
When young couple Kasper Green* and Ellie Johnson stumbled across an open invitation to The Way of Wonder talk at St Joachim’s in Lidcombe on 18 January, little did they know just how transformative the evening would be for them.
For the 19-year-old students, deeply in love but at a crossroads in their spiritual lives, the presentation by Bill Donaghy, a renowned speaker on St John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, opened their eyes to a whole new profound perspective on appreciating the divine.
“It was life changing,” said Kasper. “We were already thinking about becoming Catholic, but Bill’s talk has convinced us that the Catholic faith is totally for us. Everything clicked tonight,” he said.
Ellie grew up Protestant but has been attending an Anglican church for a while, while Kasper was wrestling with what spiritual path to pursue.
“We’ve sort of been church hopping and debating and discussing things, and I’ve been going to her Anglican church for a while,” said Kasper. “We’ve also gone to Presbyterian churches, but after tonight, I think really, our home is with Catholicism.”

Kasper and Ellie joined an audience of 200 people for an immersive experience of the mind, heart, and senses led by Donaghy, who was visiting from the US-based Theology of the Body Institute at the invitation of the Archdiocese of Sydney.
Using multi-media, Bill engaged his audience in an exploration and discovery of the “wonders” of God through a mosaic of classical and contemporary art, music, and theological reflections.
At the heart of his talk was a challenge to “look up” and put down our smart phones, devices he called “wonder killers.” “They are ‘digital contraception’ as it blocks life,” he told the crowd.
He challenged them to stop “doom scrolling” and commune with the world in an embodied way, rather than in a disembodied way via digital screens.
Calling all to return to living in “child-like wonder,” he cited St John Paul II’s call to “return to infancy”, quoting the saint: “We must wonder! We must create a climate of wonder! We need to marvel in everything that is found in man,” using nature, music and the arts to quench the “heart’s thirst and the body’s longing.”

For both, Ellie and Kasper, this was an epiphany—showing that questioning, exploring, and understanding the intersection of spirituality and creativity was not only compatible with faith but could enrich it.
“We’ve intellectualised our faith for so long,” said Ellie.
“But Bill’s talk on finding God in those beautiful moments in nature, in music, in each other’s faces and in relationships, all these different things, it was a much more practical and bigger perspective that you don’t really get otherwise, and it really spoke to us.”
“Finding God in art, in nature and in science, and playing out the implications of what it means for the word to become flesh is so unique to the Catholic faith. What God is and where God is, is so much bigger in Catholicism,” said Ellie.
Kasper agreed. “Bill’s emphasis on the full implications of the Incarnation, this idea of the word becoming flesh is more than the very narrow, intellectualised Protestant faith that I think both Ellie and I are used to.”
Others in the audience were just as transformed.
Elie Baraz, 18, from Ermington said the talk brought him closer to the faith.

“It’s re-taught me how to view things, how to find the wonder in nature, and how it can bring us to God. He is in the simple things like trees and water, and I love that simplicity,” he said.
Dana Phan, 36, from Cabramatta said her eyes were “opened” by the talk.
“St John Paul’s always pointed us to the signs, to see through the world, to see the beauty and truth in all facets of life, in biology, what we call modern science and what makes us human—art and music,” she said.
“It was an eye-opener to how God created man, woman and all of creation and how we should see them all ‘in wonder’,” said Reg Argana of Middleton Grange.
“Tonight was about bringing the longing, that ache that we have for something greater than ourselves,” said Liam Agius, 21, from Blacktown.
His brother Joel was convinced that digital devices are “killing our wonder.”
“There’s so much to the world and we don’t realise these things, because we’re so focussed on our screens in front of us when we need to be opened to the beauty around us,” he said.

As for Kasper and Ellie, they now plan to meet with archdiocesan RCIA coordinator Simon Yeak to begin their journey to becoming Catholic.
“Tonight, we realised we are being called to do something and we have to act on it, Kasper said.
“Just realising how beautiful this opportunity and how impactful tonight has been, we are both very excited for what’s ahead.”
*Name changed on request