Address at Archbishop’s Award for Student Excellence

Introduction at Archbishop’s Award for Student Excellence
St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 4 September 2015

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral, the Mother church of Australia, your cathedral and your church. I’m delighted to be with you here this morning to present for my first time the Archbishop’s Award for Student Excellence to the outstanding students from each of our secondary Catholic schools, systemic and congregational. It is my opportunity to recognise and congratulate the leadership and example that certain young people have given in our schools as part of the Church’s broader mission to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to twenty-first century Sydney.

I am pleased to acknowledge clergy and religious from the Archdiocese of Sydney, the Executive Director of Schools Dan White, the three Regional Directors and many staff of the Catholic Education Office, principals and staff of our systemic schools, Mr David Robinson, chair of the trustees of Mary Aikenhead Ministries and other representatives of the congregational schools. Above all, I welcome our recipients and the proud parents and families.

Address at Archbishop’s Award for Student Excellence
St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 4 September 2015

A travel guide tells the story of Catholicism’s arrival in a town on the North Island of New Zealand.[1] The local Maori chief had to decide whether he preferred the Catholic or the Anglican missionary: to receive both could be very divisive. So he determined that each should sit on a bed of red hot coals with a bare posterior. The chief thought the more powerful missionary’s ‘atua’ or ‘god’ would help his missionary sit on the coals for longer. The Anglican missionary was prudent and decided not to participate. This gave the Catholic priest, Father Lampila, a golden opportunity: to win, all he had to do was make a gesture to lower his pants!

We’ve probably all dreaded participating in one school sport or another, or being tried and possibly humiliated on the debating or dramatic stage, on in the exam hall, but as our story illustrates, one way or another we all have to put ourselves on the line if we are to achieve anything! Whatever the historical accuracy of our Polynesian tale, it reveals an essential aspect of Catholic missionary work: the willingness to engage in sacrifice for the sake of Christ. St Paul in our reading today states God had given him a particular task: he was to proclaim to the nations the “infinite treasure” which those in friendship with Christ possess (Eph 3:8-12, 14-19). And that wasn’t always easy. Paul went through all sorts of trials for Christ’s sake and he wasn’t slow to brag about them. He’d been perplexed, persecuted, forsaken; slandered, arrested, imprisoned, punished and left for dead. “Those other guys think they are better than me?” he asks the Corinthians. “Well I might sound like a madman but let me tell you: I’ve endured far greater labours, far more imprisonments, countless floggings, and often brushed with death. Five times I’ve received from the Jews the 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day adrift at sea; on my frequent journeys I was in danger from rivers and seas, in the city or the countryside, from bandits, Jews, Gentiles, even false Christian brothers and sisters; hungry, thirsty, cold and naked; and anxious… You name it, I’ve suffered it! Paul says (2Cor 11:223-28) He also claimed he’d been overworked, underpayed and sleep deprived like a Higher School Certificate student (cf. 2Cor 4:8-12; 6:3-10; 11:23-28; 12:5-10; Gal 6:7; 2Tim 3:10-11; cf. Acts 9:16; chs 13-28).Eventually, knowing he was soon to die, he wrote, “I am being poured out as a libation and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. All that is left for me now to do is receive that laurel of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and all who have loved his appearing.” (2Tim 4:6-8; cf. Phil 2:17) And sure enough: he was beheaded for his troubles in Rome.

Now, I am not necessarily suggesting that our award recipients need replicate the trials of either Fr Lampila or the Apostle Paul: indeed I hope and pray their lot will be an easier one. But you will already know from experience that many of the best things in life require some personal effort. Leadership – of the kind you have been giving in your schools and we trust you will give in our Church and community in the years ahead – requires a choice, and perseverance in that choice, and comes at an ‘opportunity cost’ in terms of the other things you could be doing instead. Yours is a Pauline determination – even if you don’t boast about it as much as he did – to pursue the good and true and beautiful even when this requires self-sacrifice. And your schools and your Church count this worthy, even inspiring, for others. In a culture that often runs young people down, claiming that they are only interested in themselves, in getting ahead and accumulating things and experiences, you demonstrate that the opposite is true: that young people can put themselves on the line, throw themselves into worthy projects heart and soul. In a society that is increasingly deaf to faith and high ideals, you reveal that young people are capable of greatness. That’s a great thing for us, you family and friends, school and Church – your closest supporters – to see; but it’s good for our wider community too.

Openly admitting that you are inspired by Christ and His Gospel, celebrating with and drawing strength from Him in the Eucharist and Reconciliation and works of justice and service, living as a Christian in today’s culture can all seem rather uncool, unfashionable, putting you at risk of social death. Sure, you’re unlikely to get 39 lashes but it can take ‘guts’ at times to live as women and men of character, of integrity, of ideals. I honour that in your now. As your bishop I charge you with continuing to demonstrate such virtue and idealism in the studies, friendships and professions you embrace in the next stage of your adventure; in the vocations to marriage and family, or to priesthood or religious life that some of you have before you. You might already have glimpsed those next stages through your active participation and leadership in the life of the Church through WYD, youth ministry, parish involvements, immersion experiences, outreach to the needy and so on. My hope is that after a long and happy and holy life of such leadership in faith and service in love, you will be able to say like Paul: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Then you too will receive that laurel much greater than any earthly award: the reward that is “the utter fullness of God”. Congratulations! God bless your future endeavours!

[1] http://www.nzcatholic.org.nz/2011/12/08/village-church-a-treasure-at-the-lake/