Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2025 Sermon

Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2025 Forever young

We can think of Pentecost as like a nuclear explosion but with good effects instead of destruction.

All that energy flowing out from one room, a new beginning for the human race.

And in this case the explosion is still happening, as waves of love and peace, and all good qualities go out over the world. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. (Hab 2,14)

When this force meets its target something dramatic happens. Instead of death there is life. All the negative elements are turned into the corresponding good. So despair becomes hope, fear becomes courage, hate becomes love etc.

Unlike a bomb which destroys all in its path the Spirit will go usually where He is welcomed. People can resist but He remains available to be called upon.

Today we express our desire to grow in personal renewal, on one hand, and to facilitate the spread of such a good influence on others, as many as we can reach.

It has never been as straightforward as we would have wished, but still it has been impressive.

Millions have been reached and still at least one billion people claim a link with the Church.

Pentecost has changed history and will greatly influence the future as well.

It will happen a lot more strongly the more people line up on the right side. Good v Evil, we need to know which side we are on.

We cannot have all the enthusiasm we need for the rest of our lives all at once.

We can guarantee, however, that we can always replenish the necessary strength.

 [T]there came in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it. Jer 20,9)  We need that fire always.

We could liken each church to an ‘upper room’; we continue what began back there.

Here, once again, we can make contact with the powerful goodness of God.

God never depreciates or grows old. We could say we grow younger when we interact with God, because we are being reborn all the time.

It is not so easy even to organize ourselves, but we have to conquer or re-conquer the whole world.

The explosion can be resisted in this case. Love invites but does not force.

The new order will remain in place, however, as God seeks to claim the lost sheep.

It is a struggle to regain the lost and claim those never reached, while holding those we have.

God has no borders. He regards the whole world as His – a reasonable position insofar as He created it all! Every nation, every person is His.

The world sees so much suffering; now we see that there is a ray of hope. Pentecost reminds us of all the reasons we are still hoping.

The more we hope, the more we leave room to the Holy Spirit to work His wonders. The greatest wonder is when a person takes God at His word and comes to life.

Every year, every day we pray, at least by implication: Come, Holy Ghost. On each and all of us, and all others besides.

Ascension of the Lord 1 June 2025 Sermon

Ascension of the Lord 1 June 2025 Our true home

In a little while you shall not see Me, and again a little while and you shall see Me  (Jn 16,16-22).

Our Lord was referring to His crucifixion as the first separation, and then His Ascension as the second time, anticipating a glorious reunion in each case.

For us it is still a time of separation, to be resolved individually at death, and overall at His second coming.

One good thing about separations is they can increase our desire to see one whom we love. Our Lord wants us to use this present time of our lives, increasing our desire for Him, longing for reunion with Him, and then eternal union.

He leads us on as He offers us something better, our true home.

In the meantime, our waiting is not just idle; we should do good in every way possible (For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people 1 P 2,15).

We might think God is being cruel keeping us at such distance from Him and not ending our exile quickly.

He is never cruel, just firm. Whatever He does is aimed at giving us the best possible outcome. If we learn to wait for our fulfilment in Him, we will be a lot happier overall than if we expect instant delights at every turn.

He will give us all the qualities we need to serve out our time of separation. All our prayer has a certain longing quality about it. The Advent prayer, Come, Lord Jesus says it all.

He offers Himself in sacramental form to keep us on track. There is great power in the sacraments if we let them take full effect.

We are generally too much absorbed in this life and not really trusting God to provide.

We cannot guarantee that we will always be comfortable physically, but we can ensure that we always have spiritual aid, helping us to keep everything in balance.

We learn to keep always one eye on eternity, the long view.

We learn to live each moment for God, without useless worry or futile distractions.

We worry about many things; we have many deadlines to meet, recurring tasks to fulfil. Always there is something to claim our attention.

We can take all that in our stride if we are sufficiently grounded in Christ.

We will find the wisdom and the energy to deal with each problem as it arises.

We have the benefit of God's power and love at every moment. We cannot lose on that basis.

The future is very strange to us;  even as to this life the future is a complete blur. We have no idea what will happen even tomorrow, let alone the rest of our time on earth.

What happens after death is more mysterious still.

Not fully knowing something does not make it untrue.

The atheists and the agnostics ridicule Heaven and the whole spiritual world because they do not see with the physical eyes.

