(December 3) St Francis Xavier,
Jesuit priest and missionary (1506-1552) Born in Spain he
studied at Paris and there met and joined St Ignatius. He was ordained
a priest at Rome in 1537. He spent himself in works of charity and in
1541 he went to the East where for ten years he preached the Gospel in
India and Japan, and brought great numbers to the Catholic Faith. He
died on the Chinese island of Shangchwan. (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Jeremiah
33:14-16; Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14; 1
Thesalonians 3:12—4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
Jesus said to
his disciples: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the
stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring
of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of
what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be
shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with
power and great glory. But when these signs begin to happen, stand
erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. “Beware
that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise
like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face
of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the
strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand
before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:25-28,
34-36)
Today is the first
day and the first Sunday of the liturgical season of Advent marking the
beginning of the new liturgical year. We prepare for the celebration of
the coming of Christ at Bethlehem by thinking of his coming generally.
The understanding of time possessed by a non-believer or by, say, a
Buddhist
is necessarily different from that of one who expects the coming of the
One
who will save and who
will
judge. The
fundamental
stance of one who accepts divine Revelation is
that of expectation and preparation. Time is not just a
succession of events which are enjoyed or endured, or perhaps repeated
with little prospect of a final resolution or outcome. Time has
had a beginning and it will
have an end. It is this stance of memory and of expectation and
preparation which is
renewed during the liturgical season of Advent. We remember the many
centuries of expectation and preparation characterized by prophecies of
the promised Messiah. We remember the prophet Isaiah, the prophet
Malachi, and many others who pointed people in the direction of One who
would save and who would judge. We think of the moment of threshold
when, for instance, in the Temple and in the presence of Mary and Joseph Simeon’s expectation was fulfilled and he held in
his arms the One who had been promised. We think of John the Baptist
who announced the imminent arrival of the Messiah. The expectation of
this great future
event shaped the spiritual life of God’s chosen people. Now, what has
this
to do with us, because we know that the Messiah has already arrived?
The Church in our celebration today, and in particular in presenting to
us the Gospel of today, reminds us that expectation and preparation
still characterizes the stance of the Christian because the Messiah who
has come will come again. That is to say, while he has come, we must also prepare for his
final coming.
Our Lord’s words
today speak of his final coming (Luke 21:25-28,
34-36). He will come to save
and to redeem — he tells his disciples that “when these signs begin to
happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at
hand.” At the same time, they are to live in such a way that they will
be able to do this with confidence. Therefore “beware that your
hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the
anxieties of daily life”, for if they do, then that day when Christ
comes will “catch you by surprise like a trap.” Christ’s first coming
at Bethlehem was above all to save — to save his people from their
sins. He came to call sinners to repentance, and to take away the sin
of the world. When he comes again at the end he will save and redeem
those who have accepted his call, but those who have not will be judged
and
sentenced. The point, though, is that we are to live in the memory of
the past event and in preparation for the future event. But if we are
to do
this we must recover a profound sense of sin. The lack of this is, as
the Servant of God Pope Pius XII wrote, the sin of our
age. Characteristically we in our time do not consider sin as of much
importance. But sin is the world's greatest problem, and so the lack of
a sense of this is the most important lack in the world. This is the
issue on which life and the world
hinges. If the fact of sin is denied and the sense of sin neglected, our life and the life of
the world rests on a knife-edge. We are helped to see that the world is in a precarious
position
when we think of the final coming of Christ to
judge.
What would happen to us and to the world (of sin) were Christ to come
suddenly now? It is only if we are living in him and living a good life
in his sight that such a coming would be a “redemption”. If we are not,
it would be a “tribulation.”
Let us today renew
our attitude of expectation and preparation. Our life is meant by God
to be one of
remembering his first coming and preparing for his future coming. In
the
memory of the past and in the light of the future we live in a way that
pleases him. Let us meditate on what he has done, and think much of
what he will do. Within these great parameters we are called to live
generously our Christian life.
(E.J.Tyler)
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On Christ’s two comings 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.
(Selected
by "The Daily Gospel",
New
Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Don't look so alarmed. As a Christian you have the right and the duty
to provoke a wholesome crisis in souls so that they live their lives
with their eyes on God.
(The Forge,
no.948)
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What is the function of the liturgical
year?
In the liturgical year the Church celebrates the whole mystery of
Christ from his Incarnation to his return in glory. On set days the
Church venerates with special love the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother
of God. The Church also keeps the memorials of saints who lived for
Christ, who suffered with him, and who live with him in glory.
(CCC 1168-1173, 1194-1195)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.242)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(December 10) Today let us also think of Our Lady of Loretto and Saint Gregory III (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture
today: Baruch
5:1-9; Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6;
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth
year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor
of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of
Galilee, and his brother Philip
tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was
tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. John
went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism
of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book
of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the
desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every
valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made
smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3:1-6)
One of the striking
features of man’s religious life is the presence of myth. It is
particularly evident in traditional indigenous religions which feature
many myths about the beginnings, about how the world came to be what it
is, and about other matters that impinge on man’s condition. An
enormous amount of investigation has been conducted into Australian
aboriginal myths, into African and Melanesian myths
and many others. Myth is very prominent
in classical Greek and Roman religion, in Hinduism and perhaps
Buddhism, and in other religions as well. Myths have great meaning, and
they encapsulate in stories the perceptions of peoples about themselves and the
world in which they live. Especially important in myth is what it says
of evil and its solution. That having been said, the myth is an
imaginative construct.
Myths are not factual narrations but stories created by the religious and
philosophical imagination expressing insights into life and the world’s
beginnings and meaning.
Now, when we turn to the Christian religion the first thing we notice
(especially if we set it in the context of ancient religious myths) is
that its spokesmen claim in absolutely unambiguous terms to be speaking
formally of facts. In our Gospel today Saint Luke situates his account in very
precise dates. He tells us that John the Baptist began his prophetic
ministry in a certain year: it was the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar. He tells us who was the governor of Judea, who were
the tetrarchs of other nearby regions, and who were the chief priests
of the nation. We have dates, names and places (Luke 3:1-6). That is to say, the
Christian religion involves not simply myth (though there is a place
for myth in revealed religion) but hard, cold facts. The Gospels are narrations
of facts. There were and are
real people, and they said and did definite things. In this very
factual setting the salvation which God had long promised made its
appearance. It was not just a sacred and venerable dreamtime. Revealed
religion is a matter of fact.
Many
anthropologists of primal religions understand ritual as a recurring
action which makes the mythical event present and renews what was done in the
mythical beginning. It is this renewal which is — in its own proper
order — saving and beneficial, just as it was in the beginning. There
is much in this that is common to
ritual in revealed religion. But one outstanding difference is that in the case
of revealed religion we are speaking of actual facts. The salvation
brought by God to man “in the beginning” of the era of redemption is a
factual matter. Hard realities constitute what a comparative religionist might call the
"myths" of revealed
religion. It is these realities which are made
present in the practice of revealed religion and in its ritual down
through the ages. The
sacraments are those ever-recurring events in the life of the Church
when the Christ who came to save us, the real Christ who did actual
things at a certain point of history, makes himself present together
with the salvation he brought and won for us. John the Baptist appeared
in the
wilderness announcing that the time had come and God’s salvation was
near at hand. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth the kingdom of God
arrived and was established on earth. That kingdom — to be definitively
and fully established when Christ comes again — is made present and
continues down the ages into our own day in the life of the Church, in
her ministry and sacraments. What John the Baptist
announced (Luke 3:1-6) the Church announces to
her children in every epoch. The
salvation that was coming and which arrived then is just as truly
coming to each of us and arrives now. The point I am making here is
that we are speaking of actual facts, saving realities. This is why it
is often said that a distinctive feature of Catholic Christianity is
its concern for the truth. Only the truth satisfies the person with a
truly Catholic mind and outlook. It is not what satisfies personal
anxieties, but the truth, actual facts, which Catholic Christianity
looks to. Cardinal Newman in his writings often stated that true
Christianity has in mind the uppermost importance of Objects — divinely
revealed Objects — rather than the subject’s reaction to them.
As we ponder on the
Gospel of today in which Saint Luke goes to special lengths to insist
on the historical context of the announcement of the Gospel, let us
renew our appreciation of a most notable feature of revealed religion.
It is that we constantly live in the light of hard facts that are
saving
realities. In this sense our house is built on solid rock.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Prepare
the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Luke 3:1-6)
Commentary by Blessed
Guerric of Igny (1080 – 1157), Cistercian abbot (Sermon 5 for
Advent)
“Prepare the way of the Lord.” Brothers, even if you have advanced
greatly on this way, you still have to prepare it, so that from the
point where you have already arrived, you might always go forward,
always stretched out towards what is beyond. Thus, since the way has
been prepared for his coming, with every step that you take, the Lord
will come to meet you, always new, always greater. So the righteous
person is right to pray thus: “Instruct me, O Lord, in the way of your
statutes, that I may exactly observe them.” (Ps 119:33) And this way is
called “the path of eternity” (Ps 139:24) … because the goodness of him
towards whom we are advancing is unlimited.
That is why the wise and determined traveller, even though he has
arrived at the goal, will think of beginning. “Giving no thought to
what lies behind,” (Phil 3:13), he will tell himself every day: “Now I
begin (Ps 76:11 Vulgata) … May it please heaven that we who talk about
advancing on this path might at least have set out! To my
understanding, whoever has set out is already on the good way. However,
we must really begin, find “the way to an inhabited city” (Ps 107:4).
For Truth says: “How few there are who find it!” (Mt 7:14) And many are
those “who go astray in the desert.” (Ps 107:4)
And you, Lord, have prepared a path for us, if we only agree to go on
it… Through your Law, you have taught us the path of your will by
saying: “This is the way; walk in it, when you would turn to the right
or to the left.” (Isa 30:21) It is the path that the prophet had
promised: “A highway will be there… No fools go astray on it.” (Isa
35:8)… I have never seen a fool going astray when following your path,
Lord… But woe to you who are wise in your own sight (Isa 5:21). Your
wisdom has taken you away from the path of salvation and has not
allowed you to follow the Saviour’s folly… A desirable folly, which at
the time of God’s judgment will be called wisdom and which does not let
us go astray, away from his path.
(Selected
by "The Daily Gospel",
New
Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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You must not destroy the souls
of your fellow human beings through your neglect or your bad example.
In spite of your passions, you have a responsibility for the Christian
life of your neighbour, for the spiritual effectiveness of everyone,
indeed for their very sanctity.
(The Forge,
no.955)
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Is everything immutable in the
liturgy?
In the liturgy, particularly in that of the sacraments, there are
unchangeable elements because they are of divine institution. The
Church is the faithful guardian of them. There are also, however,
elements subject to change which the Church has the power and on
occasion also the duty to adapt to the cultures of diverse peoples.
(CCC 1205-1206)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.249)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(December 17) Today let us think of Our Lady of St. Olympias (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today: Zephaniah
3:14-18a; Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Philippians
4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18
The crowds asked John
the Baptist, “What should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever
has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever
has food should do likewise.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized
and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He answered them,
“Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Soldiers also asked
him, “And what is it that we should do?” He told them, “Do not practice
extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your
wages.” Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were
asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered
them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than
I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in
his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his
barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting
them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people. (Luke 3:10-18)
It is hardly needs
mentioning that one of the most obvious features of human society is
the
profound difference of opinion that exists among men. The most
important issues of life are viewed not only in contrary ways but often
in
ways radically hostile to one another. This fact alone implies that there is not only
truth in possession among men but a great degree of error, for
opposites cannot be
true. When one person asserts, for instance, that Christ is
not God and that therefore it is legitimate to be skeptical about his
teaching and that of the Church, and when someone else contradicts this
view and says that it is wrong, both cannot be correct. Some attain the
truth, others arrive at what seems true to them but is in fact false,
and both
groups are convinced they are right. Now, why is it that we do not all
apprehend the truth, and that many are in error about critically
important matters? Apart from the fact that man’s fallen moral
condition affects his entire constitution including his mind and
heart, what is surely a factor is where a person is coming from.
We all have fundamental principles, assumptions and attitudes that we
implicitly take to be true, and in the light of which we
make further judgments. If we are wrong in these starting points this
mistake will lead us into errors about critically important matters.
The
problem is that we are generally unaware of where we are coming from,
and the blindness that results remains until the right starting points
are gained. We could call them the foundations of our thought and life.
God knows where we are in fact coming from and where we ought be
coming from. He has the power to lay the right foundations, so we need
to pray for his grace.
Let us take
something that is simple but very fundamental indeed. It relates to
the question asked of John the Baptist by the crowds, the tax
collectors and the soldiers in our Gospel today: "What should we do?" (Luke
3:10-18). I refer to our
experience of the voice of conscience. A healthy sense of our
conscience as we experience it is that it is a voice of capital
importance leading us to truth and goodness. If a person in the secret
recesses of his heart fails to place the utmost importance on the voice
of conscience commanding that good be done and evil avoided, and
chooses instead to give more importance to other things — such as the
useful or the alluring — then the gradual effect of this hidden choice
will be very great. It will affect his readiness for the truth,
including revealed truth. Furthermore, inasmuch as the voice of
conscience is that of a good and holy authority, choosing to dislike
this voice and to prefer other voices will affect one's attitude to the
authority of God himself. This is because the authority of conscience
is experienced as echoing God’s authority. Conscience prompts us to
seek to know what we should do, because it tells us that truth must be
accepted and that good must be done. All this is to say that if a
person shows that he is reluctant to place a high value on
obedience to the will of God which is at the heart of a spirit of
religion, at root it may have to do with where he is coming from. He
may be coming from a refusal to respect and obey the voice of the
conscience pointing to the good and warning against the bad. The desire
to do God’s will can come
only from the right foundations, the right beginnings.
Whatever about this speculation as to
the roots of a religious spirit, today’s Gospel
(Luke
3:10-18)
opens with a commonplace but extraordinarily important human question.
It is put to John the Baptist by the crowds, the tax collectors and the
soldiers: “What should we do?” If
only human discourse, human thought, and all human decisions would
begin with
that question! "What should we do?" is perhaps the most authentic
and original question of all, giving expression to the voice of
conscience resounding in the human heart. It is a question which dimly
points to God as the source of both the question and the answer. If a
person, posing with a spirit of obedience this question arising from
his heart, looks to a true oracle of God for the answer, that person
will be on the way to sanctity and truth. The crowds looked to John for
the answer because he was a prophet of the Most High. Let us not bother
here with whether the crowds followed it through with obedience. Let us
rather take their question and John’s response as symbolic of the
paramount importance of having a heartfelt desire to know the will of
God and to put it into practice, and as symbolic also of the fact that
God has made his will known. Our
starting points ought be such as to lead us to have this attitude of
reverence to God and of wanting to obey his holy will. We ought
pray that God will guide us to make the fundamental choices and to have
the right spiritual foundations that
will lead us to his appointed Oracle, which is Jesus our Lord and the
Church his body. From this abiding Oracle we come to know God’s will.
God
has revealed that he has a plan for us that will lead to our salvation
and sanctification. He sent his Son to fulfil his will and plan, and
this he did perfectly. By his grace we are able to unite ourselves with
Jesus in hearing the will of the Father and putting it into practice.
Let us resolve to make the will of God supreme in our life, and in
union with our Lord never to count the cost in living it out in the
ordinary duties of everyday life. God’s will is supreme. By his grace,
let us make it the supreme priority in our life. That is where we ought
be coming from. With that priority as our starting
point, we shall be the good soil that receives the word of God and
produces a harvest.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 2822-2827
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“John testified to the truth…… He was
the lamp, set aflame and burning bright.” (John 5:33.35)
Blessed Guerric of Igny
(around 1080-1157), Cistercian abbot (Sermon 1 on Saint John the
Baptist, §§2)
This lamp, which is destined to give light to the world, brings me a
new joy, for thanks to it, I recognized the true Light which shines in
the darkness, but which the darkness did not accept (Jn 1:5)…… We can
admire you, John, who are the greatest of all the saints; but it is
impossible for us to imitate your sanctity. Since you hasten to prepare
for the Lord a perfect people with publicans and sinners, it is
extremely urgent that you speak to them in a way that is more
accessible to them than your life. Offer them a model of perfection
that is not only your way of living, but that is adapted to the
weakness of human strength.
“Give some evidence that you mean to reform.” (Mt 3:8) But we,
Brothers, we take pride in speaking better than we live. John however,
whose life is more sublime than what human beings can understand, makes
his language available to their understanding. He says: “Give some
evidence that you mean to reform.” “I am speaking to you in a human
way because of the weakness of the flesh. If you cannot yet entirely do
good, may there be in you at least a true desire to reform from what is
bad. If you cannot yet give evidence of perfect righteousness, may your
perfection at present consist in giving evidence of behaviour that shows that
you desire to reform.”
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Some poor people seem to get
annoyed by
the good works you are doing, as if a thing ceases to be good when it
is not being carried out or organized by themselves. This lack of
understanding cannot be an excuse for you to slacken off in what you
are doing. Try to do it even better, right now. When you get no
applause on earth, your work will be all the more welcome in Heaven.
(The Forge,
no.962)
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In what does the
essential rite of Baptism consist?
The essential rite of this sacrament consists in immersing the
candidate in water or pouring water over his or her head while invoking
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1229-1245,
1278)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.256)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(December 24) Today let us think of Saints Adam and Eve, Saint Adele (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today:
Micah
5:1-4a; Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16,
18-19; Hebrews
10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45
During those days
Mary set out and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of
Judah, where she
entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice
and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit
of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my
Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting
reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you
who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be
fulfilled." (Luke 1:39-45)
On this
last Sunday of Advent so near to our celebration of the coming of the
Redeemer, the Church invites us to contemplate Mary our mother and our
model. Our Gospel today places us in the scene of Mary visiting her
kinswoman Elizabeth. Elizabeth is preparing for her
son who will be the Precursor of the
Messiah, and Mary is preparing for her Son who is the Messiah himself.
Each child has been given his name from heaven. The unborn Redeemer is
the soul of our Gospel scene and the source of all the blessings
extolled there, but Mary is the one in our passage whom we are invited
especially to contemplate. It is she who arrives and greets Elizabeth,
occasioning a tremendous experience for both the unborn John who
“leaped” in
his mother’s womb and for his mother Elizabeth who was “filled with the
Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:39-45) It is Mary whom
Elizabeth, moved by the Holy Spirit, praises so highly for her dignity
as mother of the Lord and her perfect faith in the word of God. Let
us then contemplate Mary, the grandest of all God’s creatures.
The marvellous thing about the people of Israel was that God dwelt
with them as his own chosen people. He was their God and they were his
people. They
knew him and he dwelt with them. While they were in the wilderness on
journey to the promised land, God moved with them as a pillar of cloud.
He was God with them. We remember how the prophet Isaiah predicted
the coming of a child who would be Emmanuel, God with them. In Mary
this is fulfilled. Before our Redeemer was born God had in hidden
fashion built himself a worthy and perfect abode. This abode was Mary.
In this she is the embodiment of Israel, the perfect daughter of the
chosen race, the one who represents all that God intended his people to
be as his dwelling place on earth. She is abode of God and carries the
Child who is both God and man. She is God’s temple and a pointer to the
indwelling of the Holy Trinity in the Church and in each of us who are
baptized and in the state of grace. In Mary we contemplate God’s living
home, his holy shrine, the ark of him who is the covenant, and in this
she is the beginning and the model
of the Church and of each one of us. We ought aspire every day to be a
worthy dwelling place of God the Holy Trinity. Our vocation is to be a
tabernacle of God. Let this be our prayer, a prayer we direct
constantly to Mary our mother and model, the one who is God’s perfect
tabernacle.
As well as
being the dwelling place of God the Son made man, Mary is the Temple of
the Holy Spirit. At the annunciation the angel told her that the Holy
Spirit would come upon her and by his power the holy Child would be
conceived. By the power of the Holy Spirit she herself had been
preserved from
original sin from the instant of her conception, and by his grace and
her cooperation she had been constantly kept from the slightest stain
of sin. Mary was full of grace and the Holy Spirit, and for this reason
she was addressed with such honour by the archangel Gabriel on the
occasion of the annunciation. She was all-holy and did nothing but grow
in an astounding holiness all her life. But all this was hidden in an
ordinary life, and manifested in everyday charity of which her visit
to Elizabeth is a typical example. Her sinless life was crowned by her
assumption body and soul into heaven at the end of her mortal life.
