The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

15 August 2013

Revelation 11:19, 12:1- 6, 10
1 Cor 15:20-26
Luke 1.39-56

Two missionary priests made an agreement that whoever died first would contact the other about what happened. Some years later one of the priests had to go back to Ireland for medical treatment. Then one night the priest still on the missions woke up during the night convinced that there was someone in the room with him even though he couldn’t see anyone. Later he heard that that was the very time the other priest had died. One may not believe this or may dismiss it as pure coincidence. Whatever the reality we don’t have to base our trust in the resurrection on things like that.

In faith, today’s solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is telling us that God did indeed assume Mary body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life as a promise of our own resurrection from the dead after we die.

Mary’s greatness comes from her faith. Elizabeth, in today’s gospel says of Mary: ‘Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled’. Mary’s response is to give all the praise and glory to God who made it possible. Mary does not proclaim this song of thanksgiving as an isolated person but as the daughter of a people. This is clearly Luke’s intention. With her people Mary sings the greatness of God whose power is revealed through history in his people by way of his saving deed. Mary’s greatness is not based on a blood relationship with Jesus but because she was above all, the woman of faith who accepted God’s plan for her, even though it would involve a lot of suffering. She is someone very human like us experiencing many of the ups and downs of life as we do and so she knows what we go through having many of the same experiences, if not in the same detail, but certainly with the same joys and struggles of being human.

Mary is truly a model of the Christian life. Sometimes saints can be presented in such a way that we feel they are almost superhuman beings, almost angelic whom we could never imitate. This is certainly not true and especially it is not true of Mary. Mary is the greatest of all the saints because she never sinned. She was sensitive to the call of God and lived her life in total obedience to that call. Hopefully, most of us Christians try to live in obedience to God’s will in our lives but the obvious difference is that we sin from time to time, Mary never did.

Yet in many ways her life was very similar to the life of most women. She was married, gave birth to a child, and did her best to raise him as she believed. But there were times as in the case of all mothers when there were great misunderstandings between her and her son. When he was 12 years old and went missing for 3 days, she and St. Joseph must have been frantic with worry. The answer he gave was hardly satisfying on a human level. ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’

At the age of about 30 when he decided to leave home to be an itinerant preacher how would his mother have reacted? She most probably questioned him about the wisdom of it – where would he sleep, eat, what would support him etc? Of course, if we don’t really accept Jesus being fully human then we can give easy answers. At the wedding feast of Cana would Mary not have been like any other woman there, out dancing, enjoying the company, delighting in the newly wed young couple until her sensitivity to the lack of wine made her approach Jesus and ask his help. It shows the power of Mary’s intercession with her son.

So Mary was no plaster saint, totally different from other humans. She never heard confessions, celebrated Mass or performed miracles in the ordinary sense of the term. But hers was the greatest miracle of all – never to have sinned, never to have resisted God’s will. And she was faithful to the very end. She followed Jesus to Calvary and saw him crucified cruelly.

Today’s solemnity then is, above all, the triumph of God’s grace over evil and sin in a human being, Mary. The first reading from revelation is simply telling us that God is victorious in the struggle with evil and sin. The Assumption is the celebration of what God can do for us humans if we allow him

For a long time this thanksgiving song of Mary was seen in terms of a spiritual hymn only. But in recent times the emphasis is also very much on God’s preferential option for the poor, the underprivileged, and the marginalised. This is a theme running right though the bible and Mary’s song highlights it. In effect it speaks of God turning the ordinary way of looking at things upside down. –‘God pulls down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the lowly; the hungry he fills with good things, the rich he sends empty away etc. This, of course, was what Jesus proclaimed and carried out during his public ministry.

St. Paul says ‘eye has not seen nor ear heard what things God has prepared for those who love him’. I wonder what it must have been like for Mary, when she was assumed into heaven by God’s choice, to have come face to face with Jesus whom she had last seen physically hanging on a cross before being put in the tomb. What an incredibly joyful encounter it must have been.   (See below)

Today’s solemnity is a reminder to us that we too are called to the same destiny as Mary – to be with her Son forever in heaven. However in the meantime, we need to pray often for a great increase of faith and trust in God so that like Mary we will be faithful to the call each of us has from God. We too are called to work for justice –to let go of prejudices against any group of people, like AIDS victims, immigrants; to be those who are concerned for the underprivileged to the extent that we can be.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of your mother Mary. May she continually intercede for us. Amen”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

The feast of the Assumption is not merely about the logistics of how Mary’s body was assumed into heaven, but rather about the ultimate destiny of our humanity. Mary is an icon for the beauty that lies in the heart of humanity. There is a beauty in our humanity with which God is constantly falling in love and which God calls to himself. That is at the heart of our celebration today. Mary is called in her totality, body and soul, into the presence of God. She is an icon for our humanity. In looking at her, we see the beauty of humanity that cannot be destroyed, no matter what, and which God calls to himself.

4 August 2013

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23
Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11
Luke 12.13-21

Some time ago I met a friend who works as a stockbroker. On the day I met him he was quite sad. The reason being that a couple both in their mid 80s came to him, even though quite rich, and they were very anxious to invest some money they had just inherited and wanted him to advise them where to get the most return for it. What saddened him most was the fact that the idea of sharing it with the poor and those in need never entered their minds. He felt they were so focused on themselves they had little thought for others in need.

The readings today focus on our priorities and attitudes in life. Nowhere in today’s readings or in the Bible does it say that having possessions is wrong. The question is what importance do we give them in our lives? The first reading today is from the Book of Ecclesiastes or as it is sometimes called Qoheleth, a name meaning ‘preacher’ or ‘teacher’. When he says that ‘all is vanity’ he does not use the word ‘vanity’ in exactly the same way as we do today. He uses the word in the sense of ‘illusion’ or ‘mist’, i.e. it is an illusion to think that wealth or possessions in themselves can give true happiness and especially if we put them in the place of God so that they become an idol. We then act as if we are independent of God. Many rich people have got cancer and all their money couldn’t prevent them dying from it. A question: Did you ever see a hearse with a coffin inside pulling a trailer behind it with the riches of the dead person?

In the gospel Jesus refuses to get involved in a dispute regarding an inheritance between two brothers. He takes the opportunity to warn people against avarice or greed of any kind. Greed can become an idol because it consists in putting our trust in something other than God. Jesus is not talking only about material possessions. He is talking about anything that can become an idol for us. It might be drugs, drink, sex, work etc. Today computers and modern technology may take up so much of our time that we haven’t time to pray or go to Mass as we used to.

In the parable Jesus speaks about a man who is already rich. He wants to pull down his barns and build bigger ones. It is clear that the focus is on himself. He is self-centred. He doesn’t seem to consider the needs of those less well off than he is. Jesus is saying that riches are a blessing when they are shared and in fact a deadly violation when they are stored up for personal identity or security. Gandhi, the Indian leader repeated many centuries later what the early Fathers or theologians of the Church had taught.

He said: “Even if it is not stolen, something is to be considered stolen if one keeps it without needing it. The rich possess a great abundance of superfluous things they do not really need and that therefore remain unused and are lost, whilst millions die of hunger because for them there is no food. If everyone kept no more than what is really necessary, no one would lack anything and everyone would be contented with what one has”. Even though not a Christian, Gandhi says clearly what Jesus speaks about in the gospel today. Maybe a call for each of us to examine our conscience about what place or importance our possessions have in our lives. Do they possess us in the sense that we are enslaved by them? Or do we use them for our needs but also to help others in need?

The Good News of today’s readings is a gentle reminder that we are here on earth only for a short time and that our true home is in heaven as St.Paul says in the second reading. The real riches that we take with us to heaven are those we have given to the poor or whatever we have shared with others here on earth. Jesus is reminding us of this so that we might have the freedom that gives us a deep peace and joy now. Obviously if I have many riches I may need a lot of security around my house. If I have money invested I may start getting anxious if there is a recession or a slowdown in the economy. Money can become devalued very quickly. It is the opposite with God. God never becomes devalued! In fact the opposite is true – the more we trust in him and follow his ways with the help of his Spirit the more peace and joy we will have now and later too.

I feel that many people try their best to share with others and are conscious of their call to help those less well off. Today’s readings are a gentle reminder from our loving God that if we have been blessed with more material possessions than when we began life, he is asking us if we are using them in a Christian manner. Or if they are being given more importance in our lives than is good for us and therefore for others whom we could have helped.

“Lord Jesus, we thank you for the many ways you have blessed us. Every good gift comes from our Heavenly Father. Help us to use these gifts in a Christian manner for our own good and for others less well off. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

28 July 2013

Genesis 18: 20-32
Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13

One day in a supermarket I witnessed a small 6-year-old boy persistently calling his father: ‘Daddy, chewing gum’. He kept on repeating just these few words. In all whilst I was there about 15 times. But as he left the place with his father he went without getting his chewing gum. Obviously his father did not think it was good for him. Refusing him didn’t mean he loved him less, in fact it was because of his love and knowing better than his son did that he refused his request when it would have been easier to give in.

Perhaps prayer is a bit like that. The readings for this Sunday invite us to reflect on the dimension of prayer in the Christian life. It is an attitude of trust in God our kind Father who is always ready to listen to his children but who like the father of the little boy doesn’t give us always what we want because it would not be best for us. Luke in his gospel delights in frequently presenting Jesus praying. In all the important moments of Jesus’ life, Luke never forgets to point this out. Jesus’ frequent prayer and his unique way of starting it with “Abba” (more like our Daddy or Papa today) is the best sign of his relationship with his Father

So Jesus always begins his prayer addressing his father as “Abba” meaning ‘Daddy’ in Aramaic the language Jesus spoke. Is this not telling us that first of all prayer is about a relationship – one between our loving heavenly Father and us his children? It is interesting to note that this model of how we ought to pray puts the focus first of all on God our Father. We start by calling God, “Father”. Of the 5 petitions in the Our Father today the first two focus on God. We are told to pray: ‘may your name be held holy’. For the Jews a name was the same as the person. Thus we are asked to adore, honour and glorify our Father in heaven. Before mentioning any of our requests, praise and adoration of God are foremost. Then, in praying ‘your kingdom come’ we are told the how this might be carried out in our lives. Working to bring his kingdom about is more than just words. It calls upon us to be peacemakers, to work against all kinds of injustice, to live the truth of God’s love and forgiveness in our lives. We are called to do this wherever we are, in our homes, with our families, in our workplaces, when we recreate etc.

Then the next three petitions allow us to pray for our own needs and those of others. They represent all time: the present (give us this day our daily bread), the past (forgive our sins, that is all we did that was contrary to God’s kingdom), and the future (do not put us to the test – that is ‘do not demand more of us than we are capable of doing). So in asking our generous Father for our daily bread we are asking him to give us what is best for us – we may not get what we think is best like the little boy in the story. Or now may not be the best time to get it as God knows we are not ready yet. Of course, God may want to give us certain gifts but others may refuse to cooperate with God’s plan. Forgiveness is mentioned quite a number of times in the gospels and it is included here. We promise God to forgive others, though this is not always easy. That is why in the second parable that follows, Jesus tells us that God’s best gift to us is the powerful Holy Spirit who enables us to do what God asks of us to bring about his kingdom and to forgive others. Our Father knows that will power is not enough, we need Spirit power to live as God’s children and to act accordingly.  

The first of the little parables that follow the Lord’s prayer tells us of the need to persevere in prayer and not to give up if at first we don’t receive what we ask for. I knew a woman whose husband left her. She prayed daily for his return. Then one day he walked into her house again. This was after 19 years. She really persevered in prayer and believed God would answer her. Jesus tells us that there are 2 conditions needed to have our prayers answered by God. In John’s gospel ch.14.13 he says
1) ‘whatever you ask for in my name (that is according to my will) I will do and
2) ‘so that the Father may be glorified in the Son’ (that is that it will give glory to God).
Many times we forget this and want God to respond to our demands.

Sometimes, of course, we try to bargain with God: ‘If my sick husband lives a few year’s longer, I will go to Mass daily and pray a daily rosary’. Yet God doesn’t think this is foolish. In the first reading we heard about Abraham bargaining with God. He was saying in fact that he trusted God enough to bargain all the way. It doesn’t mean we will always get what we want but it does show a great trust in God and I feel God appreciates this bargaining as we take him seriously as he does us.

Ultimately prayer is about a relationship of trust. We trust we have a loving Father who passionately cares for us. More than anything he hopes we will develop an ever greater intimacy with him and he asks us to work to bring about his kingdom. He takes all this so seriously that the best gift he can give us now is the Holy Spirit who can empower and enable us to respond to his invitation.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for teaching us how to pray by giving us the best model in the “Our Father”. May we say not only the words but also put them into practice in our daily lives. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

21 July 2013

Genesis 18:1-10
Colossians 1:24-28
Luke 10:38–42

One night in a big town where I worked in the North of Nigeria I decided to visit an African family who were members of our parish. I lost my way and decided to knock on a door to ask the people the way. The family were obviously Muslim and were eating their evening meal. We had never met before. Immediately they invited me to sit down with them and share the meal. Their custom was that the unexpected guest was to be treated as one of the family and even if they hadn’t enough to eat themselves they would make whatever sacrifices necessary to look after the stranger. For me it was real example of true hospitality.

In the first reading today we read about Abraham welcoming three strangers with great hospitality. He doesn’t realise it then but in welcoming them he is welcoming God himself. Later on in the gospels Jesus will say, “whoever welcomes you welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me”

The gospel tells us of the welcome given by Martha and Mary to Jesus. Last Sunday in the story of the Good Samaritan we read about what it was to be a true neighbour – anyone who needed our help is our neighbour and this was to be shown in concrete acts of love. Today’s gospel shows us two Good Samaritans in action, Martha and Mary. Martha is the one who actually welcomes Jesus into her house and appears to be the cook and organiser. Jesus would have appreciated having a good meal after his journey. It is her way of welcoming Jesus. Mary on the other hand welcomes Jesus by sitting at his feet and listening to him. These are two different ways of welcoming someone. It is not correct to say that Mary’s way was best. What Jesus meant by saying that “Mary had chosen the better part” was that at that particular moment that was the best response for her. At another time she might need to take on the role of cook and organiser.

