Nestled in the temperate rain forests of north east Tasmania, Derby reached its boom time in the late 19thcentury through the discovery of tin. By 1931 when Dad was born and raised there it was still recovering from a catastrophic flood a couple of years earlier, though the mines were still in operation and would be for a couple of decades further. At the height of its industry, the village numbered some 3,000 people – for that time in Tasmania, virtually a bustling centre of commerce and social life. For several generations prior, the Ransons and the Dilgers had farmed across the north east from Branxholm, Maydena and Scottsdale. They…

“What’s in a name?” we might ask? “Is a name important?” we might add. How many of us know the meaning of our own name? I think our names are much more important than simple labels. Obviously, they give us a certain identification and acknowledgement. But names also shape us in some way; they give us personality and character.  We are given a name, and though it is possible for us to change this by deed poll most of us accept our name and grow into it the older we become. In so doing, I think something quite profound happens: we learn both to hear and to speak the word…

Matthew 5: 1-12 “The Beatitudes” I am sure that many of our parents remember the first words we spoke. For our parents these words were memorable – especially if they were about them! The first words we utter are a mighty achievement. But then the first words a person speaks in a new role, too, always have a great significance about them. We think of the first speech of a member of Parliament or a president. Without putting too much pressure on him, we are looking forward to the first homily of Bishop Anthony, though some of us may have already watched his first greeting to us after the announcement…

As I may have shared with some of you previously, I have had the fortune of once being able to visit the island of Malta upon which Paul had been shipwrecked on his way to Rome. I realized on Malta that the texts of Paul’s time there were not simply historical in character but were, in fact, highly elaborate commentaries, not simply on Paul, but on the Church itself for which Paul is presented as a metaphor.  The actual account of Paul’s shipwreck detailed in the chapter 27 of the Acts of the Apostles teaches us this in a very particular way. Taking the peculiarities of the chapter into account…

“Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world, and everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life.”[1] So does Pope Francis begin his recent letter to the young people of the world. Yes, “Christ is alive! . . . The one who fills us with his grace, the one who liberates us, transforms us, heals and consoles us is someone fully alive. He is the Christ, risen from the dead, filled with supernatural life and energy, and robed in boundless light . . . Because he did not only come in the past, but he comes to you today and every…

It was once suggested to the Nobel laureate Patrick White that he enter psychoanalysis. He flatly refused because he said that if he got rid of his demons then his spark of genius would evaporate. Somewhere we have to learn how to live with our demons rather than simply get rid of them.  And by this, I mean, that we have to learn how to live with what we consider to be flaws in our personality, vulnerabilities in our make-up.  We have to let go of a frenetic attempt at perfection in which we seek to become somehow flaw-less.  It’s not the presence of flaws that is actually the problem for us; it…

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matt 9: 35-38) If we were to go around and ask, “Who stands out for you with leadership?” the responses might be interesting. Perhaps we would think of a great political leader, a great social reformer, a sporting hero.  Jesus, himself,…

For a long time, it has been the social rule in Australia that the topics of religion and politics are not to be raised in polite conversation.  In Australia, particularly, when religious leaders start talking about political or economic matters many of us start feeling uneasy, if not even embarrassed. We have concerns about naivety, or anxieties about appeals drawn from a sectarian past, or fears about ecclesiastical interference in affairs that are rightly independent of the structure of the Church. Even if the voice is allowed, often enough the statements are relegated to be ‘motherhood’ and quaint, and really without a great deal of consequence. However, I think the Word…

In a remarkable little novel called “The Passion” by the feminist writer, Jeanette Winterson the main character Henri declares, “To love someone else enough to forget about yourself, even for one moment, is to be free.”  There is a part of us that can consider involvement in the life of another as a loss of freedom. Commitment certainly brings a responsibility that means I can no longer live life only in reference to myself.  However, Henri is saying that real freedom comes when we lose our self in love for someone else.  In the novel he goes on to say that “some say love enslaves, and passion is a demon, and many have…

Today’s short gospel (Luke 8:1-3) speaks not only of the presence of women in the life of Jesus, but perhaps even more significantly also of the simple, ordinary ways by which Jesus is nurtured and by which he is cared. If this be true, we, ourselves, care for the life of Jesus in the simple ordinary tasks of our day.  Doing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. It is a theme that is central to the perspective of Pope Francis.  In an interview not long after his election, he remarked “I see the sanctity of God’s people, this daily sanctity. I see the holiness in the patience of the people of God:…