This sinlessness was the work of the Holy Spirit who constantly filled
her. As the temple of the Holy Spirit and bearing within her the Son of
God she was the instrument
whereby on this occasion (Luke 1:39-45) the Spirit of God was
conferred on the unborn John and on his mother Elizabeth. Let us
approach her to receive this same gift of the Spirit, and let us look
on her as the one most filled with the Spirit who is our sanctifier. In
the life of the Spirit she is our mother and model.
With Christmas nearly with us, let us
look on Mary the mother of the Lord. She is the dwelling place of God on earth,
and the perfect fulfilment of both Israel and the Church which her divine Son
would form. Where Mary is, there is Jesus too. In this she is our model because
where we are Jesus ought be too, for we are members of his body. Where Mary is,
there the Holy Spirit is present and active too. In this she is our model
because where we are the Holy Spirit ought be active too. Mary is a phenomenon
of unending fascination, beauty and love because, though entirely a creature
like us, she is utterly without sin. As the mother of God the Son made man, on
her has been conferred a dignity beyond compare. She is the masterpiece of God’s
redemptive work and yet one who lived out her beautiful life in the ordinary
humdrum round that is common to all of us. That ordinary life is well
represented in our Gospel scene today. Let us celebrate Christmas in Mary and
with Mary, entrusting ourselves to her keeping, asking her to make us like her
Son whose perfect image she is.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church 721-726, Compendium of the
Catechism 142.
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“Who am I that the mother of my Lord
should come to me?” (Luke 1:39-45)
Saint John of Damascus
(around 675-749), Monk, Theologian, Doctor of the Church
(1st Sermon on the
Dormition)
“Blest are you among women and blest is
the fruit of your womb…” For all generations will call you blest, as
you said (Lk 1:48). The daughters of Jerusalem, that is to say, the
Church, saw you and proclaimed your happiness… For you are the royal
throne near which the angels stood contemplating their Master and
Creator, who was seated on it (Dan 7:9). You have become the spiritual
Eden, more sacred and more divine than the former one. The earthly Adam
lived in the former; in you lives the Lord who came from heaven (1 Cor
15:47). Noah’s ark was a prefiguration of you; it saved the seed of the
second creation, for you gave birth to Christ, the world’s salvation,
who submerged sin and pacified the floods.
It was you whom the burning bush described ahead of time, whom the
tables depicted, on which God wrote (Ex 31:18), which the ark of the
covenant told about; it is you whom the golden urn, the candelabra… and
Aaron’s staff that blossomed (Num 17:23) obviously prefigured… I almost
left out Jacob’s ladder. Just as Jacob saw heaven united with the earth
by means of the two ends of the ladder, and the angels descending and
ascending on it, and as the one who is really the strong and invincible
one engaged in a symbolic struggle with him, thus you yourself became
the mediator and ladder by which God came down to us and took upon
himself the weakness of our substance, embracing it and closely uniting
it to him.
(Selected
by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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The sower went
out to sow, to scatter the
seed at all the crossroads of this earth. What a blessed task we have.
We have the job of making sure that in all the circumstances of time
and place the word of God takes root, springs up and bears fruit.
(The Forge,
no.970)
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What is the meaning of the Christian
name received at Baptism?
The name is important because God knows each of us by name, that is, in
our uniqueness as persons. In Baptism a Christian receives his or her
own name in the Church. It should preferably be the name of a saint who
might offer the baptized a model of sanctity and an assurance of his or
her intercession before God. (CCC 2156-2159, 2167)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.264)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
(Sunday within the Octave of Christmas )
(December
31) The Holy
Family The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin
to understand the life of Jesus—the school of the Gospel. First, then,
a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and
indispensable condition of mind, revive in us... A lesson on family
life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love,
its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable
character... A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the Carpenter's Son,"
in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and
redeeming law of human work. (— Paul VI at Nazareth, January 5, 1964)
The Holy Family models for us what family life should exemplify. It is
a school of virtue for both parents and children. There we find God,
and learn how to connect with God and with others. The family is where
love is freely given without self-interest. It is where we learn to
love, to pray and to practice the gift of charity. Pope John Paul II
has said, “The family, more than any other human reality, is the place
in which the person is loved for himself and in which he learns to live
the sincere gift of self” (Nov. 27, 2002). (Saints)
help us to live as the holy family,
united in respect and love.
Bring us to the joy and peace of your eternal home.
Amen.
Let us also think of Pope Saint Sylvester I (died about 335). He ruled the Church during the reign of Constantine when the Arian heresy and the Donatist schism had provoked great discord. He convoked the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today:
(The Holy Family)
Sirach
3:2-7, 12-14 or
1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28;
Psalm
128:1-2, 3, 4-5 or
Psalm 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10;
Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17;
Luke 2:41-52
Each year Jesus’ parents
went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve
years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had
completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained
behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he
was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among
their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned
to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the
temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and
asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his
understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were
astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to
us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know
that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what
he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was
obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favour before God and man. (Luke 2:41-52)
From our earliest
years we are accustomed to the thought of the Holy Family of Jesus,
Mary and Joseph.
The great God on whom our vast universe constantly
depends was born into this world and lived most of his life in an
obscure family. All too often we think about these years of the Holy
Family at Nazareth only briefly. An image comes fleetingly to our mind
of Mary at her household tasks, of Jesus and Joseph at work as
carpenters, of the Holy Family with friends, in the synagogue, or
whatever. We do not give sufficient time to think about these details.
We ought watch our Lord in these Gospel scenes and allow the
realization dawn on us that here is God the Son talking, listening,
working, praying, and living constantly with Mary and Joseph. How,
then, are we to describe the life of the Holy Family? This is a very
important question because the life of the Holy Family is clearly the
paradigm in history for the life of families, communities and societies.
Peace
is man’s aspiration. Well, when we think of those many years of Jesus
living with Mary and Joseph in the hiddenness of Nazareth, we surely
think of peace. Let us imagine the evenings of peace in the Holy Family
at the end of the day’s work: think of the peace that marked the
conversation between them. Think of the prayers they said together, and
the life of prayer lived by each. Consider their work together, Joseph
working with Jesus during the day, and Mary and Joseph and Jesus
working around the house at other times. Their lives would have been
lives of work, of some rest and recreation with one another, of prayer
in the home and in the synagogue, and all this would have been
characterized by a divine peace. The God of peace dwelt in their midst.
In our Gospel passage today we contemplate three days of anxiety for
Mary and Joseph as they searched for the Child who had been led by his
heavenly Father to remain behind in the Temple
(Luke
2:41-52).
The very astonishment of Mary and Joseph at the Child remaining in the
Temple implies that such an occurrence was altogether out of the
ordinary, and St Luke’s description of the years subsequent to that
event confirms our impression of the profound peace reigning in the
Holy Family. This peace of the holy trio at Nazareth, then, ought be a
principal source of inspiration for all of us as we begin the New Year.
Let us begin the New Year in their midst, thinking of how they lived
each year. Our Lord referred at times to his peace. For instance, at
the Last Supper our
Lord told his disciples, “Peace I leave to you, my own peace I give
you”. Let us remember the peace that radiated from him and which was
reciprocated every day within the Holy Family. Have we failed too often
in peace? Let us then take our cue from the Holy Family for the year
ahead.
Let us go
on to ask what the wellspring of this peace that reigned in the Holy
Family was. Its
source was the profound respect and love each had for the other. How
greatly would Mary and Joseph have loved and venerated the person of
Jesus! Conversely, we can scarcely imagine the love and the veneration
our Lord would have shown towards the person of his mother and his
foster-father. Their mutual respect is the greatest example in the
history of mankind
of respect for the human person, which is at the heart of peace among
men. The thought of the Holy Family reminds us that peace is
God’s gift but it is also a responsibility we must fulfil, a God-given
task we must work at in accord with God’s plan for the human person.
What God intends for man is inscribed in the law of his nature, and it
is expressed in the rules for action among persons which the properly
formed conscience stipulates. At root, peace among men will depend
on having an adequate and proper understanding of the human person and
a respect for the natural law. The Christian will find constant
inspiration for this in the thought of the profound understanding of
and
respect for the human person that distinguished the
Holy Family. How profoundly each member of that Family understood and
respected the person of
the other! So too, our understanding of the person, an understanding
nourished by a right conscience and by what God has revealed, will be
the source of peace with others in our life.
The new
year is almost with us, and its first day is celebrated by the Church
as a world day of prayer for peace. Let the
thought of the Holy Family inspire us to have a high notion of and
respect for each human person, for it is this which is the foundation
of peace among men. Let us live out our lives guided by the
law of God inscribed in our human nature and revealed by Christ. The
profound peace of the Holy Family ought be our inspiration in all our
involvement with others in family, work, parish, society and in the
world.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading:
Message of
Benedict XVI for World Day of Peace, January 1, 2007
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Defend the truth with charity
and firmness when the things of God are at stake. Practise holy
shamelessness in denouncing errors, even though at times they are no
more than insinuations; at other times they will be odious utterances
of the most blatant ignorance, and, normally, a sign of man's
frustration at not being able to endure the fruitfulness of the word of
God.
(The Forge,
no.977)
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What is the Eucharist?
The Eucharist is the very sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord
Jesus which he instituted to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross
throughout the ages until his return in glory. Thus he entrusted to his
Church this memorial of his death and Resurrection. It is a sign of
unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet, in which Christ is
consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory
is given to us. (CCC 1322-1323, 1409)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.271)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(January 7) St
Raymond of Penyafort, priest (1175-1275). Born in Barcelona,
Spain, he was the third Superior-General of the Dominican Order. He is
famous for his work in the freeing of slaves. He wrote the five books
of the Decretals which are now a valuable part of the Canon Law of the
Church. The Summa Casuum, which is about the correct and fruitful
administration of the Sacrament of Penance, is the most notable of his
works. (Saints)
Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-6;
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13;
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12
Click centre arrow to start video
When Jesus was born in
Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the
east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the newborn king of the
Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage."
When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem
with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the
people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They said
to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through
the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least
among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to
shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod called the magi secretly and
ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance. He sent them
to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search diligently for the child. When
you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him
homage." After their audience with the king they set out. And behold,
the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came
and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at
seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary
his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they
opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and
myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they
departed for their country by another way. (Matthew 2,1-12)
Any student
of literature will know that discussion about the significance of
certain great works goes on endlessly. Shakespeare lived four hundred
years ago and produced a body of drama and poetry that is the work of
genius, and there is no end to the analysis that it has
generated. In
effect it means that it is very difficult to arrive definitively at an
agreed meaning of various of his works because within a short time that meaning
will be challenged by yet another Shakespearean scholar. And so
it is in so many fields of human learning. Well then, what are we to
say of the
greatest personality of human history, and the thoughts of men about
him? That person is Jesus of Nazareth, and ever since our Lord asked
his disciples what men were saying of him, judgments about
the meaning of his life have been unending. But in his case there is
this
difference that we can determine definitively the meaning of his life
because it is not up to the ebb and flow of private judgment. There is
a divinely constituted authority. The significance of Christ and his
work is set forth in the Creed and in the dogmas and
formal teachings of the Church. No one can overturn them and they are
to be accepted with confidence as coming from God who guides the Church
in her understanding of and teaching about Jesus. For instance, the
Nicene Creed
which we recite every Sunday at Mass tells us that “for us men and for
our salvation he came down from heaven.” That tells us the meaning of
Christ’s life and work. Or again, we read in the Gospel of St John that
“there were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw,
but they are not recorded in this book. These are recorded so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
believing this you may have life through his name”
(John 20:31). In
that inspired sentence it is clearly stated who Christ is and how we
are to interpret his work and the various events of his life, such as
the Epiphany of the Lord which we are celebrating today.
We are in
the liturgical season of Christmastide and today we think of the
manifestation of our Lord to the wise men from the East. I suppose many
other
incidents in our Lord’s infancy could have been described in the
Gospel, but this quiet but unusual event was selected by St
Matthew because it illustrated a point of great significance in the
life and mission of Jesus (Matthew 2,1-12). One of the especially
notable features of St Matthew’s Gospel is that he shows that Jesus is
a Hebrew descended directly from Abraham, and his person, his life and
his work are the fulfilment of
the Hebrew Scriptures and the expectations of the chosen people of
Israel.
But Matthew also shows that he is not just a great Hebrew for the
Hebrews.
He is the Saviour of the world, the King of all kings and the Lord of
all lords, the Redeemer of all men of all ages, the one and only way to
the Father for all, the light of the world for all men. By him all
the nations will be blessed. Thus it was that after he rose from the
dead our Lord said that all authority in heaven and on earth had been
given to him, and that therefore his disciples were to go to the whole
world and make disciples of all the nations. He was not just one
prophet among many as Islam would have it, nor even just the greatest
(which Islam does not allow). He was not just — as
the Dalai Lama once said — one more instance of the Buddha. No, he is
the one and only Redeemer of men, the world’s only totally sufficient
and true Light. That this was at the forefront of the divine mind we
see in the fact of God choosing to lead some wise men (we are not told
the
number) from the pagan East to venerate the newborn Child. It is, we
could say, the Father celebrating the arrival of his Son among us with
a quiet but significant gesture. Pagans, acting according to their
lights and assisted from heaven, came from afar. Without realizing it,
in
their persons they symbolically presented the entire Gentile world
before this infant who was King of the Jews and King of the world. They
were a symbol of the vocation of mankind to prostrate before this
Child. They were a
harbinger of countless others down through the ages who would accept
Christ as their King. Indeed, we ourselves were represented by those
wise men from the East, because we who accept and love Christ are not
sprung from the race of David, but from various other peoples.
Let us
prayerfully remember the visit of the wise men as they paid homage to
the infant King. With the certain knowledge we have of who this Child
is and of the meaning of his life, death and resurrection for the
redemption and sanctification of all mankind, let us gratefully receive
him into our hearts as our Lord and King, and resolve to bring others
to the knowledge and love of him who is King of the ages.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.514-521
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“They prostrated themselves and did
him homage.” (Matthew 2,1-12)
St John Chrysostom
(345 – 407), Bishop of Antioch, then of Constantinople, 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.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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As well as having
given you abundant and
effective grace, the Lord has given you a brain, a pair of hands and
intellectual powers so that your talents may yield fruit. God wants to
work miracles all the time — to raise the dead, make the deaf hear,
restore sight to the blind, enable the lame to walk... — through your
sanctified professional work, which you will have turned into a
holocaust that is both pleasing to God and useful to souls.
(The Forge,
no.984)
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Who
is the minister for the celebration of the Eucharist?
The celebrant of the Eucharist is a validly ordained priest (bishop or
priest) who acts in the Person of Christ the Head and in the name of
the Church. (CCC 1348, 1411)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.278)
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Thoughts on
the Epiphany, by Fr Gerald O’Collins SJ
Led by a flickering
star
The Epiphany, the traditional name for
the feast celebrated on 6 January (this year on 7 January for the first
time in the Catholic Church in England and Wales) means manifestation,
recalling how Christ was disclosed in his divine identity to the Magi,
remarkable figures from the East who represented all those from around
the world who would also come to pay homage to him. In the way he tells
the story of the Magi, Matthew inserts at least three contrasts:
opportunities lost or taken, human wickedness overcome by the loving
goodness of God, and a birth that prefigures a violent death.
Matthew packs a lot into his story of the coming of the Magi, and
Christian tradition has elaborated the story even further. Since the
wise men brought three gifts for the Christ Child, they were quickly
assumed to be three in number and were supplied with names: Caspar,
Melchior, Balthasar. They were understood to represent the three known
continents (Asia, Europe and Africa), which explains why painters
usually represented one of them (Balthasar) as black.
Matthew calls them "Magi" — that is to say, learned astronomers found
in ancient Persia. Tradition soon upgraded them and they became
oriental kings, a splendid gift for later artists who supplied them
with crowns, decked them out in exotic clothing, and provided them with
camels for their transport. Hollywood has followed suit. Riding through
the desert the Magi filled the screen brilliantly in the current film
The Nativity Story (see The Tablet, 9 December 2006).
The rich gifts that the Magi took from their treasure chests and
presented to the Holy Child pointed to his unique dignity as "Emmanuel"
or "God-with-us", and the value of these gifts underlined the worship
that the Magi offered when they knelt before him. The Nativity Story
captures their reverent homage with fresh intensity.
From early times Christians inevitably wanted to detect a particular
significance in each of their gifts. The gold was believed to symbolise
the royal kingship of Christ, the frankincense to indicate his
divinity, and the myrrh to symbolise the mortal human condition that
the Son of God assumed at his conception and birth. Since myrrh was
used in the Middle East to embalm corpses, it was understood to refer,
specifically, to Christ's coming Passion, death and burial. In the
popular carol We Three Kings of Orient Are, a whole verse is dedicated
to that gift: "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume/ breathes a life of
gathering gloom;/ sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,/ sealed in the
stone-cold tomb."
St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), despite being blessed with a
mystical prayer-life, endorsed a different, down-to-earth explanation
of the three gifts. The gold was to support the Holy Family on their
journey to Egypt, the incense was to freshen the atmosphere in the
stinking stable, and the myrrh was to deliver the newborn Christ Child
from any worms that infested his intestines.
In these and further ways Christian tradition embroidered the story of
the Magi. But while all this gorgeous overlay may be innocent and
sometimes helpful, it could distract us from Matthew's central message
that is rich in detail.
His narrative is structured by several vivid contrasts. First, the Magi
come from a great distance, and do not know the Holy Scriptures that
might otherwise have guided them directly to Bethlehem. They are led by
a flickering star — or by three planets that come together in a rare
coincidence (if you follow the theory adopted by The Nativity Story).
Yet they reach the goal of their journey and find their holy grail, the
Christ Child himself. Before doing so, they stop in Jerusalem and
enquire as to the whereabouts of "the Child who has been born king of
the Jews". Their question startles not only King Herod but also "all
Jerusalem with him" (Matthew 2: 3).
Herod calls together "all the chief priests and scribes of the people".
They tell him that, according to the biblical promise, the Messiah is
to be born in nearby Bethlehem. Herod sends the Magi on their way to
Bethlehem to locate for him the newborn Messiah, pretending that he too
wants to pay homage to him. Some of the priests, scribes or other
inhabitants of Jerusalem could easily have joined the Magi on the short
journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, but none of them does so. Those
who possess the Holy Scriptures and live near the birthplace of Christ
fail to take advantage of their blessings. Those who live far away make
the most of the few chances they have been given and succeed in
discovering their Saviour.
The theme of lost opportunities haunts Matthew. The Magi are the first
example of Gentile outsiders who, unlike many of Matthew's fellow Jews,
win their way through to faith in Jesus. The most striking example of
such a person turns up straight after the death of Jesus. The
centurion, the officer who has been in charge of the Crucifixion,
blurts out a confession, in which he is joined by the soldiers with
him: "Indeed, this man was the Son of God" (Matthew 27: 54). The gospel
ends with the risen Christ commissioning his close followers to "make
disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28: 19). Clearly Matthew rejoices
that the divine salvation goes out to the whole world. But he obviously
feels pain at what contrasts with this mission to the Gentiles — the
failure of many Jews to accept and believe in Jesus.
In another contrast King Herod "the Great" is set against the Holy
Family and the Magi. An odious tyrant, Herod was bent on acquiring loot
and retaining dominance for himself and his family. In old age he is as
paranoid as ever, and fears that the newborn Messiah announced by the
Magi will threaten the power he wants to pass on to his sons — in
particular, to Herod Antipas, whom The Nativity Story rightly
characterises as slimy and loathsome. Those who stand obediently with
God — Mary, her Child, Joseph, and the Magi — seem weak and defenceless
against the ruthless might and cunning of King Herod.
But God transforms the situation and rescues them in good time. In the
short or the long run, the gracious goodness of God proves more
powerful than any human wickedness.
When they eventually find the Holy Child, the Magi experience
overwhelming joy. But their question ("Where is the child who has been
born king of the Jews?") foreshadows his coming Passion and death. The
question will receive an extended answer when Jesus is condemned,
mocked and then crucified as "the King of the Jews" (Matthew 27: 11,
29, 37, 42). In this third contrast, birth and death are set off
against each other. The swaddling clothes that cover the Baby prefigure
the shroud in which he will be buried.
The Nativity Story displays shining happiness on the faces not only of
Mary and Joseph but also of the Magi and the shepherds when they
worship the Christ Child. Yet their great joy at this birth is
overshadowed by death that quickly threatens the newborn Jesus. Herod
sends troops and has all the other little boys in Bethlehem massacred.
The Holy Child himself will eventually die on a Cross under the
inscription "King of the Jews". But above all, Matthew wants his
readers to join the Magi in their overwhelming joy at the coming of the
Holy Child. Christ has been born for us.
