4th Sunday Year B, 2024

  

(Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1^st Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28)

Moses had found the Israelites both hard to teach and reluctant to obey the words given him by the Lord for their observance; so perhaps there was some overtone of irony in his voice when, as we heard in our first reading, he said to them:

A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen.

We, however, are not like those Israelites of old; and so, let us recall and try to profitably consider what is of supreme importance from that first reading today:

Moses spoke to the people saying: ‘The LORD said to me, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put My words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him”.

We then heard why it would be so very important for them to listen to the promised prophet better than they had listened to Moses himself:     

If any man will not listen to My words which he (the prophet) speaks in My name, I Myself will make him (that person) answer for it.

After Moses, the Lord did indeed raise up a series of prophets: great prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others, whose messages live on in the Bible, and yet others whose names alone are remembered; but even though they spoke faithfully, and -- at times -- most beautifully, in the name of the God of Israel, we find throughout the Bible that their message was largely ignored:

I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me. (Jeremiah 35:15-16)

Or, as Isaiah put it more dramatically (42:18-20):

Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see.  You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; your ears are open, but none hears.

A prophet was called and sent to speak a message given him by God.  However, should a prophet betray his calling by substituting his own words for the word of God – which was always a possibility because of human sinfulness and the importance and attention accorded to a recognized prophet – God had also most solemnly warned:

If a prophet presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.

And so, though the Lord took great care to have His word faithfully proclaimed and publicly appreciated in Israel, nevertheless, His true prophets were frequently ignored by the people; and indeed, opposed, and even physically oppressed, by their leaders who were inclined to listen only to what they wanted to hear, rather than to the word the Lord their God chose to send them (Matthew 23:37):

O Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!

Nevertheless, Moses’ promise of a special prophet to come was not forgotten by pious Israelites, neither was their conviction that his message would be of decisive

importance for the fulfilment of Israel’s destiny.  You can, therefore, appreciate the significance of the question put to John the Baptist by a delegation of Jews from the authorities in Jerusalem:

 Are you the Prophet?”   

Recall also, in this connection, the voice of the Father speaking from heaven to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Jesus’ transfiguration:

This is My beloved Son.  LISTEN TO HIM!  (Mark 9:7)

Believers of today now know the reason why the Prophet promised by Moses would speak infallibly in God’s name: it is because that Prophet was the very Word of God Himself Who became one of us as Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth:

Jesus answered, "My doctrine is not Mine but His Who sent Me.  I and My Father are One."  (John 7:16, 10:30)

So, People of God, you are in a position to understand that when Jesus spoke, He did so with authority, a God-given authority, not as the scribes; and that why, as we were told:

The people were astonished at His teaching.

Now, that same Jesus speaks to us today, indeed, He is speaking now, in your midst, as I proclaim His word in His name; and we must always bear in mind that He was, and still is, the Saviour of those, and only those, who want to be saved, who will “Repent”.  Many to whom He spoke and who heard His teaching would not accept His teaching-with-authority and, consequently, did not acknowledge His Person; those He left them to themselves, He did not seek to force Himself upon them.

And now today, each of us here must be prepared to answer a question arising from the  secret depths of our Catholic mind and heart: “Do I want Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour, or do I want to be left in the indolence of my own comfort and indifference? Do I want to be rescued from my sinfulness or not?  What, indeed, do I want, here, before God?”

Yes, dear People, if you really want Jesus to be your Saviour, a Rock of strength and support for you, a Light to reveal the authentic beauty of God’s saving will for you, and to guide you into the joy of walking, by His Spirit, along the path He has traced out for you.  If you want God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- to be your earthly joy and promise of eternal blessedness, your earthly light leading to heavenly glory; IF you want to become -- in Jesus -- a true child of God, then you must give Him authority in your life now, here on earth.  Jesus is no tyrant, He will not arrogate such authority to Himself; but if you humbly and faithfully give it to Him, He will use it for your great, eternal blessing.

Listen now to Our Lord Himself again (John 7:16-17):

My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone wants to do His will, he will know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.

