church and society, he said.

On the other hand cities such as Sao Paolo with a population of 17 million had massive problems in housing, health and education.

For 12 years Archbishop Almeida was an auxiliary bishop in Sao Paolo and it is estimated that there are about one million street kids, in a population of which half is under 20. With 70 per cent of them poor, that adds up to some 5-6 million in dire need.

Thirty or forty years ago, 70 per cent of Brazil's population was rural and 30 per cent urban. Today those figures are reversed as people with no land crowd into towns.

Brazil has one of the world's largest debts ($120 billion) but according to Archbishop Almeida it has the resources to meet that debt.

It is not a question of poverty, he says, but the injustice in the use of resources.

For some, says Archbishop Almeida, the basic Christian communities are helping the poor to establish a brotherhood, to know each other and that they are fighting in the same direction.

The other characteristic is that they work together with their bishop.

But the basic Christian communities are not alone in this initiative but stand coalongside operatives and similar popular movements.

The Church is changing, he said because there is a rise in social consciousness, now that there is a democratic environment and the realisation that change has to come, not only for the Church but for society.

Homeless.

It's no place to be at Christmas

This change commenced some 20 years ago, the archbishop said, when the growing tide of military torture had to be confronted.

In those days, he noted, the unity of the bishops stood out.

Today, with a large hierarchy of 280 bishops there are many more differences amongst them.

Nevertheless Archbishop Almeida says it is possible to work unity towards amongst bishops.

helping with projects that will give them the skills and the education needed to maintain their dignity and get back on to their feet.

Where return is impossible, their new-found skills will help them to qualify for resettlement in another country — perhaps Australia.

This Christmas, share your celebration of the life and hope of Christ's birth with the gift of a future for our homeless brothers and sisters.

Almost 2000 years ago Jesus was born. Soon after his birth he experienced the hardship of being a refugee, as he and his parents fled for their lives to Egypt.

That flight into the unknown, the fear and the loss of home and possessions, is shared today by the many millions who are homeless.

They have fled their homes and sometimes their countries through famine, flood, war or political turmoil.

With no home and no means of earning a living, they must depend on others for their daily needs as they await the opportunity to return and rebuild or to move to a new land and a new life.

For many, the refugee camp has become their home.

Australian Catholic Relief is

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- Id like to helix and enclose a donation $

patients I AIDS for e Car /6

Please debit my Bankcard E Please debit my MasterCard

I

SAO PAULO, Brazil 12 homes for AIDS secret.

• (CNS): Citing a severe patients in a wooded area "Ibelieve that once it is • lack of hospital beds, just outside Brazil's set up, the neighbourthe Archdiocese of Sao largest city. Another hood will accept it," said Paulo has begun alter- home being built in Sao Father Anibal Gil Lopes, - - native care programs Paulo for AIDS patients co-ordinator of Project for AIDS patients, des- might stir controversy; Hope, an archdiocesan pite opposition in some past opposition in city education and counselPaulo neighbourhoods has ling program for AIDS t l Sao ifki neighbourhoods. forced the archdiocese to patients and their famiTo avoid protest, the keep the construction lies. Father Lopes will 7 archdiocese is building plans for the home head the new home.

with the amount of $

ig

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Address _____.

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-VICWICV-VVVVOCCV€1,1C-VVV,EVCCCAVV4-WeVC The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

7

Eastern worship danger VATICAN CITY (CNS): also was a reference Eastern prayer and point "in a more general meditation, while hav- way, for the different ing positive elements, forms of prayer practiced "is not free from nowadays in ecclesial dangers and errors" organisations, particuharmful to Catholic larly in associations, spirituality, said a movements and groups".

Vatican document The document was approved by Pope John issued by the Vatican Paul II. Congregation for the

Because of the growing interest in Eastern methods among Catholics, there is an "urgent need" to define the elements of prayer essential for Christianity in any fusion with techniques borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism, said the document, a letter to the world's Catholic bishops.

Eastern methods were defined as Zen, transcendental meditation and yoga. Also criticised were some of the physical exercises associated with them.

The document said it

Doctrine of the Faith.

The document is titled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation.

Christian prayer is defined "as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God".

"It flees from impersonal techniques or from concentrating on oneself, which can create a kind of rut, imprisoning the person praying in a privatism spiritual which is incapable of free openness to the transcendental God," it said.

Interest in Eastern meditation is a positive sign that people are looking for spiritual fulfilment, the letter said.

But "proposals to harmonise Christian meditations with Eastern techniques need to have their contents and methods ever subjected to a thoroughgoing examination so as to avoid the danger of falling into syncretism", it added.

Syncretism is the merging of different religious beliefs into a new belief.

Some Eastern meditation forms "do not hesitate to place that absolute without image or concepts, which is proper to Buddhist theory, on the same level as the majesty of God revealed in Christ", the document said.

"They make use of a 'negative theology' which transcends every affir-

mation seeking to express what God is and denies that the things of this world can offer traces of the infinity of God," it added.

"Thus they propose abandoning not only meditation on the salvific works accomplished in history by the God of the Old and New Covenant, but also the very idea of the one and triune God," it said.

Some physical exercises and body postures can aid prayer, but are not to be confused with spiritual experiences even if they produce the "phenomenon of light and of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being", he said.

Such a confusion can lead to "a kind of mental schizophrenia which could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations", it said. '

The document praised the Jesus Prayer, in which a religious saying is repeated in synchronisation with the natural rhythm of breathing.

concept of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured," it said.

The document did not mention any Catholic groups, individuals or practices that improperly fuse Eastern methods with Christian spirituality.

The Jesus Prayer "can at least for a certain time, be of real help to many people ", it said.

A Christian mystic's "method of getting closer In a 1985 book-length to God is not based on interview called "The any technique in the Ratzinger Report", howstrict sense of the word," • ever, Cardinal Ratzinger the document said. complained of Eastern "Genuine Christian spiritual methods replacmysticism has nothing to ing Christian ones do with technique, it is among religious. always a gift of God," it "In many religious said. houses (of both men and Despite the shortcom- women) the cross has at ings of Eastern methods, times given up its place to "neither should these symbols of the Asiatic ways be rejected out of religious tradition. In hand simply because some places the previous they are not Christian", devotions have also dissaid the document. appeared in order to "One can take from make way for yoga or them what is useful so Zen techniques," he said long as the Christian in the book.

Bush vows to bring killers to justice WASHINGTON (CNS): President Bush vowed on December 12 to "do everything we can to bring to justice" the killers of six prominent Jesuits in El Salvador.

Speaking to six US cardinals and some 1300 guests in centennial observances of the Catholic University of America, Bush also called for • Protection in America of "the basic freedom — the right to life".

• A constitutional amendment to permit -voluntary school prayer" because "we need the faith of our fathers in the schools".

• The right of parents to send their children "to the care centres of their choice", which "includes and must include" Church-sponsored centres.

In a heavy snowfall outside, about 30 protesters, critical of Church teachings on homosexuality,

artificial birth control and abortion, carried signs with messages such as "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" and shouted slogans criticising the Church and Cardinal O'Connor.

The cardinal had been the target of a similar demonstration two days earlier that disrupted his celebration of Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

Bishops urge retrial LONDON (CNS): The Irish bishops have urged a rehearing of the case of the Birmingham Six — Irish citizens living in Birmingham, England, who were convicted in the 1974 bombing of two taverns in which 21 people died.

At their meeting in Maynooth, Ireland, in November, the Irish bishops also urged exoneration of the Maguire Seven, who were sentenced for explosives offenses as a result of statements made in the Guildford case which have been since discredited.

One of the Maguire Seven, Giuseppe Conlon, father of Guilddefendant ford Gerard Conlon, died in prison. The other six served their sentences and were released.

Early in November, Birmingham's church leaders — Catholic Archbishop Maurice Couve de Murville, Bishop Anglican Mark Santer, and Free Church chairman the Rev David Good — called for reexamination of the B irmingham convictions.

Michael O'Dea co-established Bowra & O'Dea in 1888. His contribution to the progress of the Catholic Church in Western Australia set a standard the O'Dea family continues to uphold.

the O'Dea family and is carried on by Joe O'Dea and his sons Joe (jnr.), Tony and Justin. In times where understanding and sensitivity are important, Bowra & O'Dea can be

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8 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

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Witness to killings brainwashed SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (CNS): Archbishop Damas of San Salvador has accused US officials of intimidating an apparent witness to the murder of six Jesuits.

Soon after emerging as a potential witness to the killings, Mrs Barrera, a house44-year-old keeper, was taken under heavy security to the United States and placed under FBI protection.

She was reportedly questioned extensively by FBI and Salvadoran agents.

Mrs Barrera has said

she saw the murder of officials forced the witthe six priests, who were ness into retracting her pulled out of their beds testimony implicating and shot along with their the Salvadoran armed housekeeper and her 15- forces and that she was year-old daughter. subjected to an aggresShe had said the killers sive and violent interrowore camouflage uni- gation in the United forms similar to those States.

She was subjected to a worn by the Salvadoran veritable brainwashing army.

A source close to the US in that country and to the investigation said Mrs blackmail that she would Barrera was an unrelia- be deported if she did not ble witness who had tell the truth, the archbifailed six lie-detector shop said. tests. "It seems to us she "After this psychologiwas coached by some- cal torment, Mrs Barrera one," the source said. hesitated and retracted The archbishop said the her statement," he said.

He said Mrs Barrera's treatment appeared to be in the interests of "those from here" — an apparent reference to the rightwing, US-backed Salvadoran government.

The archbishop said that because the investigation "continues to point toward the overwhelming hypothesis that it was elements of the army" who carried out the Jesuits' murder, US officials "are taking care that the path toward the clarification of the be cannot matter followed".

Sunday Mass protest NEW YORK: Another disruption of his Mass would take place "over my dead body" said Cardinal O'Connor the day after homosexual protestors made him terminate his homily.

Churchmen of all persuasions, civic officials, the New York Times and the New York Daily News have loudly condemned the Church disruption.

Even a gay group which had protested outside the cathedral condemned the disruption that took place inside.

Dozens of people protesting the views of Cardinal O'Connor on homosexuality and abortion tried to shout him

down during his Sunday morning Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral while many more protested outside.

As police moved in to begin arresting and carrying out people standing and shouting or lying down in the aisles Cardinal O'Connor stopped his homily and had the congregation stand to join in the Lord's Prayer and recitation of the rosary.

He then proceeded with the Eucharist, despite more protesters rising to shout as the first ones were removed. One demonstrator later desecrated a host which a priest then removed.

The demonstration was sponsored by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, a group "united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis", and the Women's Health Action Mobilisation, which is devoted to "demanding, securing and defending absolute reproductive freedom and quality health care for all women".

Both groups are well known to police for past disruptive actions that have led to arrests.

Plans for the action at St Patrick's Cathedral had been widely publicised for several weeks, enabling the cathedral and the police to plan.

Cardinal O'Connor had the text of his homily copied for general distribution so that his message could be given in writing when the shouting began shortly after he started to speak.

The homily, focusing on the Advent Scripture lessons, did not deal directly with issues raised by protesters.

As the shouting continued, Cardinal O'Connor told the congregation that Christ died "for everyone, including those with whom we disagree", and that Christ "would not want any violence".

At the conclusion of the Mass, the cardinal thanked the congrega-

Ambassador Walker said Archbishop Rivera Damas' information was incorrect. "I am saddened that the archbishop doesn't believe that the US government and he are in the same quest for the truth (of who killed the priests)," the statement said.

The ambassador commented that "you don't find the truth by slinging around charges of psychological torture when you don't really know what you're talking about".

Way of life JERUSALEM: The two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule has become "a way of life", said Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem.

"We want to be free. We want to have our own rights in our land and homes," he said.

Patriarch Sabbah is the first Palestinian to head the Latin Patriarchate.

The patriarch said support for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which supports the uprising, is high.

(CNS): DUBLIN Reducing unemployment should be the major economic priority in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, said an advisory body to the Irish bishops' conference.

The report by the bishops' Council for Social Welfare said the British government must be aware that efforts to contain paramilitary activity are hampered by persistently high joblessness in urban areas.

Seventeen per cent of the workers in the republic and 15.1 per cent of those in Northern Ireland are registered as unemployed, said the report.

It noted that the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland is almost twoand-a-half times that of the average United Kingdom rate.

Auxiliary Bishop James Kavanagh of Dublin, president of the Council for Social Welfare, said the report was prepared to help Irish bishops draft a pastoral letter on unemployment.

The report said the unemployed in Northern Ireland feel compelled to take low-paid jobs or participate in inconsequential training programs in order to keep some public support.

It pointed out that the way that the unemployed are defined and c ounted has been changed 25 times in the past 10 years, apparently to make the total seem smaller.

"It is hard to avoid concluding that the United Kingdom government, since 1979, has put far too much emphasis on changing the measure of unemployment, and the process has increased

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tion for remaining patient and charitable, and said that "we must never respond to hatred with hatred".

He received a standing ovation.

Mayor Edward Koch, a Jew, who has had legal as well as philosophical battles with Cardinal O'Connor over homosexual rights, sat in a front pew during the Mass in a show of support for the cardinal and joined him afterward in talking with reporters.

Harriet Bogart, an offithe Anticial of

Defamation League, also attended and also sat in a front pew as an expression of support for the right to worship without disruption.

Death-squad Call to reduce probe hailed unemployment

DURBAN, South Africa (CNS): Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban has lauded an investigation into alleged death-squad activity but said the situation needed a judicial inquiry.

The archbishop called "extremely serious" claims by deathrow prisoner Butana Almond Nofomela that "hit squads" were responsible for the deaths of anti-apartheid activists.

Five South African policemen were suspended following investigations into the c laims.

• "Without an enquiry there is a great danger of cutting corners and leaving out details that are embarrassing to the government," he added.

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the pain of those for whom there just are not immediate jobs," the report said.

Skilled and welleducated Northern Ireland residents have been emigrating in large numbers in search of work — primarily in England.

Meanwhile, the British government has been seeking foreign investment to help alleviate joblessness in the province and has passed a fair employment bill to reduce traditional job discrimination against Catholics.

Turning south to the Irish republic, the report said that 500,000 people were employed in agriculture in 1950, and that this could be reduced to 50,000 or fewer by the end of the century.

It urged development of new commercial activities in the rural areas.

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The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 9

hat Gorbachev sees of

VATICAN CITY: President Gorbachev "sees the role which the Holy See can play in bringing about a world in which there is a greater possibility of peace, of the development of peoples, a greater solidarity among nations", said Archbishop Edward I.

Cassidy, deputy Vatican secretary of state, after the two leaders met.

"He appreciates the role the Holy Father has played in Eastern Europe, especially in helping bring about those developments in a peaceful, patient way, by always making clear the principles upon which

developments should take place," said Archbishop Cassidy.

The archbishop said the next steps needed were establishment of an official SovietVatican negotiating channel and passage of a Soviet freedom of conscience law. These will set the framework for resolving

church-state problems, he added.

While the pope and Gorbachev met in private for 76 minutes to establish the overall guidelines of SovietVatican relations, Archbishop Cassidy was part of a parallel meeting of their top aides to discuss specific issues.

Leaders of the delegations at that meeting were Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Casaroli and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnaclze.

Archbishop Cassidy said the first step now is to establish "a form of official contact" between the Vatican

and the Soviet Union, necessarily "not immediately a full diplomatic mission". specific Then, church-state problems, including legaslation of the Ukrainian church, will be discussed within the framework of the freedom of conscience law Soviet legislators are

expected to pass in 1990, the archbishop said.

"This law will be very general," he said.

"We don't know the details of the law, nor have they been made known to us."

The specific problem of the Ukrainian church will also have to be worked out in

Putting an end to a long period of

The Vatican-Soviet summit meeting favourably was reported in the Soviet Union.

Soviet television, in a news broadcast, said the meeting "puts an end to a long period of mistrust and hostility, which has been fed by the intolerance of

some of our country's past leaders".

The Communist Party newspaper Pravda published on its front page the full texts of the talks by the pope and Gorbachev along with a picture of the historic handshake.

In a commentary, the newspaper praised the

pope's "political dynamism".

Andrej Orachev, a top Communist Party adviser on foreign a ffairs, said the announcement of a possible future trip by the pope to the Soviet Union was "very important, not only

because it opens a new chapter in Vatican Soviet relations, but because it exalts the Soviet Union's new way of thinking in foreign affairs".

Russian Orthodox leaders also were enthusiastic after the meeting.

Metropolitan Juvenaly, who met with the pope last month, said the pope and Gorbachev had taken a "giant step" toward better relations between the Kremlin and leaders of religion, "In one morning, they

have already taken us half the way there, with one cosmic step ahead," he said. He added that the encounter should help improve relations between the Orthodox and Ukrainian churches, which have experienced decades of enmity.

Ukrainian The Orthodox issue "is a theological, church problem, and therefore more of church than of state. I think that with God's help everything can be resolved", he said.

The metropolitan also said he was in favour of a papal trip

Catholic and Russian commentators are

Catholic and Russian commentators showered praise on the meeting between Pope John Paul and President Gorbachev.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said it was a "moment of singular intensity" in human history.

It described Gorbachev as a "longawaited guest", and

said his praise of spiritual and religious values were words that "truly demolish idols and remove the boulders along the path of the human caravan".

The newspaper said the meeting was "rich above all in hope for the future of communities of believers" that have been repressed for decades in Eastern Europe.

Ukrainian Cardinal Lubachivsky, in Rome said that the meeting had "extraordinary h i s tor ica l significance".

He said he thought it would lead to "full religious freedom" in the Soviet Union.

Positive reaction also came from Vatican officials who have been involved in the long process of negotiating with Soviet

and other East-bloc regimes.

Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican's secretary of state and the architect of its East European policy, said the meeting was "a beautiful conclusion to a rather difficult work" and "an opento future ing developments".

Cardinal Casaroli's two assistants, Archbishops Sodano and

Cassidy were also encouraged.

Archbishop For Sodano the encounter "the represented building of an important archway in the bridge that should unite the Holy See the Soviet and Union".

Archbishop Cassidy said that "our impression is that Mr Gorbachev has a vision of a

world, not just in which conflict is missing, but a world in which there is a real decent co-operation between peoples".

"He sees in this process that he wants to pursue a place also for the Catholic Church," he said.

Archbishop Cassidy said the meeting and recent events in Eastern Europe lead to

"one great conclusion" that a patient policy toward the Soviet bloc has paid off, in contrast to those who argued that the West should have gone to war to free Eastern Europe.

Although people in these countries suffered over the years, he said, it "cannot be compared to the suffering that would have taken place had

Meeting held against background of pressure ROME: The historic meeting of Pope John Paul II and President Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia was played against a background of Church and political pressure in Eastern Europe.

Political freedom swept Europe in a whirlwind of collapse and the Catholic Church kept up its pressure for religious freedom in the former Iron Curtain countries.

In one of the most dramatic theatres of change, the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia was allowed by the crumbling hardline government to broadcast a Mass for the first time since Communist rule began.

In that service, Prague's 70-year-old Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek threw the Church's weight behind the reform movement.

On another stage, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops asked their Russian Orthodox counterparts to help press for legalisation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the Vatican announced that a scheduled theological dialogue meeting between Vatican and Russian Orthodox representatives had been delayed to allow an important new member of the Russian team to become

acquainted with his new post.

communist dominated state.

Also in VaticanSoviet relations, a major Communist Party newspaper gave Pope John Paul II unprecedented praise in its November 21 edition.

Solidarity's Bronislaw Geremek said that the Church is "building confidence toward the new government — which is led by Catholic intellectuals".

The biggest recent surprise in the string of sudden reforms in the East bloc was the shake-up of the Czechoslovakian Communist leadership, including the ouster of party boss Milos Jalces.

Two days earlier, the Vatican's newspaper had said in an editorial that the reforms underway in the East bloc showed that communism and its companion, state atheism are "clearly exhausted".

From the Polish political front, the government's leader said the Catholic Church in his country gives a "moral guarantee" to the country's evolution from a

The shake-up was pushed by hundreds of thousands of Czechoslovakian citizens who took to the streets demanding reform. Many of the demonstrators were Catholics, who com-

prise about 68 per cent of the country's 15.5 million people.

Cardinal Tomasek, the country's leading churchman, celebrated a televised Mass November 25 at St Vitus Cathedral in Prague in which he gave Church support to reform.

"In this historic moment in the fight for truth and justice in our country, I and the Catholic Church are on the side of the people," the cardinal said. As he has in the past, the cardinal urged demonstrators to practice nonviolence.

It marked the first time under Communist rule that Czechoslovakian television broadcast an entire Mass live.

In the Soviet Union, where a new law on religious freedom was being considered, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops in October asked Russian Orthodox Patriarch Pimen I of Moscow and other leaders of his Church to help, "in the name of Christian justice", their campaign for legalisation.

The Catholics also asked for help in the return of Church buildings given to the Russian Orthodox Church when Josef Stalin outlawed Ukrainian Catholicism in 1946.

"We ask your holiness (Patriarch Pimen), and all of you, our beloved brothers,

to understand our attachment to certain Church buildings, which are closely tied to our particular history," the Ukrainian bishops wrote.

But a scheduled November meeting between its representatives and Russian Orthodox delegates was postponed.

The new Orthodox official in charge of relations with other churches, Metropolitan Kiril of Smolensk, needed time to get briefed on his new job, the Vatican said.

A Vatican official expressed confidence about the change.

"We see this appointment as good," the official said. "He can do good for his church."

A'ZWVVZWZ't,TMCVVC,VCC-V-VZ'C'VZ'ZtVVCMPCVCV-CVVZVCVVCVCCVCC'-ZWCVVCVV 10 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

Holy See direct CatholicOrthodox talks. The issues involve the possible return of former Ukrainian church buildings now used by the Orthodox and the situation of people who became Orthodox when the Ukrainian church was illegal but who now want to switch, the archbishop said.

The Soviet government "would like to think that the Orthodox Church, and the Catholic Church could come to some kind of agreement about this which they would be delighted to approve", he said.

A papal visit to the Soviet Union is tied to improvements in reli-

gious freedom, said Archbishop Cassidy.

"Catholic communities in the Ukraine would have to be normalised. There would have to be bishops recognised and established in their sees. Churches opened. A community which is able to worship in normal situations," he said.

mistrust, hostility to Moscow.

The Orthodox head of Volokolamsk and Jurevsk, Metropolitan Pitirim, called the meeting "extraordinarily important", and said it was further e vidence that the Soviet Union's "perestroika" or social restructuring foresaw a

new way of thinking on religious issues, A note of criticism came from Father Franz Schmidberger, superior general of excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre's breakaway society of priests, who said the meeting between the pope and Gorbachev

marked an "apocalyptic day" and "one of the saddest moments in the history of Catholicism."

Father Schmidberger said the meeting offered the world the image of a "filthy union between Marxist Leninism and the Catholic faith".

full of praise there been an armed conflict".

Cardinal Silvestrini, a Vatican official who dealt for several years in East European affairs, said the meeting marked an abrupt change in Soviet policies toward religion.

Recalling his missions to Moscow, the cardinal called the turnaround "a miracle of providence".

"We always hoped

for it but never could imagine when or how it would take place," he said.

He noted that the events also open up new prospects of dialogue with the RusOrthodox sian Church.

Cardinal Poupard, who heads the Vatican's dialogue agency with non-believers, popethe said

Gorbachev meeting was "an immense, epochal fact of great historic significance".

It marks "the end of a long antagonism and the start of a concrete dialogue," he said.

"Christianity has resisted the frontal attack of atheism.

Today it comes away younger, purer and more truly evangelical," Cardinal Poupard said.

Towards unity...

ROME (CNS): The Soviet Union's new attitude toward religion is important for the success of its domestic reform program and for a Soviet role in shaping a united Europe, several Soviet and church experts said.

The experts said Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's meeting with Pope John Paul II underscores that church support — local and international — is vital to the advance of "perestroika", or social restructuring.

"There is an interest in using the Vatican as a stabilising force, above all in Poland, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia", where political turmoil is high, said Soviet historian Mikhail Heller in an interview with Italy's Corriere della

Sera newspaper.

"For Gorbachev to present himself as a type of supreme peacemaker in the international arena, he needs, if not the support, at least the favourable neutrality of the Vatican," Heller said.

"As for his plan to enter the 'European house', the Catholic Church cannot help but be a part of his calculations," Heller said. Gorbachev's concept of a "European common house" foresees a Europe free of bloc -dominated politics. It probably would mean significant social and economic ties between the Soviet Union and the west.

In Heller's view, Gorbachev's overall domestic project is to synthesise commu-

nism and local nationalist ideas. In this process, the historian said, sympathetic local religious communities could play a key role.

Top Soviet religious affairs adviser Nikolai Kovalski, in an interview in Moscow with Italy's Communist Party newspaper L'Unita November 30, said the new policies show a desire to "rethink the whole question of religion" and bring believers into public life.

This new attitude "will not be exhausted with the approval of the new law" on freedom of conscience, he said.

"Believers are both the bearers of a religious conscience and members of the civil community. From that derives their full

right to participate fully in every aspect of social life," Kovalski said.

The goal, he added, was to begin collaboration between believers and nonbelievers toward an " interdependent, peaceful world". For the Soviet Union, he said, it means "rediscovering and reevaluating a rich cultural patrimony".

As evidence of the Soviets' new openness to religion, the government points out that over the last two years, more than 3000 religious associations have been registered in the country and more than 2500 permits have been granted to groups seeking places of worship.

The statistics were provided by Yuri

1

Khristoradnov, named in July as president of the Council for Religious Affairs in the Soviet Union. He also was in interviewed L'Unita.

Khristoradnov noted that the state now sees advantages in giving church groups a direct role in charity and social work. For example, in Lithuania, he said, Catholics have begun projects to help the elderly, orphans, the sick, drug addicts and prostitutes.

On the international scene, Khristoradnov said, Soviet officials place much importance on the pope's call for a united Europe, which is frequently compared to Gorbachev's vision for the future of the continent.

Generally pleased The Vatican is generally pleased with Gorbachev's new approach and has avoided direct comment on what political advantages he may be seeking on the domestic or international scene.

"We're not a thinking tank," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. "As for Gorbachev's future, the Church has an answer providence."

Jesuit Father John Long, who has frequently joined Vatican delegations in meetings with Soviets, said the "real changes" taking place in Soviet thinking are rubbing off on other countries.

"What Gorbachev has made East European leaders understand is that whether they like it or not, church people have to be taken into account," Father Long said.

Father Bernd Groth, a Jesuit adviser on Soviet affairs, said he does not believe Gorbachev has "a great interest in the church itself".

"Probably, from a political point of view, he only wants to have more calm on that part of the 'front'.

But he needs (the Church's) support, and this has a price, in terms of autonomy and greater freedom for believers," Father Groth said in an interview November 30 in the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Gorbachev also understands that there is a spiritual crisis in the Soviet Union, a moral skepticism that is connected with the economic crisis, Father Groth said.

"He needs Christians to strengthen moral values, even if the churches are rather weak," he said.

VC-teC 4VVVCVVV'CVVVZVVVVVVCVCVVVCVV-CVV-MVV--VCVVCMMVVVVVC The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 11

Rivalry again

Stalin's tactic

Catholic Josef Stalin's tactic The in the 20th century Orthodox rivalry also to repress Ukrainian includes nationalist Catholicism was by antagonisms between the convoking of a Ukrainians and Rus1946 synod of terro- sians, historical rivals rised priests and for political control laity which annulled over same the the Union of Brest of territory.

1596.

Ukrainians consider No Catholic bishops efforts to impose the were able to be pres- Russian Orthodox ent at that meeting Church as part of because they were all overall Russian tactics imprisoned. to bring Ukrainians their Since the Union of under Brest had formalised domination. the link with Rome, Russia is the most the Stalin-backed important republic of 1946 synod was able the Soviet Union and to make the Ukrain- Russians form the ian Catholic Church bulk of Communist illegal in the Soviet Party and governUnion. ment officials.

Priests who refused Stalin's approach to join the Russian has precedents in Orthodox Church czarist Russia, when we re arrested, Russian Orthodoxy deported or shot. was the state religion.

In the 18th century, Ukrainian Catholic property was divided Empress Catherine II between the state and removed Catholic the Orthodox Church. bishops from their The decision, how- Sees. The following ever, did not affect century, Czar NichoLatin-rite Catholics in las I, the only reigning czar to meet a pope, the Soviet Union. three convinced The Vatican never bishops to become accepted the validity Russian Orthodox as of the 1946 synod and the first step toward an underground establishing the church has continued church throughout to exist. the Ukraine.

What could be mistaken for a house is Kiev's only legal Catholic Church in operation, but only for Latin-rite Catholics. millivIIiv_pciltmle.vz alzwaimci wvet:;1471 VATICAN CITY those from the East ( CNS):— The backed Orthodoxy.

Ukrainian Catholic The 16th-century and the Russian at issue took synod Orthodox churches place in 1596 and is have a centuries-old called the Union of rivalry which mixes Brest. It approved a politics, religion, formal act of union nationalism and difwith the Church of fering interpretaP\1 : Rome. tions of history.

Today, the battle is The decision was over legalising the approved by Pope between Catholicism By the time of the Ukrainian Catholic Clement VIII, allowand Orthodoxy, so Council of Florence in 4 Church in the Soviet the church to ing both churches claim 1439, however, there Union, a delicate retain its Eastern-rite to be the legitimate was a significant sepecumenical and polittraditions, liturgy and continuation of the aration from Rome. ical issue which also customs. religion which took Key to understandinvolves Vaticanroot around Kiev, the One of the main ing the present situaSoviet relations. main city of what is reasons the Ukrainian tion are two historinow Ukraine.

Pope John Paul IL in Catholics sought this cally controversial his meeting with Ukrainian The decision was to prosynods, 350 years Soviet President MikCatholic Church, an tect Eastern-rite tradiapart. hail Gorbachev tions from inroads Eastern rite in union In the first, at the end stressed the impormade by Latinbeing with the pope is of the 16th century, a tance of religious rite Catholicism and similar to the group of bishops freedom for Soviet Protestantism coming Orthodox Church in declared their union citizens. from Central Europe. that it follows Eastern the pope. with Christian traditions _ The current controvAt the same time, The second, under springing from Con: ersy is the latest in a however, a rival the strong-arm tactics stantinople at a time history of fighting for synod took place in of Soviet dictator Josef when Christianity spiritual jurisdiction the same city by Stalin, declared the was united. over the same Chrisopponents of union.

16th-century synod tian flock in the Exactly when the null and void, and This synod included Ukraine, now one of church at Kiev moved merged it with the t wo bishops and the 15 republics in the definitely into the Russian Orthodox Prince Kostantin Soviet Union.

Orthodox camp is Church.

Ostrozhsky, who preWISH ONE AND ALL hard to tell because it The arguing 0: viously was an In between, there A was cut off from includes disagreeinfluential political of seea lot was Rome and Europe, ment over which supporter of union sawing back and forth mostly because of church should take with Rome. depending on the Tartar domination, credit for the estabaffinities of local This synod declared for long periods. lishment of Christianbishops, the political the Kiev church to be ity in the year 988 in Also, there was not a winds and the invadOrthodox. Because of what is now the clean break, with ing armies at the time. this, the Russian Soviet Union. always loyalties In general, winds have not Orthodox Christianity arrived divided between and armies from the accepted the legality before the 11thCatholicism and favoured West of the Union of Brest .., century schism Orthodoxy.

Catholicism while of 1596. :,...

...over issue which involves Vatican-Soviet relations

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The mecord, Christmas Issue December 21, 1989

A

-

Every faith had to suffer in the past The Soviet Constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of belief and worship but the Soviet history of the past 72 years is a series o f chapters of repression against religious adherents.

All faiths, Christian, Jewish and Islamic have had to suffer constraints on proselytising — imposed by the 1917 Marxists who regarded religion as a superstitious tool of the old order.

Today religion appears to be headed for a new era of relaxed regulation in the USSR. with the Kremlin's top leader publicly affirming a right to spiritual belief. The Soviet government is also drafting a law on freedom of conscience which is expected to take effect early in 1990.

It is unclear, however, how that legislation will differ from

Article 52 of the Soviet Constitution of 1977.

That clause says: "Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda.

Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious is grounds prohibited."

It also provides for separation of Church and state.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in his visit to the Vatican that "problems between the state and various churches" are being dealt with "in a spirit of democracy and and humanism within the framework of perestroika (restructuring of Soviet institutions)". both Russians, believers and atheists,

The distinctive, brightly painted onion domes of St Basil's Cathedral which was turned into a museum. are said to consider "dukhovnost" — a spiritual life — as important as glasnost, Gorbachev's openness policy.

The Soviet president's public attitude religions toward differs markedly from that of the Bolsheviks immediately following their revolution and from that of longreigning Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Scholar Paul A. Lucey notes that after 1917, the new communist authorities "moved to nationalise all property belonging to religious organisa-

tions. to end their philanthropic and educational activities, and to curtail their political influence".

Lucey, writing in "The Soviet Union Today", a book of essays by various expert authors, said that through the first tumultuous decade of the new Marxist state, the authorities used both carrot and stirk to manoeuvre churches state's the to advantage.

Those that resisted — especially clergymen who opposed the new regime during

the brief civil war which followed the revolution "were dealt with summarily counteras revolutionaries", Lucey says.

Russian The Orthodox Church, the largest denomination in the Soviet Union, eventually bowed to the government's will on all "temporal" matters. An era of peace relative between Church and state ensued.

But with the advent of the Stalin regime in 1924 a new round of repression began. Five years later, a Law on

Religious Associations was passed, prohibiting nearly all religious activity and making it easier for the state to get rid of unwanted religious organisations.

1985, the future for religion began to look brighter. government The started returning confiscated churches, parRussian ticularly Orthodox, and religious groups in the various Soviet republics began to assert the right to function and worship publicly.

Even the Ukrainian

Church, Catholic although still illegal, began to surface and demand its rights.

In his address to the 19th national meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet U nion, Gorbachev said: "We do not conceal our attitude toward the religious outlook as being nonand materialistic

Throughout

"believers as individuals were subject to intense persecution".

The onset of World War II and the Nazi invasion of Russia forced the government, which needed public support, to ease its activities against the Orthodox faith, which claims the loyalty of up to 30

Religion's roller-coaster ride The situation of religion took a kind of r oller -coaster ride through the governments that succeeded the Stalin era.

Under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who held power from 1958 to 1964, the churches were subjected to what is described as a "virulent anti-religion

campaign".

Church buildings, monasteries and seminaries were closed in large numbers, religious activity was further restricted.

Church leaders who opposed the policy were tried and jailed on "trumped up writes charges", Lucey.

Things were a little

better under the General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, who succeeded Krushchev — dying in office in 1984.

what 1975, In amounted to a relegalisation of religious groups was initiated with a revision to the religious associations law. The Ukrainian Catholic

however, Church, remained outlawed.

Further improvement in the climate for religion allowed seminaries to increase their student bodies. antiHowever, religious propaganda remained a basic part of Soviet education.

With the onset of the Gorbachev era, in

the

1930s, Lucey writes,

per cent of the population.

But that relaxation did not apply to other churches. After the war, in 1946, the Ukrainian Catholic Church was dissolved by a synod of priests and laity forced to convene by the government. The Church was accused by the Soviet government of collaborating with the Nazi occupation authorities.

Some other Christian denominations and Judaism were also at the receiving end of harsh Soviet anti-religion policies at the time.

unscientific. But this is no reason for a disrespectful attitude to the spiritual-mindedness of the believer, still less for applying any administrative pressure to assert materialistic views.

"All believers," he said, "irrespective of the religion they profess, are full-fledged citizens of the USSR." 'ts*i-741

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

13

I was having a miserable day and had myself wrapped in self pity, brooding on the fickleness of a friend.

Life seemed so bleak.

Destructive thoughts clouded my mind dimming the clear blue sky and the friendly greetings of the two dogs.

"Leave the place," urged the Good Spirit.

"Go out to the waterhole. Go and find peace."

So chaperoned by the two joyful dogs mobiled into action by the sound of the jangling keys, I headed for the waterhole, still drowning in my depressive thoughts and wondering what life was all about.

The sand at the side of the beautiful waterhole was so inviting that I rested there with Gerard Manley

By Sister Clare Ahern, RSJ Hopkins and a reflective article on "Being Australian and Contemplative" by Juanita Scan.

The hound dog jummped gleefully around, pouncing on imagined every goanna or snake and the old labrador paddled gently in the waterhole pausing now and then to catch fish unsuccessfully.

I sat, read and reflected and then I saw it, the still, stately jabiru, nobly standing at the edge of the waterhole concentrating on fishing.

I watched it, mesmerised by its stillness and calmed by the thoughts of Hopkins and Scan. thought of "dappled things" and

the deep peace of the Australian bushthings, the red range of mountains in the distance, blazing with the fire of the setting sun and the Dreamtime rock of the man and his dog.

I looked at the noble jabiru, listened to the peaceful dove, the honeyeater, the magpie lark, the willy wagtail and the black cockatoos.

The singing, squawking and cooing of the birds, the sounds of the bush, the dignified company of the jabiru, the friendly protection of the dogs and the thoughts nourished

by Hopkins and Scan, all fused together to weave peace and healing into my system. Out went the misery, depression and brooding and in came the new gentle life.

Thirty minutes at the only waterhole in the area, made beautiful, powerful bush medicine.

The land had touched me with the

healing touch of the creator, the gentle touch of a Jesus who had healed many women.

His healing was so powerfully close and

it softly touched me.

And during the trip back to Mirrilingki, surrounded by rich, red ranges of mountains, shaped like lizard backs, snakes

and half-formed creatures, I thought of all the myths in this wonderful land.

I remembered the jabiru story of Minilingki, the eagle-hawk and crow of Warrmarn, the male kangaroo of Turkey Creek and the fat of the lizard on other rocks.

I saw the stories in the ranges, the shapes in the rocks and the smouldering fire in the sky.

True, the land of the Kija people of Turkey Creek had been mother to me.

It had healed me, stilled me, gave me life and nourished me with all that lived on it.

WC-V.V.VCC'eetetel,CZ'CV

A dose of powerful bush medicine

LW

It had integrated my own tradition shaped by the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins and a Josephite bonding with the wonders of the creation stories of the Dreamtime.

Truly Yahweh is in this place and I'm so grateful that through this Kija land blessed with sacred stories, he reaches out to heal me and touch me like a mother.

Yes, this land is my mother, my comforter.

P:-cvmwctvcPvcwcwctcvvv-c-tvvcctaztvgtvctcxtztcvctwevctcctc-tcctvctvvcvzpcvctwrmctif 14 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

MASSES See also Page 18

ARCHDIOCESAN COUNTRY PARISHES SUNDAY

1st

2nd

3rd

BADGINGARRA

4th

5th

8.30am

BAKERS HILL

Sat. 7pm

BALLIDU

Sundays 10.30 am

BEACON

7pm

8am

7pm Sat.

10.30am

8am

BENCUBBIN

8am

7pm Sat.

10.30am

7pm

Sat 7pm

BEVERLEY

Sundays 2, 4: 10 (winter 10.30)am Saturdays 1, 3, 5: 7 (winter 6.30)pm

Sat. 7pm

BIND! BIND!

10am

BINDOON

Sundays 7.30am at Keaney College

BOLGART

8am

BOULDER

Sundays 9am; Saturdays 6.30pm

BROOKTON

Sundays 8.30 (winter 9)am

BRUCE ROCK

9am

Sat 7pm

6.30pm

8am

Sat 7pm

BULLFINCH

7pm

BULLSBROOK

9.45am RAAF base (2.4.5) Church (1.3)

CALINGIRI COOLGARDIE

Sat 7pm

9am

7pm

10am

6.30pm 7pm

8am

9.30am Sundays (1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th) 9.30am 6.30pm

CUNDERDIN

1st, 2nd 3rd, 4th, 5th: Sat. 7pm

DALWALLINU

Sat 7pm

9am

CORRIGIN

DANDARAGAN

Sat. 7pm

6.30pm Sat.

6.30pm

Sat 7pm

6.30pm Sat.

8am

DOWERIN

Sat. 6pm

10am

Sat 6pm

10am

DUDININ

Sat. 6.30pm

10.30am

Sat. 6.30pm

10.30am

GILLINGARRA

8.30am

GINGIN

Saturdays 6.30pm

8.30am Sat. 6pm

10am

GOOMALLING

10am

GUILDERTON

noon long weekends and school holidays

HERNE HILL

8am (every Sunday)

HYDEN

Sundays 9am

Sat. 6pm

10am

8am

8am

JENNACUBBINE

Sat 6pm

JURIEN

4th Sun. 11am CERVANTES: 1st Sun. 10.30am

KALANNIE (Ang. ch.)

8.30am

KALGOORLIE

Sundays 8.10am, 7.15pm

KAMBALDA

Sundays 9am; Saturdays 6.30pm; NORSEMAN: Sundays 5.30pm

KARLGARIN

7.45am

Sat. 8pm

7.45am

Sat. 8pm

KELLERI1ERRIN

Sat. 6.30pm

Sam

10am

6pm

6.30pm

KONDININ

11am

7pm

Barn

Sat 7pm

7pm 8am 9am

8.30am

8.30am

KOORDA

10.30am

7pm

8am

7pm Sat.

KULIN

Sat. 8pm

9am

Sat. 8pm

9am

LANCELIN

5pm long weekends and school holidays

LEONORA/LAVERTON Every third Sunday. Notices posted.

7pm

MARVEL LOCH

7pm

MECKERING

8am every Sunday

MERREDIN

Sunday 8am; Saturday 7pm (weekly).

10am

MTLING

Barn

MOORA

Saturdays 6.30pm; Sundays (1.4) 6.30pm, (2.5): 8am (3) 10am

MOORINE ROCK

10am

8am

Barn

MT HAMPTON

10.30am

MT WALKER

6pm

10am

10am

10.30am

7pm

8am

10.30am

9am

6.30pm

Sat 7pm

9am

MUKINBUDIN

7pm Sat.

MUNTADGIN

7pm

NAREMBEEN

7pm Sat.

NEW NORCIA ABBEY

7.30, 9.30am every Sunday.

NORTHAM

Sundays 7.30, 9

NUNGARIN

Sundays 10am

PINGELLY QUAIRADING

Sundays 1, 3, 5: 10 (winter 10.30)am; Saturdays 2, 4: 7.30 (winter 6.30)pm 8am Sat 6pm Barn Sat 6pm Sam

SOUTHERN CROSS

Sundays 8.30am

TAMMIN

7pm

TOODYAY TRAYNING

lam; Saturdays 6.45pm

WONGAN HILLS

YEALERING YERECOIN YORK

10am

8am

8am

8am

10am

8am

10.30am

10am

6.30pm Sat.

8.30am

6.30pm Sat.

10am

8am

8am

Sat. 7pm

6pm 10.30am 6.30pm Sat.

8.30am

10am

10am

WUNDOWIE WYALKATCHEM

7pm

8am

WATHER00 WESTONIA

7pm Sat.

10am

10am

8am

7pm Sat.

Sam

7pm

6pm

8am

9.30am

10am

METRO MASS TIMETABLE Applecross: 7.30, 9.30am, 6pm; Sat. 7pm.

Attadale: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Armadale: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Highgate: 7.30, 9, 10am (It), 5.30pm (Viet); Sat. 6pm.

Hilton: 7.30, 9am, 5.30pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Repat: Hollywood 7am.

Balcatta: 7.30, 9, 10.30 Inglewood: 8.45am.

(Italian), 6pm, 7pm (Croatian), Sats.

6.30pm (See also Joondanna: 7.30, 9am; Gwelup.)

Sat. 6.30pm.

Balga: 8, 9.30am, 6pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

North Balga: (Majella ICalamunda: 7.30, 9am; School): 9am.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Bassendean: 7, 9, Karragullen: 9.30am.

10.30am.

Karrinyup: 7.30 and Bateman: 8, 9.30am; 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Kelmscott: 8, 10am, Bayswater: 7.30, 6pm; Sat. 7.30pm.

9.30am; Sat. 6pm.

Kensington: 7.30, Beaconsfield: 8.30, 9.30am.

10am, (Portuguese 7, Kenwick: 7.30, 9, 11.30am), 7pm; Sat. 10.30am, 5pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

6.30pm.

Bedford Park: 8, Kwinana: 7.30, 9.30am; 10.15am, 5pm; Sat. Sat. 6.30pm.

6.30pm.

Hope Valley: 6.30pm.

Belmont: 10am.

Wattelup: 9am.

Bentley: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Brentwood: 9, 11am, Leederville: 7, 8, 9.15 7pm (See Willetton) (Italian), 10.30am; Sat. 7pm.

Bullsbrook: Pearce RAAF: 9.30am (2, 4, 5); Lesmurdie: 8, 9.30am, Church: 9.30am (1, 3); 5.30pm; Sat. 7pm.

Gingin Sat. 6.30pm.

Lockridge: 8, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Lynwood: 7.30, 9.30am; Carilla: 8.15am.

Sat 6.30pm.

Carlisle: 8, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Carmel Monastery: Maddington: 7 (after 11am.

Easter 7.30, 9am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Chidlow: 7.30am.

Claremont: 7.30, Maida Vale: 8, 9.30am, 6pm; Sat. 6.30pm. . 9.30am, 7pm.

7.30, 9am; Manning: Cloverdale: 8, 9.30am: Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 7.30pm.

Maylands: 8.30, 10am; Coolbellup: 10am.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Como: 9am; Sat. 6.34m.

Cottesloe: 8, 10am, Melville: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 7pm.

5pm.

7, 9.30, 7pm; Midland: Crawley: (St. Thos.

Sat. 6.30pm.

More): noon, 5.45pm; 9, 7, Monastery: Sat. 7.15pm.

10.30am, 6pm.

9, Morley: 7.30, Dianella: 7.30, 9.30, 10.30am, 11.30am (It.), 10.45am; Sat. 7pm.

6pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Doubleview: 8, 10am, Mosman: 7.30, 9.30am; 5.30pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Dwellingup: 9.30am.

Mt. Lawley: 8, 9.30am; Sat. 6pm.

Mt. Yokine: 8, 10am; East Cannington: 9am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Mundaring: 9.15am; East Fremantle: 7.30, Sat. 6.30pm. (see 9.30am, 7.30pm.

Chidlow).

East Perth: 9.30am.

East Victoria Park: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. Nedlands: 8, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

6.30pm.

Embleton: 7.30, 9am; North Beach: 8, 10am, 6.30pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 7pm.

North Doubleview: 7.30, 9.30am, 7pm; Sat. Floreat Park: 8.30am.

7pm.

10am; Sat. 6.30pm.

North Fremantle: Sam. Fremantle: 7,8 (Italian), 9, 10 (Italian), 11am, 5pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Osborne Park: 8.30,10, 10am (Italian), 7pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Glendalough: 7.30, Ocean Reef: 8, 10am; 9am, 5.30pm; Sat. Sat 6.30pm.

6.30pm.

Girrawheen: 8, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Palmyra: 7.30, 9.45am; Gosnells: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat 6.30pm.

Perth: (Cathedral): 7.30, Greenmount: 7.30,9.15, 9, 10, 11.30am, 5pm: 10.45am, (Pol.), 6pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Sat. 6.30pm.

Greenwood: 7.30, 9, 10.30am; Sat 6.30pm.

Queens Park: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Guildford: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Gwelup: 11am.

Redcliffe: 8am; Sat 7pm.

Hamilton Hill: Barn Riverton: 7.30, 9am, 7pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

(Port), 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Rivervale: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 7pm.

Herne Hill: 8am.

Rockingham: 8, 9.30am, 7pm; Sat. 7pm.

Rossmoyne Mission: 9am.

Rottnest: 8am; Sat. 7pm.

Scarborough: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

St Catherine Laboure, Bedford Ave: 8.30am.

Serpentine: 9.30am, 1st & 3rd Sundays.

Shenton Park: 7.30, 10am; Sat. 7pm.

South Lake: 8, 10am; Sat 6pm.

South Perth: 7.30, 9.30am; Sat. 7pm.

Spearwood: 8, 10am; Sat. 6.30pm.

St Mary's Cathedral: (See Perth).

Subiaco: 8, 10am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Swanbourne: 8.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Victoria Park: 7.45, 9 (Italian), 10.15am; Sat. 7pm.

Wanneroo: 7.30, 9am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Wembley: 7, 9.30am, 5.30pm.

Wembley Downs: 8, 9.30am, 7pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

West Perth: 8, 9.30am, 10.30am (Italian), 11.30am (Polish).

Whitfords: 8, 9.30, 11am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Willagee: 7, 9am; 7.15pm; Sat. 6.30pm.

Willetton: 7.30, 9, 10.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

Wilson: 9.30am; Sat. 7pm.

Yanchep: Noon, High School Library.

*** DEAF Mass Windsor St. 5pm. last Sun. ITALIAN Mass: Balcatta: 10.30am: Morley 11.30am; Fremantle: 8, 10am; West Perth: 10am; Highgate: 10am; Leederville: 9.15am; Bassendean: (1st Sun.) 7.30pm; Midland: 11am (1st, 3rd); Osborne Park: 10am; Vic. Park: 9am.

UKRAINIAN Mass: Maylands: 10am.

LITHUANIAN Mass: East Perth: 11.30am.

POLISH Mass: Midland: 8.15 1st. Sun. West Perth: 11.30am; Fremantle: (1st Sun.) noon; Greenmount 10.45am.

MALTESE Mass: Bassendean: 2nd Sun. 6pm.

PORTUGUESE Mass: Beaconsfield: 7, 11.30am; Hamilton Hill: 8am.

VIETNAMESE Mass: Highgate: 5.30pm.

CROATIAN Mass: North Fremantle: 10am; Bassendean: 1st Sun. 4pm; Balcatta: 7pm; Midland: 8.15am 2nd Sun; Bassendean 1st Sun. 8am.

Sundays 9.30am

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 15

.4% ."A

Tis the season for caring

The word "care" has extraordinary an number of meanings.

It can refer to anxieties, as when we speak of someone's cares and troubles.

It can refer to personal concern for someone. In this sense we speak of people who are deserving of our care.

It can describe someone who is attentive to others, as when we refer to someone as a caring person.

When we think of Christmas as a season of care, we mean that it is a time to reach out and help the needy and

forgotten. In this sense, caring is a profoundly human quality.

For Christians, caring is an aspect of love, one of the three fundamental attitudes of a good Christian, along with faith and hope. The best way to grasp this meaning of care is to find examples of people who exemplify it in their lives.

We can begin with Jesus. As one who died for sinners, Jesus is the ultimate caring person.

The attitude of caring characterises all his ministry.

There was the time, for example, when Jesus called the disciples to

join him for some rest and quiet. But when they went to a place they thought would be deserted, a huge crowd was waiting for them.

Mark's Gospel says that Jesus's heart went out to them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

On that occasion Jesus' care for the crowd was expressed in his teaching. He began to teach them and later he saw to it that they received the they nourishment needed.

Care can be pretty tough. It even can be expressed in anger, as

when Jesus berated some Pharisees for hypocrisy.

Had he not cared, he would not have done that.

Jesus' care also was courageous, as we see so clearly when he stood up for the woman who was caught in adultery. It took courage to tell a violent and enraged crowd, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7).

For a second example of a caring perosn, we need look no further than Mary, the mother of Jesus.

By Father Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS

A young pregnant women who travels across the hills and deep valleys of Galilee, Samaria and Judea to visit a relative who is pregnant is someone who cares.

The ultimate expression of Mary's care, of course, was at the foot of the cross on which her son was dying, the same son she had wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger some 30 years earlier.

When I think of caring people, I also think of many people around me, family, friends, fellow

r .r

priests and brothers, not to mention Mary, my secretary, and Gigi, my travel agent.

Christmas is a time to notice and express appreciation for all the care with which all these people surround us.

An elderly women, now deceased, stands out among all the caring peopleIhave known. Her last name. was Salomone but everyone called her Mama Bessie.

Her husband, of whom she always spoke lovingly, had died quite young. A barber, he was

able to leave her a hom e Pausing to think, she and a modest income. answered with the musWith no children of r ical intonation of her own, Mama Bess e native Napoli, "about adopted our whole semi- 40". nary, including tie The one who asked faculty. That was wi turned around and back in 1950s and 19Ks, walked away. when small seminaries Mama Bessie loved to had not yet merged to make spaghetti and form the larger seminar- meatballs. She had a little ies of today. machine to make her Having a whole semi- own pasta. It was quite a nary full of "children" production. But a month made for some interest- did not pass without ing stories.

Mama spending the Once, while Mama was better part of a day and a visiting with people at a half making and serving funeral parlor, she spaghetti to her children referred to her childn n at the seminary. and someone asked how Everyone who met many she had.

Mama remembers her

Like many other peo- the 25th is perfect for ple, you probably would anyone. By bedtime, you like to make Christmas may begin to think that perfect, at least for the stockings you've hung by the chimney others. better empty. look peranything To make December 24 Synfect, however, is a demanding job. Anyway, drome has taken its toll. on the morning of The last Minute Steps December 24, how can remedy hasn't worked. you tell whether you Furthermore, a flourish actually are ready for a of errands and shopping perfect 25th? may well cause your Christmas to close in You just can't be sure.

All too familiar as a upon itself. You may find result is "December 24 yourself thinking that all possibly can Syndrome". It is manif- you must what is accomplish ested in an uneasy, anxious feeling that be done for "your own", things, as yet, aren't for yourselves.

To be ready if December ready for the holiday.

The common remedy 24 Syndrome strikes, ask for this affliction, a sort of yourself what really "folk" medicine applied makes for a perfect liberally, might be called Christmas.

Exhaustion isn't the "Last Minute Steps".

This remedy often adds answer. Neither is last financial up to a flourish of last- minute minute shopping for just wreckage.

Plan on December 24 to one more gift item, one a child requested or one get some exercise and you've been unable to fresh air. find so far, even though Set up a table for board you're sure it's out there games you and others somewhere. can enjoy together on Not uncommon when Christmas Day. December 24 Syndrome Read a Christmas story hits is the sudden addi- aloud with family tion of four or five names members. to your gift list, people Telephone a relative you hadn't seriously you haven't heard from thought of giving a gift to in a while, visit someone up until now. who suffered a recent It also can happen on loss, or someone who is the 24th that no distance alone. seems too far to travel to Remind yourself that no obtain yet one more item number of gifts can take of perfection for the the place of the gift of Christmas dinner table. time given to others. The Errands multiply end- frantic pace of December lessly-, spending can run 24 can crowd out the real away with you. spirit of Christmas.

Fatigue is the end result Plan for a good and 24 wonderful Christmas. of December Syndrome.

But remember, you don't By nightfall you may be have to take Last Minute too tired to care whether Steps to make it perfect.

16

All the customs associated with that day developed only slowly

over the centuries, like the giving of gifts.

Actually, in a large part of the Christian world, gifts are exchanged on Epiphany, the day associated with the presentation of gifts to the newborn child by the Magi.

Yet the custom of gifts is

thoroughly biblical. It stems from an acknowi. edgement of God as the supreme giver of gifts to humanity: life, wellbeing, food, the grand universe, all given out of love and concern for our happiness,

Sharing gifts with others was a way of imitat-

The king, as God's attention to their fasting, was they got this answer representative, charged with the care of "This, rather, is the the disadvantaged. Isaiah fasting that I wish . . .

(11:4) described the ideal sharing your bread with king of the future in hungry, sheltering the these terms: "He shall oppressed and the homejudge the poor with less, clothing the naked justice, and decide a right when you see them, and for the land's afflicted." not turning your back on When people com- your own" (Isaiah 58:6plained that God paid no 7).

ing God's overwhelming generosity. It was a way to become truly Godlike.

The three great acts of religion for the Jews were prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

God's faithful people always showed a practical concern for others, especially the less fortunate.

••••\

and she often comes up in the conversations of those whose eyes rolled as she overloaded their plates. What remains of those meals, each one an is event, Mama's warmth, humour, smile and love.

Caring people like Jesus, Mary and Mama Bessie. She would laugh to see herself included in such exalted company!

— are very creative.

To know them is to become better human beings. Those who benefit from their care actually become caring people themselves.

l lica bib so is s ma s rist or at gut Ch g ivin G Briefly Christmas as we know it was not celebrated in New Testament times.

It was a long time before December 25 was chosen for the liturgical celebration of Jesus' birth.

.4k

All through his ministry Jesus preached selfless generosity to others, especially to those in need. Luke records Jesus' words: "You are to be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). To be Godlike and authentically human is to show practical concern, to share God's gifts.

God's supreme gift to us was his Son, the gift that we celebrate at Christmas. Even if the early Christians did not celebrate as we do, they celebrated Christ's coming every day.

sharing. Luke's vignette of the first community at Jerusalem may be a bit idealised, but it expresses the deep, practical love that Christians showed one another

"All who believed were The lives of the early together and had all Christians were marked things in common. They by mutual concern and would sell their property

and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's needs" (Acts 2:44-45).

You would look in vain for any examples of Christmas gifts in the New Testament. What you will find instead is an ongoing "Christmas", a selfless return to others

by Father John J. Castelot

of God's gift to us.

The whole meaning of Christmas is summed up in the climactic verse of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel: "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). Jesus embodied God's generous love and urged his followers

to live it, too, to show their gratitude to him by imitating his generosity in their lives.

Nothing could be more biblical than to give gifts at Christmas — especially to give to those whom no one else remembers.

When the cherished traditions The true spirit... become emotional minefields Terrie and Paul dread the idea of Christmas.

Just getting through each anguished day is struggle enough for the young couple whose only child, Michael died in June, two weeks before his second birthday.

The spectre of Christmas without him is almost too painful to bear. Tern wishes they could just sleep through it.

At no other time of year does grief over a loved one's death strike so forceful a blow as at Christmas.

Suddenly the cherished traditions of the season become a kind of juggernaut, an emotional minefield.

A wife sees the perfect gift for her husband in a

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

department store winthen and dow, remembers he is gone.

A father hears the Christmas carol he taught his daughter to sing so many years ago, and realises he will never hear her voice again.

And everywhere, the image of the intact family, decorating the Christmas tree, baking cakes, attending Midnight Mass, eating dinner, Christmas reminds the grieving that their family is no longer whole.

It is precisely the family nature of Christmas that makes it so difficult for people who have lost a loved one, said Anne Keough, director of family life ministry at Holy Spirit Parish.

The parish sponsors a support group, "Grief and Belief", to help teenagers and adults work through the grieving process.

"Christmas is synonymous with family," Ms Keough said. "Add to that the fact that society tells us Christmas is not a time when you intrude on other families and suddenly people who are grieving become acutely aware of the emptiness. the loneliness, the void in their lives."

For the Christian community, whose stories and symbols at Christmas centre on birth and life and light, the call to care for those who mourn presents a special challenge. Ms Keough suggested several con-

By Cindy Liebhart McCormack

crete ways the community can extend its love and support to grieving members during the holidays.

1. Actively seek out community members who have experienced a death during the past year, at church, work, at the store, when picking children up from school.

"Don't be afraid to ask how they're doing," she said. "Then be prepared to listen and to respond sincerely . . . Help them to share their memories of that person, happy or painful."

Ms Keough cautioned against using cliches such as, "John would have wanted you to be

happy."

But, she added, "if yni forget and wish they., a Merry Christmas, don't be embarrassed. Jest follow up with a question like, 'Is this turning 0111 to be a hard time for your ".

2. Invite a grieving person or family to in you on Christmas. INe need to examine our own attitudes about Christmas being strictly a family time and becalm' sensitive to people incur community who may be alone, who may be afri id to ask to join us," Ms Keough said. recommend Id She inviting the person or family for a specific tune and activity, such as Mass and breakinst afterward.

"You ask a lot of the

person if you ask him or her to be there from the time your family opens gifts in the morning until the time you finish dinner dishes," she said.

"Set some parameters so the person is not overwhelmed."

And be open to the possibility of rejection.

The person may not feel up to spending Christmas with others. Even here, though, she suggests leaving an opening for people: "If you change your mind, dinner is at 3.

You're welcome to join us for the entire meal or for coffee and dessert."

3. Send a Christmas card along with a handwritten note. If you knew the person who died, share a memory of him or her in the note.

4. On the parish level, offer special liturgies or prayer services during the holidays to commemorate community deaths during the past year. The feast of the Holy Family on the Sunday after Christmas provides an especially appropriate liturgical framework in which to do this.

Family members of friends could be asked to bring a special symbol of the deceased, a picture, a letter, a favourite book, a toy, to place before the altar.

Ms Keough also suggests that parishes remember people who have lost loved ones during the year in the prayers of the faithful on Christmas Day and in bulletin parish reminders.

pathways of the KNOW YOUR FAITH

In the early Middle A ges there was a wealthy count named Gerald. Instead of alms distributing through one of his staff, he travelled the countryside himself, seeking out the poor and getting to know those he helped.

Because he knew the poor, he always invited some to his banquets, mixed them with dignitaries and asked them to speak first in the table he discussions conducted.

I would say he had the spirit of Christmas. But what is that?

St John summed it up with deceptive simplicity "The Word became flesh." The Word enters human life because God cares about each person.

This care prompts God to get as close as possible

rather than remaining at a safe distance outside the sphere of human existence.

There may be a lot of cultural and commercial distractions from this meaning, but true believers in Christmas have never lost sight of it.

until an informant identification with them, she wore their simple turned him in.

While in prison, clothing. through a synod over Edmund was visited by Concerned about a the informant, who now larger, suffering world, which she presided. each of them to Gerald and Margaret feared his own life. she asked others, who nine find for arranged Edmund were influential enough week would a once from escape him to not to run any personal the smallest risk in demonstrating England and gave him a contribute they had for the coin of letter recommendatheir care.

No less caring than It was different for tion to a German foreign missions.

This "widow's mite" Count Gerald, for exam- Edmund Campion in the nobleman. ple, or less willing to use 16th-century England. A Equally bold was Cath- was the beginning of our her royal position, was rising intellectual at erine of Siena. Her modern society for the Margaret, Queen of Sco- Oxford University with influence began with her Propagation of the Faith. tland, who lived in the deep ties to the Church of remarkable care of Ozanam was beginning 11th century. She England, Edmund plague victims, who his studies for a law insisted that all the decided to become a afterward clustered career when an agnostic people of her husband's Roman Catholic and around her as their student challenged him realm be educated — immediately began leader, despite her youth. to really put the teachunheard of in those days. resisting Queen Eliza- She soon was called ings of Jesus into upon by kings for advice, practice.

She established hostels beth I. to Frederic and a few for travellers, hospitals He had to leave England got warring parties then and fighting friends did, seeking out stop for the poor and funds to for a time, but he returned to serve his drew up treaties of peace. the poor, discovering ransom captives. persuaded the from them their real Margaret also brought persecuted countrymen, She even in France needs and finding ways residing pope, in them women together to study travelling among return to to help them. to time, the at hiding disguises, many modshe Scripture and withstood she and Out of his personal care Rome, ernised church practices out wherever he could French opposition to the came the formation of the St Vincent de Paul move.

Catherine was young, Society. but not as young as Getting back the real Pauline Jaricot and Fre- meaning of Christmas deric Ozanam who lived isn't so hard once you go French back in history and meet the after Revolution. some of the people who Pauline worked with have let the Word poor girls in the local become flesh through Compiled by NC News Service hospital. To show her them.

By Father Robert Kinast

pint

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

17

SUNDAY MASS TIMETABLE Continued from page 15

THE DIOCESE OF BUNBURY 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Saturdays 6pm; Sundays 7, 8.30, 10am (Easter to Advent 7.30, 9, 10.30)

1st

ALBANY AUGUSTA

Saturdays 7pm

AUSTRALIND

Saturdays 6pm; Sundays 10am

BALINGUP

10am

10am

BODDINGTON

10.30am

BORDEN

llam

BOYANUP

Sundays 10.30am (Jan-Feb 7.30am)

BOYUP BROOK

Sundays 9am

BRIDGETOWN

Sundays 8am

BROOMEHILL

8am

BRUNSWICK

Sundays 8.30am; Saturdays 7.30pm Sundays 8, 10am, 7pm; Saturdays 7pm

BUNBURY (St Pats.)

8am

BUNBURY (St Mary's) Sundays 9am BUNBURY (Carey Park) Sundays 8.30am BUSSELTON

Sundays 9.30am (Jan. add. 7pm); Saturdays 7pm

CAPEL

10am

COLLIE

8.30am

8.30am Sundays 10am, 7pm; Saturdays 7pm

CONDINGUP COOMALBIDGUP

10am Sat. 6pm

DARDANUP

Sundays 9am

DARKAN

9am

Sat. 6pm

Barn

Sat. 6pm

9am

DONNELLY MILL

5.30pm 8.30am

DUDININ DUMBLEYUNG

5.30pm

10am

10am

7.30pm Sat. 8.30am

10am

10am

10am

8am

8.30am

DUNSBOROUGH

Sundays 8am, Saturdays 6pm

DWELLING[JP

8am

ESPERANCE

Sundays 7, 9am; (June-Aug 8, 10) Saturdays 6.30pm

FRANKLAND RIVER

10.30am

GAIRDNER RIVER

10.30am

GNOWANGERUP

10am

6pm 8.30am

9am

10am

7pm

GRASS PATCH

10.30am

10.30am

GREENBUSHES

10am

10am

HARVEY

8.30am

10am

CRANBROOK

DONNYBROOK

8.30am

10am

Sundays 9am (Jun-Sep 10am), 7.30pm

JERRAMUNGUP

llam

KARRIDALE

Sundays 8am

9am

KATANNING

Sundays 9.30am; Saturdays 6pm

KIRUP

Saturdays 7.30pm

KOJONUP

10.45am

8.30am

10.45am

8.30am

9am

KUKERIN

Sat 7pm

8am

7pm

10am

9am

LAKE GRACE

7pm (Suns 1.5. Sats 2.3.4.5.) 8am (Sun. 4), 10am (Sun 2.3.)

LAKE KING

8am

LOCKYER

Sundays 8.30am; Summer 8am

MANDURAH

Sundays 8, 9.30am; Saturdays 7pm (Dec 26 to 1st Sun Feb add Sun 7pm)

MANJIMUP

Sundays 8.30am; Saturday 7pm

MARGARET RIVER

Sundays 10am; Saturdays 5pm

MOUNT BARKER

9.30am

8am

9.30am

MUNGLINUP

8am

MURADUP

Weekly 7pm Sat.

NANNUP

6.30pm

NARROGIN

Sundays 9.30am; Saturdays 7pm

6.30pm

NEWDEGATE NORTHCLIFTh

6.30pm

6.30pm

8am Sundays 10.30am

NYABING/PINGRUP ONGERUP

8am

(alternate months)

10.30am

8.30am

PEMBERTON

10.30am Sundays 8.30am; Saturdays 7.30pm

PINJARRA

Sundays 1.3.4.5: 10am, 2:7pm; Saturdays 7pm

RAVENSTHORPE

7pm

ROCKY GULLY

10.30am

SALMON GUMS

10.30am 8.30am

8.30am

STTRLINGS

Barn

TAMBELLUP

8.30am

WAGIN

Sundays 10am; Saturdays 7pm

WAROONA

1st, 3rd, 5th: 8.30am; 2nd, 4th: 10am Saturdays 7pm

WEST ARTHUR WICKEPIN

10.45am

Sat. 6pm

10.30am

8.30am

10.45am

8.30am

8.30am

8am

8am

8.30am

8.30am

8am

WILLIAMS WILSON PARK

8.30am

YAIRLOOP

1st, 3rd, 5th: 10am; 2nd, 4th: 8.30am

18 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

8.30am

GERALDTON DIOCESE All times are regular for each Sunday unless otherwise noted.

GERALDTON: Cathedral; 7.30, 9.30am; 7pm; Sat 7pm.

Rangeway: 8am; 5.45pm; Sat 7pm.

Bluff Point: 9am; Sat 7pm.

Wonthella: 7.30am.

BUNTINE: 2nd Sat. 7pm.

CARNARVON: 9am; see Shark Bay; Sat 7pm.

CARNAMAH: Sats. 7pm.

COOROW: 7.45am (alt.)

CUE: 8.30am.

DAMPIER 7.30am, Sat. 5pm.

DONGARA: 9.30am; Sat. 7pm.

ENEABBA: 7pm (alt.)

EXMOUTH: Base 9am; Town 10.30am; Sat. 6pm.

GREENOUGH: 8am.

KA LBARRI: 5pm.

KARRATHA: 9am; Sat. 7pm.

LATHAM: 1st, 3rd, 5th Sats. 7pm.

LEEMAN: 5pm (alt.)

MEEKATHARRA: Sats.

6pm.

MINGENEW: 6pm.

MT. MAGNET: 10.30am.

MORAWA: 10am.

MULLEWA: 8am; Sat. 7.15pm.

NANSON: 6pm.

NEWMAN: 7.30, 9am; Sat. 6pm.

N ORTHAMPTON: 8.30am; Sat. 6.30pm.

NULLAGINE: 2nd Sun. 4.30pm.

P ARABURDOO: 10.30am; 7pm.

PERENJORI: 8am.

PORT HEDLAND: 8.30am; Sat. 6pm.

SOUTH HEDLAND: 8.30, 10am; Sat. 7pm.

TARDUN: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 9.30am.

THREE SPRINGS: 9.30am (alt.)

TOM PRICE: 8am; Sat. 7pm.

WICKHAM: 10am; Sat. 5pm.

YUNA: Sat 8pm.

YALGOO: 2nd, 10.30am.

t;onvenient moue lc PERTH (09) 325 9557 AR MADALE (09) 399 2143 FRE MANTLE (09) 335 2268 MIDLAND (09) 274 1159 MUNDARING (09) 295 1059 ROCKINGHAM (09) 527 1605 ROTTNEST (09) 292 5052 WANNER00 (09) 405 1110 ALBANY (098) 41 1129 AUGUSTA (097) 58 1990 BREMER BAY (098) 37 4091 BROOME (091) 92 1353 BUNBURY (097) 21 2141 BUSSELTON (097) 52 1687 CARNARVON (099) 41 1768 DERBY (091) 91 1227 ESPERANCE (090) 71 2091 GERALDTON (099) 21 3221 KALGOOR LIE (090) 21 2353 KARRATHA (091) 85 1443 MANDURAH (09) 535 1847 MARGARET RIVER (097) 57 2264 MEEKATHARRA (099) 81 1120 MT MAGNET (099) 63 4050 NEWMAN (091) 75 1030 NEW NORCIA (096) 54 8018 PORT HEDLAND (091) 73 1687 SOUTHERN CROSS (090) 49 1049

Evenin Mass SATURDAY

Metro

7 PM (cont)

6.00 PM Bayswater Highgate Mt Lawley South Lake 6.30 PM Armadale Attadale Balcatta Bateman Beaconsfield Bedford Bentley Cathedral Como Doubleview East Cannington Fast Vic. Park Floreat Pk Fremantle Girrawheen Glendalough Gosnells Greenmount Greenwood Guildford Hamilton Hill Hilton Park Joondanna Kalamunda Karrinyup Kenwic.k Kwinana Lockridge Lynwood Maddington Maida Vale Manning Mavlands Midland Mirrabooka Morley Mt. Yokine Mosman Park Mundaring Nedlands Osborne Park Ocean Reef Palmyra Queens Park Riverton Scarborough Spearwood Subiaco Swanbourne Wanneroo Whitfords Wlllagee Willetton 7 PM Applecross Bassendean Cloverdale Crawley Dianella Embleton Kensington Leederville Lesmurdie

Maida Vale Melville-Myaree North Doubleview Redcliffe Rivervale Rottnest Rockingham Shenton Park South Perth Victoria Park Wembley Downs Wilson 7.30 PM Kelm.scott

Country 5 PM Margaret River 6 PM Albany Australind Cranbrook Durisborough Katanning Northam (6.45) 6.30 PM Boulder Esperance Gingin Kambalda Meelcatharra Moora Northampton 7 PM Augusta Bluff Point Bridgetown Bunbury Busselton Bullsbrook Carnamah Collie Dongara Esperance Geraldton Kojonup Mandurah Manjimup Merredin Mullewa (7.15) Muradup Narrogin Northampton Pin jarra Rangeway Toodyay Waroona Wongan Hills York 7.30 PM Boyup Brook Brunswick Donnybrook Kirup Pemberton

SUNDAY 5 PM Bedford Cathedral Cottesloe Fremantle Hamilton Hill Kenwick Mirrabooka 5.30 PM Crawley (5.45) Doubleview Glendalough Hilton Lesmurdie Wembley 6 PM Applecross Armadale Balcatta Bellevue Hope Valley Kelrnscott Maida Vale Monastery Morley 6.30 PM North Beach Wembley Downs

7 PM Beaconsfield Brentwood Claremont Midland North Doubleview Osborne Park Riverton Rockingham Willagee (7.15) 7.30 PM East Fremantle

Country 5 PM Kalbani 5.30 PM Norseman Rangeway 6 PM Mingenew 7 PM Bunbury Cowaramup Collie Geraldton Kalbarri 7.15 PM Harvey Kalgoorlie

NT'si

SUFFOCATION OF SPIRITUALITY AND DEFEATIST ATTITUDE

The stumbling blocks national seminary in Kandy, speaks from his experience as a former Colombo vicar general, vicar for lay apostolate, YCS, YCW and the university student apostolate.

In his Kandy seminary he is in charge of 150 students for Sri Lanka's six dioceses and 50 for religious orders. Some 20 students a year are ordained for the priesthood.

Sri Lanka's Catholic population is one million out of a total of 15 million and since increase is mostly by birth, the Catholic population is decreasing by comparison with other groups.

Father De Mel is confident of the ability of tomorrow's priests to cope with the pressures around them.

"People are closed to what the priest wants to tell them, so he has a problem on his hands. But if we challenge and draw out the transcendental dimension of that young man, he will know how to tackle his situations.

"If he comes from having made proper decisions and from coping with problems then he can help others cope as well."

Asked about today's talk of priestless parishes and priestless Sundays Father De Mel said he detected a sense of defeatism as though we have to get used to such situations.

"The answer should be to go out and get more priests not to say we can't get priests.

"It is defeatism if we don't believe that there is a vocation to the priesthood, to

dedication, to what Christ has intended in this world and that there will be large numbers following."

The ministry between different countries, say Sri Lanka and Australia, is the same but different because change takes place according to the society in which we live, he explained.

"The basic belief that priests are necessary for the Church, that priests can be found, that we can meet this need should be a deep conviction in our minds."

Father De Mel believes that the influx of migrants to Australia from countries where the faith has been less touched

by Western ways may find people more easily awakened to a commitment to a spiritual dimension of

Fr Joe De Mel. Christianity.

In the absence of what used to be minor seminaries, he says, there is a need to keep alive the commitment that young people may have when they leave school.

After 35 years of priesthood when he was ordained with a large international group, including Australians in Rome,

Father De Mel is quietly happy with what he has seen of seminary life as rector.

Of 170 priests who have passed through his care in eight years, only one has left the priesthood. By the time he finishes he will have looked after the training of 240 . . . in what is called a 'missionary country'.

Indian call for radical changes India DELHI, (UCAN): A special drive for vocations among low castes, training in smaller groups, and lay participation in seminary policies highlight the Indian bishops' statement priestly on formation.

In the statement to be sent to the Synod of Bishops in Rome on priestly formation scheduled in October 1990, the Indian bishops call for radical changes in semi-

nary training, to help priests deal with "the total reality of India".

"The growing communalism in various parts of the country . . shows up the deficient and inadequate formation of priests to initiate new models of evangelisation and priestly ministry to respond to such a situation," the bishops state.

On the matter of communal violence, the bishops say, priests should be "a catalyst of the human

reality," helping people overcome inner divisions of castes, class and religion, so "a genuine community' with a sense of justice and concern for the poor may emerge.

"This must be fully recognised as a priestly role and the full theological underpinning of this priestly vocation must be explored," the statement says. Seminary training is to help priests take up concern for the poor and

a "firmer commitment to their struggles for freedom and justice".

• The statement notes that the majority of Indian Christians are dalits (low castes), and calls for "preferential attention and remedial measures of promotion of vocations among them".

• The statement says the role of priests differs in various regions, and stresses that "formation of priests will require a

much more radical rethinking that may suggest changes in the ecclesial laws".

"Priests trained in a traditional way of all three rites are illprepared for the missionary situation of central and north India," the statement says.

"The priestly ministry of welding communal harmony and building the human community, especially in a situation of divisive communalistic forces, should be considered an integral part of evangelisation and priestly ministry," the statement says.

They face prejudice, hostility and fundamentalism which have caused enactment of laws restricting missionary work in these regions.

It calls for a "thorough reorientation of seminaries and training of priests for such a situation", and emphasises "the need for a corporate

Views that are out of date

"Many of the views put forward about the nature of seminary training are twenty or thirty years out of date," Bishop Mulkearns told the Australian Bishops' Conference earlier this month.

if

"People kept referring to a monastic style of development that does not exist except in very few instances."

Bishop Mulkearns, c hairman for the committee for clergy and religious, said there were also sug-

--tetZ-VeM%

gestions that women should be involved with the formation and training of students, but that was already happening.

He was commenting on replies to a call by bishops for comment on clergy formation.

Similar surveys are being carried out all around the world in preparation for next year's Synod of Bishops.

Synods are held in Rome every four years, the last being in 1986 when the topic was The Laity.

The 1990 Synod will focus on the formation of priests.

Cardinal Edward Clancy and Bishop will Mulkearns represent Australia at the Synod.

All dioceses around the world have been asked by the Holy See to respond to a questionnaire.

Bishop Mulkearns stressed that the summary document sent to Rome represented combined the response of the Australian Church and had not been formally

considered by the members of Conference before despatch and therefore had not been endorsed by them.

Each diocese was permitted to choose its own method of carrying out the survey.

In Perth, an advertisement in The Record called for submissions.

In his diocese of Ballarat, Bishop Mulkearns sought the views of students in Years 11 and 12 at all Catholic secondary

schools, some 15 in number and mostly co-educational.

To the major question: What qualities do you see as being necessary for effective spiritual leadership, overwhelmingly the answer came back as good communication skills, including the ability to listen as well as talk, to be able to communicate with all age groups not just the young.

The qualities that were perceived in a priest as attracting others to try their vocation were:

• a priest's ability to have a close relationship with God; • his inner peace; • his satisfaction with his job; • his friendliness and openness to others and readiness to with assist counselling.

Suggestions on how to make vocations attractive more included: • allow priests to marry and have a family and thus enable them to gain greater insights into family difficulties;

.ir.i .iaM2fi'i

Emphasis on technological progress and quality of life suffocate the spiritual dimension of life and even that has been rationalised and formalised, said Father Joe De Mel after a three-month visit to Australia.

"There may not be enough time to reflect, to raise the mind. The idea of mystery seems to be totally lacking in life," he observed after travelling widely in Australia.

There is not much point talking to a man about priesthood until he has been

helped to find the needs he does not feel about at the moment, and which are not being catered for or drawn out.

"If he is being suffocated by other dimensions and fully engaged in this pursuit, we have to find ways of awakening him to things he is not feeling at the moment but are there within him.

"If we believe that mankind is meant for God and will not find fulfilment unless we find God we have to get an awareness of that to our kids. On the other hand the kids are being pressured on all sides by a competitiveness to pass exams, to become competent in life."

Father De Mel, in the eighth of his 10-year contract period as rector of Sri Lanka's

i i-

A suffocation of spirituality in young people and a defeatist attitude towards recruitment may be factors working against Australian vocations, according to a Sri Lankan seminary rector.

approach to the new models of evangelisation and witness".

• The statement also calls for lay participation in formation of seminarians helping in seminary policies, evaluation of seminarians for admission into the seminary and the Sacrament of Orders, and ongoing formation of priests.

Aar

"Participation of laity in the administration of the seminary is another channel of involvement."

• make optional;

celibacy

• talk to young people about the value of celibacy; • allow women to be ordained; • provide more information about vocations, for example have open days at a seminary and include priestly vocations among careers featured at school open days.

