Homilies

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 16 MARCH 2025 When it comes to the nuts and bolts of learning, there’s no shortage of opinions. Beginning in the mid-20th century, educationalists began to theorise and test different approaches, some very traditional, others highly experimental, and there are people who swear by each. Some approaches are clearly effective, but […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 13 MARCH 2025 Recent research led by the University of Sydney, UCLA and other tertiary institutions found that human beings say Yes to requests for help up to seven times more than they say No.[1] Their study, based on video recordings of everyday social interactions in various cultural contexts, show that […]

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 […]

DOMUS AUSTRALIA, ROME, 5 MARCH 2025 Is the human attention span shrinking? The question is much discussed by psychologists, educators, tech gurus and social commentators.[i] Many students read only chapters or articles, not whole books. Newspapers prefer 400-word opinion pieces to the old 3,000-word essays. TV keeps news items short, with imagery changing every few […]

ST MARGARET’S AND ALL SAINTS LONDON, 18 FEBRUARY 2025 (FEAST OF BLESSED FRA ANGELICO) In December of last year, NASA telescopes in Chile identified a 100m wide asteroid, with the catchy name ‘2024 YR4’, that will come rather close to the earth in 2032.[1] While it’s not big enough to cause a mass extinction event […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, FEAST OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES, 11 FEBRUARY 2025 Most of you will be familiar with that great classic of English literature, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Authored and illustrated by Eric Carle in 1969, it was on the bestsellers list for children’s picture books for around 19 years and has been […]

ST JEROME’S CHURCH, PUNCHBOWL, 10 FEBRUARY 2025 My beloved Dominican brother, Fr Dominic Murphy, once gave a series on the Theology of the Body in which he proposed that all men are genetically somewhat autistic and all women at least a little neurotic. Men can be so practically-focused that they fail to pick up cues […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL SYDNEY, 9 FEBRUARY 2025 It’s an old fishing trick. In the days leading up to an expedition, experienced anglers cast a handful of bran or other roughage on the waters where they intend to go fishing later. Bran effects fish much as it does people. As a result, when the fishers return […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 3 FEBRUARY 2025 Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville, was the notorious Public Prosecutor during France’s ‘Reign of Terror’. For his outsized role in delivering thousands to the ‘National Razor,’ he earned the nickname ‘Purveyor to the Guillotine.’[1] An industrious lawyer, sympathetic to the ideals of the revolution, Fouquier was appointed Accusateur […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 2 FEBRUARY 2025 A few days ago, the Church celebrated the memorial of St Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th-century Dominican friar who was arguably the greatest ever theologian, and the first person designated a Doctor of the Church since the patristic period. He was famed for the persuasive way he united […]

ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 29 DECEMBER 2024 It’s the original Home Alone story. Like many pious Jews, Joseph, Mary and the kid had their holidays in Jerusalem during the weeklong Passover celebrations (Lk 2:41-52). They did this every year, only this time something went very wrong. Amidst the to-ing and fro-ing of the hundred thousand […]

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 15 December 2024 Can we measure happiness? One way might simply be to ask people how happy they feel on a scale of 1 to 10. But what about something more ‘scientific’, like the way we assess physical or mental health by testing bloods, VO2 Max and other observable symptoms? Can’t […]

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Thursday 2nd Week of Advent, 12 December 2024 Sometimes in life we feel besieged, as though, in the words of our Gospel, the violent were taking God’s kingdom by storm (Mt 11:11-15). In a report entitled Persecuted and Forgotten? Aid to the Church in Need recently named eighteen countries where Christians […]

St Ambrose Catholic Primary School, 8 December 2024 Today the Parish of St Ambrose has celebrated a century of service to the district. It began as a few dozen Catholic families coming together in each other’s homes to celebrate the Eucharist. They bought some land and built a temporary church that doubled as a school. […]

St Ambrose’s Parish, 8 December 2024 Last week (Lk 21:25-28,34-36) and this (Lk 3:1-6) we read from the Gospel of St Luke and will continue to do so every Sunday for the year ahead. St Luke the Evangelist was something of an overachiever, not content with just one area of expertise or writing just one […]

Holy Innocents Croydon, 1 December 2024 Reading the tea leaves is a common expression for attending to signs and being prescient in interpreting them with a view to knowing the future. Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council used an equivalent Scriptural phrase when they talked of “reading the signs of the times”.[1] ‘Tasse/ography’ […]

Feast of the Holy Apostle Andrew, St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney, 30 November 2024 At first there was one. Andrew Johnson, fisherman from Capernaum, was a seeker. He had followed the Baptist for a time, until he pointed out Jesus as the real Lamb of God.[1] On one account when that same Jesus called him, Andrew […]

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 24 November 2024 Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper follows the lives of two young boys, Tom Canty and Edward Tudor, born on the same day in 1537 and looking strikingly alike. For all the similarities their lives could not be more different: Tom lives in poverty with his alcoholic […]

As a genre, prison literature comes in many forms: narrative, poetry, journal entries, spiritual meditations, philosophical dialogue, just to name a few. Its popularity is understandable given the raw emotions that the thought of imprisonment evokes. Whether just or unjust, to be deprived of liberty…

Last week, much of the world watched on in anticipation for the results of the US Presidential Election. Broadcasters ran non-stop coverage of the count in real time, with panels of ‘experts’ analysing the results as they trickled in with fancy…

Sir Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, the 19th century Persian-Indian industrialist, founded India’s largest business conglomerate, the Tata Group, and established the eponymous city of Jamshedpur. In his lifetime he gave away more than $US100 billion in today’s values, far more than big…

In 2015, tech-giant Microsoft set out to build the world’s quietest room for testing headphones, microphones and the like.[1] After more than two years they had constructed a room of six layers of concrete and steel, sitting on vibration-damping springs. The floor is a grid of suspended cables and the walls…

Padraic Colum’s 1920 collection of Norse myths, The Children of Odin, was an example of the Celtic Literary Revival led by William Butler Yates Yeats, and including luminaries such as Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn. Odin was the Norse…

At the end of the Great Depression, social scientists enlisted a group of 268 sophomore students at Harvard, including the young John F. Kennedy, to be part of a longitudinal study aimed at better understanding happiness. The researchers traced the lives of the participants…

The British rock band Oasis recently sent the music world into a spin by announcing their reunion after a 15-year hiatus and proposing a 2025 world tour. One the most successful British bands of all time, Oasis dominated the 1990s pop scene, selling 70 million albums worldwide, until bandmates and blood brothers…

SEÑOR DE LA ASCENSIÓN CONCEPCIÓN PARISH, LA PRIMAVERA, CUMBAYÁ, QUITO “Stretch out your hand.” Simple words spoken to a man suffering from a withered hand—Luke tells us (Lk 6:6-11) it was his right one—which in the ancient world would have limited his ability to shake hands, do many jobs, earn a livelihood. It may well […]

The term ‘lawfare’ first came to prominence in 2001, when an American Air Force Colonel (now Major General and Professor of Law), Charles J. Dunlap Jnr, delivered a speech at Harvard University. He challenged what he saw as the weaponising of the legal system against the defence forces…

“Don’t shoot the messenger” is a popular saying, said to go all the way back to 441 BC when the great Sophocles wrote his tragedy Antigone. In one scene, a guard…

A distraught mother wails inconsolably as the corpse of her son is carried out for burial (Lk 7:11-17). We don’t know the cause of death, age of the deceased, or the family circumstances, but Luke the Beloved Physician is meticulous, as a health professional should be, in his observations and charting…

Stanislav Petrov: he’s been called “the man who saved the world”—a rather provocative title, since we know that Man and His Name wasn’t Stan…

The motto of the Olympics is ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’, Latin for ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’. It was proposed in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin, the French educationalist, historian, and founder of the modern Olympic movement…

Parapraxis, according to Sigmund Freud, is an error of speech due to an unconscious wish or internal train of thought.[1] More than moments of humour and humiliation, these ‘Freudian slips’ (as they came to be called) are supposedly windows into our true thoughts and feelings…

The British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has an illustrious CV. For 13 years he held the University of Oxford’s Chair in the Public Understanding of Science and in 2001 was made a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society. He’s authored nineteen books and countless articles and received numerous honours. His most important work has been on the role of genes and DNA in evolution, culminating in his…

Jesus mostly eschewed the limelight, preferring to preach and heal through small gestures that encouraged and persuaded, rather than big ones that wowed and overwhelmed. But sometimes He “let rip”, as it were, and today was such a day. He goes up a mountain as if He were the new Moses. But where the first Moses went to converse with God, this One is revealed to be the very conversation of God, the Logos, communication…

In 1955, Life magazine published an article on a new trend sweeping through households known as ‘throwaway living’.[1] There was an image of a family tossing household items like crockery and cutlery into the air, delighting in the freedom that was said to come from disposability. By getting rid of things after one use…

The adventure film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, was released in the year 2000. It tells the story of Chuck Noland, a FedEx troubleshooter who is stranded on a desert island following a plane crash. As the sole survivor, he must fend for himself, finding food, water and shelter, and try to find a way back to civilisation…

The term ‘quiet quitting’ first appeared in the social media a little over two years ago. A 17-second video clip that went viral on TikTok sparked a global debate about work especially amongst young, disaffected professionals. The online trend quickly morphed into a broader social phenomenon, with countless articles appearing in the mainstream media…

A recent article in Seek.com outlined the importance of a well-crafted job description for attracting suitable candidates and establishing expectations for the role.[i] According to the experts, a good j.d. must showcase the company, describe the critical functions and core responsibilities of the position, and specify qualifications and rewards.

