WE gather this morning in anticipation of the birth of Christ but are seriously distracted by a death – a death that has been brought about by the great evil in this world known as drugs.
Van Nguyen, and others like him, have lost their lives because a world wants something which is illegal and preys on the greed, on the need of young people. While we remember Van Nguyen and his mother, let’s also remember all of those people whose lives are controlled and ultimately destroyed by the drugs of this world.
We begin firstly by acknowledging our need for God’s forgiveness. Let’s remember that we are people of hope, people of the Resurrection.
Yesterday I was asked on a radio station why did I believe that this particular incident of Van Nguyen and his execution today captured so much attention in Australia.
I suppose it began with the fact that we were upset that something had happened to an Australian in another country, but as we go deeper than that I suspect that what is behind this is the fact that we are a people who believe life in all of its circumstances and all of its conditions is worth protecting.
We believe that we should go to whatever measures we can to encourage and bring life to its fulfilment and I suppose we don’t ask the question as to how people are put in situations where their lives are endangered, we simply move straight to the fact that life is what God gives us and we have a firm belief that it is God, and only God, who has the right, the will and sometimes the desire that life would be with him and in God’s own time.
It’s rather important in this circumstance that we do not sully the issues. Van Nguyen died because he did something wrong and it’s very important that we recognise that he would not have been brought to this circumstance had he done what we know to be right.
It also reminds us that each of us has this day to work with and sometimes we take this day for granted.
The fact that we knew at what time and saw his mother and his brother and we saw people who cared about him being hurt by what had taken place that added to our own emotional pain but also our frustration at a world that seems to be abusing life in all of its forms.
I don’t think we can change the greed that creates a drug culture in this world. We only have this section of the world to deal with, but I believe it’s terribly important that we do not take this day for granted; we do not take our ability to bring about good and right in our community for granted.
I believe it’s enormously important that young people are made to realise that they have a great power for right and good, that they have an opportunity to make choices, the right choices, as difficult as that may be.
I am hoping also today that all of you who are parents of teenagers and of young adults will realise what gifts and responsibility you have been given.
As difficult as it may be to sometimes educate those people to do the right thing, I believe at all costs your responsibility is to force them, not just invite them, but force them to do that which is right for them and their community.
Let’s make sure that this death of this young man is not a waste.
Let’s make sure that people, some people at least, will learn to change the way that they live, not out of fear but out of hope, not out of the fact that they are worried what punishment might happen to them if they do wrong, but perhaps with the satisfaction that when they do right then there is reward, there is acknowledgment, there is contentment, there is peace and there is life to the full.”
Fr Peter Dillon is the administrator of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Brisbane.
