Today I read these words, “Oh, I have long been sick of the world and its cares, of its false pleasures and dangers . . . .”

What kind of a person would speak like that?

Somebody contemplating suicide?

Somebody suffering clinical depression?

Somebody looking for sympathy?

* * *

No, none of those.

It was somebody who had found something better than the things of the world to live for – something “out of this world”.

Somebody wanting to put her life completely at God’s service — which made the worldly ambitions that mostly people live for seem tedious by comparison.

It was, in fact, the young Mary MacKillop, sharing with her mother her reasons for entering the religious life of a Sister of Saint Joseph.

Her browned-offness with this world’s godless attitudes echo the words of Saint Paul in the Bible:

“God forbid that I should boast, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” 

* * *

Does this blog overdo the emphasis on the Bible and God and the Catholic religion etc?

Well, there is a desperate need out there for Australians to find something — something better to believe in than what they believe in at present.

2,500-plus Australians commit suicide every year.

That is about seven suicides per day.

For every completed suicide there are over 30 attempts – which means there are over 200 people a day attempting suicide.

There are 50 percent more deaths by suicide in Australia than by road accidents.

* * *

What can we do?

We must copy Saint Paul and Blessed Mary MacKillop and direct our ambitions and desires – not towards worldly delusions and mirages – but towards the reality of God.

To make Australia a happier place, let’s not forget willingness to listen to those who are unhappy, and to offer them simple kindness.

We might dwell on some other words of Mary MacKillop in that same letter to her mother:

“How many are lost through the coldness and indifference of those who might and should think more of their eternal welfare and less of this miserable world . . . .”

Australia’s Cardinal George Pell is in the news:

(1) His new book: “Test Everything: Hold Fast to What is Good”, was launched last Friday.

(2) He is rumoured soon to become Prefect of the Pope’s Congregation for Bishops in Rome – a tricky job.

* * *

The world’s 5000 bishops are getting a bad press – much of it probably deserved.

In March 2010, Pope Benedict, in an “open letter”, condemned Irish bishops for “grave errors of judgement”.

He called for “decisive action . . . this must arise, first and foremost, from your own self-examination, inner purification and spiritual renewal.”

Cardinal Pell himself has said similar things.

At last week’s book-launching, he claimed, “I have said many times that Catholic ‘lite’ doesn’t work – there is very little cut-price Christianity and there’s no cost-free Christianity.”

But is Cardinal Pell, himself, willing to pay the cost?

* * *

The Australian Catholic Church’s greatest asset is the admiration ordinary Australians have for Blessed Mary MacKillop.

They are waiting for the Church to reflect her Christ-likeness.

They want the Church to stop painting Blessed Mary as a “rebel”, “feminist”, “multiculturalist” etc. . .

THEY SUSPECT THAT SHE WAS NOTHING OF THE KIND.

Exactly the opposite, in fact.

* * *

Meanwhile we have an emergency on our hands.

Australia’s step-fathers, uncles, boyfriends of single mums — school teachers, sport coaches, television programmers — are sexually corrupting children for fun and profit, day and night, all around us.

Priests are only a tiny fraction of the problem.

To create a pure society, respectful of the innocence of the young, is not God calling us to turn to our greatest Australian — the REAL Mary MacKillop?

The Church’s bureaucracy — perhaps even her own Josephite Order — might angrily resist such a move.

Cardinal Pell knows this. Could he lack the fortitude to trigger off a culture-war over our Saint?

* * *

To discover the truth about Mary MacKillop — her relevance to today’s spiritual chaos — do NOT read the books about her in Church bookshops.

They are part of an industry of betrayal.

Would it be immodest of me to suggest that you would do better to read my book, purchasable online via this site?

Today, the fifth Sunday after Easter, the gospel reading at Traditional Catholic Mass continues on from last week — Jesus explaining to his disciples, at their Last Supper together, what will soon happen.

* * *

Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

Until now you have not asked anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you clearly about the Father.

On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God.

I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

His disciples said, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realise that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.”

* * *

Jesus reminds them that he will soon leave them because he belongs in heaven and is merely visiting this earth.

This is a message for us. We, too, are just visiting this place. Soon enough we’ll be gone — simply pilgrims passing through.

Saint Teresa of Avila was one person who never forgot where she really belonged. In her characteristic terse fashion she described our time on earth as “a night spent in a bad inn”.

* * *

About prayer:

Think of a happy family where a child grows up surrounded by love. He is welcome to ask for whatever he wants.

His requests are always answered.

He may ask for sweets and be given vegetables.

But he still knows he is loved.

We ask God for things and do not always receive them. This can be very puzzling and even seem unfair.

The Christian faith reassures us that we are loved nonetheless.

The two holiest times of the Christian year — Christmas and Easter — are routinely ruined by the profit-makers.

Yet the next most holy day, Pentecost (this year Sunday May 23), they ignore.

