tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81929751087098818672024-03-13T14:01:35.389+00:00Breathing With Both LungsTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.comBlogger417125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-51689607811557781222021-06-20T20:00:00.001+01:002021-06-22T09:37:39.097+01:00AWAKEN YOUR FAITH AND CHRIST WILL CALM YOUR STORM<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake, thirteen miles long, eight miles wide and 141 feet deep so there’s plenty of water to drown in. Set among mountains and hills it is also 700 feet below sea level. Being set among hills and so far below sea level means that air currents can cause sudden violent squalls. Boats at that time were little bigger than a large currach. No one wants to face a storm in an open boat on open water. There were no lifejackets back then and water was already filling the bottom of the boat. Imagine then the terror of the disciples. Imagine their panic! It had been our Lord’s idea to cross the Sea and where was He? He was asleep, on a cushion in the stern, in the middle of a storm!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kUkZB45vT6Y/YM-N2D7S6WI/AAAAAAAAHyo/3BTarq39mcwkHDGGUTcOEfD5oz2OUdiswCLcBGAsYHQ/s1536/The%2Bstorm%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bsea%2Bof%2BGalilee%252C%2B%2BJ.J.%2BTissot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="1536" height="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kUkZB45vT6Y/YM-N2D7S6WI/AAAAAAAAHyo/3BTarq39mcwkHDGGUTcOEfD5oz2OUdiswCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h288/The%2Bstorm%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bsea%2Bof%2BGalilee%252C%2B%2BJ.J.%2BTissot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><i> The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, </i>J.J. Tissot, Brooklyn Jewish Museum.<br /><span style="font-size: small;"><br /> There is no experience as striking as one’s own. Our Lord, Who always knew what He was going to do (Jn 6:6), is testing the disciples. He already knew their hearts. Now He was teaching them Who He really is and what He can do. But so terrified are the disciples that they begin to doubt Him. Does He not care? Our Lord certainly wasn’t impressed with their lack of faith. He tersely rebukes the wind and His command to the storm-tossed sea is “Peace! Be still!” Immediately all is dead calm. Notice that our Lord here speaks on his own authority. He does not call on His Father nor on the authority of anyone else. He knew “that by using terms of personal authority … we will be led to recognise His authority as master and creator.”(St Basil On the Holy Spirit 8.21).<br /> The disciples are stunned. They knew their danger but they also knew that lake. Storms don’t just disappear and dead calm descend. They also knew their Scriptures though. As Job tells us in the first reading God is Lord over the storm and the abysses of the sea. He is in charge even of the chaotic forces of nature. In the Psalms 89 says “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them” (v.9). We have just read from Ps 107 “He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed” (v.29).“The sea is his, for he made it” says Ps 95:5. There are many, many more references in the Bible to the power of God over His creation. The disciples could not have missed the implications. Yet they also needed to learn the lesson that it was not the Lord but their faith that was asleep and it needed to wake up. Our lives can become so comfortable that our faith can fall asleep.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8YgF2rK8mj8/YM-Phx4CBVI/AAAAAAAAHyw/SYkSn9Q-dD4efQ1oDUY36AiHwMJMF6oyACLcBGAsYHQ/s784/thalassagalildet1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="784" data-original-width="585" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8YgF2rK8mj8/YM-Phx4CBVI/AAAAAAAAHyw/SYkSn9Q-dD4efQ1oDUY36AiHwMJMF6oyACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/thalassagalildet1.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Image found <a href="https://russianicons.wordpress.com/tag/stilling-the-storm-icon/">here</a>.</i><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> We are no strangers to storms up here. Wild weather is part and parcel of the charm and beauty of our country. Likewise there is no life that is free of difficulties and troubles. We can be tossed around from problem to problem, at home, at work, between spouses, between parents and children, between relatives, between neighbours, between friends. We are troubled by sick children or parents, debts, mortgages and bills and the threat of unemployment. We are raised up on the crest of a great holiday or happy event, a birth, a first communion, a wedding and then we crash down into the pain of a death, a bout of illness or some other unforeseen difficulty. Some problems can even threaten to swamp us, sinking a friendship, a marriage, even an entire family.<br /> The winds of our ever-changing society buffet us too. Our values and beliefs are under constant pressure. All that seemed so certain is now questioned. We are tempted to sin and we fall. It can seem that we will never become genuinely holy. The course that seemed so clear, steady and safe seems now more and more difficult to keep to. No matter how we tack across the prevailing wind we seem to be driven back and make no progress. We seem to be stuck. Worse it can seem that we are to be driven onto the rocks of a lee shore. It is no wonder that at times we can get sick of life, bone weary with effort, and tempted to despair. It can even seem that abandoning the boat and drowning might not be the worst way to go.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JSIFlgW8Qjs/YM-P31eSzwI/AAAAAAAAHy4/WuD5CznjUGkq54vwhmDV49MDHSWAEunWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/thalassgalil16c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1606" data-original-width="2048" height="314" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JSIFlgW8Qjs/YM-P31eSzwI/AAAAAAAAHy4/WuD5CznjUGkq54vwhmDV49MDHSWAEunWgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h314/thalassgalil16c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br /> We must remember though that Jesus is “the God-man, who according to his humanity is able to sleep and according to his divinity is able to still the storm”(St. Athanasius). The boat carried our Lord in His humanity but as God He supported and saved the boat. He didn’t need the boat just as He does not need the Church nor creation. He does not need us we need Him (St Ephrem the Syrian) and He is with us.<br /> We are tried by lockdowns, recessions and so many troubles in our families and communities. It can seem that we are like a sinking boat, about to go down, drowned by waves of problems. Has God abandoned us? No, Christ our Lord will never abandon us unless we abandon Him (2 Tim2:12). Yet just as He tested the faith of His disciples so He tests our faith so that we remember who He is and what He can do. He is always with us but do we live as though that were true? Are we witnesses to Him? Is our faith awake?<br /> How do we ‘awaken’ our faith in Christ who dwells within us through our Baptism? How do we wake up to the presence of Christ within us, within the Church and within our families, and call upon Him to exercise His power to save us? <br /> We awaken to Christ by checking our conscience daily and going to confession regularly (I recommend monthly!). We awaken to Christ by prayer, fasting and generosity to the poor. By prayer I do not mean merely rattling off prayers we’ve learnt. By prayer I mean lifting up heart and mind to God. Whatever helps you lift your heart and mind to God is prayer. Call upon him whenever you are brought low, down in the depths of your troubles or when you are thrown high by some some unexpected relief. Tell Him everything, “Load everything on to Him” says St Peter “since He is looking after you”(1 Pt 5:7). It is also true that the family that prays together stays together. Pray together as spouses; pray together as families. Pray especially the rosary. The greatest of all prayers is the Mass. Unite your prayers and sacrifices to Christ in the Mass and you will be heard.<br /> By fasting I mean going without, especially a ‘going without’ that means another does not have to go without at all. Fast not only from food but above all from doing harm to others. Generosity to the poor needs no explanation but generosity begins at home. Be generous with those in need among your relatives and friends but especially those who cannot pay you back. By prayer, fasting and generosity to the poor we awaken our faith in Christ’s presence and in His mercy. When we open our hearts to His Presence and His help He will calm all our storms.</span><br /><br /><p></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-13812330561931266452021-06-13T11:28:00.000+01:002021-06-13T11:28:03.693+01:00CHRIST THE MUSTARD SEED<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Every life, every era has its own particular trials, tribulations and challenges. The last year has been one for many people. To put it into perspective, though, just study the impact of the Spanish Flu or the far worse Black Death. Just go to genealogy.ie and look up the records of deaths in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. I had to do that while researching the lives of our deceased friars. It shocked me how many people died from TB and how many did not even make it out of childhood. It is easy to forget that our ancestors suffered poverty and oppression that we can only imagine.<br /> Israel, the Jews, also suffered. They believed God had chosen them. He had made covenants with them. A covenant is a free, sacred agreement established by ritual and oath. God’s covenants with them were the most sacred kind, the kind that established a permanent family bond with them “I will be your God and you shall be my people” He repeatedly told them. He did this with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and with King David.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dG7123ehDCM/YMXUwBLrf2I/AAAAAAAAHx8/io0oY3O_Waomm8nTTDp7Vu6eInZ0KqZUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s557/tissot-festivities-in-honor-of-david-557x430.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="557" height="309" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dG7123ehDCM/YMXUwBLrf2I/AAAAAAAAHx8/io0oY3O_Waomm8nTTDp7Vu6eInZ0KqZUgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h309/tissot-festivities-in-honor-of-david-557x430.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Festivities in Honour of King David by J..J. Tissot, (1896-1902), </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><i>Jewish Museum, Brooklyn</i>. </i><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> God had said to David, "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.”(1 Sam 7:12; 1 Chr 17:11) But the Kingdom established by David had split in two after Solomon, Davis’ son, died. Then the people of Northern Israel were taken as prisoners to Syria in 734 BC and again in 722 BC. For a while the southern part, Judah and Jerusalem, remained until 587 BC when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Babylonians. Most of the people were deported to what is now Iraq.<br /> So Ezekiel wrote to console the suffering Jews in Babylon (Iraq) as their world fell apart. In that quite depressing and traumatic time in the history of God’s people Ezekiel gives a prophesy of hope. God had not forgotten the word he gave through Isaiah: "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” (Is 11:1) Jesse was David's father and an ancestor of our Lord. God has a plan and his promise, his covenant oath to David, is not forgotten. There be will growth once more. However no dynasty had ever re-established itself having been brought down. People found this hard to believe. How could this happen? Surely Ezekiel was mad?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-07UoQ0SHjoM/YMXb39vrQ5I/AAAAAAAAHyU/P4iDanSUuMgKqSn6mo0SQcfPXK1FDyVCwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1398" data-original-width="2048" height="272" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-07UoQ0SHjoM/YMXb39vrQ5I/AAAAAAAAHyU/P4iDanSUuMgKqSn6mo0SQcfPXK1FDyVCwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h272/Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><i> </i><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The Flight of the Prisoners (1896) by J.J. Tissot, Jewish Museum, Brooklyn.</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /> The “just one” in the psalm is compared to a tree that flourishes, grows, and bears fruit. Behind this is the idea of the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil in Eden, the primordial orchard or garden-temple of God. Adam and Eve didn’t get to taste the fruit of the Tree of Life because they chose to take what had not yet been offered, what did not yet belong to them, the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The “just” are those who live their lives according to God’s will and they will become like the Tree of Life. The just will bear the fruit of holiness. <br /> The true “just one” is Jesus Christ and He is the only one who is truly “just.” He is the true Tree of Life who bears good fruit in all seasons, eternally. There's an Irish prayer that goes "O King of the Friday, whose arms were stretched on the Cross. O Lord who did suffer the bruises, the wounds, the loss. We stretch ourselves beneath the shield of Thy Might. May some fruit from the Tree of Thy Passion fall on us this night." It is Christ who has made the Cross and all our personal crosses fruitful. Baptism makes us part of the Body of Christ and in the Mass He feeds us with His Body and Blood, so we too are called to be the “just one" flourishing in hard times. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dlfd3Qy6MFw/YMXZCmvLSxI/AAAAAAAAHyE/UIn6Yy68y7MdcbSGaeU5UQvrfHS4sipEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Crucifixion%252C%2BChrist%2BPantocrator%252C%2Bapse%2Bimage%252C%2BAnton%2Band%2BEkatarina%2BDaineko%2Biconographers%252C%2BMinsk%252C%2BBelarus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1611" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dlfd3Qy6MFw/YMXZCmvLSxI/AAAAAAAAHyE/UIn6Yy68y7MdcbSGaeU5UQvrfHS4sipEQCLcBGAsYHQ/w315-h400/Crucifixion%252C%2BChrist%2BPantocrator%252C%2Bapse%2Bimage%252C%2BAnton%2Band%2BEkatarina%2BDaineko%2Biconographers%252C%2BMinsk%252C%2BBelarus.jpg" width="315" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <i><a href="https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/fluidity-and-refinement-the-icons-of-anton-and-ekatarina-daineko/" target="_blank">Crucifixion</a>, apse mural, by Anton and Ekatarina Daineko iconographers, Minsk, Belarus</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The Lord, in the Gospel passage, tells two short parables. In both of them, the “seed” is the Word of God but in two senses. The proclaimed Gospel is the “word of God” and Jesus Himself is the Word of God. In the first parable Jesus reminds us that a gardener cannot make the seed grow he can only provide the best conditions within his power. Jesus means that the growth of God’s kingdom is a mystery, the work of the Holy Spirit, and no more dependent on human effort than natural growth depends on us. We are responsible for planting the seed of the Kingdom by our words and deeds but the growth belongs to the Lord. We cannot control God's work in our own heart let alone another’s. It is the work of God and we must trust Him.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> In the second parable the Lord also tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into a great shrub. The “smallest of seeds” and the humblest is in fact Christ himself, who is both the Word of God, and the “seed of David” whom God promised to King David to “raise up”. Christ is the “smallest of seeds” because he is poor, humble and lowly, despised by all. As the prophet Isaiah said: "For he grew up before us like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”(Is 53:2-3) Those words were fulfilled on the Cross and from the Cross our Lord says to us "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”(Mt 11:28-29)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> Our Lord said the grain of wheat that dies bears much fruit: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”(Jn 12:23) After His death on the Cross our Lord was planted, that is buried, in the ground. With His resurrection the “mustard seed” of Jesus became the Church, which grew, despite persecution, and grows throughout the world still. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> In Christ, the royal Son of David, Ezekiel’s prophecy did come true but not as expected. Christ turned defeat into victory and the Cross into a throne. The House of David was reestablished not in Jerusalem but in Heaven. The new Kingdom of David is the Church that has spread throughout the world. It is an empire of Faith.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Na52bugYl9A/YMXbWhiTnII/AAAAAAAAHyM/zX_5jUD0Ouc-eL6FceMlNTifUO_uhiTGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/desert-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Na52bugYl9A/YMXbWhiTnII/AAAAAAAAHyM/zX_5jUD0Ouc-eL6FceMlNTifUO_uhiTGQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h200/desert-tree.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> Every life, every era has its own particular trials, tribulations and challenges. Without our Faith in Christ we are no good to anyone. Christ our King offers us the grace to grow spiritually strong and resilient despite life’s troubles, and to bear the fruit of the Spirit and of good works. It is our task to ensure that we are sowers of good seed not of weeds. When we speak well of others, forgive others, do good to others, when we speak the truth in love, and when we oppose evil we are sowing the seed of God’s word. When we do the opposite we are sowing weeds. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> Let us rekindle our faith in Christ and care for it as we would a cherished plant. Let us have faith in Him and His power to save us. In this dark time when the world is tormented by viruses and lockdowns and their economic and social effects, when the Faith and the Church seem to be failing it’s helpful to remember that times were frequently darker in the past. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> Ezekiel prophesied in exile in Babylon. Our Lord ministered under Roman occupation. How many centuries were our people oppressed and persecuted here in our native land? Yet how many saints did our Lord raise up among our people? How many missionaries?</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> The Lord prefers to work through the small, the weak and the powerless: mere mustard seeds. He prefers to work in and through ordinary people in ordinary situations. In unseen ways He makes things grow and change. He cannot be conquered by death, He gives life and He makes things grow; He upholds and overshadows the whole Universe and brings eternal life to those that seek His shade. He is the Tree of Life and if we turn to Him He will feed us with the fruit of His Passion, His very Self, and we will flourish forever.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-11315285039263074242021-06-07T11:19:00.000+01:002021-06-07T11:19:15.915+01:00TASTING HEAVEN, A homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Year B<p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In San Giovanni Rotundo, where St. Pio lived, there was a man, born blind, who met Pio practically every day. After a while it occurred to him that here he was blind yet he got to meet a miracle-working priest every day. Why was he still blind? That thought, wherever it came from, wormed its way into his heart and caused him great distress. Why was he still blind? Why was God ignoring him? </p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then one day St Pio, as he was passing from the church to the friary, stopped and laid his hand on this man’s head. Instantaneously the man was filled with a joy so great he felt he was about to die. He was so afraid he pulled his head away. Pio said to him “That is a little taste of heaven. You can have your sight and risk losing it or you can stay blind and be guaranteed it.” I know this story is true because not only did I get it from a reliable source but it was confirmed for me by an old lady I knew in Dublin. She had been an early devotee of St Pio, went to San Giovanni and met St Pio many times, and even met the man in question. When she met him he was very old and he was still blind.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Last Sunday we celebrated the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the extraordinary privilege we have of not only knowing about the inner life of God but being invited into that Life for all eternity. We have been offered not only the sight of God but a place above the angels on the throne of God. This Sunday we celebrate another aspect of that gift. It is through communion with the Son of the Father, who became man for us, suffered and died for us and rose from the dead for us, that we have eternal Life with the Father. In Baptism we were really and truly united to Christ and all that He has is ours.