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Palm Sunday invites us to consider the price we put on humanity and compassion, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. Participants in the 2019 Walk for Justice for Refugees rally. This year we again celebrate Palm Sunday in the shadow of Coronavirus. As in previous years Palm Sunday is a day for remembering refugees. Marches take place…
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Back in 1977, Jesuit Social Services was born (as Four Flats) to respond to a real and important need. It was apparent that young men were exiting prison into homelessness with little support and no prospects of a job. A quote by then Pentridge Prison Chaplain, Fr John Brosnan, became a guiding principle for our…
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Closing the gap in Indigenous inequality and health outcomes should be directed by the choices and needs of Indigenous Australians, not by the economic and political considerations of government, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. Close the Gap Day is a sobering occasion each year. It records the gap between promises and actions, between aspiration and outcome.…
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In Australia, World Day of Social Justice goes pretty much unnoticed. It is swamped by the start of the school year, the gathering speed and urgency in workplaces, and the last weeks of summer. These things leave little room for reflection. Catholics, too, may associate social justice with later months in the year when the…
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Australia Day offers an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between European settlers and our first peoples, and appreciate the lessons we can learn from honouring indigenous connection to land, culture and country, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. Australia Day recalls the arrival of the First Fleet under Governor Phillip in 1788. It marked the beginning…
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New Years Day / World Day of Peace
New Years Day is also the World Day of Peace. It presents an opportunity to reflect on where we stand at the beginning of the new year, and to attend to how we wish to live personally and as a society in the coming year, writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ. It can be hard to be…
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Christmas is marketed in fluffy and tinselling ways – in pastel colours, lots of emphasis on here today and gone tomorrow presents, chocolate and bubbly, friendly faces and cute children. The domestic reality, of course, is more mixed than that. It is certainly about showing children love, celebrations, and families coming together. But it is…
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Sharing meals during the COVID-19 pandemic
A shared meal can inspire discussions, creativity and connection. SHAUNA CARLON reflects on her time working with Jesuit Social Services’ Ecological Justice Hub, a space for all stages of the food system including growing, harvesting, cooking, sharing and redistributing. Shauna (right) and team members from the Ecological Justice Hub. My involvement with Jesuit Social…
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Mental health and wellbeing in a time of COVID-19
Andy Hamilton SJ During the coronavirus crisis mental health has been a focus of concern. This is not surprising. Our mental health is held within a delicate yet strong web of relationships that we ordinarily take for granted. Our daily routine, our workplace and fellow workers, our employment, our family, our schooling, our church associations,…