“If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know, he will realize …”  God has done His work by giving us His Son --- Who suffered, died, and rose again for us --- and His Spirit, to guide and form us as His children in His beloved Son; and now, we have to choose: “If anyone wants”, Jesus said, “to do God’s will, he will know the truth of My teaching.” Jesus never fails His People;  but not all those who call themselves Christians and Catholics actually want, or do choose, Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour.  Far too many concede Him the titles of Lord and Saviour indeed, but not the authority of Lord and Master in their lives. 

In a sinful world, ‘authority’ easily brings to mind an objectionable, domineering attitude, that has to be resisted, or at least submerged and forgotten in a flood of emotional words and deeds. And yet, true love cannot be exercised without right authority: God the Father sent His Son among us; His Son obediently came into our world at the behest of, and out of supreme love for, His Father; and in every Christian household, loving parents must guide, and when necessary correct, with right authority their children.

See, dear People of God, when Jesus used those words, The Father and I are One: He was speaking about authority and obedience, command and love, as being complimentary manifestations of the absolute one-ness of divinity; He was speaking about the dignity,  understanding, and the totally selfless mutual commitment, uniting the Father and Himself as Son, in the work of our salvation, through their most Holy Spirit.

Dear People of God, Mother Church’s traditional faith, is God’s saving truth.  Mother Church’s sacraments give us God’ grace.  We recognize and acknowledge that Truth; we follow, and are grateful for, that grace, in our lives.  But our hearts are moved to love -- in return -- by Beauty.  Our Blessed Lady loved Jesus as God’s ‘gift’, as her own Son, but ultimately, above all, she loved Him for being the sublimely beautiful Person she had seen, come to know ever-more-deeply, and experienced -- full heart-and-soul -- Him to be.  We recognize and acknowledge the traditional faith of Mother Church, we are grateful for her God-given sacraments which are God’s chosen channels of our salvation … but, the supreme fulfilment of our Christian and Catholic being is only to be found in the measure-of-our-awareness of the Personal Beauty of the God behind them; the God Who supports them; the God and Father of us all Who bestows them.    

3rd Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Jonah 3: 1-5, 10; 1^st. Corinthians 7: 29-31; Mark 1: 14-20)

In the Gospel reading today we have St. Mark’s account of Our Lord’s proclamation to Israel at the beginning of His public ministry, and we can expect that this might well contain something absolutely central to His teaching:

This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

He declares the imminent proximity of that which had been foretold by the prophets and longed for by the faithful for over a thousand years. What joy!  God has been mindful of His People, has seen their distress, and is now about to bring them salvation!  What then should they do to welcome Him and embrace the salvation He offers? 

            Repent …… and believe in the Gospel!

Notice the order of the words.  “Repent” comes first; then, “believe in the Gospel”.  Repentance has to come first in order for us to be able to believe in the Gospel, as Jesus says elsewhere, those who seek the Truth will recognize the divine provenance of His, Jesus’, words.    Israel had learnt -- from their inability to keep God’s Law as given them through the prophet Moses -- the reality of the sinfulness alienating them from their God; and such awareness did indeed entitle them to be known as the People of God because it was unique in the world of that time, and enabled them to have a unique appreciation of the transcendent holiness of the one true God.

If Jesus had presented Himself as a charismatic leader come to drive the Romans out of the Promised Land, then there would not have been a call to repentance, the first thing would have been a call to arms: “Aux armes, citoyens” as the French cry in their national anthem; and Jesus would have been merely a somewhat bigger and better version of Judah’s legendary King David, who had, in a measure, foreshadowed Jesus in his beautiful – but, at times, overpoweringly fragile – humanity, and in the disarming sincerity of his love of God in a life scarred, nevertheless, by political and personal scheming.

Jesus, however, was the very Word and only-begotten Son of God, made flesh; and He came with a message concerning Israel’s intimate relationship with her God, not her political status with Rome; for in order to embrace God’s offer of salvation it was, and still is, necessary to recognise, acknowledge, and humbly accept, the truth of God’s charge of individual sinfulness and corporate responsibility.  None can appreciate God’s Truth offering salvation who are not willing to hear His Truth telling them of their need to be saved from sin: their own sin and the resultant sinfulness of their world.  A disciple of Jesus must first of all be willing to repent in that personal way in order to wholeheartedly receive and believe the Good News of the Gospel, offering purification from his or her old sinful ways and transformation into what is new and Godly, child-like and Divine.

