Our Holy Families

The Christmas crib tells us of a wonderful story that is almost too good to be true. In fact, many believe that it is not true, that it is just a fairy story. This clear, clean story is wonderful for our young children, but as we grow older it loses its punch. However fondly we experience or look back on our childhood, we cannot identify closely to this family. For us it is one that just exists in books and art. The Holy Family, for all intents and purposes, comes from another planet.  

As we mature we need to leave behind the glossy story and look at what is in the scriptures and tradition; for it is there that we will find the Holy Family, living and true.

The Jewish tradition was similar to that of our Aboriginal cultures in Australia. Women were promised to older men who took them as wives when they were mature enough to assume the duties of married life. Acceptable as it was then, this is not the ideal of any young woman today. Mary was pregnant before Joseph had taken her to his home, and with paternity unclear (at least publicly), there was huge trouble brewing. Socially, Joseph made it worse by accepting this woman into his house, probably bringing more shame on an already suffering extended family. Banished to a cave on the edge of town, they camped out with shepherds and then went on the run from Herod. Finally, in the Gospel passage today, Mary and Joseph lose their son, not in the supermarket for five minutes, but for three days!  This is the real story of the real people who are in our crib. It is by contemplating this reality that we can connect it with our own.

This Family is Holy because together they strive to do God’s will. Holiness is the spiritual quality derived from participation in the life of God. It is empowering, it lifts us up and we come to the realisation that we can become so much when we live in God. In this encounter we realise our own lack of completeness (or to put it another way, our own unworthiness), but rather than being beaten down by this realisation, we are lifted up by the same Christ we see in the stable.

Put under a microscope, it could be aside that the Holy Family was unique, at best unusual, and this is our invitation into their life, their holiness.

In our families we live with many contradictions.  The family is the basic unit of society, and any society that has denied this has fallen into chaos. The family, consisting of a mother, father and children, is the best forum we can use to engender generosity, love and stability; it gives the best chance of providing security, culture and identity.  We need strong families: anything else is second best, or in modern parlance, not ‘best practice’. This may be the case, but last week I heard commentators on the radio giving advice on how not to end up in family fights on Christmas Day.  The family is the best safety we can offer for our infants and youth, yet we acknowledge that the majority of physical and sexual abuse happens in the family home. In our families we can experience the best and worst that human nature can exercise.

So what can you and I with our varied and unique experience of family life, take from this feast celebrating the domestic life of Jesus Mary and Joseph? The Holy Family began a journey when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. It was never a smooth journey, and there were many tears, disappointments and heartaches. Mary and Joseph made it through because of their unswerving trust and faith in God’s promise, their huge capacity to accept each other, to forgive others, and hope in what lay ahead. This Holy Family is our family, their experiences our experiences, their faith our faith and their God our God.  

As we embrace the aura that surrounds the crib, resolve to make our families places of trust and faith, of forgiveness and acceptance, of hope in the future and like the unique family of Nazareth, places of encounter with God.

Homily on the Feast of the Holy Family, 30th December 2012, OLQP Broome.

Blessed are they who Believe

Yesterday I saw in the news that Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s leading academic proponents of atheism had said in an interview broadcast worldwide on Aljazeerah TV that: being raised Catholic is worse than child abuse, and further that the mental torment inflicted by the religion’s teachings is worse in the long-term than any sexual abuse[i]

Just in case you think that Dawkins is isolated and that his thoughts are not those of others, on Friday I was told that my name came up in conversation at a workplace function in Broome. The general consensus, as reported to me, was that Fr Matt was a good bloke, but that Catholic stuff is all a bit weird. The Catholics at that workplace agreed that the priest was not a bad bloke, but did nothing to answer the charge that all that Catholic stuff was a bit weird. Instead they all went a bit quiet, accepted the accusations, and missed the opportunity to stand up for their faith.

Today, if you and I are under any misapprehension that out beliefs are held by a majority of people and are not under attack, even by fellow Catholics, we are clearly wrong. In many ways we are back to where we began.

The nativity scene we have in front of us is very familiar, but before the euphoria of Christmas night, let us take a moment to consider the main players. We have the location, an shed or cave in a backwater town of a remote and troublesome Roman province. Shepherds are there, the lowest on the social rung: they slept outside with their animals. If they were in Broome they would be in the open on Kennedy Hill or the other side of Demco. Then we have two people who are truly extraordinary, who rise above the madding crowd and they are just as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago.

