Sexagesima Sunday 20 Feb 2022 Sermon

Sexagesima Sunday 20 February 2022 Perseverance

St Paul was ready to pay any price for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel. He did not mind if he had ‘full stomach or empty’ if he was in comfortable or uncomfortable circumstances. He could see, more clearly than average, that his ultimate happiness was to be found in Christ, and this far outweighed any passing happiness this life could bring.

In the light of today’s Gospel, he was one of the seeds that persevered to the end, and would not allow itself to be seduced by transient pleasures, or intimidated by threats.

So he persevered, and in addition to all the things he suffered (listed in today’s epistle), he died a glorious martyr’s death, so completing an extraordinary life.

In season or not (2 Tm 4,2) he would preach the word. (And it is usually out of season as far as the Gospel goes, because most people it seems will resist repentance and conversion.)

But many have converted and this makes us realize it is possible and worth anything to continue and increase that result.

Most Christians, not so strong as Paul, have to work on their own response, and also work on how to help others come to the faith.

For ourselves we take advantage of the witness of those who have been here before us. We have the benefit of their example. If they could do it so can we.

People tend to reject what they have not seen or experienced. They are like St Thomas the Apostle; they want proof before they start. It cannot always be arranged that way.

Sometimes we have to dive in first and then see what happens.

Why does God let us suffer so much? He is purifying us and that is painful as we readjust our old ways.

Also, because it is difficult to convert people, sufferings will be encountered. The very good (like St Paul) suffer more than average because God will entrust them with more. It is not because God is somehow being cruel with them.

Christians face a constant temptation to be only partially committed, mainly to avoid this kind of suffering. We don’t want to put our necks out.

Nor do we want to give up things we enjoy or have become accustomed to.

Whatever we give up we receive a lot more back. There is a joy in conversion. (See, for example, Zacchaeus in Luke 19,1-10). That is how it is supposed to work.

We convert on our own behalf, and renew that commitment as often as we can.

At the same time, we want others to discover what we have experienced.

St Paul held firm in his own commitment and also in fidelity to the Gospel. We must not change the message that we have received.

We do not try to refashion the Gospel to suit the audience. At present many Christians have abandoned the need to bring others to conversion. They say acceptance of each other’s difference is all that is needed.

St Paul would not have liked that! We can accept each other all right, but only through complete union with Christ, with all our beliefs and behaviour based on Him.

To ease the demands of our faith is a constant temptation. A false tolerance of error, or a false compromise with the world - it is done to make the task of discipleship easier but it does not work.

God does not ask the impossible; He sometimes asks the very difficult, but if He expects anything from us He will provide the necessary grace.

Strap yourself in, it is going to be a turbulent flight. Even so it will be more turbulent for those outside the protection Christ can give.

With St Paul we will persevere to the finish.

Septuagesima Sunday 13 Feb 2022 Sermon

 Septuagesima Sunday 13 February 2022 Final perseverance

Working in the vineyard means any task that God would want us to be doing, whether it be the routine carrying out of duties, or some special task that might be only once in a lifetime.

Be it large or small, easy or difficult, if we do it we are working for God. He gives us assignments and we carry them out, usually needing His help.

If the task is simple then we need His help that we do not think we can get by without Him!

When we work for someone it is usually seen as an ongoing thing, that the same sort of tasks will be repeated for such time as the employment lasts.

So it is with us and God. We work for Him and we use the time available to do as much as we can in His name, and hoping to please Him.

St Paul refers to perseverance – the runner keeps running to the end. He does not ease off until he has finished.

The Christian is tempted to slow down if there is no visible urgency. Why push ourselves if there is no need?

In the spiritual world a lot of things are invisible, but that does not mean they are absent.

We learn to discern the ways of God and what sort of things He wants from us.

He is concerned with our attitude as much as the tasks themselves. If we maintain a charitable attitude, for instance, that will please God more than that we finish the tasks successfully.

God wants to include us in His saving activity. He does this by ‘employing’ us as His workers.

Being employed is more gratifying than receiving handouts. So it is in the spiritual life.

God showers His gifts upon us but usually we have to do something to receive those gifts or make them work for us.

Take rain, for instance. Rain is an obvious blessing direct from Heaven. When it falls it means other things can happen – such as sowing the seed, preparing the harvest, making the harvest.

If we do not do these other things the benefit of the rain will be lost.

So in the spiritual life, God offers us Mercy but if we do not consciously accept that mercy we will still be in our sins.

Many today have a passive notion of salvation, that it will happen anyway regardless of anything we do; God simply puts us in Heaven when we die.

In fact He wants to give us something better than that. He wants us to understand the idea of being co-workers with Him in the harvest.

The work we do in God's name will predispose us to understand and receive the gifts He is giving us.

Conversely if we do not do any work we will not benefit, and may even lose our place altogether.

So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. (Mt 25,28).

As we grow into this role we find that we want to do it as it becomes natural to us.

There is hard work involved because so much opposition has to be encountered; cf Jesus’ own sufferings. But He was glad to suffer for the sake of saving sinners. His reward was the satisfaction of setting others free, and we have some of that feeling as we look on so many suffering  souls in the world around us.

Our salary is one denarius, meaning entry to Heaven. We don’t resent others getting the same reward for less work. We are just glad to be part of the salvation process. It is then that we fully experience and express our true nature, sharing in the generosity of Christ Himself.

