The first Sunday of
Advent B
(Nov 27) Today let us think of
St. Maximinus
(Saints)
Scripture Today:
Isaiah 63: 16-17.19; 64:
2-7;
Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16,
18-19; 1 Corinthians 1:
3-9; Mark 13: 33-37.
Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will
come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in
charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep
watch. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house
will come back — whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster
crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What
I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
(Mark 13:
33-37NIV)
Today we begin a new twelve month liturgical
year (Year B), and it begins with the liturgical reliving of the preparation for
the coming of the Messiah. The Church calls it the special liturgical season of
Advent. The Christian knows that in Christ is given every heavenly blessing and
that the Old Testament period was God’s preparation of his people for his
coming. Part and parcel of the mystery of Christ is the divine preparation for
his coming. Therefore the liturgical year’s celebration of the mystery of Christ
includes also a liturgical celebration of this preparation. By reliving the
sentiments God instilled in his people prior to the coming of the Messiah
(Isaiah 63: 16-17.19; 64: 2-7) we shall be
more disposed to receive Christ when he comes to us again, now in our everyday
life and especially at the end.
The attitude and posture which the Church
invites us to make our own today is that contained in today’s Gospel passage
(Mark 13: 33-37). We are to stay awake, Our
Lord tells us, because we never know when the time will come. What does this
mean, in concrete terms? Our Lord provides us with a simile. “It is like a man
travelling abroad: he has gone from home, and left his servants in charge, each
with his own task.” So being ready for the coming of the Master means working at
the task he has given us to do, whatever that may be ─ seemingly unimportant
perhaps. It means trying to do the best we can with the task the Master has
given us to do, however unnoticed it may be before the gaze of men. Were the
Master to arrive suddenly, he will find us diligent at his work. “He must not
find you asleep.”
The greatest task ahead of each person is his
own sanctification. As St Paul writes in one of his letters, “This is the will
of God: your sanctification.” Christ must not find us asleep at the wheel.
So then, now I begin!
(E.J.Tyler)
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Christ’s two comings (Mark 13: 33-37)
Comment by St John Chrysostom
(345-407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily on Psalm 49)
At his first coming, God came without any brilliance, unknown by most,
prolonging the mystery of his hidden life by many years. When he came down from
the mountain of the Transfiguration, Jesus asked his disciples not to tell
anyone that he was the Christ. Then he came like a shepherd to look for his lost
sheep, and in order to get hold of the unruly animal, he had to remain hidden.
Like a doctor who is careful not to frighten his patient right from the start,
in the same way, the Lord avoids making himself known right from the beginning
of his mission: he only does so imperceptibly and little by little. The prophet
announced this event without brilliance with these words: “He shall be like rain
coming down on the meadow, like showers watering the earth.” (Ps 72:6) He did
not tear open the heavens so as to come on the clouds, but rather, he came in
silence into the womb of a virgin and was carried by her for nine months. He was
born in a manger as the son of a humble craftsman…… He went here and there like
an ordinary man; his clothing was simple, his table even more frugal. He walked
without resting to the point of being tired out. But his second coming will not
be like that. He will come with such brilliance that it won’t be necessary to
announce his coming: “As the lightning from the east flashes to the west, so
will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Mt 24:27) It will be the time of
judgment and of sentencing. And the Lord will not appear as a doctor, but as a
judge. The prophet Daniel saw his throne, the river flowing at the base of the
tribunal, and that device made entirely of fire, the chariot and the wheels
(7:9-10)…… David, the prophet-king, spoke only of splendour, of brilliance, of
fire flaming on all sides: “Before him is a devouring fire; around him is a
raging storm.” (Ps 50:3) All these comparisons aim at making us understand
God’s sovereignty, the brilliant light that surrounds him, and his inaccessible
nature.
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You insist on trying to walk on your own, doing your own will, guided solely by
your own judgment. And you can see for yourself that the fruit of this is
fruitlessness. My child, if you don’t give up your own judgment, if you are
proud, if you devote yourself to “your” apostolate, you will work all night
— your whole life will be one long night — and at the end of it all the dawn will
find you with your nets empty.
(The Forge, no.574)
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Second
Sunday of Advent B
(December 4) St
John Damascene, priest and doctor of the Church (8th century).
John was born in Damascus (hence, John the Damascene, or John
Damascene), Syria. Learned in philosophy and theology, he wrote many
doctrinal works, particularly against iconoclasts who were destroying
sacred images and paintings. He became a monk in the monastery of St
Sabbas, near Jerusalem and is counted as the last of the Eastern
Fathers of the Church.
Let us also think of St.
Barbara (Saints)
Scripture today:
Isaiah 40:
1-5.9-11; Psalm 85: 9-14; 2
Peter 3:
8-14; Mark 1: 1-8.
The
beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in
Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare
your way” — “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the
Lord, make straight paths for him.’” And so John came, baptizing in the desert
region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The
whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.
Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore
clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate
locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me will come one more
powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and
untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
(Mark 1:
1-8NIV)
There
is no getting away from it — holiness and union with God in Christ requires
repentance from sin.
This
means that, hand in hand with the thought of the person of Christ and striving
to know and love him more and more, there must be a great attention to sin. Sin
is the enemy to be defeated and it is a long and daily struggle. The sin within
one’s own heart has to be discovered, unmasked, and in various ways with God’s
help, gradually overcome. One must grow in the consciousness of personal sin and
its seriousness. The Servant of God, Pope Pius XII, taught that the sin of the
modern period was the loss of the sense of sin. Without it, it will be
impossible to follow Christ closely. For this reason, as we read in today’s
Gospel (Mark 1: 1-8), St John the Baptist
comes in the wilderness to announce the coming of the Messiah, but he comes
proclaiming a baptism or washing of repentance.
We can accept
all this in theory, but it has to come down to practice. The one who willingly
listens to the words of the Baptist (which the Church makes her own), must
repent from the deliberate venial sins of everyday life that we tend to think
are not sins at all, or that we think don’t matter much. The good person with
the grace of God can expect to avoid mortal sin if the normal means are
sincerely taken. But it is venial sin which clings so persistently to our hearts
and which blocks our advance in Christian love and virtue. We simply must come
to terms with deliberate venial sin if we wish to be followers of the Master.
The preaching of John the Baptist which the Church wishes us to take to heart at
this stage of Advent must be applied to venial sin. The grace of Advent is a
renewed readiness to welcome the advent of Christ into our lives, and we must
understand that this means repentance, and repentance means taking seriously the
presence and recurrence of deliberate venial sin.
Let us get
down to business and deal with sin, including and especially deliberate venial
sin. We have the means to help us: a daily examination of conscience concluding
with a sincere act of contrition, and a fervent and regular reception of the
Sacrament of Penance.
(E.J.Tyler)
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There is
no other possible attitude for a Catholic: we have to defend
the authority of the Pope always, and to be ready always to correct our
own views with docility, in line with the teaching authority of the
Church.
(The Forge, no.581)
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Third
Sunday of Advent B
(December 11) Saint Damasus I, pope.
Born about the year 305, of Spanish descent. He became a cleric in Rome,
and in the year 366 during very troublesome times he was ordained
bishop of Rome. He called together a number of synods against the
heretics and schismatics, and he did much to promote the veneration of
the martyrs, whose tombs he embellished with sacred verse. He died in
384. (Saints)
Scripture: Isaiah 61:
1-2.10-11; Luke 1: 46-50,
53-54; 1
Thessalonians
5:16-24; John 1:6-8.19-28.
Be
joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is
God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not
treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid
every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and
through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
(1 Thes 5:16-24NIV)
It scarcely
needs to be observed that there is so much suffering in the world. It is said
that one of the major health problems in Australia is depression and general
mental ill-health. There is still a considerable suicide
rate among young people, and suicide is present among people of other ages as
well. The point that can be made about this, I
suppose, is that it is not hard to be unhappy. The challenge is to find
happiness — and that is what we desire anyway. But it is a challenge and the
challenge derives fundamentally from the fact that we are born into a fallen
sinful condition and by our sins we tend to sink further in this condition. And
so happiness easily eludes us. We could say that it is a great achievement to
attain a profound happiness in life — and this was what was especially striking
in the life and death of one to whom I have drawn attention before, the
Australian drug smuggler, Van Nguyen, executed in December 2005. He apparently
attained a profound peace of soul before he died.
Now, in our
second reading today from the first letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians St
Paul tells the Christians he was addressing that he wanted them to be “joyful
always”. The implication is that this happiness ought be the normal condition of
the Christian. Somehow it must be able to be present in the midst of suffering
because while Our Lord endured unimaginable sufferings, it is inconceivable that
he at any point was “unhappy” and had lost his peace. Moreover, St Paul tells us
in the same sentence that his readers were to “pray continually; give thanks in
all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus”
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-24). We will be able
to do this, to be happy and to give thanks to God for everything, if we remain
and grow “in Christ Jesus.” One gets the impression that, for instance, Van
Nguyen was happy, that he prayed constantly, and that he gave thanks to God.
This was because by the time his end was approaching, he had embraced the
Catholic Faith and was “in Christ Jesus.”
That is the
secret to constant happiness and gratitude. We must learn to live “in Christ
Jesus” and resolve to put on the virtues of the heart of Christ. We must come to
know him, and by our closeness to him we will be transformed more and more into
his image. As St Paul says in the same second reading: “God has called you and
he will not fail you.”
(E.J.Tyler)
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Imitate the Blessed Virgin. Only by openly admitting that we are
nothing can we become precious in the eyes of our Creator.
(The Forge, no.588)
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Fourth Sunday of Advent B
Today let us
think of St. Gatian,
and the Expectation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary (Saints)
Scripture: 2 Samuel 7:1-5.
8b-12.14a.16; Psalm 89: 2-5,
27, 29; Romans
16:25-27; Luke 1: 26-38.
In
the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a
virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The
virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are
highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words
and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and
give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great
and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the
throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I
am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be
called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in
her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For
nothing is impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May
it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
(Luke 1:
26-38NIV)
In 2005,
reports of riots in Sydney spread throughout the world. For instance, I have a
niece in Brazil, and a couple of days after the riots she sent me a message
telling me she had heard about them. There was some discussion in the media
about what were the causes of this trouble, and one person who was interviewed
thought that one factor
has
been the gradual loss of respect among people in our culture. This loss of
respect shows itself in a loss of good manners, a taking people for granted, a
harshness towards others. The reason why I introduce this observation here is
that a habit of disrespect towards others can affect our attitude to God
himself. Our culture and our society can condition us in certain ways if we are
not on guard. For instance, in a society in which there has been a loss of a
sense of sin, there is the danger that we too could be affected by this and lose
our own sense of sin. So too we need to foster within ourselves the habit of
being respectful. The basis of this virtue of respect and reverence is to
recognise the dignity of each person. Each person is God's child, made in his
image. Parents need to instil this into their children. For if we are respectful
to others, we will be more likely to be respectful to God and to recognise just
who God is, and this will be the basis of an attitude of love and adoration. We
will be less likely to take Christ for granted.
In our Gospel
today (Luke 1: 26-38) the archangel Gabriel
appears to a young woman in an obscure village of Galilee to announce a
momentous message. Let us notice how respectful the angel was to the virgin Mary
herself. He recognised the greatness of her dignity, and addressed her as the
one who is full of grace, all holy. He also had a profound respect for the very
message that he was bearing from God. He had come to announce that the
long-awaited Messiah was about to come and that she, the virgin Mary, was chosen
by God to be his mother. He came to tell her this and to ask her consent. The
one to come was a divine person, the Son of God himself. Consider what he said
of the one who was coming: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the
Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and
he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.” If we aspire to love Christ we
must profoundly respect him, and for this to happen we must bear in mind who he
is. God was sending to mankind and to each human person an extraordinary gift,
the gift of his own divine Son who would have a unique task, to redeem the world
and each person in it. The plan of God was to unite to his Son each person who
accepted the invitation. By being in Jesus one would become a child of God and
share in the life of God. Now, it is very easy to take all this for granted, and
not to have a much real respect for it. It is very easy to be relatively
indifferent to the gift of God.
One of the
purposes of birthdays is to celebrate the person whose birthday it is. It is the
time to appreciate again the wonder and the value of that person. So too with
Our Lord’s birthday on Christmas day. It is the opportunity to appreciate again
the wonder of Jesus, the wonder of the Incarnation, the wonder of God becoming
one of us and remaining with us forever, and giving us a share in his own divine
life. Jesus is with us now, and he will be with us to the end. No matter what
might happen in life, we have Jesus with us always, and in Jesus we have every
heavenly blessing. So let us strive during these final days of Advent to
appreciate anew the person of Jesus our Redeemer and to make him our great
treasure. There is nothing greater God could give us than his Son. In him we
have everything worthwhile, everything lasting. Let us then resolve to ask God
our Father to help us to know, appreciate and to love his Son, and to make
union with him the goal of life. Let us be on guard against failing to respect
this gift. It is so easy to take our Faith, the Church and Jesus himself, for
granted.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Rejoice, you who are full of
grace” (Luke 1: 26-38)
Commentary from Pope John Paul II (Allocution November 27, 1983)
Joy is a basic component of the sacred time now beginning. Advent is a
time for being watchful, for prayer, for conversion, in addition to
being one of fervent and joyful expectation. The motive is clear: “The
Lord is near.” (Phil 4:5)
The first thing that is said to Mary in the New Testament is a joyful
invitation: “Exult, rejoice!” (Lk 1:28 in Greek) Such a greeting is
linked to the Saviour’s coming. Mary is the first one to receive the
announcement of a joy, which will be proclaimed to the whole people in
what follows. She participates in it in an extraordinary way and
measure. In her, ancient Israel’s joy is concentrated and finds its
fullness; in her, the happiness of messianic times bursts forth
irrevocably. The Virgin Mary’s joy is in particular that of the “small
remnant” of Israel (Isa 10:20f.), of the poor who await God’s salvation
and who experience his fidelity.
So that we also might participate in this feast, it is necessary to
wait in humility and to welcome the Saviour with trust. “In considering
the ineffable love with which the Virgin Mother awaited the Son, all
the faithful who live the spirit of Advent through the liturgy,
‘vigilant in prayer and filled with gladness’, will be led to take her
as their model and to prepare to go out to meet the Lord who is
coming.” (Paul VI, Marialis cultus)
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Are you able to undergo those
humiliations which God asks of you, in
matters of no importance, matters where the truth is not obscured? You
are not? Then you don’t love the virtue of humility.
(The
Forge, no.595)
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Christmas
Day
(December
25)
Scripture today:
Isaiah
9:1-6 Ps 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13 Titus 2: 11-14 Luke 2:1-14
In
those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the
entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius
was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph
also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the
town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there
to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a
child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she
gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in
a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were
shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at
night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone
around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be
afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the
Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and
lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with
the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men on whom his favour rests.”
(Luke 2:
1-14NIV)
There are now
a great variety of religions in Australia. There are varieties of Christianity,
and various non-Christian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and
Zoroastrianism. Some are recently founded religions, some are religions with a
long history. One result of this phenomenon is that a person searching for
religious truth will have difficulty because all of the religions of man claim,
presumably, to be true. Because of this many who might be disposed to inquire
give up any quest to know the truth and content themselves with being guided
simply by their preferences. They become indifferent to the question of truth
and even develop a dislike for making an issue of it. They can find such an
emphasis boring or irritating, and prefer to stress personal experience and
taste. Now, the Catholic Church makes an issue of the objective truth of
religion, and for the Catholic there is no question as to which of the
religions of man is true: it is the Catholic Religion. That is the Catholic
claim, and every member of the faithful ought take steps to be personally
convinced of this. The religion of the Catholic is the true one, and its
teaching is true. It is true in all that it teaches about the person of Christ
and what Christ taught, and the Catholic knows that if any other religion
contradicts its teaching in this matter, to that extent that other religion is
untrue. The Catholic Religion is true because it was founded and established by,
and continues to be sustained and guided by, the living person of Jesus who is
himself the object of its teaching. He is the object of its love, of its service
and of its worship.
All this is to
say that the Catholic Religion is the one revealed and established by God in
God’s own search for man. The other religions spring from man’s search for God,
and carry with them the strengths, the weaknesses, the truths and the falsehoods
characteristic of any religious search by man. Buddha spent his life searching
for the key to happiness in the midst of suffering, and what he proposed as an
answer gave rise to Buddhism. Confucius sought for an ultimate answer. Mahomet
had powerful religious experiences and chose to place himself in the tradition
of the prophets to give to his experiences their meaning. Each of these men
discovered some truths in their quest, but in the process were also ensnared in
various errors — and some of their errors were very great. Furthermore and most
importantly, ultimately the religions springing from man’s search for God do not
and cannot save man from his sinful condition which is what separates him from
God. But in the case of the Christian and Catholic Religion, issuing forth as
the fulfilment of what God had revealed to the Jews, it is God who comes
searching for man. We, fallen mankind, were sunk in the darkness of our sins and
God came searching for us to save us with his truth and his grace. The birth of
Christ at Bethlehem is God’s gift to man, revealing his loving mercy. Christ
established one religion and by the power of the grace conveyed by that religion
he places man in him, and by doing this places man in God. By our baptism we are
"in Christ" and thus on the way to salvation. When we think of other religions,
we think of the things man has done, with all their human limitations. But when
we think of the Christian and Catholic religion we think of the things God has
done. What did he do? He gave us Jesus, and it is Jesus and his coming which we
celebrate on Christmas Day.
But we can
take Jesus for granted. Consider who it is who was born at Bethlehem. There was
never any question about the fact that the child born at Bethlehem was human. He
is one of us. This was obvious to his mother Mary and to Joseph, it was obvious
to the shepherds and to the Magi from the East. As he grew up in Nazareth it was
obvious to his relations and townspeople. During his public ministry it was
obvious to friend and foe alike that he was a man like us. Indeed it became
obvious that he was a very great man, great as a prophet and as a man of God.
