Category: Jubilee 2025

Comic + some news

31/10/2025

A brief explainer on what is Holy Wins/Holywins can be found in this Catholic News Agency article here and, yes, the Bishop now has a live-in/pet(?) dinosaur called Hotspur.

Months, more months, and Saints! (Photo: by Author)

And in other news—after having the thought of it gnawing at the back of my brain for what felt like half the year—I finally began preparing Month–pages for a 2026 Calendar on Sunday, 26 October 2025. Hooray!

Photographs for each month are currently still in the selection phase. Yes, photographs.

This upcoming calendar will be a collection of images of the different places that I visited in 2025. And because of all the effort that I poured into trying to pull together Jubilee Year 2025 grassroots–young adult pilgrimages to the Shrines of Hope in my diocese left me both mentally, physically and emotionally drained, such that I have had no impetus to do anything artistic whatsoever for the majority of 2025.
Save for the painting of St Clare of Assisi back in July, of course. Which is why the comic at the top of this blog post, for me, is a significant win.

I will endeavour to keep you all informed about further 2026 Calendar developments when they are worthy of promulgation.

A happy and holy Hallowtide to you all folks!

Vincent Cavanagh
31 October 2025

Marists' Farewell at Church Hill, Sydney

11/8/2025

On Sunday, 10 August 2025, my father and I attended the midday Mass by the Marist Fathers to St Patrick's Church Hill, Sydney, given in thanksgiving and farewell after being caretakers of the parish for the past 157 years due to the Order being unable to supply priests for the Ministry of the Sacraments (Confession, Eucharist, Matrimony, Baptisms, Confirmations, Adoration and more) at St Patrick's beyond the 31st of December, 2025.

The above is my recording of the speech given by Fr Michael Whelan, S.M., at the light refreshments held after the Mass inside the crypt (formerly Our Lady Chapel) of St Patrick's.

Vincent Cavanagh
11 Aug 2025

St Clare of Assisi (2025)

3/7/2025

This portrait of St Clare of Assisi was painted on 5 June 2025, but as with most important artworks it took roughly a month of researching, thinking through, planning, and revising initial ideas before I finally started on the actual painting part—two days before the self-imposed deadline. I wanted it to be ready for to give as a birthday prayer card to a fellow pilgrim to WYD Lisbon, 2023.

St Clare is the first spiritual daughter of St Francis of Assisi, having seen him renounce himself of his father and his family’s wealth when she was twelve-years old. She later joined him and the minor friars at the age of eighteen, and co-founder of the Order of Poor Ladies, more commonly known today as the “Poor Clares”. The Rule incorporates much of the original vision of St Francis, as well as a little Benedictine wisdom.

In this painting she is seated with her lap open to all who are finding life difficult and seek her intercession. With one hand she is holding aloft a golden Monstrance containing the Eucharistic presence of Christ, representing when she held aloft the same Eucharistic presence when various marauding armies came to lay siege to Assisi during the 13th Century and from which shone so bright a light of heaven from the Monstrance that those same armies fled, leaving the city and convent of the Poor Clares safe from harm and destruction.

Outside the Church of San Damiano, Assisi, during the 2023 WYD Lisbon pilgrimage through Italy. (Photo: by Author)

On the top left of the painting is an image of the San Damiano cross from which St Francis received the vision of Christ speaking to him, ‘… go and rebuild my church …’

The original San Damiano cross was the altarpiece inside the Church of San Damiano (depicted on the top right of the painting), it was moved when the Poor Clares left the San Damiano monastery in 1257 AD to the Basilica of St Clare in Assisi and they have to this day continued to guard it with great solitude because it St Francis had gifted San Damiano to St Clare and her companions for use as a convent in 1212 AD.

In recent times there have been social media testimonies of women being visited by St Clare when in deep difficulty, and saying, ‘here are my soft hands, here is my soft lap’. These graces have resulted in significant conversions.

Vincent Cavanagh
3 July 2025

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RANDOM Things #003: Jubilee Rambling

9/6/2025

Okay, so, apart from posts to mark the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, I haven’t posted anything to this blog since the start of January 2025.

My first Broken Bay Pilgrim Stamp to be collected in the 'Jubilee Pilgrim Passport', featuring St John Vianney.

