Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today:
Acts 12:24-13:5a; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6 and 8; John 12:44-50
Then Jesus cried out,
When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the
one who sent me. When he sees me, he sees the one who sent me. I have
come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me
should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does
not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the
world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and
does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him
at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father
who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his
command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the
Father has told me to say.(John
12:44-50)
Christ
the centre
Central to our Lord’s message of the Good News is his own person. He manifests
the most profound humility combined with a presentation of himself as the object
of religious belief. Belief in his person and the acceptance of his person as
the light and life of the world, as the Messiah and as the Son of God, is the
door to salvation and to perfection in holiness. This is not only the case for
a select number of personal disciples but for the world.
I am the light of the world, he says. He commanded his disciples to go to the
whole world and make disciples of all the nations. Whoever believes and is
baptized will be saved. In volume I of his great book Jesus of Nazareth
(2007), Pope Benedict XVI comments respectfully on Rabbi Neusner’s dialogue
about Jesus (P.105), in which it is asked, what did the sage Jesus add to the
Law, the Prophets and the Scriptures? The answer is, Himself! Jesus’ very self
is central to his message. Perfection now consists in following the person of
Jesus and Jesus himself sums up the entire revelation of God. Indeed, Jesus
identifies himself with God. However, we also notice that in the very act of
pointing to himself as the object of revealed religion, Jesus points to the
Father. This is what we see our Lord stressing in our Gospel passage today.
“When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who
sent me. When he sees me, he sees the one who sent me.” So close is the
relationship of Jesus with the Father who is distinct from him as a person, that
when we believe in him, we are believing in the Father who sent him. Indeed,
when we see Jesus we see the Father who sent him. St Paul writes in one of his
Letters that Christ is the image of the invisible God, and our Lord stated to
his Apostles that the one who sees him sees the Father. So while our Lord in
his message points to himself, in his humility he points to the Father. With
the one hand Jesus points to himself and with the other to the Father.
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no‑one who believes in me should
stay in darkness.” He has come into the world as the light of the world, and his
word which is the light and life of men, will be their judge on the last day.
The word of Jesus has its origin in the command of the Father. “For I did not
speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and
how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I
say is just what the Father has told me to say” (John
12:44‑50). In pointing to his heavenly Father, he is revealing the
enormous implications of accepting or rejecting his word. What Jesus says comes
not only from himself but from the Father who sent him. Accepting and living
according to the word of Jesus means accepting both God the Son and the Father
who sent him, and all of this by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. So
then the entire religious life of the Christian comes down to this, hearing the
word of Christ and putting it into practice as being the word of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three divine persons. The Gospels present
us with the word of God the Holy Trinity, and the Holy Trinity stands revealed
as the heart and soul of divine revelation. May I suggest that we find ways of
constantly renewing our faith in the Holy Trinity. A very good practice to keep
this faith in the Trinity alive is at the beginning and end of every prayer to
make the sign of the cross with the hand touching the forehead, the chest and
then each shoulder all the while saying, “In the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Everywhere we see Moslems in their distinctive
garb. I would suggest that a very good way for the Christian to bear witness to
the Trinity is to make the sign of the Cross every time he prays, be it
privately in one’s own room or publicly when passing a Catholic church or when
dining in a restaurant.
Let
us resolve to place Jesus at the centre of our entire religious life. He is the
light of our life. But he is the image and revelation of the Father, and he who
sees Jesus sees the Father. What Jesus says is what the Father says and has
commanded him to say. What the Father and the Son do, they do by the power of
the Holy Spirit. By the grace of our baptism we have been granted a share in
the life of the Holy Trinity. God the Holy Trinity is our life now and
hereafter.
Holy shamelessness is a characteristic of the 'life of childhood.' A
little child worries about nothing. He makes no effort to hide his
weaknesses, his natural miseries, not even when everyone is watching
him.
This shamelessness applied to the supernatural life, brings with it the
following train of thought: praise, contempt; esteem, ridicule; honour,
dishonour; health, sickness; riches, poverty; beauty, ugliness...
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 13:13-25; Psalm
89:2-3, 21-22, 25 and 27; John 13:16-20
I tell you the truth, no
servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the
one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed
if you do them. I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have
chosen. But this is to fulfil the scripture: 'He who shares my bread
has lifted up his heel against me.' I am telling you now before it
happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I AM. I tell
you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever
accepts me accepts the one who sent me.(John 13:16-20)
Jesus is
divine
In any discussion of Christianity it has to be said time and time again that the
person of Jesus is the object of the Christian religion. Christ is God’s
greatest Messenger, but he is not just a messenger.
He is himself both the Saviour and the object of our love and worship.
Furthermore, in loving and worshipping him we love and worship, in and through
him, the Father, and we do this in the Holy Spirit. The Christian is not just a
follower, nor even just a disciple of Christ, as if Jesus were simply the
world’s greatest teacher and prophet. No, the Christian is one who loves Christ
and who wishes to love and worship him with all his heart and soul. This is
because Christ is God. He is divine. He is the one only God, though he is
distinct as a person from his heavenly Father who is also the one only God, as
is the Spirit of God who is also distinct as a divine person. So let us all,
throughout our life, contemplate the divinity of Jesus Christ because this is
the linchpin and distinguishing mark of true Christianity. Let us take our
Gospel passage today and consider its wonderful teaching. Our Lord is with his
Apostles at the Last Supper and has just washed their feet. He warns them that
one of their number will betray him and then says that “I am telling you now
before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I AM.” I
Am. The expression he uses in this remarkable assertion is the most hallowed in
Israel’s religious history: the Greek in St John’s Gospel is, ego eimi, I
AM. It is the same name (as translated from the Hebrew into the Septuagint
Greek) uttered by Yahweh when, at the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:14), Moses asked
for his name. I am who am, he replied. I am he who is. Thus shall you say to
the children of Israel, I AM, has sent you. So Yahweh God’s name was I AM — a
name that evoked a profound religious respect on the part of God’s chosen people
and an unending stream of theological and philosophical exploration over the
course of the centuries ever since. This was the name our Lord used to
designate himself in our Gospel today (John 13:16‑20). Our Lord was claiming to
be Yahweh God himself. He is the same Yahweh God who spoke to Moses — as is
also his heavenly Father.
Our Lord not only said this in the intimate circle of his Apostles during the
Last Supper, the night before he died on the Cross for mankind. He had said it
publicly. We read in John chapter 8 that our Lord made another extraordinary
claim. Whoever keeps my word will never see death. Whose word has this power
if not God? It was the whole drift and meaning of the Old Testament that man
lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God, and it was this which our
Lord quoted to Satan, when in the wilderness Satan tempted him to use his power
to feed himself from the stones of the desert. Man does not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Here our Lord is stating
publicly that whoever keeps his word will live forever. His audience responded
in astonishment: “Who are you claiming to be?” Abraham has died, they said, and
so have the prophets! In respect to Abraham, our Lord responded, he rejoiced
when he saw me. You have seen Abraham? they asked in astonishment. Yes, our
Lord replied, and “before Abraham ever was, I AM.” What could be clearer? He was
the Yahweh who had called Abraham and who had given to him his mission of being
father to God’s chosen people. He, Jesus, was the Yahweh (together with the
Father and the Holy Spirit) who had given his divine name to Moses from the
Burning Bush. We read that as soon as our Lord said this “they picked up stones
to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself in the Temple”
(John 8:58‑59). Again, on another occasion we read that on being
attacked by the leaders for curing on the Sabbath our Lord replied that “my
Father continues to work, and so therefore do I.” At this they were more intent
on killing him because, “not content with breaking the Sabbath he spoke of God
as his own Father and so made himself equal to God” (John 5:18). On a further
occasion he stated publicly that he and the Father were one, and that he was in
the Father and the Father was in him (John 10). At this, we read, they took
immediate action to execute him, but he eluded them.
Christ
gave himself up for the salvation of each and every man and woman. His offering
of himself for our salvation was an act of witness to the truth in obedience to
the will of the Father. That truth was above all the truth about himself and
all that he had revealed and would do for us. He is the Messiah and the Son of
God made man. He is the Lord God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, three
persons in one God. He is the Saviour of mankind and is the object of the
Christian religion. Life’s great project is to love him with all our hearts and
to bring the knowledge and love of him to the world.
Laugh at ridicule. Despise the bogey of what people will say. See and
feel God in yourself and in your surroundings. And you will acquire the
holy shamelessness that you need — what a paradox! — in order to live
with the refinement of a Christian gentleman.
(The Way, no. 390)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today:
Acts 13:26-33; Psalm 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11ab; John 14:1-6
Jesus said to his
disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also
in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would
have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with
me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where
I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are
going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the
truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:1-6)
The
Truth
Many decades ago in Australia it was difficult for the lay person to study
Religion formally at tertiary level, and then to attempt to use his studies to
forge a career. Philosophy of religion and Theology and allied subjects such as
the history of the Church and of Christianity were available in ecclesiastical
institutions of study (such as seminaries) but were not easily available at
secular institutions. It
was an academic anomaly in view of the great importance of these subjects, but
so it was. Religion was perceived as a matter of subjective personal opinion
and not as a serious academic project. All has now changed. There are abundant
opportunities to study Religion at tertiary institutions right to doctoral
level. In secondary schools whether state or religious, there are plenty of
opportunities to take Religious Studies. Many students excel in the field.
However, with this has come the tendency to set aside — without necessarily
intending it — the issue of truth. By that I mean that religion is studied as a
social, cultural or anthropological phenomenon and the question of the truth of
the religion being studied tends to be quietly set aside. At this point, then,
the underlying issue becomes obliquely philosophical. The unsaid assumption can
be that the truth of the matter cannot really be known, or that the truth of the
matter is not really important, or that there is no real truth but only personal
perceptions which are useful in some sense. Relativism rather than Realism then
drives the work at hand, and if we are speaking of the study or reading of
religion in a Catholic or Christian circle or school, then the situation has
become serious. The unspoken assumption that truth is relative to the perceiver
will undermine the foundations of religion in a person’s life, and especially in
the life of the Christian. Our Lord’s claims are absolute and objective.
Christ requires a realist philosophy, one that stands for the truth of what he
says and for the error of its denial. What I am saying is that in our day the
Christian must be alive to the presence and the temptation of Relativism in
religious belief.
