33rd Sunday Year A 2014

  33^rd. Sunday of Year (A)

         (Proverbs 31:10-13, 19s, 30s; 1st. Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30)

Today’s parable was relatively long and quite detailed, with special emphasis being given to the lot of the servant who received one talent and did nothing with it.  Some people might think that what he did with the one talent is irrelevant because he was unfairly treated from the beginning by being given but one talent while others had received much more; and so, feeling somewhat sorry for this 'poor one talenter', they harbour a kind of grudge against the master of those servants and don’t really expect or seek to learn anything from the parable. 

However, we should refrain from allowing our own modern critical propensities and emotional prejudices to have free rein with this story from long-ago and far away, and try, first of all, to appreciate the value – in terms relevant to ourselves today -- of the talent in our parable.  One talent was then the equivalent of 6000 denarii, and a man and his family could live adequately for one day at the cost of 2 denarii.  So you see that he who received “only one talent” had actually been given sufficient to provide a man and his family with a living for over 8 years!  He had, in fact, been entrusted with a far-from-insignificant sum of money!!

People of God, have nothing to do with the prevalent greed and self-love which lead certain vociferous protagonists to cry foul wherever some seem to have more than others; avoid those who bristle with pseudo-sympathy for what they like to call ‘under dogs’ who have not -- in their estimation -- been personally endowed with all the talents, or given all the opportunities and advantages, that others seem to enjoy.  Have nothing to do with such ‘defenders of the downtrodden and the poor’, I say, for without doubt, all of us have been most generously endowed by God for our privileged calling to bring forth fruit for God’s glory, and for our own sharing therein which we call ‘eternal life’.

We need, therefore, first of all, to ask our heavenly Father for wisdom – personified as ‘the perfect wife’ in our first reading – and then calmly turn our attention to the two faithful servants of the Gospel so as to learn from their experience.

Their master said to each of them on bringing their profit to him:

Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.

Such words make us all feel glad, happy for and happy with those servants.  And if we attend more directly to the nature of that happiness, we can recognize three aspects mentioned or implied in those words:

Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’

“You were faithful” evokes the joy, the peace, the happiness of a good conscience.  “I will give you great responsibilities” implies being able to use one’s talents and abilities to a still greater extent, which is what we call the fulfilment of our being.  However, even so great a natural happiness is not able to fully captivate our attention in this parable because of those last words:

Come, share your master’s joy!

Ultimately the joy of a good conscience will lead not only to our natural fulfilment but even -- thanks to Jesus -- to joys that are beyond our natural capacity, to the eternal joys of our divine Lord and Master in heaven:

Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your Master’s joy.’

Let us now, for just a few moments, compare those three aspects of happiness and you will realise how wonderful is that invitation to enter into the master’s joy.

We all know something of the many and various innocent joys and resultant deep happiness we, as human beings, can experience at times: sometimes we have the joys of success and achievement; most of us are deeply grateful for our experience of the peace and contentment of family life and love; we can appreciate too the happiness of truth discovered and known, and the thrill of beauty recognized and appreciated.    Many such earthly types of joy and happiness truly delight us and can give us a sense of deep contentment; and yet, some are also easily linked with sorrow and sadness.  There is a famous song, “Plaisirs d’Amour” which tells of the joys of love which swiftly pass away, and of its pains and sorrows which endure.  That might well be a jaundiced, poetic, point of view, but, nevertheless, it is part of the reason why so many people these days opt only for pleasure and eschew love: they want loose relationships, the pleasures of companionship without any binding commitment, so that if and when difficulties loom ahead or sorrows arise, they can cut free from the relationship and seek out some other source of comfort and pleasure that seems to promise a measure of security -- for a time, at least.  Yes, earthly love and family life, though they are such deep and essential joys for us, can also bring their own quite particular sorrows and trials: what parents, for example, can escape worrying about their children’s ‘health, wealth, and happiness’,  and those we love dearest can -- at times -- hurt us the deepest.  Our work also -- so necessary for our fulfilment both as human and personal beings – rarely offers us more than occasional success and limited satisfaction, while such blessings can be, these days, too often accompanied by concerns about business competition and the ever-present possibility of personal failure and/or redundancy.  And again, our appreciation of and delight in truth and beauty cries out to be shared with an appropriate companion who is not always easy to find.

