Archbishop of Sydney

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
1 Kg 19:16,19-21; Gal 5:1,13-18; Lk 9:51-62

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
27 June 2004

We all belong in different ways to the story of successive generations.  We are part of the history or tradition of our family, perhaps our church and different local, national, even international communities.

Our awareness of this varies from individual to individual and is also different at different stages of our lives.  When we are young we usually do not worry much about these issues and cannot wait to grow up.  Often when I ask young primary school children their age, they reply “I will be nine next birthday”. “Oh”, I say “that means you are now eight years old”.  Sometimes they are running this line six or even nine months before their next birthday!

One of the blessings of a reasonably happy childhood is that children are focused on the future, persons of hope and optimism, and our task as adults is to support them in this optimism.

Many individuals become more aware of their part in the human chain at the birth of their children.  What values or truths will they pass on, what virtues will they teach to their children?  Often they identify gaps in their own childhood and want to remedy them for their children.  In other areas they will strive to do exactly as their parents did; in some cases they will make explicit changes.  A little while ago a cousin from interstate called to see me with his wife and children.  They like camping holidays but in our brief conversation their teenage son explained to me that he liked travelling, but not the sort of holidays favoured by his parents.

When, like myself, you have completed five decades of life, when some of your contemporaries have retired and most are grandparents, your perspective changes and you consider the future life after your contribution has finished.  What will follow?  What might I still be able to do to help the situation in the future, given that the past is already written in stone?

What about the Catholic scene, the future of Christianity as lively communities of faith, love and service in the coming generations?  Is the Lord regarded as a valuable part of our inheritance?

I hope we are coming out of a period when not just old people, who are always tempted to think many things were better in their childhood, but also young people were resigned to the conclusion that Christianity would be radically weaker in the future.  No such decline is inevitable.  Certainly it is not what we want.  In fact it is a situation we are determined to avoid through faith, prayer, hard work and a commitment to be open to God’s grace.  But the succession story will only work this way if sufficient numbers of young people are like Elisha, from the first Book of Kings, who rose and followed Elijah and became his servant after Elijah was told by the Lord to anoint Elisha as his successor and throw his cloak over him.

Many of you would have heard me say that Elijah from the ninth century BC is an important figure for us.  A few of you might even remember me saying he is of particular importance because belief in the one true God was nearly obliterated in his time among the Jewish people.  A primary struggle with young people today is to show them through our lives and convince them from our teaching that the one true God does love them, and then to explain that the answer they give to the call of the one true God expressed through Christ his Son has immense consequences for them in this life and the life to come.  God is not an optional extra to a good moral life and community standards, e.g. concern for the poor and disadvantaged, for the family, for the unborn and unemployed would be very different without Him.  Bishop Eugene Hurley from Port Pirie, concelebrating with me this morning, was explaining that youth unemployment in his Diocese is running at about forty per cent.  This is terrible and we should be trying to improve it.

In today’s gospel passage from St. Luke, which seems to be a collection of various bits and pieces of Jesus’ story, we hear of Jesus calling some to follow him and warning a volunteer that the Christian path is not a bed of roses.  “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

All individuals who have some influence in making appointments, in choosing some rather then others to particular offices or roles in any work in progress, might take consolation from Our Lord’s record in appointing the twelve apostles.  He got one wrong out of twelve, because he chose Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

In two of the small incidents recounted here we cannot be sure how the story turned out, but both started badly and might have ended there.  The seed seems to have fallen on rocky ground and not caught at all.

The first gentleman replied, not unreasonably, that he had to bury his father before he joined up. “Leave the dead to bury their dead” was the abrupt reply he received.  I suspect the reason he gave was an excuse perhaps not entirely true, while the man who wanted to say goodbye to his family was told that he should not be looking back, but concentrating on his work for the Kingdom.

Jesus knew that many are reluctant to give a direct “no”, but seek excuses for delay, for slipping away quietly and less obviously.

God has a plan for each of us, which respects our free will and which is sometimes difficult to discover.  However it is usually recognised when we feel we are contributing, reasonably happy and acting appropriately in the succession of the generations.  That is why we believe in God’s providence, not simply coincidence.  May we all have the wisdom to recognise and the courage to answer God’s call in the unfolding story of our family, our church and the different local communities to which we belong.

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