33rd Sunday Year A 2020

 

Thirty-third Sunday, Year (A)

(Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20,30-31; 1^st. Thessalonians 5:1-6; Saint Matthew 25:14-30)

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What was the ‘talent’ mentioned in Our Lord’s parable?

It was a measure of weight used, in our case, for silver; and one talent of silver was a LOT of money ... those servants entrusted with three or five were effectively millionaires.

Looking at the three servants we can make the following observation: the third servant had no love for his master.  His comrades did respect their master, and not only did they feel obliged to use his goods well, but they also wanted to live up to his expectations of them, and that they did, both making one hundred percent profit for him.  The master’s return (hinting a Jesus’ second coming) was a very fulfilling and rewarding experience for those and for their well-pleased master.

Not so, however, for the fellow who received the one talent of silver ... remember, that was still a very sizeable amount of money ... he just wanted to secure the money as quickly and as easily as possible, and then be able to forget altogether about the absent master and his affairs, and get on with living his own life as best he could.   

Yet more surprising, however, was his attitude to the master when he had come back and expressed his dissatisfaction with the bald return of his one talent!  This servant did not acknowledge any fault at all, in fact, he blamed the master himself, for having made, so he said, him so afraid:

Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.’ (Matthew 25:24–25)

The other two servants, however, had not found the master such a fear-inspiring man!  Far from it, they wanted to show gratitude to him for having trusted them!

It would seem that the third servant wanted – above all – to be safe from blame. And whoever might threaten his delightful shell of self-satisfaction he would attack: ‘Who can blame me for being frightened?   It was you who made me frightened.’

Dear People of God, this parable character, servant no. 3 let us call him, can be instructive for us.  He sits on his talent in the parable, and in real parish life too many parishioners, generally regarded as ‘good Catholics’, sit on their faith: they have got the faith, they are intent on keeping the faith, and with that they are satisfied, despite so many words of Scripture, despite exhortations by Mother Church, to bring forth fruit for Jesus.  There are, indeed, many, many, ways of bringing forth fruit for Jesus, even in the secret depths of our own heart ... but for all of them we do have to do one thing: we have work on, work with, develop, deepen our faith, we cannot just sit on it.

Why might too many choose to just sit on their faith?  Let us learn from our parable:  because that way they like to think that they cannot be blamed by anyone, and they can approve themselves: they have kept the faith.

Let us look back again to servant no. 3: he had a grudge against the master going off on a long journey because it meant that he had been burdened with a duty to take care of some of his master’s possessions.  Unlike the other two servants whose love and/or respect for their master made them pleased, first of all to see the esteem he had for them by trusting them with so much of his possessions, and secondly, most willing to show their gratitude to him in return by careful stewardship.

Now, it was that responsibility before, being made answerable to, his journeying master, whom he had never learnt to like or admire, that servant no. 3 deeply  resented and feared, and that is why he almost viciously attacked the returned master as we have heard:

Master, I knew you were a demanding person, so out of fear I went off and buried your talent.

Yes, Catholics who simply sit on their faith fear God, the Lord Who has promised to return, but because they, like servant no.3, have not opened up their hearts to their Lord and Master, they fear Him in the wrong way: not with a reverential fear that draws them to Him, but with a servile fear of punishment and loss which would push them from Him. 

Moreover, together with servant 3, they may also possibly have a deep grudge against the absent Lord, because they imagine Him to have left them burdened with an unwanted responsibility.

The promise of eternal, heavenly life, a blissful life of self-giving love, they find wonderful, but they hate being saddled now with a responsibility to earn such a blessing.  RESPONSIBILITY they want as little-of as possible and so they sit on their faith, holding it tight to themselves, refusing to allow it draw them to God or to their neighbour.

Dear People of God, there is a tendency to preach a Jesus of Whom people -- including unbelievers -- want to hear, so that they can remain untroubled, challenge free; and thus, authentic aspects of Jesus tend to be omitted and ignored.  Today we had the alternative Gospel which omitted the following words of Our Lord:

Now then, take the one talent from him and give it to the one with ten.  For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

Dear People, Jesus was not on earth, and is not now in heaven, a milk and water personality wanting to become popular; He is eternally God and Man, Who died a most horrific death to save all those – and only those – who would believe in Him and obey His Gospel of Good News, proclaimed in and by His Church to and for all mankind.

