3rd Sunday of Year (A) 2017

 3^rd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 8:23-9:3; 1^st. Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23.)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in our readings today it is somewhat difficult for us to focus closely on Jesus because of the beautiful messianic quotes from Isaiah; therefore I will now recall to your minds the actual, on the ground, situation when Jesus began His public ministry:

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested He withdrew to Galilee, (and then) leaving Nazareth He went to live in Capernaum by the sea.  From that time on Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’  As He was walking by the sea of Galilee He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.  He said to them, ‘Come after Me and I will make you fishers of men.’

How very intriguing those few words must have been for the two brothers!  This was not the very first time they had encountered Jesus, they had learned of Him from John the Baptist (JB to Andrew to Peter), and at the recent Passover festival in Jerusalem they had witnessed, or at least heard eye-witness reports of, His remarkable activity and confrontations with Temple authorities, plus subsequent marvellous happenings on the way back to Galilee.  In other words, Peter and Andrew already knew quite a bit about Jesus. 

Today however, things were different somehow, very different.   Jesus was starting something new --- His divinely commissioned Public Ministry --- and He was authoritatively intent on directly choosing disciples to follow Him now and accompany Him on His missionary journeys, that they might thus learn at first hand His purposes and His ways, so that, ultimately, they might be able not only to continue His work in Israel but even extend it world-wide.

                Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men!

What an ideal, perfect, call for men for men such as Simon and Andrew: few words indeed, but full of meaning, promise, and challenge!  At once, they left their nets and living and followed Him.  See, there, People of God, how imperious a vocation to follow Jesus can be, and is, essentially!

Going further He saw James and John in a boat with their father Zebedee,

He called them,

and though we do not know what specific words of invitation He used, the fact is that His words lit up a firebrand in their hearts which remained with them throughout their lives with Him and for Him, earning them the appropriate nickname of ‘sons of thunder’:

 and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed Him.     

Now, People of God, can we, dare we, say that Jesus wants all of us -- who like to think of ourselves as modern-day disciples of Jesus -- to have something of that original spirit of absolute, unquestioning commitment manifested by those first specially chosen Apostles, in our relationship with Him?

Could it, perhaps, have been the ‘fresh flesh’ of Jesus (so to speak) that so inspired those brothers?   Not really for, as I have said, they had been with Him, close to Him, at the recent festival for any novelty about His physical proximity and Personal companionship to have by now run its course.  Here there something other … absolutely new evidence of the Spirit ‘driving’ Jesus (remember after His baptism by John in the Jordan?) and bursting out manifestly and irresistibly -- for those sensitive to Jesus -- at this the very beginning of the divine mission for which He had been sent by His Father: the re-ordering of Israel and ultimately, through the disciples He would choose and His future Church they would establish, of the whole of mankind for their eternal salvation and His beloved Father’s great glory!!

With these first-choice and most powerfully-chosen (leave everything at once!) disciples Jesus went immediately upon an introductory mission throughout all Galilee to teach them His ways and purposes:

Teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom (‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’), and curing every disease and illness among the people.            

Above all, however, He wanted these chosen disciples to come to know Him Personally: ‘Come after Me’, ‘Come follow Me’, ‘Come and see’ …. Such was Jesus’ way with those who wanted to know more about Him Personally; and in those ancient times it was a possible, and possibly attractive project: the two pairs of brothers certainly saw much that was interesting, remarkable, and inspiring as they accompanied Him around Galilee: devils were not allowed to disclose Him, human titles and dignities He rejected, and the people’s earthly expectations He made no attempt to satisfy.   Obedience and self-commitment were all that Jesus required of them at first; but a humble awareness of and responsiveness to His Holy Spirit -- inclining and gradually inspiring them to sincere acknowledgement of His dignity and ever deeper love for His Person -- was that to which He aspired for them.

Their daily work on His mission was to help Him by finding food and lodging, preparing food, protecting Him from over-enthusiastic crowds, warding off troublesome individuals, answering simple questions of the people, and perhaps reporting to Him concerning the people’s mood and/or expectations, the variety of needs in their society, and inevitably, helping individuals taken ill, children lost etc., etc.   All very helpful for Jesus but not what Jesus had chosen them for in the first place.

