All Saints 2015

                                    ALL SAINTS    (2015)                                                     

 

 (Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12)

 

 

Today we are celebrating all the saints, all those, that is, who -- known and unknown -- are beloved of God and share in His eternal blessedness by a supremely fulfilling gift of God that can never be lost or taken away, for He is almighty and His will is eternal.  Let us now, therefore, look at those blessed ones we are celebrating, and also look closely at the way Jesus traces out for all who would share with them in like blessedness. 

You heard in that first reading something of the glory of heaven:

After this I had a vision of a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.  They stood before the throne and before the Lamb … They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God Who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb!"

No racism, no sexism, no privileged groups there, but people from all nations and all times; all of them standing as one before the throne of God and the Lamb, their Lord and Saviour, and praising God for the victory He has won for them:

Amen! Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honour, power and might, be to our God forever and ever.  Amen.

It is there, People of God, we, as disciples of Jesus, aspire to go when this our earthly pilgrimage is ended.  Don’t think: “I can’t imagine me enjoying an eternity of nothing else but that”, for the only way to appreciate something of heavenly joy is to recall some special moment when you felt yourself both uplifted and supremely delighted: how time then passed by unnoticed and so, so, quickly, as you later realized!  Now the happiness, the blessedness of Heaven is something  of that nature: totally overwhelming, uplifting and ecstatic joy that obliterates time!   Such recollections should help you realise that in heaven there can be no such thing as weariness or boredom, for heavenly joy and blessedness is an eternal instant of total ecstasy which has its origin in the vision of the infinite beauty, goodness and glory, of God Himself.

That blessedness, moreover, is not exclusively reserved for heaven; for those who come to some appreciation of the beauty of God’s truth and an awareness of His goodness to all believers in the name of Jesus, can begin an analogous experience of it even here on earth, as St. John tells us:

Behold what love the Father has bestowed on us, that we may be called children of God! Yet so we are!  The reason the world does not know us, is that it did not know Him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure, as He is pure.

We who lovingly acknowledge the only Son of God sent to die for our sins and rise again, we who hope in the promises of Him Who is now seated at the right hand of power, are -- by His Spirit given us -- being purified even as He is pure.   And in that purifying -- through our increasingly prayerful commitment to Jesus and faithful service along His way -- God’s great goodness can, at times, secretly shine upon our minds and inflame our hopes, so that we find ourselves surprised beyond all our normal measure of awareness and delighting in an earthly anticipation of that heavenly joy so intimately bound up with the gift and treasure which is our Faith.

If, then, you would know more of the heavenly joy to which we are all called as Christians, turn your attention now with me to the Gospel and try to understand better the way through life that Jesus has marked out for His disciples.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the clean of heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

There we have the virtues of the one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed servants of God mentioned in the first reading.  It is a wonderful compendium of whatever was best in the Old Testament: the truest fruits of the Law, the inspirations of prophets, and the meditations of sages; all finding sublime expression – both human and divine -- in the ecstasies and laments, the humble prayers and joyful songs, of the Psalmists; and finally culminating in what was to be both the fulfilment and the crown of everything that had gone before: the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus, Who came (Matthew 5:17):          

Not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them.

Now, therefore, in fulfilment of all that the Law and the Prophets had been able to effect in Israel, Jesus goes one unique and immeasurable step further: He reveals Himself both as God in His Personal flesh and blood, and as the supreme glory of the disciples standing around Him:

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

It is as if He was saying: such, indeed, were the virtues of the Old Testament; but now, for you who walk with Me, your true title to heavenly glory is that you are My disciples.  It is no longer enough to say that you are among the gentle, the poor in spirit, and the merciful; for you who listen to Me and follow Me are all of that and more: you are My true disciples, and that will be your sovereign passport for heaven and title to glory (John 16:25–27):

I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father.  On that day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God.

Yes, People of God, I am sure that you will appreciate that, in heaven, it is not possible that the meekness, the gentleness, of any of the blessed could be admirable before the God of all holiness.  He is pleased to see such virtues of gentleness, humility, patience, mercifulness, or whatever, but being Himself all-holy, He therefore and most necessarily sees also the limitations of our virtues, and loves them best of all as anticipations of Jesus’ grace, preparations for Him.

The fact that someone has personally responded to His incarnate Word in Jesus, that someone has loved and served His beloved and only-begotten Son Personally, that does indeed evoke the Father’s love.  For, in His Father’s eyes, to love His Son supremely here on earth is the summit and culmination of all virtue, including and surpassing all that has gone before.   You who are parents will understand.