A common theme was that vocations for the priesthood were undersold.

VZ-tCVVVCVCVVVCVC--WCVCCVNiktrVCC-tC The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 19

The new president of the Child Migrant Friendship Society knows personally the child difficulties migrants face in tracing relatives and why they need help such as their new office premises and access to counselling.

The Christian Brothers have funded the renting of an office at 202 Railway Parade, phone Meltham, 272 3760, PO Box 253 Maylands 6051, that will be open Tuesdays to Thursdays 10am to 3pm.

Mrs Ellen Farmer of Waroona, the society's president, tells how she was 52 years of before she age obtained her birth certificate. It brought happiness her because it meant she was no longer just a number in a government file.

Today she is a mother of seven adult children and 13 grandchildren but when she tried to solve the riddle of her

The Child Migrant Friendship Society and the Catholic Migration Service will be able to play complementary roles and provide alternatives says senior social worker with the Catholic office, Angela Ebert.

For those who may prefer not to trace their relatives through the Catholic agency, the society will offer an alternative, she explained.

Principally, the Catholic office will be able to provide the counselling services the Society does not have.

On the other hand, the Society can offer the support that former child migrants need, meeting others with similar backgrounds, feeling free to talk with others who will understand, often in situations where even a spouse or children may not

identity some 25 years ago, she hit a brick wall in all her enquiries.

This, she says, is the experience of many other child migrants.

When they are busy rearing their own families, the need to know their identity can be put aside, but as they grow older and are asked by their grandchildren to tell something of their background, their anxiety can become acute.

Mrs Farmer knows that for many of her associates, especially those who came out before the war, the time factor is why help must be given quickly to that age group so that the most recent arrivals, up till 1967, can be better helped when the need arises.

Mrs Farmer, then Ellen O'Rourke, came out with two sisters and a brother when she was just 10 years old and spent her growing up years in

the St Joseph's institution at Wembley.

Asked if she was having success in tracing her own relatives, she said she was "getting there".

For others it is an equally difficult road.

Contacts have been made with England so that enquiries can be expedited but this may cost up to $100.

The new office will help enquirers get on with their searches and some 60 cases have been helped already.

After information has been obtained it will then be up to the individual to make contact if they wish, but for this step professional counselling is necessary and the Meltham office will not be able to provide that service.

Mrs Farmer was loud in her praise for the help Oven by the Christian Brothers to fund their office. "It's been absolutely marvellous and we can't

Ellen Farmer. thank them enough," she said.

Although their running expenses are not expected to be heavy, the society's work will

still depend largely on fees from their members and whatever other donations will come in from the public to help this work.

e alternative... be able to offer much support.

The urgent need for the Catholic agency, she noted is to get a full time senior social worker who can provide the counselling along with administrative and other back up.

The urgency also arises because for many of the child migrants time may be running out in their search for relatives still living.

Counselling is needed when a migrant is confronted with information obtained from their files. For some it may require only an hour or so; for others it may need counselling for up to a year to cope with pain or shock from information they did not expect, or with changes that will occur if a meeting with relatives takes place.

Angela Ebert can sympathise with some of migrants' anxieties. She herself migrated from Germany to Australia four years ago and for most of that time has worked with the Catholic Migrant Centre.

She points out that the loss of identity experienced by child migrants is different from that of othet migrants. For the latter the term implies that they had an identity before they migrated.

The child migrants' difficulty is that they lack any sense of identity about where they belong in this world, if they have anything in common with their parents.

Out of this arises their feelings of rejection, of being abandoned, of being unimportant, of anger for

/.2C-VVCCACMCC..

70 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

Angela being given to someone else, of being denied the right to grow up with their families.

If these people have not experienced nur-

turing, they cannot provide it themselves.

For these reasons the provision of professional counselling care is necessary and urgent, she said.

Tony McAlinden.

Any moves to help put staff on to assist former child migrants with processing infortrace their families mation held in files. needs to be accompanBy today's standards ied by compassion for the records may not the parents of those be adequate, he said, times, says Mr Tony but the records of the McAlinden, the execu- Catholic agencies tive officer of the WA were up to standard Catholic Social Wel- for those times. fare Commission.

Mr McAlinden said The child migrant that over a period days were a very sad since February this time for parents, who year there had devewere often poor, and loped a spirit of cotoday it has become a operation between very sad time for both the child migrant parents and their society and the children as efforts are Catholic authorities. made to make conAlthough early tact, he explained. meetings had been Mr McAlinden said tense, and even angry, his Catholic agency it was no worse than had put a submission would have been to the government for e xpected, he assistance in this explained, but now work and there was they had extended the sympathy for what is hand of friendship proposed.

The and trust towards government also had each other.

Look ahead

Br Gerald Faulkner.

There's no point in Brother Faulkner spending more time on said that since first the past than we have meeting with the to and therefore we group five months ago want to combine there had been a resources and look at distinct change in the the future in whatever relationship. "1 think way the Child Migrant we are moving signiFriendship Society ficantly into cowishes to move. operation with what This was the com- can be mustered in ment of Brother terms of ideas, people Gerald Faulkner, the and in some cases provincial superior of finance." the Christian Brothers in Western AusBrother Faulkner tralia in connection summed up his perwith financial sup- sonal approach to the port his congregation question: was a boy "I has offered the at school in Adelaide migrant group. when this scheme The Brothers have operated and so it is offered to pay the rent important for me and on the Society's pre- the Child Migrant mises on the under- Society that I try and standing that the understand the hisSociety will seek tory but I don't want funds from the to spend more time on Department of Com- the past than I have munity Services. to."

Wt"fVctctc-VVctc-VVVVVVCVCVVCVCtztcPCV

il'A=EW4'7iii i. =i=ika.a - -iaM

Difficulties child migrants face

Compassion for parents

By Laurie EAST WOOD, secretary and executive officer of the Parents and Friends Federation of WA and treasurer of the Australian Parents Council, in his address to the council's annual conference in Sydney in October.

Survival budgets and govt school funding

Js'k

PARENTS AND PEOPLE ARE GETTING TIRED WARNING Whilst we all recognise the urgent need for economic stringency there seems to be little restraint in government expenditure in all sorts of areas except spending on n on -government school children.

It seems that nongovernment school parents are expected to continue shouldering a disproportionate share of our economic ills.

The savings provided to taxpayers in Australia by nongovernment school students were in the order of $1170 million in 1987/88 in recurrent costs alone, and the latest budget estimates indicate that will figure this increase to around $1351 million in 1989/90 (832,300 students x a government/ n on -government "spending gap" of approximately $1624 each).

This gap has grown from $1420 in 1987/ 88 to $1624 in 1989/ 90.

The 27.3% of children who attend nongovernment schools in Australia will still only attract 17.7% of the total recurrent expenditure by the states and commonwealth in 1989/90.

levels similar to those provided in government schools without having to impose undue financial penalties on parents; and

With governments under pressure to overcome budget deficits and many parents unable to exercise their legitimate freedom of choice of school for their children, because increasingly higher fees deny them access, it is essential that governments recognise:

(ii) The enormous savings that are available to governments (particularly state governments) when students transfer to the non-government sector — eg in 1989/ 90 the Western Australian government will save an average of at least $2294 recurrent expenditure for every student who attends a nongovernment rather than a government school, and a further $188 in capital expenditure (total savings of $2482 per pupil).

(i) The urgent need for non-government schoolchildren and communities to be allocated substantially improved levels of public funding, to enable their schools to operate at resource

the Quantifying additional amount of funding public required in Western Australia to restore non -government schoolchildren even to their unsatisfactory 1987/88 relative posi-

tion compared to government schoolchildren, indicates that the percentage of education budget funds allocated to each 1% of the school population accommodated in nongovernment schools in WA declined from .6924% in 1987/88 to .6685% in the 1989/ 90 estimates, and that the non-government sector would require a further $5 million to $6 million in recurrent funds in 1989/90 to bring the figure back to around .6922% (ie an increase averaging approximately $80 per child would be required merely to cope with the faster rate of increase in enrolments in the non-government sector).

Governments and members of parliament need to be made aware that nongovernment school parents and corn-

munities are very tired of having to operate within "survival" budgets (or being forced towards financial elitism through constantly having to increase school fees by more than the general rate of inflation).

They are tired of having to fund new government or industrial court-imposed costs and award provisions with inadeadditional quate government funding, eg the recent 3% occupational superannuation provision and the 4% second productivity tier increase salary (together estimated to cost at least an additional $125 per student per year from 1989).

They are equally tired of having to fund the on-going replacement of religious principals and staff, who have provided enormous benefits

both to school communities and to taxpayers in general over the years — whilst at the same time being given little or no access to new government school programs (funded by all taxpayers), such as the introduction of unit curriculum, additional languages other than English, new programs in literacy, maths and monitoring of education standards, provision of time for "duties other than teaching" in primary schools and new teacher award restructuring provisions.

Non-government schools will simply be unable to provide teachers and students with conditions and programs similar to those available in government schools without substantial improvements in the level of public resources allocated to them, significant Or

increases in tuition fees.

An essential first step in reversing the current widening of the resources gap is to ensure that funding entitlements for nongovernment schoolchildren are based on a reasonable percentage of total real government school per pupil operating costs, so enabling their schools to be conducted at a level of resources comparable to government schools without the necessity of charging parents exorbitant school fees.

Secondly, sufficient public funds (preferably at a state/territory level) have to be provided to meet the demand for newpupil places in nongovernment schools, the consequential capital and recurrent per pupil savings to state/territory governments making such a policy well and truly self-funding.

verage 'spending ga

AND WHAT THE STATE 1 1. GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY SAVED The average recurrent "spending gap" per pupil between what the Federal and State Governments spent on children in government and nongovernment schools in Western Australia in 1988/89 is conservatively estimated at $1165 per pupil and is estimated to increase to $1299 in 1989/90.

Also the 23% of children who attend n on -government schools in WA currently receive only 15% of the recurrent expenditure and 8% of the capital expendi-

ture by Governments on schooling.

Adding the "gap" in capital expenditure ($152 per pupil) to the "gap" in recurrent expenditure, Australian Governments spent an average of $1317 per pupil less noneach on government school child in Western Australia than on each child in a government school in 1988/89 and this "gap" is estimated to increase to $1491 in 1989/90.

As shown by the following figures, the State Government

actually saved an average of more than $2250 total capital and recurrent expenditure for every student attending a nonGovernment school in WA in 1988/89 and this figure is estimated to increase to $2482 in 1989/90.

These figures have been estimated and presented to the WA Government by the Parents and Friends Federation of WA (Inc) as part of their 1989 funding submission and Budget follow up.

GOVERNMENT RECURRENT EXPENDITURE (WA Schools) Actual Budget 1988/89 1989/90 Government School Children Expenditure: State Government C'wealth Govt Total Divided by Total Enrolments

647 63

719 77

$710m $796m ( 234263)(239540)

Average Govt recurrent spending per Govt 2752 School Student: State Govt 269 C'wealth Govt

3002 321

$3031

$3323

Total

Non-Government School Children 45 Expenditure: State Govt 82 C'wealth Govt Total Divided by Total Enrolments

50 93

$127m $143m (68029) (70660)

Average Govt recurrent spending per non-Govt 708 661 School Student: State Govt 1316 1205 C'wealth Govt

GOVERNMENT CAPITAL EXPENDITURE (WA Schools) Actual Budget 1988/89 1989/90 Government Schools 45 35 Expenditure: State Govt 19 19 C'wealth Govt

Total (a) Divided by Total Enrolments

$54 $64 (234263)(239540)

Capital Expenditure Per Pupil State Govt C'wealth Govt

149 81

188 79

Total

$230

$267

Non-Government Schools Expenditure by C'wealth Govt Divided by Total Enrolments Capital Expenditure Per Pupil

$5.3m 68029 $78

$5.3m 70660 $75

Average Capital Spending "Gap" State Govt 149 3 C'wealth Govt

188 4

Net Total

$152

$192

2482 - 991 $1491

$1866

$2024

Total Recurrent & Capital Spending "Gap" — Per Pupil (WA Schools) State Govt 2250 C'wealth Govt - 933

Average Recurrent Spending "Gap" $1165

$1299

Net Total

Total

$1317

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

21

of4 •

Growth in meditation

What are these meditation groups all about?

Well, recently I met 0,§ with a strange group of people at lunch time in the crypt of the 900-year-old St Mary-Le-Bow church in the heart of Lonfinancial don's district.

There were four D.M bankers, a financier, t.tki two young lawyers, a , singing teacher, a 1P4 computer analyst and some office • secretaries.

Was this a meeting of jj some new investment group? The cast of an • Agatha Christie plot?

f

1 1

Not quite!

P\

• •

• b$' tti

A d e

2

As improbable as it may seem we were a Christian Meditation group, following the prayer tradition of the 4th century desert Fathers in seeking God in the silence and stillness beyond word or thought —the path of pure prayer.

In a world increasingly aware of the need for silence and stillness, the way of Christian Meditation speaks to us with the authority of a path that is rooted in both Christian tradition and authentic contemplative experience.

Over 475 groups like this one are meeting weekly in homes and institutional locations to pray together in cities, towns and villages around the world including the

By Paul T. Harris

Visit of Benedictine monk Laurence Freeman highlights growth of Christian meditation in Australia.

85 groups in Australia.

At St Mary-Le-Bow as in meetings throughout Australia

(Editor's Note: Paul Harris, a lay associate of the Benedictine Monastery, Montreal, recently visited Australia with Father Laurence Freeman OSB. For the past two years he has been Director of the Christian Meditation Centre in London.)

Father Laurence Freeman, Prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Montreal, recently completed a tour of Australia giving 35 public talks and conferences on the subject of Contemplative Prayer and Christian Meditation.

Large turnouts in cities including Rockhampton, Sydney, Melbourne, A delaide, Perth, Bunbury and Geraldton attest to the increasing interest by many Australians in following this ancient prayer tradition of seeking God in stillness and silence beyond word and thought.

There are now over 85 Christian Meditation groups in this country.

(For information on group locations contact Peter Wiltshire, 4 Ravenswood Court, Nunawading, Vic, 3131. Phone (03) 878 2854.)

the meeting opened with quiet classical music to quiet us down from the turmoil of the hectic and frantic business Life outside our quiet crypt.

After the music the group leader played a 15 minute cassette talk by Dom John Main (1926-1982).

This renowned Irish monk and spiritual teacher founded a Benedictine Priory in Montreal in 1977 dedicated to the teaching of Christian Meditation.

It was John Main who rediscovered the ancient tradition of contemplative prayer using a mantra as taught by John Cassian and the tradition of the desert Fathers.

Main integrated this tradition with the prayer tradition of the 'Cloud of Unknowing" and his own experience of Eastern spirituality.

He has left a teaching on prayer that has touched the lives and hearts of thousands of ordinary people around the world.

Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths refers to John Main as the most important spirit-

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6

014

6

4",

We were rediscovering in the group what the psalmist said: "Be still and know that I am God".

In the silence of our meditation all class distinctions, varying religious beliefs and differences age melted away as we shared the ultimate reality of the presence of Christ in faith.

Christian Meditation groups attract people with diverse

backgrounds and occupations including ordinary working men and women with family responsibilities.

To come to that interior silence and stillness in knowing God and in knowing ourselves we were entering the experience of Christian Meditation.

"Meditation" literally means "remaining still in the centre".

But to come to that stillness requires labour and discipline.

John Main once described the human mind as like a tree full of monkeys, jumping from one branch to another, screaming and chattering away at one another.

The way to quiet the chattering monkeys and to enter into the silence is the way of repeating a mantra or prayer word in twice daily times of meditation.

The Nuremberg angel...

04 Once upon a time checker games for both about 300 years ago in boys and girls and cribthe Black Forest of bage and backgammon 034 Germany, Christmas boards for mamas and came to Nuremberg a papas. little differently than Nuremberg was nestled n you know it today. into the mountains Boys went to the wood- where snow lay deep carver's shop to look at much of the year. Icicles the toy soldiers' cannons and frosted roofs made it ' and carts, toy towns, look at Christmas-time circuses and exotic nut- like a wonderland of crackers. Little girls went crystal palaces and ice .e.„ to the doll shop in cream forests.

Nuremberg and feasted Here in this lovely city their eyes on fairy dolls, lived a doll maker and dolls, dancing dolls his wife. They ran a doll baby ji . and carriages and cra- shop. dles, dainty tea sets and Many blonde, pinklacy outfits for their own checked and blue-eyed la dolls. little German girls freSome shops had drums quented their store at for boys and harpsi- Christmas-time. chords for girls and there They exclaimed over were women's lib shops the dainty dolls, lifelike that sold chess and dolls, dancing dolls and

ig

ual teacher in the Church today.

John Main's taped talk from his widely used 'Communitas' series was followed by 25 minutes of silent meditation, a little more music at the end of meditation and a short period for any questions.

Then it was back to our places of work, refreshed by the spiritual quality of stillness lost to so many modern day people.

all the beautiful lace and ribbons and smocking on the fine and dainty clothing on each of the dolls.

The doll maker and his wife worked late into the nights all year long to make each doll special for each little girl in Nuremberg and in the surrounding area.

Even in the forest cottages little girls dreamed of the doll they would find under the tree on the feast of the Nativity.

Year after year the doll maker and his wife talked of the day when they too would have a little girl of their own.

One year their dream came true!

After their daughter, Anna, was born, they worked longest and hardest on a very special doll for their own lovely and loving child, so much so they hardly had time to sleep during the days before Christmas.

But when Anna was 5, alas, she caught a fever and soon afterward she died.

The doll makers were so unhappy that they closed their shop and made no dolls at all that year.

Christmas Eve came.

Snow fell, making a soft white blanket. A hush filled the town as all the people went to their snug homes to prepare for Christmas Day. They went about trimming the fir tree, hanging

The repetition of a mantra gradually allows us to go beyond thoughts and images and beyond talking to God. This poverty and self-transcendence in giving up thought and imagination fulfils Jesus' command: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind."

The aim of Christian Meditation is to enter into that secret place, that still centre, and out of that stillness where we are turned t owards God, be t ransformed by the life of the spirit into love.

Prayer is the finding of ourselves in God. But this discovery of the real person we are is not just a matter of words. It is a question of experience.

We must enter into the experience itself.. . . the daily

periods of meditation that take us deeper and deeper into the eternal silence of God. The real mystery of prayer for the Christian is not what we do, but what Jesus is doing in us. In meditation we simply stand before God, we open ourselves to His presence, we wait upon the Lord.

Christian Meditation is basically a path beyond thought and imagination into the presence of the Risen Lord who dwells in our hearts.

Meditation is built upon a simple principle, one understood by the saints and many theologians . . . namely that our finite minds cannot grasp the infinity of God. Theology, philosophy or any other form of knowledge only tells us things about God. They do not bring us into contact with God Himself. Theology gives us information

about but not the reality itself.

God simply cannot be grasped by thought or the senses.

The senses are bound to the world of space and time, and God is beyond space and time.

Only when images and ideas or thoughts have been left behind. can the knowledge of God shine forth.

In silence we come to the direct, immediate and intuitive knowledge of God. Not only in Australia but all around the world a 'motley crew' of meditators (as John Main once termed them) join together once a week in meditation groups to seek the Lord in silence and stillness.

In a noisy world that is growing increasingly aware of its need for interiority and depth, the way of Christian Meditation is drawing more and more people to the authenticity of a path of prayer rooted in tradition, simplicity and daily discipline.

By Teresa Geiger

garlands of greens, wrap- Her curly hair wreathed On Christmas morning ping mysterious pack- her pink-checked face they quietly stole from ages and baking luscious and she was smiling. She their home to leave the pastries. And all the was surrounded by light. first doll-angel at the while they hummed and A great joy came over home of the poorest little sang carols. the doll maker's soul girl in the village of But in the doll maker's when he saw Anna so Nuremberg. This was the house nothing of the sort happy and full of grace. first Nuremberg angel. IV, was taking place. As the After a few minutes, he P The couple's joy was je sun crept behind the hurried home to his overflowing — Anna was F‘4 mountaintops, the doll beloved wife. He told her happy and full of grace maker went out to walk of the apparition of light and she had helped them in the pure white snow. and the joyful appearto bring the Oft of He tried not to look ink ance Anna had made.

