4th Sunday of Lent 29 Mar 2020 Sermon

4^th Sunday of Lent 22.3.20 Yearning for God 

There was enough food to feed the five thousand, but also a lot left over. God is abundant in His blessings, and also in the scope of those blessings.

The multiplication of the loaves symbolises God’s power to satisfy a deeper hunger.

There is food that satisfies the spirit. This is not easy to do because our spirits have a yearning for the infinite.

Whenever we find something that inspires us we want that thing in greater quantities. For example, if we see the ocean, or a sunset, or a mountain, we are moved by their beauty. We want more of that beauty; and more frequently if possible.

Ultimately it is God that we seek. St Augustine put it: our hearts are made for Thee, O Lord, and they cannot rest unless in Thee.

That is the truth, and it holds for everyone, though many will deny it, some vehemently.

People might not realize what they are yearning for.  If we live for this life only we think we need only worldly things – food, drink, sex… then do it all again tomorrow.  Happiness or misery consists in having these things or not.

As to what it all means – who knows?

Just denying that one needs God does not remove the need. We may not seek Him; we still need to find Him.

There is some happiness in the worldly way, but it fails to satisfy. There is that restless yearning that St Augustine described.

This is what Our Lord was saying through the miracle: if you are impressed with this, wait till you realize what I am really bringing you.

Look higher, or deeper, and you will find great mysteries unfolding.

It is a yearning but a pleasant one. Like always being hungry, and always being able to satisfy that hunger as well.

We draw on God enough to satisfy, but never all there is. The more we taste the more hungry we are to know God better. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 33 (34), 8).

It takes a certain amount of patience and perseverance. One has to wait sometimes. God will not always perform a miracle at the first moment.

He is wanting to raise expectations and teach people to go deeper, such as looking at the way they live.

God will not be bound by our expectations, but will constantly challenge and surprise us.

Even if we don’t know how God will act, we know that He knows what to do - so we have perfect trust.

We are looking for something without quite knowing what it is. We can imagine a better life than we have had, and a better world than we have ever seen. But here we are looking for something not just a little bit better but a whole different dimension.

God wants to share Himself with us. He wants, more than we do, that we do discover Him.

Offering Himself as food is a statement of what He can do, and how far He will go to make it right for us.

He will encourage anyone who does seek Him. No matter where we have roamed we can return.

He will seek out the lost, even the evil, for the sake of giving them a better way forward.

He offers Himself as the Bread of Life. Let us not refuse the best offer we will ever get.

3rd Sunday of Lent 15 Mar 2020 Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Lent 15.3.20 Purification

We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no burnt offering, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favour with you. But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received; As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bulls, or tens of thousands of fat lambs, Dan 3,38-39)

This summarizes our present depressed state, that we are not able freely to partake in Holy Communion (corona virus).

We can give God other things, however. We bring Him a contrite heart and a humble spirit. And this is what God wants most of all.

He would rather receive this from us than a whole hillside of animals. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. (Ps 49(50), 12).

God is so concerned for our attitude that He sometimes allows His people to go through times of persecution or deprivation, just so they will have a chance to work on that attitude.

He lets His people suffer to purify us of false attachments, or even of justifiable attachments where they might impede our love for Him.

He wants to be Number One. It is not conceit on His part, as it would be on ours. He knows that if we do actually worship Him as first and foremost we will then discover the true value of everyone and everything else.

In the present deprivation of Holy Communion, we have the chance to step back a little and consider what Holy Communion means to us; to reaffirm that we still have God Himself, through faith, hope and charity; that having Him we have all else.

He is purifying us, bringing us to a deeper state of holiness.

When we face a crisis we really start praying. We thought we were praying before, but now we are really doing it.

It is a question of degree. How seriously do we take Almighty God? How much do we really give Him?  We might do all the right things, externally. Mass, Confession, Rosary, other prayers, give to the poor, do penance – all of which is good.

Yet it is still possible to do all these things and be holding back from full commitment to God and His holy will. There can be dark corners where we do not allow the light to go, areas hidden even from ourselves.

When we die and face judgment we will see the dark corners. With a little effort we can see them before we die.

We can see the areas where we are not completely submissive to God’s will, nor trusting in Him; putting self-preservation ahead of trust in God; content with doing less rather than more, in His service.

So we have the sad fact, that Massgoers, religious people, can still commit sins, and big ones too.

It is a struggle for us to bring the whole self to submission.

In today’s Gospel there is a parable of someone who achieves a certain level of holiness, but then collapses into something worse than he was in the first place.

We cast out one demon and get seven more instead. It does not have to be that way, but it can happen if we are not attentive to the whole of our spiritual lives. We can never declare ourselves perfect. We have to maintain vigilance lest the evil creep back in..

So we are in a constant state of repentance, contrition, seeking perfection.

Being at one with God is our greatest joy. We discover that He is no hard taskmaster, but kind and compassionate.

           

He will not tax us beyond our strength. The hand that hurts is the hand that heals (cf Job 5,18).

Let us reaffirm our trust in God, in the present crisis and any others still to come.

No public Masses for time being

The Archdiocese has stopped all public Masses as from today, 19th March 2020.
Unfortunately this means there will be no Latin Masses at St Monica's or Sacred Heart Church until further notice.
Please pray for the resolving of all that contributes to this state of affairs.
I will be offering Mass privately every day for all the usual intentions.

2nd Sunday of Lent 8 Mar 2020 Sermon

2^nd Sunday in Lent 8.3.20 Trust

At the Transfiguration, Our Lord was attempting to strengthen the apostles so they would be assured of His glory and goodness; and remember that assurance when they would be confronted with other things such as the Crucifixion, or their own persecution which would follow later.

All God's miracles have this effect – assuring us of His power and desire to do us good.

We need lots of assurance in this earthly life, because we have to endure a lot of bad things before we can enjoy the good things without restraint.

It is easy to become discouraged in the midst of sufferings; and easy also to give up altogether. We need only see how many people have done so to realize that.

Events such as the Transfiguration, and even more so the Resurrection, remind us that our suffering is finite; is limited in time and extent.

We have to suffer only a short time (1 P 5,10); whatever we suffer is more than compensated by the weight of glory (2 Co 4.17).

We find it hard to be cheerful in the midst of suffering, but it does help certainly to know there is great glory coming afterwards.

Why do we have to suffer? Because we are caught up in a war between good and evil; and it is impossible to come through a war without someone getting hurt (and that might include us).

We will be glad to talk of our battles once they are over. Just now they are not over. We are still fighting on many fronts – our own concupiscence; dealing with divisions within the Church; dealing with the wider society, so intent on denying or ignoring the ways of God.

It is as certain as day follows night that good will prevail. The whole of creation is in God's hands; He holds all the cards.

If the power of evil appears unchecked it is only because God permits it.

As we go through the battles we grow in spiritual maturity. Our capacity to love, to endure, to understand – these are all increased; as is our trust in God.

We become strong enough to withstand misfortune, and we are able to trust in God even if the whole sky falls in on us, cf the experiences of Job.

God does not overtax us in practice, knowing that we are still learners in the spiritual life, but  at least on principle we would be able to survive, even if we suffered like Job.

By the grace of God we can overcome anything that comes in our path.

Thus we can negotiate the Cross and not be intimidated by it, knowing that the grace will be available, and that the Resurrection comes straight after.

The mountain-top experience enables us to see the whole of our lives in one scene. We rise above the details of the current crises, and see the whole picture, as God always could see.

We have a long history which has brought us this far. We do not know how much longer before God wraps up the whole proceedings, but it is our privilege to be able to be some part of the story.

We are small players on a big canvas; yet we are important in God's sight.

Assured of a glorious destiny if we hold on to the end, we proceed in confidence.

Life would be a lot easier than it is if more people would trust in God. This lack of trust, as a general state of things, is one part of the Cross we have to endure.

If we trust, we will be helping others to do the same.

It is Cross followed by glory; night followed by day. We will see better times.

Making a spiritual Communion

MY Jesus, I believe that Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things and I desire Thee in my soul. Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though Thou wert already there, I embrace Thee and unite myself wholly to Thee; permit not that I should ever be separated from Thee. Amen.

AT Thy feet, O my Jesus, I prostrate myself and I offer Thee repentance of my contrite heart, which is humbled in its nothingness and in Thy holy presence. I adore Thee in the Sacrament of Thy love, the ineffable Eucharist. I desire to receive Thee into the poor dwelling that my heart offers Thee. While waiting for the happiness of sacramental communion, I wish to possess Thee in spirit. Come to me, O my Jesus, since I, for my part, am coming to Thee! May Thy love embrace my whole being in life and in death. I believe in Thee, I hope in Thee, I love Thee. Amen.

http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/AnteMissam/Acts.html

1st Sunday of Lent 1 Mar 2020 Sermon

1^st Sunday of Lent 1.3.20 Battle of wills

Our Lord overcomes the temptations the devil puts before  Him.

The devil puts certain attractive ideas forward; Our Lord crushes those ideas with His own much stronger wisdom.

We know what it is to be tempted; we do not always dismiss the temptations as decisively as Our Lord did.

It boils down to a battle between spirit and flesh. In Our Lord’s case His flesh was totally in harmony with His spirit. So there was no conflict.

With us there is a lot of conflict, and we often find ourselves wanting the wrong thing, or basing our decisions on the wrong footing.

Every sin can be seen as a wrong perception of reality.

The first sin of mankind was based on mistaken appearances; the forbidden fruit looked good to eat. Every other sin has been along the same lines.

Our Lord was able to turn that on its head. In His humanity He could see the true value of each thing, and it was easy then to choose that which is best.

He did not seek first to gratify His own flesh; rather He sought the spiritual good above all else.

Because sin has entered the world our desires are out of balance. We tend to put the flesh ahead of the spirit; to put our own desires ahead of the holy will of God.

How can we shift from what pleases me to what pleases God, and so will please me?

Are we prepared to let God have a say on what we should be doing, or what our life situation should be? Or are we going to keep Him as far away as possible, even if we do give Him some attention?

His ways are always going to be right. We know that before we start, but we can try to ignore the fact and press ahead with what we want.

The devil will come in and reinforce our wrong inclinations with the help of our friends, families, colleagues, neighbours – any of whom might encourage us to do whatever we are inclined to do. After all, we have a right to be happy, they will say.

Beware of false advice. Let us take God's advice instead.

He has infinite wisdom and vision. He can see through all pretence and deception, and He can help us increase our own share of that wisdom and insight.

At first it is more likely that we do not seek to please God so much as to please ourselves,  while hoping not to displease God.

Lent is a time to crack the egg, take the bull by the horns, burn our bridges… to make radical progress in grasping God's will with both hands.

I am sick of my sins and my bad habits; I am going to change.

Small progress is fine if we cannot do it all in one hit. It is a matter of getting the next thing right. One thing at a time. And then keep doing that.

If we get something wrong, we acknowledge it, learn from it, and quickly bounce back.

Gradually our wills change to conform with God's will. This happens as we grow in spiritual maturity, becoming fully human in Christ.

It becomes easier to accept God’s will as we see Him more as an ally than a threat; and it becomes natural to love Him as we love others, such as family. Doing right and pleasing God amount to the same thing.

Christ of course achieved all this in His humanity. So He will help us learn from Him.