Archbishop's Homilies 2002

Mass of Profession of Sister Angela Reed, R.S.M.

at Saint John the Baptist Church, Ferntree Gully,
on Saturday, 26th October, 2002, at 2.00pm

Introduction

My dear Sisters and Brothers,

Together with the Reed family, Peter, Chris, Father Brendan, Timothy, Gerard, Bernadette and Michael, with Sister Kath Tierney and the Sisters of Mercy, and the parish of Ferntree Gully, the Church of Melbourne rejoices in the Religious Profession of Sister Angela Reed as a Sister of Mercy.

After ten years Angela is ready to make her profession to Christ of chastity, poverty and obedience, according to the Mercy charism. She has received an invitation to live a life in the image of Christ as a special vocation and with the particular gift of the Holy Spirit.

With faith-filled and thankful love we call upon the Divine Mercy, mindful of the words of Catherine McAuley, who urged her Sisters to show great tenderness above all things, as we remember the mercy flowing upon us from God, and call to mind our sins.

Homily

My dear Sisters and Brothers,

With great rejoicing I share today in the profession which Sister Angela Reed will make in the Mercy Congregation in the presence of her Superiors. I will act in the name of the whole Church to pray the prayer of religious consecration, which indicates that the special gifts of Angela Reed are recognised as a special and fruitful deepening of the consecration received in baptism.

Angela herself wishes to proclaim in the words of Saint Martha, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, and she admires the strong relationship which Martha had with Jesus. This has drawn Angela to work in a domestic violence refuge, to be one who brought mercy to others at a most difficult time in their lives.

It goes without saying that Angela is deeply grateful to her parents, her brothers and sisters, and to this parish, which has foundered her so strongly in the faith and love of Jesus. Those words of Saint Martha are a proclamation which Angela intends to be the focus of her whole life and she as a consecrated Religious can proclaim with Mary, “the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name”. Because she understands religious life as an emptying of self and as an expression that by taking full union with Christ she can be an instrument of his special care to the world, Angela wishes to make real in her own life the spirit of mercy that she has received by the loving kindness of God.

In the words of Sister Mary Carmel Bourke, whose brother was my parish priest when I was a teenager, “The mercy of Jesus is the example Catherine McAuley offers the Sister of Mercy. His mercy is never vague or malevolent for mankind in general, for it is revealed in his daily close and intimate contact with individuals in all levels of society. But he has a special love and concern for the handicapped; he aligned himself with the deprived, the rejected, the lonely, the weak and the lost ones.”

Angela herself has chosen to emphasise that it is within the context of the Church that she makes her profession of chastity, poverty and obedience. In doing so she recognises, “Holy men and women have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult circumstances throughout the Church’s history.” (John Paul II, The Consecrated Life, 35) In this particular time, all in the Church are urged to live the unity of the Trinity in communion and interdependence.

The Holy Father’s Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, stresses that the call to renewal is the constant challenge given to the whole Church and one which the Mercy Congregation has expressed in our Archdiocese and beyond for many years. The need to start afresh with Christ, to seek holiness and then to launch out into the deep.

The moment of religious consecration is indeed a significant moment. Just as Peter, James and John went up onto the mountain of the transfiguration to be surrounded for a moment by the splendour of the Trinitarian life and of the communion of saints and, as it were, caught up into the horizon of eternity, are immediately brought back to daily reality, where they see “Jesus only” in the loneliness of human nature and are invited to return to the valley to share with him the toil of God’s plan and to set off courageously on the way of the Cross. (John Paul II, The Consecrated Life, 14)

Today is a moment of thankfulness to God for one generous person, who has entered fully into the life of the Mercy Congregation and seeks to make a lifelong commitment to God and to the Church.

Time does not permit me to give any account of the spirit of Catherine McAuley, except to say that she was conscious of her own weakness, practical and immediate and self-effacing in her response to the care of the sick and the poor, courageous in encouraging the weak and constant in her awareness that every religious and every priest is called to the life of the Cross, that they themselves might live and call others to the hope of the resurrection.

It is my firm belief that Sisters of Mercy, whom I esteem highly, are needed more than ever in the society of today, to be the instruments of God’s mercy and compassion, practical care, generosity, which comes from an emptying of self, and a humble showing of the greatness of the One who from on high has dawned upon us.

May today be an inspiration to Sister Angela, as with her we thank God for the wonders of his power, and a reinforcement of our awareness that God is near through what she will humbly accomplish in the service of her sisters and brothers. With you, I thank God for her generosity, I pray for her courageous perseverance and for the family, parish and congregation which have nurtured her to this day.

 

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.