We thank God for the idler with pinked spicy hands, at ease with us, with wide mouth that has practised the name of each of us whether telling us not to cling or inviting us to place our hand in his side.  On this Sunday of Divine Mercy, we recall Pope Francis’ reflection: ‘The peace of Jesus made the disciples pass from remorse to mission. The peace of Jesus awakens mission.  It entails not ease and comfort, but the challenge to break out of ourselves. The peace of Jesus frees from the self-absorption that paralyzes; it shatters the bonds that keep the heart imprisoned.’   Let’s walk free in this Easter season.  Let’s embrace the new possibilities for us as Church emerging from the pandemic and preparing for the next phase of our Plenary Council.  Let’s be free enough to follow the prohibition not to cling and the injunction to walk free.

Homily 24.4.22

On Thursday we will celebrate Australia Day.  The challenge for us this year is the long overdue resolution of the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians which has been on the national agenda now with every prime minister since John Howard.

Let’s now do the work as citizens to assist our parliamentarians formulate an appropriate amendment to our Constitution.   It’s time for constitutional recognition of the First Australians on terms acceptable both to them and to the nation.  With constitutional recognition, with certainty the people can have hope, despite their ongoing sufferings and despair.  It’s up to us.

Homily 22.1.23

Happy Christmas.  On Thursday one of my nieces gave birth to her first born.  Both are well and thriving.  What better Christmas present could there be.  What better pointer to the real meaning of Christmas.  I was a grand uncle for the 28th time.  My niece texted me on the morning of the birth: ‘Thank you for all the prayers.  They were much needed and appreciated.  Can’t wait to introduce you.’  Like the shepherds, I felt I should set out as soon as possible to meet the newborn.  We will meet in Queensland early in the new year.

Christmas Homily 2023

Homily 11.2.24

Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi – the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

In parishes around the world, children will be coming to church dressed immaculately, receiving their first communion and celebrating with family, including those who are not much given to coming to church.  It’s a day that each of us remembers, even a lifetime later.  It’s a day for leaving grievances, frustrations, and anxieties at the door.  It’s a day for celebrating, even with a touch of nostalgia, the age of innocence when each of us was excited to be included for the first time in the whole family and community declaring, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.  Say but the word and my soul shall be healed. ’ We then took our first tentative steps up the aisle, approaching the priest and receiving the Body of Christ, being united with our families, one as the Body of Christ.

Homily 2.6.24

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples: ‘You know that those who are recognised as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.  But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.’

To put it mildly, there has been some firm assertion of authority by the hierarchy of our church as we come to the pointy end of the Synod on Synodality, especially on the question of women’s participation in sacramental ministry.

Homily 20.10.24

In today’s gospel, the blind man Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus for healing, for liberation.  Those around Jesus try to quieten Bartimaeus.  They want him silenced.  But Jesus hears him and cures him.  Bartimaeus then follows Jesus along the way.  It’s a familiar story: religious authorities wanting to silence those who are poor, those on the peripheries.  And then wanting to silence those who stand with the poor and those who speak up for them.

Homily 27.10.24

Celebrating the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, we hear Luke’s account of this scene when Jesus and his parents are greeted by 2 elders of the Temple, Simeon and Anna.  They’ve been holding out for this and now Jesus has arrived in their midst, fulfilling all their hopes.  Simeon proclaims his Nunc Dimittis:

    Now, Master, you may let your servant go 
        in peace, according to your word,
    for my eyes have seen your salvation,
        which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
        and glory for your people Israel.

Anna gives thanks to God and speaks about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.
Some years ago, Pope John Paul II decided that this feast should be celebrated as the World Day of Consecrated Life, urging us to pray for all those who have taken vows in the Church to live a consecrated life, and to pray for more young people to choose this path.  

