12th Sunday Ordinary Time (A) 25 Jun 2023 Sermon

12th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A) 25 June 2023 Last word

Throughout history there have been many tyrants, conquerors, dictators. They reign for a time and then pass on to others.

Even if one should succeed in conquering other people and exploiting them, there is one big problem that presents itself. By the time you claw your way to the top there is not much time before things start to fall apart. Time is the enemy.

All things mortal must pass quickly.

Is it worth all that trouble for such a brief span. God remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.(Ps 78,39).

Better to build a house on rock than sand (Mt 7,24-27). Better to give one’s allegiance to the One king who can never be displaced – Jesus Christ, King of kings. Lord of lords.

In the Gospel today Our Lord tells us that all that is done in secret will be made known on the day of reckoning.

Evil thrives on secrecy but all cover will be blown away on that day, if not before.

Again house on sand. Sinners can attain a certain happiness from their ways, but they would find a lot more happiness if they draw inspiration from Christ, the new Adam (second reading).

The searching light of Christ will bring all to attention.

If we come clean with God without delay we can be spared humiliation and loss later on.

Our Lord appeals to us to live in the light, the truth, for the good of all and personal happiness.

There will be sacrifices but His way is more than worth it.

Follow the perfect Man, the first of the redeemed human race, the second Adam. All your hopes, best intentions, best resolutions can be centred on Him.

Truth prevails, Good prevails, God prevails. God is stronger than anything He has made. He made man; He made the fallen angels (before they fell).

Of course He must have the last word. First and last there is God, and if we have any sense we will be on His side and not against Him.

In the first reading Jeremiah is promised vindication. He is reassured that God knows what he is suffering and he will come out on top if he holds on.

The same applies for us. We may be tempted to throw our faith away and just take our chances with life. No, hold firm and you will see better days. Eventually one eternal day.

We have to get used to some long-range vision. We have the end of our lives and the end of the world always in view.

Not ignoring shorter term matters, but seeing them in the long-term context.

How is this world going to end? It depends on us whether we accept Christ fully, or continue to resist Him.

The world may end but not God. He will still be there whatever happens, furthering His plans.

Our Lord wants us to recognise Him before not after the dramatic ending. We will be able to do this if we seek Him out now.

The world is chaotic but we do not have to be so. We can base our lives on the firm principles of a good life, dedicated to God and seeking always His will.

If we can establish the Church far and wide we will have a peaceful return of the King.

If not, the mighty in their own estimation will be laid low. Not just tyrants but ordinary people who have not repented. All who have denied or defied God will be laid low.

Let us not have any proud and mighty in our midst. Let everyone be humble before the great God. Make way for the King! 

 

 

11th Sunday Ordinary Time 18 Jun 2023 Sermon

11th Sunday Ordinary Time (Year A) 18 June 2023 The Sacred Heart

God looks with sorrow on the people because they are like sheep without a shepherd. Little do they know that their Shepherd has come

This reminds us that all of God's doings among us are governed by His compassion for us, for the lost and the sinner, and the sinned against.

When God created the world it was perfect as it came from His hands.

Yet He sees that all is not well with that creation; that man has defaced the beauty of God's work.

Jesus grieves for the unnecessary loss of all that happiness.

If Adam and Eve had simply stayed on course; if every other generation had simply decided to do everything as God instructed, how much trouble would we have saved.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it would be destroyed by Rome, unless they repented, and by and large they did not repent.

The creation was defaced but not beyond repair.

God decided to intervene in human affairs and hence He came among us in human nature.

We cannot reclaim Eden but we can go one better and claim Heaven instead.

God feels sorry for us, but He also has the power to rectify all that is wrong.

He rectifies things through forgiveness of sin. He moves people to a sense of true sorrow for their sins; when they realize what they have done, and are so moved that they will not sin again – this is coming back to life, life for the soul and right order for creation.

Once we have reached that point ourselves we can then offer to the world the only solution that will work – union with God-made-man, so that we live according to His will at all times.

Many will grieve over the state of the world but respond by moving away from Jesus instead of towards Him. They will blame Him for the disorder in the world, when it is really human rebellion against God that has made all the trouble. End the rebellion and peace will be found.

Jesus made a special visit in the seventeenth century to call people back to right thinking. If only they would make Me some return for My Love, I should think but little of all I have done for them and would wish, were it possible, to suffer still more. But the sole return they make for all My eagerness to do them good is to reject Me and treat Me with coldness. Do you at least console Me by supplying for their ingratitude, as far as you are able.(To St Margaret Mary)

So we see that even after His death and resurrection there is still a lot of blockage to reconciliation.

