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Archive for the category “Life”

07 May 2016

ASCENSION

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This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension. The Ascension marks the final part of Jesus ministry here on earth. During our lives whether we are young or old we will see the departure of many people. Perhaps it is a son or daughter leaving for university or maybe it was someone leaving to go to another country or the hardest departure of all someone close to us such as a family member father mother or whoever passing on to eternal life. Our lives are made up of so many different times and places of departure or leave-taking and this really is what Ascension is about the departure of Jesus to return to the Father.  The Apostles must have felt awful they knew that the time was fast approaching when they would have to say their final goodbyes as Jesus returned to the Father.

It marked the beginning of a new time when the apostles have to live in the absence of the Jesus they knew. They had to come to terms with the fact that Jesus will never again walk with them healing the sick and the wounded, preaching about the kingdom of God. He would soon be gone. But Jesus promised to be with them and by association with us through the working of the Holy Spirit the Advocate. Remember when Jesus began his public ministry he was first invested with the power of the Holy Spirit. In his baptism Jesus received power and authority from the Father through the experience of the Spirit. It was in that power, “Filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1), that he began his public ministry. The Spirit marked the time of Jesus’ new beginning, his time of ministry, his time for reaching out to others and ministering to them. Luke closes his Gospel with the instruction of Jesus to his disciples that they are to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit.

After this last instruction he blesses them and is carried up to heaven. The Spirit makes a new beginning for us as it made a new beginning for the Apostles at the very start of the church. The approaching feast of Pentecost is important because it is a memory of the beginning of the Church as well as a celebration of the Church of today.

 

 

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30 Apr 2016

6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

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This weekend we celebrate the 6th Sunday of Easter. It seems no time since we began Holy Week on Palm Sunday and now we are heading into Ascension and then Pentecost Sunday which is often called the birthday of the Church. In this Sunday Gospel Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to the apostles as the advocate. Although Jesus had spoken to the Apostles and told them many different things, he knew them well and realized that they wouldn’t remember everything he said Jesus also knew that they would have to endure many struggles, that they would have to face ambiguity and confusion, difference and disagreement. They would not see eye to eye on everything; they would have different memories of Jesus; they would emphasise different things. In the conflicts that would arise they would have to put their faith to work. That is why he told them and he tells us that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in his name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. These words are a direct pointer towards Pentecost and the gifts that the Holy Spirit would bring to them as well as us.

We don’t have the physical presence of Jesus with us the way his first disciples did when he talked with them around the table at the Last Supper, washed their feet, and gave them his reassuring promises. His farewell to them was a real farewell he was going, he would no longer be with them as he had been. But he assured them and us that he is present in a different way, in his gift of the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel Reading Jesus also promised the Apostles Peace  ‘A peace that the world cannot give.’ Sometimes we mistake this peace for our idea of quietness or tranquillity, but the peace the Jesus gives is a peace that can be found even in the midst of turmoil. This peace is not something we can manufacture ourselves by our own power. It’s a gift that comes from Jesus, who doesn’t want to lose touch with us. Jesus chose his followers to carry out God’s plan of salvation. He chooses us today to do the same. By allowing us to participate in his work of redemption, he gives us a personal stake in the Kingdom of God. If we keep on trusting in the presence of the Spirit to us, we will have peace in the midst of any personal, family, or community turmoil that comes our way as well as someone who will keep us going along the right Road!

