Weekday Masses

As from Thursday 2nd January 2020 the normal weekday Mass program will resume at St Monica's Walkerville. (See side-bar to the right)

New Year's Day Mass will be at St Monica's 8am.

The last weekday Mass at Sacred Heart, Hindmarsh will be Tuesday 31st Dec, 7am.

4th Sunday of Advent 22 Dec 2019 Sermon

4^th Sunday of Advent 22.12.19 Straight paths

We are nearly at the feast of Christmas. We summon all our best intentions as we seek to make straight the way of the Lord, to prepare for His coming.

This translates to giving Him the best possible chance of converting and saving us.

Much of the time the human race is obstructing the way of the Lord by ignoring, denying, insulting, or disobeying Him.

For one reason or another they do not want Him to come. It might be they deny their need for salvation; or they might think that salvation is not possible.

For our part, we do know we need saving, and we do want it.

We may be reluctant to part with some of our sins, but we know we would be better off without them.

God allows our response to determine at least partly what He will do, or when.

Why does God wait on us, when that seems to jeopardise the whole operation?

It is because saving us requires our response, from mind and heart, so our contribution cannot be bypassed or overruled.

God could overrule us, but that would defeat the whole idea for why He created us – that we would voluntarily come to know, love and serve Him.

We learn what we have to do from the key figures in the drama – Our Lady, St Joseph and St John the Baptist - who helped events to go as needed.

People say, where is God? Why does He not do something? He has been doing a great deal - prompting us, inspiring us, guiding us. Most of God’s interventions are too subtle to be immediately obvious, especially to the mockers.

If we want to see God in action we have to do some acting ourselves. It is very simple in principle; we do not usually have to do anything remarkable or difficult; just be faithful to the tasks our state of life requires; drawing inspiration from the major players in the infancy story.

St Joseph obeyed without question whenever he was told to do something. He was not given much explanation but he did not need it; he was happy to obey.

St John the Baptist deferred any praise of himself to its proper destination. He must grow greater; I must grow less (Jn 3,30), In both cases humility and a willingness to stand aside lest they obstruct the works.

God waits on us; He is interested in our response. We can give Him the right response, always with His help.

He wants us to be people who will interact with Him; who will want to know Him better, and become more desirous of pleasing Him.

He wants this for each individual, and for the Church as a whole; to be people who will welcome God into His own world. This is not so unreasonable when we think about it!

It should come easily but it usually does not. There is so much resistance to letting God take control of His own world.

It may need force for God to make it plain to people the choice they have.

Thus we have the apocalyptic predictions, including punishment for unrepentant sinners.

If it comes to cosmic disorders, we will stay calm and continue to serve till the end.

We will be the faithful servants, ready to greet the Lord when He returns (Lk 12,37); also faithful sheep who know the sound of the Master’s voice (Jn 10,27), who can discern His will and put it into practice.

Christmas is always something of a battle between what we wish and what we actually have. The world is so far from where it needs to be. We can help bridge the gap between ideal and real. We do our part to make straight the way of the Lord.

3rd Sunday of Advent 15 Dec 2019 Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Advent 15.12.19 Degrees of joy

Everyone is in pursuit of happiness, but not necessarily looking in the right places.

Many look for happiness in this life, as though it were the only life they have.

Earthly happiness has a way of being very fragile, and also somewhat futile.

Fragile, insofar as it can easily fall short of what was desired (like a holiday gone wrong, for instance).

Futile, insofar as such happiness can leave one no happier than before. It might be just a transient taste of happiness, lasting only for the moment.

Meanwhile the soul yearns for something deeper.

Christian joy is set deep - deep enough that  it does not vary with circumstances. It remains always firm, no matter what happens around it.

If our union with Christ is deep enough we will never be separated from Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord  ( Rm 8,38-39).

He gives us a joy that nothing will take away (Jn 16,22).

But do not the misfortunes of the world take away our joy?

Not when we have union with Our Lord Jesus Christ. If we have Him we have everything. He is the source of all life, all happiness.

He can compensate us for anything we lose along the way; He can lead us to live with more purpose, free from destructive sin and false attachments.

In a world of much insecurity our certainty is found in Him, who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13,8).

He is the revelation of the one true God, and Himself that same God. Finding Him is better than winning the lottery or finding gold.

He has called us all to be His disciples, to be in close union with Him. This may not immediately strike us as a joyful thing, but we will reach that conclusion eventually.

He calls us, and then strengthens us. We will find we have the strength to uproot our vices and yield good fruit instead. With that will come joy, a sense of right order, everything working as it should.

Life might be harder in some ways (eg enduring persecution), but there is always that sense that with God s help we will get through.

We discover a deeper joy which is neither fragile nor futile.

Even if being martyred we can still be joyful – because we are close to Christ and that is where the joy comes from.

We graduate to a higher level of understanding whereby we are able to say that what He wants is the main thing.

If I get eaten by a lion tomorrow – if that is what He wants, or at least permits – then I want it too!

Our Lady shows the way, supported by many saints, including John the Baptist, featured strongly in this Advent season.

One thing God wills is – precisely on this note - that we will come to trust Him and be completely assured in His presence - in such a way that we do not change according to the last thing that happened. We learn to rise above circumstance to a more lasting truth.

We don’t know what happens tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years etc. We do know that in all those times Christ will be the same as He is today.

Thus I do not fear even ten thousand coming at me (Ps 3,6).