Perhaps we can picture it best if we think of a sculptor.  God chose His material, the nation of Israel, and through the Law and the Prophets He formed -- as does a sculptor with his chisel -- this block ('stiff-necked people' the prophets called them) gradually into some likeness of the Christ who was to come.  This work, however, was always done from the outside, so to speak, just as the chisel of the artist always chips away from the outside.  When Jesus the Christ -- the Son of God made flesh -- came, however, He gave His divine word to His disciples to take root in their mind and heart, and His example to inspire them.  Finally He gave His human life for them; and then, having risen from the dead in the power of the Spirit of God, He ascended to the right hand of His Father, from where He sent the Father’s promise -- His own most Holy Spirit -- to be with His disciples, making them into one Body, His Body, His Church.  The Holy Spirit was given to remain with His Church, guiding her into all truth and protecting her from the snares of the enemy, and in that continuing task the Spirit works from the inside, in the minds and hearts of the disciples, constantly forming them into a living likeness of Christ, their Lord and Saviour, for the Father:

Among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture says, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him’.  He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in Him were to receive.  There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.        (Matthew 11:11; John 7:37s.)

People of God, the glory of our calling, and indeed the joy of all the blessed in heaven, lies in the fact that, as living members and likenesses (not plaster-cast copies) of His Son, we are destined to share in His glory, and rejoice in the Father’s love:

You are in Christ Jesus, Who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord."  (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

In our first reading we heard questions being asked about the blessed in heaven:

Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?

In answer to the first question "who are these wearing white robes?" we can recall that we heard St. John tell us, Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure, as He is pure.  So we know now why the blessed are dressed in white robes: they are disciples who, in Jesus and by His Spirit, have purified themselves as He is pure. 

But what about that second question, "where did these people come from?"  Here we must bear in mind what Jesus has already told us:

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

That is where those dressed in white have come from; as the elder in heaven said:

These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Today we have great reason to celebrate: as disciples of Jesus we have already been given a share in heavenly life and blessedness, and we can experience some measure of that blessedness if we purify ourselves, as St. John told us, by trying to walk ever more faithfully in the way of Jesus, and to appreciate ever more deeply the beauty of His truth.  The final washing of our robes, however, will only be brought about through suffering with and for Jesus, as indeed so many of our Catholic and Christian brethren throughout the world are now suffering , as and how God wills for each and every one of us in the adulterous and sinful world we are now experiencing.

Even here -- such is the blessedness already given us -- we can, in some degree, come to rejoice in our sufferings for Jesus as the apostle Paul assures us:

As Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.  (2 Corinthians 1:5; Romans 8:18)              

30th Sunday Year B 2015

30^th. Sunday (Year B)

(Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Jesus only used those words:

                Your faith has saved you

on four occasions: with Bartimaeus in today’s Gospel; with the woman suffering from a 12 years-long haemorrhage (Mt.9:22; Mk. 5:34),  with ‘Mary’ the sinful woman cured in the Pharisee’s house at a meal being held in Jesus’ honour,  and with the grateful Samaritan former-leper (Lk. 7:50, 17:19). 

However, in our Gospel reading it was not the miracle performed for Bartimaeus that is of central importance for us today but Jesus Himself Who – despite the noise of the surrounding crowd and those who were shouting down the beggar’s cries -- heard that cry for mercy and recognized the faith behind it.

God’s mercy and goodness is also the focal point of the prophet’s celebration of Israel’s deliverance from exile in Babylon of which we heard in the first reading; a temporal deliverance as it turned out due to Israel’s abiding sin, but one both foreshadowing and preparing for Jesus’ definitive salvation:

Behold, I will bring them back as an immense throng from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, the mothers and those with child.  They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them.  I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble; for I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.

Jesus’ compassionate understanding is likewise emphasized in the second reading where we were told that, as our High Priest:

Taken from among men (being born a human being of the Virgin) He is a priest forever, able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring.  

Now that is the key for our understanding and appreciation of today’s readings.

Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ cry because Bartimaeus was centered totally on the Person of Jesus: deaf to the words and abuse of the crowd he was ‘locked onto’ the Person of Jesus, and if we recall the other members of the quartet who were addressed by Jesus with the words, ‘Your faith has saved you’ we will recognize that all of them were -- each in their own way -- fixed on Jesus: the woman with the incurable hemorrhage working her way through the surrounding throng, the Samaritan grateful beyond measure, going back to Jesus before going home; and Mary oblivious to the disdain, scorn, and indeed contempt being shown her as she wept for her sins before her Lord.

The obvious ‘next step’ would be to say, ‘that is how we should pray … wholeheartedly and personally’, which would be undeniably true; but I am not sure how helpful it would be to state the obvious so bluntly.  For Bartimaeus – as indeed all the other three persons mentioned – had most compelling motives and/or pressing situations spurring them on to meet with Jesus; we, on the other hand, often start our prayer ‘from cold’ so to speak, having just set aside our previous business, trying to forget recent distractions, feeling tired and weary towards the end of the day.  How can we motivate ourselves à la Bartimaeus?

