Sundays 1-11 of Ordinary Time, A

Acts 10:34-38. When baptising his first pagan convert, Peter recalls the saving ministry of Jesus, as he and the other apostles witnessed it, how he "went about doing good, for God was with him."

Mt 3:13-17. When Jesus was baptised, the heavens were opened and God the Father revealed him as "my Son, the Beloved."

Theme: Terrorism is among the most feared scourges of our age. Isaiah depicts the Messiah as the apostle of non-violence. We seek the kingdom of God through our commitment to non-violence.

Isaiah 42:1ff

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.

He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Ps 29:1ff

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
worship the Lord in holy splendor.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over mighty waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl,
and strips the forest bare;
and in his temple all say, "Glory!"

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

Acts 10:34-38

Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented.

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom am well pleased."

Intercessions

- that we, as baptised followers of Jesus, may bring forth justice to others, seeing things through his eyes, and his spirit.

- for the victims of violence, that you may heal their wounds.

- for the perpetrators of violence, that you may extinguish the hatred in their hearts.

- for ourselves, that we may love our country without hating its enemies.

Start of the Movement

Last week the Feast of the Epiphany recalled the manifestation or showing forth of God in the person of Jesus Christ, before the gentile world. But rather strangely, in the Orthodox Churches of the east, it is not the Magi story but the Baptism of Christ which is central to the readings even as you heard it read just now. The reason for this is that the Eastern Churches, which always focused on the mystical aspect of the Christian faith, regarded the entire life of Christ as a whole series of epiphanies, or revelations of the divinity, of which Christ's Baptism in the Jordan, by John, was the first and most important.

We begin to see the reason for this when we recall how Jesus, after his resurrection, appeared to his Apostles in the Upper Room, and told them, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and then you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). So the primary function of the Apostles was to bear witness. And if we ask what witness, we find the answer in what St Peter demanded, when the Apostles met to choose a successor to Judas Iscariot, "You must choose someone, who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus has been travelling round with us, someone who has been with us, right from the time of the baptism of John, until the day when Jesus was taken up from us, and he can act with us as a witness " (Acts 1:21). So the starting point for the testimony of the Apostles, who were the special witnesses chosen by the Holy Spirit, was that event which we recall in the liturgy today, namely the Baptism of Jesus by John.

We may wonder why Jesus, who was absolutely sinless, submitted to this baptism by John, a baptism which was purely symbolic, a sign of the repentance which John preached, but not a sacrament. Jesus himself saw it as a compliance with the wishes of the Father. He humbled himself, and proclaimed himself as being one with sinful humanity, without however condoning its sins, or being in any way guilty of sin himself. When Jesus comes out of the water, we have the first revelation in scripture of the Blessed Trinity of persons in the one true God, the Son being baptised, the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove, the Father saying, "This is my beloved Son; with him I am well pleased."

St John, in his first Letter stated, "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God" (1 Jn 4:15). This should be a source of great consolation to us, because by our baptism we have acknowledged the divine sonship of Jesus, and so we have become temples of God's Holy Spirit; we are set apart for the worship of God, and like the Apostles we too are commissioned to give witness to the continuing presence on earth of Christ, putting into effect his work of salvation.

Today it is difficult for us, who have, as a general rule, become members of the Church at infancy, to understand the joy which the oath of allegiance to God, taken at their baptism, brought to the adult converts to Christianity in those early days of the Church. For them this sacrament was the conscious and blessed beginning of what they called the "Way," the road to God mapped out by Christ. Jesus, we say, was king, priest and prophet, and his first public act as prophet was his baptism.

Prophets had a habit of linking some striking symbolic actions with what they wanted people to learn. For example, Jeremiah carried a yoke on his shoulders to let Israel know it was in bondage. Isaiah never married to let Israel know how spiritually poor and barren she was. Jesus himself cursed the fig tree which being withered next day symbolised Jerusalem's rejection of the salvation offered her. Jesus' baptism also was a prophetic action, in that by it he was telling people that they were in need of conversion, and should turn to God once more, as John the Baptist was telling them.

Jesus's baptism moreover was for Israel a sign of its repentance and salvation. And so likewise should our baptism be for all of us. If John came across to the people as a grim ascetic, threatening them with inexorable judgment, Jesus comes across as a giver of hope. John was the prophet of woe; Jesus the prophet of salvation.

Baptism of the Lord

When telling stories to children we are told that we must always keep the details familiar. The world of Cinderella or Snow White once it has been created in a particular way with its own familiar contours almost becomes part of the established world-view of the child. It annoys or disturbs the child if the story is told in an unfamiliar way. Quite often when I've tried telling old familiar bed-time stories to children I have had the experience of being "corrected" because I deviated from telling the story "the right way," that is the way the child has already heard it. Usually the child proceeded to tell me the story properly (all the while displaying and ill concealed patronising patience with this silly elder who couldn't remember a simple story.)

As we grow older of course we seek variations on the old familiar patterns. We grow to learn that the same stories can be told from different points of view. We get to know that a simple thing like telling our own story is not so simple after all. New experiences, the depths of joy or profound suffering, may reveal to us parts of ourselves that had lain hidden. In the light of new experience we may not only tell our own story from a different perspective we may realise that we would have to begin in at an entirely new place.

And so it was for the early Church as they retold their story in the story of Jesus. From one clear perspective their story began after Easter with the revelation of the risen Lord but above all with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Their experience of the Spirit was the gift of the risen lord but as they began to tell the story of this Spirit in their lives they inevitably had to begin to tell the story of Jesus. As the One through whom the Spirit had come to them they began to rediscover the Spirit in the story of Jesus' earthly ministry as well as in that of the post-Easter Church.

Just as their own story had begun with the gift of the Spirit, so they began the story of Jesus with his anointing with the Spirit. The gospel story that unfolded was not a biography of the entire life of Jesus but the story of his ministry as that of the Son and Servant of God empowered with the Spirit. It was a ministry exercised no only in the power of the Spirit but also in the humility of the servant. As the One anointed with the Spirit he "went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."

However, the powerful and authoritative ministry of Jesus not only brought healing and grace to many but it also provoked criticism, hostility and rejection. His exorcisms brought healing and peace to many but also led to charges of being in league with the devil (Mk.3:20ff.) Towards the end of the ministry Jesus attacks the corruption of the temple and this provokes the challenge - "By what authority do you do these things?" (Mk.11:28.) Jesus answers by means of a counter-question: "Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?" This counter-question was not intended as a way of avoiding the issue. Jesus did mean to link his authority to the baptism of John. It has been from the moment of his baptism that his authoritative ministry had begun.

When the first Christians began the story of Jesus with his baptism it was away of reminding themselves of insights which only emerged in the course of time and under the influence of the guiding Spirit promised by Jesus (Jn 16:13-14.) It was a way of declaring that the authority of Jesus is the authority of the Spirit of God, the same power that these first Christian story tellers also experienced in their own lives.

If this story was told to establish that the Spirit was at the origin of Jesus' ministry it was also told to establish the identity of this Spirit-anointed One. This one who exercises the messianic ministry is the Son on whom the Father bestows the Spirit and thereby reveals his identity as Son.

When Matthew came to retell the familiar gospel story he did not begin it in the same way or at the same point as his predecessors. Like his predecessors he did begin by setting out to reveal the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, but he achieved this through the medium of his Infancy narratives. The further revelation that Jesus is Son of God which occurs at the moment of baptism, is not for Matthew the revelation of something new but the revelation of its significance for Jesus' mission and ministry which is about to begin.

It may be that this story was retold and rewritten in the early Church because it became a model for what occurred in the baptism practised by the Church. It was a reminder that all the baptised are given a share in Jesus' sonship of the Father through the gift of the Spirit. In Matthew it has become a story that does not mark the beginning of a life or even anew identity but the beginning of a ministry. It is a challenge to all the baptised to realise that the new identity they receive at baptism calls them to allow the Spirit of Christ to be active in their lives. They may have received a new identity but it is not so much a status to be possessed as a vocation to a life like that of the Servant of God - a life dedicated to doing good, to establishing justice, bringing freedom to the oppressed and healing to the afflicted.

The Clash Goes On

Helen is twenty-two but could pass for somebody in her mid to-late teens. She is pretty, healthy and fairly bristling with cheerfulness. She says she doesn't know how the time flies. Which is somewhat surprising because Helen is a prisoner in a foreign jail, awaiting her trial on terrorist-related charges. Most of her fellow-prisoners are serving sentences for drug related crimes. Many of them are diagnosed as carriers of the deadly AIDS virus. Why Helen decided to embark on a career of terrorism, virtually certain to land her in prison, is almost beyond comprehension. She shows no sign of remorse for the killings and the injuries. She has no regrets. Even in her prison cell, her commitment to the cause is unwavering. Yet in every other way, she is like any other girl of her age. She is religious too, more than many of her contemporaries. She laughs easily and she cries easily too, especially when she sees others treated cruelly and unjustly. Her terrorist activities seem completely out of keeping with her naure.

There seems to be a tremendous proliferation of terrorist groups in the last two decades. Almost no part of the world is free of them. Almost no news-bulletin is without its gruesome coverage in word and pictures of the latest bomb attack. Politicians and churchmen quickly exhaust their vocabularies in expressing vehement condemnations. All so futile and frustrating. Many a peace-proclaiming modem state was born out of terrorism. Today's statesmen were often yesterday's terrorists.

"Glorious" revolutions were often little more than tyrannies exchanged.
Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

Violence breeds violence. Helen is the product of a culture that for far too long preached the sword If the words of anthems such as the Marseillaise or Amhran na bhFiann are anything to go by, our commitment to non-violence is steeped in ambiguity. Abb� Pierre recently requested the French government to change the words of the Marseillaise. The reply was a model of Sweet reasonableness It would be happy to do so when the church changed the words of the Psalms! Touch�!

Too much of our religion is laced with the blood and guts language of war. "Onward Christian Soldiers!" we sing, with a gusto more congenial to the battlefield than to the altar. God's blessing is invoked for our conquering armies and their dead are martyrised. The jingoism in Britain arising out of the Falklands war, should serve us all as a warning. The spirit of the crusades still lingers in our churches. Holy War is not just the preserve of Muslims.

Much as we would like to disclaim it, religion bears a large responsibility for the violence of our time, whether it be in Belfast, Beirut or Baghdad. While Christians retain a certain ambiguity on the subject of violence, they betray their Master, and will continue to fill their jails with people like Helen and her comrades-in-arms.

His Baptism and Ours

Today marks the beginning of the mission of Jesus. On a human level it may seem strange that he had not done anything of great significance over the previous thirty years. I will share some thoughts on that point later on in this reflection. This day was day for him. It is clearly implied that he had come to the Jordan in obedience to a word from the Father. His explanation to John is inadequate, but John was enough of a prophet to obey without always understanding. The action of John, and the purpose of Jesus coming there was clearly confirmed by both the Father and the Spirit.

I have had the privilege of leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land on several occasions. One of the highlights of the trip was the ceremony of total immersion in the river Jordan, when each person renewed the promises of baptism. It was a moving time, and it was easy to imagine the Spirit descending, and the Father confirming each of us as his son or daughter. Many of those who travelled with us over the years still speak of that moment with great emotion, and with special remembrance.

In Matthew's account, John the Baptist proclaiming the coming of the Messiah prefaces today's gospel, and it is followed by Jesus encountering Satan in the desert. There is a definite pattern to all of this. The Spirit has shown John who Jesus was and, once the Spirit had come upon Jesus, Satan is waiting his chance to test that Spirit. One of the greatest gifts we receive from what Jesus achieved is that, with the Spirit within, we can face up to any evil spirit we meet on the road of life. John the evangelist writes in one of his letters, "little children, there is a power within you that is greater than any evil power you may meet on the road of life."

John the Baptist had that wonderful gift of humility. He knew his place before his God. When some people asked him if he were the Messiah, he emphatically denied any such claim. When Jesus came to him to be baptised, he was shocked, and he had no doubt that it was Jesus who should be baptising him. However, without understanding, once Jesus said that this was how he wanted things to be, John had the necessary humility to obey, and to bow to a higher authority. Original sin continues to show itself in endless forms, each of which is but another attempt to play God, to do things my way. John the Baptist was an extraordinary humble man. No wonder Jesus said, at a later date, "There has not been born of woman a greater prophet than John the Baptist."

The baptism of Jesus is an extraordinary moment in our story of salvation. Not only did Jesus join us in our sinfulness, but the Father and the Spirit are seen and heard to be there with him. The language of the gospel may appear so simple, when we are told that "the heavens were opened," but considering the banishment incurred through original sin, it is indeed a powerful statement. Later on, when Jesus will have completed his journey on Calvary, we are told that "the veil of the Temple was rent in two." For the first time, we were free to enter into the Holy of Holies. Today's gospel is the beginning of a journey, which, through our own baptism, each of us is asked to travel.

Response: The church calendar is marked with special and specific holy days, such as Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost. It is only when I begin to reflect on what really happened, and I begin to get into the heart of the matter, that I begin to see the importance of today, when we celebrate the baptism of the Lord. It is a truly significant feast day, and a cause for celebration. It is evident that our own baptism marks the beginning of our own personal Christian journey. In a way it marks our common birthday.

I said earlier that there is an obvious pattern in the unfolding of the journey of Jesus. He told us that, if we follow him, we will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. There is nothing automatic about being a Christian. It involves personal decisions, decisions that need to be constantly renewed. When a baby is born, that fact is registered in the records of the state, and a certificate is available to show the date and the place of birth, together with the name of one or both parents. If the baby is put up for adoption, the natural mother is allowed several months to retain the option of changing her mind about her decision. If her decision is unchanged, she signs the adoption papers, and the baby becomes a member of a new family, with different parents, and a different surname. The adopting parents go through a thorough scrutiny to ensure their suitability, before the baby is entrusted to their care. Baptism is our ceremony of adoption. It doesn't make us children of God, because that isalready a fact through our creation. Just as the natural mother normally does not abandon her baby, but ensures it is given security and a sense of belonging, so we are registered as members of the Christian community, and are given our place within the Body of Christ, which we call church. As I said, the natural mother is given plenty of time before she finally decides that this is what she wants to do. In our case, however, we are the ones who are given the time, and we are the ones who must decide for ourselves if we really do want to belong to this family, which we call Christian, or followers of Christ. Sooner or later, it is up to me to sign my own certificate.

It is important that each of us should have a sense of purpose and pattern to our Christian living. When I set out on a journey it is necessary to have a definite idea of where I intend going, and the destination at the end of the journey. Signposts point the way; they do not compel me to travel that way. Have you ever come across a signpost that has been deliberately turned in the wrong direction by someone with a perverted sense of humour? As a Christian, I have clear and definite signposts, and I always have the option of following them or not. Sometimes, because of road works, I encounter a detour. When I follow the detour, my whole attention is given to every sign, until I get back on the road on which I wish to travel. In following my Christian vocation it is vital that I maintain a constant reflection on where I am going, why I am going in that direction, and that I have a definite pattern to my journey.

Many of us carry some form of personal identification, membership cards, or work-place nametags. Get a copy of your baptism certificate, which can easily be obtained from the church in which you were baptised. Put it in your wallet or in your handbag, and carry it on your person. Let it be a constant reminder, and let it evoke a whole new yes every time you see it.

You can renew your baptismal vows any day you wish. This could easily be part of your prayer life, from time to time. The words or formula don't matter. Some simple statement like the following would be quite sufficient: "Lord Jesus, Saviour, I want to belong to you, to be part of the family of God, and to live according to the rules of your kingdom. I renew the commitment of my baptism, and I ask for the grace to live out my Christian life."

A friend of mine vouches for the truth of the following incident. He was travelling down the country one day. His journey brought him along some by-roads, where the signposts were few and far between. After a while, he was unsure if he was on the right road, so he decided to ask the first person he saw. Eventually he came across a farmer driving his cows home for milking. He stopped the car, and asked him if he was on the right road to somewhere, just to give the place a name. The farmer told him that he certainly was on the right road. My friend expressed his thanks, and was about to move forward when the farmer added, in a nonchalant way, "You're on the right road, but you're going in the wrong direction!'

Thoughts for 1st Sunday, A

Start of the Movement

Baptism of the Lord

The Lash Goes On

"Glorious" revolutions were often little more than tyrannies exchanged.

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!

A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

His Baptism and Ours

2nd Sunday (A)

The Greatness of John

Take Stock!

There Is The Lamb Of God

Growth and Renewal

Is 49:3, 5-6. During the Exile, the prophet prepares his oppressed neighbours for the coming of a liberator whom God would send to save them, and to be a light for all nations.

1 Cor 1:1-3. Paul's opening greeting to his Christian converts in Corinth. They are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints.

Jn 1:29-34. John the Baptist announces Jesus to the world as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world - and the one who will baptise us with the Holy Spirit.

Theme: Do we take our membership of the Church as baptised Christians as a priveleged mark of identity? Do we realise that we are all "called to be saints," linked to our fellow believers, world-wide?

Isaiah 49:3ff

The Lord said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength- he says, "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Ps 40:1ff

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.

Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, "Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.

I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."

I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 1:29-34

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel."

And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."

Intercessions

- for pastors and priests that they may live up to their callings, and faithfully serve the people of God.

- for parents and teachers that they may hand on true human values and sincere religious faith to their children.

- for our departed parents and friends who handed on the faith to us.

- that the light of our faith may dispel all darkness of hostility, injustice and unbelief in our society.

Thoughts for 2nd Sunday, A

Passing on Light

In the readings today we have two sayings which can be applied in a special way to Christ, the first from as far back as seven hundred years in the Old Testament era, "I will make you the light of the nations, so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth," the second from Christ's contemporary, John the Baptist, "Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God." We can say that these point equally to each one of us, who are followers of Christ, for we are called to be a light to the nations, and also to give witness that Jesus, the Chosen One of God, is still continuing his mission of salvation. With the absolute certainty that comes from our religious belief in the truth of the gospels, we can say that the risen glorified Christ is present here and now. He is present in the Church in a special way, in the celebrations of the liturgy, in the sacrifice of the Mass, in particular in the Eucharistic species in the Tabernacle, in his word, since he himself speaks when the Scriptues are read in church, present when the Church prays and sings. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).

That saying, incidentally, makes quite clear also the importance and the real necessity of being part of the worshipping and believing community, as against those who would claim that they are quite capable of working out their own salvation, while remaining apart from that community. However Christ comes to all of us as One unknown, as once he came to those by the lakeside in Galilee who as yet did not know him. "Follow me," he said to them, "and I will make you fishers of men." And to those who answer this call, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the hardships, the conflicts, the sufferings which they will encounter in doing so, and in return, as an indescribable mystery, they will learn from their personal experience who he is.

Jesus' ministry began in Galilee, and it was not something static, but rather a dynamic crusade. He never said, "I have come to teach," but "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled" (Lk 12:49). This fire is that which sets apart and purifies those meant for the kingdom. He was not some high-minded teacher calmly indoctrinating people with words of wisdom, but rather the strong Son of God, spearheading an attack against the devil and all his works, and calling on people to make up their minds on which side of the battle they would be. "It was to destroy all the devil had done that the Son of God appeared," St John wrote (1 Jn 3:8). And during those three short years of his public preaching there was a tremendous sense of urgency about everything he did and said. "There is a baptism I must receive, and how great is my distress till it is over," was how he described his task (Lk 12:50). How are we to respond, we should ask ourselves, to his call?

The first assembly of the Council of Churches met in Amsterdam in 1948, and issued a report, agreed upon by all, which begins from basics, and states what every Christian believes. It proclaims our Lord Jesus Christ to be our God and Saviour, the Son of God made man, who gave the Holy Spirit to dwell in his Body the Church. Always keep in mind that Church is never to be equated with the small group that exercise a ministerial role within it, much less so with the hierarchy that directs that group. What was handed on of the teaching of Christ by the Apostles, the report states, comprises everything that serves to make the people of God grow in faith and live their lives in holiness. In this way the Church in her doctrine, in her life and in her worship, preserves and hands on to every generation all that she herself is, and all that she believes.

But Christ is not only the one we remember and experience from our links with the past. He is the one who brightens our future, who stands on the shores of time and beckons to us. So we can say that every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist together, not only are we made mindful of the past, but we are, as St Paul said, proclaiming his death until he comes (1 Cor 11:26). For by his death he continues to honour and worship God the Father, to make atonement for our sins, to intercede for us and for others, and to ask the Father's blessing on all who have gone before us. And when the time comes for us to follow them, God grant that each of us may be able to say with John the Baptist, "I have seen, and I am the witness that Christ is the Chosen One of God."

Son and Servant

Each year the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which shows Jesus as the Son who fulfils the vocation of the Servant, is followed by a section of John's Gospel that underlines the mysterious relationships involved in the life of Jesus. John's deep theological eye penetrates the external events and delights in contemplating the realities of Jesus' Mission, both in time and in eternity from the Father. So one option would be to speak about the sending of Jesus as the revelation of the Father in our human nature. One could draw out the great love of God who went to such extremes to reach to our level that he become one like us. An example could be taken from the practice in teaching of measuring the lesson to the capacity of the class and slowly developing the skills and knowledge of the pupils. Over the long period of the Old Testament, God worked in developing the ability of his people to understand and love him through the great religious leaders that he sent to the Hebrew people. But in Jesus God shows us hi own utterance of himself, the Word in our human life. In Jesus we see God touching our sickness and sharing our weakness, sitting at the well asking the Samaritan woman for a drink.

Another option would be to take up the Servant figure of the first reading and to apply the final words of the reading about the servant being the light of the nations and develop the role of the Church in the world today as put forward in the document on the Church from Vatican 11. One could use the analogy of light as what enables us to see other things, but no something that we look at. People do not stare at the sun or at electric light bulbs, yet these are indispensable to us to live our lives with ease. The Christian community is called to show the real values in human living and to point the way for people to happiness. One could use the great phrase of the pastoral constitution about sharing the joys and hopes of mankind and giving direction to humanity's aspirations. The Church, the local community is expected to be Christ in the midst of the world of today. The Pauline reading would help in this development as it shows the community as consecrated to God in Christ and being the recipient of God's blssing of grace and peace.

The Greatness of John

A kite was consumed by envy of the eagle. "How come he can fly so high? Everyone admires him and no one admires me." One day the kite sees a hunter and calls out to him to shoot the eagle. The hunter replies that he would need to add some feathers to his arrow for it to reach the eagle. The kite pulled one of his best feathers and gave it to the hunter. That was not enough to reach the eagle. So the kite pulled another and then another and yet the arrow was not quite able to reach the eagle. Before long all the kite's best feathers were gone and he was no longer able to fly. The hunter simply turned round and shot the kite as his catch for the day. The moral of the story: envy and jealousy consume the person who harbours them before the person for whom they are harboured.

There is a difference between envy and jealousy. Envy is dissatisfaction with what belongs to us and coveting what belongs to another. We can envy people for their looks, their possessions or their relationships, wishing we could take their place. Jealousy, on the other hand, is the fear that what is ours may be lost to another. Both envy and jealousy rob people of their inner peace as they devise ways to eliminate the person they perceive as standing in the way to their personal fulfilment.

Looking at the way things are in our world today, it would seem that envy and jealousy are normal human traits. But the example of John the Baptist shows us that true personal fulfilment and greatness lies not in how we may compare with others but in how faithful we are to our God-given roles in life.

How many people like to hear that the person who succeeded them is doing better than they did? Nobody. Here John is a rare example. John started the Kingdom of God movement. Jesus succeeded him as leader of the movement after Herod imprisoned John and had him executed. Yet whenever John speaks of Jesus he speaks of Jesus as better than him. He describes Jesus as the bridegroom and himself as only his best man (John 3:29). Notice how he introduces Jesus to his own disciples in today's gospel:

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, "After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me" (John 1:29-30).

As a result of this endorsement, two of his disciples left him and followed Jesus (v. 37). These were the first disciples of Jesus according to John's Gospel. John summarised his whole attitude to Jesus in one statement: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

Why is John so content and satisfied with playing the second fiddle rather than vying with Jesus for the limelight? It is because he knows exactly the reason for him being in the world. He knows why he came into this life: "I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel" (John 1:30). Because he knows why he is here, John can tell when he has done his bit. He can tell when it is time to hand the baton to another. Why did you come into the world? What is God's plan for your life? If you do not have a personal answer to this question, chances are that you will spend your life chasing after everything and nothing, in a rat-race of envy and jealousy with those we perceive as better than us. Instead of living and working in harmony and cooperation with others, people who do not know the reason for their being are often driven by rivalry and competition.

