St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 11 September 2026
Most Catholic schools are named for a patron saint, and so the staff, students and wider community can look to a particular life of heroic virtue for inspiration. But what of a college named after an object, the Holy Cross? What does it mean to take your name from an ancient symbol of humiliation, torture and death, reserved for the worst of the worst?
The cross is surely the greatest paradox in a Christian story full of paradoxes. Celebrating strength in weakness, greatness in self-sacrifice, the Creator become creature, the Source of Life doomed to death: it is perplexing to be told that “if you would save your life you must give it up, you must take up the cross to follow me” (Mt 10:38-39; 16:24-25). When we most need consolation and hope, what does it mean for Christ, His Church and the Patrician brothers to offer us… the Cross?
Well, in today’s first reading (Num 21:4-9), the Israelites faced a similar enigma. Impatient with life in the wilderness, they murmur against God and Moses: why leave the fleshpots of Egypt only to starve in the desert? God responds by sending fiery serpents to provoke repentance and gratitude. If that wasn’t a strange enough spiritual medicine, the physical therapy is bizarre: make a bronze serpent—rather like an idol[1]—set it on a pole and stare at it: talk about ‘Alternative Medicine’! The symbol of their demise would be the source of their healing.
That story only makes sense, of course, as foreshadowing another: that of the Son of Man, lifted up on the Cross, for our salvation (Jn 3:13-17).[2] It’s another paradox, to say that something so dreadful might occasion our salvation. But Christ gives us the key: that “God so loved the world he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but may have eternal life.” Or in the words of our school motto: In cruce salus, in the cross is my salvation.
So for Christians the Cross became the symbol of God’s love. To us it says that suffering is not the end of the story. God really did become one of us, to know our struggles from the inside and so can show us a way through. In our epistle (Phil 2:6-11), St Paul says Jesus, though God, “emptied himself” to become a vulnerable human being, a suffering servant, who died on a cross. But He was exalted and we can be too. And that can be the pattern for us: emptying ourselves in service of others; sacrificing ourselves in love; trusting in rapture to come.
Seeing you all, evokes for me memories of my own Holy Cross days. Let me tell you a little of how I came to spend two years at Holy Cross. In those days boys were put out of Catholic primary schools after Year 4: by age 9 we were presumed to be too wild to remain in the parish school. By the time my parents realised this, all the surrounding Catholic schools were booked up. Mum and Dad explained to me that I had been accepted into a nearby Catholic College from Year 7, but that I would have to go to the local state school until then. I was horrified! I declared that if I couldn’t go to a Catholic school I wouldn’t go to school at all, that if needs be I’d run away from home, that if I was forced to go to a state school I would deliberately fail all my exams… So my parents went back to the drawing board. They rang every school within a five kilometre radius, then a ten km radius, then 15, then 20. Eventually Holy Cross College had mercy on my parents and on me. Though I would have to take three buses to school and home, an hour and a half each way, it was worth it: I could go to a Catholic school!
Little did Holy Cross know that they were preparing a future archbishop for Sydney! But they gave me a solid grounding in Catholic catechism, knowledge of many things, a love for people, a sense of service. In Year 5 a green-sashed, white habited Brother Columba taught me the commandments, beatitudes and much else: that provoked a future passion for theology. In Year 6 Mr Whyard drilled us with the geography of Canada and the rivers of NSW: that excited my desire to see the world. Prayers before class, at midday and in chapel: these pointed me to an ordination on the Feast of the Holy Cross and a life of priesthood. Even my feeble attempts at football in a school where everyone else were champions taught me something: team spirit… and humility!
It was a rather different College in those ancient times. It still had a ‘preparatory’ school. There were nearly sixty boys squeezed into each class. That made us physically close but more importantly instilled a certain resilience along with an old-fashioned Irish-Aussie mateship in the newly emerging multicultural Australia. I hope something of that spirit survives: that the college is still a place for young men to grow strong, gain knowledge, cultivate virtues, but also learn friendship—with God and others.
Strength, knowledge, virtue, friendship: these don’t come easily. Christ says: if you are looking for the quick road to happiness, if you want to by-pass commitment and self-sacrifice, I’m not your man, not your God. Look elsewhere… but don’t expect to find enduring happiness there. With all your gifts and weaknesses, amidst your dreams and confusions, whether your spirits are high or your morale low, if you turn to me, you might just find there is more to life than passing sensations and quick fixes. There are more lasting, satisfying, healing things on offer in the kingdom of God.
