Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy Annual Conference 2013

This week, June 17-21 2013, I’ll be attending the Year of Faith 2013 Annual Conference of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy.

The main Conference speaker will be Fr Tim Finigan of The Hermeneutic of Continuity fame.  Also speaking will be Bishop Basil Meeking, emeritus of Christchurch, and Fr John Flader.  Fr Finigan’s talks will explore Vatican II, a theme especially appropriate for the Year of Faith 2012-2013, commemorating fifty years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Fr Finigan will give a public lecture which is open to all, at the Cardinal Knox Centre, 383 Albert Street, East Melbourne on Wednesday 19 June 2013 at 7.30pm.  The topic will be: The Church, Sacrament and People of God.  All are welcome.

Membership in the ACCC is open to all clergy and seminarians who are in Australia and New Zealand.  Laity and religious are welcomed as associate members.  Laity and clergy outside Australia and New Zealand are welcome to suscribe to our Journal, The Priest, which is published twice each year.  More information here.

Annual Catholic Campaign 2013

Throughout the parishes of the Archdiocese of Brisbane today, we conducted the Annual Catholic Campaign.  Today’s appeal is a new one, replacing four different appeals that have been held each year.  Funds from the Annual Catholic Campaign support Holy Spirit Seminary, Banyo, for the formation of priests, the Priests Foundation, for the care of sick and retired priests, Centacare, the Archdiocese’s social outreach arm, and also the Mary MacKillop Brisbane Catholic School Access Fund, which helps families who may otherwise be unable to afford a Catholic education for their children.

One small incentive to sign up for regular giving is that you will be automatically enrolled in the Living Faith Society, and four times a year will receive the “Living Faith” devotional, which contains reflections for each day of the year.

In the Archbishop’s message for today, he stated that the primary giving of Catholics is rightly directed toward our parish communities.  However, there are many aspects of mission than any one parish would not be able to provide.  Working together we can respond to many different needs, and serve Christ in those needing assistance.

http://www.catholicfoundation.org.au/

 

Pregnancy Crisis Incorporated Fundraising Lunch

Pregnancy Crisis Incorporated Fundraising Lunch – Saturday 15 June 2013

On Saturday (15 June 2013) I was pleased to be able to attend the fundraising lunch for Pregnancy Crisis Incorporated.  PCI is a Brisbane-based charity founded to provide practical support for women facing crisis pregnancies.  This support includes a residential safe-house.  Women assisted by PCI have often been abandoned by partners, or face the threat of violence if they proceed with a pregnancy.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane was the guest speaker at Saturday’s lunch and he gave a very stirring address, reminding us that work in the pro-life movement is a proclamation of Easter.  PCI is one of the ways that the Church witnesses to Easter.  He reminded us that death is not God’s language, and the last word of God is life.  Abortion is not the language of God, because abortion is a death that leads to more death.  The work of PCI is a proclamation that life is a blessing and not a curse.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge speaking at the Pregnancy Crisis Incorporated Fundraising Lunch – Saturday 15 June 2013

He recalled that we have grown used to a culture of rights, which is largely good.  However, abortion is an attack on the very right on which all other rights are predicated: i.e. the right to life.  He urged us to see our work as a protest against the numbing of conscience in our society, and also a protest against making language slippery which contributes to the numbing of conscience: i.e. calling abortions “terminations.”

PCI relies entirely on good-will offerings of supporters.  You can download a donation form here: PCI Donation Form

As well as financial support, PCI also needs more volunteer support workers to assist clients.  To find out more, please email the charity at pcinc@bigpond.com or phone 1300 777 777.

http://www.pregnancycrisis.com.au/index.html

Homeschooling families’ Mass

One of the ‘hats’ I wear – with the Archbishop’s blessing – is to provide some chaplaincy support to homeschooling families.  We will be having monthly Masses commencing in July 2013.

Our first Mass together will be on Saturday 13th July 2013, at 9am at Immaculate Conception Church, Halle Street, Everton Park.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation will be available after Mass.

All are welcome.

PDF of the flyer for the July 2013 Mass: Homeschool FamiliesMassJuly 13

DATE CLAIMER: We are also planning a “Pilgrimage to the Cathedral” in order to obtain the plenary indulgence for the Year of Faith, which will include Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral on Saturday 7th September 2013 at 9am.

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – 9 June 2013

Homily for Mass – Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm;  Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

8/9 June 2013

(Readings: 1 Kings 17:17-24;  Ps 29;  Gal 1:11-19;  Lk 7:11-17)

Our First Reading and Gospel today are very similar.  In both, a son has died, leaving a widow alone in the world.  Both sons are brought back to life, and this act causes those who witness it to express belief in God who has brought the miracle about.  What is different, though, is the absence – in the Gospel – of any reference to Jesus praying.  In the First Reading, Elijah turns the grief and anger of the widowed mother into a prayer of petition to God – and God acts in response to the prayer and the ritual that Elijah performs.

 In the Gospel Jesus acts directly: he touches the wooden plank that the dead man is laid on, and he tells him directly to get up.  The lack of reference to prayer indicates that Jesus “is not just another prophet, however great.  This is the incarnate Word whose humanity has been taken into complete union with the person of God the Son, so that the human words and actions of Jesus Christ are the words and actions humanly expressed, of God himself.” (1)

 We see this confirmed in the reactions to the miracles.  In the First Reading, the mother of the raised son declares that she now believes that Elijah is “a man of God” and that the word of the Lord in his mouth is the truth.  In the Gospel the crowd declares that “a great prophet has appeared among us,” and then they go further: “God has visited his people.”

 Jesus shows us the tenderness of God, the tender mercy of our God.  In many of the healing stories, the miracle is worked because the one asking for the healing demonstrates faith in Jesus’ ability to cure and heal.  But no demonstration of faith is given by the widow of today’s Gospel.  Rather, through Jesus’ actions we see divine compassion itself opened for this poor woman in her bereavement.  This is a theme that we see in Luke’s Gospel: that God has a special care for the orphan and the widow.

 This is a good reminder to us that it is through acts of compassion that God wants to show that he is visiting his people.  “The world – even non-Christians – recognized the visitation of God through the compassionate acts of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and her Missionaries of Charity.” (2)  Loving action is what speaks to people’s hearts more than anything else.

 People naturally ask when considering stories like these: why isn’t the mercy of God constantly shown to widows when they suffer losses like these?  If we think about it, human life would become merely a puppet show if God was to constantly and always suspend the laws of nature.  But when God did appear in human flesh – and when God continues to work miracles today – the corner of a veil is lifted so that we can see the direction of God’s love and end to which God’s love leads us.  These things point us to the kingdom of heaven, and help us to keep looking in that direction.  In the third Eucharistic prayer in Masses for the dead we pray that in God’s kingdom “we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.” (1)

 In our second reading Saint Paul speaks of his conversion in his own words.  We’re probably more used to hearing St Luke’s versions that we have in the Acts of the Apostles.  In speaking about himself, St Paul’s version is a little more discreet, and he lets us know that it took him some time to come to grips with what had happened.  He had believed he was doing a holy thing by persecuting the Christians, and he believed that God was on his side.  But his conversion made him realize that God was with the Christians, not standing behind Paul.  This was such an about face that it seems it took Paul about three years to come to grips with it: he went first to Arabia after his conversion, then to Damascus – and it was three years before he met any of the other Apostles.

 If we are open to hearing the Word of the Lord in our lives, then we will constantly hear a call to conversion.  And that means that we will come to realize that some of the things we once believed are wrong;  and we will also come to realize that some aspects of our life and lifestyle are similarly wrong, and need to change.  This is not easy, and it doesn’t necessarily happen overnight.  Perhaps hearing of the three years Saint Paul spent adjusting to his conversion can give us courage to be patient with ourselves and others in the work of conversion to Christ.  The work of repenting and believing the Gospel takes time, and is accomplished in small, concrete steps, even after dramatic realizations of the truth.  Today we can ask the intercession of Saint Paul for us to be open to hear the truth of God’s Word to us, and for the courage to put that truth into action in our lives.  God is compassionate to us as he sees our attempts to come closer to him, just as he was and is compassionate to the orphan and widows.  May we live that compassion in our own lives, and be his compassion in our world today.

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(1) Aidan Nichols OP, Year of the Lord’s Favour: A Homiliary for the Roman Liturgy, Volume 3, The Temporal Cycle: Sundays through the Year (Balwyn, VIC: Freedom Publishing Australia, 2012), pp. 51-52.

(2) 365 Days with the Lord: Liturgical Biblical Diary, 2013.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ [Corpus Christi] (C) – 2 June 2013

Homily for Mass – The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ [Corpus Christi] (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

2 June 2013

(Readings: Gen 14:18-20;  Ps 109;  1 Cor 11:23-26;  Lk 9:11-17)

 

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ there are so many different aspects of the Eucharist that we could meditate on.  We recall that in the Constitution on the Liturgy, the fathers of Vatican II taught: “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper” (SC, 10).  Everything we do as a Church is meant to draw people into faith, into communion with the Lord, so that ultimately they will praise him in the midst of the sons and daughters of God, and share in the Lord’s Supper.  The same council fathers, in the Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, described the eucharist as the source and summit (or the fount and apex) of the whole Christian life (LG, 11).  Today is a good reminder to us of the esteem in which we should hold the celebration of Sunday Mass, and of our obligation to participate in Mass every Sunday.

Sunday Mass is the ongoing way that God shapes us as his sons and daughters.  We are kept in lively communion with our brothers and sisters in the faith;  we are nourished by the Holy Word of God in the scriptures;  we are assisted by the ministry of the Church’s pastors, and through them united with the church dispersed through the whole world – all in communion with the successor of St Peter.  The high point of our participation in Sunday Mass is our reception of holy communion – the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are nourished by his Body so that we can be his body in the world.  He gives us sacramental grace to assist us in all that we do, and to help us to live the virtues.

It has always been the Catholic tradition that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is carried to those who cannot be present at Mass due to illness and infirmity.  Some of you share in that wonderful ministry of taking Holy Communion to the sick and the housebound, and you would know how grateful they are to be able to receive Our Lord, and to know that they are united with us in His Body and Blood.

Because of the desire of the Church always to be able to take Our Lord in Holy Communion to the sick, and even to the dying so that they may receive Him as food for their final journey to eternity, the Blessed Sacrament is kept in the tabernacles of all our churches.  What a consolation of the faith this is – that the sacramental presence of Jesus is always present with us in our churches, so that we can be near to him as he is to us.  It’s one of the things that makes our churches such special places;  places that we can always come to to pray, to bring our lives to Jesus, to cast before him our needs and petitions.

Our feast day today is an opportunity for us to remember the love that we should show to Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament.  The first thing we do upon entering the Church should be to greet Our Lord;  to pause for at least a moment in prayer before Him present in the tabernacle.  It is good to remember that whenever we pass before the tabernacle we are to reverence Jesus with a genuflection: bending the knee before him.  Those who can’t physically perform that gesture may of course make a deep bow from the waist.

The Archbishop wrote to the clergy recently about Liturgical matters, and one of the things he asked us to address is the “interplay between sound and silence” in the liturgy, and he noted that “our liturgy tends to have become wordy and noisy, with silence often minimal or absent.  [He said] this is particularly so before Mass when people spontaneously (and quite loudly) speak in the Church.”  The Archbishop invited the clergy to consider ways of inviting the people to a time of silence before the Entrance Song begins.  So we should be conscious that people have come to church to pray, and so we should keep a spirit of reverence in the church, and not distract people from prayer by unnecessary activity or talking (1).

Those who do carry the Blessed Sacrament to the sick and housebound should also consider what a special thing they are doing, and not show any disrespect to Our Lord while carrying him.  The Blessed Sacrament should be taken straight to the sick or housebound person.  If it is necessary to keep the sacrament for a brief time at home before visiting the sick, then it should be put in a dignified spot – perhaps on a prayer table or something similar – and you should always be conscious that Jesus is present.

 To conclude … Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta is well-known for her work amongst the poor.  The images of her tending to the sick, the destitute, and the dying, are very familiar.  What is not as often reported is that Mother Teresa – and indeed all her sisters –  every day spent many hours in adoration before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  He was her strength for all she did, and she opened herself to him in the Eucharist – both in the celebration of the Mass, and in its extension through Eucharistic adoration (2).

When we stay close to Jesus in the ways he has provided for us to remain with him, then miracles will happen like the one that he worked through the hands of the disciples when they fed the five thousand from just a few loaves and fishes, and like what Jesus was able to accomplish through the work of a poor Albanian nun, Blessed Mother Teresa.

Today we give thanks to God for the gift of the Eucharist.  May we always show our thanks and love for this awesome mystery by our reverence towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament;  by spending time in prayer before Him;  by receiving Him worthily and to quickly have recourse to the Sacrament of Confession when we sin seriously so as not to receive Our Lord unworthily or sacrilegiously;  and above all, having received such great a gift, that we take his love and blessings to the world by living as His Body, and being the voice through which He speaks His love, and the hands by which He extends His love to those for whom He lived and died.

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(1) Archbishop Mark Coleridge’s recent letter to clergy about the Sacred Liturgy can be found here: Abp Coleridge to clergy RE liturgy 2013 05

(2) See also: “When did Mother Teresa begin daily Eucharistic adoration with her Sisters?” http://www.eucharisticfamilyrosary.com/blog/mother_teresa_daily_eucharistic_adoration/

 

 

News from Archbishop Coleridge

Archbishop Coleridge has issued a letter to the clergy, religious and lay faithful of the Archdiocese of Brisbane regarding two matters: The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, and the alleged private revelations of Maria Divine Mercy.

The two matters are completely unrelated – but both are important messages.

The letter can be found here: Abp Coleridge – Ordinariate, and Maria Divine Mercy

The Most Holy Trinity (C) – 26 May 2013

Homily for Mass – Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm;  Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

25/26 May 2013

[Readings: Prov 8:22-31;  Ps 8:4-9;  Rom 5:1-5]

To begin, a small advertisement: next Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – Corpus Christi.  To celebrate the feast and to give worship to Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament, Archbishop Coleridge will lead and preach at the Corpus Christi procession at Nudgee Junior College at Indooroopilly at 2pm next Sunday afternoon.  All are most welcome.

+ + +

Over the years I have often begun my homily for this Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity with the anecdote that in at least one religious order, sermons on Trinity Sunday were forbidden in order to prevent the preacher straying into heresy when speaking of the mystery of the Trinity … so I hope and pray that the Lord will protect my words and your ears and keep us on the right path!

 The mystery of the Trinity sets Christianity apart.  The precise teaching about the nature of God took the Church some time to arrive at, but it is very evident in the Scriptures and in what Jesus revealed about himself as the Son of the eternal Father made flesh, and about the Holy Spirit.  Our Catechism teaches us: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith” (CCC, 234).

 The preface of this Mass teaches us that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, one Lord: not in the unity of a single person, but in a Trinity of one substance.  The three Persons are equal in glory and majesty.

