16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 21 July 2024 Sermon

16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 21 July 2024  Lost sheep

We know from the Lost Sheep parable that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and goes looking for that one lost sheep no matter how difficult to find.

We could take the parable a little further and say that the lost sheep, if it has enough sense, will be helping the shepherd to find him, and actually looking for the shepherd anyway.

Today’s Gospel tells us that the people went looking for Jesus and went to some trouble to find Him.

They might have had different motivations for doing that. Some would have wanted physical healing, some to hear His teaching, some maybe just for the novelty of being part of the crowd.

But they went after Him and many would have been healed.

Jesus drew them to Himself. He wanted them to come. Admittedly sometimes He needed to rest, but overall He was glad to see them and to help all comers.

One thing He will ask in return is that we be His disciples. Come, follow Me.

If I am already His disciple He will expect me to be a stronger one.

It means that if I go to Jesus and ask Him to give me sight, or hearing, or even life itself, I must be prepared to ask on His terms, not my own. I must let Him decide what is best for me, and be happy with His decisions.

The sheep comes looking for direction, and guidance, and rejoices when he find his needs not only met but enlarged.

There is more happiness in being a disciple of Christ than in having good health or lots of possessions.

This is a crucial point that we may have to wrestle with.

He will heal us of our blindness, and lameness etc but He will also heal us of anything that holds us back from fuller commitment.

This is why many hold back from seeking Him. They are afraid to go inside a church for fear they might get ‘hooked’, and spend the rest of their days singing hymns! The book ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ set in 1950s New York described the gang warfare at that time. If a youth was converted to Christian the other gang members would say he ‘got religion’, as though it were a disease. So it can still seem in our culture.

Conversion stories abound of people getting caught by some circumstance and receiving enough grace to change the course of their lives.

It happens to someone every day and we rejoice in it, but it is not easy to make it happen to order, as regards a particular person.

Some lost sheep are not ready yet, but they can learn what they need to know.  A disciple is one who learns, and we are all doing that even if we have been in the Church for decades.

The day we can say that we would rather be forgiven for our sins than to be healed of some bodily ailment – on that day we can say we have learned something.

The Sheep meets the Shepherd and finds His true pasture.

So we have the psalm today: the Lord is my Shepherd. It is the most famous psalm and it covers all the main points. It is an expression of total trust that under the Lord’s guidance all must be well.

If it is not well yet it is becoming so. ‘There is nothing I shall want’ if I have the Shepherd Himself.

15th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 14 July 2024 Sermon

15^th Sunday Ordinary Time  (B) 14 July 2024 The Main Event

It is possible to see our faith as just a part of our lives, that we engage in sometimes but not all the time; that has some bearing on the decisions we make, but is not necessarily the main focus.

Today’s readings put Jesus firmly at the centre of everything – our lives, our whole world, the whole world.

[He is seated at the right hand] far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church… (Eph 1,21-22).

Does that sound like someone who is just one of many? He is not a side event, or a non-event; He is the Main event.

Whatever else we interest ourselves in, whatever else we do – He is the most important reality in our lives.

In practice we deal with many things, and today’s world is probably the busiest it has ever been, with the appearance of so many IT gadgets and global communication.

To say that Jesus is at the centre of it all might seem impractical. On the face of it we would have less time to pray or engage in spiritual matters, one might expect.

If we take Our Lord as the root, the foundation, the ‘cornerstone’ we can see what is meant.

If we have Him as the guiding principle of all that we think, say or do – then we can manage all our concerns in a consistent and productive way.

As a quick reference point we can ask ourselves: would what I am doing now be pleasing to God? We seek to please Him, and avoiding all that would displease Him.

We go back to Him at regular intervals, correcting ourselves if we are drifting too far from him.

There are many temptations to make less of Him than He really is.

Many today would say that the purpose of religion is to help people. We can help people without going to church or praying etc, so why not leave it at that?

Some would say that it is too narrow to have just one Saviour; there can be many sources of help. But He is at the centre of it all.

Or we could say - I do good, I am good enough, etc. I don’t need anything else.

Or, I am spiritual but not religious.

Or, all religions are the same.

These attitudes do not do justice to Jesus Christ who is the only God who actually exists, and requires from us not only conformity to His laws, but love and worship in return.

The first Commandment is to love God. We do not just deal with Him to solve our problems but consciously, explicitly acknowledge His importance.

It means we want what He wants. He will guide our choices.

Better still He will form us in His image, and make us Christ-like on the inside, in our hearts and minds, the way we think and feel.

 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.(Eph 3,16-17)

He is as central to us as we are to ourselves. We look out on reality with His eyes, discerning good and evil, forgiving readily, encouraging to persevere.

Praised be to Him, forever.

14 th Sunday Ordinary Time 7 July 2024 Sermon

14^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 7 July 2024 Acceptance and Obedience

In the Gospel we have Jesus being rejected by His own people. We can understand that it might be difficult to think of someone from your own town would be a messianic figure, let alone God and Saviour!

