Cry Leper

When I was a child I had severe eczema which, mixed with the dry rough skin inherited from my father, was quite a sight to behold.  When the eczema broke out, normal schoolyard antics added to the fun: my nickname was ‘scaly’, and sometimes ‘leper’.  Some kids would not want to touch or stand close to me refusing to hold hands with me when we lined up to walk, and the more inquisitive asking (at a distance) how contagious I was! Mob mentality, even for pre-teens, was alive and well. Since some decided that I was not perfect, and that I did not deserve to be in a group with them: I was not wanted. They mostly did not have it in the power to eject me (I came from a tight family), so they shunned me instead.

My school mates (if I can called them that) who chose to call me ‘leper’, did not think for a minute that I had leprosy. They wanted to convey to me that I did not fit in. In Jesus time this been honed down to a fine art over centuries: leper was the cry towards the hated and despised. We all know that keeping a group together is always better when there is a common enemy. The purity laws proscribed against Samaritans and other non-Semites as well as against the sick, giving divine reasons for illnesses and separation.

It was part of Jesus’ mission to challenge and question the law, to get to the bottom of what it was protecting or attacking. The original purity laws developed for the protection of the Jewish people, but by Jesus’ time they were being used to control people: much of the spirit of the law had disappeared. Jesus reached out to the despised of society and drew them into his life: there were none that were excluded. However, Jesus did not declare a free for all: he thoughtfully submitted himself to the law, as in the gospel he asked the leper to go to the Jewish Priest and offer the sacrifice proscribed for healing. The freedom Jesus offers is supported by an identifiable ethical system.

Jesus calls us to question, to reach out and the transform within this system, which is the moral and social justice teaching of the church, given to us in the apostolic teaching and then honed in response to human situations over the last two thousand years. Backed by this, Jesus challenges us not to go along with the mob, but to think, to make decisions and know why they had been made.

Last night I flicked don the ABC to catch a snippet of "Tonight in Gordon Street" in which the presenter was lauding Gay Marriage: he even had a couple in the audience who, in his words” can’t get legally married yet, but we can TV marry them.”  He did this to great applause. It was classic set up of mob mentality, and I think if I had been there I probably would have kept my opposition quiet for fear of being attacked. Like so many other issues, that of marriage is about protection of rights: last night no one was shouting about the right of a child to have a mother and father.  Yet those there last night seemed full of opinion and short on theory.

Soon you and I will be called to comment on this and other issues. Are we ready with fact and ethics?

Homily, Our Lady Queen of Peace Cathedral, 12th February 2012 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year b

The Mystery of Demons and Evil

I grew up in a world that needed to know and understand everything. When I was at University, mysteries were something awaiting the discovery of science. There was nothing that would not be explained in the very near future by the systematic scientific action of humans.

I smile when I think of how naïve I was; how conceited and proud and proud I could be that a human could understand the universe and all that of creation. As I matured I realised the extent of the unknown and humankind had been on a quest to increase understanding of creation. I started to realise that many things in life would remain mysteries; no matter how much I would like it to be otherwise.

Evil is one of those mysteries. Why is there evil in the world when God created us out of love? On the surface we can say that it is about free will. If we were buffeted against natural and human evil, we would not be free, and therefore never able to choose for or against God. Only in a world where we have the freedom to affect destiny can we be said to be free.

And this evil, where does it come from? Well most of it comes from you and me, and it is given life and power the more we make bad or selfish decisions. Each time we choose badly, we restrict our freedom. We make the world a worse place instead of making it the perfect society God infused it to become. Conversely, each time we make a good decision our freedom is increased and the world made a better place.

In the Gospel, the demons, the personification of evil, ask Jesus: have you come to destroy us? You bet he has! His ministry is to destroy all that leads to death, and the demons in the Gospel know that, and speak up out of desperation. It is funny, but some treat this as a fairy story, but for those who know themselves and what humans are capable of, this is no light matter. As Catholics we don't talk about the devil or demons much. We prefer to talk about the power of God's love, which is greater than anything. However, the devil does exist and possession, if rare, is real, just as the Gospel teaches. 

The great saints of the church, when they became very holy, often lamented their sinfulness. I used to think this was a false piety, but now I understand that as they became more spiritually attuned, they could see clearly and could see the ramifications of their actions. They could see the hurt that actions we often regard as innocuous can sustain. The saints, like the demons in the Gospel, have a spiritual insight that they can share. Obviously the difference is that the saints bear witness to the truth, and the demons to falsehood.

This is not meant to confuse us, but to call us to a deeper appreciation of the spiritual in our lives.  We do not have to grope in the darkness for answers, for there is a well-trodden path that guides us through the great mysteries of life.

Firstly, we look, we discern and we evaluate.

Secondly we trust, not in our own fallible judgement, but in the collective wisdom God has given to the Church by which she has been sustained and guided.

Thirdly, we embrace the freedom that belongs to the children of God, by daily rejecting evil so that we can, live in the freedom of God’s children,  for that is our baptism calling.

By being open, humble, and living out our baptismal calling, we will become comfortable with the mysteries that surround us, but we will increasingly become aware of the  presence of God which sustains us and draws us upward and onward.

Homily OLQP 29th Jnaury 2012, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Avoiding a Life of Quiet Desperation

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. 

So wrote the American author Henry David Thoreau right at the beginning of his work ‘Walden’ in 1850. He wrote in the quiet of a forest, next to water. He sought to understand the whys of life, and not just live the drudgery of existence. Later on in the work he wrote: 

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. The Book of Job calls us to look at our existence and see if it is life giving. Is a man’s life on earth nothing but pressed service, his time? He asks.

Thoreau and Job ask the same question: What are we doing with our life? For we who are at Mass tonight, these are reasonable questions. Socrates, the Greek philosopher has acknowledged centuries before Christ that: An unexamined life is not worth living. No surprise there either, since at the beginning of Mass we examined our conscience, declared a need for God’s mercy and guidance, and then prayed the Confiteor.  

We gather to celebrate our faith, to pray, to challenge ourselves and be challenged, inspired and raised up by the word of God and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Everything about our celebration calls us to live the life that we have been called to live. St Paul says that he must live it, as it is his duty to share the gospel. We may not phrase the imperative in the same way as Paul, but we would all agree with his passion and thrust. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well and one hundred per cent of our effort. Living our lives at home, at work, at school, in the community are worth doing with purpose, direction and faith, never letting a chance go by!  None of us are called to drift along, to be carried by the tide or to bump along at the bottom.  However, we all know people who do, and sometimes we are those people. When we do that we are not being authentic to our calling or life and we are leading lives ‘of quiet desperation’. This is not the vocation of a Christian.

In the gospel, Jesus was confronted by crowds who were leading lives of quiet desperation. They were drifting, looking for a wonder worker to save them. After they had heard of his cure of Simon’s mother in law they pursued him, looking for a quick fix. This was the original something for nothing deal, or so they thought. Jesus escaped with his disciples, and in doing so taught them a salient lesson: no amount of miracles will cure and heal a person if there is not a change of heart. Changes of heart take place in silence and openness. These conditions were plainly missing from the group pursuing him.

The prayer after communion often sums up the liturgy. Listen to it carefully today when it asks God that: we who are made one in Christ may joyfully bear fruit for the salvation of the world. If that prayer is granted, we will never be found to be leading an unfulfilled life of quiet desperation.

Homily OLQP Broome Sunday 5th Feb 2012, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The Joy of Hope

Since returning from Fr McKelson’s funeral in Melbourne last week, people have been asking how it went. My answer of “Great” has been a little unsettling to some, as funerals are not meant to be great. But Fr McKelson’s funeral was great. It was a celebration of the faith, hope and perseverance of a person who was, like most of us, far from perfect, but as Mary his niece told us: My Uncle Kevin was a good man. I have to agree with her, as many of you here today would agree. However, what is more is that he was a man of advent, and in being so his life pointed to something outside himself that he humbly acknowledged. The reasons are the same as those that drove John the Baptist in his ministry.

