29th Sunday Year A 2014

 29^th. Sunday (A)

(Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; 1^st. Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21)

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah we learned that God is indeed Lord and Ruler of All, even secret happenings in the course of human history:

For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I the Lord have named Cyrus, though you have not known Me; I will gird you, though you have not known Me.

And St. Paul in our second reading took up that appreciation of God’s divine authority when he wrote:

Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, as you know what kind of persons we were among you for your sake.

How Mother Church today needs such ‘persons’ whose faith is for them a fount of holy power and assured commitment to Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and for ever!

However, in modern Western society, effeminacy is widespread; not because women are becoming numerically preponderant in our society, nor, indeed, simply because some are showing themselves to be both self-promoting and confrontational in men’s regard, with repeated and voluble criticism of masculine attitudes as being violent, insensitive, unloving, lacking in communication skills, not to mention other opined faults.  But it is also a fact that, in conjunction with such feminist tendencies in individuals and society, too many men are, alas, imitating Adam by allowing themselves to be over-influenced, at times even intimidated, by such widespread humanistic and overly-emotional individuals, and by public appreciations based, not on the Christian trilogy of faith, hope, and charity, but on the (French) revolutionary and iconoclastic ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity.

Freedom: who can speak better of that than St. Paul:

Brothers and sisters: For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)

A yoke defined by Jesus for us Catholics and Christians:

Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34),

but totally ignored by modern humanists, with the result that a crushing yoke weighs down upon innumerable slaves subject to the drugs and sex industries that disfigure and disgrace our society and our world today!

‘Equal’ … what a word, just right for inciting nit-picking and fostering discord and dissension!!   What words have we Christians been taught and received?  ‘Equal’ indeed in divine dignity as children of God; ‘complimentary’, however, in personal relationships and shared human endeavours for the coming of God’s kingdom:

Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, “Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.    (1 Corinthians 12:14–18)

‘Fraternity’ … the Romans of old, at least those in the upper echelons, prided themselves on their ‘fraternity’!  If I might, I will quote Peter Brown in his recent book ‘Through the Eye of a Needle’ (p. 101):  Whatever their beliefs, Symmachus wished to treat members of his (senatorial) class as peers held together by the old fashioned “religion of friendship.”

And what, originally all-conquering, Christian word have we, in this respect, fecklessly lost by repeatedly allowing our opponents to determine the meanings of words and our use of them?   ‘Charity’, divine charity, able to inspire and elevate our human relationships and endeavours over and above all merely human understandings of goodness and love which otherwise so frequently and manifestly show themselves able and prone to accommodate all sorts of infamous distortions and open contradictions.  

And so, although the Catholic understanding of Christian marriage rightly emphasizes  that man and woman marry for both the divine and social good of giving birth to children as also for their own personal and mutual benefit; nevertheless, in this modern social context, Christian family life is suffering because contention and challenge are eroding the unity and ruining the example of the spouses; with the result, for example, that children are now being seriously damaged due to a lack of authentic discipline and an absence of true love.   A Christian husband should teach his children how to love their mother by his own example, and likewise, a mother should insist that her children follow her example and learn to respect and obey their father.  Thus the Christian husband and father should use his accepted authority not as a despot to get absolute obedience for himself from his children, but to insist on and exemplify love and honour for his wife; while the Christian wife and mother should use her unique hold on the family’s heartstrings, not to get ever more love for herself from her children -- as some neurotic might -- but to lead and guide them in showing respect and obedience for their father, her husband.

It used to be jokingly (?) said that ‘a lady is a woman who makes it easy for a man to be a gentleman’; and I personally grew up with a secret and deep awareness of, and admiration for, my ‘complementary’ mother, because I never saw her undermining my father, but rather helping him to be and become a man, by supporting him as her man of the house and my father.    This mutual helping and oneness of the spouses is, moreover,  truly sacred, being meant to exalt and support both of them in all their dealings with their children: no child should be allowed to threaten or break that unity of father and mother; no child should be used in selfish confrontational attitudes by either of their parents.

The present-day fragility of family life is reflected in society as a whole, where criminality is rampant because – among other factors – Christians, having too often supinely surrendered words and their meanings over many years, have thereby allowed emotive enthusiasts, for example, to decry punishment as vengeance, and portray justice as inhuman, and both, therefore, as unchristian words and unacceptable social practices.  

There are other passages in today’s Gospel reading relevant to our times in which political violence and racial terrorism seek to cover themselves with a cloak of so-called religious devotion.  There we are clearly shown the Pharisees and the Herodians trying to lull Jesus into a sense of false security:

Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.

They were using such flattery to soften up Jesus before the putting to Him the punch question that was ready on their lips:

Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"

The idea was to get Jesus in trouble.  If Jesus were to have said it was right to pay taxes, then those patriotic Jews and the Zealot agitators would have decried Him as some sort of traitor or quisling.  On the other hand, had Jesus said it was wrong to pay the taxes,  then the Romans would have deemed it necessary to seek Him out as one potentially troublesome, and deal with Him accordingly; which, of course, was just what the Pharisees and the Temple hierarchy wanted. 

Jesus was not going to fall into the trap.  He answered them:

Show Me the tax money."  So they brought Him a denarius.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Who can fail to recognize the beauty of God’s wisdom in those wonderful words spoken in such a situation?  That beauty, both simple and sublime, is something to contemplate alone before God.  But now, gathered here as disciples of Jesus wanting to learn from Him how to worship and serve the Father, let us consider something of the implications of those words and perhaps understand Jesus’ attitude of mind and heart a little better.

