I arrived at the Redemptorist community in Perth forty seven years ago knowing very little about the priesthood or religious life. Since I was still sixteen, I probably knew little enough about life itself. In the years that followed I learned a lot.

One of the first things I learned was about what I would now call ‘community’. To be accepted as an equal, irrespective of your age, background, education and gifts was a new experience. All that seemed to matter was that you were a Redemptorist or that you wanted to become one. You shared the same food and lodgings but also you spent quality time together.  This experience was deepened some years later when I spent time in our international community in Rome. To have your dinner with brother Redemptorists from South America, Vietnam, India and to realise that you shared something special with them all was exciting. To meet confreres who had been imprisoned in the communist countries of Eastern Europe was like meeting heroes you had only previously read about.

The dazzling example of Saint Gerard is a 'living memory' of the gospel truth that it is God who is at work in us. The God-in-us draws others, the God-in-us heals others, the God-in-us delights in others.

Sean Wales C.Ss.R.

It seemed to me that something special happened when Redemptorists got into the pulpit. Until then I judged sermons by their length and the shorter the better. But there was a magic about seeing these men preaching. There was a passion to communicate and an energy in all they said. They seemed to be serious about what they were doing.  And they made me laugh.

But perhaps the thing that struck me most about them was their compassion. When they asked you how you were getting on they seemed interested in your answer. And if you were sick they were concerned. I began to see how they related to others, especially those who were in some kind of need. They seemed to be close to people. They seemed just to be there with people, not always with the answers, but always with respect, concern and warmth. They were no good, like fish out of water, if you separated them from people. The Redemptorists were people who needed people and as the song says, they were ‘the luckiest people in the world’.

"You must live for God, you must live for others. And no-one can live this life for you."

Pope John Paul II - Taegu, May 1984.

And when I was let loose as a Redemptorist myself, I realised the value of all that I had learned. I had inherited a share of their pastoral compassion and it would shape my life. But perhaps the best thing the Redemptorists taught me was how much I still had to learn and where I would learn it. And that was with people.

People have taught me to be a priest. And it is, I think, people who write the sermons, the best ones anyway. What Redemptorists try to do is to receive from people the wealth of their ordinary experience and when this meets with gospel compassion, something wonderful emerges. And that is what they want to share with the whole world.

Gerry Mulligan C.Ss.R. Middlesbrough