PARISH NEWS

King’s Birthday

Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Australia Day, Labour Day, Easter, Queen’s Birthday (from this year “King’s Birthday” – still second Monday of June), Cup Day and so it goes. Australians are familiar with this pattern of, mostly secular, celebrations.

We generally know what they are about and we anticipate aspects of the seasons; we have regional and family traditions for these times and plan our activities accordingly; we live the pattern.

Of much longer pedigree is the seasonal cycle of Church feasts and memorials lived by Christians.

Year upon year we commemorate the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ following a pattern which is part of Christian DNA. Celebration of Jesus’ birth is now five months behind us and this Sunday, observance of his passion, death and resurrection is six weeks ago.

Now, in this post-Easter season, we are coming to the end of Christ’s physical, resurrected presence with us, and so Church focus turns to engagement in our world. Messy, threatening, challenging - the world has ever been thus. We Christians though, see a world of hope and potential. Our readings from Acts and from Peter acquaint us with the first disciples evangelising their neighbours and with early Christians courageously living exemplary lives (Acts 8/ 1 Pet 3). Jesus exhorts us in the gospel, to hold steady in our love for him and for his Father. He promises us the reinforcement of the Holy Spirit. (Jn 14:15-21)

Christian engagement in 2023 realities can be confronting but at the same time exciting. We need to be in our public space, whatever that might be, eagerly anticipating the Spirit’s support. “Differences between persons and communities can sometimes prove uncomfortable, but the Holy Spirit, who is the source of that diversity, can bring forth something good from all things and turn it into an attractive means of evangelisation” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 131). As we look towards the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost in coming Sundays, we are exemplars of Christian hope in a world in need of hope.

Deacon Mark Kelly