VALAAM: THE MOUNT ATHOS OF THE NORTH

"ATHOS - THE MONASTIC REPUBLIC" (2016)

Thanks to the Mystagogy Resource Centre for the link to this movie!  It appears to be inspired by "Into Great Silence" (2005) the documentary about the Carthusian Order in France.

CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD: a homily for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year A (Matthew 17:1–9)

 The audio of this homily is here.

Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo, Ireland's sacred mountain.

I have only climbed a few mountains.  I supposed most of us have, at least once in our lives, gone up a mountain.  Mountains are memorable, for me perhaps most of all Croagh Patrick where, on a fine day, you get a great view of Clew Bay.  Maybe that’s the attraction in mountains, the height of them and the view from the top, the clarity of the air, being above the ordinary as we look down on all that is happening around. 

View of Clew Bay from the summit of Croagh Patrick.

Mountains appear frequently and significantly in the Bible especially  mountains like  Sinai and Horeb.  On Mount Sinai Moses first encountered God in the Burning Bush and it was on Sinai that he received the Law.   On Mount Horeb Elijah encountered God not in the storm, or the fire or in the earthquake but, beautifully, in the sound of a gentle breeze and he was allowed to see God’s back but not his face.  It will be on the hill of Calvary that our Lord will die upon the Cross offering Himself in worship of the Father on our behalf.  So it is appropriate that it is on a mountain that our Lord reveals His Divine Personhood. 

Holy Trinity, Cork.

It might surprise you to know that you are on a mountain here in this church.  It is a symbolic mountain.  You had to climb a few steps to get into the church as you do in any church.  That’s not an accident and not just a flood protection method.  The altar, here, is in the sanctuary, the most sacred space in a church after the tabernacle, and it is set on a height, raised four steps higher than the nave where you sit.  Thus the church building and it’s sanctuary is meant to symbolize the holy mountain where we meet the Lord.  It symbolizes Sinai, Horeb, Tabor and above all Calvary.  It is on this ‘mountain’ that we encounter God in the most intimate way outside of heaven when we receive Him in Holy Communion.  Here we discover God’s gentleness, His mercy and His love for us.

In our gospel passage today it is the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, a Jewish Harvest festival that became a remembrance of their journey in the desert after their escape from Egypt.  At this festival, in the heat of August, the people would live outside sleeping in shelters made from branches either out in the fields or on their flat rooftops.  This is why Peter mentions the three tents.  It is at the end of this festival that Jesus takes the inner circle of His followers, Peter, James and John, up a mountain, identified as Mount Tabor.  He is changed, transfigured, that is, He reveals His Divinity in order to strengthen them for His coming passion and death.  His face shines because He is the source of the light.  He is brighter than the Sun because the Sun was made to be a symbol of His Divine Nature.

Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah, the greatest of the Prophets, come to speak to Jesus.  These are the men who spoke with God; Moses did so ‘face to face’ so that his own skin shone and here they are speaking to our Lord.  But Peter, James and John, cannot grasp what is shown them.  Peter, as usual, puts his foot into it because he wants to remain in this awesome moment for he fails to understand its significance.   All he can see is Jesus, Moses and Elijah as if they are all equal.  God the Father, manifesting His Presence by a cloud, another echo of Sinai, intervenes and points out the obvious.  Jesus our Lord is Son of the Father, God made fully and truly man, and He is the One to whom we must now listen for He is the very Word and Image of the Father.   Moses and Elijah are witnesses to Him but He is the fulfilment of all the promises made to them and to the people of Israel.  Indeed He surpasses all those promises for God can never be outdone in generosity.

So the three apostles are left, shaken, with only Jesus our Lord.  It is only beginning to dawn on them Who Jesus really is.  They were shown this to strengthen them for the horror of Good Friday.   They are shown not only Who Christ really is but who He wants us to become by His Power and what He has in store for us in Heaven.  In a sense, Peter has the right reaction but for the wrong reasons.  He is right to want to stay upon the mountain, to have what the Lord offers, but he fails to understand that all of the history of Israel has been building up to this encounter with Jesus our Lord, the Word and the Image of the Father made fully and truly human for us.  He fails to understand that Good Friday cannot be avoided, indeed, it is part and parcel of the Lord’s plan.

