Pandemic Burnout
We looked forward to putting 2020 to bed on New Year’s Eve, celebrating the end of one of the most globally challenging years in living history, and hoping for better times to come in 2021. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that COVID-19 did not take this as a hard deadline.
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Once again, we find ourselves living with more uncertainty around COVID-19 and its possible further impacts on our lives. It is in this backdrop that we celebrated today, Sunday 27 June, the Solemnity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Patron of our Diocese, proclaimed for our Diocese by Bishop Edmund Gleeson.
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Unity and Diversity
On a cold, windy and overcast Saturday, I gathered with a very diverse group of people at Foreshore Park in Newcastle to celebrate the Unity and Diversity Festival which has been celebrated in Newcastle for about seven years
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: To bear fruit
My last week was bookended by the funerals of Fr Paul Bernard O’Neill and John Desmond Cavenagh. Both funerals were great tributes to two men who loved and were loved deeply.
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.
Winter seems to have struck us with some very chilly weather, even though the sun continues to bring us some very beautiful days. I am conscious that I am writing this message on the weekend of the United Nations World Environment Day (5 June) which is calling us to take urgent action to revive our damaged ecosystems. This year’s theme is Reimagine. Recreate. Restore. These three words could be the words which describe our diocesan synodal journey.
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Reconciliation Takes Action
On this Trinity Sunday, I am reminded of the blessing we give ourselves regularly – In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Come Holy Spirit Come
Come Holy Spirit Come
Come Holy Spirit Come
These are some of the words we sang and prayed on Saturday 22 May, at the second session of Synod for our Diocese. How apt, not only for our Synod, but also on this weekend when we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost – the feast of wind, fire, being sent forth and the recognition of the power of the third person of our Triune God, the Holy Spirit.
TUESDAYS WITH TERESA: Let the Synod Unite Us
The weekend of Pentecost was deliberately chosen for the second session of our Diocesan Synod, with the continued hope that we will listen to, and be guided by, the Holy Spirit. We now know that there will be about 300 people gathered in the six hubs across our diocese, discerning if the content of the five foundations will provide us with a spiritual framework from which to imagine a way forward, to build the Kingdom of God together in our Diocese.