If you are looking at a particular sermon and it is removed it is because it has been updated.

For example Year C 2010 is being replaced week by week with Year C 2013, and so on.

Friday 14 May 2021

7th Sunday of the Year (B) 2021

 

7th. Sunday of Year (B)

(Acts of the Apostles 1:15-17, 20-26; 1 John 4:11-16; St. John’s Gospel 17:11-19)

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I want to help you – as best I can – to appreciate the role the Word of God has in our lives as Catholic Christians, and to show you why we should not only reverence but really treasure it and, indeed, come to whole-heartedly delight in it.

In His priestly prayer to the Father Jesus, as you heard, said:

I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world any more than I am of the world; consecrate them in the truth.  Your word is truth.   As You sent Me into the world, so I sent them into the world.  And I consecrate Myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

And there, straightway, we have a very hard saying for too many in the Church today who are afraid of those words:

I have given them Your word and the world has hated them.

People of God, too many of prominence in Mother Church today cosy-up to the world, so to speak, by trying to soften, adapt, or even expunge from the Gospel -- by forgetting or omitting -- what is feared, because it might cause offence to modern ears.  And yet, Jesus’ own proclamation of the Gospel was always challenging because He never ‘tailored’ His teaching to please human expectations:

I did not speak on My own, but the Father who sent Me commanded Me what to say and speak, and I know that His commandment is eternal life. So, what I say, I say as the Father told Me.” (John 12:49–50)

That is why He always looked for faith in His own Person and obedience to His words of salvation before bestowing any gifts or offering any promises.  As even His most ardent enemies acknowledged:

Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.   (Luke 20:21)

Yes, dear Friends in Christ, let us wholeheartedly proclaim today what even Jesus’ own Personal enemies, the scribes and chief priest, did not dare to deny:

            You teach the way of God in truth;    

            I HAVE GIVEN THEM YOUR WORD.

Now, that Word is to be found not only in the Holy Scriptures, but supremely in Jesus Himself, for He is Personally the Word-of-God-made-flesh for us; the Word Who -- in order to ‘give them Your word’ in the fulness of divine charity -- also gave Himself up to death on the Cross because He recognized and embraced His Father’s love for us:

Father, the hour has come. Give glory to Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify You, just as You gave Him authority over all people, that He may give eternal life to all You gave Him.  Now this is eternal life, that they should know You, the only true God, and the One whom You sent, Jesus Christ.  I have glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work that You gave me to do. Now glorify Me, Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world began.

I am the Good Shepherd and know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father and lay down My life for the sheep.  I have other sheep also that are not of this fold; I must bring them also.  For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. (John 17:1–5; 10: 14-17))

The Word of God in the Scriptures is one with the Word of God Whose life we share in the Eucharist and through the Sacraments.  They cannot be separated, because:

            What God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19:6)

Let me recall those words of Jesus I quoted earlier:

I have given them Your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world.

Jesus has given us His Father’s word to be our battle standard and our protecting shield  against the surrounding miasma of the world’s  pride – ‘there is no God’ – and hypocrisy – ‘we do so much good’ --; and therefore the world hates all who believe that Word which, in its fulness, is God’s TRUTH.  For those who love that truth, however, Jesus ‘sanctifies, consecrates, Himself’ so that they may be sanctified in Truth.

Jesus sanctified Himself, consecrated Himself to God, by dying in the Cross of Calvary for love the Father of all Truth, and that is why He is able to sanctify all who are willing to consecrate themselves with Him for the glory of God by a life of obedience to and love for His Truth, by giving us a share in His own fulness of the Spirit of Holiness and Truth, the eternal bond of love between Father and Son.

Mother Church has been given the deposit of faith and treasury of grace, and Jesus is still making the Father known to us under the guidance and protection of the Spirit of Jesus given to her that He should abide with her throughout time for mankind’s salvation:

I tell you the truth.  It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.   And when He comes, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.  I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; however, when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.  (cfr. John 16:7-13)

What joy the Spirit of Truth brings to those who let Him guide them into all truth!!

