HOMILY FOR MASS FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C + CENTENARY OF OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE CHURCH
GLADESVILLE, 9 MARCH 2025
Rob Parsons is an author, speaker and founder of Care for the Family, a UK-based charity that focuses on marriage, parenting and bereavement. His great contribution, however, might never have happened were it not for a remarkable encounter many years ago. One evening, he and his wife Dianne heard a knock on their door at a late hour. Standing on their porch was a homeless man, Ronnie Lockwood, whom Rob recognised from his childhood Sunday School. Ronnie had had anything but an easy upbringing.[1] He had lived in care houses from the age of eight, suffered from learning difficulties, and had little or no social skills. He was holding a plastic bag with his few belongings in one hand and a frozen chicken in the other. After some pleasantries, Rob asked Ronnie what he was going to do with his frozen chicken. Ronnie answered that he had no idea. So Rob invited him inside so they could cook and eat chook together.
Ronnie stayed the night, and several more after that, until Christmas approached and Dianne told Rob there was no way they could ask him to leave at Christmas. And so Ronnie stayed—for another 45 years.
Ronnie became part of the Parsons household. With their assistance, he found a job as a dustman, did chores around the house, and learnt some new skills. When Dianne was ill, he lent a hand raising the children, Katie and Lloyd. He took on roles at their local church, including being ‘CEO’ of chair placement and stacking, ‘Finance tsar’ of passing the collection plate, and ‘Kitchen king’ of dishwashing at the church’s homeless centre. In short, he flourished.
Ronnie died of Covid, aged 75. Late last year Rob published a book titled A Knock at the Door,[2] describing how thankful he was that he let Ronnie into his life. It’s about the importance of giving and receiving, of leaning on others during difficult times, and of maintaining hope for tomorrow whatever the darkness of yesterday. Ronnie’s life was transformed by Rob’s generosity, but so was Rob’s. He traded in his career as a solicitor and his dreams of owning his own firm for founding a charity, realising that his true happiness would be in helping others, especially the least fortunate.
None of that would have happened had Rob and Dianne not taken Ronnie in on that fateful night. The knock at the door put their Christian faith to the test. The temptation was to protect their comfortable and risk-free life. But they opted for giving of themselves, offering Ronnie not just hospitality but love. They knew that on Judgment Day the Lord will ask us “When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?” (Mt 25:35).
Is our Catholic faith really sooooo demanding? Will it draw us so far outside our comfort zone? Does God ask heroic charity of us, or just a bit from time to time? I think we all know the answer to those questions, even if sometimes we wish we didn’t.
So the question becomes: am I prepared to trust in God when He seems to ask a lot of me, especially if it threatens my plans and preferences? Am I willing to conform my will to His, or will I follow Him only as long as He conforms His will to mine? In today’s Gospel we heard the story of Jesus Himself being tested in the desert at the very start of His public ministry (Lk 4:1-13). The Son of God made man, freshly baptised in the Holy Spirit and confirmed by the Father’s voice at the Jordan, immediately experienced all the temptations of sin, the flesh and the devil. He was offered power in place of service, comfort instead of sacrifice, selfishness rather than self-emptying, the shiny lights of an easier life.
Jesus’ response is instructive. Amidst the craftiness of Satan, the lures of this world and our own self-protective tendencies, Jesus reaches for the Holy Scriptures for wisdom. If we live by the word of God, we can withstand any test. If we believe not only with our lips but with our hearts, we will have no cause for shame (Rom 10:8-13); we can call upon the Lord for help, we shall be saved.
All of which should embolden us, not because we won’t have to stare down trials and tribulations—that’s a given, if even the Christ had to suffer such things. But we do so in the knowledge that God will be with us through it all. Not just theoretically, from the safe distance of heaven, but right there when we are hungry for power and prestige or food and safety, right there when we are despairing and tempted to throw ourselves off the parapet, right there when we might be inclined to follow our own will rather the harder path. If we are honest about our own shortcomings and prepared to call out for help like Ronnie, we must knock on the door—the door of the confessional—and the door of mercy will be opened for us (Mt 7:7-8). The first step, then, is repentance, turning away, away from sin and temptation. Lent suggests prayer, fasting and making a good confession, as a start. The next step is turning towards, towards God and neighbour. Lent suggests almsgiving, opening the doors of our hearts and wallets to those in need. Having experienced God’s generosity ourselves, we share it with others.
We always have. By the end of the 19th century there was already a sizeable Catholic population in the Gladesville area, at first within the territory of Hunters Hill parish and then of Ryde parish. But Gladesville had its own needs. One brave resident bravely wrote to Archbishop Michael Kelly that it was a disgrace that there was still no Catholic church and school in Gladesville! In fact this was already on Kelly’s radar, amidst his big programme of building war memorial churches in Sydney after the Great War. He tasked Fr Edward Gell with getting Gladesville going, and in 1925 a foundation stone was lain and the first part of the church and school (now the hall) completed.
A century on, and it is clear what it was all for. In the words of our readings it was to encourage the people of this district to turn away from anything not of God and towards all that is. Through faithful priests and people, through many ministries of Word, Sacrament and Charity, you have opened the door of salvation to the people of Gladesville and beyond. Ryde-Gladesville is one of Sydney’s most buzzing parishes and its two churches proudly host so much you can be proud of. Congratulations Queen of Peace centenarians. May God bless you always. Ad multos annos!
[1] Eleanor Steafel, “A homeless man knocked on our door—and stayed for 45 years,” The Telegraph 12 November 2024.
[2] Rob Parsons, A Knock at the Door (UK: William Collins, 2024).
INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C + CENTENARY OF – OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE CHURCH, GLADESVILLE, 9 MARCH 2025
Welcome friends to Our Lady Queen of Peace Gladesville for today’s Mass of the First Sunday of Lent. It is a joy to be with you all on this special occasion: the centenary of the laying of the foundation stone of this church.
It was to Fr Edward Gell that my predecessor, Archbishop Michael Kelly, entrusted the establishment of a church and school for Gladesville and in 1925 the first part of the church-and-school that is now the hall was completed. A generous and tireless builder, Fr Gell identified Queen of Peace as his most satisfying church build, confident that if he gave the Lord a fitting home in Gladesville, the Lord would in due course give him one in heaven. It was to have a special connection to the earliest Catholic faithful of our city, as the cedar for the cross in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel came from the home of James Dempsey in the Rocks, where the Blessed Sacrament was housed in the days when the Mass, priests, Blessed Sacrament and Catholic churches were still forbidden in the colony and the faithful were begging God and the authorities to allow them to worship.
I acknowledge concelebrating with me today your parish priest Fr Greg Morgan FMVD PP, with assistant priests Father Stephen Drum FMVD and Daniele Sollazzo FMVD; and priests who have served in the area including Monsignor Kerry Bayada and Fathers Paul Monkerud, Roberto Castillo and Tony Corcoran SM.
I greet representatives from the Patrician Brothers, Marist Sisters and Mercy Sisters who have long served in the district.
I welcome in attendance Hon. Anthony Roberts MP, State Member for Lane Cove; the Mayor of Ryde Clr Trenton Brow and Councillor Roy Maggio; Mr Frank Cohen, Principal of St Charles Borromeo and Our Lady Queen of Peace Primary Schools; Mr Phillip Stewart, Principal of Holy Cross College Ryde; and other distinguished guests of the parish.
Together with the Church throughout the world, we continue to pray at this time for the Holy Father, Pope Francis, that he might experience the healing and comfort of the Lord as he battles serious illness.
To everyone present on this joyous occasion, a very warm welcome to you all.
