Growing to be holy

As Catholic schools we should not be ashamed of our mission to encourage and grow to holiness. The call to holiness (and wholeness) is made to all Christians. But what is holiness, and why is it so important? Holiness is derived from God as an expression of his extraordinary and immense goodness. As believers we participate in this holiness through our experience of God’s presence in our lives. We do not automatically share in that holiness: each of us must respond to the call, grow in awareness of God’s presence, express it through gratitude, humility, love and justice for others. This doesn’t make us holy, it means we gain a share, a space, a place in God’s holiness.

Holiness is important because it permits and resources our capacity to live full and rich lives (wholeness – they’re intimately related).

So, what does holiness look like? We have certainly seen it in the lives of Mother Teresa of Calcultta, John Paul II and surely in the life of the Dalai Lama. But they are very religious. I’m reasonably sure, however, that religious people do not have a stranglehold on holiness. For gratitude, humility, love and justice for others are experienced and expressed by so many about us. I have been privileged in my life in having met a raft of ‘holy’ people – bishops, priests, religious brothers and sisters, but most have been people like you. Yet when I see the devotion of wives for their husbands, fathers for their children, grandparents for their grandchildren, friends for one another, I see quite clearly how God’s holiness overflows into their lives and it is quite awe inspiring.

Coming to recognise God’s role in this generous giving is what our job is. In Paul’s letter to Timothy (6:11-16) we are asked to be ‘filled with faith and love, (be) patient and gentle’ – that is, we must seek to be holy.

What this means on a day-to-day basis will be entirely dependent upon your gifts and capacity. In some instances it may mean offering your every living moment to others through a life of contemplative prayer, or being a nurse, a teacher, a emergency services worker, office worker, stay at home mum or dad.

We must ‘fight the good fight with all our might’ so that the daily grind itself does not become our reason for living, the fight is to ensure we can see our wholeness being unfolded in word and action. Wherever we are in our lives that is where our holiness, our place and space with God lies.

The mind of God

I am a reader of memoirs and biographies. Understanding how individuals picked up on the opportunities, learnings and experiences in their lives helps make sense of my own journey as a child, father, husband, worker, believer, colleague. One such memoir, is that of John Shelby Spong, Here I stand. Spong is the retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, NJ.

From a relatively conventional childhood, Spong sought ordination. He kept his eyes and ears open to the needs of those to whom he ministered: gays, feminists and blacks. He questioned the way religion was practised and the way the scriptures were interpreted. He used every tool available to him in his study of Christianity - fundamental theology, christology, harmartiology, mariology, biblical theology, natural theology, hermeneutics, theodicy, eschatology and moral theology – and even these he challenged as not serving the faithful adequately enough. He (still) proposes the reformation of Christian life and thought. He put forward 12 theses that have brought him vitriolic and bitter criticism from churches, theologians and believers of every variety.

I couldn’t help but admire this man of the cloth – for despite the adversity he met, he stood tall. He used his immense scholarship and intellect against the anger of those he challenged.

Needless to say, his theses would quite clearly place him in the realm of the unorthodox. Yet the story he tells explains why he stands where he does. And he stands unapologetically.

In the end, who would know the mind of God? Is the revelation we have immutable? Given that we are generous to a fault, at times, to believers and non-believers of every creed and ‘ism’ it’s a pity the same consideration cannot and has not been extended to John Selby Spong. The writer of Wisdom (9:13 – 18) tells us: It is hard enough to work out what is on earth, laborious to know what lies within our reach; who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?

Our challenge, then, is to seek to understand the entire world in which we live, to make sense of it, to discover its order/disorder, and this must happen in the life, the only life I have and lead. We may not commit our actions, words and thoughts to paper, but our living breath becomes our memoir. The attitudes we pass to our children, the way we engage with those who serve us in the shop, the manner in which we treat our spouses, our neighbours, our fellow journeymen, they will be imprinted in the minds of those we encounter daily. Will you be satisfied with the way your life has been written? Will we see your passion for your family, your sport, your faith, your cooking, your charity for others reflected back at you?

Today is the day to recommit yourself to the life you should be living. Being a disciple of Jesus requires that we give up every possession in order to follow him (Luke 14:33). Is there something or someone in your life that you would do that for?

Humbling the exalted

From an early age my sons wanted to play for Liverpool and Manchester United. That particular height they did not reach. But they have now been playing seniors and reserves for Devonport for the past few years and have achieved a measure of success. They’re both great characters, put everything into the game and are valued by their teammates. While they have been rightfully proud of their achievements, they are, nevertheless, humble about what they have achieved.

Humility is not a condition, but a quality or virtue. While it is something to be aspired to, it has its roots in the Latin word humus or earth. It is an earthy quality. In the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach the writer tells us (Ecclesiasticus 3:18): The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly. Jesus (of Nazareth) picks up this very matter, advising the Pharisees (Luke 14:11) that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

We live in a culture of ‘only the best will do’. Competition for resources, market share, clients, skilled workers, product, is a part of the fabric of our democratic society. And because of it the greater part of the community benefits. It also means that banks, telecommunication and mining companies walk away with billions of dollars of profits. Corporate wealth of this magnitude is almost beyond comprehension. Most of us would admit that the most important part of our lives is our family - our relationship with our spouses, children and friends and yet we know the havoc that is played on those relationships when the needs of corporate business have priority – over where we live and work, over the kinds of jobs we can do, over what we earn, over the wrangling between our political representatives. It is about power, it is about pride. Pride in success.

Ben Sirach (v. 28) reminds us that: There is no cure for the proud man’s malady, since an evil growth has taken root in him.

Jesus explains (Luke 14:12 – 14): When you give a lunch or dinner, do not ask your friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbours, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return. No, when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind - that they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate, because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again.

There is no doubt we should be proud of our work, of our home, of our children, of our sporting achievement – but we should not buy into the pride that sets us apart as being better than others, having more than others. The Gospel of Jesus has a real clarity about the dangers of power, wealth, pride, greed and knowledge. These ‘values’ are contrary to the kingdom values.

Our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic child care centres, our Catholic agencies, must always strive to be their best, but in living out kingdom values, they must be humble and must always remain available to poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind – lest they forget why they exist in the first place.

Disciplined discipleship

As much as each child is a wonderful gift, our children may sometimes be the cause of our greatest heartaches. We are not born with a set of parenting skills. They are something we acquire – first of all from our own parents, and then by positive or negative modelling from others we admire or fear. We are seldom just reliving our own childhoods when we become parents.

