From time to time in life, disillusionment can settle upon us. Why can’t we and others live up to the ideals that are important to us? Why can’t things simply be as they should be? Why can’t people live as we hope they might? We can be left wondering whether our ideals are ever really possible, whether the world for which we hope can ever be realised. Perhaps this experience has a particular resonance for us as we prepare to enter the Season of Creation, which begins this week on 1 September and continues until the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on 4 October. It is the season, given by…

In his novel, The Great World, the Australian writer, David Malouf talks of ‘the little sacraments of daily existence – “all those unique and repeatable events, . . . movements of the heart and intimations of the close but inexpressible grandeur and terror of things, that is our other history, the one that goes on, in a quiet way, under the noise and chatter of events and is the major part of what happens each day in the life of the planet, and has been from the beginning.”[1]  Malouf is alluding to the flow of life that goes on underneath the façade of life, under all the things that occur through the exercise of…

These weeks will not be easy for us as the Church in Australia. Last week the trial of the former Bishop of Broome commenced in Perth. On Monday morning an ICAC inquiry will commence involving a number of Catholic entities. We do not know how wide the scope of the inquiry may be caste.   At such a time, there can be a temptation to lose heart. The scrutiny directed towards our communities can so dominate our vision that we begin to believe there is little else to see. It is understandable. Wounds demand our attention. Yet if we look only at the wounds, we can miss the quiet work of…

We do not have to look very far to recognise that evil is a real presence in our world. It confronts us every day. We see it in the continuing wars that devastate nations and uproot families; in acts of terrorism and violence; in the growing disregard for human life; in the exploitation of the vulnerable through human trafficking and modern slavery; in the loneliness that silently claims so many lives; in the deep polarisation that fractures communities; and increasingly in a digital world where misinformation, manipulation, anonymous cruelty and the distortion of truth can spread around the globe in moments. Yet if we are honest, we know that evil…

The Australian social researcher, Hugh Mackay once gave a reflection on how difficult it is to get other people to hear what we are trying to say.[1]  As he observed, how many times have we said in frustration, “If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a hundred times.  It just seems to go in one ear and out the other!”  As Mackay says, what we may be really saying, of course, is, “Guess what, I know a message that never works.  It doesn’t seem to matter how often I say it; it never has any effect on the people I’m talking to.  But I don’t give up easily.  It’s…

Today, the Church in Australia celebrates National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday. We give thanks for the oldest continuing culture on earth and for the profound gift that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples offer to the whole Church. Their witness reminds us that God was already at work in this land long before the Gospel was first proclaimed here.  And in their own tradition we are given a way to enter Jesus’ message today. Jesus says: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest . . . Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest…

Around this time, twenty-one years ago, nine Catholic monks were martyred in Algeria. Thay were Trappist monks who got caught in a conflict not of their making. Kidnapped amidst the violence of civil war and eventually executed, their deaths might have become simply one more tragic footnote in a long history of innocent victims of violence. Yet what continues to move people around the world about them is not simply the manner of their deaths, but the way they lived. The monks knew the risks. They could have left. Others urged them to leave. Yet they remained among the Muslim people whom they had come to love and serve. They…

Today the Church throughout the world celebrates the great feast of Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. One of the most beautiful feasts of the Christian year,  it invites us to contemplate the mystery that lies at the very heart of our faith: the gift of Christ himself in the Eucharist.  Thus as we begin our devotion today, it is important to reflect on what it is that we are doing and why. The great tragedy would be if we came to Mass every week, received Communion faithfully, adored the Blessed Sacrament reverently, and yet remained fundamentally unchanged.  For the Eucharist is not simply an object…