Let these brief observations serve as a context for our reading of the Gospel of
today. Our Lord tells his disciples that they are to trust in God and to trust
in him — in him as if he were on a par with the Father, which he is. Then he is
asked by Thomas where he is going, and what is the way there. Our Lord replies,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No‑one comes to the Father except
through me” (John 14:1‑6). Our Lord does not say that he is a way, and
part of the truth and that he is offering some life. He says that
he is the way, the truth and the life. He reinforces his
utterance by an unambiguous declaration that no one can come to the Father
except through him. Now, one of the most persistent features of human culture
is the presence of religion. Religious practice characteristically shapes and
even drives human society, and the anomaly of modern secular culture is just
that — secularism is an anomaly. Even so, the various substitutes for religion
abound even in the modern age. Religion has always been widespread and the
various leaders and founders of religion have been critical to human history.
The great ones stand out: Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet and many
others. However, Christ states that no one comes to the Father except through
him. This is a core and fundamental Christian tenet, such that a person cannot
be regarded as a Christian in the sense intended by Christ, unless this unique
status of his be accorded to him. To be a Christian has to involve discovering
in faith that Christ is the only way to access the Father. Other ways may tend
to him but the only way to reach the Father is through Jesus Christ. He is the
one and only Saviour of the world. Therefore if, through his good life and
earnest efforts the non‑Christian reaches God (as we trust so very many would)
then it has been, unbeknown to him, due to the grace and work of Christ. This
truth about Christ ought drive a sense of mission in the daily life of the
Christian and lead him to bear witness readily in his everyday life to Christ
the one and only Saviour. This is why Christ commanded his disciples to preach
the good news to the whole world.
Let
us place ourselves in the intimacy of our Lord’s conversation with his Apostles
in our Gospel today. He asks us to trust in him — to trust in him and not in
other things. Let us then trust in him: Jesus, I trust in you! He is the one
sure object of human trust and faith. He will lead us to the Father if we but
cleave to him and live according to his word. No one can attain to the Father
except through Jesus. He is the only way to the Father. So let us live our
lives based on this great fact, and let us strive, for love of our fellow man,
to bring this truth to the world.
If you have holy shamelessness, you won't be worried by the thought of
'what will people say?' or 'what can they have said?'
(The Way, no.391)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts
13:44-52; Psalm 98:1- 4; John 14:7-14
Jesus said to his
disciples: If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.
From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show
us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you
know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us
the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the
Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it
is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I
say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least
believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the
truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He
will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the
Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may
bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and
I will do it.(John 14:7-14)
Jesus
and the Father
Just place yourself in the scene of the Last Supper and consider the context in
which our Lord makes his remarkable statements of our Gospel passage today. It
is the night before he is to suffer and to die. His life is about to end in
apparent disgrace and humiliation, abandoned virtually by all. There is
scarcely any possibility of pretence in the face of these circumstances.
Moreover, the scene is one of familiarity and intimacy.
Our Lord is with his Apostles and the communication between them is simple and
direct. There are no helps to a sense of awe and majesty surrounding the person
of Jesus. All his disciples see is the man before them with whom they have
constantly associated for the previous few years. So human is the situation
that even one of their own number on that very night will betray him into the
hands of his enemies. And yet amid this familiarity, amid this ordinariness and
lack of supporting phenomena our Lord makes a wondrous claim. He says that the
one who sees him sees the Father. He tells them that if they really know him,
they know the Father too. Indeed, he says, their having been with him so
constantly ought to have brought this home to them. “Jesus said to his
disciples: If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now
on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father
and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don’t you know me, Philip, even
after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen
the Father” (John 14:7‑14). Jesus is not
the Father, but to see him is to see the Father. So then, all that the Father
is the Son is, without the person of the Father being the person of the Son. As
St Paul writes, the Son is the image and the revelation of the Father. We can
imagine how the words of our Lord at the Last Supper burnt themselves into the
memory of John and how he would have pondered on them and preached on them all
his long life, recording them lovingly in his Gospel.
Our Lord then makes a remarkable statement about the relationship between him
and the Father which is so mysterious and yet so illuminating. He says, “How
can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father,
and that the Father is in me?” Consider the very wording our Lord uses. If two
friends are very close to one another, or even a husband and a wife, they might
say that they are united to one another in love. But they would not say, I
think, that they are “in” one another. The husband would not say of himself
that he is “in” his wife, and the wife would not say that she is “in” her
husband. But this is exactly what our Lord says of himself and the Father: the
Father is in me and I am in the Father. Moreover, our Lord speaks to Philip as
if this ought to have been evident to anyone who has seen him so constantly as
has Philip. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is
in me?” To speak of himself as in the Father is to suggest something far greater
and more ontological than merely a oneness in love. It suggests a union in the
very being of the two persons while retaining their duality precisely as
persons. There is not only a oneness in love between the two divine persons but
a oneness in their very being. Each of the two are the one God — there are two
persons “in” the one God. Each is “in” the other because each is the one divine
being. Neither person can be regarded as in any sense distinct from the being
of the one only God, and yet the Father is distinct in his personhood from the
person of the Son, just as, we might add, the Holy Spirit is distinct in his
person from both the Father and the Son. Our Lord in these very simple terms
speaks of the holy Trinity and of the unique and incomparable relationship he
has with the Father. Moreover, this ineffable partnership between Jesus and the
Father is operative in all that our Lord does. “The words I say to you are not
just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”
What
a wonderful thing it is, then, to enter into a relationship with the living,
risen Jesus. In seeing him we see the Father. In entering into union with him,
we enter into union with the fullness of the Godhead and with each of the three
divine persons. How great is the effectiveness of our prayer if we direct our
prayer to Jesus, for he says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that
the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name,
and I will do it” (John 14:7‑14). The
mystery of the Blessed Trinity, one God in three persons, is at the heart of the
entire Christian life and is the source of all our hopes.
Convince yourself that there is no such thing as ridicule for whoever
is doing what is best.
(The Way, no.392)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prayers this week: Sing to the
Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous deeds; he has revealed to
the nations his saving power, alleluia.(Psalm
97: 1-2) God
our Father, look upon us with love. You redeem us and make us your
children in Christ. Give us true freedom and bring us to the
inheritance you promised. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ
your Son in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Saint for Today: Click here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the
calendar day on which you are reading this reflection. Use your
Internet browser's "back" arrow twice to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts
6:1-7; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12
Jesus said to his
disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also
in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would
have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with
me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where
I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are
going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the
truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. If
you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you
do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father
and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me,
Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who
has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in
me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the
Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that
I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the
evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who
has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater
things than these, because I am going to the Father.(John 14:1-12)
The
value of life
One of the most serious and contested issues of the modern world is the status
of human life when life is difficult, inconvenient and painful. When this is
the case, how is the value of that life to be regarded? A child is conceived —
perhaps out of wedlock — and the fact perhaps brings enormous difficulties.
How is the value of that new life to be regarded in view of the difficulties? Is
it an absolute value or must it give way before the value of a life of relative
tranquillity? Or again, a state (let us say, China) judges that for the
tranquillity of the nation a limit to births in all families must be imposed by
any means. So while an unborn child has a certain value it may be aborted in
view of the perceived value of national prosperity. Let us take another
scenario. An elderly person is suffering from constant loneliness and
depression and sees no value in his or her life. Life is difficult and so its
value is considered by her and her relatives to be of little value precisely
because of the difficulties it entails. Or again, it may not be the difficulty
of depression. The difficulty could be entirely physical — life has brought a
debilitating and painful cancer. So what is the value of her life? Again, the
person may not be suffering from a chronic depression or physical pain. He
simply may not see any purpose in life. Life is perceived as meaningless and
boring. So he thinks it has no value and society may be tempted to allow him
the right to act on this perception. My point in mentioning these various
attitudes is simply to highlight the contemporary tendency to relativize the
value of human life. Life tends to be regarded as having value if it is free
from difficulty or inconvenience. This is not the time to engage in a serious
philosophical analysis of the validity of these judgments. Rather, I would like
simply to consider the Christian view as grounded in the words of Jesus Christ.
Let us then briefly consider what our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel suggest
about the value of our life, even if and when it proves to be difficult.
First of all, whatever be our difficulties in life our Lord tells us that we are
not to let our hearts be troubled. There is consolation nearby, and its source
is above all God. Whatever be the difficulty, we are to trust in Jesus and in
the Father. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust also
in me.” Whether it be the mother bearing her unborn and perhaps unexpected
child, whether it be the person suffering from a long‑standing depression,
whether it be the person who sees no point in life, whether it be the elderly
person consumed in pain, the practical answer is not to set life aside but to
trust in God and to trust in Christ. Now, this is not merely the answer for the
individual. It is the answer for the world. In the face of difficulties
countries are not to put down human life in order to avoid difficulty and
inconvenience. God and his law are to be followed and in a spirit of religious
trust. Moreover, this world and this life is not all that there is. There is
something far more wonderful to hope for and a great reward is in store for the
one who resolutely pursues the path of Christ whatever be the difficulty. Our
Lord tells his disciples that “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were
not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be
with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1‑12).
Everything of true worth is to be found in God and in Jesus, and hence we have a
wonderful hope to live by in the midst of life’s difficulties. Those who make
the value of life relative to the degree of difficulty it involves, have not
accepted Christ’s teaching on the joy of eternity ahead of us. I will take you
to be with me, our Lord assures us. A famous writer of the nineteenth century,
John Henry Newman, wrote at the end of one of his greatest books that life is
short and eternity long. Every person who is living what the providence of God
has allowed to be a difficult life, ought remember those words. He ought trust,
have faith, and he ought to hope.
Jesus
Christ is the way, the truth and the life. In the nineteen thirties in Rome
there lived a child suffering from bone cancer. Her name was Antonietta,
nicknamed Nannolina. When she was five years of age one of her legs had to be
amputated. She bore it cheerfully saying she connected it with Jesus’
suffering. As her disease worsened, she dictated poems or letters to God, Jesus
and Mary. She died five months before her seventh birthday, and the letters
were later cited as the record of a young mystic. The Pope has announced that
he hopes that this child will eventually be canonized. The Pope said that “in a
few years, Nennolina reached the summit of Christian perfection that we are all
called to climb; she quickly travelled the superhighway that leads to Jesus.”