One aspect with which most of us struggle is consistency. Our children are persistent, energetic learners and if we wish to challenge a certain behaviour or develop more acceptable behaviours it is a long journey. Correcting our children, we know, should always be done with love, but tempers fray, we can become impulsive and punitive, we can overreact.

The exact opposite is also possible. We can find excuses for our child’s behaviour, we can mollycoddle, even defend poor behaviour, and even take to task the recipient of our child’s aggression.

Don’t be afraid. This is not new territory. The world has always been the same despite the ever new theories of childrearing. Discipline, the word we use to describe the development of positive behaviours – such as good manners, keeping our hands to ourselves, being respectful of others, applying ourselves to our school work, getting my chores at home done – derives from the word disciple. One becomes a disciple by accepting, taking on and living out the discipline of the master. For us that master is Jesus. It is he who sets the standard.

The writer to the Hebrews (12:5 – 7, 11- 13) reminds us that because are called to intimate relationship with Jesus, When the Lord corrects you, do not treat it lightly, but do not get discouraged when he reprimands you. For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he punishes all those that he acknowledges as his sons. Suffering is part of your training. God is treating you as his sons.

None of us has perfect children. Assisting them in their growth towards adulthood will require sacrifice and pain. This is no more evident than in the relationship between St Monica and her son, St Augustine. Well before his fame as a bishop and theologian, Augustine was a rake – he lived the high life – a sinful life – his mother prayed for many years that he would find God’s love in his life, and at the age of 30 he converted. He did not disown his past (for he also had a son), because it was an essential part of his journey. The constancy of his mother helped make a difference. The suffering was hers.

We are all called to discipleship, to model our lives as disciplined members of the community, of the church – if we want our children to be effective members of our community, then we must teach, act and behave accordingly.

Assuming Mary

The unquantifiable devotion of centuries of the faithful ensured that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was lavished with a raft of titles: Theotokos, Star of the Sea, Queen of Heaven, Our Lady of Lourdes, of Fatima, Help of Christians, of Mount Carmel, of Sorrows, of Providence, of Guadalupe, of Lebanon, of Peace and there are many, many more. Each title has a deep and rich history. What they have in common is acknowledging Mary’s role in the story of human salvation.

Mary was, as we know well, a very young woman when she was engaged to Joseph. Her ‘Amen’ to the angelic visitation is the paradigmatic, Christian response. We actually know very little information about Mary and her motherhood from the scriptures and much has been made of the small amount that does appear. Inquisitiveness about Mary did not exist in the very early church, and this is reflected in the Gospels and Paul’s letters. In the generations that followed, however, the faithful’s appreciation of her generosity and her proximity to the divine, gave rise to speculation. There is an ancient adage, de Maria nunquam satis (Latin: one can never say enough about Mary)

Speculation and reflection (in some cases) over many hundreds of years led to development of several key teachings about Mary, and ultimately enshrined as dogma by the church: Mary as Theotokos (Christ-bearer, or more commonly the Mother of God) in Ephesus in 431 AD; the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and the Assumption of Mary in 1950.

The Assumption is a feast that was celebrated from the 7th century in Rome and while it attempts to describe what occurred after Mary died, it is a reflection on her whole life, her call, her parenthood, her faithfulness, her discipleship, her provoking of Jesus’ ministry, her companionship. She stands a model for the church, the model believer. We struggle with language to express Mary’s role, and given Mary’s extraordinary role in salvation history, we need to be able to link the human Mary and what was asked of her in life with the God who asked so much of her. Our experience and reflection tell us that on death, this wonderful and most unique creature in creation was invited in her entire humanity, body and soul into eternal communion with her creator. Would we expect anything less?

Today the Assumption gives us a foretaste of what we too can expect. Mary is indeed the model, the exemplar of discipleship and each of us could do no better than to follow her example. This Sunday is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

A covenant of love

Without denigrating lawyers (my sister is one), I would prefer to order my life without the assistance of solicitors. Nevertheless I have required their services in the purchase of property, making wills and challenging our local council. Undoubtedly lawyers’ expertise helps sort out the issues, and certainly when drawing up contracts we want to be sure that they are watertight and that they say and do what we mean and intend.

The word covenant has an ancient history and is used richly throughout the religious, biblical, legal and political worlds. In Hebrew the word berith relates both the sense of unconditional gift from God (as with Abraham) and the conditional sense where certain requirements must be met in order to maintain the covenantal relationship. Though we often think of there being one covenant between the Lord and his people, there are several, each deepening the relationship between both parties.

Covenants are contracts. They establish the expectations of the parties who enter into an agreement to provide a service or goods.

The covenant made by God with his people does have one most important difference: it requires faith (Hebrew 11:1 – 19). As imaginative as the story of Abraham and Sarah is – leaving Ur, setting up in Canaan, Sarah’s pregnancy, the promise of innumerable descendents – we need to understand it is already infused with faith. The covenant is the actual means of understanding the mutual commitment that God and humanity have between them. You will be my people, and I will be your God (Ezekiel 36:28). There are mutual obligations.

The stories that emanate from scripture constantly remind us of God’s fidelity to that covenant and humanity’s struggle with its obligations. One major stumbling block was the Hebrew’s knack codifying every aspect of their lives in relation to that covenant, so that the Law became more important than the relationship. In Jesus the New Covenant is established which again sets God’s love, his desire to be in relationship with you and me as pre-eminent.

There is nothing more important in that relationship than knowing that God loves us, and that he loved us unconditionally.

Leap of faith into a southern land

Less than 200 years ago most of our ancestors, with the exception of our Aboriginal families, lived in far, distant places. For a hundred different reasons, they packed all their belongings for a journey that would take several months by sea, to a new land, a strange land, a land of promise and hope. It lay in the south and was thus called Australia (from the Latin adjective australis meaning, ‘south’). Such a journey is unimaginable for those who fly for 24 hours to reach the very shores from which those ancestors came. It is no less horrific but real for those latter migrants who arrived, and still arrive, aboard rotten, unseaworthy boats that are mere flotsam and jetsam. They came from Vietnam, Indonesia and now Sri Lanka.

470 years ago, a unique group of individuals in the church, was formally established and approved as a religious congregation whose aim was to be at the pope’s disposal, at that time Paul III. The group had the capacity to be flexible, to go where there was the greatest need. The founder of this group was of noble descent, a soldier, badly wounded at the siege of Pamplona against the French. A long period of recovery was spent studying the life of Christ and the saints. Ignatius Loyola thus began his journey of faith that was to culminate in the establishment of one of the church’s greatest religious orders: The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. One of the Jesuit’s earliest missions was to the Far East, making St Francis Xavier the patron saint of missionaries.