God has promised never to abandon his people. Mary believed that promise and was able to recognise God’s messenger in the Angel Gabriel. This enabled her to reach out to Elizabeth and in turn be affirmed in her faith. Joseph was likewise guided by God. He accepted Mary his young and pregnant fiancée, knowing the public ridicule and disapproval it would precipitate. Our two main players bucked the cynicism of the day because they believed that God was active in the world.

At Christmas we are given the chance to affirm our faith, a faith that if lived to the full is not socially acceptable to many in our world who prefer the soft and secular option.

Elizabeth may you say of us the same that you said of Mary: Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.

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[i] http://news.peacefmonline.com/religion/201212/151192.php

Christ the Only King

One hundred years ago the world went mad and descended into the mess that was to become World War One. German, English and French armies all declared loudly that God was on their side. Of course, God was supporting those who showed respect and dignity in the cause of peace, and there was not much of that to be found. In the soul searching after the war, many became disillusioned with faith and put their trust in ideologies such was communism, fascism and Nazism. The atheistic regimes that came to power in Russia and Germany were responsible for more deaths than in any conflict in history. Most of the deaths were planned so that a more pure society could emerge. In the midst of this tumult and burgeoning of militant atheism, the Church, declared the feast we celebrate today, the Feast of Christ the King.

The Kingdom we seek, the kingdom we build, is not of this world. It is not a kingdom that can be bought and sold, not one that can be taken by force, not one that can be built by political machinations. The kingdom we seek to build and be a part of comes directly from our faith and is based on truth and justice, and is of God.

Unfortunately, life has often never been that black and white. Members of the church have not always thought that a little bit of force here and there is a bad thing. The chaplains who chose to walk up and down trenches in the First World War declaring the enemy as the devil to be eradicated were at best misguided. Whatever they were doing, they were not preaching the Gospel of Christ the Universal King. Standing before Pilate, Jesus declared: I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice. Not many people listened to Jesus, and he was led to his death.

Today we find something of a parallel. Some have walked away from the church in the revelations of weakness and of seeming inaction in the face of misconduct. Over the last weeks the media have fed us with a constant diet of anger against the Church. The leadership of the Church has been seen as uncaring at best, and criminally negligent at worst. Whist some are using this as an opportunity to display rabid anti-Catholicism and discrimination, many are angry that we seem to have not borne witness to the truth, that we have not tried to follow our own advice.

Well, at least to some extent they are correct, and the upcoming Royal Commission will be a chance to be humble before God and move forward to concentrate once again on building the Kingdom. I read yesterday that ‘this will be the end of the Catholic Church.” We all know that will not happen, but we will be humbled, and despite the untruths that will undoubtedly be told along with the truthful evidence, God is in this process of purification.

Always know that we are building the kingdom. Let us not take our eyes off Jesus Christ, our universal king, who us leading us to this reign of God.

Homily, OLQP 25^th November 2012 Christus Rex

Living Stones

The feast we celebrate today is ostensibly about a building constructed on the Lateran Hill in Rome in 324, the Cathedral Church of Rome. So is this a tangible sign of what many see is the growing irrelevance of the church to modern Australian society; or maybe something else?

The mandate of the WA Bishops to the CEO mentions nothing about buildings, yet we seem to spend so much time stressing about their maintenance and construction. This year has seen the flurry of openings of completed BER projects, and most of you have spent a good deal of time stressing over the completion of new buildings, or extensions and alterations to existing ones.

We celebrate this feast not because of a beautiful Church in Rome, in fact a building known as ‘the mother of all churches’, but what it point s us toward. Today’s Collect prays:

God, who from living and chosen stones prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty, increase in your church the spirit  of grace you have bestowed, so that by new growth your faithful people may build the new Jerusalem.

The beautiful places that we dedicate for worship in are intended to raise our minds and hearts to God, to point to something bigger and greater than ourselves. We are called to use all our gifts to be the ‘living and chosen stones’ that build the new Jerusalem.

Our Kimberley schools are magnificent places, made even better through the BER. We have great pride in their appearance and upkeep so that they are worthy places to hold and nurture the ‘living stones’ that are entrusted to us, our students. These living stones are not restricted to those we teach, but extend to include all those involved in the mission of the church.

