The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
11 January 2004
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HSC
pupils in top class
Trinity
students credit teachers
What
will they do now?
Catholic
all-rounder students in HSC 2003
Catholic
teachers’ pay rise welcomed
Vows
revisited 68 years on
Heroes
of the Vatican
Grow
grows too well
Staff,
residents believed in me
Sharing
our vulnerability
Pregnant
Pause
World
Youth Day
Graham
Andrews learns by teaching
Timor ‘sister’ parish
plan for St Canice’s
Symbols
of belief
A
conversation with ... Piers Paul Read, biographer of Sir Alec Guinness
Out
of Africa – with hope
Visit
to husband landed Anna in jail
Where
do teens see God?
Sparked
by ‘tongue of fire’
Parish honours ‘linchpin’ of
Vinnies conference
Maria finds family link in UK college
The day Br Nicholas dropped the pin
Sharing our vulnerability
Ex-Grow resident Tony writes: I was part of the Austral community for nine
months in 1997. I arrived with only a sliver of hope and left there confident
that I could handle whatever life dished up. I owe the community so much for
making my recovery possible.
Hearing others’ personal testimonies helped me to realise that while
I was at my lowest ebb, others had been there too and some had even more reasons
for feeling sorry for themselves. That was the end of my being on an isolated
misery-go-round.
I could not but be inspired by watching fellow residents resist the intensity
of their feelings to leave the community and use substances again.
We also sadly saw many who decided to leave prematurely. Often we pleaded with others to just stay another day, to let the intensity of the emotional reaction begin to pass.
Another thing about community is that we trusted each other enough in our two weekly Grow support groups to share the deeper, vulnerable sides of ourselves.