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Scripture today: Ezechiel 18:1-10.13.30-32;    Psalm 50;     Matthew 19:13-15

Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. (Matthew 19:13-15)

Jesus and the children   Consider our Gospel scene today.  Our Lord is immersed in his ministry for the crowds.  Power is going out from him as it usually did.  He preached, he taught, he healed, at times he forgave sins.  In the midst of his busy and exhausting ministry, parents bring their children for him to bless them with his prayer.  Our Lord’s disciples, undoubtedly thinking of their weary master, actively discourage parents from imposing on Jesus in this way and try to turn them away from him.  But our Lord rebukes them and welcomes the children with their parents, and readily places his hands on them.  It is a gesture showing the blessing that he is conferring on them.  He loved children and said that it was to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.  Consider for a moment the power of his blessing.  At a word he could quell a storm.  At a word he could raise a person from the dead or heal his paralysis.  At a word he could drive out demons.  How wonderful must have been the word of his blessing! Consider the mother who with faith brought her child before him and consider the child who with trust and openness received that blessing (Matthew 19:13‑15).  The child would have been blessed indeed.  Who knows what it may have led to in the lives of the children our Lord blessed! Well, let us apply this simple scene to ourselves.  The same Jesus is always near, especially if we have been baptized into him.  Our Lord often said that unless we become like little children we shall never enter the kingdom of heaven.  He invites us to approach him like little children.  We, then, in a spirit of faith, ought often and even daily approach our Lord in prayer in the spirit of the children of our Gospel passage, and ask for his blessing.  We ought ask him to bless our days, our undertakings, our daily duties.  Every time we eat, we have the opportunity in our “grace before meals” to ask Jesus to bless us and his gifts which, due to his goodness, we are about to receive.  The same thing applies to all we do and receive.

Apart from endeavouring to approach Jesus in the spirit of a little child, we ought do all we can to introduce children to Jesus.  What a wonderful thing if, due to our example, or our word, or due to some other action we take, a child is introduced to the unseen living Jesus.  There are so many ways the Christian can assist children to come to know Jesus.  In every town there is a school, a public school.  At least in Australia, the public school has in place the opportunity for authorized volunteers to teach the Christian faith regularly to its pupils.  That is a wonderful opportunity to introduce the child to Jesus, and thousands of volunteers do this throughout the nation.  What good they do! They are like the parents who brought their children to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them and give them his blessing.  That is what the volunteer religion teacher in the public school is doing.  He or she is inviting the child to come to know Jesus and to step forward in prayer to meet him and obtain his blessing, indeed to become his disciple.  What a beautiful thing it is if, due to these efforts, a child in fact does just this.  There have been children who have come to know Jesus profoundly and have set out on the path of a profound friendship with him.  All too often this opportunity is missed, and the child learns, rather, the path of sin.  So what is it to be for the average child? Is it to be Jesus, or is it to be sin? Every adult ought ask himself or herself that question, and ask what he or she is going to do about it.  One of the great gains in recent years has been the new sense of the importance and rights of the child — even though there is the profound anomaly of a disregard of the rights of the unborn child.  Well, when we think of the rights of the child, the first and greatest right we ought think of is the right of the child to come to know God, God in the person of Christ his Son.  What can we do to help the child to come to know Jesus and to receive the blessings he came among us to give?

As we think of our Gospel passage today in which children are brought to Jesus for his blessing, let us resolve to be like those children ourselves in our desire for the blessing of Jesus.  Let us approach him with a childlike dependence on him, asking for his favours.  Let us also have profound reverence for each child and do all we can to assist every child to come to know and love the risen Jesus, and to desire his blessing.  How Christ must have loved, and still love, each child!

                                                             (E.J.Tyler)

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You see how simply she said it? Ecce ancilla, 'I am the handmaid of the Lord!' — And the Word became flesh.

That is how the saints worked: without any outward show. What there was, was in spite of them.
                                                                  (The Way, no.510)

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Scripture today: Isaiah 56:1.6-7;     Psalm 66;     Romans 11:13-15.29-32;    Matthew 15:21-28

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession. Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me! she said. He replied, It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs. Yes, Lord, she said, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered, Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matthew 15: 21-28)

The language of Faith   There is a detail of our Gospel scene today on which I would like especially to comment.  Our Lord has withdrawn to the pagan region of Tyre and Sidon.  A woman from the area, hearing that the miracle worker from Galilee has arrived, comes seeking him.  She is desperate and will not desist till she has obtained what she wants, which is the cure of her daughter.  She loudly makes herself heard and ignores the irritated looks of our Lord’s disciples.  Our Lord did not answer her a word.  Let us notice, incidentally, that it was in response not to the woman, but to complaint of his disciples, that our Lord observed that his mission was only to the lost sheep of Israel.  Despite their request, he did not summarily send her away.  He was, despite his disciples, allowing the pagan woman to keep asking, which she did.  He was bringing her by the test of his silence to the point of a greater faith in him.  So she came to him full of respect, addressing him by two Scriptural titles — Lord, and Son of David — and asking his help.  We know the result.  Due to her great faith, her request was granted.  But let us for today pass over the obvious lesson of the Gospel scene, which is the critical importance of faith in Jesus, and consider a different detail in the event portrayed.  I refer to the detail of the woman’s words, her terms, her language in speaking to Jesus.  The woman came to Jesus as a pagan.  She would have known little of revealed doctrine as contained in the Scriptures.  She heard of the renown of Jesus, and she comes to him using hallowed expressions, the language we might say, of the Scriptures.  She addressed him as Lord, Son of David, and asks for pity and mercy (Matthew 15: 21‑28).  She came to him with, perhaps, her own language — presumably Greek — but makes attempts at using the terms and language of revealed faith in dealing with Jesus.  He is Lord, Son of David.  I like to think of this scene as reminding us of the importance of the language and terms of our Catholic faith, the language of the Church our mother, the language of the Church’s teaching, the language which we as children of the Church learn in all matters of the Faith.  Now, we ought treasure this language of faith and allow it to nourish our life in Christ. 

There in our Gospel scene are the Twelve, the Church in embryo, and Jesus is there in their midst.  So it is in every generation.  The Church our mother has Jesus in her midst, and her mission is to bring all into personal contact with him.  He is her treasure and her mission.  The Church is the pillar and the bulwark of the truth about Christ and she guards the memory and actuality of Christ’s person, and his words and his teaching.  From generation to generation she hands on the confession of Peter and the Apostles about him.  She does so with her own language.  As mother of Christ’s Faithful she teaches her children to speak and to understand her language of faith in Jesus, that language which gradually develops with her ever deepening understanding of what Christ has entrusted to her.  For instance, the Church teaches us that the living Jesus is a divine person with two distinct natures, and that the Mass is Christ’s one Sacrifice at Calvary made present.  We ought try to understand these treasured terms and allow them to nourish our union with him.  We learn the language of faith from the Church our mother and we ought treasure that language for it brings us the knowledge and love of our Redeemer.  It is the language she uses about Christ and his revelation, about God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, about man and his destiny.  It is a language that has evolved for two millennia and which has become hallowed through its having expressed the revelation that God has made to her in Christ.  It is the language of her Catechism, especially in our day the great Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is the language she uses in her liturgy, the language of papal teaching, the terms and expressions that she has sanctioned in resisting error and in bringing her children to holiness in Christ.  It is the language of the Church’s dogmas and formulas which enable us to believe with objective accuracy in the realities they express.  By this language we are able to express the faith and hand it on to others, to celebrate it in the Church’s life and to assimilate it and to live it more and more.

Scripture today: Ezechiel 24:15-24;    Psalm Deuteronomy 32;     Matthew 19:16-22

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good? Jesus replied. There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments. Which ones? the man enquired. Jesus replied, 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbour as yourself.' All these I have kept, the young man said. What do I still lack? Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Matthew 19:16-22)

After this life   One of the results of a broad study of history is that a person who engages in it is less likely to be confined in his thinking to the opinions and assumptions of his own time.  A point of view very characteristic of our own time is that which is generally called Naturalism.  What is real is that which is subject to sense experience or verification, in other words Nature.  There is nothing beyond what we normally call nature — hence there is nothing of the supernatural, no reality beyond this world.  A study of history shows how much of an anomaly this view is in human thought, because mankind has overwhelmingly accepted the reality of the unseen world.  A corollary of this is the acceptance by most of mankind, but with less unanimity, of the reality of the Afterlife.  But revealed religion, and in particular Jesus Christ, has not only confirmed the fact of the supernatural and told us of God to an extent far beyond what man could have arrived at, but has also revealed the Afterlife.  The essentials of what happens beyond death is now known to us with a vividness otherwise unattainable, thanks to God’s revelation, and in particular the revelation of his Son Jesus Christ.  There is open to us, after this life, an abundant eternal life, a life forever of happiness in the direct presence of God our infinite and loving Father.  There is also revealed to us an awesome fact.  There is one only alternative to this joyous prospect.  It is the prospect of Hell.  So the all‑important question for every man and woman on the face of the earth is this: What must I do to gain eternal life? It is terrible beyond imagining that a person may miss out on an Afterlife with God, and instead forever live in the utter misery of separation from him.  For beyond this life there is nothing other than God.  With him a person has the infinite Good.  Without him one has the unending misery of living with nothing except self and sin.  So, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Many persons take no account whatever that this life, so short, places one at the threshold of a wondrous and awesome eternity.  They live for this life only and simply do not look ahead to when it is over.  If they do, they think there is nothing beyond it worth striving for.  This was not the case with the rich young man of our Gospel passage today (Matthew 19:16‑22).  His all‑important question was — and he was so concerned that he came to our Lord to put the question to him — what must I do to inherit eternal life? He wanted to know what more he needed to do that he had not yet done.  Our Lord gave him the answer that he already knew — he had to keep the Ten Commandments and these he had kept from his youth.  He was an exceptional young man and was on the way to heaven.  Behind the question of the rich man there was, it seems, the desire to do even more in his obedience to God, and so our Lord directly addresses this desire.  “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.” So there is a path to a high place in heaven, a path to perfection in the loving service of God, and that path is the following of Jesus.  One does not get the impression that the difficulty for the young man was the thought of following Jesus.  What made his face fall was the thought of abandoning his possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor, and living in relative poverty.  In his spirit he clung to his material possessions.  This attachment to his riches led to his shock at Christ’s answer, his recoil at the thought of going further, and his turning away.  We have no reason to think he lost his soul (for only God knows that) but he turned away from the path of perfection, that perfection that is found in living in the company of Jesus and in following his way.  He was a person of very great promise and our Lord saw that in him.  But it came to little because of his attachment to the things of this world. 

Scripture today: Ezechiel 28:1-10;      Psalm: Deuteronomy 32;      Matthew 19:23-30

Then Jesus said to his disciples, I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Peter answered him, We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us? Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. (Matthew 19:23-30)

Attachments  There have been ideologies in the last few centuries, especially in the last two, which have denied the right to private property.  The most obvious has been that of Karl Marx.  The Church has defended the right to private property and has taught that its denial will lead to serious harm in society.  At the same time the Church has condemned the unrestricted acquisition of private property, teaching that this right is qualified by the right of others to a due share of the goods of the earth.  I suppose one factor in the rise of philosophies that only allow a common or state ownership of material goods and reject a private ownership, is the sight of private ownership running amok and trampling on the rights of the poor.  Be all that as it may, this matter of ownership of goods has a profound bearing not only on this life but on the next.  In particular, our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel that the man whose heart is set on being rich in this world’s goods will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Our Lord does not say that this world’s goods are evil, nor does he say that the possession of them is evil.  After all, we may presume that the holy family of Nazareth — Joseph and Mary and Jesus — owned their dwelling and various other things.  Presumably when Joseph died, the ownership of the home passed to him.  He is saying that the one who makes himself rich will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven.  This is because he will tend to become very attached to the things of this world, to the things he owns and more besides.  Without his even realizing it, the preference of his heart will be for them rather than for God.  He will tend to find his delight and his security in them rather than in the God from whom they come.  The further snare is that he will in all likelihood be unaware of his attachment to them until the moment of decision suddenly comes when he must make a choice.  His heart may have become attached primarily to what he owns and it may be very hard indeed for him to choose Christ.  This is what happened to the rich young man.  For all, the crunch time in this respect will be the hour of death.

Christ asks us to be detached from the goods of this world.  We must seek them, and to an extent we must own them, and to an extent we must use them.  We must, though, beware of becoming too attached to them because if we do we shall find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven.  That kingdom consists essentially in union with Jesus and in life in him.  Our attachment must be for him.  All else that we have and use or are attached to must be within the context and framework of our attachment to him.  A father of a family works hard at his career and advances himself in it, seeking a higher salary and further possessions.  But this quest must be for love of Christ and his kingdom and his will.  It is Christ’s interests and will which should be motivating him and guiding his decisions more and more.  It is for love of Christ that he should be doing better at his profession or trade or business, so as to improve the prospects of his family and children, or to educate them better in life in the Christian faith, or to serve the public better in his work, or whatever.  Basically it is to be all for Christ.  So the disciple of Christ must work at detachment from the goods of this world — which are not just material goods but other goods besides — and become progressively attached to Christ and his mission for mankind.  In our Gospel passage today our Lord tells his disciples who have left everything for him that they will be blessed indeed.  “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:23‑30).  The disciples did this in a way appropriate to their vocation.  Each Christian must do it in a way appropriate to his vocation.  The crucial thing is the spirit of detachment from all things so as to be totally attached in spirit to Christ.  Now the question is, how is this to be done? It is done through the power of grace.  As our Lord says, with God all things are possible.  Let us ask then for his grace to attain this all‑important attachment of our hearts to him.

