Last Sunday after Pentecost 20 Nov 2022 Sermon

Last Sunday after Pentecost 20 November 2022  End times

On the last Sunday of the Church year we naturally consider the end of things - the end of our lives, the end of the world, the end of Satan and all his legions.

It is hard to interpret the timing of all the various prophecies, biblical and otherwise.

We know that on the Last Day the dead shall be raised, and there will be a final judgment. It will be the end of this world, but we should not be alarmed because Heaven is much better than here.

Much as we do not generally like upheaval, we will be glad when this day comes. If we love the Bridegroom, how can we want him to stay away?

In the meantime we must live good and holy lives (1 Th 4,11).

It is not so easy to be good as we discover, and we see around us. Sin is addictive, and can be a hard snare to escape. Also one sin leads to others. and a kind of despair can set in.

People can hate their lives as they are yet they fear turning to a religious solution because that is perceived as boring and difficult.

It cannot be boring to move closer to the Source of all that is interesting. Whatever interests people pursue, it is only possible because God makes it so.

We pray that those who resist conversion will see the light, while we do our best to give witness of our beliefs by the way we live.

We need to be aware of the spiritual dimension, knowing that whatever we do for good or evil will have an effect in the physical world.

We are spiritual beings with the capacity to commit sin or do good many times in one day.

We can help to bring on the kingdom in our midst. We ask for God’s kingdom to come; it will come through enough people being willing to receive it. We can be among that number.

The chastisements described in the Bible, and experienced throughout human history do not have to be so dramatic as they have been. If only enough people would repent the whole scene would change very quickly.

It is only human stubbornness that has made it so difficult, that makes people think it is always going to be like this, that there is no future to look forward to.

God does not want to punish us. It is just so He does not have to punish that He tells us in advance what will happen unless we repent. Knowing that, we gladly repent.

It is harder for people to repent these days because they are not so clear about right and wrong as in other ages. Many will say they have done nothing wrong .

Others will kill, or otherwise silence the prophet rather than worry about what he is saying.

God can be ignored for a time but only for a time. He will make Himself known eventually, and this is what these prophecies are making plain.

We can take the disasters as just a glimpse of what could be far worse.

But we don’t have to go that way. We can change it if there are enough people capable of believing in God and His Kingdom. There have been such people and we call them saints.

We can be as they are, not letting anything deflect us from the task at hand - which is to call on the grace of God to forgive, to heal, to bring us to a point where we can welcome Him, going out to meet Him confidently (Lk 21,28), to be able to pray with every good hope – Come, Lord Jesus.

 

 

23rd Sunday after Pentecost 13 Nov 2022 Sermon

23^rd Sunday after Pentecost 13 November 2022 Death

Here are two miracles from Our Lord: a woman touching the hem of His garment, and the young girl raised to life. Two different methods of healing Our Lord used. He could have done it differently - all ways were open to Him.

He is Lord of the living and the dead (Rm 14,9). He not only has life it but is life (Jn 11,25).

We get the sense that He could work miracles all day long, and effortlessly.

Indeed we wish He would do that; for example, that He could go through a hospital or even a cemetery and restore health and life to everyone there.

But though He could do that it is not His normal way of operating.

He is working to a different plan and blessing us in another way. It is a longer-term solution. When we die we do not come back to life, not here on earth, but we live on in another way.

We do not want our loved ones to come back; rather that we go to them.

We understand that it is not always God's will that each person live the normal life span. Some people He takes early, as with many saints, especially the martyrs.

Taken too soon, we might say but what if  God has uses for them somewhere else.

Did not St Therese say that she would spend her Heaven doing good on earth?

We have to stop thinking about death as death, we might say; that is, thinking about death as though it is the end of everything. It can look and feel like the end but is not so.

God wants us to entrust every person to His special care. We will miss them, but we can absorb that loss in the larger context of God's whole saving plan.

If they are saved, and we are saved, we will meet again, and the joy of that meeting will exceed by far any pain we have felt at the separation.

We cannot fathom God's will much of the time, but we can come to trust Him, which is what He most wants from us.

Our Lord is demonstrating by these miracles that He can heal the dead, the living, and the grieving – and He can work it all into the best overall outcome.

Everyone has a place prepared for us (Jn 14,3). We could miss that place, but we will make sure we do not.

God does not enjoy seeing us suffer, but He can see a lot further than we can, and will console us in the meantime.

We have two lives; we are meant to use this one to prepare for the second one.

It is as easy as touching the hem of His garment! As easy as approaching Him and asking for the necessary help.

We express trust in Him even if we do not feel it. The feelings will come along eventually, but in the meantime we walk by faith.

Death is part of the human condition in the present phase of life. It will remain so until the Second Coming of Christ when death will be no more, and every tear wiped away (Rev 21,4).

We tend to cling to what we know, but God challenges us to let Him decide what we will have. He will give us a better Heaven than we could have designed for ourselves.

He will help us negotiate the unknown, and we will be very glad we did go His way.

In any case life for us is primarily spiritual not physical. It is, for example, better to be charitable than to be able to run fast.

To share in the divine nature requires   a spiritual perspective, which will come with sufficient prayer and reflection.

