Remembering our Past



On Friday 27 September we at St Mary’s will happily celebrate our Patronal Feast remembering how this church and parish have been fittingly dedicated to the honour and entrusted to the intercession of Our Lady, under her ancient invocation as Star of the Sea, or Stella Maris, patroness of seafarers. Becoming a parish back in 1873, and close to Melbourne's port, it served the large growth of Catholic immigrants due to the Gold Rush, and despite of the economic depression at the time, the need for a larger church was fulfilled because of the dedication and determination of faithful parishioners. The foundation stone of our current church was thus laid in June 1892. We invoke our Lady Star of the Sea to pray for parishioners, priests and Bishops who have passed on, whose prayers, donations, and labour gave us this incredible church, and we ask Our Lady to pray for our current parishioners and priests to carry on in the same spirit of service and dedication to the needs of this church and parish community.

 

Invocation of Mary Star of the Sea

The following words of Pope Benedict XVI offer us great encouragement to foster our love and prayer to Mary under this beautiful title: “With a hymn composed in the eighth or ninth century, thus for over a thousand years, the Church has greeted Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us” (cf. Jn 1:14; n.49).

 

When it comes to living a truly Christian way of life, the greatest model we know we must look to is Jesus Christ himself. He possessed all the authentic virtues a human being is called to develop in order to be fully human. When the book of Genesis recounts the creation of the first man and first woman, it teaches that God’s intention was to make them “in the image and likeness” of himself. Nothing created can be a total “image and likeness” of God, because God is infinite and, as such , he is unique. Just the same, he can create beings who manifest, in a real but limited way, crucial aspects of himself, such as his intellect and free will, or who share to a high degree in his attributes of goodness, beauty and holiness. Our first parents were made and meant to be such images and likenesses of God to each other and to their children. As human beings they were the “apple of God’s eye”, the reason for which He had chosen to create the whole universe—the environment for their development. However, their great sin of disobedience and disunity with God disrupted all that. Though they continued be, on some level, “in the image of God.” by means of their natural gifts, they lost the “likeness” to Him because they lost the intimate relationship that grace gives. Because God did not cease to love them—and us—he went on to set the stage for the coming of his very own Son—as the perfect God who would become perfect man. So it was that the birth of Jesus Christ was announced to Mary by the angel with these words: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” Jesus became one of us not only so as to be able to make amends for our many sins, acting on our behalf, but also, as “perfect man”, to serve us as an example and model for our humanity, so we might become—as we are meant to be—both images and likenesses of God our Father.

 

Yet God also wished to give us another model, since we, as human beings, have been made male and female. This other model is the woman whom Jesus presented to us from the Cross, saying “Behold your Mother.” She is the woman whom early Church Fathers called: “the new Eve.” She is Mary who has become for us a guide and example drawing us to Christ our Saviour—She is the Star who in times of confusion or temptation lights the darkness and gains for us grace to act in a truly human and divine way. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way!” (Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, n.50)