A Quiet Reflection

The Son of God has become for us the Way

And our Blessed Father FrancisÖ has,

by word and example,

shown and taught us this way.

It is the gospel way of

Love and forgiveness

Poverty and simplicity

Prayer and contemplation

Peace and reconciliation

Service and hospitality

Our timeless land itself and the Southern Cross that hovers over it can also help to show us this way. For the sacred places of its earliest inhabitants, the vast and trackless deserts, the lush pastureland and great rainforests, that lie between its urban rim and the desert rock that is its centring place and its symbolic heart, have much to teach us:

about our journey into the heart of God;

about the emptiness within that only God can fill

about the seed sown in the ground, to be harvested
in God's good time.

'Among all the other gifts which we have received and continue to receive daily from our benefactor, the Father of mercies and for which we must express the deepest thanks to our glorious God, our vocation is a great gift.' (Testament of St Clare)