32nd Sunday of Year A 2020

 

32^nd. SUNDAY OF YEAR (A)

(Wisdom 6:12-16; 1^st. Thessalonians 4:13-18; St. Matthew 25:1-13)

 

Let your light shine before men so that they see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.  (Matthew 5:16)

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our parable about the Wise and Foolish Virgins -- bridesmaids for this occasion -- can be understood quite simply, but then with only a modicum of truth; to find its fuller significance, we must needs apply our minds to consider various aspects of the story and also the whole style and purpose of Jesus’ public ministry.

Understood simply, the five foolish virgins seem to have been prepared for pleasure rather than for a duty.  Their ‘job’ so to speak, was to wait for the coming of the bridegroom together with his friends – which could have happened quickly enough, but which most probably would take some time due to meetings on the way, involving congratulatory words from and celebratory drinks with their relatives and friends.   As a result, those bridesmaids, waiting to lead the groom and his party to the bride’s paternal home where the matrimonial ceremonies would take place, had to be prepared for whichever eventuality: early or late.

However, the five ‘Foolish Virgins’ were not prepared for the bridegroom’s delayed coming and had to rush off to buy some more oil for their failing torches. While they were away the bridegroom arrived and the procession had to be led to the bride’s family home by an odd-numbered group of bridesmaids carrying only half the desired festival lights, along ways with no modern paving stones and no public lighting.  Now that reflected very badly on the father wanting to be seen as giving his daughter ‘a good send-off’, and it would have embarrassed the bride-to-be very much.  It was no ‘understandable’ mistake by the foolish five, it was indeed a thoughtless oversight with serious repercussions, one of which was that on returning with oil they were not welcomed back for the official ceremonies and parental leave-taking of the bride, the splendour and festal character of whose wedding they had so publicly compromised.

The moral of the parable thus understood would be -- and it is, of course, a most serious and necessary teaching -- that the Kingdom of Heaven is open only for those who are seriously prepared to embrace it.

We should notice, in passing,  that the last sentence, ‘Stay awake, therefore, for you do not know the day or the hour’, does not fit in with the fact that all ten of the bridesmaids had fallen asleep, not just the five foolish ones ... it may be an additional exhortation by some copyist over the course of time ... certainly Jesus Himself did not say it, although He could have used those same words elsewhere (cf. Mt. 24:36).

We can, however, learn more about how we are to respond to Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand for those who repent by giving our attention and applying our minds.

First of all: the point of highlighting the five foolish virgins is the fact that their torches were going out.   I think we must all agree that for those entrusted to light the way to the future bride’s parental home where the actual wedding ceremony was to take place, it was absolutely essential that their torches be able to shine as brightly as possible for processional pomp and to show the way for the bridegroom and his party to his wife-to-be’s parental home for the marriage ceremonies despite possible darkness and obstacles!

Secondly, and here we have the essential point of the parable: what is the significance of those burning torches, so essential for entry into the wedding celebration?   And the answer is, scholars agree, they refer to good works; for the door closed to the foolish bridesmaids could only be opened by one to whom they called, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us’ and with those words we listeners are no longer waiting to see what will happen next at this imaginary tale, but are brought back to actual reality: Jesus is using this parable to teach, He is not just telling an interesting story for His hearers to enjoy, He is using an instructive parable to teach His hearers something most important about Him Who indeed is Lord, Lord.

Saint Matthew has other words of Jesus connecting lighted lamps with good works:

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.  (5:16)

 And with words most pertinent to our parable:

Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But he who does the will of My Father’ (7:21)

Saint Peter told his disciples

Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that if they speak of you as evildoers, they may observe your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation.  (1 Peter 2:12)

And St. Paul who learnt the Gospel he proclaimed from Jesus Himself, has:

This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to insist, that those who have believed in God be careful to devote themselves to good works; these are excellent and beneficial to others.  (Titus 3:8)

Saint John in his Gospel tells us of Jesus saying:

I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit .... My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. (15:5,8)

And, of course, Saint James is most insistent in his letter on saying, repeatedly, in various ways:

            Faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  (2:17)

In our parable, the foolish Virgins liked their friend very much they thought, and they were looking forward to helping her, but they had no works, their oil ran out!

