Prayer Calendar for Exams & Assessments Nov 2007

Click for the bigger pic.

Exams are round the corner so do work hard and pray (not play) hard. Say your rosaries, especially during this month, and keep each other in your prayers.

For those who have not given me your exam dates, please do so asap so that we can pray for you! Just send an email to cosdu.melbuni@gmail.com =)

Sister Theresa's Farewell Mass and Dinner

I recall last year when I first came to Melbourne and really couldn’t accept the reality of living alone, cooking and eating alone and I had issues blending in with my cohort who were already studying together for 2 yrs. One evening towards the end of the first sem I had a real breakdown which was very depressing and I contacted Sister. Sister not only called me more than once that night but coached me on the phone and guided me and it really helped me get through the semester. I am really grateful for that.

Ramesh

Indeed, Sister Theresa has been a comfort to many of us through our own difficult times. We will always remember her as peaceful and loving and who is always concerned about us. To acknowledge her work for COSDU for the past five years, and to bid her farewell as she heads off on her new journey, we held a Farewell Mass and Dinner for her last Friday.

Bishop Hilton Deakin and Fr. Michael Mckenna graced the occasion by celebrating the Mass, which was held at All Saints Church in Fitzroy. Dinner was then provided at the Presbytery, but not after a slide show presentation of COSDU photos, speeches by Ramesh and Jean, and the presentation of our gift to her, a notebook with quotes
and COSDU pictures.



As her birthday is within the same month, we bought her a cake and surprised her with an advance birthday celebration. (Amanda did make a cake initially, but for the
decorations, we couldn't get the cream to stay. The fruits did stay, but on the cake for less than 10 seconds. We decided it was simply too messy to be packed in a box, transported and presented, and so in order to commerate our effort in trying, we took photos, ate up the one we made, and bought her one instead. We tried. =P)




Sister Theresa will be in the Chaplaincy from 29 Oct till the end of Nov, and will be in Melbourne till the end of this year.

Integrity of Life

Our first session after the Spring Break was given by E Wei on the 'Integrity of Life' - on the Church's stand towards abortion. We were first given two videos showing actual abortion procedures, followed by discussion questions on how we felt about abortion after watching those two clips. The clips showed the raw nature of abortions, bringing us to a realisation of the actual brutality of it. E Wei went on to present to us the definition of abortion and the methods of abortion at the different stages of pregnancy, as an elaboration on how cruel abortion is. Some of these methods include the suction aspiration, which is inserting a suction curette into the womb to tear and suck the baby out into a bottle at an early stage, and the partial birth abortion, which delivers the baby's entire body except for the head, decapitating and killing it.

The Church's stand to this is clear: we support life. Life begins at conception, when an embryo is no longer just a simple cell from his or her father or mother but a combination of both, with his or her own growth, and no one has a right to terminate this life. After much discussion, we recognized that women who undergo abortions do so under complex and most probably emotionally traumatic situations, such as rape or incest, and we would never be able to fully comprehend nor guess at their situation, emotions and the difficulty of choice they have to make. We can never ever judge them, as we do not have the right to do so, and will fully give them any support we can provide for them to make the right choice, which is to not abort. Abortion is an inherently bad choice, and we condemn this act as sin. However, we do not condemn the sinner, and we should never sideline nor condescend women who have made this decision to abort.

Many pro-choice activists argue that women who undergo abortion due to rape and incest suffer a lot of emotional trauma and so they should be allowed to end their suffering by undergoing abortion. Does this mean that people suffering from depression should be allowed to take their lives as part of ending the suffering? Catholics recognise suffering as part of life, and that our value should not compromised for the sake of avoiding or terminating our own suffering.

We also learnt about the Principle of Double Effect, which states that even though the Church opposes all direct and intentional killings of the child, it does not condemn procedures which result in the loss of the child as a secondary effect, such as miscarriage due to medical procedures necessary for the mother's health.

This session brought us in touch with some of the many moral issues that our society grapples with, which is, sadly, the mere definition of life and our integrity on it. I am sure most of us felt a stir in our hearts, whether in coming to a sad realisation that this society is selfish, or whether in finding our own voice and resolution in this matter.