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7TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

This Sunday in our Gospel we are told that we should offer the wicked man no resistance and that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us these are strong words. Jesus asks his followers to take a different approach by resisting retaliation altogether. The response to a stronger person who slaps us on the cheek, takes us to court, or demands a service of us is not to resist. Similarly, for a weaker person, such as a beggar or borrower, we are to give him or her what he or she asks for. Those who are called to the Kingdom of Heaven are to go beyond the way the world usually works and serve God’s kingdom here on earth. We must, if we are truly Christian, forgive those who offend or injure us. We must love all men, whether they be friends or enemies. G. K. Chesterton says : “We are commanded to love our neighbours and our enemies;  very often we find that they are the same people.” This is very true for all of us. It is very easy for us to love in a theoretical way all people as they never come in contact with us in a personal way and never tread on our feet. But it is those among whom I live and work, who are liable to injure me and might  become my enemies.

Jesus argues that the love that we his disciples give people is not related to the love they receive from others: it is not a social contract or a fair bargain it is unconditional. The disciple loves because that is what the nature of discipleship involves. That means loving your enemy as yourself and doing good to those who would persecute you . A disciple is the child of the Father  and look at the Father’s gracious love for us as we are. He does not withhold the sun and the rain from those who oppose him; likewise, disciples must not withhold their love from those who oppose them. The love is offered not because Jesus thinks that it will change the enemy into something else: certainly, love might confuse the enemy! Love is offered because that is the example and the way of life disciples of the kingdom should follow.

Jesus is telling us not to follow the way of the world, which often perpetuates old oppressions and makes new ones as well. This only leaves people stuck and unable to move forward.  Jesus is telling us that we should be agents of real change in the world by acting in unexpected ways. This means that we do not go along with the crowd but rather approach the various situations of life with new and imaginative thinking as befits a disciple of Christ.

He wants us to see the world from the top down as God does. And then  by seeing the world the way it really is with all that is good and bad within it we will find that we are in a far better position to change it. 

THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

These days we seem to live in weird and wonderful times at the start of this week we heard the British Prime Minister outlining the Brexit or at least putting a wee bit of meat on the bony skeleton of the UK leaving the EU. Then on Friday we had the inauguration of President Trump as the 45^th US president how the world is continually changing hopefully for the better but who knows things really are in the hands of God. The Sundays of Ordinary Time lead us through the three years of Christ’s public ministry. We began last week with his identification as the Lamb of God by John the Baptist and this week we hear how he called the Apostles to follow him. In our Gospel story this Sunday we hear about Jesus calling Andrew, Simon, Peter, James son of Zebedee and his brother John to follow him. As Jesus travelled around Galilee, he actively built a following. Biblical scholars speculate that the Galileans would network and form groups around social, economic, or religious issues. Even though the Romans put down revolts with brutal efficiency, large Jewish protests did sway official decisions, especially at the local level. There was strength in numbers. Part-time fishermen like Peter and Andrew, like James and John would easily leave their daily tasks, if the group they joined promised to protect and enhance their way of life.

Proclaiming the Kingdom was a message with political undertones for Jews and Jesus quickly amassed an audience. This gospel story is about the call of Jesus to the first apostles to be his followers. This gospel story is not just an echo from the past it is very much for us today as it was yesterday. Are we listening to Jesus saying to us today, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men?”   This Gospel also asks us to remember that our own personal vocation is  an absolutely free choice to make.  This means that we are totally free to accept or deny the  invitation for us to take up the vocation that is there for us. Some are called to the Priesthood, or Consecrated Life, others to marriage, others are called to a single life there are many other vocations in life all of the m are  different and yet they are all calls to holiness that we are given. 

May we experience the beauty of accepting the call with faith in God and acting on it.  In this way we will become like the first apostles who quickly responded, continued to learn during their three years walking with Jesus and the years afterwards during which, with the power of the Holy Spirit, they did what they probably never imagined they would do when first called; travelled to the ends of the earth. 

SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

This weekend we have the second Sunday in ordinary time. Christmas and new year are a distant memory as we continue our spiritual journey. In the Gospel reading this Sunday we hear about the meeting between Jesus and John the Baptist at the Jordan River. The first Christian communities saw a clear difference between John’s baptism (that immersed people in the river Jordan) and Jesus’ baptism (that communicated his own Spirit, to cleanse, renew and transform the heart of his followers). Without that Spirit of Jesus, the Church would simply close up shop and die. Only the Spirit of Jesus can put more truth and life into today’s Christianity and lead us to recover our true identity, letting go of paths that lead us further and further away from the Gospel. Only that Holy Spirit can give us light and energy to fire up the renewal that the Church needs today so that we can also become Christ’s authoritative witnesses in the world of today.

A believer can only be an authoritative witness if he or she lives in harmony with two of the Baptist’s evangelical qualities. Firstly, knowledge of Christ that is cultivated through prayer, the sacramental and ecclesial life and good friendships.

