Fullerton T

19the Sunday Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this weekend is all about  Jesus  walking on water but if you look beyond the walking on water this story is really about the trust all of us have in God. We have no problem identifying with Peter he is so like ourselves . He is confident one moment and then, when things get difficult and he has bitten off more than he can chew, he falls apart. By then it is too late and he needs help. Life is like that, we start at something like a new job, college, marriage, or a project to help others, but then it gets complex and beyond what we are capable of. We didn’t realize it was going to require so much time and effort and maybe we didn’t call out for help from other people or from God when we were sinking or drowning. Not an uncommon experience in so many situations of life and in the way we deal with them.

God doesn’t always give us an immediate cure or a fast solution when we bring ourselves in prayer for others as well as  ourselves. Jesus shows us that our father in heaven is not distant from our problems when he reaches out a hand to Peter and to us he is our companion who makes the journey of life with us especially  during the storms that life brings.  At times we may well be floundering, like Peter, but Jesus reaches out to help us, to rescue us. What better image of salvation could there be than Jesus reaching out to Peter to save him from drowning. What better analogy could there be of our own lives and relationship with Jesus. We live messy lives, we doubt and we lack faith but nevertheless we are still moving towards the Lord and our heavenly homeland  For us there is a lesson in this particular incident. It is that we must continue to trust in Christ and his loving Father, even when God seems to have deserted us.

Most of the troubles and trials of our lives are caused by the injustice and lack of charity of our fellowmen. The remainder can be attributed to our own weakness in so many things. But God foresees all these misfortunes, and he lets them take their course, because they can and should be the means of showing us life’s true meaning and they should draw us closer to god. Christ knew the storm was coming and the risk the Apostles would run when He sent them across the lake. But that trial and the grave danger was for their own good, because they learned that Jesus was from God and they could always trust Him. Our trials and our earthly ailments are also foreseen by God and permitted by him so that they will draw us closer to Him and help us on the road to heaven. May we like Peter reach out to Jesus and ask him save us as we put our trust in you for you are the son of God.

Transfiguration of the Lord

We are now well into the month of August  and for many of us  the summer holidays are over and it is back to work. For others who have children the run up to school starting in September will shortly begin. As usual we are on a never ending circle of everything being the same but different as time never stays still. This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the transfiguration. In the Gospel story the disciples went to an out of the way place, a mountaintop. The  Apostles are responding to the invitation of Jesus to come apart and rest for a while and mountains were the best place to get away from it all. On that mountain the disciples heard A  loud voice from the heavens that told them, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

The Transfiguration was a grace-filled moment of clarity for the disciples. But it was only a moment along the journey of their lives as today the transfiguration is just a moment in the journey of our lives. The question for us today is do we listen to what Jesus is telling us here and now in 2023? We don’t have such a spectacular revelation as the disciples had on the mountain side but like them we come apart to our place of worship each Sunday and there we hear the voice of God the Father that asks  to   “Listen to him.”  We listen to Jesus In the scriptures proclaimed for us and they tell the story of  God’s forgiveness, compassion and unfaltering love for us.  The voice we hear on this mountain directs us to be not afraid as we listen to Jesus, because in our world  there are many competing voices that might lure us to ways of living other than the one Jesus calls us to follow.

Worshiping together as the community of believers gives us an opportunity to  listen to the Word of God and what it is saying to us,  and the word of God  calls us to point out a number of things. The scriptures tell us that we need the presence of God in our lives and recognize how good he has been to each of us. Despite the dramatic way this message is revealed to the disciples they are consoled by the words of Jesus, ‘Do not be afraid.’ They look up into the eyes of Jesus and they see their friend. We need to let people know that just as His Love for us has no end   it will be the same for  them as it is for us as it was at the beginning for the apostles his first followers. We do not walk alone He is with us always, until the end of time.  People do want to be with people who are happy within themselves.

We are Happy because we know that God is with us in all the stages of life. The disciples will have to delve deep into their well of memories after the death of Jesus, to recall those wonderful moments of intimacy with him, where he often said, ‘Courage, be not afraid.’ Let us take this refrain from today’s Gospel as we rejoice in the Lord who calls us to not be afraid as we remember that  Jesus the Son of God is with us  in our lives with all their ups and downs and we should listen to him as he guides us along the right paths that lead to salvation.

