Like the others feasts and celebrations that make up the Christmas season, the remembrance of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph gives us another opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the incarnation whereby the Eternal Word of God, the Son of God, who is God, came to live among us – and not just to live among us but to live among us as one of us and for all of us. In working the miracle of the Word made flesh God chose to become part of a human family, not just sym

I was marking essays recently and, noticing how a couple of students had put their trust in AI and had been disappointed, I was reminded of a line from one of the Harry Potter novels, when Mr Weasley says: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brains.” We are human beings and we deal best with “others” if those “others” are also human beings physically present to us. Despite the technological advances that enable us to communicate

Tonight we celebrate one of the great feasts of the Church year. It is a wonderful time of year, partly because it is so familiar and filled with good memories. Seeing the Christmas lights on the houses, hearing the familiar and yet still beautiful carols we heard before Mass, and all the Christmas smells. Sometimes smells can take you right back to the past. For me, the smell of a Christmas tree can bring the memories of Christmases past rushing back. And then of course ther

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. writes Philip Larkin in one of his poems. So, he says, Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. This can seem like an attractive solution. War and terrorism and massacres, racial and religious hatred, slavery and oppression and contempt, and the seeming lack of meaning or purpose in human life, all make humanity seem a project we’re better out of. But Abraham’s descendants, listed in today’s Go

In these last days of Advent our attention is turned towards the mystery of the Incarnation, for which we are preparing. And we see from our Gospel today, it does not begin in brightness. It begins in darkness. Not the dramatic darkness of rebellion or despair, but the quiet darkness of night: the darkness of sleep, of waiting, of a world stumbling. Saint Matthew does not begin the story of Jesus’ birth with angels singing or light flooding the sky. He begins with a man asle

The Baptist’s question from prison speaks to his prophet’s faith: the one for whom John is waiting is no less than the Christ of God, whom he believes will clearly identify himself. That is a justifiable position. All through his life with his own parents and then in the wilderness as hermit and master of disciples, John has been expecting the Christ. His natural gifts and the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life have led him to this crucial point: this may be the Christ. John’

The year 1971 saw the group The New Seekers release their hit “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”. The song paints a lovely picture of a home for the whole world, furnished with love. In the garden are “apple trees and honeybees and snow-white turtle doves.” Everyone stands hand-in-hand, singing a song of peace that echoes through the hills and throughout the land.   The song would be easy to dismiss as a saccharine earworm that betrays its origins as a

As always at the beginning of Advent we anticipate the Lord Jesus both in his coming as man at the first Christmas, and at the end of time as the mysterious Son of Man.   The first understanding is the one which is most familiar to us—we are awaiting the birth of the child in Bethlehem; it’s all cute, there are farmyard animals, simple shepherds, angels dashing all over the place, and finally the visit of the wise men from the East—it ‘s all nice—kids act it out at Mass and e

The institution of monarchy has fallen on hard times in the modern world. Ever since King Louis XVI was guillotined during the French revolution, the number of kings and queens has become smaller and smaller with the passage of time. Australia continues to be a monarchy and our monarchy has recently attracted a great deal of attention, celebration and commentary through the passing of the late Queen Elizabeth II after a very long reign and the accession of her son, King Charl

We’ve all watched movies in which some possible disaster—a nuclear war, a gigantic meteorite, an unstoppable virus—causes the end of the world as we know it. After 90 minutes of tension and terror, we normally manage to do what we have been trained to do: we re-assure ourselves that it won’t happen to us in our lifetime, we get a good night’s sleep, and we get back to our jobs and our family life. Any adult who spent the night sleepless with fear and could not get on with lif

Today we celebrate the 1,701st anniversary of the dedication of the Church known as St John Lateran in Rome, which took place in 324. As is well known, there are four major basilicas in Rome: St John Lateran, St Peter’s in the Vatican, St Paul’s outside the walls, and St Mary Major. However, despite there being four major basilicas, we only celebrate the dedication of St John Lateran’s. In fact, the order in which the major basilicas are listed above is their order of ranking

Back in 2013, scientists came across some bones in a cave. These bones belonged to an unknown human species, some 300,000 years old, which they named Homo Naledi,  with a brain about a third the size of modern Homo Sapiens . Surprisingly, these bones seemed to be organised in such a way as to suggest they had been deliberately interred. There’s been much debate about whether other Homo Naledi buried them ,  or some natural process brought the bones there, or contemporary or l

Jesus begins this parable very simply: “Two men went up to the temple to pray.”  Nothing dramatic—just two men, going about something holy. But as the story unfolds, it overturns everything we expect.    One of them is admired and respected—a man of faith, known for his devotion. The other is despised, mistrusted, and written off as a sinner. Yet when they go home again, it’s not the respected man, but the despised one, who is justified before God.    This story is not only a

At the end of his mortal life with us, Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That is, the Son of God called on his Father in the depths of suffering and distress. It was a dark day for humanity when the Son saw his abandonment, when not even God’s only Son seems to catch heaven’s ear. There are uncertainties about him saying “Why have you forsaken me?”: is he quoting a psalm? Has he lost sight of heaven? Is he showing us what to do? In what sense is he

Recently I heard a song playing in a shop. I vaguely registered that I hadn’t heard that song in over twenty years. That was my only...

(The first Sunday of October in the Province of the Assumption is celebrated as Rosary Sunday) One of the many gifts to the people of God...

When I was a nineteen-year old science student at the University of Adelaide, there were four students called Gillard. I became friends...

Today’s parable might strike us as somewhat bizarre. It seems to present a dishonest steward as someone to imitate. This is despite the...

We can often romanticise the past. Take our own history. Many people lived and died with extraordinary heroism to make our own life...

This Sunday, Pope Leo XIV will canonise Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati as a saint. There is no doubt that this young man is an inspiration for...