
This is the edited text of the homily given by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP at the Mass of Ordination to the Priesthood of Fr Adrian Suyanto, Fr Likisone Tominiko and Fr Charbel Boustany FFI, Memorial of St Benedict at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 11 July 2024.
A recent article in Seek.com outlined the importance of a well-crafted job description for attracting suitable candidates and establishing expectations for the role. According to the experts, a good j.d. must showcase the company, describe the critical functions and core responsibilities of the position, and specify qualifications and rewards.
Applying such thinking to the priesthood is not straightforward. After all, a job you do for some hours or years, but a vocation is 24/7 and for life. Many put up with their job while having their “real life” elsewhere, whereas a vocation is your real life. Some undertake a career with a view to wealth and advancement, but you’d be mad to enter religion for that! Most importantly, you pick a job that suits you, but you discern a vocation in a dialogue with God, responding to His promptings and submitting to the judgment of His Church: you choose a career, but a vocation chooses you.
The famous Rule of today’s saint, Benedict, opens with a plea to “listen with the ear of your heart”—a line often quoted by Pope Francis. But hearty listening can be difficult with all the noise and distractions around us, the passions and desires within. What precisely God wants is not always clear: sometimes He seems to be offering multiple j.d’s or rather vague ones. Trusting in God is all very well, but trusting in ourselves can feel safer. Yet if we do that, we may miss the opportunity of a lifetime. As Jeremiah makes clear today, God has big plans for each one of us: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jer 1:4). The company, task, qualifications and rewards are all in God’s mind’s eye at least, but also in our own heart’s ear if we are truly open.
Let’s begin with the company. The word sounds rather “corporate,” but the Jesuits who formed Pope Francis first called themselves Compañía de Jesús, the Company of Jesus. It had a military rather than corporate resonance—St Ignatius was a former army captain, and his “Jesuits” were to be comrades-in-arms for the Church. But we know our “companions” in faith are the saints and saints-in-the-making, our brothers and sisters in the family of God, the Church which is the communion and sacrament of salvation.
What is the priest’s job in this company? “God so loved the world, He gave His only Son” (Jn 3:16), gave Him into the hands of sinful men, to be crucified but rise again for their salvation (Mt 17:22f et par.). His Word and Sacraments would be the ways for us to participate in that saving grace. So, on the night before He died, Christ instituted the priesthood, appointing new sons as the means by which His Word and Sacraments would reach the ends of the earth (Mt 28:16-20 etc.). To be called to this service is to be charged, as Jeremiah said (Jer 1:4-9), with being “prophet to the nations,” with God’s words on our lips; it is to be entrusted, as Paul wrote (2 Cor 4:1-7), with preaching and leading, reflecting “the glory of Chris;” it is to be sent, as Jesus taught (Lk 10:1-9), as a labourer in the Lord’s vineyard, healing bodies, harvesting souls and proclaiming God’s kingdom come.
There are some today—even at councils and synods of the Church—who would strip priests of their responsibilities for preaching in the liturgy and governing the community. It’s not that they seek a richer collaboration and more co-responsibility: they want to “shift power” to certain lay experts. In the process they would disintegrate the celebration of the Word from celebration of the sacrament, leadership from pastoral care. How this pared-down priesthood as sacrament dispensers can be squared with what Christ instituted and the Catholic tradition teaches is far from clear: for, as the Second Vatican Council affirmed, the critical functions of the priest are to teach, sanctify and govern. Their core responsibilities are to lead and serve with a shepherd’s heart, to dispense the graces of the sacraments, and to proclaim the kerygma and all Church teaching “with none of the reticence of those who are ashamed of the Word of God, no deceitfulness or watering down… but openly stating the truth” (2 Cor 4:1-7).
We know the necessary skills for a priest, honed by years of formation, and requisite qualifications, given in today’s great sacrament. We even glimpse the rewards: being received by persons of peace, Jesus says (Lk 10:1-9), sustained by the communion of saints. Some of it sounds daunting. Some recoil from such a task. But it is the most exciting of vocations, demanding but rewarding also, radiant as Paul says, with the knowledge of God and the glory of Christ.
Our candidates tonight come from the Asian, Middle Eastern and Pacific cultures now making such important contributions to the life of the Church in Australia. Adrian grew up Buddhist in Indonesia but sought baptism at 14. He came to Australia to study chemical engineering at UNSW and there got involved in the Chaplaincy and CASS. They tricked him into attending one of Cardinal Pell’s dinners for young men considering their vocation. He was struck by the normality and happiness of priests and seminarians he met. Now he will be one of those normal, happy priests in the service of God and neighbour.
Likisone’s calling came through his complicated Samoan family, especially his grandmother and adopted parents, who cultivated faith, prayer and servant leadership in him. Never one to refuse a free meal, when Sone heard of the Cardinal’s dangerous vocations dinners, he went along. Through various secular jobs “the faith of his fathers”—or indeed his grandmothers—continued to call him. He came to see that his wounds could be healed and his gifts directed, all to the glory of God.
Nephew of a Lebanese Maronite monk and priest, Br Charbel had a great love for the liturgy and priesthood from an early age. After high school he undertook degrees in Business and Computing, worked in website development, travelled and socialised, before reverting to his earlier calling. Introduced to the Marian spirituality of St Louis de Montfort and St Maximilian Kolbe, he joined the Friars of the Immaculate, was formed in America and Rome, and is now ready to be a faithful priest of Jesus Christ and son of Mary Immaculate and St Francis.
My sons, Charbel, Sone and Adrian, you bring very different histories, ethnicities and talents to your vocations today. In a few moments time you will lay those gifts before the altar of God as you prostrate yourselves in prayer. Your interrogation and ordination, the beautiful prayers prayed for you and over you, the anointing with holy chrism and vesting in sacred garments, the traditioning of the offerings and pax from the whole body of priests—these things will make your JD as clear as day. No longer just my sons but now as my brothers and fathers, you will act in the person of Christ, as voices for His Word and ministers of His sacraments. In precious times of birth and rebirth, contrition and absolution, hunger and communion, romance and marriage, sickness and suffering, life and death, the holy People of God will invite you to be with them on Christ’s behalf. Do so with the humble confidence that you did not choose Him, no He chose you, chose you with the j.d. “to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last!” (Jn 15:16)