It was probably the largest gathering ever held in Sydney. Half a million people packed the streets for a week. The opening and closing ceremonies gathered people of every stripe from all around our city, country and globe, ordinary people both young and old, and a Who’s Who of celebrities. Despite adverse publicity in the lead up, Sydney was a joyful host, and in the end almost everyone judged it a great success…

There’s a million dollar purse just waiting for you. All you have to do is be the first person to solve one of seven extremely complex maths problems.[1] Some of the conundrums are centuries old and have been attempted by some of the most brilliant minds in history. But in the 24 years since the Millennium Prize Problems were set and the reward offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute…

You’ve probably all heard of Siri, Alexa, Bixby and Google Assistant: in fact, at your young age, you probably know more about these things than I do. Some of you have already used them and most of you will in the future. They are virtual assistants for your smart phone, watch, tablet or computer, that perform tasks like reading out messages…

The Irish poet, dramatist and senator, William Butler Yeats, was one of the foremost literary figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1923 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for “his always inspired poetry, which in highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”[1] A central figure in the resurgence of Irish literature,[2] his influence stretched…

Twenty-eight years ago, following the Synod on consecrated life, Pope St John Paul II released his Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata.[1] Its opening sentence reads: “The Consecrated Life, deeply rooted in the example and teaching of Christ the Lord, is a gift of God the Father to his Church through the Holy Spirit.”…

Around 1600 Doménikos Theotok/ópoulos—known as El Greco—painted his Pentecost, now in the Prado in Madrid. Born in Crete, where he studied Byzantine iconography, he honed his skills at the feet of the master Titian, while imitating the likes of Michelangelo, Raphael and Tintoretto. Yet he had his own distinctive style, with tortuously elongated figures and phantasmagorical pigmentation…

I was there when Bishop Peter Ingham, during an Ad limina visit of all the Bishops of Australia to Rome, asked one of the gloriously dressed Vatican soldiers what country he was from. “Switzerland,” the guarded guard answered. “Switzerland?” Peter said, “I didn’t know there were Catholics in Switzerland.” Then he asked another of the guards, “And what country are you from?” “Switzerland,” the puzzled youth answered, to which the elderly Australian bishop responded…

The idea of the ‘golden ticket’ was first popularised in Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its subsequent film adaptations. A poor paperboy named Charlie Bucket has his life turned upside down when he finds a golden ticket in a chocolate bar, inviting him to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. He tours the chocolate palace with four other children: the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the snobby Veruca Salt…

Is war just human nature? According to a recent article in Scientific American, answers to this question tend to fall into two camps. The ‘Hawks’ hold that taking up arms is an evolved human behaviour aimed at eliminating competitors. War is an expression of natural animal aggression and defensiveness, preferencing survival of the group…

In today’s Gospel Jesus is in the Temple on the winter Feast of the Dedication or ‘Hannukah’ (Jn 10:22-30). Just as it is today, it was celebrated around the time of His birthday. Jewish holy days are Scriptural in origin: Shabbat, the Saturday day of rest and weekly observance of God’s completion of creation; Rosh Hashanah…

The Washington Post calls him “Britain’s rock-star shepherd”.[1] The “shepherd-author-influencer” with over a hundred thousand social media followers, James Rebanks rose to prominence off the back of his autobiography, The Shepherd’s Life (2015)…

In The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls the nineteenth-century American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a contemporary of John Bede Polding, used the imagery of an adventurer like Polding crossing oceans and lands to visit various communities, as a way to reflect on time and mortality…

עֲלֵיכֶם שָׁלוֹם Shalom aleichem. Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν Eirēnē humin. Pax vobiscum. Peace be with you. So Jesus greets His disciples in today’s Gospel (Lk 24:35-48) and His other post-resurrection appearances (Jn 20:19,21,26). It was, of course, His customary greeting, blessing and farewell…

It’s the holiest place on earth—the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—and on entering it the first thing you see is the Stone of Unction, traditionally the slab upon which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus laid out the dead Jesus to embalm Him (Jn 19:39-40). Last year I was blessed to visit that place with Father Lewi…

The Holy Lance or Spear of Destiny is the one that pierced Jesus’ side in today’s Passion of St John (Jn chs 18 & 19 at 19:34). Like the Grail (or chalice) of the Last Supper, the Lance became the subject of various extrabiblical traditions, including the Arthurian legend. In Chrétien de Troyes’ medieval poem Perceval, the Fisher King has keeping of both Lance and Grail…

The quest for the Holy Grail was part of the Arthurian legend that evolved in the Middle Ages, first in Celtic ballards and then French romances.[1] In Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval, the grail was a miraculous food salver, protected by the Fisher King.[2] When Robert de Boron retold the tale in his Joseph of Arimathea, it had become the Chalice used by Our Lord at His Last Supper, now with healing powers…

Liquid gold. Homer’s ancient name for olive oil[1] has made a comeback, following a surge in prices across the Mediterranean.[2] Drought and a bacterial infection have seen global production fall this past year and the price of a litre of olive oil rise from €5 to as much as €20. Last week it was reported that olive oil is now the most shoplifted product in Spain, surpassing even razor blades, alcohol and ham, and shops…

‘Warts and all.’ It means an unsanitised picture or narrative of someone, free of enhancements, complete with flaws. It means being shown the unadulterated truth, the bad along with the good. Some ascribe the saying to Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector (or military dictator) in the 1650s…

“Sir, can we please see Jesus.” (Jn 12:20-33) They were Greeks who had come up to Jerusalem for Passover. They approached Philip because he spoke Greek like them. By now Jesus was the hottest ticket in town—the ancient near-eastern Taylor Swift—and to get near Him you needed connections. He was famed for His miracles, teachings, personality…

“The Son of Man must be lifted up, like the serpent Moses lifted up in the desert” (Jn 3:14). It’s an extraordinary thing for Jesus to compare Himself with a snake, for in the ancient world serpent-gods were amongst the worst. Apep, the Egyptian god of chaos, took the form of a serpent. Medusa, the Gorgon sister of Greek mythology…

It was thought to be a rather ordinary Baroque painting, by an unknown disciple of Guido Reni, so its reserve price at a Paris auction house was €6,000. But the baroque depiction of Moses sold just over a year ago for a staggering €600,000.[1] Art dealer Fabrizio Moretti was so convinced of its worth, he outbid all the competition.[2] He had the painting restored, uncovering a striking luminesce beneath the ageing varnish and centuries of filth, and confirmed that it was by the Baroque master Giovanni Barbieri, known as “Guercino”—the squinter—because of a lazy eye that clearly didn’t compromise…

It was known as The Nuremberg Defence. Following the Second World War, an International Military Tribunal was established by the principal Allied powers, tasked with prosecuting those responsible for the most heinous of the Nazi “crimes against humanity”. The so-called ‘Nuremberg Trials’ convicted nineteen officials for their roles in planning…

The recently aired ABC docuseries Nemesis offers a dramatic account of the internal wars, external challenges and multiple leadership coups of the Liberal-National Party coalition when in power from 2013 to ’22. In particular, it charts the rise and fall of Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, based on interviews with two of them and a supporting cast of ministers and staffers. It’s a captivating tale of the perils of power and personality, the egos…

Jonah was a prophet from the eighth century before Christ, whose tug-o-war with God gave us one of the great stories of vocational call and response, fright and flight, failure and success in a calling—all of which explains why we hear excerpts from the story in Lent, the season of return and reconciliation. But all most people know about Jonah is that he spent…

