The SVD AUS Province marked All Soul’s Day this month by holding a special Remembrance Ritual for all confreres who lost loved ones during the pandemic and were not able to say goodbye in person.

In the ‘Pause to Remember’ ritual, Provincial Fr Asaeli Rass SVD invited some confreres from different countries to share their experience of loss during the period when people could not return home due to border closures.

Pope Francis has announced that former Provincial of the SVD Australia Province, Fr Tim Norton SVD, will become an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Fr Tim, who has been in ministry in Italy, will early next year join Auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell in supporting Archbishop Mark Coleridge in serving the Catholics of Brisbane Archdiocese.

Young people in SVD parishes and migrant chaplaincies in Australia will be invited to join an exciting new initiative, ‘SVD Youth’, which launched in Queensland on Sunday.

The SVD Youth is an offshoot of the SVD AUS Province’s Vocations Ministry and aims to gather young people together for mission formation and to nourish and support them in their spiritual journey.

Five young Divine Word Missionaries have been ordained to the priesthood and, if international borders remain open, will soon leave for their missionary assignments in countries across the globe.

Duc Le from Vietnam, Edward Teye from Ghana, Hai Nguyen from Vietnam and Francois Andrianihantana and Marius Razafimandimby, both from Madagascar were ordained on Saturday, November 27, by Bishop Terence Curtin, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, at the Our Lady of La Vang Shrine in Keysborough, Victoria.

In Australia and New Zealand, we are  familiar with the presence of people on TV using sign language. When an important announcement is made, the speaker is accompanied by an interpreter who uses sign language to speak to the deaf audience.

For us who are living here in Australia, royalty is not far from our national consciousness. There’s hardly a week that we don’t have news about Queen Elizabeth and the royal family.

We are coming to the end of the Liturgical Year and the readings of this Sunday speak to us of the end of the world, the end of time, the final coming of Jesus to take all peoples and all creation to himself.

I am delighted that Fr Tim Norton SVD, a member of the SVD Australia Province, has been appointed by Pope Francis to be Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane.

Tim will be an exciting and extremely capable bishop. As a missionary and a former Provincial, he will bring to this ministry a wealth of experience in Church leadership both at the universal and local level.

Pope Francis has this evening announced that Society of the Divine Word priest Fr Tim Norton will become an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Fr Norton, who is currently in ministry in Italy, will early next year join Auxiliary Bishop Ken Howell in supporting Archbishop Mark Coleridge in serving the Catholics of Brisbane Archdiocese.

The readings this Sunday talk about the need for generosity of heart. The two widows represented in today’s first reading and the Gospel are the unlikely people who could be generous.