John the Baptist required of those coming forward to receive ritual purification by his immersing them in the waters of the river Jordan something that modern society can appreciate, namely works; works, however, of a deeply religious significance:

You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.         

And when the crowds questioned him, saying, ‘what shall we do?’, he would answer them with examples he considered acceptable to God as signs of their turning away from the sin hitherto too prevalent in their lives:

The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise. (Luke 3: 7-8, 10-11)

Jesus, however, goes much deeper, indeed, to the very root of Israel’s sinfulness; His first words are straight to the point::

            Repent, and believe in the Gospel  (Show true repentance by believing My Truth).

For people rarely do even good works from pure motives: those practically-minded can be genuinely trying to help others, but also wanting to prove their own human (‘good fellow, good woman’) individual worth.  Others, more intellectual, can pronounce themselves to be ‘very proud of what they do’, because it shows that they have no need of redemption, or  any other sort of  ‘saving’ by a so-called God.

Today, dear People of God, the very best works our disbelieving world has to offer are works of personal generosity or human endeavour, on the part of those performing them; but they are not works of goodness, flowing from the  transcendent goodness of the almighty and eternal God Who is the Father of us all.

Now Jesus willed and wanted all His disciples’ works to be done with humility, and for love of God,  because He Himself came among us to live and die for love of His Father and to suffer for love of us.  therefore, He said:

            Repent -- root and branches -- and believe – wholeheartedly -- in the Gospel.

Salvation is an offer from God, of eternal blessedness as a child of God, to one who has believed in His only-begotten Son sent among men to save them.  The ancient scriptures had long proclaimed that human kind is not -- as Buddhists like to think -- on a level with earthly things, part of, and essentially bound up with creation around us.  For Moses and the prophets told God’s chosen people that only humankind had been originally made in the image and likeness of God. And Jesus was now come to proclaim and to offer that, in Him -- the Son of God made flesh -- our sin-scarred likeness to God could be restored and brought to the ultimate joy of its heavenly fulfilment and perfection. 

Today there are very many who do not want to hear about human dignity transcending  the rest of creation, because they do not want to be called to strive for anything other than what they can immediately see, hear, taste and enjoy.  They do not want to aspire for yet higher things, they seek to just enjoy, get as much as they can -- here and now -- out of what they have got, or lies at hand.  Consequently, the idea that human beings have a greater dignity and a higher destiny than that of the world around us seems to them a preposterous suggestion, because it is, first of all, an unwelcome one.

God sent His Son to take on human flesh as perfect God and perfect Man, showing us both the possibility and the way to become truly one with God:

            I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Such oneness cannot be attained by any merely human works, and that is why Jesus did not, first of all, call for works; rather He demanded, first of all, faith in His own Personal Being and in the truth of His Gospel, whereby human beings might be lifted up to a heavenly level by the sheer goodness of God, in Jesus, through the Spirit.  Heaven cannot be gained by any human excellence or power because heaven is not a place to be found, nor a state to be acquired: heaven is a relationship with and presence to the three Persons of the most holy Trinity of Love, into which only Jesus -- the beloved and only-begotten Son, Word of the Father -- can lead those who, in faith submit to Him and aspire, by His gift of the Holy Spirit, to the promise of heaven proclaimed by His Gospel.   

We need to stop living as if we are simply part of this earth in which all our happiness and fulfilment is to be found.  The blessings of life on earth are indeed, many, because God has made all things good; nevertheless, they were meant for us to use on the way to our eternal destiny and calling, they were not intended to become a drug that would stultify any higher aspirations.  Because we have been fashioned by God in His own likeness, we are supreme over all things of earth, we are, most certainly, not meant to be ruled by things of earth.  Paul was speaking of this in our second reading:

I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away.

