THIS is Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge’s homily from the opening Mass at the Ignite conference on September 27, the feast day of St Vincent de Paul.
THOSE of you who were in Rio for World Youth Day, or watched it on television in Australia, may recognise the mitre and the chasuble that I’m wearing.
They are the mitre and chasuble that bishops were given in Rio de Janeiro, and what better way to wear it for the first time in Australia than today.
But it wasn’t just about flash vestments – it was very damp.
In fact the final ceremony was supposed to be in a big open area that got completely water logged to the point where alligators appeared.
It was wet.
Whatever about Rio and World Youth Day, this is not exactly the wet time at least in this part of Australia.
This is the time of fire.
We’re not going to be swamped with rain, although anything’s possible in Queensland.
This is the time of the fires, and there are the highest possible warnings about the dangers of fire and we have the nerve to have this conference and call it Ignite.
It’s very dangerous, I warn you.
Now when you think about fire, it is a mysterious thing that thousands upon thousands of fires have come upon Australia, the driest country on earth.
And fires when they go, it’s just black land, all gone, dead.
But when you come back 12 months later, and there’s been good resilient type rain and good Aussie sun, you don’t just see dead black earth, you see fantastic new life that you could only ever have because the fire came.
The fire we’re talking about here at Ignite is the fire that comes from Heaven and only without that fire, we stay in the land of death.
None of us were created for that land (of death); we were created for the garden.
The fire, the Holy Spirit, the very breath and life of God, does two things – destroys, and I warn you, that’s why it’s dangerous to set up a sign saying Ignite.
The fire of God that Jesus comes to put on the earth comes to destroy us, everything that makes our heart of flesh into stone – fear, depression, anger, and the depressing liturgy could go on and on.
Everything in us, the fire destroys.
It brings new life and can only come with the destruction that God works.
After, new life comes – fantastic new life – that we see with open eyes, hear with open ears, and we see Jesus risen from the dead.
Not just Jesus a historical figure – we see a presence, a power, here and now.
We see Him, hear Him, and then we ourselves become fire.
John Wesley, a great saint of the Anglican Church said, “When I am in the pulpit preaching, I am all fire and the people come to watch me.”
All fire, that’s what we are to be and that’s what the ignition in the Church is all about.
St Vincent de Paul, born in 1581 and died in 1660.
It was a time known as ‘Le grande siecle’ or the great century.
Why did the whole of Paris turn out for the funeral of Monsieur Vincent, who was a very little man?
Because what Vincent had done was show France and the world what true glory was, what true grandeur was.
It wasn’t the spectacle of Versaille, it was the little man who went down in to the gutters of Paris, into the dark underbelly of the city, and picked up the poor and who taught the priests to teach the people to lead them out of ignorance into the true glory of truth.
This was a humble work done by a little man, and that’s why we’ll celebrate Vincent forever, even when Louis XIV is long forgotten.
What do we see in Vincent?
A man who is simply ablaze, because he has seen Jesus even in the gutters of Paris, and he’s heard Jesus.
So you’ve come to Ignite.
Why do you come here?
To touch fire and that will be painful.
There must be pain – pain that purifies.
Beyond that, there is the experience of seeing him, and hearing him, and lining up among the true human beings who have seen and heard Christ, the Saints, all of those who have become touched by fire themselves become the flame.
