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Mount Carmel Retreat Centre Varroville December 2003

Time in religious life has different rhythms: daily, weekly, monthly and annual. These rhythms can be ordinary or churchly. These rhythms are helpful in allowing us to come to terms gratefully with the flow of life. In the retreat centre as for most people December is a busy time.

For a start, the programme for 2004 has to be finalised, printed and distributed (if this has not yet been done as it should really have been done at least a month earlier). The main thing about getting the programme together as far as I am concerned is getting the brethren to submit their offerings on time. 2004 marks our 40th anniversary and we have gone to full colour. It looks as neat and handsome as you would hope. They were ready by the beginning of December thanks to the help of Richard Healey. When all was prepared Lena had the task of sending them out to all on our mailing list. Richard has discovered that it may help us to go to an A3 format next year. Each year we learn some more about this process and hopefully are better and brighter than before.

We celebrated the feast of St John of the Cross on Sunday 14th with a good representation of local religious and members of the Secular Order. We had a fitting liturgy followed by a meal. We actually celebrated once again on the feast which this year was on Monday, 15th December.

Our retreat programme goes right up to Christmas. The last retreatants left on 23rd December. This meant there was not a lot of time to get into the usual Christmas spirit, let alone send cards and greetings. At least that is the way I was. Thankfully others were more on the ball. Our joyous Christmas midnight mass was celebrated with a full chapel. We have our Christmas dinner in the evening with each taking responsibility for a course. It was a very pleasant time together.

After Christmas thankfully, everything winds down and we enter into the summer holidays.

Comings and Goings

	Fr Tom Curran, who was retreat director here from 1984-1988, visited from Singapore where he is novice master. Tom enlivened us with his presence and in-depth questions for a week. Tom left us in 1988 when he was sent to Nigeria to begin the Carmelite presence there. From there he went to the student house for the English speaking African Carmelites in Nairobi, Kenya.

Doug Mawhinney, who was a novice, decided in early December that he was not called to spend his life with us. He therefore left us with our thanks for his time with us and our blessing for the rest of his life. This saying goodbye to good men is part of living in a house of formation.

	Later in the month we welcomed Peter Himmelreich who was a novice and student with us in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Peter came on retreat for a couple of days and was then picked up by his wife Clare and two daughters who took him home to Canberra where he is a teacher. It was a delight to meet up with Peter once more and to get to know his family.

Also in early December we welcomed back Fr Peter Dowd, a simply professed member of our community. He had been in our parish in Morley for a month getting the hang of that delightful place and being with the brethren there.

Lightning Strike We have a number of majestic forest red gum trees on our property which are remnants of the Cumberland forest. Brother Brian was standing on the back steps near the kitchen one day in November when he felt a massive thump. He was mystified by what it could be and then surprised when he realised the great tree at the back of the retreat centre had been struck by lightening. On closer inspection a number of branches had been damaged and unsafe. A tree surgeon who came on 10th lopped the tree severely. Thankfully, there are now plenty of signs of new life sprouting from the noble old tree. The D’harawal Aboriginal people considered grand old trees guardian spirits who had seen a lot over a long period of time. Greg Burke

Mount Carmel Retreat Centre Varroville December 2003

Comings and Goings

Lightning Strike