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God the Son, second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, became truly human for us without ceasing to be divine. His whole life and ministry was one long revelation, a revelation of the Father. On the Cross of Calvary He revealed to us how much He loved the Father and how loveable the Father is. On the Cross He made His eternal worship and love of the Father visible to us and offered that eternal loving worship to the Father on our behalf. This is why the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary infinitely outweighs our sins. That Sacrifice of Calvary is made present at the Mass. We participate, by the power of the Holy Spirit, not only in Good Friday but in the Eternal Worship of Heaven.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xWxWdRqcXwI/YL3rTYpdsUI/AAAAAAAAHxo/FbyYg-1fINA_P6kvV6GFmrOhLT3CmPF1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Synaxis.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1775" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xWxWdRqcXwI/YL3rTYpdsUI/AAAAAAAAHxo/FbyYg-1fINA_P6kvV6GFmrOhLT3CmPF1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w346-h400/Synaxis.JPG" width="346" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><i>The Holy Synaxis, fresco </i><i> by Panselinos</i><i> (</i><span style="text-align: left;"><i>late 13th to early 14th century) </i></span><i>in the Protaton church, Karyes, Mount Athos, Greece.</i><p></p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the Mass the Sacrifice of Calvary, and the Eternal worship of the Father by the Son, is represented in an un-bloody manner. At the Consecration., when the priest says “this is my Body” and “this is my Blood”, the bread and wine, by the power of the Holy Spirit, become really and truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. There is no change that can be detected by our senses, yet He is truly and completely present. Yet this is true of all the Sacraments. There is no visible change in Baptism or Marriage or Ordination. The change is beyond the reach of our senses. Only our faith tells us about the reality that is hidden but the reality does not depend on our faith.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When we receive Him in Holy Communion we receive all of Him not a part of Him. We can receive Him because we have been baptised into Him and so we are already united to Him. We receive Him who offers Himself to the Father on our behalf to bring us to the everlasting peace and joy of Heaven. Or rather He receives us. He makes us welcome in His Kingdom. We receive, as St Augustine says, “what we will be” but also what we are already by Baptism and Confirmation. </p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Many years ago I got to meet a famous Catholic composer and musician. I had bought and listened to his music for years. I queued up and shook his hand, exchanging a few words and then moving on. I told my fellow friars “I’ll never wash this hand again!” Needless to say I did. Yet it was wonderful to meet someone who had inspired me for years. If the Pope, or the President or your favourite TV personality or pop star were to be here this Sunday how would you have come? Would you not have scrubbed yourself spotless, worn your best clothes and gotten here well ahead of time? Would you not have been excited and attentive to everything they did and said? How much more then ought we to be attentive when it is not some mere human being who comes to us but God Himself? But God comes to us not once in a blue moon but every time the Mass is offered. How ought we to receive Him, to attend to Him, to make Him welcome?</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He comes to us not in glory and power but in humility and gentleness under the signs of bread and wine but it is not in any way bread and wine that we receive. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ but not only the Body and Blood of Christ. In receiving the Body and Blood of Christ the Son we receive His Father. In receiving the Father and the Son we receive the Holy Spirit. Holy Communion is communion with the Most Holy Trinity and so we have Heaven within us; our souls are on its threshold. We receive not just a taste of Heaven but Heaven itself. Therefore Holy Communion is more valuable, infinitely more valuable, than the whole Universe.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If Holy Communion is so valuable, so important, so Holy is anyone worthy of it? Remember this if nothing else: No one is worthy of Holy Communion. Not the Pope, nor any of the bishops or priests, nor St. Pio when he was alive, nor St. Anthony, nor St. Leopold nor any of the saints. It is given to us as a free, unmerited gift. We never asked for it, expected it nor could we ever, ever have earned it. The Real Presence of our Lord and the possibility of Holy Communion is His GIFT to us because He loves us and He wants to show us His mercy and unite us with Him for ever in Heaven.</p><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we receive Him with reverent faith, with repentance for our sins and trust in His Merciful Love; if we receive Him with truly open hearts, our lives will be transformed. By the power of His Presence, hidden in Holy Communion, He empowers us to endure whatever suffering comes our way and to unite it with His suffering. He enables us to love and forgive, to turn the other cheek, to hope for eternal life and to work to grow in holiness. He offers not a little taste of Heaven but the whole reality because He offers us Himself.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CGucEz2t2TI/YL3xcxXFcCI/AAAAAAAAHx0/hxn5ZLr9z4QPp1J6jx2XdbaRG8LnrL_vgCLcBGAsYHQ/s480/Allegory%2Bof%2BHoly%2BCommunion%252C%2Bsecond%2Bhalf%2B16C%252C%2B54x45.5cm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="397" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CGucEz2t2TI/YL3xcxXFcCI/AAAAAAAAHx0/hxn5ZLr9z4QPp1J6jx2XdbaRG8LnrL_vgCLcBGAsYHQ/w331-h400/Allegory%2Bof%2BHoly%2BCommunion%252C%2Bsecond%2Bhalf%2B16C%252C%2B54x45.5cm.jpg" width="331" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.byzantinemuseum.gr/en/permanentexhibition/from_Byzantium_to_Modern_Era/society_art_in_Venetian_Crete/?bxm=2221" target="_blank">Allegory of Holy Communion</a>, second half 16C, 54x45.5cm, Byzantine Museum, Athens.</div><br /><p style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-85799419395681066562019-06-08T19:11:00.004+01:002019-06-08T19:11:48.125+01:00ASCENSION SUNDAY<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">I have for a number of years begun my day with an act of thanksgiving to God for all that He has done for me beginning with creating me and then calling me to be a Catholic Christian, one who has the Faith and is in the Church established by Christ Himself. He did this by giving me parents who shared that Faith with me. I am sure you could all say the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is so easy to take things for granted. We don’t really appreciate what our parents did for us until they are gone. I look back and wish I could thank them one more time, or ask their opinion or share some event, some memory, some idea. It is not until they were gone that I really begin to realise their contribution to my life, the sacrifices they made.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It can be the same with our Faith. It is so easy to take it for granted. It’s contribution to our way of life is easily overlooked, assumed and neglected. It is not until something else has begun to take its place that we may realise what is at stake. In our society the influence of the Faith (and I am not identifying the Catholic Faith with the institution of the Church though there is considerable overlap obviously) the influence of the Faith is waning and being replaced by secularism. Although this is identified as a separation of Church and State (something that had its origins in Christianity by the way) it is something far more than that and far darker. It is a denial even of the Natural Law, the idea that there is an objective standard of right and wrong knowable to every rational person, and therefore a denial of the rational basis of society, of culture and national identity. Of course any intelligent person will quickly realise that such a path leads to subjectivism, indifferentism and anarchy. It is no surprise then that secularism tends towards totalitarianism. After all if there is no objective, rational standard of right and wrong then for the sake of social stability and peace a standard must be imposed, often the standard of the lowest common denominator.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Where did our parents get their Faith? From their parents and their priests. They in turn got it from the generations before going right back to Patrick and the first Christians to come to Ireland over fifteen hundred years ago. They were not Irish. They were foreigners but they adopted Ireland and gifted us with the Catholic Faith. Where did they get it? They got it from the generations before them who got it from Peter and the Apostles who got it from Christ Himself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Being Irish is nothing if it is without the supreme blessing of being Catholic. Better that we cease to be Irish than we cease to be Catholic. Better that we lose our culture, language, music, art and all that makes us Irish than we lose the Catholic Faith. Patrick did not come here to tell us how wonderful we were but to enlighten us and save us with the Catholic Faith. If we lose that Faith then everything we have cannot last. In losing the Faith we lose everything. By holding onto and handing on the the Catholic Faith we can save all that is precious to us. Our Faith brings us into full communion with the Most Holy Trinity and in that union nothing is lost but it is sanctified and saved. In that communion we become who we were made to be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It should be no secret why so many are increasingly interested in Eastern religions, paganism and the occult. After all when one lives more and more like a barbarian one is more attracted to barbarism. Consider some of the evidence that has come from the trial of those two boys for the murder of Ana Kriegel. An interest in evil leads to evil. We even have a government minister who has openly praised and even practiced witchcraft. The bones of the founding leaders of our state must be spinning in their graves! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Christ is clear: faith in Him and baptism into Him and His Church are necessary for salvation. There is no other way to heaven than through Jesus Christ and membership in His body, the Church. There is no back door and there are no exceptions. We are commanded to proclaim the Gospel to every creature. To proclaim means more than using the spoken word. It must involve our behaviour. When we do good and oppose evil we proclaim the gospel to others; we make Him visible through the good we do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord talks about signs: driving our demons, speaking in tongues, picking up deadly snakes, not being harmed by poison and laying hands on the sick who will recover. You might ask why we don’t see these signs today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We see these things in the saints in the miracles God does through them. The Church has always successfully opposed false religions. She has cast out demons. With the rise in interest in the occult there has been a rise in demand for exorcisms. Not only does the gift of tongues appear among her members but even the highest of the spiritual gifts: heroic self-sacrifice. If we do not see signs more widely I would suggest that it is because we do not listen and do not put the Gospel into practice. We do what we want and not what God wants. We listen to men and not to God. The Lord has not recommended that we pick up deadly snakes but that we oppose evil fearlessly. He asks that our Faith not be reduced to something practiced in private, like knitting, but that we openly and actively stand up for Him and for the truth.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have not been abandoned by our Lord by His ascension. He is closer to us now than He was when He walked the earth. We can receive Him in the Blessed Sacrament and have Him within us. Through the Sacraments we have one foot in Heaven and can live a double life: we can live in this world while drawing on the power of the next. While we are free from serious sin we have the Holy Spirit with us and therefore the Most Holy Trinity dwells within us. We are each of us walking tabernacles of His Presence, His ambassadors and Apostles sent to share Him with the rest of creation, but above all with those we meet and live with. We are His hands, His feet, His face. If we clearly and courageously proclaim Him nothing will be able to harm us. </span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-85542685598420604262019-06-08T19:10:00.002+01:002019-06-08T19:10:14.673+01:00My Vocation Story: a Homily for Good Shepherd Sunday 2019<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">My parents were practicing Catholics all their lives. We always went to Mass, every Sunday. The Faith was important to them. Somehow in the years prior to leaving school I had lost hold of my faith and I felt lost. It was through two school retreats with the Marist Fathers that I began to find the light of God returning to my life. A booklet on Fatima given to me by a priest was the vehicle for God's grace in my life. I began to pray, read the bible, went to confession, (a real confession) and started attending daily Mass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Curiosity, the cause of so many of my downfalls and of so much shame, unexpectedly bore the fruit of grace and I went along one night to see a prayer group for myself. I liked what I saw. For a few weeks I went to a quiet, reflective, nourishing, a barely ‘charismatic’, little prayer group in my home parish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the Charismatic Renewal I found a community, a sense of belonging, filled with joy and freedom, especially in prayer and ministry, and sincere in their search for, and encounter with, the Lord. The Lord. Yes, it was the Lord that I found. Or rather, He found me and He caused me to grow, slowly, gently, at my own pace. From there I joined a local youth prayer group. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Over the next few years I was a part of bible studies, and various prayer groups. Then the Lord asked me for something. Through retreat work, street ministry, working with Camp Jesus, I came to realise that I would have to move on, grow up. One evening a guy had prayed with me and suggested I might have a vocation to the priesthood. Me? A priest? No way! But the question lingered in my mind and over the next few years I began to enquire whether or not I was ‘called'. I had an itch I had to scratch! So I searched. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I looked at various orders and even went to a vocations weekend with an order and decided not to apply (deep down I KNEW they weren't for me). Then a Capuchin, in confession, asked me "what about us?" Typical of a Capuchin not to lose an opportunity! I declined the offer. At that time I had some contact with the ‘Caps’ and to tell you the truth I thought they were a nice bunch of lads but it just never crossed my mind to think of joining them. I was walking home one day with a friend and started moaning about the future. He suggested the Caps. I made lots of excuses until he said that I should stop ‘talking about it and do something.’ The suggestion stuck in my mind. I had to give it a try and so I went along to two vocations days. These brothers had something of the same spirit I had found in Renewal. The vocation director interviewed me and shrewdly gave me six weeks to apply. I figured I had nothing to lose. I applied and I was accepted. I told my parents a few weeks before I left home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was tough leaving home for the first year in Carlow and I shed a few tears that winter when it came to seeing the folks off on the train to Dublin but I got over it. I was one of six guys living with the friars that year in Carlow and we studied theology at the seminary as well as classes in the friary. I got a little anxious during the summer holidays about whether I should apply for novitiate in Kilkenny but I figured that I hadn't seen enough to be sure and re-applied. They accepted me. Novitiate was very different. You wear the habit, work in the friary, and take classes in prayer, Franciscan History and Spirituality among other things. One year later, on the 9th of September 1990, I vowed to live for three years in obedience, without property, and in chastity according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Rule of St Francis. Here in the Capuchins, in the spirit of St Francis of Assisi, I had found the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I then moved to Dublin. My first year was a ‘Franciscan year’ just living our life in community, praying and working. There followed three years of philosophy, and then a year on a ‘pastoral leadership’ course preparing for final vows. I made my final vows in 1995 and then spent a further three years studying theology. I was ordained a deacon in 1998. I spent my diaconate year in a parish in Cork before being ordained a priest on September 11th, 1999. After ordination I spent two years in a parish in Dublin before being transferred to work in a Secondary School where I spent twelve quite happy years. I came away with a great respect for teachers. Like the nurses they do not get the credit they deserve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After that I was moved to Cork to work as a chaplain to the University. That was a mixed experience. I really enjoyed working with young Catholics who wanted to know and live their Faith but let’s just say I did not take to University life. I only spent a year and a half there before a bad car accident changed all my plans. There was a silver lining in that I got time to do a Masters in Scripture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The priesthood, especially within religious life, is varied. A priest should have a prayer life but he does not spend his whole day in prayer even among monks. He is there to a spiritual father to others, to lead, guide, teach and defend the people of God. He is supposed to be there in good times and bad, especially when he’s needed. Most of a priest’s work is unseen. He is not a social worker. He is not a counsellor. He is an ambassador for Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No vocation is easy. There are ups and downs for everyone. The reason there is a shortage of vocations is not that the Spirit stopped calling. It’s because people stopped listening. Not just those called to the priesthood or religious life but all the people of God. Here and across the civilised world people have decided to have fewer children with huge consequences for the world but also for the Church. The answer to the vocations crisis lies with young Catholics, not just those called to priesthood or religious life, but even more so with those called to marriage. We need large and committed Catholic families. We need committed Catholics who know and believe the Faith and put it into practice.</span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-29268151021046786792019-04-19T18:17:00.001+01:002019-04-19T18:17:27.280+01:00LET US GO TO THE TREE OF LIFE a brief homily for Good Friday<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Christ is upon the Cross or as even scripture calls it the ‘tree’. This ‘tree’ symbolises both the Trees of Paradise and the Oak of Mamre. Under the Oak God sat down to eat with Abraham and Sarah and promised them descendants, as many as the stars of Heaven, royal and holy. The Trees of Paradise bear fruit that heal the nations. Under this Tree we are offered healing, we are offered life or death. His crown of thorns echoes His Eternal Crown as Lord and King of all that exists. His arms are outstretched for they embrace all space and time, the past and the future. Everything is in the shadow of the Cross for by the blood of Christ all things in heaven and earth, whether visible or invisible, are subject to Him and reconciled to God. The cross is the epicentre of history. Like a tree it is rooted in the earth but it reaches Heaven for Heaven has reached down and sanctified the Earth in His Incarnation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What does He do that cross? What can the death of one man achieve? But He is no mere mortal. He is both God and Man. On the Tree of the Cross Christ offers the Father a perfect act of worship. His whole life has been one long revelation of the Father for that is not only His mission but His very nature as Son. It is as if His whole life were one symphony that now reaches its extraordinary crescendo. It is on the Cross that the Son shows us how loveable, how worthy of obedience, how truly good the Father is by suffering and dying. On the cross He reveals to us the Son’s love for the Father and offers that perfect love to the Father on our behalf. He offers the Father His loving humility and obedience and empties Himself even to embracing death for us. The Cross is the heart of the Most Holy Trinity laid bare. Offering His Sacrifice through His human nature, His human body and soul, He makes of Himself and His Cross our means of salvation. He makes of the Cross a Throne of mercy, the Throne of Heaven and a Gateway to that Heaven. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Come forward then and kiss the wood of the Cross and with your lips and your heart knock upon the Gate of Heaven and ask entry. His arms hold the Gates open for you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Come kiss the tree of life and ask Christ to plant the root of His Cross in your heart. Ask him to break the rock of sin and the hardness of all our hearts so that the Living Spring of the Spirit can well up to Eternal Life within us; so we can bear fruit in union with Him, fruit for the healing of the world.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-46337322088213275412019-04-07T11:55:00.000+01:002019-04-07T11:55:00.708+01:00CHRIST THE BRIDEGROOM EXTENDS HIS MERCY TO US: a homily for the Fifth Sundayof Lent, year C (Jon 8:1-11)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This is one of the more famous stories about our Lord, made famous in modern times by films like Jesus of Nazareth and the Passion of the Christ. It is poignant too. The sinner, a woman, dragged out into public and exposed, faced with judgment and the risk of a horrible death.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Now I am sure we all know, even among our relatives, married people who are in second ‘relationships.’ I have relatives, close relatives, in that situation. Loving others does not mean approving everything they do but neither does it mean we can be judge and jury. We are to be the mercy of God that helps others live according to God’s plan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord is in the Temple, the centre of Jewish religion and here at the centre of Jewish religion our Lord is confronted by his enemies while He is teaching. The Pharisees and scribes (lawyers) set up a trap for our Lord, that is, trying to set up a conflict between him and the people. They drag in a woman caught in adultery. Could you imagine that happening to someone in your family?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Adultery had a double infamy among the Jews of that time because in the Old Testament it is often used as a metaphor for idolatry: of infidelity to the true God and the worship of false ones in His place. If He allowed the stoning they could accuse Him of inconsistency since He taught about the mercy of God. If He rejected the stoning they could accuse Him of rejecting the Law and their religion and by extension of approving of sin and even idolatry. Note that His opponents misrepresent the Old Testament. Yes it punished adultery with death by stoning. It did so teach the Jews the seriousness of sin. The Law commanded the death of both parties to the adultery and since it takes two to tango: where is the man? Where, indeed, are the Old Testament injunctions to seek the conversion of those who do wrong?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord bends down and writes on the ground, in the dust of the temple floor, but John does not tell us what our Lord wrote! It could be a reference to an event in the book of Daniel where a hand appears and writes on the wall warning the pagan King Belshazzar that he and his cronies have been measured, weighed, found wanting and their kingdom would be given to another nation, the Persians. Jeremiah says that “Those who depart from you shall be written in the earth” which means that they will lose everything and no one will remember them. Perhaps He is pointing to Exodus where God wrote the Ten Commandments, the heart of the Law, on stone tablets. If so then our Lord is reminding them that He is the author of the Law and knows its true intent. This would fit with the most common suggestion that He was writing down their sins. Perhaps all of the above are alluded to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then He famously tells them His judgment “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Remember that our Lord elsewhere said “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” In other words if they want to stone the woman for her sins they ought to expect the same punishment! Again He bends down and writes. By bending down He shows both that He is not intimidated by them and He gives them the psychological space to reconsider.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The accusers leave starting with the eldest. At least they know their sins. As it says in the Psalms: “They have all turned aside, all alike have become unprofitable; there is not one who does good, no not even one.” But our Lord is the source of the Law and Justice itself so how can he let the woman go? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Perhaps here we have another allusion to Genesis. In Genesis 18 God and Abraham haggle over how many just men it would take to save Sodom - a city so evil it gave its name to a sin. At least haggling is how it is usually understood. If one reads the story carefully it emerges that God chooses to consult Abraham as the one would consult a trusted advisor. God destroys Sodom not because there are no just men in it but because Abraham does not believe in God’s compassionate mercy enough to ask for its salvation. These people do not believe in God’s compassionate mercy enough to ask for the woman’s salvation but Jesus shows it anyway. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In response to his question “Has no one condemned you?” she says “No one, Lord.” ‘No one’ He takes to be a confession of her guilt. “Lord’ He takes as a confession of faith. He who writes His Law on our hearts by the power of the finger of God, that is, by the Holy Spirit shows mercy to whomever believes in Him and asks. Note that Jesus does not say to the woman “It’s ok, I understand. Take your time to think about changing your life.” Nor does He say “Don’t worry I am full of mercy. Keep on with your way of life and all will be OK. I will look after you and you’ll get to Heaven.” He says none of these things. Instead he is direct: “Go and do not sin again.” Our Lord revealed His justice and His mercy. He neither denies the Law nor approves its enactment. He is the one without sin and He chooses not to stone the woman. Yet He does not let her sinful accusers stone her either. That they turn away shows that they had no real concern for the Law anyway nor did they care for the woman’s soul.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All sin is a form of idolatry: putting something other than God at the centre of our lives, usually our own will. Earlier in John’s Gospel, at the wedding at Cana and again at the well in Samaria, our Lord revealed that He is the true Bridegroom of Israel. It is against Him that all sin is ultimately done. He is the true and faithful spouse who has been betrayed by the idolatry of mankind; our idolatry. He is the victim of our adultery. Therefore we are that woman dragged before the world and condemned by the evil spirits. Christ the true bridegroom extends to us His mercy and the commands that we ‘do not sin again.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Lord has shown us how we are to deal with our own sins and the sins of others. As sinners we should acknowledge our wrongdoing and throw ourselves at His feet trusting His mercy. When it comes to the sins of others we should bend down in prayer and reflection, read the Law of God written in our hearts, that is, our informed conscience, and remembering our own faults and failings, extend to others the mercy God has extended to us. Let us drop from our hands the stones of judgment and condemnation so that we are free to receive God’s mercy and to be of service to others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However let us not call evil ‘good.’ Let us not pretend that adultery or any other sin is OK with God or with us. Let us remind each other not to do evil but to do good instead. Christ has extended HIs loving mercy to us and driven back the forces of evil that would condemn us. He has restored us to life and made us holy by His grace. It is up to us to share that mercy with others but in the truth and in love. </span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-41694445295567746332019-03-24T14:14:00.000+00:002019-03-24T14:14:03.676+00:00YOU KNOW NEITHER THE DAY NOR THE HOUR: REPENT AND BE CONVERTED. A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent Year C.<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The one fact of life is that we will all die. With death will come judgment. The Church teaches that not only will there be a general judgment on the last day when all mankind shall face God together but that each of us will face a particular judgement at the time of our death. Those who die in the state of grace (that is without un-repented mortal sin on their souls) and are worthy go straight to Heaven. Those who die in a state of grace but not yet made amends for their sins or though they have unconfessed mortal sins on their conscience die in sincere repentance go to purgatory. Those who die unrepentant of their mortal sins go to Hell not because God wants or sends them there but because they have freely chosen to go there. Both Heaven and Hell are eternal and we must choose one or the other. Purgatory, though the souls there suffer terribly, is only for a time until those souls have made amends and learnt to love as ought to have here on Earth. We do not know how long we have left so sort things out while you have the chance. In confession we are like a rotting corpse that by the power of God is raised to life and the fullness of health. When we confess a sin God chooses to erase it. It is gone forever. We still have to try to undo that harm we have done but to God we are innocent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So while you are here in this life check your conscience daily and go to confession regularly. There may be sins that you’re forgetting or not taking seriously enough. Never intentionally keep back a sin when confessing. Besides receiving Holy Communion in a state of grace confession is the most effective way to grow in holiness. Remember that mortal sins must be confessed, what the sin was and how often you did it. Jesus wants to touch each of our wounds and heal them one by one. Before confessing something, try to be resolved never to do it again. A thief who confesses and then goes out planning his next crime has not actually repented. Though absolved he cannot benefit from the grace of the Sacrament. Start afresh and look for things that you can change to help you in your resolution!<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One reason that people lack a firm purpose of amendment is that they don’t believe they can actually stop a certain sin. They forget that the real battle is between our ears. If we persist in turning our thoughts away from evil and toward good we will, by the grace of God, eventually be free of even the most addictive sins. Prayer and reading the Bible and the writings of the Saints helps immensely. The sacrament of confession is far more powerful than our human efforts could ever be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How many of us give the Lord the respect and honour He deserves? Try to speak of your God, your creator and Saviour with attention and reverence. Speak about your God as you would about someone you truly love and honour. It should cause us pain when we hear someone take the Holy Name in vain. You wouldn’t let someone disrespect a family member like that so why let them do it to Jesus who saved you? Remember that in Church you are in God’s house. Here we talk to God and no one else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Confession is an act of humility and humility is so important that sins against it must also be confessed. We need to confess and repent of our pride: like taking credit for something without reference to God and desiring that others give you that credit. Giving credit externally to God for something while actually believing that you earned it and hoping that others will believe that you earned it, too. Desiring to be esteemed above what you really are. Desiring to be better than others. These are sins of pride.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There are many ‘little’ ways in which we are “unjust and unreasonable” to our neighbour. We may condemn every little thing in our neighbour and excusing ourselves of important things. We may selling very dearly and buy at bargain prices. We like to have things we say taken in the best sense but we are tender and touchy about what others say to us. Preferring one person over another because of their class, wealth or contacts or because they make us appear socially superior is also an injustice. In short, we often don’t treat our neighbour as we would like to be treated ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We ought not to judge anyone unless required by our position or office. When we are required to judge, then we must strive to pass along God’s judgment without distorting it with our own ideas and passions. Gossip can lead to slander, that is, falsely imputing sin to another. This sin is doubly bad because it is an offence against truth and it robs another of their good name. “Beware of falsely imputing crimes and sins to another, revealing his secret sins, exaggerating those that are manifest, putting an evil interpretation on his good works, denying the good that you know belongs to someone, maliciously concealing it or lessening it by words.” (St Francis de Sales)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There’s a multitude of chances to serve Jesus by doing good in each day and we should examine our attitude towards these chances because to neglect them is to miss an opportunity to love Christ. To identify where we are going wrong in this area, it can be helpful to pay attention to when we think or say that we hate doing something or that we don’t like this or that. Doing the dishes, filling out forms, talking to a certain person are all opportunities to love and it would be a mistake to avoid them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The big sin is relatively easy to avoid, but resisting the little desires in our heart that eventually lead to those big sins is very challenging. For example, we would never think of stealing someone’s property, but some long for the property of others, talk about them at every opportunity and hope some disaster will befall the owner forcing them to sell. Envy is also a sin!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If these sins were not on your radar up until now, take heart! You may feel weighed down by these “new” sins, but your deliverance is near. St. Francis de Sales tells us, “Sin is shameful only when we commit it; when it has been converted by confession and repentance it becomes honourable and salutary. Contrition and confession are so beautiful and have so good an odour that they wipe away the ugliness of sin and purify its stench.” “In confession you not only receive absolution from the sins you confess but also great strength to avoid them in the future.” Do not worry about your past confessions. If you were doing your best trust in the mercy of God. As Padre Pio said, “If we put into our confession all our good will and we have the intention to confess everything — all that we can know or remember — the mercy of God is so great that He will include and erase even what we cannot remember or know.” So do yourself a favour and go to confession! </span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-60379759778921796522019-02-16T19:59:00.001+00:002019-02-16T19:59:24.524+00:00THE FUNDAMENTAL CHOICE IS FOR OR AGAINST JESUS: a homily for the Sixth Sunday, year C (Luke 6.17, 20-26)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Over the last century many near death experiences have been recorded. There are numerous video interviews on Youtube. I have heard a few that impressed me. One was by an American badly injured in a car crash who had his own death certificate! He also had five sets of the same tests taken because the doctors could not believe he was alive! He spoke about being given a choice: to go on living the semi-Christian life he had been living or to change and take Jesus seriously. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is in the middle of working wonders (healings and exorcisms) that our Lord gives this teaching! Luke presents it as four blessings and four woes. It would be easy to misread this teaching as if our Lord was saying that being poor or hungry or grieving or hated and excluded means you should rejoice because God will make it up to you. Likewise it would be easy think our Lord saying that those who are rich or well fed or rejoicing or spoken well of are done for. He is not saying such things at all. Our Lord is saying that those who are poor, hungry, mourning, or hated and excluded <i>because of their faith in Him</i> will be satisfied and rejoice in the Kingdom of God. Likewise it is those rich, well fed, rejoicing, or spoken well of by the world <i>while denying and opposing our Lord</i> who will hunger and grieve for ever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the heart of this, and the question of religion, is Jesus Christ. We have to decide whether we stand with or against Him. A common misconception today is that all religions are equal or the same. Such ideas are a testament to the ignorance of our day. For example one cannot believe that Jesus is God made flesh, truly man for our salvation, who established and empowered the Church <i>and</i> that he is only a prophet preparing the way for Mohammed the last prophet. Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive. One must choose between them. One must choose Christ or reject Him. There is no middle ground. This is true for all religions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yet in our World there are obviously many religions, many philosophies. They each have members who are good and members who are bad. Does not each religion have something of the truth? There are some things that one can admire and find inspiring. The Angelus was inspired by the Muslim practice of praying five times a day that so impressed St Francis. But that itself was probably inspired by the ancient Christian and Jewish practice of dividing up the day by times of prayer. That there are good people in other religions, and all too many bad Christians, does not prove that all religions are equal, only that so few embrace the Christian way with enthusiasm; so few of us make the choice to actively follow the Lord and seek to be saints. There is nothing to be added to the Christian Faith. Our Lord revealed everything necessary for salvation to the Apostles and the first disciples and that has been handed down to us in the Tradition and teaching of the Church and in the Bible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Why does God allow so many religions? That question is related to the questions about why God allows suffering. Remember, please remember, God is <i>not </i>a puppet master! We are not tied by strings to God’s fingers! Theologians usually make a distinction between the active and the passive will of God. God never wills evil. God always and only ever wills the good. Indeed God actively wills our existence because it is good. Every moment is a gift from God. Your parents, your children, your friends and neighbours, everyone and everything around you is a gift from God. Every heart beat and every breath is a gift from God. Yet obviously there is evil in the world. When God is said to allow evil this is attributed to His passive will. He allows evil to happen but he does not cause or desire it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There are two basic kinds of evil: natural and moral. Natural evil involves all the bad things that happen due to the nature of our world and also accidental events: earthquakes, storms, volcanic eruptions come to mind. One could include many illnesses and injuries. Human error, laziness and even malice can make these things worse but they do not cause them. No one cares if a tsunami or a storm hits a coast where no one lives or an earthquake or volcano devastates the desert. We care when they affect human beings. <i>Then</i> they are disasters. Likewise with bacteria and viruses. We only care about them when they are a threat to us and our loved ones. <i>Then</i> we call them ‘evils.’ They are the ‘bad’ things that happen because of the limited nature of our universe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The other kind of evil is moral evil. Moral evil happens because of choices made by rational beings: terrorism, wars, addiction, theft, sexual abuse, rape and murder. The list of the evils of which we human beings are capable is long. It is because of moral evil, its possibility and its reality, that we have so many laws, a police force, a judiciary and legal profession, a penal system and an army. If people and nations never did wrong we would not need these things. Despite God’s goodness and mercy, despite His loving respect for our freedom, we violate that freedom and we do wrong. We harm and hurt and betray one another. We let each other down. God does not actively will this, He merely allows it for the present moment. Thus our Lord accepted the evil of the cross because through it He could save us and unite us with His Father.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So while God never actively wills evil, never chooses it and does not want it in our world, He does allow it so that He can bring some greater good from it. He allows natural evil as part of his creation for His own plans. He allows moral evil not only because of His own wise plans but because He really respects our freedom. God will never ever violate our free will. While we are here we have the chance to conform ourselves to His plan and His active will for us or not. Where and how we will spend eternity depends on the choices we make here and now, above all the choice we make about Him.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We can choose to reject and oppose our Lord, or to ignore Him, or we can choose to embrace His teaching and put it into practice. In the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelations (also called the Apocalypse), our Lord warns us that He would rather have us against Him than indifferent, tasteless and bland like lukewarm water. He warns us He will spit us out of His mouth! Let us not be cold or indifferent to the Lord. Let us draw near to Him and follow in His footsteps regardless of the price. He will replace all that we sacrifice for Him a hundred times over and more; we will have eternal joy and gladness with Him forever. </span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-85171378380445213052019-02-10T12:02:00.006+00:002019-02-10T12:02:57.641+00:00IF YOU WANT TO SEE MIRACLES OBEY THE LORD: a homily for the Fifth Sunday, Year C (Luke 5:1-11)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>During the week I was listening to an interview between an American Catholic journalist and a Dutch Catholic. The Dutch Catholic was explaining what things are like for the Church and ordinary faithful Catholics in Holland. He explained that back in the 1950’s Catholics accounted for about 45% of Dutch citizens. They were devout and staunch so much so that one in nine Catholic missionaries worldwide were Dutch. Ireland has a great missionary tradition but it’s not as great as that! Today only 19% of Dutch citizens identify as Catholic and of them only 5% attend Mass regularly. There is a real danger that where they are we too will soon be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How did this happen? To explain how I must make a distinction you may or may not have heard before. Theologians usually make a distinction between the active and the passive will of God. God always and only ever wills the good. God actively wills our existence. Every moment is a gift from God. Your parents, your children, your friends and neighbours, everyone and everything around you is a gift from God. Every heart beat and every breath is a gift. God never wills evil. Yet obviously there is evil in the world. This is because while God never actively wills evil, never chooses it and does not want it in our world, He does allow it so that He can bring some greater good from it. Despite God’s goodness and mercy we do wrong. We harm and hurt and betray one another. We let each other down. God does not actively will this, He merely allows it for the present moment. Thus our Lord accepted the evil of the cross because through it He could save us and unite us with His Father. When God is said to allow evil this is attributed to His passive will. While we are here we have the chance to conform ourselves to His plan and His active will for us or not. Where and how we will spend eternity depends on the choices we make here and now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Holland God has allowed the Church to collapse, as it is collapsing here in Ireland, through the failure of Catholics to remain faithful, through embracing false teaching, through failing to hand on the authentic faith to the next generation, through choosing to neglect, abuse and hurt others. Fundamentally the collapse came about through disobedience and God has allowed the Church to experience the consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In this Sunday’s passage from Luke our Lord meets his first disciples in their ordinary day, in their ordinary lives, while they are engaged in the boring and time consuming task of mending their nets. He comes to them and calls them to follow Him and become his disciples. I find it interesting that none of the Gospel’s ever portray the disciples who were fishermen ever catching fish unless our Lord helps them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They listened to that call and despite what it cost them they followed our Lord and it did cost them. There were no motorways or cars back then. Only the rich could afford horses. If you wanted to go anywhere you walked. In addition the terrain of Israel is quite hilly and rocky, with long hot Summers, there were bandits and robbers, and not much in the way of police nor even hospitals. Their following of Jesus lead them out across the Roman Empire and ultimately to their violent deaths. They did not become rich nor were they influential. They joyfully suffered to hand on what they received from our Lord. Generations of Catholics handed that Faith on to the generations after them so that it came to Ireland and was handed down to us by our ancestors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our lives have their troubles but nothing like that of our ancestors. A French visitor to Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, just after the Penal Laws were repealed, recorded searching for a Chapel for Mass one Sunday in Kerry. He was directed to a local hill covered in trees. It was raining heavily and the ground was sodden. As he rode up the path he noticed the people moving through the trees until he arrived near the top of the hill and was met by a crowd packed around the chapel. It was too small for them all to get in. What amazed him the most was that when the bells rang for the consecration the people fell on their faces in prayerful adoration. To their landlords and masters they were mere uneducated peasants but they knew where their treasure was and had held on to it despite great suffering. Are we to be the generation that discards that treasure, that Faith?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have no excuses. I have on my phone apps that give me the whole text of the Bible as well as one that gives the daily Mass readings. Some are free; some cost a few euro. There are apps and podcasts and websites providing almost any text of our Faith at the touch of a button. Our ancestors would look on in awe if they could see what we have and how easy it is for us to learn about the Faith. Never before in the history of the Church have so many Catholics had such easy access to the Scriptures, to the Catechism, to the writings of the Saints and to the vast treasury of knowledge of the Church. Yet never before have so many Catholics been so ignorant of their Faith. Never before has there been such indifference and disobedience. If you fail to put fuel on a fire it will go out and if you do not feed your faith with knowledge then you starve it. We cannot hand on what we have not got.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The commission received by the first disciples is our commission too. It is not for a specialist few and never was. The instruction to be ‘fishers of men,’ or ‘fishers of souls’ if you will, is directed to all of us. Christ is there present in every aspect of our lives and speaks to us, calling us to follow Him, to proclaim Him by what we do but also by what we say.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I suggest to you that one of the reasons that so many get sick and suffer is that we as a people are indifferent and even disobedient to God, partly due to ignorance, culpable ignorance, and partly due to our wilfulness. Only if we turn to the Lord and seek to know, obey, love and adore Him as He deserves will we find not only a great catch of souls but miracles in abundance. God will not refuse us anything if we seek to do His will. He has promised this in the Gospel of John. If we keep His commandments we will now deep joy and peace in this life and the abundance of every blessing in the next. </span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-68035040169225729652019-01-13T15:09:00.001+00:002019-01-13T15:09:58.415+00:00BE IMMERSED INTO CHRIST! a homily for the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, Year C (Luke 3:15–16, 21–22)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How strange John must’ve looked with his uncut hair and beard, wearing camel hair clothes and living on insects and wild honey. Traditionally he was called ‘the Forerunner’, the one who went ahead of the Lord, as well as ‘the Baptist’. But he called himself the ‘bridegroom’s friend’, and the ‘voice of one calling in the wilderness.’ Here was a man from a priestly family who gave up everything to be totally at God’s service. John himself identified the Lord as the ‘Lamb of God who was to take away the sins of the world’ and by calling himself the bridegroom’s friend he identified the Lord as the Bridegroom of Israel, that is, God Himself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>John’s practice of baptism was not that unusual. Throughout Israel archaeologists have found large pools cut from the stone for the Jewish purification practices. They are called mikvahs and are still used by orthodox Jews to purify themselves whenever life makes them impure according to the Law. So immersing oneself in water was quite common. They had strict rules though about the kind of water one could use and how it was stored. The best was fresh flowing water and this is why John is at the Jordan, the boundary of Israel, baptising, that is, immersing people in the flowing waters of Israel’s only major river. He has placed himself outside and over against the structures of Judaism and offers what people long for: the promise of forgiveness, healing and restoration. He does not promise to give these things but proclaims that the longing will soon be met.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>John’s baptism is therefore symbolic. It expresses a desire to change and a hope of restoration and renewal. By submitting to John’s baptism our Lord identifies Himself with us, with our condition, with our holiest longings and gives us an example of humble submission to God. By this baptism, by His immersion in the Jordan river He sanctifies the waters of the world for through His immersion into our material human nature He has sanctified matter itself. The whole world is revealed and made holy by His becoming man. His baptism, his immersion not just into the Jordan’s waters but into our very nature has made our baptism, our immersion into His Divine personhood possible. By becoming one of us, one with us, He makes it possible for us to become one with Him for ever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>His baptism makes our baptism possible. Our baptism is an immersion into His death and resurrection, into His Divine Person so that through Him we share in His Eternal Life. Through baptism we are no longer mere human beings but our immortal souls have been given Eternal Life of God, a life to its fullness, a life our bodies will share in too on the last day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jesus’ baptism is an act of profound humility. Indeed the whole of his life, the whole of His incarnation right up to and including accepting suffering and death on the cross and burial in a tomb was one long act of humility. He was humbly revealing to us the One who sent Him, the Father. Everything He did, said or though was about the Father. He is the centre of His entire life. On the Cross He revealed, through His suffering and death, by means of His humility and obedience who worthy of love that Father is. Not only that He made visible His eternal worship and love of the Father and offered it to the Father on our behalf. The sacrifice He offered on the Cross therefore infinitely outweighs any and all sins ever committed and all sins we could ever commit even if the entire human race did nothing but sin for all eternity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not only that there’s more! He did not merely offer a sacrifice to wipe away our sins. His sacrifice gains for us the infinite gift of sonship. As I have already said by our baptism we are immersed into Christ, into His Divine Person. In baptism we put on Christ and share in His roles as priests, prophets and kings. As priests we can offer our sacrifices to God through Christ and they will be accepted. As prophets Christ can speak and act through us and as royalty we are full members of the royal family - the real royal family not the Mickey Mouse variety across the water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There’s more! Baptism makes each of us, male and female, young and old, whatever our nationality or culture, not just a child of God but a Son of the Father. This means we share, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in His Sonship. We are given a place in the very heart of God, in the very heart of the Most Holy Trinity. When the Father looks at you He sees His Son, the Beloved. When you pray He hears His Son. This is not a mere veil, or a self-deception on God’s part. It is not God turning a blind eye to our true nature. In baptism our fallen human nature is changed and we are empowered to become one with Christ. We are truly one with Him in the Sacraments and have His Holy Spirit in us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is why sin is so terrible. Sin is not the breaking or arbitrary rules or guidelines. It is not just doing things our own way. Sin is the violation of the moral law at the basis of our existence, that is woven into the very fibre of our being. Sin is even worse for those of us who are baptised for it is an assault on the very likeness of Christ within us and a rejection of the infinitely beautiful and valuable gift He has given us. It is through baptism and because of baptism that we are called to the heights of holiness so that the likeness of Christ shines out in us illuminating a world that is sunk in moral and intellectual darkness and devoid of hope and peace. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we take this gift seriously and embrace it, if we unwrap it and let it flourish within us we will bring great blessings on ourselves, on those we love and those we meet. We will become saints and brings many, many souls to salvation. If we live our baptism wholeheartedly the day will come when we will see God the Father and He will say to us “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-83745264991970725562019-01-06T15:45:00.000+00:002019-01-06T15:45:07.461+00:00WHAT GIFT WILL YOU BRING HIM?: a homily for the Feast of the Epiphany (Matthew 2:1–12)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I remember one Christmas day as we were having breakfast my mother heard a child crying and when she went outside there was a young traveler boy just outside our front door. He had hurt his ankle and could not walk. It was bitterly cold and he had only a thin jacket and shorts on while on his feet were a pair of wellies. My mother brought him in and sat him down at our table. She took the boot off the injured foot and checked it for any injury. Once she had made sure he was ok, that it was only a sprain and she had strapped it up, she gave him breakfast. I wasn’t too happy having a traveler sit at our breakfast table but the memory has stayed with me and its lesson: charity comes first and one never turns away a human being in need. It was also a lesson in the real meaning of what it is to be a Christian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Three events are celebrated today in this one feast: the visit of the wise men to Jesus in Bethlehem, our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan and his turning the water into wine at Cana. Each of these events is a revelation of the glory of God's presence in our Lord. The wise come to Bethlehem lead by a star. People back then did not view the sky as we do. The stars belonged to a level next to God. Their movements reflected God’s plan for the world. That this star appears and disappears shows us it was no ordinary heavenly event but a spiritual one. These men used their reason to navigate by the stars and that reason has brought them to Bethlehem to meet our Lord the source of all reason and of creation itself. They rightly bring Him Kingly gifts in tribute, gifts that point to who He is and what He will suffer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At Cana our Lord, prompted by His Mother, took on the role of bridegroom and, turning water into the best wine, provided a sign that He is the true Bridegroom of Israel come to wed mankind to Himself. He is the one to liberate us from our useless way of life and give us the truth, the best wine of the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth. He revealed His glory in the meekness with which He listened to His Mother and responded to her. Their lack of wine is a symbol of the lack of real love and the best wine is a symbol of the joy that comes only from communion with God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At His baptism he showed publicly for the first time the depth of His humility when He who needed no purification, indeed is the source of all purification, chose to identify with sinners. By His descent into the waters of Jordan He sanctified all water. In response to His humility the Father and the Spirit affirmed His Sonship, a Sonship we share in through baptism. He immersed Himself in the Jordan so that we could be immersed into His death and His resurrection. John’s baptism was a mere sign that our Lord has made a Sacrament for it truly gives what it signifies: it cleanses of sin and refreshes the soul with eternal life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord came to transform our lives and our world and He deserves our worship and love. He came to immerse Himself in our human nature so that we could, through Him, be immersed into His Divine Nature. He came to turn the stale water of human love into the living water of God's love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He did not come with armies and the force of His will but with gentleness and merciful love. He did not come with power to dominate us into being holy. He did not come to violate our freedom but to make it possible for it to flourish into holiness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord reveals His glory in His humility. He has made Himself vulnerable for us in the crib and on the cross. In this He reveals His gentleness and His power. It is through giving Himself away, through sacrifice, that He conquers. He revealed His glory in His humility by accepting baptism from John, a symbolic baptism, but one for repentance. In identifying with sinners, the sinless one has offered us hope. He comes not to condemn but to justify, to set us free and make us holy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So today and in this season we celebrate the glorious humility of God who has become fully human for us. We celebrate His love, His self-sacrifice, and His mercy. If we do not experience the joy of these truths it is not His fault. They are available to us in the Sacraments. They are available to us in stillness and prayer. They are available to us for the asking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Since He is so good to us, since He loves us so much how then ought we to respond? What thanks, what gifts can we offer the One who saves us from eternal death? He has given us the answer: to believe in Him, to love Him and to love our neighbour, to avoid evil and to do good. These are the simple steps that mean we are following Christ. These are the steps to holiness, to eternal life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we are not seeking to be holy then we are not really Catholic. By holy I do not mean ‘pious’ or ‘devout’; those are good things but not necessarily signs of holiness. Holiness is being right with God and our neighbour. To be holy is to seek the will of God in everything and the will of God is not hard to know – just do the duties of your state of life while seeking to avoid evil, that is, sin and do good. That’s it in a nutshell. The greatest gift we can offer the Lord is to seek to do the will of His Father. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have been given an infinite gift in Christ. Like all gifts it must be unwrapped. If we really know Christ then we cannot keep Him to ourselves but must share Him with others above all in the way we behave. We will want to share Him with everyone, even the traveler, the immigrant, or the homeless at our door. So in this Christmas season do your best to share the good news that God has become man for us by how you treat those around you: point your anger away from others, try to be patient, kind and generous, forgive others and show them the mercy God has shown you.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-29261976228384244522018-12-30T11:54:00.000+00:002018-12-30T11:54:17.031+00:00THE HOME IS A SCHOOL OF HOLINESS: A Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family, Yeasr C (Luke 2:41-52)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span>You who are parents want more than anything to keep your children safe and happy. I know that from my sister with my niece and from the twelve years I pent in a secondary school as well as what parents have told me. Our Lady and St Joseph had the same concern. They too wanted to keep our Lord safe. But this was the time of Passover and Jerusalem and its surrounding villages were full of pilgrims, upwards of a million people. Imagine our Lady and Joseph’s reaction when they discovered they had mislaid not only their son but the Son of God? How could they lose him some might ask? Well anyone who has cared for children knows how quickly they can move when your back is turned. In that society there was no such thing as the ‘nuclear family;’ families were more than Mum, Dad and the kids. It was easier to assume a child was with cousins or other relatives. In addition Jesus had reached the age of the Jewish Bar-Mitzvah when he legally became a Jewish man obliged to keep the sacred Law of Israel. Technically he was an adult.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How do you find a boy among a million people, in those narrow and winding streets? The name ‘Jesus’ or ‘Yehoshua’ was a common name so calling it out would not help much, like calling our ‘Pat,’ ‘Mike,’ or ‘Joe’ down on High Street.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Three day they searched for them. Three days. Here we have a prophecy of the three days He will spend in the tomb. Our Lady will knew where He is then but when He was twelve she had to search. Can you imagine the heartache and worry? The do not give up (what parents would ever give up?), they search and search and they finally find Him in the Temple, the heart of the Jewish faith and culture, the centre of their world. Our Lord has become legally a a Jewish man and subject to the full weight of the Law so He is there debating the Law with the experts and those very experts are amazed at His answers and His questions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They are immediately both relieved and exasperated! They are filled with joy and they could throttle him! Three days they have been searching! Interestingly it is His Mother who questions Him. St Joseph never says a word in Scripture. He is a man of silence. Perhaps that’s a message for husbands. Our Lord’s reaction is both that of someone young, and surprisingly beyond His years. He does not grasp their concern but He already feels the call of His mission, His vocation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lord refers to His “Father’s affairs.” The original is difficult to translate and so different bibles will give different translations. Some even have ‘house’ but ‘business’ or ‘concerns’ might be just as good as affairs. He knows who He is and that He has something to do in life. Notice that he indirectly corrects His Mother. She has spoken of St Joseph as our Lord’s Father (which in Jewish law he was) but our Lord’s response has pointed to His true Father in Heaven. It is the mission that His Father has given Him that He must complete.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But He goes back with them to Nazareth. In this He shows His obedience and humility. He continues to grow as any child grows but He does so in wisdom and favour as well. He shows both normal growth into manhood and the flowering of His perfect human nature. We are told that His mother kept all these things in her heart, that is, like any mother she treasured them and meditated on them, drawing from them their significance and meaning. Your children are a word from God to you! Pay attention and discern what He is saying to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As I have said parents want their children to be safe and happy. Ultimately lasting safety and happiness can only be found in Heaven. What a tragedy to be safe and happy in this world and to lose eternal safety and happiness in the process. The only thing worse than that is to be miserable in this world and to be miserable in the next!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everything we think, do and say ought to ordered to ensuring our safety and happiness in Heaven with God. We need to choose eternal life by our faith in Christ and our behaviour, by how we love those around us. That’s the most important lesson that anyone can learn in childhood. My parents had very little in life but they at least shared with me their Faith and their love. They believed in Jesus Christ and in the Catholic Faith and they loved me and they loved others. They were concerned for my salvation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We seem to have lost that in our era. Too many assume that Heaven is easy to get into or even that it’s automatic. Our Lord made no such promise. He has warned us to make every effort in order to save ourselves and our loved ones. If we do that He will look after the rest. Our priority should be becoming truly holy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s no accident that our Lord chose to have a Mother and a foster-Father. He wanted to show us how important family life is for this world and the next. It also points to the importance of the roles that a Mother and Father play in the family. You are the models what it is to be not just a good mother or father, nor what it is to be a good woman and a good man but what it means to truly love and respect another in Christ. You lay down the foundations of their future relationships and life not only in this life but the next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So parents you aren’t just there to provide protection and comfort. You are the primary educators, formators, of your children. It’s your foremost task. Your task to nurture your children not only to thrive in this life but even more so in the next. Through you your children learn what is really important. Teachers can provide background information and skills but parents are the primary educators of their children. From you they learn the value and beauty of being human, male and female and the unique gifts of each, as well as the gifs of reason, freedom and conscience, and how to nurture and form them. From you they learn the value of humility and obedience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Your children are your work of art, your highest achievement. It is God who has empowered you to do this. He has brought them into existence through you and He gave them to you so that you could help Him get them into Heaven. You are co-workers with God, co-creators with Him. That mission outweighs all others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All the other things that we must do in life should be ordered to that goal of getting to Heaven. That is what concerns our Father in Heaven: that through His Son Jesus, and with the help of those around us, each and every one of us gets to the safety and happiness of Heaven. We are, all of us, meant to be about our Father’s concerns.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-9138011485329353672018-12-24T12:29:00.002+00:002018-12-24T12:29:42.392+00:00WE OWE HER EVERYTHING: A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C (Luke 1:39–45)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some people were will tell you that Our Lady was an unmarried mother. That was based on ignorance of Jewish marital practices back then. Our Lady was a legally married woman from the time of her betrothal and if you had called her an ‘unmarried mother’ back then she and St Joseph would‘ve given you a hiding to remember. Just because it has become socially acceptable now, to some extent, doesn’t mean it was back then; not at all. By the way if anyone ever says to you that Our Lady was an ‘unmarried mother’ you have my permission to wash out their mouths with soap.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Luke’s Gospel just before the passage we have just heard our Lady has just been told that God wants her to be the Mother of His Son. She has said ‘yes.’ Having got this extraordinary news and having committed herself to God’s plan she heads off to Ain Karem, the traditional home of John the Baptist, near Jerusalem. That’s a journey of between 95 to 100 miles, a good bit further than a hike to Dublin or Cork from here, and she did it on foot unless she got a lift on a donkey. That’s a journey made on rough roads too with the danger of robbers, thieves and other evil men. Why did a young woman make such a journey?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lady was compelled by charity for Christ her son was already working in and through her. He had already begun His mission and she was ever the perfect instrument of His will. St Francis calls Our Lady the “Virgin-made-Church” and as both the Mother of Christ and His Body, and part of the people of God the Church, she reaches out in care and concern to Elizabeth in her need.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Elizabeth was Zechariah’s wife. Zechariah was a priest who served in the Temple in Jerusalem. Elizabeth is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Elisheba. The original Elisheba who was Aaron’s wife and therefore sister-in-law to Moses, and her name means ‘God is my abundance’. Her name may also be a sign that she, and her cousin Mary, are themselves of priestly descent. This is a priestly home. One did not merely enter such a house but had to be careful not to breach any of the purity laws. Mary marches in because she is the purest of human beings and now home to the Purest, the Holiest of all, God Himself made man. She has through her ‘yes’ to God become holier than the Temple. She has become the Holy of Holies.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lady greets Elizabeth and on hearing the greeting John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit; God has filled her with His abundance. Immediately Elizabeth cries out in prophecy for the Holy Spirit has revealed to her who Mary is carrying in her womb. Elizabeth is the first after our Lady to hear the Gospel in its essence. God has become fully man. God has fulfilled and over fulfilled His promises. He had promised a priest to offer a truly perfect sacrifice, a prophet, likes Moses, to teach the people how to live truly holy lives and a king like David to rule God’s people forever. He has more than kept His promises. He has come Himself in His Son. John leaps in his mother womb not because he is a baby and babies kick but because he too hears the gospel in his soul. He leaps in fulfilment of prophecy for in the Old Testament it was said that the poor in spirit, those who truly put their hope in God would leap with joy at God’s fulfilment of His promises. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our Lady is blessed because she believed God’s word and cooperated perfectly with the Holy Spirit. She actively engaged in the conception of her Son and our salvation. We are the body of Christ - we were in a sense also in Mary’s womb and she is our mother. His birthday is our birthday. We too are called to leap with joy at the message of our salvation and liberation. We too are called to go out to those in need with the gospel of Jesus, the truth that sets us free. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we say yes to God and put His word into practice, take the Gospel and the teachings of the Church seriously and live them, then God will speak and act through us. We were promised this in baptism. We are each of us members of His Body. We are each of us priests, prophets and kings. Each of us can offer up sacrifices pleasing to God, each of us can act and speak on His behalf, and each of us can act with His authority if we do what He commands us. Our Lady said yes and we were given the greatest gift ever. Let us also say yes and receive what God has to offer.</span></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-66753717374586399532018-12-13T22:09:00.000+00:002018-12-13T22:09:02.795+00:00THE REAL MEANING OF THIS SEASON a homily for the Second Sunday in Advent Year C<div style="font-family: cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I remember when my niece was born. She was a month premature and weighed only six and a half pounds. She was so small and vulnerable yet what I remember most was the heat that came off her. Without her Mam and the nurses she was helpless. Christ too was helpless when He was born among us. He was helpless at His birth and He was helpless at His death on the Cross. We can say that Christ was born in the shadow of the Cross. He, the All-Holy, All-powerful God made Himself helpless for us who are without help without Him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is so easy to bury the wonder of this approaching feast of Christmas under excessive eating and drinking, under presents, (wanted and unwanted), to build ourselves up to expect some perfect event that can never happen in our fleeting and fallen world. It is because we are fallen that we so easily take our value from the wrong source. It is because we are fallen that it is so easy for us to fall into the trap of imposing our own will on others, to try to put ourselves at the centre of everything rather than recognise that the only centre that can ever be is God. From that temptation to put ourselves at the centre flows all our troubles and sins, from squabbles over what's for dinner right up to who controls what valuable resources. All our moral ills in this world flow from that one source: we take our measure from the wrong template. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Please bear with me for there is a point to what I am about to say. While we are made in God's image and likeness, you and I do not matter. We, each of us, individually and collectively, are of no importance. One day most of us will be completely forgotten, gone without a trace at least from the perspective of this world. Even the few who are remembered for some time will be but footnotes, background noise to someone else's life. To those whose hope is for this world we are not important; we are nothing and of no value in and of ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The mystery and wonder of this season and the coming feast is that our true value comes not from ourselves, not from what we have nor from our achievements, not from what we have made of ourselves nor from what we leave behind. Our true value comes from what God has given us. In choosing to become one of us God has glorified us. More than this He if offering each one of us access to the very heart of God forever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He could've created us and left us in a state of natural bliss but that was not enough for Him. After our first parents fell He could've simply declared us forgiven but that was not enough for Him. Nothing was good enough but that He should enter our world and become fully human. Nothing was good enough but that He should offer the perfect, eternal obedience and love of the Son on the Cross of Calvary to the Father on our behalf. Nothing was good enough but that He should make us one Body, one Spirit with Him, His Temple, and that He should feed us with Himself, heal our wounds Himself and unite us with the Most Holy Trinity in Himself. Nothing was good enough but that He should give us Himself, completely and without reserve. It is He who declares us and makes us valuable. He gives us His own infinite value. It is from Him that we derive our dignity and worth. It is a value that we cannot lose because it is founded in Him not in us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The true foundation of all our celebrations is not the birth of a baby - they are born all the time - but the birth of a baby who is also God. If He was not God then His birth is no more worth celebrating that anyone else's and if He is wasn't human then He cannot have been born and He cannot have died and we are not saved. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All our traditions of this season point to this mystery. In the ancient world colours were expensive. Purple came from a sea-snail. When caught and crushed it gives a small amount of a greenish-yellow substance but expose that substance to the sunlight and it turns purple. To the ancients it was magical that the divine sunlight could work such a transformation and purple came to symbolise not only luxury but royalty and divinity. For the Church it came to mean more. It points to Christ’s action in becoming human. He has descended into the darkness and chaos of this world and lifted us into the light of His grace, transforming our nature through the Sacraments and giving us a share in His Royal Divinity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Christmas tree too points to the Mystery of Christ for it represents the Cross. The Cross is the true Tree of paradise which bears fruit for our healing and sanctification. That's why we cover it with baubles and glitter to symbolise the graces and blessings that come to us through Christ’s Passion. Our Christmas dinner, is meant to be an icon of the Mass in which we already share in the eternal Feast of Heaven. Therefore if you get the chance to give someone a place at your table you should take it for then Christ will welcome you at His in Heaven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everything about this season points beyond itself to Calvary, through and beyond Calvary to Heaven. Even the presents are not just echoes of the presents given by the Magi still less are they mere signs of affection and appreciation. We can do that anytime of the year. The presents are meant to symbolise the gift we are given in Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The conception and birth of a child is an act of hope and trust in God. Every life is sacred for each one is made in His image and likeness. More, each one of us is made for eternal life with God. The birth of Christ means we are no longer nothing. We are no longer valueless. Our value comes not from us but from God who has made us equal to Himself in giving us a place in His Son. We are, each and every one of us, equal to God because God has made us so. This is the true magic of Christmas. God has emptied Himself. He holds nothing back. In His birth we are reborn. We are no longer mere humans, here to strut our stuff for a few years and then fade away. In Christ we are a new Creation, cracked pots called to become Immortal Diamonds, filled with the treasure that is Christ. Our task in Advent is to clear out of our lives everything that stands in the way of doing His will.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-83616153114589796152018-11-18T11:28:00.002+00:002018-11-18T11:28:16.170+00:00BE READY FOR THE RETURN OF THE KING a homily for the Thirty-third Sunday, year B (Mark 13:24–32)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My mother was born in 1927. I can imagine her telling me “Don’t tell them that!” She was old enough to remember the kind of sermons that were once given. She told me she would get a thrill from being told that someone once sat where she sat that was now burning in hell. Thank God we don’t preach like that anymore. If you want to read stuff like that you can look up a man called von Cochem, a nineteenth century priest, whose stuff is still in print. His sermon on Heaven is beautiful but his stuff on Hell - well, he preached on Hell like he was born and bred there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Somehow though the idea has gotten around that we will all of us, or most of us, get to Heaven. That’s not Church teaching. Our Lord never, ever, anywhere gives us that idea. In fact, in some places He seems to say the opposite. All we know is that we do not know how may will be saved or how many lost. Our Lord has left us in suspense and we have to trust to His mercy as long as we sincerely repent and try to love God and our neighbour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That brings us to this Sunday’s Gospel passage. But first I must clear up something from the very end of it: How can the Son not know what the Father knows? Is our Lord not fully God? He is but the Lord Jesus was truly God and truly man. He had both a Divine and a human nature, a Divine and a human will, a Divine and a human mind, Divine and human knowledge. In saying that He does not now the hour of the Last Judgment our Lord speaks of His human knowledge. He could know things as God yet not know them as man. That is a mystery to us because we are not God, we are not even perfect and sometimes we don’t even know our own minds!