Homily for Mass for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)+ Golden Jubilee of Korean Catholic Community
Church of the Korean Martyrs and St Stanislaus, Silverwater, 8 November 2026
In recent weeks there have been several, little-reported attacks on Christians around the globe. In the Karak region of Jordan, gunmen opened fire on a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church, killing nine and wounding forty more.[i] In Ethiopia, around sixty Orthodox Christians were massacred and their homes burnt to the ground.[ii] And in Nigeria—perhaps the deadliest place on earth for Christians today—eleven children were amongst the thirty slain in a single village raid.[iii] Meanwhile, in many places priests and religious continue to be abducted and killed with monotonous regularity.[iv]
These are not isolated incidents. Less than a fortnight ago, the charity Aid to the Church in Need released its latest report on Christians oppressed for their faith.[v] In 10 of the 18 countries examined, conditions for Christians had worsened over the past two years, and in none had they improved. Another major study, by Open Doors, now counts 388 million Christians persecuted around the world or at risk of it, the highest number on record. Christians are undoubtedly the most victimised religious group on earth. Yet, in the words of one of the report’s authors, this remains “a human rights catastrophe the world refuses to acknowledge.”[vi]
Faced with the scale and brutality of all this persecution, we might feel demoralised, and wonder if God even notices. But He speaks directly into our suffering. Jesus was clear that following Him meant taking up a cross (Mt 16:24 etc.); that if the world hates us, it hated Him first (Jn 15:18; cf. Mt 24:9). “In this world you will have trouble,” He says, “but take courage! For I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33) So, Christians live in the faith that through His Cross and Resurrection, Christ has defeated sin and death, and in the hope that “those who have died in Christ will rise first,” as Paul says today (1Thess 4:13-18). Our faith is paradoxical: it endures persecution while being filled with trust in God’s promises; it suffers while not losing hope for humanity; confronted by those who would harm us, we wish them well while delighting in the God of love (1Jn 4:8).
None know this paradox better than the Korean Church. For eighty years after the Gospel was first proclaimed by Yi Seung-hun, Korea’s Catholics and other Christians suffering waves of persecution. Yet their faith in Christ was resolute and in the 18th and 19th centuries as many as eight or ten thousand of them gave their lives rather than deny Christ. Among them was St Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea’s first priest, canonised in Seoul by St John Paul II in 1984 with 102 companions. Their blood was the seed of the Church, as the Church of Korea grew more dramatically than elsewhere in Asia.
If Christians remain hopeful, even amidst ugly persecution, that does not mean they are insensitive to evil and suffering or passive in the face of it. Rather, as our end-of-year Gospels insist, they must remain ever vigilant, their eyes wide open, not out of fear of harm so much as readiness to be called to account for how they have lived and died.
In today’s Gospel (Mt 25:1-13), Jesus warns against presumption: presuming to know things only God knows, such as the hour of our reckoning, or presuming on God’s mercy by approaching that end unprepared. In the parable of The Wise and Foolish Virgins, ten bridesmaids await the bridegroom’s wedding procession, but only five come prepared. The other five live only for the moment and so find themselves locked out of the celebrations.
The story suggests prudence is required for salvation, however unfashionable that virtue might be today. Talk of prudence can sound to us like code for timidity, hyper-caution, or miserliness. Yet in Christian tradition prudence is the “queen” of the virtues, qualifying all the others. Courage without prudence can be foolhardy. Justice without prudence tyrannical. Temperance without prudence can be self-destructive. Love without prudence over-sentimental, impractical, smothering…
St Thomas Aquinas noted that our words ‘prudence’ and ‘providence’ are related. Our prudence is our share in God’s wisdom, far-sightedness, plan. That’s why the Gospel links it with readiness for Christ’s coming. To be prudent is to look toward the future God has planned for us, and to fit our small daily decisions into the bigger story He is writing with us. It means taking reasonable care and reasonable risks, and trusting in providence as we go. Some choices are clear enough: we must care for our families, work and play responsibly, worship God, see our commitments through. But often there is no single right answer—about which vocation to follow, whom to marry, whether to change country, how to spend our resources: we must decide these things prudently for ourselves.
There’s a detail of today’s parable that often goes unnoticed: that you can’t borrow prudence from someone else. There is no outsourcing of this virtue. No one else can take responsibility for your life, character, decisions. Sure, we can learn from each other’s mistakes and successes, as from our own. We can imitate and take advice from those who we think wise. But in the end, it’s a quality we need to cultivate in ourselves.