But look at the flowers in the field. Some are shrubs and some are herbs, some are red and some are white, some are yellow and some are blue; yet all of them are beautiful. The poinsettia, the daffodil, the rose, all are beautiful because they have their different purposes. As we come to the long period of Sundays in ordinary time marked by the liturgical colour green, let us have John the Baptist before us as a great example of what it means to be ordinary. Fact is, there is much greatness in being ordinary. Even though John felt he was not worthy to untie Jesus' sandals, Jesus did turn round to say of him, "Among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist" (Matt 11:11).

Take Stock!

(Patrick Rogers)

Two thoughts dominate this Sunday: first, John's dramatic call to behold the Lamb of God; second, that we have just finished Christmas and are beginning a new year. With regard to beginning the new year there is the sense of the need to take stock, to look at where we are going, and to make the inevitable "resolutions" that might raise the quality of this coming year.

The Baptist asks us to take stock and make changes; to ask what are we fundamentally about and then seek to reset our lives. As active Christians are we able to recognise Jesus Christ? Is he a focus in our lives or just out on the edges? Is he the one we look to for help in time of need, for guidance in our doubts?

An honest stock-taking of our fundamental situation that is offered here may contrast with the ego-centric way we usually conduct our lives. We need to recognise something outside of and larger than us, the God who cares for us, and for the whole human community in which we are involved. Can we listen to John's call to restore what is broken, and Jesus' call, to bring light to the world? Do we see that it is with our willing help that the Lamb can remove the "sin of the world?"

Facing deeper truths is always difficult; it calls us to not just drift along with this world's evil, as the line of least resistance. Discipleship is urgent and costly, but it is also possible and is the way towards the deeper joy and fulfilment that we seek. If we properly hear the Baptist in his solemn act of witnessing to Christ, then our response will be a stock-taking that goes to the root of our being. It may even reveal to us the truth that sets us free.

There Is The Lamb Of God

There are somethings that can only be explained by their history. Take two Catholic countries like Ireland and France. The rate of church-attendance in France is about 16% nationwide, while the figure for Ireland hovers round 80%. The decline in France dates from the period of the French Revolution. In 1789, when the French rose up against the ancient r�gime their decadent church was identified with the oppressive system and was so targetted by the revolutionaries. Ireland and its church had a completely different history. Because we were an occupied country and that occupier was Protestant, the Catholic church there was on the side of the people against the oppressor. The church emerged from our history in a favourable light when we gained our independence at the beginning of this century.

When one considers what is happening in eastern Europe today a similar pattern emerges. The remarkable series of revolutions which toppled the communist governments in countries from Poland to Rumania and even within the Soviet Republics themselves, all have one thing in common. Religion played a significant if not dominant role in their liberation. Unlike the French Revolution, the churches there were on the side of the victors. What kept the spirit of liberty alive all during that period of communist totalitarianism was religion. It was the Catholic Church in Poland. In East Germany it was the Protestant Churches. The protests first began around the church in Leipzig. The Russian Orthodox also played its part. And it must have been similar in those other Russian Republics about which so little is known except that some sixty million Muslims live there. In all these places an alliance was formed between the political dissidents and the churches which finally brought about the collapse of communism.

These churches played a truly prophetic role. The purpose of the Christian Church is to reveal Christ to the people. The eastern churches seem to have fulfilled their purpose well in spite of persecution. I lived for a year in Rome with a Ukrainian who worked as an engineer under the communist regime, while he carried out his ministry as a priest in secret after a long hard day at his job. In fact, he was consecrated as a bishop underground. He came to Rome now to learn theology.

The role of John the Baptist was to reveal Christ. As he said, "it was to reveal him to Israel that I came." Today's gospel describes him bowing out when Jesus arrived. "Look," he said, "there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." Ever since, these words have -been enshrined in the Mass when the priest holds up the consecrated host just before communion.

All Christians are called to perform this prophetic role and nobody more than those who have others in their care. Above all parents whose duty is to introduce their children to Christ, to hand on the faith to them. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen. Sometimes, young people who give up the practice of their religion were put off it by their parents. What they saw they didn't like. It is no wonder we speak nowadays about a credibility gap.

The response to the psalm is a little prayer that sums up our roles as Christians:

Here I am Lord! I come to do your will.

Growth and Renewal

John the Baptist begins the work which we as a church have still to continue: to point to Jesus as the Saviour, to tell others who he is, and to encourage them to follow him.

Blessed Padre Pio was a man associated with great and many sufferings. One of his greatest crosses in life was the excitement that ensued whenever he appeared. After Mass each morning, he used go up to the organ loft and spends several hours in prayer. Unfortunately, from where he was those in the church below could see him. When they began pointing to him, and shouting requests to him, he always became quite agitated, as he pointed to the tabernacle, and withdrew from their sight. His role was to point to Jesus, to bring Jesus to people, and people to Jesus. As John the Baptist said, "I must decrease if he is to increase." A signpost points towards a place, but it cannot compel you to go there. To see a signpost marked "Dublin" doesn't entitle me to claim that I have been in Dublin!

John the Baptist has a special place in the story of salvation that was to be revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus said of him: "I tell you there has never been a man, born of woman, who is greater than John the Baptist." That is high praise indeed, especially coming from Jesus himself. John's role was to prepare the way for Jesus. We are all familiar with times like Advent, Lent, etc., times when we prepare to celebrate some special occasion in the life of Jesus. Naturally, it is easy to see that our celebration of the feast will be directly effected by the effort put into the preparation.

The language of John in today's gospel is unusually simple and direct. He is open and honest in telling us that he had no way of recognising who Jesus was, until he was given some clear evidence. He knew the Messiah was going to come, of course, but he had to wait for the sign so that he could identify him when he did come. The sign was the evidence of the Spirit coming upon Jesus and, indeed, he heard the Father's voice saying that Jesus was his beloved Son, and people should listen to him. A strong identification with Jesus, who he is, and why he has come, is a pre-requisite for anyone hoping to evangelise, or to be evangelised themselves. That is the role of the church. In some ways, the church has been seen to have almost replaced Jesus, and to point to itself as the means of salvation. All present attempts at renewal in the church have to do with correcting this misconception.

Baptism has to do with entering into membership, with cleansing and purifying, and with being named. All of these things are part of belonging as a member of the Body of Christ. Baptism is the beginning of a journey. John was the one who began that journey. His form of baptism was limited, because it was about initiation. When Jesus came he would move beyond water, and baptise with the Holy Spirit. This signified a permanent and eternal relationship within the life of the Trinity. The fact that a priest pours water on the head of a baby gives no guarantee that the baby will grow up to become a Christian. At some stage or other, the grown-up baby must say yes to that baptism, so that Jesus can anoint with his Spirit, and bring his work to completion within that person.

Response: One way of understanding renewal in the church is to think of us going back to the time of John the Baptist. It is a question of getting back to basics. We are human, we are continually changing and evolving, and we can so easily lose our way. I myself am a teacher by training, and so I am quite familiar with the concept of revision, and of returning to the basics again and again. (Correcting exams is one way of reminding a teacher that the information was not understood as intended, or that the message was interpreted as presented!)

We are all familiar with confirmation, even though we may not fully understand the full significance of what it means. The coming of Jesus was strongly confirmed again and again. Long before he came the prophets spoke of his coming, and what would happen when he came. We have the angel appearing to Mary, and to the shepherds at Bethlehem. At his baptism in the Jordan the Father's voice was heard, and the Spirit was seen to come upon him. In today's gospel we have John giving loud and clear confirmation and affirmation as to who Jesus is, and why he came. It is usually many years after our own confirmation before we ourselves begin to grasp just exactly what that is intended to signify. This might have greater power and significance if confirmation was withheld until we were in our late teens. We then would have a better idea what it means to be confirmed in my beliefs, and to feel confirmed and reassured about my way of life as a Christian.

John's introduction is simple. "Look! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." I think it important that we reflect on that statement. If Jesus takes away the sin of the world, then, of course, he can take away my sin. It can be meaningless to get caught up in generalities. For example, I can quote "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son," and never get around to accepting the fact that God so loved me that he gave his only Son.

How clear am I in my thinking about Jesus and the church? The gospel is about Jesus. Christianity is not about producing nicer people with better morals. I could be a pagan and be a good person. It is not about prayer and fasting. I could be a Muslim and do that. Christianity is about a person, Jesus Christ. The role of the church is simple. When Jesus ascended into heaven, when he returned to the Father, he took the body he had with him. He sent the Holy Spirit to complete his work, and he asks us to provide the hands, feet, voice, etc., through which the Spirit can do that work.

How confirmed do I actually feel as a follower of Jesus Christ? How real is my sense of vocation, of being called? This is purely the work of the Spirit, and this will never become a reality in my life until I open my heart and my mind to the Spirit, and declare my willingness to be anointed by the Spirit. Just as John recognised Jesus, sol should be recognised as a follower of Jesus. You are familiar with the question that if we were arrested and brought to the nearest police station, where we were charged with being Christian, how many of us would get off scot-free for lack of evidence?

There is one pitfall open to all of us when we speak of church. We may fail to remember that we are the church. It is not a question of us sitting here, waiting for somebody out there, down in the bishop's house, in Rome, or somewhere else to change. If change is to be real for us it must begin within our own hearts. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." Witness is at the heart of Christian living. The witness of the lives of the Christian Community is the evidence that Jesus is present among his people, and that his Spirit rests upon them. I must bring that one step further, look in the mirror, and ask. "How do I measure up to the criteria of what it means to be a Christian?'

It takes five years for the seed of a bamboo tree to show any growth above ground, and then it grows to a height of 90 feet in six weeks! Five years of preparation, of putting down roots, of spreading underground, so as to have access to plenty of food. And then, only then, does it take off.

This is an extraordinary fact that requires reflection. The time spent with John the Baptist was preparing the people to meet and follow Jesus. It was like a novitiate. We all need such preparation and formation. The journey moves from information, to formation, to transformation. Surely any failure to grow spiritually in our lives is the result of a lack of genuine preparation, of spiritual formation. To live in the warmth of God's love is a sure and certain way to grow.

3rd Sunday (A)

Greatness from an Obscure Place

God of Unity and Peace

When to Begin

Because we are called

Breaking Down Barriers

Different kinds of preparation

Is 9:1-3. Isaiah foretells the coming of a Saviour to Galilee of the nations, to the people who walked in darkness. This is perfect background for Jesus' ministry in Galilee.

1 Cor 1:10-13,13. Even in the early Church there was disunity and the dangers of rivalry and schism. Paul appeals to his Christians to stay united in Christ.

Mt 4:12-23. Jesus calls for repentance and invites his first followers - the fishermen - to leave everything behind to follow him.

Theme: Over the past two generations, many ideological barriers have tumbled down. Among those that still remain, those separating the Christian churches should have been the first to fall.

Isaiah 9:1-3

In the former time God brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-on them light has shined.

You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.

Ps 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!

"Come," my heart says, "seek his face!"

Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,
you who have been my help.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong,
let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

1 Corinthians 1:10ff

I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Matthew 4:12-23

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles- the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John , in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Intercessions

- that conflicts within our families may be reconciled and set aside.

- that conflicts between communities and nations may be settled peacefully, in a spirit of mutual respect.

- that we may all realize that our full destiny is not limited to material goods, and may seek our fulfilment in things of the spirit.

- that the divided Churches may lead the way in reconciliation.

Thoughts for 3rd Sunday, A

Greatness from an Obscure Place

"Direct each thought, each effort of our life, so that the limits of our faults and weaknesses may not obscure the vision of your glory, or keep us from the peace you have promised." That beautiful opening prayer sums up in short the longing of every human heart for acceptance by God and for enduring peace. The tragedy is that so many people try to satisfy this longing while turning their backs on God, with the result that their search for inner calm and serenity becomes fruitless. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you," Christ said in his final discourse to his Apostles at the Last Supper as recorded by St John (14:27). Peace, or in Hebrew "Shalom," was the common word of greeting and farewell among Jewish people. It still is. But in St John's time the word did not just mean an absence of war, trouble or bitterness. It was an expression of that harmony and union with God and our neighbour that comes from following the wishes of God's Holy Spirit.

There is a great difference between the peace of the world and the peace which comes from God through the action of Christ. The peace which the world offers is the peace of escape from turmoil and hassle. The peace of Christ is that which enables us to rise above sorrow and suffering, the common lot of all mankind. Indeed, St Paul states the Christ himself "is our peace" (Eph 2:14), meaning that reflection on Christ wounded and nailed to the Cross is enough to melt the hearts of the most bitter opponents, and sustain people in times of adversity. Human pain, suffering and misery, however, are conditions which God never wished for mankind.

Why is it then, you may ask, that God's wishes are not being put into effect? The answer, in part, lies in the free-will that God has granted us. He respects that free will; he does not impose solutions, or exert force and pressure on people. As with the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, God comes to each one of us with an invitation, a request, and then leaves us free to respond. If we reject God's requests, it can only lead to unhappiness and inner anguish. If, on the other hand, we acquiesce to the wishes of God, then we will become possessed of an inner calm and serenity that nothing will ever disturb. The prayer of Jesus, "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid," will be a reality in us.

However, the wonder is that God chose the most unlikely places to give witness before the world to his providential care and concern for those in trouble. In the person of Jesus Christ he was born into a remote and isolated region of the vast Roman empire, one of a race described by the first century pagan historian Tacitus as "a most contemptible mob, a repulsive people." That was how the cultured Roman regarded the Jews. Nor does the enigma of God's selection stop there; for he chose the most despised province of the Jewish state, Galilee, in which his Son would grow up. Galilee of the nations, or in other words "heathen Galilee" (NAB) was how it was described, a land where people walked in darkness. And finally, God chose Nazareth, a village then so obscure that its name was never even once mentioned in the OT.

Quite often in ancient times it was even customary for its inhabitants, when going to Jerusalem for the festivals, to claim they were natives not of Nazareth but of Cana. Bartholomew, the future Apostle, before he had met Jesus, summed up attitudes well when he said to Philip, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (Jn 1:46). When the Son of God became man he emptied himself of some of the special attributes of his divine nature, so as to become like us in all things except sin. Such is the mystery of the Incarnation. And side by side with it is the mystery of God's choice of this most backward place in which the divine Incarnation would unfold. Surely it is true that in the most unexpected circumstances Jesus began to show himself as healer of the sick in body, and light of those whose spirits lived in darkness.

His choice of place in which to deliver a message to people continues to surprise us, - a refuse dump along the cliffs outside the town of Lourdes, the church gable-end in what was poverty stricken Knock, an isolated hollow in the mountainous moorland around Fatima. God is forever confronting us with the unexpected, and as for us, we can only say with the Blessed Virgin, "My soul glorifies the Lord," or with the writer of the Psalms, "What God is great like our God?'

God of Unity and Peace

The opening prayer of the Mass gives a unifying trend to the readings and could serve as a focus around which the homilist could develop various themes. The prayer speaks about the love of God directing us to unity and peace. In the Gospel we see the love of God effective in the life of Jesus particularly in the summary of his ministry as teaching, preaching and healing. Often people get a distorted image of God, as demanding or punishing. Against this type of thought the great authentic picture of God and his attitude towards us is the life and behaviour Of Jesus. There we can seethe love of God in a imaginative way and come to appreciate his truth. Jesus' life gathered people together; he formed a community. The beginnings of that aspect of him ministry is shown in his call of the disciples. Again the assembly of a group of people who are called to live in faith and trust and love is a sign of God's effective love breaking down the barriers of misunderstanding hatred and fear that often characterise our reltionships with each. The effective love of God coming in to our world in the person of Jesus enables us to go forth from our isolation and join with others in community. In God there is the communion of the Three Divine Persons and they are bonded together through the Spirit. In the ministry of Jesus that unity is given to us through the Spirit, but is not an automatic gift People have to co-operate with it. In the letter of Paul we see the experience of the early Christians, their difficulties and their strengths. On the human level the communion we are called to" the vocation to love as the Father loves, is impossible; yet the strength of the Word, in the preaching of the Cross and effectiveness of the sacraments shown in baptism encourages us. The dynamic force that binds us together is of God. One might explain that this call to love works itself out in the everyday things of the family, the little church, in the various contacts that we make with people, in the services that we give or receive. Through al of these we are Christ in our world, and we continue to show forth his ministry and in our way we share in the Church as sacrament of salvation and light of the nations.

Another aspect could be taken up from the quotation of the prophecy. For the people of Capernaum Jesus was just anew resident coming to live among them. He did not move far from his home town of Nazareth, where he had been a carpenter. The plan of God was effected in this ordinary event. When Jesus met Peter and his brother by the lake they were at their daily work and his powerful personality touched them in such a mysterious way that they left and became disciples. Many of those cured by him met him in their own towns and villages. The plan of God to save reached them where they were. One might bring out the fact that God touched us where we are in the ordinary events of life and they are all as much of God's plan as if they were predicted in the Scriptures. The eye of faith needs to search to discern the finger of God.

When to Begin

Martin believes he should be a soul winner for Christ. In the parish Bible class he has learnt how to share his faith with people and lead them to Christ. But he has never done it. Martin prays to God to give him a sign so that he would know exactly when to start. One day Martin is travelling in the subway to meet his Bible study friends. He has his Bible in his handbag. A young man about his own age enters the train and sits next to Martin. He wears a T-shirt with the slogan, "WHO HAS THE MOST TOYS WINS." Martin bends his head and says a little prayer, "Lord give me a sign when to start." The young man's cell phone rings. His friend wants him to come and pick him up. After arguing with his friend awhile, he says, "All right, I will come to the church and pick you up, but I will not enter the church. You will find me at the parking lot," and hangs up. Martin bends his head a second time and prays, "Lord, still waiting for the sign!" Lastly the young man turns to Martin and says, "You know, I got this weird frend who skips work on Sundays to go to church. I don't get it." Martin smiles, bends down his head once again and says, "Lord, the sign, the sign!" End of story.

Today's gospel is on Jesus beginning his public work. After living a private life for more than thirty years, how did Jesus know exactly when to leave the hidden life behind him and start his public life? Our first thoughts are to suppose that, of course, God his Father spoke to him and communicated to him exactly when to begin. He got a special green light sign from God. But today's gospel suggests that Jesus probably arrived at this decision the way most people do, that is, by inferring from the things happening in their lives what God is trying to say to them.

Our gospel reading begins, "When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea" (Matthew 4:12-13). Jesus hears that John has been arrested. He figures that the renewal movement that John had started would be needing a new leader. He looks around and finds that none is more suited to assume leadership of the movement than he himself. That's it. That is all the sign he needs. He says farewell to his family and moves on to meet the challenges of his public calling. Unlike Martin in our story, Jesus does not sit there and wait for a special supernatural sign from above. Rather, Jesus learns to read the "signs of the times," i.e., to infer from the goings-on in the world around him what demands God might be making of him personally.

What yawning needs do we see in the world around us? Do you, for example, see the need for more messengers of God's love and peace in our world today? What can you personally do about it, given the personal circumstances of your life? When are you actually going to start doing something about it, or are you waiting for a special sign from God like Martin? Well, that sign may never come. We, like Jesus, must learn to read the "signs of the times" in which we live.

Note that Jesus does not start preaching immediately. If he had started preaching right away from his home town in Nazareth, they would probably have silenced him there and then. The first thing he does is to look for a location and a community that would support his vocation. He found it in Capernaum where he quickly attracted a group of friends and disciples. Even though he is the son of God, Jesus does not work like a lone ranger. He shares his vision and his ministry with people. That is why, even though he was stopped and killed just three years after, they could not stop his work and his vision for a new world of sisters and brothers. In Jesus we see not only what it means to do God's work but also how to do God's work.

Let us ask God today to give us the wisdom to read the "signs" of our own times so that we can correctly infer from events in the world around us what demands God is making of us, as individuals and as a church. And let us ask for the courage to start doing it, not just praying about it.

Because we are called

(Jim Mazzone)

A couple of weeks ago it was confirmed by God that we are following the right guy; for He says plainly - This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. When we fall on our faces we all need to take out that piece of scripture to remind us of it is we can get ourselves back on the right path - by following Jesus.

Last week, John the Baptist gives us a great example of what it takes to get nominated for a lifetime achievement award for the best prophet in a supporting role. He plainly says - I am not the Christ. Instead he readily accepts his role as a preparer - as a pointer.

This week our minds are filled with call stories. We read of the call of Peter, Andrew, John and James. Fisherman. Ordinary guys. God has a wonderful habit of doing this kind of thing. God is filled with surprises.

What a cast of characters we see called in scripture: Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, and Paul to name but a few.

They all come up with excuses when they are called upon or prompted to get up and take action - and to their credit they all do respond in the end.

Moses says he can not speak in public, Isaiah says that the kind of speech that has passed through his lips are too impure to be a prophet, Jeremiah says that he is too young, In the Gospel of Luke Peter claims that he is too sinful, and Paul says that he is unworthy.

God is also filled with surprises. Sara says that she is too old to have a child. Mary says that she is too young for she has not yet known man. Small young men like David are not supposed to be able to slay a giant and hungry lions are supposed to tear apart what looks like a free meal in the person of Daniel.

Yet we learn that nothing is impossible with God. It is clear that God does what God wills.

Mary may have been sinless; however the cast of characters that God has chosen throughout salvation history to be his instruments of justice, mercy, love and compassion have been colorful, earthy individuals.

Still, we often do ourselves the disservice - and Satan loves this gimmick - of consistently disqualifying ourselves from ever considering ourselves to be called by God to be his instruments. We may understand intellectually that God has chosen many people like ourselves to be his workers; but it ends there. Spiritually we lower our heads, walk into the darkness, and jump on the ever-revolving merry-go-round of unworthiness that never stops for the hope of being called.

We may say to ourselves - Where is my burning ember to purify my mouth? Where is my vision? Where is my voice from God? Where is my miraculous conversion moment? All these folks were called in a really big way. Where is my big call? A big call wipes out unworthiness. Wrong.

Over these many postings I have mentioned a handful of key, foundational blocks that I am convinced need to be in place in order to feel loved by and connected to God.

One of them is seeing oneself as an instrument of the love and goodness of God. Here is how it works for me: God is love. God gives us all good things.

If you buy those two premises - and I wholeheartedly do - then it follows that anytime we have an impulse to love or do something good, then we recognize that it comes from God.

The impulse comes from God, the love comes from God, the good things come from God. The impulse declares us called. The love and goodness flows through us as instruments.

Every tugging, pulling, pushing, and little voice in ones head prompting to do something beautiful for another person is a call. Every prompting to share something good is a call.

We are sinners. We are characters. Yet, we are still called. We are still instruments. God does what God wills.

If we get stuck in the rut of thinking - I do these loving actions simply because I am a mother, father, wife, husband, family member, caregiver, teacher, mentor, CEO, nurse, doctor, social worker, etc., and these actions are just expected of me, then we dismiss from where these impulses come from and from where the source of all love flows - God. Jesus asks first. God loves first

Breaking Down Barriers

The strange thing about the famous Berlin Wall that used to mean the absolute in dividing east from west was that it was built with bricks and mortar. It was the most concrete sign of the "Iron Curtain" that divided Europe for nearly half a century until 1989. In hindsight, it was a tactical mistake on the part of the East Germans to erect the Berlin Wall. While it was there and while one could see and touch it, people thought it should come down. Then down it came one day, to everybody's surprise at the time. And while thousands were chipping away at it, taking it apart brick by brick, they were dismantling the Iron Curtain, which collapsed soon afterwards.

If only all the other walls which divide humans were built of bricks! Unfortunately, they are built with myths and ideologies, prejudices and fears. Because we don't see them, we are not always conscious of their existence. They are not easily attacked. It is a slow tortuous process even to make people aware of them. Such is the case with the walls which were erected throughout history to divide religions. When you consider that the Berlin Wall came down after less than fifty years of existence, it is disturbing to reflect that there is another wall dividing Germany and Europe and the West, which has remained intact for more than five-hundred years. It is the wall that divides the Christian world into Protestants and Catholics. There is little indication that that wall is coming down. It is strange that the barrier which divided the atheistic communist world from the God-believing West could disappear so quickly while the one that separates two sets of Christians who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord should rmain as solid as ever.