Paul is saying that marriage may indeed be for you, that is, it may be of help for your salvation, but do not think that there is nothing better to come than marriage.  Likewise, those who mourn should not fear that their whole life has been totally blighted, for they are, in Jesus, destined to eternal joy and happiness; while those who are happy must not be so foolish as to think that earthly happiness can be compared to the blessedness awaiting those who will sit at the Lord’s Supper in heaven as God’s children; for, as St. Paul tells us:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (2:9)

Dear People of God, Jesus’ call, ‘Repent, and believe in the Gospel’, is an invitation -- most serious and pressing -- to help you recognize, and then realise, your true worth, your divine calling, and your eternal dignity.  Learn from Jesus, let Him teach you what to hate and avoid, but above all, what to love and whither to aspire: that is the essence of repenting.  If you thus commit yourself to the Gospel, that Good News will lead you to peace and give you strength in this world; and, for the future, an inviolable hope transcending all earthly limitations.

We should not be surprised that the message of the Church is unpopular today, if they hate Me, they will also hate you, because many are living in such a way that they cannot hear let alone understand God’s call: money is worshipped as the supreme goal of human endeavour because it promises tangible and alluring pleasure, buys obsequious respect, and provokes envious admiration on all sides.  Moreover, for many today, popularity is second only to money, and  so there can be no excellence accepted where popularity is wanting, and whatever is popular and exciting is considered to be excellent, no matter how tasteless, futile, or degrading it may be. 

Considering these aspects of our world today, surely, People of God, let us take heart from Jesus’ words recorded in the Gospel (John 16:33 and Matt 24:35):

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

2nd Sunday Year B, 2024

  

(1 Sam 3:3-10, 19; 1 Corinthians 6:13-15, 17-20; John 1:35-42)

Samuel was destined to become a great prophet in Israel and therefore, young though he was, he had to come to a p/Personal knowledge of the Lord, and, as you heard, Eli was able to help him make his initial experience of, and give his very first appropriate and personal response to, the Lord God of Israel:
 
            Speak (Lord) for your servant is listening.
 
There, dear People of God, we are given the one absolutely essential requirement for prophecy in Israel, and for those commissioned by God to proclaim the Word of God (Jesus Himself and His Gospel) in Mother Church:  that is, the ability and commitment to silence all clamouring, inner, ‘voices’ in order to listen to the Lord communicating with us – by heart-penetrating words; by happenings even small that re-structure our whole life; or by seemingly passing thoughts that somehow linger-on until we begin to understand them.
 
The prophet Jeremiah (31:33-34) later extended this need for such listening, not only to chosen prophets but to all God’s Chosen People:
 
I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
 
That teaching, dear People of God, is exemplified perfectly in our Gospel reading by two of John the Baptist’s disciples:
            John said (in their hearing): ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’
And what did those disciples do on hearing those words?  THEY FOLLOWED JESUS.
 
 And Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek? They said to Him, ‘Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?’   He said to them, ‘Come, and you will see.’ So, they came and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with Him that day.
 
Notice how those two disciples silenced all other voices as I said earlier, even the voice of John the Baptist, by immediately following Jesus, remaining with and listening to Him alone, for the rest of that day.
 
Today it is thought by some that, to hear those wanting to somehow accommodate their evil ‘actions’ with Catholic traditional teaching, is a charitable ‘hearing’!  However, we Christians and Catholics are called by today’s very readings, to hear Jesus … which means that we can hear all who are seeking Jesus, but we do not hear those wanting to maintain their un-Christian life style by simply ‘titivating’ it with some ‘Christian-like’ adaptations.
 
Remember, dear friends, how Our Blessed Lord, though He would not publicly condemn the woman apprehended in the act of adultery, nevertheless did not want to hear any excuses, or ‘extenuating circumstances’, from her. He offered her no comforting, or ‘understanding’ words, for Him sin was sin, and He hated sin.  He would not condemn her, but He made quite clear what He expected of her, by telling her, ‘Go, and sin no more!’
 
People of God, the reason why Jesus established Mother Church is so that in her, and through her, all who would seek Jesus might -- as the prophet Jeremiah had foretold -- learn to know the Lord, each and every one of them, personally.   Jesus has endowed Mother Church with the fullness of His own most Holy Spirit so that she can -- beginning at our baptism and continuing throughout our sacramental lives -- gradually bestow upon us ever more of that same Spirit to form us in the likeness of Jesus, and to enable us to follow Him until He leads us into the presence of the Father of all Glory, where, knowing the holiness and beauty, goodness and truth, of the infinite and all Holy God to the utmost of  our personal  being, will be our consuming delight for all eternity.
 
