Readings: 1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38.
Theme: ‘Where there is hatred, let us sow love.’

There are many kinds of love. In his encyclical letter, God is Love, Pope Benedict XVI distinguishes three main kinds: eros, the spontaneous attraction between a man and woman which tends towards union; philia, the mutual love that exists between friends; and agape or self-less and self-sacrificing love – the kind of love parents have for their children. Agape is manifested supremely in the life and death of Jesus Christ, particularly in his act of forgiving his enemies as he was dying in excruciating agony on the Cross. This supreme expression of Christian love is the central theme of today’s readings.

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The desire for revenge is deeply ingrained in us. I remember as a young lad being enthralled by the novel, The Count of Monte Christo, a classic tale of revenge. The protagonist and hero of the story is Edmond Dantes, who is betrayed by his friend, Fernand, falsely accused of treason, and imprisoned in frightful conditions for thirteen years. With the help of a fellow prisoner, he eventually escapes, and exacts revenge on those who had so cruelly betrayed him. As a teenager, I found it easy to identify with Dantes’ desire for revenge, and felt a certain justice in the clever way he ‘turns the tables’ on those responsible for his unjust incarceration. Later in my life, however, I came to realise that the apparent ‘sweetness’ of revenge is short-lived. In the end it leaves the heart sullied and empty. Revenge and retaliation only add darkness to darkness, extinguishing the light that might lead to transformation. Only love has the power to transform. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Love is the light – and in the end, the only light – that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working’ (God is Love).

Our first reading today sets before us the example of David, who resisted the urge to revenge himself on King Saul who was jealous of him and wanted to kill him. Under cover of darkness David and his companion, Abishai, make their way into the camp of King Saul and find him asleep with his spear close by. Though David could have killed Saul, he simply makes off with his spear. He later returns the spear and tells Saul the reason he did not take advantage of the opportunity to kill him: ‘Today the Lord put you in my power, but I would not raise my hand against the Lord’s anointed’ (1 Sam 26:23).

The revolutionary moral precepts of Jesus in today’s gospel go far beyond merely resisting the desire for revenge. Based on the foundation of the beatitudes, they develop the practical imperatives of the fourth beatitude: ‘Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of Man’ (Lk 6:22). Jesus wanted a world transformed by the power of love, where the barriers of distrust are overcome and the legacies of hatred dissolved; where hurts are healed by compassion and misunderstandings resolved by forgiveness. So he exhorts his disciples to bear hatred, insults and scorn with patience, without seeking to be avenged. But he wants even more of them, spelling out a list of seemingly impossible positive demands: ‘love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who maltreat you (Lk 6:27-28). As difficult as these precepts may sound, they embody the highest ideals of Christian life and virtue. They challenge us to respond to darkness with light, to respond to what is worst in others with what is best in us. They invite us to imitate the perfect love of the Father, whose compassion extends to the ungrateful and wicked alike: ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate’ (Lk 6:36).

Sadly, we live at a time when violence and a culture of revenge seem to be spiralling out of control rather than diminishing. In such a context it is a matter of the utmost importance that we Christians embrace the gospel teachings of Jesus on the love of enemies. His teaching and example must inform our choices in life, especially the choice to do good, to love, and especially to forgive. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Those devoid of the power to forgive are devoid of the power to love. In his Encyclical Letter on Fraternity and Social Friendship, Pope Francis reminds us that ‘Those who truly forgive do not forget… Instead, they choose not to yield to the same destructive force that caused them so much suffering. They break the vicious circle; they halt the advance of the forces of destruction. They choose not to spread in society the spirit of revenge that will sooner or later return to take its toll’. We might think that forgiveness means either ignoring or forgetting about justice. On the contrary, forgiveness is the foundation of justice. In the words of Pope Francis: ‘Forgiveness is precisely what enables us to pursue justice without falling into a spiral of revenge or the injustice of forgetting’.

Let us end with the prayer of St Francis of Assisi: ‘Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury pardon, … for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen’.

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26
Theme: The Beatitudes

During my sojourn in the Holy Land in the Spring of 2008, I was privileged to have had the opportunity to pray at the Church of the Beatitudes. Set in the foothills of Galilee in the centre of a lush garden filled with date palms, cypress trees, scented flowers and bougainvillea, it seemed to me like a little taste of heaven. Scattered throughout the garden there were small granite markers with the words of each beatitude, written in Latin, inviting pilgrims to reflect and pray. I now wish I had been able to spend more time there, but, of course, there is always the possibility I may one day make a return visit.

Today’s gospel passage gives us Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, Jesus’ Kingdom Charter. They are shorter and more personal than Matthew’s version. Whereas Matthew has eight beatitudes, Luke has just four categories of people who are declared blessed: the poor, those who are hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated because of following Christ. In Luke’s version, Jesus addresses his disciples, along with a large group of people, in the second person, ‘Blessed are you..’, whereas in Matthew’s version, he addresses them in the third person, ‘Blessed are those…’ Unlike Matthew, Luke also balances his four beatitudes with four ‘Woes’ or warnings for whose who value fame and fortune above justice and integrity.

The beatitudes are at the very heart of Jesus’ message and mission. Called ‘the Gospel within the Gospel’, they show clearly how radically different are the values of the Kingdom from those of the world around us. The world of Jesus’ time, just like the world today, was a world dominated by the rich and the powerful, a world radically divided between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Jesus identifies himself with the ‘have-nots’ and proclaims them ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’, because their situation is about to change with the advent of God’s reign. In the beatitudes, Jesus was not speaking about the heavenly bliss the poor would enjoy after their harsh earthly pilgrimage was over. This view, popular in Western Christianity for many centuries, is a sad distortion of the teaching of Jesus. In the words of Albert Nolan OP, ‘Jesus was speaking, not of a future life beyond the grave, but of a future state of affairs on earth, when the poor would no longer be poor, the hungry would be satisfied, and the oppressed would see the end of their misery’. He was speaking about the fulfilment of the prophesy of Isaiah that he had proclaimed in the Synagogue of Nazareth, when he launched his messianic mission. He was confirming the promise of the God of the Magnificat, the God who ‘puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted’ who ‘casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly’, who ‘fills the starving with good things and sends the rich away empty’.

In the Beatitudes Jesus is promising the poor and downtrodden in particular that they will have pride of place in the Kingdom of God. He is telling them that they are God’s favoured children. In this Jesus is drawing on many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that point to the poor and oppressed as those for whom God has special care and concern. They are the ones who, as our first reading from the prophet Jeremiah tells us, have put their trust in the Lord and have the Lord for their hope. They are ‘like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream’, who foliage stays green, ‘and never ceases to bear fruit’ (Jer 17:8). But Jesus goes further than the Old Testament prophets in proposing the poor and marginalized as models of discipleship who manifest the character traits, attitudes, and virtues befitting disciples.

The Beatitudes have often been described as a framework for Christian living and indeed they are. They offer guidelines for living out our vocation as Christians. Each of us is called to be a person of the Beatitudes. We are called not to be first in this world, but rather to be first in the eyes of God. This means to live simply, to be humble, gentle, merciful and just in our relationships and to place our ultimate trust in God. Today’s readings challenge us to examine our lives in the context of God’s Kingdom and its priorities. I conclude with a popular modern version of the Beatitudes that I came across some time ago. It was composed by Sr Louise Hélène Renou and is entitled, Beatitudes for our Time:

Blessed are you, when you remain available, sharing in simplicity what you possess.

Blessed are you, when you weep over the absence of happiness around you,
and throughout the world.

Blessed are you, when you opt for gentleness and dialogue,
even when this seems long and difficult.

Blessed are you, when you creatively devise new ways of donating your time,
your tenderness and gems of hope.

Blessed are you, when you listen with your heart to detect what is gift in others.

Blessed are you, when you strive to take the first step, the necessary one,
to attain peace with brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Blessed are you, when you keep in your heart wonderment, openness and free questioning of life.

Blessed are you, when you take seriously your faith in the Risen Christ.

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Readings: Malachi: 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
Theme: A Light of Revelation for all People

Our first reading from the prophet Malachi tells us that the Lord himself will enter his temple and present himself to those who have been seeking him. This is what happens when Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem ‘to be consecrated to the Lord’ in accordance with the law of Moses. While there, as our gospel reading from Luke tells us, they meet two prophets – senior citizens – Simeon and Anna, who lived near the Temple. They were waiting for God’s final intervention to bring true justice and peace to Israel and the world. When they see the baby, Jesus, they immediately recognise him as the promised Messiah, and their hearts are filled with gratitude and joy.

Simeon and Anna represent the faithful remnant of Israel: devout, obedient, constant in prayer, led by the Holy Spirit, at home in the temple, longing and hoping for the fulfilment of God’s promises. Luke tells us that Simeon was a man whose life was touched by the Holy Spirit, and that he believed he would see the Messiah before he died. When he takes the child into his arms, he speaks one of Christianity’s most beautiful blessings, a prayer with special meaning for us, for he recognizes God unique presence in the baby he is holding: ‘Master, as you promised me, you are now dismissing your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen the salvation you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel’ (Lk 2:29-32). Then Simeon turns to Mary and speaks these words: ‘You see this child: he is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected – and a sword will pierce your own soul, too – so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare’ (Lk 2:34-35).

These words, which Luke revisited again and again throughout his gospel, are at the very heart of the Gospel message. God’s plan of salvation would be realised through a suffering Messiah who would identify with us in every way, except sin, as our second reading states. Contrary to conventional messianic expectation, the Messiah would not be a powerful military leader who would conquer Israel’s enemies. He would identify rather with the poor and lowly, not with the brokers of power. And he would be rejected by the powerful elites, political and religious. Simeon’s prophecy to Mary was not happy news of a long life and her recognition as the mother of one of the great ones of the earth, but simply that her heart would be pierced. Simeon recognises that Jesus would suffer, and that Mary would share his sufferings.

But what can we say about Anna? She was a widow whose husband had died when she was a young woman. Her life since then had been dedicated to God and spent in the Temple in fasting and in prayer. Like Simeon she was a prophet—an office that is seldom attributed to women (though the Bible makes it clear that women were as capable of prophecy as men were). She, too, was awaiting the Messiah, and when she saw Jesus, she knew she had found him. Then, off she goes and immediately spreads the good news ‘to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem’ (Lk 2:38).

As disciples of Jesus we have much to learn from Simeon and Anna. Like them we are called to spread the good news that Jesus is the Light of the World. By our words and especially by our actions, we must bring the light of faith to those living in darkness, the light of hope to those without hope, and the light of love to those without love.

I conclude with the following prayer composed by St John Henry Newman:

Lord Jesus,
Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with Your Spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being, so utterly,
that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us,
that every soul we come in contact with
may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us, but only You, Jesus.
Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You,
none of it will be ours.
It will be You shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise You in the way you love best
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching,
not by words but by our example,
By the catching force,
the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. Amen.

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Theme: May your Kingdom come on earth as in heaven.
Readings Nehemiah 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1 : 1-4; 4:14-21

There are notable parallels as well as contrasts between the first reading and the gospel. In the first reading from the Book of Nehemiah, the priest Ezra solemnly reads a lengthy section from the Book of the Law to a large gathering of Israelites. He thus re-constitutes them as ‘God’s holy people’ following the traumatic years of exile in Babylon. We are told that the people listened attentively and wept as they heard God’s word proclaimed to them. We might ask ourselves: How attentively do we listen to God’s word and does it ever touch our hearts and move us to tears?

In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus also proclaims God’s word to those gathered in the Synagogue of his home town of Nazareth. The passage he reads is taken from the Isaiah, one of the great prophets of Israel: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). Jesus then sits down, and, in words that launch his great mission of liberation, he says: ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’ (Lk 4:21). The words of Isaiah serve as Jesus’ manifesto. He has come to replace the old Jewish love of law with a new law of love and inaugurate the greatest revolution in human history.

