MARY MACKILLOP 17 October 2010

Today we have interrupted our normal celebration of the Sundays in Ordinary Time to celebrate the Mass for the Feast of Mary MacKillop on this day of her canonisation. Later this evening at a Mass in Rome she will be named Australia’s first saint. It is worth taking some time to ponder what this means for us and for the Church in Australia. For the first time we now have someone who has walked our land, been in our schools, and cared for the poorest and the most needy; someone who has been publicly recognised by the whole church for her holiness of life. We can look to her as a model of Christian life, and an inspiration for our own efforts to live a life of holiness in fidelity to the Gospel of God.

Over the last few weeks we have been receiving a lot of information about Mary’s life. This is important, and it is important that we remember her life. Memory is a central aspect of the Christian life. This goes right back to the command of Jesus to “do this in memory of me”. Each Sunday we listen to the Scripture readings and celebrate the Eucharist remembering what Jesus has done for us and for the world. Christian memory is not simply recalling what he did. In our worship he is present so that we can participate in the very events that we remember, and share in their saving effects.

Mary MacKillop participated in these same events, not only in her celebration of the Liturgy, but also in her daily life. She embodied the Gospel of God. As we listened to today’s gospel surely we all saw the link with Mary’s life. More than anything else, it was a life that flourished by trusting God. I am quite sure that as she began her adventure of founding a new religious congregation she was not thinking about what it might grow into or what might unfold in her own life, but rather she was thinking of those children who could not afford to go to school and would now have the opportunity. She didn’t have a business plan that told everyone that her scheme would work. Rather she set out trusting in God, and relying on the good will of those who could afford to help her. There were times when she was rebuffed and rejected, when people despised her for what she was doing, but this did not stop her. She trusted in God, and had confidence in her own capacity to bring off what she had undertaken. This was a self-confidence that was born of faith in God.

We shouldn’t think, though, that this was just foolishness on her part. She wasn’t the sort of person who would put God to the test, by sitting back and saying that she would leave it all to God and not make an effort to see that her plan was realised. For her, trusting God didn’t release her from the responsibility of working hard to make things happen, and of continuing on with her project whenever there was a setback. She survived because she had determination, courage, practical common sense, and a profound trust in God.

Mary MacKillop was a young woman when she began her remarkable journey as the founder of the Sisters of St Joseph – she was in her 20s. It was a time in her life when she was open-eyed enough to recognise a pressing need in the community for the education of the poor. It was a time in her life where she was young and adventurous enough to be fired with the vision of the kingdom of God in the preaching of Jesus. What she dreamed of was a new way of living the gospel. It was a time in her life when she had the energy to make her dream a reality. We know that she never lost that vision, and that energy. It matured with her, and in a sense became even more real as she grew older. She had a spirituality that relied on the power of the cross as her source of inspiration. She trusted that the cross would always lead to the new life of Easter. In her old age she maintained a concern for the sisters that were now part of her dream, now organised in a more formal way in the Congregation of the Sister of St Joseph. The formal approval of the constitution would ensure that the dream she had as a young woman would survive well beyond her.

So today we remember her life. This is a profoundly Christian thing to do, particularly in the context of this liturgical act of worship. We remember how she participated in the mystery of Jesus and the great drama of salvation. But today we should also look to the future. The celebration of a saint is not simply about looking to the past. It would be good for us to consider how we are drawn into her life. Let me suggest a few things. The first is that we can note the importance of being open to discovering new ways of living the gospel in our own time. What characterises ordinary life in a society like ours, and what is the gospel message that can renew and refresh that life? What is the bold vision that connects the kingdom of God with life in 21st century Australia? Trusting faith will allow us to see that vision; it will give us the courage to put it into action. Most of us won’t be called to do this in as dramatic a fashion as Mary MacKillop. But all of us, if we embrace the courage she showed and the determination to bring the gospel alive, can live a life of holiness in the very fabric of our lives. May Mary MacKillop pray for us.