The mountain symbolised in a church is not only those of the Bible.  There is also an interior mountain.  Our Lenten journey is meant to be a climbing of our own interior Mount Tabor or Calvary if you prefer.  To climb a mountain is to leave behind the many distractions of the green fields and valleys and to make the effort to pass over and through the rocky way that leads to the top.  We are to remove from our lives all distractions, the other voices that threaten to drown out the voice of the Lord in our hearts.  That is why the Father tells us “This is my beloved Son; Listen to Him”.  He means it: listen to the Lord.  We cannot face the struggle of uniting the sufferings of this life with those of Christ upon the Cross without the strength that comes from our interior encounter with Him.  That encounter comes only through prayer when we climb the interior mountain into His Presence within us.   That is something that each of us must take personal responsibility for; no one can do it for you.

At every Mass we climb Mount Tabor and Mount Calvary.  At every Mass we have the chance to receive Him in Holy Communion, to have His Flesh and His Blood enter into us or, to put it another way, to have Him make us fully one with Himself.  How often do we then flee away as soon as Mass is over or even, God forbid, before it is finished.  Some hardly wait for the consecration!  We receive God, the closest we get to Heaven this side of death and then, with hardly a word of thanks, we fly off home, or to wherever people go on a Sunday.  The Apostles wanted to stay with the Lord and we wish to run away from Him.  St John Vianney said that the moments after Holy Communion are the most important moments of our lives and ought not to wasted.  He recommended spending fifteen minutes in thanksgiving!  Whatever time you give try to give more.  God has given you all of Himself; He deserves that you give something back in return.  Do not rush away, rush down off this mountain back to the world of many pointless distractions.  Take the time to adore and to give thanks, to bring your sorrows and your joys to Him, to draw close to Christ who has drawn so close to you.

If we sincerely want to follow the Lord, to love Him as we ought, to discover His love for us then we must climb that mountain through time given to prayer and to the Mass.  It is a slow journey but for those who persevere they will get to see the magnificent view of the glory of Christ, the real knowledge of His loving care and the guarantee of eternal life.

ST PATRICK ADOPTED INTO THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CALENDAR

I read on Fr Z's excellent blog that the Russian Orthodox Church has added a number of Western, Latin-rite saints to its liturgical calendar.  The original source is the Orthodox blog Ad Orientem.  Patirck's feast is one among fifteen added to the Orthodox Calendar from the pre-schism (pre-1054) Latin West.  They are widely venerated amongst Orthodox Christians in the West.  I wonder how long it will be before they add Columbcille and Columbanus, Brigid, Declan, Ita, Fursey, Colman, Feargal, Gobnait, Dymphna, Gall, Donatus, Aidan, and the many, many saints of the Irish calendar to say nothing of the rest of the Western, thoroughly orthodox but utterly Western, Latin rite and Roman saints?  Pray, pray that through the Immaculate Heart of Mary the division between East and West will be overcome and there be full communion between all Christians confessing one faith in one Lord in one Catholic Church.

IN THANKSGIVING

IN THE CLEARING STANDS A BOXER: A homily for the First Sunday in Lent Year A, (Matthew 4:1–11)

As usual you may listen to the audio here.

You will be familiar with Boxing to some degree.  We have all seen a boxing match, at least in passing, with the ring roped off and the fighters facing one another.  They pound away at one another until someone wins at least by the judges’ verdict.  Each seeks a decisive, even a knock out blow, to get beyond his opponent’s defenses and bring him down.  It is a brutal sport but a great image for what is happening in this Gospel passage.

    Our Lord is like a boxer who goes out into the open space, the ‘ring’ of the desert to confront His most dangerous opponent and the reigning champion, Satan.  Satan does not know Who Jesus is.  Since in his pride and arrogance he would never dream of becoming human He cannot conceive that God could or would become fully man and so he finds our Lord to be an enigma.  He sees only a challenger, another fool of a human being who thinks he can confront an angelic intelligence and not be bested.  Satan has kept his distance so our Lord must draw him out.  He goes into the desert, to the place the Jews thought of as the dwelling of the demons, to fast and pray, to place Himself there as bait.  The evil one waits because he is a coward and will only attack when his opponent is weak.

Satan makes his move.  They slug it out for three rounds, three attempts by Satan to undermine the Lord, and our Lord wins each time.  It is not a decisive victory for Satan flees before He can be dealt with.  Satan has tapped away at our Lord with his usual punches, the ones he has tried and tested, perfected over the ages, but to no effect.   He tries to tempt Him with concern for His body, with concern for spiritual experience and with concern for power and wealth.  He has fails and he has not even left a mark on our Lord.  He has swung and jabbed but our Lord has ducked and blocked each punch while delivering stunning blows in return.  Satan is not defeated but he flees knowing that he is dealing with someone new.

The desert, as I have said, was seen as a place of danger and death, a dwelling place for demons.  Jesus, lead by the Spirit goes into the desert to engage in this spiritual warfare with Satan as an example to us that we too must struggle with evil in our lives.  Our Lord fasts for 40 days and nights, that is, He removes from his life all distractions, anything that might ‘stand between’ Himself and His Father, He makes space for the Father, a visible, total gift of His attention.  After this He is hungry.  Well that’s to be expected but hungry for what?  Not just food but for the defeat of Satan and the salvation of souls.  Christ is hungry for our freedom and our communion with the Father.

Satan comes to Him with three temptations: care for his physical life, care for the apiritual or religious experience and care for power and wealth.  Remember he overcame our first parents with but one temptation: the physical enjoyment of a forbidden fruit. 

First he says “If you are the Son of God” – for Satan is not sure and he thinks that our Lord may be uncertain too.  He is tempting the Lord to perform a miracle to satisfy both His physical hunger and His curiosity but not the will of God.  Satan wants our Lord to put His own wishes before those of His Father. Our Lord’s response is profound is so many ways.  “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” means not only that God’s will takes priority over everything but that whether we live or die is entirely at God’s prerogative.  He is totally surrendered to the will of His Father and so He fears neither hunger nor death.  In fact He tells us elsewhere that His food is to do His Father’s will.

Satan changes tack then and moves Him to Jerusalem to the parapet of the Temple, the biggest building by far in that city.  He again takes a swing at our Lord and tempts Him concerning His identity, urging Him to prove it to Satan that He is the Son of God, to take a step that will cause a miracle to happen, to put His own will before that of His Father.  He quotes scripture to our Lord “He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone” but he quotes selectively for he leaves out the next line “you will trample on the young lion and the dragon” the last being a term for Satan himself.  Our Lord quotes scripture back and again it has to do with respect for the Father’s will “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” 

Then Satan tries for the kill and takes our Lord to the top of a mountain, showing Him the kingdoms of man and offering them to the Lord if only He will worship Satan.  He thinks he can bring Him own with concern for wealth and power.  Our Lord dispatches him with the simple line “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”  He leaves unsaid that all the worship of mankind rightfully belongs to God and that as Son of the Father He is the One through Whom all things have been made and are sustained.  Satan flees defeated and the angels come to our Lord like attendants to a boxer who has gone three rounds and won his fight.

Brothers and sisters we are entering Lent.  We are entering the ring to face up to the evil in our hearts and in our lives.  This is the time to make the extra effort or to begin if one is making no effort at all.  We are emulating the Lord in confronting the evil one in our lives.  We do this through prayer, through fasting and abstinence and through giving to the poor.  These are the three remedies for our sins, the three punches we can swing at the enemy.  They call down God’s loving mercy upon us and motivate us to repent, to confess and to entrust ourselves to His mercy.  If you fall in the fight then get back up.  If you fall again get back up again.  It is only when you fail to get back up that you give up and lose.  Christ asks not that you win but that you try, that you stand your ground and fight to be better, to be good, to be holy.  Pray, fast and give to the poor: remember these moves and you will not go far wrong.

TAKING IT ON THE CHIN FOR CHRIST: a homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A, (Matthew 5:38–48)

The audio can be heard here.
I have a friend who, once, when he was in his late teens was attacked while on his way to a prayer meeting (very pious I know).  He met a guy he barely knew and when he said hello the other guy responded by trying to beat him up.  The other guy was older, bigger and a lot tougher and meaner than my friend and he got a few digs in before my friend retaliated (good job the other guy was drunk or he might have done my friend in).  My friend had an umbrella with him so he hit him with it.  It was one of those long umbrellas with a pointed metal end and he hit him with the pointy end, right in his ‘most vulnerable spot’.  If you come from where we come from you do not fight clean.  That got the other guy’s attention and he stopped hitting him.  Still my friend felt so guilty then that he helped the man home.   Self-defense is a natural response so it is hard for us to hear our Lord appear to reject it.   So this is one of those Gospel passages that bite hard and deep.  I always find it so.  