Jesus’ mission leads him to challenge head-on the values of Palestinian theocratic society. The afflictions of the poor, then as now, were, in large measure, caused by repression, discrimination and exploitation by the rich and powerful, the upholders of the status quo. Jesus directs his mission to those who had been ignored or pushed aside: to the sick, segregated on cultic grounds; to tax-collectors, excluded on political and religious grounds; and to prostitutes and public sinners, despised and rejected on moral grounds. In his compassionate outreach to these outcasts, Jesus embodies God’s kingly rule. This is good news for them as it means the end of their misery and the introduction of a new order of social relationships that includes them. Indeed, for Jesus no one is excluded from the love of God ‘who causes his sun to rise on bad people as well as good, and sends rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike’ (Mt 5:45).

Some theologians have argued that Jesus did not have a social or political agenda, that he wanted to change hearts not social structures. However, as the noted Scripture scholar, Tom Wright, points out, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day religion and politics were inseparable. As his contemporaries would have expected, Jesus sought to bring God’s kingly rule to bear on every aspect of human life. In the ‘Our Father’ he taught his disciples to pray: ‘Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Mt 6:10). The Kingdom proclaimed and enacted by Jesus was not merely the personal reign of God’s spirit in the souls of individuals. Jesus was launching a spiritual and social revolution that would turn Israel and the world up-side-down. He wanted to establish God’s reign of justice, peace, truth and love in Israel and (through Israel) among all peoples.

Jesus lived, died and rose again in order to establish God’s loving rule on earth, and the task of his disciples is to continue that work. In the words of Pope Francis, the mission of the Church is ‘to proclaim and establish among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God’. This mission entails the integral transformation of the world in which we live. In the words of Cardinal Suenans: ‘The preaching of the Gospel and its acceptance imply a social revolution whereby the hungry are fed and justice becomes the right of all’.

But we do not carry out this mission as isolated individuals. As our Second Reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians reminds us, we are the Body of Christ, and it is as the Body of Christ that we continue Jesus’ mission. The different gifts received by the members of the Church from the Holy Spirit complement one another, and, when properly used, build up the unity of the Church and serve its mission. The synodal process, launched by Pope Francis over three years ago, and which must be continued, provides us with a graced opportunity to deepen our sense of being the Body of Christ, and to collaborate more effectively with one another in the service of the Church’s mission. It is only when the Church really functions as the Body of Christ – when all its members are truly open to the divine Spirit and to one another – that it becomes a credible sign and instrument of God’s reign of love and justice. So we pray: ‘Lord, make us instruments of your peace, justice and love in our deeply divided and wounded world.’

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Theme:  New wine in new wine-skins
Readings Isaiah 62: 1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2: 1-11.

Too often Christianity has been wrongly presented, as a rather grim and joyless affair, confronting us with feelings of guilt and failure. Fortunately, as today’s readings show clearly, Christianity is essentially a religion of unwavering hope, of new life and overflowing joy.  It is about ‘new wine in new wineskins’ (Mk 2:22). It is a celebration of God’s unfailing love and mercy, best conveyed in the biblical image of a wedding feast or banquet. No one has done more to underline this fundamental truth than Pope Francis. The opening lines of The Joy of the Gospel, his first Apostolic Exhortation, captures his key message: ‘The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.’

The first reading of today’s Mass, taken from the prophet Isaiah, is a joyful proclamation of God’s plan to transform Jerusalem, devastated by the Babylonians, and reunite and transform the scattered and disheartened people of Israel so that all nations will see their integrity. ‘No longer are you to be named “forsaken”, nor your land “abandoned”, but you shall be called “My Delight” and your land “The Wedded” (Is 62:3). This wedding image is repeated again toward the end of the reading: ‘for the Lord takes delight in you and your land will have its wedding’ (Is 62:4) – a wedding in which God will be the bridegroom and Israel the beloved bride in whom he delights.

Our gospel reading recounts the familiar story of the wedding at Cana in Galilee, when Jesus turns water into wine, ‘the first of the signs given by Jesus’ (Jn 2:10). While this may be the first sign or visible manifestation of Jesus’ identity and messianic mission recorded in John’s Gospel, it is the third epiphany of Jesus we have celebrated over the past fortnight. On the 6h of January, Epiphany Sunday, we recalled the visit to Bethlehem of some wise men from the East, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and testifying to Jesus as the King of kings.  Last Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus by John in the river Jordan, when the Heavenly Father, by word and Spirit, attested to Jesus’ identity as his Beloved Son. Today, we recall Jesus’ first miracle, when he changes water into wine, testifying to himself as Son of God and letting his glory be seen so that his disciples believed in him (Jn 2:11).

The scale of the miracle at Cana is stunning.  On the orders of Jesus, in response to his mother’s request, six enormous stone jars, capable of holding twenty or thirty gallons each, are filled to the brim with water, and changed into wine of the highest quality. This would be enough wine – about 800 litres – to make all the guests very happy for a year, not just one week – the normal length of a Jewish marriage celebration at the time of Jesus. Clearly the story is not meant to be taken literally. The abundance of wine is a sign or symbol of the  ‘new dispensation’ initiated by Jesus – a dispensation of ‘grace and truth’ (Jn 1:17), of new life and overflowing joy. Isaiah’s prophesy of the messianic banquet (cf. Is 25:-6-8) has arrived in the life and ministry of Jesus, who brings healing to the sick, gives hope to the hopeless,  turns tears into joy, and changes death into life. An abundance of wine of the best vintage is the perfect sacrament of that fullness of life Jesus came to bring on earth: ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ (Jn 10:10).

There’s a popular Danish movie, Babette’s Feast, one of Pope Francis’ favourite movies, which captures very well the message of today’s readings, especially the gospel. It won an Oscar for best foreign film in 1988. Based on a short story by Karen Blixen (of Out of Africa Fame), it portrays the transformation of strict Pietist community led by the elderly daughters of the group’s founder, who regard all earthly pleasures with disdain and eat only bland food. Their lives are turned upside-down when Babette, a first class French chef,  shows up at their home, bringing a letter from an old friend and seeking refuge from violence in her native Paris. She offers to work for free, and stays with them for 14 years, gradually gaining their trust.

One day, she wins the lottery and, instead of returning to her home in Paris, she uses all her money to prepare a lavish feast in honour of the group’s founder. Watching the stiff, suspicious elders become transformed by the conviviality of a great feast, prepared with love and attention to detail, is an unforgettable experience. In the course of a wonderful celebration with the choicest of foods, spirits are lifted, bridges built, squabbles settled and friendships restored. The sisters are reminded of a sermon delivered by the minster many years before: ‘For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another’ and it seems to them, like an epiphany, that they can now see the world for what it really is – a place of light and joy.  This was Babette’s gift to the community who offered her refuge and it is Christ’s gift to us today. What is our response?

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Readings: Isaiah 42: 1-4,6-7; Titus 2: 11-14, 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
Theme: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you’ (Lk 3:22)

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is the last major feast of the Christmas Season. It marks a transition moment in the life of Jesus. He is leaving behind the hidden years and entering the public arena for the first time. Hence the liturgy shifts our focus from the baby in the manger to the adult Jesus about to embark on his mission in the service of God’s reign.

The first public act of Jesus is to join with a group of his fellow Jews, listening to the preaching of his cousin, John, and accepting his baptism in the Jordan river. It is at this time and place that God reveals Jesus as his Son: ‘Then, while Jesus was praying, the heavens opened: the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove and a voice from Heaven was heard, “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you”’ (Lk 3: 21-22). For Jesus, this event marks the beginning of a journey that will take him from Nazareth to Jerusalem, from the hills of Galilee to the hill of Calvary.

Jesus’ baptism by John serves as the launching event of his public life and mission, manifesting his choice to be obedient to the will of His Father, and his decision about the form his messianic vocation will take. He will not be the great military leader who will liberate his people from Roman domination that many of his contemporaries expected. Instead, he will be a suffering servant, a gentle and peaceful leader, who will identify himself fully with the poor and oppressed of the land.

Our first reading from Isaiah, a prophet who lived around 700 BC, gives us a vivid portrait of the kind of Messiah Jesus will be. He will not shout out, ‘or make his voice heard in the streets’ (Is 42: 3). He will be kind and merciful to all who are oppressed and who bear heavy burdens. ‘He will not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame’ (Is 42:3). But he will be implacable in his pursuit of justice for the poor and exploited: ‘Faithfully he brings true justice; he will neither waver nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth’ (Is 42:4). He will be a compassionate and merciful leader bringing healing and liberation to his people. His mission will be ‘to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those of live in darkness from the dungeon’ (Is 42:7). And he will be a light not just for the people of Israel but for all nations of the world.

Recalling the baptism of Jesus and what it meant for him and his messianic calling reminds us of our baptism and what it means for us. First, it reminds us of who we are and to whom we belong. By Baptism we become children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus. By baptism, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, we become temples of the Holy Spirit, members of the Body of Christ (the Church), and sharers in the priesthood of Christ.

The baptism of Jesus also reminds us of our missionary calling as children of God. In acknowledging our own dignity as God’s children, we are called to appreciate the Divine Presence in others by honoring them, loving them and serving them in all humility. We are challenged to live as children of God in thought, word and action so that our heavenly Father may say to each one of us what he said to Jesus: ‘You are my beloved son/daughter with whom I am well pleased’.

Our baptism commits us to live holy and transparent Christian lives and to grow in intimacy with God by personal and community prayer, by reading and reflecting on the Word of God, and by participating in the Eucharist and other sacraments. But it also commits us to continue the mission of Jesus to establish true justice on earth, to be co-creators with God in building up his Kingdom of compassion, justice and love, to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Today it is appropriate occasion for us to remember the graces we have received in Baptism and to renew our baptismal promises. On the day of our Baptism, we were anointed with the oil of Chrism to show that we were consecrated in the image of Jesus, the Father’s Anointed One. The candle lighted from the Paschal Candle was a symbol of the light of Faith which our parents and godparents passed on to us. On this day, then, then let us thank the Lord for the privilege of being called to share in the mission of Jesus, and let us ask him to help us to be faithful to our baptismal commitment.

I conclude with a prayer reflection from the pen of Flor McCarthy, SDB:

Lord Jesus, touch our eyes,
so that we may see the signs of your presence
in our lives and in the world.
Touch our ears so that we may profess our faith.
Touch our hands that we may give and receive.
Touch our feet that we may walk in your paths.
Touch our minds that we may understand you ways.
Touch our wills that they may be in tune with your will.
Touch our hearts that we may bring your love
to the praise and glory of God. Amen.

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Readings: Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2,8-12; Ephesians 1:3-6,15-18; John 1:1-18
Theme: ‘The Word was made flesh and lived among us’ (John 1:14).

Many of you may remember a popular song in the 1990’s, ‘What if God was one of us’. Written by Eric Bazilian, it became a major hit for American singer, Joan Osborne.  The chorus goes like this: ‘What if God was one of us? Just a guy like you and me, Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home’. Indeed God has become one of us;  there is no ‘what if’ about it. That’s what the great feast of Christmas is all about as today’s readings remind us. Our first reading from Sirach states that Eternal Wisdom has pitched her tent and made her home among us. The gospel reading from John states that the Eternal Word,  through whom all that exists came to be,  ‘was made flesh and lived among us’ (Jn 1:14). These statements give expression to the climactic moment at the heart of our Christian faith, the moment when God in his love becomes one with us. While the human mind cannot grasp the mystery of a love so great, perhaps the following story, that I came across some years ago, many help to give us some limited appreciation of it.

