Archbishop's Homilies 2002

Mass for the Indonesian Community

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at St Paschal’s College, Box Hill,
on Saturday, 14th September, 2002, at 3.00pm

Introduction

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am delighted to meet with you from the Indonesian community to encourage you and your Chaplains in the living of the faith of Jesus Christ.

Today in the Church we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and you and I know well that the living of the faith in modern society is a great invitation to walk the way of the Cross and so to come to newness of life

Be sure that I will offer this Mass for you and for all of your community, relatives and friends, as together we call to mind our sins, that the saving power of the Cross may be with us now and always.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

W. H. Auden was an Englishman living in New York. As darkness was falling over Europe with the beginning of the Second World War, he uttered these words, “Defenceless under the night our world in stupor lies; yet, dotted everywhere, ironic points of light flash out wherever the just exchange their messages: may I, composed like them of eros and of dust, beleaguered by the same negation and despair, show an affirming flame.” We are all aware that there are tensions and difficulties in our world. We might do well to show an affirming flame by joining together to address the conditions where terrorism thrives. No injustice legitimises the attacks on innocent civilians of a year ago, nor can any programmes or policies ever completely eradicate hatred and violence, but a more just world will be a more peaceful world.

Surely we can do more than we are doing at present to shift the probabilities in a more favourable direction. Today I am one with your community in recognising with esteem our common presence in Melbourne and our common commitment to the following of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I admire your energy and enthusiasm for preaching the Gospel. I remind you that on today, the great feast of the Cross, Jesus has shown us how to live. “Though he was in the form of God he did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant ….. he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, the death of the Cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)

Jesus entered a struggle unto death, but he fought this battle not for himself, but for us. From his death life has sprung forth. The tomb at Calvary has become the cradle of the new humanity on its journey to happiness.

Pope John Paul said these words recently to the young people at Exhibition Park in Toronto for the World Youth Day. “The Cross of our daily life, the Cross of following Christ in the face of a hostile society, the Cross and the very real rigours of making our way in a new city which is often hostile and pagan are all the price of coming with Christ to the Cross and on with him to the resurrection and hope which he offers.”

I am delighted to be with you because we share this challenge together. You and I can experience personal weakness, whilst knowing that we have struggles and inadequacies. And yet Jesus in going to the Cross went right to the depths of our human weakness in all things except sin and then showed us how to emerge with the resurrection. We have to be watchers for the morning, bearers of the light of Christ to our world.

Remember the words of the Pope, “To believe in Jesus is to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are saying. It means rejecting the short-term things, which are sinful and yet are presented as good, however attractive it may be, in order to set out on the difficult path of following Jesus, which alone will bring happiness.

I invite you to listen again to the Lord. He is counting on you. Christ needs you in your families in this new country to carry out his plan of salvation, to be true followers of Jesus, to be unashamed and unafraid in saying to others in our society that we need the values of Jesus for the survival of our families, our individuals and our society.

"We adore you O Christ and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

 

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.