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(January 14) Today let us think of Saint Felix of Nola (Saints)
Scripture today:
Isaiah
62:1-5; Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10; 1
Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11
Click centre arrow to start video
There was a wedding
at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his
disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to
her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet
come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now
there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars
with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them,
“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And
when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without
knowing where it came from — although the servers who had drawn
the water knew -, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk
freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so
revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him. (John 2:1-11)
Our Gospel today tells us that in
changing the water into wine at Cana in Galilee, Christ let his glory be
seen and his disciples believed in him. They began to see his glory. There
are and always have been all sorts of impressions of Jesus of Nazareth. The
Gospels tell us that because of his miracles and preaching the fame of Jesus
began to spread across the country. For instance, we
read that Herod wanted to see Jesus. We remember that during Christ’s
passion Pilate’s wife sent a message to her husband urging him not to tamper
with
that “just man.” Perhaps her dream prompting this had something to do
with what she had heard. At Jesus’ last feast in Jerusalem John tells us
that some Greeks approached Philip and said they wanted to see Jesus. The
issue for our Lord, though, was not whether he was becoming known, but
whether he was being understood and accepted for who he really was. At one
point in his public ministry our Lord asked his apostles who people were
saying the Son of Man is, and they gave him various answers – that he was a
prophet, indeed a great prophet and even one of the old prophets come back
again. What Christ sought was encapsulated in the answer Simon Peter gave:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It was an answer that
evoked from our Lord words of high commendation: “Blessed are you Simon son
of John, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father in
heaven.” Simon Peter showed by his answer that he had understood Christ’s
true glory. We may even say that it was this that showed Simon Peter had
become “a Christian” in belief. Our Lord’s parting words to his apostles
just before he ascended into heaven were not that they were to simply make
him known all over the world. No, they were to go out and make disciples,
disciples of all the nations. Being a disciple, being a Christian, means
accepting the whole revealed reality of Christ. That revelation is expressed
in the teaching of the Church, founded on the Apostles with Peter at their
head.
Our
Lord’s parting words to his apostles just before he ascended into
heaven were not that they were to simply make him known all over the
world. No, they were to go out and make disciples, disciples of all the
nations. This means accepting the whole revealed reality of Christ.
Immediately after receiving his answer from Simon as to who he really
was, our Lord went on to refer to his Church. He told Simon that he was
now Peter, the rock of his Church, and that he was giving to him the
keys of the Kingdom of heaven. That is to say, it is with Peter the
rock of the Church that the keys to Christ’s kingdom are to be found.
In essence that kingdom consists in union with Christ, for in him are
all heavenly blessings. Therefore, the keys to this kingdom of life in
Christ are available in the Church which Christ founded on Peter and
his successors. If we are to be Christ’s disciples in the sense
intended by God, it is important that we understand what discovering
the glory of Jesus and what placing his person and teaching at the
centre of our life really means.
In our
Gospel today our Lord changes the water into wine at the wedding feast
of Cana in Galilee (John 2:1-11). It must have been a
sensation to his disciples and to any others who learnt what was really
going on. His disciples had come to faith in him from the testimony of
John the Baptist and from their own personal knowledge of him. But they
had not yet seen any miracle. It was the first of the signs Christ
would give of his true glory. They saw his glory, and they believed.
They were coming to see in the person of Jesus the object of their
life. God has revealed that man’s fundamental calling is to know the
person and the glory of Jesus, and that our whole life is to find its
object and meaning in him. That is a responsibility we have to our own
selves, and it is a responsibility we have to others. It is also
something we cannot just take for granted. The person of Jesus will not
occupy the centre of our lives automatically. In fact, because we
cannot actually see our Lord, we will tend to fail to appreciate that
he is a living person, the person who is at the centre of all reality
be it seen or unseen. We have to work at realizing in faith that Jesus
lives, that he is a living man and that he is the living God. We have
to work at full assent to his teaching. We have to set in place a plan
of life which is geared to helping us grow in a strong faith in the
person of Jesus as the centre of our religion and indeed the centre of
all reality. Moreover, every parent must strive to make the person of
Jesus the living heart of the home and the object of their children’s
love and life. It can’t be taken for granted.
In
the sign given at the wedding feast of Cana the
disciples came to see the glory of Jesus. All our lives we ought be
growing in a sense of the glory of this same Jesus who is the living
centre of the religion revealed by God and of all reality.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, No. 422-429
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“What
you have done is keep the choice wine until now.” (John 2:1-11)
St Ephrem
(306 – 373), Deacon in Syria, Doctor of the Church (Diatessaron XII,
§ 1-2)
In the desert, our Lord multiplied the loaves of bread, and in Cana, he
changed the water into wine. Thus, he got people used to his bread and
to his wine until the time when he gave them his body and his blood. He
let them taste a transitory bread and wine, so that the desire for his
life-giving body and blood might grow in them… He attracted us by means
of these things that are pleasant to the palate, in order to lead us
even more to that which gives life in full to our souls. He hid
sweetness in the wine he made, so as to show his guests what
incomparable treasure is hidden in his life-giving blood.
As his first sign, he gave a wine that gave joy to the guests, so as to
show that his blood would give joy to all nations. For if wine plays a
part in all of earth’s joys, in the same way, every true deliverance is
linked to the mystery of his blood. He gave the guests at Cana
excellent wine, which transformed their mind, so as to let them know
that the teaching with which he would quench their thirst would
transform their heart.
This wine, which first of all was only water, was changed in jars, a
symbol of the first commandments, which he brought to perfection. The
transformed water is the Law brought to its fulfilment. The people who
were invited to the wedding drank what had been water, but without
tasting that water. In the same way, when we hear the former
commandments, we taste them not with their former savor, but with their
new one.
(Selected by "The Daily
Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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When you receive Our Lord in the Holy
Eucharist, thank him from the bottom of your heart for being so good as
to be with you. Have you ever stopped to consider that it took
centuries and centuries before the Messiah came? All those patriarchs
and prophets praying together with the whole people of Israel: Come,
Lord, the land is parched! If only your loving expectation were like
this.
(The Forge,
no.991)
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How long does the presence of Christ last
in the Eucharist?
The presence of Christ continues in the Eucharist as long as the
eucharistic species subsist. (CCC 1377)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.285)
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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(January 21) St. Agnes virgin and
martyr (died 304) St Agnes came from a noble Roman family. She
was about thirteen years old when she suffered martyrdom. She was
tortured and beheaded. Her name is included in the Roman Canon. Pope
Damasus wrote a celebrated epitaph about her. (Saints)
Scripture today:
Nehemiah
8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15; 1
Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Click centre arrow to start video
Since many have
undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been
fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the
beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too
have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write
it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so
that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him
spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and
was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and
went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He
stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He
unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad
tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to
proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he
handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in
the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this
Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 1:1-4;
4:14-21)
Our Gospel passage
today
begins with the introductory words of
Luke’s Gospel in which he makes
it clear that he intends providing the reader with an ordered
history of his subject. He mentions that “many” have drawn up an
account of the story of Jesus as told by eyewitnesses and preachers of
the word (Luke 1:1-4).
That alone suggests that what was expected in the infant Church was a
presentation of actual facts as narrated by eyewitnesses, and that many
had indeed attempted to provide this. So the early Church expected
accounts of Jesus Christ to be factual. There was no place for myths
and fanciful legends. Luke tells us that he has carefully gone over
everything from the beginning — presumably by examining existing
accounts, many of which may have been piecemeal. He has investigated
their truth, done his own careful research, and written up an
ordered and reliable account. He wants to provide Theophilus (i.e., the
one loved by God) with an account of Jesus Christ that is systematic
and certain. We are being assured by Luke that our faith in Jesus the
Saviour is based on historical certainties. This care
to present facts is illustrated in our Gospel passage today.
Luke
begins by describing the broad sweep of our Lord’s activity in simple terms: “Jesus
returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread
throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was
praised by all” (Luke 4:14).
Simple facts are given. But Luke then goes beyond this general picture
to a detailed description of our Lord in the synagogue of Nazareth
announcing his mission. Luke may have given us these details because of
the importance of the event. “He came to Nazareth, where he had grown
up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath
day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad
tidings to the poor” (Luke
4:14-21).
Plenty of personal details are given. Our Lord enters the synagogue and
sits down. He stands up to read, he goes forward and he is handed the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolls the scroll, finds the passage,
reads it, hands it back to the attendant, sits down and gives his
sensational address in which he states that Isaiah’s prophecy is being
fulfilled before their very eyes. The one Isaiah prophesied so
long before, the people of Nazareth can see before them now.
Let us immerse ourselves in St Luke’s detailed description of Jesus here.
Let us be filled with a sense of the facts as described. The person of Jesus
stands forth as vivid and as very real. Placing ourselves in the presence of
Jesus by means of our prayerful memory, let us contemplate him. We are among
his disciples in the synagogue, gazing on his wonderful person. He reads the
prophecy that “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:14-21). Isaiah was
pointing to a Messiah who would be Saviour to the poor, the blind, the
oppressed and to those who lack freedom. This is the condition of the world
considered in itself and as unreconciled with God. Its blindness, its
spiritual and moral poverty, its state of oppression is ultimately due to
sin and it is by dealing with sin that the Messiah would bring true freedom
to man. Our Lord announces to his own townspeople that he is the long
expected Messiah and his mission would be to save. Hearing his words, let us
renew in our hearts our profession of that fundamental article of the
Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds: I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus
who is the Messiah, the anointed One, the One who is filled with the Holy
Spirit and who gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him. He is the
One who takes away the sin of the world. He is the promised One who
establishes God’s kingdom on earth, that kingdom which will never end and
which we are called to live in and live for.
One
of the problems of modern culture is the difficulty people have in regarding
the things of God as real. We must acquire the conviction that the bedrock
reality in our lives is Jesus. He is the Messiah, the only One who brings to
man all heavenly blessings intended for us by God.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further
reading: The
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.430-440
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In our spiritual life, we often
have to be ready to lose on earth so as to win in Heaven. This way we
always end up winning.
(The Forge,
no.998)
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What are the fruits of Holy Communion?
Holy Communion increases our union with Christ and with his Church. It
preserves and renews the life of grace received at Baptism and
Confirmation and makes us grow in love for our neighbor. It strengthens
us in charity, wipes away venial sins and preserves us from mortal sin
in the future. (CCC 1391-1397, 1416)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.292)
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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(January 28) St
Thomas Aquinas, Dominican priest and doctor of the Church (1224-1274).
He was educated at the Abbey of Monte Cassino and at the University of
Naples. In about 1244 he joined the Dominican Order. Considered one of
the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time, St Thomas gained
the title of “Angelic Doctor”. He had an undisputed mastery of
scholastic theology and a profound holiness of life. Pope Leo XIII
declared him Patron of Catholic Schools. His monumental work, the Summa
Theologiae, was still unfinished when he died. (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17; 1 Cor. 12:31—13:13 or 1 Cor. 13:4-13; Luke 4:21-30
Jesus began
speaking in the synagogue, saying: “Today this Scripture passage is
fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the
gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this
the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this
proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native
place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said,
“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of
Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe
famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah
was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again,
there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the
people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury.
They rose up,
drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the
hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But
Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away.
(Luke 4:21-30)
As we look out on
our world we cannot but be struck by its vastness and richness. No one
knows the number of galaxies there are in the universe, let alone the
number of stars. No one knows the full sweep and variety of human
history.
No one knows all there is to know in the tiniest atom, nor in
any one living thing. There is no end to what we could observe and
investigate. This bafflingly complex creation which is our home, this
vast flux and flow of human history, invite us to ask if there is any
single thing in human experience which holds all created reality in
place, and which when grasped provides us with the principle of unity
in life and in all things. The key cannot be simply an idea or theory
of some individual or school of thought such as the theory of
relativity, or the
philosophy of Marxism, because a theory or an idea is just a creation
of the mind giving light to the human intellect. The linchpin of the
world cannot
be an idea. Nor can it be simply some other component of the
universe which brings benefits to other components, because that
component
itself depends on so many other things. No, there is only one thing
which may be said to constitute the heart of the world. That on which
the world and human history depends is the person of Jesus Christ.
Through him all things came to be and all that comes to be has
life in him, and that life is the life and light of men.
The
Christian is one who appreciates the uniqueness of Christ and his supreme
lordship. He is the key and he is absolutely in a class of his own. Of
course, a husband who loves his wife appreciates her uniqueness, and vice
versa. Those of other religions believe the founder of their religion to be
unique. But the Christian knows that the person of Jesus Christ stands forth
in human history and in the universe as one who is beyond compare. No other
religion claims for its founder what Christianity claims for Christ. The
essential reason for the Christian claim is that Christ is not a mere human
person, though he is truly man. He is a divine person. He is God. It has
been revealed to us that our universe is the creation of one only God, and
that through man’s original sin, he and the world were alienated from the
one and only God. The wonder is that God actually became man to reconcile
the world to himself, for this meant that there was a man walking the earth
who is the Creator of all. When our Lord appeared publicly among men he
began by making certain claims. In our Gospel today
(Luke 4:21-30) we read
how in his own town of Nazareth he claimed that the prophecy of Isaiah was
being fulfilled in his person before their very eyes. He was intimating that
he was the promised Messiah, and that they, his own townspeople, would not
accept him as such. They hustled him out of the town with the intention of
killing him, so he left them. His uniqueness was not recognized.
At various points in his public ministry he revealed to his disciples and to others that he was the promised Messiah. But there was more in his revelation, and it was that he was the Son of God the Father, and indeed, one with the Father in being. The Gospel of St John makes it very clear that the leaders of the Jews could see that in speaking of God as his own Father, Jesus was making himself God’s equal. On another occasion, he placed himself in the position of Yahweh God when he said that before Abraham ever was, I am. Then after he rose from the dead, Thomas stood before him and said “My Lord and my God.” We ought never cease to offer our prayer of wonder and praise at God becoming man and dwelling among us. This wondrous man who is God calls himself our friend and brother. He said to his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15: 14). When he rose from the dead he told Mary Magdalen to go and tell his brothers that he had risen. Such is the God who became man – he is our friend and our brother. He dwells among us still, day by day in our hearts (if we are in the state of grace) and in the life of the Church and in the Church’s Sacraments. He a divine person, the second person of the Holy Trinity, and he took to himself a human nature with its human soul, human mind and human will, thus making himself a man like us in all things but sin. By this humanity he saved us all. He is the centre of the world and of our life, and all things hinge on him. From him comes that life in abundance which God intends us to have.
Let us base our lives on the fact that the man Jesus is not
merely the most outstanding of men, but is God himself. He is God who by
means of his humanity opened heaven to the world. In our life and in all
that we say of Jesus Christ, let us bear witness to the uniqueness of this
divine person in all his humanity and divinity.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 470-478
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“It was
to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath
in the land of Sidon”
(Luke
4:21-30)
St Augustine
(354-430), bishop and doctor of the Church (Sermon 11, 2-3)
The Widow of Zarephath
The poor widow had gone out to look for two blocks of wood to bake some
bread: it is at this time that Elijah meets her. This woman is the
symbol of the Church; because a cross is made of two pieces of wood,
the woman, who was destined to die, searches for something by which to
live eternally. There is a hidden mystery in this...Elijah tells her:
“Go, feed me first with your poverty, and you will not run out of your
goods”. What a blessed poverty! If the widow received here on earth
such retribution, what a reward may she hope to receive in the life to
come!
I insist on this point: let us not expect to harvest the fruit of our
sowing now, at the time we sow. Here on earth, we sow with difficulty
what will be the harvest of our good works, but only later on will we
gather the fruits of this with joy, according to what is said: “Those
who go forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed, Will return with cries of
joy, carrying their bundled sheaves” (Ps 125,6). Actually Elijah's act
towards this woman was not her reward, but only a symbol of it. For if
this widow would have been rewarded here on earth for having fed the
man of God, what a miserable sowing, what a poor crop! She received
just a temporal good: a jar of flour that did not go empty and a jug of
oil that did not run dry till the day the Lord watered the earth with
his rain. This sign that was given to her by God for a few days was
therefore the symbol of the future life where our reward could not be
lessened. Our flour will be God himself! As the flour of this woman did
not run out in these days, we will not be deprived of God for all the
rest of eternity...Sow with faith and your harvest will surely come; it
will come later on, but when it will come, you will reap it endlessly.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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I am every day more convinced
that happiness in Heaven is for those who know how to be happy on earth.
(The Forge,
no.1005)
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Do the baptized
have need of conversion?
The call of Christ to conversion continues to resound in the lives of
the baptized. Conversion is a continuing obligation for the whole
Church. She is holy but includes sinners in her midst. (CCC 1427-1429)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.299)
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Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(February 4) Today let us think of St John de Britto (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture:
Isaiah
6:1-2a, 3-8; Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8;
1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
While the crowd was
pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing
by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake;
the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into
one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a
short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds
from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put
out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in
reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this,
they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They
signalled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They
came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the
catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and
likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of
Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be
catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left
everything and followed him. (Luke 5:1-11)
In a
recent issue of the Sydney
Morning Herald
(February 1, 2007, p.9) there was a report of excavations at Stonehenge
in southern England, in which dozens of ancient homes have been
uncovered. The settlement has been dated at about 4600 years ago, at
about the time the giant Egyptian pyramid of Giza was being built.
Much
of the Stonehenge appears to be of a religious character, reminding us
that religious practice was
almost universal in ancient and prehistoric times. All the evidence
that is available suggests the same for traditional Aboriginal culture
in Australia during the thousands of years of its history. Higher
supernatural beings were acknowledged and ritual and myth shaped
society. There is one thing, though, that seems to me to be worthy of
further study in respect to the non-Christian religions of the world.
It is whether the higher supernatural powers of this or that religion
were understood as truly transcending the world, or whether basically
they were part of it, though occupying a much higher place in it. My
own reading suggests to me that the supernatural beings of, for
instance, traditional Aboriginal religion did not really transcend the
world, but fundamentally were part of it. Whether or not this is so, at
least the question reminds us that because we come to know things in
the first instance through our senses, there is the tendency to accept
as real only that which is part of our world. For many years prior to
his conversion St Augustine could not shake off his image of God as
material. There are serious philosophies that do not allow for anything
that cannot be confirmed empirically. While we reject this notion and
insist on a God who transcends the world, nevertheless it could be that
we barely realize the transcendence of God. That is to say, we need to
work at realizing that God our Father is not on earth but in heaven.
Our Lord
time and again referred to God as his Father, whom more often than not
he called his heavenly Father. I wonder if we ever give much thought to
the importance of the word “heavenly” when used by our Lord of his
Father. On one occasion when our Lord’s disciples saw him praying to
his heavenly Father, they approached him to ask him to teach them how
to pray. The prayer he taught them begins with a few very revealing
words: Our Father, who art in heaven. In addressing God our Father I am
sure we tend not to appreciate the significance of his being in heaven.
That God is in heaven does not mean that he is far away from us in a
distant place. One of the features of many indigenous religions is that
the principal deity is remote and withdrawn. Ritualistic contacts are
more easily made with lesser spirits who are seen as more active and
accessible, and often the myths are more commonly about them. That is
to say, the abode of the supreme being or what we might call heaven, is
often imagined in terms of a very distant land. But the real heaven is
not like this. Heaven is God and his transcendent way of being. Being
in heaven means being face to face with him in an intimate and
permanent union with him. The truth that God is in heaven insists that
he is in no way part of this world which we can unconsciously take him
to be. He is utterly other than his creation. If it were otherwise, if
he were in some sense part of the world though superior to everything
else in it — as is, I think, the implicit notion in many religions — then he would not be the one only God. Yet at the same time he is
intimately near for he holds in existence everything that is. His
finger, as it were, touches the tiniest particle that exists and in
touching it sustains its being in its allotted span.
All of this we are reminded of in today’s Gospel
(Luke 5:1-11) when Simon, having made
his miraculous catch of fish at the command of our Lord, fell at the
feet of Jesus and said to him, “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” His
words bore witness to the transcendent holiness and power of Jesus. In
Christ dwells the fullness of the godhead bodily. In him dwells the
thrice holy God. Christ’s divine person utterly transcends the world,
and in him heaven was present. Yet by becoming man he who transcends
the world became part of it as well. The Christian religion worships a
God who is utterly other, but who as man is God with us and one of us.
