Archbishop Christopher Prowse Talk at CSYMA Staff Conference St Edmund’s College Canberra Tue 16 Sep 2014 I am going to give more of a sharing than a formal talk this morning. It is good to be with our first Australians (5 Indigenous Participants in the Conference) because they are the first evangelisers and until they become the first evangelisers and are recognised as such in Australia we are not going to be everything Jesus wants us to be. We have made a great start, particularly with the St Edmund’s Youth Ministry Team retreats conducted up in the Northern Territory – including Daly River and Tiwi Islands – but there is so much more to do. (Photo of Archbishop Prowse giving talk next to Indigenous Participants at the Conference). Everybody, you know World Youth Day is a big event. It is one of the miracles of St John Paul II. You don’t often hear about it, but this miracle of the Holy Spirit happened when the Pope had the initiative of gathering together youthful people your age - and a little bit older - all around the world. And not only that, similarly to CSYMA, it’s sort of sent an electric current throughout all sorts of different initiatives that reach out to young adults. It is up to the Catholic Church to reclaim their hidden faith that Jesus Christ has started and these are examples of that happening. I’ve been to four world youth days and we’ve got another one coming up. One thing that I find a challenge is when young adults come back from these big international events, there’s a bit of a downer in coming back, a bit of a “what are we going to do next” sort of question. You often feel so small and that everyone is so big, and they don’t think it’s cool to be talking about Jesus, so how do you go about bringing that energy into schools? New energies are starting to form. I think the CSYMA Catholic Schools Youth Ministry Australia is another one of the electric currents of the Holy Spirit, and I can see it here. What fantastic sharing’s we’ve had here this morning, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I was quite moved, not only by what I was hearing from students and staff but by what I was seeing. And I thought I could never do anything like that when I was in year 7, or year 10, 11 or 12 and yet it’s happening here, and I see this as a visitation of the Holy Spirit. Nothing that you or I have necessarily done, although you get great people like Mr Peter Woods, the Teachers here and Huw - they’re tremendous disciples - and at the same time God can use them and he can use lots of people, he could use even me to bring forth the Kingdom of God. When I was at school I didn’t really learn much about Jesus. I went from year 3 to grade 12 in a Catholic school. I learnt a lot about Jesus, but I didn’t really learn much about Jesus in a sense of being taken into an encounter with him. I got that through my catholic family, my Mum and Dad. It was presumed that the young people going to a catholic school had already got a personal relationship with Jesus, and we can’t presume that anymore, so that’s the first thing we’ve got to agree on! That a Catholic School, whether it is Primary, Secondary or University is the New Evangelisation field here in Australia, would you agree with me? Yes! You’ve got to say yes! Because you are the New Evangelisers, you are the ones who are the Missionary Disciples. A picture paints a thousand words, you can talk a lot, but you can’t see that visually. That’s why we build cathedrals with pointy tops, that’s why we paint beautiful religious portraits, because people want to put the beauty of God into something that is more than just words. So a lovely picture that comes to my mind, it’s just outside of London, at the Cambridge University - there’s a beautiful picture, it’s called the ‘Light of Christ’. It bears Jesus with a lantern in one hand and he’s knocking at
the door. It looks like that door hasn’t been opened for a long time. The time of the day looks like its dawn, as you can just see the creation of the Lord is just waking up. This painting was done by a guy called William Holman Hunt. You see that in this picture, ‘Lumus Christi’, on the door facing Jesus there is no door handle. There’s the beauty of that picture. There’s Jesus knocking on your door, on the door of your school, knocking on the door of your Church. Unless he kicks down the door, there’s no way he’s going to get in, but Jesus is a perfect gentleman, so there’s no way he’d do anything like that! The door has got to be opened from the inside. The door inside your heart and then Jesus comes in. Now, the knocking of the door, we call that the Kerygma, the initial proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis not only calls it the first evangelisation, but the fundamental evangelisation. He talks about this in the ‘Joy of The Gospel’, ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ 165. For anyone involved in evangelisation, you must read 164-166, of the ‘Joy of The Gospel’. Pope Francis talks about Kerygma, catechesis and evangelisation. Hodgey (St Edmund’s Youth Ministry Team member) was talking about how he had his personal encounter with Jesus when he was in about Year 11, and I was thinking that he, on the inside, opened the door. Jesus knocking at the door was that team around him that said, “Will you come up we will pray for you.” He said, “Okay, I’ll do it,” and he opened up the door. Jesus came in through his Teachers and his Colleagues. Jesus isn’t coming down in an unbelievable cosmic way – which he does every morning and every evening through the beauty of creation - but through each other, and we call that the Church. It’s not some sort of psychological thing, it’s the Holy Spirit! I had a similar experience to Hodgey, but I wasn’t in Year 11, I was already about 22 years of age. It was through a Pentecostal Church and not through the Catholic Church. Why did I have to be a Pentecostal Church why not through a Catholic Church?! Why wasn’t this experience while I was at a Catholic School? It was presumed. That presumption has got to go! The Catholic Church is moving towards a Kerygmatic Catholicism, Catholicism based on the