18th Sunday Year B 2018

18^th. Sunday, Year B

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, a common difficulty for modern-day Catholics in the West seems to be not that those still practicing as Catholics do not believe in Jesus so much as the fact that they cannot see themselves as being in need of Him:

God is good, we think we are sincere enough in our practice, but somehow, we cannot drum up much enthusiasm for our religious faith: Jesus in heaven now, the heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit with the Church and in us now, we believe they are Persons, but They are not real to us, They are more like notions we accept.   We do indeed want to love God and Jesus, and we would say we trust the Holy Spirit ever at work in us and for us, but, though we most certainly do not approve of many modern atheistic and hedonistic developments in the world, nevertheless,  the world is still more or less OK for us, were it not for the fact that, in this world and as  it impacts on us, we are not able to see ourselves, somehow feel ourselves, in any real need of God, not even of Jesus, the closest of all Three to us…..

Of course, as we draw closer to death, or perhaps become more aware of its possibility or proximity, we modern-day Catholics don’t want to approach it as the end of everything.   No, I personally want death to be the climax of my life, the moment I have lived for, the moment of meeting Christ, God, somehow Face to face, showing me His infinite mercy and love … the moment when, with all my sins forgiven and forgotten, whatever good I may have done, whatever right aims or purposes I may have pursued, are consolidated and crowned, the moment when all my love and longing for God is fulfilled for all eternity.

However, such thoughts of death are not normal everyday thoughts for busy and too-often-and-too-much pre-occupied members of Mother Church and of modern society with all its demands and requirements.  Such parishioners, such people, do not feel themselves, experience themselves, as being in-need-of Jesus; and that does disturb them, at least in the depths of their personal, Catholic subjectivity, because they know that ‘things’ are only done in the world by people wanting something, whatever it be, money, friendship, love, fame or just popularity; and they also know – as Catholics -- that without Jesus they are and can do nothing worth-while.

What can such Catholics do to realize (as Blessed J.H. Newman meant it) their need?

In today’s Gospel there were some Jews experiencing a somewhat similar ‘need’, suffering from a somewhat similar uncertainty, conscious unknowing.

            What can we do to accomplish the works of God?

To them we are told that Jesus answered, saying:

            This is the work of God, that you believe in the One He has sent.

They wanted concrete works they could do, and having done them feel themselves as belonging to God.  Jesus offered them, FAITH:

            Believe in the One He has sent.

Then they asked a sign of Jesus, bread like Moses of old.  Jesus had far greater bread to offer them, of course, but they wanted bread they could gather knowing it was a sign they could count, measure, and assess:

            Sir, give us this bread always.

Jesus again offered them, FAITH:

Whoever COMES TO ME – the bread of life – will never hunger, and whoever BELIEVES IN ME will never thirst.

Dear People of God wanting to become more aware of your need for Jesus, do not be alarmed at your feeling of, should we say, emptiness with regard to the reality of your faith.  For the fact is that God, the Holy Spirit, is actually making you aware of the supreme disease afflicting Mother Church and all Christian people … the disease of merely nominal faith, a faith ignored when temptation or need comes along, a disease afflicting many, even the highest, of the ‘clergy’ and also far too many of our laity who, in the course of their ever-so-busy days, think little – if at all -- of God, and yet imagine their ‘littleness’ allows them to assume and accept all sorts of excuses for their failure to assert, make use of, their faith.

Yes, those of you who are somewhat troubled by the fact that you do not have any felt need for God and Jesus are already under the influence of God and Jesus’ most Holy Spirit, Who wants to make you aware of, but not, as I said earlier, alarmed by such awareness because He wants to help you do something about it.

Look again at Jesus in today’s Gospel reading responding to the Jews questioning Him, assertively however, not humbly:

            I am the bread of life;

but then He goes on to talk, not about collecting or eating such bread, but:

            Whoever comes to ME, whoever believes in ME,

Because, as He had said earlier to them,

The true bread My Father gives you is that which comes down from heaven and gives (His) life to (for) the world.

