A version of the homily of Bishop Peter A Comensoli at the 5pm Vigil Mass for the 4th Sunday of Easter Year C at St John the Baptist, Woy Woy, 16 April 2016.

This is not a literal transcript, but it will give you the gist of his message.

Bishop Comensoli was at Woy Woy as part of a parish visitation, and presided at all the Masses that weekend.
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The Gospel reading was the John 10 passage where Jesus speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd, including the verse, 'The sheep that belong to Me listen to My voice; I know them and they follow Me.'

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter. It gets this name because each Gospel in the 3 year cycle for the 4th Sunday of Easter speaks of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is also traditionally a day to raise vocational awareness. As a successor of the apostles it is a good day to exercise my vocational call and echo the voice of the Good Shepherd to you.

What is a vocation? The dictionary says that it is a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation. I don't think that is enough of a description. A vocation has to be more than a combination of interest and ability. The biblical notion of vocation is that it is something to be received and lived.

Today's Gospel helps us understand that notion. 'The sheep who belong to Me listen to My voice and follow Me'. So a vocation involves being willing to listen. There needs to be something worth receiving, someone willing to listen, and willing to tune into the one making the offering/doing the giving.

Listening then becomes an essential part of vocation. We need a readiness to hear the something good that is offered to us.

At the core of all vocational calls is God's gift of Himself to us. We call this gift 'grace'. It is a true gift to receive, and very good. Accepting God's gift of Himself to us is the real beginning of a vocation.

Any vocational call is always about more than me and my life, it is a calling that involves others. Jesus always has our good in mind, which includes eternal life.

There are two words associated with the call of every disciple, 'Come' and 'Go'. Even the stained glass doors of your church mention them, 'The Lord will guard your going and coming both now and for ever'.

'Come' means to share in the life of Jesus. We do that in a special way each time we gather in this temple to share in the Eucharist.

'Go' means to be sent out as a disciple with the life of Jesus. At the end of Mass you hear, 'Go in the peace of Christ'. We take Him whom we have received out to others.

A vocation has to have both, receiving and living, coming and going. It is not just finding an interest and pursuing it. First and foremost it is the loving concern of God for you, and for us.

In the business world of corporate ladder climbing, very few are ever concerned for us and our well-being, for our good and for our lives. God is very different. He is concerned.

Tuning into this gift of God and what He has in mind for our flourishing, is what He is about, and what a vocation is about.

​So tune in, and find out what He has for you.  

This is a version of the homily of Bishop Peter A Comensoli at the 9.15am Mass for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B at St John the Baptist, Woy Woy, 26 July 2015.

This is not a literal transcript, but it will give you the gist of his message.

Bishop Comensoli was at Woy Woy to install Fr Jack Robson as Parish Priest.

The Gospel reading was the John 6 account of the miracle of Jesus multiplying food for the crowd.

In the middle of this Gospel passage is a remark from Jesus that we often overlook, 'Get the people to recline/sit down'. Is this just Jesus acting with courtesy, or is it something more? When you a feeding a crowd at a family gathering the usual way is to put the food on the table and get people to line up to take what they want. With Jesus there was no scramble to feed a crowd. When Jesus got everyone to sit down He indicated that this was not going to be an ordinary meal, but that a feast was about to begin, a long, leisurely happy kind of feast. This was no sausage sizzle. The invitation was to become comfortable for a banquet.

There are many wedding banquet stories throughout the Bible. It was even expected that you put on a wedding garment to put off the sorrows of daily life and for a time to put on joy. All of those stories were understood as pointing to a time when the banquet of heaven would begin.

When the crowd had eaten and realized that they had been given more than enough, they knew that the future promise had arrived and that they were sitting at the banquet of the Lord Himself. At the Lord's banquet nothing will go to waste. We weren't there that day, but 12 full baskets of scraps were set aside. In a sense they were set aside for us, because their purpose was to nourish those who hope in the Lord.