Faith, and works of charity-in-all-their-varied-forms, are as intimately connected to each other as the inside and the outside, where the outside expresses, mirrors forth, embodies, gives appropriate shape and form to, the inside.

Today, such essential mutuality, complementarity, in our lives, is largely denied.

The majestic order and beauty of our functioning, living, world is not seen to manifest anything of One Who is other and greater; sins are not recognized as revealing what is evil hidden within our hearts and minds, they are only sicknesses, to be cured or treated as does a vet caring for animals; even our good, our very best, deeds serve no purpose other than the passing, personal, glory of those involved; our boasted scientific knowledge remains almost totally ignorant of the reality behind the factual scraps it gathers.   Above all perhaps, today the complementarity of man and woman in the one reality which is humanity is ignored, denied!

God and man, Creator and creation, right and wrong, true and false, all these mutual realities, complementary beings, relationships, and facts, are reduced to man and the world we live in as we understand it, to what is legal and what is criminal in our society, to what we will and will not accept in our closely-closeted self-awareness.

Dear People of God, there is far, far more to us than our modern world will acknowledge; and though for us believers, the inside of our cup of life is of supreme importance, nevertheless, we will never know much of our true selves if we fail to weigh and give attention to the outside.  As Catholics our faith has to be complemented by, completed and fulfilled, in works; too often there is a contradiction between what is professed in faith and what is done, and the whole Christian effort may be regarded as an effort – under the grace and guidance of God – to bring about unity in our lives, to make the inside and outside of our being and behaviour complementary to each other, to reconcile the flesh and the spirit; by faith and good works to become perfectly human and truly divine, able to taste the peace, joy, and fulness of life promised and bestowed by Christ.

The mistake of the foolish virgins was their complacent feelings of friendship for their friend and bride to be, and their anticipation of a joyful wedding; that complacent feeling was their ‘faith’ which they did not turn into true friendship by making preparations for the work to be done; and that failed friendship became selfishness as they looked forward and prepared to personally enjoy the coming event.

People of God, we must all make sure that our faith is not mere emotional thinking or warm feelings that cover and disguise a deep selfishness: selfishness is natural to us, faith has to be learned by humble and grateful acceptance before being confirmed and consolidated by works.  But, in all such endeavours our works must be expressive of the Faith we profess; indeed a witness to the presence, and supremacy of, the Spirit of Jesus in our lives as children of Mother Church, if we are to fulfil that ultimate aspiration of our Christian being, to become, in Jesus, true children of the One Father of us all in heaven.

 

 

 

All Saints 2020

 

 ALL SAINTS (2020)

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

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Today we are celebrating all the saints who are beloved of God and the glory of Mother Church, be they renowned or unbeknown to us; those who now join with their fellow angelic choristers in giving Him eternal glory.  Let us, therefore, now try to learn from those most successful of all human beings by considering as closely as time allows the readings Mother Church has chosen for us today, that we may perhaps be able to discern and learn the way Jesus traces out for all those who wish to share with Him and them in the blessedness of the Father’s kingdom.

You heard in that first reading something of the glory of heaven, so far, that is, as human, earthly, words can describe it:

I had a vision of a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue.  They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.  They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, Who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb."

No racism, no sexism, no privileged groups, but people from all nations and all times, together forming a great multitude; and they are one because they are all stood before the throne with the Lamb their leader and saviour.  All in heaven are praising God for the victory He has won for this multitude saying:

Amen! Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honour, power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen!

And -- note this well dear People of God -- it is there we all aspire to join with them when this, our earthly pilgrimage, is ended.

You will most probably have heard non-believers mockingly speak of heaven in such words as: “I can’t imagine me enjoying anything like that; and all the time, too, nothing else but that!”

Though such words are expressions of nothing better than ignorance concerning God and the spiritual life, nevertheless, they show us how important it is for us to have some real awareness of what we are aspiring to as committed Catholic disciples of Jesus, and the  only way to understand and appreciate something of heavenly joy is to recall some moment when you yourself were totally delighted in something.  For example, try to remember when you were, perhaps, first in love: recall how your delight in just being with the one you loved made time fly.  Recall when you experienced, something wonderfully beautiful and remember how it seemed to lift you up above ordinary events and again made time fly.  Again, on a much more mundane level, imagine a football supporter whose team has just won the Cup or the championship: that instant of utter and complete joy!

Now the happiness, the blessedness of Heaven is something of that nature: total wonder, uplifting and ecstatic joy; and such recollections will also help you to realize that in heaven there is no such thing as time, that wondrous joy never becomes wearisome, for there is no time to drag on in heaven.  Heavenly joy, blessedness, is an eternal instant of total ecstasy which has its origin in the vision of the infinite beauty, goodness and glory of God Himself.

Such heavenly blessedness, however, is not restricted to heaven.  It can be felt in its beginnings here on earth by those who have become deeply aware of the great goodness that God has shown to them in the course of their life thus far: secret blessings, timely helps, mysterious peace and comfort unwarranted but most gratefully embraced:

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.  Beloved, we are children of God now, what we will be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.    Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

We who believe in the only Son of God Who died for our sins, rose again, and is now seated at the right hand of power are already blessed with the beginning of eternal blessedness; and we are meant by God -- through prayer and faithfulness in the way of Jesus – to deepen our awareness of that blessing, and begin to experience something of the joy which is contained within that treasure we have received through faith.

Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

If you would grow in that awareness of beatitude, if you would like to experience something of that heavenly joy, you must now turn with me to the Gospel and try to understand something of the way Jesus opens up for each of us in and through the course of our life.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness …

There we have the virtues of the one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed servants of God mentioned in our first reading.  It is a wonderful compendium of whatever was good and best under the old covenant: the truest fruits of the Law, the inspirations of the prophets and meditations of the sages, all finding sublime expression in the ecstasies and laments, the humble prayers and joyful songs, of the Psalmist, before finally culminating in what was to be the fulfilment of everything that had gone before: namely, the  Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, sent by God:

            Not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them.  (Matthew 5:17)

With Jesus, the time of fulfilment has ultimately arrived; and so, instead of simply recalling the teaching of the Old Testament, Jesus goes one unique and immeasurable step further, He now addresses His words directly to His disciples standing around Him:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you … ON MY ACCOUNT

It is as if He was saying: such were the virtues of the OT, but now, for you who are My true disciples, your true title to heavenly glory is the fact that you are My disciples.  It is no longer enough to say that you are among the gentle, the poor in spirit, the merciful, for you who listen to Me and who believe in and follow Me, are all of that and more: you are disciples of Mine; and that is how you will enter heaven, that will be your title to eternal glory.

Yes, People of God, I am sure that you will understand that, in heaven, before the God of all holiness, it is not possible that the meekness, the gentleness, of any human being could be admirable in His ‘eyes’.  But ... the fact that someone has, in this sinful and most deceptive world, recognized as true, loved and served as Lord, the man Jesus of Nazareth, God’s only-begotten Son made flesh, that does indeed draw down upon the disciple the admiration, gratitude, and love of God the Father.  He is most assuredly pleased to see human virtues of gentleness, humility, patience, mercifulness, or whatever, but He is all-holy and He sees the limitations of our virtue.  However, the fact that someone here on earth has seen, recognized, and supremely loved His dearest Son – though wrapped in the veil of flesh like ours -- surpasses all human virtue in His eyes.

Perhaps we can picture it best if we think of a sculptor.  God chose His material, the People of God, the nation of Israel; and through the Law and the Prophets He formed -- as does the sculptor with his chisel -- that block ('stiff-necked people' the prophets called them) gradually into some likeness of the Christ Who was to come.  This work, however, was always done from the outside, so to speak, just as the chisel of the artist always chips away from the outside.  When Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God made flesh, came, however, He gave His divine word to His disciples, to take root in their mind and heart, and His example to inspire them.  He finally gave His human life for them, and then, having risen from the dead in the power of the Spirit of God, He ascended to the right hand of His Father, and from there He sent the Holy Spirit, His Spirit, to be with His disciples, to make them into one Body, His Body, His Church.