We trust that whatever God tells us is true, whether we understand it or not, whether we have experienced it or not. It is a joy for us waiting to find out what Heaven is like.

The future and the past are all one to God, and so it should be to us as far as faith is concerned. We should be able to believe in future events as surely as those in the past.

And this earth, weighed down by so much suffering as it is, can be enjoyed on the same principle, that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rm 8,39).

He is testing us to see if we are capable of trusting Him to such an extent, at the same time enabling us to do so.

So, the daily grind goes on – for now - but not forever.

In a little while….

6th Sunday of Easter C 25 May 2025 Sermon

 6^th Sunday of Easter 25.May 2025 Peace of Christ

 Peace I leave you, says the Lord, a peace the world cannot give.

 It is said that peace is more than the absence of conflict. It is great if there is no war going on, but even in peacetime we can experience many types of pressure, and there are forms of war such as anger, quarrels, bitterness, spite, accusations, and so on.

 Think of the peace of Eden, that first place we possessed, where everything was as it should be. Peace and order reigned.

 What made Eden so pleasant was that all was according to the mind of God. That is where true peace begins, and there can be  no true peace unless deriving from God.

 When all is in union with Him there will be order in all creation as well. What we had in Eden we still have in Heaven, only better still.

 We might think it unlikely that such order can exist, but it is natural enough if we consider that created being should be in full concord with the Creator Himself.

How could it be otherwise? And we can ask that question of the human race – where have you been all this time? Why did you not seek out the One who has all wisdom, power and goodness to help you find  your way? If you want peace, why did you not look to the One who is the source of peace?

That would be the normal thing to do, where normal means according to the ‘norm’.

It is not normal to go around speaking unkindly to or about others. Like Israel we have been set free from slavery, in our case the slavery of sin. We do not return to Egypt.

The freedom from slavery means, in our case, that our thoughts and words, as well as our actions, are in accord with God.

As to fighting with another, if we are both filled with Christ how can we be hostile to each other? It is like the left hand and the right hand having a civil war.

Many would never have tried very hard to live in this freedom, because they would have judged it to be impossible.

But it is not so hard if we think of it as a matter of union with God. We can call directly on God to give us the peace that flows from being in union with Him. If He is at peace so are we.

The peace of Christ permeates our souls, and our communities, so it blesses us at both levels, the individual and the communal. We acquire a larger vision, and find we can respond to all emergencies in a more ordered way.

We pray for peace in the world, but we realize that first there must be peace in our hearts.

Unless we can bring the disordered passions into shape we cannot have much hope of peace on the world scale.

We work on our own personal level. We restrain from uncharitable speech, raised voices, malicious gossip etc.

And we replace these things with the good things from Heaven. We offload the vices and take up the virtues instead - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Ga 5,22)

Jesus wants to transform us from within, so we are not just keeping commands but actually changing into images of Him. We speak and act as He would, at least as far as charity is concerned. The abiding presence of God is found in us. And that enables us to live in peace.

This is the peace we wish upon each other at every Mass. 

5th Sunday of Easter 18 May 2025 Sermon

5^th Sunday of Easter 18 May 2025  Love one another

Jesus prepares to leave His Church, as we move from Easter to Pentecost. We, meanwhile, adapt to having faith but not the actual sight of Christ. In a little while you will see Me again Jn 16,16.

We see Him with the eyes of faith, or we could say, with the eyes of love.

Love is God's main language, - and if we enact that language we will be on the same wavelength as God and each other.

This is how the Church keeps unity, when it does. It is love that makes it possible for us to perceive the presence of God - if we love one another, as Jesus teaches today (Jn 13,34).  We will be transformed as we do that, better people in a better world.

The Church has buildings and all the latest technology, but those things are just to make possible the main work, which is to love – God and neighbour.

The Church makes present the love of God, through teaching, through works of mercy, through the sacraments. We have to act out this charity, not just have it there in theory.

We have to be active in seeking this divine element. We look for God in all the circumstances we encounter. We try to learn to interpret His will, to be ready to obey Him.

This is hard if we are not used to prayer, or do not have a lot of faith It is something we have to try first, to see if it ‘works’.

Many will say prayer is useless, so they do not pray. But if they did pray – continuously – they would find that it does indeed make a difference.

In the meantime, God wants us to become fluent in His language – Love one another …

And once we have mastered this we can build on to it, reaching a stronger awareness of God, and ways of dealing with every situation.

