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By Simone Brosig If you are interested in becoming Catholic, I want to take the opportunity to outline the process and recommend some steps you can take. Let me first say that the Catholic Church welcomes you.  Whatever life experience has brought you to this point, we want to share with you what it means to be part of the Catholic community. You may have heard of the RCIA process. RCIA stands for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.
The “Rite” refers specifically to the public rituals that mark the stages of an individual’s journey to baptism. However, the term RCIA is often used as a shorthand to refer to the whole process. The rituals are the outward markers of an individual inward process of conversion.
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By Simone Brosig It can be said of human nature that we tend to hurt the ones we love. Also, it is easy to take for granted the very things we need the most, like air and water.  In the Christian life, the one we are asked to love with our whole heart and mind is God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What our very lives depend on, but that we may take for granted, is the gift of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, in the sacrifice of the Eucharist.
By Simone Brosig How many phone numbers do you know? Except for a few long defunct landline numbers from my childhood, I know my mobile number. That’s it.  Photo by Olivia Snow on Unsplash If I lost my phone, even if somebody else lent me theirs, I wouldn’t know any number to call. Memory and remembering are still important functions of human interaction but with the way information is at our fingertips today, I find that life doesn’t call for memorisation in the way it used to. Is it obsolete or is there still value in old-school memorisation?
By Lauren Bierer Christmas is one of the most beautiful seasons in the Catholic Church, a time filled with light, hope and joy. For many of us, it’s also the one time of year we step into a church, even if life’s busyness keeps us away the rest of the year. There’s something about Christmas that draws us back: the carols, the nativity scene, the glow of candles and the deep sense that God is near. But Christmas is more than a day, it’s a season of grace. It’s an invitation to pause, reflect and create space for prayer. Amid the shopping lists, family gatherings and festive meals, we can easily forget the heart of it all: Christ coming into our world and into our hearts.  Prayer during Advent and Christmas doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as lighting a candle and saying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’. It can be reading the Gospel story of the nativity with your family or listening to a quiet hymn before bed. These small moments open our hearts to God’s presence.
For children, prayer can be woven into traditions. By Orla Wright In the early days of the COVID pandemic, along with parishes throughout the world, the Archdiocese of Adelaide suspended the practice of receiving communion from the chalice and offered a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation for the safety and protection of the people.  Out of an abundance of caution, these two regulations remained in place even as other COVID restrictions have been removed.
by Simone Brosig In recent years I made a series of major decisions that were accompanied with pain, disappointment and suffering. For a while I got caught in a cycle of revisiting the decisions and trying to identify where I went wrong. My friends say that I made courageous choices. Yet, amidst the consequences, I am tempted to be hard on myself.  We are hard-wired to avoid suffering and to assign blame. But on this month’s feast of the Holy Cross I wonder if it’s a bit like saying to Jesus, why didn’t you keep quiet? You knew people were out to get you. Why did you associate with someone you knew would betray you? Instead, Mary and John were at the foot of the cross, loving Jesus, not blaming him. Jesus could have made different choices and avoided crucifixion but then where would we all be?
By Lauren Bierer  For many years, we’ve sung Brian Boniwell’s hymn ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ (based on Psalm 23) on Sundays, at school and during funeral Masses in place of the responsorial psalm.
While this beautiful piece certainly has a place in our liturgical repertoire, it was never meant to replace the Psalm in the Liturgy of the Word. So, how can our Catholic parishes and school communities, particularly those with limited musical resources, more regularly incorporate appropriate responsorial psalms into their celebrations? By Orla Wright  HELPING OUT: Living out the call of Jesus by serving others. We have often heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It kick starts your metabolism, helps you burn energy, and gets your brain moving for whatever lies ahead, whether it's school, work or family commitments. Our bodies need fuel to function properly. Without it, we slow down, lose focus, and struggle to keep up with life’s demands.
The same is true for our spiritual lives. Just as we need physical nourishment, we need spiritual sustenance to keep going in our journey of faith. Each time we come together for Mass, we’re invited to feast at the table of the Word and the table of the altar, to be nourished by something far greater than food. In the Eucharist, we receive Christ himself, His body and blood, given freely for the life of the world. |
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Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide
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