But of course there have been many individuals in the course of human history
who have been great men, great precisely in the realm of religion. They attained
some portion of the truth and led many others along the road that they travelled
in their quest for God. I have already mentioned some of them. But now, there
are notable things that distinguish Jesus from all of them. Our Lord enters
history at Bethlehem as the one whom God had promised he would send. His coming
was long predicted. Mahomet’s birth was not predicted: he emerged in history as
something of a surprise. Our Lord as the Messiah was long predicted, and we
Christians know that his birth at Bethlehem was the fulfilment of the
prophecies. Our Lord in his public ministry showed that he was the One sent by
the Father, and sent by the Father precisely to fulfil a divine plan for man.
Jesus is God’s gift to man, and in him are to be found all the blessings of God
and of heaven. He is the bridge between God and man, and indeed no one comes to
the Father except through me, he said.
But there is
more than this. Our Lord is not only the one whom God sent to be the bearer of
all the divine blessings which God wishes to give to us his creatures. He is not
only the way — indeed the only true and sure way — to the Father. He is the
image of the Father. “He who sees me, sees the Father,” he said. In him dwells
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, St Paul writes. The baby in the manger at
Bethlehem is God himself. And this is the crux of the matter when it comes to
Christ and Christianity. The danger is that we shall mouth those words, that
Jesus is not only man, not only a very great man, not only the greatest of men,
but that he is God, and yet fail to realize what we are saying. If we grant that
this Child who was born at a certain point in history was truly God and the
origin and sustainer of all that is, then there is no greater fact that can be
mentioned. As we look around at our universe and try to gain some impression of
the Creator of it all, we immediately realize how poor our minds are in rising
to such a task. Who and what is God, our hearts ask. The answer has been
revealed to us: God is Jesus, the baby Jesus, the boy Jesus, the man Jesus, the
Jesus who was born at Bethlehem and who died and rose for our salvation and our
sanctification. God is Jesus, and Jesus is God. God the Son is the image of the
Father, the bearer of the Holy Spirit, and in him the fullness of the Godhead
dwells bodily. Let us then beware of the tendency unconsciously to think of
Jesus as simply a great man or even the greatest and holiest of men. We must
pray for the realization that he is man and God, and with this realization we
ought strive to love and adore him and to give our lives over to his service. No
one is on the level of Jesus, for he is our Redeemer and our God, and this we
must bring to as many as possible so that they may come from the darkness to the
light.
As we gather
in spirit with Mary and Joseph to adore the child lying in the manger, let us
resolve to love Jesus with our whole being and by his grace to be transformed
into his likeness.
(E.J.Tyler)
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Thank Jesus for the
confidence he gives you. It’s not stubbornness, but
God’s light that makes you firm as a rock. Meanwhile, others, good as
they are, present a sorry picture. They seem to be sinking in the sand.
They lack the foundation of the faith. Ask Our Lord to grant that the
demands of the virtue of faith may be met both in your life and in the
lives of others.
(The Forge, no.602)
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Mary the Mother of
God
Scripture today:
Numbers 6:
22-27; Psalm 67: 2-3, 5,
6, 8;
Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 2: 16-21
“The shepherds hurried away to
Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”
(Luke 2:
16-21)
We are now at the beginning of a new year. As we look back we
surely must be grateful for the gift of time. How much more time we
shall have, we do not know. But time is precious, and it must be used
well. At the start of the new year our question ought be, what must we
do with the time we are given? We must use it to attain the end for
which we are created, which is to know, love and serve Our Lord here on
earth, and in this way to see and enjoy him forever in heaven. If this
goal is not attained, the time given to us has been wasted. The
critical question for the coming year is, how are we to find Jesus Our
Lord, and to love and serve him? Well, right at the beginning of the
year the Church places before us Mary the Mother of God.
The Church does this for a simple reason. Christ is the gift of
the Father to humanity and in sending his Son among us he entrusted him
to Mary. He was born of the Virgin Mary. In our Gospel scene today the
shepherds were directed by the angel to go to the town of Bethlehem and
there they would find the Saviour who had been born to them, Christ the
Lord. They hurried away to Bethlehem to see him, and found Mary and
Joseph and the child lying in the manger. The Child was not alone but
with Mary. Our Lord is best found by going to Mary, and by being close
to Mary.
There is a further aspect of this. While Christ is found
not alone but with Mary, Mary is not alone either. When the shepherds
went to Bethlehem they found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in
the manger. Mary is found with Joseph, reminding us that just as Christ
is found in the company of his holy mother, so she in her turn is found
in the company of her holy husband Joseph. If we stay close to Mary and
Joseph we shall be staying close to Jesus. There is a further point.
Mary and Joseph are not alone either. They were and are the first and
foremost members of the Church: Mary is the Church’s mother and model,
Joseph is the Church’s universal protector. Christ is found with Mary,
and being found with Mary he is found also with Joseph. More still, he
is found in the heart of the Church. Christ comes to us and is found by
us as head of the Church, his body.
Therefore we are reminded in today’s celebration of Mary
the mother of God that an essential element of involvement with Christ
is involvement with the Church which is his body. At times one hears
the statement, Christ yes, the Church no. Those who say this mean
that they are happy to seek and love and serve the person of
Jesus, but just Jesus. That is to say, they do not want to have much to
do with the Church. But God does not work that way in bringing us the
gift of redemption. God sent his Son to us born of a woman, and as a
child of the holy family. That holy family was the incipient Church,
gathered around Jesus who came forth to man from within its midst. That
is to say, in the plan of God Christ comes to us from within the Church
which is his body. To know Christ Jesus we must draw near to his
Church, learning to love the Church just as Christ loves her. On this
day when we think of Mary the Mother of God, we think also of her as
the mother of the Church. It is through her, mother and member of the
Church, that Christ has come to us.
This is a very important point. At times it is said that
Australia is a Christian country, though very secular as well. Well, if
it can be said that to some extent our culture is Christian, it has to
be said also that its Christianity has mainly protestant traits. A
protestant form of Christianity favours the image of the Christian life
as a matter between me and Jesus, very much a one-to-one thing, in
which there is not much real place for the Church, the sacraments, the
priesthood, the saints, and Mary and Joseph. These elements are
perceived as distractions from the person of Jesus. We must beware of
this image of the Christian life, and it is the image that our culture
will favour. Of course the Christian life is a matter between the
individual and Christ, but Christ comes to the individual not alone but
as part of a company, as it were. He comes as head of the Church which
he founded and sustains. Right from the beginning at Bethlehem he comes
from God in the arms of his mother Mary, and in the company of Joseph.
The seeker will find him in the company of his chosen ones. That is to
say, he is found in his body the Church, of which Mary is the foremost
member, and the mother and the model.
Today’s feast ought renew our resolve to make Christ
the centre of our life this coming year, but doing so in union with
Mary our mother, with Joseph our foster-father and guardian, with,
indeed, the whole Church of God. Catholic Christianity appreciates this
fundamental facet of God’s coming among us. God sanctifies us in,
through and with his Church. Let us unite ourselves to this great cloud
of witnesses surrounding us and dominated by the figure of Mary the
mother of God. Let us resolve with the help of the Church to seek the
union with our Lord that we are called to.
(E.J.Tyler)
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God is very pleased with those who recognise his goodness by reciting
the Te Deum
in thanksgiving whenever something out of the ordinary
happens, without caring whether it may have been good or bad, as the
world reckons these things. For everything comes from the hands of our
Father: so though the blow of the chisel may hurt our flesh, it is a
sign of Love, as he smooths off our rough edges and brings us closer to
perfection.
(The Forge, no.609)
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The Epiphany of the
Lord
(January 8) Let
us also think of St Thorfinn
(Saints)
Scripture readings: Isaiah
60:1-6; Psalm 72: 1-2,
7-8, 10-13; Ephesians
3:2-3:5-6; Matthew 2:1-12
“Some wise men came to Jerusalem from
the east. ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’”
(Matthew 2:1 -12)
At the beginning of the new year let us set priorities and
ask ourselves what we shall do with the time God might grant us. We
have just finished the Christmas season during which we have
contemplated the gift to us of the Son of God. He has come among us in
order to be our
friend, our saviour and our treasure, and he will continue with us to
sanctify us and to make us his own. But today, the feast of the
Epiphany, we think of the pagan wise men coming to do homage to Jesus
(Matthew 2:1 -12). With this image of the Magi in our
hearts we have
a further question to ask ourselves: What is my attitude to all those
beyond the parish, all those beyond the Church, all those who do not
have a living faith in Our Lord at all, to all those whom the Magi
represent and whom God our Father wishes to lead to Jesus?
Just before Our Lord ascended into heaven he gave his
disciples a final command. He said, Go and make disciples of all the
nations, and behold I am with you to the end of time. Yes, Our Lord
wants each of us to be faithful to him and to grow greatly in his
friendship. But friendship with Jesus involves taking part in his
mission of making all people his disciples. In a word, part and parcel
of the Christian life is being apostolic. Yet strangely, not many
Catholics have learnt to be apostolic in their everyday lives. They
have accepted the assumption that religion is a private matter, a
matter of mere personal fidelity, a matter to be kept to oneself. The
upshot of this assumption is that in their everyday life at home, at
work, among friends or wherever, the average church-going Catholic does
not draw those around him closer to the person of Our Lord, and even
less to where Christ in his full reality is to be found — namely, to
the Catholic Church. God’s revealed truth is not shared with those who
do not have it. That is not what Our Lord expects of us his disciples.
Inasmuch as the home of the lay member of the Church is the
world, then if the world is to be brought to Jesus it will be the daily
work of the lay person. In the lay faithful the Church brings Christ to
the world and the world to Christ. And Christ ought not be imagined as
somewhere out there for people to be directed to. No, he can be
located. He is with his body the Church for he is the Church’s head.
Typically he is found in and through the Church. So in the matter of
being apostolic in everyday life, let us ask ourselves, What have I
done for Christ? What am I doing for him? What will I do for him? The
focus of my spiritual life ought not simply be my own fidelity to my
spiritual and religious duties of Sunday Mass, regular Confession,
Daily Prayer, observing the Commandments, and so forth. Of course these
things are utterly essential, but if I want to be a true friend of Our
Lord, I must also include making his mission my own in my everyday
life. Have I yet made Christ’s mission the mission of my own life? Am I
raising my children in such a way that they will want to bring Christ
to the world around them too, or do I and do they look on this as the
work of priests only, or at most of those who have a bent for it? If
this issue leaves me cold, then how real is the person of Jesus to me
and how real to me are the things that he himself wants? He wants the
world to be brought to him.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany. The Church
places before us for our contemplation the image of the pagan wise men
from the East following the star that led them to the Child Jesus. It
is an image that reminds us that Jesus came not only for the Jews, and
not only for us, but for the entire world. Those pagan men from the
East represent the world that does not yet know Jesus. We must be like
that star, leading others to Jesus where he is found, namely with Mary
and Joseph and the rest of the Church. The fact that the wise men from
the East did follow the star perseveringly, making their enquiries
along the way, ought give hope to every lay member of the Church who
wishes to be apostolic. There is something in the heart of man, just as
it was in the heart of those wise men, which will prompt them to follow
the star. There is within man something that prompts him to seek to be
good, and implicitly to seek God. Of course he must be faithful to that
prompting and very many are not. For our part, we are called to be like
stars lighting up the night and leading others to Christ whom they do
not yet know.
On this feast of the Epiphany let us prayerfully implant
in our hearts the Gospel scene of today and keep it warm and alive
there. That Gospel event plants an image in our hearts that reveals to
us our calling to be apostolic, and in the figure of the Magi it
reveals man's yearnings for the person of Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“They prostrated themselves and did
him homage.” (Matthew 2:1 -12)
Commentary by St John
Chrysostom (345 – 407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(Homilies on St. Matthew, 7-8)
Brothers, let us follow the magi, let us leave our pagan customs. Let
us depart! Let us make a long journey so as to see Christ. If the magi
had not left and gone a long way from their country, they would not
have seen Christ. Let us also leave earth’s interests. So long as they
remained in their country, the magi saw only the star; but when they
left their homeland, they saw the Sun of justice (Mal 3:20). Or rather,
let us say: if they had not generously set out on their journey, they
would not even have seen the star. Thus, let us also rise up, and even
if everyone in Jerusalem is troubled, let us run to where the Child is……
“On entering the house, they found the child with Mary his mother. They
prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their
coffers and presented him with gifts.” What motivated them to prostrate
themselves before this child? There was nothing remarkable in the
Virgin or in the house, no object that could have struck their eye and
attracted them. And yet, not content with prostrating themselves, they
opened their treasure, gifts that are not given to a human being but
only to God –– frankincense and myrrh symbolize divinity. What was
their reason for acting in this way? The same as that which made them
decide to leave their homeland, to depart on this long journey. It was
the star, that is to say, the light with which God had filled their
heart and which led them little by little to a more perfect knowledge.
If there hadn’t been that light, how could they have given such homage
when what they saw was so poor and humble? If there is not material
grandeur but only a crib, a stable, a mother who is lacking in
everything, it is so that you might see the magi’s wisdom more clearly,
so that you understand that they came not to a human being but to a
God, to their benefactor.
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Our life
— a Christian’s life — has to be as ordinary as this: trying
every day to do well those very things it is our duty to do; carrying
out our divine mission in the world by fulfilling the little duty of
each moment. Or rather, struggling to fulfil it. Sometimes we don’t
manage, and when night comes, in our examination, we’ll have to tell
Our Lord, “I am not offering you virtues; today I can only offer you
defects. But with your grace I will be able to count myself a victor.
(The Forge, no.616)
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The Second Sunday of
Ordinary Time B
(January 15) Today let us think of St Paul, hermit
(Saints)
Scripture: 1 Samuel
3:3-10.19; Psalm 40: 2, 4,
7-10; 1
Corinthians 6:13-15.17-20; John 1:35-42
“Hearing this, the two disciples
followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What
do you want?’"
(John 1:35-42)
Recently we heard on the news how hundreds of Muslims were
crushed from the surging crowds gathered in Arabia to celebrate their
religious festival and to venerate their founder, Mahomet.
Vast numbers
of Muslims from all over the world are there at this moment. In various
parts of Asia there are great religious festivals too. In India, for
instance, there are occasions when great numbers of Hindus gather and
come and go on pilgrimage. What are we to make of this? One thing this
religious life shows is that characteristically man is not a secular
but rather a religious being. He tends towards God not only by calling
but by his very nature. We in our Western society and culture are
accustomed to seeing people uninterested in a religious life, but this
is an aberration in human history. The normal thing is that man desires
God and wants to worship him. The problem is that he is liable to do so
in great darkness and not in light of truth. He is apt to worship false
gods.
In our Gospel today we are placed in a very beautiful scene. The
two disciples of John the Baptist, having heard his testimony about
Jesus begin to follow him. What is at the root of their doing this? It
is that they want to know and to be with God. That is why they were
disciples of John in the first place. That is why they followed Jesus
having heard the words of John about him. They sensed that to be with
Jesus and to hear from him would be to draw close to God. And so when
our Lord turned to them and asked what they were seeking, they could
have said that they were seeking God. But rather they asked him where
he lived, implying that they knew Jesus would bring them close to God.
And so he said, come and see. And they stayed with him the rest of that
day (John 1:35-42). Think of their time with Jesus! There
we have a picture of man earnestly seeking God and God coming to meet
him in his search in order to receive him into his personal friendship.
As we think of this Gospel scene let us appreciate anew the
desire for God which has been planted in our own hearts by our Creator.
We ought ask ourselves if we are cultivating this desire and keeping it
pure and focussed on its proper object. Our own Western culture of
which the Australian culture is a part strongly tempts a person to
consider God as scarcely an objective reality. Our society thinks God
is a just personal opinion, and that it does not matter much what one’s
views on God are, nor what one’s religion is, provided one is moral.
People tend to think that when it comes to public life we should get on
without God. The result of this is that the very desire for God, so
natural and instinctive to human nature and so universal among
cultures, can diminish and be replaced with the desire for other
things. So then, we must make a point of cultivating a burning desire
for God and protecting our desire for him from all that could harm or
diminish it. We must do all we can to see this desire for God grow in
society and in all men.
There is a further point of great importance. We ought
also guard against the assumption that attaining the truth about God is
not of great importance, and thinking that any faith will do.
For, wonderful as is the very desire for God, and tragic as it is when
this desire is lost or greatly reduced, nevertheless the fact is that
error about God abounds. The objective truth about God that comes from
him is, relatively speaking, so little known. We see vast numbers of
people passionately committed to what their religion or philosophy says
about God — be it Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or whatever. Yet these
religions and philosophical views differ radically, and their claims
about God contradict one another. This contradiction among claimants
shows to any observer that many must be wrong, for statements that
contradict one
another can’t all be correct. The typical response of very many
to this religious diversity is to think that ultimate truth does not
matter and is impossible to attain truth anyway. Some views even have
it that
there is no objective truth. We must resist this resolutely. There is a
truth, and that which contradicts it is false.
We know the truth. It has been revealed by God. That truth
is Christ, his person and his teaching. It is imperative that we know
the truth, that we hold on to it, and that we bring it to others,
encouraging them to seek with determination the truth revealed by God
and adhere to it perseveringly. This means bringing them to the person
of Christ where he is to be found, in the Church his body. Let us think
of those two disciples searching for God. They were put in direct touch
with Christ by John the Baptist, and Christ took them to where he
dwelt. Where does Christ
dwell? He dwells in the Church, his Body. It is there that Christ will
be found and he, the head of the Church, is the answer to man’s quest
for God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“We
have found the Messiah!”
(John 1:35-42)
Commentary from Basil of Seleucia (? ––
468), Bishop (Sermon in praise of St. Andrew, 4)
Taking Peter with him, Andrew led his brother according to the flesh to
the Lord, so that, like himself, he might become a disciple. That was
Andrew’s first achievement. He caused the number of disciples to grow;
he introduced Peter, in whom Christ found the head of his disciples.
That was so true that later, when Peter behaved admirably, he owed this
to what Andrew had sown. The praise given to the one is also reflected
on the other, for the goods of the one belong to the other, and the one
glories in the other’s merits.
What joy Peter obtained for all when he immediately answered the Lord’s
question, breaking the disciples’ embarrassing silence…… Peter alone
said: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” (Mt 16:16) He
spoke in the name of all; in one sentence, he proclaimed the Saviour
and his plan of salvation. How greatly does this proclamation agree
with that of Andrew! The words, which Andrew spoke to Peter when he led
him to Christ — “We have found the Messiah” – were confirmed by
the heavenly Father when he himself inspired Peter with them (Mt
16:17): “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God!”
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God does not let himself be outdone in generosity. Be very sure that he
grants faithfulness to those who give themselves to him.
(The Forge, no.623)
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Third
Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(January 22) St
Vincent, deacon and martyr (died 304). St Vincent of Saragossa,
Spain, one of the greatest deacons of the Church, suffered martyrdom in
Valencia in the persecution under Diocletian. He was born in Huesca,
Spain. (Saints)
Scripture today: Jonah
3:1-5.10; Psalm 25: 4-9;
1 Corinthians
7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
“‘The time has come’, he said ‘and the
kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.’”
(Mark
1:14-20)
It is a very good idea to reflect frequently on what thoughts,
what beliefs and what goals drive us in our daily life. What is it that
will make life worthwhile to us? I was speaking recently to a young
university graduate, and asked her what work she wanted to do in life.
She said she wasn’t interested in work as such — she looked on her work
as simply something she had to do. I had the impression that she had
not worked out what she really believed to be important. In our
Gospel passage today our Lord presents us in simple terms with what we
ought believe in: “The time has come and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe the Good News.” We have it there in a nutshell: the
Gospel in its totality ought have our full assent. The Good News is
Jesus and his
teaching and grace, and as God made man he moves among
us addressing us as friends and inviting us to live in his friendship.
Our response has to be one of faith in his person and in his teaching,
a full assent coming from our whole being.
This introduces us to the question of what it is to
believe, what it is to have faith. Our Lord in the Gospel invites his
hearers to
believe: repent and believe, he says. By faith a man with his whole
being assents to God and to what he reveals. Scripture calls this the
obedience of faith. Years ago I remember being in a religious
discussion group made up of about five doctors. I was surprised at how
poor an understanding they had of their Catholic Faith. But even worse,
I noticed how some of them seemed to think that in all matters of
religion one basically makes up one’s own mind as to what to believe,
instead of relying on a higher authority. Of course, in higher studies
a person is encouraged to decide for himself, and not to go on
authority. But in respect to our Christian belief, once the Christian
accepts that Christ is God and our redeemer, he then accepts whatever
Christ has revealed. He bases himself on Christ’s authority. He does so
not because he happens to agree with it, but because it is Christ who
has revealed it. And so when our Lord in today’s Gospel invites us to
believe in the Good News he is inviting us to submit our intellect and
will to him with our whole being. Faith is obedience to God. We believe
on God’s authority.
There is a further step in all this. The Catholic grasps
that Christ dwells in his body the Church as her Head and through the
power and action of the Holy Spirit guides the Church to teach in his
name. Therefore the Church’s teaching is the teaching of Christ. This
is one thing a young person must learn when it comes to religion,
because many adults have never learnt it and it is possible to go right
through life without appreciating it. Many adults go through life
thinking that in matters of religious belief ultimately it is right and
proper to be making up one’s
own mind, that is to say without recourse to and dependence on a
higher authority. The result is that one’s religion is a religion based
simply on one’s private judgment rather than on the divine authority of
God revealing. Christ, dwelling in his Church, makes the Church his
living oracle. The Church is the Oracle of God. If what one believes is
simply what one works out for oneself, then one’s religion is a
religion of man and not the religion revealed by God by which he
means to redeem and sanctify us.
There is a further point which our Lord makes clear in the
Gospel today. Before we can hope to give to Christ and his Church the
assent of mind and heart which we call faith, we must repent. Our Lord
tells us to repent and believe the Gospel. That is to say, in order to
embrace fully and with our whole being the person and divine teaching
of
Christ, we must submit to him. We must submit our mind and our will to
him. To submit to our Lord and to his teaching as it comes to us in the
teaching of the Church requires that we be prepared to put aside our
own will and preferences. It requires submission and obedience, which
goes against our pride and inclinations. Cardinal Newman once said that
the essence of religion is authority and obedience. He was referring to
the authority of God and the obedience of faith. To give this obedience
of faith we have to repent of pride and independence of mind. On the
basis of this repentance we can enter into an authentically religious
relationship with Christ and his teaching Church.
Let us then resolve to renounce anything within us that might
lead to resist accepting and living our Catholic Faith. That is
to say, let us resolve to do what our Lord says: repent and believe the
Good News.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church No. 144-165
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“They left and became his
followers” (Mark
1:14-20)
Commentary by St Jerome (347––420),
Priest, Translator of the Bible, Doctor of the Church
(Homilies on the Gospel of Mark)
“Jesus said to them, ‘Come after me; I will make you fishers of men.’”
Happy transformation of fishing! Simon and Andrew are what Jesus caught
fishing…… These men are made similar to fish, caught by Christ, before
going themselves to catch other people. “They immediately abandoned
their nets and became his followers.” True faith knows no delay. As
soon as they heard him, they believed, they followed him, and they
became fishers. “They immediately abandoned their nets.” I think that
with those nets, they abandoned all the vices of the life of this
world……
“Proceeding a little farther along, he caught sight of James, Zebedee’s
son, and his brother John…… He summoned them on the spot. They
abandoned their father Zebedee, who was in the boat with the hired men,
and went off in his company.” You will tell me: faith is daring. What
indication did they have, what sublime characteristic had they noted
that made them follow him as soon as he called them? We realize that
evidently something divine came forth from Jesus’ gaze, from the
expression on his face, which incited those who looked at Jesus to turn
towards him…… Why am I saying all this? It is to show you that the
Lord’s word was active, and that through the least of his words, he was
working on his task: “He commanded and they were made.” (Ps 148:5) With
the same simplicity, he called and they followed……: “Hear, O daughter,
and see; turn your ear, forget your people and your father’’s house. So
shall the king desire your beauty.” (Ps 45:11-12)
Listen well, brother, and follow the path of the apostles; listen to
the Saviour’s voice, ignore your father according to the flesh and see
the true Father of your soul and your mind…… The apostles left their
father, left their boat, left all their riches of that time; they
abandoned the world and its countless riches; they renounced all that
they owned. However, God does not consider the mass of riches, but
rather the soul of the person who renounces them. Those people who left
only a few things would also have renounced a large fortune if the need
had arisen.
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Help me with your prayer. I want all of us within Holy Church to feel
that we are members of the same body, as the Apostle asks of us. I want
us to be vividly and profoundly aware, without any lack of interest, of
the joys, the troubles, the progress of our Mother who is one, holy,
catholic, apostolic, Roman. I want us to live as one, each of us
identified with the cares of the others, and all identified with Christ.
(The Forge, no.630)
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Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time B
Today let us
think of St. Gildas the Wise
(Saints)
Scripture: Deuteronomy
18:15-20; Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-9; 1
Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28
“Have you come to destroy us? I know
who you are: the Holy One of God.”
(Mark 1:21-28)
It is often said that when we look ahead time seems to move
slowly, and when we look back, time seems to have passed very quickly.
Usually when we look back on the day, it seems to have passed quickly,
so too with the past week, the past month, the past year. When we come
to the end of our lives, the whole of our life will seem to have passed
quickly and we shall wonder what we have done with it. Life is short,
and we had better learn this quickly because eternity is long. During
life we often think of the future so as to prepare for it. Parents
choose
a school for their children in view of their future. Students study
with a view to their future exams and their future careers. A young
couple prepares for their future marriage and their future family. A
man embarks on a career path in view of a future he hopes will be his.
People save and contribute to superannuation in view of their future,
their retirement. And yet a great many people do not think of their
future beyond death — and that future is the real future which will
never end. Everything depends on what our future will be then. Then our
present state will seem a brief flash of time, and yet we will
recognise clearly how all-important it was. Everything, our entire
eternity, depends on how we live this brief flash of time which we call
our life.
What awaits the person after death when he has been
faithful to the dictates of his conscience and to the
commandments of God as Christ and the Church teach them? Immediately
after death there is the judgment of God. The person whose soul is
judged by God is either saved forever or lost forever. If a person is
saved, there would normally be a purification in Purgatory from all the
effects of sin before being admitted in an entirely holy state into the
presence of God forever. At that point the bliss of heaven begins, the
bliss of being face to face with the God who is infinite love, goodness
and beauty. It will mean being engulfed in total happiness forever. Our
life will have been a success if it results in gaining heaven. It will
have been a catastrophic failure if it results in the loss of heaven.
Our merit and place in heaven will depend on the degree to which we
have loved and obeyed God on earth, and the degree to which we have led
others to God and to heaven. We have a responsibility to save our own
souls and the souls of others.
In heaven our souls will be with God and with the saints and
angels till the end of time when we receive our glorified bodies back
again. During that period between our death and the end of time we
shall spend our time in heaven enjoying the company of God and of all
in heaven, and with the angels and saints praying fervently to God for
those still on earth. Then at the end of time Christ will come again to
judge the living and the dead, and of his kingdom there will then be no
end. Heaven and Hell will be made the final place for those who deserve
the one or the other. Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth,
yes, a new earth, transformed and glorified as our final home just as
our bodies will have been transformed and glorified in some mysterious
and wonderful sense. All will be utter happiness and love. We will live
forever in a new heaven and a new earth in which every tear will have
been wiped away. We find it almost impossible to imagine a place and a
state of utter happiness because it is completely beyond our
experience. Here our times and moments of happiness are limited and
mixed with unhappiness. But there in heaven every trace of sorrow will
be gone in a new heaven and a new earth, transformed and purified of
all that is not the joy and goodness of God. It will last forever and
forever, such that however far in the future we will be with God in
this heavenly joy, there will still be an eternity of it ahead.
Let us think of our final home a lot. How can we get
there? In our Gospel we heard Christ in conflict with Satan
(Mark 1:21-28). We must make a choice between Christ
and Satan, between the love of God and love of self and sin. We gain
heaven by following our Lord very closely, by trying to put on the mind
and heart of Christ. Now not I, St Paul writes, but Christ lives in me.
Christ is in you, St Paul writes again, your hope of glory. So then,
let us
so live that Christ lives in us now, in order to live in us forever
where
there will be the new heaven and the new earth, world without end.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“A completely new teaching in a spirit
of authority!” (Mark 1:21-28)
Comment by St Bonaventure (1221-1274),
Franciscan priest, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church
Sermon ‘Christus unus omnium magister’
“Only one is your teacher, the Messiah.” (Mt 23:10)…… For Christ is
“the reflection of the Father’s glory, the exact representation of the
Father’s being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” (Heb
1:3) He is the origin of all wisdom. The Word of God in the heights is
the source of wisdom. Christ is the source of all true knowledge, for
he is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (Jn 14:6)…… As way, Christ is
the teacher and the origin of knowledge according to faith…… That is
why Peter teaches in his second letter: “We possess the prophetic
message as something altogether reliable. Keep your attention closely
fixed on it, as you would on a lamp shining in a dark place.” (1:19)……
For through his coming in the spirit, Christ is the origin of all
revelation, and through his coming in the flesh, he is the
strengthening of all authority.
He comes first in the spirit as the revealing light of every prophetic
vision. According to Daniel: “He reveals deep and hidden things and
knows what is in the darkness, for the light dwells with him.” (2:22)
This is the light of divine wisdom, which is in Christ. According to
John, Christ said: “I am the light of the world. No follower of mine
shall ever walk in darkness” (8:12), and “While you have the light,
keep faith in the light; thus you will become sons of light.” (12:36)……
Without this light which is Christ, no one can penetrate the secrets of
faith. And that is why we read in the Book of Wisdom: “O God, send
forth that Wisdom from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne
dispatch her that she may be with me and work with me, that I may know
what is your pleasure…… For what man knows God’s counsel, or who can
conceive what the Lord intends?” (9:10-13) No one can come to the
certainty of revealed faith except through Christ’s coming in the
spirit and the flesh.
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In your work with souls
— and all your activity should be work with
souls — be filled with faith, with hope, with love, because all the
difficulties will be overcome. To confirm this truth for us, the
Psalmist wrote: You, O Lord, will laugh at them: You will bring them to
nothing. These words confirm those other words: the enemies of God
shall not prevail. They will not have any power against the Church, nor
against those who serve the Church as instruments of God.
(The Forge, no.637)
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Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(February 6) St
Agatha, virgin and martyr (died about 251) She was martyred in
Catania (Sicily) probably during the time of Decius. Her name appears
in the Roman Canon. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Job
7:1-4.6-7; Psalm 147: 1-6; 1
Corinthians
9:16-19.22-23; Mark 1:29-39
“He went to her, took her by the hand
and helped her up. And the fever left her”.
(Mark 1:29-39)
We live in a technologically advanced society. While many
sicknesses have been averted due to advances in medicine and
technology, people still get sick
and die. Sickness and death, and sickness alone when death is not
imminent, is a tremendous issue for the individual suffering from it.
In sickness a person experiences his powerlessness and his limitations,
and he is enabled to glimpse at death. On the one hand it can lead to
concern simply with self and even despair and revolt against God. On
the other hand it can lead to a greater maturity and a turning to God
and surrender into his care. Sickness and death is a great
challenge: it can be a danger or an opportunity.
In our Gospel today Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with
fever (Mark 1:29-39). Having told him about her, our Lord’s
disciples bring him to her and he cures her. What does this suggest to
us? It reminds us that Jesus is the Healer and the Saviour of the
one who is sick, especially the one who is in some danger of death. It
reminds us too that the greatest thing we can do for the sick person is
to pray to Jesus for him and to try to bring Jesus to the sick person,
just as our Lord’s disciples did. If our Lord’s disciples had not
told him
about her and brought him to her, her fever would not have been taken
away from her at the time it was. She was in this sense dependent on
our Lord’s disciples. So too when people are sick they depend on us to
pray for them in our prayer to our Lord, and to do whatever we can to
bring the healing presence of Jesus to them. In him is to be found
every heavenly
blessing for the sick and dying person. Let us remember this when we
ourselves fall sick and when we have contact with the sick. Christ is
the One the sick person needs.
What a wonderful thing if the one visiting the sick person
truly loves our Lord and has sufficient knowledge of the Catholic Faith
to be able to speak of our Lord to that sick person. I remember nearly
forty years ago reading a great Australian novel by Henry Handel
Richardson. There is one scene in which one of the characters lies
dying and his friend steps forward and says to him, “Have no fear of
death, John!” It is a striking statement, but it is empty. Why? Because
the dying person is being told not to fear
death without being given any reason. Now, any member of Christ’s
faithful has something wonderful to bring to the sick person and
especially to the dying person. It is the Good News about Christ: “Have
no fear of death, John, for Christ is with you!” That is the reason for
not fearing death. But first it is necessary to help the sick person to
repent of sin, to believe in Christ, and to receive him totally. If the
person is baptised and in the state of grace, Christ is in him as his
hope of glory. If he is not baptized, if he is a person of another
religion, it can still be the opportunity to speak about
the person of Jesus, inviting the sick person to welcome Jesus as the
healer and redeemer of the soul. It is the chance to do what the
disciples did in the Gospel: to bring Jesus to the sick person.
If the sick person is a member of the
Church we ought invite the sick person to have a priest come and give
the Sacraments: Confession — always suggest Confession! — and Holy
Communion. If the person is seriously ill, beginning to be in some
danger of death or about to have some serious operation, we ought
suggest the Anointing of the Sick as well. Jesus comes in person in
these Sacraments when they are administered to the sick person. He
comes to
cleanse the person of his sins in the Sacrament of Penance. In
the Anointing of the Sick Christ comes to strengthen the sick person so
as to
bear the difficulties of serious illness or old age, and give healing
of
soul and even at times of body. In this sacrament Christ also unites
the sick person to him in his own Passion and in this way enables the
sick
person to share in his redemptive work, thus doing great good from his
very sick bed. But especially does our Lord in this sacrament prepare
the dangerously sick person for his final journey to God. Then in
addition there is the Holy Eucharist, Jesus himself, called
Viaticum when given to the dying.
Let us reflect on the implications of today’s Gospel. Our
Lord is with us when we are sick to transform our sickness from being a
multi-faceted danger to a great opportunity for holiness. Let us
welcome him then, and let us make it our
business to help every sick person welcome Christ, especially Christ as
he comes to them in the sacraments of Penance, Anointing and the
Eucharist.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no. 1499-1523
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I understood you very well when you
confessed to me: I want to steep
myself in the liturgy of the Holy Mass.
(The Forge,
no.644)
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The sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(February 12) Today let us think of St Damian (Saints)
Scripture: Leviticus
13:1-2.44-46; Psalm 32: 1-2, 5,
11; 1
Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45
“Go and show yourself to the priest
and make the offering prescribed by Moses as evidence”.
(Mark 1:40-45)
We
are born into the social setting which is our family, we grow up in
various social settings, and we live out our lives in various social
settings. These settings are our family, school, workplace, friends and
acquaintances, our parish. Whichever it is, we can hardly live life
without living in a community of one kind or another.
Now, part and
parcel of living in any community will be living subject to some form
of authority. Within the family, the parents have the responsibility of
exercising authority, and children of respecting it. Within the school,
the principal and staff exercise various degrees of authority, and
pupils should respect it. In the workplace there are some who exercise
some kind of authority, and many others who respect and obey it. So too
in the nation and also in the Church. The fact is that by divine
arrangement human society cannot be properly ordered nor can it hope to
be prosperous unless it has some people who are invested with
legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote
themselves by governing to the good of all. By God’s plan every human
community needs authority.
