To You we Send up Our Sighs

After someone dies in Broome, we make a Rosary Novena. Most of you know that the Rosary is a series of prayers during which we meditate on the major events in the life of Jesus, using the Our Father and Hail Mary as the main prayers.  A novena is prayer that is said for nine days straight, so when a person dies in Broome we say the rosary for nine days straight.

One time we made the novena, and night after night many people would gather and pray the rosary.  I kept thinking of the woman we were praying for and wondered how she did it. She had a really hard life, with nothing really going right for her. She always seemed to have problems that she could never solve and I wondered why she had, like so many other Broome people, such a strong faith and a great devotion to Mary. Why, I wondered, could she have such faith and devotion when over her whole life she did not seem to get a break: How did she keep going?  I was sitting praying the novena with everyone else when I heard myself praying the Hail Holy Queen, the prayer at the end of the Rosary. Part of it prays:  to thee do we send 

up our sighs poor banished children of Eve,

to thee do we send up our sighs  mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.  

That is when it hit me.

These women and men saw in Mary someone who they could identify with in their happiness but also in their pain.   The Mother of God we celebrate today is the Mary for whom nothing seemed to go well. Asked by and Angel to do the impossible when she was fourteen years old she almost certainly was the butt of ridicule and jokes of those around her; she always tried to protect her Son who was so very special; and in the end saw her son being tortured and die an horrific death; finally she had her dead Son laid in her arms. When Jesus was young the old woman Anna told here that a sword would pierce her heart, and it did.  

It is enough to make you lose faith in life and the world, and certainly in God.

Mary, however, does not do that, but the opposite. Mary trusts, she believes, she holds all her pain in her heart. In doing so she bore witness to her Son Jesus. She was his first and strongest follower, and if we want to know how to follow Jesus, we need to look at Mary.  Those people I have known in this town know it far better than me, but they have shared their secret. To know Mary is to know Jesus. To walk close to Mary is to be beside Jesus. To trust with Mary, especially when everything is going wrong, is to follow Jesus.  At the end of her life she was lifted up by Jesus to be with him in heaven, body and soul. Because of her faith and trust, because she was so close to God form the beginning of her life, her transition from earth to heaven was seamless, immediate. Mary was and is so ‘full of grace’ that she was immediately with God as she left this life.

Our journey can never be so immediate, so instantaneous as Mary’s, but we can be helped by her journey.  The fourth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary is the Assumption. When I pray that mystery I remember that Mary followed God and he kept the promise he made when the Angel asked her to be the mother of Jesus. God is faithful to us: Mary asks us to be, like her faithful to God.

Next time you pray the Rosary, ask to be faithful like Mary.

Homily, St Mary;s College Broome, Assumption 15th August 2012

Food for the Journey

When my Dad was dying in Sacred Heart Hospice in Sydney, I was fortunate to be there with my family. As we gathered around him to give him the last rites, one of us read from the Books of Kings about Elijah under the furze bush, the reading we have just heard. What made it important for a dying man and his family is that it summarised his approach to life and death.  My Dad, like most of us, did his best to follow God throughout his life. Like most of us, he was aware faults and of the inadequacies of his efforts to lead an authentic Christian life. He knew that he could not make it on his own, but was tempted to think that he could, so he spent many hours, most hours in fact, of the latter part of his illness praying for perseverance. He knew the journey that lay ahead, and he knew that he needed God to accompany him.

This is the process of Christian maturity. We can’t do it on our own, we are not masters of our own destiny, we cannot do, as some new age thinking suggests, whatever we dream to by our own strength.

Elijah was depressed. Thinking he could conquer the world by himself, he suddenly realised that he was not omnipotent, he was no better than the generations before him. Elijah has been let down by the new age of his time. He was unable to admit his need for God, but God intervened anyway. God gave him food for the journey, and together, they were able to reach the destination, the Holy Mountain of Horeb.

Just like my Dad, Elijah was drawn towards God and was then able to move forward in partnership. Similarly strengthened by the sustenance offered through the Holy Spirit we are called to eternal life. Eternal life does not begin when we die, but it begins when we acknowledge the power of God in our lives. Jesus calls us to celebrate this through the Eucharist, the living bread that is him who has come down from heaven. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, he says, so that a man may eat it and may not die.