Homily 2.2.25

It’s been an excruciating week – seeing how Hamas has not been defeated despite the untold damage wreaked on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, hearing President Trump declare that he has a real estate solution for Gaza turning it into the Riviera of the Middle East, and watching our political leaders stepping on egg shells lest they jeopardise our trading relationship with the USA or, even more pressingly, lest they threaten their electoral prospects at home.

We all feel powerless and clueless as to what the solution, or even the next step, might be. What could any of us possibly say or do that might make the slightest difference?  We are like the unwilling prophet in today’s first reading from Isaiah: ‘What a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a person of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips’.


Homily 9.2.25

About 40 years ago, I was meeting with an Aboriginal group at Eulo 70 km west of Cunnamulla in far south-west Queensland.  We were standing in the dried up river bed of the Paroo River.  It was very hot, and very dry.  But there was a gentle breeze and the River Red Gums looked resplendent.  Despite the drought like conditions and despite the woes of the local Aboriginal community, I had a feeling of deep inner peace evocative of today’s first reading from Jeremiah: ‘A blessing on the person who puts their trust in the Lord, with the Lord for their hope’.  That person is ‘like a tree’: ‘when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit’.

Today’s readings, which are popular at funerals, call us back to the trust and hope we profess as Christians.  Paul does not mess around with the Corinthians.  He makes it very clear: ‘If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of people.’  Our trust and hope in God are grounded both in our present life with all its challenges and vicissitudes and in the life to come.  Believing that we are created to be part of both worlds, we are able to maintain hope and trust here and now even when things are grim.  This belief is not an excuse for failing to take action for justice and peace here and now. It is a motivation to take action here and now for justice and peace and for those who are suffering most – the poor, the hungry, the weeping and the despised.  It is a warning to us when we are self-satisfied with our present reality, as if it is all there is – enjoying our riches, having our fill, laughing and partying, and having the world speak well of us.


Homily 16.2.25

On this very day 50 years ago, I joined nine others entering the Jesuit novitiate at Canisius College in Sydney. I was about to turn 21.  Two days previously, I set out by car with my parents from home in Brisbane.  I well remember bidding farewell to younger siblings lined up in the garage.  None of us knew what lay ahead.  I think it was hard for all of us.  On this very evening 50 years ago, Mum and Dad dropped me at the front door of Canisius College as late as possible but so as not to miss the 7.30pm curfew.  My life as a Jesuit then began, taking many twists and turns, but always with a sense of direction.  It’s been a very graced life, thus far.

Homily 23.2.25

Each of us is called to speak truthfully, whatever the circumstances.  Each of us is called to speak truth to power.  Each of us is called to build and maintain community within which the moral life can be sustained.  Each of us is called to do what little we can to put right whatever is disordered in our own lives and in our own society so that we might join the psalmist proclaiming: ‘Planted in the house of the Lord we will flourish in the courts of our God, still bearing fruit when we are old, still full of sap, still green, to proclaim that the Lord is just.  In the Lord, our rock, there is no wrong.’  God help us and God help Ukraine.

Homily 2.3.25

There was a blessed and eerie feeling to our Ash Wednesday celebration in Brisbane this year.  As I said to the congregation, there is nothing like a pending tropical cyclone to reinforce those words ‘Remember you are dust, and unto dust you will return’, as the ashes are applied to the forehead.  We Australians are used to living in a world where the international order of rules and alliances assures our safety and security and where scientific and market advances increase our control of our environment.  All of a sudden, so much seems to have been turned on its head.  So much is now not under our control.  So much is beyond our control.  Tropical Cyclone Alfred and Cyclone Trump have thrown us off balance.

Remembering that we are dust and unto dust we will return, we affirm in faith and hope that there is, and always will be, so much in our lives and in our world that is uncontrollable.  We are dependent on our loving and forgiving God.


Homily 9.3.25

Celtic Club

In today’s first reading from Genesis we hear that ‘the Lord made a Covenant with Abram in these terms: “To your descendants I give this land, from the wadi of Egypt to the Great River.”’ We live at a time when these sacred words from scripture fuel antipathy and violence from the wadi of Egypt to the Great River.  On the other side of the conflict we hear people chanting: ‘From the river to the sea’.  We have to admit that religious fundamentalism often fuels violence and injustice.  A literalist reading of scripture can lead us into error and moral hazard.  Sharing land, and sharing country, is a profound challenge in many parts of the world.  Even here in Australia, we are still working through the terms of a just settlement in the wake of nineteenth century colonisation.

Homily 16.3.25

Luke gives us his variant on the encounter of Jesus with a barren fig tree.  In the other gospels, Jesus gives the tree short shrift.  In Luke’s account, Jesus tells a story about an owner of land and his gardener debating what to do with a fig tree that has failed to produce fruit over three years.  The gardener wins out, telling the owner: ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’

We are all given time, now, to repent.

As Johnson says, ‘The fig tree is not summarily cut down. It is allowed to have time; indeed, it has already had time to bear fruit. The comfort to Jesus’ listeners is that the Prophet is still on his way to the city; there is still time to respond. The warning is that if they do not, they will surely be cut off.’ 


Homily 23.3.25

In December 2008, I was privileged to visit the Hermitage in St Petersburg.  It was so cold that there were hardly any tourists.  It was as if my niece and I had the place to ourselves.  It meant that we could spend time uninterrupted pondering Rembrandt’s great painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son.  Later on our tour of the gallery, I slipped back and saw a young Asian mother with her two little children in front of the painting.  She was obviously explaining the painting to the kids.  I was moved that such a painting could speak to people of all cultures and all ages.  

It was only later that I learnt that earlier the young 29 year old Rembrandt had painted The Prodigal Son in the Brothel portraying two people who were identified as him and his wife Saskia. As a young couple they had a happy marriage.  Rembrandt was a highly successful artist.  They were living the good life, the carefree life, the style of life which was frowned upon by many religious folk in Calvinist Amsterdam.  It was 32 years later that Rembrandt painted The Return of the Prodigal Son.  Saskia and all their four children had died.  Rembrandt was on his own.  New artists like Vermeer were taking the spotlight from Rembrandt.  He was just two years from death.  Rembrandt saw something of himself in all three main characters in this later painting – the compassionate father, the righteous son, and the son seeking forgiveness.  


Homily 30.3.25

There is no one way that a Catholic should vote.  When voting, if only each of us, like Jesus in today’s gospel, could find that delicate balance between justice and mercy, voting for the candidate and the party most likely to act for the good of the country.  Our bishops tells us: ‘Conscience is our inner guide, enabling us to discern right from wrong, and judge what is good and just, and we have a duty to follow it faithfully. This demands careful consideration of the facts and the background to our decisions, and a commitment to prayer to discern God’s will.’

Let’s pray the prayer our bishops have prepared for us as we approach the ballot box:

Grant, we pray, O Lord our God, that as the Cross shines in our southern skies, so may Christ bring light to our nation, to its peoples old and new, and by saving grace, transform our lives.


Homily 6.4.25

No doubt the crowd on Palm Sunday brought some consolation to Jesus, that he was on the right path.  No doubt the crowd on Thursday night terrified him.  And no doubt the crowd on Friday exacerbated his isolation as he cried out, ‘Father into your hands I commit my spirit.’

If only some of Palm Sunday’s crowd had taken a stand on Maundy Thursday.  What would have happened?  If only some of Sunday’s crowd had raised their voices around the cross on Good Friday, what would have happened?  But they didn’t.  And there’s no surprise in that.  We all know situations where we just go with the flow, when we simply join the crowd, when we follow the crowd instinct.  Sunday was easy; Thursday was demanding; and Friday was just impossible.


Homily 13.4.25

God knows, we all need something of that this Easter: troubled as we are by the endless wars in Gaza and Ukraine imposing indiscriminate death and destruction, not on the combatants but on the innocent bystanders; troubled as we are by the seeming collapse of the rules based international order and of the globalised free market; troubled as we are by the pervasive pessimism in Australian society despite this being one of the best places in the world to live.  

Homily 20.4.25

This was my Good Friday reflection with Kieran Gilbert on SkyNews where we discussed truth, justice, mercy and reconciliation in our contemporary world.  Then came this very unexpected though welcome observation by Keith Wolohan MP on truth v narrative in politics. See https://youtu.be/GnbBdfEK8xc

Good Friday

St Leo’s Anzac Day

This was my first interview on Easter Monday evening when we received news of the death of Pope Francis

Sharri Markson

Last Sunday Pope Francis appeared on the balcony at St Peter’s one last time.  Weak and breathless, he greeted the crowd: ‘Brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!’ His last ever Urbi et Orbi message was then read to the crowd by Bishop Diego Ravelli.  To the end, Francis was urging us to go out and to work for peace and justice.  
I have spent much of the past week writing articles  and giving media interviews about the legacy of the Francis papacy.   Today rather than contemplating his legacy and his likely successor, we should prayerfully consider some of the things said by Francis in his last message to us.  Let’s remember he had spent 38 days in hospital with double pneumonia.  He then spent a month at home in seclusion trying to rally his strength and giving thought to what he might say on Easter Sunday.  So this was a last will and testament delivered to Rome and the world with plenty of foresight.  Francis knew that it could well be his last, and it was.
He declared:
‘Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge. Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.  Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost! In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it. He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side. The Lamb of God is victorious!’  


Homily 27.4.25

As we return to our daily lives of fishing, we await the action of the Spirit in Rome.  Let’s be alert to the unexpected invitation from Jesus to put our nets in a different place, and to join him in a eucharistic meal before being commissioned to go where we would rather not go.  I take comfort at this time by one observation offered by Fr Arturo Sosa SJ, superior general of the Jesuits.  He said, ‘Francis’ life was founded on the rock that is Christ, not on the sand of his ideas or intuitions.’   May the rock of Christ be the guide star for the cardinals in conclave and for us as we discern the way forward for a Church which is both welcoming and merciful to the poor, to strangers, and to all who are in need, as well as being true to the deposit of faith, entire and incorrupt, as handed down by the Apostles and preserved in the Church everywhere at all times.  As we await the outcome of yet another election, let’s continue to question our ideas and intuitions while seeking the rock that is Christ.

Homily 4.5.25

None of us expected the declaration ‘Habemus Papam’ within 24 hours of the commencement of the conclave. The 133 cardinals came from such diverse places.  During COVID, the new cardinals had not got the chance to get to know each other.  Like many of us, they were still playing catch up.  There was no hurry for the cardinals to make a decision.  The shortest conclave of the past century is an indication that the supermajority of cardinals were left in no doubt that Robert Francis Prevost was their man.

Homily 11.5.25

This weekend we mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Fr Ted Kennedy, longtime parish priest of Redfern.  At his funeral, Ted was described as ‘a pebble in the comfortable boot of the establishment, a man who spilt his guts for others’.  Ted’s life was driven by that commandment of Jesus in today’s gospel: ‘Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.’ Ted knew this was a tough and gritty commandment.  Like Paul and Barnabas in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Ted affirmed: ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.’  And he did undergo more than his fair share of hardships, as did the many hundreds of Aboriginal people he buried over the years of his public ministry together with Mum Shirl.  Whenever he entered into correspondence with archdiocesan authorities (which he did often), he, like Paul and Barnabas arriving at Antioch ‘reported on what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles’.  

