5th Sunday of Eastertide Year A 2017

5^th. Sunday of Eastertide, Year (A)

(Acts 6:1-7; 1^st. Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12)

People of God, let me draw your attention to the first reading, in the course of which you heard the Apostles speaking to the early Christians in Jerusalem:

The Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, "It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table.   Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

You will, I trust, appreciate from that passage the importance the Apostles attached to their 'ministry of the word', which included what we would call today the duty of preaching.  In this they were being totally faithful to the Lord's command, for we are told (Mark 16:14-16) that, after His Resurrection:

Jesus appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He said to them, "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature.  He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." 

With that in mind perhaps someone might think: ‘But what about the Mass?’ 

The Apostles regarded the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice to be of supreme importance, indeed absolutely necessary, for the Church, as St. Paul writes in his letter to his Christian community at Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:23-24):

I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is (broken) for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

For the Apostles, therefore, there could be no conflict of precedence between ministry of the Word and celebration of the Eucharist, since prayer and proclamation are two co-related aspects of one reality: as St. Peter said in our first reading:

We shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

The Eucharist is supreme prayer, the prayer of the Church -- the Body of Christ -- with that of her Head, Christ Himself.  Likewise, proclamation of the Word is the commission given by Jesus to His faithful Apostles, for the fulfilment of which He endowed them with the gift of His own most Holy Spirit, that by their preaching they might proclaim His Good News far and wide and thus continue His work of redemption for men and women of all times.

Consequently, a priest’s calling, as a sharer in the Bishops' Apostolic mission in Mother Church today, is to follow the Apostles' example by his ministry of the Word and offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, both of which he does pre-eminently in his celebration and proclamation of Christ at Holy Mass on Sunday.

Nothing is more necessary and beneficial for our world today than the offering of Jesus' Eucharistic sacrifice, as Mother Church teaches us when she says: 'As often as the sacrifice of the Cross is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out' (Lumen Gentium 3); nor is there any other place or time better suited for the proclamation of God's Word than when the Church community is assembled together in the house of God for her Sunday memorial of the Lord’s Resurrection.

Here, People of God, we should notice that the ministry of the Word is not, primarily, a matter of being able to talk well, for true preaching is the result of the Holy Spirit working in and through disciples – specially adapted as His instruments by their ordination -- obediently opening themselves up to His grace and making themselves useful for His purposes; and the supreme purpose for such Spirit-guided preaching is not to try to make Jesus popular (and most certainly not the preacher himself!) but to proclaim His truth, His Gospel, and Mother Church’s presentation of it, that God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit --  might be worshipped, loved, and served aright.

Mother Church alone has been given the fullness of the Spirit and no individual member of the Church has such fullness: all receive the Spirit entrusted to them, through her, for a particular purpose and function.  We were shown this clearly in the first reading where Peter, speaking on behalf of all the Apostles, said:

Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task.

Subsequently we were told that:

They set (the seven men) before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

Why did the Apostles need to lay their hands on them since, as we heard, these seven men were chosen because they were of good reputation and full of the Spirit and wisdom? 

Their fullness of the Spirit and of wisdom at that time was such as to have enabled them to live as disciples of Jesus meriting a good reputation in and for the Christian community:

          Select from among you seven reputable men.

However, in order to fulfil in the name of the infant Church the special function of looking after those who were most needy -- the widows -- they had to be given the Spirit afresh:

          They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them.

No special God-willed work in and for the Church can be done without a special gift of the Spirit for that purpose.  The Spirit guides, preserves, strengthens and inspires for the good of the Church and He will never allow the gates of Hell to prevail against the Church; and so, He does most specially protect the whole People of God by blessing and prospering the sincere efforts of all individuals called to serve either in the ordained ministry, or as living members of what St. Peter recognized as:

A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own, so that you may announce the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.

The Holy Spirit is available and freely given to all those called who, at whatever level and in whatever degree, work for the furtherance of Gospel truth and the growth of divine charity in the Church, the family, and in society as a whole.

