OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART CATHOLIC CHURCH, RANDWICK, 26 OCTOBER 2025
Preachers have observed that the letter “I” sits squarely in the middle of the words “pride”, “sin” and “pharisee”. Without making too much of linguistic coincidence, there’s a lesson here about making the personal pronoun “I” too central in our universe.
Last Sunday we heard Jesus’ story of the importunate widow, the moral of which was that we should pray always and never give up (Lk 18:1-8). But pray how? Today’s Gospel (Lk 18:9-14) is a masterclass in prayer. On the one hand, the Pharisee shows us how not to pray. Five times he uses “I” in a speech supposedly addressed to God but really, as Jesus wryly observes, “prayed to himself”. He might as well have been looking in the mirror! On the other hand, the tax collector offers seven meagre words: “God be merciful to me, a sinner”—words that, with the addition of the name of Jesus, has been a popular prayer ever since. He uses the pronoun “me” only once, and his me is not the hero of his story but the one in need of rescue.
Notably, Christ doesn’t criticise the Pharisee for his religious beliefs or practices. The prayer, fasting and almsgiving of which he boasts are good things—things Jesus Himself repeatedly recommends—so, too, is keeping the commandments![1] The problem is not that the Pharisee is law-abiding or prays. It is, rather, the how, why and whom. His me-me-me language is self-righteous, self-congratulatory, turned inward. Because he thinks so highly of himself and his spiritual achievements, he neither seeks nor is open to receiving divine mercy. The tax collector’s heartfelt prayer, by contrast, turns outward and upward, towards the God of mercy who is the only One to right his wrongs.
Such a posture—going out of oneself toward God and others—is precisely what drove Fr Jules Chevalier MSC to found the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and send some of them to Sydney 140 years ago. In the shadow of the French Revolution’s religious intolerance and Napoleonic religious indifference, he had seen first-hand how a new variety of self-reliance could render God irrelevant for many.
It’s a recurring human tendency, of course. With enough wit, or education, or psychotherapy, or technology, or politics, or money, or regulation, or whatever, we imagine we can fix everything ourselves, making heaven on earth. No need for prayer, Church, grace. In a world in danger of forgetting God, Chevalier’s response was to re-propose the love told by Christ’s heart and His Blessed Mother’s sharing. Chevalier knew that only at the centre of the universe, where all things converge in Christ’s pierced Heart, do we will find “the salvation of the world” and “the remedy of all our ills”.[2] More than just high-sounding rhetoric, it was his conviction that only the Cross will answer our questions about liberty, equality, fraternity and the rest, asked but so badly answered in his day.
In our first reading, we glimpse that crucified compassion even before Calvary. The sage Ben Sirach tells us the Lord is “no respecter of personages” and “plays no favourites at the expense of the poor” (Sir 35:12-19). Indeed God prefers the prayers of the widows and orphans, the injured and faithful; it’s “the petitions of the humble” that “pierce the clouds”. And it’s not just the financially poor He blesses, but the ‘poor in spirit’—the grieving and meek, those who need Him and know it, those who knowing they need Him turn to Him with hearts merciful, pure and peaceful (Mt 5:3-10).
When my venerable predecessor, Cardinal Moran, entrusted this parish to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, he was inviting them to plant that very spirituality here in Randwick and Sydney. This parish was to be a parable of hearts turned outward and upward, in response to the Sacred Heart and then conformed to it; a parish that shared in the dearest wish of Fr Chevalier and his sons, that the Sacred Heart of Jesus would be everywhere loved!
In today’s epistle, the dying Paul reflects back on his life of “fighting the good fight,” “running the race to the finish” and “keeping the faith” (2Tim 4:6-8,16-18). It’s the ideal epitaph for any Christian life. Last Sunday, Pope Leo XIV canonised a modern example of such a life, in Papua New Guinea’s first saint, Peter To Rot—a saint with a link to this parish.[3] He was the son of the chief of the newly-evangelised village of Rakunai (near Rabaul in New Britain). His father had donated land and means for the construction of a Catholic church, school and presbytery for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who were being supplied from Sydney. They baptised and catechised young Peter. As a boy of seven, he asked to move in with an uncle closer to church so he could participate in daily Mass. He visited the Blessed Sacrament during school breaks, kneeling alone in adoration. At the suggestion of his parish priest, MSC Fr Carl Laufer, he studied catechetics at the MSC School for Catechists in Talilgap, was commissioned as a lay catechist, and returned to serve in Rakunai for 11 years.
