Homily – September – 2024
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
1ST SEPTEMBER 2024
TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Deut 4:1-2. 6-8 James 5:21-32 Mark 7:8. 14-15. 21-23
Today the word “Father” seems to come to mind on several levels.
First of all it is Father’s Day today. A special welcome for all the fathers here in the Church and those joining us by livestream. There will be a special blessing for you at the end of Mass.
Secondly, we pray for the Holy Father. Over these days he will be leading his 45th apostolic journey, this time to areas of the world near Australia. He will visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. We pray for our Holy Father, that the Lord will give him good health and the apostolic energy he requires to be our global evangeliser.
Also it is time for the Father’s Day collection for our retired priests. We have 25 retired priests. They are very much beloved of the people in the Archdiocese who appreciate the many years of service they have given. Now in their retirement, this collection assists them in the practicalities of their lives. Thank you so much for the wonderful generosity you have given in years past. I am sure that will continue now. In the Church Bulletin and at the Church exits you find ways of contributing.
Although not related to the word “Father”, today is also the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation. When I think of creation there is a beautiful image in the Old Testament which surely is an enduring symbol of our relationship to God. We see in Genesis 3 how God, having created the entire cosmos and making humans the apple of His eye, now walks in the cool of the evening wanting Adam (first man) and Eve (first woman) to join Him on His walk. Walking with the Lord is the prime symbol of synodality which we hear so much about these days. Although somewhat new, it is as old as this wonderful image of God’s delight in walking with us in the Garden of Eden. It is almost as if God is lonely without us. We see in this lovely passage that He calls out to us, “Where are you?”
This walk is done by proposing and inviting us. It is never forced upon us. This is the essence of what evangelisation means. The important point is to establish the fact that we have been created for a personal encounter with God.
This personal encounter with God is suggested in the First Reading today from the Book of Deuteronomy. It talks of Moses who lets the people know how near God is to them. He says, “What great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him?” This nearness of God, this encounter with God, this friendship with God in the garden of life, is quite unique to our Judeo-Christian heritage.
In regard to the Gospel today we find that this walking with God in the garden of life seems to be blurred at the time of Jesus. Something has taken its place or at least distracted us from this original vision.
This garden vision or nearness of God is certainly part of the big Tradition with a capital “T.” It is challenged by little traditions, with the little “t’s” creeping in to distance us from God.
This infuriates Jesus. He speaks of them giving “lip service” to our faith and their hearts are far away from what is true Religion. This is especially mentioned in St Mark’s Gospel.
The distracting characteristics seem to be pertaining to observances needing to be obeyed in regard to hygiene and the washing of dishes. I mean really!
We seem to have gone from a garden to some sort of immigration control centre. So many different boxes have got to be ticked before we get entrance to the garden. Hence Jesus’ feisty response to those purporting this limiting image.
I suppose we could say all this only happened centuries ago at the time of Jesus but we are free from this. I don’t think so!
In recent times I have been visiting parishes all around the Archdiocese. I notice in some of the parish foyers that they are very keen to indicate that this parish is “a welcoming community.” By this I suppose they mean that the nearness of God is stressed and people are able to come to the Lord just as they are. Yet this often is not the case.
Comments I have heard from one person typifies comments from others. For example, a person said she had been in the community for three years and she still doesn’t feel welcome. Apparently if you are born locally and your family comes from the area, you are welcomed with both arms but if you are an “outsider” then it is hard to get in. There were other comments made to me indicating that the “pastoral immigration centre” is still very much in our communities whether we are consciously aware of it or not!
Recently I was at a rural parish. This parish shares two priests. There are five Mass centres.
It is easy enough to ask them to walk together in a synodal fashion. However, local history indicates that for generations they have been football rivals! To ask them to share priests and share resources is easier said than done!
However, on a recent visit the Parish Priest kindly invited representatives from the five centres to join me. So I had a round table with Parish Council leaders which involved “Conversation in the Holy Spirit” methodology, so essential to the synodal way of being a parish today.
At the end of the evening I felt that we had made a great start. At the beginning people were keen to talk about practicalities and practical outcomes. We just put that on hold for a moment. We talked about our relationships with each other via our Baptism and what the Holy Spirit was doing amongst us. This higher panorama through the methodology of conversation in the spirit was very helpful. At the end of the meeting there was great joy and hope, yet at the same time, we all realised that there were many issues to be worked through in the years ahead.