She recognized the value of her life and acted on it in the midst of all her
sufferings. Let us resolve to value every single life whatever be its pain and
to bear witness to this before others.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church,
no.2259-2283
(Respect for human life)
A man, a 'gentleman', ready to compromise would condemn Jesus to death
again.
(The Way, no.393)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts
14:5-18; Psalm115:1-2, 3-4, 15-16; John 14:21-26
Jesus said to his
disciples: Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who
loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will
love him and show myself to him. Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said,
But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the
world? Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with
him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you
hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I
have spoken while still with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and
will remind you of everything I have said to you.(John 14:21-26)
Ultimate love The
foremost religious mind of nineteenth century England was John Henry (later
Cardinal) Newman, the most famous Catholic convert of the time. In his account
of the development of his religious views (his Apologia pro Vita Sua of
1864) he states that the principal literary influence on his early years was
Thomas Scott, and in particular Scott’s autobiography, The Force of Truth.
Now if we look at Scott’s Force of Truth it is evident that a most
influential consideration in Scott’s own conversion was the thought of God’s
judgment and the real possibility — considering the direction he was taking — of
his being condemned to Hell. It seems to me that however much Scott devoted
himself to the study of Scripture, the testimony of his guilty conscience that
God is a Judge constituted a major starting point in his religion. I mention
this as something of an introduction to the issue of how God is viewed in the
religions of man. Consider the images of God or the gods in the religions of
the world, and ask what is the predominant feature in those images and what
attitude to him does it evoke? Is the predominant image of God that of a Judge,
or perhaps of a distant Ruler? It would involve a very extensive study to hazard
an answer to this question, but the question does lead to the consideration of
Revelation. In his revelation of himself to Abraham, the patriarchs and
prophets, and then in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord God reveals himself
as rich and multi‑faceted in his being. But above all he reveals himself as a
holy and loving Father. In some religions holiness as such is not a
particularly notable feature of the divine, and sometimes it can be virtually
missing. The god of the religion in question may not be holy. In historical
revelation however, God is revealed as absolutely holy. He is holy and he
requires holiness: Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord. Moreover, surprise of
surprises, this holiness of God is discovered to be loving. He loves and he
invites his sinful creatures to love him. As our Lord says in summing up the
Law and the Prophets, we ourselves are to love God with all our heart, mind,
soul and strength.
This revelation of a God who loves and who asks for love is shown in our Gospel
passage today (John 14:21‑26). Our Lord
himself is the object of our love: if you love me, you will keep my commands.
Christ is himself the object of the love of the Christian, and it is this love
which distinguishes the religion of the Christian. I mentioned earlier the
figure of John Henry Newman. In his writings he stresses that authority and
obedience are of the essence of religion, and in saying this he is countering a
religion based on personal and private judgment. But what his words also do is
to stress that the test of authentic religion is the readiness to do God’s will,
to obey his commands. God is holy, and because of his holiness he requires that
we be holy. This means obeying his will, fulfilling his commands. This then is
the test of our love for the God who has loved us first, that we obey his
commands. And so it is that in our Gospel passage today our Lord says to his
disciples: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show
myself to him.” God loves us and he expects us to obey him. His commands are
revealed in the words of his Son. If we love Christ we will obey his commands
and the Father and the Son will love us. They will come and make their home
within us. God the Holy Trinity is a God of love, and we abide in the love of
each of the divine persons by obeying the commands of Christ. “He who does not
love me,” our Lord continues, “does not obey my teaching.” Moreover, in the
great work of abiding in the love of Christ and of the Father, we have a divine
Counsellor. He is the third divine person, the Holy Spirit. “The Counsellor,
the Holy Spirit,” our Lord continues, “whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
(John 14:21‑26).When we think of the
one only God who has revealed himself as being three divine persons, let us
think of a God who loves and that we abide in his love by obeying his will.
Let
us resolve to use our short lives to fill our hearts with the love of God. Is
God our Judge? Yes indeed. Is he our Ruler and Lord? Yes indeed. He is all
these things but beyond everything he is the One who loves us. He is Love. He
is our Father. But that love is holy and if we are to abide in his love we must
do what he has commanded so as to be holy ourselves. So then, as St Ignatius of
Loyola asks in his Spiritual Exercises, Lord, take all, but give me your
love and your grace.
To compromise is a sure sign of not possessing the truth. When a man
gives way in matters of ideals, of honour or of Faith, that man is a
man without ideals, without honour and without Faith.
(The Way, no.394)
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts
14:19-28; Psalm 145:10-11, 12-13ab, 21; John 14:27-31a
Jesus said to his
disciples: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give
it to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do
not be afraid. You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back
to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the
Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it
happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak
with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no
hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I
do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
(John 14:27-31a)
The
peace of Christ
I remember watching a movie years ago and it portrayed a young soldier in the
First World War who had, out of overwhelming fear, briefly deserted. He was
then arrested and condemned to be shot for his desertion. It showed his fear of
death as it approached, a fear he could not control. Few
things are more understandable than the fear of death and it would normally
require a very special motive to overcome this fear. As I mentioned once before
when commenting on the Gospels, I remember reading a great Australian novel many
years ago and the most memorable scene in it for me was the dying moments of a
relative of one of the leading characters. The leading character stepped
forward and said, “Have no fear of death, John!” It was the one scene in the
novel I will probably always remember but on reflection I knew it was quite
unreal. It was unreal because no motive was given in that scene for not fearing
death. The dying person was simply told not to fear death. There is every
reason to fear death unless we have an objective reason for not doing so. The
greatest of persons will fear death and will do all that is reasonable to avoid
it. But now, let us consider Christ as his death approached. During the few
years of his public ministry he explicitly referred to his coming death, both
with his disciples and publicly. For example, after he elicited from Simon
Peter his profession of faith in him as the Messiah he told the Twelve that he
would suffer and be put to death and then rise again. This he stated on more
than one occasion and even publicly — as we read especially in the Gospel of St
John. He would be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
At the age of twelve the boy Jesus astonished the doctors of the Law who engaged
with him in discussion in the Temple. I suspect that on that occasion the great
Child was probing and discussing the Messianic prophecies, including that of the
Suffering Servant. His redemptive death would never have been far from his
thoughts.
But consider the calmness with which Christ prepared for and encountered his
greatest tribulations. Throughout his public ministry he constantly displays
fortitude in the face of affliction and during the Last Supper, from the account
of which our passage today is drawn, Christ is serene, loving and full of
strength. The prince of this world is coming, he says during that Supper, and
he has no power over me. He allows the full impact of his coming death to
submerge him during his Agony in the Garden but he is in ultimate command
nevertheless. That is to say, Christ is at peace. In the midst of his greatest
afflictions during his Passion and then right to his sense of abandonment at the
moment of his death, there is in Christ a peace that is never shaken. We get
the sense of this during his interrogation by the High Priest, during his
dialogue with Pontius Pilate, during his sentencing, during his brief
interchanges with the sorrowing women, right to the end. He is the Strong Man
of history bearing the sins of history to their ultimate conclusion in his own
body. Peace of heart, peace of mind, peace of soul is his hallmark as he
expiates for the sins of the world amid incalculable suffering and distress.
Now, what does he promise his disciples? He promises peace to them. “Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”
(John 14:27‑31a). Christ did not come to
take away affliction nor death — temporal death, that is. But he did come to
bring a share in his own peace, and not the peace that the world offers. It is
a share in the peace of God that comes from being united to God as Christ was
united to the Father. By being in Christ we are united to the Father and
nothing can take away that peace if that union with Christ endures. In him is
to be found every heavenly blessing, and so union with him will bring a share in
his peace.
The
first and most important thing in life is holiness in Christ and that is
attained by means of union with him. Peace will come if this union with him is
maintained and grows. It will mean that we can face whatever the future brings
with tranquillity. On the tomb of Mary MacKillop in Sydney are written the
stark words, Trust in God. That trust, that faith, that hope, and that love
will bring peace, a share in the peace of Christ who died for us on the Cross.
Listen to a man of God, an old campaigner, as he argues: 'So I won't
yield an inch? And why should I, if I am convinced of the truth of my
ideals? You, on the other hand, are very ready to compromise... Would
you agree that two and two are three and a half? You wouldn't? Surely
for friendship's sake you will yield in such a little thing?'
And why won't you? Simply because, for the first time, you feel
convinced that you possess the truth, and you have come over to my way
of thinking!
(The Way, no.395)
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 15:1-6; Psalm 122:1-5; John 15:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples: I am the
true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He cuts off every branch in me that
bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it
will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have
spoken to you. Remain in me as I remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by
itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him,
he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not
remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches
are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words
remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my
Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.(John 15:1-8)
Christ
the Vine
It would be difficult to think of any serious teacher in history who envisaged
such an intimate and ongoing relationship with his disciples as did Jesus.
Consider the images he uses in our Gospel passage today, drawn as they are from
the Old Testament. He is the vine, indeed the true vine. We remember the image
in the prophet Isaiah of how God was disappointed with the fruit of his vine,
the vine being his chosen people.
Jesus tells his disciples that he himself is the true vine who is the source of
the fruit expected by his Father the vinedresser. But while he is the vine, his
disciples too are part of the vine in that their relationship with him is that
of the branches of the vine. The Kingdom of God consists in the first place in
the person of Jesus himself, in whom the lordship of God is fully and perfectly
present. It also includes those who are united to him and who live in him. If
they are united to him they will produce much fruit, but if not they will
produce nothing. Such is the union between Christ and his disciples. Hence
their constant task is to remain in him as he remains in them. There are a
couple of things especially emphasized here. Firstly, our Lord stresses the
importance of bearing fruit. Indeed, it is the constant refrain all through the
Old Testament that the people of God’s choice are a disappointment to him. They
are continually lapsing into infidelity. It is presented as tragic because
their ultimate mission is to bring a divine blessing to all the peoples. In our
passage our Lord gives the key to bearing the fruit that God expects and which
will give glory to him. The key is to remain united to Jesus. The fruit sought
by God will come if this union with Jesus remains and is deepened.
Secondly, our Lord stresses the ongoing action of the Father on the branches of
the vine. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He cuts off
every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit
he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because
of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:1‑8).
