Friday Week Five of Easter (Year A)
Opening of the ACBC May Plenary Meeting

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Friday 8 May, 2026
St Mary MacKillop Chapel, North Sydney

Download the full text in PDF

As we gather this evening to mark the beginning of our time together with the Mass of the Holy Spirit, deeply conscious of the great privilege and heavy responsibility we bear as those who are called in a particular way to embody the presence of the Lord Jesus among His people as their Good Shepherd, it seems to me that both today’s first reading and the gospel offer us some very significant and at the same time challenging reflections on what it means to be entrusted with the role of leadership in the Lord’s Church.

It is true, of course, that we do not bear the burden of leadership alone. The ongoing journey of rediscovering the synodal nature of the Church has highlighted for us something we have always known: that we are bishops in a Church which is, by God‘s design, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people set apart to sing the praises of God. As St John Paul II reminded us on a number of occasions, the ordained ministry of bishops and priests is at the service of the priesthood of the whole Church and is called to enable the exercise of that priesthood. For that reason, the words of Jesus to His disciples this evening are words which apply to every disciple: we are all called to love one another as Christ has loved us. We all know well, but perhaps at times all need to be reminded, that leadership and authority in the Church is always a ministry of humble, foot-washing service, never a ministry of domination or coercion.

In this evening’s first reading we see the apostles and elders taking decisive action to respond to an issue, a challenge - we might even say an aberration - which has arisen in one of the infant Christian Churches in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. The apostles and elders are concerned that unreasonable demands are being placed upon the members of these communities, and they are eager to clarify for those who have been unsettled just what the basic requirements of Christian discipleship are.

It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves, they write, not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials: you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols; from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from fornication. Avoid these, and you will do what is right.

The apostles and elders were very clear that one of their responsibilities was to ensure that the early Christians were not weighed down by things which in the end did not touch on the question of their fidelity to the Lord Jesus. And what was the result? The community read the letter, and were delighted with the encouragement it gave them. I can’t help thinking that at the end of each day, as we review the day that has passed, it would be good for us to ask ourselves whether we have provided encouragement and hope to our people or perhaps something a little less uplifting.

When we turn to this evening’s gospel we can, I think, easily identify Jesus as someone who is providing encouragement and hope to His disciples. The setting, of course, is the Last Supper. Jesus and His disciples were well aware of the danger that Jesus was facing: that danger had been growing from the very beginnings of His public ministry and the opposition from those who regarded Jesus as a mortal threat to much that they held dear and precious would soon reach its violent end. It is in that context of fear and of impending disaster, and in the context, too, of Jesus’ extraordinary act of washing the feet of His disciples, the Jesus draws them even closer to His heart, assures them that each one of them has been personally chosen by Him, tells them that because He has shared everything with them He thinks of them as friends rather than as servants, and then gifts them with a new and extraordinary commandment: to love one another as He has loved them. If the communities in Antioch, Syria and Celicia were encouraged by the wise words from the apostles and elders, how much more must the twelve apostles have been encouraged by these strong and at the same time tender words from the Lord?

We do not know if, in the heightened atmosphere of that night, the twelve were able to reflect deeply on the implications of these words of Jesus but certainly, as time went by and as the Christian community began to grow and spread, the implications of those words have become clearer - and we are still, I believe, in the process of growing in our understanding of just what it means to love as Jesus loved. 

In the end, of course, it is Jesus’ willingness to lay down His life for his friends which is the greatest expression of his love. It is important, though, to recall that the mind and heart of Jesus, which as Saint Paul reminds us led Jesus to humble himself and become obedient unto death, even death on a cross, is the same mind and heart that moved Jesus in every moment of his life, in every encounter with individual people, in every response in word in deed to the large crowds which gathered around Him. Jesus did not have to wait until the final act of His life to give His life fully and completely for the salvation of others in accordance with his Father’s will. From the moment of His incarnation, and indeed from within the unfathomable mystery of the triune life of God, the Son was always giving his yes to the Father’s will.

When Jesus tells His first disciples, and when He tells us, to love one another as He has loved us He is, through the gift of His grace, both encouraging and enabling us to love in his way, to give in his way, to be the face of the Father‘s mercy in his way. The challenging question is, of course, whether our way faithfully mirrors his way.

At the heart of our time together during this Conference, this is our ultimate goal: to discern just what it means, what it looks like, to live faithfully our ministry of leadership and service in the Lord’s Church at this time in history, in our  part of the world, and among the people whom the Lord has entrusted to our care.

We are called to encourage each other and God’s people, to put new heart in each other and in God’s people, to instil hope in each other and in God‘s people.

My God who has begun the good work in us, bring it to fulfilment.