Ascension of the Lord / A

2017 is a special year for me because during this year I will be celebrating 40 years as a priest. Another priest in my community, Fr Andrew, will be celebrating 50 years as a priest. We will be having a special Mass of Thanksgiving in St Martha’s Church in Strathfield on Saturday, 1 July, and you are all invited. I will give the details to Joe, your President, and he can put the details in the notices. You are all welcome but of course no-one is obligated. I appreciate that you all have busy lives. And I am sure that whether or not you are there, you will pray for me.

When I reflect on what I have learned during those forty years, nothing stands out more than the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel: ‘And know that I am with you always. Yes, to the end of time.’

At the time of my ordination, I certainly had no idea what would happen during the next 40 years. I remember celebrating Sunday Mass in the Bronx in New York a few years’ ago, and telling the people that, as a boy growing up in Australia, I never imagined that one day I would be in the Bronx in New York celebrating Mass. And I have to say I never imagined that celebrating Mass for the Chinese Catholic Community in Sydney would become a part of my mission. In fact your community was not even born when I became a priest!

During those 40 years there have been many joyous and rewarding moments, many good times, but there have also been the times of challenge, and some dark days and even some dark months, when I have wondered where the Lord was leading me, or even if the Lord was there. I have felt at times like the disciples in today’s Gospel, staring into the sky and wondering where the Lord had gone.

But as I look back and reflect on my 40 years as a priest I can say that the Lord’s promise to his disciples, ‘I am with you always’, has been fulfilled in my life. The Lord has always been there with me, and always will be. I don’t know what the future will bring but I am sure, in the words of the hymn Amazing Grace, that ‘grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.’

Another important point I have learned is that there is no priest without a people, without a Christian community. And I am grateful for the many Catholic communities that have welcomed me and my ministry during those years. And I certainly include the Chinese Catholic community among these. Each community I have ministered to, and there have been many over forty years, has had its own particular gifts and challenges and each community has drawn forth different gifts from within me.

Being a priest has brought me a great deal of happiness, and the great satisfaction of having been able to help some people on their journey. I have no regrets whatsoever in having chosen this path, and I certainly encourage others who may wish to follow this path. You will have headaches, as in every path of life, but also great blessings and great rewards, if you accept the invitation of Jesus to ‘go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teach them all that I have taught you, and learn from them as well,’ you will experience the truthfulness of his promise: ‘and know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of time.’

Fr Michael Goonan SSP