God our heavenly Father, by his providence and his grace, is continually trying
to purify us of whatever impedes the bearing of the fruit he intends. That
fruit is holiness of life and the advance of holiness in others. The challenge
of daily life is to submit to this purification by the Father, allowing
ourselves to be purged of sin and self as the days and years of life proceed,
and as our work in life is pursued. We submit to his action by taking all the
means of receiving divine grace into our souls. Firstly, it means assiduously
and with faith approaching and receiving the Sacraments, most especially the
holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is the summit and the source of the entire
Christian life, because it is the very person of Jesus himself. With him comes
all the grace that he obtained for us. Participating in Mass, Sunday by Sunday,
and even more often if possible; receiving Holy Communion with the utmost
devotion; and cultivating in our daily life a devout faith in the real presence
of Christ in the Tabernacle, are principal means of ensuring that we remain in
Jesus and are open to the grace that will purify us of all that impedes the
fruit that God is expecting. Apart from the Eucharist, the Catholic knows that
the Sacrament of Penance is of major importance in receiving the purifying grace
of God. In that Sacrament our heavenly Father forgives us our sins and
fortifies us against future sin so as to enable us to bear more fruit. Then
there is daily prayer, a regular examination of conscience, and spiritual
reading that nourishes our mind and heart. In a word, a true regime of life in
Christ must be adopted in order for the grace of God to bear the fruit
intended.
Let us take to heart our Lord’s words describing our vocation, which is to live
in him. He is the vine, we who are his disciples are the branches. He is our
life and the source of all the good that God our Father intends us to do. Our
heavenly Father means to assist us to keep united to Christ his Son, for it is
through this union with him that we shall bear much fruit, fruit that will bring
glory to God.
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 15:7-21; Psalm 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 10; John 15:9-11
Jesus said to his disciples: As the
Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my
commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands
and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and
that your joy may be complete.(John 15:9-11)
There is an old expression, and it
refers to what is at the core of a person’s life. We often ask, what is it that
makes a person “tick”? We are referring here to what is driving a person’s
conscious and deliberate life and which at root shapes his thinking and his
choices. It can be very difficult to determine this, and I suppose what we are
referring to
here are the fundamental starting points. It is often pointed out that in the
science of logic there are certain basic assumptions or givens that act as the
starting point of logical reasoning. Those givens are not proven from previous
premises but are taken for granted as not needing proof. If in fact in the view
of others they do require proof then the entire argument will be unconvincing.
If an argument starts with the given that we have a conscience that apprehends
what is morally good, then this argument will not appear as valid to the person
who regards the “so-called conscience” as just a mental association produced by
social and family conditioning. So there are starting points that make a person
“tick”, as we might say. Cardinal Newman wrote in one letter towards the end of
his life that at times a person’s true starting points are entirely hidden from
his view. Whatever about this, my point here is simply to highlight the
importance of whatever it is that at root drives and shapes a person’s
deliberate choices and values, and therefore his life. Let us turn to the Man of
all men, the Man of the ages and the reference point for all of humanity. I
refer to Jesus Christ, and I wish to ask with due reverence, what made him
“tick”? What was at the root of his human and divine life? Our Gospel passage
today throws light on this question. The starting point and foundation of
Christ’s life was his profound awareness of the love of his heavenly Father for
him. It was also the basis of his love for us. “As the Father has loved me,” our
Lord says to his disciples, “so have I loved you.”
It would be a very fruitful exercise for
any disciple of Christ to go carefully through each of the Gospels searching for
allusions to Christ’s awareness of the love of his heavenly Father for him. The
Gospel of St John, from which our Gospel passage today is drawn, is especially
replete with them, and particularly so in the chapters giving our Lord’s
discourses at the Last Supper. Compare these allusions to the love of the Father
for him and his unique relationship with the Father with anything comparable in
the literary remains of the great founders of the religions of the world. Our
Lord’s relationship with his heavenly Father and his profound consciousness of
the love of his Father for him is the greatest thing in his great life. But now,
our Gospel passage tells us something we just must take to heart. Our Lord says
that “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Consider Christ’s
consciousness of the greatness of the Father’s love for him and ponder then on
how great his love for us must be, for he compares his love for us with the love
the Father has for him. He puts them on a par. He does not merely say that since
the Father has loved me, so then I also love you. Any one of us may in a sense
say that. There is nothing distinctive about an assertion of that kind. No,
Christ’s love for us is placed by him on a par with that of the Father’s love
for him. Indeed, Christ in his love for us reveals the Father’s love. That is
the meaning of the Cross. It is from the Cross that the love of God is revealed.
Moreover, we are told how to remain in this overflowing love of Christ for us.
Just as he himself has remained in his Father’s love by obeying his commands, so
too we shall remain in Christ’s love by obeying his commands. Obedience to
Christ is the test of our love for him and it is the means of abiding in it. And
how do we know what is the will of Christ? The word and will of Christ is
brought to us by the Church his body in her book which is the Sacred Scriptures
and in her Tradition.
One of the notable features of modern
man is the prevalence of depression. We search for joy and so often it eludes
us. Our Lord tells us where our true joy will come from. It comes from abiding
in the love of God and that is to be found in the person of Christ. He was full
of joy because his life was grounded on the Father’s love for him. Our Lord
tells us that “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your
joy may be complete”(John 15:9-11).
Christ’s
love
In the science of logic it is accepted that there are certain basic axioms that
act as the starting points of logical reasoning. They are not proven from
previous premises but their truth is taken to be evident. They are considered
as not needing proof. Indeed, any argument is ultimately based on certain
starting points that are taken to be evident. If in the view of others they do
are not evidently true but require proof then the argument which is based on
them will be unconvincing. For instance, if a certain moral view is based on
the belief that we have a conscience — by which we can know what is morally good
— that view will be questionable to the person who regards the “conscience” as
just a mental association produced by social and family conditioning. Just as
in logic, so too in real life there are fundamental assumptions. We often ask,
what is it that makes a person “tick”? We are referring here to what is driving
a person’s conscious and deliberate life and which at root shapes his thinking
and his choices. What we are raising the question of the assumptions or
starting points that act as the basis of a person’s thought. Cardinal Newman
wrote in one letter towards the end of his life that at times a person’s true
starting points are entirely hidden from his view. My point here is to
highlight the importance of whatever it is that fundamentally drives and shapes
a person’s deliberate choices and values, and therefore his life. A person’s
whole life will depend on where he is coming from, and the foundation of his
perception of reality. Well then, let us turn to the Man of all men, the Man of
the ages and the reference point for all of humanity. I refer to Jesus Christ,
and I wish to ask with due reverence, what made him “tick”? What was at the root
of his human and divine life? Our Gospel passage today throws light on this
question. The starting point and foundation of Christ’s life was his profound
awareness of the love of his heavenly Father for him. It was also the basis of
his love for us. “As the Father has loved me,” our Lord says to his disciples,
“so have I loved you.”
It would be a very fruitful exercise for any disciple of Christ to go carefully
through each of the Gospels searching for allusions to Christ’s awareness of the
love of his heavenly Father for him. The Gospel of St John, from which our
Gospel passage today is drawn, is especially replete with them, and particularly
so in the chapters giving our Lord’s discourses at the Last Supper. Compare
these allusions to the love between him and the Father, with anything comparable
in the literary remains of the great founders of the religions of the world.
Our Lord’s relationship with his heavenly Father and his profound consciousness
of the love of his Father for him is the greatest thing in his great life. But
now, our Gospel passage tells us something we just must take to heart. Our Lord
says that “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Christ is
profoundly conscious of the infinite love of the Father for him. Ponder then on
how great his love for us must be, for he compares his love for us with the love
the Father has for him. He puts them together. He does not merely say that
since the Father has loved me, so then I also love you. Any one of us may in a
sense say that. There is nothing distinctive about an assertion of that kind.
No, Christ’s love for us is placed by him together with that of the Father’s
love for him. Indeed, Christ in his love for us reveals the Father’s love.
That is the meaning of the Cross. It is from the Cross that the love of God is
revealed. Moreover, we are told how to remain in this overflowing love of
Christ for us. Just as he himself has remained in his Father’s love by obeying
his commands, so too we shall remain in Christ’s love by obeying his commands.
Obedience to Christ is the test of our love for him and it is the means of
abiding in it. And how do we know what is the will of Christ? The word and will
of Christ is brought to us by the Church in her Book which is the Sacred
Scriptures, and in her Tradition which is her life.
One
of the notable features of modern man is the prevalence of depression. We
search for joy and so often it eludes us. Our Lord tells us where our true joy
will come from. It comes from abiding in the love of God, and that is to be
found in the person of Christ. He was full of joy because his life was grounded
on the Father’s love for him. Our Lord tells us that “I have told you this so
that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete”
(John 15:9‑11).
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 15:22-31; Psalm 56: 8-10
and 12; John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples, My command
is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I
command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his
master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I
learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I
chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit— fruit that will last. Then the
Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each
other. (John 15:12-17)
God is
love
A very interesting aspect of the study of comparative religion is the matter of
the various images of the divine — of the numinous, to use a common
contemporary term — which the religions of man evince. Religion involves man’s
contact with and perception of the great God, or the gods, as the case may be.
What is his feeling towards the Object of his religion? Broadly, we may say that
he fears, and yet is drawn to, the Powers above.
That having been said, I think we could say that, to the extent that the Powers
above are seen genuinely to bear upon man, the predominant attitude in man is
something like fear. Many, and even most, of the gods and goddesses of
classical Greece and Rome did not really bear on man. They lived a life apart
and were engrossed in their activities which reflected the interests,
limitations and foibles of man. But where the gods truly bear on man — as in
various religions of primal peoples — they tend to be threatening, even though
man sees himself as depending on them for his daily needs. They are very easily
irritated. If the ceremonies are not performed, they react very adversely.
They need to be placated and kept in good spirits. That is to say, they are not
really friends to man. It would be inappropriate to describe the average
man’s relation with the gods, or the high god, as that of friend to friend. But
the situation alters with the historical intervention of the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. He is truly the Lord, the Lord high God of all, but he calls
man as a true friend. From the outset he establishes a covenant that sets up a
kind of sharing of life and a mutual understanding. There are terms of
agreement and this one only God promises fidelity — a fidelity like that between
a husband and a wife. More than this — the spousal relationship is far deeper
than the ordinary relationship obtaining between spouses of ancient times.
Indeed, this image of the betrothal between God and his people is the foundation
and model of a new relationship between spouses, as presented in the first pages
of Genesis. There, the man and his wife are said to leave their parents and
become one flesh.
Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, was united to his people as a husband is united
to his spouse. That having been said, when we consider the religion of the Old
Testament, the tension between feelings of fear and love are still present. So
much is this the case that many characterize Yahweh as being primarily a God of
wrath. By contrast, it is said, the God of the New Testament is a God of love.
This is a caricature, but it illustrates the incomplete nature of God’s
revelation as it stands in the Old Testament. More was to come, and it involved
a full revelation of divine love. God revealed himself progressively to his
chosen people, and the full and definitive revelation of himself comes in the
person of Jesus Christ. The author of the Letters of St John defines God as
love. God is love. This overturns the image of the divine obtaining in the
religions of man. In historical revelation, when God bears on man he is shown
to be man’s Friend. Love is the womb of the universe and of all reality. Love
enwraps all of creation, visible and invisible. If a Big Bang marked the
beginning of the universe, it was an outpouring of divine love and its fruit
was the visible creation, set now on its long history which reached its climax
in the appearance of man. Love is its source and love is its stay. The cosmos
is held together by love, and love is its driving engine. The hand of God is
tender and caressing, and it gently sustains the mighty Fact which we call the
universe, and which we behold and study day and night. All of this is revealed
in and by Jesus Christ. He is God become man, and his supreme act is the gift
of himself on the cross out of love for each one of us. Christ loved me, St
Paul wrote, and gave himself up for me. For love of each of us, he took away
the sin of the world by bearing it on his shoulders and expiating for its vast
offence. It left him dead, and Christ dead on the Cross is the ultimate
revelation of who God is and what he is like. He is an unlimited Well of love,
love pouring forth like a mighty volcano of affection for all his creatures, no
matter how minute in the scheme of things. All God wants is to be our Friend.
God
has loved us, and wishes that we imitate him in his life of love. Let us take
to heart our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel. “I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called
you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to
you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit— fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in
my name.” On this basis of Christ’s love for us, let us do what he commands.
“This is my command: Love each other” (John 15:12‑17)
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts
16:1-10; Psalm 100:1b-2, 3, 5; John 15:18-21
Jesus said to his
disciples: If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is,
you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No
servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will
persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours
also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not
know the One who sent me.(John 15:18-21)
Enemy of
God
Go through the average university library and observe the vast numbers of
volumes there, thinking of the amount of research and writing they represent.
Take the observation further, and consider the reflections on the world that are
contained in those volumes.
Mankind has expended an incalculable amount of time studying the world and
analysing its innumerable aspects. There are some fundamental observations that
can be made about the world that touch on the roots of its very reality. For
instance, one such observation is that the world cannot sustain itself in
being. One cannot say about it that it simply is. It is, but it need not be.
It happens to exist and the fact that it does exist when it need not implies
that ultimately it is sustained by something that simply and necessarily
exists. It is contingent on something that is necessary. But now, there is
another fundamental feature of the world that probably would not dawn on
philosophers and metaphysicians had it not been revealed. It is that this
contingent world is, in many respects, in a state of enmity with the necessary
Being who sustains it. The world is not pliant in the hand of its Sustainer.
It remains in a state of tension against his will. How do we know this? If on
various grounds it is granted that there is a God and that God is good, then the
vast moral evil in the world would indicate that in some way the world is in
rebellion against its good God. But more than anything, it is the response of
man to God’s revelation that shows that the world is not accepting of its God.
At the very beginning, man refused to obey. He sinned and he fell. The story
of mankind as presented in the Scriptures is the story of sin in the face of
God’s love and fidelity. But above all, the stance of the world towards God is
revealed in its response to the coming of the Son of God. As St John writes in
his prologue, the Word was made flesh. He came unto his own and his own did not
receive him. That is what happened when God came to dwell among us. He was not
accepted. Indeed, he was utterly rejected and put to death.
This is the sense in which our Lord at times speaks of the world. In our Gospel
passage today our Lord says that the world “hated” him. He is speaking of all
those who did reject him and in speaking thus he points to a vast element in
mankind that is hostile to God and to goodness. Man and the world came forth
from the hand of God and yet to a great degree it is hostile to God. It is like
the anomaly of a child who is hostile to a good and loving parent who gave him
life and opportunities. It may be deemed a mystery, the mystery of human choice
and of how it can turn away from the good. Our Lord says that the world hated
him first — he is not speaking of everyone and everything in the world, but he
is speaking of a sufficiently large element to warrant the world being
characterized in that way. He also says that those who follow him must expect
the same. There will be incomprehension and hostility. For example, an
archbishop of a large capital city speaks out firmly against legislation that
threatens incipient human life and he is vilified repeatedly in Parliament. If
he persists he could well be hated. What does our Lord say? “If the world hates
you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it
would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
(John 15:18‑21). Social rejection is one of
the most painful of human experiences, precisely because we have been created by
God to live in harmony. If the following of him involves this social rejection
to a greater or lesser extent, then we must remember what the Master has said,
“Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If
they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching,
they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for
they do not know the One who sent me.”
Ultimately there are two camps. There is the camp of good, and there is the
camp of evil. Our Gospel passage today shows our Lord speaking of himself and
“the world” that has hated him. He loves the world and has given his life to
save the world. Let us take our stand with Jesus and resolve to witness to him
before the world. Christ sends his disciples to the whole world to make
disciples of all the nations. For the world needs Christ and will only be saved
by accepting him in faith.
If in order to save an earthly life it is praiseworthy to use force to
stop a man from committing suicide, are we not to be allowed use the
same force — holy coercion — to save the Life (with a capital) of many
who are stupidly bent on killing their souls?
(The Way, no.399)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prayers this week: Speak out with a
voice of joy; let it be heard to the ends of the earth: The Lord has set his
people free, alleluia.
(Isaiah 48:20) Ever-living
God, help us to celebrate our joy in the resurrection of the Lord and to express
in our lives the love we celebrate. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ
your Son in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 8:5-8,
14-17; Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21
Jesus
said to his disciples: If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will
ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever
— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him
nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will
not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On
that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in
you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who
loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to
him.(John 14:15-21)
The
Spirit of Truth
Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel passage are packed with thoughts and
blessings. He speaks of what it means to love him and of how he will not leave
us alone, for he will come and abide with us. Our life will be drawn from the
life of Jesus himself and our union with him will be profound: “Because I live
you also will live.” Just as he is in the Father, so we are in him and he is in
us. It is abundantly clear from this passage alone that the heart and soul of
the Christian religion is the personal relationship Christ has with his
disciples.
It is a relationship of the most intimate love, manifested and flowering in
obedience to his commands. If we have this love, we shall be loved by the
Father and by Jesus, and he will show himself to us in various ways. But a new
and special element is mentioned in our passage today, one of the utmost
significance. It is our Lord’s reference to the other Counsellor whom the
Father will send at the request of Jesus his Son. To that point the disciples
had one Master, one Counsellor, Christ. He was their teacher and now he was
going from them to the Father. But good news! A second Counsellor will be sent
to them and he will be Christ’s gift coming from the Father just as Jesus
himself came from the Father. He is the Spirit of truth. The truth! We
remember Christ’s description of his mission as he defined it before Pontius
Pilate whom we might take as standing for the uncomprehending pagan world. He
had come to bear witness to the truth. The truth! That truth was especially
about himself and his redemptive mission, and all who are of the truth listen to
his voice. The spirit driving our Lord in his mission of bearing witness to the
truth during his public ministry was the Holy Spirit. He is, then, the Spirit
of truth. Moreover, our Lord’s greatest act of bearing witness to the truth, an
act of witness that achieved the redemption of all mankind, was his Passion and
Death which he was about to enter. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that it
was by the power of the Holy Spirit that he offered himself to the Father. So,
precisely during the Passion of Christ, the Holy Spirit was acting as the Spirit
of truth.
Our Gospel passage today (John 14:15‑21) is
drawn from the Last Supper. Christ is about to enter his Passion, and the
Eucharist which he institutes during the Last Supper makes sacramentally present
his coming Sacrifice. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ
instituted the Eucharist. This we know because every time Mass is celebrated
the priest invokes Holy Spirit, and by the power of the Spirit Christ and his
one Sacrifice at Calvary is made sacramentally present. Christ’s sacrifice on
the Cross was his greatest testimony to the truth of God. Now, the celebration
of the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of Christ made present. The Eucharist, then,
is the pre‑eminent sacramental witness to the truth of God. Well then, just as
during Christ’s Passion and Death the Holy Spirit bore witness to the truth of
God, so too pre‑eminently at Mass the Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth in
and through Christ whom he makes sacramentally present. He is the Spirit of
truth, our other Counsellor sent by the Father. He bears witness to the truth
of Christ our guide and master. He comes to us at our Baptism and again in the
sacrament of Confirmation, and at each coming he endows us with further gifts.
At our baptism he takes up his abode within us as in his temple, and with him
come the Father and the Son. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we become the
abode of the indwelling Trinity. We receive the gifts of faith, hope and
charity enabling us to live as God’s adopted sons and daughters in Christ. At
our Confirmation he brings us the gifts that enable us to bear witness to the
truth of Christ in our daily life. Just as he sustained the Son of God made man
in his life of bearing witness unto death to the truth of God, so he enables us
to bear witness to the truth of God which Jesus has revealed, and which he has
entrusted to his Church to guard. The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, is our
friend and counsellor uniting us to Christ and enabling us to live in him and to
fulfil the mission on behalf of the truth that he has given us.
Our
Gospel passage today speaks of the union between Christ and his disciples, a
union of love grounded in their sharing of life. “Because I live, you also will
live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me,
and I am in you”, our Lord tells his disciples. All of this is done in and
through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. Let us cultivate in
our lives a love for and devotion to our divine counsellor and friend, the
Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of truth.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.
727-730
(The Holy Spirit brings the work of Jesus to completion), 1285-1314
(Confirmation in the economy of salvation).
If you were a dealer in fire-arms and someone offered to buy a gun from you, so
that he might use the weapon to kill your mother, would you sell it to him? —
Yet, wasn't he ready to pay you a just price for it?
University professor, journalist, politician, diplomat: reflect.
(The Way, no.400)
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 16:11-15; Psalm 149:1b-6a and 9b; John 15:26-16:4a
Jesus
said to his disciples: When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from
the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify
about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the
beginning. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will
put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills
you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because
they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the
time comes you will remember that I warned you.