17th Sunday of ordinary Time

Here we are at the last weekend of July and the summer holidays are now at the half way stage. I’m sure there are many parents out there wondering when will the long holidays end it will be no time until the beginning of the new school year.The readings for this Sunday are about the wisdom of God which is very different from the wisdom of the world. Biblical wisdom is about everyday life; it concerns practical matters and guides us in living a godly life. Anyone who is  familiar with the bible will know the unique qualities of this wisdom. A person of wisdom may not be the most intellectually brilliant person in the room. When the bible speaks of a wise person, a wisdom figure like Solomon, or a prophet, it presents a person who is closely tuned into the things of  God. The wise one and God have a strong and intimate relationship and the recipient of wisdom is characterized by very practical, everyday knowledge that enables him/her to live an ethically upright life.

The first reading recalls how Solomon requested the gift of understanding instead of material goods or power. The psalm reminds us that God’s commands are more precious than gold. The second reading tells us to work for God’s purpose and that is not always what we want for ourselves or those around us. In this Sundays Gospel we hear the story of the treasure hidden in the field . The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field or a pearl of great price. When its great value is recognized, one gladly does all that is necessary to obtain it. The kingdom of heaven is also like a net that collects all sorts of fish. Just as the useless fish are thrown away, at the end of the age the wicked will be rejected. To be members of the Kingdom means to share our knowledge of it with others. To truly believe in Christ means leading other people to the same knowledge by what we say and do; for secret faith is no faith at all. We should be happy to bring out of the house that is our life all kinds of treasures to share with our neighbors. But these treasures are not physical things but attitudes that are virtues like love and justice and truth and hope and so on. The things that  we bring out from our treasure store of faith are the values of the Kingdom and the knowledge of God the father. God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way. He wants us to become his treasure for other people so that they can discover the faith which is the pearl of great price the treasure hidden in our hearts.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This weekend  we hear the reading  from the first section from Chapter 23 of St. Matthews gospel, the story is the parable of the darnel in the field the seed and the weeds.  In the parable of the wheat and weeds, Jesus recognized co-existence of good with evil. We  often say ‘wouldn’t life be easier if everything were black and white’ as if there are ‘totally good people’ and ‘totally evil people’.  Of course life is never that simple.  We need to ask ourselves who are we called to be in a world where weeds and seeds grow side by side and we often find it hard to distinguish the difference between them.  We are called to be the body of Christ the Church which is a church of Saints and sinners a Church of Seeds and Weeds a church that lives in a world in which very little is black and white. As people of faith  we have to constantly ask ourselves  3 questions :  Should we hide from the messiness and make religion a privatized personal relationship with God?   

Should we insulate ourselves – sharing with those  we think are worthy of our love, deciding who is worthy? Where is God in all this concern, worry and judgment?  If we pray about  these three questions and our problems and those of others we will see god is there in the middle of everything and his hand will guide us and as a result we will be the seeds that flourish and not the weeds or the darnel. Jesus used parables to challenge his audience to think and he uses the parables in our world of today to  challenge you and me and make us think as well. The images and symbols in the Gospel Parables allowed for various interpretations, depending upon the audience and their circumstances. To help relieve anxiety among his persecuted followers, Jesus told this parable as a story about good and evil. Obviously, Jesus recognized good and evil lived together in his time as we recognize the same today. But, when Jesus made that co-existence part of God’s Kingdom, he must have shocked his own followers. How could God allow such evil in the world? Shouldn’t God act to save his people?

Why did he delay? These are questions that were asked in the time of Jesus and we still ask ourselves the same questions these days.  The message of the parable is something that Jesus lived throughout his ministry. He reached out to all sorts of people, mixing with priests, crooks, scribes, politicians, children, tax collectors. Religious separatism was something Jesus refused to advocate, making it his business to seek out and save the lost.  The Pharisees, those whose very name means “the separated ones”, criticised him for associating with the wrong crowd. But Jesus knew that all communities are a mixture of the good and bad, the crooked and the good. And, further, that it isn’t always easy to tell which is which. God ‘s perfect love for us shows itself in the gift of our free will. We have the power to freely choose Him or to reject Him. Let us Choose the Lord that we may have life and live it to the full.  

