Catholic Outlook August 2016

NATIONAL VOCATIONS AWARENESS WEEK: 7-14 AUGUST
‘Pray for courage. Be courageous’
By Elizabeth McFarlane
LOOKING AS if it was about to collapse,
the small chapel in East Timor leaned to
one side. There were a few plastic seats
with a laminated image of Jesus Christ on the
wall and a little wooden cross handmade out of
sticks. The image read: ‘I will be with you until
the end of time.’
It was this seemingly simple setting where
Adam Carlow felt the call to the priesthood: “I
remember walking out of that chapel in Timor
and hearing the call from God to priestly life.”
Adam is a seminarian for the Diocese,
completing his third year at Holy Spirit Seminary
after the eye-opening mission trip to East Timor
taught him that “the Spirit is enough”.
“The people in East Timor were living off the
land in palm huts with no electricity and no
running water,” Adam explained.
“To many, they would be perceived as poor,
but for me, they were some of the richest people
I have ever met. They were rich in Spirit. They
had a Spirit I had never seen before that was
really on fire.”
It was this experience that Adam drew upon
for reflection on his vocation to the priesthood.
However, had it not been for World Youth Day
2008 in Sydney, Adam may have never set foot
in East Timor.
“I had been slowly coming back to the faith
after WYD and wanted to live my life as a
Catholic, which for me meant going out into the
world and doing charity work,” he said.
Adam grew up attending Sunday Mass with
his mother, but drifted from the Church in his
high school years.
“I fell away from the faith when a lot of my
peers stopped going to Mass and stopped
practising,” he said. “When you’re that age, you
don’t want to be an outsider. You want to be part
of the in-group.
“There wasn’t much of a Catholic culture
among my peers but my Religion teacher at
school started talking about their experience at
WYD, and on a bit of a whim, I decided to go.”
Adam went to his local parish, St Benedict’s
Parish in Smithfield, and it was with their
Antioch youth group that he went to WYD in
Sydney.
“It was there that I rediscovered the faith. It
had been two or three years since I had been to
Confession so I made the decision to go. It was a
very moving experience,” he said.
“I celebrated my 18th birthday on 20 July with
Pope Benedict XVI at Randwick Racecourse.
Celebrating my faith and birthday with 200,000
young people from around the world was
incredibly powerful.
“When WYD finished, I started attending
Sunday Mass again and continued to be involved
Third-year seminarian Adam Carlow.
PHOTO: ELIZABETH MCFARLANE.
in the Smithfield Antioch group.”
The Parish Priest and Assistant Priest of
Smithfield at the time, Fr Albert Wasniowski
and Fr Damien Mosakowski, became father
figures.
“Fr Albert was the first person to ask me if
I had been thinking about the priesthood, and
if I felt called and would like to be a priest,” he
recalled.
“At first I thought the idea was a little bit crazy.
I thought I was going to follow the normal path
in life. I thought I would get a good paying job,
get married and have children.
“The idea of the priesthood, I thought, was
good for other people but not for me.”
But there was something attracting Adam to
the priesthood and what started out as a crazy
idea, turned into a noble pursuit.
“It certainly wasn’t overnight. It was a long
process of about five years where God worked
with me,” he said. “He walked with me and, over
that time, the idea didn’t seem as crazy.
“I became closer in faith, closer to God and
that original feeling of being attracted to my
faith and to the priesthood was growing larger
and becoming louder, to the point where I
couldn’t ignore it anymore.”
When asked what advice he would give to
those discerning their vocation, Adam said to
trust in God. “One of the hardest things to do
is to trust God when you’re faced with big life
decisions,” he said.
“With big life decisions, there is always a lot of
uncertainty, but it’s important to have that trust
in God to make the next step.
“Pray for courage. Be courageous.”
Fr Andrew Bass said he was blessed to have the support of family and friends (from left): his mum Irene Bass,
Doris Portelli, Fr Andrew, John Portelli, his father Michael Bass and Spiro Portelli. PHOTO: RICHARD ZAITER.
Fr Andrew Bass: sustained i
FR ANDREW Bass is the Parish Priest of
two parishes – Holy Trinity at Granville and
Holy Family at East Granville. He said the
support and friendship of parishioners in these
vibrant faith communities sustains him in his
ministry of pastoral care.
“In caring for two parishes I have tried to
recognise the distinct character of each parish but
also what is common and to draw together the
two parishes as one community,” Fr Andrew said.
“We all have a common faith, a common
liturgy, a common need for holiness and so I
try to provide and to facilitate opportunities for
growth, both liturgically and socially.”
Fr Andrew said he has been blessed with the
loving support of family and friends. “It was from
my parents that I learned the value of the faith.
Living in Saudi Arabia where the practice of all
faiths other than Islam is outlawed they held on
to their faith and risked everything to practise it.”
“The life of a parish priest, as for any priest, is
a life of sacrifice. As a priest you are drawn into
the lives of many men and women, into both the
good and the bad, the joys and sorrows.
“The priest gives not just what he wants to give
or does only what he wants to do but is there to
make known the faith of the Church and, by the
grace of God, to draw men and women to their
salvation.”
Following his priestly ordination in 2008, Fr
Andrew was appointed Assistant Priest at St
Patrick’s Cathedral Parish, then Administrator in
2014. He celebrated Mass daily and on Sundays
and heard confessions.
Fr Andrew was chaplain to St Patrick’s Primary
School and Parramatta Marist High School.
"I visited the primary school weekly for class
visits and confessions. At Parramatta Marist
High School I spent three days a week there to
“The life of a parish pri
is a life of sacrifice.”
say Mass twice a week (once before school and
once at lunch) as well as pray the rosary and hear
confessions. I began a youth group for Year 5 and
6 students, which ran for a number of years.
"I was also the chaplain to Marian Nursing
Home where I would visit the sick and celebrate
Mass for the residents monthly.
"In 2012, Bishop Anthony asked me to offer
the extraordinary form of the Mass (Traditional
Latin Mass), which I did on a weekly basis in the
Cathedral on Saturday mornings."
Have you ever thought
God might be calling you
to the priesthood?
Young men who feel God might be calling them
to the priesthood are invited to contact
Director of Priestly Vocations
Fr Warren Edwards
Email: vocations@parra.catholic.org.au
18 CatholicOutlook | AUGUST 2016
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