32nd Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 10 November 2024 Sermon

 32nd Sunday Ordinary Time  (B) 10 November 2024 Generosity

The woman gave more than the others because she gave more of herself. It was ‘all she had,’ whereas the rich could give plenty, but they still had a lot in reserve.

It was the same story with the widow in Elijah’s time (first reading). She was preparing what she thought was her last meal, and yet was willing to share it with the prophet. To make matters worse the prophet insisted that she feed him first – a clear hint to us about whether we give first place to God or to ourselves.

To be people who give rather than take. God is Love. The essence of Love is to give without counting the cost. God gives of Himself within the Blessed Trinity, and then extends that out to us, giving of Himself to us in His healing, forgiving, comforting, strengthening etc.

It is not the amount we give but the attitude with which we give it.

This is why a poorer person could give more than a rich one – because he has an attitude of giving. The willingness to give defines his humanity and brings Him close to the Heart of God. When God became human it was generosity that was one of His clearest attributes.

He was generous to the point of death, and this was ‘while we were still sinners’ (Rom 5,8-9).

It is then up to us whether we learn the lesson – in some ways a lifelong lesson.

If we do have a generous attitude, we will receive a hundredfold in return (Mk 10,30) we will have discovered the key to the whole business.

Generous to neighbour, but first to God, in gratitude and obedience.

God will know if we mean it or not, and He will help us to mean it, by implanting His grace – His giving nature. We cannot measure spiritual qualities like purity of the heart, but we can always do things which will increase that quality – such as prayer, such as risking generosity and seeing what happens.

The cynical will deny that true goodness is possible, dismissing it as unrealistic and unattainable, grasping meanwhile for what they can get and keep. We learn instead from the evangelical simplicity of Our Lord, and other saints through the ages who were nearly always in material poverty yet knowing spiritual joy. 

While we want to reduce poverty, we want even more to bring about a change of heart for the better in each person. 

So, we resist the temptation to dismiss generosity as impractical, and we turn to the Lord in prayer to derive every necessary grace from Him. The widow’s food did not run out, and nor will ours if we take this path. God will give us our daily bread, and reward us for our trust in Him.

If we can put all this into practice we have discovered the key to eternal life, the precious pearl that is worth selling all else to possess (Mt 13,44).

So, we also strive for evangelical simplicity, to be generous to the poor even if we are ourselves poor, and so discover a great spiritual richness, which will after all express itself in financial form, while at the same time making the world a more pleasant place to inhabit. 

31st Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 5 November 2000 Sermon

 

[This is one from the archives, as I did not get to write one last week]

31st Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 5 November 2000 Desire for God

We are told in the Gospel that we should love God above all else, with our whole heart, soul, and mind.

We can find this difficult because God can seem remote or abstract, whereas we are more comfortable with people and things that we can see and touch.

Even if we want to love God we can find it hard to know precisely how to do so.

We can learn something of how to make progress here from considering another important topic at this time of year - the souls in Purgatory.

We are asked to help the souls in purgatory by our prayers. Help them to do what precisely?

To see the face of God. That is their greatest longing.

If you had been crawling through the desert for three days, your greatest longing at that time would be for a drink of water.

If you had been stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean your greatest longing would be to see a ship come by.

Well, if you are in purgatory, your greatest longing is to see the face of God.

They are close enough to God to know how good He is, but not close enough to be able to see Him, and it is a great frustration for them.

We could make an inadequate comparison from our own experience whenever we have just missed experiencing something that we really wanted to do.

If we just missed out on a trip, or seeing a particular concert, or being present at a memorable event.

Or, more seriously, the feeling of grief for the death of one we love.

It is that sense of nearly having, but not having it now. It becomes the one main desire.

In purgatory the souls have nothing else to distract them. (We are insulated from this pain by having other things to do.)

In this they can teach us what it means to love God - loving God means not putting a dozen other things ahead of Him.

On earth we tend to crowd God out as we can get so busy with other things. We mean to get around to God, but well, the time just seems to get away.

But even on earth we get snatches of awareness of God, which really pierce the heart.

The effect of some music, for example, which seems to awaken long ago and far away memories, or hopes that we could not easily put into words.

The almost unbearable feeling of nostalgia that can grip us at times as we think of lost friendships and pleasant moments that can never be recaptured (in this life at least).

We have a way of glossing over the past. The ‘good old days’ itself is indirectly a longing for heaven, as we sense within us the possibility of something better than this.

Nostalgia is a good image of what purgatory must be like, because it is a sad and sweet experience at the same time. We possess partially what we like, but it escapes our grasp.

