Antioch: 20 years of showing the light

Sydney
4 November 2001

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Antioch: 20 years of showing the light

Part of the congregation celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Antioch at St Mary’s Cathedral.

They are the “light of the world” – the 1000 young people who gathered at St Mary’s Cathedral to celebrate two decades of the Antioch Youth Movement in Australia.

They travelled from parishes in Canberra, Parramatta, Goulburn, Wollongong, Broken Bay, Maitland and Sydney and, while the faces were different, the youthful enthusiasm was the same as 20 years ago.

But it was a flashback for some.

Some Antiochers from those early days returned with their families for the celebration.

Members of the team who led the very first Antioch weekend in Maroubra Bay parish were also present.

Fr Vince Casey, Vicar General of the Broken Bay Diocese, who had taken part in an Antioch weekend when he was a seminarian 19 years ago, was principal celebrant.

The six priests from other dioceses who concelebrated the Mass included Fr Peter Comensoli, who was a member of Antioch at Fairymeadow parish in Wollongong before entering the seminary.

The Antioch movement came to Australia through three teenagers, Byron, Teresa and Claire Pirola, who experienced an Antioch weekend in the Dobbs Ferry parish in New York.

Antiochers in other countries were remembered in the prayers of the faithful at St Mary’s.

These included the early Antiochers of Dobbs Ferry, as well as young people in Papua New Guinea, Hungary and Slovakia who later received the gift of Antioch from Australians.

In the wake of the events of September 11 and as a gesture of solidarity, the Liverpool parish Antiochers made a banner to send to their counterparts in the New York parish.

And to prepare for the anniversary Mass, every Antioch community reflected on Christ’s message: “You are the light of the world” (Mt 5:16).

This is also the theme chosen by the Pope in his invitation to the world’s youth to attend next year’s World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada.

Antioch will be organising a pilgrimage to World Youth Day in 2002.

Its members hope to meet members of Antioch communities in New York and to make pilgrimages to places such as the shrine of the North American martyrs. They also hope to participate in street missions.