3rd Sunday after Epiphany 26 Jan 2020 Sermon

3^rd Sunday after Epiphany 26.1.20 Authority

Our Lord can cure any illness from any position. Today we have Him healing one person through touch; another from a distance.

A miracle is an intervention in nature by one who is powerful enough to do that. Our Lord is unquestionably powerful enough; He has authority over all things.

We ordinary mortals cannot overrule nature. We cannot make it rain, or stop the operation of gravity just by wishing it, but Our Lord could do so - with a word, with a thought. Let there be light.

The word of God carries authority, and nature knows when it is beaten as far as God is concerned.

We see that Nature does not usually give way to us. We can, however, go some way to increase our spiritual power, and we do that by coming into closer union with Our Lord.

Doing that we will have more authority over what is below us. Lower creation will obey us if we obey the authority above us.

The Centurion explains this in today’s Gospel. He has the authority to make a lower-ranked soldier come or go, just by a word. Obedience holds the whole structure together. If nobody obeyed there would be complete chaos. If everyone obeys there is order.

If we disobey God nature will disobey us, and even sometimes destroy us (cf disasters).

God meant us to rule over the lower creation. But we cannot even control ourselves let alone the rest of the creation.

The more we are at one with God the more of His power will be available to us.

There would be more order if there were less sin. It is sin that sets off all the trouble.

Knowing this, if we cannot stop a storm we can at least stop what causes the storm. If we do not yet have enough spiritual authority to work miracles, we can build up that authority by practising obedience to God.

It starts with you and me. The faith and humility of each particular servant will increase the likelihood of a good outcome.

It is not our primary aim to become miracle-workers; it is merely that we are giving to God the sort of trust and fidelity that should have always been there. The miracles will flow from that as a by-product.

To be at one with God is itself a more noble objective than the power to work miracles, but we should manage both.

We are seeking to restore what has been lost. When we were expelled from the Garden of Eden we had to start all over again, and in a much more painful and tedious way.

We would be assisted by the grace of God but we would have to struggle to overturn our attachment to sin.

We regain control as we had it before the Fall, and suddenly everything will look a lot easier.

As it is we are pushing uphill on many points at once.

The key to it all is to come back to God. We approach Him in sorrow for sin, and humility of spirit, and the rest will fall into place.

This is what we need for Australia [on our national day]. We are a spiritually desolate nation, and we continue to look in the wrong place, trusting to human reason to solve the problems.

Reason by all means, but we need faith too. We need to acknowledge the chain of command with God at the top. Then we will see better days – much happier people and less disasters, such as bushfires.

We are called to repentance, like Israel of old. They usually did repent when called to it; may we have enough wisdom to follow their example.

2nd Sunday after Epiphany 19 Jan 2020 Sermon

2^nd Sunday after Epiphany 19.1.20 One continuous miracle

Our Lord worked many miracles.  Some miracles were corrections of something that was disordered, eg giving a blind man sight, or restoring a dead man to life. Blindness and death are disorders, and need to be reversed.

Other miracles took something that was good in itself and made it better, eg the multiplication of the loaves, or the turning of water into wine (today’s Gospel).

Each miracle has a short- term and long-term effect.

The short-term effect was that people were very impressed, moved to gratitude or praise of God.

The long-term effect was that people would learn from the miracle, would  read the deeper meaning that was always there.

Our Lord did not want just to give a short-term blessing; He was preparing a whole change of mentality.

So for example He healed a blind man and gave him sight. He was glad to help that particular man and make his life happier. But even more Our Lord wanted all of us to benefit from the miracle: to see that He had come to restore our spiritual sight, so that we could see the right way to live, and avoid snares which lay in our path.

All His miracles had this double effect – the short term for those involved and the long term for the rest of us.

He rescues us from our false thinking and idle pursuits and gives us true direction. He works on our minds and hearts, inviting us to a deeper happiness.

We tend to start with the short term ourselves, whatever our current set of problems may be. Lord, help me with this or that - often material or physical needs, legitimate concerns in themselves, but still we should look deeper.

We understand that Our Lord is seeking to cleanse us of all sin and error; to replace what is disordered with what should be there instead; to turn vices into virtues; to make what is already good better still.

Today’s miracle foreshadows an even greater miracle – the water becomes wine, and later the wine becomes Blood.

This is what we receive in Holy Communion, our closest and deepest contact with Divinity.

Frequent sacraments, frequent prayer, eventually will make us see beyond just short-term benefits.

In fact the whole of Our Lord’s time on earth can be seen as one continuous miracle: namely that He brought divinity into our world.

Humanity would learn to share in Divinity; to think, speak and act in a God-like way, at least as concerns charity.

We would take our place as stewards of His creation, ruling in His name over all that He has created; using everything as He orders it; each person meanwhile living in the dignity of a child of God and a disciple of Christ.

To get to that state of affairs we continue to receive the Sacraments, to pray at every opportunity; to call forth the power of God to work miracles in our time (such as to extinguish bushfires), and the greater miracle still that people will look for the deeper meaning and be transformed.

We must not be discouraged by the size of the task. If we do our bit God will do much more.

We bring our five loaves of bread and let Him feed the whole world!

The Holy Family 12 Jan 2020 Sermon

Holy Family 12.1.20 Learning from the masters

Why did God invent families? To teach us to control our egos, and learn to consider others as well as our own selves. It is good for us to learn that other people are as important as we are.

The family also represents in at least symbolic form the harmony and unity that exists in Heaven, for which place we are being prepared.

Because of original sin we are born with an essentially selfish outlook on life. With baptism and other sacraments, and the word of God to guide us, we come to see a wider picture.

This is what God wants us to learn, and He will help us in the process.

His word tells us: And let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body…(epistle)

We learn to care what happens to others, those whom we love, and eventually those we do not love… but then, come to think of it, we learn to love everyone – if we let the workings of grace go to work on us.

Thus we have the Church, one big happy family – maybe not so happy, but that is because of sin, which can be cleared away.

God wants us to understand how things should look even if we have not yet achieved it in reality.

We will achieve it before we reach Heaven, because no one in Heaven has any selfishness left; it has all been purged away.

Seeing the vision will at least influence us in the right direction.

We have some Heaven on earth in today’s feast: the Holy Family exhibits charity between its members in the strongest possible way.

We might say that the Holy Family is so far above other families as to make comparison impossible.

Yet we can learn from the masters. We may never play tennis as well as the world’s best, but we can still learn from them.

We can learn from these masters of holiness – Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We will never be as good as they were, but we can learn; and we resolve to do that.

We can also draw strength from them – in the form of grace which is offered freely to all who seek it.

The Holy Family does not show us what to do; they give us ability we would not otherwise have. The mysterious power of grace will enable us to grow in our capacity to love God and one another.

There is always the problem that love may not be mutual. We might love the rest of humanity, but some of them may not love us! Not everyone plays by God's rules.

However the holiness of even one person will help the overall body. We can work with imperfection if we ourselves have a clear focus.

We must make families work, as we must make the overall family of the Church work. If human faults abound we fix them, not use them as excuses to abandon responsibility.

The best chance we all have of making necessary changes to our own lives is the combined prayer and charity of those who are seeking the right things.

Sharing in the life of the Church, we have the best chance of being saved and of helping to save others.

It may not be possible to save everyone but that is our desire and clear goal – as it has always been the will of God.

The Holy Family loved God and each other. They invite us to share in that love, to enter their world. We might say at first that we cannot survive at their altitude, but they will sustain us in our struggles.

We pray for all families, for those without families, for the Church – family for all; and for the lost sheep who need refuge.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, come to our aid!

Holy Name 5 Jan 2020 Sermon

Holy Name 5.1.20 He Saves

Thanks be to God for making His name known to us. Before God revealed Himself by stages people did not think God was approachable; it was more fear than love.

In fact God wants us to approach Him. It is an extraordinary thing to be able to enter communication with God so easily as we can; simply to call on Him by one of His names, and there we are before Him.

When we consider what infinitely inferior creatures we are we must be astonished at such a privilege being granted us.

We would not get that far with the VIPs of the world. We would have to get through layers of secretaries and bodyguards to reach them!

Further to this, we have access to Almighty God even though we have sinned against Him.

If we have offended someone, normally that would lead to a cooling of relationship – not in God's world. He longs for the sinner to return and be restored to life.

The feast of the Holy Name is a chance for us to express our appreciation of God's infinite goodness, and to thank Him for arranging things so much in our favour.

We call on His Name for mercy, for grace, for anything that we need. We have many names for God. The Holy Name refers especially to the name Jesus, meaning He saves; capturing the essence of God's main stance towards us, which is one of saving us from sin, from death, from Hell and giving us the reverse of all these things.

Everyone needs saving at different degrees. Those who think they do not need it have become complacent, not heeding the shortness of their lives. Those who despair of salvation need to be re-assured and encouraged to ask for the mercy which can save them.

Anyone can call on this name. A man lying in the gutter can still look at the stars. Anyone can say, at any time, I repent; and make a new start.

Salvation of the soul is always the biggest thing, but we pray for everything, that all can be restored as to how God intended when He created the world.

We will grow in wisdom as we see that God grants some requests and not others.

We gain insight into how He thinks, and what He most wants. We can still ask for everything, only trusting in God to see the overall place of each thing, and not be relying only on our own viewpoint.

We can say with certainty that miracles are more likely to happen if more people have more faith. We pool our faith together and ask for all manner of blessings. We can do more together than we can on our own.

The power of the Holy Name is recognized by the devil who seeks to overturn that name – with blasphemy, obscenity, attempts to restrict its use.

The Name is a threat to the evil spirits and they want to deprive it of its power in any way they can.

To mock the Holy Name is like hanging by a rope over a canyon, and then cutting the rope!

Blaspheming only makes it worse. If, on the other hand, we speak the Holy Name with reverence, and approach with humility we have the basis for many miracles.

We also reparate for the insults directed at the Holy Name, which must run into billions.

Thank God for being so patient with us.

