But
alas for you Pharisees! You pay your tithes of mint
and rue and all sorts
of
garden herbs and overlook justice and the love of God.
(Luke
41/42)
Many
years
ago, my husband, Ted Burke, and I became
very tired of listening to sermons about Money - Children
Crying - causing us to leave Mass on Sunday in a very
angry frame
of mind. We needed a depth to our Faith.
Two of our daughters had made Redfern THEIR Church.
Just a case of parents following their daughters.
When
one enters the Church
of St
Vincent’s
- by no means a glamorous building - one finds a friendly
group of people. One is conscious of God's love. Love
and joy in their Aboriginal friends; love, joy and concern
for all the Congregation.
Why
this atmosphere of love?
For
years,
Father Ted Kennedy has shared with all,
his deep concerns about injustice. History and the tragedy
of lies told instead of truth - but still passed off
as History; Land Rights and the court-cases which go
on and on; Poetry I adding to the depth of his sermons
on the Gospels of the day, - each of his sermons relating
to the trials of to-day.
Christ's
teachings for us - to-day. It is Ted Kennedy's deep
culture which he shares with all.
Luke's
reference to the Pharisees is very important. Over the
years, the Hierarchy has complained of “petty things”
like painted walls in the Church, while ignoring their
own injustices and lack of compassion.
An
article in Eureka
Street,
June
2002, by Fr Edmund Campion, was called “Open Door:
Father Ted Kennedy's Legacy”. Campion
speaks of Mum Shirley Smith who taught him (Father Ted)
to be a fellow-sufferer, to find Christ in the rejected,
(I don't think Mum Shirl had to do much teaching) but
Father Ted did say at her funeral, she was “the greatest
theologian he had ever known'.
Campion
also says:
Just
by his being in Redfern, Ted was saying that Christ
hadn't turned his
back
on them. That gives Father Ted Kennedy his place in
our history.
by Eileen Burke
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