Christmas joy and love to any shop windows for Then he exclaimed, another little girl, very A fear that the toys would "Dear wife, our Anna has like their Anna. ‘.rj make him long for Anna. appeared to me as an Now, even after 300 Jr& But at his old doll shop angel, a Nuremberg years, in Nuremberg at IV, the falling sun reflected Angel." the toy festival each year, p in the window attracted They hugged and kissed a beautiful young girl is his attention and in its each other and wiping chosen as the Nuremradiance he saw an the tears from their eyes berg angel. She is dressed apparition — his Anna immediately set to work. for the festival just as 1$2, dressed in a gown of gold The doll maker carved Anna appeared to the with a finely pleated and his wife stitched far doll maker so many years iSti) into the night. ago. skirt.

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ZWVCCVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVCCMCVCCIOCIOVVVVOMV4MCMCVCCMCMC MCW4 22 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

Olive woman with a heart Olive Allerton, who died earlier this OG year in Adelaide, r• :-s will be remembered by many Perth people from her two visits to WA. She came to raise funds to build a home for the children of lepers in Madras, and she spoke in many schools and parishes and was interviewed

by The Record and on TV and radio on both visits.

Already over 80 and on crutches, she suffered from a progressive muscular disease which restricted the use of her hands as well as her legs, but her enthusiasm gave her an energy that left many people breathless.

"I was 77 but not ready for the scrapheap," she told me when she stayed with me on her first visit.

"SoIdecided to go to India because it was the most difficult thingIcould think of.

I knew absolutely nobody there so I'd really have to make my own way."

She had known that her children would A have tried to dissuade her from such madness, so she wrote to them about her plans but only posted the letters from the airJj just before ,I departure.

R Arriving in Calcutta 4 in the middle of the A :

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night she hailed a taxi and after driving through most shocking slums she eventually found a hostel near Mother Teresa's Home for the Destitute.

In the morning she presented herself at the Home and asked to work as a volunteer.

It must have been quite a problem for anyone to think of a way that this elderly, overweight and crippled woman could possibly help, but while waiting for instructions Olive saw a boy carrying a bucket of fish.

Thinking "at least I can gut fish," she followed him to the kitchen.

From her bag she produced her thick apron and favourite kitchen knife and set to work.

When the fish were finished she heard that a 12-year-old crippled boy needed to be bathed and she offered to do it.

One job led to another, and for eight years — apart from fund-raising trips to Australia — she worked as a volunteer with India's poor.

For Olive the change of lifestyle was about as drastic as can be imagined.

For 77 years she had had every material comfort.

g A Older children waiting to collect their brothers and sisters from the creche set up by Olive.

t:Li -tzkzv-mcztrz itvz) tvivz

"A New Beginning For us Both."

In 1972 Olive and

By Dafne Bidwell Jones She was born into a well-established English family and educated at one of the most exclusive schools, Roedean.

She enjoyed foxhunting, tennis, parties and dances, and had a London season as a debutante before going to the University of Vienna.

She married and had two children, and in 1948 the family settled in Kenya, where they lived in the feudal state that Europeans affected before Independence, with servants, gardeners and grooms at their disposal.

Olive's family had not been religious, but as a child she was attracted to the faith that was evident in her successive governesses who all happened to be Catholic, and she loved to watch Corpus Christi processions at the nearby church.

She described as a milestone in her spiritual development a chance meeting during a holiday in Italy.

She saw an old priest, in worn out boots and a soutane green with age, labouring up a hill.

When he drew near to Olive he raised his hand in blessing. His face lit up with a radiant smile and he exuded such happiness that she was dumbfounded.

How could he experience such joy in such depressing circumstances, she wondered, and began a search which lead eventually to her going to a priest for instruction.

Her husband was very antagonistic to the idea of her becoming a Catholic but u naccountably changed his mind and joined her.

When they were both received into the church, he commemorated the day by writing in their Bible:

her husband came to Australia, where their children were already settled with their own families.

When her husband fell seriously ill soon after they had bought a run-down store come post office near Toowoomba. Olive heard someone say about her: "That woman has bitten off more than she can chew."

She saw that as a challenge.

"Just to show I could do it," she built up the business and ran it singlehanded for six years after her husband's death.

When she was 76 she went to a retirement home — but soon decided that she wasn't ready to retire and took off for India.

After two months in Calcutta she lived for some time with a village family, sleeping on the floor on a bamboo mat with them and sharing their meagre diet of rice and watery curry gravy with a few vegetables.

She weathered continual dysentery, and when a minor scratch on her leg became massively infected, she was in danger of leg having her amputated.

However, she was able to obtain medical treatment and her leg was saved.

"I was lucky," she said. "But millions of Indians have to live totally without medical treatment.

"It's not just those in remote villages. Even more tragically it is those who could easily take a bus to a hospital but they can't afford the fare — even if it's only about cents fifteen Australian."

In 1980 Olive went to live at the Beatitudes Social Welfare Centre run by the Salesian Fathers in Madras.

It provides a home

for the destitute and dying, workshops for the disabled, a dispensary, and training classes in dressmaking, handicrafts, motor mechanics, typewriting and other skills.

Olive set up a creche for the babies and preschool children, but she felt increasingly drawn to the lepers, who inhabit a separate home called Pope John's Garden, some kilometres away.

Her early visits there were traumatic emotionally, but she was later able to face their deformities and help with bathing them. that said She because of her crutches, lepers who had often lost a limb — or more than one limb — seemed to accept her without reserve.

She was constantly amazed at how the sick and destitute help and care for each other.

In 1982 Olive returned to Australia for three months — and raised over $30,000 to build a new home for the sons of leper patients.

These boys, who cannot live permanently with their parents for fear of infection, used to live in a makeshift house of bamboo and palm leaves in Beatitudes Centre until it blew down in a storm.

The boys then had to be boarded out to well-meaning but often ignorant foster parents. One boy died neglected from appendicitis and one lost an eye to leprosy because he was not taken for checkups.

In June 1983 Olive had the enormous pleasure of laying the foundation stone of the new permanent home for the boys, who were soon safe within the Beatitudes compound.

The house, which displays a large plaque "Given by Australians" is maintained by the boys themselves.

iJ

Olive Allerton.

The bigger boys sweep and wash the floors daily, and the smaller boys have their own jobs.

They all help each other, with the polio victims being carried up to the dormitories, or having a big boy hold their legs while they travel on their hands as in a wheelbarrow race.

Olive always said they were as happy a group of boys as one could find anywhere.

Outside the Beatitudes compound, thousands of people live in the worst slums imaginable.

Madras is one of the hottest and most humid places in India, but here whole literally streets, hundreds of people, share a single pump for their water.

With only one block of toilets for each street, the unhygienic conditions and the are smell indescribable. spread Diseases rapidly among people living crammed into humpies, but many of simply die starvation.

Every monsoon the whole area is flooded, and people have continually to rebuild their shanties with palm leaves and any scrap material they can find.

The poorest of all live actually on the street, with no shelter of any kind from sun and rain.

Olive once saw a woman giving birth under a cart while her husband frantically tried to fend off the starving stray dogs.

Olive helped, driving off some of the dogs with her crutches.

Olive always seemed genuinely amazed people when e xpressed surprise that an old crippled woman could live in

such a place and could do so much.

"All it takes is love," she said.

"It is easy to love the people. They are wonderful. They are so patient in such appalling conditions.

They've given me much more than I've given them."

She intended to stay on in India for as long as she could be useful, but in 1986 she became dangerously ill and was brought back to Australia unconscious.

She was found to have a brain tumour, A but although she made a remarkable recovery, she completely lost the use of her legs.

She refused to be inactive and became very involved in the local parish.

The youth group adopted her, with its members undertaking to push her in her wheelchair to Mass every Sunday.

In the nursing home she was always busy, either answering letters from "her boys" in Madras, or listening to anyone who wanted to tell her their problems.

She developed her own ministry, visiting patients who kept themselves in seclusion because they had been deformed by illness or surgery, or were suffering from depression.

She told me about one woman who had isolated herself for years and never spoke to anyone.

Olive often sat at her bedside, holding her hand and praying for her, and once, wondering if the sick woman were conscious of her presence, she asked "Do you know I'm here?"

And the woman answered, "Yes, I know you. You love me."

ZVVCVCZW VCCIVVVZAVVMVVVVCCVVCZVCWVVCVI The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 23

NUTTY APPLE PIE Serves 6-8 1 kg (2 lb) cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced 60g (2 oz) brown sugar 1 4 / teaspoon grated nutmeg 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 125 g (4 oz) walnuts, finely chopped For the pastry 185 g (6 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour 60 g (2 oz) sugar 1 2 / teaspoon salt 125 g (4 oz) butter Iegg Yolk

Mix together apples, brown sugar, spices and half the walnuts.

For the pastry combine flour, sugar, butter and salt and rub with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in egg yolk and remaining walnuts. Add a little water if necessary to bind the dough together.

Roll out pastry and press enough dough into a 15 x 20 cm (6 x 8 in) pie dish or platter to cover base. Trim edges. Fill with apple and nut mixture.

Either make a pastry cover and slit deeply before cooking, or decorate the open pie with a lattice of pastry strips or small pastry apples and leaves.

Bake in a preheated, moderate oven 180°C (350°F) for 40-45 minutes or until the crust is golden.

WHOLE CHICKEN IN A POT PIE Serves 6 1 x 2 kg (4 lb) thicken 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 tomatoes 4 carrots, thinly sliced 1 bunch spring onions (scallions), washed and green stalks removed 125 g (4 oz) shelledpeas 1 bunch snake beans, chopped into 8 cm (3 in) sections 90 g (3 oz) butter 2 cups (16fl oz) chicken stock salt andpepper to taste handfulfreshparsley, chopped Ipacket frozen puffpastry 1 egg

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).

Brush the chicken with olive oil and set it on a grid in a roasting pan. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the skin is a pale golden brown.

Peel tomatoes by plunging into boiling water, then running under cold water. The skins will peel off easily. Chop coarsely.

Put chicken stock into a saucepan, bring to the boil and blanch all vegetables, one at a time, excluding the tomatoes.

Prepare the tureen. Place the browned chicken in the centre and surround it with the vegetables. Add butter. Pour in enough stock to threequarters fill the tureen. Season with salt, pepper and parsley.

Beat the egg and brush over one side of a sheet of puff pastry. Fit it over the top of the tureen, egg side down. Now brush the top side with egg and bake for 15 minutes. Cover pastry with foil to prevent further colouring. Bake for 45 minutes.

A lid can be cut in the crust of the pie with a small, sharp knife. The whole chicken can then be removed through the opening and carved normally This pie is at its most spectacular baked and presented in a large soup tureen. Glazed and unglazed pottery will both survive these cooking temperatures.

325 g (10oz) plain (allputpose) flour 3 teaspoons bakingpowder 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon I/4 teaspoon salt 250 g (8 oz) butter 250 g (8 oz) castor (powdered) sugar 6 eggs, separated 500 g (I lb) cooked and mashed carrots For the butter icing 45g (11/2 oz) butter 155 g (6 oz) icing ( confectioners) sugar 6 tablespoons cream

Sift flour and baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Beat butter and sugar until well creamed and lighter in colour. Beat egg yolks and add gradually to mixture. Add mashed carrots and mix in well. Gently fold in flour mixture, stirring until well combined.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into mixture. Spoon into a well greased and floured cake tin, 18cm (7 in) round.

Bake in a preheated, moderate oven 180°C (360°F) for 45-50 minutes.

Cool cake in its tin for 10 minutes.

Loosen sides with the blunt edge of a knife or a spatula and remove to cool on a rack.

To make the icing, cream the butter and half the icing sugar. Add the remaining icing sugar alternately with the cream until all ingredients have been used. You may need to add a little extra cream to obtain a perfect spreading consistency Ice cake thickly on the top and sides with the butter icing. You may wish to decorate it with chopped pecans mixed with finely grated carrot sprinkled generously over the top.

SNOW PEAS WITH GARLIC AND SESAME OIL A quick last minute stir-fry vegetable dish.

500 g (1 lb) snow peas 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 clove garlic 2 shallots rock salt

Makes about 12 cups (3 litres) 2 bottles dry red wine 31 4 / cups (30.17 oz) lemonade 31 4 / cups (30fl oz) soda water juice of 2 oranges juice of 2 lemons 2 lemons, thinly sliced

Top and tail the snow peas. Combine the sesame oil and butter in a wok or pan. Chop the garlic and shallot finely and toss them in the oil and butter until softened. Stir-fry the peas for a few seconds until they turn bright green. Grate some rock salt over the mixture and serve immediately. Serves 8.

Mix all ingredients together in a large jug or bowl. Chill.

Recipes taken from A Family Christmas/Collins and From Me to lbw/Collins.

SANGRIA

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CARROT CAKE WITH BUTIIR ICING

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24 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

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Christmas

a gift of love

by Colleen McGuiness-Howard

Loving Father, help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world.

Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.

Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts, May the Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy children, and the Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake. Amen. — Robert Louis Stevenson ( 1850-1894) 0 Father, may that holy Star Grow every year more bright, And send its glorious beam afar To fill the world with light.

— William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) 0 holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today.

— Phillips Brooks ( 1835-1893) Pictures taken from The Oxford Christmas Carol Book,'Oxford University Press. Recipes taken from Home Made by Kay Fairfax/Methuen Haynes.

which only youth seems to birth of Christ — who started How do you feel during this special season this whole ball rolling in the people seem to be happier in have. about Christmas? Some that funny, outside world.

The sounds of guitars and first place. respond with words They are more mellow. general music filling the day It's really His day. It's just that which amount to "It's a More into "being nice- or or night and cars rolling up we get to share it. He'd like "nicer" depending on their and down the driveway all that. He was so unselfish He bother". over the weekend. Well that us. The Mass.

But me? An excited particular temperament. with gave His life for They make more conces- baby joy has continued tree, tinsel, The crib.

The mess! I get crazily sions. They get to sending force and now these young glitz. I love and glam lights, excited about Christ- cards — which is just great leaders of tomorrow still kisses, hugs. mas. It's the greatest. because it consolidates most definitely do, exemplify the lot! The of.

Reaffirmation now. me to Christmas Friendship. otherwise So many, many wonder- friendships which The detecting sleigh tracks It's all one beautiful melting

ful connotations that I hardly know where to start.

I love the Christmas cards flowing in which we string out on a golden line across the windows.

I love the thought of making

Chrissy pud and cake.

I love the excitement of Christmas morning as to that super duper special breakfast we'll have together.

And then the huge turkey cooking slowly on the Webber. It didn't quite work out with the turkey last year.

Bought a Webber because I couldn't win one as a prize but was too busy, as usual, to read essential directions and cooked it with two vents dosed.

Disaster. Didn't cook. Put it in the conventional oven with barely appeased appetites — and it burned! So what! Who cares? That's only a wee part of Christmas.

It's much more than that. It's a broad spectrum of warmth, love. Actually, in our family we have that in great doses every day of the year, but

may lapse into non-entities.

That day in particular, most of us are hyped into loving fellow man — with all that it denotes! — with some or more warmth. Depending on how you feel about "man" in the first place.

Some bury the hatchet on this particular day and even feel a tiny bit mellow towards their enemies. Others merely give the enemies a miss and concentrate on those they can easily love, but today with special abandon.

The sheer joy of approaching Christmas, having carefully selected and decorated the tree, and then with mounting excitement stacking the carefully wrapped presents underneath. Such an important ritual. When my four very special bubbles were little, we used to nuke all the Christmas culinary goodies possible — and still do.

Three of them are teenagers now and that fact alone is so exciting. Me being wrapped up in their marvellously exhilarating lives which are bursting with the excitement

for our younger one to see where Father Christmas landed his sleigh. The leaving out of bikkies and a glass of milk for Santa to have while on his busy schedule and the thrill next morning of these young adults (and in particular myself!), rushing out to the Christmas tree to see what goodies have been left.

I put a tape on to catch what they say and take photos to capture these magical moments; to look back on in my geriatric years! This marvellous day is a superdose of many other days we have throughout our God given year. But it's the icing on the cake if you like, and the best part of all is being with the most wonderful people I know. My children.

And it's a day to be treasured. Because this day we can count on. It's our Christmas day. Next year may not be.

But today we have them, our loved ones, and all our dear ones who come to visit in a day of pure joy. Being together. Celebrating the

down of Christianity into one superb day. It's sad it isn't like that all year long for humanity at large. And no doubt there are millions of poor waifs and distraught parents who'll never experience the joy I have.

But for what I have — my magnificent children, this Australia beyond compare, this freedom our men died for, the dimate, standard of living, abundance of food, health — I thank Him.

The trouble with being a Catholic — or I guess a Christian generally, is that you're called to love your fellow man.

It's so easy to love some people, because they're so lovable.

With others, it's like asking you to swallow cyanide.

And I believe many of us find this particular call the hardest of all.

Guess many of us don't succeed because it really is that hard — if you have any sensitivity at all to Creeps on the road, in the workplace, and for some truly unfortunates, at home!

I'm glad I'm not God, Jesus or Mother Mary, because they have one huge job dealing with humanity — trying to straighten out the crooked, soften hard hearts, unbending biases, mellowing those with huge anger and generally defusing our hot dynamite fuses.

One of their toughest jobs also, is getting people not only to love each other — but to love them!

For the lucky ones who have the great treasure of faith; that's the easy part. Loving your fellow man (the real nasties you know), is tough.

What's the answer? Try harder and harder I guess. The saints got there (but oh boy! what a thorny path they trod!). But then maybe it's like your vote. You have to believe it counts, every single person's vote and effort, or you wouldn't bother in the first place.

I think the climb up the "good ladder" is like that. Fall a few rungs (maybe even to the bottom), but you look heavenwards to all that magnificent beauty — and then the climb is all worthwhile . . .

COLLEEN McGUINESS-HO WARD

And although I don't deserve it, I have these generous treasures this year at least.

For all of these things I thank the Almighty Creator for allowing Jesus to live with us on this day 2400 years ago — and His mother who said: I will.

To them all, for everything — I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Because every joy God could give, I have received.

Amen.

by COLLEEN McGUINESSHOWARD

k

Yr. Issue, December 21, 1989 25 The Record, Christmas •

Christmas 1989 Special

,Stella's 100 Christmases

Proud owner of a new car back in the late thirties at Swanbourne, is Miss Stella Howe with great nephew young Terry Connell.

She's the sweetest and so loveable little old lady, with a soft and gentle nature.

You had the impression she'd probably spent a lot of her life spreading joy around just by being herself.

Preferring to snuggle on her knees than romp around the beautiful gardens of St Vincent's, Guildford, two and a half year old Kieran is a doting great, great nephew to Miss Stella Howe who turns 100 years old on Christmas Day. She puts down her longevity to living a

good, clean life; and used to initiate her day with a glass of hot water with a teaspoon of Epsom Salts.

Sounds dreadful! But maybe it's the answer if you want to be a centenarian!

Pet food love is a sandwich and on the people side, apparently not only her wider family, but people in general.

Always with a cuddle for staff, she's a well-loved lady — justifiably so.

She didn't retire until she was 75 from Miss M. Hardwick's York drapery store,

and then Miss Howe moved to Mt Lawley for about 20 years, giving her services to The Legion of Mary and was a member of the Third Order of St Francis.

Every Monday she'd go and cook for the 'old ladies' at Villa Maria — by this time she was herself in her eighties!

Having been brought up with her family in Jarrandale, she moved to Perth in 1913 and opened up a photographic studio.

Ultimately the chemicals affected her, so she went to

By Colleen McGuiness-Howard work at the York drapery store for 30 years.

Devoted to her Catholicism, Miss Howe has a particular love for Our Lady, and Father Fahey (deceased), was a long time friend of their family.

All her faculties are intact, except she is confined to a wheelchair and is hard of hearing, which meant it was a bit difficult to extract those buried

Above: Cuddling their aunt Miss Stella Howe, first centenarian at St Vincent's for at least 12 years, are Mrs Bette Connell (rear), and her sister Leonie Markham with 21 2 year old grandchild Kieran, who is great, great nephew to Miss Stella Howe, seated. treasures of the past which we so relish today.