Whether it’s ads on TV or your smartphone, flyers in doctors’ surgeries, billboards at railway stations, everywhere we look, we’re challenged to “torch, tone and transform”—torch the fat, tone the muscles, transform our fitness. There are workouts designed for your particular body-shape and goals, dietary exclusions and supplements, lifestyle fixes, coaching and motivational techniques…

‘Life-extensionists,’ ‘immortalists’ or ‘longevists’—their goal is to live for as long as they can. Using tissue rejuvenation, regenerative medicine, molecular and gene therapy, stem cells, organ replacement, and pharmaceuticals, they try to push the boundaries of the human life span. The American tech entrepreneur, Bryan Johnson, has gone to extreme lengths, including multimillion-dollar…

Rod Serling’s popular sci-fi series, The Twilight Zone, ran for five seasons between 1959 and 1964. : Ranked amongst the most successful television series of all time, it had a reputation for suspenseful, mind-bending narratives that ended with a clever, unforeseen twist. The Twilight Zone has since been remade three times as a TV series and twice as a movie…

For thirty years now ‘adventure’ films have been the most popular; the related genre of ‘action’ films come in a close second. We laugh hilariously at well scripted comedies, are enthralled by tense dramas, and comforted by touching love stories. But ticket sales prove adventure attracts us most. What is it about the episodes…

In 1809 Governor Macquarie granted a thousand acres fifty kilometres south-west of Sydneytown to Robert Townson, Esq.[1] Townson was proficient in all branches of natural science, and also in Latin, Greek, French and German, and by far the most eminent scholar in the young colony of New South Wales…

A while ago TIME magazine published an article on “How to Raise Happy Kids.”[1] It began by noting that whilst there’s a plethora of information on how to raise successful and clever children —whether traditional, personal, pop cultural or more scientifically validated. But the overwhelming concern of parents is their children’s happiness. Moreover, wise…

Previously Chief Justice of Newfoundland, the Bermuda-born Scots lawyer, Francis Forbes, arrived in Sydney Town in March 1824 to assume the office of Chief Justice of New South Wales.[1] In May the Charter of Justice establishing the Supreme Court was proclaimed, and the oath of office administered to the newly appointed Attorney-General and Registrar. Practicing certificates were granted soon after. At that stage Forbes was not only the chief judge but the only one…

The idea of Terra Australis Incognita, a huge and mysterious southern continent, was born of two ideas in the ancient world.[1] First, it was hypothesised that if the world was round—as most experts in the ancient world agreed it was—then to keep the balance there would likely be a great land mass in the Southern hemisphere as big as Eurasia in the North, sustaining a large antipodean population….

Years ago, I was in a lift in Goold House, then the Archdiocese of Melbourne’s chancery building, when I overheard some officials discussing the translation of George Pell to Sydney. One remarked that his motto had been “Be not afraid” and wondered what his successor’s watchword would be. From the back of the lift I whispered, “Be very afraid!”…

“On the twenty-fifth day of December in the Year of Our Lord 2023, when ages beyond number had run their course since the redemption of the world; when century upon century had passed since the Cross called all humanity to peace; in the twenty-first century since the apostles went out to all the world; in the 78th year of the reign of the United..

Only four sleeps till Christmas or three for those attending the Midnight Mass. Three or four sleeps till we receive the greatest ever gift. What shall we call it? The Prophet Isaiah names it עִמָּנוּאֵל Emmanu-ēl, God-with-us (Isa 7:14; 8:8). But what kind of God is this God with us? A few verses later Isaiah gives us more names: פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ‎ אֵל גִּבּוֹר אֲבִיעַד שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם‎  Pe-leʾ yōʿēṣ  ʾēl gībbōr  ʾáḇīʿaḏ  śar-šālōm, Wonder Counsellor…

Harald Gormsson (911- c. 985), son of Gorm the Languid, was a tenth-century King of the Danes (c. 958 – c. 985). He united what are today Denmark, Norway and Sweden as one Viking kingdom. He was the father of Sweyn Forkbeard, and grandfather of King Canute, the King of England who famously ordered the tide to halt and not wet his toe…

“Enjoy!” the young lady said to me as she handed me a café latte recently. My instinct was to correct her grammar, to suggest that “Rejoice” would be a better imperative or subjunctive verb. But you can’t complain when a young person is wishing you well, maybe even blessing you without realising it. And today is Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday, as if the Church…

The Book of Genesis has many tales of sibling rivalry. The first brothers fight, and Cain kills Abel (Gen 4). There’s tension between Abraham’s son Isaac and his half-brother Ishmael (Gen 21). Isaac’s son Jacob fights with his twin Esau even in the womb and eventually steals his brother’s birthright (Gen 25 & 27). Jacob’s sons demonstrate the same family…

It’s not from the psalms, nor is it Bishop Brady’s personal anthem: no, the theme song of the American sitcom The Brady Bunch is one I suspect most of us of a certain age could sing from memory.[1] The pop culture phenomenon aired…

According to Dictionary.com, a ‘screenager’ is any teen or young person who is proficient at using smartphones, computers, or tech gadgets in general, and who spends considerable amounts of time on social media or gaming apps.[1] Screenagers are mostly Gen-Zedders, born between 1996 and 2010. They are the…

His name amongst Jews is Yirmeyahu (ירמיה), amongst Muslims Irmiyā, and for Christians Jeremiah “the weeping prophet” (c. 650-570 BC). To him are attributed the Books of Jeremiah, of Kings and of Lamentations. The last of these, from which we have just read (Lam 3:17-26), is a series of poetic laments…

The aphorism “Ipsa scientia potestas est”—knowledge itself is power—was coined by the English statesman and pioneer of the scientific method, Sir Francis Bacon in his Meditationes Sacrae (1597). It was simplified a half-century later in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan as ‘knowledge is power.’
Yet the idea goes back…

Cappadocia is now one of Turkey’s hottest tourist destinations, alongside Istanbul, Ephesus and Gallipoli. Sitting atop the plateau of the Anatolian peninsula with its idyllic rock formations, including caves, cliffs and sweeping valleys, it now attracts millions each year. But it’s not just a place of natural wonder. Cut into the rock are some the best-preserved churches…

It’s the tenth largest ‘economy’ in the world, with a turnover of between $US1.7T to 4.5T per year, placing it somewhere between Canada and Germany as an economic power.[1] Yet it’s illegal and costs far more jobs than it creates. I’m talking about the counterfeit economy. Not counterfeit currency: that’s going out of vogue. But counterfeit luxury…

In 1792 the baby-faced Louis Saint-Just made his maiden speech in the National Convention, the new-formed parliament of the First French Republic. For the ambitious and idealistic young…

The proverb ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, is simple enough to understand: the promise of less is preferable to the possibility of more; security to be preferred to risk-taking; certainty over mere hope. The saying comes down to us from the late medieval Austin friar, John Capgrave…

Last week the Governance Institute of Australia released their eighth annual Ethics Index which charts popular perceptions of how ethical is the conduct of those in particular professions and sectors. The 2023 results indicate that, as a nation, we expect more in terms of integrity, professionalism and honesty…

In ancient times the celestial spheres were thought to influence our health, moods, actions, fate. It’s not so crazy: after all, the sun is crucial for days and seasons, sleep and wake, photosynthesis and life. It’s light and warmth affects our moods, and some people suffer seasonal affective disorders. Its partner, the moon, influences the earth’s axis and wobble…

Over the last fortnight, the world has watched on in horror as two disasters struck North Africa. First, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake claimed around 3,000 lives as it devastated Morocco’s capital Marrakech and wiped-out whole villages in the Atlas Mountains. Those mountains rise by 1mm per year as tectonic plates press against each other, but roughly once-in-a…

In our highly sexualised culture, celibacy is often despised or belittled. It’s said no normal man would commit to it. Yet here in the Archdiocese of Sydney we will have four ordinations to the priesthood this year, we had five last year, six in COVID time, and six in the year before…

He was at the height of his powers going into the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The British sprinter, Derek Redmond, held the British record over 400m and the year before was on the relay team that upset the red-hot US squad, winning the world championships. His Olympic campaign couldn’t have started better: he blitzed the field in his qualifying heat and…

Having lost his only sibling, his mother and then his father before he reached adulthood, Karol Józef Wojtyła knew the importance of family. It would be one of his chief areas of teaching as pope, running like a watermark throughout his 27-year pontificate. Pope John Paul II believed the family is the school for a deeper humanity, the nursery of faith…

“We don’t need no education,
We don’t need no thought control,
No dark sarcasm in the classroom,
Teacher, leave them/us kids alone”
Pink Floyds’ 1979 protest song, Another Brick in the Wall, was a massive hit…

With 87 winning teams in over 15 franchises so far, The Amazing Race is the most popular reality tv adventure show of all time. Teams of two with a limited budget traverse the globe on various forms of transport, navigating unfamiliar territory, solving puzzles, interacting with locals, and overcoming physical…

Weather charts, soil quality, ploughing, seeding, growth, pests and weeds, first-fruits, harvesting, grain yield (Isa 55:10-11; Ps 64(65); Rom 8:18-23; Mt 13:1-23)—today’s readings are positively horticultural.
God is presented as a gardener from the…

José Salvador Alvarenga is hardly a household name, but perhaps it deserves to be. In 2012 José and his mate Ezequiel set out on a seven-metre fibreglass boat for a night of fishing off the Mexican coast. It proved to be a nightmare. A catastrophic five-day long storm left them with no engine or radio. They had no instruments to figure out their location…

Recently, some MPs joined some young people at the Federal Parliament to launch the ‘Make it 16’ campaign.[1] : They were supporting lowering the voting age so teens will be more politically engaged and bring their concerns to government. At present young people can work, pay taxes, serve in the armed…

Sixty years ago next month, the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land sent two bark petitions—framed by traditional ochre paintings—to the Federal Parliament, protesting the grant of mining rights in Arnhem Land and seeking…

As a Fisher I am pleased to observe that there’s plenty of Anglophone idiom about fish. When asked before the last conclave if he was in the running for pope, the late great Cardinal Pell said it was one thing to be “a big fish in a small pond” like Australia, but that there were “plenty of fish” in the sees of the universal Church. He was himself subsequently the victim…

Evoking Charles Dickens’archenemy of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge (in A Christmas Carol 1843), the economist Joel Waldfogelhas written Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays. He invites us to consider that “rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike” that we’ve…

Alexander III (356-323 BC) was tutored by Aristotle and mentored by his father Philip II, before assuming the throne of Macedon aged only 20. Over the following thirteen years he led military conquests of many lands from Greece to as far as India, creating one of the largest empires in history and inaugurating the …

Therapists and life-coaches describe it as the antidote to our fast-paced and distracted lives, and a remedy for many physical and psychological ailments.[1] Self-help guru Tony Robbins says it’s the best thing we can do for ourselves and others.[2] And Forbes magazine…

C. S. Lewis said that “In Heaven, everything is either silence or music.”[1] The Christian God is the Word, the God who speaks. Yet, paradoxically, He dwelt voiceless in His mother’s womb for nine months, entered the world as a wordless baby, lived in obscurity in Nazareth for most of His life, and accomplished His redemptive work muted in His Passion…

It’s a scene you could picture on the beach of Bondi or Manly on a summer’s day. A boy is digging a hole in the sand, frantically running backwards and forwards to the water’s edge to fill his little well with a seashell-full of seawater at a time. But strangely, instead of a lifesaver or bikini girl coming up to him, a bishop in full liturgical vestments…

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” These eight words, together with a rather catchy theme song immediately evoke the Mission Impossible franchise. I grew up with the TV series (1966-73, 1988-89) about a small team of secret agents who apply their strategies and skills against existential threats from cold war enemies, corrupt government…

You’re probably wondering about my immobility. I can confirm it wasn’t a skateboarding accident—although I do now have a knee scooter and I’ve been engaging in some stellar manoeuvres. Last month I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of Sydney Catholic school principals…

Health officials called her the Mystery Girl, following her rescue from the devastating earthquake in southern Türkiye and neighbouring Syria earlier this year. Three-and-a-half-month-old Vetin Begdas had been buried for five days beneath the rubble of her family home in Hatay province. Amongst the more than 50,000 dead were all Vetin’s siblings…

The Lamentation over the Dead Christ on the wall of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua is one of the most haunting representations of grief in Western art. Giotto situates Christ’s companions around His lifeless corpse after He has been removed from the cross. Each expresses grief differently: with hands joined in prayer, reaching out to touch…

It’s the most natural fear of all. Consciously or not, we do all we can to postpone it and to avoid thinking about it. We stave it off with medicine, hygiene, diet and exercise. But in the end death is inevitable: death and taxes, as they say. St Augustine called it “the debt that must be paid”.

When it comes to death, modernity…

We know what the proverb means, but not where it comes from. “The eyes are the window to the soul” has been attributed to Sophia Loren,[1] Charlotte Brontë,[2] Ben Jonson,[3] Shakespeare,[4] da Vinci,[5] Cicero[6] and the Bible[7], though none of them actually said it. The thought is that you can read on someone’s face and eyes what’s going on underneath and who they really are. Eyes are more than receptacles for light; they also give back…

‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ is the idea that by pooling information, experience and judgment, groups of people make better decisions than individuals alone. Writers in social psychology, market economics, evolutionary biology and other fields argue that, as social animals, we achieve much more by collaborating with others. It’s not a new idea: in the Politics…

‘Jesus wept.’ (Jn 11:35) It’s the shortest and most moving verse of the New Testament. In two powerful words we glimpse the fullness of Jesus’ humanity: that rather than expressing a divine distance, impassability and indifference, Jesus is God come close, so close He could be overwhelmed with compassion for the suffering sisters, so close He could know for Himself…

Mr Beast is the YouTube moniker of 24-year-old American internet sensation, Jimmy Donaldson. After a youth misspent watching silly video clips, he decided to go viral himself with a series of outlandish stunts: going to the same fast-food outlet a thousand times in a row; building an exact replica of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; reading every word in the dictionary; eating a golden pizza…

The artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT was launched recently, breaking all records by reaching 100 million users in its first month. (By way of comparison: Google took a year to get that number of users, Instagram needed two, and Facebook only got there after four years![1]). As a result, the OpenAI company…

Launched in 2010 by then Education Minister, Julia Gillard, the My Schools website was a smash hit from the get-go, amassing 1.5 million hits on its first day—and causing more than a few technical glitches. It was intended to offer parents, educators and community as much accessible information as possible about our schools. Student population data would socio-economic advantage…

It’s a well-known rule of social etiquette: never bring up politics or religion at a dinner party. What’s the go with this advice? Well, the thought seems to be: don’t spoil a social engagement by raising a topic that might prove divisive or even cause a heated disagreement. Questions concerning how we should be governed…

The heart is an amazing organ. Although hardly bigger than a closed fist, it beats more than 100,000 times a day without us even having to think about it. It pumps about 7,000 litres of blood around the body each day—the equivalent of a large household rainwater tank…

Übermensch was the name given by the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) to those who were above and beyond the ordinary run of human beings.[1] Sometimes the term is translated ‘Superman’, like the comic, TV and movie hero, but that’s not what Nietzsche meant. For him, the übermensch was no sci-fi being with otherworldly…

In 2007 Cardinal Pell issued guidelines reminding clergy that funeral homilies should focus on the Scriptures and the Catholic faith, especially regarding the Resurrection and God’s mercy, and not be a eulogy or canonisation ceremony for the deceased. So, this one last time, Your Eminence, I will try to do as I’m told…

Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for the Solemn Pontifical Funeral Mass for George Cardinal Pell, Companion of the Order of Australia, Prefect Emeritus of the Secretariat of the Economy, and our beloved former Archbishop.