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19 Mar 2016

PALM SUNDAY 2016

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For the last five weeks of Lent we have journeyed along the path of reconciliation forgiveness and mercy with Jesus. As those who know his mercy we now begin Holy Week with our annual celebration of our Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem, his own city on the day more commonly known as Palm Sunday. As we end the season of Lent it isn’t really the end as we all know that first Holy Week was the beginning and here we are in 2016 celebrating the life changing events that took place all those years ago. There was an American TV programme called That Was the Week that was which I’m told went out in the 1960’s and in many ways for us as Christians Holy Week was the week that was in the past, as it is for us now in our own time and will be the week that was in the future for other generations. So now in the context of faith we stop and ponder where our Lenten journey of mercy has brought us and what Holy Week is about. It is simply not just about the death of Jesus on Calvary it is about a great deal more and the cross is one of the central parts of this week.  We begin on Palm Sunday with a few days to go until Good Friday, days that are packed with symbolism and meaning. We hear in the Gospel the crowd goes from rejoicing and singing Hosanna to the Son of David to calling out crucify him, crucify him. The entrance into Jerusalem is one of the very few events in Jesus’ life which is mentioned in all four gospels.  It is the only time that Jesus accepts and encourages public acclaim as Messiah even at that it wasn’t really about him it was about doing his father’s will.  He even goes as far as organising his entrance by telling the disciples to go and fetch the donkey.  The key moment in God’s great plan of salvation is about to begin and Jesus knows exactly how it will unfold and where he will end up. As we reflect upon the story of Jesus going up to Jerusalem we recommit ourselves to Jesus and his message of mercy and salvation.The events of Palm Sunday were foretold thousands of years ago.

The first reading from Isaiah, was written at the time of the Babylonian captivity and it speaks of a courageous and obedient messiah-figure, who says, “I have set my face like flint” set my face against the beatings and scourging that lie ahead, “knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”  On Palm Sunday we feel an certain amount of embarrassment when we cry out “Crucify Him” with the palm branches still in our hands. It reminds us of our own fickle response and our lack of courage in responding to His Mercy, love and truth. Yet as we know it was the sins of us all which brought Jesus to Calvary. Palm Sunday and Holy Week are all about Jesus suffering for our inadequacies and our own very real sins. Holy Week is a time for us to realize what we are like, and to find that the only remedy for our fears is mercy and love. That is the Mercy and Love of God. Are we ready to join our own fears to the Master’s? Are we ready to add as much love and mercy as we can possibly muster to His boundless love and endless  mercy?

 

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05 Mar 2016

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

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This weekend we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Lent which is also called Laetare Sunday and is a Sunday of joy.  Our Lenten journey of mercy  is half over and Easter is near. This Sunday we hear the story of the Prodigal Son, the contrast between the two brothers is quite sharp. After wasting his share of his father’s fortune the younger brother recognizes his misery and the mistakes he has made and returns home looking for the mercy of his father when he says: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son” (Lk 15: 18-19, 21). The older brother takes a different sort of attitude one of arrogance not only towards his brother but also towards his father! His scolding is in great contrast with the tenderness of the father who comes out of the house and goes to meet him to “entreat” him to go into the house (Lk 15: 20, 28) after  he told him that his brother that was lost has been found. The big question that we should ask ourselves when we hear this story is what does God do when we turn away from him like the younger son in the Gospel? He does exactly the same as the Father in the gospel story did he waits and when we return he goes out to meet the returning Son or Daughter with endless mercy and compassion. The gospel story of the Prodigal Son is an image of God the Father who invites us to experience his mercy and return to him especially during the year of mercy season of Lent. We all get second chances in life and this gospel is really  about God our Father giving us the chance to start over again and again, perhaps taking the chance to right a wrong or the chance to make a difference to someone or do something these are just a couple of examples. Of course being given a second chance is not always fair or just and we see this from the reaction of the other son who complains in a big way about his Father not even giving him something to celebrate with his friends. The story of the Prodigal Son is also a story of transition as much as it is about second chances. We remember that second chances are invitations to move forward leaving our old selves behind. Leaving our old selves behind and getting another chance is why we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation or confession. This sacrament is a chance to the wipe the spiritual slate clean, a time to start anew as a child of the Father. Pope Francis has asked each Diocese to dedicate a period of “24 hours for the Lord” on the 4th and 5th March. This weekend in many places all over the world we will be able to adore the Blessed Sacrament and celebrate the Mercy of God in Confession. May we like the Prodigal Son not be afraid to come back for we will be received with open arms like the Father in the Gospel story god will come out to meet us for his mercy and compassion are without measure.

