Archbishop of Sydney

Mary, Help of Christian

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
24 May 2005

Welcome to St. Mary’s, the first Catholic Church in Australia and therefore the mother church of the entire continent.  Governor Macquarie, not a Catholic but an enlightened man who transformed the colony of New South Wales, laid the foundation stone in 1821.

It is good that senior students from all our Catholic secondary schools come together today for Mass as we pray for the protection of Mary Help of Christians.  It reminds us that we belong to a larger community than our school or parish and in fact there are more than 1,000,000 Catholics in greater Sydney.

A couple of days ago, some of your younger brothers or sisters would have been among the 5,000 youngsters confirmed at the SuperDome in Homebush, a sacrament which was also accompanied by the celebration of Mass.

With the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI we were recently made aware through the massive television coverage of the immense number of Catholics throughout the world, in fact about one billion one hundred million.  You and I belong to that immense family.

We belong to one another in the Catholic Church.  Christ is our head and St. Paul spoke of us belonging to the Body of Christ.  We speak of Mary as our Mother, because we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, with God as our father.

Some statues and photographs of Mary portray her as a very beautiful woman, a very fortunate woman or a very lucky woman.  The statue of Our Lady Help of Christians here in the Cathedral was carved by one of the early Benedictine monks here at the Cathedral.  It is a work of faith.

Such images can hide the realities.  Mary was aged about 15, when she was engaged to Joseph perhaps even less following the local custom.  There were no adolescents in those days, no secondary schools.  Everyone went suddenly from childhood to adult life.

Mary fell pregnant in a mysterious way and she had only a limited understanding of God’s great plan.  All is very clear to us now, in hindsight but Mary only came to understand gradually as her life unfolded and she prayed regularly.  We are unsure whether she could read and write, and she lived in a male dominated culture where she could have been divorced easily.  Life was hard for women and children - and for the men.

She was a woman of faith and prayer who accepted the invitation to be the Mother of the Messiah, but she did not have an easy life because of this.

The birth of Jesus in the stable, the obvious poverty and the flight into Egypt were difficult, and sometimes dangerous because of Herod.

On returning to Nazareth, Mary was the wife of a craftsman and her son lived with them until he began his public life.

And Mary was at the foot of the Cross when Jesus died.  It would be hard to imagine a more difficult situation for a mother.

But, more happily she was present with the Apostles when Jesus appeared after the Resurrection.

Therefore Mary was both an ordinary and extraordinary woman.  An ordinary girl living in 1st century Palestine in the town of Nazareth, not rich, not well educated, probably not among the poorest of the poor.  But blessed by being born into a deeply religious family.

In today’s Gospel she describes herself as ‘God’s lowly handmaid’.  We can all identify with the simplicity and ordinariness of her life situation.  We are all ordinary people, conscious of our failings and weakness, of humiliations as well as our strengths and successes.

Yet Mary is also extraordinary, chosen to be Mother of the Saviour, Mother of God.  Her cousin Elizabeth cries out:  ‘Of all women you are the most blessed’.  We hear Mary herself say ‘. . . from this day forward all generations will call me blessed’.

Sometimes too we hear Mary honoured with the beautiful title ‘Seat of Wisdom’.  So I want to say a few words about wisdom, starting with our first reading from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiaticus.

All education should be about the getting of wisdom and we Christians have a different concept of wisdom from pagans, from people who do not believe in God.

We are told that God loves those who love wisdom, which is not the same as being clever.  In fact many people far from the top of their class at school do become wise.  Wisdom has a lot to do with common sense, but wisdom is not always common and is superior, higher and better than common sense, which usually shares the weakness of popular opinion.  Wise people learn from their mistakes, while the truly foolish never learn.

A wise person sees most of the picture, is able to put both success and failure into perspective, knows the relative importance of things e.g. that money is never the most important fact in a person’s life.  In fact money often brings trouble.

A wise person has faith in God, understands the language of the cross, prays regularly, knows the difference between right and wrong and believes that God can and does forgive those who ask for forgiveness.  Such a person acknowledges Christ’s power and wisdom.

Today’s reading tells us that becoming wise is not always easy.  Everyone is plagued by wisdom’s discipline, tested by problems, but lovers of wisdom find the narrow straight road which leads to personal peace and purpose in this life and happiness in heaven in the next.

Mary never sinned but she meets all the other criteria.  She had more than her share of problems and is a model of wisdom for us.  She rejoiced in God and proclaimed God’s goodness.  She acknowledged that future generations, like ours, would call her blessed.

And why do all generations call her blessed?  Because ‘the Almighty has done great things for me’.

Mary knew that true greatness lies in allowing God to work through her, and so too our aim must be to do God’s will, to acknowledge how God has gifted us and worked through us, no matter how ordinary or unworthy we may feel sometimes.  God loves us in our imperfections, just as he wants us to strive for goodness, indeed perfection.

Mary was called Theotakos or God-bearer – the one who carried God in her body, as we do after receiving Communion.  So too we are called to bring God to others, despite the difficulties which surround us.

I reminded you in my recent Pentecost letter, there are many pressures on you to give up your faith in God, to live like those with little faith and not much more understanding of morality, of right and wrong.  Don’t follow that crowd.  Stand on your own two feet.

I encourage you to follow Mary’s example and to place your faith and trust in God revealed to us by Jesus Christ, to remain (or return) to being strong and true.  It can be done, no matter how many times we fall, especially if we understand the language of the Cross.

Remember the striking words from St. Paul in our second reading today: ‘. . . . God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’

We saw that on the Cross, we saw that in the life of Mary, not only Jesus’ mother, but his most successful disciple, history’s greatest saint.  That is why we honour her as Mary, Help of Christians.  May she protect us and our loved ones and pray for us to God as we pray to her.

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