7th Sunday of Eastertide Year B 2018

Sermon 84: 7^th. Sunday of Eastertide (B)

Acts of the Apostles 1:15-17, 20-26; 1^st. John 4:11-16; John 17:11-19)

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The whole aim of Jesus’ life was to “give them Your word” as He Himself said, that word which made His Apostles hated by the world, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Now, that word is not only in the Holy Scriptures, but it is to be found supremely in Jesus Himself, for He is, Personally, the Word of God made flesh for us, the Word Who, in order to “give them Your word” in the absolute fulness of divine charity also and therefore gave Himself up to death on the Cross for us:

For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.        

From this we can realise that the Word of God, which we are celebrating now in this the first part of our Mass, is inseparably one with the second part of Mass when we offer Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself to the Father.  The Word of God in the Scriptures is one with the Word of God Whose life we share in the Eucharist and through the Sacraments.  They cannot be separated, because: 

        What God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew, 19:6)

In His priestly prayer – that is, in His own most intimately Personal prayer to His heavenly Father for us – Jesus expressed His sentiments and desires in supremely holy words, saying:

I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth.

Therefore, our shield against the world’s hatred, our protection against its deceptive and destructive sin, is to be found in the Word of God which, in its fullness, is TRUTH.   For those who love the truth -- which is Jesus Himself and His Good News about God and the Father’s will for mankind -- Jesus “sanctifies Himself” so that they may be sanctified in and by that truth.   JESUS'S TRUTH IS NOT 'THE COLD TRUTH' BUT A BURNING FLAME OF TRUTH WHICH EXPRESSES HIS LOVE FOR HIS FATHER AND HIS FATHER'S LOVE FOR US WHICH JESUS HAS BEEN SENT AND HAS COME TO SATISFY AND IGNITE US IN TO SHARE IN THAT -- HIS OWN -- SUPREME LOVE.

Jesus “sanctified Himself” for us by dying to self on the Cross, before rising -- glorified by the Spirit of holiness -- and ascending to the Father; and that is why He is able to sanctify us who are willing to die to ourselves through faith in Him, by communicating to us a share in His own fullness of the Spirit of Holiness.

All this Jesus says so that -- experiencing the Spirit at work in our lives -- we may know true joy, the joy and peace of Jesus Himself:

Now, Father, I come to You; and these things I speak in the world that they (whom You have                 given to Me) may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. (John 17:13)

People of God, we should never be embarrassed, and we must certainly never be ashamed, to say that Mother Church, and she alone, is able to appreciate and communicate the fullness of Jesus’ saving truth, experience and bestow the power of His redeeming grace.  And it is for our great joy and comfort in this awareness that Jesus assures us that, thanks to the Spirit Who has been given her, Mother Church is constantly, and to the end of time, being sanctified in the truth of God given her and by the grace of the Sacraments bequeathed to her.

Jesus Himself rejoiced that He knew the Father

O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.   (John 17:25-26):

Jesus rejoiced because His knowledge of the Father was the mark, the sign, of the Father’s love for Him; and He wanted His joy to be in us through our awareness of the fact that our love for God’s saving truth is a sign that the love of the Father is upon us:

I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.  (John 17:26)

In fulfilment of that promise of Jesus, Mother Church has been given the deposit of faith and the treasury of grace, and Jesus is still making the Father known to us in Mother Church because she is constantly under the guidance and protection of the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Truth and Love, Who is the only Sanctifier:

I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.   And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.   I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; however, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. (Jn. 16:7-13)

So now, People of God, think about your reverence for God’s Truth; think about the love you have personally for the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures; think now of the appreciation and gratitude you have for the sure help Mother Church offers in our fight against life’s insidious sinfulness and for our personal understanding of the Scriptures, help which she alone can give because she alone is being guided and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus.  Think about these things, my dear People of God, because love for the word of truth is a great God-given shield, to protect and save us from the world’s hatred and our own frailty.  Only on the basis of love of and obedience to the spoken word of God faithfully handed down to us in its integrity can we approach the Word of God made flesh, Jesus the glorified Lord in the Sacraments, and be sanctified and saved by Him:

For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

We have to keep in our minds these aspects of Mother Church, and of our lives as living stones in her, because human affairs in the Church, as in society and the world, can easily cause us misgiving and sorrow.  From the very beginning it was so, Paul, for example found that there were some preaching the Gospel not out of love for Jesus but out of spite against Paul:

Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains.  What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.  (Philippians 1:15-18)

