In a homily delivered to Immaculate Conception Church Hawthorn the Sunday before the government's apology to the Stolen Generations, Fr Brendan Byrne SJ reflects on the appropriateness of saying sorry during the time of Lent.
As you are aware, early this coming Wednesday (13 February, 2008), the Federal Parliament is due to pass a motion of apology directed towards the Indigenous citizens of our country.
I realise that the passing of this motion by the highest legislative body in our country is viewed with mixed feelings and reservations on the part of some-sentiments and views which may well be shared by some members of this congregation here present this morning. I acknowledge and respect those hesitations.
Nonetheless, I do not think, as a preacher of the Word this morning, that I can allow so significant a moment in our national life to pass without some attempt to place it in the context of our faith and, in particularly, to draw attention to the appropriateness of its expression just now as we enter upon the season of Lent.
It is during Lent that our Christian faith reminds us in a particular way that we are a 'forgiven people': that is, people who again and again have received mercy and stand in constant need of God's healing grace. In the prayer that Jesus taught us (the "Our Father"), we ask for God's forgiveness and accept that we are called to be, in our turn, channels of forgiveness to others. Lent summons us to an ever deeper conversion of heart in which we try to live out the mystery of forgiveness and allow it to shape our lives.
As Christians, then, we can set the parliamentary act within this Lenten context and see it as an expression of conversion on a social level. Our faith invites us to enter into the pain of others (cf. the parable of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:30-37]), to "weep with those who weep" (Rom 12:15), to acknowledge the wrongs and injustices suffered by others.
In particular, the Catholic tradition, with the stress it has always placed upon community-its sense that citizens are not just a collection of isolated individuals but make up a society, with communal obligations and responsibilities-can rightly be seen as urging us to express our sorrow for wrongs done in the past to our indigenous fellow citizens, even if we have not been personally responsible for such injury.
It does so with particular force at a time when Lent is calling us repentance and conversion of heart. This can make Wednesday's ceremony for us, not simply another political occasion or a purely civic affair, but a moment when in our nation we can truly feel the touch of God's healing grace and an impulse to take up more generously the uncompleted tasks and costs of reconciliation.
Brendan Byrne, SJ, Homily at Immaculate Conception Church Hawthorn, 1st Sunday of Lent, 2008.