3rd Sunday in Ordinary time

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2020

Isaiah 8:23-9:3; 1Cor 1:10-13, 17; Matt 4:17-23

“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” Here we have the kerygma, the basic proclamation of Jesus, the heart of His preaching. What does it mean, and especially, what does it mean for us?

When we use the word “repent”, we usually think of sorrow, of being sorry for what we have done or failed to do; for sins that we have committed. That is certainly one aspect of repentance, but taken to its fullest extent, it actually goes much deeper, is much more comprehensive, more demanding of us.

The Greek word which we find in the New Testament, and which we translate as “repent” is metanoeite which really means to change in the deepest part of us, to have a change of heart, a re-orientation; so that, in our living, we are focused completely on God. That involves sorrow for our sins, but it also involves much more: a transformation of the innermost part of ourselves.

For my spiritual reading at the moment I am using a book which I was given for Christmas: “Newman, the heart of holiness” by Mgr. Roderick Strange. On Monday morning, just before I sat down to prepare my homily, I came across this quotation from St. John Henry Newman himself: “For in truth, we are not called once only, but many times; all through our life, Christ is calling us.”

“All through our life, Christ is calling us.” That is the heart of repentance, fully understood. This may involve a change of lifestyle, as when someone is called to marriage, or to priesthood, or to the consecrated life; but it also entails much subtler changes, as we are called, perhaps, to deepen our prayer life, to change our attitude to someone who irritates or annoys us, to recognise our responsibilities to the wider world, and to modify our response in the light of events whether far away or close to home.

Newman himself wrote “to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” He is not advocating change for change’s sake, running after every daft new idea which comes along, but being alert to the presence of Christ in our lives, and to His ongoing call to us. It is possible to argue that the reason why the Second Vatican Council caused such an upheaval in the Church is that, for a long time, the Church had been seeing itself as the perfect society which had no need, or even no right, to change: in other words, it had neglected the call to fundamental, ongoing repentance. Hence, when St. John XXIII “threw open the windows of the Church” and summoned the Council, the Holy Spirit blew away many cobwebs and set in motion a whole host of changes—of aspects of repentance—which should have been taking place by degrees throughout the decades.

We can see how this works in the calling of the first disciples and in their subsequent following of Christ. In today’s Gospel, we hear that fundamental call to a complete change of lifestyle, a call for which they have been prepared by the time which they have spent with the Lord after being directed to Him by John the Baptist. Hence, when Jesus now utters His command “follow me” they are ready to respond AT ONCE.

This corresponds to the initial call of our baptism, and to the other life-changing calls which we may receive. Afterwards, though, as they followed the Lord, they were being called to an ongoing repentance, to keeping their relationship with Jesus and His Father fresh. Thus, they heard the Sermon on the Mount, turning the world’s values upside down. They were told to change their view of what constitutes greatness, to imitate the innocence and simplicity of children. They learned that it isn’t enough to avoid sins like murder, but that they must avoid anger and self-centredness, learning the true meaning of the commandments of love of God and neighbour. They were urged to perseverance and endurance, and were taught a new approach to prayer.

All of these were aspects of repentance: all of these are demanded of us, as we follow Christ day by day. They are demanded because “the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand”. Christ has come into our world. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us: and He is calling us anew, every day and every moment. We must be alert, to hear and to respond.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2020

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1Cor 1: 1-3; John 1:29-34

I can’t help feeling that Holy Mother Church needs to get her liturgical act together at this time of year. By now, you must be sick of me talking about the three aspects of the Epiphany—the visit of the Wise Men, the Baptism of the Lord, and the marriage feast at Cana—but it is an issue on which the Church doesn’t seem to know whether to stick or twist.

In the Divine Office, there are constant references to the three elements, but where the Holy Mass is concerned there is no mention. After a lapse of centuries, the Feast of the Baptism has been restored, but without reference to its relation to Epiphany, whereas the marriage feast crops up only one year out of three—and this is not such a year—but as the Gospel of  a Sunday in Ordinary Time , with no hint of a link. And yet, there is what might be termed an “Epiphany quality” about each of the Gospels of the three year cycle on this Sunday, with Years A and B giving us passages from St John in which the Baptist “shows forth” the Lord as the Lamb of God, to complement St. John’s account of the marriage feast in Year C. It is almost as if the liturgists want to restore the three parts of the Epiphany, but can’t quite make up their minds to do it. Am I the only person to be confused by this?

Anyway, let’s look at what we have today. John the Baptist sees Our Lord coming towards him, and points to Him as the Lamb of God, before bearing fairly lengthy witness to Him. Jesus’ role as the Lamb of God is an important element in the Fourth Evangelist’s writings. Scholars seem to disagree about its exact origins, but it seems to combine a reference to the paschal lamb, slain at Passover to rescue the Israelites from slavery, with the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah, led like a lamb to the slaughter.

Then in the Apocalypse, John (if he is the author) depicts the Lamb as the central figure in heaven, the object of adoration—and therefore as God—and also as the bridegroom of the Church in its perfection.

All of this comes together for us in the Mass, at the moment of communion, when the priest holds up the consecrated Host and proclaims “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb.”

What are the implications of this? The sacred Host is the person whom John the Baptist pointed out. That Host is the “one who existed” before the Baptist: therefore, this is God, because it is only as God that Jesus existed before him. Indeed, the Baptist goes on, effectively, to affirm that this is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, on whom he himself saw the Spirit descend like a dove after the Father’s voice had attested to Him.

That person is also the true paschal lamb, whose blood was shed to rescue the Israelites from slavery, and is the Suffering Servant foretold by the prophet. He is, as John the Baptist declares, the one who takes away the sins of the world. This is the person who is before us under the appearances of bread and wine, whom we are about to receive, to absorb into our bodies, to possess in such a way that He becomes part of us.

There is the further point of our being called to the supper of the Lamb. There are two meanings both concealed and expressed there. We are sharing in the Last Supper, that sacrificial meal in which the Lord first gave Himself to His disciples, that meal which reached completion in His death and resurrection. We are also anticipating the marriage supper, about which we read in the Apocalypse, when the Lamb of God is united definitively to His bride, the Church, and we share in the Messianic banquet foretold by Isaiah and foreshadowed in the miraculous feedings about which we hear in the Gospels.

These few sentences spoken before communion are overwhelming in their implications. They arise from the words of John the Baptist and the writings of John the Evangelist, and they link, implicitly at least, with the Epiphany, the showing forth of God the Son.

Baptism 2020

Baptism of the Lord 2020

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts 10:34-38; Matt 3:13-17

So we come to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, originally the central and most important part of the Epiphany, when Jesus was revealed—shown forth—as the Beloved Son of the Father. The three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all describe the event, whilst John reports John the Baptist’s account of it. In other words, all four evangelists considered Jesus’ Baptism important enough to be included in some way in their Gospels.

It is worth comparing the accounts given by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. All of them describe the Baptist’s declaration of his own unworthiness in comparison with Jesus: only Matthew describes him as trying to dissuade Jesus from being baptised, saying “It is I who need Baptism from you, and yet you come to me.”

Scripture scholars suggest that the Early Church became embarrassed at Jesus’ having received John’s baptism, which was a baptism of repentance, as Jesus had nothing of which to repent. Jesus’ reply to John—“Leave it thus for the time being: it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands”—suggests that Our Lord wished to show that He was a pious, observant Jew. It also shows that, as one of the early Fathers of the Church pointed out, we shouldn’t be worried when Jesus does something which seems beneath His dignity as Son of God. As the Letter to the Philippians makes clear, the whole point of the Incarnation is that the Son of God was willing to abandon His dignity.