Scripture today: Ezechiel 34:1-11;     Psalm 22;     Matthew 20:1-16

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the market-place doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 'Because no-one has hired us,' they answered. He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.' But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' So the last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matthew 20:1-16)

Work   A principal issue in Western societies ever since the Industrial Revolution has been remuneration for and conditions of work.  Is the pay received for work and the conditions in which it is done, just?  Great numbers of poor were exploited for their work.  Many still are.  They had no power individually before the might of the employer, and so society saw the rise of trade unions and the development of the Church’s social teaching in respect to the worker.  In her social teaching, the Church gradually unfolded the centrality of work in man’s life and development.  However, one aspect of the fight for the rights of the ordinary worker was the loss in many cases of the realization that one’s daily work is not simply a means of gaining a salary, but has a central importance in attaining life’s true meaning.  That is to say, work is not just a chore, undergone to get money.  In a certain sense we live in order to do our work in life.  Our work is the precious means whereby we serve God and others in daily life.  It is our means of living a life of justice and charity, and therefore of growing in a life of religion.  If we neglect our work, or if we neglect to work, then our lives will be wasted.  Even for those who cannot work in the usual sense of the term because of sickness of forced unemployment, they too have a work in life in that they are called to serve others.  The sick person can make “a work” of his sickness, by living through his condition in union with the crucified Christ for the salvation of the world.  All are called to use the gift of life to work and in this way we are able to be like God our Father, whom our Lord said is always working.  On one occasion when our Lord was accused of breaking the Sabbath by curing someone, he replied that, My Father is working, so I work.  By means of our work we are able to live as God’s children, and grow in our love and service of him.  Let this thought be in our minds as we turn to our Gospel parable today in which our Lord describes the owner of the vineyard who invited all he met not to stand idle but to come and work in his vineyard.  All who worked in the master’s vineyard would receive a wage at the end of the day.

Scripture today: Ezechiel 36:23-28;     Psalm 50;      Matthew 22:1-14

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, ill-treated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are invited, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:1-14)

The Judgment   There is no doubt that one of the many distinguishing elements in the teaching of Jesus Christ is his revelation of the divine judgment on each person.  Of course, throughout the Old Testament — the Hebrew Scriptures — the idea of the divine judgment on wrongdoing is all‑pervasive.  The prophets continually inveighed against the neglect, the immorality and the disobedience of the chosen people, and on God’s behalf they threatened retribution especially in this life.  The people would be invaded.  They would be ruined.  If they turned back to the Lord, things would improve.  Generally the prophets spoke of the judgment as manifesting itself in this life.  Rewards too were often conceived as being granted primarily in this life.  In the teaching of Christ the judgment of God is especially manifest in the Afterlife.  But my point here is that what is notable is the extent to which our Lord refers to the judgment of God.  In our Gospel passage today the kingdom of heaven is again described and this time it is in terms of a wedding banquet.  The bridegroom is the king’s son, the king of course being the heavenly Father and the son being Jesus his only‑begotten divine Son.  The wedding is that between his Son and his bride the Church, all those chosen by God to be in him.  We remember how John the Baptist referred to Christ as the bridegroom and to himself as merely the friend of the bridegroom, and how our Lord too spoke of himself to the disciples of John as the bridegroom.  The wedding in the parable is the great union with Jesus to which we are all called — that is to say, the kingdom of heaven is the lordship of God which is found in Jesus and in union with him by faith and baptism.  The goal of human history and of every man and woman is this union with Jesus.  This is the wedding feast for which the king sent out invitations to all.  God has revealed that all mankind is called to a most bright prospect and the door to it is acceptance of and love for his own divine Son made man, Jesus Christ.

That is what God intends for man.  That is what he has predestined him for.  But he must be judged worthy.  Our parable today opens with the wedding feast being all ready: the Son is there awaiting the arrival of all who had been invited.  But they were not interested in the Son.  We are told that “they refused to come.  Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready.  Come to the wedding banquet.’ But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business.  The rest seized his servants, ill‑treated them and killed them” (Matthew 22:1‑14).  So it is not enough to be called, to have been predestined by God for this happiness.  One must respond and come to Christ.  The ones invited refused and what was the result? We read that “The king was enraged.  He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” Apart from the general point about the judgment of God, our Lord may have  also been referring to the future sack of the holy city.  But then the invitation went out to all.  “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.  Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” Presumably our Lord is referring to his commission to his disciples to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations.  But even so, belief must be genuine and shown in one’s way of life.  As our Lord said on another occasion, it is not enough to say to me Lord, Lord.  One must also do the will of my Father in heaven.  One of the guests who had arrived was not wearing the wedding garment.  He surely represents all who fail to do this.  God will judge each person on his chosen deeds.

Scripture today: Ezechiel 37:1-14;     Psalm 106;     Matthew 22:34-40

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:34-40)

Love for God   When a person discovers Christ, or having discovered Christ asks what Christ expects of him, he will sooner or later realize that very much part of the Christian vocation is to contribute towards changing the world.  There is an immense task ahead for all those who are in Christ.  The kingdom of God in which Christ is accepted as Lord must be extended.  The world is to be shaped and ordered according to the mind of Christ and the will of God, and the Christian’s calling is to be a leaven in this process.  Now, in realizing that his task is to fulfil this great objective work which is evangelization in its multiform aspects, the Christian can find himself forgetting that this task begins with one’s own very self.  After all, there are enormous limits on what one can do for God in the world.  There are the limits inherent in one’s own capacities.  One person may be a very good speaker, but another has no gift for this at all.  There are the limits imposed by the course of events in which certain opportunities come to some, but not to others.  But whatever be the limits of what one can do for God in the world of one’s everyday life, every person has immediately before him the prospect of sanctifying his very own life and self — that is, his very own heart.  This is an enormous challenge in itself and it is one’s immediate responsibility.  The first responsibility that each person has is to sanctify himself — which of course is done by loving God and one’s neighbour.  For this reason our Gospel passage today is so very important, and is a wonderful passage to consider.  Our Lord is asked, which is God’s greatest and most important commandment, the commandment which more than anything else he wants us to fulfil? Our Lord’s answer is immediate: we are to strive to love God with all our being, and our neighbour as ourself.  So whatever be our circumstances in life, with all the limitations they impose on us for doing good, the first thing is that we strive to love God perfectly in all we actually do.  Both the washerwoman and the ruler must aim for the perfection of love, whatever be the scope of their activities.

That is to say, we are called to engage in a daily and unremitting struggle for personal sanctity.  As our Lord tells us, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:34‑40).  I remember years ago I was attending a clergy conference and it was announced that a medical team was in the vicinity and wished to conduct medical tests on the clergy, testing their health risk status.  I remember being told by a member of the team that the two groupings in society that were found to be of highest health risk were clergy and doctors.  It was thought that in their service to others they constantly neglected their own health.  That related to physical health.  But the same thing can happen in the spiritual life of the Christian.  He can neglect his own spiritual life when busying himself in the service of others.  St Paul wrote that he had to be careful lest he save others and yet be a castaway himself.  So what must we do to nourish our own spiritual life? We must positively cultivate the love of God in our hearts.  A married couple must work on their marriage, which is to say that they must not take their relationship for granted for it can gradually deteriorate through all kinds of little failures against one another.  There needs to be a daily vigilance against threats to the relationship and a daily effort to improve the love between them.  So, too, in our relationship with the unseen living Jesus in whom we live by faith and baptism.  We must put aside daily time for prayer.  We must engage in regular reading that will nourish our relationship with the Jesus of the Scriptures and the Church.  We must make the effort to purify our intention, doing all we do for love of him and in his presence.  We must partake of the Sacraments because he comes to us especially in them.  We must deepen our bond with the Church his body, being guided by the Church’s teaching.  In a word, we must not take the love of God for granted.  It has to be worked on daily in the way the Church advises. 