(John 15:26—16:4a)
The Spirit and witness When
our Lord was asked which is the greatest commandment of the Law, he replied that
we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and
that the second command was like it, that we are to love our neighbour as
ourself. On these hang the Law and the Prophets.
These two great commandments apply to every human being and most especially to
those who are blessed with the knowledge of God’s revelation. They constitute
the basic vocation of man. The Good News of the Gospel is that in Christ and by
his grace, man is able to fulfil this vocation and divine command. As St Paul
writes in one of his Letters, before the world began, God chose us in Christ to
be holy and full of love in his sight. Christ is the Good News of the Gospel.
He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. In him is present the promised Kingdom,
the promised Lordship of God, and the mission of the Church is to testify to the
Good News about him. Well then, what does our Lord say of this mission of
testifying to himself? Firstly, it is not only his disciples who by God’s plan
are to be engaged in this. Christ is sending from the Father another to do it
also. He is the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth. He ultimately comes from the
Father, as does Christ himself. He comes from the Father in that the Father is
his ultimate Origin, and here in our Gospel text our Lord says that he himself
will send him from the Father. Elsewhere he tells us that both he and the
Father will send him, and the Church’s teaching and Tradition tells us that he
proceeds from both the Father and the Son as their love and their life. But
now, what will he be sent to us to do? He will be sent to testify about Christ.
Our Lord continues, “And you also must testify, for you have been with me from
the beginning.” So Christ’s faithful and the Spirit of truth, the Counsellor —
together and in concert — testify to Christ. Our Lord is saying that the Holy
Spirit will come upon the infant Church to vivify it and to sustain and direct
it in the work of evangelization. This happened at Pentecost.
With the coming of the Counsellor to the Church at Pentecost, the Twelve with
Peter at their head immediately began to testify about Jesus. Thus was the
Church born for she began then to witness boldly about Christ. This was as God
planned it. As Peter testified before the Sanhedrin, there is no other name by
which men can be saved. The person of Christ is at the centre of human history
and of man’s destiny. He is the only way to the Father and hence it is of
critical importance that this point be brought home to the world. The work of
Christian witness is the most basic and important good to be done, for the
salvation of the world depends on it. So important is it that not only has
Christ commanded his own disciples to make the giving of testimony about him
central to their entire life and vocation, but the third divine Person has been
sent from heaven to enter the fray and lead the Church’s work. There are two
great protagonists in this divine project, Christ’s Church and the Spirit of
truth, and the former is led and sustained by the latter. The Spirit of truth,
the divine Counsellor, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, has come to abide
with the Church till the end as her very soul and master evangelizer. The work
is difficult and Christ himself has given us the example. His witness to the
truth about himself and his saving work led him to his terrible death, and he
warns his disciples that they too must tread the path that he himself trod.
“All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out
of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think
he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not
known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you
will remember that I warned you” (John 15:26—16:4a). To a greater or lesser
extent, every member of Christ’s faithful who lives a life bearing witness to
Christ will experience Christ’s suffering and rejection.
If
the world is to be saved, the great sleeping giant of Christ’s faithful must be
roused for the work. It is the work of the ages. So each of us must say, this
means me. I must bear witness to Christ with the aid and grace of the divine
Counsellor, the Spirit of truth. He will be my Guide and Help in my life’s
project. So then, let each of us ask ourselves, what have I done for Christ to
this point? What am I doing for him now? What shall I do for him in the future?
Think well on it, and having decided, say to yourself, Now I begin!
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today:
Acts 16:22-34; Psalm 138:1-3, 7c-8; John 16:5-11
Now
I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?'
Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the
truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the
Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he
comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and
judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to
righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you will see me no longer;
and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands
condemned.(John 16:5-11)
The
Counsellor
John gives us what the other Gospels do not give in respect to the Last Supper.
He gives us very extensive discourses of our Lord to his disciples. In those
discourses Christ repeatedly refers to the coming of the Counsellor, the Holy
Spirit whom he will send. The context of this promise is our Lord’s telling his
disciples that he is about to leave them. In view of their love for him and
their grand hopes, we can imagine their sorrow and devastation.
As the two disciples tell the risen Jesus on the way to Emmaus a few days later
(without realizing it was Jesus), they had hoped that he would be the one to set
Israel free. At various points he had told them of his death and rejection by
the leaders of the people, but it had not been understood by them. It had not
sunk in at all. All they could see was the beauty and holiness of his person,
his great power in word and deed, and there seemed to be nothing they could not
hope for in and from him. They just did not take seriously his references to
his coming sufferings and death. But now he told them in earnest. He was
leaving them and returning to the Father, and our Lord could see that they were
profoundly grieved. “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks
me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with
grief” (John 16:5‑11). At times the
Christian who takes discipleship seriously can regret that while the Apostles
had the inestimable privilege of knowing our Lord personally and face to face,
he himself lacks that blessing. He must live in faith. But take note of what
our Lord tells his disciples. It is, he says, to their advantage that he is
leaving them. That is to say, mysteriously they will be more blessed by their
not having his visible and physical presence in their midst. Why? Because
“unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send
him to you.” For some reason known to God, if our Lord had stayed and had not
passed through his suffering to glory, the Holy Spirit would not have been sent.
During the Last Supper, our Lord says that eternal life consists in knowing him,
Jesus, and the Father. The coming of the Counsellor is necessary if this is to
happen. All through our Lord’s public ministry right to the days after his very
resurrection, the disciples manifested incomprehension and diffidence. They
mistook our Lord’s mission and could not see that the suffering and rejection of
the Messiah were the divine means of the world’s salvation. The coming of the
Spirit changed all that, and they were filled with light. In our passage today,
our Lord speaks of what the Holy Spirit will do for the world: he will convict
the world of its guilt. What is the significance of this? We remember that when
John the Baptist began his ministry of preparing the people for the coming of
the Messiah, he preached repentance. They were to repent of their sins. His
baptism was a baptism of repentance for sin. When our Lord began his ministry
he too preached repentance. The people had to be convinced of their sinfulness
if they were to accept the grace of redemption. The ongoing problem was the
lack of a sense of sin. There was no lack of a sense of need, but there was a
lack of a sense of sin. The need that was felt was the need of health, of life,
of food and of all things material. For this reason our Lord had great crowds
following him, but when, for instance, he preached the doctrine of the Eucharist
stating that eternal life required that they eat his flesh and drink his blood,
very many of his disciples deserted him. All this is to say that there was
little desire to look to our Lord for the taking away of their sins and the sins
of the world. But that is what our Lord came to do. The acceptance of Christ
as the saviour in large measure depends on our having a sense of sin and guilt
before God. Now, in our passage today our Lord promises to send the Holy
Spirit, the Counsellor, and he will convict the world of its guilt. The
Counsellor opens the hearts of the peoples to Christ.
Let
us understand that Christ’s great gift is the divine Counsellor. He counsels us
about our guilt before God and points to Christ as the Saviour from sin. He
opens our hearts to the person of Jesus, telling us in our hearts that Jesus is
the answer for man’s most profound need, and that need is for his sin to be
taken away. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Let
us then love the divine Counsellor, the Spirit of Christ who has been given to
us.
Don't be content to ask Jesus pardon just for your own faults: don't
love him just with your own heart...
Console him for every offence that has been,
is, or will be done to him. Love him with all the strength of all the hearts of
all those who have most loved him.
Be daring: tell him that you are crazier about
him than Mary Magdalen, than either of his two Teresas, that you love him madly,
more than Augustine and Dominic and Francis, more than Ignatius and Xavier.
Saint for Today: Click
here
to find information about the Saint(s) of the calendar day on which you are
reading this reflection.
Use your Internet browser's "back" arrow twice
to return to this reflection.
Click on centre arrow
below to play the video:
Scripture today: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1; Psalm
148:1-2, 11-14; John 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples: I have much
more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of
truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he
will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will
glorify me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that
belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what
is mine and make it known to you.(John
16:12-15)
Spirit
of Truth
In our Gospel passage today we have precious words from our Lord about the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of truth. He has already referred to the divine Spirit as
the Counsellor. He is also the Spirit of truth who will guide the disciples of
Christ into the whole truth. The Spirit of God had often been referred to in
the Old Testament, but generally his personal character in these many references
is clear to the reader only by the light of Christ’s teaching. In
the very first chapter of the Bible, the inspired author tells us that the
spirit or breath of God hovered over the abyss prior to God’s creative word.
That is to say, God’s power embraced all and was poised to create. The Spirit
of God moved the prophets to prophesy and anointed kings to rule. But it is
Christ who reveals and makes explicit that this spirit of God is a divine Person
and not just a divine action, initiative or quality. That he is a distinct
Person is clear in our passage today. Our Lord refers to “him” who is the
Spirit of truth. He is personal. “He” will tell the disciples what is
yet to come. “He” will glorify Christ. In his mission the divine Spirit
will serve the truth that has been revealed by Jesus. So the Twelve will not be
left in their present incomprehension and obscurity — so manifest during our
Lord’s public ministry and even during the Last Supper itself. They will have a
divine Guide to grant them an immense understanding. “When he, the Spirit of
truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” The revelation of Christ was
entrusted in its entirety to the Twelve and our Lord promises to send them the
Spirit of God to lead them, in principle, to its full apprehension. Here we
surely have a reference to the foundational role of the teaching of the
Apostles. The Twelve, with Peter at their head, would possess a unique mastery
of Christ’s revelation, and the Church would be built on this apostolic
foundation and draw progressively on it over the ages. A mark of the Church is
that she is apostolic.
|
The Spirit of truth will glorify Christ by bearing constant witness to the truth
about him (John 16:12‑15). Not only does
this allude to the guidance and enlightenment of the Twelve by the Spirit of
Christ, but it refers as well to the Spirit’s guidance of the Church down the
ages. Christ, on the evening of the day he rose from the dead, imparted to the
Twelve the gift of the Holy Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit, the risen Jesus
said. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. Their participation in
Christ’s mission was the beginning of the share in Christ’s mission which was
soon to be entrusted to the Church. Then at Pentecost the Holy Spirit was sent
to the infant Church as such, and he, the Spirit of God, abides thenceforth with
the Church enabling the Church to bear witness to the truth of Jesus and to
bring to the world the abundant life of God. It is the Spirit who enables this
to happen. In our passage today, our Lord speaks of the work of the Spirit in
aiding not only the Twelve but the entire Church to adhere to the truth of Jesus
and to grow in her apprehension of it. As the centuries pass, the Church’s
understanding of the revelation entrusted to and handed on by the Apostles
grows. There is a development of doctrine, though not of revelation. It
develops from what the Twelve have entrusted to the Church and the Church has
the ineffable gift of the Spirit of truth to guide her in her developing
teaching. She is able, in the persons of the Successor of Peter and the
successors of the Apostles — which is to say the Pope and the bishops in
communion with him — to determine from age to age what has been revealed, as new
questions are asked or as this revelation is challenged. The Church has the
divine gift to withstand the powers of hell and to prevail in its witness to the
truth of Christ. And so Christ’s faithful may have full confidence in the
Church’s teaching, knowing that the Spirit of God will always protect the Church
from error in what she formally teaches on Christ’s behalf. Knowing that she
will not err, the faithful ever ask, what does the Church teach, and more
specifically, what does the Rome say?
