Quinquagesima Sunday 23 Feb 2020 Sermon

Quinquagesima Sunday 23.2.20 Faith, Hope, and Charity

We all have our troubles – some we have all our lives; others come for a shorter time.

Some are easily solved; others seem beyond solution.

We bring them all here to Mass, and – like the blind man – we call out Jesus son of David, have mercy on me (Lk 18, 38)

We express our trust in Jesus, and we reach out to Him as simply and straightforwardly as those in Gospel times.

We know that not all our troubles will be solved at one time. And even if they were solved, there would be new troubles tomorrow.

Still we sense that it is a very good idea to call upon the Saviour whenever we need help of any kind.

We bring our troubles to the Mass and we put them at Our Lord’s feet. At the same time we pray for ways of coping when the troubles remain.

The coping mechanism is alluded to in today’s epistle: faith, hope and charity. If we have those qualities we can rule the world.

Faith hope and charity enable us to go against appearances, and against the tide of human opinion.

We put our trust in God - not in how things look, or what people think.

Anyone who takes religion seriously is likely to be ridiculed. We develop the courage to withstand that.

We learn to hold as firm as Our Lord Himself, on the Cross; and as Mary at the foot of the Cross.

Faith enables us to see the unseen. Hope enables us to see a path ahead, even if unclear at present. Charity enables us to love the unlovable.

These are supernatural gifts from God, which operate supernaturally - that is, beyond the normal range of human capacity.

Supernaturally these abilities are raised to a miraculous level. They will enable us to believe, hope and love beyond our normal limitations.

We cannot see God; nor Heaven, nor angels and saints – yet they all exist and we believe they do. We believe it not just as an opinion but as a certainty.

Faith gives us that certainty.

We cannot see the future, so we might despair or be very depressed about how things will turn out.

Hope, supernatural hope will enable us to see a future where every tear is wiped away (Rev 21,4); where the wolf can dwell with the lamb (Is 11,6).

Charity will enable us to bless those who curse us (Mt 5,44), to give without expecting return (Lk 6,35) - because we are drawing upon the infinite charity of God, instead of just relying on our own meagre supply.

We have faith, hope and love if we have been baptised. They can get rusty from neglect, but they can be called forth once we have returned to communion with Our Lord.

The more we exercise these gifts the more powerfully they will operate.

It is all part of our Christian life, which requires daily that we be prepared to go against the tide of public opinion.

We do not differ from others just to be difficult, but because it is necessary to uphold God's view on things. People may be annoyed with us but they can share in the happiness too, if they will read the signs.

Reality is more than just what we see through physical eyes; a great deal more.

We thank God for giving us ways of seeing more deeply; for lifting our burdens from us, or for giving us strength to carry them.

Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known (1 Cor 13,12).

Sexagesima Sunday 16 Feb 2020 Sermon

Sexagesima Sunday 16.2.20 Commitment

We are disciples of Christ. A disciple is one who follows another for the purpose of learning. We follow Jesus Christ by listening to Him, praying to Him, receiving what He chooses to give us.

A disciple must be disciplined.  It requires that we remember whose team we are on; to whom we owe our first loyalty.

Jesus Christ calls us individually: Come, follow Me. We have to decide individually whether or not we will answer that call.

If we accept the call we have to renew it every day; otherwise we will go off the boil.

So we repeat what we have already promised. In all the various prayers we say, and especially in the Mass we ask for the grace to make a full commitment to following, obeying, loving God.

When we repeat a prayer it is not a mechanical repetition but a new statement; not new in content but in intensity.

Every day we have to do it all over again. The circumstances of discipleship vary but the main point remains the same - we follow Him.

The time stretched out before us is an opportunity for growth.

If we can get through all the challenges we will be in the last category of the Sower parable; bearing a rich harvest.

The Sower parable brings out that a lot of people hear the invitation from Our Lord to follow Him, but they do not last.

For some it is in one ear and out the other.

Others get further than that, but they drop out when something - either offering happiness or threatening suffering - presents itself.

No, we have to hold on to the end. He who puts his hand to the plough does not look back (Lk 9,62).

What we say at one time we must be prepared to say again.

Why do we have to keep saying things that we already know (such as the Creed). Because if we don’t say it we will stop believing it!

We have to keep close contact with the Master, or we will fall away in one way or another.

There are a lot of ex-Catholics around, who used to believe all this but they do not now. What changed? Not the truth.

We reaffirm the truth every chance we get. We engage actively with it so that at any point we will be ready as disciples of Christ to serve in whatever way, even if it means persecution and martyrdom. Or just facing some new challenge.

This should mean steady growth, but if we stumble then we repent, and reaffirm from that point.

It is not easy to be a good disciple; it takes application and perseverance.

But it is not so hard if we take it in small bits. The troubles of this day are sufficient for the evil thereof (Mt 6,34). We have to do only what each day brings.

Nor is it so hard if we gradually come to think like a disciple and less like someone out to serve only oneself.

That so many others have fallen away could be a discouragement to us, but it really needs to be an incentive to work even harder.

We must guard against drifting away ourselves, and we exert ourselves to re-invigorate those who have lost their way.

We become more resilient. People will see that our faith is not just formalities, but real substance.

