Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church Centenary

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Sunday 13 July, 2025
Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church, Maylands

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When on July 12, 1925, Archbishop Clune  entered this church at 10 o’clock in the morning to begin the solemn celebration of the blessing and opening of the church, neither he no anyone else present at that time could have imagined that 100 years later another archbishop would be coming to celebrate the centenary of that great event in a year which had been solemnly designated by the Pope as a Jubilee Year of Hope.

Those of you who have had a chance to read something of the history of the parish, and particularly the section dealing with the opening of the church, will know that in his homily, Archbishop Clune spoke of the story from St John’s Gospel of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus was thirsty so He asked the woman for something to drink. When she expressed her surprise that HJe, a Jew, would be asking her, a non-Jew, for this favour Jesus replied that if she only knew who it was that was asking for a drink she would in her turn be asking Him for water, not from the well where they were sitting but from the well of His heart from which flow springs of living water, the water of love which is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Archbishop Clune had chosen well in deciding to reflect on that story for it enabled him to invite the people of the parish to see the church as a place where they could come in response to the invitation of the Lord Jesus: come to me all you who are weary and sorrowful and I will refresh you with the waters of eternal life. That invitation is as real and as necessary today as it was 100 years ago. Over the course of the last 100 years the character of this area of Perth has constantly changed, as has the character of our city and the character of our country. Those who gathered all those years ago would hardly recognise the city, or the suburb, or the make-up of the congregation of which we are all a part this morning. But while many things have changed, one thing has not changed: every single one of us here in the church today is as much in need of the healing, compassionate and merciful love of Christ as were those people who were present on 12 July 1925. We are as much in need of hearing the assurance of the Lord that He wants to lift the burden from our shoulders and give us rest in peace as were our forebears who planted the faith here in Maylands.

This promise of the Lord, this fidelity of the Lord, this unchanging love and compassion of the Lord are the source of our hope, the hope which Pope Francis has wanted us to reflect on, to rely on and to rejoice in in this special Jubilee Year of Hope.

But we are here this morning, not just to rejoice in the Lord’s fidelity to His promises. We are here to remember that it is through us that the Lord wishes to bring hope, compassion and love to others.

This is why the story of the encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well highlighted by Archbishop Clune finds its perfect companion in the gospel from today’s liturgy for the 15th Sunday of the year - the story of the Good Samaritan.

We know the story well, and we have just listened to it again this morning, so I do not need to repeat it. I would simply like to invite us all to take to heart and reflect deeply on the final words of this morning’s gospel: go, and do the same yourself. These words of Jesus mirror so many other of his words in the gospel tradition: be compassionate, as your Heavenly Father  is compassionate; love one another as I have loved you; if I your Lord and master have washed your feet, then you must wash each other’s feet; it is not those who say to me “Lord, Lord” who will enter the kingdom of heaven but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven.

When through our openness to God‘s Spirit in our lives, we are able to be compassionate, to love as Jesus loved, to wash each other’s feet and the feet of those in need, we become what all disciples are called to be: signs and bearers of the hope which fills our lives, and instruments of God’s renewal of hope in the lives of all those who have lost hope.

This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. This is why we build and care for beautiful churches in which to pray and to celebrate the sacraments; it is why we regularly celebrate the Eucharist and unite ourselves to the Lord in Holy Communion; it is why we gather to listen to the Word of God and draw strength and renewal from each other’s faith. It is the way we become what God is calling us to be.

According to St John’s Gospel, the first miracle which Jesus worked took place at Cana when He changed water into wine. It was on that occasion that the mother of the Lord, the woman to whom this church is dedicated, spoke those famous words to the stewards which are, in fact, words which Mary constantly speaks to each of us: do whatever he tells you.

What better way could there be for all of us who have gathered to celebrate the centenary of this beautiful church than to use this time together to renew our commitment, individually and as members of our local Christian communities, either here in Maylands or elsewhere, to committing ourselves, as Mary asks, to do whatever her son Jesus tells us to do.