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But what He does not know as man is only WHEN the Judgment of mankind will come but He knows and He warns us that it will come. On that day all the powers of the Universe both natural and supernatural will be shaken and disturbed, and He, the God-man, will return, no longer hidden, but brilliant as lightning, and accompanied by the countless angels of His army.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The generation that will not pass away does not refer to the generation alive at that time but to the ‘generation’ of the time between His Ascension back to the Father and His return in glory to judge the living and the end:, that is, US!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What He reveals to us is eternal truth. We have been warned. The day of his return and our judgment will come and we ought to prepare for it. The Church has always taught, based on Scripture, that there is both a particular and a general judgment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The particular judgment comes when we die. Remember those two basic facts, basic certainties in life: death and taxes. You may avoid or evade paying taxes but you will never avoid or evade death. Each of us will die. The older we get the more certain we are of that and with death will come facing God and accounting for every thought, word, and deed and for every good deed not done. We will see our whole lives in the light of God’s generosity and loving mercy. We will know every opportunity taken or missed. We will see clearly what we have made of ourselves and whether or not we have sincerely loved God and our neighbour, whether or not we have sincerely repented for each and every wrong done. It will happen. ‘When’ we do not know but each moment brings it closer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Those who die in the state of grace having lived holy lives will enter immediately into the beatific vision - the blessing of infinite joy and the eternal sight of God, impossible for us to imagine. Those who die imperfect, repentant but in need of conversion go to purgatory to do there what they should have done here - to learn to sincerely love. Those who die unrepentant are lost forever in the torments of Hell. Yes it exists and yes, you and I could go there if we do not repent and learn to love as the Lord has asked of us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The general judgment will come at the end of time when He brings everything in the created Universe to an end. On that day we will all face God together and know the truth. It could be tomorrow or it could be in a billion billion years - we don’t know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Some will mock and dismiss such teaching. Yet at Fatima in 1917 our Lady came to warn us. At Fatima 50000 people gathered in pouring rain for the final appearance of our Lady. They saw the Sun pulsate in the sky and seem to rush towards the earth. Only our Lady’s intervention stopped it. When it was all over they and the ground around them were all bone dry. Secularist journalists had been there to mock and saw what happened and to be fair to them it was all reported in the Portugese secular press. She warned us but who listened?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My father died in September 2011 and my mother in April 2012. Their home is sold, all their clothes given away, and most of their knick-knacks. The sets of china that my mother would not let us touch went to a charity shop. That has been a lesson for me. When we leave this world we take nothing with us except the good and the evil we have done. Why worry and fret over what will not last? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What can we do then to prepare for that judgment? Take the gospel seriously. Take our Lady seriously. Seek the conversion of your life and make reparation for all the indifference, lovelessness and sin in the world that so offends God. Fast, pray, and do penance for yourself and for others. Do as much good as you can especially to those who cannot thank or reward you. This is the best remedy for sin after repentance and confession. While we are in this world let us prepare for our end.</span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-73808098779844993992018-11-11T12:34:00.003+00:002018-11-11T12:34:45.262+00:00GOD WANTS OUR TOTAL FAITH NOT OUR COIN A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday, Year B (Mark 12:38–44)<div style="font-family: cambria; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Imagine for a moment a huge stone platform 90 ft high, ten stories or 30 m, stretching all of Ormonde street down to High street to just past Rothe House and from High Street up to a line between the end of De Loughry place and the old Atlantic store on Lower New Street. All one stone platform, 144,000 sq.meters. It’s still there in Jerusalem - one huge platform for the Temple and its surrounding plaza. The most important building, the Temple itself, stood in the middle of one side. It was about the same size as St Mary’s Cathedral but wider, almost 90 ft. No one ever went in there but the priests. Along another wall was another building open on one side were people could gather and the other walls had covered walkways. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Treasury was in the court of the women, that is, of women Jews. Apparently there were thirteen wooden boxes with trumpet shaped funnels that rang when coins were dropped in. Each box collected offerings for different purposes. Her offering seems to have been a simple gift of two <i>lepta, </i>two small copper coins. What she gave, all she had to live on as our Lord tells us, was very little. The <i>denarius</i> was the usual pay for a twelve-hour work day for a labourer. Those two small coins would equate to only a few minutes work. In other words the coins were next to worthless, she had nothing to live on. She was destitute and yet she gave her little away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This Gospel passage could be used to speak about why and how much we should support the Church and the clergy but that would miss the point. Those who wonder about what happened to the woman afterwards also miss the point. Our Lord is pointing to her because she truly believed and truly worshipped. This poor woman could’ve held onto her coins, near worthless though they were, for herself. There would’ve been nothing wrong in that. It would’ve been prudent to do so. Yet her faith was such that she trusted in God’s power to provide for her and to save her and so she gave to help others. She entrusted herself entirely to God not realising that He was sitting there watching her. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>She is not alone in Scripture. She stands in a long line of widows and women of faith. There was the widow of Zarephath, again a woman who was not a Jew, who had only a little flour and some oil to feed herself and her child but who listened to the prophet Elijah, trusted in God and God provided for her so that they survived the famine. There was king David’s great-grandmother Ruth who though not a Jew remained faithful to her mother-in-law and returned to Israel a widow. Despite her poverty she trusted in God and He provided for her. God provides for those who entrust themselves to Him and cannot be found wanting in generosity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Jewish law commanded that they care for the poor, the widows and the orphans yet this was not done. In fact the Scriptures tell us that often the externals of the law alone were observed. The poor and the needy were neglected and the rich took their wealth as a sign of their righteousness, moral worth and superiority. Things don’t really change do they? Wealth can easily make us think we are better than those who have nothing. Real wealth is faith and grace. Without the grace of God we are indeed poor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There are times in our lives when our faith is tested. It is easy to believe when times are good and life is easy. It is much harder when we find the going tough. It could be the long or serious illness of a loved one, a spouse or a child, or our own suffering. It could be unemployment, difficult work conditions, relationship difficulties, or any of a long list of troubles that can afflict us. It could be that we are offered an opportunity to sacrifice in order to help someone else. It is at these times that our faith is tested. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I say our faith is tested I do not mean that God needs to find out. God already knows how strong or weak our faith is. God already knew Abraham’s faith when He asked him to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved. Abraham discovered how deep his faith in God was, indeed how deep Isaac’s faith was, when he actually reached for the knife to kill his own son and was only stopped by God’s intervention. God, in testing Abraham, led him to a deeper faith and trust in God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mark in this Gospel passage presents us with a choice. We can be like the Pharisees who have faith in our own worth, comparing ourselves to others, keeping up with the Joneses, who give only out of our surplus, only what we have to give, and who trust entirely to our own efforts for our salvation or we can be like the poor woman who entrusts herself entirely to God’s mercy and providence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If we place our whole hope in God’s power to save us and put ourselves entirely in His care God will not be found wanting. I am not recommending that you put your entire weekly income into the collection plate or a charity box but that you put your faith in God and not in your own efforts. Our good deeds must flow from our faith and trust in God, as a response to His goodness and love. It was such a faith that built this church and our cathedral. It is such a faith that makes saints. God does not need our money. He wants our faith.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-20514205013170876282018-09-23T12:55:00.003+01:002018-09-23T12:55:42.937+01:00ON THE PRESENT CRISIS IN THE CHURCH a homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday, Year B (Mark 9:30–37)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">When I read that line “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">I was immediately reminded of that other verse “whoever causes one of these little ones to sin it would be better for him to have a millstone tied about his neck and for him to be thrown into the sea.”</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">Our Lord also obviously means to include in that curse anyone who deliberately and seriously sins against a child.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">That curse would logically include anyone that covers up such abuse.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">So I must apologise to anyone here who is the victim of abuse, especially child abuse.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">I cannot imagine what you have suffered but part of the process of ensuring that such abuse does not happen again or at least that it is dealt with swiftly and properly when it does is reminding everyone just how seriously wrong child abuse is.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 17px;">By this means we may begin to ensure that your suffering was not in vain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don’t know to what degree you are aware of the current crisis and scandals in the Church. It seems today that there are so many but the media coverage is uneven and unbalanced. For those who are not aware I will briefly summarize what has been happening. Earlier in the Summer an American Grand Jury issued its report into six American dioceses and listed, from the past 70 years, 300 priests against whom they were credible allegations of abuse against over a thousand minors. There was extensive cover-ups. Some of this abuse was quite recent. Bishops still in office were involved in those cover-ups. This has lead to many states in the US starting their own investigations. In addition the most senior churchman in America, now ex-Cardinal McCarrick was exposed as a serial abuser of boys and young men, especially seminarians and priests. This was, apparently, widely known in certain quarters even in Rome, even at the very top. Pope Benedict tried to do something but was thwarted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This scandal is not confined to the US. There have been similar scandals not only in Chile, but in Argentina, Nicaragua, India, Italy, Holland, Germany etc. Again and again the statistics show over 80% of the victims are adolescent boys and young men, that is, the abuse is not primarily directed against young children, those who have not yet reached puberty nor against girls and young women. One can only conclude that we are looking at homosexual predation on young males. Worse it was organised and it was covered up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>More recently a former papal nuncio, Archbishop Vigano, alleged that the Church, including various bishops and cardinals, was riddled with a homosexual mafia who were actively involved in covering up abuse. He claims that this was made known to the present Holy Father and nothing was done about it. I cannot verify these allegations but others have come forward to affirm both Vigano’s integrity and the truth of his claims. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When one thinks back to all that Irish Catholics have endured due to the crimes of certain priests and religious, the pain of victims and their families, those scandalised, those whose faith has been undermined, whose salvation has been jeopardised, I can only conclude that for all the publicity that those events incurred no one was listening. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How could this happen? How can men dedicated to God be guilty of such crimes? To answer that we need go no further than a verse or two earlier in our passage when we are told that the disciples had been discussing “who was the greatest.” When God’s word is ignored, when self-interest and self-glorification are allowed to triumph over God’s call then scandal becomes possible. The great Cardinal Burke has said that ‘where there is a want of chastity there is a want of obedience.’ There has been a great want of obedience in the Church, especially among certain clergy and religious and from it has flowed this evil. The prophets of the Old Testament railed against those shepherds who pastured themselves on their sheep, that is, who put their own interests before the welfare of God’s people. Our Lord teaches us that His way is a way of self-emptying, a way of and through the Cross not a way of domination. When men see in the priesthood a career move, a place to hide from questions about their sexuality, or worse a means to gain access to vulnerable persons, then we have a recipe for great evil and harm. A culture of secrecy and blackmail can easily develop and power abused to try and protect immoral persons from facing up to their crimes. I don’t know if similar evil is active here in the Irish Church. I hope not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One wonders whether any of these men have any real faith at all! Do they never think that they will have to stand before the Judgment Seat of God and give an account of their lives and ministry? It causes me to beg for mercy when I consider my own Judgment! How will they explain such abuse, such cover-ups? There is a disturbing video online from an Italian documentary (it seems that Italian and German media are well ahead of the English speaking media on this) in which an abuser is interviewed by means of a hidden camera. It seems that in his mind the abuse was all a joke, a bit of messing about, not serious, not a moral issue! How twisted must one’s thinking be to think that way? I am reminded of the line from the book of Daniel “you have grown old in wickedness.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is much more but I have said enough. Church militant is one site that is giving these events exstensive coverage. I warn you that if you go researching these events you will need strong faith and at times a strong stomach. So much of what has been done to these boys is truly demonic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are only ‘foot soldiers,’ mere plebs, so what are we to do? The price of peace is eternal vigilance it is said. We must keep an eye out for any suspicious activity around not only children but around teenagers and even adults under the power of others. Think of all the stuff that came out around Harvey Weinstein. Do you think he’s the only man in a position of power to abuse that position? Be vigilant and listen to anyone who comes to you with a complaint. Let us not make the mistakes of the past and dismiss the victims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I think our Lady tried to warn us at Fatima and again at Akita. She has asked that we live good and holy lives by doing the duties of our state of life, confession our sins regularly, devoutly receiving Holy Communion at Mass in a state of grace, praying the rosary, making acts of reparation and promoting devotion to her Immaculate Heart. She promised her protection to those who did these things and I believe that if we take them up again she will bring get great graces for us and the Church. She will heal what seems beyond all healing and bring peace to the Church and the world.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-85999011211086057962018-07-01T12:02:00.002+01:002018-07-01T12:02:38.186+01:00TOUCHING THE LORD: a homily fo rthe Thirteenth Sunday, Year B (Mark 5.21–43)<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> What does it mean to touch Jesus? What does it mean to have contact with God-made-man, to receive Him into our bodies and lives? It is the easiest thing to do and yet it has consequences beyond our imagining.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Our Gospel text today has two interwoven events. Our Lord is asked to save a man's daughter and a woman reaches out to be healed. At the heart of these two events lies that very question: what does it mean to touch Jesus and how do we do it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Every culture has its rules and customs about touch as it has about everything. There are some things that are common to all. Think for a moment of who you can and cannot touch, where and when. Even more so did the Jews of our Lord's time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Jairus, the leader of a synagogue, an important man, comes to our Lord and asks him to save his daughter. She is dying and he's desperate. If you've had a child or a relative near death you will know what it feels like. The light of his life, the apple of his eye, is dying and there's nothing he can do except humiliate himself in public and beg another man to help him. He asks our Lord to come and lay his hand on her and do his magic or whatever it is that he does. This man does not believe in our Lord: he's just desperate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Today, all over Israel archaeologists have found what appear to be cisterns and they were for storing water but not for drinking. They were there for purification. Under the Jewish Law there were many ways to become impure and people generally lived with the idea that most of the time they were ritually impure. They still did what they could as often as they could to purify themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> One of the ways to be impure was by blood. We are told that the woman in this story had suffered for over a decade with bleeding and despite spending all her money she was worse. She too is desperate. Can you imagine what she has suffered? This is long before anesthetics and modern medicine. This problem is not only personal to her but it is also intimate. It humiliated her. It limited what she could and where she could go and it isolated her. She was permanently impure and therefore she was excluded from the synagogue and the Temple and there was nothing she could do about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> So desperate is she that she takes a risk to reach out and touch our Lord. At the very moment she touches Him she is healed and He knows. The could is packed around Him so his disciples are shocked that He wants to know who's touched Him. But He's insistent. This woman now shows that not only has she faith she has courage and gratitude too. She comes forward and despite her fear and despite the humiliation (can you imagine her embarrassment?) she tells her story. In return she hears those wonderful words of our Lord "you faith has saved you. Go in peace..." So she is not only cured of her sickness she is now at peace with God something that not even a lifetime of sacrifices and prayers in the Temple could do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Then Jairus gets the news that he dreads, his little girl is dead. Those are words every parent dreads to even think of hearing. Can you imagine the pain and grief that must've struck him then. He has failed and lost his beloved daughter. Yet the Lord has not abandoned Him despite his lack of faith. Faith is what he needs now and to put away his fear. Taking only his closest men, his inner circle, our Lord goes to Jairus' house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> We don't keen as our people once did in the past. Back in our Lord's time there were even professional mourners who would produce the appropriate wailing to accompany a death. It is probably these that our Lord confronts when he gets to Jairus' house. Either way they're not impressed. Our Lord's words that the little girl is not dead but asleep could either mean that she is still alive but in a coma or that, though dead, she is not lost, we don't know. Either way he does not tolerate their mockery. Although it is Jairus' house He throws the mourners out and so creates a bit of peace and quiet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> With the girl's parents and His closest men He goes in to see her, into the heart of their home. All He does is take her hand and call her and she is restored to her parents. Can you imagine their joy? Moments before they were cut to the heart with grief and all their days to come were ashes and misery and now hope and joy are restored to them. He tells them to feed her so that they and everyone else can see that she is really healed and restored to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> As I prepared this I noticed that the first woman suffered for twelve years while this little girl was twelve years old. What is the significance of that? Perhaps she was allowed to suffer that long so that her faith and her healing would touch Jairus and bring him to the faith that our Lord could save his daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> In asking our Lord to touch his child he was really asking the creator to recreate her. Touching Jesus and being touched by Him is not magic. We cannot benefit without faith. Yet how often is He ignored though he is readily available to us in the Sacrament of Confession? Jarius sought our Lord to save his daughter why do so many fail to seek Him in Confession to save their souls? How often is He received in Holy Communion not only without faith, not only without respect but even without any acknowledgement of the need of repentance and conversion of life?