As we think of Simon’s words let us pray for a profound realization of
the utter transcendence of God our Father. Our Father is in heaven, a
heaven that is utterly beyond and in Christ is at the same time utterly
near.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.2794-2796
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"Depart
from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." (Catechism of the
Catholic Church § 311-312)
Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey
toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential
love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has
moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered
the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral
evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his
creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it: "For
almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any
evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful
and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself." (Saint Augustine)
In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a
good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his
creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me
here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for
good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."
(Genesis 45:8 ; 50:20)
From the greatest moral evil ever committed — the rejection and murder
of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men — God, by his grace
that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the
glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil
never becomes a good.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Get into the habit of praying to the
Guardian Angel of each person you are following up. Their Angel will
help them to be good and faithful and cheerful, so that when the time
comes they will be able to receive the eternal embrace of Love from God
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and from the Blessed
Virgin.
(The Forge,
no.1012)
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Why can venial sins also be the object
of sacramental confession?
The confession of venial sins is strongly recommended by the Church,
even if this is not strictly necessary, because it helps us to form a
correct conscience and to fight against evil tendencies. It allows us
to be healed by Christ and to progress in the life of the Spirit. (CCC
1458)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.306)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(February 11) Our
Lady of Lourdes. This day marks the first apparition of the
Blessed Virgin Mary in 1858 to fourteen-year old Marie Bernade (St
Bernadette) Soubirous. There were eighteen apparitions in all, the last
of which was on 16 July 1858. The message of Lourdes is a call to
personal conversion, prayer and charity.
(Saints)
(World Day of Prayer for the Sick)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture: Jeremiah
17:5-8; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6; 1
Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26
Jesus came down
with the twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great
crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea
and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. And raising his
eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for
the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for
you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you
will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude
and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of
Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be
great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same
way. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your
consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe
to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all
speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in
this way.” (Luke 6:17, 20-26)
I
remember years ago when I was a student I was discussing with a fellow student
the essence and necessity of morality. What is it to be
moral, and why should we
be moral? In response to this question he said to me that, rather than
this being the issue for him, basically what he wanted was to be happy.
It was
a very good comment because it implied that the fundamental obligation
to be good needs to be connected with our basic desire for happiness.
The profound link between holiness and peace ought be appreciated, and
each provides a yardstick for the other. It is impossible to be happy
if one is not good, and a goodness in which happiness is absent lacks
authenticity. The quest for happiness is a fundamental starting point
in the heart of man. It is instinctive and natural and is implanted in
man by his Creator in order that he may actually find that happiness.
God means us to be happy. So profound a part of human nature is this
that the thought of a human being who does not want to be happy is
almost unimaginable, and wherever there is such a person we know that
something is wrong with him. The critical issue is, how is happiness to
be understood, and what steps are to be taken to gain it? Above all,
what has God revealed in answer to this? From the answers to this will
flow certain choices that will set a person’s course in this life and
in the next.
Let
us turn to our Gospel today
(Luke 6:17,
20-26)
and notice right away
that our Lord in his beatitudes addresses man’s desire to be happy. In
doing this our Lord is taking up a fundamental theme of the Old
Testament. God had called Abraham from his native country to a new land
which he would give him. He promised Abraham that through him all the
nations would be blessed. He was promising happiness and blessings to
the world through Abraham’s posterity. Then when Abraham’s descendants
were enslaved in Egypt, God sent Moses to lead them out to the promised
land. If they accepted him as their God and kept his commandments, he
would be their God and he would bless them. That is to say, God held
out to his chosen people the promise of happiness if they remained
faithful to their covenant with him as their Lord. So happiness would
flow from obeying God’s commands. Now, in the Old Testament promise of
future happiness and blessings, the emphasis was given to this life. If
they were faithful to God and his covenant with them, they would be
blessed and happy in this life, while, of course including the next.
Now, this emphasis in the Old Testament was true, and we remember how
our Lord himself promised happiness in this life — but together with
the Cross. But the Old Testament revelation was very incomplete and one
which very many of the children of Israel misunderstood, even though
there were outstanding examples of holiness in the Old Testament. That
misunderstanding is one in which we can all share. Our constant
tendency precisely in our religion is to look for happiness in this
world and scarcely beyond it.
In the Beatitudes
according to St Luke today our Lord reveals wherein lies our true
happiness, and his words complete what God had already revealed about
the happiness intended for man. If all we had were the conclusions of
human reason, or the revelation of the Old Testament, our knowledge of
man’s happiness would be very limited. Our Lord promises
a true and authentic happiness, a happiness which is a share in his own
happiness and a share in the beatitude of God himself. It is
centred on
his kingdom. Therein lies the happiness of man, and that kingdom is
present in this life but is to be fully enjoyed in the next. It is the
happiness our Lord himself enjoyed during his years on this earth and
it is especially the happiness he enjoys in his glory. Happy are you
who are
poor: yours is the kingdom of God. The one whose treasure is not in
this world but in God and his kingdom will be truly happy. The one who
hungers, who is deprived of human respect and natural joys, the one who
is persecuted for his belief in Christ, in a word the one who looks to
Christ as his life, will enjoy the truest happiness here while bearing
his daily cross, and will obtain perfect happiness hereafter.
Let us ask
ourselves
what is it that we are seeking in life in order to be happy. If we are
looking to God, let us ask ourselves if we are not putting our bets on
other things as well. Let us look to Christ, and to all else only in
Christ. For me, St Paul said, to live is Christ. Christ is our life and
happiness.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.1716-1724
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And
raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: "Blessed are you who are
poor, for the kingdom of God is yours."
(Luke 6:17,
20-26) Paul VI, pope from 1963 to
1978 (Apostolic Exhortation On Christian Joy
— May 9, 1975)
But it is necessary here below to understand properly the secret of the
unfathomable joy which dwells in Jesus and which is special to Him...
If Jesus radiates such peace, such assurance, such happiness, such
availability, it is by reason of the inexpressible love by which He
knows that He is loved by His Father. When He is baptized on the banks
of the Jordan, this love, which is present from the first moment of His
Incarnation, is manifested: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour
rests on you." (Lk 3:22) This certitude is inseparable from the
consciousness of Jesus. It is a presence which never leaves Him all
alone. (Jn 16:32) It is an intimate knowledge which fills Him: "...the
Father knows me and I know the Father." (Jn 10:15) It is an unceasing
and total exchange: "All I have is yours and all you have is mine." (Jn
17:10) "...You loved me before the foundation of the world." (Jn 17:24)
Here there is an uncommunicable relationship of love which is
identified with His existence as the Son and which is the secret of the
life of the Trinity: the Father is seen here as the one, who gives
Himself to the Son, without reserve and without ceasing, in a burst of
joyful generosity, and the Son is seen as He who gives Himself in the
same way to the Father, in a burst of joyful gratitude, in the Holy
Spirit.
And the disciples and all those who believe in Christ are called to
share this joy. Jesus wishes them to have in themselves His joy in its
fullness. (Jn 17:13) "I have made your name known to them and will
continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may
be in them, and so that I may be in them." (Jn 17:26)
This joy of living in God's love begins here below. It is the joy of
the kingdom of God. But it is granted on a steep road which requires a
total confidence in the Father and in the Son, and a preference given
to the kingdom. The message of Jesus promises above all joy—this
demanding joy; and does it not begin with the beatitudes? "How happy
are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God. Happy you who are
hungry now: you shall be satisfied. Happy you who weep now: you shall
laugh."
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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What
a disappointment awaited those who saw the light of the pseudo-apostle,
and wishing to come out of their darkness, were drawn to his light.
They raced to get there. They may have left shreds of their skin along
the way. Some in their eagerness for that light may also have left
behind some shreds of their very souls. And now, having reached the
pseudo-apostle, they find cold and darkness. Cold and darkness which
will eventually congeal the broken hearts of those who for a while had
believed in that ideal.
It
is an evil deed the pseudo-apostle has done. Those disappointed men who
had been ready to give their very flesh in exchange for those glowing
fires, for that gleaming ruby of charity, drop once more, instead, back
to the earth from which they had come. Down they go, with a saddened
heart, with a heart that is a heart no longer — just a chunk of ice
shrouded in a darkness which will eventually cloud their minds.
You false paradoxical apostle, see what you have done: because Christ
is on your lips but not in your deeds; because you attract with a light
which you yourself lack; because there is no warmth of charity in you,
and you claim to be concerned about outsiders while all the time you
are neglecting your own; because you are a liar, and lying is the
daughter of the devil. And so, you are working for the devil, causing
bewilderment to those who follow the Master, and even though you may
triumph frequently here on earth, woe to you on that day which is
approaching when our friend Death will come, and you shall see the
anger of the Judge whom you have never deceived. Paradoxes, no, Lord:
paradoxes, never.
(The Forge,
no.1019)
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How
was sickness viewed in the Old Testament?
In the Old Testament sickness was experienced as a sign of weakness and
at the same time perceived as mysteriously bound up with sin. The
prophets intuited that sickness could also have a redemptive value for
one’s own sins and those of others. Thus sickness was lived out in the
presence of God from whom people implored healing. (CCC 1499-1502)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.313)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time C
(February 18) Today let us think of St Flavian (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture:
1 Samuel
26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8,
10,
12-1; 1 Corinthians
15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38
Jesus said to his
disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for
those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and
from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to
others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love
you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
And
if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you
expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to
sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies
and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward
will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself
is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your
Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop
condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be
forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed
together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out
to you.” (Luke 6:27-38)
In our Gospel
passage today Christ does not present us with what we might call an
ideal, but with his requirements if we wish to be his
disciples. He requires of us that we strive to have hearts like that of
our heavenly Father. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” It
is to Jesus that we must look if we are to know what our heavenly
Father is like, because Christ is the image of the unseen God. “He who
sees me” our Lord told his
disciples at the Last Supper, “sees the
Father.” “The Father is in me, and I am in the Father.” Our Lord tells
us in our passage today that we are to love our enemies, to do good to
those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those
who mistreat us. We are not to condemn. We are to forgive. We are to
give liberally. In this way we shall be children of our Father in
heaven. This does not mean that we should allow evildoers to proceed in
their wrongdoing, but it does mean that God wants our hearts, our
thoughts, our words and our deeds to be like his own, and our Lord
tells us that our Father loves the wicked. That would strike the
average religious person, the person of most of the great religions of
the world, at the very least as being unrealistic. But in the sight of
God it is not.
Christ’s command that we love those who wrong us is a new revelation, a
new commandment and he pointed to himself as the model. Love one
another as I have loved you, he told us, and he himself forgave and
loved his enemies. That this is not just an ideal but a requirement is
indicated in the fact that there are divine sanctions involved. Our
Lord warns that “the measure with which you measure will in return be
measured out to you.”
(Luke
6:27-38)
If we are
ever to live such a life as our Lord requires, there
are a two essential things we need to appreciate. Firstly, the
foundation of such a life is a clear notion of the character and nature
of God. As Pope Benedict reminds us in his first Encyclical, God is
love. That is the teaching of today’s Gospel and of the New Testament,
and in the light of the New Testament we can see it is the teaching of
the Old Testament too. God has revealed himself to be a God rich in
mercy and compassion. His almighty power is manifested in his mercy and
love. If we are ever to appreciate this all our lives we must ponder
and pray over God’s revelation of himself. Our tendency will be to
attribute to God what we experience in ourselves and in others, and to
project our own limitations and those of others on to him. If only we
can truly discover
the love that God has for us and for all men, what a difference it will
make to our lives! If only we can come to appreciate the enormity of
our own sins, the seriousness of our inherited fallen condition, and
the scale of God’s love for us! God our Father will then be a living
model for all our thoughts, all our words and actions. If then we live
constantly in his loving presence knowing that he sees all that we do,
say and think, he himself, our loving Father, will be our constant
inspiration. We will be drawn to think as he thinks, to want what he
wants, and to love as he loves. So we need to form our image and
impression of God on the basis of his revelation as transmitted in the
Scriptures and in the Church’s living Tradition, and that process will
take time. It will involve prayer, reading and a true commitment. If we
are to love as Christ commands, we must appreciate that God is
love.
Secondly we
need to cultivate detachment of soul, a true poverty
of spirit. We cannot hope to be able to love in a pure and
disinterested way if we want various things for ourselves in the
process. If our heart is attached to riches, to honours, to power and
to pleasures, then whenever these are threatened or denied us to a
greater or lesser extent, our reaction will be one of anger and desire
for revenge. How will we be able to love our enemies and do good to
them, how will we be able to bless those who curse us and pray for
those who mistreat us if we are attached to the things that they are
denying us? The key to loving others as Christ loves us, the key to
being able to do good to those who harm us, the key to being merciful
as our heavenly Father is merciful, is to grow in poverty of spirit for
the love of Christ. We need to empty our hearts of all that is not God
or not related to God. If our hearts are empty of every attachment
except whatever is pleasing to God, we shall have it in us to love
according to the mind of Christ. This is the meaning of our Lord’s
teaching that blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit
the land. Let us resolve to love others as Christ sets forth in today’s
Gospel. The key to achieving this will be appreciating from the heart
that God is love and striving for a Christlike detachment from all that
is not according to the mind of God.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.2544-2550
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"Love
your enemies, and pray for those who
persecute you" (Matthew 5:44)
Saint Polycarp (69 –
155) Bishop and Martyr (Letter to the
Philippians,
8-12)
Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our
righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in his own body
on the tree, "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,"
(1P 2:22) but endured all things for us, that we might live in him. Let
us then be imitators of his patience; and if we suffer for his name's
sake, let us glorify him. For he has set us this example in himself,
and we have believed that such is the case… Stand fast, therefore, in
these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and
unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood, and being attached
to one another, joined together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness
of the Lord in your intercourse with one another, and despising no one…
For I trust that you are well versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and that
nothing is hid from you; but to me this privilege is not yet granted.
It is declared then in these Scriptures, "Be angry, and sin not," and,
"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ep 4:26). Happy is he who
remembers this, which I believe to be the case with you.
But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ
himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build
you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience,
long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may he bestow on you a lot
and portion among his saints, and on us with you, and on all that are
under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in his
Father, who raised him from the dead. Pray for all the saints. Pray
also for kings, and potentates, and princes, and for those that
persecute and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross. May your
fruit be manifest to all, and may you be perfect in him.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Violent persecution had broken
out. And that priest prayed: Jesus, may
every sacrilegious fire increase in me the fire of Love and Reparation.
(The Forge,
no.1026)
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What are the
sacraments at the service
of communion and mission?
Two sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, confer a special grace for a
particular mission in the Church to serve and build up the People of
God. These sacraments contribute in a special way to ecclesial
communion and to the salvation of others. (CCC 1533-1535)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.321)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(February 25) Today let us think of St Ethelbert of Kent (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today: Deuteronomy
26:4-10; Psalm
91:1-2, 10-15; Romans
10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13
Filled with the
Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit
into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate
nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The
devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to
become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, One does not live on
bread alone.” Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of
the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, “I shall give to
you all this power and glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I
may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship
me.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: You shall worship the
Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” Then he led him to
Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to
him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it
is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your
foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, You
shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” When the devil had
finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. (Luke 4:1-13)
Among the
various disciplines of study and preparation for professional life is
one that is important but which is often undervalued. I refer to what
are called the humanities — such as languages, history and literature.
In particular the study of literature and history are
important because they
involve the study of man in history with his values and works. But
important as they are, each of these two fields of writing, reading and
reflection on man are subject to the influence of various
presuppositions. One can write or read history as a Marxist or as an
Islamic scholar. That is to say, the fundamental views and values of a
historian or novelist will have an enormous effect on what he writes
and how he writes it. Part of the evaluation of any work of history or
literature ought be the evaluation of the author’s starting points and
where he is coming from. For instance, in the histories and novels and
works of literature that have been written, much consideration is given
to wrongdoing. But let us ask this. To what extent is this wrongdoing
recognized as sin? Sin involves wrongdoing, but wrongdoing considered
precisely as an offence against God. Wrongdoing features greatly in
history and literature, but sin features hardly at all. That is to say,
wrongdoing is presented as having little or nothing to do with God.
Sin, considered as that which displeases a holy and moral God, is
largely absent from the description of man and his history as it is
presented by writers of history and literature. This failure in the
humanities to recognize sin is a product and a partial cause of the
loss of the sense of sin in our world.
In fact, there is
nothing more ominous than the presence of sin in the heart of man and
the world. Yet the world and man
were not created with sin as part of the scene. Sin was a visitor that
arrived and stayed. The arrival of sin was heralded by
temptation. If one asks how it is that one has a visitor in the house,
the answer is that the visitor came to the door and knocked. That
knocking on the door heralded the arrival of the visitor. You heard the
knocking, you opened the door and you invited the person in. When a
person is being tempted, sin is knocking at the door. At the dawn of
human history, temptation to sin knocked at the door of mankind when
Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan to eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. The hand that knocked was that of Satan. Our first
parents opened the door and invited the visitor in, and the visitor
stayed. That visitor was sin, rebellion against God. The critical
moment for every man and for the whole human race throughout history is
the presence of temptation. When temptation knocks at the door, sin is
prowling at the entrance wanting to come in. If man gives in to
temptation, sin enters and the serpent sets up its home within. All
this is to say that the critical thing for each man and woman and
indeed for the whole world, is to recognize temptation when it knocks
at the door, to avoid and resist it, to refuse it any entry, and to be
delivered from all wrongdoing and any sin. The issue facing mankind and
the world is the temptation to any sin no matter how venial it be, and
behind the temptation is Satan, the evil one. This is rarely recognized
in the writing of history and literature.
Jesus Christ is the shining jewel of the human race. He is the perfect
model for every man and woman, and the source of all progress towards holiness.
As we read in our Gospel today
(Luke 4:1-13), in the plan of God he
too was allowed to be tempted. His temptations did not spring from any
inordinate desire within him for pleasure or power or possessions, for
there was no inner disorder in him. All that could come from within him
was the pure desire for holiness and the glory of his Father. Rather,
temptations were directly posed to him from without by Satan and we see
this happening in today’s Gospel. Christ had come to conquer the world
for his Father, and Satan even put to him that he do so the quick way
by worshiping him, Satan, and then receive from him the kingdoms of the
world in return. The point is that Christ our model and redeemer was
tempted too, and he utterly rejected all temptations. We too must
resolve to reject all temptations. We must pray to our heavenly Father
to keep us from temptation, to help us recognize it and resist it, and
to deliver us from all moral evil and sin. Let us always contemplate
Christ being tempted and rejecting all temptation, and understand that
this is the issue that faces us every day. This is the issue of life.
Life will be a success or a failure depending on our response to the
temptation to sin. Let us pray to avoid and resist all temptation, and
by the grace of the Holy Spirit to be delivered from sin and all moral
evil.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further Reading:
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no.2846-2854
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Strengthened
by temptations (Luke 4:1-13)
St John
Chrysostom (345 – 407), Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily 13 on Matthew,
1)
"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted
of the devil."… For since with a view to our instruction Jesus both did
and underwent all things; he endures also to be led up thither, and to
wrestle against the devil: in order that each of those who are
baptized, if after his baptism he have to endure greater temptations
may not be troubled as if the result were unexpected, but may continue
to endure all nobly, as though it were happening in the natural course
of things. Yea, for therefore you took up arms, not to be idle, but to
fight.
For this cause neither does God hinder the temptations as they come on,
first to teach you that you are become much stronger; next, that you
may continue modest neither be exalted even by the greatness of your
gifts, the temptations having power to repress you; moreover, in order
that that wicked demon, who is for a while doubtful about your
desertion of him, by the touchstone of temptations may be well assured
that you have utterly forsaken and fallen from him; fourthly, that you
may in this way be made stronger, and better tempered than any steel;
fifthly, that you may obtain a clear demonstration of the treasures
entrusted to you. For the devil would not have assailed you, unless he
had seen you brought to greater honor.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Make those
reflections of your friend your own. He wrote: “I was considering how
good God was to me and, full of interior joy, I was ready to shout out
loud, there in the street, for everyone to know about my filial
gratitude: `Father! Father!' And though not in fact shouting out loud,
I kept calling him so —`Father!' — in a low voice, many times, quite
certain that it pleased him.
I seek nothing else. I only want to please him and give him Glory.
Everything for him. If I desire my salvation and my sanctification it
is because I know that he desires it. If in my Christian life I hunger
for souls, it is because I know that he has this great hunger. I say
this in all truth: I will never set my sights on the prize. I don't
desire a reward: everything for Love!”
(The Forge,
no.1033)
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What is the effect of ordination to
the priesthood?
