Homilies – August 2024
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
4TH AUGUST 2024
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Ex 16:2-4. 12-15 Eph 4:17,20-24 Gospel John 6:24-35
We continue our meditations on John Chapter 6. Beginning with the Gold Medal Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, throughout this Chapter of St John which we will continue to mediate for the next few weeks, we have the joy of reflecting on the great gift of the Eucharist.
As I reflect on these Readings, it draws to my mind the challenge we all have of seeing the “real reality” behind the “presenting reality.”
We seem to have no trouble in this area in regard to health issues. For example, when you discover some imperfection on your skin that is irritating and is itchy you quickly go to a Dermatologist. You are hoping it is not a skin cancer. Also, when you have a sore throat, you start coughing, you feel tired and have a fever, you might feel tempted to take a R.A.T. to insure you don’t have Covid.
When it comes to spiritual matters, however, we may not be so quick on linking a real reality behind a presenting reality.
In the First Reading today the complaining People of God start to whinge about the food! Then one day when they come out of their tents in the morning, the Scripture says, “There on the surface of the desert was a thing delicate, powdery, as fine as hoarfrost on the ground.” When they see this they use a Biblical word “MANNA.” This means, “What is this?” The answer comes from Moses who replies, “That is the bread the Lord gives you to eat.” So the presenting reality is this powdery dew on the ground but the real reality is food given by the Lord Himself for us to eat.
This, of course, is linked to the Gospel of today. Indeed Jesus makes direct reference to this Old Testament Reading.
So people come to Him after the Miracle of the Loaves and Fish curious about Him repeating this act of grace. Jesus can see through their presenting realities. He says to them, “You are not looking for me because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.” He then draws them to the real reality behind their hunger which is not just simply a physical hunger but a spiritual hunger. He says to them, “Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life.”
This continuation of the Lord feeding his people with plenty is a major Eucharistic theme. Indeed, in the Liturgy, just before Holy Communion, the Priest helps us to move towards this “real reality” of the Body and Blood of Christ behind the “presenting reality” of Bread and Wine. The Priest says, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are we who are called to the supper of the Lamb.” It is the banquet of life that we are invited too in the Eucharist, where God feeds us with all that we need to satisfy our inner spiritual hungers.
Let us reflect a little on this real reality or real presence of Christ. The real presence of Christ is certainly in His Body and Blood given to us in Holy Communion but also there is a social presence of Christ when we gather.
We come from a very individualistic society but when we come to Mass it is not an exercise in individuality. We have to check ourselves to make sure that we realise t as Baptised people we come as the gathered People of God around the table of the Lord to be fed in both Word and Sacrament. The presenting reality is not simply a randomly selected group of individuals. The real reality is that we are the gathered Body of Christ being fed by our common Heavenly Father.
Given such reflections, we could consider for a few moments the “Manna” of the Eucharist. In other words “What is this?”
There is an expression in Australia, probably coming from overseas, which says “I’ve got your back!” When we come to the Mass, to God’s real presence we not only say, “I’ve got your back” in the sense that I am here to encourage you and support you but we say in another way “I’ve got your soul!” We are to look out for each other as the gathered People of God. This is only increased by being fed at the banquet of the Lamb.
I have recently heard the speech of a Bishop from overseas at a Eucharistic National Conference in the United States. He told the story of a person coming to him indicating he would no longer be coming to Mass. The reason being he was not well and had been away from the Church for a month. When he regained health and went back to Church not one person came up to him to ask where he had been or what was wrong with him and offered help. He felt so lonely going back even more so because there was no “social sense” of the Eucharist. The Bishop makes a good point here. We are to look out for each other as God’s Eucharistic family.
I was so pleased to hear recently that people in this Cathedral Parish noticed that a regular of this Mass was not present for a few Sundays. The parishioners visited her home. They found that she had been sick. She lived on her own and had virtually locked herself away until her health began to improve. They offered her practical assistance and she was very grateful for that. These wonderful people are certainly living out the social dimensions of the Eucharist. There is a real responsibility of charity involved here.
On another matter, have you ever reflected on the fact that we offer each other the sign of peace just before we receive Holy Communion? This has always been seen as a sign of Reconciliation to each other. It is certainly this but it is also a moment when we can recognise each other and realise that when we are being fed by the Lord at Holy Communion, we are being fed but not as individuals, as His family, the family of God gathered around His Heavenly banquet. There is such a priority here that should also help us to avoid being habitually late for our Mass. It is simply not good enough to come in late and leave early to get home for another priority. Mass is not a concert but at least a smile or a wave of acknowledgement is not inconsequential in supporting this social dimension of our Mass.
Let’s continue now with our Mass and perhaps for our “Gospill” we could say, “Jesus you are our Bread of Life.” It is not “Jesus you are my Bread of life but our Bread of life.” We are God’s family gathered together when we come to Mass.
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
THANKSGIVING MASS AND FAREWELL – CARMELITE MONASTERY CANBERRA
50 YEARS 1974-2024
SATURDAY 24TH AUGUST 2024
Readings: Apocalypse 21:9-14 Gospel John 1:45-51
On one level, we have not been looking forward to this day!
The closure of our beloved Carmelite Monastery at 28 Mugga Way, Red Hill, comes after 50 years of Carmel being part of the DNA of this Archdiocese’ evangelisation.
Our Carmel has been a powerhouse of contemplation and intercession for the last 50 years.
We have come to love and respect the feminine genius, the mystical presence and profound humanity of the many Carmelite Sisters who have served us so well here. The Woden Cemetery testifies to their loving presence unto death for many of them.
Personally, I confess to a deep unredeemed sense of guilt on this day! When I was the Apostolic Administrator of the Wagga Wagga Diocese, I celebrated a similar Mass like today to close the Carmel Convent at Wagga Wagga.
Not too long after, I visited for the last time the Carmel Convent at Tavernelle near Florence, Italy. Soon after, the Convent closed and the two remaining Sisters returned to Kew, Melbourne, leaving behind their beloved Madre buried amongst the town’s people, as was her fervent wish.
And now today, I feel like some sort of Episcopal Grim Reaper of the Carmelite Sisters in celebrating this Thanks Giving Mass and Farewell!
Sisters, please think twice before you invite me to visit you again in Kew! Please only do so after intense contemplation and discernment!
On another level, however, our faith insists that we are Baptised into the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. Mary, in the contemplative Marian dimension of the Church, continually reminds us that we are a people of trust and hope in the Risen Lord Jesus. We are a Pilgrimage People on a synodal journey to the Heavenly banquet where Jesus will be fully in everything and in all things.
Hence, today we should not tend to fading embers but we are to fan the hot coals of prayer intercession from Canberra to Kew with thanksgiving and trustful hope.
I have heard from my Aboriginal friends that in ancient times an Aboriginal gift to a neighbouring tribe was to bring, not wine and Christmas cakes or lamingtons but hot coals from your fire to the fire of your neighbour.
It is a beautiful Aussie symbol of today’s Farewell surely.
For today, we prayerfully transfer the historic Carmelite prayer “hot coals” from Red Hill to Kew. Our prayer intercessions, praises of God, requests to Mary, St Teresa of Avila and St Therese of Lisieux are transferred but not extinguished to the Mother House in Kew.
Sisters, please continue to pray for us! May Kew also be known as Kew-Red Hill in your hearts! As you contemplate on the love of God, continue to intercede for our needs. What an enduring prayer legacy that would be!
On another level the Holy Spirit, as always the protagonist of the Church (as Pope Francis continually reminds us regarding Synodality which is so helpful as this Archdiocese moves towards its October Assembly), is known to disrupt and comfort us.
Today we are disrupted by the Carmel closure but we are also comforted by an upsurge of new life in the Holy Spirit in the Archdiocese.
By this I mean, for example, although the Carmelites and last year the Dominicans have and are leaving the Archdiocese, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers and the Voluntas Dei priests have begun new ministries in this Archdiocese. In addition, vocations to the Seminary are flourishing. In the last two months, four young men seeking to become Seminarians have come to see me for formal talks. Also, a number of young women are making it known to us that they are seeking some form of Religious life, however vague that calling might be at present. There is also an upsurge in the importance of silence, seen especially by the flourishing of Christian Meditation groups throughout the Archdiocese, especially our schools.
“Holy Spirit, comfort us more and more!”
Always the Scriptures at the Mass comfort and disrupt and guide us on our pilgrimage to the Heavenly city, the “New Jerusalem.” Here there is always a looking forward in hope and not simply a looking backward in nostalgia and sentimentality.
The Scriptures reflect today on the Feast of St. Bartholomew, sometimes called Nathanael.
St Bartholomew was born in Cana and is one of the twelve Apostles.
In the First Reading, we find an invitation of God from the Book of the Apocalypse, “Come here and I will show you the bride that the lamb has married.” Here the bride is the “New Jerusalem.” It is a glimpse of the future. It is described in a beautiful phrase as “The Radiant Glory of God.”
In the Gospel today from St John, another type of invitation is given from Philip to Nathanael. Philip says to him, “Come and see.” Nathanael, suspicious of anyone from Nazareth, however, then has an encounter with Jesus. It is quite clear from Nathanael, that he feels Jesus has understood him and his faith story without even having met face to face. The word “Nathanael” means “God has given” and he is described as incapable of deceit. In our Aussie English, we might say this person is “True Blue.” In other words, the person comes without a self-written press release and is so ordinary yet God filled. This was certainly Nathanael to the point of martyrdom.
I would like to think that the Carmelite Sisters for over 50 years in Canberra have “radiated the Glory of God” from Mount Carmel the mountain of encounter with God. They have done this as “True Blue” Aussies. That is, without sensationalising their presence but coming to us in all their ordinariness in the little way of St Therese of Lisieux. This is the contemplation of love that becomes an extraordinary insight for today.
Therefore, we wish our dear Carmel Sisters God’s choicest blessings and our profound gratitude. They are sent today from Canberra as our representatives, the “hot coals” contemplatives of the love of God made present in Jesus Christ now reuniting with their Sisters in Kew.
We pray for the Carmelites Sisters in general. May the charism of Carmel continue to form warmth in the Australian Church with the “hot coals” of the love of God being fanned into a mighty flame of zeal for the love of God.
As we approach the Pilgrim Jubilee Year of Hope in 2025 and arising from our Baptism, may our Carmelite Sisters rediscover their communal charism of Carmel expressed in a new language, and new ways, in a synodal way, all part of the new evangelisation.
We pray that all Australians will find the warming, the strengthening within and the irresistible attraction to Jesus through Mary from the Carmelite charism alive in the Church today.
May this happen through the intercession of Mary who we describe in song in today’s Mass as, “The flower of Carmel, Blossoming Vine, Splendour of Heaven, Mother Divine.”
Let us allow Pope Francis to have the last word on this historic day. In his Apostolic Exhortation on the 150th Anniversary of the birth of St Therese of Lisieux, he writes on our confidence in the merciful love of God (a central theme in St Therese’ writings.)He writes (on the 15th October 2023) “It is trust that brings us to love and sets us free from fear. It is trust that helps us stop looking to ourselves and enables us to put all into God’s hands…In her last days Therese was able to say ‘I count only on love.’ In the end only love counts. Trust makes roses bloom and pours forth an overflow of God’s love.” (n.45)
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
25TH AUGUST 2024
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Joshua 24:1-2. 15-18 Eph 5:21-32 Gospel John 6:60-69
Let’s begin with a quick orientation of the Gospel Readings over these weeks.
