Issue 59 August 2026

Feast

St Mary's Revival

As we approach the Feast of our beloved Mother, St Mary, let us come together in a spirit of prayer and praise, seeking her intercession before our Lord. Please join us for any of the services this week. All are welcome.

A special reminder that our Friday night prayer vigil for St Mary will be held at 6:30pm with child minding available, so we encourage the whole family to come along and share in this beautiful evening of prayer, praise and contemplation.

From the pulpit

St Mary, a reflection of Christ

Fr Luke · The Fast of St Mary

When I was in Egypt at the monastery, during my 40 days, I attended a special prayer where the Pope was praying the liturgy, and there was a bishop there who continuously stared at me, repeatedly catching my gaze and refusing to look away.

I said to myself, "What have I done wrong? What can he see when he looks at me?"

At the end of the Mass, the bishop came across and said, "Is your father a priest in Sydney? You are the spitting image of him."

We carry the image of our parents everywhere. This was a beautiful reminder of that reality.

St Mary is our mother and a reflection of Christ, and Christ is also, in a sense, a reflection of her. She was handpicked to be His mother. It wasn't a haphazard choice; He didn't simply stumble upon St Mary. St Paul teaches us that, in the fullness of time, God descended and became incarnate and became man. In the fullness of time, He chose St Mary.

The apostles look at this and say that Christ was looking through all generations, waiting for the perfect person to call His mother.

And if you think about it, it must mean that He came across thousands, perhaps millions, of women before He came to St Mary. So why St Mary? Why did God wait until the fullness of time to choose her?

I think it's relevant for us not simply to study St Mary, but to think about ourselves. Just as Christ was looking for a mother, He is also looking for servants, families and homes in which He can dwell. Perhaps, if we have the same characteristics that St Mary had, He will also choose us.

Purity

The first thing I think Christ found in St Mary was her purity.

We are also called to purity. Purity of our senses: that our eyes look only at good and wholesome images, and that our ears listen only to things that are pure.

There is also purity of mind: that the way I approach every situation and interpret every situation is pure. Sometimes the same situation happens and two people can look at it in completely different ways. One person can look at a situation and give others the benefit of the doubt. That is the mind of Christ and the purity of mind.

Another person can look at a harmless situation and make someone a villain out of it. They say, "He meant this," or "She meant that," and assume that people acted with bad intentions.

Do we have the purity of mind to look at every situation in a purer way?

There is also purity in our relationships: that I always want the best for those around me. That I look at the people around me and am not threatened when they are doing well, when they are successful, or when something good happens in their lives.

On the other hand, sometimes we can look at someone who is going through something difficult and feel good about ourselves because we think, "You know what? I'm better. I'm doing better than the person next to me."

Which side are we on? Do we have purity of heart, purity of mind and purity of our senses, like St Mary?

There is also purity in the actions we take and, importantly, in the intentions behind those actions. When Israel chose a king, they chose Saul. They looked at the outside. They saw a man who was tall, strong and good-looking, and they said, "This is the man we want to be our king."

They looked at his external appearance.

But when God came to choose a king, He said that God does not choose as man chooses, because God looks at the heart. He came and looked at the heart of David.

From the outside, David might have looked small and unsuitable to be a king. But God looks at the heart.

The same applies to us when we come to church, attend services and pray. It isn't enough for us simply to be here, and it isn't enough simply to attend services. God wants our heart when we are doing it.

It's not just about the outward act; it's about the inward act as well.

A short, two-minute prayer, filled with meaning and with a heart that is in sync with God, is so much more valuable to Him than hours of repetitive prayers without meaning.

So the first criterion for having God involved in our hearts and in our lives is that we have this purity, or at least that we genuinely seek purity in our lives.

Humility

The second thing is humility.

When God came to choose a mother, He had to choose someone who could handle the honour without becoming proud. The whole world would come to call her the Mother of God.

The Archangel Gabriel came to her and told her that generations would call her blessed. Yet she didn't look at herself as the Mother of God. She looked at herself as the servant of the Lord.

As the world around her elevates her, as we call her Queen of Heaven and honour her, she continues to see herself as the servant of the Lord.

Can we be like this as well?

Can we be people whom God showers with blessings, who look at those blessings and say, "I am the servant of the Lord"? That it's not me who achieved this, but God who is working inside of me? God desires people and servants like this, and He can shower blessings upon them.

The truth is, it's hard. It's hard because it is in our human nature to want the praise of other people. We want people to look at us and say, "Look how amazing this person is. Look how incredible this accomplishment is."

So we have to fight against this nature inside of us and pursue humility.