In 2008, three young Nigerian priests, Kene Onwukwe, Felix Ekeh and Christopher Igboanua arrived in the chilly climes of Hobart to begin their mission to, and within, the church of Tasmania. Their journey was recorded in a series on the ABC, The Mission.

There are degrees of discomfort for all who seek new lives, our ancestors were pioneers, convicts, freemen, soldiers and sailors. For most there was no return to their place of their birth. They came to fulfill a dream, a sentence, a ‘tour of duty’, to escape persecution. For Ignatius’ followers, some 19,000 today, their mission to preach the Gospel through apostolic ministry is carried out in 112 nations on six continents. A step into the unknown, a leap of faith, and obedience to their call to priesthood brought Kene, Felix and Christopher to these most southern of shores. Their presence and youth are signs of hope in a diocese of great need. Like Ignatius and Xavier they have trusted in God.

Perhaps much less is asked of you and me. Pehaps our sole duty is to survive the 21st century. Perhaps the seed that was planted in all those whose stories brim full in the history of Australia, and those who are driven to make a difference to build a better society, or to build God’s kingdom on earth in this terra australis, is ready to take root in you.

St Ignatius’ feast day is this Saturday.

My daily bread

As adults none of us wishes to either show or admit our dependence on others. If it is about our spouses and partners, we use words like shared responsibility, or, working together. However we word it, the research still tells us very plainly that women do most of the housework. I know, I know. The statistics are against us, if not personally, then across the entire male gender in general. In essence, while we try to avoid such words as dependence, reality suggests that we are, in fact, utterly and totally reliant on someone else filling in the gaps, or coping with everything. OK, perhaps on a good day we could call it co-dependence.

Our children, on the other hand are called dependents for a very good reason. Their welfare, their health, their education, their everything, is channeled through us. It is our responsibility, it is our lot until they start making those decisions, slowly but surely, for themselves. When we have children we become acutely aware of their needs – they need feeding, warmth, a change of clothing, sleep, play, talking to, cuddling, discipline, teaching. Those who lack this acute awareness struggle with the notion of parenting and more often than not require support. And let’s be realistic: it is not uncommon in many communities.

Luke (11:1 – 13) introduces his notion of dependence when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. More appropriately it should be called Our Prayer. In this prayer, God, addressed as Father, is approached as the giver of grace and mercy. Our spiritual and physical health is dependent upon his unrestricted, unconditional generosity. We are already most favoured, we are his children. He is utterly and totally aware of what we need, and Jesus tells us, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

This is not a dependency that requires no action from us. No. Each day we must forgive our neighbours their debts, we must keep his name holy and ultimately assist in the building of his kingdom, for his will must be done. This prayer also becomes an indicator of the presence of the kingdom among us: we pray we will be nourished by his daily bread (in the sense of the Eucharist, as well as both spiritual and physical nourishment, and as participation in a divine, heavenly banquet begun now in the present and to be completed in the eternal kingdom).

Paul, in writing to the Colossians (2:14), succinctly expresses our dependence on God: He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross.

None of us needs to be carried from birth into the next life. Even dependents have obligations: to be thankful, to be cooperative, to acknowledge the work done for and on their behalf, to contribute, to encourage and to fortify the efforts made. But helpless dependency must end. It too must be nailed to the cross. Each of us needs to carry our own weight.

Father in faith, the mystery revealed

Do you look into the cloudless nights with your children to count the stars? Do you speak to them of the wondrous stories that have been told since the dawn of time, of how the stars came to be, of the mystery of the universe and indeed of life itself?

The greatest story ever told is a story that unfolds from the beginning of creation to the present day. It is the story of the fall of humanity from grace and the gift of hope, of expectation that one day all will be made right. And this story is peopled by those names with which we are so familiar: Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, kings, prophets, John Baptist.

Planning your family may often be more like luck than planning. If you have already waited some years there is the anxiety about what might go wrong, about fertility, about age, about the kind of world you would be bringing a child into. There are a variety of assistive reproductive technologies.

Abram/Abraham is often called our father in faith. A wealthy farmer, he and his wife, now elderly, are childless. Living somewhere in the land of Ur, an ancient Sumerian city-state, Abraham receives a message from the Lord: Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:1 – 3). In a leap of faith and obedience to this nameless and yet-unknown God, Abraham packs up his household and animals with the promise of future generations. In the land of Canaan (Gen 18:1 – 10), Abraham and his wife are visited by strangers who promise to return in a year when Sarai/Sarah would by then have a child. Thus begins the journey of salvation. For us Christians the focus and epicentre of this epic saga is the person of Jesus, the mystery of Jesus. And like Abraham, this is an act of faith.

If you are a mystery novel reader, the author’s intention is that you must link together the many clues to solve the crime. In reading back into the scriptures, the Christian finds the clues to God’s intentions for humankind. St Paul (Col 1:24 – 28) believed that this mystery had been hidden for hundreds of years, but that now, The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory: this is the Christ we proclaim. It is now revealed to believers, the saints.

When those children arrive that you have longed for, like Abraham and Sarah, it is time to ponder such beautiful gifts. It is time to thank ‘our lucky stars’ that through us, as parents, we continue this incredible epic as we seek to live out lives with our children that model Christ, that celebrate the new creation, that our hopes and dreams for them will be everlasting life at the centre of life itself – in the mystery and heart of Jesus, for we are among the blessed.

My neighbour in the flesh

I spent frantic school holidays with my family traipsing to other side of the globe, visiting London, Paris, and the south-east of France. Part of this journey was to seek a sense of place as described by the author Kate Mosse, writer of Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Winter ghosts. We visited such towns as Carcassonne, Limoux, Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Chateau and visualized Mosse’s characters moving through the streetscapes. Being there put flesh and substance on our imaginations.

Luke (10:25 – 37) tells of the lawyer who asks what must he do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him, What is written in the law? To which the lawyer responds, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself. But who is our neighbour? And to put flesh and substance on this question, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan.

We know that in telling this parable that the most effective way to answer the lawyer was to use the environment in which he lived and the people who surrounded him. For the lawyer this parable was a salutary lesson about living out the law of love everyday. It is equally salutary for us: are you a priest, a Levite or a Samaritan? The priest and the Levite had good excuses, certainly reasonable by the standards of the community of that time. But their excuses didn’t pass muster with Jesus then, and they still don’t pass muster today. Jesus doesn’t hesitate in requiring all those who love the law to care deeply for everyone who is our neighbour, to act justly, and to follow it through to the end.

