Fr Jim's (old) Blog

Our children at Holy Cross School are studying Cambodia as part of their religious education "Mission" unit. It's great to see the natural sympathy the kids have for kids who don't have what they have. They naturally sense the injustice and want to help. But their options for helping seem to be limited to the inevitable "let's do a fundraiser". Which means getting other people to give money. I see this premise also in high school kids who are full of good will to raise money for charity, and even better, go on a "mission trip" or immersion experience, but who rarely correlate their own standard of living with an unfair share of the world's resources, of which the object of their concern suffer the lack. For awhile I've been watching our school do the eco-friendly project of collecting the lunch scraps and feeding them to the chickens. But the quantity of food thrown out has staggered me - 4 or 5 buckets a day, which is far too much f...

Weddings. Check. Baptisms. Check. Funerals. Check. I've done plenty of each. But a couple of weeks ago I got a call to do something I've never done before: bless a boat! This was a new surfboat. Macs are a fairly competitive club and do well in the state competitions. The club president gave a speech, I did a one minute prayer and blessing with holy water, and the widow of a long time club member poured champagne on the boat before the crew took it out for an inaugural row. There was such a good vibe there, and a few people I know from the parish. It struck me that there is a strong sense of community there in the surf club. Three things which the church offers; community, purpose and opportunities to serve, the surf club also does. For people without religious faith there must be a number of similar places in society which offer these.

During my time in Omaha I studied the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius . It is one thing to study them, but another to do them.The exercises can be done as a 30 day intensive retreat, or a week by week program. Much as I would love to, there isn't a spare month I could be away from the parish again, so I am doing the 30 week version. I receive spiritual direction via Skype from my director (referred from the Jesuit retreat centre in Pymble ). Each week she sends me a list of scripture passages to meditate on and other prayer exercises, and then in an hour conversation via Skype we talk just about how I have been praying. It has been a very focused experience of prayer thus far. In other experiences of spiritual direction in the past we have talked about a broader range of issues of life, prayer and ministry, but this is just about prayer, nothing else. I am praying with passages of scripture which of course I have known, such as Jesus' declaration of bringing good news t...

Christ in the City , a Catholic urban ministry offers some tips for how a Catholic can relate to a homeless person on the street, something which many of us find deeply uncomfortable: 1. Ask the person’s name, remember it, and greet them if you see them again. The usual social etiquette of meeting and greeting is often foreign for homeless people. Some of them report not hearing their own name spoken for weeks on end. 2. Reach out and offer a handshake. Again, homeless people often never receive this most basic act of physical connection with another person. This simple gesture breaks a barrier and expresses that you recognize their dignity. One moment of awkwardness for you can be the highlight of the day for him or her. 3. Give something other than money. Many people are wary, and sometimes for good reason, of giving money which may be spent on alcohol or drugs. But to give food, such as a banana or a chocolate bar can make a difference. Personal items such as socks, a to...

Gina Rinehart is rich. Warren Buffet is rich. Bill Gates is rich. But what about you? Are you rich? Most us of never think of ourselves as rich, because we know people who are richer than us. We know there are people who are poorer, too, but we usually don't know them, we just know about them. Try this website www.globalrichlist.com   where you can enter your income, and it tells you where you are on the scale of the world's richest to poorest people. I've invited people to do this in this week's homily, because the gospel is from Luke 16, where the unnamed rich man goes to hell simply for being rich, when the poor man Lazarus was at his gate and he did nothing to help him. On a global scale you and I are both pretty rich (and if you're like me and don't have a full wage but live subsidised by family / church / government, try calculating the wage it would cost to pay for your lifestyle outright. The average Australian full time wage is approx $75,000,...

 One of the good things about the Catholic lectionary is that it forces us to look at the whole bible, and not the just easy bits, or the bits we like. This weekend for the 25th Sunday of Year C we read Luke 16 with its difficult parable of the unjust steward, who seems to be corrupt at work and then gets praised by Jesus for it. Deacon Paul and I have both wrestled with what to say this weekend. Jesus' point though is to put people before things, and this is the angle I will take, looking at why Jesus so often challenges our relationship with money. In a nutshell, it's because so often money makes us less happy. This News.com.au   article is one of many studies and anecdotes which show that more than half of all lotto millionaires end up less happy than before.    When you look at pictures of kids like these from poor countries, people often note that they seem so happy, when contrasted with us who have so much, and we wonder why. I wonder if it is s...

Over three weekends we are celebrating the First Communion, or First Eucharist of 75 children from our parish. More so than ever before, these have been really beautiful celebrations so far. It feels like it's been more about the Eucharist than about the "First". We have intentionally spread the families across 6 Sunday Masses so that there are 12-15 children and their families at a time, the church is not overcrowded, and the the children are receiving communion as part of the community they are, or could be with every Sunday. Everyone has seemed more settled and focused than has sometimes been the case. There are less over-the-top dresses, veils and tuxedos, and more children who are nicely dressed but also age appropriate. I haven't needed to tell people not to take photos. I've preached an intentionally accessible homily, knowing that for many of the parents they haven't really done the journey to know and meet Jesus Christ, though through the sacramen...