Mass for the 60th Anniversary of Ordination of Fathers Lex Dunlop and Maurice Catarinich

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Justin Villa, Balwyn,
on Friday, 25th July, 2003, at 2.30pm

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am honoured to join Fathers Lex Dunlop and Maurice Catarinich, their family members and friends, as we thank God for sixty years of priesthood of two of our great priests.

Priests are especially conscious of being living instruments of Christ the Priest. Their function by sacramental character is that of men complying with the action of God through shared instrumental effectiveness. (Congregation for the Clergy, The Priest and the Third Christian Millennium, Chapter 3, No. 1). Linked with this is a personal thankfulness, “The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.”

Together with them we join to the most effective prayer of praise to the Father known to human beings, as we offer the Mass with them and for them, caught into the great mystery of our God who saves us and is present among us. That we may receive its fruit fully, let us call to mind our sins.

Homily

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love … A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:9,12)

My dear Friends,

Today we gather to ponder the great mystery of love in the priesthood. We know that a priest is another Christ and that in his own words, “This is my Body. This is my Blood”, he not only makes the Lord present under the appearances of bread and wine, but he indicates that he too is a victim with Christ on the altar of the Cross.

In a very real sense today, after sixty years, we can see how these two men have configured themselves to God, the head and shepherd, by giving their whole life and activity to Jesus; preaching the Word, celebrating the Sacraments, leadership of the Christian community helps them to make present the mystery of Christ.

Indeed, the Holy Father wrote in 1992, “Priests are called to prolong the presence of Christ, the one high priest, embodying his way of life and making him visible in the midst of the flock entrusted to their care.” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 15)

Still later in the Exhortation on 28th June this year, the Pope sees priests as called “to be a sign of contradiction and of hope for a society suffering from horizontalism and in need of openness to the transcendent.”

In my own thirty-six years of priesthood I have known and admired Lex Dunlop and Maurie Catarinich. Both gifted, both very different. Their list of parochial appointments; for Father Lex in Williamstown, Bacchus Marsh, Camberwell, West Melbourne and Geelong, and later as parish priest in Korumburra, Lalor, Bundoora, Kyneton, Trentham and Lancefield; and Father Maurice in St Patrick’s Cathedral on two occasions, Ascot Vale, North Melbourne and fifteen years with the Catholic Marriage Guidance Centre before a remarkable nearly twenty-six years as parish priest of East Kew.

Both were appointed Pastor Emeritus in 1992; Father Lex in January and Father Maurie in June, and both together are now enjoying the peace of Justin Villa. Both have made a generous contribution to the Archdiocese and I wish to pay a sincere tribute to their differing abilities used with great zeal and great perseverance in the service of God’s people. Truly it can be said of both of you that you worked to give people truth, hope and holiness as friends of the Lord, as his priests and witnesses, as esteemed and gifted members of the presbyterium of our great Archdiocese.

So much has happened in the Church since your ordination and yet your constancy in faith, in priesthood and in witness are an example for us, as now you pray with us; bishops, priests and people from Justin Villa.

Jesus called his apostles friends and we repeat the words spoken by him over the bread and wine and through our ministry we effect the same consecration as effected by Christ. Can there be a more complete expression of friendship than this? This is what is at the core of our priestly ministry and the guarantee of the reward, which the Lord gives to faithful servants. “I shall not call you servants any more. I call you my friends.”

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.