We must remember that at this stage of his life Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem where he would die on the cross. He was probably fearful of what was ahead of him. So when he comes to the house of Mary and Martha perhaps he just wants to relax and take a break before continuing his journey. Maybe the last thing he wanted was someone fussing over him and so he appreciates Mary’s quiet attentiveness as she listens to him speaking. It is obvious that Jesus knows the two sisters well and it would not have been his first visit. That is why Martha’s complaint about her sister would come from a relationship of trust and friendship with Jesus where she felt o.k. about complaining to him. One would not do this with strangers. Her familiarity with Jesus gave her that freedom. Jesus’ response to Martha then is that she not giving herself fully to what she is about. She wanted her sister to do the same work of cooking and organising just then.

Here we touch on a deeper meaning in the incident. At the time of Jesus only men sat at the feet of the Rabbis or Teachers of the Law. It was not the place for women. The cultural roles would have been quite rigid as regards the role and place of women in society. So Jesus is emancipating or freeing women to be equally entitled to do this. Is he not the first real feminist? He is saying that God’s love and word is addressed to everyone, men and women alike. So Jesus criticises Martha for being a prisoner of what she considers to be the proper role of women. He is inviting her to break away from the concept situating a woman as one to be confined to housework only. As a woman, each is entitled to have others interests and concerns too, if this is possible.

Mary, and in fact every woman has the right to listen to the Word of God. House tasks must not suppress that interest. This is a woman’s right which is still not recognised in many cultures even in the so-called developed countries. By his words and deeds Jesus liberates women from a concept which maintains them in a secondary role as mere housewives with no other possibilities to develop themselves.

Jesus then it teaching us that an active life which leaves no time for prayer and listening to God will soon become dry and barren. On the other hand a relationship with God that does not bother with the neighbour is nothing but cult worship that may well cut a person away from the realities of life.

Is there not a Martha and Mary in each of us? As the Book of Ecclesiastes says: “there is a time for everything under heaven”. Sometimes the call is for active service of my neighbour, at other times a time for prayer and contemplative listening to God’s word. When it is time for activity let our focus be totally on that. When it is a time to listen and pray that should be our focus. What is the Lord calling me to do at different times? If I am asked to be active and and am simply wishing I had time to be quiet or if I am called to pray and am all the time thinking about what I should do, then am I not fretting and worrying like Martha?

“Lord give us the gift to truly listen to you speaking to us and at each moment may we be guided by the Spirit to choose the better part. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

The HOLY TRINITY
26 May 2013

Proverbs 8.22-31
Romans 5.1-5
John 16.12-15

Recently I was at a meeting during which one woman said to another, ‘After all these years of marriage I think I will never fully understand my husband. What he did recently really surprised me. I never knew he could be so creative’. No doubt men say similar things about their wives. I remember my good father shaking his head from time to time as he saw some aspect of my mother’s personality that was new to him.

Isn’t this really the experience of each of us? No matter how long we live with another in a family or in a community, people will continue to surprise us by new ‘revelations’ of their personality. If this is so true for us on the human level should we be surprised if God is like that, continually revealing himself to us in new ways. My father would have said to me more than once: ‘you know your mother is a great mystery to me at times’. If that is true of us humans how much more true is it of God?

Mystery in the religious sense means that we cannot know everything about God. But we can know more and more about God than we did at an earlier stage as he progressively reveals himself to us. Our God is a revealing God. There are many things that parents cannot tell a 6-year-old child. Yet 10 years later they know he is now ready to hear them. The parents are not being difficult. They are being wise. Is it not even more true of God who is Wisdom itself?

We can tie ourselves into all kind of knots if we try to give a mathematical explanation of how there are Three Persons in the One God. Various examples were given to help us explain this. Like in a catechism class the teacher would light three matches at the one time and say: ‘Look, only one flame etc” – meaning three persons in the one nature of God. Personally I think it is much better to show from Scripture what God has already revealed to us about himself.

So in the gospel today Jesus says to the disciples: ‘I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. When the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth’.

Now that Jesus has gone back to his Father he has given us the powerful Holy Spirit who will make known to us and to successive generations the meaning of what he revealed when on earth to his apostles. There would have been little point in Jesus speaking about ‘cloning or genetic engineering’ to his disciples. But now the Spirit is with us to help us give a Christian response to this reality of the 21^st century.

What then are some of the things we can say about the Blessed Trinity that have been revealed to us already? God is not a loner, someone so far away in the heavens that we cannot dialogue with him. Also, using human language, God is a community of love, totally focused outwards toward the other and towards all others. In the gospels, Jesus does not focus on himself. He tells us a number of times in the gospels – ‘I have come not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me’. He also says that the Holy Spirit will reveal all things to you. Thus Jesus focuses on the Father and the Holy Spirit. When the Father’s voice is heard on the mountain and at the baptism of Jesus at the river Jordan he refers to the Son: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him”. So the focus of the Father is the Son. Jesus himself tells us that the Spirit will not focus on himself but will reveal to us more and more who the Father and Jesus are. God therefore is always concerned for the other. When Jesus came he lived out the same dynamic. He never worked a miracle for himself. He was concerned only to show God’s loving concern for us by healing, forgiving, feeding the crowds etc. Jesus’ focus was on others and their greatest needs.

In the gospel Jesus has announced the kingdom and love of the Father. Jesus came as a life-giver, his message is life-giving. Its demands, which the Spirit will make known to us, are always new and surprising. The Spirit is always at work in us to develop our potential and he invites us to work to make the world a better place to live in by having the attitudes of Jesus. This is the work of the Trinity inviting us.

Jesus shows us the way to the Father, and says the Spirit will be with us on our journey. The Spirit will sometimes lead us in ways we have not foreseen. I know a Frenchwoman who after the death of her husband decided to work as a lay in missionary in Africa etc. So the Spirit blows where it wills. The Spirit may lead us paths we have not foreseen. This can make us afraid and distrustful. We would prefer to be settled, to live with the security of the known, of the tried and trusted. But the same Spirit empowers us with courage and hope. If we cling to our own paltry security how will we be in solidarity with all those in need: the poor and needy, prisoners, those with AIDS, unemployed etc. Convinced that the Most Holy Trinity wants us to participate in its life of love and service let us be people of hope in our world today. Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“Lord Jesus, help us return to the source of hope – You, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Help us to believe the words of St.Paul that hope in you will not disappoint us because ‘your love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that you have given to us. Amen”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

5 May 2013

Acts 15.1-2, 22-29
Revelation 21.10-14, 22-23
John 14.23-29

A certain couple had 5 children and the dream of the parents for them was to show them as much love as possible, give them a good education which hopefully would lead to a good job and that whatever choice they made in life would leave each of them satisfied and happy. Obviously, this would be the dream of other parents too. But no matter how much the parents did to make their children happy it also depended on the desire of the children to be open to receive such love and help. In fact, one of the children, a boy did not respond positively and getting involved in drugs and drink as well as moving about with bad companions he was a very unhappy person and was even put in prison for awhile for stealing. The parents never gave up on him and were always there for him should he turn to them. They were wise enough to know they couldn’t force their love on him. The choice was his.

In the gospel today we have something similar. Jesus knows that he will die soon and that his disciples will need support after he has gone. He offers them some marvelous gifts that they will need when he goes – that the Father and Jesus will make their home in them; the Father will give them another Advocate who will teach them everything and remind them of all Jesus said; that Jesus will give them his peace which is not the peace the world offers. He will have to go away but shall return. But Jesus knows he cannot force his love, his gifts on them. Like the boy in the story they have to be open enough to receive the gifts Jesus is offering them. So in this passage he consoles them for the difficult times ahead. In promising the Advocate which is the Holy Spirit Jesus gives them/us the very best. We all know that in a court of law it is very important to have a good advocate or lawyer to plead our case so as to obtain justice.

Jesus assures us that this Spirit will teach us everything that we will need in difficult times. Even more, he will remind the disciples of all that Jesus had been teaching them. The Spirit is the interpreter of what Jesus is about. In going back to his Father Jesus did not leave them/us alone. The Spirit takes the place of Jesus, not in a physical sense but by a divine indwelling. With the Spirit’s help we will be able to discern in each subsequent age what God wants of us so as to be courageous in following Jesus and having the gift of knowing the way forward depending on the challenges of the time.

We see a practical application of this in the first reading. There was disagreement among the early disciples about what the Gentiles wishing to become Christians should be asked to do. It is a measure of the extraordinary openness of the leaders of the Jerusalem Church that what has been called the First General Council of the Church came out with a very liberal decision. These church leaders, Peter and the other apostles, were living in Jerusalem. Despite the Jewish faith and practice which they themselves had grown up with and which they still revered they decided it was not necessary for converts to the Way of Jesus to follow all the Jewish Mosaic Laws, especially all the ritual aspects of it. So pagan converts didn’t have to follow all the laws about the washing of hands, eating pork etc.

What they were asked to follow as regards the Jewish Law was kept to a minimum: ‘to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from blood, from fornication and from the meat of strangled animals’. That was all, no dietary regulations, no obligatory circumcision etc. In the situation of the time this was a revolutionary decision. When it was proclaimed, the elders of the Church used a very significant phrase: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”. They didn’t appeal to tradition alone to justify their decision but to the Spirit. They trusted the Spirit would guide them to make the correct decision.

Today’s gospel is a gospel of consolation, a gospel of encouragement. But like the boy in the story will we be open to receive all the gifts God wants to give us especially those mentioned above? Just as a container cannot be filled up with pure clean water if there are many dirty leaves, bits of wood etc in it neither can we benefit from all the gifts God wishes for us if parts of our hearts are closed off from God. For example, my heart may be partly occupied with selfishness, unforgiveness, anger, fear, undue anxiety, infidelities regarding my primary relationship, my vocation etc. It is not that God will not give us all that is possible but we can reduce our capacity to receive the Spirit by whatever in our lives is contrary to God’s will. This can fill up the space in our hearts that the Holy Spirit wants to occupy.

Let us pray often for the gift of the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts, to open our minds, to convert where necessary so God can lavish us with his love and other gifts as he so desires. Like the parents above he has even a more marvelous dream for each of us. Will we allow him to realise it in us?  

“Lord Jesus, thank you for the free gift of the Holy Spirit. Help us to call often on this Holy Spirit and to trust more and more his guidance in our daily lives. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

28 April 2013

Acts 14.21- 27
Revelation 21.1-5
John 13.31-35

Mark was a young man of 25 who had been working in an office for 4 years when he contracted a blood disease. He was told by his doctors that he would have to get a complete change of blood which would probably clear up the problem for him. He had an unusual blood type but amazingly two coworkers had the same blood type. In spite of the amount of blood involved they were able to give the necessary quantity of blood. What surprised Mark most was the fact that he didn’t know the donors very well at that time.

These blood donors put into practice what Jesus commands us all to do in today’s gospel: ‘I give you a new commandment: ‘Love one another just as I have loved you’. What is really new in this commandment? Already in the Old Testament, God’s chosen people were given the commandment to love – ‘you must love your neighbour as yourself’. So is there any difference? Yes, there is – it is the measuring standard of love. Jesus’ love is the model and the measure of how we should love our neighbour. This is what he asks of each of us who claim to be disciples of his.

What is typical of this love of Jesus?

• It is a serving love. Jesus himself said ‘I came not to be served but to serve and give my life as a ransom for many’. Jesus summed up his whole life’s attitude in the humble act of washing his disciples’ feet, in serving, in stooping down. He stoops down to all who are weak especially the poor, the hungry, the sick, the pagans, the non-Jews of his time. Above all, he cared for those whom society marginalised. He showed what attitude a true disciple of his must have in relation to women, to different ethnic or religious groups or to those whose skin colour is different etc. Jesus’ command to love is quite simple but very demanding.

It may be easy to love our families, our friends, those we like. But he commands us to love those we do not like, people who may have hurt us, people we have prejudices against, other ethnic groups etc. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus is realistic enough to know that we cannot love all others with the same affection as we love family and friends. Love at its very least means not to wish or do any harm.

• Jesus’ love is a merciful, forgiving love. He is not someone who came to seek revenge: ‘Father, forgive them they do not know what they are doing’, he said on the cross as he prayed for his enemies. He came to witness to us who our Heavenly Father really is. He is not a God who seeks revenge when we sin, not a God who wants to punish us or send us to hell. Our own choices decide that – not God’s desire. God asks us to respond to his incredible love for us, not out of fear but because of gratitude by loving others.
• The love of Jesus is a constant, dedicated love. He is not a moody God, who one day is in good form and at another time is in bad humour, seeking to chastise us for our wrongdoing. Jesus’ love was a total lifelong commitment to love, service and forgiveness even when the going got very difficult.

I know a man whose wife has Alzheimer’s disease. He gave up his job and is constantly there at the service of his wife’s needs. It is a very demanding life for him now. But it reveals the true love that Jesus himself lived out in practice. This man, in fact, does not believe in God but he is living a life of service and love. Going to Church, to Mass, praying rosaries, attending novenas are no guarantee of being a true disciple of Jesus unless they lead us to practise the kind of love Jesus himself lived whilst on earth.

Hopefully most of us do this daily in our family lives, in our homes even if we fail from time to time. Or do my actions witness to a lack of love, with a focus on my own selfishness etc. Jesus is not trying to frighten us or threaten us with punishment but he is saying that we and those we relate to will only have real peace and joy here and now by living his command to love. Putting it as simply as possible: ‘If you want to be truly happy here and now, seek and work for the happiness and the peace of others. If you want to be unhappy, seek your own happiness and peace only’.

In the second reading today we heard how Paul and Barnabas were faithful to their mission in spite of much persecution and suffering. Theirs was a costly love. The writer of the second reading today speaks of his vision of a new heaven and a new earth, something not yet achieved. Will you and I respond to the invitation of Jesus in bringing it about by cooperating with him in loving our brothers and sisters in our daily lives?