So we learn from these moments that there is a greater world beyond. The hard-boiled dismiss these experiences and get on with life. But for us with faith, and hope, these moments are signs of something better to come.

We can use them to motivate us to seek out God. Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is thirsting for You, my God.

If we do this, we are fulfilling in a way that we can understand the command given by Jesus: to love God above all else.

This is not just a commandment, it is a desire. A desire that we ourselves have. We will realize it in purgatory; why not realize it now and set about seeking Him?

The best thing about all this is that if we are seeking Him we will eventually possess what we desire. It may seem a long time coming, but once we have possession we won’t mind that!

30th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 27 October 2024 Sermon

 

30^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 27 October 2024 Perseverance in Prayer

The blind man called out loudly - which indicates to us that we should exert ourselves  when asking for heavenly favour.

The story is for our benefit so that we will have more confidence in God, and present our needs to Him more boldly. We don’t have to shout, but we do have to believe, and the stronger our belief the more effective the prayer is going to be.

(See also the Canaanite woman, the nobleman who petitioned for his son, the ten lepers, the friends lowering a man through the roof.)  

1) Jesus wants us to approach Him: Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened (Mt 11,28)

And He give us parables to reinforce this. The importunate widow and the troublesome friend. (Lk 18,1-8; Lk 11,5-13) God does not get annoyed like we would do. He is always awake, always listening.

2) He wants us to trust in Him, that He has both the power and the will to heal us.

The blind man believed both of these.

So we cry out to Him when we are in any kind of trouble. Our cry is heard. The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Ps 34,17)

There are things we can do to build up our faith.

One thing is to keep our contact with God always current. We do not allow our faith to cool off. We thank him for past blessings and ask for current needs non-stop. This way we will not be discouraged. In this pattern of prayer we unite ourselves with the whole Church, which is always praying.

Perseverance in prayer is itself an expression of faith. We believe just the same whether the prayer is answered immediately or with a delay. Because we are dealing with the same God, who never changes one time to the next.

We are tempted to think we are alone and so stop praying, stop expecting any change for the better.

We are never alone. Praying will enable us to have a stronger sense of God’s presence. It is that sense of being alone that probably impedes us, a kind of ‘what’s the use’ feeling.

So when we are in trouble we pray more not less. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! (Ps 126,5)

The more prayer, and the more people praying the better.

But if we are all discouraged we will stop too soon.

3) Pray like the saints. It does make a difference who is praying. Mt 11,28)

A saint will pray with more love of God, and therefore more trust and more power will come from that.

The more we ‘agree’ with God the more smoothly everything will run.

This is what makes things give way, when we love God enough we can make a request without fear. We fit ourselves into His plans and whatever He is doing or not will be ok with us. Son, they have no wine is the ultimate prayer. Mary understood her Son and was at one with His will. (Jn 2,1-11)

God wants us to be absorbed in His will and take comfort there. Whatever difficulties we have with prayer will always stem from a certain distance on our part, whereby we do not fully trust God, or do not know Him well enough.

We learn from the blind man to be uninhibited in the face of divine power and love. Call out to him without fear and we will be heard.

[Universal prayer for universal need. We pitch in here as well, with the whole Church.]

29th Sunday Ordinary Time B 20 October 2024 Sermon

29^th Sunday Ordinary Time  (B)  20 October 2024 Saved by the Cross

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? My servant justified many …

Why could he not have just come from heaven and wish us a happy time and work a few miracles with a bit of advice?

He took a very different course. He did spread some sunshine  with his many miracles, but there was a much darker element involved as well.

Why was that necessary? It was part of the age-old battle between good and evil.

Satan is a malignant and powerful foe requiring much shifting on our part. Saving a person, or saving the human race needs a lot of interior work – that is, work on the hearts and minds of people in terms of what they love, what is most important to them.

Just having goodwill is  not enough. Something was needed beyond the normal or average response.

A new order of power had to be found because the grip of sin and death had become too strong for mere human resistance. Drastic measures were needed.

The measure that God adopted was to send His Son to become Man, and as Man, to make a sacrificial offering to the Father, which offering is renewed in every Mass.

When the Father sees the Son He looks with approval, and also looks on those whom the Son brings with Him. The Father will accept whomever His Son brings. Your friends are My friends, so to speak.

When we take part in Mass we are asking Jesus to take us with Him as He goes to the Father; our sins already forgiven we travel in humility and thanksgiving.

God does not force salvation so when we say humanity is reconciled with God that is ‘in potential’. Every person has an opportunity to be saved in this way, being identified with the Son.

We cannot overcome past evil by being good from now on, though that will help. What really works for us is simply being sorry for past sins.

The good deeds will help put us into the right mood to receive mercy.

We are grateful that we can get in the door, and we promise sincerely that we will be on our best behaviour from now on.

Meanwhile I will change what I can to be free of sin, to be full of good deeds generosity and humility etc.

The good that we do will help by keeping us in the right framework of seeking to please God.

It will not be enough in itself to save us but will make salvation more likely as we are constantly reminded of our dependence on God.

Unless I am humble I will not value what Christ has done for me and therefore not benefit. If I am humble that is the key that unlocks the door to Heaven.

Whenever we see a Cross we are reminded of how it all works, and we are invited to renew our desire to be fully reconciled with God.

Then we really can do business – when we admit to being nothing without Him.

This is why Christ was crucified and why the mysterious ‘servant’ from Isaiah had to suffer.

We might think something simpler would have done it, but God knows what is necessary. It has to be something good enough to counteract the evil which has been committed, thus the necessity of the Cross.

Salvation is not only for when we die, but should express itself in the way we organize our societies, where justice and peace etc should prevail.

We need to keep the Cross in view, and what it means, and what it requires from us.

Then we share in the glory of the servant: His soul’s anguish over he shall see the light and be content. First reading, Is 53,10-11)

 

 

 

28th Sunday Ordinary Time 13 October 2024 Sermon

28^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 13 October 2024  Challenge

I prayed and wisdom was given me (Wis 7,7). Wisdom to know what to do with everything else.

If wisdom is sorting out desires, then God must be our first desire.

God may be hard to know but He is the deepest object of our desire.

If we get a taste of the Lord (Taste and see Ps 34 (33),8) we will find it a delight to discover Him.

There are two false trails we could take.

One is to doubt God's promises to us, of such things as heavenly reward, and from today’s Gospel, manifold return on what we give up for the Kingdom.

The other is to doubt that God asks any more of us than a general compliance with a few commands here and there, not exerting ourselves in the pursuit of a holy life.

The rich young man of today’s Gospel was succumbing to the second temptation, a watering down of what true discipleship requires.

He was too attached to his riches, when he should have been attached to Jesus Christ.

So it can be for us, that we fear losing what we have, and are not sure if there is compensation for that. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Not with God.

Remember those quiz shows where you could either take the prize and go, or come back next time to get bigger prizes – but if you come back you might lose the lot!

As disciples of Our Lord we are very much in the category of ‘coming back next week’, always striving for more – more knowledge of God, more compliance with His will, more expectation of a joyful result.

We risk loss of some earthly securities, but we have the main treasure, the central point of the whole operation – the gaining of Heaven.

We can settle too easily for too little. We might settle for just a few earthly possessions, like money, health, friends, career etc, length of life, and say that is enough.

If we have those things, thanks be to God, but we do not stop there. We strive for higher things.

We need more belief in what we believe! We doubt God, not His existence, but His providence.

Jeus came to give us so much more than a few earthly assets. And He came for a lot more than telling us to be just more or less the same as everyone else.

It is easier to go along with the flow, but rarely the right course.

We take the path of serious resistance (not least resistance). We do not follow the ways of the world.

We take the demands of the faith seriously, eg if your eye should cause you to sin, pluck it out  (Mt 18,9). If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Lk 14,26).

We don’t have to be a St Paul with shipwrecks and floggings etc (2 Cor 11,23ff).

God knows what we are capable of, each one to his own capacity.

We can take it with small steps; we gradually grow in faith and readiness to commit. If we read the signs as we go, we will grow in confidence and understanding – this is what wisdom does. We start to see things the right way up.

We do the small things but we don’t think that either the promises or the demands are small-scale. There is a great deal more, and we are discovering it.

We must  ‘come back next week’… to seek bigger prizes!

27th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 6 October 2024 Sermon

27^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 6 October 2024  Marriage

When God created Adam and then Eve, He joined them together in marriage. It was the first marriage, and the first thing that happened in what was now a society.

Why was marriage so important to God and why is it still so important, that God and His Church have detailed so much about it?

Marriage is given to the human race by God as a way of sharing in His life and love, and of coming to understand Him more deeply.

We can see this from different aspects of marriage.

1) Covenant love. As God gave Himself for the human race (most notably with Jesus dying for us) - husband and wife give themselves to and for each other.

There is a dying to self in marriage as each partner gives to the other.

Whenever this happens the love of Christ for His Church is activated and many blessings follow.

2) Fidelity. As God is faithful to His people, even if they are not faithful to Him, so husband and wife promise to be true to each other. Ideally, this promise is made regardless of the other partner’s attitude.

I will be faithful to you even if you are not faithful to me (imitating and drawing upon God’s fidelity, cf Hosea, and other passages.) God loves and forgives, far in excess of what we can give to Him. Mercy is a strong illustration of this.

3) Permanence. God is faithful forever. His fidelity lasts not only till death but beyond. It stretches across millennia. Compared with that a life together of 50-60 years is not so demanding. That is all that is asked of married couples. True love endures. The promise to be together till death is a reminder of God’s greater promise to be with us always.

4) Children. God loves to create, to give life, to share what He has with His children.

Parents have the power, the privilege, and the joy of  sharing in the creation of their own children. As they freely decide to have children they share in both the power to create and the love which makes that creation desirable.

All of these elements reveal and enable humans to participate in God’s love.

True, they are not always achieved in every marriage. Love can be lacking. We can take rather than give.

Fidelity and Permanence can be sacrificed if there is too much of a self-seeking attitude at work.

Children can be seen as a burden not a gift.

But the best outcomes are worth striving for, as they carry so much good effect.

God never fails from His side of the covenant, and His covenant love keeps married people and all people going. He will provide help for all who need it.

We all benefit from God’s great love for us, and need to participate in that love.

It canot be just my marriage; it all comes under the light of Christ’s marriage to the Church.

Fortunately, wrong attitudes can be forgiven, as God is merciful. We ask that mercy for all who need it, and for the good effects which will follow.

Jesus calls the people of His time back to one husband and one wife. And they protest, How come people of Moses’ time were allowed to have more than one spouse?

Jesus says, because you were so unteachable (Mt 19,8). God tolerated polygmaous marriages for a time, but now it is time to get serious again!

We are still trying to get this right. It is an area where there is so much resistance to trusting in God's way.

Married or not we pray for  a deeper understanding of marriage itself and for all who face difficulties.

26th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 29 September 2024 Sermon

26^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 29 September 2024 One in Christ

Today is Migrant and Refugee Sunday throughout the Church.  We recall our pilgrim status as we journey through the ‘desert’ of this life striving to reach the Promised Land of Heaven.

We are right to be proud of our nation, of who we are and where we come from,  but our identifying with Christ is our strongest point of identity.

I could be other than Australian but I cannot be other than Christ-ian.

As St  Paul puts it: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Ga 3,28). He has broken down the barriers between us.

We do not have to be the same in every way. Different cultures have different ways of doing things. But on certain fundamental points we are the same – such as striving for Heaven, trying to make this earth a slice of the heavenly Kingdom, where everyone is treated with justice and charity.

Whatever is different between us cannot be allowed to change the basic beliefs of our faith, and our identification with Christ.

Some have tried to do that with certain questions of morality, suggesting that what is forbidden in one culture might be allowable in another. For example, whether it is reasonable to insist on celibacy or chastity for people of all cultures.

With the major commands and creeds it has to be the same across the board.

This is no great difficulty if we unite ourselves with Christ. Whatever He wants we must want it too.

We find our peace in Him, and every other good quality, such as creativity, which we celebrate today.

Our cultural expressions should reflect God's goodness. Art, music and Literature sport, education, scientific research, medical care – all areas of importance would be purified and enriched by drawing from the infinite goodness of Jesus Christ.

God never stops helping us to get it right. Let us recall what He has done, as regards nationality.

God has been teaching us about all this since the day He called Abraham to begin a new race. Israel was supposed to be the vanguard, the cutting edge, showing forth what happens when people obey the one true God.

It worked sometimes but the Jews were too disobedient overall to be able to teach the other nations. So God adjusted the plan to go to the Gentiles instead - with the idea that the Jews would come back afterwards and all could be one (Rom 11,23).

Moses says (first reading): if only the whole people of the Lord were prophets… (Num 11,29)

Foreshadowing a new era when it will be normal for people to interpret events in a religious framework, not just political and economic as we have now.

As we discover God we acquire more of His gifts, and can use them to help each other.

God lets people find Him in various ways, always calling them to a deeper level.

How can we achieve justice and peace if  others do not?  There are many things we can do, but most of all if we live the way of Christ ourselves; that will at least give some direction to the surrounding society.

We have set our course for Heaven and will not be deflected from that straight course.

There is only one race of people in Heaven – the Redeemed, the People of God.

In the meantime we do everything we can to be like Christ as He opens His arms to all in need.

We pray for the day when all the people of the world are crossing the desert and no one is chasing them, because the ‘chasers’ are seeking salvation too!