First Sunday of Lent Tear C 2019

 First Sunday of Lent (C)

(Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Saint Luke’s Gospel 4:1-13)

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Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.

Surely, we have here the source of those words recommended later by Our Lord for our own most intimate and personal prayer with His heavenly Father: ‘Lead us not into temptation’.  Lack of understanding, whether on the part of episcopal bodies or individuals, cannot justify tampering with Our Lord’s very-own-teaching-words, words He uniquely recommended us to use when praying to His Father, words handed down to us by tradition given us to continue His uniquely saving purpose for men of all time.

Setting aside misunderstanding or controversy, let us now try to develop our own appreciation of today’s Gospel reading and the Lenten season we are entering upon.

Jesus, I believe, had longed to begin His mission for perhaps some 25 years, for had not John the Baptist heard from his father Zachary (Luke 1:76s.):

And you, child, will be called prophet of God the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give His people knowledge of salvation?

John the Baptist knew, therefore, from early childhood of his calling and destiny; surely Jesus was, from His earliest years, secretly orientated by His heavenly Father towards His own future public mission, the very reason for which His Father had sent Him among men.  And here is the first point I want you to notice carefully, People of God:  Jesus, the Son of God, longed for His earthly destiny to open up before Him and aspired to its fulfilment but … He waited long years for His Father’s call.

Now at last – so to speak – His waiting is ended and His longing fulfilled, for we have just heard in the Gospel:

He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted

St. Mark tells us, THE SPIRIT IMMEDIATELY DROVE HIM OUT INTO THE DESERT; whilst St. Matthew writes that JESUS ... WAS LED BY THE SPIRIT INTO THE DESERT.

Such words and such unanimity among the evangelists indicate a most compelling, imperious, call which, nevertheless, left Jesus perfectly free; and there we should again learn from Him, dear People of God, lest we ever allow ourselves to be tempted by thoughts of ‘holiness achieved quickly’’ for Christian holiness is a gift before it can ever be said to have been achieved.  We should, indeed, long to be holy and pray to love God without any reserve; but, with Our Lord, let us wait for, and never lose hope in, Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit, working in us for the fulfilment of God the Father’s saving purpose.  Let us humble ourselves as weak and sinful persons, whilst constantly praying to be strong and holy; for, as the Psalmist (2:3) tells us, the just man IS LIKE A TREE PLANTED BY THE STREAMS OF WATER, THAT YIELDS ITS FRUIT IN ITS SEASON.

Jesus’ season had finally come and He was ready to undertake, and succeed in, the contest opening out before Him; we, His disciples, must -- throughout our lives – be on the watch, waiting and praying, that we might be found ready, like Him, to embrace our season and bring forth fruit expected of us by God.

The first Adam, a man of earth, had originally been tested and found wanting; Jesus, the Second Adam, the heavenly man, likewise submitted to a testing; and here, the Gospel warns us modern Catholics and Christians that we who have been baptized into Christ must also be prepared to endure temptation with Him.  We are tempted from without by the Evil One, and from within by our own concupiscence.  Jesus, like the first Adam, could only be tempted from without.  Adam could and did sin, whereas Jesus not only did not, but could not, sin.  Jesus was both perfectly free and, at the same time, infallibly holy.  It is impossible for us to understand fully how temptation affected the Son of God, but we do know, with the certainty of faith, that it could not have touched Him at all had He not been also, and no less truly, Son of Man.  He consented to be tempted so that, as the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us:

He might be able to sympathize with our weaknesses, (as) One Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. (4:15)

This temptation implies two things: first, that Jesus knew Himself be the Messiah whom the Jews were expecting; and secondly, that He was also well aware that He possessed extraordinary powers.  The time had now come for Him to make use of these powers, and behold, the devil was immediately at hand in the hope of leading Him to misuse them from the very beginning.

He ate nothing for forty days and when they were over, He was hungry.  The devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God command this stone to become bread’.

Self-preservation is the most fundamental of all our instincts, and after such a prolonged and rigorous fast it must have been clamouring at the portals of Jesus’ will for satisfaction.  The devil tried to make use of it.  In the case of Adam and Eve he had not sought any such help from the legitimate needs of an oppressed nature, for, with but little effort, he had sown the seeds of distrust of God into Eve’s heart, and Adam lamely followed her.  It would not be so easy with Jesus ... the devil guessed that much from the beginning.  But perhaps the clamouring needs of nature might serve to blind Jesus as to Satan’s real purpose, for he desired to accomplish in Jesus that of which St. Paul was to accuse the Galatians (3:1-3):

O foolish Galatians!  Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?

The Spirit of God had brought Jesus, Son of Man, into this wilderness ... would He not take care of Him there?  Indeed, He would.  The devil, however, invited Jesus to doubt this, by suggesting that He make use of the power which was His for the salvation of men and the glory of God, to satisfy a purely natural need.

But Jesus answered, ‘It is written, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”’.

Jesus did not deny the fact that man needed bread for his body, but affirmed that he also had need of God’s word for his soul, and He implied that spiritual considerations transcend, and sometimes can over-ride, the needs of nature.  This is why the apparently excessive fasting and mortification of some of the saints was not sinful, even though it may have ruined their health and notably shortened their lives.

Notice also, dear friends, that Our Lord simply quoted Sacred Scripture.  How we should reverence the Bible, for the very Son of God chose to cite its words rather than formulate His own reply!!

Another point also imposes itself for our consideration here.  We read very frequently in the Old Testament of the anger of God, Whose wrathful presence is manifested in upheavals of nature ... the mountains are shaken, the sun, moon and stars fall from their courses, lightning flashes are His arrows, the thunder His voice, and the storm clouds His chariot.   Those figures of speech give most eloquent expression to the inspired author’s realization of the utter and absolute incompatibility between the all-holy God and sin.

Look now, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, at Jesus, God made Man: for our sake He patiently, humbly, endured being tempted by one He found supremely loathsome and absolutely disgusting!  Will we not, for His sake, try harder to support patiently others when we find them trying?

The devil made a further bid.

He took Jesus up (Luke does not say where), and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant, and said ‘I shall give You all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me.  All this will be Yours, if You worship me.’  

In Psalm 2 we read of the Messiah: (THE LORD) SAID TO ME, ‘YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.  ASK OF ME, AND I WILL MAKE THE NATIONS YOUR HERITAGE, AND THE ENDS OF THE EARTH YOUR POSSESSION.’   Notice well, dear People of God, how the devil tries to usurp the place of God by offering to fulfil God’s faithful promise in his own duplicitous way.

Was Jesus’ Kingdom to be a kingdom of this world?  Was it to surpass, by its universal embrace, the magnificence of all the empires ever seen upon earth?  Was the kingdom indeed thus to be restored to Israel in the way the Jews wanted, was Jerusalem thus to become in a new sense the CITY OF THE GREAT KING?

Jesus answered him:

It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone shall you serve.’

Notice, once again, Jesus quoted Scripture to the devil.  The drama continued:

Then the devil led Him to Jerusalem, and made Him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to Him, ‘if You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, “He will command His angels concerning You, to guard You” and “with their hands they will support You, lest you dash Your foot against a stone.”’

There is (sic!) no lack of heights in the Judean desert from which Our Lord might have been tempted to cast Himself down; but the desert could not provide an admiring, stupefied, crowd to behold the spectacle, and that is why the devil, Satan, took Jesus to Jerusalem.

Jesus had been sent as Man to make us -- in Himself -- adopted children of God, His own brothers and sisters.  Could the bonds which would thus bind us to Him and to the Father in heaven ever be formed out of curious amazement and superstitious awe?  No!  They would have to be unbreakable bonds of love, indeed of bonds of shared divine charity, able to endow us with heart-willed, mindful and humble, obedience.  Love cannot be exacted by force but must be gradually won; it cannot be foisted upon men, but has to be gently instilled into their hearts.  Jesus did not will to prove to men that He was the Messiah ... He preferred, He willed, to lead them to spontaneously recognize Him as such.  All this, however, could only come-to-be in the Father’s good time; and here, yet again, Jesus refused any attempt to precipitate events.

Jesus said to him In reply, ‘It also says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Jesus would not become a political figure.

The devil departed from Him for a time.

The desert had ever been, in the tradition of the Bible, the place of temptation, the domain of the devil.  Now Jesus had indeed, as St. Mark tells us (3:27) ENTERED A STRONG MAN’S HOUSE ... (AND) BOUND THE STRONG MAN; and St. Matthew tells us the same thing by having Jesus reveal the devil’s personal and intimate name as Satan.  Because He had thus defeated the devil in a deep personal encounter, Jesus was, and is henceforth, able TO DELIVER US FROM THE HAND OF OUR ENEMIES ... TO GIVE LIGHT TO THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH.  (Luke 1:73-79)

Never again did the devil (Satan) dare to enter into personal combat with Our Lord.

But the battle went on, nevertheless, to the end of Jesus’ life, for the devil stirs up men to fight his battle for him.  To the end Our Blessed Saviour continued as He had first set out, as to His disciples, concerned about Him having had nothing to eat, He said, MY FOOD IS TO DO THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT ME (John 4:34); so, when the Jews asked for a sign made to suit them He said, AN EVIL AND ADULTEROUS GENERATION SEEKS FOR A SIGN; BUT NO SIGN SHALL BE GIVEN TO IT EXCEPT THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH (Mathew 12:39); and when the crowds wanted to seize Him and make Him king JESUS WITHDREW AGAIN TO THE HILLS BY HIMSELF (John 6:15).

