DIOCESE OF PARAMATTA REPORT
Homily - Mass for the Year of Grace Celebration for People with Disabilities and Special Needs, St Patrick’s Blacktown Parish, Sunday 2 December 2012
Everyone is gifted, made in God’s image, celebrating all our dif-abilities, Homily of Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP - Mass for the Year of Grace Celebration for People with Disabilities and Special Needs, St Patrick’s Blacktown Parish, Sunday 2 December 2012
Download an audio file of this Homily
Listen to this Homily at Bishop Anthony's iTunes Podcasts
A few weeks ago a young Sydney Morning Herald journalist wrote an impassioned piece about the need people with disabilities have for relationships.
Because they are “human beings with human rights and human needs”, she explained, people with disabilities need access to … prostitutes.
Her article was occasioned by a true story recently told in the movie, The Sessions. Mark O’Brien (played by John Hawkes) is bedridden by polio and in an iron lung, and he seeks out regular contact with a ‘sex therapist’ (played by Helen Hunt).
The Herald journalist explained that such ‘services’ enable disabled ‘clients’ to open new ‘horizons’ and ‘sexual freedoms’. Though our journalist did not report it, before Mark O’Brien died he bemoaned the superficiality of those relationships he had had.
Around the same time another film was released, also based on a true story, The Intouchables. In this very funny and moving film a quadriplegic aristocrat, Philippe (played by François Cluzet) is cared for by an Afro-French ex-con, Driss (played by Omar Sy).
The contrast between this movie and the SMH-applauded alternative could not be more dramatic. In one raw and touching scene, Philippe discloses that after his wife died without bearing children he suffered a catastrophic paragliding accident. He then says that the thing that impairs him is not his disability, but being without his wife, lacking that real relationship.
What follows in the rest of the film (and I won’t reveal any secrets) is a beautiful tale of friendship, of other-centred love. It is a movie full of compassion and helps expand our moral imagination about the encounter with the sick, handicapped and lonely.
Our technological-therapeutic culture does not help expand our imaginations or compassion in that way. Instead, we are habituated to expect a quick fix for every problem – just plug in enough money, regulation, technology or whatever.
Whether it’s prostitution, drugs or even assisted suicide, those living with disability, and those caring for them, are offered what are no real solutions at all: relationships that are mirages, pharmacology that numbs all sensitivity, a ‘dignified exit’ that renders despair permanent. People with disabilities are treated as mere problems to be fixed or removed, rather than as people to be loved – thereby evading the intimacy we owe and need.
The time will come, says Jeremiah to us today (Jer 33:14-16), when at last you’ll see a virtuous descendant of David, a man of honesty and integrity, in whom you can have confidence.
At this time of shame for our Catholic community the credibility of our pastors has been compromised in many people’s minds. We crave more than ever for people of honesty and integrity to give us direction, people in whom we can have confidence. And we crave, in Paul’s words, for an increase in divine love and in love for each other and the whole human race (1 Thess 3:12–4:2).
Surely we have more to offer those living with disabilities than sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, more than search-and-destroy abortion before birth and euthanasia afterwards. What is missing here is precisely what is yearned for in our Advent readings: moral imagination, divine grace and human relationship.
I’ve told a couple of stories today. There are many more told by those with disabilities and special needs who are with us today and those who care for them. These are real stories of suffering and struggle but also of joy and nobility – and of ordinariness too. They should not be sanitised or romanticised, exaggerated or underestimated.
When Jesus in our Gospel (Lk 21:25-28, 34-36) tells us not to be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness and the cares of this life, it is not because He is unrealistic about our cares, but because He knows how they can distract us from so much that is good and true and beautiful about and around us.
Hence the theme chosen for this diocesan celebration in our Year of Grace: our diversity of gifts and potentials, of abilities and disabilities – what you might call our different abilities, our dif-abilities.
As we have faith in Christ so, in a sense, does He have faith in us: for He declares that we are capable of more, worthy of more, promised more, so much more than we often realise or even dare to hope. He declares unequivocally that we are images of God and that He has come that we might have life, life to full (Jn 10:10).
This calling to the fullest participation in everything that is good is for everyone. Some people do seem to fulfill their potential in this life; others seem to waste so much; and others again to be deprived of opportunities many others have. But the call to fullness of life, to integrity and love, is for all. Whatever their dif-abilities no one is left out. God’s grace is like that and God’s grace is enough.
Today we express our gratitude for the involvement of people of different abilities and particular needs, who grace our Diocese and our country. In talking of dif-abilities we repudiate the paradigm that defines people by what they are unable to do, by deficiencies from the norm, whether real or imagined.
Today we acknowledge that every one of us is an image of God, graced by that God, and that together, and only together, can we show forth the glory of that God in the diversity of His creation.
Today we also give thanks for the generosity, patience and perseverance of those who care for us, including those who care for us at home and those who work at Emmaus, CatholicCare’s Disabled Persons Social Services, and those in other projects such as the L’Arche community, the Ephpheta Centre, Mamre House and other ministries.
Today I ask every person in this parish and in our Diocese to open their hearts to those of differing abilities, to make space for them in our sanctuaries and pews, our homes and workplaces, our hearts and lives.
Today we consider how our Church can prepare, support and foster the full participation of people living with dif-abilities and diverse needs and their families in our community’s life.
The Advent season that we begin today is one of expectancy and hope as we look forward to Christ’s coming, and so we dare hope today for more and for better for all those living with disabilities and special needs.