Of course, we observe Church Unity Week. The priest and the parson share a cup of tea on the lawn and even exchange pulpits occasionally. The hierarchies get together to issue joint statements on public issues that concern them. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury exchange visits and presents. Theologians work away at finding points of agreement and removing misunderstandings. One might be forgiven for believing that at least some bricks were being dislodged. But other bricks are being added all the time. The decision of the Anglican Church to ordain women is considered by the Catholic Church to be a further obstacle to unity.

Lest we become too depressed about the prospects of Christian unity, it is worth looking again at what led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain. There was a marvellous surge of human spirit, shown by the people of Leipzig and elsewhere who crowded into the streets in sub-zero temperatures night after night and refused to disperse even when threatened with tanks. This massive expression of the peoples" will changed everything. Something similar will be needed to break down our religious barrier. The problem is not with hierarchies; it is with ordinary people. Apparently, they don't feel strongly enough or express their will forcefully. Or even that they don't wish for Christian unity. The Archbishop of Canterbury visited Rome and had a long discussion with the Pope. It was agreed that in a united Christendom Anglicans would accept the Pope as president. When the Archbishop returned to England, a poll was taken among practising Anglicans. The great majority rejected the noton of the Pope as president.

It is easy for us to sit in the pew and think it is time for popes and bishops to get their act together and solve this terrible scandal. The problem may not be there. It may be our indifference or downright hostility. We like to say that our best friend is a Protestant. We may have even stood for his children. We may even have vague aspirations that it would be nice some day if we could all get together again. Five hundred years of separation will not disappear just like that. Our disunity has a long history. It goes back to the earliest days of Christianity when St Paul pleaded with-the Corinthians:

I do appeal to you, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to make up the differences between you, and instead of disagreeing among yourselves, to be united again in your belief and practice.

What St Paul wrote two thousand years ago to the Corinthians, he is writing to us today.

Different kinds of preparation

Today's gospel is about Jesus beginning his mission, calling his first disciples, and beginning to travel from place to place, to proclaim that the kingdom of God was close at hand.

As I write this we are approaching the Millennium. There is an obsession with preparation, even though there are divergent views on how to prepare. For those who are not Christian, the preparations must have a certain hollowness to them. I read an advert the other day for a New Year's ball priced at �1,000! This can disturb Christians, who feel the others are highjacking the real reason for the celebration. I don't think that such negative reactions serve any purpose. As a Christian, I can make my own preparations, and let the others do whatever they choose. Part of being a Christian is to be like Jesus, to be a "sign of contradiction," which frees me up from conforming to the dictates and norms of the world. The kingdom of Cod is not of this world. If, like Jesus in today's gospel, I have a clear vision and goal, and I know exactly what I am about, my energy and enthusiasm for the task ahead will be dramatically increased.

Today's gospel marks the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. John had been arrested, so that was the end of the ministry of John. The gospel tells us that instead of going to Nazareth (in other words, instead of going home), Jesus went to Capernaum. The show was on the road, as it were. As it happened, the prophet had foretold that this would happen. I don't think that the sayings of the prophets are what influenced Jesus. He was led by the Spirit, and that led him into the fulfilling of all the prophecies. Aren't they powerful words used by the prophet to describe what happens when Jesus appears among them? "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who lived in the land where death cast its shadow, a light has shone." Jesus would later refer to himself as the light of the world; and, in commissioning his apostles, he would tell them that they, now, were to be a light to the world.

The message of Jesus is a simple one. "Turn from your sins, and turn to God, because the kingdom of heaven is near." I said earlier that the clearer my goal or vision, the higher will be the level of my energy in bringing that about. Sin is a false goal, an untrue vision, and an empty promise. It is immediate, selfish, and is self-will run riot. It is the result of behaviour that is out of control, through a compulsion, addiction, or selfish whim. It can never satisfy because, outside the kingdom of Cod I am an exile, pining for home. Even in the depth of my sin the kingdom of God is near. I just have to reach out, and Jesus is there.

When I was growing up the word "vocation" was highjacked by priests and religious. It is now being given back to the laity, and more and more laity are actually experiencing themselves as being called. There is nothing dramatic about this. It just means that I don't just stumble into the Christian way by default, without any clear path or pattern to follow. "I have called you by name; you are mine." "You didn't choose me; no, I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that would remain." If the gospel is now, and I am every person in the gospel, then, through the gospel of today, lam being called.

Response: I mentioned earlier that, when I have a clear goal and vision to follow, my energy level in pursuing that is so much higher. When I was baptised, someone else said my yes for me. I cannot remember having any great enthusiasm about my confirmation, beyond the fact of the new suit, and the money from family and friends. There must come a time, however, when I am prepared to take personal responsibility for my own calling, and say my own personal yes. Because God is totally a God of now ("I am who am'), the only yes in my whole life he's interested in is my yes of now.

"Turn from your sins, and turn to God, because the kingdom of God is near." In rugby football, when someone scores a try, that team is then given a conversion kick. In the ancient game of wrestling, when one succeeded in turning the other person right around into the opposite position, that was marked as a point or a conversion. Conversion has to do with crossing-over, with changing of direction, with a shifting of position. It means letting go of one situation or position, and moving to another one. It is basically about change. To live is to change, and to become holy or whole is to have changed often (Newman). The writer of the Psalms is continually calling on the Lord to change his heart. "Create a new heart in me, O Lord, and put a right spirit within me." Having that attitude towards God is a necessary part of conversion. A constant declaration of my willingness to be changed is a central part of prayer.

Christianity is about a person, Jesus Christ. He is the pearl of great price that he speaks of, which, when someone finds it, is willing to sell everything he has to buy that pearl. The apostles in today's gospel just walked away from everything. This may seem highly insensitive to their father, and to their responsibilities to their families. There must have been some powerful magnetic force while in the presence of Jesus. There must also have been some great emptiness within the hearts of the apostles, because, certainly, not everyone who was in the presence of Jesus felt any call to follow him. Some were there out of curiosity, some to trip him up, and others were plotting his arrest and execution. The response of the apostles, therefore, must have come from a combination of their own inner hungers, and the charismatic power that came from being in the presence of Jesus. I imagine their own human condition was actually the first ingredient, because they had lived with that for many years before they ever hard of Jesus. I would suggest that, to have a deep personal encounter with Jesus, I could begin with my own human struggles, weaknesses, brokenness, and inability to manage life. No doubt that would help enormously, when it comes to listen to Jesus speak about forgiveness, compassion, and the special place of sinners in his plan of salvation.

I continue to stress one important point, i.e. the gospel is now, and I am every person in it. I have a choice right now to be in two places. In my mind, I can be away back there when and where today's gospel took place; or I can be where I am right now, let Jesus enter that space, and have this incident encircle me. Supposing you personally heard the call to turn from your sins, and turn to God, can you actually identify something within yourself that would have to change? Some behaviour, action, attitude, etc., that would have to be faced up to, and removed? I am not suggesting that you yourself could actually do the removing, because, by yourself, you would not be able. What I am suggesting is that lam willing to bring it to the Lord, and declare to him my desire to surrender, and to have him change me.

While the apostles left their boats to follow Jesus, what is it that I would have to walk away from, before I would be free to follow? This could be anything from a wrong relationship, to an addiction, to a mental attitude. One seldom hears about the Seven Deadly Sins anymore. However, if I have a quick run down through those, I may find identification with one or more of them. Remember them? Pride, covetousness, lust, gluttony, envy, anger, and sloth. Translating those into modern language might give you a list like the following: Considering myself as superior to others; being jealous of what they have, and begrudging them their success; using others to meet your own needs, and confusing this with love; once again, we have that green-eyed monster of envy or begrudgery, and the inability to rejoice in another's success; anger is just another word for wounded pride, because someone dared to rain on my parade; and, lastly, we have the sins of omission, where I'm always going to get around to doing the good, bu not just yet. The road to hell is paved with good intentions If I am not at all involved in evangelising others, this is a direct result of the fact that I myself have never been evangelised. I am not speaking of standing on a butter-box in the town square. Evangelising is something the Spirit can do through me, if I make myself available. "Lord, may your Spirit within me touch the hearts of those I meet today, either through the words I say, the prayers I pray, the life I live, or the person that I am."

There is a story told about Leonardo de Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper. He searched far and wide for what he considered to be an ideal model for each person in the painting. He began with a fine-looking young man, full of life, and anchored, and chose him as a perfect model for Jesus. He followed with other models for each of the apostles. Naturally, the work took several years. He left Judas till last, because he was having a problem finding someone who could represent him. Finally, he came across a bum, who was sleeping rough, who had all the appearances of being untrustworthy and, like Judas, would probably sell his soul if it brought him some money. Leonardo approached the man and persuaded him to come to his studio. While the work was in progress, both men came to the same realisation. This man had been in this studio before, representing Jesus. He had gone astray, lost his way, and was now on Skid Row. It was a great shock to de Vinci, and a moment of conversion for the man. �

When Jesus called on people to turn from their sins, he also asked some of them to follow him. They were to become his pupils, people who would absorb his Spirit, and continue his work, when he went back home to the Father.

4th Sunday (A)

Zephaniah 2:3ff

Ps 146:6-10

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Matthew 5:1-12

Christian Soul-searching

Happy Attitudes

The Condensed Gospel

Being Christian Today

Zeph 2:3, 3:12-13. The "remnant of Israel," a people humble and lowly, who seek refuge in the name of the Lord - will escape the severity of divine judgement at the end of time.

1 Cor 1:26-31. Paul reminds his community in Corinth that their first converts came from among the poorer, socially deprived classes. They ought not now be arrogant and rebellious.

Mt 5:1-12. The Beatitudes give the basic charter of the Christian life and challenge our worldly sense of values.

Theme: The beatitudes are the basic Christian ideals, not a moral code or a set of rules to avoid God's punishment. They aim to raise our perspective above the constraints of self-interest and gain.

Zephaniah 2:3ff

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord's wrath.

For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord - the remnant of Israel; they shall do no wrong and utter no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths. Then they will pasture and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.

Ps 146:6-10

It is the Lord who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the strangers;

He upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord."

Matthew 5:1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Intercessions

- that we may be idealists who follow the Christian way with hopeful hearts, and trust in the merciful God.

- that our God and Father will always bless his church with saints to uplift and inspire us.

- for courage and comfort for those who are persecuted in the cause of right.

- that we may live in the spirit of the beatitudes, and measure our lives in the light of them.

Thoughts for 4th Sunday, A

Christian Soul-searching

Today's gospel reading which recalls Christ's preaching of the Beatitudes is one which causes a lot of soul-searching for Christians, something which is evidenced by a certain feeling of unease every time we hear them. Yet Christ never intended that they should be anything other than an encouragement to us. They make no demands, they are not a law, they do not lay a new yoke on Christ's disciples. They are a description in eight striking sentences of the marvellous freedom which the truly devout soul enjoys. Jesus is speaking from experience, because he himself lived the Beatitudes in his own life, and it is only by living them also in our lives that we can discover how true they are.

Although they are not set commands, they are nevertheless revolutionary; and how revolutionary can be seen when they are compared with the beatitudes advocated by the Wisdom books of the Old Testament. These latter describe as happy the man who has a good wife, obedient children, faithful friends, the one who succeeds and prospers in all he puts his hand to. But surprisingly, according to Jesus, the happy and blessed are not the propertied, not the contented or the successful, but rather the poor, the hungry, the mourners, the despised and persecuted. We may begin to understand this if we can answer the vexed question, "Whom did Jesus have in mind when he spoke about the "poor in spirit"?" Was it those lacking in material goods, or those with plenty of resources without being over attached to them, or perhaps the people who were convinced that material things mean nothing and that God means everything? The fact is that the vast majority of the population of the Graeco-Roman world in those times enjoyed littlematerial prosperity.

In line with the Old Testament, it would seem that St Matthew's "poor in spirit" was a reference, not so much to those lacking worldly possessions, but rather to those who found themselves in humble circumstances and continued to make do without complaint, those whose spirits remained free despite their lowly social standing and their servile behaviour, which were in such stark contrast to the arrogance and assertiveness of those who controlled the sources of wealth, and also were its principal beneficiaries. Hundreds of years prior to Christ we read in one of the Psalms, "This poor man called, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his distress" (Ps 34:6). Such a person willingly became detached from material things because he knew that they would not bring him complete happiness or security, and so he turned to, and relied on God, for he was confident that God alone would give him help and hope and strength. However this does not mean that material poverty is a good thing. It simply is not. Jesus, fr example, would never regard that state as blessed where people live in slums without having enough to eat, and where health degenerates because conditions are all against it.

Yet paradoxically, it is also true that Jesus himself never initiated any social reform, or campaign to assist the poor and the exploited. "Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal, but rather lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven" he said in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:19+). So firmly did he refuse to be cast in any such role that he was even referred to as the friend of publicans or tax collectors, themselves the greatest exploiters of people at that time. The truth is that despite his miraculous feeding of the multitudes Jesus' concern never stopped short at the material goods, or lack of them, in peoples" lives.

It was on people themselves, the human person as he, or she, stood in relation to God, that he focused his mission. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well" (Mt 6:33). And there is absolutely no doubt that his sympathy, his concern, went out to the humble, the toilers and heavily laden, the outcasts like sinners and publicans who lived a despised existence on the verge of Jewish society. The people who have only God to turn to, the powerless, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, abused and calumniated on account of Christ, all these will be comforted. They will have mercy shown them. Theirs will be the kingdom of heaven; in them the love of God will reveal itself as the meaning of life; they will be called children of God, they shall see God.

Happy Attitudes

Some years ago I made my one and only visit to Palestine. I had always thought it was a barren and desert land. I probably went at the best time of the year, towards late April. I was quite surprised at how beautiful it was and particularly the places Jesus chose for the various happenings recorded in the gospel. One sunny morning I climbed the hill of the beatitudes overlooking the lake and sat down there reflecting on today's reading. The hill was ablaze with flowers. It suddenly dawned on me that Jesus Christ was not only the Son of God but he also had a marvellous eye for the beauties of nature. The beauty of his words on than occasion were fittingly matched by the beauty of his surroundings.

Yet, what he said there was extraordinarily radical. How his listeners reacted to it then, I have no idea. I have some idea what the reaction would be today. Imagine a father or mother giving this list as advice to their eighteen year old son or daughter as they set out to make their way in the modem world. Were they to suggest that the attitudes to get on were the following, to be attached to poverty, to be gentle, to be activists for human rights and peace etc, their offspring might be forgiven for thinking their parents had gone crazy.

If they were "poor in spirit', that is not dependent on others, especially the influential, to get on, they wouldn't go far. How often parents have said to me because they think the priest has influence: "You wouldn't put in a word with so-and-so for my boy?" How often we imply if we do not say to our children:

"It's not what you know but who you know that counts." Whatever else gentleness or meekness may achieve, it won't help you climb the ladder of success in the company. To do that you need to be pushy and aggressive and you may well need to be ruthless as well. We know well what happens to those "who hunger and thirst after right." Their cases are well documented in history books. They end up, like St Paul or Andrei Sakharov, in a prison cell. Not many like Nelson Mandela become president after twenty-eight years in prison. Most finish up in an unmarked prison grave unknown and forgotten. The attitudes listed by Christ in his sermon are exactly the opposite of what the world demands of the successful. As St Paul says: "It was to shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning, those whom the world thinks common and contemptible are the ones God has chosen."

We speak a lot nowadays about "practising Catholics." We have reduced practice, conveniently for ourselves, to one single solitary item. And one that is not too demanding at that, attendance at Sunday Mass. There is no mention of that in the sermon on the mount. Christ did not set up a moral code with the "i's" dotted and the "t's" crossed. He probably knew we were good at that ourselves, if the Pharisees were anything to go by. He simply pointed out the attitudes needed to enter the kingdom of heaven.

These "happy attitudes" are the charter of the kingdom. They are ideals and like all ideals well-nigh unattainable. What is the point of them then? They are the heights we aim at and measure our standards against. Fortunately for us, history throws up rare examples of individuals who incarnate one or other of these beatitudes, like a Francis of Assisi or a Mother Teresa of Calcutta. There are many others whom we know nothing about "whose godly deeds have not failed." As St Paul says in today's reading: "You, God has made members of Christ Jesus and by God's doing he has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom."

The Condensed Gospel

Today's gospel, what we call the eight beatitudes, is like a summary of Jesus' teaching. It is the gospel in a condensed form and, therefore, requires a great deal of teasing Out to get to the simple point-by-point message that it contains.

We are all familiar with political manifestos. These are statements about where the political party is at, what they stand for, what is in it for you if you vote for them, and what they intend to achieve if you elect them. Many people are quite cynical about politicians, and politics in general. No matter how sincere their promises are, many of them fail to deliver on those promises. Today's gospel is Jesus' Manifesto. The important thing for us to remember is that, in the words of Jesus, "heaven and earth will pass away before my word passes away." In other words this is a manifesto in which he certainly will keep his side of the bargain.

There is a lot of teaching contained in today's gospel, and it would not be possible for us now to reflect on it at any great length. Let me try to put the beatitudes into simple ordinary words, and that, in itself, might help us. They are blessed who are detached, and have a humble attitude. Even if they have great riches, the riches do not possess them, nor are they boastful and proud about them. Grief is the price you pay for love, so, if you have any capacity for love, then you will need to carry some tissues with you. If you never want to cry at a funeral, don't ever love anyone. The meek and the gentle are the opposite to the bully, and they are the ones who are really powerful. Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King refused to fight back, so the only way to stop them was to kill them.

They are good people who have a real desire for justice and fair play, and who are prepared to ensure that this is available to others. As you treat others, so you yourself will be treated, so if you want mercy, forgiveness, and compassion, then you must begin by giving this to others. A pure heart is not devious, deceitful, selfish, and cunning. A pure heart reflects an aspect of God. Jesus did not say that they are blessed who have peace. Rather did he commend those who build bridges of peace and reconciliation between others, and between themselves and others?

Jesus warns us that, if we follow him, we will be treated like he was. There is a cost in Pentecost, and following him means taking up the cross. Right from the beginning when Simeon took the child in his arms in the temple, he announced that Jesus would be a sign of contradiction. Everything he said, everything he did, and everything he stood for, was a contradiction to this world and its values. Those with power, prestige, and control were threatened by him. The religious leaders who ran the show, and who were the final arbiters as to what was right and wrong, were so threatened by him that they planned and succeeded in killing him.

Response: There is a certain sense of cleansing in today's gospel. It is about letting go of things in our lives that are not life giving, and about becoming wholesome and free. It is a programme for living, a blueprint for inner peace and happiness. Religion runs the risk of being about rules and regulations and, ultimately, about control. Spirituality is totally the work of the Holy Spirit, and it is about surrender. Spirituality is about letting go, knowing that, in death, I must let go of everything anyhow.

To live life more fully, it is necessary to be as free from outside controls as possible. I can have wealth, but it need not control me, and drive me in a compulsive way towards accumulating more and more wealth. When I forgive someone, I am setting myself free. Having a resentment against another is a case of me drinking poison, and I'm expecting the other person to die! When I am authentic, or pure of heart, I become a life-giving person, and I mediate life to others. It's rather frightening to think that if I am inauthentic, lam mediating death to others.

When I take Jesus and his message seriously, and decide to follow him and to belong to his kingdom, then I can be sure and certain of meeting opposition. Quite a lot of that opposition will come from within myself. Self-preservation is a fundamental human instinct. Following Jesus involves dying - to self, to my creature comforts, to my pride, etc. If I let my head take over, rather than responding from the heart, then I risk getting sidetracked into endless cul-de-sacs. Prudence will advice me to hold back, and not get too involved. Procrastination will cause me to do nothing, really, because I will end up not doing anything today that I can put off till to-morrow.

This is one of those days when I wish I had copies of today's gospel, and a highlight marker, which I could give to each of you as you leave. I would ask you to read, and re-reread the passage many times. Then as parts of it become clearer to you, you could highlight those. The whole process, of course, could bear fruit only if the Holy Spirit is invited to lead me, to teach me, and to enlighten me.

Have you ever taken time out to reflect on how you are living your life? Part of the weaknesses of our human condition is that it blinds us to the reality of how we are. I could be a bully, and be the only one around who doesn't know that. Part of the disease of alcoholism, for example, is that it is the only disease known to man or woman that denies its own existence. Every dog in the street knows that John is an alcoholic, but he himself just cannot see that. It's his wife's fault, it's the stress of work, it's the need he has to take a break, and be good to himself, etc. Everything except the simple truth of looking at himself in a mirror, and saying, "You are where you are right now because of yourself, and the things that you do." It is a good thing, from time to time, to take the lamp of truth and go inside, and see what's happening there.

Today's gospel is all about blessings. It is about a whole shower of blessings, when I make myself available to receive them. I open my heart, and I ask the Holy Spirit to imprint the words of today's gospel on my heart. I accept the words as a guide to healthy and wholesome living, and a way to a life beyond my wildest dreams.

Hilary Pole was a physical education teacher in an English second-level school. At the age of twenty-seven she was hit with a rare disease that crippled her, and she ended up where her mobility was limited to one sixteenth of an inch of her big toe. A professor in Oxford University devised and designed a special typewriter for her, and she began to practise typing within the limits of her condition. Very soon she was writing poetry and, strange as it may seem, all her poems had to do with the joy of living. She became known nationwide, and was awarded an MBE by the Queen for her work. An example of her thinking can be gleaned from the following verse:

You ask me if I'm sad or bored,

Or if my life it is abhorred.

And I tell I am not;

That I can now accept my lot.

I remind your sadly shaking head,

It's my body, not my mind, in bed.

Today's gospel is about power from within, poor in spirit, meek, gentle, etc.

Being Christian Today

(I) What is your dream of success? How would you advise a young man setting out to make a success of life? Who are the successful people in life within our memory, a Rockefeller or a Mother Theresa or a Jean Vanier? A man without a vision does not really care.

(2) How seriously do we take the beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount as the model for our behaviour? Christ has said that everyone who hears these words of his and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock (Mat. 7:24). The recent Council has reminded us that our whole lives, both individual and social, should be permeated with the spirit of the beatitudes (Church In the Modern World, 72).

(3) Do we ask ourselves whether we are building on rock or on sand? Do we draw our vision from some modern philosopher, economist, psychologist or sociologist? Have we, so to speak, 'come to terms' with the modern age, consciously or unconsciously regarding the Gospel ideal as irrelevant?

(4) Do we need to renew our minds, our way of thinking, to be transformed in the spirit of the Gospel rather than conformed to a secular way of thinking? (cf. Rom. 12:2). Today's Gospel provides ample opportunity for an examination of conscience.

5th Sunday (A)

Attracting, not promoting

Is 58:7-10. To be upright in God's sight we must somehow learn to share our good fortune with the poor.

1 Cor 2:1-5. Paul's ministry in Corinth centred on how we are saved by the sacrifice of Jesus, and not by our own efforts or learning.

Mt 5:13-16. Salt of the earth; the light of the world - the example of Christians lives should shine the light of Christ to brighten our unbeliving world.

Theme: Tyranny still flourishes in many parts of the world. Other forms of oppression thrive nearer home: poverty, unemployment and homelessness. What is our solidarity with oppressed victims?

Isaiah 58:7-10

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

Ps 112:4-7, 9

They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

It is well with those who deal generously and lend,
who conduct their affairs with justice.

For the righteous will never be moved;
they will be remembered forever.

They are not afraid of evil tidings;
their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.

They have distributed freely,
they have given to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn is exalted in honor.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Matthew 5:13-16

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Intercessions

- that we may more genuinely be "light for the world" and "salt of the earth" as Jesus calls us to be.

- for the generosity to care about, and even share our bread with, people who are hungry.

- for the kindness to play our part in sheltering the homeless poor, and clothing the naked.

- for the charity of Christ to be reflected in our lives, and in the whole life of the Church.

Thoughts for 5th Sunday, A

Shine before others

In India when two people meet, instead of shaking hands, as we do in the West, they have the beautiful custom of joining hands, as if in prayer, and bowing towards each other, a gesture which appears so meaningful and symbolic to westerners. Truly it has been said, that the only way to counter the sign of the clenched fist, which Isaiah mentions today, is with the sign of the joined hands, which denotes generosity and respect, and one might even say readiness to pray for others. If you allow your life to be moulded by such attitudes, then as the first reading also states, your light will rise in the darkness, and your shadows become like the noonday. The gospel is even more emphatic, "Your light must shine before others, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven."

