Homily for Friday in the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time, (Feast of Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc and his Companions), delivered in Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Gladstone, Qld.

"Judas and his brothers said, ‘Now that our enemies have been defeated, let us go up to purify the sanctuary and dedicate it.’ So they marshalled the whole army, and went up to Mount Zion. On the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, Chislev, in the year one hundred and forty-eight, they rose at dawn and offered a lawful sacrifice on the new altar of holocausts which they had made. The altar was dedicated, to the sound of zithers, harps and cymbals, at the same time of year and on the same day on which the pagans had originally profaned it. The whole people fell prostrate in adoration, praising to the skies him who had made them so successful." (cf. 1 Mac 4).

"Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom, you are supreme over all. Both honour and riches come from you. You are the ruler of all, from your hand come strength and power." (Psalm taken from 1 Chron 29:10-12).

"Jesus went into the Temple and began driving out those who were selling. ‘According to scripture,’ he said ‘my house will be a house of prayer. But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.’ He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, with the support of the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they did not see how they could carry this out because the people as a whole hung on his words." (Lk 19:45-48).

Artwork: an the saints Andrew Dũng-Lạc, Paul of Tarsus, Thérèse of Lisieux, and a crowd of Vietnamese martyrs standing about the cross. The words inscribed read "It is finished" (cf. Jn 19), generated using Copilot.