"Homily: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph" from Most Rev Peter A Comensoli
Archbishop of Melbourne

Christmas Day evening for me was spent back in Wollongong with my extended family – brothers, partners, grandkids and great-grandkids. This has been our family tradition for several decades, so it works well for me, even though I now live in Melbourne.

Of course, I’m completely different from each of my brothers. I’m my own man, as the saying goes. At least, that’s what I think. My non-blood relatives, however, think otherwise. “You’re so like your brothers,” they say. According to them, we have similar mannerisms, similar physical gestures, similar ways of laughing and talking. It seems that our family resemblances go well beyond our shared DNA.

A Christmas message from Most Rev Peter A Comensoli
Archbishop of Melbourne

Hello friends
I love Christmas. It is such a beautiful time of hope. Behind the tinsel, the advertising, the stress and frantic energy of the season, we encounter a profound simplicity in the story of God's arrival.

We just need to think about Mary and Joseph. They weren't welcomed into any warm hotel or inn, they weren't able to put themselves down by the fireplace in someone's home. They had come from far away and arrived in a place they did not know.

Dear Friends,

I wish you all a very happy Easter. May this Easter bring peace, happiness, and new life to each of your families. Pope Francis says "Christians must not give in to failure" while celebrating the Mass at the Casa Santa Marta Pope commented on the 'spirit of tiredness that takes away hope'.

Dear Parishioners,
Lent is the time to pray, fast and to do penance.

• Prayer; Mass attendance; family prayer; a visit to a Church or Chapel; reading the Bible; making the Stations of the Cross; praying the Rosary.
• Fasting; not eating meat, not eating sweets or deserts; giving up entertainment to spend time with the family; limiting food and drink so as to give to the poor of one's own country or elsewhere. Project Compassion is a major means of expressing our self-denial in Australia.
• Helping Others; special attention to someone who is poor, sick, elderly, lonely or over-burdened; or in other ways.

Dear Parishioners,
Christmas is the time we experience the divine love more closely in our hearts. During this season we celebrate Christ who was born in to this world to save us from sin and death. The four weeks of preparation during Advent helps us to reflect on the Love, Peace and Joy which Jesus brought into this world. The Advent wreath, Candles, Stars, greeting cards, illuminations, all these add to our spiritual joy.

Dear Parishioners,
In June I attended the Annual Clergy Conference along with many fellow priests. This year the event was held at Torquay. The topic was "Young people and religion in Australia: The Bigger Picture"

The conference discussed youth and draws from research and census data. Following are my notes.

My dear Friends,
I am amazed at how time flies. More than seven years have passed since I first came to the communities of Park Orchards and Ringwood North. As I glance at those years, I realize that God has been wonderfully gracious to me in different ways through these communities. How lucky I am to have been in these communities for these years. Perhaps I was the luckiest priest in the Archdiocese of Melbourne to be in the best community of people.

Wishing you a Happy Easter…
It is another Easter. The forty days of Lenten observances, the readings and reflections of appropriate texts from the Scriptures during this time and now with the renewal of our baptismal commitment and the celebration itself have made us refreshed and renewed in spirit. "I came that you may have life; life in abundance," said Jesus (Jn.10:10). With his passion, death and resurrection the Lord has given us life, yes, life in abundance.

A puppy said to an old dog, "I've been told that joy lies in my tail. Thus I'm chasing it; and when I catch it, I'll be joyful." The old dog mused, "True joy lies in our tails. Yet, I've realized that when I chase, it eludes me. But when I go about doing my duty, it follows me." Joy is God's gift associated with the Easter season that we celebrate.

Dear Friends,
Lent is a time for ‘Spring cleaning’ in our souls. We move the furniture in our life, take down the curtains, wash the windows and create space by removing what clutters our daily lives. It is not just a matter of getting rid of mess. It is rearranging things, finding ways to create more room, a better space. We see ourselves differently and make more room for God.

During the holy season of Lent we open our hearts and minds to a fresh, deeper, fuller awareness of God within us, around us: a deeper awareness of God's will for us. We are each called to spend extra time in prayer and to confess our sins honestly to Christ in the Sacrament of Penance.

Lent reminds us forcefully that we will be judged at our death and must give an account of our life.

Yet death is such a taboo subject in our culture. Some treat it as a ’problem’ that can be 'solved' and legislated about. But Lent reminds us we must ponder deeply its stark reality.

During our life on earth we struggle to protect our future with bank accounts, credit cards and investments. We protect the future with health plans, life insurance, social security and retirement plans. There is nothing wrong with that. But the statistic on death has not changed. It is still one per person.

Dear Friends,

First of all I wish you a joyful and meaningful celebration of Christmas. As of now, Christmas greetings would have been sent and Christmas presents bought and wrapped and ready to be given. Christmas shopping would be sorted, ordered and ready to be shared at the Christmas table. We would have sung with all our hearts the Christmas carols, as we had our Christmas break-ups. We would have set up our Christmas lights flickering at night.

All of these and more are indeed signs that Christmas is in the air. But we need to remember that Christmas is more than just something that we do, or something we give. In fact, Christmas is about someone, and this someone has a name, Jesus - the Emmanuel, the God-with-us, the God who humbly came down from his throne in heaven, and chose to be born in a lowly manger – ‘a saviour who has been born to us (Lk 2:11)’, the ‘true light that enlightens all people (Jn 1:9)’.