 

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20 Feb 2016

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

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This weekend we continue our Lenten journey of mercy as we hear the gospel story of the Apostles going up the mountain were the voice of God reveals Jesus’ true identity: «This is my Son, the Chosen One Listen to him». For many, mountains are a place of encounter with God with Moses encountering God on a mountaintop, so did Elijah, and it was a favorite place of prayer for Jesus too. This particular gospel scene is traditionally considered as Jesus’ transfiguration and is reported in the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It’s not possible to reconstruct with certainty the experience that led to this surprising story: we only know that the Gospel writers give it great importance, since it is told as an experience that gives a glimpse of Jesus’ true identity as the Son of God. The splendid vision in our Gospel for this Sunday comes after Jesus had said that “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Lk 9:22).

This was not the good news that the disciples wanted to hear as they expected Jesus, as the Messiah, to drive out the Roman army of occupation and restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6). Many of them would have begun to have second thoughts: Is Jesus really the expected Messiah? The transformation or transfiguration of Jesus that the disciples experienced was not simply something they were to see and experience as happening to him alone. It was also an invitation for them to undergo a transformation and transfiguration of their own. How is that transformation or transfiguration to take place in each of our own lives? We will be transfigured by listening to Jesus, listening to all that he invites us to be and do, however much it may seem to go against the conventions that we were brought up on and the conventions of today. It means especially listening to those words which caused such difficulty for Peter and his companions and integrating them into our own vision of life. In short It means having a total trust in walking his Way, a total trust that only his Way brings us  into full union with God, the source of all truth, love, happiness and peace.

We know that Christ “had to suffer and thus enter into his glory.” We also understand the purpose of Christ’s passion was that we, in spite of our own mortality and weakness, might enter into eternal glory through his suffering. So the question for all of us this Sunday is are we prepared to be transfigured this Lent from what we are into Gods new creation remembering that Jesus underwent his Passion so that we might have life and have it to the full.

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23 Jan 2016

3RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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This Sunday we celebrate the 3rd Sunday of ordinary time which falls during the week in which we pray for the unity of Christians. The second reading from St. Paul tells us that though the Church has many parts we are one body, the body of Christ and this is true. As Christians there are different faiths and each of us has a different faith journey but the one thing that unites all of us as one body is Jesus Christ the son of God.

In the Gospel Reading for this Sunday Luke wants to make very clear to his readers what drives Jesus the Prophet from Galilee and what is the goal of his action. We as Christians need to know in what direction God’s Spirit pushes Jesus, since following him means that we are walking in the same direction as he did. The Spirit descended upon Jesus at his Baptism in the Jordan. With the Spirit poured upon him, Jesus would proclaim freedom for the trapped (captives), the diminished (blind), and those in need (oppressed). When Jesus proclaimed the Good News, he proclaimed the Spirit. Since Spirit meant breath, Jesus breathed God’s word in his words and deeds.  The power of his proclamation changed people, situations, and environments because he breathed out the power of God.

When Jesus spoke, hearts turned to God and health of mind body and spirit were restored. There is an immediate life-implication of today’s passage that is easy to overlook for us in our I want I get world. it is this: The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Jesus and comes upon the Church in order to bring good news. The presence of the Spirit means joy. In the 21st century we’re OK with entertainment and pleasure, but we are often suspicious of Spiritual joy because it might be a pie-in-the-sky illusion. How can we talk about or even allow ourselves to experience joy, when there is so much false hope, so much suffering, so much serious work to be done in the world around us? The paradox of Christian faith is the cross of Jesus. The cross symbolizes the pain and sorrow that Jesus and we know so well. At the same time, the cross of Jesus is the ultimate revelation of the love and mercy of God shown to us through his son. “For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12: 2). The joy that lay before him was not only that God would wipe away his every tear, but that through his self-giving love, his joy might be in us and our joy might be complete. We pray that as individual Christians and as Church, through the power of the Spirit, we will have the courage to bring Mercy to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed especially during the Year dedicated to  Mercy in all its forms.

