ERN Member Honoured

Yvonne O'Neill is the current Indigenous worker at Nudgee. Last year she painted her interpretation of the Christian Brothers Congregational logo.  It is displayed on the right. She has received a singular honour in being invited to prepare a gift for His Holiness the Pope to mark the canonization of Mary Mackillop in Rome in October. Yvonne was then asked to prepare the procession cross for the liturgy. This cross will be built at Nudgee College by our staff and will be decorated by Yvonne. The following is extracts from the text of the invitation from Mr Dean Duncan from Australian Catholic University:

I would also like you to consider an offer from ACU indigenous representatives for you to be commissioned to paint a piece of artwork which we will formally lodge within the Vatican Museum. Ms Yvonne O'Neil, Mr Graham Leddie (Deputy Principal and at that time Acting Principal) along with two students, Ryan Williams (Year 9) and Matthew Connop (Year 11) will attend and participate."

Now is the Time

Eight years ago, the 2002 Christian Brothers’ Rome Chapter named all those women and men bringing life to new and existing expressions of Edmund’s charism the Edmund Rice Network. 
Imagine our potential as a liberating force in this world if, "How does networking enhance our mission to bring about liberation and justice for all life?", was the question was at the heart of our networking. This is the potential we are really yet to contemplate much less realise. Perhaps now is the time.
The 2008 Oceania Chapter called the Oceania Leadership Team to determine suitable forums to engage the Edmund Rice Network before and at the time of the next Chapter. 2010 is the first stage in a journey of engagement that will lead us to this critical time in our Network story. During July 2 – 4, representatives from newly formed ERN Wisdom Groups will gather in Brisbane. Our purpose will be to re-visit the wisdom of network and networking. A larger gathering is planned for 2011 and our journey will all the time be working 

A New Energy: Exploration of Different Forms of Commitment

The options for making formal commitment to a particular charism used to be largely limited to the commitment of religious life or perhaps to associates, third orders or affiliates. There are now other formal groupings of people in the Church who may be religious or lay, married or single but all belonging to a particular society inspired by a particular charism. There is also a vast range of people who have individually committed their lives in service inspired by particular charisms and we have a huge number of such people in the various Edmund Rice ministries and enterprises. However it is to those who wish to explore, in association with others, the making of some sort of formal commitment to the charism of Edmund Rice that the following is addressed.

ERN and the Bigger God

It has been getting clearer to me for some years that Edmund Rice is bigger than the Christian Brothers. But how much bigger? This has only recently taken a quantum leap in my consciousness and I am still reeling off-balance. These reflections are an attempt to get my head around it all, something I am realizing is not fully possible as the Edmund effect in our world today is mutating and propagating as never before into expressions far different from our traditional schools. The structure and spirit of Edmund Rice keeps evolving into an ever-new reality and over the past 30 years there have been paradigm shifts in our awareness and identity as followers of Edmund. The recent growth can be traced in the documents of the last five Congregation Chapters which have clearly taken us beyond the confines of the Congregation.

Edmund Rice Networking

The name ‘ERN’ has evolved and is still evolving. ‘Network’ has changed to ‘networking’ as our experience and understanding of this reality changes. Surely a network is dead without the networking that brings it life? This is the age of networking - global, social, business, etc. It is being promoted through articles and advertisements, expressed through clever e-networks, and buoyed-up by the relentless new modes and models of technology and thinking. From road-side bill-boards on rural highways to exclusive in-flight duty-free offers, one can find new and faster ways of networking to and from places and locations thought inaccessible, isolated, inappropriate, or impossible a few months ago. Networking has long been around, but today it is bigger and quicker than ever before.