There is a salutary lesson here too for the Australian government and its response to refugees. In our own community, how welcoming are we to the refugees already settled in our city? How open are we to the outsider, the unusual, the straggler, or anyone who challenges our idea of ‘neighbour’. There are no simplistic answers, of course, to an issue of global importance, but in the end, we must exercise our option for the poor and dispossessed wherever they may be processed. And this we must do every day. As the psalmist (Ps 18:9) reminds us, The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart. That’s the pay off, for everyone.

Who will speak for the poor and broken?

Marty Haugen, a hymn writer of some renown in the world Christian community wrote a most powerful hymn that goes to the core of the Christian message:


Who will speak for the poor and broken?
Who will speak for the peoples oppressed?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

Who will speak for the ones who are voiceless?
Speak the truth in the places of pow’r?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

(M Haugen, GIA Publications, 1993)


Just whose job is it to care for those who are aged, homeless, seriously ill, depressed, widowed, disabled, bereaved, in pain? Who will speak on their behalf? For thousands of years, the poor were the objects of charity, subject to the kindness and generosity of their rulers and fellow citizens. The scriptures record the duty we have to support the poor and downtrodden, and Jesus, we might recall (Luke 6:20) advised his disciples that ‘Happy are you who are poor, yours is the kingdom of God’. This never meant that they had to fend for themselves, this speaks, surprisingly, of their closeness to the Kingdom of God.

The provision of health and social services grew from the growth of the public voices that emerged from humanitarianism, universal enfranchisement and the demand for an equitable share of the public purse. But despite the progress made in the last 150 years, the voiceless are still with us – still seeking justice. So, who will hear, and who will speak out?

‘The harvest is rich, but the labourers are few,’ writes Luke (10:1ff). There is much to do, and few to do it. In another time this was interpreted as priesthood or religious life, even a call to work and life as missionaries in far distant lands. Frederic Ozanam (founder of Vinnies) and Teresa Bojaxhiu (of Calcutta) responded to the immediacy of the poverty of their neighbours and sought, as their followers continue to do to this very day, to alleviate their suffering. Their critics have also been consistent: providing food, clothing and shelter do not challenge or change the systemic and structural injustice that allows such poverty to exist – lack of education, chronic unemployment, fractured families, alcohol and drug dependency, unplanned and unprepared parenthood, moving industry offshore, globalisation, war.

The church, and its living saints, are not inactive, but nor are they the only ones with the courage to accept the call to labour for the Lord, to speak for the voiceless, to challenge the status quo. It is within the gift of each of us to accept the mission given us through baptism and our common humanity to: preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed (Luke 4:18). Whose job is it? Mine. And yours.

Out lawed with love

Judging from the fines collected in Tasmania for traffic infringements and parking fines, we, as a community appear take a rather broad view of obeying ‘the law’. But we also have the knack (or misfortune) of knowing if it applies to me now or whether or not I just might get away with it.

When you travel to Italy, you will notice that people will park where their cars will fit. I never imagined that bumper bars were actually for bumping, but that’s how they fit into tight little spots, a little bump here, a little bump there, and you’re in. No place for the feint-hearted. If there were road rules in Rome (and I am sure there are) you would wonder what they were.

There are reseachers at all levels of government whose job it is to locate inconsistent, redundant or outmoded laws, regulations and bylaws. Sometimes it may be necessary to go back to why the law was implemented in the first place and whether those circumstances still apply in a different time and place.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians contains one of his central theses, namely that Gentiles who become Christians are not bound by the Mosaic law, but that they were not to abuse this freedom. Indeed, ‘If you are led by the Spirit,’ writes Paul, ‘no law can touch you (5:18)’. Furthermore they should not submit ‘to the yoke of slavery (5:1)’ – and here we can understand this ‘slavery’ as being the Mosaic law. So, even though Paul is quite clear that the law does not apply to these Gentile Galatians, he is doubly clear that the freedom thus earned is an obligation, and this obligation is to accept the direction of the Spirit.

Paul repeats Jesus’ summary of the Law: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. And he continues: ‘If you go snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, you had better watch or you will destroy the whole community.’ No truer words were ever written. For even if you are freed from the burden of the Law, the obligation to be led by the Spirit remains.

Most laws exist for a good reason, and the assent we give to them must be proportionate to the good that is achieved. A parking infringement is certainly at the low end of scale, while the deliberate taking of a human life is at the other end. In the middle are those misdemeanors that disrupt and disturb schools, workplaces and communities. But it is not blind compliance and obedience that is required of the either local government, Tasmanian, Australian, international, Mosaic, canon law or even school rules – for each of these sets the minimum standard required of our behaviour and actions. If we follow Paul’s exhortation, the Spirit will guide and lead us in truth and love, then, as the prophet Micah implores us – we must live justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God.

Who do you say I am?

Sometimes we are so busy discovering who we are, we stop living real lives. It’s probably a 21st Century phenomenon. Other generations didn’t have the luxury – putting food on the table, a roof over their heads, learning to read and write. One of the most valued possessions provided by my high school was the headmaster’s personal reference – valued, because employers, the teachers’ colleges and the university also valued the opinion the headmaster’s summation of who you were. Our patience with other’s opinions about us runs out somewhat quickly, we get prickly.

On the other hand, in a social setting, we enjoy the self-revelation that goes with a glass of wine or beer. We revel in discussions about our work, children, footy teams, politics. We hope that the person we present in these situations is likeable, interesting, companionable – even enchanting or attractive. But is this who you are? Are there many yous? Is there a parent-you, a work-you, an exercise-you, a child-you or are you a ‘whole person’ where all these facets are integrated into the one you?

In Exodus we see Moses ask of the Lord, ‘Who shall I say sent me?’ The Lord replies, ‘Tell them that ‘I am sent’ you’. This is the ultimate revelation, for this is both the revealer’s name, and it is also about his/her being. In Luke’s Gospel (9:18 – 24) Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do I say I am?’ Peter speaks up, ‘God’s anointed one’ (or alternatively, ‘The Christ of God’). Is this Jesus? Is this who he is?

In the two thousand years since Jesus lived and breathed in Palestine, Christians from every century and every decade have sought to answer this same question asked by Jesus, ‘Who do you say I am?’ The results of these searches is, not surprisingly, inconclusive. While the Church has maintained an ‘orthodox’ stance, many, like the Albigensians, Gnostics, Arianists, Docetists have come to alternative conclusions. Today’s ‘isms’ include humanism, anthropomorphism, deism, dualism, indifferentism, pantheism, but there are many more – which, when overlaid with the search for Jesus, can often result in disharmony with the magisterium of the Church. More words have been written about this search than any other topic in humanity.