(It is not totally beside the point that someone was telling me last week about his own Anglican parish church, which had plans to make alterations to the church building. These plans were delayed because one lady objected to putting a toilet in a church, presumably on the grounds that it was improper, irreligious. It was almost as if she could not bring herself to believe that Our Lord Himself would have needed to carry out normal bodily functions.)

Be that as it may, Jesus clearly chose to be baptised. All three synoptic Gospels declare that the baptism was completed: Matthew and Mark speak of Jesus coming up from the water, whilst Luke comments that Jesus,”after His own baptism, was at prayer.”  All three then describe the Holy Spirit descending on Him like a dove, and the Father’s voice identifying Him as “my Son, the Beloved”, on whom His favour rests.

Whilst Matthew reports the Father’s voice as declaring “THIS is my Son, the Beloved: my favour rests on HIM”, the other two have Him address the statement personally to Jesus: “YOU are my Son, the Beloved. My favour rests on YOU.” This implies that the Father’s words also apply to us. We are baptised into Jesus: we are parts of His Body, and so the Father is saying to each one of us: “You are my son/daughter, the Beloved. My favour rests on you.”

What we have here is the first account of the Holy Trinity “in action” as it were, as the Spirit descends on the Son, and the Father acknowledges that same Son, recognising and affirming that the man Jesus is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, present in human form. That is an awesome moment in our understanding of Jesus, recognising that He is both God and man.

There are also implications for the direction His earthly life is to take. The Father is pointing Jesus out as the Suffering Servant of the Lord spoken of by the prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah). We encounter the Suffering Servant songs particularly in Holy Week, but we have heard one of them today.

According to the prophet, the Servant is, in God’s own words, “my chosen one in whom my soul delights”. This dovetails, if you will pardon the pun, with the Father’s words at the Baptism, and indicates that Jesus, the Beloved Son, is the Servant who will bring true justice, who will be “covenant of the people and light of the nations”, who will “open the eyes of the blind, free captives from prison, and those who live in darkness from the dungeon”.

Thus, Jesus the Lord is baptised to inaugurate the Kingdom of God, and we are baptised in Him to help in the building of that Kingdom.

Epiphany

Epiphany 2020

Twenty one years ago, I was looking after Carnforth parish while the then parish priest was in Jerusalem. Come the Feast of the Epiphany, came Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School to morning Mass.

I read the Gospel, and everybody settled down. “Right,” I said, “can anybody tell me anything about today’s Feast?” A forest of hands shot up, with one boy fractionally in the lead.

“Yes” I said encouragingly. “It’s the Feast of the Epiphany,” came the reply, “which means ‘showing forth’, and it’s important  because it shows that Jesus came not only for the Jews but for the Gentiles as well, which is us, because the Wise Men were Gentiles.”

BINGO! Got it in one. The children of Our Lady of Lourdes knew their onions, and knew their history, and their theology as well. St. Paul himself couldn’t have put it better.

In fact, St. Paul put it in a very similar way, as we have just heard: “It means that pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body....”

Epiphany is the feast of the Gentiles, of the pagans, of you and me. Christmas was a thoroughly Jewish affair: Mary and Joseph were Jews, Jesus was a Jew, the shepherds were Jews, and so, I daresay, was the innkeeper. The Gentiles were conspicuous by their absence. It is only with Epiphany that the net is spread wider, that the news is given, by the arrival of the Wise Men, that Jesus is the Universal Saviour, that membership of the Chosen People has been extended to the whole human race.

That is why, in the early Church, Epiphany was a more important feast than Christmas—or rather, Epiphany encompassed Christmas. Today’s feast, in fact, comprised three parts: the showing forth of the Saviour first to Jews and then to Gentiles; the Baptism of the Lord, showing Him forth as the Beloved Son of the Father; and the marriage feast at Cana, showing forth His glory, as God.

Round about the fourth century, Christmas became established as a feast in its own right, and gradually overshadowed Epiphany, which lost the elements of the Baptism, formerly the most important part, and the marriage feast, though these are now gradually creeping back.

Is there anything else which is of significance about today’s feast? Of the gifts, gold is generally interpreted as being offered to Jesus as a King, frankincense to Him as God, and myrrh to prepare for His burial, but I am indebted to a priest friend who informed me that St. Bernard interpreted them in more mundane terms: gold to meet the family’s material needs, incense to ward off smells, and myrrh as an antidote to nappy rash. You pays your money and you takes your choice!

What though of the First Reading and Psalm? It is to the prophecies of Isaiah and to the psalm that we owe the idea of the visitors being kings, rather than Wise Men (Magi) as Matthew describes them. “Before Him, all kings shall fall prostrate, all nations shall serve Him.”

Perhaps, though, the nations are more significant than the kings. Do all nations serve the Lord? “Far from it” we would have to say. There are demagogic politicians in central Europe, in Italy, and in the United States who invoke the name of Jesus to justify their own policies, but this is effectively a form of blasphemy, as was the case when Franco in Spain and the Latin American dictators did the same. Ireland attempted to build a nation on Christ-like lines, but this has unravelled spectacularly in recent years, not least because of the revelations of clerical child abuse.

Perhaps Isaiah’s vision, and that of the Psalmist, will have to wait until the fullness of the Kingdom before they are realised: meanwhile, we must accept that the Redeemer will continue to reside, as He was born, among the poor; that the importance of the Epiphany visitors lay in their status as Gentiles rather than in their rank; that it is in our inclusion among the people of God and in the hiddenness of the Kingdom that we must rejoice.

Fourth Sunday of Advent Year A

4th Sunday of Advent 2019

Isaiah 7: 10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matt 1: 18-25

“Never underestimate the determination of A QUIET MAN.” These were the words of a politician some years ago. Whether he has remained determined, I do not know. Unfortunately, he has not remained quiet, but has had, perhaps, rather too much to say for himself, but that is beside the point. I quote him, not for his own sake, but because his words apply to that quiet hero, St. Joseph.

We do not have a single recorded word of Joseph’s, yet he is truly a hero of the Incarnation, the coming of God in our human flesh. The first thing said about him by Matthew, is that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was betrothed to him. Immediately after saying this, Matthew puts the proverbial cat among the equally proverbial pigeons by stating: “but before they came to live together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.”

Now bear in mind that Matthew does not tell us about the Annunciation or the Visitation, narratives with which we are familiar from the Gospel of Luke. He comes out straightaway with this bald statement. It is difficult for us to imagine how it would have struck us, if we had not already heard Luke’s account, if this had been our first inkling of Mary’s pregnancy.

It is, perhaps, easier to imagine how it must have struck Joseph: with shock, dismay, horror, one feels. How is he to react? He was dikaios, says Matthew. The Jerusalem Bible translates this as “a man of honour”, but this misses the point. Dikaios means “just”. What makes someone just? “Faith” says the Book of Genesis, speaking about Abraham (Gen 15:6), a point taken up and emphasised by St. Paul (Romans 4:1-12).

Joseph’s faith is perhaps, not as evident as his kindness, in his initial decision to divorce Mary informally, but it becomes clear in all his subsequent actions, as he responds, not only to the initial summons of the angel “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife”, but to the further angelic  commands which were to follow. Indeed, Joseph may be said to surpass Abraham as the archetype of the person who is justified by faith.

Is there a message there for us? I would suggest that there are two: firstly, that we too are called to be justified by faith. We too must put our trust in God, especially at those times when faith is difficult, as it must have been for Joseph.

Are there times when you struggle to trust in God? Times when everything seems to be going wrong, when you see no way forward, when your hopes and dreams appear to have been dashed? Think then of Joseph, whose plans apparently lay in ruins, whose trust appeared to have been betrayed, for whom the way forward presented itself as an act of justice, but also as an act without hope. Yet Joseph put his trust in God, and his faith and hope were vindicated—that same faith and hope which are demanded of us, at the very time when they seem most difficult to maintain.

