My speech @ Bishop-Elect Michael's Farewell

It is an honour to say a few words on this day of thanksgiving. A day to thank a great man for giving his life to Jesus and by doing so sharing his life with us as a chaplain, Father and friend.

Father or now known as Bishop Elect but I am still not used to calling you that. Anyway, with permission I shall refer to Bishop Elect as Father throughout this 3 page speech, 1 for each yr I have known Father.

Father in his website, I quote, said “If I have done some good here, I am confident that it will last. If i leave with things unfinished, I am confident , if God wills, others will finish them.”Now, lets dissect these words of wisdom. “ If I have done some good here, I am confident that it will last”. I would like to affirm you Father that you have done lots of good work, seen and unseen, and they are here to stay. During my time, before your time here as chaplain, we did not have a priest who showed his presence on campus.

COSDU has been a single parent family throughout its 21 years until you adopted us at last year's AGM, we have since found a place to call our home which is where we are all gathered tonight. This physical home will be different from tomorrow onwards, but I thank God, not because you are leaving but because the people of Bathurst are going to enjoy your company, the same company we enjoyed. We pray you will enjoy it and they will treasure this gift from God to them as much as we treasure you.Let me tell you all something that I am pretty sure not many of you know. I only knew half of it until I stumbled upon the rest on the Bathurst Catholic website. It read, “He has worked as a producer and presenter on 3RRR-FM in Melbourne. He was also an early explorer of new video technologies, whose works have been shown at the Melbourne Fringe and St Kilda Film Festivals.” How cool is that...

Before I end, I know I have not reached 3 pages but then again how do you define pages, that would be an interesting topic for Father when he gets invited to a COSDU session in the coming years, as we all know of Father's interest in philosophy.

Alright my last story.... it has some bible connotations. Amanda and myself were walking with Father Michael last Holy Tuesday back to All Saints from the University. We asked him if he was thinking of going to Rome next year for the gathering of priests from around the world to celebrate the end of the year of St.John Vianney with the Holy Father. Father, who already knew of his Episcopal appointment replied, “Only if I get a personal invitation from the pope”. We just laughed it off and later on behind his back we said something along the lines of ”Who he think he is? not even bishop” This whole incident walking from uni to All Saints draws parallel to the Emmaus story and our eyes were open on Wednesday the 15th of April the moment Father said that the Pope has appointed two new bishops in Australia. I wish you well and I will end like Bishop Tim, see you in Bathurst!