It is not five wise bridesmaids we celebrate today, but five families who five decades ago started something that has yielded much fruit ever since. When Sr Bridget Lee organised and Fr Luke Min celebrated that Korean-language Mass in Paddington, it was a wise decision but a courageous one also. They were far from their country of origin, in a strange if newly adopted land. It would have been understandable if they had given up on having a distinctively Korean Catholic life here in Sydney and either assimilated to ordinary Aussie parish life or indeed to Aussie secular culture. But like the wise bridesmaids they made a prudential decision: they judged what being ready for God would require of them, they brought along the oil for a long wait as they built their community and its pastoral centre, and in due course we had all this…
Their prudence, courage and faith yielded the faithful witness of this community. Supported by many faithful priests and religious, and by the sacrifices of countless parishioners, they readied not only themselves but their children and grandchildren for the Wedding Feast of heaven. From this community have come three priests and five religious sisters, and generations of faithful laity. The heirs of the Korean martyrs have become, in their own way, missionaries in a new land. Congratulations Korean Catholic Community of Sydney! 축하해요. 하나님의 축복이 있기를! Chug.kay.yo! Hana-nim-mey chook-boo-gi gee-layl!
[i] Josef Meri, “’The affliction of all Jordanians’: Christians and Muslims after the attack on the church in Karak,” ABC Religion & Ethics, 2 November 2026.
[ii] Junno Arocho Esteves, “Ethiopian Orthodox leaders call for justice, protection, after 60 Christians killed in attacks,” OurSundayVisitor, 27 October 2026.
[iii] Tim, “11 children amongst 30 Christians killed in brital attack in Nigeria,” OpenDoors, 30 July 2026.
[iv] “Mexican priest recovering from kidnapping and torture ordeal,” Catholic Leader, 5 November 2026; “Another priest is kidnapped amid Nigeria’s security crisis,” Catholic Review 19 October 2026; “Nigerian Catholic diocese of Zaria renews prayer appeal for abducted priest,” Bishop Shanahan Bulletins, 6 November 2026…
[v] Aid to the Church in Need, Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians Oppressed for their Faith 2024-2026 (ACN, 2026) https://d1jpo8rtg1c7nb.cloudfront.net/fileman/6ae188b60a473-Persecuted%20and%20Forgotten%202025-26.pdf
[vi] OpenDoors, World Watch List 2026 https://www.opendoors.org/persecution/countries
Introduction to Mass for Mass for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) + Golden Jubilee of Korean Catholic Community
Church of the Korean Martyrs and St Stanislaus, Silverwater, 8 November 2026
성부와 성자와 성령의 이름으로. 아멘. sung-boo-wah, sung-jah-wah, sung-nyung-eh ee-ruh-muh-roh. Amen.
당신에게 평화가 있기를. dangsin-ege pyeon-ghwa-ga.
Welcome to the Church of the Korean Martyrs and St Stanislaus, Silverwater to celebrate this Holy Eucharist marking the Golden Jubilee of the Korean Catholic Community in Sydney!
The first Mass to be celebrated in the Korean language in Sydney was in 1976 at St Francis of Assisi Church, Paddington, with just five Korean Catholic families in attendance. Soon they were gathering every week for Mass and by 1978 they were officially recognised as the Sydney Korean Catholic Community. After further growth and some years in Ashfield, the chaplaincy moved to Silverwater in 1985. Years of planning and fundraising enabled the building of this church, which my predecessor Cardinal Clancy dedicated in 1996. In the decades since, it has welcomed many new arrivals, offered pastoral care to Koreans, formed catechists, teachers and lay leaders, and given the Church priests and religious. As we look forward to joining Pope Leo and the youth of the world in Seoul from 3 to 8 August next, we are blessed to have our own Korean Catholic youth—and some oldies—here in Silverwater every week!
Concelebrating with me today are your chaplains, Fathers Paul Hyeon Paek, Andrew Yoon Jae Kim and John Wonkwang Lee; Fr Pat McInerney SSC, Regional Director of the Columban Missionaries in Oceania, whose confrères helped establish this community; visiting priests from Korea, France and around Australia, including former chaplains; and three sons of the parish, Frs Emmanuel Seo, Peter Kwak and John Kim SJ.
I welcome Sr Balbina Lee SCG, Provincial Superior of the Caritas Sisters of Jesus, and two daughters of the parish, Sr Maria Joanna Lee and Sr Gerino Lee. I greet in a special way Mr Gabriel Lee, who was at that first Mass in Paddington fifty years ago; Mr Joseph Casanova, architect of this church; and Mr John Myeongchul Kang who crafted its stained-glass windows. To everyone present on this happy occasion, a very warm welcome to you all!