I was so pleased that this gathering took place. When I drove back to Canberra I was hoping that our upcoming Archdiocesan Assembly in mid-October would do something similar but this time involving all the parishes of the Archdiocese. In other words, we would try to recapture the image of walking together in the cool of the evening in the garden with God. Allowing this encounter to lead us to a Missionary discipleship that could place the Holy Spirit at the centre of the important agendas that we carry for the years ahead in this Archdiocese. It is only with this true sense that God is leading us, coupled with a sense of personal conversion and profound respect for each other, can we really face the practical outcomes that we know are in front of us. Let’s keep this in mind for the times ahead.
So for our “Gospill” of this day let us say many times over in the week ahead, “Jesus is so near to us (me), Jesus we truly welcome you within us (me).”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
8TH SEPTEMBER 2024
TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Isaiah 35:4-7 James 2:1-5 Mark 7:31-37
I would like to make three brief reflections on today’s Gospel.
First of all, the Healing Miracle of Jesus in curing the deaf man who had a speech impediment, brings out some important aspects regarding the pastoral strategy of Jesus.
We get a hint of this from the first sentence of the Gospel. It is a description of the geographical location of Jesus over these days. It is given in great detail. Why so much detail about Jesus’ walk about?
All the places where Jesus is moving in this Gospel are in Pagan territory. There were no Jewish communities. They were all what is call “Gentiles.”
We discovered again last week, that so many of the believers were inhospitable to Jesus.
Indeed, it appears that the “Chosen had become frozen!”
The trouble is they seem to have such a static understanding of belief. As I mentioned last week, it is almost as if they saw Religion as a Museum where Religious “monuments” need to be protected and cared for.
Jesus is offering something far more dynamic. I mention the possibility of seeing the Church, using Pope Frances’s image, as a garden needing seeds to grow in springtime, bringing a harvest of joy, hope and love.
This is clearly the Lord’s strategy. That is, to “go where the fish are biting”…in this case, the Gentiles.
The second reflection could be based on the title that today’s Gospel offers us: an insight into the courtesy of God. By “courtesy” I mean the hospitality of God. We see this in the wonderful way that he went about the healing of the man with disabilities brought to Him. Indeed, it is mentioned that “Jesus took him aside in private, away from the crowd.”
Some might say this was more of a political statement than anything else. In other words, in the light of today’s First Reading, the Messiah will be known when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed.” As this was what Jesus was about to do in His healing. He did not want those witnessing this to jump to the conclusion that He was some sort of “Military Messiah” that they had been waiting for.
On the other hand, this “in private” strategy was profoundly personal. It was not to draw attention to the man’s disabilities, but to his need for healing. In this courtesy of Jesus, He uses what could almost be described as “Sacramental signs.” By that I mean Jesus uses physical signs that produce an invisible healing reality. He uses His fingers. He touches the man in his disabilities. He sighs (Ruah) and breathes down the Holy Spirit upon the person. Using these visible signs brings about the healing realities of the man.
Of particular interest is the word that Jesus uses as He prays over this man. The word is “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
You might be pleased to be reminded that this prayer has been prayed over everybody in the Cathedral here today. Those who are baptised have had the Ephphatha prayer prayed over them during their Baptism. What happened to the man in His healing has happened to us.
The priest or the deacon says over those just Baptised, “the Lord made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May He soon touch your ears to receive His word and your mouth to proclaim His faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen!” All of this shows how God brings about the Kingdom of God by embracing all of us into His loving arms and shows us the hospitality of God as universal.
A third and final reflection might be called the synodality of Jesus.
Remember that the word “Synodality” means to walk with Jesus. Jesus walks with us through our Baptism and the coming down of the Holy Spirit. He also works through us.
In Baptism we become heirs to the Kingdom. In Baptism we become sons and daughters of God. In the Second Reading today from St James, we are alerted to our new found status in Baptism. We are sent out on a mission to make all things new in the garden of the Kingdom of God.
In this we should show some prudence.
It is interesting how Jesus “ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it.” Jesus, in healing the man, asked them to show prudence in sharing the story. He didn’t want them to politicise what He had just done but to see the Kingdom of God breaking forth in the hearts of humanity.