However, when the final drama of Calvary was to be played, the devil once again tempted Jesus with the same three suggestions he had made in the desert, THE RULERS SCOFFED AT HIM, SAYING, ‘HE SAVED OTHERS; LET HIS SAVE HIMSELF, IF HE IS THE CHRIST OF GOD, HIS CHOSEN ONE! (Luke 23:35).   SO ALSO, THE CHIEF PRIESTS MOCKED HIM ... SAYING ... LET THE CHRIST, THE KING OF ISRAEL, COME DOWN NOW FROM THE CROSS, THAT WE MAY SEE AND BELIEVE.’  (Mark 15:31-32).   But Jesus would give neither relief to His tortured body nor a sign to those ill-disposed Jews.  To Pilate, indeed, He did give an answer, PILATE SAID TO HIM, ‘ARE YOU THE KING OF THE JEWS? .... YOUR OWN NATION AND THE CHIEF PRIESTS HAVE HANDED YOU OVER TO ME; WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’   Jesus answered, ‘MY KINGSHIP IS NOT OF THIS WORLD ... FOR THIS WAS I BORN, AND FOR THIS I HAVE COME INTO THE WORLD, TO BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTH.’ (John 18:33-37)

Dear People of God, let us now look at the world around us in the light of Jesus’ truth.

Secular society today wants to be rid of the very idea of sin because it hates above all the idea of a God of Salvation, a God becoming Man, living, suffering and dying as a man for love of, and the-saving-of, us human beings.   But men of the world today hate above all the very thought of One having both the right and authority to interfere in their lives.  That, People of God, is the very ESSENCE of sin: there is no one who has any right or authority to interfere in MY life.  Ultimately sin is not a matter of doing wrong things … much that is good is being done in our present-day secular society, but sin has never been more deeply rooted in society because most of its citizens are now disbelievers, against the very thought of any divine power, because each and every one of them wants to be free to commit their very own choice of (pet) sin when it seems necessary to them.  They do not often want to be always doing wrong things, bad things, in fact they want to think of themselves as GOOD; but, good-without-God.  A ‘free-goodness’, isn’t that the best sort of goodness … no, because only One was free before the face of, in the presence of, the Devil, being devilish, that is TEMPTING.  And only because that One, Jesus Christ, has bestowed His most Holy Spirit on those who believe in and obey Him,  can any human person do ‘free-goodness’.  All disbelievers, rationalists, or whatever God-less people may be called or call themselves, want, theoretically, and will, actually, commit their own choice of sin when they feel the need to do that personal something God would prohibit.            

8th Sunday Year C 2019

 8^th. Sunday of Year (C)

(Eccles. 27:4-7; 1 Cor. 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45)

In our troubled times, when many are feverishly seeking for the good things the world has to offer, and Christian morality is often side-lined for personal advantage or profit, people can and do find themselves in difficulties of all sorts; and, finding themselves weighed down with troubles and enmeshed in problems, they frequently turn to others for help.  Now that is normal enough, indeed it is typically human.

However, in modern pagan society such human situations are too rarely sanctified by Christian and Catholic attitudes.  For example, it is frequently the case that family and proven friends are the last to be consulted by young people wondering what to do with their future or in their present difficulties, because such youngsters do not want to feel themselves -- or be made to feel themselves -- as youngsters any longer.  They are not, perhaps, at the stage of seeking faith-advice on how to do God’s will as good Catholics, but simply wanting, above all, as individual and increasingly decisive persons, human appreciation and possible help from peers with whom they now spend the majority of their formation time.    However -- and this may be of concern for the parents who have thus far taught and guided them -- they may well have not yet learned from taught wisdom and life-experience how to recognize and appreciate a true friend and set up good friendships; and they may also – parents’ concern again – be as yet lacking in the necessary moral courage to be able to reject bad friendships.

And so, turning instinctively to their peers for that sympathetic hearing these youngsters so want, there is the danger that any injudiciously chosen helper(s) may go on to give them not merely a sympathetic ear in present troubles but also opinions and advice – sometimes incitement – with regard to future actions. 

Loving parents with sons or daughters under trial as I have just shown will therefore have no doubt whatsoever about the answer to Jesus’ question:

            Can a blind person lead a blind person?   