Dear People of God, the Holy Eucharist is Mother Church’s most sublime treasure, but it is a gate that we must enter, through which we must go, to meet with, open our hearts and minds to, the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour Who constantly intercedes on our behalf before His Father in heaven.

Then, after that meeting, heart-revelation, and subsequent trust, follow the advice of that great disciple of Jesus who spoke to us in our second reading today:

Put away the old self (and its constant worries) and be renewed in the spirit of your minds (trust), and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and truth.

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

For God is the One who, for His good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world.   (Philippians 2:13–15)

17th Sunday Year B 2018

Seventeenth Sunday, Year B.

(2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; Gospel of St. John 6:1-15

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, notice first of all those words spoken by the people who witnessed and benefitted from this miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish:

            This really is the Prophet Who is to come into the world.

How right were those words!

As you well know, this miracle foreshadowed the Eucharist, the Bread of Eternal Life, which Jesus was to give us at the Last Supper.  You will also remember, I am sure, the story of the two disciples walking together to Emmaus and sorrowing over Our Lord’s recent crucifixion, who were overtaken and joined by the Risen Lord Himself but Whom they did not recognize Personally as they walked and talked together along the way.  It was only at the evening meal -- which they had charitably invited Him to share with them – that they did eventually realize just Who their guest was as they saw Him bless and break the bread.

In both cases, today’s account of the miraculous feeding of the crowds and the Emmaus incident -- one a figure and the other a direct reminder of the Eucharist -- was Jesus recognized for Who He most truly was.  It is the same today, People of God, only through reception of the Holy Eucharist, only through the sacramental reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, can we come to a fuller recognition of the truth about Our Blessed Lord.

St. John assures us that no one knows the depths of a man save the spirit within that man, and here in the Eucharist -- as we receive and consume the Sacred Host -- Christ inundates us to the fullest extent of our individual capacity and longing to receive Him with His own most Holy Spirit, to lead and guide us, as children of Mother Church, into all truth about Him and all love for Him.

This Eucharistic receiving-in-order-to-learn is a pattern that permeates the whole of Christian life:

            Blessed are You, Lord God, for we have received …

especially in our search for truth and our understanding of love.

No man can guarantee a ‘good’, ‘influential’ thought at any time … thoughts come into our minds we know not how … we can use them, develop them, but their origin, though in us, is not under our creative control.  A Christian knows how to thank God for all such blessings, but most especially, however, does he thank God for thoughts which prove fruitful for the spiritual well-being of men and the greater glory of God.  

Today there are many, many people, scholars, and authorities writing about Jesus or about what is good, better, and best for modern society, without any acknowledgement of God, with no faith in Jesus, and who are strongly opposed to the very notion of any humble submission to His most Holy Spirit; consequently all their conclusions concerning Jesus or a better understanding of mankind’s social problems and moral dilemmas, are the work of an overwhelmingly human mental endeavour, and often enough that of an individual ego; they an ‘excogitation’, often enough sparked off by, and developed along lines determined by, scholarly controversy. The result is not something gratefully received, lovingly observed, admired and detailed, but the product of a, so-to-speak, mental vine-press, where the grapes used are the result of their own ‘up to the minute’ studies and endeavours bolstered with fruits having nothing more than some measure of present-day ‘scholarly’ interest and acceptance.

Such scholarly efforts are not timeless fruits originally, initially, received from God’s goodness to us, nor are they precious treasures, lovingly -- by the Spirit’s gift of enlightenment -- glimpsed in nature as indicative of both the unfathomable truth, and the wondrous beauty and inexhaustible variety, of God’s Being.

Authentic Christian knowledge on the other hand is precisely the fruit of a gracious gift of God, fruit matured under the sun of the Spirit’s grace.  Of course, having been gratefully received, such intellectual and spiritual awareness has to be humbly assessed, rigorously developed, and whatever else is needed for its proper and fullest human expression and understanding; but its origin is as a Godly gift, received not excogitated, a gift accepted with gratitude and faith before being lovingly and devotedly shaped to advance human fulfilment and serve the proper expression of Christian faith and devotion.

