Homily given by Bishop Anthony Randazzo
Bishop of Broken Bay
Mass in commemoration of ANZAC Day 2023
Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral, Waitara
A priest confrere of mine who served as a Catholic Chaplain for Australian troops during the War in Iraq recently reminded me that War is ever close. Closer sometimes than we realise.
He then asked, why did Jesus include the peacemakers in his teaching? The simple answer is that they would be blessed. Jesus places them alongside those who hunger and thirst for justice.
Eighty years ago, on 12 May 1943, the hospital ship Centaur left Sydney bound for Port Moresby. On board were 75 crew of the Merchant Navy, including one ship’s pilot, 64 medical staff, including 12 nurses of the Australian Army Nursing Service, and 149 men of the 2/12th Field Ambulance with 44 attached personnel heading for a tour in Papua New Guinea.
Nobody who saw it would have been in any doubt that the Centaur was a hospital ship. As it steamed through the night all the lights were kept on. Running down the sides of the vessel were thick green stripes broken by three large red crosses.
In 1943 the oceans and seas off Australia were a battle zone. As it sailed up the coast of New South Wales past Broken Bay towards Queensland, the Centaur passed close to the last resting places of the Kalingo; the Lydia M Childs; the Wollongbar; the Fingal; and the Limerick.
These merchant ships had been sunk, some with great loss of life, by enemy submarines between 18 January and 29 April 1943. There could be no doubt of the intensity of hostile activity in the sea lanes by which the Centaur was making her way north.
At 4.10am on Friday, 14 May, the Centaur was East of the Cape Moreton Lighthouse on Moreton Island, off the coast of Queensland, when she was attacked.
Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 died. It all happened in three minutes. In the hours that followed the sinking, the survivors were encouraged by one of the officers and by the only surviving nursing sister, to do what they could for the wounded.
The hospital ship Centaur sunk on 14 May 1943 off the
coast of Queensland with a loss of 268 lives.
War comes close to our very shores. And the ANZAC spirit enlivens those to courageous acts. In the midst of this ocean swirl of madness off Brisbane in the pre-dawn darkness 80 years ago, it is told that one could hear two voices raising their prayers to God as the rosary drifted on the sea. In the midst of the mess, God was there in two people’s faith and their hunger for justice and peace.
At the end of the Second World War, the Archbishop of Paris reminded his people that “there is evolving before our eyes the outline of a common civilisation”.
Today, it seems even more obvious. Great scientific and technological developments are breaking down the barriers of distance and time. Everywhere minds and hearts are being subjected to the same intellectual and emotional influences. The world is becoming smaller. While in many ways this is good, there are also some worrying concerns.
As Australians and citizens of the world, must we not also be dedicated to promoting the dignity of every human being?
As disciples and followers of Christ, we should be all the more concerned for safeguarding the dignity of individual women and men because we see them as made in God’s image and redeemed by Christ’s blood.
The pursuit of peace and justice means to seek to influence our community and our world in a positive, honest, and respectful way, so that every person will have access to everything necessary for living a truly human life: education; employment; food; clothing; housing; freedom to choose a state of life and found a family; freedom to worship God and to live according to one’s conscience. (cf Rush, 10 January 1977)
These are some of the ideals that make for a civilisation of love, where justice and peace may find a home. But first of all, we must love peace. And here, we can return to the words of Christ, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God”. (Matthew 5:9)
If we truly wish to be Christians, we must love peace, we must make our own the cause of peace, we must meditate on the real meaning of peace, we must conform our minds to the thought of peace. (cf Pope Paul VI, 4 October 1965)
Blessed are the peacemakers. Lest we forget.