That is why Jesus said to His Apostles (John 16:13-14) and says also to His Church today:

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

And that is why the apostle John could write in his first letter (4:6):

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Many of the present difficulties and trials of Mother Church stem, most certainly, from a wilful ignorance of the working of the Holy Spirit and an overdose of human pride.  The Holy Spirit is always and only given to build up Mother Church for the glory of God, never to back up human pride or indulge human passions.  Unfortunately, there are still too many Catholics who think their learning or intelligence enables them, while others imagine that the vehemence of their personal feelings compels them, or even that their own social importance allows them, to push themselves into even the most sacred matters of Church’s teaching and practice. These wrong attitudes have bedevilled Mother Church from the beginning, as St. John shows when speaking in the book of Revelation (3:1-3) to those with a false opinion of themselves or a false reputation with others:

I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead.  Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.  Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.   (NLT)

People of God, St. Peter tells us that Jesus,

          The stone which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone;

and that we, His disciples:

As living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

That spiritual house is Mother Church where the Holy Spirit dwells and is ever at work to form each and every one of us in the likeness of Jesus as a holy priesthood called to 'offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God'.  However, our individual and personal spiritual sacrifices can only be acceptable to God first of all because of the real sacrifice of Jesus which alone gives worthy praise and glory to the God the Father; and secondly, because some members of the Church have been called and ordained to be instruments of the Spirit of Jesus in the continued offering, even today, of Jesus’ one, real, and perennial sacrifice to the Father.   Because of, and along with, that ever-abiding and ever-contemporary offering of Jesus' sacrifice, all our individual spiritual sacrifices can become acceptable to the God and Father Who is All in all.

As a priest, I am a sharer in the ministerial priesthood of Jesus, but I am also, as an individual, along with you, a sharer in that other priesthood, the priesthood of the whole Body of Christ, called to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God:

A royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, proclaim(ing) the praises of Him who called (us) out of darkness into His marvellous light.

People of God, our hope and our future is bound up with Jesus and in Him we have a sublime vocation.  Each and every one of us should try to build up our relationship with Him more and more: for though we have a calling, we still have to work at it, and we cannot fulfil our calling without the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit.  God is All in all for us, and He wants us to give Him our all in return.  In Mother Church we are called and are enabled to do just that by the abiding presence of Jesus in the Church and the constant working of His Holy Spirit in the Church and in our lives.

Jesus Himself required His disciples to look beyond the physicality of His own presence and Person:

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me.

I go to My Father.  And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  (John 14:10-13)

In like manner, He wants us to look beyond mere flesh and blood, beyond personalities we may naturally like or dislike, and, as St. Paul puts it (Galatians 5:13):

          Through love serve one another.

that is, through authentic love of God, work together as a team, as co-operating members of the Body of Christ, either by shared personal endeavour or by sincere personal prayer:

          That the Father may be glorified in the Son.

And if we would wish to understand something of the Son’s glorification of His Father we must recall Jesus’ words of explanation to His Apostles:

Jesus said to Thomas,  ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.

Notice Jesus does not say, ‘No one goes to the Father except through Me’ … He doesn’t even say, ‘No one can get to the Father except through Me; no, the Father is in no way to be separated from Jesus, He is mysteriously essential to Jesus and only to be found in Jesus by a through-going which is also a coming-to:

          No one comes to the FATHER except through ME!!

Dear People of God, the astounding beauty of our Faith is a wondrous configuration of earth and heaven: earthly discipline and order in the Church so beautifully pictured for us in today’s short readings, and more completely manifested in the early Church’s comprehensive embrace of life in Christ, and the transcendental mystery of heavenly charity revealed to us in our Blessed Lord’s Gospel words:

                    No one comes to the FATHER except through ME!!

Let us therefore go out into the world after today’s Eucharist inspired to proclaim our Blessed Lord Jesus, Whose Truth is the only Way, and by Whose Holy Spirit of Life alone we can give fitting praise and honour to the Father of sublime Mystery and Majesty, Whose eternal Presence, Glory, and Power, in Mother Church and in our individual and most personal lives, can only be understood as LOVE: heavenly, sacrificial, and eternal.  Amen.