The anointing of the Spirit seals the priest with an indelible,
spiritual character that configures him to Christ the priest and
enables him to act in the name of Christ the Head. As a co-worker of
the order of bishops he is consecrated to preach the Gospel, to
celebrate divine worship, especially the Eucharist from which his
ministry draws its strength, and to be a shepherd of the faithful. (CCC
1562-1567, 1595)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.328)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 4) Saint Casimir (1458-1484) The son of the King of Poland, he practised the Christian virtues especially chastity and love of the poor. He was conspicuous for a firm faith and for his veneration of the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He died of phthisis. (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today:
Genesis
15:5-12, 17-18; Psalm 27:1, 7-9, 13-14; Philippians
3:17—4:1; Luke 9:28b-36
Jesus took Peter,
John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying
his face changed in appearance and his clothing became
dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who
appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to
accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by
sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men
standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to
Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know
what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast
a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the
cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen
Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.
They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had
seen. (Luke
9:28b-36)
Recently a
young Catholic man passed me by who was wearing a T shirt showing the
portrait of the famous South American revolutionary Che Guevarra. I
knew the young man was a Catholic because he was a member of the Church
choir. I am sure he did not
realize what some of the
things were that Che Guevarra stood for. Guevarra worked
for the
betterment of the South American people as he conceived that to be, but
he was totally mistaken in his world view. He was a committed Marxist
and was opposed to religion. Rejecting religious faith as he did, he
had placed his faith in a great though deluded idea, the Marxist idea
of economic and social improvement. One of his companions was Fidel
Castro the president of Cuba. Some of Castro’s letters written nearly
fifty years ago while in prison have recently been published in
English, and they suggest that he once had something of a religious
faith which, of course, he abandoned in favour of Marxism. In one of
those letters, writing to the father of a dead comrade, Castro said:
"Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably ... This truth should
be taught to every human being — that the immortal values of the spirit
are above physical life. What sense does life have without these
values? ... God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice." Notice
how he puts it, that God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice:
God seems to have been for him basically an idea, the supreme idea of
what Castro valued. Both Guevarra and Castro rejected the idea of God
and put their faith in a radically different idea.
But God is
not just an idea, although we do indeed have an idea of God and it is
important that our idea of God be correct. I have seen various
definitions of religion, and it is commonly understood as being
simply that which commands a person’s ultimate trust, hope and
dedication. A religion is taken to be that to which you have
truly dedicated yourself. In this understanding God need not be part of
religion because one can dedicate oneself to a project that excludes
God, and indeed one which could be an enemy of God. Guevarra and Castro
placed their faith in the Marxist hope. Their god was the Marxist idea. It
excluded God as being pie in the sky, as being a kind of opium of the people
distracting them from working for the benefits of temporal development. Now the
Christian places his faith not in an idea, but in a particular person. That
person is Jesus Christ and all he revealed. His person and doctrine is at the
heart of everything. The genuine Christian has discovered God as the living
person around which pivots everything. The Christian religion teaches that God
has intervened and revealed himself as a living person, and all are called to
know him. He is one God who is three divine persons, and eternal
life consists in knowing Jesus Christ and the Father who sent him. When
the Christian discovers this very personal character of God and enters
into communion with him, entrusting himself to the one God in three
real persons, then his faith has taken root. I suspect that Castro, Guevarra and others never knew this. They never knew God as a real
person.
In our
Gospel scene today
(Luke 9:28b-36) a very extraordinary
thing is witnessed by the three chief apostles. Our Lord is
transfigured and shown in something of his true glory as the divine Son
of God the Father. He is shown as not just as a great religious leader,
not just as a supreme idea or image, but as a divine person who as man
is at the same time one of us. The majesty and uniqueness of the person
of Jesus is shown forth, and the voice of the Father is heard pointing
to him as his own Son, the Beloved one. All mankind is to listen to
him. The whole world is to turn to this person and listen to his
teaching. The person of Jesus should dominate all human history, but so
very many never really discover him. Listening to Jesus and accepting
him for the person he is involves living as his disciple. We are called
to place our faith in him, to follow his way, to learn from him and to
receive from him every heavenly blessing. We are to believe in him
totally as the Son of God made man, hope in him entirely as our
redeemer, and to love him with all our heart with the love we should
have for God himself, for he is God. That is the project of life, and
what a tragedy it is when talented and influential people turn away
from him and place their faith and their hopes in delusions.
Thinking then of the transfiguration, let us resolve to focus our lives on the
living person of Jesus. We must contemplate him daily, living in his presence,
coming to realize that he is supremely real, and that on him depends all.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.1817-1821
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«This
is my beloved Son, with whom I
am well pleased» (Luke 9:28b-36)
St Ephraim (306-373),
deacon in Syria, doctor of the Church (Sermon for the
Transfiguration 1,3-4)
He leads them up on a high
mountain to show them the glory of his
divinity and to let them know that he was Israel's Saviour, as revealed
by his prophets...They saw him eat and drink, get tired and rest,
sleep, suffer anguish to the point that his sweat became like drops of
blood, all things that did not seem to have much to do with his divine
nature, but only with his human nature. This is why he leads them up on
a high mountain so that the Father may call him “my Son” and show them
that he really was his Son and that he was God.
He leads them up on a high
mountain and shows them his royalty before
suffering, his power before dying, his glory before being insulted and
his honor before undergoing ignominy. In this way, when he will be
captured and crucified, his apostles will understand that he did not
undergo this because of weakness, but to consent and willingly for the
salvation of the world.
He leads them up on a high
mountain and shows them the glory of his
divinity, before his resurrection. In this way, when he will rise from
the dead in the glory of his divinity, his disciples will testify that
he did not receive this glory as a reward for having suffered – as if
he needed to, but that this glory belonged to him long before the
centuries, with the Father and in the Father as he himself will say as
he approaches his voluntary Passion “Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began” (John 17,5).
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY
40052. USA.)
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To die?... That's too easy, I
say once more. Say, just as that holy bishop did when he was old and
sick, 'non recuso laborem' — Lord, as long as I can be useful, I do not
refuse to keep on living and working for you.
(The Forge,
no.1040)
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What are the effects of the sacrament
of Holy Orders?
This sacrament yields a special
outpouring of the Holy Spirit which
configures the recipient to Christ in his triple office as Priest,
Prophet, and King, according to the respective degrees of the
sacrament. Ordination confers an indelible spiritual character and
therefore cannot be repeated or conferred for a limited time. (CCC
1581-1589)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.335)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 11) Today let us think of St Oengus (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture:
Exodus
3:1-8a, 13-15; Psalm 103: 1-4, 6-8,
11; 1 Corinth 10:1-6,
10-12; Luke 13:1-9
Some people told
Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood
of their sacrifices. Jesus said to them in reply, “Do you think that
because these
Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners
than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not
repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who
were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them— do you think they
were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no
means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as
they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who
had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of
fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years
now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found
none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him
in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the
ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If
not you can cut it down.’” (Luke 13:1-9)
I remember watching
a movie years ago and in one scene a mother was shown holding her small
child. The child asked her puzzled mother, “why isn’t there nothing?”
It is a very good question that would never occur to the majority of
people. It immediately suggests that the things of our experience are
not necessary and so it prompts the thought of a creator. It also
revealed an attitude of wonder in that small child, and shows
how the cultivation of a child-like sense of wonder opens some of the
deepest philosophical questions. But there is another question which
has occurred to many people: why do we suffer so much? Why is it that
in the span of life that has been allotted to me so much suffering
comes my way, while to all appearances relatively little suffering
comes to this or that other person? What am I to do about suffering?
There have been various answers to these persistent questions and one
of the defining elements of any particular religion is the way it
addresses this problem. I can think of at least one anthropologist of
primal religions who wrote that the way the problem of suffering is
dealt with is the key to interpreting the
religions of indigenous peoples. Whatever about that generalization, it
is obvious that suffering and death is a central issue in the religion
revealed by the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ his divine Son.
It was precisely because his chosen people were suffering in Egypt that
God revealed himself to Moses and sent him to lead his people out of
their enslaving situation. It was precisely because of the universal
hold of death that God sent his Son, not to condemn the world but to
save the world from sin by his death and resurrection. It is the
problem of suffering and death that sparks the exchange in today’s
Gospel.
St Paul writes in
the Letter to the Romans that sin entered the world through one man and
with sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race
because everyone has sinned. So the deepest cause of the world’s
suffering is the sin of man — in the first instance of man at the
beginning, and then of every man since then. But while all suffering
ultimately finds its origin in sin, our Lord makes it clear that we
cannot interpret the scale of any one individual’s suffering as
indicative of the degree of his sinfulness. His own case shows that
suffering can come to the innocent, and his overwhelming sufferings
came upon him from the sins of others — including our own sins. Our Lord poses
the question of today’s Gospel: “Do you think that because these Galileans
suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no
means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or
those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them — do
you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no
means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
(Luke 13:1-9)
Of course the only ones
who have been entirely innocent have been Christ himself, and by the
grace merited by Christ, his own Blessed Mother the Virgin Mary. But
the point here is, as our Lord states very clearly, that “ if you do
not repent, you will all perish as they did!” Every time we see
suffering and death we ought be reminded that unless we repent of our
sins, in some sense those sins we choose to commit will reap the
whirlwind of suffering and death. The sight of suffering and death — even the suffering of the relatively innocent
— can and should,
therefore, be an occasion of repentance from sin.
The coming of
suffering can also be a moment of deeper identification with Christ our
Lord who, though innocent, suffered for the guilty. When suffering
comes, therefore, let us resolve to repent from our sins. Let us also
resolve to unite ourselves with Christ who suffered for us, and in this
way our sufferings will contribute towards the repentance of others.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“I tell
you, if you do not repent, you will
all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:1-9)
St Leo the Great (? –
461),
Pope and Doctor of the Church (20th Sermon on the
Passion)
To work, brothers! Let us make
an effort so as to be found associated
with Christ’s resurrection and to pass from death to life while we are
still in this body. All who go through a conversion of whatever kind,
all who pass from one state to another, experience an end: they are no
longer what they were. And they also experience a beginning: they
become what they were not. But it is important to know for whom one is
dying and for whom one lives, for there is a death that gives life and
a life that gives death.
Nowhere other than in this
fleeting world does a person seek both, so
that the difference in the eternal retributions will depend on the
quality of our actions here below. So let us die to the devil and let
us live for God; let us die to sin in order to rise to righteousness.
May the former being disappear so that the new being might rise up.
Since, according to the word of Truth, “No one can serve two masters”
(Mt 6:24), let us take as our master not the one who causes those who
are standing to fall so as to lead them to ruin, but rather the one who
raises up those who have fallen in order to lead them to glory.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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If I love, there will be no hell for me. (The Forge, no.1047)
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Are all obliged to get married?
Matrimony is not an obligation
for everyone, especially since God calls
some men and women to follow the Lord Jesus in a life of virginity or
of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. These renounce the
great good of Matrimony to concentrate on the things of the Lord and
seek to please him. They become a sign of the absolute supremacy of
Christ’s love and of the ardent expectation of his glorious return.
(CCC 1618-1620)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.342)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 18) St Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop and doctor of the Church (315-386). He is mainly known for his Catecheses. His instructions, which are still extant, show conclusively that Catholic doctrine is the same then as now. Arian heretics exiled him three times. (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today: Joshua 5:9a,
10-12; Psalm 34:2-7; 2
Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Tax collectors and
sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and
scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats
with them.” So to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two
sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share
of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the
property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all
his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his
inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent
everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself
in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who
sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill
of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to
his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more
than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get
up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned
against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your
son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’ So he got
up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his
father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to
his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I
have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be
called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring
the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals
on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us
celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come
to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration
began. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way
back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The
servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has
slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father
came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look,
all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with
prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’ He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But
now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and
has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:1-3,
11-32)
The parable which
makes up today’s Gospel is usually called the parable of the prodigal
son. This stands to reason because most of the focus is on the younger
dissolute son who finally returned to his very indulgent father. This
focus reflects that of our Lord in the actual
Gospel scene. His focus
was on the tax collectors and sinners who “were all drawing near to
listen to Jesus”. Moreover, they do not just happen to draw near to
him, but, as the scribes and Pharisees complain, Jesus “welcomes
sinners and eats with them.” Our Lord was preoccupied with the tax
collectors and sinners and he loved to have them come to him and be
with him.
Hence it is that the focus of the parable is on the sinful
and dissolute son who squandered all that his father in his goodness
gave him. But of course the parable is occasioned by the
complaint of the Pharisees and scribes not about the tax collectors and
the sinners, but about Jesus himself. They complained about his
attitude to sinners. He welcomed them and associated with them, the
implication being that what he was doing was most unlike the attitude
of the all-holy God. Perhaps part of the hostility they felt was due to
the fact that our Lord was not courting them — rather, he was courting
the “sinners.” We have here at play two very different images of the
all-holy God who requires that we seek holiness. “Be holy, for I am
holy”, God says in the Old Testament. The surprise of the New Testament
is that God is revealed as a God who seeks out to save those who are
lost. He does not simply command and then condemn the blameworthy. He
is not simply all holy in his distant transcendence, near indeed but
altogether beyond. No, he hastens in love to the
afflicted.
The holiness of God
is not the holiness of a Master but rather of a Father. The
characteristic image of holiness we ought have is that of the father in
the parable running to his son to embrace him. That is what holiness is
like: it is a running in love to embrace the afflicted person. The
greatest affliction in the universe is the universal affliction of sin,
and it has brought death and mayhem to every nook and cranny of the
human condition. God has come running to help us and to take away our
sin. He has been like the father in the parable who, while his son was
still a long way off, “caught sight of him, and was filled with
compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”
(Luke 15:1-3,
11-32)
That is the pattern
played out in salvation history. God called Abraham and his plan was
that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He
revealed himself to Moses and sent him to bring the children of Israel
out of slavery to the promised land. He established a unique covenant
with his people. As the prophets taught, he was a husband to his
people. Finally he sent his Son to take upon his shoulders the burden
of the world’s sin and by his death and resurrection expiated for it
and opened the gates of heaven to sinful man. This is the one true God,
the God who stands revealed in the person of Jesus Christ his divine
Son made man. All those who wish to be his children, all those who wish
to participate in the work that God has done and continues to do, must
join with Christ in loving sinful humanity and endeavouring in him to
reclaim man from his sin. If we wish to belong to Christ we too must be
found welcoming sinners and eating with them, knowing that we are to be
counted among them.
What our parable
today teaches us is that God is love. The world and its religions may
well concur with this, while at the same time failing to realize it. If
we say that God is love, a love that is compassionate and merciful, we
shall be found conducting a jihad not against those we consider to be
“tax collectors and sinners”, but against our own sinfulness. Our jihad
will be against the tendency in ourselves to be like the elder son.
Christ is the image of the unseen God, and he who sees him sees the
Father. Christ welcoming sinners and eating with them is the revelation
of what the Father has done to us, and of what he wants us to do to
others.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“We had
to celebrate… This brother of yours
was dead, and has come back to life.” (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32)
St Romanos the
Melodious (?
– 560), Composer of hymns (Hymn 28, The Prodigal Child)
The older son said to his father
in anger: “I constantly obeyed your orders, without disobeying a single
one… and the prodigal one comes back to you, and you make more of him
than of me!”
The father had only just heard his son
speak in this way, when he gently answered: “Listen to your father. You
are with me, for you never distanced yourself from me; you did not
separate yourself from the Church; you are always present at my side
together with all my angels. But this one has come covered with shame,
naked and with no beauty, crying: “Have mercy on me! I have sinned,
Father, and as one who is guilty, I implore you. Accept me as a day
laborer and feed me, for you love human beings, Lord and master of the
ages.”
“Your brother cried out: ‘Save me, holy
Father!’… How could I not have mercy, not save my son who was moaning
and sobbing? … Judge me, you who blame me… At all times, it is my joy
to love human beings… They are my creatures: how could I not have mercy
on them? How could I not have compassion when they repent? My entrails
have brought forth this child on whom I had mercy, I who am the Lord
and master of the ages.
“Everything I have is yours, my son… The
fortune you have has not been diminished by this, for I don’t take away
from it when I give your brother gifts… I am the one and only creator
of both of you, the one and only father who is good, loving and
merciful. I honor you, my son, for you have always loved and served me.
And on him I have compassion, for he is surrendering entirely to his
repentance. So you should share the joy of all whom I have invited, I,
the Lord and master of the ages.
“Thus, my son, rejoice with all who have
been invited to the banquet, and mingle your songs with those of all
the angels, for your brother was lost and now he has been found again,
he was dead and contrary to all expectations, he has risen.” The older
son let himself be persuaded by these words, and he sang: “Everyone,
cry out with joy! ‘Happy is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is
covered.’ (Ps 32:1) I praise you, O friend of humankind, you who also
saved my brother, you, the Lord and master of the ages.”
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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When you
feel self-love — pride! — stirring within you, making you out to be a
superman, it is time to cry out: No! In this way you will savour the
joy of the good son of God who goes through life with not a few faults,
but doing good.
(The Forge,
no.1054)
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What is the attitude of the Church toward those people who are divorced
and then remarried?
The Church, since she
is faithful to her Lord, cannot recognize the union of people who are
civilly divorced and remarried. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries
another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband
and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12). The Church
manifests an attentive solicitude toward such people and encourages
them to a life of faith, prayer, works of charity and the Christian
education of their children. However, they cannot receive sacramental
absolution, take Holy Communion, or exercise certain ecclesial
responsibilities as long as their situation, which objectively
contravenes God's law, persists. (CCC 1650-1651, 1665)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.349)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(March 25) The
Annunciation is on this date, but because this
year it is a Sunday, the feast will be celebrated tomorrow.
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today:
Isaiah
43:16-21; Psalm 126:1-6;
Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11
Jesus went to the
Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the
temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down
and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who
had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said
to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing
adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So
what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have
some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on
the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he
straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without
sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote
on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning
with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then
Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no
one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said,
“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
(John 8:1-11)
Many comments about
the modern world have been made over several past decades by recent
popes. One of them, that has been repeated and developed by his
successors, is that by (the Servant of God) Pope Pius XII. Pope Pius
XII wrote that the sin of the modern age is the loss of the sense of
sin. This matter of the modern loss of the sense of sin is something
that has been discussed by various
religious writers over
the past few centuries. For instance, John Henry Newman as a young
Anglican clergyman during the second decade of the nineteenth century
commented on it in his sermons, and as a young Anglican evangelical he
had learnt the importance of the sense of sin from various of his
predecessors who had been an influence on him. Newman went on to give
the evident fact of sin and the sense of it a central place in his
philosophy of religion. But of course he and others ultimately draw on
revelation. So then, let us notice a few things which our Lord said
about the sense of sin. We remember his story comparing the prayer of
the Pharisee with that of the Publican, both praying in the Temple at
the same time. The Pharisee in his prayer listed in the presence of God
the good things he had been doing and how different he was from the
publican who was praying some distance behind him. The publican, by
contrast, could only entrust himself to the mercy of God, saying, “have
mercy on me, God, a sinner.” His sense of sin prompted a prayer which
our Lord said justified him, whereas the Pharisee went home without
being right with God. So for the sinful publican, his humble
acknowledgment of sin was the prompt for entrusting himself to the
mercy of God. In this sense the consciousness of being a sinner is a
foundation for religion. If one has little or no sense of sin, apart
from this itself being sinful (as in the case of the Pharisee), one of
the foundations for religion will be lacking. Typically, modern man
lacks this foundation. As children of our age if we are not on guard we
can be infected by the tendency to disregard and even deny sin and its
seriousness. If that happens our very relationship with God will be
profoundly weakened.
But
the sense of sin not only affects our relationship with God. It also
affects our relationship with others. We remember another parable of
our Lord in which he describes the master who summoned his servant to
repay an astronomical debt of ten thousand talents. The servant was
utterly unable to pay, so the king ordered him to be sold with his wife
and possessions so that at least some of the debt might be recovered.
The servant pleaded with him to give him time, and the master felt so
sorry for him that he forgave the entire debt and let his servant go.
But what happened then? The servant, without the slightest regard for
his indebtedness to his master, proceeded to punish a fellow servant
who owed him a substantial debt but nothing remotely comparable to the
debt he himself had been freed from. He lacked, we might say, a sense
of personal sin and this resulted in a harshness towards others. This
was particularly serious because our Lord ends that parable by saying
that our heavenly Father will deal with us severely if we do not
forgive others from the heart. Now then, let us consider our Gospel
event of today
(John 8:1-11). The Pharisees come to
our Lord dragging into his presence a sinner and ask our Lord if she is
to be condemned. Our Lord’s response? “Jesus bent down and began to
write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him
he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let the one among you who is
without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again he bent down
and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one,
beginning with the elders.” They came to our Lord with little or no
sense of personal sin and as a result they were very harsh and
unforgiving. When their sins were brought before their conscience, they
retired in shame.