Secondly, the constant attributes of the ‘bridegroom’s friend’ who goes in search of the Groom through the virtue of humility because always, in everyone’s life, Christ must increase and we must decrease! Pope Francis is quite clear that the greatest obstacle to a new surge of evangelization is spiritual mediocrity. He says so all the time. He wants to spark a process that is «more burning, joyful, generous, bold, full of love to the end, and full of contagious life», but knows it will be insufficient «if the fire of the Spirit doesn’t burn in their hearts». And the charge that is given to each of us is to be Christ’s authoritative witnesses to the people around us and the world. We have all been baptized; we have all been called to be witnesses  to Jesus the chosen one of god. We are asked to point away from ourselves to the lord; as we lead others to the person of Jesus. None of us comes to him alone we all know people who help us along on our own faith journeys.

Most people are moved when others share with them what really matters in their lives. Perhaps we have lost the courage to say any more about what matters to us as people who take faith seriously perhaps we doubt if anyone will care and yet so many do. We should take courage to share what we believe. With Blessed John Henry Newman, we know that we believe because we love. In the power of that love, Love of God let us share our belief with each other and everyone else as well.

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

After the arrival of the Wise Men on the feast of the Epiphany on Friday we have come to the end of the Christmas season as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John. This feast is also a reminder to us of our own baptism, most of us were baptised when we were babies and today we recommit ourselves to the promises that were made on our behalf when we renew our Baptismal Promises..

The figure of the Baptist is mysterious and captivating. He was the Precursor of Christ, not only two thousand years ago but in a sense also in our day. He is the voice, which makes us hear the Word which introduces us to the mystery of the redemption, who helps us to respond to the call to conversion, with humility and love. He helps us understand that the human person, every person in front of the Lord Jesus stands before the greatest mystery of our existence: the Mystery God made man! Our own Baptism calls us and empowers us to be Christ like that is what the word Christian means. Our humility can openly declare our trust in God the Father. The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas whose feast day is at the end of January spoke of times of grace when God enlivens people in special ways for different tasks and this is what baptism is all about the grace of god enlivening us to live out our new beginning  living life as people who are Christians.

The Holy Spirit is the power behind all our spiritual beginnings, when we are willing to begin, God is there as the grace  behind our going out into the sea of faith. There are beginnings that we know are important like baptisms, marriages and ordinations. We like to mark these beginnings as important, so we surround them with ceremony to give a sense of occasion and there is an atmosphere of rejoicing. The new beginnings that we make in our own lives may not mark the fulfilment of anyone’s prophecy, but they probably mark the fulfilment of someone’s hope. Sometimes we are so hesitant about making a new start that we end up in no-man’s-land waiting for more weather reports wondering what to do instead of getting on with it. This weekend as we think about our baptism we stop and think about our journey of faith as we celebrate beginning of Jesus ministry, we look at our own beginnings.

And if some of them look a bit shabby now or half-hearted, we take consolation from the Gospel challenge to begin again. There probably won’t be any doves flying or voices from heaven, but as people of God we make our beginnings like Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit. We are not alone. We make them in the power of the Spirit and in the love of the Father. So let us take courage to face our own rocky roads as the new year unfolds before all of us.

MARY MOTHER OF GOD

This Sunday January 1^st we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, as well as this we also celebrate world day of prayer for peace. In the modern Roman Calendar only Christmas and Easter have an octave. This Sunday it is the turn of Our Lady as we celebrate her as the mother of God. At the Council of Ephesus (451), Mary, the mother of Jesus was proclaimed as  Mother of God or Theotokos. Under this noble title she is still honored by most Christians around the world, and today’s feast invites us to lay our hopes and plans for the new year in her motherly care. We entrust all our concerns and those of our world, with all its conflicts and injustices, to her motherly protection. on the feast of the Holy Mother of God we see Mary marveling at what has happened, treasuring the events of Christmas in her memory, and pondering them in her heart. The image is that of the contemplative woman who ponders the marvels the Almighty has done for her. Mary treasured the words of the shepherds in her heart, for they were Good News. She was the vessel of God’s providence; she conceived by the power of the Spirit. Her Son was Messiah and King. She was the first follower and a symbol for all of us, the Church. On this feast we ask a special favour of Mary our mother and intercessor:  that the love we have for Jesus her son will Grow in our hearts and lives!  As We thank God for all that has been over the last year and look forward to all that will be we pray  through the intercession of our Lady that God  will be present with us in the good bad, happy and sad times we might encounter in the year that is ahead .

CHRISTMAS 2016

As we come to our celebration of Christmas this year the world is such a different place. In the UK referendum the people unexpectedly voted for the Brexit. Then a few short months later the USA voted unexpectedly for President Trump how the world has changed and of course the world is constantly changing. We are all panicking about what might or might not happen in the places where we live and how the world events will impact on us and our families we will have to wait to see how everything turns out. Preparing for Christmas is often a very tense time with extra hours at work, standing for hours on the queues at the shops as the craziness goes on around us. For a great number of  people Christmas is not all it seems as they deal with the stresses of not being able to provide a good time for the members of their families. Or for many they may find themselves refugees in foreign countries.