Does it strike you, however, that there seems to be a contradiction between this saying of Christ to his disciples, and the fact that Christ spent all his own life - with the exception of three years - in the obscurity of the backward little village of Nazareth, and that seemingly with little effect, for the inhabitants refused obstinately to see anything in him other than "the carpenter, the son of Mary;" so much so, as St Mark tells us, that even Christ himself was amazed at their incredulity. "He could work no miracle there because of their lack of faith," Mark says bluntly (6:5f). Is Jesus then consistent in cautioning me not to hide my light under a tub, while all that time at Nazareth he seemed to act like the man in his own parable, the man who received but one talent and was condemned for not putting it to good use. The message and the mystery of Nazareth are not easy to unravel. What Christ was called upon to practise at Nazareth was the heroism of the ordinary, the daily, often dull, routine, which equires its own kind of courage. Nazareth then was the scene of a hidden life, the ordinary everyday life of a family, made up of work and prayer, marked only by hidden virtues, and only God and Christ's closest relatives and neighbours were witnesses to any of it. Here in fact we have mirrored the lives of the majority of us. What sets Jesus apart from the rest of us is that he possessed the one basic talent, beside which all others are worthless. This was his ability to remain in God, to anchor his whole life firmly in the Father, to let the Father be the guiding force in his life. In his own words, "The Son can do only what he sees the Father doing, and whatever the Father does the Son does too" (Jn 5:19). But this close relationship with God is not something we can earn, or plan for ourselves. It is God's miracle, God's doing. It is like the man in the parable, who scatters seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps or when he is awake, the seed is germinating, sprouting, growing. But how, he does nt know. Concealment, we might even say, is the way God's glory is revealed in the world. So for the people of Nazareth, Jesus would remain just "the carpenter;" while it was only through the mystery of the resurrection that the light of Christ's true identity was revealed to his chosen disciples. So it was too with many of the great saints, who never tried to create an impression of holiness, but strove inwardly to remain always close to God, "in loving attentive expectancy," as St John of the Cross said. These words could admirably describe the short life of another great Carmelite saint. St Teresa of the Child Jesus died about a hundred years ago at the age of 24, after nine years in her Convent at Lisieux.

Very few people took notice. According to her natural sister, Pauline, several of the other nuns even said that Teresa had been doing nothing, had come to Carmel seemingly to amuse herself. Yet in the following twenty years this community sent out over 750,000 copies of her Abridged Life, and 250,000 copies of The Story of a Soul, the account of her life written under obedience by Teresa herself. Within 28 years she had been canonised a saint in Rome before 50,000 people in St Peter's Basilica and an estimated half million in the Square outside. Two years later little Teresa Martin who had never once left her convent was proclaimed Patroness of the Foreign Missions. How did this come about? Reflecting on St Paul's assertion that there are three virtues which endure, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love, Teresa saw her mission in life. "In the heart of my mother, the Church," she said, "I shall be love." And in the concealment of her convent God's glory was to be revealed in a special way beore the whole world.

Salt of the Earth

(1) The two images of salt and light to the world are powerful ones Salt stands apart from insipid food to which it gives taste, and light stands in sharp contrast to darkness which it dispels. They may be used to delineate the position of the Christian in the world, especially today. It may well not be true that - as the prophets of doom. claim -we live in a world of declining standards, but it is certainly true that the man who has firm principles by which he lives stands out more. No longer is morality buoyed up by the props of a Christian society as in the Middle Ages or by the bourgeois conventionalism of the nineteenth century. People are far more ready to make their own decisions about belief and behaviour - which is a good thing - but often on insufficient information and thought - which is not. Religious education is declining, and with it the automatic safeguards which protected Christian practice.

There is, as in most situations, a loss and a gain in all this, though luckily the preacher is not called upon to make a balance-sheet, whose emphasis would vary according to his own temperament. But it does mean undeniably that the Christian is far more noticeable and has a more isolated position, combined with a strong opportunity to be a witness to others for the values of Christ.

(2) The way this Christian witness is presented might well touch upon the twin dangers or intransigence and hypocrisy. If the Christian stands alone in making a stand in such matters as business morality, the morality of marriage or public service, there is a danger that he may make a show of Christianity in these matters which is only superficial, a visible morality which cloaks corruption within, in the same way as the whitewashed tombs which were the Pharisees. It is only a few verses later that Matthew warns three times against a parade of virtue: "Your left hand must not know what your right is doing" and good works must be done in secret. The paradox of the combination of these two seemingly opposed counsels can be resolved in that it is precisely by its self-effacing unobtrusiveness that the Christian witness is noticed. The other danger of self-righteous hardness and superiority is simply clean contrary to the open generosity of Christ.

(3) This theme of witness to the values of Christ might well knit with the theme of grace in the Pauline reading, since it is only through grace that all this is possible. Similarly Paul found success only through "the power of the Spirit." Grace is really the attitude of God to which the qualities in man correspond. Primarily it is the favour or - in more anthropomorphic terms - the smile of God upon someone, like the smile of an absolute monarch who bestows what he will upon whom he will. The prime gift of God to man is the gift of the Spirit, which is the gift of God's own presence and so of his power. It is a great mistake to think of it in any material terms, for example, as a sort of fuel or electrical power. It must be thought of always as a personal relationship. Even the love of man for woman, parent for child, their confidence, expectations and reassurance, have the power to draw on the beloved to achievement of which they would otherwise be incapable. The creative love of God and his indwelling lov, actually present within us, have far more power.

The Clenched Fist

Revolutions tend to be highly contagious. Such was the case with the French Revolution. The fall of the Bastille resounded even in Ireland where it gave birth to the United Irishmen and the rebellion of 1798. No wonder the Archbishop of Dublin at the time reported despondently to Rome that the "French disease" was spreading. That was over two centuries ago. Nowadays, television relays the pictures instantly worldwide, so the effects are more immediate. No sooner had the Berlin Wall collapsed than the edifice of Soviet domination over a whole line of Eastern European countries began to crumble.

Some four thousand years ago, the prophet Isaiah gave what seems a remarkably modern analysis of revolutions and their causes. The tyrannies which they attack, he described as the "yoke, the clenched fist and the wicked word." The "yoke" was the system of apartheid by the white racist regime in South Africa or the totalitarian dictatorship in Soviet Russia. The "clinched fist" was the system of terror used to maintain the regime. The world knows now how clinched that fist was in Stalinist Russia, with its gulags and Siberian prison-camps. Mass graves were discovered which reveal the enormity of the massacres carried out by Stalin and his cronies, to be rid of those who dared to raise their voice in protest.

A more modern term for "the wicked word" is propaganda. For tyrannies to thrive, they need at least the acquiescence of the majority population. The citizens are propagandised virtually from the cradle to the grave. The "wicked word" becomes the accepted truth. Brain-washing, in what were euphemistically referred to as psychiatric correctional centres, was ruthlessly applied to those few who dared even to think differently. We now know how many ordinary citizens collaborated with the system. In Rumania, it is suggested that they were as many as one in four.

Revolutions come and go. Tragically, too often they just exchange one tyranny for another. Lenin was the great liberator of Russia and the tyranny that followed was worse than ever was perpetuated by the Csars. The same might be said of Fidel Castro in Cuba. So often, "glorious" revolutions are little more than tyrannies exchanged. As the poet, Yeats, described it:

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!

A beggar on horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

Isaiah proposes radical remedies for the underlying causes of revolutions or as he puts it "to do away with the yoke, the clinched fist and the wicked word." Firstly, "share your bread with the hungry." It is not surprising that the French Revolution began with a march of the women of Paris to the royal palace at Versailles in search of bread or that the downfall of communism in Russia began with long queues outside Moscow's stores with their empty food-shelves. Judging by the numbers of starving in our world, there are a lot of revolutions brewing out there, and the worst is yet to come. We should hear Isaiah's warning to "share our bread with the hungry" before it is too late. I'm sure he wasn't thinking in terms of our paltry foreign aid.

His second remedy is to "shelter the homeless poor." For these we don't have to look far. You will find them in plenty in Paris, Rome or Dublin, sleeping rough on the streets or in doorways with cardboard boxes for covering. Land speculation by the greedy has led to rocketting house-prices. Even the moderately well off young couple are obliged to mortgage their lives to provide a roof over their heads. The huge new office-block complexes, often largely untenanted, while a growing number of poor remain unhoused is a terrible indictment of our system.

Nakedness comes in many forms. The long dole-queue is a line of naked people. People without jobs are just as naked as people without clothes. Children without education face a lifetime of nakedness. The almost regular summer riots in the deprived urban areas where unemployment is rampant, suggest they are nurseries of revolutions. To clothe the naked is to solve unemployment. We ignore it at our peril.

Isaiah, four-thousand years ago, provided the answer we are still searching for: "Share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, clothe the man you see to be naked and turn not from your own kin. Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over."

Attracting, not promoting

Today's gospel is about Christian witness. Christianity is about attracting, not promoting. The gospel is implanted by the presence of a Christian living in that area.

When I was growing up, we didn't have fridges or freezers, as we have today. Every year my father killed a pig. The only way we had to preserve the sides of bacon over the months, until we could get around to eating the lot, was to pack the portions into boxes of salt. There was really as much salt as bacon in each box. One of the attributes of salt is to preserve, to keep food from going rotten.

I also remember from back then, we didn't have electricity. We had oil lamps, tilley lamps, hurricane lamps (for outside use) and, on occasions, we had a candle or two. I well remember the arrival of the electricity, and the excitement it generated among us kids. We would even have electric light in the cow house, as well as down at the end of the farmyard. This was exciting stuff for us country kids. To have light anywhere around the house, or outside the house, all one had to do was press a switch. This had profound effects on our daily life. We had a wireless that didn't need to have the battery charged every few weeks. We could do our homework in any corner of the kitchen, or in a bedroom. We no longer lived with the dangers (and the fumes) of oil lamps, of the spirits used in the tilley, or with the danger of a burning candle falling over, or left burning and unattended.

I'm sure you can see that I can readily identify with today's gospel. Among the roughest and toughest ghettos there are some beautiful and special people; and if they were not there, the whole area would be rotten. Most initiatives for self-help and for self-improvement in that area are the inspiration of these few. Neighbourhood Watch, Drug Awareness, investment in facilities for social and recreational needs are to be found in the toughest areas of the toughest towns. If you check into it, I'll guarantee you that the initiative and the impetus came from that small group, who could well be called the salt of that area. Just as a pinch of salt can greatly improve the taste of food, so too much salt would destroy anything. That is why there can be such a benefit from the presence of just a few.

I'm sure you heard the saying that it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. One candle doesn't give a great deal of light, but imagine a room in total darkness, and someone enters it bearing a lit candle. It is important to remind ourselves again that the kingdom of God is made up of tiny acts, and most of them are hidden. There is another saying that if each before his own door swept, the whole village would be clean.

Today's gospel is just beautiful in its simplicity. Earlier on, Jesus had declared himself as the light of the world. Today he tells us that we are to be the light of the world. I would rather be guided by a lighthouse than to be rescued by a lifeboat. Without preaching from a butter-box in the town square, I can preach the Christian message through everything I do, and every word I say. If the Spirit of God lives within me, then naturally, wherever I go, I bring the Spirit with me. When Jesus ascended into heaven, when he returned to the Father, with mission accomplished, he brought the body he had with him. He then sent his Spirit, and asked us to provide the body. He has no other feet, hands, or voice but ours.

Response: What good is salt if it loses its taste? What good is a light if you cover it and prevent the light from being seen? In today's gospel, Jesus tells us that we are the salt of earth and the light of the world. In other words, we have what it takes. The onus, then, is on us whether we make use of that or not. There is nothing automatic about being a Christian. It demands definite and personal decisions, and it demands that we carry out those decisions.

In today's world, about two-thirds of the people never heard of Jesus, or have not accepted his message. Of the third that do, a little over 50% would be Roman Catholics. Of those, about 10% are practising; and, of that number about 2% are practising Out of personal conviction. And all of that is two thousand years later! This is where the question of the pinch of salt being effective comes in. I think if Jesus waited till everybody was ready and willing to listen to him, he would not have started yet. In the Old Testament, when the prophet begged God not to destroy the city, God said he would spare the city "if you find me one hundred good men." When the prophet failed to do, God asked for fifty good men. When the prophet failed again, God kept reducing the demands to twenty, to ten, and to five. God doesn't require a large army. He requires a definite personal commitment from a few and, with them, he can effect much good in that whole area.

Letting your good deeds be seen is not seeking public display or showing off. It simply means that, if I am a Christian, I should be seen to act and to live in a Christian way. "By this will everyone know that you are my disciples if you love one another." We are called to live the gospel, rather than just believe it or preach it. It's a strange thing but, if I went to live in a cave in the Dublin mountains, without telling anyone, and if I opened my heart to the fullness of the life of the Trinity, as offered by the Father, effected by the Son, and completed by the Spirit, there would be a procession of people climbing that mountain to visit me within a year or two. Real Christian witness is a powerful instrument for influencing others for good. Not only are we the salt of the earth, and are we people who must let our Christian light shine brightly in today's world; we are also the living presence of the all-holy God, because we carry the Spirit of God within our hearts, we are members of the kingdom or the amily of God, and we are God's touch-persons in the lives of others.

I'm sure you know the phrase "street angel, house devil." The first place I have to practise my Christian vocation is within my own home, among my own family. When I was a kid we were praying for the conversion of Russia, or we were collecting pennies for black babies in Africa. That was safe, because it was a good and safe distance from home. Speaking of the various influences and effects of salt and of light, what kind of influence are you having within the circle of your daily living? Are you a life-giving person, who helps preserve and encourage goodness in others, and do you lighten the way and the burdens of others? We can so easily slip into the habit of taking others for granted and, while we would be concerned about atrocities and famine in far-flung places, we could completely overlook those who are closest to us.

There is one dimension of gospel living that we can so easily overlook. "You write a new page of the gospel each day, through the things that you do, and the words that you say. People read what you write, whether faithful or true. What is the gospel according to you?" You yourself are the message. You can say all the lovely words you like, but if you don't believe them, and are not seen to practise them, you are wasting your time. I could preach the gospel even if I were deaf and dumb.

Have you ever come across people who seem to light up a room as soon as they enter it? They are people who are fully human and fully alive. They seem to wear antennae on their heads, because their sensitivity to others will immediately alert them to someone in the room who is Out of sorts, is hurting, or uncomfortable. Because they themselves are fully alive, they transmit life to those around them. In his description of the General Judgement, Jesus has such people asking "Lord, when we see you hungry and clothe you, etc.?" Because of the kind of people they are, they are not conscious of the good they are doing. For them, to act in such a way has become a way of being. Such people are certainly the salt of the earth, and the light of the world.

On 26 November 1965, Time magazine had a story that can give us all food for thought. An electrical fuse, about the size of a bread box, failed, resulting in 80,000 square miles along the US Canadian border being plunged into darkness. All the electrical power for that entire region passed through that single fuse. Without that fuse no power could reach any point in that vast region.

The kingdom of God is built through the accumulation of tiny acts, most of which go unnoticed. We are all, unfortunately, too familiar with people gathering at scenes of atrocities and, as a statement of their abhorrence, they light and carry small candles.

6th Sunday (A)

Free Will and the Divided Self

Christianity - a new way of living

Making good choices

Sign Of Peace

Not like Animal Farm

Sir 15:16-20. A reminder of our individual responsibility before God. "To act faithfully is a matter of your own choice." God has revealed his will and gives each one the grace necessary to keep it.

1 Cor 2:6-10. The Christian trust in the saving power of the cross is a special kind of wisdom; but the cross is understood through faith, even if human philosophy makes no sense of it.

Mt 5:17-37. The commandments given through Moses still remain valid - though Jesus gives them a deeper interpretation.

Theme: At Mass we make the sign of peace to others, immediately before Communion. If we cannot reach out in reconciliation to people in our lives, we cannot reach out to receive Christ.

Sirach 15:15-20

If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water;stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death,and whichever one chooses will be given. For great is the wisdom of the Lord;he is mighty in power and sees everything; his eyes are on those who fear him,and he knows every human action. He has not commanded anyone to be wicked,and he has not given anyone permission to sin.

Ps 119:1f

Happy are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord.

Happy are those who keep his decrees,
who seek him with their whole heart,

You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.

O that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!

Deal bountifully with your servant,
so that I may live and observe your word.

Open my eyes, so that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him," God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Matthew 5:17-37

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you,unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

"It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

"Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Intercessions

- for the grace to act faithfully, according to the will of God, as taught in the Bible, and revealed in our lives.

- that we may become reconciled with any estranged members of our families, and be peacemakers when others have quarrelled.

- that we may take to heart Jesus's high ideals about anger and swearing, marital fidelity and vows.

- that others may be able to rely on our help in their time of need.

Thoughts for 6th Sunday, A

Free Will and the Divided Self

So says the Lord God, "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek 36:26). Here God, using figurative language, is addressing us from out the Old Testament about spiritual realities. I wonder how many of you recall the name Philip Blaiberg. He was the first person ever to receive a new physical heart in a transplant operation carried out by Doctor Christian Barnard (2nd Jan., 1968). He was to live a further 19 months, but during all that time his entire body instinctively, vehemently, and ceaselessly fought to reject the implanted heart, even though without it he had no hope of survival.

This struggle is a picture often of the way our divided yet real self strives to resist the life of Christ in us, the new heart he wants to create in us, that inner spiritual life-source which we too need so absolutely. To allow the vitality and power of Christ become part of us involves pain, and darkness, and mortification, and purification, not because Christ wants to inflict suffering on us, but because the impure and evil elements of our sinful nature do not want to be transformed. "Lord make me pure," Augustine before his conversion used to pray, "but not yet." It was a hard struggle before grace prevailed. The great difference, however, between the reaction of the body to an organ transplant, and this reluctance to put Christ at the centre of our lives, is that you only have to make up your mind finally to follow where God wants to lead you, and it is within your power to travel that path.

The first reading states quite clearly that each person has free will. God does not force his commandments on us, neither is he responsible for the evil which exists in the world. As the reading says in such a thought-provoking and rather frightening way, "Man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better, will be given him." In other words everyone decides the way his/her soul shall go. St Paul, in the second reading, says that the weakness and the foolishness of the Cross were the things that God chose for his Son. And even though these things are a greater stumbling block than ever for our present-day culture, the Cross, nevertheless, is the only way to arrive at all that God has prepared for those who love him.

God's claim to obedience, so well exemplified for us in the person of Jesus Christ, is an absolute, total demand, claiming the whole person, not only in outward action but in one's inner attitudes, in one's heart. So not only is it wrong to cause bodily injury to another; we must not even harbour evil intent, or anger, or contempt against others. This sharpening of the demands of the law, to the point of the seemingly impossible, must have caused dismay among Christ's listeners at the Sermon on the Mount. And when Christ went on to say that not only must they not commit adultery, but that it was possible, by lustful looks alone, to commit adultery in the heart, then the surprise and astonishment among his Jewish audience must have been overwhelming.

But what Christ was saying was that the entertainment of lustful thoughts betokens an interior attitude of extreme selfishness, an attitude which tends to regard another person as an object, a means, of satisfying one's own inordinate and sinful cravings for self-gratification, and that this stands in absolute contrast to the loving desire and respect for each other which those in holy wedlock should have. People outside marriage, and sometimes even married couples, often cite love as a reason for setting aside all moral restraints in their relationship. But, on the contrary, it is a fact that true love does impose restraints, the restraints of consideration for, and respect for, and regard for the dignity and the happiness of the person loved.

Is Christ then demanding the impossible in asking us to extend the constraints of the moral law to our thoughts and imagination also? Is St Paul indeed, when he says, "In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus' (Phil 2:5)? The answer would be yes, it is impossible, but for the saving grace which Christ is always ready to offer us, to help us attain these ideals. "In Christ all things are possible." For he is the one who is our advocate with the Father, the one who pleads with sighs too deep for words, that our sins may be wiped away, and that the holiness and purity of God may shine forth in all we are and do.

Christianity - a new way of living

The wealth of material in the second and third readings makes it difficult to choose a theme, but one possible approach would be to take the corrections of the Old Law as examples of Jesus' approach to morality," not so much for their individual material as for the attitude which they inculcate.

The first (as the sixth, which is read next week) is about love, and in this case rules out negative expressions of love (as the sixth will enjoin the complete positive expression of love.) Jesus forbids here not merely the most extreme form of disregard of the value of another person, in killing him, but also lesser forms of injuring another. What unites the three faults of losing one's temper with another, of contemptuously calling him names and of refusing to forgive him is that in each case the humanity of another person and his feelings are trampled underfoot. The importance of forgiveness is shown by the fact that it in a way takes precedence even over strictly religious duties, and presumably the same degree of priority is to be awarded to the other two matters. So in this case the correction which Jesus makes is that one must respect not simply the legal right to live but also those things which enable someone to live a full life and one of self-respect.

The second correction is strictly on sexual purity, but the principle given is of far wider application, concerning purity of intention in general. A mere legalism which is content when one has not actually committed a crime is utterly insufficient. The violent preventative action of self mutilation has never been understood literally by the Church - particularly not in the case of Origen's self-castration to avoid sexual sins - and is best understood as a parable to express vividly the disastrous effects of sin.

The third correction simply disallows an abuse which was tolerated by the law, that of remarriage after divorce. The exceptive clause has, of course, been a matter of much controversy, but the interpretation which is both philologically most acceptable and the only one consonant with the practice of the Catholic Church is that the word translated here "fornication" in fact means "a marriage prohibited by Jewish laws." The only divorce permitted is one where there is no real marriage, and the correction becomes - as in its original context - a reaffirmation of the sanctity and closeness of the marriage bond, as pronounced in Genesis "the two shall become one flesh" that is one thinking, planning, loving entity.

The fourth correction has not been taken by the Catholic Church (though it has by some other Christians) literally as a prohibition of oaths. It seeks rather to teach that oaths should not be necessary at all. If there is in general an atmosphere of trust and truth-telling the reinforcement provided by oaths is not needed. This it is an atmosphere of openness and mutual confidence which is inculcated.

In short what Jesus teaches by his corrections of the Law is merely a matter of honouring to the full the human values which we find it so difficult to honour.

Making good choices

The first reading suggests the importance of human choice as a theme for a homily. It has been said that we do not make big choices, only a whole series of little ones. The fundamental choice in life according to our first reading is that between fire and water, life and death. That fundamental choice finds concrete expression in the multiple choices of daily life. Each day we try to make choices which are life-giving both for ourselves and others. In the complexities of daily living it is not always easy to discover the way which leads to life. In retrospect, we often realise that we have made bad choices, even though, at the time, we acted in good faith. Both the first and second readings speak about the wisdom of God. We need that wisdom to choose well, a wisdom which comes through the Spirit. Paul reminds us that "the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God." It is the Spirit who enables us to choose "in depth," to make the kind of choices which are most in tune with what is deepes in us and, therefore more life-giving.

Choices which come from what is deepest and best in us will be life-giving, both for ourselves and others. In the gospel reading, Jesus proposes a virtue which goes deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, a virtue in depth, from the heart. If our depths are sound, if the heart is good, then the choices which come from the heart will be good. The converse is also true. If we harbour bitterness in our heart towards someone, we will inevitably make choices which damage and hurt them. If we cultivate envy in our heart towards someone, we will tend to make choices which devalue them. Beyond our behaviour lie our choices and beyond them lies the heart in which our choices are rooted. Only the Spirit who reaches the depths of God can really reach our own depths. It is the Spirit who renews and transforms our heart. "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Rom 5:5.) If we keep on opening our hearts to the Spirit of God's love they will be recreated in his love. Thn our choices will be rooted in love and will have something of the life-giving quality of Jesus himself.

Sign Of Peace

"In just over two hours from now, Nelson Mandela will be released from prison." That is howl began this homily, when I first preached it in Paris on this Sunday the year Mandela was released. He had then been in prison for longer than most of my young congregation had been born, and longer than I had been a priest. His prison silence resounded all over the world. For twenty-seven long years he was not allowed to communicate with the outside world. And yet, his message reached everywhere. Largely due to this one silent victim the system of apartheid was brought to an end. There is a moral here for all of us. Nowadays people labour under the impression that the individual is powerless to change the system. Yet Mandela and history teaches us that this is not so. Even this century has produced individuals like Mahatma Ghandi in India, Martin Luther King in the United States and Andrei Sakharov in Russia, who have done just that.

It is a strange thing about prophets that they never seemed fated to see the promised land. It was the case with Moses who led his people out of slavery in Egypt but died within sight of the promised land. Most have followed a similar pattern. Both Ghandi and Martin Luther King were assassinated before their missions were completed. Sakharov came close but he too died before many of the great changes took place in his country. Mandela was seventy when he was released from prison where he had spent a little less than half his life. He too seemed destined to follow the same course. But he has survived.