“Lord Jesus, it is not easy to love always as you did. It is hard to forgive those who hurt us. It is easier to be selfish at the expense of others. Help us to realise that we cannot do it alone. Give us your Holy Spirit to help us bring about your kingdom here on earth. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

21 April 2013

Acts 13:14, 43-52
Revelation 7:9, 14-17
John 10. 27- 30

A certain young man was studying at the university as he had a great desire to become a teacher. After he qualified he had great joy in working as a teacher. It gave him a lot of satisfaction. What saddened him was that he met some of the others who had been at university with him who were also teachers. But they told him they had no great love of teaching. They did it because it was a well paid job. Obviously their hearts were not in it.

Today is traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday when the Church asks us to pray especially for vocations to the priesthood. Perhaps the need to do this has never been greater. We need priests whose hearts are in it, who are truly good shepherds to the people God has entrusted to them. I feel that I am particularly blessed by God because I really enjoy being a priest and all that this involves.

As parents you are asked to be shepherds of the family God has given you. It is the same for teachers, farmers, fishermen, doctors, lawyers, etc. Is our primary concern to care for and help others to a better quality of life? If we are in it just for our own good then no matter what title one has one is not a shepherd with the heart of Jesus. Don’t we all have a great responsibility?

Sometimes it may cost a great amount if we try to listen to what we believe we are called to do and put it into practice. In the gospel today Jesus is speaking to the Jews and he says ‘the sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me’. This does not just apply to priests but to all who would like to be real disciples of Jesus. The theme of the Good Shepherd unfolds against a background of conflict and the threat of death as is more clear in the verses in John that follow today’s passage.

Down through the ages up to our own time anyone trying to really listen to the voice of God and put it into practice will suffer in one way or another. It will make demands on us. We see people who try to be faithful in marriage despite difficult relationships, others who withstand the pressure to have an abortion, others again who refuse to give or take bribes etc. This is in no way a condemnation of anyone who may have given into temptation on any level. In fact, haven’t we all at some stage or other?

In our world today there are many voices calling out to be heard. Either on television or radio, by advertising, on the Internet, pressure from well meaning friends, peer pressure etc. There is also the voice of God calling us. Which voices will we listen to? ‘My sheep hear my voice’, says Jesus. Many religious leaders of his time refused to listen to Jesus. They thought they were honouring God by killing Jesus and that they were saving religion by multiplying sacrifices, commandments, prohibitions etc. Isn’t it much safer and more secure to follow the law and tradition slavishly instead of risking to follow Jesus, who spoke about love, service, forgiveness, compassion etc being the core of true religion?

A friend of mine has a fish tank in which he has some small fish. He also keeps some canaries in a big cage. The fish and the birds belong to him. But in a sense he belongs to the fish and birds. If he doesn’t care for them they die. But I know he takes great care to feed them daily and clean their tank and cage from time to time. So they live longer and he gets great pleasure from them as Jesus does from us. Jesus says in the gospel that the sheep that belong to him listen to his voice. So in belonging to Jesus, he belongs to us and we know from experience that our belonging to him means that he does all he can to care and love us if we allow him. Very often we don’t. We stray away to follow other voices. Yet he keeps inviting us back to the true path that alone gives real peace and joy. This is the Good News.

To whom do we as Christians belong? It is not enough simply to say that we belong to Jesus. What we do and think will give us a good idea. Are we regular in going to Sunday Mass, to some daily prayer? Are we forgiving to those who may have hurt us or to those who think differently to us? Do we pray to put our trust in him and allow ourselves to be guided by his will?

He says also in this very short gospel: ‘I give them eternal life’, which for John the Evangelist does not just mean just life after death. Rather it involves the beginning of eternal life now – that is, a quality of life which gives peace, freedom, joy, but will also involve suffering and trial if we follow the Good Shepherd. It is especially about our relationship with God which begins here and continues into eternity.

In spite of your and my weaknesses Jesus gives us the great promise that as his brothers and sisters no one can steal us from him because the Father who is greater than anyone will not allow this.

Like any true shepherd Jesus will pull put all the stops to love and care for us. He does this especially through the friends and other disciples he gives us to care for us now.

‘Lord Jesus, true Shepherd of your flock, thank you for sharing this vocation with each of us. May your Spirit enable us to be true life givers and carers of your flock, those you have entrusted especially to us. Amen’.

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

14 April 2013 

Acts 5.27- 32, 40- 41
Revelation 5.11-14
John 21.1-19

A certain businessman would travel abroad from time to time on company business and on his return would take a taxi from the airport to his home so as not to disturb his wife who otherwise would have had to collect him. Then one day she decided to surprise him by going to the airport to welcome him home. Imagine her horror when she saw her husband with his arm around another woman and also kissing her. She was devastated as she felt totally betrayed. She found out that the husband had been having an affair with this woman for quite some time. She felt she could not forgive him and now they are separated.

In the gospel today we hear about the forgiveness of Jesus in relation to Peter and the other disciples despite their betrayal of him and their infidelity. In fact, he calls them ‘friends’.

The disciples had been out fishing all night and caught nothing. It was obviously dark. Now Jesus the Light of the world appears on the shore and having been told they had caught nothing suggested they cast their nets again and they catch a huge number of fish. Obviously he did not withhold his forgiveness and compassion from them despite their infidelity and betrayal of him. We see that Jesus was concerned to save them from the embarrassment of returning home to tell their families they had failed to catch anything. Also it was during their normal work that he appeared to them. This is important for us to know. Jesus does not try to embarrass us when we betray him by our sins and he is concerned and cares for us that our daily tasks would go well. He is with us if only we are aware of this. We also see the concern of Jesus in providing a meal or them. They had worked hard all night without success and were probably cold and tired so he calls to them and says ‘Come and have breakfast’.

When the disciples came ashore after the miraculous catch of fish they found a charcoal fire ready with fish cooking on it. You may remember that it was around a charcoal fire when Peter was warming himself that he betrayed Jesus 3 times. Now Jesus is telling Peter that he is fully forgiven for his betrayals but before Jesus can allow him to shepherd the flock he wants to hear directly from Peter if he loves him.

Jesus asks Peter three times ‘Do you love me?’ This question, asked three times, and answer do not imply that Jesus has doubts about Peter but that Peter’s love for Jesus is sincere and that he has the devoted love for Jesus, which is at the heart of all true discipleship. Jesus wants to hear the reply from Peter himself. Jesus then tells Peter to feed his lambs (the weaker members of the community), to feed his sheep (the stronger ones) and to care for all of them. This is the role of the shepherd.

This is a very important exchange because it reveals to us what the essence of Christianity is. Is it not true to say that Christianity is a person, Jesus Christ and so it is about our relationship with him and all that involves? So why do I go to Mass on Sunday or why do I try and keep the commandments? Is it because I think I may go hell or that God will punish me, which is untrue?   Or is it because of my relationship with Jesus? If so who is the Jesus I relate to? Who really is Jesus for me? How well do I know him? Can I have a deep relationship with someone if I do not know him/her very well? How do I deepen any relationship? Is it not by spending time with the person and getting to know him/her?

That is why Jesus came – to offer us a deep personal relationship with him. He wants us to be his friends as he says in John’s gospel. Firstly he reveals himself to the 7 disciples. He is constantly trying to reveal himself to us in the ordinary events of each day, through our friends, in prayer etc

If we can see Jesus in this light as someone doing all he can to invite us into his friendship then we might want to be his disciples not because of any law but simply because we would like to. Christianity was never meant to be a religion of fear and threats of punishment if we didn’t measure up. It was meant to be a relationship between Jesus and us and, between God whom Jesus revealed and us. The Laws and Commandments were given to help us avoid trouble. So if I kill and get caught I may be hanged or electrocuted so God says – Don’t kill. If I steal and am caught I may end up in prison, etc.

It is by living according to the value system of Jesus, attending Mass, by personal prayer, celebrating the sacraments and reading scripture that we deepen our relationship with Jesus. If we could only understand and accept how passionately and unconditionally Jesus loves us then the more we would respond out of love and not fear. His death on the cross sums up this love. But it isn’t easy. Peter was told by Jesus at the end of today’s gospel that he would suffer if he tried to be faithful to him.

‘Lord Jesus, thank you for your invitation to us to a deep, personal friendship with you. With the help of your Holy Spirit, help us to be more aware of this and to respond generously. Help us to forgive others as you forgive us always if we ask you. Amen’.

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

7 April 2013

Acts 5:12-16
Revelation 1: 9-13, 17-19
John 20.19- 31

A certain man in his late thirties had had many girlfriends but he never met anyone he felt he could marry. He wanted to be very sure before committing his life to someone he believed was the right person for him. But there were always doubts in his mind when he met a woman he felt might be the one. His family and friends told him that he could never have the certitude he wanted before marrying. In fact, the man never married as he always felt the risk was too great.

The end of the gospel passage today states: ‘There were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw but they are not recorded in this book. These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life through his name’.

Faith or belief is not just about believing in things we do not see. Faith is about taking a risk and making commitments, even if what lies ahead is unclear, even if we are not sure. The man in the story above could not take this risk. This is what Jesus was challenging Thomas about. He was inviting Thomas to believe him even though he did not see him. Moreover, he is inviting Thomas to commit his life to him and this will involve risk.

The gospel is telling us that the name Thomas means Twin. It seems that John the Evangelist is very subtly telling us that Thomas is really our Twin. In our following of Jesus as his disciples we often find ourselves doubting, questioning, hesitating, even challenging. John is expressing an insight about our very basic human nature. Most of us, at least a lot of the time, have to see and to touch in order to believe. Not that this is actually sinful in itself – it is just who we are as human beings.

But our faith calls us to go deeper. Before the death of Jesus most of his followers stopped following him. Whilst he was performing miracles and signs they had what they needed as proof but as he nears his Passion and death on the cross nearly everyone abandons him. Their conditions for following Jesus, the signs were no longer evident. So they simply stopped following him.

In the gospel of John the word faith or belief occurs about 98 times and it is never a static noun but always an active verb. It means a close following of Jesus, a commitment of our lives to him even when the signs are not too clear. Basically it is about trust – will we trust Jesus, will we be faithful in following him when our conditions are not met but allow him to act as he knows best, not always understanding why he acts this way?

This was basically the problem of Thomas. We read that he set up his own conditions for believing in Jesus. “Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands, and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe”. Then when the compassionate, understanding Risen Jesus Christ appears again, we see his sensitivity to the doubts of Thomas. There is no actual condemnation on the part of Jesus, simply kindness and gentleness.

This is our God – he knows that in life difficulties will come our way, sometimes causing us to doubt God’s love and care for us. But today’s gospel is a litany of God’s incredible understanding and sensitivity to where we are at. First, he appears to the disciples locked in a room for fear of the Jews. His first words are not those of condemnation but of consolation – he offers them Peace and this fills them with joy. In fact, three times in this gospel passage he says ‘Peace be with you’. Not only are they locked in a room but also they are locked into their fears. They are in a sense paralyzed by fear. Jesus becomes a life-giver to them. Joy replaces fear.

In what way do we allow our fears to dominate our lives? I suppose each of us is in a different space but I know many people who are locked into situations they feel imprisoned in – it may be a non life-giving relationship, a drink problem, fear of people, fear of the future, fear of dying etc. etc. Jesus came to free each of us. He may not always come directly but if we ask him in faith and trust, he will help us by using others to have the freedom and peace these frightened disciples of his had after he appeared to them.

Jesus appeared to the disciples and firstly showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. He is telling us that it is alright to go to God in our woundedness, ours sins and shortcomings – that we are assured of a total welcome. We don’t have to pretend that we are otherwise; we can go as we are. Jesus appreciates honesty.

He also breathes on them and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit for their life’s work, not only to them but to us as well. We each have a call from God to be bringers of joy and peace as well as being channels of God’s forgiveness to others. Knowing how difficult it is to do this always, we each are given the Holy Spirit also. But do we pray as often as we might for the gift of this Spirit – to allow the Spirit to energise and empower us daily?

Jesus was truly a life-giver to his disciples in this gospel passage. So where do we go for life? Who or what is life-giving for me? I know that the reason I believe in the Risen Jesus is that I have experienced a great amount of freedom in my life through my faith in the Risen Jesus – a gift I ask for daily.

“Lord Jesus, give us a monumental increase of faith, trust and love in you. Help us to be a bringer of joy, peace and forgiveness to others with the powerful help of the Holy Spirit. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

12 May 2013 

Acts 1.1-11
Ephesians 1.17-23
Luke 24. 46-53

A certain man was telling his friend that his wife whom he loved had many marvelous qualities but one thing she did which really frustrated him was that she could not throw out anything from the house even if it were of no further use. ‘She just keeps clinging on to everything we have, unable to let go’, he said.

The Ascension is the feast of letting go.

After he appeared to Mary Magdalene she clung to his feet so that he had to say to her: ‘Do not cling to me’ (John 20.18). The amazing fact in today’s gospel is that the apostles, after seeing Jesus ascending to his Father, went back to Jerusalem full of joy and were continually in the temple praising God. One would have thought that they would have been quite depressed and sad having seen Jesus departing. But no, they now fully accept that it was necessary for him to go, so that the Holy Spirit would be given to them. They did not cling to Jesus but accepted their call to be witnesses relying on the powerful Holy Spirit.

Neither did they feel themselves orphaned or abandoned by Jesus when he ascended to heaven. For the apostles the Ascension was an ending. One stage was over and another had begun. Formerly Jesus was with them physically. It was also a beginning. They were to take the place of Jesus and continue his work. The Ascension gives the disciples the certainty that they had a friend not only on earth but also in heaven. That same Jesus who on earth was so marvelously kind, compassionate and forgiving, awaits them and us. To die is not to go out into the dark. It is to go to him.

The Ascension does not lament the absence of Jesus. Rather it celebrates the new way Christ becomes present to his people through the gift of his Spirit. He is closer to us now than he ever was before. When Jesus was on earth he was limited like us in space and time. This is no longer true of him. He is, so to speak, out and about. He is present to us in an equally powerful but different manner. We can turn to him in any place, in any situation knowing he is there for us. It is important to realise that the apostles and disciples never regretted the departure of Jesus after his Resurrection and Ascension.

