AUSTRALIAN television is about to become a whole lot holier.
The trailer for the new season of the Amazing Race Australia was released last night and for the first time in history two religious Sisters are competing.
Sr Therese Mills and Sr Judy Bowe of the Missionaries of God’s Love Sisters were spotted as one of the 11 teams of two competing across three continents for a cool $250,000 prize.
“The other teams might be a bit threatened by us because we’ve got the Big Fella on our side,” Sr Mills said in the official promo that aired on Channel 10 last night.
The first look of the new season of the Amazing Race Australia was released at the beginning of the Extraordinary Month of Mission.
Two years ago Pope Francis asked the Church “to live an extraordinary time of missionary activity” for the entire month of October in 2019.
The theme for the month is “Baptised and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World”.
Mission is at the forefront of the Missionaries of God’s Love, a religious congregation of priests, Brothers and Sisters who were founded in 1986 by Fr Ken Barker.
According to their website, the MGLS “exist to share Jesus’ mission to bring this fire to the earth”.
Members of the congregation live within the Disciples of Jesus charismatic covenant community and regularly run retreats and missions with young people.
Both the Sisters and their male counterparts take up a life of radical poverty, obedience and chastity.
The Sisters are based in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, and their average age is 30.
Sr Mills, originally from Cairns in north Queensland, joined the Sisters in 2000 and made her final vows in 2008.
Sr Bowe joined in 1991 and is one of the original congregation members.
Sr Bowe is the leader of the MGL Sisters.
While their run on the Amazing Race will no doubt be exhausting, the Sisters are not averse to taking up a physical challenge – in 2015 Sr Bowe ran the half-marathon at the Australian Running Festival in Canberra.
During that race Sr Bowe prayed that young people could find direction and purpose in their life.
The Amazing Race Australia will air on Channel 10 soon.