John the Baptist was aware of who he was and who he was not. He was not the one who could answer all questions, who could cure all ills, who could help all people. In short, he was not the Messiah. But safe in this knowledge, he was free to identify and name the Messiah when he appeared. His role was that of precursor, to name the Grace, to be the prophet of hope and to persevere to the end.

Today is Gaudete, which means ‘joy’, Sunday. The joy lies in the recognition of what is, what has been so far, and what will be in the future.  For committed Catholics, Advent is not a frenzied time of shopping, eating and drinking. We may partake and enjoy the festivities, but the main game is ahead as well as behind. Like John the Baptist, we look around us for the birth of grace and name it when we see it. Like Isaiah we try to identify Christ in our midst and acknowledge his power to change the world, stating with ourselves.  

We are very familiar with many prophets of doom in our society. On the other hand, Isaiah was a prophet of hope for the people of Israel, as he is for us today. He tells us: He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favour from the LORD. Advent is the time when we are able to wait with a smug grin on our face, knowing that our God is among us and knowing our co-operation in allowing God’s grace to permeate the world.

As Advent people we can wait in hope, we are able to test everything that comes our way, not being content to be led by a materialistic society into a dead end of consumerism, selfishness and instant gratification. We are people who are able to persevere in humility, people who like John the Baptist, don’t have all the answers, but know where to look.

As people of hope, we are able to rejoice in situations others find tragic, such as the funeral for Fr McKelson.  Last week in Melbourne we buried a humble man who guided the people of the Broome and Bidyadanga over many decades to live the faith, to persevere in trust, and to hope in the promises made to us by Christ.

We are all called to be advent people, prophets of hope and bearers of good news. May we encourage one another in joy during this wonderful time.

Homily 3rd Sunday of Advent Year B 11th December 2011

Rest in Peace Japulu

Fr McKelson used to speak of coming home to Melbourne, and did not like me pointing out that he had spent twice as long at Bidyadanga as here! In there lies a great truth, because for all the years he was away he carried a lot of the local church and his family with him.

After hearing and answering God’s call he was sent to Rome where his inner linguist emerged. He lived in a German speaking house, in an Italian speaking city, attending lectures in Latin and spent his holidays in France. He loved being able to smuggle newspapers and cigarettes to other Australian students who lived under stricter regimes.

In 1954, the newly ordained 24 year old Kevin McKelson arrived in Broome to assist the legendary Fr Worms, the Pallottine missionary anthropologist. Worms taught him to tread very gently on the Kimberley earth, as it belonged to another people, many of whom had had their spirit broken. Kevin listened and then was able to learn, live and teach the art of reconciliation. This required a great humility so that he would be able to say, with Isaiah “See, this is our God in whom we hoped.”

In Broome he implemented the tried and true pastoral strategies of his youth. He built a faith community with lots of social activities and sport. With Donnelly McKenzie he started the basketball competition in 1955, building a court by crushing ant bed retrieved from the bush. Later they collaborated and started the Broome Saints Football Club. He encouraged marriages between local women and the Malay or Japanese pearlers. He taught the men English, learning Japanese and Malay on the way, and blessed their marriages. A relationship with God started with relationship with others.

Lagrange Mission became his home in 1961. He would remain through joys and frustrations for 34 years.  Not long after his arrival Cyclone Bessie destroyed the Mission. Madelene Jadai, here with us today, was born during that cyclone, as is Margot Toohey, the nurse who delivered her. Fr McKelson rescued her and her mother from the collapsing hospital during the eye of the storm. He was far from being an adventurer, but history made his life a huge adventure. Lagrange taught him the primacy of relationship, of connecting people with each other and God. Many a dinner at Lagrange ended with the salt, pepper, knife and fork being used to teach the ‘skins’ (the aboriginal kinship system). If you don’t know the skins, he would say, you will never understand local people. It is all about relationships.