The second message is not to neglect Joseph, who deserves to be honoured for his role in the Incarnation, who can be for us a powerful patron, who received the message that Mary’s Son was to be Emmanuel “a name which means God is with us”.

And that is the ultimate message of today’s Gospel: that God is with us. Not “God was with us” or “God will be with us” true though both those statements are, but “God is with us”, here and now, in every circumstance and every situation of our lives. If we, like Joseph, are people who are just, who have faith, sometimes against the odds, God will occasionally allow us the faintest glimpse of His presence; but whether we glimpse Him or not, we can be assured that He is there, for He became one of us, born of Mary, cared for and protected by Joseph.

Third Sunday of Advent Year A

3rd Sunday of Advent 2019

Isaiah 35: 1-6, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

Lord, give me patience, and do it now! Are you a patient person? Can you wait in hope, or do you, like so many in our world today, demand instant gratification?

One problem which we have with patience is that instant gratification is, in so many ways, available, and so we come to expect it as the natural order of things. You switch on the TV and without leaving your armchair, you have access to programmes from all over the world. You don’t even have to wait for the telly to warm up any more, as used to be the case when we had one, or at most two channels, and the notice “There is a fault: do not adjust your set” was a regular companion to daily viewing.

You push a button or two on your phone, and are instantly in touch with whomever you wish—no need to write a letter, and wait for an answer. You want some food that is out of season, and you can guarantee that you will find it in the supermarket, along with inexpensive clothes, toys for the children, and anything else you may have persuaded yourself that you need. You buy tickets on line , without the need to queue; we all heat our homes at the press of a switch; you click another switch for instant hot water. There is rarely a need to wait for anything—apart from a doctor’s appointment—and the art of waiting patiently has largely been lost.

It was not always thus. The Jewish people, whom Isaiah is encouraging with the vision of a joyful return to their homeland, had waited through seventy years of exile in Babylon: indeed the original exiles, and even their children, would have died with their hopes unfulfilled. Nor should we forget that the instant gratification which we take for granted  is not available to millions of people today, not least to refugees and exiles, to the victims of war, to the poorly paid and the unemployed even in our own society.

Presumably farmers, like those about whom James wrote, still have to do their share of waiting, and there are many who share the condition of John the Baptist, languishing in a prison cell and longing for freedom.

For John, this must have been particularly disturbing. He had confidently introduced Jesus to the world as its Messiah, who would usher in the Kingdom of God, who would overthrow tyrants and set free the downtrodden; yet, not only are the tyrants still in power, but he, the appointed messenger and forerunner, is now the victim of one of them, uncertain of his fate, trodden down by those whose sins he had denounced in the name of the Kingdom—small wonder that he has begun to entertain doubts.

What is Jesus’ response? Effectively, He calls for patience. He points to the signs of the Kingdom—“the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor”—the Kingdom which is present in embryo, though its glory is not yet, and He tells John not to lose faith, even though gratification is delayed.

As it was for John, so it is for us. We too must have eyes to see the signs of the Kingdom already present, where disease is conquered, goodness and kindness are displayed, welcome and generosity are shown, and the Good News is still proclaimed, however few are receptive to it. But also like John, we must have patience, and not lose faith. Rather we should do our best to shed our desire for instant gratification, acknowledging the God who is present in small things, whose Kingdom has indeed taken root, but who will bring that Kingdom to fulfilment in His own way, and His own time.

Lord, give me patience, but do it when and as you will.

Second Sunday of Advent year A

2nd Sunday of Advent 2019

Isaiah 11: 1-10;  Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12

“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” That is John the Baptist’s message as recorded in today’s Gospel. It is also the message of Jesus. Matthew records Our Lord’s basic proclamation, which scripture scholars refer to as the “kerygma”,  in exactly the same words as those used by the Baptist: Mark varies the words only slightly.

So if the Kingdom of heaven (or of God, as Mark puts it) is close at hand, we may be excused for asking “Where is it?” We read Isaiah’s idyllic prophecy of the Kingdom, to be established, it seems, by the Messiah, when the whole of creation will be in harmony, and we scratch our heads in bewilderment.

Nature continues to be red in tooth and claw: meanwhile, humankind, the pinnacle of creation, never ceases to show itself capable of unspeakable vileness. We did not need further terrorist atrocities to remind us that even religion, supposedly rooted in the worship of God, can be a source of practically sub-human evil.

We look around the world, and may gain the impression that violence, hatred, selfishness and sin hold sway almost everywhere. The Holy Land, where John and Jesus declared the closeness of the Kingdom, appears to be a crucible of hatred, with many forces dedicated to the destruction of Israel—and, by extension, of Jews—while the Israeli government, with the support of Trump’s White House, pursues ever more repressive policies towards its Arab citizens.

Latin America is a seething cauldron; China is intent on clamping down on religious freedom at home, while sabre-rattling beyond its frontiers; North Korea is apparently more unhinged than ever; a resurgent Russia seeks to resurrect the Soviet Empire; so-called “populism”, heavily laced with xenophobia, stalks the western world.

In our own country, political discourse has been replaced by vitriolic abuse on social media, on the streets, and even in Parliament; and a looming General Election gives rise to more fear than hope, as the largest parties veer to the extremes. Of the woes and sins of the Church, enough has been said to create widespread dismay.

So, whereas we may understand the Baptist’s (and Our Lord’s) call to repentance, we find it more difficult to recognise that the Kingdom is close at hand. Yet, if we accept the first part of the kerygma, we must also accept the second.

The Kingdom IS close at hand, not only because Christ has come, or even because He will come, but because He DOES come, in every moment and situation of our lives. He is, as Carlo Carretto wrote, the God who comes. He comes to us in other people—He who said “Whatever you did to the least of mine , you did to me”—He comes to us in the moments of anguish, sharing with us His own anguish in Gethsemane and on Calvary; and in the moments of joy, giving us a foretaste of the Resurrection. He comes to us in our times of prayer; in His word, spoken in the Scriptures, and in the sacrament and sacrifice of His Body and Blood and His abiding presence in the tabernacle.

As the great German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner wrote: “And your coming is neither past nor future, but the present, which has only to reach its fulfilment. Now it is still the one single hour of your Advent.”

So the Kingdom is here, and in the light of this reality, we can begin to view our world more positively. We can see the acts of kindness which take place on a large or small scale, and recognise them as signs of the Kingdom. We can see the sacrifice of the victims of the London Bridge terrorist as their final act of commitment to the reclamation of offenders, and as showing that the Kingdom, though present, is far from fully realised. And we can commit ourselves, this Advent, to a new repentance, consisting of a determination to nourish the seeds of the Kingdom, and to open our minds and hearts to recognise and receive the God who comes.

Christ the King

Christ the King 2019

2 Sam 5: 1-3; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23: 35-43.

“Ha ha” said the clown,

“Has the King lost his crown?”       and so on...

Those of you who are of a certain vintage may recall that song, a hit for Manfred Mann, with Mike D’Abo on vocals, somewhere around 1967. I can’t help feeling that there is, in some ways, more of the clown than the king about this feast, and that this has been the case since it was instituted in 1925.

Why do I say that? Even in 1925, the notion of kingship was outmoded; even in those days, the number of kings had been greatly reduced, and those who remained tended to be figureheads, rather than people of power. Since then, kingship has declined still further. Our own queen is regarded with great respect because of her personal qualities, but in general royalty is seen to belong in the pages of “Hello” magazine, rather than on the world stage.

So is this feast an anomaly? Yes, in some ways, and yet...Today’s readings suggest that, even in scriptural terms, there is something rather ridiculous about kingship.

Take the case of David. When the Israelites came to make him king after the death of Saul, he was hardly a regal figure. In effect, he was an outcast, a guerrilla leader, accompanied by a rag tag and bobtail gang of outlaws, malcontents, and general scallywags; more of a clown than a king.

And yet, he was God’s chosen instrument, anointed to be king by the prophet Samuel when still a boy, long before the death of Saul. He was chosen as king by God, but, at the time, his kingdom lay many years in the future.

As it was with David, so it was with Our Lord. In earthly terms, His kingship was a farce. His throne was a cross, His crown was made of thorns, His entourage consisted of two criminals, one of whom abused Him, and His royal proclamation was a calculated insult both to Him and to His race.

The sign reading “This is the King of the Jews” was clearly intended to mock Jesus, but even more was it intended to offend the Jewish people. By the time of Jesus, the whole concept of an earthly king was anathema to the Jews, who recognised God alone as their king. That a mere man, as they thought, could be described as their king was appalling, especially a man under a biblical curse, as hanging on a tree.

Yet, even more than was the case with David, this farcical king was chosen by God and predestined to reign: though, as with David, the revelation of His kingship was delayed. As the Letter to the Colossians expresses it, Jesus is the source of all creation, whose sovereignty is universal, encompassing all of time and space; and had the Jewish people but known it, they would have been justified in acknowledging this king, because He is also God.

What, though, does this feast say to us? From the 1950s and 60s, I recall a triumphalist feast of a triumphalist Church. In the afternoon, there would be a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, with the parish priest carrying the best monstrance, and arrayed in his finest cope. Recent events have destroyed any grounds we might have entertained for triumphalism: the Church has been humbled, nay humiliated.

There is nothing positive that can be said about the reasons for this—they are a source of deep shame—yet a humble Church is more in keeping with the feast than was the former splendour. Christ is indeed king, but the fullness of His reign is not yet; in this world, we come closer to His kingdom when we are seen as clowns.

33rd Week

33rd Sunday 2019

Malachi 3:19-20; 2Thess 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

This is the penultimate Sunday of the Church’s year, and as always on this Sunday, our thoughts are directed to the Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell. In this part of the world, it seems appropriate: the year is visibly dying around us. The days are short; the temperature is falling, though not as fast as the leaves; coughs and splutters are the order of the day, as the doctors’ surgeries urge us to have flu jabs.

In the dark days and long nights of winter, it becomes so much easier to recognise that we are not constructed to last: that we have built-in obsolescence.

Our readings reinforce what nature is telling us. Malachi prophesies the day of the Lord, a day of judgement, which will separate the wheat from the chaff; and we would be very foolish if we were so smug as to assume that we inevitably fall into the former category. Do we genuinely have fear of the Lord: not a servile fear, but a reverence which seeks God’s will in all things? Catholics generally have a healthy distrust of those self-satisfied people who ask “Are you saved?”, in supreme self-confidence that they are. We can only answer “By God’s grace, I hope so.”

St. Paul reminds us to be constantly doing the Lord’s work. This does not mean making a nuisance of ourselves, like those pedlars of instant salvation; but seeing God in every moment, every situation of our lives, and seeking to respond to His call. It is interesting that Paul urges us “to go on quietly working”, not making a show or fuss about what we are doing for the Lord, but simply getting on with the job.

Then we come to the Gospel, where Our Lord warns the disciples that even the Temple, the awesome symbol of God’s presence in the nation, will not last. In what Jesus says about the end of things, there is always a double strand. He speaks first of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Temple, which was to happen in 70 AD, as the Romans ruthlessly suppressed the ill-judged Jewish revolt; but He looks beyond that to the end of all things, and it is not always easy to separate the two strands.

We can see, though, how this double strand plays out in our own lives. For each of us individually, the day of our death and judgement will come. This will mark, not the end of the world, but the end of our earthly pilgrimage; yet it can serve as a reminder that the end of all things will eventually arrive.

Do we see other signs in our contemporary world? There are more wars and revolutions than you can shake the proverbial stick at. People thought of the First World War as “the war to end war”, yet in a little over twenty years, the world was convulsed by an even more bitter and destructive conflict.

Those of you who remember the 50s and 60s will recall how we lived in the shadow of the Bomb, expecting nuclear destruction to rain on us at any time. The fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to herald a new era of peace, but that proved to be a false dawn. And today the threat of ecological disaster menaces us with a destruction more comprehensive than any brought about by armaments.

Persecutions too, as prophesied by Jesus, are plentiful. Apparently the twentieth century produced more Christian martyrs than all previous centuries combined, and the trend continues. Wherever we look, we see signs of impermanence, and of the limits of time.

So how do we respond? As both St. Paul and Our Lord instruct us, we go on quietly working, fulfilling God’s call to us in the here and now. As we do so, we keep in mind that we live each day in the light of eternity; that whilst we strive to build God’s Kingdom on earth, we recognise that it will reach fulfilment only in the world to come. And while we live in reverence and awe, we do so trusting always in the Lord’s words: “Your endurance will win you your lives.”

32nd Week

32nd Sunday 2019

2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

“As I was going to St. Ives”, you know the rest, don’t you? “I met a man with seven wives.                                

“Every wife had seven sacks, and in the sacks were seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, wives: how many were going to St. Ives?” the answer, of course, being “one” because, if you met them, they must have been COMING FROM St. Ives.

It is a riddle, intended to catch you out, and the same is true of the tall story told by the Sadducees. They are not looking for a serious answer to what is a frivolous question: they are simply trying to catch Jesus out.

And Jesus is weight for them. He is not so naive as to attempt to answer in their own terms. Instead He cuts through their supposed argument by referring to something which He could presume that they would accept: namely God’s appearance to Moses in the burning bush. God speaks of Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because He is God of the living, they must be alive and must therefore have shared in the resurrection of the dead.

It may not seem the most convincing or earth-shattering of arguments, but it is more than the Sadducees deserve. It may at least teach them not to be smart-alicks. At the same time, it has a serious point, in asserting the truth of the resurrection of the dead, an important element not least in this month of November, when we pray for those who have gone before us on the journey to God.

You will probably encounter people who will play similar games to try to catch you out. Many years ago, I met a man who claimed to be a freethinker, which seemed to mean that his mind ran on very narrow lines through an extremely dark tunnel. He claimed to want to know where all the dead people are now. I made some sort of brief remark about the difference between time and eternity, but I wasn’t going to be fooled into attempting some sort of serious explanation. He wasn’t looking for an answer: he simply thought that he could score a cheap point. With people like that, I think that the message is “Don’t be drawn in.”

I see that Dicky Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, who seems to spend less time doing science than worrying about the God in whom he claims not to believe, has brought out yet another book on the subject of God. There will be some serious points in it, which people of faith will need to consider in order to refute them, but there is certainly, as always, a considerable amount of nonsense, of tilting at windmills, of demolishing Aunt Sallies, versions of God in which no Christian believes.

He apparently attacks the doctrine of the Atonement by describing it as a punishment for “the sin of Adam who didn’t exist” as he puts it. Hang on, Dicky! Adam is Hebrew for “man”, for “human being”. So you are saying that human beings didn’t exist? So what are you?

Of course he is playing his usual game of pretending that Christians read the creation stories literally, rather than as poetic accounts of underlying truths. Clearly, human beings have sinned, and have fallen away from God. It is unworthy of an intelligent man like Professor Dawkins to ignore wilfully the genuine Christian understanding, and to substitute his own version of Christian belief, which he can then knock down. In that respect, he is simply a successor of the biblical Sadducees, playing word games.

So what can we take from today’s readings? It is spelt out by the fourth brother of the Maccabees saga, and reinforced by Our Lord: it is nothing less than our belief in the resurrection of the dead.

31st Week

31st Sunday 2019

Wisdom 11:22-12:2; 2 Thess 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10

Before turning to the Gospel, I would like to ponder St. Paul’s words at the beginning of today’s extract from his Second Letter to the Thessalonians.

“We pray continually that God will make you worthy of His call, and by His power fulfil all your desires for goodness, and complete all that you have been doing through faith.”

Are you aware that you have been called by God—in fact, that you are constantly being called by God? Whatever situation you are in, whether you are fully active or constrained by poor health; whether you are married, single, widowed, in consecrated life or whatever; whether you are serene, or struggling, or conscious of failure; God is with you, and is calling you, in every moment, to be conscious of His grace, to be a source of blessing to those around you, to be a sign to others of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s presence everywhere and at all times.

Do you have a desire for goodness? All of us are conscious of sin and failure, but do you genuinely desire to do what is right, to fulfil God’s will? If so, God will not let you down. Despite setbacks and failures, He will fill you with His goodness.

Have you been doing things through faith? If you have been praying, if you have been showing love to others, if you have been giving of your best, then you have been working in faith, and God will complete your efforts.

That opening half sentence from St. Paul chimes in with the other two readings, and combines with them to encourage us, to put heart into us, which is the literal meaning of “encourage”, from the Latin word for a heart. “You love all that exists,” says the author of the Book of Wisdom, addressing God. That means that God is on our side, that we are on a winner, that He will not let us fall out of His hands, that He will look favourably on our feeble efforts and fulfil them.

Even when we fail, God will correct us gently, and lead us back to Himself. “Little by little...you correct those who offend”—no suggestion of punishment, or of harsh measures, but of a gentle and gradual calling back to Himself—“so that they may abstain from evil, and trust in you, Lord.” Sinners are to be enabled to abstain from sin because they know that they can trust in God, that He loves them, that He is on their side.

There is nothing there that we do not know already, yet I wonder whether we really take it to heart: whether we are conscious of God’s love for us, or whether we are more inclined to trust our negative feelings of fear and self-reproach. Yet these words are borne out by the Gospel, when Jesus asserts that “the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.”

In other words, the whole point of the Incarnation, of God becoming human, was salvation. God, in the person of Jesus, came to save, not to condemn. He looks kindly on our efforts—probably more kindly than we look upon them ourselves—and He calls us gently to Himself.

To what does He call us? To welcome Him into the house which is our deepest self; to feast with Him, in the Eucharist, and in the Messianic banquet of heaven; to share our joyful welcome, the welcome which Zacchaeus gave, with our brothers and sisters who gather at the Eucharistic table.

“Hurry, because I must stay at your house today” was Jesus’ call to Zacchaeus: “Hurry, because I must stay at your house today” is Jesus’ call to us. Let us hurry to receive Him at the Eucharistic banquet: then let us hurry to take Him into our homes, where He will indeed “make us worthy of His call, fulfil all our desires for goodness, and complete all that we have been doing through faith.”

30th Week

30th Sunday 2019

Ecclesiasticus 35:12-14, 16-19; 2Tim 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

Who are you, then; the tax collector or the Pharisee? “The tax collector” you will say, “I am a sinner. I don’t give myself airs. I have no illusions about myself.” Mmm... I wish I could say the same.

Sometimes, every once in a while, you can find yourself in a situation in which you are confronted with truths about yourself, of which you hadn’t been conscious. Some of these truths may be pleasant: other people may reveal, for instance, that you have helped them in ways of which you were not aware. In one of my previous parishes was a lady who would frequently express her gratitude for something which I had, allegedly, said to her in the confessional about her son. From that day to this, I have no recollection of ever saying anything about her son, even to the extent of wondering whether she was mistaking me for another priest, but she was convinced, and I can only hope that, when she died, she put in a good word about me to the Lord.

On the other hand, people or circumstances may reveal to us aspects of ourselves with which we are less comfortable, things of which we may have been blissfully unaware, things which may shock us. “O would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as ithers see us” as Robert Burns wrote.

If there are less savoury aspects of our character or conduct which come to light at certain times, we can guarantee that there are other such aspects which continue to remain hidden. Purgatory will, I suspect, largely entail being faced with these, coming to terms with their existence, and having them healed by God’s searing grace.

Very often, I fear, I am prepared to admit, perhaps to my confessor, certainly to myself, those sins with which I am reasonably comfortable, while perhaps burying things which would, and should, cause greater unease. When people come to the sacrament, and make the same confession which they have been making since childhood, I sometimes struggle to help them to go deeper, to recognise the deeper-lying sinfulness of which the lies and the lost temper are merely the symptoms.

And what about the Pharisee? “Oh, he’s a right so-and-so”, you may say; “self-satisfied, smug, sanctimonious, a real hypocrite.” Excuse me, but who gave you the right to judge? That’s what’s interesting about the tax collector: he doesn’t judge. He doesn’t say “I thank you, God, that I am not like this Pharisee here.” He is genuinely concerned about his own sins, his own condition as a sinner.

Can any of us say, hand on heart, that we are actually like the tax collector in that respect? You have head me criticise people who want to change the Church into a church of the scribes and Pharisees, focused on rules, rather than on the person of Jesus Christ, on the love of God and neighbour. Do I actually have the right to say that? Is it for me to judge? No, is it heck, any more than it is the Pharisee’s right to judge the tax collector; yet how many of our conversations, particularly on church related matters, are actually a litany of criticisms?

Often, when we identify with the tax collector, we are really behaving more like the Pharisee, wearing our admission of sinfulness almost as a badge of honour, using it as a stick with which to beat the Pharisees whom we see around us, failing to recognise that this is not what the tax collector does.

So should we content ourselves with echoing the tax collector’s prayer “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”? Yes, provided we mean it sincerely, and are not using it as an excuse to avoid going deep, to evade the responsibility of unearthing and facing the reality of our sins. I think that we need that prayer in conjunction with an openness which allows God, and other people, to reveal to us what, in our own individual case, it really means.

29th Week

29th Sunday 2019

Exodus 17:8-13; 2Tim 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

“I want justice from you against my enemy.” From how many hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world, and even in our own country, must that cry rise daily? Unjust judges, unjust juries, unjust regimes, unjust religious authorities abound, and the innocent fall victim to them in numbers beyond reckoning.

We can think of the victims of ISIS and other terrorist groups, of the Iranian/British woman Mrs.Ratcliffe in prison in Iran on trumped up charges, of the Uighurs in “re-education camps” in China, of the prisoners in the USA, often wrongly convicted, who remain on Death Row for decades, of priests and others falsely accused, wrongly convicted, or sidelined by the authorities. All of these and many more are crying out for justice, yet their prayers seem to strike a brazen heaven, to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Why does this happen, and where is God for the millions who are oppressed throughout the world? The simple answer, which may appear simplistic, yet which is in reality profound in its implications, is that He is there with them, as He is not with their oppressors. In the prison cells, in the torture centres, among the people who lack the necessities of life, is the suffering Christ, bearing the torment with them, working in and through them, giving them the courage and hope to survive, fulfilling Gethsemane and Calvary for the redemption of the world.

Some years ago, I was lent a book written by a priest who had been arrested by the Soviet authorities and sent to Siberia. In the apparent hopelessness of his situation, he gradually became aware of the presence of Christ, and of opportunities of living out his priesthood in new, unconventional and yet deeply Christ-like and effective ways. In retrospect, he would probably consider this to have been the most fruitful period of his life, despite the physical and mental scars with which he was left.

Eventually, his cries for justice were heard and he was released, but this is not always the case. There is a danger that we can use stories like this for cheap consolation, telling ourselves that good will come out of them, excusing ourselves from taking them sufficiently to heart.

Jesus promises that God “will see justice done, and done speedily”. If and when this is not happening, it is up to us to redouble our efforts on behalf of the victims of injustice, doing whatever we can in practical ways, by lobbying, writing letters, signing petitions, and above all by praying, by pestering God, by making a nuisance of ourselves by our constant prayer to the Father and our invocation of Our Lady and the saints.

We are the chosen, to whom Our Lord refers as crying to God day and night. Like Moses, we must intercede constantly, and when our arms grow weary, as Moses’ arms grew weary, we must enlist the support of others.

And we must not lose faith. “When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?” asks Jesus. That question kept drumming in my head in the early 80s, during my brief spell carrying out parish missions, as I knocked on the doors of nominal Catholics fifty times a day, finding faith behind perhaps four or five of those doors. Almost forty years on, as we are all aware, the situation is much worse, Jesus’ question still more urgent. Perhaps it is no surprise that, as faith weakens, justice becomes more difficult to obtain.

So we must never lose heart, as St.Luke comments at the beginning of today’s Gospel. We at least must remain faithful—faithful to God, and faithful to all the victims of injustice, crying ceaselessly to God on their behalf, and crying too to their oppressors, that the justice of God may prevail, not only in eternity, but also on this earth.

28th Week

28th Sunday 2019

2 Kings 5:14-17; 2Tim 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

If “faith” was the key word last week, I would suggest that, this week, there are two words: “gratitude” and, less obviously, “inclusivity”.

Let’s take the case of Naaman first. He is grateful for his cure: grateful to Elisha, the human agent of that cure, but grateful also to God, the author of it: hence his request for a quantity of the soil of Israel to take back with him to Syria. The people of those days believed that they should worship the gods of the land in which they were. Naaman takes the soil of Israel in order that, when he stands on it, back in Syria, he will technically be in Israel, and so entitled to worship the God of Israel who, he has come to believe, is the one true God.

Moving from Naaman to ourselves, we are faced with the question: am I a grateful person? Am I grateful to those around me, and am I grateful to God? This goes deeper than the surface question: do I remember to say “thank you”? That is an important question, and we need always to remember our thanks to God, as well as to the people who help us; but there is a more fundamental issue: is gratitude built into my psyche, into my very being?

There is always a danger of our being negative people, of seeing the difficulties and never the opportunities; of recognising the pain, but never the blessing. There is a deeply rooted human tendency, especially, I suspect, in the western world, to grumble, and grumbling is very destructive, destructive of harmony and well-being, destructive of ourselves. Grumbling is the way we create hell for ourselves, because ultimately we become incapable of recognising our blessings, of seeing goodness in anything.

This doesn’t mean that we should become Pollyannas, relentlessly cheerful, refusing to face difficulties. That attitude can be as destructive as its opposite. If you want an illustration of that, read GK Chesterton’s Fr. Brown story “The three tools of death”. What is demanded of us is that we have a pre-disposition to recognise goodness, and to rejoice in it: to be aware that, whatever we suffer, we are blessed in so many ways, and to have an inbuilt tendency to thank God, the author of our blessings, and to thank people who minister those blessings to us.

So much for gratitude—what about inclusivity? Notice that it is a foreigner, a Syrian, who is cured, someone who is not a member of the chosen people. Our Lord was to point this out to the people of His own day, reminding them that “there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.” This infuriated the people so much that they tried to kill Him, because their own attitude was narrow, exclusive, blinkered.

We see something similar happening in our own day, when the Pope is striving to broaden people’s horizons, to encourage us to recognise the breadth of God’s mercy, and he is coming under relentless attack, particularly in publications emanating from North America which are constantly sowing seeds of disunity. As Abbot Cuthbert pointed out recently, this is the work of the devil. These publications, sincere though they may, are literally diabolical, in the fullest sense of that word.

That same inclusivity on God’s part is found in today’s Gospel episode, in which Jews are cured along with a non-Jew, a Samaritan, a heretic. It is ironic that it should be this outsider who shows gratitude both to Jesus and to the Father.

What is the reason for the apparent lack of gratitude on the part of the chosen people who, incidentally, have been at one with the Samaritan in their suffering? Sadly, it is actually their religious attitude which causes the problem. They have to receive clearance from the priest before they can be re-admitted to the community, and they are so focused on this that they neglect the call to gratitude. We see the same problem in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the priest and the Levite are so concerned not to incur ritual defilement that they ignore the wounded man.

Religious observance is of vital importance, but it must be an expression of our inner attitudes, and must never be allowed to hinder the practice of virtue. Gratitude to others, and especially to God, must be part of this inner attitude, a God whose mercy is inclusive: if that is not present, to be expressed in our religious observance, then the latter will be empty—nevertheless, we must never forget the importance of that observance.

27th Week

27th Sunday 2019

Habbakuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2Tim 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10

“Faith” seems to be the key word in our scripture readings today: “faith” not so much in the sense of “belief that” but “belief in”, trust in God, reliance on Him, confidence that, however tough the going may be, He will be with us, and He will bring us through.

I don’t know how you feel, but I can’t help identifying with the entire complaint, if that is the word, which Habbakuk utters.

“How long, Lord, am I to cry for help

While you will not listen;

To cry ‘Opression’ in your ear,

And you will not save?”

Oppression does appear to be rife throughout the world. Whether it is the oppression of religious and racial minorities in so many countries; the oppression of the poor by governments and wealthy corporations as, for instance, in the Amazon Basin; or the oppression of those who are falsely accused and denied justice in this country, oppression seems to hold sway.

“Why do you set injustice before me?

Why do you look on where there is tyranny?”

Why indeed? Justice seems very difficult to attain, especially for those who lack the financial resources to buy what may pass for justice. The powers-that-be seem very little interested in justice, and those who are denied justice have no recourse.

“Outrage and violence, this is all I see

All is contention and discord flourishes.”

That seems to sum up the political discourse in the country at the moment. You may well, like me, be shocked by the bitterness and hatred which characterise the current political shouting match, which cannot be called a debate, because a debate entails a willingness to listen. Ordinary decent people seem to be inflamed by hatred of those who hold views different from their own. The word “traitor” is bandied about, a very destructive word indeed.

Those who take a particular viewpoint, whether they be politicians or ordinary citizens, may be mistaken, they may be wrong-headed, they may be self-seeking, but they are entitled to a degree of respect: to descend to the levels of abuse which we are hearing shames us as a nation.

So where do we go from here? The scriptures are very clear: we have faith. We put our trust in God. “The upright will live by their faithfulness” says Habbakuk.

Does this mean that we sit back and rely on God to sort things out? Surely it does not. We take on the role of the servants in the Gospel, who work for the Lord, who realise that they can make only a limited contribution, who recognise that they are “unprofitable servants” as the Greek text actually says.

We do our best, recognising that we have received the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of power and love and self-control” as St. Paul wrote to Timothy. That is what the Pope is doing in calling an Extraordinary Synod on the Amazon. That is why he constantly speaks out on behalf of migrants and refugees, and why he is always seeking to build bridges with Muslim leaders.

That is why some of us are pressing the bishops to be more pro-active on behalf of those who are falsely accused. That is also why all of us must be peacemakers in our own particular circles, why we must avoid inflammatory language, why we must try to calm others when they lack self-control, to encourage everyone to recognise the humanity and intrinsic goodness of those from whom they differ.

And we must pray. We do not expect God to wave a magic wand, but we ask Him to make use of our own small efforts, and to touch hearts and minds, trusting that He hears our prayers.

