Fullerton T

14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sundays  Gospel sees Jesus going back to his roots in Nazareth. This is not a social visit: like other towns in Galilee, Nazareth and its people have to hear the Good News of the kingdom. When Jesus teaches in the local synagogue, many of the townspeople are astonished at the performance. They wonder at the origin of Jesus’ teaching and the nature of his wisdom, as well as the miracles that are done through him. From the unanswered questions about Jesus’ wisdom, the neighbours move to more familiar territory and focus on what they do know about Jesus. Whatever their wonder, they are not going to allow the wisdom of Jesus  to interfere with their memories of him. Prior to this section in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been doing some extraordinary things. His baptism by John in the river Jordan was accompanied by an affirming voice of the Father from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests.”

After his desert testing Jesus called his first disciples, cured the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit and the paralytic in Capernaum; expelled the legion of devils from the Gerasene man, you may remember last week in our Gospel Reading Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, and cured the woman with hemorrhage, Jesus is doing wonderful things as he proclaims, in word and deed, the coming of the reign of God. Though he did all the wonderful things the people still had little faith which also seems to be the case these days. The people wanted the powerful signs of God’s final coming with a strong right arm to rescue them. But when Jesus spoke about the signs of the kingdom’s presence, he spoke of scattered seeds and, to emphasize the kingdoms small beginnings, he compared it to a mustard seed, “the smallest of all of the seeds of the earth” Where was God’s show of power and mighty arm in a tiny mustard seed? Mark sums up their reaction, “And they took offense at him.” And so it is today as many take offense at the values of Christianity in our world. A world which in many respects is so faithless with many  people taking offense at Jesus and his teaching.

You only have to look at the current debate about the Eucharist in the USA to or the state of the church in Germany to see this. Jesus revealed God’s presence to the people of Nazareth as a different kind of power: the power used only to help others, not ourselves; a gentle power that does not force or coerce people to do our will; the power of compassion and gentleness, when others are expecting force. All of us know from our own experience that when we admit our failures and limitations, that exercise in honesty can mark the beginning of a new understanding. If our Lord and God can take failure in his stride, we might even end up boasting about God’s fantastic message! What is the message of the wisdom of Jesus? Jesus message is really about using whatever power that we might have in a positive good way to help others and the greater our weakness the more powerful we will be that is powerful with the power of compassion and gentleness that is the power of God that our world needs more today than ever before.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading for this Sunday is all about being Calm amid the storm. The context of this passage is the calming of the storm when Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And he says the same to us now in all our trials ‘Quiet now! Be calm!  Jesus understood that all would be well even if he and the disciples perished or if the storm subsided. Mark’s original audience was a community undergoing persecution. Their leaders had been martyred and, they questioned what was happening to them. The church was undergoing internal strife as well as they struggled to combine Jews and Gentiles into their new Christian community. Mark’s church was hardly sailing through calm waters not unlike our church today. We hear  Jesus asking the disciples in the midst of the storm, Why are you so frightened and why do you have so little faith. He could be saying the same thing to us today as many lack faith in God and humankind.  For many of us these days we are frightened with the various events that are ongoing throughout the world. Especially the COVID19 pandemic. When that storm comes Jesus reminds us of the glory of the life to come after the storms of life have ended.

He changes the darkness that is often in our daily lives into the sunshine of everlasting life, and replaces our distress with comfort and peace. When we don’t know the best way forward or the best way out a particular problem Jesus gives us peace to make the decisions needed at that time. At such a crossroads of life, we can ask him in prayer, ‘Lord, what road should I take what way should I Go?’ The best way will become so much clearer, and bring us calmness and peace of mind as well as the knowledge of a decision well made. We have so many things to occupy our minds these days with pandemic and so many other things that are going on in our lives and the lives of those around us. Despite everything that is going on we believe that Jesus accompanies us on our journey to God, that he is “on board” with us. Sometimes, when we see such disorder and chaos around our world, we might wonder if Jesus has chosen to sleep through disaster – even though we know that his presence is no insurance against our own fear and anxiety.  To journey with Jesus is all about going through the storms, not around them. The peace of our lives will be disturbed. But we know that the disciples of Jesus went on to face hardship and rejection. Ultimately, many of them came face to face with a violent death and martyrdom.