During my recent convalescence in Sydney I noticed a fundraising appeal from St Mary’s Cathedral. It urged donors to buy a stone, numbered and located, in the towers of the Cathedral. Some of those stones are huge, others tiny; some are structurally crucial whereas others give flesh to the Cathedral bones.

All Christians are important, but due to the responsibility of the roles given to Kimberley priests and principals, we are all crucial to the flourishing of the Kimberley Church. We are the bones, we are the crucial stones. The school at Mulan or Ringer Soak may not seem to be as important to many as St Mary’s Broome, just as many see that our modest cathedral pales beside St John in Lateran, but we are all bones in the edifice of the Church, and she is weaker without each part which composes the whole.

We end the year as we began it and as we have lived it: through prayer. Prayer is the way we have been able to achieve the heights of our school year, it is the way we have been able to make sense of the disasters of the year. Prayer is the way we have been able to see beyond the maintenance and administration to the object of our passion, the passing on of faith and hope through appropriate and challenging education.

May God guide those of you who will soon depart the Kimberley. May he who led you’re here continue to guide you in grace. May he guide and strengthen those of us who will return to continue the mission in the red north.

May we never forget that we are all living stones, chosen to build the kingdom.

Homily 9th November 2012 for the Kimberley Principals. Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St John in Lateran

Always in Need of Reform

Last night at dinner I was asked why the Protestant Reformation occurred. It wasn’t exactly the pleasant dinner conversation I had expected, but nonetheless it was important to the person who asked and even more pertinent to today’s liturgy.

The church was once described as the necessary institution to disseminate the non-institutional message of Christ.  We exist to facilitate the saving message of Christ being transmitted to all people of all times. Even in these technologically sophisticated times, God can’t just have a Facebook page that people could ‘like’. Christianity is a religion of flesh and blood, of relationships: it does not live in a virtual world. If the Church did not exist, there would be no way for people to meet Christ as a person.  The Church is made up of people like you and me. Generally we are people who strive to live our lives along the lines of Gospel values. To the best of our ability we allow the Gospel to penetrate our thoughts and reflections so that we continue to grow closer to God and so that the Kingdom of God continues to come into being in our world.

However, this has not always been the case through history, and it is not always the case in our Church today. Like all other humans, we become bogged down in our own ways of doing things and stuck in our ways. We also try to cut corners and sometimes have a public and a private face that are very different. The current crisis of sexual abuse bears that out only too well. The Reformation the 16^th century was brought on, at least in part, by the desire of some to constantly reform and the inability of others to listen to that call. One of the big issues was that some believed that if you just did things or built great edifices, you could get into heaven. We all know that you can’t buy God’s love or forgiveness, but it is amazing how many of us try, even now, to buy off God with actions or prayers without actually changing our hearts.

In the Gospel Jesus teaches us that God is not impressed with outward appearance without inward change. He makes it clear that the numerous dietary laws of the Jewish people are not going to get any them close to God unless they are accompanied by true interior change of heart. Outward signs are necessary, but are only real when they indicate what is going on inside a person’s heart. The Reformers in the sixteenth century saw rotten people in the church who thought that they could buy God. This was a time where rich people believed, as some people of Jesus time did and some in our time do, that power, position and money spent on extraordinary edifices to the glory of God could smooth the way to heaven . Challenged by the reformers, the Church would not listen and the reformers rebelled and formed breakaway churches. In time many of these breakaway churches suffered the same fate whereas, thank God, the Catholic Church seems to have realised that we are in need of constant purification so as the keep on the path towards the Kingdom.

The short story is that outward appearance is important, but only as an indicator of what is going on inside. We build beautiful buildings because of the love we have for God.  We show respect in the way we dress, treat one another, and reach out to one another because it comes from within.  Goodness, as well as all the negative aspects that Jesus lists, come from within: if we are people of integrity, they should all show in what people see in our public lives.

We all need constant reformation to keep ourselves on the right track. In this Year of Grace may we recognise both our need of grace and the grace of God working in others to keep us building the Kingdom of God together.

