On the Feast Day of the Assumption we share a hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary asking for her protection in this time of Covid-19 and that a vaccine may soon be found. Play the 2 mins video and join in the prayer of the Magnificat with us.
I look on this relationship as an experience of a being part of a 'missionary church', a church in which we are sent. In many ways you have expressed that you are this 'missionary church' reaching out to a less privileged people, and especially to the Timorese. We are committed to making this relationship even more meaningful, and in return we like to share with you our prayers and those of the Timorese people.
The first two minutes of this video will update you on how the Railaco Jesuit Mission is emerging from the Covid-19 lockdown and its ongoing needs. The remaining few minutes of the video gives you a good opportunity to ‘meet’ Fr Martin Bong SJ, a Filipino medical doctor and Jesuit priest, who has been ‘on mission’ in Railaco for nearly twenty years.
The mobile clinic was started in 2004 by the Jesuits in Timor-Leste with support from the benefactors and donors of St Canice's Parish in Sydney, Australia. Jesuit priest and doctor Fr Bong Abad Santos SJ and his team travel to different remote villages to attend to the sick and to preside over Masses.
Welcome to this special Mass from the Lady Chapel of St Canice’s Church in Elizabeth Bay for the Solemnity of Mary, Our Lady Help of Christians.. Our intention this morning, through the Covid-19 crisis, is to ask for Our Lady’s help.
This special Mass for the Feast Day of Our Lady Help of Christians will be brought to you from the Lady Chapel of St Canice’s in Elizabeth Bay. The Lady Chapel has been at the heart of our church for generations. . . . and at this time of Covid-19 concerns, it seems to be the appropriate place to ask Our Lady to intercede, and care for us as a Mother . . . . The Special Liturgy will be available for you to join on YouTube by the end of the week.
Among the many good fruits cultivated by the two parishes is Jesuit scholastic, Bonifacio Bano Lay Ribeiro SJ. This 23-year-old Railaco parishioner has just taken his first vows as a Jesuit. Bonifacio first experienced the St Canice / Railaco relationship as a child benefitting from the Children’s Feeding Program, and also studied and graduated from the Railaco Jesuit Secondary School, NOSSEF.
The Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See is making available a downloadable book entitled “Strong in the Face of Tribulation”, containing prayers, supplications and the Pope’s homilies as “a sure support in time of trial”. “A little help offered to all, so as to know how to discern and experience God’s closeness and tenderness in pain, in suffering, in solitude and in fear,” writes Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director of Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, presenting Strong in the Face of Tribulation: The Church in Communion – a Sure Support in Time of Trial.
Some years ago, the Jesuits were offered ten hectares of land about seven kilometres from the school. In October of 2019, taking the initiative and drawing on his family background in agriculture, Br Apu was able to organise the ‘dormers’ (as they are affectionately known) to begin work on a farm. This would provide food not only for the ‘dormers’, but for the Railaco Jesuit community, and other students in the NOSSEF canteen.