The devils whom Jesus cast out of sufferers during His time on earth frequently cried out claiming to know Him, as St. Mark tells us (1:24; 3:11):
 
What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are -- the Holy One of God!
 
Notice dear friends, that even the demons could understand the folly of trying to religiously ‘titivate’ a sinful life-style, ‘What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth?’  There we are given a clear picture of the Devil, who, on recognizing the Person and holy power of Jesus, could only react with detestation and fear, and whom Jesus would later describe as a liar, the supreme Liar:
 
You (Jews) are of your father the devil, and you willingly do the desires of your father. …  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
 
The devil is, by his very nature, first and foremost, a liar: not a murderer, a fornicator, a paedophile or whatever else, no, he is first and foremost, a LIAR and the FATHER OF LIES; and he generates, encourages, and delights in, all forms of sin because he is the Liar.  Therefore, when we find the devil promoting lying imitations of Christian virtues or attitudes, we can be sure that he is at his most dangerous and deadly.  For example, he loves to imitate Christian charity, and in doing so spawns on the one hand, sexual lust calling it ‘love’, and, on the one hand, that ‘laissez faire’, ‘let things be’ attitude, characteristic of irresponsible parents who so “love” their children that they can never teach, correct, or discipline them.  The devil also delights to imitate the Christian virtue of knowing the Lord and he does this by encouraging many Catholics to be quite content with knowing about the Lord but not knowing Him p/Personally; and accordingly, they are by no means solicitous about doing His will: they hear the gospels but never take them to heart; they attend Mass, at the Lord’s command, but are always looking forward to the time to leave Church.  In fact, they know the Lord’s love for them so well that they like to think that receiving Holy Communion is all that matters.  In all these corruptions we find a people never seriously seeking to personally know the Person of the Lord: a people content with their own fullness, with the result that they never experience any need to open themselves up to Him, in longing for and need of, Him.    Being thus deceived by the devil who is the consummate liar, they are content with that stagnant situation, being, apparently, quite unaware of the words of the Lord:
 
Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. (Revelation 3:16)
 
How different was the attitude of those two disciples of John the Baptist who heard him say, on seeing Jesus pass by, Behold the Lamb of God!
 
Those two disciples, no longer disciples of John but disciples-in-desire of Jesus the Lamb of God, were now ardently, almost painfully, aware of their own emptiness, need, hope and longing.   And to those disciples seeking to know Him as Teacher (Rabbi), Jesus simply said:  Come and you will see.
 
They did just that.  They followed Jesus to His dwelling to know about Him, to know Him p/Personally, to hear, be near to, to admire and learn from, Him; quite possibly they would also have taken the opportunity to open up their souls to Him, before darkness came requiring them to leave and go back to their own dwelling.
 
People of God, what does Jesus say to you coming out of the crowd perhaps to receive Him in Holy Communion?   His very first words to Andrew and his companion had been:
 
            What are you looking for, what do you seek?
 
Could you, queuing in Church to receive Him in Holy Communion, answer such a question?  Could you tell Him what emptiness was be forcing you to Him; could you tell Him that you are longing for something He alone could give you?
 
People of God, we must realize that He, the Lord Himself, is in Mother Church, with her, in order to be contacted, found, there, by us, in a one-to-one-relationship of loving appreciation and obedience, in which we will gradually learn, by His most Holy Spirit, to worship the Father as His true children, in Jesus.   Mother Church is our atmosphere, she is indeed the only environment in which we can fully prosper, but she is not our end, she is not our goal.
 
It is quite legitimate, however, and profoundly true, to take those words of St. Paul in our second reading today, words spoken directly against all forms of sexual immorality:
           
            You have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body,
 
in a further perfectly relevant, profitable, and fruitful sense. You who belong to Mother Church are all members of the Body of Christ, and therefore, the Body of Christ is, in that sense, your body.  Do, then, as St. Paul tells us:       Glorify God in your Body.
 
