During this time of social isolation it is important that we pray and stay connected to our community. Please find below a range of online resources to assist with this. These include daily prayers and readings, prayer services, the Sunday Office, commentaries, homilies and reflections as well as Gospel based activities and resources to support personal and family prayer. Let us create prayerful solidarity with our community and the whole Body of Christ. 

On Monday afternoon as we gathered together as OLSH Family for the “Call to Leadership at the Service of Unity” Ceremony, I thought “Lord it is good for us to be here”.

Standing side by side we began the Ceremony with our traditional hymn to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Today we express our appreciation and love to our Jubilarians – Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, who over seventy years ago began a journey which has taken them to places and situations that they possibly never dreamed about, on their first profession day. Amazing 70 years ago! It would be difficult for many people in our society today to even imagine this sort of selfless commitment to God and to God’s people. Their lives of dedication and long-term commitment are an inspiration to all of us.

At the Chapter meetings of our Religious Congregation of Sisters, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in September 2019, I heard voices proclaiming the continued need for us to be mindful of our earth as we care for the environment. I heard voices also that proclaimed that people are looking for a sense of inner freedom in their lives and long for others to care for their plight.

Through my experience with people as I meet and journey with them, I hear voices of a traumatic life and experiences which leave them feeling abandoned even when they have people around them, I hear voices which tell of the need to squash their feelings through the abuse of drugs, I hear voices of people who have been abused, of people who are trying to make ends meet. In recent days and months, we have all heard the voices and seen the images of the destruction of the bushfires.

Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (Lk 5:4)

Bishop Shane Mackinlay, the eighth Bishop of Sandhurst, was ordained to the episcopacy in Bendigo’s Sacred Heart Cathedral yesterday.

Dignitaries, family, friends and parishioners numbered close to 2000 people, including those from as far as Ballarat, Echuca, Shepparton, Wangaratta and Wodonga.

Bishop Mackinlay’s brother, Jason, made the journey from Germany, while Victoria Jarvis, who was at the new bishop’s ordination to the priesthood in Ballarat, drove nearly seven hours from Adelaide for the occasion.

The ordination was live streamed on YouTube for those who could not attend the Mass in person. It was viewed from 54 countries, with the top national audiences outside Australia being the United States, Canada, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Pope Francis has appointed Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney, Anthony Randazzo as the fourth Bishop of the Diocese of Broken Bay.

The 53-year-old bishop has been an Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney since 2016. He succeeds Peter Comensoli who was appointed Archbishop of Melbourne in 2018.

A brightly-coloured stained glass windows with Aboriginal designs.

It's the Mother Mary and Jesus Christ, but not as you might have seen them before.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) Catholic church in Alice Springs has commissioned an Aboriginal artist from its congregation to design a new sanctuary window celebrating the blending of Catholic and Indigenous beliefs, to pay homage to its many Aboriginal parishioners.

"I thought about how my ancestors taught me, their beliefs, and I remembered how they celebrated God in their own way," said the artist, Kathleen Kemarre Wallace, an eastern Arrernte woman.

Happy are they who hunger and thirst for what is right for they shall be satisfied.

Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)