What then ought be our attitude to authority, inasmuch as it is
necessarily part of our life? The danger is that, living in the
blessing of a democracy in
which those who exercise authority are constantly and publicly
criticised, our attitude to
authority will often tend instinctively to be grudging and reluctant.
Well, the Christian will recognise that legitimate authority comes
directly or indirectly from God, and that by respecting legitimate
authority
we are respecting God. It means that wherever authority is legitimately
exercised over us, there God is touching our lives by making known his
will. If we are intent every day on doing the will of God and of
showing our love for him by serving him generously, then we have the
chance to do this by obeying the authorities that touch different
dimensions of our life.
Of course, it is often not that simple because those entrusted
with the authority that ultimately comes from God often exercise it in
at least partially sinful ways. Blindly to follow the directives of
authority in society could mean collaborating in things which are
intrinsically sinful. An example might be if a Government passes a law
allowing the prescription by doctors of deadly abortion pills. To obey
such a law would be to participate in an extremely sinful act.
However, the Christian while knowing that authority can be sinfully
abused, will nevertheless respect authority as something that comes
from the will and plan of God. Authority in society enables the members
of society to please God in their daily life in the world by their
obedience. It also means that the one invested with some authority has
the responsibility of serving God by governing and administering in a
way pleasing to God and not just arbitrarily.
In all of this the Christian has the example of our Lord himself
to inspire and guide him. At the age of twelve even though our Lord had
shown to Mary and Joseph who had been seeking him that he obeyed his
heavenly Father, he went
down to Nazareth and from then on was subject to their authority. Then
in his public ministry, even though he was being persecuted by the
religious authorities because of his teachings, he nevertheless
respected their authority. In our Gospel today he tells the leper he
had cured to go off and report to the priest and make the offering as
prescribed by Moses as
evidence of his recovery. In this instance, our Lord respected the
legitimate authority given by God to the priests to certify a healing.
So too in relation to the authority of the state, he told the religious
leaders that one should give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and
to God what belongs to God. And then in the presence of Pilate he told
him that the authority he had was given to him from above.
The lay
person whose mission is to serve Christ in the world ought have a
lively sense of the fact that in obeying legitimate authority in the
various spheres of his daily life, be it in the family, in the world
and in their parish, he is serving God and showing his love for
him. So then, respect for authority is a very important means of
keeping in union with God in daily life. In the person of Jesus there
is a wonderful example for the person who is called upon to exercise
authority, and a wonderful example for the person who is called upon to
respect and obey it. Christ is more than an example. He lives in us by
grace.
Cardinal Newman once wrote that the essence of religion is
authority and obedience. Let us pray for the grace to recognise God in
the authority that is legitimately exercised over us, just as Christ
would. If we ourselves exercise that authority over others, let us do
so just as Christ would.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church no. 1897-1904 (Authority)
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“I do
will it. Be cured.” (Mark 1:40-45)
Comment by St Paschasius
Radbert (? –– 849), Monk. (Commentary
on Matthew’s Gospel 5,8)
Every day, the Lord heals the soul of every person who implores him,
who adores him reverently and who proclaims these words with faith:
“Lord, if you will to do so, you can cure me,” and he does so no matter
how many faults he has. For “faith in the heart leads to
justification.” (Rom 10:10) Thus, we must address our requests to God
in complete trust, without doubting his presence in any way…… That is
why the Lord immediately answered the leper who begged him: “I do will
it.” For the sinner has hardly begun to pray with faith when the hand
of the Lord begins to take care of his soul’s leprosy……
This leper gives us very good advice on how to pray. He does not doubt
the Lord’s will as if he were refusing to believe in his goodness. But
he is aware of the seriousness of his faults, and so he does not want
to presume on that will. In saying that if the Lord wills, he can cure
him, he affirms that the Lord has this power, and at the same time, he
affirms his faith…… If faith is weak, it must first be strengthened.
Only then will it reveal all its power so as to obtain healing for the
soul and the body.
Without doubt, the apostle Peter was speaking of this faith when he
said: “He purified their hearts by means of faith” (Acts 15:9)…… Pure
faith lived in love, maintained through perseverance, patient in
waiting, humble in its affirmation, firm in its trust, full of respect
in its prayer and of wisdom in what it asks, is certain of hearing this
word of the Lord’’s in every circumstance: “I do will it.”
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Don’t worry if your work seems barren just now. When it is holiness
that is being sown, it is not lost: others will gather in the harvest.
(The Forge, no.651)
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Seventh
Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(February 19) Today let us think of St Boniface of Lausanne
(Saints)
Scripture: Isaiah
43:18-19.21-22.24-25; Psalm 41: 2-5,
13-14; 2 Corinthians
1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12
“Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the
paralytic, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven’.”
(Mark 2:1-12)
The acts of the penitent in
the forgiveness of sins:
When St John the Baptist pointed our Lord out to two of his
disciples, he said, “Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world.” Our Lord’s mission to mankind was being described
— it was to take away our sins. Over the course of human history various
persons have arisen who have brought great benefits to mankind. But who
could possibly have taken away man’s sins? Who could possibly take away
the sin of the whole world? God has revealed that sin is the root of
evil in the world and of all that leads to death. Now, who could take
this away? Only Jesus, the Lamb of God. Our Lord’s mission was to
forgive sin and take it right away. The forgiveness of sin is a dogma
of the Christian faith and is stated in the Creed as something we
solemnly believe in.
At our Baptism the original sin that we inherit and all our
personal sins committed prior to Baptism are taken away. Were a
newly-baptised adult suddenly to die at that instant, his soul would go
straight to heaven without any purgatory. But after Baptism is a
different matter, for as we know, sins are committed after Baptism, and
Baptism cannot forgive them. The divine life planted in the soul at
Baptism struggles with powerful and sinful inclinations that draw man
to sin. What provision has God made, then, for post-baptismal sin, the
sin that recurs daily throughout life after the great cleansing of
Baptism? The provision is the Sacrament of Penance. Our Lord forgives
and takes away the sins of those who have been baptized especially in
the Sacrament of Penance. In our Gospel today (Mark 2:1-12) the friends of the paralytic lowered
the paralysed man in front of Jesus, expecting a cure. But our Lord
first forgave him his sins. What our Lord did for that sick man then he
does for the person who approaches him in the Sacrament of Penance.
We also remember how on the evening of the very day our Lord rose from
the dead, he breathed on his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Then immediately he gave to them the power to forgive sins. This
forgiveness of sins comes to us every time we go to Confession — provided we have the necessary dispositions.
The
necessary dispositions? What does God expect of us in coming to him for
the forgiveness of our sins? Just as our Lord forgave the sins of
the paralytic because he
saw in him faith, so too we must approach the Sacrament of Penance with
faith, a lively faith which recognizes the presence of our Lord
acting in the
person and the words of the priest. This faith ought be prayed for. It
is a grace, a gift from God. There are other personal dispositions that
should be prayed for in preparation for Confession. Most especially, we
ought pray for a
true sorrow for sin. We can be sorry simply out of fear of punishment
to come — and even if we go to Confession with little more than that
degree
of contrition Christ will still forgive us our sins in the Sacrament of
Penance. But
we ought pray for the grace to be more perfectly contrite than that. We
ought seek to be sorry for sin because of the love and goodness of God. Let us
think of all that Christ has done for us, especially by dying on the
Cross. Sorrow
for sin is the linchpin for making a good Confession
and for receiving God’s pardon through this Sacrament, and indeed if we
go to Confession without being
sorry at all for our sins, our sins will not be forgiven. And the sign
that we are truly sorry is having an intention to amend, to change, to
repent. If I have no intention to change from my sinful course, how can
I say I am sorry? But then of course, if I am sorry I will also
actually confess my sins, especially any mortal sins. So I must examine
my conscience carefully asking the Holy Spirit to help me see the
extent of my sins (at the very least any mortal sins), and then I ought
make a good confession of them to the priest.
Then I must make up for the harm done to myself and
to others by my sins, which I at least begin to do by fulfilling after
Confession the Penance I
am given. But of
course that ought be just the start: we
ought bring into our life a spirit of penance so as to make up more
adequately for past sins and faults.
Three things we on our part must do in order to receive God’s
forgiveness, especially in the Sacrament of Penance. We must be sorry
for our sins, we must confess our sins, and we must make up for our
sins by at least fulfilling the Penance given. The linchpin of what we
do on
our part (contrition, confession, the penance) is genuine sorrow for
sin. What God on his part does is impart the grace of the Sacrament to
us, forgiving and cleansing us from sin and restoring our friendship with him. So
then, thinking of today’s Gospel in which Christ forgives the sins of
the paralytic, let us make the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins a
living doctrine in our life, a doctrine which we live out by a life of
repentance and frequent and regular recourse to the Sacrament of
Penance.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.1450-1460 (Acts of the Penitent)
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“Who can forgive sins except God
alone?” (Mark 2:1-12)
Comment by St Peter Chrysologus (406 –
450), Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church (Sermon 50)
“My son, your sins are forgiven.” Through these words, he wanted to be
recognized as God while he was still hiding before human eyes under the
appearance of a man. Because of his manifestations of power and his
miracles, he was compared to the prophets; and yet it was thanks to him
and to his power that they had also performed miracles. Granting the
forgiveness of sins does not lie within the power of human beings; it
is what characterizes God. That is how he introduced his divinity into
human hearts. It is what outraged some. They said: “He is committing
blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God alone?”
O you who protest! You think you know, and you are nothing but an
ignoramus. You believe you are celebrating the divinity, and you are
denying it. You think you are bearing witness and you are dealing
blows. If it is God who forgives sins, why don’t you accept Christ’s
divinity? Since he could grant the forgiveness of one single sin, that
means that he wiped away the sins of the whole world. “There is the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (Jn 1:29) So that you
might grasp stronger marks of his divinity, listen to him. Yes, he has
penetrated the mystery of your heart. Look at him. He has come even to
the hideouts of your thoughts. Understand that he uncovers the secret
intentions of your heart.
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God’s ordinary providence is a continual miracle; but He will use
extraordinary means when they are required.
(The Forge, no.658)
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The
eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time B
(February 26) Today
let us think of St Alexander
of Alexandria (Saints)
Scripture: Hosea 2:16-17,
21-22; Psalm 103: 1-4,
8, 10, 12-13; 2
Corinthians 3:1-6; Mark 2: 18-22.
“But the time will come for the
bridegroom to be taken away from them”.
(Mark 2: 18-22)
In today’s Gospel our Lord makes use of a term that is full of
meaning in
describing himself and his relationship to us. He says he is
the bridegroom. “Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think
of fasting while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will
come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then, on that
day, they will fast.” (Mark 2: 18-22) In the Old Testament, especially in the
Prophets, God repeatedly refers to himself as the Bridegroom, and his
chosen people as his spouse. In today’s first reading the prophet Hosea
speaks of God betrothing his people with faithfulness. We are his
people. We ought think long and often of what God has revealed to us
about himself. Like a husband, he is one and there is no other. He
cannot be replaced by some other thing in our life. I am the Lord your
God. You shall have no other god in place of me.
So our first duty in life is to make sure that we go after
nothing that will replace him, and that in our hearts we worship him
alone. The God we worship is constant, unchangeable, always faithful
and just, always good and holy, without any evil. He is almighty,
merciful and infinitely good, rich in compassion and mercy. All our
faith, hope and love, then, ought be in him. As our Lord put it,
quoting the Old Testament, “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all
your strength.” There is to be no other god in our life but God, for he
is our only bridegroom.
Faith in God, then, and acceptance of all he has revealed about
himself is our first obligation, and St Paul teaches that “ignorance of
God” is the source of moral deviations. This ignorance of God will come
if we allow our faith in what he has revealed to weaken or be lost. We
must be vigilant, then. In Australia we tend to pride ourselves on our
secular culture where there is no religious fanaticism. Religion is
publicly regarded as a private matter and must not be imposed. But one
downside to this is that it can encourage a kind of public attitude
that turns God and religion into matters of purely personal opinion
with little objective reality about them. The very idea of God is
regarded as open to debate and to doubt, and it is seen as acceptable
even to deny God’s existence as an objective fact.
So it is that the culture around us and what it permits can
contain many temptations to religious doubt. If one were knowingly and
willingly to entertain such doubts, and deliberately to cultivate them,
one could be led into a spiritual blindness which would be sinful. And
it is very easy when hearing such doubts expressed to go on to
entertain or even cultivate them. There are novels and movies and
television discussions that express or at least insinuate doubt as to
the truth of what God has revealed and the truth of what the Church
teaches. Freely to entertain or cultivate these doubts, without very
serious reasons and without special vigilance, would expose
oneself to insidious temptations against faith. One’s imagination would
be laid open to impressions that could go deep and become a permanent
incitement within the mind to disbelieve. Then in moments of inner
weakness, one’s affected imagination could prompt one to reject this or
that doctrine of the Faith.
An example might be choosing to read the novel, The Da Vinci Code,
a novel full of errors, but which, with its vivid and intriguing plot,
might profoundly affect one’s religious imagination. That inner stain
on the mind might then secretly do its work predisposing a person
against holding the Faith. Then could follow disbelief in our
Lord and the Church and then the gift of faith could be lost. Spiritual
blindness could follow which might be very difficult to get out of. We
must guard the knowledge of God we have received from our gift of faith
in what he has revealed about himself. So too with hope. We can be
tempted against hope by feelings of giving up and even despair on the
one hand, and on the other by presuming on God or on our own
capacities. So too we can be tempted against our love for God by
feelings of indifference, of lukewarmness, of sloth or of dislike of
God.
Let us resolve to live resolutely in the knowledge of who
God is and what he has revealed, as it comes to us in the witness and
teaching of the Church. Let us be vigilant against every kind of
temptation that may undermine our full acceptance in faith of all that
God has revealed to us about himself, our full hope in him and our love
for him.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.2084-2094
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So
long as the groom stays with them,
they cannot fast.” (Mark 2: 18-22)
Comment by St Ephrem (306 – 373),
Deacon in Syria, Doctor of the Church (Hymns on Faith,
14)
Lord, I invite you to a wedding banquet in songs. In Cana, there was
not enough wine, which expresses our praise. You, the guest who filled
the jars with good wine, fill my mouth with your praise!
The wine in Cana is the symbol of our praise, because those who drank
of it marveled. At that wedding banquet, which was not your own, you,
the truly righteous, filled six jars to overflowing with a delicious
wine. So at the banquet to which I am inviting you, you can fill a
crowd’’s ears with your sweetness.
In times past, you were invited to others’’ weddings. Here now is your
own banquet. It is chaste and beautiful. May it give joy to your
people! May your songs delight your guests; may my zither accompany
your song!
Our soul is your betrothed; our body is your bridal chamber; our senses
and our thoughts are the guests. If for you one single person is a
wedding banquet, how great will be the banquet for the whole Church!
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The power of working miracles! How many dead
— and even rotting — souls
you will raise, if you let Christ act in you. In those days, the Gospel
tells us, the Lord was passing by; and they, the sick, called to him
and sought him out. Now, too, Christ is passing by, in your Christian
life. If you help him, many will come to know him, will call to him,
will ask him for help: and their eyes will be opened to the marvellous
light of grace.
(The Forge,
no.665)
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The
First Sunday of Lent B
(March 5) Today
let us think of St Kieran
(Saints)
Scripture today:
Genesis
9:8-15; Psalm 25: 4-9;
1 Peter 3:
18-22; Mark 1: 12-15
Pope Benedict XVI's Message for
Lent
2006
"Jesus, at the Sight of the Crowds, Was Moved With Pity" (Matthew 9:36)
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Lent is a privileged time of interior pilgrimage towards Him Who is the
fount of mercy. It is a pilgrimage in which He Himself accompanies us
through the desert of our poverty, sustaining us on our way towards the
intense joy of Easter. Even in the "valley of darkness" of which the
Psalmist speaks (Psalm 23:4), while the tempter prompts us to despair
or to place a vain hope in the work of our own hands, God is there to
guard us and sustain us. Yes, even today the Lord hears the cry of the
multitudes longing for joy, peace, and love. As in every age, they feel
abandoned. Yet, even in the desolation of misery, loneliness, violence
and hunger that indiscriminately afflict children, adults, and the
elderly, God does not allow darkness to prevail. In fact, in the words
of my beloved Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, there is a "divine limit
imposed upon evil," namely, mercy (Memory and Identity,
pp. 19ff.).
It is with these thoughts in mind that I have chosen as my theme for
this Message the Gospel text: "Jesus, at the sight of the crowds, was
moved with pity" (Matthew 9:36).
In this light, I would like to pause and reflect upon an issue much
debated today: the question of development. Even now, the compassionate
"gaze" of Christ continues to fall upon individuals and peoples. He
watches them, knowing that the divine "plan" includes their call to
salvation. Jesus knows the perils that put this plan at risk, and He is
moved with pity for the crowds. He chooses to defend them from the
wolves even at the cost of His own life. The gaze of Jesus embraces
individuals and multitudes, and he brings them all before the Father,
offering Himself as a sacrifice of expiation.
Enlightened by this Paschal truth, the Church knows that if we are to
promote development in its fullness, our own "gaze" upon mankind has to
be measured against that of Christ. In fact, it is quite impossible to
separate the response to people's material and social needs from the
fulfillment of the profound desires of their hearts. This has to be
emphasized all the more in today's rapidly changing world, in which our
responsibility towards the poor emerges with ever greater clarity and
urgency. My venerable Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, accurately described
the scandal of underdevelopment as an outrage against humanity. In this
sense, in the Encyclical Populorum Progressio,
he denounced "the lack
of material necessities for those who are without the minimum essential
for life, the moral deficiencies of those who are mutilated by
selfishness" and "oppressive social structures, whether due to the
abuses of ownership or to the abuses of power, to the exploitation of
workers or to unjust transactions" (ibid., 21).
As the antidote to such evil, Pope Paul VI suggested not only
"increased
esteem for the dignity of others, the turning towards the spirit of
poverty, cooperation for the common good, the will and desire for
peace," but also "the acknowledgment by man of supreme values, and of
God, their source and their finality" (ibid.). In this vein, the Pope
went on to propose that, finally and above all, there is "faith, a gift
of God accepted by the good will of man, and unity in the charity of
Christ" (ibid.). Thus, the "gaze" of Christ upon the crowd impels us to
affirm the true content of this "complete humanism" that, according to
Paul VI, consists in the "fully-rounded development of the whole man
and of all men" (ibid., 42). For this reason, the primary contribution
that the Church offers to the development of mankind and peoples does
not consist merely in material means or technical solutions. Rather, it
involves the proclamation of the truth of Christ, Who educates
consciences and teaches the authentic dignity of the person and of
work; it means the promotion of a culture that truly responds to all
the questions of humanity.
In the face of the terrible challenge of poverty afflicting so much of
the world's population, indifference and self-centered isolation stand
in stark contrast to the "gaze" of Christ. Fasting and almsgiving,
which, together with prayer, the Church proposes in a special way
during the Lenten Season, are suitable means for us to become conformed
to this "gaze." The examples of the saints and the long history of the
Church's missionary activity provide invaluable indications of the most
effective ways to support development. Even in this era of global
interdependence, it is clear that no economic, social, or political
project can replace that gift of self to another through which charity
is expressed. Those who act according to the logic of the Gospel live
the faith as friendship with God Incarnate and, like Him, bear the
burden of the material and spiritual needs of their neighbors. They see
it as an inexhaustible mystery, worthy of infinite care and attention.
They know that he who does not give God gives too little; as Blessed
Teresa of Calcutta frequently observed, the worst poverty is not to
know Christ. Therefore, we must help others to find God in the merciful
face of Christ. Without this perspective, civilization lacks a solid
foundation.
Thanks to men and women obedient to the Holy Spirit, many forms of
charitable work intended to promote development have arisen in the
Church: hospitals, universities, professional formation schools, and
small businesses. Such initiatives demonstrate the genuine humanitarian
concern of those moved by the Gospel message, far in advance of other
forms of social welfare. These charitable activities point out the way
to achieve a globalization that is focused upon the true good of
mankind and, hence, the path towards authentic peace. Moved like Jesus
with compassion for the crowds, the Church today considers it her duty
to ask political leaders and those with economic and financial power to
promote development based on respect for the dignity of every man and
woman. An important litmus test for the success of their efforts is
religious liberty, understood not simply as the freedom to proclaim and
celebrate Christ, but also the opportunity to contribute to the
building of a world enlivened by charity. These efforts have to include
a recognition of the central role of authentic religious values in
responding to man's deepest concerns, and in supplying the ethical
motivation for his personal and social responsibilities. These are the
criteria by which Christians should assess the political programs of
their leaders.
We cannot ignore the fact that many mistakes have been made in the
course of history by those who claimed to be disciples of Jesus. Very
often, when having to address grave problems, they have thought that
they should first improve this world and only afterwards turn their
minds to the next. The temptation was to believe that, in the face of
urgent needs, the first imperative was to change external structures.
The consequence, for some, was that Christianity became a kind of
moralism, "believing" was replaced with "doing."
Rightly, therefore, my Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, of blessed
memory, observed: "The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to
merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily
secularized world, a 'gradual secularization of salvation' has taken
place, so that people strive for the good of man, but man who is
truncated. ……We know, however, that Jesus came to bring integral
salvation" (Redemptoris
Missio, 11).
It is this integral salvation that Lent puts before us, pointing
towards the victory of Christ over every evil that oppresses us. In
turning to the Divine Master, in being converted to Him, in
experiencing His mercy through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will
discover a "gaze" that searches us profoundly and gives new life to the
crowds and to each one of us. It restores trust to those who do not
succumb to skepticism, opening up before them the perspective of
eternal beatitude. Throughout history, even when hate seems to prevail,
the luminous testimony of His love is never lacking. To Mary, "the
living fount of hope" (Dante Alighieri, Paradiso,
XXXIII, 12), we
entrust our Lenten journey, so that she may lead us to her Son. I
commend to her in particular the multitudes who suffer poverty and cry
out for help, support, and understanding. With these sentiments, I
cordially impart to all of you a special Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 29 September 2005
Pope Benedict XVI
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“He stayed in the desert for forty
days.” (Mark 1: 12-15)
Comment by Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] (Retreat
preached at the Vatican in 1983)
When he went into the desert, Jesus inserted himself into his people’s
history of salvation, that of the chosen people. This history begins
after the exodus from Egypt, with the people’s wandering in the desert
for forty years. At the centre of those forty years were the days of
face to face encounter with God: the forty days which Moses spent on
the mountain, in absolute fasting, far from his people, in the solitude
of the cloud, at the top of the mountain (Ex 24:18). The spring of
revelation sprang forth from the heart of those days. We again find a
duration of forty days in the life of Elijah: persecuted by King Ahab,
he wandered in the desert for forty days, thus returning to the place
where the covenant had its origin, to the voice of God, in order to
begin a new stage in the history of salvation (1 Kings 19:8).
Jesus entered into this history. He lived again his people’s
temptations, the temptations of Moses. Like Moses, he offered a sacred
exchange: to be wiped out from the book of life in order to save his
people (Ex 32:32). Thus Jesus became the Lamb of God who carries the
sins of the world; he became the true Moses who is truly “at the
Father’s side” (Jn 1:18), face to face with him so as to reveal him. In
the deserts of the world, he is truly the source of living water (Jn
7:38), he who is not content with speaking, but who is himself the word
of life: the way, the truth, and the life (Jn14:6). From the height of
the cross, he gave us the new covenant. By his resurrection, he entered
into the promised land as the true Moses, the land to which Moses was
refused access and to which he opens the door to us by means of the key
of the cross.
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We can never attribute to ourselves the power of Jesus who is passing
by amongst us. Our Lord is passing by: and he transforms souls when we
come close to him with one heart, one feeling, one desire: to be good
Christians. But it is he who does it: not you nor I. It is Christ who
is passing by! And then he stays in our hearts — in yours and in mine — and in our tabernacles. Jesus is passing by, and Jesus comes to stay.
He stays in you, in each one of you, and in me.
(The Forge,
no.673)
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Second Sunday of
Lent B
(March 12) Today
let us think of St Maximilian
(Saints)
Scripture: Genesis
22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18; Psalm 116: 10,
15-19; Romans
8:31-34; Mark 9:2-10.
“Elijah appeared to them with Moses;
and they were talking with Jesus.”
(Mark 9: 2-10)
Consider the several passages for this Sunday (set out
below) from Sacred Scripture, the inspired word of God. Scripture
consists of numerous small books written at various times under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit by various authors over many centuries.
The meaning of those sacred writings has been interpreted in radically
different ways by different individuals and peoples. The Jewish people,
whose religion is that of the Old Testament, makes use of the Old
Testament alone because they do not consider that the Messiah has yet
come. Their religion is a revealed religion but it does not include all
of what God has revealed, nor the key to it. Islam accepts that the
religion of the Old Testament is revealed, but it is even more mistaken
because it considers Mahomet to be the greatest of the prophets.
Mahomet was not one of the prophets. Rather he was a founder of a world
religion whose thought was influenced by Judaism and Christianity,
while retaining his own (often erroneous) teachings.
The point I am making here is that in order to perceive
the true meaning of the Scriptures we need to have the divine key to
unlock that meaning. What is the key to unlock the meaning of all that
God has revealed, whether it be the Old Testament or the New? There is
a key and each one of us has it. That key enables us to read both the
Old Testament and the New, knowing that both are inspired by the Holy
Spirit, both are the word of God, and both have a common focus or
point. The key to the entire religion revealed by God is suggested in
the event of the Transfiguration described in today’s Gospel. Let us
place ourselves in the midst of our Gospel scene (Mark 9: 2-10).
There we see Peter, James and John whom in later years St
Paul would call the pillars of the infant Church. They are gazing on
our Lord, transfigured in a glorious and radiant beauty. Moses and
Elijah appear speaking with him, the two who represent the Law and the
Prophets, the entire Old Testament. The voice of the Father is heard.
Peter, James and John are present, the pillars of the coming Church,
and Peter will be its rock. Peter and John will both be inspired
authors of books in the New Testament. We could therefore regard them
as representing the New Testament and the Church which Christ would
found, and of which we are members. Speaking to our Lord are Moses and
Elijah, representing the Old Testament, and the Church of the Old
Testament. Both Old and New are present in our scene.
But now, who is there at the centre of this scene? It is
the person of Jesus. He is the promised Messiah, the redeemer of man,
the centre and the key to the entire revelation of God, be it
Old or New. And the Father makes his voice heard to confirm this. He
says to all present: “This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him.” The
person of Christ is the key to the entire Bible, Old and New
Testaments. He is the key to the revealed religion before him (and this
is symbolized by Moses and Elijah talking with him). He is also the key
and the heart of the religion and the Church he founded, which was the
fulfilment of
what had come before. In fact, the person of Jesus is the key to the
meaning of all of human history and of the history of the religions of
man. Everything ought be considered in the light of the person of
Christ. On the mountain our Lord in glory is manifested as the
centre and focus of the scene. He is the centre and focus of everything.
So then, we ought read the Old Testament with confidence,
knowing that we have the key to it. That is to say, when we read some
passage of the Old Testament we ought have before us the figure of
Jesus, and ask ourselves what light Christ throws on that passage, and
what light that passage throws on the person of Jesus. For instance,
let us take the first reading today from the book of Genesis in which
Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to
him (Genesis
22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18). It is a pointer to the coming
sacrifice of the Son of God, which, unlike the sacrifice of Isaac,
would be accepted as an offering, and as a result of which blessings as
many as the stars of heaven and as the grains of sand on the seashore
have flowed to humanity. Both the Old Testament and the New should be
read in the light of Christ. Christ is the reference point of
everything. The important thing, what brings eternal life to us, is the
knowledge and the love of Jesus. Jesus is the word and the utterance of
God. We must learn to live by that word. As St Paul writes, for me, to
live is Christ.
Let us then give ourselves over to Christ and make him the
centre and focus of everything.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 101-108; 131-133.
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“Jesus enjoined them not to tell
anyone what they had seen, before the Son of Man had risen from the
dead.” (Mark 9: 2-10)
By St Leo the Great (? ––
461), Pope and Doctor of the Church (Homily 51/38 on the Transfiguration)
Jesus wanted to arm his apostles with great strength of soul and with a
constancy that would allow them to take up their own cross without
fear, in spite of its harshness. Nor did he want them to blush over his
death or that they consider a shame the patience with which he had to
undergo such a cruel passion, without in any way losing the glory of
his power. So “Jesus took Peter, James, and John …… and led them up a
high mountain,” and there he showed them the brilliance of his glory.
Even if they had understood that divine majesty was in him, they did
not yet know the power that was contained in this body, which concealed
the divinity……
Thus the Lord revealed his glory in the presence of the witnesses he
had chosen, and he spread such splendour over his body, which was like
all other bodies, that “his face became as dazzling as the sun, his
clothes as radiant as light.” Without doubt, the aim of this
transfiguration was above all to remove the scandal of the cross from
the heart of his disciples, not to overwhelm their faith by the
humility of his voluntary passion……, but this revelation also gave
foundation in his Church to the hope that was to uphold it. All the
members of the Church, his Body, would thus understand what
transformation would be worked in them one day, since the members have
been promised that they will participate in the honour that shone forth
in the head. When speaking of the majesty of his coming, the Lord
himself had said: “Then the saints will shine like the sun in their
Father’s kingdom.” (Mt 13:43) And the apostle Paul in turn affirmed: “I
consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with
the glory to be revealed in us.” (Rom 8:18) …… It is also written: “You
have died! Your life is hidden now with Christ in God. When Christ our
life appears, then you shall appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:3-4)
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Each and every creature, each and every
event of this life, without
exception, must be steps which take you to God, which move you to know
him and love him, to give him thanks, and to strive to make everyone
else know and love him.
(The Forge,
no.680)
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Third Sunday of Lent
B
(March 19) Today the Church would normally celebrate St. Joseph
but because it is a Sunday today, the feast of St Joseph will be
celebrated tomorrow. (Saints)
Exodus 20:1-17 or Exodus 20:1-3,
7-8, 12-17; Psalm
19:8-11; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25
“Destroy this sanctuary and in three
days I will raise it up.”
(John 2:13-25)
One of our most constant spiritual challenges is to bear
in mind the unseen realities of our Faith.
It is a challenge of faith
because those realities are unseen. Above all, I am
referring to the very presence of God. In our Gospel today our Lord
comes to the Temple as he had every year since his youth. Doubtless he
had seen the same spectacle year after year, and now he sees it again.
In the Temple of his heavenly Father there were sheep and cattle,
buying and selling, talk and shouting. God’s presence had been
forgotten, that divine presence which filled the mind, the heart and
the soul of Jesus his divine Son. So, as St John writes, with zeal for
his Father’s house consuming him he drove them all out saying that his
Father’s house must be treated as a house of prayer and not a den of
thieves.
Then, when confronted by the leaders of the people over what
he had just done, our Lord said, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in
three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:13-25) He was speaking of the sanctuary that
was his body, and when he rose from the dead his disciples remembered
that he had said this. The true sanctuary of the living God was the
person of Jesus, his body and soul, his humanity and his divinity. The
Temple there was for prayers and sacrifices to God who was present
there, and it was precisely because God was there and because the
Temple was the place to offer him sacrifice and prayer, that Christ had
just cleansed the Temple. Well, our Lord was here saying that he was
the one, he is the one, who offers up to God the Father a continual
perfect sacrifice and a constant prayer. He is the new Temple of God
and by being baptized into him the Christian lives in him. We are in
Jesus, and he is in us. This is to be our life, a life in Jesus. Being
in Jesus, he is our Temple in whom we offer continual prayer and
sacrifice to the Father.
His greatest self-offering, his greatest sacrifice offered on
our behalf, and therefore which he offered as the high priest of all mankind,
was the sacrifice of himself at Calvary. This he did by the power of the Holy
Spirit, as we are told in the Letter to the Hebrews. Christ was our Priest, and
our Victim. His body was the Temple in which this sacrifice was offered, and it
was the Holy Spirit who was the life and energy of his self-offering. Now, all
this is made present to us at Mass. The offering, the gift of himself, the
victim and the high priest, are made present at Mass, and this is done once
again
by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is by the power and grace
of the Holy Spirit at Mass that we are drawn into that sacrifice and
are able to make it our own.
But we must make sure that we are not like the buyers and the
sellers whom our Lord cast out of the Temple. Our entire attitude to
the person of Jesus and to his sacrifice on Calvary ought be one full
of faith and appreciation. We must not have a casual attitude to Jesus
and to what he did for us. Very importantly, we must not in any way be
like the buyers and the sellers during Mass, forgetting what is really
happening because we can’t actually see Calvary. We must be full of
reverence during Mass, endeavouring to participate in it with all our
heart and mind and soul. We ought leave the church after Mass
profoundly united to our Lord in his offering of himself to the Father.
He is the true Temple of God in which the perfect sacrifice is offered
to the Father.
There is more than even this to the mystery of Christ.
Christ is the head of his body the Church. The Church of which we are
all members is the mystical body of Christ. Just as our Lord in the
Gospel speaks of his body as the coming Temple of God where God dwells
in all his fullness, so too is the Church the Temple of God. God dwells
in all his fullness in the midst of the Church and in her life. This
happens by the power of the Holy Spirit whom St Augustine called the
soul of the Church. Christ is the head of the Church and we can call
the Holy Spirit her soul.
So then, as members of the Church we are all called to be
a holy priesthood, offering up the spiritual sacrifice of a holy life,
a life of obedience to the Father. Just as our Lord insisted on a
profound reverence for the Temple of his Father, so we should maintain
a profound reverence for the person of Jesus the new Temple, for his
sacrifice at Calvary on our behalf, for the Mass which makes present
Christ offering this sacrifice of himself, and for the Church which
lives in union with Christ her head, the constant universal Temple of
God here on earth. Our attitude to the Church and to her teaching, her
life, her sacraments, her divine character, ought be one of profound
reverence, a reverence rooted in the recognition of the presence of God
in her midst.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.583-586, 797-798.
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You cannot forget that any worthy, noble and honest work at the human
level can — and should! — be raised to the supernatural level,
becoming a divine task.
(The Forge,
no.687)
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The Fourth Sunday of Lent B
(March 26) Today let us think of St. Margaret Clitherow
(Saints)
Scripture:
2 Chronicles
36:14-16.19-23; Psalm 137: 1-6;
Ephesians 2:4-10;
John 3:14-21
“Yes, God loved the world so much that
he gave his only Son”.
(John 3: 14-21)
I remember hearing of a couple who went on a picnic
with their small child at a riverside. For a brief moment the parents
had to leave the child to attend to something and out came a crocodile
which made straight for the child. The family dog immediately attacked
the crocodile in defence of the child, and the dog was taken instead.
The child was left unharmed. The dog was acting simply on
instinct, and while not being love that instinct to protect reflected
love, indeed it reflected
the love of God who gave the dog its being. I remember seeing a nature
documentary film of a cat with its baby kittens. Out came a snake from
the bushes and began making for the kittens. At danger to itself the
cat defended its kittens from the snake, attacking the snake and
dodging its lunges. At length the snake made off. The cat was acting
purely on
instinct, but that instinct to protect was a reflection of love, the
love that is
God the Creator.
Knowing that God is love (because he has revealed
this to be so), we can see many reflections of God in the world.
Everywhere in the realm of living things, one living thing lives on
another. Small fish are devoured by larger fish. Plants are devoured by
various animals. One animal preys on another, and man lives by
harvesting living plants, and by consuming the animals he kills. That
is to say, one thing is given up for the sake of another, one living
thing loses its life that another might gain, one thing is sacrificed
that another may have life. While one person observing this sees only
unnecessary savagery and anything but the imprint of a loving God, the
other person who knows love is the foundation of the universe sees in
it a glimmer of that unseen foundation. While within the non-human
realm the overtaking of one thing by and for the sake of another is
just a matter of unthinking instinct, inasmuch as it comes from the
hand of God, it speaks of God. The key will be to search for the
imprint of the Creator’s love. This pattern of being given up for the
sake of another is surely a reflection of sacrificial love, the love
that is behind the universe, the love of God the Creator. This is not
to speak of the the love that is very evident in mankind, a love that
is so often sacrificial. Far more does this reflects the love of God.