A key to relationship is language, enabling is to relate to God and each other in a context of mutual respect. After the Mission was rebuilt, Kevin concentrated his efforts on inculturation, the translation of the Christian message into forms and idiom accessible to the people of the five local language groups. This necessitated the learning, recording and understanding of languages and culture, which became the work and love of his life centred on the Missa Bidyadanga and Aboriginal Our Father. He was trusted by the senior men, who shared their cultural secrets with him and acknowledged that he understood more about the aboriginal law than most local people.

Lagrange was fully staffed by lay missionaries. Fr Kevin was the father figure, holding the mainly young lay missionaries in a family unit. He treated all with respect, and tried to understand, with varying degrees of success, the issues of young men and women a long way from home and family. He always looked for ways to make connections between people and groups of people, with, of course, God at the centre.

One of the greatest tests of our Christianity is forgiveness. If we can’t forgive then our faith is not deeply rooted. Fr McKelson often spoke about the cultural right to payback, and the Christian response of forgoing retribution. In 1994 I witnessed a person come to Fathers place, and he welcomed him with open arms, made him a cup of tea and spoke genially of old times. I later discovered that some years before this person had done his best to destroy the mission and Kevin’s reputation, even threatening Kevin’s life. It has been a terrible time for him yet in this he kept the faith, as St Paul wrote to Timothy, even to the end, and all of Bidyadanga were witnesses.

Kevin made courtesy an art form. Whether he was greeting visitors or growling wrongdoers, he spoke and acted with respect.  Martina Badal told me: We would milk the goats, drinking the half the milk and filling the bucket with water. Japulu found out and just told me:” Martina, you know not to do that. Don’t put water in the milk. Do you understand? He was strong but gentle.”  The same day, at the markets on Broome I was told: As a green young girl many years ago, living beyond the Spinifex Horizon, Fr Mac was my Light in the Wilderness whenever he came to Frazier Downs for dinner. (Jenny Di Marchi)

Last Monday my phone was running hot all day. Charlie Wright reminded me that when Hail Mary Bell rang Father had taught everyone to freeze with their head down to say the Hail Mary quietly. You could hear the bell from Blackrock, 3kn away! Each person ringing had a story, but at the end of each story was the quip: he really loved us, each one of us. Kevin lived, with more success than most, the Beatitudes we just heard proclaimed. 

As age and health caught up with him, a move south was necessitated. The McKelson family gave one of their own for the missions, so that others may come to know God. He returned after a long life well lived, but he was now living behind the veil of dementia. He trusted in God but was never presumptuous, so would want us to pray that his experience of purgatory be freeing as he hurries toward our heavenly resting place.

Nyamu nyina ngayu Japulu!

Homily, Requiem Mass for Fr Kevin McKelson SAC, St Brendan's, Flemington, VIC, 6th December 2011.

An Example on the Straight Track

I have been spending a bit of time lately thinking about Fr Kevin McKelson, who died during the week. He was my parish priest when as a new priest I was appointed to Bidyadanga,  (Lagrange Mission). He used to tell me that Fr Worms, who was his first parish priest when he came to Broome taught him to tread very gently on the Kimberley earth, as it belonged to another people, many of whom had had their spirit broken. Fr McKelson learned, lived and taught the lesson of the art of reconciliation. That is the message of Isaiah today when he urges: Comfort O comfort my people. This is a word of encouragement, a call to awake from sleep and to take our place in society. In my years living and working with Kevin McKelson, he never stopped urging people to stand up and take their place in society. If we do not, he used to assure people, others will stand up and take it for themselves. If we want good to happen, we have to stand up and be counted.