Once upon a time in the ancient kingdom of Siam there lived a prince who fell in love with a fair maiden, the daughter of one of the farm labourers. As heir to the throne, the prince knew that, if he married her, she would become queen and this should make her happy. But he also realised that something would be missing from her happiness.  She would admire him and be grateful to him, but she would not be able to truly love him because the inequality between them would be too great.  So he decided to renounce his kingship, become a humble labourer on his Father’s vast estate, and offer her his love as an equal.  Gradually he befriended the maiden and offered her his love. He went out of his way to show her how much he loved her. At first she was withdrawn and distrustful but, as the prince continued to woo her, her resistance broke down and she opened her heart to  him. Once she accepted his love she began to believe in her own goodness and was able to love him in return. Eventually, the prince revealed his true identity and proposed to her. They were married and lived happily ever after.

This simple story is clearly a parable about the kind of love we celebrate today. The Son of God came in humility and weakness. He wanted to gain our love so that we would follow him freely out of love and not in servitude. This, of course, involved a risk. People might not accept him. As John says in the prologue of his gospel: ‘He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him’ (Jn 1:11). But an extraordinary transformation took place in those who accepted his love and opened their hearts to him: ‘But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God’ (Jn 1:12). When we accept God’s love we experience our own goodness and are able to love God and one another in return. 

Today’s readings invite us to deepen our appreciation of the great mystery of God’s love for us, a love so complete and unconditional that it made its home among us, and to respond to that love by letting it take possession of our hearts. What a different place the world would be if we all let the message of Christmas  take deep root in our hearts so that we become, in turn, channels of that love in our relationships with others.  This is essentially the mission of the Church. It is called to bring the balm of Christmas love to the darkest places of our lost and broken world.

Over thirty years ago, I remember listening to a very moving talk by an American woman, Mrs Leckey, on the need for a fresh vision of the Church’s mission. Speaking at a conference in the Gregorian University, Rome, she said that the post-Vatican II Church had shaped its vision of mission around the ‘pilgrimage’ image. This had, she said, yielded fruitful insights into the nature of the Church as a perfectible community en route towards the future Kingdom, but it was not an adequate image.  We needed, she suggested,  a companion image of the Church as ‘home’  – a place of refreshment,  intimacy, peace and order.  Only when the Church becomes a ‘home,’  can it bring healing,  peace and order into a world of chaos and alienation,  and this is a vital dimension of its mission. Home is a place where people are accepted and feel secure. 

Many people today, both in Church and world,  feel lost and alienated. They do not know what it is to have a home. Surely it is an essential part of the Church’s mission to make Christmas real and practical for the uprooted people of our time,  providing a place of intimacy where they feel accepted; a place where they may discover or re-discover a sense of rootedness, of having an anchor in the world. Only on this foundation can the Church bring the message of Christmas to people and become an effective agent of healing and peace for our broken world.

Readings: Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16:21
Theme: ‘The heart of a Mother is God’s loveliest masterpiece’ (St Thérèse of Lisieux)

(1^st January 2025)

I’m sure most of you have seen the 1982 the popular movie, E.T. It’s about a young boy, named Elliott, who befriends a stranded alien creature and hides him in his home in California. Its producer and Director, Stephen Spielberg, was once asked why he chose to make E.T. rather ugly instead of cute.  He replied that he wanted to devise a creature only a mother could love’. This tells us a lot about mothers and their love for their children. They are invariably seen as the embodiment of that total and unconditional love which is God’s way of being. The great English novelist, William Thackeray, wrote that ‘Mother is the name for God on the lips and in the hearts of little children’. For St Thérèse of Lisieux ‘the heart of a mother is God’s loveliest masterpiece’.

Today we honour the most famous mother who ever lived: Mary, the mother of the incarnate Son of God – the Mother of God. Mary was probably just a teenager when she received and accepted God’s invitation, through the angel Gabriel, to become the mother of his Son. In the words of the Second Advent Preface, she carried him ‘in her womb with love beyond all telling’. She gave birth to him in a stable. In the family home in Nazareth, she nursed him, taught him how to walk and talk, to read and write. With the help of her husband, Joseph, she reared him from infancy to manhood. When she could not understand some of the things he said and did, she ‘pondered them in her heart’ (Lk 2:19). Jesus lived with her for 30 years, in other words, for most of his life. We are told by St Luke that, during this time, Jesus ‘increased in wisdom and stature and favour before God and people’ (Lk 2:52). When the time came for her Son to leave home, she let him go.  And, when her Son made the supreme sacrifice of his life on Calvary, she stood in silence beneath the Cross as he lay dying in unspeakable agony.

Mary’s role as Mother began the moment she said ‘yes’ to God’s Word. Her response to the Angel, ‘May it be done to me according to thy word’ (Lk 1:38) was the perfect response of obedience to God. It established Mary as the new Eve, the mother of all those born again through Christ. The poet, Denise Levertov, highlights another important quality of Mary’s yes that we sometimes overlook – courage:

‘We are told of meek obedience. No one mentions …
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
infinite weight of lightness; to carry
in hidden finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power-
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Mary is the mother of God’s Son, and she is our mother too. As he lay dying on the Cross, Jesus gave Mary to the Church. It is no surprise that she was with the Apostles when the Church was born on the day of Pentecost. She continues to mother our growth in Christ. In the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘She mothers each new grace that does now reach our race’. Mary’s work is not finished. She continues, as Hopkins reminds us, to let God’s glory shine through our humanity …

God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.’   

As we enter another year in a broken world, immersed ‘in the shadow of darkness’ (Is 9:2) and lurching from crisis to crisis, we surely need the embrace of Mary’s loving care. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘We need her maternal gaze: the gaze that frees us from being orphans; the gaze that reminds us that we are brothers and sisters, that I belong to you, that you belong to me, that we are of the same flesh; her gaze that teaches us that we have to learn how to care for life in the same way and with the same tenderness that she did – by sowing hope, by sowing a sense of belonging and of fraternity’.

We need the reassurance of Mary’s healing touch to release us from our fears of an uncertain future and awaken us again to God’s vision of a world fashioned in the image of his incarnate Son: a more just and equal world; a world free from the cancers of war, aggression and hate; a world where the dignity and equality of all God’s children is respected; a world in which the threat of catastrophic climate change is replaced by respect and care for the gift of creation; a world where the ‘shalom’ of Christ reigns. And we need the courage of Mary to continue striving with all our hearts to create such a world. So, on this first day of a New Year, let us entrust ourselves to Mary’s motherly love. Let us strive to imitate her response to God’s Word in the circumstances of our own time and may the peace of Christ reign in our hearts and transform our lives.

Readings: Micah 3:1-4a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Lk 1: 34-45
Theme: Mary, the Most Blessed of all women

In last Sunday’s liturgy it was John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, who was center stage. Today it is Mary, the humble maid of Nazareth who takes that role. The Gospel Acclamation recalls her response of faith, trust and obedience to God’s choice of her to be mother of the Messiah: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord: Let what you have said be done to me’ (Lk 1:38).  The Gospel passage recounts the moving story of Mary’s visit to her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.  

My homily will focus mainly on the significance of the gospel story, but first a word or two about our first reading from Micah, a Judaean prophet who lived in the 8^th century before Christ. Micah (the name means ‘who is like God’’) gives us an attractive profile of the future Messiah, not as a warrior Lord, but as a Shepherd King, like David, who will usher in a reign of universal peace in his person, starting from the little town of Bethlehem (‘House of Bread’’): ‘He himself will be peace’ (Micah 5:4a). The peace Micah is referring to is not merely the absence of wars and conflicts, but the positive presence of wholeness, harmony, well-being, prosperity and security.  No wonder then that, at Christmas time, we wish one another ‘a peaceful’ as well as a happy or joyful Christmas.  At Christmas we also pray for the gift of this peace in our personal lives and in the wider world. And how we need these blessings of the Prince of Peace in our violent and divided world today!

In the gospel reading we have the lovely story of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, a story rich in significance. On an obvious level, it is the story of two mothers-to-be sharing their joy at becoming the bearers of the incredible miracle of new life. The English poet, Malcolm Guite, captures their joyous meeting in his sonnet, Visitation:

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.

But the visitation has an even deeper significance. Mary comes to Elizabeth bearing in her womb the unborn ‘Son of the Most High’ (Lk 1:32).  Elizabeth, up until then unaware of Mary’s pregnancy, nevertheless recognises her as the bearer of the hopes and desires of all nations, and life stirs within her womb. Her unborn infant, John the Baptist, who will prepare the way for Christ moves as if to greet the baby Jesus in the womb of Mary: ‘For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy’ (Lk 1:44). Elizabeth now sees Mary in a new light as ‘the Mother of my Lord’ (Lk 1:43) and addresses her in words that have become familiar to us through the ‘Hail Mary’: ‘Of all women you are the most blessed and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ (Lk 1:42).

According to the former head of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, Luke is here presenting Mary ‘as the first missionary, the first messenger of the gospel’. She is the first human being to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to another person, and she does this by carrying him within her body. This story, has much to teach us about mission and what it means to be a missionary – which, as baptised Christians, we are all called to be.  Mission is not, first and foremost, about delivering a verbal message, but about going out to another person with Christ in your heart. To quote again the words of Rowan Williams, ‘Mary’s mission is not about the communication of rational information from one speaker to another; it is rather a primitive current of spiritual electricity running from the unborn Christ to the unborn Baptist’. And this communication evokes a response of recognition and joy.

As the first missionary, Mary testifies to the primary importance of simply carrying Jesus with love and allowing his presence to touch those with whom we come into contact. The example of Mary challenges us about our way of being missionaries. Have we sometimes put more trust in our resources and our expertise than in the action of God’s Spirit in our lives and in the lives of those to whom we are sent? Have we been more concerned with doing things for people than being truly present to them?

We have indeed much to learn from Mary, our Missionary Mother.  She models a patient and humble mode of missionary presence, not forcing God’s hand, but carrying Jesus in her womb, and in her heart, with ‘love beyond all telling’ (2^nd Advent Preface), and allowing the space and time for his presence to evoke that leap of recognition and joy in the hearts of those we meet.  

Mother Mary, teach us how to be a missionary after your own heart, carrying Christ with love to those to whom we are sent, and allowing his presence to evoke an awakening response of recognition and joy in their hearts. Amen.

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Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-18a; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18
Theme: Rejoice, the Lord is near

Today, Gaudete (rejoice) Sunday, the theme of joy naturally dominates the liturgy. In our opening prayer we prayed to the Father to help us experience the joys of the salvation Christ has won for us ‘and celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing’. In our first reading the Prophet Zephania calls on the people of Israel to let go of all restraint and give full voice to their joy that the Lord, their God, is in their midst as a victorious warrior: ‘Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem’ (Zeph 3:14). The responsorial psalm repeats the exhortation of Zephaniah and, in our second reading, St Paul entreats the Christian community in Philippi ‘to be always happy in the Lord’ (Phil 4:4). The Gospel passage summarises the message of John the Baptist, announcing the imminent arrival of the Messiah, and enjoins the people to prepare for his coming by practicing justice and helping the poor.

Too often Christianity has been presented as a rather grim and joyless affair, confronting us with guilt and failure. However, the reality of sin and failure is merely the prelude of the Christian story, not its centrepiece. What is central is the victorious love of the God who forgives, heals and makes everything new. No one has highlighted this fundamental truth of our faith more clearly that our present Pope, Francis. It is the experience of God’s unfathomable love that is the source of our joy.  But what is this joy that lies at the core of the Christian message? We think of joy very much in association with youthfulness, freshness, innocence. Joy keeps us young. A joyful person seems always youthful. Like the kiss of the sun on a flower, or a smile lighting up a child’s face, joy transforms. And people who are joyful transform those around them. Joy is contagious. In the presence of joyful people, our hearts become lighter and the world around us seems so much brighter. 