However it was reward enough to see someone who has lived as long as that, still mentally agile — and dispensing love.

Her lifelong philosophy has been — don't get agitated. Let it pass.

Maybe that's the clue! Guess all this frantic raging we do on the road and out in the workforce, doesn't do anything except decrease our adrenalin supply and shortens our years.

But it's hard isn't it?

Still driving, nearing the eighties, Miss Howe was rammed by a taxi; emerging with no broken bones but badly bruised and the car a write-off.

But undeterred and undaunted, she went out and bought herself another one.

Another accident in her mid-eighties saw the end to her driving — but not her desire to carry on living.

Hence her birthday century which will be celebrated by at least 60 family members.

Close to her are her nieces Bette Connell and Leonie Markham

who are frequent visitors to their aunt and who will be organising the party at St Vincent's on Christmas Day. Having everything she needs (half her luck!), Miss Howe will be given a giant bouquet of a hundred red roses.

She's come a long way down the track of life since her birth in Albany on December 25, 1889; must have done and seen a lot.

But looking at her ladylike and gentle demeanour methinks it was only ever good . . .

Silent night, Holy night „..

OR HOW A POEM WAS MADE INTO XMAS MUSIC

It was Christmas Eve morning in 1818 in the snow-blanketed village of Oberndorf in the Bavarian mountains of Germany.

Snow fell gently all morning as workers and shoppers rushed about the streets making last minute preparations for Christmas.

Inside the cold village church of St Nicholas a young man climbed the creaking steps to the choir loft. Franz Gruber wanted to practice the music for Midnight Mass one more time. But the organ made no sound.

Franz soon discovered

why.

He ran to the priest's house. "Father Mohr," he shouted breathlessly.

"Mice ate through the bellows of the organ.

What will Midnight Mass be like without music? What can we do?"

Father Joseph Mohr was stunned. Midnight Mass without music was unthinkable. But no repairman could get through the snow filled roads leading into Oberndorf.

"One thing we can do is pray," the priest suggested. The two prayed quiety together for a few

Wtawi-eveloiD - ammaaamwat 26

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

visit others confined to their homes.

The warm image of the moments. woodcutter and his wife Then Father Mohr put holding their new born on his coat and set out baby stayed with him as into the snow to visit the he trudged through the sick and poor of his deep snow. His mind parish. Franz went back drifted back over the to the choir loft to see if centuries to a carpenter named Joseph and Mary, he could fix the organ. his wife, holding their One of Father Mohr's visits touched him. A newborn son Jesus. And woodsman's wife had he could not stop worryjust given birth. The ing about Midnight Mass delighted parents without music. wanted the priest to By the time he got back come to bless their baby. to his house next to the Father Mohr shared church, Father Mohr had their joy, blessed their an idea. baby and then went on to He sat down and wrote

By Janaan Manternach

a poem.

poem. Soon Franz began Ai to hum a simple melody.

He drew upon his feelings about the wood- Father Mohr started to cutter and his wife with sing his words as Franz their newborn baby as he continued to hum the wrote about the birth of melody.

Jesus.

'Stine Nacht! Heilige isq When he finished the Nacht! Silent Night! Holy A. poem. Father Mohr Night!" called his organist. He "It's beautiful!" the two showed Franz the poem. agreed.

"Write a simple tune to go with my poem, one That night, at Midnight you might play on your Mass, the people of guitar at Midnight Mass." Oberndorf, led by Father Mohr and accompanied "But it's already even- by Franz Gruber, sang A ing," Franz protested. for the first time what "Let's try," Father Mohr has become one of the A said. Priest and organist world's best loved Christread and reread the mas carols.

TOMORROW TODAY It

with Father Joe Parkinson

,Reflections to keep in tune EX),

1113

While everyone bemoans the fact that Christmas has become a major commercial event at the expense of the birth of Jesus Christ, it is heartening to know that, for many young people today, the real meaning of Christmas lives on strongly.

On this and following pages are eight reflections of the meaning of Christmas, written by young people active in the youth apostolate in Perth.

These young people display a remarkable diversity of approaches to this, one of the most important moments in the Catholic year.

It is a measure of the richness of our youth, and of the whole Church, that such different perspectives

on Christmas can not only coexist but also lead us all to the centre of our faith: Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrament of the Father's love for us.

As 1989 comes to an end and 1990 dawns, we can reflect on many significant developments in our local Church and see in them signs of progress for our Catholic community.

The year ahead holds many challenges and opportunities for us all, so it is good to be renewed in our faith and trust in God during the Christmas season.

All staff of the Catholic Youth Offices in North Perth wish you a very happy and holy Christmas, and pray God's blessing on you and your family in

1990.

Some of the Youth Office staff during their recent retreat at Eagle's Nest. From left: Sr Emilie Caftalini, Kate Deavin, Cathie Allen, Annette Watkins, Cate Hale, Andrew Del Marco, Patrick Jones OF', Marl Downie. Absent: Warren lannello, Damien Wallis, Sandi Goulder and Mladen Milicich.

Christmas as a uni student sees it

When asked to announce the birth of to my movement har IChrist felt pretty much • lor underqualified, even a little confused. How 9 could I announce the birth of Christ in 500 words, and still keep tivlr people 4 "entertained"? was suppose I W141 being askedwhat of me (and of each one of us) is: "What does, and should, Christmas mean to me?"

To be honest, I have never really had to think about a meaning of Christmas because we are literally smothered by ideas.

Of course many of these ideas are nowhere near what

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might be described as "the message of Christmas". But they are forced down our throats so neatly that it is hard not to accept them.

Many are part of a c ommercialised Christmas — the more expensive the present the more our love.

Many others are part of a secular Christmas, where there is celebration and giving, yet no real basis to it all (eg another reason for the family to get together).

Isuppose my Christmases have often fallen into this second category — we become more con-

cerned about the presents we give and the food we are to eat, than the meaning the behind celebration.

But, wasn't it all about the birth of a child, a very special child?

And wasn't this the greatest present we could all receive? You wouldn't think it if you looked in the shop windows today.

big toe to my brother's in the next room so we could wake each other up and rotate the "Santa catching" shifts.

I could speak about the thrill of tearing open the brightly coloured parcels that magically lay at the foot of my bed on Christmas morning, or the unspeakable joy I felt when I r eceived my first Christmas present from a boyfriend. even I Yes, remember the way the cousins andIused to wear a permanently painted grin on our faces for the

duration of the family lunch on Christmas day as we compared dolls and Lone Ranger outfits.

Sometimes it astonishes me how swiftly my childhood Christmases of magic and memory became adolescent Christmases of refusing to help with the mountains of dishes and scowling at the carols everyone sang around the table; holiday pay and dinner parties.

Our family Christmases have got smaller down the parade of the years as the older ones have left us and the cousins

So what makes it hard to accept the real message of Christmas: that God is giving of Himself to us through the birth of His Son. For uni students there are at least two things that mar the special message of Christmas.

Uni students also like to intellectualise things and sometimes make them appear more complex than they really are.

The first is that education teaches "logical", "rational" ways of thinking — the scientific method etc etc, which cannot handle the mystery of the conception of Christ.

At uni there is little room for faith and things unprovable. So for many, the birth of Christ is just the birth of a child.

In contrast, the message of Christmas is so simple and direct. Of course there are ideas of friendship, sharing and togetherness — but they all boil down to the one message — God is showing His love for us, and is giving of Himself through the birth of His Son. It was all so typical of His lifelong message. Yet today we shy away from this part of the message.

Christmas is commercialised. We rely on presents bought to channel our love to those close to us.

There is less giving of

ourselves and more giving of our money. As one member of TYCS said: "The more presents I bought the less Christmas seemed to mean to me."

What I am trying to say is that there should be more giving of ourselves, just like God is giving of Himself when He gave His Son. Why not try it? There are lots of practical ways of doing it. Why not try and make a few Christmas presents that really bring out your true qualities and love for a person.

We are also invited to step out of our relatively enclosed worlds at Christmas and reach others.

I know a few of us at

Murdoch might be visiting a home for the elderly, which is a great way to start giving of yourself.

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Being part of TYCS has caused me to stop and think — to challenge the things we do over and over until they become meaningless.

Is it really just part of tradition? Is there any purpose in spending money on grandiose presents that might mean very little? We are always being challenged about what we believe in . . . so this Christmas find some way of putting yourself into the message of Christmas: be God's living peace and justice on Earth.

— Andrew Del Marco

A dazzle even without the tinsel

I have spent the afternoon in the void of creative dryness called writer's block. I've been asked to write a few thoughts of mine about Christmas.

At first this seemed an easy enough task, after all, Christmas with all its glitter and excitement is so :Ave' obvious, so hard to overlook — and I've had years of practice at it.

I could wander fondly back through my childhood and remember myself at six crawling under mum's bed in search of the elusive Christmas elves, or tying my

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Genesis II

have married and moved away to start their own traditions.

Perhaps it is the gaps left behind by the fading lustre of Christmas past which have caused me to re-examine my own Christmas carol.

I have to wonder if I have all too easily given in to the adult notion that Christmas is for kids, and as the years move on more swiftly each season becomes less a cause for wide-

eyed wonder and expectation.

For why is it that no matter how bad my year has been, Christmas still shines at the end?

How is it pcssible that men lay down their arms for that single day? And why do the leaders of the world's most powerful nations stop to voice a message to their people?

Despite how cynical and destructive this world has become, we still look to the celebration of Christ's birthday with our hearts full of hope and wonder at its majesty and power.

There is something of the Christmas story in all of us.

Mary and Joseph, breathtaken with the joy

of birth and the gift of their son, the shepherds with their simple unquestioning acceptance of the moment, the Magi who search with the eyes and ears of faith to bring their journey to its glorious destiny.

And just like the gifts bestowed on the Baby Jesus, the most wonderful gift we can give each other is the hope of love.

Maybe that is why Christmas has remained so important to me. It takes me back to the beginning year after year, and reminds me of the gift of peace that comes with the faith that is Christmas.

A renewal from the simplicity of the stable where a most unlikely

scene to anyone else, was proclaimed the birth of the King of Kings by those who had faith enough to believe.

So my sadness at having discovered that Santa Claus was actually my mother stalking silently in the wee small hours of morning, has been replaced with a very different sense of awe and wonder, and I am as captivated by the birth of my King as lever was by my fantasy of a bearded Santa.

Yes, Christmas with its glitter and excitement is too obvious to overlook, andIam finally at peace because I've realised that even without the tinsel, it shines just as magnificently.

— Eloise Hicks

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

jP4 27

TOMORROW TODAY with Father Joe Parkinson

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Time to think...

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Everyone looks forward to Christmas and I don't need to mention that as Christians this time is much more important because it signifies the birth of Our Lord in Bethlehem.

But more than any other time of the year I find Christmas a wonderful chance to spend time thinking about my spirituality and deepening my relationship with Jesus.

Christmas gives me the perfect chance to come closer to God because His birth as a helpless baby brought Him closer to humanity.

I sometimes find it hard to fathom other Church events because they are difficult to understand, but I can relate to a beautiful new born baby and the time needed to prepare for His birth.

I need only cast my mind back to when my little brother was born and I can share the love and joy of that day with Mary and Joseph.

The Christmas story is really the story of a family and the highlight of Christmas for me is listening to this story at the Mass with my own family.

But then I pause and remember that this is God, the Almighty, who has made Himself man.

He came to live on Earth as a helpless and humble little baby, in a stable of all places.

I can only begin to the understand amount of love that God has for us.

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Finally, there is one more reason that I find Christmas special. Our challenge as Christians is to live life as God has asked us to, but we all

Cate and I "ummed" and "aahed" for several weeks on how we would advertise Christ's birth to today's parish youth groups in Perth. We finally came to the realisation that we could not top the way it was first announced — simply!

So to share with you the

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On Christmas day I can spend the day surrounded by my family's love and I thank God that He has given me such a wonderful family.

Flashback: Some of the 150 Antiochers on Flame '89 in October. know this is really difficult, especially when your peers think and act differently.

However at Christmas, society mostly acknowledges Christ and Christian values.

One day a year the majority of people love one another, live in peace and are giving and caring, and many make the effort to attend a

beauty of Christmas.

Cate has penned a few of her reflections of this season of hope: May we get carried away with the joy and simplicity of the season, but have strength enough to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground so as to never lose sight of the cause of the celebrating.

Give us the insight to soar high and glimpse the impossibilities made possible by the season.

Help us to crouch low in the season of hype, to see Christ at work, in and with His people.

This is the season we feel we can legitimately do what we do best — walk with our head in the clouds while keeping our feet firmly planted on the ground.

Keep us aware of the people near and dear to us but do not let us forget those we've never met who do not find Christmas a joyous celebration, but a mountain of financial pressure, the people who give up celebrating a Christian tradition for they can't

On Christmas day I am able to find Christ in others and deepen my faith and I am also able to find hope for the future of our world.

Christmas shows us that it is possible for people to live in a much more peaceful world than we do now and it gives me the incentive to make the world a better

place — for my family, my friends, for God and for the future.

I am very lucky that through my involvement in Antioch I have been shown that Christmas is a very special faith building time.

Every year I am able to spend time thinking about my life and about Jesus and I am able to make resolutions for the o1 4/

year ahead.

I know that I am very lucky to be able to acknowledge my faith and to have the love of my family at this time, I thank God for all that He has given me and pray that all those who are alone at Christmas will receive God's love as we have through the birth of Jesus.

— Virginia O'Meara

CPY fulltime workers Cathie Allen and Cate Hale.

see Christ in those around them.

They only see unfairness and hypocrisy.

Pleasp let us give these unselfishly and without thought of reward or virtuousness.

and endurance to encourage them in their gifts, and realise that potential.

Touch them, Lord, through us. Let them see that Christ is not a myth or fantasy but very much as real as the things that surround us.

Let them glance Christ in our humanity.

Let our Os of this year be the gifts of life. A smile to those who have forgotten how, listening ears to those who have no-one to share with, belief to those who have no hope.

Let it come from the heart because we see a need that has to be answered, or a fellow human being that cries out to be embraced in your love.

We pray for ourselves Lord, that we may never forget the small dependent child in the manger, who went on to change the face of the world.

All of your children have so much potential.

Grant us the courage

'Lord make us instruments of your peace' in this time of the year when it's most encouraged. and most likely to become a reality. because people will listen in this season of goodwill to all. May you see this Christmas through the eyes of a child.

Love and peace . . .

— Cathie Allen and Cate Hale

The man behind the suit

The celebration of Christ's birth held on a reclaimed pagan festival, has been attacked consistently by commercialism from every side.

Has Christmas ceased to be the celebration of the most important birth in all of history, or have we simply forgotten to inform those around us of the greatest gift to mankind, Christ the Lord?

In his day, Saint Nicholas, on whom Santa Claus is modelled, saw his world facing similar conditions. As Bishop of Myra, he saw the

effects of poverty in the faces of many people, both young and old.

In his way, Saint Nicholas picked up the message of our Saviour's birth, and realised the power in God's gift to mankind.

Legend has it that, on many a Christmas eve, he would be seen traipsing from house to house in his diocese, visiting the poor and needy with a simple gift to help alleviate the burden of the home, and to remind them of the great gift given to them, through the Saviour.

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mass and pray.

Love and peace

YOUTH OFFICE Wil .

We all lead really busy lives, but Christmas is set aside as the time we spend together (getting reacquainted!)

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

Santa Although Claus has been commercialised to the hilt, and in many ways even overshadows the true message of Christmas to the world, he still embodies the message of Christmas to anyone who will stop to think about what he is doing.

I was privileged last

Christmas to be invited to don the red suit, hat, black boots and white beard of Santa Claus at the Carillon for the last week before Christmas.

One experience I had sticks very close to my memory; a little girl was at one end of the arcade, and I was walking from

Hay Street to Murray Street. As soon as she saw me she called out "Santa", and came tearing down the arcade.

She jumped up as she approached me, and her arms gripped tight around my neck and she hugged and hugged and hugged. I can tell you, my heart melted. In some small way I was able to give a simple message about love at Christmas and the true meaning of Christmas, both to her and her family.

We can turn and make judgements about the people throughout the world, who, through no fault of their own don't know about the true message of Christmas.

Or we can do something about it ourselves.

Remember, there is no judge but God, and his is a merciful judgement.

So this year, when you see someone caught up with Christmas cheer. don't criticise.

Rather, recognise that even though it may not know it, the whole world celebrate.; the salvation given to mankind at Christmas, and when the time is right, give a simple message about Christmas.

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That will bring some awareness about the origins of that joy and celebration.

Have a happy and holy Christmas.

— Graham Douglas

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There is a song that was popular about the time of Bob Geldofs organising of Band-Aid to Africa in '86.

The song's chorus was: "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" In many ways I would address this question to all in

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Australia:

Annette Watkins, YCS fulltimer in 1989.

students,

parents and workers.

What is the real meaning of Christmas and its message for us in our Western, materialistic and consumer orientated culture?

How do we respond to the fact that Christ has been born and is alive in each and everyone of us today?

How do we celebrate and make alive in our culture the message that God is intimately with us: in solidarity and collaboration with us?

He showed us our dignity and importance amongst the socalled ordinariness and everyday experience of life: the real and concrete experience of us all.

Do we understand the meaning of Christmas? What is our experience of Christmas?

Is it . . . "I see stores gaudy with gifts, crammed with crowds, packed with nerve-racking noise,

If you look at a lot of what we buy, you can see that it is pure indulgence, crass habit and guilt-ridden giving.

Gifts not given with meaning and love but given with the intention of impressing, satisfying and letting us off the hook of truly giving in a real way in relationship and practical ways.

The gifts themselves by and large are not made by our own individual talents but are made for the profit of a few.

The consumer society has obscured and sold Christ and the meaning of Christmas for something shallow, empty and far short of who we are meant really to be.

Can we buy or make gifts of love that benefit people while not prom-

the clatter, the chatter, clang of cash registers, the clicketyclack of toys — and and underneath above and in and through and around it all a song: beautiful and blasphemous — 'Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright' . . ."

What do you buy and why do you buy Christmas presents?

Thank God for keeping us safe

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Read the following passage and spend some time reflecting on it.

"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

"He went in and said to her, 'Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.'

"She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, 'Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favour. Listen!

You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. " 'The Lord God will

give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.'

"Mary said to the angel, Tut how can this come about, since lam a virgin?' " 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you,' the angel answered, 'and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow.

And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.'" (Luke 1:26-38) Read it again and then ask yourself the following questions.

What can we learn from this Gospel?

Particularly about Mary? Are we afraid of saying "yes" because we aren't always sure of what we have committed ourselves to or where it's all going? How do

Act — How can we help people discover Christ through us?

How can we use our Advent season? What practical things are you going to try to do to help the needy? you see this applied to your life today?

See — is this Christmas to you?

Does Christmas bring you closer to God? The ads are preparing us for Christmas but what are we doing to prepare for the real CHRISTmas?

What about the needy — how do we share with them?

Judge — What are our values during Christmas? How does our faith tell us to prepare for Christmas? What should be happening for the needy?

The shepherds were anxious to discover Christ and to honour Him. Christ wants the love of everyone in the world — even the most ordinary people.

A big feeling amongst people is that Christmas is becoming too commercialised when it is supposed to be a season of love and happiness. It tends to be full of stress and worries — what to get people — too many parties!

The question we often get asked is: "What are you getting for Christmas?" This we often feel is one of the most important aspects of Christmas — receiving heaps of presents!

Everyone enjoys getting presents but we

aren't fulfilled; we often get things we didn't really want or need, so are wasted and get stuck in the back of the cupboard.

So next time you get asked "what are you getting for Christmas?" think about what you are going to say, because your answer could help to spread the true meaning of Christmas!

It should be a time of being dose to family and friends, to reflect on the year gone by.

A time to thank God for keeping us safe and well through the year and to pray for the terminally ill and poverty stricken, who will not have a Christmas like us. Why not listen and think about the song "Do they know it's Christmas".

Lord, help us to remember that you are the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

What are you doing to put Christ back into Christmas?

— Kate Deavin

oting a consumer mentality?

Yes. There are organisations where your buying creates jobs and eases the burden of many in Third World countries.

