12th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 23 June 2024 Sermon

 12^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 23 June 2024 Trust

There are bridges where you can see through the surface you are walking on, and see the drop below. It is intimidating. Like walking on air.

To be afraid at that point is not logical, insofar as we know that this pathway is as solid as any other, but it does not look safe.

So, in our faith we are asked to believe in things we have not yet seen, or cannot ever see, or fully understand.

With God we can use a certain amount of logic, such that we know He will not let us down; yet we have more trust for a bus driver or a dentist or cook than we have in God. This is because the people we deal with have only one task at a time, and it is within our normal range of understanding.

With God there is more mystery. But also a lot more reliability.

If we all just got up and followed Jesus what a difference! But because we want to check and re-examine and look at it from different angles we don’t make much progress.

How can we increase our trust of God? How shake off that doubt and hesitancy?

A lot of it is ‘just do it’ and it will fall into place. Live like you trust God and you will find the trust is justified.

Even God's existence we might question. Just act as though it is true and we will find that it is. Cf Peter walking on water (Mt14.22-33).  What made it possible for him to do that was that he was for a time focused on Our Lord.

It is hard to have more faith than the people around us, yet this is what we are called to achieve.

We are told to believe in a life without end, of great happiness, of things way beyond what we have seen so far.

Just because something is hard to understand does not mean it is untrue.

Who made the world? If God can put the world in place could He not raise one dead body, or indeed all bodies? God can do whatever He likes, in His time and His way.

We need a personal encounter, to build up our trust in the personal reliability of God. We trust Him for who and what He is, not for how things look.

Would Jesus trick us, lie to us? Would he sell us a faulty used car?

Instead, go with it and see what happens. Most times we won’t be asked to do anything overly difficult.

A lot of it is just basic attention to detail, getting the little things right. If we are asked to do something really difficult we will have had some preparation beforehand.

Jesus will carry us across the chasm of doubt and fear, and we end up with a triumph of faith over doubt, and life over death.

If we don’t believe the contents of our own creed  we are on the way to believing it, or recovering belief.

We should get better each week than the one before. Well, over time we can improve; and a lot faster if we follow this basic idea that our trust is in Him, God made Man.

God gives us not only whatever we need, but most important of all, the ability to trust Him at all times, that ability itself being a gift.

So we say, without panic, Wake up, Lord, and bring us safely to the other side.

11th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 16 June 2024 Sermon

 11^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 16 June 2024 Miraculous growth

 The Gospel speaks of the mysterious growth of the Church. Like a tree which grows night and day without being visible in the actual progress of growth. (You can't watch it grow). So the Church somehow has increased from a handful of disciples to millions.

We realize that a lot of Christians are not overly good in their lives, but still the continuous growth of the Church has been clearly miraculous, and much is yet to be hoped for.

If we look at Church history we see many different movements that have tried to destroy the Church and failed, though they have made plenty of trouble.

The Church as such is indestructible – the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

We must, of course, not be complacent, but we can benefit from studying the opposition.

Physical attack: Jews, Romans, Barbarians, Vikings, Muslims, Secularists, Communists, Nazis – to name a few down the ages.

And undermining of the faith: all kinds of heresies, schisms, and internal persecutions – one Christian against another. Such as: Arianism, Albigensianism, Pelagianism, Jansenism, Protestantism - all manner of false beliefs enticing people from the true faith, or punishing them for keeping that faith.

We still have a lot of these things; it is just a matter of what name they go by. One of our biggest problems today would be an aggressive secularism, trying to remove the Church’s right to exist on its own terms – accusing us of ‘hate speech’.

And the prophecies tell us there is worse to come! Such as the Antichrist.

Christians have been very unpopular much of the time, yet all we have been doing in essence is to bring the world the word of life, and Bread of life.

All the malice towards the Church ultimately comes from the evil one who opposes everything Our Lord establishes, or seeks to do.

And that opposition can find a place in the human heart where through pride we do not want to be told what to do,  nor give up sins to which we are attached.

Despite our turbulent history we have had good people in every age who have been able to keep the truth intact, and pass on to succeeding generations the essentials to survive.

Thus we have the Martyrs, and the unsung saints who did good in their time.

Christ is the head, Mary is the Mother, and the Holy Spirit is our guide, and these are all powerful sources of help, animating the right people, the right movements and bringing it all together.

Always we pray. When we pray things will go better. See for example how the early Church prayed Peter the first head of the Church out of prison (Acts 12,5-9).

Then we keep to our mission of seeking to baptize all nations, offering the way of salvation, free of charge.

A glorious future is proposed, even finding union with our enemies if we and they make all due repentance.

Yes, we have misbehaved but that is no reason to change the beliefs. Let’s keep; the beliefs and stop the misbehaviour.

Let’s keep going another century or so and see the marvels the Lord will do in our midst (Ps 125 (124), 3)

Christians have often felt they have been abandoned but the Lord has never been far from us. He is just helping us in other ways besides direct rescue – to form us more completely as disciples, and children of God, fit for Heaven.

Remember our past and how many crises we have ridden out; one or two more crises will not defeat us!

