Inaugural homily delivered to people of Diocese of Sale
Solemn Mass and liturgical reception - July 15, 2009
We gather on this day of fresh beginnings in Christ for the Diocese of Sale, surrounded by a Gospel of great joy and hope: The Transfiguration (Mark 9/2-10).
Peter, James and John, at this time, do not know what the transfiguration of Jesus would truly mean for them. It takes place before the death and resurrection of Jesus. This mystery is still to be experienced by them. Yet they are filled with the awe and wonder of the moment. Its splendour dazzles them and seems to blind them. They shield their eyes and bow down. In the presence of the transfigured Jesus talking to Elijah and Moses, the impetuous Peter makes the innocent suggestion of pitching tents. Following an ancient tradition going back to the book of Exodus (24-27), Peter is like a Parish Priest who wants to build a Church to house the Lord’s dwelling among us.
But there are deeper realities at play here. It is not simply a looking back, but the Transfiguration generates a profound hope for the future. It is a foretaste for the future death and resurrection of Jesus and his ultimate return in glory at the end of time. Jesus is the “new exodus”. This hope in Jesus is given a Trinitarian foundation with God the Father speaking from a cloud and declaring Jesus as Son. Listening attentively to the Son in obedience is the only way forward for the embryonic church.
Mark’s gospel account of the Transfiguration no doubt gives great hope and encouragement to his embattled and persecuted community. They are to persevere and never give up. They are to see in all their troubles the victory of Christ crucified. Their apparent failure in the face of horrendous persecution was, in faith, a dazzling victory. Their sharing in the resurrection of Jesus comes from their imitation in the powerlessness of the crucified Jesus on Golgotha. All this generates great hope.
Once all the “glitz” of the Transfiguration disappears, a beautiful and serene expression emerges in the Gospel we have just heard proclaimed: “they saw no one with them anymore but only Jesus” (Mk 9/8). They return to the present realities refreshed by the hope given in all that has just transpired. They prepare themselves to leave the magnificence of their mountain top encounter and return below to the valley of unknown and unpredictable everyday life.
I suppose it could be said that our gathering today for this Mass and Liturgical Reception has similarities with the transfiguration scene as well. It is a kind of mountain top experience for us too, if you like. There are some common elements. Our gathering too generates hope for the future as a new chapter in the history of the Diocese of Sale begins today. As we are a Christian community, we are gathered too in the presence of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The centrality of Jesus is our common focus as we wait obediently for his second coming in glory at the end of time. And all this takes place in this Cathedral that is surely a kind of mountain of the Lord for the Catholics of the Diocese of Sale.
More specifically, hope and joy are generated, for example, by the presence here today of the Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto. He represents the care and love of Pope Benedict XVI for us here in Australia. May I ask that His Excellency thank Benedict XVI for appointing me as the Eighth Bishop of Sale and humbly thank him for his blessings.
Archbishop Denis Hart is also with us, as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Melbourne. It is from his Archdiocese that I come and I 
thank him and through him the Church of Melbourne for nurturing me in the Catholic faith. And, of course, we acknowledge and welcome with grateful hearts our beloved Bishop Emeritus of Sale, Bishop Jeremiah Coffey. Just a few weeks ago he celebrated 20 years of service as a Bishop. Ad multos annos. To all my cherished brother bishops who are here from all over the State and beyond thank you for being here.
To all the priests, deacons and seminarians, especially those from the Diocese of Sale gathered around their new bishop, you have a special claim on my heart. Especially in this year of the priest, I acknowledge the heroic servant leadership you offer your people on a daily basis. The parishioners love you and you love them with the love of the Lord. We pray for an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in this Mass. My thanks are extended especially to Fr Peter Slater, the Diocesan Administrator, and the Consultors for all their care of the Diocese in this time of transition.
I acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude the Consecrated Religious Brothers and Sisters who are here today, along with Lay pastoral leaders and Diocesan personnel. To all ecumenical and inter faith leaders, to distinguished guests and all visitors, especially my dear family members – welcome!
To the people of the Diocese of Sale, who are here today or who are evangelising at home or at work, I greet you with the love of the Lord Jesus. Especially I greet the youth of the Diocese, on this first anniversary today of the beginning of World Youth Day, Sydney, 2008.
To all, pray that I be the kind of Bishop Jesus, the Good Shepherd, wants me to be.
Dear people of the Sale Diocese, I have noticed over these past months your hunger and desire for a bishop to be appointed to Sale by Pope Benedict XVI. It was more than simply a matter of listing possible candidates. Deeper than that, I observed from outside, it was a raw Catholic instinct coming out in you collectively. It was an unspoken belief that surfaced declaring that a Catholic diocese needs a bishop to be her visible principle of unity and communion. So, on this mountain top experience we are sharing now in the Mass, let us pray that Jesus, fully alive in the Catholic Church, will lead us all together with great confidence and hope into the future in unbreakable communion with the Church throughout the world, led by our teaching Pope, Benedict XVI.
Like Jesus with the apostles after the Transfiguration, there is the return to the valley to preach repentance, belief and conversion of heart. Soon we will return to the Latrobe Valley, and the vast beauty of Gippsland and beyond to continue this mission in a complex Australian world. Let us reflect for a moment on these challenges that await our return.