Homily 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time,1st September 2012, OLQP Broome

Communion of Love

Last night I was in a conversation with a person who had ridden a bike into a town in France called Lourdes.  He was fascinated by the place and so I shared the story.  Our Lady appeared to Bernadette there in 1858. It did not matter to Bernadette that no one believed her, that people ridiculed her and her family. The truth was important, and that is what Bernadette told people, even though it brought her, in the short term, much suffering.  In telling that story I could not help thinking of today’s Gospel.    

Jesus said some uncomfortable things and held some unpopular views. His teaching on the bread of life, to which we have been listening over the last weeks, is a central example.  As with all difficult teaching and firmly held views, there is collateral damage. When challenged we are faced with the choice to continue to follow or to leave. This, of course comes down to the issue of trust. Who has the greater authority, me or the Church? Recently, after a difficult conversation involving a central tenet of our faith, a person said to me: “Well that is what I believe and it is right for me.” I had to reply that in most matters of faith and morals, something is either right or wrong, so in stating that he was right I needed to point out that he was saying that the Church for the last 2000 years was wrong, a very unlikely scenario. In these times our decisions have implications, because if we disagree our communion with the church is broken.

The Gospel tells us that after this teaching, many walked away from Jesus. The Jewish dietary laws forbade the eating of blood, and here was Jesus telling his disciples that if they did not eat of his blood that they could not have life within them.  This was decision time, a turning point. It is the high point of the bread of life discourse, because this Jesus who has spent much time witnessing and explaining now calls those who were curiously following him to make a decision. The consequences are stark: follow Jesus and you will be persecuted by your fellow Jewish people. As with all things, you cannot believe everything and be everybody’s friend: there are tomes that a line has to be drawn in the sand.

Jesus still draws a line in the sand and asks us on which side of the line we stand. He asks us to identify completely with him through the Eucharist, this most scared of rites where we consume his body and blood.

He Eucharist is not only food and drink for us, but it is our opportunity to identify completely with Jesus and his mission. This leads us to the concept of communion. This Holy Communion that we share is the paramount expression of our inclusion in the mission of Jesus and the faith of the Church. By approaching the altar we are saying in front of the congregation that this is our faith our hope and our life. In other words, before we arrive at the altar we have said that we believe what the Church teaches and that we have communion with Christ and the Church: in other words, there are not obstacles, not serious sin, between us and Christ.  Phew!

Jesus leads us to the realisation that communion with him is essential for the Christian. This communion is celebrated and strengthened through the Eucharist and ultimately through Holy Communion where we take the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord and saviour into our bodies. What a gift! What a responsibility! 

May we never approach the altar casually or thoughtlessly! 

May we be worthy of this Holy Communion of love.

Homily OLQP 26th August 2012,21st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

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

The Real X-Factor

A well-meaning mother once asked me to teach her children about Jesus, ‘but leave out that stuff about the Cross’ she instructed, ‘I only what them to know the good things’.

It would be great if life was that simple!

Our life is a mixed bag, full of joys and hopes, suffering and sacrifice, pain and betrayal, death and new life. Real Christianity is about real life, and confronts all of these aspects.  When the authorities closed in on Jesus, his friends did a runner, his disciples scattered and his mission fell into disarray.  Instead of sinking into despair or taking the easy way out, Jesus stayed faithful to his beliefs and hoped in the promises made to God’s people. He became the X-Factor.     

During the three days of the Easter Triduum from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, we walk a journey of hope acknowledging that life and everything in it can strengthen us and have meaning. The betrayal by Judas after the Last Supper and the Way of the Cross led to the crucifixion on Calvary, but that was not the end.  Suffering gives way to life, pain to joy, and the sadness of separation to the realisation of life beyond this sphere. Jesus, the X-Factor in person, sustains and enlivens us.

When you bite that hot cross bun on Good Friday, or kiss the Cross, when you celebrate the resurrection and eat a chocolate egg of new life at Easter, remember the Real X-Factor!

Giving 100%

Wee nearing the end of Lent and this is the final straight. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and on that day Jesus gave himself to the fickle crowd, knowing that it would probably end in his death.

How has your Lent been? What have you discovered so far? If you have been praying, fasting and giving to others, you will have discovered again the message of today’s gospel. Unless a grain of wheat falls upon the ground and dies it remains a single grain.  But what does that mean to you and me who are living out our ordinary lives in Broome in 2012?