My son was playing soccer this season for the first time. I think it was his second game when he won the Man of the Match award. This happened at about 9am, and by 11am the whole world knew about it. We called grandparents, friends, uncles and aunties. The photo practically went viral.

And that's okay because he's a five-year-old kid. It's natural for him to feel this way.

But some of us are still like that today. We seek the praise of other people. We want people to tell us, "You've done so well."

But God desires us to be humble. Everything we do, we should do with a sense of, "I'm simply doing my duty."

If something goes well, then we should say, "God, it is Your work in me that achieved this, not my own work."

God's ability to work through my life is proportional to my capacity not to be proud of it.

If you've ever been go-karting, sometimes the go-karts have an upper limit, a cap on how fast you can go. I really feel like we have the same kind of cap in our lives depending on our humility.

God wants to shower us with blessings, but if He knows that I'm going to become proud, He may limit what He gives me because He doesn't want me to fall into that trap.

Sometimes we blame God for not coming in and blessing us, but perhaps He wants to bless us. We first have to overcome our pride.

So let us always work to be humble. Work to do hidden services. Work not to seek the appreciation or praise of men, but to seek only the praise of God.

I've mentioned this before, but it's something that always comes into my mind: imagine if we lived our lives as if God were our only audience.

There is no other audience in the world. He is the only One whose approval I seek.

I go about my life and the only person watching my life, watching my show, and the only person I want to please in this whole world is God.

Imagine if we lived our lives this way. Everything I do, I do knowing that God is the One I want to please, and no one else.

Submission to God's will

The third criterion is her submission to God's will.

The angel comes and tells her, "Your plans have changed."

She wanted to remain a virgin, but now she would have a son. She wanted to live a life of service, but God had a different plan for her.

And she says, "Let it be to me according to your word."

We say this in every liturgy. We say, "Manage our lives as You deem fit."

But sometimes we say it and, honestly, we don't mean it.

We say, "Manage our lives as You deem fit, up to a certain point. Up to what I can handle. Only if it fits the path that I have in my mind. Only with these exceptions. Only with these rules."

"Manage my life only up to this point. But if You're going to send me down a path that I don't want to go down, I don't want You to manage it. Give it back to me. Let me drive."

"If You're going to send me through this tribulation that I don't want to go through, then Lord, don't manage it. Let me manage it instead."

Mary lived a true life of submission. She said, "Let it be to me according to your word." No exceptions. No conditions. No rules.

It is really hard to say that and truly mean it, but let us trust that God manages our lives much better than we can manage them ourselves.

Even if the path is hard, as long as He is with me on that path, and He is the One managing it, and He is the One driving it, everything is going to be okay.

So let us pray that God grants us these three virtues so that He can come and dwell within our lives.

• That we have purity in our senses, purity in our minds, and purity in the actions we take.
• That we are humble, that we seek only God's praise and not the praise of the people around us.
• And finally, that we truly live a life of submission to Him. That we can say, "Lord, Your way is better than my way, and what You have planned for me is better than what I have planned for myself."

The intercession of St Mary

I'll end with one final thought: the power of the intercession of St Mary.

We have the intercession of all the saints, but I think St Mary holds a unique and special place.

During this period of the fast of St Mary, let us really seek her intercession. If you haven't tried it before, try it.

Make an offering to her this week. Come and attend an extra liturgy this week for St Mary, and seek her intercession. See how quickly she can answer your prayers.

This Friday night, we have a beautiful service where you can join us for a candlelit prayer night, with short words from the Fathers and beautiful hymns. Come and attend. Come and spend Friday night in prayer and praise to St Mary, our Mother, because she deserves it, and because we need her intercession in our lives.

Glory be to God. Amen.

Family meeting

If we could do it again

Our next family meeting is on 22 August, when a couple from our parish whose daughters are now 18, 15 and 12 will share some of their wisdom.

Now that their daughters are older, they've had the privilege of looking back on those precious early years with a different perspective. While they're incredibly grateful for God's faithfulness, there are also things they wish they had done differently.

They'll share honest reflections on what mattered most, what they wish they had worried less about, and the habits and values they're most thankful they invested in.

Feast

Coptic New Year Nayrouz Procession and Festival

Two weeks to go! Join us for the Coptic New Year Nayrouz Procession and Festival.

As His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos shares, gathering for the Feast of the Martyrs is a profound time of joy, remembering great sacrifices, and boldly bringing the light of Christ into our streets.

Come be a part of this incredible tradition as we walk together in faith and celebrate the beginning of the Coptic New Year!