George was born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1941 to Margaret and George (Senior)…

In a recent Quarterly Essay entitled “Uncivil Wars: How contempt is corroding democracy”,[1] Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens addressed the contemporary phenomenon that every demographic feels victimised, and every issue draws sharp lines between us. Opposing sides consider themselves shamed and cancelled and regard the others as bullies and “deplorables”. Outrage and contempt are the emotions of the age. This undermines our ability to dialogue and govern…

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons, all were keepers of sheep; Abel, Moses and David were also.[1] Like his ancestor Jacob, David called the Lord his ‘Shepherd’, and some of the prophets followed suit.[2] While Israel’s leaders often proved to be poor shepherds,[3] God promised them better ones, shepherds after His own heart…

“He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not,” so the game goes as petal after petal is plucked from a daisy until the last petal answers the question. The history of ‘the Daisy Oracle’ has been traced through 19th-century classics such as Goethe’s Faust (1808) and Adam’s ballet Giselle (1841) back to the songbook of a 15th-century German nun (Clara Hätzlerin 1471) and before…

There are a few contenders for the most iconic line in an Aussie film. Who could forget Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee (1986) saying: “That’s not a knife”? Or Farmer Hogget (played by James Cromwell) at the end of Babe (1995): “That’ll do pig, that’ll do”? But perhaps the most popular Aussie film line, if sheer recitations are anything to go by, are four words uttered by Darryl Kerrigan…

Professionally speaking, Luke was an overachiever. His ancient near eastern LinkedIn entry has him as a physician (Col 4:14), missionary (Acts 16:8-10; 20:5; Philem 24; 2Tim 4:11), and historian, whose publications include the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles (Lk 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2) both of which made the New York Times Best Sellers list. Likely of Syrian background like Paul…

I suspect the groggy eyes of some of the congregation today have something to do with a certain football tournament taking place on the other side of the world. Some fanatics might have stayed up to watch Australia defeat Tunisia, and three more matches before coming to Mass! A few here might even have been interested in Croatia’s draw with Morocco last Wednesday or be up to see it go head-to-head with Canada…

Elizabeth (1207-31) was born possibly in modern-day Bratislava, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Queen Gertrude, sister of St Hedwig. At the age of four or five…

The recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II was mourned by millions the world over. A model of faith expressed in public service, of calm and steadfastness in adversity, and of leadership and comfort for her people, she loved Australia and Australians reciprocated. The crowds attending or watching her funeral rites…

Recently three Catholic University of America researchers published Well-being, Trust and Policy in a Time of Crisis: Highlights from the National Study of Catholic Priests. It paints a rather bleak picture of priests’ fears of false accusations of abuse and of being abandoned by their bishop if that happened.[1] Ever since the U.S. Bishops’ instigated the Dallas Charter…

In the 1992 film, Forever Young, Mel Gibson plays a US Air Corps pilot Daniel McCormick, who has himself cryogenically stored for a year to avoid witnessing the death of his comatose girlfriend Helen(played by Isabel Glasser). But something goes wrong and he wakes…

This past week, the Church marked the sixtieth anniversary of opening of the Second Vatican Council. It was an event of epic, even biblical proportions. Where there were 200-300 bishops at the Councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Trent (1545-63), and just over 700 at the First Vatican Council (1869-70), nearly 3,000 bishops from 112 countries…

Productivity apps are among the most popular today. Driving this is the yearning to squeeze as much as we can out of each week, day and hour, to get more done, more efficiently. Of course, this push for greater productivity predates smartphones and apps…

The Bible is ambivalent about monarchy.[1] The kings of the earth threatened the security of Israel, and the people long resisted having their own king, lest he be a rival to God’s sovereignty. The Jews were taught to “put not your trust in princes, in mortal men in whom there is no help”.[2] On the other hand, they thought of God as their heavenly king …

He was only 15 when the Nazis deported him and his family to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister were killed on arrival. He felt his God and his soul died that day also, and all his dreams turned to dust. But the boy and his father were able-bodied and selected for hard labour. They were transferred to Buchenwald in Germany where the father died soon after. But the boy survived to be liberated …

Recently the ACCC reported that Australian businesses and consumers lost over $2B to scams and frauds in 2021.[1] This is more than double the amount lost in 2020. The numbers are staggering: more than one in ten adults has experienced some form of personal fraud, with credit and debit card …

It was born out of boredom. Birmingham was one of the most heavily bombed cities during World War II and so Anthony Pratt spent a fair share of his time bored in bomb shelters. Inspired by Agatha Christie’s murder-mysteries, as well as the parlour games of his youth, Pratt devised a “who done it” boardgame. Players …

The annual gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has been dubbed the “Oscars of Fashion.”[1] The event sees A-list celebrities, fashion royalty, the uber wealthy and politicians rubbing shoulders as they vie for the paparazzi’s attention by dressing in ornate themed costumes. Controversially …

They are called ‘eternal pictures’ due to their remarkable durability. Mosaics are intricate images formed by joining together thousands of glass and stone tesserae or tiles—some as tiny as 4mm square.[1] The ancient Mesopotamians, Greeks and Romans decorated temples, bathhouses and palaces …

Like most groups of teenage boys, the Wild Boars Soccer Team were a boisterous and adventurous bunch. They enjoyed each other’s company on and off the field, and regularly explored together the cave system near their local village in northern Thailand. Whether it was scrawling their names on the walls or initiating new members into the team, the caves …

In the introduction to his book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, best-selling British author Johann Hari offers a striking illustration of our declining ability to be present and attend to the things right in front of us. On a recent visit to Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate in Memphis, he encountered devout pilgrims of the King of Rock and Roll, both young and old, taking in the experience …

Most ‘Reality TV’ is not be very real, but something about it captivates many Australians. Recent data suggest that half of the most watched shows in this country are in that genre; the rest are sports. These have included the finales of Masterchef Australia, The Block, Australian Idol, The Voice and My Kitchen Rules.

Earlier this morning tens of thousands of participants in the annual City2Surf race set off from just outside our cathedral. Now in its 51st year, the race has become something of an institution, drawing considerable media attention. Alongside world-class runners and wheelchair athletes are mum and dad hobbyists, work colleagues dressed as Smurfs …

A few weeks ago the news was awash with the first pictures from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The giant telescope, which cost $10 billion dollars to design, build and launch, is “powerful enough to catch the heat of infrared light in the cold darkness of space, but light enough to be carried by a rocket more …

“Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples ask Jesus. But what does it mean to ‘pray’? Put simply, prayer is raising our heart and mind to God, mostly with a view to encounter and conversation. So Jesus begins His short course on prayer with saying: “Speak to God as Father, our heavenly holy Father.” Begin with your relationship with God …

It’s a quintessential rags-to-riches tale. Having failed to land a teaching job and needing to support herself and her husband who was still studying, Betsy Sanders took a sales apprentice position in a department store for less than $2.50 an hour. Her ‘temporary’ employment with Nordstrom ended up lasting two decades, by the end of which she …

The Aussie writer-director Baz Luhrmann is an undeniable titan of his craft. Four of the top ten grossing Australian films of all time are by him,[i] and his latest biopic, Elvis, is well on the way to being another smash hit. His style is utterly distinct: vivid eye-catching costumes, dizzyingly fast-paced action, operatic scores, …

Second Assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 8 July 2022 A very warm welcome to you all to St Mary’s Cathedral for our Votive Mass of Mary, Mother of the Church. As we embark on our last full day of work for the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia, we […]

The Martin family story has all the ingredients for a binge-worthy Netflix series. Ambition, success and failure, heartaches and joys, fateful encounters and divine blessings, a family of heroes, it even had the valleys of Normandy as a beautiful backdrop! Yet ironically, neither Louis nor Zélie thought much …

When last in Rome I saw for the umpteenth time one of the most breathtaking panoramas of the Holy City: that from the Parco Savello or Orange Grove atop the Aventine Hill.

Thank you all for joining us for the Walk With Christ procession on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ—Corpus Christi. First the construction of the George Street tram, then the COVID pandemic and associated limitations on public gatherings, have in recent years interfered with this particular tribute of love and public witness.

In 1967 a rather precocious young Anthony Fisher complained to Sr Mary Eucharia RSM that the new hymn she was teaching us—Sr Miriam Therese Winter’s “I saw raindrops on my window: joy is like the rain”—seemed barely to mention God. In response Sister offered us a better hymn: she taught us Richard Connolly and James McAuley’s ♪♪ Seek, O seek the Lord, while He is near, Trust …

In the feature article in today’s Sydney Morning Herard Lauren Ironmonger asks whether monogamy is dead and we are destined for multiple contemporaneous and successive primary loves?[1] She says it is the question on the mind of millennials as they navigate the perennial human …

The great Renaissance art historian, Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), was an advocate of Graeco-Roman, Romanesque and neo-classical architecture, but no fan of the ‘French’ mediaeval aesthetic with its pointed arches, vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses …

Two years before he was catapulted to stardom as “Crocodile Dundee,” Paul Hogan graced American TV with an advertisement for Australian Tourism (1984).[i] He demonstrated the cheerful, laid-back demeanour of Aussies, while showcasing some of our beautiful landscapes including Sydney Harbour.

