Homilies – October 2024
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
6th OCTOBER 2024
TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Genesis 2:18-24 Hebrews 2:9-11 Mark 10:2-16
In our lives it is always difficult to reconcile the dreams we have for life and trying to live the reality of life on an everyday basis.
Australians, who are great at little expressions, have attached sayings to these primary moments that affect us all. In regard to living out the dream and the vision for our lives, we sometimes hear people say, “I am living the dream!” I hear this sometimes when people are retired and decide to make a caravan trip around Australia. I notice that this expression sometimes is made far more by the husbands and not so much by the wives!
On the other hand, trying to come to terms with the nitty gritty of harsh realities of life seems so far away from the dream. We hear people say more than ever this rather strange expression, “It is what it is.” This rather passive resignation to life’s challenges might come under the critique of Christianity in several ways. However, it is the way people feel and their expression is well received by people in the turmoil of life.
To give some examples on bringing together the dream and the reality, here are a few illustrations.
Recently I had a social conversation with an Ambassador who represents his county here in Australia.
He used the expression about living the dream in sport.
He said, “Australians live the dream in sport, in the sense there is no segregation of supporters by fences when over a hundred thousand people come together.” The police and security are present but the Army are not needed at sporting events. Then, he said, “At the end no matter who is the victor, all players will congratulate each other.” Australians are living the dream in sport! He said, “This is not the case in many places of the world.”
Another example could be the following. In recent days I have received an email from our friends at Bethlehem University in the Holy Land. They updated us on their situation in the troubled Holy Land. Today we join with Christians throughout the world in responding to Pope Francis’ call for a day of prayer for peace in the Middle East.
However, the Bethlehem University stated that in recent days a bomb exploded only 500 metres from the Basilica of the Nativity. The noise of drones and bombs flying overhead are creating enormous fear.
The dream has been that, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Saviour, brings peace to us all who embrace the dream of God made present in Jesus Christ. The reality is that 2000 years later and only 500 metres away from the geographic place where Jesus himself was born, the noise and bombs of warfare are still to be heard. Trying to bridge the ideal with the reality here is an ongoing challenge for world peace.
Another example might be in regard to Marriage and family life. The theological dream of Marriage and family life is presented in today’s Readings. In the First Reading from the Book of Genesis we hear that God’s vision for men and women in Marriage is that, “they become one body.” The Gospel today mirrors this and is forcibly supported by Jesus who says, “From the beginning of creation God made them male and female…they are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.”
It is from this that the Sacrament of Matrimony formed in later centuries. Here the Sacrament of Marriage mirrors the way God love us. God loves us in a way that is permanent. God does not tire of us and loose interest in us. It is the covenant bond that is forever. That is why we Catholics do not permit Divorce. This love that God has for us is faithful. God doesn’t tire of us and move His loving attention exclusively to the wales or dolphins of Koalas! If that is the way God loves us, in a faithful way, so must husbands and wives. Therefore, there is no support for infidelity and adultery.
Finally, God loves in a way that is fruitful and open to new life and new generations of hope. That is why the Church is very supportive of married couples who, if practically possible, open their relationship up to the possibility of children. The idea that couples move into Marriage with a deliberate intention not to open themselves up for childbearing, is against the Sacrament of Matrimony.
When we look at the reality amongst us, we know that this vision, this wonderful theological vision for Marriage and family life, is far from the reality of peoples’ lives in today’s chaotic world. Even at the time of Jesus the Apostles seem to question these high standards when they ask Him, “Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus’ response is immediate, “It was because you were so unteachable…” Docility to God’s theological vision of Marriage and family life remains in the midst of the difficulties of living out this dream. Mind you, in the Scriptures, especially Genesis, there is a great wonder that women are never seen as some sort of chattel or property of men. They are seen as equal to men and co-creators with God in the “New Heaven and the New Earth.”
We do of course try to help couples bridge the huge gap between ideals and realities through our pastoral care. We are to remain close to them and always see that everyone (a word used constantly be Pope Francis) is to be seen in their dignity and their beauty in the eyes of God. We do, for example, have the Marriage Tribunal which helps couples in these areas as well as many other pastoral ways.
Another example might be the upcoming Assembly of the Archdiocese on the 18th to 20th of October 2024. We have already had the Plenary Council of Australia some years ago. Before this we had consultations, which included this Archdiocese, to see where people’s thoughts were on the Church in the modern world. Also globally, both last year and right now in this month of October 2024, we have the two Synods on synodality. Pope Francis is gathering many hundreds of people representing the entire Catholic world to listen carefully to the Holy Spirit and to see were the Spirit is blowing. About 16 Australians are part of that discerning body in Rome. So we are well represented.
However, that which is happening nationally and now internationally, now suggests that it is time for us in this Archdiocese to do the same.
So, in two weeks’ time we will gather, both here in the Cathedral and at St Clare’s College nearby, to discern what the Holy Spirit is doing in our own Archdiocese. This will be done in a multimodal manner. The central hub will be here in Canberra but it will also be livestreamed enabling people from four other hubs around the Archdiocese to participate. So all of us can be involved. I invite you all, if you have not already done so, to make yourself informed about this wonderful initiative by accessing our website: www.cg.evangelisation.org.au
Could I just simply say there are two approaches that we need to guard against as we move towards the Assembly.