The Holy Spirit was to remain with His Church: guiding her into all truth and protecting her from the snares of the enemy; and in that continuing task, the Spirit works from the inside, in the minds and hearts of the disciples, and thus forming a living likeness of the Christ, for the Father:

I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.  (Matthew 11:11)

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  By this He meant the Spirit, Whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.  (John 7:37-39)

That, People of God, is the glory of our calling and the joy of all the blessed in heaven.  As living members, and living likenesses (not plaster-cast copies) of the Son, to share in His glory and to bathe in the Father’s love which is totally lavished on His only-begotten Son, Who has indeed become our all:

(For) you (who) are in Christ Jesus, (He) has become for us wisdom from God, that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."   (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

In our first reading we heard questions being asked about the blessed in heaven:

Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?

In answer to the first question "who are these dressed in white robes?" we can recall that we heard St. John tell us:

            Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He, Jesus, is pure.

So, we know now why the blessed are dressed in white robes, they are disciples of Jesus who have purified themselves as Jesus is pure, they are in heaven as true disciples of His.

But what about that second question, "where have these people come from?"

Here we must bear in mind what Jesus has already told us:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

That is where those dressed in white have come from, as the elder in heaven said:

These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Today we have great reason to celebrate: we who are privileged to be disciples of Jesus.  We have been offered already a share in heavenly life and blessedness, and we can experience ever more of that blessedness if we purify ourselves, as St. John told us: by trying to walk ever more faithfully in the way of Jesus, by seeking to appreciate the beauty of His truth, and the mercy and compassion of His great goodness, ever more deeply.  The final washing of our robes, however, will only be brought about by our suffering with and for Jesus, just as God wills for each and every one of us in our life.  And yet, even here, such is the blessedness already given us, that we can come to rejoice in our sufferings for Jesus as did our apostle Paul:

May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  ((Gal. 6:14; 2 Cor. 1:5; Rom. 8:18)

(2020)

 

 

 

30th Sunday Year A 2020

 

 30^th. Sunday of Year (A)

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

 

 

Those words of Our Lord in answer to the Pharisees’ question should be unforgettably etched on our memory:

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.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. 

In the first reading taken from the book of Exodus, we learned how Israel was to practice true love of God:

Whoever sacrifices to any god, except to the Lord alone, shall be put under the ban (utterly destroyed).

There we are taught an absolutely essential aspect of loving the Lord our God: we must be totally loyal to Him, and loyalty still defines true love today, as was the case over 3000 years ago when the Law was given to Moses on Sinai.  Today, of course, Mother Church does not put anyone under the ban, as seems to have happened in Israel under the Law of Moses, yet, nevertheless, by their infidelity such people are destroying themselves spiritually, and, in the course of time, that self-banning, that spiritual self-destruction, can become manifest and perhaps even eternal.

Such infidelity is wide spread today among those who love their own emotional idea of goodness.  They love it because, being emotional, it is in them, part of them, they can feel it, it even excites them at times.  As for the ideas  they support,  they can pick them up  anywhere: Hinduism might inspire some of them to an emotionally heightened love of animals, even above humans who do not love animals as much as or in the way they themselves do; they may remember bits of Christianity, and become emotionally committed to all in whatever ‘need’; they can latch onto current popular slogans and become violently emotional against anyone they can call ‘racist’; they can love children, the aged, the mentally disadvantaged .... but whatever they pick up, they choose to love it EMOTIONALLY, because their emotional commitment demonstrates their own goodness to themselves: they do not follow any law from outside, so to speak, their own heart provides them with their supreme law.

Such a disease -- offering sacrifices to one’s own goodness, to oneself -- is contagious today, and it is destructive of loyalty to the Lord; and it can infect pope or peasant, wise man or fool, rich or poor.

Our reading from the Law of Moses also said:

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.

And such respect or compassion towards a neighbour in need is what Jesus had in mind when He said in the Gospel reading:

You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Now, if love of God and neighbour was already an essential part of the OT, why 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 for a new People of God? 

The Son of God became Man among men, established His Church, died for it, rose again and finally ascended into heaven, in order to enable us -- members of His Church -- to love the Father and our neighbour fittingly through the gift of His Holy Spirit, and find joy in hearing and obeying the Gospel.

No human being, of himself, can love God fittingly, in a manner appropriate to His divine majesty, for He is infinitely wise, beautiful, good, holy, true ... He is INFINITE GOODNESS. And that is why the Jews, though God’s Chosen People at that time, had to be convinced of their fundamental inability to worship Him appropriately, by the fact that they could not even keep a Law adapted to their human condition perfectly, no, not even the most zealous of them, 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 their zeal and piety, evil lay hidden, secretly ever deepening its roots, in the hearts and minds of the leaders of God’s People, Pharisees and Scribes, the Sadducees and priests, as was shown by the fact that when the very Son of God came as Man among men, they hated Him sufficiently to have Him put to death on a cross.

Jesus came as one of us so that in Him, through Him, human flesh might indeed fulfil those just ordinances of God in the Law given to Moses for the Chosen People that human weakness and sinfulness had never yet been able 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 He did because of His consuming love for His Father; and 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.

There, precisely, is the need for Jesus, the need for the Son to become flesh, since no one knows the Father but the Son:

No one knows 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 is therefore, that the Son Who has become One with us who believe in His Name, shares with us that love for the Father which is His unique prerogative; and, by declaring His Father’s Name to us in an ever greater degree by His Most Holy Spirit abiding in His Church and dwelling in our hearts, He urges and encourages us daily to grow in love for the Father and thus become ever more one with Himself; so that we, who had been God’s special but subsequently fallen creation, might be brought to the glorious status of true, fully adopted, sons and daughters in the  Only-begotten and supremely Beloved divine Son of the heavenly Father.

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 indeed the only authentic Christian holiness.  Those aspects of life we tend to value so highly, such as success, achievements, reputation, charismata, are ultimately of no significance.  How, therefore, are we to grow in that personal love which is the only authentic holiness?

First of all, we must examine our motives for wanting to become holy; we must appreciate, and aspire to, love of God for His own beauty and worth; we cannot desire it simply or primarily because of any benefits it may bring us other than the blessing of finding our own fulfilment in Him, by loving Him. 

Secondly, no human authority, no human tradition, can teach us authoritatively how to love God, because true love is a personal response to the God Who is offering Himself Personally to us.  However, because we are members of the Body of Christ, human authorities, traditions, even individuals, may give us guidance which we should not disregard, because we live as one, in the one Body by the one Spirit; nevertheless, in that Body, the Spirit is given to enable each of us to respond to the Father, as Jesus said, ‘with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength’, and that means as an individual, unique, personal creation.

Only in the Church we can breathe most deeply of that salutary atmosphere needed by the children of God; and, in the Church, we must always have our mind and heart set on Jesus, for He alone is the eternal Son 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 the Father with Him and in Him.  In Mother Church, therefore, we must always have our eyes fixed on Jesus, and our ears attentive to the breathing of His Spirit in our lives, that is the meaning of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman (John 4:23-24):

The hour is coming and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth; for such people the Father wishes to be His worshippers.  God is Spirit, ad those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth   

And how are we best to do that?   By our devotion to, love for, the Scriptures where Jesus is ever present as the Word of Life to guide us, and for the Eucharist where He is wanting both to rejoice us Personally, and to bestow upon us His own most Holy Spirit Who will form us anew, in the likeness of Jesus our Lord and Saviour, for the Father.

People of God, the Scriptures and the Eucharist are the two beautiful breasts of Mother Church, as the Song of Songs tells us, where we can satisfy all our needs and fulfil our deepest aspirations: to seek such food is our supreme Christian duty, while to find it is our deepest Christian joy.   If we do work at it through prayer and good works, that is, to put it better, through the practice, however imperfect, of a sort of continual companionship with Jesus, in response to the guidance of the Spirit, then the promised, heavenly, reward will start to become ours in instalments even here on earth: instalments of a joy which encourages us, and most sweetly compels us, to recognize its heavenly provenance.  God is never outdone in generosity, and our little efforts to grow in His love can, as I say, find themselves gradually rewarded with ever greater and deeper joys that can 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 forget those words of Jesus (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, and you will gain eternal blessedness, for the Lord is with you for that very purpose.   But seek to produce the type of fruit that God wants from you, the fruit which He had in mind when He created you in His own likeness and redeemed you in His Son, to become, by His Spirit, a unique functioning member of His Son’s mystical Body.  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.