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It might be 70 years before the new prince becomes king. Take the long view and the absurdity of an independent nation retaining a foreign monarch as its head of state is instantly apparent. But it's absurd now, too, and for the same reasons. Yet until there are political leaders who are willing to treat the republic as a matter of urgency, it will remain in the too-hard basket.
Fingers dipped into holy water, the grain of the cross drawn on skin. 'God speaks in silence,' he said with such certainty, as if he knew all things.
They follow a star, stirring light in their hearts more than the sky, to the margins, where even goats lose their footing. They make a silent journey, growing in hope that the child within and the Child without will recognise each other.
Religions are mesmerised and ruined by power but always pregnant with the possibility of humility. They are so easy to ignore. You'd be wise to sneer, with every reason imaginable for the curl of your knowing lip. Yet here I am, on Sunday morning, in the wedding reception tent, agog; not so much at the earnest idiot of a minister, but at everyone, sweetly, else.
Rudd's visit to Jakarta this week will be judged on the outcome of asylum seeker discussions. But he needs also to send a clear message about Australia's hopes for next year's presidential elections. Candidates include a former military commander with a dubious human rights record, and a civilian being described as Indonesia's Obama.
Sometimes the dark bird of discord is loosed, to circle massif and savannah, inciting acts of mayhem, orgies of slaughter. But sometimes the white bird of hope is released and the tears it weeps restore something like order.
Those who object to Indigenous people being called 'apes' and to white men painting themselves black are dismissed as being politically correct and denying free speech. But how can Adam Goodes choose not to be offended by comments conceived for the very purpose of justifying crimes against the racial group to which he belongs?
Fr Frank Brennan's keynote address at the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn Clergy Assembly, St Clement's, Gaylong, on 22 May 2013