Fr Jim's (old) Blog

Like so many people I was astonished last November that Donald Trump was voted president of the US. In hindsight, President Trump won by doing what President Obama did eight years earlier: mobilising a cohort of people who usually didn't vote. In Obama's case it was young people, poor people and black people. I remember this well; I was in Chicago in 2008 and my friends who had never voted before were registering to vote. In Trump's case, it was the blue collar unemployed, racists and the anti-government fringe.  So, while lots of us are wringing our hands or expecting the apocalypse, the ever magnanimous Pope Francis has wise words for us "Wait and see". In an interview reported by the Catholic News Service he said Being afraid or rejoicing beforehand because of something that might happen is, in my view, quite reckless," the pope said. "We will see. We will see what he does and then we will judge -- always on the concrete. Christianity either is...

Well, the blog is back after too long away! This weekend in my homily we are watching the first two minutes of a TED talk by Tim Urban called "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator" Click here for the whole talk At lot of people can resonate with the way we tend to put off difficult, boring or unpleasant tasks, and the way that sometimes catches up with us. I then contrast that very human tendency with the very graced way that Peter & Andrew, James and John respond when Jesus calls them in Matthew 4:12-23. When Jesus calls, they respond at once (or immediately in other translations). But not everyone who Jesus calls acts this way. There are others who procrastinate, saying yes, I'd love to, but first let me finish what I'm doing or let me go and do that thing first such as in Matt 8:21 or Luke 14:18-20. But they never return, and we never even learn their names. They are the unnamed, uncredited extras in the drama of the gospels. So when we kno...

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,...