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FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING 34th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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. The readings this Sunday come as a sort of final warning. Malachi pulls no punches. Those who have chosen to live their life harming others will disappear without a trace. Those whose lives are centered on themselves in self-pride that considers no one their equal will face the truth of their lives that is the way they lived them. Our Gospel reading for this Sunday has Jesus on the cross between the two thieves. The cross reveals both the folly of our sin and the toll sin takes on our world where the innocent suffer cruelly at the hands of the powerful.

The cross also reveals God’s profound and undying love for us. Even Jesus’ crucifixion did not turn God away from us. God loves us, even when we do our worst. We have a God who is not indifferent to our suffering, indeed, he has entered into our pain and the horror of death for us. Christ the King does not condemn those who murder him; while he passes a merciful judgment on those who turn to him in sorrow and need. Remember the thief who asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom Jesus told him that he would be with him in paradise. The gospel shows us that all through his life and right up to his death Christ has taken a place with the suffering, poor, sick, the defeated and the outcast who cry out to God. In our midst he stays faithful to us, no matter how far we have attempted to go down the road on our own; or how far life has driven us. 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 that begins next weekend  are we with Jesus and his call to us to be merciful to the people around us in our locality? Do our lives demonstrate  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 cannot be learned 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 become servants of the poor. Let’s not forget the beautiful truths of faith 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 in our daily lives and dealings with those around us  “Christ is King to the glory of God our father.”

33RD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

In November as a Church we pray for the dead in many Churches over the past few days we have held our annual masses for the parishioners who have died in the last year  may all of them rest in peace and may their families be consoled by the love of the communities where they are.

As we come to the end of the Liturgical Year we listen to Jesus’s words concerning the end times. The vision of the future in the Gospel Reading for this Sunday doesn’t look very appealing. The bad news is delivered first of all. Jesus imagines a time of terror and trouble and persecution ‘Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines and there; there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. Jesus says, “These things must happen.” Then there will be cosmic upheavals: “the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven”.

After this catalogue of disaster there is the good news. Jesus looks beyond the time of distress to the final time, when the Son of Man will gather the scattered people of God to himself.  Jesus sees beyond suffering and persecution to a future of peace with God . God does not call us to be anxious, but he calls us to confidence in the message we hear in the gospel and asks us to proclaim it in our lives so  that we will remain in his light. Christ remains our high priest who has offered himself for the forgiveness of our sins. God knows what it is to be human. The Lord calls us to stay awake amidst the distractions of life, so that we will recognize him when he comes again. St. John of the Cross wrote, “When evening comes, you will be examined in love” (Sayings, 60). We prepare for the day of Christ’s coming by first recognizing him in our brothers and sisters and by knowing him in his word and his sacraments. False securities and shallow guarantees will not sustain us in times of strife and testing. God alone must be our hope.

God’s ways must be our ways, so that when our securities and misplaced confidences fail us we can turn our eyes to God’s saving light. Let us keep vigilant and not be anxious for that day when God who is love calls us and looks at us with love and says Your endurance has won you your life.’

32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

In the course of his public ministry Jesus faces a variety of groups and individuals critical of his beliefs and values. In this Sundays Gospel story the Sadducees pit their fundamentalist interpretation of the Law against what they regard as an unorthodox innovation, belief in the resurrection. They attempt to ridicule the resurrection of the dead by recalling the Mosaic Law on marriage. The Sadducees develop an example to the point of absurdity in instancing seven brothers each of whom marries the same woman, but each of whom dies childless. None of the brothers has proved husband in terms of producing an heir: in that case, the Sadducees ask whose wife would the woman be in the resurrection? In his reply Jesus makes it clear that there is no comparison between human life, shared by all, and the resurrection, shared by those who are children of God. Jesus makes the distinction between the people of this age who live a life peculiar to this time, and the just who are resurrected from the dead into a new life in the kingdom of god. Moses called God the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. If the Lord is God of the living, then he will continue to be so to those who have died. Relationship with God does not end in death: to God all people are alive.

