This week I am writing from Brisbane, where we are in lockdown until 6pm on Friday, and maybe beyond that. For the past sixteen months Ray Sanchez and Paul Mercieca have not seen another Passionist in Brisbane. At the present time, Chris Monaghan, Kevin Hennessy, Justin Durai-Raj and myself are all here in lockdown. Our visit has been very welcome for Ray and Paul and we are enjoying it too. For them it has gone from famine to feast for a few days. Chris expected to stay just one night and be back in Melbourne on Wednesday. I had planned to be here for a Mass with Luke on Wednesday and returning to Melbourne today. Kevin and Justin had planned to return on Monday after the Passionist Youth Team weekend, so that might still happen for them.

Most religions make a very clear distinction – running right though the cosmos – between the holy and the plain, between the sacred and the profane, and between religion and mundane, the ordinary. The religious has a character of permanence and solemnity, the world about us is tatty even if it is where we work and live. It is akin to the way we treat clothes: there is ordinary everyday working clothes that might be smart and practical, and then there are our special clothes – our glad rags, "best suit", or formal wear (which you hope you can still fit into) - that we get out for special occasions.

In preparing a session for the PFGM New Zealand national weekend, it occurred to use some of the learning about starling (and other bird) murmurations. The name comes from the sound made by the flapping wings of a large flock. How do hundreds or thousands of starlings manage to fly in such an amazingly coordinated way?

Any conversation about COVID-19 and ‘Lockdowns in Victoria’ is likely to bring out different opinions. This is pretty much true about any subject today – such as to vaccinate or not.

Any one of us can think or argue that how we see things, is the correct or only way for them to be seen. Of course, when we do look at a situation from a different point of view or see it how someone else does, we recognise that most often there is more than one point of view.