It seems almost as if God had another mission for him to accomplish, perhaps even more difficult than the destruction of apartheid, the reconciliation of South Africans. It is an awesome task. He has to reconcile himself with his former gaolers who took away more than twenty-seven of the best years of his life. He has to reconcile his black compatriots with their former white masters. So far, he has made a good beginning. Just five years later, as President of South Africa he attended the opening match of the Rugby World Cup being held there for the first time. He rejoiced in the victory of South Africa over the defending champions, Australia. There was only one black player on the field and he was in the Australian squad. It was a reminder to Mandela, though he hardly needed a reminder, of how thoroughly the system of apartheid had done its job and how hard reconciliation was going to be.

There are areas in all our lives which cry out for reconciliation. There are neighbours who are not on speaking terms and sometimes for years. Even within families, brothers and sisters have fallen out and refuse to make up. Some disputes go so far back, that nobody remembers now what exactly caused them. Yet many carry these ancient grudges with them to the church on Sundays and all the way up to the altar. Which is why the Vatican Council reintroduced the sign of peace into the Mass and placed it just before Communion. It is a symbol of reconciliation. When you shake hands with the person beside you in the pew, you are making up with your alienated neighbour. If you can't stretch out your hand in reconciliation to him, you can't stretch it out to receive Christ in Communion.

So then, if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering.

Not like Animal Farm

Today's gospel contains five teachings of Jesus, on law, anger, adultery, divorce, and vows.

Without wishing to abuse the truth, I recall in general, the main thrust of a book called Animal Farm by George Orwell. There were no rules, no laws, nobody in positions of authority and responsibility. This was to be Utopia, where everything would go along, as things should be, and nobody would dream of upsetting or rocking the boat, and everybody would live happily ever after. Unfortunately, the story doesn't turn out that way. Although the story is about animals, the point of the story is that, without structures, without rules to guide behaviour, without somebody taking responsibility to animate and lead the group, we also can descend into anarchy and self-destruction.

Jesus doesn't want to do away with the law; rather he wants to fulfil it. He does not, however, want the law to become an end in itself. The law is there to serve the people, to guide and protect them, and it must not be used to control them and to oppress them. A man is in court for doing ninety miles an hour through a fifty-mile zone. He has broken a good law, which was put in place to protect, rather that to oppress people. Jesus tells us that all law comes from God and, therefore, for a law to be valid, it must be made for the common good. Jesus is more in favour of a law of love, rather than a love of law.

Whether his teaching has to do with anger, adultery, divorce, etc., what he is really speaking about has to do with love. He lays great stress on forgiveness. That's a powerful word, when he speaks of bringing your gift to the altar, and then you remember that there's someone out there hurting because of you. Leave your gift to one side, go off and be reconciled with that person, and then come back to offer your gift. If we speak about loving God and loving our neighbour, then there must not be any contradiction here. It would surely be a contradiction to be reciting lovely prayers to God, while I'm not speaking to my neighbour. "Whatever you do to the least of these, that's what you do onto me."

He is clear and definite when it comes to giving one's word. There's no need for solemn oaths, etc., if I am a person of my word. This was important to Jesus. "You are either for me or against me. Let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no."" He himself is emphatic about the sincerity of his promises to us. He gives his word, and he says that "heaven and earth will pass away before my word passes away." It is difficult to speak about adultery or divorce. I don't imagine any couple who got married with the intention of getting a divorce later on. I credit them with the highest and best intentions and, as can easily happen, things just don't work out the way they had hoped. No alcoholic ever set out to become an alcoholic. This was something that crept up on him, as it were. Adultery can be wrong on grounds other than morality and sex. It can be a lie, because it can imply a commitment that is not there, and that one party, at least, has no intention of there ever being a commitment. The whole subject of toda's gospel has to do with honesty, integrity, and genuine love.

Response: A sin is a sin. If God wanted a permissive society he would have given us Ten Suggestions instead of Ten Commandments. Having grown up in a church, which had a preoccupation with sin that was bordering on the unhealthy, there is now a danger of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction, to the other extreme, where we lose all sense of sin. I believe that the law of God is written in our hearts in such a way that we know rightly whenever we are wrong. (When I was a child I had a dog that looked guilty after he did something he shouldn't. One look at him and you knew. As you approached him, he lay down, rolled over on his back, expecting to be scolded. If you patted him, he immediately jumped up, and leapt all over you, knowing that all was forgiven.)

We sometimes hear the saying "My word is my bond." It is good to be a person of your word. One of the most insightful comments of Jesus is that "the truth will set you free." The liar has to have a good memory! The facts are always friendly, because they never change. There is a saying of much wisdom which states that "When everything else fails, try the truth, because it always works." The essence of proper communication is to combine total honesty with total kindness. There are times when total honesty can be brutally destructive, and when total kindness can be totally dishonest. It's quite a struggle to get it right. It is an extraordinary gospel principle to strive to become authentic, to become genuine, to live and to speak the truth. Because original sin had to do with a lie, the antidote, the antibiotic for that is the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus calls "The Spirit of Truth."

Sin, by definition, is a lie. Whether it is adultery, perjury, or self-righteous adherence to law, it can masquerade as virtue, as truth, as something other than the reality. Sin is not so much an act as the reason or motive behind the act. I could visit someone in hospital today because I feel sorry for him; or I could visit him because I want to rejoice in the fact that he is suffering. I could do the same thing for different reasons.

I must confess to being caught in a bind with today's gospel. It contains clear and definite teaching from Jesus, so that must surely merit our full intention. I myself, however, cannot bring myself to proclaim any Sort of blanket condemnation of adultery, divorce, etc., and that bothers me in a way. Over the years I have known people who have been divorced, involved in adulterous relationships, etc., and I have known them to be good people. It is difficult to condemn the sin without running the risk of judging and condemning the sinner. Most people that I know are quite aware of what's right and what's wrong. I don't think you can legislate morality. There is an in-built barometer in the human spirit that instinctively informs us when we're right or wrong. The biggest lies I tell in life are the ones I tell myself. I will never be honest with you or with anyone else until I become honest with myself.

Today's gospel has a lot to do with honesty and integrity. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of Truth. Only the truth will set me free. It is a wonderful thing to strive to be authentic and genuine: to be a person of my word. That, of course, must begin with myself because, as I have already said, the greatest lies I tell in life are the ones I tell myself. To paraphrase a sentence from Shakespeare, "Be true to yourself, and then you won't be untrue to others."

One of the most practical things I can do today is to check on my relationships, to ensure that I am not in a totally contradictory situation as I approach the altar. I often think that others should hear me say "I'm sorry; please forgive me" more than God does.

There would never be a war or, indeed, there might never be a divorce, if somebody somewhere was prepared to say "I'm sorry. I was wrong." It may sound simple, but it's difficult for some people to admit to being wrong. In fact, our own pride can often blind us to the fact that we are wrong, and we fail to see things as they are. It's a wonderful freedom to be able to face up to the truth and, when we are wrong, to promptly admit it.

One of the great wonders of the world is the Great Wall of China. It is said to be the only landmark on earth that is visible from the moon. It was built as a protection against invasion from neighbouring enemies. After that entire mammoth endeavour, someone bribed the gatekeeper, who opened the gates and allowed the enemy through! So much for human endeavour!

The Christian life is a sign that should be seen from far and near. It is a sign of contradiction, of course, in that it insists there is another way of living than living with the values of a materialistic world. The only way to preach this message is to live it. "You write a new page of the gospels each day, by the things that you do, and the words that you say. People read what you write, whether faithful or true. What is the gospel according to you?'

7th Sunday (A)

Leviticus 19:1ff

Ps 103:1ff

1 Corinthians 3:16-23

Matthew 5:38-48

Not Vengeful

Encompassing Compassion

Christian response to violence

Eye For An Eye

The Toughest Test

Lev 19:1-2, 17-18. God calls each believer to love his neighbour as himself. They were to be tolerant and not vengeful towards each other.

1 Cor 3:16-23. The Church, the body of believers, is the temple of God. "All things are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's."

Mt 5:38-48. All the teaching about love and mercy in the Sermon on the Mount is summed up in this ideal: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Theme: We are naturally resentful of those who do us wrong. But unresolved hatred can come between us and our loving God. He wants us to be more forgiving, like him.

Leviticus 19:1ff

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt youself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.

Ps 103:1ff

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits -
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him

1 Corinthians 3:16-23

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are.

Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written,

"He catches the wise in their craftiness,"
and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."

So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apol'los or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

Matthew 5:38-48

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Intercessions

- for the grace to overcome our resentments, and have compassion towards all, in imitation of God.

- that we may see beyond the temptation to seek revenge on those who have hurt us, and recognize their hurts and weakness too.

- for the grace, somehow, by the help of God, to really love our enemies.

- that at some deep level we may seek to be perfect, loving people as God loves them, unconditionally.

Thoughts for 7th Sunday, A

Not Vengeful

In the teaching of the catechism, about a generation ago, there was a much-used image of God symbolised by an ever-watchful eye, with a warning finger in front of it, and written underneath, the words, "God sees you." It may well have been an attempt to express visually the feelings of job in the Old Testament, where he became obsessed and frightened by the thought that God was scrutinising his every action. "Will you never take your eyes off me, long enough for me to swallow my spittle?," he cried (Job 7:19). Or it could have been an illustration of a saying in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, "Their ways are always under his eye, they cannot be hidden from his sight" (17:15).

But such a concept of God, instead of drawing souls to him, can also have disastrous results, as for example in the person of the French writer and philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). He stated in his autobiography that, in the middle of an innocent boyhood prank, he suddenly realised that, in his own words, "God sees me." And this so frightened him that, by deliberate choice, he cursed God, and became a bitter atheist for the rest of his life. In his writings, for part of which he refused the offer of a Nobel Prize, he painted a picture of man as a responsible but lonely human being adrift in a meaningless world, with a terrifying freedom to choose, that brought with it anguish or enduring anxiety. But God, from whom we come and to whom we go, instead of fixing a cold and calculating eye on us, bestows life and joy and, if we but have faith in him, a sense of being cared for - cared for, not because of what we do, or indeed the choices we make, but for our own sakes. God, we might say, even turn a blid eye on our faults, as shown by the Parable of the Prodigal Son; he is indiscriminating in his compassion; he is a Father who is prodigal in his forgiveness.

Never should we see God as a threat to our lives. Rather does he want us to live, to grow, to come to maturity and fulfilment. To err is human; to forgive divine, and this readiness to forgive is the unique attribute of our God. "Father forgive them," Christ prayed for his executioners, "because they know not what they do." As the gospel points out, God treats all alike. He causes the sun to rise on the bad people as well as the good, his rain - a blessing in parched Israel - to fall on honest and dishonest alike.

And in our attitudes too, Christ tells us, there must be no spite, no hatred, no vindictiveness towards others. "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," he tells us. "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy," the first reading says. Strange as it may seem, the principle of "an eye for an eye" was not a barbaric practice, but rather a call to the people of the Old Testament to exercise restraint towards those from whom they differed. It became known as the Law of Recompense or Retaliation (Lex talionis). But if we read the story of the creation in the book of Genesis, we see how quickly the disorders in society, caused by sin, spread after the fall of our first parents, recounted in chapter three. Chapter four describes for us the first murder; and the spirit of hatred and feuding between families and clans that spread amongst mankind is exemplified by the reference to Lamech saying in the same chapter: "I killed a man for wounding me, a boy for striking me. Sevenfold vengeance is taken for Cain,ut seventy-seven-fold for Lamech."

The pursuit of such vendettas - which by the way we have witnessed in our own times also in the wiping out of whole villages, even cities, by way of retaliation - brings about the virtual collapse of society. We have seen it in our own country, in the sectarian violence promoted in the name of religion, in the collapse of the fabric of community life within certain areas of our cities, with the resulting unhappiness and longing to get away from it all on the part of many. It is striking how quickly even the first Christian communities became divided and partisan, some taking Paul's side, others that of Apollos, and so on, as described in the second reading from the Letter to the Corinthians. But tensions, it can be said also, seem to give more purpose to a community. They oblige people to spend more time in prayer, in dialogue, in working at the restoration of unity. "As the Lord has forgiven you," St Paul warns, "so you also must forgive. Put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And le the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (Col 3:12-18).

Encompassing Compassion

(1) Others had said: "do not do to others what you would not have them do to you." That is perhaps the basic law of manners and politeness. Jesus, characteristically, goes beyond this: Do to others.. The Christian ethic is positive. It goes beyond "Thou shalt not.." to "Do..." It is activist. There is the story of the man who appeared at the gate of heaven asking to be let in. St Peter asked him why he thought he should be let in. The man answered: "my hands are clean." "Yes," answered Peter, "but they are empty!'

(2) The Christian ethic always asks for more. Many people are puzzled and confused because Christian moral guides are sometimes slow to lay down a clear minimum which people must achieve to be justified. But Jesus asks for more. "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" What is so special about that? Jesus asks for extra. We told his disciples: "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Yet with those who tried and failed he was full of sympathy and compassion. He will never say "enough," but he will not reject anyone who has failed and comes back to him.

(3) Some people see life in terms of dog eating dog. David had his chance to kill his enemy before his enemy killed him, as Saul fully intended to do. But he held back and he would not take Saul's life. The temptation to violence is an easy one. The world is full of wars and violent confrontations. We yield too readily to our instincts of aggression, whether it is the great aggression where nation confronts nation in a balance of terror, or violent confrontations between groups of citizens, or violence in the home. Education in peaceful means of solving interpersonal and intercommunal difficulties is one of the greatest needs of our age. The way is open to Christians to start to learn more about non-violent means of solving conflicts and becomes peacemakers.

(4) Compassion is the characteristic of God - even of the "Old Testament God" whom many commentators, following some early Christian heretics, like to portray as harsh and cruel. Our psalm, which comes from the Old Testament emphasises that God is not the seeker of vengeance that many people imagine him to be. He is not waiting and anxious to punish each and every fault, but he is concerned only to remove our sins and to make us one with him.

(5) God's love and goodness, his desire not to reject or to lose us, is shown most powerfully in what he has done for us in his Son Jesus Christ. He has made us into a new creation. He wishes to join us with him for an eternity of fulfilment and happiness. God's compassion for sinful and unhappy humanity is the model of our compassion. St Matthew had said: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Ch. 5:48.) St John said: "God is love" (1 John 4:7.) St Luke's report of Jesus' words is: "Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate."

Christian response to violence

(Andrew McGrady)

One might examine the dominant issue of the Christian response to violence. In many parts of the world Christians are involved in conflict situations with other Christians,, or with others who worship God - Central America, Northern Ireland, Southern Africa and Beirut are obvious instances. In our homes, the mass media daily present a diet of violence as an essential part of many entertainment programmes. Violence is presented as a socially acceptable, valid, problem solving approach by the media. It is legitimate for the preacher to reflect upon why we should find watching violent acts entertaining? No society or individual is free from the blight of violence, be it terrorism, war, vandalism, or the pollution of media violence portrayed as entertainment.

Jesus himself preached during the Roman occupation of his country. Notice the reference in the Gospel to the hated tax-collectors who gathered the taxes for the occupying Romans, and the reference to the right of the Roman soldier to ask any person he met to carry his pack one mile for him. Existing Jewish law allowed an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Violence was to be met with a proportionate retaliation. It often seems today that the position in Jewish law is that followed by international politics; nuclear weapons are stock-piled on a proportionate basis; so-called peace rests upon the threat of immediate retaliation; terrorists commit new atrocities to avenge inflicted atrocities; super-powers retaliate against smaller countries claiming that their actions of force will put an end to terror. In presenting the new law of the Kingdom of God Jesus rejected all of this. Violence is not to be responded to with violence. His words in the Gospel may seem to imply a passive acceptance of violence and opression. This is not the case. Christians do not pretend that violence does not exist within society, they oppose violence passionately, with a willingness to give up even their own lives if necessary, but they do not meet violence with violence. Violence and hate are to be opposed with love and forgiveness; strength with apparent weakness. The Christian is one who strives for reconciliation. People in our own times, such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King, have shown the power of Jesus' conviction in this regard.

A homily based on the Second Reading could focus on the unique dignity of the baptised Christian and the definition of Christian ministry as service. Paul writes to a divided church at Corinth, a church pre-occupied not with the Gospel but with arguments over who should be regarded as the greatest among the teachers of the Gospel message. Paul responds to the crisis by appealing to the dignity of the faithful as temples of the Spirit of God. In a marvellous sentence towards the end of the text he states, "Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life and death, the present and the future, all are your servants, but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God."

Christians have great dignity as sisters and brothers of Christ, daughters and sons of God. Those who minister to the Christian community are to serve believers aware of their dignity.

Eye For An Eye

The old cowboy films of my boyhood Sundays had a scene that always intrigued me. In the bar-room shoot-out, the crook, beaten to the draw, tottered to the floor, riddled with bullets. As the gunman turned away, the dying crook weakly raised his gun and fired a last shot into the gunman's back. Then he slumped back and died, almost contentedly, a wisp of smoke spiralling from his gun and a flicker of a smile on his face. Sweet revenge!

I accepted all this then as part of the Western fantasy-world. I know better now. Life is full of people with chips on their shoulders, real or imaginary, all waiting for a chance to get their own back. They carry their scars through life, refusing to let them heal until they have settled accounts. Feuds, vendettas and - grudges are nurtured in parishes, in streets and even in families.

Some are even passed down from one generation to the next. A colossal amount of human energy and ingenuity is expended on settling old scores and exacting vengeance. The lex talionis - "an eye for eye and tooth for tooth" - is alive and well and thriving in every human environment, but nowhere more so than in the in dustrial world. Management singles out troublemakers for redundancy. Blacklists are kept. Workers know where and when to call a lightening strike and who in management is to be sacri ficed. Even in the corridors of power, in the velvet setting of plush boardrooms, the knives are long and sharp and are slipped between pin-striped shoulder-blades almost with a smile.

Honour is always at stake when the God of vengeance is invoked. "Getting one's own back" is raised to the level of a virtue in our world. The injured party could never hold its head up again if the injury is not repaid. Loved ones too are invoked. We owe it to our wives and children. "Getting even" becomes an obsession. "I'll fix him if it is the last thing I do." Shades of the prostrate crook and his smoking six-shooter! The world has nothing but contempt for the one who "turns the other cheek." He is a weakling. "He took it lying down." It goads us on to vengeance. "Don't let them get away with it."

The Bible tells us otherwise. The Lord said to Moses: "You must not exact vengeance, nor must you bear a grudge against the children of your people." What is refreshing about today's gospel is that it recognises us as we are, full of pettiness, exacting hurt for hurt, trading blow for blow. We all have enemies who persecute us. Letting them get away with it is not easy. Loving them is a call to perfection.

"You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

The Toughest Test

Today's gospel has Jesus teaching about what is generally accepted as being the hallmark of the Christian, i.e. forgiveness and love. In one way it is nice, in a gentle or sweet way while, in another, it is among the toughest teachings in the whole gospel.

Gordon Wilson captured the hearts of the Irish nation some years ago when his daughter, Marie, was killed in a horrific terrorist explosion in Enniskillen. It was "Poppy Day," an annual day when the British remembered those killed in the two World Wars. There was a monument in Enniskillen and Gordon and his daughter Marie were there with thousands of others for a service of commemoration. Suddenly a bomb went off right in the middle of the crowd, and the results were devastating, and the carnage was horrific. Marie took the full force of the blast, and for some time Gordon and herself were beneath the pile of rubble and bodies, while he spoke to her, and she herself actually uttered several words. She died, however, as they clung to each other. Right from the moment that Gordon Wilson was rescued from the rubble, he spoke of forgiveness for the people who had planted the bomb, and he asked for prayers for them. In his eyes, they were the ones to be pitied. He figured prominently in the Irish and English media He crossed the divide to speak to those "on the other side" of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and he offered his services as a mediator in any way that would help to bring reconciliation and peace. Because of his work for peace, and because of the glowing example of his powerful Christian witness, the Irish Government nominated him to be a member of the Senate. He worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation, right up to his death a few years ago.

The first thing I can say about today's gospel is that its teaching goes directly against everything that Jesus was taught as a child. With the Jews it was "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Your enemy was just that and no more, and was always to be treated as your enemy. Such a person could expect nothing else but your hatred and opprobrium for the rest of his life. Their system of justice was arbitrary and ruthless, as we witness in gospel stories where the woman was being stoned to death, or when Jesus himself was crucified. The teaching of today's gospel is diametrically opposed to all of that.

Christianity does not ask me to become a doormat, or some sort of rag-doll that everybody can kick around the place. It doesn't ask me to become a wimp. Through the power of God's Spirit in me, I am asked to become extraordinarily strong, because it requires great strength of character, and great single minded resolve to be able to forgive, or to turn the other cheek. Just think of the trouble many of us have in loving our friends! Today we are asked to forgive our enemies. I must never forget that, by myself and of myself, I just don't have what it takes to do what Jesus asks me to do. More about that later.

Jesus speaks of his Father in heaven as being a model for our loving. We are all children of God. He loves all of us equally. He loves us because he is good and, because God is love, he is not capable of loving anyone of us less than 100%. Just think what a wonderful world it would be if all of us could be inspired with such love. We ask the Holy Spirit to "enkindle within us the fires of divine love." There is a lot of talk today about role models, and how important it is for the young to have people in their lives who live out the ideals and principles one hopes to instil in them. Certainly, as Christians, we have the role model par excellence, both in Jesus and in his Father.

Response: I'm sure most of us, upon hearing today's gospel, are faced with people and with situations to which this gospel speaks directly. That's okay. No point in going on a guilt-trip. That's not what Jesus has in mind. He holds up to us the ideal, the call, and he offers us the power to be able to respond to that call; and then he is patient in awaiting our reply. There are times when the hurts are too deep, and the experience is too recent, to be able to even consider forgiveness. I have often come across people, and the best they could pray for was a willingness to want to forgive. That's a good start. God can work miracles for those of goodwill.

"If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even the pagans do that." Today's gospel asks us to take that extra step, to walk that extra mile. Because of our own struggles, and because of our perception of church as being pre-occupied with rules, morality, and high moral ground teaching, we can easily overlook the simplicity of the gospel message. There are many people who would have no adherence to church, or to any form of structured religion, and yet who are totally enamoured and deeply struck by the simple message of Jesus. In a world of violence, revenge killings, and deep-rooted hatred, they dream of what things would be like if people listened to, and heeded the message of the gospel.

Jesus taught us one simple prayer. All Christians of all persuasions recite this prayer. In it, we call God "Father" and, in fact we call him "Our Father." Over the years this prayer has continued to be said� by churches of various denominations, even if they wouldn't dare to have any association with each other. It is often recited in a church where one member is not on speaking terms with another. Over the past year alone, on separate occasions I witnessed two husbands being supported at the graveside of their murdered wives, as they almost swooned with grief, only to read in the papers some days later that each of them had been arrested and charged with the murder. I know this may be an extreme example, but I use it deliberately to shock us into reflecting on what we do.

When it comes to the practicalities of today's gospel, there is little need for me to be specific. I'm sure every single one of us can concretise today's gospel into some definite situation. "To err is human, to forgive is divine." When it comes to forgiveness, this is one area where we really need the Spirit to enter and to act. It requires a heart, which we may not possess to be able to forgive and forget. Gordon Wilson, of whom I spoke earlier, was, indeed, a man of God. He was seen as such, and was spoken of as such by every person who knew him, or who knew of him.

In the beatitudes, Jesus speaks of the power of the meek, and the gentle. The bully cannot deal with the person who won't strike back. The only way the world could stop Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King was to shoot them. They had a power, through their peaceful resistance and unwillingness to strike back, that threatened the might of the oppressor. It was Herod and the helpless baby all over again.

When I forgive someone, I set both of us free. There is extraordinary freedom in having a forgiving heart. Year after year we watch scenes of horror on our screens, in what is sometimes called ethnic cleansing, and often called genocide. This is the outcome of hatred, which comes Out of a total unwillingness to forgive. What strikes us most, as we watch these horrors unfold on our screens, is the fact that it is the innocent who suffer most. Supposing the television set took control of the camera, and turned it on us, and followed us all around the house, what pictures would we be projecting from our own kitchens and living rooms?