The first is walking too fast for the Holy Spirit. If we come to the Assembly simply with our “hot button issues” and expectation of outcomes to surface immediately, we will be disappointed. Assemblies tend to stress the relational dimension of our faith more than the outcomes or procedural ways of outcomes. Not that outcomes are unimportant but they are to be seen in a greater panorama of listening to what the Holy Spirit is truly is saying and not just in a parliamentary way.
On the other hand, however, to fold our arms and say, “Thanks very much but I am not particularly interested in this, I will just go ahead with my Catholic life as if nothing is happening. I do wish those gathering for the Assembly every blessing and hope.”
This more aloof approach is even worse than walking too fast for the Holy Spirit. This is walking far too slow. The Holy Spirit always comforts us but prods us on and disrupts us not to sit back in a comfortable Church in a very individualistic way and let everything pass us by.
The next few weeks are very significant for this Archdiocese. This is especially so next Sunday, when we will have a day of prayer for the success of the Synod invoking the intercession of Mary.
There are many other examples I am sure we can find. However, the way of living the dream and living the reality is always a daily challenge for us. Perhaps one way that is a good start, is to always make sure we bring Jesus into the Church and the world and bring the Church and the world into the encounter with Jesus. By placing the Lord in the centre of things we allow the Holy Spirit to go before us and to lead us to God’s Holy will.
The “Gospill” for today is as follows, “Give back Jesus to the Church and the Church back to Jesus.”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
13th OCTOBER 2024
TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11Hebrews 4:12-13 Mark 10:17-30
“Jesus was setting out on a journey.” We in the Archdiocese are also setting out on a journey. Our Archdiocesan Assembly is coming up over the next few days. A “synodal pilgrimage”, simply means that we are setting out on a journey led by Jesus. Jesus continues to lead us through the Holy Spirit. Over the next week we will make a significant step, amongst many other steps in the future, for the long journey to the Father’s House. The main thing is that we are setting out together.
The theme for this Assembly is, Come Holy Spirit. It is not a conference or a resource. It is a way we can more intentionally ask Jesus for Encounter with Him, to walk in Discipleship and to be sent out on Mission. Then we can truly become Catholic evangelists as the Lord wants. So, I invite you all to participate as fully as you can. Details are in today’s Bulletin.
Two extremes are to be avoided with this synodal journey, whether it be our Assembly or in the years ahead as we become more and more a synodal Archdiocese. If we too strongly place emphasis on specific outcomes and are really passionate about them, we are clearly walking too fast for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads this Archdiocese. Where is the Holy Spirit leading us? Let’s not give the Holy Spirit a redundancy package and take over His role!
In the other extreme, however, let’s not have the too slow attitude of, “All this doesn’t concern me.” In doing so we move towards becoming like the rich young man in today’s Gospel. More on that in a moment.
So today I have asked all the parishes of the Archdiocese to pray with me for God’s blessing upon our Assembly and protection from all harm and evil. You will notice some special candles next to the Pascal Candle on the Sanctuary. They are to go out to the different hubs.
Next Sunday a special Pastoral letter from me will be read out by all Priests and Deacons in the Archdiocese. The week after, we conclude our “Festival” by regrouping for the Marian Procession at Goulburn.
When Jesus was setting out on this journey, He met up with a rich young man. The rich young man wanted to know what he has to do to inherit eternal life. There is a beautiful expression in the Gospel. It says, “Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.” We can see, we might say, the synodality of Jesus as he walks with this young man.
First of all, “he looks steadily at him.” This means there was eye to eye contact. Clearly Jesus listened attentively to him. Jesus would have been silent as the young man explained his life to him. Clearly this young man was very rich on the outside, with all the creature comforts but he was clearly very poor on the inside. He felt something was missing. He felt that he had “all that glitters” but not all that gives peace and hope.
Then the expression “…and loved him.” Here is the moment from eye to eye, heart to heart, Jesus loved him and opened the way for this young man to encounter Jesus as the joy of his inner life. That which he was looking for was standing in front of him. Then there is the movement from the encounter to the mission. There was an invitation to suffering and renunciation. There seemed to be no welcome by the young man to this deeper encounter.
We don’t really know how this encounter finished. It seemed to have concluded abruptly, the Scripture simply says, “He went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.” The very conversion he was looking for was being offered by Jesus but the two of them are on two different levels.
I like to think, in an Australian manner, as they parted ways Jesus would have put His hand out and given him a hand shake. Here is the ongoing invitation if the man wanted to come back. They left on good terms. The invitation remained for the man to leave everything and follow Jesus. He had not reached that point. Maybe next time!
This coming Thursday night we will see a young man who is prepared to give up everything and follow Jesus, even to the point of death. I will ordain Deacon Mark Ha, this coming Thursday night at 5.00pm in the Cathedral, as a Priest of the Archdiocese. He wants to risk everything on Jesus. He is a very good example of the Archdiocese as we, the day after, are moving to our Assembly. We too must risk everything on the Gospel. Deacon Mark comes from Canberra and some of his family are here. He is a graduate from one of the Canberra Universities. We pray for him in this Mass.