But after constant miracles and profound teaching, they should have been prepared to give Him a fair hearing.

Too close for some, too far away for others – those who say they need not import ‘Christianity’; they have their own religions already.

There is no pleasing people when they are in a defiant mood. Our Lord compared the Pharisees with children in the marketplace who would tease anyone with any sort of contradiction (Lk 7,32).

In the face of great miracles the pharisees were more worried about the day of the week than the good effects of the miracle. They objected to Sabbath miracles (Mt 12,1-8).

It is easy to be negative about anything different, especially if we are in a despondent mood. Five loaves – what is that among so many? (Jn 6,8-11)

To every promise of better things we can recall bad things from the past and allow our hope to be smothered.

We can be critical even of God, wanting to dispute His ways. Why does He not stop all the things that are wrong, or go wrong? why does He not do what I ask?

God invites us to believe in Him, and entrust ourselves to His care.

We have the freedom to reject His offer, but how much misery that will bring.

It is better just to accept His invitation to the banquet, or to Come follow Him.  trusting His wisdom and His timing.

Naaman the Syrian was offered healing if he would bathe in the River Jordan. His first reaction was to dispute the offer, saying he had rivers just as good back home.

But his servant helped him to see things more plainly. Just do what the prophet asks you to do. He accepted that advice and was healed. (2 K 5,1-19)

If people prayed more and complained less, imagine the difference! All that energy we could use more profitably than by complaining and disputing.

Why not simply accept the way God has set things up, and resolve to obey Him at every turn?

God could do things more directly and use His miraculous power more often.

Generally He prefers to work through our response. He builds us up in faith and humility and so we take part in our own salvation.

This is a miracle on slow cooker; over years we can learn to trust God more and be more compliant with His will (Compliant is just two letter different from Complaint!)

The human race has been arguing with God since Day One. We can try a different line.

Each of us can do something. Each of us is unique as to when and where we live, what gifts we have and weaknesses too; it all goes into the mix and we take our place - which others can cover for but cannot fully replace.

Whatever God asks of us it will be the right thing, so we set ourselves to work with Him and follow His leading.

In our time it is vital that we hold on to our faith in the chill winds of scepticism and cynicism. Many have rejected the plain truth of God's revelation; in these times we must make it known. The carpenter’s son from Nazareth commands our attention.

13th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 30 June 2024 Sermon

 

13^th Sunday Ordinary Time (B)   30 June 2024   Death

Here [raising the young girl to life] we have God restoring life, something He is very good at doing. He can make life out of nothing, and He can make an existing life more alive, reflecting more perfectly His own life, something He has to an infinite degree.

We have a great desire for life. We do what we can either to avoid death or overcome it.

Death is an unwelcome visitor; it was never of God's fashioning (first reading). We are not meant to like it; God certainly does not. He allows it into the world but He will not let it have the last word.

We wrestle with God and His will on the matter of death. We have difficulty accepting death of loved ones, our own death, or death in general.

We do what we can to postpone death, attending to physical safety and healthy living, but we cannot put it off forever.

We can, however, take the sting out of death. The sting of death is sin (1 Cor 15,56) and if we could remove the sin then dying becomes like falling asleep (Gospel) She is not dead but asleep.

Removing the sin happens in two ways: that we stop committing it, and that we repent of the sin we have committed.

As we expel the sin from the system we become more ‘alive’ and much happier.

Indeed, dying is just like going to sleep if we can go far enough in that direction. The saints fell asleep in the Lord, either through a peaceful death, or in martyrdom where the focus was not on the pain of dying but instead the martyr’s love for God.

We cannot stop the dying itself but we can leave behind the fear. We yield ourselves to God's care: Into thy hands O Lord I commit my spirit. (Lk 23,46)

In His Passion and death Jesus spoke to the women of Jerusalem, to the Good Thief, to His Mother and St John, to the Father in prayer – all outwards movements. He was not feeling sorry for Himself. He was not afraid of dying. Perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4,18).

We can restore some of what we have lost.  It means living according to God’s will - the way we live and the way we die.

Things we can do to overcome the fear of death:

1) Express to God our sorrow for sin. Sin is the real culprit, even more than death is. Death is the outwards result  while sin is the inner cause.

2) Live in harmony with the will of God, and a lot less will go wrong in the world, making it a safer and happier place.

3) Pray for a happy death. St Joseph is the patron of a happy death. When he died who else was in the room? Jesus and Mary! We cannot get much better than that. Death is not lonely as it may appear, not if we have friends from Heaven.

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4) Trust in God's grace to carry us along.

We cannot stop all the sin in the world but we can atone for it, and in proportion as we do that there will be Life instead of death. Imagine an army on the move, only this army brings love not the usual destruction. Together we make such an army.

In the meantime we seek cures for diseases and whatever natural remedies can be found, even things like drive safely. God wants us to preserve life as far as we can, within reason. But these things only postpone death; we need supernatural means to overcome death, and forever.

We could say in summary: we do not like death but we do like God, and His holy will.

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.