1st Sunday of Lent Year A 2023

 

1^st. Sunday of Lent (A),

(Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12:17-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

 

 

‘In the beginning’ the Serpent, speaking to the woman in the Garden of Eden but targeting the man – Adam -- who had been warned by God against eating fruit from the forbidden tree, directly contradicted God’s words:

You will not die.  For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

In today’s Gospel passage however, when speaking to the second Adam -- Jesus sent by His heavenly Father to be our Lord and Saviour -- the ‘Adversary’ of mankind, Satan, considered it wiser not to openly contradict the words spoken by the Father at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan:

 This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased, (Matthew 3:17-4:1)

because he was not sure with Whom he was dealing.  And therefore, being somewhat hesitant, instead of directly contradicting what the Father had said, he tried to insinuate some seed of doubt into the mind of this challenger from Nazareth:

            If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

Jesus’ period of testing in the desert had gone on for a full forty days and nights, and the devil apparently thought that a few carefully chosen words of his at the end of it, when Jesus was physically close to exhaustion, might cause Him to wonder whether His visionary experience at His baptism by John in the Jordan had been as real as He had first thought.  Satan hoped that Jesus -- having been very much alone for forty days and nights and now feeling very weak from starvation -- might seize an opportunity to both satisfy His hunger and bolster up His morale, so to speak, under the pretext of showing him, Satan, to be mistaken and wrong

However, Jesus had no burgeoning doubt to assuage, no clamouring hunger demanding satisfaction as soon as possible; He had nothing to prove to Himself, and He had no intention whatsoever of giving Satan the satisfaction of an answer to his question.  Jesus, therefore, made it supremely clear where He found His true nourishment:

He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' "

Jesus, the Son of God, sent, as Messiah, to save God's People from their servitude to sin, was being tempted as the early Israelites had been, when they were being led through the desert towards the Promised Land under the guidance of Yahweh their God and the leadership of Moses their prophet.   On that journey, Israel of old -- sinful children of their sinful mother Eve -- had behaved as she did: they would not to trust God and, on beginning to feel the pangs of hunger, they complained bitterly against Moses saying that God was planning to kill them in the desert.  They openly expressed their longing for a return to the slavery of Egypt where food was plentiful.  Later on Moses reminded them of their behaviour saying:

Remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.  So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger.  Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness.      (Deuteronomy 8:2-3; 9:7)

Jesus, on the other hand, had shown Himself to be in no way subject to that over-riding solicitude for self which is characteristic of fallen humanity: suffering and trial could not lead Him either to suspect His Father or abuse His gifts.  Satan therefore turned his attention from Jesus’ human make-up, to His divine mission: he homed in on Jesus’ desire to be recognized and accepted as the Redeemer and Saviour of Israel.

Satan had noted Jesus’ reference to the Scriptures and so, continuing his attempt to find out just Who Jesus might be, he took Him to the Holy City, Jerusalem, set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said: ‘Here, on this pinnacle of the world-famous Jewish temple is just the spot to prove yourself and win your people.   Here, you can do something that would resound throughout Israel and it would be fully in accordance with the Scriptures You quote so lovingly; it would be something whereby the whole Jewish nation could easily recognize that the Lord has chosen and appointed you, therefore:

If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'

Jesus,  unmoved, replied:

            It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'

Now we, who have -- as St. Paul says -- ‘the mind of Christ’, know that Jesus had not come among men for His own human aggrandisement or satisfaction, nor had He entered upon His divine mission for the well-being of Israel alone: He had come, He had been sent by His Father, for the salvation of the whole of mankind.

Satan, however, knew neither Jesus nor His Mission fully, and his temptations were only diabolically cunning shots-in-the-dark.  He seems to have disdainfully thought that any human-being could be tempted successfully provided that the stakes were high enough; therefore he made one further attempt to derail Jesus’ Mission:

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.

At that moment Satan -- in the fullness of his maniacal pride and ambition -- overreached himself, and Jesus, no longer tolerating his presence, responded by a manifestation of His own authority, before adding the words of Scripture:

Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'

‘Away with you, Satan!’   Words cannot express the loathing, revulsion, and anger of Jesus’ reply … but we can recall that years after, at the very end of His mission,  He relived once again -- and once more rejected with startling vehemence -- this desert experience when Peter tried to persuade Him to follow an easier path than that of the Cross (Matthew 16:23):

He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."          

