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Fourth Sunday of Lent – 15 March 2026
The readings of this Fourth Sunday of Lent centre on the theme of seeing. In the Gospel of Gospel of John we encounter the story of the man born blind. It is a story not only about physical sight being restored, but about a deeper vision that opens slowly within the human heart. In times like our own, that theme takes on particular urgency. In these days our world is again confronted with the tragedy of war in the Middle East, especially in the growing conflict involving Iran and its neighbours. Images of destruction, fear, and suffering reach us daily. It is easy for our vision of the world to become clouded by despair,…
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3rd Sunday in Lent – 8 March 2026
I shall always remember my visit, many years ago, to a young woman of twenty-one who was dying of AIDS. Jeanine’s life had been fractured — childhood abuse, addiction, exploitation, loss. By most standards, people might have said her life had been wasted. And yet, sitting close to death, she spoke with extraordinary vitality. She dreamed of helping others who were sick. She wanted to write poetry. She treated each day as a precious gift. She spoke tenderly of her nieces and hoped for their happiness. She hoped people would not be crushed by her death but would trust she was going home to God. For someone who was dying, she was astonishingly alive.…
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First Sunday of Lent – 22 February 2026
A number of years ago, Sean Penn directed one of the most extraordinary films I have seen: Into the Wild. The film tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old who leaves behind his family and possessions to wander across the United States, eventually seeking the vast solitude of the Alaskan wilderness. Many reviewers saw the story as a celebration of the American pioneering spirit. But the deeper journey is not geographical — it is spiritual and psychological. The physical isolation McCandless chooses mirrors an inner isolation that has already taken hold of his life. For Christopher, that isolation becomes toxic. Yet just before his death — alone in…
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Ash Wednesday – 18 February 2026
Nearly 1500 years ago, the great Christian writer, Augustine penned in his memoirs, The Confessions “Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new. Too late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The things you have made kept me from you – the things which would have no being unless they existed in you! You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness. You have radiated…
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6th Sunday in Ordinary Time – The Celebration of Lunar New Year – 15 February 2026
At the beginning of every year, it is good to ask ourselves, “What motivates us?” Why do we do what we do? As I shared last Sunday, perhaps another way of considering this is to ask, “What am I in love with?” As I shared, the late Jesuit Superior General, Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991) would say, “What we are in love with, what seizes our imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get us out of bed in the morning, what we do with our evenings, how we spend your weekends, what we read, whom we know, what breaks our heart, and what amazes us with joy and gratitude.” And so,…
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Opening School Mass for Pius X College Chatswood – 11 February 2026
In 1986, an extraordinary film was released, Babette’s Feast. Babette, a French Catholic, is a Parisian chef who gets caught up in the riots in the French capital in 1871. Her husband and son are killed in the fighting. Babette is assisted to escape to Denmark where members of a strict Protestant sect take her into their remote village. The founder of the community has died, but his two daughters engage Babette as their cook. The mysterious woman assumes the nature of a servant. They have no idea who she is, or what has bought her to their home. Having been in the village for 14 years, Babette wins 10,000…
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5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 8 February 2026
The late Jesuit Superior General, Pedro Arrupe, once commented beautifully: “What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”[1] Where is my passion? It is the question to which Jesus constantly invites us. At the very outset of the Gospel, in his very first encounter with the disciples, the conversation begins with, “What…
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4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 1 February 2026
It is not an uncommon story to hear people who have visited countries where poverty is visibly overwhelming, coming home and saying how happy the people whom they encountered. It confuses us. How can people who have so little, have so much? How can we who have so much, through our systems of education, health and law, have such little happiness? Our thinking identifies happiness with what we have, with what we have achieved; and yet, often enough, it seems that those who have very little are the happiest people in the world. How can it be that happiness seems to be in proportion to what one doesn’t have? …
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Homily for Opening Staff Mass – St Pius X College – 27 January 2026
As I reflected in my Australia Day homily, on 8 November last year, a small group of men stood outside the New South Wales Parliament dressed in black, their faces covered, their banners carrying the symbols and slogans of Nazism. I was in Rome at the time, but the shock of the incident stayed with me for many weeks. It was shocking not because hatred is new, but because of the sheer brazenness of the incident. Shocking because it demonstrated that, for whatever reason, our society had now become a place where the simply unthinkable had now become possible. The events of 14 December 2025, and the subsequent legislative reform…
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Australia Day – 26 January 2026
On 8 November last year, a small group of men stood outside the New South Wales Parliament dressed in black, their faces covered, their banners carrying the symbols and slogans of Nazism. I was in Rome at the time, but the shock of the incident stayed with me for many weeks. It was shocking not because hatred is new, but because of the sheer brazenness of the incident. Shocking because our society had emerged as a place where the unthinkable had now become possible. The events of 14 December 2025, and the subsequent legislative reform of only last week, have now made such a public protest more difficult. But legislation alone…
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