In our own Catholic Tradition, we always make the distinction between testimony and witness.
Whereas we are called to be a “Witness” to the Lord, this is different to “Testimony.” Witness is a wordless way of proclaiming God’s presence. We should never cease witnessing to the fact that we are a new creation of God but this doesn’t mean we have to talk about it. It should be seen in our actions, in our conversations and in the way we go about heralding the dignity of each person in the light of the Christ event.
At times, when people ask us, what is the cause of the joy and the hope that we clearly have, then it is time for us to give verbal testimony. This is telling people quite directly, because they have asked us, about the joy our hearts found in Jesus Christ.
Let us also be wise in making the distinction, in the synodal way of Jesus, to act with prudence in distinguishing between testimony and witness.
The “Gospill” for today is the Ephphatha prayer. Let us recite many times during the coming week, especially in times when we feel closed off to what is happening, Lord help us to “Be opened!”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
15TH SEPTEMBER 2024
TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Isaiah 50:5-9 James 2:14-18 Mark 8:27-35
Today’s Gospel is from Mark 8. This is a pivotal “turning point chapter” in the Gospel of St Mark, our Gospel for this Liturgical Year. In this chapter the identity of Jesus is focused upon.
In this regard it seems that St Peter gets it half right. When Jesus generally askes His Disciples, “Who do people say I am?” It is St Peter who speaks up. He says, “You are the Christ.” In other words St Peter is acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.
What he doesn’t get right, somewhat understandably as this happens before Pentecost, is that Jesus is a “Suffering Messiah.”
So Jesus now takes the “road to Jerusalem” and this latter part of St Mark’s Gospel focusses on this geographic journey and all it unveils about the “Suffering Servant” of God.
At best, we too only get it half right, yet we live after the Death, Resurrection and Ascension/Pentecost of Jesus! This is in spite of the fact that in Jesus’ synodal journey to us it was foretold that He would be a “Suffering Messiah.” We have a hint of this in the First Reading from Isaiah were it is proclaimed, “The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults.” In other words, the “Suffering Messiah” will also stand alongside us in our suffering and therefore we can say, “My vindicator is here at hand.” Yet, the suffering dimension in our everyday lives is so often delinked from the “Suffering Christ.”
May I offer you an example?
Some years ago I was at a Church and needed to go into the Sacristy mid-afternoon. The Church was empty except for one middle-aged man towards the back. When I was exiting the Church, I glanced over at this man. He was crying. Not only crying, he was heaving with distress. I walked in his direction and asked if I could help. He was in no way responding to me. I sat down next to him and said nothing. He seemed consoled by this. Once he recovered enough he mentioned that he was trying to come to terms with a broken Marriage. His major questions were…”Why did my Marriage break down in the first place? What effect will this have on my young children?” I said nothing and just listened carefully.
I am not a family counsellor of psychologist. I am a “Doctor of the Soul.” Regrettably in today’s world, this scenario is far more common than we think. From my observation of Human nature it takes a good five years of hard work to be able to move beyond an irretrievable marital break up to another relationship. Too many people fail to do this. We can see that the statistics of second marital breakdowns are higher than the first.
Yet, I was delighted this man was certainly in the right place. He was in the Church gazing on the Crucified Christ. Whether he realised it or not he was trying to see how his suffering could be helped by the suffering of Christ.
In this regard, an anonymous poem from a person who clearly has been in this situation comes to my mind.
It states, “As children bring their broken toys with tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God because He was my friend. But then instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone, I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own. At last, I snatched them back again and cried, ‘How can you be so slow!’ ‘My ‘child’ He said ‘What could I do? You never did let go.’”
The letting go and the surrender of all our sufferings into the sufferings of Christ is a great grace which we should pray for regardless of what our particular situation is. We cannot bypass Calvary in our Encounter, Discipleship and Missionary journey with Jesus on the synodal road to Heaven. Jesus walks with us and invites us to a deeper walk with Him.
Unless we do make this melding together between our sufferings and the suffering of Christ, there can be no redemption. It is only in the suffering of Jesus that redemption comes forward. There is always the third day! The Resurrection day.
Helpfully, today’s Gospel presents us with a possible three pillars to rebuild our broken humanity.
This comes to my mind when I read what Jesus says in regard to discipleship…”If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
What can renouncing ourselves mean?
