Fr David Ranson, Vicar General of the Diocese of Broken Bay, has used his Australia Day homily to preach a message of hope, saying its message of the power of self-sacrifice and self-giving are important in times of conflict.
Celebrating Mass in his home parish at Our Lady of Dolours Church, Chatswood, Fr David said we were living through fractious times, but within that, there was hope.
"Our time are fractious. And nowhere do we see this symbolised more acutely than in the horror of anti-Semitism: one minority group of people victimised into fear to give the majority its sense of superiority," he said.
"Anti-Semitism is always the ‘canary in the mine’. Its eruption in our own city of Sydney over these months is deeply alarming. It impels us to do everything we can to reiterate the bonds of community with our Jewish brothers and sisters which we cannot allow to be extinguished by political and military events played out in the Middle East."
He said "brain-rot" was seeping into our society and creating dangerous social contexts. "Brain-rot" is “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”.
Fr David said the effect on young people was particularly concerning.
"Undoubtedly, the times in which we live are dangerous ones. They are dangerous because they are conflictual," he said.
"Even current appeals to unity seem to me to be inherently exclusive. It is unity at the expense of diversity, the demand to offer allegiance to one narrative only, to the exclusion of all others. And we see this played out in what have become known in Western society as the culture wars – sharply opposing world views in constant battle with one another for supremacy in which triumph over the other side is the objective. We go ‘into battle’ for our side. We have to prove our position over and against others; defend our position at all costs; rejoice in the victories we consider we score over the competing side with smugness and arrogance. Revenge, retribution become catch-cries."
But within this, he said Australia Day offered a message of hope, particularly as the voices and work of those who show the power of self-sacrifice and self-giving, were elevated.
"[Australia Day honours] the power of self-sacrifice, the power of self-giving so that others might live," he said.
"This is what fascinates me about our Australia Day awards, and the nomination of Australian of the Year. For me, what we do on Australia Day with these accolades offers me one of the greatest sources of hope, and the most positive strategy through the malaise of our time. We do not award those who have triumphed in the competitive struggle, those who have become rich at the expense of the poverty of others, those who have become powerful at the expense of others’ weakness. We do not single out those known by the purity of their ideology. We honour those who have served others, who give their lives for the benefit of others."
In particular, he called out the work of the 2026 Australian of the Year for, Neale Daniher – once an AFL sportsman who now suffers from Motor Neurone Disease but has become a powerful advocate for its research. He also said the work of Br Thomas Pickett, Senior Australian of the Year, and Dr Katrina Wruck, Young Australian of the Year, as powerful stories of hope.
"[These are] remarkable stories; extraordinary witnesses of the power of the Gospel -whether the recipients are Christian or otherwise - the power that alone can save the world," he said.
He closed his homily by imploring people to rise above pointless contests and accept God's invitation into a life of self-giving.
"Step out of the battle about winners and losers; let go of the need to prove how right we are against the other. There is no future in such contests," he said.
"The stepping stones into that future into which we are invited by the dream of God lay always in the stories of self-emptying become a self-giving, people like Neale Daniher and Thomas Pickett; like people in our own parish community who give of themselves so generously to others."
Read Fr David Ranson's Australia Day homily in full here (PDF 132.2KB).