26th Sunday

26th Sunday 2019

Amos 6:1, 4-7; I Tim 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

Last Monday, as the community here knows, was a difficult day for me. I had to return to my old parish to celebrate the funeral Mass of a young man who had died at the age of 24 in a tragic accident, just weeks before he was due to be married.

I felt that there was little that I could say without sounding trite or patronising, so after a very few words about the Mass readings, I went to the congregation to ask Michael’s family to express briefly their thoughts and feelings about him. His fiancée couldn’t bring herself to speak, but his mother, father, brother and two sisters all had their say.

From all of them it was clear how highly Michael was regarded, how deeply he was loved. His sixteen year old sister commented “He was an annoying big brother, but the best big brother anyone could have.” At this point, her mother chipped in: “Don’t forget Andrew.” “Oh yes, him and Andrew,” a correction which brought rare laughter on an occasion when many were in tears, myself included at one point.

Now the family must adjust to a normality which will never be normal, as a vital component is missing, something of which his father David will be reminded every moment of every day, as Michael used to work with him on the farm. If you can spare some prayers for the Gornall family of Claughton (pronounced Clyton) you will be performing a work of charity.

“Fine,” you may say, “but what has that to do with the parable of Lazarus?” In a way, the family is what, in the science experiments of your and my schooldays, used to be called a control. I am sure that I can say that there is no Lazarus in that family; because, let’s face it, Lazarus isn’t only the homeless man begging in the city centre or the hungry child in the disaster zone. He IS these, but he is more. He is the awkward one , the outsider, the sore thumb, the difficult member of the family, the community, the neighbourhood.

Lazarus comes in both sexes and all ages. Maybe nobody is cruel to him/her, but remember: the rich man in the parable wasn’t cruel. Either he didn’t notice Lazarus, or he noticed him but chose to ignore him—and yet he was condemned.

Perhaps it is important for each of us to ask ourselves: is there a Lazarus in my circle, someone whom it isn’t easy to get on with? If so, what is my attitude to him/her? If we think about it, we may be shocked by the answer.

At the moment, I am one of a number of people trying to support a particular Lazarus in the person of a priest serving a long prison sentence for an offence which, not only did he not commit, but it would have been impossible for him to commit. Our bishop, and the Archbishop of Liverpool, are being very positive in their attitude, but the priest’s own bishop has taken on the role of the rich man in the parable, doing nothing for Lazarus,  parroting the claim “We have to trust the Justice System. There is no reason not to trust the Justice System.”

In response to that, I was able to quote to him no less an authority than the recently retired Detective Sergeant from the Cumbria Constabulary PPU, the unit which deals with sexual allegations and offences, who commented, “This is the one offence where you are guilty until proven innocent. You cannot rely on juries.”

I also pointed out to the bishop in question that it will be very serious if, on the Day of Judgement, the only person willing to speak for him should be Pontius Pilate. Had Bishop Swarbrick not undertaken to arrange a meeting to seek a way of working together to help Lazarus, and suggested that, in the meantime, it may be best not to contact the rich man, I might have added a few choice words about today’s parable.

There is many a Lazarus in the world. Do we notice him/her? If not, why not? And do we do our utmost to help?

25th Sunday

25th Sunday 2019

Amos 8:4-7; 1Tim 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

Oh come on, St. Luke. Play the game! That’s three particularly difficult Gospels in recent weeks. What on earth do we make of this one? Lord, whatever did you have in mind when you told this parable?

One practical point to begin with: some scholars have suggested that what the steward was doing was to reduce his own commission, so that he wasn’t actually cheating the master. I don’t think that this holds water. Jesus calls the steward “unjust”—the Greek text actually says that the master praised the steward “of injustice”, whilst the Jerusalem Bible paraphrases by referring to the “dishonest steward”—so we have, I think, to accept that the steward was cheating.

Yet the steward is praised. To use the current expression: what is that about?

I think that it is important to notice who it is that praises him. It isn’t Jesus. Our Lord is not commending dishonesty, or encouraging us to be unjust. It is actually the master in the parable who praises the steward for his astuteness, presumably because he recognises a kindred spirit. Jesus is implying that the master has made his money by sharp practice: that in his own way, he is as much of a scallywag as the steward: that they are two of a kind.

Throughout this episode, Jesus is expressing a deep distrust of money, and of money making. He speaks of money as “tainted”, using the same word adikia (literally ‘injustice”) as He had applied to the steward. Jesus is no friend of what we now call capitalism. The extreme right wing in America has criticised the present Holy Father for many things, not least his distaste for capitalism, and he has been called a Marxist. Those same people would be utterly horrified if they actually took note of what Jesus has to say, because they would be forced to realize that the Pope is merely repeating the message of his Master, not Karl Marx, but Jesus Christ.

Our Lord accepts that money has its place in society, but warns that it has the power to corrupt its users. St. Paul followed in His footsteps, stating, not as the Andrews Sisters sang, that “money is the root of all evil”, but that “love of money is the root of all evil”. At one level, we are brought back to Our Lord’s words about “hating” in the sense of “not being possessive of” with the additional warning that money has its own particular power to do harm and to possess its users.

He goes on to say, in effect, that we must use money justly. We will understand better his instruction to make friends who will welcome us into the tents of eternity when we hear, next week, the parable of Lazarus and the rich man whose eternal fate would have been different if he had used his money to befriend Lazarus, the poor man.

In all that Our Lord has to say, there is that same concern for justice which we find in the prophets. Amos, today, is scathing about those who exploit the poor, yet we would have to admit that very little has changed. Modern slavery is a massive issue, and there are other cases of exploitation closer to home. There have been countless examples of multi-national corporations moving jobs from this country to places where they can pay lower wages, not in order to provide jobs in those countries, but simply to increase their profit margins.

But we too have questions to face about our own purchasing habits. Do we always look for “bargains” without considering whether those who produced these goods are being exploited? Do we challenge the big retailers about working conditions among their suppliers? Are we prepared to pay a little more in order that workers in developing countries may receive a fair return for their labour?

If we consider seriously today’s Gospel, we may feel that Jesus has opened a can of worms. But let’s face it: cans of worms are there to be opened. 

24th Sunday

24th Sunday 2019

Exodus 32:7-11 13-14; 1 Tim 1:2-17; Luke 15: 1-32

Gloriously encouraging readings today, speaking to us of God’s willingness to forgive—or rather, of His eagerness to forgive. The Book of Exodus relates how, in answer to Moses’ prayer, God forgave the Israelites their sin in making the golden calf. The psalm is part of the Miserere, the greatest of the penitential psalms, admitting our sins and seeking forgiveness, while St. Paul reminds us that the whole purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was to save sinners. Finally, we have those three parables of mercy from chapter 15 of St. Luke’s Gospel: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

I used to be puzzled by the story of the lost coin. I couldn’t understand why the lady threw a party which probably cost her more than the value of the lost and found coin, until someone pointed out to me that this is the very nub of the parable: that God has spent on us the life of His Son, who is worth more than all of us put together.

It became even clearer when something happened to me. It occurred in January 1977, during the long hard winter which followed the long hot summer of 1976. I was on the staff of the Junior Seminary at Upholland, responsible for the first years (Year 7 in new money: Underlow as they were known there). On a Monday afternoon we teamed up with the second years (aka Low Figures) for football, but in that freezing January, with the snow lying thickly on the pitches, footy was out of the question.

So instead we made a virtue of necessity, and went out onto the nearby golf course to sledge and hurl snowballs, spending a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half in “winter pursuits”. Come half past four or thereabouts, it was time to return to the college for tea. As we were leaving the confines of the golf course, I pushed back my cuff to check my watch and—horror of horror of unspeakable horrors—my watch wasn’t there. At some point in the last hour and a half it had slipped off my wrist, and was lying somewhere out there in the snow—and now in the dark.