Christian joy, however, must not be confused with superficial cheerfulness. It is not the false hilarity of those who ignore the reality of suffering in the world around them or run away from pain in their own lives. In the words of Timothy Radcliffe OP, ‘true joy is not the happy clappy jollity of those who go around slapping people on the back and telling them to be happy because Jesus loves them. Nor is it the obligatory cheerfulness that Seamus Heaney calls  ‘the fixed smile of a pre-booked place in Paradise’.  No, it is, rather, to quote the words of John Catoir, ‘the awareness of God’s loving presence within us’, and this awareness is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, Christian joy is quite compatible with sorrow, and even with anger. As Christians we are called to share not only the passion of Christ, but also his passions – his joy and sorrow, his anger. These are the passions of those who are alive with the gospel. The joy that Christ brings us is a joy that is found even in the midst of pain and suffering. The most joyful people I have met in my life as a missionary priest were those who had been profoundly touched by the pain of the world. Barbara McNulty, an Irish Lay Missionary, who worked among the poor in Brazil, writes about how she found joy in the heart of suffering. ‘It is the paradox of joy’, she states, ‘that it is at its most significant in association with suffering.  I worked for many years with the sick and the dying in a place where one would expect to find despair and depression; yet because of the warmth of the love all around me I found laughter and hope’ (The Tablet, 16 August, 1980).

As disciples of Jesus, we are invited to experience and share with others a joy that flows from the experience of God’s tender and loving smile as we blossom and flourish in the warmth of God’s delight in us. In the psalms we pray: ‘Let your face shine on us and we shall be saved’ (Ps 80:3). Our lives have been illuminated and transformed by the experience of God’s tender smile. The Church – and that means all of us – have no right to speak about the demands of the Gospel unless we first embody the tenderness and delight of God’s smile – the source of all true joy.

I conclude with Fr Flor McCarthy’s apt reflection on joy for our liturgical celebration today:

There is a clear note of joy in today’s liturgy.
Joy is a blend of laughter and tears.
It consists of having a love affair with life.
It is having a heart aglow with warmth
for all one’s companions on the road of life.
It is looking for the happiness that comes in small packages,
knowing that big packages are few and far between.
It is making the most of the present,
enjoying what is at hand right now.
Joy is love flowing over into life,
and it can co-exist with pain.
Joy is the flag we fly when Christ, the Prince of Peace
has taken up residence in our hearts.

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Readings: Baruch 5:1-9; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6
Theme: Prepare the Way of the Lord

Advent is not a penitential season in the same sense that Lent is. Joyful hope rather than penance is its keynote, as today’s Scripture readings illustrate. Nevertheless, we are called to repentance. The voice of John the Baptist rings in our ears: Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight’ (Lk 3:4). Preparing a way for the Lord and experiencing the joy of salvation are inseparably linked. They are two sides of the one coin. While we have begun to live the joy of the Gospel, we remain pilgrims ón the way, ‘hoping to reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God’ (Phil 1:11).

In our first reading, the Prophet Baruch proclaims a message of hope to the  Jews who were living in exile in Babylon. The Exile (in the 6^th century BC) was a particularly traumatic experience for a people who thought of themselves as specially chosen by God.  They had lost everything they held precious, their freedom and the things that gave them a sense of identity as a people: their homeland and Temple.  Their most cherished hopes had been crushed. It seemed that God had forgotten or abandoned them. Psalm 137 captures their feelings of dejection and abandonment: ‘By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Sion; on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps’ (vv 1-2).

Baruch assures the exiles that God has not forgotten them, and that he will soon return to lead them back to their homeland and restore their fortunes. Thus, Jerusalem will once again become a city of joy, peace and integrity: ‘Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God forever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you…: since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven’ (Bar 5:1-3). These words must have been music to the ears of the long-suffering and disheartened exiles. They are meant to be music to our ears, too, for Baruch’s message of hope is as relevant today as it was when he lived.

While our circumstances are very different from those of the poor and oppressed Jewish community Baruch is addressing, many people in Ireland today are living through a kind of exile. They no longer feel at ease in a country that has changed beyond recognition, and abandoned those traditions and values that gave many citizens a sense of identity and security.  A priest friend of mine, who  returned to Ireland a few years ago, after more than fifty years of missionary service in Africa,   spoke to me of his sense sadness at the loss of so much that he held dear in these words: ‘I am back again in my homeland, but I no longer feel at home here. The Ireland I left in the 1970s is dead and buried’.  So we, too, no less than the people of Israel, need to be reminded that, even if we have been unfaithful, God is ever faithful and will never abandon us.

Our gospel passage from Luke introduces us to the figure of John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus Christ. John is presented, in words taken from the prophet Isaiah, as a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’, calling his contemporaries to repentance: ‘Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth’ (Lk 3:4-5). Today there is another prophetic voice calling on us to prepare a way for the Lord. It is the voice of Pope Francis exhorting us to take to heart the message of the Synod, recently concluded in Rome, after three years of listening, discernment and consultation throughout the Church.

Pope Francis is appealing to all of us to implement the recommendations of the Synod’s Final document and work together to create ‘a Church that is the servant of all;… a synodal and missionary Church; a Church that adores God and serves the women and men of our time, going forth to bring to everyone the consoling joy of the Gospel. ‘The mountains we need to remove today are the mountains of indifference and complacency. And the valleys that we must fill are the valleys of cynicism and fear of change. The need for humility and openness is illustrated in the following Zen story:

A Zen master invited a visitor to tea. The guest arrived, crossed his legs and sat in silence.  The Zen Master then took the teapot and started to fill the cup.  When he had filled it to the brim, he continued to pour until the tea was flowing over the saucer and on to the floor.  The guest was horrified and enquired why the Zen master was so careless. ‘Because’, the master replied, I feel that your head is like this teacup – so full of certainty that it would be impossible for me to add anything to what you already know.  You cannot hear what I say.’

Let us then, in response to the exhortation of Pope Francis, open our minds and hearts to the message of the Synod, allowing God’s Spirit to lead us into a new dawn for our Church and its mission in the service of humanity.

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Readings: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12: 38-44.
Theme: ‘To give and not to count the cost.’ (St Ignatius of Loyola).

Widows feature prominently in the Bible. Today’s readings showcase two widows of extraordinary generosity. We must remember that, in biblical times, widows were not only poor, but also without security. They were the most marginal of the marginalised and hence extremely vulnerable. On the death of their husbands, they had lost their only means of livelihood and had to depend totally on charity to survive. 

Our first reading, from the first Book of Kings, recounts a memorable incident in the life of Elijah, one of the great prophets of Israel who lived 900 years before Christ.  During a severe famine he enters a foreign town, Sidon (in modern day Lebanon), where he meets a widow gathering sticks. This woman is preparing to cook a final meal for herself and her son before both of them expire. Notwithstanding her harrowing circumstances, Elijah asks her for water and some bread, assuring her that she and her son will not starve to death. Despite not being a Jew, she trusts his promise and shares her final meal with him. The story has a happy ending as we are told that ‘the jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied’ (1Kgs 17:16).

In the gospel passage from Mark, we meet another widow, also in dire straits. She has just two small coins left in her purse, the equivalent of a penny, about 1% of a labourer’s daily way. In an act of seemingly reckless generosity she puts both coins into one of the boxes of the Temple treasury. Jesus alone notices her and immortalises her act of self-less giving. And he presents her to his disciples as a model of generosity, saying: ‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on’ (Mk 12:43-44).

The discrete, unselfconscious, action of the widow stands in stark contrast to the self-important posturing of the scribes. They love  ‘to walk about in long robes’  in order to be noticed and ‘greeted obsequiously in the market squares’ (Mk 12:38). Jesus warns his disciples to beware of these hypocrites who, while pretending to be holy men of prayer, ‘swallow the property of widows’ (Mk 12:40). In other words, they use their position as lawyers to exploit vulnerable widows for their own advantage. A more despicable injustice would be hard to imagine!

Taken literally the actions of the two widows appear reckless and foolish, for they give, not from their abundance, but all the meagre means they have for survival. Yet their incredible generosity illustrates a profound truth about God and about us. The widows epitomise God’s self-giving love, and it is when we give freely and without counting the cost that we are most like God. The poet Brendan Kennelly   has a beautiful poem in which he sees God’s constant giving of himself reflected in nature, particularly at this time of year. I quote a few lines:

‘I give thanks to the giver of images,
The reticent God who goes about his work
Determined to hold on to nothing.
Embarrassed at the prospect of possession,
He distributes leaves to the wind
And lets them pitch and leap like boys
Capering out of their skin.
Pictures are thrown behind hedges,
Poems skitter backwards over cliffs.

Jesus is the one who manifests supremely the Creator God who gives everything away. He does this in his ministry to the poor and marginalised, but above all in his passion and death on the Cross. The widow whose selfless act of generosity touched the heart of Jesus prefigures his own great act of self-giving love soon to be accomplished on the hill of Calvary. By this act he sacrificed himself, as our Second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, ‘to do away with sin once and for all’ (Heb 9:26) and so became the great High Priest of our Faith.

We too are challenged to imitate the generosity of the widows who gave away all they had to live on, and to become sacraments of God’s self-giving love in a world increasingly preoccupied with possession and security. Let us be givers and not just consumers. I end with a reflection from the pen of Kahlil Gibran that sums up the message of today’s readings:

There are those who give little of the much which they have–and they give it for recognition, and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue.
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.’

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Readings: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12: 28b-34
Theme: ‘Without love, I am nothing’ (1 Cor 13:2).

In today’s gospel passage from Mark, a scribe asks Jesus to identify the most important commandment of all. Departing from his usual practice of responding to a question by asking another one, Jesus answers the scribe’s question directly. But he mentions two commandments instead of one: love of God and love of neighbour. Why? It wasn’t that Jesus had a problem with maths. The answer is that loving God and neighbour are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other.  The first Letter of John makes it abundantly clear that loving God and loving neighbour are inseparable: ‘Let us love one another since love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is Love’ (1Jn 4: 7-8).

Just how well the early Christian community understood and lived this double commandment of love is illustrated by the testimony of a second century philosopher, Aristides. Writing to the Emperor Hadrian in defence of the Christians he stated that: ‘Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If one member of the community has something, he gives freely to those who have nothing. They don’t consider themselves brothers and sisters in the usual sense, but brothers and sisters in the Spirit of God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail or persecuted for professing the name of their Redeemer, they give that person what he or she needs.  This really is a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.’ 

We might say that the early Christians lived like a people possessed – possessed by the love of God, so that they could not but love God and love one another in return. Through their experience of the Risen Christ and the outpouring of his Spirit, they had left behind the darkness of night and emerged into the dawning light of God’s love and so their lives were changed utterly. In the words of the poet, William Butler Yeats ‘A terrible beauty [was] born’.  Some time ago I came across a memorable story which encapsulates the experience of the first Christians  – and, hopefully, our experience as well:

‘There once was a rabbi who was asked by his students, “Master, how should one determine the hour in which night ends and day begins?” One student suggested, “Is it when a person can distinguish a sheep from a dog in the distance?” “No,” said the rabbi, “It is not.” A second student ventured, “Is it when one can distinguish a date tree and a fig tree from afar?” “It is not that either,” replied the teacher. “Please tell us the answer,” the students begged, “How should one determine when night has ended and day begun?” “It is when you look into the face of a stranger and see your sister or brother in need of your love,” said the rabbi. “Until then, we are still in the night.”

Sadly the word ‘love’ is so overused in contemporary parlance that it has lost much of its meaning. Love can be many things, as St Paul, in his letter to Christian Community in Corinth, valiantly strives to catalogue: ‘Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous, boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes’ (1 Cor 13:4-7).

We are familiar with the saying that ‘love makes the world go around’.  Love is also what makes the ‘merry-go-round’ worthwhile. To quote St Paul again, ‘without love, I am nothing’ (1Cor 13:2). But love is also demanding, for to love means to go beyond ourselves, to rise above our own needs and respond to the needs of others; it means to leave our comfort zones, to give our time, our energy, our talents, and indeed ourselves to others. And to do this not just when we feel in good form good or for a short time, but to do it in season and out of season, in good times and bad, until, in the words of St Paul, our life has been ‘poured out like a libation’  (2 Tim 4:6). By his life, death and resurrection Jesus showed us that to be truly and fully human to to give of ourselves completely and without counting the cost. But we can only do this when we experience ourselves as loved with a love that is unconditional and unlimited – when we experience God’s love for us. I will end my homily I will conclude my homily with this lovely prayer from the pen of Fr Flor McCarthy SDB.

