Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Homilies 2001 > Article	Printable Version

Ryde Parish 150th Anniversary - Mass of St Charles Borromeo

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Rom 12:3-13, John 10:11-16

By + George Pell
ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY
4 November 2001

By Australian standards 150 years is a long time. With St Thomas' parish in Lewisham, St Charles is the seventh oldest parish in the Sydney Archdiocese.

This Sunday Eucharist is the climax of your sesqui-centenary year, after a year-long programme of 18 earlier and different celebrations. I was happy to attend the parish ball in August at St Joseph's.

Your theme is exactly right; "Remembering yesterday; rejoicing today and building the foundations for tomorrow". Church groups can escape from the present situation with its difficulties as well as its promise, by living in the past; or by busily planning for future possibilities and refusing again to grasp the nettles today. You have made neither mistake; continuing on your busy round of parish life, of worship and service, while you take heart from the past and confidently head into the future. Christian hope is often rooted, not just in faith, but in enthusiasm and confidence. There seems to be plenty of all three in this parish.

Apparently in the very early days Ryde district was known as "Eastern Farms", because of its farmlands, and "Kissing Point", because of a well-known spot beside the Parramatta River.

As early as the 1820's there was talk of a church at Ryde and certainly a parish meeting was held in 1841 about a church at Kissing Point; to no avail. Visiting priests from Parramatta celebrated Mass in local homes, helped by the Hunters Hill Marists after their arrival there.

However, after a local ex-convict Daniel McMahon gave land for a church, Archbishop Polding set up the parish in 1851.

Bishop Charles Davis laid the foundation stone for the Pugin-designed church in December 1851, and when Archdeacon McEnroe opened the Church in 1857 it was named after the Patron of the same Bishop Charles Davis, who had died prematurely in the interim.

As the Church became too small, the new Church was built in 1934, using stone from the old one and retaining the original western facade and belfry.

The Marist Fathers looked after the parish for 32 years until 1888 and since then there have been 8 parish priests, beginning with Father Gell, who reigned for 42 years, through to Fr Monkerud today.

Seven parishes have been separated from Ryde, to cope with the growth and spread of population. The parish school began in 1858, staffed for many years by the Parramatta Sisters of Mercy, and the Little Company of Mary continue their long presence in the parish through the Dalton Gardens retirement complex.

It is an impressive story of faith and dedication. Your patron St Charles Borromeo, the reforming Archbishop of Milan, would be proud of you. Like the priests who have led and served in this parish (and we must particularly acknowledge their contribution today), St Charles was a good shepherd of his people, in a way that is not possible now.

He was born in 1538 into a noble family, 21 years after Luther had started the Protestant Reformation which was to sweep Europe. Luther threatened the Catholic Church's existence, but saved the Church by forcing us to take our religious claims seriously. A lot of Catholic life then was very ordinary and sometimes corrupt.

The revenue from parishes and abbeys regularly belonged to noble families (like a family business), who employed a priest to do the work. Charles was aged 12 when he received his first such benefice. When he was 22 years of age, his uncle Pope Pius II created him a Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan. which had not had a resident archbishop for 30 years!

The church got its act together during the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a drawn-out, hard-fought affair, during which a long list of reforms were introduced.

Despite his unseemly and premature appointment, Charles took his duties as archbishop very seriously, working hard to tighten the morals and manners of clergy and people. He was fiercely resisted; one group of religious trying to assassinate him. He protected and encouraged the Jesuits, then the greatest renewal agency in the Catholic Counter-Reformation; set up a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and did a lot of work with the poor and the sick, especially during the plague of 1576. These activities are commemorated in the three stained glass windows behind the altar in your Church.

Charles died at a young age of 46 and remains for us a wonderful model of faith and serious commitment to all the teachings of Christ – the hard teachings as well as those we find congenial. Let us ask for his prayers to bless your life and work here. Incidentally a cousin of his succeeded him as archbishop!

One final thought in conclusion. The first reading is from Paul's' letter to the small Christian community in Rome, the capital of an immense Empire. He compared them to the Body of Christ and pointed out that just as a body has parts with different functions, which work together for a common purpose, so does their community. It is the same today; each of us has a different function, but all of use have to be earnest, sincere and hopeful. We are to pray regularly, especially in times of difficulty. We should practise hospitality and care to those around us.

We do not exist just for one another. We exist to praise God, to do our duty to God and to contribute to the society around us, to help keep it good, hand it over to the next generation no worse than we are received it, and try to equip them with love, faith and the competence to make it even better.

We sometimes forget how many reasons we have to be grateful for our way of life; to the generations who went before us.

I have just returned from a month on Rome, meeting with about 250 bishops and the Pope. I was struck by how difficult the situation of many of them was.

Some countries in Africa have 30-40% of the adult population infected with HIV. Some youngsters are double orphans, their natural and adopted parents dead. The Archbishop of Nairobi quoted the prayer of an old man; "Dear God we are grateful you sent your Son to us. But things are now so bad, you should come Yourself." One African bishop said that in his country in 10 years time there will be mainly the very old and the young.

2,000,000 have died in the continuing war in the Sudan; where the Arab north is oppressing the black southerners. War continues in the Congo with tens of thousands of refugees.

Some claim there are 20,000,000 young people living on the streets in the immense continent of South America. There is regular guerrilla violence in Columbia.

Christians are still in jail in China, which did not allow any bishops to come to the meeting. We know of the religious clashes in Indonesia; of the 16 Christians massacred at a church in Pakistan.

I do not mention all this to depress, but to remind you of our blessings, despite the very real suffering which exists among us, and despite our imperfections.

The Christian communities and the Catholic Church, especially through communities like St Charles Borromeo parish, have contributed much to Australian life. We will face equal challenges (at least) in the future. May God bless what you are doing and your efforts for many years to come.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.