Those words of flattery spoken by the Pharisees and Herodians were meant to ensnare Jesus, and the attitudes they sought to promote are a perennial temptation and conceit for Christians of all ages, and today we should -- like our Blessed Lord -- be quick to recognise their poison and strong to reject their subtle infiltration into our lives.

A man of integrity!  We, as disciples of Jesus, are called to lead good lives, that is, lives of integrity before God, not conformity with the prevailing modern standards and judgements.   We have to try to live up to the role set before us in the Scriptures and called for in the teaching of Mother Church.  However, knowing well that our sins are many and our weaknesses manifest to the eyes of God, we try to assimilate this awareness into our own self-consciousness, and so, true Christian integrity should always be accompanied by a corresponding degree of humility.   However, the danger is that we can begin to weary of the gradual grind of humility under the training of the God to Whom our sins and weaknesses are so perfectly well-known, and begin to slide into an easy acceptance of the accolades of men who are willing to give immediate rewards for our compliance with their views.

Jesus Himself was not in any way swayed by such flatteries: His personal integrity would always and only be used to glorify His Father and promote the true well-being of all those who heard and listened to His words; and so, His resolute independence of men and their opinions would be -- always and only -- the other face of His constant care to be free and able to serve them, for Jesus was always the Servant, never a braggart.  Nevertheless, His requirement of independence made it necessary for Him to be fearless, and so, here, He separated State and Religion for the first time.  Until Jesus came the state had been in total charge of religion: the Emperors were worshipped as gods in the all-powerful Roman state.  And therefore, those famous and most beautiful words of Jesus:

Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's,   

are not only wonderfully wise words, they were also remarkably brave words for those times.

Pius the 12^th. is often blamed today for not speaking out against the Nazis on behalf of the Jews.  I do not know the details, but I do know that life under Nazi domination was not a time or situation for parading blunt truth, personal pride, and public recklessness.  He was in a sort of hostage situation: millions of his Catholic people lived under the Nazis who were men of no conscience.  The Church, with her Lord, must needs be independent of the State, but she cannot behave as if the State does not exist; and sometimes -- as we saw in our OT reading -- a pagan state might be used by God for His own good purposes.   The Church may not seek to overthrow the State, but she can -- and does have to -- seek to influence the practices of the state through her proclamation of Christian truth.  At times, situations can arise which resemble the situation of Jesus in our Gospel passage today, and who can blame a man – even one as great as Pope Pius XII -- or Church authorities, if they are found not to have had the divine wisdom of Jesus?  Even St. Paul, who proclaimed all men equal before God, did not challenge the State of that time to free all slaves: he chose to teach that true Christians neither could before God nor ever should in fact abuse their slaves in their persons or in their labours, and in that way he gently yet incontrovertibly prepared the way for their future total freedom.

People of God, only the holy power of the Spirit and the assured commitment to Jesus which our faith affords us can enable us to be independent and free in our proclamation of and witness to our Catholic and Christian truth in the face of the society in which we find ourselves.  However, we must never allow such aspirations to become insidiously perverted so as to serve our own personal pride or profit.  We are, above all, servants and disciples of Jesus, and, at all times and in all situations, we must seek -- in Him and by His Spirit -- to glorify God our Father.  While thus endeavouring to practice true personal integrity before God, we should also never forget that we are, individually, members of His People, of His family, and therefore we can never think of ourselves as independent of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Our own personal integrity and independence have to be able to embrace all those for whom Christ died; for just as true glory can only be given to God the Father with, in, and through the whole Body of Christ, Head and members; so also true, personal, praise and profit can only come to us as a sharing in the well-being of the whole Body of all who, in accordance with the Father's will and working of the Holy Spirit, are being led to share in the fullness of salvation to be found in Jesus.

28th Sunday Year A 2014

28^th. Sunday of Year (A) 

         (Isaiah 25:6-10; St. Paul to the Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14)

Today we are celebrating God’s infinite goodness to us in Jesus Christ His Son, Our Lord, and also His yearly generosity to us in the harvest.  There is a close connection between these two aspects of God's love for us, because, in the course of Mass the celebrant says:

Blessed are You, Lord God of all creation, for through Your goodness we have received the bread we offer You, fruit of the earth and work of human hands: it will become for us the bread of life.

Similarly, when offering the wine he says:       

Blessed are You, Lord God of all creation, for through Your goodness we have received the wine we offer You, fruit of the vine and work of human hands: it will become our spiritual drink.

In that way we are led to recognize that not only is the whole of God’s creation good, but also that, because of its natural goodness, the whole of God’s creation can become a channel for our supernatural sanctification and ultimately -- most mysteriously -- share with us in a glorious restoration.

Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.   (Romans 8:21)

Understanding this relationship between natural good and supernatural blessing, we are in a position to appreciate Isaiah's words:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. 

We recognize that such an earthly, natural, picture can well imply an infinitely more splendid, joyous and fulfilling, occasion: a banquet of heavenly consequence at which divine life and eternal beatitude is celebrated.  This Isaiah foresaw indeed, because after those words describing an earthly feast, he immediately went on to speak of the spiritual blessings of heavenly life, where suffering and death have no part:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples… On this mountain He will destroy the veil that veils all peoples … He will destroy death forever.  The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face; the reproach of His people He will remove from the whole earth….  For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

On this mountain, recalls those high places which ancient peoples used to climb in order to approach the Most High God as closely as they physically could, and where -- being able to see and admire the wonder of His creation all the more -- they might all the better worship Him.

