4th Sunday of Advent 23 Dec 2018 Sermon

4^th Sunday of Advent 23.12.18 Fighting for life

We have images of Christmas which evoke peace, such as the Crib scene, the general feeling of goodwill that goes with Christmas, the carols.

Unfortunately, however, there is a more violent aspect to Christmas. There are the wars, and acts of terrorism, and crime in general; but another kind of violence as well, that which results when good meets evil. That sets off at least a spiritual violence, which has been going on since Lucifer was cast out of heaven.

We, as Christians, are caught up in this battle. We are battling for the Truth and the Light, to prevail against the deceptions of the evil one

It is a life-and-death struggle, not always physical, but always spiritual. Victory means eternal life; defeat means mortal, death-dealing sin.

We fight over moral matters, things which concern whether or not we obey Almighty God, or we think we can do better ourselves – things to do with marriage, and family, and life; beliefs which have been in place for millennia, are now being challenged and in danger of being overturned.

So a fairly average person now thinks it is alright to have an abortion, to end life through assisted suicide, to marry someone of the same sex, to say that gender has no meaning, to create babies outside of the womb, to blaspheme God in works of ‘art’, to restrict the Church from being allowed to proclaim or operate on its own beliefs, claiming we ‘discriminate’.

We can feel the rug being pulled from under us. Many of our own number have lost confidence and direction, and gone over to the other side. They have adopted secular views in place of the Christian position, allowing themselves to be deceived by cunning falsehood.

The Church’s authority comes directly from God, so an attack on the Church is an attack on God Himself. This is how serious it is.

We need to reaffirm our identity and mission. We are here to serve God and to save as many souls as we can.

The truth does not change as God does not change. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. (Ep 6,14-17)

You might find yourself the only person in your family or workplace that still believes these things, but they are still true. It is harder when one is in the minority but, Lord, to whom shall we go? (Jn 6, 68)

If there are fewer standing with us, it is all the more necessary that we stand and fight. There is work to be done.

We fight, but not as the other side does. We bless when they curse (Rm 12,14); we seek to win them over rather than kill them. This is the way of Christ Himself. He does not use force; He seeks to persuade.

Today’s Gospel: Make straight the way of the Lord. We are giving His own world back to Him.

If we had obeyed Him from the start we would not be in all this trouble. We are re-establishing the foundation of truth on which to rebuild.

We will win eventually insofar as Our Lord will come again in glory, and all His enemies will be under His feet.

But we want a happier ending than that. We want Him to be welcomed as Saviour and not feared as Judge.

We want everyone to be saved, as He Himself does.

But for now the battle rages on. We will have some peace over Christmas in terms of relaxing, but the urgency of the overall battle will soon press in on us again. The fight will not last forever, but the result will.

Save us, [Lord], from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven…

3rd Sunday of Advent 16 Dec 2018 Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Advent 16.12.18 Christ within or Spiritual strength.

We are told to rejoice always, but we immediately wonder: how can I rejoice if there is so much wrong in the world?

From a prayer attributed to St Patrick: Christ be with me, Christ be before me, Christ be behind me, Christ be in me, Christ be beneath me, Christ be above me, Christ be on my right, Christ be on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I arise…

All these different places Christ can be, and all very close to me.

Here I am thinking I am all alone in an impersonal universe, and then I find the Creator of that universe is next to me wherever I go! Suddenly life looks a lot better.

He is close, and always has been, only it is not the way we normally think.

We think too much according to our physical senses. If we can see something it is there; if we cannot see it is not there, or so we let ourselves think.

We have to develop a more spiritual understanding of reality. We are surrounded by heavenly beings - angels, saints, and God Himself

We might feel lonely and unloved if there are no other people around. There are always heavenly people.

In moments of anguish and anxiety we can call on their help. Any angel or saint, any one of the Three Divine Persons – we will be heard.

Nothing can happen to us unknown to God. Every problem we ever had, have, or will have, He will be there close by.

This is our faith, though it may be very fragile. We can nurture it by constant reaffirming and renewal; to the point that what we perceive spiritually really is central to our life and daily behaviour.

God wants us to be strong in our confidence in Him. He will teach us on the job. It is like an apprentice relationship. We have to start acting like true disciples and then we find the faith will come. The faith emerges as we go along.

It takes practice and discipline to overturn bad habits we have developed (such as complaining, panicking…)

If we keep up all the recommended practices we will see progress: daily prayer, weekly Mass, frequent Confession; penance, good works, etc

At any moment we will act in the best way, according to His will – this is the goal.

Never again self-pity, and thinking we are all alone and washed up.

He leads us to a deeper faith. We are told to be child-like, insofar as we trust in Him. We also need to be mature in that we are able to take a few blows without losing balance.

We are in one sense like sheep that He comes looking for; in another sense we are like the bride in the Song of Songs, who goes looking for her Beloved (Song 3,1-2).

We look for Him in the sense that we are seeking this deeper grasp of His closeness to us.

It is good for us to have to work towards this deeper faith. We reach a point that Christ acts through us, instead of simply solving the problem Himself.

We would prefer it if He just dealt with everything, but this way benefits us more; we become better people, conformed to Christ, not just admiring Him but living out His presence in us, letting His grace bring forth the best in us.

The more this happens, the less we worry. Perfect love casts out fear (I Jn 4,18).

2nd Sunday of Advent 9 Dec 2018 Sermon

Second Sunday of Advent 9.12.18 Repent

If St John the Baptist were to stand before us today, what would he say?

Our Lord makes reference to John’s clothing: did you expect to see a man dressed in soft clothing (Mt 11,8)?

John’s clothing was not soft, nor was his preaching. He spoke the hard truth, that his listeners were sinners and needed to repent.

Much of present-day language is softened: people today make ‘inappropriate choices’ or ‘mistakes’ or ‘errors of judgment’ (these are all euphemisms for plain old sin!)  The use of such terms can make the sin seem less serious and therefore not as urgent a matter as it really is.

John addressed some Pharisees present at one of his talks - You brood of vipers (Mt 3,7).

Not very nice, many would say today. Yet his words were true, and spoken without malice. He cared for the wellbeing of others, and that is why he served up truth – necessary for them to know, so they could make the necessary changes in their lives.

So the Church has ever since been preaching, Repent, Repent.

That is what John would be telling us today. In any century, in any country, the same tune, the same words, the same urgency.

Having absorbed the hard language, repentance is hard in another sense insofar as it requires us to give up certain things, to which we may be attached, or even addicted.

But it leads to joy as we feel the weight of sin lifted from us. The Lamb of God takes that sin on Himself. We feel liberated. The pain is worth it.

We cannot cling to our sin and still expect to be admitted into the kingdom of God. Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers (1 Co 6,9).

Many would argue today that God will admit them to Heaven because He loves them. But do they love Him? That part is also necessary. We must have genuine contrition for our sins, not just rely on God's love to carry the day.

He will help us to reach the required state, if we let Him go to work on us. We approach Him in sacraments and prayer, and we gradually improve.

Ancient Israel was always learning the painful lesson that if they disobeyed God they would pay for it in other ways. They would lose their battles, suffer plagues and diseases, be divided from each other.

Sound familiar? The same problem applies now. The human race as a whole suffers all these things, because people do not come to terms with God.

And many within the Church have abandoned confessing their sins, preferring to be more ‘positive’ in their outlook, emphasising their achievements rather than their failures.

We must, whoever we are, confess our sins and, like the Publican, begin with asking for mercy (Lk 18,13). This we do in every Mass, and should do every day, at least once, an Act of Contrition.

We have to do all the other things: go out and evangelise the world, relieve poverty, and contribute to the social and moral welfare of our societies.

We cannot wait until we are perfect before we embark on these courses, otherwise we would never be able to do anything.

But implicit in all our projects is an acknowledgment that we are always in need of God's mercy.

If we are humble before Him He will bless our undertakings and there will be much good fruit.

St John the Baptist and all holy prophets will tell us so, in plain language. May we hear the truth and live by it.

1st Sunday of Advent 2 Dec 2018 Sermon

1^st Sunday of Advent 2.12.18 Justice restored

In films the hero and heroine go against the odds and manage to survive all sorts of dangers, outwit the villains of the story. And usually manage to marry each other as well. And all this in 90 minutes!

Real life is not so easy. We might have 90 years instead of 90 minutes, yet not see things wrapped up so neatly. We have known trouble all our lives, and we may have a lot more of it to come.

We know that the good will be rewarded and the evil punished, but we may not live to see it; or it may happen in ways that we cannot recognize.

Here we have to trust in Almighty God who sees all things and has all time in His hands.

He knows who committed all the murders, who stole the money, who told which lies, who set others on the wrong path etc. Nothing is hidden from His sight, or lost to His memory.

We would like to see it all sorted out in our time, but God has His time. He can see a lot further than we can, and He is working to a very definite plan.

God seeks to save as many people as possible. This requires time. As in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Mt 13,24-30), He does not punish all evil immediately or to its full extent.

He has given the human race at least twenty centuries to come right with Him; and maybe more centuries to come.

We should not be distressed by that large sweep of time. We ourselves benefit from God's mercy, so we should not be too hasty in demanding justice, or we might get more than we want!

We are firmly promised that it will all be sorted out. The good will be rewarded and also compensated for any innocent suffering they have endured. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh (Lk 6,21). He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and raised up the lowly (Lk 1, 52). For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever. (Ps 9,18)

Many people have been grievously mistreated, such as in torture, murders, genocide, concentration camps, all manner of injustice.  God will see that the poor and the oppressed will be restored. If not in this life, then the next.

This is the thrust of many of our Advent readings; that the displaced people will once again find a home; that a lost paradise will be restored.

The evildoers can be forgiven if they have genuine sorrow; otherwise only Hell remains for them. We should want them to be forgiven because that is what God Himself wants.

On the Last Day all will be made clear, everything said in secret will be proclaimed from the housetop (Lk 12,3) - not literally, but in the sense that truth will prevail over all deception, a time for all the loose ends to be tidied up.

We have the chance now, while still alive, and not yet the Last Day - to tidy up our lives as far as we can. We can tie up as many of those loose ends as we can, to prepare the way; to take the fear out of the final judgment. We will not be afraid if we have built up our union with Our Lord.

We thank God for who and what He is. We thank Him in advance for what is still to come, the Second Coming of Christ.

This event will satisfy our thirst for justice, promised to the pure of heart (Mt 5,6 and 5,8).

It will also satisfy our desire for mercy, as we see the sin of all ages removed, and the contrite of heart rewarded.

We can hasten this event by our expectant hope (2 P 3,12); so let us hasten.

Come, Lord Jesus!