Fr. Gerard Kelly

25TH SUNDAY (C) 19 September 2010

亞毛斯先知書　8:4-7 聖保祿宗徒致弟茂德前書 2:1-8 聖路加福音　16:1-13

If we ever had any thoughts that the Christian life should separate us from the world, then today’s readings tell us otherwise. The prophet Amos in the first reading addresses the people with strong words. The scene he describes is right there in the market place where the people are milling around trying to buy their food. He points to the salesperson whose scales have been tampered with so that they always weigh just a little bit heavier than the true weight. When the poor come to buy their food they end up paying more than they should and find themselves struggling to provide food for their hungry children. The prophet also points to the full bags of grain, indicating that there is plenty to feed the whole town, and asking why some people still go hungry. It is not because of lack of grain that they go hungry but because they cannot afford it. They end up having to rely on the scraps of wheat or even just the husks. The good wheat is kept for the wealthy. The prophet is not suggesting that they should abandon commercial activities, but rather that they should do them with justice and fairness.

Jesus keeps these themes alive in the gospel parable, but in a way that we do not expect. I imagine that the crowds were expecting Jesus to roundly condemn the untrustworthy steward. After all, he could be faulted on several fronts. He had mismanaged his master’s property, allowed it to run into debt, and had probably siphoned off a large share of the profits into his own pocket. Then, to compound his error, once he was told that he was going to be dismissed he set about to win friends by calling in his master’s debtors, and in what was probably a fraudulent move began to reduce the size of their debt. This man doesn’t seem to have much to recommend him.

I’m sure the crowd is shocked as the parable unfolds. Jesus ends up praising the untrustworthy steward. I think we need to be clear as to what Jesus was praising. He was certainly not praising him for his dishonesty. Rather he was drawing attention to his cleverness in dealing with the problem. He was facing a real crisis: he knew that he was going to lose his managerial position and with it not only his income but also his personal security and prestige. If he was going to survive he would have to act quickly. He was no dreamer; he was realistic enough to know that he didn’t have the strength to go out and get a labouring job; he was honest enough to know that he was a proud man and could not shame himself by begging in the streets. This is why he comes up with the plan to buy a few friends who might think of him or remember him when he finds himself destitute. Yes, all of this seems very selfish, and he is acting from the worst of motives, but Jesus praises him because he was realistic, because he recognised the crisis he was facing and because he made an effort to do something to respond to it. Jesus praises him for his astuteness and his prudence.

I think Jesus deliberately wanted to shock his listeners into considering how they conducted their business, especially in the light of his preaching about the coming kingdom of God. Throughout his ministry he had been challenging the way they thought about God and knew God, and this was having serious consequences for the way they lived their lives, especially in their treatment of others. If they were truly hearing his message then they would be forced to give a lot of consideration to the way they treated the poor and the sick, to the way they perceived others in their society who were regarded as sinners and were condemned and ostracised. They would be challenged to allow their own lives to reflect something of the quality of God’s compassion and mercy; they would be challenged to recognise their own dependence on God. In other words, the preaching of the gospel by Jesus was creating a crisis in their lives far more serious than that faced by the unjust, dishonest steward.

As we listen to the gospel each week and make an effort to live the values of our Christian faith, we can still live from week to week without it having too much of an impact on our lives. Yet I think that for all of us there are key moments in life when we become aware that if we are going to keep listening to the gospel then we must do something about it in the concrete circumstances of our daily lives. This is particularly the case for the youth. You have your whole life before you but the choices you make today will affect the way you live into the future. Perhaps the biggest challenge most people face is when they realise that the faith aspect of life is closely connected to the other decisions they make in life. All of us are making choices everyday. As we listen to the Word of God we can be nudged to realise that all of our choices have some sort of faith dimension. This goes right down to the choices we make about what we eat, how we treat people, how we act as stewards of the world God has created. Let’s take to heart Jesus’ challenge to the crowd in today’s gospel: be astute, be prudent, recognise what is going on and make decisions about your own life, your own future. Even the dishonest steward did this.

Fr. Gerard Kelly