Perhaps the Sadducees’ method of argument sound familiar. There are many who belittle people rather than consider if there is any truth to their beliefs. Most of us have experienced this when we profess our faith. Someone says to us “So, you believe in the Trinity, prove it. So you believe in the spiritual, prove it. Your Catholicism, your Christianity, is just child’s stories. Jesus did not back down he knew that he had come to do the will of the Father in doing that He would suffer being scorned by others for his faith. He would be crucified for his faith. Because so many around us do not respect our faith, or respect us as Christians or as Catholics, we are often called to put up with their scorn for the sake of the kingdom of God. Pope St. John Paul told us from the very beginning of his papacy, “Do not be afraid.” We cannot be afraid of what others are thinking about us. We cannot be afraid of what others might say about us. We cannot be afraid of what others might do to us. Our only fear should be the fear that we cave into the world, reject Christ, or push Him aside in any way. With St. Paul, we pray, “May the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father who loves us and gives us everlasting encouragement and hope, fortify our hearts and strengthen us.

Let us pray that Jesus’ compassion and mercy will touch the people of this world that God loves. Let us pray that when that touch is to come from the community of faith, from the Church, from us, that we may respond as Jesus did. Let us pray that all people would see one another as valued human beings, so that people of all races and backgrounds would be respected, so that the peace of the Kingdom of God would transcend all barriers of nations and cultures and unite a fractured, broken world.

31ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

We have just celebrated the feast of All Saints on November 1^st and  then All Souls on November 2^nd. Also during the Month of November we offer our prayers and masses for the holy souls remembering our family members our friends and all those we have known in this life who have passed on may all of them rest in the peace of god’s kingdom. This weekend our gospel story tells us about Zachaeus the Tax Collector. The tax collectors in Jesus time were despised because they were seen as enforcing the tax system of a foreign country. It seems that Zacchaeus was a small man who was anxious to see the person that all the fuss was about; personally I think he was looking for something more in the spiritual sense as he climbed up into the branches of the sycamore tree to get a look at Jesus as he passed by.  Zacchaeus put his dignity and the prestige of his position on the line when he scrambled up the tree Jesus saw him and he saw his willingness to accept the message of salvation.

The story of Zacchaeus encourages us to seek and find Jesus in our daily lives.  Sometimes we need to go and climb up the sycamore tree of faith to a different level to see the Lord as he passes by.All of us have a role to play in the ongoing work of building up the kingdom of God in our own place.  Our task is to bring love and care to all the people we encounter whoever they may be.  If we ignore people and bring them down to our own sometimes self-centered level we end up being the thorns and weeds that are removed from the harvest and cast into the fire as rubbish. We come to worship in our churches each week to get a better glimpse of Jesus as our Faith is the “tree” we climb. Our hope is that Jesus will  give us a clearer view of where he is in the midst of the issues and struggles we face day and daily. We’ll stay in this “tree” where we meet the Lord each Sunday but just for a short while, then we will climb down to return to our daily lives. The final verse in today’s Gospel can help us interpret many other stories about Jesus. His key mission was “to seek out and save what was lost.” Jesus wants to come to the lost and confused parts of our lives.

The parts we cover up and want to forget and there are so many dark places in people’s lives these days for so many reasons.  Jesus wants to make a home with us in the very places we have closed up and locked away. He knocks on the door of our hearts and invites us to let him in to change what we have given up on and so many people have given up on Faith and all it entails in recent times. He knocks on the door to bring out into the light the broken and discarded parts of our lives that need healing and Love. In the days ahead may we be like Zacchaeus not afraid to go out into the world climbing the tree to look for Jesus and not be afraid to bring his message to the people of our time and place.

THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS & ALL SOULS

At the end of this week we have two feasts the feast of All Saints on Friday and the feast of All Souls on the Saturday. On November 1st the Church celebrates all the saints: and the great multitude of those who are in heaven enjoying the beatific vision that are only known to God. During the early centuries the Saints venerated by the Church were all martyrs. Later the  1^st  November was set  as the day for commemorating all the Saints. We all have this “universal call to holiness.” What must we to do in order to join the company of the saints in heaven? We “must follow Jesus footsteps and try to conform ourselves to His image as we seek  to do  the will of the Father in all things. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history” (Lumen Gentium) The feast of All Saints should inspire us with tremendous hope.

Among the saints in heaven are some  people whom we have known such as Pope Saint John Paul or Padre Pio who both lived in the last 100 years.  Padre Pio died in 1968 and of course John Paul died in 2005. But there are so many ordinary people who show us how to be saints by the way they lead their lives and we try to follow their example as well.  After rejoicing  with the saints in heaven on November 2^nd we  pray for all those souls who in the purifying suffering of purgatory await the day when they will join the company of saints. in a special Part of  the eucharistic prayer the priest remembers all those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, the priest implores God to grant them a place of happiness, light and peace. In a special way we remember our families and friends who have passed on and we also remember all those who have died whoever they are throughout the whole month of November which is known as the month of the Holy Souls. So at the end of this week we pray with the saints in heaven as we remember all who have died may they rest in the peace of the kingdom of God.