 The mystery of the Trinity teaches us that in God there is a community of Persons, intimately united in undivided love.  This eternal love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not contained within itself but issues forth.  The first revelation of this God is in the work of creation.  We have only to look around and see the traces and print of God in the grandeur of the created world.  The pinnacle of creation is the creation of human beings: God made people in His own image.  And so, human life – in a special way – is a reflection of the life of God, since we are made in God’s image.

Another movement of God was in the redemption of mankind, accomplished by the incarnation of the eternal Son of God.  This has allowed human beings to know the sure path of return to the God who created us.  In the Son of God becoming human we have someone just like ourselves to teach us, and so that we can pattern our lives after his.  In Jesus, God humbled himself to share in our humanity, so that we might come to share in his divinity.  And then in yet another movement of God we have the sanctification of people, as the living Spirit of God is sent to dwell in human hearts to make us live according to the mind of God.  The Spirit is sent to us so that the power within us is the power of God himself.  God himself helps us to live as God calls us to live.  Without this help, we wouldn’t be able to achieve much.

 We are called to live the life of the Blessed Trinity.  Indeed, we already have that life within us by virtue of Baptism.  But for our part, we are called to make that life that is within us the living principle of our lives, to make it grow, to make it more evident, to undo whatever opposes that life or keeps it from developing and bearing fruit.

 There are various ways that we are called to share in and make known the life of the Blessed Trinity.  One of those ways is Christian marriage.  When a Christian man and woman marry, there arises an unbreakable bond between them.  They are called to live in undivided and perpetual love.  The ‘trinity’ of Christian marriage is seen when the love of husband and wife issues forth in children.  Their love is thereby creative and fruitful.  There is a call, therefore, for Christian married couples to make their lives resemble more and more the life and love of God, of which their married love is a sign and symbol, indeed a sacrament.

 “When couples begin to look upon themselves and their relationship in [a] Trinitarian light, [and] upon their bond of love which is sealed in the sacrament of [marriage], the depth and meaning of the lifetime commitment they have made to one another takes on a profound significance.  [Their] marriage is to be modeled after the three divine Persons of the Trinity whose gift of themselves is one of totality, unity, and fidelity.  Thus Christian marriage should reflect these same traits (1):  “totality, by which the spouses give themselves to each other mutually in every aspect of their person, physical and spiritual; unity which makes them “one flesh” (Gen 2:24); indissolubility and fidelity which the definitive mutual giving of self requires; the fruitfulness to which this naturally opens itself” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n. 217).

 In the Church, each parish community is meant to be a manifestation of the life of the Blessed Trinity.  We are called to be united in bonds of love;  to be a real community wherein people may encounter the God of love who heals, reconciles, and builds up.  We are meant to be places where people are reminded of their dignity, being made in the image of God; where they can hear the life-giving Word spoken and revealed by Jesus the Son;  and where the Spirit can vivify them through the celebration of the sacraments.

 The mystery of the Trinity is the living principle of the Church, and of our lives both within the Church and in the world.  Let’s pray as we offer Mass tonight that our lives will reflect more and more the life of the Blessed Trinity, as we are both the beneficiaries of his love, and also sharers in God’s work of creation, redemption and sanctification.

 (1)  F. K. Bartells, “The Most Holy Trinity: Supreme Model for Family And Marriage,” http://www.catholic.org/hf/love/story.php?id=37200

Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament

Next Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi).  This feast celebrates one of our treasures: the sacramental presence of Jesus – body, blood, soul, and divinity – in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.  He is our food for the journey, and what a consolation it is to have his Eucharistic Presence with us in all the tabernacles of our Churches.

If you are in Brisbane, you have an extra opportunity to celebrate this mystery with the visit of Missionaries of the Holy Eucharist Father David Nugent and seminarian Barry Braum, who will be leading a series of retreats and workshops over the coming weeks.  There are plenty of opportunities for you to hear them.  Below is the program and information.

Program for Fr David Nugent MSE and seminarian Barry Braum: Brisbane, 2013 THEME running through these days will be on different moments of the public life of Jesus Christ.
1st June Villa Maria	Saturday	Villa Maria All Day Retreat – Hostel Chapel Mass 9am – Retreat 11am – 4pm
2nd June	Sunday	Corpus Christi Procession – Indooroopilly
3rd June	Monday	10am – 12noon	Workshop
Villa Maria		1pm – 4pm	Adoration
		4pm – 9pm	Confessions
4th June	Tuesday	9am – 12 noon	Confessions
Villa Maria		1pm – 3pm	Workshop
		4pm – 9pm	Adoration
5th June	Wednesday	8am – 12noon	Adoration
Villa Maria		1pm – 6pm	Confessions
		7pm – 9pm	Workshop
6th June	Thursday	Banyo Nundah Parish Retreat
7th June	Friday	Banyo Nundah Parish Retreat
8th June	Saturday	Banyo Nundah Parish Retreat
9th June	Sunday	Day of Adoration
10th June	Monday	10am – 12 noon	Workshop
Villa Maria		1pm – 5pm	Confessions
		6pm – 9pm	Adoration
11th June	Tuesday	10am – 12noon	Workshop
Villa Maria		1pm – 4pm	Adoration
		4pm – 9pm	Confessions
12th June	Wednesday	9am – 12 noon	Confessions
Villa Maria		1pm – 3pm	Workshop
		4pm – 9pm	Adoration
13th June	Thursday	Day of Adoration
14th June	Friday	Day of Adoration
15th June	Saturday	Marian Valley Retreat Day 9am – 4pm Theme – The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
16th June	Sunday	Marian Valley Retreat Day 9am – 4pm Theme – The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
17th June	Monday	2pm – 10pm	Confessions – Villa Maria
18th June	Tuesday	2pm – 10pm	Confessions – Villa Maria
19th June	Wednesday	Departs

FURTHER DETAILS REGARDING PROGRAM

 

Workshops – Each workshop with Fr. Nugent and Barry will be two hours duration.  The theme running through these will be on different moments of the public life of Jesus Christ.  These will be in the conference room to the left of the court yard (opposite to the tea room).We would appreciate you replying to this email or texting 0408 420320 and indicating what workshops you are hoping to attend so we have an idea of numbers.  We hope to welcome all, so want to make sure we have space.  Of course you may attend even if you do not reply.

Adoration – In the Adoration Chapel.  These are periods of time Fr. Nugent and Barry will silently adore.  Everyone is welcome to adore silently at this time as well.

Confessions – also in the Adoration Chapel confessional.  We won’t be taking bookings for this either.

Mass Times – Fr Nugent will be offering the weekend Masses Saturday 1^st June and Sunday 2^nd June in the Hostel Chapel.  And the following dates in the Adoration Chapel 7.30 am Mass on 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 10^th, 11^th, 12^th,13^th, 17^th, 18^th, 19^th. 

Villa Maria Retreat Program -  Saturday June 1^st – Adorers Retreat – All day  – Villa Maria Hostel Chapel, entrance Warren St, Fortitude Valley

9am Mass followed by adoration until 11am when Retreat begins

12.45 Lunch; 2pm Meditation; 4pm Finish with Benediction.

Please bring lunch.  Tea, coffee and drinks provided

 

 

Corpus Christi Procession – 2pm, Sunday 2^nd June, Nudgee Jnr:  Twigg St, Indooroopilly.  More information can be found on www.corpuschristibrisbane.com

World Wide Solemn Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration, simultaneously, with the Holy Father in Rome 5pm – Here in Australia it will be Monday 1am 3^rd June. 

MARIAN VALLEY, CANUNGRA – All welcome to attend.  The programme for each day is: 9.00am Meditation with Exposition. 10.40am Rosary. 11.00am Mass. 12pm Holy Hour Thanksgiving.  1pm Lunch.  2pm Meditation. 4pm Finish.

 

While the retreats are free, donations to help cover expenses and support

the Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist are always welcome.

 

* Word document of the program: Program for Fr David Nugent MSE and seminarian Barry Braum

Pentecost Sunday (C) – 19 May 2013

Homily for Mass – Pentecost Sunday (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

19 May 2013

(Readings: Acts 2:1-11;  Ps 103;  Rom 8:8-17;  Jn 14:15-16, 23-26)

I was asked to say a few words about the arrangement of the altar [at Jimboomba] tonight.  We understand the altar to be the primary symbol of Christ in a church.  A church might lack many things but it isn’t a church if it doesn’t have an altar.  The altar is either blessed if it is movable, or it is consecrated if its fixed to the floor.  As a blessed or consecrated symbol of Christ, an altar is shown reverence whenever you approach or pass before it: and that is done by bowing to it.  Furthermore it is kissed by the priest and deacon at the beginning and end of Mass.  The altar should never be used for anything other than its purpose: when you’re carrying things in the church you should never use the altar as a convenient table or resting place.  The rubrics of the missal (GIRM 117) outline how an altar is to be prepared.  It is to be covered in at least one white cloth.  The law also asks for candlesticks with lighted candles to be placed on or next to the altar: always at least two, or four, or six candles.  A seventh candle is added when the diocesan bishop is the celebrant.  Candles have an obvious symbolism of the light of Christ.  Also a cross with the figure of Christ is to be placed on or next to the altar.  The presence of the crucifix is a reminder that the altar is not only the table of the last supper, but also the altar of sacrifice: the cross was the altar on which Christ offered his life.  As one of the prefaces reminds us: Jesus is at once the priest, the altar, and the lamb of sacrifice.  The Last Supper and Calvary are intimately united.  The body and blood that Jesus offers to be eaten and drunk, is the body that was nailed to the cross and the blood which flowed from his wounds.  Pope Benedict XVI made popular an altar arrangement that had six candles across the front, and a crucifix in the centre.  One of the reasons for the crucifix on the centre of the altar is for it to be a focal point, and to help everyone but particularly the priest, to focus on as the Eucharistic prayer is prayed to God the Father, with Christ, in the Holy Spirit.  When Mass was more commonly celebrated with everyone facing the same way, the priest could see the crucifix behind the altar.  But now that the priest normally faces the people, he can no longer see the crucifix behind the altar, and so it is useful to place one on the centre of the altar.  I personally find it very helpful to have the crucifix on the altar to help me keep focused on Christ as I pray the prayers at the altar.  The care and reverence that we show to an altar is reverence shown to Christ himself, of whom the altar is an important symbol.

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 One of the manifestations of God’s love for us is the sending of the Holy Spirit.  On Monday this past week in the Liturgy of the Hours, there was a beautiful reading from the instructions to catechumens of St Cyril of Jerusalem from the 4^th century.  He speaks of the Holy Spirit as being the living water that Jesus promised to the Samaritan woman at the well, The water that I shall give will become in that person a spring of water welling up to eternal life.  Water always comes down in rain in the same form, and yet its effects are many and varied.

 The holy Spirit brings about many different effects of virtue among us:  the Spirit uses the tongue of one person for prophecy;  to another is given the power to drive out evil spirits;  another person has the gift of interpreting scripture;  the Spirit strengthens the self-control of one person, and teaches another how to be a generous almsgiver;  the Spirit teaches another to fast and mortify himself, and yet another person is taught not to focus on the things of the body but rather on spiritual things.  The Holy Spirit prepares one person for martyrdom, and another person for the slow and laborious work of many years.

 Part of the manifestation of God’s loving design is that the Spirit is given to us in ways that we need.  St Cyril says that the Spirit comes with the heart of a true protector: he comes to save, to heal, to teach, to admonish, to strengthen, to console, to enlighten the mind, first of the man who receives him, then through him the minds of others also.

 This last sentence is important.  God certainly cares for each of us personally.  Our own individual person and needs matter to God, and He sends the Holy Spirit to us accordingly.  But there is a superabundance of God’s love: the Spirit comes to us in the ways we need, but there’s more than enough to go out through us to others.  We’re meant to be a channel, so that the living waters of the Spirit bring life and healing to us as they then flow out to other people.  We’re not meant to be a dam, holding back the waters of the Spirit for ourselves!

 As St Paul says, “to each is give the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  God’s gifts – as useful as they are for ourselves – are always gifts to be shared.  At the first Pentecost, when the apostles were suddenly able to speak other languages – that gift of tongues was given to them not because “it’d be a neat thing to do.”  No, they were able to speak foreign languages so that they could go to foreign peoples and be understood when they preached faith in Jesus Christ.

 When we hear the words “New Evangelization” which we have been called to as a Church, this all about being open to the Holy Spirit, and being able to present the Christian faith in a way that people today can grasp;  so that through us they’ll actually come to meet Jesus Christ and be moved to follow him in their lives.

 Today on the Feast of Pentecost, let’s pray for the Holy Spirit to come to us in the ways we most need at this time, and let’s pray that the Spirit will help us to proclaim by our lives the Good News to the people of our times.  Let’s conclude by praying together the Pentecost Sequence (which you can find on the sheets on the pews).

Holy Spirit, Lord of light,

From the clear celestial height

Thy pure beaming radiance give.

Come, thou Father of the poor,

Come with treasures which endure;

Come, thou light of all that live!

Thou, of all consolers best,

Thou, the soul’s delightful guest,

Dost refreshing peace bestow.

Thou in toil art comfort sweet;

Pleasant coolness in the heat;

Solace in the midst of woe.

Light immortal, light divine,

Visit thou these hearts of thine,

And our inmost being fill:

If thou take thy grace away,

Nothing pure in man will stay;

All his good is turned to ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;

On our dryness pour thy dew;

Wash the stains of guilt away:

Bend the stubborn heart and will;

Melt the frozen, warm the chill;

Guide the steps that go astray.

Thou, on us who evermore

Thee confess and thee adore,

With thy sevenfold gifts descend:

Give us comfort when we die;

Give us life with thee on high;

Give us joys that ever end.

 (Roman Missal)

Our Lady Help of Christians

Following is the homily I gave at the Shrine of Our Lady Help of Christians – Marian Valley – on Saturday morning, 18 May 2013.

(Readings: Gen 3:1-15, 20;  Ps 102;  Eph 3:14-19;  Lk 8:19-21)

 

It’s very nice to be here with you this morning … thank-you to Fr Columba for the invitation and welcome to share in these celebrations with you – celebrations not only of the patroness of this shrine, but the patroness of our country.  This is an important feast in our liturgical calendar.

For the past couple of years I have been in Ottawa, Canada, studying canon law.  Now that I’m back one of the offices I hold is that of Judge of the Regional Tribunal.  Just like in the secular law courts, in the cases we hear in the Tribunal our trials are about finding the truth of a matter.  Gathering and putting forward evidence to prove some contention; or gathering evidence to overturn a presumption of the law.

And so as I reflected on today’s feast day I wondered to myself: what does it look like to have Our Lady as our help?  What does that mean in practice?  If you or I was to be put on trial with the charge being that “Mary is our help” – would there be enough evidence to prove that Mary is our help?  Would the evidence show that we lived our lives relying on the help of Our Lady?