 On this mountain relates most closely to Mount Sinai, where God revealed something of His glory and majesty, and gave Moses and the People of Israel the Law of election, blessing, and guidance.

Again, on this mountain embraces Mount Zion where Solomon built a Temple to Israel’s God -- using materials sedulously prepared for that purpose by his father David, a man ‘after God’s heart’ (Acts 13:22) -- and where, on the occasion of its dedication, he prayed:

May Your eyes watch night and day over this temple, the place where You have decreed You shall be honoured; may You heed the prayer which I, Your servant, offer in this place.  Listen to the petitions of Your servant and of Your people Israel which they offer in this place. Listen from Your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.  (1 Kings 8:29s.)

Ultimately, on this mountain signified for the Jews of Jesus’ time the Temple in Jerusalem, rebuilt by Herod from the former, very modest, ‘second temple’ with such munificence and splendour as to make it renowned throughout the Roman world and be the pride and glory of the Jewish people, despite their hatred of Herod himself; indeed, it should have become the very centre of the nations (Ezekiel 5:5), from where the God-given treasure of the Law, committed to the custody of Israel, would have been proclaimed and transmitted to all mankind.

Today we do not ascend mountains nor even climb hills in order to approach God's heavenly dwelling, neither do we turn our eyes to any material Temple; no, we come to Jesus in Mother Church, which is the Body of Christ, vivified, guided, and protected to the end of time by the Holy Spirit of Father and Son; and there we lift up our eyes to heaven, just as Jesus did in prayer to His Father, joining our prayer to that which He now, in heaven, continually offers to His Father on our behalf.

In Mother Church then, the ‘Body of Christ’:

(God) will destroy death for ever and wipe away the tears from all faces, and the reproach of His people He will remove from the whole earth,

for all those, that is, who seek to find in her just how great is His goodness and how sweet His saving grace.

Today, very many people have little or no trust in God: indeed, in our Western world, many find themselves either so cossetted in their well-being or so full of cares and concerns about their well-being, that they have no conception of ‘salvation’; the world gives them all they can get and apparently holds all that they could want, with the result that they cannot see any need to pray to some imagined God.  Others, however, can’t quite shrug-off God altogether, and so they cautiously excuse themselves from giving Him any time or attention by saying they are so busy they just don’t have time for prayer; they would like to have, but in fact can’t find, time for God.    

And that is, indeed, the situation painted by Our Lord in the parable we heard about the wedding feast and those invited to it.  The Father had prepared this banquet for His Son and the guests ignored the invitation given them.  The Father sent a further, yet more urgent, request for their presence at the banquet: some of those invited, however, contented themselves with mocking the messengers as they went about more important matters purportedly needing their immediate attention, while others -- not a few -- went so far as to beat and even to kill those who brought the invitation.

There we can possibly recognize ancient Israel in the Promised Land, flirting with the gods of surrounding peoples and failing to understand the exclusive majesty of  the Lord their God Who had brought them out of Egypt, through the desert, and into their Promised Land; then came the prophets -- brave and faithful all of them, and some even glorious – who were, for the most part, mocked and progressively ill-treated until some were killed for the Saviour-to-come Who would fulfil in His own Body their testimony and crown with His own Blood God’s goodness and patience.

In the Gospel parable there were some, the poor and the needy, the good and the bad, who were almost forced by circumstances to come to the banquet; it did not matter who or what they were or from where they came, for God -- as St. Paul and then St. Augustine would most emphatically declare – had not been searching for, or requiring, any foregoing merit on their part, all that mattered was their bearing and behaviour in the banqueting hall. 

There, we are told that the King Himself came round to see His guests:

When the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.  He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence.  Then the King said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’  Many are invited but few are chosen.

What is that so absolutely necessary “wedding garment”?    St. Paul tells us when, in his letter to the Romans, he says:

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts. (Romans 13:14)

How could anyone, however, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, commit themselves to Him, without first recognizing and acknowledging Him as the Son sent by God His Father?  In the parable, it would seem that the ‘friend without a wedding garment’ had managed to come to, get into, the wedding feast without even bothering about -- let alone recognizing and reverencing -- Him for Whom the feast was being held, and such dishonour to the Son redounded to even greater offense being given to the manifest presence of the great King himself.  Here we can recognize the chief priest and elders of the people, who had secured prominence for themselves as chosen ones in the Chosen People, and were now unable and/or unwilling to recognize Jesus as Son of the very God they claimed to worship, serve, and proclaim so faithfully:

It is My Father Who honours Me, of Whom you say that He is your God.   He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father Who sent Him. (John 8:54; 5:23)

Today, in our society, a like drama is being unwittingly prepared: our worldly well-being will end; for what -- but a short while ago -- seemed to be mere flies-in-the-ointment have begun to fester in many parts of the globe, and the bubbles may soon be bursting in our own neighbourhoods, indeed in our very faces.  Why?  Because neither godless rationalism nor military might can resist, let alone master, the forces of destruction -- let loose by disbelief in God -- rampant in the world today:

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.  Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)

There is nothing in this world, neither power nor money, neither science nor technology, and most certainly not man’s moral pretensions, that can preserve us from the evil inclinations of the human heart and the weakness inherent to the human spirit.   God alone, in and through Jesus Christ, saves – by His Holy Spirit -- those who have faith in Jesus.