30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of October with the schools in our locality having the midterm break for Halloween next week. It is also hard to believe that next Friday we celebrate the feast of All Saints closely followed by all souls the next day. The readings in our Liturgy for this weekend are all about the HUMBLE person of faith that God calls all of us to be in our own time and place. That means that we shouldn’t lose the run of ourselves when dealing with people and the situations that we might find ourselves.

What does the Gospel Reading about the tax collector and the Pharisee say to us today ? Also and I think more importantly what about the words of the Tax Collector who said in a simple humble way  God be merciful to me a sinner what do these humble words  say to us? I think that the Tax Collector despised by the people because of the job he does (nobody likes the tax man even now) is saying to us that we need to have the humility to be humble before God who knows that we are sinners even before we say it and we also have to be humble with other people dealing with them with real humility.

Real humility is about facing  the truth  about the person we are and often times we don’t like to hear the truth about ourselves or any situations we might be in.  The person who is truly humble will always see pride in him or herself as a bad thing.  The person who is humble believes him/herself to have nothing, when in fact he has God, who is for him and in him!  The person who knows  how to be dependent on God humbles himself so much,  putting himself in his proper place before his Creator, that God cannot  leave him in this state:  the Lord lifts him up to his own Glory in order to make him his adopted child.  In a word, he who humbles himself, God justifies! The more someone makes himself small in the eyes of god, the more the Lord is pleased to come and live in him and to make him shine with his divine light before other people.  In our modern world, Pride which was very strong in the words the Pharisee spoke dominates the world, and it is this pride which often leads many people the world over down a long lonely path. The old saying rings true that pride comes before a fall and we see this  in so many places and situations we might find ourselves or perhaps we have seen other people in. Today, the same as  every  other Sunday, we shall receive within us Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist.  We shall approach the altar of the Lord with humble hearts and minds. This approach testifies at once to our humility and to our grandeur.

It testifies to our humility, for we humble in believing that what we see as bread is not bread but rather the Body of Christ.  It testifies to our grandeur, for, in communion, we truly become the Body of Christ, adoptive sons and daughters in the only Son of God!  May this approach be our justification, for the salvation of the world! I finish with these words from Micah which really sum up the gospel reading for this Sunday and what does the Lord require of us? He requires us To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God? The Lord requires us in the same way to be just, kind in our dealings with other people and to walk humbly with our god so let us go forth into the world with true humility in our hearts and minds so we are able to serve those who need us most where we are.

MISSION SUNDAY 2019

This Weekend  we celebrate the international missionary effort of the Church throughout the world. Here in Ireland for many centuries there have been so many great Irishmen and women  who have gone to foreign lands to bring the faith of our fathers to those who might not have got the faith otherwise. The same faith that was brought to us in our turn by the missionary efforts of Saint Patrick many years ago. This Sunday celebrates the great missionary spirit that has brought the faith to all corners of the world over so many years.  we remember all those who have gone into the mission fields from all the countries of the world, members of the religious orders such as the Columbans, Mill Hill Fathers, St. Patrick’s  Kilteegan Fathers the Medical Missionaries of Mary and all the other religious orders who along with the Lay Missionary movements such as Viatores Christi have brought Christ and the light of his message to the far corners of the world.

Mission was understood as going abroad, to countries where the Church was not yet strong or to places where people suffered from poverty or conflict. This is indeed still necessary and valid today and we pray people will continue to give their lives to mission in this way. Mission was also seen as the task primarily of priests and religious, with a  few lay missionaries, and their work was and is still supported by the generosity of the people especially those at home. Mission is essentially faith in action, and to this we as baptised are all called to be missionaries at home where we are. There are many ways in which people live mission today, both at home and overseas. These include being involved in action to prevent trafficking, various kinds of social and community work with the poor and marginalised, reaching out to refugees and migrants and action to care for the earth. Some of those people who are engaged in these activities may not profess a formal Christian faith, but it is evident that their activities are inspired by Gospel values and they are promoting the reign of God.

