Fourteenth Sunday Ordinary Time (Year A)
Commissioning of the Diocesan Pastoral Council Members

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Sunday 5 July 2026
St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth

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As I was preparing my homily for this evening’s Mass, during which we will formally commission the members of our new Diocesan Pastoral Council, a phrase from one of the psalms kept coming to my mind: Your word, Lord, is a lamp for my steps and a light for my path. 

These words are important for us all as we gather this evening to celebrate God’s love, to open ourselves to God’s compassion and mercy, and to recommit ourselves to the call and the privilege of living as disciples of Christ. And precisely because these words are so important for all of us, they are especially important for those among us who, on behalf of us all, take on the task of being members of our Diocesan Pastoral Council, becoming in that way collaborators with me in the privilege of leading the Church here in our archdiocese along the path of fidelity to all that God is asking of us.

Yesterday, the members of the Council spent the day together reflecting on the task that lies ahead, seeking to ensure that we begin with a solid foundation. During the course of the day, I reminded the Council members of something I said on the day, fifteen years ago, when I was installed as the Archbishop here in Perth. The great challenge, I said then, was for all of us to strive to return the Church to Christ and to return Christ to the Church. This remains the great challenge we face and indicates the path along which we are all called to walk.

It is true, of course, that the Church here in Perth, as part of the Catholic Church united through our communion with the bishop of Rome, is already the body of Christ. The Church belongs to Christ, draws its life from Christ, and is called to be the living sign of Christ’s ongoing presence to His people through history. Sadly, both as individuals and as local communities, we do not always live in fidelity to this call. Sometimes, in reality, we push Christ to the margin of our lives and forget who it Is we are following, and so, yes, we do need consciously to return Christ to the Church and to return the Church to Christ.

The first place to begin is to keep the eyes of our mind and heart fixed on Him. This is one of the main reasons why the Church reminds us constantly of our need to gather together each weekend to celebrate the Eucharist, just as we are doing this evening. It is here that we meet Christ in a very particular way. We meet Him in the community of our brothers and sisters as we gather together as a people of faith; we meet Him in the person of the priest or bishop who is called by God to be a living sign of the presence of Jesus among us as our Good Shepherd; we meet Him in the Word of God, the lamp for our steps and the light for our path; and we meet Him in his Eucharistic presence as He gives Himself to us under the appearances of bread and wine to draw us into a profound communion with Him and with each other.

It is this meeting with Christ, this coming to know Him, which is meant to be the solid foundation of our Christian lives. A little known but beautiful prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi captures this well: let me know you, O Lord, he prays, so that I might always and in all things act in accordance with your holy will. 

It is in coming to know Jesus that we will begin to understand what it means to walk in His footsteps - and it is in the gospels, as we become familiar with them, that we come to know Jesus more fully. 

When, as we hear tonight, Jesus prays thanking His Father for revealing the mystery of God‘s kingdom not to the wise and clever but to the children, to the little ones, we are perhaps being invited not to put too much trust in our own cleverness, our own opinions, or our own sense of superiority, but to also look for the wisdom of God in people and in places which our society might tend to disregard: those whom many might dismiss as being unsophisticated, not well enough educated, perhaps a little too “ordinary”.

And then, when we hear Jesus say that only He truly knows the Father we are perhaps being invited to ask ourselves whether we really do believe that God is as good, as forgiving, as merciful, and as loving as Jesus proclaims Him to be. Pope Leo recently posed the question: what face of God do you allow to shine forth to others? Each of us as individual Christians, and each community of Christian disciples, is called to reflect deeply on this question: for in the strange ways of God’s providence it is we who, through the quality of our lives, are called to reveal the face of God to others.

When we hear Jesus describe Himself as gentle and humble in heart, we are being invited to ask ourselves whether we too, as His disciples, are also gentle and humble in heart. Is this the way people experience us? Is this the dream and hope for ourselves that we carry in our hearts? Is this the prayer for ourselves and for each other that we constantly put before the Lord? 

These are the challenges, and the promise of Christian discipleship. We are all included in this great invitation and this great adventure. For that very reason, it is also the challenge and the promise which the members of our Diocesan Pastoral Council embrace tonight as they are officially commissioned, to now take on his new and significant role in the leadership of our Archdiocese.

We pray for them this evening that the Lord who has planted this hope within them will renew the gift of his Spirit and empower them to help guide the Church into the future to which God is inviting us all.