Friday Week Six of Ordinary Time

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Friday 21 February, 2025
St Charles Seminary, Guildford

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The story of the Tower of Babel which we heard in this evening's first reading speaks of the power of sin and self-centredness to disfigure and even destroy both our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. The story can be found in chapter 11 of the book of Genesis, and it is immediately followed by the call of Abraham and the beginnings of God's gathering together of the Chosen People, from whom would come, in God's time, Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world.

In a way, we might think of tonight's story as the final act in a drama which begins with God's creation of the universe, in which everything is good, then turns to God's creation of humanity in the divine image and likeness, and then speaks of the dreadful tragedy of the emergence of sin in the form of disobedience and a determination to live, not in harmony with God's creative plan but in defiance of it. In this unfolding drama, this sinful and pointless rejection of God's plan immediately begins to spread, culminating in God's decision to bring about the great flood to wipe evil from the face of the earth. There are, of course, thanks to God's grace and mercy, survivors of this flood led by Noah, but as soon as the floodwaters subside and men and women again walk the face of the earth, sin and self-centredness spread more and more until we come to the Tower of Babel, when the confusion of languages becomes a symbol of the disunity and disharmony of humanity, which is now scattered across the face of the earth rather than being united together in harmony and mutual understanding.

This fragmenting and division of humanity will find its resolution in St John's Gospel where the author of the gospel tells us that Jesus did not die simply for the sake of his own people, but rather "to gather together the scattered children of God". Jesus Himself, again in John's gospel, points to this when He says, "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself'.

This linking of the story of the Tower of Babel with the gospel's understanding of Jesus as the one who reunites God's people by drawing people to Himself through His life, death and resurrection helps us to understand why the Second Vatican Council would speak of the Church as a kind of sacrament, that is a sign and an instrument, of communion with God and unity among all people. As people are drawn to Jesus, they find themselves coming together as a community of people, gathered at the foot of the cross. They are united together because they are united by Him and in Him.

This idea of the Church as a sacrament of communion and unity was reaffirmed twenty years after the Second Vatican Council at an Extraordinary Meeting of the Synod of Bishops, where the bishops identified what they called the "ecclesiology of communion" as the central organising principle for everything the Vatican Council was seeking to do. And then, just last year at the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis accepted the final statement of the Synod Assembly as an official part of his own magisterium, thereby confirming once again the centrality of communion as a key to understanding the Church, and insisting that to understand the Church fully communion had to be linked to the ideas of participation and mission.

The idea of the Church as a sacrament of communion with God and unity among all people is not just a nice theological notion. It is at the heart of what the Church believes about itself, and therefore must be at the heart of what the Church does. This is true at the universal level, it is true at the local level of each diocese, and it is equally true at the level of each local community, including of course, and in a sense especially, each local parish community. Whether we are talking about the parish of Banksia Grove, the parish of Kalbarri, the Cathedral Parish of Broome, or the parish of Busselton, every Catholic parish community, and indeed every Catholic community, including this seminary community, has as its fundamental vocation the challenge and the privilege of being a sacrament - a living, visible, dedicated and effective sign and instrument - of communion with God and of the unity and equal dignity of all God's people.

The reality, of course, is that in our Catholic understanding, the Universal Church must have its leader, the pope, who is the visible source and guarantor of the Church's fidelity to its fundamental vocation to be a sacrament of communion and unity. At the level of the local Church, each diocese must have its leader, its bishop, who is for his diocese the visible source and guarantor of the local Church's fidelity. And equally, at the more local level of the parish, there will also be a leader, the parish priest, who because he shares and in a sense makes present the ministry of the bishop and of the Church for his own local community, also must be a visible source and guarantor of his local community's fidelity to its vocation to be a sacrament of communion and unity. All of this explains why real and not just notional communion with the local bishop and with the bishop of Rome is essential to our Catholic identity.

As this year unfolds, and you continue your journey of discernment and formation, I want to invite you all to focus very much on what it means to be a man of communion. Should it be that it is indeed God's will that you become a priest, you will be a living sign of the presence of Jesus among His people as the one who brings people together and leads them to the Father. While at times it will be difficult to understand exactly what this means, it will be helpful to remember that the opposite of bringing people together is driving people apart; the opposite of creating and fostering communion and unity is the sewing of discord and the creation of division. If a priest is driving people away, or presiding over a growing sense of disunity and bitterness, then something is drastically wrong. Such priests are not good guides or models for you.

To be a man of communion rather than of disunity is not easy. It requires great courage, enormous patience, and what I would call an heroic humility. Pope Francis captures this well when he speaks of the bishop, and it is equally true of the priest in his local community, as someone who at times must be striking out ahead of the community leading them forward, at other times walking in the midst of the community supporting and encouraging people as they continue along the journey of faith, and at other times again being at the very back of the community, keeping an eye out for those who are tired or confused and who run the risk of getting left behind. It takes humility to accept that it is not always appropriate to be visibly leading from the front. Sometimes we have to be on our hands and knees instead washing the feet of others.

It takes patience to spend time - we might even say to waste time - with those who find the journey difficult, confusing or challenging, and who might even give up the struggle if they do not hear from us an encouraging word rather than a word of condemnation. Like Jesus we may, at times, have to say "go and sin no more", but if we want it to be a healing word rather than a harmful word, we will to make sure that, like Jesus, we have first made it clear that we are not condemning the person. It takes courage to accept, deep within us, that as priests our life is not meant to be organised around what suits us or what make us feel good, but rather about will be most helpful for the other person in their journey to God. This is surely what Jesus means when he says, in tonight's gospel, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

If we are going to be men of communion and unity, and not men of division and discord, we will need to open our hearts to the gifts of courage, humility and patience which the Lord will surely give us if we ask him. By losing our lives in this way for his sake and for the sake of his people, we will be uniting ourselves with the one who, by being lifted up in suffering, humiliation and self- sacrifice, was and is able to draw all people to himself, and through him to the Father.