In the temptations of Jesus in the desert we recall, as I have mentioned, Israel’s trials in the desert of Sinai on the way to the Promised Land, in particular the occasion when Moses told the Israelites:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him.     (Deuteronomy 6:10-14)

Now Jesus sums up, and fulfils, in Himself the history and calling of Israel, the Chosen People; but He also prepares for the future world-wide People of God, the Church that would be His Body and Bride, the Church whose Head and Saviour He would be.   Therefore, these temptations of Jesus in the desert are to be understood in all the fulness of their purpose and meaning: they are for mankind’s salvation and for the  instruction and confirmation of all who would be His disciples.

We can recognize ourselves in the first temptation of Jesus, for violent people say so often these days, “I, we, had no alternative”, “we have to bring the world’s attention to this matter”, “we have to register a protest”.  These people always find themselves obliged, driven, to do what is otherwise inexcusable.  Let us learn from Jesus, People of God, starving after 40 days and nights in the desert, He would in no way abuse His divine gifts to get earthly satisfaction.  Nothing can oblige, or allow, a Christian to do what is against God’s teaching.

Again, in all three temptations of Jesus, Satan endeavoured to stir up suspicion of God’s love and providential care.  How many Christians, today, succumb to this temptation!  They fall away from God because they begin to doubt that He is with them, they are not sure He is hearing them, they are unaware of His helping, guiding, hand in their lives.  “I don’t feel anything; He makes no sign.  If only I could be conscious of His presence, if He would only answer, I would be satisfied.”  In some such way they begin to demand a sign from God, a sign to convince them that His Providence is with them; and some,  on receiving no such sign, turn away from the true Faith and seek refuge in religious sects which provide them with all sorts of pseudo-divine signs.

Still others try to stir up signs for themselves by rashly setting aside faith and reasonable behaviour and pushing themselves to become neurotically excited and disturbed.  You will see some of these in popular churches doing all sorts of strange antics or excessive practices, and how many pseudo-Muslims worship their god because he allows them to cherish and seek, seek, seek, revenge.

Many Catholic, however, complaining that God is silent in their lives, simply fall away from the Faith; and, as it were returning to Egypt's slavery, turn aside to enjoy the pagan life-style of the surrounding society, trying to forget their conscience in a maelstrom of worldly endeavours, comforts, pleasures, distractions, and inevitable worries.

Finally, in the third temptation of Jesus we have the situation of those who do indeed set out to do the work of God – proclaiming Catholic teaching, and trying to explain its truth and show its beauty -- but allow themselves to become discouraged at little result or apparent failure.   They then resort to making just a few slight compromises and minimal accommodations acceptable to popular tastes, done with the apparently laudable aim of recording success where previously there had only been what seemed failure.  Thenceforth, however, all the high aims and loving purposes still being avowedly pursued are increasingly subject to their too human desire for results, good results, successful results, above all, acceptable results.  The ultimate end for such victims of the devil's deceits is that, far from worshipping God as they started out, they end up worshipping the devil in his very best clothes!  They worship him who gives them humanly appreciable and acceptable success in God's works!   They both distrust and fear the humility, the waiting and trusting, the hoping and praying, involved in worshipping God whole-heartedly, and then leaving the  results to Him alone.   

Our evangelist, however, would have us never forget that, when Jesus had successfully overcome His trials:

            The devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

And we too, now turn to God’s abiding Gift, with us in Mother Church, and in us, through true faith and the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus, and trustfully beg Him to lead us, strengthen us, in the ways of Jesus, that we may -- in life and death -- give glory to God our Father, forward the salvation of all those of good will, and in the life to come, find our own ultimate fulfilment as children of God able to sit at the festal table of God’s heavenly rejoicing in His heavenly Kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7th Sunday Year A 2023

 

7th. Sunday of the Year (A)

(Leviticus 19: 1-2, 17-18; First Corinthians 3:16-23; St. Matthew 5:38-48)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, those opening words recalled by Jesus are somewhat blood-chilling to our ears:

 

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’’

 

However, they were actually intended, we are told, to keep the instinctive desire for personal revenge/retribution -- which the Law condemned, as you heard in our first reading, Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people – within publicly appreciable and containable limits, so to speak.