What kept them going is what keeps us going: and that is our faith that  tells us  God the Father is in charge and  he is the person who brings calm of all chaos the storms of life bring, it is the faith which tells us that there is no storm that will not be stilled by the peaceful presence of god. So let us be at peace amid the storms of our lives for God is in Charge and he knows we will get through whatever happens because we have faith.

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend we celebrate the 11^th Sunday of ordinary time as we continue to slowly get back to a sort of normality after COVID19.  Jesus seemed especially fond of using parables and we hear once again the parable  of the mustard seed the ancient Middle Eastern parable is an explicit comparison of one item or one person to another. Jesus’ parables tell his listeners what God is like by comparing God the father and what he might do to something familiar and known to the people from the culture of the time in this case the wee mustard seed. The faith that we have handed down to us through the generations is represented in this Sundays Gospel by the mustard seed and that faith is something that all of us need to nourish. When the seed that is the Word of God takes root within us the Kingdom grows. We are called upon hearing the Word to meditate upon it in prayer so that it may take root in us and bear fruit.  We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, and that of history the page on which the ‘today’ of God is written.

The parable of the seed shows us that there is an almighty power working for us through the smallest thing the mustard seed. Our part is simply to do a good job preparing the soil of our hearts and then when the seed is  planted within us we let God take over.  The word  of God calls for a lot of hard work, especially during these post-pandemic days when we are struggling to understand what has happened as we move forward. We are challenged to apply ourselves where we see the needs are, which might be as close as in our own homes and streets right where we live. As we work we will see the Church continues to grow; for the Lord, not people, gives the Church spiritual growth. The Church will adjust and flourish in the future just as it has in the past as it rises to the challenges of daily life.  When we are confronted with all kinds of things that run against what we believe in  we should not despair, the Church not only lives on through the muddle and the mire of the world, it actually grows.  We also grow like the mustard seed slowly and surely as long as we do everything possible to stay united in faith with Jesus and the Church. For in the face of turmoil, outside and within God is with us.

When we think of the small beginnings of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee to the spread of his message throughout the world, we appreciate the vast growth from the small mustard seed that has taken place over the years. We have reason to rejoice in God’s work, that the kingdom still attracts and welcomes so many different people. We are part of that kingdom so let us rejoice and be glad in it for the lord has done great things for us and holy is his name.

Corpus Christi

As we celebrate corpus Christi we pray for all those who are contemplating whether they should return to the Mass and Sacramental life of the Church we need to pray for them that they will return. In many places throughout the world the Feast of Corpus Christi would have been celebrated last Thursday but we in Ireland celebrate this feast on the weekend after Trinity Sunday. On Saturday 5^th June we have 4 First communion ceremonies in our parish for our school kids. With the COVID19 regulations in force things are different but what we were celebrating is the same as the children receive Jesus in the blessed sacrament for the first time.  The readings for this feast mirror the readings of Holy Thursday evening when Jesus gave us an everlasting memorial of his body and blood. The Gospel Reading tells us as they were eating he took some bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them. ‘Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’

Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many. This is what we celebrate every time we come to Mass the new and everlasting covenant. In the action of the Mass we hold as sacred the memory of Jesus, we share the bread that is broken, we accept the cup that is held out to us. When we see the Eucharistic Bread, we believe that it is Jesus who is there before us:  such is our faith in the Eucharist.  The Church teaches that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” (CCC 1324)  This means that, because Christ is really present in the Eucharist, we recognize that all the graces we enjoy as Catholics come from this great Sacrament, and all we aspire to, the fullness of the life of God, is contained in the bread of life. Gathered at Mass we bring ourselves and our prayers to God in the words of the response to the psalm we raise the cup of salvation and call on the Lord’s Name.  We have this hope because God is with us and continues to be with us in good and bad times through the sacramental life of the Church and through the Eucharist in particular.