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite fascinated by our new Pope.  When people have quizzed me about him since his election, I have often responded: “well, he’s got everyone’s attention!”  And one of the things that is very obvious is his love for Our Lady.  In those first moments after his election when he was presented to the city of Rome and the world, and made that beautiful gesture of praying for our beloved Pope Benedict, Pope Francis said, “Let us pray together for him, that the Lord may bless him and that Our Lady may keep him” (1).  Then as he promised that night, he went the next morning to the Basilica of St Mary Major, to pray before the icon called the “Salus Populi Romani” – or the Protectress of the Roman People; and there he laid flowers before the icon of Our Blessed Mother.

Just this week, on Monday – the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima – the Cardinal Archbishop of Lisbon, Portugal, did what Pope Francis had several time requested: at Fatima on the feast of our Lady of Fatima, Cardinal Policarpo of Lisbon consecrated Pope Francis’ pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima.  In the prayer of consecration he prayed: “Give him the gift of discernment to know how to identify the ways of renewal of the church; give him the courage not to hesitate to follow the ways suggested by the Holy Spirit; support him in the hard hours of suffering to overcome with charity the trials that the renewal of the church will bring… We consecrate to you, Our Lady, mother of the church, the ministry of the new pope … Fill his heart with the tenderness of God that you experienced so that he can embrace all the men and women of our age with the love of your son Jesus Christ.”

On the first Saturday of this month, the Holy Father led the Rosary at St Mary Major Basilica.  During those prayers he offered a reflection in which he indicated three ways that Mary is our help.  Firstly, he said that Mary helps her children to grow well.  She teaches them not to yield to laziness.  As a good mother, Mary takes care that her children’s growth is not stunted, that they grow strong and capable of taking responsibilities upon themselves, that they take on commitments in life and lean towards great ideals.  We know that Mary did this for Our Lord.  St Luke says that in the family of Nazareth Jesus “grew and became strong in the spirit, filled with wisdom …”  This is what Mary does for us: she helps us grow humanly and in faith, to be strong and not to yield to the temptation to be superficial Christians – but to live with responsibility, reaching upwards all the time.

Secondly, the Holy Father taught that Mary helps her children by teaching them to face the difficulties of life.  Mary lived with difficulties: her unexpected pregnancy; the birth of Jesus when there was no room in the inn;  the flight into Egypt;  the passion and death of her Son before her very eyes.  Our Blessed Mother helps her children to look at the problems of life with realism, not to be lost in them but to tackle them with courage and faith;  not to be weak, but to know how to overcome them.  Mary is close to us so that we won’t lose courage before the adversities of life and before our own weaknesses, before our sins:  she gives us strength and points us always to the path of her Son.

Thirdly,  Mary – like a good mother – helps us take important decisions with freedom.  This freedom is not allowing ourselves to be dominated by our passions, or only doing what we like, but rather is the freedom to make good choices.  As a good mother, Mary help us to be – like her – capable of making important decisions with the same full freedom with which she said her fiat – her yes – to God’s plan for her life.

So Mary helps us by looking after our growth;  by helping us to face and overcome trouble and adversity;  and by helping us find our true freedom to make important decisions (2).

So if I return to my original question: is it proven – for Pope Francis, that Mary is his help?  We would have to say: yes!  absolutely!

Our Lady has most definitely been the help of Christians in our nation.  In our early years before we had resident priests, and before even the Mass was allowed to be celebrated, Mary kept the faithful close to her Son through the recitation of her rosary.  As we head into the future we need to turn again with full confidence to our patroness.  I was delighted to hear that there is some talk of creating a national shrine to Our Lady Help of Christians: a place where we can honour her as a nation, and go to her on pilgrimage.  As the Church in Australia embraces the mission of evangelization that we are called to at this moment, we need Mary’s help not to be daunted by the challenges but to be courageous as we live the faith more fully and take our faith in Jesus Christ to the world.  We need our Blessed Mother’s help so that we will not be superficial Christians, or part-time Christians – but that our lives will become more fully aligned with God’s will as she was, and that we will be more docile to the Holy Spirit and freely give our own “Yes” to God’s desires in our lives.

As we celebrate our patroness, it’s a good moment to think practically – if Mary is to help us, then we have to open ourselves to her, come to her frequently.  Our pilgrimage here today to her shrine is a sign of our desire for this … let’s make that grow in our daily lives: our recitation of the Rosary, prayer before her image in our homes and churches, making sure our shrines to her in our Churches look loved, making a special effort to participate in Mass on her feast days through the year, giving witness to others of the ways that Mary has interceded for us and shown us her help.

May our love for her today, which is a source of our joy and consolation, overflow into every day, and may we always rejoice that we have the help of the Mother of God as we grow, as we face the challenges of life, and as we embrace more and more God’s will for us.

Fr Columba Macbeth-Green OSPPE, Rector of Marian Valley, and myself – Saturday 18 May 2013

 +++

(1)  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130313_benedizione-urbi-et-orbi_en.html

(2)  http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-mary-give-us-the-grace-to-be-signs-an

+++

Marian Valley on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marian-Valley/269499189730079?fref=ts

The Ascension of the Lord (C) – 12 May 2013

Homily for Mass – The Ascension of the Lord (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm;  Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

12 May 2013

[Readings:  Acts 1:1-11;  Ps 46;  Heb 9:24-28; 10:19-23;  Lk 24:46-53]

* On this mothers’ day (weekend) I take this opportunity to wish all the mums of the parish a very happy mothers’ day, and with it the prayer that God will bless and strengthen you in your vocation of motherhood.  [Sat: there were some flowers left over from the school’s mother’s day liturgy, so the mums here tonight are welcome to take one from the table at the door of the church].  Mothers’ Day is a good reminder, too, that the month of May is the month traditionally devoted to Our Lady.  Pope Francis recently suggested that it would be a good idea, during May, for families to say the rosary together.  He reminded us that prayer strengthens family life.

* Also this weekend I’ve placed on the table by the sacristy a few faith formation resources, including audio CDs and leaflets.  Everything there is free, so you’re invited to browse the table after Mass and take anything that interests you.

* Parish Finance talk this weekend.

+ + +

The Ascension of the Our Lord into heaven is a pivotal point in the history of the Church.  Jesus had prepared his disciples for the fact that he would have to depart from them visibly.  He went so far as to say that unless he went, the Holy Spirit would not be sent to them.  Just before he ascends, he tells the disciples to wait in the city, until they are baptised in the Holy Spirit which he will send.  And then he tells them that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and then they will be his witnesses even to the ends of the earth.

As we celebrate the various liturgical feasts, we’re invited to pause for a moment at a particular mystery of Our Lord’s life and of God’s dealing with His people.  Today we stand with the disciples as the Lord is taken from their sight.  From that moment on – and until his second coming –  the visible presence of Jesus in the world would be his followers – the Church.  The Ascension, therefore, marks the beginning of the era of the Church, an era which will literally “take off” with the sending of the Holy Spirit.

We can imagine that as the disciples saw their Lord and Master disappearing from their sight, they would have had the dawning realization that a responsibility was falling on them.  What had transpired with Jesus, and all that he had said and done, was not something just for them.  There was a work and a message that was to be spread abroad.  Jesus had also told them to wait: to wait until they had been clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This aspect of waiting – waiting on the Lord – is something that we can take from today’s feast.  Our lives are not just meant to be mindless activity, of endless doing.  We need to wait on the Lord through prayer.  We need to take that time to be able to feel the promptings of God in our heart so that we know what we should be doing.  We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to always fan into a flame that faith that is in us, to strengthen us for the work that God calls us to.  Our weekly celebration of Sunday Mass and our fruitful reception of Holy Communion renews the graces of baptism and confirmation in us.  If we are to proclaim the message of salvation, then we need time to reflect on that message;  we need to read the scriptures, to have the word of God on our lips and in our minds so that it will sink deep into our hearts.

In asking the disciples to wait until the Holy Spirit had come upon them was a reminder that it was not themselves that they were taking to others, but God:  God’s love, God’s word for God’s people.  And they could only do that under the power of the Holy Spirit.

God’s working in our lives is not magic;  and God is the greatest respecter of our freedom.  He knocks, and waits for us to invite him in.  We should ask ourselves: in what ways in our lives do we wait upon the Lord?  In what ways do we open our hearts, and make space in our lives, for the Lord to send His Holy Spirit anew into us?  Do we train ourselves to recognize the promptings of the Holy Spirit?

In the Church we have the tradition of praying novenas: nine consecutive days of prayer, praying for a particular grace.  The most ancient of these novenas is the Pentecost Novena … recalling that the apostles with the Blessed Virgin Mary, waited in prayer after the Ascension of Jesus until the sending of the Holy Spirit.  I invite you over the coming week – each day – to pray a simple prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to come to you in a new way.  Pray to God, asking how he wants you to be his witness before the world at this time in your life, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you power to put God’s wishes for you into action.

If you google “Pentecost Novena” you can also find special prayers that you can say over the next week, praying especially for the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit to be evident in your life.

Let us pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us, upon all believers, and upon the whole world … and may we wait for the Lord, opening our lives to the power he wants to send us.

I finish with a “Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit” which we pray in anticipation of the feast of Pentecost next week:

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit on Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You  and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples, and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

See the full Pentecost Novena prayers here: http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/seven_tx.htm

Ads on this blog

It was brought to my attention overnight that ads with inappropriate content were appearing on this blog.

I’ve just learnt that logged-in WordPress users (me) don’t see ads, so I didn’t realise this was happening.

Apologies to anyone who saw anything offensive.

I’ve upgraded to “ads free” so hopefully you’ll have an “ads free” experience here from now on.

A big thank-you to those who alerted me to what was happening!

Sixth Sunday of Easter (C) – 5 May 2013

Homily for Mass – Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

5 May 2013

(Readings: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29;  Ps 66;  Apoc 21:10-14, 22-23;  Jn 14:23-29)

 

In a recent homily, Pope Francis made the statement that some would find provocative:  he said, “one cannot believe in Jesus without the Church” (1)  You could write books on that statement … but underneath it is our belief that the Church – the organized community of believers – is part of God’s plan.  It’s not an accident that appeared in the aftermath of the Incarnation: but something intended by God and indeed begun by Christ.

In today’s Gospel Jesus is preparing his disciple for the fact that he is “going away.”  He is soon to return to his Father, having accomplished his saving death and resurrection.  This thought prepares our minds for the feast we will celebrate next Sunday: the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven.  As he prepares his disciples for when he will no longer visibly be with them, he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit to them, and he says that the Holy Spirit will remind them of everything he taught them, and also that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything.

What’s implied in this is that there’s more for the disciples of Jesus to learn.  Jesus could only say so much during his earthly life – he had a finite amount of time to speak, to act.  The disciples, for their part, had the limitation of what they could take in and understand.  And as we know from the Gospels, they were particularly slow to understand.  Jesus often expresses an amazement at how slow to understand they are.  But neither the fact that Jesus’ earthly, visible presence was limited by time, or the fact that the disciples could only take so much in – neither of those things would be insurmountable obstacles, because the Holy Spirit would both remind and teach the community of believers after Jesus had returned to the Father.

We see this in action in our first reading today.  Right from the beginning, the Church had to solve problems.  A dispute had arisen about what should be expected of non-Jewish converts to Christianity.  And so the first Church Council was convened – the Council of Jerusalem.  (The most recent Church Council, of course, was in the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council).  In this first Church Council at Jerusalem, the Christian community had to work out what would be required of Gentile converts.  It also, indirectly, had to deal with the issue of some people acting without the mandate or authority of the apostles and elders.  It is interesting to hear the declaration of the decision: “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves … .”  This is the very living out of what Jesus had promised: the Holy Spirit will teach you everything.  And so we have in our readings today an excellent illustration of how the Church is the living continuation of the mission of Jesus– and how the Church is a community of believers with a structure that includes leaders who continue the ministry of the first apostles;  and also the fact that the Church has the role – under the guidance of the Holy Spirit – to answer questions faced at any particular moment of history, and to decide on matters of faith and morals.  “Christian identity means being a member of the Church … The great [Pope] Paul VI said: it is an absurd dichotomy to wish to live with Jesus but without the Church, to follow Jesus but without the Church, to love Jesus but without the Church” (1).

So if we’ve considered the origins of the Church, and the fact that the Church continues the mission of Jesus throughout time, always guided by the Holy Spirit, then we need to keep our destination in mind.  Because the Church doesn’t make sense, and indeed the journey of life doesn’t make sense, unless we always keep in mind where we’re heading.  Our Second Reading today presents us with the image of the heavenly Jerusalem.  The image presented is something of great beauty: radiant and shining;  something of grand and beautiful proportions.  A place where there will no longer need to be things and places pointing to God, because everything will be in God.  There’ll be no need for light from sun or moon because the radiant glory of God will be the city’s light.  We see a glimpse of heaven.  In the heavenly Jerusalem, there’ll be no need for Church councils to sort out problems … like the one that took place in the earthly Jerusalem of the first century recounted in our First Reading.

Jesus has gone before us to the Father, and we should be glad, because he will return to take us there too.  With a thought always for our heavenly destiny, we the disciples of Jesus continue along the paths of time, recognizing that Jesus has called us into the community of his brothers and sisters, the Church.  We rejoice at the consolation and guidance of the Holy Spirit who never leaves the Church, and who continues to remind us of all that Jesus said and did, and who continues to teach us the mind and will of God as we face the questions of our own day, as the Church has done from the very beginning.

As we offer Mass today, let’s ask God’s blessing on Christ’s Church and all her members, upon our bishops who are the successors of the apostles.  Each one of us is a part of the body of Christ, and so let us all do what we can to be vital parts of the body, and not to be parts that are malfunctioning or harming the rest of the body.  May we all work together to take the message of salvation to the world, which was Christ’s mission, and which the Church has attempted to continue in every age.

 + + +

(1)  Pope Francis, Homily, 23 April 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130423_omelia-san-giorgio_en.html.

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter (C) – 28 April 2013

Homily for Mass – Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm;  Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

28 April 2013

(Readings: Acts 14:21-27;  Psalm 144;  Apoc 21:1-5;  Jn 13:31-35)

If I were to ask you, “what are Christians meant to do?” I’m sure you’d answer with some variation of “love one another” or “love others.”  From the earliest times, love is what set Christians apart.  “See how those Christians love one another” is the exclamation in one part of the New Testament.  Early Christian writers testify that outsiders were amazed at the love seen in the Christian community.  Jesus had said it would be so, “By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

 In the gospel we hear Jesus’ words:  I give you a new commandment: love one another;  just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.  As we look at this text, let’s take a couple of its elements to try to really understand it.  Interestingly, the word for “commandment” that St John uses is not the same word the scriptures use for the “commandments” that God gave to Moses.

 The word that St John uses here to describe this “new commandment” that Jesus gives has the meaning of a precept, advise, instruction or prescription.  It is like the prescription you get from the doctor to take to the pharmacy to get the correct medicine you need to cure an illness (1)  This commandment of Jesus is not just a law or rule to be followed, but something that guides us, shapes us, and takes us on His path (1).

