3rd Sunday after Epiphany 24 Jan 2021 Sermon

 

 

3^rd Sunday after Epiphany 24.1.21 Obedience

An army going into battle has to be very clear about its line of command. If every soldier went off on his own authority there would be chaos.

Everyone understands when it concerns armies or other organizations, but in normal life the principle is ignored.

In normal life people do act on their own authority, as the saying goes ‘doing what they like’.

Everyone is out for himself with his own philosophy of life and moral system and, well, you see what happens in the world.

We need to know the overall strategy of what we are trying to achieve, and then patiently wait for instructions.

As in an army we have to obey any authority placed over us. That could be human authority, and there is always at the very top, of course, God Himself.

Him we must always obey.

A lot of people rebel against God, for various reasons, but it always makes matters worse.

Whether through pride, stubbornness, impatience, despair, or whatever reason, people break ranks and try their own solution.

What is the correct solution? Obey God in all weathers, even if His instruction appear impractical (such as putting out nets at the wrong time of day, or taking water to the head steward, or handing out a small amount of food to a large crowd.) In every case the faithful response will lead to a good outcome.

God made the world in a perfect state. In the Garden of Eden there was no disorder; everything went as smoothly as the heavenly bodies do today.

Everyone and everything knew their place. Until the first sin - and then, hard work, struggle, sickness, death, and a whole lot more sins, and so till today.

Never fear, we can reclaim lost order, and we do that at every Mass, and all our other prayers and penances.

Obedience to God will restore order, at least to some degree. We cannot make up for all the sin of the world, but we can improve things at least somewhat.

The centurion of today’s Gospel had it very clear in his mind. If he tells a lower ranked soldier what to do, that man had to do it.

So if God commands a sickness to leave someone that sickness has to go. As happened in this case.

If everyone and everything observed this order all the way up and all the way down the line, we would have perfect order in the world.

Sin is disobedience; it is sin that is at the root of all the trouble in the world.

This is why we have natural disasters – because men do not obey God.

This is why nations have so much trouble organizing themselves – because they do not look to God for His authority. They think they can just squeeze Him out, no longer having to worry what He thinks!

If we do not obey what is above us, what is below us will also rebel. St Paul alludes to this: We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8,22-23).

The result of particular disobedience may not be identifiable but it will be in there somewhere. Just so an act of atonement will have a good effect somewhere.

The short direct prayer will not necessarily have instant visible effect because some things are more complicated than having a sick servant.

But we put the request in anyway, trusting that it will help the overall trend towards healing.

Only say but the word and my soul shall be healed! And the world too!

2nd Sunday after Epiphany 17 Jan 2021 Sermon

 

2^nd Sunday after Epiphany 17.1.21 Transformed

The fact that Our Lord chose a wedding as the occasion of His first public miracles can be seen as an endorsement of how important God regards marriage in His plans.

He wants marriages to be sustained by His love, enabling husband and wife to love each other.

He wants married couples to reach a point that they would be willing to die for each other.

The measure of love is how much one would be prepared to suffer for the other person.

The marriage at Cana suggests the mystical marriage of Christ with the Church.  He shows that He is willing to die for the Bride, and as well to give her a share in all that He has.

Christ can give various blessings - physical healing, miraculous food, forgiveness of sin.

The biggest and best thing He can give is a share in His own nature, and with that an ability to love as He does.

He says Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 13,34), and He means that not just as an imitation but a participation.

He cherishes the Bride as His own body. He loves far more than He is loved in return.

We are transformed in our contemplation of Him; we are being made into something better, as individuals and as the whole Church.

The Church as bride is being purified of sin (Eph 5,25-33),  and with that is being transformed into radiant beauty ready to meet her husband (Rev 21,2).

The miracle of Cana hints at this transformation. There, Our Lord changes water into wine, foreshadowing that later He would change wine into blood.

Each stage is better than the one before. Water is fine; wine is better; blood is the best of all - not in taste, but in its effects on us.

Water will keep us alive; wine will bring us joy; the Blood will change us - into something better.

The Precious Blood is the strongest drink we will ever have; it will overpower us in terms of its effectiveness!

It conforms us to Christ, so that we are united with Him, and healed by him. We start to think more like He does; to take on His view of the world.

This is medicine for the soul, that will help us discover our true humanity, not the weak humanity of the flesh, but the transformed humanity of the spirit.

We are drinking pure goodness and power, and this will change us. All this presumes that we are approaching Him sincerely in Holy Communion. We have to be engaged in the process, really seeking to be changed by Him. We do not have to be perfect - not all at once; but at least willing to be perfected.

In each Communion His blood is poured out in love for us, a love which was challenged to the full and expressed in practice, not just remaining a theoretical possibility.

What Our Lord gives us has infinite value. What we return will improve each time as we let His love work in us.

We develop a capacity to suffer for love, and this is the best state we can reach as humans. This is to be Christ-like on our part.

So the Bride grows in love for the Bridegroom. Long may it be so.