First in the spirit, and then in the body, we shall live forever. Death shall be no more (Rev 21,4).

22nd Sunday after Pentecost 6 Nov 2022 Sermon

22^nd Sunday after Pentecost 6 November 2022 Purgatory

We are made to know love and serve God. This is not well known and may take a lifetime or a little more to grasp it.

Many people do not know this, or do not believe it, or may not care.

Even we who give God some space may still see Him as only a part of our world, in which we have so much else to do.

It is so easy to pick the wrong goals, the wrong things to chase after in this life. There are so many false signals, confused ideas.

It should be straightforward but our sins have made it confusing.

We eat when we are hungry, we sleep when we are tired, but on spiritual matters it has all become cloudy.

God is patient, however, and gives us a lot of time to find Him in the midst of it all.

We can find Him, and for this we pray.

Many will not find out this central point until death.

They may be saved, as in having some recognition of God, but still not ready to enter the splendour of Heaven.

Thus we have Purgatory, a place of purification and clarification for those who need further repairs before they can enter Heaven.

God accepts our prayer for each other, and this applies also for the dead. We can assist them by directing God's mercy towards them in their need.

They will then be able to come to a stronger love for God, realizing then what they do not know yet, that God made us to love Him.

[This was for our benefit more than for Him. He is all sufficient to Himself but we are not sufficient for ourselves]

In the end we do not love anything or anyone more than we love God.

Here on earth we have many insights into God's nature and ways of working with us.

If we are sensitive to the signs we will get  a lot of things right before we die, and will not be languishing in Purgatory.

It will also help us to run our earthly lives much more efficiently if we do that one thing, and put God first.

It  becomes easier for us to turn away from sin and pursue the prize that really matters

Purgatory can be longer for some than others because there is more to be worked through.

We rejoice when someone repents after maybe many years of neglecting their faith.

They may still have hurdles to overcome, however. Many, for instance, find it hard to forgive those who have offended them.

God's grace is on hand for all needs, large or small.

Even in this life we can perceive that some sins or wrong attitudes are harder to shake off than others. The seven deadly sins would give a fair summary of those.

It is hard to shed bad habits all at once and completely. We feel the need for help to do that… Lord, make me patient etc… And so for the souls in Purgatory there may be a real struggle before they can see things from God's point of view.

We do not know the precise mechanics of how it works, but we do know that our prayer and sacrifice can help those souls, as it will also benefit us.

Anytime we focus on the next life we immediately feel a pull in the right directions as regards this life.

May we all come to know the simple but elusive truth that we are made to know, love and serve God.

 

Christ the King 30 Oct 2022 Sermon

Christ the King 30 October 2022 True King

The state of the world is not good, either from a spiritual or a material point of view.

Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 hoping to call enemies back to something that would unite them – Jesus Christ Himself, calling the world to sanity and holiness.

But to benefit from His presence we have to turn to Him in prayer, repent of our sins, and put all our plans at His disposal. It is His Kingdom that we pray for, not our own.

We should be standing side by side all looking towards Him, rather than looking at each other with hatred.

Thing have not improved much since 1925 or any time in between, but the Pope was right, and no doubt considerable good has come from even a partial acknowledgment of Christ as King.

The call to humanity to come back to God is always current and urgent; it is for every day, every place.

Sometimes they say small is beautiful, and sometimes big is beautiful; it depends on what we are looking for.

For the Church the ‘big’ is the universal element. Catholic means universal. We are not racist; all people of all colours belong to God, or at least they should. And hence all people should get along with each other.

We have the same God, the same Saviour, the same hope of eternal life.

The God in whom we believe is the only real god in the universe. The others are false containing some truth, but a lot of evil as well. Evil because it is wasted energy communicating with them, and in some cases at least they would be demonic.

Historically, people have thought there was more than one god and even the gods fight each other. This is attributing human fault onto the divine; in reality it is divine goodness that comes upon humanity. God is not like us; we can become like Him, at least so far as charity is concerned.

Today, the aspect of Christ as King is particularly emphasised. All authority has been given to me (Mt 28,18).

He is king because He is God (the Son), and that carries unlimited status.

He is King also as Man, because He has taken humanity to a place where it has never been before, reconciled with God.

He has triumphed over sin and death, and every kind of disorder, restoring all things in Himself.

He has the right to claim homage from us, and attentiveness to His will. We should take Him very seriously.

We come to distrust human governments because they have so much of human weakness and evil about them. But not this King, or Kingdom.

We see the perils of trying to govern ourselves without first submitting to the King who has authority over everything.

Even if human governments were perfectly well-behaved they would still be subservient to the One who is King over all.

The world needs a lot of changing and it may take a while yet. What can you or I do? This is where small is beautiful. Each one can do a lot by humble obedience and adoration.

One person can help the light to spread.

Whether we are talking about the universal or local scene, all problems can be solved by individual fidelity to Christ. Any progress is welcome.

He is there for all, but not indiscriminately. Sinners must repent, not just stay as they are. This is a point of much confusion in the current Church.

The world must give up its false gods and bend the knee before the real Saviour.

Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. (Ph 2,10)