Their supreme work, however, was to be that of themselves coming believe in, and learning to love, Jesus’ Person:  and for that purpose, their imbibing of His very Spirit as best they could by observing not only His guidance but His every gesture and even the tenor of His general bearing and facial emotions;  and most importantly, by always trying to get better at waiting before forming any personal opinions about what He would do, should do or had done, or about possible reasons for His behaviour.  

Dear People of God, that picture of the originally chosen Apostles setting out to follow Jesus on His inaugural public mission is a remarkable and truly inspiring model for all of us wanting and longing to give authentic witness to Jesus and help in His work today.  For that end, there is nothing better than Catholic faith and a measure of spiritual sensitivity that can be determined only by the sincerity and depth of our humility and the infinitely wise and generous measure of God’s Gift, which is His Spirit, in our lives.   Faith, that is in Jesus directly, mediated to us through His Church indeed, but not with her substituting for, or taking the place of, Jesus Himself; spiritual sensitivity, that is, awareness of and responsiveness to, the guidance and inspiration of His most holy Spirit working in His Church and in our lives. 

True, we do not have Jesus walking before and alongside of us; but we do most certainly have His presence with us in Holy Mother Church, in her Scriptures, especially those of the Gospels and New Testament, in her Sacraments, above all His physical Presence in her Eucharist, and indeed,  in her very own ‘self’ established by Jesus as a sign and medium of and for His own perennial triumph over Satan; moreover we do most certainly have the presence of His Most Holy Spirit ‘gifted’ to Mother Church and her liturgy, and also to be copiously found in her traditions and saints long before coming to us this day, but ‘gifted’ in order that He might all the better come to us and form us who are willing into  true likenesses of Jesus for the glory of His Father and ours, and for the well-being and salvation of all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

My dear People, let us now, at the end of these short considerations recall, understand more fully, and rightly delight in, some words from the most comforting and inspiring psalm we heard earlier:

The Lord is my light, my light and my salvation, whom should I fear?  One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord (and) gaze upon the beauty of the Lord all the days of my life.  I believe I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord with courage; be stout-hearted, and wait for the Lord. 

 

2nd Sunday of the Year (A) 2017

2^nd. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6;  1^st. Corinthians 1:1-3;  John 1: 29-34

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, John the Baptist spent most of his life in the desert, and Jesus Himself lived for round about 25-28 years in the quiet town of Nazareth unknown to the world; both, in relative silence and solitude, listening for and learning from God speaking to them and preparing them for their individual ministry and fulfilment.  Surely then, if we are serious as Catholic Christians, who want to recognize Jesus in truth and learn from Him, we too must, in some measure, try to distance ourselves from the ever-louder noise and clamour of modern life in society in order to learn for what purpose God has brought us thus far in our life.

God made us, and because He loves us above the rest of creation He made us in His own likeness that we might be able to relate personally with Him. He is still willing, He still endeavours, to speak with us for our good, but He is Spirit and He is Truth, and many have more or less lost the ability recognize such a Person or understand words that express such Truth.  His manner, His approach to us, is spiritual, His purpose is transcendent love, and His message concerns the very meaning and purpose of our present being and ultimate destiny.

Notice what John said about Jesus:

I did not know Him myself, but He Who sent me said to me, ‘The man on Whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the One Who is to baptise with the Holy Spirit’.

You see that even John the Baptist – though sent to ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ -- could not recognize the true Jesus, the truth about Jesus, until the Father revealed Him to him; as Jesus Himself said:

                No one can come to Me unless My Father draw him.

Dear People of God, life, our life on earth, its meaning as a whole and our own individual life-purpose therein, is a divine and most wonderful mystery and, as such, is both sublimely uplifting and most deeply humbling for our human understanding and appreciation.  That is why people can, in our days and even at the highest echelons of Church life, get embroiled in or disturbed by apparent differences between Pope Francis’ personal emphasis on God’s mercy, and Mother Church’s traditional emphasis on God’s holiness, in and for Catholic spirituality.

