Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (2026) - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

You'll be pleased to know that our group for new and aspiring Catholics is flourishing.  Good numbers show up on Wednesday nights for our RCIA group; a similar number have already received initiation this year.  Please God, there will be many more.  Everyone is always welcome; we’re ready to welcome you as soon as you’re ready.  This is the Lord’s work among us and in you.

For new Catholics, there is a detachment from the original community.  If they’re coming from a Christian community, often it's the features of those communities which led them to us.  They peek inside and see the same love for God, Scripture, and prayer they currently have.

Often too in those communities, there is a feature which both retains and repels the aspiring Catholic.  There is great fellowship among them, but not one which is always based in the Holy Eucharist.  There are people there who believe in the triune God, and unfortunately much else besides.  They can take great pride in the richness of peer ministry, but much less so in disturbing governance structures – where it is simply rule by the opinionated.  One person’s story bears this out.

Fr Michael Nazir Ali and Cardinal Nichols. Credit: EWTN

Michael Nazir Ali was raised in a Christian and Muslim family. He became an Anglican in his teenage years and eventually a bishop.  After he retired, he became a Catholic and was ordained a Catholic priest.  At his ordination, he said that he became a Catholic because he found that in this Church decisions which affect everyone stick, that there is a coherent body of teaching to which everyone can make appeal, and that there is an adequate teaching authority to guide the faithful across cultures.

Others become Catholic for different reasons.  One person very dear to me might say that she came for the people and stayed for the Church.

New Catholics deserve our admiration because they have sold up for this.  They are the ones who have already learned the lessons of these parables: every Yes entails a No; every No has a corresponding Yes.  We cannot hold on to two things that are pulling in different directions at the same time.  A choice must be made.  Like Solomon, we have to evaluate the options.  Something must be let go.

So it is that the treasure hunter and the seasoned merchant sell off their lifestyle so that they would become rich.  The discerning fishermen dispose of unsellable fish; they keep only what is good.

The message for us all is to seek and reach for the eternal Kingdom.  And in seeking and reaching for the eternal Kingdom, we need not fear any substantial loss.  Whatever we might want which costs us our faith is not worth it.  That's the lesson of the martyrs: God’s eternal life, and the means to obtain it, are worth even one’s life.

For our wonderful new and aspiring Catholics, we hope that the joy you have in discovering the peace of the Catholic Church brings you to even greater courage and charity.  And we pray God that the gifts that we together lay hold of here will be those which purchase our eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be the glory for ever and ever.  Amen.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP is the Parish Priest of Camberwell East, Victoria.