Nevertheless, many adult persons – not youngsters this time -- who have long thought of themselves, or been considered as, practising Catholics, when they get ‘bogged down’ in troubles begin to say to themselves, ‘Many people are doing this … I don’t see what is wrong if so many are doing it’, and trying to salve their conscience by thinking they will have many companions to back-up any immoral attitudes they may adopt, they often turn to some non-believer, some ‘personal friend’, who is or has been in more or less in the same boat -- so to speak -- as themselves, because they are not wanting -- as believing adults should want -- to find out what Our Lord would have them do, what His Church teaches, what their own conscience urges, but, imitating those adolescents-in-faith we have just considered, they also want, above all, a sympathetic and supportive hearing.  Here, however, there is much more that is blameworthy than in the case of youngsters wanting the same; for such ‘childish’ self-seeking by adults is incompatible with any true profession of Catholic faith, as witness those hundreds, thousands (?) of nominally Catholic women in Ireland recently having been shown clamouring for abortion and the right to use their bodies for their own purposes, even Deo-non-volente.  Behaving in such a way rather than seeking God’s way to right their difficulties and wrongs, proclaiming the emotional high’s and low’s of their own individual stories, they were explicitly seeking an excuse for actions planned or already carried out.  Wanting above all moral support from others without faith or from others who have done the same as themselves are planning, they may indeed end-up perhaps comforted for a little while as sinners among many other fellow-sinners, but in no way justified as disciples of Jesus or as living members of His Church.

God is not impressed by, nor does He seek, numbers as perhaps too many priests and bishops do; for did not Our Blessed Lord Himself say that the road leading to perdition is broad and smooth, and that many choose to walk along it, whereas the gate leading to life is narrow and few enter therein.  As disciples of Jesus, we believe that we need to learn from Jesus and we profess to want above all to learn from, and become like, one with, Him.

A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Now it is a very great blow to teacher to realize that your supposed disciples never can, never want, to turn to you in their need.  Jesus alone died for us, Jesus alone can save us: we know these facts and we say we believe them.  However, it is indeed a ‘slap in the face’ for Our Lord when His disciples turn for preference, in the way we have described, to worldly and sinful human beings rather than to Himself Who died for them and Whom they call their Saviour, or to those of His disciples who best know His teaching, His will, and His ways. 

Let us now listen once more to Jesus with regard to those who are prone to offer themselves as advisors:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, `Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Advisors, Jesus says, who claim to be able to help, or pretend to give help to, others in their troubles with advice that springs from their own unenlightened and disordered lives, are usurpers.  

I am the true vine, you are the branches.  Unless you eat My (fruit), (that is) eat My flesh and drink My blood, you do not have life in you.

People of God, never forget that the way you try to make yourself happy in this world will determine whether or not you find real happiness in the kingdom of heaven.  Seek sympathy from those who want ‘their share’ of this world’s forbidden fruit and you will never taste true happiness in eternal life.

So, who are you going to take advice from?   First of all, however, what sort of advice do you want?  There is advice involving knowledge and there is advice involving merely opinion.  Both are advice, that is, something proffered as helpful not obligatory, but knowledge-sought advice honours what or Who is being sought, opinion-sought advice usually favours whoever is asking.

There is only one to whom we, as Catholics and Christians, can ultimately turn, and that is to Jesus.  But when I speak of turning to Jesus, I do not mean to imply that we have a private connecting line with Our Lord.  Our link with Jesus is always, fundamentally, through His Church and by His Spirit given us in the Church.  But, life in the Church is aimed at union with, service of, love for, Jesus Himself;  we therefore, as individual disciples truly seeking Jesus,  can ask whomsoever we want in Mother Church whom we believe can best help us to Jesus, that is, with superior knowledge or a presumably more holy opinion, and He, Jesus, will contact us through them, for Jesus makes His true disciples good through washing away their sins in the waters of baptism and then by guiding and ultimately endowing them with the wisdom of His most Holy Spirit in mother Church.

If, however, we are not truly seeking Him, His truth and His way, but really our own self-satisfaction, then we ourselves are hypocrites pretending to seek Jesus by the help of advisors who give “friendly” advice, advice which only seeks to be in line with what are the popular and politically correct opinions of the day; advice that can only harm those Catholics and Christians foolish enough to seek and accept it.

Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers.

Make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

Surely, none of us wants others’ bad fruit to poison our own life?

So, before you seek, and most certainly before you accept, any advice, you should be clear about your own attitude: What are you seeking?  Are you seeking worldly acceptance and popularity, worldly success and/or profit, or perhaps just the worldly satisfaction of a life as trouble-free as possible?  If so, you are deceiving yourself if you think that you are acting as a Christian, let alone a true Catholic.

However, if you are, as a disciple of Christ, wanting to know how best to walk along Jesus’ ways through your troubles, then listen even more closely to God’s holy word in the book of Revelation (2:7):

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

To him who overcomes: that means, “to the one who perseveres, who endures, who persists”, as a disciple of Jesus, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life.  Jesus is the tree of life: eat of the fruit of such a tree, eat His Body and drink His Blood, and life is and will be yours, for:

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. (John 6:53-55)

We are told by St. Luke (8:18-19) that when Jesus was walking the paths of Palestine,

            A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The sharp and immediate response of Jesus, showing just how much it meant to Him, was:

Why do you call Me good?  No one is good-except God alone.

Jesus is now risen and is to be found at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  Jesus is the only good Person, good Teacher, for us.  Jesus alone is good, and we, disciples of His, turn only to Him in Mother Church, we seek only His guidance, teaching and grace, from His Church and from His disciples.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

There is only one Sacred Heart, that heart of Jesus from which poured water to cleanse you and blood to revitalize you.  Turn to Jesus, draw close to His Sacred Heart and you will find real, not emotional, sympathy, light to give you understanding, and grace to help you do whatever is necessary to rise above your troubles.  You will experience what the prophet Isaiah (40:31) had foretold:

Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

7th Sunday Year C 2019

7^th. Sunday of Year (C)

(1Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38)

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My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, when we seek to understand our Blessed Lord, we must always bear in mind that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.  Consequently, we should beware lest we foist our own attitudes and ideas onto Him; and, if we should ever think it might be necessary to understand His words in any way other than that of their clear and obvious meaning, then we must always have a reverential fear lest we betray His holy wisdom by indulging our own partiality.  Indeed, we must always suspect, and therefore inspect, our own sinfulness and prejudices before we say anything that might seem to lessen the force of His words and the integrity of His intentions.

That said, it is a fact that Jesus, at times, did seem to speak in such a way as to shock His hearers into thinking about, not just hearing, what He was saying.  Sometimes He seems to have deemed it necessary to provoke, or even offend, His listeners – as in last Sunday’s Gospel passage for example -- in order to make them seriously think about His teaching, rather than just passively listen to His words.

The Gospel reading we have just heard may have induced such passivity in some who might, perhaps, be inclined say that today’s reading was very nice.  Indeed it was ‘nice’ as regards expressing some beautiful aspirations or thoughts; but did it not also contain  some words that might seem to be as equally disturbing, if not shocking, as His words at His home-town synagogue, or the ’woes’ in last Sunday’s gospel?   For example, what is one to think about the words:

Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back?

In order to understand Jesus aright we must turn to Mother Church, our guide and support along the Way.  For she, together with our Gospel reading, also set before us today King David in the first reading, who gave us an admirable example of loving our enemy.  And yet, for all that David reverenced Saul as the Lord’s anointed King, he in no way trusted Saul as a person, and he had no intention of falling into the hands of that person, which is why he took great care to protect his own life by putting a considerable distance between the King and himself before revealing his presence:

(he) stood on the top of a hill afar off, a great distance being between them.

Only at such a distance did David think it safe to make Saul aware of what had, and what had not, just happened.  Notice too that although David reverenced Saul as God’s anointed, nevertheless he roundly accused him of his personal, evil, actions:

Why does my lord thus pursue his servant? For what have I done, or what evil is in my hand?  Now therefore, please, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the LORD has stirred you up against me, let Him accept an offering. But if it is the children of men, may they be cursed before the LORD.

David was showing truly Christian love in his dealings with Saul but in no way was he willing to put himself at the mercy of Saul.

Now today there are some who refuse to accept the guidance of Mother Church: they turn to the Scriptures as the only source of teaching for Christians and will accept only the obvious and literal meaning of the words they read there, because any other understanding must, necessarily, come from some other -- and to their mind, invalid -- source.  Therefore, to remain faithful to such a Bible-only approach to Christian faith and practice they would understand Jesus’ words:

            To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also,

quite literally; and so, they might well think that, ideally, David in our first reading should not have been fleeing from Saul, but should rather have trusted in God and allowed Saul to apprehend him. 

There are many others in our modern society, and indeed they are the great majority today, who neither acknowledge Mother Church nor accept the Scriptures, and to their minds Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel passage is sheer madness:

Give to everyone who asks of you.  And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. 

For, how can such words be relevant to, or applicable in, modern society, where there are so many liars and con-merchants, so many drug addicts and drunkards, so many care-free vagrants who have no scruples whatsoever.  How can a father, working hard to support his family, give to everyone who asks?   And again, from a social point of view, if people just allowed themselves to be mugged in the streets without trying to keep what was being stolen from them, where would our society be?  Thieves and blackguards, young thugs and budding bullies, would feel free to get their money from anyone they might choose to pick on in the street, with the result that there would no longer be any human society, just a modern jungle where might is considered right, cunning supplants consideration, and instinctive lies come easier than truth and its attendant difficulties.

In such a maelstrom of righteous voices, self-proclaimed Christian teaching and opinions, as well as modern politically-correct attitudes, I just want to recall to your minds how Judas Iscariot – pretending to be the super-disciple -- tried to turn Jesus’ teaching against Himself:

Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) His disciples, and the one who would betray Him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?”  He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions.  So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of My burial.  You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.”  (John 12:4–8)

I would suggest, dear People of God, that in our Gospel reading today, Jesus -- far from preaching madness, and far from attacking, provoking, in order to change -- is trying to guide us, lead us, into thinking through His words to His teaching, that we might perhaps, in that way, come to realize and appreciate a most important spiritual truth. 

Why does He choose to speak in that way?  Because we cannot have God given us on a platter; we have to want communion with God, that is, we needs-must come to want to understand, to want to love and to live for, Him supremely, and such blessings are only bestowed on those who desire them most sincerely and are willing to strive wholeheartedly for such communion.  Jesus is, therefore, speaking today – that is, to those who desire to know and love Him more -- not to provoke, as at Nazareth, but in such a way as  to urge them, call them, to strive, search, and pray, for ever greater understanding when things seem strangely obscure or even dark, for ever greater faith and trust when that darkness brings along with it an unwonted coldness that would  threaten the warm spark of love.

What then is He wanting us, today, to fathom out for ourselves when, moved, puzzled perhaps, by His words, we are, nevertheless, urged on by His Spirit within us?

Jesus, I suggest, is trying to make us realize that His Holy Spirit must be able lead us anywhere; and therefore, that there should be no set limits in our loving and obedient response to Him whereby we might cry out ‘Thus far and no further’. 

Moreover, Jesus wants to help us appreciate that our relationship with Him, by the Spirit, is to be a relationship that is not only ecclesial, but also and always personal, and indeed, sometimes, possibly unique. That is, He does not always and necessarily ask of us the same as He seeks from others.   In the most important and essential issues, the Spirit moves the Church as the identically one Body of Christ; at other times however, He may  will – for His own specific purposes – to move, use, an individual as a distinct member of that one Body, as He has done with His saints over the ages, for example our own, modern, St. Therese of Lisieux, unique and distinct most certainly, yet loved and admired by all.

St. Paul told us that:

As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. 

That is, we have to -- it is our heavenly calling to -- become like Jesus.  Now, that is not to be done by following pat formulae or human imaginations; only the Spirit of Jesus can form us, individually and personally, into a distinct likeness of Jesus.  And therefore, we have to learn to recognize and respond to the Holy Spirit, given us by Jesus in Mother Church, when He tries to move us, as individual disciples of Jesus.  Moreover, though individually distinct, we are all, also, vital members of the One Body of Christ, and it is essential for the integrity of the whole Body that the Holy Spirit be able, by His divine wisdom and grace, to move us – both as one and individually -- in such a way as to harmoniously continue and further the authentic work of salvation inaugurated by Jesus.

Tragically, there are many in Mother Church today who are afraid to follow the Guiding Spirit of Jesus in their lives: they choose to do what is popular, they seek what promises to be successful, they adopt what is politically correct; while there are others who fear too much the responsibility of trying to hear, understand, and respond to what God wants of them.  Nevertheless, we must always remember that Jesus, too, frequently pondered, prayed, and struggled, to understand and follow His Father’s will:

Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will. (Mark 14:36)

He learned from events to recognize both His Father’s working in others, and His Father’s will for Himself.  For example, when Peter, without hesitation, and in the name of all the Twelve, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” Jesus recognized that His Father had chosen Peter and that He wanted Jesus to do the same, for which reason, Jesus answered Peter saying:

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven.   And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.   (Matthew 16:17-18)

We, likewise, have to follow Jesus and try to recognize, understand, and obey God’s Spirit at work in us, seeking to form us personally in Jesus for the Father and for the Church.  And we must also recognize that He, the Spirit, may choose to lead us, as individuals, just as Jesus taught Peter:

Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays You?"  Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?"  Jesus said to him, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." (John 21:20-22)

So, in our Gospel reading today, Jesus is not saying directly and with full intent, that here are some things you must do, literally and no matter what; rather is He trying to lead us into a right attitude in our relationship with and response to, His Holy Spirit working in the Church; an attitude, that is, of unconditional surrender to the Spirit.

It is not permissible for us to set limits that would say ‘thus far and no further’ to the Spirit’s authority and inspiration; for the Spirit invites each and every one of us -- individually, as a child of God -- to follow His guidance, obey His will, and in that way allow ourselves to be formed in the likeness of Jesus for the Father, and also to be used by the Spirit for the good of the Church and for the Father’s glory.  If therefore, the Spirit does ask of you, personally, in any particular situation:

To do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you; to him who strikes you on the one cheek, to offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak, not (to) withhold your tunic either; (to) give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods  not (to) ask them back;

then, indeed recognize that He is wanting this of you now, in this particular situation, for the good of the Church and for your personal formation as a disciple of Jesus; but it is not, necessarily, what He is wanting from others, and it may not, indeed, be His permanent purpose for you.

It is immeasurably more important than any such individual, passing, actions -- meritorious though they may be -- that we learn to have a permanent attitude of listening for, and humbly responding to, the call of the Spirit.  As human beings, and as disciples of Jesus and children of Mother Church, it is not of the greatest importance that we always get things right, that we never leave ourselves open to the criticism or blame of men; far, far more important is it that we learn to listen ever better for the Spirit speaking within us; that we become more able to hear Him clearly when He does so speak, and become ever more prepared to unhesitatingly respond by following His lead along ways that give glory to God, help our neighbour, and exalt Mother Church.  Those ways are the only ways that truly lead to heaven because they are chosen for us by the Spirit of Jesus, for the purpose of forming each of us in the likeness of the ‘heavenly man’, and Mother Church herself as the perfect Bride of Christ, offering and commending His salvation to the whole of mankind.

6th Sunday Year C 2019

 6^th. Sunday Year (C)

(Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the overall message of our readings today is one of trust and hope.  In our first reading taken from the prophet Jeremiah we heard:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.

That may sound somewhat strange, as if the same thing were being said twice; there is, however, a difference of emphasis between the two phrases.  “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord” stresses the fact that here and now -- in whatever circumstances such a person finds himself and whatever he is trying to do -- such a one, trusting in the Lord at all times, knows that it is the Lord who enables him to respond and face up to the changing situations, difficulties, and trials of daily life; whereas the second phrase ‘and whose hope is the Lord’ is totally centred on the future, centred on the very Person of the Risen Lord Jesus, now glorified in the human flesh He shares with us, and Who finally will come again to call all His faithful disciples to share with Him in the glory of His Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven.

The second reading, taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, being centred on the heavenly Jesus is obvi­ously to be related to that second phrase ‘Blessed is the man whose hope is the Lord’, for St. Paul tells his converts:

If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

The Church’s proclamation that Christ is risen from the dead, Paul is saying, should be your sure and steadfast hope for your own future state beyond the grave; because Jesus has already taken our human flesh with Him to heaven, the only question will be about the nature of our personal relationship with Jesus; and for that we now turn to the Gospel reading, where Jesus develops that beatitude of ’trust in the Lord’ proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah.

Jesus, raising His eyes toward His disciples, said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.  Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.  Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.   Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!  Behold your reward will be great in heaven, for their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.”

Blessed – not that inept word happy -- are those whose trust in the Lord is so great that  here and now, in this demanding, deceptive, and increasingly antagonistic world, their minds are in no  way centred on personal success or popularity in their dealings with the world, for they are well aware that their true peace and joy, their true fulfilment, is only to be found with God and their trying to doing His will in Jesus.  To that end, they are content to have less and, if necessary, to suffer more than others in the course of their daily lives; indeed, some there are whose commitment to the Lord is such that they are able to bear con­tradiction and opposition without ever regarding themselves as misguided or lonely.   Blessed, says Jesus, are such whose trust is, indeed, in the Lord their God. 

I think that, even today, many can still understand and appreciate the meaning of Our Lord’s words and the beauty of the character they portray.  It would indeed be a privilege to know someone like that; and how still more wonderful would it not be for us ourselves to be personally blessed to such a degree that it could be truly said of us, that our trust was wholly in the Lord.

However, leaving aside such personal thoughts and aspirations, those words of Jesus I have just quoted would have been an excellent place for Him to end His short discourse and thus leave a pleasing impression on the minds of His hearers.   But Jesus did not stop there, He went on to add:

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.   Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.  Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.  Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in that way.  

Why did Jesus go on to say those words?  Because, dear People of God, Jesus came to bear witness to the truth and we present-day Christians in a up-to-date and increasingly pagan society are afraid to accept and profess them as God’s truth.  There were very many Jews in Jesus’ days who pretended to be authentic, obedient, Jews for what they could get out of such pretence: the admiration of others, money, authority, and social position.  And why does Jesus, through His Church today, continue to say such words to many who call themselves, or are regarded as, Catholics and Christians whereas, in fact, they are insipid or even treacherous witnesses to Jesus before the world?  Because Jesus’ words were and are for all time and they are most urgently needed today.  Dear fellow Catholics, if at times the immediate words of our pagan legislators and leaders of society seem to bear witness to Jesus’ own words or intentions their overall actions and their most intimate intentions are far from love of and/or obedience to Jesus.  And what is more, there are Catholics and Christians of greater and lesser significance who also cannot comfortably hear, and most certainly cannot proclaim, such words of Jesus as we have just heard – and there are many other like words disregarded for public reading – lest such proclamation provoke hostility towards themselves or the Church!  It could even result in someone saying to them personally: “What’s wrong with being rich?” or “What’s wrong with having plenty; what’s wrong with enjoying a good laugh and liking to hear praise?”  Before such confrontation far too many Christians today become apologetic; they want to slip away quickly before their adversaries go on to add in yet more strident tones: “The trouble with you Christians and Church-goers is that you are spoil sports; most human feelings and pleasures are sins according to you.”  And if, at this late juncture, a few of the more prominent and committed Catholics might, perhaps, still be standing apparently firm in the face of  such hot, self-righteous, indignation from worldly people, they will almost certainly feel it necessary -- more prudent -- to explain Jesus’ words in such a way that their cutting, offending, edge is blunted and softened so that they no longer trouble, disturb, and certainly cannot infuriate, the sensitive ears of those who have left behind former religious and/or pious Christian attitudes for more modern, politically-correct and popularly-acceptable thought patterns.

