HOMILY FOR THE SYDNEY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSIONING MASS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS AND THE NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR THURSDAY OF THE 1ST WEEK OF LENT
ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 13 MARCH 2025
Recent research led by the University of Sydney, UCLA and other tertiary institutions found that human beings say Yes to requests for help up to seven times more than they say No.[1] Their study, based on video recordings of everyday social interactions in various cultural contexts, show that ‘prosocial’ behaviour or cooperative interactions are very much part of our DNA. It seems we are hardwired to ask each other for help, to provide that help to others when we can, and to offer some explanation when we can’t. Homo sapiens, like other ‘social animals’, evolved ‘altruistically’ and ‘empathetically’—inclined to give and receive help from others—so that individuals, communities and the species could thrive.[2] Put simply: individuals and groups are more likely to survive if we pool our resources and help one another, than if we try to go it alone. At the level of biology, psychology and sociology, there is a strong drive to cooperate with one another.
Great philosophers, going back to Plato and Aristotle, also observed that for social animals like us practical reasoning supports our helping each other. It is self-evidently reasonable to work together so each and all can survive and thrive; many of the goods of human flourishing, such as life and health, family and friendship, knowledge and beauty, work and leisure, morality and religion, can only be experienced with others.
Spiritual masters, such as St Catherine of Siena, taught that this is a spiritual matter also. In her Dialogue with God the Father Catherine asks why God made us so vulnerable and dependent, rather than self-sufficient like Himself. God answers that it’s so we would need each other. By pooling our gifts and supplying for each other’s deficiencies, we are prompted to a life of communion. As St Paul put it, we are all parts of a body, and the eye needs the ear, the ear the nose, the head, the hands and the rest, if the body is to work.[3] This complementarity and interdependence, Paul thought, is why we have—and need—the Church.
Yet go to the social media or the 24/7 news cycle and you will find a very different story. In those universes human beings are individual atoms bouncing off each other, more inclined to hate than help, focused on self and rivals for who gets the most ‘likes’, intent on cancelling those who differ from them. The fractured worlds of politics and diplomacy don’t give much cause for optimism either. All of which make the studies of altruism and empathy welcome relief. Polarisation and contention may be commonplace, but they are not the default state for human beings. Arguably they are, in fact, an aberration, a bug, evidence we’ve strayed from the path of the truly human.
In today’s Gospel (Mt 7:7-12), Jesus uses the altruism of human beings, weak and sinful as they are, to extol God’s generosity and inspire us all to seek Him earnestly. “Is there any of you who would hand your child a stone when she asked for bread? Or give him a snake when he asked for a fish?” To translate this for this congregation: “Is there any teacher among you who would teach your children falsehood, when they asked for truth? Or give them the Serpent when they asked for God?” And so, Jesus goes on, “If even you sinners give your children what is good, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?!” Knowing that human beings, for all their imperfections, mirror God’s generosity, especially in their tender care for the young, tells us again that selfishness is not our ‘natural’ state, not what we were made for, and not our ‘supernatural’ state, not what we were redeemed for.
But you might say it is our ‘unnatural’ state, what sin has made us or we have made ourselves. Temptations to selfishness and ambition are very real, the culture devalues altruism and empathy as weakness and rewards rivalry, and we tend to stray off-course. And so the Church resets our compass on spiritual North each year through Lent. Lent is a time that reminds us that we are more dependent than independent, more needy than self-sufficient, and so we are knockers—not in the popular sense of critics, but in the Gospel sense of people who knock at God and each other’s doors, asking for help, and in turn helping others, in our case especially the young. Esther in her beautiful prayer today (Esther 4:12-25) cries out to God in desperation, recalling that is what “I have been taught from my earliest years, in the bosom of my family”. Her schooling had taught her to lean on God and others.
Catholic education, to which so many of you are publicly committing yourselves today as beginning teachers, new principals, or our new Executive Director, embraces the wisdom of the sciences, humanities and spiritual tradition that we only flourish together; that life and health, family and friendship, knowledge and beauty, work and leisure, goodness and faith, are only experienced in community, such as we try to build in each of our schools; and that God has destined us for an eternal communion, by giving us experiences of interdependence here on earth. In our Sydney Catholic Schools, you have the chance to give children bread rather than stones, fish instead of serpents, full-cream Catholic truth rather than fakes and half-truths. In helping the young to explore the wonders of God, creation, and themselves, to gain wisdom through human inquiry and the life of Church and community, you are expressing your graced humanity, your altruism and empathy, in the unique ways of an educator. You are also contributing to the building up of God’s kingdom and a better world through Catholic education—a project that’s now into its third century here in Sydney.
Sometimes, like Queen Esther, you might feel mortal terror, or at least some anxiety, as you undertake a new or hard thing; hopefully, you will more often experience excitement and courage. But whatever your need, as new or renewed teachers and leaders, turn to your loving Father, “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Welcome to Sydney Catholic Schools. God bless you always!
[1] Giovanni Rossi, Mark Dingemanse et al., ‘Shared cross-cultural principles underlie human prosocial behavior at the smallest scale’, Scientific Reports 13(1) (2023): 6057. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-30580-5.
[2] Stephanie Preston, The Altruistic Urge: Why We’re Driven to help Others (Columbia University Press, 2022); Jenna Price, ‘Humans ask for help every couple of minutes, and we mainly say yes’, Brisbane Times 20 April 2023; ‘Why we humans are hard-wired for generosity’, Abbott.com 27 February 2017; Kelly Clancy, ‘Survival of the friendliest’, Nautilus 17 March 2017.
[3] 1Cor 10:16-17; 12:12-27; Rom 12:4-8; Eph 1:22-23; 4:12-16; Col 1:18-24.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SYDNEY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSIONING MASS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS AND THE NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – THURSDAY OF THE 1ST WEEK OF LENT, ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL, SYDNEY, 13 MARCH 2025
Welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral for our Sydney Catholic Schools
Commissioning Mass for Beginning Teachers, New Principals and our new Executive Director. It is a joy to welcome and formally commission you as the teachers and leaders for our 147 Catholic systemic schools, 13,000 staff and 74,000 students here in Sydney.
In celebrating the Eucharist to mark these new beginnings, we are reminded of the invaluable role of our Catholic educators in forming the intellect, character and spirit of our young people, leading them to God along the path of discipleship. Thank you for placing your talents at the service of God and His Church, and for joining a rich tradition of Catholic education that has shone brightly in this country and on this site for over 200 years.
I acknowledge with gratitude the many achievements of Mr Tony Farley as our previous Executive Director, of Mr Peter Turner as the Interim Executive Director, and of Jacqueline Frost and others in keeping the SCS ship steady during a time of change. I also record my gratitude to those board members, principals and teachers who retired at the end of last year after many years of sterling service.
Concelebrating with me today are: Episcopal Vicar for Education Bishop Danny Meagher, Bishop Richard Umbers, Vicar General Fr Sam Lynch, the Chair of the Board of SCS Fr Gerry Gleeson, Dean Don Richardson, and Fathers Greg Morgan and Tom Renshaw SJ.
I welcome the Executive Director of the National Catholic Education Commission, the Hon. Jacinta Collins, and the CEO of Catholic Schools NSW, Mr Dallas McInerney.
I greet with excitement our new Executive Director of SCS, Ms Danielle Cronin; together with board members, management and staff; the Sisters of St Joseph of Orange California who founded and served in two of our schools, representatives of several other religious institutes, and representatives of the congregational schools; our new and longer-standing principals, together with their staffs; and our dear beginning teachers: a very warm welcome to you all.