 It’s always important to remember the type of love that Jesus is talking about.  It is a love “in spite of” and not a “love if” or a “love because”.  It is a love that is not motivated by the lovableness of the other, or something they might have done or might do.  It is a love even for the unlovable, including one’s enemies (2).  It is a love for those who don’t deserve it.  We are reminded that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners.  It is a love that always includes the cross.  Jesus’ love was manifested to the full when he embraced his passion and death out of love for us.  A good test if our love of someone or something is truly Christ-like is to ask where the cross is.  If there is no cross, chances are we might be in something that isn’t yet sharing in the love of Christ.

 Jesus tells us that we are to love others as he has loved us.  How are we to understand this?  We shouldn’t just see this as imitation, because that would simply make “Jesus somebody from the past from whom we inherit some orders to fulfil” (1).  We could perhaps better translate what Jesus says as, “With the love that I’ve loved you, love one another.”  If we were just imitating Jesus, then we would be bound for failure.  Our limitations would soon kick in, and it would seem like an exercise in futility.  We could keep trying and trying, but at the end of the day we couldn’t do it.  And so Jesus tells us, “with the love that I’ve loved you, love one another.”  We love not with our own flawed loving attempts, but we love with the love of Jesus himself within us.  Or, we could say, he loves others in us.  He loves that unlovable person, in and through me.  If we realize this, than we can do what isn’t humanly possible.  We can act beyond our own limitations.  We can love with the love that Christ loves.

 In their missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas encouraged the disciples and “put fresh heart” into them.  They reminded them, “we all have to experience many hardships before we enter the kingdom of God.”  We know the truth of those words, but sometimes we forget them.  Sometimes we accept a counterfeit gospel that makes us believe that if we have faith we will be free from problems.  Such a false gospel in fact leads people away from belief.  As Christians, we must show our love for one another by supporting each other in all the hardships of life;  by bearing one another’s burdens;  by sharing the weight of the Cross for one another.

 At the end of their journey, Paul and Barnabas marveled at how God “had opened the door of faith to the pagans.”  In a similar way, it is through our love for one another that God opens a door of faith for others today.  More than anything else, it is love that touches people’s hearts and helps them believe in the God we profess.  And the opposite is true as well: when we act without love, it makes it harder for people to believe: we close the door to faith.

 The love that we share here on earth should point to heaven.  It should remind us of our destiny to live in the fullness of love in eternity.  The Book of Revelation speaks of that time when God “will wipe away all tears from their eyes;  there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness.  The world of the past has gone.”

 As we offer Mass tonight let’s pray that we may always be conscious of Jesus’ prescription – the way for us to truly be his disciples: may we always be open to love others with his own love.  May we actively allow him to love other through our words, our actions.  May our lives always point towards the fullness of that love which we are called to enjoy in heaven.

 +++

(1) Monsignor Francesco Follo, http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/a-command-from-the-cross.

(2) 365 Days with the Lord: Liturgical Biblical Diary 2013, St Pauls, Makati City, Philippines, 2012.

Lest we forget

I was able to attend this morning the ANZAC Day service at the Carrington RSL Nursing Home in Parkinson.

Today we give thanks for all those who have served to defend the freedom of our country and/or our allies.  We remember with gratitude those who have paid the ultimate price of their lives.

Below are some of the wreaths that were laid during the service this morning …

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter (C) – 21 April 2013

Homily for Mass – Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

21 April 2013

[Readings: Acts 13:14, 43-52;  Ps 99;  Apoc 7:9, 14-17;  Jn 10:27-30]

The Gospel that is heard on the 4^th Sunday of Easter has led this day to be known as Good Shepherd Sunday, and it has also become the world day of prayer for vocations, especially for vocations to the ministerial priesthood.  In his homily for the Chrism Mass in Rome this year, Pope Francis spoke about the type of shepherd that Catholic priests should be.  He said that priests need to be shepherds who live with “the odour of the sheep” – the “smell” of the sheep (1).  In other words, priests need to go out and be close to their people, so that the light of faith, and the light of the gospel illuminates every corner of people’s lives.  The anointing with which priests are anointed is intended to overflow, so that no part of people’s lives is not touched by God’s word, His mercy, His healing.  The Pope urged the lay faithful to “be close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may always be shepherds according to God’s heart.”

 The Holy Father recalls that on the vestments that the High Priest wore, the names of the children of Israel were engraved on onyx stones that were mounted on the shoulder pieces of the garment that was the ancestor of the chasuble that the priest wears today: six names on the left shoulder-piece, and six names on the right shoulder piece.  The names of the twelve tribes of Israel were also engraved on the High Priest’s breast-plate.  “This means that the priest celebrates by carrying on his shoulders the people entrusted to his care and bearing their names written in his heart.”  The Pope suggested that when we priests today put on our chasuble for the celebration of mass, that it should make us feel – upon our shoulders and in our hearts – the burdens and the faces of “our faithful people, our saints and martyrs who are numerous in these times” (1).

 On this Good Shepherd Sunday we can pray that we will always have priests who faithfully live out the anointing they have received, that this anointing “may spread to everyone” especially to where people most need it and most appreciate it.  We might pray in a special way today for our seminarians who are preparing to live out this priestly calling.

 The theme of priests needing to live having the “smell of the sheep” on them is one that Pope Francis has used before becoming Pope.  Turning the image slightly, before he was Pope he issued a challenge to priests, and really to all in the Church.  The future pope said, “A church that limits itself to just carrying out administrative duties, caring for its tiny flock, is a church that in the long run will get sick.  The pastor who isolates himself is not a true pastor of sheep, but a ‘hairdresser’ for sheep who spends his time putting curlers on them instead of going to look for others.”  He said the situation today is the mirror opposite of the biblical parable of the shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep to find the one that is lost. “Today we have one in the pen and 99 we need to go looking for.” (2)

 This is certainly a challenge for us priests, and makes us question our priorities, and what we are doing.  But it’s a challenge not just for ordained priests.  What is said about priest-shepherds is true also – in varying ways – for all the faithful of the Church.  All of us, the baptised, are an anointed people – anointed with the Spirit in baptism and confirmation.  The mission of the Good Shepherd to care for his sheep is not something entrusted solely to the ordained, but is something shared by the whole body of the Church – all of us together.

 The whole Church – priests and people – continues the saving work of Jesus entrusted to the first Apostles.  It is through all of us – as the Church, that the “peoples of every land hear the Shepherd’s voice” (3) and can come to follow him.  It is through the lay faithful in particular – more so even than through priests – that the message of salvation can be proclaimed in every aspect of the life of the world.  Everywhere that you are, the Good Shepherd wants to use you so that his sheep may feel his love and hear his voice.  Through every single one of us the Good Shepherd wants to protect his sheep from those things that try to steal them from the Father.  Amidst many voices which promise illusions of happiness, and amidst many false-gods to which we can come to serve, the Good Shepherd wants to speak through us so that His sheep will hear the only voice that truly brings life and salvation.

 As we offer Mass today, let’s pray that “God the Father [will] renew in [each of us] the Spirit of holiness with whom we have been anointed” – at baptism, confirmation (and ordination).  May each of us be able to live in our own way the life and mission of the Good Shepherd, so that through the effort and sacrifice of each of us, and all of us together, the Church may truly be a light for the nations, so that God’s salvation may indeed reach the ends of the earth.

+++

(1) Pope Francis, Homily for the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130328_messa-crismale_en.html

(2)  Carol Glatz, http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1301525.htm

(3)  Dr Scott Hahn, http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/april_21st_2013_-_4th_sunday_in_easter

Third Sunday of Easter (C) – 14 April 2013

Homily for Mass – Third Sunday of Easter (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm;  Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

14 April 2013

(Readings: Acts 5:27-32, 40-41;  Ps 29;  Apoc 5:11-14;  John 21:1-19)

 At this time we hear a lot of news about our new Pope.  He has certainly captured everyone’s attention, even beyond the Church.  One of the questions I’m asked the most at the moment is, “what do you think of the new Pope?” or some variation on that theme.  So it’s interesting today that our Easter readings lead us to focus on the person of Saint Peter, of whom our Holy Father Francis is the successor.

In today’s Gospel we hear about Peter’s excitement to see the Lord; so excited that he jumps into the water;  and we hear his threefold declaration of love.  We also hear – in the First Reading – Peter defying the high priest and declaring that obedience to God comes before obedience to mortals.  We might wonder: is this the same Peter as before?  This is the man who at the Last Supper, had said that he was more ready than the others to lay down his life for Jesus.  But then, beside the charcoal fire, had denied three times that he even knew Jesus (1).

We know that after Peter denied Jesus, the Lord turned and looked at Peter – a look that must have broken Peter’s heart, because it moved him to weep bitterly (2).  But those tears moved Peter to repentance, and “spiritual transformation is usually connected to the grace of repentance” (2).  So now, by another charcoal fire, this time on the beach, Jesus heals Peter’s wound and causes Peter to reaffirm his love for Jesus – and indeed recalling Peter’s own declaration at the Last Supper – “Do you love me more than these others?”

But this isn’t just about Peter’s personal relationship with Jesus.  Jesus had already said to Peter at the Last Supper, “Once you have turned back [i.e. that is, repented] you must strengthen your brothers.”  And so, as Peter three times affirms his love, making up for his three-fold denial, Jesus declares that the relationship between him and Peter will touch many others: “Feed my lambs … tend my sheep … feed my sheep.”  “There is a sense that the abundant love of Jesus and Peter for each other overflows to embrace many others” (1).

And this – to come back to where I started – this is where I think Saint Peter’s present day successor comes in.  Pope Francis continues this work – given to Peter – of feeding and tending the lambs and sheep of the Lord.  He continues the work of strengthening the others.

And so, just as the relationship of Jesus and Peter was meant to draw others into relationship with the Lord, as we see our Holy Father Francis live out his faith, and live out the commission given first to Saint Peter, we should reflect on our own faith.  Each of us should hear Jesus asking us: “Do you love me?”  When we hear Jesus speaking to us, are we moved to repentance? – to leave behind sin in our own lives?  Are our hearts so filled with the Lord’s love that we want to share that love with others?  Are we eager to bring others to know the Lord?

In coming to worship this morning, we enter into the praise spoken of in the book of Revelation.  We join the immense number of angels and people, and indeed of everything living in creation crying to the Lord: “To the One who is sitting on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever …”  As this song of praise wells up in our hearts may our faith be kindled and strengthened, so that we will love the Lord with all our heart, and allow this love to embrace others as well.

 

(1)   Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, SJ, Living God’s Word: Reflections on the Sunday Readings for Year C.  Toronto, Novalis, 2012, pp. 68-70.

(2)   The Word Among Us: Daily Meditations for Catholics, April 2013, p. 34.

(3)   Dr Scott Hahn, http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/april_14th_2013_-_3rd_sunday_in_easter

Going offline

I will be “offline” over the next week while I recharge my spiritual batteries a little.

Benedictine Nuns at Jamberoo Abbey, New South Wales

From Monday 15 April 2013 I’ll be making a retreat at Jamberoo Abbey, a community of Benedictine Nuns, not too far from Sydney, NSW.

If you could say a little prayer for those of us on retreat this coming week, we’d be very appreciative.  And we’ll be praying for you too.

See also: https://www.facebook.com/benedictine.abbey

False dichotomies

It’s a regrettable tendency to praise a person whilst implicitly or explicitly putting someone else down.  We’re seeing a lot of that at the moment in the favourable press Pope Francis is rightly receiving for his personable and down-to-earth style.  The human mind seems to resist nuance, and too often defaults to unnecessary dichotomies.  I happen to believe that Benedict XVI is every bit as humble as his successor.  Humility comes in many shapes and sizes.  As someone who has long been judged negatively by the clothes I wear, I find it ironic that the people most likely to judge me negatively on that basis are very quick – in other contexts – to say that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

One of the phrases that Benedict XVI is going to be remembered for is his teaching about the “hermeneutic of continuity.”  When he first spoke of this in 2005, he didn’t, in fact, put those three words together.  He did, rather, speak of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” which was how many of us learnt about Vatican Council II.  “Out with the old, in with the new” was what we were taught;  the pre-conciliar Church was bad and outdated, the post-conciliar Church is good and new.  You got the impression that there were two Churches.  Benedict urged us to eschew such false dichotomies, and to interpret Church history with a “‘hermeneutic of reform’, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.”  One Church, always renewing and reforming [itself]: ecclesia semper reformanda.

I think that during the years of Benedict XVI’s pontificate we thought that this was the time of reform and renewal in continuity with the tradition of the Church.  And certainly there were many aspects of that: especially with regard to the Sacred Liturgy, and the continuing flourishing of newer congregations of consecrated life.

However, I believe that now is especially the moment when we should be taking Benedict XVI’s teaching to heart.  Instead of interpreting Pope Francis’ pontificate as a rupture and discontinuity, we should be seeing it as reform and renewal in continuity with what was before.  Before we get carried away and throw the baby out with the bath water, which is what tends to happen when you interpret reform as “rupture and discontinuity” – as sadly happened all too often after Vatican II – we should take a deep breath and see what the Holy Spirit is saying in this moment of continuing renewal.

I also suggest that it’s far too early to be writing the history books on the pontificate of Pope Francis, or Benedict XVI for that matter.  Pope Francis may well have a different look, different clothes, different residence, and different style than his predecessor, but it’s the same petrine ministry, same Church, and same faith in which the successor of Saint Peter is strengthening his brothers and sisters.  Rather than pitting Francis and Benedict in opposition, why not rather just give thanks for the gift of two unique popes, who each put (and are putting) their personalities and lives at the service of the Church, to lead all of us closer to Christ?

Sunday of the Resurrection – 31 March 2013

Homily at the Mass during the Day – Sunday of the Resurrection

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

31 March 2013

(Readings: Acts 10:34. 37-43;  Ps 117;  Col 3:1-4;  Lk 24:1-12)

 

In our readings this morning we see a theme that helps us understand the meaning of resurrection.  In the second reading, Saint Paul tells the Colossians: “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  In the Gospel, the angels ask the women who have come to Jesus’ tomb: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  For Christians, in the light of the resurrection, there is to be a new way of thinking; a whole new way of looking at the world.

After the power of God raises Jesus from the dead, there is now an incompatibility between Jesus and death.(1)  Certainly Jesus is no stranger to suffering and death – having lived it himself – and Jesus is profoundly with those who suffer all sorts of death-dealing forces – but Jesus’ presence in the midst of suffering and death is precisely to redeem and ultimately to destroy those things: to break their stronghold and to give the promise of new life, to bring people to share his own risen life.

At the Mass to inaugurate his pontificate, Pope Francis made an appeal to the whole world, especially to all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life – but also to all men and women of good will.  He urged, “Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world!” (2)  He said that “Whenever human beings fail to live up to [their] responsibility [of being protectors of God’s gifts], whenever we fail to care for creation and for our brothers and sisters, the way is opened to destruction and hearts are hardened.”