The Lord Jesus Himself had one such enemy -- one He had chosen and loved, one He had taught and counselled -- one who, however, was free and who freely chose to go his own way as you heard Peter proclaim in the first reading:

“Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.   For it is written in the book of Psalms: 'Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it'; and, 'Let another take his office.'  Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us … one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles

If we are not to become discouraged or depressed by human deceit and treachery, pride and malice, indeed by our own weakness and ignorance, greed and selfishness, we have to keep before our minds the essential beauty of the Gospel of grace given to Mother Church; we have to constantly stir up our faith and confirm our hope that, in the end, truth and beauty will triumph, even in us, and falsehood and sin will be rooted out of our world.  And this will be done by the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Truth and Love, Who guides and sustains us in and through all the situations of life, be they happy or harrowing; and Who, if we truly allow Him to rule in us through the love and reverence we have for the word of God which we celebrate this day, will ultimately lead us to our predestined share in the coming Kingdom of God.

Rejoice, People of God, for as faithful Catholics you know where God’s truth and grace meant for you is to be found by you.    Above all, however, give grateful thanks for the fact that the love of God’s truth with which you have been endowed is a sign that the Father’s love is upon you, for therein lies all the joy wherewith Jesus wants to fulfil your present life and future destiny.

 

   Sermon 188: 6^th. Sunday of Easter(B)                                           (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1^st. John 4:7-10; John 15:

In the Gospel reading we heard an expansion of what is possibly the most famous, the most appreciated, and surely the least controversial, of all the fundamental statements made in the Bible about God:

            God is love  

However, many rejoice in those words not because they want to delight in, learn more about, their meaning and significance for their spiritual life in the service of Jesus before the Father, but to use them as a springboard that would enable them to assert that all love is divine, and that all earthly forms of loving, including even the most blatantly sensual and at times disgusting, are acceptable, and indeed authentic, expressions of God’s true love – which, most certainly, is not true.

Such opponents of Christianity, such searchers for ‘freedom to sin’, latch onto a popular difficulty for the correct doctrinal understanding of those words I have highlighted:

God is love.

The original Greek text in the New Testament says that God is agape; the Latin Vulgate, old and new, always translates that with ’God is caritas’; and, for their part, our older English bibles translated that into ’God is charity’.  However, when the clarity of the word, ’charity’ was clouded by the saying, ’there is nothing so cold as charity’ – the charity, that is, of certain Christians who were said not to really care about the persons they were dealing with but were mainly intent on showing off their own supposed virtue -- then our more modern English bibles began to translate ’God is agape, charity’, with ‘God is love’.  As a result, we now have the situation where another worldly expression ’making (!) love’ -- being used almost universally for sex between consenting adult men and women, not excluding of course these days’ sex between gays, lesbians, and others -- unavoidably resonates in the English translation of ‘love’ for divine ’agape’ and ’caritas’.  Whereas formerly, though the word ‘charity’ -- for some critics of Christianity – was characterised as cold and unfeeling, nevertheless, it always carried with it an aura of divine involvement; now, ‘love’ in the modern translation, inevitably brings with it implications that are both sordid and unchristian; and even though, at its very best, it can occasionally evoke what is noble and beautiful, hardly ever does it suggest what is divine.

There is however, another, not dissimilar, difficulty connected with the popular understanding of our Gospel reading today.  Jesus, as you heard said:

I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.

In modern parlance, ‘joy’ is frequently, indeed normally, mixed up with, understood as, ‘pleasure’ or even ‘excitement’.  Now, there is no true comparison between those three words.  In the Christian understanding ’joy’ is spiritual, whereas ’pleasure’ is sensual, and excitement can be anything leading to frenetic emotion: one feels pleasure, one is carried-away by excitement, one can only peacefully experience joy.  Pleasure can be bought or procured, whereas joy is only to be received as a gift, as a privilege, given – in its most sublime form -- freely from above and evoking such words as, ‘Thanks be to God’.

