Homilies

Euthanasia is back on the agenda in New South Wales with the independents tightening the screws on the Premier to allow a Bill to be debated soon. We must be prepared.

Welcome to this Solemn Pontifical Funeral Mass for Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, Companion of the Order of Australia, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, President Emeritus of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews

There’s an early Peanuts comic in which Charlie Brown’s self-appointed life-coach, Violet, tells Charlie in no uncertain terms that “Sooner or later, there’s one thing you’re going to have to learn: You reap what you sow! You get out of life exactly what you put into it! No more and no less!”

Throughout history Death has often been portrayed as a someone, more than just a something. . Anubis and Osiris were the Egyptian gods of death, Thanatos and Hades for the Greeks, Pluto and Proserpina to the Romans.

It’s the greatest story ever told: the story of God and man. Above all it’s a love story. God, as St Catherine of Siena put it, was pazzo d’amore, insane with love for us, from all eternity, even before we were made.

Life can be a bitter cup and Jesus knew He must drink it. In St John’s Passion (Jn 18:1-19:42) we saw betrayal and arrest, scourging and mockery, kangaroo court and terrible verdict.

Our world is in crisis. For the past year waves of COVID-19 have infected more than 125 million people and cost nearly 3 million lives.

It’s a smelly Mass, the Chrism Mass. The scent of palms is still in the air from last Sunday. Then that of the olive permeates the cathedral, as deacons heave vats of oil up the sanctuary stairs. Then perfume fills the basilica as it is mixed with the sacred Chrism for the fragrance of Christ.

Three years ago, when last we heard St Mark’s Passion (Mk chs 14 & 15), I observed that only he includes the flight of the stark-naked youth from the Garden.

A while back an eclectic Spanish art collection was offered for auction by Christie’s in London. The standout item was a life-sized painting of St Joseph and the Christ Child by the 17th-century painter, Bartolomé Murillo, estimated to be worth millions of pounds.

What a strange choice of readings for a day we call ‘Lætare’ or ‘Rejoicing Sunday’! Our first reading from the Book of Chronicles tells how all the faithful – including the leading clergy – proved unfaithful.

Jacob and Wilhelm were brothers, renowned scholars in philology and lexicography, and authorities on the Indo-European language from which the languages of the continent and the sub-continent evolved.