Photo Gallery:
Mass for the Year of Grace Celebration for People with Disabilities & Special Needs
SHARED FROM DIOCESE OF PARRAMATTA
Homily - Mass for the Year of Grace Celebration for People with Disabilities and Special Needs, St Patrick’s Blacktown Parish, Sunday 2 December 2012| Photography by Alfred Boudib |
Download an audio file of this HomilyListen to this Homily at Bishop Anthony's iTunes Podcasts
A few weeks ago a young Sydney Morning Herald journalist wrote an impassioned piece about the need people with disabilities have for relationships.
Because they are “human beings with human rights and human needs”, she explained, people with disabilities need access to … prostitutes.
Her article was occasioned by a true story recently told in the movie, The Sessions. Mark O’Brien (played by John Hawkes) is bedridden by polio and in an iron lung, and he seeks out regular contact with a ‘sex therapist’ (played by Helen Hunt).
The Herald journalist explained that such ‘services’ enable disabled ‘clients’ to open new ‘horizons’ and ‘sexual freedoms’. Though our journalist did not report it, before Mark O’Brien died he bemoaned the superficiality of those relationships he had had.
Around the same time another film was released, also based on a true story, The Intouchables. In this very funny and moving film a quadriplegic aristocrat, Philippe (played by François Cluzet) is cared for by an Afro-French ex-con, Driss (played by Omar Sy).
The contrast between this movie and the SMH-applauded alternative could not be more dramatic. In one raw and touching scene, Philippe discloses that after his wife died without bearing children he suffered a catastrophic paragliding accident. He then says that the thing that impairs him is not his disability, but being without his wife, lacking that real relationship.
What follows in the rest of the film (and I won’t reveal any secrets) is a beautiful tale of friendship, of other-centred love. It is a movie full of compassion and helps expand our moral imagination about the encounter with the sick, handicapped and lonely.
Our technological-therapeutic culture does not help expand our imaginations or compassion in that way. Instead, we are habituated to expect a quick fix for every problem – just plug in enough money, regulation, technology or whatever.
Whether it’s prostitution, drugs or even assisted suicide, those living with disability, and those caring for them, are offered what are no real solutions at all: relationships that are mirages, pharmacology that numbs all sensitivity, a ‘dignified exit’ that renders despair permanent. People with disabilities are treated as mere problems to be fixed or removed, rather than as people to be loved – thereby evading the intimacy we owe and need.
The time will come, says Jeremiah to us today (Jer 33:14-16), when at last you’ll see a virtuous descendant of David, a man of honesty and integrity, in whom you can have confidence.
At this time of shame for our Catholic community the credibility of our pastors has been compromised in many people’s minds. We crave more than ever for people of honesty and integrity to give us direction, people in whom we can have confidence. And we crave, in Paul’s words, for an increase in divine love and in love for each other and the whole human race (1 Thess 3:12–4:2).
Surely we have more to offer those living with disabilities than sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, more than search-and-destroy abortion before birth and euthanasia afterwards. What is missing here is precisely what is yearned for in our Advent readings: moral imagination, divine grace and human relationship.
Our diversity of gifts and potentials
 |
| Photo: Alfred Boudib |
When Jesus in our Gospel (Lk 21:25-28, 34-36) tells us not to be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness and the cares of this life, it is not because He is unrealistic about our cares, but because He knows how they can distract us from so much that is good and true and beautiful about and around us.
Hence the theme chosen for this diocesan celebration in our Year of Grace: our diversity of gifts and potentials, of abilities and disabilities – what you might call our different abilities, our dif-abilities.
As we have faith in Christ so, in a sense, does He have faith in us: for He declares that we are capable of more, worthy of more, promised more, so much more than we often realise or even dare to hope. He declares unequivocally that we are images of God and that He has come that we might have life, life to full (Jn 10:10).
This calling to the fullest participation in everything that is good is for everyone. Some people do seem to fulfill their potential in this life; others seem to waste so much; and others again to be deprived of opportunities many others have. But the call to fullness of life, to integrity and love, is for all. Whatever their dif-abilities no one is left out. God’s grace is like that and God’s grace is enough.
Today we express our gratitude for the involvement of people of different abilities and particular needs, who grace our Diocese and our country. In talking of dif-abilities we repudiate the paradigm that defines people by what they are unable to do, by deficiencies from the norm, whether real or imagined.
Today we acknowledge that every one of us is an image of God, graced by that God, and that together, and only together, can we show forth the glory of that God in the diversity of His creation.
Today we also give thanks for the generosity, patience and perseverance of those who care for us, including those who care for us at home and those who work at Emmaus, CatholicCare’s Disabled Persons Social Services, and those in other projects such as the L’Arche community, the Ephpheta Centre, Mamre House and other ministries.
Today I ask every person in this parish and in our Diocese to open their hearts to those of differing abilities, to make space for them in our sanctuaries and pews, our homes and workplaces, our hearts and lives.
Today we consider how our Church can prepare, support and foster the full participation of people living with dif-abilities and diverse needs and their families in our community’s life.
The Advent season that we begin today is one of expectancy and hope as we look forward to Christ’s coming, and so we dare hope today for more and for better for all those living with disabilities and special needs.
Photo Gallery:
Mass for the Year of Grace Celebration for People with Disabilities & Special Needs
SHARED FROM DIOCESE OF PARRAMATTA
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