We can however still pray for the surface things to go well. Some things at least we can change by our actions or by prayer, and we should do whatever can be done in those quarters.

We do that much and then defer to deeper plans, trusting in greater wisdom than our own.

Immaculate Conception 8 Dec 2019 Sermon

Immaculate Conception 8.12.19 Second chance

It was a good day for us when Mary was conceived. Whether there was any sign in nature that something remarkable was happening that day, I do not know; but the event was worthy of some wonder from surrounding creation.

The conception of one baby, one particular baby turned human history on its head.

It was like a new creation of the human race. Adam and Eve had forfeited the perfect union with Almighty God, and from then on we laboured under original sin.

Mary was conceived without sin, giving the human race another chance.

Adam and Eve failed to grasp the privilege extended to them. Mary succeeded, and gave perfect return to God at every point of her life.

Into a diseased and disordered world a new stream of purity and holiness was released.

We can become cynical as we see the world around us, riddled with sin of every kind.

There is a purer world, not visible, but active all the same, calling us each and all to share in the fruits of a holy life, a life without sin.

We have tasted of this life and can tell that it is much better than the life of sin; but we find we have to break free from the ties of falsehood and vice.

It is like walking into a cobweb and having to fight our way through.

Salvation is an ongoing work. What we celebrate today was a major advance in God's plans for the world.

Mary had always been in His mind as an ideal. Now, she was here in reality.

Soon after would come the Saviour Himself, God made Man, saving us from within the human condition, by living as one of us.

The salvation and retrieval of the human race is at stake. The entry of Mary is a major event in pursuit of that objective.

God surrounded her with His love and she responded. She saw the better way.

Mary did not sin; did not want to sin. By not sinning she grew in love of God and that made any other sin even less likely.

She makes it look easy. People who are ‘best in the world’ at something make that thing look natural, even easy.

So Mary makes it look easy to be holy. It is simply looking at the glory of God.

The devil could not touch her with the normal tricks that worked with everyone else.

This made her a very powerful person, having direct and complete access to the power of God. Innocence is often portrayed as weakness, as in a kind of naivete.

Not with Mary. She was powerful because of her innocence. She could make miracles happen, and still can.

Now it is our turn to step up and take our part in the great Salvation story. It is a great story and still being written. Each of us has at least a paragraph to contribute!

Salvation for us is more complicated than for Mary, because we have to be extricated from sin, from false ideas, disordered passions etc.

We are far from immaculate, at least to start with. We can reach that state, slowly and surely, as we take on more and more God's view of things.

All our lives, and all of human history, we have been trying to subvert God's plan and make it our plan instead. Very Luciferian - I will be my own god.

If we can just accept that there is One greater than us. This should not be so hard when it is so obvious. We are created beings, and must never forget that.

We have a second chance in Mary. We will not allow ourselves to be deceived again.

1st Sunday of Advent 1 Dec 2019 Sermon

1^st Sunday of Advent 1.12.19 Recognizing the Saviour

We are often reminded we should repent of our sins; and that we should avoid sin.

Sin is anytime we offend God by breaking one of His commands. There are the Ten Commandments, and then there are sub-clauses that go with them. For example, Thou shalt not kill takes in hating or insulting as well.

It is difficult not to fall into one sin or another. To have to keep all the rules could sound like an impossible burden.

If we put the same thing another way, however, it all seems easier.

We can avoid sin simply by recognizing with sufficient clarity our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The more we come to know and love Him the easier it will be for us to align ourselves with His will.

And this will mean we no longer commit sin, because we have lost all desire for it. It will be no great effort, either, because it will come naturally.

There are already some sins we would not dream of committing, such as rob the local bank. We can come to the point where we would not dream of speaking unnecessarily about our neighbour’s faults, or having jealous thoughts.

The moral law comes from God and expresses His nature. The more we understand Him the more natural His laws appear. He has not just thrown us a rule book and said, Here, keep these!

Instead He has come among us and patiently shown us what He is like, what God is like, what Man is like when brought into union with God.

Jesus came to show us the Father (Jn 14,9).  He never sinned in His human nature, never rebelled against God;  because He had perfect union with God, perfect understanding of what was what, and why it was so.

This is where we need to be, or at least steadily pressing in that direction.

The rules still matter; and He does want us to keep them; only that it come from the heart; that it be an expression of the union we have achieved with God up to the present time.

And this is meant to catch on; so that the whole population will come to the same understanding; no longer resenting being told what to do.

God is not denying our natural desires, but rather purifying those desires, making us much happier than we would have been, if left to ourselves.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (Ep 5,8).

We have been liberated, at least in principle, and there is more to come.

It may hurt a little to re-orientate our desires; but the joy will be far greater than the pain.

In Advent we are reminded that our time is limited. We do not have forever to decide whether we will accept God's offer of liberating us.

The invitation is very generous on His part, but if we delay too long we will stay in our sins, and with that will come the penalty of eternal death.

In the end it comes to this: do we love God or Not?

Whether we keep the rules is one measure of that, but as we see that is only a start.

We have a long way to go to reach the full and serene union with the Heart of God, as we would see in Our Lady, for instance.

The time we have left is the time to travel this distance, to reach the required level of union.

We refer back to the time of Our Lord on earth, for constant reassurance and direction.

If we can draw from His humanity - His trust in God, His gentleness, generosity, wisdom, compassion - then we must arrive eventually.

Come, Lord Jesus includes that we come to Him; come in mind and heart; agree with Him; accept all He wants to do for us.