The joy of a good conscience, however, is not in any way connected with sorrow and is therefore, joy of a far superior kind; moreover, it leads to another unsuspected joy which can also be ours: that is, a share in God’s eternal happiness which totally transcends all earth’s joys.  But how can it come about that we, who know ourselves to be so weak and fragile, are yet capable of receiving and appreciating something of infinite and eternal happiness? Despite all the outstanding advances of modern scientific thinking and industrial techniques, we still can hardly begin to conceive the immensity of the physical universe that everywhere surrounds us, while the overwhelming majority of its ‘contents’ are almost totally unknown to us … we can only guess at what we think ‘must’ be there … somewhere, somehow!!  How then can our poor hearts and minds expand so as to be able to accept, appreciate, and respond to the transcendent, spiritual fullness of Divine Beatitude which can be ours to share in Jesus?  The Psalmist (81:10) gives us the answer:

I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide;

How shall we open wide our mouth?  Listen again to the Psalmist (119:32):

I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart.

So that is, indeed, the way we can prepare ourselves to receive the divine happiness that can be ours: to open wide our mouth by walking, indeed by  running, in the way of God’s commandments; and, as we do so, He gradually enlarges our hearts so that He might subsequently fill them with the riches of His blessings:

I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it! (Psalm 81:10)

It has often been derisively objected against the teaching of eternal happiness, that it must be very boring.  ‘Not that happiness itself is boring’, such people would add, ‘but surely eternal, everlasting, happiness must become, eventually, boring’.  Let me counter such a remark with a question: could eternal, everlasting, pain be found boring?  Of course not! … real pain does not allow anyone sufficient respite ever to think they might be bored!  The cry ‘I am bored’ is a luxurious expression -- neither logical nor purposeful -- of a spoiled child, or of an idle adult, indulging his or her self-love.  And yet, its derivative ‘eternal life must be boring’ does induce many, too content with the things of this world, to put aside any thought of heaven, and it does help to explain why the Church’s teaching on, and Jesus’ promise of, heaven means so little to unthinking souls.

Therefore I would like to help you do a little thinking about heaven now: not intellectual work, so much as considering, going over, experiences that probably most of you have known several times in your life.

I want you to simply try to call to mind one of the happiest experiences of your life.  Do you remember how quickly the time passed by, then? … You were so happy it seemed to last but a moment, though hours, days, or perhaps even years could be a truer measure of the time involved.  Now that gives us a key to the nature of heavenly happiness!   For even though time is earthly -- an essential part and parcel of creation where things are always changing -- nevertheless, there are occasions, even here on earth, when time seems to fade away and almost disappear as great happiness floods and fills our mind and heart.   How utterly irrelevant then is any question of ‘boredom’ with regard to eternity where there can be no time!  Eternity is not endless time, eternity is timeless: time has no meaning for, no reality in, heaven, before God’s very Presence.  St. Peter tells us this in a pictorial way in his second letter:

Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)

Therefore for those who are called and being led by the Holy Spirit to share with Jesus in the blessedness of God’s heavenly and eternal Kingdom, time will – ultimately -- be totally obliterated by the influx of heavenly and divine joy.  In heaven time is, quite literally, nothing: not only because we won’t notice it, but because it has no being, no reality in itself; and, most certainly, it has no place whatsoever in the infinite bliss of God to which we are invited in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

People of God: each one of you has been richly endowed by God and each one of you is unreservedly called, and seriously offered the chance, to share in God’s eternal blessedness.  Don’t think little of the gifts with which you have been endowed, don’t be fool enough now – or finally, wicked enough -- to ignore a happiness which can transfigure your whole being, making you eternally fulfilled and happy beyond all imagining! It can, most assuredly, be yours in Jesus. Therefore, let Him lead you now -- in the Church and by His Holy Spirit -- so as to be able, ultimately, to enter with Him into the presence of the Father Who, Jesus assures you, will greet you with those sublimely fulfilling words:

Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord!

                          

Sermon by Catholic Priest Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

 Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

(Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; 1^st. Corinthians 3:9-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22)

The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the first of the four Roman Basilicas both in time and in significance: it is the first church mentioned in the records of the Holy See and the one in which the heads of both St. Peter and St. Paul were deposited, and it seems to have been the first official church of the bishops of Rome.  It was built in the year 315 at the same time as the triumphal arch of Constantine the Great, when Christianity had just been proclaimed to be not only socially acceptable -- and therefore to be free from further persecution -- but also the personal religion of the Emperor Constantine himself and the official religion of the state.  The Lateran basilica is still the seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome; it is an enduring witness to Jesus’ words ‘I have overcome the world’; and it is indeed, the mother-church of Western Christianity.

Obviously, therefore, the anniversary of the dedication of this basilica is an occasion of great symbolic rejoicing for us, for it is indeed our duty and our joy to rejoice before God for His great goodness to His People throughout the ages:

Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! They walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance. (Psalm 89:15)

Today’s Scripture readings are specially chosen to both widen and deepen our rejoicing so as to embrace not only the significance of the Lateran Basilica itself, but also and indeed supremely, the glorious spiritual blessings bestowed on us in and through Mother Church. 

In our gospel reading St. John tells us that Jesus drove the merchants out of the Temple with a whip since they were, He said, dishonouring ‘His Father’s house’.   Matthew and Mark speak of the same event with greater detail, because Matthew (21:13) tells us that Jesus declared:

Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'? But you have made it a den of thieves;  

and Mark (11:17), while agreeing with Matthew, also adds that Jesus saw His Father’s house as, essentially:  A house of prayer for all nations.

Thanks therefore to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark we can understand why Jesus so strongly – even violently -- objected to the Temple being made into a ‘den of thieves’ or, as John said, ‘a marketplace’:

He began to drive out those selling and buying there.  He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who were selling doves, (and here, the spiritual Apostle John– the one most likely to appreciate and share Our Blessed Lord’s sense of outrage – adds, ch.2 v.16) saying, “Take these (things) out of here, and stop making My Father’s house a marketplace.”

How could it have been otherwise?   Solomon, we are told, having consecrated the first Temple to the Lord in Jerusalem, prayed most beautifully:

May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, 'My name shall be there,' that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes toward this place. (1 Kings 8:29-30)

However, Jesus’ love for His Father’s house was immeasurably more Personal, holier, and intense, than that of King Solomon, and in this moment of spontaneous expression of such love we should note something essential about Jesus which is constantly being overlooked or deliberately ignored, indeed, even openly attacked by those who seek to deprive us of the essentially sacrificial component and commitment of Christian ‘agape’:

I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing

and to turn it into a merely humanistic promotion, peddled as ‘love’ -- easy, soft and cosy -- for all people in whatever circumstances.   Why is it less objectionable before public opinion today to seriously offend rather than to suitably punish? … how can so many serious criminals be freed early, on parole, to offend again, even to the extent of killing again, without any of the breast-beating and protestations that tend to accompany right punishment?   For repeating rapists and child-abusers who seek personal, physical, pleasure above all, and for that end willingly subject themselves to, and embrace, passion where reason has neither meaning nor authority, the truest punishment is pain -- appropriate of course -- but necessarily physical pain.   But that is not right for our modern, moralising society, which is so largely indifferent to those who suffer as a direct result at times of its

officially approved, god-substituting and self-proclaiming, indulgence.  And so, such and similar abuses  of sexuality and criminality  go on largely undeterred  -- and perhaps even more voraciously sought -- because ‘the law’ can, at the best, only drive them out of public view, force them underground, so to speak.

Let us now, however, turn to Jesus Himself again.

He began to drive out those selling and buying there.  He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who were selling doves saying, “Take these (things) out of here, and stop making My Father’s house a marketplace.”

The Temple in Jerusalem was God’s House in so far as His name was there; but God Himself had His proper dwelling in heaven, as we hear in the book of Deuteronomy (26:15) and in the prophet Isaiah (63:15):

Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land which You have given us.

 Look down from heaven, and see from Your habitation, holy and glorious.      

Consequently, in the OT Temple of Jerusalem, there was both a presence and an absence.  The great prophets, however, were always alert to God’s irrepressible goodness, and so let us now return to our first reading in which we were told of a vision from God given to the prophet Ezekiel:

Then the angel brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east.

