Fullerton T

1st Sunday of Lent 2014

The readings for the 1^st Sunday of Lent  should convince us that we really are sinners, and that it’s pretty arrogant of us to deny it I am often reminded of the scripture lord be merciful to me a sinner! It is time to make Lent what it is meant to be, a time for correcting our faults and raising our minds and hearts to God. A time for personal and community conversion! A time for personal and community renewal! A time for coming face-to-face with God – our origin, our purpose and our destiny – and being changed for the better and forever by that healing encounter!

 The bottom line for all of us during Lent is that we should try to get to know God better so that those not too easy to detect lines separating good and evil will become more apparent to ourselves and everyone else through us.   The Church teaches that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are significant ways to become closer to God.  The decision for each of us is to determine what form of those three things to make our own this Lent. The temptations, to which our Lord allowed himself to be submitted, are a source of encouragement and consolation for all of us. If our Lord and master underwent temptation, we cannot and must not expect to live a Christian life without experiencing similar tests and trials. The three temptations Satan put to our Lord were suggestions to forget his purpose in life that is his messianic mission of redemption for one and all. He was urged to get all the bodily comforts of life, all the self-glory which men could give him, and all the possessions and power this world has to offer. In the same way all the comforts of life are put before us including the self indulgence and glory which is the exact opposite of our calling as followers of Christ. We are called during Lent not to give in to the temptations of this life as we are called to renewal of heart mind and Spirit.

As we begin our Lenten journey may god give us his grace to make a good Lent as we begin our journey  on the road to Easter .

ASH WEDNESDAY

As we begin the season of Lent we begin a period of reflection and renewal for our personal spiritual lives and hopefully those around us will be doing the same. It is a time when we undertake a certain amount of giving up things or doing things that well may be out of the ordinary such as getting up to go to an early Mass before going on to work or school or giving up this that or the other. But the season of Lent should be much more than doing things though all of the above mentioned things are important. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that a good Lent makes a wonderful Holy Week and Great Easter. I don’t mean that we should be like the man who, when asked why he was beating his head against a brick wall, said ‘it’s just so nice when I stop!’ There is more to Easter than the first bite of chocolate, sip of wine or gasp of cigarette on Easter Sunday after the Lenten fast. Lent is not all about making life ghastly and hard for ourselves for 40 days just to show we can do it, but it is actually about so much more. It is about Holy Week and Easter, and our focus has to be on the distant light of Christ at the Easter vigil that we should be looking towards right from the very start on Ash Wednesday and then as we travel the road of Lent, Holy Week and Easter.

 Instead of giving up things I think that we need to take up things, things such as the scriptures, the word of god, or maybe the pope’s message for lent or the  various forms of prayer and prayer books or whatever means we may have for bringing ourselves to God. The question to be asked and applied to you and I is this, does my prayer life deepen my relationship with God? Do my daily choices truly reflect my commitment to become Christ like in my life and dealings with others? What can I change to better embody the good news of Christ so others might follow? Lent offers the gift of 40 days to re-evaluate the way we are going and gives us a chance to empower ourselves to do better. Our penances and prayers are all about the resurrection; not just our Lord’s, but our own. They are all about allowing the grace of God to do its work in us, making us more like him, becoming less self-centered and more other person and God-centered so that we are more able to proclaim the kingdom of God by our words and deeds.

8TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Well here we are at the 8^th Sunday of ordinary time as we face into the season of Lent with all the opportunities it provides for us on the spiritual front.  Lent means many things Ashes, Fasting, and may be even Fish on Fridays. These and many more things come to mind as we begin this important  40 day period of preparation in the Church year  as we head towards Holy Week and the great feast of Easter. Though the Church requires fasting and abstinence, these are not the most important things about Lent. Fasting and abstinence are no help to us unless they move us to deeper prayer; bring us to a deeper commitment to the most important truths about our life in faith: baptism, forgiveness of sins and a share in the Resurrection through conversion of heart and mind.

The readings for this Sunday are about three questions that are ultimately responsible for our general attitude as we live our daily lives.  Who has not felt forgotten by the Lord?  Who has not felt judged prematurely by others?  Who has not worried about having the basics of everyday life?  These are common and reoccurring feelings that we all experience throughout our lives. Sometimes these feelings are deeper or stronger than at other times, but they still get to people whenever they feel most unsure or vulnerable about something that they consider important at that particular time. We find ourselves at different places in our lives at different times and different feelings  good and bad certainly come and go.  God is always there though: God does not come and go he remains the same as he was as he is and as he will be in the future the alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end.  “Can any of us add a single moment to our life-span by worrying?”  No, we can’t!  The only thing we can do is trust that the Lord is in control of our lives journey and we are in control of how we spend the time that he gives us and hopefully we use the time  wisely. During Lent we are called to a period of renewal that is renewal of heart, mind, body and more importantly renewal of our souls. This time of renewal should bring us to a deeper commitment to the most important truths about our life in faith. Let us  Open our mind and hearts to the presence of God in our lives and our daily living and not be afraid to embrace the opportunities for us to grow in the Faith of Christ who is the light of the world during the season of lent.

5th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

In today’s Gospel  passage Jesus speaks again in the present tense, “You are the salt of the earth….You are the light of the world.” It is very common these days, upon entering a church or religious institution, to see the community’s “Mission Statement” prominently posted. Usually, such a statement is the result of a prayerful dialogue by the community to arrive at a description of its identity and mission in the light of the Gospel.