 On the feast of Corpus Christi we celebrate the greatest gift our Lord has left us. By following in our Lord’s footsteps, Christians over the centuries have sacrificed greatly, in a labor of love, for their Christian way of life. Then as now, it begins with each individual person asking God to show the way and to provide the strength needed to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. This strength comes from the sacramental life of the church especially the Eucharist which is the body of Christ the Bread of Life.  When we celebrate the Eucharist we recall Jesus’ radical values the way he  talked  about God and the kingdom; his insistence on forgiveness; his opposition to the religious sham that he saw around him; his commitment to peace; his willingness to die to overcome sin all of these things put him in opposition to so many of his own people and all of this led to Calvary on good Friday. In receiving the body and blood of Christ we become his body in our world.  As St Paul says: “Though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one bread.”

 In communion we share with Christ and with one another; we become one with his memory. That way, his memory and the memory of the last supper never dies it is up to us to keep that memory alive in our lives and the lives of those around us as we go forward as one body united in Jesus  the bread of life.

Feast of the Holy Trinity

This Sunday we celebrate Trinity Sunday, which is the celebration of the Father, Son and Holy spirit. When I  was growing up  my Father had a small tin of oil which was called three in one  (Pictured above) and every Trinity Sunday it comes into my mind because it reminds me what the trinity is about  that is three divine persons in one. The Father is equal to the Son and the Son is equal to the Spirit three in one and one in three they are the oil that keeps the faith we profess going. The roots of this solemn feast can be traced back to the early Church.  The feast of Holy Trinity goes back to 12th century England and St Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Historians say the great Thomas celebrated a Liturgy in honor of the Trinity in his cathedral. In the 14th century, the feast came to be observed by the universal Church. The feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to contemplate the mystery of God Father Son and Holy Spirit.  Paul in the Letter to the Romans reminds us that the Spirit of God makes us God’s children, destined to share in the life of God, as Christ does.

The gospel reading speaks of the power of presence and the power of the name. Ancient people placed great weight in presence; the way someone dressed and acted spoke of social power.  Ancient people also chose names carefully; they believed a person’s name defined their strength of character. Both outward presence and inward character are part of the disciples’ experience. When the followers of Jesus  saw the resurrected Lord and heard his command to evangelize the entire world, they saw for themselves the Trinity in action. When we live as followers of Christ, we invite others to join us not because they see nice people living good lives. No, they, too, see the Trinity in action as God works through us. How do we understand the Trinity? We don’t! God, by definition, is beyond imagination, and  language. The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God. On Trinity Sunday we can take the words of St Patrick and make them our own as we say, “I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, the three in one, through confession of the oneness of the Creator of Creation.”

Each Trinity Sunday, we only scratch the surface of this great mystery of our faith. In gratitude and faith, let us begin and end every prayer with greater faith and reverence as we invoke the Trinity as we say “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

PENTECOST

As we come to the end of the Easter Season we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. Last Sunday when we celebrated Ascension Jesus told us in the Gospel that he would send us the Holy Spirit to be our advocate  with the Father. This Sunday we celebrate the decent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the beginning of the apostolic mission to bring the message of Jesus to the world.  By the time John wrote his gospel, Jewish Christians had been excommunicated for their belief in the Messiah. Ostracized and socially persecuted, some Christians reacted in fear, while others boldly proclaimed the gospel. Early Christians needed a sense of stability, a sense of divine peace. Through the words of Jesus, “Peace” was John’s prayer for his readers as we listen to this gospel reading. With the sight of Jesus, fear turned into great joy. Anxiety turned into relief. Desperation turned into vindication. Most important, a lack of spiritual direction turned into a sense of deep spiritual grounding.

