Comforting Habits

I am starting to learn to navigate a little better in Sydney. Sydney is basically the Australian equivalent of New York, and that’s about the furtherest thing (geography excepted) from my usual stomping grounds. I’m learning where a few things are, and where I need to go to catch busses in and out of the city. Yesterday, I had my first bus experience when I took the bus in with Lauren for the morning session of SCENE. I don’t think they will be difficult to handle once I figure out which busses go to which places.

After the morning Catechesis session, I explored the cathedral for a little while heeded the No Photo! signs (unusual behavior for me, sadly), and met up with Jessica. We headed over to Notre Dame where she had a meeting with Fr. Vincent, the chaplain, and I spent a little while outside reading in the sunny Notre Dame courtyard. The Broadway campus of Notre Dame (the main one) is the biggest of its three (the other two have nursing and medical schools, respectively, and Broadway has everything else), but its still tiny compared to PC. Its comprised of St. Benedict's Church, a rather large main building with classrooms, the library, etc. and a couple of smaller buildings with offices. Its a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city.

After a little while, I got cold and went inside to join Jessica and Fr. Vincent for a normal meeting of the chaplaincy staff - which includes, in its totality, Fr. Vincent, his assistant Alison, Jessica, and another student, Gary. Fr. Vincent opened the door when I went inside, and this was the first day that I encountered him wearing a habit. I was struck as I went in by how comforting I found this greeting; even though it was a small thing, such a familiar sight reminded me very much of home. At the meeting, they discussed their plans for the semester and upcoming "O-Day" (Orientation) and solutions to old problems. They had a lot of conversations that were familiar to me, and I contributed when I could. Later, the Vice Chancellor of Notre Dame, Hayden Ramsey, came in to hear all the proposals and give his approval. From what I can tell, he is the one that gives the chaplaincy - and its main initiative for students, Viva!, the group Jessica runs - its budget, allowing it to run separately from the Student Life office, which has been trying to absorb it and secularize it as of late. Hayden is really interested in forming ND's Catholic identity, which is apparently rather lacking in some sectors and much of the student body. ND is much smaller than the other universities in Sydney, so there are small classes and lots of personal attention, and Jessica says she thinks that is what draws in most of the students; the religious affliation is almost a non-factor in attracting students.

An interesting tidbit that probably belongs in the chronicles of Francesca's fellowship, not mine: One part of Viva! is a program started by Jessica's brother Pat called "Hot UNDA the Colla." Its a weekly lunchtime program in which there is music, food for sale, and a 15 minute talk and question and answer session on some popular topic of interest by a priest or professor (usually aimed at students not that connected with their faith - one project for this coming semester, as discussed at the meeting, is meeting the needs of the more devout group). Anyway, Jessica was putting together a list of possible speakers for this semester (including, possibly, me...) and she wanted to ask Hayden to give a talk on Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, and the New Atheism. He asked her to pick a different topic for him because he said he's decided that he will no longer speak on the New Atheism because he thinks that it is already thing of the past, and it is being kept alive by its opponents. I'm not sure whether or not I agree with him, but I thought this was a very interesting perspective, and one I'll be keeping in mind. It's funny where things like this pop up.

After the meeting, Jessica and I headed home to rest up for the evening pub talk. The talk was called "The Genius of Womanhood" and was given by Karen Doyle, a well-known speaker in Australia. Together with her husband Jonathan, she speaks about Theology of the Body, manhood and womanhood, human sexuality, and pornography; they also produce educational videos, write books, and do teacher trailings. Jessica described them as the Australian equivalent of Jason and Crystalina Evert, both of whom I like very much.

I got to spend a bit of extra time with Karen, because she stayed over night at our house! I felt kind of bad for her because she's pregnant and is not feeling well AT ALL. She was a real trooper and made it through her talk very well, though. Back at home, Jessica and I talked to her for a while about her work and the challenges of raising her family at the same time.

This morning I went back into the cathedral for the morning catechesis session which included an amazing testimony by a woman who had been crippled by a huge accident for eight and a half years and then experienced a miraculous healing at Lourdes. She can walk completely fine, now! I've never heard such a story!

The bishops talk today centered around how to live out one's faith. The bishop who spoke today reminded us that we are in a debt of love and gratitude to Christ that we can begin to repay by following him faithfully. A couple of suggestions that he gave were to: work to uphold the dignity of human life at all stages, especially in the face of relativist thought in politics and philosophy, work to keep the charitable organizations of the Church focused on Christ, ensuring that both the material and spiritual needs of those in need are fulfilled in the service we do, and increasingly our familiarity with scripture, especially by incorporating it into daily prayer. As always, the catechesis session ended with Mass.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before how COLD it is in St. Mary's Cathedral. Honestly, its freezing. Much colder than it is outside. It's quite beautiful, but I imagine its much easier to bear in the summer, when it gets HOT here.

After Mass, I met up with Lauren and her little cousins (they are the ones whose house I went to the other night for dinner), who she was babysitting. We walked around the city for while and had some lunch before catching a bus back to Drummoyne. I went back home, but they came over shortly after and convinced me to go for a walk to the park with them, which ended up taking a few hours. It was such a great afternoon for such an adventure - warm and sunny, and adorable little kids included. I brought my camera, and thanks to the youngest, Sophia, I now have about 75 pictures (literally) of us at the playground where we stopped along the way. It was an idyllic afternoon.

In just a little while, I'm going to be on cleaning duty with Jessica around here because we are having three Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (they are visiting from New York for SCENE and a few other things) over for dinner. That will probably get a post of its own later!