Commemoration of the Passion
On the Friday before Ash Wednesday, Passionists celebrate the feast of the Commemoration of the Passion. Paul of the Cross was able to get Pope Pius 6th to agree to this feast, which Paul wanted in order to reflection the joy and hope of the cross and passion, before Lent began, rather than the usual focus on suffering and pain, highlighted especially on Good Friday.

We were delighted to have Joachim Rego join us for a special Chris Monaghan dinner include Bombe Alaska! Joachim completed two terms as General of the Passionist Congregation last October and is now living in Marrickville. We also welcomed good friends Sandra and George Johnson, and our brothers from Donvale, Kevin Hennessy and Luke Bully.

St Gabriel’s festa
The feast of St Gabriel is celebrated on February 27th, and with the customary hard work and planning of the local St Gabriel’s Committee, Holy Cross celebrated the St Gabriel’s festa last Sunday, with other devotional events that always precede the big day. To increase the attraction, an array of vintage cars were on display.

Unfortunately, I was away in Vietnam, and although the celebration went ahead, a deep sadness is that our friend Bruno Petrocco who has been the driving force behind this annual celebration, suffered an injury on Saturday while helping with the set up for the big event, and while in typical fashion he soldiered on with the preparations and participated on the day, he required hospital treatment on Sunday afternoon. He has remained in hospital without visitors. He did suffer a head injury, and while brain scans were clear, he has remained heavily sedated this week. Bruno also has four broken ribs. Please keep him in your prayers.

Greetings everyone and welcome to our Letter 263. Most of the letter is written by
Brian and I have added a few more news just to help bring it to 7 pages. Most of my
additions are pictures.
Tri is back
On Tuesday morning Tri arrived
back from Vietnam. This photo was
taken because Brian was just about
to check-in to go to Vietnam while
Tri had just arrived at the airport.
They got to at least say hello to each
other for a second. John Aurum was
also there, about to check-in for his
flight to PNG. He had been here for
the provincial council meeting. We
enjoyed having John around and we
wish him the very best with his
ministries.

Jerome
Jerome had surgery on Monday morning and he heard and saw nothing of the doctor over the next three days. He had been bleeding and they wanted to get that trouble cleared up. Finally, yesterday the doctor told him, “you can go home tomorrow”. We are not sure what time that will be. His breathing was laboured, but he was in cheerful spirits yesterday when I saw him yesterday afternoon. On that same of his surgery as most of you know, at 2.30pm, his sister, Mary James passed away. Mary was a Baptist, and she did not want a funeral. There will be a memorial when all the family, especially Jerome, can make it up to Benalla. Thank you to all the people who sent messages which I was able to pass on to Jerome.

Passion seminar
This week a number of our younger men gathered at Holy Cross to participate in a preaching seminar, from midday Tuesday to midday Thursday, led by Chris Monaghan and Brendan Connell. We are living in ‘new times’ and the challenge of communicating the message of the cross calls for creativity, biblical awareness and contemporary ways of ‘preaching’. St Paul reminded us that the message of the cross is illogical for those who are spiritually dead (1 Cor 18).

Our founder, Paul of the Cross famously claimed that the Passion of Jesus is the greatest and most overwhelming work of God’s love, and that it should fall like gentle rain on hardened hearts. That is a clue to its importance, but how that is communicated requires an awareness of modern learning, the nature and culture of the audience and their circumstances, and an openness to read the signs of the times, including how we can best communicate such a deep matter of faith to the people of different ages, cultures and faith perspectives

Happy Luna New Year!
On Wednesday we celebrated Luna New Year. It is more significant for Mike, in the
photo below, in the tent. In Vietnam it is a public holiday as it is for many other
countries in our Holy Cross wider connections. The tent was gifted to Mike by Chris.
They stayed outside and camped overnight in separate tents early in the week.
Below the tent photos is the A-team with mike in it. Brian took it before catching his
flight to PNG. We thank the A-team for making a comeback to 2025- even though
they never had a proper holiday. They were still turning up for emergencies and
other work over Christmas and New Years. Only God knows their generous hearts!
One of the A-team members referred to Mike as Crocodile Dundee because of his
hat. From now on he has been baptised as not Mike but Mick Dundee! He wears the
hat everyday of the week when going to ELSPM, Box Hill, because on his way back he
has to walk under the sun for at least 20min to catch the bus back to Holy Cross.

He was sent to bring good news….(3rd Sunday Year C)
There is a story told about a stranger who arrived in a village. He asked the chief if he could share with his people the good news about Jesus. Neither the chief nor the people had heard of this person Jesus, so they invited him to stay. Unfortunately soon afterwards the man fell seriously ill. He had barely shared anything about this good news before he died in the village.

Among his belongings, the villagers found a small book and one of them, a young and wise man named Kuma could read English. He read the title, “The Good News of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. They knew that this book must contain the news the man had wanted to share.
As they listened to the stories from the book, they became excited by the stories of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, justice and concern for the sick, the weak and the vulnerable.

Los Angeles Fires
Several of the buildings of the Passionist Mater Dolorosa Retreat Centre in Sierra Madre, Los Angeles has been was badly damaged by the raging Eaton fires and water damage caused trying to save them. The Centre Director, Fabin Barose CP said that “seeing the area filled with smoke and dust was devastating and heart-breaking,”. “The garage, apartment, and hermitage are fully burned down. The Seven Sorrows Garden, Paul of the Cross fountain, and Stations of the Cross have fire damage.
As we went into the main building, we found the De Loor Hall roof thoroughly shattered with water damage and several of the Center’s offices have been completely ruined. About 60 people were at the centre at the time of the evacuation, and everyone made it out safely. There was too much smoke and dust to check out other building on the property, including the community residence”.

Feast of Baptism of Jesus…Sunday 12th January I mentioned last week that in the Eastern church, the birth of Jesus, the Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus are celebrated as the one feast. This is to show the continuity between Jesus entering the world in Bethlehem, being recognized by all peoples through the Magi as the Messiah (Christ) and the initiation of Jesus into his ministry by being baptised in the Jordan river.

Jesus’ baptism highlighted that he was a true member of the human family. He shared their longings for liberation. Perhaps one aspect of this feast we might reflect on, is that no one becomes a commissioned follower of Jesus without having to grow and develop in his or her understanding of what this vocation means. Growth in faith was real for Jesus too. Jesus did not sit up in the manager and recite his ‘seven times’ tables. He had to learn like everyone else.

Feast of Epiphany
The Greek word επιφάνεια means ‘manifestation’. The feast of Epiphany on January 6th, was originally anticipated by a time of preparation (Advent) to before celebrating the visit of the wise men from the East. They are likely to have been astrologers and they found Jesus by using their own tradition – following a star. This is a bit sobering when we think how difficult it is for us to truly ‘find’ Jesus. The visit of the ‘wise men’ or Magi is only recorded in Matthew’s gospel so we won’t hear the story this year (in Year C when we hear from Luke).

Epiphany celebrated the manifestation of Jesus as universal Lord. The men from the East signified that people from ‘east and west’ had come to pay homage to Jesus, the ultimate revealer of God’s love and fellowship. So the period of advent began on December 17th and it was a festival period of prayers and activities celebrating Jesus’ arrival, rather than as it has become, a time of preparation while we wait for Jesus to arrive (at Christmas).