02/05/2026
from Fr John, as Mother’s Day nears,
“The last time I saw my mum…”
“Dear Parishioners, Friends and Visitors,
I have heard people say: “If you want to experience genuine love, go to the airport.”
There is something profoundly true in this saying.
Airport terminals, especially arrival and departure halls, are places where life is laid bare. There, love is unfiltered.
We see it in the tight embrace of a couple reunited after months apart, in the tears of a parent watching a child walk through security, in the lingering wave of someone who does not want to let go. There is no pretence in those moments.
Joy is loud. Pain is visible. Love is real.
But alongside the joy of reunion, there is also the deep ache of departure. Anyone who has had to say goodbye knows that particular kind
of pain, the kind that settles quietly in the heart but refuses to leave.
It is the pain of losing a loved one to death, the pain of distance, of uncertainty, of not knowing when you will next hold the one you love.
It is a deeply human experience, one that
connects us all.
I can resonate either with the pain of losing a loved one and the pain of temporal
departure.
In fact, I experience the pain of departure each time I prepare to return to Australia after a visit to Nigeria.
But nothing compares to the first time I left
Nigeria. I was coming to Australia on a four-year visa, and even before the actual day of departure, I knew how difficult it would be. I left home a week earlier because I could not bear the thought of saying goodbye in that final moment,
knowing how hard it would be for my family, especially my mother and my twin sister.
I was still a seminarian at the time. I remember the day I left for the parish from where I would later go to the airport. That morning, my mother asked me to dress in my white cassock. I did not fully understand why, but I did it because it
mattered to her. Looking back now, I realise that perhaps she wanted to hold onto that image of her son, dressed in the garment of his calling, stepping into a future she would not fully share in.
That was the last time I saw my mum.
She died 22 months after I arrived in Australia, and at the age of seventy-three.
But in some quiet way,
I have often felt that she began dying the day I left home. Not in body, but in heart. Such is the power of love. As human beings, when we are deeply connected, separation wounds us in ways that words cannot fully express.
It is into this very human reality of loss, departure, separation and longing that the words of Jesus in John 14:1–12 speak to us this weekend: “Do not let your hearts be troubled… I am going to prepare a place for you.”
Jesus speaks these words at a moment of His impending separation, crucifixion and death. Christ knows that His disciples will soon face the pain of losing Him, not just temporarily, but in a way that will shake their entire world.
They have left everything to follow Christ. Jesus
Christ has become their home, their security, their hope. And now Christ tells them He is going away. Their hearts are troubled, just as ours are when we face departure. Yet Jesus does not dismiss their pain. Instead, Jesus meets it with a promise: “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you
also may be.”
What Jesus offers is not the denial of separation, but the transformation of it. Christ invites His disciples and us to trust that every departure
in life is held within a deeper presence; that even when we cannot see, touch, or hold the one we love, love itself is not lost.
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Jesus says. Christ does not give His disciples a road map; Christ gives them and us Himself. In moments when life feels uncertain, when we are standing at our own “airport terminals” of loss, change, or grief, Jesus does not simply point us in a direction. Jesus walks with us.
Jesus becomes the path through the confusion, the truth in the midst of doubt, and the life that sustains us when everything else feels fragile.
Our human experiences of departure, whether through travel, distance, or death, teach us
something sacred. They reveal the depth of our love. They remind us that to love is to risk pain. But they also open us to a greater hope: that love is stronger than separation.
The goodbye at the airport is never the final word. Neither is death. Because in Christ, every ending holds the promise of reunion. Every departure carries within it the seed of a homecoming. And so, when we find ourselves in those moments, when our hearts are heavy, when the distance feels too great, when the absence is too real, let us hold onto Christ’s words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” For the One who calls Himself the Way has already gone ahead of us. He is our faithful companion on the journey of
life.
Over this weekend and in the coming days of the new week, let’s reflect on the kind of love we see so clearly in places like the airport, the love that clings, and the love we are called to embody in our families, parish community and wherever we find
ourselves.
May the God who is love par excellence continue to bless us, and may we have a great weekend and blessed week
ahead.
God bless you all,
Fr John
OLA Chermside Catholic Parish
Archdiocese of Brisbane
