-
First Sunday of Advent – 3 December 2023
There is a magic in every beginning, wrote the German philosopher Herman Hesse.[1] How true this is when we experience the birth of our children, when we hold a newborn baby in our arms, when we delight in the pure wonder and sense of play evidenced in young children. When we gaze upon a child we are caught intensely between an immediate experience of the present and a heightened expectation of the future. And I think it is true that in every child, God waits for us to stir again within us the sense of new beginnings, of fresh possibilities, of awakening hopes. The invitation that God sets before us is to become…
-
Christ the King – 2021
Historically, the feast of Christ the King, which we celebrate on this the last Sunday of our liturgical year, is a recently initiated celebration, stemming from the late 19th century when the Church had been displaced from the centre of power but was desperately seeking to regain its influence. The celebration of the feast acted as a defiant reminder to the emerging independent social and political systems where the ‘real power’ lay, so to speak. Today the feast can speak of a sovereignty and a rule in imagery that can sound quaint to our own ears. Despite the difficulties of the history of the feast day, Jesus himself does not…
-
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021. Filipino-Australian Catholic Community of the Central Coast Commemorative Mass for San Pedro Calungsod and San Lorenzo Ruiz
The year now, of course, has the sense of beginning to wind up. The delayed HSC exams are unfolding, the committees we might be on are having their final meetings for the year, the diaries are filling up with all the end of year social activities we try and fit in before Christmas. So, too, the Church’s liturgical year is coming to its end. Next week it comes to its finality in the celebration of Christ the King, and then we begin a new year in the life of our Church with the season of Advent. As we do come to the end of our liturgical year we are invited…
-
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
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…
-
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
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…
-
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
The mystic, Chardin wrote, “Seeing. We might say that the whole of life is in that verb . . . To see more is really to become more. Deeper vision is really deeper being. [1] It is, however, no simple thing to see reality as it is. And yet, seeing reality – as it is – is the most important part of becoming whole and holy. It is the foundation stone. That is why as Christians we commit our whole life to the task. Seeing reality – as it is – is the means into truthfulness, and it is the truth which sets us free. Often, however, we are afraid…
-
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
One of the most memorable Masses I have attended was in a little parish church in the Chianti district of Tuscany. In many ways it was a rather ordinary liturgy but what made it extraordinary for me was the presence on the sanctuary throughout the Mass of a Downs Syndrome man and an intellectually disabled man. They were there in the form of altar servers although most of the work was done by the intellectually disabled man. Nonetheless the Downs Syndrome man was with the priest throughout the liturgy: sitting beside him high on the presidential step and even standing beside him throughout the Eucharistic Prayer. That was the amusing part because at this…
-
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
In so many ways the Gospel reverses the ordinary way that we think about things. It certainly reversed the ordinary expectations that first century Palestinians had about God and the signs of God’s favour. In the society of the time wealth was a sign of God’s favour, a sign of God’s blessing. The underlying logic ran that the wealthier you were the more God was smiling on you. Therefore, those who were poor were looked upon as those who had missed out on the blessing of God, and at worst, who were cursed. Jesus, however, confronts this logic. And he confronts this logic by putting forward poverty as a virtue. The first hearers of the…
-
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
In a beautiful comment on the gospel for this Sunday Pope Francis observed some year ago: “God did not want to come into the world other than through a family. God did not want to draw near to humanity other than through a home. God did not want any other name for Himself than Emmanuel. He is ‘God with us’. . . He is the God who from the very beginning of creation said: ‘It is not good for man to be alone’. We can add: it is not good for woman to be alone, it is not good for children, the elderly or the young to be alone. It…
-
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2021
We have come to the football finals. For the teams and the supporters they have one thing in mind, and everything else falls in accordingly. Single mindedness is a quality we often associate with sport. It’s the very attribute that brings excellence of performance and success. Some call sport the religion of Australians, but, of course, sport is a very different experience than faith. In sport we get what we put into it. Our skill grows in proportion to the amount of dedicated training we apply. In sport we master a range of techniques and then through the continual exercise of those skills we perfect them and have them in our arsenal to apply at…
Homily Podcasts