Today we celebrate the faith that we have but cannot see, but which we know through faith. In this Year of Grace we ask for our hands, eyes, ears, hearts and minds to be opened to see, taste, feel, smell, touch and experience God who is incarnate in our world. It is our window to eternal life. We try, as St Paul urges us, to imitate God as children that he loves. We do this together, just as many of us will together come to the altar to share communion and be able to repeat the psalmist: Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Homily 19^th Vigil of the 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, OLQP, Broome, 11^th August 2012.

On Food Safari with Jesus

A few months ago I took a call from one of the planners of ‘Food Safari’ on SBS, who wanted to do a program in Broome. She told me that she had heard that in Broome we celebrate big occasions by coming together and sharing our favourite dish: Everyone contributes and a feast is created. I acknowledged this and wondered why it was so radical, and why they wanted to come and film a feast.  The gospels over the next few weeks give us an insight.

In the East Kimberley, for several years Sr Nellie used to give a course on the meals of Jesus. It was like a culinary tour of the Holy Land, just like so many cooking shows take us around the world.  Jesus valued meals not for their nutritional value (although that is important) but for their fellowship, for the company and conversation that are engendered.

The major teachings and actions of Jesus occur in the context of a meal. Important things happen either before, after or during a meal. Last Sunday we heard about the feeding of the five thousand, and now we hear Jesus talking about what that meal meant.  It was not fast food where people get in, fill up and get out; instead it is an encounter with Jesus. As many meals are, it was ritualised, symbolic, and its significance was not understood immediately. For Jesus, meals were an occasion to have quality time with people in a relaxed and intimate way. He constantly reminded people of the spiritual symbolism of eating, as he does today. We need to eat, and being fed implies a relationship that Jesus intends.  We need to be fed by Jesus, and we need to be able to have the context to be fed. To be fed we need to stop, concentrate and then eat. For it to be appreciated, we need to eat slowly, savouring the tastes and allowing the food time to digest. In the process we form relationship with those around us, we listen and are ourselves heard. There are spiritual resonances to all of these actions.

When I look at ‘Food Safari’ and all those other cooking shows, I conclude that they are not primarily about the taste of food, but the community that gathers to cook, share and relax together.  The eating of food is just the vehicle to experience that community. That is why we celebrate big occasions in our parish with shared meals. But we have something more, and that is what Jesus is trying to tell his friends. Christ is always at the table, he is our bread of life, the answer to our inner hunger, to our inner questions, doubts and confusions.

The Eucharist, the prayer meal, is the central act of our communion with each other and with God. We are called together and nourished together. Like the disciples we ask “give us this bread which will last forever”, and Christ offers himself to us, on the altar, in the sacrifice of the Mass. We receive, and share, and live.

Homily of Fr Matt Digges 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 5th August 2012 OLQP Broome

Giving God a Chance

H120729Ord17b  Giving God an Opportunity

We threw a party at Lagrange to celebrate Fr McKelson’s 65^th birthday in 1996, and caught 65 big salmon to share with the community. The night came, the BBQs were stoked up and a group went to get the fish. They came back with no fish, as the power to the fridges had been cut and all the fish had gone off: what a disaster. So what do you do to feed two hundred people in such a situation? Sr Veronica, Sr Johanna and the church leaders set about cooking anything we had, but there was no way it was going to feed that many people. I know we did not have enough food to feed that many people, but we did, and we had a bit leftover.

We could have easily said: “No way, we can’t do this” and pointed out that we don’t normally keep food for an extra 200 people in case they come past. That would have been logical, but not in the ways of faith. That would have been the way of we had wanted to control, everything and leave no room for God to intervene. We chose to take the punt, to strike out in faith. We were not disappointed. Often we consider the reasons that something will not work, or why we can’t achieve a goal, but this is not what God is asking us to consider.

Jesus asks his disciples what they have, and they present the total food of the crowd. Jesus takes that and uses it to lift everyone up and create something wonderful. He would not have been able to do it if the people did not have faith, and if they had not allowed him to use their gifts, as imperfect as they were. However, they did allow God space to move, to create and to form them, and how wonderful was the result!

So what is this saying to us on this day in Broome? All too often we admit our weaknesses only in terms of defeat. We can’t do something because of x y or z reason. As Christians we are called  to something higher. Sure, we can’t do everything, but we can do our part. We are part of a magnificent whole that God is creating, and we are all able to contribute. On Thursday Lizzie Sockarni, who was dying, was praying fervently for her family and friends. Everyone has an outreach and can contributed to the apostolate.