Those who built up Holy Cross College, from its humble beginnings 135 years ago till today, understood this. They made serious sacrifices so others could flourish, including all of you here today. Their belief was that if you make the cross not merely an emblem on your blazer but rather the tattoo over your heart, truth, beauty and goodness can be yours. You can sit with those who suffer, reach out to those who struggle, and by God’s grace transcend the crosses in your lives together.
On Good Friday Catholics genuflect to the Cross. It is not to glorify suffering, nor to minimise it or to sentimentalise it. Rather we exalt the Holy Cross because on it hung our salvation. As we honour its promise of new life, redeemed life, eternal life, we imitate Christ’s self-giving to others. And whatever trials come our way, we know that love is stronger than death and that after the cross comes resurrection and glory. God bless you all and happy anniversary!
[1] See Dave Armstrong, “Was Moses’ bronze serpent an idolatrous ‘graven image’?” National Catholic Register 18 February 2020.
[2] Cf. 1Cor 1:18; 2Cor 5:21; Gal 6:14; Eph 2:16; Col 1:20; 2:14-15; Heb 12:2; 1Pet 3:18 etc.
Introduction to Mass Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross + the 135th Anniversary of Holy Cross College Ryde
St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 11 September 2026
Welcome, friends, to St Mary’s Cathedral for this Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and celebrating the 135th anniversary of Holy Cross College. Every time I pass the sandstone gates of the college, I give thanks to Almighty God for my own time there as a boy and pray for the boys that are there now. Of the several times I’ve celebrated Mass or prize-giving for the College, most have been often the time of your feast day which is also my priestly anniversary. It is always a particular joy to welcome my old school to the mother church of Australia but especially as we mark another milestone in its long history of faith, learning and friendship.
In 1770, when Captain Cook planted a Union Jack at Botany Bay as a portent of a future penal colony for those whose crimes might include the practice of ‘popery’, a bright 23-year-old Irishman, Daniel Delany, was secretly preparing for ordination as a priest in France.[i] On his return home he set about raising the physical, intellectual and spiritual level of his charges. In 1788, when the colonists arrived in Sydney, he was appointed Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. His continuing passion for religious education of the young was served by his founding the Brigidine Sisters and Patrician Brothers. They would eventually follow the Irish colonists to Sydney and beyond. In the time of Pope Leo XIII, the green-sashed Brothers opened Holy Cross in 1891, with just four boarders and four dayboys. Yet seven years later Cardinal Moran would open the grand sandstone buildings on the present site to serve generations to come. 135 years after those humble beginnings, we gather under another Pope Leo (XIV) to give thanks for the brothers and lay teachers who dedicated their lives to our education, to pray that the young men formed at Holy Cross may thrive in their lives thereafter, and to pray for the mission of the College in the years ahead.
I acknowledge concelebrating with me today your chaplain, Fr Dan Drum FMVD, from Ryde–Gladesville Parish; Fr Anthony Casamento CSMA from North Ryde Parish; and Deacon Anthony Karaira, assisting. I welcome the Executive Director of Sydney Catholic Schools, Ms Danielle Cronin, and her colleagues.
I salute the Provincial Leader of the Patrician Brothers, Br Nicholas Harsas FSP OAM, together with Brothers Aengus Kavanagh FSP, Stephen Sweetman FSP and Peter Ryan FSP, grateful for their continuing inspiration of the College. I greet the College Principal, Mr Phillip Stewart, with his executive and staff; the principals and students from of our fellow Patrician schools; Mr John Edwards and Mr Michael Sear from the Old Boys Association; parents, families, parishioners and friends. To my fellow old boys, and especially to all of you current students of Holy Cross, a very warm welcome to you all!
[i] Dierdre Bryan & Stephen Sweetman, “Daniel Delany,” Dictionary of Irish Biography https://www.dib.ie/biography/delany-daniel-a2509; Patrician Brothers, An Education for All! The Story of a Bishop of Penal Ireland Daniel Delany https://www.calameo.com/read/006718354d8ff31b6b11e; An Anthology of Writings on Bishop Daniel Delany https://www.calameo.com/read/006718354d9a5f5a37a3b