That all is meant, first of all, for Mother Church who is to complete and fulfil Jesus’ Personal mission on earth for the whole of mankind.  But that all can also mean for us as individual members of Mother Church and disciples of Jesus, that He, the-Spirit- dwelling-in-our-mind-and-heart by the sacraments of Mother Church,  can guide us into all truth necessary for our own personal salvation and also into a full and appropriate understanding of that truth for our own personal relationship of love for the Father, in the Son our Saviour, by the Holy Spirit of Love and Truth bonding all together in the beatitude of God’s family and heavenly Kingdom.

Dear People of God, what wisdom it is that leads anyone to listen lovingly to, and hear humbly and obediently, that voice of God!  What commitment and courage it takes to take the necessary measures to cut out the world’s noise from the Spirit’s temple in the secret depths of one’s own dedicated mind and heart!!

 

 

 

Friday 7 May 2021

6th Sunday of Eastertide Year B 2021

 

6th. Sunday of Eastertide (B)

(Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1st. John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17)

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Today we have heard much about fraternal charity in our readings.  We know, of course, that Jesus said it was second only to love of God; indeed, He said that it could not be separated from love of God, for when asked:

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"   Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'   This is the first and great commandment.   And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40)

Why is it then, that that which is undoubtedly second, is popularly given so much emphasis that monks and nuns who dedicate their whole lives to the worship of God in solitude and seclusion are often said to be wasting their lives, which would be better spent in doing good to people?

The easiest answer is that the God we worship is Spirit, as Jesus said, and He must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth.  ‘Doing good’ to our neighbour is something much more easily appreciated, and people generally do like to appreciate themselves and be appreciated by others for the good they do.  And that is why Jesus’ words. “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” are thought by free-thinkers of a Christian persuasion to be inadequate for the level of perceptible virtue they  (!) aspire to.

There can be no doubt, however, that love of the Father was first and foremost in Jesus’ own life on earth and in His heavenly prayer for our well-being.  After all, we call the only prayer He gave us the “Our Father”, and in it we pray, first of all, to the Father, for His glory and for the coming of His Kingdom.  This is because Jesus wanted above all, to lead us into a personal relationship, in Him, with the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The second part of the prayer He gave us is for God’s family of which we are a part; emphasizing and cementing our oneness with, and appreciation of, our fellow disciples, each and every one of whom is our brother or sister in the Body of Christ and the family of God.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us the meaning and purpose of His whole life on earth when He says:

            I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

Likewise, willing that our lives as His disciples should have the same meaning and purpose as His, He therefore went on to say:

By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.  (John 15:8)

And the ultimate joy of His life and of ours too -- if we abide in Him -- will be the fact that:

If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.  (John 15:10)

Love of the Father is indeed the first and the greatest commandment.

What then is the real significance of the great emphasis given, especially in the letters and the Gospel of John, to love of neighbour?

Let us recall what John told us in his letter today:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  

It would seem that the whole purpose of John’s singular apostleship was to show that true love, Christian love, caritas, originates with, comes from, God the Father; it is, indeed, God’s very essence, and can only come into our lives as a most wonderful gift from God. And this he learnt from Jesus Who loved John so specially and Who most expressly declared what John alone tells us (15:12-14):

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this that One lay down His life for His friends.  You are My friends if you do what I command you.           

And In our readings today John insists -- in the name of Jesus -- that one, decisive, sign of the authenticity of our love from the Father we cannot see, is His love actively leading us to love the neighbour we do see as He would have us do.

Supreme personal love for neighbour can be shown in a committed sexless relationship of Christian friendship when as Jesus said, one lays down his or her life for a friend; and also when, in a sexual context, Christians marry: willingly dedicating themselves to each other, and sacrificing themselves -- sacramentally in Jesus -- for each other’s greater good and God’s supreme glory.  This they do by directing the course of their mutual human love along the ways of God’s commandments throughout their lives as one together.  That Christian married life is indeed a school of virtue, for such love calls for patience in difficulties and suffering, and perseverance in the giving of self for the good of the beloved; it is a life characterised by humble complementarity, not proud personal assertion; it is a life of faith: human faith, in the enduring worth and beauty of the one definitely chosen as spouse, for better, for worse, till death (God’s will) do us part; and divine faith in God’s sacramental and saving grace in His unfailing love.

