Unmistakably, ‘liberation’ is a central impetus of the ministry of Jesus and of the Gospel. At the very outset of his ministry – almost as a charter – Jesus announces that he has come to set prisoners free, to raise the downtrodden, to proclaim liberty to captives.   Against his Palestinian social background, accustomed to the economic usefulness of prisoners and of the presence of the ‘great unwashed’, Jesus’ enigmatic declaration might be interpreted as simply a grand scheme of emancipation, a dangerous aspiration of anarchy and subversion. However, it does not seem that Jesus equates liberation with simple emancipation; nor did he reduce liberation to lazy principles of freedom. For Jesus, liberation…

There is a magic in every beginning, wrote the German philosopher Herman Hesse.[1] It is the magic of anticipation which lies at the heart of the experience of wonder. The future comes to greet us with expectation. As we gather today with our Augustinian Sisters Our Lady of Consolation who have now joined the mission of our Diocese, there is every sense of being at a new beginning. It is what provides our celebration today with an unmistakable joy – the joy that belongs to gratitude. We welcome them, and with them we savour all the potential of their presence and ministry. We have been looking forward to your presence…

To be given the liturgy of the day at a particular event such as this Conference, and to have its prescribed readings proclaimed, can represent both a challenge and a possibility. The Gospel proclaimed in today’s liturgy (Matthew 23: 13-22) is perhaps not quite the one that with the freedom of choice we might have selected for a Conference on healthcare. And yet in a curious way it does, in fact, address the matrix through which Catholic healthcare operates, the framework of mission to which we are committed and about which the Governance Symposium attends in such an era of change. In his strident attack in the Gospel, Jesus confronts…