Homilies
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Mass celebrating the 135th Anniversary of Mercy Catholic College – 3 March 2025
In 1890, one hundred and thirty-five years ago, Mercy College was established. Australia was still a collection of British colonies, not yet federated; the Australasian Federal Convention which laid the groundwork for Federation only first met in this year. It was a moment of possibility and opportunity. Yet, it was also a year of great social unrest. In the late 19th century, there had been rapid economic growth, driven by industries like wool, mining and shipping. However, the growth was uneven, and workers often faced poor wages, long hours and harsh conditions. In August 1890, the now famous national Maritime strike began, paralysing the ports of Sydney. A state of emergency…
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8th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2 March 2025
The German writer, Deitrich Bonheoffer gave us the distinction between what he called, on the one hand, ‘cheap grace’ and, on the other, ‘costly grace.’ Writing in Germany in the 1930s he lamented the way in which the Christian Churches had so accommodated themselves to the prevailing currents as to have lost their genuine sense of discipleship of the Risen Lord. And this could equally be a possibility in our own time in which we can be swayed by political forces that use the term Christian to describe their aspirations, but which, in their conduct, are in no way Christian. Of course, this is always a tendency for us. we…
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Australia Day – 26 January 2025
We often refer to the ‘word of the year’ – a word that encapsulates so much of the tenor and mood of a year that has gone. The word for 2024? “Brain-rot.”[1] Proposed by Oxford University Press, it’s a rather shocking indictment of where we. As the publishing house described, ‘brain rot’ is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”. Oxford University Press goes on to explain, “The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s…
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3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 26 January 2025
Every day the images of people who suffer are put before us – whether it be in Gaza, or Ukraine, or even in our own country. In some ways we become inoculated against what we see. We turn over the channel, and go back to what we were doing. We look for something more entertaining, not perhaps alluding to the fact that news broadcasts on television and social media are edited in such a way to keep us entertained in the first place. The problems are too big for us to think about, the places of which they speak too far away, too foreign. And even though we shake our heads by the…
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Christmas 2024
It is often remarked that it is children who make Christmas. Often, they are at the centre of our thoughts and practices when we come to celebrate Christmas – whether it be our own children, or grandchildren, nieces or nephews. Christmas is an enchanting time for children – they are full of expectation and excitement. Their sense of wonder at the decorations, the music, the family customs, Santa Claus, and our gift-giving are all infectious. We lead them to the crib, and we bend down to their level and see the scene through their eyes. The characters of Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus, the shepherds, the wise men and…
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Fourth Sunday of Advent – 22 December 2024
The season of Advent that we have been celebrating in the time leading up to the celebration of Christmas this week is a season characterized by hope – the theme of the Year of Jubilee which Pope Francis will open on 24 December, Christmas Eve. It has often struck me that in Australia we have our own particular experience of hope. From penal settlement and convict experience, through to the mythology of the pioneer farmer, and to the shores of Gallipoli, the experience of so many migrants beginning life anew here, and extending even to our fascination with sport, Australians, historically, have defined themselves as those who often find themselves…
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First Sunday of Advent – 1 December 2024
There used to be a Chinese curse which went, “May you live in interesting times!” It is hard to know whether we live under this curse at this time, but we certainly live in a time of great change. As Pope Francis himself remarked recently, it is not even that we live in an era of change, but that we live in a change of era. And it is this that make the times even more interesting. Because of the uncertainty of change and the insecurity that pervasive change engenders in most of us, it is easy to resist change and to defend ourselves from its demands in different ways. We can develop a…
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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 10 November 2024
There is something that may strike us as quite peculiar in this Gospel story. Why would someone so poor put all she had to live on to support something which was already endowed by the wealthy and powerful? Why would she do it? This was not a tax: the woman was not going to be punished for not “paying up.” And yet of her own accord the widow puts what is for her an extraordinary sum of money into the treasury. Surely, one would think, she would have considered herself exempt. The money she put in was probably even that which she had gained from begging. Why then give it…
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31st Sunday in Ordinary Time – 3 November 2024
In his first encyclical Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI drew our attention particularly to the unity of faith and life, in which, as he wrote, “the usual contraposition between worship and ethics falls apart” (n. 14). As he expressed, “Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.”[1] It is a fitting commentary on the gospel that is given us to today in which the love of God and the love of each other are brought…
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30th Sunday of Ordinary Time – 27 October 2024
In the history of Australian art a new development took place around the end of the 19th century. It was called the Heidelberg School, and listed such artists as Streeton, McCubbin, Roberts, Conder and Withers. These artists’ work was very different from that which had come before it: the work of people like Glover, Martens and Chavalier. The scenes were different, the colours even more so. To set an example of each side by side would dramatically highlight the differences. Of course the Heidelberg school coincided with the rise in Australian nationalism in the 1880s and 90s. People were beginning to see the country in which they were living differently. …