But the fact is, that sinful human beings know so very, very little about holiness, so too, they know very little of ourselves.  You can see evidence of this every day in the world around us: our ‘respectable’ and ‘politically correct’ society identifies love with sentimentality or emotionalism and passion, with the result that many parents actually harm their children by the ‘love’ they mistakenly show them.  Again, the majority of worldly pleasure-seekers proclaim, by the pleasures they indulge in, that love -- for them -- means the shared pleasure of any and every sexual passion, which, being separated from, and independent of, any supreme moral law inevitably brings harm, first of all, to themselves. 

Just as the origin and nature of Christian love is divine caritas -- the Father’s love for His Son in the Holy Spirit -- so too its end is divine: we are called to love our neighbour in God.  We are not thereby called to manifestations of particular human love and special liking, but we are called to sincerely care for and promote our neighbour’s well-being according to his or her real need of our personal help; to love him or her as -- not more than -- we love ourselves in accordance with the commandments of God our Father Who is the supreme lover of all.  So, while we may not have to pat those in need on the back and seek to show ourselves as their special 'buddies', we are, most certainly, never allowed to harm them by, for example, seriously tarnishing their personal reputation, stirring up hatred against their race or creed, or refusing what help we alone can afford in their great need. 

As you heard in the first reading:

The gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on us and on the Gentiles also;

He is the Spirit of Holiness, given to lead all to holiness of life and love in God.  Our supreme mission in life is to let Him lead us and form us in Jesus for the Father: in that way alone do we truly keep the commandments.  And in order that He, the Spirit of Jesus, may be able to work in us and form us for Our Father’s heavenly kingdom, let us, therefore, humbly pray, and patiently prepare, for His coming to us as God’s Gift in our reception of Holy Communion at Holy Mass where Jesus leads us in Christianity’s most sublime act of worship of and love for the Father.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday 1 May 2021

5th Sunday of Eastertide Year B 2021

 

 5th. Sunday of Eastertide (B)

(Acts of the Apostles 9:26-31; 1st. Letter of St. John 3:18-24; Gospel of St. John 15: 4a 5b.

 

 

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine grower.  Remain in Me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.

 

Our modern post-Christian society and world still remembers Jesus with admiration, but not for His example in so far as it is an example to be followed:

           

I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.    (John 13:15)

 

Our world wants freedom of choice, freedom to be and become what each and every one of them may want to become.   They claim that they alone know the truth about themselves.

 

People today remember many of the words of Christ, but no longer accept the traditional Catholic and Christian understanding of those words Jesus originally committed to His Apostles and which the Holy Spirit of Jesus would recall to their memories for their proclamation of Jesus’ saving truth to the world.

 

Let us just glance at some of the promises Jesus made, first of all the greatest of all:

 

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of My hand.   (John 10:28)

 

That promise would be wonderful if it were true, but modern ‘scientifically inclined’ former church-goers, or just non-believers, are not disposed by their frequent watching of star-wars and inter-galactic conflicts to believe any such tales of ‘eternal life’!

 

Again, Jesus made a once very popular promise (John 14:27):

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

 

But once again, in our wealthy west, society itself does not want peace so much as excitement for the young, because such excitement -- seeking pleasure -- generates much money, and that bestows much power on those secret few who most want it.

And in the meanwhile, western governments are with pretended innocence deliberately seeking to change society according to idealistic plans that do not necessarily take into serious account the wishes of their people; and such ignored and disregarded desires can easily generate resistance against imposed cultures.  The hatred of persons, ‘racism’, so easily decried, is by no means always truly involved.  Nazi-ism was the result of many years deliberate, national, cultural development.

 

Ultimately, we come to the most treasured of Jesus’ promised gifts:

 

I gave them Your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. (John 17:14)

 

And most spiritual of all:

 

I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one, as We are One (John 17:22).

 

That ‘glory’ is the Most Holy Spirit of God, the Bond of Love between Father and Son, the bond of Christian Love and Obedience. 

 

Dear People of God, that is why Jesus and His Christian Faith and Catholic Church are now rejected because they embody, proclaim, and calmly demand loving obedience, humble gratitude, and great, personal and patient, expectations of God’s infinite and eternal Goodness!!