<br /> In Holy Communion we can not only touch our Lord, who is really and truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, but we receive Him into our bodies and souls. Do we invite Him into our hearts and lives with faith or do we mock Him with our indifference or even our lack of sorrow for our wrongdoing? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> If only we not only sought to touch Him but let Him touch us He would raise us up and feed us with Himself and our joy would be complete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-54460789326724908672018-06-24T12:46:00.003+01:002018-06-24T12:46:31.972+01:00IN THE WILDERNESS PREPARE A WAY FOR THE LORD: a homily for the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist (2018)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-GB"> John the Baptist must've been an extraordinary character. John was the son a priest of the Jerusalem Temple and through his mother he was a descendent of Aaron, brother of Moses. That made him a priest and put him at the heart of the Jewish Faith. The instruction given to John's father before he was born is very like that given to the parents of Samson. He was to be dedicated to God from birth and so he had never touched alcohol, never cut his hair and lived from an early age in the hard rocky hills and desert of Israel. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">John's austere diet of insects and wild honey recalls the stern self-sacrificing, self-denying ministries of the Old Testament prophets, not that of a comfortable and wealthy priest. John would not have had weight problems! </span><span lang="EN-GB">He chose to wear camel hair clothes and a leather belt, the same clothing as the great prophet Elijah. Therefore his very </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">clothing was a proclamation of his ministry and his mission. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">There had not been a prophet in Israel for over four hundred years.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> John was sent by God as a prophetic herald to prepare the way for Christ and so his clothes were appropriate to the humility of the arrival of the King who was born to an unknown family, laid in an animal trough, and announced to mere shepherds. In addition John's clothes were an visual parable protesting the barrenness of a people who no longer listened to God and calling them to prepare for the Lord's coming through repentance and conversion of heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> If you read the bible, and I do hope you read it, you may remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. So awful was their behaviour, the story goes, that the screams of their victims were heard in Heaven and God goes down to investigate. He visits Abraham who, assuming that God is about to destroy them, starts to haggle with God. How many righteous men does God need in a town before he will not destroy it Abraham wants to know? He haggles God down to ten righteous men and since there aren't that many in Sodom and Gomorrah Abraham, Lot and their families have to flee before the Divine wrath descends. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> That's how the story has often been read. I recently read an article that argued something else. Abraham is the first of the prophets and as a prophet he has access to God's counsel as God's friend and co-operator. God gives him the chance to plead for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, to ask for mercy, but since Abraham has yet to grasp just how deep God's mercy is he stops short at ten men. God accepts Abraham's decision, removes His protection, and Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed not because God wanted to destroy them but because that's what Abraham had decided. The later prophets did not make the same mistake and had no hesitancy in pleading with God for mercy, a mercy He wants to give but which He will not force on us. His hand is extended to us and we must reach out and grasp it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> So the man whose birth we celebrate today was an outsider, </span><span lang="EN-GB">the last of the prophets and among the first of the saints. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">John gave up the possibility of marriage and a home, of social status, power and influence, of mere everyday comfort to live on the extreme margins of his society so that he could speak God's word to the people of Israel. John had the courage to respond to God's grace, to listen to His word, and to put it into practice regardless of the personal cost. By making those sacrifices John prepared the hearts of his fellow Jews to hear the Word Himself, God Incarnate, Jesus Christ out Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> Celebrating this feast is a way to remind ourselves that if we are truly followers of Christ then we too are called to prepare a way for Him into the hearts and lives of others. We too are forerunners of God, heralds and ambassadors for Christ. We too are prophets called to speak the truth, God's word, to our nation, our society and our families. We too are called to ask for mercy and forgiveness for ourselves and for others. To do that we need to be in this world but not of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> There are no deserts nor are there even proper wilderness in our little green island. We have family and vocational commitments, jobs and roles in our society. Do we need to give them up to be disciples of Christ? Not at all. Yet we do need the desert, a wilderness space, in our lives and we can create that desert by withdrawing from unnecessary and distracting activities, conversations and entertainments and giving the time instead to listening to the Lord. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> The purpose of our life here on earth is not a happy retirement in a comfortable old age but to get to heaven. Getting in to Heaven is not automatic. There's no easy way in. You have to choose eternal life with God by having faith in Him, putting His will first here on earth, by avoiding doing evil and actively seeking to do good. God will not force His love nor will He force Heaven on us. We have to reach out and grasp His outstretched hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> John understood this and he reached out for God's hand will all his might. His devotion to God's plan cost him his life. He literally stuck out his neck and put his head on the line. He paid the ultimate price but won a glorious place in Heaven. Who among us today has a like courage?</span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-40866191994783827612018-06-17T13:02:00.000+01:002018-06-17T13:02:01.177+01:00CHRIST IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF TRUE FLOURISHING: a homily for the Eleventh Sunday, year B (Mark 4:26–34)Full disclosure: I was struggling all week to decide what I should preach on and then on Saturday morning I found the sacred page blog. I used <a href="http://www.thesacredpage.com/2018/06/now-seeds-start-growing-readings-for-11.html" target="_blank">John Bergsma</a>'s reflection on the Sunday readings to construct this Sunday's homily!<br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Every life, every era has its own particular trials, tribulations and challenges.<b></b>About 600 years before Christ Ezekiel wrote the words of the first reading to console the Jews as their world fell apart. The Kingdom established by David had long split in two and now only the southern part, Judah and Jerusalem, remained and that wouldn't last long. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> The Jews of </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Northern Israel were exiles in Syria, and Babylon had already deported many Judeans. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">A few years later in 587 BC, Jerusalem and the Temple would be completely destroyed. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> It was a quite depressing time in the history of God’s people and Ezekiel gives a prophesy of hope: God has a plan and his promise to David is not forgotten. There be will growth once more.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> However no dynasty had ever re-established itself having been brought down. How could this happen? Surely Ezekiel was mad?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> The “just one” that we heard about in the psalm is compared to a tree that flourishes, grows, and bears fruit. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">It's a not uncommon image in the psalms. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Behind it is the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil in Eden, the primordial garden-temple of God. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">The “just”—those who live their lives according to God’s will become like the Tree of Life. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">They will bear the fruit that Adam and Eve didn’t taste, because they chose to take what had not been offered, what did not yet belong to them. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> The “just one” is first of all Jesus Christ—the only one who is truly “just.” </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">He is truly the Tree of Life who bears good fruit in all seasons, eternally. There's an Irish prayer that goes "O King of the Friday, whose arms were stretched on the Cross. O Lord who did suffer the bruises, the wounds, the loss. We stretch ourselves beneath the shield of Thy Might. May some fruit from the Tree of Thy Passion fall on us this night." It is Christ who has made the Cross and all our personal crosses fruitful. Baptism and the Mass make us His Body and so we too can be the 'just one" flourishing in hard times. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> The Lord offers us the means to</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">grow spiritually strong and resilient despite life’s troubles, and bear the fruit of the Spirit and of good works. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> Again in the Gospel we hear about trees and fruit. The Lord tells two short parables. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">In both of them, the “seed” is the Word of God, in two senses: the proclaimed Gospel is the “word of God”; and Jesus himself is the Word of God.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">In the first parable, Jesus tells us that the growth of God’s kingdom is a mystery, the work of the Holy Spirit, and no more dependent on human effort than natural growth depends on us. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">A gardener cannot make the seed grow he can only provide the best conditions in his power.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">We are responsible for planting the seed by our words and deeds but the growth belongs to the Lord. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">We cannot control God's work in our own heart let alone another's.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">It is the work of God and we must trust Him.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> The Lord also tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into a great tree. Again the “smallest of seeds” and the humblest is in fact Christ himself, who is both the Word of God, and the “seed of David” whom God promised by covenant oath to King David “raise up”: </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> "</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom."</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> Isaiah prophesied that "</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Jesse was David's father and an ancestor of our Lord.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> Christ is the “smallest of seeds” because he is poor, humble and lowly, despised by all: as Isaiah again said:</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">"</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">For he grew up before us like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></i><i><u><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">despised and rejected by men</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> Those words were fulfilled on the Cross and from the Cross our Lord says to us "</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></i><i><u><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">lowly in heart</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">, and you will find rest for your souls."</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> After His death on the Cross our Lord was literally planted, that is buried, in the ground. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">He said the grain of wheat that dies bears much fruit:</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> "</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">The “mustard seed” of Jesus, planted in the ground in the mountain heights of Israel (Jerusalem), rose from the dead and became the Church, which grew despite persecution and grows throughout the world still. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">In Christ, the royal Son of David, Ezekiel’s prophecy did come true but not as expected. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> Christ turned defeat into victory and the Cross into a throne. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">The House of David was reestablished not in Jerusalem but in Heaven, and the Kingdom of David is the Church has spread throughout the world, an international empire of Faith.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;"> Every life, every era has its own particular trials, tribulations and challenges.<b></b>Without our Faith in Christ we are no good to anyone. We need to rekindled our faith and care for it as we would a candle in a cave. We need to have faith in God and His power to save us. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">In this dark time when the Church seems to be failing it’s helpful to remember that times were frequently dark in the past as well. Ezekiel prophesied under the oppression of the Babylonian Empire. Our Lord ministered under the oppression of the Roman Empire. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> How many centuries were our people oppressed and persecuted here in our native land? </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">The Lord prefers to work through the small, the weak and the powerless: mere mustard seeds. He prefers to work in and through ordinary people in ordinary situations. In unseen ways He makes things grow and change. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">He does not die, He grows; He fills the whole earth, brings eternal life to those that seek His shade. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; line-height: 24px;">He is the Tree of Life and if we turn to Him He will feed us with Himself and we will live forever.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-64821645983146712612018-06-10T11:53:00.000+01:002018-06-10T11:53:26.388+01:00DO THE WILL OF THE FATHER: a homily for the Tenth Sunday in year B, (Mark 3.20–35)<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> What a homecoming! Our Lord returns to Nazareth and faces two challenges. The Jewish lawyers and theologians are accusing Him of being possessed while His relatives are putting Him under pressure to conform. In the intensely clannish climate of Israel the question is this: where does His authority come from? In other words who is Jesus and what should we do about Him?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> In the midst of all this our Lord offers His defense: He is the strong man who has robbed the robber Satan. He is the center of history and the source of salvation. Anyone who does His Father's will is mother, sister, brother to Him. It is not biology but obedience to the truth that forms the family of God.<br /> One would have to be totally indifferent to one's salvation or dangerously complacent not to wonder about that sin against the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? The sin against the Holy Spirit or the unforgiveable sin is the refusal to admit one's sin or the power and will of God to forgive it. It is a rejection of God's mercy and forgiveness. A drowning man who resists any help or a dying man who refuses life-saving treatment cannot be saved and likewise those who refuse God's mercy remain in their sin. It does not mean that God does not or cannot forgive but that His forgiveness is not welcome and until that changes the sin remains and the sinner cannot hope for Heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> All too often we think of sin in terms of breaking rules, especially breaking Church rules. That in part is due to the Church's practice in the past of using such penalties to enforce discipline. Sin is not about breaking rules but about doing evil. Sin is a rejection of God's authority, His mercy and His love, and His plan for us. It follows that any thought, word or deed that freely and consciously rejects God's plan is evil and therefore sinful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> You will remember that our Lord says that if anyone looks lustfully at another person he or she has already committed sin in their heart. This is because the one looking with lust has given their will to an act they know to be wrong and though there was no physical action they have turned their will to an evil end. Each time you or I do such a thing we make it easier to do it in future until we end up so evil that we can no longer do good. I knew a female student once who could not tell the truth even if it got her out of trouble. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Of course the opposite is also true. The more you choose to do good, to do the right thing, the more likely you are to choose good in future until it becomes nearly impossible to do wrong. It is a habit, that is, a settled disposition of one's charachter. Such a habit is a virtue if it is good and a vice if it is evil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> As I have pointed out to you before there is an objective moral order. It is Objective because it exists independently of us, Moral because it governs right and wrong and an order because it has a hierarchical structure. We do good when we live by it and respect it and evil by ignoring it and acting contrary to it even if only in our thoughts. This is why even seemingly small acts can be morally significant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> For instance, Adolf Hitler did not, as far as we know, kill anyone. Yet by his signature he gave power to Himmler and Himmler gave power to Heydrich and Heydrich thought up the 'final solution', that is, the mass murder of millions of innocent Jews. The pen is mightier than the sword because it so often unleashes it. So even our smallest acts can bring great good or great evil and we will answer to God for the consequences of every one of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> The good news is that God has extended to us His mercy and forgiveness in His Son. In Christ He has given us everything, every grace and every blessing. It is up to us to avail of it. He will not force Himself on us. He will not violate our free will in even the smallest way. He would not force the scribes and the Pharisees; He will not force us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> More, any and every sin, no matter how dreadful or disgusting, no matter how shameful, no matter how often committed, no matter how many affected, any sin will be forgiven if it is repented and confessed. If we cast ourselves on His mercy we will not be disappointed. But only those sins are forgiven that are repented and confessed in this life. We cannot confess or repent in the next. What we hold back, what we refuse to acknowledge as sin, or if we refuse to trust in His mercy and forgiveness, then that cannot be forgiven. What is not dipped in the water is not washed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Through Baptism and Confirmation He has made us one Family, one flesh with Himself. More, He has given us a share in His own Sonship and a place on the Throne of Heaven. In Holy Communion He offers us His Body and Blood, His own soul and Divinity as food for us. He asks that we believe in Him, trust Him and give Him each and every in sin in the Confession. He wants to see, touch and heal each and every wound. He will not force His love on us and neither will He force His mercy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Don't let pride or false humility, weak faith or laziness, keep you out of heaven. The more and the swifter we turn to His grace in the Sacrament of Confession the quicker and the greater will we grow in holiness. That holiness will attract others to Christ and His mercy, especially those we love. If you really love your loved ones you will strive to get as close to Christ as possible because only through, with and in Him can anyone be saved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-1490964582110128422018-05-27T09:39:00.000+01:002018-05-27T09:39:50.203+01:00CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES: a homily on Trinity Sunday, May 27th, 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Friday was a day of choice. It is a privilege of our democratic constitutional system that we get to vote on changes to the fundamental law of the land. Our people voted and they made a choice. Every choice, no matter how small has consequences many of them unseen. There will be consequences to the choice our people have made whether we like those consequences or not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> This was not a vote about being Catholic but a vote about respecting that objective moral order about which I have spoken to you before. Our nation has voted to reject that objective moral order. It has chosen to remove the protection on the life of the unborn child and so to give the government a free hand in legislating for abortion. It has done so with such a majority that the same government may feel free to go further than they claimed they would go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> One consequence of the vote will definitely affect every one on this island but not immediately. Within the last few weeks Minster Zappone herself announced that she was going to take action to try to stop the decline in the nation's birthrate. This is a problem that has been there since the 1980's mind you. The problem with our birthrate is not ours alone; it affects all advanced nations. It is due to many reasons but the technology that has allowed it to happen is primarily that of contraception and surgical and chemical abortion. This will mean that the day will come, about twenty to thirty years from now, when there will not be enough young people in the population to support all the old people. No one knows how this will play out because never before have we been able to observe whole nations go down this path together. We do know that such events have lead to the collapse of whole empires in the past. It happened to the Romans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> It's because of that prospect that there's already talk of raising the age at which people retire. It's one of the reasons that there's so much emphasis on private pension schemes. It is also why there's a push to bring in euthanasia. I would've thought it was obvious that you don't save a sinking ship by poking holes in the hull and then trying to plug them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Friday's vote means that for those of us who are Catholic we too must make a choice. If it wasn't obvious to you before it should be glaringly obvious now that 'Catholic Ireland' has been dead for some time. Not just Catholic Ireland but even the capacity to reason about right and wrong seems to have left us. We have only ourselves to blame though some may carry more blame than others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> We are now a minority Faith on this island. There was a time when everyone went to Mass. Many went because they believed but some went to be seen and others so no would talk about them. The Church was as part of Irish society as the GAA, the pubs and the national school. There is still a certain amount of that. It is called 'cultural Catholicism' where the Faith is not embraced but simply worn like a badge of identity, an expression of a brand of Irishness like wearing green on Patrick's day. It is cultural Catholicism that makes an avowed atheist think that he can be a sponsor for someone's Confirmation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> The 'cultural Catholics' may still hang around but we will have to offer them a choice: "Take the Faith seriously or move on." We can't afford to carry those who don't really care, who don't really believe. I'm not talking about those who struggle with sin. We all struggle with sin. I am talking about the superficial Catholics, sometimes called 'a la carte' or 'pick'n'mix' Catholics. About those who can't be bothered to be one thing or the other our Lord Himself has said: "I will spit you out of my mouth." (Rev. 3.16)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"> Our choice is whether we take our faith seriously or not. It's a choice about whether we allow our Faith to touch every aspect of our lives and our behaviour or not. There's much that must change in the Irish Church but not in the way some may want it. We cannot go back to the 50's but we can live the Faith handed down to us from the Apostles, the Faith lived by St Anthony of Padua, Padre Pio, Mother Teresa and all the saints. We can take the Gospel and the teachings of the Church seriously and put them into practice or we can walk away. That is the real choice before us and it will have its own consequences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-87772134562772040712018-05-08T14:01:00.000+01:002018-05-08T14:01:18.553+01:00TO KNOW THE NATURAL LAW IS TO KNOW THE MIND OF CHRIST: a homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B.<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">An atheist was visiting the South Sea Islands. While there he commiserated with a Chieftain on how Christianity had damaged his culture. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Chieftain listened patiently and then said “You see this rock? Before the Christians came I would have killed you with it and eaten your brains. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It is because of the Christians that you are still alive.” Christianity had taught his people not to treat strangers as enemies but as human beings <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Today there is an attempt to force religion and via religion morality into the private sphere. But neither religion nor morality are private matters. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">We cannot be Catholic only in private or only on some issues. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It is all or nothing. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">While there are many areas over which Catholics can disagree with one another e.g. immigration, taxation, water charges etc., the fundamental moral teaching is not for negotiation.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;"> But here I must make an important clarification.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Church does not get her moral teaching from Revelation (that which has been revealed to us above all through Christ and His Apostles) but rather Revelation affirms, expands and deepens what we already know by reason. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> By reason you and I know that it's wrong to take what does not belong to you, to have sex with someone to whom one is not married or to kill an innocent human being. Just laws are based on such moral principles; that's what makes them just. It's because we know it is wrong to steal that we have so many laws punishing burglary, shop-lifting, pick-pocketing, fraud and plagiarism. An act is wrong not because it is against the law. If it is against the law it ought to be so because it is wrong. Law also functions to teach people right from wrong. We show compassion in how we apply the law not in how we frame it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">We can know right from wrong by reason because there exists outside ourselves and our societies an Objective Moral Order. It is Objective because it is real and not subject to our feelings or opinions. It is Moral because it governs our free actions as self-conscious and sentient beings. It is an Order because it has a structure and a hierarchy. This Objective Moral Order is usually called the Natural Law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Revelation affirms this Natural Law.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;"> We must not confuse the Natural Law with the Laws of Nature. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Laws of Nature are what rule the physical world and are studied through the disciplines of science: physics, chemistry and biology. The Natural Law is what rules the moral world. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Ten Commandments are a condensation of that Natural Law. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">There is a lot more to right and wrong but most of Catholic moral teaching is an ‘unpacking’ of those Ten Commandments. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Of course as we have just heard our Lord added another commandment that we love one another as He has loved us. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">This we could not know by reason but only by Revelation. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It required revelation for us to know about the importance of forgiveness, of turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile, of imitating Christ in His humility and obedience. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">This is why our Lord said that not one iota, not one little dot, of the Law would be changed and that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil, that is, complete it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Natural Law is known not so much by experiment (unless all of human history can be understood as an experiment) but it is perceived by reason reflecting on what it is to be human and on the experience of conscience. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Conscience is that capacity of the soul to reflect on and examine our actions, to hold them up to inspection and judge them. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Conscience is not infallible but it is a capacity that we must form and foster, educate and nurture so that it becomes ever more sensitive. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The best education and formation a conscience can get is to be informed by the Word of God in the Catholic Faith.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;"> Indeed to listen to an educated and well-formed conscience is to place one’s ear next to the mouth of God.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It is conscience that tells us about the demands of the Natural Law. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">For instance, conscience tells us, without too many arguments or without much thought, that it is always wrong to deliberately and directly take an innocent human life. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">That is why we expect a man to go to prison for killing his neighbour but not for killing his neighbour’s dog. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The fact that we are fallen of course has shaped how different societies have understood that Law. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The more civilised the society the wider the understanding of the sanctity of human life has become. Christianity has widened our understanding of ‘innocent human being’ to the utmost. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Yet there remains a constant battle against those who would narrow that understanding again, who would push us back to barbarism. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Much of our legal tradition was based on this Natural Law but that is being dismantled and rejected. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It does not suit the intelligentsia, the social engineers and ideologues who run our world. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Where once society held up the virtues for us to emulate and extolled moral goodness now we are subjected to the idolatry of personal freedom and the monstrous worship of depravity. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;"> This goes hand in hand with the rejection of Christ and His Church. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">One cannot behave as one wishes and still hold to an objective moral order, a Natural Law, nor can one hold to Christ and His Church. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Reject the Natural Law and one necessarily rejects Christ.</span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">There is a battle for the soul of our own nation. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">That is where the matter of the Eight Amendment to our Constitution comes in. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">Either we give glory to God, proclaim His Truth and uphold what He has established or we deny Him by our silence and inaction. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The Nazis and Communists came to power in various countries because the good stood by and did nothing when they had a chance to make a difference. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">The moral order in our society is under revolution and we are called to action. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">A soldier who sits in the trench during a battle might as well be siding with the enemy. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">It is not just a matter of voting in the right way or for the right politician. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">If we do not speak up and get involved in resisting the evil that is threatening our country and the lives of the most vulnerable then we risk forfeiting Heaven. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 24px;">We cannot expect a welcome from God if we have stood by and allowed His children to be murdered. </span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192975108709881867.post-3573301617569158422018-04-29T12:14:00.000+01:002018-04-29T12:14:12.558+01:00BE GRAFTED TO CHRIST AND DRAW LIFE FROM HIM: a homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B (John 15.1-8)<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-GB">My Dad spent a chunk of his working life in a foundry in Dublin. He would say about it that 'once the metal entered your blood you couldn't get it out.' I would say the same of soil. Before I joined the Capuchins I worked was a gardener. If you're a gardener then you might understand what I mean. It never leaves you. It's more than fresh air and growing things.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I learned to dislike weeds. Not all weeds are plants growing where they're not wanted. Some weeds entangle, throttle and kill the living things around them. They grow only for their own benefit and to the loss of others. Thank God most plants are not weeds. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">My favourites are the fruit trees. Most fruit trees are grafted plants like vines. I've never grafted plants but I know how it's done. If you look at their base there's always a swollen join where the stock meets the graft. Plants are grafted together so the strength and vitality of one fuels the potential of the other. Usually the rootstock is wild and vigorous and the graft is a domesticated variety that lacks vitality. Graft the two together and you get something vibrant and fruitful.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">One still needs to prune. Pruning isn't just cutting away branches. It's an art. It shapes the plant and can determine whether and how much fruit it bears. Careful pruning channels the life of the rootstock into the buds and therefore into the branches and the fruit. Careful pruning helps keep a plant healthy. One prunes the diseased and injured branches first and burns them so they don't infect other plants. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Although it has been years since I pruned or even cared for a plant it still pains me to see them neglected or worse badly tended. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Trees don't have a nervous system or any means to experience pain but we do. When I apply our Lord's words on pruning the vine to myself I remember experiences of pruning and shaping. A number of weeks ago I told you about the time I had to care for the physical needs of brother who was doubly incontinent. He was a good man and rarely gave trouble but he could not communicate. Having to get him out of bed, wash him and dress him, change his nappies during the day and put him to bed was very hard for me. I felt trapped. I felt great relief when I no longer had to do that. Yet I learned that I could do that. I got more from him than he did from me. Through that experience I was pruned and shaped. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">If any of us searches our memories we will find times when we were pruned by others or by our experiences. Unlike trees we can feel and pruning hurts. Maybe the pruning has been inexpert and careless. Perhaps it may have helped us to grow and to blossom. Some of our experiences may have left deep scars that are very hard to heal unless they are tended by the master gardener Himself.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It is the same with our lives as it is with out bodies and with plants. There is within us a wild and rebellious urge to go our own way. If we allow that to happen we end up with lifeless chaos. If wounds are not treated and healed they become infected and cause more problems. If diseases are not dealt with they get worse. If we do not cultivate a healthy way of growing then we become out of shape, and cannot produce the good we should do. If one part of our life is spiritually or morally out of kilter then all the rest is affected.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Not one of us is perfectly shaped unless we allow the Father, the master gardener, to prune, shape and train us to His plan so that we can bring forth all the potential that lies within us. Only if we draw our life and resources from our rootstock Christ can we grow, blossom and bear fruit that lasts. Only through our union with Christ can we be truly alive and avoid the fire.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">We remain grafted to Christ through Holy Communion in a state of grace, through prayer, through obedience to His word and to the teaching of His Church, through loving others in the truth and extending to them the love and mercy Christ has extended to us.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">God made us so that we should grow, flourish, blossom and bring forth goodness and holiness, let's not turn into weeds.</span></div>
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Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09140244586477682905noreply@blogger.com0