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Be ready to respond to God’s will no matter the cost: Archbishop Costelloe

FrGrant2Sep19

Archbishop Costelloe reflected on the Gospel for the day, saying each one of us must be ready to respond to God’s will no matter the cost. Photo: Bridget Curran.

By Amanda Murthy and Josh Low

Jesus asking us to be ready to give up whatever we must in order to live according to the way He sets out for us, was the focus of Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB last weekend.

His comments came during the homily at the installation Mass of Father Grant Gorddard as the new Parish Priest of Scarborough’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Church on Sunday 8 September.

In his homily, the Archbishop challenged the congregation with the very words of Jesus in the Gospel reading of the day.

“Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple - none of you can be my disciple unless you give up all your possessions,” he read.

“The life of discipleship is not easy for anyone. The following of Jesus, the taking of Jesus at his word when he tells us that he is our Way and our Truth and our Life, is difficult in a society and a world which would encourage us to walk a different way, to commit ourselves to a different truth, to live a different kind of life to the one Jesus holds out to us,” Archbishop Costelloe said.

“Indeed why would we want to follow someone who tells us that we must hate our father and mother and brother and sister and children and indeed our own lives?

“What are we to make of someone who tells us that we must give up every possession we have if we wish to be His disciples?

“These things don’t only seem extreme to us; they seem in fact to be cruel, but is this what Jesus is really asking of us?” he added.

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Fr Gorddard makes his Profession of Faith and Oath before the Archbishop as part of the Rite of Installation of a Parish Priest. Photo: Bridget Curran.

Archbishop Costelloe said Jesus is in fact not asking any ill feelings from us, but whatever it is in our lives which is stopping us from giving our complete “yes” to whatever God is asking of us.

“The challenge for each of us is to have the insight and honesty to recognise what it is that is holding us back from living the life to which God is calling us, and then have the courage to do something about it.

“This readiness to be ready to respond to God’s will, no matter the cost, is of course exactly the way Jesus lived his life,” he said.

The Archbishop concluded by calling for the parish community to support Fr Gorddard in his new role as Parish Priest and their leader in faith.

“Fr Grant is called to be a living sign of the priestly heart of Christ.

“I ask you to support and encourage him, and in every way you can, to help him be the priest God is calling him to be - that clear and powerful sign that Jesus is still among us as our Good Shepherd,” Archbishop Costelloe concluded.