Homily for 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2010

Mary MacKillop is to be canonised on the 17th October this year. Much as been written about her and much will in the future as the first Australian saint. I have been reading about her experience in Queensland and the trouble she had. She and the sisters were expelled from Queensland at one stage by Bishop Quinn, the first Bishop of Brisbane, because of a disagreement about who had authority over the Sisters of St Joseph. Later they were welcomed back by Bishop Dunn.

Bishop James Cuskelly, MSC, was an auxiliary bishop in Brisbane. He died in 1999. He wrote this about Mary in a reflection on her spirituality after her beatification in 1995: "Mary is a wonderful example of someone whose faith and love were unshaken by her experience of the human poverty of the Church. One of the elements of heroic sanctity present in the life of Mary MacKillop was her unwavering faith in the Church. She met with poverty in high places – in unworthy priests, in weak and arrogant bishops, in foolish nuns. Yet she never weakened in her faith in Christ present in and acting through the Church. Nothing lessened her resolve to go on working for the poor. The limitations of other members of the Church did not surprise or discourage her. She believed in the Church of the poor" (Mary MacKillop, a Spiritual Model for All, p 26, E.J. Cuskelly, MSC).

Her story is one which takes us to the heart of the Gospel. It echoes with the parable today. The story of the Good Samaritan is one we are so familiar with. The unnamed Samaritan has entered into our culture as the title of someone who does a good deed for another. It has become a bit of a morality tale. With such familiarity and use we have domesticated the gospel to some extent. We can easily miss the cutting two edged sword that this story wields.

A lawyer wanted to test Jesus about his attitude to the Law. He asked Jesus what one must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus questioned him about what the law said and praised the lawyer for his answer. Yet, not daunted the failure of this tactic, he tested Jesus on a further point of law, "Who is my neighbour?" Define a "neighbour" for me. In reply Jesus tells the familiar parable. Instead of answering the lawyer's question directly Jesus turns it around at the end and asks, "Which of the three was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The lawyer was really asking who or what kind of people are deserving of my help? There was much dispute amongst the scribes over this kind of question. Who was in and who was excluded from the community and it's life was carefully prescribed. A leper, for example, was certainly and outsider. Jesus as always is not interested in a narrow interpretation of the Law. The Lawyer had said at the start in reply to Jesus, "You shall love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbour as your self." This kind of love does not ask who is worthy of my attention. Love embraces all. It is not just that the victim of the robbers is someone deserving of help. He surely was. Rather, who is a neighbour to him? Could a Samaritan be a neighbour to him? Can we be a neighbour to the foreigner, the stranger?

Mary MacKillop's vision was to help the poor of Australia particularly those in remote areas of the country. To do this she wanted to live close to them and not just teach children in school. She wanted her sisters to be there for the families in all their struggles. This did not always sit well with those who believed that nuns should be cloistered away from the world. She gained enemies in doing this. She met with some quite vicious opposition. Yet, it was not a political game for her. She had the Gospel in mind. She, in many ways, tried to be a good neighbour even to those who denigrated her with lies and mischief. Again, and again, she excused their behaviour. She did not need to forgive them, Bishop Cuskelly says, because, like the good Samaritan, she had not judged her opposition as evil in the first place (cf ibid p33)!

Love of one's enemies is very difficult. It escapes most of us. But without it the Gospel can become a feel good story with which we try to justify ourselves like the lawyer. Or it can simply confirm us in our prejudices. Saints like Mary show us the way. She did not ask who deserves her care. She was able to see a neighbour in all she met and they a neighbour in her. If she saw a need in either friend or enemy she sought to meet it. She was not just a do-gooder. She was strong leader. She carried the cross of love. Her title is Mother Mary of the Cross. Through the cross of Christ, as St Paul's hymn in the second reading today says, "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether in earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20). Mary MacKillop shows us that this way is a possibility for all of us by God's grace.

Fr Graham