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Keywords: Christmas

  • CARTOON

    These aren't the Magi you're looking for

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 17 December 2019
    9 Comments

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  • RELIGION

    Christmas in a time of fire

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 December 2019
    15 Comments

    This year the contrast between the original story of Christmas and its Australian circumstances has cut even deeper. Bushfires have taken lives, destroyed properties and spread smoke and ash over cities. If the theme of the first Christmas was one of hope and joy, behind the bushfires this year lurks anxiety about the future of the world.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Notre Dame de Paris

    • Marlene Marburg, Grant Fraser
    • 16 December 2019
    3 Comments

    It rose in its tall verticals from the grace and welcome of the earth, / That swooned far, far below, / As canny masons hefted the limestone / Into vast beatitudes of grace; / Shipwrights inverted their minds to groom the oak, / So that it would soar, / As if a celtic monk had charmed a serpent into a holy phrase.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coming to terms with Christmas grief

    • Katherine Richardson
    • 16 December 2019
    10 Comments

    Now that I'm grown I've realised that while Christmas felt that way for me, it isn't magical for everyone. For many people Christmas is a hollow reminder that there is someone missing from the table, and no matter whether it's the first year or the 50th, that chair will always remain empty.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    It's Christmas and I'll dance if I want to

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 December 2019
    5 Comments

    Dance and music are as innate as breathing. Babies dance while in the womb, and the Yuletide can be prime time for 'playing music, singing and dancing [as a] healthy outlet for their emotions'. As William Stafford observed, kids dance 'before they learn there is anything that isn't music'.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dickens and Christmas as we grow older

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 13 December 2019
    5 Comments

    Dickens was a prolific writer, and one of patchy quality: the threat of sentimentality was never far away, so that this brief work is not one of his best. But in this consumer age it is salutary to have his definition of the Christmas spirit, which is one 'of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness and forbearance'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    2019 Christmas Raffle winners

    • Staff
    • 09 December 2019

    The Society of Jesus in Victoria, Jesuit Communications Christmas Raffle 2019 Drawn on Thursday 5 December 2019 (Permit No 10590/19). Congratulations to the winners: 1st prize: L. Daphne, VIC; 2nd prize: A. Curran, Qld; 3rd prize: D. Sasse, Vic. All winners have been notified directly.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The power of gift-giving without the waste

    • Cristy Clark
    • 21 November 2019
    4 Comments

    As we pare back more and more, I have started to realise that there is a risk in taking things too far. The consumer orgy of the past may have been unsightly, but gift giving itself also serves a valuable social function, and we may be at risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

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  • RELIGION

    Silence has two faces

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 October 2019
    12 Comments

    It may seem paradoxical that one of the most effective ways of imposing silence is by imposing noise. The Romans did it with bread and circuses. More modern totalitarian regimes have done it with military processions and massive rallies. Governments in contemporary democracies do so by controlling what is fed to the media.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Memories to pique climate conscience

    • Brian Matthews
    • 29 August 2019
    6 Comments

    There are thousands of Australians old enough to remember: hot summers starting before Christmas and tailing off into autumn in the weeks after their return to school; the buddings and flowerings and wiltings in suburban gardens and country main streets; the first chill in the air as they unwrapped their Easter eggs ...

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Murphy's Law: The PM on Christmas Island

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 March 2019
    11 Comments

    The visit was clearly choreographed as part of the pre-election opera to draw public attention to the dramatic act of a strong leader who is prepared to stop boats and keep out asylum seekers. But it was supplanted even on the front page of the Coalition-friendly Australian by the story of a National Party insurgency in Queensland.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stateless refugee facing indefinite detention

    • Shira Sebban
    • 22 February 2019
    5 Comments

    A Faili Kurd, who fled Iran by boat aged 16 with his mother, Shalikhan has been detained since arriving on Christmas Island in August 2013. Suffering from a developmental disorder and mental health issues exacerbated by his father's death in Iran, he has in the past attempted suicide and displayed volatile behaviour.

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