Holy Family 10 Jan 2021 Sermon

 

Holy Family 10.1.21 Mutual love

In Heaven there are no quarrels; no raised voices; no angry tones; no jealousy.

This is where we are meant to be, and in the meantime how we are supposed to interact with each other.

On earth we try to make things as much like Heaven as they can be, to establish peace and harmony between people in whatever form of community they live; also in the process, to establish an inner peace of soul whereby we are being made ready for our own dwelling in Heaven.

Today we honour the Holy Family, a model of family life, and of any attempt by people to live in community, be it a family, a parish, a city, a nation, the whole world.

We might protest that the Holy Family was too holy for us to imitate, that we cannot be expected to live as they did. Maybe we will never be that good but we can always improve on wherever we are now.

We draw both inspiration and strength from the Holy Family.

God has established family life as a way of teaching us that there are others besides ourselves.

We are tempted to be selfish and individualistic in our approach to life.

We can develop our individual identity, and we should do that; but not in such as way as to see others as a burden, or to stifle their individual progress.

We see from the life of Christ that God wants humans to be able to give to each other. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15,13); Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (Mt 20,26); Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 13,34).

This learning to love others is a major part of our own salvation. If we do not love then we get this… Go far from Me, for I was hungry and you gave me no food (Mt 25,41-42)  

We need the communal element to finish the individual element.

We are judged as individuals, but our relationship to the whole Body is a crucial indicator of what sort of individuals we have become.

Families can help even when not functioning well. Even if others fail to play their role and  let us down we can still learn from that, becoming stronger in the process.

We are moulded like gold in the furnace (Proverbs 17,3)

Our Lord prayed that we all be one (Jn 17,21). This can be taken to mean one faith, one religion, but also one in the more general sense of getting along together, no raised voice, jealousy etc.

We must all see ourselves as part of the living Body of Christ, the Church. This requires a lot of give and take as there are so many points of view involved.

A little  humility, a little trust, and we can each move closer to Christ, to the heart of the Holy Family, the heart of the Church. Gathered in faith and charity we cannot fail to make progress. One faith, one Body, one hope of eternal life.

Heaven will be free of all discord, something we might find hard to imagine, yet it must be so.

God is a family of Persons Himself, and the unity between those Persons is of an intensity we cannot imagine - yet somehow we are part of it.

May the fire of divine charity burn away all that is false in each of us, and bring us, individually and communally, into that heavenly paradise.

Holy Name 3 Jan 2021 Sermon

 Holy Name 3.1.21 Uniqueness of the Name

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Ph 2, 9-11)

A name above every name – such is the Holy Name, the name of Jesus.

Our Lord was glorified in His Resurrection, again at His Ascension, and again at being enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

A student in an essay said of Shakespeare that he was famous only because of his plays!

This would be like saying Mozart is famous only because of his music, or Bradman only for his batting.

Many people have become famous because they have achieved greatness in a certain area. Those same people may not have been much good at other things. Maybe Mozart could not cook? Maybe Bradman could not sing? In any case everyone is limited as to what they can do.

Everyone except Jesus Christ, that is. He masters all areas because He is Lord of all creation and every aspect of that creation. He could have done any human task to perfection, but what He really wanted was to save the human soul, to restore mankind to its original destiny.

He has come to the heart of the human condition and revitalised everything for good.

His Name explains His purpose: He saves. He saves people from their sins.

Our Lord’s achievements have been greatly underrated. People talk of Him as just another man. Good, yes. Even great. But just another person like any other celebrity.

No, He is unique in every way, far transcending any other famous person in the scope of what He was addressing and the effectiveness of His action.

He was content to be hidden from public view for many years; and even in His public ministry He revealed Himself only gradually.

He did not want to be acclaimed too early because that would be to limit the scope of His mission. He did not come just to free Israel from Romans, but the whole of mankind from the devil.

He did not come just to give free food to the people, but the bread of Life, that would enable them to share God's life.

He was always raising people to a higher plane. Look beyond just your present physical and material needs.

Once we do recognize Him for His real purpose and power  we can call upon His help in that all-important area of salvation.

We no longer have to live in sin and slavery. If we consciously call upon the Name of Jesus we will be forgiven, restored, sustained until we reach final glory.

He is generally ignored by the human race, but often by His own disciples!

They have been exposed to too many draughts of cold air, the air of unbelief and doubt.

Lured by secular attitudes, they try to keep God at a distance.

Much of the Christmas story is about Recognition. Some recognize the importance of what is happening. Most do not register its importance; and others again fight against the salvation process (eg those who persecute the Church).

We are among those who do recognize what is happening, at least in its essence, and we do all in our power to reverence the Holy Name, to atone for blasphemies, to hold that Name higher than any other, to call upon it for all that we legitimately need.

He saves us from our sin, and in its place restores life.

If we focus our requests on that area we will find that the rest of our lives, and the rest of the world will fall into a better shape.

Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name, Blessed be the Name of Jesus.