Sacred Heart Cathedral Fundraiser
Winter concert with Fr Chris Skinner sm, 2pm–4pm, Sunday 11 June at Ss Peter and Paul Church, Lower Hutt. Tickets $30 plus booking fee online at www.trybooking.co.nz/NHZ
Author: Rose Miller
World Refugee Day celebrations
Changemakers Resettlement Forum invites you to join celebrations for World Refugee Day, Saturday 18 June, 11.30am–3.30pm, at South Wellington Intermediate School, 30 Te Wharepōuri St, Berhampore. Children’s activities, cultural food, photo exhibition, craft and ethnic products on sale and interactive cultural performances. Free entry and food. Buses are available from Porirua, Upper Hutt and Lower […]
Safeguarding formation day
Thursday 3 August 2023, 9.30am–4.30pm, St Mary of the Angels Parish Hall, Boulcott St, Wellington Central. This is an opportunity to learn about safeguarding in the Catholic Church. Safeguarding is about promoting an environment of relational safety, which respects the dignity of each person, focused on the protection of children and vulnerable adults from abuse […]
Dates and events – what’s on
WelCom May 2023 If you would like your event listed free on this page, please email an outline to welcom@wn.catholic.org.nz including name of event, date, time, location and contact. Monday 1 May Feast of St Joseph the Worker. Saturday 6 May Retreat for mothers – ‘In the Potter’s Hands’, 10am to 3.30pm, Our Lady’s Home […]
WelCom April 2023
The latest issue of WelCom is available to read here.
“I am the light of the world” – John 8:12 “Ko ahau te whakamārama o te ao” – Hoane 8: 12
‘I am the Light of the world’, is the theme for Lent 2023.
In his message for Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday, 22 February, until Easter 2023, Pope Francis invited us to set out on the Lenten journey. In his message, the Holy Father says, ‘Lenten penance’ is a ‘commitment, sustained by grace, to overcoming our lack of faith and our resistance to following Jesus on the way of the cross. This is precisely what Peter and the other disciples needed to do.
‘Hope, light and human kindness in traumatic times’
In the aftermath of the devastation Cyclone Gabrielle brought in February to the Hawkes Bay region and beyond, Sacred Heart College Napier principal Maria Neville-Foster shares a Catholic faith and leadership response.
“We pray for our brothers and sisters. Lord hear our prayer.”
On February 13 and 14, Cyclone Gabrielle lashed several areas across the North Island with gale-force winds and record rainfall causing multiple landslips and many rivers to burst their banks, devastating affected regions. Sadly, 11 people nationally lost their lives. A National State of Emergency was declared on Tuesday, 14 February and was lifted on Tuesday, 14 March. The regions are now in the recovery phase facing months and even years of repair.
Cyclone Relief Appeals
The Catholic Church launched two relief appeals in February for donations to support those who have suffered damage in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.
To date the National Cyclone Appeal, organised by the Diocese of Auckland through its Catholic Caring Foundation, has raised $226,000. The funds are being distributed to the dioceses of Palmerston North and Hamilton, through which their agencies and networks have identified the areas of greatest need. Both dioceses are finding the recovery will be a long and painful one for so many in their dioceses.
‘Keep alive the hope’
This year the Easter Triduum will be very different for me. I am hoping it will be more reflective than usual – I will be recovering from some surgery and will have time to ponder. There will not be the necessity for me to prepare homilies, and to make sure that all is well and in order for the liturgies.