Welcome to the Church of St. Anne, Strathfield South, for the Pontifical Mass of Christian Burial for Fr Raymond John Weaver, a Priest of the Archdiocese of Sydney. Fr Ray was born in 1937, was a seminarian at St Patrick’s College Manly and was ordained to the priesthood by …

In a world with striking parallels to our own, a young woman named Caterina di Benincasa (1347-80) from Siena was called to apply her gifts in …

n the extreme sport of free-diving, competitors hold their breath unaided for as long as they can and drop to a depth of water as low as they can before resurfacing: some of you here tonight may have tried this as kids and given your mothers a fright! The king of this sport is Viennese-born Herbert Nitsch…

Just across the way from us, at the heart of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, stands what some consider to be Australia’s greatest sculpture.1 Rayner Hoff’s bronze of ‘Sacrifice’ (1930-34) is in the Hall of Silence amidst many other features created by him. At remembrance services and other times, the sculpture is the object of contemplation for staff, pilgrims and tourists.

Simon Peter and John come running to the tomb (Jn 20:1-9). In Eugène Burnand’s impressionist painting of the incident (1898, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), it is a glorious dawn and Peter is staring ahead, hand-on-heart, finger pointing forward, face confused like a rabbit in headlights.

When people come to church on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, All Souls Day or even Easter, most don’t do so out of sentimentality or habit as they might at Christmas, but rather because the feast itself and the ritual speaks to some challenge in their lives. This year’s Triduum has come in dark times …

Last Sunday’s Passion of St Luke and today’s of St John are in different keys. At Luke’s Passover-turned-Eucharist Jesus spoke ominously of betrayal to come and communing in His broken body. He told His men to bring swords to Compline in the Garden. He sweated blood while begging the Father to relieve Him of what was coming.

They’ve been dark times of late. The world has recoiled at the invasion of a free nation by a bully power, and at the numbers dead, damaged or driven out. Closer to home we’ve had bush-fires, floods, mice, COVID. Lockdowns and other public health measures have taken their toll psychologically, educationally and financially.

Listening has been a particular theme of Pope Francis’ pontificate. Amidst the information overload and polarisations of modernity, and while promoting a more synodal Church, the Holy Father has regularly called us to listen more closely to what God and His people are saying. He begins his message for next month’s World Communications Day[ii] with the deep human need to be heard …

Not too far from the Colosseum and Forum, at the summit of the ancient Via Sacra or Holy Street in Rome, stands a 15-metre-high arch. ­ The marble monument was constructed in 71 AD by the Emperor Domitian to commemorate a victory, the year before, of his older brother …

One of the best-selling non-fiction books of recent years has been Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos. Since its release in 2018, 12 Rules has sold over 5 million copies world-wide and propelled its author to pop-star status amongst cultural influencers and life coaches.

Old guys like me tend to ask younger people the same question. Not: do you prefer the Marvel universe or DC? Not: what’s your favourite team / fast food / dating app? Not: what’s your university, Netflix or Stan? Not even: what’s your religion, Apple or Android?

In 1971 Japanese salesman Goro Hasegawa rebooted a popular nineteenth century board-game with the new name Othello, in homage to its black-and-white discs. Two players take turns laying down their counters on an 8×8 squared board; when one surrounds the other’s disc it is ‘captured’ by being turned over as the other colour …

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 20 March 2022 At a recent meeting with some very impressive young school leaders I was asked why God allows innocent people like those in Ukraine to suffer. The question was heart-felt and others may have had other examples of innocent suffering on their minds, such as the victims of Australia’s […]

Late last year Netflix aired a documentary, 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible, that told the story of Nirmal Purja, known to his friends as ‘Nims’. A former Gurkha turned mountaineer, on 23 April 2019 he climbed Annapurna, the deadliest mountain in the world.

Part of being human is experiencing fear and anxiety. From a very early age, we recognise that some things are a threat to us and even the thought of them can make us tremble. When fears become phobias they can be quite irrational and controlling.

In 1988 two brothers, Thomas and John Knoll, created a computer programme that would be so widely used that thirty-plus years later the noun has become a verb and describes an activity no matter what app is used. Photoshop was originally intended for graphic designers, but it’s now well and truly mainstream.

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 27 February 2022 Archdiocese of Sydney · Homily for Solemn Pontifical Mass of the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C How deceitful words can be and how empty. Many would say this of the recent propaganda of the Russian President and of the huffing and puffing of world leaders. Only […]

Born in Darfur, Sudan, around 1869, a girl was kidnapped when aged 7 or 8 by Arab slave traders. She was made to walk barefoot 1,000 km to El-Obeid, forced to convert to Islam, and given the Arab name ‘Bakhita’ meaning lucky. Sold as a slave five times in all, she suffered repeated abuse, including elaborate scarification of her breasts, belly and arms, and being repeated lashed.

While having a bath, baby Tommy refused to part with a piece of parchment with the words ‘Ave Maria’ on it, and instead put it in his mouth and swallowed it.

Like the afflictions of Egypt, Australia over the past two years has known bushfires, floods, a mouse plague and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of you may know T.S. Eliot’s dramatic poem The Journey of the Magi, which he wrote in 1927 over half a bottle of gin.[i]It’s an unusual account of the expedition and its aftermath, told in the voice of one of the kings.

We all love a good ghost story. : In the highest grossing film of 1990, Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, there was romance, comedy, mystery and cheesiness. But like many such films, it bumped up against the metaphysical problem of bringing spiritual and material beings together.

If ever you get to travel overseas again, and you find yourself in Florence, I suggest you stop at the Dominican Priory of San Marco. There between 1438 and 1452 the great Dominican painter, Blessed Fra Angelico, and team made over fifty frescoes and altarpieces, many of which are still in situ, making it the largest surviving group of related works by any Italian renaissance artist.

‘The great slave revolt’: so the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called the triumph of Christianity in the ancient world and he thought it no good thing.[1] Before Judaeo-Christianity came to dominate the West, he thought, morality was based on a distinction between virtuous individuals

There’s an old Peanuts comic in which Snoopy is doing his happy dance at the turn of the year. : The ever-bleak Lucy shouts out, “How can you be happy when you don’t know what this year has in store for you? Don’t you worry about all the things that can go wrong?”

“You are the rock on which I will build my Church,” Jesus says to Peter this morning (Mt 16:13-19). “You are God’s building… the temple in which the spirit dwells,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians as well (1 Cor 3:9-17). Why, then, do we bother to build churches for God of dead stones when each of us is His living building?

The presence tonight of bishops from both the Latin and Oriental Rites, Catholic and Orthodox, reminds us that today’s feast is an ancient one, celebrated both in East and West: the Conception in Saint Anne of Holy Mary Mother of God.

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he felt sorry for them, because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:35-10:8). Our translation “felt sorry for” misses the mark: it’s both mild and aloof. But our English word ‘sorry’ does share the same root as the word ‘sore’, just as our words ‘sympathy’ and ‘compassion’ share roots with ‘pathos’ and ‘passion’.

Theodor Geisel—‘Dr. Seuss’ to those who grew up on his stories—was a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning children’s author. He composed and illustrated more than sixty children’s books, mostly in anapestic tetrameter, the preferred meter of poets like Byron. Over 600 million copies of his books were sold in his lifetime, and translated into 45 languages, including Spanish, so Mexicans and Columbians could read him

Integrity commissions are all the rage. The states have them and the Commonwealth will too—eventually. Such agencies attempt to root out abuses of office, perversions of justice and other corrupt conduct in public administration. Their investigations have brought down premiers and other public officials

Kings and kingship: they frame the story of Jesus. The New Testament begins with Jesus’ family tree showing He’s a direct descendant of King David, via his step-father Joseph (Mt 1:1-17; Lk 2:4).

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

At the end of Shakespeare’s great tragedy Macbeth, the king is dead and Malcolm is hailed King of Scots.[1] He undertakes to serve “by the grace of Grace” unlike the “dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”,[2] Lady Macbeth. But would his wife be any better?

At the then-customary examination before Confirmation, a child was asked by a bishop to define Matrimony. She nervously recited from memory: “Matrimony is a place where souls suffer for a time after death on account of their sins.”

In the sixth century BC a slave named Aesop told the fable of a Fox who, being hard-hunted and having run a long chase, sought refuge from a Farmer who told the Fox to hide in his barn.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 sparked the First World War and left his nephew Karl as heir presumptive. Karl had studied law and politics and was a military man.

They’re at it again. James and John are lobbying for special positions in Jesus’ kingdom (Mk 10:35-45; cf. 9:30-37).