So, let us take up the synodal example of Jesus on our journey of life as we meet people, let us take on “the Jesus example.”
In this, we find our “Gospill” for today. It simply means that, “If eye to eye doesn’t work, let’s try to heart to heart. If that doesn’t work let’s try hand to hand.”
Doing so, really moves us into “the Jesus way” of being a Missionary Disciple of the Resurrection.
PASTORAL LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CONCLUDING THE ARCHDIOCESAN ASSEMBLY OF 2024
29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
SUNDAY, 20TH OCTOBER 2024
“COME, HOLY SPIRIT”
Isaiah 53/10-11, Hebrews 4/14-16, Mark 10/35-45
Today is World Mission Sunday.
How appropriate it is to conclude our significant ASSEMBLY weekend when the Catholic world reflects on mission. Indeed, without being “sent out” by the Lord Jesus, all that has happened in recent days would have no apostolate, no missionary zeal. We would end up a kind of “sent inwards” pious Catholic community of no real spiritual impulse or social consequence.
Let us learn from the mistakes of Saints James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They confused discipleship with power rather than a type of service that leads to possible martyrdom.
Yet Jesus’ loving care for them is obvious in his gentle question. Perhaps we could say that Jesus asks the same question to the Archdiocese and every parish, school, community and agency.
With eye-to-eye contact and a brief loving silence, Jesus too asks us at the end of our Assembly: “What is it you want me to do for you?”
Our answer is still under formation. It must, however, be missionary in some way. Our Assembly has made some progress in formulating our answer to this question of Jesus.
As an initial response, perhaps we all could reply to Jesus and say: Make of us a truly synodal Archdiocese, O Lord.
Surely, the Lord is already answering our request. In this regard, the Assembly has been, thanks be to God, a point of arrival.
This arrival is the growing awareness amongst us that the task is to see the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn IN A SYNODAL WAY.
We are slowly gaining confidence that “walking together” in a prayerful manner that truly listens and respects many viewpoints seems “good to us and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 15/28). This intentional listening is based on the belief that the Holy Spirit is subtly moving among us. Based on our Baptism and arising charisms, we separate convergences and divergences and list areas for further discussion.
This happened over the Assembly weekend and the months beforehand when so many attempted to “learn to swim” in the ancient but new methodology of “Conversation in the Spirit”, via the roundtable experiences. Having prayed, “Come, Holy Spirit”, it becomes a real conversion experience for us in restricting ourselves not to walk either too fast or too slow for the Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit guide us.
As we move towards concluding our “Year of the Holy Spirit”, at least we can say truthfully that we have made a modest start to a synodal pilgrimage in our Archdiocese that is to continue in the times ahead.
Perhaps another answer in response to the Lord’s question to us all could be: Make of us, O Lord, true missionary disciples.
Here, the Assembly is a point of departure for us all in the Archdiocese.
Ultimately, I believe, true synodality is risking everything on the promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit guides us to “a New Heaven and a New Earth” (Rev.21/1) of eternity. The Jubilee Year of 2025 is named: Pilgrims of Hope. Let us stake everything on hope! Local pilgrimages to our Archdiocesan four sentinel Churches is to be encouraged.
Our hopeful gaze centres on the task to make every parish, educational centres and communities true “schools of synodality” in the immediate times ahead. This will mean to focus on baptism and discern arising local charisms. It must also instil silence as a real listening dimension of every parish to the Holy Spirit. Perhaps parishes could plan to conduct their own parish Synodal Assembly soon.
The next Archdiocesan Assembly could well be a report back to the entire Archdiocese on how the parishes and deaneries are, in fact, developing such a synodal culture among the People of God. Let us work towards a “permanent synodal Assembly” in our motivation and attitudes.
What we have learnt is the primacy of an evangelisation that embraces encounter, discipleship and mission. Just imagine if every baptised Catholic, seeing himself or herself as a Catholic evangeliser, could “adopt” five friends and “walk with them” back to the practice of the Faith or introduce them to Catholicism via the RCIA.
As always, our missionary departure points are to prioritize ministry to families and the poor of our communities.
A full synthesis of our Assembly will be sent to your parishes and communities very soon for your discernment. Please see this as a practical point of departure for the next step on the many steps ahead on our pilgrimage to the Father’s home in our parishes. The on-going formation of a Diocesan Pastoral Council constituted in a synodal way will assist us in this task.
As always, we travel with Mary, Our Lady Help of Christians, who so brilliantly reflects the light of her Son like the moon reflects the sun. Next Sunday you may wish to join me at St Peter and Paul’s Old Cathedral Parish for our annual Marian Procession. During the 2pm Mass, I will once again dedicate the entire Archdiocese to her maternal intercession and care.
Sincere thanks to the many who have been involved in gathering us together during this Assembly.
With prayerful greetings and hope in the Holy Spirit.
Archbishop Christopher Prowse
Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn.
20th October 2024.