Jesus loved the Father; and before leaving the Upper Room to face His enemies and impending death His final words were:

That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do; arise, let us go from here.   (John 14:31)

He desired above all to lead His disciples to a relationship with the Father like to His own.   Jesus’ love for the Father was and is ‘agape’.  ‘Agape’ is the Father, ‘God is agape, caritas’ and the Father’s agape caused Him to send His Son on earth to free mankind from the deadly burden of their sins; and that agape-inspired gift of self-sacrificing love on the Father’s part leads His Son to embrace the Cross and become ‘agape’ Himself in His humanity and thus able to pour out that divine love into our lives by the Gift of His Spirit:

The love of God (‘agape’) has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us.   (Romans 5:5)

In that way the love which originates with the Father comes down to earth:

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us (with agape) and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

However, though come down to earth in and through Jesus, agape is never earthly, it remains divine; and, by the unique inevitability characteristic of divine power, it ultimately recalls, brings back, restores, the Son to oneness with His Father:

            (Father) all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine. (John 17:10)

Thus, the whole aim of our Christian life, the whole purpose of Catholic spirituality, is to allow that full tide of agape -- brought and given to us by Jesus through His Holy Spirit -- to rule in our lives, as St. Paul testifies:

If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you, for the love (agape) of Christ compels us.  (2 Corinthians 5:13-14)

If agape is allowed to move us likewise, it will draw all who are one with and in Jesus back to the Father; and that will be for our most sublime joy, for Jesus’ relations with His Father were characterized, as He said, by joy, and He wanted that joy to be shared by His disciples also:

As the Father loves Me, so I also love you.  Remain in My love.  If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy might be complete.

Notice there, dear People of God, when so much emotional waffle is swilling around in presentations of Catholic faith and Christian discipleship in a vain search for easy religion and a popular Jesus, that Jesus Himself, in the words quoted from today’s Gospel, associates LOVE – COMMANDMENTS – JOY; where the link-word holding true love, divine love, ‘agape’, and humanly experienced Jesu-joy (My joy), is the word ‘commandments’ and the obedience it calls for.

Jesus’ essential significance for the world’s salvation is summed up in His revelation of the Father and His gift of the Holy Spirit Whom He bequeathed to His Church; from these, spring the joy and fulfilment of Christian life and the irresistible power of Christian agape so definitely witnessed to in the most essential aspects of the Gospel message:

            Rejoice Mary, the Lord is with you.

The angel said, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, Who is Christ the Lord.   (Luke 2:10-12)

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.    (John 14:27)

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.  (John 16:33)

Dear People of God, in order to experience the beautiful truth, the unutterable joy, and the supreme power of the Christian way of life, that is, in order to benefit from the fullness of revelation and grace in Mother Church, we must learn to swim in and along with the tide of divine agape which determines her whole being: sustaining her unwavering hope and preparing her for eternal glory.  We must come to know and love the Father; and, as you are well aware, no one can draw near to the Father except through Jesus, because Jesus alone gives us the Spirit, Who is the bond of agape between Father and Son:

There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are One. (1 John 5:7)

Embrace therefore, People of God, the Gospel proclaimed by Mother Church, that, knowing the Truth and delighting in Jesus, you may receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit Who can fill you with that unique love which is divine Agape.  Allow the Holy Spirit of Agape to thus rule your life in Jesus, and He will guide you along the way to the Father, bearing fruit for the Father and experiencing something of Jesus’ own peace and joy here on earth, before ultimately, in heaven, sharing in the eternal blessedness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to Whom belong all glory, praise, and honour, now and for ever.

Peter said, ‘God has no partiality: in every nation whoever fears Him and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him.’

Jesus says, ‘If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.’

Amen.

               

        

5th Sunday of Easter Year B 2018

5^th Sunday of Easter (B)                   

(Acts 9:26-31; 1^st. John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8)

We heard Our Blessed Lord in today’s Gospel reading speak words that we need to continually bear in mind as we try to live out our lives as true disciples of His:

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without Me you can do nothing.

In the Christian experience of life there is no place for feelings of personal superiority at success in the ‘rat race’, or pride in coming out on top ‘of the pile’, for Christians know that what is of importance for our own and the world’s salvation is not what we do of ourselves --  without Me you can do nothing of worth -- so much as what we do in Him, and supremely, what we allow Him to do in and through us – ‘whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit’.

            As it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’ (1 Corinthians 1:31)

Therefore, let us look first of all at what is meant by, involved in, the words ‘Whoever remains in Me’.

Many like to think that those words of Jesus refer to us remaining in Him by our occasionally remembering, thinking about, Him, somewhat as one might recall the memory of a friend who has passed on.  Jesus, however, has not passed on in that way, for He remains present to us.  In addition, the words ‘Whoever remains in Me’ speak of our whole being remaining in Him, not just our mind occasionally adverting to Him with perhaps a measure of approval or even reverence.  Jesus Himself made no effort to remain available, open, to our minds as did the famous authors of old still read and admired through their writings, for Personally, Jesus wrote nothing; neither was He, in His death, surrounded by zealous followers declaring their hearts’ devotion, for He was lifted up high on a cross in visible abandonment, while His closest, carefully chosen apostles were all -- except the ‘youngster’ John who was not threatened by the religious authorities -- quick to desert Him and escape to the safety of obscurity, where they found themselves afraid for the present, and unsure of the future significance of His life and work among them.

