Newly ordained Military Bishop Stuart Hall has barely arrived in Canberra, but he is already making clear how he intends to serve. Source: Catholic Voice.
Bishop Hall has taken up residence at the Military Ordinariate and celebrated his first Mass at the Royal Military College Duntroon Chapel, speaking of a Church close to Defence personnel and their families.
The chapel brought together its regular congregation and those who came to support Bishop Hall, including Canberra-Goulburn Archbishop Christopher Prowse, Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force Grant Dibden, Msgr Peter O’Keefe AM, Msgr Alfred de Souza from the Apostolic Nunciature, military chaplains Fr Tom Zaranski and Fr Damien Styles, deacons, pastoral associates and cadets.
A strong choir filled the chapel with song, while two younger members of the community, Henry and Elizabeth, received their First Holy Communion after a year of preparation.
Bishop Hall acknowledged Archbishop Prowse, who served as Apostolic Administrator of the Military Ordinariate for five years, thanking him for his “sterling effort” in keeping the ship afloat.
For Bishop Hall, Duntroon carried a significance extending well beyond its walls.
“Today, as I enter this chapel as Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of Australia, I am conscious that this is so much more than a building,” he says.
“It is a sign of the Church’s presence in the midst of the Australian Defence Force.
“It represents every chapel, every base, every unit, every ship and every gathering where Catholic members of the Australian Defence Force come together to pray and celebrate the Eucharist.”
That presence, Bishop Hall says, depends on military chaplains knowing the lives of the people they accompany.
“We are called to know the life of the men and women whom we serve: their work, their families, their hopes and their fears, their sacrifices, their successes and their disappointments.
“We are called to be there when life is ordinary, and when life is anything but ordinary.”
It also means going to people, rather than waiting for them to come to the Church.
“We do not simply wait for people to come to us. We go to them. We enter into their world because Christ has entered into ours.”
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Bishop Hall takes his place among Defence community (By Jeanine Doyle, Catholic Voice)
