HOMILY FOR MASS FOR 4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT YEAR A AND INSTALLATION OF FR LIEM DUONG AS PARISH PRIEST – SACRED HEART PARISH CHURCH, CABRAMATTA

Homily for Mass for 4th Sunday in Advent Year A and Installation of Fr Liem Duong as Parish Priest, Sacred Heart Parish Church, Cabramatta

“No, I will not put the Lord to the test.” So says Ahaz in our first reading today. To demand a sign from God – indeed to demand anything from God – is to attempt to manipulate God or to treat Him as if He somehow owes us something. It is irreverent, controlling, arrogant.

Ironically, however, as soon as Ahaz humbly refuses to require a sign, he is offered one: the Virgin will conceive and bear a son, Emmanuel (God-with-us) (Is 7:10-14). At first glance it seems paradoxical that the Lord will only give signs to those not asking for them, as if he’s hyper-sensitive, prickly, even perverse. But if we look a little more closely at this text, we see that it is about friendship. You can ask your friend for help and they will readily give it; but if you demand help, if you seek to manipulate or coerce your friend, then they will feel like you are testing the friendship and simply exploiting them.

So it is with God. God, who is Love, wishes the best for us and helps when we are faltering; but He is not the god of the cargo cult, of superstition, at our beck and call. That would make him a genie, kept in a bottle and released only to fulfil our wishes, a slave rather than a true friend.


“Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?” asks the Psalmist today, “The man with clean hands and a pure heart who does not seek worthless things.” (Ps 23) John F. Kennedy once said we should ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country; the Psalmist here suggests that we should ask not what God can do for us, but what we can do for our God. And paradoxically, again, the man of integrity who does not bug God with requests for unworthy things is precisely the one who, in the words of the Psalmist, “shall receive blessings from the Lord,” the worthiest things.

So the God of our Scriptures is not the god of the contemporary consumer culture. He does not say “I’m okay, you’re okay, be and do as you please, ask for worthless things and I’ll give you them.” No, the same God who tells us to ask and receive, also tells us to convert, keep his commandments, live lives of clean conscience. We will see signs and wonders, for sure, but they will be the ones He chooses to give us, rather than the ones we might foolishly ask for.

Indeed, left to our own devices, we rarely know what to ask from God. Fortunately, He responds to our prayers by giving us what we really need rather than what we first ask for. When the people of Israel asked for signs and wonders they wanted fireworks, sex, money and power, like people in the modern consumer economy. The last thing they had in their mind was to ask that God become a baby, conceived of a virgin! They would never have dreamt of asking for such a thing. Yet Jesus was precisely what they, what we needed. And happily we will be able to celebrate His birth in just one week’s time.

Christ didn’t come because humanity demanded a saviour from God replete with wonders; no, Christ came because God wanted humanity to be saved and wonderfully so. Christ didn’t come because humanity deserved a saviour; God sent His Christ because humanity needed one. God gives us a sign of His infinite love at Christmas: but He never forces us to do His will, as we might sometimes try to force Him to fulfil ours. Rather, God gently invites, cajoles, persuades, almost seduces us to enter His friendship. And one of the places He offers that friendship is here in the Catholic community of Cabramatta.

Two important things happened in Cabramatta forty years ago: there was a large influx of Vietnamese refugees, and a new parish priest was appointed, Fr Patrick McAuliffe. Happily, both found they rather liked each other; as the Vietnamese community grew in what became known affectionately as Vietnamatta, Fr Mac worked hard for 42 years to make them feel welcome, so much so that his successor, Fr Liem Duong, describes him as a true father of the Vietnamese-Australian people.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI once famously wrote that “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are [true] witnesses.” (§41) The first step towards evangelisation, then, is for the individual Christian and the Christian community to live as faithful witness to the truth, goodness and beauty of God and Christianity. St Francis of Assisi once said that we should preach always and, if needs be, use words. For our actions speak louder than words, and they can become signs from God to those around us, more wonderful, more powerful, than the magic tricks people might sometimes wish God performed for them.

If this is true for all Christians, it is especially true for our pastors, who are called to guide h their flocks, as much and more by their example as by their homilies. For four decades this parish was blessed to be led and served by such a priest. And for this he received the devotion of his people and the recognition of the wider community.

Today the faithful of Cabramatta formally welcome Fr Mac’s successor, Fr Liem. Born in 1976 in Vinh Long, Vietnam, Fr Liem arrived in Australia with his family in 1992. He entered the seminary in the Jubilee Year 2000 and was ordained a priest 10 years ago. After service as Assistant Priest here in Cabramatta and at the Cathedral he was appointed Senior Chaplain to the Vietnamese community. Now he returns to this large, multi-cultural parish. After the Big Mac we now get the Spring Roll! And from my experience let me tell you that this Spring Roll is full of charm and energy and will do great things to build on the Big Mac’s work here.

Indeed, he has inherited a parish in which there is so much to be proud of: a very successful, very Catholic mix of people from every language and nation; a strong association with several communities of consecrated religious; several choirs and at least twenty groups devoted either to some aspect of the parish’s thriving sacramental and devotional life (signified by your rather grand Christmas crib!), or to outreach to the community; and a willingness to plan and work together to make things happen for God. There are many causes to celebrate but not for complacency. We thank God one out of three Catholics of this area is at Mass on Sunday, which is a high practising rate by the standards of contemporary Sydney; but we grieve the absence of the other two out of three. We must ask ourselves, again and again, how we can best reach out to the converted, the unconverted and the diverted, and make this the sort of place they will want to be on Sunday.

Fr Liem will now be responsible on my behalf for the worship, evangelisation and service in this parish. In his priestly service he must sanctify you by prayer and sacrament. In his shepherding he must lead and serve you as Christ did. In his prophetic ministry he must proclaim the Gospel and the teachings of the Church to you in season and out. But he cannot do this all by himself. Together, priests and people achieve far more than any one of us could do alone. To strengthen Fr Liem for his new task, we now have the formal Rites of Installation of a Parish Priest. They are a useful reminder to us all not just of his mission but yours – the mission of the whole Church. I ask you, of your mercy, to keep praying for and supporting Fr Liem, as he prays for and serves you.

Introduction to Mass for 4th Sunday in Advent Year A
and Installation of Fr Liem Duong as Parish Priest
Sacred Heart Parish Church, Cabramatta

Welcome dear parishioners to this morning’s Mass, where I will formally install Fr Liem Duong as your parish priest. I am pleased to acknowledge my brother priests and fellow religious, including Fr Maurice Thompson, Dean of Inner West Sydney, Fr Pizmyslow Karasiuk Scha, Provincial of the Society of Christ, and Fr Remy Lam Bui, Senior Vietnamese Chaplain. There are also many lay leaders from the parish, from the Vietnamese community and from civil society. In particular, I welcome our local federal member of parliament and parishioner, Mr Chris Hayes MP with his wife Bernadette.

I’m especially pleased to acknowledge Fr Pat McAuliffe whom I have known since my childhood. He was the curate in my parish of St Michael’s Lane Cove when I was a boy and I can tell you that while his style hasn’t changed much in the decades since then, he had more hair then! He admits he has no memory of me at all: I was just one of the badly behaved altar-boys!

Father Mac has aged a little over the decades but his successor has not. I’ve known Fr Liem since his seminary days and have always regarded him as a most able and charming priest. In true Vietnamese style he has with him today about a hundred of his relatives, including his Mum and Dad, his five siblings with their families, and perhaps most specially his 92-year-old grandmother. Today it is my privilege formally to install her grandson as your new parish priest.

To prepare ourselves to celebrate that occasion, and as we look forward to Christmas, let us first confess our sins and ask God to make of our hearts a crib fit for the Christmas Babe.