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Mater Admirabilis & Contemplative Leadership

I’m pleased to be invited to address the Australian Sacre Coeur Association’s 2015 Forum on 18 October. The theme of the forum is Mater Admirabilis: Interiority and Action Reconciled, the Other-Centredness of Mary. The title refers to a depiction of Mary which is much-loved among the Religious of the Sacred Heart and those who have studied in their many educational institutions. During my involvement with the Society of the Sacred Heart as the Province Director of Mission for the Australia New Zealand Province, I’ve come to see Mater as a model of contemplative leadership. Contemplation is not at odds with… Read More »Mater Admirabilis & Contemplative Leadership

Women’s Participation in the Church

I was pleased to be invited by the Canberra Goulburn Archdiocesan Commission for Women to reflect with them on progress in the participation of women in the Catholic Church in Australia. After five years of research, the report Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus was published in 1999. I was a member of the Research Management Group and a co-author of the report. There has been progress since the research was published, but much more is needed to promote the equal dignity of women and men within the Church and in society. Watch these presentations and let me know… Read More »Women’s Participation in the Church

Positively Poetry Day

All day I’ve had ‘Positively Fourth Street’ playing in my head – in two versions! It has something to say to us in this Lenten season, and is quite appropriate for International Poetry Day. Bob Dylan’s original is an angry cry of pain about false friendship. He sings what we have all felt. It can be crushing to realize those who we thought were our friends just wanted ‘to be on the side that is winning’ – that we were actually just assets, allies or tools to them, or perhaps even just toys or fashion accessories. We feel foolish as… Read More »Positively Poetry Day

Happy International Women’s Day!

 In a world marked by on-going gender discrimination, today we hold up the dignity, rights and achievements of women.  In Australia we have largely achieved formal equality before the law, so it is tempting to think the struggle for equality has been won.  However the structures, processes and institutions of our society continue to under value women and girls and treat us less favourably than men and boys.  Everyone is demeaned by this.  As part of the preparation for the meeting on trafficking that I attended in Kuala Lumpur I had to answer a number of questions about the situation of… Read More »Happy International Women’s Day!

Vale Blazie Dog

I have held my grief privately.  It is a disturbing, embarrassing, unseemly grief.  One which feels inappropriate in my current context.  And yet it is so. I’m heartbroken that my little dog has passed on and I wasn’t able to be there with him and my husband.  Blaze had cancer and had reached a point where he was in significant pain. It was time for us to let him go. But I was unable to make that last trip to the vet with Blaze and Geoff because I am in Kuala Lumpur. Blaze ate more regularly than many of the people served… Read More »Vale Blazie Dog

Christmas Island & Advent

Each day my commute begins with a trip on the Manly ferry. It’s a great way to start the day – coffee, reflection, and a chance to contemplate one of the world’s great harbours.  Tourists who travel for pleasure love only the blue sky, sunny, calm water days, but seasoned ferry commuters learn to love the more subtlle, less flashy moods of the harbor.  The Emerald City can be wearer-of-the-black serious. The quiet introspection of drizzly grey days on the harbor have their place in the ryhthmn of our lives. So too the wild days and slightly perverse delight in picking… Read More »Christmas Island & Advent

Remembering the dead – or why I hate Halloween

I’m not the only one who gets annoyed at the way in which so many traditional celebrations are now crassly commercialised, or at the general coca colonialisation of Australian culture.  Not that I am a traditionalist, wanting to freeze frame life “back in the day”.  Cultures are dynamic, living things, and in fact I work for social transformation.  I acknowledge that feeling miffed at the paganisation of Christian feasts is somewhat ironic – the way in which ‘Christmas’ is treated in popular culture could be seen as fair return for the Christian appropriation of the pagan spring festival at Easter.  Yet… Read More »Remembering the dead – or why I hate Halloween