HOMILY FOR MASS FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN LENT (YEAR C) + VISITATION OF ST GERTRUDE’S PARISH
ST BENEDICT’S SHRINE, SMITHFIELD, 30 MARCH 2025
Reality TV is now the staple of Aussie television.[1] More than half the top-rating programmes are of this genre. Whether it’s the 21 series of the home restorations on The Block, the 14 cookoffs of My Kitchen Rules, the 15 rounds of housemates’ shenanigans on Big Brother, the 10 seasons of sing-offs on Australian Idol, or the dozen or so equally gruelling endurance trials of Survivor and of Married at First Sight… Australians seem to love them! [In case you’re wondering, I’m too busy for most of that myself, though I confess to dipping into Masterchef, and I’ve been waiting for my invitation to take part in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!] That these purportedly unscripted “real-life” situations starring ordinary people are often manipulatively cast, heavily scripted, liberally edited, and less true-to-life than Martian invasion films, doesn’t seem to bother us much.
Why the fascination? Well, the ingredients include drama and tension, rivalry and intrigue. We quickly identify with particular contestants and don’t like others. Instead of A-list celebrities and professional actors, the stars are everyday mums and dads, people just like us. But perhaps the strongest appeal of Reality TV is the trope of transformation. Hobbyists turn into professionals, nobodies into household names, the shy and assuming into celebrities and influencers. This speaks to the human desire for more and better, to step out of the humdrum and become extraordinary. These are secular conversion stories.
Of course, life-changing as some of these experiences may be for the participants, and entertaining for onlookers, the conversions are rarely as profound as those of our Christian heroes the saints, nor as lasting as the transformation that awaits God’s children. And unlike Love It or List It renovations, spiritual renewal is more God’s action than ours.
The God of the Bible is into renovations big-time. He transforms the dark and empty chaos into a spectacular cosmos. Abram the nomadic tribesman becomes Abraham, father of the Chosen People; Moses the shy fugitive becomes their deliverer; and David the shepherd-boy their king. The lowly handmaid Mary He makes Mother of God; the impetuous fisherman Simon into the bedrock of the Church, Peter; and the persecutor Saul into the missionary apostle Paul. The Law and the Prophets called all the People of God to more and better. The Redemption wrought upon the Cross and sending of the Spirit constitute the Church precisely for that: that the most ordinary contestants in God’s reality shows might become our family heroes and spiritual billionaires!
God seeks to renovate each of us spiritually. Not because He’s a control freak, remoulding us as if we were His play-dough; no, His motivation is simply love. He hears the cries from deep in our hearts. And He responds as we see in our Scriptures today. After generations of Israel’s enslavement and wandering, our humiliation is ended, as he sends Joshua to lead us into the Promised Land and to celebrate our first Passover there (Josh 5:9-12). After generations more of enslavement not to Egyptian tyrants but to our own desires, of wandering not in a physical desert but a moral-spiritual one, he has Paul call us to become “a new creation”, ambassadors of His truth and mediators of His mercy (2Cor 5:17-21). And rather than putting all this on our meagre shoulders, Christ Himself promises to do the heavy lifting, the spiritual renovation project.
In today’s wonderful parable we see the process by which love transforms ordinary people and forgiveness reconciles them (Lk 15:1-3,11-32). For good reason the popular title draws our attention to The Prodigal Son: after running amok and squandering his inheritance, he returns home in desperation. Waiting for him is The Prodigal Father, even more wasteful than the son, but with mercy rather than money. He has no illusions about the boy’s imperfections yet needs no persuading to receive him back with open arms. The Judgmental Brother thinks the Father’s love should be conditional on performance, but the love of Jesus’ God is much more radical than that!
In his reflection on this story, the great Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe tells us that “God never changes his mind about you. He is simply in love with you.”[2] If our relationship with God changes, the transformation is always at our end, not His, in our understanding or willing or feeling or relating, not God’s. Contrition means humbly seeing God as He truly is and ourselves in relation to Him. He’s no vindictive gameshow host, accusing and damning us at the earliest opportunity. He’s a patient Father, waiting to welcome us back and renew us in the process. For this reason, McCabe thought the real focus of the parable is not the younger son’s sin, or even his repentance; nor the older son’s sin, and his grudge-bearing; but the Father’s mercy, and especially the party that follows.[3] The forgiveness feast is a celebration of God’s infinite love in Confession and Communion in this life, and in the Heavenly Banquet in the next—where the true Masterchef lovingly feeds, transforms and glorifies us.