The rich and the prosperous refused the wedding invitation in the Gospel passage, and likewise, you will not find those in Church who, in whatever way, promote pride by seeking fame and renown, and cultivating power and influence.  Because, such people want to remain and proclaim their own selves, and ever further their own prospects, whereas we in Mother Church are called, on the contrary, to learn  this one supreme lesson -- as you heard and know well -- to put on Christ.

Our parable speaks of only one hypocrite being found in the wedding hall because it is the King, the Father Himself, Who instantly recognizes and discloses the one basic sin of all those called and rejected: failure to recognize and believe in His beloved Son.  That one supreme sin is the total cause and supreme expression of our vulnerability to Satan and alienation from God; and our Gospel message today is for all those members of Mother Church who, being truly humble and contrite, want indeed to put on Christ and sincerely endeavour -- by His Spirit -- to leave behind their own weak and sinful selves for His sake.

People of God, as our tables are once again covered with the fruits of this year’s harvest we cannot fail to recognize that God’s creation is both bountiful and beautiful, and that is a source of great joy for us.  However, we must not allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in the beauty and desirability of this earthly banquet as to ignore the invitation that comes along with it to that other eternal banquet celebrating an eternal harvest.  The God Who makes us so pleased with this world’s good things, can He not prepare even greater joys for us in His heavenly kingdom?  Of course He can.  Let us, therefore, take up His invitation.

God's call is, as we have said, non-judgmental, embracing all alike, be they previously bad or previously good according to the world’s estimation; He is both supremely generous in His help -- giving us His own Son and Holy Spirit -- and patient, as He awaits our faltering response to His repeated and glorious promises.  However, decisions must finally be made because judgment will eventually come, and for that we must prepare ourselves, since we do not believe in an impotent or indecisive God.

Therefore, as disciples of Jesus, let our lives echo the words of St. Paul in today’s second reading:

To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.     

Let us lift up our eyes to our blessed Lord Jesus Who has gone up on high to that mountain whither He calls us to Himself, that He might lead us His captives (Ps. 68:18) suitably clothed in wedding garments, into that feast of juicy rich food and pure choice wines, being celebrated before the face of His Father, where:

Many are invited, but few are chosen.                                    

27th Sunday Year A 2014

 27^th Sunday of Year (A)

   (Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43)

In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah we heard the prophet describe Israel as a vineyard planted by the Lord which, despite the care He had taken of it, failed to bring forth good fruit.  Therefore the prophet went on to warn Israel that the Lord would reject her:

Now, I will let you know what I mean to do to My vineyard: take away its hedge, give it to grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled!  Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it.  The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His cherished plant; He looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed! For justice, but hark, the outcry!

In fulfilment of that prophecy the kingdom of Israel first of all, and subsequently the kingdom of Judah, were indeed destroyed: both were no longer kingdoms or political powers of any sort, just mere tracts of territory ruled by foreign lords, inhabited by vassals.

Therefore, when Jesus took up again the prophecy of Isaiah -- when He, in His turn, told a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard, prepared for and protected it to the full, and then was unable to get his share of the fruit --- His hearers, the religious authorities in Israel and Judah of Jesus’ time, realised the significance of His words.

Some changes had been made by Jesus to the picture painted by Isaiah: the vineyard itself was fruitful, as you will remember Jesus’ other words:

The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.  (Mt. 9:37s.)

Yes, the vineyard itself was capable of producing good fruit.  However, those in charge of the vineyard, the tenants, would not hand over any produce or profit to the landowner even though, eventually, the owner’s very son came to claim it for his father.

At this point the Jewish leaders were not paying attention to the detail about the Son: they were only intent on what they feared would be the final outcome: their power, their position of authority, being taken away from them.

Earlier, the prophet Isaiah had foretold of the destruction of the political kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and that prophecy had indeed been realized.  In the past, kings and rulers had resisted the prophets’ messages in order to maintain their own political power -- haven’t kings and potentates been doing that since the beginning of time?    But now something much more sinister was taking place: Israel’s religious leaders -- in particular the Pharisees and Scribes -- were fighting against Jesus for the establishment of God’s spiritual kingdom on earth, claiming their own teaching and traditions to be the unique authority for the spiritual formation of  God’s Chosen People.  Therefore, Jesus now speaks of the end of the Temple cult with its priests and Levites, and of the spiritual authority of the Scribes and Pharisees as authentic exponents of the Torah and guides towards the attainment of God’s ultimate promises.  Indeed, and above all, Jesus is now foreshadowing the end of the nations’ exclusive spiritual privilege as the People of God.

All these privileges, and the provisional type of divine worship they represented, would now have to make way for the future Church of Jesus Christ, the new and authentic People of God worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth, and embracing not only Israelites, but all men and women of good-will who would hear and obey the Good News of God’s own Son authentically proclaimed to all mankind:

Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’?   Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

You can understand why Jesus was both feared and hated by the proud religious authorities of what had once been the kingdom of David: it now comprised nothing more than the two small and insignificant Roman provinces of Judea and Samaria, along with mistrusted Galilee in the north.  Yes, they hated the humiliation which had befallen their proud and once relatively prestigious country; and now this Jesus -- coming indeed from Nazareth in Galilee of all places -- was proclaiming Himself as the Son, yes, the very divine Son of God, come to harvest the fruit due God from the vineyard of His Law and the Prophets, promising no Messianic restoration of political power but, on the contrary, proclaiming that Israel’s hitherto unique privilege would no longer be their exclusive pride and glory but would be opened to all, including the presently disdained Gentiles and pagans who knew nothing of God, and even embracing the hated and despised Romans now ruling their country.

However, some might be thinking, all this is past history, how is it relevant for us today?  We understand that God punishes sin in His people and we recall that, as punishment for sin in His Chosen People, He once destroyed their temple at Shilo which the early Israelites had thought untouchable; and then had likewise brought the Temple of Solomon down to the ground; before finally, as Jesus foretold, humbling the supremely impressive and prestigious Temple of Herod.  We also recognise that the once wide-spread Kingdom of David had ultimately, under punishment for sin, become a political non-entity and a vassal state.  But what does all this mean for us?  There is no unique Temple today; we are from all nations not just one religious people: the Kingdom of God’s own Son cannot, surely, be destroyed as were those ancient indeed, but, nevertheless, temporal institutions?

Again, let us look at those who brought about the downfall of the Chosen People. The ones responsible for the twice-repeated exiling of Israel were predominantly political figures, kings, with their courtiers and sycophants, their emulators and opponents.   They did great harm to God’s People and were punished accordingly.  However, they opposed, resisted, God’s Kingdom in Israel for predominantly worldly reasons, being afraid of the political effect of God’s message of holiness proclaimed by the Prophets.  Later however, others, such as the Pharisees and Scribes, resisted the coming of God’s Kingdom, its flourishing in Israel, for religious reasons, by attempting to take control of God’s proclamation itself.  The first opponents were rejected by God and indeed thrown into exile by His instruments, those mighty powers they so cravenly feared and yet so foolishly sought to imitate.  The latter, however, were so proud of their own pseudo-holiness and so hungry for the power they presently held over the people, that they rejected God’s supreme authority and only-authentic holiness by their presentation and interpretation of His Law and inspired prophecies, to such an extent that their cancerous influence could not be uprooted, exposed, and condemned other than by the death and resurrection of God’s own most holy and only-beloved Son.

People of God we should be supremely careful of, solicitous for, the purity of our faith.

Today there are so many who set themselves up as teachers and guides in the ways of God and who, by means of labels and slogans that disturb and band-wagons that crush -- such as ‘sexist’, ‘racist’, ‘undemocratic’ and ‘out of touch with modern thought and sensitivities’, ‘rigid and intolerant’ -- seek to denigrate and divide whatever they oppose because their pride will not tolerate what their minds cannot subjugate; while themselves ever seeking the limelight of popularity to promote the proclaimed innocence and inevitability of their own actions with words such as ‘we had no option, could not avoid’, and the purity and simplicity of their own intentions with references to ‘the goodness and compassion of God’ and ‘the happiness and well-being of ordinary Catholics and Christians’.

There are, alas, too many Catholics and Christians who allow themselves to be wounded by such, at times ludicrous, but ever pernicious messages and deluded or devilish messengers.   Let us therefore look at the wondrous faith and steadfast love of Jesus our Lord and Saviour.

You will remember His night of torment in the Garden of Gethsemane when His human nature shuddered and trembled at the imminence of His Roman crucifixion.  He prayed three times in that garden, alone; only a stone’s throw away from His disciples’ help indeed, yet completely alone since such potential human comfort was, in fact, totally uncomprehending.  He prayed three times before His Father, He prayed intensely, His sweat being like drops of blood trickling, dropping, down from His forehead and face; He prayed persistently whilst His hardened disciples could not prevent themselves from sleeping through exhaustion; He prayed with patient love and total trust:

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

You know all that very well; but notice, He heard nothing from His Father. Subsequently He was scourged at the pillar, publicly mocked, spat upon, and crowned with thorns by surrounding soldiers; and still, nothing from His Father.  He carried the Cross to His place of execution and had to suffer several severe falls along the way, which evoked foul curses and coarse jibes from the soldiers driving Him on; but nothing, again, from His Father other than the sympathetic tears of a few women standing by!   And yet, He had prayed, so very intensely; so, perseveringly; and with such loving confidence, commitment, and trust!!

Jesus, however, never doubted His Father!   To calm and confirm His human frailty He had prayed not just once but three times … He knew, therefore, that His Father heard Him … as He once expressed it:

Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father I thank You for hearing Me.  I know that You always hear Me; but because of the crowd here (at the raising of Lazarus) I have said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.”  (John 11:41-42)

People of God,  as most sublimely exemplified by Jesus when His life and mission were climaxing in the degrading sufferings of His death,  there is only one true peace, God’s peace, and it has to be treasured at whatever cost; there is only one true way of progress and profit towards that peace and the fulfilment it bestows, and it has to be fought for in a constant struggle against self-seeking and the encroachments of worldly delights and aspirations; and that most loving master-class bequeathed to us by our Blessed Lord is today commended to our gratitude, our loving contemplation and humble imitation, by the Spirit-filled words of His faithful follower and fellow-sufferer, St. Paul, in our second reading:

Brothers, have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Keep on doing what you have learned and received in (Mother Church). Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

26th Sunday, Year A 2014

 26^th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Ezekiel 18:25-28; St. Paul to the Philippians 2:1-5; Matthew 21:28-32)

Last week’s Gospel parable concerned men being hired to work in the master’s vineyard.  Today, Jesus picks up once more the theme of work in the vineyard and goes on to develop His earlier teaching.   His focus, as before, is on the attitude of those called to work; this time, the attitude of two sons with regard to their own father in whose vineyard they are told to work.  