We are to renounce all our egoism and selfishness. So often when there are relational disputes people give the impression that all the difficulties have come from the other person. They are very quick to excuse themselves and very quick to put the blame on to the other person.
This is hardly the reality. We have to be able to take responsibility for our part in the breakup of relationships. It is not all one sided! To be able to delve deeply into our humanity and to say quite explicitly, “I have messed up this relationship in this area and that area” is difficult to do but wonderfully liberating. It may also involve going to confession and sacramentally receiving the forgiveness of God for our part in relational discord.
Then there is the second pillar – Taking up the Cross.
The giving of ourselves and the taking up of Christ’s Cross is a real act of grace and faith. We ought to ask for God’s help to be able to do this.
Perhaps it is the 16th century co-founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), St Ignatius of Loyola, who can help us with his lovely prayer.
He says, “Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will…Give me only Your love and Your grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.”
What a beautiful surrender prayer in taking up the Cross of Christ. That the Suffering Jesus and His Death and Resurrection are enough for us – Jesus Crucified and Risen from the dead is my enough! Let us pray for this gift and to really experience it.
Thirdly and finally, the pillar is to follow Jesus. To follow Jesus, as the “Suffering Messiah”, is a daily challenge. We must recall that following the “Suffering Jesus” is part of Discipleship. We cannot excise the suffering from discipleship.
Walking with Jesus, is walking in a synodal way, not by passing Calvary but walking through Calvary. This is only possible with Jesus in front of us. Let us follow Jesus, not in front of Him or beside Him but behind Him so that He can give the lead in our lives.
A sense of humour in this is a wonderful gift.
Let’s allow Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to have the last say in this matter!
In one of their popular dance tunes of many decades ago, the chorus was “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.” To have a sense of humour lightens up the heaviness of sharing the suffering of Jesus. It is also a very good example for others on our Missionary journey.
So let our “Gospill” for this day be the following: “Jesus is my enough.”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
22ND SEPTEMBER 2024
TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Wis 2:12, 17-20 James 3:16-4:3 Mark 9:30-37
We are all at least notionally aware of the distinction between “childish” and “childlike.”
In regard to our discipleship with the Lord, we find in today’s Gospel that the Disciples were acting in a childish way rather than childlike.
As they “made their way” (synodality) the Apostles were “arguing which of them was the greatest.” Jesus, the Great Teacher of Disciples, clearly suspected something and at a later time “when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’” The Scripture says, “They said nothing.” This vying for leadership positions is such a childish response to the great panorama that Jesus has placed before them. Interestingly one of the Scripture scholars of this passage describes their saying nothing as “the silence of shame.” This is always the case.
The Second Reading from St James rightly puts before us that “wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done.” Jesus’ response is so visual. The Gospel says, “He sat down…and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.’ He then took a little child, set him in front of them…Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me.” He is calling them to be childlike not childish. May we learn from the Apostles mistakes.
We have recalled many times that prayer is often based on the three big “S’s” coming from the Early Church, Silence, Stillness and Simplicity. In simplicity we find the childlike response that the Lord demands.
I had an example of this type of simplicity recently. At the moment I am celebrating many Confirmations almost entirely of young children. If possible, beforehand, I like to meet with the children who I am soon to Confirm. One day I visited their grade 6 classroom and we had an interaction. One young girl answered two questions in a way that I thought was quite extraordinary. All the children were lovely, but her responses had a touch of holiness about them and also her demeanour gave me an impression of God working in her life in a special way.
When her Confirmation came along I took aside her parents. I mentioned my observations to them. They were delighted that I had said this. Indeed, they had noticed since the child’s infancy that she seemed to have an awareness of the Holy Spirit within her. To add to this, the mother mentioned to me that she was a lapsed Catholic but her child, as she grew towards the Confirmation, wanted to go to Mass regularly. Somewhat reluctantly at the start the mother started taking the child to Mass in the nearby parish. After a period of time, the mother also got into a habit of going to Mass and found that her own spiritual life was being reactivated.
Not only that, the father who had declared himself a comfortable atheist most of his life, was moving out of some spiritual fog and starting to realise that life was about more than just making money. I was surprised to hear that he had recently joined the local parish Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) – The way adults become Catholics. All of this was due to this young girl’s childlike simplicity in regard to being almost like a sponge before the Holy Spirit.
When I went home, following Confirmation, I thought of someone else who had a similar effect on his parents. The family had been born in London but as a young boy they returned to their native homeland of Italy. He was raised in Milan. Like the young girl at Confirmation, he too had a real spiritual sense about him. He loved nature and loved computers. As a young adolescent and quite computer literate, he started to put together websites based on the Eucharist. He also went to Mass regularly and ultimately encouraged his mother to attend with him. She resumed her lapsed Catholic faith also. At the age of 15 he died of Leukaemia. If he was alive today he would be 33 years of age.
Last May, Pope Francis recognised a second miracle through the intercession of this young adolescent. Next year, in the Year of the Jubilee (Pilgrims of Hope), he will be canonised a Saint. He will become the first computer literate Saint in the Catholic Church…the first New Millennial Saint. His name? – Blessed Carlo Acutis (1991-2006). We are already becoming aware of some of the wonderful expressions he used to exemplify the faith that was so much alive in his young soul. For example he said, “Everyone is born as an original but many people end up dying like photocopies.” If you search his mother’s name, Antonia Acutis, you will find some wonderful interviews with his mother. She speaks English very well.
One hundred years before Blessed Carlo Acutis there was also another great young Saint. She is often called the “Little Flower.” She died of Tuberculosis at 24 years of age. She would talk about her “little way…doing small things but with great love and kindness.” She is often portrayed with roses in her hands because she felt that in the garden of the Lord she was one little flower that was always turning towards the sun – Son of God.
St Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) has become a great and famous Saint whose expressions about prayer are legendary. For example she says, “Prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned towards Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
So let us in our sophisticated adult lives learn to live a childlike faith. Let us never be seen as childish. What a shame that would be!
I leave you with the “Gospill” today from Blessed Carlo Acutis. One of his simple expression of great faith, “Not I, but Jesus.”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
29th SEPTEMBER 2024
TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR B)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Numbers 11:25-29 James 5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43. 45. 47-48
“Making Jesus known and loved” is a great summary from St Therese of Lisieux, whose Feast Day is coming up soon, in regard to evangelisation. Evangelisation is the primary mission of the Church. To make Jesus known through encounter and sending us out on mission is at the essence of it all.
The Gospel today, from Mark 9, presents us with lessons from Jesus regarding discipleship as we move from encounter to mission. Recall, that in this Year of the Holy Spirit the three big words are, Encounter, Discipleship and Mission. All of these aspects must be taken into account and they are all summarised in the word “Evangelisation.”
The discipleship lessons that Jesus gives are twofold.
The first is about our announcing the Kingdom of God. This ANNUNCIATION (Announce-iation) provides the great panoramic vision of God,the in breaking of God’s Holy Spirit, not only to all humanity but to the entire cosmos. Jesus is enabling the Kingdom of the “New Heaven and the New Earth” to break upon us through His Death and Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost, both now and in its fulfilment at the end of time.
Jesus begins to give us a teaching in this area in response to the somewhat arrogant comment of the Apostles, “We saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him.” Jesus’ immediate responses is instructive, not only for the Apostles but to all of us. Jesus said, “You must not stop him…Anyone who is not against us is for us.”
Here is the discipleship lesson.
God and all goodness can be found outside the Church, not only inside the Church. This is foreshadowed in today’s First Reading when the leaders come to Moses stating a somewhat similar situation to the Apostles. Moses response is, “If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!” We cannot domesticate the Holy Spirit. Of course our Catholic teaching is that the fullest embodiment of the Kingdom of God is to be found in the Catholic Church. However, God’s spirit is to be found not only within the Church but also outside the Catholic Church. The Kingdom of God does not simply equate itself with the Catholic Church. This is an important teaching of Vatican II Council.
Therefore, we are able to have an openness towards Ecumenical dialogue and Inter-faith dialogue. Sometimes people ask me why Pope Francis so keen on Ecumenical and Inter-faith dialogue, and his speeches on fraternity with everyone. Theologically, this is based on the fact that God’s Spirit is to be found in all men and women of good will. There are shards of the Kingdom values in those that are open to all that is good and true and beautiful.
A second discipleship lesson comes from today’s Scriptures also.
In the Gospel Jesus speaks unambiguously when He says, “Anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.”