Our culture increasingly values people only for what they produce or consume. They are seen as worth protecting only if they are strong, capable, useful. So, the unwanted, unborn and unseen, the elderly, weak and dying are devalued, de-personed, even killed. But the God who welcomes back the shamed boy values every person, giving them life as images of Himself, restoring them to His family likeness as His children, celebrating each one with a fatted calf regardless of age or address, power or influence.
For over 75 years this parish has told the story of God’s transforming grace in its life of prayer and worship, and in many acts of service that boldly proclaim His love. Your Parish Pastoral Council, and your Finance, Maintenance, Hospitality and Fundraising committees, are very active. Volunteers offer greeting and hospitality, minister within the Liturgy, form choirs, clean, garden, run playgroup, catechise 850 students in five state schools, care for the sick and housebound. Staff coordinate ministries, prepare children for sacraments, and lead and teach in St Gertrude’s Primary, Mary MacKillop Wakeley and Patrician Brothers Fairfield. Parishioners take part in discussion groups, prayer groups, and youth groups, in movie nights and devotions. You had some great celebrations last year of 75 years as a parish, 70 at St Therese church, and 20 under the pastoral care of the Pauline Fathers. Soon you will also mark 50 years in this beautiful Shrine of St Benedict. Yours is a very Catholic part of Sydney, with nearly 2 in 5 residents identifying as Catholic, and you are ethnically and ritually rich also. You have around 850 at Masses on a Sunday, in English, Italian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Syriac or Neocatechumenal languages, which is great.
But there’s no cause for complacency. You are rightly troubled that many parishioners are not here regularly on Sunday (or at some other church) and that baptisms are well down on pre-Covid numbers. You must ask yourselves what more you might do to invite people home. In sharing your gifts with one another and the wider community, you give witness to God’s spiritual renovation project, alive and well in St Gertrude’s Parish and offered to every soul. You proclaim to your neighbours that more and better is possible with God. For the wonderful gift that is our Catholic faith Laetare—let us rejoice!
Word after Communion
My thanks to all who’ve welcomed me so warmly or given time for me to speak with them. I hope to meet many more of you at our morning tea after Mass. In due course I’ll send you some feedback. I want especially to thank your Parish Priest, Fr PJ Strohmayer OSPPE, Assistant Priests Fathers Albert and Casimir, and the entire parish team for their assistance and patience throughout the visitation. God bless you all.
[1] “Beyond the ratings: The cultural impact of Australia’s Reality TV obsession,” Forte Magazine 17 May 2023; “Reality TV a winner for Australian audiences,” Free TV Australia, 10 February 2025.
[2] Herbert McCabe, Faith Within Reason, 158.
[3] Herbert McCabe, Faith Within Reason, 157.
INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN LENT (YEAR C) + VISITATION OF ST GERTRUDE’S PARISH, ST BENEDIC – T’S SHRINE, SMITHFIELD, 30 MARCH 2025
Welcome friends to the truly beautiful Shrine of St Benedict, for today’s Mass and Morning Tea concluding my visitation this week of the Parish of St Gertrude Smithfield. An episcopal visitation is a chance for me to have a good look at how you are going as a parish and to join you in some self-examination. So, this week I’ve been treated to Masses at both churches, tours of the parish buildings, and meetings with your parish clergy, council and groups, as well as with individual lay leaders and parishioners. I’ve also had the joy of meeting staff and students from the schools, and some of your young adults, elderly and infirm.
The Fourth Sunday of Lent is known as ‘Lætare Sunday’, from the Prophet Isaiah’s entrance antiphon: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning…” (Isa 66:10). It’s a day for casting off the dour purple of Lenten penance, anticipating the rosier hue of Easter rejoicing—which is why our clergy are dressed like Easter eggs!
I welcome our friend Dr Hugh McDermott MP, state member for Prospect, and the principals of our schools. I salute the Pauline Fathers: your parish priest Fr Peter James Strohmayer OSPPE, Assistant Priests Fr Albert Wasniowski OSPPE and Fr Casimir Zielinski OSPPE. They are exercising great pastoral leadership here, feeding your devotional lives, and providing the spirituality and witness of the Pauline monks for which we are very grateful. I also acknowledge Syriac Catholic Father Majid Al Hanna—whose presence is a tribute to the diversity of Catholic rites in this part of God’s kingdom.
To everyone present this morning, a very warm welcome to you all!