Blessed be God; Blessed be His Holy Name. Blessed be the Name of Jesus.

Sunday in the Octave of Christmas 29 Dec 2019 Sermon

Sunday in Octave of Christmas 29.12.19  The True Messiah

The Jews expected a military Messiah (like another King David), who would oust the Romans and make Israel a strong nation, militarily.

They thought their being occupied was their biggest problem, but it was not. Their biggest problem was that they were sinners, and not right with God.

We could say the same to today’s generation and to any nation - What you need is God. You think you need economic and political solutions, but you really need to repent first. Then you can organise your economy and politics around that.

The same applies at the individual level. People see God as a problem-solver. They call on Him in time of need, without seeing any overall response they need to make to him.

God is happy to solve our problems, certainly, but He wants a much more comprehensive relationship that that. He wants to dwell within us, to share our lives. A relationship closer than marriage.

Many recoil from so much ‘religion’! They would prefer to keep God at arm’s length, much like the plumber or the dentist – call only when needed.

But He is needed even when there is no obvious problem. We have planted in us a need to know, love and serve God. We might look elsewhere for happiness but we will never find the depth of happiness that only God can provide.

The Jews waited for the Messiah to come. Now we have been waiting for Him to come again.

It will help if we know which Messiah we want. The Jews largely got it wrong, and so do most other nations and generations.

The Messiah cannot come in the way He intends if people are not ready to receive Him.

He can come physically, yes, but to come inside the hearts and minds of people – that is a more difficult task.

It is hard to save people who do not want to be saved, or who have a very different idea of what is necessary.

Simeon and Anna provided a necessary context of prayer and faith. Such people, and such prayer give the Messiah a place to establish a base. It is so in our time now.

Like Simeon and Anna we take our turn on the roster at the ‘Temple’, bolstering up the faith of the human race, keeping the right channels open to receive the Messiah in our time.

We understand that we are dealing with the Messiah in terms of holiness, forgiveness, union with God – spiritual realities foremost.

Only the true Messiah can save us. He can make the world and each person in it come to the state which God has intended from the first..

We need strong faith and a certain stamina, to stay in prayer when so many others have abandoned the spiritual view.

Many seek the pleasures of this world only. Others have given up in despair of any help from Heaven.

Like Simeon and Anna, we hold firm. We not only wait for the Messiah but actively seek Him out. We implore Him to come into our midst and set about healing all the distortions in our world.

When God can see in us a willingness to receive what He is wanting to give – then our prayers will have more effect; then we will be hastening the course of the Messiah as He prepares to come again.

We have received Him as a Baby; now we stay with Him through all the other stages. Gradually what we have lost will be restored.

Christmas Day 2019 Sermon

Christmas Day 2019 Readiness

Most days of our lives nothing much happens. It is just the same old routine.

Just the occasional day something extraordinary things happen, good or bad,

In the Christmas story we have a series of extraordinary events, all good.

We are familiar with these stories and might therefore be a little de-sensitized as to how extraordinary they were:

Annunciation. Just imagine. To receive an angel – that alone would overwhelm us. But then such a message. You will have a son and He will be the Saviour of the world. Just like that.

Then St Joseph and his dreams. To have a dream of such clarity and so much against normal reality. A child without a human father. He believes it even if he does not understand it.

Then the shepherds: on an ordinary night in their ordinary fields – a host of angels appear and again the message.

For improbability on one hand and the depth of the message on the other, nothing can equal these events.

When God chooses to make Himself known, creation stands still.

It may still take time for the full truth to come out. Great revelations from God are usually to just one or a few people; and only later does the story emerge (eg Lourdes, Fatima)..

The lessons for us are 1)that we should never declare there is nothing happening. A seed becomes a tree, but we cannot wait around to see it happening. Yet we see the tree.

We take confidence in God's ability to finish what He has started.

2) God can fulfil His plans more easily if He can find people who are willing to believe Him.

Imagine if He waited a thousand years for the right person and that person refuses. There probably have been many such people who could have helped things along but missed their calling (eg Judas, or the Rich Young Man).

If we believe in God and His power, we will not want to stand in His way.

3) We believe in God's power to transform reality, which may appear to be stuck at its present level.

Who can stop a storm with a word or bring forth a man from his grave, who has been dead four days?

We say, impossible, or highly improbably. God does it.

On all the days when there is no obvious miracle, it is not as though God is sleeping. He is just letting time run its course until the next dramatic intervention.

We serve Him on those days as well. We are in readiness for whatever God tells us or otherwise makes known. We will obey instantly whatever He commands, ordinary or extraordinary.

We cannot force these special moments to come, but we can recognize them when they do come, and be in the right frame of mind to react.

We can also be active in seeking His will. By calling down His blessings on the world,  we believe we can bring Salvation at an accelerated rate. This is really what all intercessory prayer is doing.

God wants to have us working with Him and being responsive at all times; not to be totally surprised every time He does something.

We live in a world where miracles still happen, and they will happen more often if more people would come to believe it.

We thank God today for doing so much for us, with such patience, and ask for the grace to assist rather than impede the full realization of His will.

Happy Christmas!