The Lord needs someone to take the lead, to bear the brunt – people such as St Paul (see epistle - apologia for his life), if on a lesser scale.

May the Lord draw forth from us the response that He seeks.

Septuagesima Sunday 9 Feb 2020 Sermon

Septuagesima Sunday 9.2.20 Individual call

It is easy to relegate our spiritual life to formalities. So we go to Mass on Sundays and a few other times, and that is about all there is to it.

Almighty God would tell us something very different.

He wants to have a direct personal relationship with each of His children. He wants each of us to have an intense interest in Him and His will for our lives.

We might think that God has too many people to worry about to be bothered with us, but He is intensely aware at every moment of what we are doing, thinking, feeling.

The fact that there are a lot of us, and many of our religious practices are with large numbers, does not in any way affect His interest in each one of us.

He creates us; then He calls us. Come, follow Me, is addressed to all of us, not just the apostles, not just priests and nuns, but every single person, wherever they might be at the moment.

He called Matthew the sinner directly away from his illegal practices (Mt 9, 9-13). He asked the rich young man to sell all he had and follow (Mk 10,21). So He addresses everyone, including the atheists, the lapsed Catholics, those following false religions or beliefs, those already good; those not yet good.

He calls us to work in the vineyard. We should say yes to that call, because it represents our whole life direction.

And we do this work for as long as we have - from the moment of conversion to the moment of death. All time belongs to Him, and we fill it with our response.

Once we start we do not stop: He who has put his hand to the plough, does not look back (Lk 9,62). The servant should be still at work when the master returns (Lk 12,37).  From now on you will be fishers of men (Lk 5,10).

And St Paul, in the epistle, speaks of the need to run to the end, not slacken off.

We must not be alarmed by all this talk of work. Work is not a burden when motivated by love.

The love of God will act on us; will motivate us so that we want to do what He wants us to do. People put themselves out for those they love. As Christians, we love everyone; or at least Christ does, and we are learning to do as He does.

No one is unemployed in God's kingdom. The old, the sick, the disabled – all can contribute. It is simply a matter of doing, or enduring, whatever is required.

We know there is a reward for this, and in fact it is far more than we deserve.

We are doing only as we should (cf the servants (Lk 17,10)). We are obliged to be and do good, even if there were no reward.

But there is a reward. It is represented by the denarius of the parable. We all receive the denarius whether we come in early or late. It is eternal life, and happiness.

First He forgives us; then He gives us work to do, for which He provides motivation; then He rewards us with more than we deserve.

All we have to do is turn up for work, to show enough interest for Him to do the rest.

We are more fortunate than we usually think ourselves.

We might be tempted to envy those who come in late, and find Heaven. But we are all being treated better than we deserve, since we are nowhere near good enough (by our own merits) to go there.

We are all the latecomers in that sense. Only by the grace of God are we saved.

Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2 Feb 2020 Sermon

Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2.2.20 We know Him; we make Him known

We acknowledge that God is mysterious - Who can know the mind of the Lord? (Rm 11,34).

But then we also have passages telling us to go out and Declare His glory among the nations, His marvellous deeds among all peoples.(Ps 95 (96),3)

We are making known what we do not fully know ourselves.

This might sound impossible but it means just that the proclaimers of the Word are also receivers of it.

We must first hear the word before we can make it known. We must believe it first, also.

We know the main points about God as far as our salvation is concerned.

We know He created us in love, saved us in love, and seeks to guide us to Heaven.

He wills the salvation of all people, but will not force anyone to receive that salvation.

We know He is great and glorious, the sole Creator of the universe, and the One to whom all else must answer.

We have received enough light to know that we need more; and at the same time we know that the whole world needs to receive this light also. For my eyes have seen Your salvation… the light to enlighten the Gentiles…(Lk 2,29-32)

We are novices in our knowledge of God. We know what we know, but there is a vast amount more we do not know, or cannot express.

This does not disqualify us from proclaiming the word. Proclaiming actually will have the effect of increasing our faith.

It also gives other people a chance to find their way to salvation.

We stand with the others rather than against them.

The  Church is often accused of judging the world and condemning it. We are really offering the world a better way, in fact, the only way to full salvation.

We simply hope that people will find in Jesus Christ the true Light, which everyone needs, even if they do not know it, or would deny it.

This is Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, the answer to every question. Put your faith in Him.

You will find Him if you do not argue or obstruct – bow down before Him and you will see enough to carry you further.

God makes Himself known to those who are humble enough to receive Him.

He comes in a form not easily recognized, to make us look a little harder than we might have done. Thus Simeon and Anna recognized Him while others saw only the externals of the scene.

We seek to know as much about God as we can; and then to make that much known as far as we can reach – to spread that light to the Gentiles, the one true light in a very confused world.

You will find Him if you persevere. Simeon and Anna had waited a very long time, but had persevered in hope. Now their waiting had been justified.

Some of us have been around a long time too, and we might be tempted to give up the wait, declaring that God has disappeared or lost relevance.

We will have our day in the sun also - in whatever form that takes. It may take till the next life but it must come.

We have seen miracles, or at least heard of them. We can easily believe that there will be more of them, that God will complete His plans.

In the meantime we continue to believe, and to proclaim the light for the Gentiles – that is, for anyone who will listen.

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!