Scripture today: Ezechiel 43:1-7;     Psalm 84; Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the market-places and to have men call them 'Rabbi'. But you are not to be called 'Rabbi', for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher', for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matthew 23:1-12)

Humility One of the most striking things in the history of man is the presence and influence of religion.   Consider the work of the average archaeologist as he examines or digs among his ruins.  He is continually discovering materials that reveal the religion of the civilization he is examining.  Take various indigenous societies.  Their remains reveal their religion.  This is the case with East and West, developed societies and undeveloped ones.  The obvious exception is the West of the last few centuries with the onset of secularism.  It is the same with so much of the findings of anthropology.  Man yearns for the unseen Absolute, or the powers above.  He depends on the higher powers and he wishes to be pleasing to them.  At the same time the practice of so much of religion is deeply flawed.  There is pride, cruelty, the desire to dominate, self‑indulgence — in short, there is a lot of sin in the practice of much of religion.  The gods of many religions are often very sinful, too, because so many of them are but a projection by the imagination of sinful man.  With revealed religion, we have the all‑holy God indicating to man how he, God, is to be worshipped, and how man is to live in his presence.  In his public ministry, time and again our Lord shows his profound respect and veneration for the religion revealed by his heavenly Father, together with its hallowed institutions.  At the same time he shows how sin is present in much of its practice.  And so we read in today’s Gospel (Matthew 23:1‑12), our Lord said to his disciples, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach.  They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the market‑places and to have men call them ‘Rabbi’.”

The purpose of religion is to exalt God.  It is to honour and glorify him.  But the temptation is, as in every human activity, to exalt oneself.  The tendency of fallen man, even in his religion, is to honour and glorify himself.  Our Lord pointed to many of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees as exemplifying this.  Many of them were, in their practice of religion, proud, vain, hard and uncharitable.  So our Lord says to his disciples that they were to be on guard against being like them.  The greatest among his disciples must be servant to all and must prefer the lower place.  Their desire must not be to exalt themselves, rather it must be to humble themselves.  The truly religious person is humble, and prefers the lower place.  Now, this virtue of the heart must be worked at for it will not come naturally.  The Christian must keep his eyes on Christ and observe his virtues.  Our Lord said on one occasion that all who laboured and were overburdened should come to him and learn of him for he is meek and humble of heart.  So we should come to Christ every day and be with him, learning his humility by our contemplation of the scenes of the Gospels.  Jesus, who is God and man, is profoundly humble.  He chose the lowly path and willingly accepted opprobrium poured on him by the leaders and those of influence.  His very Incarnation was an act of profound humility.  He who is God did not hesitate to set aside his divine glory to become as we are and he was humbler still, even to death on a cross.  So there are two Standards.  On the one hand we have the witness to vainglory and pride by much of humanity.  On the other we have the witness to humility and the choice of the lower place by Jesus himself.  Let us take our stand with Jesus and his way.  More than anything, let us pray for the grace to choose the lower place and to value most highly the virtue of humility.  The challenge of life is to be humble after the manner of Christ.  It is a life‑long undertaking involving a great struggle against pride and vainglory.  We can only do it with the grace of God and perseverance.

Our Lord finishes his words in our passage today with the simple yet ominous saying that “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:1‑12).  As our Lord often told his disciples, the Son of Man had to suffer if he were to enter his glory.  He warned them that he was soon to be rejected and to be put to death.  Then he would rise again.  Humility is the foundation of the Christian life.  Let us then pray for this grace and in various little ways during life let us practice this virtue of choosing the lower place.  In that way we shall be exalted, as was Christ himself.

Scripture today: Isaiah 22:19-23;     Psalm 138:1-3, 6, 8;    Rom 11:33-36;     Matthew 16:13-20

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is? They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But what about you? he asked. Who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. (Matthew 16:13-20)

The Truth   In our Gospel passage today, our Lord asks his disciples who people say he is.  There are a variety of answers, some saying one thing, others another.  Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead.  He is Elijah.  He is Jeremiah.  He is one of the old prophets.  If people had been asked other questions, this time about his teaching, once again there would have been a variety of answers.  Some would have said he taught this, others that he taught that.  This aspect of the dialogue has its echo throughout the centuries.  In any one era, we may imagine the risen Jesus asking who men say he is and what they say is his teaching.  The answers would show a profound divergence in respect to him among the peoples and the religions.  They are often far from the truth.  But then, with this disarray of opinion as the backdrop of the conversation, Christ asks his own disciples who they say he is.  In them he is asking his Church in embryo.  Implied in his question is the fact that there is one objectively true answer.  This truth should unite his disciples and distinguish them from the rest who are not in possession of the truth about him.  There is one objective truth about the person and teaching of Jesus and he expects to hear it professed by his disciples.  There is only one Christian Faith in terms of what has been objectively revealed, and it is this one Faith which God wants to see accepted and professed by his disciples, and through their witness, brought to the nations.  We ought bear this in mind whenever we think of this very important dialogue between our Lord and his disciples.  In the modern age when disagreement as to the truth, and in particular the truth about Christ and his teaching, is so widespread as evidenced in the multiplicity of Christian communions, we can have the attitude of shrugging our shoulders before the fact.  We can even slip into thinking that this does not matter very much, and that the important thing is, not that people possess the truth, but that they be sincere.  But our Lord’s question was not, are the people who think these different things about me and my teaching sincere, but, do they possess the truth about me?

It is this truth which unites his Church wherever his Church is found.  Through the centuries, in so many languages, cultures, peoples and nations the Church has constantly confessed this one faith received from the one same Lord, transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded in the conviction that all people have only one God and Father, the God and Father of Jesus Christ his only begotten divine Son.  This one faith which our Lord expected to hear from his disciples and which was professed by the lips of Simon in our Gospel passage today, is the faith our Lord expects to be believed and professed by all Christians.  Thus it is that our Lord founded one Church and not just a movement, as it were, from which any number of churches disagreeing with one another could naturally be expected to flow.  It is this one Church he intended all his disciples to be members of, and the fact of very many churches and religious communions is not according to the plan of Christ.  From this one Church the truth about his person and teaching is to received.  In our Gospel today our Lord hears from Simon the truth about himself, a truth which, our Lord observes, had been revealed to him by the Father.  For this reason, Simon was blessed.  He had been granted the gift of faith in him that contained the truth about him.  So Christ proceeds to lay the foundation of his Church.  That visible foundation is to be Simon, the Rock of the Church.  “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13‑20) Just as there is one faith, one truth about Christ and his teaching, so there is to be one Church built on one rock which knows it, possesses it and proclaims it to all.  Those who wish to know the truth listen to Peter and to those in communion with him.  Those who wish to enter the Kingdom of Christ go to the one to whom Christ gave the keys, and that one is Peter.