         

                                             

4th Sunday of Eastertide 2017

 4^th. Sunday of Eastertide (A)

(Acts 2:14, 36-41; 1^st. Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10)

People of God, there was something of particular interest for us in today’s reading taken from the first letter of St. Peter sent:

To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. (NIV)

Those places form part of what we now know as modern Turkey and touch also upon those mountain areas where the Kurds today are trying to find a home and a national identity for themselves.  Now, those Christians to whom Peter was writing were only recent converts and Peter was seeking to encourage, strengthen, and to guide them in the ways of Christ, and I want you to note how he sets about it:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.

Such was the way the early Church was built up: Christians were taught and encouraged to face up to the difficulties of their personal situation with their eyes firmly fixed on the historic Person of Christ Who suffered and died to redeem us from the sin which is in the world and of the world.  In such teaching Peter was being absolutely faithful to Jesus Who said to His disciples (John 15:19): 

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Isn’t it strange then, that in response to today’s world-wide persecution of millions of Catholics and Christians who are suffering not only pain, great distress and loss, but even most violent death, we hear few Church messages of whole-hearted Christian support, encouragement, and guidance -- not merely human sympathy -- for those thus suffering, in comparison with sometimes controversial messages for others with moral difficulties and personal problems.

The nascent Church knew her place, she preached and gladly poured out her blood to preach Christ our Saviour and Redeemer that all might hear the Good News He brings; it was God alone, as she well knew, Who persuaded people; and those He chose, He gave to Jesus:

          No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draw him. (John 6:44)

Our first reading gave faithful Peter’s presentation of Jesus’ teaching:

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever our God will call.

Today the Church’s message too often seems directed not to seriously and zealously preaching Jesus as Lord and Saviour -- the Christ -- so much as rather pathetically trying to persuade people to come to Church!

In today’s readings Peter is so confident in the Jesus he preaches as being the sublime example and supreme reward, the all-sufficient strength and peace, for Christians under persecution, that he has no qualms whatsoever about encouraging and exhorting them to face up to their trials with patience, confidence, and courage:

Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His footsteps.

Such a message, however, does not make pleasant hearing for our modern consumer society, where the practical endeavour of the vast majority is to enjoy life in this passing world to the utmost, with nothing more than an occasional polemical interest in Christianity; and sadly, the Church’s proclamation is far too often directed in response to, and occasionally watered-down for, such people, who have no personal interest in either faith or salvation.

After rising from the dead in glory Jesus did not live again here on earth.  He did, indeed, show Himself to His intimate disciples several times on earth, but on all those occasions He appeared as One Who had ascended, that is, One Who was now living at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.  He had risen in order to ascend, because the life in which He rose, the life He offers to share with us, was, is, heavenly life, eternal and glorious.   Those who imagine they can live as good Christians while aiming no higher than earthly happiness are at the best like those fireworks we call "damp squibs": made to be rockets, they do indeed burn when their match is applied, but they find it hard to lift off into the air, and if they should begin to rise they go up only a few fretful yards before spluttering and flopping down to ground again with no further possibility of fulfilling their promise.

Those to whom Peter addressed his message, on the other hand, were Jesus' true disciples, men and women under no illusions that the world which crucified their Lord might in some way come to love them:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

However, they also knew and wholeheartedly accepted that, thanks to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, they were no longer helpless under the sin of the world.  They rejoiced in the conviction that they could now overcome the world, in and with Jesus Who conquered sin and death by rising in the glory of the Holy Spirit, and Who was offering to all who would believe in Him and in His saving proclamation of God’s Fatherly love, a share in the presence and power of His own Most Holy Spirit :

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33). 

Therefore, you can see how much the early Christians and the early Church differed from many, probably the majority, of Catholics and Christians today.