In Acts 1.8 we heard: ‘you will be my witnesses …even to the ends of the earth’. So today’s Solemnity, like that of Pentecost is a feast of Christian maturity. It is a call to each of us to continue Jesus’ mission in today’s world amid the difficulties we face there. The power of the Spirit is with us. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus warned his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high, the promise of the Father. It is as if Jesus were saying to the disciples: ‘please don’t claim to be working on my behalf as my witnesses unless you wait for, receive and live out of the power of the Spirit. If not, you will fail’.

So we should pray often, even daily: ‘Come Holy Spirit’.

We must not keep looking up to heaven lamenting the absence of the Lord like the disciples did in the first reading. Of course, heaven is our goal eventually. We must face here on earth what God asks us to do and keep our feet firmly on the ground. We must set out to bring his gospel, his Good News to the ends of the earth. This is why any attempt to keep Christians in an attitude of dependency and immaturity without real responsibilities and voice in the Church is contrary to the meaning of the feast we are celebrating today. The Second Vatican Council strongly emphasized this.

And it is happening. In comparison to when I was growing up when the priest did everything, now in very many countries we have Permanent Deacons, Lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Parish Pastoral Councils etc. In some countries because of the absence of priests, the laity do even more, like acting as Catechists (preparing peoples for sacraments, pre-Baptism programmes for parents who want to have their children baptised…) conducting Sunday and funeral services… But we need to pray more and more to the Spirit to lead us into the way of all truth and to have the courage to let go of traditional practices which no longer are meaningful today. Will we have the courage to follow the lead of the Spirit, painful as this may be if it is not what we would like to see happening ourselves?

Rather then than seeing the Ascension just as the departure of Jesus, we should see it as the sending of the Church on mission (in place of Jesus). Rather than seeing the Church as an orphan as a result of the Ascension of Jesus it needs to be seen as being given adult status by God, as being given responsibility to witness to Jesus Christ through the power of his Spirit.

And as St. Paul tells us there is a variety of gifts, that is, a variety of ways of being Church be it as laity, priests or religious. No one group is called to dominate the others since we are all brothers and sisters of our one heavenly Father who uses each of us in different ways. If we want to compete with each other let it be in the area of service to the poor, forgiveness of our enemies, love of all God’s children no matter what unfortunate labels they are given such as – those with AIDS, immigrants, prostitutes, homosexuals, alcoholics, drug addicts, divorced people etc.

‘Lord Jesus, Give us your Holy Spirit to be real witnesses of your loving concern in our world. Amen.’

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

19 May 2013 – Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-11
1 Cor 12:3-7, 12-13
John 20:19-23

Some years ago I met a doctor friend of mine. He told me he had received a phone call from the Social Services in a part of England where his brother had worked as a lawyer. The message to the doctor was simple. Come immediately because your brother has no money, he is living in very poor conditions and has no one to take care of him. We have done our best but he is your responsibility. Even though he hadn’t heard from his brother for years the doctor went and was appalled to find the terrible conditions in which his brother was living. He decided to take him home to Ireland. Before leaving he started to gather the few belongings of his brother. He was amazed to find stuffed in an old dirty bag, a great amount of money, more than 300,000 Euro. This man who lived like an animal could have had a very comfortable, enjoyable life if he had used the money he had accumulated over the years. But he did not and suffered greatly as a result.

At times I wonder if we Christians are not like that. We have a great treasure, the Holy Spirit and yet do we use and live out of the power of this Spirit? How often do you and I call on the Spirit in our daily lives? He is the life-giving Spirit of God. Yet where do you and I go for life? The Spirit is the giver of peace and joy. Where do you and I seek for these? We could call today the Feast of the Holy Spirit.

The death of Jesus, his execution on the cross, produced terror and fear in those who had followed him. All the gospels speak of the fear that these events caused. The same gospels, especially that of John, tell us that the opposite of faith is fear. Having faith means trusting. So instead of announcing the message of Jesus, the disciples had gone into a house and locked the doors because of fear. They were closed in on themselves. You can imagine their amazement and delight when Jesus comes and empowers them to leave their locked room, the room of their fears behind them and go forth into freedom with the encouragement, the power, peace and joy the Spirit gives. The presence of the Spirit in the Church, in each one of us, must lead us to defend the dignity of God’s children wherever their rights to life and truth are being violated. Becoming paralysed with fear of the powerful or of losing our comfort and privileges in society means that we refuse to receive the Spirit of love and instead allow the spirit of fear and terror to dominate us like the disciples were when locked behind the closed doors. Do we pray for an ever-greater trust in the Holy Spirit?

There is a priest who works with us and many people visit him. Why? Because he has the great gift of restoring confidence in people. He is so positive that no matter what people have done, no matter how discouraged or downhearted they are, they seem to be able to go away from him greatly encouraged and empowered to face their difficulties without feeling overwhelmed by them. It is as if a certain power emanates or goes forth from him, just like the fearful disciples of Jesus in today’s gospel account whose fear was replaced by trust. Not only does Jesus replace their fear and terror with peace and joy but also he empowers them to go forth and do likewise for others. This is their mission. It is the mission of the Christian Church. Is this what we have experienced from our Church. Have we experienced freedom, peace, joy and encouragement or more fear and guilt? If so, what spirit is guiding the church in the area where we live? We might want to call more often on the Holy Spirit to empower us to go forth on the mission Jesus sends us on with his life-giving, encouraging attitudes.

In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit inspires the disciples to find suitable language for the proclamation of the Good News. The text provides us with an important detail which contradicts a superficial, though frequent interpretation. It is not a matter of using only one language but rather of being able to understand one another. All those present from the different nationalities understood in their own language the message of the disciples, empowered by the Spirit. Cultural differences did not impede the message of Jesus being understood by all. The message of Jesus was a cause of unity, not disunity. We all know that people who speak the same language can be bitterly divided because of ethnic differences or prejudices. The Spirit comes to unite and bring peoples together.

Thus evangelisation does not mean a superimposed uniformity but rather fidelity to the message and to understanding in diversity. That is, the Church is a communion of peoples from different cultures and languages in which every member has a function. So writes St.Paul in the second reading today from First Corinthians. All members count and must, therefore, be respected in their own charisms and talents.

“Lord Jesus, you went to the disciples showing them your wounds. Are you not telling each of us that despite our wounds, our failings, our weaknesses, that you wish to send us forth too as your disciples, to be givers of peace and joy to others. Just you yourself replaced fear and terror in the disciples with trust and encouragement, you ask us to do the same for others. In order to be better able to do this, you ask us to rely as fully as possible on the power and the life-giving energy of the Spirit. Empower us to do this more and more. Amen”

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

31 March 2013 – Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34, 37-43
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-9

Many years ago I knew a young married couple, very happily married. Then after 15 years of marriage the husband died suddenly. Sadly they had had no children. For the woman life all but ended with her husband’s unexpected death. She said to me once at that time that the sun would never shine again for her in her life. She didn’t see any point in living. She was totally devastated. This went on for about 4 years. Being the quiet retiring person she was, she had depended very much on her husband and after his death, she felt totally alone. Others helped her for awhile but then they had to look after their own families. With the help of a few close friends and her faith in God, she gradually started to live again. In fact, because her husband was no longer there to depend on, she had to develop talents she never knew she had. Bit by bit she grew in self-confidence and now this woman thinks nothing of travelling to the far end of the world alone where before she would hardly go a 100 kilometers. She had matured out of all recognition and the sun certainly shines again for her in her life. I know that it was her faith in God and the support of a few friends, which made all the difference. But it took time.

Perhaps Easter Sunday is something like that. Up to the moment of the Resurrection, after the terrible death of Jesus on Good Friday, the disciples of Jesus were devastated. The one they had leaned on was gone. They never imagined Jesus would be taken prisoner and crucified. In that instant their dreams evaporated like that of the woman when her husband died suddenly. The disciples experienced a dreadful loss and no doubt were shattered, their hopes taken away in those short few days. They were also afraid for their lives and half expected to be caught and punished by the religious leaders who plotted the death of Jesus and had him crucified. For them too at that terrible time, they never expected the sun to shine for them again in their lives.

Now in today’s gospel, a woman no less, Mary of Magdala reports to Peter and John that the tomb is empty. In nearly all the Resurrection accounts, it is the women who first experience the Risen Jesus. Women at that time as in many places still today were looked down upon. This may be why the disciples did not believe them. It seems that the proclamation of life of the Risen Jesus starts with the very people who were marginalised and who count for little in society. In any case the curiosity of the 2 is awakened and they run to the tomb. Peter sees the linen cloths on the ground in an empty tomb. He did no more than merely ascertain the facts. However, it is said of John that he ‘saw and he believed’ even though his own faith was not yet perfect because the full impact of the vision of faith of the Scriptures had not yet dawned on him. It took Thomas even some days to surrender and accept – very consoling for us. To discover fully how rich faith is, takes time and growth and God in incredibly understanding and patient.

Maybe we all stand condemned in some way by the woman interviewed on an international radio programme. Because of modern technology, after an operation she was able to see for the first time in her life at the age of 54 and her comments in that radio interview were. “I cannot understand how all of you who were born with the gift of sight can be so unmoved by the beauty of life. You seem to take it all for granted – the beauty of a flower, so many marvelous colours, the dimples on the hands of a new born baby, the serenity in the faces of old people who are content with life, etc. etc. I feel she is correct – faith is like a new way of seeing. The resurrection does make a difference. If we believe, our eyes are opened to enormous possibilities. Jesus was in a tomb for 3 days and then burst free from its darkness and the stone that imprisoned him.

For me, that is my experience of resurrection. Whilst the empty tomb has its importance I know that I have experienced much freedom because of the gift of faith in the resurrection of Jesus God gives me. So anywhere I see love in action in life I see the power of the Risen Jesus at work. Mary Magdalene went in the dark and found an empty tomb. Since Jesus was not there it was indeed darkness, but later in meeting Jesus a new light dawned for her and all other believers.

The resurrection doesn’t mean that we gloss over pain, suffering and difficult daily life situations, but it does give us a new vista or outlook on life. It gives us the freedom to face the dark side of life, and even death with confidence knowing that Jesus broke the bonds of human limitation and slavery in our lives. Jesus is alive and if we really have experienced the joy of the Risen Jesus in our daily lives we don’t have to wait until we die to experience resurrection now – deep joy, peace and serenity because of Jesus, now alive and out and about. In the first reading today Peter says that he and the disciples are now witnesses of all they saw Jesus doing even if for a few days they were paralysed by his death and seeming failure. If you and I have experienced the Risen Jesus at work in our lives we are like the woman who lost her husband suddenly. If we are faithful despite the great difficulty of these times of loss, Jesus is there with us then and he will surely help us experience the sun shining again. Not only that we will begin to develop talents and gifts we never knew we had because fear gives way to trust. This empowers us to break free of former limitations.

“Thank you Lord Jesus for the gift of our faith in your resurrection. May we be witnesses of gospel joy and peace to others still searching and doubting. Amen”.    

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

24 March – Palm Sunday – 2013

Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2;6-11
Luke 22:14–23, 56

When I worked in Nigeria many years ago several times each week I crossed over a bridge near where I lived. Both cars and pedestrians used the bridge. At each end of the bridge were a number of beggars looking for help from the passers-by. One such beggar was a man of about 45 years old. He looked very dirty and badly fed. Someone told me that at one stage that he was a very famous footballer and had played for the Nigerian football team. He was very well-known and at that time the crowds at football matches would chant his name and praise him for his many skills. How life had changed for him now. No one recognised or praised him in later years.

He reminded me of today’s reading and indeed of the readings for this Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, Jesus riding on a donkey, is proclaimed by the crowds as ‘the king who comes in the name of the Lord’. Yet five days later he is being mocked, scourged and crucified. Probably some in the crowd on Palm Sunday were shouting for his death only a number of days later. It raises the question for each of us – are we as faithful in following Jesus in time of trial, temptation and suffering as we are when life is going well for us? Do we pray to thank God as much in good times as we do when we ask for help when life is difficult and painful? So the readings today invite us to be faithful on our journey as Jesus was.

The focus of today’s celebration and indeed for all the readings of Holy Week is on Jesus, the faithful one. During all this week we are celebrating his fidelity not only when he was being praised and honoured as a king but also during the terrible times of suffering and crucifixion. The first reading today is from the prophet Isaiah. He foretells the mysterious One who is to come whom we know now as Jesus, by saying ‘I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked at my beard, my face I did not shield from blows and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced. I have set my face like steel knowing that I shall not be put to shame’. This was exactly what Jesus did. He trusted that his father would strengthen him to be faithful to the end especially when suffering. The Good News is that God our Father will strengthen us also.

The liturgy of Holy Week is telling us of the incredible love of a God who will never give up on us no matter if having praised him in good times we will turn around and forget his love in hard times. It is very important to note that nowhere in any of the gospel readings today or of this week does Jesus condemn anyone. Neither does he condemn you and me. The ultimate proof of this is that whilst hanging, in terrible agony on the cross, Jesus prays: ‘Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’. To the so-called Good Thief he promises immediate paradise, so the thief cannot ever claim to have been gifted with heaven because of any novenas or rosaries he made at that time. The gift of heaven is Jesus giving his total love unconditionally.

For years we are seeing on TV the never-ending cycle of violence between the Palestinians and Jews in Israel. It seems to get worse and worse. Jewish soldiers kill some Palestinian youths. The Palestinians then send in suicide bombers and kill 2 Jewish boys. The Jews reply with more killings of Palestinians – mostly teenagers. It can only get worse unless they follow the example of Jesus and this is far from easy. On the cross Jesus broke the cycle of violence. Instead of taking vengeance on those killing him and returning hatred for hatred he returned forgiveness and love. Jesus, the totally disarmed one, as the Letter to the Philippians says ‘did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped”. He actually emptied himself and took on the condition of a slave, humbling himself even unto death on the cross. Jesus did not act out of a power stance or with any superior force but met bitterness with gentleness, hatred with love, rejection by accepting the others in their anger.

Jesus on the cross is telling us what the real meaning of glory is in the Christian sense. It does not first of all mean having people putting their clothes or palm branches in our paths and praising us with words and songs. It does not mean receiving titles and honours only, neither does it mean being famous or popular. No, Jesus tells us that the real meaning of glory for a Christian is being faithful to God’s ways in humility and love especially in times of trial, temptation and suffering. People may mock or judge us as being foolish for following Jesus and accepting his way as being the true way. His way is the way of humility, of forgiveness, of love, of service.