In the old days there was a reliable way of catching monkeys in Africa. A hole was scooped out of a tree, and some nuts were placed in the hole. The monkey came along, discovered the nuts, and grabbed a fist of them, only to discover that, with his fist full of nuts, he was unable to withdraw his paw. Extraordinary as it may seem, the monkey was so intent on getting the nuts that he would not let go of them, as the hunters approached, and threw a net over him!

Today's gospel speaks of letting go, of resentments, unforgiveness, etc. There is extraordinary freedom in being big enough to forgive, and to let go of grudges.

8th Sunday (A)

Let Tomorrow Take Care Of Itself

Our Priorities

Is 49:14-16. God's love is like a woman's compassion for the child of her womb. We are "carved on the palm of his hand."

1 Cor 4:1-5. The Apostles get their authority from God, not from the community. They remain responsible to be "stewards of the mysteries of God."

Mt 6:24-34. Jesus calls us to radical trust in our heavenly Father. Deep down, we are not worry about our life, or clothing; for all our needs will be supplied by merciful Providence.

Theme: Too many lives are blighted by constant worry. Today's gospel encourages us not to worry about tomorrow but to trust in God's providence.

Isaiah 49:14-16

But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me." Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

Ps 62:1ff

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;

1 Corinthians 4:1-5

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

Matthew 6:24-34

"No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

Intercessions

- that our trust in God will rid us of anxieties, fears and complexes.

- that we may know and accept the revealed truth, that we are "carved on the palm of his hand."

- for all those who suffer nervous breakdowns that they will find peace of mind in God's love.

- that we may grow in the conviction that, in God's providence, "all manner of things will be well."

Thoughts for 8th Sunday, A

How Not to Worry?

Although it is impossible for us to penetrate to the inner make-up of the mind of Jesus, we can nevertheless gain insights into it from meditating on passages of the New Testament, such as today's gospel reading. "I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food and the body more than clothing. Set your heart first on the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So don't worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for each day are the things that go wrong on that day." From all these sayings, and from the recorded events of his public mission, the thing which strikes us especially is the absence of constraint in the life of Christ. He seemed to pass as free as the wind through all our man-made structures of duty and obligation. He steadily disobeyed the demands of what we regard as self-interest and self-preservation. His whole mannr of life, and even more so his manner of dying, was a challenge to necessity, to the order of toil, hunger, passions, the struggle against nature, the struggle to hang on to life. Christ confounded his critics by conforming to no set pattern.

For a few brief years he emerged from his hidden existence in Nazareth, and became a wandering preacher, without a purse, often without a place to lay his head. He expected people to lend him a boat, or a beast to ride on, with as little hesitation as he himself was prepared to give to them his coat or his cloak, should the need so arise. His sternest reprimand for his Apostles was reserved for Peter who counselled caution in the face of danger to his life. For him, even death was not a necessity. "I lay down my life for my sheep. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will" (Jn 10:15, 18). His entire preaching and career was a denial of the easy notion, held by the rich and healthy, that people get their deserts in this life.

It did not worry him that he was criticised for consorting openly with publicans and sinners, the despised ones of Jewish society. By so doing, he is telling us that people do not have to be good for God to accept them. God bestows his gifts freely. He is, under no constraint to distribute them in the manner of wages by way of reward for good behaviour. Even while the human race was still in sin, God loved it, by sending his own divine Son to redeem it. The secret of Christ's influence on people with whom he came in contact was, perhaps, the unmistakable difference between him and all others, the fact that although he was in this world, he appeared to be motivated and governed by values nowhere found in it. He was beyond comparison with others, nor did he try and offer concrete proof of his credentials, like the prophets of the Old Testament.

Nevertheless, people of all kinds were drawn to him, men, women, children, tax collectors, even people of ill repute in society, and he showed concern for all, something Jewish rabbis never did. Although he humbly said, "Happy is the one who does not take offence at me" (Mt 11:6), he was always in control of every situation. He could see through the remarks of his opponents, refute their objections, answer their questions, or force them into answering them themselves, with the result that even the Scribes, as St Luke remarks (20:40), dared not ask him any further questions. As to ordinary people, so great were the numbers drawn to him, to listen to him, to be cured of their illnesses, or just to witness the miracles worked by him, that he had to take his disciples aside to rest awhile.

St Matthew, in today's gospel, says that whether we are rich or poor, whether we are good or bad, whatever the activity we are engaged in, our lives are intended to bear witness to the supreme generosity, love, and freedom of the providence of God which watches over all of us. Our spirits, then, must always be free to reach out to God, and not become bogged down by concern for purely material needs, the daily demands of life. Because if we become engrossed in the provision of the necessities of life, we can, so easily, lose sight of the value of life itself. This does not mean that we should never take all the necessary steps for the prudent handling of life. But worry must not cloud out our vision of life's meaning. Each day should be lived as it comes, each task fulfilled as it appears, and then the sum of all our days will enable us to partake finally of the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Images of God

One may choose to develop the image of God as mother. This an image that can relate to the plight of others. It has to do with comforting and consoling them. To meet those needs is to image our God as mother.

In the first reading Yahweh functions as another. This is an image that can relate to the plight of others. It has to do with comforting and consoling them. To meet those needs is to image our God as mother.

In the first reading Yahweh functions as a mother. The situation in exile is not simply one of warfare logistics that result in the displacement of people. Rather, Yahweh's child feels abandoned and neglected. With the most profound feelings of maternal concern Yahweh is committed to provide for her child. If other mothers could possibly forget their children, still this is totally inconceivable for the God of Israel. To call Yahweh mother is to conjure up the following: tenderness, comfort, sustenance.

To be sure, Matthew speaks in this passage about God as "the heavenly Father." However, he also mentions those chores that we specifically the tasks of the mother and wife, e.g., cooking, fetching water, and providing clothing. While Matthew stresses the gospel priority ("Seek first"), he does not neglect presenting the concerns of God as mother. Because God is also mother, she acknowledges that her charge is to obtain food, water, and clothing. (See Exod 16:4-15; 17:1-7 where Mother Yahweh meets the needs of her family in the desert.) The Needs of the community are not neglected by Mother Yahweh.

One may elect to point out particular problems in the community that call for particular attention in terms of concern and relief. One may want to show that the community must recognise the problem as its problem and then with motherly concern address the issue. To meet such challenges is to image our God as mother.

One may choose to link this theme with the celebration of Eucharist. Eucharist has its setting in a meal where the needs of the family are central. (See Prov 9:1-6, where Lady Wisdom functions as hostess.) Eucharist implies that to be nourished at the table is to nourish others in different settings. Eucharist demands that we develop a sense of compassion and caring for the community. To reach out to others is grounded in the celebration of Eucharist. To that extent Eucharist speaks of God as mother and challenges all believers to adopt this manner of maternal concern.

Trust not in riches

The danger of riches is a theme which recurs again and again in the gospels, in the story of the rich young man who half wishes to be a disciple, in the parable of the camel and the eye of the needle, and, perhaps most ominously of all, in the parable of the rich fool who builds more barns and settles down to enjoy his wealth, only to be summoned by God that night. One of the risks of wealth which is most stressed, and has been stressed throughout the Old Testament and particularly in the message of the prophets, is the responsibility which wealth carries with it, the danger of selfishness and the responsibility of using riches for the good of those in need.

But more prominent in this gospel passage is the danger of the rich man putting his trust in wealth rather than in God, of wealth taking for him the position which God should have. In the synoptic gospels faith is primarily a matter of putting one's trust in God and in Christ. So in the miracles of healing it is often stressed that the cure is a response to the sufferer putting all his trust and confidence in Jesus' powers. The definition of a disciple is "one of these little ones who put their trust in me" (Mt. 18:6), that is, have no pretensions for themselves but leave everything to Christ. The reproach "men of little faith" is addressed to the disciples not when they lack understanding but when they are frightened through lack of trust in Jesus, in the storm on the lake and when Peter's heart fails him as he walks to Jesus over the water, or simply when they are afraid that Jesus will let them go hungry. The prime commitment to Jesus is, then, not a matter of asserting anything about him such as his divin nature, but simply of putting oneself in his hands as the unique saviour. From this wealth is a temptation since it may persuade the rich man that he can get all he wants for himself simply by purchase, not realising how much he is missing but on.

It is here that the fatherly and motherly love of God mentioned and commented on in the first reading plays its part, for the reliance on God is the reliance which a child has on its father, a simplicity of trust in an all-powerful and all-loving protector, who can be relied on to provide everything we need.

Let Tomorrow Take Care Of Itself

I was taking a stroll one summer's evening in Paris. I am a creature of habit and I usually followed the same route. Down Mont Sainte Genevieve as far as the Seine, cross over the bridge to Isle St Louis and return home to the Latin Quarter via Boulevard St Michel. An old man once advised me always to take a circular route as every step outwards is a step homewards. That evening I made a slight diversion to pass by an Irish pub where I had to leave a message. Just as I was heading up the narrow rue des Boulangers, where the Irish pub was situated, I was faintly aware of a young man walking almost parallel to me in the middle of the street. Suddenly, he swung round and began to attack me. He held me by my jacket and struck me with his fist several times. I cannot remember the details clearly as I was deep in thought when it happened and deeply shocked when it was over. I thought his fist landed three times but when I counted the bruises the following morning, they were five. I never struck back. I must be a paifist deep down or too long a priest. He knocked me to the ground. I began to shout "Help!" and then, realising I was in Paris, I changed to "au s�cours!" I was only ten yards from the pub where I could see a face peering out at me.

Frightened by my screams, my assailant took off. I picked myself up, dusted myself down - the two buttons had been wrenched off my jacket - and with all the dignity I could muster, I walked into the pub. When I recounted my story there, the owner of the face at the window told me he heard the shouting and when he looked out he saw what he took to be a drunk lying on the Street. What a shoddy end it might have been for the Irish chaplain in Paris! It was the only time I was ever mugged. Ever since I have been looking over my shoulder.

One thing is sure, somebody up there was looking after me.

As Isaiah puts it:

Does a woman forget a baby at the breast?
or fail to cherish the son of her womb?

Yet even if these forget,

I will never forget you.

We are afraid of something all of the time and of everything some of the time. We are afraid of failure. We are afraid of letting others down and of being let down ourselves by others. We are afraid to love somebody because we are afraid they will not love us. We are afraid of losing our jobs, our health, our security, our grip. We are afraid of growing old and of dying. Most of all we are afraid of being afraid.

It is like a plague that nobody can escape. Everybody suffers from it. It mars the development of children. It torments adolescents. It affects newly-weds. It ravages those in their forties and it haunts the old. Adolescence and the forties are regarded as the crisis years. It-comes in a wide variety of forms. Nervousness, stress, tension, pressure, anxiety. It manifests itself in countless ways from a nervous tic to a nervous breakdown. Or as in my case now, a tendency to look over my shoulder at every shadow in the street.

In today's gospel Christ wants to reassure us:

So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?" It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Our Priorities

Today's gospel is about getting our priorities right. If we believe what Jesus tells us then, surely, we have no reason to worry about anything. St Paul tells us, "Having given us Christ Jesus, will the Father not surely give us everything else?'

Catholics of my generation would be familiar with the rosary, and the part it played in our formative years. Rosary beads were always hanging somewhere near the fireplace, and our grannies never seemed to leave them out of their hands. There is another set of beads, available today, which are called "worry beads." These beads are also worked through the fingers, one after another, the big difference being that there is no prayer being said. This is intended as some sort of distracting pre-occupation for those who are anxious or worried. Both sets of beads represent two ways of dealing with worry. One is to pray about it, and the other is to continue to worry about it. Today's gospel challenges Christians as to which beads they should use.

There is a great difference between being rich and being wealthy. I could be rich, and yet have no money. Of all the false gods we can have, money is the most popular. If wealth could bring happiness, then all wealthy people would be happy; but that is not so. I could lose myself and my soul to wealth, and end up knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Jesus tells us in today's gospel that we cannot serve God and money. He is not saying that we should not have money, that money is evil, or that it is incompatible with being a Christian. The problem arises when I come to answer the question, "What is it that you love with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind?" To that question some people could answer "God," while others would answer "Money." It is in this situation that Jesus says, "you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money."

Life is a gift from God and, with the gift, comes whatever it takes to live it. This may seem a contradiction when we think of the starving millions around the world, who have nothing to eat. It may not be of any great consolation to them to know that there is actually enough food in today's world for everybody. The real problem is that, while one half the world is dying of hunger, the other half is on a diet, trying to lose weight. If those who have, heeded today's gospel, then the awful imbalance and injustice would be rectified.

God is the Creator of the universe, and that includes the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Jesus refers to this when he wants to remind us of how God creates, and continues to take responsibility for his creation. Because of the fact that we have the gift of reason, however, we have a great advantage over the birds and the lilies. We have choices, and we can make decisions. Our heavenly Father knows our needs, and all we have to do is to trust him, and to seek to live in his kingdom, and "everything else will be added to us." Jesus taught his disciples one simple, short prayer. In it he told them to ask each day for what they need that day. Nothing more. Today's gospel ends with the words, "don't worry about tomorrow. Today's troubles are enough for today."

Response: Again and again in the gospel we are faced with decisions. The tendency of many people, when it comes to religion, is to begin some kind of discussion. Jesus is interested in decisions, not discussions. To put it simply, Jesus is either telling me the truth, or he's the greatest con artist that ever lived! He is challenging us to make up our mind about him and his message. If I say the Our Father in the morning, when I ask for my daily bread, and then continue to worry for the rest of the day, then I am faced with a decision: I should either stop saying the Our Father, or stop worrying!

When I was growing up, I thought of false gods as being huge golden statues, with people bowing profoundly before them. I no longer think that way, thank God! There are false gods all around me. For one person it's money, for another it's power, and for someone else it's fame, and the good life. AU trends in stock markets, political polls, or the latest fashions, are followed with slavish intensity. These gods claim complete control and absolute obedience. They rule the lives of people and, indeed, they often ruin the lives of people. There is an empty space within, there is a hole in the human heart, and that can never be filled by any or all of these false gods. Jesus tells us that we cannot serve two masters.

When Moses asked God what his name was, he was told "I am who am." God is totally a God of now. That is why Jesus speaks of the foolishness of worrying about tomorrow. In the only prayer he taught us, he told to ask for our daily bread, just what I need for today. There is a difference between what I need and what I want. We are all aware of things that we want, but don't really need. If God were cruel and sadistic, he would give me everything I ask for, and then have a good laugh! I often ask God for things that are not for my own good. Because God always answers prayers, there are times when the answer has to be no.

There are people who seem to be born worriers. They are always waiting on the other shoe to fall. If things are going well, it is the calm before the storm. For some of these people, this has become a way of life, and it is unlikely that they will change. Some of them, however, do get counselling and develop enough determination to decide that they have had enough. They have become sick and tired of being sick and tired. It is at such a moment that they may be ready to fall on their knees and hand the whole burden over to God. It is at such a moment, also, of course, that the miracle happens, and they find a life beyond their wildest dreams.

The only real sin I can commit, as a Christian, is not to have hope. St.Peter writes, "Always have an explanation to give to those who ask you the reason for the hope that you have." St Paul writes, "Having given us Christ Jesus, will the Father not surely give us everything else?" I need to be constantly reminded, of course, that faith is a response to love, and it is only the work of the Spirit within my heart that enables me take Jesus and his promises seriously. I'm talking here about prayer. Prayer that is a cry from the heart, and not a whole string of words read from a book. It is not possible for a human being to fall on her face, cry out to God, and not be heard.

If I could make today's gospel my own, it would totally transform my life. All great evangelists, founders and saints, whether canonised or not, were people of solid faith. It was never a question of clenched fist, rugged jaw, or gritted teeth. Their faith was not in their own faith. They were able to stand back, get out of the way, and watch the Lord at work. It was like Mary at Cana. She didn't work the miracle, but she knew that Jesus could and would, if his help was sought. Jesus didn't go around healing anybody. He went around with the power to heal, and the person on the roadside had a decision to make. "Do you believe that I can do this?" The answer, on occasions, was "I believe, Lord; help my unbelief. Lord increase my faith." I remind you again of the words of Jesus on another occasion "The sin of this world is unbelief in me. When the Son of Man comes will he find any faith on this earth?'

The father decided to take the baby for a stroll through the park in the pushchair. It was a nice day, so he was enjoying the stroll. There was a football match on, so he decided to watch it for a while. He got so involved in the action that he lost complete account of time, and it was the sudden screaming of the baby that brought him back to reality. He looked at his watch, and was horrified to discover that it was over an hour past the baby's feeding time. He headed off, while the baby continued to scream. He kept saying, "Okay, Donald, you're okay, we'll be home in a minute. Calm down, Donald. You're doing well, Donald. You'll be home in a few minutes." There was an old lady sitting on the park bench, and she overheard the conversation. She approached the pushchair, looked into the pram, rubbed the baby's cheek, and said, "Stop crying, Donald. Your dad is good and he is taking good care of you." To which the father replied, "Excuse me, mam, but his name is Leslie, and my name is Donald."

I cannot be a peacemaker in the lives of others if I don't have peace within my own heart. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

9th Sunday (A)

Relevance of the Commandments

The Will Of The Father

Three Houses

Deut 11:18,26-28,32. "Put these words of mine in your heart and soul." If God's people observe the commandments their obedience will bring a blessing; if not, their rebellion will bring a curse.

Rom 3:21-25, 28. The way to God for everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike, is through free grace, not through our own achievements.

Mt 7:21-27. An empty profession of faith, without good works, is worthless for salvation. It is not the person who says 'Lord, Lord' who will enter heaven, but the one who does the will of God.

Theme: It is not enough to worship God just by going to Mass on Sunday. We must sincerely try to do the will of the eternal Father. The divine will is for us to show care and concern for others.

Deuteronomy 11:18ff

You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.

When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in it, you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

Ps 31:1ff

In you, O Lord, I seek refuge;
do not let me ever be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me.

Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

I am he scorn of all my adversaries,
a horror to my neighbours,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;

Those who see me in the street flee from me.

I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;

I have become like a broken vessel.

But I trust in you, O Lord;

I say, "You are my God."

My times are in your hand;
deliver me from the hand of
my enemies and persecutors.

Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your steadfast love.

Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord.

Romans 3:21ff

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Matthew 7:21-27

Jesus said to his disciples, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell-and great was its fall!"

Intercessions

- that our Sunday Mass will be reflected by the Christian charity of our lives.

- that the words of God we hear in the Scriptures may be planted in our heart and soul, and bear fruit there.

- that we may always keep a spirit of solidarity with the less fortunate in our community.

- that we may enter the kingdom of heaven by seeking and doing the will of the Father.

Thoughts for 9th Sunday, A

Avoiding Shallowness

It is easy nowadays to live a shallow existence in our modern world. What used be once referred to as the thinking man or woman is fast becoming part of an endangered species. It is an era of continual distraction - radio, television, computer games, cyberspace or virtual reality, the internet enabling people on opposite sides of the world to exchange typed messages at the touch of a key. There are some individuals who spend up to 40 hours a week linking up with other people involved in this latter. Our Irish missionary priests in Ecuador find it extremely difficult to persuade their parishioners - mostly poor people - to give up watching television all through Sunday morning.

It has been said that in the US "being busy" has been glorified to such an extent that one of the most embarrassing situations for the true American is to be caught thinking - doing nothing, just thinking. It goes without saying that against such a frenetic background the practice of perseverance in any prayer apart from the Mass is becoming more difficult to pursue. There is moreover within the Church itself a minority of people who are ready to look with disdain on what they regard as mere religious trimmings, and who would go so far as to deride as "craw thumpers" and persons to be pitied all who would take seriously St Paul's exhortation to keep on praying at all times.

At first sight today's gospel, and indeed our Lord's own words, seem to lend weight to their arguments, that we should concentrate on doing our duty and not waste our time on novenas, and rosaries, and such like. After all, Christ had spelt it out clearly to his disciples, "Not everyone who says to me "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven." Is the possibility and the necessity of prayer, we may well ask, being here called into question?

We might begin to reply by admitting that a truly profound prayer life can only be achieved by devoting effort, and time, and perseverance to it. In modern times there are many businesses which demand round the clock attention, so destroying the old habits of private and family prayer. For others the morning has become the most intense part of the day, and the evening the most profane and distracting section. But to interpret the words of Jesus in the gospel as praise for anyone who bypasses prayer is precisely to distort them.

In fact, according to the gospel, the criterion by which Jesus judges us is whether he "knows us," whether there exists between him and us a truly personal bond and relationship. There could possibly be certain individuals with the ability to drive out devils, to work miracles, to foretell the future, all done in the name of Christ, but were they without this knowledge of Christ, without a close spiritual affinity linking them with Christ, they could well face complete rejection by him. He does not mince words when he says, "I shall tell them to their faces: Away from me, I have never known you."

If there is one thought we might all profitably take away with us this morning, it is this: that prayer is the way we come to know Christ; that it is an essential part of the Christian life; that in effect, as somebody has said, one can no more believe without prayer, that one can swim without water. The basic expression of faith is not, "I believe in the Bible, or in the doctrines of Christ and his Church, or in observing the commandments." Faith is rather a turning to the mysterious and hidden being whom we call God, with the words; "I believe in you, I trust in you, I commit myself entirely to you." And every prayer is in a way a repetition in endless variations of this personal response, "I believe in you."

Faith is to be practised as a real part of our everyday life, and so we should not pray merely as the mood strikes us. Nor, however, should we regard prayer as an obligation, a duty which presses upon us, or purely a repetition of set formulas, like the "Lord, Lord" of the gospel. Prayer must instead be a loving expression of our living faith. There was a stage in the history of the Church when every-day work was seen as service to the world, and so as a distraction from God. But following the advice of St Paul that our lives should be lives of continuous prayer, we should regard our entire working activity as an indirect form of prayer, prayer without words. No matter what you do, do it for the glory of God.

Faith and Good Works

There is a real unity linking all three readings. We may start with Romans where Paul states that "a man is justified by faith and not by doing something the Law tells him to do." Paul, before his conversion, had been a Pharisee and, like all Pharisees, firmly believed that it was precisely by exact observance of Law that salvation was assured. His religious experience on the road to Damascus led him to the view which he expresses in Romans, that justification comes through the free gift from God of faith in the person of Christ and in his redemptive work.

At first sight the first reading would seem to contradict Paul's statement in Romans. The curses and blessings which Moses attaches to the keeping of the Law seem to be saying that salvation comes through doing what the Law tells one to do. The whole book is about law as its title "Deuteronomy" (The Second Law) informs us. However, this must be balanced by the Deuteronomic theme of the love of God for Israel and the appeal of the book that Israel should love God in return and make the love of God the motive behind their observance of the Law. The prominent part given in the Book of Deuteronomy to the love of God saves it from being described as legalistic in nature. The book is saying something like what Christ meant in the saying in John: "If you love me, keep my commandments." Legalism is not simply the keeping of laws; it is the keeping of laws based on the false belief that salvation comes through the keeping of laws.

When laws become multiplied excessively and love wanes, legalism makes it entry. The multiplicity of laws in Deuteronomy combined with the decline of emphasis on the motive of love after the Exile led to the growth of the spirit of legalism among the Jews. At the time of Christ who opposed it vigorously, it was triumphant. The early Church had to sweep away almost all the Mosaic Law before it could establish itself firmly in the Greco-Roman world. See Acts, ch. 15.

The Gospel returns to the balance of Deuteronomy, the keeping of the essential Law or doing "the will of my Father in heaven" out of love for him. It goes further than Deuteronomy. Not only does it insist on the necessity of both hearing and doing the will of the Father, it also insinuates the unique position of Christ as God. To hear and do the will of the Father by acting on the words of Christ is to build one's house on a rock. Is Christ here calling himself "the Rock," a term much used by the Jews to designate God. This is the theme of the Responsorial Psalm for today: "Be a rock of refuge for me, o God."

Application to today

The lessening of the number of Church laws since Vatican II can now be seen as a blessing, because it serves to preserve us from the danger of legalism. No longer can one say, "I don't eat fish on Friday; I don't miss Sunday Mass: I keep all the laws of the Church. God therefore must be pleased with me and must save me. I am a good Catholic." This is equivalent to saying that one saves oneself with the implication that one does not need a saviour.

Every advance or benefit brings with it a corresponding danger. In the process of being freed from legalism, there exists the real danger of concluding that law does not matter and that it is all right to do one 5 own thing. The passage from Matthew stresses the need of action in conformity with the Father's will. This is the same as saying that the divine law is to be observed. One cannot go wrong if one does as Christ did, that is, reduce the observance of all laws to an expression of the love of God and of one's neighbour. "On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the prophets." Mat. 22:40. "All the commandments.. are summed up in this single command:

"You must love your neighbour as yourself" ", Rom. 13:9.