That sort of knowledge, dear People of God, is the basis  of our Catholic and Christian Tradition, and that distinctive aspect of initial-reception characterises all truly great and profitable human knowledge and awareness, which is impossible without previous listening as well as present thinking, without humble waiting as well as hard work, without aspiring to what is above and beyond self and time as well as trying to appreciate what needs to be done here on earth, in our modern society and the world around us .

Jesus in the Eucharist is the only true source of Life for us, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what the bread and wine used at Holy Mass signify: our earthly life to be gradually transfigured into eternal Life by the Spirit in the sacrament being offered us. 

When Jesus was talking to the crowd after this multiplication of the loaves and fish, He urged them:

Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.

The wondrous nature of this ‘bread enduring to eternal life’, was foreshadowed by the fact of Jesus ordering that all scraps be gathered up: none were to be left for the birds of the air and beasts of the field, let alone to just corrupt as did even the miraculous manna of old left unconsumed overnight in the desert.  Moreover, some 12 hampers’ full were gathered in total, foreshadowing such food – Jesus’ gift – to be ultimately intended for the feeding of the 12 tribes of Israel, God’s People originally Chosen for eternal life through faith and obedience to God’s guidance of Law and Love.  Yes indeed, this bread (for such it still was) of Jesus was most wonderful both in its immediate significance for those who gratefully rejoiced on receiving it, and in its future promise for those who would, subsequently, look with full trust and confidence towards Jesus to lead them through the desert of this man-made world towards the promised land to come.

Whatever promise life may hold for us, who are the People of God, whatever may be the meaning, purpose and goal, of our individual lives, for each one of us the fulfilment of it all and the consummation of all our deepest yearnings or aspirations is to be found in the Eucharist, for here we receive Him Who is Life itself.  In Him alone -- only by receiving Him into our lives -- can we become fully, truly and ultimately, ourselves, the selves we were created and destined to become not only for our personal fulfilment, but for the blessing of our world and the greater manifestation of the glory of God our Father.

The Christ we receive in Holy Communion is the crucified Christ now glorified and seated at the right hand of His Father in heaven.  He comes to us through the sacrifice of the Mass: no sacrifice no sacrament.  The Eucharistic Jesus we receive is the Christ glorified in His Self-oblation to His Father and for us: He still bears the traces of His crucifixion, of the wounds in His hands, feet and side; it is part of His glory, He does not seek to obliterate the memory of His great suffering because that suffering was the supreme expression of His sublime love for His Father and the enduring witness to His love for us.

As with all human beings, suffering will inevitably have a significant, perhaps even vital part, to play in our lives, and as disciples of Jesus we aspire to embrace those sufferings by the power of His most Holy Spirit Who wills to transform them into a Christ-like expression of our love for the Father; and also to transform us through those sufferings for future glory and fulfilment with Jesus before the Father in our heavenly home.

People of God, let us thank God with all our hearts for this supremely holy sacrifice and sacrament of Holy Mass, let us offer ourselves with Jesus and in Him to the Father, and, receiving Him in Holy Communion let us, in the power and love of His most Holy Spirit, beg that He make us like unto Himself in all things for the glory of the Father and the world’s salvation.

16th Sunday year B 2918

16^th. Sunday, Year B                           (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34)

Dear People of God, hopefully you will remember that last week in our readings, Jesus had sent out the Twelve on a mission, and told them that, if any town or village refused to hear them, they should shake the dust of that place from off their feet, in testimony against it.  Well, this week we are told of the Apostles’ return:

The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.  He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat.   So, they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.  

There we have a lovely example of Jesus’ solicitous care for His Apostles: ‘Come, get away from this endless bustle of activity and involvement; let us go to some “deserted place” where we will be alone and where you will be able to find refreshment for your souls, light and understanding for your minds, peace and joy for your hearts.’ 

