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#3044
1 April 2012
Archbishop Tim Costelloe SDB
Installed as Archbishop of Perth,
Wetsern Australia, on 21 March 2012.
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Installation of Archbishop Tim Costelloe SDB, Perth, WA
The installation ceremony was attended by the Provincial and Vice
Provincial of the Salesians (Frs Greg Chambers and Bernie Graham,
respectively), the FMA Provincial, Sr Margaret Bentley, and other
Salesians.
Here is an extract from Archbishop Costelloe's homily at the
installation
".... Many of you know that I belong
to the Religious Congregation, the Salesians of Don Bosco. Some years
ago, the Superior General of the Salesians, Fr Pascual Chavez, speaking
as the President of the Union of Superiors General in Rome, made an
extraordinary and confronting statement. “The greatest challenge facing
Religious Life today“, he said, “is to return Christ to the Religious
Life and to return the Religious Life to Christ.” I’m sure that when
they first heard these words, the leaders of the many Religious
Congregations present must have been puzzled and even affronted.
Perhaps they asked themselves how anyone could pose such a question to
a group of people who were vowed to a life of obedience, poverty and
chastity within the Church. At the risk of puzzling and even affronting
people tonight I want to put the same challenge, to myself first of
all, and then to all of us here. The greatest challenge facing the
Church today is to return Christ to the Church and to return the Church
to Christ. The greatest challenge facing each one of us today is to
return Christ to our lives and return our lives to Christ. This is not
a challenge to be something other than we are. It is a challenge to be
more fully, more deeply and more openly what we already are.
The Second Vatican
Council described the Church as a kind of sacrament, a living and
effective sign, of the presence of Christ in the world as its healer,
as its saviour. Saint Paul for his part, in a simple yet very profound
way, described the Church as the Body of Christ. These two statements
express both who we are and who we must become more and more each day.
The society in which we live has great need of the light of Christ. It
is our privilege and our duty to offer this light, this gift, to the
world.
This is the task
that is set before us as we begin this new chapter in the life of the
Catholic Church here in the Archdiocese of Perth. Tonight I invite each
one of you to continually ask yourself the question, “Where is Jesus in
what I am doing?” As parents and children live your family lives
together, what room have you made in your daily lives for Jesus? As
priests and religious seek to be the Good Shepherds that tonight’s
gospel speaks about, is Jesus really the treasure for which you are
ready to give up everything else? As Parish Councils meet to plan the
year ahead is Jesus really at the centre of all your planning? As
Catholic schools and Colleges, universities and seminaries, move more
fully into the academic year let yourselves be motivated by these
words: The greatest challenge facing my school or college, university
or seminary, the greatest challenge facing me in my classroom or
lecture hall, is to return this place to Christ and return Christ to
his rightful place. As diocesan agencies review your programmes and
evaluate your outreach ask if, in meeting you, the people with whom and
for whom you work are really meeting Christ. For once again, as Saint
Paul reminds us, “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus
Christ as Lord.”
Since my
appointment as the Archbishop of Perth was announced many people have
asked me what my priorities are. I have given a variety of answers but
in the end I would want to say this: I hope and pray that, through my
ministry of service and leadership in the Archdiocese, all of us, the
people who together are the community of the disciples of Christ, might
become more and more, as the first Letter of Saint Peter puts it, “a
chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, so
that we might proclaim the mighty deeds of him who has called us out of
darkness into his own marvellous light”. That light is Jesus Christ. It
is to him that we commit all that we have and all that we are. It is to
him that we entrust the journey into the future which tonight we set
out on together.
Christ be our
Light. Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness. Christ be our
light, shine in your Church gathered today".
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