The Things That Endure

This past week I travelled down to the Canning Stock Route to the Aboriginal communities that form the remote area of the Bidyadanga parish. My task was to introduce Fr Benny to the people of those communities. I have a particular attachment those communities, as I had catechised the people and prepared them for baptism almost twenty years ago, but had not been there for thirteen years.  I found that the rough tracks had been replaced with beautifully graded roads and hundreds of extra kilometres of sealed road had been added. The communities had changed greatly. Arriving at Punmu I was waved to by young people with their heads in their mobile phones updating their Facebook or using Viber to talk on VOIP via the community wireless (there is not mobile-net there yet!). There were more houses and public buildings. In Kunawarritji (Well 33) a motel and roadhouse, which had been in the dreaming phase for two decades, had become a reality. Everything seemed to have changed. One thing, however, endured, since people greeted me as the now not-so- young priest from Bidyadanga who had come to share Christ. All had changed except the people, who were the same wonderful people I had the privilege of living among a long time ago. Amid the almost unrecognisable infrastructure, relationship shone through as the one immutable reality.

Vanity of vanity, the preacher says, vanity of vanity. All is vanity!

In the years that has passed since I had visited the communities of Punmu and Kunawarritji, generations of administrators had come promising, and in some cases delivering, improved infrastructure, governance, education and health. Their legacy was largely left in buildings and roads that decay. However, as I climbed out of my Toyota I remembered that I had nothing to offer the people of these communities more than Peter offered to those at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Acts 3.6); the same that Pope Francis said was all he could offer to the youth of the world at Rio last week. Everything else will pass, everything else counts for nothing except the spiritual realities.

Today is Vocations Sunday, the time to remind ourselves of the main game in life and share that insight with others, especially our young people. Archbishop Oscar Romero, gunned down for his faith during Mass in El Salvador in 1979 said: Aspire not to have more but be more. In the end, it is not our career or TEE score or house, it is about who were are and what we can be. We can and should do good things, but it makes no sense if do not start and end with the spiritual imperative.

We need to revisit our vocation regularly, ensuring that we are living it to the fullest. St Irenaeus of Lyon said in 320: The Glory of God is a person fully alive. St Paul reminds us that God wants us to be spiritual people. When our time comes he will not ask us any questions about position, power, wealth, race, gender, bank accounts or reports. He will simply see (or not see) how Christ has become alive in us.

Twenty years ago I shared the message of Christ with those people who were eager to learn about Christ and how God lived in their land. We shared faith and culture in humpies and under bits of tin in blistering heat or

blustering and freezing south east wind. Their priority was clear: sort out your spirit and then the rest will follow. My recent trip down into the desert reminded me why I am a priest. Those that had discovered faith exuded a calmness and peace that all the calamities of the modern world could not shake. They had accepted me in good faith, knowing all too well my weaknesses, cultural clumsiness and sinfulness and walked with me in faith. They continue to up until this day.

Vocation is about relationship, primarily with God and then with each other. I had discovered God’s will for my life years before I went into the Desert, but in the desert that call and my vocation was confirmed. It did not make it less frustrating or difficult at times, but it is real, and reality is what we are about.

We give glory to God by living our lives to the full, with vigour, hope and faith. We give meaning to our own journey by living our vocation, priesthood, marriage, or single, bravely and with integrity.

Homily OLQP 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C