Sharing our stories

 

A little child is always open to the other person they encounter, especially their parents who have loved them into life. For the Parents, their lives are filled with joy and hope with their little child. We witness this in the dedication that are placed on the child who can for the first few years becomes the focus of the parents’ life. Children often teach their parents how to be good parents. This can be assisted by the teaching of others, but it is the day-to-day contact with each other that bonds them together. We pray that the yoke is easy and the burden is light!

As we celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sunday, we can learn how to be a still presence in this land. In his address to First Nations People in Alice Springs in 1986, Saint Pope John Paul II said “The silence of the bush taught you a quietness of soul that put you in touch with another world, the world of God’s spirit. Your careful attention to the details of kinship spoke of your reverence for birth, life and human generation. You knew that children needed to be loved, to be full of joy. They need a time to grow in laughter and to play, secure in the knowledge that they belong to their people”. We become part of the story as we see our lives interwoven with their own.  

Pope John Paul went on to say, “The Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others. Christian people seek to people of hope and joy. Remember always the simple joy of the little child, remember Jesus Christ bears the same yoke guiding us to opening our hearts rejoicing in the gift of the ancient cultures and traditions that have shaped our land and country for more than 60,000 years. Our country will become a nation of hope and light in the world that is in desperate need of peace. This is a peace that is not just an absence of conflict but an abiding presence of God that dwell deep within.

Echoing the words of Zechariah in Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo says in section 222, “The people of the world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable, Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them. Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering.” In St Matthews Gospel, we notice this call for peace and humility is taken up by Jesus in revealing the truths of resolving conflict are often found in the youngest members of our community. To learn to trust another is to know them by knowing ourselves. This way of knowing is deeply intuitive and helps us to be at one with each other.

This is where we need to learn peace rather than live at a pace that is often driven by the circumstances of life. To discover a humility that reaches out with a gentleness that does not overburden us but gives us rest.  By learning to nurture our spiritual self we discover how we can be of service to our sisters and brothers. To be able to sit down and share our stories.