Following a recent Melbourne “children’s beauty pageant”, the risks of such contests have been debated.

Victoria’s Child Safety Commissioner, Bernie Geary, has issued a fence-sitting statement. He concedes that these affairs are based on “a perception of competitive beauty and personal appearance” – and that the entrants were wearing “heavy make-up and dresses of adult-like design”.

Despite that, Mr Geary says there was nothing “sinister, unsafe or degrading” about the event . . . .

* * *

But are not children who are “sexualised” when young at risk of developing eating disorders etc?

Are they not learning that the way to become the centre of attention is to make oneself sexually provocative?

A proposal to ban children under 16 from beauty pageants is a step in the right direction.

One group with some sensible ideas on this is “Pull the Pin from Beauty Pageants”.

Find them at www.pullthepin.com.au.

Having spent the last few days at Robe, South Australia, has been a reminder of just how beautiful God’s world is.

And of those words written by George Cotton:

We thank Thee, Lord, for this fair earth,
The glittering sky, the silver sea;
For all their beauty, all their worth,
Their light and glory, come from Thee.

Thine are the flowers that clothe the ground,
The trees that wave their arms above,
The hills that gird our dwellings round,
As Thou dost gird Thine own with love.

Yet teach us still how far more fair,
More glorious, Father, in Thy sight,
Is one pure deed, one holy prayer,
One heart that owns Thy Spirit’s might.

So while we gaze with thoughtful eye
On all the gifts Thy love has given,
Help us in Thee to live and die,
By Thee to rise from earth to Heaven.

(Cotton was a 19^th century Anglican educator-poet-clergyman who became Bishop of Calcutta, India, and died by drowning in the Ganges River in 1866, aged 52.)

* * *

Simple words.

Excellent words.

Words offering to confer on us an attitude of peace, composure and strength of mind in any and every circumstance that life may throw at us.

Even the ruling classes, and the media with which they manipulate us, have a soft spot for Christmas.

They permit, in small controlled doses, some mention of “the true meaning of Christmas” – a baby born in a stable somewhere, choirs of angels etc.

The reason they tolerate it is that they do not understand it.

To them Christmas is a kind of “Coca Cola of the people” – giving a sensation of sweetness, while leaving you with no teeth.

They understand Easter better — which is why at Easter time we are under pressure every year to focus exclusively on raising money for charities, family get-togethers, bunnies . . . .

And, above all, chocolate.

* * *

But the messages of Easter and of Christmas are the same message.

A message that:

 * God entered in Person into human history

 * he came to save us from our sins.

 * we must put him first in our lives.

 * we must detach ourselves from everything not essential to our union with God.

 * religion is everything in life, trumping every other concern.

* * *

Yes, once Christ arrived on earth at Christmas, Good Friday and Easter were inevitable.

Inevitable that he’d be persecuted and butchered by the trend-setters of his day (only to triumph by rising from the dead).

Christ’s message was hated in his lifetime — and it’s hated now.

If we attend to this world’s consumer items and fashion statements, while finding no time to focus, long and unhurried, on Christ’s life, Passion and death . . . .

Then we have succumbed/surrendered – such things being for us, idols, false gods, fetishes and perversions.

Anything that takes your mind off God is a tool of the devil.

.

Last Sunday, ABC-TV presented a Compass program on the Canonisation of Mary MacKillop.

Nothing bad was said about Mary MacKillop. All who spoke were respectful towards her.

We heard about her generosity, independence, strong personality, kindness, willingness to forgive, “passion” etc.

Even her “star quality” . . . .

* * *

What was not emphasised was how being a Roman Catholic was the supreme driving force in Mary MacKillop’s life.

In everything she did, her aim was to bring non-Catholics to the Catholic Faith — and lapsed Catholics back to the Sacraments.

This Compass program cheapened her when it summed up her legacy to the world by saying that, in her, “spiritual values and human values came together as one . . .”

It seems that Pope John Paul II anticipated and feared that Mary MacKillop would be used by those wanting to water down the Faith — twisting her into looking like a believer in the notion of one religion being as good as another.

At Mother Mary’s beatification in 1995, he said:

“Dear friends: Mary MacKillop cannot be understood without reference to her religious vocation.