This then is the challenge for all the baptized – all the followers of Christ: we are not to be discouraged by darkness that we discover in our lives, and in the life of the world;  and we are certainly not to give in to a fatalism, that simply accepts – or worse, tolerates – evil that we find.  No!  We are to live the life of Christ, who came into the darkness of the world to bring LIGHT;  we are to continue the mission of Jesus who entered into human suffering so that he could TRANSFORM it.  Jesus brought RECONCILIATION where there had been estrangement;  HEALING in the face of sickness.  He destroyed death itself in his own body!  This is what Easter is celebrating.  This is what “setting our minds on heavenly things” is about.  This is looking for Jesus among the living.

There is a sense, I think, that we can approach the Easter message with the same attitude that the apostles first had when the women came and told them that they believed that Jesus had risen again.  The apostles didn’t believe them – they thought it was “an idle tale;” “nonsense” even.

We come year after year to celebrate holy Easter, and we might be tempted to say “not much seems to change!”  Wars continue in various parts of our world, “children are starving to death, … familes [break up], refugees flee for their lives” (3) … the press is awash with bad news.  “For many people, Easter is not a time of hope.”

This makes me pose the question, to wonder:  perhaps we have not yet been converted enough to Easter faith.  Have we allowed ourselves to be captured by Christ?  Have we let his light so shine on us that we can then let his light shine through us to others?

In the Easter proclamation that was sung last night, we proclaim that the power of the Easter mystery “dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.”

Let’s pray as we offer Mass on this Easter morning that the Lord will open up our hearts and fill them with the power of his love – so that we can be agents of the life that Christ wants to bring – and to restore – to the world that was made through his hands.

Let us cast aside the omens of death and destruction: may they not accompany us into the future.  May God help us to be people of hope, because Jesus is risen, he has truly risen!

 

(1)      Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, SJ,  Living God’s Word: Reflections on the Sunday Readings for Year C.  Toronto, Novalis, 2012.

(2)      Pope Francis, Homily at Mass for the beginning of the Petrine ministry, 19 March 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130319_omelia-inizio-pontificato_en.html

(3)      Malcolm McMahon, O.P., “Easter Sunday: New Harmony,” http://torch.op.org/preaching_sermon_item.php?sermon=5736

 

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord – 29 March 2013

Homily for the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: 3pm)

29 March 2013

(Readings: Is 52:13-53:12;  Ps 30;  Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9;  Jn 18:1-19:42)

 

Sometimes when we think of Jesus’ passion – his condemnation, scourging, carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion – sometimes we might think: look at this sad thing that his happening to him, this horrible thing.  And it certainly is horrible.  It’s confronting because it makes us see what aweful things human beings are capable of.

But it would be wrong to think that Jesus is just a passive victim, that his suffering is just an accident of circumstances.

On Palm Sunday, the King enters the royal city.  He enters the city accompanied by joy: the crowds are delighted: they spread their garments before him, they sing, they wave palm and olive branches.  “Blessed is the King who comes,” they sing.  “Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world.  He understands human sufferings, he has shown the face of God’s mercy, and he has bent down to heal body and soul.” (1)

Today, this same King, having entered the royal city, now takes his throne.  But what a throne it is!  Not of gold or marble: but wood.  The Holy Cross is Jesus’ royal throne.  Jesus takes his place on this throne willingly.  Perhaps this shocks us a little – it should!

Jesus carries the burden of the Cross, and takes this throne upon himself because “Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God.  Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil?  Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money that you can’t take with you [when you die] … love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation!  And – as each one of us knows and is aware – our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards the whole of creation.  Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection.  This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross.” (1)

So yes, there is a sorrowful aspect to contemplating Jesus’ passion, but there is an even more powerful joyful and hopeful aspect as we consider what Jesus is actively doing: cleansing evil, filth and sin; and conquering every death-dealing force with God’s love in his resurrection.  Because we have to remember: the story doesn’t end today!  In the body of Jesus, death and evil come face to face with the power of God’s love in the resurrection, and death, sin and evil are conquered forever, and their ultimate power over us is undone.

Today as we pause for a moment at the Cross, the royal throne of Jesus, we have a chance to name and to bring to God all those things in ourselves, our families and loved ones, our communities, and indeed our world – all the things that we want to be transformed by the power of God’s love in the resurrection.  We’ll take a few moments of silence now just to bring to mind those things – suffering in its many forms: sickness, sin, addictions, estrangement and alienation, hurt, violence, infidelity.  As we pray the Solemn Intercessions we exercise our role as a priestly people, and intercede for the many needs of the Church and world.  And then as we come forward to adore the Holy Cross by touching or kissing the wood of the cross, may that be our prayer that those things and situations we are praying for will be transformed by God’s love and mercy in the resurrection of Jesus.

 

(1)      Pope Francis, Homily Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, 24 March 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130324_palme_en.html

 

Thursday of the Lord’s Supper – 28 March 2013

Homily at the Evening Mass – Thursday of the Lord’s Supper (Maundy Thursday)

(Saint Benedict’s Church, Mudgeeraba – 7:00PM)

28 March 2013

(Readings: Ex 12:1-8, 11-14;  Ps 115;  1 Cor 11:23-26;  Jn 13:1-15)

 

Pope Francis has been reminding us in recent days that “Holy Week is not so much a time of sorrow, but rather a time to enter into Christ’s way of thinking and acting.” “Holy week challenges us to step outside ourselves so as to attend to the needs of others: those who long for a sympathetic ear, those in need of comfort or help.”  The Holy Father said that “[w]e should not simply remain in our own secure world, that of the ninety-nine sheep who never strayed from the fold, but we should go out, with Christ, in search of the one lost sheep, however far it may have wandered.”  This is a “time of grace given us by the Lord so that we can move beyond a dull or mechanical way of living our faith, and instead open the doors of our hearts, our lives, our parishes … going out in search of others so as to bring them the light and the joy of our faith in Christ.”(1)

As we listen to the Gospels, we discover that the disciples of Jesus were often struggling to really “get” what Jesus was teaching them.  And so Jesus helped them to understand by making it plainly clear.  He gets up, takes off his outer garment, and then gets down on his knees and washes the dirty feet of his disciples.  When we think of humility and humbling ourselves, we usually think of us – in our littleness – bowing down before the great, for example, we think of humbling ourselves before God.  However, when the great bows down before the little, then that is true humility.  And that’s what Jesus did (God, the sinless one, bowing down before weak, sinful men). And this is the command that Jesus gave his disciples: go and do as he has done.

Of course, the example of Jesus didn’t end on Holy Thursday night.  His simple act of service on the Thursday night pointed to the most dramatic example of service he was going to give the following day: when he would freely hand himself over to death, and willingly accept his passion and cross in obedience to his Father’s will.  Jesus proved that he loved us to the end.

This pattern of service and sacrifice – exemplified in the life of Christ – is what our lives as Christians is meant to look like.  But Jesus knew that we wouldn’t find it easy, and that – in many ways – it would go against the grain, against the way we’d often like to do things.  He knew how quickly his disciples would either forget, or soften the message.  And that’s why he instituted the eucharist, as the permanent memorial of him and of his life.  He said of the bread and wine: this is my body which will be broken for you and my blood which will be poured out for you.  And he literally does that when his body is nailed to the cross and his blood is shed in all that he suffers in his passion and crucifixion.

In instituting the eucharist he instituted the ministerial priesthood, which is to enflesh his own ministry of service to his people, and to celebrate the sacraments of redemption, especially the eucharist.  Jesus wanted us never to forget that service and sacrifice are central to his life.  And in giving us his very self – his body, blood, soul and divinity – in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine, he wanted to be the very one who helps, sustains and nourishes us as we try to follow him.  Such thoughts surely move us tonight to profound gratitude to the Lord, for giving us such gifts so that he can be with us always, and that we will always have the means at our disposal to come to God.

 I am reminded also of Jesus’ words when he said: “Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”  This highlights that our response to what Jesus offers us is important.  Just because Jesus died for the sake of all humankind doesn’t mean that all are automatically saved.  We have to respond to God’s call, and receive the grace of redemption and salvation.  If we refuse or reject what God offers, God respects our choice.  “… unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

As we recall the institution of the eucharist tonight, let’s resolve to make the eucharist the centre of our life – that we may always have the life of Jesus within us.  May Jesus help us to follow in his footsteps, to become more and more like him so that we can step outside of ourselves and attend to the needs of others, to go in search of the one lost sheep, and to go out and bring to others the light and joy of our faith in Christ.

 

(1)  Pope Francis, General Audience 27 March 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130327_udienza-generale_en.html

 

Live streaming of the Triduum Liturgies

The following Ceremonies will be streamed live from the Cathedral of Saint Stephen, Brisbane, through the Archdiocesan website over the coming days.

The web address is:  http://bne.catholic.net.au/webcast

 

Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper – Thursday 7pm

Solemn Celebration of the Passion of the Lord – Friday 3pm

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night – Saturday 7pm

Easter Sunday Mass – Sunday 10am

 

This is especially useful for those who are sick or too frail to be able to attend their local church but who would still like to prayerfully participate in the Easter ceremonies.

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (C) – 24 March 2013

Homily for Mass – Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

24 March 2013

(Readings: Lk 19:28-40;  Is 50:4-7;  Ps 22;  Philippians 2:6-11;  Lk 22:14-23:56)

 

Today’s Liturgy is a little different than normal, and that signals that we are entering into a week that is different than normal.  Holy Week is a special time of grace when we return to the central mysteries of our faith: the heart of what we believe, and what we’re about as Christians.

This week we’re called to draw close to Jesus, and re-live with him the final days and hours of his earthly life.  We’re always called to be close to Jesus, but this week is different.  As the Liturgy unfolds almost in slow motion over Holy Thursday, Good Friday and ultimately Easter Sunday, we reflect not just on historical events but on our life today as disciples of Jesus.

Like the disciples of old we follow Jesus in all our weakness and imperfection.  We may fall asleep in the garden instead of keeping vigil.  We may strike out clumsily “with a sword” and miss the real foe.  We might follow at a distance, and even pretend that we don’t know Jesus.  Maybe we will only join him at the last moment. (1)

In journeying with Jesus through his final days, we see important reminders about who he is, why he came among us, and what we are to do in response.  When we refer to Jesus’ “passion,” that word comes from a Latin word meaning “I suffer, to suffer.”  We know that passion in English also refers to “enthusiastic love,” that which drives a person or even consumes them.  What Jesus suffers was motivated by a “double passion:” his love for God his Father, to whom he was obedient unto death, and his love for us whom he wants to save. (2)

The first and second readings today shed light on the inner attitude of Christ.  Isaiah foreshadows the suffering of God’s servant, but shows his determination to undergo all that will happen, and his trust in the God who is his help.  Saint Paul shows the humility of the son of God, who set aside equality with God and embraced the human condition totally, even to accepting death.

In the passion of Saint Luke we see some touching moments of Jesus’ mission of salvation.  Even in the midst of his suffereing and degredation, he reaches out and comforts the women of Jerusalem.  In the midst of the agony of the cross, he welcomes one of the criminals crucified with him who turned to him in repentance, promising to share paradise with him today. (3)

On the Cross, Jesus shows a profound understanding of human frailty, praying for God’s forgiveness for faults committed out of ignorant human weakness. (3)

As we journey with Jesus in these days, we are invited to see that our lives are a sharing in his life, death, and resurrection.  All of us, in differing ways, live some share of Jesus’ passion.  As we live our lives then, we’re called to grow in the attitudes of Christ, and to live with the same love of God the Father that Jesus shows, the same humility and obedience.

We’re also called to grow in that same love he had for others, to have in ourselves that same desire that Jesus had that all people would be saved and come to share fully the life of God.  In living Holy Week, as we look to Jesus and reflect on our own lives, we should be moved to realize that we share in the ongoing passion of humankind.

We are called to see that Christ’s passion continues to unfold in the events of our world, and just as we journey with Jesus in Holy Week, all the time we are called to embrace and lighten the burden of Christ whose passion continues to be experienced in the hungry, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the lonely, and the outcast. (4)

 

References:

(1) The Word Among us, 24 March 2013.

(2) 365 Days with the Lord: Liturgical Biblical Diary 2013.

(3) Archbishop Terence Prendergast, SJ, Living God’s Word: Reflections on the Sunday Readings for Year C.

(4) Bishop David Walker, Lectio Divina: Praying the Scriptures in Lent, Year C, 2013.

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent (C) – 17 March 2013

Homily for Mass – Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm, Sunday 7.30am & 9am;  Saint Joseph’s, Kangaroo Point: Sunday 5pm)

17 March 2013

(Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21;  Ps 125;  Philippians 3:8-14;  John 8:1-11]

 

“No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before.  See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light;  can you not see it?”  The theme of the “new thing” God is doing runs through the Word of God today.  It’s a theme I think we’ve lived in a very particular way this week, with the election of Pope Francis.  We had been praying intensely for the election of a new pope, and then early on Thursday morning (our time) we saw the fruits of our prayers.  As the world was introduced to the new successor of Saint Peter, and as we heard him speak and even just saw his image, I think we had a real sense of the “new thing” God is doing for us in our own day.  When Jesus gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and established him as the rock on which the Church would be built, he gave a great gift to his followers.  Christ continues to speak to his people through his Vicar on earth, and through him we can hear afresh the message of God’s love, and the call to life in God’s kingdom.  It’s a message that essentially doesn’t change, but it is presented anew to us.  And when it is presented to us anew, we have the chance of seeing and hearing things that we haven’t heard before.

God has always been doing a “new thing.”  From the freeing of his people from slavery in Egypt;  to the sending of prophets to recall his people to their true calling;  to the ultimate “new thing” in the incarnation of his Son as a human – as one of us.  God is constantly working, constantly bringing people from where they were, and calling them to enter more deeply into the fullness of life with him.

Saint Paul, in the second reading, recalls that in his own life God called him firstly to leave behind his life of persecution of the Church, and then to live a life seeking “only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ.”  Saint Paul recognizes that this call on his life from God is ongoing.  He acknowledges that he hasn’t reached that perfection found in Christ yet;  he hasn’t yet won the race and gained the prize.  But he feels the call from God to “forget the past” and to keep straining “ahead for what is still to come.”  That acknowledgement from Saint Paul that he hasn’t won the race yet I think is a wonderful encouragement to us to keep striving.  We ourselves would – I’m sure – admit that we haven’t reached that perfection yet;  there is still work to be done in our lives;  God is still calling us to leave the past behind and to embrace his will more fully.

When the scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus the woman caught in the very act of adultery, her life was over.  She had no future any more.  The law was clear: the punishment for that action was death by stoning.  When Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger, this action recalls when God first gave the law to Moses: He wrote it on the stone tablets with his finger.  So now, in Jesus, the divine law-giver acts again.  Jesus doesn’t abolish the law;  he doesn’t say that what the woman did wasn’t that bad – that everyone else does that sort of thing too;  he doesn’t change the law.  But what Jesus points out is that, while the scribes and Pharisees knew the letter of the law very well, they didn’t know the heart of the law-maker.  Without altering the law one bit, Jesus acknowledges that the woman (and the man she was with) had indeed done the wrong thing, and the punishment was clear.  But in revealing the heart of the law-maker, Jesus simply says: let the one who has no sin be the one to execute punishment.  Jesus is the only one there who is without sin, and he does not condemn the woman.  She’s given a new start – her life is now not over.  Jesus gives her a future.  God will continue to do new things in her life.