The Hebrew word for wisdom חָכְמָה (chokmâh), the Greek word σοφια (sophia) and the Latin sapientia are all feminine nouns. So, naturally enough, the ancients personified Wisdom as a woman.

One of Karl Marx’s daughters once confessed to a friend that she had no religion and really knew nothing about it—unsurprising, given her father was the inventor of atheistic communism!

What’s in a word? We use words to name or describe, to reason, learn and remember, and to communicate to others. With words we write or speak our sacred texts, laws and decisions, records and contracts, essays and books, conversations and correspondence, newspapers and audio-visuals, poems and songs—disclosing ideas, norms, feelings and more.

We like to think of Him as “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”—for He is indeed love and mercy personified. But as Charles Wesley’s hymn continues, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child, pity my simplicity”. Aware as He is of the vulnerability and innocence of the little ones, Our Lord pulls no punches when it comes to those who hurt or corrupt them.

The 19th century Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov, was also an important contributor to the evolution of the short story. His principle, known as ‘Chekov’s Gun’, forbade including elements that are not going to be ‘paid off’ later in the story.

The Apostle of our age, St John Paul II, wrote many documents, delivered thousands of homilies and addresses, published books, plays, poems.

“Say to all faint hearts: ‘Have courage! Do not be afraid!’” (Isa 35:4-7) It’s a recurring antiphon in the Bible. Jesus said it to His disciples so many times you’d be excused for thinking He was getting repetitive! God, His Son, the prophets and evangelists come again and again to quell our anxieties and strengthen our resolve.

English sci-fi writer, John Wyndham, is best known for novels like The Day of the Triffids and The Village of the Damned. But short stories were really his thing. In one, entitled “The Wheel”, a young boy playing in the yard discovers pulling his cart is easier if he attaches turning round bits of wood to it.

Dominicans can be very black and white: St Dominic’s mother dreamed of him before his birth as a black-and-white dog carrying a torch to light up the world;[i] their habit, given by Our Lady, is also black and white;[ii] and so is their coat of arms.[iii] Why those colours? Let me suggest five reasons…

Martin Scorsese’s film, Shutter Island, is a neo-noir psychological thriller set in 1954. Leonardo DiCaprio plays U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels who visits the island with his partner to investigate the disappearance of a patient from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

London-based Aesthetics and Anti-Aging Consultant, Cindy Jackson, was six years old when she was given a Barbie doll and she long fantasised about looking like her.

When Mary MacKillop was about 20 years old, living in Portland, Victoria, she was accidentally locked in the church overnight. Sounds rather spooky, but Mary counted it an opportunity to spend all-night in vigil with Our Lord.

You could call it the Council of the Friars – yet none was there, or only one. “The Great Council”, as the Fourth Lateran was known, included the greatest mediaeval pope, Innocent III, 71 patriarchs and metropolitans, 412 other bishops, around 900 abbots, priors and periti, together with envoys of the emperor and monarchs.

The true (verum), the good (bonum) and the beautiful (pulchrum) – it was a 13th century German Dominican and Doctor of the Church, Albert the Great, who first identified these as the three ‘transcendental properties of being’.

There are 37 miracles recorded in the Gospels, most of them in Matthew, Mark and Luke. John’s Gospel, which we heard today, is different. John only reports eight miracles, six of them uniquely among the evangelists, and all of them at much greater length.

I know what it’s like. My Dad’s nursing home is closed to the public and my Mum is in hospital, allowed no visitors. Today I’m saying Mass in an empty cathedral and miss my people very much.

On this day in 1535, the Lieutenant of the Tower of London woke old Bishop Fisher at 5AM for his 9AM execution. He decided to go back to sleep so to save his strength for the occasion!

It’s blowing a gale, the sea is wild, the waves breaking over, the boat filling with water (Mk 4:35-41). Where’s Jesus when you need Him? Sound asleep…

There’s an old Peanuts comic in which everybody’s self-appointed life-coach, Lucy, is telling her younger brother Linus about the many uses of a tree. “They provide shade from the sun,” she tells him, “and protection from the rain. They prevent erosion, and their wood is used to build beautiful buildings.”

Faust: in German legend he was a learned, successful yet dissatisfied man who made a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The legend has been retold in books, plays, movies, even an opera.

Jacques Pantaléon was a cobbler’s son who entered the priesthood and, with local mystic Juliana of Liège, introduced the Feast of Corpus Christi into that diocese.

How do we measure a life? By the length of years, wealth or honours, Facebook friends and Instagram likes? Is it more a matter of whether a person got what they wanted much of the time, a good balance of joys over sorrows, things to be proud of over causes for shame?

Many of you will know the TV series The Chosen, written and directed by Dallas Jenkins, and starring Jonathan Roumie as Jesus. It is the first ever life of Christ as a multi-season series, crowdfunded and viewed through an app.

Two hundred years ago Frs Philip Connolly and John Joseph Therry were appointed the first Catholic chaplains to the colony. They’d barely arrived when they started building the first chapel to Mary Help of Christians on this site and the first Catholic school in Parramatta.

Happy birthday! We gather today, as we would for any birthday party, so we can celebrate the Church’s birthday together. The Acts of the Apostles tell us that before Pentecost the disciples gathered in the upper room with Mary to pray for the wisdom to know what to do next (Acts 1:13-14).

It’s God’s big tick to Jesus. The resurrection and ascension vindicate His earthly life, confirm His divinity, and testify to the truth of His teaching.

They were practical men. The Apostle Peter, hero of our first reading (Acts 10:25-48), insisted he was “only a man”, a simple man, a fisherman (Mk 1:16); though Christ made him a fisher of men (Mk 1:17), he reverted to his old craft from time to time (Mt 17:27; Jn 21:3-19; cf. Mt 14:22-32).

You hear it everywhere. In Ancient Rome they said ‘Operibus credite, et non verbis’ (‘Trust in deeds, not in words’) – a slogan adorning Palermo cathedral to this day.

ANZACs. We probably think immediately of heroic young men rushing into battle, fighting for King and country, and dying beside their mates – all the while starring in the foundation myth of our nation.

Myth. We often use the term to mean some supposed ‘fact’ or version of events that is untrue but commonly believed. We might think of the ‘urban myths’ that using a mobile phone near a petrol pump risks blowing up the petrol station,[i] or using one on a plane will interfere with the navigation instruments.

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.

Peter, James and John are Jesus’ executive team. They join Him on occasions marked ‘private and confidential’, when healing in homes or contemplating Jerusalem or agonising in the garden. Paul calls them ‘the three pillars’ of the early Church (Gal 2:9).

“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness.” (Mk 1:12-15) So Mark begins his account of the temptations of Christ immediately after His baptism when that Spirit descended upon Him like a dove.

Today I’m wearing my bishop’s party hat! That’s because we have three big things to celebrate.

Drought, then fires, moths, storms and floods, then plague: what a strange year or two we’ve had!

In 1820, after waiting 42 years, the Catholics of the colony of New South Wales were finally given two official chaplains…

When I was quite young,
and quite small for my size,
I met an old man in the Desert of Drize.
and he sang me a song, I will never forget.
At least, well, I haven’t forgotten it yet.

What does it mean for God to pray? More specifically, why would Jesus, who is God, feel the need to pray?

Clearly, it was not for want of confidence in His divine mission or powers.

Typecasting. If a young lawyer wins a complex case in an obscure corner of the law such as admiralty or financial derivatives, he or she may spend the rest of their life being given cases in that same area.

Some years ago I heard Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta – now Cardinal Gregory of Washington DC – give a World Youth Day catechesis on the subject of Christian joy. He observed that we Christians have every reason to be happy: we have been given life in a world full of beauty and opportunity

In 1925 the Star of the East sect of Theosophists built a 200-seat amphitheatre here in Sydney. Krishnamurti, their ‘World Teacher’, was expected to preach there. He was said to have prophesied Christ’s imminent return, walking on water through the heads of Sydney harbour, and so the theatre was built at Balmoral Beach.

Even her betrothed took some convincing not to put her out of sight (Mt 1:19-25). Months later, and now heavily pregnant, she was forced by unsympathetic authorities to take the road to Bethlehem with her husband (Lk 2:1-6).

Christmas can be very isolating. Think of the teenager with the strange story about how she got pregnant (Lk 1:26-38; Mt 1:18). Amidst all the village gossip, she went off to the hills to stay with an aunt (Lk 1:39-56)

Welcome to our end-of-year Mass for the staff of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. How very sad that we are back to sitting at opposite ends of the pews from each other in masks and unable even to sing an Advent carol!

