DESPITE world attention on the Commonwealth Games, parishioners at Surfers Paradise have been taking a mass influx of athletes and visitors all in their stride. Surfers Paradise is one of the largest Catholic parishes in Australia and many locals were finding it eerily quiet as they braced for a Games influx, with Carrara Stadium – the main athletics venue – ... Read More »
FRANCISCAN Friar Stephen Bliss, an official driver for athletes and officials at the Commonwealth Games, says his passengers are intrigued when they learn a Catholic priest is chauffeuring them. “St Francis said preach the Gospel and if necessary use words. So I think this preaching of the Gospel is about not using words but using a steering wheel,” Fr Bliss ... Read More »
WHEN Surfers Paradise parishioner and community worker Robyn Hunt held the Queen’s baton aloft on one of the final stretches into the Gold Coast, she did it for the charity she loves. “I carried the torch for the 1200 volunteers who work for Rosies,” Mrs Hunt said, reminiscing on the great Commonwealth Games moment, as she attended Mass as sacristan ... Read More »
TARYN Gollshewsky can count on the cheers of every child at Bundaberg’s St Patrick’s Primary School when she steps into the discus thrower’s circle at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. “Miss G”, as her students affectionately know her, is a first-year physical eduation teacher at St Patrick’s. Throughout first term she balanced a gruelling training schedule with her full-time teaching. ... Read More »
WHEN elite long-distance runner Eloise Wellings takes to the track she has more than medals on her mind. Lining up on the Gold Coast for her fourth Commonwealth Games in the 10,000m and 5000m, Ms Wellings also has her focus fixed on Love Mercy, a foundation she co-founded to help communities in northern Uganda overcome poverty after decades of civil ... Read More »
CATHOLIC athletes have displayed their rousing singing skills and a penchant for rosary beads as they tuned up for Commonwealth Games competition. “I was sure they were going to lift the roof off with their singing,” volunteer Catholic chaplain Helen Day said, after a rousing Good Friday liturgy, held in the Gold Coast athletes’ village multi-faith centre. Mrs Day said ... Read More »
ST Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace old boy Tom Lucas is expected to be a standout for Australia’s rugby sevens at this month’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. It promises to be another chapter in the story of Brisbane’s Lucas family, one of the country’s greatest rugby families with four brothers in the professional ranks – Ben, Matt, Tom and ... Read More »
WHILE athletes from around the world prepare for two weeks of record-breaking competition this week, a Christian movement is trying for their own world record. Christian youth pastor Ben Thompson is behind a movement to create the world’s longest prayer chain during the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. Mr Thompson said the world-record attempt would connect Christians from around ... Read More »
THE tyranny of distance could well have cruelled the opportunity of a lifetime for two indigenous boys from Herberton to perform in the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April. However, the performance aspirations of the senior students from Mount St Bernard College have been thrown a lifeline by a friend and former colleague of ... Read More »
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