Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
World Day of Consecrated Life

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Sunday 9 February, 2025
St Mary's Cathedral, Perth

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For some years now, the Church has invited us to celebrate a day of prayer each year to reflect on and thank God for the gift of religious life to the Church. We normally do so on the second of February, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, which this year was celebrated last Sunday. Due to a variety of circumstances, we decided that here in Perth we would celebrate it this Sunday and as I was in Melbourne last Sunday attending the ordination of two new bishops I was very grateful to be able to be present in the Cathedral today for such an important celebration for our Archdiocese, which has been so richly blessed by the presence of so many religious women and men from our very beginnings.

When I looked at the readings for today’s liturgy, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps God’s Providence was at work because all three readings today, while they clearly do not refer only to a vocation to the religious life, certainly do speak to us about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Every single baptised person here in the Cathedral this morning is called to this discipleship. Every one of us has been given the gift of new life in Christ, and every one of us is called to do our best to live this new life to the full: to make the Lord Jesus, not just in words but in the daily reality of our lives, our way, our truth, and our life.

Another way of saying this is that every single one of us is called to be holy. Where once we may have thought that priests and religious brothers and sisters are called to a more perfect holiness than everyone else, now we know that, as the Second  Vatican Council reminded the Church, the call to holiness is universal. There is no such thing as a more perfect or less perfect way of life within the Church. There is only the call to live the particular way of life in which each of finds ourself, as perfectly as we can.

Just recently, the Church celebrated the feast of Saint Francis De Sales who was a bishop in Europe in the 16th century. In one of his writings, he asked whether the solitary life of a monk in his monastery was suitable for a bishop, or whether a married couple should try to live the extreme poverty of members of some religious orders, or whether tradesmen and women should spend as much time in church as Carmelite nuns enclosed in their convents. The answer, of course, in each case is no, but as St Francis commented, this foolish mistake is often made. And, he went on to say, it is not only a mistake but against the teachings of the Church to hold that life in the Armed Forces, in a factory, in the world of business or in the home, is incompatible with being holy. It is, in fact, quite the opposite: we become holy by working out how to be, and then striving to be in practice, true disciples of Jesus in the concrete realities of our own life, rather than in some imagined perfect life.

But if religious sisters and brothers, and also priests who belong to religious orders, are not called to a greater holiness than the rest of us, then why do we have religious life at all? Why would God call people to this way of life?

The beginnings of an answer can be found, I think, in today’s readings. The first reading, from the prophet Isaiah concludes with these words: I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will be our Mesenger?” And I answered, “Here I am, send me”.

Just for a moment, let us hold these words in our minds as we also look to the end of today’s gospel reading. After Simon Peter and his brothers, James and John, have seen the miracle of the great catch of fish which Jesus has worked for them, Simon Peter falls on his knees and says, “Leave me Lord I am a sinful man”. Jesus then turns to him and says, “Do not be afraid. From now on it is people, not fish, that you will catch”. And then we are told that they left everything and followed Him.

When we put these two things together, we discover that discipleship of Jesus is about being called, saying yes, following Him and being sent by Him.

As I mentioned at the start of Mass, this fourfold reality of being called, saying yes, following and being sent, is not just for religious sisters and brothers, not just for bishops and priests, not just for popes and cardinals -  it is for all of us. But it is also true that when Peter says to Jesus, “Leave me Lord for I am a sinful person” he is giving voice to something that is also true for us. Our sinfulness, our weakness and often just the complexity of our lives, can lead us to forget what it means to be a Catholic,  what it means to be a disciple, what it really means to be a follower of Jesus. And it is because of this reality, this tendency to so easily forget, that God calls some women and some men to take on the challenge and the beauty of religious life in order to be, both in what they do and in the style of life they live, what I would call a living homily, a living reminder, of what we are all called to be and do in our own particular circumstances.

This does not make religious women and men better or holier than the rest of us. They are, or rather I should say we are, for I am one of them, as weak and fragile as everybody else. This is why religious need our prayers, our support and our encouragement to help them remain faithful to the way of life to which God has called them. But while they may not be better, more perfect or holier than the rest of us, they are nevertheless, in God‘s mysterious plan, a precious gift of His grace reminding us all of the challenge and the beauty of living our discipleship fully.

Today we give thanks for all religious, and in a special way for those who have been a part of the life of our Archdiocese, who have heard and still hear the call, who have said and are still saying yes, who have followed and are still following Him, and who went, and are still going, wherever He sent and now sends them.  May God continue to call, may those who are called say yes, may they follow where He leads, and go wherever He sends them.