Now that water had remarkable healing properties:

 He said to me, “This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah, and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.  Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

Those waters flowing from the Temple in the prophets’ vision were a foreshadowing of the grace of the Holy Spirit to be given by Jesus to His Church, for His People.  Bearing that in mind we can appreciate even more why we should rejoice in this feast of the Lateran basilica, the first Christian Church of the West; for Mother Church is the source, for us, of God’s grace and in her we have been endowed with God’s Gift, the Spirit of Jesus, Who brings us refreshment after the bitter experience of our past sins and failings, and renewed life as we begin to live and grow in Jesus for the Father.

Finally we come to the supreme revelation of the reason for our rejoicing on this day, when we recall the words of St. Paul contained in the second reading:

You are God’s building.  You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Mother Church today, indeed each and every Catholic Church, is God’s house, His Name is there for it is consecrated to Him, and it is truly a house of prayer.  Now, however, Jesus abides with us and for us Personally in Mother Church and in each and every parish church thanks to His Eucharistic Presence.  That Presence is an irreplaceable comfort to all Catholics.  However, we cannot take the Eucharistic Presence with us; the tabernacle remains in the church, and even though we may have received communion at Mass, nevertheless, that Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in us is but fleeting, being a Presence given to us as the supreme channel for the entry of the Spirit of Jesus into our lives, the Spirit Who comes with His healing and life-endowing powers to refresh and fructify the many arid ways of merely human hopes and aspirations, possibilities and powers.

If we live faithfully by Jesus’ Gift of the Spirit in and through Mother Church, He raises us up to, and opens up for us, a new vista of life in Jesus; and if we will allow the Spirit to rule in us for that life in the likeness of Jesus, Jesus and even the Father Himself will come to dwell with the Spirit, in us, as in His Temple, as St. Paul said speaking to his faithful converts:

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

When that takes place, People of God, the distance of God is totally transformed into a presence closer to us than we are to ourselves, as the following words of Jesus I am about to quote will explain.  Now these are indeed words spoken by Jesus with regard to Himself; but since the faithful disciple is one with Jesus, a living member of His Body, and since the faithful disciple is being made, by the Spirit of Jesus, into a child of God in the Son, therefore these words of Jesus about Himself and His Father apply also to each and every faithful disciple of Jesus according to the degree of their faithfulness to, and union with, Him.

Thus, in Jesus and by His Spirit, we can experience God’s presence as the Father’s presence to us; both as a total and comprehensive being-known:

No one knows the Son except the Father;

and as our own inchoate filial awareness and responsiveness in a sublimely tender and loving intimacy beyond human comprehension or comparison:

Nor does anyone know the Father except the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father (Matthew 11:27; John 1:18).

Thus, though having been made fully and, at times, painfully aware of our own nothingness and unworthiness, we are also given a total confidence that this divine endowment, this most wonderful relationship of presence and power, of being known and loving in return, cannot be lost, cannot be taken from us by any power or under any circumstance save that of our own turning away from God:

I give them eternal life, and 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. (John 10:28-30)

Therefore People of God, let us today remember these words of St. Paul:

             Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!  (Philippians 4:4)

Take them to your heart, let them gradually form and characterize you both as a person and as a Catholic; for our blessings are great and the promises we have received are beyond all human comprehension,  as St. Paul reminded our earliest forebears in the faith:

It is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him"         (1 Corinthians 2:9)

                                                       

           

            

All SAints Year A 2014

ALL SAINTS   (Year A)

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

Our readings today give a wonderful panoramic view of the heavenly feast to be celebrated for the triumph of the Lamb, the beloved Son of God, and for the glorious establishment of the Kingdom of God.

While the first reading told of a great multitude -- from every nation, race, people and tongue – to be found at that celebration, the Gospel reading told us that people of all sorts would be at home there including the poor and humble in spirit, the meek and clean of heart, and those tried and tested by the flail of long sorrow or the bitterness of persecution and insult.  And yet, all to be found there are -- amazingly enough -- merciful and peacemakers in their hunger and thirst for true righteousness.

Jesus did indeed die for all mankind and -- as the Way, the Truth, and the Life -- He is the one supreme and sublime Model for each and every human individual in that great multitude who find themselves at supper rejoicing as individual and unique reflections of the myriad aspects of the plenitude of Jesus’ glorious humanity, all so different and yet all so complementary, because Jesus’ love of His Father and mankind is truly expressed through, and in, all of them.

