EXCLUSIVE: Archbishop Costelloe calls Perth Catholic community to faith
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has this week published a Special Lenten Message to the Perth Catholic community. Photo: Ron Tan.
By Jamie O’Brien
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB has this week published a Special Lenten Message to the Perth Catholic community.
“We are a people called together by God to form the community of the Church, so that in and through us Jesus can continue to be present to his people as their Good Shepherd,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
“We are supposed to be following in his footsteps. We are supposed to have our eyes fixed firmly on him,” he said.
Archbishop Costelloe continues by speaking about the Year of Grace, which was celebrated across Australia in from 2012 to 2013.
“This special year was partly inspired by some words of Saint John Paul II. ‘Our witness to the Gospel,’ he [John Paull II] said, ‘will be hopelessly inadequate if we have not first contemplated the face of Christ’.
“And why? Because we are a community that professes Christ to be our Way, and our Truth, and our Life and it is time we started to live as if we believed it,” Archbishop Costelloe explained.
Noting that the special message has not been easy to write, Archbishop Costelloe says that he can only speak from the heart.
“We are not only facing a crisis of credibility or confidence. We are not only grappling with a loss of respect in our society. We are not only facing the reality of diminishment in numbers and influence.”
“We are facing a crisis of faith. The only way through this crisis is a return to fidelity, a return to the Gospel, a return to Christ.
“It is he in whom we must place our trust. Our leaders may fail us, our brothers and sisters in the community of the Church may fail us, our own weaknesses and blindness may betray us - but Christ will never fail us.”
A video of the Special Lenten Message is also available by Clicking Here