29th Sunday Year C

29th Sunday 2022

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

“He will see justice done to them, and done speedily.”

Excuse me, Lord, but are you sure about that? You see, there seem to be so many people who don’t receive justice, or, if they do, it takes a long time.

I am thinking first of people who were abused as children. Take the pupils in the indigenous schools in North America as an example. They didn’t receive justice, did they, at least, not in their lifetime? Some justice is being done now, but most of the victims are dead. Presumably they have justice in heaven, buy would you really call that speedy?

Then there are the adults who have survived childhood sexual abuse. How many of them are still suffering psychologically? They say that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but that doesn’t appear to be true for them. Many of the perpetrators are being punished now, decades after the events, but that seems to me to be very much delayed as an instance of justice—and how far does it really help the victims? I know someone who had to attend her father’s funeral, and listen to his praises being sung, while she was bearing the inner wounds of a childhood in which he had sexually abused her. Was there justice there, or must she too wait for eternity?

Also, there is what might be called the other side of the coin. You don’t need me to remind you of the police officer, a good friend of yours, whose work was based on abuse cases, and who commented ruefully “It is the one case where you are guilty until proven innocent, and juries cannot be trusted”.

Of course you and I know how true that last remark is. Many people are familiar with the case of Cardinal Pell, who was twice convicted by juries, even though it was physically impossible for him to have committed the alleged offences, a fact finally accepted by the Australian Supreme Court, who tore to shreds the behaviour of the lower courts. In the end, the cardinal received justice, but only after serving a long time in jail, with all the accompanying opprobrium.

Nor do we have to go Down Under to find such cases. You and I know of at least two priests in this country who also were imprisoned for offences which it was impossible for them to have committed. In the one case, the judge told the jury three times that, if it was one person’s word against another, they must acquit, but they ignored his instructions: in the other, as you will recall, the prosecution did not challenge the evidence of impossibility, but the jury convicted and an innocent man died in jail.

What about the Jews, the original chosen people, and all that they have suffered through the ages, reaching its nadir in the Holocaust, but not ending there? Did the Nuremberg trials bring them justice? And now, some of their descendants, in the form of the State of Israel, are acting unjustly towards the Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian.

I suppose that we have to seek an answer to all these contradictions in what happened to you. You were denied justice. You received a mockery of a trial, and underwent dreadful physical and psychological abuse, before being subjected to a brutal execution. You were vindicated and recompensed in your resurrection; and I suppose that we must look for a similar vindication, a similar recompense, for all who suffer unjustly; but, if I may say so, one might have hoped for justice in this life. And when you ask whether, on your return, you will find any faith on earth, please excuse me for suggesting that these delays in justice have contributed to the loss of faith for so many.

28th Sunday Year C

28th Sunday 2022

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

Pondering today’s readings, I was struck, as you may well have been, by a series of points. Firstly, we have two accounts, in the Second Book of Kings and St. Luke’s Gospel respectively, of people being cured of leprosy. Secondly, in both accounts, a non-Jew, someone who is not a member of God’s Chosen People, is involved: a pagan, in the case of Naaman the Syrian; a schismatic or heretic in the person of the Samaritan cured by Jesus.

Thirdly, in both instances, the non-Jew shows gratitude, both to the person instrumental in the cure, and to God. Fourthly, in the Gospel episode, the gratitude displayed by the non-Jew is contrasted with the failure of the members of the Chosen People to exhibit the same degree of gratitude.

So far, so simple: we can take, from what we have, a call to feel and to express gratitude, both to human beings and to God, coupled with a reminder that non-Catholics, non-Christians, non-believers, may sometimes show greater gratitude than we do; that we may sometimes take things for granted.

Already, there is a fair amount to consider. Am I a grateful person? Do I recognise how much is done for me by others, and how much I receive from God? Do I feel gratitude, and do I express it?

There has been correspondence on Facebook concerning the almost universal practice of thanking the driver on alighting from a bus. Many of us grew up in the days when you didn’t actually see the bus driver, who was ensconced in his cab. You might encounter the conductor/tress as you prepared to disembark, but as you had already thanked him or her for your ticket, you were unlikely to repeat your thanks. Now, travelling frequently by bus from Lancaster to Carnforth, I have noticed that every school pupil, for instance, from a variety of schools, thanks the driver on their way off the bus, in contradiction of the claim by some members of older generations that today’s young people are devoid of manners, a claim which has, of course, been made about every generation of young people since the world’s beginning.

That is a very basic example. Do you and I behave in a similar way in every circumstance, and do we think of thanking God for all that we receive: life, food, friendship, fresh air, football, the gift of God’s Son as our Redeemer, His sacrifice on the Cross, our sharing of that sacrifice in every Mass, the sacraments, our membership of His people? As you know, the Mass is also known as the Eucharist, and Eucharist literally means thanksgiving, so an ungrateful Mass-goer is a contradiction in terms.

There is, though, more to the readings than this message, crucial though it is. Why, for instance, does Naaman ask for earth from the land of Israel? The reason is that people believed in various national gods, and you were expected to worship the god on whose land you stood. By standing on Israelite soil back home in Egypt, Naaman would be entitled to worship the God of Israel, in whom he had come to believe.

But what about the Jewish lepers cured by Our Lord? Were they simply ungrateful? Probably not: instead, they were hampered by their religious obligations. Until they had received a certificate from the priest, they could not be recognised as free from leprosy, and so would still be unable to circulate freely, or to take part in civil or religious life. Can we blame them for putting that before anything else? Perhaps they returned later to thank Jesus: perhaps they thanked and praised God once they had their status confirmed. At least for a time, religion got in the way of their thanksgiving. I leave it to you to consider whether that can still happen.

27th Sunday Year C

27th Sunday 2022

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

Drat the Jerusalem Bible. Once again, it has messed up a translation. Jesus doesn’t tell us to say that we are “merely servants”, but that we are achreioi “useless” or “unprofitable” servants.

What does He mean by that? He appears to be saying that we have no grounds for giving ourselves airs, no reason to swank, to show off, to congratulate ourselves. So often, we fall short of what we could and should achieve, and some of our supposed triumphs may sometimes turn out to be disasters.

Think of the residential schools in Canada, for which the Pope has just apologised to the indigenous peoples of that country—the First Nation Canadians, as they are known; the Native Americans in the United States; those whom we, most insensitively, used to call Red Indians. Those who ran these schools, at the behest of the government, may well have prided themselves on wiping out the native culture, on “bringing {these people} to Christ”. The Holy Father has described what they did as “cultural genocide”, and has deplored the cruelty which so often accompanied attempts at conversion.

In many parts of the world, at various times in history, the spread of the Gospel was accompanied by, or even accomplished by, the sword. We rightly deplore the conduct of jihadists today: we should not forget that Christians have behaved equally badly, not least in the Crusades.

Even today, some of the wilder evangelicals use what amounts to brainwashing in their attempts to convert people to their own somewhat unchristian version of Christianity. During my university days, the Catholic chaplain commented that he spent half his time attempting to put back together the shattered remnants of faith and self-respect in people who had fallen into the clutches of these characters. Within the Catholic Church, there is a group whose founder was actually canonised by Pope St. John Paul II, which has done immense harm to families, including my own, by the underhand and dishonest recruitment methods recommended by that same founder.

All such people come very clearly under the heading “useless servants”, but so do we. Our best efforts, if they produce good fruit, do so by the grace of God. How many of them prove to have been misdirected, even harmful?

This could cause us to become disheartened, to wonder if anything is worth doing. This should not be the case. We need to bear in mind those words to Timothy: “God’s gift was a spirit, not of timidity, but of power, and love, and self-control”. Again, the Jerusalem Bible is somewhat naughty in its translation, repeating the word “spirit” and giving it a capital letter the second time, distinguishing “a spirit” from “THE Holy Spirit”. This isn’t justified by the Greek text. Power, love, and self control do indeed come from the Holy Spirit, but it is not the job of translators to tamper with the text in order to underline the meaning.

What this passage does is to emphasise that the Holy Spirit has come upon us, and has given us gifts. These gifts, however, are not ours to do with as we wish or choose. They are always God’s gifts, and in all that we do we must depend on Him. One of these gifts is self-control, which might also be translated “moderation”, and this is an important gift. If we are using dubious methods in our imagined service of the Gospel, we are ignoring that gift: we shall be, not merely useless servants, but destructive servants. The other requirement is faith, a trust in God’s grace, not our own efforts. As Habbakuk points out, God may appear to us to work slowly. We must accept that He IS working, and that He will achieve results in His own time, if we cooperate with Him—but not if we rely on our own gung-ho approach to people or to the world.

26th Sunday year C

26th Sunday 2022

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

Where’s Lazarus? You may be familiar with “Where’s Wally?” a page which crops up in puzzle books in which Wally, a distinctive character in a red and white striped jumper and a red tam-o-shanter, has to be found among a crowd of people. Wally isn’t always easy to spot: Lazarus should be, because he pops up in so many guises in so many different people.

Lazarus is to be found in the refugee, who lies almost literally at our door, having made a perilous journey over land and sea, and probably having seen many of his companions die. He may be a man, a woman, or a child, and his arrival causes difficulties, but he is entitled to a compassionate and generous reception while decisions are made about him and, please God, in consultation with him.

The far right, with the connivance of certain politicians, would have us do what the rich man of the parable did not do, and actively ill treat him: we, on the other hand, must press for a just and compassionate response to his situation, and must seek to alleviate those conditions in his home land which caused him to set out on his journey.

We find Lazarus too in many citizens of developing countries, suffering as a result of unjust trading conditions and, as we are becoming increasingly aware, of the degradation of the planet, which impacts most on the poorer regions of the world.

He is found also closer to home, sleeping in our streets. Homelessness has many causes, some of which appear to defy solution, but the effort must be made. Whether we bawl to the sound of the harp and drink wine by the bowlful may be up to us, but I daresay that most of us sprawl on our divans at times, as Amos suggested. Either way, we cannot claim the excuse that the sprawlers and the bawlers, and the rich man of the parable may have claimed, that they didn’t know that Lazarus was there. We know about Lazarus: we cannot argue with the, probably mythical, Highland preacher who thundered from the pulpit, “It will be no use saying ‘But Lord, we didna ken’, because He will reply ‘Well, ye ken the noo’!”

Yet Lazarus also takes less obvious, more subtle forms. He may be the outsider in the neighbourhood, the workplace, the classroom, the parish, or even the family. I suspect that there was a Lazarus in every form or class at school, the kid who didn’t fit in; who attracted derision, dislike, even outright bullying. There was certainly one in my form: even if you didn’t pick on him, it was difficult to summon the courage to actively befriend him; much easier to ignore him, as the rich man ignored Lazarus.

And in the family, is there an awkward child, an unpopular aunt or uncle, a sibling banished to the margins, perhaps because of a dislike of his/her spouse or partner, or his/her lifestyle? This too is Lazarus, deserving of our notice, entitled to justice and love.

Many women would say today that they are Lazarus in the institutional Church. I would put in a claim for that endangered species, the working class Catholic of average education, for long the backbone of the Church in this country, but now largely ignored or despised, alienated from what is often called the chattering Church of the chattering classes, once active in the SVP or the UCM, but now adrift in the sea of study groups and parish programmes.

How do we respond to Lazarus? Charitable giving is important, but it is not enough. Action is needed. We must begin at home, by being aware of the needs and entitlement of those close to us, but then we must widen our horizons. Hands-on support for Lazarus in our midst is vital, but we must also work for justice on the larger scale. We may feel that the joining of campaigns, the lobbying of MPs is not our style, yet we do not have the right to do nothing, “ensconced snugly” wherever we may be. Lazarus is at our gate: on our response to him, says Jesus today, depends our eternal salvation.

25th Sunday Year C

25th Sunday 2022

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

In 1996, in preparation for the following year’s General Election, the Bishops of England and Wales issued a document entitled “The Common Good”, to be distributed to all the parishes in those nations. It was a magnificent piece of work. It did not attempt to tell people for which party they should vote: instead, it set out some of the criteria on which they should base their choice.

These criteria were rooted, exactly as they should have been, in the Gospels and in Catholic Social Teaching. There was a move away from what had tended to be, and which still is in the United States, an almost exclusive emphasis on abortion, an emphasis which had proved misleading as, whatever party had been in power, the situation regarding abortion had remained unchanged.

Instead, there was a much broader reflection on, and call for, social justice, in which abortion continued to play a part, but in which there was a statement of, and indeed insistence on, an appropriate use of wealth, the rights of all people, and especially the poorest, both in this country and abroad, and a condemnation of what Pope Francis, almost two decades later, was to call “unbridled capitalism”, in the course of a denunciation which led to his being labelled a Marxist by elements in the USA. It should be pointed out that Francis was following in the footsteps of his predecessors, and that St.John Paul II, who was Pope in 1996, was equally determined in denouncing the excesses involved in the pursuit of money.

In this, the English bishops, and a long succession of Popes, were echoing Jesus’ demands in the Gospels. Today, we hear scathing comments from Our Lord about those who are slaves of money, accompanied by His, at first sight rather puzzling, parable of the dishonest steward, who is praised by his master because they are, in fact, two of a kind, the master as much of a rogue as the steward, both of them prisoners of money.

Our Lord Himself was very much in the tradition of the Jewish prophets. We have heard Amos, more than 700 years before Jesus, denouncing those who oppress the poor, cheating them and perpetuating their poverty. Thus we have an unbroken line from the prophets, through Our Lord, to twentieth and twenty first century bishops and Popes; and next week we shall learn what Our Lord meant by telling His disciples to use money to win them friends, as we shall hear the parable of the rich man, who should have used his money to befriend the poor man Lazarus.

1996’s document from the bishops was derided by the then editor of The Times, himself a Catholic and the father of a current cabinet minister, as being “economically illiterate”. Presumably, he would have considered Jesus to be economically illiterate too. Indeed, Our Lord seems to commend a degree of economic illiteracy to His followers, when He comments that “the children of this world are more astute when dealing with their own kind than are the children of light”. He is pointing out that money has an inbuilt tendency to corrupt its possessors, and that those who seek to acquire wealth will become less sympathetic to the needs of the poor.

Today, both this country and the world at large face massive financial crises, as people struggle with meteoric rises in the cost of living. Governments, including our own, have a responsibility to ensure that the basic needs of the poorest are met. The question is one, not of economic literacy, but of justice and compassion, just as was stated by the bishops a quarter of a century ago, as they sought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and the prophets.

24th Sunday Year C

24th Sunday 2022

Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; 1Tim 1:12-17; Luke 15: 1-32

I would like you, this morning, to travel back with me to January 1977. It followed on the heels of the long hot summer of ’76, when the fields were burned brown and, in parts of the country, there were bowsers and stand pipes to provide people with water.

January brought the other side of the coin, with thick snow blanketing the country. (For the benefit of younger generations I should explain that snow was white stuff which used to fall from the sky and lie on the ground—yes, honestly! Now, if it is seen, it is bottled and placed in a museum.)

This was within my first twelve months as a priest, and my first twelve months on the staff of Upholland College where, for my sins, I was put in charge of the First Years (aged 11/12) who, on a Monday afternoon, would combine with the Second Years for Games. Normally, this would have meant football, but as the pitches lay under a foot of snow, we went instead to a neighbouring golf course, where we spent the Games period sledging, chucking snowballs, and generally acting the maggot.

As darkness drew in, we headed back to the college for tea, and as we left the golf course, I pulled back my cuff to check the time, only to discover, to my utter horror, that my watch was missing. At some point during the previous hour, it had slipped off my wrist, and must now be lying, on the golf course, in the snow, on what was rapidly becoming a pitch dark evening.

I was totally dismayed. This wasn’t just any watch: it had been my 21st birthday present from my Mum and Dad, and to lose it was unimaginable: yet the unimaginable had happened.

It was a wretched evening and night that I spent. I bombarded St. Anthony with prayers, whilst all the time feeling that, even though St. Anthony, being my patron saint, is a good friend, it was asking perhaps too much of him to find a watch on a golf course in the snow.

Tuesday dawned bright and clear, and after a few more prayers I gave the First Years Latin class off, and took them on a watch hunt. They were in their element: no declensions or conjugations, but forty minutes in the fresh air (and the snow). I, on the other hand, was thoroughly wretched: it was a forlorn hope, and I was not surprised when I had to call off the expedition in order to prepare for the next lesson, with my watch undiscovered.

Hands in pockets, head down, I was trudging back to the college when footsteps came pounding behind me. “Father, Father, is this your watch?” When we had abandoned the search, little Bill Butterworth, who will now be in his late 50s, had stumbled over it, and there it was, still keeping perfect time, none the worse for its night in the snow.

I was jubilant, ecstatic, overwhelmed. I remembered to pour out my thanks to St. Anthony, and I gave the lads “prep off” that evening, which meant no “homework” for them, and arranged a trip out for them which probably cost me more than the financial value of the watch—but I didn’t care. To me, the watch was priceless, and recovering it one of the great events of my life.

Then, for the first time, I really grasped those great parables of forgiveness which we have just heard, and especially the second parable, in which a woman loses and then finds a coin. You see, I couldn’t understand why she made such a fuss about a coin, throwing a party which probably cost more than the newly recovered drachma.

All of a sudden, I understood perfectly. This was a special coin (I have heard it suggested that it may have formed part of her bridal headdress) whose value to her far exceeded its monetary worth. It meant the world to her, and she was more than happy to splash out on her party.

And that, says Our Lord, is how God behaves when someone gives Him the opportunity to forgive them. He has a party with the angels. I suspect that head banging, as a dance craze hadn’t arrived by 1977—this was, after all, the era of punk rock—but later experiences have given me the image of God and the angels head banging together, probably to the strains of 1979’s “Bat out of Hell”: jubilation on our part, but jubilation in God too.

23rd Sunday Year C

23rd Sunday 2022

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

Today’s Gospel is a bit of a tram-stopper. What do we make of it?

I think that the first thing to mention is that it is something of a hotch potch, cobbled together by Luke, or whoever was responsible for the final shape of his Gospel, from sayings dating from different times. Why do I say that? Because the two parables about the tower builder and the warlike king do not relate to the rest of the passage, despite efforts to fit them in, represented by the words translated as “and indeed” and “so, in the same way”.

Let’s leave these parables to one side for a moment and concentrate on the rest of what Jesus says. Bear in mind that He is speaking, not to His small group of disciples, but to the crowds who are following, who are drawn from the highways and byways, as He recently commented in one of His parables. He is, as it were, spelling out to the general public the requirements of discipleship.

What are they? Well, at first sight they seem to involve hating. Surely not? This is the Jesus who constantly emphasises the centrality of love: how can He be calling people to hate?

We have to remember that, despite our tendency to think otherwise, Jesus was not an Englishman:  He was a Palestinian Jew, a term which sounds like an oxymoron given today’s political situation in the Middle East. Consequently, He used the idioms of a Palestinian Jew, where “to hate” meant “not to cling to”, “not to be possessive of”, “to be willing to let go of”.

That becomes clearer when we do skip the intervening parables and move straight to the conclusion: “none of you can be my disciple without giving up all their possessions”. For once, the English translation expresses the meaning better than the original Greek. “Possessions” implies “possessiveness”, than which few things are more destructive. Once we become possessive, we actually become possessed, because the person or thing which we possess turns the tables and possesses us. We become obsessive, and therefore obsessed—literally “laid siege to”.

There is a false form of love, where the alleged lover attempts to control the object of his desire, to possess her body and soul, to direct her every movement: this is destructive of both parties and now constitutes a criminal offence named “control and coercion”. True love rejoices in the other person’s freedom, and therefore in one’s own, and amounts to the “hating”, of which Jesus speaks here.

So, are you and I willing to let go of people and of things, which can include such concepts as our own routine, our own way of doing things, our time and our space? If so, we shall be free to become disciples: if not, we will be trapped by the very things to which we cling.

This is where the two parables can be brought back into play. They can be seen as an invitation to consider the implications of discipleship. Am I willing to accept the call to follow, knowing that it will be difficult, demanding? Am I prepared to answer “Yes” to God, to open myself to Him, to say in effect “Whatever you want of me, I shall do” aware that it will be costly, though never destructive?

We need to ponder, though not indefinitely: we need to calculate, but not seeking total certainty, which we can never have. At some point, we have to accept the balance of probabilities and to say “Yes Lord, I think that this is what you are asking of me in this situation, at this stage in my life. Give me my particular cross, and let us get moving in faith and hope—and never forgetting charity”.

22nd Year C

22nd Sunday 2022

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

With your permission (or even without it, since I am going to do it anyway, as I am the one holding the conch (1) I would like to focus on the Second Reading. It is taken from the closing chapters of the Letter to the Hebrews, the author of which is unknown, and it summarises the situation of those who belong to God’s people, the Church.

From your schooldays, you may remember exam questions beginning “Compare and contrast”. That is what the author of this letter is doing today.

He recalls the self-revelation of God to the Israelites as described in the Book of Exodus. The Israelites are the original Church, the QAHAL, ekklesia in Greek, literally “those called out”, called out from among the nations, and called out from slavery in Egypt, to stand before the Lord.

At Mt. Sinai, God appeared to the Israelites in a way which terrified them, and which our writer describes: “a blazing fire, a gloom turning to total darkness, a storm, trumpeting thunder, the great voice speaking” which the people found unbearable. The appearance of God to the first Church, the people of Israel, overawed them.

That is not, the writer claims, how God appears to us, the new people of God. Yet, he insists, God does reveal Himself. As members of the new Israel, we too have God among us, truly present, though not yet revealed in all His glory. Whenever we gather as God’s people, as we have gathered this morning, God is with us, revealing Himself to us.

Because we have come together into the presence of God, we are gathered as were the Israelites at Mount Sinai; though the  Letter speaks no longer of Mount Sinai, a stage on the journey, but of Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem, our destination.

In other words, when we gather as the Church, we are in heaven, however unheavenly it may feel. This is the “already” and the “not yet” of which we shall be reminded constantly in Advent. The Kingdom of God is already present, though its fullness is not yet. We are already gathered at the banquet of the Messiah, though not yet in all its richness. We are in the company of the saints, though not yet in glory.

The writer to the Hebrews is speaking in eschatological terms, eschatology being literally “the study of the Last Things”. What we have here is “realised eschatology”, the study of the Last Things already present, though in embryo. The angels and the saints are here with us, though we do not see them; they are represented, to our senses, by the people around us, our fellow members of the Church, our fellow saints, as St. Paul puts it in his letters.

Take a moment to look around you, and to realise that the people you see are saints: and if you are thinking “well, they don’t look like saints”, remember that they are looking at you, and thinking the same. Realise too that, here with them, though invisible to us, are the “completed” saints, those “who have been made perfect”, as they are described, who have completed their purgation, their purgatory.     

Jesus too is present, the “mediator who brings a new covenant”, the covenant sealed in His blood, and renewed at the altar in every celebration of Mass, as “the blood of the new and eternal covenant” is made present for us.

For reasons known only to themselves, the compilers of the Lectionary have omitted the closing words of this passage, which recall that Jesus brings “a blood for purification which pleads more insistently than Abel’s”. As an old hymn which you may recall puts it: “Abel’s blood for vengeance  pleaded to the skies, but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries,” (2) that blood which we receive even when, because of the pandemic, access to the chalice is restricted.

So, by gathering in this chapel, you are gathering in heaven. The latter is not yet complete for us, but in celebrating Mass we are receiving the promise of its complete fulfilment.

1.       See “The Lord of the Flies” by William Goulding.

2.       “Glory be to Jesus, who in bitter pains”.

21st Sunday Year C

21st Sunday 2022

Isaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7,11-13; Luke 13: 22-30

Right then, are today’s readings encouraging, discouraging, or a mixture of the two? We might regard the third option as the most likely, as that is how life seems to operate, as a mixture of good times and bad times, with the good often arising from and through the bad. Leaving aside for the moment the Mysteries of Light, it is no accident that the Rosary comprises joy, followed by sorrow, culminating in glory.

Let’s take a look at the individual readings. The first comes from the prophet generally known as Trito-Isaiah or Third Isaiah, the third contributor to the Book of Isaiah. The Jewish people have passed through the trauma of exile in Babylon, and are now re-established on their own soil. Yet difficulties remain. The return from exile hasn’t ushered in the perfect golden age for which the people had hoped. Life is still a struggle: enemies remain.

In this setting, the prophet sets out a clear message of encouragement. These enemies will become friends: God’s word will go out to the nations, who will in turn give their allegiance to Him, bringing their offerings to Him, being accepted among His people, and seeing ministers of the Lord selected from among their ranks.

If we step back, and look at this prophecy in the wider context of history, we can see how it has been fulfilled in the Church. After the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost, the disciples travelled throughout the known world, and have continued to do so during the two thousand years which have followed. Today we have a Pope from South America, a region undreamed of in the time of the apostles, and men and women from every nation on earth are servants of the one true God, even though, in many parts, huge attempts continue, to suppress knowledge and service of Him, China and North Korea being the clearest examples, though in the lifetime of many of us, communist regimes sought unsuccessfully to wipe out religion in many regions of the earth.

We have, then, clear encouragement from Trito-Isaiah, though it is accompanied by the realisation that both time and struggle are involved if his prophecies are to be fulfilled.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews presents us with a similar mixture of encouragement and discouragement, or rather of encouragement arising out of discouragement. We are sons and daughters of God—what could be more encouraging than that?—but that entails discipline, correction, even punishment; in other words, struggle and suffering. Yet the struggle and suffering must not discourage us, for they are the route to growth and, ultimately, to fulfilment.

Perhaps it is today’s Gospel which sets out most starkly the two elements of encouragement and discouragement. Our Lord echoes the prophet’s promise of the expansion of God’s people: “People from north and west, from east and south, will come to take their places at the feast in the Kingdom of God.”

Yet this comes at a cost: some of those who have apparently belonged to God’s people will find themselves excluded from the Kingdom. Nor must we, or can we, comfort ourselves by imagining that this warning applies only to Jesus’ contemporaries among the Jewish people. His words are universal: all of us must attempt to enter by the narrow door.

What does this mean? It does not mean, as some have believed at different times in the Church’s history, and even in our own time, that we must put ourselves through excruciating penances, mortifying ourselves as it is sometimes called. Nor must we be scrupulous, picking up on each tiny fault of which we may or may not be guilty: that route leads to a morbid temperament, and a judgmental attitude to others.

Rather, what Our Lord calls for is a recognition of both our worth and our responsibilities as children of God. We are called to freedom, but freedom brings its own obligations. We must seek always to follow Jesus in love, living by the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbour, accepting our share in the Cross, but recognising our sufferings as opportunities for growth, the Cross as the route to Resurrection.

I began by asking whether today’s readings are encouraging, discouraging, or a mixture of the two. In the last analysis, I would say that they are entirely encouraging, as even the apparent discouragements provide an opportunity for growth.

17th Sunday Year C

17th Sunday 2022

Genesis 18:20-32; Colossians 2:12-24; Luke 11:1-13

Afficionados of Dr. Who may remember the Matt Smith episode entitled “The Doctor’s Wife” in which the Tardis, the Doctor’s time machine, takes on human form in the person of a woman called Idris. Immediately, she and the Doctor fall to bickering, with the latter complaining “You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go,” to which Idris/the Tardis retorts “I always took you where you needed to go”.

Can this shed some light on the vexed question of unanswered prayer? “Ask, and you shall receive” says Jesus, and I cannot be the only person who winces at that. I once met a lady who told me that she never asks for anything in prayer, but prays only “Thy will be done”; yet, although that undergirds all our prayer, Our Lord clearly tells us to ask, and we shouldn’t attempt to be more Christlike than Christ.

Yet we know that we don’t always receive what we ask for in prayer. Sometimes, that doesn’t affect us greatly. We are fully entitled to pray for a fine afternoon for the parish Summer Fair, but our faith is unlikely to be shaken if it pours with rain. (Mind you, as a child, I used to spend half the year praying for a fine Whit Monday for the Garstang procession and fairground, the highlight of my year, and the other half saying “thank you” prayers because the sun invariably shone. Since I stopped praying about it, I notice that they have suffered some miserably wet such Mondays.)

What, though do we make of those deeply serious prayers which apparently go unanswered? We pray for the recovery of a sick child, who nevertheless dies. Twice recently, I, along with a host of others, have prayed for falsely accused priests who yet have been convicted in the teeth of all the evidence. It is difficult to reconcile situations like that with Our Lord’s words.

In facing this question, we must be careful not to be glib. It is far too easy, it insults the person who has prayed, and it does God no favours to say “Ah, well, it was obviously better for that prayer not to be answered”. How dare we?

Yes, of course God sees the full picture of which we perceive only a tiny fragment. Yes, of course there are situations which, in the long term, are resolved positively, in spite of an apparent short term “No”. Yet there are prayers which are made with real fervour, where it is extremely difficult to perceive a positive long term outcome when they appear to be denied. What then?

Ultimately, I think that we are brought to Gethsemane. There, in the Garden of the Agony, Jesus asked His Father for something very reasonable and, from His point of view, almost definitely necessary: “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Yet it seems that the Father said “No”. Was this a case of a father giving his son a stone instead of bread, a snake in place of a fish, a scorpion for an egg?

Our Lord Himself was confident that it was not so, concluding His prayer with the words “Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it”. He knew that He faced suffering beyond all human imagining, yet He was willing to trust His Father to give Him the ultimate reward, the salvation of the human race. He was committed to complete faith in His Father. This was not faith in His own prayer, but faith in the person of the Father and in His total goodness.

That is the attitude which we must bring to our own prayers of petition—that God will take us, not always where we want to go, but always where we need to go. That does not excuse us, however, from storming heaven, not only on our own behalf, but also on behalf of others, nor does it give us permission to downplay their suffering, or to fob them off with easy answers. The answers are to be found only in the sufferings of the Redeemer, and it is not our business to attempt to give people simplistic or unreal comfort.

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16th Sunday Year C

16th Sunday 2022

 Genesis 18: 1-10; Colossians 1: 24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Drat, bother and confusticate it! Which reading(s) am I supposed to concentrate on today? As you probably know, the Old Testament reading at Mass is chosen to fit in with the Gospel, whilst the Second Reading takes a New Testament Epistle more or less from beginning to end, with no particular reference to the other readings.

Today’s problem is that both the Old Testament/Gospel combination and the New Testament Epistle are full of very rich material, but have no particular point of contact with each other. So about which should I woffle? I can only begin and see where the Holy Spirit takes me.

A very obvious theme running through both the Genesis passage and today’s Gospel is hospitality.  The First Letter of St. Peter, which is not included among today’s readings, instructs us to practise hospitality because, by doing so, “some people have entertained angels unawares”.

That is certainly the case with Abraham and Sarah. We are not told who their mysterious visitors are, but it is clear that they are, in some way, a manifestation of God. Indeed, because there are three of them, who at times seem to merge into one, some scholars have identified them with the Holy Trinity, and there is a famous icon which hints at that identity.

Whoever they may be, they (or He) reward Abraham’s hospitality by promising that the aged Sarah will have a son, a gift which surpasses both her understanding and her belief. In a very natural way, she will go on to giggle at this promise, and then pretend that she hasn’t. God alone knows the outcome of the hospitality which we practise, but we should heed the maxim of St. Benedict, who instructed his followers to welcome visitors “as Christ”.

Indeed, it is Christ in person who receives the hospitality of Martha and Mary. Now, if your mother was anything like mine, she will not have been happy with this particular Gospel passage.  “Why does Martha get criticised for getting on with her work, while Mary is praised for sitting on her backside? If Martha behaved like her, nothing would ever get done.”

Fair point, though slightly, I suspect, missing the nub. It is perhaps a case of horses for courses, or rather horses for starting times. Everything would indeed grind to a halt if Mary spent all her time on her backside, but at the moment that is what her guest wants. Martha is eager to show hospitality, but it is on her own terms. She is serving the Lord, but she hasn’t taken the trouble to discover how, at present, He wants to be served. He is not too bothered about pie and chips: at the moment, He wishes to spend quality time with His friends.

Later, Martha’s activity will be appropriate. When Jesus visits Lazarus’ tomb, Martha, by coming to greet Him, elicits from Him one of His  “I am” sayings—“I am the resurrection and the life”—and is able to make her own profession of faith: “ I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world”.

Activity and contemplation both have their time. As the Church, and as individuals, we need both. Activity without contemplation would risk missing its mark: contemplation without activity would be wasted. Each of us needs something of Mary, and something of Martha, within ourselves.

What though of the Second Reading? If I were to be asked to quote my favourite scripture passage, it would be taken from the beginning of today’s extract: “I rejoice to suffer for you as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up what has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of His body, the Church.”

Is that because I want to suffer? Is it heck as like! I fear and loathe suffering as much as anyone else does. Yet I know, as do you, that suffering is an inevitable part of life. If and when it occurs, there is massive encouragement (literally “putting heart in”) from knowing that it is a sharing in the sufferings of Christ; that it isn’t pointless, but is helping to save the world.

Finally, those of you who remember Bishop Brewer will recall that his motto was drawn from this passage. It was “Christus in vobis” which is here translated as “Christ is among you”. Fiery Jack used to stab the page and exclaim “Christus IN vobis—Christ IN you”.

Actually, both he and the translators were correct. “IN” in Latin (“EN” in Greek) can mean both “in” and “among”: in this instance, both are probably implied. Christ dwells in us, but He is also among us, in all His people, and in His world. We are on a winner both ways.

Enough of that! It has been a longer woffle this week, but it is done now.

15th Sunday year C

15th Sunday 2022

Deut 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so we are told. It may certainly breed indifference, a sense of déjà vu, a clouding of the listening and thinking faculties. There are some Gospel passages which can affect us in this way, and I would suggest that today’s parable of the Good Samaritan is one of them. “Oh, right! The Good Samaritan! Know that one. (Did I leave the oven on?)”

Yet God’s word speaks to us anew every time we hear it. Consequently we have to examine this Gospel passage closely, to open our minds to what God is saying to us TODAY.

Firstly, it is worth pointing out that all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have accounts of Jesus being questioned about the Commandments. It was clearly an important issue for those who encountered Him. Why? Were they unsure of His orthodoxy, of whether He had the true faith?

In two of these accounts, Our Lord’s questioners are hostile. Both Luke and Matthew speak of a lawyer or a Pharisee “testing” Him, “seeking to disconcert Him”, as the Jerusalem Bible translation puts it. Only the scribe in St. Mark’s Gospel is without a hidden agenda, and becomes enthusiastic about His reply. How often today to people approach Jesus and His Church negatively, nit-picking, seeking to score points? If that is people’s approach, then we should be courteous in response, but not allow ourselves to be dragged into pointless discussions with those whose sole intention is to make mischief.

All the Gospels agree in having Jesus insist on the centrality of two commandments: firstly, love of God with all our ability; secondly, love of our neighbour as ourselves. That is not how the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, expresses it. The command to love our neighbour is taken from elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, from the Book of Leviticus, and it is not one of the Ten. It is clear from Our Lord’s teaching that we shouldn’t become entangled in the details of the Ten Commandments, but should focus on love of God and neighbour.

Only in St Luke is it the questioner, rather than Our Lord, who combines love of God and neighbour as the heart of the Law. Does this linking on the part of the lawyer indicate that it was already happening in Judaism, and that Jesus was expressing something which was already becoming understood among the Jewish people?

When we turn to the parable itself, we see that it is upside down: we need to stand on our heads to read it. In answer to the question “Who is my neighbour?”, we might have expected Jesus to reply that everyone is my neighbour, even the despised Samaritans, heretics as they were, and that Jews must love and help even them. That would have been shocking enough. It would have meant that people must love those who are hostile to them: that the people of Ukraine must somehow love the Russian invader; the Uighurs must somehow love the brutal elements in the Chinese government.

It does indicate all this, but it goes much further, depicting, not a generous Jew helping a Samaritan, but a Jew who is in need receiving help from a Samaritan. Thus, a Samaritan is held up as an example of how Jews, and everyone else, should behave, not a concept which Our Lord’s listeners would have found easy to accept. Not only are we required to love, as ourselves, those whom we might regard as outsiders, but we are to accept that their behaviour, their attitudes, their love, may be better than our own. Imagine in today’s world, a Hindu in India being told the parable of the Good Muslim, a Pakistani Muslim hearing the parable of the Good Hindu, Palestinians the parable of the Good Israeli, and vice versa.

This is a parable which demands, not only that, in showing love, we move out of our own comfort zone, but that, in receiving love, we must accept some unpalatable truths. All of this is demanded of us by God’s Commandments.

14th Sunday Year C

14th Sunday 2022

Isaiah 66: 10-14; Galatians 6: 8-14; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to His harvest.” The word on which I would like to focus is “labourers”. As one of my duties as a Sixth Form tutor in the early days of my priesthood, I used to join the lads in what was known as “public work”.

It was timetabled on a Monday afternoon, and entailed anything from gardening to painting benches. I much preferred the latter: gardening has never been my forte and I tend to go by the motto “if in doubt, let it sprout”, though I would happily uproot such abominations as parsnips and broccoli, an invasive species if ever there was one.

Generally, the Sixth Form enjoyed their hour or so working in the open air or in the outhouses, though I recall one occasion when a colleague of mine, growing exasperated with one youth who was effectively skiving, admonished him rather tartly with the rebuke “The Lord wants labourers for His harvest, not fairies for the bottom of His garden”. I should point out, lest I be accused of homophobia, that this was purely a reference to his idleness, and carried no inference about his sexuality.

As Christians, we are called to labour, in our various ways, in the harvest. For consecrated religious, and for priests, the call takes on a particular urgency. Religious brothers and sisters have their own tasks. Of priests, it used to be said that they “don’t do very much, and they do it early in the morning”.

Some priests took umbrage at that, and would list all that the average priest does, as if he is uniquely hard-working and overstretched. I have never subscribed to that theory, or been impressed by that response. Admittedly, the priest is on call outside normal working hours, but so are many other people, not least the parents of young children, and to claim, as I have heard some do, that because of his supposed availability, a priest works a twenty four hour day, is unmitigated baloney.

What then should a priest be doing, if he is to be a genuine labourer in the harvest? The fashionable answer is “evangelisation”, coupled with the call to be a “missionary disciple”. I have to tread very carefully here, because I am aware that both expressions are used by Pope Francis, for whom I have not only loyalty but also an immense admiration. Nevertheless, if I am to be honest, I have to put my head above the parapet and say that I really don’t know what these expressions mean.

Am I, are you, expected to head out like the seventy two of today’s Gospel, walking through towns, knocking on doors, asking “Have you heard the Good News of the Lord Jesus?”? If so, I have to enter a nolle prosequi. I am neither willing nor able to do it. My brief experience of conducting parish missions showed me that, and I have long had a deep distrust, and indeed disgust, for those “evangelicals” who prowl the staircases and corridors of universities, spreading confusion, dismay, and a most un-Christlike form of Christianity.

Part of me is convinced that, with the greatest respect to the Holy Father, both “evangelisation” and “missionary disciples” are examples of those Crackerjack words of which the Church is inordinately fond.  (You may remember the children’s television programme “Crackerjack” in which the youthful audience had to shout “Crackerjack!” in unison whenever the word in question was mentioned.)

Holy Mother Church has, over the past half century, had a succession of such words: community, celebration, evangelisation, mission, and now evangelisation again and missionary disciples. I stand open to being convinced that these words actually mean something, and are not simply jargon and gobbledeygook, but no one has yet offered a convincing definition of any of them.

So we are brought back to the question “What are we supposed to do?” In search of an answer, I have to return to my original chosen word “labourers”. I do know what “labourers” means: it means “people who work”.

What then are we to work at? I would answer “Whatever God gives us to work at”. There are so many tasks under our noses: “all kinds of service to be done”, as St. Paul puts it. Perhaps the first thing is to pray for vision, that God may show us what to do here and now, and then to do it. I suspect that, if we are really serious in our prayer, God will give us enough tasks for a lifetime. Then perhaps we shall be able to consign the Crackerjack words to the compost heap at the bottom of the garden, though not, I hope, to help grow parsnips or broccoli.

13th Sunday Year C

13th Sunday 2022

1 Kings 19:16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9: 51-62

Forty years ago next month, I came to the end of my first posting as a priest and, a few weeks later, began my second. I had spent my first six years after ordination on the staff of the Junior Seminary at Upholland, and whilst I had serious doubts about the value of such an institution I, for the most part, greatly enjoyed my time there.

I was living in a community, as I had done for the previous eight years in a collegiate university and then a senior seminary; I had the challenge and enjoyment of working with young people; and I had opportunities for sport several times a week.

My second appointment could not have been more different. I was living with one other person, a very kind and supportive parish priest, and I was working as, effectively, a full time hospital chaplain. Instead of a settled community of young people, I had a transient population of the sick, the elderly, and the dying. My four or five days on which I could either play football or run in company with others, were replaced by a solitary run on a Sunday afternoon before I headed back to the hospital for a tea time Mass.

It was vital work. I no longer had any grounds for questioning the value of the setting in which I was occupied, but I have to admit that I was homesick for Upholland. The solitary nature of the work was a massive change from all that I had been used to, and the transition from my former clientele to the new demanded a huge mental adjustment. There were times when I would sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament with the words of today’s Gospel running in my head: “once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God”. I had laid my hand on the plough, and I had to follow the furrow.

Bizarrely, my second appointment lasted only three and a half months, before I was given a third. This involved moving to London as a member of the Catholic Missionary Society, delivering parish missions in various parts of the country.

If hospital chaplaincy required time for adjustment, the CMS was, for someone of my temperament, a living hell. Knocking on the doors of total strangers fifty times a day reduced me, if not to a gibbering wreck, then at least to a deeply depressed individual. After four missions, Bishop Foley took the compassionate decision to recall me to the Diocese, and I embarked on my fourth appointment, as assistant priest at St. Mary’s Morecambe, and chaplain to Our Lady’s HS, Lancaster, a dual role which proved to be, perhaps, the happiest and most fulfilling of my life.

What, though, of laying the hand on the plough? What of following the Jesus who “set His face toward Jerusalem”, almost as if He was gritting His teeth to face the ultimate journey?

To be fair to myself, I don’t think that I had taken my hand off the plough, and if I was looking anywhere it was forward, not back. Our Lord calls us to follow Him along the road, to carry the Cross, but He did not intimate that the journey should be totally devoid of light and joy. I mention this, not to provide an Apologia for my own conduct, but to suggest that if ANYONE is in a situation which is damaging them, the Lord does not demand that they remain in it. He is critical of would-be disciples who look for excuses to delay following Him: He does not insist that their discipleship be a source of misery.

All of us are called to follow, but our following, though it may entail the Cross, is intended to fulfil our personalities, not to stunt them. We are called, not to unlimited beer and skittles, admittedly, but nonetheless to joy in the Lord.

Corpus Christi

Body and Blood of Christ 2022

Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 109 (110); 1 Cor 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17

If you mention that you are from Lancaster, the likelihood is that you will be asked “What is that dome that you can see from the M6?” To this, you can give a variety of answers.

Nikolaus Pevsner, who compiled a compendium of English architecture region by region, described it as “England’s grandest folly”. Being more precise, you might say that it is the “Park Structure”, though that is a particularly local term, deriving from the period of its construction, before it had achieved a formal title. You might also call it “Williamson’s Memorial” or even give it its official title of “the Ashton Memorial (in Williamson Park)”.

Warming to your theme, you might add that James Williamson the Younger, expanding the business established by his father for the manufacture of table baize and floor coverings, became known as the “Lino King”, as he made Lune Mills, of which nothing now remains apart from the derelict power station, into the largest factory in Europe; that he built the “new” Town Hall, had Queen Victoria’s statue set up in the newly laid out Dalton Square, and constructed Williamson Park from a former quarry with, as its centrepiece, the Ashton Memorial (he having been ennobled as the first Baron Ashton) in tribute to one of his first two wives, both deceased. Incidentally, in my school days, Earl Peel, father-in-law of the Lady Peel who sold Hyning to the Bernardines, was what would now be called the CEO of Jas. Williamson and Son Ltd.

Your interlocutor, being by now thoroughly enthralled, might then ask “What is in the Ashton Memorial?”, to which you would reply “Nothing”. There may be the odd display, promenade plays are now performed in its vicinity, and weddings are conducted within it, but in effect, it is a glorious emptiness, a reminder of Lile Jimmy Williamson’s lost love.

That is how we normally think of a memorial, a reminder of someone or something past. That, however, is not how the Jewish people use the term. For them, a memorial (Greek anamnesis) is the making present, here and now, of something past. That is how Jesus used the term at the Last Supper, as recorded by St. Paul, in this, the first account of the institution of the Eucharist to be put into writing.

When Our Lord said, over the bread which had become His Body and the wine which had become His Blood, “Do this as a memorial of me”, He was not thinking of a mere reminder: He was instructing His disciples to continue to make His action a present reality. The Church has maintained that teaching, and followed that instruction, through the ages: thus, every celebration of Mass makes present not only the Lord’s action at the Last Supper in transforming the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, but also all that this entailed in the breaking of that Body and the pouring out of that Blood on Calvary, and the completion of the sacrifice in the raising of that Body and that Blood from the dead.

In carrying out this memorial, we are not only eating and drinking the Lord Himself: we are entering into the totality of His self-offering to the Father. Hence it is profoundly irritating that the Missal renders “do this as a memorial of me” as “do this in memory of me” which lacks the force of the original. Whoever was responsible for this translation deserves to have his bottom very firmly kicked.

What though of the other readings? The author of the Letter to the Hebrews sees Melchizedek, mentioned in the Genesis reading and the psalm, as the forerunner of Jesus, whom he describes as a second Melchizedek, a priest forever, constantly making present His once-for-all sacrifice. Hence the Mass is not a new or a different sacrifice, but the one sacrifice of the supper room, Calvary, and the empty tomb made present for us. Meanwhile, the feeding of the five thousand is a prelude to the still more miraculous feeding of the world with the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Ashton Memorial may indeed be England’s grandest folly: the memorial which is the Mass is the world’s greatest act of wisdom.

Trinity Sunday

Trinity Sunday 2022

Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

What is the fundamental Christian doctrine? Is it the divinity of Christ? To an extent. Is it the Resurrection? That is crucial, if you will pardon the pun, an essential Christian belief. But the bedrock of Christian faith, the truth on which all else is built, is the doctrine of the Trinity, the recognition that God is three in one: that there is one God in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is what sets Christianity apart from all other religious systems, including the other monotheistic religions—those which believe in the one God—namely Judaism and Islam. An orthodox Jew may or may not respect Jesus as a reputable Jewish teacher: s/he will not, cannot, accept that He is God, one of three persons in the Godhead.

A devout Muslim may honour Jesus as a prophet, and may have great respect for the Virgin Mother, whom s/he will know as Miriam. I have known a Muslim speak of Christ as a “divine man”, just as I have heard a Hindu refer to Lord Christ, but no Muslim can accept Jesus as God.

So whilst we share with Jews and Muslims the belief that God is one, it is Christians alone who declare that this one God is present from all eternity and to all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father eternally begets the Son through the eternal working of the Spirit, and God manifests Himself to us as the Creator who is Father; the Redeemer who joined His eternal divinity as Son to a human nature in the person of Jesus the Christ; and the Paraclete—the Encourager, Advocate, however you wish to translate it—the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and literally “inspires”, breathes into us.

Whatever differences there may be among Christians, we are united in our belief in the Trinity. The Jehovah’s Witnesses therefore, are not considered to be Christians as they believe, like the Muslim whom I mentioned earlier, that Jesus is somehow “divine”, but deny that He is God. I have to confess that I am not clear about the beliefs of Mormons.

Does it matter? Some of the details may be baffling—for instance, the principal doctrinal difference between Catholic (and western generally) Christians and the Eastern Orthodox concerns the “filioque” clause in the Creed: does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son as we profess, or only from the Father as the Orthodox believe?—but essential doctrines are important.

How decisive they will be in our salvation is another question entirely. We recognise two principles, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, which may be defined as “right belief” and “right behaviour”. Jesus’ own teachings and actions imply that orthopraxis is the more important: we may have impeccable beliefs, but fall short in terms of conduct, as St. Paul also points out in his hymn to love in chapter 13 of his First Letter to the Corinthians.

In the creed, we profess our belief in the Trinity. In terms of the Trinity’s role in our lives, we can look, as always, at the Third Eucharistic Prayer, which relates how all holiness comes from the Father, through the Son, by the working of the Holy Spirit, and which goes on to ask the Father to make our offering of bread and wine, through the power of the Holy Spirit, into the Body and Blood of the Son, who offers Himself to the Father.

Having this as a background, we perhaps shouldn’t agonise too much over details, but ensure that, in our conduct, we seek always to give glory to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Then will our lives be living witnesses to the Trinity.

Pentecost Year C

Pentecost 2022

Acts  2:1-11; 1Cor 12:3-7,12-13; John 20:19-23

Last Monday, if you happened to be at Mass, you would have heard how St. Paul asked the Ephesian converts whether they received the Holy Spirit when they were baptised, and how they replied, in effect, “Eh? You what? Never heard of a Holy Spirit.”

It would not be a huge exaggeration to say that, today, many Christians are in a similar situation. Everyone has heard of the Holy Spirit, but how many are conscious of having received the Holy Spirit? Yet each one of us who has been baptised received the Holy Spirit at our Baptism, and most of us again at our Confirmation, a reality which can be obscured by the semi-heretical practice of delaying Confirmation until the teenage years, and treating it as a sort of Catholic bar-mitzvah, or even a passing out parade. It cannot be emphasised enough that Confirmation is NOT something that we do for God—re-affirming our faith—but something which God does for us, renewing His gift of the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the Holy Spirit is constantly coming upon us. If that were not the case then, as St. Paul points out to the Christians of Corinth, we wouldn’t even be able to say “Jesus is Lord”. The Holy Spirit is the driving force of our Christian lives, without whom those lives would not exist. The Spirit is literally our inspiration, our inbreathing of God. All our faith, our prayer, our good works are the work of the Holy Spirit, and it is important that we be aware of that.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was accompanied by spectacular signs, the wind and the flame, and followed by spectacular results, as the preaching of the Gospel was understood by people of every language. This was the kick-start given to the Church by the Holy Spirit, and it would be wrong to expect similar signs, similar results today; though I can’t help feeling tht anyone who can read that list of nations without stumbling must have the gift of tongues.

And yet in one way, those spectacular results do continue to arise, for the Gospel has indeed been preached in every language and to very nation under heaven. Not every nation has accepted it, and we may feel that the West, having once accepted it, is now busily engaged in throwing it off. Nonetheless, it would be true to say that, in every nation, there are some who, having heard the Gospel, have been so filled by the Holy Spirit as to live by it. Enver Hoxha, for instance, the Albanian dictator, once claimed that he would make his country the first fully atheistic nation. Hoxha is long dead, the Church survives, and the most famous and honoured Albanian is not Enver Hoxha but St. Mother Teresa.

Futhermore, the faith survives often in the face of bitter persecution. I correspond with a young man in Pakistan, who often confirms (if you will pardon the pun) the suffering of Christians there, and particularly of Christian girls, who are regularly kidnapped and forced into conversion to Islam and into marriage to elderly men. In recent weeks, the media have reported the arrest of the 90 year old Cardinal Zen for his support of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, whilst a bishop in mainland China has disappeared, presumably into detention.

It is the Holy Spirit, poured out upon the apostles at Pentecost, and upon us at Baptism and Confirmation, who enables people of every tongue to hold firm under imprisonment and torture. It is the same Holy Spirit who inspires tiny groups of Christians to remain faithful in the midst of unpromising surroundings. The Pope has recently welcomed a delegation from Mongolia, where Christians are numbered only in thousands, and has named their bishop as a cardinal.

Finally, let us not forget that, even at the birth of the Church, the outpouring of the Spirit was not always spectacular. Today’s Gospel records an earlier, much gentler giving of the Holy Spirit, as the risen Christ literally breathes the Spirit into the apostles on Easter Sunday evening. What matters to us, as to the apostles, is not signs and wonders but the presence and bestowal of the Spirit, whose presence we celebrate and desire today, but also every day of our lives.

7th Sunday Easter

7th Sunday of Easter 2022

Acts 7:55-60; Apocalypse 22:12-14, 16-17, 20; John 17:20-26

The Seventh Sunday of Easter, which has been restored over the last few years by the return of the Solemnity of Ascension to its rightful place on a Thursday, may seem like an opportunity to mark time between Ascension and Pentecost. It shouldn’t.

Rather, it is an important opportunity for us to do what the original disciples were doing at this time. What were they doing? If anyone tries to tell you that they were cowering in fear, knock them down, pummel them, and sit on their heads. That comes, as I have said before, of misinterpreting next Sunday’s Gospel as if it referred to an event of Pentecost, whereas it clearly speaks of Easter Sunday evening, when the Risen Christ appeared in the Upper Room.

So I ask again: what were the disciples doing? We discover that from the Gospel of Ascension Thursday and the First Reading of Pentecost Sunday. They were doing what the Lord told them at His Ascension, which was to await, and prepare for, the descent of the Holy Spirit.

In his Gospel, Luke tells us that, from the mountain of the Ascension, the disciples “went back to Jerusalem full of joy, and they were continually in the Temple praising God”. In his Acts of the Apostles, the same writer informs us that, when not in the Temple, they were gathered in the Upper Room with Our Lady, with other women, and with Jesus’ relatives, praying earnestly for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That is exactly what we should be doing during these days. We should be full of joy, we should be praising God, and we should be praying with Our Lady and with the whole Church, on earth, in purgatory, and in heaven, for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We are still in Mary’s month of May, and even if we were not, we would still be able to count on her prayers, as she is the mother and model of the Church, with which she prays today as she prayed with the infant Church.