The propensity to unbridled and endless revenge, so very common to fallen mankind in general, and which even to this very day so bitterly afflicts peoples living and suffering in middle-eastern regions, was thus opposed by divine revelation from the beginning,  and that is why Jesus Himself said repeatedly:

 

If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.  (Matthew 6:14-15)

 

Last week I mentioned that Matthew’s Gospel was meant for his own congregation of former Jewish believers and synagogue worshippers, now converted, or perhaps in the process of conversion, to Christianity; and in today’s Gospel reading Matthew presents Jesus as enforcing that original divine opposition to revenge, by urging His hearers to most carefully avoid any actions that might provoke retaliation.

 

When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well.

 

Jesus then went on to declare the same in a yet more decisive manner:

 

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

 

Now, there is no O.T. biblical text that commands hatred of one’s enemy; which shows that Jesus was relating to, and quoting, current words and popular attitudes, which He then went on to correct by proposing the only suitable attitude for His followers in such situations;  He was not prescribing detailed procedures to be carried out literally in His name.

Notice also that Jesus’ words are adapted by Matthew for his own particular congregation when He continues:

 

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?   Do not the tax-collectors do the same?  And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that?  Do not the pagans/Gentiles do the same?

 

Former Pharisees and practicing Jews would feel at ease with such references to very old adversaries!  And Jesus’ last quoted words here are ideally suited for a former Jewish and newly-Christian congregation:

                            So be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect;

 being easily acceptable -- and to a measure more readily understandable -- for those who had previously sought for perfection under the Jewish Law.

So, People of God, we must be aware that Matthew In his Gospel was trying to help former Jews/Pharisees to truly understand their Christian faith; and we, for our part, must not in any way allow people of our times -- who no longer have any Catholic /Christian faith and have acquired, adopted, lots of edge against it and opposition to its propagation -- to suggest that Jesus in today’s Gospel passage is wanting to make us into Christian Pharisees: do this action and you will get that spiritual reward!

Jesus later on, when Himself addressing the Rich Young Man who wanted to be perfect, said, again according to St. Matthew (19:21):

 

If you wish to be perfect (same word as earlier), go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, FOLLOW ME.

 

Perfection for Christians is a gift, it is not the result of a transaction, nor is it an  acquisition:  it is a gift given by the Father, through the Spirit, to those whosoever – be they perhaps former tax collectors or even pagans cum Gentiles -- now humbly loving and obeying the Person of Jesus in His Church, working for the redemption of mankind and the glory of God.   As St. Paul said:

             Everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas (that is, the Church),                 or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you,              and you to Christ, and Christ to God.       

 

 

6th Sunday Year A 2023

 

6^th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Sirach 15:15-20; 1^st. Corinthians 2:6-10); Matthew 5:17-37)

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We should be eternally grateful for the gift of the Faith which we have received, dear People of God, because it is the very wisdom of God, a wisdom which can lead us to that heavenly glory for which the Father chose us in Jesus, His beloved, only-begotten-Son, and Our Lord and Saviour:

 I have revealed Your Name to those whom You gave Me out of the world. They belonged to You and You gave them to Me and they have kept Your word.  (John 17:6) 

This God-given wisdom, this keeping of His word revealed to us in and by Jesus, is not something the Pharisees and Scribes, the Temple hierarchy and their officials, appreciated in His days on earth, for they were most diligent in their endeavours to entrap Jesus in His speech that they might crucify Him all the more quickly.  Consequently, we are not surprised that in our modern world -- every bit as ‘evil and adulterous’ as Judea in Jesus’ days -- the ‘woke’, moralists, demagogues with neither authority nor science; and the ‘pure’ scientists, with no appreciation of the fulness of human nature yet scanning planets over limitless distances for the slightest traces of possible human life, while  refusing to recognize the face of God in the beautiful universe He created, all laugh at us too:

         If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but you do not belong             to the world now that I have chosen you out of the world, and for that reason the             world hates you.    (John 15:19) 

Such opposition and disregard, however, actually serve to deepen our bond with Jesus:

           Remember what I said: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will also keep yours.   And they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me.  (John 15:20-21) 

Our gratitude and confidence, however, must never slide into complacency or pride, because we are taught that no one can become truly wise without having a reverential fear of the Lord, as you heard in our first reading:

            The eyes of God are on those who fear Him; to none does He give license to sin.