Who are these Saints?  We admire and celebrate, know and thank God for so many of them, and yet, there are many, many more, who are not known to us. And today Mother Church wants us to celebrate more particularly all those UNKNOWN Saints now in heaven: those of whom we know nothing and from whom therefore, we can – hopefully -- fear (!) nothing. Their lives have not been examined and found worthy by any Church tribunal, and we do not know what specific virtues they practised other than Faith, Hope, and Charity. There is, indeed, absolutely nothing concerning them about which we can say, ‘That’s beyond me; I couldn’t do that!’ and so today, Mother Church is inviting us to recognize, and rejoice in, a family where YOU AND I, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US could quite easily find encouraging and uplifting friends, not the great and glorious who might overwhelm us, none so beautiful and good as to – though unwittingly – put us to shame.   We are the weak ones and today Mother Church is embracing (but most certainly not indulging!) and emboldening our weakness by showing us a family that is truly heavenly indeed, yet one into which we (a future and somewhat improved version of course!) might easily fit in and find both home and fulfilment there.  Today we are celebrating saints who didn’t have to be seen, recognized, and approved as such by men -- even fellow Christians and holy people -- saints of whom all we know is that GOD FORMED THEM and that they allowed Him to do so because it was what they wanted in the depths their heart. How He did it?  Of that they were, probably, almost totally unaware and largely unconscious throughout their lives; nevertheless, we can be quite sure that God was able to do it with them because of their constant personal-and-loving communion with Him in humble obedience and their trustful and selfless commitment to Him in their myriad duties and numerous trials.

Therefore, as we continue, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I hope you will find some comfort and a measure of inspiration from the realization that today we are, with good reason, rejoicing that we can humbly and seriously think of, and most gratefully imagine: ourselves at home in and among this ‘great multitude’.

People of God, you know that all of us, through faith and baptism, are already, as John said in the second reading, called and regarded – not just by the inspired apostle himself but what is even more by the universal and infallible Church -- as children of God:

See what love the Father has bestowed on us, that we may be called the children of God!  Yet so we are!

“Called and are the children of God”… such great proof of His love the Father has given us: surely, we not only can, we should, and indeed we must, have total confidence in Him!  That is what John wants to instil into our hearts and minds as we ponder ever anew those words of his:

What love the Father has bestowed on us!!

Of course, while we are still in this world we will experience the troubles of the world; indeed, as John said, we are likely to experience more trouble in some respects, since:

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

While that did not trouble John, for he could surely say, along with St. Paul:

For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21);

nevertheless, for many Christians and Catholics today the fact that our modern society still does not acknowledge Jesus, that our faith is mocked, our practices ridiculed, our teaching contested and even openly rejected, that does trouble them.   However, if such ‘trouble’ is due to a sincere and deep love for the Church and a prayerful concern for her well-being, not only is it both understandable and admirable, but, what is yet more, it can and will, surely, give rise to prayer which is most acceptable to God.

St. John, however, also wishes to strengthen us against concerns for self which can easily sneak into our psyche and may lead us to make compromises with the world which would be totally unworthy of a child of God:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.       Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure as He is pure.   (I John 3:2-3)

We are now children of God and should be proud and grateful for such a wonderful privilege.  Now children trust, and that is what John wants to urge upon us when he tells us that what we shall be —what God wants us to be -- has not yet been revealed.   We have received, John says, a wonderful proof of God’s love for us by allowing us to be called His children; and the reason we can be called God’s children is because we have faith in God’s Son Who died and rose again for us; and we hope in His Spirit, given us in and through the Church and now at work forming us, personally, in the likeness of Jesus with love for the Father.   There is nothing for us to bring about by our own endeavours for it has not yet been revealed what we shall be; we know just this one stupendous fact, we are God’s children now and should behave  as such by loving and trusting Him Who is Our Father… and Who, as our Father, is concerned with forming us as His children, that is, in the likeness of His only-begotten Son so that when Jesus comes again in   divine glory to establish the definitive Kingdom of God, then, amazingly -- that is, by the amazing grace and goodness of God -- we shall be found like Him, able to share in Him and with Him in His heavenly glory.  Let this hope rule in your hearts and minds, John urges:

Everyone who has this hope based on Jesus (Who gives us His Spirit) makes himself pure as He (Jesus) is pure.

That hope of ultimately sharing with all the saints we are celebrating this day in the glory of Jesus as members of His Body, and being eternally blessed with them as children of the heavenly Father … that hope based on the stupendous power of the Spirit Who raised Jesus from the dead and Whom Jesus has bequeathed us in Mother Church … that hope which has made Mary Queen of heaven above all angels and archangels … that most sure and  consuming hope John says will protect and purify us from our human weakness and personal sinfulness, and from the evil of the world which will not accept us because it would not acknowledge Jesus.

People of God, today’s celebration is a call from Mother Church to renew our Christian and Catholic hope; it is a reminder that our life on earth can be transfigured into a training that will prepare us to participate in an eternal experience of divine beauty, truth, and love before God; something of which we are neither capable nor worthy at present, but which has been most surely promised to all who remain faithful in their love of Jesus:

Rejoice in the Lord always, again, rejoice.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:4-7)

30th Sunday of Year A 2014

 30^th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Exodus 22:20-26; 1^st. Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-40)

These words of Our Lord in answer to the Pharisees’ question are unforgettably etched on our minds:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.

And today’s reading from the Old Testament gave us some guidance on how we should respond to Jesus’ command for such love of God:

            You shall not wrong any widow or orphan;

If you take a man’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body.  What else has he to sleep in?   If he cries out to me I will hear him, for I am compassionate.

Showing such compassion to a neighbour in need was precisely what Jesus had in mind when He went on to say to the Pharisees:

And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Why then, if love of God and neighbour were already of the essence of the Old Testament, did Jesus need to die and rise again for our salvation and send out His Apostles to establish His Church that would endure to the end of time?

In the words of consecration every day at Holy Mass we find the ultimate answer to our question:

This is the chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in memory of Me.

There are many in the Church today who -- it would seem, misinterpreting the Christian and Catholic call to repentance -- seek to smooth over publicly acknowledged and doctrinally condemned sins with words of exuberant Catholic friendship for and human sympathy with willing-and-wanting-to-remain sinners; rather than commit themselves to working with wholehearted confidence in the grace and the goodness of God for the essential purity and unity of Catholic proclamation and practice (not of mere individuals, but of the Church herself).   Jesus’ own words, however, tell us unambiguously -- as clearly understood by His Apostles but too often and too little appreciated today -- that His saving Blood was poured out, not as a gesture or sign of human friendship with sinners, but for divine forgiveness of their sins.

Some intimate thoughts Jesus shared with His Apostles at the Last Supper can help us here, if we can listen – as it were, with the Apostles – to their and our beloved Lord:

I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now (John 16:12).  I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you (16:7).   When He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth (and) declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you  (16:13–15)  The Advocate whom I will send, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, He will testify to Me; and you also testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning.   (15:26–27)

And so, the Son of God became man, died for us and rose again, before ultimately ascending into heaven, that He might send out His Spirit-endowed-Apostles to establish His Church and, through their sacramental handing-on of the Lord’s own most Holy Spirit, thereby enable us – members of the Church which is His Body -- to love the Father fittingly, finding joy and fulfilment in our hearing of and obedience to their ever-present proclamation of Jesus’ founding Gospel.

No human-being can love God adequately of himself, which is why the Jews -- even the most zealous -- were unable to keep the Law, as St. Paul repeatedly insisted:

Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.  As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; they have all turned aside … become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one."  (Romans 3:9-12)

Not even those who are circumcised keep the law. (Galatians 6:13)

Despite the undoubted zeal and piety of many servants of the Law, the weakness of fallen human nature was daily and inescapably evident; indeed, unsuspected evil was ever lying most opportunely dormant: not only in the hearts of the politicised Sadducees and Temple priests,  but also in those of the more spiritual and devout Pharisees and Scribes, as was shown by the fact that, when the Son of God came as man, all of them decisively rejected or ultimately hated Him to the extent that they were willing to have the Romans put Him to death on a cross for their own purposes and projects.  And so, as St. Paul explains (Romans 8:3s.):

What the Law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decrees of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who live, not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Jesus, that is, came among us as one of us so that in Him, through Him, human flesh might indeed fulfil those just ordinances of God found in the Law given to Moses for the Chosen People; ordinances that human weakness and sinfulness had hitherto been unable to fulfil (Matthew 5:17-18):

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil.  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

This Jesus did out of His all-consuming love for His Father; for He willed that, henceforward, all who -- answering His Father’s call with obedience -- would believe in Him, should be enabled to live as members of His glorified Body in the power and under the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, and thus overcome their native weakness to the extent that, as Jesus said, they would surpass even John the Baptist, the greatest of those naturally born of woman, in giving glory to His Father.

