May2 in Year A 11

Monday of the Fourth Week of Eastertide to Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Eastertide (The Visitation)

Click on any date to go to the Thought for that Day

Morning Offering: O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I offer them especially for the Holy Father's intentions:

Pope Benedict's general intention for May is: "That those who work in the media may always respect truth, solidarity and the dignity of each person."

His mission intention is: "That the Lord may grant the Church in China the capacity to persevere in fidelity to the Gospel and to grow in unity."

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Prayers today: Christ now raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has power over him, alleluia. (Rom 6:9)

Father, through the obedience of Jesus, your servant and your Son, you raised a fallen world. Free us from sin and bring us the joy that lasts for ever. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

Margaret was born of farming parents in Laviano, Tuscany. Her mother died when Margaret was seven; life with her stepmother was so difficult that Margaret moved out. For nine years she lived with Arsenio, though they were not married, and she bore him a son. In those years, she had doubts about her situation. Somewhat like St. Augustine she prayed for purity—but not just yet. One day she was waiting for Arsenio and was instead met by his dog. The animal led Margaret into the forest where she found Arsenio murdered. This crime shocked Margaret into a life of penance. She and her son returned to Laviano, where she was not well received by her stepmother. They then went to Cortona, where her son eventually became a friar. In 1277, three years after her conversion, Margaret became a Franciscan tertiary. Under the direction of her confessor, who sometimes had to order her to moderate her self-denial, she pursued a life of prayer and penance at Cortona. There she established a hospital and founded a congregation of tertiary sisters. The poor and humble Margaret was, like Francis, devoted to the Eucharist and to the passion of Jesus. These devotions fuelled her great charity and drew sinners to her for advice and inspiration. She was canonized in 1728.

Seeking forgiveness is sometimes difficult work. It is made easier by meeting people who, without trivializing our sins, assure us that God rejoices over our repentance. Being forgiven lifts a weight and prompts us to acts of charity. "Let us raise ourselves from our fall and not give up hope as long as we free ourselves from sin. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. ‘O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!’ (Psalm 95:6). The Word calls us to repentance, crying out: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). There is, then, a way to salvation if we are willing to follow it" (Letter of Saint Basil the Great). (AmericanCatholic.org)

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father— and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life— only to take it up again. No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. (John 10: 11-18)

Good Shepherd In his discussion of the assent that is involved in religious faith (A Grammar of Assent, 1870), Cardinal Newman stressed the image as the medium of religious worship, prayer, and life. The life of religion is not just a rational conclusion (though it includes conclusions), but an image of Someone. That image of God in the heart of an individual or a people is treasured and nourished from a variety of sources, including the conscience and the devout reading of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels. Fr. Ted Tyler

Prescinding from the Christian religion, we see the power of images in the religious life of primal religions and the classical pagan religions of Greece and Rome. Myth abounds, and it serves a variety of functions. The religions of Greece and Rome were replete with myth — all products of the imagination, expressing deeper perceptions of the religious mind. The case is the same with traditional primal societies. When we turn to revealed religion, the religion expressed in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, images pervade what we read. Images are a principal medium of divine revelation, and this reaches its high point in the numerous parables devised and told by the Son of God made man. Christ’s parables are all images. They strike the imagination, while expressing the profoundest of truths upon which the reason of man may exercise itself across the ages. Let us take one image that is famous in the Christian and Jewish imagination. It is that which our Lord employs in today’s Gospel. In the passage before this one (that is, John 10: 1-10), our Lord has described himself as the Door of the Sheepfold. All true shepherds must enter through him, and lead the sheep out through him, if they are to attain their pasture. Now the image changes. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). At the time of our Lord’s use of this image of the Good Shepherd, it was a hallowed one with a history spanning many centuries. Hence it was powerful and full of significance, and bears prayerful contemplation in the light of the Scriptures.

One of the most well known of the psalms extols God as the individual’s personal shepherd. In Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want!” Each sheep has full confidence in its shepherd. “In green pastures he gives me repose. Beside restful waters he leads me, he refreshes my soul.” This image expresses in singular fashion the faith of Israel in God’s particular providence — his tender care not just for his chosen people, but for each individual member of this people. We recall Christ’s portrayal of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness and goes after the stray — the point being the care of the shepherd of the individual sheep. This is repeated in Deutero-Isaiah, where God is portrayed as “like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom and leading the ewes with care” (Isaiah 40:11). Of course, God exercised this caring rule through earthly “shepherds.” Moses asked the Lord to appoint a leader so that “the Lord’s community may not be like sheep without a shepherd.” And so the Lord asked Moses to lay his hand on Joshua (Numbers 27:17-18). David, who had been a shepherd in Bethlehem, was anointed king of Israel. He had been told by the Lord that he would “shepherd my people Israel” (2 Samuel 5:2). But as it turned out, the shepherds of Israel failed. Speaking as prophet of God, Ezekiel condemned the shepherds of Israel. A woe was pronounced on them, and God promised he would claim his sheep from them. He would save them himself. He himself would tend the sheep, and would lead them to pasture upon the mountains of Israel. The image of God as shepherd of his people and of each member of his people was long a hallowed one. Further, God promises to judge between his sheep and the goats (34:17), and we see the promise of the fulfilment of this in Matthew 25, when our Lord describes the final Judgment. At the end he will separate the sheep from the goats. Most importantly, Ezekiel prophesies the appointment by God of “one shepherd over them to pasture them, my servant David; he shall pasture them and be their shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:23).

In Jesus Christ, God has intervened to be the Shepherd of his people in person. His Son has come to lead the people to pasture, and each sheep is known, loved and cared for. So great is the care, that our Good Shepherd lays down his very life for his sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father— and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10: 11-18). These are powerful images, selected and employed by God himself, speaking through the prophets and finally through his divine Son our Redeemer. Let us treasure them!

Our Lord’s love for his flock Long and prayerful meditation on the Gospel enables us to know the heart of Christ, and this knowledge is the basis of our love for him. It is especially the Gospel of St John, the “beloved disciple,” that reveals the heart of Christ. It is a heart of boundless love. Our Lord, in describing himself, draws from both the life of his hearers and the Scriptures. A special bond existed between the shepherd and his sheep. We remember how the angels announced the birth of the Messiah to shepherds who were guarding their sheep by night. In the Scriptures, God is the Good Shepherd who guards his sheep, and who will raise up one to shepherd his sheep. Christ is that Shepherd. He is the embodiment of God who is the Shepherd of his people.

Our Lord loves his sheep to the point of laying down his life for them, and this is what he has done for each of us, whom he knows by name. The Father loves the Son for this — and he will love us too if we strive to be like Jesus in our love for one another.

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Whenever you see that the glory of God and the good of the Church demand that you should speak out, you cannot remain silent. Think about it. Who would lack courage before God in the face of eternity? There is nothing to be lost and instead much to be gained. Why do you hold back then?

Prayers today: Let us shout out our joy and happiness, and give glory to God, the Lord of all, because he is our King, alleluia. (Rev 19: 7, 6)

Almighty God, as we celebrate the resurrection, may we share with each other the joy the risen Christ has won for us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, . .

(May 17) St. Paschal Baylon (1540-1592) (painting: St Paschal's vision of the Eucharist)

In Paschal’s lifetime the Spanish empire in the New World was at the height of its power, though France and England were soon to reduce its influence. The 16th century has been called the Golden Age of the Church in Spain, for it gave birth to Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Peter of Alcantara, Francis Solano and Salvator of Horta. Paschal’s Spanish parents were poor and pious. Between the ages of seven and 24 he worked as a shepherd and began a life of mortification. He was able to pray on the job and was especially attentive to the church bell which rang at the Elevation during Mass. Paschal had a very honest streak in him. He once offered to pay owners of crops for any damage his animals caused! In 1564 Paschal joined the Friars Minor and gave himself wholeheartedly to a life of penance. Though he was urged to study for the priesthood, he chose to be a brother. At various times he served as porter, cook, gardener and official beggar. Paschal was careful to observe the vow of poverty. He would never waste any food or anything given for the use of the friars. When he was porter and took care of the poor coming to the door, he developed a reputation for great generosity. The friars sometimes tried to moderate his liberality! Paschal spent his spare moments praying before the Blessed Sacrament. In time many people sought his wise counsel. People flocked to his tomb immediately after his burial; miracles were reported promptly. In 1690 Paschal was canonized; in 1897 he was named patron of eucharistic congresses and societies.
“Meditate well on this: Seek God above all things. It is right for you to seek God before and above everything else, because the majesty of God wishes you to receive what you ask for. This will also make you more ready to serve God and will enable you to love him more perfectly" (St. Paschal). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade. The Jews gathered round him, saying, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered, I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no-one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:22-30)

Christ’s sheep Our scene is in Jerusalem, and it is the great Temple — one of the best buildings in the world of that time. In a sense, Herod’s Temple was the talk of the Roman world when it came to buildings, and its destruction by Titus in 70 AD was a tremendous event. So there Jesus was, and he was in the Colonnade of Solomon. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the Colonnade: “All the cloisters were double, and the pillars supporting them were twenty-five cubits in height. These pillars were of one entire stone each of Fr. Ted Tyler

them, and that stone was white marble; and the roofs were adorned with cedar, curiously graven. The natural magnificence, and excellent polish, and the harmony of the joints in these cloisters, afforded a prospect that was very remarkable....." (Jewish War 5. 5. 2). The Colonnade provided a long and straight walk under some shelter, and being winter, Jesus was walking — perhaps briskly with some of his disciples in order to keep warm. We can imagine the friendly atmosphere among the group, our Lord in the centre, the others walking with him on either side. Perhaps they were chatting about light matters, perhaps our Lord was giving special instruction to his disciples. We can imagine ripples of laughter and the murmur of talk. On they walked, when suddenly before them gathered a group of “the Jews,” meaning by this the Temple aristocracy and religious leadership. So they drew to a halt. The leaders had a simple demand: “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” We know from elsewhere, especially from the Synoptic Gospels, that our Lord was wary of this title because of its political meanings, although he plainly claimed it on occasion. For instance, with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, our Lord is clear that he himself is the Messiah of the prophecies (John 4:26). John the Baptist had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, and many considered him such. Nevertheless, our Lord remained enigmatic and preferred other titles, especially the Son of Man. The leaders wanted to pin him down on this great point, the better to be able to entrap him. As a matter of fact, they got much more than they bargained for.

The first thing our Lord made clear to them was the reason why they continued to refuse to accept what he had already made clear about himself. “Jesus answered, I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow.” There had been plenty of indications of his answer to that question, but they refused to believe. The telling point here is our Lord’s reason for their lack of faith. It was not due to there not having been enough indication from our Lord about himself. Nor was it because he had not provided sufficient evidence of the truth of his claims. He had told them, and he had worked miracles, signs, to support his claims. Moreover, John, whom all held to be a prophet, had given testimony to Jesus. The reason was not of this order, but that they were not his sheep. This was the reason for their existing refusal to believe, despite all the indications already given. There was a fundamental separation from him, a moral stance shaping their thought and their decisions. Their refusal to believe in Jesus flowed from this foundational disposition which meant that they were not his sheep. They simply did not, nor wanted to, belong to him. Their starting points, their preferred assumptions, their deeper moral postures, were at variance from his own, and from God and his holy will. These starting points governed their decision not to believe. Basically they did not like what they saw in Jesus, and this was due to the sin that reigned in them, separating them from him and leaving them in darkness. They had to change, repent, be born again, become new, if they were to find that life that is in him. But there was a further point to his answer. In respect to his being the Messiah — he had already answered that: “I did tell you, but you do not believe.” What he now tells them, calmly, without warning, and at the very Temple itself, is that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:22-30). This must have caused an awestruck and powerful silence. They had not mistaken him — he was claiming to be God. They immediately prepared for a stoning.

Let us appreciate the depth of the issues featuring in today’s Gospel passage. Our Lord calls attention to the profound moral factors in the act of faith. To believe in him involves one’s entire moral stance. One has to be of a certain moral disposition if one is to believe in Jesus Christ. We ought pray to God that he give us the right foundations, the right starting points, so as to be his “sheep,” persons who belong to him. Further, we must ask God for the grace to appreciate the high majesty of Jesus Christ. He is none other than God himself, one with the Father in being, though separate from him in person. The two are united in love by the Holy Spirit. Let us take our place with him then, and never allow ourselves to stray from him!

The laity in the world We are told at the beginning of our passage today that “those who had escaped during the persecution that Fr. Ted Tyler

happened because of Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, but they usually proclaimed the message only to Jews. Some of them, however, ... went to Antioch where they started preaching to the Greeks, proclaiming the Good News of the Lord Jesus to them as well.” The author of The Acts is referring to what the ordinary faithful, the laity, were doing to spread the knowledge of Christ. It was after this had happened that the leaders of the church were sent for. As we read this we are surely reminded of the indispensable role of the laity if the knowledge of our Lord is ever to be brought to the world. In the laity, the Church is present to the world, the world of family, workplace, culture, whatever. But for this to happen the laity must be possessed of a genuine and correct knowledge of Christ — of doctrine — and be disposed to speak of and bear witness to him. The laity must be ready also to put interested people into contact with the Church’s pastors, as did those in our passage from The Acts today.

The triumph of the Church within the Roman Empire depended in large measure on the witness of the laity. So it will be in the new evangelization. It is the laity who must bring Christ to the secular world of our century.

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We are not good brothers to our fellow men if we are not ready to continue behaving correctly, even when those around us may interpret our actions badly or react in an unpleasant manner.

Prayers today: I will be a witness to you in the world, O Lord. I will spread the knowledge of your name among my brothers, alleluia. (Ps 17:30; 21:23)

God our Father, life of the faithful, glory of the humble, happiness of the just, hear our prayer. Fill our emptiness with the blessing of this Eucharist, the foretaste of eternal joy. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, .

Pope John I inherited the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. Italy had been ruled for 30 years by an emperor who espoused the heresy, though he treated the empire’s Catholics with toleration. His policy changed at about the time the young John was elected pope. When the eastern emperor began imposing severe measures on the Arians of his area, the western emperor forced John to head a delegation to the East to soften the measures against the heretics. Little is known of the manner or outcome of the negotiations—designed to secure continued toleration of Catholics in the West. When John returned to Rome, he found that the emperor had begun to suspect his friendship with his eastern rival. On his way home, John was imprisoned when he reached Ravenna because the emperor suspected a conspiracy against his throne. Shortly after his imprisonment, John died, apparently from the treatment he had received. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Then Jesus cried out, When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he beholds me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. (John 12:44-50)

Christ, unique In the Gospels we read of people taking pride in their great ancestor, Abraham. John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees that their stepping forward for his baptism was not genuine. “Do not pride yourselves on the claim, ‘Abraham is our father’,” he told them (Matthew 3:9). In the Gospel of St John the “Jews” say to our Lord “We are descendants of Abraham” (John 8:33). Well, let us set Jesus Christ in Abraham’s company, and ask, would Abraham have dared to claim that “when a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me”? Would he have gone on to state that when a man “beholds me, he sees the one who sent me”? That is to say, when a man sees me, he sees God. Or again, let us take, say, Moses. Moses was the giant of the Hebrew memory. It was he who led, on God’s instructions, the people out of slavery on their way to the Promised Land. He was the mediator between God and the people in the establishment of the covenant of Sinai which superseded, we might say, the covenant with Abraham. In the sixth chapter of St John, the people ask Jesus to perform a sign so that they might believe in him — after all, Moses gave their ancestors manna in the desert (John 6:28-31). Well, let us place Jesus Christ next to Moses. Would Moses have said the things that Christ said? Would he have said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no-one who believes in me should stay in darkness. As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it”? (John 12:44-50) He would never had had such presumption, but Jesus Christ, who challenged his enemies to prove him guilty of any sin (John 8:46), unhesitatingly claimed to be the light, not just of the chosen people, but of the world. He states that no-one who believes in him remains in the darkness, and that the one who refuses to do so does remain in darkness. No recognized prophet, no king or priest, no ancestor whatever of the chosen people of Israel appeared on the scene making the statements and claims that Jesus of Nazareth did. This broad context helps us to appreciate the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.

One of the striking features of Jesus Christ is the immediate recognition which, at the outset of his public ministry, he won from at least some. Mahomet gradually gained his followers, but he certainly did not immediately gain recognition as the greatest and final prophet. That came with his success on other, related fronts — including his military success. But before Jesus Christ had so much as begun his public ministry, he was recognized by John, whom the people counted as a great prophet, as the One long foretold. He was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. John saw his own ministry as being no more than a voice preparing the way for Another — and that Other was Jesus of Nazareth. At John’s prompting, two of his disciples follow Jesus, and stay with him that day. After this, Andrew — one of the two — tells his brother Simon that “we have found the Messiah!” (John 1: 41). Philip is invited by our Lord to follow him, and he goes to Nathanael and tells him that “We have found the one Moses spoke of in the law — the prophets too — Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth” (John 1: 45). There is no record anywhere in the entire Scriptures of such a recognition accorded to another, let alone so rapidly given. Nathanael, on being introduced to Jesus, and being told by Jesus that he had seen him under the fig tree, said to Jesus, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel” (John 1: 49). All of this was accepted by Christ — and more still. Find the prophet who dared to present himself as the natural Son of God! Such a thought would boggle the imagination. But this is just what he did, and in the presence of his enemies, those who had power to do him great harm. He did this not only before them, assembled to condemn him to death, but during his public ministry when they were not expecting it, and in the very Temple. “I and the Father are one,” he told them (John 10:30). Islamic readers and others will claim that all Christ meant was that he and the Father are one in purpose, but “the Jews” immediately prepared to stone him. They knew what he meant, and that he meant what he said. He was claiming to be God (John 10:30-33).

One of the features of the Christian West is that over the last few centuries it has become bored with God, and somewhat uninterested in Jesus Christ. In fact, over the last several decades there has been a widespread fad for Eastern religions, yoga, various forms of esoteric meditation and other — what we might call — religious “trips.” There has been a mysterious turning away from the Jewel of European civilization. Europe was created by the Catholic religion, and the Catholic religion is nothing other than love for Jesus Christ. The Jewel has been lost, and we are scrambling after bits of stone. Let us recover our true Love, and give ourselves over to it in earnest. Jesus Christ is the Song of the ages, the Melody taking us to life everlasting!

Christ and his claims One of the things we are very conscious of in our day is the variety of religions. Various personages have shaped human culture and society, especially the founders of man’s religions. Now apart from their very different teachings about salvation, one essential difference among them, and in particular between Jesus Christ and the other founders of religions, is their claims as to their own persons. Mahomet claimed to be a prophet of God, and Islam claims he is the last and greatest of the prophets. His teaching is so similar to that of Judaism and Christianity — together with some profound contradictions — that much of it has to be regarded by both Jew and Christian as borrowed. Our Lord’s claims as to himself are absolutely unique. He claims in today’s Gospel that the one who sees him sees the One who sent him. He claims to be the Light of the world. He especially claimed, and was attacked for claiming, to be equal to God. Despite these claims — and because of them — he is so utterly convincing.

Let us strive to bear witness to this Jesus, utterly unique, utterly indispensable to our salvation.

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Your love for Mother Church and the service you render her should in no way be conditioned by the greater or lesser holiness of the individuals who make up the Church, even though we ardently desire that everyone will achieve Christian perfection. You have to love the Spouse of Christ, your Mother. She is, and always will be, pure and spotless.

Prayers today: When you walked at the head of your people, O God, and lived with them on their journey, the earth shook at your presence and the skies poured forth their rain, alleluia. (See Ps 67:8-9.20)

Father, in restoring human nature you have given us a greater dignity than we had in the beginning. Keep us in your love and continue to sustain those who have received new life in baptism. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, .

Theophilus was born in Corsica of rich and noble parents. As a young man he entered the Franciscans and soon showed his love for solitude and prayer. After admirably completing his studies, he was ordained and assigned to a retreat house near Subiaco. Inspired by the austere life of the Franciscans there, he founded other such houses in Corsica and Tuscany. Over the years, he became famous for his preaching as well as his missionary efforts. Though he was always somewhat sickly, Theophilus generously served the needs of God's people in the confessional, in the sickroom and at the graveside. Worn out by his labours, he died on June 17, 1740. He was canonized in 1930. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Acts 13:13-25; Psalm 89:2-3, 21-22, 25 and 27; John 13:16-20

Jesus said, I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfil the scripture: 'He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me.' I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am. I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. (John 13:16-20)

Lord and Sender Let us notice how our Lord describes himself in our Gospel passage today. He has just washed the feet of his disciples, and has acknowledged that they call him “Teacher and Lord” (didaskalos kai ho kurios), and that they do right to call him this. He is indeed their Teacher and their Lord (John 13: 13). If he, then, their Lord and Teacher, has washed their feet (as would a servant), so they should do as he has done. They should act towards others as their servant. Then in our passage today (John 13:16-20), which follows immediately on our Lord’s commentary on his action of the washing of the feet, he refers to himself under two titles. “I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” He is “master,” which is to say, “lord” (kurios) and he is the one who sends them (pempsantos). Let us contemplate these two titles. In many contexts, kurios (lord) is little more than a form of reverential address, similar to “Sir” or (in older English, and even more reverentially as to a ruler) “Sire.” For instance, we notice that in the sixth chapter of St John, the people address our Lord as “Rabbi” when asking how he got back to Capernaum (6:25). But a little later, after he explains that there is a bread from heaven that will give life to the world, the people address him as kurios, lord — “Lord, give us this bread always” (6:34). It is a very reverential form of address, signifying authority. But there is a much higher use of the title kurios, indeed one applied to God. In the Gospel of St Matthew an “angel of the Lord” (aggelos kuriou) appears to Joseph in a dream (1:20, and 1:24). The Gospel of St Mark begins with a citation from the prophet, calling on all to prepare the way of “the Lord” (hodon kuriou) (1:3). In the Gospel of St Luke, our Lady refers to God as “the Lord” (kurios) (1:38, and 1:46). Our Lord himself addressed his heavenly Father as “Lord of heaven and earth” (kurie tou ouranou kai tees gees) (Matthew 11:25). The general idea of kurios is of one having authority over another, and to whom obedience is due. It is translated into Latin by the word dominus, from which we have the English “dominate.”

Cardinal Newman once wrote that the essence of religion is authority and obedience. Of course, the Christian religion understands the authority of God our Father as being informed by divine love, and the obedience of man as being informed by a filial love. Nevertheless, the authority of God is an essential acknowledgment, and it is somewhat captured by the title “Lord.” We refer familiarly and devotionally to Jesus Christ as “our Lord,” or as “the Lord.” The title “our Lord” has this Scriptural warrant that in the Gospel of St John, the very climax is contained in Thomas’s profound acknowledgment of Jesus as “My Lord and my God.” Just as Jesus was “my Lord” to Thomas — indicating his complete authority over him as God — so we now address Jesus and refer to him as “our Lord,” for we all together acknowledge his authority over us as our God. He himself, on the mountain in Galilee and having risen from the dead, told his disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him (Matthew 28:18). That is to say, he was “the Lord.” As the Lord on the mountain of Galilee, he gives to his disciples the commission to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe his commands. Jesus, then, is the Lord of all things, seen and unseen. But this leads to the next title our Lord employs in our Gospel passage today. He is the one who sends his disciples out — “no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:16). The disciples are messengers. Strictly, the meaning of the Greek (apostolos — apostle, envoy, ambassador) is “one who is sent,” an “envoy.” In the Gospel of St John, the first thing the risen Jesus does when he appears to his disciples is to send them out: “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (John 20: 21). The message is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He has redeemed mankind, and all are called to share his life by baptism, and to accept his law and his commands. This is the way to salvation. The whole Church acknowledges Jesus Christ as “Lord,” just as the Old Testament (in the Septuagint Greek) acknowledged Yahweh God as “Lord.” Acknowledging and accepting this, it receives from Jesus Christ its mission. An essential part of the Christian life is this mission to bring the knowledge and love of Jesus to the world.

“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” The Church carries the authority of Jesus Christ to teach in his name and to introduce all to him as their Lord. “I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me” (John 13:16-20). Let us contemplate the person of Jesus Christ. He stands alone, apart, above and beyond all others as the one and only Lord, but at the same time he is united with us as our Brother and our Redeemer, our Friend and our Saviour. Let us never separate ourselves from him, then. His is the only name by which men can be saved (Acts 4:12).

Welcoming the Lord The beatification of a Pope (Pope John Paul II), and the thought of a reigning Pope, reminds us of what our Lord says in today’s Gospel — “whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me.” The Church prays that the Holy Spirit will ensure that the successor of Peter whom God has chosen is given to us. We had a great Pope, God’s gift to the Church. We have another most worthy Pope, God’s gift to the Church. Pope St Pius X once said it is impossible to be holy if we do not love the Pope. There is a real danger that, bombarded as we are by the media, we might come to view the things of God after the manner of the secular media, which is to say with the mind of the world rather than with the mind of Christ. Our Lord tells us two things: that “whoever welcomes the one I send welcomes me,” and secondly, “whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (John 13:20). Let us resolve to be open to his teaching, aiming to be good soil ready to receive the word of God as it comes to us from the lips of our chief pastor.

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Our striving for our own sanctification has repercussions on the sanctity of so many souls and also on the sanctity of God’s Church.

Entrance Antiphon (Rev 5: 9-10) You have redeemed us, Lord, by your Blood, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us into a kingdom, priests for our God, alleluia.

Collect O God, author of our freedom and of our salvation, listen to the voice of our pleading and grant that those you have redeemed by the shedding of your Son's Blood may have life through you and, under your protection, rejoice for ever unharmed. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Most of the saints suffer great personal opposition, even persecution. Bernardine, by contrast, seems more like a human dynamo who simply took on the needs of the world. He was the greatest preacher of his time, journeying across Italy, calming strife-torn cities, St Bernadine of Sienna

attacking the paganism he found rampant, attracting crowds of 30,000, following St. Francis’s admonition to preach about “vice and virtue, punishment and glory.” Compared with St. Paul by the pope, Bernardine had a keen intuition of the needs of the time, along with solid holiness and boundless energy and joy. He accomplished all this despite having a very weak and hoarse voice, miraculously improved later because of his devotion to Mary. When he was 20, the plague was at its height in his hometown, Siena. Sometimes as many as 20 people died in one day at the hospital. Bernardine offered to run the hospital and, with the help of other young men, nursed patients there for four months. He escaped the plague but was so exhausted that a fever confined him for several months. He spent another year caring for a beloved aunt (her parents had died when he was a child) and at her death began to fast and pray to know God’s will for him. At 22, he entered the Franciscan Order and was ordained two years later. For almost a dozen years he lived in solitude and prayer, but his gifts ultimately caused him to be sent to preach. He always travelled on foot, sometimes speaking for hours in one place, then doing the same in another town. Especially known for his devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, Bernardine devised a symbol — IHS, the first three letters of the name of Jesus in Greek, in Gothic letters on a blazing sun. This was to displace the superstitious symbols of the day, as well as the insignia of factions (for example, Guelphs and Ghibellines). The devotion spread, and the symbol began to appear in churches, homes and public buildings. Opposition arose from those who thought it a dangerous innovation. Three attempts were made to have the pope take action against him, but Bernardine’s holiness, orthodoxy and intelligence were evidence of his faithfulness. General of a branch of the Franciscan Order, the Friars of the Strict Observance, he strongly emphasized scholarship and further study of theology and canon law. When he started there were 300 friars in the community; when he died there were 4,000. He returned to preaching the last two years of his life, dying while travelling. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:1-6)

Afterlife I vividly remember watching the Australian movie decades ago, called Jedda (1955). It was the first to star two Aboriginal actors (Robert Tudawali and Ngarla Kunoth) in the leading roles, and also the first Australian film, I believe, shot in colour. Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. She is raised learning European ways and separated from other Aborigines. She wants to learn about her own culture, but is forbidden. The Aboriginal man Marbuck eventually abducts her, and his tribal council sings his death song for bringing Jedda to them. He goes insane because of the thought of the death song, and the final scene, so memorable, shows him pulling Jedda with him as he falls back off the cliff to their deaths. What I also found memorable was the final script following Jedda’s death. Joe, the half-caste Aborigine who is in love with Jedda and who tracks Marbuck and Jedda for several days to their horrifying end, speaks of Jedda’s departed spirit. Jedda has joined "the great mother of the world, in the dreaming time of tomorrow." It was a powerful end to a striking movie, and the Afterlife for Jedda is that envisaged by traditional Aboriginal culture, at least as the script writers were advised it to be. There has been, across the ages, a great variety of understandings of the Afterlife in culture and religion. Some cultures have advanced conceptions, involving a form of Judgment with its consequences. I think here of classical Egyptian religion, however debased it was in other respects. Other cultures have had the most meagre of notions of an Afterlife. Even Revealed Religion prior to Jesus Christ did not have a very special strength in this particular respect. Its notion of the one and only God who was Bridegroom of his people was extraordinary when set against the religious world of its time. But there was not a lot on the Afterlife. The case was altogether different with Jesus Christ. Apart from all that he revealed about the one God in three divine Persons and about the Atonement brought about by the triune God, he also revealed with striking clarity the truths of the divine Judgment both General and Particular, and Heaven and Hell. The Afterlife suddenly became, with Jesus Christ, a major dogma of Revealed Religion.

So important is Christian doctrine on the Afterlife that for the last two centuries at least, its dogma on Hell has been a major stumbling block for many. Cardinal Newman acknowledged this and worked to alleviate the impact on the modern imagination of this dogma. He suggested ways of understanding the eternity of Hell that alleviated somewhat the thought of its unending and total misery — and he did this to clear away obstacles to belief that can beset the modern mind. Apart from this, the modern Western mind tends to be agnostic, bordering on one or other form of atheism. There is no Supernatural. This world is all that there is. This has been the advancing assumption, and I have known elderly people — the typical neighbour, as it were — who have thought that at the end of life, there will be nothing further for them. Just as any animal, the pet dog or cat, finishes its existence at death, so does man. He is buried, and all that is left of his Self is what is lowered into the grave. Just before John Henry Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in England, in September of 2010, his coffin was exhumed with a view to placing his relics in the Oratory church of Birmingham where he had lived. All his bodily remains were discovered to have gone because of the dampness of the cemetery. His spirit, of course, lives with Christ in Heaven, but for the agnostic or atheist, this life is all that there definitely is. Talk of the Afterlife is mere fanciful conjecture. But no — we have it on the word of Jesus Christ, confirmed by the powerful Tradition of his Church, that there is a Judgment, then Heaven or Hell. All this brings us to our Gospel today (John 14:1-6), in which our Lord speaks so wonderfully of Heaven. There is nowhere in the Scriptures prior to Jesus Christ any teaching so exalted as is his teaching on Heaven. “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Every day of our lives we have something wonderful to look forward to. It is our everlasting homeland of Heaven.

The great Rosary crusader of the second half of the twentieth century, Irish priest Father Patrick Peyton, once said that he was looking forward to death. He was a man full of peace, joy and kindness. The reason why he was looking forward to death was not because he was suffering so much and looked forward to a release from it. He was looking forward to Heaven, and death was the door to Heaven. Heaven, of course, is our meeting with and living forever with Jesus Christ. Father Peyton longed to see the face of Jesus Christ. This alters everything about death. From being a dark black hole into which we must fall, it becomes a door suffused with light. Heaven! Let us never lose sight of it! It will fill all our days with music, music that lasts forever.

A place awaits us There are many things that can cause us weariness in life, and even a sense of futility. As a result, a dynamic use of time can be lost. But time is precious and is not to be squandered by inactivity. What then can give us constant motivation? Once source of motivation is the thought of what finally awaits us. Our Lord in our Gospel passage (John 14: 1-6) tells us that he is going ahead of us to prepare a place for us, so that where he is we may be too. Our Lord has a place awaiting us in heaven. On one occasion James and John (together with their mother) asked our Lord if he would place them at his right and left in his kingdom. He replied that those places belonged to those to whom they had been allotted. So a place in heaven has been allotted us. Our Lord wants us to use our time during life to get to that place that is awaiting us.

Let us then often think of heaven, our true homeland. There we shall attain our true rest and happiness, where every tear will be wiped away. We shall be with God and innumerable friends. Let us not waste our time! Let us use it for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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Be convinced of this: if only you wish it (and don’t forget that God listens to you and loves you and promises you glory and you will be protected by the almighty hand of your Father in Heaven) you can be a person full of fortitude, ready to be a witness everywhere to the most lovable truth of his doctrine.

Entrance Antiphon: (1 Peter 2: 9) O chosen people, proclaim the mighty works of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light, alleluia.

Collect: Almighty ever-living God, constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us, that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism may, under your protective care, bear much fruit and come to the joys of life eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Like Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, S.J., Cristóbal and his 24 companion martyrs lived under a very anti- St Christopher Mangallanes

Catholic government in Mexico, one determined to weaken the Catholic faith of its people. Churches, schools and seminaries were closed; foreign clergy were expelled. Cristóbal established a clandestine seminary at Totatiche, Jalisco. Magallanes and the other priests were forced to minister secretly to Catholics during the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-28). All of these martyrs except three were diocesan priests. David, Manuel and Salvador were laymen who died with their parish priest, Luis Batis. All of these martyrs belonged to the Cristero movement, pledging their allegiance to Christ and to the Church that he established to spread the Good News in society—even if Mexico's leaders once made it a crime to receive Baptism or celebrate the Mass. These martyrs did not die as a single group but in eight Mexican states, with Jalisco and Zacatecas having the largest number. They were beatified in 1992 and canonized eight years later. During his homily at the canonization Mass on May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II addressed the Mexican men, women and children present in Rome and said: “After the harsh trials that the Church endured in Mexico during those turbulent years, today Mexican Christians, encouraged by the witness of these witnesses to the faith, can live in peace and harmony, contribute the wealth of gospel values to society. The Church grows and advances, since she is the crucible in which many priestly and religious vocations are born, where families are formed according to God's plan, and where young people, a substantial part of the Mexican population, can grow with the hope of a better future. May the shining example of Cristóbal Magallanes and his companion martyrs help you to make a renewed commitment of fidelity to God, which can continue to transform Mexican society so that justice, fraternity and harmony will prevail among all.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to his disciples, If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, Shroud of Turin

you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. (John 14: 7-14)

Love him! One of the leading authorities on Australian Aboriginal religion was William Edward Hanley Stanner (1905–1981). In 1935, on his second field work, W.E.H. (Bill) Stanner accompanied Father Richard Docherty to Port Keats, now known as Wadeye on the south-western coast of the Northern Territory, halfway between the mouths of the Daly River and Fitzmaurice River. Father Docherty, a Missionary of the Sacred Heart priest, was to establish a mission in the region and Stanner helped him choose the site at Port Keats. Much of his outstanding published work as an anthropologist was based on his field work with Indigenous Australians in the Port Keats Wadeye area. In his On Aboriginal Religion (VI, no.(7), no.1) he says that “The religion was one of those constructed, as someone has said, in the third person.” I think he meant that in their religion the Murinbata (the tribe of Aborigines of the Port Keats area) celebrated what “they,” the spirits, did. That is to say, their religion did not involve much of an I-Thou relationship. They revered “them” (the spirits spoken of), rather than “you” (the spirits as addressed). I mention this as an example of what is perhaps common. People can conceive of religion in a way that brings them to its mere threshold. They think about the Objects of their religion (say, Buddha, Zarathustra, or this or that deity), and govern their lives by what they are taught, without entering into a deeper and deeper relationship with the deity itself. That, at least, is a real danger for man in his religion, and it is a danger for the Christian too. The Christian can miss the call to enter into a personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ, and be somewhat content with thinking about him as an inspiring example, and rest in a certain conformity to the Christian way of life. His religion can amount to a celebration of what “he” (Jesus Christ) did and the results of his life, rather than an I-Thou relationship with him. But of course, the personal relationship is the foremost component of revealed religion. We are commanded to love God with our whole heart. He is to be the direct object of our affections.

Of course, there is certainly plenty to think “about,” when thinking “about Jesus Christ.” We are speaking of a definite, historical man, a man of a certain place and time, a man with certain features, a certain build, a certain language with its own accent, a certain ethnic, cultural and religious background, a certain set of features, a certain timbre in his voice, in every way an historical individual. Just as when we gaze on any person we know, we are looking at a person who is totally individual and unique, so too with Jesus Christ. But he was unique in a way that transcended all others. Each of us is a unique embodiment of the human nature we commonly share, but he was unique in the sense that he was not merely man. His Self, his Person, was divine. His Person was necessarily divine by nature, and was so from all eternity. But in the fulness of time he took to himself a human nature as well, and thus this divine Person became man. When one looked on him, one was looking on God, God in his human nature. Having taken to himself a human nature, by that fact his divine Self embraced his body and made it his own. When looking upon the face of Jesus Christ, one looked upon the face of God. But there is more. It was the Second Divine Person who became man, and he is none other than the image of the unseen God, such that in looking on him one was looking on the Father. The Father looks like the Son because the Son is his Image. All this brings us to our Gospel passage today (John 14: 7-14). Our Lord is at the Last Supper, and is revealing himself more intimately to his disciples. “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” He who sees Jesus Christ, sees the Father. Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him. However, we must not simply think “about” this astounding revelation. What is offered us is a personal relationship, a direct, personal friendship with Jesus.

In the Christian religion, the religion revealed by God as the way for all the nations, there is offered the heights of involvement with God himself. We are invited to love God in Jesus Christ with all our mind, heart, soul and strength — in fact, we are commanded to do this. Jesus is the way, as he is the truth and the life. He is the way, and the only way, to the Father. No one comes to the Father but by him. By becoming his friend, and keeping his commands, we are thereby on the way to life eternal. Indeed, by baptism and a Christian life, we are already enjoying this life. Let us resolve, then, to make the personal love of Jesus Christ the grand goal of our lives.

A lively faith in Jesus One of our biggest dangers in our spiritual life is that we will tend to take our Lord for granted. That is to say, we will tend through familiarity to lose sight of who our Lord really is. As people gazed on our Lord it was obvious that he was truly man. But here in our gospel passage our Lord tells his disciples that he who knows and sees him knows and sees the Father. He implies that if one is properly disposed and truly open to reality, it ought be evident that Jesus is the revelation and image of the Father: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and still you do not know me?” The Father is in him, and is doing the work that Jesus is doing.

This same Jesus is the Eucharist. Our danger will be that we will tend to take the Eucharist for granted. In our prayer, let us exercise our faith in Jesus and in what he has revealed about himself. He was put to death for bearing witness to the truth about himself. Let us make sure that our whole life is filled with faith in our Lord’s revelation, and given over to bearing witness to it. Jesus, the Eucharistic Jesus, is the source and object of our whole life.

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The Lord’s field is fertile and the seed he sows of good quality. Therefore when weeds appear in this world of ours, never doubt that they spring up because of a lack of correspondence on the part of men, Christians especially, who have fallen asleep and have left the field open to the enemy. Don’t complain, for there’s no point; examine your behaviour, instead.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 98 (97): 1-2 O sing a new song to the Lord, for he has worked wonders; in the sight of the nations he has shown his deliverance, alleluia.

Prayer today God our Father, look upon us with love. You redeem us and make us your children in Christ. Give us true freedom and bring us to the inheritance you promised. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have revealed to the nations your saving power and filled all ages with the words of a new song. Hear the echo of this hymn. Give us voice to sing your praise throughout this season of joy. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Like Elizabeth Ann Seton, Rita of Cascia was a wife, mother, widow and member of a religious community. Her holiness was reflected in each phase of her life. Born at Roccaporena in central Italy, Rita wanted to become a nun but was pressured at a young age into marrying a harsh and cruel man. During her 18-year marriage, she bore and raised two sons. After her husband was killed in a brawl and her sons had died, Rita tried to join the Augustinian nuns in Cascia. Unsuccessful at first because she was a widow, Rita eventually succeeded. Over the years, her austerity, prayerfulness and charity became legendary. When she developed wounds on her forehead, people quickly associated them with the wounds from Christ's crown of thorns. She meditated frequently on Christ's passion. Her care for the sick nuns was especially loving. She also counselled lay people who came to her monastery. Beatified in 1626, Rita was not canonized until 1900. She has acquired the reputation, together with St. Jude, as a saint of impossible cases. Many people visit her tomb each year. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Acts 6:1-7; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

Jesus said to his disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a Shroud of Turin

place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.(John 14:1-12)

The only Way If we compare the Judaism prior to Christ with the religion which, out of Judaism, Christ founded, one of the notable differences between the two is the active missionary character of Christianity. Judaism had always quietly spread, due mainly to the spread of its Diaspora. Our Lord does refer to the proselytism of the scribes and Pharisees, and condemns the kind of religious practice into which those scribes and Pharisees initiated their neophytes. But by and large the spread of Judaism beyond the land of Israel was due to the natural spread of Jewish people to other parts of the world. With this spread and proliferation of synagogues and Jewish belief, there was a corresponding entry of non-Jewish converts. At one point we read in the Gospel of “Greeks” who were in Jerusalem for the feast, and who wanted to speak with Jesus. However, a new phenomenon appeared on the Jewish scene with the Ascension of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost. From within the heart of Judaism there appeared a powerful impulse to spread “the Way” (Acts of the Apostles). Remarkable missionaries began their travels, and endured great sufferings and persecutions in the process. Within several decades, the new body had attracted the unapproving notice of the Empire, and even of the Emperor himself. Nero accused the Christians of beginning the fire of Rome — something for which he himself was probably responsible. While the missionary impulse of the Christian Church grew, thus marking it out from its Jewish origins, there was also an increase in the savagery of the persecution against it. Christians for the lions! began to be heard with frequency. But the missionary impulse continued. Less than three centuries after the Death of Jesus Christ, the Empire had been conquered by him without a battalion. Islam later spread remarkably, but as a result of armies and military aggression. But now, what we must notice is the heart and soul of the Christian advance. At the heart of it was the profound conviction that the only way to the Father was through Jesus Christ. He was the only name by which men could be saved.

This had its origin in the clear teaching of Jesus Christ. He stated with the utmost clarity that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” He is the one and only Saviour of the world. The Jewish religion allowed but one God, of course, but this was tolerated by the Empire because the Jewish religion, wherever it was present in its synagogues, communities and religious schools, did not aggressively seek to replace the religious principle of the Empire. But the case was different with the Christians. They were united, and they were, it seemed to the Empire, unacceptably aggressive and, for all the love they professed, intolerant. They wanted to convert everyone. They had this idea that Jesus Christ was the only way to immortality. Nothing seemed able to put them down, and broadly speaking, they seemed to increase amid difficulties. They remained missionary. It was a disease, a religious plague, that was very difficult to stop, let alone eradicate. What was at the heart of it? At the heart of it was this unsettling notion that there was but one Saviour of the world, one way to God, one way to be truly good and holy. This was through the person of Jesus Christ — someone an official of the Empire had put to death on charges of sedition, but whom they, his devotees, claimed arose from the dead glorious in a new life. It was this business that he was the “only way to the Father” which was the impossible bugbear, and that to get access to him all must enter his “Church,” a Church that was not some national body, but “universal,” “catholic,” everywhere. This fundamental teaching, expressed by our Lord in our Gospel today (John 14:1-12), has been the driving inspiration of the Church in her missionary endeavour across the centuries ever since. But over the last century there has penetrated the consciousness of many of the Church’s children a notion which attacks this basic doctrine. This is the notion, widespread in the culture of our day, that there is no truly objective truth. All is relative to the thinking subject. It is therefore deemed to be preposterous to claim that there is but one way to God out of the mire of sin. Further, it is considered an affront to others to claim that one’s own way is truer than theirs.

This is not the moment to analyze the philosophical notion that there cannot be but one way to God, and indeed that there cannot be but one objective truth about the matter — or indeed about any matter, and that all is relative to who you are, and how you happen to think. The point here is to be alert to the modern danger of admitting, for various reasons, the assumption — only vaguely expressed, perhaps — that Jesus Christ cannot be the only, the one and only, way to the Father. Especially in our modern world, with the philosophical culture which pervades it, the member of Christ’s Church must reaffirm in his own heart, and bear witness in his own life, the truth that Jesus Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Such is Christ’s teaching. Such is our firm belief.

The Pope: Christ’s representative The great majority of Catholic people obtain their news, and any commentary on the news, from the secular media. The danger is that they will look on things of religion and the Church with the secular mentality pervading the secular media. That is to say, because of the influence of the world we can easily drift into looking on the things of God in a worldly way rather than with the mind of Christ. I once read in the Sydney Morning Herald a brief article in which the author (who I am sure was not a Catholic) referred in passing to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ on earth. I suspect that a large number of non-Catholic Christians would more or less regard the Pope as just that. He is the highest representative of Christ on earth and a number of other things besides, such as the highest and most authoritative living voice of the moral law. Now, the question is, how should the Catholic regard him, for the Catholic takes his cue from Catholic doctrine, not from the world. The Pope is the living and appointed father or pastor of Christ’s flock — we call him the Holy Father. The fourth commandment says, honour your father and your mother, so we must honour and love the Pope if we wish to put on the mind of Christ (the word “Pope” is derived from the word for “father”). A Catholic priest is addressed as “Father” because he, as spiritual father of Christ’s flock, represents Christ and brings the life of Christ to others. More than anyone in the Church, this applies to the Pope. So we should love and honour the Pope, and show this love and respect for him publicly before others within the Catholic fold, and to those outside the Catholic fold as well, so that they too may come to respect and love the Pope. For he is the representative of Christ for the whole world, even if there are many who do not recognise this. Part and parcel of having a filial respect and love for the Pope will be praying for him, as is done in every celebration of Mass. We ought also study and follow the Pope’s ongoing teachings, so available as they are on the Internet and in print publications.

All the Popes of the twentieth century were distinguished for their talent, learning and sanctity. The twenty-first century began with highly distinguished popes, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In today’s Gospel our Lord speaks of himself as the image of the Father, and as being in the Father and the Father in him. Let us resolve to live out our Catholic Faith with a filial love and respect for our Lord’s highest representative on earth, the Pope.

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The following comment, which caused me great sorrow, will also make you reflect: “I see very clearly why there is a lack of resistance, and why what resistance there is to iniquitous laws is so ineffective, for above, below and in the middle there are many people- so very many — who just follow the crowd.”

Entrance Antiphon: The Good Shepherd has risen, who laid down his life for his sheep and willingly died for his flock, alleluia.

Collect May your right hand, O Lord, we pray, encompass your family with perpetual help, so that, defended from all wickedness by the Resurrection of your Only Begotten Son, we may make our way by means of your heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Felix was the first Franciscan Capuchin ever canonized. In fact, when he was born, the Capuchins did not yet exist as a distinct group within the Franciscans. Born of humble, God-fearing parents in the Rieti Valley, Felix worked as a farmhand and a shepherd until he was 28. He developed the habit of praying while he worked. In 1543 he joined the Capuchins. When the guardian explained the hardships of that way of life, Felix answered: "Father, the austerity of your Order does not frighten me. I hope, with God’s help, to overcome all the difficulties which will arise from my own weakness." Three years later Felix was assigned to the friary in Rome as its official beggar. Because he was a model of simplicity and charity, he edified many people during the 42 years he performed that service for his confreres. As he made his rounds, he worked to convert hardened sinners and to feed the poor as did his good friend, St. Philip Neri, who founded the Oratory, a community of priests serving the poor of Rome. When Felix wasn’t talking on his rounds, he was praying the rosary. The people named him "Brother Deo Gratias" (thanks be to God) because he was always using that blessing. When Felix was an old man, his superior had to order him to wear sandals to protect his health. Around the same time a certain cardinal offered to suggest to Felix’s superiors that he be freed of begging so that he could devote more time to prayer. Felix talked the cardinal out of that idea. Felix was canonized in 1712.

Grateful people make good beggars. Francis told his friars that if they gave the world good example, the world would support them. Felix’s life proves the truth of that advice. In referring all blessings back to their source (God), Felix encouraged people to works of charity for the friars and for others. "And let us refer all good to the most high and supreme lord God, and acknowledge that every good is His, and thank Him for everything, [He] from Whom all good things come. And may He, the Highest and Supreme, Who alone is true God, have and be given and receive every honour and reverence, every praise and blessing, every thanks and glory, for every good is His, He Who alone is good. And when we see or hear an evil [person] speak or act or blaspheme God, let us speak well and act well and praise God (cf. Rom 12:21), Who is blessed forever (Rom 1:25)" (St. Francis, Rule of 1221, Ch. 17). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus

said to his disciples, Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14:21-26)

Love and obedience It is very possible to be so used to Christian doctrine as to fail to appreciate the extraordinary novelty of our Lord’s teachings as they appear in the Gospels, and in particular in the Gospel of St John. For this reason it is always helpful to read the Gospels in the context of the entire Scriptures, including the Old Testament. Set our Lord’s words alongside the teachings of the prophets — Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel and the others — and notice how striking they are. Our Lord speaks not only of our obeying God, but of our obeying him, Jesus. Moses never made the centrepiece of religion knowing, obeying and loving himself. His mission was to pass on to the people the commands of God and to insist on the one God being the centrepiece. It is the same with all the prophets. They strove to recall the people to obedience to God, while revealing more and more aspects of his will as it had been revealed in the covenants (of Noah, Abraham, the patriarchs, and Moses) before them. They pointed to a new covenant that was coming, but the Lord God was its heart, soul and centre. They were, as John the Baptist described himself, a mere voice. Suddenly there appeared as if from nowhere the Galilean from Nazareth who spoke and acted as no-one had before him. He was attested by John the Baptist and by his own astounding miracles — but it became progressively evident in his teaching that he himself was to be the heart and soul of man’s religion. By knowing and loving and obeying him, one knew, loved and obeyed God. While Moses and the prophets — in the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets — had pointed above, Jesus pointed to himself. Indeed, he claimed that the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets had been speaking in prophecy directly of him. Abraham saw my day and was glad, he said. There appeared to be a great shift in revealed religion with the coming of Jesus, but this shift, our Lord said, was in fact its fulfilment. The gaze of all was to turn now, we might say, away from the sky above directly to Jesus before them.

In one of his works, John Henry Newman describes the essence of religion as consisting in authority and obedience. In our Gospel passage today our Lord states that “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” The Law commanded that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength. Here our Lord speaks of love for himself: “he is the one who loves me.” The test of love for God in the Old Testament had been obedience to his law. The same test applies now for our love for Jesus. We must have his commands and obey them. More, the one who loves him will be loved by “my Father,” and, our Lord assures us, “I too will love him and show myself to him.” He is speaking as if love for him and the knowledge of him is the heart of religion. The whole point is then reaffirmed. On being questioned by Jude, our Lord repeats that the test of love for him is obedience to his teaching. “If a man loves me he will keep my words,” and he repeats it again a little later: “He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.” Then he adds, “and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” Our Lord here once again, as he has before, places himself on a par with the Father. It scarcely needs to be said that this teaching is without precedent in revealed religion. It is a new revelation and dramatically so, even though there is a general backdrop and preparation to it in the inspired writings. Jesus will come with the Father, and they together will make their abode with the one who obeys his words. They will make their home with that person. It is as if a new Tent of Meeting was being established with each person who loves and obeys. God made a Tent of Meeting in the desert with his people, and there he would meet with Moses his servant. But now Jesus and the Father will come and abide with his servant who keeps his word. There is a third Person, the Counsellor, who will also be present and very active: “the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:21-26). The Spirit too will come.

The Christian religion consists in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, expressed in obedience to his teaching. In loving and obeying Jesus Christ, we love and obey the Father, and in all of this we are being taught by the Holy Spirit who has been sent to us by the Father in the name of Jesus. So there are three divine Persons who abide with each of us, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Church has long called this the Indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity. But to retain this inestimable treasure, we must obey the word of Jesus Christ. Religion is indeed a matter of authority and obedience, but the spirit that pervades this is the spirit of Christian love. Let us love Jesus, then!

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The distinctiveness of the Christian spirit In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 14: 5-18, we are presented with a few striking contrasts. The first is the response to the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. We read that both pagans and Jews made attacks on them at Iconium. So Barnabas and Paul went to Lycaonia and there they cured someone of his crippled condition. They were in consequence hailed and treated as gods, a response which both of them vehemently repudiated. But at least the response of the Lycaonians is revealed as starkly in contrast with that of the Jews and pagans at Iconium. The Lycaonians were thoroughly open to see the presence and action of the supernatural in the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. In their misguided fashion, they provide us with an example. We ought be thoroughly open to the action of God in the ministry of the Church and the Church’s pastors. Another contrast is suggested to us in the very reaction of Paul and Barnabas to this response of the Lycaonians. Ancient rulers were very ready indeed to accept the honours due to God or that were granted to the gods. Paul and Barnabas would have nothing of it, of course. All glory was to be given to God.

Let us take our cue from this too, and while being open to the action of God in our daily life — especially in the Church’s ministry of word and sacrament, let us resolutely refer all honour and glory to Him.

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The enemies of God and of his Church, manipulated by the devil’s unremitting hatred, are relentless in their activities and organisation. With “exemplary” constancy they prepare their cadres, run schools, appoint leaders and deploy agitators. In an undercover way — but very effectively — they spread their ideas and sow, in homes and places of work, a seed which is destructive of any religious ideology. What is there that we Christians should not be ready to do in order to serve our God, of course always with the truth?

Collect: Almighty everliving God, who placed the love of Our Lady, Help of Christians in the hearts of those who brought the Catholic faith to these shores, grant, through her intercession, wisdom to our leaders and integrity to our citizens, so that, under her protection, Australia may know harmony, justice and peace. Through our Lord.

In two of the most decisive battles in European history Christians sought the help of our Lady under the title of Help of Christians. In each of these two battles Christian civilization was under great military threat from Islam. Christians turned to Mary as their great Mary Help of Christians

help. The first of these battles was the Battle of Lepanto, October 7th, 1571. Almost 1000 years after Islam’s first attack on the Christian world, the Mahomedans sent a giant naval armada to attack Europe by sea. The whole of European and Christian civilization was under an immense threat. The Christian fleet under Don John of Austria encountered the Islamic fleet at Lepanto just off the coast of Greece. Pope St Pius V, entrusting the outcome to our Lady, ordered uninterrupted prayers to her throughout Christendom. During the actual battle Rosary processions thronged the streets of Europe and St Pius V with outstretched arms prayed to Mary in his chapel in the Vatican. It was a tremendous battle. The Turks slew 8,000 Christian soldiers and ship after ship of the Battle of Lepanto

Christian fleet sank. But due to the prayers of the Christians and the resolve of the Christian forces who were depending on the help of Mary, the tide began to turn. The upshot was that 30,000 Turks were killed or taken prisoner, and 12,000 Christian slaves released. The Christian forces were victorious. It was the first great defeat for the Turks at sea. Pope St Pius V made the feast of our Lady Help of Christians a universal feast. Not only was the Christian world saved, but it marked the turning point in the military fortunes of Islam. While Islam continued to remain a threat and continued to attack Christian countries, Lepanto marked the dramatic beginning of a gradual decline. Our Lady help of Christians is the help of each Christian, and the help of Christian civilization against attack. The last great threat from Islam occurred over a hundred years after Lepanto. 200,000 Ottoman Turks besieged Vienna in the summer months of 1683, and the Austrian Emperor placed the outcome under the protection of Mary help of Christians. During those sombre weeks Pope Innocent XI united Christendom against the attack of Islam. In response to the Pope’s call John Sobieski, the King of Poland arrived in September, and on September 8, the feast of our Lady’s nativity, the battle plans were drawn up. On September 12, the feast of the holy name of Mary, the Christians gained a great victory over the Turks. The Christian forces had placed themselves under the protection of our Lady Help of Christians. It was a great Christian victory, and it was due to Mary the Help of Christians.
In 1841 the pioneer priest of the Catholic Church in Australia, Father John Therry, wrote to the Archbishop of Sydney, Archbishop Polding, requesting that Australia be dedicated to Mary’s name. Three years later in 1844 the bishops of Australia appointed Mary Help of Christians as the patroness of Australia. We Catholics in Australia look to Mary as the great defender of the Church and Christian civilization when under threat. The biggest danger is a weakening of our faith in her Son. Mary is our Helper. ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,’ Christ tells us. ‘Trust in God still, and trust in me.’ Mary who is our help will support us in our trust in all adversities, so let us resolve to regard Mary as our help every day of our lives and in all our difficulties.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Seeing his mother there with the disciple whom he loved, Jesus said to his mother, “Woman, there is your son.” In turn he said to the disciple, “There is your mother.” From that hour onward, the disciple took her into his care. (John 19: 25-27)

Mary our help For at least eight centuries, each Pope has had his own personal coat of arms that serves as a symbol of his papacy. It seems that the first Pope whose arms are known with certainty is Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254), although some heraldic scholars have them going back further to Innocent III (1198-1216). One feature of all of them up to Blessed John Paul II (1978-2005), is that above the shield is placed the papal triple tiara — the one striking departure from this long custom being the arms of Benedict XVI. On his own coat of arms the episcopal mitre and pallium replaces the papal tiara. However, in the coat of arms of the Holy See and of the Vatican City State, Pope Benedict XVI decided to keep the tiara, not a mitre. All the Popes portray the two Keys (of the kingdom of heaven), situated behind the shield, and showing above it. Usually, one of the keys is silver, the other gold — representing the power to bind and to loose on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16: 16-19). Now, one very distinctive feature among these papal coats of arms is the figure on the shield of Pope John Paul II. It was a large cross with the figure M placed under the right arm of that cross. It portrayed the Cross of Jesus Christ, with Mary his mother at the foot of that Cross. I clearly remember when, at John Paul II’s commencement of his pontificate in 1978, his coat of arms was published and explained. The shield on that coat set forth Mary the mother of Jesus, and her involvement with the redemptive work of Christ, as being prominent in his papacy from the start. I am sure that there would have been many, even perhaps some Catholics, who viewed such a statement as idiosyncratic and an inappropriate intrusion of the new Pope’s personal Marian devotion into the public programme of the papacy and the Church. But it was not. That pictorial statement suddenly appearing in papal heraldry affirms that Mary is the mother and representative of the Church, the help of all Christians, the one above all who was associated in the work of Redemption with Jesus Christ her Son, who is the one and only Redeemer of man. There she stands at the foot of the Cross, with a sword piercing her soul.

That Mary is the mother of God is based on the teaching of the Gospels, on the writings of the Fathers, and on the express definition of the Church. St. Matthew (ch.1:25) testifies that Mary "brought forth her first-born son" and that He was called Jesus. According to St. John (ch.1:15) Jesus is the Word made flesh, and this meant that he assumed human nature in the womb of Mary. Inasmuch as Mary was the mother of Jesus, and inasmuch as Jesus was the same divine Person he had been from all eternity, and was so from the first moment of His conception, Mary is truly the mother of God. The earliest Fathers, such as St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian understood this clearly. The position of Nestorius, denying to Mary the title "Mother of God," was condemned by the Council of Ephesus (AD 431) which proclaimed Mary to be truly Theotokos, the bearer (in the womb) of God. The great Roman basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore was one of the first basilicas built (by Pope Sixtus III) in honour of the Virgin Mary. The purpose was to highlight the role of the Virgin as Mother of God in accordance with the decree issued by the Council of Ephesus. It gave a new intensity and impulse to the Church’s devotion to the mother of Christ, and this has grown ever since. The two latest dogmas on Mary proclaimed by the Popes have been Mary’s conception free from all sin (by Blessed Pius IX, December 1854), and her assumption body and soul into heaven at the end of her mortal life (by Venerable Pius XII, November 1950). That Mary was conceived immaculate, and assumed body and soul into heaven, have thus been declared by the Church, through the declaration of these Popes, as being part of divine revelation. The long and the short of this is that Mary the mother of Christ is the Help of Christians. As our Gospel today portrays (John 19: 25-27), she is the gift of Christ to all of us who are his disciples, and we are Christ’s gift to her. She is our mother, we are her children. We ought look on her as the heavenly Queen-Mother who has immense influence before the throne of God. Her intercession is incalculably effective, and she is our own mother in the order of grace. Let us rely on her then, invoking her intercession and looking to her example.

It is generally recognized that Pope John Paul II was a great figure of the end of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first. His funeral was unprecedented in numbers, as was his beatification six years later. He was a Marian Pope, as were the great and holy Popes before him. The lesson for all of us is, look to Mary our mother. She is the Help of Christians. She helps us follow in the footsteps of her divine Son. She helps us by her prayers and her incomparable example. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!

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Don’t confuse serenity with being lazy or careless, with putting off decisions or deferring the study of important matters. Serenity always goes hand in hand with diligence, which is a virtue we need in order to consider and solve outstanding problems without delay.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 71 (70): 8, 23 Let my mouth be filled with your praise, that I may sing aloud; my lips shall shout for joy, when I sing to you, alleluia.

Collect: O God, restorer and lover of innocence, direct the hearts of your servants towards yourself, that those you have set free from the darkness of unbelief may never stray from the light of your truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Bede is one of the few saints honoured as such even during his lifetime. His writings were filled with such faith and learning that even while he was still alive, a Church council ordered them to be read publicly in the churches. At an early age Bede was entrusted to the care of the abbot of the Monastery of St. Paul, Jarrow. The happy combination of genius and the instruction of scholarly, saintly monks produced a saint and an extraordinary scholar, perhaps the most outstanding one of his day. He was deeply versed in all the sciences of his times: natural philosophy, the philosophical principles of Aristotle, astronomy, arithmetic, grammar, ecclesiastical history, the lives of the saints and, especially, Holy Scripture. From the time of his ordination to the priesthood at 30 (he had been ordained deacon at 19) till his death, he was ever occupied with learning, writing and teaching. Besides the many books that he copied, he composed 45 of his own, including 30 commentaries on books of the Bible. Although eagerly sought by kings and other notables, even Pope Sergius, Bede managed to remain in his own monastery till his death. Only once did he leave for a few months in order to teach in the school of the archbishop of York. Bede died in 735 praying his favourite prayer: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As in the beginning, so now, and forever.” His Ecclesiastical History of the English People is commonly regarded as of decisive importance in the art and science of writing history. A unique era was coming to an end at the time of Bede’s death: It had fulfilled its purpose of preparing Western Christianity to assimilate the non-Roman barbarian North. Bede recognized the opening to a new day in the life of the Church even as it was happening. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said, I am the true vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15: 1-8)

Good work One of the fundamental features of created reality — reality that is not God — is that it is in a state of change and motion. Nothing appears to be simply static. It may appear to be still, but it is not. There is movement afoot everywhere, right to the tiniest proton. It may be “stable” as we might refer to the condition of a person as being “stable,” but it is not simply “static.” But movement and change is characteristic of everything in the visible universe in one sense or another. Especially do we notice this in living things — they come to be and they pass away, and while they live, they act, they change, they do things. One of the things which living things do is that they do what they need to survive, and, speaking analogously, they “work” to gain what they need in order to live. I say “analogously” because, as Pope John Paul II once wrote, only man properly “works.” In this analogous sense, the tree in the valley “works” (we might say) at growing to a height, and in a fashion that is long and straight, in order to get access to the sun’s rays. The bees “work,” as do the ants, as do other living animals and insects, to gain sustenance — without realizing that they are “working,” nor choosing to do so. They must “work,” because they are driven by instinct to do so. In this sense they cannot be said to be engaged in a “work” properly speaking, and do not have a “work” in life. Nevertheless, their activity, as with the activity of the rest of unthinking creation, shares in the fundamental characteristic of all of visible creation to be “up and doing,” as we might say, in attaining certain ends. Man also is a being in action. He is an “acting person.” In a certain sense, he has no choice in this — he will do things, he will alter. He does have a choice, though, as to what he will do and how he will do it. If he is to flourish he must engage in action that is good. That is to say, he is called by nature and by inclination to do good work, and by means of his good work to become good himself and help others to be good. That is the choice facing every man and woman. The happiness of every person depends on how he answers the question, what work in life will I choose to do, and how well shall I do it?

Let us pass on from the analogy that exists between the “activity” of all things other than man to attain goals, and the “work” that man is called to engage in. Let us consider human “work,” and its varied upshot from one man to the next. Man yearns to do good work, and if he does not do so, or if he declines in his yearning to do good work, then he declines as a man. Just as we can define man as a rational animal, or a religious animal, we might define him as a “working” animal — understanding the activity of non-rational animals as “work” only in an analogous sense. Man is an acting person, a person who “works.” Now, as we all know, the most excellent of persons can work with equal goodness, integrity and intelligence, and see success or failure result. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta attained world-wide acclaim for her “good work” in life. Due to the grace of God, her life of work for God sanctified her and sanctified others. It was most successful. Blessed John Paul II did splendid work as Pope, and the world accorded him high praise. However, there have been many other excellent persons who have worked untiringly for God and others, with prudence and integrity, and who have finished their days in oblivion. They too, many of them, have been accorded the highest honours of the Church. What then, is good work, in the Christian sense of the word — as the Church recognizes it? Our Gospel today (John 15: 1-8) gives us the clue to this, and it is important for every man and woman, because most will pass into relative oblivion in terms of historical memory. Fame, enduring acclaim for good work done, may or may not be part of the plan of God for this or that person who does his work in life. But all are called to do good work. So, in what will it principally consist? Our Lord tells us: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful... Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

No matter who we are, we can do good work in life, work that will fulfil the purpose for which we are made. The essential thing is to work in union with God, striving to do his will. Specifically, this means living in union with Jesus Christ, as a branch lives by the vine of which it is a part. This is the essential element in doing good work. If we remain united to Jesus Christ, and he with us, the one in the other, just as he is in the Father, and the Father is in him, then whatever about fame or oblivion, we shall bear much fruit, fruit that will last. Apart from him, we can do nothing. There we have it. Good work, as God sees it, is possible for everyone.

The cutting by the vinedresser One of the most profound of man’s problems is the problem of his own suffering, and the difficulty of seeing some sense, some point, some meaning in it. Our Lord in our Gospel passage today sheds some light on the matter. He says that “every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.” There are two cases here: the one bearing no fruit and the one bearing fruit. In both cases there is a cutting process at work. The branch that bears no fruit will ultimately be cut away from God. For those who do not live by God and by his life, suffering will come and it will result in death, spiritual death. On the other hand, those who live by the life of God will also be subject to suffering. Their suffering will be administered or allowed by God for their greater growth and fruitfulness. Just as the vine must be pruned to bear more fruit, suffering under the loving hand of God will be necessary for the one who wishes to be God’s friend, and serve God’s plan.

Our Lord tells us to make our home in him as he makes his home in us. This means ensuring that his words remain in us and that we keep them, no matter what the cost.

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My son, where do men find in you the Christ they are looking for? In your pride? In your desire to impose yourself on others? In those little character defects which you don’t wish to overcome? In your stubbornness? ..... Is Christ to be found there? No, he is not! You need to have your own personality, agreed. But you should try to make it conform exactly to Christ’s.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ex 15: 1-2 Let us sing to the Lord, for he has gloriously triumphed. The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation, alleluia.

Collect O God, by whose grace, though sinners, we are made just and, though pitiable, made blessed, stand, we pray, by your works, stand by your gifts, that those justified by faith may not lack the courage of perseverance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Philip Neri was a sign of contradiction, combining popularity with piety against the background of a corrupt Rome and a disinterested clergy, the whole post-Renaissance malaise. At an early age, he abandoned the chance to become a businessman, moved to Rome from Florence and devoted his life and individuality to God. After three years of philosophy and theology studies, he gave up any thought of ordination. The next 13 years were spent in a vocation unusual at the time — that of a layperson actively engaged in prayer and the apostolate. As the Council of Trent was reforming the Church on a doctrinal level, Philip’s appealing personality was winning him friends from all levels of society, from beggars to cardinals. He rapidly gathered around himself a group of laypersons won over by his audacious spirituality. Initially they met as an informal prayer and discussion group, and also served poor people in Rome. At the urging of his confessor, he was ordained priest and soon became an outstanding confessor, gifted with the knack of piercing the pretences and illusions of others, though always in a charitable manner and often with a joke. He arranged talks, discussions and prayers for his penitents in a room above the church. He sometimes led “excursions” to other churches, often with music and a picnic on the way. Some of his followers became priests and lived together in community. This was the beginning of the Oratory, the religious institute he founded. A feature of their life was a daily afternoon service of four informal talks, with vernacular hymns and prayers. Giovanni Palestrina was one of Philip’s followers, and composed music for the services. The Oratory was finally approved after suffering through a period of accusations of being an assembly of heretics, where laypersons preached and sang vernacular hymns! (Cardinal Newman founded the first English-speaking house of the Oratory.) Philip’s advice was sought by many of the prominent figures of his day. He is one of the influential figures of the Counter-Reformation, mainly for converting to personal holiness many of the influential people within the Church itself. His characteristic virtues were humility and gaiety. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to his disciples: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)

Love The Oxford social anthropologist, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, seems to have thought that it was impossible to summarize into a common type the various religions of primal (“primitive” or “simpler”) peoples. The religions of primal people display such a vast array of differences that a common pattern is very difficult to discern. In the Conclusion (P.121) of his Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford, 1965), he states that none of the main attempts to explain primitive religions have been satisfactory. Be that as it may, I would make one point. It seems to me that the love of intimate friendship between the deity or deities and their devotees is not notable in the religions of man. The gods are too distant, too different, and not sufficiently interested in man for this. Religion, of course, is the life of converse between man and the gods as he conceives them to be. My theory is that positive love is not generally characteristic of the relationship between man and the deity he worships. In one, or at most a few great exceptions — which have come to occupy the field — religion is monotheistic, involving the acknowledgment of one God. The religion of the Hebrews stood out as monotheistic, and it had this singular feature that their God had a covenant with his people. He had chosen them, not they him. The Hebrews — despite their constant battle against the temptation of polytheism — had an undying sense that they were the objects of Yahweh’s love and saving action in various great respects. Most notably, he had saved them from oppression and slavery in Egypt and had conducted them to their own promised land. There is debate among scholars versed in archaeology and ancient middle-east history as to how absolutely reliable is the biblical narrative of this archetypal event, but the firm memory stood and stands in the life of the Hebrew people. God loved them and saved them in that event and in many others, indeed as if he were a Husband to them. The prophets spoke of him as Husband, and of them as his chosen spouse — often unfaithful. This form of monotheism was singular in the ancient world. Its very singularity supports its own claim to be divine in origin.

But then out of the midst of Judaism came Jesus Christ. He spoke of God not just as the Father of Israel his “son” (“out of Egypt I called my son”) but of himself as the Father’s own natural Son. God was, he told the very leaders, “my Father.” They thereupon picked up stones to put an end to him because, not content with violating — in their myopic view — the Sabbath, he called God his own personal Father, thereby making himself equal to God. He did not resile from this, but went on to say, in other contexts that “before Abraham ever was, I AM.” He said that the Father was in him, and he was in the Father. That is to say, there stood forth a person who spoke of God as one enjoying with him the utmost intimacy of friendship. I cannot think of any great leader of religion speaking of his relationship with the Deity in the way Jesus Christ did. It was an absolutely new thing which Jesus Christ introduced, built on what was present in Judaism. Religion became indisputably a religion of the deepest love between God and man, man in general, but especially man in particular, individual man. The point here is that Jesus Christ, proclaiming before men this special relationship which he himself had with God by virtue of his very sonship, announced that all who believed in him would be privileged with a share in this relationship. The whole human race would have access to it. God would not only be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but their Father too. They would become adopted children of God, with a share in the sonship of Jesus Christ by virtue of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thus has the religion of man been transformed, because man himself has been transformed. By baptism he becomes a new creature, and this because of the gift to him of the Holy Spirit at his coming to faith and at his reception of Baptism. We are children of God and called to the perfection of love for God our Father, for Jesus Christ our Lord and Brother, and for the divine Spirit our Sanctifier. It is this love about which our Lord speaks in the Gospel today. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love” (John 15:9-11).

Let us cling to the thought and the attraction of love, love for Christ who has loved us first. The bedrock of religion now, if we are to begin with what God has done and revealed, is the personal and tender love which God has for us. This is what we must first realize and make the foundation of our life. On this basis is religion, the religion of the individual and the religion of mankind, built up. God loves us personally, and he calls us to share his life as members of the Church which he founded. Let us do all we can to fan into an undying flame the life of love for God which takes us through life to him, for ever and for ever.

Abiding in the love of Christ When man thinks of God, various thoughts and emotions come to him. He thinks of greatness and power, perhaps also of remoteness. He thinks too of goodness — that God is good, a good Spirit. He thinks of many other things besides. But our Lord in our Gospel passage today speaks of love. In simple language he tells us that the Father loves him. We cannot possibly imagine this love with any degree of adequacy because everything about God is infinite. The almighty Father loves the almighty Son, and this limitless love has been and is the eternal life of God. Now, if we can gain an impression of the love of the Father for Jesus his Son, this impression may help us appreciate our Lord’s love for us. Our Lord says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15:9). What we must do, then, is contemplate at length the love of God and come to know it well, making it the basis of our life.

Our Lord asks us to remain in his love, just as he remains in his Father’s love. The key is obedience, obedience to Jesus and his commandments: “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” This is why Cardinal Newman once wrote that obedience is of the essence of religion. Religion involves the loving fulfilment of our God-given duties, and as Pope Benedict XV taught early in the twentieth century, perfection in the Christian life is the perfect fulfilment of our God-given duties. Christ was obedient to his heavenly Father. We must strive to follow in his footsteps.

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I will suggest to you a good rule of conduct for living fraternity and a spirit of service. When you are not around, other people should be able to go ahead with the work you have in hand thanks to the experience you have generously passed on to them, and to your not having made yourself indispensable.

Entrance Antiphon Rev 5: 12 Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and divinity, and wisdom and strength and honour, alleluia.

Collect Grant us, Lord, we pray, that, being rightly conformed to the paschal mysteries, what we celebrate in joy may protect and save us with perpetual power. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent them St Augustine of Canterbury

— St. Gregory the Great (September3 ) — only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless. Augustine again set out and this time the group crossed the English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester. Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors. Labouring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles — quite enlightened for the times — suggested by Pope Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of England. Truly Augustine of Canterbury can be called the “Apostle of England.” In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps." (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to his disciples, My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit— fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:12-17)

The ethos of love One of the distinctive features of the Oxford Movement during its heyday of the 1830s and 1840s was the stress on religious “ethos.” By “ethos” was meant the moral temper of mind, the characteristic spirit or outlook of a person, community, church or society. The meaning of “ethos” can be difficult to define. Broadly, it means the characteristic spirit of an individual, a community, people, system or civilization. The men of the Oxford Movement thought that the “ethos” of a person or a movement was itself evidence of the truth or otherwise of their position, and that it also accounted for their position. This is because a certain “ethos” or temper of mind favours the acquisition of truth, while another does not. A person or even a society whose temper of mind was shaped by immoral assumptions and principles was unlikely to be in possession of the truth. Conversely, error was to a point due to a bad “ethos.” They thought that atheism, agnosticism or religious heresy was due not merely to the rational processes which a person or society passed through in attaining to its conclusion (that there is no God, or that there can be no certainty as to a God, or that Christ is not God, etc.,), but also to the cast of mind, the basic principles and assumptions, the general temper of mind with which a person engages in that reasoning process. This temper of mind, this “ethos” — produced by various basic assumptions — will profoundly shape the direction of a person’s reasoning. It will govern what he expects to be true, what he expects to be probable, and so what he will take, all things considered, to be true. Thus the “ethos” of one man will lead him to a radically different conclusion from another who has an entirely different “ethos.” A certain “ethos” favours the acquisition of truth, another the fall into error. The “ethos,” spirit, or temper of mind can and does vary enormously from one man to the next, as it varies from one religion to the next, and from one civilization to the next. It may lead a person to accept one religion as true and another as false, but also, a religion with a certain “ethos” will itself shape the spirit or “ethos” of a person. A Christian civilization will have a different “ethos” from, say, an Islamic civilization.

I say this by way of introduction to our Gospel today. If we were to speak of the “ethos” of the Christian religion, at the forefront of any description of it would be Love. A Christian, if his religion has truly shaped his mind and his life, is a man whose whole cast of mind supports a reign or civilization of love. The love that he envisages and constantly assumes to be the ideal of life and action is not just any kind of love, but the love that is exemplified and embodied in the historical figure of Jesus Christ. It is the image and thought of Christ which forms his basic assumptions and provides his foremost motives. It shapes the temper of mind with which he approaches the various issues in life, and it governs his response to practical problems. If he is gravely insulted, he will tend to forgive — at least he will try to forgive, because he will have before him the image of Jesus Christ. This will be the spirit in which he will approach daily life, his temper of mind, his characteristic outlook, the “ethos” of his life. He will probably say, too, that this very ethos favours the acquisition of truth. If he is a man of Christian love, he is much more likely to attain religious truth at least in the fundamental matters of life, than if his “ethos” were totally at variance with this. On the other hand, a man of a very different set of religious beliefs, with its very different “ethos,” will have a very different response to insult and injury. He may regard it as divinely preferable to return the injury in kind. An entire society, with such an “ethos,” such a temper of mind, may respond with open anger and injury to injury that is received — and do so with the clearest conscience. “Ethos” is indeed a most important factor in the life of individuals, societies and civilizations. The point here, though, is that we have a clear idea of the “ethos” of the Christian religion. It is one of love, Christian love, the love of Jesus Christ. So it is that in our Gospel today, our Lord tells us that “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:12-17).

The ground rule of the Christian religion is that love must be the governing principle of the whole of life, be it individual, social, religious. It is love according to the mind and life of Jesus Christ which is to be our all-embracing motive. The mission of the Church and of each Christian is to introduce this as profoundly as possible into the life of the world, so that more and more a civilization of love grows. Society’s “ethos” ought become more and more imbued with the mind of Christ. Thus do we all advance towards the goal of being truly children of our heavenly Father.

The essence of the Christian religion There are many ways of understanding religion, and various notions of what the practice of religion entails. And it ought be obvious that if we are to make progress in our religion we need to have an understanding of what our religion really consists in — or else we shall lose our way. What then is the essence of the Christian religion? It is friendship with Jesus, who is accepted as God and man. If we wish to grow in the Christian religion we must grow in a personal friendship with Jesus and be faithful to the demands of this friendship during life. And this is what our Lord refers to in today’s Gospel (John 15:12-17). Our Lord has loved each of us and because of this love has laid down his life for each of us. He wants us not just to be his servants but his friends with whom he shares his mission and his plans. Out of love for us he has chosen us, invited us to his friendship, a friendship that is essentially apostolic in the sense that it involves participating in his mission of bringing others into friendship with him.

Let us make our whole life a response to this choice Christ has made of us to be his friends.

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The responsibility for the sanctity of others, for their Christian behaviour and for their effectiveness, lies with you. And this is so even though you have passions. You are not on your own. If you stop you could be holding up or harming so many people!

Entrance Antiphon Col 2: 12 You have been buried with Christ in Baptism, through which you also rose again by faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead, alleluia.

Collect Almighty and eternal God, who through the regenerating power of Baptism have been pleased to confer on us heavenly life, grant, we pray, that those you render capable of immortality by justifying them may by your guidance attain the fullness of glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Mary Ann grew close to God and his people during her short life. The youngest of eight, Mary Ann was born in Quito, Ecuador, which had been brought under Spanish control in 1534. She joined the Secular Franciscans and led a life of prayer and penance at home, leaving her parents’ house only to go to church and to perform some work of charity. She established in Quito a clinic and a school for Africans and indigenous Americans. When a plague broke out, she nursed the sick and died shortly thereafter. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950. "At times when especially impelled by love for God and fellowmen, she afflicted herself severely to expiate the sins of others. Oblivious then to the world around her and wrapped in ecstasy, she had a foretaste of eternal happiness. Thus transformed and enriched by God's grace, she was filled with zeal to care not only for her own salvation, but also for that of others to the utmost of her ability. She generously relieved the miseries of the poor and soothed the pains of the sick. And when severe public disasters such as earthquakes and plagues terrified and afflicted her fellow citizens, she strove by prayer, expiation, and the offering of her own life to obtain from the Father of mercies what she could not accomplish by human effort" (Pope Pius XII). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to his disciples, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. (John 15:18-21)

The Christian not of the world In our Gospel passage today, our Lord tells his disciples that they “do not belong to the world.” There is a sense in which this may be said to distinguish the Christian. Let me explain by drawing a contrast. There has long been controversy among scholars of Australian aboriginal religion as to what element in it is the most fundamental. The Dreaming is fundamental, but the question is, what is it in the Dreaming which is the core principle? Is it the Ancestors — sky-beings or totemic? Is it the rituals, say — of Initiation? or is it perhaps the myths? My own estimate is that the profound attachment to the land and all that is connected with the land is what is fundamental to traditional Aboriginal religion. It is this which is the inspiration of the Dreaming and which grounds so much in the religion. That is to say, the traditional Australian Aborigine has a deep sense of connectedness with the world of which he feels himself to be part. He is bonded with it at many levels. So much is this so that I have seen it discussed whether there is in the religion any sense of realities that transcend the world. It could be that the mythic figures, including the All-Father (say, Baiame) of the South-Eastern tribes (as described especially by Howitt), were imagined as essentially part of this world. The Australian Aborigine felt a profound affiliation with this world, and this belonging to the world was the inspiration of his religion which pervaded his life. I remember attending an address at Sydney University given by a Zoroastrian scholar of religions. He maintained that to a large extent religion was a technology. It was a means to gain some benefit — such as survival or sustenance. In the case of the Australian Aborigine, I think he would have said that much of their religion, myth and ritual was oriented to maintaining life on their “land” and in their world. Now, of course, much of any religion springs from the need of man for aid from the higher powers (however they are imagined or conceived) in his quest for survival. But the point I wish to highlight here is the sense in man of his being deeply part of this world which is his home. It is evident even in religion, such as the example I have given of Australian aboriginal religion.

We are all deeply connected with the “land” — our “land” (for want of a better word). It is one reason why the typical religion of man is a local one, or rather, one that is both co-extensive with his particular culture and a product of it. If the culture extends to other societies and regions, so does the religion. It is unusual for there to be a religion that is essentially catholic or universal, and which is meant for any and every culture. Usually, a religion is local or national, and identifies with a particular culture or civilization. Man is typically a part of this world, and he feels it to be so. His religion is, I think, part of his profound connection with his own “world” and his awareness of the sacredness of his world. But Revelation introduces new considerations, and I have referred to Aboriginal religion in order to highlight one notable feature of the religion of Jesus Christ. To begin with, as the Book of Genesis points out (1:27), man was made in the image of God. So he cannot simply identify with the world. The world is not simply and utterly his home, because to a real point, he himself is different in kind. In an important sense, too, the disciple of Jesus Christ is not at all at home in the world. The Christian religion has not arisen from the world as from its home and origin, but has come to it as a transforming Visitor. In the very prologue of his Gospel, St John introduces the tolling of a special bell. It is the toll of the world’s unfriendliness towards its divine Visitor, Jesus Christ. The Light which enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. This enmity towards the Word made flesh is a great theme of the story of the world’s salvation. In revealed religion, the Creator intervenes to fix the world up. He enters the scene, and the world does not like it. It senses that it is going to have to change. There is a sense in which God become man did not find his home in the world, though he loved it so much. Now this is precisely what our Lord Jesus Christ warns his disciples about in our Gospel today. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:18-21). A distinctive feature of the thoroughgoing Christian is that he is in the world but not of it.

Jesus Christ was in the world, but was not of the world. He came to save it, and he saved it by being crucified. His bore the anger of the world and by so doing, atoned for the world’s sin. We are called not to find our ultimate home in the world, but in God, God made man. A distinctive feature of the man of revealed religion, the one who follows Jesus Christ closely, is that he will not belong to the world — and in this he differs from what we might call the man of natural religion. Our true homeland is in heaven, and this world is our passageway. It too will pass away, and be transformed into something new and everlasting. This will be the final gift of the Creator. Let us take our stand with Jesus Christ, and live in union with him as he labours through us to transform the whole world for God both now and forever.

The divine freedom On one occasion when Our Lord cast out many devils from a person, that fully recovered person pleaded with our Lord to be allowed to follow him physically. But our Lord said no. Rather, he was to return to his own people and tell them the good things God had done for him. This he did. Now, why did our Lord not allow him to follow him? We do not know — it was not his will. But not so with, say, Mary Magdalene, from whom he cast out seven devils. Our Lord willed her to follow him right to the empty tomb. Why the difference? We do not know. It was his will. This mysterious divine freedom is evident too in today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 16:1-10). Paul and his party travelled through Phrygia and Galatia and were told by the Holy Spirit they were not to preach in Asia. Why? After all, would it not have been a good thing to do this for the sake of the Gospel? We are not told. It was God’s will. Moreover, the Spirit of Jesus would not let them go into Bithynia. Why? We are not told. But through a dream, a vision, they were summoned to Macedonia. Why? We are not told.

Let us remember that whatever be the plans we ourselves have, the important thing is to seek and find God’s will — and then to do it. Nothing else matters. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us.

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Think about your Mother the Holy Church and consider how, if one member suffers, the whole body suffers. Your body needs each one of its members, but each member needs the whole body. What would happen if my hands were to stop doing their duty ... or if my heart were to stop beating?

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Is 48: 20 Proclaim a joyful sound and let it be heard; proclaim to the ends of the earth: The Lord has freed his people, alleluia.

Collect Grant, almighty God, that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy, which we keep in honour of the risen Lord, and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The legacy of Madeleine Sophie Barat can be found in the more than 100 schools operated by her Society of the Sacred Heart, institutions known for the quality of the education made available to the young. Sophie herself received an extensive education, thanks to her brother, Louis, 11 years older and her godfather at Baptism. Himself a seminarian, he decided that his younger sister would likewise learn Latin, Greek, history, physics and mathematics—always without interruption and with a minimum of companionship. By age 15, she had received a thorough exposure to the Bible, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church and theology. Despite the oppressive regime Louis imposed, young Sophie thrived and developed a genuine love of learning. Meanwhile, this was the time of the French Revolution and of the suppression of Christian schools. The education of the young, particularly young girls, was in a troubled state. At the same time, Sophie, who had concluded that she was called to the religious life, was persuaded to begin her life as a nun and as a teacher. She founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, which would focus on schools for the poor as well as boarding schools for young women of means; today, co-ed Sacred Heart schools can be found as well as schools exclusively for boys. In 1826, her Society of the Sacred Heart received formal papal approval. By then she had served as superior at a number of convents. In 1865, she was stricken with paralysis; she died that year on the feast of the Ascension. Madeleine Sophie Barat was canonized in 1925. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; Psalm 66:1-7, 16, 20; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

Jesus said to his disciples: If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. (John 14:15-21)

The other Advocate Many years ago when I was a student of theology it was observed that the Holy Spirit was the forgotten Person of the Blessed Trinity. Not a lot was said about the Holy Spirit — and it was thought by some that not a lot could be said about him. Since then a lot has been said about the Holy Spirit, and it has been realized that a lot ought be said about the Holy Spirit. Notwithstanding this, I think he is still forgotten by too many of Christ’s faithful. In the Gospel today our Lord refers explicitly to the Holy Spirit: “I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, that Spirit of Truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you.” We have been sent this wonderful Person to be with us — “another Advocate.” The first Advocate, or Defender, is our Lord himself. Christ came to defend us by his witness to the truth against falsehood and death, and to save us by his Death and Resurrection from our Enemy who is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Our Lord declared before Pontius Pilate that he had come into the world to bear witness to the truth. He also said that he had come that we may have life, and life in abundance. He was and is our Advocate, our Defender, and the time will come when he will take us to be with him forever. But now he was sending his Divine Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to be with us for ever. He would be the other Advocate. Every Sunday when we recite the Creed after the homily we state that we believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life, and that equally with the Father and the Son he is to be adored and glorified. He is the one God, as is the Father and as is the Son. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that God the Son became man. The Holy Spirit came upon our Lord in a new way at his baptism in the river Jordan and then led him into the desert to begin his struggle and victory over Satan. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that our Lord fulfilled his public ministry and it was especially by the power of the Holy Spirit that he offered himself up for us on the Cross. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that he rose from the dead. It was this same Holy Spirit whom Christ breathed on the Apostles, and who came upon the Church at Pentecost.

It was about this same Holy Spirit that our Lord speaks to us in today’s Gospel (John 14:15-21), telling us that he would be sent to remain with us for ever. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, came to each of us at our baptism and at our confirmation. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that the bread and wine at Mass become the risen body and blood of our Lord, and it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ comes to us in power in the other Sacraments. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance, and it is to receive his cleansing and sanctifying grace that we ought approach this Sacrament regularly. This most important Sacrament had its origin in Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit to his Apostles on the day he rose from the dead. On the evening of that day our Lord appeared to his disciples and breathed on them the Holy Spirit. Then he gave them the power to forgive sins. Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, he said. If we are in the state of grace, he is our constant Guest, and it is by his power that we each of us is a temple in which dwells the Holy Trinity. He sustains our faith and enlightens it as we make use of the spiritual treasures available to us in the life of the Church. He leads us to seek holiness and to do good things for Jesus Christ our Saviour. Above all, it is by his grace that we bear witness to Jesus. The great problem is that we do not think of him or ask him for his aid. We are all too often oblivious to the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, there to guide and enlighten and inspire us to seek and attain truth, and to help us on the path towards sanctity. Imagine if we were to have a guest of the highest importance in our home day by day, and never to greet that guest nor to engage in any conscious relationship with that person! And imagine if that person were someone who could help us attain our true goals in life! So it is with the Holy Spirit. Let us then make a real point of cultivating a devotion to the Holy Spirit. He can help us attain holiness of life. He is the Sanctifier of souls. He can help us engage effectively in a daily apostolate, because he is the Evangeliser of the world. Let us resolve to love, revere and listen to the Holy Spirit. He dwells within each of us.

Let us not ignore the Holy Spirit and make him sad by our sins. Let us rather love and honour him and be led by him to holiness and to the apostolate. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful! Enkindle in them the fire of your love! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end!

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You saw it quite clearly: while so many people do not know God, he has looked to you. He wants you to form a part of the foundations, a firm stone upon which the life of the Church can rest. Meditate upon this reality and you will draw many practical consequences for your ordinary behaviour: the foundations, made of blocks of stone — hidden and possibly rather dull — have to be solid, not fragile. They have to serve as a support for the building. If not, they are useless.
(The Forge, no.472)

Entrance Antiphon Romans 6: 9 Christ, having risen from the dead, dies now no more; death will no longer have dominion over him, alleluia.

Collect Grant, O merciful God, that we may experience at all times the fruit produced by the paschal observances. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The tenth century and the first half of the eleventh were dark days for the Church, partly because the papacy was the pawn of various Roman families. In 1049, things began to change when Pope Leo IX, a reformer, was elected. He brought a young monk named Hildebrand to Rome as his counsellor and special representative on important missions. He was to become Gregory VII. Three evils plagued the Church then: simony (the buying and selling of sacred offices and things), the unlawful marriage of the clergy and lay investiture (kings and nobles controlling the appointment of Church officials). To all of these Hildebrand directed his reformer’s attention, first as counsellor to the popes and later (1073-1085) as pope himself. Gregory’s papal letters stress the role of bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ and the visible centre of unity in the Church. He is well known for his long dispute with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over who should control the selection of bishops and abbots. Gregory fiercely resisted any attack on the liberty of the Church. For this he suffered and finally died in exile. He said, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.” Thirty years later the Church finally won its struggle against lay investiture. The Gregorian Reform, a milestone in the history of Christ’s Church, was named after this man who tried to extricate the papacy and the whole Church from undue control by civil rulers. Against an unhealthy Church nationalism in some areas, Gregory reasserted the unity of the whole Church based on Christ and expressed in the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter. Gregory's words still ring true today when civil or national religion is making subtle demands: “In every country, even the poorest of women is permitted to take a lawful husband according to the law of the land and by her own choice; but, through the desires and evil practices of the wicked, Holy Church, the bride of God and mother of us all, is not permitted lawfully to cling to her spouse on earth in accordance with divine law and her own will” (A Call to the Faithful). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Jesus said to his disciples, When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. (John 15:26-16:4a)

The Spirit of Truth There is an especially poignant scene in the Gospel of St John, that between Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. There Christ stood before the man who represented the Empire and the Emperor. Christ is calm, restrained, courteous. There is not the slightest fawning on the man who holds civil authority, and the power to execute. Had Christ been standing before Tiberius himself, he would not have behaved nor spoken any differently. Perhaps as he looked on Pilate, he gazed at the Empire he represented. We read in the Synoptic Gospels of Christ’s dialogue with Satan at the beginning of his ministry. Satan showed him the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and offered them all to him if he would but worship him. Perhaps right now, Christ was gazing at the kingdoms of the world, and was readying himself for their conquest. That conquest would come, and it would come by means of bearing witness to the truth about himself. As Pilate gazed on the man before him, there was no doubt in him that there was something very special about him. He quickly saw that he had been handed over by the religious authorities of this difficult, occupied population because of their envy of him. He had gained greater sway over the minds and hearts of the people than they. What troubled Pilate also was what the priests had just accused Jesus of — that he claimed to be “the son of God.” My guess is that Pilate was troubled because he was beset with pagan superstitions. This special Man before him — where, then, did he come from (John 19:8-9)? Little did he realize that this Man before him would conquer the Empire. The Empire would eventually acknowledge him as the Lord and King. It would be done by means of witness, and not by arms. His followers would bear witness, just as the Master who had gone before them had borne witness. The appointed head of this Man’s disciples, Peter — the Rock of the Church — would become the bishop of the Imperial City itself, and his successors, the Popes, would bear witness age after age to the person and mission of Jesus Christ.

Bearing witness! This is what changed the religious principle of the Roman Empire. It began with Christ bearing witness before Pontius Pilate. On that occasion, so full of significance, our Lord explained his mission before the world as represented by Pilate. His mission was to bear witness. For this was I born, to bear witness to the truth. All who are of the truth, listen to my voice (John 18:37). He had told his disciples the night before that he was the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). But now, there was Another, high and beautiful, who was working in him who was the Truth, in him who was the master Witness. I refer to the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. Christ’s own mission was to bear witness to the Truth, and those who believe in him share in his mission of bearing witness to the Truth, but behind Him and them there is the action of the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. Those who believe in Jesus and who follow him have been granted by their faith and baptism a share in the Spirit of Christ, that Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth. He it is who enables us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bearing witness to the Truth of Jesus. The religion of the Empire changed because witness was borne to the truth of Jesus, and this was due to the action of the Spirit of Truth. In our Gospel today, Jesus tells his disciples that “ When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26-16:4a). The Spirit of Truth, the Truth that is Jesus, is sent by Jesus to us from the Father. It is from the Father, through the Son, that the Spirit of Truth proceeds. He sustained Jesus Christ as he bore witness to himself before the children of Israel, and then, in a different manner and to a different degree, before the Empire. He sustains us all as we endeavour to bear witness to Jesus before the people of our day. Let us understand clearly that the world depends on our witness, and that the world can be changed by our witness, just as it was changed in the days of the mighty Roman Empire.

There was no greater phenomenon at the time of Jesus Christ than the Roman Empire. It lasted centuries upon centuries. It, though, was conquered by Jesus Christ, and when the Empire fell before the barbarians, Jesus Christ conquered them — and thus Christian Rome gave way to Christian Europe. But it all depended on bearing witness. This, though, depends totally on the action and the grace of the Spirit of Truth through whom Christ bore witness, and by means of whose aid we all of us are enabled to bear effective witness. The world depends on our living a life of witness to the Truth of Jesus. Let us then depend on our divine Counsellor, Friend and Guide.

Opposition It goes without saying that we, as Christians, ought resolutely oppose those things that are at variance with the teachings and values of Christ. We must expect the opposition of those who do not accept the witness we bear before them to Catholic teaching. There are many values in society that are contrary to what God has revealed — an obvious example being the area of sexual morality. The Church is dubbed as hopelessly conservative and reactionary. In respect to opposition to the witness we bear to the truth, let us note what our Lord says in our Gospel passage today. He says that “the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God.” It is possible to fight against God and to sincerely think that one is doing what is right.

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Since you feel you have been chosen by God to support and co-redeem — without forgetting that you are .... wretched and utterly so — your humility should lead you to place yourself under the feet — at the service — of all. This is what the supports of a building do. But foundations need to be strong. Fortitude is an indispensable virtue for someone who has to sustain or encourage others. Say this to Jesus and say it to him strongly: May I never through false humility stop practising the cardinal virtue of fortitude. Make me know how to separate, my God, the dross from the gold.

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 66 (65): 16 Come and hear, all who fear God; I will tell what the Lord did for my soul (E.T. alleluia). The Gloria in excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) is said.

Collect Almighty ever-living God, who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying your Son in her womb, inspired her to visit Elizabeth, grant us, we pray, that, faithful to the promptings of the Spirit, we may magnify your greatness with the Virgin Mary at all times. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever

This is a fairly late feast, going back only to the 13th or 14th century. It was established widely throughout the Church to pray for unity. The present date of celebration was set in 1969 in order to The Visitation

follow the Annunciation of the Lord (March 25) and precede the Birthday of John the Baptist (June 24). Like most feasts of Mary, it is closely connected with Jesus and his saving work. The more visible actors in the visitation drama (see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary and Elizabeth. However, Jesus and John the Baptist steal the scene in a hidden way. Jesus makes John leap with joy — the joy of messianic salvation. Elizabeth, in turn, is filled with the Holy Spirit and addresses words of praise to Mary — words that echo down through the ages. It is helpful to recall that we do not have a journalist’s account of this meeting. Rather, Luke, speaking for the Church, gives a prayerful poet’s rendition of the scene. Elizabeth’s praise of Mary as “the mother of my Lord” can be viewed as the earliest Church’s devotion to Mary. As with all authentic devotion to Mary, Elizabeth’s (the Church’s) words first praise God for what God has done to Mary. Only secondly does she praise Mary for trusting God’s words. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Here Mary herself (like the Church) traces all her greatness to God.

“Moved by charity, therefore, Mary goes to the house of her kinswoman.... While every word of Elizabeth’s is filled with meaning, her final words would seem to have a fundamental importance: ‘And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what had been spoken to her from the Lord’ (Luke 1:45). These words can be linked with the title ‘full of grace’ of the angel’s greeting. Both of these texts reveal an essential Mariological content, namely the truth about Mary, who has become really present in the mystery of Christ precisely because she ‘has believed.’ The fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself. Mary’s faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift” (Pope John Paul II, The Mother of the Redeemer, 12). (AmericanCatholic.org)

At that time Mary arose and hastened to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished! And Mary said: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants for ever, even as he said to our fathers. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. (Luke 1: 39-56)

Mary There are two parts to this precious passage — the words of Elizabeth, and the words of Mary in response. Luke has assured his reader that “many have been at pains to set forth the history of what has been brought to fulfilment among us”. He too is resolved to put the story in writing, having “first traced it carefully from its beginnings” (1:1-3). So Luke has taken great care with his investigation, and there were many others who were in a position to discount anything that was untrue. Luke devotes the first two chapters to the “beginnings,” including the incident of our Gospel today. The first thing to notice in our passage is that the words of Elizabeth are her longest recorded, and the words of Mary too are her longest recorded. Elizabeth was a holy woman “approved in God’s sight, and walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord” (Luke 1: 6). What she says in the presence of Mary is inspired by the Holy Spirit. She “was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed” what she then uttered. God was, through Elizabeth his prophetess, making a loud and clear statement about Mary and her Child, a statement destined to be recorded for all generations to come. Consider, then, her statement. It was a divine pronouncement, not unlike that of the ancient prophecies about the Messiah. Just as in the years to come Elizabeth’s son would, as a prophet of God, identify the Messiah who had come to the people, so his holy mother now, as also one under divine inspiration, points to the Messiah and to his mother who have come to her. The first remarkable feature of her prophecy, understood as the proclamation of a message from the Most High, is that it is “the mother of my Lord” who has come to her. She addresses Mary her kinswoman as “the mother of her Lord.” Doubtless, the title “Lord” denotes the meaning of Messiah, the promised King in the line of David the king. But it must carry a greater connotation than this, for in the very next sentence the “Lord” is clearly God: “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

Whether Elizabeth fully appreciated the words she uttered under inspiration we are not told, but they include in their meaning the divinity of the Child. We are reminded of our Lord’s challenge to his audience when he asked them what David must have meant when he wrote, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I put your enemies under your feet” — but how could he be his Lord, if he was his son? Mary is the Queen-Mother, the “mother of my Lord,” but this title embraced a dimension far transcending the letter of the Messianic prophecies. It encapsulates the reality formally defined at the Council of Ephesus a few centuries later, that Mary is none other than the Mother of God because her son Jesus Christ is God the Son made man. At the arrival of the virgin Mary at the house of Elizabeth, heaven itself erupts and the Holy Spirit moves the saintly Elizabeth to speak in God’s name. How great is the young woman before her! When the Angel Gabriel appeared in the presence of Mary, he addressed her as one so highly favoured — which we translate as “full of grace”. The Lord was with her, he said to Mary. Here in our scene today, Elizabeth counts herself as “so favoured” because she has been honoured with a visit from the “mother of my Lord.” Mary was “highly favoured” — for the Lord was with her. Elizabeth is “so favoured” because she has Mary with her, Mary who brings the “Lord” with her. She is showing forth the honour to be accorded to the Queen-Mother by all who accept divine Revelation. Ever since the early centuries, and especially since the Council of Ephesus, high honours have been accorded to Mary by Christ’s faithful, and it was a new thing in the life of the Church when in the sixteenth century this was denied of the Virgin. But no. Under divine inspiration, Elizabeth counts herself as most favoured at having received a visit from her who is blessed among women, her who is the mother of the Lord, her who believed — her who believed that what the Lord had promised would be fulfilled. Elizabeth, acting as the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit, pronounces Mary worthy of the highest recognition. She has the dignity of being mother of our Messiah and Lord, and of being our model of faith in God and his promises.

The Gospel scene of the Visitation of Mary to her kinswoman Elizabeth involves a revelation about Jesus Christ, and, consequently, his holy mother. The practical side of this is that we ought seek to have Mary the mother of our Lord visit us, indeed, that she stay with us. Let our minds pass from this scene to that other scene of years later. Christ gazes from the Cross and says to his mother, There is your son. Then he says to the beloved disciple, There is your mother. Mary is mother of the Son of God made man, and is our mother too. Holy Mary, mother of God! Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Our Mother, our Hope! How safe and sure we are when we keep close to you, even when everything around us is quivering and shaking.

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Fourth Week of Eastertide A-1		16	17	18	19	20	21
Fifth Week of Eastertide A-1	22	23	24 Mary Help of Christians	25	26	27	28
Sixth Week of Eastertide A-1	29	30	31 The Visitation