7th. Sunday, Year (B)

Seventh Sunday, Year (B)

(Isaiah 43:18f., 21f., 24-26; 2^nd. Corinthians 1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12)

So many public figures celebrated by the young seek happiness and end up (quite literally) in a surfeit of pleasures under a mantle of degradation; and yet, surely  their very obvious searching for happiness is what, to a large extent, makes them so attractive to young people.  Now we Catholics and Christians ourselves are committed searchers for happiness, although we would, of course, add the word ‘true’: we search for, and we would also claim to possess, in a certain manner and to a certain degree, ‘true happiness’.  Why then is there so little community of spirit, so little empathy, between our Christian aspirations and the longings of great swathes of modern youth?    Can we not offer anything to challenge the wretched body-and-soul-destroying pleasures to which they so eagerly resort despite all warnings?   Is their experience of life so desperately empty and meaningless that our current version of Christian hope seems totally irrelevant to their need? What can we offer that they can appreciate?  We do offer faith, hope, reconciliation, peace of soul -- and we can offer much more as I am sure you know -- but what can we offer that might satisfy their longing for a happiness they can, easily and yet seriously, experience and share?

Now people are happy because they have some aspiration, some work, some person, they delight in, to whom, to which, they can most completely give and devote themselves with fulfilment.  Consequently, the best offer we can make for all modern seekers of happiness is surely to help them find joy and delight in, admiration of and love for, the Person of Jesus our Saviour as shown to us in the Gospels.  We cannot offer them a life of approved obedience, much admired self-discipline, not even our personal assurances and protestations of private fulfilment in the life of faith; we must rather offer something ‘objective’, something there for all to see and appreciate in the Gospels, we must be able to help them to an understanding and appreciation of the  wonderful life’s work and Personal beauty of Jesus; for the truly perfect human beauty, goodness, wisdom, love and courage of Jesus is, as it were, the richest vein of purest gold for human joy (our version of happiness) and fulfilment, which we must learn to mine – as Catholics indeed but also for ourselves -- if we are to recommend Christian faith and Catholic commitment to happiness seekers and addicts.  Happiness, of itself, is a sort of half-way-house, it is always fragile and dependent, it needs to develop, and has two options: one possibility is that offered by the world’s band-wagon of pleasures, which are feverish in every respect; the other is Christian joy, both deep and consuming, not simply enduring towards but indeed positively blossoming into eternity.  

In order to respond to youthful yearnings and blindness we need to  deliberately promote happiness in our own Christian quality of life, to develop our own joy in, love for, and peace with Jesus, so that He might be recognized as our mysterious joy and fulfilment.  To this end we should try to appreciate and delight much more in the Lord, not with clap, happy, artificial abandon, but with a deeply serious and yet lovingly sincere search for and appreciation of the beauty and goodness of our God and Saviour.  Let us take today’s readings for a starting point.

You heard in the Gospel of a certain paralytic who was blessed with four good friends who brought him, on his stretcher, to Jesus when He was at Peter‘s house in Capernaum, and:

Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above Him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

They might have been simply seeking for a miraculous cure for their friend; but Jesus’ words on seeing them lower the man down in front of Him would seem to indicate that He understood something more than a mere cure was needed:

When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins are forgiven you."

Now, devout Jews of those times regarded sickness as a punishment for sin.  From early traditions contained in the book of Exodus we read:

So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. (23:25)

The Torah repeats the same teaching in the book of Deuteronomy (7:12, 15):

It shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.  And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 

The great prophets of Israel taught likewise; as we find, for example, in Isaiah:

Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. (40:2)

Moreover, Psalms were sung in the daily Temple liturgy and we there we hear:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases.  (Ps 103:2-3)

And so, throughout the Old Testament such teaching was to be found, and Jesus Himself gave expression to it on one occasion mentioned in St. John’s Gospel:

Afterward Jesus found (the man He had healed) in the temple, and said to him, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."  (John 5:14)

It was an attitude firmly fixed in the mind and heart of St. Paul also, who wrote to His converts in Corinth concerning their celebration of the Eucharist:

He who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. (1 Cor. 11:29-30)  

Therefore, in today’s Gospel reading, noting the spiritual anxiety of the sick man and of his friends, and appreciating their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic:

            Child, your sins are forgiven you.

On hearing those words the Scribes -- who were present to keep an eye on Jesus for the Jerusalem authorities -- said in their hearts:

Why does this Man speak that way? He is blaspheming.  Who but God alone can forgive sins?

Notice that they are not speaking these words for all to hear, they are just thinking them in their minds, or, at the most, perhaps whispering them one to another.  Now Jesus’ words, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven’ were in perfect conformity with  Jewish piety which, for reverence’ sake, made use of the passive turn of phrase even though the actual meaning was:

            God has forgiven your sins.

The Scribes, however, were maliciously interpreting His words ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ in such a way that they might be turned against Him:

He is blaspheming; who but God alone can forgive sins?

Jesus had actually said nothing about Himself forgiving the man’s sins; but since the Jewish authorities considered Him to be extremely dangerous for both religious and political reasons, accordingly, there were many like these Scribes, who -- thinking Jesus to be of but little personal account and hoping to win approval for themselves -- would not scruple to maliciously twist His words so that, thereby, a much-sought-after charge might be brought against Him: “This fellow is pretending to forgive sins!   He is blaspheming!”    

It is now, however, that Jesus begins to turn their malice against them, showing that the charge they have conjured up against Him -- a claim to divine authority and power -- far from being a blasphemous pretence on His part, contained something of a mysterious truth about Him.  Having no regard for Jesus, indeed, wanting to get rid of Him, they are about to be totally confounded when their chosen charge against Him is shown to reflect something divinely true about Him.   They may well, at that moment, have been congratulating themselves that they would soon be able to take an acceptable report back to Jerusalem, when Jesus looking at them said:

            Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?

They began to feel embarrassed, uncomfortable; after all, how did this fellow know what they were thinking, planning, in their hearts?  Jesus went on:

Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, pick up your mat and walk'? 

Here we must bear in mind the opinions of the Rabbis based on the Scriptures’ teaching about sin and sickness, for the Rabbis taught that no one would be cured from sickness without first having their sins forgiven (cf. Edersheim 348).  Therefore choosing either one alternative or the other ultimately required both to take place.  Jesus words “Your sins are forgiven” could only be shown, proved, to be true if He were then to go on to say to the paralytic “Get up, pick up your mat and walk”.  On the other hand, if He had first said “Get up, pick up your mat and walk” His words, according to Jewish teaching, could bring about no God-given cure without the man’s sins having been forgiven beforehand.  It was absolutely necessary to say the words and do the deed, there was no ‘easier’ way; according to the Scribes’ own teaching, both forgiveness and healing were required.

Having shown the extent of His knowledge of their Law, Jesus now proceeded to confound and embarrass the Scribes’ in their secret thoughts by exercising a healing power which He did not hesitate to declare to be His own by saying:

            I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home.

Did such words perchance hint that He also had Personal authority to pronounce   those words of forgiveness of which they had maliciously accused Him?  For, after all, forgiveness had to precede healing; surely, they both went together?  Such thoughts would be deeply disturbing but also, perhaps, secretly providential for the Scribes.

The people, however, unaware of that secret struggle between malice and mercy, between dogmatic authoritarianism and divine Wisdom, were truly delighted with the man’s healing and full of praise for God’s goodness,  saying:

We have never seen anything like this!

The Scribes had no such immediate feelings of joy in their hearts or praise on their lips, for Jesus’ apparent ability to read their minds and hearts was filling their thoughts.  They departed to make their report to the religious authorities but, despite whatever words of success they might have used in their report, they went away with unsettling thoughts on their minds, and apprehension in their hearts: had that fellow really been able to read their hearts, had He truly known their thoughts?  Even more, did He perhaps -- perish the thought – somehow have power and authority to forgive sins and heal God’s punishment?  Who was He?

Nevertheless, unknown to themselves, those returning Scribes were -- together with the rejoicing people, albeit in a far different manner – being patiently prodded and invited by God to look more carefully and more humbly at the mystery of the disturbing One Who referred to Himself as ‘the Son of Man’.

Let us also, coming to the end of our consideration of this episode in the life of Jesus, and having so much admired Jesus and delighted in His wisdom, recall, and better appreciate, those words of the St. Paul:

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

For, they would tell us -- who are being drawn by the Father to Jesus and called to love, delight in, and glorify His Name -- that over the course of our years as His disciples so many, many, events, occasions, and occurrences must have worked  most wonderfully together for our good.  And yet, our weaknesses and failings as Christian witnesses -- having far too often not even noticed such occasions let alone delighted in them -- has meant that we have consequently been unable to convincingly declare the beauty and goodness of Jesus before our contemporaries searching so desperately for happiness in their lives; perhaps, at the best, we used merely human words to falteringly hint at what the joy of our features and the serenity of our bearing  -- secret and unsuspected gifts of the Spirit of Jesus -- might otherwise have manifested beyond all doubt and questioning. 