But while the world shows the imprint of God, what really
reveals the
love of God is the person and the redemptive work of Jesus our Lord. In
our Gospel today (John 3:
14-21) our
Lord tells Nicodemus that “God loved the world so much that he gave his
only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may
have eternal life.” Imagine the sacrifice this was to the Father! The
Father and the Son had given themselves to one another in the Holy
Spirit for all eternity in a communion of love utterly beyond our
imagining. But the Father loved us so much that he sent his Son to save
us from our sins. The Son for his part did not cling to his heavenly
state but gave it up to assume the lowly condition of man, and as man
became lowlier still out of love for us, by dying on a cross. It was
God’s sacrifice for our redemption. All our life we ought be
contemplating what our Lord and the Father did for each of us through
the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ died not for himself, but for each
of us. In some mysterious way he united himself to every man and woman
in history, and assumed the burden of their disobedience to God and
made up for it by his obedience in the midst of unimaginable
sufferings. It was done out of love. By his death on the Cross our Lord
atoned for the sins of all mankind, and in doing this broke the power
of sin that holds all of us in its power, and opened up for each of us
the prospect of holiness.
God’s loving redemption of man from sin is a
specifically Christian doctrine. Islam, for instance, has no doctrine
of original sin into which we are born, and from which we need to be
redeemed. It certainly does not look on Christ as our redeemer, let
alone as God made man. Christ is simply an inspired teacher like, but
less than, Mahomet. It is very important that we see the beauty and
necessity of Christ and the Christian religion, revealed by God and
necessary for man. What is at stake is redemption from sin and personal
sanctification. Every man and woman needs the person of Christ,
absolutely needs him because only Christ has brought about our
redemption. Only Christ can make us holy. Christ has died for each, for
each person in the world, including every follower of Mahomet, every
Hindu, every agnostic, every atheist. We ourselves must embrace the
person and
the work of Christ ourselves, and bring this good news of God’s love in
Christ to every person, and invite that person to know, love and follow
Jesus who is the embodiment and the revelation of the love of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church No.595-605
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Jesus began to do and then to preach. You and I have to bear witness
with our example, because we cannot live a double life. We cannot
preach what we do not practise. In other words, we have to teach what
we are at least struggling to put into practice.
(The Forge,
no.694)
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The Fifth Sunday of
Lent
(April 2) St. Francis of
Paola, hermit (1416-1507). Born at Paola in Calabria (Italy), he
aspired to be more united with the crucified Christ and became a hermit
in a cave by the sea near his birthplace. He lived a life of prayer and
mortification, and founded a congregation of hermits which was later
changed to the Order of Mimims (the least brethren) which
received the approval of the Holy See in 1506. He died at Tours in
France. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Jeremiah
31:31-34; Psalm 51: 3-4,
12-15;
Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33
“Unless
a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single
grain”.
(Jn 12:20-33)
One of the striking features
of human history is the advance of human knowledge. Human society has
advanced remarkably in its knowledge of philosophy, medicine, science,
technology, literature.
All of these fields of study relate to one or
other aspect of man and the visible creation. But there is one
fundamental component of man’s make-up and of the functioning of the
universe that in a sense is so simple and yet so profound, a component
that is completely lost from the view of vast sections of mankind. It
is the presence and the reality of sin, understood as both a state of
alienation from God and a proneness to rebel against him. People
understand crime and immorality, and so does society because society
punishes it even if it continually adjusts its understanding of
it. But sin is a different matter. Sin is not much recognised. It is
mentioned very apologetically, or as something of a joke and without
seriousness. In fact sin is a profound and fundamental element in
the nature and the activities of man. It is something that many are
aware of, and something many more are not aware of.
By our own reflection
we can easily gain an awareness of the moral corruption of our hearts.
By that I mean it is not hard to become conscious of the fact that we
have thoughts and desires that are contrary to what our reason tells us
should be the case. Most have a sense of human wrongdoing, and can see
that wrongdoing leads to great unhappiness, to harm, to strife
and to death. The whole world knows that the issue of wrongdoing
is a profound element in the life of mankind and of each person. But
this is not the case with "sin", because sin involves the notion of
an offence against God. Society accepts there is evil and much
wrongdoing,
but it does not necessarily accept the presence, the evil and the
prevalence of sin because it does not necessarily accept the reality of
a holy God who constantly judges our conduct as pleasing to him or as
offensive to him. To have a sense of sin implies having a sense of God
and of what is offensive to Him, whereas having merely a sense
of wrongdoing is quite compatible with being an atheist.
Now, over and above the sense of sin which one may gain
from conscience and personal reflection, in fact God has revealed
certain things about man’s sin. Man’s sin originated with our first
parents and their deliberate disobedience to God. By his deliberate sin
man alienated himself from God and to a fair degree ruined the natural
harmony of his inner condition and he forfeited various supernatural
gifts. This occurred at the beginning. Man fell from a gifted position
and remained wounded in his nature, and this wounded human nature was
handed on to all mankind. The whole world was affected by that
original sin and by the grip that sin gained over every man and woman
as a result. Sin became the greatest problem of the world, a problem it
did not have when it came from the hand of God. Man’s undoing was his
own doing. To put things right he had need of a redeemer.
We have been given a redeemer and we have the answer at
hand. The redeemer is Jesus our Lord and the answer to the predicament
all of us are in is what our Lord provided for us by dying on the
Cross. Sin
is at the root of the evils, the sufferings and the problems of the
world. There is no bigger problem that we face in our own individual
lives, and there is no bigger problem that mankind in general faces.
The problem is sin. The answer is to accept the person of Christ and
what he has done by dying on the cross, and to follow him. He freely
bore on his own shoulders the sin of the world and expiated for it by
his own obedience to his Father. By his obedient witness to the truth
about himself amid suffering He atoned for the sin of the world and
opened up to each of us a new divine life to be lived out here on earth
and enjoyed forever in heaven.
In today’s Gospel our Lord refers to his coming hour when
the Son of Man would be glorified. That hour was his death. Let us
accept with full hearts what Christ has done for us by dying on the
Cross. He tells us that “unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and
dies it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich
harvest.” (John 12:20-33) The
result of Christ’s Cross was a rich harvest for mankind. Let us resolve
to love him and to follow him along his way of obedience to the will of
the Father, whatever cross this may bring to us. It is the answer to
sin and the way to life.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 606-618
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If you say that you want to imitate
Christ ... and yet have time on your hands, then you are on the road to
lukewarmness.
(The Forge,
no.701)
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----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Palm Sunday B
(March 9) Today let us think of St Waldeatrudis
(Saints)
Scripture today: Mark
11:1-10; Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22;
Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15.47
“And those who went in front and those
who followed were all shouting, ‘Hosanna!’”
(Mark 11:1-10)
Today, Palm Sunday, we place ourselves in the scene of our
Lord’s entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of the last and greatest
week of his life. Little did the people who accompanied him know what
was ahead. Consider the crowd around Jesus acclaiming him with joy as
he proceeded seated humbly on the donkey (Mark 11:1-10). That crowd consisted of various people,
some of whom had a very superficial adherence to Jesus, and who once
Calvary came would desert him. But there were others, such as his
closest disciples and the Eleven apart from Judas, who in the fullness
of time after his resurrection would go on to give their lives for him.
Let us think especially of these with Jesus.
We are at the beginning of the holiest week of the
Church’s year, and here at Mass we join our Lord in the reliving of the
beginning of the holiest week of his life. Let us place ourselves with
those around him who would be truly faithful to him. Even they would
fail him this week. Consider Simon Peter, whom our Lord had called the
Rock. He too was there accompanying our Lord as he entered Jerusalem
amid the shouts and acclaim of the people. He too would have been
joyful. Yet during the week all this changed, and Christ, by the plan
of God, would fall into the hands of those who had planned to kill him.
Peter fled, as did the others. But they loved our Lord, and after he
rose from the dead, they with Peter at their head would be found by our
Lord to love him ardently still. So let us place ourselves with them,
those who would turn out faithful and who were the foundation of the
Church which Christ was founding and of which we are members. Let us in
our hearts very sincerely, and with a full knowledge of what was in
fact coming to our Lord this week, acclaim him as the King of kings and
the Lord of lords.
Let us resolve to acclaim Jesus as the Lord our whole life long.
That entry of our Lord into Jerusalem could perhaps be taken as a symbol of our
Lord’s constant attempt to enter the hearts of men and the life of the world
down the ages by means of the ministry of the Church. For this he depends on us
and on our constant acclaim of him, which is to say our witness of him. Our Lord
is constantly trying to enter his own city and that city is the world which he
himself has made. All too often he comes to his own and his own do not receive
him. All too often he is crucified again and again in the rejection of him by
the human heart, and in the sins of mankind. Let us resolve to take our stand
with Peter and the other Apostles as they acclaim him, which is to say let us do
this as members of the Church and in union with the
Church’s acknowledgment of him. We acclaim Jesus firstly in our own
hearts day by day in prayer and silent obedience to the divine will. We
acclaim Jesus by the witness of our Catholic lives in family and
workplace and in the midst of those around us. We acclaim Jesus by
speaking of him and of the Church his body whenever there is the
opening. But acclaim him we must. That is our calling just as it is the
calling of the whole Church. Our Lord said that anyone who is ashamed
of me before men, of him will I be ashamed before my heavenly Father.
So today let us resolve so to live that our lives will be an
acclamation of Jesus as Lord and Messiah.
But in doing this let us remember where Jesus is heading.
He is heading precisely as Messiah and King to the Cross, and it is by
means of the Cross that he would redeem the world. So let us acclaim by
our lives not just any Jesus, but the crucified Jesus. It means
following our Lord along the way of obedience to the will of God amid
suffering and opposition from those who do not accept the teaching of
Christ as the Church proclaims it. In too many cases when suffering
comes God and his holy will are abandoned. Rather, we must ask the Holy
Spirit to help us see that the suffering that is involved in obeying
God is the source of life and of holiness, and our Lord’s Cross has
taught us this. When suffering comes our way in the living of our
Catholic Faith and in fulfilling our God-given responsibilities we
should ask the Holy Spirit to help us offer ourselves up in union with
Jesus for the fulfilment of the divine plan.
Let us then by lives of taking up daily our cross and following
in the footsteps of the Master, the Messiah and King, acclaim our
crucified Lord and in this way bring the world to acclaim him.
(E.J.Tyler)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“See, your king shall come to you,
meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.”
(Zechariah 9:9)
Comment attributed to Saint Ephrem of Salamis (?
–– 403), Bishop
(1st Homily for the Feast of Palms)
“Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion.” Be filled with joy, Church of God.
“See, your king shall come to you.” (Zech 9:9) Go out to meet him,
hasten to contemplate his glory. This is the world’s salvation: God
comes to the cross, and the Desired of the nations (Hag 2:7) enters
Zion. The light is coming. Let us cry out with the people: “Hosanna to
the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The
Lord God has appeared to us who were sitting in darkness and in the
shadow of death (Lk 1:79). He appeared as the resurrection of those who
have fallen, the liberation of captives, the light of the blind, the
consolation of the afflicted, rest for the weak, spring for those who
thirst, avenger of the persecuted, redemption of those who are lost,
union of the divided, doctor for the sick, salvation of those who have
gone astray.
Yesterday, Christ raised Lazarus from the dead; today he is going to
his own death. Yesterday, he tore off the strips of cloth that bound
Lazarus; today he is stretching out his hand to those who want to bind
him. Yesterday, he tore that man away from darkness; today, for
humankind, he is going down into darkness and the shadow of death. And
the Church is celebrating. She is beginning the feast of feasts, for
she is receiving her king as a spouse, for her king is in her midst.
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You must draw from the hidden life of Jesus this further
consequence:
you must not be in a hurry ... even though you are! First and foremost,
that is, comes the interior life. Everything else — the apostolate, any
apostolate, is a corollary.
(The Forge,
no.708)
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How is it possible
to know God with only the light of human reason?
Starting from creation, that is from the world and
from the human person, through reason alone one can know God with
certainty as the origin and end of the universe, as the highest good
and as infinite truth and beauty.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.3)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Easter
Sunday B
(April 16) Today let us think of St Bernadette Soubirous (of
Lourdes) (Saints)
Acts 10:34a,37-43; Psalm
118:1-2,16-17,22-23; Colossians 3:1-4,
or1Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9
“You are looking for Jesus of
Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here.”
(Mark
16:1-7)
It has often seemed to me that over the past several decades
there has been a change in the
tone of literature and popular drama which I have seen and read. When I
was a child the issues in movies and popular
literature (such as comics, and so forth) which I used to view and read
a were fairly simple.
Good characters were generally very good and the
evil characters were obviously bad, and the good triumphed. The
characters and the dramas were secular, that is to say, in general
without God, but there was no scepticism about good and evil. This was
so even in the portrayal of the Church and of the Catholic priesthood,
for the Church and the priesthood, as I remember it, were admired.
There was a healthy (even if simplistic) confidence and certainty in
the portrayal of good and evil. A good example was the great novel, The
Lord of the Rings, written in the first half of the last century. But
over the years since then I have often noticed that movie plots and
characters in drama and literature seemed to become notably darker. The
balance moved markedly towards the portrayal of evil, and all
characters seemed to be profoundly flawed. Shining through this was an
implicit scepticism as to the existence of moral goodness and the
likelihood of its triumph. Life was portrayed pessimistically, and the
moral fibre of human nature was set forth as being markedly low. Of
course, there were numerous exceptions to this, but it did seem to me
that this was what we could call the post-modern tendency. There had
now arrived a fair dose of scepticism as to human grandeur and moral
beauty, and much cynicism as to the possibility of goodness. God, of
course, has been absent.
Now, while we may be disappointed in this, at least the havoc
that we know and see to be present in human nature is being brought to
light. It is not hard to see that somehow sin and moral weakness is
pervasive in humanity. The moral life of mankind is profoundly out of
kilter, and there is a similar dysfunction in the universe. Now while
popular culture and thought has emphasised the evil in man, its
portrayal of this has had profound limitations. It describes the
problem but
it does not get to the root of it. The important question
that
requires raising and probing is, why is this so, and what in principle
can be done about it? That is the question. What we are asking about is
sin, about its origin and especially its remedy.
It has been revealed that the sin of the world appeared at
the dawn of human history. It did not come from the hand of God. No,
this came from the free choice of our first parents. They were tempted
to disobey God, and they embraced the temptation. This fall from God’s
friendship and grace had catastrophic consequences, and best way to see
its consequences is to look on the crucified Jesus. For the last day or
two we have been looking on the crucified Jesus. There before us is God
made Man,
nailed to a cross and put to death amid indescribable suffering. It was
sin that did this, and inasmuch as Christ freely submitted to it for
the sake of all of us, the sins of each of us put him there. So
to appreciate sin in the world we need not simply consider flawed and
broken man as he is chronicled in the course of his history, as he is
portrayed in literature and drama, and as we experience its presence in
our own fallen hearts. We get our best impression of our moral and
spiritual condition by gazing on what happened at one point in human
history. That point in history was when Jesus our Lord was crucified.
If man can
do that, it tells us how flawed and sinful is the life we live, and how
far beyond us is the remedy that is needed. We need a share in a new
kind of life, a life far above our own. If only we could share in the
life of the all-holy God!
Well, the remedy has arrived. The remedy was supplied by
our Lord’s Passion and Death. God so loved the world that he sent his
only Son to save the world by taking on his own shoulders the entire
sin of the world, our own included, and making up for it by his
obedience amid unimaginable suffering unto death. He then rose to a new
life which he wishes to share with every one of God’s children. That
rising to new life we celebrate today. Let us
place ourselves in the company of the disciples of our Lord
after his crucifixion and death. Sin is everywhere and the prince of
this world seems to have triumphed with the death of the Son of God
made Man. But now, Jesus rises to a new and glorious life and appears
to his disciples. The disciples look on the risen Jesus in wonder and
joy, and will soon understand his gift more and more. They have the
chance now to share with Jesus in the life of God by means of the gift
of the Holy Spirit. This is the good news they and the Church bring to
mankind. The seed of a new divine life is now on offer for every person.
To appreciate what our Lord has done and what he now offers we
must appreciate as well our own sinfulness and spiritual need. We need
redemption, for we are sinners. If we have no sense of sin, we will
have little sense of our need for Christ our Saviour. But then, as we
think of the sin within us and the suffering our sinful condition
brings with it both to ourselves and to others, let us keep our eyes on
the risen Jesus. He is the Saviour of the world, and he is risen. He
lives and he is with us now offering us divine life. We have been
given, by our baptism, by our confirmation, by means of the
other sacraments, especially the holy Eucharist, a share in the eternal
life of God the most holy Trinity. This life is the life of the risen
Jesus and he died and rose to share it with us. Let us embrace this
good news with joy, and resolve to live according to his law, the law
of Christ and his Church, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to make
daily progress on the path to holiness. We each of us have been given
the gift of life and soon it will be gone. Our life is a fleeting
moment in
the course of human history. Let us use it well, day by day, so as to
live
the life of God here on earth now, and for ever hereafter.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day of the resurrection, day of our
joy!
Commentary by St John
Chrysostom (345 – 407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.”
(Ps 118:24) Why? Because the sun is no longer darkened and everything
is illuminated; the curtain in the Temple is no longer torn, the Church
is revealed; we are no longer holding palm branches, and we are
surrounding the newly baptized.
“This is the day the Lord has made”…… This now is the day in the real
sense of the word, the triumphant day, the day consecrated to
celebrating the resurrection, the day when we adorn ourselves with
grace, the day when we share the spiritual Lamb, the day when we give
milk to those who have just been born, the day when Providence’s plan
for the poor is realized. “Let us rejoice and be glad in this day.”