As we look at our own lives, perhaps we’re conscious of real falls we’ve had – times when we’ve fouled up badly.  Perhaps memories of those events niggle away at us.  Sometimes those memories are simply the work of Satan, who tries to discourage us by making us focus on our weakness, and to doubt the love and mercy of God.  Sometimes our conscience rightly makes us aware of sins so that we’ll repent.  It’s good to remember that there is a difference between making a judgment about the rightness or wrongness of an action, and condemnation.  The Gospel teaches that Jesus doesn’t condemn – he doesn’t write people off.  He doesn’t write us off, no matter what mess we’ve got ourselves into.  He certainly judges: what is sin is sin, no two ways about it.  But he doesn’t condemn.  In God’s mercy there is always a future.  If we repent, God always forgives.

The Word of God today invites us to suspend the condemnations we make of ourselves and others.  We are certainly to be intolerant of sin: beginning with our own sins.  We must never forget Jesus’ words: “Go away and do not sin any more.”  But while we are intransigent with sin, we are to be merciful, even “indulgent” with others (1).  In God’s plan, there is always a future for sinners.  We have those encouraging words: every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.  God is always ready to do a new thing in our lives, to give us grace to leave the death of sin and live in the freedom of his sons and daughter.

We ask Mary, the holy mother of God, who was without sin, and who is the mediatrix of graces for every repentant sinner, to pray for us and help us to be open to the grace of repentance, and to keep striving ahead for what is yet to come.

 

(1)      Benedict XVI, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100321_en.html

 

With Francis our Pope

The “Habemus papam” announcement in the modern age: Twitter and live video feeds

It’s hard not to smile today!

I woke at 4am this morning, before the alarm, and my first thought was to check my phone.  The “white smoke” messages were all just starting to land, so I thought, “should I go to the TV or the computer.”  I was glad I chose the computer, because I had the twitter feed up, two live video feeds (showing different images) and the commentary from EWTN.  I was captivated for the next hour and a half.

I think there was a universal moment of surprise upon the announcement.  Is the Pope to be called Francis, or is it a Cardinal by the name of Francis?  [That was quickly made clear thanks to Twitter].  Who is the man who is our new Pope?

When the Holy Father appeared and for a while stood, looking at the crowd, I thought “gravitas.”  A few comments on Twitter wondered if he was frozen with fear, or didn’t know what to say.

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis

But when he began to speak I had the sense that we were indeed listening to our holy father, our supreme pastor.

Some of my friends will be amused that I did become a little emotional (not much, just a little) when he immediately suggested that everyone pray.  Here was our shepherd leading us all in prayer as one of his first acts.  And the fact that he was asking us to pray for our beloved pope-emeritus, Benedict XVI, made it all the more moving.

After he asked everyone to pray for him before he gave the blessing, the cameras looked towards the faithful in the square – all united in heartfelt, silent prayer.

Pope Francis blessed us all – and mention was made of those watching or listening on radio and TV (and the internet of course).  He concluded by wishing everyone a good night and a good rest.

George Cardinal Pell (Sydney) & Francis Cardinal George (Chicago)

In a scene reminiscent of the last conclave, the cameras showed Cardinal Pell (Sydney) and Cardinal George (Chicago) after the new Holy Father had spoken (right).

On Thursdays I concelebrate the 8am Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral, Brisbane, and as the concelebrant I got to say Francis’ name in the eucharistic prayer – the first of many times.

God bless Pope Francis!

Viva il papa!

Statement from Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane.

Fourth Sunday of Lent (C) – 10 March 2013

Homily for Mass – Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

10 March 2013

(Readings: Joshua 5:9-12;  Ps 33;  2 Cor 5:17-21;  Lk 15:1-3, 11-32)

 

Today we hear again possibly one of the greatest stories ever told.  We are drawn to the figure of the father in the story, who is an image of the true Father of us all, the one of whom Christ is the living face.  Juxtaposed with the loving and merciful father, we have two vivid illustrations of estrangement.

The younger son has run off with a distorted view of freedom.  He wants to live the high life … he doesn’t want to be constrained by the rules and regulations of living in his father’s house … he doesn’t want to be subject to the authority of others … he wants to live for himself, to enjoy his freedom, to feel free of constraints.

The journey of the younger son is fairly prototypical of what happens in the relationship of children and their parents.  Children, when they are young, depend on their parents for everything.  As they mature they assert their independence, they want to “grow up.”  And if all goes well, when the child has grown up, they’re able to relate to their parents as an adult who has come to stand on their own feet and make their own decisions.  Having journeyed through dependence and then rebellion, the child and parent can come to a relationship based on gratitude and authentic love.

This pattern is seen, too, in our relationship with God.  At first we see religion that is prompted by our needs.  Children probably think of God as being like some celestial Santa Claus, giving us what we want and ask for.  As a child gets older there is naturally and typically a desire to be free of submission to God in order to become – what we see as – “free and adult”.  Perhaps at this stage there is even the thought that we can do without God: certainly without his laws, and the perceived threat they pose to our idea of freedom.

In the parable, the two sons act quite differently, and yet both of them equally have immature relationships with their father.  In the younger son, his estrangement distorts in his mind the way he thinks about his father.  He imagines that his father has written him off;  that he wouldn’t be wanting him to return;  that if he goes back, the best he can hope for is to be a servant.  In his mind, he can only see his father as his master.

The older son, despite the fact that he didn’t physically go away, is just as far away in his mind.  While the younger son hopes to come back and settle for being a servant (to come back to a state of childish submission), the older son has felt like a slave for years (he never grew out of childishness).  And the years of resentment and bitterness come pouring out when the younger son returns.

The only way the two sons can come to life is by an experience of mercy.  They’ll only “grow up” and enter into a properly adult relationship with their father if they realize that they’re loved freely by a love that is greater than their wretchedness;  and loved too by a love that far outweighs anything they might have done to earn or merit it.  It’s a gracious and free love that only wants them to enjoy life in their father’s house.

The two sons invite us to look at ourselves.  In what ways are we estranged from God our Father?  In what ways are we trapped in a childish relationship with God?  Are we in the throes of “teenage-like” rebellion against God?  Is our image of God distorted in our minds?

As we think about ourselves, we invited all the more to think of the image of God portrayed by the parable.  God’s faithfulness never fails – his love never stops – even when we distance ourselves and get lost by following our own desires and wills.  He looks out for us, he comes searching for us, he comes running to us when we make even the slightest movement towards him.  God speaks to our conscience from within in order to call us back to him.  God forgives our mistakes, and our selfishness, and delights in our return to live in his house.  This parable shows us the heart of God – a heart which is an ocean of mercy, compassion, forgiveness.

Interestingly, the father doesn’t force or compel his sons.  He certainly calls, entreats, waits – but he respects the very same freedom they had to leave him.  In the psalms we hear that well known refrain: if today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.  If today you hear the voice of God within you, calling you to come back to him – to turn away from some sinful situation … then let us go to his outstretched arms that are waiting to enfold us.  He wants us to be regenerated by his merciful love.

We ask Mary, Mother of Mercy, to pray for us, and to help us return to the arms of the Father.

 

References:

Robert Ombres OP, http://torch.op.org/preaching_sermon_item.php?sermon=5731

Benedict XVI, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100314_en.html

Scott Hahn, http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/march_10th_2013_-_4th_sunday_of_lent

http://www.ordopraedicatorum.org/2013/03/04/preachers-sketchbook-fourth-sunday-of-lent-laetare-sunday/

 

Frassati men make yearly commitment

Frassati Australia is a movement that is currently emerging, aimed at helping younger Catholic men embrace and live the faith.

At the heart of the movement are “Frassati Houses”.  Fourteen men currently live a common life in houses in the Brisbane suburbs of Virginia, the Grange, Salisbury and Tarragindi.

Members of Frassati Houses commit to the following (amongst other things):

• Be faithful to Sunday Mass and to, at least, one daily Mass per week.
• To approach each month the Sacrament of Penance
• To seek times of personal prayer each day such as the Holy Rosary
• To seek times of prayer together such as the Divine Mercy Chaplet for the Holy Souls
• To engage regularly in spiritual reading and spiritual direction
• To perform a work of charity each day
• To regularly be before the Lord Jesus in Eucharistic adoration

This Monday evening, 4 March 2013, those in the Frassati houses will be making their official commitment for 2013, during Mass at 7pm at Saint Joseph’s Church, Kangaroo Point.

Their involvement in the various works of Frassati Australia will be an excellent preparation for these men’s future vocations, whether it be to marriage, religious life or to the diocesan priesthood.

Please pray for those making their commitment on Monday.

This gave me a laugh

I have been on Twitter for a while, but I wouldn’t say I completely understand how it works yet.

I just went to have a look at the Pope’s twitter page and I see that Benedict XVI’s tweets have been archived to news.va.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, only the tweets themselves are archived, and all the (often vile) comments have been disposed of.  The comments weren’t very edifying reading.

One thing about Twitter is that people can add you to lists, so I see that those lists are still there on the @pontifex page.

This got me curious to see what lists I have been added to.  When I checked I discovered that I’d been added to a number of predictable “priests / religious / clergy” lists as you’d expect.

But one list I’m on did make me laugh.  It’s called “Catholic Tweep Bloggers: Tweeps who represent themselves as Catholic & appear to be orthodox. Some may not be.”

Thanks.  I think.

Third Sunday of Lent (C) – 3 March 2013

Homily for Mass – Third Sunday of Lent (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm, Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

3 March 2013

(Readings: Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15;  Ps 102;  1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12;  Lk 13:1-9)

 

The way the Sunday Mass readings are assembled invites us often to see a contrast or parallel between the first reading and the Gospel, and this is certainly true of today’s readings.  In the gospel we have the parable of the fig tree, and in the first reading we have the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush.

Moses is going about an ordinary day of tending the flock of his father-in-law when he sees a strange sight:  a bush that was on fire, and yet was not being consumed by the flames.  Moses is moved to investigate, and God calls to him from the bush.  The bush that was burning yet not consumed speaks of the mystery of God.  “The life of God is one of total self-emptying, pouring forth without ever running the well dry” (2).  It speaks of God who “paradoxically finds strength in weakness and plenitude in poverty” (2).  In Jesus we see this essence of God lived to the full: his strength and saving power was found by embracing human weakness, he brought life through death, and he showed that the abundance and fullness of life is gained by thirsting for love and truth (2).

This all stands in contrast to the barren fig tree in the gospel parable.  For three years the fig tree had given no fruit.  “The life of the fig tree was one of total self-gratification, leeching off the ground while giving no return” (2).  The man who planted the tree quite reasonably decides that the time has come to cut it down.  “Why should it exhaust the soil?” – always taking and never giving (2).

In considering the two images, where do we find ourselves?  It’s easy to become like the fig tree.  We can get so caught up in ourselves and our own desires that we become unwilling to sacrifice a little bit of our own comfort for the greater good of our family.  Husbands and wives can withhold themselves by contraception and so fail to offer the total gift of self to each other.  Those in public office can see re-election as their main goal, and so they put aside other considerations in the name of gaining votes.  Priests can fall out of the practice of prayer and lose their zeal for ministry, “becoming more vigilant for their own interests than for the welfare of their parishioners” (2).

The parable of the fig tree is meant to be a warning to us: this is not what we are meant to be like, and we shouldn’t settle for this type of existence: of taking more than we give.  Rather, each one of us, no matter what our particular vocation is, each one of us is called to come closer to the Lord, and to become more like him.  We are called to resemble more the image of the Lord in the burning bush: of taking less and giving more.  God wants us to respond to his graces and to bear fruit.

Just as the man tending the vineyard gives the fig tree another year to bear fruit, with the promise of digging round it and fertilizing it, God is merciful, and God is always “at work within each of us.  He draws us slowly, and subtly, away from our fig tree tendencies … [and] draws us silently and steadily closer to himself” (2).

The Lord wants us to be “on fire” with his love, “burning” with his Spirit, and bearing the fruits of the spirit.  “Each one of us has the power to make small, daily decisions to make ourselves resemble the burning bush more than the fig tree” (2).  We are called not just to avoid sin, but to bear those fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (4).

This period of Lent is a graced time when God wants to do that work of “digging and fertilizing” so that we will bear fruit.  Lent is a time when “we let ‘the gardener,’ Christ, cultivate our hearts, uprooting what chokes the divine life in us, strengthening us to bear fruits that will last into eternity” (5).

For our part, we need to open ourselves to God’s work in us.  Our extra attention during Lent to prayer, fasting, and generosity are ways that we can allow God to “get into” our lives and to fill us with his graces.  Let’s pray this [morning] that we will open ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives, so that we can live the life spoken of in today’s Psalm: blessing His holy name, and giving thanks for His kindness and mercy (5).

References:

1. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100307_en.html

2. http://www.hprweb.com/2013/02/homilies-13/

3. http://torch.op.org/preaching_sermon_item.php?sermon=5730

4. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 736, 1830-1832). http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/736.htm

5. http://www.salvationhistory.com/homily_helps/march_3rd_2013_-_3rd_sunday_of_lent

 

Autumn Ember Day

In case you may have missed it amongst the other things that have been taking place in recent days, today is an Ember Day in Australia.

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference decided in recent years that the first Fridays of Autumn and Spring should be kept as special days of prayer and penance.

On rogation and ember days the practice of the Church is to offer prayers to the Lord for the needs of all people, especially for the productivity of the earth and for human labour, and to give him public thanks.

(General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar)

Amidst our prayers for the cardinals as they prepare for the papal election, we continue our prayers and offer the sacrifices of our fasting and penance for all those facing the effects of storms, flooding and fire in our country.

See also:

http://www.liturgy.sydneycatholic.org/documents-a-resources/catholicism-101/ember-days

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/yimcatholic/2012/12/ember-days-what-they-are-and-where-they-went.html

 

Sede vacante

The Roman Apostolic See is vacant.

Until we hear the words “Habemus papam,” please pray that the cardinals will be docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, and elect the man God chooses as the next successor of Saint Peter.

O God, eternal shepherd,
who govern your flock with
unfailing care,
grant in your boundless fatherly love
a pastor for your Church
who will please you by his holiness
and to us show watchful care.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

 

Some final words from Benedict XVI

At his final General Audience on 27 February 2013, the Holy Father spoke about what his “life in retirement” will be like.  He said:

“’Always’ is also ‘forever’–there is no return to private life. My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this. I am not returning to private life, to a life of trips, meetings, receptions, conferences, etc. I am not abandoning the cross, but am remaining beside the Crucified Lord in a new way. I no longer bear the power of the office for the governance of the Church, but I remain in the service of prayer, within St. Peter’s paddock, so to speak. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great example to me in this. He has shown us the way for a life that, active or passive, belongs wholly to God’s work.”