Why, People of God, did Jesus not behave in such a way?  Why did Jesus choose to use provocatively hard words, as in today’s particular occasion of Luke’s ‘Sermon on the Plain’, without giving any expla­nation?

It was most certainly not because He didn’t love His hearers divinely; it was not because, as a man, He was irritated and fed-up with people, or that He just couldn’t be bothered to explain His thought.  On the contrary, His words on this occasion were carefully chosen with the divine intent of spurring His hearers to ponder in their minds and search their hearts in order to find for themselves some understanding.  In other words, His failure to explain further was motivated by true love, divine love for the salvation of His listeners.  Modern pseudo-Christian attempted explanations and justifications, on the other hand, being motivated by human sentimentality at the best, or more frequently by self-love, that is, by fear of giving offence, are so weak and insipid to non-believers that they promise them­selves to have done with such people and with any further thoughts about the Faith itself.

Once again, therefore, we come back to the burning question of why it is that Jesus so frequently and consistently differs from us and our modern sensitivities? 

The reason for Jesus’ difference, the reason why the authors of the Sacred Scriptures, the old Prophets, and the New Testament writers Peter and Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are at times so different from us in their attitudes and words, is because too many modern Catholics are, in fact, like the Corinthians to whom Paul was writ­ing in today’s second reading:  the Lord was not those Corinthians’ hope for the future, and too many of today’s believers, likewise, do not put their trust fully in the Lord for our present and future well-being.  Too many, high and low, try ever so hard to please and placate, to be politically correct and socially acceptable even though we have clearly heard the Prophet saying in the name of God:

Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and seeks his strength in flesh.

Because we, Catholics and Christians as a whole, do not fully trust the Lord, because we – in the sight and hearing of men -- try so desperately to secure our own personal acceptability, therefore many laboriously thought-out and much publicised projects and programmes come to nothing, and have to be returned to the plan­ning board again and again to find out what went wrong the first time, why people did not respond.   And then we hear of yet another approach, an­other new scheme, that will, it is fancied, assuredly bear the fruit we like to desire, and bring the worldly success we so deeply crave.

People of God, it is only those whose hope is THE LORD, who calmly trust in His loving Providence and rejoice in His Personal presence in all life’s circumstances and before all people, who can speak God’s truth when necessary, as did Jesus, without thoughts of self-interest or politics of popularity and power intruding themselves so as to influence, mould, and divert, the Spirit’s lead.  So often words like ‘prudence’ and ‘wisdom’ are desecrated by being twisted so as to protect and disguise their user’s secret fears and  less-than-honourable aspirations: “It wouldn’t be prudent to say that just now”, “we must  be wise in our choice of words, and weigh up carefully the possi­ble effects of speaking out in such a way”; and thus we find ourselves behaving just as did the Pharisees when Jesus asked them about John the Baptist:

The baptism of John, where was it from: From heaven or from men?  And they reasoned among themselves, saying: "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?'  "But if we say: 'From men,' we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet."  So, they an­swered Jesus and said: "We do not know." And He said to them: "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. (Matthew 21:25-27)

In such a way -- by countless human caveats and cautions -- the influence of God’s Holy Spirit of fire and truth is, in modern western society, impeded and confined, blunted and obscured, before finally being rejected and denied.

Jesus proclaimed His Good News under the inspiration and in the power of His Spirit.  The Holy Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, all the Doctors and Saints -- holy men and women -- who have guided and illuminated Mother Church throughout the ages, have, each in their own degree, done likewise: they have spoken, they have acted, in obedience to and un­der the impulse of, the Spirit of holiness and fire Whom the Lord has bequeathed to His Church.  And we Catholic Christians of today, as a whole and individually, must learn the courage to speak and act in like manner, lest our tainted presentation of God’s Truth, of Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice, of the ‘faith of our fathers’ and of Mother Church’s saints and martyrs, will continue to fail today’s sinful and secular society.

Do not think I am advocating ‘Dutch courage’, or the ‘Gung-Ho’ attitude and tactics of religious fanatics: far from it, I am speaking of that quiet courage and firm conviction which comes from God and is given only to those who:

Trust in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.