17 September 2020 · 2020-09 newsletter
Schoenstatt Men gathered via Zoom on 30 August, 9am – 1pm, to reflect on where the Lord is calling us in these times of individualism and secularism. We viewed a number of presentations from the national Catholic Men’s Gathering on 15 August from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) and then reflected on what had touched us in each talk.
Steve Lawrence from Altum Leadership Group in ‘Marked Men of Character’ spoke on how leading means to go against the prevailing currents and be ready to take whatever knock-backs come. He reflected on the problems men bring to others when he said “wounded people wound people, yes but also healed people heal people.” He issued the challenge of transforming the wounds in our lives to become avenues of service.
Jude Hennessy is the long serving head of Evangelisation in the Diocese of Wollongong and includes the needs of men in the Church as part of his work. He issued a challenge for re-engaging Catholic men in the life of the Church. In Schoenstatt as well as in the wider Church we see very few men involved yet also see many men in our society in difficulty from low self-esteem, addiction, and lack of meaning in life.
Jude emphasized the fruitfulness of Catholic men gathering in small groups, which affirmed the Schoenstatt approach. He emphasized that men can have their lives impacted deeply by being with other men in a faith-sharing group, and growing into a realization of being “sons of ‘the father’ and a missional Church.” His session presented a number of ‘witness’ statements by men on how their small groups had made a great difference in their lives. Jude sees that for men to participate in Church they need to connect with a sense of mission by the Church providing avenues for this through specific jobs and tasks in their faith communities.
Deacon Peter Pellicaan leads Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Brisbane. He used the book of Nehemiah to contrast rebuilding a broken Israel after its military defeat to the task in front of us in the Church in Australia. He took us through five steps Nehemiah took to rebuild and applied them to our current Church, starting with surveying how men are largely absent from our Church.
Pervading themes were the fatherhood of men – how central that is for a family and a Church – and who each person is called to be and become – right in the territory of the Personal Ideal.
We will conclude our involvement with this ACBC event with a second morning on Sunday 27 September 9am AEST. We can start later if people from WA wish to join us. Each person in Schoenstatt Men will be later responding to how they as Schoenstatt Men can answer the question, ‘Brothers, what must we do?’
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