In the end, the search for Jesus, like the search for who you really are, is about truth. In the same way I need to be truthful, open and honest about my upbringing, my life experiences, my fidelity to those I love, my capacity to grow, my desire to do good for others, compassion, generosity, warmth and kindness. If these rank highly in your life then you need not be surprised by being the delightful and wonderful person you have become. If I know this truth, then undoubtedly, finding the person of Jesus will be a much easier task. Will this truth reveal an ‘orthodox’ Jesus? Maybe, maybe not. There are guides, there is the collected and collective wisdom of the elders, there are people of faith and people of hope. Inasmuch as you will reflect on the words people say about who you are, do Jesus the honour of reflecting on the words others have to say about him. This is really living.

The great ascent

13 May 2010


Great occasions often bring out the best in us. Brides look adorable, their flower girls beatific; those receiving their First Communion could be angels! And so they should. The planning, the expectations, the promises, the anticipation, the build up, are followed by the event, the culmination, the celebration!

The afterglow is sometimes followed by the letdown. While the celebration was all that was expected, once the adrenalin pulls back, it can be hard to maintain the enthusiasm.

Fortunately we are all born with a sense of the ‘big picture’. It’s not all about now. Time is of the essence, seeing things through to the end.

Imagine you are a disciple. It has been 40 days since Jesus rose from the dead. Having taken you to the outskirts of Bethany (Luke 24:46 – 53), he raises his hands and blesses you, and is ‘carried up to heaven’. You have already experienced the shocking terror and deep disappointment of Jesus’ passion and death. You have been surprised and overjoyed by his resurrection, and walked with him in wonder as he spent these past few weeks with you. Now he has gone. According to Luke you are filled with a desire to give praise to God and then make your way back to Jerusalem.

Given that the notions we have about the resurrection are sometimes skewed about exactly what resurrection means, so we can also be challenged by the ascension. The idea of heaven ‘up there’ can be put down to an extraordinarily limited understanding of the cosmos. How does this transition from resurrected body to ascended divinity take place? And most importantly, and very un-theologically, is what really was on the minds of the disciples, could they realistically accept that Jesus would now disappear forever from the their midst, could they have rationalised a meaning to it during and so soon after the event itself?

Certainly ancient holy men were taken up into heaven as a sign of divine approval – but for Jesus writers ancient and modern would claim this ascension as a vindication of Jesus’ triumph over his enemies, for only by ascending (going up) can he take up his seat at this Father’s right hand. For them in this event Jesus becomes eternally present, no longer physically, but surprisingly now forever present in the world. Surely this cannot have been in the mind of those faithful, if occasionally erring, disciples as they gazed into space – no time to ask, ‘Where are you going?” “When you come back?” Jesus ascension is final. That fully human, ‘embodied’ Jesus is no longer present.

But if this is the letdown, we also know that two things are established in scripture – one: that he will send his comforter, the Holy Spirit to guide and nurture us, and two: that he will come again (at the end of time, the parousia) when we will share in his divinity.

The challenge we all face is being able to pick ourselves up and move forward – resilience – in our modern vernacular, just like those first disciples. We must maintain that awareness that helps us keep in touch with future, with our hopes and dreams. The miracle of the ascension is, of course, is that Jesus is right here, right now – but that we can anticipate the true fullness of life in his eternal presence.

Pentecost missionaries

20 May 2010


Zumba was launched at our local gym last night and yours truly stayed on to join my wife, daughter, 51 other women – and one other extraordinarily brave gent to jiggle and wiggle for an hour. I was outstanding for my dismal ability and general reluctance. Definitely, definitely not my scene.

I love a great party – getting friends together to enjoy good food, good wine, good company. I enjoy the preparations – the ‘right’ music, lighting, drinks, the whole works. The full effect of those preparations becomes evident when the guests are happy, when conversations are animated, when there are no pretensions, no one to impress.

Getting out of our comfort zones isn’t easy. The disciples in the upper room had become anxious. Jesus had ascended. They had no idea what would happen next, what to expect. They hear the sound of a great wind and above their heads appears – something that looks like a flame – and the anxiety, the puzzlement, the loss they have suffered dissipates as a new confidence, a power, a strength at first seeps through, emerging into the bustling, energetic gift of tongues. This gift drives them to the streets to proclaim the kerygma – the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The people of Jerusalem who come from every corner of the known world are shocked and surprised, for from the mouths of these uneducated, uncouth Galileans, they can hear them preach the Good News in their own languages.

So disarming is this event that some believe that they are drunk. Peter reminds them it is still too early in the morning!

The gift they have been given is the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Paraclete. The disciples have never experienced anything like this before. They too are taken aback by what has now overcome them. Many of those who hear them come to believe and are baptised.

This event which we call Pentecost might appear to be ‘organised chaos’, and yet this is the event for which the disciples have been thoroughly prepared for by Jesus himself. For if there is a purpose of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, Pentecost is merely the first moment of revelation - the uncertainty, the lack of confidence are dismissed. In Jerusalem that day, the momentum built up by Jesus over three years bursts into life.

This Pentecost experience is rolled out every day and today’s disciples continue to uncover the mission that they have been given. You and I may not be called to speak in many tongues, but the gift we each have to unravel lies within us, begun in baptism, nurtured through reconciliation, confirmation and Eucharist. We might not be asked to proclaim the Gospel on street corners, but we are undoubtedly invited to share and be good news to one another.

Happy birthday, Church!

Grant us peace

5 May 2010

When you have young children filling your days it is easy to imagine the peace and quiet that would occur if only they would go to sleep, stay asleep or play quietly.

John Lennon’s 1969 Give peace a chance was a top tenner in my youth, an anthem for those who sought withdrawal of allied troops from Vietnam. Vietnam had, of course, invaded our homes via television. Our desire for peace was as much a thrust towards honesty and trust (in government) as much as it was in ending that unwinnable war.

Peace is a value that lies at the root our both our spiritual and fundamentally human well-being as well as the highest achievement in relations between nations. Moreover, peace it at the centre of right relationship with God himself.

This understanding comes down to us from the ancient scriptures of the Old/First Testament. This right relationship with God was dependent on right relationship within our communities and between communities. It has a strong sense of completeness and well-being. Church thinkers, like Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) firmly believed that peace brought a tranquility both within and between persons. Since the beginning of the 20th Century the Church’s social teaching has seen a growth in the understanding of the ethical dimensions of peace – for while peace is the fruit of right relationship, it is to be grounded in justice and directed by charity.

The search for peace is interminable – whether we are driven to travel the vast inner worlds of our minds or the outer extensions of the know universe, the human quest, the personal quest is to find peace.

Jesus declares to his disciples just prior to his ascension (in John 14:23 – 29): Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give to you; a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. This is spoken to every single human being, to every family, community and nation. The peace that Jesus offers is that overwhelming sense of fulfillment, of enrichment, of being at-one with one another. But it comes at a cost, for even though it is always pure gift, it requires the establishment of a covenant, an agreement. It is what is completed between nations to ensure lasting peace, and for true peace to endure the signatories must remain faithful.

The covenants arranged between you and your God, between you and your spouse, between you and your workmates will probably only ever be known to you. Yet these right relationships will ensure that peace will grow, that our spiritual and physical well-being will be assured, and ultimately – our children will grow up in a world committed to non-violence, justice and equity.

As Lennon so aptly sang: All we are saying is give peace a chance. But let that peace be Christ’s.

My words, the commandment

It would be a most noble act as your child left your home for the very last time, to utter words of such import, that they would be remembered by your descendents for generations to come. So if you had the heads up now, what would you say?

Some leave memoirs, beautifully published, that family members may consult. Others leave precious diaries that record events, daily activities and quiet thoughts. Some may bequeath a musical opus, others the remnants of their poetic genius. What would a Nobel laureate utter, or would he be satisfied with his great achievement in science, literature, medicine or in peace?

We ordinary folk, whose lives are recorded by past calendars that highlight dental appointments and family get-togethers, can and do leave words that will impact on our children. They may not make the annals of well- and oft-quoted proverbs and phrases, but be assured they will.

In this Sunday’s Gospel (John 13:31 - 35) Jesus tells his disciples: I shall not be with you much longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples. These words of Jesus are imprinted on the hearts and minds of every Christian, for they are not just a standard bearer for Christianity, they are a guide for good living, a pathway to building God’s kingdom. It is clear that these words are not just to be spoken and repeated to one another, they are to be enacted, made real through gesture and action.

And this is what the words you leave your children must equally do. What would I say? Know that I really love you and will always love you. This is not a commandment, it is a statement of fact projected into the distant and eternal future. How will they know these words are important and to be always remembered? I will tell them over and over, and my gestures, words, actions and prayers will constantly affirm them. So, by all means have some words that you can you can pass on to your child, but they should be words that complete the life you have already lived together.

As disciples of Jesus we have never been perfect in acting out his commandment to love others, it is a work in progress, like us. It is the journey that matters.

Good Shepherd calls by name

In our wildest dreams none of us can imagine having to offer up our lives for someone else, whether it be for a spouse or for a child. While television dramas provide a plethora of scenarios when this might happen, the news also regularly reports of parents saving their children from flaming homes or raging currents. They are not always successful.

War brings an incomprehensible and tragic loss of life, military and civilian. Few Australian or NZ families of the early and middle years of the last century failed to be impacted by war fatalities. No one, rich or poor, educated or unschooled, farmer or businessman escaped. When such tragedies envelope whole townships, cities, states, countries and peoples the immensity is plainly overwhelming.

Less than 2 years ago I stood at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium as the last post played. There were people present from across our planet, each sharing this poignant moment, remembering those who died on the battlefields of Europe. People nearby were shedding tears. It was extraordinarily moving.

Further east at Gallipoli 5,833 Australian soldiers died. A further 1,985 died of wounds, bringing Australia’s total losses on those shores to 7,818. 19,441 Australian soldiers were wounded. New Zealand lost 2,721 men and 4,752 were wounded.

Their motives for fighting a war far from home were complex and there was certainly a strong desire for adventure and to serve God, King and Country, and if called upon, they would lay down their lives.

One of scripture’s strongest images is of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is he who calls his sheep by name, who seeks them out when they are lost, who when they hurt carries them back to the fold, and who – when all else fails – lays down his life for his flock.

This Sunday’s Gospel of the Good Shepherd coincides with ANZAC Day. The image of our men and women leaving these verdant, beloved shores to enter into the hell-holes of war, and that of Jesus as the kind, loving shepherd is incongruous, but is critical is coming to understand the desire of these young soldiers of freedom to protect their homes and loved ones. Though so many died on foreign soil, the ultimate sacrifice is anof love of a monumental scale. And though we have acknowledged that love with physical memorials, the Menin Gate being a most famous example, the most resonant and lasting is the freedom we now possess.

Few of us will be called to lay down our lives for those we love, but we are most definitely called to love deeply, to give of ourselves, so that the lives we live will matter, will have meaning and purpose, to mirror and model the Good Shepherd.

This Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter is also called Vocations Sunday.
, Menin

Face to face with Jesus

Over Easter I attended a national conference for Catholic principals in Hobart. The program was dense but inspiring and there is much I have yet to unpack, absorb and enact. While standing in line I heard the voice behind me utter: ‘Don’t you say hello to your old friends.’ As I turned and faced the owner of the voice I had zero recognition, so I looked at his name tag, looked at his face again. It had been 28 years since we had last met. A rush of memories overwhelmed me.

Our capacity to recognise faces is usually much better than this experience, though admittedly we had both aged considerably, had less hair, more bulk and had long, but wonderful stories to tell. When newborns bond with their mothers they read the face, absorb the smells and react to the stress and anxiety. These faces are fixed into our memories, and we have this ability to refer this knowledge to new faces, to see racial or regional characteristics or where we see familial similarities. There is a name we give to the disorder when people cannot recognise faces they know – prosopagnosia.

In our Gospel reading this week (John 21:1 – 19) the disciples encounter Jesus while fishing. Jesus calls out to them. Only one disciple, ‘the disciple Jesus loved’, recognises that it is the Lord, and it is then that Peter also acknowledges, ‘It is the Lord.’ Yet, despite the ‘recognition’ when all the disciples join Peter and Jesus for a breakfast of bread and fish, ‘none of the disciples was bold enough to ask, ‘Who are you?’ for they knew quite well it was the Lord.’ It is possible that the disciples were still expecting a resurrected Jesus to be a revivified corpse? Or was the resurrected Jesus not quite recognisable because he was substantially different, or was the transformation so significant that not only was their facial recognition ability impaired, but so was their very perception of the person of Jesus. This, according to John, was the third time that Jesus had ‘shown’ himself to his disciples, and obviously they still didn’t get it.

This is the problem also faced by the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Although the stranger explained all the scriptures and the prophets, it was not until the breaking of bread that they recognised who he was, and then he disappeared from their sight.