Reverential fear of the Lord is the root of wisdom and the anchor of faith.  Faith, however, calls for more than the obedience required by reverential fear; it calls for some initial appreciation of, and commitment to, the supreme beauty and  sublimity of God in Himself; it evokes heart-felt gratitude for His great goodness to us now in this present life, and an all-transcending hope for His sublime plans/promises for our eternal future. Such faith, dear People of God, can, and is intended to, gradually nurture in us -- even here on earth -- a heart-warming  foretaste of God’s supporting love and understanding, before leading us to its ultimate fulfilment by our sharing, as adopted children of God, in Jesus’ Own heavenly beatitude of eternal life and love.

And yet, because the worldly and the ‘woke’ loathe obedience in the intimate details of their lives, and want to choose for themselves from the many and varied pleasures of pride and sensuality, or to rejoice in a pseudo personal awareness of moral superiority over others around them, they all love to ridicule religious faith and deny the existence or relevance of any God.

For our part, however, we who come to worship with full intent and quiet sincerity, praise the God we desire to know and love better; we long to walk the way His word traces out for us; aspiring to love with our whole being -- mind and body, heart and soul -- Him Whom we know gave His only-begotten Son for love of us, and Who has, St. Paul assures in our second reading:

         Prepared for those who love Him, (blessings) no eye has seen, no ear has heard,             no mind conceived. (1 Corinthians 2:9) 

We come, as the psalmist says, prepared to ‘sow in tears’, if need be, so that we might reap a personal share in the Divine love and fellowship which is eternal.

 Our Gospel reading today is difficult to fully understand because it comes to us from St. Matthew’s evangelisation of his own Church congregation of former Jewish believers and synagogue worshippers, and consequently it refers to  issues at the back of their minds which are not part of our make-up.  For that reason, today we can only follow the chief ‘headlines’, so to speak, of Jesus’ words in the Gospel; and, as if to prepare His disciples and us for what He was about to say, Jesus began by saying: 

         Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to             abolish, but to fulfil. 

Therefore, His disciples would need to be very careful in their understanding and observance of the Law’s commands, as He went on to say:

         Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will               not enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus, did not want cold, meticulous, literal observance of laws written in letters of carved stone, but an obedience such as I earlier described as needed for our Catholic Faith-life.  He therefore went on to make clear His own deeper appreciation and understanding of the Law of Moses on certain most serious issues.

         You have heard it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’, 

Jesus went on to give them His own fuller appreciation of this understanding of the commandment by explaining that God’s refusal to allow anyone to rob a man of his life by murder, also implied and required that no one should rob him of his reputation either, by mordent, bitter words and lies meant to harm and to hurt. 

 He next spoke expressly and most emphatically against sexual infidelity and divorce:

              You shall not commit adultery.

Here He both deepened and elevated the issue by, on the one hand going on to speak of lust of the eyes supplying for physical adultery; while, on the other hand, speaking of divorce as a procedure incurring the danger and the charge of causing a rejected wife to commit adultery.  Moreover, those who went along with divorce by marrying any such divorcee would be themselves committing adultery.

Against taking oaths, He speaks in our sense of using the Lord’s name in vain, and urged simplicity and humility when speaking:

         Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’ mean ‘No’.  Anything more is from the             evil one. 

Jesus knew Himself as having been most definitely sent to fulfil the Law; and so sure was He of the validity of the Law that He solemnly declared:

         Amen I say to you: until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the         smallest part of a letter, will pass from the Law until all things have taken place. 

Therefore when, speaking of the Law and current Jewish practices, although several times He went on to add:

             You have heard that it was said to your ancestors …. But I say to you; 

Jesus was in no way abolishing the Law, but teaching His Apostles, His Church, you and me, how to live and die with Him for the greater glory of God, for His Kingdom on earth, and for the true fulfilment of our brothers and sisters in the world of our time.

Jesus’ main grief against the Scribes and Pharisees was:

            This people honours Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.                        Hypocrites!  Your pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin; but you have overlooked          the weightier demands of the Law – justice, mercy, and good faith.  (Matthew                15:8; 23:23) 

And we have so much of that today, People of God!

Many of those with no faith in, no acknowledgement of, God, love to take up particular social issues along with religious aspects of Christianity -- bits and pieces perhaps of remembered Catholic teaching -- and put themselves forward as the correct interpreters of those bits and pieces of religious teaching ripped out of the context of the fullness of Catholic faith, and understanding them merely as words. 

Dear People of God, do not get embroiled with faithless people arguing about words of faith!