Kerygma. Now that doesn’t mean we forget about the Catechesis, on the contrary. When I heard another person speaking this morning, he said that when he had this experience of Jesus, he learned so much more about the Faith, more than he did from all the RE classes before. This was because he was a sponge! He was hungry for more knowledge after his personal encounter with Jesus, he wanted to know Jesus’ family, know his story, hear the Gospel message – he was on fire! Yes! The Kerygma lit the fire, the initial proclamation, but then you need the catechesis to continue it on. You need them both, the building up of your faith is very important. We Catholics do it pretty well but it would be a lot better, if only it was combined with the Kerygmatic approach which we have presumed. CSYMA... there on to this, they’re on to this! Look at what’s happened, only a few years ago when I was in the Diocese of Sale, somebody came to me about CSYMA for the first time and they showed me a video of a former School Captain here at St. Edmund’s College. I had never ever heard of St. Edmund’s College Canberra and now I’m here, the Archbishop of St. Edmund’s. He got up there and he talked about his faith in his personal life. And I said, “Wow! That’s what I’m looking for in the Catholic Church as a Bishop! I want people to be able to stand up and say I’m Catholic and I’m proud of it, and it means this to me.” Especially in this time of a royal commission on the sex abuse of kids. In the midst of a dark moment in the Catholic Church, in Australia, spring time’s happening. I can only see spring time happening here! That’s the Holy Spirit everybody. That’s why I’m excited to be here, that’s why I’m so happy to be here as the Bishop and I speak on behalf of all the Bishops about how much we love you. How much we look to you and depend on you for a furthering of the spring time. That’s why I’m here with the first Australians. Because my generation and the generation before that struggled so much with making the first Australians not so much of a marginalised community. And these people with me now are still some of the most marginalised Australians in the present day, if you look at some of the socio economic indicators. Although I was delighted to see CSYMA in the Darwin region, I can’t wait until I come back here in the future to St. Edmund’s College and I find that the SEC group are participating in a retreat here that is led by Tiwi Island and Daly River people. I can’t wait for it to happen!
Pope John Paul II mentions when he talked about Australia, even before the Catholic Church formally came to Australia the first Australians were the original people who looked up every night and see the star formation that foreshadowed what was to come on the sacraments of the Catholic Church. What they were looking up to was the Southern Cross. How many millenia has the Southern Cross been looking down at Australia for? The first Australians looked up when it was dark and they saw it and they said, what’s that? The Cross, no one can take that away, they thought. That cross is this cross (points to crucifix around his neck), the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus transformed us by giving us the Holy Spirit, he said, “Now let me live in you, let me use your lips, let me use your eyes, let me use your feet, especially your hands, and be my body here on earth.” And that’s called the Church. And that’s not just discipleship, that’s Missionary Discipleship. Discipleship is often seen as the vertical part of the cross. It means following Jesus with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul. Missionary could be seen as the horizontal part. Look what’s happening in northern Iraq at the moment, in Christian communities. Literally, some of them are being crucified over there! I got a letter from the Catholic Bishop of Northern Iraq. The first thing they do when these terrorists come in to eliminate Christianity is remove all the crosses. They pull them down off the walls, wipe out any visual sign of Christianity. That’s why I can’t wait to put this on every morning. (Crucifix around his neck) You do the opposite to what darkness says. Light always puts the vision in front, the darker side says get rid of it, it won’t get you anywhere; it’s only for old women, or conservative people. It’s not cool for young people being involved with Jesus and the Catholic Church, and we say it is. It is. Put the crucifixes up! Don’t take them down! Let the world see that it’s Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour that will bring the dawn that will never set into our lives. That’s what I’m looking forward to and that’s what I’m seeing here, in you, you young people. I just wanted to give you every type of encouragement. I want to tell you so much that the leaders of the Australian Catholic Church and myself as a spiritual adviser to CSYMA and representatives to the Bishops, I’m saying we love you and encourage you and see the Holy Spirit in you and now take this light that is clearly lighting up your schools wherever you’re coming from in Australia. I also encourage you to think (for students), when you leave school to become a priest, religious brother or sister, remain single, or whatever you do, make it your vocation, and do it for the Glory of God! But don’t just turn it off and on again. Don’t drift away… I just ask that you close your eyes and we’ll say a little prayer together. Lord Jesus. I thank you for bringing me here today we thank you for the wonderful people I’m experiencing in front of me and alongside me, I’m going to ask you to bless each one of them and especially the teachers for their wonderful vocation and thank you so much for introducing through the Holy Spirit CSYMA throughout Australia originating from this College, may you bless us Lord and give us strength in the time we lack faith, and energy as we don’t want to believe in anything we want to believe in something, in you Lord Jesus, whose death and resurrection we surrender to in your arms. Mary mother of Jesus, lead us to Jesus, through the wider Catholic Church. Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.