And there, precisely, is the need for Jesus, the need for the Son to become flesh, for:

No one know(s) the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matthew 11:27-28);

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

The glory of the Christian vocation therefore is that the Son is in us who believe, by His Spirit; and, being in us, He wills to lift us up further to Himself by sharing with us that love for the Father which is His unique prerogative.  For, by declaring His Father’s Name to us ever more and more in Mother Church, He encourages us to return love to the Father together with Himself; to which end His own most Holy Spirit is ever at work forming us as living members of His Body and, in Him Who is the only-begotten and supremely beloved Son, as beloved sons and daughters of the heavenly Father:

Righteous Father, I have made Your name known to the men You gave Me out of this world.  Although the world does not know You, I know You and they know that You sent Me.  I made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love You had for Me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:6,25s.)

People of God, our calling is -- first and foremost -- to love God as our true Father above all, in all, and through all, and thus become, in Jesus, His true children.  Such personal love of God is supremely authentic Christian holiness; whereas those things we tend to admire so much and value so highly on earth, such as achievements, reputation, charisma, talents, signs and wonders, are ultimately of no importance or worth except in so far as they are suitable expressions of such love.

How, therefore, are we to grow in that personal love, that ultimate and uniquely authentic holiness?

To that end we must examine our motives for aspiring to holiness.   First of all, we must appreciate, long for, and aspire to, love of God, for His own most compelling holiness and beauty, goodness and truth; and then, for such love’s sublime worth in itself, and the supreme worth-while-ness it can bestow on a life given, devoted, to seeking it.  Secondly, we must have the utmost reverence for the Divine Persons we aspire to love in holiness.  No human being, no human authority, no human tradition can really teach us how to love God, because true love is a personal response to the God Who is offering Himself Personally to us.  And although human authorities, venerable traditions, even holy individuals, are able and indeed endowed at times by God to help us with necessary guidance or timely inspiration -- which we cannot disregard completely or ‘a priori’, because we are called to live as one in the Body which is His Church, being guided and moved by the one Most Holy Spirit --  nevertheless, in that Body, the Spirit comes to us individually to enable us to respond to the Father, as Jesus said, with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30), and that means totally, as an individual, and unique, person.

Only in Mother Church we can breathe most deeply of that salutary atmosphere needed by the children of God.  In the Church, however, we must always take great care to have our mind and heart set on Jesus above all, for He alone is the eternal Son, still loving and glorifying His Father supremely here on earth as in heaven.   It is through His Spirit that He leads us to love and glorify His Father with and in Him.  In Mother Church, therefore, we must always try to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus going before us, and our ears ever more attentive to the breathing of His Spirit within us.

People of God, Mother Church is given us by Jesus to serve as our earthly Eden replete with heavenly food able to satisfy and fulfil all our needs and aspirations, if we will learn from her to delight ourselves in her Scriptures and Most Holy Eucharist, for to seek such food is our supreme Christian duty, while to find it is our deepest Christian joy.   If we work at our Christian endowment through prayer, worship, reflection and good works, that is, through the practice -- however imperfect -- of continual companionship with Jesus in response to the prompting and guidance of the Spirit; if, above all, we deepen our commitment to both the Eucharistic Sacrifice where Jesus invites us to offer ourselves with Him in sacrifice to the Father and to Holy Communion where He comes to share with us anew His own re-creating Spirit, then the Father’s promise of heavenly reward and eternal fulfilment will become ours in instalments so to speak, even here on earth; instalments of a joy which both encourages us and most sweetly compels us to recognize its heavenly provenance.

Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.  This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.  For to this end we both labour and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:8-9)

God is never outdone in generosity, and our sincere efforts to grow in His love can and will transfigure our whole earthly experience.

My dear People, look after yourselves; you have already received great blessings from God and the promise of much more.   Never, however, forget Jesus’ words (Luke 12:48):

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Produce fruit for the Lord in the garden of your soul while you can; but pray and aspire to produce the fruit that God wants from you: the fruit which He intended when He created you in His own likeness, and for which He so lovingly redeemed you.  And what is that supreme fruit?  Listen once again:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.   The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.