I spent almost the entire day on Tuesday at Notre Dame with Jessica doing work for the chaplaincy. My major contribution was making a combined calendar for all of the chaplaincy and Viva! (her student group) activities, which made me feel pretty productive. For a small operation, they have a lot going on! They have some sort of an event, even if its as small as a rosary, every Monday - Thursday for the whole semester. (Friday's not a very popular day to be around ND)
We took a midday break for Mass at St. Benedict's (where we ran into Srs. Maria Cecelia and Mary Barbara again), and lunch and tea up the road at the JPII Resource Center, which is the home of the Sydney/UTS chaplaincy. Much like the campus ministry center at PC, this is a place where they drink a lot of tea, and I love it.
I spent a while in the late afternoon talking to Gary, the other student employee of the ND chaplaincy (besides Jessica), about the Catholic climate in Australia. Gary recently came back to the faith after a pretty long period of indifference - Jessica said that he described it as "finally meeting some nice Catholics." I didn't know what to make of Gary at first because he's a little intimidating, but, as happens so frequently, I was rewarded for postponing quick judgment because he's really, really nice. Gary said that, in general, faith of any kind just isn't a big part of any Australian's life - the culture is very secular. If people do have faith of some kind, he said they are very likely to keep it in a sort of "box" - separated from everything else. He and Jessica both said that since World Youth Day, Catholics have been a lot more willing to integrate their faith more completely into their lives/be more public about it, but it still entirely common, which is probably pretty similar to the way it is in the United States. But progress is progress.
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