Extended Curia, St Mary’s Cathedral House Chapel, 28 April 2026
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is in the Temple on the winter Feast of Dedication or Hannukah (Jn 10:22-30)—a feast of lights that, sadly, due to the Bondi massacre will always have a resonance of darkness more than light for us here in Sydney.Shabbat, the Saturday day of rest and weekly observance of God’s completion of creation; Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur a ten-day long festival of meals, soul searching and resolutions from New Year to the Day of Atonement; Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, an autumn harvest festival that commemorates Israel’s wandering in the desert and gives thanks for God’s bounty; Purim, a day celebrating the Jews being saved from annihilation in the time of Esther and many times since; Pesach, Passover, the week-long festival of unleavened bread, recalling the Hebrew exodus from Egypt; and Shavuot or Pentecost, a pilgrim festival fifty days after Passover—all of these Jewish holy days are found in the Old Testament and some of them in the New as well.[1]
Hannukah’s origins are in the intertestamental period, during the reign of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV. A successor to Alexander the Great, Antiochus had a rather high view of himself (1Mc 1:7-10): he assumed the title “Epiphanes”, the Manifestation of God, from which we get our word “Epiphany”. For the Jews it was appalling that any man might claim such a title for himself and so they deliberately lisped when they said it, mispronouncing it “Epimanes” meaning the Mad One! While the earlier Seleucid Empire had been tolerant of various religions, mad Antiochus outlawed the Jewish feasts and practices such as circumcision, looted the Temple and desecrated it by sacrificing a pig there, then erected statues of pagan gods all around to the horror of the Jews (1Mc 1:20-64). For good measure, he snuffed out the Ner Tamid—the eternal flame that burned in the Temple—effectively declaring the God of Israel to be out of business.
Such heavy-handed policies naturally provoked a backlash. Around 165 BC Judas ‘the Hammer’ Maccabaeus and his group of guerilla fighters drove the Seleucid forces out of Jerusalem (1Mc chs 3:1-4:35), paving the way for the cleansing and rededication of the Temple, including the consecration of a new altar and holy vessels (1Mc 4:36-58). And so was born the Feast of Dedication that Jesus was celebrating in our Gospel today, an eight-day festival celebrating the heroics of those who fought to reclaim the faith of their ancestors (1Mc 4:36-59; 2Mc 1:18-36). Nowadays it is observed by lighting the menorah, a candelabrum with nine branches, also called a Hannukah.
That a man might crown himself Epiphanes—the invisible god made visible—and weaponise that blasphemy as a licence for war and domination, was no monopoly of mad kings of antiquity. We recently had the unseemliness of a US President issuing a meme of himself as Christ the Physician. Power can go to people’s heads, and “absolute power corrupt absolutely”; those with authority too often reach for military might before the measured word. Into this darkness comes the Easter peace of Christ. This past fortnight Pope Leo has reminded the world that those who have the power to unleash wars can and should use their considerable muscle to work for peace.[2] It is, as the Holy Father says, the peace of the risen Christ—unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering[3]—that has the soothing power to convert hearts from violence and tyranny toward gentleness and empathy.
If this peace can be challenging to those wedded to self-interest and control, it can be positively dangerous for those who live by it. In today’s first reading (Acts 11:19-26) the early Christians have scattered following the killing of St Stephen and subsequent persecution in Jerusalem. But they will not go quiet on the Resurrection of Jesus. Whilst those opposed to their message might have thought violent persecution would quell this Jesus movement, it only served to embolden them and the Jesus thing grew larger and spread further. Ironically it was in Antioch of all places—the very name recalling the Seleucid tyrant—that the disciples of Christ were for the first time called ‘Christians’.
A Christian, then, is someone who cannot help but proclaim the Gospel, no matter the cost. In 1837 a young French Marist priest named Peter Chanel stepped ashore on the tiny volcanic island of Futuna in the South Pacific, without weapons, without political backers, without leverage of any sort. For nearly four years he laboured there, mastering the local tongue, tending the sick, offering the Mass, and making almost no converts. His mission seemed to have been an abject failure. It might have seemed that the tide was turning when the local chieftain’s own son asked to be baptised, but that only provoked the Antiochus response of the king who sent warriors to silence him. And so, on this very day in 1841, Peter Chanel was clubbed to death. He died without bitterness, offering himself to God for his people. And within two years, the entire island had converted to the faith! The blood of martyrs truly is the seed of the Church, and that seed spread across the Pacific precisely as it had spread across Asia minor from Antioch: not by force, but by a life laid down in love.
This is the logic of Easter, the only logic that finally holds. In our Gospel, Jesus says plainly: “My sheep hear My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and no one can snatch them out of My hand.” Only this Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep, can give a peace that transcends violence, hatred, even death itself.
For the tomb could not contain Him! No tyrant, chieftain, or self-styled Epiphanes can conquer His love. The Ner Tamid still burns—in the Easter candle; still burns—in every baptised soul rededicated as a temple of the living God; still burns in the Church—in the Risen Lord and great saints like Peter Chanel—unarmed, disarming, and impossible to extinguish!
[1] Shabbat: Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:8-11; 31:13-17; Lev 23:3; Dt 5:121-5; Mt 12:1-12 et par.; 28:1; Mk 6:2; Lk 4:16,31; 13:14-16; 14:1-5; 23:54-56; Jn 5:1-18; 7:22-23; 9:14-16; 19:31; Acts 13:14,27,42-44; 15:21; 16:13; 18:4. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: Lev 16:1-34; 23:24-32; Num 29:1-11; Ezek 40:1. Sukkot: Ex 23:16; 34:22; Lev 23:6,33-43; Jn 7:2-14,37. Purim: Esther 9:8-32; 10:13. Pesach: Ex 12:11,21,27,43-48; 13:3-10; 34:25; Lev 23:4-8; Num 9:1-14; 28:16; Dt 16:1-6; Josh 5:10 etc.; Mt 26:2,17-19; Mk 14:1,12-16; Lk 2:41; 22:1,7-8,11-15; Jn 2:23; 6:4; 11:55; 13:1; 18:28. Shavuot: Ex 34:22; Dt 16:10; Tob 2:1; 2Mc 12:32; Acts 2:1.
[2] Pope Leo XIV, Urbi et Orbi message, Easter Sunday, 20 April 2026.
[3] Pope Leo XIV, Message for the 59th World Day of Peace, 1 January 2026.
