22nd Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Deut. 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark: 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

Our readings today are centred upon what one might call the art of loving God in Mother Church. 

We were told of the good things God promised and did for Israel, that you may live and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and, bequeathing such gifts to Israel, Moses urged those Israelites to:

 Listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you.

However, the subsequent history of Israel – even at its very best -- can be characterized by the words of Fr. Faber, ‘We make His love too narrow by false limits of our own, and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own” -- was perfectly exemplified by the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Jesus’ days.  The Pharisees were relatively new-comers to religious life in Jerusalem and Israel as a whole; they were popular with the people and, indeed, they had become the self-appointed religious leaders of the common people. The traditional Sadducees  were the priestly authorities in charge of the world-famous Temple in Jerusalem and men of power in Jewish society.   The Pharisees knew the Law very well but they were most enthusiastic about their own traditions and they were seriously jealous of their own assumed authority as teachers of the people.   The Sadducees on the other hand dealt with the occupying Roman power as authorised rulers of the Temple with multitudes of gift-bearing worshippers coming from abroad every year to join their Palestinian brethren for the great religious feasts.  

The first and second readings should also serve to remind us of the great blessings God has bestowed on us in our Catholic Faith and Mother Church:

Keep (what you have been taught) for this will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 

Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. … Therefore, receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.  But, be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Moses told the Israelites how they should treasure God’s gifts:

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you;

And in these modern ‘synodal’ times  such words are of supreme importance for us Catholics, because  the Faith  we have received is to be kept in its unstained integrity because it is not of human origin, as Jesus made abundantly clear when He said, as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel reading:

            The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63-64)

It was blessed Peter -- first and greatest Pope -- who was inspired by the Father to give the only true response to Jesus’ words, not only on behalf of all his fellow Apostles, but in the name of all subsequent Catholics and true Christians:

Lord, You have the words of eternal life.  Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (John 6:68-70)

And it is that same spirit to which you heard St. James give expression in our second reading:

Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls, (and) be doers of that word.

But what about the Scribes and Pharisees, self-appointed, and ‘God-exclusive’ spiritual leaders in Israel proclaiming their own traditions:

Jesus said to them: ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy  of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.” (Mk. 7:6)

In order face up to the modern versions of such malign influences  we must, above all else, learn to truly appreciate and love the Faith which God has so graciously bestowed upon us, and cherish it in a personal relationship of love with God, mirroring Jesus’ love of His Father, and the Holy Spirit’s bonding power.  For the Faith has been given us in order to change us from what – from who -- we are, into what – who -- God wants us to become ; it has been given us to re-form us, not in accordance with the maxims and examples of the world around us, nor for the fulfilment of our own personal preferences and ambitions, but after the pattern, and according to the will, of Him Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, preparing a place for us to live there with Him for all eternity.

The traditions of the elders to which the Pharisees and Scribes were so devoted were originally practiced -- and subsequently handed down -- as a means of helping and protecting true devotion among the people of Israel.  And there were undoubtedly some in Israel who had profited and would continue to profit from their observance.  The trouble was, however, that the zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes for such traditions led them, at times, to disregard or even reject God’s Personal commands and His broader spiritual teaching given through the Prophets of Israel.

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. (Mk. 7:8)

Moreover, this excessive and misplaced zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes pushed them further, even, indeed, to assert that everyone in Israel should be bound by their traditions.  This amounted, Jesus said as He quoted the prophet Isaiah, to them:

Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

And Mother church still has modern Pharisees at work within her, preaching doctrines of their own by adding their modern and more popular interpretation to her pristine doctrines, like certain ‘synodal decisions’ of the German hierarchy, some of whose members have also shown clear signs of the Pharisaic ‘love of money’ (Luke 14:15)   And as for present-day Scribes we can sometimes come across  clerics who  are firmly Catholic  both doctrinally and morally, unlike the German Pharisees,  but who, nevertheless, are more functionaries of the Church establishment than serving disciples of Jesus.   And as for the laity in Mother Church, how many have found Jesus’ words ‘hard’ and have left Him and her … millions in our Western world.  And that leaves us who seek and strive to love and live in, work and pray for, Mother Church to learn as much and as best we can from today’s Eucharistic celebration

In Mother Church there are those in positions of authority that entitle or at times require them to give advice and authoritative guidance to the People of God who are members of their flock.  Occasionally, that guidance – because the authority behind it stems from learning, experience, and above all, from the acknowledged and invoked guidance of God’s promised grace --  requires obedience, even strict obedience, at times, and it always merits sincere respect and thoughtful attention.  No one can totally ignore or disregard such guidance.

