Homilies
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20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
During my monastic years, I was involved in the project of inter-religious dialogue. Along with a Benedictine sister, a Buddhist monk, and a Hindu nun I pioneered what came to be known as Australian Monastic Encounter. It was a privileged experience, through which I visited a number of different monastic centres around Australia and enjoyed the hospitality of various Buddhist monks exchanging with them pathways in the spiritual life. In the work of inter-religious dialogue, we often detect great similarities and parallels between the religious traditions. Yet, we are also confronted with striking differences. Out of the desire to create a universal sense of fraternity, it has been a danger to try to…
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Solemnity of the Assumption 2020
At the end of his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, St John Paul II wrote, “Mary is a living word to console the Church in her struggle against death. By showing us her Son, she assures us that in him the powers of death have already been vanquished: “Death and life were locked in a wondrous combat. The Lord of life was dead; but now he lives triumphant.” Mary is a word of life to us because in her own journey we witness the triumph of the energy of life over the pall of death. And this victory speaks to us about what we most deeply desire in our life. We want to be fully loved,…
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19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Last Sunday, I shared how the times may leave us feeling like getting into our own little boat and heading off into the middle of the lake where no one can disturb us, and where we may be free from the concern that swirls around us as we continue to navigate the threat of the pandemic. However, once we are out in the lake, we are not guaranteed serenity. I remember once picking up a small poster which read, “Dear God, help me; the sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.” The size of the lake itself can be overwhelming, and then storms whip up so that the…
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18th Sunday of Ordinary Time
This time last year, the word ‘unprecedented’ seemed to be on everyone’s lips. It was the word most commonly heard on the media. At that time, it referred primarily to the drought we, in Australia, were experiencing. It then transferred to the bushfires and smoke to which we were subjected from October to February. None of us could have predicted that, within a few months, we would be in our current situation battling our way through a pandemic. Curiously, we rarely hear the word, ‘unprecedented’ now. It is as if the circumstances of the moment are too historic in character for the word, ‘unprecedented’ to do justice. The word, ‘unprecedented’…
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Entrustment of Catenian Association Australia to St Mary MacKillop of the Cross – 27 July 2020
Soon after the final declaration of Mary’s sanctity was given in Rome in 2009, I read a poignant but rather challenging letter to the editor of The Sydney Morning Herald from a Vincent Matthews: My wife is a saint. And I don’t need the Pope to confirm it. For nearly 40 years she worked as a nurse in many parts of Australia easing the suffering of the sick and helping to cure many. She is idolised by her three children and is a special nana to two adoring little girls. Aged 74, she works in a charity shop, gives part of her age pension to Medecins Sans Frontieres and to World Vision to help a child…
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17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Once upon a time there was an old man who lived on the outskirts of a town.[1] He had lived there so long that no one knew who he was or where he had come from. Some said that once he had been very powerful, a king, but that was long ago. Others said no, he was once very wealthy and generous, but without much now. Others said, no, he was wise and influential, and some even said he was holy. But the children just thought he was a stupid old man and they made his life miserable. They threw stones at his windows, left dead cats on his doorstep, ripped up the garden, and shouted…
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16th Sunday of Ordinary Time
We don’t need to be following the news for very long without coming to the recognition that evil exists. 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 the presence and activity of evil. Evil, though, is a genuine force that we…
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15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
The Australian social researcher, Hugh Mackay once gave a reflection on how difficult it is to get other people to hear what we are trying to say.[1] As he observed, how many times have we said in frustration, “If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a hundred times. It just seems to go in one ear and out the other!” As Mackay says, what we may be really saying, of course, is, “Guess what, I know a message that never works. It doesn’t seem to matter how often I say it; it never has any effect on the people I’m talking to. But I don’t give up easily. It’s such a good message that I’m…
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14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
On this first week in July the Church in Australia celebrates National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday. This annual celebration is an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution that Indigenous Australians make to our experience of the Transcendent and to faith in this ancient land. As Deacon Boniface Perdjert from Wadeye, in the Northern Territory, and who passed away last year, commented once “Deep down, we Aborigines are religious people. We did not have many material goods, but we are rich with spiritual goods. It is this strong religious side that made us. It gave us our identity, our dignity, our self-assurance. My People existed here in Australia thousands of years before Abraham. In all…
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13th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Even the COVID19 pandemic does not seem to have eased negative publicity about the Church. It was curious to see articles recently in the media questioning the Church’s engagement of the Government’s JobKeeper scheme. As a religious practitioner, I am eligible for the Jobkeeper payment. I have also chosen to donate this to our First Collection to supplement the loss of income by the parish suffered because of the pandemic. Though this is entirely legal, ethical and transparent, the media’s attempt to make it into something otherwise shows how the Church struggles both to retain and to promote its credibility in society. In the face of such negative social scrutiny,…