It is commonly thought today that the way to help people to the Faith is by chatting with those who are older around dinner tables, while the faith of young people and of converts can best be strengthened by making worship interesting and attractive, drawing them into social activities and good works.  Now all those activities may well have some helpful part to play at the beginning of Christian life, but they have little or no role in the strengthening of Christ’s faithful to face the trials and difficulties their faith will encounter in the course of real life, when things turn out differently to their expectations and when trials, misunderstandings, and even hostility or persecutions, come, perhaps undeservedly, their way.

Peter was very realistic in his address to the new converts of Asia Minor, and he not only warned them of the difficulties they would have to face, but even said it was their vocation, their calling, not only to suffer in that way but also to triumph over their trials in the strength of Christ:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

Speaking in this way Peter was preparing and strengthening them for whatever might arise; and we ourselves -- aspiring to be sincere believers in and true disciples of Jesus -- also find his words, after nearly two thousand years, still refreshingly pertinent and inspiring, oppressed as we are by the sin that is not only blatantly rampant in the world around us, but also openly and unashamedly visible in our own society, and even to be found skulking among and in our very selves.

St. Peter makes very clear for us why we have felt the need to come here to Jesus where He promised to abide with us, that is, in His Church, our Mother, for we have come wanting with Peter’s converts, to be healed by Jesus, to learn from Him and be empowered by His Spirit that we might, by overcoming the sin of the world, bear authentic witness to Him and to the wondrous love of the Father Who sent Him among us to save us.

We know, however, that our healing will be a life-long process, for the Holy Spirit of Jesus must open up our most secret selves so that, penetrating to the core of our being, He might form us in all truth and sincerity into a likeness of Jesus.  God needs to temper His power to our frailty with the result that the Holy Spirit working in us can only change us gradually.  Moreover, the Spirit, having begun to work His wonders in us, has then to encourage us personally to commit ourselves to following His influence and guidance with confidence, trust, and courage, and that too is difficult and takes time, because we instinctively want to walk with others, to be comforted and appreciated by our fellows, and too often we find ourselves unable to hear or understand, neither will we follow, when the Spirit of Jesus would lead us along a way that is not level, well sign-posted, or well-trodden, by others.  We love to think of ourselves as unique, but most are usually both slow and reluctant to accept the consequences of such a quality.

Today therefore, dear People of God, let our Easter rejoicing be both whole-hearted and truly profitable for ourselves and for Mother Church: let us make it our delight to proclaim Jesus as Our Saviour and our Risen Lord, our whole confidence and sure hope; and as we do that let us renew our admiration of and prayers for all those saints in Mother Church suffering so much – even on this very day -- for their faithfulness to Jesus and His Church.  With them, let us bolster our hearts as we listen carefully and trustfully to Jesus’ words:

Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  

Jesus is indeed the Way, the firstborn from the dead; He is the Truth which alone can satisfy and fulfil our deepest longings; He is Life itself in the fulness of all its possibilities and divinely eternal.  Through faith in Jesus we have entered into the flock of God, and Jesus like a good shepherd leads His flock to nourishing pasture.  Having conquered the sin of the world, and having been raised -- still in our likeness -- to new and eternal life in the Spirit of Glory, Jesus is able to fulfil what He promised:

I give them eternal life, they shall never perish neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.   My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.  I and My Father are one. (John 10:29-30)

Eastertide is a time of supreme joy for all Christians, but let us learn from Peter who, inspired by the Spirit of Jesus, spoke words of truth that pierce the fog of worldly deceits and our own self-indulgent fancies:

(Peter) testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation."

Our rejoicing today should be for the fact that in the Risen Lord we can now overcome our own sinfulness and the corruption and deceit of the world around us thanks to His bequest of His most Holy Spirit Who dwells in us, offering us strength and light to follow Jesus perseveringly along the way that leads to sublime fulfilment in our heavenly and eternal home.