We are here to celebrate and strengthen our faith. Soon we will bring bread and wine, the staples of life, and allow the Holy Spirit to transform them into the Body and Blood of Christ. The feeding of the five thousand clearly alludes to the Eucharist. Our poor contributions are multiplied by God so that we are fed.  There is twelve baskets left over, representing the twelve tribes of Israel: in other words there is enough left over to feed the whole world!

This year is the Year of Grace. Grace is the gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to see and respond to God in who is present in our world. If we live a life in grace, we can not only see but respond to God; we can recognise the presence of God in events that many people find meaningless or even cruel. However, grace also enables us to declare our littleness, our need for each other, for community and for each other, our need to be church gathered around this altar.

God is a great provider, but can only feed us if we are prepared to contribute the gifts we have been given.

Homily OLQP Cathedral Broome, 29^th July 2012

Shepherds and Wolves

Last week I was in Warrnambool for the National Council of Priests Conference. 170 priests gathered to learn, share, & deepen our commitment to our ministry & to the Church. The camaraderie of the gathering was marred by the scandals that have been broadcast about the failure of priests who are called to be shepherds. The number of priests who have been wolves instead of shepherds is very small, and what we see on 4Corners or read in scurrilous documents often contains only a part of the truth, but the fact that it exists at all is a scandal. The gathering at Warrnambool demonstrated the damage that sexual abuse has done to the victims and to the mission of the Church.

The Church is composed of fallible humans like you and me: We believe our faith; we believe that God is with us; and we believe that in our weakest and most sinful moments God's healing presence can transform us into something greater. To some extent we are all shepherds and bear the burden of leadership. How do we carry this burden? How do we witness to the Gospel? How do we demonstrate that 'Christ Jesus came to proclaim peace to those far off and peace to those near.' God wants to raise up good shepherds, good witnesses, good role models, for his people. How do we live this ideal?

Many in our world are lost. They look for fulfilment and happiness in places and activities that can never provide anything but a passing high, and often at the expense of the dignity and freedom of others. They are drawn to us, maybe not consciously but naturally, since as Catholics we are people who declare our sinfulness and need for God's healing. Further, we acknowledge that we do not have all the answers, but are content to live with mystery, confident God’s love and support. In short, we are people of hope for a sceptical world. Hope is our secret weapon that allows us opt move forward when pessimism engulf many around us.

Each of us is called to be shepherds to varying extents. How do we answer? How do we cope with our own shortcomings and those of others in our Church?

Our conference in Victoria assured me of the need to be clear and honest. It reminded me of how much good there is in our shepherds, and yet how much damage the few wolves wreak. Ultimately it showed me that we, the Church built on the apostles, is the greatest force for good in our world and that we should claim that humbly and honestly.

Homily 22^nd July 2012, 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, OLQP Broome.

Sharing the Mission

In 1974 a large family walked into Lagrange Mission, about 200km to the south of Broome. Life had become increasingly difficult in the Great Sandy Desert, and they had heard stories of these white people who were kind to Aboriginal people. I am told that by the time the priest arrived to greet them, aboriginal residents of the mission had already clothed them and had started inducting them into sedentary life. In those few hours they left behind the lifestyle, freedoms and the day to day life their people had enjoyed for at least the last forty thousand years. Instead of being ruled by the seasons and the Dreaming, their lives would be now governed by the bell and watch; instead of living in a group of maybe twenty, they would live among hundred and then thousands;  and instead of relying on the country to provide food and sustenance, eventually most would come to rely on some sort of welfare.  I see several members of this family often, and I can’t stop thinking of the enormous changes they have seen in their lives and amazed that they have been able to make the jump and be functional at all.

The Aboriginal people on whose land we stand did not invite us here, yet they welcome us openly and wholeheartedly. In a spirit of reconciliation they accept us who come with a chequered history yet with open hearts. It has been said often that non-indigenous people in the Kimberley are missionaries, misfits or madmen, or even a mixture of these. Each of us will find some of ourselves in these categories! So this is the Kimberley which you have come to and to which you have been welcomed. It is a land of incredible contrasts: wet to the dry, desert to the sea, clock to the Dreaming, black to white. All of these seeming opposites are in fact not, they are parts of the same continuum in which we live, breathe and thrive. 

Broome is home to multiculturalism. The Catholic Church in Broome was founded by Filipinos who came to work in the pearling industry. The priests who came soon advocated for the rights of local aboriginal people and started Beagle Bay Mission. The Church was of the ordinary people, and did not enjoy official recognition. This was the Church of the battlers and emigrants. The first church was burned down by and angry and racist mob, jealous of the protection offered by the Church to the vulnerable, people they wished to exploit.