“Mother Mary of the Cross did not just free people from ignorance through schooling, or alleviate their suffering through compassionate care. She worked to satisfy their deeper, though sometimes unconscious, longing for ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’.”

* * *

The extremes to which anti-Catholic forces will go was revealed when the program showed what purported to be a school class being taught by a young Josephite nun.

She announced today’s topic as being “Aboriginal Spirituality”. On the board behind her was written “Rainbow Serpent”.

This is more or less blasphemy — betraying what Mary MacKillop stood for.

But the head of the present-day Josephite Order told us (by telephone the other day) that the Order was happy with the Compass program’s treatment of their Foundress.

Betrayal again, right at the top.

* * *

Some GOOD NEWS.

Three months ago, my wife and I planted three Mary MacKillop roses, hoping to see some flowers by the time of Mother Mary’s canonisation.

Yesterday the first flower appeared.

It is very beautiful.

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is full of realism — a mixture of good news and bad news.

Jesus warns his disciples that they will encounter dangers on all sides — that’s the bad news . . . .

However he promises them supernatural and invincible help — which has to be good news.

We, dear reader — called to be Christ’s disciples today — the message applies to us, too.

* * *

From John’s gospel:

“But when the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will be my witness. And you too will be witnesses . . . .

They will expel you from the synagogues: yes, the hour is coming that whoever kills you will think that he does God a service.

These things I tell you, so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”

* * *

If you are trying to live as a follower of Christ, you will have experienced persecution of some kind or other already.

If not, you soon will.

Our greatest Australian, BLESSED MARY MACKILLOP, certainly was not immune from persecutions.

After one unfortunate incident involving an unsympathetic bishop, she wrote:

“We have had much sorrow and are still suffering its effects, but sorrow or trial lovingly submitted to does not prevent our being happy — it rather purifies the happiness.”

* * *

The Christian religion is a religion of joy. Think about these words written by Isaac Watts:

“Joy to the world: the Saviour reigns.

Let men their songs employ.

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

repeat the sounding joy . . . .

“He rules the world with truth and grace.

And makes the nations prove

the glories of his righteousness

and the wonders of his love.”

Yes, God rules the world. Whatever happens, God is in charge.

However bad it seems, there is something there that he is trying to teach you.

Part of that lesson will be for you to see his love in everything.

American songwriter, John Fogerty, has always been respected for the thoughtful lyrics to many of his songs.

He has not been particularly thought of as a writer of spiritual compositions.

One of his songs, however, is full of joy, optimism and a kind of a wistful faith — a refreshing change from a lot of the morbid stuff we mostly hear on the airwaves.

In “Don’t you wish it was true”, JF sings about how, “I dreamed I walked in heaven just the other night. There was so much beauty, so much light”.

* * *

He goes on about an angel taking his hand and saying how it might be if a day came when “tomorrow everybody was your friend. Anyone could take you in, no matter what or where you’ve been”.

And how “the worlds gonna change and it’s starting today  . . . no more armies, no more hate . . . There’ll be singing and laughter, sweet harmony . . . everybody under the sun was happy just living as one. No borders or battles to be won. . .  if tomorrow everybody was your friend, happiness would never end. Lord, don’t you wish it was true. What a beautiful day!”

* * *

The whole thing is beautiful in a simple way.

Why isn’t it true?

Why are people not as one, living in harmony?

What would it take to make it true?

Well, I can’t change the world. You can’t change the world. Yet as the song says it could start today.  It will have to start with you and me changing, not so much the world, as with changing ourselves.

Or, to be more accurate, letting God change us.

* * *

Mary MacKillop wrote to her mother about the idea of ordinary people being saints.

She didn’t consider it a ludicrous or absurd idea.

She knew her own Mum, in a quiet, humble fashion, to be something of a saint.

The words that Blessed Mary wrote were as follows: “Dear Mamma, do you try now in real earnest to be a saint? You may smile at my question . . . . I used to think it the height of presumption to desire such a thing but have been taught that such diffidence is not humility but a defect that really disappoints the love of God for our souls.”

* * *

So there you are. God wants to change the world by making ordinary people — more or less nobodies, like you and me — into saints, so that the “beautiful day” may come.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . . .

Yes, may that day come soon.

Let us, you and me, try to let it come in our own lives and in our families.