International Day of People With Disability 2023

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Sunday December 3rd is the International Day
of People With Disability

You can read statements about this day and the response of the Australian Catholic Bishops   to Disability in recent years via the  Bishops media blog here.


  • Pope Francis asks the Church and civil institutions to embrace inclusion and to foster the active participation of people with disabilities

(Vatican City, 28 November 2023) – “Programs and initiatives are needed that promote their inclusion,” Pope Francis says in the December edition of The Pope Video in which he asks that we pray for people with disabilities. Through the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, the Holy Father asks “that people with disabilities be at the center of attention in society, and that institutions offer inclusion programs that enhance their active participation.


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“… most of us who experience disability and who are able to reflect on it have a ‘social’ view of disability. In other words, it is the barriers placed by society, rather than we ourselves or some feature of our bodies (including our minds), which are the ‘problem’. Accordingly, many of us would see our ‘impairment’ as the mental or physical lack of function of form, for example optic nerve damage, which we experience. Our ‘disability’, on the other hand, would be the interrelation between the impairment and the social and physical environment that prevents us enjoying life to the full.” 

Justin Glyn SJ, ‘Us’ not ‘Them’: Disability and Catholic Theology and Social Teaching, Catholic Social Justice Series No. 83, Book review here.




Pastoral Reflection:

Advent calls us to watch, wait, prepare and be aware of the presence of Christ among us - within us and in the people around us. This yearning to identify Christ is satisfied in many ways but in a particularly meaningful way when we ponder the mystery of the Incarnation. To behold the divinity in the little Christ-child is to break through the barrier of aloneness and separation that was never God's desire for us from the moment of creation. This is the form chosen by God through which we can be aware of Christ in each other and in ourselves. It challenges us to accept ourselves and each other as we are, 'warts and all'. It is with this common understanding and acceptance of our limitations and our great need for God in our lives that we can be 'One Body in Christ' and even identify that He makes obvious our limitations so that we can already experience what salvation means.

As the Body of Christ, we are called to the vision expressed in the reading from Isaiah. We are called to establish truth and justice where all people enjoy full participation.

We are challenged to live in the 'light'. To throw off the darkness of the night – to take off the clothes of exclusion and fear, and appear as lights of welcome in the darkness of exclusion.

There are many urgent situations that need to be addressed as part of our duty to be awake and ready. How are we, as a parish, encouraging and promoting the full participation of people with disability and their families in our faith community?

The question is not "How can we help people with disability?" The much more important question is, "How can we allow people with disability to give their spiritual gifts to us and call us to conversion, call us to wholeness, call us to love?" - Henri Nouwen


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