This is the day when Adam was freed, when Eve was delivered from her
pain, when savage death shuddered, when the power of rocks was broken,
when the bars of the tomb were torn away……, when the unchangeable laws
of the powers of hell were abrogated, when the heavens were opened
because Christ, our Master, rose. This is the day when, for the good of
humankind, the green and fertile plant of the resurrection has
multiplied its offshoots all over the world, as in a garden, when the
lilies of the newly illumined have opened……, when the crowd of
believers rejoices, when the martyrs’ crowns again grow green. “This is
the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
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We children of God, who are citizens with the same standing as any
others, have to take part fearlessly in all honest human activities and
organizations, so that Christ may be present in them. Our Lord will ask
a strict account of each one of us if through neglect or love of
comfort we do not freely strive to play a part in the human
developments and decisions on which the present and future of society
depend.
(The Forge,
no.715)
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What is
the value of private Revelations?
While not belonging to the deposit of
faith, private revelations may help a person to live the faith as long
as they lead us to Christ. The Magisterium of the Church, which has the
duty of evaluating such private revelations, cannot accept those which
claim to surpass or correct that definitive Revelation which is Christ.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.10)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Second Sunday of Eastertide B
(Divine Mercy Sunday)
(April 23) St
George, martyr (died about 303). Popular tradition presents St
George as the knight who killed the dragon, making him a symbol of a
triumph of faith against the forces of evil. He was the son of an
illustrious family of Cappadocia and at a young age was rased to the
ministry during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. When the emperor
promulgated an edict against the Christians, George professed his faith
publicly, for which he was martyred. He is the patron saint of England.
His tomb is in Lod, near Tel Aviv in Israel. (Saints)
Scripture: Acts
5:12-16; Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; Apocalypse
1:9-13.17-19; John 20:19-31
“Then he spoke to Thomas,
'Put your
finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand’.”
(John
20:19-31)
we begin
Recently I saw a television segment which followed the work of a
particular member of the Rotary organization. He had the responsibility
of coordinating the medical help Rotary gives to physically ailing
persons from the Pacific Islands. It showed him arranging for an infant
who had a hole in the heart to be brought to Australia for an advanced
operation. The impressive thing about that gentleman was his
compassion. He felt very profoundly for the child, and was in turn
deeply distressed and then overjoyed at the medical progress of the
baby. It also showed a host family who volunteered to Rotary to put the
mother and her infant up and look after them while they were in
Australia for the medical treatment. That family too was deeply
compassionate. They were all very compassionate and merciful people. We
could describe mercy as the compassion evoked by the sight of another’s
misery leading a person to offer all possible aid. Those people were
very merciful. Our Lord said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall
have mercy shown them. He also said, Be compassionate as your heavenly
Father is compassionate. Time and again the Gospels speak of the
compassion our Lord felt for the ones he saw to be in need. On one
occasion on seeing a poor widow accompanying the body of her son to the
cemetery, his compassion moved him to raise the young man from the dead
and return him to his mother. It was the compassion and mercy of God
that led the Father to send his Son to save the world from sin.
Today being the second Sunday of Eastertide, we celebrate the
divine mercy. That is to say, we celebrate the infinite compassion of
God in the face of the world's need. God is viewed by very many people
as far away, a distant figure,
remote and uninvolved in the world and in our own personal lives. They
look on him as making no difference because he is just not part of
life. But they do not know God. What they are thinking of in that image
of him is not the real God, God almighty. It is a fantasy, a
theoretical construct of our secular and agnostic culture, an image
fostered by various currents of philosophical thought. Our secular
culture and public life fosters the assumption that life is to be lived
without any recourse to God. God is thought of as uninvolved,
unconcerned and indeed irrelevant to the great problems facing us. We
think of him that way because we are encouraged to assume that
the supernatural is not real. Modern Western man characteristically
does not give faith in God a serious trial. To exclude God from a
culture is an impoverishment.
My point is that we must make it our business to embrace the
image and notion of God which God himself has revealed. He has revealed
that he is rich in mercy. That is to say, God’s attitude to the world’s
misery and to the misery and suffering of each one of us is one
infinite compassion. God feels for each of us as does a compassionate
Father who responds by doing all in his power to alleviate the need he
sees in his suffering child. He is merciful in his response to that
need. Because of his compassion he sent his very own Son to take upon
himself the world’s sin and expiate for it by his suffering and death.
God gave up everything to fix our problem. We speak rightly of God as
being almighty, and indeed that is the first thing we all think of God.
He is our Father almighty. But let us remember that God reveals and
manifests his almighty power precisely in his mercy, in his compassion,
in the action he takes to alleviate our needs at their root, and their
root is sin. God’s power has been revealed in the work of redeeming the
world, causing such a breakthrough as to make holiness possible for all
who take up the invitation to believe in Christ. It was by God’s
almighty power that the world was redeemed, and this power revealed his
mercy.
All of this is manifested in the wounds of Christ. By his wounds
we are saved. His wounds show forth his almighty mercy and compassion,
for they display the unimaginable sufferings which Christ endured in
his work of mercy, the taking away of the sin of the world. In today’s
Gospel passage our Lord shows his wounds to Thomas and Thomas seeing
them and touching them says from the bottom of his heart: “My Lord and
my God!” (John 20:19-31)
In those wounds on his hands, his feet, his side and all over his body,
Christ reveals how rich and powerful God is in mercy. Let us resolve to
gaze constantly on the wounds of the crucified
and risen Jesus so as to draw near to the compassionate heart of Jesus
and unite ourselves with the divine mercy, the mercy of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. In this way let us be filled with the thought of God's
mercy
towards us, and let us resolve by our compassionate lives to bear
witness before others to the mercy of God for them.
(E.J.Tyler)
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You are an ordinary citizen. It is precisely because of that secularity
of yours, which is the same as, and neither more nor less than, that of
your colleagues, that you have to be sufficiently brave — which may
sometimes mean being very brave — to make your faith felt. They should
see your good works and the motive that drives you to do them.
(The Forge,
no.723)
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What is the
relationship between Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium?
Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium are so
closely united with each other that one of them cannot stand without
the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of
the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation
of souls.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.17)
----------------------------------------(Back
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Third
Sunday of Eastertide B
(April 30) St
Pius V, pope (1504-1572). Michael Ghislieri, a Dominican, became
Pope Pius V. His pontificate is one of the best in the 16th century,
enforcing the decrees of the Council of Trent, publishing the Roman
Catechism, and revising the Missal and Breviary. He set an outstanding
example to the entire Church of holiness of life. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Acts
3:13-15.17-19; Psalm 4: 2, 4, 7-9; 1
John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48.
“And as he said this he showed them
his hands and feet. And their joy was so great”
(Luke 24:35-48)
I remember over thirty years ago a very prominent federal
politician said that he was a just fellow-traveller with Christianity,
rather than a believer himself. The reason for his non-belief was that
he did not accept the fact of the resurrection. Whatever might have
been his reasons for not accepting the resurrection, at least he
understood how central to Christian belief is the resurrection of
Christ. Islam does not believe our Lord rose
from the dead because it
(gratuitously)
asserts that he did not die on the cross. They have no evidence for
saying this. It is just their assertion, but at least they see how
important is the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection. Our Lord’s
resurrection was the decisive element in the belief of Our Lord’s own
disciples. Despite his repeated warnings to them that he was about to
be rejected and put to death, and despite his telling them that this
had to happen if he was to fulfil his mission as Messiah, and despite
his telling them he would rise again, when he was crucified their hopes
were completely dashed. It seemed to be the end of everything. Some saw
the empty tomb, others were told about it, but what made all the
difference was that they actually met him in the flesh after he rose
from the dead. They met him face to face, talked with him, physically
touched him and watched him even eat. He specifically told them that he
had flesh and bones: "a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have.” They came to know for themselves
that the same Jesus who had lived with them in the flesh was now alive
in the flesh again, enjoying a new and glorious life. He was back with
them from the grave, the same Jesus.
This is surely the main point St Luke is portraying in his
Gospel passage today (Luke 24:35-48). Our
Lord appeared to them to show them that he was alive and in the flesh. There had
been no difficulty in thinking our Lord had survived his death in a spiritual
sense. This was not enough, though, for his disciples would have expected that
of any holy prophet. When he appeared to them as portrayed here in our Gospel
passage, they initially thought they were seeing the ghost of Jesus. We read in
the OT book of Kings how a long time before this King Saul went to a kind of a
witch and asked her to summon up Samuel from the dead so that he could speak to
him. She did so, and Samuel appeared to Saul. It was the spirit of Samuel, his
ghost we might say, who appeared and told him of his coming defeat and death.
When during his public ministry the disciples saw Jesus coming to them across
the water in the midst of the storm, they thought they were
seeing a ghost. It is not distinctive of
the Christian religion to believe in life beyond the grave in some
sense. What is distinctive is the belief stemming from the disciple’s
encounter with the risen Jesus. It is Jesus in the flesh who has come
back to us from the grave. This fact makes all the difference.
What they saw, what they heard, and what they touched
transformed their fear of a ghost into joy and delight in being with
the same Jesus, the very same Jesus they had been with since the
beginning of his public ministry. It was the same Jesus in the flesh
still, the same Jesus in his entirety. They watched him, now back from
the dead, sit with them and eat and talk, listening to them and being
with them as before. But, while in the flesh with them still, he now
lived by a
life utterly beyond the limitations he had shared with them before. He
was now risen to a glorified life. He could disappear now at will,
appear
wherever he wished at will, and act with power at will. He was utterly
beyond the reach of death and all that led to or was connected with
death. All power in
heaven and on earth had been given to him. In his flesh he now lived a
life completely dominated by his divine life as the Son of the Father.
This same Jesus was with them now for good, and he would be with all
his future disciples. He was the Lord of lords
and the King of kings. He was worth living for and dying for and this
is what the disciples and the infant Church did. Those who believed in
him would be saved because they would be given a share in the life he
now lived by. They would be freed of their sins, and if they lived and
died with him they would rise with him. He is the one by whom all are
to be saved. All that was needed now was truly to repent and truly to
believe.
Let us place ourselves in the scene of today’s Gospel
among the disciples as they look with joy and delight on the risen
person of Jesus, now with them in the flesh again. Let us contemplate
him. This same Jesus is with us now in various ways in the life of the
Church, but especially in his word and in the Sacraments, and most
especially does he come to us in the holy Eucharist. Let us be filled
with a realization of the resurrection: Jesus lives in his risen
glorified body, and he is with us always to bring us redemption and
sanctification.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
Catechism of the
Catholic Church: no. 645-646 (The risen humanity of Jesus)
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“Why are you distressed?...
Look at my hands and my feet, ... it is I myself.”(Luke 24:35-48)
Commentary by Blessed
Guerric of Igny (around 1080 – 1157), Cistercian abbot
(1st Sermon for the Lord’s Resurrection, 4)
When Jesus came to his apostles while “the doors were locked,” and he
“stood in their midst”, they “in their panic and fright thought they
were seeing a ghost.” (Jn 20:19; Lk 24:37) But when he breathed on them
saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22), and when he then sent
them that same Spirit from heaven as a new gift, this gift was an
indubitable proof of his resurrection and his new life. For the Spirit
testifies in the heart of the saints and then through their mouth that
Christ is the truth, the true resurrection and the life. That is why
the apostles, who had first doubted even when they saw his living body,
“bore witness to the resurrection with power” (Acts 4:33) once they had
tasted that Spirit who gives life. It is much more to our advantage to
welcome Jesus in our heart than to see him with our eyes or to hear him
speak. The Holy Spirit’s action on our interior senses is much more
powerful than the impression made by material objects on our external
senses…
Now, brothers, what is the testimony that the joy of your heart is
giving to your love of Christ? ... Today, so many messengers are
proclaiming the resurrection in the Church, and your heart exults and
cries out: “Jesus, my God, is alive; they have proclaimed that! At this
news, my discouraged, tepid spirit that was made drowsy through grief,
has come back to life. The voice that is proclaiming this good news
awakens even the guiltiest from death…” Brother, this is the sign by
which you will recognize that your spirit has come back to life in
Christ: if it says: “If Jesus is alive, that is enough for me!” O Word
of faith that is very fitting to Jesus’ friends! ... “If Jesus is
alive, that is enough for me!”
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You have to work with such
supernatural vision that you let yourself be absorbed by your
activity only in order to make it divine. In this way the earthly
becomes divine, the temporal eternal.
(The Forge,
no.730)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What role
does Sacred Scripture play in the life of the Church?
Sacred Scripture gives support and vigour to
the life of the Church. For the children of the Church, it is a
confirmation of the faith, food for the soul and the fount of the
spiritual life. Sacred Scripture is the soul of theology and of
pastoral preaching. The Psalmist says that it is “a lamp to my feet and
a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). The Church, therefore, exhorts all
to read Sacred Scripture frequently because “ignorance of the
Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” (Saint
Jerome).
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.24)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Fourth
Sunday of Eastertide (Vocations Sunday)
(May 7) Today let us think of Saint John of Beverley
(Saints)
Scripture today: Acts 4:
8-12; Psalm 118: 1,
8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 John 3:
1-2; John 10: 11-18
“I am the good shepherd; I know my own
and my own know me, just as the Father knows me”
(John 10: 11-18)
When I was a youth I mentioned to an adult
friend of mine that my hope was that I would eventually be a priest. He
tried hard to dissuade me from this, as he thought it was a waste of a
life. I was quite committed to my hopes and there was really no chance
of his convincing me otherwise, and he ended by saying that he could
not help me. Now, that was many decades ago, but there would be plenty
of good practising Catholics who think the same thing now. Without
saying as much or even being aware that they think in this way, many
would regard it as a waste for one of their children to be a priest or
a religious, or to embrace one of the many other vocations in the
Church that are given over to the person and work of Christ, foregoing
marriage and career and various other temporal prospects for that
purpose. When this is combined with the secular and materialistic
values of our culture, it is not surprising that in the Church's recent
history not many young people have seriously aspired to give their
lives exclusively to our Lord and his mission in this way.
How are we to calculate the nobility and value of various
callings and projects in life? God so loved the world that he sent his
Son to save the world. In becoming man Jesus trod our path, was
raised in a family, went to the village school, practised a trade. But
then he embarked on his saving mission. To save mankind he did not
choose to do it by being a great doctor, a great philosopher, a great
civil ruler, a great inventor, important as all these are in the plan
of God. No, his work was to reveal the plan of God and himself as the
one and only Saviour who takes away the sin of the world. He was the
high priest of mankind offering himself as the victim expiating for the
sin of the world. Then just before he ascended into heaven he commanded
his disciples to go to the whole world making disciples of all the
nations. He would be with them in their work. They would make him
present and all who by faith entered into union with him in the
fellowship of the Church would be saved. Their message was that of our
first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4: 8-12),
uttered by Peter when he said that “for all the names in the world given to men,
this is the only one by which we can be saved.” Christ is the only Saviour, and
the work of the Apostles was to make this Saviour present and known to all so
that they might be saved. What could be more beautiful than a life given over to
making Christ present in the midst of men and to drawing others into union with
him? On what more than this does the world depend? Only by means of him are we
saved. All
mankind depends on Christ and on knowing and loving him. What then
could be of greater value than a life given over to bringing his person
to the lives of others?
This is the vocation of the ordained priest. The authentic sense
of the faithful instinctively respects this. By his ordination he is
united to Christ in a very special way, a way very different from that
of those who live in Christ and share in his priesthood by baptism and
confirmation. The priest is able at Mass to make present Christ and his
redeeming sacrifice of Calvary. The priest is
able in the Sacrament of Penance to make present Christ in the act of
forgiving sins. The priest
is able in the Anointing of the Sick to make Christ present to the sick
and the dying. The priest in his preaching makes present to the
faithful Christ preaching his word. The priest in his very own person
by virtue of ordination makes Christ present to others. In making
Christ present he makes present the only one by whom the world can be
saved. The priest, the Church teaches us, is another Christ, so great
is the identification wrought by ordination. So where he goes, Christ
goes. As Christ is the Head, the Shepherd and the Bridegroom of the
Church, so the ordained priest shares with Christ in that same
relationship with the Church. The ministerial priesthood is surely a
great and beautiful calling. Every Catholic family could aspire
to seeing a son a priest. There are other vocations too in the Church
that also
involve an intimate and exclusive bond with the person of Christ, but
of
course in ways different from that of the ordained priest. The
consecrated religious gives her life exclusively to Jesus as her
Spouse. So do many other forms of living totally for Christ and his
mission that the Church lays open as beautiful and valued vocations.
Today is Vocations Sunday. Let every family pray
that vocations will abound in the Church. I invite you to
pray for the gift of vocations coming forth from your family, or from
the families of your children.
(E.J.Tyler)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Good Shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep" (John 10: 11-18)
Commentary by Pope John
Paul II (Homily for the 25th Anniversary of his Pontificate)
"The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn 10:11). While
Jesus was saying these words, the Apostles did not realize that he was
referring to himself. Not even his beloved Apostle John knew it. He
understood on Calvary, at the foot of the Cross, when he saw Jesus
silently giving up his life for "his sheep". When the time came for
John and the other Apostles to assume this same mission they then
remembered his words. They realized that they would be able to fulfill
their mission only because he had assured them that he himself would be
working among them. As Peter, a "witness of the sufferings of Christ"
(1 Pet 5:1), was particularly aware of this, he admonished the elders
of the Church: "Tend the flock of God that is your charge" (1 Pet 5:2).
Down the centuries, the successors of the Apostles, guided by the Holy
Spirit, have continued to gather Christ's flock and lead it toward the
Kingdom of Heaven, knowing that only "for Christ, with Christ and in
Christ" could they assume so great a responsibility. I was conscious of
the same thing when the Lord called me to carry out Peter's mission in
this beloved city of Rome and at the service of the whole world. From
the beginning of my Pontificate, my thoughts, prayers and actions were
motivated by one desire: to witness that Christ, the Good Shepherd, is
present and active in his Church. He is constantly searching for every
stray sheep, to lead it back to the sheepfold, to bind up its wounds;
he tends the sheep that are weak and sickly and protects those that are
strong. This is why, from the very first day, I have never ceased to
urge people: "Do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power!"