This is mostly down to the year, for me, starting with a “sort of” setback which left me in a disoriented state for the first quarter of the year, or so, and not well disposed to doing anything particularly creative in the direction of new artwork. Nor did I feel it worthwhile to post anything about my father and I visiting the Sydney Bus Museum in Leichhardt for one of their open days, or our second visit to Hunter Valley Steamfest in Maitland either, or attending the 2025 Hunter Valley Airshow.

Inspecting the Riley Brothers Bus at the Sydney Bus Museum, Leichhardt, NSW.

What has been occupying my attention, after a brainstorming session of possibilities with my mother, has been planning, mapping, testing, organizing, promoting, and leading Young Adult (18–35) Pilgrimages to the four Jubilee Shrines of Hope in the Diocese of Broken Bay for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope:

St Mary Immaculate Manly – Shrine of Hope for Priests and Vocations.
Our Lady of Dolours Chatswood – Shrine of Hope for Young People.
St Patrick’s and the Shrine of JPII East Gosford – Shrine of Hope for Families.
Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral Hornsby (Waitara) – Cathedral of the Diocese of Broken Bay.

Viewing the relic of St John Vianney at St Mary Immaculate Church in Manly, NSW.

The whole effort was started, for the most part, because I didn’t expect anyone else to try and do something Young Adult-focused at a Diocesan–wide level for the Year of Jubilee, and because the Diocese itself had a reshuffle of ministry appointments and parish placements such that the former monthly Young Adult gatherings of previous years were dropped from the calendar without ceremony. For all appearances curial priorities had changed and if anything was going to happen Young Adult-wise it would have to be a self-initiated, grassroots affair, which I threw myself into with far more effort and emotion than strictly necessary. These pilgrimages are meant to give my fellow peers an opportunity for pilgrimage during this Year of Jubilee who aren’t able due to financial or familial circumstances to go overseas on pilgrimage to Rome like many others are doing. The four pilgrimages are spaced out to be once every second month to aid in giving a sense of the Jubilee truly being a year-long event and not just a blink-and-you-miss-it four-weekend marathon done-and-dusted, don’t-need-to-think-about-it-again situation.

Pilgrims sitting before the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Our Lady of Dolours Chatswood.

Detail of the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis, kept on the left of the Perpetual Adoration Chapel.

It is a moot point as to whether a four-weekend marathon mightn’t have been a better draw card for the intended audience, given that there have been only a handful of pilgrims turn up for both the first pilgrimage to Manly in March for the relic of St John Vianney and the second to Chatswood in May to visit the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis. It’s depressing when spur-of-the-moment picnics and such get higher turnout from young adults than the thing that’s had so much blood, tears, and effort poured into it to give them an opportunity to gain the Year of Jubilee Indulgence and a reduction of a chunk of our time in Purgatory currently accrued to each of us individually — and that is worthwhile! ¹

I have to regularly remind myself that these pilgrimages aren’t a “me”–thing, they are from and for God — He’s the one who sparked the whole idea of organizing these walks — for purposes that only He knows the end result of, I’m just here to organise them. If even only one person shows up, that pilgrimage was successful.

If you or anyone you know would like to join along for next two pilgrimages, the dates are as follows:

26 July 2025 – St John Paul II Pilgrimage to St Patrick’s and the Shrine of JPII East Gosford.
13 September 2025 – Our Lady of the Rosary Pilgrimage to the Cathedral.

— Draft promotionals --

These walks are open to all pilgrims from surround Dioceses and not just the Diocese of Broken Bay, and starting with the St John Paul II Pilgrimage they will be opened up to all interested pilgrims from 18 years old to retirement. Keep on the lookout for further details and Facebook Event pages about each walk from myself on Facebook or here on the blog. I hope to see you there.

Vincent Cavanagh
9 June 2025

¹ The Jubilee Indulgence is explained in an accessible and down-to-earth way to all by Bishop of Wilcannia-Forbes Columba Macbeth-Green in the video linked below:

And in other news:
I have turned OFF comments on all my blog posts, apart from those made by verifiable human beings, due to an influx of spam e-mail / robot comments over the past year.
Moving forward I will be keeping the comments on this blog CLOSED until further notice. Thank you.

Yes, we have a new Pope!

10/5/2025

Pope Leo the Fourteenth waves to the crowd below from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome.

POPE LEO XIV

(Formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost.)

He is the 267th successor of St. Peter, the Apostle.

Elected Pontifex on 8 May 2025, Vatican City, Rome.

The Americas Pope: North and South; both Peru and the United States.