Scripture today: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 11-12;    Psalm 96:1-5;     Matthew 23:13-22 

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it. (Matthew 23:13-22)

Sin  It has often been observed that modern man tends to be casual about the seriousness of sin.  That is to say, he tends not to have much sense of its evil.  Elements of popular literature and drama are revealing in this respect.  Decades ago movies would portray good and bad characters in perhaps too simplistic a fashion, but nevertheless there tended to be no confusion about what was good and what was bad, who were the good people and who were the bad.  But this changed.  The heroes became profoundly ambiguous in their moral life.  Take James Bond, a great and effective fighter against public wrongdoers, but in his private sexual life altogether immoral.  It reflected, I think, the assumption that private morality is just that: it is a private matter, a matter of personal opinion or orientation.  One never hears a public acknowledgment (in say, the secular media or in business or government) of the reality and seriousness of sin, sin understood not just as ethical wrongdoing but as wrongdoing considered in its deepest aspect, as an offence against God.  The word “sin” is not mentioned.  Society relegates God to the realm of private opinion.  He is not an objective public fact to be taken account of civilly and objectively.  The laws of the land are developed without reference to God except inasmuch as God might be a cherished belief of a portion of the population — and therefore account is taken of, say, blasphemy.  All of this serves to reduce God in the popular imagination and culture to an image or a thought, and divorces him from the public and private conscience.  The thought of God’s judgment fades away as does the thought of God’s displeasure and anger at sin.  But consider our Gospel passage today (Matthew 23:13‑22) and how our Lord inveighs against the attitudes and actions of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.  He says to them, Woe to you! That is to say, the judgment of God is coming upon you.  You shut up the kingdom of God from others who wish to enter.  You do this by your blindness, your foolishness and your hypocrisy.  You make of your convert “twice as much a son of hell as you are.”

The point I am meaning to bring out here is not so much the failures of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, but our Lord’s severe condemnation of deliberate and unrepented sin.  It is sin, and the hardening of sin, which is the great evil in our Lord’s sight.  He is severe in his condemnation of it.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were blind to their sin and to its seriousness.  We ought ask ourselves if we also are not somewhat blind to the seriousness of sin.  Are we concerned to avoid sin — not just public wrongdoing or the wrongdoing that is evident to others, but to anything which is offensive to God? A truly religious life, and the Christian life in particular, requires that we regularly examine our consciences to bring sin to light and to renounce it.  We must become aware of our sinfulness and repent of our sins so as to be reconciled to God.  If we do not, we shall continue in sin, and the judgment of God will eventually come upon us for our unrepented sins.  The woe that Christ pronounced on the Pharisees he will pronounce on us.  On the other hand, if anything delights the heart of God it is the recognition of one’s sins, and coming to him in a spirit of repentance to ask his pardon.  On one occasion our Lord said that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine who did not need to repent.  We all need to repent, but our Lord is making the point that the sinner need have no fear of turning back to God, and with his grace renouncing his sins.  Sin is the greatest evil in the universe.  We are regularly horrified by natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and famine.  But the greatest plague in the universe, a plague that is raging continually in the hearts of countless men and women, is the plague of sin and its lack of recognition.  God sent his Son to the world to take away the world’s sin, and our Gospel passage today gives us a specimen of the divine hatred of deliberate and unrepented sin.  It is what destroys man, man who is the work of God’s hands.

Scripture today: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3a, 14-17;    Psalm 96:10-13;    Matthew 23: 23-26

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law— justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. (Matthew 23: 23-26)

The heart   We see in the Gospels that time and again our Lord condemned those whom he accuses of being hypocrites.  In this religious context, the hypocrite is a person who intends to give the impression of being good and religious by doing things that he knows others will judge to be good, while in his heart he cultivates attitudes and thoughts that he knows are bad — and even secretly performing actions he knows are sinful.  He may deliberately give the impression of kindness while harbouring in his heart many hatreds, and deliberately so.  He may deliberately give the impression of being religious by obvious acts of piety while consciously doing things that he knows are contrary to the practice of religion.  Hypocrisy is the cultivation of a praiseworthy exterior (in order to gain praise) while consciously pursuing a blameworthy interior.  It is, in this way, deliberately to live a lie and thus to gain the praise of men for what is a falsehood.  Christ repeatedly attacked this violation of the truth, and I suppose we could say that it is the temptation of religious people and of those who live in a society or community that values the practice of religion.  In our day and age, I think that the danger is a subtle hypocrisy, one less evident and more difficult to detect.  So we must live the truth genuinely and sincerely.  Our Lord does not condemn the teachers of the law and the Pharisees for giving “a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cummin”.  He said, rather, that their sin was to have “neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former.  You blind guides!”, he said (Matthew 23: 23‑26).  I believe, incidentally, that humour came often into our Lord’s teaching and in his use of certain images, and here we see it again.  He said that they strained out a gnat in order to drink or eat what was pure and clean, and then they proceeded to swallow a camel! They committed great sins while in their public persona they took care to avoid little offences.

Our Lord expects a thoroughgoing religion of the heart and of the whole of life.  He wants to see “justice, mercy and faithfulness” — in other words, the more important matters of the law of God, while not neglecting the matters of less importance.  Our Lord wants to see a wholehearted love of God in mind, heart and soul, and a genuine love of neighbour.  Most importantly, this means a religion of the heart, a religion in which the heart is serving God in its thoughts and desires.  We ought ask ourselves what is going on in our minds while we live in a respectable way in the sight of others.  What images are we allowing to fill our imaginations, and what desires are we allowing to fill our hearts? What are we doing when no one is around? What are we watching on the Internet or on television when we are alone? It is the secret interior that is the real battleground of goodness and sanctity.  At the end of life we shall be the persons we are, largely because of what we have allowed to go on in our minds and hearts.  We may go to Mass every Sunday and observe the more obvious laws of God and the more obvious precepts of the Church, but are we forgiving those who have injured us, or are we at least trying to forgive them? Perhaps we have not even made the decision to try to forgive them, however difficult that may be.  We may condemn the lack of forgiveness we see in various parts of the world and the violence it leads to, such as in the Middle East and in centres of terrorism, all the while not coming to terms with the lack of forgiveness that is embittering our own hearts.  This refusal to forgive may be poisoning our inmost heart, reducing our capacity to love as Christ loves, and yet, despite this harm to ourselves, we still refuse even to attempt to forgive.  We are time and again carried away by our thoughts of anger and resentment, and no one knows about it but God, who sees all.  In so many ways we can be hypocritical as were the Pharisees whom our Lord condemns in today’s Gospel.

Scripture today: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10, 16-18;     Psalm 128:1-2, 4-5;      Matthew 23:27-32

Jesus said, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! (Matthew 23:27-32)

Hypocrisy    In our Gospel passage today (Matthew 23:27‑32) our Lord continues his condemnation of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees for their studied efforts to appear to people as righteous, while secretly being full of hypocrisy and wickedness.  He appears to be far more severe on them than on sinners generally, let alone sinners who wanted to repent.  We remember how, when our Lord was passing through Jericho a chief tax collector, one who had exploited many persons in his work of extracting taxes for the Romans, ran ahead of the crowd so as to see Jesus.  Our Lord had not met him, yet when he came to the spot where Zacchaeus, the tax collector, was perched in the tree to see him pass by, he called him down and told him he was dining with him that day.  We can imagine the smile of love that our Lord showed Zacchaeus as he said this.  He converted Zacchaeus on the spot.  We remember how, when our Lord called Matthew the tax collector to follow him, he subsequently dined with the sinners and tax collectors in the house of Matthew.  He told the complaining Pharisees that he had come to be a doctor to those who were sick, and to call sinners to repentance.  We remember how, when the religious leaders brought before him the woman caught in the act of adultery, he bent down and began writing silently on the ground.  They could not get him to condemn her.  He said in response that the one who was without sin could be the first to throw a stone.  One by one they left, their guilt gradually becoming evident to them, but without a true repentance.  To the woman herself our Lord asked, has no one condemned you? Then he said that he would not condemn her either, but that she should go and not sin any more.  Our Lord did not speak to sinners who had a sense of their sin in the way he spoke to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.  To the one he was full of kindness and mercy.  To the other he was severe and uncompromising.