When Japanese forces occupied the Australian-administered territory in 1942 and interned all the clergy, this humble husband and father of three took charge of the parish. He held secret prayer services and catechism classes, visited the sick, and officiated at baptisms and weddings. At great danger to himself, he secreted food to the clergy in the concentration camp and brought back consecrated hosts from them for his people. He was arrested at Christmas 1944 for preaching Christianity, resisting polygamy, and having Christian religious objects at home. He had his wife bring him his catechist’s cross and best clothes so he might ready himself to face God. Martyred in the last weeks of the war, he was celebrated by the youth of the world as one of the principal patrons of Sydney’s World Youth Day in 2008.
To Rot exemplified the missionary spirit we hope animates this parish. His was a “shared mission” with the MSCs, for the proclamation of God’s kingdom requires us all. So, too, in this parish, young minds have been formed through Catholic education, older souls through proclamation and preaching, many hearts through the sacraments and outreach of many kinds. For 140 years you have demonstrated that holiness flourishes not just in religious life, but in the faithfulness of families, catechists, and all who carry Christ’s love to the whole world.
Happy 140th birthday OLSH parish and MSC fathers! Ad multos annos!
[1] Mt 4:1-11; 5:17-22,42-44; 6:1-18; 18:20; 19:16-19; 21:22; 25:35; 26:41; Mk 10:19; 11:24-25; Lk 2:37; 5:33; 6:27-28; 10:35; 11:1-13,41; 12:33; 14:13; 18:1ff,22; 19:8; Jn 14:13; 15:16.
[2] Jules Chevalier, writing in 1862, quoted in “Jules Chevalier,” https://ametur-msc.org/website/jules-chevalier/. The complete statement appears in various editions of Chevalier’s major work, Le Sacré-Coeur de Jésus (Paris: Librairie de Vic et Amat, 1900).
[3] John Dempsey, “Peter To Rot (1912-1945),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16 (2002) https://adb.anu.edu.au/ biography/to-rot-peter-11873; Michael Cook, “The hidden side of St Peter To Rot,” Catholic Weekly 20 October 2025.
INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR THE 30TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) +
140TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEDICATION OF OLSH TO OUR LADY AND MINISTRY OF MSC
OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART CATHOLIC CHURCH, RANDWICK, 26 OCTOBER 2025
Welcome dear friends to the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Randwick, for today’s celebration of the Eucharist marking 140 years of the OLSH parish and the MSC ministry here. I am delighted to join you for this jubilee celebration.
In 1854 a French parish priest, Jules Chevalier, gathered a small group of like-minded priests and formed the MSC congregation under the protection of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. At the request of Pope Leo XIII, they established their first overseas mission in Papua New Guinea.[i] That mission had to be supplied from Australia and so negotiations began with the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Moran, for an Aussie base, In 1885 Randwick Parish was entrusted to them.
The tiny schoolhouse on this site used as a chapel on Sundays was already too small, and in less than three years the MSCs had built a new neo-Gothic church and monastery dedicated to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. This was enlarged over the years (1921), adorned with stained-glass and furnishings, and eventually a Shrine to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (1937). The school also grew and was served by several religious orders. In Sydney’s World Youth Day year 2008, the shrine enjoyed a major renovation.
Over the decades this beautiful church has been the heart of a vibrant parish community with many groups and ministries, generously served by the MSC fathers starting with Fr Michael Tierney MSC 140 years ago. You might point to MSC Fr Edward McGrath’s co-founding of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor with Servant of God Eileen O’Connor (1913), to the fundraising activities for the PNG and Australian Aboriginal missions, to the ‘Mass of Last Resort’ for so long offered here late on Sunday night, or to the chaplaincy to Prince of Wales. You might boast of the devotions such as the Thursday Novena, or the groups such as Ladies of the Sacred Heart, Legion of Mary, Antioch, CCD, RCIA, Young Adults, Seniors and more, or the ordinary run of parish sacramental and pastoral activities. In all these ways the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the faithful have brought the compassion of Christ to the people of Randwick for 140 years so far…
I acknowledge concelebrating with me today Most Rev. Terry Brady, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Sydney; the Very Rev. Stephen Hackett MSC, Provincial Superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart; Parish Priest Fr Pat O’Mara MSC; representatives of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor, and the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Principal of St Margaret Mary’s Primary School, Kylie O’Donnell; and Clr Marea Wilson from Randwick Council. To everyone here on this happy occasion, a very warm welcome to you all!
[i] Sr Antoninus FDNSC (1985). “Birds of paradise and drums that announce Christ’s peace,” Annals Australasia, September 1985 https://web.archive.org/web/20150907152232/http://jloughnan.tripod.com/birdsofpara.htm; Javier Trapero, “Peter To Rot: A saint, fruit of a shared mission,” Vatican News 13 June 2025.