Pope Leo XIV is the first Pope from the Order of St. Augustine (OSA), but the seventh from religious orders that follow the Rule of St. Augustine of Hippo.

Vatican News biography article linked here.

Requiescat in pace, Papa Franciscus

21/4/2025

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

POPE FRANCIS (I)
Born into this world ~ 17 December 1936.
Born into Eternal Life ~ 21 April 2025 (Easter Monday).

STUMBERS: Where have I been?!

25/12/2024

Merry Christmas and a Happy Jubilee of Hope to you all for 2025!

Vincent Cavanagh
25 Dec 2024

2025 Calendar: Now Available!

28/11/2024

Orders are now Closed

After having received them from the printers this morning, I can announce that my 2025 Calendar is now available for the coming year. The 2025 Calendar is a return both to sharing my artwork as well as the saints (and not yet declared saints) of the Catholic Church.

— Cost for the 2025 Calendars is $30 AUD each, plus postage (within Australia), with a deal for three (3) calendars at $80 AUD.

— Postage is as follows:
+$3 AUD for 1 calendar
+$4 AUD for 2*
+$6 AUD for 3*
* delivered in the same envelope.

— For International postal orders we will arrange Air Mail costs appropriately, on an order-by-order basis.

You can place your order through the form found under the Contact page or by messaging me via Facebook, or talk to me in person.

Vincent Cavanagh
28 Nov 2024

* 2025 Calendar Flip-Through GIF added — 6 December 2024.

RANDOM Things #001

29/6/2024

1 Comment

Yes, I’m back and this may or may not be a newsletter under a different guise.

If only that were my jawline.

Apart from a small handful of photo-edited pictures that will never be seen outside of its intended audience in a group chat of my peers, I’ve been in a creative drought since about the end of March/start of April this year (2024). Being sick at home for the last three weeks of May with whatever strain of influenza is going around this winter didn’t help my creative juices either.

Also, this drought overlapping with my general backwards slide into doom-scrolling and wasted hours poured away to YouTube videos.

Let’s be honest, the act of “doom-scrolling” is not the sole purview of life-sucking social media applications.

You can do it like I have 💀 by staring off into the sea of empty calorific YouTube video suggestions wondering what that last thought was that you didn’t want to forget. Or reading through multiple inter-referenced substack pages and church journalism and a touch too much European politics “news” – which I still don’t have my head around; and should probably be grateful for that fact.

Or not-quite-compulsively checking either the weather application or if there are any updates on Facebook Messenger to previous text messages (or trying to reverse engineer which comment someone liked due to the latest update, grrr!)

Speaking of substack pages, one that I’ve been gravitating back to of late—and isn’t as overly swimming in bar graphs or generally depressing as others—is the School of the Unconformed by Ruth Gaskovski. For about the past year(?) or so she has been doing shared essays with her husband Peco that they cross-post between each other’s substack page (Peco’s is Pilgrims in the Machine).

The general theme of their essays is regaining man’s [1] humanity from both the jaws and bowels of the inhuman Machine world we now find ourselves living in.

Of which this quote by Ruth from their recent article, ‘Building People with Three-Dimensional Memory’, is an example:

The incessant distraction of interfacing with devices leaves us feeling as if our brain and our body are forever in a different place. It almost seems as if we are in a race to upload our life into the virtual universe. Our desire to capture and share the present is numbing our ability to form natural memories of the moments we want to actually treasure. By excessively documenting our lives artificially Marshall McLuhan might say we are “autoamputating” our memory.

When we use our devices as memory keepers, we not only interfere with the formation of long-term memories, but we also flatten our experience and personal identity into a one-dimensional digitized version of ourselves.”

And Peco continues in his section of the piece by exemplifying how technology is artificially engendering the tell-tale symptoms of Alzheimer’s into all of us glued to our digital devices:

Some segments of the culture might experience a carefree insouciance as they become largely forgetful of what has come before—the wisdom, knowledge, and traditions of history—and more gripped by the here-and-now stimulation of their screens.

As real Alzheimer's progresses, there is not only memory loss, but disorientation, anxiety, depression, aggressive behavior (…) Reliance on a support system of machines to hold our collective memories is a formula for docility. When Steve Jobs brought us [the] Apple computer we were promised bicycles for the mind, but many of us feel we’re ending up with cognitive wheelchairs.”

I would highly encourage anyone else interested to read the whole article here. As well as Ruth’s interview with Erin Loechner (don’t worry, I’d never heard of her either), ‘Turning the Algorithm Upside Down: The Opt-Out Family’, where Erin answers Ruth’s daughter’s question of whether there even is a “healthy” way to be on social media:

I know the more palatable answer here is to speak of digital well-being and balance and how to successfully navigate the algorithm in a way that we can consume the good without the bad. But we can’t. Just like any mind-altering drug we might ingest, social media makes it so we are not in control of the experience we’ll have immediately after. And I can no longer see any potential reward in delivering our God-given brains to a [tattooed] group of tech bros in Silicon Valley.”

~ (emphasis my own)

[Note: At the time of writing, this post by the Gaskovski’s was open to non-subscribers (June 2024), future readers of this blog post may find these articles behind Subscription/Pay Walls. Their substack posts tend to be open for a few months before going behind the Subscription Wall, depending on whether an article is important enough that it remain open for the greatest number of people to read and gain use from it.]

Keepin’ Up wit’ Gen Z

Now on to lighter fare. Amongst my varying sojourns through internet-life I have compiled a list of all the various different Internet Grammar and Acronyms that I’ve come across over the past month or so:

LLAP
‘Live Long and Prosper’ 🖖

rekt
Internet form of ‘Wrecked’.

🗿 Moai (Easter Island Head) emoji.
Used to communicate a deadpan or shocked/embarrassed-into-speechlessness expression.
Or alternatively—if in Japan—used to arrange meeting up with people at the Moyai statue near Shibuya Station in Tokyo.

IYKYK
‘If You Know, You Know’

Vietnamese “teencodes”:
Hixx or Hixxxxx – written version of 😢 (crying face emoji).
Huhu – written version of 😭 (loudly crying face – or as I know it, ‘waterfall tears’).

TIL
‘Today I Learned.’

ily / ILY
‘I Love You.’
Not to be confused with illy, the Italian Espresso company.

bby / BBY
Internet alternative form of ‘Baby’. (ex. ‘Woohoo BBY!’)
More often used when using ‘baby’ as a term of endearment.

RTFM
‘Read The … Manual!’
Often used within the Linux user community forums.

Jubilee 2025

For those of us not on TikTok (or whichever platform it was announced on), the Reverend Samuel French (@frsamfrench) will be leading a pilgrimage in the footsteps of St Paul through Greece and Turkey with Harvest Journeys exclusively for Young Adults aged 18 to 35 for the Holy Year of Jubilee in 2025: ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.

More information about the pilgrimage can be found here.

AS I WROTE at the beginning of this blog, this post may effectively be a newsletter in all but name. Yes, there are already plenty of other blog posts on this website that have been tagged with “newsletter”, but I specifically chose to name this RANDOM Things #001 because I’d prefer to make a clean break of the prior hodgepodge of blog posts and because the perfectionist in me wouldn’t let up unless I went through and counted every-single-blog-post with either tag or semblance of “newsletter” both on this website and its predecessor. Which is not an option that I look upon with any enthusiasm, hence why RANDOM Things #001.

I do—and I ask that you reading this likewise—not expect this to in any way be a regular or (dear God save me) quarterly affair. It is my estimation that RANDOM Things be more of an ‘every now and then’ or just ‘I haven’t painted anything, but here’s what’s been kicking around in my head recently’ type of blog post.

So until the next one of these not-newsletters eventuates; Peace and Happy Feast of St Peter and St Paul.

Vincent Cavanagh
29 June 2024

Footnotes
[1] As in the genus man (mankind) of which both men and woman, male and female, make up the whole category (ex., “earth men” and “Men of Earth”) – for the peculiarly post-Age of Aquarius pedants out there.

1 Comment

Blog

Comic + some news

Marists' Farewell at Church Hill, Sydney

St Clare of Assisi (2025)

Comments closed
due to spam.

RANDOM Things #003: Jubilee Rambling

Yes, we have a new Pope!

POPE LEO XIV

Requiescat in pace, Papa Franciscus

STUMBERS: Where have I been?!

2025 Calendar: Now Available!

Orders are now Closed

RANDOM Things #001

Keepin’ Up wit’ Gen Z

Jubilee 2025

News and Other Stuff

Archives

Categories

Blog

Comments closeddue to spam.

POPE LEO XIV

*Orders are now Closed*

Keepin’ Up wit’ Gen Z

Jubilee 2025

News and Other Stuff

Archives

Categories

Comments closed
due to spam.

Orders are now Closed