This time a year ago, I was basking in something of a post-pilgrimage glow. My dear friend and I had visited the Holy Land and had walked where Jesus walked, where he wined and dined, suffered and died and rose again. We had come to look at the places archived in our hearts since we were tiny.
Over the course of more than half a century, these places have taken on such a significance for us as Christians that we had to see them for ourselves. Staying with the Sisters of Sion in Ecce Homo enabled us to walk the Via Dolorosa and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was such a joy to visit Bethlehem and Nazareth and explore the ancient Roman ruins in the Old City of Jerusalem, so holy to the three Abrahamic faiths. Walking by the Sea of Galilee at Capernaum, I was particularly struck by the Homeless Jesus sculpture, his identity marked by the nail wounds in his feet. This was the Jesus who loved the poor and marginalised, the lame and the lost, the Jesus we seek to emulate, the Jesus of love and peace. Only later, did I learn that we have our own copy here at Newman College at the University of Melbourne. There are a hundred or more of these sculptures scattered around the world as a reminder that the poor are always with us and that we need to respond as Jesus did.
Of course, not everything we did was of a pious nature. We enjoyed coffee and cake at the Austrian Hospice as a late morning fortifier before going on to explore by foot other parts of the city. Evenings were spent regaling the day’s experiences with other pilgrims out on a terrace overlooking the city, sometimes with a glass of wine to round out the day. The food we ate at the hostel was plentiful, good and local, cooked by staff and served by volunteers from around the globe who take a three-month placement for room and board. We felt so at peace on those nights, safe under ancient stars, mellowing out in the balmy nights, thanking God for being here, somehow almost holding onto that eternity in an hour of which William Blake writes.
While in the Holy Land, we observed a general amity amongst the members of the three religions that hold Jerusalem so dear to their faith traditions. I could not have imagined the atrocities of October 7th. When we heard about the attacks we emailed Ecce Homo to let them know we were thinking of them. They replied promptly and thanked us and asked that we prayed, too, for the ordinary Gazans caught up in a war not of their making.
The 2024 Social Justice Statement is entitled Truth and Peace – A Gospel Word in a Violent World. It contains some strong words and ideas about where we are today as a global community with alternative ideologies and distorting excesses replacing God and good. Truth has become a casualty, lost in translation between misinformation, disinformation and fake news. The impact of social media is unmooring many from objective truth to worldviews that contest and divide community. What we need to do is dialogue with others, encountering them respectfully, looking at how the whole human family can flourish, rather than just the rich, powerful and influential. I like the phrase repeated a number of times in the Statement, the architecture of peace. We can help build peace if we are truthful and trustworthy, if we actively orient ourselves to bringing peace into our own small spheres of influence.
War or peace starts in our own hearts. It is no good preaching peace and goodwill if we continue to carry hurts and slights, the spiky shards of envy, the mean delight in schadenfreude, the petty victory over a colleague, the injustice we let go because we didn’t speak up. We do not carry peace if we have not forgiven others. We do not carry peace if we have not forgiven ourselves.
At Mass, each week we are reminded to Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. That peace is not just for feeling good for a few hours and then resuming behaviours that are aggressive or discouraging or belittling of those around us. If, on occasion, our hearts are war-torn because of domestic or workplace trials or we are disenchanted about the world and the things we cannot change, we must try to find that personal peace and equanimity so that we can interact positively with others. Peace shared is peace multiplied, even at a local level. The Social Justice Statement reminds us that Peace is the work of everyone and we can all do something to be peace-makers. Indeed it is the duty imposed on us by the Gospel. Peace is to be made on both the macro and micro level. We need to act small but think big, to act locally but think globally.
We need to ask ourselves what we are doing each day to be architects of peace in our own circles and beyond.
Finally, I would like to thank Father Brendan for his eighteen years of being the Genazzano chaplain. He has been a true faithful companion to the school and its wider community. Father Brendan has seen principals come and go and given communion to hundreds of students and has preached with warmth and humour, making his point eloquently. He has made poignant observations and unpacked parables in a meaningful way for all of us. He pitched things at a student level so well, too, asking those big questions about what the girls were doing with their young lives and asking them to think more deeply about their attitudes and actions.
Brendan spoke often of our foundress the Venerable Marie Madeleine d’ Houët and her example of fidelity to God, reminding us of her vision, persistence and the courage and confidence to go out into the world and do good. Staff at each year’s final Mass always laughed, and perhaps groaned inwardly, when Brendan reminded us that we had a certain number of days until we were back celebrating the opening staff Eucharist. In fact, we counted on him to enlighten us to exactly how long our school holidays were.
We counted on him for so much.
We will miss him at our opening Mass next year, but know that he has new parish and pastoral adventures over in Brunswick where they will come to know and love him, just as we have.
God bless you, Father Brendan, and thank you.
Published: 4 October 2024
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Brendan says:
Thank you, Ann, for a beautiful and challenging reflection. Thank you also for your kind words of appreciation. I have immensely enjoyed being Chaplain at Genazzano these many years. I will miss you all.