In his book, “Beyond Belief,” Hugh McKay, the Australian social researcher outlined the deep vein of ambivalence about religion that runs through Australian society: on the one hand many Australians do not actively worship, yet they still like to see local churches operating, and we still turn to churches to baptise our children and to educate them.[1]  Around two thirds of Australians say we believe in God or some ‘higher power’, but fewer than one in ten of us attend church weekly.  So those of us gathered here for Mass are an extraordinary minority no matter how mainstream we might consider ourselves to be.  And all of his means 90% of the population…

For a long time, it has been the social rule in Australia that the topics of religion and politics are not to be raised in polite conversation.  For a great deal of our history, we have also had the adage that politics and religion don’t mix, and that they, therefore, should be kept quite separate.  And so, in Australia, particularly, when religious leaders have started talking about political or economic matters many of us start feeling uneasy, if not even embarrassed.  In our own time, however, we have a strange reversal of this history for now it is not uncommon for political leaders to appeal to religious principles to stir the population to…

We might recall the film, “Dead Poets Society” starring the late Robyn Williams as a slightly eccentric schoolteacher.  At his school, he mentored a group of students into realising their potential.  The catchcry of the film, Carpe Diem, “Seize the Day”, became somewhat famous in itself and got to be widely used.  The film was very much a portrayal of the philosophy of Henry Thoreau.  Thoreau was a well-known American humanist philosopher of the 19th century. His famous work was called, Walden, and was an account of him leaving the city and retiring to the side of Walden Pond in the north-east of the United States at which he sought…

We are now just halfway through our celebration of our Year of Jubilee, opened by Pope Francis last December but to be concluded by Pope Leo at year’s end. Throughout, we have had the theme of Hope greet us each time we come to our church with its invitation that we renew the hope in our hearts through our discipleship of the Risen Christ and most importantly that we become those who can give hope to others in a world in which hope is in short supply, and becoming increasingly so. A Year of Jubilee – following the pattern of Jubilee into which the Book of Leviticus calls the people…

One of the things in which I have recently taken an interest in my own life of prayer are the questions that we discover in the texts of the Gospel.  It is quite a fascinating exercise to go through the texts and identify the questions that are posed in them.  I have come to recognise that they have great significance and indeed establish the scaffolding, if you like, of our discipleship of Jesus.   One of the most important questions that we come across is the haunting question at the heart of this account we here today: “Who is my neighbour?”  it is a question which is meant to take hold of us, and…