Nor must we think that our Lord condemned the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, out of hand, all and sundry.  It is clear that he accepted invitations to the homes of Pharisees, even though he did not hesitate to correct them even in their own homes.  But the fact that he did receive these invitations demonstrates that they did not feel that he was in any way hostile to them as such.  It was their pride and hypocrisy he opposed.  We remember that Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, came to Jesus by night for conversations.  He must have felt fully accepted by our Lord, though undoubtedly he too would have received corrections when they were due.  Nicodemus was a genuine seeker after divine truth and he was a truly good man.  His defence of our Lord among Sanhedrin members and his reverent burial of our Lord show this.  He was not at all what our Lord called a hypocrite.  Let us consider this too.  Somewhere in the background was the young Saul of Tarsus.  He was a Pharisee and had been educated in the best religious school.  Presumably he knew of our Lord for he was certainly a contemporary.  We know nothing of his attitude to our Lord during our Lord’s public ministry nor during his Passion and Death.  It was when the infant Church began to proclaim the Resurrection boldly that Saul of Tarsus actively persecuted the first Christians.  But our Lord intervened and appeared to him, converting him with his powerful grace.  Precisely as a Pharisee, he was not a hypocrite.  Our Lord showed him kindness, even though he had been persecuting him: “Why do you persecute me?”, he had asked from heaven.  Paul came to regard himself as a great sinner, and we can presume that in some sense he had hardened his heart against the truth in the process of persecuting the early Christians.  But he was no hypocrite.  He genuinely sought to do what he thought was right.  Christ loved him and called him, as he had called other sinners, to follow him.  Paul did so, and with marvellous results. 

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 1: 1-9; Psalm 144; Matthew 24: 42-51

Jesus said to his disciples: Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,' and he then begins to beat his fellow- servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24: 42-51)

Being smart  When it comes to being intelligent and yet wise, there are some tremendous anomalies.  What do I mean? Consider the intelligence displayed by various people in their several walks of life.  A child prodigy in Mathematics gains his Ph.D while still in his mid teens.  He goes on while still young to occupy important academic positions and to make important discoveries in numbering and in other aspects of his discipline.  It could be a young man or woman in business who builds up from virtually nothing a multi‑billion dollar computer or Internet company that amazes all with its commercial success.  We could cite many other examples of proven intelligence in the fields of war, politics, business, research or whatever.  Apart from outstanding cases of intelligence, there are so many who do well in their fields and who shine among their friends and acquaintances for other qualities.  Yet, strangely, it can easily happen that they do not see beyond a certain very limited point.  For instance, a person sets his sights on material wealth alone or success in his profession and neglects his marriage as a result.  That is not very smart.  But there are more fundamental goals still that the intelligent person can forget.  In all his success in attaining important and legitimate goals such as family happiness and success in career, a highly talented person can think only of this life.  I still vividly remember years ago a leading businessman in Australia who at fifty years of age had become a billionaire and who seemed to turn to gold everything he touched.  But suddenly at 52 he died and was cremated.  He could take absolutely nothing with him.  All there was left were some ashes.  His spirit had gone before the judgment seat of God.  The question which of course only God could answer is, did he go from here in union with, or separated from God? One wonders whether he had forgotten that at any point, this life can suddenly end and then a profound reckoning is to be taken.  It is a reckoning that carries with it an eternal reward or punishment, a reckoning that takes account of all our thoughts, all our words and all our deeds.  I refer to the judgement of God.  The intelligent thing would be to remember this.

Our Lord time and again refers to the judgment of God.  In his famous sermons, John Henry Newman often referred to the criticism that Christianity was a gloomy religion.  It is not a gloomy religion — but he was referring to the last things that everyone must face: death, God’s judgment and then heaven or hell.  To many that sounds gloomy.  A person who bears these ultimate and yet ever imminent facts in mind is bound to be somewhat more serious about things.  Too much is at stake.  In our Gospel passage today our Lord refers to this point.  He warns us to keep watch because we do not know at what hour God will come to call us to himself.  Life is uncertain and absolutely precarious.  We must take this into account and live in such a way that whatever happens we shall be ready for God’s judgment.  To do anything less is to be foolish.  How do we remain ready? We do this by doing God’s will as well as we can and for love of him, at every point of life.  If when he comes God finds us doing this, then we shall be ready for him.  The task of life and the key to being always ready is always to be striving to do the will of God.  And so our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.  I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.  But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow‑ servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.  He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24: 42‑51) The sensible and wise person does this, however gifted or otherwise he may be. 

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 1:17-25;    Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 10-11;     Mark 6:17-29

Herod himself gave orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, Ask me for anything you want, and I'll give it to you. And he promised her with an oath, Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom. She went out and said to her mother, What shall I ask for? The head of John the Baptist, she answered. At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. On hearing of this, John's disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:17-29)

Stand ready!  There is a common expression: “being street-wise.” It means being very aware of the things that could happen, and being ready and equipped to deal with them.  This applies not only to humans but to animals as well.  The inexperienced cub will wander around investigating the area of its lair.  It does not realize that it is exposed to all sorts of prey, and then is suddenly taken by an eagle or a hyena.  As an animal grows it becomes skilled in avoiding detection and in preying on other animals weaker than itself.  It becomes “street-wise.” The child is always warned by his mother never to talk to strangers as he sets out each day to go to school.  He forgets his mother’s advice and talks to a friendly stranger.  The city is placed on alert and across the nation there is news that the child is missing.  Three weeks later he is found dead in a forest.  Another heeds the instruction and learns prudence in various areas of life.  There are countless cases of accidents in life, and an important part of life’s challenge is precisely the avoidance of accidents.  We must learn to be “street-wise” in the best sense, which is to say we must learn to be prudent.  A person who has learnt prudence has acquired a great gain, for not only has he learnt to avoid many harmful occurrences, but he is able to make the best of his situation.  He is an agent of events, and not just a sufferer of them.  He is equipped to do a work in life, and is not just worked on by other persons or things.  He has the prudence to do good, and his life is not merely borne along by the stream whithersoever it may lead.  There is this further consideration, that prudence is a moral matter.  If we are imprudent, we may be morally culpable.  There are things a person “should” know and “should” take account of, and if he does not, then it is not just an unfortunate accident, but is blameworthy.  For this reason people are punished not only for murder, but also for manslaughter.  They should have known that what they did could most certainly lead to the death of someone.  It is no excuse to say, “I did not know.” You should have known.