‘If only the heart were right we could give so much more.
Lord open our hearts when they are closed,
Soften them when they are hard,
Warm them when they are cold,
Brighten them when they are dark,
Fill them when they are empty,
Calm them when they are troubled,
Cleanse them when they are sullied,
Heal them when they are wounded
And mend them when they are broken,
So that we, your disciples
May bear the fruits of love. Amen.

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Readings: Jeremiah 31:7-9, Hebrews 5:1-6, Mark 10:46-52
Theme: The courageous faith of Bartimaeus

Today’s gospel reading recounts one of the most fascinating miracle stories in Mark’s gospel, the healing of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. The story illustrates the meaning of faith and discipleship. The reading opens with Jesus and his disciples on the final leg of their journey to Jerusalem. A large crowd of people are with them – pilgrims on their way to the Holy City for the great Jewish feast of Passover (Pesach). This annual feast celebrated the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Jesus and his companions are passing through Jericho – one the oldest cities in the world – when a blind man (Bartimaeus), sitting by the side of the road, hears all the commotion and wonders what is happening.

When he is told that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, he shouts out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!’ (Mk 10:47). We presume that Bartimaeus has heard of Jesus’ reputation as a miracle worker. At first, some of the crowd tell him to be quiet. Despite his infirmity they have little sympathy for him. In their eyes, he is just a nuisance, a nobody who should be ignored, and certainly not allowed to interrupt Jesus on his way to Jerusalem to fulfil his messianic mission. But Bartimaeus will not be silenced. Determined to get Jesus’ attention, he continues to call out even more loudly, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Moved by his heartfelt cries, Jesus stops and calls for him to come towards him. Now the mood in the crowd changes dramatically, They are all behind Bartimaeus encouraging him: ‘Courage, they said, get up; he is calling you’ (Mk 10:49). So, throwing his cloak aside, he jumps up and goes to Jesus.

But Jesus not only wants Bartimaeus to come to him. He wants him to say clearly what he desires Jesus to do for him: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (Mk 10:51). Bartimaeus may be blind and impoverished, but he is a man who knows what he wants, so without the slightest hesitation he replies: ‘Master, let me see again’ (Mk 10:50). And, there and then, Jesus heals him, saying: ‘Go, your faith has saved you’ (Mk 10:52). The response of Bartimaeus to having his sight restored is the climax of the story. Unlike the man of great wealth who went away sad, he does not go away. Instead, he becomes a disciple of Jesus and follows him along the road (cf. Mk 10:52).

In this story Mark is presenting Bartimaeus as a model of faith and discipleship. Just before healing him Jesus tells Bartimaeus that it is his faith that has saved him. But what is this faith? It is a faith manifested more by what he does than by what he says. We see it in his recognition of his need, his unwavering conviction that Jesus can and will heal him, and his courage to leave behind his past and follow Jesus.

Recognising his need of healing Bartimaeus continues to cry out to Jesus even when some people demand him to be silent. Despite being on the bottom rung of the social ladder, he will not shut up. He will not be cowed into silence. How easily we are cowed into silence by the crowd, whereas, like Bartimaeus, we should be clamouring to be heard and give expression to our genuine needs and the needs of those around us who often suffer in silence!

Unlike James and John in last Sunday’s gospel reading, who wanted places of prestige beside Jesus in his glory,  Bartimaeus has the insight and wisdom to ask for what he truly needs. In response to Jesus’ question: ‘What do you want me to do for you?,’ his reply is the simple request ‘That I would see again’. Bartimaeus knows that Jesus has come now to bestow power and honour but to open our eyes to the ‘new earth and new heaven’ make possible by the reign of God’s love in the world. When it comes to understanding the mission of Jesus Bartimaeus is way ahead of the sons of Zebedee. Like Bartimaeus we need to recognise what we truly need and ask for it with humility and trust.

Bartimaeus truly believes that Jesus can and will heal him. So, he casts aside his cloak and approaches Jesus, confident that he will cure him. Blind beggars would normally tend to hold on to their few possessions, especially a cloak which would protect him from the cold of night. However, Bartimaeus casts his one precious possession because he knows in his heart that he will no longer need it. No longer will be be dependent on handouts from passers-by. His status is about to change radically.

Finally, Bartimaeus, following his healing, has the courage to follow Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. He is a man transformed by his encounter with Jesus. From being blind, he can now see, spiritually as well as physically. He knows clearly where he is going and who he is following. From being a dependent beggar,  he is now a free man greatly enriched by what he has received from Jesus. No longer sitting passively by the roadside hoping to receive alms, he is now walking with Jesus on the road. And this road leads to Jerusalem, that is, to suffering, death and resurrection.  So we pray: Lord grant us the insight to discern what we truly need, the humility to ask for it with trust and confidence, and the courage to follow you all the way to Jerusalem. Amen.

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Readings: Is 53:10-11; Heb 4:14-16; Mk 10:35-45

Today’s gospel reading opens with Jesus and his disciples on the road, heading for Jerusalem. Jesus has just told his disciples – for the third time! – about the fate that awaits him there: that he will be delivered into the hands of the religious and civil authorities, condemned and put to death, before rising again after three days. Clearly the disciples have neither taken to heart the words of their master nor understood its implications for themselves. Their minds are filled with dreams of earthly power and glory.

Mark tells us that the sons of Zebedee, James and John, two of Jesus’ closest apostles and friends,  approach Jesus and ask him for a favour. They want him to guarantee them the highest places of honour in his coming Kingdom. Their attitude and approach to Jesus reflects the corporate mindset of today’s secular world, in which social climbers seek their own self-interest at the expense of others, and push themselves to the top by any means, fair or foul. James and John are telling Jesus what to do. We might ask ourselves if our prayers are sometimes like that – telling God what we want him to do for us instead of being open to what God wants from us.

In his response we notice that Jesus does not castigate the two brothers or express indignation at their foolish demand. Instead, with remarkable patience, he tries to open their minds to what being his followers really means. He tells them that they don’t know what they are asking. Then he asks them if they can drink the cup of suffering from which he must drink, or endure the baptism of pain and agony that he must endure. Confidently, but without any real comprehension, they reply that they can, and Jesus assures them that they will indeed be given a share in his suffering but that the dispensation of honours in his kingdom is not within his remit to grant: ‘As for seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted’ (Mk 10:40).

Overhearing the conversation between Jesus and the two brothers, the other  apostles are furious, not because they are any less ambitious, but because they have been upstaged by James and John.  So Jesus calls all the twelve together for a much-needed lesson about power and authority. Painstakingly, he explains the difference between the common understanding of authority, exemplified by ‘the pagans’, their Roman colonisers, and the exercise of authority in his kingdom. ‘You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This must not happen among you (Mk 10: 42).  

Roman authority, as the disciples of Jesus were well aware,  was exercised primarily through force, intimidation, and a network of patronage, that sought to ensure absolute loyalty to the Emperor. This ruthless exercise of power has no place in the Kingdom Jesus is establishing.   In the kingdom of God power and leadership are manifested in the service of others: ‘Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave of all’ (Mk 10: 43-44).  Jesus himself is the living embodiment, the perfect model, of this kind of leadership. He is the humble, suffering servant, depicted by Isaiah in the first reading today,  whose innocent suffering brings healing to others: ‘By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself’ (Is 53:11) He is the supreme high priest who, as our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, took on himself our human weakness and identified himself with us in every way except sin (cf. Heb 4:15).

The values of Jesus are profoundly counter-cultural and diametrically opposed to the worldly lust for power and status, which, as Pope Francis frequently reminds us, can be found sadly within the Church at every level. The message of today’s gospel is as relevant to our time as it was in the time of Jesus. As members of Christ’s body, the Church, we are all called to be counter-cultural witnesses to God’s reign of justice, peace and love.   We are challenged to resist the insidious attractions of fame and prestige and imitate the kind of servant leadership of Jesus, who gave ‘his life as a ransom for many’ (Mk 10:45). It is in this way that we become great in God’s eyes.  This kind of service does not need be accompanied by heroic deeds or spectacular gestures. We find multiple examples of it all around us, in our parishes and communities, in little unrecorded and unremembered acts of kindness and love. It is a service provided by persons we often overlook, ‘invisible on earth, without a voice’, as Malcolm Guite reminds us in his poem The Last Beatitude, with which I shall conclude this homily:

And blessed are the ones we overlook;
The faithful servers on the coffee rota,
The ones who hold no candle, bell or book
But keep the books and tally up the quota,
The gentle souls who come to “do the flowers”
The quiet ones who organise the fête.
Church sitters who give up their weekday hours,
Doorkeepers who may open heaven’s gate.
God knows the depths that often go unspoken
Amongst the shy, the quiet, and the kind,
Or the slow healing of a heart long broken
Placing each flower so, for a year’s mind.
Invisible on earth, without a voice,
In heaven their angels glory and rejoice.

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Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30
Theme:  True Wisdom

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend about an underrated virtue today – the virtue of wisdom. Browsing in Waterstones, Cork, my friend had recently come across a fascinating book on Seneca, one of the leading philosophers of ancient Rome. Written by David Fideler, and entitled Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living, it offers practical guidance on developing character, cultivating healthy friendships and navigating the vicissitudes of life with equanimity. As my friend discovered, Seneca’s wisdom, as distilled by Fideler, provides us with a rich deposit of time-tested advice about the human condition that is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago.

The Book of Wisdom, from which our first reading is taken, illustrates the high regard for wisdom in the Ancient world. The author speaks in the name of king Solomon who was reputed to be the wisest man in all of Israel. He states that  Solomon prayed for wisdom and, when he received it, treasured it as a gift from God. He then personifies wisdom as an attractive Lady whom he valued above everything else: ‘I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones; compared with her I held riches as nothing… I loved her more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light, since her radiance never sleeps’ (Wisdom 7:8-10). Would that all of us today, including our political leaders, might similarly esteem Lady Wisdom!

Our responsorial psalm reminds us of the shortness of human life and prays for that wisdom of heart that yields fruit in love and joy, qualities St Paul would later describe as ‘fruits of the Holy Spirit’ (cf. Gal 5:22)

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is approached by a wealthy man who is wise enough to seek his advice. Clearly all his riches have not satisfied the deepest longing of his heart. He yearns for ‘something not sold for a penny in the slums of Mind’ (P. Kavanagh). So he puts this question to Jesus: ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Mk 10:17). Jesus answers by reminding him to observe the Commandments of God. When the man responds by saying that he has kept all these from his youth, Jesus looks at him with love and invites him give away all his wealth and follow him: ‘Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me’ (Mk 10:21). Sadly, this an offer the rich man cannot accept. In what appears to me one of the most poignant lines in the New Testament, Mark tells us: ‘his face fell at these words (of Jesus) and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth’ (Mk 10:22). His wealth had become a millstone holding him back from following Jesus, from embracing a love worth more than all the worldly riches he possessed. He had the wisdom to search for the truth but lacked the courage to act on it.

Turning to his disciples, Jesus then says: ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God’ (Mk 8:23) – a statement that shocks them to the core. We must remember that the disciples of Jesus were heirs to a biblical tradition that associated that worldly success and wealth with God’s blessings – a tradition that has not completely disappeared, even in our time. In response to his disciples’ palpable incomprehension, Jesus does not back down or modify his challenge. He repeats his statement even more emphatically, adding that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God’ (Mk 10:26).