As we think of our own families we also spare a thought for  the poor, the neglected, the lonely, the victims of disaster and war.  Now after all the preparations and fuss of recent days we have time to think about Christmas and what it is all about, time to ponder on the fact that the birth of the Baby Jesus is the supreme manifestation of God’s love for humanity. Our salvation came in the messiness, poverty, and the weakness of ordinary human life that is to say our ordinary often times messy lives. Jesus was born in a stable not a great palace or mansion he was welcomed by the shepherds this hardly seems like a very auspicious beginning for the dawn of salvation! Yet, we have hope because Jesus was born into the Family of humanity with all its messiness. Christ came and brought new hope and transforming joy for all. In the middle of our own dark nights of pain and anguish, God comes and transforms them into “holy” nights of his peace.

Amid the noise and clamor that that are part of our lives, the voice of God speaks to us in the “silence” of our hearts. The first news of God’s coming to us does not go to the wealthy or those in high political or religious positions but to the  lowly shepherds, who had no wealth, power, or privilege by any standards they were a scruffy bunch. God to whom all riches belong wants to be sure that the poor and lowly are the first to hear about the arrival of the messiah. The shepherds used to being left alone during their long, dark nights in the fields where they watched over their flocks were terrified at the appearance of the angelic mes­senger surrounded by the glory of God.  Who told them Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).The angel’s message to the shepherds is also for us in the here and now of today It simply states the good news of the birth of the Son of God into our lives. During these days of  celebration we will have occasion to sing as the angels did long ago, “Glory to God in the highest!” At this time when we celebrate the birth of “a saviour who has been born for us”, the One who is “Wonder- Counsellor and Prince of Peace,” the One who is “a great light”  we welcome the opportunity to put aside our cares and worries for a short while in order to bask in the joy of the season, and give Glory to God as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Emanuel who is God with us. Now with Mary and Joseph with the shepherds and Angels Let us take this story and the news of great joy into our hearts and let the joy and peace flourish within us as we pass this joy on. Let us be thankful for the light that is Christ the light of the world.  Let us hold this simple story of Jesus birth in the Manger in our hearts throughout the year whatever ups and downs it may bring.

THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

This Sunday we celebrate the last Sunday of the year with the feast of Christ the King. This feast was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925, to remind us that our allegiance was to one who exercised power not by force or might, but by love and service for others. The gospel reading for this Sunday is part of the passion that we read on Palm Sunday the scene opens as Jesus hung on the cross between two condemned criminals. Jesus had uttered his famous words of forgiveness “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” and his last possession his clothes had been gambled away by the guards. Jesus had nothing to look forward to but death and the scene ends with one of the thieves asking Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. Jesus reply was the beautiful words “today you will be with me in paradise”. The “good” thief acknowledged he and the other criminal were rightly condemned for their acts by legitimate authority.

But Jesus was unjustly condemned by an authority which had no jurisdiction over him. Later when the disciples interpreted Jesus’ life and ministry they applied Isaiah’s image of the Suffering Servant to him,  the servant who was like a lamb led to slaughter; who bore our infirmities so that we could be healed and raised up. From the cross and through the power given us by the Holy Spirit, we are able to respond to hatred with love; forgive when we have been offended and serve those who cannot return the favour these are just a few of the ways Jesus gives us his power and shows us how to use it for the sake of his Kingdom and the good of all. While this gospel closes the liturgical year, it is not the end of the story. Here we are over 2000 years later thinking about the cross as well as Jesus’ promise of life given to the thief. The kingdom of God is a kingdom where everyone is valued and no one is left out. The cross is evidence that God, in the person of Jesus, really does care about each of us. God cares about both thieves in the gospel not just the one who acknowledged his sin.

God cares so much for us that he wants to share in every part of our lives. He knows our pain, the anguish that comes from living in an imperfect, often hate filled world. He embraces it as a standard, a light that demonstrates his unconditional love for each and every one of us. The kingship of Christ has nothing to do with triumphalism or lording it over other people. Jesus is no victor entering the city at the head of tanks, leading rank upon rank of infantrymen there is no fly-past with jets or other warplanes nor is there a great flotilla of warships or boats. The King we celebrate this weekend is the Son of God who walks the dusty roads of our daily lives finding the weak, the ill, the oppressed, the ones whose hearts are wounded, the ones whose minds are confused by the bright lights of materialism and the things that they see going on around them. Jesus finds all kinds of people as he journeys with us along the dusty roads, he finds ordinary folk as well as the elite, the powerful as well as the weak and he invites all of them and all of us to walk his way as we prepare to begin another Church Year with the advent season.Are we prepared to take up the challenge to start walking down the road that leads to salvation as we end this liturgical year and begin anew?