February 2014 edition: As we start a new year, I am highly aware of starting a new adventure with you as the new Diocesan Spiritual Director, I have long held that life is an adventure and that part of living life is enjoying and discovering the adventure. Life is indeed more of that because we are called to know God’s love and forgiveness and to know those who go on adventure with us.
Knowing who is on that adventure with us I think is one of the strengths of the Cursillo movement. It is in knowing those who go the adventure with us, those who encourage us on the journey that gives us strength. This is why Group Reunions are so important, that we are sharing life with each other and encouraging each other to make a friend, be a friend, bring a friend to Jesus. It is interesting to ask yourself when was the last time someone asked how you were going with that task, when was the last time someone prayed with you about your success, your failures in seeking to answer this call. All of these things and more happen when we attend a Group Reunion.
I believe that in being part of a Group Reunion we might be able to answer St. Pauls prayer in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 for us:
“To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
De Colores
Rev. Stephen – Diocesan Spiritual Director

Encourager 87 February 2014 (Final)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Recently on Father’s Day, my children gave me the DVD “Cliffy”, a story about the 61 year old Victorian potato farmer who won the Sydney to Melbourne Ultra-marathon. In preparing for the race he had to try and manage to get his distance per day up to something like 125km. I don’t know about you, but I think the greatest distance I have ever run has been about 13km, in the Senior Cross Country, when I was at school. It was completely exhausting! I can’t even imagine what it must be like to run 125km in a day, not to mention the whole 862km, as it was then to Melbourne. It makes one weary to even think about it!

At around the same time I have also been reading a book by that title, “Weary” which is a biography of the life of Sir Edward Dunlop. As a Prisoner of War in WWII, first in Java and then on the Thai-Burma railway, his race was of a different nature. It was a race to stay alive and keep others alive. As he battled as a doctor amongst his troops with cholera, vitamin deficiency, malaria, not to mention the wounds inflicted by both harsh conditions and an often intolerant captive force with very slim supplies is an amazing story. It is a very detailed account of those times, and so takes quite a bit of getting into, but very well worth the effort.

Why am I raising these little snippets of ‘running the race’ you may well ask? To answer that is to realise that all of us in one way or another are involved in a race. The analogy of using a race to describe life is often a very apt one. There are often many priorities, busy lifestyles, urgent action that requires our attention etc. How important it is to realise Christ at the centre of all that has to be done and needs to be done in the course of a day, a week, a month, a year. Grounding this race in prayer and realizing Jesus presence with us as we meet the challenges is a vital one. Christ through his Holy Spirit can
also help us NOT to miss what is important as we continue to run the race.

As it is written in the Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 12:1-2) “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith.”
De Colores,
Fr Ian—Diocesan Spiritual Director

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