9 2, August, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au Contact us for more information on how you can watch EWTN EWTN is a non-pro fi t organization supported entirely by donations Email: asiapaci f i
[email protected] Mobile: 0451 679 561 Fax: (02) 9475 5080 Write: PO Box 2276 Tuggeranong ACT 2901 EWTN Highlights Preview www.ewtn.com TELEVISION • RADIO • NEWS • ONLINE • PUBLISHING Global Catholic Network Download the FREE EWTN App on Google Play or App Store and start watching from your mobile devices or to any of these digital media players on your HD TV . www.facebook.com/EWTNasia/ WATCH ONLINE EWTN ASIA-PACIFIC FEED www.ewtn.com/asia-pacific sdsdh 10 PM DAILY JULY 7, 9:30 AM | THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON: MADE IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD JULY 13, 9:30 AM | SOME CHIEF ELEMENTS OF THE CULTURE OF DEATH IDENTIFIED IN MODERN CULTURE JULY 20, 9:30 AM | THE NATURE OF SIN www.ewtn.com/catholicism/adoration AUGUST 2 to 14, 2020 at 1:30 PM A stained glass window depicts St Augustine. As the remarkable 5th Century bishop-saint pointed out, there’s not a single field of the human heart in which the Devil has not sewn his seeds. Our Lord can read our heart and history; He sees both wheat and darnel there; He wants to give us every chance. So still He waits.” Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP the gifts of faith, scripture, tradition and the magisteri- um of the Church, to help us decide well. Even in moder- nity, when there’s been such a turn against old-fashioned notions of good and evil, vir- tue and vice, natural law and divine commandments, we can still tell right fromwrong. Indeed, judging by the amount of manufactured in- dignation in our community today about all sorts of things and against all sorts of peo- ple, given the endless talk of rights and occasional men- tion of responsibilities, even this most relativist of ages can’t help wagging its finger at this and that. But how reliable are those judgments? How often in life have we thought some- one was trustworthy, only to be disappointed? Or evil, only to find they were false- ly accused? How often do the court of public opinion, or even the law courts, get it wrong? How often have we liked someone at first and then been disillusioned? Or not liked them to begin with and ended up greatest of friends? Or seen someone change over the years? We might not like to be told it, but we are very falli- ble judges of character. The Master is right: while they’re still growing, the wheat and the darnel are so much alike we’re almost bound to mis- judge them. Here we reach an inter- esting point. Christ was not oblivious to Judas’ treachery; on the contrary, He made it very clear at the Last Supper that He knew that He would be betrayed and he knew who would do it (Mt 26:23-25). So, if Our Lord at least can reliably tell wheat from tares, why doesn’t He sort them out, sooner rather than later? Well, we might not like the answer to this one either. Our Lord can read both hearts and histories. Tainted by that original sin that is the lot of our race, and by our own bad choices, none of us is pure wheat. As St Augustine point- ed out, there’s not a single field in which the enemy has not sewn his seeds: the angels fell from heaven out of pride, as did Adam and Eve from paradise, human beings have always been a very mixed bunch, and even Jesus’ own band of apostles had a traitor in the midst! Yet as evil can only subsist in that which is created by God and so good, like rot in an apple, so not one of us is unalloyed darnel either, none of us pure evil. Till harvest time, till death, repentance is still possible. That what seems to be darnel might yet turn out to be wheat is a hope we must hold out for each other. “Listen dearest grains of Christ,” Augustine contin- ues, “listen Christ’s precious ears of wheat, listen Christ’s dearest corn. Take a look at yourselves, go back to your consciences, interrogate your faith, cross-examine your love, stir up your conscienc- es.” Our Lord can read our heart and history; He sees both wheat and darnel there; He wants to give us every chance. So still He waits. To quote von Hayek again: “If man is not to do more harm than good … he will have to learn that … he can- not acquire the full knowl- edge which would make mastery of events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape [things] as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cul- tivate a growth … [in things as] a gardener does for his plants.” Modesty is required, hu- mility, docility. Cultivating such virtues in ourselves and growth in others makes us less likely to misjudge either. More than this, it allows room for God to weed out those tares that fit us only for “the blazing furnace, where there is weeping and gnash- ing of teeth” and to plant in their stead wheat fit for heav- enly harvest. In making of them finest wheat, Christ fits our hearts as matter for His greatest Eucharist: the transforma- tion of the universe into the kingdom of God and of our- selves into the communion of saints. This is the edited text of the homily by Archbishop An- thony Fisher OP for Mass for the 16th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, on 19 July 2020. Catholic School Leaders Magazine Published in The Catholic Weekly 9 August IN NEXTWEEK’S EDITION 2020 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP