3rd Sunday after Easter 22 Apr 2018 Sermon

3^rd Sunday after Easter 22.4.18 Two worlds

In the Gospel today, Our Lord offers encouragement in our time of sorrow: you are crying now, but later you will be laughing. You are sowing in tears, but you will reap with shouts of joy. A woman in childbirth feels pain, but later joy… there are many such images throughout the Scriptures.

Can we allow ourselves to be so encouraged? Or shall we wallow in self-pity and gloom?

While we pick our way through this valley of tears do we look up to the heavens and draw inspiration from there; or do we look down at the mud and slime around us, and generally lean towards despair?

Of course we will look upwards. This is more than just ‘looking on the bright side’, the general advice to be as cheerful as possible.

When we look up to Heaven in prayer we are helping to bring about the final victory.

Suppose our Lord had risen from the dead but not one person believed Him! His triumph would still be real but it would not benefit the human race - if there were no one to receive its fruits.

But when a community of believers emerges then the power of Our Lord’s victory takes hold and transforms things.

It would be easier if a majority of people believed with us, but we can get by with small numbers. The truth remains the same regardless of how many or how few believe it.

The Resurrection is easy enough to believe as a fact of history. Our problem is not so much with the fact, as with connecting it with our own lives.

He is risen, but I am not, we might say! Nor do I have the power or the goodness to break free from my sin and degradation. Nor, in general does the world get any better.

Discouragement can set in – and this when we should be brimming over with paschal joy, radiating faith and love to all around.

How do we get that sort of faith? By doing what we are doing now, praying the Mass, confessing our sins, praying the Rosary, doing good works, and all similar things.

This will help us maintain our strength. We have to be ‘on call’ like emergency workers, ready for anything at any time.

We learn to be sensitive to pick up the signs. We do not need a major miracle every day; we learn to read the signs around us,

To keep ourselves strong we learn to live in two worlds, the earthly and the heavenly.

Living in the heavenly world we maintain the right values and have true wisdom. And the hope of Heaven will sustain us. That is our true home.

Meanwhile we live in the earthly world, the here and now. We deal with whatever befalls us, with practical charity and wisdom, and trust in God to steer us through.

We make things happen by our belief. We are not adding to anything Christ did, but we are bringing His influence into our place and time – and this is what He wants from us.

We evangelise the unbelievers, console the downhearted, strengthen the weak. We may think we are weak, but there are many who are weaker still.

We stay strong ourselves, and this with all the means we have; every day of our lives affirming what remains true, and letting that truth be the strongest influence in our lives.

To see the glory through the mud is not just a fairy story but actual truth. It is what sustains us, and will sustain anyone who is prepared to look ‘upwards’.

2nd Sunday after Easter 15 Apr 2018 Sermon

2^nd Sunday after Easter 15.4.18 Fully known

We might worry about personal data being spread abroad in the internet age. We do not trust what others might do with our personal information.

But long before the Internet there was someone who knew all our history, in far more detail than any computer could record it.

It was God Himself, God the Son, the Good Shepherd: I know My sheep, and Mine know me (today’s Gospel).

When Adam committed the original sin, he hid behind a bush trying to escape God’s sight! (Gn 3,8). Ps 138 (139) reflects that if one were to seek the highest mountain or the deepest part of the sea, God would still be there. There is no place outside the range of His knowledge or interest.

We cannot escape his gaze, but, but then on reflection why should we want to? It is much better for us that He is there. He offers us His friendship, desiring to help, to heal, to save.

Many think the universe a cold dark place. It would be indeed without God. As it is we can find Him, as He seeks to find us. We need not be afraid of being known (by Him). Then we shall know as we are known (1 Co 13,12).

We play games trying to look good for other people, pandering to human approval, missing the main point by a long way.

Instead we could be developing a personal interaction with the Good Shepherd. The ‘sheep’ have no better option than infinite perfection!

Many do not want God to come close. They fear Him (in the wrong sense); they do not want their individual liberty curtailed. They dislike any mention of religion. Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.(Hound of Heaven)

But we have to come to terms with Him eventually, even if it be our final judgment.

We can all feel vexed at times, feeling very negative with life, but we know this is not the final state of things. Our Christian hope enables us to see a much better ending, than whatever we may feel at any given point.

