Brazilian priest’s hug (NCR Online)
Fr Carlos Henrique Fernandes of the Diocese of
Tubarão, in Santa Catarina state, was celebraKng Mass
on January 18 when, moments before giving
Communion, he saw an elderly man coming to him. A
long-Kme extraordinary minister of Holy Communion
at the Church of St Francis of Assisi, the man, named
Marcos, was a]ending Mass that day, along with his
wife, but was not scheduled to help distribute
Communion. During the celebraKon, he was called by a
relaKve and went out for a few minutes. When he came back into the church, he was
visibly distressed.
“I was concluding the EucharisKc prayer when I saw him coming. I didn’t know what
was happening, but he was visibly shaken. I even feared he might be having a heart
a]ack,” Fr Fernandes told OSV News. The priest immediately interrupted the
celebraKon and embraced Marcos for a long Kme, while the man conKnued to weep.

Last Friday morning, Tri and JD
were cleaning cobwebs around
the downstairs kitchen. When I
went outside, Erick asked, “What
actually is a cobweb?” I could
only answer, that is a good
ques@on. We agreed that we
normally spoke about spiderwebs, but what actually is a cob? Our learned ‘A’
Team, even with the help of Doctor Google could not provide much help, but they
did suggest that a spider web has a spider living in the web, wheras a dusty
abandoned web, is a cobweb. That was confirmed in the evening table discussion.

Mike will holiday in Vietnam from February 6th
Coming up
Tomorrow (Saturday) Chris will celebrate his 50th profession as a
Passionist. This is our major milestone event and comes with the
opportunity of a Province sponsored sabbatical, which Chris will
have to work out with the President of YTU! He completed a three
month sabbatical in late 2019, just a few months before COVID-19
so he might delay this for a while. On Saturday (24th) the community
will celebrate with Chris and on Sunday 24th, the Coffee Cart will be
here to enable everyone to acknowledge Chris’ long term commitment.
Chris and his classmate, Joachim Rego who
completed 12 years as Superior General of the
Passionist Congregation in October 2024, will
celebrate in Sydney on Monday February 2nd.with a
number of Passionists with whom they shared time
on the Provincial Council, The current Provincial
Council, of whom Chris is 1st Consultor, will meet that Monday and Tuesday.

Elizabeth Prout Day
Elizabeth Prout was born in 1840 and suffered
inferior health only living for 43 years
succumbing to TB, , but she made the very most
of those years. She was raised an Anglican but
became a Catholic in her mid-twenties under
the influence of two Passionists. Elizabeth based
herself in Manchester which at the time
suffered rapid growth which led to overcrowding, slums with dirty streets,
unsanitary housing, and high mortality, especially among children. Elizabeth’s
response with the help of companions who gathered around her, helped establish
numerous schools and hostels across poverty-stricken parts of northwest England.
She taught women to be self-sufficient, teaching them skills to support themselves.
She founded the Cross and Passion Sisters, of whom Srs Brigid and Karen are
members and was declared Venerable by Pope Francis, in 2021.
Sunday 11th is Elizabeth Prout Day (the anniversary of the date of her death in
1864. Brigid and Karen have created a video to acknowledge the occasion. The link
is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTOgmU2EcmU

A Team end of year break up lunch
On Friday December 19th, the ‘A Team’ after a morning of work, cooked a simple
BBQ lunch and were joined by some A Team extras (Peter Norman, Bruno, Vince,
Pino) and members of the community to acknowledge a year of good work and
good fun.
Starting from the front left….Tri, Peter Day, Des Rigby, Joe Senzo, Graeme
Newcombe, Vince Celestino, Bruno Petrocco, Pino Facciolo, Brian, Peter Norman, Vin
Molloy, Jack Brolly, Ed Porad and John Stretch. Erick took the photo, Chris had
returned to work at YTU and Maurice Molan was absent.

Bondi
The tragedy of December 15th was a stark reminder of the
challenges we face in promoting and living in peace, and the
deeply unfair situation that Jewish people and so many
others suffer from, being labelled and targeted by hatred.
They are each individual people with hopes and dreams like
ours, but so often they are demonised and forced to live in fear.
Act 3 of ‘William Shakespeare’s play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’
reveals that an money lending agreement has been made
between Antonio, a Christian merchant and Shylock, a Jewish
money lender. The terms and conditions of the loan are simple:
Antonio must repay his debt in full to Shylock within three
months. If the debt is not repaid within that timeframe, Antonio
must forfeit one pound of his own flesh to Shylock. Antonio and
Shylock have known each other for a long time.

Advent – Joy
Some people seem to be happy by nature. Even when they go through sickness or hardship, they smile and remain positive. Some other people always seem to be unhappy. They complain and only see the negative side of any situation.

A young priest always preached sermons about ‘doom and gloom’. His parish priest asked him to preach on the following Sunday about St. Joseph and he said to the young priest, “Remember, St Joseph was a cheerful man”. When the Sunday came, the young priest spoke about St Joseph. He reminded people that Joseph had been a carpenter. He said many people in those times died from sickness and disease, so St Joseph would have had to make a lot of coffins!

Australian Catholic Youth Festival 2025 (Luke Bulley CP)
After six years, ACYF finally made a comeback, and what a comeback it was! With
over 6,000 in attendance, it showed the resurgence in faith that is happening
amongst our young people in this post-COVID, technology-driven world.
There was a shock on the first night, when
Archbishop Peter Comensoli introduced a
“friend” who wanted to give us a message,
and Pope Leo XIV popped onto the big
screen to give us his blessing. Many
people commented how moving this was
to hear a Pope give a heartfelt message in
English, rather than through a translator!
Pope Leo’s address to the pilgrims:
https://www.instagram.com/acyf25/reel/DRrRkYcFShY/
Our stall (joint Passionist Retreat Team and Vocations) saw nearly 1000 young
people come through over the 3 days (including a big group of 17 of our youth from
St Brigid’s, and our sisters from Adelaide with their schools). Each was welcomed
by Claire O’Donoghue (senior facilitator on the PRT), Fr Erick Niyiragira CP, and
myself, and each folded a small origami love heart, and wrote a commitment on
the back about how they’ll spread more unconditional love in our world. Each of
these was then strung up around the stall, which looked very colourful by the end!

Kevin Hennessy: 50th ordina=on
This Sunday Kevin will celebrate 11.00am Mass in St Mary of the Angels, Geelong to
mark 50 years since his ordinaMon on November 29th, 1975. There will be a light
lunch a?erwards at St Mary’s SporMng Club, Latrobe Terrace, Geelong. A number of
people from Holy Cross are going to aWend this celebraMon. This is an
acknowledgement of the profound contribuMon Kevin made as a professed and
ordained Passionist to Holy Cross. Kevin’s ministry has been wide, varied and most
generous over these 50 years during an era of significant change within the Church.
We extend thanks and congratulaMons to Kevin from everyone at Holy Cross and
wish him well for his future life and ministry.

Feast of Christ the King
This Sunday we complete Liturgical Year C with the feast of
Christ the King. As we know from the exchange with Pontius
Pilate, Jesus was clear that his kingdom was not of a material
kind, but he did confirmed that he was a king, born to testify to
the Truth. We remember when he was with Herod, Herod
questioned unknowingly, “What is Truth?” That question echoes
everywhere now with the challenges of AI.
Jesus was not just a messenger of the Truth - he was ‘the’ Truth. His self-declared
mission was to “proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to
let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour”. This is a
statement with Biblical symbolism found in Isaiah 62:1-2.