The
foundation of authentic religion is humility. Humility involves a
recognition of our true position before God. We are not only his
creatures, utterly dependent on him in every way, but we are also
sinners and so we have even more reason to abase ourselves before him — and before others. We have no grounds for pride before God, nor before
others. Whenever we observe the sin in others, let us be forgiving,
knowing that we too are sinners and have an account to render before
God.
(E.J.Tyler)
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«Neither do I condemn you. Go, and
from now on do not sin any more» (John
8:1-11)
St Augustine
(354-430), bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and doctor of the Church
(Tractate 33 on
the Gospel of John, 5-8)
"One after another all
withdrew." The two were left alone, the wretched
woman and Mercy. But the Lord, having struck them through with that
dart of justice, deigned not to heed their fall, but, turning away His
look from them, "again He wrote with His finger on the ground."
But when that woman was left
alone, and all they were gone out, He
raised His eyes to the woman. We have heard the voice of justice; let
us also hear the voice of clemency...she expected to be punished by Him
in whom sin could not be found. But He, who had driven back her
adversaries with the tongue of justice, raising the eyes of clemency
towards her, asked her, "Hath no man condemned thee?" She answered, "No
man, Lord." And He said, "Neither do I condemn thee;" by whom, perhaps,
thou didst fear to be condemned, because in me thou hast not found sin.
"Neither will I condemn thee."
What is this, O Lord? Dost Thou
therefore favour sins? Not so,
evidently. Mark what follows: "Go, henceforth sin no more." Therefore
the Lord did also condemn, but condemned sins, not man...Let them take
heed, then, who love His gentleness in the Lord, and let them fear His
truth...The Lord is gentle, the Lord is long-suffering, the Lord is
pitiful; but the Lord is also just, the Lord is also true (Ps 85,15).
He bestows on thee space for correction; but thou lovest the delay of
judgment more than the amendment of thy ways. Hast thou been a bad man
yesterday? Today be a good man. Hast thou gone on in thy wickedness
today? At any rate change tomorrow.
Thus therefore said He to the
woman, "Neither will I condemn thee;"
but, being made secure concerning the past, beware of the future.
"Neither will I condemn thee:" I have blotted out what thou hast done;
keep what I have commanded thee, that thou mayest find what I have
promised.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Get used to saying No. (The Way, no.5)
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What is the relationship between the
beatitudes and our desire for happiness?
The beatitudes respond to the
innate desire for happiness that God has
placed in the human heart in order to draw us to himself. God alone can
satisfy this desire. (CCC 1718-1719)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.361)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion C
(April 1) Today let us think of St. Hugh (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture readings:
(Entrance: Luke 19:28-40)
Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-20,
23-24;
Philippians
2:6-11; Luke 22:14—23:56
Jesus
proceeded on
his journey up to Jerusalem. As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany
at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples.
He said, “Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you
will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and
bring it here. And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you untying it?’
you will answer, ‘The Master has need of it.’” So those who had been
sent went off and found everything just as he had told them. And as
they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you
untying this colt?” They answered, “The Master has need of it.” So they
brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks over the colt, and helped Jesus
to mount. As he rode along, the people were spreading their cloaks on
the road; and now as he was approaching the slope of the Mount of
Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to praise God aloud
with joy for all the mighty deeds they had seen. They proclaimed:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to
him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He said in reply, “I tell you,
if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!” (Luke 19:28-40)
Holy
Week
begins today, Palm Sunday, and it offers a wonderful opportunity to
draw near to Jesus as we remember the greatest week in both his own
life, and indeed in the history of the world. We ought be with Jesus in
a special way during this week, contemplating him and coming to know
him more deeply. If we know him more deeply with a knowledge especially
of the heart, we shall love him more tenderly.
We ought aim
to grow in a compassion for our Lord during his passion, a compassion
which will inspire us to want to be with him and to follow him
precisely in his sufferings. We shall only gain this compassion for
Christ suffering and crucified if we make the effort to be with him in
our mind, heart, imagination and soul, using the Scripture texts of
each day and especially the Gospel texts. So then, our Lord enters
Jerusalem for the final week of his life and he enters with a vivid
sense of Scripture being finally fulfilled and God’s eternal plan
coming to fruition. He approaches the city amid the acclaim of his
disciples and the crowds. He enters the holy city humbly, mounted on a
colt but as the promised King nevertheless. He is the Messiah-King
entering to take possession of his kingdom. Little did the excited
people know how this would be done. In a worldly sense success often
depends on winning the allegiance of those who matter so that they in
turn will bring the people with them. But Christ did not carry the
leaders of the nation with him — in fact they rejected him, hated him,
campaigned against him, and finally put him to death. But this,
paradoxically, was the path to ultimate success in his mission which
was to redeem the world. It would be done through rejection and
the utmost suffering and apparent failure.
Our
Lord
knew all this. He knew that God’s way was not the way of man. He was
fully aware of the path that would lead to the redemption of the world,
which was the path of suffering and death. He was fully aware, too, of
the grandeur of his very own person. We have a glimpse of this
awareness in his response to the Pharisees in the crowd who protested
at the acclaim he was receiving. The crowds proclaimed “Blessed is the
king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in
the highest.” At this the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher,
rebuke your disciples.” During this moment of solemn drama at the
beginning of the greatest and holiest of all weeks not only in his own
life but in the history of mankind, our Lord bore in his mind and heart
who he was and what he was doing. And so he said in reply, “I tell you,
if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!” (Luke
19:28-40).
There was no person in the world to compare with him because he was a
divine person with a human nature, and by means of his human nature
this divine person, the Son of God made man, would suffer to a degree
no other man had suffered and would ever suffer. He did this for each
of us. Christ loved me, St Paul writes, and gave himself up for me. We
who know this are able in memory and in spirit to accompany our Lord
during his approach and entry into Jerusalem, but with a much greater
insight and appreciation than that possessed by his disciples and the
crowd at the time. In our prayer we can relive the scene, joyfully
acclaiming Christ as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the one
who has established the kingdom of God here on earth. In his goodness
God has placed us with Christ in this kingdom. In our hearts let us
take our stand with him now, acknowledging with joy that Jesus is our
King, and indeed the true King of the world.
While this
is the week par excellence when we place ourselves at the side of
Jesus, and accompany him fully aware of who he is and of what he is
doing, and while one of the fruits of this week ought be an increase of
compassion for Jesus who suffered so much for each one of us, it must
not end there. As a result of this week we ought to have gained the
grace to live all this out in our everyday life. Every day must
be lived in the company of Jesus. We ought view every day as he viewed
each day. Every day must be looked on as the opportunity to contribute
towards the advance of God’s kingdom which Jesus our Lord established
by his death and resurrection. Every day must be viewed as the chance
to choose what Jesus chose, which is obedience to the Father while
carrying the Cross and while on the Cross. This is the key to untold
good. It is one of the most distinctive things which our Lord by his
life and death revealed to mankind. The true path to victory, the true
path to happiness and life in abundance lies in the acceptance and
choice of the Cross. If there is one grace we ought pray for during
Holy Week it is the grace to see the blessings of Christ’s Cross, and
to pray, as did the saints, for the wisdom to accept and indeed welcome
the Cross with Christ when it comes. It comes to unite us to Christ and
to sanctify us and the world. The Cross of Christ is our path to glory
with him.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Blessed be the King who comes in
the name of the Lord” (Luke 19,38)
St Romanos The Melodist
(?-around 560), hymn writer (Hymn 32)
Seated on your throne in heaven and
on a
colt on earth, O Christ, you who are God, you welcomed the praise of
the angels and the anthem of the children who called out to you :
"Blessed are you, the one who comes to recall Adam”...
The King comes to us, humble,
sitting on the foal of a donkey ; he comes with haste to suffer his
Passion and to take sins away. Seated on a dumb animal, the Word, the
Wisdom of God, wants to save all beings endowed with reason. And
mankind can contemplate, mounted on a colt, the one who rides on the
cherubim (Ps 17:10) and who once bore up Elijah on a chariot of fire.
“Though he was rich,” of his own will, “he became poor” (2Co 8:9) ; in
choosing weakness he gives strength to all who cry to him :” Blessed
are you, the one who comes to call Adam”…
You demonstrate your strength by
choosing poverty... The clothes of the disciples were a sign of this
poverty, but your power was measured by the anthem of the children and
the great crowd which cried : “Hosanna—which means : Save—hosanna to
you who are in the highest. O Almighty, save those who are humbled.
Have mercy on us, in consideration of our palms ; may the palms we wave
move your heart, you who come to call
Adam”…
“You who are the work of my hands,
answered the Creator..., I came to you myself. It was not the Law that
should save you, since it had not created you, neither the prophets,
whom like you I created. I alone can free you from your debt. I am sold
for you, and free you ; I am crucified for you, and you are rescued
from death. I die, and teach you to cry : " Blessed are you, the one
who comes to call Adam".
Did I love the angels as much? No,
it is
you, the poor, whom I have cherished. I have hidden my glory and freely
made my richness poor, out of my great love for you. For you I suffered
hunger, thirst, fatigue. I roamed the mountains, ravines and valleys
looking for you, my lost sheep. I took the name of Lamb to bring you
back, calling you by my shepherd’s voice. And I want to give my life
for you, to tear you away from claws of the wolf. I bear everything so
that you can cry : “Blessed are you, the one who comes to call Adam”.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Let those
very obstacles give you strength.
God's grace will not fail you: 'Inter medium montium pertransibunt
aquae! You shall pass through the mountains!'
Does it matter that you have to curtail your activity for the
moment if
afterwards, like a spring which has been compressed, you will reach
incomparably farther than you ever dreamed?
(The Way,
no.12)
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When is an act morally good?
An act is
morally good when it assumes simultaneously the goodness of the object,
of the end, and of the circumstances. A chosen object can by itself
vitiate an act in its entirety, even if the intention is good. It is
not licit to do evil so that good may result from it. An evil end
corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself. On the other
hand, a good end does not make an act good if the object of that act is
evil, since the end does not justify the means. Circumstances can
increase or diminish the responsibility of the one who is acting but
they cannot change the moral quality of the acts themselves. They never
make good an act which is in itself evil. (CCC 1755-1756, 1759-1760)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.368)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(April 8) Today let us think of Blessed Herman Joseph,
St. John Baptist de la Salle
(Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture readings for the Easter
Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
Genesis 1:1—2:2
or 1:1, 26-31a; Psalm 104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35
Genesis 22:1-18
or 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Psalm 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
Exodus
14:15—15:1; Exodus 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17-18
Isaiah
54:5-14; Psalm 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12,
13
Isaiah
55:1-11; Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
Baruch 3:9-15,
32; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11
Ezechiel
36:16-17a, 18-28; When baptism is
celebrated. Psalm 42:3, 5; 43:3,
4
When baptism is not celebrated. Isaiah 12:2-3,
4bcd, 5-6
When baptism is not celebrated Psalm 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19
Epistle Romans 6:3-11;
Psalm
118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Gospel Luke 24:1-12
At daybreak on the
first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the
stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not
find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this,
behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were
terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why
do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has
been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in
Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be
crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the
eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna,
and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told
this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did
not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and
saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had
happened. (Luke 24:1-12)
The saddest and
most awful thing about life is death. Attend any funeral — say, the
funeral of a parent who has lived a long life in the midst of his or
her beloved children. Consider their emotions as the coffin is being
lowered into the grave. It is one of the saddest of all
experiences. All there is, is loss.
It may be a beloved spouse,
or one’s child. Or again, a person contracts cancer and its progress
cannot be stopped. Slowly it
conquers and finally lays the sufferer low in death. Or again, a tidal
wave sweeps all before it over several island communities and families
are devastated, many of them being wiped out. Wars break out between
communities within a nation, and between nations. The result is death
to so many. Death, and all that does or could lead to death, is the
worst thing about life, and it cannot be avoided. At most it can be
delayed or its circumstances mitigated. It is the enemy of life and
inasmuch as it puts an end to every life in that respect it is always
the victor. Why is this the case? Why should there be death at all,
when there is life in the first place? Various persons and religious
systems in history have divined an answer to this question by way of a
guess, but really we would never have known for certain why there is
death had it not been revealed to us by the Creator and giver of life,
God himself. God has revealed that sin entered the world through one
man and with sin, death spread to the whole human race. Death, our
great and all-conquering enemy, was the upshot of man’s original sin.
That original sin was man’s first great action, and in it our first
parents asserted themselves before God and refused to accept being less
than God. The result was catastrophic. The wages of sin are
death, and when we see death everywhere in the scene of life, it ought
be a reminder of the all-pervading presence of sin in the world and of
how sad and awful are its consequences. If we are to really live, and
live forever, then clearly sin has to be taken away.
But how could sin
ever be taken way from the world? No mere man could do it. No
civilization however advanced could grapple with sin and eliminate it
because it is present at the very roots of the soul of man. So near to
us, so powerful and so ubiquitous, its removal is utterly beyond man’s
capacity. Indeed, so profoundly rooted is it in the soul of man, that
of himself he cannot even renounce it, let alone take it away. The
question that floats over the millennia of human history
is precisely this, how is sin to be taken away from the world? Great
numbers of persons have never recognized the question because they have
not recognized the reality and the evil of sin. But that is the
question of mankind, because that is man’s fundamental problem. Answer
that problem and the key to life and happiness in the universe has been
provided. Until the problem of the presence of sin has been solved
death and all that is associated in any way with death will remain the
victor. Now, into this dark plight of man has come the redeemer, Christ
the Lord, and he arrived with the answer. He is one of us, a man in
every way except that no sin could ever possibly touch him. A man like
us, he is a divine person who with his human nature was able to grapple
with our old enemy and defeat it. He grappled with the sin of the world
by embracing in a spirit of obedience its result which was death. By
dying in obedience he destroyed our death and won for us the grace to
combat and overcome its cause, which is sin. Just as the presence of
sin and death in every man and woman a mystery, so is its remedy. The
remedy is Christ’s obedient death on our behalf. He suffered and died
for us, and by this means paid the price for our redemption. Our Lord
repeatedly told his disciples that he, the Messiah, had to suffer and
to die, and then to rise again. He told them that the Scriptures
foretold this, and it is not hard finding this teaching in the
Scriptures in one form or another. The Liturgy of the Word of the
Easter Vigil Mass (Luke 24:1-12) gives us portions of
it.
Imagine going
through the sadness and loss of a most loved one dying, and then having
that same loved one return from the grave never to die again, but to be
in one’s company unceasingly from then on! That was the experience of
our Lord’s disciples, but there was this difference. By their union
with the risen Jesus in faith and love they were granted the gift of
his Holy Spirit, the third divine person. It was by the power of this
Holy Spirit that Christ had offered himself up as a victim for our
deliverance, and it was by the power of this same Spirit that he rose
from death in his humanity to an unending life. This same Holy Spirit
is his gift to us on rising from the dead and returning to his Father.
All who receive this gift receive the gift of holiness and of life. By
receiving the Holy Spirit at our baptism we receive the means of
overcoming sin and of living a new life which will never come to an
end, because it is a share in Christ’s risen life. Christ is the lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world, and he did so by dying on
the Cross and rising from the dead. Today we celebrate his rising from
the dead, showing his victory over sin and over the result of sin which
is death. If we unite ourselves to him in faith and love, embracing
baptism and membership in the Church his body, and living accordingly,
then in him we too will be victorious over sin and death. That is the
answer to the problem of mankind. Christ is the answer to man’s
fundamental need. If we live with him and die with him then we shall
rise and reign with him. So let us resolve to renounce sin and to know
Christ and love him with all our heart, for Christ is really all we
need. If we have him, and if in everything that we do we have him and
live in him, then we have all. If we do not have him, and if in
everything that we do we lack him, then we remain in our sins and our
fundamental plight remains. On this night and on this day when we
relive our Lord’s rising from the dead, let us renew our conviction
that Jesus Christ is Lord, and as Lord he is the answer and the hope of
every man and of the entire world.
Let us resolve to
take our stand with Christ and to accept his offer of friendship with
him. He calls us not his servants, but his friends and disciples, and
he wants to share with each of us life in abundance, his own divine
life. Let us then renew our baptismal promises to renounce sin and
Satan utterly, and let us profess and resolve to live our Catholic
faith fully. It will mean the Cross, but it is this which will take us
to glory with Christ.
(E.J.Tyler)
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“Darkness
is not dark for you, and night shines as the day” (Psalm 138,12)
St Augustine (354-430),
bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and doctor of the Church (2nd Homily for the Holy
Night)
We, who are mortal, need to sleep to
restore our strength and therefore interrupt our life with this image
of death that leaves us at least some scraps of life. In the same way
all those who live in chastity, innocence and fervor prepare for
themselves the life of angels; in exchange for this burden of death,
they will receive grace in the eternal life...Now, my brothers, listen
to these few words I want to tell you about this coming night we are
going to live...
Our Lord Jesus Christ has been raised
from the dead on the third day: no Christian doubts about this. The
Holy Gospels testify that this event occurred during this night...It is
not from light to darkness but from darkness to light that we struggle
to come out. The apostle Paul warns us: “the night is advanced, the day
is at hand. Let us throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor
of light” (Rom 13,12)...This is why we will stay up this night when the
Lord was raised and when he started in his flesh the life of which I
talked to you before, the life that has no death nor sleep. And the
flesh that he raised from the tomb will not die anymore, and will not
fall under the laws of death anymore.
The women that loved him came at dawn to
visit his tomb; instead of finding his body, they heard the voice of
angels announcing his resurrection. No doubt then that he was raised
the night before this dawn. In this way, the one of whom we celebrate
the resurrection in our long vigils will make us reign with him in an
everlasting life. And even if, at the time we were on watch, his body
were in the tomb and would not have been raised yet, our watch would
still have all its meaning, because he slept so that we may be
awakened, he died so that we may live.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Will-power.
A very important quality. Don't despise little things, for by the
continual practice of denying yourself again and again in such things —
which are never futile or trivial — with God's grace you will add
strength and resilience to your character. In that way you will first
become master of yourself, and then a guide, a chief, a leader: to
compel and to urge and to inspire others, with your word, with your
example, with your knowledge and with your power.
(The Way,
no.19)
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How is a moral conscience formed to be
upright and truthful?
An upright and true moral conscience is formed by education and by
assimilating the Word of God and the teaching of the Church. It is
supported by the gifts of the Holy Spirit and helped by the advice of
wise people. Prayer and an examination of conscience can also greatly
assist one’s moral formation. (CCC 1783-1788, 1799-1800)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.374)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
Second Sunday of Easter C (Divine Mercy Sunday)
(April 15) Today let us think of St Anastasia
(Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture: Acts
5:12-16; Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; Revelation 1:9-13,
17-19; John 20:19-31
On the evening of
that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their
midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he
showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they
saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the
Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he
breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins
you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus
came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But
he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I
will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and
Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and
stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to
Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and
put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas
answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him,
“Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those
who have not seen and have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in
the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But
these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life
in his name. (John 20:19-31)
Christ the Son of God
I remember years
back watching a television interview with the prominent Australian
philosopher, Peter Singer. As is well known he is a leading exponent of
utilitarianism. He stated that he did not believe that there is a God
because if there were a God he would have done a better job of things.
He was referring to the presence and scale of evil in the world. I
presume Singer had in mind the evils of disease, hunger, natural disasters, wars,
sicknesses of various sorts both physical and mental, and so forth.
These are indeed great evils and it is certainly a great problem for
the reason trying to reconcile the notion of a good God with the
presence of such suffering and evil in our life. I shall not here
comment on the light that revelation has thrown on this problem,
especially that light that comes in the death and resurrection of
Christ. I do say this, though, that when Singer referred to the evils
of the world he would not have had the evil of sin as such in mind, sin
understood as an offense against God. I mention Singer only to advert
to the tendency of the modern mind in relation to sin. I suspect that
when most of us think of the evils of life, few of us would think in
the first instance of the evil of offending God. If you compare say,
the evil of being accidentally killed with the evil of deliberately
offending God in a small or a grave matter, which would you
instinctively think is the greater evil? The greater evil by far is
that of deliberately offending God. Now, what proportion of people
would have the conviction that the worst evil that can be present in
life, the evil above all others which man needs to avoid and be
liberated from, is that of deliberately offending God and of being so
constantly disposed to offend him. Very importantly, God has
revealed that the evil of man sinning is the principal source of all
other evils in our world.
