Chinese New Year & Other Happenings:

Chinese New Year was a blast! The Asians in our community hosted the reunion dinner on New Year's Eve for about 40 people and we really enjoyed putting the meal together and feasting in good company thereafter.

We made friends with a fellow Singaporean who is with the Focolare movement. His name is Desmond Ang. He is in blue...anybody knows him?

We've started our first study project of the year based on the book called "Mary, Mirror of the Church" by Raneiro Cantalamessa. We are on Chapter Uno this week. A modest step! Will share more as we delve deeper into the book.

On the Bible reading front, we are now into the letter to the Hebrews. We meet half an hour every morning to read it together round-robin style, each taking a turn to read a verse. It is refreshing to read Scripture aloud together with others! Try it and experience God's word alive and active! :-)

Staff Retreat 2006

Last Sunday (12 Feb), we ended our week of silent retreat. It was a very fruitful and graced time for us.

On both our personal level and as a community, this retreat was essentially a call to return to the awareness of our deepest desires and pursuing what gives us passion and life.

I was impressed by what our retreat spiritual director (Father Richard, a Jesuit) said about the secret behind the dramatic jump in the number of Jesuits from the time St Ignatius first started the Society of Jesus (9 men) to when he died (over a thousand sent worldwide with Saint Francis Xavier looking to evangelise China). The secret was that they knew what they deeply desired and that gave them the passion and zeal to "set the world ablaze!" for the greater glory of God and for the salvation of souls.

After 5 days of personal silent retreat, we came together as a community to pray and share about what each of us saw as the apostolic work God desires us in the New Zealand centre to undertake beginning in this year. Over 2 days, we witnessed how the Holy Spirit moved among us and united us as thoughts and opinions were expressed honestly, listened to respectfully and discerned prayerfully. These ultimately gained a coherence which everyone agreed to proceed with. Focus will be on prayer and liturgical outreaches at St Gerard's, making it a spiritual Lighthouse, a House of Prayer, a place of vibrant Catholic worship and on deeper faith formation for parishes and for the young in primary schools. This was the first time we have done this Ignatian discernment exercise together as a community and the fruit of it filled us with renewed hope and joy as we continue to seek to do God's will.