Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta
Homily for Deacon Tony and Annette Hoban’s final Mass at St Luke’s, Marsden Park
Readings: 1Samuel 1:20-28; 1John 3:1-2;21-24; Luke 2:41-52
29 December 2024
Model of community building in Marsden Park
Dear friends,
It is a mixture of joy and sadness that we have come to bid farewell to Annette and Tony Hoban who have been your companions since you began the journey as a new faith community in this burgeoning suburb of Marsden Park. Like many new parishes in our diocese, you started from literally a paddock and had to rely on the generosity of St Luke’s Catholic College for your temporary home.
Years ago, schools, social services or childcare services were integral to mission of the local church. They would grow organically with the worshipping community being their anchor. Nowadays, things are quite different. The Catholic Education Office often starts with a school and then a church building is added on later, if at all. This certainly poses a huge challenge to the worshipping community. I am glad, though, that Annette and Tony have navigated these challenges and reimagined the framework of mutuality with St Luke’s Catholic College. Unlike other new parishes, they have not spent their energy on building a building. Rather, like the parish prayer, they have focused on building St Luke’s into a community of communities.
They have prioritised the care of people and the nurturing of relationships. This is evident in the way parishioners are involved in the social and sacramental life of the community. Even during the difficult years of the pandemic, you were united in prayers, charity and outreach. You held some of the most dynamic online worship sessions I ever witnessed.
What set the pastoral leadership of Tony and Annette apart was the way they ministered as a couple, each with the gifts unique to them. Together, they embody the injunction of our Lord that Christian ministries be best exercised not in isolation but in partnership with others. I am convinced that this is the sign of the times when Christian ministries are increasingly reimagined and revitalized by way of relational maturity, mutuality, collaboration and partnership. The priests can complement and indeed learn from Annette and Tony as they seek to embody the ideal of Christian service in how they minister not only to others but also to each other.
Today, we are celebrating the feast of the Holy Family who are united not so much by biological bloodline as by the spiritual bond and especially by the way they lived out the will of God. We reflect on the way they lived their lives and learn from their example of discerning and putting into practice what God wanted of them.
At times, we tend to sentimentalize the Holy Family. But we forget: they weren’t that different from us. They were holy, yes. But they were also human. They did not have every minute detail of their lives figured out. They were subject to all the uncertainties, ambiguities and complexities of life just like the rest of us. More importantly, they were not above the messiness, brokenness and vulnerability that is so much a part of every family experience. Christmas reminds us that God that he enters fully into those raw, unadorned and messy spaces. Emmanuel is about the God who disregards his exalted status in order to become the most vulnerable, the most fragile and the most rejected among us.
In fact, the story of the Holy Family is the story of the unexpected. It’s the story of a teenage mother, conceiving a child before she was married. It’s the story of an anxious father, confronting scandal, planning on divorce. It’s the story of a family forced to become refugees, living in a foreign country in order to escape from persecution and to have a better future not unlike many of us who came to Australia.
In all of their trials and tribulations, Joseph, Mary and Jesus exemplified for us a total commitment to God’s way, including suffering and death. This commitment would cut through biological bloodlines and traditional structures. In fact, Jesus often refutes the idea of preferential treatment based on biology or social status. He invites us to become members of his new family that includes anyone who dares to follow his model of downward mobility and self-emptying love. Joseph, Mary and Jesus are the prototype of faithfulness which is the only condition for membership of God’s new family -not biology, race, gender or other social constructs.
Dear friends,
With you, Annette and Tony have fostered a strong sense of community and spiritual family. We are no longer strangers but brothers and sisters with a common identity and mission. I can paraphrase St Paul in saying that by the grace of God, Annette and Tony have laid a foundation and someone else will build on it. St Luke’s will welcome Fr Gayan Thamel as your new Pastor. I trust that he will build on the work of Tony and Annette, and the community can move forward towards greater things ahead. What they have achieved goes far beyond this community. For they have pioneered a different model of pastoral care and leadership. As we move into a synodal way of being Church, I hope that deacon-led communities will add to the rich tapestry of Catholic pastoral landscape rather than an aberration. May the Lord who begun the good work through them bring it to fulfilment and may the Holy Family intercede for us as we endeavour to be the living sign of the Kingdom.
