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22nd Sunday in Ordinary TimeSt Mary's Cathedral By + George Pell I believe that at some stage St Francis of Assisi urged the necessity of preaching Christ, and he said sometimes you might even use words! Almost certainly he was thinking of acts of charity, of acts of service; practising what we preach. But those words of St Francis apply to this building, this Cathedral, and to all Church buildings. They are sermons in stone, powerful witnesses to the local people, and in this case also to the state of New South Wales and to the whole nation. We can take this for granted. But newcomers and outsiders are often struck by the ubiquity and the beauty of our centres of worship. I remember an immigrant from Cambodia telling me how much she was taken by the immense number of Christian churches in Australia. So in the presence this morning of the Vice Premier of the Republic of Ireland, and the Ambassador and Consul General, I think we should acknowledge the overwhelming contribution of the Irish to the planting of the faith here; and also to the building of the type of nation that we now have in Australia: open, prosperous, a land of free speech, a fair go, where the mass of the population is often delighted to reject the preferred options of the establishments, financial or cultural. Through inter-marriage there are many of us who do not carry Irish names, but whose presence and contribution in the Church is tribute to the faith and the fortitude of Irish Australian Catholic mothers. This Cathedral is a witness to the very ancient monotheist tradition. We should never forget that it is a great privilege to know about the one true God and especially to know that that he loves us. That is very different from the undemanding religious enthusiasms that some people are tempted to follow. A whole variety of new age approaches can be quite close to superstition. Most people want the consolations of religion, but it's a particularly modern temptation to want these without having to pay for them. In the first reading Jacob wrestled all night with the angel. He slept on a rock and even by the standards of the time that would not have been too comfortable. It was only after that, on waking in the morning that he recognized this was a sacred place, a ladder to heaven. And so we belong to nearly four thousand years of the monotheist tradition, monotheist worship, worship of the creator God. St Mary's in contemporary Australian idiom is very much a sacred site. It is a holy building. God is an invisible mystery of love. Going out talking to confirmation classes I always ask them what is God like, what is God made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice? Eventually we get to the idea of Spirit an invisible Spirit, real and powerful and invisible, a Spirit of love. And I tell the children that the first place to start in thinking of the mystery of God is to think of their parents' love for them and their love for their parents. God is nothing known to the senses as the letter to the Hebrews tells us; not a blazing fire, not trumpeting thunder nor a great voice. But the author goes on that God is Lord of a festival of angels and of the sons and daughters of God; the head of a heavenly community of love. So this Cathedral, the place where the Bishop has his cathedra, the Greek word for a teaching chair, is the centre of the believing community in Sydney. It is the mother church of the Catholics throughout Australia; and to the extent that we build a genuine community of faith and service here, we are a foretaste of the next life; a sign or a sacrament of what lies beyond, a gateway to heaven, a ladder to the invisible, a stairway. Catherine of Siena uses the language of a bridge between our ordinary every day concerns and the mighty God of love that remains hidden. Gothic architecture hints very well at the reality of this transcendent God, calls us beyond our senses, as of course does the beautiful treasury of Church music and the proper celebration of the one universal liturgy of the Catholic Church. But the Cathedral also issues to us a moral challenge. The beginning of the Catholic community is the call of John the Baptist to repent and to believe. Jesus calls us to conversion, to purify our hearts, and that is why at the start of every celebration of the Eucharist we have that call to repentance; we call to mind our sins, we reconcile ourselves with God and with one another. In the short Gospel passage today we are told that if we are unable to do that, we should go off wherever the object of our hate is to be reconciled and then come back to pray. So it is in this moral sense too that we can understand that the Cathedral is like a power-house sending out grace, super-natural energy; sending out people strengthened in their love, to do the right thing in their families and workplaces and community. On this anniversary let us once again thank God in prayer, and thank all those who have gone before us for what they have handed down to us. Let us dedicate ourselves to the continuing restoration and development of the Cathedral. One particular challenge that lies before us is to see that this Cathedral is visibly and manifestly not just an Irish Australian Cathedral but a Cathedral which represents the other great national traditions in the Australian community, so that all of Catholic Sydney can feel at home here and feel that they belong here. Let us look forward with hope, and faith and confidence for the future. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
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