Last week we had ‘if your eye causes you to sin tear it out’ and this week we have an ‘eye for an eye’ but what do these sayings mean?  Well, ‘if your eye causes you to sin tear it out’ is a metaphor and it means be prepared to make any sacrifice rather than do evil, that is, commit a sin.  Likewise with ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ we have a metaphor.  Oh how that has been misinterpreted and misused over the centuries!  If you do not know what it really means it can also seem cruel and vengeful.  When one reads it in its original context it appears quite different.  In 1901 archaeologists discovered the Code of Hammurabi, written down 1,750 years before Christ, that’s nearly 4,000 years ago.  In that code the punishment for theft was the loss of a hand much as it is in the Muslim Sharia law.  You can imagine what happens to anyone who does more serious damage!  ‘An eye for an eye’ in that context represents a rejection of the kind of law that the code of Hammurabi and Sharia law stand for.  ‘An eye for an eye’ is not a law of vengeance but a law of moderation and justice; it means that the punishment should fit the crime.  It means that one ought not to seek more than what one has lost.

I heard a story many years ago about a fire in Chicago in the very building where one of the firemen lived.  The man’s little daughter was trapped on a window ledge and he had to urge her to jump and reassure her that he would catch her.  In the end he had to order her, yell at her to jump or she would die.   She jumped and he caught her.  Christ is inviting us to make a leap of faith too.  We are so attached to the things of this world that we fear that we will loose not just what we have but even who we are.  He is not only reassuring us He is demanding of us that we leap in faith to Him and that whatever we lose is far outweighed by what we will gain.  Only in the leap of faith that takes the Gospel seriously and applies it consistently can we really come to know how much He loves and cares for us.

Every era has its difficulties and trials.  At the time of our Lord Israel was under Roman control.  The Roman legionaries could force locals to carry their packs for them and it would have been quite challenging for them to hear that if any of them were forced to do so they should go the extra mile.  Why go this extra mile? For love of the other, concern for their soul and their salvation.  If we truly love another we will lay down our lives in service of them.  We will not be concerned how others serve and look after us but how we look after and serve them.

As with last Sunday’s Gospel passage, the Lord wants us to go beyond the demands of the objective moral order, of justice and right and wrong, to the realm of genuine love, love understood as self-gift and self-sacrifice.  He wants us to make a leap of faith in Him and to trust in His Providence.  The Lord wants us to go beyond worldly moderation and the concern for justice and restitution into the realm of heroism and nonviolence.  He wants us not only to forego vengeance and retaliation but at times to forego even self-defense.  We are to stand our ground and take the licks that come our way and give freely from what we have, especially to those who are in need.

  Why?  Because we are living our life with one foot already in the Kingdom of God.  There is a scene in World War II drama Band of Brothers.  A young paratrooper is sitting in his foxhole terrified.  A lieutenant comes to him and explains that the reason he is afraid is that he still has hope, he still believes he can survive.  It is only when he accepts that he is already dead that paradoxically he can function and perhaps live.  We too must see ourselves as already dead!  But we are the dead who have hope in Christ.  We can bring nothing with us when we die and even our existence will be forgotten within a generation or two.  How many of us can name our great or great-great grandparents?  Once we understand that all we have here is temporary and that our real, lasting home is in Heaven then we can face up to our mission: to spread the Good News of the Kingdom of God by our words and deeds.  We are to have our treasure with Him not with this world.  We are to model ourselves on Him as He is the perfect image of His Father.  If we are truly His disciples then we realize that the only real enemies we have and should fear are our sins. 

This mission demands self-sacrifice.  Self-sacrifice can mean difficult discussions with loved ones and time spent learning about the faith.  Sacrifice can mean time given to listening to others, or given in care for others.  Sacrifice can mean losing friends, relatives or even employment.  Our faith can never be private.  It must always have a public dimension.  By our own power this is beyond us but by His power nothing is impossible.  We can be perfect, we can be holy as the Father is perfect and holy through our union with Christ.  Through Him, with Him and in Him we have all the resources we need to fulfill the Lord’s command, to turn the other cheek and  to walk the extra mile.