Since faith and salvation are God's free gift to us, we cannot wrest them from God. We can, however, and we are expected to co-operate with God in the work of our justification. We can; perhaps, do this best by learning from today's readings in conjunction with our personal experience of our need of redemption, by becoming aware that we do not save ourselves by our good works or observance of laws. If we trust in these things, we are building our houses on sand. We must build them on the Rock which is Christ who will lead us not only to listen to his words but also to act on them. In this way we shall avoid the danger of legalism and the risk of living as if law does not matter.

Relevance of the Commandments

Quite simply the commandments are more necessary and relevant today than ever because of the way living has gone. We say and hear that we are materialistic. It is true, and it must be repeated. Materialism always brings in an erosion of general and religious values. And no matter what people say there is a need and an inborn leaning in us for quality in life. As long as that quality has not surfaced there is going to be frustration, resentment, anger and of course materialism and hedonism.

Take an alcoholic example. No one ever lived more selfishly, hedonistically etc., nor more destructively. See him when recovered. He has a new sense of wonder in life, from flowers to his own wife and children. He never even saw them before. And his key to life is spiritual values - doing his best to live as God wants him to. And God does know best - he made us. People engrossed in the rat race are similarly blinded even to what is within themselves.

So much effort at economic recovery is trying to heal symptoms only, and not getting at the root cause. The only remedy is massive conversion to Jesus as Lord - Lord of every tissue of life. And for that the commandments as deepened by Christ are vital. (See Sundays 6 and 7 of this year.) In our day we are pragmatic. Our first question so often is: "Does it work?" It really does.

The Will Of The Father

Priests have a varied experience of human society. Their pastoral work is a passport that allows entry to all sorts of places, from a prison-cell to a penthouse flat. Apart from doctors, they are the only ones that can at once be confidants to millionaires and paupers. They are, at least occasionally, the privileged witnesses of rare acts of quiet heroism or Christian generosity. it is one of the few consolations of an otherwise lonely and demanding vocation.

While on pastoral visitation in a rural parish in the west of Ireland, I came across an isolated hovel on the side of a mountain. At first I thought it was uninhabited. Such abandoned homes are not unusual in those parts. The windows were boarded up or blocked with cardboard. I was about to pass by, when I noticed a thin line of smoke curling up from the chimney. I knocked at the door and, after a pause, what sounded like a girlish voice called me in. Once inside, I could see nothing. It was pitch-black except for the faint glow of a dying fire in the hearth. I looked around to locate the owner of this ghostly voice. At last I found her. She was a tiny little creature, sitting on the hob, under the chimney and as black as the chimney itself. She must have been in her eighties in spite of her little girl's voice. I picked a little stool to sit on and we began to talk. It wasn't an easy conversation. I found it hard to find her wavelength. From what I could make out she was born retarded, which probably explaind the little girl's voice. She was what was known in Irish as Duine le Dia ("one of God's people'). She had been cared for all her life by an older sister who had died a few years previously. When I asked her how she managed now, she replied grinning toothlessly, "Johnny O'Hara comes every week with a bag of coal and a few groceries." I knew this weekly Santa Claus only by reputation and that reputation wasn't great, at least in church circles. He was one of those who if he came to church at all, lurked on the fringes outside the door. He was, to use the local expression, "one of the lads." Only a short time before he had been the subject of a tirade from the local parish priest. I made a mental note to put a word in that defective ear, though I doubted it would have much effect. The latter was not given to revising his opinions of people.

I remember another unlikely good samaritan too, a journalist with a somewhat lurid Sunday tabloid. His regular mission of mercy was to a Dublin attic flat where a single mother and her baby were threatened with eviction.

Why attendance at Sunday mass should be the sole litmus test of Christian practice, I have never understood. Priests, like accountants, have a fixation with figures. Mass-attendance, like baptisms, marriages and deaths, lend themselves to easy measurement. But a large measure of the Christian life is not so easily quantified. Christian charity by its nature is anonymous. It is a secret between the giver and the receiver. More often than not, even the beneficiary does not know who the donor is. Priests frequently receive sums of money, large and small, to be distributed to those in need, in envelopes slipped through their letterbox, without ever knowing where they came from. Church poor boxes yielded tidy sums until church vandals deprived the poor of this valuable source of income. Nobody can be in any doubt that church-attendance figures are in steep decline and, more than likely, this trend is irreversible. But more than one observer has commented on the high level of concern, particularly among the young, or the poor and the deprived in society. Many volunteer to work with the poor on inner city projects here, or abroad with famine victims in the Third World. I confess to feeling justifiably proud when watching reports on French television on the plight of refugees in Rwanda, where the short interview invariably features a young Irish volunteer, cradling an emaciated child in her arms. At least for a small country a disproportionate number of Irish seem to be featured in such reports. If Catholic practice is in decline, there is no evidence that Christian practice is. Mass observance may be down, but gospel observance is certainly up.

Those who listen weekly to Christ's words and do not act on them are building on sand. "I have never known you" will be Christ's final rejection.

"It is not those who say to me, "Lord, Lord," who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven."

Three Houses

In every sense of the word, today's gospel is a solid teaching on exactly what Jesus means by being a disciple of his, and of doing as he prescribes.

It may sound strange, but religion was always been a cause of conflict and wars, right from the beginning. There is not a war anywhere in today's world that is not a religious one. As a pupil in junior school, I used listen with shock to the horrors attributed to Cromwell, as he sought to subjugate the Irish people. What shocked me most was when I heard that he was a deeply religious man and, every night, after massacring hundreds of the Irish "Papists," he would go on his knees and thank God for the privilege that was his.

I have also come across people who adhered strictly all their lives to all the external trappings of their religion and yet, when the crunch came, when the cross arrived, when death approached, the whole fabric of their religion came apart, and they were certainly on shaky foundations.

Calling Jesus "Lord," if he's not Lord, won't get me anywhere. "I am the Good Shepherd. I know mine, and mine know me." Allowing Jesus to be Lord in my life is a different and, yet, a simple thing. It is all a question of obedience. If he is to be Lord, then I must do things, and live my life according to the clear guidelines he left me. "If you love me, you will obey me There is a religious song called "Jesus is the rock of my salvation, and his banner over me is love." Jesus uses the word "rock" several times. When he called Peter, he said "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." Peter himself wasn't actually a rock, as his unfolding story shows, but he was to be the titular leader of a group of which Jesus himself would be the rock. When Jesus called Peter, he "looked at Peter." Later, when Peter denied him, "Jesus turned and looked at Peter." Peter saw that the look hadn't changed, and he knew that Jesus alone was the same yesterday, today, and always. Later, in one of his letters, he woud write "Always have an explanation to give to those who ask you the reason for the hope that you have."

One translation of today's gospel has Jesus saying, "Go away. I never knew you. The things you did were unauthorised." Jesus is the author of our salvation. He has written the script. It is our vocation to learn that script, and to live it out. "Apart from me you can do nothing." As a Christian, I am someone who is sent, who is commissioned to carry a message. That message is about Jesus, and about the good news that he came to proclaim.

Response: Jesus asks an important question in another part of the gospel. "Who do you say that lam?" If he is Lord in my life, then that must profoundly change my whole approach to living my life, if he is Lord, then, I am living in his kingdom. "Seek you first the kingdom of God, and everything else will be added to you." I have no reason to worry what the future holds if he holds the future. Spirituality is about letting go, and death, at the end of my life, is about letting go completely.

You will notice in today's gospel that Christian living is not about what we do, as much as why we do it. I could be a pagan, and be a good person, and do many kind acts. What is unique about the actions and words of the Christian is that all of this is done because Jesus has entrusted this mission to me. On several occasions in the gospels Jesus asked by what authority he did what he did, and he always replied that he had come to do the will of his Father in heaven. "They marvelled at him, because he spoke as one having authority." Later on he would say, "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. If you love me, you will obey me Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and always. That is why, if my life is based On him and on his word, I can stand firm in the midst of all the storms and trials of life. "I will not abandon you in the storm. I will come to you." We can all be sure of the trials, and the moments of testing, that is part of life itself. It is at such times, more than others, than I can be mostaware of Jesus' presence and his promises. It is often at such times that real growth takes place in my life, rather than when everything is smooth, calm, and under control. What to one person is a problem, to the Christian can be an opportunity.

There is nothing automatic about Jesus or his message. Just because I was baptised is no guarantee that I will ever become a Christian. There comes a time when I must take personal responsibility for my Christian vocation and, with a generous heart, I accept Jesus as my Lord, and I ask for the anointing of his Spirit to enable me live and walk in his Way. Nobody else can do this for me. There is nothing profound or earth-shaking about this, although, indeed, it is an extraordinary moment of grace. The words I use matter little. It is the goodwill in my heart that the Lord is seeking. Could that moment happen in your life today?

I said that there was nothing earth-shaking about this, yet it is a moment that will certainly bring profound change, and real blessings into my life. These are changes and blessings that I will personally experience. I don't have to wait until the storms come to find that my faith is much deeper, and my conscious awareness and contact with God is more real. Jesus will no longer be some sort of 999 merchant, called in for emergencies only! I will find that he is included in every decision, and I consult with him on every issue.

Don't forget the crunch line in today's gospel. There is one thing you can be absolutely sure of. You are going to die one day, and come face to face with Jesus. Immediately the first part of today's gospel comes into effect. You either know him or you don't. There is a vast amount of material written about what happens, at such a time, to two-thirds of the world who never heard of Jesus, or who never heard his message. While acknowledging that there are solid, reasoned, and reasonable replies to such questions, they do not concern us now, because I am not speaking to those people at this time. I am speaking to us, about us, right here, right now. We all can slip into the habit of putting off till tomorrow something that should be done today. This question, however, is too serious for that. There are people walking around today, feeling strong, healthy, and well, and they will not be alive tomorrow. Not one of us can have any claim on tomorrow, which is a gift that God may or may not give us. We certainly canot take it for granted.

A certain clergyman was retiring, and he had put in train a whole series of plans in advance of that occasion. One of the Most important was his plan to build a bungalow on a piece of land he had acquired, overlooking the sea. He was looking forward to retiring there with his books, and to having time to engage in some of his favourites hobbies and past-times. He was quite gifted as a do-it-yourself handyman, and he decided to do most of the work himself. Everything went according to plan, until he came up against an unexpected problem. He couldn't hang a door! No matter how he tried it, he just couldn't manage to get the correct balance of hinges, saddle, jamb, etc. One day he gave up, and decided to go for a walk. He walked a mile or two when he noticed some new houses being built just alongside the road. He wandered in, and began to look around. To his great delight, when he came to one of the houses, he noticed that a carpenter was hanging a door. He stood to watch, something which made the carpenter feeluneasy, and he asked "Can I help you?" The clergyman explained his predicament, and that he was watching to see if he could discover the secret of hanging a door properly. The carpenter thought for a while, and then, with a grin, he replied, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll hang the doors for you, if you do something for me." The offer was tempting, even though he was afraid what the catch might be. He agreed to accept the offer of help, whatever the condition. The carpenter said, "I've been a member of your congregation for several years now. I sat and listened to you Sunday after Sunday, and there were many times when I wished I could speak out, and share with you what I thought. I'll hang the doors for you on condition that you allow me do something, where you are the listener and the onlooker, and where you will be unable to make any comment or to interrupt me in any way. This will be my turn to call the shots." The clergyman smiled, as he agreed to this unusual request.

The carpenter put him into his car and they drove off down the road. They came to a gate, through which the carpenter entered, bidding the other to follow. Just inside the gate was a site for a house. The foundations were laid many years ago, it seemed, but they were now covered in weeds and nettles. The carpenter pointed to the site, while he simply said, "Think about it." The clergyman remained silent. They drove on down the road, and stopped in front of a beautiful modem building that was completed. The building was breath taking, with manicured lawns, expensive drapes, and magnificent bay windows, and panelled front door. The carpenter led the way, opened the front door, and ushered the clergyman into the house. He was completely taken aback when he entered, to find that the interior of the house was just a hollow shell, no floors, no walls, no ceilings. This puzzled him greatly but, as he was not allowed speak, he just listened as the carpenter said, "Think about it." Like the story of the Three Bears, tere is, of course, a third house. They reached this just around the next corner. This house really looked lived in, the grass could go with a clip, the curtains weren't hanging perfectly, and it could do with a coat of paint. The carpenter led the way, as they entered. "I'm home, honey," he said, as he entered the front door. A woman appeared with a smile and a welcoming kiss, and two toddlers rushed towards him and leaped up into his arms. He produced some sweets from his pocket as he hugged them. The clergyman noticed a pair of shoes lying at the foot of the stairs, the picture in the front hall was slightly askew, and there were a few crayon marks on the wall. He was trying to take the whole scene in, when the carpenter turned to him and said, "Oh, sorry, think about it."

The following Sunday the clergyman gave the best sermon of his life, as he described the three different ways in which people accept the message of Jesus. Some of them put down a foundation during their childhood and school-time, but they do nothing more with it after that. Some others do a wonderful "snow job," where they are seen to be perfect and conforming on the outside while, within, there is an emptiness and a spiritual vacuum. The third group could do with a tidying-up from time to time, a visit to Confession, or an annual Mission; but, inside there is a tremendous amount of real love.

Think about it!

10th Sunday (A)

Pity on the Multitudes

To really know the Lord

The Company He Keeps

Neither Do I Condemn

Hos 6:3-6. "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice." Religion can be just an empty shell, all fair words without good morals. God requires more: He seeks genuine love and faithful conduct.

Rom 4:18-25. Abraham's faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." Paul teaches that friendship with God is intimately linked to faith and to God's free gift of grace.

Mt 9:9-13. Before his conversion, Matthew was a tax collector for the Roman government. When criticized for consorting with such people, Jesus says that he came to call sinners.

Theme: Can you judge people by the company they keep? Jesus was friends with some dubious types, tax-collectors and sinners. Those who follow him should try to show his mercy to others.

Hosea 6:3-6

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Ps 50:1, 6, 12-15

The mighty one, God the Lord,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.

"If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all that is in it is mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and pay your vows to the Most High.

Call on me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

Romans 4:18-25

Hoping against hope, Abraham believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

Intercessions

- that we may recognize ourselves among the sinners that Jesus came to call, and be merciful to other poor sinners like ourselves.

- that the priests and leaders of the church may never crush the broken reed, but show the compassion of Christ in ministering mercy.

- that the judges in our civil courts may temper justice with mercy, in seeking to rehabilitate as well as punish those guilty of crimes.

- for those who are in any way outcasts or victims, cut adrift by society, that we may respected their human dignity and give them new hope.

Thoughts for 10th Sunday, A

Pity on the Multitudes

Throughout the gospels we are told, time and again, how Christ had pity on the multitudes. It is not immediately so apparent to us what it was in the multitudes that drew forth this pity on the part of Christ. It was not because they were for the most part poor - he himself also belonged to that category. It was not because they were ignorant about what their conduct should be, what kind of lives they should lead. They had the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law, which covered every possible eventuality or situation likely to arise in their lives. However, it is in Christ's dealings with the sick that we get a clearer insight into the motives that gave rise to his pity. For again and again we see that Christ's primary concern on such occasions was with the condition of the soul of the sick person.

When, for example, in Capernaum a paralytic was brought to him on a stretcher Jesus' first words were, "Courage, my child, your sins are forgiven." The thoughts of the Scribes on hearing this were, "This is simply blasphemy; it is so easy to say your sins are forgiven." But back came the challenge of Jesus, "Which is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up and walk"?" And then to make quite clear he had authority to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, "Rise, take up your bed and go home," and the man did so (Mt 9:2+).

Indeed, it is stated emphatically in today's gospel that the reason Jesus became one of us is to call sinners, to help sinners, to enable them conquer their sinful tendencies. Moreover, this mission of Christ is an ongoing one. For all of us, without exception, are sinners, and to deny that such is our state, is to deny that we have any need for the redemption which Christ has gained for us by his death and resurrection. To make such a claim would be to align ourselves with the Pharisees. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," St John says, "and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn 1:8).

It is remarkable that the people who have protested their sinfulness loudest of all, have been the holiest among the human race, namely the saints. Whenever St Philip Neri, one of the outstanding saints of the 16th century, saw a criminal being led to his execution - a common sight in Rome at the time - he would say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." We, who for no merit of our own have been given the gift of faith, should see the Church as the means by which Christ continues to this day, his seeking out of sinners, his ministration to them, his healing of their broken relationship with their heavenly Father.

This same Church has been blamed for exaggerating the role of sin, for giving rise to guilt complexes in perfectly innocent people. But such an attitude is, as St Paul says, to make nonsense out of logic. For we have but to look around us to see the stern reality of sin in the world. Wherever any nation or individual exercises a tyranny over another, wherever there is exploitation of the poor, the weak, those who cannot fight back, wherever there is cheating, selfishness and disregard for others, there we see humans causing suffering, even death, instead of promoting life, harmony and peace, peace which is the Old Testament word for redemption. Where there is peace, whether in the individual soul, the community or a whole nation, there is redemption.

We should bear in mind that, unfortunately, we are not yet fully redeemed; that we are born into a community of sinners, wherein, even setting aside our own spiritual shortcomings, we are continually being confronted with, and affected by the sin of others. We should never be ashamed to admit our own sins, no matter how great, before the priest who represents Christ in the sacrament of penance, for the priest himself also stands in need of repentance. But if we strive with all our might to change, to distance ourselves from the cause of our evil habits, to seek from God the graces that will keep us faithful, then from the God, who will not be outdone in generosity, we will receive the assurance that, sinners though we are, he loves us, that his grace is more powerful than all our sinful activity, that he accepts us as we are, even with all our faults. For as St John points out, "God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." We, however, can never in this life fully understand the enormity, the malce, the inevitability of sin. All we can do is turn to God daily and plead, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

To really know the Lord

The readings for today can be seen as complementary to those of the ninth Sunday. The lesson drawn from those readings was that the correct attitude to religion and salvation is not legalism. Today's readings complete the message by telling us what the correct attitude should be.

Hosea tells us what this attitude should be in the first line of the first reading: "Let us set ourselves to know the Lord." We shall have an imperfect idea of what the prophet intended to convey to us if we understand "know the Lord" in the limited sense in which the word "know" is used today, for the Israelites did not confine its meaning to getting information or ideas about someone or some thing. For them it had a much broader meaning. "To know the Lord" meant for them obeying and loving the Lord, observing the conditions of the Sinai Covenant, especially the first commandment which committed them to the worship of Yahweh alone to the exclusion of all other gods. Hosea called "knowing the Lord" a marriage with Yahweh, a relationship of the most personal kind.

All successful human marriages, that is, between men and women seem to have a common characteristic, good communication between husband and wife, an ability to expose one's deepest thoughts to the other, to enter into dialogue when problems arise. It is true that many marriages break down and it would seem that the beginning of the collapse of the marital relationship is always heralded by the drying up of communication, by a growing difficulty to continue in dialogue. When married couples retire into their own shells; live their own thoughts and shun the exposure of their inner selves to each other, their mutual love is on the wane and danger looms ahead for the covenant entered into by the taking of marriage vows.

It is similarly with our relationship with God. Christians arc the Bride of Christ, the God Man, who calls himself the Bridegroom (Mat. 9:15.) The marriage is developed through mutual self-revelation. God tells us about himself through his Word: when we reflect upon God's Word in silence and begin to speak to him inwardly about its meaning and about ourselves, we have entered into dialogue with him. Prayer, therefore, especially interior prayer, is meant to be our contribution to the mutual self-revelation which is required if our personal and intimate relationship with God in Christ, the Bridegroom, is to be developed and deepened.

The second reading from Romans reinforces the teaching of Hosea, though from a different angle. St Paul starts from the Old Testament, from the example of Abraham, "the friend of God," the ideal man of faith. When the Scriptures speak of faith, they mean much more than mere assent of the mind to revealed truth. Faith here clearly includes obedience to God's Word. The New Testament expects faith. to include not only obedience, but also hope, trust in God and love of him. It is possible to have faith without love, but we should remember the warning of St Paul: "If I have faith in all its fulness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all" (1 Cor. 13:2.) St John, on the other hand, avoids using the word "faith" and speaks always of love," giving it the same wide meaning which St Paul gives to "faith," including under it the reality of faith, obedience, trust and hope: "If a man love me, he will keep my words" (John 14:23.) Both writers are urging Christians to move towards a relationship with Christ which Hosea had in mind when he wrote: "Let us set ourselves to know the Lord." The outcome expected from this relationship is fidelity to Christ, promised on the occasion of our marriage to Christ, our Baptism.

One could preach on the attitude of Christ towards sinners, an obvious approach to the Gospel of today and a easy task. However, we shall limit ourselves to linking the Gospel with the first reading from Hosea. The message of Christ to those who were scandalised because he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners is a direct quotation from Hosea and occurs in the first reading:

"What I want is mercy (i.e. love), not sacrifice." Our mercy and love for others is not to be distinguished from our love for Christ and serves to intensify our commitment to him.

The Company He Keeps

For years the Irish population in Paris remained relatively static, somewhere in the low hundreds. It consisted mainly of embassy staff, semi-State bodies, OECD secretaries and of course, a sizeable scattering of "au pairs." There was also a small group of Irish nannies, most of them elderly and retired. Then sometime in the middle eighties the number of Irish increased dramatically and by the early nineties the figure had reached somewhere in the region of 10,000. From the chaplain's point of view, they were largely a trouble-free community, mostly highly educated young people, like computer programmers, architects and bilingual secretaries.

But there was a proportionate growth in another Irish group, which did cause the chaplain some headaches. This was the Irish prison population in French jails. Hitherto, these were rare birds such as an unfortunate tourist who had run foul of French justice in some way or other and was lodged in prison for a couple of days to await his trial. The new inmates were mainly members of the IRA who were apprehended on French territory and charged with terrorist offences. There were one or two others charged with drug smuggling. Because, for obvious reasons, access to these prisoners was difficult and costly for their families, they sought the help of the chaplain. It didn't make it any easier for him that they were invariably lodged separately in different prisons. For all I know, the prisoners themselves may have thought I was a kindred soul. I made no effort to convert them. Two subjects were never broached between us, politics and religion. Politics in deference to me, religion in deference to them. I would havebeen happy to discuss religion had they raised it but I could never bring myself to take advantage of such a captive audience. To visit them was a Christian obligation. "I was in prison and you visited me." There was no obligation to proselytise as well. Some people who got to know of my prison work, suspected me of IRA sympathies and began to cold shoulder me. Not only have I an abhorrence of all kinds of violence but I have long come to the view that this global village of ours would be a happier and safer place if we could rid it of all nationalist aspirations, whether it be in Belfast or Baghdad, Bosnia or Byelorus.

"Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?" the Pharisees asked Jesus' disciples. It was depressing to find that, after two thousand years, such attitudes still persist. Later followers have not always shown that friendship for sinners that so characterised its Master. The church has often been more liberal with its condemnations than its concern.

Matthew must have been in later years the butt of many a jibe about his collaborating past. The tax he collected then was for an occupying power. There is more than a hint of it in the account of his vocation he wrote in today's gospel. He relished Christ's robust rejection of the Pharisees" sneers about the company he kept. "Go and learn the meaning of the words," he told them, "What I want is mercy, not sacrifice." He was quoting the prophet Hosea, who pulled no punches either:

What am I to do with you, Ephraim?

What am I to do with you, Judah?

This love of yours is like a morning cloud,
like dew that quickly disappears.

This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets, why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth, since what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.

Neither Do I Condemn

Today's gospel is a gem, in that it gives us a simple little cameo of how Jesus dealt with sinners, how he related to them, and how he showed an undisguised preference for them. We must never confuse the difference between Jesus loving the sinner, while not approving of the sin. In another story, he told the woman taken in adultery, "neither do I condemn you. Go in peace, and sin no more."

There was a popular book around some years ago called Joshua, and I'm sure it is still available today. It is story about a man who is uncannily like Jesus in today's world. He came to live in this little town, he seemed different, and he soon had the attention of everyone. He made friends with the people of the town. The problem with each group was that he made friends with those whom they considered to be outside the circle. He went to church on Sunday, but he caused great anger when he went to each church in turn, including the synagogue. The religious people had a watch on his house, because he had questionable late-callers, like alcoholics and the homeless. He wasn't actually crucified, but was run out of town. Some things never change.

It's important that we understand what it means to be a sinner. It doesn't mean someone who is committing sin all the time. It is a state of being, a human condition that is the result of original sin. If I let go of a bunch of keys, they will fall to the ground. That is caused by the law of gravity. On my own, I cannot lift myself out of the quicksand of my own selfishness. Jesus understands our human condition much better than we ourselves do. He can see things as they really are. That is why he came to redeem and save us, and certainly not to condemn us.

It is difficult for us to enter into the mind-set of the people who lived in the time of Jesus. Tax collectors, and all others who did not conform to the strict laws as laid down by the zealous religious leaders, were looked down upon, and treated as the scum of the earth. They were to be avoided at all costs, and one could be guilty by association in any way. Imagine how the Pharisees looked on Jesus when they saw the company he kept!

The final comment of Jesus in today's gospel should be written loud and clear on the outer and inner walls of all our churches.

"You can keep your sacrifices. I would much prefer you showed love, forgiveness, and mercy to each other. I came to heal the wounded, and those who are broken; I came to welcome, embrace, and forgive the sinners, whom you condemn. What I want is genuine love, not heartless prayers, and meaningless religious exercises."

Response: Jesus came to call sinners. I will never hear that call unless I am convinced that I am a sinner, and that call is meant for me. Part of my sinful condition is that it blinds me to that fact. It is so much easier for me to recognise the sinner in someone else. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to lead me into truth. "He will convict you of sin," Jesus tells us. It may seem a contradiction to say that holiness is coming to believe and accept that I am a much greater sinner than I thought I was! If I stand in a spotlight, I can notice every bit of dust on my clothes. The closer I come to God, the more obvious my sins are.

There is nothing negative or self-condemnatory about all of this. It is simply a question of truth, an acceptance of how things are. When I think of sin, the first thing I must remember is that I am a victim of sin, original sin, something which I did not commit. If I cannot come to understand and accept this, I will never come to understand the things that I myself do. Once the alcoholic accepts his alcoholism, he can then see and understand why he did all the crazy things he did.

It can be difficult for those of us who were brought up on religion to genuinely relate to Jesus in our sinfulness. A leading psychiatrist told me one time that he could discharge two-thirds of his patients from all the psychiatric hospitals in his area, if he could get them to deal with their guilt, and most of that is the result of their religious upbringing. What a sad comment on what we have done with the message and the attitude of Jesus in today's gospel!

Jesus asks a personal question: "Who do you say that I am?" If he is my Saviour then there are clear and definite ways of experiencing that. If I am riddled with guilt, remorse, etc., about the past, if I find it difficult to forgive myself for things I did, if I am not deeply conscious of my need to be a forgiving person, because I am a person who has been forgiven, then Jesus is not really my Saviour, I have not yet accepted him as my Saviour. This deserves immediate consideration, and I am speaking about today~~."

Do I fall into the trap of categorising people, slotting them into pigeonholes, making a clear distinction between whether John is a doctor or a docker? Jesus seemed to have a preference for all the wrong people! I don't have to "hang-out" with marginalised people to treat them with respect. If the poor "wino" has a hand out for money, I can treat him with respect, as I give him something. When I die, I won't be asked what he did with the money; rather I will be asked if I gave him something. Even stopping for a few words, asking him how things are, etc., can be more important than anything I may give him. Do you think Jesus would pass him by, and ignore him?

There are people who do not go to church, receive communion, etc., because they feel they are unworthy, and "outside the pale." Today's gospel stresses the fact that there is nobody outside the scope of God's love and acceptance. The more convinced I am that I am a sinner, the more at home I should feel in his presence.

A man came into the doctor's surgery one day, and he was worried. He explained his problem. "Every part of my body that I touch is very sore, my nose, my elbow, my head, my left hand." The doctor gave him a thorough examination, x-ray, blood tests, etc. The man returned the following day for the results, and he was nervous. "Did you find out what's wrong with me?" he asked the doctor. "I did," he replied. "What is it?" enquired the worried patient. "All that's wrong with you," replied the doctor, "is that your finger is broken!'

If I fully understood the nature of original sin, when I was the victim of someone else's sin, I will have a much clearer idea why I do what I do. I sin, not because I'm evil, but because I'm weak. Jesus understands that only too well.

11th Sunday (A)

Individual in the Church

Mission and reconciliation

Exod 19:2-6. "How I bore you up, on eagles' wings." God saved Israel from Egypt at the Exodus in order to make them his own special people, a kingdom of priests and a consecrated nation.

Rom 5:6-11. "Christ died for the ungodly." We are restored to the divine friendship through the death of Christ. This glad truth gives us confidence that we will be saved.

Mt 9:36-10:8. Jesus saw wayward humanity like sheep without a shepherd; like a field ready for harvesting; and he sent out his apostles to teach and to heal.

Theme: Clerical scandals have sometimes set the Church in deep crisis. The gospel encourages us to pray that God will continue to provide worthy ministers for his church.

Exodus 19:2-6

They had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain.

Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites."

Ps 100:1-3, 5

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Romans 5:6-11

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Matthew 9:36-10:8

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Intercessions

- that our God may continue to provide priests to serve the faith and the sacramental gifts in our church.

- that our catholic church will encourage and exploit more imaginatively the talent of the laity.

- that priests who have gone aside from priestly ministry may continue to serve the church in other ways.

- that we may always trust God's love for us, remembering how his Son Jesus died for us.

Thoughts for 11th Sunday, A

Individual in the Church

Today's gospel recalls the selection of the twelve Apostles by Jesus. It was the first step towards the foundation of what we refer to as "Our Holy Mother the Church." And indeed the Church exercises the role of a mother in regard to each of us. For it was in the Church that each of us received a new life in the waters of baptism. Through the Church we were initiated into the teachings of Jesus Christ, are guided by the light of the Holy Spirit, as well as being sustained on our way through life by the grace of the sacraments. And from the Church we receive the example of holiness, in particular that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was preserved from the least stain of sin, as well as a multitude of people who attained sanctity to a truly heroic degree.

Both Christ and his Apostles were to experience opposition and persecution, even to the giving of their lives for the message they preached, and we, their followers today, can expect no better, although we are less likely to have the complete sacrifice demanded of us. Were the Church to disappear it is certain that before long all knowledge of Jesus, and what he stood for, would be lost to the world, as well as any credible meaning for life on this planet. However, we have a God-given guarantee that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church.

We might, this morning, reflect on our own individual role in the Church, a role which St Peter, obviously from reflection on the last words of today's first reading, sets out in rather lofty terms. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God, who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people at all, and now you are the people of God; once you did not know God's mercy, but now you have been given that mercy" (1 Pt 2:9f). After ascending into heaven, Christ, to quote his own words, did not "leave us orphans." He would remain almost tangibly with us, not in any physical way as while on earth, but rather the now glorified Christ, who is in heaven, continues to reach out to us, to speak to us, to minister to us, in and through the other members of the Church, and especially through those called by him to play a special role within that Church. This continuing activity in the world of the glorified Lord is theChurch. It is the glorified body of Christ, living now at this moment, which continues to fulfil the function his earthly body had during his life on earth. We speak of the Church as the sacrament of Christ, that is, the visible sign of his presence here and now.

We cannot, and should not, ignore the visible element in the Church's make-up. No matter how well intentioned we may be, there is a danger of being led astray, if we attempt to find God by ourselves, in a direct encounter of spirit with spirit, ignoring the believing community, of which we should be an integral part. The dangers of such an approach have been shown up in the work of individual priests among alcoholics and drop-outs in American cities, and even more so by the worker-priests in France some years ago. In many cases instead of winning souls for Christ, it was the priests themselves who became estranged from the Church, and that principally because they were trying to get through to individuals who were completely turned in on themselves, pandering to their own needs and incapable of forming personal relationships.

Nowadays all engaged in missionary activity try and come together at regular intervals, so that by contact with fellow believers, they are inwardly renewed, and have the opportunity to gain inner strength from the visible faith of the community of which they had been part. We should never cease to wonder at the marvels, the wells of salvation, within Christ's Church, and why we have been called to be part of it. Why should we be called? God's special call went out to Moses, although Moses was a murderer, to David although he was to be an adulterer, to Saul, later to be called Paul, who was a fanatical persecutor of the first followers of Christ. We should rejoice in our election by God, but not take vainglorious pride in it. None of us was chosen because of any merit on our part. Rather we should see ourselves as being servants, however unprofitable, of the gospel of Christ, and witnesses before the world of Christ's power to change people's lives, and bring peace into their hearts, as he promised, "My own pece I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you" (Jn 14:27).

Mission and reconciliation

Mission and reconciliation are prominent topics in the readings. The people of the Old Covenant received their mission through Moses. We, the people of the New Covenant receive our mission through Jesus. What is our mission? We are commissioned and sent to proclaim loud and clear to all and sundry that the kingdom of God has come.

The gospel passage reminds us that Jesus chooses some of his disciples for specific tasks. That is not to say that the others have nothing to do. The whole Church is missionary. Each of the baptised is duty bound to spread the Gospel to the best of his or her ability. There are many ways of doing that. But the basic and most important contribution which we can make is to live a deep Christian life.

Before considering whether or not we are doing anything to spread the Gospel we might consider our attitude towards the project. Do we think about the matter? Jesus sent the apostles because he had compassion on the crowds. There are millions who have never heard of Christ. How does that fact impinge upon us? Do we regard it just as a fact or do we accept it as a challenge? Do we in any way share Christ's compassion and give expression to it? St John Chrysostom wrote: "Nothing is colder than a Christian who does not care for the salvation of others." Today's gospel may well be a call to us to break out of our little ice cubes.

The harvest is the Lord's. God will provide but he must be asked to do so. God sends workers in answer to prayer. That was the first thing Jesus told the disciples. Work without prayer will be fruitless. Paul was aware of that. In his letters he often asks for prayers that God would bless his missionary work. St. Th� r� se of Lisieux was an enclosed contemplative nun. Her short religious life was spent in prayer, household chores and penance. She offered her life and prayer for the missions. After her death she was proclaimed Patroness of the Foreign Missions. A strange choice at first sight. Yet a powerful reminder that they also serve who "only" kneel and pray. A reminder too that one way of fulfilling our obligation to spread the Gospel is by remembering the missionary work of the Church in our daily personal prayer. Many generous people are prevented by circumstances from engaging in missionary work. There is nothing to prevent people from praying for the spread of the Gospel. Indifference to the salvatio of others is an unacceptable excuse for not doing so.

Jesus gave the apostles power over evil spirits. He gave them power to heal. The exercise of those powers was to be a clear sign that announced the presence of the kingdom. Satan was being challenged and defeated. The apostles worked many miracles. In our day the miracles may not be as frequent or as evident but the power is there in the Church. Every Christian is called upon to be an influence for good in society. The presence of the kingdom is announced, Christ's mission is continued and extended when we bring the compassion of Jesus into the lives of others. Through our ordinary daily contacts with people especially with the lonely and rejects we can and ought to be instruments of acceptance, reconciliation and healing. We don't have to go on the foreign missions in order to do that. For most Christians the home, the parish, the work-place are the mission territories where they have to spread the Gospel message as best they can.

When the human race was estranged from him God did an extraordinary thing. On his own initiative, motivated by sheer love, he sent his only Son to die for us. The death of Jesus achieved our reconciliation. We are now friends of God. Paul exults in this. We have proof of God's love for us. He urges us to cast doubts aside. Now we have firm grounds for hoping that God will find us righteous in his sight. Like Paul, we too have a mission. We are to be "ambassadors for Christ." Ambassadors ought to be builders of what they announce. We joyfully announce reconciliation. That involves consistently helping our sisters and brothers by our good example to be reconciled to God and to one another.

Communitarian Church

Our readings tie together nicely today, even that of Paul. When the role of Church is sometimes confusedly understood even by Christians, the passages remind us that Christianity from the beginning was communitarian in nature. Jesus never intended an individualistic do-it-yourself approach to salvation.

Paul tells us that we are called and brought into a special relationship with God not because of anything we have done. We are justified and reconciled with God because of the death and resurrection of Christ. It is not something we can do on our own. Exodus also assures us that it was God who brought Israel to Sinai. It was on God's initiative that salvation or the freeing of Israel from the slavery of Egypt was accomplished. Jesus too had compassion and pity and sent the apostles forth to continue his work of preaching the Good News.

We are reminded also of our new relationship with God because of what God has done for us. The beautiful images in our first reading and Gospel recall this intimacy. "I bore you on eagle wings," "You shall be my special possession," and "his heart was moved to pity" are all ways of telling us how God has loved us. Paul reminds us that Christ's death is a sign of that love. That love too, he tells us, is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

We live today in that special relationship, with the corresponding obligations that we have as God's people. The message of Good News is not meant only for ourselves. God reminded Israel that "all the earth is mine." Like the apostles, we too are sent forth with power to proclaim the goodness of our God.

Trust in the Lord

(1) The first and second readings are closely related, though this may not be clear from a superficial reading. Let us link the readings through the theme of trust.

If we start with the Old Testament reading, we find the Israelites in the Sinai desert after the Exodus. Moses conveys the word of Yahweh to the people, a message of God's loving care expressed under the image of a large bird, an eagle, who has just carried Israel out of the slavery of Egypt into freedom; The imagery is pagan, for the Egyptians thought of the sun-god Horus as an eagle, which crossed the sky daily from east to west; this did not prevent them from picturing the sun god as the sun disk and combining them in a single symbol - a sun disk endowed with wings The Israelites took over the imagery of the Egyptians, while transforming the theology. For the Israelites "the sun-with-wings" became a symbolic statement for Yahweh's special care for his people. "Under the shadow of your wings, protect us, 0 Lord," is a cry to Yahweh which appears in the Psalms five times in all. In each case the Psalm in question is a psalm of hope. The imagery is clearest in the prophet Malachi: "Unto those that love, justie the sun of justice shall shine with healing in its wings,.

The Exodus, liberation, salvation, has come to Israel through the mercy of Yahweh who has taken the initiative in this work of grace.

If we turn to the Second Reading, we find a similar lesson derived for the encouragement of Christians from consideration of the death of Christ. The death and resurrection of Christ are the New Exodus by which liberation and salvation come to men. "We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.. Surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son." Reconciliation brings joyful trust in God through Christ.

Our trust in God is based on God's love for us which is proved by the fact that he died for us even when we were sinners and unworthy of his love. We have here a point of great importance which is applicable to us in our own daily lives. It is essential for parents, for example, not to give the impression to their children that the parent's love has been withdrawn when children have been guilty of minor, or even major, breaches of correct conduct. The conclusion the children will reach is that their parents love them, not so much for themselves, as for their goodness, the respectability of their lives and the undisturbed peace which formerly reigned in the home. All these reasons concern the interests of the parents, not the children. This is not love at all, for love seeks the interests of the loved one. If, for example, a unmarried girl becomes pregnant, true parental love will see to it that the girl remains truly loved, just at the moment when she is most in need of love. The only negative attitude to be dopted is that of refusing to condone what has happened, of saying that what is wrong is right. In this way parents will reflect faintly the love of God for his erring children. To do this, parents will have to be free from "the slavery of public opinion and able to set aside considerations of public respectability. The result will be greater personal freedom from fear of what other people may say and interior growth for the parents.

The second reading speaks of "joyful trust" It may be too much to expect "joyful trust" of everyone, for hope is not its nature essentially joyful. Hope has as its object things which are difficult to attain and often it is a matter of clinging on in hope. What is important is hope, whether joyful or not. We can be helped towards this by either the imagery of "God's wings" or consideration of the redemption through the death of Christ who loved us while we were still sinners.

Strange Vocations

At the end of the Vietnam war, when the city of Saigon fell, the communists swept in from the North and the Americans, the greatest power on earth, beat a hasty and undignified retreat. In the final twenty-four hours, they launched a massive evacuation of US personnel and Vietnamese sympathisers, flying a constant stream of helicopters from the embassy compound to a fleet of forty US warships standing out to sea. Panic set in on the streets of Saigon.

Thousands of Vietnamese who felt compromised or had reason to fear the wrath of the invading communists, tried to flee. They crammed on to boats and barges along the Saigon River, with their few possessions and far too little provisions, and put to sea. So began the "boat people." Li Pinh was a twenty-year old student, who managed to climb on to a boat, with seventy others, packed like animals. For days they drifted in the South China sea, quickly running out of food and water. Death and delirium began to take its toll. Just then they encountered a British freight-carrier, plying between Hong Kong and Singapore. They begged to be taken aboard but the captain refused adamantly, offering instead to give them supplies of food and fresh water. Li Pinh pleaded desperately with the captain. As a last resort he held up a new-born baby. A young woman had given birth on the boat. The captain relented. They were taken to Singapore, from where Li Pinh and others were eventually transported to England. Now, twenty years ater, he is a parish priest in Manchester. "I owe my life and my priesthood to that little baby," he said, when he described his ordeal to me recently. I had simply asked him: "How come a Vietnamese is a parish priest in Manchester?'

For who can say by what strange way Christ brings his will to light.

There are others, too, whose paths to the altar were no less strange. There is young Huu-Thu from Laos, a sixteen-year old who with his younger sister spent some years in a refugee-camp, before finally reaching Switzerland and the priesthood. His mother is a Buddhist. Or M'boya from Kenya, whose parents were Muslims. Or Thallapalli whose family belong to the caste of Untouchables in India. These I know because I shared a home with them in an international convitto in Rome. The fastest growing church today is that of Seoul in South Korea. Many of the older churches in France and elsewhere in Europe are served by priests from Africa and other recent missionary countries.

Those depressed in Ireland by the recent spate of clerical scandals should shed their insularism and take a global view of their church and its priesthood. Maybe what their jaded church needs now is a new infusion of blood. New priests unburdened by their Christian heritage. They see their priesthood with more gospel eyes. Conversion is a never-ending process. Yesterday's converts become tomorrow's missionaries. So is the church revitalised.

They could take heart, too, from Christ's calling of the twelve, recorded in today's gospel. The slightly less than 10% failure rate recorded there differs little from the present rate, magnified out of all proportion by media reports. Maybe as well, the growing scarcity of priests is God's deliberate way of creating space for his other priesthood of all believers. A church reluctant to avail of all that talent may now be forced to do so. Nor will God leave us "sheep without a shepherd', as long as we continue to want such priests. All we have to do is ask. Jesus gave his own assurance: "The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest."

Really Very Simple

Jesus looks around, assesses the situation, and he calls on others to join him in his crusade to minister to the many who are seen to be without leadership or direction in their lives. He gives a clear mandate about what they are to present to the people. "Go out there, and tell them the good news, and your words will be accompanied by the power I will give them."

This is an extraordinary time in the history of the church. Religious life, as we have known it, is over. Religious life is a charism given to the church and, so, it will never be taken away, but it continues to evolve and to change with the times. All over Ireland today are ruins of monasteries, something that preceded the congregations of our day. A hundred years from now there will be something just as good but, at the moment that is not yet evident. Jesus saw the need, so he called others to join him in the mission. This is what inspired every founder of every religious congregation and order in the church. There was a need that needed to be met, so a group of people were called to set up a congregation to meet the needs of the time. These needs are always changing, so the response of the prophet is to call others to join in some new venture. Every congregation or order in the church came from the cry of some individual who identified a need that was not being met and so a new congregation was born. That' what today's gospel is about.

Today's gospel begins with a reference to the pity Jesus felt for those who followed him. They were like lost sheep, sheep without a shepherd, without any direction, goals, or purpose in life. He asked his immediate followers to join with him in praying to the Father for more workers, as the harvest was great and the labourers were few. Already he wanted to share his mission because, when he had completed his part of it, his followers would have to take over, and continue it.

He sent them with a message. It was a simple message, and, for someone at that time, among the Jews, it must have been a message for which they had long waited. "The Kingdom is near." It was not a message that would easily be accepted, because, with the limitations of our language and our difficulty in grasping the simple and the obvious, we have a real and serious problem with the language of God. At one point, Jesus said, "Let your "yes" be "yes," and your "no" be "no."" Nothing complicated; just a simple direct message. "The Kingdom of God is near." God is in your midst, if you open your ears to hear him, and your eyes to see him; above all, if you open your hearts to receive him.

Before sending out his apostles he endowed them with the power and authority they would need, if they were to continue his work. It was his work, and only God can do a God-thing. They were to be channels, not generators, or transformers. "Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love" - the mission is his and, as St Paul says, "We are ambassadors for Christ." An ambassador is one who represents someone else in a situation, and who says or does nothing without first consulting with the one who entrusted him with the responsibility.

Response: There is a lot of concern expressed today about the "scarcity of vocations." While this is understandable, it is not correct. More and more, the laity are becoming involved in areas which before had been the sacred preserve of the clergy. It is over twenty years since I wrote in a book called It's Really Very Simple, where I compared the church to the FA (soccer) Cup Final in Wembley, where 100,000 people, badly in need of a bit of exercise, were sitting down comfortably, criticising eleven poor guys, badly in need of a rest! I longed for the day when they would come down out of the stands; even more, I longed for the day they would be invited to come down out of the stands!

There is a saying "No involvement, no commitment." People have to be allowed become involved before they can experience any sense of being committed. Jesus asks us to "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers into his fields." If I pray for this, I must be prepared and willing to respond to that myself. It's all too easy to sit back and wait for someone else to do something. There are three groups in any parish or society. There are those who cause things to happen. There are those who watch things happening. And, finally, there are those who haven't a clue what's happening!

"Give as freely as you have received." As the song says "Freely, freely, you have received. Freely, freely give." God gives me nothing for myself. Life is a gift that is to be spent in the service of others. There is a book called The Happiest People on Earth, and it outlines a way of living the Christian life. The kingdom of God is near. The kingdom of God is as near as the heart of the nearest Christian. We are not all called to evangelise, but we are all called to witness. The life of a Christian is, in itself, the message. The messenger is the message. It sometimes happens, as in the case of Jesus, that some people don't like the message, so they kill the messenger.

There is a sense, in the gospel, in which Jesus is seen to be always "on the go." There was a sense of urgency about him. He was on a mission. "There is a baptism with which I must be baptised, and how can I be at peace until it is accomplished?" Baptism, in this context, is the baptism of blood that would take place on Calvary. He kept calling his disciples to follow. "Come, let us go." There are many incidents in the gospel when he is seen to be completely exhausted, even to the point of falling asleep in the boat, in the midst of a storm. There were other times when he felt sorry for his disciples, and brought them away from the crowd to have a rest. I don't think that I can honestly access my Christian vocation without considering ways and means of living it. In other words, it's not just a collection of ideas in which I believe. "Faith, without good works, is dead." Faith is in my feet, rather than some sort of mental assent in my head.

I should take a serious look at my surroundings, and ask myself a few honest questions. What difference is it making to these people among whom I am living now? If I were to die today, what would the legacy of my memory be? Most pictures of starving children, or displaced people are accompanied by a request for aid in coming to the rescue of those people. We are told that �3 a month will save the eyesight of someone; that �10 a month will help give a child a chance of survival, and of escaping from conditions that can only mean death. These requests are always followed by free phone numbers. Have any of those appeals moved or touched me enough to pick up the phone and reply? I am asking myself this question, as a Christian, while knowing that there should be no need to ask it.

Despite what has gone before, has the present use of the word "vocation" come to mean anything personal to me? I have a vocation, as sure as the Pope has one, but am I willing to accept that call, and respond to it? "Many are called, but few choose to answer." It may be a clich�, but it is still true: All it takes for evil people to succeed is that good people should do nothing. If! am not part of the solution, I remain part of the problem. "They that put their hand to the plough, and turn back, are not worthy of the kingdom of Heaven." Jesus puts it another way. "You are either for me, or against. Let your "yes" be "yes," and your "no" be "no."'

One Sunday the priest announced that the church was dead, and he would conduct the funeral on the following Sunday. This aroused great curiosity in his listeners, as they turned up the following Sunday, unsure what was going to happen. Sure enough, there was a coffin in the sanctuary, with the lid up against the wall, over to the side. Before beginning the "funeral Mass," he invited the congregation to come up one by one, to view the remains. They streamed up in single file and, as each looked into the coffin, there was a look of surprise on each face. The coffin was empty, and the bottom of the coffin was a mirror.

As each looked in, it was that person's face that was reflected back to them. They got the message, as the priest made full use of the liturgy to enthuse them to become involved, and to take responsibility for their role in the life of the church.