                                                     

3rd Sunday of Easter Year A

Sermon 293: 3^rd. Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 22-23; 1^st. Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35)

As the two disciples walked towards Emmaus they discussed Jesus and the events of His life and death so recently experienced in Jerusalem and now so sorrowfully remembered.  Reminiscences though, no matter how loving, are not faith … how many lapsed Catholics fool themselves by pretending that reminiscences of that sort show that though they no longer go Church on Sundays, though they no longer receive Jesus in His sacraments, though they do not always obey all (!) His commands, nevertheless they still have true faith in their hearts!  They could well say with the two on the way to Emmaus in the Gospel story, not using indeed the same words:

            We had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel;

but expressing the same general appreciation of Jesus from their life in the Church: ‘We had once hoped to experience something of the presence of Jesus, we had hoped to find joy and inspiration in our practice of the Faith but …

How did Jesus bring back those regretful men bound for Emmaus?  How does He seek to draw back our modern-day lapsed Catholics??  How does He lead His faithful to what is better today???

He opened the meaning of the Scriptures to those ‘Emmaus-bound disciples’ and they felt their hearts begin to warm within them, ‘burn within them’ indeed.  Their faith was being rekindled!  Nevertheless, Jesus would have gone on further, alone, and they would not have recognized Him at all, had they not noted and appreciated the gracious gift they had been given.

This Man had found them ‘looking sad’ and now as He was on the point of leaving them their hearts within them felt strangely uplifted.  They recognized that as a gift  given to them and they felt they should acknowledge it; in fact, they positively wanted and willed to show Him their gratitude, so:

They urged Him, ‘Stay with us,  it is nearly evening and the day is almost over’.

Dear People of God, perhaps few of our modern-day lapsed Catholics will ever turn to the Scriptures searching for God, but nevertheless, they and we should always remember that that is where Jesus can certainly be found to guide and heal any who choose to seek Him there; again, how many of our lapsed brethren are able, spiritually sensitive enough, ready and willing, to experience and appreciate God’s blessings in their lives as true blessings for which they must give thanks!

Notice, dear People of God, that Jesus kindled their faith through an appropriate understanding of the Scriptures, and that is precisely what He is trying to do with and for each one of us who today hear Mother Church’s chosen readings and sometimes homily during the sacrifice of Holy Mass.  Jesus is targeting you whether you have heard those readings until you are ‘sick’ of hearing them, or whether you like the priest or not, whether you think his words are convincing, his person acceptable enough, or not …. Despite all that may be going on in your mind and heart, Jesus is targeting you at this time!!

However, it was in the sacrament itself that the disciples actually recognized, found, Jesus their Lord and Saviour.  People of God, we must approach the sacrament – the Eucharist – as indeed all the sacraments of course, with a faith and love prepared to be manifested in obedience to God’s commands if we wish to recognize Christ truly and embrace Him sincerely.

There are other considerations that could be taken up from our readings today, for example, turn over in your minds the fact that Jesus accompanies us – as He did those two going to Emmaus – if we walk our way of life thinking on, communing with, Him whenever we find ourselves free to share a moment or two with Him.  And, of course, He guides us as we read, study, turn to, the Scriptures… but make sure that you do not start anything so formal and deliberate ‘expecting, demanding’ to hear, feel, something from Him!  Just do it like the blind beggar Bartimaeus (Mark 10: 46-48) who heard that Jesus was passing by and simply put himself in Jesus’ way by crying out:

            Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!

Many ‘Catholics’ today are too embarrassed, afraid to ‘draw attention to themselves as being Catholic.  Bartimaeus, however, had no such fears about what people might think of him, indeed, about what people – even disciples – might say to him!  It was supremely important for him to draw Jesus’ attention!   Jesus can most surely be found, be it in the Scriptures or be it in life, by anyone who can imitate that blind beggar.

And finally, Jesus gives Himself to us in the Eucharist!  The priest says before communion, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.’  But Jesus will have none of that!  He doesn’t simply want to simply heal, He wants to incite love in us by offering us His own supreme and most Personal love.   ‘Say only the word’?  Not enough!!  I want love from you!  Yes, love for Me, and, with Me and in Me, love for My Father and for your Father!

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