For me, to follow Jesus faithfully is not easy. It is much easier to go to Mass, pray the rosary or say novenas. All these indeed help us. But Jesus asks us to follow his example by living daily with the same attitudes that he lived by. Yet this is the way that leads to real peace and joy.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for breaking the cycle of violence that you were confronted with. The Good News is that you invite us to do the same because you trust we can do it too in our world today by relying on help of the powerful Holy Spirit which you give us freely. Amen”.

Fr.Jim Kirstein, SMA

17 March 2013 – St Patrick’s Day

Isaiah 43.16-21

Philippians 3.8-14

John 8.1-11

Once I met a woman who told me that the biggest crisis in her married life was the time she found out that her husband was unfaithful to her. He was having an affair with another woman for over a year. She was shattered and consulted a close friend who asked her one question: “Do you really love your husband still in spite of this?” When she answered that she did, her friend said she should confront her husband and tell him she was prepared to accept him back. She did and now many years later the marriage is working well. But at that time it wasn’t easy and many would not have been surprised if she had refused to forgive her husband and not had given him another chance.

She reminds me of today’s gospel that is primarily about who God is and how he treats us. Like the woman in the story Jesus gives the woman caught in adultery another chance. Instead of sending her to her death, Jesus sends her to life. Jesus is telling us as clearly as he can who God is and how he acts towards each one of us. We feel that if we do good we will earn or merit a heavenly reward and if we consistently do bad God will punish us. What Jesus is saying is ‘If I look on you with God’s gaze of love, with God’s forgiving attitude then you are totally and freely loved and forgiven’.

It is God who decides all this. We cannot make God’s love and forgiveness depend on our worthiness or goodness. What a misunderstanding of how God relates to us. Unfortunately it is not our human experience. We often want to exact revenge or punish those who hurt or wrong us. Not so God – it is so far from the God Jesus is witnessing to. Of course that does not mean if God loves me like that I can sin merrily. In fact it is the very opposite – realising how very much God loves me so unconditionally I will try to respond by trying to please him. I will pray to be able to do the same to others as God does to me. Just as the woman in the story who forgave her husband. He later told a friend that having been forgiven by his wife he would spend the rest of his life responding to her marvelous love for him even though he didn’t deserve this because of his actions.

The first reading from Isaiah briefly recalls Israel’s past and tells them that ‘God is doing a new deed’. Our God is not a God who keeps reminding us of our past sins. His focus is much more on what he can still accomplish in our lives from now on no matter what our past has been. It is as if he is saying to us – ‘you haven’t seen anything yet!’

So a group of Scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught committing adultery. It is interesting to note that the man had not been brought along and obviously Jesus immediately sees the double standards here. Jesus’ gesture is one of forgiveness of the sinner but also a rejection of the cruelty toward the woman and the double standards towards women and men. The woman because she is a woman sins seriously, while the man’s sin is seen as less serious. Jesus sees the inconsistency and tenderly tells the woman who has sinned to ‘go away and don’t sin any more’. The other double standard and inconsistency that Jesus is condemning is also our own constant practice. Don’t we often criticise others whilst ignoring our own sinful behavior; sometimes the very thing we condemn in others? Jesus here rejects the practice of all of us who say one thing and do another. If we are very honest with ourselves we all know that inside each of us are many thoughts and desires that we would not want others to know about. We don’t necessarily put them all into practice but we could. And do we not in some areas of our lives?

When the Scribes and Pharisees persisted with their question to Jesus trying to trap him, he refuses to get involved in a debate about what the law allowed or not. He knew what the Law of Moses taught just as they did, so he refused to play word games with them. Instead he simply tells them that those without sin should cast the first stone. Immediately the accusers become excusers. They were very quick to accuse the woman as well as humiliating her, but now they are equally as quick to excuse themselves when they hear the words of Jesus. In fact the only person in the scene who had a right to condemn her, Jesus, had not the slightest interest in doing so. And when all had left Jesus is left alone with the woman. As St. Augustine puts it, only misery and mercy remained.

Jesus does something for the woman that goes beyond the law.

The law condemns, Jesus forgives.

He shows how God deals with sinful people, that is, with each of us. He changes our view of God. At the same time he asks us to change our view of sinful people. Each one of us, no matter what our sins are, has the capacity to change. Our sins are not the sum total of who we are. They are parts of who we are, for sure. But God can do a new deed for and in all of us if we allow him.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for showing to us again in this gospel that you have no interest in condemning us. You do not deny that we sin but you constantly give us new opportunities to change. Help us by your Holy Spirit to be ever ready to excuse others for their failings as you do ours. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA.

10 March 2013

Joshua 5:9-12
2 Cor 5:17-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

There is a widow, who lives not too far from us who has two sons. One is hardworking and obedient, the other has been causing her great problems for years. He is an alcoholic, has been in and out of prison a number of times for stealing. He continually promises his mother that he will change but so far has not. Her relatives and friends tell her to throw him out of the house and have nothing more to do with him. But she says she cannot do this as he is her son and she loves and forgives him despite the great shame and suffering he causes her.

She reminds me very much of the father in today’s story. We are told a man had two sons. Evidently, the younger brother is a scoundrel. Even his decision to return home is based on self-interest. There are three people in this story. Let us turn our attention away from the prodigal son, so-called, because the parable is mainly interested in the father.

Isn’t it hard to believe fully the parable of Jesus? What human father would have acted in that way? We would call him a crazy father since he knew what type of character his son was and yet he gives him half the share of his inheritance. The son is true to form and spends it wastefully on a life of debauchery. What is unexpected is not so much that the father welcomed him back but that he holds a great feast for him.

To accept the son back, to forget everything, to begin things again as they were before may be acceptable. But to organise a feast, to kill the animal that was being kept for the big occasion, to give the son, a cloak, a ring and sandals as if for a sumptuous marriage celebration – that is impossible to imagine.

But the parable does not speak in a way we human beings do things or are accustomed to act. Our parable is speaking of God exactly as he is. God is the prodigal father who runs towards the lost son, clasps him in his arms, without asking for any explanation, without giving him a scolding or criticising him.

To tell us who God really is, Jesus tells us this story and invites to be a participant in the telling. God is so different from what we expect God to be. It is so different from our experience that it is hard to imagine that this is who God really is. Usually we say to ourselves ‘if I were God this is what I would do, especially in the case of someone convicted of a very serious crime’. But I am not God and my ways are not God’s ways which is exactly what Jesus is trying to get us to accept.

God is extravagant. He is extravagant in his love and mercy towards us. He comes to meet us as we are, sinners, often so undeserving of his love. Yet he comes to us to lead us to a terrific feast in heaven, the foretaste of which is the Eucharist. Jesus is trying to help us to a different way of looking at God. Because for the most part we have been brought up with the idea of a profit and loss God. That is if we are good we will be rewarded and if we do bad we will be punished. This is difficult to reconcile with today’s parable.

Look at the experience of Jesus. He spoke to sinners who listened to him – Matthew and Zaccheus the tax collectors who defrauded others; prostitutes, people caught in adultery, social and religious outcasts, like the 10 lepers. He broke the Sabbath when the higher law of love for another human being demanded this. No wonder all these people flocked to Jesus to hear his liberating message. Yet he still challenged them as he does us to turn away from attitudes and behaviours that are not life-giving or life-empowering for others.

Jesus met the elder son in the Pharisees and lawgivers of his day, many of whom were locked into their own conviction that they were right and knew the way to earn God’s acceptance and a place in his kingdom. They thought they had rights over God and guarded him jealously. Jesus understands these people too and tried his very best to get them to come to know God as he really is but they were too engrained in their ways and finally got rid of him because he was too subversive, according to their way of thinking.

Basically Jesus came to teach us who God really is. He came to bring the Good News of freedom, to invite us all, sinners and virtuous alike to the banquet. We may not want to accept this, we may not want to sit down with those we consider unworthy.

Which of the two sons in the parable do I identify most with, the younger son or the older one? Maybe there is part of each in me?

The most important question of all is this: Who is the God I believe in?

Is it the prodigal father Jesus describes for us today?

Do we fail to see the sheer gratuitousness of God’s love and so fail to understand the gospel message? Do we convert the Good News of Jesus into a mere set of obligations or laws sometimes empty of moral worth because they no longer serve their original purpose?

St. Paul invites us to be ambassadors of the newness of the message of Jesus, of a God who has a feast prepared for us.Will we be ambassadors of this good news or ambassadors of a God of fear and sanctions?

“Lord Jesus, help us to accept fully the great Good News that God is exactly as you describe him in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Help us to spread this message by the way we live our lives as Christians”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

3 March 2013

Exodus 3.1-8,13-15
1 Cor 10.1-6,10-12
Luke 13.1-9

Some time ago a woman said to her friend that she felt God was punishing her for some sins of the past. It seems she had had an abortion and also an extra-marital affair as well as having stolen some money. Six months earlier her husband was tragically killed in a car accident and a few months previous to that her only son died after a short illness due to cancer. She was convinced now that God was taking revenge by punishing her for her past sins.

Sad to say there are many Christians as well as people of other religions who also believe that God does this. It is certainly a very false understanding of who God is.

We usually see Lent as a time of penance, with the focus on fasting, which can indeed be helpful. But it is better to view it as a call to repentance as Jesus does in today’s gospel. The real meaning of this word ‘repentance’ is not so much a turning away from sin to virtue or going from bad to good. It is much more correct to see it, as the gospels tell us today, as a ‘new way of looking at who God is, at life, at reality’. The gospels, that is the Good News of Jesus, were given to us to free us from a narrow and oppressive view of sin and its consequences. And especially to come to know God as Jesus revealed him, not a false idea of God as the woman in the story had.

The two events that Jesus uses in today’s gospel underline an important aspect of his message: there are no connections between sin and the misfortunes that may happen to us, whether their cause is human (Pilate, Luke 13.1) or accidental (verse 4).

By this statement Jesus goes against a very common concept of his time and perhaps ours also according to which diseases, misfortune and poverty are the consequences of sins committed by people in those situations. Thus, in addition to their harsh lives, the poor and sick are burdened by a painful sense of guilt. Sin carries its own inbuilt punishment, it is not of God’s doing.

The Good News is that Jesus came to free us from all the things that enslave us, like concepts such as this. Thinking like this can prevent us from facing the real causes of poverty and other evils by attributing them to some type of fatalism – that we are totally at the mercy of events and cannot do anything to overcome our situation. This is like the statement ones hears from some fundamentalist groups: ‘the devil caused me to steal or commit adultery etc. What a wonderful escape route for me instead of accepting my responsibility for my sin!! These attitudes also present erroneous images of the God of love and life.

Putting it very clearly, sinning is a failure to bear fruit according to our talents and possibilities, as Jesus states in the short parable that follows (v. 6-9). God is waiting for our good deeds and is very patient. Jesus in fact turns the question around by asking another of his hearers: “Is the real miracle not so much about those who have been struck down but rather that you have escaped?” So he follows this by the parable describing God’s incredible patience which passes all understanding. God keeps on coming into our lives looking for fruit and when he doesn’t find any he keeps on giving us more opportunities and time. As St.Peter says “Think of God’s patience as your opportunity to be saved

In the second reading St. Paul gives us an important principle for interpreting the Old Testament: what is narrated here is not merely something belonging to the past: instead it conveys a message for us now. The first reading from the Book of Exodus describes the moment when God entrusts Moses with the liberation of his people. God gives him that mission because he heard the cry of his oppressed people enslaved in Egypt and he wants to lead them into the freedom of the Promised Land where they can build a just society.

This is the immediate context of the revelation of Yahweh’s name, which is often translated as ‘I AM WHO AM’. Nowadays scripture scholars tell us that a better translation is ‘I AM THE ONE WHO IS FOR YOU, WHO IS WITH YOU”. God is revealing himself as being with us in our struggles, in our pain. He is not the God who punishes, rather he does everything to help us to be free, most especially in using humans like Moses, like you and me to bring about his reign here on earth, a reign of justice, love and peace.

If then we see repentance as a call to look at life and others as God, as Jesus does will we not be amazed that God is totally on our side, especially in times of tragedy and suffering? He asks us to bear fruit by focusing ourselves on how best to help others to have a better life, a life unburdened from guilt and whatever materially, spiritually or psychologically still keeps us enslaved, keeps us unfree.

“Lord Jesus, help us repent in the sense you ask us to. Open our eyes to come to know God, your Father and ours too, as God really is – a God whose last desire is to punish us. Rather help us accept him totally as a father who seeks, by using others and us to free people from all that enslaves them. Jesus, Emmanuel, the God who is always with us and for us, increase our faith, our trust in this total reality. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA.

24 February 2013

Genesis 15. 5-12, 17-18
Philippians 3.17 – 4.1
Luke 9.28-36

Some time ago an elderly man was telling me that when he was 22 years old he was attending university. He had been born and raised a Catholic. However, at that time he had lost interest in going to Church. He still prayed a bit but not much. He felt that religion had little to offer him.

One night on his way home in a bus from the university he had a vision. It came totally unexpectedly, out of the blue. He felt he was surrounded by God’s love. As he looked around him at the other passengers in the bus he felt convinced that they were truly his brothers and sisters and felt totally at one with them. On leaving the bus this incredible experience vanished never to return. But it had a profound effect on his life. He started to attend Mass regularly, prayed daily and got involved in charitable activities. He said he often wished the experience would return as it was so powerful and life transforming for him but it never did.

He reminds me very much of the experience of the three disciples on the mountaintop with Jesus in today’s gospel.

When Jesus took the three disciples with him as he went up the mountain to pray he was transformed or transfigured. It is important to note that it was while he was at prayer that this happened. If we commit ourselves to pray often to know and do God’s will, little by little we will find ourselves being transformed too. It seems that Jesus is saying that everyone has this potential in his or her lives of being transfigured too, provided we pray and seek to work for God’s kingdom here on earth.