There is one great thing we must learn as quickly as possible in life, and that is that life is very vulnerable.  By that I not only mean that we must learn to avoid accidents, such as being hit by a car on the road, or not being taken in by unscrupulous people.  This is a matter of prudence, of course, but there is a deeper sense in which we must learn the vulnerability of life.  The point is that no matter how prudent we are, no matter how “street-wise,” we can never be sure when life will be snatched from our grasp.  There was nothing that the most prudent person could have done in the areas most affected by the great tsunami of the Indian Ocean in 2004.  Vast numbers lost their lives, including the most prudent of people, through no fault of their own.  Despite this, there is something every prudent person can do no matter how unpredictable and vulnerable life may be.  Every person can stand ready for the ultimate and unpredictable event of all, a sudden loss of life.  It need not be caused by a tsunami.  It can happen with the failure of a heart-beat.  A young man in the prime of life suddenly collapses in his parish church, and in moments is dead.  He has died of a massive heart attack, which no-one, including his doctor, predicted.  What we can do is always be ready, were our lives to be taken from us without warning.  Life is essentially vulnerable and this is an obvious fact of life, but the average person thinks that this means the next person.  It does not occur to him that it could easily mean him.  As our Lord says, we know not the day nor the hour.  Since we do not know, the prudent thing to do is to be always prepared.  That is to say, the prudent thing to do is always to be ready for the Judgment of God, always repentant, always trusting in God’s mercy, always trying to do the will of God as expressed in the duty of the moment.  We must not be like the foolish virgins in our Lord’s parable (Matthew 25: 1-13), who were caught at the coming of the bridegroom without any oil in their lamps.  They were locked outside.  They were very imprudent.  It will not do to say, “I didn’t know!”  You should have known.

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31;    Psalm 33:12-13, 18-21;    Matthew 25:14-30  

Jesus told his disciples this parable: A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.' His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew 25:14-30)

Our work   There is a short biography, by Michael Trappes‑Lomax, of Bishop Richard Challoner, the Catholic Bishop of the London district for most of the latter part of the eighteenth century.  The technical name of the Bishops of England during that period was Vicar‑Apostolic, as a properly established Catholic hierarchy was to come only in the following century.  One of the many distinguishing qualities of Challoner was his constant and effective work.  He was a very holy priest, both learned and pastoral.  He was the author of numerous works, and he seems to have had an enormous capacity for using every minute of his time, over a long life, to work and to work effectively.  I would recommend Challoner’s book, Meditations for Every Day of the Year, as still of great use.  I introduce this man as an example of one whose life was filled with good work.  Whether one is religious or not, every person understands that a most fulfilling experience of life is to do good work, work that is a true service to others.  At the end of life one of the most disappointing experiences will have been to remember those opportunities for good work that were left undone.  From the purely natural point of view, work is at the centre of man’s concerns.  His work is the means whereby he gains the resources — which is to say the income — to provide for his fundamental needs, to care for those who depend on him, and to develop himself in his higher capacities by means of a good use of his leisure.  More than anything, his work is the means whereby he serves others.  He instinctively knows that the value of his life depends on his engaging in a good service of others.  Man naturally understands that he lives in order to work, and the value of his life will depend on the way he works.  Of course, he also understands that this principle must be interpreted broadly because a person who cannot work in the normal sense can work in more indirect ways.  He can serve others from the sick bed and very many have done just this.  All understand the importance of work for human fulfilment, and they understand the duty of all to work.

Our Gospel passage today (Matthew 25:14‑30) makes it clear that this natural insight is a reflection of the mind of God.  God desires us all to work.  Our Judgment will in large measure revolve around the question of our work in life.  Consider the parable our Lord tells us in today’s passage.  The master of the three servants goes off on his journey having entrusted his goods to them each according to the measure of their ability.  He eventually returns and expects to see his interests advanced by his servants making good use in their work of what he had placed in their hands.  They had had a long time to do something of value with what he had left them and two of them turned out to have worked well.  Each made more with what they had been given.  They were handsomely rewarded, each in proportion to the good work done.  But this was not the case with the third, the one with least ability and who accordingly had been entrusted with only the one talent.  He had done nothing with the talent he had been given.  He had simply buried it and left it there, and spent the long time of his master’s absence doing nothing.  All he did was to hand back to the master the single talent he had been given long before.  The master was profoundly displeased, regarding this servant as wicked and lazy.  He took the one talent and threw him out into the darkness.  God wants us to use our life to work well and for his interests, doing his will.  If we do nothing then we shall be judged unworthy.  Our Lord often, time and again, speaks of the judgment on each person at the end of life and of how it is only those judged worthy who will be granted a place in glory.  The parable shows that our work will be an essential element in our judgement.  It also shows that it is especially the little man, the person of ordinary and even meagre talents who must take note of this, and who must beware of doing little or nothing with what he has been given.  Every day he is called to work as well as he can for his Lord and Master.

Scripture today: Jeremiah 20:7-9;    Psalm 63:2-6, 8-9;    Romans 12:1-2;     Matthew 16:21-27

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord! he said. This shall never happen to you! Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Then Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. (Matthew 16:21-27)

The Father’s will   In our Gospel scene of today we read that “from that time on” our Lord began to tell his disciples what he “must” do: “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the  third day be raised to life.” Notice our Lord’s use of that word, “must.”  It was his mission to suffer and to die, and so to enter his glory, and thus to open the way to a share in his glory for all mankind.  Our Lord says this is something he “must” do.  He did not mean that he was compelled to do this, because on other occasions our Lord said that he would freely lay down his life, and would freely take it up again.  The word “must” denotes, rather, the will of his Father and Jesus’ inflexible will to fulfil it.   It expresses the complete union of his will with that of the Father.  His food was to do the will of his heavenly Father, he said.  I always do what pleases him, he said on another occasion.  He challenged his enemies, Can any of you convict me of sin? In the vast scene of broken humanity, there stands forth one Man who is utterly, supremely, and entirely of himself holy because his person is divine.  He is the very source of holiness and his is the Spirit of holiness.  The point here is that he is the one who beyond all others acknowledged in every way that his Father is Lord and God.  I am the Lord your God, was God’s revelation of himself, and Jesus Christ shows mankind what it is truly to acknowledge this.  Acknowledging this means doing the Father’s will, whatever be the cost.  For this reason he said that he “must” suffer and die in bearing witness to the truth.  He rebuked Simon — who loved him so much — for he was acting like Satan in trying to dissuade him from his path of suffering and death.  And so he said to his disciples that “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” As we think of all this, let us consider what is implied in affirming with adoration that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our one and only God.  It implies the resolve to do his will in imitation of Jesus Christ.

It means, further, that we who are Christ’s faithful and members of his body the Church must guard and continually activate the fundamental virtues of faith, hope and love that we received at our baptism.  These gifts of the Holy Spirit enable us to place our faith and hope in God, to adore him, and to love him with all our hearts.  By faith we believe in God and reject everything opposed to what God has revealed of himself as it is explained and taught by Christ and his Church.  Christ’s faithful must reject all deliberate doubt, all unbelief, anything leading to heresy, any abandonment of the Catholic Faith for another faith, or separation from the Church.  Especially we must guard against any deliberate doubt about the Church’s teaching.  The gift of faith enables us to guard against all this.  By the gift of hope we trustingly await the vision of God and his grace, avoiding any temptation either on the one hand to despair or on the other to presumption.  So, we believe in God and his revelation, and we hope in his power and love to bring us to him, all the while aware of our sinfulness and proneness to sin.  By the gift of charity, and on the foundation of our faith and hope, we strive to love him with all our hearts, showing this in our resolve to do his will whatever be the cost.  We strive every day to bring the seed of love implanted in us at our baptism to its perfection.  It means repudiating all indifference to God and his revelation.  We repudiate ingratitude, lukewarmness, sloth or spiritual indolence, and of course any semblance of hatred for God that is born of pride.  We who are baptised have been granted priceless gifts by the Holy Spirit, the supernatural gifts of faith, hope and love, and these gifts if acted on day by day will unite us to Jesus and enable us to follow in his footsteps.  That path that Christ trod is the path of acknowledging in every way that his Father and our Father is the one and only Lord and God.  By our life we must bear witness in union with Jesus that our God is the one and only Lord of all. 