Unless sin is dealt
with no progress is made in being truly free of evil. Now, this is the
evil above all which our Lord came to liberate us from. He is the Lamb
of God who took away the unyielding dominion and absolute necessity of
sin in our life. That is to say, if we approach him in faith for the
gifts which he gained for us by his life and death and resurrection,
the first and greatest gift we receive is the remission of sins and the
power to combat and overcome sin. Sin is the greatest and the root evil
which man and the world suffer from, and that is what God in his mercy
has freed us from. God in his mercy became man in order to suffer and
to die for each of us so as to save us from sin and ultimate death. It
was his greatest act of power and it is this which more than anything
shows that he is almighty. Furthermore, it was this more than anything
else which God did in becoming man that manifested his mercy. It is
because of the mercy of God that we have been granted the Holy Spirit
as his great gift, and because of this gift we can have our sins taken
away and are able to attain holiness of life. We are now not lost in
our sins, but rather can become new and holy, living the life of God
amid the various other evils of the world while transforming them into
stepping stones of holiness. In our Gospel today, on the evening of the
day our Lord rose from the dead our Lord appeared to his apostles and
gave them his great gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit which we in our
turn receive at our baptism and our confirmation. Then, having given
them this divine gift, he immediately gave them the power to take away
sin
(John 20:19-31). The remission of our
sins is the first great manifestation of the mercy of God in the life
of man. Our problem, though, is that we tend not to think of sin as
much of an evil anyway, nor of ourselves as being sinners in need of
the mercy of God.
The difficulty of
modern man is that while he has a lively awareness of the evils in the
world, he tends not to regard sin as such as being one of them. In
effect, he tends not to think of himself as being in much need of being
saved from sin. So in his blindness he feels little genuine need for
Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. Today is Divine Mercy Sunday
when we especially think of the mercy of God as shown in his delivering
us from sin. Let us pray for the grace of a true sense of sin and a
realization of the mercy of God. This mercy is especially active and
available to us in the Sacrament of Penance. Let us approach this great
Sacrament faithfully and regularly, and with great devotion. It is a
great channel of grace and mercy, and it should have a prominent place
in our spiritual life. If it has this, it will a principal means of
attaining holiness.
(E.J.Tyler)
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The weakness of Thomas's faith is a
source of blessing for the Church
John Henry Cardinal
Newman (1801-1890), (PPS II, Sermon 2. "Faith without
Sight")
We must not suppose that St. Thomas
differed greatly from the other apostles. They all, more or less,
mistrusted Christ's promises when they saw him led away to be
crucified. When he was buried, their hopes were buried with him; and
when the news was brought them, that he was risen again, they all
disbelieved it. On his appearing to them, he "upbraided them with their
unbelief and hardness of heart." (Mark 16:14)… Thomas was convinced
latest, because he saw Christ latest. On the other hand, it is certain
that, though he disbelieved the good news of Christ's resurrection at
first, he was no cold-hearted follower of his Lord, as appears from his
conduct on a previous occasion, when he expressed a desire to share
danger, and to suffer with him…: "Let us also go, that we may die with
him." (Jn 11:16)… It was at the instance of Thomas that they hazarded
their lives with their Lord.
St. Thomas then loved his Master, as
became an apostle, and was devoted to his service; but when he saw him
crucified, his faith failed for a season with that of the rest… and
more than the rest. His standing out alone, not against one witness
only, but against his ten fellow disciples, besides Mary Magdalene and
the other women is evidence of this… He seems to have required some
sensible insight into the unseen state, some infallible sign from
heaven, a ladder of angels like Jacob's (Gn 28:12), which would remove
anxiety by showing him the end of the journey at the time he set out.
Some such secret craving after certainty beset him. And a like desire
arose within him on the news of Christ's resurrection.
While our Saviour allowed Thomas his
wish, and satisfied his senses that he was really alive, he accompanied
the permission with a rebuke: "because thou hast seen me, thou hast
believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."…
All his disciples minister to him even in their weaknesses, that so he
may convert them into instruction and comfort for his Church.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
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Matrimony is a holy sacrament.
When the time comes for you to receive it, ask your spiritual adviser
or your confessor to suggest a suitable book. And you will be better
prepared to bear worthily the burdens of the home.
(The Way,
no.26)
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What is justice?
Justice consists in the firm and constant will to give to others their
due. Justice toward God is called “the virtue of religion.” (CCC 1807,
1836)
(Compendium
of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.381)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second
Sunday of Easter: Divine Mercy Sunday
Homily of His Holiness
John Paul II (Sunday, 30 April 2000)
Mass in St Peter's Square for the canonization of Sr Mary Faustina
Kowalska
1. "Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia
eius"; "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love
endures for ever" (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of
Easter, as if receiving from Christ's lips these words of the Psalm;
from the lips of the risen Christ, who bears the great message of
divine mercy and entrusts its ministry to the Apostles in the Upper
Room: "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send
you.... Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they
are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (Jn 20:
21-23).
Before speaking these words, Jesus shows his hands and his side. He
points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound in
his heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy poured
out on humanity. From that heart Sr Faustina Kowalska, the blessed whom
from now on we will call a saint, will see two rays of light shining
from that heart and illuminating the world: "The two rays", Jesus
himself explained to her one day, "represent blood and water" (Diary,
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 132).
2. Blood and water! We immediately think of the testimony given by the
Evangelist John, who, when a solider on Calvary pierced Christ's side
with his spear, sees blood and water flowing from it (cf. Jn 19: 34).
Moreover, if the blood recalls the sacrifice of the Cross and the gift
of the Eucharist, the water, in Johannine symbolism, represents not
only Baptism but also the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 3: 5; 4: 14;
7: 37-39).
Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ
crucified: "My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified",
Jesus will ask Sr Faustina (Diary, p. 374). Christ pours out this mercy
on humanity though the sending of the Spirit who, in the Trinity, is
the Person-Love. And is not mercy love's "second name" (cf. Dives in
misericordia, n. 7), understood in its deepest and most tender aspect,
in its ability to take upon itself the burden of any need and,
especially, in its immense capacity for forgiveness?
Today my joy is truly great in presenting the life and witness of Sr
Faustina Kowalska to the whole Church as a gift of God for our time. By
divine Providence, the life of this humble daughter of Poland was
completely linked with the history of the 20th century, the century we
have just left behind. In fact, it was between the First and Second
World Wars that Christ entrusted his message of mercy to her. Those who
remember, who were witnesses and participants in the events of those
years and the horrible sufferings they caused for millions of people,
know well how necessary was the message of mercy.
Jesus told Sr Faustina: "Humanity will not find peace until it turns
trustfully to divine mercy" (Diary, p. 132). Through the work of the
Polish religious, this message has become linked for ever to the 20th
century, the last of the second millennium and the bridge to the third.
It is not a new message but can be considered a gift of special
enlightenment that helps us to relive the Gospel of Easter more
intensely, to offer it as a ray of light to the men and women of our
time.
3. What will the years ahead bring us? What will man's future on earth
be like? We are not given to know. However, it is certain that in
addition to new progress there will unfortunately be no lack of painful
experiences. But the light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way
wished to return to the world through Sr Faustina's charism, will
illumine the way for the men and women of the third millennium.
However, as the Apostles once did, today too humanity must welcome into
the upper room of history the risen Christ, who shows the wounds of his
Crucifixion and repeats: Peace be with you! Humanity must let itself be
touched and pervaded by the Spirit given to it by the risen Christ. It
is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the heart, pulls down the
barriers that separate us from God and divide us from one another, and
at the same time, restores the joy of the Father's love and of
fraternal unity.
4. It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes to
us from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which from now
on throughout the Church will be called "Divine Mercy Sunday". In the
various readings, the liturgy seems to indicate the path of mercy
which, while re-establishing the relationship of each person with God,
also creates new relations of fraternal solidarity among human beings.
Christ has taught us that "man not only receives and experiences the
mercy of God, but is also called "to practise mercy' towards others:
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy' (Mt 5: 7)"
(Dives et misericordia, n. 14). He also showed us the many paths of
mercy, which not only forgives sins but reaches out to all human needs.
Jesus bent over every kind of human poverty, material and spiritual.
His message of mercy continues to reach us through his hands held out
to suffering man. This is how Sr Faustina saw him and proclaimed him to
people on all the continents when, hidden in her convent at
£agiewniki in Kraków, she made her life a hymn to mercy:
Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.
5. Sr Faustina's canonization has a particular eloquence: by this act I
intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium. I pass it
on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true
face of God and the true face of their brethren.
In fact, love of God and love of one's brothers and sisters are
inseparable, as the First Letter of John has reminded us: "By this we
know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his
commandments" (5: 2). Here the Apostle reminds us of the truth of love,
showing us its measure and criterion in the observance of the
commandments.
It is not easy to love with a deep love, which lies in the authentic
gift of self. This love can only be learned by penetrating the mystery
of God's love. Looking at him, being one with his fatherly heart, we
are able to look with new eyes at our brothers and sisters, with an
attitude of unselfishness and solidarity, of generosity and
forgiveness. All this is mercy!
To the extent that humanity penetrates the mystery of this merciful
gaze, it will seem possible to fulfil the ideal we heard in today's
first reading: "The community of believers were of one heart and one
mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather everything
was held in common" (Acts 4: 32). Here mercy gave form to human
relations and community life; it constituted the basis for the sharing
of goods. This led to the spiritual and corporal "works of mercy". Here
mercy became a concrete way of being "neighbour" to one's neediest
brothers and sisters.
6. Sr Faustina Kowalska wrote in her Diary: "I feel tremendous pain
when I see the sufferings of my neighbours. All my neighbours'
sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my
heart in such a way that it even physically destroys me. I would like
all their sorrows to fall upon me, in order to relieve my neighbour"
(Diary, p. 365). This is the degree of compassion to which love leads,
when it takes the love of God as its measure!
It is this love which must inspire humanity today, if it is to face the
crisis of the meaning of life, the challenges of the most diverse needs
and, especially, the duty to defend the dignity of every human person.
Thus the message of divine mercy is also implicitly a message about the
value of every human being. Each person is precious in God's eyes;
Christ gave his life for each one; to everyone the Father gives his
Spirit and offers intimacy.
7. This consoling message is addressed above all to those who,
afflicted by a particularly harsh trial or crushed by the weight of the
sins they committed, have lost all confidence in life and are tempted
to give in to despair. To them the gentle face of Christ is offered;
those rays from his heart touch them and shine upon them, warm them,
show them the way and fill them with hope. How many souls have been
consoled by the prayer "Jesus, I trust in you", which Providence
intimated through Sr Faustina! This simple act of abandonment to Jesus
dispels the thickest clouds and lets a ray of light penetrate every
life. Jezu, ufam tobie.
8. Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo (Ps 88 [89]: 2). Let us
too, the pilgrim Church, join our voice to the voice of Mary most holy,
"Mother of Mercy", to the voice of this new saint who sings of mercy
with all God's friends in the heavenly Jerusalem.
And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land of
Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the depth of
divine mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear
witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your message of light
and hope spread throughout the world, spurring sinners to conversion,
calming rivalries and hatred and opening individuals and nations to the
practice of brotherhood. Today, fixing our gaze with you on the face of
the risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting
abandonment and say with firm hope:
Christ Jesus, I trust in you! Jezu, ufam tobie!
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(April 22) Today let us think of St Teodore of Sykeon, St Leonida (Saints)
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Scripture today: Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41; Psalm 30:2, 4-6, 11-13; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19
At that time, Jesus
revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He
revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called
Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others
of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They
said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got
into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already
dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not
realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you
caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them,
“Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find
something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of
the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It
is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in
his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The
other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore,
only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they
climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and
bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So
Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred
fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not
torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the
disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was
the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and
in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed
to his disciples after being raised from the dead. When they had
finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do
you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you
know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said
to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus
said to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon,
son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus had said
to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you
know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my
sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to
dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will
stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you
where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of
death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him,
“Follow me.” (John 21:1-19)
Our Gospel scene is
one of great simplicity and beauty, and one that has so much to convey
to us. During his life our Lord had shown to his disciples that
he was the promised Messiah. He had been rejected by the leaders and
put to death. The shock of all this to his disciples was almost
incalculable, as was the extraordinary event of his rising from the
dead. Risen, he had appeared to them and they had seen, heard and felt
him. They had watched him eat before their eyes. In our Gospel scene
today all this in its own way happens again and in a fashion that is perhaps even
more powerful for its simplicity and realism. The disciples, with Simon
Peter at their head, have spent the whole night working at their
livelihood which was to fish, and had caught nothing. It was dawn and
they noticed someone on the beach. All was quiet with just the slight
sound of the tide, and sound easily carried. The one on the beach
called out asking if they had caught anything. The voice was clear and
very real. We know what happened, how at the stranger’s direction they
suddenly had a huge catch, how Simon jumped into the shallow
water and made his way ahead of the boat to Jesus, and how he and they
met our Lord on the shore. Breakfast was awaiting them, a charcoal
fire, with bread and fish being prepared for them (John 21:1-19). Our Lord proceeded to
serve them breakfast, and may well have breakfasted with them himself.
Our Lord’s presence was all very physical and immersed in the
ordinary routine of breakfast on the shore at the end of a night’s
work. What they were experiencing was not some transport to a higher
mystical vision or state beyond what they would normally be doing. It
was a very low-key and ordinary situation, the only extraordinary
element being the tangible presence of Jesus with them there,
after having died a terrible death. It was an ordinary breakfast with
the risen Jesus in an atmosphere of wondrous simplicity.
That
is to say, this very same Jesus who had most certainly died and been
buried, was alive and well before their eyes. Of course, to say that he
was alive and well before them is not to mean that Jesus was back from
the dead before them with the same life he had before. It was indeed
the same Jesus in all his physical reality, but he was now different
and the difference was felt and noticed by all who conversed with him
over that breakfast. To begin with, he simply came and then went. He
now abode in a realm above and apart from them, while being close to
them nevertheless and on various occasions, such as this one, making
his presence visible to them. But there was also something very
different about his appearance, even about his very features. He was
not just like, say, Lazarus had been when our Lord called him back to
life from the grave, or the young man of the village of Nain whom our
Lord had raised before his widowed mother’s eyes to give him back to
her. Nor was he like the little girl he had raised from the dead. They
all returned to exactly the same life they had been living and looked
no different for it except refreshed, and they would go on in due
course to die a second
time. No, he was obviously different from what he had been before. We
remember how three of his apostles who witnessed his Transfiguration on
the mountain saw that the aspect of his face was changed. He was
shown in glory. That was then, during the Transfiguration, before his
passion. He was now risen from the dead, and the resurrection had
transformed and glorified him and this now showed even in his physical
appearance. There was something new, altogether renewed, somewhat
of heaven, showing that in his body he had risen from the dead to a
glorious life. He was now beyond the limitations of this life and was
the victor over death and all that could lead to it. Yet, despite
this it was obvious to them that it was Jesus. As our Gospel text tells
us, “none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because
they realized it was the Lord.”
This same, very
real and very physical Jesus, this Jesus now risen from the dead and
enjoying a glorious life proper to his risen condition, this
wonderful friend and master is here in our Gospel scene serving
breakfast to
his disciples on the shore at the end of their night’s work. He
converses with them and in particular speaks with Simon Peter their
appointed head. He asks Simon repeatedly if he loves him, and receiving
his earnest assurance, gives to Simon, the first Pope, the task of
nourishing his Church. That same question the risen Jesus asks each of
us, do you love me? Let us place ourselves in the
presence of the risen Jesus who abides constantly in our midst
especially in the Holy Eucharist, and promise to give him our love and
our constant service in his mission.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.641-644
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You never
want to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes, through politeness.
Other times, most times, through fear of hurting yourself Sometimes
again, through fear of hurting others. And, always, through fear!
As long as you are so afraid of the truth you will never be a man of
sound judgment, a man of worth.
(The Way,
no.33)
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What is charity?
Charity is the theological virtue by
which we love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves for
the love of God. Jesus makes charity the new commandment, the fullness
of the law. “It is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14) and the
foundation of the other virtues to which it gives life, inspiration,
and order. Without charity “I am nothing” and “I gain nothing” (1
Corinthians 13:1-3). (CCC 1822-1829, 1844)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.388)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(April 29) St Catherine of Sienna, virgin and doctor of the Church (1347-1380). St Catherine was a responsible instrument for the return of Pope Gregory XI from Avignon to Rome. In deed and in truth she showed her love for God’s Church and the Roman Pontiff. With her short life she gave us a lesson in courage: the courage of telling the truth for love of the Church and of souls. Imprinted with the sacred stigmata, she died in Rome at thirty-three years of age. She was proclaimed patroness of Italy on 18 June 1939. In 1970 Pope Paul VI proclaimed her Doctor of the Church. (Saints)
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Scripture: Acts 13:14, 43-52; Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5; Revelation 7:9, 14b-17; John 10:27-30
Jesus said: “My
sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them
eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of
my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and
no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are
one.” (John
10:27-30)
Everywhere in
society there is advertising. Cars, clothes, food, university courses,
and many other benefits and opportunities are on offer, and together
with what is on offer there is the attempt to convince the viewer that
he or she has need of these things. Of course, a person may think he
has no need of
something which in fact he might greatly need. For
instance, an advertisement presents the opportunity of free testing for
hidden forms of cancer, and the viewer thinks he has no need whatever
of that testing. The result of what might be his
blindness and consequent lack of interest is that one year later he
falls victim to that very cancer and dies. If only he had understood
his need! There is another form of blindness that is the most
fundamental of all, and that is blindness to our need of God. Most
serious it is when this is a deliberate blindness, a choice to ignore
and
disregard God
and to prefer oneself instead. It is this which
happened in heaven long before man, when certain angels rebelled
against God and were cast out of Paradise. Their chosen blindness took
them to an eternal and living death. The first human couple, our first
parents also chose not to allow that they had any need for God. When
tempted by Satan they deliberately chose to reject God as being God,
and preferred instead to attempt to set themselves in God’s place. The
consequence of this was the dominion of sin over them and over their
own very nature, and with it the dominion of death. They turned God out
of their life and opened the floodgates to darkness and sin. Thus sin
inundated mankind, and with sin death inundated the world. But man’s
constant problem is that he feels little sense of his condition and of
his need.
God knew man’s true
condition and his consequent need. Because of his great love for the
world God refused to let sin remain in the world continuing on in its
all-conquering course. Sin left and leaves man helpless. Only God could
and can deal with it and this he did. The result was that we have with
us a stupendous and perfect redeemer, Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the
perfect jewel of our race, the priceless possession of man and the
universe. He is God-with-us, Emmanuel. Why on earth did God allow sin
to enter the world? The same question is asked of so many other
evils and sources of suffering. We do not know fully why God allowed
sin to enter the world. Of course if he were to create free beings at
all, then sin becomes an immediate possibility.
But beyond this obvious consideration, what we do know is that we now
have Jesus Christ our Lord as our redeemer and we have him because man
sinned. Because man sinned God sent his own beloved Son to do away with
sin and in his Son to give us himself. And so in the Exultet sung
during the Easter Vigil, we hear the words, “Father, to ransom a slave
you gave away your Son. O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam which
gained for us so great a Redeemer.” St Thomas Aquinas tells us that
“God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St
Paul writes, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded even more’.” (STh
III,1,3,ad 3). That is to say, we now have Jesus! As St Paul puts it,
in Christ we have been given every heavenly blessing. He is the pearl
of great price, and this pearl is the possession of anyone who comes to
Jesus to learn from him and to belong to him. Christ is our possession
and we are his possession. Let us resolve to belong to him entirely.
Christ
the Son of God is our Friend, our Redeemer and our God. That was the
Father’s answer to the proud and sinful rebellion of man. He gave us
the gift of his Son. Christ our Lord has brought us not only the
possibility of victory over sin if only we live in him with
consistency, but also a life of intimate friendship with him. He
calls us to be his friends. A marvellous union with God is now open to
us. Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel speak of his love and that of
the Father for each of us. They speak of our salvation from sin and
death, and of our life in union with him and with the Father. “My sheep
hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one
can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
(John
10:27-30).
Consider the love for us that permeates these words. Let us contemplate
the person of Jesus every day of our life, immersing ourselves in the
love he has for us and in his intent to save and sanctify us. Let us
resolve to abide in that love and make the person of Jesus our life and
our eternal possession.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.410-412
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Faith, cheerfulness, optimism.
But not the idiocy of closing one's eyes to reality.
(The Way,
no.40)
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When does one commit a mortal sin?
