Homilies – May – 2025
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
11th MAY 2025
FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR C)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Acts 13:14, 43-52 Revelation 7:9, 14-17 John 10:27-30
In the 15th century, a young man from Northern Africa had an incredible conversion to the Risen Lord Jesus. Later he was to become known as Saint Augustine of Hippo. He wrote a very famous book (still famous today), called “The confessions of Saint Augustine.”
In relation to this encounter with the Risen Lord he used a beautiful phrase. He describes Jesus as “a beauty, ever ancient, ever new.” In our days also, the Holy Spirit has sent us a son of St Augustine. He is the missionary Augustine monk, the man born in the United States of America but spent so much of his life in Peru, who we now call Pope Leo XIV,
Over these momentous days, with the death of Pope Francis and the “birth” of Pope Leo XIV, the transcendent in our human relationships has certainly captivated the entire world. Regarding our Church, often described as “Holy Mother Church” (something to remember on this Mother’s Day) we could say of the entire Church, which includes all the Baptised sinful and holy, that we are too, “a beauty, ever ancient, ever new.”
Pope Leo XIV is certainly a reflection of the ancient but ever new Church.
On this Good Shepherd Sunday, where we pray particularly for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious life, we are already beginning to see in Pope Leo XIV, the successor of St Peter, a reflection of Jesus the Good Shepherd.
For example, his first words to the world upon becoming Pope were the following, “Peace be with you.” These are the first words also of the Risen Lord Jesus. As He entered the locked room of the Disciples, He called down upon them His peace in the midst of their anxiety. The first duty of a Pope is to do the same. He is to proclaim the peace of the Resurrected Jesus to all and express that in an irresistible manner to our world. Through evangelisation, the world should be captivated and find irresistible the peace that only the Risen Lord can give.
We see a reflection of this in the First Reading today which of course is the Early Church coming under the missionary zeal of St Paul and Barnabas. Like Jesus and Pope Leo XIV they too have said boldly, “We had to proclaim the word of God to you first.” The summary of the word of God is that Jesus has Died but He is Risen and is now with us with peace.
Secondly, Pope Leo XIV in a reflection of Jesus the Good Shepherd, is to unify the flock of Christ.
Another phrase often used about the Pope is that he is to be a bridge-builder (Pontifex Maximus).
Pope Leo XIV on his first encounter with the world a few days ago, as a son of St Augustine, quoted the penetrating words of St Augustine when he said, “With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.”
We always start with the unity that comes from our Baptism. The unity that binds us is the love of Jesus.
It helps us to remain faithful to all that God is giving us.
This too is an important phrase from the Acts of the Apostles in today’s Mass, “Paul and Barnabas urged them to remain faithful to the grace that God had given them.”
This grace that God has given the Pope and all of us, is Baptism. Through Baptism we are reborn into the Resurrection of Jesus and find our unity in the waters that bring new life. In the midst of this unity, we all have different charisms and it is in this context that the charism of being a Bishop and now a Pope is what is being referred to by Pope Leo XIV.
All of this implies, as Pope Leo XIV proclaimed in his first Homily last Friday, “We are to move aside so that Jesus may remain. To make one’s self small so that Jesus may be known and glorified. To give one’s self to the utmost so that all may have an opportunity to know and love Jesus.”
A third and final comment, Pope Leo XIV, the reflection of the Good Shepherd that is Jesus, speaks in our mother tongue, English!
This is the first time in hundreds of years that a Pope whose mother tongue is English has been chosen. When I first heard Pope Leo XIV speaking in English it really amazed me! The immediacy and the closeness of Jesus via St Peter’s successor was so evident.
Our Good Shepherd, through this particular means, also reassures us as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me.”
So, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, this Mother’s Day, let us pray for our new Pope, Pope Leo XIV. May he always reflect Jesus, the Good Shepherd to us all. May he help us to know Jesus so we can follow him better.
Our “Gospill” today is simply, “I know them and they follow me.”
