Our Lady Help of Christians 24 May 2020 Sermon

Our Lady Help of Christians 24.5.20 (Sunday after Ascension)

Under this title, Our Lady is Patroness of Australia.

She helps us. I need all the help I can get is a common phrase, and it is truest of all in the  spiritual domain.

We need help to see things the right way up, to resist and avoid the temptations of the evil one, and keep our footing on the various slippery slopes we have in our present world.

The lack of support from the general population makes it harder. We can always hold on to our own faith, but it becomes much harder to evangelise the whole world when so many have abandoned the faith, or refused to take it up.

We share the same world as them, and it puts us almost always in a minority situation.

This is not to complain or admit defeat, but it just shows how much we need the Help Our Lady promises us.

With her help we can be more like she was in her earthly life: always fixed on the will of God, never doubting God's providence, all our thoughts words and deeds in harmony with His holy will.

The Church is always needing to restore and maintain fervour.

Sometimes we have to be on the defensive, as in apologizing for child abuse.

The sins of some do not negate the mission of the Church, however, which remains to go and baptize all nations.

We are on the defensive also, insofar as we try to escape from persecution.

If we started in the Upper Room it seems we spend a lot of time in the basement! - trying to survive physically and spiritually.

If we are hiding it does not mean we lack faith, just that we are looking for ways to overcome all the difficulties.

Mary will help us by her own constancy. She is the beacon, the star for struggling mariners.

She helps us to believe, to hope, to trust - making us more confident of the rightness of our position; and more effective in spreading the Gospel.

The Church was supposed to come out of that Upper Room and sweep across the whole world. It has not followed that script! We have been winning some and losing some ever since that first Pentecost.

We need Help to make the gains without losing them again.

We try to keep as high standard in being Our Lord’s disciples.

In whatever ways we have failed we can set it right. Just as an individual disciple can be forgiven and eventually break through to a higher level of holiness, so can the whole Church.

We help each other; the strong should help the weak (Rm 15,1).  Sometimes we are the strong, sometimes the weak.

In all cases we fix our eyes on where the help is coming from.

As one who is trapped will look for the first sign of rescuers approaching; or one suffering a drought will look hopefully for clouds - we spend a lot of our time looking for help.

Sometimes the problems are very deep-rooted and we have to live with them a long time. We can cope with those too.

Either our problems disappear or we are made strong enough to deal with them.

There is power available for every need. And taking refuge in Mary will always bring that power into operation.

We call on her under all her titles; she is always available. It just requires a certain discipline on our part to link with her, and maintain that link. Our prayer must be continuous not just occasional.

Help of Christians, keep us faithful, purposeful, on track to Calvary and beyond.

Update (21 May 2020)

We all hope to be able to resume normal Sunday and Weekday Masses as soon as possible.

I will let everyone know when it is possible to return to St Monica's and Sacred Heart churches.

It appears restrictions are lifting, so it may not be long; but I cannot name any date yet.

If you have been attending St Monica's or Sacred Heart please send me a way of reaching you (email or mobile number) and I will be able to keep you up to date.

You can reach me on email at dthorgood@hotmail.com

Or you can keep checking this blogsite.

Please keep the faith and keep praying!

God bless,
Fr David Thoroughgood

5th Sunday after Easter 17 May 2020 Sermon

5^th Sunday after Easter 17.5.20 Doers of the word

We must be doers of the word, not hearers only.

It is so much easier to talk about our faith than to put it into practice.

It is easy to identify the needs: we should be more charitable, more enthusiastic, more generous etc

Bringing these things into actual reality is another matter.

It does help, however, to say the right things insofar as it makes it more likely the actions will follow.

We get it right at least some of the time.

And to say these things has the value also of instruction. We can at least be clear on what we ought to do.

We can grow in our understanding of the word of God. It will take root in us and bear fruit.

As this happens the gap between theory and practice will close.

We come to love His commands because we see their essential goodness (Ps 118 [119]:27)

This will help overcome the charge of hypocrisy, which is so often applied to us, who profess the faith. They say we do not practise what we preach, and we know that is true in many cases. We want to deprive them of that accusation by putting words into action.

In the meantime we would hasten to tell anyone that they should not judge the Church by  the behaviour of its members, as we fall far short of sainthood.

Nevertheless they will so judge. They should join the Church anyway, regardless of the quality of other disciples. This follows when we consider that each disciple is in direct relationship with Our Lord, and the call is to follow Him, not each other.

Whether we are existing disciples or prospective new ones, we all have the obligation and the opportunity to live in the life of Christ, to receive His grace and be motivated and guided by Him.

God's call is universal, and so is His mercy.

There is much human fault in the Church, but there is also the divinity of Christ, the perfect holiness of Mary and the full power of angels and saints combined.

The Church is an elite body to join, yet her members do not think themselves superior.

We admit the fault of our human dimension, and we apply ourselves to repairing it, always with the help of grace.

This will make the Church more attractive for others to join; and that is a major point, but still not the most important.

What is most important is that we give glory to God, something much neglected, yet which has always been our primary obligation.

We do not try to impress others for our own sake, but to win them to the love of God, so that they will live holy lives; and so it spreads, and the whole world benefits.

The Church has people coming and going, committing and leaving – all at the same time.

We need them to talk to each other. Why are you joining; why are you leaving?

