ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 11 JUNE 2026
Ours is a faith that speaks often and richly about reconciliation and communion, including our Gospel talk of Christ the Good Shepherd drawing everyone into one flock, the black sheep, the white sheep, and the speckled ones in-between.[1]
But that seems out of sorts with today’s Gospel (Mt 25:31-46), in which Christ comes as a royal judge and separates sheep from goats, goodies from baddies, consigning some to that happy place prepared for us from the ‘dream-time’ of the foundation of the world and others to a rather less desirable destination!
Why would Jesus, the great unifier, be in the business of distinguishing, wedging, separating right and left? (cf. Mt 10:34-36; Lk 12:51-53) What’s the dividing line between those He recognises as His own and those He does not? Our Gospel passage puts it very simply: only one thing matters at the point of judgment—charity. Did you aid the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick, imprisoned? He doesn’t ask if you succeeded, or were a star in worldly terms, only if you tried. He’s not interested in your status, wealth, super or suburb. He doesn’t care about your ancestry, nation, politics. No, it all turns on a simple test: “What did you do for the least of these?”
So, when Jesus ‘separates’, it is not arbitrary, not superficial. Some, like Aunty Elsie, know, love and intentionally serve Him: they choose to be with Him, so to speak. Others may be less intentional about their citizenship in God’s kingdom, but still, they serve Him by serving others. Interestingly, Jesus’ interlocutors, both saved and damned, ask Him the same question: When did we serve you or neglect to serve you? And His answer to both is the same: Whatever you did, or neglected to do, for the least, you did (or not) for Me.
Why does Jesus claim that serving the needy is serving Him? Part of the answer is that the little and lost, the dispossessed and suffering, are God’s favourites. He identifies with them as His tribe, His mob, His kinship group. But more than this, what drives someone to do human charity is having divine charity in their hearts. It’s God’s gift, a divine spark, a grace, and, whether consciously or not, when someone exercises that gift, they are magnifying and reciprocating God’s love. So, what Jesus is saying is: Whether you fully realise what you are doing or not, if you serve the least, you are one with me. And that means that His ‘judging’, His ‘separating’, is really just recognising where God’s love has been at work, where there has been reconciliation, where there is communion. As St John of the Cross put it: “In the evening of our life, we will be judged on love alone.”[2]
“The evening of our life”: Elsie Heiss had a long twilight. She had been dying for years… But I recall, when visiting her, how strong her faith and hope and love remained to the end, and how they seemed to power her frail body. “That’s why we don’t lose heart,” Paul says in our epistle today (2Cor 4:14-5:1). “We know that, though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed… We fix our eyes, not on what is seen or temporary, but what is unseen and eternal. For we know that once our earthly humpy is folded up, we have a permanent home awaiting us in heaven.” That woman of love—love for the Aboriginal people and all people, love for the Catholic faith and all the faithful, love for education and all who engage in or need it—that woman of love now has a permanent home with Him.
Later this year we will celebrate forty years since Pope St John Paul II at the Alice addressed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and with them our Australian Church and nation. It was a powerful tribute to the history and resilience of our Indigenous peoples, as he compared them with gumtrees that, though scorched and scarred by bushfire, somehow survive with roots still strong and the sap in their souls still flowing. He called for justice and respect for them. He summoned his hearers “to become, through and through, Aboriginal Christians”, allowing the Gospel to purify and revivify Indigenous culture. And then, he said, they must “become the best kind of Aboriginal people you can be”, marked by reconciliation and forgiveness. “You are part of Australia and Australia is part of you,” Aunty Elsie’s future friend said, “and the Church in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.” So have courage and hope![3]
Aunty Elsie took that summons and that of the Gospel fully to heart and spent her life fulfilling it. She welcomed the stranger, loved the least, and laboured so her people might be at home in the household of faith. Above all, she desired reconciliation and communion—divine love experienced and expressed here and now. In the words of our first reading (Wis 3:1-6,9), her virtuous soul, having been tested in fire like a eucalypt, like gold, has been found true. Through many challenges she persevered in faith and hope and love. Now hers is the reward of such a godly life, “for grace and mercy await those God has chosen.” Now, dear Elsie, you must respond one last time to the summons of your Lord: “Come now blessed of my Father and take possession of the home prepared for you!”
[1] Mt 2:6; 25:32; 26:31; Mk 6:34; 14:27; Jn 10:1-21; cf. Ps 23; Ezek 34:11-16; Heb 13:20; 1Pet 2:25; Rev 7:17
[2] St John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love, #64: “Al atardecer de la vida, seremos examinados en el amor.”
[3] St John Paul II, Address to the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia, 29 November 1986.
INTRODUCTION TO THE PONTIFICAL MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL FOR AUNTY ELSIE HEISS
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 11 JUNE 2026
Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for the Pontifical Mass of Christian Burial for Elsie Heiss. Beloved wife of the late Josef, mother, grandmother, and Wiradjuri elder and papal dame, she was Aunty Elsie to so many. She was also a dear personal friend to me and so many here today.
