INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR 2026
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 21 FEBRUARY 2026
WYan foo, cup jee, cup sing sun jee ming
(In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit)
Juk lay ping mon (Peace be with you)
[Cantonese] Chan-oy dik hing-dai jeh-mooy moon, foon-ying daai-gah loy chahm-gah gum-mahn hing-jook noong-lik sun-neen dik may-saht.
[Mandarin] Chin-eye duh shyong-dee jee-eh-may men, hwahn-ying dah-jyah lie tsahn-jyah jin-wahn ching-joo nong-lee shin-nee-en duh Mee-sah.
Welcome dear friends to this evening’s Mass celebrating Chinese New Year in the Mother Church of Australia, St Mary’s Cathedral. My apologies for my poor grasp of Cantonese and Mandarin: while my mother was born and grew up in Shanghai, her son obviously knows very little Chinese!
We have now entered the lunar Year of the Fire Horse, a rare year, falling only every sixty years.[1] Though I’m not one for horoscopes, I’m told we should all “saddle up for a year of adventure, action, and achievement” because the Year of the Fire Horse should be one of ‘dynamism’, ‘fresh opportunities’ and ‘authentic movement toward what truly matters’.[2]
Which just happens to be what Lent is all about. As we make our Lenten journey from ashes to victory, we open ourselves to that ‘change of heart’, those ‘fresh opportunities’ for divine grace, that authentic ‘movement toward what truly matters’: life in Christ.
Concelebrating with me tonight are: Bishop Ruben Caballero from the newly established Diocese of Prosperidad in the Philippines; Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney Richard Umbers; Dean Don Richardson and Fr William Chow from the Cathedral; the Chaplains to the Chinese communities Frs Joseph Lu OFM and Jacob Wang, together with many priests and deacons who minister to our several Chinese communities.
I greet the sisters of Our Lady of China, as well as representatives of the Sisters of Mercy, Josephites, Dominicans, and Oblates of the Holy Family.
I acknowledge also the Chinese community leaders and all those who have helped to bring us together tonight: especially Edmund Cheung, Helen Ly, John Yeung, Philip Lau, Mary Leung, Urey and Elsie Lau, and Margaret Tham.
It is with great joy that I welcome all of you, my brothers and sisters from the various Chinese Catholic communities in our city, along with others from our city and beyond.
Homily for Mass for Chinese New Year 2026 – St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 21 February 2026
Earlier this year, the international media reported that local authorities surrounded a church in Wenzhou, removing the cross from its dome, demolishing the building, and then imprisoning the leaders.[3] In the same week, state officers raided the homes of members of a church in Chengdu, detaining nine congregants, including the pastor.[4] Last October, some thirty church leaders and members of a Christian church network from Beijing to Shanghai were rounded up and imprisoned.[5] While the attitude of authorities to Christians blows hot and cold, it would seem that persecution of religion has intensified of late, and not just in China but in many parts of the world.[6]
Around the globe there are sporadic or more systematic campaigns to discourage Christian faith and practice, or to bring religion to heel with government ideology or majority culture. Christians may be left alone if they keep their heads down, worship in private, but live publicly as if they were non-Christians. Those who resist are spied upon, treated as subversive, falsely accused of various crimes, put through ‘re-education’ courses, imprisoned, disappeared, even executed. Recently the devout Catholic pro-democracy campaigner and media mogul, Jimmy Lai, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a Hong Kong prison.[7] For some of you gathered here today, these are not just headlines from a distant land, but the lived reality of family members, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ.
Persecution is nothing new for Christians. In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account: rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” (Mt 5:10-12)[8] He told His disciples that those who renounced family, wealth or country for His sake would be rewarded big-time, but added wryly, “not without persecutions” (Mk 10:29-30). He warned that He was sending them out “as sheep amidst wolves” (Mt 10:16-18),[9] but that following Him involved taking up the cross, losing our life so as to regain it (Mt 16:24-26).[10]
At His Last Supper, knowing the terrible fate in store for Him but worrying more about His friends, Jesus cautioned them, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first… If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also… [and] expel you from the synagogues. Indeed, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are doing service to God.” (Jn 15:18-16:2) He then promised He would send them the Holy Spirit to see them through their trials, but in the meantime, He said, they should have peace of mind: “Take heart, for I have overcome the world!” (Jn 16:4-11,33).
And so, from the earliest martyrs of Rome to the underground faithful in China or other parts of the world today, persecution has not been a glitch in the Christian story so much as a feature, even a fertiliser. Tertullian and St Augustine both famously said that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church”.[11] None of which minimises what some people suffer for their faith. But Christ promises that no earthly power, no state, ideology or threat, not even death, can rob us of what matters most—which is what the Year of the Fire Horse is supposed to point us towards. “If we die with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him” (2Tim 3:11-12).