Mission Sunday gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves what is our mission perhaps we should be asking ourselves what are we doing to promote the kingdom of god where we are and do we support those engaged in mission activity by our prayers and other help.  Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to thank god for the faith that we have as well as acknowledging and thanking god for all those faithful missionary men and women who left everything in order to bring the faith and the light of Christ to the far corners of the world. We pray that the Lord of the harvest will continue to inspire many people to join the missionary effort both at home and abroad  as we go forward with faith .

28TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

This Sunday our readings are all about gratitude and the attitude of gratitude in our Gospel Reading we hear the story of the ten Lepers and their lack of gratitude for their healing. This is one of many such examples of ingratitude that occurred during Christ’s public ministry, most of those he cured forget to thank him. In today’s incident there was one who had the decency to return and thank his benefactor, and he was the one least expected to do so. This pleased our Lord and led Him to remark on the ingratitude of the others. This Gospel story is not only about the Lepers it’s also about our lack of gratitude for the many good  things that we have in our lives given to us by God. When we were youngsters growing up we were taught to say, “Thank you” by our parents when they gave us a sweet or whatever, when we didn’t we would be dutifully reminded, “What do you say?” and of course we said the magic words ‘Thank You.’

All the lepers showed great faith and confidence in Jesus’ power to heal but only one of them said thanks. They had not heard Him preach nor had they seen any of His miracles. They lived in isolation camps because of the leprosy, yet they believed the reports they had heard.  The nine lepers were appreciative of what Jesus had done; we don’t know, why they didn’t bother to show their gratitude to Jesus. We can only look to ourselves to ask why we are often reluctant to say thank you for all the good things we have. There is seems to be great deal of awkwardness surrounding the attitude of gratitude and saying thank you. Personally I find that to be thanked means more to me than being given a gift for a task just done. Whatever the reason for our own ingratitude, we know that it diminishes us and those who help us. All of us have reasons to give thanks for so many things yet very few turn to the Lord with words and hearts expressing our thanks for all the wonders he has done for us in our lives.  Do we have the attitude of gratitude which thanks god and those around and us for their goodness to us.

When we gather each Sunday we come to join God in the midst of the assembly with gratitude in our hearts. We give praise and thanks to God and we thank him for all those who have given us their help. May all of us have the attitude of gratitude for all the good things that we have in our lives which means that we are thankful for all that we are and all that we have especially in these times when so many have little or nothing at all.

26TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

This Sunday the gospel story tells us about two people, a rich man and a poor man it is a good reflection on the situation in the world at the present time where those who are rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor who are getting poorer. The rich man is wealthy in clothes and food; he is also rich in privilege and  freedom he is free from the worry that besets those who are poor even though he was poorer than the poorest man because of the way he lived his life. You can imagine Lazarus praying: “Give us this day our daily bread.” But he didn’t get  a crumb. You cannot imagine the rich man praying, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Because the privilege he has blinds him to Lazarus the man who lies at his own gate. Both men eventually died as all of us will.  Lazarus went straight to heaven to the joy  of endless happiness.

On the other hand the rich man fares very differently. His enjoyments are over. He is now in Hades and he is told that he can expect no relief. Abraham tells him why he is in his present state: he abused his time on earth he acted as though there would be no judgment day of course there was and he sees the truth of this. He knows that he has no one to blame but himself which adds to his torment. It is also a cause of additional grief to him that his bad example will lead his brothers that is his fellowmen to a similar fate. All the parables of our Lord are based on everyday happenings. While we hope and pray that the case of the rich man described here is not an everyday occurrence, there is no doubt that such cases have happened and will happen again especially these days when the few have so much and so many have little or nothing at all.  This rich man is in eternal torment because he let his wealth become his master and forgot God and his neighbor and his own real welfare that leads us all to eternal life. There are people like the rich man in our world today, men and women young and old who completely ignore their real future. While they know that their stay on this earth is of very short duration and that they will have to leave it they still act and live as if they had a permanent home here. There is a lovely scripture verse that tells us that when the tent of our earthly dwelling is folded up we will come to our true home in heaven and this is so true.

For all of us today there is a simple question are we going to be like the rich man and ignore those around us who are the Lazarus’s of our own world. There are times when our lack of Compassion and action is our crime think of how we react to The homeless, the refugees or those who don’t have enough daily bread. All of them all worthy of our thoughts our prayers and a share of our resources. Christ, shared his riches with everyone we should do the same and not be like the rich man in the gospel story!!!