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Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Chinese Catholic Community Lunar New Year
Homily
By the Most Rev Bishop Don Sproxton
Auxiliary Bishop of Perth
Holy Family Catholic Church, Como
Sunday 02 February 2025
Download the full text in PDF
I wish to pass on to everyone today the best wishes and prayers of Archbishop Costelloe, with my own, as we celebrate the Lunar New Year.
As we all know, this is the Year of the Water Snake. We in Australia have an uneasy relationship with snakes. I live near the Herdsman Lakes and it is very often that I have seen tiger snakes on my walks. These are snakes that you do not mess with: they are more aggressive than dugites, so you must wait for it to continue on its way without disturbance.
This Year, though, emphasises the mythical characteristics of the snake, and so it is that we focus on what the snake symbolises. The snake symbolises reflection, growth and personal transformation, and it reminds us to seek wisdom, learn how to be adaptable and strategic in approach, to live throughout this year with grace and dignity, and to do the very best we can.
On the first day of January, we gave honour to Mary, the Mother of God. It is the day when we pray for peace. Mary accepted the call of God to become the mother of Jesus and so allow God the Father to send His only Son as our redeemer, who took on human nature through Mary, uniting the human and divine natures in Jesus.
And today, we are celebrating the mysterious events around the Presentation of Jesus by Mary and Joseph in the Temple. Forty days after He had been born, his mother had to perform the rites for purification. Jesus, her first-born male child was taken as well to be presented or given to God in the Temple. Mary was now able to take part, with Joseph, in the ritual of presenting their first-born son. It was the public act of redemption of a first-born male child, in that after giving Him to God, they would buy him back with an offering.
While Mary and Joseph were arranging for the sacrifice, the prophetess Anna and Simeon came up to them because they recognised that Jesus was the promised Messiah, who would redeem the people, setting them free and giving them hope throughout their lives.
2025 is also the Jubilee Year of Hope, which has been called by Pope Francis as he reflects about the world now and, especially, the treatment of the oppressed and poor. Like the jubilee years of the Jews in the past, our jubilees are times for us to reflect and to return to the work of mercy and justice, forgiveness and freedom. Pope Francis calls for change globally and personally.
Changes are needed at the international level so that people of poorer nations are freed from crippling debt, and the loss of their natural and environmental resources may be limited, as they try to pay back the debt.
Pope Francis has issued a plea to all governments to see how our systems can be reformed so that the powerful can reconsider the consequences of their thirst for wealth.
The Jubilee is a call to each of us, too, who live in our smaller and interrelated worlds, to be reflective and be open to personal growth and transformation. Pope Francis calls this ‘disarming our hearts’.
‘Disarming hearts is a job for everyone, great and small, rich and poor alike. At times, something quite simple will do, such as a smile, a small gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed. With such gestures, we progress towards the goal of peace. We arrive all the more quickly if, in the course of journeying alongside our brothers and sisters, we discover that we have changed from the time we first set out. Peace does not only come with the end of wars but with the dawn of a new world, a world in which we realise that we are different, closer and more fraternal than we ever thought possible’. (58th World Day of Peace. 2025)
2025 is a special time for us to look again at our faith. Seventeen hundred years ago the Church gave us the great statement, we know as the Creed, on our faith in God, the Trinity of Persons in God, and who Jesus is. It is true that faith is necessary for us to have hope.
We are deeply aware of the preciousness of having faith, the gift that enables us to accept what God has revealed to us about Jesus, and what Jesus has done for us. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God and son of Mary. Our faith is that his own sacrifice destroyed the power of evil and his faithfulness to his Father made him our redeemer. We believe that Jesus Christ will be close to us and will work with us.
Our lives are transformed with hope because of our faith. We can believe that we can grow and become the best we can be. Hope is about trust and being certain that Christ is with us, no matter what.
May this year, and all it promises, be a very special time for us to reassess our faith in the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. May we grow in awareness of the presence of Jesus in each moment and his loving offer to go with us into all that awaits us in 2025. May we become Pilgrims of Hope.