The discipleship lesson from here is that evil and darkness can be found even within the Church and must be “denounced” and the void filled with the “announcement” of the Kingdom of God breaking upon us.
Jesus is the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the personification of the Kingdom of God alive in our midst. To focus on Jesus is to look at the dawn that will never set. Jesus the Son – Sun of God is our focus. We therefore put behind ourselves all that is not of God. All that is of darkness. All that is of wickedness and of a demonic nature.
On this Respect Life Sunday and also the day of Migrant and Refugee Sunday examples abound.
For instance the Sex Abuse scandal with all its criminality even within the structures of the Church, is something demonic and needs to be denounced. Also life issues that do not respect the dignity of the human person made in the image and likeness of God from conception to natural death, also is something that is part of the darkness of the night and needs to be denounced. Scapegoating of our Migrants and Refugees for political expediency is also not worthy of humanity and needs to be condemned.
This morning I read of a speech made by Pope Francis only yesterday in Belgium. Of the many gifts our beloved Pope has, he has a great way of coining little expressions that mean so much. One of these from his speech yesterday was, “We all make mistakes but no one is a mistake” is very appropriate in this context.
All of us do make mistakes in life but we must never consider that the innocent child within the womb of the mother is some sort of mistake that has to be excised. We must never consider an elderly person with terminal illness in a hospital as some sort of mistake that is better off dead than alive. We also must not consider Migrants and Refugees as mistakes who come into our Australian society and impede our economic growth.
Let us now consider both these lessons together: the “Annunciation” and the “Denunciation.”
Our evangelisation is not a work of Proselytism but attraction. Pope Benedict XVI said it so beautifully, “The Church does not proselytise, but she grows by attraction.” It is by living out the Kingdom of God’s values that are so alternative in today’s world. We have this broad panorama based on the dignity of the human person made in the image and likeness of God. The result of making Jesus known and loved is to actually live as a counterculture sometimes and be prepared to be courageous in the midst of a culture that might say otherwise.
Could I also offer two final remarks.
The first is with every denunciation of moral discord, the Church must also make an announcement of something greater.
I always feel uncomfortable when Church officials simply denounce some practice in our world without at the same time in some way announcing an alternative. The alternative is the Kingdom of God’s values and the permanent dawn in Jesus Christ rising in our midst. We must find ways to make this attractive so that the denunciation is given an alternative that attracts people and by so doing it becomes a means of evangelisation.
At the same time, we must not just simply announce the Kingdom of God without denouncing that which is not of God. We would deprive ourselves of opportunities to lead people on a synodal journey to the fullness of the Kingdom of God’s values at the end of time. This synodal journey, as we particularly make our way towards our Archdiocesan Assembly in a few weeks’ time, is the result of silence and from this silence comes a voice that is irresistible and attractive. It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, my second point is to place all this in a story. Otherwise you might think the Archbishop has become very theological this morning, especially after a Grand Final where the Sydney Swans have been defeated!
The story is of the Parish Priest of Narooma here in this Archdiocese. He is a Vietnamese refugee. As he travelled from Vietnam to eventually find his home in Australia, he found himself on a rickety boat with about 80 refugees. The boat could only safely take half this number. After days in the open sea waiting for rescue, they had run out of food and had already been pirated. They were starting to run out of water and were in a desperate situation. Finally a ship came by and approached them. They were filled with joy. But the captain of the ship said that he could not take them on board. He had been given strict orders not to do this. Instead he would give them water and then he would move on.
As he began to move on despite the cries and pleads of the people on the boat who were seemingly doomed to perish, two of the men on the boat raised up in their hands two young babies who had been recently born. They just raised up the children high above their heads so that they were in plain sight of the captain on the ship. It wasn’t long before the captain was moved to his inner core by this gesture, changed his mind and defied his orders. He ordered the ship to return back to the boat and take on all the people on board.
This change of heart after the “denunciation” of the people on board and the “announcement” of new life in the newly born, is a great example of what I have been reflecting from today’s Gospel. Father Joe Tran, now a senior Parish Priest of the Archdiocese, and his giftedness to us with all his charisms of his Baptism, is the result of the inner conversion of the ship’s captain.
I leave you with our little “Gospill” today from the quote of Pope Francis from yesterday. “We all make mistakes but no one is a mistake.”