The Apostles had put Jesus at the centre of their lives, and it was necessary for them to return to Him, not only to learn more from Him but to be with Him alone at times, in order that they might be able to continue to proclaim Him alone in their preaching and teaching.  Otherwise, they could so easily descend to preaching either themselves or whatever people might want to hear: reacting to, or simply serving the wishes and priorities of the surrounding society, before ultimately adopting the worldly attitudes and aspirations of those to whom they had originally been sent as guides in the ways of Jesus, thereby meriting a share the condemnation of the pastors mentioned in our first reading:

You have scattered My sheep and driven them away.  You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.   I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the LORD.

This, People of God, is of great importance for our modern society where Church attendance is falling markedly.  The words “scattered My flock and driven them away” refer not so much to the people falling off through indifference as to the pastors driving the flock away from Jesus, by offering them all sorts of substitute food rather than the true nourishment prepared them by Jesus:       

I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die.  (John 6:48-50)

Jesus alone is the bread of life and He comes to us in two ways. 

First of all, through His Word:

He answered and said, "It is written, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"   (Matthew 4:4)

Secondly in the Eucharist:

I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world

That spiritual fulness of bread -- the Word of God and the Eucharist -- is what we pray for to our heavenly Father every day:

            Give us this day our daily bread.

What then if God’s People, coming to Church on a Sunday, are not given the bread God Himself is calling them into His presence to receive?  That is the real meaning of those words:

Thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who shepherd My people: You have scattered My sheep and driven them away.  You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.  

This type of thing is done when, instead of the Gospel message and the Church’s teaching, political correctness is preached; when current fancies are allowed to obscure Catholic teaching; or when the sins of the people are passed over in silence or even excused in order to avoid trouble or court popularity (Mark 7:7-9):   

This people honours Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.  In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.   You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition! 

In this regard we should remember that today such ‘clinging to human tradition’ does  not refer to the traditional teaching of Mother Church over the ages -- received from those who were far closer to Jesus and the authentic spirit of Christianity struggling, suffering, and dying, to proclaim the Gospel in a pagan world,  or from acclaimed saints and doctors who dedicated their whole lives to Mother Church’s proclamation of the truth of Jesus --  but to modern, glib and oh! so smooth popular words and attitudes, and to practices designed to adapt Jesus and His Good News in ways that allow ample tasting of the delights offered by the world.

To continue with our Gospel passage, we are told that the people followed Jesus and His Apostles, with the result that:

When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.

Do please, People of God, notice the form Jesus’ compassion took:

He began to teach them many things.          

That is what must happen today in our society.  Jesus alone can heal us (Mt. 11:28- 30):

Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Therefore, Jesus has to be preached, His teaching has to be given, in season and out of season.  However, this is far too often done only partially when, for example, such words as those “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” are repeatedly acknowledged and commented on because they are beautiful words, recognized and admired by all; but Jesus’ subsequent words: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me”, may be heard but not often praised or commented on.  There, 'so-called teachers' stop short because they want to present religion and faith – not to speak of themselves -- in a popular light; likewise, there are many ‘hearers’ who also want to stop short there, because they do not want to hear talk of a yoke of any sort, let alone feel obliged to take one up.  And so, all too often, essential Catholic teaching is omitted, whilst the seeds of consolation such as those words “Come to Me all you who labour” are carelessly thrown on the soil of souls already overgrown with worldly weeds.  The result is that the word of God is choked, and a pseudo-religiosity takes its place :  “God is good, He rejects none (that is still good seed) --- there is no need to go to Church to find Him, to be accepted by Him (that, however, is the rejection of any yoke) --- there is no need for sacraments, especially confession, just say an occasional prayer if you have time and God’s goodness will do the rest for you” (there, indeed, you have worldly, even devilish, weeds that choke Catholic spiritual life).

