Mass for the Annual Conference of the Catholic Women’s League

Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Glowrey House, Fitzroy,
on Wednesday, 2nd June, 2004, at 11.00am

Introduction

My dear Friends,

I am delighted to join you for your Annual Conference as together we celebrate the Eucharist.

Fundamental to our Catholic understanding of life is that the Eucharist – the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross – draws us to be one with him and to undertake our mission of bringing the knowledge and love of God to others, as Christ himself did by living, dying and rising again.

As we call to mind our sins, the life that we live is given for others, the hope that we have is in Christ and in a world renewed and the work that we do is to shape our families and community after the pattern of Christ.

Homily

My dear Friends,

May I thank you for the work which the Catholic Women’s League does in promoting the cause of faith in our society. Modern, secular society does much to seek to drive religion to the boundaries and to make it irrelevant. Saint Paul’s own words to Timothy, “to fan into a flame the gift of God”, through experiencing hardships and not losing confidence is just as powerful as the Christian testimony in today’s Gospel, showing the power of the resurrection. Saint Paul said earlier, “If Christ had not been raised, then our faith is in vain, but Christ has been raised.” We have hope of glory.

Pope John Paul II has encouraged us at the beginning of the new millennium to start afresh. In our organisation, in the whole Church and in the relationship which the Church has with society, we are challenged to start afresh from Christ. Jesus’ own assurance, “I am with you always to the close of the age”, (Matthew 28:20) is the assurance which has accompanied the Church for two thousand years.

The question put to Peter in Jerusalem immediately after Pentecost, “What must we do?” (Acts 2:37) is the basis of the programme which the Pope puts before us.

We have to start afresh from Christ because he is with us. All the goals, methods and enrichment of people, search for resources, dialogue with our society, has to begin with the one who is with us. And the Pope gives certain pastoral priorities which the experience of the Great Jubilee of 2000 has brought to life.

1. All pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. This gift is offered to all the baptised as the will of God and as the prerequisite for really effective work in the world.
2. Holiness is nourished by prayer. “Abide in me and I in you.” (John 15.4) Indeed, one of the criticisms that I have always had of the renewal of the liturgy was whether people are praying more, whether our Catholic groups and communities are genuine schools of prayer.

These two elements of the search for Christ, the development in holiness, nourished by prayer, provide the ingredients by which then we are able to launch out into the deep.

We cannot underestimate the value of the Mass or of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where “God shows us his compassionate heart and reconciles us fully with himself.” (NMI 37) Because it is Christ who speaks and our abilities and gifts which are used in proclamation, then we will be able to engage the world with an authentic presentation of the fruits of the Gospel, of authentic Christian living and of the peace and beauty which Christ offers to the world.

In groups such as the League, it is these gifts which must help us to engage the problems which we confront and we neglect them to our peril.

Lastly, I thank you for the initiatives which the League is taking to promote authentic Gospel living in our society and to challenge the society to reflect on its origin and nature, so that together in charity and yet in truth we may move forward.

The Pope describes that the mission of bringing the Good News cannot be left to a group of specialists, but will be lived as the everyday commitment of Christian communities and groups.

Later the Pope says that Christ must be presented to all people with confidence. He addresses adults, families, young people, children, without ever hiding the most radical demands of the Gospel, but taking into account each person’s needs after the example of Saint Paul, “I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some.” (1 Corinthians 9.22)

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.