What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’   He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went.  The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.  Which of the two did his father’s will?  They answered, “The first.”

Now the teaching of today’s parable is supremely close to the heart of Jesus because it concerns “doing the will of His Father”:

"Which of the two did his father’s will?"  Jesus asked.

Jesus, you will recall, once told us the whole purpose of His own coming on earth:

I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him Who sent Me. (John 6:38)

Nor was that an expression of some merely passing emotion; for, in the most agonizing moments of His suffering in the Garden, in torments which caused Him to sweat blood, He repeated those same words to strengthen Himself:

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

And above all, that very same attitude is fundamental to the only prayer He taught us, which is, ultimately, the only prayer we need:

Our Father Who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, for all who want to be disciples of Jesus, our life as Christians is not simply a matter of carrying out a determined task in the master’s vineyard with humble trust and respect, but rather a journey to be undertaken with a loving desire to become true children of the Father Who is ever drawing us to, and calling us in, Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour.

Presuming we have such a desire, how are we, in fact, going to set about doing His will, with and in Jesus, and finding our salvation?

Let me first of all clear up a possible misunderstanding resulting from the first reading.  To be sure, it is not a mistake that would easily be made by any sincere disciple of the Lord; but for some going through difficulties, perhaps only half-hearted in their love for the faith, those words of Ezekiel in our first reading might be thought to signal an easy way out:

If a wicked man, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life.

Someone might think -- as, for example, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great is reported to have done -- that one could leave thinking about conversion and the good life until death was at hand, and then, “turn away from wickedness” and be saved from all past sins by the unique power of the baptismal sacrament.

In such a case, however, conversion would be more apparent than real, only having been ultimately adopted after life-long indulgence of one’s weaknesses and gratification of one’s lusts; with professed love for the Lord faring no better than Herod’s ‘reverence’ for John the Baptist.  Moreover, Ezekiel’s words “turning from wickedness does what is right and just” would not seem to give any encouragement to such worldliness: for a death-bed, fag-end, remnant of life, is hardly a suitable time for beginning to do what is right and just, let alone a fitting gift to offer the Lord.

And so, whilst it is, indeed, never too late to mend; and whilst it is always possible -- even at the eleventh hour, and in whatever situation one may find oneself -- to turn to God our Father and find forgiveness in the name of Jesus; nevertheless, it is absolutely essential that we turn to the Father in sincerity and truth.

St. Paul told us in the second reading how we should set about trying to do the Father’s will:

 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

   

Today we often hear people with a fundamentalist turn of mind, saying:  “All that is necessary is to read the Scriptures and do what Jesus did”, or, “do what Jesus would have done”.  Let us just look rationally at those two bits of fundamentalist advice.  “We must do what Jesus did.” How can we do that?  Jesus lived on earth two thousand years ago, His circumstances were not the same as ours today; our society, with its background and its understanding of the world, its possibilities and prospects, is far different from that of Jewish society in Jesus’ time.  Jesus, with His sublime understanding of people and of the workings of divine grace, sometimes did things, spoke words, which we today -- having only a sin-stained appreciation of, and sensitivity for, our fellow men, together with a native ignorance of the workings of divine grace -- would not dare to say or think of doing.  "All we need to do is to read the Scriptures and do what Jesus did."  Indeed!  Who would dare to say with Jesus: "It is not fair to give the children’s food to dogs” to a woman begging for her daughter’s healing? Or again, what doctor or nurse, or, indeed, anyone in a position to be of help, would treat dear friends, as Jesus -- in His supreme love and divine wisdom -- treated Mary, Martha and Lazarus:

When He heard that (Lazarus) was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. (John 11:6)

Let us therefore recall the Apostle's teaching:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

We cannot 'do what Jesus would have done', until we have, in truth, the same mind, the same attitude, as Jesus; and that can only come about by the gift of the Holy Spirit, for it was the Spirit Who led Jesus on His earthly mission.

Now, the Spirit of Jesus is not given to any of us either fully or permanently, nor is He given to all of us in the same degree.  However, the Holy Spirit of Jesus is given in sublime and abiding fullness to Mother Church so that she can make her children living members of that Body of Christ in which all have a unique purpose and personal role to fulfil for the Body as a whole, and for the glory of the Father.  Therefore, our first and supreme duty, in order to learn and to do the Father’s will, is to hear and obey Jesus’ clear commandments given for all His disciples in the Scriptures and in their authoritative presentation to us by Mother Church.  That, indeed, we can all do thanks to the baptismal grace of the Holy Spirit given to all who believe in and commit themselves to Jesus.  That is the minimum expected of a true, catholic, disciple.

But in order to have the same mind as Jesus Himself, and so do the Father’s particular will for each one of us, we must desire and pray much more.

