A Humble Pope for a Humble Church

Just before Easter this year we were all shocked by the resignation of Pope Benedict. We were more shocked when, a few weeks later, an Argentinian Cardinal was elected Pope and appeared in front of St Peter’s Square without much of the usual ceremony. He asked us to pray from him and to bless him…. This was usually the other way around. The next day he went and paid his hotel bill and rang the local paper shop in Buenos Aries to cancel the daily paper delivery. After that he started to walk around the Vatican, telling an aid, ”If you think I am getting into that car to drive 200m you are wrong!”  The more cynical among us, which sometimes I think is most of us, advised to wait and see… it will all wash off and then he will be more regal.  Eventually he will get into the groove of being Pope. But that has not happened. He still has not moved into the Apostolic Palace, he still shocks people with his openness and simplicity. Even last week he rang a woman in Argentina who had been brutally assaulted.

There is something very deep happening here. 

This is humility in action.

The gospel seems to paint humility as merely putting ourselves down. Others are pushed forward with comforting words while inside we are proud, feeling good for taking the lower place. That is the opposite of humility. On a closer reading of Luke, the word for humility that he uses translated as ‘lowly mindedness’. We need to know that the world does not revolve around us. Yes, we are a part of it, and some of us are called to play significant parts, like Pope Francis, but never alone. It is never just about us, and those who think that it is will eventually be brought low. So Jesus tells us, when you come to a banquet, be real, don’t go to the front, but on the other hand, don’t grovel to the bottom. Instead, quietly go about your business and don’t make a fuss and take a lowly seat, knowing that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. With this knowledge we won’t have tickets on ourselves or delude ourselves. Pope Francis makes no fuss, he just does him job and lives his life, and teaches us constantly.

Pride is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, while humility is perhaps the most characteristic of Christian virtues. The humble person finds “favour in the sight of the Lord,” not because that favour is a reward for humility, but because humility, like faith, means abandoning self-assertion, all trust in one’s own righteousness, and allowing God to act where we can do nothing. (Reginald Fuller).

My sisters went to the Brigidine Convent up the road from where we grew up in Randwick, Sydney. I always looked with amusement at their school bags which had their school motto: Fortiter et Suaviter, (Strength and Gentleness), plastered across them. My ten year old mind could not cope with the fact that these two qualities could co-exist. I was to learn as I grew that they could not only co-exist, but must co-exist if we are to thrive. Only with true humility can we be strong and gentle at the same time. Our Holy Father Francis continues to be wildly popular because he is real, he is humble and it is all blindingly obvious to even the most cynical in our society. He believes what is taught by the sage in Ecclesiasticus’ that love is experienced in giving, rather than receiving; that greatness is revealed in humility; that wisdom is a better listener than talker.

This week, our society places two great examples in front of us which need to be approached with humility.

In next week’s Federal Election we are called to put aside our self-interest and look at the needs of our country. It is not about us and our pay packet or minor issues. It is about our country and the extent we make assist to making it a place where the vulnerable and needy find protection.

Child Protection Week is our opportunity to recognise and reaffirm our role in the protection and support of the vulnerable in our community. The truly humble to not take advantage of others and do not fail to protect and love our children. This is a responsibility of many on our society. It is a failing of our institutions and our families. Last week the Royal Commission visited the Kimberley to seek ways forward to protecting children in the future by honest and humble recognition of what has occurred in the past. Only a humble society, a humble church and humble families will be able to protect children now and in the future.

Homily for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1st September 2013, OLQP Broome.

Finding the Gap in the Next Dune

When I was at Balgo I used to visit Kiwirrkurra, a community 500km to the south of Balgo. I did not go there often.  The track, if it could be called that, changed every year, and of you were the first through after rain, you had to be extremely careful. Coming over one sand dune, you had to spy the spot at which you needed to cross the next one, and then, while negotiating the way down the dune, work out the best way to get there. If you were not absolutely concentrated on the task, the wrong decision would be taken, and the result would be being bogged, having a tyre staked, or worse still, going the wrong way altogether. 

Believe me; it was worth the effort of concentrating!

I often thought of the track disappearing over the next sand hill as the narrow door. No-one was threatening me or trying to keep me away from the door, but if I missed the signs I would at best make the going very tough, and possibly exclude myself altogether. Travelling on that road, I knew the importance of looking for the subtle signs of the way ahead. I learned not to be fooled by an old track that led nowhere, or into boggy r sandy country. I knew that I needed to aim for the narrow door, the gap in the next dune, and trust that every bit of my God given gifts would get me there.