But He is there all the same and in every age at least some will come to that moment of awareness and repentance.

Mercy is offered to all, no matter how lost a person may appear. Jesus came for the sick not the healthy. People we might write off are on His radar.

He wants the Church and all within it to have compassion for sinners, compassion rather than anger.

Why ever people have fallen away from Him, they can be retrieved and set straight for Heaven.

We do not deny the sin, but repent of it completely. We are forgiven and also strengthened against repeating the sin.

We become stronger as we experience the mercy of God, assisted by Our Lady who also loves the rejects.

Many take the world as it appears and rest with that. They do not see any hope of any great change.

We have better hopes than that. We see that God has been actively saving souls for thousands of years, and especially since the time of Christ.

It is not so hard as we make it look. We have offended God but He is willing to forgive. Not only willing but has a burning desire to save.

A simple act of contrition can be the beginning of the way back, for anyone. We pray that all people will see the obvious goodness of God and turn towards Him.

Corpus Christi 11 Jun 2023 Sermon

Corpus Christi 11 June 2023 Hunger

Having to wait for Christmas presents till Christmas morning was something of a difficulty as a child, but then it served to increase the final happiness of receiving the gift. Easter egg hunt, the same idea.

So we could say for the way that God leads us along, not telling us everything we want to know, only everything we need to know; and this also will mean more happiness if we travel the whole way with Him.

If the gift is valuable enough we do not mind waiting for it, and this is our attitude to Salvation, a happiness beyond description in eternal life, but even in this life bringing us the first fruits of later glory.

We anticipate better things to come. He who eats this bread will live for ever (Jn 6,51)

God could just put us in some state of  Paradise as we are, but this way is better, giving us a chance to prepare for a final glory which will be much more satisfying because we have prepared.

It is this preparation phase where we are now: we are preparing for Heaven.

This preparation consists of a mixture of trials and consolations, joys and sorrows.

We learn from the trials to trust in God, and from the consolations to see a foretaste  of Heaven itself, where every tear will be wiped away (Rev 21,4).

Of all God's consolations to us the Eucharist stands supreme. The saints teach us how to value the Eucharist: St Therese said of her first Holy Communion At last there dawned the most beautiful day of all the days of my life. How perfectly I remember even the smallest details of those sacred hours! .

It would be good if everyone had that much faith in God, and love for Him. But anyone can move towards a higher level of faith and love from wherever they might be at the moment.

God wants us to hunger for the things He regards as most important.

He wants most of all that every person in the world come to know Him as Father, Saviour, Sanctifier and many other very positive images. And to come to know Him better and love Him more. Sounds easy? The human race does a terrific job of avoiding all that, but God remains fixed in His purpose.

In the Eucharist He feeds us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, all giving light to the mind; and charity and courage for the heart.

If you eat this Bread you will live forever, and living means right living, spiritually first, with flow-on effects for the material world.

We come to want these things more as we get a taste of them. If we want something enough we are prepared to work for it.

We have begun the discovery; now we are encouraged to go on to more.

For the impatient and the demanding  - they will not see. If they waited they would learn, but if they leave too soon they will remain in darkness.

We who do believe may still be too much in this life, worrying about a thousand things. But a major part of any solution to problems will be that we are in union with God.

He wants us to see Him at the centre of everything, as both the goal and the means to the goal.

The Eucharist is meant to be seen as an ongoing gift, sustaining us for the journey.

It is not meant to be seen as an isolated event, as some Catholics make it. It is meant to be frequent, without ever being taken for granted.

If we want Him we have to search for Him. It is worth the wait!

Body and Blood of Christ, Save us.

 

Trinity Sunday 4 Jun 2023 Sermon

( I did not get to preach a sermon last Sunday (4 June 2023), so here is a flashback from 2012.)

Trinity Sunday 3 June 2012  Quest for unity

Many people are searching for God; many others are not sure if He exists or not.

There is much confusion about His existence; His nature; the way He intervenes or not in human affairs; the way it all works.

Many would say they believe in a God ‘of some sort’ but would not know how to describe or define Him.

Nor would they know how to approach Him with any confidence.

With so much confusion about it might seem that to explain the workings of the Blessed Trinity could make matters even less clear – if we bring in a lot of difficult terms and phrases.

The technical information might seem dry and unhelpful but it all has its place.

The best way to understand God for most people would be in terms of how He impacts upon us.

In evangelising others we would tell people that God is personal, something like we are, only much better.