Whoever – a whole person of mind and heart, body and soul -- remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit.

It was Jesus' rising from the dead in the fullness of His glorified humanity that made the difference: for then, though gloriously embodied, so to speak, He was not only seen but also touched, He was not only heard to speak but also seen to eat.  His Risen Presence was, in that way, and still is, a true bodily presence; a gloriously different body indeed, but nevertheless, He was truly and wholly present with His Apostles in what we may call a supremely real and spiritual way, or perhaps more colloquially, a really spiritual way, and that mysteriously truthful reality is still the manner of His abiding with us today.   Jesus is not a memory to be recalled, nor a departed friend to be lamented, He is a present, living, reality among us in His fulness of being, and calling for, provoking, a response from us that, in turn, has to involve our whole being.

‘Whoever remains in Me‘, refers therefore, to one who remains, indeed abides, in this real, spiritual, Risen Jesus,  as a member of His gloriously alive Body, as one living in Jesus by the Spirit of Jesus.   The commandment of Jesus that we should love one another, is therefore, that we should love all our brethren with us in the Body of Christ, whatever their racial origins or characteristics, that together we might bring forth acceptable fruit for the Father:

This is My commandment, love one another as I love you;

that is, love one another by the very love of Jesus actually loving us and wanting, seeking in and through us, to love our brethren.

St. John in our second reading took up the command of Jesus:

His (God’s) commandment is this: we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as He (Jesus) commanded us.  

You will remember how Jesus at times took elements from the Law of Moses, and then confirmed them by intensifying them (cp. Matthew 5:21-22):

You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder,' and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

In like manner the New Testament command of Jesus to ‘love one another’ is not the same as the Old Testament commandment (Leviticus 19:18) which declares:

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.

That was a command to love fellow Israelites; Jesus, however, as you know, extended that love to all men in His parable about the Good Samaritan:

“Which of these -- Levite, Priest, or Samaritan -- do you think was neighbour to him who fell among the thieves?"  He said, "He who showed mercy on him."  Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:36-37)

Moreover, the original Old Testament ‘neighbour commandment’ required loving the other ‘as yourself’, and that, Jesus took up once again at the Last Supper:

As the Father loves Me, so I also love you; remain in My love.  If you keep My commandments you will remain in My love; this I command you: love one another. (Jn. 15:9, 10, 17)

Jesus’ ‘neighbour-commandment’ therefore, does not relate merely to fellow Israelites, it is a commandment for the Body of Christ, for the whole Church -- the sacrament of restored humanity responding to God -- for all members of Jesus’ mystical Body loving one another as I (Jesus) love you, that is, as Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, is loving each and every one of us at this very moment.

Thereby, we can gather some idea of just how much Mother Church should mean for us who aspire to become true disciples of Jesus: she is the only authentic milieu, the truly necessary atmosphere, for the full, vital and vivifying, operation of every member making up and fulfilling the Mystical Body of Christ; and that is why she, Mother Church is to be specially blessed, protected, and cherished by our observance of Jesus’ special commandment:

            Love one another as I have loved, and am now loving, you.  

Let us now notice how this membership of, this living in and by Mother Church, meant everything to Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles:

When Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple.  But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So, he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out.  And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Saul became -- in the Church -- Paul, a preacher whose independent character was unmistakably manifested at times in confrontations with Barnabas and Mark (Acts 15:37-39), and his famous show-down with Peter at Antioch (Galatians 2:12).  Nevertheless, independent though he was by nature, on becoming, in the Church, Doctor of the Gentiles, he was concerned and firmly determined to regulate his proclamation of Jesus in accordance with that of the original Apostles, above all Peter:

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days.   But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. (Galatians 1:18-19)

After fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and also took Titus with me. I went up by revelation, and I communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain. (Galatians 2:1-2)

People of God, we too are called to love Mother Church much more than ourselves, and to love one another in Mother Church.  However, in Mother Church let us too, with St. Paul, look up to One alone, Who is the vinedresser and Father; let us look at One only, Jesus the Lord, the True Vine Who established her, and Whose word prunes and purifies us in her; let us trust and hope in the One Holy Spirit Who is Jesus’ Gift to His Church and then her gift to us:

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11)

And thus, in that full, faithful, and devout joy, may we all attain our own fulfilment in Jesus:

            By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples!