Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
in Rome ●
Saturday of the
thirtieth week in Ordinary Time A/I
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Scripture today: Romans 11:
1-2.11-12.25-29; Psalm 93; Luke
14:1, 7-11
One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in
the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. When he
noticed how the guests picked the places of honour at the table, he told them
this parable: When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place
of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If
so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man
your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.
But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes,
he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be
honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
(Luke 14: 1, 7-11)
Humiliation One of
the most notable features of the life of Jesus Christ was that he was greatly
humiliated. He was the greatest man who walked the earth in terms of moral
goodness, sanctity and the divinity of his person, but his path was a lowly and
humble one — indeed it was a path of humiliations.
As an infant he was pursued by the ruthless Herod, and not honoured by him as he
should have been. He was rejected by the influential ones among the leaders,
spurned and attacked. He came unto his own, and his own should have received
him with honour, but instead he was received with opprobrium. We are talking of
the Incarnate God. The path of Jesus Christ was a path of humiliations, and he
described himself as being meek and humble of heart. When he told those
following him that a person could be his disciple only if he renounced himself
and took up his cross every day, he was especially thinking of humiliations.
The “cross” referred to the most humiliating death that was possible in his
time, the kind of public death that was meant by Rome to be a warning to all
criminals. The disciple must be prepared to embrace what Christ embraced, and
that was the path of humiliation. It is a very difficult message and were it
not the moral renown of Jesus Christ, the world would think it altogether a
foolish one. The only “reason” for the Christian’s taking that path is that
Jesus Christ took it. It was by Christ’s following that path of obedience amid
humiliation and drinking that cup to its finish, that the world was saved. From
humility and humiliations came life in abundance to all. This is one of the
most difficult of lessons to master, and one of the most difficult of paths to
embrace. It can only be done for love of Jesus, and by the grace of the Holy
Spirit. Now, just as Jesus Christ is the supreme hero of the moral and
religious life, so the saints who loved and followed him are our heroes. They
manifest this or that facet of the following of Christ, but among them all the
attainment of the virtue of humility is fundamental. The path towards the
gaining of humility is marked by humiliations.
For
instance, let us take one of countless examples in the history of sanctity.
In the middle of the nineteenth century it was decided to found in Dublin a
Catholic University for the English speaking world. It was the desire of
Pope Pius IX and of many bishops, especially in Ireland. As the most famous
convert to Catholicism of his day, and as a past intellectual leader of the
University of Oxford especially in his fight against liberalism in religion,
John Henry Newman was approached by Cardinal Cullen (the archbishop of
Armagh) to be its founding Rector. He would have to start from nothing and
build up the institution in Dublin — himself commuting regularly from his
Oratory House in Birmingham, where he was the Superior and Founder. From
the beginning, he had serious difficulties, especially though not only, with
the Irish bishops, including from Cullen himself. Newman hoped that the
project would be a recommencement of his battle with doctrinal liberalism.
It was decided by the Pope that Newman would be appointed a Bishop (in
partibus) to give him episcopal standing among the Irish bishops, though
his only responsibility would be the incipient university. It was widely
announced that he would be consecrated a bishop, and was common talk, but
Cullen quietly and secretly acted against this eventuating. He succeeded,
and the whole proposal was dropped without Newman being informed. It was
one of many humiliations that were strewn across Newman’s path. The point,
though, is that in suffering humiliation in obedience, Newman was treading
the path of Christ. The cross was being exalted and in that triumph of the
cross in life, sanctity was being forged. In the Passion and Death of
Christ, God’s plan for the redemption and sanctification of mankind was
being worked out. In the humiliations and reversals of the disciple of
Christ, God’s redemptive and sanctifying plan proceeds. Obedience to God in
imitation of Jesus Christ will bring humiliation as it did to the Master
himself, and from that obedience flows the abundant life of God.
In our Gospel today our Lord concludes by saying that “Everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”
(Luke 14: 1, 7‑11). The greatest disciples
of Jesus Christ will experience humiliation, and this will be the rich soil
of humility — which in turn is the foundation of authentic sanctity. God
will exalt the one who humbles himself in obedience before him, but this
will involve humiliation and the cross. Newman became a saint and this was
recognized in his beatification by Pope Benedict in 2010. Let us pray to
put on the mind of Christ, and to be able to embrace the cross in obedience
when it comes our way.
Sunday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time A/I
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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 '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)
The Lord
is God
The foundation of the Ten Commandments is the First: I am the Lord your God, you
shall not have other gods before me. Some scholars have maintained that the
original stress of the first of the Ten Commandments was not on the exclusive
oneness of God, but on the right of Yahweh to Israel’s exclusive worship and
loyalty.
They maintain that this commandment as given to Moses did not formally declare
that there were no “gods” — called such by the peoples — other than the Lord,
but that Israel was not to worship any of them. It was a commandment directed
to Israel, and it required that the Lord (Yahweh) was to be their only God.
Such scholars think, indeed, that the first commandment presupposes the
existence of other gods. Let us leave the academic debate to one side, and for
argument’s sake allow that the stress may have been on exclusivity of worship
and loyalty rather than on the divine oneness. In any case, the “gods” of other
religions were at most mere spirits, real or unreal, and endowed with certain
powers that competed with the greater powers of a higher spirit or god. They
were scarcely imagined as comparable to Yahweh. If as an historical fact the
first commandment did not formally declare that such spirits — such “deities” —
were non-existent, this would not contradict the strict monotheism that was
definitely implied in it. Historical revelation makes it clear, in fact, that
there are spirits. There are angels and there are demons. Many peoples
worshipped their ancestors and “deified” them, without conceiving them as
equivalent to Yahweh. What is indisputable is the command that all worship and
obedience must be rendered to the Lord. Whatever so-called “deities” —
ancestors and spirits and demons — there might be, none were to receive any
honour due to God alone. The ever-present temptation bewitching societies was
to attribute divine power and status to lesser unseen beings, whether known or
imagined, whether good or evil.
Whether fully and explicitly understood at the time of the revelation, or
understood with reflection and further revelation over time, the duty to
adore God as the Lord of everything that exists is required by the first
commandment. Man is to render to God the individual and community worship
which is his due; to pray to him with sentiments of praise, of thanks, and
of supplication; to offer him sacrifices, above all the spiritual sacrifice
of one’s own life. All this is seen by the Christian as to be lived in
union with the perfect sacrifice of Christ. Christ’s fulfilment of the
first commandment is its perfect fulfilment. Man is able to fulfill this
command in a new and especially elevated way by uniting himself to Christ in
a life of obedience to God and his holy will. There are implications of
this for our search for truth. Many people do not bother with the truth —
their sloth leads them to shrug off such matters. But if God is the Lord of
all, and if then man has the obligation to acknowledge his lordship over
all, then man is obliged to seek to know God and his will for us. It is
therefore implied by the first and greatest commandment that every person
has the right and the moral duty to seek the truth about God and what he has
revealed. That is also to say that everyone has the duty to seek to know
Christ and his Church. Once known, every person has the right and the moral
duty to embrace this truth, to guard it faithfully and to render God
authentic worship. This freedom to seek and embrace the truth of God is
the most fundamental right and duty, because without this knowledge one
cannot fulfill this basic commandment as God intends it to be observed. The
modern atheist or agnostic — a class of persons pervading all levels of
modern Western society — cannot, in the nature of the case, fulfil this
foundational commandment. His considered position, atheistic or agnostic
as the case may be, is condemned by this commandment. If it is founded on a
conception of human autonomy, that conception is false. The fulfilment of
this command leads to man’s flourishing. It takes him to holiness and to
heaven.
In our Gospel today our Lord tells us that we have but one Master and that
we are all brothers. We have but one Father and he is in heaven. We have
but one Teacher, the Christ. He it is that we ought exalt, and we do so by
lives of generous obedience to the divine will, lived out in union with
Christ by the faithful fulfilment of our daily duties and responsibilities.
Let us then exalt God and humble ourselves, for our Lord tells us that
“whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be
exalted” (Matthew 23: 1-12).
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.
2095-2109 (Worship God alone)
Monday of the thirty first
week in Ordinary Time II
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 2:1-4; Psalm 131:1-3; Luke 14:12-14
Then Jesus
said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite
your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich
neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be
repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the
lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay
you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."(Luke 14:12-14)
Purity
of intention
An older sister who has married and is settled has resolved to assist her
younger brother who is likewise married and is struggling financially with his
young family. At some sacrifice to herself she gives a sizeable gift of money
to her brother.
As a result of this generous act, he is able to lay down a deposit for his new
home and make a start on repayments for what is now his own dwelling. It was a
sacrifice for her to make this gift, and it certainly made a difference to her
brother. Moreover, at least partially she did it for love of God. It was a
real act of charity. However, as time goes on, her brother gradually forgets
the gift that she made. He never again refers to it and even comes to treat her
off‑handedly and quite thoughtlessly. She herself comes to resent his attitude,
expecting that he would remember the sacrifice she made and remain grateful to
her for her decisive assistance to him at a difficult moment of his married
life. She becomes somewhat embittered and gradually they drift apart, he
oblivious to his own neglect and she bitter at her generosity not being
acknowledged. They are both religious people, but the souring of their love for
one another is souring their religious life. Of course it is reprehensible that
he lacks ongoing gratitude for what she did for him, but it is sad that she is
not able to rise above his thoughtlessness and renew or rather purify the motive
for which she made her sacrifice. At the time she did it for God — at least in
large measure. Her brother’s ongoing lack of acknowledgment could have become
the occasion for her purifying the intent of her past sacrifice as something
done for God alone. Every time we find ourselves disappointed or frustrated at
the attitude of others towards what we have done in good faith can be the
occasion for a purification of our motive for having done it. We ought do
everything for God, do it well for him, and when others react unfairly, then our
consolation ought be our continuing to do it, and everything else, for God
alone.
In
our Gospel passage today, our Lord provides us with a slightly different
scenario in his advice to his host. He urges him to do good to those who
cannot do good to him in return. “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do
not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your
rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be
repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the
lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you,
you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous”
(Luke 14:12‑14). In our earlier example,
even though the older sister did not help her younger brother simply in
order to receive from him an ongoing acknowledgment of her generosity to
him, nevertheless the event proved that her motives were mixed. She wanted
to do this for God and to help her brother, but she also, without realizing
it, probably had some self‑seeking elements among her motives. Our Lord
tells his host to beware of this mixed motivation. Lean rather, he urges,
to that kind of assistance that necessarily precludes the possibility of
recompense. Of course, our Lord is not saying that we must never assist
when there is hope of return being made to us, but he is clearly pointing to
the importance of purity of motive. We ought do things for God and for him
alone, even if we do and perhaps must receive recompense in some form from
those we assist. The ambition of our daily life in all its detail ought be
to do well whatever we do out of love for God and a truly disinterested love
for neighbour. This is an immense challenge because self‑interest pervades
so much of our life. The challenge of life is, through the power of God’s
grace and our persevering effort, to purify our heart of self‑serving
interest. God does, of course, want us to be busy and to fill our life with
good works. But more than anything he wants us to do what we are doing out
of genuine love. Now, adversity and disappointment provide us with the
occasion for purifying our motives. They help us to forego the disappointed
intention, and bring to the fore and make exclusive the intention which has
God for its object.
Our Gospel passage today points to our Lord’s summary of the entire Law and
the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets, he said, hang on these two
commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind,
soul and strength. That is the first commandment. The second is like it.
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Our Lord went on to give a new
commandment. He said that we are to love one another as he has loved us.
Let us aim at the perfection of love in all that we do, rooting out, by the
help of his grace, self‑seeking motives that spoil our offering to God.
Tuesday of the thirty first
week in Ordinary Time II
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 2:5-11; Psalm 22:26b-32; Luke 14:15-24
When one of
those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed are
those who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." Jesus replied:
"A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.
At the time of the banquet he
sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for
everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses.
The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it.
Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of
oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still
another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came
back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house
became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets
and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind
and the lame.' " 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been
done, but there is still room.' "Then the master told his servant, 'Go
out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that
my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited
will get a taste of my banquet.' "(Luke 14:15-24)
Doing our duty
One of the intriguing beliefs that are found in the religions of man is that
at death man passes from one life to another on this earth. He does not
pass to the unseen world, but transmigrates within this one. Presumably the
origin of this belief lies simply in man’s instinct that human life does not
end with death but that in his inner
self he lives on in another state. The difficulty in imagining life beyond
this world may have prompted the image in certain religions and cultures of
man passing at death to another form of life in this world. This
transmigration has involved certain doctrines of karma, a doctrine in which
the force generated by a person’s actions in one life determines his destiny
in the next. Perhaps the origin of this notion is man’s sense — arising
from his conscience — that some form of a judgment on his life will come and
that judgment will bring consequences for the hereafter. Such instincts can
mutate into images that are far from what has been divinely revealed. God
has revealed that the gift of life is a precious one‑off gift and everything
depends on how it is lived. It will never be given again. There will never
be a second chance. Each person has but one shot, and not, as the doctrine
of transmigration and karma would have it, several. There is but one life
for each, and whether he or she likes it, there will be an examination at
the end of it carrying enormous consequences for the individual who has
lived that one life. At the end of life all will be examined, high or low.
I have known highly educated persons, including professional philosophers,
who reject the notion of there being a God. I have read of philosophers of
world standing who have in cavalier fashion dismissed religion and even
objective morality. They appear unaware of the enormity of the stakes that
are involved, and of how it would be, to say the least, safer for them to
live as if God existed and as if a judgment followed death. After all,
those who do live as if God exists appear happier in this life, and if there
is an eternity, their prospects of happiness in the next are clearly on a
surer basis.
But
now, granted that following this life there is the judgment of God, every
day counts for we cannot know when this life will end. What counts in every
day is our response to the call and the will of God as manifested in what
appears to be our duty. Speaking concretely, this means taking our stand
with Christ, the living Jesus who is God incarnate. It means accepting his
invitations and calls as they come to us day by day. Now, what is the
danger in all of this? The danger is that we will find excuses to avoid
doing our duty. It is this pattern of finding excuses and secretly
justifying ourselves in the avoidance of duty that is described in our
Gospel today. Let us listen to our Lord’s parable. “A certain man was
preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the
banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for
everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The
first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please
excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on
my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got
married, so I can’t come.’ The servant came back and reported this to his
master.” Numerous times each day we can secretly rationalize or rather
justify to ourselves our avoidance of duty, and duty comes in all its tiny
forms every day. It is especially the small duty which we are prone to
excuse ourselves from. Then our conscience ceases gradually to enlighten us
as to our duty because we are forever finding excuses for the avoidance of
it. The consequences of a lifetime of doing this are enormous, and our
parable today alludes to it. “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to
the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house
will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a
taste of my banquet’” (Luke 14:15‑24).
Let us not deceive ourselves by allowing a pattern of excuses to grow in our
life.
What is the answer to this tendency to avoid the doing of our God‑given
duties and to excuse and justify ourselves, as did those in our Gospel
parable today? The answer is to live constantly in the presence of God. He
is always near, closer to us than we are to ourselves. He sees all, and he
who loves us and gives us moment by moment the gift of life, will be our
judge. We have but one life and God’s judgment on our life is unavoidable.
Let us not blind ourselves to what we are doing by allowing a pattern of
excuses to fill up our days.
Don't
wish to be like the gilded weather-cock on top of a great building:
however much it shines, and however high it stands, it adds nothing to
the solidity of the building.
Rather be
like an old stone block hidden in the foundations, underground, where
no one can see you: because of you the house will not fall.
Wednesday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
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Scripture today: Philippians
2:12-18; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; Luke 14:25-33
Large
crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If
anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my
disciple. “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot
be my disciple. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you
first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to
complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish
it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began
to build and wasn't able to finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go
to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider
whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming
against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a
delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for
terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up
everything you have cannot be my disciples.(Luke 14:25-33)
Totally We read
that (Luke 9: 7‑8) Herod the tetrarch had heard about all that our Lord was
doing. Various reports were reaching him about our Lord: some were even saying
that John whom Herod had executed had risen from the dead. Others were saying
that he was Elijah or one of the other prophets come back to life. Herod wanted
to see Jesus.
We read how on another occasion our Lord referred to Herod as “that fox” (Luke
13:32). The only time Herod got to see Jesus was during our Lord’s Passion, and
our Lord refused to speak to him. It is one thing to have some curiosity about
Jesus Christ, and to think of him for one reason or another. It is quite
another thing to have the faith in him that pleases God. On another occasion we
read that an official of the Roman army — a centurion, no less — sent a request
to our Lord via intermediaries that he come and heal his servant. Our Lord
immediately got up to go to his dwelling. On the way, the centurion evoked from
our Lord the highest praise for his faith. In our Gospel passage today great
crowds were following our Lord. They did not just want to see him, they were
actually following him. But undoubtedly there were a variety of motives at work
in their doing so. The mere fact that they were there, the mere fact that they
had come to see him and the mere fact that they were actually following him, was
not enough. Our Lord was looking for total discipleship, a faith that would put
his person and his teaching before all else to which they were attached. What
our Lord asked from those who followed in his footsteps was their whole heart.
And so we read that “turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does
not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even
life itself—such a person cannot be my disciple’.” Our Lord, of course, is not
asking that we literally hate our parents and family. He is asking that in
everything he be loved above all, even to the point, if necessary, of doing what
might go right against what spouse and children want, if he and his teaching
require it.
Our
Lord immediately adds a very stark image. All his hearers would have been
familiar with the terrible execution by crucifixion. It was not an uncommon
sight to see a condemned man being led out carrying his own cross to the
place of his execution. The Romans made a display of it as a deterrent.
Our Lord likens discipleship to being prepared for such consequences. He
is looking for many disciples, and indeed after his resurrection he would
instruct his disciples to go to the whole world and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them and teaching them his commands. But our Lord
was not seeking the kind of disciple that was a mere member of the crowd
that followed along. “Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me
cannot be my disciple.” He is looking for a vast throng of disciples
carrying their cross after him, with him leading the way. It reminds us of
that occasion when a rich young man came to him eagerly and asked what he
needed to do to gain eternal life. Our Lord replied that if he wished to be
perfect, let him go and sell all he owned and give to the poor, and then
return and follow him. The young man went away sad, for he had many
possessions. It means being prepared to give up everything for him and for
his teaching. What other master required this kind of sacrifice of his
disciples? It is so easy to follow along with the tide, without deep
conviction. Our Lord asks that his disciples understand clearly what the
following of him entails. Discipleship must be carefully considered and,
with eyes open, generously undertaken. To bring out his point our Lord
tells a parable. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you
first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to
complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it,
everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build
and wasn’t able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against
another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with
ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?”
(Luke 14:25‑33). Just so, our Lord
insists, no one can be his disciple unless he gives his heart wholly to him,
with no strings attached. He must be prepared to carry the cross.
This means becoming attached wholly to Christ and detached from all else —
in the sense that whatever be our attachments, such as to spouse, family,
work and whatever, all this must be part of and subject to our attachment to
Christ. It is the great project of life for the Christian, to be Christ’s
disciple on Christ’s terms and not on one’s own terms. In concrete detail,
this begins with our daily duties, our daily work. Everything we should do
each day, ought be done for Christ and in the way he would want, in
accordance with his teaching, and done as well as we can, out of love for
him.
Thursday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
Saint for Today: Click
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 3:3-8a; Psalm 105:2-7; Luke
15:1-10
Now
the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable:
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't
he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost
sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on
his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours
together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I
tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven
over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who
do not need to repent. "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and
loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search
carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her
friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have
found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
(Luke 15:1-10)
Holy
love
One of the great books on the philosophy and the phenomenology of religion is
Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy. In it Otto describes the experience
of the holy that the religions of man embody in their rites and myths. He says
that the holy is experienced as tremendum et fascinans, awesome and
winning.
It is perceived as power and beauty, might and goodness. The numinous overawes
and yet draws. Discussion about the experience of the numinous in religions is
almost endless, and I remember reading a British anthropologist
(Evans‑Pritchard) who wrote that the religions of man (and he was speaking
especially of indigenous religions) cannot be reduced to a common rule. Be that
as it may, if we take Otto’s proposal and bring it to bear on revealed religion,
how great must be our surprise at the figure of Christ the Son of God made man!
The great and infinite God was made flesh and dwelt among us. St John writes
that we saw his glory, the glory of the only‑begotten Son of God. Now, would we
not expect him to be, as Otto puts it, tremendum et fascinans? There are
many earthly rulers who surround themselves with such an air. But consider our
scene in today’s Gospel passage. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all
gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law
muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them”.” St Paul writes in one
of his Letters that the Son possessed the form and glory of God but he did not
cling to it. Rather, he gave it all up and became as we are and humbler still,
even to death on a cross. The love of God was being revealed. St John writes
in one of his Letters that God is love. Christ in his humility and
accessibility was revealing the life and character of God. He is utter love,
and that is what the tax collectors and sinners were sensing very profoundly.
They were drawn to him though they knew they were sinners.
Jesus is God and here in our passage today we have the Pharisees
uncomprehendingly criticizing him for his love. Their charge in effect is,
the way you are acting is uncharacteristic of God who hates sin and cannot
associate himself with it. Sinners therefore are not loved but punished.
God separates himself from sinners and will not come near to them. We
Pharisees do not sin, and so God is near to us but not to them. Many things
could be said of this. In respect to God’s separation from sin and from
sinners, there is of course a certain truth in what they said. God cannot
ultimately share company with sinners, for he is all-holy. But they had not
understood the revelation of God’s love both in the Old Testament and in the
person of Jesus. God’s holiness is a holy love and it led him to send his
Son to save the world from sin. God’s holiness leads him to give himself
for the salvation of sinners. His love leads him to expiate for the sin of
the world. And so our Lord proceeds to tell two parables illustrating the
love of God for sinners. God is like the shepherd who seeks out the stray,
or the woman who searches till she finds her coin. The sinner is like the
sheep that has wandered off, or like the coin that has been mislaid. Both
are precious to their owners. The shepherd leaves the rest of the flock and
pursues the straying sheep till he finds it. “I tell you that in the same
way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over ninety‑nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. The woman
will not give up till she has found her coin. “In the same way, I tell you,
there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who
repents” (Luke 15:1‑10). What this
means is that the attitude of the Pharisees is absolutely unlike that of
God, and it means that our attitude ought be like that of Jesus. We must
never accept sin, either in our own life or in the life of others. But we
must love the sinner.
Let us hate sin and out of love for God avoid sin. If we sin, let us
repent. Let us, though, love the sinner and do all we can to assist him to
turn to God and repent from his sin. In everything our model is Jesus,
Jesus the sinless one who loved sinners. He gave his life in expiation for
the sin of the world, and by his gift of the Holy Spirit we are able to turn
away from sin and live for God. Because of grace, each and every sinner has
the chance to turn from sin and gradually attain holiness of life.
Don't forget that you are a... dust-bin. That's why if by any chance
the divine Gardener lays his hands on you, and scrubs and cleans you,
and fills you with magnificent flowers, neither the scent nor the
colour that embellish your ugliness should make you proud.
Humble yourself: don't you know that you are the rubbish bin?
Friday of the thirty first
week in Ordinary Time II
Saint for Today: Click
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calendar day on which you are reading this reflection. Use
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Scripture
today:
Philippians
3:17-4:1; Psalm 122:1-5; Luke 16:1-8
Jesus
told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of
wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is
this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you
cannot be manager any longer.' "The manager said to himself, 'What
shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough
to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg — I know what I'll do so that, when I
lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' "So he
called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How
much do you owe my master?' " 'Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,' he
replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and
make it four hundred and fifty.' "Then he asked the second, 'And how
much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told
him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' "The master commended
the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of
this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the
people of the light.(Luke
16:1-8)
Being
shrewd
There is great talent and intelligence at work in society. In politics we see
certain people skilled in debate and shrewd in their political and parliamentary
tactics. One politician falls and another succeeds him. It could be a
presidential campaign between two rival candidates.
One has the advantage because the other’s party has held office and has been
unpopular in the process. But that disadvantaged candidate at times shows
remarkable adroitness in moves he makes which nullify the advantage of the
other. He maintains a neck‑to‑neck pace which surprises all observers. In the
business world, a person rises from rags to riches because of his business
shrewdness. He arrived in the country as an immigrant with few means. He made
a start with a loan from relatives and after forty years has an extensive chain
of family businesses. All recognize his intelligence. His son proves to have
even more intelligence and builds his father’s business into a commercial
empire. But now let us ask, if this is all such persons achieve in life, are
such persons really so smart? They do not appear to take into account that at
any point their life could suddenly end, and then what? What will be the real
advantage to them of all their efforts and achievements? Have they considered
their real future, the future that follows this life? And again, other persons
gain wealth by shrewd but dishonest means. They might quietly defraud, or could
be ruthless in their treatment of colleagues and underlings. Their intelligence
is put to immoral use and they gain much as a result. They may never be brought
to book for what they have done, but in the long haul what will they have
achieved? Where, then, is their intelligence? So many of our efforts are
expended for the sake of a future that is all too near and all too brief. That
future might be a happy retirement. It could be for our children. All these
things have a certain value, but if their value is restricted to this world
only, it is limited indeed. All too often we do not ask ourselves whether the
world we see is the only world, whether it really is the main world, and how
suddenly we could find ourselves in the world beyond.
I
once read a biography of a person who lost his Catholic Faith, working for
the whole of his life in a successful University career. The biography was
well‑written and interesting, especially in its descriptions of the
departments in the universities he was associated with. But it was a sad
case of intelligence being ultimately unintelligent. He lost the greatest
of pearls, which was his Faith. Those unknown persons who live for God and
who attain sanctity are really smarter. By the same token, there are those
who have the light but who squander it. In our Gospel passage today (Luke
16:1‑8) our Lord tells the parable of a manager who received notice from his
master of termination of employment. Very shrewdly he immediately set about
making friends with his master’s debtors. He did so by reducing the debt of
each so that when his employment ended he was left with many friends who
willingly or from a sense of obligation would set about assisting him in his
new situation. The master, when he realized what had happened, shook his
head with a smile of wonderment at the shrewdness of his former employee.
That employee knew how to select his goals and how to achieve them. Our
Lord finishes by saying that “the people of this world are more shrewd in
dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light” (Luke
16:1‑8). That is to say, all too often those who know what are the true
goals of life, and who know by the gift of faith and a good religious
education what should be sought in life, do not take advantage of this light
they have been given. They do not set themselves the goal to which God is
calling them. That goal is sanctity. Alternatively, they do not take the
means that will bring them to this goal. The overriding goal is union with
Christ in love here during life so as to be with him in love forever in
heaven. This is our hope, a hope for a present good which will flower in
abundant life hereafter. It is the hope of countless little and ordinary
people.
Christ described himself as the Light of the world. The one who
follows
him will not walk in the darkness, whereas the one who refuses to walk with
him will indeed be in the dark. Christ is the light of men and if we wish
to avoid blindness, we must take our stand with him. Taking our stand with
him, let us then study well what it means to walk with him. It means living
a systematic spiritual life according to the Church’s teaching, and being
prepared to live according to that teaching no matter what the cost.
Saturday of the thirty
first week in Ordinary Time II
Saint for Today: Click
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Scripture
today:
Philippians 4:10-19; Psalm 112:1b-2, 5-6, 8a and 9; Luke
16:9-15
Jesus
told his disciples, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for
yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal
dwellings. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted
with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be
dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling
worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have
not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you
property of your own? "No one can serve two masters. Either you will
hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." The Pharisees,
who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to
them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others,
but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in
God's sight.(Luke
16:9-15)
Money
It is very possible for a person to be unaware of the natural tendency in
himself to love money. He uses money, he possesses it, he works to gain it, and
all along he can think that he is quite detached from it. If he thinks this, he
does not know himself. Detachment from money needs to be worked at constantly
if it is to be acquired.
Let him notice the difficulty he has in giving money away, at least in any
quantity. He may say that he needs it and that this is the reason why he parts
with little of it. But notice how he readily parts with his money if there is
something he would really like to have, suggesting that he does not really need
it except for his own purposes. That our Gospel passage today is about the love
of money is shown in the last couple of sentences. After our Lord had finished
speaking by saying that you cannot serve both God and Money, the Pharisees
sneered at him, for, St Luke tells us, they loved money. The Pharisees were the
respectable people, the religious people. Their case shows that everyone tends
to love money. We are part of a material world and we depend on material things
for security, for enjoyment and for so much else. Having money enables us to
use the things of this world for our various needs, and so we tend to love
money. It gives us the power and the security to do much of what we like. We
tend to be attached to it and to go to great lengths to gain it, and the love of
it tends to supplant other things in our life. The first thing we ought do,
then, is to recognize this fact and to recognize the disorder this can lead to.
The disorder lies in its tending to occupy the place that the one great Love
ought to have in our hearts, the love of God and neighbour. It is possible to
love and serve money rather than, and to a certain extent more than, God. God
commands that we love him with our whole heart. We must, then, be vigilant lest
those things we tend to love encroach on our love for God, and indeed replace
it. Money can virtually become a god in our life, to a greater or lesser
extent. We can make it the source of our security, serving our ego. As our
Lord says, “what people value highly is detestable in God’s sight”
(Luke 16: 15).
The
Christian looks to Christ as the love of his life and as his example in
life. The love of money can indeed interfere with the call of Christ. We
remember the rich young man who came to Jesus asking what he must do to
attain eternal life. Our Lord looked on him with love and said, “If you
wish to be perfect, go, sell what you own and give to the poor, and come,
follow me.” But the rich man went away sad, for he had much wealth. He
loved money and could not bring himself to break with it, even for such an
invitation as this. Christ himself is the exemplar of one who left aside
riches and trod the path of poverty. St Paul writes that Christ from all
eternity had been rich and he made himself poor that we might become rich.
He tells us that though he enjoyed the “form” and glory of God he did not
hold on to this but became as we are and humbler still, even to death on the
cross. Christ was God, and yet was born in a stable and grew up in modest
circumstances. During his public ministry he told one prospective disciple
that while the birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man had nowhere to
lay his head. He died on a cross. His path was the path not of money and
riches but of poverty and humiliation, and all out of love for the Father
and for mankind. Christ taught his disciples to live a life of poverty of
spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, he said. Love for him has led many
of Christ’s faithful to renounce the independent use of material possessions
and to live a life of material poverty. They have made themselves free to
pursue the love of Christ with all their heart. Every Christian ought
ponder carefully his or her use of and attachment to material possessions,
and in particular to money. It is a good thing to determine how much of
one’s income ought be, and will be, given to the poor and to the work of
God, and then to keep to that. If it is just left to chance, or rather to
decisions made ad hoc and on the spur of the moment, we may find
ourselves rarely giving to the poor, and all because of a secret love for
money that is sapping our love for God.
Our Lord urges us to use our money to gain friends in eternity. If we help
the poor and if we assist the work of the Church which is to save souls, we
shall be gaining friends who will help us from heaven. How sad it would be
if all that we gain or earn is used for passing pleasures or false security,
when it could be used for things that have an eternal significance, and all
because of our secret love of money. Let us, rather, take Christ as our
example and follow him along the path of poverty of spirit.
Prayers this week: Let my prayer
come before you, Lord; listen, and answer me. (Psalm
87:3)
God of power and mercy, protect us from all harm. Give us freedom of spirit and
health in mind and body to do your work on earth. We ask this through our Lord
Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Saint for Today: Click
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Wisdom 6: 12-16; Psalm 63: 2, 3-4,
5-6, 7-8; 1 Thess 4: 13-18 or 4: 13-14;
Matthew 25: 1-13
Jesus said, At that time the kingdom of
heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the
bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took
their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however,
took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in
coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang
out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!' Then all the virgins woke up
and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of
your oil; our lamps are going out.' 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough
for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for
yourselves.' But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom
arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And
the door was shut. Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the
door for us!' But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.'
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:
1-13)
Bridegroom In his
parable in today’s Gospel our Lord speaks of the sudden arrival of the
bridegroom. At midnight there was a cry, “The bridegroom is here! Go out and
meet him” (Matthew 25: 1‑13). These words
are quoted by The Catechism of the Catholic Church in its account of
those who choose a life of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
This is what the Catechism says: “From the very beginning of the Church
there have been men and women who have renounced the great good of marriage to
follow the Lamb wherever he goes, to be intent on the things of the Lord, to
seek to please him, and to go out to meet the Bridegroom who is coming. Christ
himself has invited certain persons to follow him in this way of life, of which
he remains the model.” (No.1618). It is a beautiful thing to find a suitable
spouse and to marry, and both family and the Church celebrate it. But the
Church teaches that there is a still nobler calling. It is to have Christ as
one’s friend and spouse. Let the thought of such a vocation introduce a
distinctive feature of the Christian religion, which is that Jesus Christ is
Bridegroom to his Church. In the Old Testament God often referred to himself as
Israel’s Husband. Israel is his spouse by his deliberate choice of her, his
people. This theme recurs especially in the prophets who, time and again,
preach that the people are acting as an unfaithful spouse. I am not aware of
other ancient peoples who understood their god as husband to them. It would
appear to be unique to Revealed Religion. The Gospels show that our Lord,
appropriating these inspired terms, called himself the Bridegroom. He applied
to himself a term applied to Yahweh. Christ is the Bridegroom, his Church is
his spouse. Other religions revere their founders for their doctrines and
example, and take them as their supreme teacher. Christ is looked upon by the
Christian as the supreme Teacher, but not merely this. He is the love, the
object and the centre of the Christian’s life. Christ is the Bridegroom. The
Christian’s bond with him takes precedence over all other bonds, be they family,
community or national.
Let
us explore this distinctive feature of the Christian religion, taking one
example. While Mahomet is viewed by Islam as its prophet, Christ is firmly
accepted by the Christian as man’s God and only Redeemer. Mahomet is
commonly referred to in literature as The Prophet. Non-Muslims also
often refer to him as “the Prophet” out of respect for the sensibilities of
Islam. The Christian, though, keeps certain distinctions clearly in mind.
He will not allow that Mahomet, coming centuries after Christ and with
teachings in direct contradiction to the most sacred of Christian teachings
(such as the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Atonement effected by Christ
alone, the divine constitution of the Church, the indissolubility and
monogamy of marriage, and many other teachings), was a prophet in the line
of the prophets of supernatural revelation. With Christ all such revelation
ended, and Christ himself stands forth as the definitive, complete and
perfect revelation of the Father. Beyond and after him, all that remains is
the development of the Church’s understanding and proclamation of this
revelation. There can be no further revelation, though there can be, and
is, a development of the Church’s doctrine on this revelation about the
Father. In fact, from the point of view of historical and supernatural
revelation, the Christian must consider that Mahomet taught certain grievous
errors. However, this is not to exclude the possibility that he may have
been assisted by God to perceive important truths and to lead various
peoples from, say, polytheism, to a form of monotheism. The word
“prophetic” has a broad usage in English. John Henry Newman, relying on
early Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, insisted on a universal
revelation. God was drawing all peoples to himself, and assisting certain
individuals and peoples by a form of “inspiration.” Various Fathers of the
early Church saw the seeds of the Word in the thought and history of the
peoples. Mahomet, assisted and supplemented by Christian and Jewish
traditions of thought, obviously had powerful religious perceptions, chief
of which was the oneness of God. There is no god but Allah. In this
different and more common sense, the Christian may refer to founders of
various religions as “prophets,” but in the line of natural and universal
revelation.
The Christian religion is possessed of a unique revelation coming from God.
Christ is Bridegroom to his people, and being Bridegroom, is also Head, for
the Church is his body. By baptism the Church shares in his divine life,
and has the mission to bring this life to the world. The Church enters into
respectful dialogue with the non-Christian religions of man, listening,
contributing, learning. We have much in common, most especially with
Judaism, but also with, say, Islam. This enables us to look on them as
brothers under God our common Father, most especially inasmuch they, and
Islam too, look to Abraham and the prophets with profound respect, as
divinely inspired.
Monday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
Saint for Today: Click
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calendar day on which you are reading this reflection. Use
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Scripture
today: Titus
1:1-9; Psalm 24:1b-6; Luke 17:1-6
Jesus said to
his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come,
but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to
be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than for
you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.
"If a brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they
repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day
and seven times come back to you saying 'I repent,' you must forgive
them." The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied,
"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this
mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey
you.(Luke
17:1-6)
Avoid
sin
Two centuries ago slavery was legal, with all the suffering this inflicted on so
many who were enslaved, especially black Africans. Gradually the injustice of
this took hold and due, among other things, to the pressure of various
Christians in society, slavery was finally outlawed by legislation.
It took some time for this to happen in the various countries, but at least in
theory the injustice of slavery is now recognized in the world. It is seen that
it is no answer to say that you have your opinion on the matter, but I have mine
and I have a right to act on my opinion. This kind of relativism is
unacceptable. But such is not the case with various other forms of injustice,
such as abortion. Millions of unborn human beings are put to death every year
and it is counted as civilly legal. The answer often given by politicians is
that, yes, I personally recognize that abortion is morally wrong, but I cannot
impose this on those who do not recognize it. They have their opinion and I
have mine, and really, I do not have the right to impose my opinion. Meanwhile
countless numbers of the unborn are subject to the threat of death and are in
fact put to death. Just as slavery was once the injustice that was allowed by
civil legislation and was finally overcome despite the great inconveniences it
caused to those who depended on slavery, so the evil of abortion will be
challenged until it is overcome despite the inconveniences this will involve. I
mention abortion as an instance of how we can become blind to crimes. Society
too, in its legislation, can be blind to crimes. But there is something else
related to crime to which we and all of society can be even more blind. It is
sin. We can be blind to sin. We can fail to recognize even the very existence
of sin, and even if we do recognize it, we can very easily have a cavalier
attitude to it. This is because sin is an offence not simply against our fellow
human beings in society whom we see, but is an offence against God, and God,
being spirit, is one whom we cannot see. So it is a case of out of sight, out
of mind. We do not think of sin because we do not see, nor do we want to see,
God.
But
Christ speaks with the utmost seriousness of sin and of leading others into
sin. In our Gospel today we read that “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Things
that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through
whom they come. It would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a
millstone tied around your neck than for you to cause one of these little
ones to stumble. So watch yourselves’” (Luke
17:1‑6). Society can punish actions that are not only not crimes
but that are great benefits, such as bearing witness to the truth that has
been revealed by God. Christ was punished for bearing witness to the truth
about himself and God’s saving plan, and there have been countless
Christians who have been subjected to the same lot. Society can also
sanction and support by legislation things that are immensely harmful to
human beings and to society itself, such as abortion and embryonic stem cell
research. But there can be no mistake about what God sanctions and
punishes. He requires that in all our thoughts, words and deeds, his will
be obeyed and that we avoid sin. The most serious thing that can happen to
us is that we deliberately commit sin. Many terrible things can happen to a
person. He can be deprived of food, clothing and shelter. He can, due to
accidents and catastrophe, lose his very life. He can see members of his
own family suffer and die. But these are not the worst things that can
happen to him, for in everything he is held in the hand of God. God holds
him in being, and ultimately, as our Lord says, we are to fear not the
temporal and bodily disasters and reversals that can overtake us, but him
who has power to cast both body and soul into hell because of our sins. It
is only sin which can bring upon us this judgment of God — deliberate,
unrepented, serious sin. So then as our Lord says in the Gospel of today,
we must be vigilant. We must watch out lest we pick up from our society and
culture the impression that sin does not exist, or if it exists, that it
does not matter. We must live constantly in the presence of God and strive
to do his will, avoiding sin.
Every day, perhaps at the end of the day, let us examine our consciences,
reviewing the day especially for deliberate sin, whether minor or major. We
can sin seriously and not so seriously in thought, or in word, or in deed.
Let us at all costs avoid deliberate sin. Let us avoid offending God who
loves us so much as our Father and who is all‑holy. If we do sin, we must
sincerely repent. Every day offers the opportunity of obeying God and of
doing his will. Let us not squander the gift of life by filling it up with
deliberate, unrepented and constant sin.
Tuesday of the thirty second
week in Ordinary Time II
Saint for Today: Click
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Scripture
today:
Titus 2:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 37:3-4, 18 and 23, 27 and 29; Luke
17:7-10
"Suppose one
of you has a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to
the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit
down to eat'? Won't he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself
ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and
drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to
do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do,
should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'."(Luke 17:7-10)
Duty
When Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared in England, it
caused a tempest of controversy. Many religious people were entirely
unprepared for it and regarded it as directly undermining fundamental
Christian dogmas. John Henry Newman had no such problem.
Interestingly, his letters show that in respect to evolution he regarded the
distinctive characteristic of the human being as not so much “intellect” as
conscience. In the context of the evolution controversy, I think he was
thinking of what “intellect” would be without any element of conscience. It
would not be intellect as in the human being but a high form of animal
awareness and calculation, higher than that which obtains in the animals of
our experience. That is to say, Newman could envisage the evolution — all
under the power and guidance of God, of course — of certain animals to a
very high stage of awareness. That is to say, he could envisage animals
evolving by the hand of God to the point of possessing a higher and more
acute instinct, awareness and calculation than that exhibited by any we
know. In this scenario, once such animal could have been brought to the
point where a further touch of the divine power and love would have endowed
it with an immortal and human soul. The most notable element it would then
exhibit would be a conscience, a moral sense, a sense not only of the
existence and nature of things but of what was right and wrong, of what
should be done and what should be avoided. All that is mere conjecture, but
certainly Newman allowed for the hypothesis of what we might call a theistic
evolution, and in allowing for this he considered the paramount
characteristic in the human being to be the sense of duty, the moral sense,
the conscience. This view is of course very much open to question, but I
would suggest that in practical terms the most important capacity we possess
is indeed our moral sense. It is this which more than anything we must
develop and act upon. If we must choose, it is more important that we have
a developed conscience than that we have a well developed intellect.
I
mention the centrality of the sense of duty as an introduction to our Gospel
passage today. Our Lord is reminding his hearers that the truly important
thing in life is that we do our duty. If we do our duty we shall be
rewarded, but we ought not be especially proud of ourselves for merely
having done our duty, nor ought we expect to be highly commended for it.
After all, it is simply our duty. Let us listen to our Lord’s words once
again. “Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing or looking after the
sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come
along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper,
get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may
eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told
to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do,
should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty ‘“ (Luke
17:7‑10). We ought cultivate humility in the careful and constant
fulfilment of our duty. Let us take our Lord’s words as reminding us of the
fundamental place in life of duty. Almost every exercise of free choice
involves the perception of some element of duty. This perception of duty
that we are capable of is a marvellous capacity and it can take us to
holiness. What is holiness? One of the reasons why the present Pope chose
the name Benedict was because of his regard for Pope Benedict XV, who was
Pope during World War I. Now Pope Benedict XV defined holiness. He said it
involves the obedient and consistent fulfilment of our duties of life. He
put the entire emphasis of holiness on the fulfilment of duty, done in
obedience to and love for God. So in perceiving our duty, and in taking
steps to know our duty, we are taking steps to attain holiness of life. The
next step is faithfully to do our duty, once we have come to know it. In
this sense, conscience is a marvellous capacity. If by God’s grace we act
on it, it will unite us to God.
Every day let us resolve to live in God’s friendship. In regard to
friendship with God, Christ said that if you love me you will keep my
commandments. Christ is God incarnate, and our duty is above all to do his
will, for his will is the will of God. On another occasion our Lord looked
around at his disciples and said, here are my mother and brothers. Anyone
who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my mother and sister and
brother. Let us then resolve to live according to our duty, done for love
of God and neighbour. Duty is the fuel and manifestation of true love.
If you
were to obey the impulses of your heart and the dictates of reason, you
would always be flat on the ground, prostrate, like a filthy worm, ugly
and miserable, before that God who puts up with so much from you.
Wednesday of the thirty
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Scripture today: Titus
3:1-7; Psalm 23:1b-6; Luke 17:11-19
Now on
his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria
and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had
leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud
voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said,
"Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were
cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising
God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked
him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed?
Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to
God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your
faith has made you well."(Luke 17:11-19)
Petition
and thanks
Our scene from the Gospel today has much to teach us indeed. I have often
wondered whether the average person asks God for much. I doubt it. If at times
he does ask God for things, I tend to think he gives up on asking if the answer
to his request is not quickly forthcoming.
A detail in our Gospel scene is illuminating in this regard. We are told that
when the lepers asked our Lord to have pity on them, our Lord’s response was
simply that they go and show themselves to the priests. He did not, on that
occasion — as he did on many other occasions — immediately cure them. They did
not see an immediate cure of their leprosy. It was only “as they went” that
they were cured. We are not told if it was soon after our Lord told them to go,
or some time after while on the way there. For some reason our Lord chose to
effect the cure not immediately, but later. When the lone Samaritan returned to
give thanks with all his heart to our Lord, our Lord told him that his faith had
saved him. This faith had been shown in his, and their, leaving our Lord to go
to the priests while believing our Lord’s word. Perhaps the greater faith of
the Samaritan had saved him in greater ways still. For instance, it brought him
back to Jesus. The general point ought be borne in mind that, as our Lord says
elsewhere, we ought pray always and never lose heart. The world is in need of
the mercy and the compassion of God, and we who believe in Christ ought be the
world’s intercessors, calling down by our faith‑filled prayers the healing mercy
of Christ. The picture of the ten lepers appealing to Christ for pity is surely
a picture of the world, and we are part of that world. The leprosy is above all
the leprosy of sin with all its manifold implications for all aspects of life.
Sin has not made us totally corrupt, for there is some good in man still. But
like the lepers it has left us profoundly wounded and we need redemption. This
redemption has been effected by Christ, and our hope is that Christ, by the gift
of his Holy Spirit, will continue to apply the fruits of his redemption to each
of us. For this we must appeal to God.
The
prayer of petition is so very important. We must persist in asking God for
all our needs. If this is to happen, we must have a lively sense of our
true needs and a lively sense of the reality and presence of God. If we are
living a comfortable life the danger is that we shall lose sight of our true
condition, of the leprosy that is there, and content ourselves with
continuing in a comfortable life. So let us resolve humbly to persist in
laying our petitions before God for our own sakes and for the sake of so
many others who need our prayers, even if they do not recognize this. But
our passage today portrays more than the petition of the lepers. It shows
the one leper who came back to our Lord thanking him and praising God.
Notice this detail. The leper came back and, praising God, threw himself at
the feet of Jesus and thanked him (Luke 17:11‑19).
What was it that our Lord chose to highlight in this turn of events? First
of all, he emphasized the praise of God offered by the leper. Secondly he
expressed disappointment that the others had forgotten the God who did them
the favour they had requested. The Samaritan leper had asked and had
received. He had then returned to thank, to praise, to adore. Not only
ought we fill up our lives with the prayer of petition both for ourselves
and for so many others we know and do not know, but we ought fill up our
lives also with thanks and praise, especially praise for all that God has in
his compassion done for us. So many people allow their lives to fill up
with bitterness at hurts endured. Rather, we ought think of the good things
God has done for us. He has given us life and existence. In his Son Jesus
Christ he has died for us and opened the gates of heaven. He has done so
many things which ought encourage us to pray for more, and it ought
encourage us to thank him and to adore him. How happy would the lives of
people be were they to be filled with gratitude and praise for all that God
has done! The grateful person, the person who praises, is a happy person.
Let us then ask God for what we need and do so with persistence, and thank
and praise him continually for all he has done.
Our Gospel scene presents in a dramatic picture what each of us and all
mankind ought be doing before the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one who
can help us, so let us all turn to him. We ought, as our Lord says, pray
always and never lose heart. He will answer our prayers in the way that is
best, but if we give up on praying for our needs, then our lives will not be
as enriched as they would be. But let us also be like the Samaritan leper
who returned with thanks and praise. This will please God
How great the value of humility! — Quia respexit humilitatem...
It is not of her faith, nor of her charity, nor of her immaculate
purity that our Mother speaks in the house of Zachary. Her joyful hymn
sings:
'Since he has looked on my humility, all generations will call me
blessed.'
Thursday of the thirty
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Scripture
today:
Philemon 7-20; Psalm 146:7-10; Luke
17:20-25
Once, having
been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus
replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be
observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because
the kingdom of God is in your midst." Then he said to his disciples,
"The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the
Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, 'There he
is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. For the Son of
Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up
the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things
and be rejected by this generation.(Luke 17:20-25)
The
Kingdom
Our Lord appeared publicly preaching a Kingdom and asked all to repent in
preparation for its arrival. It was near at hand. The danger he was fully
aware of was that the people would interpret this to be a new political kingdom
inaugurated by God to bring freedom to his people from all political oppression
and domination.
In the past there had been important precedents to his warnings. The prophets
had threatened the people with invasion and destruction if they did not repent.
They did not, and true to prediction, they were invaded, conquered, and
deported. The holy city was sacked and the Temple destroyed. The people lived
in subjection. Then a new prophecy came. God would free his people and bring
them back to their homeland which would be rebuilt. This happened. A similar
prophecy had occurred centuries before even this. Moses was sent by God to tell
the people that he was taking them out of slavery into a promised land. They
would be politically free and able to serve him in the manner he wanted. This
happened. Centuries before this, God had called Abraham from his own land and
had led him to a land he said he would give to him and to his descendants. And
now our Lord comes preaching God’s Kingdom. The danger was that the people,
subject as they were to the Romans, would think that what our Lord was promising
is a new political kingdom, one in which the people will be finally set free
from all subjection. In our Gospel passage today some of the Pharisees come to
our Lord and ask when the Kingdom of God would come. They and the people failed
to discern that all the temporal liberations God had wrought for them in the
past were types of something far deeper and greater. They were pointers to
liberation from sin. John the Baptist expressed the true meaning of the
Scriptures and of past liberations. Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take
away the sin of the world. Sin was the true oppression, and God was coming to
set his people free.
One
of the interesting things that seems to have quickly happened after the
Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ is the falling into
relative disuse of the expression, the Kingdom of God. It is present in the
Lord’s Prayer: we pray that our Father’s Kingdom will come. Though St Paul
uses it at times, the Church does not seem to have continued to use the
expression very much in her preaching after Pentecost. Why is this? It is
surely because the nature of the Kingdom had by then become abundantly
clear. The Kingdom of God subsisted in the person of Jesus, and one entered
this Kingdom by entering into union with him, by sharing his life and living
according to his teaching. A kingdom is a rule, a reign, a subjection to
the authority of another. So too with the Kingdom of God. It is the reign,
the rule of God and subjection to Him. Sin is the refusal of that rule.
God sent his only begotten Son to us, and he was the embodiment of
subjection to the will of his heavenly Father. I always do what pleases
him, he said. On another occasion he challenged his enemies, Can any of you
convict me of sin? The Father himself said, This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. The whole life of God was present in the person of Jesus
because, as St Paul writes, the fullness of the Godhead abides in Jesus
bodily. The Kingdom of God was fully present in the person of Jesus, and
gradually this had to be made clear to the people. But it would only be
made clear in, through and after his Passion, Death, Resurrection and
Ascension. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and filled the infant Church
with light and they understood what Jesus had done. In him they had entered
the Kingdom of God that had been promised. It was a Kingdom that had begun
in him here on earth, it would extend in time and would reach its fulfilment
in heaven. Where is this Kingdom? It is, as I said, in Jesus. And where
is Jesus? Jesus is present in his body the Church. So the Church, founded
on the Apostles with Peter at their head, is the bearer of God’s Kingdom.
As our Lord says in our Gospel passage today, the Son of Man “must suffer
many things and be rejected by this generation”
(Luke 17:20‑25). His Passion and Death made it possible for each
of us to enter the Kingdom of God by receiving a share in the life of
Christ. By baptism we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the
Spirit of Christ and the Father. Let us resolve to live in union with him
and to bring this Kingdom to those around us.
You are dust — fallen and dirty. Even though the breath of the holy
Spirit should lift you above all the things of the earth and make you
shine like gold, as your misery reflects in those heights the sovereign
rays of the Sun of Justice, do not forget the lowliness of your state.
An instant of pride would cast you back to the ground; and, having been
light, you would again become dirt.
Friday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
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Scripture today: 2
John 4-9; Psalm 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18; Luke
17:26-37
"Just
as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the
Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in
marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and
destroyed them all. "It was the same in the days of Lot. People were
eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the
day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and
destroyed them all. "It will be just like this on the day the Son of
Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with
possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the
field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries
to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will
preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed;
one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain
together; one will be taken and the other left." "Where, Lord?" they
asked. He replied, "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will
gather."(Luke 17:26-37)
Hell When I
was young we used to have what we called “parish missions.” The parish priest
would arrange for priests of religious orders to come to the parish, and, as we
would say, give “a mission.” It would last a couple of weeks, and it amounted to
a spiritual retreat for the parish. They
were very effective and many used to comment (with tongue in cheek) about the
“fire and brimstone” preaching that often characterized “the mission.” As with
most such popular comments, it was a caricature. However, there was indeed a
wholesome reminder during the preaching of what we might call the Last Things:
Death, God’s Judgement, Heaven and Hell. We were reminded of the awful prospect
of Hell, and what it is that will take a person to Hell. There is only one
thing that can take a person to Hell, and that is deliberate, unrepented mortal
sin. The thought of this can be very salutary to a person who blithely takes
his future prospects to be more or less indicated by what he can see. There
have been some great conversions in the past that have been significantly
assisted by the thought of Hell. One of the great religious movements in
England was the rise of the Evangelical movement during the 1730s. Some
scholars consider it the greatest revival of Protestantism since the Reformation
of the sixteenth century. It involved Wesley, Whitefield, and many others.
Central to the life of the Revival was the conversion, the conversion away from
sin to faith in Christ and the Atonement he brought by his cross. Now, very
often what powerfully assisted this conversion was the thought of God’s judgment
on sin and the prospect of Hell. The sinner was actively encouraged to think of
Hell. The century produced many notable stories of conversion, including
autobiographies. One of the most famous (An Authentic Narrative) was
that written by John Newton, the author of the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The
thought of God’s judgment brought him to the point of accepting in faith the
grace of Christ.
Let
this serve as an introduction to our Gospel passage today. No prophet from
the Old Testament right up to John the Baptist in the New spoke of Hell as
much as our Lord did. He was explicit about the fact of Hell and of what
leads to it. Hell will be the outcome of God’s judgment on those who die
unrepentant in the state of grave and mortal sin. Let us listen to our
Lord’s words in today’s Gospel (Luke 17:26‑37),
which provide a variant on this theme. Our Lord says, “Just as it was in
the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People
were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day
Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was
the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and
selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and
sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.” Then our Lord
continues even more starkly, “It will be just like this on the day the Son
of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with
possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the
field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to
keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve
it.” One of the great manuals of Christian renewal is the Spiritual
Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. Following his initial statement of
the principle and foundation of the Christian life, he invites the reader to
contemplate the great fact of sin. Especially he takes pains to induce the
one meditating to consider the consequences of sin and the eternal
punishment of Hell. How foolish it is to forget the possibility of Hell.
We have no idea of who may be buried in Hell, except for the evil spirits,
but it is a real possibility for man. He has freedom. He can seriously
abuse this freedom by knowingly committing serious sin. He can die in this
state unrepentant. The judgment of God follows.
I have seen public advertisements depicting in comic form both Satan and the
Hell to which he belongs. Hell is no laughing matter, nor is Satan. God
sent his only‑begotten Son to lay down his life amid incalculable suffering
precisely to save mankind from Hell. Let us resolve to avoid sin and to
live for God by following as closely as we can the person and example of
Jesus our Saviour.
Saturday of the thirty
second week in Ordinary Time II
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Scripture today: 3
John 5-8; Psalm 112:1-6, Luke 18:1-8
Then
Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always
pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who
neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow
in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice
against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said
to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care what people think,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets
justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!' " And the
Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God
bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and
night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they
get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on the earth?"(Luke
18:1-8)
Prayer
of petition
I remember over forty years ago attending a lunch‑time address at Sydney
University given by a priest member of the department of Philosophy there. The
priest gave his address on prayer and there were a couple of professors of
Philosophy attending, and they themselves were not theists.
I remember at one point the speaker gave an example of a person praying for
something (say, for rain). Then the thing for which he was praying occurred.
He said that the fact of rain following prayer would make it so probable that
prayer caused the rain as to be in effect certain. This line of reasoning did
not convince the professional philosophers there. Whatever of that example,
there is no doubt that the usefulness of prayer is doubted by a great many
people, and not only unbelieving philosophers. Their experience, they say, is
of prayer being futile. What they pray for is not granted, and they are not
convinced that what they are praying for, if it comes, would not have come
anyway had they not been praying for it at all. We could, of course, think of
very many whose testimony is the opposite. I have often been with people who
have suddenly lost something. They cannot find it despite their diligent
efforts. Then someone says, we must “pray to St Anthony” for his intercession,
the patron saint of those who have lost things. They are convinced from their
own experience of the power of prayer in this situation. That is one tiny
example. One of the great events in modern Australian history was the World
Youth Day of 2008, including as it did the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. For
months the ones who were at the head of the organization of this event were
asking communities of nuns to pray that there would be good weather. They did
pray for this, and prayed persistently. The weather was outstanding, and just
as the week of events ended, heavy clouds began to appear and soon rain came.
There was no doubt in the minds of those concerned that the good weather was the
answer to prayer.
It
comes down to faith in God when praying. The Christian believes in the
power of prayer above all on the word of Christ. The prophets had faith in
the power of prayer. Consider Elijah and the spectacular event of his
confrontation with the 400 prophets of Baal. He challenged them to prepare
their sacrifice and to call on their god to consume it. They did so from
morning till afternoon, but to no avail. Elijah prepared his sacrifice, and
with a single prayer to God fire fell from heaven and consumed the
sacrifice. It was God’s answer to Elijah’s prayer of faith. There is no
prophet who spoke so much about prayer as Christ, and there is none who
spoke as he did about faith in God when asking for something. Let us hear
our Lord’s words once again. He begins with a parable. “In a certain town
there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And
there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant
me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused. But finally he
said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice,
so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’“ In the parable, the most
obvious element is the persistence of the widow and the effect on the
corrupt judge of her importunity. He gave in to her request. Our Lord
continues, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring
about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will
he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice,
and quickly” (Luke 18:1‑8). Our Lord is
saying that God will most certainly answer our prayers. He will not delay
indefinitely. Of course, we must take into account as well his teaching as
given elsewhere in the gospels. What we ask for may go right against our
best interests. But what our Lord is telling us here is that we should
persist in our requests. We ought not give up on God, basically for lack of
faith. And that is precisely how our Lord ends his instruction on this
occasion, with an appeal for faith. He says, “But when the Son of Man
comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is constantly at the right
hand of his Father interceding for us. He is our High Priest. All the
angels and saints in Heaven share in his unceasing intercession. We are
called to share in the same intercession and prayer. Let us pray constantly
and never lose heart, as our Lord says elsewhere. Let us not give up on God
in our petitions offered to him.
Pride? Why Before long — years, days, — you will be a heap of rotting
flesh: worms, foul-smelling liquids, filthy shreds of cloth, and no
one, on earth, will remember you.
The earliest certain observance of a feast in
honour of all
the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of "all the
martyrs." In the early seventh century, after successive waves of
invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28
wagonloads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman
temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a
Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended "that
the memory of all the saints might in the future be honoured in the
place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but
of demons" (On the Calculation of Time). But the rededication of the
Pantheon, like the earlier commemoration of all the martyrs, occurred
in May. Many Eastern Churches still honour all the saints in the spring,
either during the Easter season or immediately after Pentecost. How the
Western Church came to celebrate this feast in November is a puzzle to
historians. The Anglo-Saxon theologian Alcuin observed the feast on
November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. Rome
finally adopted that date in the ninth century.
This feast first honoured martyrs. Later,
when
Christians were free to worship according to their conscience, the
Church acknowledged other paths to sanctity. In the early centuries the
only criterion was popular acclaim, even when the bishop's approval
became the final step in placing a commemoration on the calendar. The
first papal canonization occurred in 993; the lengthy process now
required to prove extraordinary sanctity took form in the last 500
years. Today's feast honours the obscure as well as the famous — the
saints each of us have known.
“After this I had a vision of a great multitude,
which no
one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They
stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and
holding palm branches in their hands.... [One of the elders] said to
me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;
they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9,14).
(AmericanCatholic.org)
click
on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24:1-6; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew
5:1-12a
Now
when Jesus saw
the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples
came to him, and he began to teach them. He said:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are
the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the
merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be
called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of
righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you
when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil
against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your
reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who
were before you.(Matthew
5:1-12a)
Heaven
Today the Church thinks of all those who are in Christ and who now enjoy the
vision of God in heaven. Their sanctification is complete. St Paul often
refers to “the saints” and by this he means those who have been justified by
their baptism into Christ and his Church, and whose sanctification is either
proceeding in this life or is complete now in heaven.
Sanctification is the work of a lifetime, life’s greatest and most demanding
project. It is the great work of grace and our own cooperation, and if either
element is lacking then our sanctification will fail. Today we think of all
those now with Christ in heaven, and whose sanctification is complete. It is,
of course, impossible to be admitted definitively into the presence of God if
one is in the state of sin, or bearing the effects of sin. Sin must first be
purged from our hearts either in this life or in the next before we can enter
our heavenly homeland. So then, today we think of our heavenly homeland and
those who have reached it. It is a tremendous thought. Amid all the woes and
difficulties and disappointments of this life, we all have something wonderful
ahead of us provided we keep to the track that will take us there. That track
is union with Christ. Ahead of us is heaven, where every tear will be wiped
away. The essence of heaven is, of course, the direct and ravishing sight of
God, whom Augustine describes as Beauty, Beauty ever ancient and ever new.
Whatever beauty we experience in this life is but a pale reflection of the
infinite and unending Beauty that is God. His goodness is boundless and his
truth is utterly splendid. All words fail and all thoughts are inadequate in
respect to the living eternal God who is now the unending delight of all those
in heaven. They are there because of the work and merits of Jesus Christ. They
are his trophy of victory. By his death on the cross he expiated for the sins
of every man and woman and won for them the gift of the Holy Spirit, who
justifies and makes holy the heart and soul of cooperating man.
Those now in heaven are members of the Church, that portion of the Church
which we may call triumphant for they now enjoy the triumph of Christ’s work
for them. By the power of God’s grace they chose Christ during life and
faithfully lived according to that choice. The cross triumphed in their
life. Numerous of those in heaven the Church has canonized, infallibly
declaring them to be of high holiness and worthy of imitation in the
Christian life. Far more persons, though, would be in heaven than merely
those who have been canonized as saints. Some unknown to us could be even
holier than some whose reputation for holiness the Church has known,
rigorously studied and formally canonized after the signs of miracles
granted by God in their favour. Far out ahead of all those in heaven, ahead
of every angel, Archangel or saint, is the Virgin Mary. She is filled with
holiness to an extent we can scarcely imagine and all by the free gift of
God and her unfailing cooperation. From her conception she was always full
of grace, and is the mother of God the Son made man. By God’s plan she is
the mother of humanity in the order of grace. Her holy husband Joseph,
united now eternally with her in love, exercises the protection of his
intercession on behalf of the universal Church. They and all the saints and
angels in heaven are in Christ, and because they are in Christ they are
united to all of us who are in Christ. We and they are members of the great
communion of saints that makes up Christ’s Church. We ought look to their
example and inspiration to help us on the way of fidelity to Christ in all
things. Saint John Vianney, the great and humble parish priest of Ars in
France during the first half of the nineteenth century, used read a lot of
lives of the saints. He recommended the practice to all. Not only ought we
learn from them but we ought pray to them asking for their intercession.
They are with God and so are in a privileged position to gain for us the
favours God would like us to have. St Alphonsus Ligouri used say that the
reason why we do not receive more from God is that we do not ask for more.
The saints can help us by their intercession and example.
The greatest “saint”, of course, is Christ himself. He is the holiest of
the holy and is the very source of holiness for he is God himself, God the
Son become man. But all those who are in him are to a greater or lesser
extent saints in virtue of their union with him. Those now in heaven are
definitively sanctified. They are truly saints and no further threat to
their union with God will ever come. For ever and for ever they will enjoy
the direct vision of God and the company of all those in heaven. That is
the destiny to which we are all called. Let us not expose that wonderful
prospect to any threat by deliberate sin. Let us renounce sin daily and
live for Christ for he is our life now and hereafter.
They have no faith. But they have plenty of superstitions. We laughed
and at the same time felt sorry when that 'strong character' became
alarmed on hearing a particular word — which, of itself, meant nothing,
but for him was unlucky — or on seeing someone break a mirror!
(November
2) Commemoration of all
the
Faithful Departed
The Church has
encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of
Christian charity. "If we had no care for the dead," Augustine noted,
"we would not be in the habit of praying for them." Yet pre-Christian
rites for the deceased kept such a strong hold on the superstitious
imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the
early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual
day of prayer for the departed members. In the middle of the 11th
century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny (France), decreed that all Cluniac
monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on
November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread
from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church. The
theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human
frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather,
go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of
purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God.
The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that
the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification.
Superstition still clung to the observance. Medieval popular belief
held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form
of witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings
supposedly eased the rest of the dead. Observances of a more religious
nature have survived. These include public processions or private
visits to cemeteries and decorating graves with flowers and lights.
This feast is observed with great fervour in Mexico.
Whether or not one should pray for the
dead is one
of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse
of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the
concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer,
a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God's
presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has
gone before us into death.
“We must not make purgatory into a
flaming
concentration camp on the brink of hell—or even a ‘hell for a short
time.’ It is blasphemous to think of it as a place where a petty God
exacts the last pound—or ounce—of flesh.... St. Catherine of Genoa, a
mystic of the 15th century, wrote that the ‘fire’ of purgatory is God’s
love ‘burning’ the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It
is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as
infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely
assured, but not yet fully tasted” (Leonard Foley, O.F.M.,
Believing in Jesus). (AmericanCatholic.org)
click
on centre arrow
Scripture
today:
Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 23:1-6; Romans
5:5-11 or Romans 6:3-9; John 6:37-40
Jesus
said, All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes
to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to
do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will
of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given
me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that
everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal
life, and I will raise them up at the last day."(John 6:37-40)
Purgatory On
November 1 and 2 the whole Church thinks of those who have died and who, in God,
live on still. I have met elderly persons who think that death is the end of
everything for the one who has died. There is no afterlife, so they think, no
more than there is for any dog, cat or any other non‑rational animal. This
is not the moment to discuss this sad opinion except to say in passing that, at
the least, it goes against the voice of mankind as illustrated generally in its
religions and popular culture. The Church, speaking in the name of Christ,
states unequivocally that every person continues on in his spirit after death,
and at the end of time will be reunited with his body. I remember when I was a
child reading in a book of science the author stating that matter cannot be
created nor destroyed. He was speaking of what man can and cannot do. We
cannot give to matter its existence, nor can we take from matter its existence.
All we can do is change it for better or for worse in accordance with its
capacities. Well, if matter cannot be created nor destroyed, much more so a
man’s spirit can neither be created nor destroyed by any other created thing. A
person is made up of spirit and matter, body and soul. Together they form the
one human person, the soul or spiritual self informing the body and giving to it
its unifying individuality. When the person dies, the body remains in the grave
but the spiritual self lives on for it cannot be destroyed by any created
thing. What happens to the spirit has been revealed to us by God, although
human reflection also provides us with certain intimations of what we can
expect. Following death comes the Judgment by our Creator. The upshot will be
either Heaven or Hell. But today, November 2, All Souls Day, we think of those
who strive in life to be good, often fail and yet continue to try to be good.
They die in God’s friendship, but still they have need of purification if they
are to enter into the happiness of heaven. To be admitted definitively into the
eternal presence of God with the indescribable happiness of an unending vision
of the great and all holy God, they must be entirely purified of sin. It is God
who will in his mercy purify them of any remnants of sin that remain after dying
in the state of grace, and this purification the Church traditionally calls
Purgatory.
Each
year on this day which we call All Souls Day, the whole Church remembers all
those of Christ’s faithful who have departed this life in the state of
grace, and who are still being purified of their sins. The Church
especially remembers those who are forgotten. We pray that their
purification will be hastened so that they may enter the presence of God.
We pray for the faithful departed on other occasions as well. At the
funeral of a deceased person we pray for the repose of his soul. Every year
in Australia, Anzac Day is celebrated in April. On that day Mass is said
for the repose of the souls of those who have died in war defending the
country. Of course it is possible that a person could have lived his
Christian and moral life so well that at death he is worthy of immediate and
definitive admittance into the presence of God. But out of charity we do
not presume this because he may need our prayers, even though we might
confidently expect that due to the power and grace of God he is saved. So
we continue to pray for that person because of the doctrine of Purgatory,
that after death there is probably still a further purification from sin and
its remnants to be undergone. We often pray for our departed friends and
relatives and the Catholic continues to have Masses said for the repose of
his soul. On this day, All Souls Day, the entire Church thinks of all those
still being purified in Purgatory and who, perhaps, have no one to pray for
them. The Church teaches that because of the communion of saints, the
faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in
Purgatory by offering prayers for them. We can also help them by
almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance. Because the souls being
purified in Purgatory are united to Christ they are also in communion with
us who are also in Christ, just as they are in communion with those in
heaven. Just as we can help one another by our prayers, so we can help
those in Purgatory by our prayers, and especially by the Mass which is
Christ’s sacrifice of Calvary made present. We also help them by gaining
indulgences for them, by our acts of charity and by our acts of self denial
— in other words by the principal elements of our entire Christian life
offered to God as a prayer for them.
The Church formally teaches that we can help those who have died in Christ
but who still need to be purified and sanctified before admittance into the
all‑holy presence of God for ever. Let us then act on this teaching given
to us in the name of Christ, and assist in this way by our prayers those who
have gone before us, both known and loved by us, and those unknown, perhaps
being unassisted by anyone now. How many persons may be in the state we
call Purgatory with no one to assist them with their prayers! Let us then
resolve to fill up our lives with this most worthy work of mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of
the Catholic Church,
no.1030-1032 (The final Purification, or Purgatory)
Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran
Basilica in Rome
Prayers
this week:Let
my prayer come before you, Lord; listen, and answer me.
(Psalm
87: 3)
God of power and mercy, protect us from all harm. Give us freedom of
spirit and health in mind and body to do your work on earth.
We
ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the
Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
(November
9)
Dedication of St. John Lateran
Most Catholics think of St. Peter’s as the pope’s main church, but they
are wrong. St. John Lateran is the pope’s church, the cathedral of the
Diocese of Rome where the Bishop of Rome presides. The first basilica
on the site was built in the fourth century when Constantine donated
land he had received from the wealthy Lateran family. That structure
and its successors suffered fire, earthquake and the ravages of war,
but the Lateran remained the church where popes were consecrated until
the popes returned from Avignon in the 14th century to find the church
and the adjoining palace in ruins. Pope Innocent X commissioned the
present structure in 1646. One of Rome’s most imposing churches, the
Lateran’s towering facade is crowned with 15 colossal statues of
Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and 12 doctors of the
Church. Beneath its high altar rest the remains of the small wooden
table on which tradition holds St. Peter himself celebrated Mass.
Unlike the commemorations of other Roman churches
(St. Mary Major, Saints Peter and Paul), this anniversary is a feast.
The dedication of a church is a feast for all its parishioners. St.
John Lateran is, in a sense, the parish church of all Catholics, for it
is the pope's parish, the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome. This
church is the spiritual home of the people who are the Church.
"What was done here, as these walls were rising, is reproduced when we
bring together those who believe in Christ. For, by believing they are
hewn out, as it were, from mountains and forests, like stones and
timber; but by catechizing, baptism and instruction they are, as it
were, shaped, squared and planed by the hands of the workers and
artisans. Nevertheless, they do not make a house for the Lord until
they are fitted together through love" (St. Augustine, Sermon 36). (AmericanCatholic.org)
When
it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and
others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of
cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he
scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning
my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is
written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then responded
to him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all
this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it
again in three days." They replied, "It has taken forty-six years to
build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But
the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the
dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the
scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)
The
Temple
In the history of religions there have always been shrines: places regarded as
the special abode of the divine. Such places are sacred, and people have gone
to them in order to encounter God and to seek blessings. Many examples of such
locales could be given. The Black Stone of Mecca, so sacred to Islam, predates
Mahomet as a kind of shrine.
It has been suggested that the Black Stone may be a glass fragment from the
impact of a fragmented meteorite some 6,000 years ago at Wabar, some 1,100 km
east of Mecca. Its falling from the heavens may account for its ancient
association with religion. In Revealed Religion, so strict in its monotheism,
the pattern of hallowed places continues. The Temple of Jerusalem in our Lord’s
time was the heart-beat of the chosen people of God. Solomon had built a
magnificent Temple close to a thousand years before, and when it was destroyed
by the Babylonians in 586 BC, it was built again decades later. Centuries
later, and just a few years before our Lord’s birth, it was renovated
magnificently by Herod the Great. We have our Lord’s word for it that God dwelt
there in an altogether special way, for he refers to it in our Gospel passage
today as the house of his Father. As a child he lingered in the Temple, and
when found by his parents, stated that (according to one rendering) he had to be
in his Father’s house. The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph had gone up to
the Temple each year, doubtlessly full of faith in the divine presence there.
We read that the prophetess Anna lived night and day in the Temple, in prayer
and fasting. She lived in the presence of God, where God was solemnly
worshipped. So the Temple of Jerusalem had been the locale of God’s special
presence on this earth for centuries. In our Gospel today, our Lord cleanses
his Father’s house of rampant irreverence, ordering all to “Stop turning my
Father’s house into a market!” He refers to the new Temple that is himself, in
which would be offered the perfect sacrifice to his heavenly Father on the
Cross. All would be invited to enter this new Temple and make it their abode.
And
this is the great reality of worship now. The risen Jesus abides here on
earth in his body the Church. If Christ the head of the Church referred to
himself as the Temple, the Church is also his Temple for the Church is his
body. In this Temple which is his body the Church, Christ the Church’s head
abides as mankind’s High Priest and Sacrifice. The sacrifice of Calvary, in
which Christ offered himself to his heavenly Father on our behalf, is
continually being made present in the celebration of the Eucharist. That is
why the dedication of the Cathedral of a diocese is celebrated annually in
that diocese. It is a day that honours the presence of Christ in his word
and sacraments, especially the Eucharist, celebrated in the Cathedral. It
is also the day when the diocese celebrates its reality as the local
Church. It is the local Church, in which Christ our High Priest and
Sacrifice abides, making present the worship he offered to the Father on the
Cross. But the Church which Christ founded is not, in the first instance,
the local Churches. It is the entire communion of local Churches considered
as a single entity, Christ’s Catholic Church founded on the rock of Peter to
whom were given the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is in this single
universal Catholic Church that our High Priest abides, making present his
Sacrifice to the Father on our behalf. It is to honour this single
communion in Christ that is the Catholic Church, that we celebrate the
dedication of the Cathedral of the Successor of St Peter, the Cathedral of
St John Lateran in Rome. In celebrating the dedication of this Cathedral,
the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome who is the chief pastor of the universal
Church, we celebrate Christ’s priestly and sacramental presence in the
universal Church. We also celebrate the universal communion with the
successor of St Peter which is a fundamental cornerstone of Christ’s
Catholic Church. All of these things we are reminded of as we think of
Christ’s response to the question of his authority. “Destroy this Temple
and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:13‑22).
Let us love Christ. He is our High Priest, and our Sacrifice. Let us love
the Church. It is the body of Christ, and his temple. He abides therein,
and in the sacraments and the word, he gives himself to the Father and to
us. Let us love each church wherein is present the Eucharistic Jesus, and
wherein are celebrated the Sacraments and the word of God. Let us love the
entire communion of the Church, symbolized by the dedication of the Basilica
in Rome of St John Lateran, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, Successor
of St Peter, and Vicar of Jesus Christ
(E.J.Tyler)
Further reading: The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, no. 914-933
(Consecrated life in the church),
1618-1620
(Virginity for the kingdom)
how the guests picked the places of honour at the table, he told them
this parable: When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place
of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If
so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man
your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.
But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes,
he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be
honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
(Luke 14: 1, 7-11)
As an infant he was pursued by the ruthless Herod, and not honoured by him as he
should have been. He was rejected by the influential ones among the leaders,
spurned and attacked. He came unto his own, and his own should have received
him with honour, but instead he was received with opprobrium. We are talking of
the Incarnate God. The path of Jesus Christ was a path of humiliations, and he
described himself as being meek and humble of heart. When he told those
following him that a person could be his disciple only if he renounced himself
and took up his cross every day, he was especially thinking of humiliations.
The “cross” referred to the most humiliating death that was possible in his
time, the kind of public death that was meant by Rome to be a warning to all
criminals. The disciple must be prepared to embrace what Christ embraced, and
that was the path of humiliation. It is a very difficult message and were it
not the moral renown of Jesus Christ, the world would think it altogether a
foolish one. The only “reason” for the Christian’s taking that path is that
Jesus Christ took it. It was by Christ’s following that path of obedience amid
humiliation and drinking that cup to its finish, that the world was saved. From
humility and humiliations came life in abundance to all. This is one of the
most difficult of lessons to master, and one of the most difficult of paths to
embrace. It can only be done for love of Jesus, and by the grace of the Holy
Spirit. Now, just as Jesus Christ is the supreme hero of the moral and
religious life, so the saints who loved and followed him are our heroes. They
manifest this or that facet of the following of Christ, but among them all the
attainment of the virtue of humility is fundamental. The path towards the
gaining of humility is marked by humiliations. 
Most Catholics think of St. Peter’s as the pope’s main church, but they
are wrong. St. John Lateran is the pope’s church, the cathedral of the
Diocese of Rome where the Bishop of Rome presides. The first basilica
on the site was built in the fourth century when Constantine donated
land he had received from the wealthy Lateran family. That structure
and its successors suffered fire, earthquake and the ravages of war,
but the Lateran remained the church where popes were consecrated until
the popes returned from Avignon in the 14th century to find the church
and the adjoining palace in ruins. Pope Innocent X commissioned the
present structure in 1646. One of Rome’s most imposing churches, the
Lateran’s towering facade is crowned with 15 colossal statues of
Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and 12 doctors of the
Church. Beneath its high altar rest the remains of the small wooden
table on which tradition holds St. Peter himself celebrated Mass.