The Catholic Church is rich in faith, prayer and ritual. But, as Sr Maeve Louise Heaney VDMF sees it, many Catholics need help finding the words to express that faith. Source: Melbourne Catholic.
That is one reason the Xavier School of Preaching was created: to form people for the ministry of the Word, whether they are ordained or lay.
Professor Heaney is a Professor in Theology at the Australian Catholic University, and a consecrated member of Verbium Dei Missionary Fraternity, whose charism is shaped by prayer and ministry of the Word.
“So we were born for enabling people to learn how to pray and preach at a time when the Catholic Church had begun to realise how important the Word of God was,” she says.
“And also the fact that we are all, through baptism, called in some way, shape or form to share in the prophetic ministry of Christ, and therefore to speak or preach, or teach or share whatever way that calling might find itself.”
She brings this dedication to preaching to the Xavier School of Preaching, which she runs with lay preacher Robert Falzon, founder of MenAlive, a national Catholic ministry to men, and fellow faculty member Trish McCarthy.
It is a program of the Xavier Centre for Theological Formation, based in the ACU’s Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, held every couple of years in a different diocese. This year, it is in Melbourne and is being run in collaboration with the archdiocese.
The school is designed to meet a wide range of needs. It offers formation for priests seeking ongoing development in writing and giving a good homily, as well as for laypeople involved in catechesis, schools and digital evangelisation.
Its themes include proclamation and encounter, contemplation and communication, practical skills for preaching and speaking in public, and hands-on practice of what has been learnt.
Professor Heaney says the Xavier School also answers a call from the Australian Plenary Council for greater preaching capacity and a stronger lay ministry of preaching.
The Xavier School of Preaching is on in Melbourne until May 2.
Details: Xavier School of Preaching.
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‘What the words hold’: Xavier School of Preaching comes to Melbourne (Melbourne Catholic)
