Homilies
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Ascension Sunday – 17 May 2026
Our celebration of the Ascension comes to us at a strange and uncertain moment in our world. It can feel at times as though our horizon has narrowed, as though we are becoming increasingly trapped within fear, division, and uncertainty. Yet, into this world, the feast of the Ascension speaks a word of hope. How might we understand this hope? Imagine for a little while a moment in our life which was full of possibility. Maybe it was when we first started school, or began our first job, or left home for the first time. Perhaps it was when we married, entered religious life, became a parent, or made some important…
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6th Sunday in Easter – 10 May 2026 (Mothers’ Day)
The tenderness of Jesus towards his friends strikes us from today’s gospel. As he prepares them for his departure, he says to them: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you.” In the midst of all their uncertainty, fear and loss, Jesus assures them that they are not abandoned. His love will remain with them, even when they cannot see him. We know only too well that one of our great fears is the fear of being alone, of being forgotten, of being left without anyone to hold us when life becomes dark or confusing. Yet from the beginning of our lives, most of us first…
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75th Anniversary of St Edmund’s Wahroonga – School for Children with Special Needs – 8 May 2026
The great storyteller JR Tolkein in Lord of the Rings has Sam say at one stage, “the brave things in the old tales and song, Mr. Frodo: adventures as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that’s not they way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them usually‑their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect…
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Vigil for Fr David Taylor – Forrestville – 3 May 2026
There is something quietly sacred that happens at a Vigil. We gather in the presence of one another, in the presence of memory, and in the presence of God, and we begin to listen again to a life. Indeed, one of the most extraordinary experiences at a time such as this is hearing the story of the one whose life we celebrate. It is like standing for a moment at the window of their life. We glimpse something of its radical uniqueness, its relationships, its turning points, its joys and burden, and we realise that the world is not quite the same because this life has been lived. How much…
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5th Sunday of Easter – 3 May 2026
The Gospel we hear today, from the fourteenth chapter of John, is spoken at a moment of deep uncertainty. Jesus senses the anxiety of his disciples. Everything familiar is about to change. The one they have relied upon, the one who has gathered and guided them, is speaking of departure. And into that unsettled moment he says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” This is not a denial of reality. It is not a reassurance that nothing will change. It is, rather, an invitation to trust in a deeper presence that will remain even when structures shift and visible leadership passes. Perhaps, this gives us a window by which to view…
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Homily for the Thanksgiving Mass of newly ordained Fr Huy Tran – 30 April 2026
In recently commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s decree on education, Pope Leo encourages us all “to cultivate a heart that listens, a gaze that encourages, and an intelligence that discerns.”[1] Wonderful attitudes for each us to develop but especially for those who are beginning a life of ministry – a heart that listens, a gaze that encourages and an intelligence that discerns. These attitudes of heart and mind are especially important, too, as we approach some of the primary questions of our time. One of those is the question of personhood. What is the human person? How do we define the nature of personhood? It is a question that has…
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ANZAC Day – 25 April 2026
Each ANZAC Day we gather with both grateful hearts and heavy memories. We remember those who went to war from Australia and New Zealand—many of them young, many of them never returned, and many who returned forever marked by what they had seen and endured. We honour their courage, their sacrifice, and the cost of the freedoms which all too often take for granted. Yet ANZAC Day is not only about remembering the past. It is also about interpreting the present in the light of that sacrifice and asking what kind of world we are now building with the legacy they left us. Once again, our world is marked by…
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2nd Sunday of Easter – 12 April 2026
The late English writer Daniel O’Leary once related a striking moment of epiphany narrated by the Irish mystic John Moriarty. Moriarty was walking through muddy patches in the meadow near his Kerry home, wondering how those “hints of heaven” could emerge from such a drab place. “How could something so yellow as a buttercup come up out of soggy brown earth?” he asked. “How could something so purple as an orchid and so perfect as a cowslip come out of it? Where does the colour and perfection come from?”[1] That question presses itself upon us with new urgency even now. We look at the world and see the mud all…
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Easter Vigil – 4 April 2026
Few of us are spared today the ambiguity of social media. For some it is a helpful means of communication; for others it is an addictive curse. Yet, in one way or another, it has become part of most of our lives. There is one type of clip on TikTok that always delights me whenever it appears. There are many versions of it under the title “Dance Funny.” A young dancer walks through streets in different parts of the world and spontaneously invites strangers to dance. The people he meets seem entirely random: people of every age, shape, culture and background. Yet the music and energy of the young dancer…
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Good Friday – 3 April 2026
Today, the Church falls silent. There is no greeting. No sign of triumph. No attempt to explain things away. We are left with the Cross. The reality of suffering. In a world feeling increasingly fragile, when the structures we rely upon are not as secure as we thought, the one answer we are given to the questions that rise within us is a man on a Cross This is deeply confronting. Because we want resolution. We seek clarity. We want assurance that things will be set right. But Good Friday gives us none of these. Instead, it gives us Jesus in his vulnerability. Stripped. Rejected. Powerless. And yet, we are those who dare to affirm that…