The three disciples saw that Jesus was speaking with Moses and Elijah. It is important to realise that they were talking to Jesus about his exodus or passing which would involve great suffering and finally his death on the cross. St.Paul reminds us in the second reading that our homeland is in heaven, that here we have no lasting city. Whilst Moses, Elijah and Jesus were talking about his exodus or passing, it also implies an exodus for us, a letting go or departure from everything which prevents us from living in full communion with God and with all others. This exodus is going to involve painful and unavoidable aspects of suffering and struggles for us in life as it did for Peter, aspects which we would like to avoid at all costs. Peter wanted to escape. Peter is mistaken. We cannot stop on the way as we follow Jesus. We cannot put down roots or seek refuge in a tent. Peter wanted to stay on the mountaintop with that incredible experience of seeing Jesus transfigured. Like the young man in the story at the start who had a somewhat similar experience and wished it to return again and again. It is the same for Abraham in the first reading.

God is asking Abraham to leave the safe world he knows. The faith rooted in Abraham’s heart makes him accept the adventure or challenge. He leaves where he was in order to enter a far better inheritance not only for himself but also for his descendents – the Promised Land that God would give them. But they did not see it then. They had to trust God would be faithful and would fulfill his promise fully later.

When Jesus went down the mountain with the three disciples they immediately faced the ups and downs of ordinary life. This is what Peter wished to avoid by staying on the mountaintop. The episode of the Transfiguration reminds us that our being Christians has to be lived in the midst of the ups and downs of daily life. We all have our own personal experiences of how difficult life can be. We know that we may have to face sickness, unemployment, being misunderstood, the sudden death of a loved one etc. God is no less with us at these times though it is harder to see and be aware of this. However, even if we are promised the fullness of the kingdom after we die, it has already here if we respond to God’s call.

We need to remember that Jesus fully entered into our human experience. Like us he experienced joy and good times with his family and friends. But he also suffered greatly, experienced rejection, betrayal by those whom he chose, the disciples. Yet he did not run up the mountain again or use his divinity to avoid any of this. He knows us fully from the inside. He shared our human struggles to the very last. He was not doing this just to give example. He was fully human and lived his humanity fully and all it involved.

How did he survive? How did he get through all these trials? Though he was in the world, he was not of the world insofar that he did not take on the values of the world which he knew would not lead to lasting peace and joy. He was faithful to his father’s promise. This meant that he repeatedly disengaged himself from the noise of the crowd to be alone in prayer with his Father. The disciples realised the importance of prayer for Jesus because he often went apart to pray. Can it be any different for us if we want to follow Jesus closely and deepen our relationship with Him, the Father and Holy Spirit?

‘Heavenly Father, give us the powerful Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray and to give time to prayer often. Help us to really listen to Jesus as you commanded the disciples when you spoke to them in the cloud on the mountaintop. Amen’

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

17 February 2013

Deuteronomy 26.4-10
Romans 10.8-13
Luke 4.1-13

A young Irishwoman I know had a very good job with a large company. She decided to leave the company and go to Ethiopia, a country suffering from severe famine. She said she felt the call of God to work with these unfortunate people. She wanted to be in solidarity with them. It meant leaving her home, family, country to risk all to be with these people. Of course her family and friends thought she was crazy and tried to get her to change her mind but she was determined to go. When she got there she had to live a very difficult lifestyle. Little clean water, at times not enough to eat. Several times she was tempted to return home and live the much easier and enjoyable life she was used to. But she stayed and was faithful to her commitment despite all the hardships involved.

This young woman reminds me very much of the gospel today. Jesus too left heaven and all that involved to be with us. He decided to enter into solidarity with us. He chose to take on a very difficult lifestyle. It meant depriving himself of all the comforts and happiness he could have had whilst on earth if he acted out of his power as God. But as St. Paul says in the letter to the Philippians ‘Jesus emptied himself to take on the condition of a servant and being as all humans are, he emptied himself even more, even accepting death on a cross’

So in the gospel today Jesus is tempted just as we are, even though he was filled with the Spirit. The devil comes and tempts him in three ways; the same ways men and women are always tempted. First, the devil tempted Jesus and us too to quench our senses and be filled sensually as if this will make us happy – the temptation to drugs, sex, drink, pornography etc.

Secondly the devil tries to seduce Jesus and us by the idea of having power over others. Here it can be political power, ecclesiastical power, employer power, parent power, teacher power etc.

Thirdly, the devil entices us to take God’s love and faithfulness for granted and to test his merciful love and protection.

Ultimately the devil is trying to make Jesus forget he is, as a human being like us, totally dependent on his father to care for him. He is tempted to act from a power stance and not from the will of God. The devil tries to tempt Jesus to cheat on his humanity and satisfy his hunger and to use his power to deny his Incarnation – that he really human and will not call on God power when the going gets tough. Just as the young woman in the story was tempted to go back to an easier way of life when life in Ethiopia was very tough, Jesus is being tempted not to accept fully his human condition and all the limitation that that involves. He wants to be in total solidarity with us, allowing himself to be tempted as we are and struggling to overcome the temptation, not to seek a quick fix. This was especially so in the Garden of Gethsemene when he was tempted not to go though with his Passion and death because he foresaw the terrible suffering and rejection it would involve.

I suppose what the devil is tempting Jesus to do is to take the road of instant gratification, a short-cut to immediate satisfaction. Jesus knew that this does not usually lead to long term peace and joy.

We must remember too that Jesus never worked a miracle for himself. It was always for the sake of others. Jesus is tempted to go beyond human limitation and use his divinity to make life easier.

In the first reading the Israelites are encouraged to remember how God brought them out of Egypt and freed them from oppression. But it took time and they had much suffering before they eventually escaped. The gospel tells us that it is a great temptation to forget we are God’s children, that he cares for us. We can be tempted especially in time of prosperity to forget God and act as if we don’t need God. Jesus was always very much aware of being a child of his heavenly Father and it was his constant awareness of that reality that determined how he would live his life.

The example of the gospel is clear: in his life Jesus proclaimed the primacy of God and his kingdom. We cannot use our gifts and talents for our own personal prestige or to dominate others politically, materially or spiritually. The attitude of Jesus must be our own and that of the Church. Its message and its power are not to serve itself but to serve God and his chosen ones, the poor.

As we begin our Lenten pilgrimage let us remember that Lent is not an end in itself, it leads by way of the cross to the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus and to his sending us the Holy Spirit. Rather than asking what we should give up for Lent maybe better ask what temptation we should not give into. The Good News is that Jesus knows from his own personal experience what it is to be tempted and the struggle to overcome temptation. He will not abandon us no matter how often we fail as long as we keep on trying relying on his Holy Spirit for help.

“Lord Jesus, it is never easy to overcome temptation. Help us not to rely on ourselves but to pray often for the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with us. Amen”

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

10 February 2013

Isaiah 6.1-2, 3-8
1 Cor 15.1-11
Luke 5.1-11

A certain man was told by the General Manager of a big company that he was to be appointed assistant general manager. However, instead of being delighted with this good news, he said that he did not consider himself worthy of this, as he had not continued his education after high school. Besides, he had to be honest and say he had spent a month in prison when younger for drunk and disorderly conduct. The General Manager assured him that the company had examined his educational background and also knew about his prison experience. Still the Board of Directors considered him capable of this new job.

We could call today “Good Excuse” Sunday. In each of the three readings – Isaiah, Paul and Peter feel they have very good excuses for not accepting God’s call. None of them feels worthy or capable enough.

Isaiah’s reply is “What a wretched state I am in, I am a man of unclean lips”.

Paul says that he hardly deserves the name of apostle, being the least of the apostles because of his persecution of Christians.

Peter tells Jesus after the miraculous catch of fish: “Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man”.

Each of the three knows that he is in the presence of the Holy One and they believe that they are totally unworthy of God’s choice of them. They experience what we might call ‘Spiritual Inferiority’.

This, of course, is whole point of today’s readings. God chooses us because he is good not because we are worthy. Jesus does not deny what Peter says about being a sinful man but he calls him in the hope that Peter will realise that the work Jesus is entrusting to him could never be accomplished by man or woman without the powerful help of God’s Spirit. It will take Peter, as it does all of us, a whole lifetime to realise how totally we need God’s help. So here Simon as he was then called gets a new name, Peter, a new job and a new image. All three take time to complete their transformation.

This is indeed Good News for each of us this Sunday. In that we are baptized, we too like Peter, are called to witness to God in the world. We may immediately reply that we are not worthy and that we are sinners, maybe even great ones – another case of spiritual inferiority!! But God considers us worthy and that is all that counts. It is not Isaiah, Paul and Peter who choose God. It is the very opposite and that is what matters. Maybe we don’t want to be called. Perhaps we can see the demands involved. We might prefer to opt out. If that is our choice then God will leave us free to do so if we wish. But we will never have the deep peace and joy we seek if we search for it in other places apart from God.

God sees the marvelous potential in each of us. Some of the great saints, like Teresa of Avila, Charles de Foucauld etc lived mediocre or in the case of the latter very sinful lives early on. But God then touched them and they responded. Do we not pray in the part of Eucharistic Prayer ll after the consecration ‘giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you’. If God considers us worthy who are we to object? We each have different roles to play in God’s plan to bring about his kingdom of truth, justice and forgiveness here on earth, be it as parents, priests, religious etc.

Peter had worked hard all night and caught nothing. Jesus asked him to try again. He could have objected saying he was exhausted or that there were no fish where they had failed to catch any. However, he responded to Jesus and tried again. Look at the result. Sometimes we too may get tired of trying to be good Christians. We may get bored, disillusioned with what we sometimes see going on in the church. We may want to give up on ourselves or on others who disappoint or even betray us. To all of us Jesus says, ‘try again’. I am with you. I count you worthy. You have great potential. But we must, like Isaiah, Paul and Peter, realise deeply that we cannot succeed alone. Like Peter we may fish all night in darkness, but Jesus invites us to call on his help. He will make our efforts fruitful in his own way and in his own time. When Jesus was not with them, they caught nothing. But when he was with them, what a difference? Not only a catch of fish but a great abundance. Their obedience was rewarded.

Ultimately of course it is only out of our own personal understanding of who God is that we will witness to others here and now. If we think God is out to punish us and send us to hell which is totally false then that is the God we will reveal to others. If my experience of God is of someone who loves me passionately and unconditionally, chooses me to work for him despite my failings and sins, knowing that I am forgiven, a loved saved sinner, then that is the God I will witness to.

“Lord Jesus, we thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence to serve you and others. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein SMA

13 January 2013

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Some Christian traditions finish their ‘Christmas season’ with the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January). We in the Catholic Church however conlude the celebration of Christmas with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. This feast is the beginning of the making known of Jesus to Israel and the rest of the world. Today we remember and celebrate the end of His “hidden life” and the start of his public ministry – to preach, to teach and to heal.

But in seeking to be baptised Jesus is associating himself with sinners. In today’s Gospel passage we read of the reaction of John to this (he was scandalised by it) but nonetheless Jesus insisted that John should baptise him. Through his baptism in the Jordan Jesus was confirmed as a Son; so too we through baptism are also assured that we too are children of God (cf. Romans 8:15-17).

Just as Jesus was confirmed as the Beloved Son, so too each one of us – through our Baptism – are confirmed as beloved sons and daughters of God. Many Christians fail to realise the great power that has been given them – the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Each of us, through baptism, have been called and chosen to make God’s Light shine in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. It is an awesome responsibility but as St Augustne wrote: ‘Jesus did not say succeed, but strive’.

Gregory of Nanianzus wrote: “Christ is baptised, let us descend with him that we may also ascend with him.”

Lord God, thank you for the gift of my baptism. Enlightened by Christ may I share that Light with all others I meet on my pilgrim journey. Amen.

3 February 2013

Jeremiah 1.4-5,17-19
1 Cor 12.31-13.13
Luke 4.21- 30 

A young woman had been with her boyfriend for some years and then one day she told him that she was leaving him. He was very upset and asked why. Her answer was that she found him too unpredictable. Some days he would be in very good form and then suddenly for no apparent reason he would become moody, even a bit depressed. She felt that she couldn’t continue the relationship as it was causing her too much stress trying to deal with his various moods.

In the gospel today we find the people of the town of Jesus, Nazareth, like that. At first they are astonished at the gracious words that came from his lips. Soon they start complaining as they know him well, one of their own. They wonder where he learned all his wisdom and how he was able to work miracles in nearby towns. Was this jealousy, envy or what? Rather quickly they get very angry with him and even want to kill him. Later on he would experience something similar. On Palm Sunday people put branches in his path and sang, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. A few days later some of this same crowd cried out, ‘crucify him, crucify him’.

Should we not rejoice that our God is not a God who is moody so that we cannot be sure how he will be from one day to the next like the young man above? Our God is always a loving God whose only interest is our good, our peace, and our joy. A good prayer to make might well be ‘Thank you Lord for you being You’ that is, a God who is unchangeable, who is not moody, a God on whom I can rely totally all the time because he simply is LOVE.

Isn’t that real Good News in the gospel today? That God loves us totally and unconditionally whether we are virtuous or sinning. That is why in the second reading St. Paul reminds us about the true nature of love and therefore who God is. Instead of reading the text as ‘Love is always patient, kind and so on we can put in the name of Jesus in place of the word ‘love’ etc. Maybe we may get a clearer understanding of who God is.

Another aspect of the gospel today is that believers in God, followers of Jesus may try to monopolise God and even try to put God at their service. As Christians and Church we have done so in the past and may still fall into the same temptation. Those with Jesus in today’s gospel were scandalised by the two examples he gave. He said that in these two historical incidents it was not to the Jews that God sent the prophets Elijah and Elisha but to those regarded as pagans or heathens by the Jews. What we think we know may prevent us from paying attention to what is new, especially if it comes from what is insignificant and marginalised. The Lord may well be challenging us through those we do not know how to want or appreciate now. Hopefully we may do so later on.

Two obvious examples in our times are Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. They fought for the dignity of their peoples, that even though they were black they were entitled to the same rights as all others regardless of the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs, their social standing etc. MLK was assassinated for his efforts as later on Jesus was. What are our prejudices that prevent us being open to God speaking to us through those we consider beneath us, dislike or even hate, such as homosexuals, those with AIDS, those no longer married to their original spouses but now with new partners etc.? Would this be the loving response that Paul invites us to live in the second reading?