Jesus teaching on the incompatibility of wealth and the kingdom of God remains a constant challenge for all of us, especially those who live in a society that measures success in terms of economic growth and security. We can become captivated by the blandishments of our consumerist culture. Like the rich man in today’s gospel, our possessions can possess us and inhibit our freedom what truly enriches us. Jesus is challenging us to embrace a new identity and a new freedom that has nothing to do with wealth or possessions – the identity and freedom of the children of the Kingdom. This identity and freedom is rooted in the Love that makes the impossible possible and is manifested in the ability to give without counting the cost. It is the identity and freedom of Paraic Pearse’s wise Fool ‘that never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped, the fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed’. This is true wisdom.

I will conclude with a thoughtful reflection on today’s gospel from the pen of Flor McCarthy SDB. It is entitled ‘Entering the kingdom of love’.

Jesus saw that the rich young man had great potential,
so he invited him to enter the world of sharing.
But he wasn’t up to it – riches got in the way.
As he went away a sadness descended on him,
the sadness that descends on us when we choose to live for ourselves.
Even though Jesus was sad to see him go, nevertheless he let him go.
There’s no point in forcing people to make sacrifices.
If you take things from people, they are impoverished;
but if you can get them to give them up, they are enriched.
People are essentially good,
but this goodness has to be awakened and called forth,
if they are to enter the kingdom of love.

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Readings: Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16
Theme: Married Love

Our readings today invite us to reflect on the theme of married love. The first reading from the book of Genesis expresses in beautiful language God’s vision of marriage. Speaking about the ‘suitable’ companion God gave him, Adam joyfully exclaims: ‘This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She shall be called Woman, because she was taken from Man’ (Gen 2:23). The author of Genesis then declares that this divinely fashioned companionship lies at the heart of marriage and of married love: ‘Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh’ (Gen 2: 24).

As our first reading illustrates, the love between a man and woman is something wonderful and mysterious. It is a love that often begins with the what we usually refer to as ‘falling in love’ – the kind of experience we imagine that Adam had when he first set eyes on Eve! It is a thrilling but temporary experience. In his famous novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières describes this experience as a ‘temporary madness’ that ‘erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.’  And when it does subside, then comes the time to decide.  Will I commit myself to this person for the rest of my life? Ultimately, married love is about making a decision and sticking with it. Like all true love, married love is about commitment. The love that leads two persons to become one involves the will as well as the heart. To quote Bernières again: ‘You have to work out whether your roots were so entwined together that it inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness; it is not excitement; it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion; that is just being in love which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away and this is both an art and a fortunate accident’.

In our gospel reading from Mark, Jesus repeats this teaching of Genesis in response to a question from the Pharisees about divorce, and adds: ‘What God has united, man must not divide’ (Mk 10: 9). At the time of Jesus, Jewish law allowed divorce, but only the man could initiate divorce proceedings. The woman could not. And when a man divorced his wife she was left without property or security and could not remarry. There was disagreement also regarding the grounds for divorce. Some rabbis insisted on granting divorce only for very serious reasons, while others argued that even trivial reasons could suffice.  Given this context, it is not surprising that Jesus refuses to take sides in the debate. Instead he reminds his audience that God intended the union of man and woman to be permanent and he declares this as the norm. In this teaching Jesus also affirms the fundamental equality of men and women with respect to the privileges and responsibilities of marriage.

It is far from easy to live the Christian ideal of marriage as a life-long union. Human experience shows that communication sometimes breaks down, relationships fester, and marriages collapse, even with the best will in the world. Over the past fifty years there has been a worrying world-wide rise in the number of divorce cases. However, the statistics on divorce do not tell the full story. Many couples opt for a kind of ‘virtual’ divorce.  While they remain a couple nominally, they live completely separate lives and leave one another free to embark on new liaisons. In Ireland, where the formal divorce rate is the lowest in Europe, this kind of ‘divorce’ seems to be on the rise.

While the Church continues to uphold the teaching of Christ on the permanence of the marriage union, it also puts in place a solid network of supports for those striving to live this ideal.  Marriages don’t happen, they are the fruit of a lot of hard work. Marriages often run into trouble simply because there is no one around to give support and counsel when a marriage runs into a rough patch. The importance of this support came home to me some years ago when I celebrated the golden jubilee of a first cousin’s wedding. My cousin spoke of a major turning point early on in her marriage when her husband lost his job, and she and her husband were struggling to make ends meet, with four young children to care for. She stressed that it was the encouragement and practical support of her family, relatives, friends, and the local community, that helped them through the hard times to remain faithful to their commitment for the past fifty years. There is a lovely image from nature that illustrates the importance of this kind of communal support. On the Rocky Mountains in California, huge trees grow in soil too thin and rocky for them to put down deep roots. Instead they spread their roots out wide and join up with the roots of other trees. This gives them the strength to grow tall and sturdy despite the ravages of wind and rain.

So we pray: ‘Lord bless the commitment of married couples, and help them to find the support they need to remain ever faithful to one another. Amen’.

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Theme: Anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name …will certainly not lose their reward.
Readings: 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48

Jesus sells his salvation very cheaply in today’s gospel, saying that no one who gives a cup of water to another in his name (since we all belong to God) will lose his reward. How much more will the Lord reward those who cared for that man who had the accident even if not claiming to do it in the name of Jesus?

Is there not a temptation in every religion and even within religions to elitism and exclusivity? It is a very dangerous attitude and one which we need to be aware of and understand. In today’s gospel John the beloved disciple clearly succumbs to this temptation. “We saw a man”, he complains, “who was not one of us casting our devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him”. Jesus told him that he should not stop such people. “No one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me.” And he gives a very important principle. ’Anyone who is not against us is for us’.

Jesus gives us many examples from his own life confirming this. He asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water when he sat down tired by the well. The Samaritans were the hated enemies of the Jews because they were seen as heretics and destined for damnation. It would have been unthinkable for a Jew to speak to a pagan Samaritan. And, above all, to a woman who was alone and therefore of doubtful reputation. But Jesus came to show us that God was the father of all of us and welcomes everyone irrespective of labels. Jesus showed this in many encounters with other so-called sinners – prostitutes, tax collectors, public sinners, people who didn’t attend the Sabbath synagogue worship etc.

Today’s readings teach us that we are free from the belief that we are the only ones representing God in this world. God is just not interested in labels: Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Animist, Hindu, Buddhist etc. He is underlining the great truth that the essence of following Jesus is found in the way we live love. Very simple, but how very demanding. Love alone counts. A simple Taize chant puts it this way: “Where there is love, there is God.” The basis of Jesus’ ministry was hospitality and welcome. He was not in the slightest prejudiced. What of us?

The real challenge of the gospel is whether we accept that the Spirit of God today works wherever God wishes and through whomsoever is chosen. It is necessary to remember that the truth is always bigger than anyone’s understanding of it. No one can possibly grasp all truth. We simply must be open to the Spirit’s working in our world. This call for tolerance is not a lazy acceptance of anything that goes. It means respecting the freedom of conscience of others. But if groups put forward doctrines calculated to destroy morality and to remove the foundations from all civilized and Christian society then they are to be combated.

The call is for each one of us to be faithful to the call God gives us.

Jesus warns us to beware of leading others astray, especially the little ones. ‘Little ones’ here is not confined to children but those who may be weak in the faith, people struggling to respond to God and failing often or just simply those regarded as weak physically, spiritually or morally.

Jesus is very harsh on those who might scandalise them. There are two ways of doing this. First, obviously scandalising others by bad example. Living in a way which really leads others to do the same or weaken their attempts to live good lives. Any group can do this, be they non-believers or believers including priests and religious. Secondly, we can be obstacles to others by making demands on them that even God wouldn’t make. Do we place too many obstacles in the way of people receiving Holy Communion? Is the role of women in the Church too limited? We can give scandal when we are over demanding and judgemental of those who still struggle to reach a lower level of commitment even if it is the best they can do. The effect is often to make such people lose heart and give up.

‘Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see the many ways you work through different peoples and religious groups. Wherever there is love and goodness surely your Spirit is at work. Amen’.           

Edited from a homily by the Fr Jim Kirstein, SMA

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Readings: Wis 2:12,17-20; James 3:16 – 4:3; Mk 9:30-37
Theme: True Greatness

The theme of today’s readings might be summed up in these words of Martin Luther King: ‘Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.’ Ambition, drive, success and winning have been dominant traits of humanity from time immemorial. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the drive to succeed in life, to be the best we can be in our chosen area of endeavour. Without that drive, we would not have a Rhys McClenaghan, a Daniel Wiffen or a Nellie Harrington, and we would not be thrilled and inspired by their achievements. St Paul, who was quite a driven character himself, urges us to aim high: ‘Be ambitious for the higher gifts’ (1 Cor 12:31).

Ambition in itself is not bad. It is what often accompanies it that make it dangerous and destructive. As St James reminds us in today’s second reading: ‘Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done’ (James 3:16).  The popular signer and song-writer, Ed Sheeran, who has won multiple awards for his songs, spoke of the toxic atmosphere of the MTV Awards ceremony in New York. He stated that he no longer enjoys these events (and he has been to a lot of them!) because, and I quote, ‘the room is filled with mutual resentment and hatred, and it’s a pretty uncomfortable mood’. Ambition, even when directed to noble ends, needs to be balanced with, and accompanied by, other qualities like wisdom and kindness. Wisdom, in the words of James, ‘comes down from above,… makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good’ (James 3: 17).

In today’s gospel passage from Mark, Jesus teaches us what it means to be truly great. He doesn’t say that we shouldn’t seek greatness, or try to be the best person we can be. But he turns the common understanding of greatness on its head:   ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all’ (Mk 9:35).  This teaching doesn’t sit easily with us. It’s not the way the world thinks or works. People do not get ahead by making sure they are last in line.  The instruction of Jesus has nothing to do with human wisdom. It makes sense only from the perspective of God’s way of judging persons and situations, that is, from the perspective of the Kingdom of God.

Mark sets out the context of Jesus’ teaching in stark terms. He tells us that the disciples of Jesus had been arguing about who among them was the greatest. Despite the repeated reminders of Jesus that he was destined to be rejected by the Jewish authorities, and to suffer and die before rising again, they were still thinking of his kingdom as an earthly political realm with themselves holding positions of power and prestige.  When Jesus asks them what they had been discussing as they walked with him on the road, they fall silent!  Clearly ashamed of themselves, they are unable to speak their minds. Foolish and blind as the disciples of Jesus were, and as we often are, Jesus was patient with them and takes time to instruct them about what greatness means in the context of kingdom he is inaugurating through his suffering, death and resurrection. It means placing ourselves and our talents at the service of others and of God’s reign of justice, peace and love on earth.

Jesus illustrates his teaching about greatness by calling a small child to himself, placing this child in front of them and then identifying himself with those whom the child represents: ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me’ (Mk 9:37). When I was a child I was sometimes told by my Granny, especially when I was playing with my brothers and being a bit noisy, that children were to be seen not heard. Yet, for Jesus, children are to be seen, heard, welcomed and imitated. They are the gateway to the kingdom. The values of the kingdom are most clearly manifest in children who are small, vulnerable, trusting and defenceless. When we welcome them and learn from them, and from all the little ones of our world; when we enter the world they inhabit, letting go of our desire to be big and important, we become servants and agents of God’s kingdom. And thus we become great in God’s eyes. Such service is not drudgery or slavery, but liberating and joyful, for it makes us children of the kingdom. I will conclude with a poem about service by the American poet, Frank Otis Erb.

It is entitled, Serve Where You Are.

That noble future you so fondly dreamed;
That service which on life’s horizon gleamed;
That influence far-reaching in its scope;
That great success on which you set your hope.
And now the door is closed, the gate is barred?
What then? Repinings? bitterness? a heart grown hard?
Nay! Nay! Serve where you are.

And as you share your best with others, lo,
Slowly above your leaden rim will glow
A nobler future than you dared to dream,
A service broader than youth’s fondest gleam,
An influence heaven-reaching in its scope,
Success more brilliant than your dearest hope,
O heart! serve where you are.

