Homilies

Homily For Archbishop’s Awards For Student Excellence

07 Sep 2018
  

Homily For Archbishop’s Awards For Student Excellence

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

Today we celebrate the Spring Ember Day in the Catholic Church. Ember days in the Church roughly correspond to the four seasons, though in general in Australia we only celebrate the Autumn and Spring ones – perhaps because, as the First People of this land noted, there are really only two kinds of weather, sunny or rainy… and not enough of the latter!

But what is an ember day? The word ‘ember’ comes from the Old English word for the seasons, ymbryne. Ancient peoples were of course very closely connected to the physical seasons, because, without all our modern technology, they were very much affected by it; indeed, I remember from my own childhood how certain times of the year were mango or cherry times, when lamb was cheap or expensive or unavailable, so the seasons affected even us city folk. And so peoples the world over have often marked the change of seasons with festivals, starting each season with a period of fasting and abstinence, seeking God’s blessing for favourable weather and fruitful harvest, interceding in times of flood or drought, such as we are experiencing at the moment.

Ember days, then, focus on the environment, and so we might take this time to remember our responsibility as stewards of the planet to care for our world, to find the most sustainable way to inhabit it, and to ensure that we leave the next generation an ecology as good or better that the one we received. But ember days are also meant as a kind of ‘wake-up call’ for our own lives, for, as we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die’ (Ecc 3:1-2). Life, after all, has its own seasons, as even a toddler knows, who one minute is playing happily, and the next crying after falling over.

So you, my dear Award recipients, are coming to a new season in your life. But no season is entered unprepared – we prepare the soil for planting in Spring, grow the crops in Summer, harvest them in Autumn, and live off what we have stored through Winter. Even city folk make sure they have jackets for Winter and swimmers for Summer. So, too, your 12 years of schooling have been a season of your life; but they have also been preparation the season coming next; you’ve been preparing the soil and planting the seeds that will grow to fruition in your adult lives, in the ideas you bake, the choices you make, the actions you take.

I was filled with joy during our Award ceremony today to hear of all the ways in which you have led or served in your school, parish, or wider communities, with regular Mass attendance or devotions, in liturgical ministries of serving, ministering Holy Communion or music at Mass, in teaching catechetics or working with those younger than you, disabled, homeless, refugees, or suffering mental illness, and more. Truly you have tended the field of your souls well and I have confidence there will long be a rich harvest!

Of course, you’ve not done all this alone. Every farm needs its farmhands, and so you have had the help of parents and siblings, of teachers and fellow students, of a Church and community that cares enough to provide your school. On behalf of all our Award recipients I want to thank our families for all your hard work in raising up young people of faith and ideals. You are rightly very proud of them today, as I hope they are of you, for the example you have set them in cultivating their hearts.

My friends, I have said that you are on the cusp of entering a new season of your life. The Award you receive today is in recognition of what you have done in the season now coming to completion and how you have prepared for the season ahead. But it is also meant as an encouragement to you as you cross the threshold from the Springtime to the Summer of your life. This big step will bring with it new experiences and responsibilities: you must make important new choices about studies, work, relationships, commitments. I trust this Award may serve as a reminder to you that the context for those big choices must be your life of faith in God and service to others. The good things you have done that we honour this day must not be mere experiences or lines in a curriculum vitae: they are the stuff of character and promise. We look forward to seeing many of you reap a rich harvest, giving the lead in our church and society in the years ahead.

 

Introduction For Archbishop’s Awards For Student Excellence

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral Hall and to the Mother Church of Australia – to your church, young Catholic Australia. I’m always excited to present the Archbishop’s Awards for Student Excellence to the outstanding students from each of our Catholic secondary schools, systemic and congregational. It is a great occasion for recognizing and congratulating the leadership and example that you and other 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, including Very Rev Fr Michael McLean, Episcopal Vicar for Education; leaders from the Sydney Catholic Schools including Dr Dan White, Executive Director of Sydney Catholic Schools; principals, staff and student from all our systemic secondary schools; and representatives of the congregational schools. But of course the most important welcome is to you, our recipients, and to your proud parents, and families.