Reflecting on our Gospel, I am amazed at how many people don’t even try to look for the signs that appear in our lives, the signs of the road ahead. If we are to reach our goal, we have to be able to recognise the signs. If we are not even looking we are sure to go astray. The Gospel does not tell us of a God who wants to exclude us, but Jesus who wants us to be included and is showing us how! 

This weekend we have been holding a Life in the Spirit seminar at the Emo Centre. The purpose of this is to build awareness of our need for Jesus to be real person for us and for that the Holy Spirit to become active in our daily lives. This occurs through daily commitment to prayer and good works with the support of other Catholics. Sunday Mass is not enough. God cannot work if we do not genuinely acknowledge our need for him or give him time.  It is difficult for God to work in our lives if our commitment is restricted to Sunday Mass.

In a few weeks we will vote. The ABC has been advertising an online questionnaire to determine which way we should vote. At first I thought: ‘The ABC is not telling me which way to vote’, but then I thought that it could help. We can cast our ballot mindlessly, or thinking about one particular issue, but the way of the narrow door is to consciously examine the platforms of the candidates. We should examine their stance on issues that affect the vulnerable of our society, the poor and marginalised, asylum seekers and the homeless, and seek support for values that underpin our Christian society such as marriage the family and protection of life at its beginning and end. Sometimes it seems that we are fighting losing battle, but if we know the narrow path, we can move forward with some clarity.

Finding the narrow path is not always easy, and once it is found it is not always a comfortable place. However, the risks of not seeking it out are perilous. Sometimes the gap over the next sand dune is hidden, but with God’s help it can I always be found! 

Parish Bulletin for 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Bulletin for 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Notre Dame de Broome

Last year I went on pilgrimage in France. Many churches I entered were called Notre Dame (Our Lady) de ……. . Although I had known this for a long time, I sniffed a bit too much of a concentration on the person of Mary rather than Jesus.  At the end of my pilgrimage I stayed at a place called Notre Dame de l'Hermitage, the mother house of the Marist Brothers. It was here that l discovered what it was all about.

This is how it goes.

Our faith is incarnational, in other words, it demonstrates its meaning in ways that are accessible to you and me in all our humanness. This does not mean that we understand it all, for any person who thinks that they understand everything there is to know about God, the world and themselves is a delusional fool.

The key to our faith is relationship we have with God and each other.  

If God is our Father and Jesus is God's Son, what do we call Jesus? (brother).

If Jesus is our brother, what do we call Mary? (mother)

Mary ran the home and looked after Jesus, she guided him and looked after him. Remember, Jesus was God, but he was fully human and needed all that a mother could share with him. Mary will share with us as well if we allow her space.

What I learned from the Marist Brothers was that if we want to be close to Jesus, we need to recreate Mary's house to meet & be like Jesus.  So the French started by naming everything they could after Mary. At Notre Dame de l’Hermitage, one of the brothers told me: ‘This is Mary’s house, and we are living in it to become close to Jesus.’ Naming their houses after Mary indicated their wish.

So we are here at St Mary’s College, named after the mother of God, whom we follow to become close to Jesus. Today we not only recognise that fact but celebrate that as God’s mother, as the mother of Jesus, she was drawn into the life of God so completely that at the end of her life she was taken, body and soul, into heaven. The other day someone said to me: “That isn’t in the Bible, so it can’t be true.” The Bible is the word of God, but not everything that is important is contained within its pages. God left us to work some things out ourselves, and the Assumption was one of those worked out very early in the life of the Church. We are bounded and confounded by time! Mary has gone ahead of us and is drawn into the life of the Godhead.

We need to remind ourselves of God in our lives constantly. One great way is to interrupt our day with prayer. This term we have had quiet time at 12noon and soon we will pray the Angelus in that time.  The Angelus reminds us that God became one of us so that we could be raised up to be like God. Mary leads us in this as the first to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I would like to finish with prayer of Pope Francis that he gives us in his first letter to the whole Church, called Lumen Fidei

Let us turn in prayer to Mary, Mother of the Church and Mother of our faith.

Mother, help our faith!

Open our ears to hear God’s word and to recognize his voice and call.

Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps, 

to go forth from our own land and to receive his promise.

Help us to be touched by his love, that we may touch him in faith.

Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and to believe in his love, 

especially at times of trial, beneath the shadow of the cross, 

when our faith is called to mature.

Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One.

Remind us that those who believe are never alone.

Teach us to see all things with the eyes of Jesus, that he may be light for our path. 

And may this light of faith always increase in us, 

until the dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself, your Son, our Lord!

Homily on the Feast of the Assumption, 15th August 2013, St Mary's College, Broome, WA.

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

Bulletins for the 13th to 18th Sundays in Ordinary Time