The Persons of the Trinity are perfect in every way, not subject to the frailties and changing moods and whims which we experience.

If this seems to put God beyond reach it is not the intention. His perfection is not a barrier so much as an invitation for us to join Him.

We like the idea of a personal God, to whom we can relate. But we have to accept that we must relate on His terms rather than our own.

If we are to seek a personal relationship with God we must see such a relationship as He sees it.

In general we could say the human race settles for too little in the manner of personal relationships and of love.

Many people would think that the highest form of love is with another human person, usually to be sought in marriage. In books and films the story often ends with a marriage and that is seen as self-evidently the right place to end the story. The greatest possible happiness has been reached. What more is there to say?

Nothing, except that marriage is not the ultimate happiness even if it is the happiest marriage ever - because we are made for God, and our hearts cannot rest until they rest in Him. Of course it is better if we have good human relationships but they are never enough as such.

Our ultimate need, whether we realize it or not, is to be in union with God, loving and being loved by Him. If we have this we have discovered the Trinity. To be in relation to God is to share in the love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We are doing this even if we do not understand all the technical terms.

We find God through prayer, sacraments, reading the signs, trusting Him to steer us through each event, finally coming to see Him face to face, but preparing all the time for that encounter.

The more seriously we seek Him in this life the more we will understand Him, and the more ready to spend eternity with Him.

We already relate to Him personally. The images of the Trinity can help but would never be enough by themselves.

God is not a triangle. Nor a perfect circle. He is much better than any image we can think of.

It is all about getting us closer to God than we otherwise were. Far from thinking that God is distant we learn more and more that we have no life apart from Him. We are not only created by Him; not only to return to Him; but nothing even in our non-religious activity falls outside His holy will.

The Trinity is not primarily for our purposes but we are glad all the same to be included. God does not need us but He is happy to have us along.

May He help us to know Him better, both personally and technically, and finally to live in perfect union with Him. Glory to the one God and three Persons. Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Pentecost Sunday 28 May 2023 Sermon

 Pentecost Sunday 28 May 2023 Commitment

The original Pentecost was marked by spectacular signs – a rushing wind, flames of fire, the ability to speak new languages, and a big reaction from the crowd outside.

It can be like that, if the Holy Spirit comes in power. But He can also come quietly and subtly, still working wonders, just not so obviously.

It is a wonderful thing if even a single person is transformed by God's love and power.

The main thing is that He be received by the intended person. He comes, but do we want to know? If He wants to give something then we should be wanting to receive it.

This means that we let Him operate in our lives, giving Him even our will to let Him make the decisions that count, trusting that whatever He does will do us more good than we would have managed for ourselves.

This will make Pentecost life-changing.

We do not just say, Come Holy Spirit, but we facilitate His coming.

We can say we want Him to come, but attitudes and actions can negate what we just said. We cannot receive the Holy Spirit and hold onto our sins. Or, to put it another way, if we receive the Holy Spirit our sins and all that is out of place will be swept away.

Lord, make me ready where I am not. take away the negative things, fear, doubt, laziness, self preservation - all these things where I might hide, but don’t let me do that.

Instead, stretch me out as far as I can go - and that is more in line with what God wants to do for us.

We have been baptized and confirmed. On the day those sacraments happened it may not have made us feel any differently. But they can be slow-release in their working.

Whatever we said or promised on those days can be ratified and activated at a later time.

Many have had that experience, sometimes called Baptism in the Spirit, meaning a new awakening to all that we have heard before, but now it seems real.

When we have experienced the love of God in a deeper than usual way; there is no going back.

The Apostles were changed forever by their experience. From then on they would be without fear, ready to die if necessary to make salvation known to the nations.

We do not seek signs or sensations. We welcome them if they come, but we do not insist on them.

We do ask God to make Himself known to us, however, so that like those first disciples we will never go back to ‘Egypt’, to the ways of the world.

Pentecost can be any day, and needs to be everyday, as we re-orient ourselves to where God comes into our lives.

In short, we pray. We pray that we can build on whatever we have already discovered in matters of faith. So we don’t go backwards, don’t throw away the precious gift of faith; nor through neglect drift into indifference or despair.

We say to the Holy Spirit: Fill me with Your presence, and at the same time increase my capacity to receive You.

This is similar to what we do at Holy Communion. May it do us more good each time.

And for the whole Church, may it be re-vitalized in all points of belief and behaviour - that we can be one all across the world.

It is a lot to ask, so we ask for it all the time; especially on Sundays whereby we are refreshed and re-set for one more week! Come, Holy Spirit!