An example of the choking of God’s word has recently been provided by a Vatican cardinal saying that priests lack credibility when it comes to marriage preparation!!   I heard that ‘opinion’ some forty years ago – not so much as a statement then but as a ‘fear’ from a few, perhaps too humble, fellow priests -- and my answer was then as it is now, that it is a Catholic priest’s most important duty to help any parishioners contemplating marriage to appreciate and understand Mother Church’s teaching on God’s purposes and prescriptions for Christian marriage: both as a privileged co-operation with God Himself in the continued gift of life and blessing to mankind and as a truly blessed and beautiful expression of Christian-inspired human love … based on ‘agape’!   Perhaps some couples might want medical, psychological, or just friendly, advice besides, but all Catholic couples need, and should have, the opportunity to learn and appreciate authentic Catholic teaching about the Christian sacrament of marriage through their theologically trained and Church-sent-and-approved priest, that thus they might the better receive and appropriate God’s grace and find strength and joy for their fulfilment in married life.

St. Paul told us in the second reading that Jesus:

Reconciled us with God through the cross (that is the yoke) and He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near (that is the teaching), (and) through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Through Jesus -- the Jesus Who died on the Cross and Whose yoke we must take upon ourselves, a yoke which He will make light for us -- through that Jesus we have access to the Father, in the Spirit Who brings to our mind all that Jesus taught and Who enables us to keep His commandments.  Through that Jesus alone do we have access to the Father.  Today however, that Jesus is not infrequently sacrificed anew in favour of a figure with the same name but without a cross or any other sort of yoke, a pseudo-Jesus whose teaching – ‘Repent and believe the Gospel’ -- is manipulated so that it appears no longer to proclaim and demand that we need to be reformed and renewed by His Spirit of Holiness.  This pseudo-Jesus is prepared -- so some modern people like to hear and want to believe – to accept us just as we are: after all, are there not apparently kindly people eager to tell them that they do not really intend any evil that might be lurking in the harm they think or do, and therefore, though they may, indeed, have some faults and failings, these are not really sins and, consequently, can easily be overlooked.  With some such self-justifying thoughts there are sinners who – over long years -- find themselves endowed by a now undisturbable, fully-calcified, conscience; sinners who like to further deceive themselves by imagining a comforting prospect of heaven being approached by a broad, well-lit, road that is not only smooth, but which also allows for many places of pleasant refreshment on either hand, to keep those travelling along it happy on their worldly pilgrimage.

People of God, be innocent not foolish; be wisely ignorant of the ways of the world and truly wise in the ways of God; try to do what Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, advises us: 

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. (Matthew 7:13)

We can only do that if we listen to the authentic and traditional teaching of Mother Church, for she alone knows Jesus because He, Jesus Himself, is with her as He promised to be, even to the end of time; she knows Him because He Himself bequeathed her His own Most Holy Spirit to abide with her and guide her into all saving truth.

On their return from proclaiming the Good News Jesus called the apostles aside from the crowd to a desert place where they could be alone with Him.  After a week of Christian witness in the world He still calls His disciples aside – apart from the world -- to be with Him, every Sunday at Holy Mass.  Like the apostles in our Gospel passage, we are meant to be one with Jesus in our Sunday gathering.  ‘One with Him’ can then mean two things: all one in faith before Him as living members of His Mystical Body; and all – individually and personally -- alone with Him in the devout attention of our minds and the pious love of our hearts.

That Church-oneness-of-faith in Jesus realized at Sunday Mass is proclaimed by the beloved disciple John when he says:

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.  Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?            (1 John 5:4-5)

And that personal commitment of love to and for Jesus, realized best at Holy Communion during our Sunday Mass, is urged upon us by Jesus Himself:

Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-26)

People of God, Sunday, and Sunday’s Holy Mass, is that unique occasion when our faith calls us to leave all behind and come together to be alone with Jesus; and surely, thinking on these things, we cannot but heartily agree with Mother Church that the Eucharist in which we are now participating is indeed, most felicitously well-named, the Eucharist, our Thanksgiving.