But if our faith faces adversaries from without, it must contend also with challenges within. In our Gospel today (Mt 4:1-11), the newly-baptised Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of trials. Aware of Christ’s humanity, Satan focuses on common human weaknesses: the lure of material comfort—Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread; the lure of power—He is offered kingship over all the world; and the lure of despair—He is provoked to throw Himself from the Temple roof. In other words, the Devil focuses on our ordinary human appetites: for sex, money, autonomy; for admiration, revenge, control; for influence, comfort, security. Even food can become an obsession, as the Chinese know only too well!
At its core sin is rebellion against God: my will over His. We heard that struggle powerfully narrated in our first reading tonight (Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7). Formed from the earth of God’s creation and animated by the breath of God’s own Spirit, our first parents enjoyed abundance in a garden paradise. Yet enough is never enough. The Chinese say that if Eden had been planted in “the Far East” rather than the Near East, and Adam and Eve had been Chinese, humanity would never have suffered the Fall: our first parents would have killed the snake and eaten it rather than the apple! But even the Chinese can hear the Serpent whisper “You can be like gods. You can decide for yourselves what is good or evil.”
How do we guard against such temptations in the garden of this world or the desert of our trials? How do we overcome those forces both external and internal that would lead us away from God’s will? Jesus offers us a template. As God, He could simply have vanquished the Adversary, but He endured the trials so we might hear His answers and defeat sin ourselves. He fasted. He prayed. He reverberated the Word of God. “Man does not live on bread alone… You must not put the Lord your God to the test… You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.”
This is our Lenten blueprint. Penance reminds us to master our appetites rather than be their slaves. Prayer reframes our lives, so we rely on God’s strength more than our own. Almsgiving recasts our hearts for love and communion, rather than selfishness and domination. Studying God’s Word shapes our thinking so that we “put on the mind of Christ” (Phil 2:5). To be sure, such practices are counter-cultural today. Our brothers and sisters suffering persecution know that only too well. But Christian faith must sometimes go against the grain. It is costly. But its reward is eternal life.
Dear friends, tomorrow we will celebrate here at St Mary’s the Rite of Election for those seeking Baptism as adults or to be received into full communion with the Church. There will be 455 of them, the largest number we have ever had. Many of them will be Chinese Australians. They treasure the freedom that they have in this country to subscribe to our faith and practice it openly. The Chinese community is only the latest but right now the biggest group enriching the Australian Church with new converts. The blood of martyrs is truly the seed of the Church, and we give thanks to God for the Chinese-Catholic community in Australia. Happy New Year!
[1] The last Year of the Fire Horse was 21 January 1966-8 February 1967.
[2] Allison Dienstman, “Welcoming the Year of the Horse,” GoodNet 11 February 2026; Morgan Fargo, “This is what the Year of the Fire Horse means to you,” Vogue 12 January 2026.
[3] Anna Kessler and Elsa Delmas, “China’s crackdown on a village of defiant Christians,” Le Monde 30 January 2026 https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/01/30/china-s-crackdown-on-a-village-of-defiant-christians_6749955_4.html
[4] Kelly Ng, “Influential China church reports arrests as crackdown on Christians intensifies,” BBC News 8 January 2026.
[5] “Arrests reported, cross removed, as China crackdown on unofficial churches grows,” France24 News 10 January 2026; “China under Xi is becoming ever more oppressive,” Union of Catholic Asian News 18 November 2025; “Seven things to know about the church crackdown in China,” OpenDoors 24 October 2025; Amy Hawkins, “Underground church says leaders detained as China steps up crackdown,” The Guardian 11 January 2026; Leigh Pritchett, “China takes additional steps to eradicate Christian symbols,” The Alabama Baptist, 29 August 2023;
[6] “More than 388m Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,” OpenDoors https://www.opendoorsus.org/en-US/persecution/countries/ ; Jayson Casper, “The 50 countries where it’s most dangerous for Christians in 2026,” Christianity Today 14 January 2026.
[7] Tony Davenpport, “Jimmy Lai: Christian martyr for freedom?” Vision Christian Media 10 February 2026; Phoebe Kong et al, “Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai gets 20 years’ jail,” BBC News 9 February 2026. On his faith see: Benedict Rogers, “Jimmy Lai should be recognised as a martyr,” Catholic Herald 23 December 2025; Mark Simon, “Jimmy Lai’s walk of faith,” National Catholic Register 20 December 2023.
[8] Also Lk 6:22-23.
[9] Also Lk 12:8-9; 18:29; Gal 4:29; 1Thes 3:3-4; 1Cor 9:25; 2Tim 4:6-8; 1Pet 4:12-14; Jas 1:12; Rev 2:10-11.
[10] Also Mt 10:38; Mk 8:34-38; Lk 9:23; 14:27. Cf. Lk 9:57-62; Gal 2:20; 6:14; Rom 12:1.
[11] Tertullian, Apologeticum ch. 50; St Augustine, Sermon 335E on Ps 116: “”The earth has been filled with the blood of the martyrs as with seed, and from that seed have sprung the crops of the Church.”