We can have heaven on earth (second reading) if we do this from the heart, seeking to please God first, knowing that other people will benefit also.

If we really love God we will have a much warmer view of other people.

Big occasions can bring out a stronger sense of solidarity. For example, the recent Pope’s election. This is a small glimpse of the kingdom of God in our midst. A lot of people all sharing the one faith and seeking the same outcomes.

Or pilgrimages to holy places, where people seek higher things.

We derive that extra warmth from the heart of Christ. On the Cross Jesus has His arms outstretched. When I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself. Jn 12,32

Loving one another means in practice many different things according to the need. But at the heart of the matter, it means having respect for the dignity of each person, helping those in need – drawing heavily from God's mercy and charity.

God gives us the ability to be merciful as He is merciful. This will come with repeated exposure to His grace.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13,4-7)

This is how Our Lord keeps us within reach while He is physically away from us. We will hardly miss Him if we take His word seriously and put it into practice. Always with His help.

4th Sunday of Easter C 11 May 2025 Sermon

4^th Sunday of Easter 11 May 2025  Mother Mary

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, World Vocations day, and Mothers Day.

And the first Sunday of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV

Unifying all these points we could say the Love of God is at work, variously looking after us on one hand, and inspiring us to go out to look after others on the other.

Jesus gives us Himself as the Good Shepherd, rounding up His flock, which consists of those who already belong to Him, and those who do not identify but should. He loves them all and seeks to draw them into His heart.

And working alongside the Good Shepherd, we have the Mother of us all influencing us in all the right ways. As mothers do, and Mary especially.

Our mothers helped us to come into this life, and then how to live it. They fed us and taught us many things about life; they gave us what they could. When we reached adulthood they supported us there as well.

We thank them for what they have done or are still doing.

Our heavenly Mother is also there at every step. She will nourish us with truth, and charity and wisdom and a host of other good qualities.

She has so much goodness herself, that she can share it with others, and that is what she does.

She communicates with us in various ways, not usually with audible speech but with ideas, principles, suggestions – various ways that thoughts come to us, and we process them as best we can.

If we say the devil tempts us we can say that God or Mary give us the opposite of a temptation – an urge to something good, to believe more clearly what we should, to respond generously to whatever is expected - such as to respond to the various calls God makes upon us, especially that of priestly or religious vocations.

We pray that the inspiration will be accepted and acted upon. With vocations there may be more than one stage – first, conversion to the faith, then a more particular call such as priesthood.  As with St Augustine, who needed to come to belief and then later was a great bishop.

Mary has a gentle presence and way of communicating with us. She is firm, however, and without overruling our free will, draws us to better things.

She wants only to help people connect with her Son. Woman, this is your son. And so she has been helping ever since. Being mother.

It is good to have her around. In recent years many Catholics have been reluctant to give much attention to Mary.

There is a fear that attention given to her will somehow subtract from attention given to God.

Love is expansive, meaning that we can love more than one person without detracting from anyone else. So for example if you have one child or three or seven it is possible to love all of them.

So we can talk to Mary without in any way lessening our love for Jesus. In fact, her prayer will help us to love Jesus more.

She will help us to know Him better and be more comfortable with His will.

She is mother to many who do not know her, or believe her. She will pray for them anyway, and many will come to conversion through her.

We can always pray directly to God but if we call upon Mary she will add her prayer, and things will go faster and better.

So we pray to her today for all those things going on. Mothers Day, Vocations, The Pope.

3rd Sunday of Easter C 4 May 2025 Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Easter (C ) 4 May 2025 Love at the source

Our dealings with God are personal; to us they can seem impersonal. We tend to see love as human to human, and that is the stuff of love stories. Imagine a film ending with the couple going to church to worship God!

We keep the commands and that goes some way. For example, I do not steal.

But if I do good and avoid evil, not just because it is a command, but because I value the person who would be hurt – that is more like how it is supposed to work.

I would not hurt you because I value you  as a person. Most people we don’t know personally, but we respect their human dignity. Therefore we treat people with kindness, courtesy etc.

This all comes from God, the giver of all that is good. We love people because God loved us first. He loves me and the other person. We return some of that love to him, we hope increasingly. We learn to love one another as an extension of God's love for us.

This makes it easier to keep the commands, so they are not just seemingly random interruptions. The sourcing of these commands from God indicates their meaning and power.