 In the beginning:

         The Lord God took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate             and care for it.  The Lord God gave man this order, ‘You are free to eat from any             of the trees of the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  From             that tree you shall not eat! 

Now notice how Satan started arguing about words:

             The serpent asked the woman, ‘Did God really tell you not to eat from any of                 the trees in the garden?’

God actually said to Adam as you have just heard:

             ‘You are free to eat from any of the trees except one’ 

Dear fellow disciples of Jesus, how true and how beautiful, are these following words of Our Blessed Lord  (John 15:11; 16:33):

         In this world you will have trouble, (but) I have told you this so that My joy may             be in you and that your joy may be complete.  Take heart!  I have overcome the             world, that in Me you may have peace.

 So, though facing mockery and opposition for our faith, we have the soul-satisfying joy of being close enough to Jesus to be able to suffer something for Him in return; and, what is more, in so doing we are being endowed with the protection and guidance of His most Holy Spirit, to be not only with us in Mother Church, but even to be in us His obedient disciples, for which we give whole-hearted thanks to God for His Fatherly love.    

 

 

5th Sunday of the Year A 2023

 

5^th. SUNDAY of Year (A)

(Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16)

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               You are the salt of the earth.

With those words, Jesus wanted to impress upon His disciples an awareness of their dignity and responsibility.

You, He says – not the official representatives of the Jewish Synagogue – You who are following and hearing Me, You who are perhaps beginning to order your lives according to My words and not according the traditions of the Pharisees and their Scribes,

            You are the salt of the earth.

Salt was, in those days, obtained from evaporated pools by the shore of the Dead Sea, or from small lakes on the edge of the Syrian Desert which dry up in the summer.  This salt crust, dug from the soil, contained various impurities which, when the salt was dissolved and removed, remained as useless refuse.

Could that be the possibly double meaning of those mysterious following words of Jesus:

But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot;

a reference perhaps, on the one hand, to the obvious fact that once the original clod of salty earth had lost its salt content nothing but useless refuse remained; while, on the other hand, hinting at possibly disastrous consequences if disciples were to lose their purified saltiness.

Those disciples whom Jesus was addressing as ‘salt of the earth’ were actually following Him around and gladly listening to His words; and they, Jesus was saying, could be purified from their earthy contagions and become pure salt for His, and for God’s, purposes; if, that is, their following Him were to become obedience to Him, and if their hearing of His words were to develop into appreciation and understanding of them, and ultimately, to faith in Himself.

Disciples who are true lovers of Jesus, dear People of God, can never be artificial, overly delicate, characters.  No!  They are of-the-earth, ‘gotten’ from the basic humanity created by God, and found originally ‘good’ in His sight’  As such, thanks to Jesus’ saving Death and Resurrection. they can be cleansed of supervening sin and become fully and most truly human, indeed, salt of the earth in the way we commonly mean the expression, by the washing of Jesus’ Gospel which, even now in our days, is still to be heard in Mother Church, and can be accepted through repentance, and embraced in the power of His Most Holy Spirit, still available through her sacraments.

            Now, you are clean by reason of the word I have spoken to you. (Jn. 15:3)

 

Jesus then went on to tell them:

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

The picture of a city on a hill- or mountain-top, stems from the message of the Old Testament prophets (cp. Isaiah 2:2–3) concerning the future rule of God:

In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills.  All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: “Come, let us climb the LORD’S mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths.”  For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And in today’s Gospel passage we hear Jesus saying to His disciples:  

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden   Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

The light of this city of God, shining, as the prophets foretold, in the darkness of the world, cannot be hidden; that is quite simply impossible, for it is illuminated by the glory of the Lord.  Jesus’ true disciples are authentic denizens of that city and so they too cannot fail to shine out -- or in more modern terms, stand out from today’s masses who glory in the light of the world, and, hope to taste all that it seems to offer them.  And so confident are they in the light of the world they are enjoying that they ‘demand’ the blessing of the Church of England under threat of otherwise losing its national appellation and prestige, or the blessing of the Catholic, universal, Church under threat of open and vicious persecution, preceded by an intellectual muddying of the waters of salvation for children yet unborn.

Notice however, that the disciples of Jesus do not have to make strenuous efforts to be seen by men; indeed, Our Blessed Lord Himself has warned them:

Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. (Matthew 6:1)

For our purposes, however, a more literal translation from the original Greek and the Latin Vulgate, puts it most pertinently:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.