St Mark wrote his Gospel to encourage persecuted Christians in the early years of Christianity. We need the encouragement too of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our times. We may not be rounded up, tortured and crucified like the Christians in the time of St. Mark. I am not aware of anyone being arrested by the police for attending this Mass today. Yet we too face enormous challenges from both without and within the Church in preaching the Gospel today.
From outside the Church, our challenges in Australia are well known, especially by so many of you who come from rural Victoria. I look forward in the months ahead of visiting you and listening carefully to your struggles. Please educate me in this area for I have had little experience in rural life.
I could imagine you would want to share with me about the drought and its impact on agriculture, and about the global financial crisis and its effects on your lifestyle. How do you, with your deep Catholic faith, your “charity in truth” as Pope Benedict XVI has phrased it in the title of his new encyclical (Caritas in Veritate, 2009), respond to these challenges?
Of course, you will want to discuss with me also the huge pastoral impact of Melbourne’s creeping suburbia into the West of the diocese. And then I would be very interested to learn from you about the state of married and family life in the parish communities and how effectively you are passing the Catholic faith onto the next generation.
Also, I am keen to learn how you are reaching out to the poor and marginalised, especially through education, health and social services. What is the situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in the diocese?
It goes without saying that rural communities are not immune from the enormous challenges affecting all Australians at a deeper attitudinal level. I am thinking of what is defined as pragmatic secularism in the developed countries of the Western world. It is a societal attitude that tries to eliminate from public discourse and decision making any reference to religion. God is ignored and considered out of date. Apparently, a secularist and scientific “know how” world is considered far superior to a “know why” world with its many expressions in faith and religious practice. It is subtle but manifest throughout Australia and is a direct challenge to Christianity and, indeed, all religion. It produces a materialistic society lacking in meaning and hope. Unbelief, boredom and depression are some of its characteristic symptoms. The “transfiguration” that comes from the Good News of Jesus Christ is the ultimate healing from this scourge of our times.
We are faced with many challenges from within the Church as well. For example, in Australia, and no doubt linked with secularism, we find too many Catholics absenting themselves from the practise of their faith or even becoming non-believers. Vocational commitment thus becomes an issue. We find Catholics in public life or the scientific world confused or ignorant about Catholic teachings on ethics or conscience. We can encounter Catholic communities who are locked in various types of ideological battles that sap missionary energies. Also, the bad example of some can have a poisonous effect on the faith of so many others.
I do not wish to exaggerate these challenges, from both within and outside the Catholic Church. But to ignore them seems pastorally foolish. The early Church had their challenges and I have listed some of our own. They represent the context into which the liberating message of the Kingdom of God breaks into our Australian world today. This new situation demands that Catholics today are to be well formed in their Catholic faith and well informed of the world around us. It is not the time to be “dumbing down” Catholic identity. Quite the opposite is called for, but not in an ideological sense. The Catholic identity most needed today is surely the one that is characterised by radical discipleship to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who says “I lay down my life for my sheep” (John 10/15). As Pope John Paul II phrased it, we are “to propose once again to human society the entire Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ” (Ecclesia in Oceania. 2001.n.18).
Pope Benedict XVI encourages us in these challenges of our times to look both to St Paul and St John Vianney. As the Year of St Paul now gives way to the Year of the Priest, the Pope in recent weeks (28th June 2009) has proposed both these great saints as model priests. The second reading of the Mass today from St Paul gives us all not only encouragement but real pastoral advice for our times when he shares with his dear Philippian friends: “All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death”. (Phil. 3/10)
So my dear new friends in the Diocese of Sale, let us begin a fresh and courageous journey to Calvary together in the years ahead. Let us experience the Lord’s Resurrection at a deeper level in our times by sharing again in his death. Let us take very seriously Pope John Paul II’s invitation to the Catholic world at the start of this third Christian millennium when he called us to start afresh from Christ ( cf.Novo Millennio Ineunte, 29).
When I heard of the Sale diocese’s “Journeying Together” pastoral plan, I could see that this has already begun well among you since 2003. Let us now go to an even further level. For we are not to remain on the mountain top but are to go down into the valley. But we must go down to the valley with hope and joy gifted to us by the mountain top experience. We need both dimensions if we are to propose obediently to the exhausted world the serene words of the Transfiguration: to look up and see ONLY JESUS …….. ALWAYS JESUS, FOREVER JESUS.
Let us not be afraid for as the First Reading from Isaiah reminds us, it is the God of mercy and great kindness that carries us together on the long journey ahead (Isaiah 63/9). In the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, I carry you too as your new bishop. How could it be otherwise? For my dear parents gave me my name as CHRISTOPHER – meaning: the one who carries Christ.
We place our diocese once again under the maternal care and protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, the patroness of Australia. May she point out Jesus to us always as she did at Cana.
Let the concluding words come from the great Franciscan theologian and bishop, St. Bonaventure (1218-1274), whose memorial it is today. He said: “Christ is the way: Christ is the door. By Christ we mount, by Christ we are born …. Blessed be the Lord for ever, and let all the people say Amen, Amen” (The Journey of the Mind to God Chp. 7/1.2.4.6).