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This weekend we also have the beginning of the week-long Eucharistic Congress in the Philippines. It seems like yesterday when we celebrated the 50th Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012 and yet four years have passed and so many things have happened. We pray this weekend for a successful congress for all those who will be going there in the days  ahead.

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16 Jan 2016

3RD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

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This weekend we have the gospel story of the wedding at Cana which was the first time that Jesus worked a miracle when he changed the water into wine. We hear Mary telling Jesus that ‘they have no wine’ Jesus said ‘Woman, why turn to me? My hour has not come yet.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’  This Gospel is a story with many threads – the insight into the relationship between Mary and Jesus – the miracle of the wine itself – the fact that the miraculous wine is better than the original – the fact of Jesus honoring the young couple in this way – and so on. Images of marriage feasts and bridegrooms, wine and water, appear in the Old and New Testament with great regularity. The relationship between God and Israel was often seen as a marriage – Israel the bride, God the bridegroom. The coming of the Messiah was described in terms of a wedding feast and later, in Revelation, we hear of the marriage feast of the Lamb. Jesus spoke of himself as the vine and of longing to celebrate Passover, blessing wine into the cup of his blood. The abundant wine reminds us of the “new wine” spoken of by Jesus: the new order of things that he was inaugurating through his Paschal Mystery.

In contrast, the water jars of the Jews represent those who refuse to believe in Christ are empty and there must be a large number of empty jars in people’s lives these days for the same reason they don’t believe! The wedding celebration provides the context that enables us to see the greater reality. The bride and groom whose wedding is being celebrated are in the background as a matter of fact scripture says nothing about them or who they were. In the foreground we see Mary and Jesus. Mary, who asks for help when she tells Jesus “they have no wine”, Mary the faith filled disciple, has trust in divine providence. In the place of the divine spouse, stands Jesus. “The Word was in the world, yet the world did not know it.” The care, concern and affection of God are manifest in the Son.  Today there are so many different definitions of marriage and what exactly being married means and as we know so many freely choose not to get married and for some they live together which of course has its own particular problems.  In her response at the wedding at Cana Mary shows herself a model disciple who trusts in God. She shows that trust with the words that are meant for all of us even now we read them again “Do whatever he tells you.”  If we place ourselves at that wedding banquet, Mary is giving us direction. 

She is mother to us all and also the first disciple of her son. She knows the way to live because she learned it by listening to her son and thinking in her heart and in her mind about what he did and said. We should listen closely to what she says as Mary is the one who “keeps all these things in her heart, pondering them.” She learns to understand the message that is Jesus. Do whatever he tells you is Mary’s message for us. Today what does Jesus ask us to do as we think about the wedding at Cana are we like Mary prepared to trust in the Father who can give us all things or are we prepared just to trundle along accepting the things that come along. Or are we prepared to learn and understand the message that is given to us through Jesus whose mother asks us in the to ”do whatever he tells you.”

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21 Nov 2015

FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

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This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Christ the King the last Sunday of the Churches year. The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism, this is a way of life which leaves God out of a person’s thinking and has us living life as if God did not exist as we all know God does exist and we see this through so many people throughout history right down to ourselves.  In a week that has seen murder, mayhem, and attempts to dominate the world and its people the word ‘king’ might seem a bit  harsh. Having said all of this we need to remember that the kingship Jesus is talking about is not about thrones or dominions or anything as negative as all of the recent violent episodes that have taken place in our world. Jesus is not king in an earthly sense. The acclamations of the crowds on Palm Sunday and the enthusiastic endorsement of the disciples that Jesus is the Messiah might mislead us. Jesus is king because he is the anointed one of God, who comes to do the will of God.