Our Lord, therefore, said that, on the one hand, our light must shine in the sight of men, but He also told us to be careful not to make a show of our religion, nor of our personal piety, before men.  The light of the city of God shines out by itself, and in the same way, the light of its inhabitants – the true disciples of, and witnesses to, Christ – will not fail to shine and be seen, because they are a light set burning by God Himself, and Our Lord solemnly assures us:

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.

God lights the lamp of Christ’s disciples – by calling them to faith in Jesus --in order that it may give light to all His children in the world; and our endeavour should be that in everything we may be true to the soil from which we are dug – God’s original creation and the unity of Christian fellowship – and true to the purifying word of Christ, so that we:

(may) be found in Him, not having any righteousness of (our) own based on the Law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith. (Philippians 3:9)

 

Today, in our Western, God-denying and self-worshipping, societies, people generally only acknowledge, and children are only taught about, a ‘law’ emanating from governmental authority and supported by popular acceptance. They are societies in which people, increasingly, dare no longer publicly acknowledge a moral difference between right and wrong: avowing only what is legal, as distinct from what is unlawful and unapproved, and what is permitted, as against what is dangerous and possibly criminal, such as daring to stand silently praying even in the vicinity of an abortion clinic!!

 

Let us finally look a little more closely at those who were addressed as ‘You’ in Jesus’ words?  Crowds had come to Him and we are told that:

When He saw the crowds, He went up the mountain, and after He had sat down, His disciples came to Him.

Then He pronounced what we call ‘The Beatitudes’ speaking in general of ‘those who mourn’, ‘the meek’, even ‘those who are persecuted’; but He only became directly personal in His words when He said:

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of Me.

Those blessed witnesses to Christ are those to whom He then went on to say, ‘You are the salt of the earth.’

Today, our modern legislators, men of money and power perhaps, women of renown and persuasion perhaps, are increasingly legislators not for an equality which is impossible: undesirable for the majority, and even unviable, in a society of free-born individuals; they are becoming legislators against faith in general, and against Christianity in particular.  Above all, however, they are becoming discriminators against, even haters of, Jesus Himself:

Blessed are you when they persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of Me.

Today’s Gospel, calls upon all Catholics and Christians to hold ever harder on to  their ‘saltiness’: that is, to their native human one-ness with and love for their fellows, including even their persecutors, but above all, to the Person of Jesus the Christ, by their endeavours to deepen and strengthen their commitment to His saving Gospel, and by bearing public witness to Him, in the courage and strength of God’s abiding Gift: His most Holy Spirit of Truth and Power, ever with us and for us in the sacraments and life of Mother Church.

That was the model Paul himself gave, as we heard in the second reading:

When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I came to you in weakness.  My message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Today, dear People of God, we do not see much ‘demonstration of the Spirit and Power’; what then, is our faith as Catholics based on mere human wisdom as is the case with the modern German Church which wants to remain Catholic, but ‘different’: based not on Catholic traditional values for which countless martyrs have shed their blood over thousands of years, but on the suggestions and propositions of any Tom, Dick, and Harry, any Molly, Mildred, and Margaret keen to vocalize and promote themselves along the Synodal Pathway, and on the decisions of those choosing to be prominent and influential in an extremely rich gathering of rootless religious, nominal Catholic, but whose only stable name today is German.  Or is it really, South German??

No, dear Catholic People, though we do not today see much demonstration of Power and Spirit so necessary for the original evangelisation of unenlightened pagans, our faith today rests on the traditional teaching and practice of the Catholic, Universal, Church founded upon the Apostles whom Jesus chose, and to whom He said, ‘I have told you all that I have heard from My Father; the Holy Spirit Whom I shall send you will recall to your minds all that I have said to you’:

 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows Him.  But you know Him, because He remains with you (in Mother Church), and will be in you (personally). (John 14:16–17)

Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words; yet the word you hear is not Mine but that of the Father Who sent Me.  The Advocate, the Holy Spirit the Father will send in My name — He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. (John 14:24, 26)

I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from My Father.  (John 15:15)

Dear People of God, every week, here at Mass in the house of the Lord, we open our human minds and hearts to the Saviour Who, in the name of His heavenly Father, loves us beyond measure, that we might be enlightened by His teaching, inflamed with His very presence, and endowed and empowered by the abiding Gift of His Most Holy Spirit.