5th Sunday after Epiphany 6 Feb 2022 Sermon

5^th Sunday after Epiphany 6 February 2022  Time

We should not begrudge mercy to others, even if they are presently unrepentant. They don’t deserve mercy but then, neither do we.

We rejoice with the angels when someone repents (Luke 15,10).

1) God allows time for this to happen, to be played out on the arena of life. Repentance can be very slow in coming, but it is worth waiting for.

2) Also time is necessary if we are to serve God in any continuous sense. How could we exercise our gifts and our best intentions if we had no time in which to do so? The sooner we start the more good we can do in that amount of time (early workers in the vineyard).

We want Our Lord to come again and complete his plans, which must be the best thing to happen.

3) But again we need time to let God to fulfil those plans. He deals in thousands of years and billions of people, while we are dealing in days and weeks, and cannot remember everyone’s name!

He needs time to re-set His creation which He does through Christ. It is a major operation.

More so as people are getting lost as well as being found. The wheat and the darnel can interchange. The question is how to keep those we have while gathering in those we do not yet have.

All this happens in the context of time.

We can accelerate things if we really commit ourselves to the task, if we work with God rather than against Him.

If every time someone complained about God's action they had prayed instead, that would have sent up a lot of prayer, and a lot of clarity would come from that.

Not to complain is a big thing for most humans, but it can be managed if we are careful. We can ask why to a whole lot of things but we do it with respect and humility.

We can learn something and make some good prayer at the same time.

If we keep silent for long enough we will see great things, supernatural things.

This is the new ordinary, where God is placed first, and acts directly for our good.

We, for our part, remember that we are on a timeline and going somewhere very specific. We are not just drifting about as those without faith must do.

We are preparing for a transfer from this life to the next.

It is not just a matter of waiting till we die but an active interaction with all that is most important.

We apply ourselves to the task. We see the time given us like one of those ‘talents’ in the parables (Mt 25,14-30). We can make our use of time fruitful and come back for more.

We grow in faith hope and charity and all the related qualities.

We learn from our sins and mistakes. We recover quickly if we stumble.

When the final day comes, it does not have to be that a vast number will be lost. We can help things towards a much happier conclusion by our fidelity now.

The Church holds out hope to the world, giving it that supernatural perspective which is so lacking to many who live only for the moment.

Even many within the Church have lost belief in ‘salvation’ as an urgent issue and focus only on the temporal side of things – environment, poverty, education etc. We do have much to offer in those areas but the eternal dimension must always be foremost.

Lord have mercy, and bring us safely to the final harvest.

4th Sunday after Epiphany 30 Jan 2022 Sermon

4^th Sunday after Epiphany 30 January 22 Trust

Even a miracle can be forgotten. The passing of time can dull the memory and somehow it all seems further away and less relevant than it was at the time.

This could be said for Our Lord’s miracles as well. Take the Resurrection. Every Sunday Mass is a celebration of the Resurrection, but is it as real for us as on the day that it happened?

That Christ is risen is just as important today as on the first Easter day. Its effects are just as relevant, inviting us to make a response. Christ still shines like the sun on suffering humanity.

Another miracle described in today’s Gospel demonstrates Our Lord’s power to control nature. He can still the winds and the sea with a word.

The apostles witnessed many miracles, but they did not always let those miracles ‘sink in’ to the point that they would remain as permanent support for their faith.

We might say that if we saw as many miracles as the apostles saw we would never lose our faith; but we have miracles in our time too, especially the Eucharist; but also all manner of healings, rescues, and times when God is clearly intervening.

The apostles were not wrong to wake Our Lord and put their request. It was their lack of trust in Him that seems to have been the offence.

This is a person who goes about healing the sick and raising the dead. Is it likely that He would let His chosen disciples and constant companions just drown in the lake?

If ever we think God has abandoned us, that is our problem too. God wants us to put our requests, but not in such a way that we are doubting His motives or His power. If He would not abandon His chosen friends… well, that includes us!

We find a way of carrying with us all the reasons we have for trusting Our Lord.

We keep up a constant interaction with Him. We thank Him for past miracles; we pray for new ones in our time. We pray about everything and everyone. We do not have to know what will happen, or why God is permitting something, but simply express trust in  Him.

In this way every disciple should be strong in faith. We reaffirm our faith all the time or we might lose it, as we see other people do.

We cannot always guarantee the outcome of the prayer but we can guarantee an increasing closeness between us and Our Lord; and from this will come many blessings.

Would you accept this man’s character reference? When we trust someone’s character we do not then investigate everything they do to see if they are reliable.

We have established Our Lord is reliable so we can relax in that assurance. We do not know all His methods but we know He will bring about the best possible result.

Our Lord wants us to see Him in that light, as totally reliable. We could pray so much more effectively if we did this. We would ask more and dispute less; we would remember each miracle and draw strength from it, preparing for the next one.

He will never abandon us, and on that assurance nor will we abandon Him!

Miracles can be forgotten but so can the One who worked the miracles, and that is worse still.

We must keep Him in mind, first and foremost, and make that a habit.

Then we will never panic when things appear to be going wrong, but bring the power and goodness of the Creator/Saviour to every situation.