ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE REPORT:
| Good Shepherd welcomes new Province Leader |
|
Tuesday 7 February 2012 By Rosie Hoban  Sr Anne Manning took over as leader of the Good Shepherd
Australia New Zealand Province on Saturday 4 February, following the
inauguration Mass at the Good Shepherd Chapel in Abbotsford.View gallery Read Sr Anne's inaugural talk Anne (pictured right) is known widely within Good Shepherd as the person who began The Trading Circle, Fair Trade Company, in the 1990s. Today, Good Shepherd has Trading Circle stores in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, selling products made by women in developing countries. But Anne’s Good Shepherd life spans several decades and countries. She entered the Good Shepherds in Johannesburg in December 1963, and came to Australia from South Africa in February 1980.  In South Africa she worked in residential care facilities
for girls in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Hartbeespoort. She also helped establish
a community development program in a slum area outside of Johannesburg, aimed at
getting children off the streets and into some sort of schooling.The “school” quickly grew from 14 children in the garage of the priest’s house, to 500 children inside a small community centre which the City Council had built and which had been a white elephant until Good Shepherd took it over. Anne, who delivered the Homily at Saturday’s inauguration Mass, referred to her adventure last year of walking the Camino, an 800km pilgrimage trail in Spain. She said the Camino walk helped her “let go” of many of life’s unimportant trappings.  “I also came to understand that the one absolute essential
is love. This is found in the readings of today’s Eucharist – love. Of course
we need food, clothing, shelter to survive – but a life, even with an abundance
of these things, without love is a very poor thing. St Paul tells us that without love we are nothing and what we do is worth nothing. Jesus says simply: ‘What I command you is to love one another’,” Anne said.  “So this is our challenge – in the midst of all else that
we are engaged in, to adhere firmly to this one big essential. St Mary
Euphrasia, the Good Shepherd foundress, with all that she had accomplished, felt
moved to say: ‘I have not done great things. I have only loved, but I have
loved with all my heart’. If at the end we can echo those words for ourselves,
then, whatever be our achievements or even our failures, we will have fulfilled
to the best of our ability, our Good Shepherd mission.”Anne’s six-year term will provide many challenges and possibilities as Good Shepherd Sisters and mission partners work together through their agencies and communities in New Zealand, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, to continue the work which first began in Australia 149 years ago. To read Anne’s homily in full click here. Photos by Casamento Photography http://www.cam.org.au/melbourne-news/good-shepherd-welcomes-new-province-leader.html |
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