Over the past few weeks I have been fascinated by the politics in America. The passion that the two main rivals for the republican candidacy are displaying is amazing. To add to this, the amount of money that are spending is dizzying.  All of this is to secure the right to be the republican contender. Their commitment is extraordinary because they obviously see the prize as extraordinary. These men think that they change the world, and that is probably the case. They certainly realise that anything less than 100% effort is not worthy of them. Both Mit Romney and Rick Santorum remind me of some of the ideals of the Gospel: giving our all.

The history of the church is full of examples of people who have given their lives for others in the service of God. Our world abounds with similar examples of selflessness, of people dying to self so that others could live. To grow we must leave some things behind, just as Jesus did.

God offers us a new covenant through Jesus; he offers us an example to follow. If we give of ourselves for the sake of others, we will fulfil the purpose of God for us. This story is not about me, it is about us, and that is why we strive to die to self so that we can live with Christ. He came to the stage of realising that unless he opened himself up to whatever was to be, including the malevolence of others, his mission would not be authentic. The same applied to us

It has taken us over half of Lent to be reintroduced to this idea because we have to travel the same road again and see the rationale behind this movement.

Unless the grain of wheat die it remains a single grain.

Homily Fifth Sunday of Lent year B 25th March 2012 OLQP 

Raised Up From The Earth

In the Book of Numbers we hear that the people of Israel, grumbling about God while walking around the wilderness, started to be bitten by fiery serpents.[i] Moses was told by God to erect a statue, a bronze pole with a snake wound around it so that the people would look at it and live.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Maybe, but if we are able to get inside the head of Moses, it may not be so silly.

When we are unhappy and grumbling we become listless and careless, and sometimes we just don’t look what we are doing or where we step. In Australia, where 20 of the 25 most deadly species of snake reside[ii], we know the consequences. God, speaking through Moses, called the people to awareness. 

Further, I read that the only way to remove a fiery serpent, drawing its head and poison away from the body, is to gently wind the snake around a stick. Thus the bronze fiery serpent signified the danger and the cure.

The relevance of this image to Jesus is immediate. Jesus comes to make us aware and offer us a cure, to open our eyes and offer us his redemption. “The Son of Man,” we are told, “must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes might have eternal life in him.” He continued in the most translated verse ever: God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son that everyone who believes in him will not die but have eternal life.[iii] Jesus is the gift of God to us, to show us the way. As the serpent was lifted up, so was Jesus on the Cross. Both were an invitation, not a demand. Both demanded a free acceptance of reality, and the acknowledgement of God’s power. We are not told that Jesus might be crucified, but that he must be raised up from the earth, which is saying that we ‘needed something as shocking as a crucifixion to shake us out of our lethargy and save us from the futility of being caught up in aUmeaningless way of life of reacting top sin with more sin.’[iv]

The history of the encounters of Nicodemus with Jesus takes us one step further. The acknowledgement of the person of Jesus and his meaning for us brings us out into the light. For Nicodemus, it was a process, firstly the man who came to Jesus by night, then the one who spoke against his condemnation in the Sanhedrin, and after his death, the one who fearlessly went to Pilate to ask for his body. His was a slow conversion, like ours, one that needed renewing and deepening. We are a work in progress, God’s work of art[v], as St Paul eloquently puts it to the Ephesians. Nicodemus came out into the light and was able to proclaim Jesus as Saviour and Lord. His was done through challenges and crises, possibly like our own journey.

Like Nicodemus, we have the opportunity to make sense of our lives, to practise and deepen our own faith and that of our parish. We do this through specific acts of prayer, almsgiving and fasting. These are the three keys of our spiritual growth during Lent.

Homily 18th March 2012, the Fifth Sunday of Lent  Year B 

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[i] Num 21.4-9

[ii] http://www.avru.org/general/general_mostvenom.html

[iii] John 3.16

[iv] Michael Fallon, The Gospel According to St John: An Introductory Commentary, Chevalier Press, 1998, 103.

[v] Eph 2.10

Semper Reformanda

In the fourth century St Augustine wrote: In essentials unity, in doubt liberty, and in all things charity. It may well have been similar to the thoughts that Jesus had whilst entering the Temple. He had some problem with those who controlled the Temple, and when he entered, a righteous indignation overtook him: he became angry! The rest we know, that he pushed over the tables of the sellers and demanded that they stop making his Father’s house a market.  He teaches us a wonderful lesson, one that is very relevant in Lent.