Homily 18.5.25

Here at home, we are about to celebrate the annual Reconciliation Week which commences on Tuesday with the anniversary of the successful 1967 referendum which removed from our Constitution the two adverse references to Aboriginal Australians.  Since then we have been living with an uncomfortable constitutional silence which erupted destructively with the overwhelming defeat of the 2023 Voice Referendum.  Approaching Reconciliation Week (27 May – 3 June) with the theme Bridging Now to Next, the nation is aware that there is still unfinished business on the national agenda when it comes to the due recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.  
When Prime Minister Albanese launched his proposal for the Voice referendum at Garma in July 2022, he acknowledged the need for bipartisanship and reminded us: ‘Back in 1967, not a single member of the House of the Representatives or the Senate voted against the referendum provisions.  In the same spirit - I hope that the Opposition and the crossbench will support the proposal, join the campaign for a Yes vote and bring their supporters to the cause.’ 
Sadly, this time, no adequate process was set in place for designing a proposal capable of winning Opposition and cross bench support, with the result that only three members of the Opposition supported the government’s proposal.  The loss to our nation, and especially to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, has been great.  If only there were a forum for learning the lessons for ‘bridging now to next’.  If only as a leaven of unity, we could all commit to  bipartisanship, inclusion, education and trust.  


Homily 25.5.25

The final document on the Synod on Synodality states: ‘The ministry of the successor of Peter “safeguards legitimate differences while taking care that what is particular not only does no harm to unity but rather is conducive to it” (Lumen Gentium 13, Ad Gentes 22).  The whole Church has always been comprised of a plurality of peoples and languages, of vocations, charisms and ministries at the service of the common good, as well as of local Churches. In turn, these local Churches have always possessed their own rites and disciplines as well as their own distinctive theological and spiritual heritage. The unity of this diversity is realised by Christ, the cornerstone, and the Holy Spirit, the source of all harmony.’   At his mass for the beginning of his pontificate, Leo expressed his desire for ‘a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world’. 

As we celebrate the feast of the Ascension, let’s enjoy the consolation and the challenge of those words uttered by the Risen Jesus just before he left the apostles: ‘It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’  Let’s pray for Pope Leo, for Francis’s great supporters and his persistent detractors, that we might all with the gift of the Holy Spirit persevere in the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers – to the peripheries, to the ends of the earth.  Go now, you are sent forth to be a leaven for a reconciled world.


Homily 1.6.25

In today’s gospel, the  disciples are locked away, besieged by fear.  Jesus appears amongst them and greets them: ‘Peace be with you’ – the same greeting with which Pope Leo commenced his papacy on the night the white smoke went up in the square.  Jesus breathes on the disciples and proclaims: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’

May this Spirit guide us as a Church as we contemplate the proper place of women in our Church and as the Vatican and German church leaders discern a church structure appropriate for the 21st century in the wake of the abuse crisis which was exacerbated by an all male celibate clergy being insufficiently aware, accountable and responsive.  Let’s remember that ‘what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped’.


Homily 8.6.25

Today is Social Justice Sunday.  Our bishops have issued a statement entitled To Live Life to the Full: Mental Health in Australia Today.  They urge each of us to take three practical steps:

1.	Reject stigmatisation of those with mental illness
2.	Work for the transformation of social determinants of mental ill-health
3.	Call for policies and service provision that meet the needs of the poorest, most marginalised and recognise in them the face of Christ Jesus.

At a loss how to put flesh on these bones, I consulted an experienced psychiatrist.  I asked, ‘What can a lay person like me do to support people with mental illness?’  Answer: ‘Once someone is mentally ill, there’s not much you will be able to do.  The emphasis must be on prevention first up.’  On one level, it’s very simple.  Your mental well-being is more likely to be assured if you have a roof over your head, if you’re warm enough, if you have food in your belly, if you have someone to talk to, and if you are spared domestic violence or abuse.  Better still if you’ve got gainful employment and good education.  In a time of pandemic, your physical and mental well-being will be enhanced if you have a regular routine, regular exercise, healthy food, hobbies, and mindfulness exercises or meditation.  And don’t keep looking at the 24/7 COVID news reports which are sure to make you lose perspective.  The determinants of mental illness are biological, psychological, social, and cultural.

Frank Brennan 6

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