Our Gospel reading for this Sunday has Jesus before Pilate. The exchange between Jesus and Pilate makes it clear that the execution of Jesus is a consequence of his rejection by the Establishment of the Jewish nation. The authorities of the time did not like the truth that Jesus was speaking about on so many things.  In the reading from John’s Gospel  which is also part of the Good Friday Passion Narrative we see  this conflict is described in terms of the “truth” that Jesus  has brought from his Father: “It is because I speak the truth that you cannot believe me” (8:45). Jesus urged the people of his time as he encourages you and me in our time to find again our true calling in the work of God, to be “a light to the nations,” showing the world the life and joy of a people living according to the ways they have learned from Jesus son of the Father. The way for us to be a light to the nations  is to work for the for the relief of the deprived, the oppressed and the outcast. When we do this we are serving Christ because he fully identifies himself with all those in need and we should do the same. The disciple of Jesus cannot afford the luxury of saying “I keep myself to myself” or “I do nobody any harm.”

To be deaf to the cries of the oppressed is to be deaf to Christ. To be blind to the agony of those around and about us is to be blind to Christ  At the end of this church year , we are asked to embrace the cross and walk in the victory of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. What began as a humble event with the birth of Jesus in the stable has changed the world. As we prepare for Christmas during Advent are we with Jesus and his call to us to be merciful as the father? Are our lives an open sacrifice in a demonstration of the love of God? We can be sure that nobody there on Good Friday  thought they were witnessing the death of a great King. The kind of kingship Jesus spoke about has to be learned neither in palaces nor in schools of diplomacy but among the poor and needy and those whom the world has forgotten. For our king is the servant of the poor and we only belong to his court when we do likewise become servants of the poor. As we begin the Jubilee Year of god’s mercy in a few days time on December 8th, let’s not forget the beautiful truths that we have learned, let’s continue to learn more about them, celebrate them, live them, and pass them on. So that when people look at us, they will see that “Christ is King to the glory of God our merciful father.”

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07 Nov 2015

32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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This Sunday in our Gospel story we hear about the widows mite. Mark sharpens the lesson Jesus gives, by linking this incident with what he has to say about ‘scribes’ who ‘swallow the property of widows while making a show of lengthy prayers’. The situation of widows was insecure. The ‘scribes’, so often mentioned in the gospels, were interpreters of the Law of old Israel they were the lawyers of the day But beneath their exterior religious garb, they were rapacious and in many respects just didn’t give a damn as long as they had what they wanted. The widow, on the other hand, reveals the true religious practice of those who have little, but express great trust in God to provide for them.

Jesus makes a series of charges against the scribes. He criticises their habit of wearing distinctive dress, which marks them as different from others and is calculated to win people’s deference. He criticises their habit of taking the places of honour at religious and civil functions. He criticises their habit of long-winded prayers, made not to God but to their immediate audience. Finally, he denounces their practice of exploiting helpless widows by living off their savings.

In contrast to the counterfeit piety of the scribes, Jesus honours true piety in the generosity of the poor widow. The pious frauds who abused their religious status could take a lesson from a woman who had no status in their religion or society, a poor widow. The two small coins make up the total of her resources. She could have kept one. She doesn’t. Her generosity cannot be bettered. For Jesus, true generosity is measured not by what people give but by what they have left after they give. The poor widow leaves herself with nothing. She cannot give more, for she has nothing more to give. In Jesus’ estimation she is a mighty widow.

We, need to listen to Jesus’s words. We are tempted to preserve our systems and benefit from what they give us: standing in the community, predictability, stability and a blessing of the status quo. The church’s history also reveals how we have blessed armies that invaded and enslaved indigenous peoples, preached slavery and oppression. Our religious apparatus has tended to side more with Caesar and with the economic and political world that belongs to Caesar. Jesus condemns those individuals and institutions that benefit from the burdens put on the poor. He said previously in Mark (11:17) that the Temple had become a den of thieves and not a house of prayer.