To help us in our time of waiting and preparation, the Church gives us today a mixed bag of readings. From the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of the martyrdom of Stephen, a post-Pentecost event. Notice how his persecutors “stopped their ears with their hands”: they were not willing to listen to the words which the Spirit offered them through Stephen. We, on the other hand, must have listening ears and listening hearts, eager to receive what the Spirit is saying to us.

St. Luke is keen to draw parallels between the martyrdom of Stephen and the death of his Lord. Stephen speaks of Jesus as the Son of Man, a title which Jesus had used of Himself. As did the dying Jesus, so the dying Stephen prays the psalm “Into your hands I commend my spirit”, with one immensely significant difference: Stephen addresses the prayer to Jesus, thus identifying Him with God. Finally, he paraphrases Jesus’ prayer for the forgiveness of His murderers. We too are invited to align our lives ever more closely with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Next, we hear the conclusion of the Apocalypse, as “the Spirit and the Bride (ie the Church)” unite to pray for the return of Christ in glory, while at the same time inviting all people to come to Him. The Bible ends, apart from a final blessing, with the prayer “Come, Lord Jesus” a prayer which we should make our own.

Finally, our Gospel passage is drawn from the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, as it is known, which John sets in the context of the Last Supper. We have here an intense prayer for the unity of believers with and in one another, and with and in Jesus and His Father, a unity which is the gift and the life of the Holy Spirit.

So far from being a period of marking time, this is a call to intense prayer. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

6th Sunday of Easter Year C

6th Sunday of Easter 2022

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Apocalypse 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14: 23 -29

It struck me the other day that no one below their mid 60s will have any memory of the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965. Consequently, there will be little recollection of the seismic shock which the Council delivered to the man woman and teenager in the pew at the time. (Yes, there were teenagers in the pew in the 60s, though this particular teenager was more usually to be found in the sanctuary, as an altar server.)

In calling the Council, Pope John XXIII, now canonised, declared his wish to throw open the windows of the Church to allow the Holy Spirit free rein to blow through its halls and corridors, and what a searing wind the Spirit proved to be. It is probably fair to say that no aspect of Catholic life was untouched; and for many people, for much of the time, it was a disturbing experience which, when you think about it, is exactly as it should have been, because the Holy Spirit is no respecter of customs or conventions.

For many, if not for most people, the problem was that much which had appeared immovable throughout their lifetime was suddenly moving, with little or nothing in the way of explanation. Behind that lay a deeper problem: the clergy, who might have been expected to provide explanations, had little understanding themselves of what was happening, or why.

Indeed, Cardinal Heenan, the Archbishop of Westminster, is reputed to have claimed that “people have said that things are going to change. That won’t be the case in England”, a breathtaking piece of imperial smugness, a hangover from the days when two thirds of the globe was coloured pink. The implication was that we were getting it right already, and that the rest of the world would have to catch up with us.

There were casualties, as there have been after every Council. For instance, after the First Vatican Council in 1870, a group commonly known as the Old Catholics left the Church; whilst the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, was far more dramatic than Vatican II. Trent was the nineteenth Ecumenical Council of the Church, thus making Vatican II the twenty first. The events described today in the Reading from the Acts of the Apostles constitute what is generally regarded as the first.

It is known as the Council of Jerusalem, and it revolved around something which was to affect fundamentally the nature and direction of the Church, namely the extent to which Christians were to be bound by Jewish Law, and especially by the practice of circumcision.

As we have heard, this Council, which also invoked the guidance of the Holy Spirit, decided against the imposition of circumcision, and various other aspects of the Law; but like subsequent Councils it was met with a degree of opposition and rejection. Perhaps more seriously, in weakening the Church’s links with Judaism, the Council of Jerusalem may inadvertently have contributed to Christianity’s history of anti-Semitism, something which the Church was to tackle head-on only at the Second Vatican Council, when the document Nostra aetate was to declare unequivocally that the Jewish people are particularly beloved of God, with their own way towards Him, and a unique role as our elder brothers and sisters in faith.

Turning to the Gospel, we see that the Holy Spirit, whom the Fathers of the various Councils have invoked, is promised to all of us. Not only the Holy Spirit, but the other two persons of the Trinity, the Father and the Son, will come to dwell in the Church as a whole, but also in each of us individually. We can rely on the Holy Spirit to guide the Church; but if we truly love Jesus the Lord, and are faithful to His word, we are promised the awesome loving presence of God, the Father Son and Holy Spirit in the life of each one of us.

3rd Sunday of Easter Year C

3rd Sunday of Easter 2022

Acts 5: 27-32, 40f; Apocalypse 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

I wish they hadn’t changed the translation of today’s Opening Prayer. It used to read, “You have made us your sons and daughters, and restored the joy of our youth”. In other words, you have made us young again, given us sparkling eyes, enthusiasm and joie de vivre.

It is in that spirit of youthful enthusiasm and joie de vivre that we read today’s Gospel. Let us begin with a seemingly unimportant statement “It was light by now”. In John’s Gospel, light and darkness are crucial concepts. When Judas leaves the supper room to betray Jesus, John comments “Night had fallen”. It was the hour of darkness--a term which John attributes to Jesus Himself--a time when evil was in the ascendancy. When the risen Christ appears on the shore, by contrast, “It was light by now”, because the darkness has passed: evil has been defeated. Do we recognise that light in our own lives?

When the disciples have caught the miraculous draught of fish, the Beloved Disciple says to Peter “It is the Lord”, and Peter takes the lead in heading towards the risen Christ. This repeats the pattern of the empty tomb. There, if you recall, John deferred to Peter, the leader, allowing him to enter the tomb first, but it was the contemplative John who “saw and believed”. The Church needs Peter, but it also needs John to pass on his insights to Peter who, we hope, is also contemplative, in order that the latter may respond. Similarly, we need both a contemplative and an active dimension in our own lives.

As the disciples come ashore, they see a charcoal fire, which recalls another charcoal fire in the High Priest’s courtyard, where Peter three times denied his Lord. This new fire, like the fire blessed at the Easter Vigil, is to be the setting for a threefold declaration of love by Peter, which is to wipe out his triple failure. The late Bishop Brewer was of the opinion that the use of a different word (phileo) for “love” by Peter from that used by Jesus (agapao) implied a holding back on his part, but most scripture scholars reject that interpretation. (Sorry, Bishop Brewer, but at least you will know now whether you were right or not.) Similarly, scholars don’t read a great deal into Our Lord’s differentiation between “lambs” and “sheep”.

After receiving Peter’s triple affirmation, the Risen Lord gives him a solemn warning: “When you grow old, someone else will put a belt round you, and take you where you would rather not go”. Does that chime with your own experience at all? Once you and I have passed our peak, we experience a decline in our powers both physical and mental—what did you say your name was?—and we have all seen once vigorous people become increasingly dependent on others. If and when that happens, we need to recall that prayer which I mentioned earlier, and to remain young in attitude and outlook.

Of course there is more than that at the heart of those words. How often in life have you found yourself in a situation not of your choosing, in circumstances where you would prefer not to be (perhaps, even, “not to be” in the sense of “not to exist”)? You have been led there like Peter, and like him you must find God in that situation; to the utmost of your ability you must trust God to turn it to good, and to lead you through it to a fuller life in Him.

John adds a footnote to the effect that Jesus’ words indicated the manner of Peter’s death. Apparently, to stretch out your hands and to be secured with a belt was a common expression indicating crucifixion, and you are probably familiar with the ancient tradition that Peter chose to be crucified upside down. Whether or not that was the case, it is significant that Our Lord ends with the instruction “Follow me”.  Whatever the situation of our own life, and indeed of our own death, what matters is to follow the Lord.

How are you and I to follow the Lord? We are to do it by remaining young, by keeping our enthusiasm and our positivity, by refusing to succumb to weariness and cynicism. We are to remember that God has made us His sons and daughters, and restored the joy of our youth.