“I also thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have received this important decision. I will continue to accompany the Church’s journey through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and His Bride that I have tried to live every day up to now and that I want to always live. I ask you to remember me to God, and above all to pray for the Cardinals who are called to such an important task, and for the new Successor of the Apostle Peter. Many the Lord accompany him with the light and strength of His Spirit.”

“We call upon the maternal intercession of Mary, the Mother of God and of the Church, that she might accompany each of us and the entire ecclesial community. We entrust ourselves to her with deep confidence.”

At any Masses celebrated after 6am Friday morning (Brisbane time) we will no longer hear Benedict’s name in the Eucharistic Prayer.

The Church has been mightily blessed by Joseph Ratzinger’s acceptance and excercise of the Petrine ministry since he was elected successor of Saint Peter in 2005.  May God now bless him as he enters his monastic life of prayer and penance for the Church.

Second Sunday of Lent (C) – 24 February 2013

Homily for Mass – Second Sunday of Lent (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

24 February 2013

(Readings: Gen 15:5-12, 17-18;  Ps 26;  Philippians 3:17-4:1;  Lk 9:28-36)

On the mountain of the transfiguration, Peter, James and John saw a vision of Christ in glory:  they saw, for a moment, the glory that is his before all ages, the glory that is his in his resurrection, and a glory that he never lost, although it was hidden from human sight.

Between this sight of the Lord’s glory at his transfiguration, and the sight of his glory in his resurrection, the disciples of the Lord would have to face another sight: and that would be the disfiguration of Christ.  The beauty of Christ in his transfiguration stands in contrast to what the disciples will see in his Passion: the scourging at the pillar, Jesus carrying the wood of the cross through the streets, his flesh pierced when the crown of thorns is forced on his head, his hands and feet brutally nailed to the cross, and him being hung in the sight of people to die in that humiliating way.  The movie, The Passion, a few years ago, rammed home the reality of the disfiguration of Christ.

The disciples are given a glimpse of Christ’s glory to prepare them for the dark days ahead.  Despite all appearances, Christ would never lose the glory he shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and moreover, after experiencing the shame of crucifixion, his glory would be manifest once more in his resurrection and glorious ascension.

The Gospel of the transfiguration is always read on this second Sunday of Lent.  It’s placed here to do for us what the transfiguration did for the disciples.  It is meant to strengthen us for the days ahead; to remind us of the Easter mysteries that we are journeying towards.  The forty days of Lent is meant to be a time when we look a little more honestly at our lives;  a time when the Lord calls us to conversion of mind and heart:  to repent and believe in the Gospel.

The truth is that our sins disfigure the image of Christ in us.  Our sins inflict injury on us, and Christ living in us suffers as he did in his Passion: the blows of those who struck him, his flesh pierced by nail, reed and thorn, leaving him bruised and bloodied.  Mortal sin even leaves our soul dead, just as Jesus was truly dead on the cross.

Just as Christ faced this in his earthly life he lives it again in our lives, in our very bodies.  But, all the while, the Good News proclaimed to us is that the glory of the Lord will be seen again.  Just as the Father restores his Son to life in the resurrection, and the glory of the Lord is seen again in the Risen Christ, so too new life can come to us through penance and reconciliation.  The image of Christ in us that is battered and bruised by our sins is restored in all its glory by God through the sacraments.  Lent is a most appropriate time to approach God’s mercy and to express our contrition for what our sins do to Jesus in us, and to allow God’s healing love and mercy to breathe new life into us, and to restore the glory of the risen Lord in us.  In our second reading we can take great consolation from Saint Paul’s reminder that Jesus comes to us and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body.

Our first reading reminds us that we are descendents of Abraham who entered into the covenant with God.  In that covenant Abraham promised that he would have only one god, and that he and his descendents would worship only the One, True God.  It’s good for us during Lent to look at our lives and examine:  have I made anything else in my life “a god” in the place of the only True God?  Is there anything that I seek after, that I spend more time on, than following God’s will?  Lent is a graced time for us to come back to God, to acknowledge the things that have come between us and Him, and to ask His healing and liberating power to free us, and to make us live for Him alone.

As we offer Mass today, may we feel the Lord’s power working in us in a special way, calling us to repent and return to the Lord, so that the glory of Jesus may be restored in us and may shine in us and through us anew.

And the next pope will be …

Already I’m sick to death of stories about the most likely “contender” for the papacy.  It’s like the ecclesiastical equivalent of a protracted federal election.

I make this plea to Catholic journalists: instead of writing another piece about who the next pope will be, please spend that time by going to the nearest church that is open, kneeling down before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and praying that the cardinals elect the man whom God wants as our supreme pontiff.

At this stage, that [prayer] is all that really matters.

God bless our AWESOME Pope Benedict!

I liked this comment from Cardinal Cipriani, of Lima, Peru, in a recent interview:

Q: What do you expect from this election? What currents are in conflict? There is talk of the Orthodox, of the progressives …

Cardinal Cipriani: I’m not going to comment on that, because frankly, I don’t believe in those currents. I believe in the action of the Holy Spirit and hope that we cardinals will be able to be men who listen to God, otherwise, we are of no use at all.

Source: Zenit.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – 10 February 2013

Homily for Mass – Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

(Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Park Ridge: 8am;  Saint Catherine’s Church, Jimboomba: 5.30pm)

10 February 2013

(Readings: Is 6:1-8;  Ps 137;  1 Cor 15:1-11;  Lk 5:1-11)

 

On Wednesday we begin the Lenten period of preparation for Easter.  Ash Wednesday – this Wednesday – there will be two Masses with distribution of the ashes at St Bernardine’s – 9am with the school, and a second Mass at 7pm.  There is also the 9am Mass at St Paul de Chartres.  Don’t forget that Ash Wednesday is a day of fast and abstinence: the law of fasting binds those between the ages of 18 and 59, and the law of abstinence from meat binds everyone 14 and over.

The six weeks of Lent are meant to be a time of spiritual renewal.  Lent is a time when we can make a commitment to do some things we don’t normally do.  The three pillars of prayer – fasting – and almsgiving are held out to us.  The parish is offering extra prayer times on Mondays during Lent with the Lectio Divina (the booklets for that are at the doors of the church), and also stations of the cross on Wednesdays during Lent.  To assist our almsgiving we have project compassion – and the envelopes for that are available today as well.  Lent is a time to practice self denial, and also a time to take on extra things.

I encourage you – if you haven’t already – to ask the Holy Spirit’s guidance over the next few days to reveal to you what the Lord would like you to take up – or leave behind – during Lent.

A couple of Sundays ago when we reflected on the gospel of the wedding feast of Cana, we heard the Blessed Virgin Mary’s words: Do whatever he tells you.  Today we see another example of what happens when someone does whatever he tells them.  And just like at the wedding in Cana, what Jesus asks Simon Peter to do went against logic and common sense.  They had just been fishing all night, and caught nothing.  What use is it to put the nets out again.  And yet, Simon had just been listening to Jesus teach the crowd from the boat, and so obviously something had touched his heart.  So he doesn’t dismiss Jesus’ command – but rather agrees to do what he commands.

The huge catch of fish makes Simon realize who he is, and in whose presence he is in:  Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man.

A similar thing is reported in the first reading.  “In a majestic vision Isaiah finds himself in the presence of the thrice-blessed Lord and is overcome by great awe and a profound feeling of his unworthiness.  But a seraph purifies his lips with a burning coal and wipes away his sin.  Feeling ready to respond to God’s call, he exclaims, ‘Here I am, send me!’” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 7 February 2010).

In our second reading Saint Paul recalls why he is unworthy even to be called an apostle, because he had been one of the Church’s greatest persecutors.  And ‘[y]et he recognized that the grace of God had worked wonders in him, and – despite his limitations, God had entrusted him with the task and honour of preaching the Gospel.” (ibid.)

In Isaiah, Simon Peter, and in Paul, a true encounter with God leads us to the truth of ourselves; “how an authentic encounter with God brings the human being to recognize his poverty and inadequacy, his limitations and his sins” (ibid.).  But it doesn’t stop there.  In spite of our weaknesses and limitations, God transforms our lives and calls us not just to follow him, but to be his apostles.

Saint Irenaeus teaches that we should learn from our sin and weakness: when we are conscious of our sinful nature, then we are able to recognize our condition as a creature, and this recognition places us before the clear evidence of a Creator that transcends us.  When we realize that we are weak and sinful, then when God calls us we remember that we are mere instruments: it is God working in and through us – it is not our work.  It is God who “makes human beings who are poor and weak – but have faith in him – fearless and heralds of salvation” (Benedict XVI, ibid.)

Let us always keep our eyes fixed on Jesus – on his mercy and forgiveness, who calls us who are weak and sinful, to “put out into the deep” – to be brave and zealous in being obedient to his will – to do whatever he tells us.  “Let us overcome all fears and hesitation that we may rediscover how much God longs to bless us” (ibid.).

 

From Abe to Abraham

At Faith on Tap in Brisbane tomorrow night, Monday 11 February 2013, young adults have the chance to hear how the new Frassati movement is making a difference in the lives of young Catholics.

From the FB event page:

From Abe to Abraham

Join us at The Pineapple Hotel on Monday the 11th of February to hear Abraham Hewitt speak about his new adventures in saying yes to God’s grace! God got his attention with a $10 note and now he is a founding member of a dynamic young men’s ministry – Frassati Australia. Abraham is also a proud “sparky” (electrician) and a young man with a story of hope in challenging the view of manhood in a secular culture!

This is an ideal event to invite a friend to who is an occasional church goer or someone who has little or no faith!

I am very encouraged by the emergence of the Frassati movement as it seems to be a real work of the Holy Spirit.  It is not just a programme or an event, but provides a way of life to form young Catholic men in living the faith.

The following Vision statement is found on the Frassati Ministries website:

A passion to form young men in the Catholic faith is what drives Frassati Ministries. Under the patronage of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, we aim to help young men live a sacramental life in common brotherhood and grow in their own personal relationship with Jesus. It is essential for young men to live out their Catholic faith and discover what life with Christ is really all about.

In order to form young men in the Catholic faith we look to the great witness of Bl. Pier Giorgio and seek to imitate his example. We offer Frassati Houses for young men to live together in common brotherhood and be supported in living a sacramental, prayerful, and charitable life. We hope to encourage young men to adopt a devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady as Pier Giorgio did and to help men discover their identity through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Frassati Ministries aims to promote Pier Giorgio Frassati’s cause for canonization and seeks to further his apostalate.

Curious?  Young adults are invited to come on Monday night to find out more.

 

Wilcannia-Forbes news

As the diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes in New South Wales awaits news of a new bishop – and indeed, news about its future as a diocese – I’ve just seen a feed announcing the death of its Bishop Emeritus, Douglas Warren, who apparently died yesterday, 6 February 2013, at the age of 93.  He was auxiliary bishop of Wilcannia-Forbes from 1964 to 1967, and then diocesan bishop from 1967 to 1994.   At the time of his death he was the oldest Catholic bishop in Australia.

May he rest in peace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Joseph_Warren

http://www.gcatholic.com/dioceses/diocese/wilc0.htm#2572

 

Answer to the question

So in answer to my question, I can confirm that this relic from the past is in fact a call system indicator, from those days when presbyteries were staffed with housekeepers.  I did like one person’s suggestion that it could be the dumb waiter control, that sends your gin-and-tonic to one of three rooms (perhaps this person knows me too well?)!

This gadget certainly seems quaint by today’s standards.  Mosts priests are quite capable of getting around a kitchen nowadays, and not too many houses have much of a “housekeeping” presence beyond the essentials.  I might add that the position of presbytery housekeeper was even more significant in the not-too-distant past, before parish offices with multiple staff people became the norm.  In the absence of an office with staff, it was often the housekeeper who manned the phones and the door, and was the first person people came into contact with in contacting the parish.

Parish life has changed, and we no longer ring bells or push buzzers to have our gin-and-tonic (–oops, I mean cup of tea) delivered or the plates cleared away after a meal.  But we’re still grateful for the women who work in and care for our presbyteries, keeping everything in order, and making life a little easier.

Do you know what this is?

I snapped this photo while visiting a presbytery (rectory, for my North American readers) in Brisbane recently.

Any guesses as to what it is?

 

Standing up for the unborn

On Saturday afternoon we had the Rally for Life in Brisbane, a chance for pro-life people from many different sectors of the city and beyond to come together and give public witness to the sanctity of human life, and especially the pre-born child.

The pro-life cause works on many fronts.  We try to raise awareness of what abortion is, and help people see the truth.  We work to assist women (and their partners, families) who are facing unexpected and perhaps unwanted pregnancies, with counselling and practical assistance including crisis accomodation.  We work to help bring healing to women who have had an abortion through programmes like Rachel’s Vineyard.  We work to support pro-life politicians who will help to ensure that our laws give voice to the dignity of human life in all its stages.

Having seen the devastating and long lasting effects of abortion on women (and also men, which may not be as obvious) for myself is one of the reasons I take an active part in this work.  I want to do what I can to prevent babies being killed, but also to spare people the emotional trauma that abortion brings.  Abortion is not the only option, and there are people here to help and support those facing difficulty because of pregnancy.

A few photos from Saturday:

Various pro-life organisations had a tent:

Brendan and Judy Wong spoke about the upcoming 40 Days for Life that will occur during Lent, in the lead up to Easter:

At the end of the afternoon:

More photos here.

Perhaps in future years we might have a march through the city streets as more people come on board to speak up for the unborn.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – 3 February 2013

Homily for Mass – Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

(Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm, Sunday 7am & 9am)

2/3 February 2013

(Readings: Isaiah 1:4-5, 17-19;  Ps 70:1-6, 15, 17;  1 Cor 12:31 – 13:13;  Lk 4:21-30)

 

From the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry we have a vivid example that speaking the truth will not always be popular.  At the beginning of today’s Gospel Jesus’ words win him approval from his listeners, who were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.  A few moments later, words from those same lips had everyone in the synagogue enraged, and they literally tried to take Jesus off and kill him.  Jesus wasn’t a crowd pleaser.  He could do no other than speak the truth.

Most of us, I’m sure, find it relatively easy to talk to others when we have pleasant things to say;  and when others are glad to hear what we’ve got to say.  On the other had, we usually shy away from delivering words of confrontation, criticism or challenge.  Nor do we ourselves like being on the receiving end of such remarks.  Yet at the same time, we realize that growth (in ourselves) can result from hearing what we really don’t want to hear.

In the synagogue, Jesus spoke encouraging words.  But just as boldly, he spoke words that were challenging and confronting to his listeners.  In all cases, though, Jesus’ concern was always to speak words of salvation:  words that would call people to new life, to life under the reign of God.

As Jesus’ living body we continue the task of speaking the truth in the midst of the world: the truth of God’s love, of his commandments;  the truth of how we are to live;  the truth of the call to repent from sin, and grow in virtue.  How are we to do this?

