ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY COSTELLOE 2023 CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, One of our popular Christmas Carols begins with these words: What child is this who, laid to rest on Mary’s lap, is sleeping? Very quickly, the carol moves to an answer: This, this, is Christ the King, the babe, the son of Mary. Each year, as Christmas comes around, we are invited to let this same question - what child is this - arise in our minds and our hearts, and to reflect on the answers which emerge.
The question is, hopefully, one which matters to us. It is certainly one which matters to the Lord Jesus. You will recall the time when Jesus asked this very question of His apostles: who do you say that I am?
When Simon Peter, the leader of the twelve apostles, responded to Jesus on their behalf, he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. It is an answer which
is not so very different from the one given in the Christmas Carol. And it is the same answer which has been, and continues to be, at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus is God among us as one of us. In His humanity, He is accessible to us, just as we are accessible to each other. We can know Him - and grow in our knowledge of Him - just as we come to know each other. And we can love Him - and grow in our love for Him - just as we can deepen our love for those closest to our hearts.
But Jesus occupies a unique place in human history, for His humanity both conceals and reveals His divinity, if only we look and listen with the eyes and ears of faith. In coming to know Him, we come to know God. Jesus said so Himself. “To have seen me,” He once said to one of His apostles, “is to have seen the Father”.
When, especially in the pages of the gospels, we hear Him speak we are hearing the words and voice of God. When we see Him bringing hope and healing to people, we are witnesses to the compassion of God in action. In every encounter He has with people, we are being given an insight into who God really is, and what it is that God seeks to do and be in our lives.
This is why Jesus can proclaim Himself to be the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: not just one of many ways - but God’s way; not just one truth competing with others - but God’s truth; not just one option for life - but Life itself, the divine life, offered to us as a gift. Our Judaea-Christian tradition rests on a profound belief: that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
CHRISTMAS 2023: WE ARE CALLED TO ANNOUNCE HIM AND WHAT HE HAS BEEN ABLE TO DO WITHIN US, SAYS BISHOP SPROXTON
While reflecting on Christmas, I am thinking of all of you that I have met in the course of the year. To you all, I send my best wishes and prayers. Of course, I remember all of those who have shared the celebrations of Christmas with me over the years. Those Christmases of my childhood were very special where the whole family gathered. Hot days, hot Christmas lunches and the busy mornings of preparation for the women. Memories come back of happy days despite the tiredness; we children singing carols for the adults; and the decorations that honoured the infant Jesus and St Nick. Many years later, I still cherish those times and the places, the homes of our families where we took turns year by year to come together to celebrate the birth of the Saviour. Times and places are part of the story of the birth of Jesus. For St Luke, the birth of Jesus was tied to the edit of the Roman emperor at the centre of the world that there should be a census taken throughout the empire. The emperor would have
had little knowledge or interest in Judaea and Galilee, except for the potential taxes he could enforce on the people. He would have felt allpowerful and in control of all. Yet looking back, St Luke could see how the edict provided God with the opportunity to send his Son, so that a descendant of David could bring about the promised freedom of the human heart. The time was right. So, Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem. This place has its significance. Promises had been made by God through the lips of prophets. These were fulfilled with the birth of the One he sent, his own Son, who is the light for the world, in this place. We can say that heaven and earth were joined by the incarnation. The long-held desire for this reconciliation on the part of God became a reality with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, a nowhere place in a growing empire centred in Rome, the place of power and might in the world.
The emperor would one day be replaced by the new King born in
obscurity. Jesus announced the kingdom of God that would transform the hearts of people wherever it spread. And the Church would be the means of spreading the kingdom, the presence of God, for people to know and embrace.
A tiny light began to flicker on the outskirts of that town. It has spread to the hearts of millions and millions, and will reach many more, through the missionary disciples that we are. We have come to know that light, Jesus Christ, and we are called to announce him and what he has been able to do within us. This is what people thirst for in our time. They are asking: How can what is hard in us be softened? How can we find a way to be free of the burdens we have been left to carry through life that cripple us? How can we have the strength to forgive?
Christmas offers us the answer. It is Jesus Christ whom we have received and continue to open our hearts to receive each day who is that light and power.
A silver star marks the traditional site of the birth of Jesus in a grotto underneath Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, Palestine. IMAGE: ADOBE.
SPECIAL REPORT: ARCHDIOCESAN ASSEMBLY 2023 - 2024: DELEGATES COMMENCE FORMATION: CALLED TO JOURNEY TOGETHER LED BY THE SPIRIT
Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has last month asked how we can, as the Catholic Community of the Archdiocese of Perth, strengthen and deepen our identity as first of all, a Christian community.
Archbishop Costelloe was speaking to delegates at the Formation Day for the Archdiocesan Assembly, which was attended by some 110 delegates and was held at Newman College on 23 September.