The priests and brothers, followed by sisters, had no great qualifications for the work ahead of them. Most of them were not young: the first priest, Duncan McNab, was 67! Most did not speak any English, let alone one of the 52 aboriginal languages they were to encounter in the Kimberley. They came, however, with a message that extended beyond the boundaries of language, race and culture. The message of Jesus Christ was communicated by the French speaking Trappist monk Fr Alphonse to the Nyul Nyul speaking Felix at Beagle Bay in a way that Felix not only understood but was able to respond to positively.  He encouraged his people, going into the bush and telling them: “Kalam, warrijal layibabor”, which means: “Come and see, good place.”

Fr Alphonse obviously communicated the love of Christ and the compassion of God in a way that was understandable and accessible. He did not judge, but shared faith and shared hope. Many years later Fr McKelson, an old missionary, gave me the same advice given to him by Fr Worms when he got off the boat at Old Jetty in 1954: “Matthew, remember that you are among a people who have had their spirit broken, be courageous, but gentle.”

You will meet people in many settings and places over the next few days. You will encounter people from many communities and cultures. You come as members of the Church and as such there will be expectations of you in the minds of those you meet. Those you meet will expect you encounter them in a friendly and gentle way, showing respect for their situation, which in all probability will be very different from where you have come.  Your presence among people of this town, like the presence of missionaries over the last hundred years, will elicit good as well as bad reactions. Some will welcome you, some will swear at you, but both will note your reactions! You will bear witness by the way you are patient, kind, friendly and joyous.

You have the chance to continue the work of the first Filipino Catholics, of Fr McNab and all who came after him. Let us now pray our morning prayer and open our hearts to God before committing ourselves to the work of the next few days.

Homily at Morning Prayer, Nulungu Chapel, Broome July 12th, 2012, on the occasion of the NeoCatechumenal Youth Pilgrimage to Broome.

Grace and an Open Heart

On a Sunday night I visit the jail, and earlier this year would always spend time with a man I know very well. Strangely enough, he enjoyed his time in jail, free as it was from the pressures of his life on the outside. This situation had given him time to think about the realities of his life and the opportunity to consider what changes needed to be made. He had been fortunate to come face to face with himself, warts and all, and to see his strengths and weaknesses. Towards the end of his sentence I recall him becoming agitated. He pondered whether this change he had seen in his life was sustainable. He had seen what was possible and he liked it, but knew how artificial it was. His life was easier freed from the possibility of destructive decisions. He feared the day when he faced his family and friends and had to stand by the decisions he had made in jail.

Jesus faced a similar situation. The boy had matured and returned a fiery preacher. He had confronted his weakness when he went into the desert for forty days to strengthen himself; he confronted his shyness when he intervened at the wedding feast of Cana to begin his mission. This was the next hurdle. He stood before his strongest critics and passed. Unfortunately the critics, his family and childhood friends, failed the test.

In our first reading Ezekiel was sent on a difficult mission, to do his best whether people listened or not. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians speaks strongly about the need to recognise our weaknesses so that we can be strong. Strength comes from self-knowledge and acceptance, not by denial. Paul obviously had some sin which recurred and probably tripped him up occasionally, just like my mate in jail. Paul knew that by accepting his weakness and the strength of God’s healing, he could change himself and the witness to others. When we are weak then we are strong.

The story does not end there!

The encounter in Nazareth is a story of winners and losers. Jesus was ready, open, generous, wise. The Nazarenes were blinkered, set in their ways and incapable of looking forward. Jesus returned to them a man conscious and confident of the mission entrusted to him by his Father. Unfortunately, he could work no miracles there because of their lack of faith. Nazareth remained stagnant; Jesus left.

Miracles need the air of faith in which to thrive and grace needs open hearts to work its wonder. It is my hope that this Year of Grace will find my heart open to God working in my life in a new way, and that means that I am open to God working in your heart. Openness to where God leads us means we can and will change and allow others to do the same, rather than holding them back. It also means that we can not only accept and live with our weaknesses, but even those of others as well!

I saw my mate who had been released from prison yesterday. He was smiling, happy and full of life. The changed has endured, and his family have been given to grace to grow as well.

Grace works when our hearts are open!

Homily 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 8th July 2012