Friday, 26 July 2013
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Travelling Lght
Last week I walked the pilgrimage route to Beagle Bay that we
will take in a few weeks. The small group walked slowly, leaving plenty of time
for reflection, prayer and noticing the country around us as we passed through.
We were pilgrims walking through a sacred land, not that this land was any
different to any other, it is just that the speed we walked and the reflection which
was afforded us by that pace enabled us
to see the wonders that God had placed on our track. We travelled light, not worrying
about material goods, trusting in God and in our support person.
The prophet Isaiah, extolling the wonders of Jerusalem, was
a man who was tuned in to god and to his country. Jerusalem was the mother who nursed and cared
for all who respected her. Those who visited Jerusalem were filled with hope
and carried light hearts. Pilgrims to Jerusalem carried little material goods,
but were filled with faith and expectation: they knew that God would do
something, so they were looking for signs.
They believed, as Isaiah says, that: To
his servants the Lord will reveal his hand.
When we travel light and have a destination in mind, we are
able to claim the status of pilgrim. It is not just people who go up to Jerusalem
or travel to beagle Bay who are pilgrims. True, those people take part in pilgrimage
and are pilgrims, but all of us can be pilgrims by our attitude and the way we
approach our lives. The Lord appointed the seventy-two to go out and bear
witness. They were told to travel light. As Boniface Perdjert, the first aboriginal
permanent deacon teaches, Christ did not
get worried about material things. He was born in the countryside in a cave,
like so many of us have been born. He walked about like so many of our people die
with nothing.
Freedom comes with detachment, and it is in this that our Aboriginal
brothers and sisters can teach so much to the wider Australian society that is
so bent on material gain that we squeeze the spiritual element out of our lives
so effectively that it becomes so tame and so to interfere with our hectic
lifestyle.
Jesus sent his materially poor and detached disciples out
with a mission. The freedom gained in this enables the disciples to concentrate
on that which is important and to leave behind that which is unimportant. The same
call is given to you and me.
Today, Aboriginal Sunday, we are asked to appreciate the land
that has been given to us all to share, land that has Aboriginal people as its
custodians. We are called to live in this land together, in harmony and peace,
letting go all that would hold us back from freedom and peace. In so doing we
are able to listen to God speaking in our land and its people, we are able to
follow God in simplicity showing peace and mercy to all people. We will be able
to let affronts and slights go past, and to acknowledge the spirit of God
active in our world. In the words of the psalmist, we can say:
Come and hear, all who fear God
I will tell what he did for my soul
Blessed be God who did not reject my prayer
Nor withhold his love from me.
Homily 13th July 2013 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time year C
Aboriginla and Torres Starit Islander Sunday
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