Listen to an alternative audio homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

Readings: Is 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35
Theme:  The true Identity and Mission of Jesus

Caesarea Philippi, the setting of today’s gospel is located on the southern slopes of Mount Hermon in the northernmost part Israel. It was originally known as Banyas (or Panias) in honour of the Greek god, Pan. During the time of Jesus, Herod the Great built a city there and named it Caesarea,  after the Roman Emperor. Herod’s son, Philip, added his own name to it..  It’s a place of striking beauty, where as stream of water gushes forth from a huge face of solid rock, becoming the source of the river Jordan.  In the Spring of 2008, I had the privilege of visiting this site during a four month’s sojourn in the Holy Land, and of reading there today’s gospel passage.

At this meeting place of Greek, Roman and Jewish cultures, Jesus raises the question of his identity with his closest disciples and clarifies the nature of his mission. He begins by asking them  ‘Who do people say I am? (Mk 8:27). The response of the disciples reflects a diversity of opinion  about Jesus’ identity. Most of his contemporaries considered Jesus to be a prophet, like John the Baptist or Elijah, who pointed the way to the Messiah. Jesus then challenges his disciples with a much more personal question: ‘But you, who do you say I am?’  And Peter, speaking on their behalf, responds: ‘You are the Christ’ (Mk 8:29). That is, you are the Messiah, the long-awaited King of Israel.

Surprisingly, Jesus is not overjoyed at Peter’s confession of his true identity.   He orders his disciples not to tell anyone about him. The reason for Jesus’ caution is that most of his contemporaries expected the promised Messiah to be a powerful king who would accomplish victory over Israel’s enemies by force of military might. He would be an all conquering hero untouched by suffering or defeat. This expectation could not be further from Jesus’ understanding of his messianic identity and mission. So he begins to inform his disciples that he ‘is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again’ (Mk 8:31).

Shocked by these words of Jesus, Peter begins to ‘remonstrate with him’ (Mk 8:32). For Peter, as indeed all the disciples, it was unthinkable that the Messiah should endure the kind of fate Jesus had described. What Jesus was saying did not make sense to them. It was not part of their scenario for him. Peter and the disciples want the Messiah to be strong, victorious and invulnerable.  Jesus’ frighful prognosis must be nipped in the bud.

However, the reaction of Jesus is even stronger than Peter’s protest. He does not hesitate to call Peter ‘Satan’: ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s’ (Mk 8:33).  Peter’s protest reminds Jesus of Satan, who at the beginning of his ministry had tried to deflect him from his true path, using false interpretations of verses from Scripture. Peter is now effectively doing Satan’s work, thus becoming a stumling block to Jesus’ fulfillment of his mission. So he must be roundly rejected. He and his disciples must understand that their cherished Messiah is going to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. It is clear that the disciples still had much to learn about their Master. Yes, they had reached the critical stage of knowing who Jesus was – the Messiah, but they were far from understanding the true nature of his messianic vocation, and what that would mean for them.

Addressing not just his companions but all his would be disciples, Jesus continues: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of he gospel, will save it’ (Mk 8:34-35). The way of Jesus has be our way. Jesus is inviting us to take up our own crosses, the sufferings that come our way when we follow in his footsteps. He wants us to let go of the things we think will keep us safe and give us security. For this would be wanting to save our lives instead of losing them for the sake of the gospel. He is inviting us to take the risk of losing our lives. This means imitating Jesus by entrusting ourselves to our beloved Father and letting him take control. It means, to echo the theme of James in our second reading, putting our faith to work in the service of others.  I conclude with a prayer, entitled My Surrender Prayer, that may help us take to heart the challenge of Jesus in today’s gospel.

Abba God,
I welcome everything that comes to me today.
I welcome all persons and situations, thoughts and feelings.
Fill the hole in my heart with your unconditional love.
Help me to let go of the things I have become attached to because of my wounds:
my need to accumulate;
my need to be busy;
my need to be perfect;
my need to be liked;
my need to feel important;
my need to be in control;
my need to change others.
Open my eyes to the ways you are present in my life. Amen.

Listen to an alternative audio homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

Readings: Isaiah 35:4-7, James 2:1-5  and Mark 7:31-37.

In the gospel today Jesus meets a man who is deaf and also has a speech impediment. We note the sensitivity of Jesus. He takes the man apart in order to cure him. We see the gentleness of Jesus in dealing with the man in a very personal and caring way. He doesn’t want to embarrass him and treats him as a human being – thus deserving of respect and gentleness.

However, more than a physical healing Jesus allows him to go back into society, freed to participate in all social and religious activities. The fact is that at the time of Jesus deafness and the inability to speak were seen as punishments from God. So in healing him, Jesus not only restores his physical wellbeing, he also removes the social and religious taboos that excluded and marginalised him in society.

In the text, the man healed is not named suggesting that the he stands for all of us, who need to have our ears opened to God’s Word and be freed from things that harm us. As a people open to and really hearing the word of God, Christians should show solidarity with those who suffer physically and socially. Today, an obvious situation is how we treat immigrants, and people with disabilities. Very often, they are rejected, treated with suspicion and ostracised.

The events in today’s gospel, took place in Decapolis, which was a gentile or non-Jewish territory showing that Jesus ministry was open to all peoples irrespective of religious or other labels. This is an example for us his followers and an invitation to engage with those living among us who we see as “different”, perhaps neighbours who are immigrants, people of other faiths or who are different in other ways. 

Jesus has gone back to his heavenly Father and he leaves the work of opening the ears of the deaf and removing impediments to Christian living to us. Perhaps we should begin with ourselves. In saying to the deaf man, ‘ Ephphatha’ that is ‘Be opened’ Jesus is also addressing the same words to us – ‘Be opened’ – open to the humanity and goodness of other people, to seeing their inherent value, the talents and gifts they bring rather than viewing them as “other” or a “threat”.   

For sure the deaf man in the Gospel stands for each of us. God speaks to us daily through others in so many ways.  We can choose to hear what He is saying and we can choose to keep our lips free from the negative and judgemental comments that sow division and build impediments to the solidarity and love that are central to Christian living.

Lord Jesus, open our ears to your word and free us from the selfish and narrow minded impediments that prevent us from seeing you in the people around us no matter, the colour of their skin, where they are from and what they believe. Amen.”

Edited from a homily by the late Fr Jim Kirstein, SMA (RIP)

Readings: Deut 4:1-2,6-8; James 1;17-18,21-22,27; Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
Theme: Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves

Today’s first reading is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, one of the five books of the Torah. It presents a vision of the Mosaic law as an integral part of the relationship of loving fidelity between God and the people of Israel. For the Jews, faithful observance of the Law, with its detailed prescriptions covering all aspects of their lives, was essential to developing and deepening their relationship to the God who loved them and accompanied them in their historical journey from slavery to freedom. As psalm 19 clearly indicates, the Jews regarded the law not as a burden but as a gift, something beautiful and life-giving: ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart…. More to be desired are they than gold, even fine gold; Sweeter also than honey, than the drippings of the honeycomb’ (Ps 19: 8-10). Little wonder, then, that in today’s first reading we find the Deuteronomist eulogizing the Law: ‘And what great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law that I put before you today’ (Deut 4:8).

The topic of the Mosaic Law surfaces also in today’s gospel passage from Mark. Some Pharisees and Scribes complain that the followers of Jesus are not observing the prescriptions of the Law regarding the washing of hands before eating. The Pharisees were a lay group who prided themselves on their strict observance of the Law while the Scribes were the professional experts in interpreting and applying the law to the everyday lives of the people. Both took the Law very seriously and were genuinely scandalised by the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples. However, in responding to their complaint, Jesus, instead of apologising for his disciples’ behaviour, launches a blistering attack on their approach to the Law.  He accuses them of disregarding the commandment of God while clinging to human tradition, of focusing on external observance while missing the principal purpose of the Law which was to promote heart-felt worship of God. He applies to them the words of the prophet Isaiah: ‘This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me’ (Is 29:13). These words challenge us today just as they challenged the scribes and Pharisees. Does our worship of God come from hearts that are turned towards, and attuned to, God and his will for us?

The purification of the heart was indeed an issue of major concern for the Jews. They were convinced that the way to do this was by avoiding contamination from sources outside themselves, especially from contact with the Gentile world – contact that would corrupt their hearts and render them impure in God’s sight.   This belief lay behind their multiple rites of purification. Jesus points out that the transformation of the heart is a job of interior reclamation, not a matter of frequent washings or the avoidance of certain foods. It is not what goes into a person from outside that makes one unclean or impure. It is what comes from the heart that makes one unclean, for the heart is the source of those destructive evil intentions that lead us astray and wreak havoc in our world – like pride, avarice, envy, murder, slander, etc.

Jesus’ attack was not directed against the Law itself but against the way it was being used, or rather misused, by the scribes and Pharisees as an instrument of power and control rather than an agent of transformation. As Jesus himself says in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them’ (Mt 5:17).  But, to achieve its purpose, Jesus knew that the Law had to be employed not as an end in itself but as a means to an end, as an instrument of interior liberation and transformation. And for this transformation to happen, Law by itself was not sufficient. It had to leave room for the surprising action of divine grace. In the words of the poet, Patrick Kavanagh, ‘God cannot catch us/Unless we stay in the unconscious room/ of our hearts…./ We must not daydream to-morrow’s judgement -/ God must be allowed to surprise us’.

Our second reading today, taken from the Letter of St James, reminds us that God has indeed surprised us by planting his word within our hearts. But we must be humble enough to submit to that word and act in accordance with it: ‘You must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves’ (James 1:22). For James the purity of our faith is manifested by the quality of our loving outreach to those most in need, especially marginalised people like widows and orphans (cf. James 1:23). James echoes that succinct description of true religion given by the prophet Micah: ‘Act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God’ (Micah 6:8). This is as good a summary of the Law as we are likely to find anywhere in the Bible.

‘As we gather around the table of the Lord, let us open our hearts to receive the word that God has planted within us. Enable us by your grace to worship you not only with our lips but with our hearts, and to be disciples not only in words but in actions—actions that make a difference in our lives and in our world. Amen’

Readings: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

Theme: Lord, to Whom shall we go?

In today’s Gospel we are being asked to make a choice, as we are, to choose to follow Jesus or not. Will we choose to follow him for a while and see how things work out and if they don’t we can always opt out of our choice of him?

We know from the New Testament that to follow Jesus we must make his thoughts, attitudes, values, his way of seeing things, totally ours. Above all we are asked to imitate his life-giving and loving service of all others, even at great cost to ourselves if necessary. This is far from easy. It is demanding and challenging. It doesn’t mean that we always follow Jesus perfectly. We don’t, but we must keep trying. Jesus says in the gospel, that it is having the same spirit as he had which gives life. The flesh or whatever is contrary to the attitude and spirit of Jesus cannot give true life, joy, peace etc. With the Spirit of Jesus, all is possible. So if we do things according to the spirit of Jesus, we will do them out of love and service for others. If because of fear or cowardice we are afraid to risk for Jesus we simply won’t experience real life and peace within.

So where do you and I stand? Jesus, like Joshua in the first reading, is offering us a choice: to follow him and serve God and therefore experience real life, joy and happiness. We can, as Christians choose to turn away from Jesus because we feel the demands are too much.

If we are honest, we can all say that at times when the demands of following Jesus were too much, we might have turned back but soon realised we were always loved and accepted and forgiven for whatever wrong we did and we started off again trying to be faithful.

In our world today there are many reasons to turn away from Jesus including

1) an incorrect understanding of the gospel message
2) negative witnessing by followers of Jesus, i.e. scandalising behaviour from other Christians, be they priests or lay people
3) the powerful attractions of a seductive world, which are not compatible with the Christian vision etc.

Ultimately faith is not simply a set of ideas to be held on to. It is a living relationship with a person, Jesus. This relationship – through the Mass, prayer, the sacraments and the help of the powerful Holy Spirit – we can grow and deepen our relationship. But being a Christian today had different demands to being one 20 or 30 years ago. What is Jesus asking of me now? Where is he leading me? How am I responding?