By enabling us to obey the commandments of Jesus and the Church, the Spirit can be said to rule our actions.  However, most of our choices in life do not directly or necessarily involve serious sin, being largely somewhat indifferent choices of themselves.  And so, if we aspire to have the same attitude and mind as Jesus and  thus to do the Father’s will in all things, we must ask, beg, pray, the Holy Spirit not only to rule our actions so as to keep us from sin, but also to guide our lives in every respect to the extent that it is no longer we who live, but rather -- through the Spirit -- Jesus living in us for the Father, as St. Paul said:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The Spirit is the Father’s Gift, Jesus' bequest, to Mother Church; He is not ours, He cannot be acquired, so to speak, and then possessed.  Because He is Gift, we have to keep close to the Father in prayer, and to Jesus in the Eucharist, if we aspire to receive the Spirit ever anew and appreciate Him ever more faithfully.  Moreover, we must also beg the Holy Spirit Himself to so penetrate our very being that He might  guide and rule us, not only in our rejection of sin, but also in our own free choices and deepest desires, until He has wholly transformed us into His faithful instruments for the Father’s glory.  In other words, we should beg the Spirit to make each of us a likeness of Jesus painted by His own divine hand for the Father’s purposes in our world of today, rather than allow us to make ourselves into an inauthentic imitation produced by personal pride under the motivation of a fevered imagination or esoteric fancy.

But once again, how -- with what dispositions -- should we thus turn to the Holy Spirit in prayer?

For such final guidance we should look to our Blessed Lady who, after her beloved Son’s resurrection from the dead, saw Him disappear from her sight into heaven at His Ascension into Heaven.  What joy for Him filled her mind and flooded her heart as she thought of her Son’s glory and fulfilment with the Father!  But also, inevitably, what gnawing emptiness -- though never any sorrow – she experienced in herself, albeit never for herself!!   What a loss!  What a longing!!  What a gulf!!!

And precisely for such a suffering Mother of, and Model for, the Church, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and bestowed by Jesus, to completely satisfy and transfigure such dispositions.  Because of her longing and love for Jesus, because of her total self-emptiness, Mary could and would become the chef d’oeuvre of the Holy Spirit … for ever serving Mother Church as a most sublime lightning conductor, so to speak, drawing and leading the light and the power, the fire and the beauty, of the Holy Spirit -- the eternal bond of Love uniting the Almighty Father and His only-begotten Son -- to Mother Church and potentially into the minds and hearts of all her children.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is in like dispositions of love for Jesus and emptiness of self that – with the help of Mary our Mother -- we should pray to the Holy Spirit for His guidance and strength in our lives, that Jesus may be ever-born- anew in us:

(Jesus) said in reply to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother? Who are My brothers?”   And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers.   (Matthew 12:48-9)

Thus may we, worshipping God the Father in Spirit and in Truth, become true sons and daughters of His in Mother Church, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus and bearing witness to the power of His Spirit, so that:

All, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, may (come to) confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

                      

25th Sunday Year A 2014

 25^th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 55:6-9; Paul to the Philippians 1:20-24, 27; Matthew 20:1-16)

Dear People of God, we profess that God is all-holy, but what do we mean by “holy”?  In our first reading we were given an intimation of what God’s holiness means:

My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the LORD.   As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts.

That characteristic “otherness” -- including even a certain “strangeness” -- but above all, the “absolute and incomparable superiority” of God’s holiness, was also shown very clearly in the Gospel reading, for you all heard the cry of the earlier workmen on receiving their pay for the day:

These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.

Although our understanding can accommodate the attitude of the landowner in the parable, nevertheless our emotions are such that we are much more readily inclined to sympathise with those early workers and, as a result, we can find ourselves somewhat puzzled by Jesus telling such a parable for our instruction.

However, Jesus not infrequently shocked people in order to make them pay attention, and that would seem to be the case here, for the very difficulty this parable has for us teaches us a basic, and absolutely essential, lesson: namely, that we, of ourselves, are not holy, only God is holy; and His holiness is so sublimely transcendent that we cannot rightly conceive it other than by experiencing it … first through early stages of growing appreciation, and then through succeeding phases of wonder, amazement, and ultimately in self-abandoning humility and self-committing love.

That was the lesson God had, by His great prophets, been teaching Israel over many centuries.  The prophet Daniel finally summed up Israel’s long historical experience of God’s dealings with them in words of simple finality and conviction:

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day -- to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.  O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.  (Daniel 9:7-8.)

The prophet Ezekiel taught the same truth in terms that correspond yet more closely to our present situation as we try to understand Jesus’ teaching in the parable before us:

The house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not fair.' O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?   Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways," says the Lord GOD. "Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.  Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.  For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord GOD. "Therefore turn and live!” (Ezekiel 18:29-32.)

And so, despite Israel’s failure to understand and unwillingness to obey, God still wanted, and was determined, to offer them fullness of life in appreciation of and response to His own holiness, as those words of Ezekiel proclaimed:

“I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies”, says the Lord GOD. “Return and live!”

Therefore, the Father sent His Son as our Redeemer, that through Him we might receive forgiveness of our sins and a share in His holiness by the gift of His Spirit; and, ultimately, be prepared and enabled to live as His children with love in His Presence for all eternity. Let us, therefore, carefully try to understand more of Jesus’ teaching about God and ourselves in this parable.

We are told that the landowner:

went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard (and) agreed with the labourers for a denarius a day,

before going out again, about the third, sixth, and ninth hours to hire more labourers.

Now that was most unusual; there was a steward by his side to pay the men’s wages, and he it was who would normally have done the drudgery of repeatedly going and coming to negotiate with and hire workers as needed.  On such occasions, voices might well be raised, heated opinions expressed, and wild accusations made -- rough and tough men under stress, then as now, might call at times for firm handling – and therefore, such negotiations would not normally be carried out by the landowner himself.