We need to reach a point where it is only one-way traffic; where people come but do not leave.

If we base our lives on what most people do, Heaven help us!  We follow Christ not other people. If we all take direction from Him, yes we will end up doing the same as each other, but by that stage it will be only the right things.

Just as an individual can confess the same sins many times, still managing to advance in holiness, so can the Church make progress – becoming the perfect Bride (Rev 21,2).

Old sins give way to new holiness, as the divine perfects what is human.

4th Sunday after Easter 10 May 2020 Sermon

4^th Sunday after Easter 10.5.20 Ignorance is not bliss

Father forgive them they know not what they do. (Lk 23,34)

It is often argued that people today, especially the young, cannot be held guilty for much of what they do because they do not know it is wrong. No one has told them, so how can they know?

It is a dangerous approach in matters of faith and morality to rely too heavily on ignorance. There must come a point where we really did know, or should have known.

Even in secular law there are things we are expected to know (like observing fire safety, or road safety). If we did not know, then we should have found out.

It may be that people do not want to know so they can continue in blissful ignorance. (This is one reason why prophets are often unwelcome: eg Herodias and St John the Baptist (Mk 6.17-28)). They would rather kill the messenger than heed his message.

Only God would know how to assess the guilt or otherwise of each person.

For our part, we affirm God’s mercy, and believe that anyone can be saved if only he makes the right turnings.

We resolve  never to hide behind a contrived ignorance, as that would be to show contempt for Christ, crucified for us. We would not drive another nail into His hands, or add another lash to His back by adding any further sin.

It is argued that the Church would do better to leave people in ignorance rather than preach to them as to rights and wrongs.

This would be degrading for human dignity. Every person is called to conversion and salvation. We should give each other the best possible chance to find their place in God's sight.

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord refers to the Holy Spirit who will convince people of what they may not have grasped before. (Jn 16, 8-11) He will convince, or convict. There comes a point where we cannot hide anymore; but must face our sins.

This sounds frightening, but really it is liberating as we discover the joy of union with God,

The Spirit will find different ways of getting through to people. Not many can read all the Bible, the Fathers, the Councils and the Popes etc; but everyone can be prompted by the Holy Spirit. The word of the Lord is quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
(Hebrews 4,12)

The law of God is inscribed on our hearts. It may not be discovered, or activated, but it is there. This can be described as the natural law, the law that flows from the nature of things.

All people are bound by this law, even if they would protest they are not.

It is liberating for us to discover our true state before God.

Would you go back to Egypt, to slavery to the flesh, to living in darkness? No. We have discovered a better way.

It comes back to our relationship with God. Sin is a personal transaction; it is giving offence to God.

God has established things in a certain way. We make it harder for ourselves when we go our way instead of His.

It is sometimes hard to find solid ground on which to stand, but it can be done.

Father, they know not what  they do, but we can find out what we are doing, and do something else instead - live in the holy will of God.

3rd Sunday after Easter 3 May 2020 Sermon

3^rd Sunday after Easter 3.5.20 Preparing for eternity

Our Lord prepares His disciples (including us) for a long wait. In a little while you will see Me again. We would protest it has been a very long while in our case, but any period of time dissolves into nothing when compared with eternity.

Our Lord wants us to get the right perspective on how He is working with us and through us.

He knows we will find many things difficult so He wants to fortify us against those difficulties. We, for our part, will gratefully take all the help He wants to give us.

The committed disciple is someone who is not distracted by circumstances; who can project into the future and still say: I believe in God, who is beyond all this, created all this, and keeps it in being, and will wrap it all up in His time and His way.

I set my hopes on Him and His promises. I do not limit myself simply to just what I have seen or experienced so far.

We start our eternal journey with this earthly life – it is all we have known so far. This makes it challenging to believe in a life which is so much better than this one.

Many cannot cross this gap and abandon hope because they let the difficulties overpower them.

We could become accustomed to the chaos around us, and say, well, this must be normal, as there is so much of it.

Our Lord is saying in today’s Gospel that we are actually called to a much higher destiny, a much happier state, than anything we have seen so far. ‘You now have sorrow: but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you.’ (Jn 16,22).

We strive for the fulfilment of these promises. We long to be in our heavenly home. We long to see this earthly home made as good as it can be.

To have our eyes fixed on the heights will fortify us with hope, courage, wisdom – all the qualities needed to live this life well; and at least partially repair some of the disorder around us.

The next life is coming closer, in two senses.

One, simply with the passing of time as our lives, and this earth, head towards completion.

Two, it is coming closer in the sense that we are more fully grasping what is required.

This is where Our Lord is steering us.

He wants us to have a spiritual interpretation of reality.

Not many want to do that. Politics, economics, social and cultural aspects of problems will all be addressed, but rarely the spiritual. This means most people are missing the point, most of the time.

To understand things spiritually is to discover the key to everything – like solving a puzzle; we have discovered the central idea and all else falls into place. ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.’ (Mt 6,33)

When we are in communion with God all becomes clear.

This earthly life is still difficult. We still live in a jungle, but we start to cultivate it a little, so it looks more like a garden

The future can seem frightening but we take it one day at a time; and we discern the hand of God taking control of our affairs.

We turn everything over to prayer – the long-term problems and the daily ones, large and small. We will survive, and flourish.