Last Sunday after Pentecost 21 Nov 2021 Sermon

Last Sunday after Pentecost 21 November 2021    End times

It  is hard to adjust to the language of the end times when most of our lives are routine and very quiet by comparison.

The Bible is full of reminders that the world as we see it is going to be turned on its head at some point. All sorts of signs in nature; all sorts of change. It will be a very disturbing or joyful time depending on how close we are to Our Lord, when He returns.

The end of the world is the same thing as the Second Coming of Christ.

We are told we should be ready at all times for either that event, or any other that might originate from Heaven.

We express our readiness not by simply watching for supernatural intervention, but by carrying on our normal lives as in 1 Thess 4,9-12: We exhort you, brethren… to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we charged you.’

We should work to the end like the servants who are busy when the Master returns (Mt 24,46).

Our Lord wants us to be aware of the last times without being preoccupied with them..

There is an end, a judgment, but not an end to those in union with Him.

It certainly is necessary to remember there is an end coming so we do not become too engrossed in this life. This life is just the preface, the opening scene.

It keeps us level-headed knowing that there are superior forces watching over us, and higher destinies involved. (If mankind were the highest intelligence we really would be in trouble!)

It keeps us in a state of urgency regarding the need for all people to repent, and to pray for those who will not.

We have not seen many of these future realities. We have not died; we have not seen Heaven; we have not experienced the Last Day or other cosmic upheavals.

We can still believe in these things, however. Our Lord’s promises of future events are just as reliable as the past events such as the Resurrection.

God never changes. His word is reliable, far more so than ordinary human words.

We can manage to deal with the ordinary times and at the same time be aware of the apocalyptic.

We understand we can influence the timing of apocalyptic events by our response.

God waits on us to see how much we want Him to return. If we pray, Come, Lord Jesus, it is because we want Him to come - even if it means we might have to abandon our own plans.

But nothing we can devise for ourselves could match what He can do for us.

We reach this point every year. We are tempted to give up… They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2 P 3,3-4

God is testing us to see if we love Him enough to wait for Him.

We prove that we do love him by being faithful across many years, and between us over millennia.

Every time we think of Our Lord’s second coming it can draw us closer to readiness.

We have to stay awake for ourselves and for the world, which is generally asleep.

The world has no concept that it faces judgment. We have to keep the idea current - to soften the blow, as it were.

And to lead people to the happiness that is found only in a proper understanding of this life and its relationship to the next.

Second Last Sunday after Pentecost 14 Nov 2021 Sermon

 

2^nd Last Sunday after Pentecost 14 November 2021 (readings 6^th S after Epiphany)

The Church comes in three sections: Triumphant, Suffering, Militant.

The triumphant Church is in Heaven; the suffering in Purgatory; the militant – that’s us, toiling away in the hope of becoming triumphant.

When people talk about the Church… what it says, does, whether it performs well or badly, they are talking about the visible Church here on earth, the Church where a great deal of human frailty is in evidence.

We regret that frailty, that it leads to sin, and gives bad witness.

When people see the Church in action they should not have to be looking at scandals and division. The Church is meant to be on fire with faith and charity, relieving the ills of body and soul, assisting with material needs where possible, and most of all providing direction and grace to bring people to Heaven.

The human element will work as it should only when it calls on its ‘better half’ – the triumphant element, including Christ as Head, and Mary as Mother, and countless angels and saints.

Then we start to see what should have been there all along – that every disciple should be as one with Christ, and each other, fully believing, fully functioning, ready to live or die for Christ.

This is what we must strive for if we do not yet have it. Last week we heard that God is patient and can wait before judging people. He gives us time to get things right. Some things take time to sort out all the bits.

Today’s Gospel conveys the same sense of a long time passing and enabling fruitful results.

A seed starts out small and become eventually a huge tree. This is an image of God's influence in the world. He makes Himself known, little by little,

The Church has spread from a very small beginning to very big.

We are big in size, but we do not yet cover the whole world as Our Lord instructed: Go and baptize all nations (Mt 28,19).

So much for the quantity; we also need quality, which can come only when each person is a disciple of Christ, and when each disciple is seriously committed to what that means.

God does not want just our external compliance; He wants to be dwelling inside us, directing our thoughts, words and action so that we become more like Him.

We take shelter in His branches, or we are branches attached to Our Lord as the tree.

We draw what is good and all that we need from Him, which we can do if we are consciously seeking to be united with Him.

If we are united with Him He will enable us to bear fruit. He will bless our efforts in His name, and bring forth fruit.

We do not fall away from the tree as others do, either through actions or beliefs.

We cannot survive anywhere else because only in Christ is the source of all truth. Only there can we make sense of this life and obtain all we need to live it.

When it comes to religion people often want to break out on their own, asserting their own beliefs and opinions.

True happiness is found not in individual experimentation, but submitting to the perfections of Christ, claiming His presence in our lives, offering Him to the world.

We have come a long way as the Church, and we have a long way to go. We are privileged to be where we are, to know what we know.

But with that privilege goes a task. We do all we can to bring the militant Church to its eventual triumph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third Last Sunday after Pentecost 7 Nov 2021 Sermon

 

3^rd Last Sunday after Pentecost 7 November 2021 (readings 5^th Sunday after Epiphany)

We are influenced by what others around us do. This can work for good or evil.

