Marist buildings near Tarban Creek, Hunters Hill. Painted 1854

Andrew Murray sm, PhD has completed a project to digitise and make available online a large number of books on Marist and Pacific Mission history. All the books are available for both viewing and downloading on Andrew's website, available here

Treat yourself to a wealth of information about this fascinating history!

See Article "Problem-solving has Little to Offer in the Face of Evil" on this website

Comments on Michael Whelan’s Review of the book: Abuse and Cover-Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma (Orbis Books, 2019), by author Gerald A. Arbuckle, SM.

I am grateful to fellow Marists Michael for his review and to Tom Ryan for his Response that are on this website. They have tried to engage my book seriously. I offer a few reflections in light of their interchanges.

Radio Interview

Winton Higgins is a distinguished writer, Secular Buddhist teacher and Holocaust scholar. He tells us the story of Le Chambon. In 1940 the writer Camus was sent there for his TB but while writing The Plague, he observed a conspiracy of goodness. The community was committed to saving the lives of many Jewish people and helping them escape to Switzerland. As plague force global emissions in our time are temporarily lessened by flights, cruises and industry being locked down for the pandemic, many are re-reading The Plague. Winton discusses ... More information and to listen

Wednesday 16, 23, 30 Sept
We all live in an increasingly unreal world where matter has become immaterial and talk is of the post-human where humans, animals, and inorganic life are to be treated as one and the same. It is a world labelled ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ but it is more than this;

Rev Dr Andrew Murray sm

Starts Tuesday 6 October
In his treatment of the virtues in Summa Theologiae I-II qq. 55-67, Thomas divides them into the intellectual, moral and theological virtues. The theological virtues are faith, hope and charity (see 1 Corinthians 13:13). Although a less agreeable term in English, they are so named because their object is God (Theos), they are infused by God, and they are made known to us by Divine Revelation (q. 62, a. 1).

Dr Robert Andrews

Starts Wednesday 7 Oct

St John Henry Newman (1801-90) was a convert from Anglicanism, a religious controversialist, a scholar and a theologian. Not only one of the great Victorian intellectuals, his contributions to modern Catholic thought make him one of the most important Catholic thinkers of modern times. From positions such as Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, to the leader of the Oxford Movement, and later a leading English Oratorian and cardinal,

By Michael Whelan SM

Three months before he died on 7 March 1274, St Thomas Aquinas had an extraordinary “experience” while celebrating Mass. As a result of this “experience”, St Thomas refused to do any further work on the Summa Theologica – his major life project. The English Dominican Thomistic scholar, Brian Davies, tells us that Aquinas’ secretary, Reginald of Piperno, begged him to return to the writing. St Thomas replied: "Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me" (Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Oxford University Press, 1993, 9).

Notes by Michael Whelan SM

•“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’

 Notes by Michael Whelan SM

 “I will be with you!” [Exodus 3:12] This is not only a promise, it is an expression of the very nature of God. To be God is to be with! Jesus enfleshes this same promise and the Divine Nature: “And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time” (Matthew 28:20).

We are made in the image and likeness of the One whose nature it is to be with. It is also our nature to be with. We are at our best when that “being with” is embraced generously and allowed to shape our lives. We thrive in constructive and life-giving relationships, we wither in the absence of such relationships. “Relationship is written into the very nature of human beings. As the Bible sees human beings, you cannot think about them, without recognizing that they are, as it were, made for relationship” (Aelred Squire, Asking the Fathers, SPCK, 1972, 20).

Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM

  Vineyard Owner and Laborers - Codex Aureus Epternacensis

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager,