5th Sunday Year B 2015

           5th. Sunday, Year (B) 

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

Let me first give you an outline of St. Mark’s gospel as far as our reading today:  John the Baptist was proclaiming his message of repentance when Jesus came to him and was immersed in the Jordan, whereupon the Father from heaven declared Jesus to be His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descended anew upon Him, immediately leading Him into the desert to overcome Satan in a direct, personal, confrontation, before beginning to draw followers to Himself.  When John the Baptist had been imprisoned, Jesus returned to Galilee to begin His proclamation of the Good News, the Gospel of salvation; and there, seeing Peter and Andrew, James and John, fishing on the Sea of Galilee, He called them to Himself as disciples.  Then, as you heard in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, together:
 

They came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and
taught.

The effect of Jesus’ preaching was most striking: they were amazed at the authority of His teaching, and also, that of His very Person when -- before their eyes -- He drove out of a man possessed an unclean spirit shrieking:
 

Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are -- the Holy One of God!
 

Now we have today’s reading which tells us that:
 

On leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.  
 

Jesus had entered the synagogue as one entering His own realm: there He had spoken with the authority of a prophet; and His Person as the Holy One of God had been proclaimed by a man possessed of an unclean spirit.  But, are those other words of the spirit:
 

What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth?
 

perhaps some slight indication of the secret dispositions of some of those hearing Jesus and witnessing such happenings in that synagogue at Capernaum?  For He left the synagogue recognized indeed by His hearers as one speaking with prophetic authority, and partially acknowledged by His fearers as the Holy One of God; but, acclaimed He was not, neither as prophet nor as the Holy One of God. 
 

Today we learn that on leaving the synagogue Jesus went straightway to the house of him who was to become Peter; and so, that house, the home of Peter, could aptly signify the future Church Jesus would found on the rock of Peter’s faith.  Jesus therefore, having just left the synagogue accepted neither in the divinity of His Person nor in the authority of His teaching because of His humanity:
 

Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Simon?     (Mark 6:3)
 

thereupon symbolically entered the Church where His humanity, His enfleshed divinity, both manifested His power and brought Him immediate acclaim and whole-hearted acceptance:
 

Simon’s mother-law lay sick with a fever, and He grasped her hand and helped her up.  Then the fever left her and she waited on them.  And when it was evening the whole town brought to Him all who were ill or possessed and He cured many who were sick and drove out many demons.
 

Mark is telling us of a perfectly understandable event in which Jesus initially did a service for His disciple Peter.  But the wisdom of God had wide horizons in view and so, in this small incident at the beginning of Jesus’ career we find encapsulated His whole life’s work and mission; for the authority and power of Jesus’ word and the majesty of His Person would burst the limitations of the Law, the Temple, and the synagogue, and lead inevitably to the Universal Church. 
 

Let us now look more closely at what transpired.  Mark tells us that:
 

Simon's mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.  They immediately told Him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.  Then the fever left her and she waited on them.
 

“He grasped her hand and helped her up”.  That is how we would expect it to have happened and that is how it is translated for modern readers.  But that is not literally how Mark expresses it; for his order of events is slightly different:
 

Having approached, He raised her taking (her) by the hand.
 

Mark puts “raised her” before mentioning that He took her by the hand.  Let me try to show you why the Spirit guided him in that choice.
 

The Greek word Mark uses for the raising, lifting, up of the sick woman is the same verb that he uses for the resurrection of Jesus (Mark 16:6):
 

The angel said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He is risen!  He is not here.

Likewise St. Luke, when he tells us of Peter’s first address to the Jewish people (Acts 3:15), uses that same Greek word again:
 

You killed the Prince of life, Whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

There is also a liturgical hymn from the early Church, only a few years after Jesus’ resurrection, which tells us (Ephesians 5:14):
 

All things are made manifest by the light. Therefore He says: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."
 

There, notice, we have the same Greek word for “rise” this time being used for a newly baptised person rising from sin and being illumined by Christ.
 

Now, perhaps, we are in a position to begin to understand why Jesus had to leave the synagogue and go directly to Peter’s house, the Church, to “raise up” Peter’s mother-in-law: for “raising up” can only be rightly understood in the Church, because it speaks of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, which, through faith, empowers the waters of baptism to wash away sin and bestow new life for the salvation of mankind.  Jesus did not simply lift her up by His miraculous power; no, He ‘raised’ her in anticipation in His own resurrection and helped steady her by the right hand of His divine, supporting and sustaining, Flesh.
 

People of God, here we catch a trace of the eternal wisdom of God; for here, the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to use words whose fullness of meaning and significance he, Mark, could only partially have glimpsed.  And how wonderful it is for us, in and through the Church by the guidance of the same Holy Spirit, to be able to appreciate more and more of the wonder of God’s wisdom and the fullness  and beauty of His truth!   The Church can never come to the end, so to speak, of God’s majesty and goodness: there will always be infinitely more enshrined beyond and above our present capabilities, which -- hidden and at times unspeakable -- makes up the eternal glory of divinity uniting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a transcendent oneness of mutual love, understanding, and appreciation.  We should have the utmost reverence for the Scriptures and the deepest gratitude for Mother Church: for it is only from them, in and through her, that each of us can come to a saving knowledge and transforming realization of the wonder of our calling to know, love, and serve God here on earth so as to be able to delight in Him for all eternity.
 

St. Mark then tells us something which greatly surprised the disciples:
 

Rising (a different Greek word this time) very early before dawn, (Jesus) went off to a deserted place where He prayed.  Simon and those who were with Him pursued Him and on finding Him said, “Everyone is looking for You” …
 

Jesus had left His disciples behind in order to go and pray to His Father alone.  Later on, after rising from the dead, He did the same again: He disappeared from their view as He ascended to His Father in heaven.  And now we are all -- as with Simon and his companions of old -- ever on the look-out for His return in glory.
 

The letter to the Hebrews (7:24-25) informs us that in heaven:
 

Jesus, because He remains forever, has a priesthood that does not pass away.  Therefore He is always able to save those who approach God through Him, since He lives forever to make intercession for them.

Jesus, in heaven, intercedes, prays -- just as He did on leaving Simon’s house in today’s Gospel reading -- alone before the Father, but now at His right hand of power, for all those whom the Spirit raises to new life through their faith in Jesus.

And so, God’s wisdom and beauty has foreshadowed for us in broad outline the full saving work of Jesus in the events of this one day at the very beginning of His ministry as recorded for us by St. Mark.  What treasures the Scriptures hold beneath the apparent simplicity of their inspired words!
 

Finally, let us take note of what we are told concerning Simon’s mother-in-law:
 

The fever left her and she waited on them.
 

Is that a prophetic picture of all those truly raised by Christ?  Do they -- and should we -- likewise serve Our Lord and our brethren in Mother Church?  I am sure you know well enough the answer to that question; may therefore the Holy Spirit of Jesus in Mother Church guide and sustain you in your personal works of service for God’s glory and the salvation of souls:
 

            While I (and Mine) are in the world, I am the Light of the world. (John 9:5)

               

        

4th Sunday Year (B) 2015

 4th. Sunday, Year (B)       

(Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1^st. Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28)

Moses had found it extremely hard leading the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt and through the perils of the desert: their self-confidence as individuals, and above all their cohesiveness as one People of God, had still to be established; with the result that throughout their travels they found it hard to maintain firm trust or sure confidence in the Lord, let alone give steadfast obedience to His commands given Moses for their guidance.  So perhaps there was some irony in Moses’ voice when -- referring to the ‘prophet to come’ promised by the Lord -- he warned them:
 

To him you shall listen.

We then heard words from the Lord Himself telling why it would be so very important for them to listen to the promised prophet better than they had thus far listened to Moses:
          

If any man will not listen to My words which he speaks in My name (and at My command), I Myself will make him answer for it.
 

After Moses, the Lord did indeed raise up a whole series of prophets: prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others, whose inspired messages live on in the Bible still proclaiming the goodness and glory of God to this very day.  But even though they spoke faithfully in the name of the Lord God of Israel, we find only too often that their words were soon forgotten and His message largely ignored, as the Lord Himself averred through the prophet Jeremiah (35:15s.):
 

I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me.
 

In Isaiah, indeed, His words are most dramatic and much more reproachful:
 

Hear, you deaf! And look, you blind, that you may see.  You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; your ears are open, but none hears. (Isaiah 42:18-20)
 

A prophet was specially called and sent to speak words entrusted to him by God; and should such a prophet betray his calling by substituting his own words for those of God, -- which was always a possibility because of human sinfulness and the attention, both flattering and threatening, accorded to a recognized prophet -- God had warned:
 

If a prophet presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.
 

And so, when the prophet Hananiah did presume to speak falsely in the Lord’s name he had to die, as we hear from Jeremiah:
  

The prophet Jeremiah said, "Hear now, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie.  Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the LORD.'"  So Hananiah died the same year in the seventh month.  (Jeremiah 28:15-17)
 

The same thing happened in the time of Ezekiel and the Babylonian exile:
 

“You say, 'The LORD says,' but I have not spoken.”  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you," says the Lord GOD.  “My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility and who divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, nor be written in the record of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.”  (Ezekiel 13:6-9)
 

And so, the Lord took great care to have His word faithfully proclaimed and publicly appreciated in Israel; but, for all that, His true prophets – despite their faithfully giving voice to His authentic message – were routinely ignored by the people and frequently opposed by leaders inclined to expect and listen only to what they wanted to hear, not the authentic word of God:
 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! (Matthew 23:37)
 

Nevertheless, despite such indifference and resistance to true prophets and the authentic word of God, the promise of the prophet to come -- the ultimate prophet -- was not forgotten by faithful Israelites, nor was there total ignorance concerning the supreme importance of the message He would bring, about which the Lord Himself had said to Moses:
 

If any man will not listen to My words which he speaks in My name, I Myself will make him answer for it.
 

Now you are in a position to appreciate the serious intent of those priests and Levites who, on behalf of the Jews in Jerusalem, questioned John the Baptist:
 

 Are you the Prophet? (John 1:21)
 

Recall again what Moses said of the prophet to come:
 

To Him you shall listen.  
 

And recall also the voice of the Father speaking from heaven to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration:
 

This is My beloved Son.  Listen to Him!  (Mark 9:7)
 

We believers now know the reason why the Prophet promised by God through Moses would speak with such authority in God’s name: it is because the Prophet-to-come would be the very Word of God Himself made flesh:
 

Jesus answered, "My doctrine is not Mine but His Who sent Me.  I and My Father are One."  (John 7:16, 10:30)
 

It is, perhaps, a testimony to a renewed sincerity of religious life in Israel in the times of the Messiah, that those in the synagogue listening to Jesus’ words, recognized what they had not encountered before:
 

The people were astonished at his teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes….  All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this?  A teaching with authority!
 

It was not simply in His religious teaching that Jesus’ authority was recognizable; His whole being and bearing bespoke that aspect of His Person so compellingly that we have, in this regard, the most beautiful and amazingly spontaneous testimony of one completely formed by, responsive to, and appreciative of, authority in all its aspects; one who, even though a pagan, used such authority as a suitable instrument for promoting care and expressing reverence:
 

When Jesus entered Capernaum a centurion came to Him pleading with Him saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”  Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”  The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.  But speak only a word and my servant will be healed.  For I also am a man under authority and have soldiers under me …” (Matthew 8:5-9)
 

Now, People of God, that same Jesus speaks to us in and through Mother Church today; indeed, He is speaking now, at this very moment, as I proclaim His word to you, in His name.  And we must always bear in mind that He was, and still is, the Saviour of those -- and only those -- who want to be saved and are willing to acknowledge and accept His authority.   Many of the Jews to whom He spoke would not accept His teaching-with-authority and did not appreciate His Person; those He left to themselves, not seeking to force Himself upon them:
 

            I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. (Mt. 9:13)
 

And so each of us must answer a secret question arising from the depths of our heart: “Do I want to be left in the peace of my own comfortable indifference or do I want to be rescued from my sinfulness.  Do I want Jesus to be my Saviour?”  If you really want Jesus to be your Saviour: a Rock of strength and security for you, a light to reveal the true beauty of life and to guide you surely along the right way through life; if you want Him to be your present joy and your eternal reward, your earthly wisdom and your heavenly glory; in other words, if you want to become in Him a true child of God and to share in His eternal blessedness in the Kingdom of the Father, then you must accord Him authority in your life now, here on earth.
 

Listen to Our Lord Himself again (John 7:16s.):
 

Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.
 

“If anyone wants to do God’s will, he shall know, he will realize …”   God has done His work by giving us His Son Who died and rose again for us, and offering His Spirit to guide and form us as His children; but we have to choose:
 

“If anyone wants to do God’s will, Jesus said, he will know the truth of My teaching.” (John 7:16-17)
 

People of God, if you want God to be big in your life, if you desire to be His and to do His will, then make Him big in your life and He will indeed become big for you.   There is no chance that He will become big in your life if you treat Him as someone of minor importance: if He is so unimportant in your life that you don’t find it at all difficult to miss Sunday Mass for even minor reasons; if you really can’t find time to pray because of your many other jobs and more important duties; if whatever calls for your worldly attention outweighs His claims on you; if He is always the one who can be, and is, set aside, put off, to some other day, some other occasion… then He will never become big in your life whatever words of prayer or praise you may occasionally direct His way, or whatever excuses you may regularly proffer on your own behalf.
 

Jesus never fails His People; the fact is that too few of those who call themselves Christians and Catholics do in fact acknowledge Him as Lord and Saviour here and now in their daily living and earthly aspirations: they may give Him the biblical and liturgical titles of Lord and Saviour indeed, but not the present authority of Lord and Saviour in the important decisions of their lives, the deepest longings of their hearts, and the highest aspirations of their minds   And if He is not in that way authoritative in your life, then, in fact, you are not close to Him; and perhaps He is not purposefully in your life at all, perhaps all you are allowing Him to do with you, for you, is to stand outside, knocking at your door.
 

Authority is not a dirty word that has to be submerged and forgotten in a flood of emotional goodness; nor is it something embarrassing, to be avoided by jokes or ‘folksy’, popular talk; for true love cannot be exercised without authority … that is why a world of masculine authority without female caring, or a world of feminine caring without masculine authority are both loveless worlds, where the chaos and hypocrisy of selfishness reign, and where children, in their original simplicity, are disadvantaged and harmed by physical or emotional oppression.   People of God, the authority that God wills for Himself and for His Church is wholly for our eternal salvation and, indeed, for our earthly peace, joy, and fulfilment; we must, therefore, allow His true love, His authoritative love, to touch, inform, and gradually transform our lives.

                                  

3rd Sunday of Year B 2015

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

In the Gospel reading today we have the account given us by St. Mark of Our Blessed Lord’s proclamation to Israel at the beginning of His public ministry, and we can expect that this, His first call to Israel, might well contain something absolutely central to His future teaching:

This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

Thus He declared the imminent proximity of that which had been foretold by the prophets and longed for by the faithful for over a thousand years:

            “The time is fulfilled" He said, "The kingdom of God is at hand”.

What joy!  God has been mindful of His People, and, having seen their distress, is now at hand to bring them salvation!  What then should they do to welcome Him and embrace the salvation He offers? 

            Repent …… and believe in the Gospel!

Notice the order of the words.  “Repent”; then, “believe in the Gospel”.  For those Jews of old, for us Christians, and all salvation-seekers of today, repentance must come first in order to believe aright in the Gospel, the good news of Salvation.

In order to follow and better understand Jesus’ gospel proclamation we must appreciate something of the wonder of the Jewish people of those times.  Having been specially prepared by God over a thousand years through charismatic leaders (Abraham, David …) and great prophets (Moses, Elijah, Isaiah …), they alone among mankind were in a position -- spiritually, intellectually, and even socially -- to be able to hear Jesus with sufficient understanding and sympathetic appreciation that would allow them hopefully to embrace His proclamation, or at the very least -- would they  reject it -- never be able to forget His Person or quite ignore His message.

Of course, if Jesus had presented Himself as a charismatic leader come to drive the Romans out of the Promised Land, then there would not have been any call to repentance; the first thing would have been a call to arms: “Aux armes, citoyens”, as the French cry in their national anthem, and Jesus would have become merely a bigger and better, even more popular, version of their folk-hero king David.  Jesus, however, was the only-begotten Son of God made flesh, and He came with a message not of liberation from the Romans but of salvation from sin; and in order to appreciate such an offer it was, and still is, necessary to accept the truth of God’s charge of corporate and personal sinfulness.  None can appreciate God’s offer of salvation who are not humble enough to listen to His telling them of their need to be saved from sin: their own and that of the world.  And oh, the wisdom of God!  He gave them a Law through Moses which they came to take pride in and even for some of them, to love … despite the fact that that Law was to teach and convict them of what mankind then and still today denies and ridicules, their own human, national, and personal sinfulness.  O yes indeed, a disciple of Jesus must first of all learn to repent of personal sin and reject that of the world in order to be able to embrace the Good News, the Gospel’s offer of salvation to humankind!

John the Baptist had required of those coming forward for his immersing something that modern society can appreciate, namely works:

You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.         

And when the crowds questioned him, saying, ‘what shall we do?’, he would answer them with words such as:

The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise. (Luke 3: 7-8, 10-11)

John’s immersion with its acknowledgment of sin was a direct preparation for Jesus; its lustration, on the other hand, was administered with a view to the ritual requirements of the Jewish Law, for which bodily purity was essential.

Jesus, however, made no such ritual demands; His first words were quite simply:

            Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

The fact is, of course, that people can do works from all sorts of motives, not all of them admirable: they can do such works to impress others, to avoid something else more difficult, to prove their own personal worth, indeed, demonstrate their own holiness.  Now Jesus wanted all to be done with sincerity and humility, for love of God and to serve His purposes, and therefore He said Repent, and believe in the Gospel. It was to be from the depth of their faith in and commitment to Himself and His Good News that Jesus’ disciples would bring forth the necessary fruit of good works.

The ancient scriptures had long proclaimed that mankind is not -- as Buddhists like to think -- on a level with earthly things, part of, intimately and essentially bound up with, creation around us; for Moses and the prophets told God’s Chosen People ages ago that human nature is uniquely made in the very image and likeness of God Himself and destined, again uniquely, to find fulfilment in and before Him alone.  And Jesus was now come to proclaim and to offer, that in Him -- the Son of God made flesh – our sin-tarnished likeness to God could be restored to its original beauty through faith in Him and obedience to His Gospel; whereupon we would receive His Spirit, the Gift of God, not only to free us from our sins but much, much more, to form us spiritually as true children of the heavenly Father -- lift us up to become His very adopted sons and daughters -- in Him Who is the only-begotten and eternally-beloved Son made flesh for our sakes.

The Law, any binding ‘legal’ prescription, can – of itself – at the very best promote, provoke, regret and a humble acknowledgement of sin against such a Law, but is cannot inspire conversion: which involves, demands, a complementary turning in love to something overwhelmingly better, more beautiful, and supremely lovable.  Humility learned from one’s response to the letter of God’s Law, and love inspired by the sublime beauty of God’s very presence in human form, such was the purpose and the substance of Jesus’ first public proclamation:

The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

Today many do not want to hear about human dignity transcending the rest of creation; they hate the very idea of an originally chosen people (for which the Jewish people still suffer today all over the world) or of a present, as St. Peter (1 Peter 2:9–10) puts it:

Chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own, so that you may announce the praises” of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.  Once you were “no people” but now you are God’s people; you “had not received mercy” but now you have received mercy.

The majority of people today will not to learn to aspire to higher things, because they do not want to be subject to, or rely on, the power or the promise of One greater than themselves; they refuse to acknowledge or strive for anything other than what they can presently appreciate and hopefully learn to control.  Consequently, the idea that human beings might have a greater, higher, dignity than that of the world around us seems a preposterous suggestion to them, because it is, first of all, an unwelcome one.   And that God sent His Son to a specially chosen and prepared people from whom He -- a divine Person -- might take on human flesh, and thus from being true and perfect God become also truly, perfect Man and thereby show mankind through His own Church and the Gift of His Spirit both the possibility and the way for man to become one with God …. all that is for so many modern free-thinkers like St. Paul’s Athenians of old, ludicrous of course, but also strangely arresting and even somewhat alarming.

It is of course true that such oneness with God cannot be attained by any human works and that is why Jesus did not call, first of all, for works; rather He demanded faith -- in Himself and in His Gospel, the Word of God -- whereby human beings might be lifted up to a heavenly level by the sheer goodness of God, in Jesus, through the Spirit.  Heaven cannot be gained by any human excellence or power because heaven is not a place to be found nor a state to be acquired: heaven is the divine Presence into which only Jesus -- the beloved and only-begotten Son -- can lead those who in faith submit to Him and aspire, by the Spirit, to His promise of heaven as proclaimed by the Gospel:

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

In the face of such a newly acknowledged and eternal destiny man cannot continue living as though nothing had changed, as even the ancient and pagan Ninevites appreciated:

Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,”  when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.

We too have to stop living as if we are simply part of this earth in which all our happiness and fulfilment is to be found.  The blessings of life on earth are, indeed, many, because God has made all things good; nevertheless, they were meant for us to use on the way to our eternal destiny and calling, they were not intended to become a drug that would stultify any higher aspirations.  Because we have been fashioned by God in His own likeness, we are not meant to be ruled by things or considerations exclusively of earth.  Paul was speaking of this in our reading:

I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,  those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning,  those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away.

Paul is saying there that marriage may indeed be for us, that is, it can be of help to our salvation, but we are not to think that there is nothing better to come than marriage.  Likewise, those who mourn should not fear that their whole life has been totally blighted; their destiny is – still -- to eternal joy and happiness.  And  those who are happy must not be so foolish as to think that earthly happiness can be compared to the blessedness awaiting those who will sit at the Lord’s Supper in heaven as God’s children, for, as St. Paul elsewhere  tells us (1 Corinthians 2:9):

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

People of God, we live in an affluent society which, on the whole, desires only one thing: to enjoy, even to wallow in, what we have got.  There are those who practice the most degrading sex; those who are expert at gaining money hand over fist at others’ expense; those whose life style is outrageous and who pander to the basic instincts of our animal nature; those whose pride allows them to acknowledge no higher authority than that of their own thinking.  All these have little or no shame and are frequently, indeed, even admired in our society because they are only giving extreme expression to what is commonly accepted and appreciated by a people with no aspirations other than pleasure, plenty, and pride. Money is worshipped as the supreme goal of human endeavour because it promises alluring pleasure, buys obsequious respect, and provokes envious admiration on all sides.  Moreover, since for many today popularity is second only to the power of money, there can be no excellence allowed where popularity is wanting, and so, whatever is popular and exciting is considered to be excellent, no matter how tasteless, futile, or degrading it may be. 

Jesus’ call, ‘Repent, and believe in the Gospel’, is an invitation -- most serious and pressing -- to help us first of all realise our true worth, our divine calling and eternal dignity.  Learn from Jesus, let Him teach you what to hate and avoid, and let Him do that above all by inspiring you to love to the utmost of your God-given being what is worthy of your total gift of self,  and show you where to find it: that is the essence of repenting.  If you thus repent and believe in the Gospel, that Good News will lead you to joy and peace in this world, and, for the future, give you an inviolable hope transcending all earthly limitations.

Considering these aspects of our world today, surely, People of God, it would be a surprise if Christianity were popular, because the present unpopularity of the Church is proof to us that her teaching and her life style are a condemnation of much evil that is done in our midst.  Let us take heart, therefore, from Jesus’ words recorded in the Gospel:

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.  (John 16:33 and Matt 24:35)