The clearest guidance he offers us is a most important consideration for all seeking Jesus: the need to be independent of public, ‘peoples’, opinion.  It is, indeed, a ‘dogma’ of classical spiritual teaching that dependence on, active membership of, a crowd is inimical to the moral well-being of whoever would be a serious disciple of Jesus.   This is contained in those remarkable words of Jesus to His Father:

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

Jesus’ disciples can have perhaps innumerable relationships with, for, before, the world, but they cannot belong to the world any more than Jesus did; and ‘people’s opinion’ is no guide for, nor should it hold any terrors for, such disciples.

There is something else that can be helpful for us as regards Bartimaeus’ healing.  To human eyes, he just happened to be humbly positioned by the roadside with his begging bowl as Jesus was passing by:

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.

Now, when we want to pray, it is most helpful and – out of reverence – essential, to put oneself, deliberately as best we can, in the way , as it were, of Jesus.  Bartimaeus was indeed just sitting there; but he had put himself in the right place, where he was able to hear Jesus Who was not directly looking for Bartimaeus but just in the vicinity, passing by.   Such patient, humble, hanging around, in a ‘place’ where Jesus might come near – perhaps even stumble over us, so to speak -- is essential for prayer. Our Lord does not book appointments when people can come to Him, discuss with Him, and learn from Him, rather He hears, infallibly, those who, like Bartimaeus, cry out to Him in patient faith and sincere humility, with true reverence and persistent endeavour.

There is yet another aspect of Bartimaeus’ relationship with Jesus: he recognized the unique presence of God in the otherwise much disregarded humanity of Christ.  His was a distinctly Christian faith.   We too believe that the all-holy God is uniquely present in something, someone, so weak and frail as a creature of God, part of His creation: the Church and the Eucharist:

Saul persecuted the Church and the voice of the risen Lord said to him:  ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute ME?’

Jesus commanded us to receive the Eucharist saying: ‘He who eats ME, shall live because of Me.’

Both the Church and the Eucharist are called Jesus’ Body in the Scriptures; and we should ever more clearly realize that we are worshipping here today because we, like the blind beggar in our Gospel, believe that the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ with us today in the Church -- despite whatever individual scandals may momentarily disfigure and betray her -- and in the Eucharist, is the unique, ultimately sublime, presence of God here on earth for the salvation of mankind.  People of God, never be complacent or careless with regard to such treasures; seek to know and appreciate the Faith more, and try to deepen your love and reverence for Our Lord in the Eucharist as the Holy Spirit inspires you.

29th Sunday Year B 2015

29^th. Sunday of Year (B)

(Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45)

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This Sunday we have a matter of translation to consider first of all, but it does quickly lead to a most serious issue concerning Catholic spirituality which translators are not necessarily aware of:

Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;   whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

That is our New American Bible Revised Version’s translation and it is a literal translation of the Church’s official Latin Vulgate text, as also of the original Greek Gospel.

However, certain other modern translations change the word ‘will’, future tense, to ‘must’, imperative.  Why?   Obviously, it would seem because that is what the scholars involved consider Jesus’ intention must (!) have been.  But does that then mean that -- in their view -- the evangelist himself, or perhaps even Peter the originating source of Mark’s Gospel, did not understand Jesus accurately enough?  Or rather, might it, in fact, be the case that those translators -- professional and learned scholars who without doubt do great work for the Gospel – have, as scholars sensitive to their international standing, to bear in mind such a multitude of technical facts and human opinions that they simply do not have the time – or the ability – to be able to appreciate and answer spiritual questions with a like excellence as shown in their professional capacity?   It is a question worth asking and considering, because professional exegetes today produce volumes of New Testament studies of such burdensome size, quoting the opinions of seemingly innumerable scholars often writing in their own language, that it is hardly possible for them to have read and understood as required all that they quote or refer to, let alone to have carefully weighed and pondered consequences and further issues that might be involved.

Let us therefore consider what the Evangelist, St. Mark, says in his Gospel as we have it today:

Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;   whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

Notice first of all that Jesus is speaking privately to His chosen disciples, whom He knew intimately as regards both their individual characters and their personal love for and devotion to Himself; men who, indeed, He is in the very process of training as  His future Apostles:

Whoever wishes to be great among you will be... 

Many translators think that here Jesus means ‘must make yourself to be…’ a servant of the others; because to attain their object, their desire, their ambition, to be great they must (!) do something rather special … something that distinguishes and shows them to be ‘special’!  And surely we can understand that.