Take a simple example like neatness. If everyone around us carefully puts things away we would be more inclined to do that ourselves. If everyone threw their rubbish out the window on to the street then we would probably at least relax our standards.

Morally this is seen in many ways, such as the way we talk to each other, the way we evaluate things, the things we hold to be important.

It is difficult to go against the tide of what most people do, most of the time.

Take churchgoing. Imagine if almost everyone in a city went to church, the few that did not would feel a strong pull to find out what they were missing out on.

In today’s parable we have a reference to the fact that believers and unbelievers alike must mingle together.

From another parable we know that the good are supposed to be the leaven in the whole community  (Mt 13,33). This is how it is meant to work. If the evildoers are in our midst it is our job to make them good instead of evil!

How do that? By generating a climate of goodness that will be impossible to ignore. To embarrass people into giving up their crooked ways and win them over. This has happened before, and is the way that saints always influenced their surroundings.

We have to establish a new normal, and this is what the Kingdom of God is.

It is hard to be good when others around us are not, but someone has to start off. We have to get used to the idea of working with little or no support.

This is why God allows evildoers to endure. He wants to give them time to see things differently; to be influenced by a different view of the world.

To save people requires a certain amount of time, to give them a chance to learn from their own wrong directions. So they can ask questions like, Why is my life falling apart? Maybe I should turn back to God.

What does it mean for us trying to be good, the wheat in this parable? We have to take the same view as God takes.

He can love people that we cannot (not yet anyway).

We would tend to write people off too quickly, whereas God, who can see all, can judge better.

We do not try to judge how good or evil another person may be. We simply press on, seeking to be good ourselves, encouraging others likewise. We cannot judge as in we must not, and anyway we do not have enough knowledge to be able to form a judgment.

The idea is to keep going , be good do good, become better. and encourage each other ‘teaching and admonishing one another’ (epistle), as we all seek the same result.

We race to the finish and do not ease up. ‘We bear with one another and forgive one another (epistle). With charity holding it all together.

As we do this our capacity to love others will increase.

For those holding out we pray and give good example, avoiding scandals which only impede the whole operation.

Another point for letting the unholy have more time is that some of them, if they did come inside, would do a better job than we can. Cf St Augustine, St Mary Magdalene, St Francis, St Ignatius, and many others who  had major conversions. In every age there must be a great pool of talent not being fully utilised.

Instead of just wishing evildoers dead we can wish them alive with the life of Christ! 

 

Christ the King 31 Oct 2021 Sermon

Christ the King 31 October 2021 One above all

Our Lord has the right to be honoured as King - in His divinity, as being God anyway; and in His humanity as the Saviour of the world.

As Man He has performed the most dramatic rescue ever seen, saving us from sin and death. This is someone fit to lead. He commands our respect, gratitude, obedience etc.

Tragically He is ignored or denied by many, who have allowed themselves to be caught up too much in this life. Many believe in God in some sort of way, but not sufficiently to give Him central place.

People think they can govern themselves. At Babel, God confounded the efforts of those who thought they could get by without God.

Let the nations know they are but men (Ps 9,20). A necessary humbling, but only to pave the way to exaltation. Once we do acknowledge Him we find everything falling into place.

Some take diversity of language culture etc as sign that there cannot be just one source of truth; but human nature and the essential sameness of the human condition do establish the oneness of our origin and destiny. Human beings, human souls are very much the same when it comes to their status before God.

There is only one true God, many false. Our role is to atone and restore the human response to the glory of God, and give to God what is God's.

We pray that He will open hearts and minds to accept His true status and to acknowledge it. This would do wonders for the world.

That we acknowledge God is more important than being saved from particular problems.

Instead of going straight into the prayer asking for things, it is good if we first acknowledge our stance before God, and express our sorrow for offending Him in any way.

The more we do that the more powerful our prayer become, and we are helping the world to come back to equilibrium. We do this as often as we can, while praying for others to do the same thing.

How can we help people to see the greatness of God? Everyone wants certain things, such as the freedom to live in peace. Or enough food for the hungry, or health for the sick. These are legitimate desires and things we should want.

It is just a matter of how we go about them. Do we think we can solve all these problems without God, on a purely secular or humanistic basis?

It never works. It does bring some success, but often at the cost of other important ends.

For example, to save the planet is a good objective, but should not be seen as replacing the need to save souls.

To have healthy children is a good objective, but not good if we abort any baby that might have a defect.

As for different religions, it is good if we do not go about killing each other, but not good if the wrong religions are given the same respect as the true one.

There is only one name under heaven by which we can be saved. (Ac 4,12)

If we go with Christ the King we will get the right objectives and the right way to get there.

We will have peace on earth because nobody wants to kill each other anymore. Hearts have been cleansed of hatred; desires have changed permanently in the right direction.

God wants people to know Him at this level. He wants to bring the people to submission, not enforced but in the free response of heart and mind, whereby the people will come to love God , not just obey.

They will look on the one whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him (Zech 12,10).

Every knee shall bow, but it will be out of reverence not terror.

Christ the King offers a much better way of finding happiness. We acknowledge Him today, King of kings, and Lord of lords.