10th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 9 June 2024 Sermon

 

10^th Sunday Ordinary time (B)  9 June 2024 The devil

How did the devil get to be a devil? He was created an angel but rebelled against God, so losing the beauty with which he was created and becoming deformed instead. This happened to Lucifer and all his allies.

The fallen angels suffered from the sin which is at the heart of all sins, namely Pride.  This is a sin to which we are all tempted. Rational creatures who can think and decide things of a spiritual nature are subject to this temptation.

The fallen angels cannot recover from their fallen condition but humans who have fallen away from God can recover if they make a good repentance. God is always welcoming towards a repentant sinner, cf prodigal son, or later workers in the vineyard. (Lk 15,11-32; Mt 20,1-16)

The fall of the angels has had a flow-on effect in the world, one sin leading to a lot of other sins. Worse for us the devil has a malevolent attitude towards us and seeks to lead us into sin and eternal loss if he can.

He can be like a sneaky serpent as in today’s first reading (Gen 3,9-15), or a roaring lion (1 Peter 5,8), respectively offering us seductive delights, or filling us with terror. If we recognize his methods we have more chance of repelling him. We can resist but we have to be alert.

We cannot afford to be complacent, as there are many ways from which temptations can come. The man who thinks he is safe must be careful he does not fall (1 Cor 10,12).

Nor can we afford to despair of our ability to obey God. He will provide the grace we need to overcome our sins, if only we ask for that grace.

God wants us to rise above the whole sordid world of sin, leaving it behind like an old set of clothes. From now on we put on Christ, we wear the white garment of purity and innocence.

Being this good all the time might sound too hard, but it can be managed if broken down to small pieces. If I get the next thing right, and then the next one. And if I fall I can then get back up again and start fresh. A good deed here, a prayer there, a change of habits – whatever is needed.

Even if we are relatively safe at the moment we have to be concerned for other people as well, and pray for them, give them instruction or at least example of the right way forward.

Generally in our preaching and teaching these days we do not mention the negative factors such as the devil, or  hell, or mortal sin. but these things are still with us and must be acknowledged. Salvation is not automatic and can be forfeited.

A false optimism could be fatal.

It is much like when we talk about physical health – try not to catch a disease. It is negative to a degree, but necessary.

Many do not believe in the devil, thinking of evil as a kind of negative force, but the devil is a personal being, full of cunning, and seeking to cause as much harm as possible. The amount of evil in the world and its intensity, tell us we are dealing with a malevolent intelligence here, not just a blind force.

We are not overly fearful, just careful. Swim between the flags.

It is all worth it for the sake of the reward which awaits us, the weight of glory which far exceeds the suffering we go through in this life. (second reading).

We must hold on till the end, every day applying what we know and taking up the task.

 

 

 

Corpus Christi 2 June 2024 Sermon

Corpus Christi 2 June 2024 Worthiness

The Eucharist is God's main way of being present to us.

It requires faith as it goes beyond sense experience. Things can be true even if they are not seen or understood … where the feeble senses fail.

Earthly bread can sustain only the body. The bread from heaven will take us to a higher state. We will never die, promises Jesus (Jn 6,51). We will never die in the soul, that is.

We still have to endure physical death but we will have continuous life in the soul.

What is life in the soul? It means we share in God's eternal and perfect life, above all to be seen in the area of charity. We learn to love as God loves, at least to share in the burning intensity of that love.

We acknowledge we are unworthy. That implies that we will be making efforts to improve. We are becoming one flesh with Him, loyal members of His community. It cannot be less than that.

But becoming Christ like implies also that we will take on His generosity and readiness to sacrifice for the greater good. We will be braver and humbler and kinder etc.

We wish each other every possible blessing from this sacrament.

It is a great leveller as it puts us all on the same footing, aware of each other’s need.

It is above all a sacrament of charity, which includes all those qualities in 1 Cor 13, 4-7. Love is always patient and kind etc

Am I still unworthy? Strictly speaking we are all and always unworthy, but we can be worthy enough to be in the category of the sick who need the doctor (Mk 2,17) It comes to attitude. If I acknowledge my need I an worthy enough; if I deny that I have a need then I am too proud to benefit. More homework required.

We cannot lift up this human race by any other power than that which resides in the Eucharist.

It is in the nature of the sacrament that we should try to improve from one time to the next.

Or if we fail to do that we would have sincere sorrow for sin and a desire to be better, even if we cannot see our way to achieve that.

Total humility is the key. If we empty ourselves to be filled by Him, then we make progress.

The Eucharist is an interactive event whereby what we are and what we have mingles with what Our Lord has and does. Whatever good we bring can be seen as the loaves and the fishes, which multiplied miraculously.

And what we receive from Him can be like the wine at Cana, greatly improved through encountering the Lord.

Lowly though we may be we can improve and should be striving to do that.

We can reduce the sins we commit and ask pardon for those we have committed.

The more fervently we receive the Blessed Sacrament the more good it will do us.

This feast reminds us of the great gift we have in our midst. We can draw endlessly on the goodness of God. It is like wading into the ocean – there is always enough and more to spare.

Many will say they do not need the Eucharist, but everyone does need it. It is just that the benefits are more subtle and can escape the eye.

If we receive worthily we will see wonders. We will grow in our knowledge of God and that will bring more power into play.