The divine presence stood close to them and with the divine presence came divine peace. We too have the divine presence in the Blessed Sacrament and it brings Joy and spiritual grounding to all those who come and Jesus says to each and every one you are welcome.

We can’t ignore the problems that are there and there are many in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Most of the time, the problems just don’t go away by themselves very often we need to stop and think things through.  But If we pray through the problems as well as thinking them through we will find that they are much easier to get through. Gathered at Mass we bring our prayers to God. Each of us have our own needs. Family and friends may be sick.  People we know need work. The Older person who has been central to our lives for so long has died.  We bring these and all our concerns in prayer to God our Father because they remind us of our need and they raise our hopes in the power of God made real to every generation through the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit our relationship with God is fruitful, satisfies our longings, and brings us peace.  Because of God’s faithfulness, we give thanks, offer sacrifice, and once again present our needs this Pentecost Sunday as we remember the presence of God with us in all our lives.

ASCENSION

In our Gospel reading for the Ascension Jesus tells the disciples to “wait for the promise of the Father”. They cannot go off spreading the news of his resurrection on their own. They are a small, fearful community that has no power. As the Gospels showed, they had a tendency to get Jesus’ message wrong. What’s more, they flee when things get tough. At the Ascension, Jesus was taken up to heaven so that the apostles and everyone since  would receive “the promise of the Father”, the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel reading Jesus told the apostles to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel to ends of the earth.” The gospel writer also reported that the apostles did that “while the Lord worked through them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs. He tells them of several signs by which the world will know they are sent. All those signs have an individual and a corporate application In so many nations and affiliations to political parties or whatever  there is a rise in authoritarianism, popularism and nationalism. Those movements seek to suppress individual dignity and worth. It is noteworthy that Jesus tells his disciples that believers will drive out demons.

 If  we give this some thought, we come to realize there are many demons that inhabit our hearts and minds and the hearts and minds of so many people. There is the demon of racism. There is the demon of self-seeking power. There is the demon that reduces us to the pursuit of wealth as the ultimate value. There is the demon that insists we must be worshipped in order to have worth and dignity when we already have worth and dignity as a son or daughter of God. There is the demon that seeks to enslave by unjust wages there is the crushing demon of poverty. How do we get rid of  these demons? The answer lies in the way we live out the good news of Jesus in our daily lives that other people can see and take as an example of a better way of living. It also means that  a different set of values where we care for and share with one another.  This set of values springs from the revelation of God the Creator. That revelation comes to us in the living out of the Gospel, in the Good News. It is a difficult message to proclaim these days as it runs contrary to our world and our experience of living within it. The words are simple the living out requires much practice, must self-examination, and much changing of our hearts and minds.

In that effort and action, we experience the presence and the love of the God who is source of all life, happiness, meaning and purpose. The challenge  for us as followers of Jesus as we celebrate the Ascension is are we prepared to get rid of our demons  so that we will be an example of faith and love in all we do and say. As a result of being people of  faith and love the people out there will see how we live our lives and they will want to know where we are going as followers of Jesus and go with us to that place..

5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

This weekend we celebrate the 5^th Sunday of easter as we continue to come out of the COVID19 restrictions. As we get back to Normal we shouldn’t forget all the places in the world who are still battling the COVID pandemic. In particular we pray for the people of India who are being hit hard with the virus as well as many countries throughout the world. In our Gospel reading we hear the story of the vine and the vinedresser of course Jesus is the vine and the Father is the vine dresser and the fruit of the vine that we are hearing about is our faith. The noise that the pruning shears make do not sound very pleasant, in fact, it sounds quite stark, threatening and maybe  painful. I think that I would be saying keep the vinedresser from my door in case he cuts me down .  From the time of Moses, the Hebrew people thought of their nation as the vine that God had taken from Egypt and transplanted into Palestine. There in the fertile valleys and plateaus the nation thrived and grew, as does a vine that is well tended. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Saviour himself comes to live in us, his Father and his brethren, become our Father and our brethren. His person through the Spirit, becomes, the living and interior rule of all we do and say.

The branches exist to draw life from the vine so as to bear fruit. Failing to do so they are useless: cut down, thrown out, good only for fuelling the flames of a fire. So that we may live as fruitful branches in union with Christ, the true vine, he has given us the faith we profess as members of the Church, his true body in the world. Our Lord warns us, as he warned his first followers, to abide in him, that means that we should remain closely united with him, as the branch is joined to the vine. He promises us that if we remain closely united to him, by keeping his commandments he will be ever ready to answer our requests, and to listen our prayers. Let us take courage. Jesus also  tells us “Without me you can do nothing,”. But we know that with him we can do everything. If we remain with him, we can ask anything of the Father and it will be given to us. While we remain healthy branches of the vine, we will be on the road to heaven. Our daily tasks, our work as well as our prayer, our recreation as well as our rest, our joys as well as our sorrows, all of them will  give glory to God and prove that we are worthy to be called disciples of the Lord. So the main question for us today is are we going to remain close to Jesus?  

The story of the Vinedresser is our call to remain closely united with Jesus, as the branch is united to the vine. Or will we be cut down by the vinedresser and thrown on the fire or the  rubbish heap. I would hope that all of us will remain united to the vine so that we will bear much fruit so the world will know that we follow Jesus by all we say and do.

4TH Sunday of Easter

This weekend we celebrate the 4^th Sunday of Easter which is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It is also the Sunday by tradition  when we pray in a special way for vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and religious life.

The idea of Jesus as the Shepherd of the flock is good thing because it is well-known fact that the shepherd never leaves his sheep outside the sheepfold. If any are outside the sheepfold the shepherd will seek the lost sheep at all costs until they are found. In the same way Jesus the Shepherd will seek us out and help us to find our way back into the sheepfold of faith. In the Old Testament, the shepherd was a metaphor for the leaders of the  people of God. Most often those leaders failed in their responsibilities and many were corrupt. God excoriates the incompetent and sinful leaders who were appointed to shepherd the people which they did not do.

With the failure of the leaders of the people, God decided to take on the shepherding role. “For thus says the Lord: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. (Ezekiel 34:11). In this Sundays  gospel Jesus likens Israel’s corrupt shepherds to the “hired man” who leaves the sheep to fend for themselves when danger approaches. The hired shepherd may leave the sheep behind but Jesus the Good shepherd who is the Son of the Father does not leave his sheep.  A good shepherd has to be willing to take risks to protect the sheep. A good shepherd has to care for the sheep entrusted to him. As our shepherd Jesus cares He values each of us. He goes the extra mile in order to bring us back into his flock. He died on the cross for each and every one of us. His care for us gives us value: we are important to the Eternal Son of God and his father in heaven. St. Damien of Molokai wrote about a leper who was given a blanket someone had sent in answer to one of Damien’s appeals for help. The man held the blanket close to himself and cried. He asked Fr. Damien if he could be buried with it. You see, to this man, this wasn’t just a blanket.

It was proof that there were people in the world who cared for him as God cares for all of us. One of the most comforting of the Psalms which is also a hymn begins with the line: “The Lord is my shepherd.” It ends with this line: “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Goodness and mercy, in the person of Jesus the good Shepherd are with us even now. The Gospel of the Good Shepherd teaches us how to embrace the gift of faith by listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd. There are so many voices calling us to believe and to practice things that might seem good and wholesome, but those voices are not of or from the Lord and what they are saying is not good. We need to tune ourselves into the voice of truth that comes from the Good Shepherd. We are his people the sheep of his flock and that means that we are people who are able to recognize the voice of the Lord and to faithfully follow what he is asking us to do in his name .