Nevertheless, we must always realize that we have been set free by Jesus Christ to serve God in Spirit and in Truth as living members of the Body of Christ, in response to the guidance of His Holy Spirit living and working within us; and that no human guides can ever be allowed to cut us off from that personal response to God so long as we remain in Jesus by keeping His known commands, and following His general teaching mediated to our conscience through the Gospel proclamation of Mother Church.  St. Paul makes this absolutely clear in his first letter to the Corinthians (3:21-23):

Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or 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.

As we go through life, striving to listen ever more carefully to God and follow Him ever more closely, we are always advancing to what is -- for us – new and unknown territory so to speak.  Therefore, it is indeed good and necessary that we should have the help of guidance from Mother Church, for on her alone did Jesus bestow the fullness of His Spirit, and to her alone does the Spirit recall all that Jesus taught and did.  Nevertheless, after personal prayer to God, after listening to His Spirit whispering in our conscience and abiding in Mother Church, after acknowledging our own inclination to sin and God’s wonderful goodness to us,  it is still up to each of us, personally, to decide finally which way to go, because such responsible commitment is the hall-mark of a personal relationship with God intimately known and loved in our heart and life, it is the glory of a Christian which we should not yield, and certainly never abandon, to another.  Jesus once declared to His disciples:

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you. (Matthew 10:19-21)

Jesus might have said, ‘the Spirit of My Father will guide you’, but no, He actually said, ‘the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you’ will help you.   As it were obliterating Himself, Jesus shows us how closely He wants His disciples to be united to, one with, His Father, and it is for that end He gives us His Spirit at baptism and renews His Spirit within us every time we rightly receive Holy Communion. Oneness with the Father, in Jesus, by the Spirit, that is the culmination, crowning and fulfilment, of all Christian life and holiness.

At no stage in our life can we presume that we have heard, understood, and responded aright, without regularly checking -- as we proceed further -- that we are, indeed, not only within the parameters of the Faith, but also walking in the direction of, and in a comforting conformity with, the life-thrust of her who is both the unique Bride of Christ and also our own Mother.  And this constant longing for, and looking to, God; this unceasing watchfulness for the motions of His Spirit within us; this abiding awareness of personal weakness and ignorance together with an ever growing awareness of and reliance upon God’s goodness to us, … all these endeavours and experiences gradually build up in us an ever deeper confidence and abiding joy in Mother Church, together with an ever more humbling and grateful experience and awareness of the presence, power, and goodness of God in our individual lives.

The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God: the things which God has prepared for those who love Him; things which God has revealed to us through His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)  

21st Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69)

In our readings today, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are reminded of the fact that, in the course of our life decisions -- difficult and even decisive -- have inevitably to be made:

If it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD,  choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.    But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

Many of (Jesus’) disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.  So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"

God the Father made such a decision when He allowed His only-begotten Son to take human flesh in order to free us from the tyranny of sin and death; and therefore, would-be-Christians -- appreciating that ‘unimaginable token’  of God’s love for us -- must be prepared to make a reciprocal decision when embracing His offer of salvation.

With God, His decision is perfectly final and decisive; we, however, are weak beings hindered by our sinfulness and ignorance, with the result that any seriously binding decision of ours has to be repeatedly re-affirmed and renewed if we are to live it out to fulfilment; and therefore, any such decision can be made only on the basis of sincere Love motivating the choice, and persevering Commitment enabling us to sustain and ultimately fulfil our original decision.

Commitment and Love are the two qualities St. Paul had in mind when giving his converts guidance with regard to the Christian institution of marriage; guidance which envisages eternal fulfilment, not simply earthly happiness:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church … so wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Jesus seriously required commitment in His disciples – their submission to His teaching  -- as you heard in the Gospel reading:

It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and who it was who would betray Him.   After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”

Jesus would have none of those disciples who would like to re-negotiate, so to speak, their allegiance to Him after each and every difficulty that might arise for them in His teaching; their commitment had to be total:

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.   We have believed and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”  

Jesus, for His part, as St. John tells us (John 13:1) embodied such commitment:

Before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father,  having loved His own who were  in the world, He loved them to the end.

Commitment and love are what St. Paul had in mind when he told his converts who were entering marriage:

  Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

In that context of ‘out of reverence for Christ’ such submission is, of course, called for  in the important, not each and every trivial, decisions of family life … and also to be given in the framework of mutual love and respect between the spouses.

The future is not, for us Christians, something totally dark, hidden, and unknowable: we believe in God, a God Who is good and has created us for a ‘purpose’ … He indeed has a purpose for each of us … a purpose that will serve for His glory,  our individual salvation, and the ‘social’ fulfilment of mankind as a whole.   Human beings, made, as we Christians believe, in the image and likeness of God, are called to guide their lives towards a goal being offered them by God, revealed and promised to all believers by Jesus, and being realized in them individually -- if they co-operate – by the Holy Spirit. 

In other words, we Christians and Catholics believe that the future is essentially knowable, desirable, and attainable for all who believe in Jesus, and are willing to commit themselves to His promises, and to the Holy Spirit of Truth and Love He has bequeathed us.  This attitude of self-commitment is so essential to Christianity that we believers have been given, as our mother, she of who it was said:

Blessed is she who believed, for there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.  (Luke 1:45)

In our Gospel reading we heard that many of His disciples found  Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist a ‘hard saying’ and, like the Jews earlier, they too grumbled among themselves.  Jesus then, as if to confirm His teaching, went on to say:

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

You are My disciples because you like My parables, you admire the wonders I do, you even have your own ambitions  -- King of Israel – for Me; but when I give more serious teaching  about what is above your line of vision and beyond your earthly imagination, you find it ‘hard to accept’.

             What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?

Jesus has come down from heaven, and His words, consequently, are no ordinary words but spiritual words, and therefore He added most seriously:

It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.   

People of God, in the first reading Joshua put clearly before the Israelites a choice they had to make.  We are in a like situation today, for, in our society, Christianity is largely derided and the Catholic Church is, not infrequently, hated. 

Our Christian faith in Mother Church calls us to a life -- empowered by the Spirit -- of self-commitment, willing subjection of self, to something greater than self: a subjection, a commitment, a devotion, to God, to His purpose-for-us, to the fulfilment He has planned for mankind in His heavenly Kingdom.

 Our Christian faith and Mother Church urge us to a commitment, to a selflessness, which, by a process of spiritual osmosis, will inevitably show itself in the ordinary things of our everyday lives: in marital love and life-long commitment, sincere and lasting friendship, unfeigned neighbourliness, and penetrating down even to our most mundane social obligations, such as doing an honest day’s work and living as a good and responsible citizens.

 In making life’s choices, we must never forget the truth expressed in the words of Joshua:

If it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD,  choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.    But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

Whatever we choose, we will always be servants, because that is our nature.  If, however, we make the right choice, we will be serving a Lord Who is so good that He intends -- after our faithful service here on earth -- to give us share with Him in His heavenly glory.   His word is true, His promise is sure, and His Way is straight; indeed, His beloved Son chose to walk it before us, and the Spirit of His Son will be with us in all our endeavours to keep up-with and close-to Him on our way towards that home where the Father now awaits us, and will embrace and reward us as His own adopted, and specially privileged (Our Lady is Queen of heaven), children in His heavenly Kingdom.

20th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58)

Today we learn to what lengths Jesus went to in order to make people think about, pay attention to, what He was saying.  Jesus never sought popularity with the majority of people; but He did, most passionately, want those few -- initially drawn to Him by His Father -- to hear with a measure of understanding the simple words with which He addressed them, that thus they might begin to gradually appreciate His teaching, and hopefully even to modify their lives and purify their aspirations in accordance with it.  

In the gospel reading He declared:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.

The Jews were outraged at such words, and murmured among themselves:

            How can this man give us His flesh to eat?

What did Jesus do?  He went on to say something yet more difficult for those pious Jews even to hear, let alone accept:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

For a Jew, that last statement was absolutely outrageous because it seemed quite contrary to the command God had given Noah and his sons in the beginning:

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.  But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” (Genesis 9:1-4)

This same command, moreover, was most emphatically confirmed in the Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Leviticus 7:26-27):

You shall eat  no blood whatever in any of your dwellings, whether of fowl or of animal.  Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.

What then is the significance of the blood?  Let us learn more from the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Leviticus 17:11;  Deuteronomy 12:23, 27)):

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the flesh.  The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, but the flesh you may eat.