He predicted it would all come tumbling down.  Today’s passage illustrates why this destruction was inevitable, because those in the temple were corrupt. Every day demands are made on us. We are called on to be generous with our love, our forgiveness, our patience, our resources. The good news is that when we do that out of love, Jesus will be our constant support through the good and bad and happy and sad times which we often find ourselves in.

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24 Oct 2015

30TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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In our Gospel for this Sunday Christ walks along the streets of the ancient city of Jericho even in Jesus time the city of Jericho was already thousands of years old. With his disciples and a great crowd following him, our Lord is leaving the city and Bartimaeus the blind beggar calls out to him in dire need: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” Bartimaeus, though blind, could see. His instincts were sharper than a fresh razor blade. The divinity of Jesus had come across to him in waves. But those  around and about him, who enjoyed good vision, were blind to the Son of Man. The blind and deaf Helen Keller said, “The most beautiful things in the world can’t be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” It is possible for good people to spend their days searching but never finding their spiritual hearts.

I often feel that I am going around in circles looking for this or that way of curing my own spiritual blindness. But I always come to the same conclusion that faith in God is what it is all about. Spiritual blindness often prevents people from perceiving the correct way a follower of Jesus should live. Our following of Jesus is not compulsory.

We cannot be compelled to love or to accept the mission of God to transform the world after the pattern that Jesus gave us that is our own free choice. We must not accept the voices that would have us silenced and there are so many in our modern world and many of those voices are blind to the Spiritual heart of faith. The gift we seek is sight, that is the ability to capture the vision of a new creation brought about by a faith filled community of people. Of course we will be afraid. Our reflection on the lives of those who have gone before us tell us that the way of discipleship can lead us into paths we may find difficult  The Gospel stories we have heard over these past weeks reveal how blind the disciples and the people around them really were. The bewildered confusion of the twelve; the cruel reaction of the crowd, who “scolded Bartimaeus and told him to keep quiet’”; the blindness of those in Jerusalem determined to destroy him. Through this miracle, Jesus makes Bartimaeus a living sign of what he is doing in the name of his Father – healing the world’s blindness, leading the human family to see in him the truth of God’s ways and not the way of the world. Discipleship is not about having possessions. Bartimaeus had no possessions except his cloak. But he even casts that aside to get up and come to Jesus.

He is a powerful symbol for us: what little he has he puts aside to get closer to Jesus. The last line of the story captures the gospel message. Jesus immediately gives the man his sight to his eyes and his heart. With the gift Jesus has given him he can see where he is to go he gets up and follows Jesus. The gift was swift in coming and Bartimaeus responds just as quickly. “Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.” “The way” is symbolic language for those who follow Jesus. The disciples, on the road with Jesus, must have thought of themselves as part of the “in crowd,” the way James and John did when they asked Jesus to give them seats of power in his kingdom  in last Sundays Gospel (Mark 10:35-45). While they were physically close to Jesus, they were a long way from understanding and taking his message on board. The blind beggar, with nothing but a cloak, was exactly the kind of person Jesus noticed and invited to come close while those with Jesus still didn’t get it  and as a result they were not his true followers on “the way.” God wants us to say truthfully in the silence of our hearts, “Lord that I may see.” Jesus wants our prayer like that of Bartimaeus to come from a sincere heart that asks not only for the gift of sight so that we can see the world around us, but also for the gift of seeing – of seeing the truth, or the lack of it in the depths of our being, and then taking the action necessary to reverse our blindness.

Bartimaeus the clever man that he was saw Christ with the eyes of faith and  a faith filled heart. So you and I must also look and see Jesus with the eyes of faith so that we may be able to see more clearly what we have to do as people of faith to lead others to Christ.

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