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