I was devastated. This wasn’t just any old watch: it had been my 21st birthday present from my mother and father, and to lose it was unthinkable; but lose it I had. I spent a wretched evening and night, thinking, planning, worrying. I couldn’t afford to buy one similar, and even if I could, I would know that it wasn’t THE watch. I pestered St. Anthony fit to bust, whilst realising that it was asking a bit much, even of St. Anthony, to find a watch on a golf course in the snow.

The following morning I gave the lads Latin class off, and set out with them to search for my lost watch. Crazy wasn’t it? The proverbial needle in the equally proverbial haystack would have been kids’ stuff in comparison. Of course we didn’t find it, and I was trudging back miserably for the next lesson when I heard footsteps padding through the snow behind me.

“Father, Father, is this your watch?” and there was Bill Butterworth holding out my watch, none the worse for its night in the snow.

The lady in the parable had nothing on me. I bombarded the Lord, His mother, and St. Anthony, with “thank you” prayers. I gave the lads “prep off”, much to the disgust of the Headmaster who found them running around the place when he thought they should have had their noses to the grindstone. Could I have cared less what the Headmaster thought? Could I heck as like! Finally, I arranged a trip out for the lads on their next free afternoon, no expense spared.

Ever since then, I have understood that parable—the sheer jubilation which that lady felt on finding something precious which she had lost. And that, says Our Lord, is a pale imitation of the jubilation which God feels when he can forgive a sinner, throwing a party for the angels. You can’t beat it, can you?

23rd Sunday

23rd Sunday:    Love and hate

Wisdom 9:13-18; Philemon 9-10,12-17; Luke 14:25-33

For the second time in recent weeks we have a particularly difficult Gospel, one which puzzles us as well as presenting us with a challenge. What on earth do we make of “hating” our closest family members, and how do we reconcile the call to carry the Cross with parables which seem to urge caution and calculation?

Before we face those questions, there is something else worth noting: this passage in St. Luke’s Gospel follows immediately upon the parable of the great banquet to which all are invited, brought in from the highways and byways, the streets and the hedgerows. So the “great crowds” which are mentioned at the beginning are likely to be hoi polloi, the odds and sods who are gathered in from here, there, and everywhere, with an invitation to the banquet of the Messiah.

Now they are effectively being told that there is no such thing as a free lunch, as Jesus spells out the implications of accepting the invitation, which is truly an invitation to follow Him. What are the consequences? They involve a radical self-surrender, a wholehearted commitment to Him.

That is where the “hating” comes in. Of course, Jesus is not actually telling us to hate anybody: that would contradict the whole essence of His message, which is a call to love. The word “hate” here is a typically Semitic exaggeration, used to underline a basic point. The clue to the real meaning of the word comes in the final sentence of the passage, where Our Lord calls us to give up all our possessions. In other words, “hate” here means not to be possessive of, not to cling onto, not to make a god out of.

The follower of Jesus must not prefer anybody or anything to Him—must, in fact, obey the First Commandment, which is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. In a strange, paradoxical way, the call to “hate” is actually a call to genuine love, because to love someone involves allowing them their freedom, not attempting to control or possess them, not to cling onto them.

Possessiveness is the real obstacle to discipleship, and we can be possessive about all sorts of things. You may know people who are possessive of their children, who won’t allow them to grow up. The law of the land now recognises that there can be a destructive possessiveness in relationships, and has made “control and coercion” an offence. If any of you are followers of “The Archers”, you may recall the story of Rob and Helen, a few years ago. He was possessive and controlling of his wife who eventually stabbed him, and was acquitted. The whole story line was introduced to highlight the problem of control and coercion.

We can also be possessive of our time, of our routine, of our own way of doing things, and the irony is that, when we think that we are controlling these things, we are actually being controlled by them. Consequently, the call to “hate”, the call to take up the Cross, is actually a call to freedom, a call to liberate ourselves from the desire to possess, a desire which actually possesses us, which prevents us from being free.

This call to freedom is a radical call, one which affects the very root of our being. That is the reason for the two parables which follow, the parables which urge us, like the tower builder and the warlike king, to weigh up the consequences of our actions. Are we ready and willing to respond to the call of Jesus, the call to take up the Cross, the call to free ourselves from possessiveness? We may hesitate, but if we are wise we will answer “Yes” because this is a call to true freedom, a call to become the people whom we were created and called to be, a call to alleged hatred which is, on the contrary, a call to full and genuine love.

22nd Sunday

22nd Sunday 2019

Ecclesiasticus 3:17-20, 28-29; Hebrews 12: 18-19, 22-24; Luke 14:1, 7-14

Every so often it happens that there is a single word which seems to encapsulate the Mass readings. I would suggest that today is such an occasion, and that the key word is “humility”. The passage from the Book of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach) contains both “humbly” and “the humble”, while the concept of humility is contained in Jesus’ instruction to take the lowest place, and to invite the outsider to one’s own parties.

What do we mean by humility? As I have mentioned before, it is connected to the Latin word “humus” meaning “soil” or “ground” , and involves being “grounded”—not as children are “grounded” when confined to barracks (the modern equivalent of a clip around the ear or a kick up the backside)—but in the sense of “having our feet on the ground”.

This entails recognition of our weaknesses and limitations, but also of our strengths. It means recognising our status in relation both to God and to our neighbour, realising both that we are dependent upon God AND that we are His beloved sons and daughters: seeing our neighbours as our brothers and sisters beloved by God, and recognising the beauty of each of them as a child of God.

During pastoral studies in the seminary, I remember examining Transactional Analysis, of which the guiding principle is “I’m OK, you’re OK” as distinct from the various other options (“I’m OK, you’re not OK;” “I’m not OK, you’re not OK; “I’m not OK; you’re OK”). Genuine humility involves recognising the intrinsic goodness both of yourself and of the other person, and being at ease with that.

This is light years away from the false humility of self-abasement, the cringing mock servility of Uriah Heep, who was proud of his humility, a humility which masked a devious, plotting nature. That sort of false humility is often a cover for a loathing of, or contempt for, the other person, as brought out in the old Jewish story of the rabbi, the cantor, and the synagogue cleaner.

The rabbi stood at the front of the synagogue, and beat his breast, exclaiming “I am nothing, I am nothing.” Next to him stood the cantor, who beat his breast, exclaiming “I am nothing, I am nothing,”. And at the back stood the little cleaner, who beat his breast, and exclaimed “I am nothing, I am nothing.” And the rabbi turned to the cantor and said “Just look who thinks he is nothing.” For rabbi, cantor, and cleaner, read priest...........

We can guarantee that this mythical rabbi would not have invited the synagogue cleaner to his party, since his professed humility scarcely disguised a pride in himself and a contempt for others. Only a genuine humility, based on an honest assessment of our standing before God, enables us to recognise the intrinsic worth of every other person and to realise that s/he is well worthy of an invitation.

I remember a school group of 15-16 year olds attending a residential week at the Diocesan Youth Centre at Castlerigg Manor. In the group was a girl who stuck out like a sore thumb. She was plain, not very bright, and socially inept. Shortly after they had returned home, I received a letter from one of her room-mates from the week, who, among other things, mentioned how, during the week, she had come to recognise the good qualities in this particular lass. How much that owed to our input, I have no idea, but I suspect that, when they returned to school, there would have been far more involvement of this girl in their plans and activities. I hope that they may even have invited her to their parties.

So what about us? What is the state of our humility? How do we stand before God, and how do we regard other people? Are we free from both cringing and contempt? Do we recognise our own God-given worth, and that of others? And whom do we invite to our parties?