At one parish some members of the staff told me their Priest  composed and published the statement without consulting members of the staff, parish council or parishioners. A woman said, “Since we didn’t have any input, how can we identify with and fulfill that mission statement? It’s not ours, it’s his She was right. But Jesus has that authority. Jesus’ mission statement to us, his followers, fits the requirement of a brief, focused and easily remembered summary of our task. Even those who don’t read much scripture can quote today’s teaching, “You are salt of the earth….You are light of the world.”

We are to be witnesses to the world. Jesus begins to describe the task for his disciples by using two images. We are to affect the world the way salt and light affect their environments. Salt seasons food, and in Jesus’ world, it was used as a preservative. It kept food from spoiling. Light removes or pushes the darkness back. Even one lighted match can be seen at a distance on a dark night. It doesn’t take much to have a surprising good effect when light is lacking.

With the salt image comes a warning. “But if salt loses its taste…it is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Christians cannot merely co-exist and comfortably fit in we too could loose our saltiness and be trampled underfoot. We must change what needs changing. Remember the saying, “If it were a crime to be a Christian, would they have any evidence to convict you?” would the charges be against you and me be upheld and what exactly would we be convicted by? Hence, Jesus’ warning that salt can lose its capacity to season the food it is in and should be thrown out. We are sent on mission into the world to change it – not merely to live in it. Jesus tells his disciples that, though they are only few in number, they are salt.

The danger for the church is that, being in the world, we disciples can take on worldly ways and lose our “saltiness” to flavor those around us. We are called as Disciples to draw out goodness in the world by supporting what protects, nourishes and enhances life, while rejecting what limits or destroys it. For these and other positions of the status quo or the same old thing  “salty disciples” are to be agents of change. If we cannot bring about more humane conditions for all, then Jesus is right, we are salt without flavor and useless for his purposes of passing on the good news. In the Gospel reading today, Jesus, says to those who had just heard His teaching on the Beatitudes, “You are the salt of the earth … you are the light of the world.” In this passage, Jesus urges them not to “light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket.” No, “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” We need always to look outward to those who are looking for light, as well as to those who have given up hope of ever finding it! As we hear the challenging mission Jesus gives us we can feel what those first disciples must have felt – we are not large or influential enough to affect the world and resist the powers that “run the world’s business.” On our own, that’s true.

But remember we are not on our own. Jesus began his words  with a reminder of God’s blessings here and now. At this Eucharist, through Word and Sacrament, we are again formed and reformed by God. We are called to be salt of the earth people and followers of Jesus whom God blesses and Jesus sends on mission. We strive, with God’s grace, to live out the gospel mission statement Jesus has enfleshed by his life, death and resurrection.

3rd Sunday year A

FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN

The whole thrust of this week’s readings are about the call of Jesus to Peter, Andrew, James and his brother John to follow him as disciples. The great words that Jesus spoke way back then “Follow me and you will be fishers of men” have resonated throughout the ages as many people have taken up the call of Jesus .

When Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, he left Nazareth and went to Capernaum. Herod Antipas was ruler of this territory, Galilee of the Gentiles, regarded as a region of God-forsaken pagan ways. It is here that Jesus goes to take up what is now the dangerous mission of John, to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom.Jesus then proceeds to call Peter, Andrew, James and his brother John to follow him as disciples. Through Jesus, what has been spoken through the prophet Isaiah is at last fulfilled: “. . . the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has risen.”

The light becomes an efficacious means to express God’s involvement in human history. God manifests Himself as ‘The Light’ that disperses the darkness. The light illuminates, encircles, defines things, emphasizes the colours and gives depth to space. The light heartens and comforts: to be in an enlightened place helps us to accept reality for what it is and makes one feel happier, more certain and protected. A joy and happiness that became real in Jesus’ presence. He is the promised light that has come into our midst, His physical presence that expresses the definitive arrival of the Light. The light that shines brightly marks God’s initiative performing His first merciful and free step towards a wounded humanity.This dynamic is expressed through Jesus call of the first Apostles. He chooses them with an unequivocal call, ‘Follow Me’. Faced with God’s sudden interruption in their lives He invited them to abandon the nets and trust themselves totally to the Lord for a new ‘catch’, a new definitive horizon. At the Last Supper, the end of His earthly life, Jesus reminds His disciples ‘you did not choose me, no, I chose you’ (Jn 15:16).

 This Sunday’s our  Gospel invites us to remember that our personal vocation is founded on God’s original and absolutely free choice.  This means that we are totally free to accept or deny his invitation to us to take up the vocation that is for us.  Let us ask the Lord, for us and the whole Church, for the gift of a true conversion of our hearts enabling us to receive Christ as the only Light to follow. Christ is the only one that really dispels the darkness within and around us.

The Second Sunday after Christmas in some countries Epiphany

Yes you did read the heading correctly it is the second Sunday after the feast of Christmas and we are now almost  at the arrival of the Three wise men on Epiphany which takes place on Monday 6^th January or in some countries on Sunday the 5th.  By long standing sacred tradition Christians celebrate Christmas as a season, with the twelve days between Christmas and the Epiphany as one long “Christmas feast.” The season ends with the Baptism of the Lord which is also the first Sunday of ordinary time and that takes place next Sunday.

Epiphany means manifestation. What the Church celebrates today is the manifestation of our Lord to the whole world; after being made known to the shepherds of Bethlehem He is revealed to the 3 kings  who have come from the East to adore Him. As Christians, we will very often find ourselves living in contradiction to the styles and preferences of the present age. The present age which presents I want I get as the normal thing. Regrettably we have to get used to the fact that we will face conflict among friends, and even at times within families, as we seek to live out and the Christian life more generously in word and deed.

 May we not be afraid in the year that has just begun to seek the wisdom that God wants for us, that is the wisdom and the light of faith so that we will have the wisdom of the three wise men to follow the star which is Jesus the light.