Listening to the news, it would seem that religion is more often used as a pretext for violence than peace. But, the Scriptures and our faith traditions contain a strong mandate for compassion and peace. Together they offer a radical reshaping of human relations if we accept them.

We gather today to seek to be together, to acknowledge, stand in solidarity with, give voice to, to cry out – in anguish, pain, frustration, anger and great sadness. We are here to lament. Lament is looking to the future and trying to find hope but it requires a truth telling where we need to speak the unspeakable and find words in traumatised numbness.  It demands that the truth be told; that it be heard and received. It is a catalyst to examine responsibility and complicity. Truth telling causes us to remain alert, to educate and help prevent new victimisation and finding ways for healing, offer restitution, promote restoration of those unjustly treated and work for justice. Pope Francis has said: ‘The thing the church needs more today is the ability to heal wounds…and you have to start from the ground up.’

Edmund Rice Retreat and Conference Centre, Mulgoa - 8 April 2018

Most Sunday mornings I listen to Ockham’s Razor on ABC Radio National. The razor here has to do with shaving – not beards but the superfluous from logic and design. William of Ockham, the 14^th century Franciscan, held that to explain things was to ‘Keep it simple.’ Though religion can be obsessed with obfuscation rather than simplification, Jesus condenses religious observance down to one commandment: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’.