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the most wonderful things about Jesus has been and continues to be his special love for ordinary people. It comes out in a particular way in the two statements that he makes in this Sundays Gospel reading. The first is in his prayer to God: ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.’ The second is in his Invitation to all of us: ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest.’ Why did he say this? The answer comes across very clearly so many times in the gospels, and may be summed up in just one word – COMPASSION. Remember the plight and tears of the widow of Nain touches his heart to the core: ‘Don’t cry,’ he says to her, before bringing her son back to life.

He is moved with compassion at the plight of a leper begging for help (Mk 4:41), for two blind men sitting at the side of a road and pleading for mercy (Mt 20:29-34), and for a crowd of people with nothing to eat (Mk 8:2). In each case he responds to their sufferings with the power, love, compassion that is the  care of God freely given through Jesus his Son. All through the gospels, we sense the surge of compassion rising within his heart. He is not moved by the grandeur and beauty of the great Temple buildings (Mk 13:1-2), but by the generosity of a poor widow who puts her last coin  into the Temple treasury to assist others (Mk 12:41-44). When everyone else around him is jumping for joy about Jairus’ daughter come back to life, Jesus is concerned that she be given something to eat (Mk 5:42-43).

Also in the second reading we are called to lead spiritual lives that is lives enlivened by our faith in God and what is taught by the Church inspired by the Holy Spirit. Those who have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within them belong to him and will have life. The passage urges believers to live according to the Spirit and put to death the deeds of the flesh, for those who live according to the flesh will not inherit eternal life. Today we see so many people constantly searching for new idols and these idols are so easy to find, We live in  a world which has left the path marked out by God a world where so many have little or nothing at all and the few have so much. To be a Christian and to have the light of faith to guide our steps in the neo-pagan darkness of today’s world, is a gift, and a blessing. So, the big question for each and everyone of us has to be whose side are we on?

Are we  on the side of Jesus, that is the side of compassion, kindness, help and healing. Or on the side of the scribes and Pharisees who are  amongst us even today  and they are fierce, fault-finding, heartless, critical, people without much compassion. Will we take our cue from their cruel, harsh, and insensitive judgments and actions? Or will we take our inspiration from what we see in Jesus, and from his touching  compassionate outreach to the poor and the broken. We are called to bring the message of Jesus into our own lives as well as the lives of those around us. It is a message of compassion and understanding that todays world needs to hear.  Let us remember the words of Jesus as we go out into the world   ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest.

13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Here we are at the start of July and the beginning of the summer holidays. Here in Northern Ireland where I am the schools will be closed for the next 2 months and by the end of that time the parents will be ready for the asylum. So these days spare a thought for all those parents out there who are wondering what they will do with the youngsters over the next few weeks. We were lucky as we were able to  go to the country and the cousins and many friends were there so times were great during the summertime for us but the summer holidays can be a difficult time for many families who mightn’t have the opportunity for a holiday this year so we remember them in our thoughts..

In the First Reading through the woman of Shunem we learn that in our search for God, practicing hospitality is important, for it can be the occasion of a blessing from God through the person we are dealing with at that moment. In our Gospel story we are reminded that  the priority of faith demanded radical consequences for early Christians as they took up their crosses to follow Jesus. At that time extended closely-knit families formed the basis of society, a choice for a follower of Christ could mean a rejection of the family’s faith and values. Jesus reminded his followers that the Christian life involved many risks and one could not compromise or hide these risks, a believer could not placate his or her family if the cost threatened faith. Even though they had only a very vague idea then of what he meant, when the time came, they remembered Jesus  words and gladly suffered imprisonment, hardships, and finally martyrdom for Christ.  

This shows how the resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, changed them from worldly weaklings into fearless spiritual heroes. They were convinced that Christ was the Son of God their saviour who had come on earth to bring all men to heaven. Today, too, there are still those who are suffering a lingering martyrdom, worse than quick death on the scaffold, because they obey God rather than man. We ourselves, who are free from any overt persecution, must show our gratitude to God for being allowed to practice our religion openly and without fear. We may not be able to preach, or teach the truth of the faith in the same way as priests deacons or religious do but we can help all those who are doing so by our prayers and our actions in living our lives according to our Catholic faith. This Gospel highlights for us the importance of hospitality in the Christian life.

