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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
We have come to the football finals. For the teams and the supporters they have one thing in mind, and everything else falls in accordingly. Single mindedness is a quality we often associate with sport. It’s the very attribute that brings excellence of performance and success. Some call sport the religion of Australians, but, of course, sport is a very different experience than faith. In sport we get what we put into it. Our skill grows in proportion to the amount of dedicated training we apply. In sport we master a range of techniques and then through the continual exercise of those skills we perfect them and have them in our arsenal to apply at…
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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
Politics is an important profession, and I would go so far to say that, especially when engaged with a strong sense of social service, it is a noble profession. However, we also know that ego is in no short supply in the profession. It always amuses me how, without fail, new leaders, upon victory, always state how humbled they are by their appointment. Yet, one could argue, quite well I think, it is not humility that has brought the new leader to the moment. Against the background of political drama, the Gospel this Sunday highlights the questions about who is greatest and who has power. We are invited by the account to reflect…
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24th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021
In the film, “Emerald City” David Williamson has one of the characters declare, “No-one in Sydney ever wastes time debating the meaning of life – it’s getting yourself a water frontage. People devote a lifetime to the quest.” This may be, in part, due to the origins of Sydney itself. Outside the Sydney Hospital on the Macquarie Street footpath is a small plaque commemorating the site of the first hospital in Sydney, built by two businessmen in exchange for rum licenses. Thus it began, and thus it continues. Thomas Kenneally wrote in his early account of the city, The Commonwealth of Thieves: “Both our hedonism and our conservatism . . . derived from Georgian England rather…
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23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021
A very happy Father’s Day to all our fathers, grandfathers, and mentors! We pray that this day be one of blessing for each of you, and that you grow in your amazement of your God-given vocation to truly encourage the life of another. The populist American writer, Robert Fulgham once told of a story of Frank Marshall, an international chess player. During a competition many years ago, Fulgham relates the incident in which Marshall made what is often called the most beautiful move ever made on a chessboard. In a crucial game in which he was evenly matched with a Russian master player, Marshall found his queen under serious attack. There…
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22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 – Social Justice Sunday
We have all heard the expression, “Cleanliness is next to godliness” (to which some might add, “and if you can’t be godly, at least be clean.”) We have also probably met some people at different times who are preoccupied with cleanliness to an extreme degree, so that it becomes an obsession. Sometimes this kind of obsession can even be a sign of neurosis as in the case of people who feel the need to wash their hands continuously even though there is no apparent need to do so. Compulsive hand-washing is a symbolic act: it represents the person’s unconscious desire to be rid of some deep mental preoccupation. The process of washing expresses the…
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21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021
Often enough our literary artists, our writers, offer invaluable social observations. They have the gift of intuiting the deeper currents and the mood in the nation long before many others. The Australian novelist, Tim Winton is a fine example of this. Some time ago, Tim Winton observed that his great passion for the Australian landscape, which is shared by many of us, may have, however, an underlying anxiety attached to it. He remarks how the Australian landscape was such a shock to the first Europeans who arrived here: “How they loathed it for failing to be Europe. How infuriated they were at its ‘perversity’, its odd weather and backward running rivers and kooky…
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Sunday 15 August – Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary
The greatest show on earth has just concluded in Tokyo even though it could not have the crowds we normally associate with the Olympics. Nonetheless, the Olympics came for us at an opportune time, and in this time of isolation they brought us together and they gave us some relief from the constrictions of the current lockdown. We watched many extraordinary stories of human achievement. There were stories of amazing success and bitter failures – stories to inspire us as we marvel at what the human body can achieve. The strength, flexibility and skill of the athletes left us in awe as will the stories of lifetimes of dedication, commitment and discipline…
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Feastday of St Mary of the Cross Mackillop – 8 August 2021
Soon after the final declaration of Mary’s sanctity was given in Rome, I read a poignant but rather challenging letter to the editor of The Sydney Morning Herald from a Vincent Matthews: “My wife is a saint. And I don’t need the Pope to confirm it. For nearly 40 years she worked as a nurse in many parts of Australia easing the suffering of the sick and helping to cure many. She is idolised by her three children and is a special nana to two adoring little girls. Aged 74, she works in a charity shop, gives part of her age pension to Medecins Sans Frontieres and to World Vision to help a child struggling to…
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Euthanasia, Dying and the Dignity of the Human Person – Keynote Address – 2 August 2021
Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us this evening as we reflect together on such an important issue which, in fact, touches us at that moment at which we are most vulnerable – the moment of death itself. Or course, my priestly life has made me no stranger to death. As a young monk, one of my first responsibilities was nursing the older, sick members of the community through to their death. It was one of the most formative experiences of my life. Then, later, as chaplain at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne in the late 90s, I recall in the space of one week alone attending 24…
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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021
During the week a friend told me that on average he receives on his mobile phone 120 twitter messages a day. Twitter, as we know, is just one of the many web-based means by which we can let any number of people know the latest news that is occurring in our life. We enter a short message, like, “I am enjoying a walk in the park” and immediately all those on our contact list are made aware of this significance! As someone who struggles to keep on top of any number of daily emails, the thought of receiving over a hundred twitter messages astounds me. However, we seem to live increasingly in…
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