WE’VE barely had time to put the Christmas crib away and Donna Longland and her friends already have their minds on Easter. It’s the same every year. As soon as January arrives they start preparing for the Iona Passion Play, which has its home at Iona College, on Brisbane’s bayside. Donna, a Brisbane Catholic, has been doing that for 25 ... Read More »
HELPING people “fall in love with Jesus” – how’s that for a job description? There probably should be more words around that but that’s at the heart of what Mike Humphrys has been doing in Brisbane archdiocese for the past 24 years. His job title when he retired at the end of last year was associate director with Evangelisation Brisbane ... Read More »
FORMER Test cricketer Matthew Hayden is going into bat again – this time opening for a major advertising campaign calling all Catholics to come to church. The campaign will run across South East Queensland early next year and is pitched middle stump at “baptised but not practising” Catholics. Recent census figures show only about eight to 10 per cent of ... Read More »
“GOD’S embrace” has made all the difference in Percy Pamo Lawrence’s life but, at 54, she still finds herself yearning for her mother’s hug. That’s something she missed so badly as a child when her mother Rosa left the family in the Philippines to search for work in London. Percy’s family was one of thousands struggling to make a go ... Read More »
CATHOLICS from 22 multicultural communities processed into St Stephen’s Cathedral wearing national dress for the Multicultural Mass celebrated by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge last Sunday. Coronavirus restrictions had taken a toll on the large numbers usually present at the Mass while the typical festivities like the food exhibition were unable to go ahead. Even so, almost 100 people gathered for ... Read More »
TERESA McGrath’s work for the Church is guided by two of her favourite Scripture quotes – one from St Paul and another from St Peter. The one from St Paul is from his second letter to the Corinthians – “His grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in weakness (12:9).” And St Peter’s is from his ... Read More »
AT the end of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI entrusted the newly “rejuvenated” Church to one specific group of Catholics. It was for young people, the Pope said, that the Church was being re-examined “to respond better to the design of her Founder”. So, after four rigorous years, the Church was entrusting young people to “build a better ... Read More »
SHANELLE Bennett said she had the privilege to journey with a dying man in her work in pastoral care at Mercy Community Aged Care and had learned a great lesson from him. On his last day, he confided his fears about death to her and asked if she thought he was going to heaven. “I said, ‘John*, you are so ... Read More »
VANESSA Comninos is so fired up for evangelisation that she’s walked away from her dream job as an optometrist to work full-time in her Brisbane parish. The young wife and mother-of-two has taken on the role of evangelisation director in Our Lady of the Southern Cross Parish at Springfield, west of Brisbane, and she couldn’t be happier. Not only is ... Read More »
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