To welcome another in Jesus name is to extend hospitality to Jesus himself. We have many opportunities in our daily life to reach out to others, to be a welcoming presence and a sign of God’s love in the world especially where we live let us not be afraid to take these opportunities when they arise.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The readings for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time are a call to trust in God. In the first reading Jeremiah refuses to be intimidated by terror from every side. That doesn’t mean that the terror doesn’t get to him it means that he has no intention of allowing the terror to dictate who he is or what he does. Jeremiah has been abandoned by all his friends who now try to discredit him. He is thrown into prison for his preaching, and the army council threatens him with death if he doesn’t change his tune. But Jeremiah refuses to be bullied into agreement because he believes that “the Lord is at his side, a mighty hero”. What keeps Jeremiah sane amidst all this persecution is the profound belief that God cares for him. And, less spiritually, the frank hope that God will clobber all his enemies in good time! The message of the Gospel is quite simple Jesus tells us not to be afraid. Jesus encourages His disciples to fearlessly proclaim His teachings, assuring them that whatever is hidden will be revealed and their actions will be brought to light.

 He does not disguise the truth that his disciples will be confronted by those who threaten, bully and intimidate others into submissive agreement. He emphasizes that the apostles should not fear those who can harm the body, but rather fear God who holds ultimate authority over both body and soul, and promises that those who acknowledge Him before others will be acknowledged by Him in return Not only does Jesus want his disciples to refuse to submit to the merchants of death, he tells them not to be afraid of them: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” What our Lord said to His Apostles applies to all Christians including you and me in the practice of our faith where we are today. By the very fact of fully living our faith day and daily we are apostles. So today we think of all of those who have given us an example by living their lives in faith. These may be parents family members or people we have known we all have people who have shown us the way of faith. So as faith filled people Jesus teaches us that our only source of freedom and strength is the goodness of our heavenly Father a goodness that is comes to us through Jesus himself as well as through people we know.

Our world is full of hype and glitter, but Jesus tells us here and now the same thing he told His apostles: “Do not be afraid. “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” Jesus wants to us understand that with God there is no such thing as a nameless, faceless individual as we are all part of gods family and our names are carved in the palm of gods hand. Like Jesus, Jeremiah and the disciples, knew all about persecution and rejection. If we allow fear to silence us how will the Good News of Jesus Christ ever be heard in the world? If we don’t speak, who will? If we don’t act, who will? As St Francis of Assisi said, ‘Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary use words’. This means that by the way we lead our lives and the things we say and do for others the people around us will see we are the Christians we are called by Christ to be.

11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Scripture readings for this Sunday are all about the great compassion Jesus has for the crowd who were his followers. In the first reading the Israelites are reminded that God led them out of Egypt. The psalm tells us that God cares for us. In the second reading, Paul tells us that God proves His love for us because Christ died for us. In the gospel, we hear how Jesus cared for the people and sent his disciples to do the same. Jesus wanted to bring the Kingdom of his Father to them, so he set out to heal them, and sent the apostles out to do the same. His aim was to bring them the peace of God, to help them by healing their worries, their sickness, their embarrassment at being lost sheep without a shepherd as God was always the shepherd in Israel. When he called the twelve apostles he was making a New Israel, a new set of twelve tribes, as a permanent healing body, to make sure that the Kingdom of the Father and its peace and generosity would always be available to everyone everywhere.  

He was not setting up a group  of leaders, instead he was appointing his own helpers in spreading God’s Kingdom.  Do we make it our business to spread the Kingdom of God? Are we labourers in the vineyard, trying to bring God’s peace and healing to all the people of God? All of us are  made in the image of God, and he gave us the task of following on his creative work. And then we are all called to follow Jesus, we are all called to make his message known to all people, those around us as well as the people at large. Like the chosen people of Israel we are counted a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation. We are called to  minister to the people in our own time, taking responsibility for our own mission. This is a matter for all of us. As Blessed John Henry Newman wrote: He called us first in baptism; but afterwards also; whether we obey his voice or not, he graciously calls us still… Abraham was called from his home, Peter from his nets, Matthew from his office, Elisha from his farm, Nathanael from his retreat. The call that Christ makes to us  takes us onwards, It is a call to be the church of the future just as the Apostles were called to be the Church of the future at its beginning.

Jesus  mission is to the lost sheep. It is his desire and endeavour to bring together, those he pities, those he looks on with love. So today Through the words of the Gospel may we hear again our own call to be emissaries of God’s love and bearers of Good News. May we allow the kindness and compassion of God to touch our own lives and the lives of  those around us wherever we are.