HOMILY
ARCHBISHOP CHRISTOPHER PROWSE
CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF CANBERRA AND GOULBURN
ST CHRISTOPHER’S CATHEDRAL
18th MAY 2025
FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR C)
AND MASS ONLINE
Readings: Acts 14:21-27 Revelation 21:1-5 John 13:31-35
You may be aware that this evening in Rome at St Peter’s Basilica there will be the Inaugural Mass of the Petrine Ministry of Pope Leo XIV.
At this very significant Mass the new Pope will be presented with two important symbols of his Petrine Office. He will be the 227th successor of St Peter and to symbolise this he will be given what is called a Pallium, a vestment that is placed over his shoulders made from lamb’s wool. This is to symbolise that he reflects Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who goes after the lost sheep and places the sheep on his shoulder and returns it home. The Pallium represents very much what the Petrine Ministry means. This is what Jesus asked St Peter to do: “Feed my sheep.”
Secondly, he will be given a signet ring or the fisherman’s ring as it is sometimes called. This symbolises that the Pope also, apart from reflecting Jesus the Good Shepherd, reflects Jesus the Fisherman of us all. St Peter was the fisherman of Galilee who became the fisherman of the Universal Church and Pope Leo XIV will continue that tradition.
In front of these two important Petrine symbols will process the Gospels held up high. We are always “Hearers” of the Word of God. We always align ourselves with the presence of God in His Living Word and in the Sacraments.
On these matters of the New Pope, it was interesting to hear how some of the Cardinal Electors spoke of their experience in the Conclave.
Clearly, they did not share who they voted for but I was very impressed with some of the comments. One that caught my attention was from the Archbishop of Westminster in the United Kingdom – Cardinal Vincent Nichols.
Recall the Conclave is not a political election but profoundly Religious where, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Cardinal Electors choose the next Pope.
Cardinal Nichols mentioned, as they began voting, he asked himself, “On whose heart has the Holy Spirit written the name Pope?” What a beautiful expression that is.
Later Cardinal Nichols also mentioned that Pope Francis’ great contribution was that he was a missionary Pope who was characterised by his stress on mercy, hope, forgiveness, kindness, and the dignity of every person. Cardinal Nichols said that, “we are now moving from a missionary Pope to a missionary Church.” With these words he echoed the first words and speeches of our new Pope Leo XIV.
In all this we are living out the great Gospel demand of Gospel today from John 13, “Love one another; just as I have loved you.”
None of us are bystanders to this. It is not as if we are sitting back passively watching the Papal election. All of us are involved in this somehow by virtue of our Baptism. We come to share in the mandate of the missionary Church through our Baptism and by loving one another just as Jesus has loved us.
We see this beautifully in the First Reading from the early Apostles, Paul and Barnabas, on their missionary pilgrimage.
The First Reading indicates that as they went out as the embryonic missionary Church, they “put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith.” At the end of the Reading, we hear summarised that through their work they had “opened the door of faith to the pagans.”
This great openness to the transcendent and all things Catholic is still almost universally of great interest to the world at the moment. Everybody seems to be talking about the Papal election. This gives us a great opportunity for evangelising and persuading people to see the great hope and joy that is to be found in the Catholic Church.
It is almost as if the Holy Spirit is blowing a fresh breeze in the world today. We are not to remain passive. We are to respond fulsomely.
There is a beautiful expression from St Augustine, the inspiration behind the founding of the Augustinians Order of which Pope Leo XIV is a member. The quote says, “God provides the wind and we must raise the sail.”
So let us raise the sails of faith now as the wind of the Spirit seem to be blowing through the Church and through the hearts of men and women of good will in new ways.
The last sentence in the Second Reading seems to be a beautiful way of expressing the freshness that we feel at the moment in our faith. From St John in Revelation, God says, “Now I am making the whole of creation new.”
Let that be our “Gospill” as we now continue with the Mass with great hope and prayer for our new Pope, Pope Leo XIV.