The landowner was obviously deeply concerned about those workmen unable to find employment: looking below mere surface appearances he saw them not just as potential labourers for his own personal profit, but as husbands and fathers unable to earn enough to feed and shelter their wives and families; much as Jesus saw, with supreme compassion, the ultimate evil of sin ravaging the lives of those lost sheep of Israel whom He had come to save by giving Himself, sinless as He was, to death for all who would be brought to repentance.

Look at the workers now.   Those hired at the eleventh hour could have gone off elsewhere or even back home much earlier, for example after sixth the hour; why hang around so very frustratingly, especially after the ninth hour (mid-afternoon), for who would be hiring men so late in the day?  The fact that they did remain, therefore, would seem to show that they did so because they hoped for what seemed most unlikely.  This last group therefore, were those unwilling to give up hope: hoping against hope, they were still waiting there at the eleventh hour only one hour before sun-down and tools-down.

The central theme of Jesus’ preaching was the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and the parable He was putting before the people was, even in the saying of it, taking on reality: for the Kingdom of Heaven is about a concerned and committed Lord and Saviour, and a humble people irrevocably committed to trusting in and hoping for Him.

What was the other difference between those five groups of men?  Did you notice?  And if you did, do you realise the significance of that difference which is slight in words but portentous in meaning?

Only the last group, hired at the last minute so to speak, said that they had been standing there doing nothing “because no one has hired us”.  Experience had led them to recognize that the opportunity to work was a gift, a blessing, one which they could not give to themselves.  Each of the other groups, having been more or less spared the humbling anxiety of wondering whether any work would come their way, had been waiting to receive offers of work ready and primed with confidence in their own abilities, and those who had accepted a job and now completed the task, were keenly aware of the amount of work they had done for the landowner: ‘we have slaved all day; we have been hard at it from the third, sixth, or ninth hours’.

That, however, was not the whole picture; indeed, such a portrayal distorted the basic reality of their situation which only the members of the last group -- the last-gasp-group so to speak -- had come to recognize through an understanding of what the landowner had done for them.  They were the ones whose experience made them humble enough to recognize -- as the hours went inexorably by -- just how much they depended upon the goodness of the landowner, who, in fact, ultimately hired them not for the work they could do for him but out of his compassion for them and for their families in need.

At the end of the day when all were gathered to receive their pay all those workers taken on in the beginning and then in the third, sixth, and ninth hours were full of the work they had done … and that brought them bitterness of heart.  The eleventh hour group, however, were able to taste something of the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by Jesus, for they were stunned by the awareness of God’s goodness and the landowner’s compassion.  Thank God this landowner came back again for us!

Self and sorrow; Jesus and joy!

The sublime truth here taught by Jesus was that the gift, the reward, which God offers to His faithful, being both divine and eternal, infinitely transcends any earthly work we can give, any personal merits we may invoke.  Our first and foremost Christian calling and duty is to humble ourselves before God and praise Him with grateful hearts and minds for His great goodness whereby He has called us into His Kingdom and even given us an opportunity to work for that Kingdom, in His Son and under the guidance of His Spirit.  And, whatever work we do will only have value before God in so far as it is offered as our humble yet loving contribution to the great redeeming work offered to the Father by Jesus, our Saviour and Brother; and that awareness will be the deepest root of our heavenly delight: God is All in all; He is All for us in Jesus in Whom we are all for Him and for each other by His Spirit. 

There are many who go through life without reference to God, they seek to do their own will, not His; they want to satisfy their own desires or the world’s expectations, not win His promises.  They have that attitude of mind described in the book of Job:

They say to God, 'Depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways.    Who is the Almighty that we should serve Him?  And what profit do we have if we pray to Him?' (21:14-15)

Such people may, indeed, come towards the end of their lives thinking: “I’ve been very successful; I have proved myself a winner; I always managed to get the most out of the system”; or perhaps in the case of simpler, less ambitious, or more timid individuals, “I have always been popular and well regarded.”

Job, in the midst of all his difficulties and trials, struggled to understand these things:

Why do the wicked live and become old (and) mighty in power?  Their descendants are established with them in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes. … They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. (Job 21:7-8, 13)

And how many suffering people in the world today are tormented with similar awareness and such thoughts!

Still, the Christian message is clear: those who work for themselves, for this world alone, will ultimately experience the terrible truth of Jesus’ judgment:

They have had their reward. 

Our work for God should never lead to the bolstering-up of our native self-satisfaction and pride.  On the contrary, whatever befalls us during our time on earth -- whatever good we may be given to do, whatever successes may come our way, or whatever trials we may be called upon to endure -- only when we come to gratefully recognize, and whole-heartedly respond to, the goodness of God secretly and surely guiding and sustaining us in and through all these happenings, will we begin to appreciate something of that fullness of joy and peace in Him called eternal life.

People of God, here below, we are always – in response to our heavenly calling -- on the way to our heavenly reward, and there can be no greater blessing than, in the course of our efforts for God, to have become so emptied of our self-esteem and pride, as to be totally open and able to delight to the full in the infinite beauty and goodness of God, as members of His family in Jesus.  Remember St. Paul's words:

For me, life is Christ and death is gain; I long to depart this life and be with Christ … (for) that is far better.  Live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.   (Philippians 1:23, 27)