Today I forcefully repeat: "Open, indeed, open wide the doors to
Christ!" Let him guide you! Trust in his love!
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Every
single day, do what you can to know God better, to get acquainted
with him, to fall more in love with him each moment, and to think of
nothing but of his Love and his glory. You will carry out this plan, my
child, if you never, for any reason whatever, give up your times of
prayer, your presence of God, with the aspirations and spiritual
communions that set you on fire, your unhurried Holy Mass, and y our
work, finished off well for him.
(The Forge,
no.737)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why are the formulas of faith important?
The formulas of faith are important because they permit one to express,
assimilate, celebrate, and share together with others the truths of the
faith through a common language.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.31)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Fifth
Sunday of Eastertide
(May 14) St
Matthias, apostle (died perhaps about 64 AD). After the
ascension of our Lord, St Peter proposed that the disciples elect an
apostle in place of Judas. The choice was Matthias, who joined the
other Eleven. He had been with them, we are told in the Acts,
from the beginning of the public ministry. It seems that he
worked for the Faith in Palestine, and later was stoned to death. Today
we are reminded that our Christian faith is a gratuitous gift of God to
which we should respond with fidelity and gratitude.
(Saints)
Scripture today:
Acts
9:26-31; Psalm 22: 26-28,
30-32; 1
John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8
“I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit..”
(John 15:1-8)
When we hear the Gospel passage about Christ being the
vine and we the branches we tend to think that our Lord is speaking
simply of his relationship with each of us individually. “I am the
vine, and my Father is the vine grower. Every branch in me that bears
no fruit he cuts away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes
to make it bear even more.” (John 15:1-8) In
hearing these words we think of the involvement of our Lord and of the
Father in the life of each of us. That is essential, of course, but we
tend to forget the greater reality of which we are part. Our Lord is
also speaking of his relationship with the entire body of believers,
which is to say the Church. In uttering these words our Lord was not
speaking to one individual alone, but to his Apostles as a group at the
Last Supper. It was to the Church, the Church in its beginnings, that
our Lord explained that he is the vine and we are the branches. In any
case, we ought never understand our relationship with the person of
Jesus as just a matter between him and me. The truly Catholic sense of
our relationship with Jesus is that I live in him not alone but
together with the entire body of the faithful. We are all together in
him as in a single body. We together are all grafted on to the one vine
which is Christ. I am part of a vast vine, a vast tree as it were, and
the heart and soul of this single organism that is always bearing fruit
is the person of Jesus. This presence of Jesus in the Church makes of
the Church not merely a human reality but one which bears within it a
great divine reality. The members are human, but both the head and the
soul of the Church are divine.
The average person looks on the Church as nothing more than a very human
institution, a body of people who happen to belong to a particular religion
which has various doctrines and moral teachings. It is considered by many as
just a great world religion, one of several. But of course, we know from the
words of our Lord who is the founder of the Church that those of us who make up
the Church are far from being its principal reality. If that were all there is
to the Church it would indeed be nothing more than just another world
religion. But no. Just as branches are nothing without the vine, so too the
fundamental and all-pervasive reality constituting the Church is the person of
Jesus. He is the object of the Church’s attention and the abiding source of the
Church’s life. The word “Church” derives from the word to call many together,
and the Church consists of those called into one body by the word of Christ and
by his union with them. The Church was prepared for in the Old Testament people
of God and came into existence by Christ’s teachings, his association with the Twelve,
by his passion, his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, and then by the
sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The same Jesus who returned to
his Father victorious over sin and
death now constantly abides within his body the Church as the great
Presence and gift of God. This the Church bears constantly
within herself and offers to all her members and which she makes
available to all mankind. The person of Jesus is the head of the
Church, though hidden and unseen. He is the hidden face of the Church,
and some day we shall see him as he is. From him and from the Father
who is in him comes the all-important Gift of the Holy Spirit, and
those who wish to meet Christ and live his Spirit-filled life do so by
becoming members of his body, branches of him who is the vine. The
living unseen Christ can be located. He is in the Church.
For this reason we ought cultivate a profound reverence and love
for the Church, looking on the Church the way our Lord does. We
maintain a true docility to the Church and to her teaching because we
know it is Christ who guides and teaches us through her. Just as a
human face which we observe manifests the unseen spirit or soul of a
person which we cannot see, so too, the Church which we do observe
makes present the unseen Christ whom we cannot yet observe. So great is
the union of Christ with the Church that our Lord referred to himself
as the bridegroom and to the Church as his bride. In our Gospel today
our Lord puts it differently, saying that he is the vine and we the
Church are the branches. The important thing to realize very profoundly
in all this is that the person of Christ is the great reality
pervading, supporting and dominating the Church. It is for him that we
are members of the Church, and it is in and through the Church that
Christ is united to each of us. So then, let us always be filled with a
sense of the divine character of the Church stemming directly from her
unbreakable union with the divine person of Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.771-801
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”(John 15:1-8)
St Bernard
(1091-1153), Cistercian and Doctor of the Church (Sermon 58
on the Song of Songs)
I must warn each of you about his vine: for who has never cut back
everything that is superfluous in himself to the point of thinking that
there is nothing more to cut? Believe me, what has been cut, grows
back; the vices that have been chased away return, and we see
tendencies that had gone to sleep waking up again. It is therefore not
enough to cut one’s vine once; rather, we have to do it again and
often, and if possible, even without ceasing. For if you are sincere,
you ceaselessly find in yourself something to cut… Virtue cannot grow
among the vices; for virtue to develop, we must prevent the vices from
increasing. So suppress what is superfluous; then the necessary will be
able to spring up.
For us, Brothers, it is always the time for cutting; it is always
necessary. For I am sure that we have already left winter behind us, we
have left behind the fear without love, which introduces us all to
wisdom, but which doesn’t let anyone grow in perfection. When love
comes, it chases away that fear just as the summer chases away the
winter… So may the winter rains stop, that is say, the tears of anguish
that arise because of the memory of your sins and the fear of judgment…
If “the winter is over” and “the rain has topped” (Song 2:11)…, the
sweetness of the spring of spiritual grace shows us that the time has
come to cut our vine. What else is there for us to do other than to
become entirely committed to this work?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work with cheerfulness, with peace, with presence of God. In this way
you will also carry out your task with common sense. You will carry it
through to the end. Though tiredness is beating you down, you will
finish it off well; and your works will be pleasing to God.
(The Forge,
no.744)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With what name does God reveal himself?
God revealed himself to Moses as the living God, “the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). God also revealed to
Moses his mysterious name “I Am Who I Am (YHWH)”. Already in Old
Testament times this ineffable name of God was replaced by the divine
title Lord. Thus in the New Testament, Jesus who was called Lord is
seen as true God.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.38)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
Sixth Sunday of Eastertide B
(May 21) Today let us think of St Adrew Bobola (Saints)
Sripture today:
Acts 10:
25-26,
34-35, 44-48; Psalm 98:
1-4; 1 John 4:
7-10; John 15: 9-17
“I chose you; and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit that will last”
(John 15: 9-17)
Our Lord tells us in today's Gospel that “You did not choose me,
no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit.”
In one of his Letters
St Paul also speaks of God’s choice of us:
“Before the
world began, God chose us, chose us in Christ to be holy and full of
love in his sight.” That is to say, each of us has a calling to live in
Christ and to be transformed into his likeness. But there is a danger
that in appreciating that this is our vocation, we could
forget that society in general has this calling too. The whole of
humanity has its vocation as does each individual, and it is to show
forth the image of God, and by God’s grace to be transformed into the
image of the Father’s only Son. God wants the life of the society in
which we live to be more and more like his own life, the life of the
Blessed Trinity. Now this gives to every member of the Church a daily
mission to the society in which he lives.
Just as there are many different understandings of the human
person at work in society, so there are many different understandings
of society too. Karl Marx had his understanding of human society, as
expressed in his book Das
Kapital. It
insisted on society being classless and without religion. The result
was atheistic communism with all the suffering that involved.
Adolf Hitler had a fascist notion of society and he set it out in his
book Mein Kampf,
and that understanding resulted in the violation of the rights of
countless people, and a world war too. A great contemporary threat is a
spreading fundamentalist Islamic notion of society, drawn from a
certain interpretation of the Koran. It is opposed to democracy and wants all of
society to be built on certain Islamic notions, including Shariah law. There are
certain Western notions too of a different kind that can cause great harm.
Generally they involve the notion of full personal freedom unrestricted by
objective morality, requiring that society allow whatever the will of the
majority decides. And so if the majority wants to allow abortion on demand, then
that is how society should go. All these understandings of society can be very
influential in law, in the courts, in the media, and in what people expect and
agitate for in society. The mission of the lay Christian is to evangelize these notions and to win the victory for Christ.
Now, what is the Christian and Catholic understanding of
society? It is based on and drawn from what Christ has revealed, and
elucidated in the Church’s social teaching. It puts Christ at the
centre and judges social, national, international and cultural life
from the perspective of his teaching. It is this notion which we ought
study, strive to grasp, and then bring to bear on daily life in society
and its problems. We ought have as part of our daily mission to spread
this understanding and to have it gradually influence the understanding
that others in society have. Just as each of us is called to be like
Jesus our Lord and in him to be like our heavenly Father, so too God
intends that human society (which is his creation and which he
sustains) should be more and more like the life of God the Holy
Trinity. Not only ought it be like God, but its very life ought pulsate
more and more with his divine life. Grace ought permeate not only our
personal lives, but the life of society.
Of course this is a vast subject, but it is important that every
lay
Catholic Christian whose proper ambient is the world should grasp the
basic
point. God in Christ is the goal, the exemplar and the
life of society, just as he is of individuals. An understanding of what
this means in detail is gained by the gradual study of the Church’s
social doctrine, and every member of the faithful ought be studying
that doctrine. Christ is the key to the understanding of man, and of
society too. He is the light of the world. The life of society ought be
modelled on and be a participation in the life of the Holy Trinity. Each
individual and all of society, indeed all societies,
have the vocation to be transformed by grace into the image of God’s
Son. It is the lay faithful who have the immense mission to
be the servants of that transformation into Christ, and the lay
person’s daily work is the means whereby the Church offers that service
to the world. It is especially the lay faithful who have the mission of
bringing Christ to his society, to his culture, and to the world
around. His mission is to Christianise the world.
Our Lord in today’s Gospel (John 15: 9-17) commissions
his disciples to go out to bear fruit that will last. The only lasting
fruit is that which flows from the vine which is Christ. Let every lay
member of Christ’s faithful strive to bring all of society into contact
and full union with the person of Jesus.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.1877-1889
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“As the Father has loved me, so I have
loved you. Live on in my love.” (John 15: 9-17)
Comment by St Augustine
(354-430), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Sermons on St. John, no. 65)
The Lord Jesus affirms that he is giving his disciples a new
commandment, that of mutual love… Did this commandment not already
exist in the old law, since it is written: “You shall love your
neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18)? So why does the Lord call new a
commandment that was obviously so old? Is it a new commandment, because
in stripping us of the old man, he clothes us with the new one (Eph
2:24)? Certainly, the person who listens to this commandment, or
rather, who obeys it, is not renewed by just any love, but by the love
that the Lord carefully distinguishes from purely natural love, when he
says, “as I have loved you.” … Christ gave us the new commandment to
love one another as he loved us. That is the love that renews us, that
makes us into new persons, heirs to the new covenant, singers of the
“new song” (Ps 96:1).
Dearly beloved Brothers, this love even renewed the righteous of past
times, the patriarchs and the prophets, just as it later renewed the
holy apostles. It is the love that now renews the pagan nations. This
love raises up and gathers together the new people from the whole human
race scattered over all the earth, the body of the new Spouse of the
Son of God.
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Faced with the
marvels of God, and with all our human failures, we have
to make this admission: "You are everything to me. Use me as you wish!"
Then, for you — for us — there will be no more loneliness.
(The Forge,
no.751)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can the mystery of the Most Holy
Trinity be known by the light of human reason alone?
God has left some traces of his trinitarian being in creation and in
the Old Testament but his inmost being as the Holy Trinity is a mystery
which is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before
the Incarnation of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
This mystery was revealed by Jesus Christ and it is the source of all
the other mysteries.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.45)
----------------------------------------(Back
to index to Liturgical Days)----------------------------------------
The
Ascension of the Lord B
(May 28) Today let us think of St. Germanus of Paris (Saints)
Scripture: Acts of the
Apostles 1:1-11; Psalm 47:2-3, 6-9; Ephesians
1:17-23; Mark 16:15-20
“There at the right hand of God he
took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere”.
(Mark 16:15-20)
we begin
Both during his public life and after his
resurrection our Lord referred to his entry into glory. It was the
climax of his entire mission, and both before and after his
resurrection he had told his disciples that it was
necessary for the Messiah to suffer and die so as to enter into his
glory. Not long before his
Passion our Lord took with him Peter, James
and John, who would be the pillars of the infant Church, and went up a
mountain, and there he was transfigured in glory. It was a prefiguring
of what was to come. At the Last Supper our Lord prayed to his heavenly
Father. His prayer was that he, Jesus, had glorified him here on earth,
and now he asks
that he, the Father, glorify him with that glory that had been his
before
the world ever was. So the purpose of our Lord’s life and mission was
to give glory to the Father, to be glorified himself, and to bring all
of us into a share in his glory. The world would share in the glory of
God. He had relinquished the glory that was
his as the Son of God in order to become man. Ascended into heaven, he
had now regained the
glory that was his as God, which he had put away in becoming man. In
celebrating the ascension we celebrate the glory of our Lord as
God. (Mark 16:15-20)
But in ascending into heaven, our Lord was not simply
assuming the state of glory that had been his before the world began.
He was taking his seat at God’s right hand as man too. In this sense we
celebrate the glory of man, man understood as being in Jesus. In
Jesus, the Son of Man and our brother, we ourselves were being given a
stake at the right hand of God. Jesus ascending into heaven
involved the glorification of man, man ascending into glory above and
beyond all that is sinful, broken and inglorious. The resurrection of
our Lord not only brought to the disciples a great joy at seeing their
beloved Master with them once again, but it brought to them the joy of
knowing that if they live and die in him they will rise in him too. The
ascension of the Lord has a similar significance for the Christian, for
not only can he hope to rise with Christ, but he can hope to share in
his glory in heaven. So while the ascension shows forth who Jesus is,
it also shows forth the final vocation of
all of us. We are called to share in the glory of Christ with the
Father. That is what we can look forward to whatever be the
vicissitudes of life. Mary, the first and greatest Christian, has shown
us all
the way. At the end of her earthly life she was taken up in glory, body
and soul, to heaven because of her sinless union with her Son, and now
she
shares in the glory of her divine Son. So then, what a glory it is for
humanity that one of us is divine and what a hope it provides for us
all! Whatever be our sufferings and disappointments, we can look ahead
to glory.
This share in the divine life and glory has come to us
with the gift of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of our Lord’s public
ministry John the Baptist had told his disciples that Jesus would
baptize with the Holy Spirit, and in our first reading today
(Acts of the
Apostles 1:1-11) our Lord, before he ascended into
heaven, tells his disciples that soon they would be baptized in the
Holy Spirit. St John the author of the Gospel specifically tells us how
during his public ministry Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit whom
those who believed in him were to receive. St John comments that there
was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Today in
thinking of the Ascension we think of our Lord together with the Father
now poised to send the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the actual coming of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost next Sunday. He came to each of us at our
baptism and he made us children of God. Our share in the glory of
Christ is now hidden and is threatened by sin. It will be completed
when we are taken up to be
with him in glory hereafter, if we live a life worthy of our state as
children of God. The
ascension of the Lord into heaven is the necessary preliminary to the
coming of the Holy
Spirit, and with his coming the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit,
dwells with the Church, making of the Church the living
sacrament of God.
Today let us contemplate our Lord leaving his disciples
with his cosmic mission successfully completed. He enters heaven to the
acclaim of all the holy ones and to the warm embrace of the Father in
the love of the Holy Spirit. Christ is there as God once again
in glory. He is there also as man showing to all of us
what our true vocation is. Our vocation is to glory. Jesus and the
Father are poised to send the
Holy Spirit on the infant Church, and through the ministry of the
Church to each of us. In the power of the Holy Spirit the Father and
the Son make their abode with us and enable us to live in them so as to
prepare for an eternity in the glory of Jesus, ascended into heaven and
seated at the right hand of the Father.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.737-741
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“That they may be one, even as we are one”
(John 17,11-19)
Pope Benedict XVI (Discourse at the
ecumenical meeting during the 2005 World Youth Day)
[What does it mean to return to the
unity of all Christians?]
This unity, we are convinced,
indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever
being lost …
On the other hand, this unity does
not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is,
to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not! It does not mean uniformity in all
expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in
discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity… To this end, dialogue has its own
contribution to make. More than an exchange of thoughts, an academic
exercise, it is an exchange of gifts, in which the Churches and the
Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches. As a result of this commitment, the
journey can move forward, step by step, as the Letter to the Ephesians
says, until at last we will all "attain to the unity of faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4: 13)… We cannot "bring about" unity by our
powers alone. We can only obtain unity as a gift of the Holy Spirit.
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I understand. Through Love, you want to suffer with Christ: you want to
put your back between him and the butchers who are flogging him; to
offer your head instead of his for the thorns, and your hands and feet
for the nails. Or at least you want to accompany our Mother, Holy Mary,
on Calvary, and to plead guilty to deicide on account of your sins ...
and to suffer and to love.
(The Forge,
no.758)
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Who created the world?
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the one and indivisible
principle of creation even though the work of creating the world is
particularly attributed to God the Father.
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.52)
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