Ministries
Campus
Ministers
| The
Patrician Brothers
were founded to minister to a contemporary pressing need: education of
the youth. And this is what most Patrician Brothers have been doing
since
our foundation in 1808.
However,
under the
influence of Vatican II and in the face of the "new" needs of our
modern
world, religious congregations have been discerning how they may
respond.
Several
of our Brothers
have volunteered to meet other needs within our society: as campus
ministers,
a hospital chaplain, a parish worker, and as officers in the Catholic
Education
Office.
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The
first Patrician
Community in PNG in 1968: Brothers Gabriel and Charles
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Some
of the 1986 PNG
group.
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Laughter:
a great healer.
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|
 Brother
Charles Barry has been in education for more than thirty-five
years,
twenty-eight of these in Papua New Guinea. He has been principal of
five
schools (one in Australia and four in PNG), and whilst in Papua New
Guinea
showed his talents in many other areas: mechanic, carpenter, builder,
technician,
hotelier. Since his return to Sydney from PNG he has moved into the
ministry
of campus minister. He has just completed a Masters in Pastoral Care
and
has begun a Masters in Counseling. Here Brother Charles reflects on his
role of a counselor.
Transition time in
any ministry or form
of employment is rarely easy since one moves from a zone of security,
experience
and self-identification to s state of vulnerability, uncertainty and
insecurity.
After thirty-five
years in schools,
mainly administration, the change to counseling was not too traumatic.
because I listened to some good advice after returning from a lengthy
stay
in Papua New Guinea. I relaised that even vast experience in schools is
only of marginal use in a counseling situation and I took proffered
opportunity
to get a Masters degree in pastoral care and commence one in counseling.
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Parramatta diocese in Sydney has full-time counselors in all its high
schools
and not without good reason. The stresses and pressures on and
expectations
of teenagers nowadays are only vaguely appreciated by the wider
community
and are either caused by or manifested in:
*
addictions...drugs and alcohol
* dysfunctional
families
*
relatnional/behavioural problems
* unrealistic
expectations of teachers,
parents and society
* peer/media pressures
* grief, trauma and
desperation
My endeavours in
counseling parents,
students and teachers are expressed mainly by the following:
* emphatic
listening
* meeting people
where they are at
and not where I would like them to be
* trying to
understand in order to
be understood
* empowering them to
make choices and
be responsible for their actions
* respecting their
feelings and emotions
* suggesting coping
mechanisms
* making appropriate
referrals
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To Love, To Serve, and
to give Hope
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A great treasure: their
trust.
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