Why, therefore, did Jesus speak so provocatively to the Jews by first of all saying, “eat My Flesh” and then following it up by the even more provocative and objectionable words, “drink My Blood”?   What was He trying to express that was so important, so sublimely important, that He felt the need to go to such lengths in order to make His hearers give close attention to, and think deeply about, what He was saying?

The reason is that here we are given a startlingly clear picture of the Christian awareness of the extent and the nature of God’s love for us, as also of the divine humility of Jesus.  For, although Jesus’ blood -- the Blood of the God’s only begotten Son -- was most sinfully poured out by us, nevertheless, St. Paul (Ephesians 2:4) assures us:

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us,

willed to turn that supreme evil into a supreme blessing.  Since Jesus poured out His blood so willingly for us God allowed us to use that blood for our spiritual benefit!  In the light of the Christian revelation and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we learn that, being allowed to drink the Blood of Jesus we are thereby enabled to imbibe life -- ETERNAL LIFE -- and a share, ultimately, in the sonship of Christ Himself!   St. Paul continues (Ephesians 2:5):

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ.

How great is the Father’s love for us, People of God!   The blood of all creatures pertains to Him alone; how dear beyond all measure, therefore, is the blood of His only-begotten Son-made-flesh?  How unimaginable is the humiliation which Jesus so willingly and so lovingly embraced out of obedience to His Father and compassion for us: pouring out His own Most Precious Blood willingly, for our use, our benefit, our profit … and our Salvation.

How sublimely, then, has that text of Leviticus been fulfilled:

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it (the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb of God) for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life (because it is the Precious Blood of the Risen and eternally living  Son-of-God-made-Man). 

People of God, we live in evil times, we live in a society which condones, and admires, all sorts of excesses and contradictions; a society which, too often, teaches its children to get, not give; to look for pleasure rather than practice discipline; to use others, not to serve them; to seek advantage and success rather than to strive for honour and integrity.

We however -- as disciples of Jesus, and in response to God’s wondrous love -- must, as our first reading said:

Leave (our) simple ways, and live and walk in the way of insight.

And it is here that we can appreciate another, essential, aspect of Jesus’ insistence that we eat His flesh and drink His blood.

In our world money is supreme, and most of it -- and consequently most of the world’s advantages and benefits -- goes to those who are top-dogs: the already rich, the important ones, the famous and the popular; the underdogs, the poor, the insignificant and the unpopular, have to be satisfied with what remains over.  Jesus saw it all and warned His disciples:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. (Matthew 20:25)

Jesus knew that such a situation was an expression of sin’s presence in the world, and having become man in order to conquer sin and bring redemption for mankind, He therefore went on to say:

It shall not be so among you.

To that end, therefore, Jesus insisted repeatedly that no one could be saved by their own native genius or power of whatever sort.  Personal salvation cannot be won by personal endeavour using natural cunning or charm; it cannot be bought, it can only be received as a gift subsequent on a personal encounter with, and spiritual response to, Jesus:

            If you do not eat My flesh and drink My blood you do not have life in you.

In Jesus’ Church, and in preparation for the coming Kingdom of God, everyone thus starts once again on an equal footing (1 Corinthians 10:16-17):

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it not a participation in body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.          

That one bread and the one cup are the source of all grace and blessing for us, and on receiving them we encounter Christ, the Risen Lord, Himself; and, in that encounter we are in the presence of, and alone with, Him: there is no one else listening to our conversation; we are free to say, ask for, what we want, totally free to be ourselves with Him Who knows, and what is much more, appreciates, not only what we are but also what we want to be.  St. Paul puts it this way:

Now you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God. (Galatians 4:9)

My dear People, the natural gifts each of us may have, have not been given to directly further our personal salvation, rather they have been bestowed upon us for our earthly benefit and the benefit of the society in which we live, and indeed, in exceptional cases, of the whole world.  Eternal salvation, however,  does come to us as the result of our correspondence with the guidance and calling of God’s own Most Holy Spirit over the years and with our personal faith-awareness of, and loving response to, Christ in our daily lives as witnessing Catholics and Christians; above all, however, salvation comes to us as a result of our personal encounter with Our Saviour Himself in our reception of the Holy Eucharist.   Therefore, as we heard in the second reading:

Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best of time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, giving thanks, above all, for the wondrous beauty and goodness, the infinite mercy and compassion, of God our Father, made manifest to us in and through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus His Son and our Redeemer.