Christ is risen is good, but better still if we love Him. Take Mary Magdalene who loved Our Lord more than the other disciples did, and so experienced more fully the sorrow of the Crucifixion and the joy of the Resurrection.

We might say I don’t want to love that much, but this is the way forward, to be discovered. We will be much happier if we go this way than not. A life of sin is a life of misery, slavery and possibly even damnation. If we can cultivate the personal sense of God we are dealing with goodness itself.

We learn to love goodness itself; no longer abstract, but part of us.

This is better than human to human love, which is limited. With God at the source we can love another person in the love of God for us. It becomes a community of love, all the better.

When Jesus asks Peter, do you love me, it is to probe Peter, and get him to take a longer look at his motives

Feed my sheep means go out in the strength of my love and bring it to others.

Many would see God as a kind of remote presence, having some influence but not much.

Our world with all its buying and selling is the real world, they will say, and talk of heaven etc is vague and abstract, therefor less real.

In fact it is the other way round. The things of heaven are stronger and firmer than the things of earth.

In heaven we find the fulness of love and most of all its reliability; it does not betray or disappoint as mere earthly love will do.

Peter betrayed Jesus although he did not want to, but his earthly nature was too strong at that point. When fortified by deeper exposure to real love Peter was much stronger at Pentecost.

To love many others is also challenging but Paul shows how he could do this. He was so immersed in the love of Christ that he had enough left over for the anonymous communities. He really did love the people that he did not personally know.

God does know us by name and every detail about us, so He also can include everyone at once.

Love is making oneself vulnerable to another. God does that in His own nature, the Trinity, and helps us to do the same as far as we can, and with the largest possible vision of what is at stake.

Yes, Lord, You know I love You…

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Sunday of Easter 27 April 2025 Sermon

2nd Sunday of Easter 27 April 2025 The Pope

We are preparing for the election of a new Pope.

We pray for the whole process - especially that the man chosen to be Pope will be the one whom God wills for that position.

Once we have a new Pope we have to maintain the prayer. The prayer has to be constant because the burden is constant. Imagine being pastor of the whole Church. 1.3 billion out of eight billion. He is pastor for the Catholics and has some influence on the others

We pray for him because he is a man doing God’s work. Ever since Our Lord entrusted the leadership of the Church to Peter there has been this curious partnership of divine and human authority. Men are called to do what God would do far better. 

It might seem to us a better idea if Christ had stayed on the earth and run the Church Himself. But He entrusted the task to flesh and blood, earthen vessels as St Paul spoke of himself and companions.

A man doing God’s work, even if he be a most remarkable man, is out of his depth unless sustained by God’s grace. It is to obtain God’s grace for the Pope that we pray, at every available occasion.

We pray that God will carry the Pope, and with him the whole Church, to the fulfilment of His will.

The Pope suffers from being in such an exposed position. Everyone wants to tell him what to do. His role is often interpreted (even within the Church) in purely political terms. He should do this; he should do that - much as we would say of a temporal ruler, such as a prime minister.

But the Pope is more than just someone who does things or makes certain decisions.

He is the Vicar of Christ, standing in His place. The Pope does what Christ would do. He reproduces in himself the pattern of Christ’s death and resurrection.

It is not a role that can be easily interpreted in normal political terms. It is a role which goes more into the mystical realm of deep suffering and self-offering.

He has to be prepared as a matter of course to go against public opinion, to hold firm to the light of Catholic Tradition. The world wants novelty but the Pope is not there to provide that, rather to defend the deposit of faith. It is, however, always possible to present old teachings in new ways – as long as the teaching is intact. For example, creative use of the internet.

While he is defending the true faith he also shows pastoral zeal. In the name of Jesus Christ he seeks to gather the stray sheep into one flock. 

We express loyalty in advance to the new Pope and willingness for ourselves to be part of the pastoral outreach of the Church. 

May the Lord preserve him, and defend him and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

Pope Francis was strong on mercy, specially relevant on Divine Mercy Sunday. He reminded us of God's willingness to forgive and how central that is to our whole understanding as the Church.

To quote two of his many statements: ‘Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy … Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love.’ 

‘Mercy is this concrete action of love that, by forgiving, transforms and changes our lives… From generation to generation, it embraces all those who trust in him and it changes them, by bestowing a share in his very life.’

Under Christ’s influence we become merciful ourselves, expressing charity to all. Instead of resenting enemies, we hope that they find the best way forward, just as we would want for ourselves.

Lord, have mercy!