Holiness is the very essence of God’s goodness, and as children of His in Jesus, empowered by His most Holy Spirit, we are called to follow our immaculate mother Mary above the angels.  Now ‘the doors’ to such sublime heights of heavenly bliss and divine beauty are not thrown open for any but those who are truly holy; a truth confirmed most emphatically by St. Paul who, in our second reading, expressly declared our vocation as Catholics and Christians to be a call to holiness:

Paul, called to be an Apostle, to you in Corinth who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy.

At the same time however we must recognize, from both our first reading and today’s Gospel, that God’s supreme desire when sending His Son to become man was:

That His salvation may reach the ends of the earth and take away the sins of the world;

and therefore His great goodness, expressing Itself on earth as mercy, is deeper and wider than any sea and embraces the whole of striving humanity … the whole of humanity, that is, who are searching for, striving towards, that goodness of beauty and truth most fully revealed to us in Jesus.

Now, since the heart-felt sincerity of those actually striving (no merely imaginary or emotional liking or wishing) towards Jesus is of far greater moment than any measure of visible success they may -- or may not -- attain, and since our spiritual understanding of God's ways is often so tardy, we can find ourselves at times (such as now) having to hold -- as has often been remarked – onto the two ends of a chain of unknown length.  On the one hand, divine Holiness is absolute and no one must ever try to make it, or offer it, cheap for others, let alone lead others to think it can be got, or that they can get it for themselves ‘on the cheap’.  On the other hand, the fact that God’s mercy towards men-of-good will is whole-hearted (so to speak) and everlasting, cannot in any way be denied.  

Now, all this may well, and indeed should, lead us His People to recognize that we can only come to know God our Sovereign Lord and appreciate His ways more fully and truly by following more closely the examples of John and Jesus by listening, praying, and reverently waiting -- perhaps for even a considerable time -- before we can, in Jesus, humbly receive God’s blessing and enlightenment, by His Spirit, and through His Church. 

The need for prayer is obviously so very important for us in Church life today, but also it is of the utmost importance for us in our individual lives and personal witness to Jesus before the world, because indifferent Catholics – seeking themselves and their own worldly purposes with nothing more than a perfunctory gesture towards Jesus and His will for us -- have too long abounded in and now most deeply wounded Mother Church as we can clearly see and hear around us today.

Therefore, we can’t merely seek information from the Scriptures, or admire mere logical arguments in Mother Church’s dogmatic teaching.  The historical, physical, factual, Jesus, about Whom scholars used to talk so much until quite recently, was actually seen by His contemporaries --  even by John the Baptist himself -- but that wasn’t enough for them to recognize and believe in Him as their Saviour; for that they needed a special light, an elevating grace, from God.  And we, in our turn today, need a similar special light and grace that we might recognize, appreciate, and respond to God’s Personal love for us -- you and me individually -- in Mother Church’s Scriptures, that we might drink deeply of the divine-life-for-human-living bestowed ‘physically’ and in total profusion in her Eucharist, and also to be found and experienced in the divine grace available and so redolent in her teaching and spirituality.

Let me now, to close, draw up some of the characteristics of a Catholic Christian as learnt from today’s Gospel:

A Catholic Christian seeks peace so as to be able to listen:

first of all, to his own being which will tell him that nothing in this world can fully satisfy him;

secondly, to God, in order to find hope, meaning, purpose, and fulfilment for  his life as an individual human being become a child of God.

A Catholic Christian is, has to be, fundamentally humble, because he knows and fully accepts that he cannot even seek salvation, let alone embrace it in Jesus, without the Father Himself, showing us something of the beauty of His beloved Son and the goodness of the News He brings and the gifts and graces He offers us.

A modern Catholic therefore embraces the doctrine of Mother Church and frequents her Sacraments (above all the Eucharist); he readily prays, seeking ever more intimate guidance, and personal communion with God, in and from the Scriptures of Mother Church; and, finally, such a disciple of Jesus does not disdain to make grateful use of human wisdom and learning in so far as they help.  He knows how to trust himself to the God Who made him, Who originally called, carried, and still leads him; and he most ardently believes that such Fatherly love will never fail him, needing only his own personal response of loving trust to glorify him, in Jesus, by the Spirit, for Himself.