Seated in tables of six people, delegates from all walks of life across the Archdiocese were brought together, including priests, sisters, men, women, young and old with the aim of undertaking a listening and discernment process ahead of the main Assembly Day scheduled for July 2024.
Delegates also included Auxiliary Bishop Don Sproxton, Vicar General the Very Rev Fr Peter Whitely VG and Episcopal Vicar for Clergy, the Very Rev Fr Minh-Thuy Nguyen and Episcopal Vicar for Education and Faith Formation, the Very Rev Fr Vincent Glynn, who is Chair of the Assembly Strategic working Group.
The Formation Day commenced with prayer co-ordinated by Director of Liturgy, Sr Kerry Willison rsm before MC Tara Peters invited delegates to spend some time introducing themselves to each other.
Archbishop Costelloe then led the first speech, drawing upon the experience of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia, and his role as President, in speaking about What is a Diocesan Assembly and the recommendations of a Diocesan Pastoral Council.
Archbishop Costelloe highlighted to Assembly delegates the Decree of the Plenary Council that each diocese should be governed in a Synodal manner through the creation of a Diocesan Pastoral Council.
He also discussed in particular how the Archdiocese can express the direction of Pope Francis to be more synodal in its actions, pastoral strategies and governance models.
Archbishop Costelloe began by explaining to all present the historical context of the Assembly and its link
to the Year of Grace in 2012 and the recent Plenary Council of the Church in Australia
We are nothing, Archbishop Costelloe emphasised, if we are not disciples of Jesus, if that is not the thing that holds us together, then we have no purpose to exist.
“We follow Him, He is our way and that is what we need to rediscover.
“It is, some of you will remember what I said as my hope for the diocese, when I became the Archbishop, that as a community of disciples, we would return the Church in Perth to Christ and return Christ to the very heart of the Church, so that everything else is seen through the lens of our following of Jesus.”
“I am hoping that what we are doing here today and what will unfold from today, will always have that as a central focus that we never forget that because without that, we can tend to get lost in all sorts of things,” he added.
Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB speaks to delegates about the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia. PHOTO: JAMIE O'BRIEN/ARCHDIOCESE
PERTH GAINS ANOTHER PRIEST CALLED TO PRAYER, COURAGE AND HUMBLE SERVICE
By Jamie O'Brien
New priest Fr Felipe Fernandez was called to be a man of prayer, a man of courage and a man of humble service to God's people during his recent ordination to the priesthood. Ordained by Auxiliary Bishop Don Sproxton, Friday 2 June 2023 at St Mary’s Cathedral, Fr Felipe is the second priest to be ordained this year, in addition to two diaconate ordinations.
Joining Bishop Sproxton as concelebrants for the ordination was Vicar General, the Very Rev Fr Peter Whitely VG, Redemptoris Mater Seminary Rector, Fr Michael Moore SM, Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey, assisted by Deacon Jason Yeap.
Some 20 priests from across the Archdiocese were also present for the occasion, with the Mass also livestreamed for Felipe’s family and friends in Colombia to be able to
join in the celebration.
His parents, Maria-Rocio and Diego, travelled to Perth from Colombia for the occasion, together with his sisters, Isabel and Ana-Lucia and brother Diego, who is a seminarian of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in in Amsterdam.
Also attending from Colombia was Felipe’s Parish Priest Fr Yormen Rua from Popoyan Colombia, in addition to Felipe’s uncle and other friends. Continuing his homily, Bishop Sproxton said that the priesthood asks of those who are called to go on a pilgrimage with God.
“This journey is one of discovery and learning, growth in faith, and it's lifelong. From that first moment of feeling a call, God draws close to us in a very special way,” Bishop Sproxton said.
“The mystery which is ourself, is gradually open to us at the same time as the mystery of God is revealed to us. This is the experience and has been the experience of people
of faith. It must happen for each of us, so that we can take up the Ministry of teaching, sanctifying and shepherding,” he said.
Hailing originally from the town of Popayán, Colombia, 30-year-old Felipe trained at Perth’s Redemptoris Mater Seminary, arriving in 2012 at the age of 19.
At the age of 13, he listened to a catechesis of the Neocatechumenal Way in his parish of Iglesia Espíritu Santo, Popayán.
“I joined [the Neocatechumenal community] at the time because my mother said it would be good for my life,” Felipe explained, in a special interview for The Record.
It was during his rebellious teenage years that Felipe recalled he experienced a moment of enlightenment, asking God to intervene.
Fr Felipe Fernandez, with Auxiliary Bishop Don Sproxton, Archbishop Emeritus Barry Hickey, and Fr Felipe’s family and friends who traveled from Colombia for the ordination, including parents Maria-Rocio and Diego, sisters Isabel and Ana-Lucia, brother Diego, Parish Priest Fr Yormen Rua, uncle and other friends.
PHOTO: RON TAN / ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH..