Mercy Education 180th Anniversary

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Monday 20 July, 2026
Santa Maria College, Attadale
 

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A well-known Australian Scripture Scholar, the Jesuit Father Brendan Byrne, has a very beautiful commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from which our gospel reading this morning comes. In the title he gives to this commentary – Lifting the Burden – Fr Brendan is seeking to capture what he sees as the central theme running through the entire gospel. In the introduction to his book, Fr Brendan writes: “I (have) discovered a gospel that teaches us to look at humanity through the eyes of Jesus and see it as afflicted and weighed down with all manner of burdens. Far from adding to humanity’s burdens, Jesus comes to bear and lift them.”

As I reflected on this morning’s gospel, and on these words of Father Brendan, it occurred to me that this simple phrase might sum up the mission of Mercy Education, your mission -  in our society and in the Lord’s Church today. I would like to offer a thought from Pope Francis and another from Pope Leo to help us flesh out a little what this mission might entail.

You will recall, I am sure, that Pope Francis proclaimed 2016 as the Year of Mercy. In explaining this decision to the worldwide Church, Pope Francis began with this simple statement: Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. Francis then went on to say that Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him (MV1).

During the Year of Mercy, I found myself speaking of the large-heartedness of God as a way of explaining a little more what this theme of Mercy actually means. I offer this to you this morning as you gather as the staff of three of the schools in our Archdiocese which proudly profess to be schools in the Mercy Tradition: be large-hearted people in large-hearted schools.

In the Catholic Church we are blessed with a rich variety of charisms and spiritual traditions, often taking their origin in the founding story and subsequent development of congregations of religious sisters, brothers and priests. All of these charisms and traditions, because of the Spirit-led work of their founders, are ultimately centred on Jesus as the revelation of God. This is what unites them under the banner of religious life. What explains their diversity is the mission each congregation or spiritual tradition has to keep alive in the Church, for the sake of the whole Church, a particular and essential aspect of the vast mystery of Christ, which can never be fully expressed in any one tradition. Whether it be a focus on evangelical poverty, an invitation to symbolically join Jesus on the mountain as He prays through the night, or the call to make real the concluding words of the parable of the Good Samaritan - now you go and do likewise -  each charismatic movement in the Church is meant to be a reminder to all Christians that we are, each in our own contexts, called to bring alive the presence of Christ among us. For all of you who have in a variety of ways found yourselves caught up in the spiritual insights and traditions of Catherine Macaulay, it is surely the call of Jesus, found explicitly in St Luke’s Gospel but certainly not foreign to Matthew’s Gospel, to be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36) which must characterise your educational mission in the Lord’s Church.

This leads me to something Pope Leo said recently to a gathering of Catholic bishops in Italy. Because Catholic bishops are leaders in the Church it is nearly always the case that what is true for Catholic bishops is true for everybody who exercises leadership in the Church - and of course anyone who works in Catholic Education and who is therefore engaged in some way in the formation of young people, does exercise, in collaboration with others, a role of leadership in the Church.

What face of God, Pope Leo asked the bishops, do you allow to shine forth in your life and ministry?

For our purposes this morning, and in light of what Pope Francis said about Jesus and his relation to his Heavenly Father, we might ask ourselves this same question, but in a slightly different way: what face of Jesus, the face of the Father’s mercy, do you allow to shine forth in your life and your work as part of a specific local Christian community, the Catholic school, committed to the education and formation of young people?

Two simple thoughts flow from this which I would like to leave with you lest this homily turn into an extended lecture!

Firstly, Pope Leo does not ask what face of God do you think you should allow to shine forth or what face of God do you wish you were able to allow to shine forth? He simply asks what face of God do you actually allow to shine forth? Uncomfortably, perhaps, but very directly, Pope Leo highlights the responsibility each of us has to ensure that we are, in truth, allowing the face of the one true God to shine forth; that we are aligning our way of being and our way of doing with what Saint Paul would call the mind of Christ Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5). In your encounters with your colleagues in the school, in your meetings and engagement with the parents of the students, and especially in the ways in which you relate to the students under your care, is it the mind and heart of Jesus which they are encountering in you - or something or someone else?

My second thought flows from the first. We will only be able to judge the extent to which in encountering us people do encounter the mind and heart of Christ if we know something of the mind and heart of Christ ourselves. We will need to encounter Him ourselves if we are to have any hope that He can then meet others through us.

Each school will have its own ways of helping us to develop our own openness to and relationship with the Lord Jesus. Our readiness to engage with this will be a sign that we have recognised the responsibility which comes with accepting a position in a Catholic School.  And of course, in a school in the Mercy Tradition, this will all be geared towards enabling us to be faithful to the call to be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.

This is both the urgent challenge and the great privilege before you all as you commence the next stage in this year’s journey of educating and forming the young people in your schools. 

And so, as the prophet in today’s first reading encourages us: act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God.