• Homilies,  Sanctoral

    Solemnity of the Assumption 2022

    Some weeks ago, if we were sufficiently sensitive, we may have noticed that the character of the light during the day had changed as it does around this time every year. There is a day around the end of July where something changes. This year I noticed it on Tuesday 26 July. Now, a little while later something also begins to shift in the landscape around us. In our gardens and along the sides of the road we will notice the wattles coming into bloom. Ribbons of glorious yellow now thread their way along our highways. The blooming of the wattles had a special significance for our aboriginal brothers and…

  • Homilies,  Sanctoral

    1 January 2022 – Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

    One of the most significant lessons that I have learnt in life is about the necessity and power of paradox in our lives. Spiritual experience attends to sets of opposites; it does not seek to resolve them. In the paradoxes and the intersections of our life we are, as one writer puts it, we are “stretched out amid the opposites in [our] life, between hanging on and letting go, between involvement and surrender, between deep engagement and gentle detachment.  This is [our] crucifixion and [our] joy. It is [our] crucible in all its insecurity and beauty, fragility and possibility.”[1]   A problem is to be solved. A paradox, on the other, is…

  • Homilies,  Sanctoral

    Sunday 15 August – Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

    The greatest show on earth has just concluded in Tokyo even though it could not have the crowds we normally associate with the Olympics. Nonetheless, the Olympics came for us at an opportune time, and in this time of isolation they brought us together and they gave us some relief from the constrictions of the current lockdown. We watched many extraordinary stories of human achievement.  There were stories of amazing success and bitter failures – stories to inspire us as we marvel at what the human body can achieve.  The strength, flexibility and skill of the athletes left us in awe as will the stories of lifetimes of dedication, commitment and discipline…

  • Homilies,  Sanctoral

    Feastday of St Mary of the Cross Mackillop – 8 August 2021

    Soon after the final declaration of Mary’s sanctity was given in Rome, 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 struggling to…

  • Homilies,  Sanctoral

    Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1 January 2021

    One of the most significant lessons that I have learnt in life is about the necessity and power of paradox in our lives. Spiritual experience attends to sets of opposites; it does not seek to resolve them. In the paradoxes and the intersections of our life we are, as one writer puts it, we are “stretched out amid the opposites in [our] life, between hanging on and letting go, between involvement and surrender, between deep engagement and gentle detachment.  This is [our] crucifixion and [our] joy. It is [our] crucible in all its insecurity and beauty, fragility and possibility.”[1]   Our Christian spiritual framework lives and breathes irreducible sets of tensions – humanity…

  • Homilies,  Sanctoral

    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,…

  • Sanctoral

    Ash Wednesday 2020

    The Church has begun its annual season of Lent:  the time of preparation leading up to the festival of Easter the greatest of all Christian celebrations.  We can never separate this period upon which we are embarking today from the celebration of Easter, just as we can never separate Easter itself from the festival of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, which is celebrated seven weeks later.  We have begun the one journey, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Pentecost Sunday:  our annual celebration of what is most important in our Christian life:  the death and resurrection of Jesus.   As Christians we are particularly mindful that we are constantly on a journey ‘from’…

  • Sanctoral

    Presentation of the Lord

    Being the fortieth day since Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Church today recalls his Presentation in the Temple, the occasion on which his parents made the sacrifice required by Jewish law at the birth of a first son.  Traditionally, it is also the day on which the Church blesses candles, bearers of light and symbols of dedication. Hence the word Candlemas is another word for this feast day. Perhaps it is an opportunity then to reflect on the significance of the humble candle, and the most extraordinary recognition all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish its simple, flickering fragile light. The lighting of candles seems…

  • Sanctoral

    Australia Day 2020

    A little later in the year, towards the end of May, the 54th World Communications Day will be celebrated. However, just a few days ago on 24 January, the feastday of Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, Pope Francis released his annual message on communications.[1] For us celebrating Australia Day this weekend, his emphasis this year on the importance and power of story might perhaps help us enter our national celebration. The Pope recounts our natural instinct for stories. “From childhood we hunger for stories just as we hunger for food. Stories influence our lives, whether in the form of fairy tales, novels, films, songs, news, even if we do not…

  • Sanctoral

    1 January – Mary Mother of God

    Just before I left Melbourne twenty years ago, I enjoyed lunch with some friends including the Australian artist, Michael Leunig. We fell to talking about the culture of Sydney to which I was headed, and, given the time of the year, the conversation turned to Sydney’s forthcoming new year’s celebrations and the obsession that Sydney has for the “bigger and better” fireworks display every year. “What must Sydney be hiding from?” was the comment of Leunig’s that I recall so clearly. The memory of his observation haunted me last night as the insistence on the Harbour party triumphed whilst so many were suffering so close by. Personally, I could not…

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