Homilies
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29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 22 October 2023
It is the time of tax, one of the two certain things in our life. It is also a period where politics and economics are at the centre of our conversation. In the midst of the economic and political turmoil around us at the moment, this word of the gospel comes to us: a word about the interrelationship between the things of Caesar and the things of God, about the things of government and the things of religion. How do they sit together? These questions are certainly not new, but from time to time they arise with a greater sense of urgency. Often our memory of when they have arisen in the past can help us…
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Diocesan Liturgy of Lament for the crime of sexual abuse in the Church – 12 October 2023
We gather this evening again as we have for the past 7 years to demonstrate our shame at the hurt inflicted in our community of faith by those in positions of leadership and trust. We express our sorrow, and we renew our commitment to foster communities known for their accountability, safety and care. Just as the project of national Reconciliation which takes its own turn this Saturday is not an occasional matter that once achieved can be put aside and relegated to the archives, so too our Lament for the crime of sexual abuse within our Church. It is not something expressed and moved on from: it is our way of being…
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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 8 October 2023
I am sure that some of us have heard of the clergyman who lived in a town that was hit by a major flood. The water was a foot deep in his living room. Some parishioners in a boat rowed up to his door, asking them to join him. “No, go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be just fine. God is taking care of me.” So, they left. Then the water rose to the second floor. Back came the anxious parishioners in the boat. And they asked him to join them. Again, he refused. By the time the boat came back once more, the house had been completely engulfed and the clergyman was standing on his chimney. “Father,” his parishioners…
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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 1 October 2023
On one of my very first visits to Sydney I was taken by a friend who works with homeless youth to some of the places in which such young people live and hang out. I recall the time I was with them around a campfire near St. Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst. They had got the campfire going from some curbside formwork and were preparing to shelter against a winter Sydney night. Most of them were on drugs of some kind, many of them prostituting – all of them with background stories of enormous tragedy. And yet, as I left them that night I could not but be struck by the…
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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 24 September 2023
We often say religion and politics don’t mix. And it is true we must be careful to avoid the politicization of religious faith in such a way that religious faith becomes a vehicle to achieve political ends. However, at the same time, paradoxically we can never separate faith and politics as if we can behave one way in an internal world of spirituality and another way in the external world of civic affairs. Politics is about choices, and the choices we, ourselves, make cannot but be informed by our discipleship of the Lord. This will be something very important to consider carefully as we approach the forthcoming Referendum on constitutional change.…
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23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 10 September 2023
Some of you would be aware that for many years of my life I lived as a Trappist monk. Trappist life is a life lived in community, and most people would think of a monastery as a place of peace and tranquillity where Christian virtue was lived in its perfection. However, of course, the reality is quite different. A monastic community is really just like any other family: ordinary people who struggle to make life together work with all the joys and pains we all know in regard to this. I recall the great response of one of the old Irish monks in the community, Br Gabriel, who used to reply to the question…
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19th Sunday in Year A – 13 August 2023
Many years ago, in a little Californian fishing village, I picked up a small poster which reads, “Dear God, help me; the sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.” None of us would doubt that life is sometimes turbulent and often chaotic. In fact, the ocean is good metaphor for how we experience life. At times, it seems calm and full of invitation; on other occasions, it is full of threat and a fearful place. For the people of the Scriptures, particularly, the ocean was a symbol more of chaos than anything. It was the place of darkness and uncertainty – the place of hidden monsters. The…
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Feast of the Transfiguration – Sunday 6 August 2023
I recall once, in a previous parish, having to deal with a terrible termite infestation. One of the rooms in the parish office needed particular attention. I was standing there, looking down at the boards hollowed out by the voracious termites, admittedly feeling rather crestfallen at the implications, when the technician, explaining in great detail the procedures he was implementing, suddenly sparked, “I just love my job!” His exclamation, which was clearly sincerely felt, was like a real ray of light into my anxiety. His enthusiasm for the technology that is behind the system we were considering implementing, and his obvious joy at what he was accomplishing in the termination…
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Commissioning of Parish Pilgrims to WYD Lisbon – 20 July 2023
In Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, one of the main characters, Sam, says at one stage, “We shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, 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 a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered,…
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16th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 23 July 2023
We don’t need to be following the news for very long without coming to the recognition that evil exists. We think of the atrocities of war; of the moral dysfunctionality of our own society. However, of course, evil not only exists in the situations of notoriety that occur in the world. We also know that evil exists in ourselves, even if in more subtle ways: when we do not treat others as their dignity deserves; when we use others for our own purposes; when we forget the accountability that is placed on each of us to live with integrity and truthfulness. Perhaps when we focus on our own failings, we can tend to underestimate…