Australia Day 2015
Homily (Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral, Waitara)
Let me begin by repeating the opening prayer
for today’s Mass:
Grant, we pray, O Lord our God
That as the Cross shines in our southern skies,
so may Christ bring light to our nation, to its peoples old and new,
and by saving grace, transform our lives.
Grant, we pray, O Lord our God
That as the Cross shines in our southern skies,
so may Christ bring light to our nation, to its peoples old and new,
and by saving grace, transform our lives.
70,000 years into our human history, 227
years into our colonization, and 114 years into our nationhood, Australia is older
than the rest of civilisation, yet still new in its culture and outlook. We remain
a people and nation capable of seeing a new vision in this very ancient land.
This strange mixture of old and new continues to make Australia what it is: a
country that has three fundamental and overlapping layers of identity – our
indigenous history, our Western legacy, and our immigrant inheritance. This
three-fold identity is what God’s providence has bequeathed to us, Australia’s
current generations; and it is from this identity that we are to shape a new
vision in Christ, as we have prayed.
The perennial risk for Australia today is, I
think, to forget to honour – or even reject outright – one or other dimension
of our threefold indigenous, western, immigrant identity. When we have failed
to recognize, honour and learn from our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
forebears, we have become a poorer and uncaring nation. When we have neglected
to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian basis of our society, we have become a
weaker and blindfolded nation. When we have scorned new arrivals to these
shores, we have become a wary and ungenerous nation. The loss of any of these
three layers of identity has led to the loss of our goodness as a people.
This is not the new vision that we have been
given to reflect. God has endowed us with his goodness, so that his vision may
fill our sights – and a new fire of the Holy Spirit might be lit among us. This
is the great calling Christian Australians have been given for the sake of our
country. We have Christ, who is incarnated in our very identity: Jesus has
indigenous, western and ethnic looks; he has pitched his tent among us. As
such, we Christian Australians have what is needed to see the new horizon of
our future, because our faces have been formed by grace to show the face of
Jesus to our nation and people.
To believe this is to hold that Christian
Australians have unique gifts to give back to this country: the gift to hope
for what is good, the gift to see what might be possible, and the gift to act
with resolve. There are three current matters which strike me as signs for us
to act accordingly. Firstly, over the next year or so, the question of
constitutional recognition of our indigenous peoples will become a major
political issue. We can and should be a strong voice in favour of this
recognition as an act of justice. Secondly, the issues of religious freedom and
freedom of speech will continue to play out in our society. We can be a firm
voice of encouragement amongst those of faith who strive to speak with dignity
and reason. Thirdly, and most pressing, two of our young citizens, Andrew Chan
and Myuran Sukumaran, are on death row in Bali. We can be a voice of
compassionate support to them by contacting the Indonesian Ambassador in
Canberra.
Australians can have a new vision in this
ancient land, shaped by the hands and the face of Christ. Let this be our
prayer today, and our resolve to act accordingly.
Most Rev Peter A Comensoli
Bishop of Broken Bay
26 January 2015
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