John the Baptist proclaimed this and provided witness by his life. The Gospel account tells us as much about what John the Baptist looked like and ate as his words. If he lived today he would be a media hit with his strange getup and alternative diet. As John the Baptist was, we are being called to be a bit alternative in Advent. There are issues about which we should stand up and being counted and upon which we can make a difference.

The time leading up to Christmas can be a time of giving and sharing, or a time of consumer frenzy and a time of extreme greed and avarice. We have the opportunity to make a difference. In the continuing question of the detention of asylum seekers, we can voice an opinion and make a difference. Yesterday I read in the newspapers about the debates on same sex marriage. Christians have the opportunity to contribute to the debate and say clearly that marriage can only be about a man and a woman who provide the safest place for the rearing of children. It is not justice or equality to have enshrined in law that two fathers or two mothers is just as good as God’s plan through the natural order.

People have been talking to me all week about how kind and loving Fr McKelson was, but also that he spoke his mind. He did not compromise the faith to be popular. I recall on occasion where his life was threatened for maintaining a moral stance when those around him stepped away. As Christians we need to have the courage of our convictions, and John the Baptist leads us in humility, courage and faith.

St Paul believed that the end of the world was imminent. In one sense he was marking time, but even within that framework he urges us to lead good lives because only then will we experience true peace.

As dvent continues let us make the decision to stand up and enter the season, to fill in the valleys and break down the barriers, to build a better and more godly world starting with ourselves.

Homily Second Sunday of Advent year B 4th December 2011, OLQP Broome. 

Actively Waiting

It is no surprise to any of us that the season is changing. The mangoes are almost finished, the build-up has begun, and plans are being made for holidays and Christmas. The church’s year changes along with the natural year. Central to Christianity is that Christ became one of us, and so therefore the natural world and the behaviour of its people teach us about our faith.

Our natural world is in a time of waiting. Here we wait for the rain and the greening of the country. The waiting is not passive, because around us the temperature is rising, the humidity increasing and the clouds are beginning to tease us from the horizon.

Often we talk of keeping vigil. We wait beside someone who is sick, worried or bereaved. We do not wait for the sake of it, nor do we wait in a drowsy of lazy state. We wait with eyes wide open with expectation that something will happen.  For Christians the time before Christmas is a time of vigil, a time of expectant waiting, a time of hope. We call this time Advent.

Karl Rahner, the famous Bavarian theologian of last century, describes it this way: The term Advent connotes not only an arrival but also that which is yet to come. It has a strange interpenetration of the present and the future, of what exists and what is yet to come, of possession and expectation. So too, in the liturgy of advent, the present and future of Christian salvation are mysteriously interwoven. [i]

In a time filled with such wonder and opportunity, it is important not to lose our way, go troppo or just be subsumed in the mindless rush of parties, end of year windups and consumer madness. We need to actively listen to God in and around us. So how do we stay awake, how do we keep our guard? We have to actively listen to the scriptures and the country. Active listening involves three Rs: Receiving, retaining and responding.

To stay awake we need to begin to understand God’s plan, and we can only receive by being in contact with God through prayer and meditation. When we begin to comprehend, we will retain that knowledge in our hearts and live it in our lives. We will be seen as people of hope. Thus we will be able to respond positively to the invitation to draw closer to the loving embrace of our God. In other words, we will be able to stay awake during Advent! Practically, this means taking time to nourish our soul. We are all busy, there are parties and celebrations galore for everyone. This is a good thing, but it ceases to be this when the peripherals eclipse the centre. If we cannot actively listen to God talking to us during Advent, then we are asleep, and we will most certainly miss him when he comes. 

Stay awake! Listen, learn and live in the present, past and future all at once. This is the gift being offered to all who look forward to the coming of Christ at Christmas.

Homily First Sunday in Advent Year B, 27th November 2011.

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[i] Karl Rahner, The Eternal Year (London: Burns and Oates) 1964, 13.