There are many people in our world who don’t follow Jesus: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews etc. Many of them have been brought to a high degree of union with God through their faith.

But we have chosen to follow Jesus. Experience teaches us that all Jesus promises in the gospels have been confirmed in our lives. No other vision has given me a meaning for life as the one of Jesus has.

Personally, I value his friendship, his accepting of my weaknesses and helping me to get up again when I fall. Like Peter, I too can honestly say “Lord to whom shall I go, you have the message of eternal life. I believe and I know that you are the Holy One of God”. What about you? Will you stay or go away?

“Lord Jesus, give us the powerful Holy Spirit to see that you have the true message for life here on earth and for the next life too. May your Spirit help us to deepen further our personal relationship with you so that by our witness others may come to know and follow you too. Amen.”

Edited from a homily by the late Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

Readings:   Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
Theme:  The life-giving bread of Jesus

Today’s gospel reading continues where last Sunday’s ended with Jesus identifying himself as ‘the bread of life’ (Jn 6:35) – the food that permanently satisfies our deepest hunger. In the gospel we have just heard, Jesus makes the even more astounding claim that the bread he is offering us is ‘[his] flesh, for the life of the world’ (Jn 6:51). When his audience react to this statement, saying ‘How can this man give us his flesh eat?’ (Jn 6:52), Jesus repeats his claim in even stronger language: ‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of of Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you’ (Jn 6: 53).

Jesus, of course, is not speaking literally? He was no advocate for cannibalism! What he is telling us is something profoundly spiritual and personal. To eat the flesh of Jesus and to drink his blood means to be totally united with him, and to be filled with his spirit.  It means to take on board his vision, his ideas, his values, and to embrace his mission of establishing on earth God’s reign of justice, truth and love. It means opening our hearts to his word as it comes to us through the Scriptures, and allowing that word to direct our everyday decisions and choices. This is what we do when we celebrate the Eucharist, recalling and re-enacting the greatest act of love the world has ever known: Jesus’ life-giving death on the Cross. And, when we say ‘Amen’ as we receive his body and blood, we identify ourselves with his sacrifice, and commit ourselves to carrying our own crosses after Jesus, accepting the sufferings which come into our lives as a consequence of this commitment.                            

In today’s gospel, then, Jesus is inviting us to share in the feast of his life-giving love. This invitation echoes the theme of our first reading from the Book of Proverbs which introduces us to Lady-Wisdom, the personification of God’s wisdom. The reading tells us that Lady-Wisdom has built herself a house with seven pillars and prepared a lavish feast of meats, bread and wine. She then sends her maidservants to invite people along, summoning all who lack wisdom to leave their folly behind and come to the feast where a different menu awaits them: ‘Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared! Leave your folly and you will life, walk in the ways of perception’ (Prov 9: 5-6). At a time like ours when wisdom is in short supply, this invitation is perhaps more relevant than ever.

What this invitation involves is expressed in more specific terms by St Paul in our second reading today. Speaking to the Christian community of Ephesus he warns  them to be careful about the sort of lives they lead. They must not be misled by the wickedness of the world around them. Instead of wasting their lives in the mindless pursuit of pleasure, they must strive to live thoughtful lives, centred on discerning God’s will for them, blessed by the wine of the Holy Spirit, and marked by constant gratitude.  Instead of adapting to the spirit of the times, they must become sources of healing and renewal for the world: ‘This may be a wicked age’ but you redeem it’ (Eph 5:16).

I imagine St Paul would make the same appeal to us today. I think he would also agree with the exhortation of the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, to live lives more in accord with ‘earth’s intelligence’:

If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So like children, we begin again
to learn from things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.

To live in this way is to come to the feast Lady Wisdom has prepared for us. Is to live wisely and become what we are called to be as children of God.

When we participate in the Eucharist and receive the body and blood of Christ, we affirm our deepest identity as members of Christ’s body, called to be sources of healing and renewal for the world of our time. We are saying we want to be with Jesus totally and unreservedly, to serve him with all our hearts and work with him for the making of a better world: a world of truth and love, a world of justice and peace, a world of freedom and happiness. When we see ourselves as really part of that great endeavour, then we know that in a very real sense we have eaten his flesh and drunk his blood. I will end with a poem on the theme of Jesus as the bread of life from the pen of Malcolm Guite:

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.
And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
then comes One who speaks into our needs
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.
And Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.

Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

Readings: I Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30 – 5:2; John 6:41-51
Theme: Food for the Journey of Life

We normally think of the prophets as strong, courageous persons, prepared to withstand any opposition rather than compromise the truth of God’s word. However, in today’s first reading we meet Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel, ‘at the end of his tether’.   Seeking to escape the wrath of Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, he flees into the desert in fear of his life. Jezebel threatened to kill him just as he had killed the priests of the Baal cult that she had introduced to Israel. So we find this mighty prophet alone in the desert, physically and spiritually exhausted, and asking God to let him die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life’ (1 Kgs 19:4). But God has other plans for him. As he lay down to sleep waiting for death to carry him away, an angel of of the Lord comes to him with baked bread and a jar of water, and urges him to get up and eat. Strengthened in body and spirit, we are told that Elijah continued on his journey, walking ‘for forty days and forty nights, until he reached the mountain of God’ (1 Kgs 19:8).

Today’s gospel passage continues the theme of Jesus as ‘the bread of life’, linking it to his life-giving death on the Cross. Unlike the manna that nourished the Israelites temporarily during their sojourn in the desert, Jesus is the ‘bread come down from heaven’, giving life eternal. But this bread comes at a cost: ‘The bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world’ (Jn 6:51). It is this bread we receive in the Eucharist.  In the Eucharist, we commemorate and re-enact the greatest act of love the world has ever known.  Jesus’ last act before his death on Calvary was to share a meal with those he had chosen – his Last Supper. In the course of this meal, he takes bread and wine, blesses them and gives them to his disciples saying: ‘Take and eat; this is my body… Take and drink; this is the cup of my blood. Do this as a memorial of me’. The meaning of Christ’s last meal is inseparable from his sacrificial death, his perfect act of love. Love is manifested supremely in self-sacrifice: ‘There is no greater love than this: that a person would lay down his life for the sake of his friends’ (Jn 15:13). All this is simply but powerfully expressed in the words taken the Fourth Eucharistic prayer:

‘He always loved those who were his own in the world.
When the time came for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, he showed the depth of his love.
While they were at supper, he took the bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you.
In the same way, the took the cup, filled with wine.
He gave you thanks, and giving the cup to his disciples said:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me.’

In the Eucharist, we not only remember the sacrificial death of Christ on the Cross. We participate in it. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) teaches, ‘The Church which is the body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head [Christ]. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire…. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ become also the sacrifice of the members of his Body’. The importance of the Eucharist is well illustrated in a true story recounted by Timothy Radcliffe in his book, Why Go To Church? In the year 304 AD, a time when the Christians were being persecuted for their faith, a number of Christians were arrested in North Africa for gathering together in a house of a Roman Official to celebrate the Eucharist on a Sunday. When the Roman pro-consul of the area asked the owner of the house why he had allowed these people into his house, he replied that these people were his brothers and sisters. When the pro-consul insisted that he should have forbidden them, he replied that he could not, and added these words: ‘Without the Day of the Lord we cannot live’. Celebrating the Eucharist was what gave meaning to their lives. To echo the words of today’s responsorial psalm, they tasted and saw that the Lord was good, and we are invited to do the same in every Eucharist.

Nourished by the Bread of Eternal Life, we are challenged to continue our Christian journey in good and bad times, until, like the prophet Elijah,  we reach the mountain of God, our eternal home. Let us pray that we will be ever more open to the life that Jesus, the living bread, gives us; that we will welcome and heed the angels he sends us on our journey; and take the time to taste and savour the goodness of the Lord in our everyday lives. Amen

Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.

Readings: 2 Kings 4: 42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15
Theme:  Bread, blessed, broken and shared for the life of the world

While on a sabbatical programme in Jerusalem in the Spring of 2008, I had the privilege to visit the ‘Church of the Multiplication’ in Tagbha on the northwest shore of Sea of Galilee. On the floor of this Church is a famous mosaic commemorating the event recounted in today’s gospel. The mosaic depicts two fish with a basket of loaves between them. Noticing that there are only four loaves in the basket, we might wonder where is the fifth?  Is it Jesus himself, the bread come down from heaven to be the life of the world?  Or is it the Eucharistic community, fed by Christ and called, in turn, to be food and sustenance for a hungry world?  It is both. All three readings today resonate with Eucharistic themes and give us a deeper appreciation of this great sacrament, the pulsating heart of the Church’s life.

Our first reading, taken from the second book of Kings, tells the story of how Elisha, during a time of famine, feeds 100 hungry men with twenty-five barley loaves and some ears of corn. Barely bread was considered to be the bread of the poor and, in the early Church, it was this bread that was used for the Eucharist. Today’s gospel, taken from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, echoes while surpassing the miracle of Elisha. It recounts the familiar story of the multiplication of the five barley loaves loaves and two fish, common to all four gospels. While illustrating the practical compassion of Jesus, the story has a deeper significance in John’s gospel. John, the only evangelist who has no account of the institution of the Eucharist, models his story of how Jesus feeds the five thousand on what happens in every Eucharist. Jesus takes the bread offered by a young boy, gives thanks for what has been offered, and shares the food with all present. 

In the second reading, taken from his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul, writing from prison, reminds the community at Ephesus that they have received one Spirit and form one body. Hence, he exhorts them: ‘Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the peace that binds you together’ (Eph 4:5). This unity in the Spirit is the fruit of the Eucharist, of partaking of the Body of the Lord. The word, ‘Eucharist’, comes from a Greek word and means ‘thanksgiving’.  In the Eucharist, we give thanks for Christ present as the food that nourishes and strengthens us. The Eucharist is Christ’s communion with us. It is, at the same time, our communion with one another.  Christ desires to be with us in the most complete way possible. This is what happens in the Eucharist. He comes to us. He enters into us, taking possession of our hearts, minds and bodies. He becomes one with us. And he wants to make us one with him.  However, we cannot be in communion with Christ without being in communion with one another. 

This recognition of the unity of all who partake of the Body of Christ is expressed in several ways in the Mass: in the common acknowledgement that we are sinners, the common responses, the songs of praise, the Gloria, the Creed,  the acclamation of faith, the Great Amen, and the kiss of Peace, sadly  a rite that has fallen into abeyance since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. We act as one body because we are made one body in Christ.  As he held up the Sacred Host before his congregation, St Augustine used to remind them of their essential vocation with these words: ‘Behold what you are, become what you receive.’  We become the body of Christ when we receive Christ, the Bread of life, in Communion, and our mission is to be, in turn, the body of Christ for others.

The Eucharist which affirms and strengthens our identity as the body of Christ ends with a sending out on mission: ‘Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord’.  We must bring the Bread of Christ for our broken and hungry world. Just as Christ has become our food, giving himself completely to us, so we, in turn, must give of ourselves for the sake of the world. We must become sources of nourishment for the world as Christ has become a source of nourishment for us. Recently, a friend send me a short anonymous story that illustrates this dimension living of our Christian vocation perfectly. It is entitled The Story of the Lost Hands.

One morning as I knelt and prayed,
I gazed at the statue of Christ in clay
And lo! to my dismay, he had no hands and arms that sway.
I searched around, and searched from roof to ground,
his wounded hands could not be found.
So I turned to him and asked our Lord:
Why, in his glorious seat
He seemed to be incomplete?
Then kindly he replied:
YOU ARE MY HANDS:
heal the wounds of the afflicted;
care for the poor;
give hope to the helpless;
reach out to the weary;
clothe the naked.
By doing this my child…you will
RESTORE MY HANDS.

So we pray: Loving Father, help us to live our vocation as the Body of Christ by serving others generously ‘in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience’, in our everyday lives. Amen.  

Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.