There is a lot of talk about Aboriginal Reconciliation today, some of it empty or contested, some of it substantial and absolutely crucial. In Aunty Elsie we witnessed a life centred on reconciliation in the richest sense: on recognising and respecting people, patiently building bridges between them, bringing them together to hear them, recognising the truth they bear, loving them in their giftedness but even in their brokenness, praising their efforts, advocating for their needs, always embodying and mediating the healing forgiveness of Christ.
Born into the Wiradjuri Nation in 1937 on the Erambie Mission near Cowra, life was hard there according to Elsie. But there must have been something in the water of the Lachlan River, for Erambie produced the likes of the famed social worker Mum Shirl, activists the Coes and Jenny Munro, musicians Harry ‘Buck’ and Claude ‘Candy’ Williams, writer Bob Merritt, and artist Harry Wedge. The youngest of six, Elsie learned her faith and ideals at home and church. Her father taught her to meet hardship as the Lord did, turning the other cheek, and to trust that her people would find self-respect and respect from others through Church and education.
She came to Sydney in her late teens, found a spiritual home at St Vincent’s Redfern, and there met Josef Heiss, a carpenter newly arrived from Austria, whom she married in 1960. They were married for 45 years until Joe’s death in 2005. Together they raised five children.
Elsie had a passion for her people, for their flourishing and their reconciliation with the rest of the Australian community. She gave hundreds of speeches on Aboriginal history, culture and spirituality, on the Stolen Generations, justice and reconciliation. They were heartfelt, wise and measured speeches, that converted hearts and minds. NAIDOC recognised her contributions with a community award in 2003 and Female Elder of the Year in 2009.
Elsie also had a passion for her Catholic faith, seeking to bridge Catholic and Aboriginal spiritual traditions. She co-founded Aboriginal Catholic Ministry at Erskineville. At La Perouse she turned an empty church into a spiritual home for the Indigenous. In 1999 she cajoled Cardinal Clancy into renaming it the Reconciliation Church and putting it in Aboriginal hands. She helped lead the smoking ceremony to welcome the Pope in 1995, which was echoed in the family’s smoking ceremony prior to Mass today. She was the sole Australian Aboriginal voice at the 1998 Synod for Oceania in Rome and had afternoon tea with her friend St John Paul II. She long chaired the NATSI Catholic Council and was a member of the NATSI Ecumenical Council. She co-ordinated the very considerable participation of young Aboriginal Catholics at the World Youth Day in 2008 and introduced an Indigenous Message Stick to accompany the World Youth Day Cross and Icon around Australia. She welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to Sydney in 2008 in own German she had learnt from her husband.
Elsie assisted four archbishops and was the first person formally to welcome me to this cathedral on the night of my installation as Archbishop of Sydney in 2014. Her life of service to Church and society were recognised in 2018, when Pope Francis appointed her a Dame Commander of the Order of St Gregory—though I never saw her come to church with a horse and sword!
Aboriginality, faith, Elsie’s third passion was education, promoting it in the Indigenous community, leading by example in achieving the highest marks for her year at TAFE, and doing much to educate the wider community about Aboriginal people and culture. In recognition of her passion for education, as for Aboriginal reconciliation and the Catholic faith, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Notre Dame Australia in 2010 and the archdiocese established an Indigenous Support Scholarship in the university in her honour.
I acknowledge Elsie’s family today: her children Monika, Anita, Gisella, Josef and Mark; her grandchildren Benjamin, Matthew, Liesl, Joey, Max, Audrey, Felicity, Kai, Stevie and Jarrah. From heaven we are joined by her beloved Josef. I also welcome her wider circle of relatives and friends.
I salute any Aboriginal elders, whether of the Gadigal land on which we meet or from elsewhere, gratefully acknowledging on behalf of all present their cultural connection and welcome. Likewise, I recognise the elders of our civil society, Hon. Matt Thistlethwaite MP, Assistant Minister for Immigration, for Foreign Affairs and more, and Federal Member for Kingsford Smith, representing the federal parliament; Hon. Michael Daley MP, Attorney General of New South Wales and State Member for Maroubra, representing the state parliament; and Clr Yvonne Weldon AM, representing our City of Sydney council. And elders of our Church concelebrating with me today include ACM chaplain Fr John Knight, previous chaplain Fr Daryl Mackie, and Fr Frank Brennan SJ. I also recognise officials of the archdiocese, especially from our Aboriginal Catholic Ministry.
The death of Aunty Elsie leaves a big hole in the hearts of her family, the Aboriginal community, the Catholic Church of Sydney, and the wider community. But she leaves behind a profound legacy: her ministries endure, as others carry forward the batons of Aboriginal Catholic pastoral care, education and advocacy or, inspired by Aunty Elsie’s example, contribute in other ways. We commend her now, with great confidence, to the Lord she served so well and to His mercy which she always embodied.