We
ought rejoice in Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the Twelve and to the
Church. He, the divine Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, is the
Spirit of truth. The Church in possessing the Spirit of truth, is guaranteed
preservation from formal error in what she teaches must be believed and done for
salvation. It is for this reason that the faithful, with full confidence,
proclaim in the Creed, “I believe in the holy Catholic Church.” Their confidence
rests in the fact that Christ has endowed his Church with the Spirit of truth to
abide with her and to guide her always.
Be more daring still, and, when you need something, don't ask, but —
always mindful of the Fiat — say, 'Jesus, I want that... and that... and that',
for this is the way children ask.
(The Way, no.403)
(April 25, but celebrated on April 26 in Australia because of
ANZAC Day) Saint Mark, evangelist
Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is
usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. (When Peter escaped from prison,
he went to the home of Mark's mother.) Paul and Barnabas took him along on the
first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem.
It is evident, from Paul's refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second
journey despite Barnabas's insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Later,
Paul asks Mark to visit him in prison so we may assume the trouble did not last
long. The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark
emphasizes Jesus' rejection by humanity while being God's triumphant envoy.
Probably written for Gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul
sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark's Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a
"scandal": a crucified Messiah. Evidently a friend of Mark (Peter called him "my
son"), Peter is only one of the Gospel sources, others being the Church in
Jerusalem (Jewish roots) and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile). Like one
other Gospel writer, Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be
certain whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist
is speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: "Now a
young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They
seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked" (Mark 14:51-52).
Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Venice, famous for
the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint; the large basilica there
is believed to contain his remains. A winged lion is Mark's symbol. The lion
derives from Mark's description of John the Baptist as a "voice of one crying
out in the desert" (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The
wings come from the application of Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures
(Ezekiel, chapter one) to the evangelists.
There is very little in Mark that is not in the other Gospels—only four
passages. One is: “...This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a
man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and
the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land
yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And
when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come”
(Mark 4:26-29).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
Jesus
appeared to the Eleven and said to them: Go into all the world and preach the
good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but
whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those
who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new
tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly
poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick
people, and they will get well. After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was
taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples
went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed
his word by the signs that accompanied it.(Mark
16:15-20)
Faith
and Baptism
I have often noticed that a regular part of news bulletins, whether in print,
radio or television, reports and comments on the latest medical discoveries. It
could be the discovery of a gene that offers significant hope in the fight
against cancer, or some discovery that relates to heart disease, or an advance
in adult stem cell research that is full of promise — as opposed to the meagre
and unethical research into embryonic stem cells.
Then we learn that the breakthrough will require many more years of careful
testing. Now, when the final benefits of such research are offered to the
public in the form of some procedure, probably few beneficiaries will understand
the enormous amount of work that procedure represents. It could be a simple
medication which when taken does its work, and which could even save the
person’s life. The one seeking the relief believes in the word of the
physician, goes to the pharmacist and obtains the medicine. He takes it and
improves. Well now, what of the worst affliction of all, an affliction that
begins to wreak its havoc in the life of every man and woman as soon as he or
she is born into the world? St Paul tells us that all men are under the
power of sin, and that the wages of sin are death. What an affliction this is
and, no matter how much research and experimentation might be done on it, who
could possibly come up with the answer! Where is the answer to sin for it is the
root of all that leads to death, death in its immediate sense, and death in the
ultimate meaning of the term? What could take away the sin of the world? God has
sent the answer — it is the Son of God made man, and in particular his death on
the cross and his rising from the dead. By his death on the cross for all
mankind he put to death the sin that brings death, and by his rising from the
dead he offers man a share in his new and risen life. A mighty work is done and
the result is grand.
Any new medication that has answered a terrible disease must be brought to each
person. The afflicted person must approach and take the pill. The benefit has
to be applied to the suffering individual. So too the work of Christ. A
tremendous work has been done at enormous cost to God the Son made man, but it
must be brought to each individual. And this is exactly what our Lord in
today’s Gospel passage commands that his infant Church, soon to receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is to do. His disciples are to bring the good
news to all creation. The sin of the world has been taken away, and now this
benefit must be brought to all the nations. That is the Church’s mission, and
Christ is working with her, confirming her testimony with various signs,
especially the sign of holiness and fidelity. How is the benefit of salvation
in Christ to be received by each person? It is received by placing one’s faith
in Jesus and being baptised, and then living accordingly. The foundation and
starting point is faith, faith in Jesus and in the Church’s testimony about
him. This faith is met by baptism and baptism places the person in Christ and
in his Church, but its starting point is faith. Let us notice how starkly our
Lord insists on this condition. “Whoever believes and is baptised will be
saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned”
(Mark 16:15‑20). Our Lord does not say that as long as you are a
good person, as long as you follow your conscience — whatever that may mean in
practice, and as long as you are sincere, you will be saved. Of course if in
effect a person has never had the chance to hear and know of the real Christ,
then God mercifully takes this into account. But no, Christ says that the one
who believes and is then baptised will be saved and the one who refuses to
believe will be condemned. Faith is the starting point and baptism into Christ
and his Church is its issue.
We
must listen to the Church’s announcement about Christ, and believe. We must
heed her teaching about his person and about his work for us, bringing us to our
heavenly home. As our Gospel says, Christ is with the Church working with her
and confirming the truth of her testimony. Let us then go to his Church, the
Church founded on the Apostles with Peter at their head, and listen constantly
to her teaching, praying for the light to believe — to have faith — and to be
saved
Intransigence
is not just simply intransigence: it is 'holy intransigence.'
Don't forget that there also exists a 'holy coercion.'
(The Way, no.398)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(The feast of St Mark is celebrated in Australia on the
next day
because of Anzac Day)
ANZAC Day
is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is
commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey
during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and
served in military operations for their countries in all wars. Anzac Day is also
observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.
click on
centre
arrow for video
Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will
preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am,
there also will my servant be. The Father will honour whoever serves me. "I am
troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it
was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then
a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
(John 12: 23-28)
The grain that dies
In our Gospel passage today our Lord refers to a pattern
observable throughout nature that sheds light on the direction man should take
in living his life. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to
the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it
produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life
in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” So then, the wheat falls in to
the ground “and dies,” and then produces much fruit. The death of something is
succeeded by life. Consider this law of nature more broadly. Observe the
vegetable world and how plants grow and are consumed and destroyed by other
living things for their own sustenance. It is their destiny to die in order to
sustain the life of another. They “die” in order to bear the fruit of life in
those things that consume them. Some plants are not themselves consumed, but the
purpose of their life is to produce a fruit that is consumed by other beings. By
consuming that fruit, those beings live. Does not this pattern echo a higher
pattern? The non-sentient living world seems to reflect a pattern that surpasses
it. It reflects in its own way a pattern of love. Or again, take the animal
kingdom. Everywhere one animal preys on another and other animals prey on it. We
could look on this as a rampant cruelty in the animal kingdom driven by
instinct. Alternatively, we could look on this all-pervasive pattern of one
animal being given up for the sake of another as a dim reflection of a higher
law of self-sacrificing love. It is a pattern that reflects the character of the
Creator and Author of all. At least we have to say this, that it is precisely
because of this loss of life for the sake of other life that the universe
functions and thrives. The universe seems to be based on a vague law of being
sacrificed. One thing dies or ends in order that another thing may flourish.
Christ is the light of the world, and the pattern of his life illumines the life
of every man and indeed of the entire universe. Our Lord was born into this
world in order to give his life for mankind and for each of us. He died that we
might live forever. He freely and obediently embraced his death. By his
self-sacrificing consent, his life was maliciously taken from him. Though he was
in the “form of God”, St Paul tells us, he did not hesitate to set his glory
aside and become as we are, and humbler still, even to dying on a cross. He who
was rich became poor that we might be rich. In this, Christ revealed that God is
love, a love that is self-sacrificing. This then is the key to the universe
because the God who was revealed in his Son Jesus Christ is the Author of the
universe. The universe was made to reflect in various ways the self-sacrificing
love of God, and where there is the opposite of it in sin, there we have not the
hand of God but the hand of fallen man. As was said in one of the parables, an
enemy has done this. Christ teaches us by his words and example that the way to
life is through the sacrificing of one’s own life. In the light of Christ we can
see more clearly than ever that in various ways the very universe reflects this
truth. “Whoever loves his life loses it” our Lord tells us, “and whoever hates
his life (i.e., for the sake of others) in this world will preserve it for
eternal life.” This teaching invites us to unite ourselves day by day with the
person of Jesus Christ and to live out in union with him his pattern of
self-sacrificing love. It is this self-sacrificing gift of oneself for the sake
of the other that brings us eternal life and life to the world. It also gives
meaning to the countless persons who have given their greatest possession which
is their own life for the sake of others. They have died in order that others
may prosper. Christ teaches us that their sacrifice will bear much fruit. Their
death is like that of the seed that falls into the ground and dies. It bears
fruit.
Various nations have special days when they officially honour those who have
fallen in defence of the fatherland. In Australia, for instance, it is ANZAC
Day. Let us entrust to the mercy of God the souls of all those who have died
defending their fatherland. The Christian prays for them, and we feel confident
in the mercy of God. We can trust that their sacrifice not only bore fruit for
future generations in their homeland, but bore fruit in eternal life for
themselves. Let us especially resolve to look to Christ as the light of the
world, and as the source of all true life both here and hereafter. Let us live
united to him in his self-sacrificing love, and inspired by his example. By this
means God will be glorified, and we shall gain eternal life.