Perhaps Mothers’ Day, also in May, is a better present-flogging opportunity, so Pentecost isn’t needed.

No signs in shops, nothing in the media . . . .

* * *

The Church, however, makes a very big deal of Pentecost.

Jesus instructed his disciples in advance about the coming of the Holy Ghost (the Paraclete) at Pentecost.

Today’s gospel reading at Mass:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Now I am going to the One who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’

Because I have spoken these things, sorrow has filled your hearts. But it is expedient for you that I go. If I do not go, the Paraclete will not come. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes he will convict the world of sin, of justice and of judgement:

Of sin, because they do not believe in me;

Of justice, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me;

Of judgement, because the ruler of this world has already been judged.

I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will teach you all truth. He will not speak on his own behalf, but he will speak what he hears, and declare to you the things that are coming.

He shall glorify me, because he will receive what is mine and declare it to you.”

(John’s gospel, chapter 16)

* * *

Pentecost: the day the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles — the day the Catholic Church launched its mission of evangelising the world.

Suddenly they came out from hiding and went onto the front foot — challenging the world with the Gospel, defying the risks . . . .

Persecutions soon followed — and, within weeks, the first execution.

Believers today have the same mission: by the power of God’s Spirit to live the Gospel – and to cheerfully accept the consequences.

Today is the Feast of Saint Catherine of Siena.

Catherine was born into a big family, the 24^th of 25 children.

From the start, she was different.

Today she might be given pills to make her less different.

In childhood, she reported seeing visions.

At 7, she announced that she would never marry, but give her life to God.

At 15, she took to living in silence and solitude in her room, coming out only to attend Mass.

At 18, after a mystical “spiritual espousal” to Christ, she rejoined the world, busying herself helping the sick and poor.

Catherine ate almost nothing except the Bread received at Holy Communion.

Described by all as “radiantly happy”, she was accompanied everywhere by a band of “disciples”.

She visited and gave advice to the Pope, guiding him in political and other practical decisions.

She died, aged 33, on 29 April 1380.

* * *

Unable, herself, to read or write, Catherine’s sayings — many uttered during periods of altered consciousness — were recorded by her disciples or “secretaries”.

These writings are considered amongst the finest and most profound in the Italian language.

Most famous is her “Dialogue”, a sort of conversation, questions and answers,  between herself and God.

Saint Catherine’s message was one of humility — “self-knowledge” being the key to living for God.

* * *

“God of truth, God of love, permit me to enter into the cell of self-knowledge.

Of myself I am nothing.

All the being and goodness in me comes solely from you . . . .”

* * *

“How sweet and glorious is the virtue of obedience, which contains all the other virtues . . .

He who espouses it knows no evil . . . .

Obedience navigates without fatigue, it is straightforward and without deceit.

Give me this pearl trampled underfoot by the world,

which humbles itself to submit to creatures for love of you.”

* * *

“Until now I have not known your truth and have not loved it.

Why did I not know you?

Because I did not see you with the glorious light of the holy Faith.

Because the cloud of self-love darkened the eye of my intellect.

O eternal Trinity, dissipate the darkness with your light.

Penetrate me with a ray of grace

So that in that light I may give you thanks.”

When Mary MacKillop took her vows as a Catholic nun, she chose the name “Sister Mary of the Cross”.

Why should the cruel death by crucifixion of a wandering Jewish preacher 1800 hundred years earlier be significant to this intelligent young Australian woman?

(And why should the day of his execution be called “Good Friday”. What is “good” about a teacher of love and justice being flogged almost to death, nailed to a gallows, exposed to the mockery of a hooting crowd and left to the attentions of the flies and crows?)

It all depends on whether he really was God Incarnate — God in the flesh — and whether he rose again from the dead, and whether his death somehow merits for us the forgiveness from God that we will never deserve but desperately need.

* * *

On the day of her consecration, Mary lay face down before the altar while the account of Christ’s Passion was read from the gospel.

Then she knelt and made four vows — to poverty, to chastity, to obedience — plus a vow to promote devotion to the Passion of Christ.

Until that point in the ceremony she wore a wreath of flowers. Now a Crown of Thorns was placed on her head – and a Cross laid across her shoulders.

The priest, Father Woods, then recited: “Let the crosses following thy consecration to Jesus Christ be taken up by thee cheerfully, and remember that thou art thus helping Christ to bear his Cross. Love to be unknown, to be poor and despised, for thou art now bound by thy profession to the service of God in the Sisterhood of Saint Joseph . . . .”

* * *

From that moment, devotion to Christ’s Cross dominated Mary’s life and thoughts.

In her meditations she used this prayer: “Oh, my crucified God, behold me, the guilty cause of Thy most cruel death. Oh, behold me now in true contrition of heart at the foot of Thy Cross.”

She wrote also of the Cross being “a sweet and dear instrument in the hands of a great and good Father, making his children all that such a Father has a right to expect his chosen children to be.”