All creation is hushed. The angel and millions of his heavenly comrades all strain to hear the girl’s response. In their limbo Adam and Eve, the patriarchs and prophets, and all the dead, listen attentively.

The Ode to Joy appears like a burst of sunlight in the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth and last symphony (Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125). His decision to bring soloists and a choir into an orchestral symphony was revolutionary, giving soaring voice to Friedrich Schiller’s poem.

In the 1992 Christmas movie, Home Alone 2, the McCallister family go on holidays to Florida, yet again leaving their youngest son, Kevin (played by Macaulay Culkin), alone. Kevin is unperturbed.

You have to admit that grown men and women dressing up in the robes, medallions and eight-pointed crosses of mediaeval knights is rather strange! I say that as someone who wears a mediaeval habit every day and has quite a collection of silly hats… So what’s it all about, apart from the fun of fancy dress?

This idea of framing and structuring our present by looking to the end is an ancient one. The ancient Greek philosopher Democritus prepared himself by long solitudes and frequenting tombs

Death, judgment, heaven and hell: there are the four last things. Purgatory is in there, too, as the anteroom to heaven. For weeks past and still to come we’ve been encouraged to think about death…

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

So said J. Robert Oppenheimer, ‘father of the atomic bomb’, upon seeing the destructive power he had unleashed when the first A-bomb was detonated in New Mexico 75 years ago.

What a time to be Confirmed! Tonight, our young people complete their initiation into the Christian life, membership of the Church, and the communion of saints. But we gather in the face of a word that’s been on almost everyone’s lips for months now, a word most of us never used and many not even have known until the beginning of this year: pandemic.

One of my Dominican brothers, long since gone to God, wasn’t great at picking his audience or occasion. He was legendary for preaching on contraception in nursing homes. He used also to promise to “give ‘em hell” at Christmas, as he thought (rather uncharitably), that it was the likely destination for those who attended only annually!

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

200 years ago Fathers John Joseph Therry and Philip Conolly arrived in Sydney as the first official Catholic chaplains to the colony.

All Saints is not really the feast of all saints. It is not a celebration of those ‘living saints’ who are among us, transparent with God’s grace, demonstrating remarkable virtue. Nor is it a celebration of those becoming saints, whom St Paul dared call ‘saints’ already. No, All Saints is not about living saints.

It arrived in Australia in the dying days of the First World War. Ultimately the Spanish Flu would infect a third of the world’s population and kill at least 50 million people. All those docking in Sydney were isolated at North Head, next door to St Patrick’s Seminary.

The first live TV show broadcast globally by satellite was “Our World” in 1967. Artists such as Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso performed for an estimated 400 million people.

Fratelli Tutti, the title of Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, comes from his name-saint, Francis of Assisi, as did the title of his previous encyclical, Laudato Si’. Where the earlier document focussed upon our responsibilities for the natural environment, the new one attends to our human ecosystem.

Jesus’ caustic reproaches today (Lk 11:29-32) are occasioned by people asking for signs, for proof that the outrageous things He said and did were from God. On the face of it, that’s human enough: we all have our doubts about the claims of gurus, theologians and experts, let alone the remorseless critics of religion like the ABC and the SMH.

It’s quite a story (Mt 22:1-14). First we have a wedding – the setting for many a rom-com – think Steel Magnolias, Crazy Rich Asians or My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

On a fertile hillside he dug the soil, cleared the stones, planted the vines, built a tower, dug a wine-press. “What more could I have done for you, my vineyard?” the Divine Vigneron cries out in our first reading (Isa 5:1-7).

Music is beauty made of air. Plato said it gives “soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything”. Shakespeare called it “the food of love”. Einstein said he daydreamed, thought, even lived in music. Billy Joel says music expresses and heals our humanity.

So runs the chorus of an old English folk song that compares human life to a leaf changing with the seasons.[1] It seems rather fatalistic, with its promise of ageing and afflictions – the ‘frost’ after a relatively brief period of green.

It’s just not fair! When we hear this morning’s parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16), the shop steward deep within each one of us irks with sympathy for those who’ve laboured all day under the hot sun. Why do those who worked only an hour, in the cool of the evening, get the same wages and even get paid first!

The word pandemic comes from the Greek words pan meaning all – as in ‘panorama’ and ‘pandemonium’ – and demos meaning the people – as in ‘democratic’ and ‘demography’.

Perhaps the most famous father in recent pop culture is Homer Simpson. Since 1989 he has starred in most of the 684 episodes and 31 series so far of the animated sitcom The Simpsons.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, a highly educated nobleman of sixth-century Rome, by then a city overrun by barbarians and an empire crumbling.

Simon has just made his great profession of faith in Jesus as God and Saviour, been praised and appointed future pope (Mt 16:13-20). All of a sudden the mood changes. Having just renamed him ‘Peter’, Jesus now calls him ‘Satan’ (Mt 16:21-7).

In his international best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey argues that there are three stages of maturity: dependence, independence, and interdependence. Together these three form what he calls ‘the maturity continuum’.

Go out to all the world to preach the Good News,” Jesus said (Mk 16:15; cf. Mt 28:19). Paul in our epistle today brags of his mission to the gentiles (Rom 11:13-15,29-32) and we know that he ultimately joined Peter in giving the witness of blood in Rome.

Most of Jesus’ miracles addressed people’s particular needs. Last Sunday He multiplied loaves and fishes to satisfy the hunger of the multitude.[1] The haul of fish and the changing of wine into water were on a similarly extravagant scale.[2] You might wonder if anyone really needed so much wine as He made for them at Cana, but if you watch the crowd-funded TV series, The Chosen, you’ll pick up the emotions, tension and potential humiliation around that wedding reception, and why the wine mattered so much.

For some, this pandemic-enforced retreat has been an opportunity to connect more deeply with family and God – to give time to conversation and prayer so often crowded out by the busyness of our lives. Many have maintained their connection to Mass and parish by live-streaming; others, who can’t normally come to Mass, have enjoyed Mass coming to them at home.

The Moirai or Fates were the good luck gods of the ancient world. People experienced many aspects of their lives as beyond their control. So much depended on where and when and into whose family you were born. On forces of nature, weather, accidents and plagues like COVID.

“To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power… to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking – knowledge which in fact we do not possess – is likely to make us do much harm.”[1] So said the Austrian-British thinker Friederich August von Hayek in his 1974 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.Hayek was an economist, political philosopher and social theorist. Having survived fighting in the First World War and being infected by the Spanish flu, he dedicated his life to building a better world through economics.

The Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons of 1274 was one of the largest the Church ever held. Presided over by Pope Gregory X, it was attended by five hundred bishops, observed by kings and ambassadors, and advised by another thousand prelates and periti. On the agenda were the conquest of the Holy Land and the reunion of the Eastern and Western churches, and so it welcomed representatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople, of the Byzantine Emperor and even of the Khan of the Tartars.

It was the most consequential wedding in history and it nearly didn’t happen. Mary’s marriage was threatened by misunderstanding and gossip, but righted by an angelic visitation and Joseph’s acceptance of her innocence (Mt 1:18-25). In the Joseph window here in St Mary’s Cathedral, Mary is dressed in the white and gold of a virgin queen, her long golden hair crowned with a floral tiara and rosary roses at her feet.

Australia breathed a collective sigh of relief when 14-year-old William Callaghan was found on Wednesday on a mountain north of Melbourne. William, who is autistic and non-verbal, was on a camping trip when he ran ahead and got lost, spending two nights in freezing conditions, in treacherous terrain, without food, water or protective clothing.

We Christians didn’t invent monotheism. The ancient Zoroastrians proclaimed a single uncreated and benevolent god of wisdom. The Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV, father of the famous Tutankhamun, took the name Akhen/aten after joining the Atenist sun worshippers and he sought to impose their monotheism on all Egyptians.

In January this year NBC premiered a sit-com about a young computer programmer who, through a freak accident, develops the power to hear people’s innermost thoughts and feelings as classic songs. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is a quirky, funny series that doesn’t shy away from deeper questions raised by people’s ‘heart songs’, as Zoey calls them.

Years ago I saw a very beautiful image of The Virgin Mary at Prayer in the Dominican church of St Clement near the Colosseum in Rome. When I got back home, I discovered the same painting in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

Why are you Jews gawking at the sky?Well, because God told Abram, ‘Look up at the night sky, for your descendants shall be as many as the stars of heaven.’ Abram believed the Lord and this was reckoned to him as righteousness. (Gen 15:4-6)