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