St Mary's

CALLED TO SAY YES TO THE EMPTINESS

This week many of us from St Mary’s had the good fortune of being part of the 50 lives 50 homes campaign. An Australian first. Karyn Walsh and members of Micah went to United States last year and came home with the idea of launching this program. It was a comprehensive survey of Brisbane’s homeless. It asked homeless people to put their names and detailed information about their circumstances on a register. This register which would then be used to determine their level of need and vulnerability with an attempt to house and support Brisbane’s 50 most vulnerable homeless people.

We visited the streets and shelters of Brisbane at 4am armed only with surveys and clip boards and a 5 dollar food voucher as added incentive. As we met for our initial training in All Hallows School in down town Brisbane, (The staff, parents and students of the school were marvellous offering meals and support.) I immediately spied an opportunity of waking a little later when we were being placed into our various groups. Those who were visiting the shelters and food vans didn’t have to rise until 5am (u-hoooo) compared with the ridiculous 3am (boo-hoo) rise for the people surveying the people living on the street. This was an opportunity not to be missed for an anxious late riser like myself.

Hello everyone. My name is Mary Pease and I want to share with you some of the lessons in life I have learnt since I started  attending St Mary’s in Exile.

My first Mass at SMX was in July last year. About 3 months previously, I had left my husband of 25 years, departing with a boot load of belongings. After two months of living in motels and house sitting, I moved into rental accommodation. I then  caught up with my lovely friends, Peter and Su Norris, for coffee and a chat. Peter and Su have been part of the St Mary’s Community for years, and they suggested that I attend. The timing was right for me. I had stopped believing in heaven as a physical place, and had rejected a lot of Church Dogma. I was still however attending Mass in my own parish occasionally, as I needed the sense of Community and the core message of Christianity. I took up Peter and Su’s offer to attend SMX, and was a “convert” from the first Mass.

About 4 months after joining SMX, in November 2009, I had some abdominal pain. I felt my abdomen, and felt a large mass, in the left lower side of my abdomen and rising up to the level of my navel. This filled me with shock, disbelief and dread. I am a doctor, a GP, I had kept up with my own health checks, and I had not had any symptoms until the episode of pain.  About 3 weeks later, I had surgery to remove the lump- the upshot was that I had a very aggressive cancer of the uterus, a sarcoma. Further tests showed that it had already spread to a lymph gland below my diaphragm, and I had some lesions in my lungs which were possibly small lung secondaries also. Sarcoma of the uterus is an extremely rare form of cancer- in my 30 years of medical practice, I have never had a patient with this condition. The predicted life expectancy is limited. It is not a cancer that responds to either radiotherapy or chemotherapy, although I was offered chemotherapy. My oncologist is a very kind and compassionate  person, and explained that chemo could possibly extend my symptom-free interval, but would not extend my life expectancy. I chose NOT to have chemo.

St M’s Ms Edition 23

THE DISCIPLESHIP OF EQUALS: the NEW COMMUNITY

FIRST READING – Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book LIFE TOGETHER, section on ministry.

“An argument started among them (the disciples of Jesus) as to which of them was the greatest”. Perhaps we do not bear in mind enough that no Christian community ever comes together without this thought immediately emerging as a seed of discord. Thus at the very beginning of Christian fellowship there is engendered an invisible, often unconscious, life-and-death contest. This is enough to destroy a fellowship.

All this can occur in the most polite or even pious environment. But the important thing is that a Christian community should know that somewhere in it there will certainly be ‘an argument among them as to which of them is the greatest.’ It is the struggle of the natural person for self-justification. One finds it only in comparing oneself with others, in condemning and judging others. Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.