Homilies
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Homily for Opening Staff Mass – St Pius X College – 27 January 2026
As I reflected in my Australia Day homily, on 8 November last year, a small group of men stood outside the New South Wales Parliament dressed in black, their faces covered, their banners carrying the symbols and slogans of Nazism. I was in Rome at the time, but the shock of the incident stayed with me for many weeks. It was shocking not because hatred is new, but because of the sheer brazenness of the incident. Shocking because it demonstrated that, for whatever reason, our society had now become a place where the simply unthinkable had now become possible. The events of 14 December 2025, and the subsequent legislative reform…
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Australia Day – 26 January 2026
On 8 November last year, a small group of men stood outside the New South Wales Parliament dressed in black, their faces covered, their banners carrying the symbols and slogans of Nazism. I was in Rome at the time, but the shock of the incident stayed with me for many weeks. It was shocking not because hatred is new, but because of the sheer brazenness of the incident. Shocking because our society had emerged as a place where the unthinkable had now become possible. The events of 14 December 2025, and the subsequent legislative reform of only last week, have now made such a public protest more difficult. But legislation alone…
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3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 25 January 2026
Last Thursday, our nation paused to observe a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi Terror Attack on 14 December last year. It was a day to remember lives cut short, families changed forever, and a community wounded by violence. It was a call to us to remember the victims of violence, to honour their lives, and to commit ourselves to a society where safety and respect for life are paramount. In the same week, we witnessed important legislative reforms addressing gun laws and hate speech — reminders that our society continues to struggle with the tension between freedom and responsibility, speech and safety, fear and hope. This,…
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2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 18 January 2026
January has its own distinct feel. The roads are quieter. Emails come a little slower. There’s space to breathe. For some, it’s been a time of rest; for others, a pause before the next surge of activity. But now, the rhythm is beginning to change. Workplaces are stirring back to life. We are beginning to think about school again. The year, in all its demands and possibilities, is starting to press in on us again. And yet we are grateful that we still have another week or so before the holiday feel becomes a distant memory. Into this quieter moment, the Church puts before us a revelation in today’s gospel: “Behold, the…
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Baptism of the Lord – Sunday 11 January 2026
The Irish writer, Seamus Heaney observes that there are moments in life when we stand at the edge of what we know, and the crossing asks something of us. He wrote in his sequence of poems, “Crossings”: Running water never disappointed. Crossing water always furthered something. Stepping stones were stations of the soul.[1] He was reflecting on how, from time to time, we find ourselves at thresholds in our life. The past gives way and we cross over to something new, and of our need to be active in that novelty, not merely passive observers. Our liturgy brings us to such a moment on this weekend. The Feast of the…
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Solemnity of the Epiphany – 4 January 2026
In his correspondence with a young aspiring poet right at the beginning of the 20th century, the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “Be patient toward all that remains unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers, which cannot be given to you because you could not live them. At present you need to live the questions. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”[1] Rilke’s advice to young to Franz Xaver Kappus is as timely to us now…
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1 January – Mary, Mother of God – New Year’s Day
New Year’s Day customarily is a day to look forward. The old year has closed; a new year has dawned. We tend to put a line under the old and begin the new afresh. Today, however, I wish to do something different. I want to look back with you over the year that has been, reflecting on all that has occurred for us in the Year of Jubilee, signs to us of the Spirit’s activity in our midst. It has been a very significant year, marked also by the death of Pope Francis on 21 April and the election of Pope Leo XIV on 8 May, a radical change of…
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Feast of the Holy Family – 28 December 2025
In these days between Christmas and the New Year, in the great Octave of Christmas we focus our attention on a family. Not an idealised or sentimental family, but a real one: fragile, vulnerable, displaced, and living under threat. The Holy Family does not step onto the stage of history surrounded by safety or certainty. Almost immediately, they are on the move. The Gospel we hear today reminds us that this child is born into danger; that his parents are anxious, searching, sometimes confused; that their life together unfolds amid political violence, fear for a child’s life, and the necessity of flight. Jesus grows up not in a protected bubble,…
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Christmas 2025
At this time of the year, we are often used to celebrating through the smoke of bushfire. This year, here in Sydney, we celebrate through the smoke of gunfire. We come to the festival of Christmas chastened by the reality of the hatred and violence we have experienced in the horrendous events perpetrated at Bondi little more than just ten days ago. We cannot but be still deeply affected by those tragic events. Yet, we come to this Christmas also deeply wearied: fatigued by international conflicts for which there seems to be no just end; tired of the confusion created by an international political discourse which is becoming more and…
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Fourth Sunday of Advent – 21 Sunday December – in the wake of Bondi Terrorist Attack
In these final days of Advent, when our hearts would ordinarily be light with expectation, they are heavy. Last Sunday’s terrorist violence at Bondi Beach, occurring at exactly the time our own parish was sharing the joy of Christmas Carols on the Concourse, has shaken us deeply. A place of sunlight and festivity has been pierced by terror and death. Names, faces, families now carry wounds that will not easily heal. We gather this Sunday the Sunday before Christmas – carrying all the emotions of the past week: shock, grief, anger, fear, and an aching question never far from the surface: How can God be near when darkness breaks in so…