Third Sunday of Easter

Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Sunday, 30th April, 2006, at 11.00am

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Welcome to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral as we celebrate this Easter Mass.  The Readings challenge us to repentance, to stop sinning, to know the Lord’s peace.  We ask that the Lord will make his Word plain to us, so that our hearts will burn with love as we seek to follow him.

Today at the end of Mass I will bestow Papal awards on John Ralph, Barry O’Callaghan, Dr. Bernard Clarke and Ted Exell for their generous service for the Church.  I invite you to remember them and their families in this moment of thanksgiving as we celebrate this Mass.

We are all believers in the Lord Jesus.  Let us call to mind our sins, that he may transform us.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Whenever I come to reflect upon these Readings I am challenged by things in my own life to realise how little the disciples were aware of the consequences of what was happening in their midst.  The disciples’ challenge to repentance and avoidance of sin is a consequence of being followers of Jesus.  Indeed, the Gospel Acclamation, ‘Lord Jesus make your word plain to us, make our hearts burn with love when you speak’, are a reminder that our God is always personal, always walking with us.

An American author, William Willimon, made the pertinent observation that when confronted by God’s Messiah, humanity got together and did what it often does in the face of truth, turn to violence, this time with crucifixion.  But God responds to humankind’s ‘no’ with the ‘yes’ of resurrection.

Similarly when Peter and John were going up to the temple, their desire to pray, interrupted by the act of kindness to the cripple, shows that it is through suffering and the ordinary details of everyday that we come to change.  Once we admit that we have need of healing to be converted, then we will live the kind of life Jesus wants.  Repentance means that we have to accept the truth of our own weakness and turn away from it.  And yet repentance brings forgiveness, unites us to truth whereby we can say yes we know him and our sins will be wiped out.

Jesus knows that our human foundations might always crumble, so that to make sure that we succeed as his followers he comes again to bolster up our beginnings.  Jesus shows his hands and feet.  He even eats fish.  Then tells them to preach to all nations because they are witnesses of all that Jesus said and did. 

When we read the Scriptures today, let us not think that we are merely reading a story, but rather we are being challenged again to engage with a person, real and true.  Sin and self means that we have complicity in killing Jesus.  Repentance and turning to others means that we are bearers of light, that our hearts are burning with love, that we continue to hear what he says. 

May these blessings be ours as we continue in this Easter season.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.