Homilies

OUR LADY OF MT CARMEL PARISH, MT PRITCHARD, 13 JULY 2025 Today I am wearing the pallium, a three-finger-wide band of lambs’ wool, intimating the Good Shepherd carrying the lost lamb on His shoulders. The six black crosses and three nails are a call to holiness and Christlike self-sacrifice. Originally peculiar to the papacy, the […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 6 JULY 2025 The first Hobbit film was released in 2012 and grossed over $1b at the box office. Gandalf the wizard tricks Bilbo the hobbit into joining a band of dwarves led by the stubborn and courageous Thorin Oakenshield in a bid to reclaim treasure stolen by the evil dragon […]

ROSEBANK COLLEGE, 2 JULY 2025 The Guardian recently ran an article on ‘aura farming’—curating the coolest, most confident or most mysterious version of yourself.[1] Popularised by video games, TikTok and Twitch, aura farmers rack up imaginary ‘aura points’ by striking sharp-angled poses, wearing arresting gear (like a Dominican habit), doing nonchalant things like riding their […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 22 JUNE 2025 There was great joy last week when Pope Leo announced that the first ‘millennial’ saint, Carlo Acutis, will be canonised on 7th September. Born in London to Italian parents in 1991, he grew up as children do. He loved soccer, pets, video games and Spiderman. As we oldies […]

ST MARTHA’S CHAPEL, LEICHHARDT, 17 JUNE 2025 ‘Demanding,’ ‘a perfectionist,’ ‘hard to work for’—these were the descriptions recently given by those who work for Jensen Huang, the Taiwanese-American CEO of tech giant Nvidia. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993, as a niche producer of computer chips for graphics and gaming. Now it’s a $3.5 trillion behemoth, […]

ST ANTHONY OF PADUA CATHOLIC CHURCH, AUSTRAL, 15 JUNE 2025 Some years ago, a friend of mine was discussing the Holy Trinity with his Jehovah’s Witness sister and others who were strongly opposed to this Catholic doctrine. His interlocuters insisted that Catholics don’t really believe in the Trinity, because whenever someone asks about it, they […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, MEMORIAL OF ST ANTHONY OF PADUA, 13 JUNE 2025 Human beings have been described as ‘rational animals’, ‘joking animals’, ‘linguistic animals’ and ‘religious animals’. But we are also ‘musical animals’, with compositions more diverse and complex than any bird, cricket or whale. We use music to express, entertain, educate, connect, heal. […]

THE BASILICA OF THE NATIONAL SHRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, WASHINGTON D.C. FEAST OF ST BONIFACE, JUNE 5, 2025 Unparalleled in wisdom about our origins, lives and destinies, about the perennial battle between good and evil, and about the possibility of redemption… I am speaking, of course, not of the Bible or the Summa but […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 1 JUNE 2025 There are many stories from the Middle Ages about court jesters teaching their masters a thing or two. In one, a king is so amused by his jester, he hands him a staff and says, “Keep this staff till you find someone more foolish than yourself—then give it […]

ST MARY’S BASILICA SYDNEY, 31 MAY 2025 Unparalleled in wisdom about our origins, lives and destinies, about the perennial battle between good and evil, and about the possibility of redemption… I am speaking, of course, not of the Bible or the Summa but the Marvel comics and films. Connecting the stories told there is the […]