We must realize, therefore, that although we are obliged to struggle at times in order to resist and overcome earthly inclinations which would lead us, through sin and self-indulgence, to death beyond the grave; nevertheless, as disciples of Jesus, our life -- as a whole -- rather be experienced as an ever deepening and developing awareness of the love and beauty surrounding and awaiting us.

Seeking to live in and with Jesus, we should seek above all to learn from His most Holy Spirit how to grow in love for our heavenly Father, that we ultimately receive -- as adopted children of God -- a share in the ineffable, heavenly,  joy of our Saviour Himself.

To the One God, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.

Assumption of Our Lady, 2024

 

(Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1: 39-56)

The official, dogmatic, teaching of Mother Church about Our Lady’s Assumption, which we joyfully celebrate today, was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950, and our Catholic Catechism explains it in this way:

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians.

Today I want to propose to you that, while Mary’s Assumption is indeed a singular participation in her Son’s triumph, that does not mean that it is of no particular significance for all women.

Mary’s Assumption into heaven is, I believe, not totally based on her personal human sinlessness and responsiveness to God’s inspiration, but also on the fact of her femininity, in the sense that it contains a message and offers a transcendent inspiration and aspiration for the whole of Christian womankind.

Once Jesus --- God-made-man by His assumption of human flesh and blood, our flesh and blood, from the virgin Mary of Nazareth in Galilee --- had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven for our salvation, there could be no rational doubt for believers that the whole of mankind … men and women, both formed in the image and likeness of God as human beings… would, granted God’s goodness and mercy,  both be called and allowed to participate in that glory. 

However, given humanity’s enduring frailty, sinfulness and perverseness, there can be little doubt that it could soon have been irrationally thought and secretly whispered that Jesus had gone to heaven because He was God; and that men also might indeed possibly go there too, having ‘already gone there’, so to speak, in and with Jesus-as-man.   But what about women, not having that direct sexual relationship with Jesus?

I like, therefore, to think that today’s great feast has also the purpose and function of recalling  for all believers, the supreme dignity and glory of God’s original plan for humanity as a whole; and that today’s feast of the Assumption proclaims Mary’s peerless expression of humanity in the beauty of her femininity as intended in God’s original creation, now redeemed by Christ, and ultimately glorified by the most Holy Spirit.

A peerlessly full, and sublimely beautiful, feminine expression of God-intended-humanity, that is what Mary’s Assumption proclaims.

Think of Mary hearing the angel Gabriel’s greeting, so religiously and calmly satisfying herself about his personal integrity and authority, then going on to question him humbly yet pertinently about the meaning of his message for herself; before most courageously committing herself --  unconditionally and unhesitatingly -- to God’s purpose, for His glory alone.  And this she did despite being aware the possibility (remote but real) of her being put to death by the religious authorities of her time, and knowing most certainly that she would have to endure the public contempt of all who did not know her intimately, most especially those women who knew her only sufficiently enough to be able to gossip  about her  at the well,  and in the ‘shops’ of Nazareth!

There are many women today who think that Mary’s expression of womanhood treasured for so long by the Church is not enough; and the exemplary women of today(!) want power: freedom from the restricting will of any God,  total freedom in the exercise of their physical and sexual being.  And, in the Church herself, there some women wanting power in their own way: the diaconate now, the priesthood next and who knows, sometime perhaps a Pope Joan??  

People of that  mentality, ruled by secular logic, not inspired by Catholic faith, have no appreciation whatsoever of the beauty and power of catholic complementarity.  For them, if one person or group has something another does not have, that is prejudice, and wrong, and yet, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our faith in God -- His very own Personal Being, and His creation in all its wonderful diversity -- proclaims the sublime and indeed ultimate beauty and power of complementarity, which evokes those two most sublime virtues of Love and Humility which are the hallmarks of all Catholic faith and life.

Mary as shown forth in her Assumption is and always has been the ideal of Christian womanhood: beautiful in face and figure yet ever humble and heaven-bound with her Son, and as our God-given Mother.  Her beauty was not excogitated and worked out by human vanity and pride, but one originally gifted by God for His own glory and our great blessing: an earthly beauty most perfectly redeemed by Christ, then totally polished as a most sublime, heavenly gem, by the Most Holy Spirit, all for the Father, in the complementarity of their Personal  expressions of the one and undivided Godhead of Infinite Love, soul penetrating and purifying Truth, and redeeming, almighty Power.

19th Sunday Year B, 2024

  

(1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30 – 5:2; John 6:41-51)

Obviously, it must not have been easy to hear a man say:

            I am the bread that came down from heaven;

today, we would think him mad and laugh him out of court!

And so, the first thing to notice about today’s Gospel reading is that the Jews did not do any such thing.  No!  They had had experience of Jesus: having frequently heard Him speak, closely observed His personal bearing, and at least heard reports of certain miraculous ‘works of His hands’; above all, however, they themselves had just witnessed Him feed 5,000 people from a child’s lunch provision.  Consequently, they were not drawn to laughter when He made a claim even so extraordinary as:

            I am the bread that came down from Heaven.

The truth was that they were deeply perplexed – yes, even felt a certain apprehension  -- in His presence. Having intended to make Him king a short while ago, they felt irritated with themselves and each other at the present situation, and began to complain and grumble among themselves:

Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?  How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’

They knew only one thing for certain: this Jesus was not a man to be laughed at!  

Only the hypocritically self-righteous chief priests, scribes and elders would ever  laugh at Him, but their laughter was always superficial and  contrived: being meant to protect and serve their ever-increasing fear for their own security with regard to the Roman occupying authorities, and also to ensure their position as ‘revered’ leaders of the Jewish people. 

As regards the ordinary people, indifference to anything that was not directly pertinent to their own worldly concerns was their greatest fault, because it made them so very malleable -- so very ‘mob-able’ -- for those hypocritical and increasingly deadly enemies, of Jesus.

There were a few others, however, who made known their own reasons for believing most seriously that Jesus was not one to be laughed at.  He was one whom they -- as both widely experienced and secretly observant, individuals -- found to be far different from any other man they had ever come across: there was a mysterious Personal 'righteousness’ which signalled Jesus out as someone either awesome or very dangerous.  Such, indeed, were the feelings of the wife of Pilate who warned her husband:

            Have nothing to do with that righteous Man;

and of the centurion who, having watched Jesus intently in His suffering and death on the Cross, spontaneously acknowledged his own sinfulness in the face of such righteousness saying:

            This Man was innocent beyond doubt!

It was this Personal ‘something’ about Jesus that was secretly troubling the Jews speaking with Him in our Gospel reading; it was a suspicion, indeed, even a certain deeply-felt personal disquiet, that somehow, something, was being asked of them that they were not able or ready to answer; and so, being disturbed in their own hearts, they murmured and argued among  themselves, until Jesus found it necessary to  answer their disquiet:

Do not grumble among yourselves.  No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him.

Instead of complaints to bolster a prejudiced opinion, there had to be a desire to know God’s truth, together with a willingness to recognize that such spiritual truth about Jesus, His work and His teaching, might stretch or even transcend the limits of their earthly wits and appreciation.  The truth about Jesus could only be received, ultimately, as a gift – the supreme Gift -- from the Father.

And it was in order to afford them a motive that might induce them to welcome and embrace such a gift that Jesus finally added words of power:

            And I will raise him up on the last day.

The prophet Jeremiah had foretold that, in the days of the coming Messiah, all men would be taught by God; and here Jesus – having quoted the prophet -- added what were His very own mysterious and provocative words:

            Everyone who listens to My Father and learns from Him comes to Me.

And that, dear People of God, is the awaited cue for our own entry into the drama of today’s Gospel reading!

The Jews seeking Jesus were ‘murmuring’ among themselves about His words, and Jesus said, quite bluntly, ‘Stop that.  Try to listen to your God and My Father and learn from Him.’

Notice those words very, very carefully, People of God; Jesus advised that, for life’s more important decisions, we should try to listen to God and want to learn from Him, not argue among ourselves or with others.  Salvation is absolutely personal and relational, involving a truly humble awareness of God’s ‘availability’ for all situations of our life, and our absolute need of His presence – acknowledged and embraced -- for our ultimate fulfilment.   Note that Jesus did not even say,  ‘Pray to the Father’, because such prayer can, with too many people, so easily become a matter of ‘discussing’ or ‘praying’ with themselves firmly lodged in the driving seat.  Therefore, Jesus concentrated the Jews attention on one word, LISTEN, to their God and His Father: that is, that they should calm their heart, by humble acceptance of its need before Him, and still their fevered imagination and wayward thoughts, by unconditional trust in Him.  Jesus advised them, and He advises us, to patiently wait upon the Father’s mercy, and hope for His blessing; having only our gratitude and praise to offer in return for His goodness.

And now we come to a great truth about the world we live in, People of God:  

I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died.   I am the living bread that came down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

The Father was already teaching and preparing the Jews as they were being led from slavery in Egypt.  He was preparing them for Jesus’ future coming, by teaching them to look for life in ‘food from heaven’.  They knew that all food came ‘from heaven’ in so far as it was ultimately given them by God.  But all such food originated from, and only sustained life on, earth;  they had now to learn to understand, expect, and ultimately recognize their need for living bread originating from heaven, which alone could give them heavenly, eternal life.

For over more than a thousand years God had been guiding Israel towards that possibility of their being able to understand and appreciate something of truly living Bread coming from Heaven; and such, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, is God’s guiding Providence for us today!

There is a spiritual purpose “attached to”, “involved in” our earthly existence and life’s experiences!   They are all, under God’s Providence, able to guide us -- if welcomed  prayerfully and humbly -- to an initial appreciation of the ultimate realities of heaven.   That is what can make our present every-day life and living, such a wonderful experience:  that is how we, with St. Paul, can manage to glimpse behind the veil  covering the beauty of God!

            Everyone who listens to My Father and learns from Him comes to Me.

Listening to God means not just listening with our ears, it involves the desire of our heart, it concerns the ‘background’ attention of our mind hovering around God, and our willingness and ability to drop earthly concerns when Jesus passes nearby, as witnessed blind Bartimaeus:

 As Jesus was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, sat by the roadside begging.   On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”  And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”  Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So, they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, He is calling you.”  He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.  Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want Me to do for you?” The blind man replied to Him, “Master, I want to see.”  Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way.   (Mark 10:46-52)

Bartimaeus there gave a most beautiful master-class in the Christian art of listening, for and to God, though he himself -- in his life situation -- had to shout hard to make himself known to whoever might be able to help him to Jesus.

Such ‘listening’ can make life and our daily living-it-out a truly wonderful experience, offering personal pointers to heavenly realities.  And when we learn so to look at, question and taste, the joys and sorrows, bitter and sweet things of life, then everything becomes able to beckon us ever on and ever more engagingly.

Jesus has yet one more piece of life-enhancing advice for us though:

Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.

Whoever eats this bread which is My Flesh … once again we have one supremely important word which is, this time, ‘eats’.

And notice, once again, that Jesus does not say ‘receives’, but ‘eats’.  We have not only to open our mouths or put forward our hands to receive such food, but we have to positively ‘eat’ it, as some might rightly say we have to ‘chew’ it.  The essential point of our ‘eating’ is that we, each of us, recognize the food as essential to, necessary for, my very life.

Moreover, it is not to be anonymously received, but eaten with heart-felt joy and gratitude for the One Who so generously gives it.  According to the book of Proverbs, having been generously given such food, we should give a thought to our returning like for like, in other words we should be stirred to want to give ourselves in return to the Lord Who gives us all.

My dear People of God, living such a life, full of intriguing invitations and loving calls, receiving such daily Personal Food, we are most certainly not alone on our journey through life, but are developing -- as the years pass by -- an ever-greater companionship and intimacy with One Who is of Himself, and wills to become for us,  the Love, Truth, and Life of our life.  May we participate fruitfully in this Holy Mass and hopefully receive Holy Communion with such faith and love as to experience that intimacy and companionship as never before.   Amen.         

18th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Exodus 16: 2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; Gospel of St. John 6:24-35)

Dear People of God, I want to help you understand and appreciate what is the most important aspect of our Christian life … our faith, as acknowledged, proclaimed, and understood, in and by the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; and the question is:  what can Catholics do to realize (as saint J.H. Newman meant it) their faith?

In today’s Gospel there were some Jews suffering from an endemic uncertainty;

            What must we do to be doing the works of God?    

Or, to put it more clearly for our modern ears: “What must we be doing to be sure that we are doing the works of God?”

They wanted concrete works they could do, and having done them, feel better about themselves as servants of the God of Israel; thus, inadvertently -- at the devil’s deception --  they were seeking to centre themselves yet more on themselves.  To them, we are told that, Jesus answered, by offering them FAITH in Himself:

            This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He (God) has sent.

But those Jews were spiritually sick, and uncertainty seized them yet again:

but how can we be sure that what you (Jesus) are now saying is the truth?   And so, they asked a sign of Jesus: bread from heaven as had been sent to their fathers -- they liked to think -- by Moses: bread they could see, gather,  count, measure, and assess.

But Jesus had far greater bread -- His Father’s true bread from heaven -- to offer them.

And so, once again He tried to draw them out of themselves by explaining  to them:

The Bread of God is He Who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

However, not appreciating what Jesus said, they kept on thinking of some  type of super Mosaic bread that would fall down again, as it were, into their laps:

Sir, give us this bread always.

The bread of which Jesus was speaking, however, was not some THING to be gathered up, but  someONE -- to be sought through FAITH:

Whoever COMES TO ME – the bread of life – shall not hunger, and whoever BELIEVES IN ME shall never thirst.

 

Dear People of God, how many people do you know today like those Jews of old who cannot die to themselves or to their endless questioning;  people who cannot face up to a God Who sent His Son to commit Himself, even to death, for their salvation?

Our main purpose for today, however, is rather to look at believing Catholic disciples of Jesus who  want to become more aware of their need for Jesus; disciples who feel, should we say, a certain emptiness with regard to the reality of their faith: “I fulfil the duties and privileges  of our faith, but that’s it … I feel myself to be just there, doing just that, but not being drawn, led further, to anything  deeper, anything more.

 Perhaps I can put it this way: Jesus … I know, committed Himself for me, and I am for Jesus, but I do not feel myself committed in His way.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the fact is that God -- by His Most Holy Spirit -- is actually making you aware of the supreme disease afflicting Mother Church and her Christian people of the Western industrial world … the disease of a dangerously nominal faith, a faith that can so easily slip-off-and-leave-you when temptation comes along; a disease afflicting too many, who, in the course of their ever-so-busy days, think little – if at all -- of God.

Look again at Jesus in today’s Gospel reading where He  tried to help those Jews -- fixated on the bread with which He had just fed the 5,000 -- to understand something of the difference between the ‘bread’  -- that is, the manna – sent by God to calm a rebellious people escaping through the desert from Egypt to their promised land,  and the ‘true bread from heaven’ that was the ultimate purpose for Jesus’ mission as Messiah:

I am the bread of life; the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever comes to ME, whoever believes in ME, shall not hunger.

Dear People of God, the Holy Eucharist is Mother Church’s most sublime treasure, but it is not a thing we possess; rather is it a gate that we should enter, through which we must go (cf. John 10:9-18, 27).

Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘I am the door of (for) the sheep.   If anyone enters by this door he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture … My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me.  I give them eternal life.’

Yes, our Catholic faith is the door through which we should enter and leave the sheepfold – ourselves in Mother  Church – and live our‘vocational life’ in the world today by following Jesus.  Imagine those sheep following the good shepherd whose voice they recognise … they saw some town dogs, an odd wolf in the fields, even a bear perhaps with David;  those sheep ,must have most certainly trusted in their shepherd   to walk such ways. Do you, dear People of God, trust in your shepherd Who wants to lead you through this world to your true home in heaven?  If so then tell Him, activate your faith by telling Jesus, I TRUST YOU.

NOW YOU ARE STARTING TO HAVE ACTIVE, NO LONGER DORMANT,  FAITH.

Other sheep might have thought that their shepherd had led them to some lovely pasture that day … have you nothing to thank your God, your Saviour for, in your experience of life ?  You have??  Then TELL HIM … My God, dear Lord, I THANK YOU. 

Other sheep  could well have come to realize that, ‘Just hearing our shepherd’s voice, just being able to walk behind him in confidence as he plays his flute, is all I want’.  Are you, my fellow Catholics and Christians, able to find yourself somehow satisfied, even joyfully, with being able to follow Jesus in the confidence and security of knowing His truth?   You are??  Then TELL HIM … Jesus, Lord and Saviour, I LOVE YOU!

YOUR FAITH IS NOW FULLY ACTIVE … if YOU persevere in thus seeking, seeing, and responding  to the goodness of God in your life.

Don’t look for many such contacts with the Holy Spirit working in you; just make your words -- I thank You, I trust You, I love You (or whatever few words you may have chosen for yourselves) -- as totally sincere and simple as you can.  Do that, and your faith is indeed living and will make you vitally alive and responsive to the One Who loves you totally in heaven, where He never ceases to intercede on your behalf, just as His Spirit accompanies us all throughout our life on earth to form us more and more in the likeness of Jesus for the Father.

Put off your old self (and its constant worries) and be renewed in the spirit of your minds.  Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and be thankful.  And whatever you do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.  (Colossians 3:15-17)

For it is God Who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.   (Philippians 2:13–15)