Homilies and Addresses 2007
Mass for the members of Signis Pacific

Celebrated By Archbishop Denis Hart
at St Mary's College Chapel, Parkville
on Tuesday, 6th February, 2007 at 5.30am

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am delighted at being one with you for this meeting of Signis held this year in Melbourne. 

Your commitment to the use of the modern means of social communication in all their forms to promote the Gospel is a tremendous enrichment to the Church and for this I thank you. 

In this Mass I will pray for you, that your gifts will be used in God’s service, always in union with the Church, as a deeply appreciated and wonderful enrichment of the life of the Church in the countries and districts from which you come.

Homily

“I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all know that God’s will for us is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.  The means of social communication are valued instruments in communicating this knowledge and helping the people of today to engage in a life of faith.

Many of your discussions I am sure will be couched around the resources which are available, the means which are best with limited resources, and how the work of teaching the Gospel might be promoted in so many diverse situations.

May I first thank you for all your work and congratulate you on your dedication.  Many of you have undertaken rigorous professional training and have given years of service to the Church, often with less reward than might be expected elsewhere.  But you have done that because you love God.

Pope Benedict issued his Letter, Deus Caritas Est, on Christmas Day in 2005.  In it he emphasises the encounter with Christ.  “God is Love and whoever remains in love remains in God and God remains in that person.”  The whole of the first section leads us to an encounter with a deep, transcendent and constant love echoing God’s love for us.

The world was greatly surprised in the second section when the Pope spoke of the practice of love by the Church as a community of love.  For Christians working in the media, prayer and the encounter with the ever-loving God gives us a capacity and a perception of the real needs of people and the best way forward. 

The Pope himself said, “Saint Paul in his hymn to charity teaches us that it is always more than activity alone:  ‘If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, I am nothing.’ (Verse 3)  Practical activity will always be insufficient unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ.  My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them:  If my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.”  (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, No 34)

The constant inspiration of your challenging professional work is always that you have encountered Christ first and by constantly returning to him will find the enthusiasm, the skill and the ability to articulate those means which are best to communicate the Gospel.

May the Lord reward you for your great skill and dedication.  May he meet with you, find you humbly open to his inspiration and may your work bring rich rewards to the service of the Gospel and to you for all that you do.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.