Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, 2025
Readings: Isaiah 35:1-6,10; Psalm 146; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
14 December 2025
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On this third Sunday of Advent, the second reading from the letter of James urges us:
Be patient, brothers and sisters,
until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient with it
until it receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.
Make your hearts firm,
because the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another,
that you may not be judged.
Be patient; don’t complain about each other; be strong of heart. This is today’s Advent message.
On this very day 40 years ago, I was ordained priest. It was a very hot night in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Brisbane. The ordaining bishop was Archbishop Francis Rush. At the time he was president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. He had just returned from a synod in Rome. Knowing that he was to ordain two Jesuits within the week, he visited the tomb of St Ignatius Loyola and sought out Fr Peter Hans Kovenbach, the superior general of the Jesuits. In his homily, Archbishop Rush said:
“I have not long come from that meeting of 164 bishops from all 5 continents who spent a fortnight with the Pope looking back over the 20 years since the end of the Second Vatican Council, reflecting on how the church is speaking to the world of 1985 and feeling something of the anxiety Francis Xavier felt to share his understanding and love of Christ with the whole world.
“The Synodal bishops came from poor countries suffering the effects of famine and war, from rich countries where prosperity pushes God from the centre of even good people’s lives, from countries whose people suffer injustice and torture under totalitarian governments of the right and left. Of all colours and languages, they represented 800 million Catholics. Their collegial affection and unity, were, as one of them put it to me, almost palpable. Their serenity, frankness, realism and Christian hope puzzled the pundits and confounded the prophets of doom.
“This was the vision that inspires you on your ordination day.”
Here we are today, having just marked the 60th anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II. The changes in the intervening 40 years have been enormous. On my ordination day, the Catholic Leader published my reflection on what might lie ahead in my life as a priest. Despite, or because of, the challenges and changes of the last 40 years, I would not change much, if anything, of what I wrote. In part, I said:
“While being seen to be part of the mainstream church, I will experience the alienation of being priest and religious in a world which knows little of the stability and shared meaning necessary for symbols to live and communicate.
“As a priest, I will live on the edges and share in the lives of a diversity of people across every spectrum you could name.
“To some I will be pastor, to others poseur; to some a committed person, to others a fly-by-night who does not bear the daily responsibility for family; to some a servant, to others an irrelevance; to some a man of God, to others a remote church official; to some tireless church worker, to others a free individual with independence not having to earn a living.
“To some, my life will appear the ultimate security and perversity; to others, a life centred on radical availability for mission.
“There is truth in all these perspectives. We are all sinners called beyond our determined possibilities. We are all called in freedom to embrace our destiny with God who has come amongst us.
“We can respond only by accepting responsibility for our history and our disposition. There will be doubts, despair, suffering, loss and infidelity. But to God I say: I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.
“As a priest, I pray that I might facilitate public expression of that response by all among whom I live – a response made in the recesses of the heart and heard in the familiar surrounds of quiet family celebrations, among friends and believers.
“My public life as priest will ring true only in the peace, reconciliation and justice found in the community from, in and to which I have been called. I am a priest only because I am claimed by you as our priest.”
I give thanks for this past 40 years of priesthood. I thank God that you have claimed me as your priest. I hope and pray that I can continue to grow in patience, not judging you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and growing ever stronger of heart. Preparing for Christmas, let’s pray that every one of us can follow a vision of ‘serenity, frankness, realism and Christian hope’.
Fr Frank Brennan SJ is serving as part of a Jesuit team of priests working within a new configuration of the Toowong, St Lucia and Indooroopilly parishes in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. Frank Brennan SJ is Adjunct Professor of the Thomas More Law School at ACU and is a former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). Fr Frank’s latest books include Pope Francis: the Disruptive Pilgrim’s Guide (ATF Theology, 2025), and Gerard Brennan’s Articles and Speeches: Maintaining the Law’s Skeleton of Principle (2 volumes) (Connor Court, 2025).
