The 2024 MSS Scholarship in honour of our 80th anniversary of foundation was awarded in early 2024 to Monique Saywell. This
scholarship, which focuses on women and ecological studies, is enabling Monique to undertake a Masters of Pastoral and
Spiritual Care through the University of Divinity (auspiced by Yarra Theological Union). Now in her second year of studies,
Monique says the encyclical, Laudato Si, has become her ‘companion’.
‘Last year, I used it to form the shape of my course and this second year I have dived deeper still. A few weeks ago, as I re-read the encyclical, I was struck by the importance and relevance it continues to hold. It was not lost on me that, as I read, I was waiting for a water delivery, a much needed and longed for delivery (for those that may not know, the Adelaide Hills and rural South Australia is in a water crisis).
‘Although Laudato Si provides practical and pragmatic ways forward, it also calls for something much deeper, a shifting of the heart—here, rural families have great tenacity as they advocate for access to water, and at the same time, they hold onto hope that rain will come again. As I explore subjects around ageing, dying and palliative care, and death as depicted throughout Christian art, I continue to be drawn into the deep need for all of humanity to be tended and cared for and for humanity to tend to each facet of ecology, as the Divine Gardener tends to us all.’