You members of the Body of Christ, you members of His Church on earth, should never allow yourselves to settle down as an anonymous Catholic; it is not enough just to be in Mother Church, to be merely present at Mass: you should seek above all to personally know, love, and glorify God there, either in your own hearts filled with His praise and thanksgiving, or among His people -- your brethren -- whom you seek to serve and exhort as His disciples, for His glory.   Each of you, personally, has been bought at a price, that is your supreme dignity: nobody else, absolutely no one, can thank God, thank Jesus, for you, on your behalf; that is exclusively your own, personal, calling and privilege.  And only if you respond to that individual calling, only if you are personally aware and appreciative of that unique privilege, will you come to know what ‘yet more’ God still wants to make of you, individually.   

The Epiphany Year B, 2024

 

(Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)

Why are we drawn to some people more than others … because of their kindness perhaps, their good looks; or might it be due to their understanding, sympathy, wisdom, or courage?  The richness and variety of the human character is endless, but when we actually -- and truly – come to love someone, that is because of who they are, because of their unique personality, as known to us and experienced by us.  We cannot love someone unknown to us.  Although we can admire, be grateful for,  what we hear of others, nevertheless, such admiration through hearsay or ‘work experience’ only becomes love when, after we have first of all met, and then gradually experienced them, when we have learned to personally appreciate them because of their complementarity to ourselves, that is, when we begin to ‘miss’ them, and find ourselves less happy(?), less content(?), less confident(?), indeed less fulfilled, without them.

Since that is true, isn’t it strange that so many Christian and Catholic leaders speak so very little about the beauty, goodness, wisdom and ‘loveableness’ they see, find, experience, in their relationship with God, especially with  Jesus?  Is it that their understanding of a religious, faith, relationship is exclusively a matter knowing teaching, obeying commands? Would such speaking about the beauty, the ‘loveableness’ of God or of Jesus especially, such as  I have mentioned, be considered outrageous presumption or merely personal emotion?  Is the name of Jesus, or the word Faith, indeed perhaps those other words Christian or even Catholic, taboo for them in their addresses concerning the state of our world today?

However that may be, the fact is that the Christian proclamation as we hear it  today  is so often nothing more than ethics: doing good to the needy and underprivileged, loving one’s neighbour and especially children, social involvement, anti-racism (which seems, somehow, to include hating  so-called racists!!) etc. etc., which has lost all contact  with its Christian matrix, and has long become representative of mere ‘wokeness’ or humanism.  Even  international religious statements such as the Pope’s Urbi et Orbi, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s seasonal exhortation, now often say very little more than what is humanly expected of them.

There is, dear People of God, very little witnessing to the pleroma of Christian, and above all Catholic, faith as a spiritual power capable of bestowing on believers not merely firm purpose, deep patience, and loving commitment, as a prelude to eternal salvation, but also as a unique source of hope for the unity, peace, and fulfilment of mankind.  ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive others’ – is a fundamental Christian doctrine that invokes a uniquely personal experience capable of bestowing a secret joy and profound peace -- ’Jesu joy of man’s desiring’-- in anticipation of, and prelude to, our personal sharing in Jesus’ Own experience of Divine Beatitude.

Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me. And whoever loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.” (John 14:21)

However, the heavenly reward to which we all aspire as disciples of Jesus will not be given us because we have lived up to the world’s ‘politically correct’ expectations or requirements; not even just because we have kept Church and Divine rules.  The ultimate criterion for the fully Christian and Catholic appreciation of our whole life will be:

“Did you keep those commandments, rules of life, because they were MY commandments?  Did you love and commit yourself to  the Lord your God in your mind and heart sincerely, as best you could in your life-situation, or did you just follow what others about you were doing, or just seek to earn a living?”

Without personal love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our Christian life can only be  bleak and formal, our Catholic witness to God only lifeless and uninspiring; all in stark contrast to those words of the prophet Isaiah we heard in the first reading:

Arise, SHINE; for your light has come!  The glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 

Christians -- above all we who are privileged to be Catholics -- should indeed shine out because we are called to reflect and make known the glory of the Lord which has shone upon us through our faith in the Good News of Jesus.  We are not like our brothers, the Jews and the Muslims (too many of whom alas are only pseudo-Muslims, priding themselves on being such great haters!), who, as true servants of the one God they know alike through Abraham: they can and do speak good, holy, and beautiful things about God.  Indeed, the Jews speak of God in ways very close to our own hearts.   Nevertheless, the Christian faith is so much more glorious than either Judaism or Islam: for we speak not only of the glory of God, but of the wondrous GOODNESS of the Father, the supreme and unimaginable BEAUTY of His Son Who became one of us in order to save us, and the MYSTERIOUS AND MOST INTIMATE WORKING of the Holy Spirit of both Father and Son: not indeed as one-of-us, but always with us in Mother Church, and always wanting to be Personally present to all of us who will follow His guidance along the ways of Jesus.