One commits a mortal sin when there are simultaneously present: grave
matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. This sin destroys
charity in us, deprives us of sanctifying grace, and, if unrepented,
leads us to the eternal death of hell. It can be forgiven in the
ordinary way by means of the sacraments of Baptism and of Penance or
Reconciliation. (CCC 1855-1861, 1874)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.395)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(May 6) Today let us think of St Petronax, St Dominic Savio (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today: Acts
14:21-27; Psalm 145:8-13; Revelation 21:1-5a;
John 13:31-33a, 34-35
When Judas had left
them, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is
glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him
in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be
with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love
one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another.” (John 13:31-33a,
34-35)
One of the most
perennial questions that relate to man is the question of happiness.
What is it that will bring happiness and fulfilment in life? There have
been a plethora of answers to this, together with the answers to the
question of what leads to the opposite, namely unhappiness. One common
answer is that the key to happiness and unhappiness is self-esteem.
This is not the place to discuss such matters, but one great modern
psychiatrist was Dr Victor Frankl. He himself had been in a
concentration camp during World War II and he saw before him so many
who were unhappy, and others who despite their conditions, retained joy
and happiness.
He asked, what was the key to the happiness of those who
had it? The answer, which he expressed in various published works over
the years of his professional career, was the possession of a sense of
meaning. That, of course, makes sense and it is a far more satisfactory
answer than many others (such as the possession of a lot of
self-esteem). However, it leaves unanswered the question of what
is the true meaning of things. A person may have a sense of meaning and
it may indeed give him a sense of happiness and fulfilment in life
despite adverse conditions he may be going through, but if the meaning
he sees in things is false then that is a pity and even a tragedy. The
important thing is that one’s life be based on truth and not just that
one be happy. One ought seek the meaning of things not simply to be
happy but to possess and live in light of the truth. The question,
then, is what is the true meaning of life, of the universe and of all
things? What a vast question! Consider the unimaginable extent of the
physical universe. Consider the unimaginable number of human beings
that will have existed over the course of all human history. Consider
the turbulence of human life and all things seen and unseen. What a
question it is to pose, the question of the meaning of life and all
things!
This question, of
course, takes us far beyond the competence of any psychiatrist, and
perhaps of any philosopher. Victor Fankl did not presume to answer the
question of the true meaning of things. Indeed, it is hard to see how
such an answer could be attained by the light of human reason alone. It
would seem to need a revelation from God, for it is so vast and deep a
question. But in fact, God has given us the answer to this question.
The meaning and purpose of all things is the glory of God, and man
attains his true meaning and happiness by seeking to render glory to
God in the way he lives his life. That will give his life great
meaning, and the meaning it gives is the true one. In our Gospel today
our Lord speaks of God being glorified, and of God being glorified in
the Son. “Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is
glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him
in himself, and God will glorify him at once’.” (John
13:31-33a)
These words indicate that for our Lord the all-important thing was that
his heavenly Father be glorified, and that his Father’s glory is
manifested in the glory of his Son who is the image and revelation of
the Father. Our Lord took on the sins of mankind and expiated for them
by his obedience unto death in order to make up for the offence to his
heavenly Father which they constituted. His obedience rendered glory to
the Father, and so the crucified Christ, dead on the cross because of
his obedience, is the greatest manifestation of the glory of God. It is
also the greatest manifestation of the evil of sin, because while it
was his obedience that led Christ there, it was our sins that drove in
the nails. The love and passion of his life was that God his Father be
glorified. Christ shows, then, the true meaning and purpose of all
things, and it is in and through him that we are able to know and
dedicate our lives to the true meaning and purpose of all things. No
matter how modest our attainments and abilities may be, each of us is
able to live for the glory and honour of God our Father. This we can
and are called to do by living in union with Christ. In him the mystery
of the meaning of life is made clear and achieved.
In our Gospel
passage today our Lord not only shows that the end of all things is the
glory of God, but he explains even more precisely how it is that God is
to be glorified by our lives. It is by living a life of love in
imitation of Christ. “My children, I will be with you only a little
while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have
loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will
know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
(John
13: 34-35).
God is love, and Christ by his life has revealed this. He wants us to
follow in his footsteps by living a life of love. This is done by a
loving and careful fulfilment of the responsibilities and duties of our
everyday life, in imitation, I would suggest, of Mary and Joseph, our
Lord’s two greatest and most intimate disciples. In this way will God
be honoured and glorified, and our lives attain their true meaning. Let
us, then, so live that God will be glorified and honoured.
(E.J.Tyler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That pose and that
self-satisfied manner don't suit you at all: they are easily seen to be
affected. Try, at least, to use them neither with God, nor with your
Director, nor with your brothers: and between them and you there will
be one barrier less.
(The Way,
no.47)
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What is the relationship between the
person and society?
The human person is and ought to be the principle, the subject and the
end of all social institutions. Certain societies, such as the family
and the civic community, are necessary for the human person. Also
helpful are other associations on the national and international levels
with due respect for the principle of subsidiarity. (CCC 1881-1882,
1892-1893)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.402)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“As I have loved you, so you also
should love one another” (John 13: 34-35)
St Augustine (354-430),
bishop and doctor of the Church (Tractate 65 on the
Gospel of John)
“I give you a new commandment: love one
another”... It is true
that love renews those who listen to it (or rather, those who act in
obedience to it) but it is that particular love which the Lord
distinguished from all natural affection by adding love one another as
I have loved you... “All the parts of the body have the same concern
for one another; and if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it;
if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.” (1 Co 12:25-26)
For they hear observe this new law: “I give you a new commandment: love
one another”: not in the way that the dissolute love one another, nor
as people love one another in a purely human way; but they love one
another as those who are “gods” (Jn 10:35). All of them are “children
of the Most High” (Lk 6:35) and consequently brethren of his only Son.
They share with each other the love with which he leads them to the end
that will bring them fulfilment and the true satisfaction of their real
desires. For when God is all in all, there is no desire that is
unfulfilled.
The one who loves his neighbour in a holy
and spiritual way, what
does he love in him but God? That is the love, distinguished from all
mundane love, which the Lord specially characterized, when he added “as
I love you”. For what was it that he loved in us but God? Not because
we possessed God already, but in order that we might possess him, and
that he may lead us onto that place where “God is all in all”. It is in
this way that a physician is properly said to love the sick; what is it
he loves in them but their health, which he desires to give them? He
does not love their sickness, which he comes to remove. ... "As I
have
loved you, so you also should love one another." This is the reason he
loved us: so that we also could love one another.
(Selected by "The Daily Gospel", New Hope, KY 40052. USA.)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(May 13) Today let us think of Our Lady of Fatima (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture: Acts 15:1-2,
22-29; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23;
John 14:23-29
Jesus said to his
disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love
him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever
does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not
mine but that of the Father who sent me. “I have told you this while I
am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told
you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world
gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or
afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to
you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before
it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”
(John 14:23-29)
There
have been philosophies which regard God as very distant from man. I
could mention deism, and even Marxism. For Karl Marx God is not only a
figment of the imagination,
but to be looking to him just distracts us
from our work in the world. Marx maintained that faith in God is just
an opiate of the people, a pie in the sky, a distant mirage. If we turn
to the religions of man, one of the things that distinguishes them one
from another is their notion of God’s distance from man. It is often
said that Islam has an image of God that is strongly marked by
transcendence. Islam insists that the one God is beyond all and above
everything. Now he is indeed, but this can be stressed in ways that
distort it. The pope once made the remark that the Islamic account of
God’s transcendence can seem to have God so transcending even
rationality as to disregard and contradict it in practice. Calvinism
stresses the sovereignty of God, which is an aspect of his
transcendence, in certain ways which the Catholic Church does not
allow. Whatever about these different accounts, there is no doubt that
for very many people God is beyond and distant from their life. God
seems a long way away. Now of course, the fact is that God is indeed a
long way off in that he utterly transcends the world in the nature of
his being and in the mystery of his plan. But this must be balanced by
other aspects of the divine nature. Because he is the creator he does
indeed transcend all, but at the same time precisely because he is the
creator he is imminent to all, sustaining the slightest particle of
reality by the touch, as it were, of his hand.
But what God has
actually revealed to us in Christ about his closeness to us is so
breathtaking that we can fail to realize it. This lack of realization
could be said to be the most serious and common failure of our everyday
faith. We shall only realize it if we think about it persistently,
advert to it often, and pray for the faith to accept what Christ has
said about it. God is not only intimately near to us in virtue of his
constant gift to us of our being, but he abides within us in his full
triune reality if we are in his grace and friendship. What does our
Lord say about this? “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father
will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
(John
14:23-29)
The three divine persons will dwell within us. If for love of Jesus we
accept the truth of his word and keep it in our everyday life,
observing his commandments for love of him, then both he and the Father
will come to us and make their home within us. This they will do by the
power of the Holy Spirit who comes to us at our baptism. Our heart will
be like the heavens above in that it will be the abode of God the
Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. For what is heaven if not
where God dwells in all his glory, together with the angels and saints
adoring and thanking him? It is where God is. Our Lord assures us that
he and the Father and the Holy Spirit will abide within the one who
keeps his word. It will all depend on our being in the state of grace,
which is to say in the friendship of Christ due to the grace of the
Holy Spirit. In effect this means that the home which is our heart and
soul is embraced by God the most holy Trinity himself and transformed
into his own royal mansion. At our baptism he comes to abide. We
can choose to reject his presence by deliberate mortal sin, or make it
difficult by unrepented venial sins. The great good news is that by
accepting Jesus Christ as Lord we have the privilege of the indwelling
of the Blessed Trinity in our hearts and souls. God is indescribably
near to the Christian soul not just by reason of his constant creative
activity, but as his living guest.
All this is made
possible by the power and action of the Holy Spirit. The Father and the
Son sent him at Pentecost to bring the Church to birth and to sustain
the Church in her mission to the world. It was the Holy Spirit, coming
to the infant Church, who transformed the body of Christ’s disciples
into a great temple of God the holy Trinity. At our baptism each of us
becomes members of this Church and dwelling places of the holy Trinity.
He it is who in and through the Church his creation brings the Blessed
Trinity to mankind and to each of us who are disciples of Christ and
members of his Church. He brings the Church to the four corners of the
earth precisely in order to bring God the most holy Trinity to abide in
the hearts of all men. Let us resolve to enliven our faith in this
stunning mystery, which is that if we live according to Christ’s word,
he and the Father and the Holy Spirit will constantly dwell within us
to sanctify us. Let us not take this for granted, nor with a shrug of
the shoulders live our lives as if it were not a reality. Our
temptation will be precisely to do this.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.731-732
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'One must compromise' I
Compromise is a word found only in the vocabulary of those who have no
will to fight — the lazy, the cunning, the cowardly — for they consider
themselves defeated before they start.
(The Way,
no.54
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where can one find the most complete
realization of the common good?
The most complete realization of the common good is found in those
political communities which defend and promote the good of their
citizens and of intermediate groups without forgetting the universal
good of the entire human family. (CCC 1910-1912, 1927)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.409)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(Seventh Sunday Ordinary Time C)
(May 20) Today let us think of Saint Paschal Baylon (Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture
today:
Acts
1:1-11;
Psalm 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9;
Ephesians 1:17-23 or
Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23;
Luke 24:46-53
Jesus said to his
disciples: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise
from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness
of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning
from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold I am
sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until
you are clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far
as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he
parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and
then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in
the temple praising God. (Luke 24:46-53)
As man looks out on
the world he sees many nations, many cultures, many religions, many
sources of authority of all kinds. Nations, classes of people, and
elements in nature compete and clash. It is not surprising that outside
Revealed Religion, and those religions (such as Islam) that have been
influenced by Revelation, belief in and worship of many gods has been
the norm. Polytheism reflects the fundamental pluralism of elements,
forces and influences in the visible universe. The facts of human
experience and the evident nature of the world do not allow of what we
might call a monism in philosophy. Visible
reality cannot be reduced to a unity, to one, to a single active
principle — which has been the tendency of various currents of
philosophy in the past. I remember reading of a
famous debate at the
University of Sydney between Father Paddy Ryan and Professor Anderson
(of Sydney University) that occurred over seventy years ago (in 1936).
In that debate Father Ryan declared that the tendency of modern
philosophy of that time was monist, which was the tendency to reduce
everything to one element or principle. Some seventy or more years
earlier in England Newman was writing in his Philosophical Notebook
his criticism of German philosophy that it tended to reduce everything
in the world to one principle. He would have nothing of it — basically
he was saying that it was an unreal simplification. Yes, indeed. The
world is a vast array of variation and number. Indeed,
so much is this so that it prompts another danger. The danger is that
one can slip into the opposite extreme of thinking that there is no
real meaning in things. And so there have been philosophies that lay it
down that all is a constant flux, that life is
basically a jumble, that there is no objective sense in things, that
there is no key to life. In these systems the opposite mistake is made
of
thinking that fundamentally there is no objective meaning to life and
the world.
But now, there is. Life
and the world can all be related to its single source which transcends
it and yet which is unimaginably imminent to it. I refer to the
almighty and infinite Creator God. There is one God who is the
creator, the Father and the ruler of all things both visible and
invisible. But there is more. There is one man who was and is part of
our world and who is the one king and lord of the universe. He, Jesus
Christ the only begotten Son of God, risen from the dead, holds in his
hand all authority in heaven and on earth. He is the King of kings and
the Lord of lords and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
This one person we can and must constantly look to and while the world
cannot be reduced to him, all things are to be viewed in relation to
him and are responsible to him. Today we celebrate the feast of the
Ascension into heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. We think of him having
completed his work on earth, of having expiated for the sin of man, of
having rendered perfect obedience to God his Father on behalf of us, of
having established and launched God’s Kingdom present in his Church,
and of now returning to his Father by whom he had been sent. He, our
brother and our redeemer, returns to the glory that was his before the
world began. He takes his seat at the right hand of the Father. That is
to say, he ascends to occupy the highest place of all, next to his
heavenly Father, at a level equal to his. It is like the newly crowned
king who ascends the steps before all who are present, reaches the top
and takes his seat on the throne. From that position he is seen to be
King and Lord. That is what was happening when our Lord ascended into
heaven as described in our Gospel account today: “Then he led them out
as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed
them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him
homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were
continually in the temple praising God” (Luke
24:46-53).
They did him homage, and were continually praising God.
So today we think of
Christ as universal King and Lord. We must get into the way of looking
on Jesus Christ as the unifying element in everything in the sense that
all that exists finds its meaning in him. He is the life and the light
of the world. All are called to be loving and faithful subjects of him
in his kingdom. This is done in and through the Church he founded and
of which he is the head and bridegroom. Jesus Christ is Lord, and he
who by his Ascension now transcends and is above all, is through his
Church utterly close to all and will be with us to the end. Then of his
kingdom there will be no end. So today let us repeat constantly, Jesus
Christ is Lord.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no. 668-679
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When a layman sets himself up
as an expert on morals he often goes astray: laymen can only be
disciples.
(The Way,
no.61)
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In what does the natural moral law consist?
The natural law which is inscribed by the
Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the
wisdom and the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense
which enables one to discern by reason the good and the bad. It is
universal and immutable and determines the basis of the duties and
fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the human
community and civil law. (CCC 1954-1960, 1978-1979)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.416)
--------------------------------(Back to Liturgical Day Index)--------------------------------
(Eighth Sunday Ordinary Time C)
(May 27) St
Augustine of Canterbury, bishop and missionary (died about 605).
Known as the Apostle of the English, St Augustine was Prior of St
Andrew's in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great sent him with a band of 40
missionaries to evangelise England. They landed at Ebbsfleet near
Ramsgate in 597. Augustine soon converted the local King Ethelbert
whose wife Bertha, daughter of the King of Paris, was already
Christian. Rather than ban pagan customs his missionaries incorporated
some old practices into the Christian worship. Augustine erected a
monastery at Canterbury and there he established his see. He founded
two more bishoprics at London and Rochester. He died at Canterbury
around this time in 605. From the earliest times St Augustine has been
venerated as the evangeliser of the English, although his relatively
short mission was confined to a limited area. No early images of
Augustine survive, but he is depicted in 14th century stained glass at
Christ Church, Oxford, at Canterbury Cathedral (1470) and in a cycle of
miniatures in the breviary of the Duke of Bedford (1424). He is also in
15th century frescoes in the church of St Gregory in Rome.
(Saints)
Click centre arrow to start video
Scripture today:
Acts
2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31,
34; John 20:19-23
On the evening of
that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their
midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he
showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they
saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the
Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he
breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins
you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
(John
20:19-23)
Mary MacKillop was
an extraordinary and great-souled Australian. One of her many notable
characteristics was her friendships with non-Catholics and
non-Christians. One non-Catholic friend whom Mary had and who helped
her considerably admired greatly her faith. This friend told her in
one letter that she could not seem to overcome her scepticism in
respect to revealed religion. She could not bring herself to believe.
What that very good non-Catholic woman was saying in her letter was
that she was helpless before her own basic dispositions. Far away in
England at the same time the great convert to the Catholic Faith, John
Henry Newman, had been repeatedly insisting in his writings on the
necessity of the right fundamental dispositions for faith. He was
saying that belief in Christ and in his revelation is not just the
result of an intellectual or scientific demonstration. A proof alone
will not overcome a basic unwillingness or incapacity to believe
because for there to be belief at all one must be duly disposed, which
is to say that one must be positively willing to believe. There has to
be a basic inclination of the will to assent to the truth of Christ and
his revelation. In his discussions of faith he stressed the paramount
importance not so much of a person’s logic and power to appreciate a
good demonstration as his basic starting points. If he is coming from
the right starting points, the right fundamental principles, the right
expectations, then the good demonstration will be of value in bringing
him to belief. There is a further problem, he explained. It is that
generally a person does not know what his own starting points are. Only
God really knows them, and so a person ought pray to God that he
implant in his heart the right dispositions and starting points for
faith.
We who believe in
Christ and in the authority of the Church to speak in his name tend to
take our faith for granted and not appreciate how precious and
indispensable this gift is. We tend to forget that it is actually a
gift that has come to us from on high. Without this gift we would not
be readily inclined to believe in our Lord and his teaching. We would
probably be inclined to be sceptical, especially inasmuch as we are
children of a culture that is sceptical about the supernatural. Because
we have been given this gift of faith at our baptism we are endowed
with a special gift that opens us to the person and goodness of our
Lord, and which helps us to appreciate his divine authority. We are
endowed at our baptism with the right dispositions that amount to an
instinctive readiness to believe in Jesus, to hope in him and to love
him, and with this to accept the nurture and help of the Church he
founded and sustains, and which in his providence he has placed us in
(CCC 1830-1831). I suppose we could liken it to the child’s instinctive
readiness to believe and love and hope in his parents. God is our
Father and Christ is our brother, and we have been born anew into his
family the Church. All this happened at our baptism, and at that
all-important event the Holy Spirit came upon us and endowed us with
the gifts of faith, hope and love that dispose us to accept and love
Christ and his revelation, together with further gifts to live our
moral life in accord with this faith in him. We can very easily take
all this for granted. If we do take it for granted, we may not act on
it very much. That is to say, we may be content to coast along at a
certain level in our life of faith happy to believe and never thinking
of abandoning our belief (because we are inclined to believe anyway),
but not really working on its growth. The great danger for the average
member of the Church is spiritual mediocrity. Faith is a great gift and
a great responsibility.
We should cultivate
great spiritual desires on the basis of the gift of our faith. We ought
cultivate a great desire to believe our Lord totally, to hope in him
utterly, and to love him with all our heart and soul. The gifts of
faith, hope and charity which we received from the Holy Spirit lay the
foundation and give us the basic disposition and inclination to set out
on this, but it requires that we work on it daily all through life. Our
companion in this is the Holy Spirit who has given us all the gifts we
need to live fully in Christ and become holy. Today is his great feast
day, Pentecost Sunday, when he came upon the infant Church to bring it
to birth and give it all the gifts it needed to succeed in its mission
of holiness and evangelization. Let us not make the Holy Spirit sad by
neglecting our high vocation.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the
Catholic Church, no.1830-1831
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Presbyter — Priest — means, literally, an elderly man. If old age
deserves veneration, think how much more you ought to venerate the
Priesthood.
(The Way,
no.68)
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What is justification?
Justification
is the most excellent work of God's love. It is the merciful and
freely-given act of God which takes away our sins and makes us just and
holy in our whole being. It is brought about by means of the grace of
the Holy Spirit which has been merited for us by the passion of Christ
and is given to us in Baptism. Justification is the beginning of the
free response of man, that is, faith in Christ and of cooperation with
the grace of the Holy Spirit. (1987-1995, 2017-2020)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.422)
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