At the end of the gospel passage the crowd forced Jesus out of the town to a hill (eventually the same scenario at Calvary – it was outside the town of Jerusalem and on a hill where Jesus was executed). They wanted to get rid of him because he spoke the truth; challenged them to become aware of their prejudices which blinded them to the truth. They asked him to work the same miracles for them as he worked elsewhere. Here we have a classic example of wanting to manipulate God and saying we will only accept him if he corresponds to our desires, our needs. But God knows well if they would not always be good for us and so his answer then is ‘no’ but are we open to hearing this?

At the end of the gospel Jesus walks through the crowd and they can do nothing about it. Sad to say Jesus may walk right through us too and we may fail to see him because of our prejudices. The Jesus of Nazareth was too human for his townspeople. How could God come in such an ordinary person such as a carpenter? That was how God came then and how he still comes. If we fail to see him in ordinary events, in ordinary people today we may never see him in our lives and he may have walked right through our midst and we may have failed to be aware of it.

“Lord Jesus, open our eyes to the many ordinary people and ways through which you come to us daily. Help us to become aware of our prejudices that prevent us being open to the new ways that you use to visit us. Teach us how to love better, how to love more. Thank you above all for you being You – never moody but always loving, compassionate, forgiving. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

27 January 2013

Nehemiah 8.2-6,8-10
1 Cor 12.12-30
Luke 1.1-4,4.14-21

Some years ago I was travelling by plane from Ireland to England. Next to me was a young man. When I asked him what his work was, he replied that he was connecting with a plane in London to fly to the USA where he was going to study for some years. After that he would get a good job, work very hard, make lots of money, marry and raise a family. He had a programme marked out for himself and he intended to carry it out.

Today’s gospel from Luke speaks of the Messianic Programme of Jesus Christ.

He states quite clearly what his objectives are. He will commit himself to a program of liberation on all levels. He wishes to bring good news to the poor by telling them that they don’t have to accept that poverty is their lot and that they are condemned to it for life. In most countries especially in the South World the Church is trying to put this into practice by working to empower the poor, involving them in projects that will raise their dignity and give them a sense of self worth.

Jesus also wants captives to be freed, not just people in prison but people imprisoned by fear, enslaved by drink, drugs, money, status, prejudices, self-destructive attitudes, a wrong image of God and what real religion is about, etc. In what way are we captives? Where do we need liberation or freedom? Do we ask the Lord to show us and to give us the Holy Spirit to respond?

Prior to this vision given by Jesus he had spent a long time in the desert guided by the Holy Spirit. Obviously he had pondered and prayed about his vocation. Having clarified it for himself he returns from the desert and under the influence of the same Spirit reveals his program to Israel. It is interesting that he doesn’t pull it out of a hat. He quotes from the prophet Isaiah what God had been revealing to Israel over the centuries. God’s preferential option is for the poor and the marginalised, those who have little status in society.

It is as though he is giving us a key to understand what he is about with his choice of this text. We all know the importance of keys. We use them all the time. If we lose a key to an important place like our house, we are locked out. Or if we lose our car keys when away from home it can cause great difficulty for us. We also speak of keynote addresses which give the central thrust of a meeting etc. So Jesus today is giving his keynote address for his life’s work.

In fact, he is offering us a choice and it is a rather radical one. In our world today very often we are judged by what we do, have, wear or possess, be it money, power, academic degrees, property etc. Jesus is inviting us to think differently. He is not denying that money, a degree, etc are important but he challenging us as to the importance of all these things in our lives. Ultimately he is offering us a program for liberation and social justice. How will we respond?

I wonder how my young travel companion got on in life. He gave me the impression that if he got his act together he would succeed. Did he ask God for help? Jesus is going to depend on the Holy Spirit to carry out his program. He says it clearly: “The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.” Jesus also needs us. The Good News is that Jesus is inviting you and me to participate in his vision for life. We all have been anointed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation. We are the anointed ones of Jesus. When we go forth from the Eucharist we are missioned to participate in the program of Jesus. The secret of life according to Jesus is that the more you focus on the good of others including the needy, poor, marginalised etc the happier you will be. But this is a very hard lesson to learn when the advertising world is spending billions to get us to accumulate more and more implying that this will give us lasting happiness.  We can be those who are blind, blind when we chose possessions instead of also sharing and helping our brothers and sisters in need.

Yet so many wonderful people, hopefully ourselves, try to follow the program of Jesus as outlined today. When he ended up his statement he said ‘this text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’. And it is by so many in many places. These past weeks with the disastrous earthquake in Iraq we see many countries already responding with help. We hear of ‘prisoner support groups’, people contributing so charitably to International Aid Agencies. We hear of young people and not so young too going to famine stricken countries – surely there is the Spirit at work through the generosity of these people.

“Lord Jesus we thank you for the invitation to work with you to help those most in need be it in our own areas or abroad. May each of us be generous in responding to our baptism calling when we were anointed by the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

20 January 2013

Isaiah 62.1-5
1 Cor 12.4-11
John 2.1-11

Some time ago I celebrated the wedding Mass of a young couple, friends of mine. Both the Eucharist and the reception afterwards were joyous affairs. The young couple were very much in love and one could easily sense that they were determined to enjoy their wedding day. They intended the same for all the invited guests. And their mood seemed to have caught on. As far as I could see everyone enjoyed the day also.

In taking up the theme of a wedding in the gospel today, John the evangelist presents not only Jesus’ first miracle but he calls it a ‘sign’, as he does all the other miracles in his gospel. For John the miracle of Cana is a sign that points beyond itself to a much deeper meaning. This is the new creation and we share it. Jesus is replacing the old Jewish religious rites with the new wine which is himself. It is the best wine that is saved until now. Like the multiplication of the loaves and fishes there is a superabundance of wine. Not a stingy or small amount as humans might give out but God’s lavish generosity. It is saying that our God is a God of life, life that is abundant, still more and more abundant, life that we call eternal. It begins now according to St. John.

This event, the wedding at Cana is very meaningful. The God of Jesus does not usually reveal himself on a mountaintop or in a church in imposing majesty, but instead at a wedding, and in the company of friends. God is preparing us his people for a new covenant. Jesus is the bridegroom and he is inviting us to the wedding. This new relationship of God with his people is as different as wine is from water.

John tells us that Jesus asks the servants to fill six stone jars which were used for the Jewish ‘rites of purification’. Water and purification rites are referring to certain religious practices of Jesus’ day. From that time on religion will no longer be based on the law and constant washings or ablutions or on the observance of precepts undertaken out of fear of punishment and guilt.

This is precisely what John is saying here. The God that Jesus came to reveal is a very different God to the idea that the people of the time had of God. That was a God to be feared and obeyed lest they be punished. Jesus is telling us that God is not a God of fear and punishment as sadly so many people still believe. Also the God of Jesus is not a God distant from us and delighting in sacrifices of animals but Someone very close to his people, just as he would be present still at a wedding feast. He is a God who is that close to us sharing our joys and concerns. Of course the wedding feast is meant to be a joyful affair but later on in the life of a couple there will be difficulties. God will still be very close to them, concerned for them, supporting and encouraging them through their relatives and friends.

A relative of mine, a young man and his bride-to-be were sitting down in his father’s house one day when I went for a visit. They were preparing for their wedding. They were making a list of all the important things for the wedding Mass and the reception afterwards. One thing they didn’t bother writing down was to have water available at the reception. It was so ordinary that it was taken for granted that it would be there and so wasn’t worth mentioning in the list they were making. It is the same in today’s gospel. The 6 water jars that were there were so ordinary and part of every day life that they hardly merited a second glance. The guests would have automatically washed their hands in order to be purified. Yet these so ordinary water jars were chosen by Jesus to be the containers of the abundance of new wine. It seems to have been a pattern in the life and teaching of Jesus. He used very ordinary things like water jars, like flour, leaven, a farmer sowing seed, hens with chickens under their wings protecting them etc. to be the means of getting across his message. Do we fail to see that the same dynamic is still used by God? Today in the gospel it is a wedding feast, another time it will be fishermen at work etc. Where do we see God present in our ordinary daily experiences? God still comes to us throughout each day in very ordinary ways if we can become aware of this. He is very close to us, delighting in our celebrations and times of joy and very concerned when we are suffering or struggling.

If Jesus can change something like water into wine as a sign of his love for the young couple and in response to the sensitivity of Mary who noticed the lack of wine, can he not change us too into the kind of people that we are called to be? Do we believe this? Do we offer ourselves to him for this transformation or change? After all, isn’t this what we celebrate each time at the Transformation or Consecration of the Mass? We believe that God through his Holy Spirit changes parts of creation like bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. Do we pray that God can do the same with other parts of creation, you and me, to be better persons, better members of his family? Can he not use us to work together to make the world where we are a better place? St. Paul in the 2^nd reading reminds us that the Holy Spirit gives us a variety of gifts to bring this about. Do we pray to the Holy Spirit for these?

“Lord Jesus, as you changed water into wine at Cana we offer ourselves to you believing that you have the power to change and transform us too in ways that are best for us and for others. Amen.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

6 January 2013

A Light for All

 Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-3; 5-6
Mt 2:1-12

Some years ago there was a missionary priest I knew who was working in Ghana. He loved nature especially birdwatching, taking great delight in seeing the lovely different colored birds one finds in Africa. Once he decided to take a few days vacation and went into a great forest not far from where he was working to observe the different kinds of birds. He took some food and drink. But after a number of hours of looking up into the trees he realized he was lost. However, he felt he could find his way out again. Two days later he was still lost and now having used up all the water he had brought he started to get dehydrated. So he then resigned himself to die. The next morning, and being very weak he was seen by a local Ghanaian hunter who chanced to pass by that way and in no time had guided him out of the forest to safety. He knows that this man saved his life by pointing the way out of the forest to him.

Many people in our world today are searching for a way out of difficulty and seek people to help them this achieve this, whatever name you call this person, be it a psychologist, a spiritual director, a guide, a soul friend etc.

In the gospel today we have the Wise Men who come from the East. They are searchers for the truth and discovered a star that they felt could guide them to what they were seeking. Eventually it did. Amazingly, they just found a small helpless infant in a manger with his parents and they had the humility to accept that this child was the answer to their search.

What is the star that guides you in your way through life?

Many people will seek to follow the star of power, money, fame, popularity etc. and for a time they may seem to have found that it works, but sooner of later they don’t have the deep peace and happiness that following Jesus gives us. But is it easy to say that for me Jesus is the guiding star in my life, that he is the light shining up the darkness of my life.

How real is Jesus for you and me?

Does he really make all the difference? (Personal witness).

The star guided the Magi or Wise Men to Jesus but, on the way, they encountered Herod who sought to destroy Jesus if he found him.

Who or what is Herod for me?

Is there a person, a relationship, some worldly ambition, some tendency to sin in my life that may lead me away from finding Jesus and allowing him to be truly the guiding star of all I do.

If there is something or someone why not talk to Jesus and ask him to help us overcome the difficulty.

Having met Herod and the Jewish leaders the text seems to suggest that the star disappeared. But once they leave that situation (Herod) it appears again and guides them to Jesus.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, God seems to disappear from our lives. Even if we try to be faithful, Jesus seems far away. Remember Joseph and Mary lost Jesus for 3 days on their visit to Jerusalem.

This may well be an invitation to be faithful to Jesus in good times and also in difficult times.

Again why not ask his help that we would be faithful at this challenging time?

The Wise Men offer their gifts to the child Jesus convinced that he is the one they were searching for. The Wise Men who came from afar were not Jews. They are outsiders in that sense.

Today’s feast, the Epiphany means showing or manifestation, is the feast of God telling us that he wants to be known and loved by all peoples, regardless of colour, race or language.

The Wise Men having found the child pay him homage. The account ends in a beautiful way.

Having learned of Herod’s wicked intentions which were revealed to them in a dream, they “left for their own country by ‘a different way’”. We can assume that their having found Jesus had transformed their lives, because in the Bible a change of path symbolizes conversion. Must not this be the outcome of our encountering the Lord: a transformation of our lives, the capacity to take another way that is truly life-giving. The Good News is that God will reveal this to us if we ask in faith. It is free.

“Lord Jesus, we believe that you are the Way, the only star that can guide us safely in life to that peace and joy that each of us seeks. May our daily lives be a manifestation, an Epiphany to others that you alone are worth seeking for and following. May we too like the Wise Men be searchers for what is truly life-giving, You alone. May our lives witness to this to others by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Fr Jim Kirstein SMA, Blackrock Road, Cork 

25 December – Mass during the day

Isaiah 52.7-10
Hebrews 1.1-6
John 1.1-5, 9-14

A teacher decided to take her class of 10 year olds to visit the crib and she asked them to bring a little Christmas gift for the baby Jesus. At the crib they put in their gifts next to Jesus. One boy gave a whistle, another a bag of peanuts, a little girl put in a small doll and the next little boy put in a small statue of the Sacred Heart. The teacher was curious and asked him why. He replied that he thought it would be good for Jesus to see what he would be like when he grew up!!

It is true for most of us that we like to know what’s coming next, especially as the New Year is so near now. The gospel we just read is like that. It is called the prologue or the introduction to the gospel of John and he gives us an idea of what is to come later in the gospel. But it also speaks to us of our human situation now. It is a gospel of hope and promise.

The first verse tells us very simply, recalling the opening of the Book of Genesis when God created the world. It says that ‘in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The Word is another name for Jesus. The verse says straight out that Jesus is God and towards the end of the gospel in Chapter 20:30-31 John says that the purpose of writing the gospel was that so we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

You might say we all know this. Do we really? My brother and many of my childhood friends no longer believe Jesus is God. And even for us, it is easy to say I believe that Jesus is God but how real is that in my life? When John says we are asked to believe that Jesus is God he is using the verb ‘to believe’ or the phrase ‘to have faith in Jesus’ in a special sense. He uses the verb ‘to believe’ or faith 94 times in his gospel and it always means ‘to be a true disciple of Jesus, to follow him closely, to do his will, to have a deep friendship with Jesus. So, is that true of you and me? God knows that only by doing this can we really be happy and he will do everything possible to help us develop our friendship with Jesus.