Jesus issues invitations to His banquet through the ultimate gift of Himself on the Cross. That is why every celebration of the Mass is both a sacrifice and a feast. At the same time we are present at Calvary and on that hill in Galilee. God is with us, now and always in the Eucharist.

It is also remarkable that on this hill here were no distinctions between people. Everyone sat down on the grass, and sat together. If you were poor, if you were a servant, if you were broken or broken-hearted, you were all welcome. All had a place to recline and lay aside their burdens for a while.

Here we learn again from Jesus that all are to be welcomed. When Jesus offered Himself on the Cross He offered Himself for all sinners, not just for a few particular ones. It is fitting that we remember all this today, at this feast of the Lord.

A version of the homily of Bishop Peter A Comensoli at the 12.30pm Rite of Confirmation at St John the Baptist, Woy Woy, 20 June 2015.

This is not a literal transcript, but it will give you the gist of his message.

Bishop Comensoli

Thank you for presenting these candidates for Confirmation. I am very willing to give them the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When I get up of a morning, Mum and Dad don't wake me. I have to use an alarm clock. It is one of those with a radio. So when I wake up I hear a bit of news, a bit of sport, and then comes... Maybe the candidates can tell me what comes next? That's right, it's the weather report. Once I hear that I have a look outside to see if the weather report has a chance of being true. When I do that checking of the weather outside my window, I am confirming the weather report. Checking something I have been told is true, is confirming whether that something is true.

All of you will say, 'I am a Christian. I believe in God.' You will say this to us, and we confirm your belief. Afterwards you won’t look any different, but you will take home a Confirmation name.

For my Confirmation name I chose St Michael the Archangel. What did some of you choose…?

Now candidates, I would like you to close your eyes and think about your Confirmation Saint. I want you to think about one special thing they did, something that made them good friends of God.

How do you confirm your faith in God? By living like your Saint. By doing the things that show that you live like a friend of Jesus.

It is just not enough for us to say that we are Christian, we need to let others see that we are Christian.

A version of the homily of Bishop Peter A Comensoli at the 5pm Vigil Mass at Holy Spirit Church, Kincumber for the 3rd Sunday of Lent Year B, 7 March 2015.

This is not a literal transcript, but it will give you the gist of his message.

The scripture readings were the 10 Commandments from the Book of Exodus, a section of Psalm 118 with the response 'Lord, You have the words of everlasting life', the passage from 1st Corinthians that talks about the Cross as the power and wisdom of God, and the account of the cleansing of the Temple from St John's Gospel.

Bishop Comensoli:

A few years ago an American priest, Fr Robert Barron, produced a ten part documentary series called 'Catholicism'. He comes from Chicago, and the documentary series was an initiative of his 'Word on Fire' ministry, which aims to bring the Gospel into the digital age.

The documentary series is both compelling and beautiful. The first words of the first episode are a bold statement, and a bit of a barbeque stopper. They go something like this: 'There is an either/or with regard to Jesus. He either is as He says He is, or He is a bad man. There is no middle ground. He is dangerous, and a strange figure that is not just an interesting religious preacher. We must make a choice.'

Jesus is not an inspirational guru. Jesus began and finished with the radical and unnerving claim to be the Son of God and to possess God's authority over the whole world. It was this claim that drove the apostles from the upper room to preach.

The act of anger we read of in today's Gospel must have been very frightening and confronting to witness. It is not surprising that His actions were met with 'What are you up to?', 'Give us a sign', 'Who do you think you are?'. The religious leaders knew that Jesus was someone out of the ordinary, disconcerting and challenging. There was a lot at stake. If Jesus was true, then EVERYTHING had changed for them.

To these religious leaders and to His Apostles the actions of Jesus issued a challenge, 'You need to make a choice. If I am wrong then silence Me. If I speak the truth then follow Me.'

Jesus gives us the same choice today. That choice is still meant to change everything, and to change us. In this season of Lent, we are invited to renew that choice. Do we accept Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour? Do we accept all of Him, the dangerous and the gentle? Do we accept that we are called to follow Him? The choice is ours to make.