Last September the British photographer, Jim Grover, spent a day snapping people crossing Westminster Bridge: locals and visitors, adults and children.

Some years ago I was praying in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, many metres below the putative chair we celebrate tonight, now suspended below the main window of the Holy Spirit. As she pointed at the sepulchre, a large black American lady asked if I knew what it was.

Backed by a rendition of the 1988 song ‘It’s got to be perfect’ by British band Fairground Attraction, a current TV ad opens with a nappy-clad child rummaging through a woman’s handbag, removing a lipstick and using it to
draw on a wall.

This past week the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began its review of the overall performance of the Catholic Church in Australia in this area. And what has been revealed has already been harrowing.

The Word of God has converted hearts, transformed lives and inspired action in millions of people for two millennia and more. It has also played a major role in shaping our language and culture, and so our thinking and communication; the King James Bible stands with Shakespeare as the two principal sources of modern English.

What sound most moves us? A natural one such as a thunder-clap, rain on a tin roof, or a kookaburra’s laugh? Or a more human sound, such as the weeping of a well-played violin or of those who must listen to one being played badly?

What sound most moves us? A natural one such as a thunder-clap, rain on a tin roof, or a kookaburra’s laugh? Or a more human sound, such as the weeping of a well-played violin or of those who must listen to one being played badly? A siren racing a patient to hospital?

“No, I will not put the Lord to the test.” So says Ahaz in our first reading today. To demand a sign from God – indeed to demand anything from God – is to attempt to manipulate God or to treat Him as if He somehow owes us something. It is irreverent, controlling, arrogant.

If the Virgin Mary is our Christmas hero among the saints, holding forth the baby Jesus for our adoration; if the apostle John is our Lenten favourite, resting on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper and alone of the apostles beside the Good Friday Cross; if St Mary Magdalene is our hero amongst the saints of Easter, first to proclaim Christ’s Resurrection; then St John the Baptist is surely our Advent Saint.

It was written two thousand years ago to a small Phrygian city in Asia Minor. Yet our reading today from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians might easily have been directed to the leaders, staff and students of Sydney Catholic Schools, as a reminder of what we could and should be.

Your Excellency, Most Rev. Adolfo Tito Yllana, Apostolic Nuncio to Australia; My Lords, Most Rev. Peter Comensoli, Bishop of Broken Bay and Most Rev. David Walker, Bishop Emeritus of Broken Bay…