The award-winning film, Of Gods and Men, tells the true story of seven French Catholic monks living in war torn Algeria in the 1990s. It is the story of a community of men living peacefully in the Atlas Mountains. Inevitably the civil war and the bloodshed that had gripped the country for many years also surrounded them.  Eventually they were kidnapped and were held hostage by Algerian extremists.  They disappear and sometime later their heads are discovered. What made their deaths remarkable is not so much that they, like so many through the 1990s, got caught up in the political strife of Algeria but that they had made the conscious decision to stay…

A key focus for the Gospel of Matthew is the relationships that constitute the Christian community.  There is a way of living together and a way of relating to one another that is reflective of the Kingdom of God as inaugurated by Jesus, and that is ultimately indicative of the life of God, and there is a way of living and of relating that is not as illustrative.  Fear, suspicion, resentment, bitterness draw people away from one another.  Listening, humility, openness and dialogue bring people together.  It is easy to identify which side of the ledger speaks of the life of God, and which does not. Writing in the 6th century, St. Benedict who drew…

In the anxiety with which we are living at this time, our uncertainty can easily translate into despondency. We see video clips of large sporting events, gatherings of people socializing and enjoying life, rallies of one kind or another, and we wonder when we will ever experience these opportunities again. Our Year 12 students are being denied the many rituals that mark the end of their school years. We feel the constraint of not being able to be with our families and friends who are interstate or overseas, especially at times of sickness and death. We are acknowledging that our experience of the pandemic will not be over any time…

Anxiety may well be observed as one of the defining characteristics of our age. Clearly, we are anxious about the situation of the pandemic in which we discover ourselves. So much that is uncertain stretches out before us.  And yet, what makes this worse, I think, is a deeper anxiety that we were carrying even before we had to confront the coronavirus. Whilst, on the one hand, perhaps as never before, we have the opportunity to celebrate individuality and diversity perhaps as never before have we been less sure about who we are. In the musical, The Gondaliers Gilbert and Sullivan once suggested ‑ rather prophetically I think of our own 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…

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…

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’…

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…