New Zealand Sign Language Week, from 8–14 May 2023, is organised by Deaf Aotearoa to raise awareness of the language and culture of New Zealand’s Deaf community. The theme for NZSL week 2023 is: ‘Together we can make NZSL thrive’ and the tagline is: ‘Hands up if you’re ready to sign with us!’
Out of the lingering economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the face of the growing impact of climate change, Caritas partners across the Pacific and Asia regions are working to provide food and water security, build healthy lifestyles, and strengthen agriculture and income-earning opportunities.
Many WelCom readers will know that for me, Easter 2023 was very different from all other Easters in my almost 47 years of priesthood. Just a few days before Holy Week I underwent surgery on my spine, and thanks be to God, it has been very successful and has brought about much relief from what I have had to contend with for the last 12 months.
National Vocation Awareness Week is an annual week of the Catholic Church dedicated to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and consecrated life through prayer and education, and to renew prayers and support for those considering these vocations.
The latest issue of WelCom is available to read here.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.
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.