When it comes to Easter imagery, everything in Australia runs in reverse. In the Northern Hemisphere, resurrection is neatly mirrored in nature’s Spring, a promise of the long summer of the Spirit up ahead. But Down Under, Autumn has closed in, with its annual intimations of age and cold to come. Yet, in an atmosphere of genial defiance, a warm spiritual hearth has been kindled in the home of hosts Neville and Philomena F.

Here, ‘Catholics returning home’ have met each Wednesday evening over the past five weeks. These are people who were baptised and confirmed into the faith, but somewhere along the way their lives veered away from regular attendance at Mass. Now, the Spirit has called them to grow closer to a faith-sharing community again, and they meet mostly to learn what’s been happening inside the Church while they’ve been away.

Often their individual faith is of astonishing beauty, rough hewn by life but honestly shaped through hardship, conflict and doubt. The team which is gathered to bring them comfortably back is regularly dazzled by the insight and clarity of their returning brothers and sisters. The proverbial candle in the window turns into a blazing sun, fuelled by their words, their stories shared, and by the dynamic rescuing energy of God, ‘wherever two or three are gathered in my name’.