In essentials Jesus agreed with those who conducted the Temple. He had no argument with the essentials of the Mosaic Law. He allowed them benefit of the doubt in other practices, although he spoke publicly against those who followed the letter of the Law but not the spirit. Temple worship at that time was corrupt, and many Jews boycotted the Temple. However, he had limits, and when the limit was reached he took a stand, and the result is what we hear in today’s Gospel.

The challenge for us is firstly to notice. The righteous indignation caused a stir and also marked out Jesus. Many people walked in and out of the temple, disagreed with what was happening but did nothing about it, whereas Jesus did something. If we do not see we will not be able to act. This calls for openness and awareness. We need to see where the grace of god is active and where it is being thwarted.

Secondly, we need to know our boundaries, what we believe and where our limits are set. If we don’t do that, we will never know when the line is crossed. That is why the Ten Commandments are presented to us the first reading. These are the boundaries for a Christian, the basics of a Christian culture, but they are just the starting point, as they need to be interpreted in the light of contemporary conditions.  I the desert we used to at the Ten Commandments into  contemporary language: put God number one, don’t speak about God badly, keep Sunday holy, respect your parents or kids, do to kill, stay with one man or woman, don’t steal, don’t lie, do not be envious of another’s relationships or possessions. No matter how secular our society becomes or how atheistic our PM is, our society will still fall apart if not lived on these principles.

Thirdly, we need to challenge and be open to being challenged. Totalitarianism thrives on coercion, Christianity on freedom. The times in the history of the Church that she has coerced others or been impervious to criticism or challenge have been our lowest time.  The reformation of the 16^th century was caused in part by the deafness of Church authorities to challenge: as church we must always be open to challenge and reform. The catchcry then, as it was at the second Vatican council and still is today, is Ecclesia semper reformanda, the church is always in need of reform,  always called to be true to the tenets of our faith.

We come back to Augustine, and remember that love and respect is the basis of Christianity and must underpin all we do and say. In essentials unity, in doubt liberty, and in all things love. 

Homily Third Sunday of Lent1 Year B 11th March 2012 

To and From the Mountain Top

Some years ago I went through a time of great questioning and for a while could not clearly see the way forward. One of my brothers said to me: “Come to Africa and climb Mt Kilimanjaro.” I think my reply was sarcastic and cutting. Climbing a mountain in Africa was the last thing I needed. As things turned out, I went. My luggage got lost and I turned up to climb this 20 000 feet high mountain with a shirt and pants, boots and a jumper.  The first thing was that others in the group started to share with me, a shirt here, a thermal there, socks from somewhere else, the mere act of sharing with me seemed to bring our group together. Then we walked, and walked, for three days, interminably up. As the atmosphere thinned, we had to walk more slowly, the country opened up and we could experience the grandeur of the roof of Africa. Reaching the summit was one of the hardest things I have done. I got to the top, looked over Africa, and realised that without the others in the group I would not have made it. I also realised that all that all the problem that I had left 5893m below were not the insurmountable. The clear air of Africa cleared my head. God spoke to me through that experience and I sailed down the mountain. It was my experience of Transfiguration.

We know who Jesus is. We don’t need God on the mountain and in the cloud to tell us that. We know that the apostles came down from the mountain with a new awareness of who Jesus was and what their role was in relation to him. They emerged with new direction.  This is the part of their experience that we need to discover.  We have all had our moments of transfiguration, those times when God has become blindingly obvious to us and the way ahead is very clear. These are wonderful moments, just like mine on Kilimanjaro. They are to be savoured form what they are, moments of grace, gifts from God which reassure us of our faith and give us enthusiasm for the road ahead.  Abraham was given a moment of grace as he ascended Mount Horeb, the mountain of the Lord. He was able to see that the Lord did not want him to offer his only son as a sacrifice, but wanted his obedience.

We all have to come down from the mountaintop and face life after the high. We must move on, and even Peter knew that when he timidly asked that he pitch three tents for Jesus Moses and Elijah: he knew it was a long-shot. Moments like these give us strength and guidance.

Let us ask God to give us direction and strength in our Lenten journey.

Homily for Second Sunday of Lent Year B, 4th March 2012, OLQP. 

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