Our second reading gives the answer.  We can be as knowledgeable, gifted and talented as is possible, but if love is not our motivation, then our gifts count for nothing.  Love is the “greatest gift” that gives value to all the others.  “For now, while we are in this world, love is the sign of Christians.  It sums up their entire life: what they believe and what they do” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 31 January 2010).  Love is “the ‘style’ of God and of believers” (ibid.).

What does this love look like?  It’s important to say what it isn’t.  Christian love is not a passive tolerance of everything.  Christian love is not relativism: where “everything’s as good as everything else,” “no opinion is better than another’s.”  Love “delights in the truth” – it doesn’t change the truth, or deny the truth.

However that delighting in the truth is done in a particular way: a way that is meant to be self-less.  The Christian has to die to self in order to love the other, and that’s why Saint Paul says that love “is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”  Love always seeks the good of the other, and ultimately it seeks their eternal salvation.

The Saints show us how to exercise Christian love.  The “life of each one of them is a hymn to [love]” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 31 January 2010).  During the week we celebrated the feast of Saint John Bosco, who was an educator of the young.  In his writings we see a wonderful example of how he taught his brother Salesians (the order he founded) to love the young people in their care.

He calls on the example of Jesus and the way he treated the apostles.  He writes, “[Jesus] put up with their ignorance and dullness and their lack of faith.  His attitude towards sinners was full of kindness and loving friendship.  This astonished some and scandalized others, but to others it gave enough hope to ask forgiveness from God.”  He taught the Salesians: “Because the boys are our sons, we must put aside all anger when we correct their faults, or at least restrain it so much that it is almost completely suppressed.  There must be no angry outbursts, no look of contempt, no hurtful words.  Instead, like true fathers, really intent on their correction and improvement, show them compassion at the present moment and hold out hope for the future.”

He adds, importantly, that some things aren’t solved by human means.  He writes, “In serious matters it is better to ask God’s help in humble prayer, than to make a long speech that wounds those who hear it and does no good at all to the guilty ones.”  (Office of Readings for 31 January).

Having heard the word of God today, let’s reflect on our own “style” as Christian people.  Are we recognized by our love?  Are others aware that we are prepared to die to self so that they may have life?  Do we have the good of others at heart in all our daily interactions?

 

 

Rally for Life Brisbane – Saturday 2 February 2013

The Brisbane RALLY FOR LIFE is tomorrow – Saturday 2 February, at Queen’s Park, Brisbane CBD.

Pre-rally entertainment starts at 1:15pm (Roby Curtis and Band) with the main event starting at 2:00pm. Estimated finish time is 4:00pm.

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/485984291443192/

http://www.rallyforlife.com.au/

See you there!

—

Some details of the Brisbane Rally for Life as previously posted …

We look forward to your support at the first event on the prolife calendar – the RALLY FOR LIFE is being held at 2pm on Saturday 2nd February 2013 at the usual venue of Queen’s Park, cnrs William, Elizabeth & George Sts, Brisbane city.  Please send these details to your Contacts and post them on FACEBOOK and TWITTER.

 The rousing Roby Curtis band will start off the event with some great numbers at 1pm.

 You will need to bring:

-chair/rug

-umbrella (it can be hot!)

-water

-DONATION (please – we need to keep this Rally as an annual event)

 

Rally speakers are:

Geoffrey Bullock – well-known champion of the prolife movement, Geoffrey works tirelessly for Family Voice Australia and will be speaking on the sanctity of life.

Anthony Banfield – a young man who lost his first two children to abortion and speaks of the impact this has had on his life.  (Men are often overlooked in the abortion scenario.)

Veronica Hayes – a vibrant well-spoken young woman speaking to inspire youth to get active in the pro-life issues.

 Can you:

-help on the day by inflating and tying balloons?

-be a marshall at the event?

-drop equipment etc back to the Cherish Life office immediately after the Rally?

-be an official donation collector at the event?

If yes, please contact Teresa in the Cherish Life office either via email or phone – teresa@cherishlife.org.au or Ph 3871 2445, as soon as possible.

 Hoping to see you all at the Rally For Life 2013,

 Teresa Martin

School staff Mass

On Tuesday morning, 29 January 2013, I celebrated Mass with the staff of Saint Bernardine’s School, Regents Park.

The following is my homily:

If I were to do a little survey and ask you what you remember most about your own school days, I’m quite sure the answers would not be: we had a great curriculum;  we had the best designed classrooms and school buildings;  the timetable was really well organized.  I’m sure that your memories of your own schooling would most probably be about people: maybe your classmates, but probably too about teachers.  I remember Mrs so-and-so.  We probably don’t remember the classes, but we remember those people from our own schooling who made a personal impact on us.  “We remember the teacher who recognised us as individuals who acknowledged our talents, who transmitted to us that we were capable, capable of doing more than we had imagined, teachers who helped and encouraged us when things were not going well, and teachers who quietly rejoiced in our small successes.”  (Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, 23 September 2010: http://www.dublindiocese.ie/content/2392010-schools-mass-homily).

 

You don’t need me to tell you that children today are very aware of what’s going on in our world: its good things, and its problems.  It’s impossible for them not to be.  From an early age children are witness to social discourse in ways that not so long ago we had no idea about.  Moreover, children grow up in families where all the successes and failures of our western culture are lived and breathed from day to day.

 

Despite the difference in context, young people still need and look for models – anchors – that they can use as they chart their course in life.  The young people who come to St Bernardine’s will be looking at you.  Just as the people were watching Jesus closely to see what kind of person he was.  The students of St Bernardine’s – whether they acknowledge it or not – will be noticing what type of person you are: do you care about them?  is this just a job for you?  are you truthful?  They’ll pick up on your values – even your morals!

 

This is a challenge!  It’s a call to conversion.  Who do we want to be for the young people of Saint Bernardine’s?  What do we want them to remember about us?

 

As we hear the familiar first reading, describing the diversity of gifts given by the one Holy Spirit, on one level we could apply it to ourselves as the staff of St Bernardine’s.  All of us here have to find creative ways of working with each other, mindful that we all have differing abilities, differing gifts.  We have to bring forth our own abilities, and be respectful of others as they do the same.  We have to confront jealousy in ourselves which is one of the great destroyers of team work.

 

But on another level too, we could apply the first reading to our students.  They too have been gifted by the same Holy Spirit with a diversity of gifts.  And it’s our task as educators – as people charged with the formation of the young – to help those gifts emerge and grow.  The teachers who did that for us are truly the ones we remember.  The ones who could see something in us, and who encouraged us, who challenged us.

 

Today as we offer this Mass, let’s ask God to pour all his graces upon us as begin a new year of working together.  Let’s pray for schools everywhere, and particularly those schools in our own region who may have a difficult beginning of the year with the floods.  Let’s pray that God will help each of us to be people of authenticity, people who truly want to make a difference in the lives of the young people entrusted to our care.

Vinnies’ flood appeal & Archbishop’s message

Media release from the St Vincent de Paul Society:

When the water goes down, Vinnies will still be there

Monetary donations desperately needed

St Vincent de Paul Society today launched its Queensland Flood Appeal 2013.  Queensland State President, Brian Moore, said “Financial donations are the easiest way to make sure we can quickly provide assistance to those who need it.”
“Families affected by the floods in the past week are turning to St Vincent de Paul Society for support.
We need to be there to help people rebuild their lives, but we can only do that with the financial support of the public.
Every dollar donated goes directly to those affected by the disaster.
Mr Moore said the Society has a permanent local presence throughout Queensland.
“We are committed to assisting in the long-term recovery of people affected by the disaster, we are on the ground and know our communities, when the flood waters recede, Vinnies will still be there offering assistance and friendship: helping people recover their lives.”
During the 2011 flood disaster Vinnies provided over $31m in direct financial assistance.
To make a donation to the Queensland Flood Appeal, please visit vinnies.org.au, call 13 18 12 or send your donation to PO Box 3351 South Brisbane, QLD 4101.

+++    +++    +++

ARCHBISHOP’S MESSAGE TO THOSE SUFFERING THROUGH THE FLOODS

 

On Tuesday January 29, Archbishop Mark Coleridge penned the following message of
support to all who have been suffering through these most recent floods:

 
We have all been moved by the floods and the human suffering that they
have brought. Two years ago, I saw the floods from afar on TV and in
newspapers. But the anxiety and the pain cut more deeply now that I live
where the floods have hit. I think particularly of those who have suffered
a second time in two years. That is truly heart-breaking. It is worse still for
families who have lost loved ones. May the Lord give eternal rest to those
who have died and peace to those who mourn them.

 
Again the floods are an urgent call upon our generosity. Financially, these
are not easy times for many, but I ask you to make a sacrifice in support of
those who have suffered so much. All support should be directed to the St
Vincent de Paul Society who will coordinate our relief efforts as they did
so well two years ago. Envelopes will go into the parishes this weekend to
assist donations. I have also asked that $20,000 be sent from the
Archdiocese of Brisbane to the Diocese of Rockhampton which has been
so badly hit, especially in Bundaberg and Gladstone.

 
In addition to providing material support, the Church also has the
responsibility of providing spiritual support. I ask the entire Archdiocese
to pray for the communities, families and individuals who have been
struck by the cyclone and the floods. I conclude with the Missal’s special
Collect in time of flood: “Look upon us, O God, and see the floods that
devastate the earth; grant, we pray, hope to our troubled hearts and new
life to the damaged land. Through Christ our Lord. Amen”

 
Archbishop Mark Coleridge

Mass for school staff at Regents Park

In Saint Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park, on Tuesday morning – 29 January 2013 – at 8.30am, Mass will be offered for and with the staff of  Saint Bernardine’s School.

We ask God’s blessing on all that we will do in the academic year ahead.

Australia Day weekend

The Australia Day weekend 2013 has been a reminder that we live in a country of extremes.  For the last month we’ve been praying for all those affected by the fires that have been burning in different parts of the country.  And while fires still burn in some parts down south, Queensland and northern New South Wales have been hit by a cyclone and its after-effects which has brought tornadoes, destructive winds and widespread flooding.  For some people, they had only just finished repairs following the 2011 floods.  The Brisbane River will peak tomorrow in the middle of the day, so a lot of people are waiting to see what will happen.

We lost power where I live at about 1pm on Sunday, and some reports suggest power may not be restored until Wednesday.  Extended loss of electricity is a bit of a disruption, to say the least, but of course nowhere near as bad as what some people are currently experiencing.

We ask the Lord to keep everyone safe from harm, and to strengthen all those affected by the weather at this time.

The beauty of life

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – 20 January 2013

Homily for Mass – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

(St Bernardine’s Church, Regents Park: Saturday 6pm, Sunday 7.30am & 9am)

19/20 January 2013

(Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5;  Ps 95;  1 Cor 12:4-11;  John 2:1-11)

Have you ever noticed that the Bible begins and ends with a wedding?  In the beginning, we have the marriage of Adam and Eve, as found in the book of Genesis.  In the last book, the book of Revelation, we have the marriage supper of the Lamb.  In the Scriptures, marriage is constantly used as the symbol of the covenant relationship God wants to have with his people.  In the Old Testament God is the groom, and his chosen people are the bride.  We see this imagery in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah.  That reading says how God speaks of his chosen people: “you shall be called ‘My Delight’ and your land ‘The Wedded.”  The reading concludes, “… as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in you.”

That symbolism is taken up in the New Testament – there Christ is the bridegroom – and the Church is his bride;  the Church being the new Israel, the new chosen people of God.  So it’s not surprising that the first sign Jesus gives is in the context of a wedding celebration.  The bridegroom has arrived – the kingdom of God – the marriage supper – is beginning!

It’s interesting that the first thing Jesus does as a sign of who he is isn’t specifically to heal a sick person, or to preach to the crowds, or call people to repentance.  The first sign he gives is to change water into wine at a wedding celebration.  We could say, then, that “any aspect of existence, even the most banal, is worthy of a relationship with [Jesus] and therefore, of his intervention” (Servant of God Luigi Giussani).  What seem like the ordinary, mundane things of our lives are the very things that God is interested in, because it’s in those actual things that fill our days where we put God first – or not – where we follow his will, or not.

Can you imagine a wedding where the drink runs out?!  If you were the organizer of the wedding, or if you were the bride or the groom – how would you feel?  It would be embarrassing – for some it would be a disaster – to not have enough for the people you’ve invited to a celebration.  And yet one thing the wedding feast at Cana can teach us is that when things go wrong, it can be an opportunity for something better to happen.  The apparent disaster of running out of wine led to Jesus producing wine that was even better than the original wine.  And it also led to the glory of Jesus being seen and his disciples believing in him.  Perhaps we can think of situations in our lives when God was able to draw good fruits out of what at first appeared to be a bad – even tragic – situation.

Another marvelous thing the wedding feast of Cana teaches us is about Mary the mother of Jesus.  Mary shows us how to be disciples of Jesus.  One of the first things we notice about Mary is her concern for others.  She is there at the wedding in Cana as one of the guests, and yet she notices the problem unfolding and she wants to do something about it.  In what Mary does she reflects the goodness and generosity of God, who is always thinking of us, watching over us, and providing for us.  Mary has an attitude of creative service.  She wants to act – just like in the visitation, when Mary – herself being pregnant – goes to help her cousin Elizabeth in her pregnancy.  St Vincent Pallotti said it well: “Remember that the Christian life is one of action; not of speech and daydreams… In heaven we shall rest.”

Another way Mary’s actions teach us is that she knew she couldn’t fix the problem by herself – but she knew very well who could.  She doesn’t tell Jesus what to do, but she brings to him a very specific problem.  She has confidence in Jesus.  She knows that his heart is full of goodness, love and mercy.  Mary teaches us to come to Jesus with that same confidence;  to lay before him the very specific needs we have.

Another thing Mary teaches us is to obey what we hear God say to us.  We hear today the last words Mary will speak in the Gospels, “Do whatever he tells you.”  We might think that sounds easy, but it could well be the hardest thing.  When Jesus told the servants to fill the jars with water, what do you think they were thinking?  Here’s this guy who has come with his fisherman mates and his mother, and he tells us to fill the jars with water.  How’s that going to help?  He’s wasting our time!

Doing what God tells us is not always logical, and it’s not always the easiest thing to do.  And very often, it means going against the tide.  God’s ways are not our ways. Everyone else is using contraception, it must be OK.  Everyone else is having sex before marriage and living together, what could be wrong with that?  How could I possibly fit prayer into my busy schedule?  How will I find the time and energy to feed the hungry, or to visit the sick?  We need to pray for the grace to be able to do as Mary says, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Having heard the word of God today, let’s remember that our day to day lives matter very much to God, because it’s right there that we serve him: our kitchens, our classrooms, our celebrations and parties, our recreation.  No need is too small or insignificant to be brought to Jesus with confidence.

Let’s give thanks that our Blessed Mother continues her role of interceding for us – of taking our lives and our needs to the heart of her son.  Let’s be like her in our attitude of creative service of others.  And let’s pray for that grace that was given in such a special way to Mary, who was able to fulfil perfectly the will of God in her life, who was able to do what she urges us to do:   Do whatever he tells you.