This is the sixth and last week in which we will have the Gospel Readings from Chapter 6 of St John. Next week we return to St Mark’s Gospel, the Gospel for this Liturgical Year.
Perhaps the best summary of last week’s Gospel focusses on, Jesus as the Bread of Life. In the words of Jesus he says, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him.”
In today’s Gospel we are basically asked one question in regard to this summary…”Do you believe this?” We find that when Jesus shares this, not simply with people passing by but with His followers, some of them say to Jesus, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?” It must have been such a lonely moment in the Lord’s public ministry. Perhaps we can see this in the words he says when he turns to His closest companions, His Apostles, and asks them, “What about you, do you want to go away too?” It is Simon Peter, once again, who stands up and says on behalf of us all, “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.”
The importance of choosing Christ as “The Bread of Life” is foreshadowed in the First Reading from the Book of Joshua. By this stage Moses has died and Joshua has led the people into the Promised Land, the “land of milk and honey.” Over the years of pilgrimage from Egypt, others have joined them from different cultures and Religions. It is in this context that we understand how Joshua gathered all the people and asked them to choose who they wish to serve. He says, “Choose today whom you wish to serve…As for me and my House, we will serve the Lord.”
Let us not forget that one of the great accomplishments of Judaism in ancient times was the movement away from Polytheism to Monotheism. The Ancient Middle East, along with the Roman and Greek cultures, worship many Gods. Judaism insists we only worship one God and Him alone. This worship is with our whole heart, mind and soul.
So, when we come to the Eucharist, arising from our reflections on John 6, we affirm with great fervour that we choose to believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, food for the journey of life. We say, “May Jesus be lifted higher!”
This “lifting higher of Jesus” happens at least four times in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Firstly it certainly happens at the Consecration. The priest lifts the Sacred Host and the Precious Blood and says, “This is my body, this is my blood.” He is not using his own words, he is using the words of Jesus. The priest is there as the mouth piece of Christ. It is Jesus Himself who is the High Priest and Head of the Church. In this lifting Jesus higher we are looking back to the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. We are looking back also to the Last Supper and, in looking back, we remember with such Sacramental intensity that we make Jesus really present during the Mass. That is why it is called the “sacrifice” of the Mass. Jesus’ real presence is here as much as it was at the Last Supper and during His Death and Resurrection.
As second lifting higher of Jesus happens at the Lamb of God. We hear the priest say, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are we who are called to the supper of the Lamb.” This is a looking forward in hope for the Heavenly banquet at the end of time, where the Lamb of God will bring all into unity. This is not only for humans but the entire cosmos: the heavens and the earth. We are looking forward to this day and we know Jesus will always be there as our food for the journey. We take our lead from the visions given in the Book of Revelations and in the Apocalypse, the final books of the New Testament.
Thirdly, at Communion time the priest looks at us and says, “This is the Body of Christ.” To which we say, “Amen!” This is a very important “Amen” for us. In other words we say, “Yes, we agree, we believe this is the Body and Blood of Christ.” It is something richly personal yet totally ecclesial. It is the gathering of God’s People in His Body. It is looking at the present moment. We lift Jesus higher in the present moment.
Finally, at the Dismissal of the Mass there is a lifting up of Jesus. The priest places his hands out towards us and sends us out as Missionaries. The Latin words are, “Ite, missa est.” From this expression we derive the word “Mass” (Missa). We are “sent out” on Mission in the life of the Trinity, to lift Jesus higher in all that we do and say until next time we come for the Mass.
On this Social Justice Sunday we “lift Jesus higher,” especially by proclaiming Truth and Peace. We live out the Gospel Word in a Violent World.
This only a very short and insufficient summary of what happens at Mass. But the Mass is the Wonder of Wonders! The Mass is the source and summit of all our Christian lives. Let us thank the Lord for this and come before Him in great humility and firmness of belief.
So our “Gospill” for this week coming is, “Lift Jesus higher.” Let’s repeat this many times in the days ahead especially when we are faced with challenges.