Perth clergy come together to celebrate life, service and vocation
Monsignor Michael Keating proclaims the first reading during a recent Mass, which was followed by lunch, for retired priests and clergy. Photo: Jamie O’Brien.
By Jamie O’Brien
Several Perth clergy have recently come together to celebrate Mass and lunch with Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB.
The Mass and lunch on Tuesday 13 November, was held at the Pastoral Centre Chapel in Highgate and attended by some 12 clergy who had collectively served across Perth and various other dioceses for more than 300 years.
Vicar for Clergy Fr Brian McKenna concelebrated the Mass, while Clergy Liaison Officer Brian Bonser, Communications Manager Jamie O’Brien and Adult Faith Formation Co-ordinator Sr Margaret Scharf OP attended the Mass and lunch as guests.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe congratulates Emeritus Archbishop Barry Hickey, who recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of his priesthood. Photo: Jamie O’Brien.
The lunch was also an occasion for Archbishop Timothy Costelloe to congratulate Emeritus Archbishop Barry Hickey, who recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of his priesthood.
In his homily for the Mass, Archbishop Costelloe thanked the clergy for the service and dedication to the mission of the Church, as well as their encouragement and support for the younger clergy.
He also spoke about the Feast of the Lateran Basilica, and his own journey to Rome and visit to the Basilica when he was a young priest in 1990.
Several Perth clergy came together recently to celebrate Mass and lunch with Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB. Photo: Jamie O’Brien.
Archbishop Costelloe went on to speak about the story of St Francis of Assisi’s encounter with Pope Innocent III, noting the famous vision of St Francis who while praying before a cross heard a voice which said to him, “Go and rebuild my Church which is falling into ruin”.
“As we grapple with the many difficulties which confront the Lord’s Church at the moment, we know that many people believe the Church to be experiencing a crisis at least as major as the one facing the Church at the time of Saint Francis and Pope Innocent,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
“We rightly focus on the difficulties facing the Church today, which we cannot ignore in the hope that they will go away, but we should also focus on what is at the heart of the story of Saint Francis,” he said.
“It is this: in times of crisis the Lord does not abandon his Church. On the contrary he raises up people who will allow him to work through them to bring renewal and wholeness to the Church whose fundamental identity, as the Body of Christ, has been so disfigured by the failures of so many.
Archbishop Costelloe explained that St Francis would have been judged originally to be the most unlikely and unsuitable of solutions to the Church’s problems at that time.
“We should be prepared to be equally surprised by the ways in which the Lord chooses to work in our own time to rebuild his Church,” he said.