Yes, we can understand that because it is a normal, worldly, way of thinking.  But, precisely, here we are not considering the thought patterns of every-day human beings firmly ensconced in an ordinary worldly situation: we are thinking about men chosen by God, for their love of Jesus first of all, and for their spiritual sensitivities, responsiveness, and capabilities; and we are hearing words being spoken and training being given to them by Jesus, the ‘Word’ of God made flesh.

The translation ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant’ demands that anyone of them harbouring such ambitions must do something to make himself  a suitable servant, worthy of such prominence; it demands in that way a measure of self-interest, self-seeking and, indeed, of self-appreciation.   Now that is most certainly not what Jesus wanted in His Apostles.

On the other hand our translation ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant’, declares that any one of them with – that is, any one to whom God has given -- aspirations, hopes, prayers for such greatness, will be brought by God the Father to serve his brethren, either in actual physical service, or in self-sacrificing spiritual humility and fraternal commitment.  Now that is the way Jesus Himself lived in our regard: not choosing for Himself, but being led by His Father, just as our first reading, taken from the book of Isaiah, made so abundantly clear:

                The Lord was pleased to crush Him in infirmity;

                The will of the Lord shall be accomplished through Him.

And this attitude is incontrovertibly shown by Our Blessed Lord at His agony in the Garden when He said:

Abba, Father, all things are possible to You.  Take this cup away from Me; before adding, but not what I will but what You will. (Mark 14:36)

Let us therefore look back at the preposterous request made (according to Mark’s Gospel which vividly records Peter’s preaching) by James and John, sons of Zebedee:

                Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You!!

Matthew tries to make it more acceptable by saying the request was made by the mother of those two disciples … but the original indignation of their fellow apostles is surely most clearly witnessed to and justified by Mark’s account as remembered by Peter.

Therefore assuming Mark is accurate and James and John did make such an outrageous request of Jesus, the question arises, ‘Why did Jesus treat their request so seriously?’  And surely the answer must be, ‘Because He had something important to teach them from it.’  He is about to show them something essential for their understanding of themselves and of the ways of their God, His Father.

They were at that moment trying to express, in badly chosen words -- but also quite simply and humbly before Jesus -- what His Father was trying to inspire in them: an aspiration, in no circumstances whatsoever to be mistaken as an ambition.

Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;   whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

Yes, you will be servants and slaves because My Father is trying to draw you along, guide you on, His way for you; but His will alone will be done in you, not your will for your own personal renown, not even your will for His renown.  His will will be done in you, and in His way.

Jesus took their preposterous but childishly innocent request seriously because they were indeed intended to become Apostles for the establishment of His Church and the Kingdom of God, and this childish folly and misunderstanding, this misinterpreting of His Father’s intentions in their regard, must and would be corrected: indeed in a certain measure it was being corrected at that very moment, by their deeply experienced and well-deserved embarrassment before the present company of Jesus and ‘the ten’, their indignant fellow Apostles-to-be.  They would have learnt so much about themselves and about God’s will for them in those words of Jesus!

Dear People of God, as we consider the history of Mother Church past and present, we can surely appreciate the superhuman task that faced and still faces the Twelve Apostles and their subsequent episcopal successors: the establishment of a cohesive Catholic Church: one in faith, morals, and obedience, throughout history and for all mankind.  They would indeed have the Gift of God, the Holy Spirit, sent them by Jesus and abiding with them as a Body, forming them as the very Body of Christ for the glory of God the Father and the salvation of all men and women of good will; but what immense difficulties would arise from many who, like James and John in our Gospel reading, would mistake (not so innocently as James and John however!) their own ambitions for God’s inspiration, God’s inviting and guiding grace.   How many souls would and will suffer from the overweening pride of individuals in powerful positions: be they bombastic, arrogant, and ambitious prelates or harsh and unbending mother superiors in tiny convents and schools or enjoying cherished power and treasured prestige at the head of large, national or international congregations.

Undoubtedly, the most important task in Catholic spirituality and the supreme need for the Church today is for men and women able to assume responsibility and exercise authority yet also to forget themselves as they seek to draw ever closer to, more centered on, and humble before, God: living to do His will and becoming ever more able to discern and distinguish His will from their own, and His glory from their own reputation or the acclamation of men.  How pathetic it is to hear chosen prelates apologizing for not being unknown Christians and Catholics, for not being women when needing to clarify and confirm Catholic teaching on the family.  They are anointed as CHRISTS for our times, passing down what they have themselves received: the teaching of Christ and the historically declared will of God for mankind’s salvation!!  They are placed in the centre of the world and the Church’s attention not for their own peaceful and popular passage when in office, nor merely for the good will and pleasure of all, to whatever degree or however remotely, concerned.  They are anointed Christs to proclaim the One Jesus Christ, as Jesus Himself encouraged them:

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One Who sent Me.  (John 13:20)

Let them live up to such encouragement, to such a glorious promise, and stop fearing for self and hedging for popularity!