05 January 2014

GOD SNEAKS IN ON FIREWORKS

Dear Parishioners,

They estimate that 1.5 million people gathered around the Harbour and CBD to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks. Another 1 million Australians watched on TV while 1.5 billion watched around the world.

So many human eyes watched the fireworks with its theme of “Shine” and the central symbol on the Harbour Bridge being the ’eye’. And maybe most of these eyes and the organising committee didn't realise that the symbol of the eye in Church architecture is actually one of the symbols we use for God the Father. So it seems that the lesson
from this is that with all these human eyes watching the fireworks, they didn't realise that God our Heavenly Father was watching over each and every one of them.

This symbol of the eye which represents the Heavenly Father’s ever-watchful gaze over us and giving us His grace makes real what we celebrate in the Sunday of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple and the Feast of the Epiphany.

In the finding of Our Lord in the Temple, Jesus said to His parents, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” For Jesus, being in the Temple, His Father’s house, means He chose to be under the watchful gaze of His Father to begin to do His will and work.

In the Feast of the Glorious Epiphany, at the Baptism of Jesus, Jesus is again under the eye of His Heavenly Father as we hear that the Heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended and the voice of the Father was heard saying: “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

For us as Baptised children of God, like Jesus, we are called to place ourselves in our daily lives, under the loving and watchful eye of our Heavenly Father as Jesus did and to trust that He says to us “You are my beloved.”

Our Church roof architecture is also symbolic of the watchful eye and loving gaze of our Heavenly Father, that can inspire us when we are visiting the Church to pray or when we are participating in the Holy Eucharist.