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200 Words: Silence that Sustains St. Antony Abbot (251-356) lived a long and fruitful life. He was a Christian monk from Egypt who counselled people in need and courageously visited persecuted Christians in captivity. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert – Antony spent nearly 80 years in it. He went out into the wilderness around 270AD and stayed put. He used to say: When you go out into the desert, three things fall silent: our speaking, our hearing, our seeing. But one thing r

WATCH NOW: ABC Interview with Bishop Tony Percy (see foot of page) Ashes are placed upon our foreheads. The priest has the option of saying: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Repent, and believe in the Gospel. Quite evocative, I’d say. St. John Paul II: Lent is the time for entering into ourselves. It is a time of special intimacy with God in the depths of our hearts and consciences. And it is within this interior intimacy with God that the main work o

200 Words: Echoes Becoming Encounters Every Wednesday the pope gives a catechesis, meaning ‘to echo.’ The teaching of Jesus echoes down the centuries, enlightening hearts and minds, helping to answer the two questions St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) put to God during the night: God, who are you? God, who am I? Pope Leo XIV has begun a year of catechesis on the documents of Vatican Council II (1962-1965). This major gathering of bishops helped the Church to present her 4,000

200 Words: Laws Lived in Love He was born in 1842 and died in 1857, canonised in 1954. St. John Bosco (1815-1888) wrote a book about him, devoting a chapter to the day of St. Dominic Savio’s First Holy Communion. Dominic wrote in his ‘little book’: Resolutions made by me, Dominic Savio, in the year 1849, on the day of my First Holy Communion, at the age of seven: 1. I will go to Confession often, and as frequently to Holy Communion as my confessor allows. 2. I wish to sanctif

200 Words: When Words Warp Reality Jesus warns us: Let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Anything more than this comes from the evil one (Matthew 5). Pope Leo XIV speaks with clarity: Today, the meaning of words is ever more fluid, and the concepts they represent are increasingly ambiguous. In the contortions of semantic ambiguity, language is becoming more and more a weapon with which to deceive, or to strike and offend opponents. We need words once again to express dist

RED MASS St. Mary’s Cathedral 2 February 2026 Read full speech below: This time last year for our Red Mass, the 266th successor to St. Peter was our pope. Today Leo XIV is our pope, elected in May 2025. I was ordained a bishop just a few days before the papal election and headed to Rome in September for what is known in Australia as the ‘Baby Bishops Conference.’ It was a fascinating experience. Approximately 200 of the world’s newest bishops, from all over the globe, were pr