(E.J.Tyler)
Yes, that
abuse can be eradicated. It shows lack of character to let it continue
as something hopeless, with no possible remedy.
Don't shirk your duty. Carry it out conscientiously, even though others
neglect theirs.
(The Way,
no.36)
What does the acceptance of God’s mercy
require from us?
It requires that we admit our faults and repent of our sins. God
himself by his Word and his Spirit lays bare our sins and gives us the
truth of conscience and the hope of forgiveness. (CCC 1846-1848, 1870)
(Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.391)
The Anzacs 'known unto God': Leo Corrigan's
story (picture to the
right: Leo Corrigan as a child)
by Patrick
Carlyon
April 21, 2007
HE WENT over the top, or hopped the bags, as the soldiers called it
back then, at dawn on September 20, 1917, the day the Passchendaele
battles began for the Australians. He was young, just 22, and he was
old because he had been around death since the Gallipoli campaign two
years earlier, and too much death dims the light in young men's eyes.
His boots were weighed down with globs of mud and felt like logs.
Somewhere up ahead the Germans waited in pillboxes and machine-gun
nests — the ground here was too soggy for trenches — but he couldn't
see them. They were somewhere behind the Allied smoke barrage. Like
many Anzacs that Belgian morning, Lieutenant Leo Corrigan, of Waverley,
NSW, was almost certainly soaked from the waist down before he set off.
Corrigan bumbled into the bog, his rosary beads nestled in a tunic
pocket. We don't know how far he had plodded when a shell hit him.
There wasn't a mark on him, said those who carried him from the front.
He had been killed instantly. He was wrapped in makeshift shrouds and
placed with others in a temporary grave. A rough cross was planted and
his name scratched on it in indelible pencil.
After the war, clearance parties exhumed all the Anzacs they could find
to lay them to rest in one of the cemeteries that now dot the gentle
rises above Ypres in Belgium. Corrigan was overlooked, perhaps because
a road had been laid over his grave.
Ninety years on, through the use of DNA matching technology, he may be
found again, alongside two Victorians.
Private Thomas Gibbens was a Footscray plumber, who enlisted in 1916.
He died in the Battle
of Polygon Wood a
week after Corrigan's death. He was hastily buried at Westhoek Ridge —
and forgotten.
Days after Gibbens' death, Sergeant George Calder, a miner in Western
Australia who grew up in Goldsborough, in northern Victoria, was also
killed.
Their remains may be among six Anzac bodies discovered by gasworkers
laying a pipe in Westhoek, a few kilometres east of Ypres, last August.
The bodies, remarkably preserved in the clay, were wrapped in blankets
and tied with signal wire, their hands clasped as though in prayer, at
what was a casualty station behind the front. Dirt-smudged rising sun
badges clung to the uniforms.
Lack of personal effects, such as identification discs, papers or
diaries, has hampered the identification process, although authorities
believe one or more of the soldiers came from the 4th Division
(Calder's), from either the 12th or 13th brigades.
It was hoped a faded circular
patch on the arm of one of the men's tunics might identify his
battalion. But the vegetable dye was too faded to be identified.
Australian authorities are awaiting Belgian War Graves Service
pathology reports, which may offer clues to the height of the deceased,
dental records and the type of fatal injuries suffered. These could be
compared with service records. But it appears that only DNA technology
may identify some of the remains.
Belgian scientists say DNA should be extractable from the femur of five
of the six sets of remains, prompting a rush to find living relatives
for DNA matching before the planned re-interment of the soldiers on the
90th anniversary of the Passchendaele battles in early October.
Belgium's National Institute for Criminalistics and Criminology is
expected to have DNA results in the next few weeks.
The Australian Army history unit has cross-referenced the names of
seven Anzacs, including Corrigan, Gibbens and Calder, who were
temporarily buried in the area the bodies were found, but not
re-interred for formal burial.
A circumstantial case suggests that one or more of the names may match
the uncovered remains. A witness account from Albert Carter, of the
55th Battalion, appears to support the case of Corrigan. "I helped to
bury him on September 21 at where our advanced dressing station was
when we went over on the 20th September," he wrote a few months later.
"There were several other graves there."
Yet the head of the Australian
Army history unit, Roger Lee, emphasises that no matches might be
found. He is wary of raising false hopes. Colleague Richard Pelvin
says: "I don't want people to get excited. This area was a large
graveyard and the burial registers are not complete."
The unit's obvious difficulty has been locating living descendants of
the soldiers. Because mitochondrial DNA carries through the female line
only, matching descendants are likely to have a different surname to
their forebears, probably several times removed. The hunt has begun for
matching family of Gibbens and Calder.
Corrigan's family has come forward. Last week, after tracking a
scribbled 1967 request from Leo Corrigan's sister, Doris Melrose, for
his "Gallipoli Medallion", The Age spoke to Deidre Shannon, of
Jindabyne. She is Corrigan's niece.
She is willing to provide a cheek swab DNA sample and the wider family
is abuzz with hope that their ancestor may, finally, have a recognised
grave. Corrigan's great niece, Mary Davidson, says: "My first reaction
was 'wow', I hardly even knew that Nan had a brother Leo."
Almost four generations later, Anzac remains still turn up on what was
the Western Front. French and Belgian authorities take extreme care
with the finds and explore every avenue to help identify remains, but
frequently the remains are buried as soldiers "Known Unto God".
Army records can only hint at the anguish at home caused by these
soldiers' deaths and the absence of their having recognised graves.
Corrigan was wounded at Gallipoli when his 18th Battalion was thrown,
untested, into a hell known as Hill 60. Pneumonia later hospitalised
him for months. Afterwards, Corrigan was promoted to lieutenant (he had
enlisted as a private on the outbreak of war in August 1914) and he
commanded up to 60 men when he died in the Battle of Menin Road.
Corrigan had a singing voice
honed over many musical nights at his mother's boarding house. Home was
a merry place — three of his sisters later married lodgers and Corrigan
missed his mother, Sarah, keenly. He was short and clean shaven: a
photo hints of gentle eyes and a solemn air. Sarah hoped he would
become a priest after the war.
An official reply to a letter from a Miss Deakin says there was "no
doubt" about the identity of Corrigan's body. His father received his
war medals. His mother received her son's prayer book and religious
trinkets in his will, as well as his book of proverbs. She also had a
letter to clutch. Her son wrote it before heading to Gallipoli in 1915.
He recalled being a "babe in her arms" and saying his prayers as a boy
at her knee.
"Should anything happen,
Mummie, don't grieve for me because it is His will and That is always
best. To the best of my knowledge I am pretty well prepared to go and
face my God but of course I have no particular wish to go yet. Somehow
or other I feel firmly convinced I will survive and so I do not worry
at all.
"Should this be my last letter, dearest, remember I will always be
waiting and watching for you and praying also, darling Mother, for your
spiritual welfare … Oh, Mum! How I wish I could have one farewell kiss
before going into battle."
Deidre Shannon believes her uncle was a kindly soul and that his mother
never recovered from his loss. "My grandmother never ever mentioned
him," she says. "There was this terrific connection between her and
him. I feel having lost him, so tragically, so young, with her hope
that he would be a priest, his loss would have been a great thing to
her."
Sarah Corrigan's vain request for a photo of her son's grave was a
heartache shared by many.
Corrigan was among 5000 Australian casualties at Menin Road, the first
of a series of Passchendaele battles that appear to be growing in the
Australian consciousness.
Corrigan, like Gibbens and Calder, had squelched through ooze that
swallowed up men too exhausted to go on. Often, by the time a soldier
was reported "missing", his remains had been lost to the battlefield.
This battle, as with the subsequent Polygon Wood campaign, would be
heralded as a triumph in a war of attrition. Such things are relative.
There were almost 1000 Australian casualties for every square mile of
ground gained at Menin Road. The casualties for Polygon Wood were
double. Too many more "triumphs" like that and there would be no more
Australian army.
In 1998, a farmer hit something hard while ploughing his Pozieres field
above the Somme River in France. It was the remains of Private Russell
Bosisto, a South Australian baker whose dark hair, it's said, turned
white within weeks of arriving in France. Several modern-day 27th
Battalion members attended his burial later that year.
Corrigan, Gibbens and Calder, too, may now be offered what few fallen
Anzacs received. They may be buried by families who mourn men they
never met. At the least, they may be remembered. "I feel he was a very
gentle boy," Deidre Shannon says of her uncle. "War must have been
horrific for him."
Then Jesus cried out,
When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the
one who sent me. When he sees me, he sees the one who sent me. I have
come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me
should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does
not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the
world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and
does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him
at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father
who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his
command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the
Father has told me to say. (John
12:44-50)
I am the light of the world, he says. He commanded his disciples to go to the
whole world and make disciples of all the nations. Whoever believes and is
baptized will be saved. In volume I of his great book Jesus of Nazareth
(2007), Pope Benedict XVI comments respectfully on Rabbi Neusner’s dialogue
about Jesus (P.105), in which it is asked, what did the sage Jesus add to the
Law, the Prophets and the Scriptures? The answer is, Himself! Jesus’ very self
is central to his message. Perfection now consists in following the person of
Jesus and Jesus himself sums up the entire revelation of God. Indeed, Jesus
identifies himself with God. However, we also notice that in the very act of
pointing to himself as the object of revealed religion, Jesus points to the
Father. This is what we see our Lord stressing in our Gospel passage today.
“When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who
sent me. When he sees me, he sees the one who sent me.” So close is the
relationship of Jesus with the Father who is distinct from him as a person, that
when we believe in him, we are believing in the Father who sent him. Indeed,
when we see Jesus we see the Father who sent him. St Paul writes in one of his
Letters that Christ is the image of the invisible God, and our Lord stated to
his Apostles that the one who sees him sees the Father. So while our Lord in
his message points to himself, in his humility he points to the Father. With
the one hand Jesus points to himself and with the other to the Father. 
Holy shamelessness is a characteristic of the 'life of childhood.' A
little child worries about nothing. He makes no effort to hide his
weaknesses, his natural miseries, not even when everyone is watching
him.
