Homilies

In 1792 the baby-faced Louis Saint-Just made his maiden speech in the National Convention, the new-formed parliament of the First French Republic. For the ambitious and idealistic young…

The proverb ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, is simple enough to understand: the promise of less is preferable to the possibility of more; security to be preferred to risk-taking; certainty over mere hope. The saying comes down to us from the late medieval Austin friar, John Capgrave…

Last week the Governance Institute of Australia released their eighth annual Ethics Index which charts popular perceptions of how ethical is the conduct of those in particular professions and sectors. The 2023 results indicate that, as a nation, we expect more in terms of integrity, professionalism and honesty…

In ancient times the celestial spheres were thought to influence our health, moods, actions, fate. It’s not so crazy: after all, the sun is crucial for days and seasons, sleep and wake, photosynthesis and life. It’s light and warmth affects our moods, and some people suffer seasonal affective disorders. Its partner, the moon, influences the earth’s axis and wobble…

Over the last fortnight, the world has watched on in horror as two disasters struck North Africa. First, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake claimed around 3,000 lives as it devastated Morocco’s capital Marrakech and wiped-out whole villages in the Atlas Mountains. Those mountains rise by 1mm per year as tectonic plates press against each other, but roughly once-in-a…

In our highly sexualised culture, celibacy is often despised or belittled. It’s said no normal man would commit to it. Yet here in the Archdiocese of Sydney we will have four ordinations to the priesthood this year, we had five last year, six in COVID time, and six in the year before…

He was at the height of his powers going into the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The British sprinter, Derek Redmond, held the British record over 400m and the year before was on the relay team that upset the red-hot US squad, winning the world championships. His Olympic campaign couldn’t have started better: he blitzed the field in his qualifying heat and…

Having lost his only sibling, his mother and then his father before he reached adulthood, Karol Józef Wojtyła knew the importance of family. It would be one of his chief areas of teaching as pope, running like a watermark throughout his 27-year pontificate. Pope John Paul II believed the family is the school for a deeper humanity, the nursery of faith…

“We don’t need no education,
We don’t need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm in the classroom,
Teacher, leave them/us kids alone”
Pink Floyds’ 1979 protest song, Another Brick in the Wall, was a massive hit…