The key for us is recognising the person of Jesus alive amongst us. His resurrection means that he continues in some way within our community, he exists as a person, as the Body of Christ. Our faith calls us and invites us to explore that presence through service of the community, through the Body of Christ. The faces we see every day, those we know well and those we have never met and those which have gone before, and those yet to be born will all bear the image of Jesus himself. Will you recognise him?

God has become man

Today, had my grandfather lived, he would have been 100. He was born in the wilds of the rural, east coast of New Zealand, far from the comforts of hospitals, sealed roads and bustling city life. He lived an extraordinary, if in the end tragic, life, and was buried a stone’s throw away from the place of his birth. He wrote an extensive autobiography that was published posthumously after 27 years. Remembered mostly as a soldier and war hero, and a very learned man, his record as a husband and father are less praiseworthy. Indeed he was to be feared. And while it took 488 pages to record his own life’s journey, it would be far too difficult to sum up his life in a few brief paragraphs. I spent several of my younger years living with my grandparents.

Jesus’ birth is estimated to have been no earlier than 6 BCE, but some 9 months prior to his birth, Luke (1:26 – 38) tells us that a young woman, recently engaged to be married, perhaps no older than 13 or 14, is visited by a messenger. The messenger brings news that would shock a family as much today as it did then. She was to be a mother. What challenges us is this young woman’s response to this news: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

We recall this story as The Annunciation. In this day and age we would call it The Announcement. This announcement inaugurates a new age. For in this announcement God’s relationship with his creatures is changed forever. The relationship which had thus far been between a God who revealed himself in word and action is now enfleshed in the womb of this young woman. God has become man.

The intended birth of every human being is a resounding affirmation of our relationship with the Divine. Every new life opens up possibilities and dreams. Every birth announces an expectation of a life lived fully, of a hope to be fulfilled for the present, for that unknown future, for eternity.

The world in which my children live and breathe is separated from that of my grandfather by a century, and yet when each of my children was in utero our desire for a healthy pregnancy and delivery was accompanied by anxiety of parenthood and the dreams we held for them. What impact will they make upon the world in which they live, what legacy will they provide for their descendents, how will the stories of their great-grandfather be carried forward?

Mary. Mary was the young woman. A most ordinary, a most extraordinary human being. The response that echoes from her heart and which reaches through the ages is, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, but also my eldest brother’s birthday. A reminder that this Sunday is Passion or Palm Sunday.

The prodigal father

We all heard the warnings our parents gave us about hanging around with those deadbeats, delinquents, troublemakers, recalcitrants and ratbags. Who knows what kind of trouble you’d find yourself in? Needless to say, despite the warnings, we did hang out with them – and in the end most of us turned out quite okay, a few lessons learned, a few brushes with the ‘dark side’.
The word ‘prodigal’ has received some rough press. Because we know how hard end the young man (of the parable fame) was, we tend to think that prodigal means ungrateful or sinful. In fact it has its origin in the Latin word prodigus for lavish or extravagant. Many prefer to call Luke’s parable of the prodigal son, the parable of the forgiving father. I would prefer to call it the parable of the prodigal father. For here is a most extraordinary father. One must assume that this young man had received a sound and God-fearing upbringing, and that his father, though perhaps disappointed with his son’s choice, allowed him the space to choose.
This sounds like the ideal parent, but you would have to wonder what on earth could be going through his mind. Did he fear for his son’s life as he fell into bad company? Did he hope in his heart of hearts that his son would see the error of his ways and return home? Did he think of his elder son, of his fidelity? For here is a father whose love is so lavish, so generous, so welcoming, and so forgiving, that we are not surprised by his elder son’s complaint.
In this parable we are able to see ourselves in each of the characters: the father for whom nothing is more important than loving forgiveness; the elder son who struggles to reconcile his steadiness and fidelity with the lavishness of his father’s welcome to his wayward brother; the younger son who wants to stretch his legs, see the world, burn up his inheritance, and who despite knowing his offences, believes that even as a servant, he is better off at home.
This is a deeply rich story, for Jesus uses it as a metaphor for our relationship with God. For only God’s extravagant love has the capacity to forgive everything and yet still honour those who are steadfast and faithful.
This parable comes to us on this coming 4th Sunday of Lent as a challenge to our world-weary view on young people. Yes, our children will give us a hard time, but they need us to have that longer vision that helps us see to the horizon, constantly on the lookout for their return. You must let them go, and you must always leave the door ajar.

Just one day at a time

One day at a time

I'm only human; I'm just a man
Help me believe in what I could be and all that I am
Show me the stairway
I have to climb
Lord for my sake
Teach me to take
One day at a time

One day at a time, sweet Jesus
That's all I'm asking from you
Give me the strength to do everything that I have to do
Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine
Help me today
Show me the way
One day at a time.

Marijohn Wilkins and Kris Kristofferson


None of us is perfect - though many of us relish and delight in the imperfections and foibles of our friends and less-than-friends. The horror we experience when it becomes clear we are the butt of someone else’s gossip or joke is rife with embarrassment and anger. Sometimes our desire to humiliate others in private is relentless. When we are confronted by the victim, we become indignant and deny our role in the ordeal. It may well be part of the ‘human condition’. Wilkins’ and Kristofferson’s Gospel standard, One day at a time, is accepting of who we are, but it challenges each of us to believe in ourselves, seek and accept guidance, and to improve and deepen our capacity to live full and enriching human lives.

This 5th Sunday of Lent brings us the story of the adulterous woman (John 8:1 – 11). The woman is brought before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees, who say: “Moses ordered us in the Law to condemn women like this to death by stoning.” Jesus responds: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone.” Each of her accusers slowly walks away. No one has condemned her and Jesus directs her to, ‘Go away and don’t sin any more.’ Her accusers acknowledge – but perhaps do not accept – their own sinfulness, their own lack of perfection. Their desire to physically admonish and humiliate this woman has backfired and they walk away shamed by the image they see of themselves.

There are obviously multiple issues in this story: what happened to the equally adulterous man? Why were the scribes and Pharisees hell-bent on testing Jesus? What did they hope to achieve? Were there life-long changes effected by this incident in the accusers and the accused?

We can easily place ourselves into this story – as the woman, or as one of her accusers. Either way we must seek to understand who we are, know where we are in the story that is our life, and seek to live just one day at a time.