Jesus had much work to do, and so the Gospel continues:

Once again He went out along the sea.  All the crowds came to Him and He taught them.

May He continue indulgently, we pray, to teach us too by His Most Holy Spirit, in and through Mother Church: leading, guiding, and enabling us, to hear and appreciate, to rejoice at and delight in, His unfailing witness to the love, truth, goodness and beauty of His and our heavenly Father.     

6th. Sunday of Year (B)

Sixth Sunday of Year (B)

(Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; 1^st. Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45)

In the first reading we heard that, in Jewish society of Gospel times, anyone with a skin disease whom the priest had pronounced to be unclean was obliged to separate himself or herself from society and live apart; alone, that is, or with other similarly diseased people:

As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean.  He shall dwell apart; making his abode outside the camp.

Moreover, in order to prevent contact with ordinary members of society:

The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!'

As a result, a leprous person was – according to rabbinic teaching and in the popular estimation -- as good as dead so far as normal society and normal human contacts were concerned.   Moreover, leprosy made the victim liturgically unclean according to the requirements of the Law and unfit to participate in the worship of Temple or synagogue … and this was interpreted so severely that were such a person so much as to enter a house all vessels therein would be immediately rendered unclean for Jewish use.  Worst of all, however, for the stricken one, leprosy was considered as a direct punishment from God by rabbis and lawyers (who had drawn up a list of four possible crimes he might have committed), which meant the sufferer was considered and proclaimed to be one cursed and rejected by God Himself.  Consequently, the rabbis considered the cleansing of one suffering from leprosy to be as impossible as raising the dead, and a story we are told concerning Naaman the Syrian shows how clearly Israel and the ancient world recognized that none but divine power could cure it:

Naaman brought (a) letter (from the king of Syria) to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.  And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me."  (2 Kings 5:6-7)

Now, we are told by St. Mark that:

A leper came to Jesus, and kneeling down begged Him and said, "If You wish, You can make me clean." 

There we can recognise the hope (perhaps nearly worn out) still managing to spur on the leper, and the faith (just beginning to blossom) sustaining him, while Jesus in heart-warming spontaneity:

Moved with pity, stretched out His hand (and) touched him.

In this momentous encounter of human suffering and dereliction with divine goodness and mercy, comes to mind some words from a hymn by Fr. Faber:

The love of God is broader than the measure of our mind: we make His love too narrow by false limits of our own, and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own.

For, in response to the leper’s courage and faith, Jesus -- powerful in word and deed – had reached out and touched (some would translate ‘embraced’) the man before having actually cleansed him -- thus totally destroying any possible thought of the leper being one cursed or rejected by God.  Only then did He solemnly add:

I do will it.  Be made clean.

 Here Jesus helps us appreciate what we read in the letter to the Hebrews (11:3)

By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

This creative Word is expressive of the very essence of God, and therefore, in the Church, we have sacraments, bequeathed to us by the Word made flesh, consisting of words together with specific actions -- symbolic of divine grace and human agency -- just as Jesus healed the leper by His divine word of power and human touch (or, embrace).

If we would look a little closer at Jesus and try to understand and learn from His very attitude, it could be of much help and might save us from many errors.

Warning him sternly, Jesus dismissed him at once, and said to him: See that you tell no one anything; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.

In accordance with the Torah He directed the man to a priest that he might be authoritatively recognized as one completely cleansed of his leprosy, and so be pronounced able, once more, to live among men and serve and worship the God of Israel.  Jesus told the man that such an action would “be proof for them”; that is, it would testify to the priests that Jesus had both respect for the Law and for them. And, of far greater significance, it would bring to their attention the fact that here was Someone Who could, by His very word of authority, cure leprosy which had always been acknowledged as notoriously incurable for mere man.

Notice how Jesus adheres to the Law set down in the Torah even after previously having most decisively rejected the excessive interpretation given it by the Scribes and Pharisees.  Now this law of exclusion embodies a divine principle, both Jewish and Christian, whereby the good of the whole transcends that of the individual, and the individual good should be conducive to the good of the whole.  This was one of the guiding lights for St. Paul throughout his many missionary labours, as you heard in the second reading:

I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit, but that of the many, that they may be saved.

 Our modern Western society is so ostentatiously committed to human individual rights that the good of the whole is easily overlooked. And yet, individual rights are only valid when, and indeed can only exist if, they are conducive to the well-being of the whole of society; and the validity of this principle is being vindicated in our day by the fact that now, at last, the evil of abortion is becoming manifest to all as the European birth rate is increasingly unable to support the continuing viability of its member nations: several of which are dying out; dying on their feet, so to speak.   For many of our contemporaries, however, this principle is neither clearly understandable nor readily acceptable; consequently, although as a divine principle it is, indeed, for the common good, nevertheless, today, none but the Church and some other religious bodies have sufficient conviction to resist prevalent western hedonistic tendencies and doctrines, such as abortion above all, but also homosexuality when accepted and presented as an alternative life style to that of heterosexual love and marriage.  For, heterosexual love in marriage is the bedrock of human society, fulfilling the spouses and serving the whole human race through the children they raise as a wholesome family.  Homosexuality, on the other hand, when practised, and presented as an optional life style -- distinct that is, from a more noble and perfectly blameless psychological tendency that might be termed homo-empathy (witness David’s love for Jonathan) – can satisfy only the individuals concerned, at the expense of society which is thereby debilitated, as, once again, our modern experience of diminishing home populations in this country and on the mainland of Europe shows.

Again, lack of discipline in our schools -- due in no small degree to the slavish adhesion to what are thought to be human rights -- is leading to an educational and social crisis, because an education that is not able to teach children self-control and personal responsibility by the exercise of discipline can neither produce balanced adults truly at ease with their personal make-up, nor, a fortiori, dependable members of society.  Indeed, such faulty education is increasingly liable to turn out young adults who are a potential danger to their neighbour and to society, because their un-recognized and un-appreciated emotions are not subject to their own control, and can be wildly at variance with the rights of other individuals or of the social body as a whole. 

And so it was in our Gospel reading, where human emotions apparently served to confer a right:

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Jesus had come to cure Israel, and ultimately the whole of mankind, from the supreme uncleanness of sin, but the cleansed-leper was only able to think of his own case.  Jesus had cured him!  That was all that mattered. He must go and talk of what had happened to himself!

Of course, today some might think, because the man was presumably so grateful to Jesus and so happy in his new-found health, that therefore he is not to be blamed.  But in fact, because of that man’s (understandable) ignorance of Jesus’ overall purpose, and because he (culpably) ignored Jesus’ express command, in other words, because of his self-centeredness (blameworthy, no matter how understandable we might like to consider it), Jesus could no longer enter a town to preach His message of salvation, and perhaps other sufferers were denied the opportunity for a healing such as he himself had received.  The Healer, the Master, had said ‘keep quiet’ and the former leper -- carried off by the flood of his own emotions, and perhaps his own ‘human rights’(!) -- ignored his Saviour’s strict warning.

People of God, Jesus came to take away the sins of the world; and our personal needs and desires are but tiny components, however important to us, of God’s overarching purpose, and they must, therefore, be subject to its requirements.  It is so easy for us to be totally unaware of, and more or less indifferent to, the needs of mankind as a whole when our own personal needs are pressing upon us; and yet none of us can find fulfilment and happiness apart from our integration into the well-being of the whole body of society.  So often in the lives of each and every one of us, we would like -- we would love -- as disciples of Jesus, to make some great gesture, give some generous and remarkable response, adopt some striking initiative, and, consequently we can find it both frustrating and depressing when quiet obedience to God seems to be required of us most frequently and above all else.  Whereas we might want to find things happening, to make things happen, have other people see things happening, in our lives as Christians, all too often we can feel ourselves to be mere nobodies of whom nothing more than simple obedience, sincere prayers and a modicum of sacrifice is requested or required ….  and that, human self-love can find extremely hard. 

Because we are chronically self-centred, therefore, we need to constantly remind ourselves that none can cure the malady of mankind but Jesus Who is ceaselessly, and  ultimately infallibly, at work by His Spirit in and through His Church; and if we want to be His co-workers, to become faithful instruments serving His purposes, we have to resist all yearnings to carve out for ourselves some niche of acclaim, and aspire to seek, first and foremost, His supreme glory, await patiently His most holy will, and proclaim always His great and unfailing goodness.

And so for us, the good of the individual, though valid in itself and truly necessary for the good of the whole, must subordinate itself, or be subordinated, to that good of the whole, and such subordination is not necessarily recognized nor always proclaimed by society.  Nevertheless, it is that balanced good, the true and ultimate good prescribed by God the Father and proclaimed by Our Lord Jesus Christ, that we should make our joy and privilege to seek, work and pray for, in the power of God’s Gift, the Spirit. 

I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit, but that of the many, that they may be saved.

5th Sunday Year (B)

Fifth Sunday Year (B)  

   (Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1^st. Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39)

Simon and his companions searched for Jesus and, finding Him, they said to Him:

“Everyone is looking for you.”  He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For that is what I came out to do.”

We can gather from that passage of the Gospel that Jesus considered His preaching to be supremely important.  This fact led that great imitator and apostle of Jesus, St. Paul, to declare in his first letter to the Corinthians (1:17):

            Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

Therefore, we should not be surprised to find that, throughout His public ministry, Jesus’ preaching provoked astonishment as well as opposition and confrontation among those who heard Him; and they reacted in this way first of all because of the content of His preaching -- many, for example, would say after hearing Him:

             Where did this man get this wisdom? (Mt. 13:54)

There were others astounded by the manner in which He spoke, as you heard in last week’s Gospel passage:

The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

Now, this was not just the reaction of simple people perhaps too prone to religious excitement, it was also the response of soldiers notoriously untouched by any such sensitivities, as St. John tells us in his Gospel (7:46):

            The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.”

And, indeed, the religious authorities themselves -- those highly intelligent and extremely dangerous enemies of Jesus -- had a like appreciation of His preaching and Person:

The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.   (Mark 11:18)

Now, when the scribes -- learned in the Law and the Jewish oral tradition -- taught the people, they frequently did little more than string together a series of quotations centring on some brief passage of the Torah -- taking them from earlier authorities or currently well-known and influential teachers – without making personal statements that might involve or commit themselves.   With Jesus, however, it was quite different: He would, indeed, quote on occasion, but only from the Scriptures; then, also, He would frequently refer to the natural world around, and recall everyday events and situations of human life, before finally -- by the fullness of the Spirit that was in Him -- bringing forth a supremely authentic revelation of God’s presence and purpose in the Scriptures, and in the history -- past and present -- of Israel.  In this way His teaching was able to reveal the divine meaning and eternal purpose, as well as show something of the present beauty and hidden significance, of everyone’s ordinary experience of life and their vocation to worship in Israel.

His was, indeed, a unique authority, being based upon a unique awareness of divine realities:

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. (John 3:11-13)

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.  (Matthew 11:27)

St. Paul, again, appreciated this aspect of Jesus’ teaching, as we can tell from the advice he gave to Titus, an early convert of his whom he later established as head of the church in Crete:

These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:15)

As Paul bears witness, this authority, so striking in Jesus’ own Person and preaching, was essential for the founding of the Church, and consequently, is still essential today for the well-being of the Church.  It is not, however, something that can be directly imitated by ordinary human beings: to attempt anything of that sort would smack of the heretical illusion of those who believe themselves to be divinely inspired or the satanic pride of those who want to impose their own personality and ideas on others in order to seize hold of, and enjoy the experience of, some measure of power.

The  proclamation of the Word of God, by public preaching and personal witness, is, indeed, essential for the Christian Church; for us, however, the authority recognizable in the priest’s manner of preaching and the people’s witness of Christian living can only come from faith: a faith gratefully received, wholeheartedly believed, and deeply loved.  This confidence in the Church’s proclamation and assurance in her Christian living cannot come from some stirred-up, emotionally contrived, personal ambition which ultimately only seeks to promote self.  It must come from an absolute and total commitment to what transcends our own being and what, nevertheless, becomes essentially part of, and the very key to, our deepest self; a total commitment to the God proclaimed by our faith, evoked when we come to truly and fully realize that our supreme duty as Christians is to know God:

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.  (Habakkuk 2:14)

This knowledge, however, is not just the awareness of some facts about God, or about the Scriptures or the Church; it has to be a personal appreciation of, love for, and commitment to, God Himself, as manifested to us in the Person of Jesus Christ, and witnessed to by His revelation of the Father and His Gift of the Holy Spirit in and through Holy Mother Church.  This is a knowledge that can only be received by those who consistently and perseveringly seek to do what Jesus did, that is, commune with God in prayer:

Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.  

It is the lack of such loving knowledge and appreciation of, communion with and whole-hearted response to, the Personal God abiding with and in Mother Church and all the faithful children born of her that bedevils the proclamation and the witness of too many Christians and Catholics today; and just how deeply such ignorance afflicts us and, of course, the whole of our world today, can surely be imagined from the following few words of the prophet Hosea and then of Our Lord Himself:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have   rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. (Hosea 4:6)

I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (6:6)

Our Blessed Lord, for His part, can be said to have quite literally bequeathed to us  the following most inspiring prayer of praise and intercession revealing the bond of mutual knowledge and love between Himself and His Father with which He would endow and enrich us :

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 world’s religiosity today is above all a proclamation of self-sufficiency and mutual approbation: we can be holy of ourselves without any God.  Because God is rejected as not-necessary, there is no authority able to command respect and give peace, strength, direction and coherence, to our modern experience of life: the institutions and laws that would govern the nations are subject to cynical self-interest, widespread hypocrisy, and frequent barbarism; the law that seeks to govern our society is at times quite derisory in its pandering to popularity, and for an ever growing number of its citizens there appears to be no right law nurturing our society, nothing other than the compulsive pressures of the markets’ search for profit, the corrosive passions of individuals lusting for pleasures of every sort, and the merely political aspirations of parties and candidates hankering after prominence, power, and renown.  This recalls those ancient words of Job we heard in our first reading:

Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?  Troubled nights have been allotted to me.  If in bed I say ’When shall I arise?’, then the night drags on and I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.  My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope.  Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.

And yet, People of God, those words of Job are no final assessment, not an end in themselves but a help and provocation for us to appreciate what Jesus and His salvation has brought into our lives; a salvation the prophets Isaiah and Hosea had glimpsed already dawning centuries before Jesus:

He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him; so let us know, let us press on to know, the LORD. (Hosea 6:2-3)

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Therefore, let us pray that not only the Lord may give authority to both the preaching of Mother Church and the witness of all her devoted children, but that even our own personal lives may themselves be penetrated through and through by the faith we have most gratefully received, in which we whole-heartedly rejoice, and to which we most sincerely hope and humbly aspire to give witness and expression in all its compelling truth and beauty by both our life and our death in Christ Jesus our Lord.                                         

3rd. Sunday, Year (B)

Third Sunday, Year (B)

(Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1^st. Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20)

            Repent and believe the Good News

That is what many believe to be the first -- and perhaps original -- Gospel’s summary of Jesus’ teaching, and the quintessential core, marrow, and backbone of Christian preaching:

            Repent and believe the Good News of Jesus.

Now ‘repent’ is not the same as ‘regret’ in the Christian proclamation.  It does not mean look back fixedly, ever reviewing your past life and lamenting, wishing it had been otherwise; but rather:

look up, look forward, to God, Whose goodness and truth is now -- in and through Jesus -- ready to begin the ultimate transformation of mankind and the whole world;

look at God in Jesus, and change your old attitudes of selfishness and pride, acknowledging with  Peter, ‘Lord, you have the words of eternal life’;

 look around, for God, and with mind, heart, soul and strength, indeed, with your whole being, seek to promote His glory and serve His purposes in all life’s circumstances and apparently chance happenings; for:

            The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe the Good News.

In Jesus’ Good News, and Mother Church’s proclamation, God is Love and He is Life; to listen to Him is to hear Truth and to obey Him is to practice Wisdom; to look at Him is to see Beauty, to trust in Him is to have Strength; while to experience His hidden presence is to find peace and taste beatitude.  ‘Repent’ means: turn to God and prepare yourselves to receive these gifts from Him; stop seeking to promote your own interests of prestige, power, or pleasure; stop turning to and trusting in men who, like yourself, are fragile creatures of flesh and blood, by nature inconstant.   As Our Lord Himself puts it:

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

Surely then, ‘repent’ is a joyous word, something like ‘renew yourself’, ‘be refreshed, restored’, indeed and in all truth, ‘be revitalized’.  Such Christian repentance makes our religious practice authentically human, for a human being, no matter how well placed in life, always aspires to yet more of what is (or at least seems to be) good.  Christian repentance means that a new horizon has dawned, a new destiny is opening up; and how essential that is to a truly human life!  What is the tragedy of unemployment today?  It is not (in our society at least) so much that those without work are starving, barely able to exist, but rather that they have no future to look forward to; for a human being can endure, can triumph over, almost any odds so long as he or she has an ideal, a future, to aim at, to hope for, aspire towards.   Christian repentance opens us up to that new hope, that new future, which promises not merely earthly well-being, but divine, eternal blessedness; it continually urges us to leave behind the past and to look forward, aiming ever higher; for being a response to the proximity of the Kingdom of God, it is always coupled with divine power.

It is not enough, however, to just repent on hearing Jesus’ call; for true repentance, it is also necessary to ‘believe’ the Good News which Jesus reveals about the goodness and mercy of God, about the lovableness of His truth and beauty:

            Repent and believe the Good News.

Obviously, hearing alone can never lead us to repentance if we do not believe what we have heard, and so, we cannot repent without believing; nor, on the other hand, can we believe without repenting … the devils know, but without believing what they know, they cannot repent:

Go into all the world and preach the Gospel …. He who does not believe will be condemned.  (Mark 16:16)

To believe in God and the Gospel’s Good News is to see truly something of God’s holiness and majesty, His goodness and mercy, His wisdom and beauty, and it is impossible to thus realize, and in some slight measure appreciate, such infinite Beauty without at the same time – though painfully and fearfully recognizing one’s own disfigurement, alienation and ignorance -- being nevertheless drawn to it.  And there, precisely, is the root of repentance: for despite the conviction of one’s own nothingness, lovelessness, and culpability, before God’s all-holy Goodness and Beauty, the fact of being so irresistibly drawn by yearning admiration and longing desire towards that Goodness and Beauty urges and gently compels us to a new calm and deep-rooted, fresh-water so to speak, re-appraisal of our life, past, present, and future, together with whole-hearted trust in, and trembling response to, Jesus’ Gospel call.

People of God, we should never allow ourselves to be satisfied with past progress or present well-being.  Christian repentance and Catholic belief should grow in us daily so that, when the call comes for us to embrace death, we might be found forgetful of self and filled with humble joy, hope, and trust in the Lord Who first called us by His Gospel message of Good News, has long guided and sustained us by His Spirit of Truth and Love, and is now preparing  for us a room in His Father’s house.

The Epiphany 2012

The Epiphany

(Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)

Why do we love certain people more than others? … because of their goodness, perhaps, or their beauty? or might it be due to their understanding, sympathy, wisdom, strength, courage?  We could go on trying to find such reasons but to no purpose, for the point is that we love someone because of who they are, because of their unique personality, as known and experienced by us.  We cannot love someone who is personally unknown to us.  Although we can admire what we know or hear of another, nevertheless, such admiration can only become true love after having met, personally encountered, and, in some measure, learned to personally appreciate, the other.

Since that is undoubtedly true, don't you think it strange that Christians and Catholics speak so little about the beauty, goodness, wisdom and love, of God?  Ostensibly Christian witness, also, is too often couched in terms of an impersonal ethic: doing good to the needy and underprivileged; loving one’s neighbour and especially children; social involvement and comments in favour of international peace.  Worthy people usually, promoting, as a rule, admirable projects and good proposals, but all too often with little to suggest a committed Christian giving convincing witness – even when perhaps necessarily implicit and indirect -- to the Faith as a source of hope and joy, a power for personal fulfilment and eternal salvation, for true social justice, international cooperation and cohesion, and for human advancement.

However, the heavenly fulfilment to which we all aspire as disciples of Jesus will not be ours just because we have kept what acknowledged rules demanded of us or general expectations desired of us: the ultimate criterion for the Christian and Catholic appreciation of our whole life will be "Did you love (or sincerely try to love) the Lord your God with your whole mind, heart, soul, and strength?"   Without such personal love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our Christian life can only be -- and inevitably appear to be -- bleak and formal, our Christian witness only lifeless and uninspiring; all in stark contrast to the words of the prophet Isaiah we heard in the first reading:

Arise, shine; for your light has come!  And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 

Christians -- above all we who are privileged to be Catholics -- should indeed shine out because we are called both to reflect, and make known, the glory of the Lord which has shone upon us through our faith in the Good News of Jesus.  We are not like our brothers, the Jews and the Muslims.  They speak of God: at times, they speak good, holy, and beautiful things about God; indeed the Jews speak of Him in ways very close, at times, to our own appreciation.   And yet, the Christian faith is so much more glorious than either Judaism or Islam: for we speak not only of the external glory of God, but of the supreme and unimaginably beautiful Personal beatitude of the Father, with His Son, in the Holy Spirit; a beatitude in which we can hope to share in and through Jesus our Saviour, Son of Man and God Incarnate.

We do not know God simply because He has spoken inspiring words through His prophets; nor do we praise Him just because He has reportedly done great and wonderful deeds; above all, we confess, love and worship God, as Father, Son and Spirit: the Father Whose voice is our most secret and original calling, and whose Presence will be our ultimate destiny; the Son Who took our flesh and became our Brother that He might show Himself as our Saviour, and Who, to this very day, continues to give Himself as flesh and blood for you and me to eat and drink in Mother Church, thereby enabling us to live with His life, by His Spirit; and the Holy Spirit Whom we love and praise, in Whom we trust and rejoice, since He is ever with us as our Advocate, our strength and comfort, our light and guide, our hope and our joy.

People of God, today's great solemnity of the Epiphany, the shining forth of God's glory, especially invites us to glory in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, by telling us, in the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Lift up your eyes all round (that is, appreciate the Faith you profess and the Church in which you live); then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy.

Jesus came to teach us with Him to recognize and in Him to appreciate the Father as a Person, His Father, our Father; He gave us His own Spirit -- comforting and encouraging our hearts, enlightening and strengthening our minds -- to form us in Jesus, and in His likeness, for the Father:

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; He will tell you things to come. 

The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses; for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.        (John. 16:13; Romans 8:26)

The Father is so personally committed to us that, having given His only Son for us, He speaks to each of us personally and most secretly that we might turn to Jesus and find our salvation in Him:

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  (John 6:44)

He looks for, and expects in return, a similarly personal and whole-hearted response and commitment from us.  Jesus assures us that the Father wants to be our most perfect Father:

It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. (Matthew 10:20)

And He wants to be recognized and loved -- in Spirit and in Truth -- by children who will ultimately have learned to lay down their lives and confidently turn to Him, saying in deepest trust and self-abandonment: "Abba, Father"

Our Lord Jesus is indeed the Messiah foretold by the prophets; proclaimed by angels and manifested by a star at His birth; revealed by the Father at His baptism in the Jordan; He is, indeed, the Messiah come to change the water of our life into the finest wine.  And this wonderful Jesus Who died on Calvary for our individual sins -- yours and mine -- rose on the third day for the salvation of all; and from His throne in heaven now embraces us so closely to Himself that we live in Him and by His Spirit given to each of us at our baptism in Mother Church, and to be continually honoured and increasingly reverenced in us by our faithful living as her children, and, above all, to be most gratefully and lovingly refreshed and renewed by our reception of the Eucharist at Holy Mass.

And then, this Holy Spirit -- relating to each and every one of us individually – works His divine purposes in the secret depths of our minds and hearts forming and attuning us to recognize and appreciate His presence and urging us to respond to His inspirations.  Indeed, He is so personal to us that it is His task to lead each one of us to our own individual and personal fulfilment and perfection in Jesus for the Father.

People of God, Christians and even Catholics today are often afraid of the wonders of our faith.  Many, each according to their own make-up, want to imagine what they can easily accept or appreciate: some, a distant God Who demands, not personal communion and commitment in love, but merely the impersonal observance of laws, such as Sunday Mass, baptism, first Communion etc.; others like to fancy a God who is so like us as to be satisfied with actions serving no higher aims than those largely humanistic ideals of doing good to everyone so that we may all live in peace and prosperity.  They want to be able to tick-off the laws they have complied with, or tot-up the accepted good things they have done; and this, because they cannot bear to feel unsure of themselves, because they are afraid to trust totally in God’s merciful goodness and in His unknown plans and future purposes for us.

Jesus, however, came to lift His disciples up to heavenly glory, lift them up, that is, with Himself, from human nothingness and need, as experienced by Himself on Calvary, through selfless trust and unconditional love, to share with Him in the depths of divine charity where Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternally and indivisibly one.  For we belong to Jesus, as St. Paul tells us, just as Jesus belongs to God; our relationship with God is that personal:

For all things are yours, whether (it be the Church) or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Cor. 3:21-4:1)

There, in the Son, by the Holy Spirit, caught up into the mystery of the personal charity uniting the Most Holy Trinity, and echoing the songs of myriads of angels, you and I are called to personally share in the great, eternal, and unimaginable, ecstasy of praise to the glory of Him Who, as St. Paul (Eph. 4:6) tells us, is:

             The one God and Father of all, Who is over all, through all, and in all.