We Christians know God through the Old Testament Scriptures, but above all we know Him through the fulfilment of those Scriptures contained in the Gospel ‘Good News’ of Jesus, interpreted for us through Apostolic Traditions which are the rock-like foundation of the Catholic Church (no Synodality there!).  We confess, love and worship God, as Father, Son and Spirit: the Father Who created us and Who is become, really and truly, our own Father in Jesus; the Son Who took our flesh and became our Brother before showing Himself to be our Saviour, and Who, to this very day, continues to give Himself as flesh and blood for you and me to eat and drink, thereby enabling us to live with His life, by His Spirit; and the Holy Spirit Whom we love and praise, in Whom we trust and rejoice, since He is ever with us as our Advocate, our strength and support, our light and our guide, our sure hope and our deep, deep, joy.

People of God, today's great solemnity of the Epiphany, the shining forth of God's glory, invites us most compellingly to glory in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, by telling us, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, to:

Lift up your eyes all round (that is, appreciate the Faith you profess and the Church in which you live); then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy.

Jesus came to teach each of us to recognize with Him, and in Him to appreciate, the Father as a Person: His Father, and now -- in Jesus -- our Father; and He has given us His own most Holy Spirit, to inflame our hearts, enlighten our minds, and give us strength: that He might form in us Jesus’ Own filial likeness, for the glory of the Father:

The Spirit helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should.  But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Rom. 8:26)

The Father is so Personally committed to us that, having given His only Son for us, He now wants to speak to each of us personally, by His Spirit, that we might turn to Jesus and find our salvation in Him:

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  (John 6:44)

The Father looks for, and expects in return, a similarly personal and whole-hearted response and commitment from us.  Jesus assures us that the Father wants to be our most perfect Father (Matthew 10:20):

It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you.

And, as the only true Father, He wants to be recognized and loved by children who will confidently turn to Him, in Jesus, saying: "Abba, Father"

Our Lord Jesus is indeed the Messiah foretold by the prophets; proclaimed by angels and manifested by a star at His birth; revealed by the Father at His baptism in the Jordan; He Personally died on Calvary for our sins, yours and mine; and rose on the third day for our salvation.  We now live in Him by His Spirit bestowed on each of us by Mother Church at our baptism, and continually renewed in us by our faithful living in her, above all by our reception of the Eucharist at Holy Mass.   And this Holy Spirit -- relating to each and every one of us individually – works His divine purposes in the secret depths of our minds and hearts to the extent that we are attuned to His presence and willing to respond to His inspirations.  Indeed, He is so personal to us that it is His task to lead each of us to our own individual and personal fulfilment and perfection in Jesus, for the Father.

People of God, Christians and even Catholics today are often ‘shy’ of the wonders of our faith.  Jesus, however, came to lift His disciples up to heavenly glory to share with Him in the glory of divine charity where Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternally and indivisibly One.  For we belong to Jesus -- as St. Paul tells us (1 Corinthians 3:21-4:1) -- just as Jesus belongs to God, our relationship with God is that personal:

All things are yours, whether (the Church), the world or life or death, or things present or things to come; all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

There, in the Son and by the Holy Spirit,  you and I are called to join in the songs of myriads of angels; to participate with our whole being in the great and eternal  ecstasy of heavenly praise to the glory of Him Who is, as Jesus and His most faithful disciple St. Paul,  tell us, our Father

         

                Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. (Mt. 23:9)

             One God and Father of all, Who is over all, through all, and in all. (Ephesians 4:6)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let us on this most solemn feast of the Epiphany 2024 revive our ability to whole-heartedly rejoice in God and, with quiet sincerity and deep confidence, to stand ever more firm and sure on the rock and foundation of our God-given Catholic and Christian Faith.