You know my name

Choosing names for children is rife with difficulties. Today we are less likely to burden our children with the names of grandparents, uncles and aunts. There are mercifully few Arthurs, Archibalds, Basils, Beryls, Normas, Cynthias, Dorises in schools today, though they too were popular in their day. There are even websites today for those who want to make up names – there is an apparent ‘science’ to it.
My own children were blessed with Lebanese, Polish and Maori names after endless debate and reflection. They’re still unusual, and in my sons’ cases, somewhat rare.
The Hebrews chose proper names that were descriptive or prophetic, they often carried a sense of the spiritual, capturing something of their dependence on God (e.g. Joshua/Jesus means the Lord is our salvation).
In days gone by, we only knew adults – other than relatives – by their surnames. Everyone was a Mr or Mrs. Only relatives or intimate friends called adults by their first names; so it was always a privilege to be invited to call an adult acquaintance or senior staff member by their first name. Addressing others required deference and respect.
When Moses encounters the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15), he hears a voice calling out to him. The voice announces that it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God then calls and sends Moses to free his people from the hands of Egyptians. When Moses asks by whom he should say he was sent, he is told, “I am who am” – Yahweh – has sent you.
Thus the God who had been revealed himself to Abraham a half millennium earlier, now discloses his own name, and such is the respect for this name, it is still considered holy and unutterable by the Jews and for most Christians to this very day. Where Yahweh is found in the scriptures it is usually replaced by THE LORD (in capital letters).
And this is the intimacy to which you and I are also invited: for while his name may be unutterable, we know it; and this God continues to speak to us through the burning bushes of our everyday life. You and I too are called and sent by this same God to rescue the poor and suffering.
The names we give our children must last a lifetime and be remembered by the generations yet to be born. Choose carefully! This Lent remain vigilant to the voice of God: he will call you by name.

More than all the stars in the heavens

How do you tell your children that you love them totally and unconditionally? When my sons were very young I often told them, when it was time for sleep, that if they could imagine all the grains of sand on every shore, or all of the stars in the heavens, then I loved them even more than that. My children, grown up as they now are, could never doubt the love I have for them.

The ancient Hebrews, too, considered the stars in the heavens as being too many to count. The stories they told attempted to express their relationship with their God, about his infinite love, of his plan for humanity, of his desire to provide all that his creatures needed. Humanity’s fall is matched by the promise of reconciliation, of redemption, of our God’s constant invitation to return to him. Recorded for all time, begun around the campfires, remembered in oral tradition, and recorded in print over many hundreds of years, often mixing older stories with newer ones, the recurring theme of God’s fidelity to, and his love for, his chosen people is epic.

So, as Abram is taken outside by the Lord, he is shown the heavens: Look up to the heavens and count the stars if you can. Such will be your descendants (Genesis 5:5). Having performed a ritual sacrifice, Abram is bound by a covenant with the Lord: To your descendents I give this land, from the wadi of Egypt to the Great River (Genesis 5:18). The narrative wends its way through the trials and tribulations of the Hebrews to the promise, then the birth of Jesus himself.

You and I have become a part of this story, through our baptism, through our being part of God’s New People. How many descendants in faith does Abram have? As many as the stars. How much does God love us? More than every grain of sand on the shore, more than all the stars in the heavens. God still invites us, daily, every moment, to be with him.

This Lent, know how much you are loved, let those who care for you know how much you love them, and then find an opportunity one of these very fine evenings to stare into the night sky to see the proof of God’s love for you.

Not by bread alone

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs food is a basic survival requirement that must, like other physiological needs, be satisfied before higher order needs can be addressed (safety, belonging/love, esteem, then ultimately self-actualisation). Bread is a staple for much of the world. Made from whatever grain is available, bread is a symbol of nourishment. The manna in the desert given to the Hebrews was seen as ‘bread from heaven’.

In our tradition, bread fulfils not only a fundamental, physical need, but in the Eucharist, bread seeks to satisfy our ultimate and highest needs – self-knowledge, acceptance, understanding, encountering the divine.

Grain is harvested, crushed and broken to be made into flour. The flour is leavened with yeast, kneaded and rolled, baked, cooled, broken and shared. Bread is made by human hands, by human intervention. Because it is such an earthy food, it is not surprising then that the image of bread should have such a rich history in our language, our thinking, our theology, our community stories. In linguistics, a word such as companion is made up of two Latin words com – together with, and panis, bread, which together initially meant ‘one who breaks bread with another’.

In Luke’s Gospel (4:1 – 13) Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days. There he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing, and after that time he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, Man does not live on bread alone.”

This conversation plays out the tension between the bread that provides physiological nourishment and the bread that gives everlasting life. One that fulfils the immediate need to satisfy hunger, the other which is that bread shared at the heavenly banquet. If the stone was made into bread, it would merely satisfy the lowest of our human needs, we need more than this kind of bread, we need that true bread of life.

As Lent begins there is an opportunity to reflect on what our most fundamental needs are beyond those raw, physical necessities; how do we lift ourselves beyond these to become fuller and deeper participants in the divine life? Again, our ancient tradition invites you to enter this season through prayer, penitence and almsgiving, and most particularly through the Table of the Lord. The same Table to which we take plain, simple bread and from which we are offered the ‘Bread of Angels’ (Ps 78:25).

We start with hope

New beginnings. A fresh start. It appeals to our deeper selves, giving ourselves permission to move on, to accept that our previous journey has been completed. A new start brings optimism, it stirs our capacity for resilience. But most of all a new beginning gives hope.

And hope is what a new year is. It is the anticipation of what is to come, what may be, what can be desired and dreamed.

Jurgen Moltmann, a German prisoner of war, who amidst the enormous suffering caused by his people, became a Christian after being given a copy of the New Testament by an American chaplain. As his story is told, Moltmann could at last see the glimmer, the possibility, of a future for his own generation of lost souls. In time he expressed his reflections in The theology of hope. For the end times are the consummation of creation itself. For the Christian, hope is driven towards that moment when all is made anew in Christ. For Moltmann hopelessness is sin.

Paul, some 20 centuries ago, also expressed in his rather rugged and forthright way what lies at the core of Christian hope and expectation:

For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. And what is more serious, all who have died in Christ have perished. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of all people. But Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep.

1 Corinthians 15:16 – 20

If what we believe, as many would argue, is just simply fiction, a panacea for the ills of the present, then what Christians have proposed for 2000 years is an utter fabrication. The only hope then would be for ‘world peace’, for an end to world hunger, tyranny, war. This then is why Christian faith guarantees not just a perspective, but a fundamental option for human hope and aspiration.

You have expressed that faith presenting your children as students of this Catholic School, you have baptised them, raised them in loving and nurturing families and you have dreamed dreams for them, given them hope. 2010 is not only a new year, it is a chance for a new life.

I look forward to sharing this new year, our Christian hope, our shared faith with you and your families.