Remember the saying, "it is the thought that counts"?

It really is true.

Why not create a gift yourself or give of yourself to others in need. This will give birth to Christ today and combat consumerism which tells us that objects are important and we are all objects.

"Christmas is God born poor, homeless, cold, rejected. If we have gift, to give, teach us to give to IA the poor, the homeless, t he cold, the rejected . . ."

— Annette Watkins

YCIrs Kate Deavin mapping the future for 1990.

Cynic who was touched Charis I am known around my family as the "Christmas cynic" because of the contemptuous views I hold on the superficial tinsel and commercial attitudes that characterise Christmas for the 1980s.

I am prone to feeling nauseous whenever Channel 7 or Channel 9 display pictures of toneless youngsters droning out Christmas carols, and the whole messy

situation of giving and presents receiving strikes me as being a bit of a waste of time.

In the light of this, though, I must confess that even my old heart was touched a little when we sat together as a group this last Charis weekend and sang "Silent Night" to each other.

As the words commenced I was surprised to realise how beautiful the song really was. For the first time in agesIfelt myself being drawn into the power and the beauty of the Christmas message. The atmosphere was the thing. All just sitting around in a circle in a room dappled with sunlight, loving

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each other and singing this song.

Hearing the Christmas message in such a beautiful environment somehow revived the essence of Christmas for me in my heart.

It opened my eyes to the things which really matter at Christmas time — love, community, and Jesus Christ himself.

Seeing Christ manifest so clearly and so beautifully in my 25 brothers and sisters around me.

Feeling their love and acceptance bathed me in its soft warmth, somehow dissolved all of the cold memories of commercialisation which society had caked around my heart.

Jesus whispered to me

in that moment the true meaning of Christmas — Himself.

In having the opportunity to write this piece I want to reach out to all of you reading it who might have begun to feel a bit of the cynicism and lack of inspiration I felt.

Iwant to remind you of the same thing my Charis group reminded roe — that Christmas is all about love, joy, and giving.

It is about being there for each other and accepting one another.

The presents and the superfluous trappings are merely decorations which sometimes hide the real meanings. If we focus on them instead of ,-4

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The Charis family flourished this year.

the message of Jesus we fail to experience the of beauty true Christmas.

Let's just remember that Christmas is a time to go back to the true ":4 ;

messages of Jesus. To contemplate them in our hearts, and work towards making them more manifest in our lives.

Christmas is the time of

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Christ — and if we keep him at its heart we cannot help but feel its joy, beauty and peace overflowing into our lives.

Nana Howard ,-- 4 -4

,-4

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

29

By Aquinas College chaplain FATHER DOUGLAS CONLON who writes about three weeks spent in Tibet on one of the rare invitations extended to a Christian priest to talk to the monasteries.

rrop of the world 1AY

... WITHOUT FORGETTING CRIES OF THOSE WHO ARE DOWN rly two thousand years ago, a small group of trayellers from afar were coming to the end of their quest.

Through a series of portents and signs, prophecies and with the guidance of a star, t hree wise men approached the tiny village of Bethlehem where they hoped to see the promised Messiah.

What they found was a small helpless child, later to embark on the refugee trail, like so many down the centuries since, As Christmas fast approaches us, with all its messages and promise of peace and goodwill to all, may we stop a moment for silence, and listen to the cries of the poor all over the world.

Who, like us are simply looking for a place in the sun, for inner peace and happiness, freedom from undue suffering and a chance to direct their own futures "in their own place".

This inner peace of enlightenment is the same for all and it starts within the individual and if mankind

it

tions as my Buddhist hosts, gave me a strong sense of reverence and hope for the qualities of tranquillity, peace, patient waiting and meditation, found in these monasteries in and around Dharamsala.

is to reach his full potential while coping with its current dilemmas, as Congressman Charles G. Rose has said: ". . . it must reach a higher level of consciousness than the level at which our problems were created."

It has been said that history shows us that tyranny and oppression are transformed and faith by compassion.

It is true, that as Ghandi says, tyrants do last for a time, but in the end the oppressors eventually get what they resist.

May we too, who are guided by signs and portents, who walk with the Risen Christ in our hearts, make active in the lives of the poor and weak, all that we wish and pray for ourselves, above all, peace, happiness welcoming and compassion.

May the vision and hope of those Irayellers who, down the centuries have helped extend the horizons of mankind to a new future, also be ours at this close of another decade.

Fr Conlon with the Dalai Lama.

In 1937 a delegation of senior Buddhist holy men and statesmen were coming to the end of their quest.

Through a series of portents and signs, it was determined that in a remote village on the north eastern edges of Tibet, a small three year old boy, Tenzin Gyatso, was to be the new Dalai Lama — or fourteenth incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion — for their country.

So began his life of remarkable monastic formation under elder Tibetan Lamas in the capital Lhasa, to

ir-r1:41

A Buddhist monastery in Dharamsala.

prepare him for his role as spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people.

In 1959, at the age of 24, because of invasion by Chinese forces, he was forced to flee his capital and country, together with 100,000 refugees, across the mountains to Nepal and India.

He finally settled with his Government in Exile at the tiny Himalayan village of Dharamsala near the snow line, providing visionary leadership and support for his people, a tangible and safe link with his countrymen still in Tibet, and a quiet

focus for the rest of the world, so hungry for peace and eager to search for ways of protecting the environment.

In many ways, the crushing blow dealt by the Beijing Government to its own young in Tienanmen Square, has simply highlighted the awful and sad plight of the dispossessed people of Tibet and in a single gesture of goodwill and solidarity with all oppressed people, the committee responsible awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Not only does the world acknowledge the suffering and legitimate demands of the Tibetan people to regain their homeland, but as His Holiness explained to me, the Chinese people themselves now have the chance of seeing the real nature of their own Government when it comes to minorities calling for greater freedom.

My first visit to this tiny Himalayan fastness began with a twelve hour train journey from New Delhi. I was met at Pathenkot by one of His Holiness' vehicles and whisked away for several hours up precipitous mountain roads to Dharamsala.

I had been invited because of my friendship with Father Bede

Griffiths who has an ashram in South India and is well known for his openness to dialogue with seekers from all traditions, religions and none, and also my friendly ties with Sister Pascaline Coff and Dr Wayne Teasdale of the North American Board for East West Dialogue.

These people and many others, especially those who have been fortunate enough to participate in the Inter Monastic Exchange Program set up by the Dalai Lama and His Holiness Pope John Paul II, have blazed the trail, and, like Father Thomas Merton before them, come to be with their Buddhist brothers and sisters, not as research scholars but as pilgrims, anxious not just to obtain facts about other religions, but to drink from the ancient sources of monastic vision and experience.

Like Merton, we who have shared in this journey of communication in depth, across lines that have hitherto divided religious and monastic traditions, see this course as not only possible and desirable, but most important for the destinies of twentieth century man.

Actually being with and living under the same monastic condi-

There is, in each monastery and nunnery, a sense of what de Mello used to call "enoughness".

Monks are happy to continue their humble embroidery work which brings in a modest income, and the nuns remain content to struggle down the steep mountain slopes to wash their few clothes in the stream in the valley below.

We can no longer afford to simply read and study about such a life style, but where possible we need to experience it in its traditional milieu.

My lectures to six selected monasteries and one nunnery, became simpler and simpler as I discovered my listeners knew very little of Christianity, and so I was able to adopt a more relaxed and friendly attitude, encouraging questions which were numerous.

Even the youngest novice monk is used to sitting still and concentrating for several hours at once and these lectures were no different.

One of the highlights of my visit was a special gathering of their senior Lamas — Geshes (Doctors of Philosophy) and Rinpoches (reincarnate Lamas mostly) — towards the end of my time there.

It was an extraordinary mix of reverential listening with open and enthusiastic dialogue. There were one over well monks hundred there, many of whom are men of deep insight and high "attainment" and all of whom have been thoroughly trained in

QZ-WCWCVCVVV-VZVC-tVVMCVCWCCPZV'CCGVVVVCCVMCVVCVCVVVVVVMPVVVCVVVVM 30 The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989

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the science of dialectic debate.

Smiles as monks of all ages listen to Fr Conlon.

At gatherings such as these I realise we have far to go in understanding the meanings we place on words and how easily they can confuse and perhaps sometimes even get in the way of fruitful dialogue.

But there is so much that we have in common on the experiential and spiritual level as well as in the growing desire we have to work together to build a more peaceful world, and protect what parts of the natural environment we still have left.

As Pannikkar has said: "We are the chasm and we are likewise the bridge."

What we need to recover is our original unity, Merton's sentiments which have an even more urgent ring about them for us men and women of this century.

Moving from monastery to monastery, and when talking to His Holiness, I was struck with their general idea that at least some of their monastics will have to move into the fields of education and caring for the sick and poor.

Very young nuns and old monks too.

Since the Inter Monastic Exchange Program has begun, and thanks to the example provided by Mother Teresa and her Sisters, there has begun a gradual movement to realising this new direction for their Religious.

The fact is that not all monks and nuns in Tibetan monasteries are engaged in meditation all of every day.

This is something only a certain percentage, perhaps even a minority undertake.

And so, as this small, yet successful band of refugees takes its place in and adapts to the new world of living beyond the mountainous walls of Tibet, this could certainly be a direction we could assist with from our long experience with all manner of the corporal works of mercy.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a large and fit man of over fifty, met me on the verandah of his bungalow.

He has taken the cause of world peace to his heart, and does so with humility and constancy, thus earning for himself and his people, the Nobel Peace Prize which he received in early December in Oslo.

In spite of the documented evidence showing the brutality of the Chinese occupation of his country, this "simple monk" as he calls himself, bears these opposing forces no ill will and is always encouraging his own people to remain patient and positive in the same way.

Monks in dialogue with their visitor.

His own life is clearly one of interior discipline, total dedication and effort relived every day. He

is certainly a man of the world and like all great spiritual leaders offers the world a way out of its dilemmas, the way of Buddha, of Jesus, of St Francis and Ghandi, the way of non violence, of peace and love.

He is totally confident that in the end this way will prevail, and that also, his people will return to their homeland in Tibet, so that it will once again become "the spiritual heart of Asia on the roof of the Is‘ world".

1.1 It seemed to me as I took leave of my gentle hosts at the Nechung Monastery, that Tibet is not simply at the heart of Asia, but could even represent for western man a part of his deepest and innermost self.

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"And what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his very self?"

To the extent that we support and assist the legitimate desires of the Tibetan people, we are helping ourselves but to the extent that we ignore or positively oppose those humble and legitimate yearnings we, in some way, do violence to ourselves.

Novena to St Clare. Say Novena to the Holy Spirit. nine Hail Marys daily. On Holy Spirit, you who solve ninth day light candle and all problems light all roads let it burn to end. Publish so that I can attain my notice. Thank you St goal. You gave me the Clare. M.C. Robinson. divine gift to forgive and Holy Spirit you who solve forget all evil against me all problems, light all and that in all instances of life you are with me. roads so that I can attain Imy Painting, quality work at want in this prayer the right price. John my goal. You gave me the to thank you short all things Freakley. Phone 361 4349. divine gift to forgive and as I confirm for once again forget all evil against me Kingdom Electrics tic No and that in all instances in that I never want to be 003467. Prompt 24 hr my life you are with me. separated from you ever, service to all suburbs, I want in this short prayer in spite of all material domestic, industrial, com- to thank you for all things illusions. I wish to be with mercial, installation and as I confirm once again you in eternal glory. maintenance, computer that I never want to be Thank you for your mercy cabling installed and separated from you ever towards me and mine.

R.P.V. t erminated.

Contact in spite of all material Frank on 446 1312. illusions. I wish to be with you in eternal glory. May the Sacred Heart of New metal roofing and Thank you for your mercy Jesus be adored, glorified, gutters, carports, patios, towards me and mine. loved and preserved maintenance repairs. For This prayer must be said throughout the world personal service phone for three days after which now and forever. Sacred Ron Murphy 277 5595. the favour will be granted. Heart of Jesus, hear our The prayer must be prayers. St Jude, worker of Upholsterer, retired promiracles, for us. St fessional is interested in published immediately. Jude, helppray of the hoperepairs and light recover- S.B.B. ing work (kitchen chairs) Holy Spirit you who solve less, pray for us. Say the prayer 9 tirr:L=s a day for 9 etc. Phone 342 8333. all problems, light all days and promise publicaroads so that I can attain tion. Thanks to Sacred my goal. You gave me the Heart of Jesus and St Jude PUBLIC NOTICE divine gift to forgive and for prayers answered. forget all evil against me Eileen.

FURNITURE CARRIED. and that in all instances in One item to housefulls. my life you are with me.

Small, medium, large vans I want in this short prayer May the Sacred Heart of available with one or two to thank you for all things Jesus be adored, glorified, men from $24 per hour, as I confirm once again loved and preserved all areas. Cartons and that I never want to be throughout the world cheap storage available. separated from you ever now and forever. Sacred Mike Murphy 330 7979, in spite of all material Heart of Jesus pray for us.

444 0077, illusions. I wish to be with St Jude, worker of mira317 1101, 272 3210, you in eternal glory. cles, pray for us. St Jude, 447 8878, 384 8838. Thank you for your mercy helper of the hopeless, 378 3303, callers: towards me and mine. Say pray for us. Say this prayer Country 008 198 120. this prayer for three days nine times a day for nine and publish immediately. days. Publication must be Thank you Holy Spirit. promised. Thank you Sacred Heart and St Jude.

THANKS M.C. Robinson.

M.C. Robinson.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Holy Mary, Holy Thanks to Our Lady and St Spirit, St Jude, grant our Clare. Pray nine Hail Thanks Sacred Heart, intention and petition for Marys for nine days Blessed Mother, St Thethe success of studies and lighting candle and letting rese, St Jude, St Anthony examinations of Cecilia it burn out. Request three for help. Please continue on January 8, 1990 and favours. Publicise this to hear and answer my prayers. R.C. devotion. L January 9, 1990. S.H.

BAPTISM ADVERTS Announce a BAPTISM FREE in The

Record Classifieds.

Post or deliver (no phone advts) the candidate's name, parents name, date of ceremony and the church.

RECORD classifieds close noon Wednesdays. Post or deliver..

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15

The Record, Christmas Issue, December 21, 1989 31

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THE PA

S CEN

PSYCHIATRIC QUESTIONS

Andrew Hill and Shama Taggart celebrate their wedding that had taken place in Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament church Gosnells in the first ever Nuptial Mass of their family friend, the recently ordained Father Brian Limbourn.

Shama is the only daughter of Reginald and Anne Taggart of Rolyestone and Andrew is the second son of Richard and Eileen Hill of England.

SOCIAL JUSTICE COMPETITION

The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council's Summer Essay competition has been extended to April 30, 1990 and is being run in two sections each with a prize of $500 generously donated by Mr Frank Grogan of Perth.

Secondary school students are asked to write 1500 to 2000 words, whereas the open section entrants are asked to write 3000 words.

The topic for both sections is: John Paul II describes the Church as reading "events as they unfold in the course of history" (SRS:1). The Social Doctrine of the Church is seen as characterised by both continuity and renewal.

Compare and contrast Rerum Novarum (1891) and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) for both continuity and renewal. Refer to unfolding events in the course of history.

Entries are to be received at the ACSJC Secretariat, 19 MacKenzie Street, North Sydney NSW 2060 by April 30, 1990.

1

OBERAMMERGAU 1990

.111.•

WMI

YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN

ST COLUMBA'S MUSIC

the Rev Paul & Mrs Gee of Sunbury diocese

on their exciting 27 day pilgrimage (departing July 3, 1990)

A rchdiocesan Calendar

Rosary and benediction will be held on Sunday, December 31 at the Bullsbrook Church at 2pm. For further information and bus reservations please ring 444 2285 for Perth, Highgate and Midland bus and 339 4015 for Fremantle bus.

On New Year's Eve, Mass will be celebrated at midnight. Sacri Association, PO Box 311, Tuart Hill 6060, telephone 571 1699.

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THE PASSION PLAY

"What are the problems with St Columba's parish Festival of patient care of people in psychiatric Music which ran for three weekends, hospitals" is the question being asked commencing on Saturday, by the working party set up by the November 11 and finishing on the Minister for Health, Mr Keith Wilson. feast of Christ the King was A meeting will be held at organised by Harrold Walsh and the Emmanuel Centre, 25 Windsor St, parish choir.

Perth on Wednesday, January 3 As well as St Columba's choir, the from 7.30-9.30pm to collate Youth Group and the St Columba's responses from interested people.

School Choir the following visitors Mrs Barbara Harris, from Emma- participated: Santa Maria Choir; nuel Centre, a member of the Miss M. Lumley, harpist; Gosnell's working party wants to hear from Parish Band; Riverton Boys' Choir; consumers, families, staff and Mercedes Quartet; The Resurrection professional groups on all aspects of Shuffle; Mrs V. Moylan, cello; care right from the time a person is Morning, Noon and Night; Riverton Choir and Baroque Orchestra. admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The working party intends to collate the comments received and use them to identify the key areas of concern. Consumers and providers will then be invited to a workshop to work out solutions together early in December 1990.

24 Midnight Mass St Mary's CatheFurther information ring Barbara dral. Archbishop Foley.

328 8113.

BULLSBROOK PILGRIMAGE

NM\ •

Mass at Little Sisters of the Poor, Glendalough. Bishop Healy.

25 Mass at St Mary's Cathedral. Archbishop Foley.

27 Mass to Open Chapter of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, Highgate. Archbishop Foley.

28 Opening of the new building, Little Sisters of the Poor. Archbishop Foley.

January 1990 1 Archbishop Foley on annual holidays.

The passion play (1st class seats) Rome (with gen papal audience) Assisi, Lourdes etc

Contact Carl, Geoff or Tamara

Perth (09) 225 1633 Or send to: Philomena Cornu & staff at the MYER CENTRE Forrest Chase, Perth, WA 6000 •

Please send me more information about your Oberammergau package.

Name Address _

Tel (H)

(Bus Licence No. 31132

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Faith Tours and Travel Holy Pilgrimages 1990

GETTING MARRIED?

MEDJUGORJE Easter:

Organist/vocalist available for ceremony.

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MEDJUGORJE/ITALY July: Youth Tour (to be finalised).

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Depart August 3 (15 days) Weekly and monthly tours available also.

For details please ring:

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NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING 325 6644 Country clients welcome. Phone or write Natural Family Planning Centre 27 Victoria Square Member of the Australian Council of Natural Family Planning Inc

Ballajura's fashionable crib Ballajura parishioners may not yet have traditional plaster figures for their Christmas crib but they will have the best in contemporary display as a substitute.

The contemporary crib with shop mannequins displays Joseph in a Hawaiian summer shirt, red socks and desert boots. Mary sports a denim skirt and loose blouse.

Acolyte Ed Mayvis rang several leading department stores but none would part with their $750 mannequins, but his search did lead to Howard Bailey, a mannequin restorer in Bayswater, who gladly lent two figures.

While preparing the mannequins at Charis House, the Ballajura community centre, some controversy arose about whether Mary should be shown to be pregnant and whether a Polish fur coat and Russian hat was inappropriate for

Theis Roctxd, Christmas Issuo, December 21, 1989

Joseph. Well, Mary Is visibly pregnant in the run up to Christmas and — in keeping with the Australian setting — summer clothes won the day.

On Christmas day, however, the contemporary crib will show Mary and Joseph pushing a pram.

The crib setting will be displayed on a vehicle when parish priest Father Jegorow celebrates Midnight Mass at the Ballajura shopping centre carpark, beginning with Polish and Australian carols at 11.30pm. Folding chairs. blankets and candles must be brought The figures then return to the state school Mass centre where young Ballajura parishioners Martin Boyle.

Andrew Wong, Simon Manzi, Sinead McManus and Michelle Parker were pictured examining a Christmas crib with a difference.

/NM

111 ,44

Pastoral Formation Program A two year correspondence course for adults, aimed at deepening knowledge of the Catholic faith and preparation for lay ministry.

The third and final intake of new students for this program will be in 1990, commencing with a Lenten Study Course.

For information write to the Executive Officer, Pastoral Formation Program, 20 Prosser St, Bunbury 6230

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