It is best to get in the groove immediately. If we are to be sheep let us play the part, and seek out the Shepherd, save Him the trouble of having to pull us out of some pit or other.

No more tantrums with life. Why was I born? I never asked for it! Maybe not, but we can make it worthwhile with a little humility and patience.

We have a choice in one sense: we do not have to accept God’s mercy and grace; He will not force us.

In another sense there is no choice, as the alternative to dealing with God is one long exercise of self-destruction. It come to Heaven or Hell, which would you rather have?

We are like fish, resigning ourselves to swimming in the ocean because we know no other place.

God is not an oppressive authority. He is a lavish giver, and wants to pour out His goodness on us.

He knows His sheep, even the stubbornness and the particular kind of resistance each person puts up.

He will seek to wear that down, without forcing. We do not have to give up our will to follow Him; only put that will into union with His. We can choose differently at any time, but we will never want to do that.

His sheep know Him? Not very well, so far! We have a long climb out of mistaken notions. We have been hiding like Adam for too long.

If only people would come out of their hiding places, they would be much happier, and so would the world.

May the Good Shepherd continue to be patient with us, but let us not tax that patience.

Low Sunday 8 Apr 2018 Sermon

Low Sunday 8.4.18 Body and Soul

The greatest thing that can happen to us is to be forgiven of our sins.

Forgiveness brings life to our souls. We each have a body and a soul. They can both be alive, both be dead, or one alive and the other dead.

The body being alive means your heart is still beating etc.

The soul being alive means you are in a state of grace. (The soul is what sort of a person we are.) If you had to choose between them, it is the soul that really counts.

This is not widely understood. People are usually more worried about their bodies than their souls. Emergency departments are full, churches empty.

‘I came that they might have life, and have it to the full’ Our Lord says (Jn 10,10). He means both bodily and spiritual life, envisaging the glorious resurrection of the body. But first we have to do something about those sins.

Sins kill us (mortal), or wound us (venial). We can come back to life, or full health, and this is better than even physical healing.

This is our message as the Church to the world: Come back to God, or come for the first time.

He will forgive you and you will know true life.

He will put his life in you, and you will have the vitality of someone who is truly alive.

Your body may be old and weak through illness. You may not feel any better physically for being forgiven but you have attained the highest level of life.

He will always grant mercy to the sincere penitent, even if we have committed the same sin many times before.

We can grow in our contrition, and we can reach a point where we may have confessed a hundred times before, with greater or less degrees of conviction, but this time we really mean it! Our sins can be less than one year, or five years ago. Less of them, less serious.

We can go only so far with our own willpower or thought processes. Some things are deeply engrained in us, and we cannot deal with them by our own efforts, or just by wishing them gone.

For more stubborn sins, encrusted on our soul, we need the grace of God to blast them away.

These sins impede our progress. They tie us to the earth when we want to soar aloft.

He will do all this if we ask for it, which we do in every Mass, Confession, Rosary, Divine Mercy chaplet, and many other prayers and devotions

If we are dead His mercy brings us to life. If we are alive we become more so. And we pray to go further and further into life.

What if we have no sin? Some people claim that status. It is highly unlikely, but even if it we could be so, we still need to pray to stay in a state of grace; and always we must pray for other people.

The Divine Mercy devotion activates our sense of hope and urgency.

It is urgent because there is so much sin around. It is hopeful because we know the power of God's mercy to work wonders.

We are trying to bring dead people back to life (spiritual), and that is no small matter.

Praying for others is limited insofar as each person has a sovereign will, and can resist or reject any graces directed towards it.

However, as we see, many people do convert as a result of the prayer of others, so we press on with renewed enthusiasm.

We are trying to create an atmosphere favourable to true conversion, as in Fatima and similar places. We are not just trying to catch this or that fish, but the whole sea!

Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven (Jn 20,23)

May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.

Easter Sunday 1 Apr 2018 Sermon

Easter Sunday 1.4.18 Belief

We have suffered with Our Lord through His degradation, and now we find that degradation suddenly turning to great glory.

We are always inspired by stories of someone coming from an improbable position to one of triumph. This is the greatest by far of any such story.

We acknowledge that we are on a much lower scale, yet we can see the same pattern in our own lives, as we go through the valley of tears before we reach the mountain top.

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy (Ps 125(126),5-6).

We are more familiar with the hard part than the glorious outcome! Some give up altogether, crushed by the hardness of it all. They should have waited, as we should keep waiting.

Imagine standing outside the tomb of our Lord, at any point between His death and resurrection. Looking at that stone wall of the tomb. Remembering what you saw on Friday. Can you believe that He would come out of that tomb? He said He would (Lk 18,33), but can you believe it?

That is really the test of our faith. We know the story. We know He did come out; so that question maybe is easy to answer.

But if you were alive then not now, it would not be so easy.

The test for us is not so much with the fact of the Resurrection, but with our current issues: Can you believe that God will deliver you from all your troubles and sorrows?

We are still ‘looking at a stone wall’. Will He come out? Will He hear my prayer? Will He come again to save the world?

I believe my Saviour liveth and on the last day I shall see him (Job 19,25)

To be able to look at death, and say I believe in life. To walk through a cemetery and say: I believe these people will come back to life. To look at all our problems, and say I believe God will solve these problems, will somehow get us through.

We do not have to know how, just believe that it will happen.

It is the same process that God has been doing ever since He began the restoration of the human race, after the Fall.

All the prophets, the great figures of the Old Testament, Christ Himself coming back to life, then the apostles, persecutions, martyrdoms… all manner of trouble we have been through; and yet here we are, still believing. Still looking at the wall.

I do believe; I do not worry about appearances because again and again God has exploded negative appearances and come up with highly positive results.

And the Resurrection is the best of them all.

In the meantime, as we bump along this rather difficult pathway, we never lose hope, never complain. We have our eyes fixed on the glory that awaits us if we persevere (2 Co 4,17)

We take every chance to reaffirm our belief in God, that He has the power and the desire to make things come right.

The more we believe, and the more people believing, the quicker things will lighten up. There does not need to be so much gloom as there is: it is caused by sin. Remove the sin and we feel a lot better straight away.

This is a day for victory against the odds. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Co 4,8-9)

Whenever you feel down and out, just remember Friday to Sunday, cross to resurrection, death to life. For us it is always Sunday, always life.

Palm Sunday 25 Mar 2018 Sermon

Palm Sunday 25.3.18 Sorrows

Our Lord went through all this pain

- because He thought it was necessary. People generally underrate how much damage theirs sins do. The Cross tells us that sin is a very serious matter.

- because it would be the perfect sacrifice able to atone for all sin of all time.

- because it would gather disciples (like us) who would be willing to die with Him, rather than kill Him.

The Cross would serve as a permanent reminder in this earthly pilgrimage of all these things, above all the need to persevere to the end.

It is consoling that we have the Resurrection, but there are times when we need to contemplate the darker side of things.

To let the full effect of Christ’s work operate on us, the least we can do is be grateful, and then to make an effort to free ourselves, or at least not dive back into the pit.

What he has done is a million times more than we can do for Him, but we should do what we can, and give Him the consolation that not everyone rejects Him.

Some Christians celebrate Easter without worrying about all that went before. They bypass the suffering and death, reasoning that He is risen now, and all the rest is past and gone.

Thus empty crosses.

Whereas the Church’s view is that we need to work through the details, to be fully engaged. Our own contemplation of the sufferings gives us a deeper appreciation of what is at stake.

Not least because our own lives are situated in a great deal of suffering and sorrow.

We are happy in principle, but we have so much to go through yet, to be fully in the clear.

We are in the valley trying to reach the top of the mountain.

The evil does not have to infect us. We could live among sinners without being one ourselves; it is just harder. But it can be done and should be done.

And done to such an extent that even the sinners want to come and join us, like those who realized at the Cross that they needed to be with Him, not against Him.

We are changed by contemplating Him in his sufferings and death, enabling us to be more compassionate, patient, trusting etc.

And we live with greater humility and charity as regards other people. We are not so angry in our thoughts, more willing to forgive, keeping the spirit of Calvary foremost.

Let us spend this next week in extra contemplation of such things, and much prayer.