Scripture today:   Revelation 21: 9-14;      Psalm 144;      John 1: 45-51

Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote— Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nazareth! Can anything good come from there? Nathanael asked. Come and see, said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false. How do you know me? Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig-tree before Philip called you. Then Nathanael declared, Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. Jesus said, You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You shall see greater things than that. He then added, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. (John 1: 45-51)

Good soil  Our Gospel passage is taken from St John, and John sets forth his purpose in chapter 20:31.  “These (signs) have been recorded that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God; and that believing this you may have life through his name.” Life will come through belief that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.  This belief in Jesus is not just any kind of belief in him, but acceptance of his revelation.  It is not sufficient to believe that he is a great prophet.  He is the long-awaited Messiah and he is the divine Son of the heavenly Father.  Many did not attain to this faith.  Judas did not.  Many of the leaders of the people did not — though some did.  Many of his disciples did not, for at the announcement of the doctrine of the Eucharist (John 6), many of them left him.  It is also clear that while our Lord’s closest disciples — his Apostles — had true faith in him, nevertheless it took time to mature.  When Simon Peter professed his faith before our Lord that he was the Christ the Son of the Living God, he went on to show that he had no appreciation that the Cross was an essential part of his mission as Messiah.  Though our Lord repeatedly told them that he would suffer, die and rise again, his disciples could not take it in.  It was a catastrophic blow when he was arrested and ignominiously put to death.  They did not believe the first witnesses of the resurrection.  Thomas resolutely refused to believe the word of the other Apostles that our Lord had risen from the dead.  It took our Lord’s risen appearance to elicit from him a magnificent profession of faith in his divinity.  John’s Gospel presents our Lord as the Messiah and as the Son of God, and it also presents the journey of faith in this, culminating, we might say, in the profession of faith of Thomas.  They had the faith, but it was far from perfect.  That having been said, let us look at the faith they had had from the beginning.  It was remarkable.

Our Gospel today on the feast of St Bartholomew, who is traditionally taken to be the Nathanael of St John’s Gospel, presents us with two of our Lord’s first disciples.  They met him and accepted him fully at the very outset of his mission, soon after his baptism by John in the river Jordan.  Let us notice, to begin with, the faith of Philip.  It is simple and yet astonishing.  Just before our passage today we read that “The day following (i.e., after his meeting with Simon Peter and his telling Simon that he would name him Rock) he wanted to set out for Galilee.  He found Philip  and said to him, Follow me.” That is all that John tells us.  It is reminiscent of our Lord’s call of another of the Twelve, narrated in the Gospel of Matthew, the call of Levi.  Our Lord saw him sitting at his tax booth, and said to him, Follow me, and he got up and followed him.  Similarly, our Lord said to Philip, Follow me, and he forthwith followed him.  What was behind such an immediate and complete response? We are told in our passage today.  “Philip found Nathanael and told him, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote— Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” That is to say, Philip rapidly arrived at the faith in Jesus Christ which was the goal of John’s Gospel.  From the outset he acquired what John taught to be the true faith.  We can only say that he must have been marvellously disposed for this faith.   He had not seen the miracles of Christ.  He had seen a little of him, and he had not heard from him a lot of his teaching.  But he had met him, heard a little, and that was sufficient for conviction.  It suggests that if we are properly disposed in mind and heart, it does not take very much to see that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.  It is the same with Nathanael.  Nathanael, in John’s presentation of him, did not think much of our Lord’s origins — Jesus came from Nazareth! Nazareth! But Nathanael had a heart open to the truth.  He had no guile.  On hearing a word from Christ that was somewhat miraculous, and meeting him, he arrived at the true faith.  It took but a moment. 

Our Lord once told the story of the sower going out to sow his seed.  Some fell on the wayside, some on rocky soil, some on thorns, and some on the good soil.  It was the seed that fell on the good soil that produced the harvest.  Philip and Nathanael were good soil, and the seed produced its fruit instantly.  It had to develop and there were halting moments and stages.  But the seed had gone into good soil.  We must strive to be good soil.  Philip and Nathanael show us that it is not difficult to gain the faith and to grow in it, if we have the grace of God.  But we must be good soil, having the right dispositions.  Let us, with the grace of God, do this, then.
                                                                           (E.J.Tyler)

Refugee-Migrant Sunday (August) Year A

Jesus said to his disciples, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25: 31-46)

The refugee     Among the phenomena of the modern world is the movement of peoples in a vast migration, a great deal of it forced. Many hundreds of thousands flee from persecution and overwhelming difficulty in their own homelands. Few would want to leave their homeland unless forced to do so by circumstances. As with every practical issue, the Christian ought ask himself, what is the mind of Christ towards the migrating person, and especially to the one seeking refuge from strife and persecution in his own homeland? What would Christ himself do were he receiving the fleeing migrant, and what does he teach in relation to this matter? Our Lord teaches us that we are to treat the least person, but especially the one who is suffering, just as we would treat him. If we knew it was Jesus himself who was arriving as a refugee, how would we treat him? Our Lord tells us that at our final judgment we shall hear the words, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. Or on the contrary, we may hear the words, I was hungry and you never gave me anything to eat. And we might find ourselves saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or in prison? And we will hear the reply, whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine you did to me (Matthew 25). That consideration should guide our whole approach to anyone in need, and among the neediest in the whole world are the refugees of the world. The Popes have continually appealed to countries to do all they can to assist refugees. This can be inconvenient and costly, but throughout life we are continually being called on to sacrifice our convenience to the point of real cost for the sake of those in need.

Even to stop to help someone with our time and attention is a call on our convenience. I was once in a shopping centre and had cause to pause from what I was doing. A poor old tramp was walking not far from me and I noticed a man who obviously had his own work to do stopping to show him some kindness. He talked to him in a genuinely interested way. I could not help thinking what a wonderful thing he was doing. He was treating that man with real respect, a respect that he may have seldom received. We must treat migrants and refugees as persons deeply loved by Christ, as children of our common Father in heaven, and not simply as a problem. Their arrival constitutes not just a problem but a great opportunity for the flourishing of the moral life of a nation. There is much that debases, degrades and undermines the moral life of a society, and it is a thing of moment to identify moral initiatives that will strengthen a nation’s soul. Think of how pleased God would be with a country, and how a nation will be blessed in its moral life by God, were it to treat refugees as ones loved by Christ, as people with whom Christ identifies. In all of this, Christ poses the example of the Good Samaritan. The man was left half dead by bandits on the roadside, and people passed him by, except for that Good Samaritan. When Our Lord finished the story, he said, now go and do the same. So many refugees are like that person left half-dead by the roadside. The Christian ought be like a beacon, a shining examples of how the refugee, the person in difficult straits, is to be treated. Let us regard it as a duty to be well informed as to the refugee’s plight and as to the more humane methods of helping him.

Let us try to be truly like Christ to the migrant and refugee. Let us remember that our Lord himself was once a refugee, together with Mary and Joseph, fleeing to Egypt from the murderous designs of Herod, without documents and without any capacity to prove anything. Our Lord and our Lady and St Joseph would heartily identify with the refugee.

                                                                                (E.J.Tyler)