Next he says that Jesus the light shines in the darkness, a darkness which could not overcome it. This is telling us that in Jesus, the light of the World, there will be a struggle with the powers of darkness in his life but that he will be victorious over darkness, sin and death. Is this not true of you and me too? Don’t we know our own inner struggle against sin and the temptations that face us daily? The whole life of Jesus was involved in this struggle and he is reminding us here that if we really ‘believe’ in the sense I have just explained we too will struggle against sin and evil in our own lives. Jesus, delighted with our efforts to please him will give us the courage that we too will finally succeed with him at our side, even if we fail from time to time.

The next part in the prologue tells us the amazing fact that his own people, the Chosen People of God, for the most part would not accept him. But whoever did were empowered to become children of God. The mystery for me is why some people in the same family accept Jesus and others don’t. I know one family which has 2 famous priests in the family whilst the third claims to be an atheist. He is anything but a bad or a wicked person but he says that in all honesty he cannot accept Jesus as God. How grateful are we for the gift of our faith, how often do we thank God for it? Personally I don’t know how I could survive in life without my experience of having Jesus as my close friend. Why he would choose me is another mystery but he does and that is all that counts.

The other main aspect of today’s gospel is that The Word or Jesus became flesh. This incredible statement means that Jesus chose to empty himself to be as we are except that he didn’t sin. This means that God loves us so much he wants to be with us, just like two lovers always want to be close to each other. God is the great Lover of humankind and he desires to stay close to us. Though I ask myself why when I see the way I, we treat him. Often ignoring him, refusing to do his will, going our own way and then when we realise our sins or failings we turn back and there He is so full of joy that we are back that he delights in showing us mercy. God doesn’t give up on us. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Today’s feast is speaking to us again of Jesus who is God, He who comes as the Light to show us the way in the darkness of this world and in spite of having to struggle is victorious. He invites us to join him in the struggle against the evil in our world. He desires greatly that we would accept his offer of friendship unlike many who refuse this. He became as we are so that he knows us from the inside, our struggles, our difficulties and our joys too. And finally he wants us to have the enduring love that he has for his Father so that here and now we may already start experiencing the deep peace and joy he came to bring us at Christmas.

“Lord Jesus. Why did you bother to come and live amongst us when you see how we treat you, often ignoring you or doing our own thing and yet you never give up on us. May we continue to be ever more grateful for your incredible choice of us and your unending love for us. May we be like the shepherds and the Wise Men so that may we continually adore, praise and thank you and offer you the gift you most desire from us, a deep, personal friendship with you.”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

25 December 2012 – Dawn Mass

Isaiah 62:11-12
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:15-20

Some years ago I was visiting my sister and she was very busy trying to cleanup after a party the night before and she hadn’t much time as she had to go out to her part-time job in the afternoon. We Irish have a reputation for hospitality. Just as we started to clean-up someone rang the doorbell and on opening the door we saw a family we knew but hadn’t seen for a long time with 3 small children. Of course we told them that they were very welcome and put out the best cups and saucers and gave them tea and biscuits with sweets for the small children. After 2 hours they decided to leave and said wasn’t it great we had nothing else to but entertain them. We just smiled and said nothing, though the temptation would have been to strangle them!!! As soon as they were gone we set about trying to do what we began to do, clean the place with 2 hours less available than before. Just to underline the importance of welcoming the unexpected guest who comes at the most unsuitable time God decided to give me a practical example.

As I was typing my homily this morning and trying to get it done in time, there was a ring on the bell at our front gate and when I went out I found an elderly man who wanted food and drink. I got the grace to see Jesus visiting me in him, gave him what he wanted and sat down next to him for as long as he ate the meal. Then off he went and I couldn’t laughing out loud and saying to God ‘You really were underlining the message just now weren’t you?

The totally unexpected guest can seem like a great disturber of our plans. We are up to our eyes in work and don’t have enough time for all we want to do. No matter how disorganised and easygoing we claim to be, which of us likes the unplanned and the unexpected? No one was ready for what happened at Bethlehem, from Herod to the High priest, to Joseph and Mary, they were all caught off-guard. The God of Surprises decided his time, his place and his way. Some like the prophet Isaiah had a very small idea but no one was certain.

The God of the promise became the God outside the walls, up in the hills, visited by the shepherds, warmed by animals, a child of frightened parents. Nobody could have predicted this, a powerless God-with-us. If we had known we would not have let this happen, we would have given them a bed at least. But it was God’s way and God’s time.

But then, when could we ever have a place ready for God-with-us? Where would we place him? Maybe it is better we don’t know. Can we allow him come when he will, where he will and let him decide the places that deserve God-with-us. Then we will allow God to be born where he wills.

So don’t hold your breath; be prepared to find him anywhere because Bethlehem can be any place. It can the office you hate, it can be the classroom that distresses you. It can be the bedroom ceiling you look at every day when you awake and wonder how you will pass the day. Your Bethlehem might be the corner of your heart that you consider unfit for God-with-us, it might be that dark memory that haunts you. It might even be the face you see every day and cannot love.

No matter where Jesus chooses to be born, it is not where we think he should be born. We will choose a 100 comfortable places for him and he will choose the one place that will disturb us, but this maybe the place where we need God-with-us, the place of our greatest discomfort may become the place where we are ultimately comforted. Let us ask God to reveal it to us.

“Lord Jesus, open our eyes and heart to see where YOU want to be born again in our lives. Let us realise above all that it is most probably the place where we are most uncomfortable. May we realise where it is and know that you are very happy to be born there since it is where we need you most. Lord, here is my heart, my life. Choose where you wish to be born and when and how, as I know that that is best for me. MARANATHA, COME LORD JESUS.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

25 December – Midnight Mass

Joy for all the people 

Isaiah 9.1-6
Titus 2.11-14
Luke 2.1-14

A young couple got married 10 years ago. They came from well-off families and both were working. They were very blessed in almost every aspect of their marriage. They loved each other even more than when they were first married. But their biggest cross was that despite their great desire, they had no children. They spent a great amount of money in going to various doctors and having all the necessary tests but to no avail. They were even unsuccessful in trying to adopt a baby.

Then they heard of a certain doctor who claimed to have discovered a drug that could help certain infertile couples. But it was new and there were possible side effects because the drug hadn’t really been tested enough. The couple were so desperate that they agreed to take the risk so great was their desire to have a baby. Luckily for them the drug worked and they were blessed with a healthy baby. I don’t have to tell you that their joy was unlimited. So too was that of their families and friends. The joy that the little baby gave to so many was a marvel to experience.

Two thousand years ago another young couple had a baby in a stable in Bethlehem. This time the joy was not to be limited to the young couple, Mary and Joseph but as the angel told the shepherds in the gospel of Luke “You have nothing to fear! I come to proclaim good news to you. News of great joy to be shared by the whole people”.

On this Christmas night what is our reaction? Do we find it to be good news? Do we feel joy? Some may feel they have to experience a deep emotion or a kind of joy one experiences in hearing a family member has been totally cured of a cancer they thought would lead to certain death. Not so. The peace and the joy may simply be a feeling of deep peace and a conviction that whatever happens us in life the Christ-child will see us through it. It means also that even in time of suffering we somehow feel able to cope knowing God-is-with-us, Jesus Emmanuel, that God is holding us.

Maybe the difficulty is that we would prefer God to come with signs and wonders. Maybe with trumpets and a great firework display. God’s ways are just not like that. This is a very, very hard lesson to learn and accept. Why doesn’t God act as I think God should? But I am not God and He is, and our God is telling us very clearly and with great insistence and frequency that “His ways are not our ways” as the prophet Isaiah tells us. But will we accept it? As I was reflecting on the readings it struck me very strongly that Mary and Joseph were like many young couples expecting a baby. They lived in a small town and when the order came they had to leave their town of Nazareth to journey to Bethlehem to report for the census ordered by the emperor. At Bethlehem there was no room for them at the inn. But should we blame the other people seeking for shelter that night? Mary and Joseph were like many others who couldn’t find shelter. Joseph did what was possible and found a stable and so Jesus is born there. It is the beginning of the story of God who takes on human limitation and lives it out not trying to use miraculous ways to avoid this limitation. Jesus never worked miracles for his own comfort, to avoid limitation and suffering, always only for others. He ‘came and dwelt among us’ and went through the many human experiences of limitation in life that we go through. You see God in Jesus knows us from the inside. He lived our experiences. He knows our struggles, our difficulties. He knows what we are up against and so understands us. Isn’t that a wonderful God to have? That is a great reason for joy this night.

He is the God who chooses to be on the side of the poor and limited people of our world. He takes the side of the marginalised. He chooses to use Mary and Joseph. He also used the shepherds – a group despised by almost all the Jewish religious leaders of the time because due to the nature of their work they couldn’t attend the synagogue religious services except perhaps only from time to time.

For me Christmas is the story of a God choosing to come amongst us. He is a God who doesn’t choose to come first to the mighty and wealthy even though he cares for them and loves them too. But because most of us have to struggle to make ends meet, to live limitation, like not having as much money as we would like to have to give to our children what we would wish for them. God comes especially to the people who for the most part are not among the important ones of our world, except to their families and some friends. God walks by our side. So I really thank God for coming to us in so very ordinary ways, taking on our limitations, partaking in our struggles, encouraging us to keep going when we get a bit discouraged or even depressed etc.

But why do we find it so hard to accept his so very, very ordinary ways of coming to us as he did the first Christmas and still does each day? I suspect that if we were told the statue of the Sacred Heart in a certain Manila church started to show blood coming from the heart there would be thousands of people trying to get to see it. Maybe later it is discovered it is due to a leak of water dripping from the ceiling on to the red paint of the statue. I for one have no interest in such a display. Not because of a lack of faith but hopefully because I try to see God, the majestic creator of our Universe still revealing himself to me in the same very ordinary, limited ways today in the different people and events of daily life as well as when I pray.

When I saw for example as I came near the Church tonight a young mother picking up her small child who tripped, fell and was crying and she was holding him close to her heart to console him, I can see again a God in Jesus who allowed himself to be picked up by Mary his mother when he fell and was crying. When I see a young couple trying to get some seats in a bus as they travel home for Christmas and are told there is standing room only but they accept this limitation, then I see Mary and Joseph searching for space in Bethlehem and having to do with less than they hoped for without complaining, seeing this as part of life’s limitations. When I see someone diagnosed as having Aids and many of his family and friends reject him but some people who maybe don’t even believe in God showing him kindness, I can see Jesus as the 10 lepers approach and he doesn’t turn away, but actually touches them.

Friends of mine before they got married would spend hours and hours together even to staying out till 3 in the morning so that they could stay with each other as long as possible. They couldn’t bear to be apart for long. So too with Jesus. He wants to stay close to us. So Jesus came among us to invite us to enter into a deep personal relationship with Him. He is not a God who stays far off in heaven; he is a God who dwells or tabernacles among us. He is inviting us to draw close to him. He didn’t come in majesty and power lest he frighten us away but as one like us to show solidarity with us.    

“Lord Jesus, when will we learn the lesson you keep on trying to teach us. That you still come to us in limitation and ordinariness. But we often want a God of great signs and wonders which you are also. Often we fail to see you in the very ordinary people who continue quietly and humbly doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. Maybe we fail to have the joy you want us to have because we may be looking for it in the wrong places and people. Come Lord Jesus; open our eyes to your ways of being amongst us each day in ordinariness and limitation. Praise you Jesus.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

11 November 2012

1 Kings 17.10-16
Hebrews 9.24-28
Mark 12.38-44

In a certain country an election was due to take place and the candidates were campaigning hard as the Election Day approached. It was a country, which at the time was mainly Catholic. One of the candidates went to 6 Masses the Sunday before and went to Holy Communion each time to impress the people that he was a holy man and deserved to be elected. Later it was discovered that he had had a number of mistresses but he wanted to show a public image that he thought would be acceptable.

In the gospel today the Scribes are concerned about their public image too. They wear long robes; want to be seen in the front seats of the synagogues, to have the places of honour at banquets, to make a show of lengthy prayers and to swallow the property of widows. Jesus is quite severe in criticising them because they are living a life of pretence, living a lie.

Are things any different today? Don’t we live in the world of image, the world of advertising where packaging very often is more important than what the package contains? Many politicians, film stars, rich and so called important people in public life; not forgetting some church leaders too, can be slaves to their public image. Wearing designer clothes only, wanting to be seen in public places, at big public gatherings in the company of famous people, undergoing cosmetic surgery may be examples. We may even try to impress our friends by our achievements, by the car we have, the house we live in, and our educational degrees we speak about.   Are we totally free of this ourselves? Is there not a bit of the Scribe in us all? Jesus wants us to be free of this type of slavery. That is why he tries to unmask it whenever he meets it.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once filmed on TV in Calcutta among the very poor wearing an old cardigan and an old pair of sandals. Two weeks later she was filmed on TV again, this time visiting the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace where the queen lives. The queen was obviously delighted to see her and greeted her warmly and spent a good amount of time with Mother Teresa. At one stage the TV cameras showed Mother Teresa wearing the same old cardigan and pair of sandals. She clearly had not put on a show to impress the Queen of England. Her obvious goodness showed through and she was content to be herself without any packaging.

Having criticised the Scribes for their public pretence, Jesus wants to teach his disciples what is most important in the sight of God and so he draws their attention to a poor widow who put all she had to live on, two small coins into the Temple treasury. Her contribution had practically no value in itself but what Jesus remarked on was that it was all she had to live on. She gave her all to God quietly, without drawing any attention to herself. This was in total contrast to the Scribes parading themselves in public to impress others. A widow at the time of Jesus had no visible means of support. She couldn’t go out and get a job like now since that was not possible, so in giving her all she trusted God totally that somehow or other she would be taken care of. So she was a woman of great generosity and trust in God’s providence. In a sense Jesus is speaking about Himself. He held nothing back from God, from us. He gave his all to God, for us. That is indeed Good News. It cost a lot for the widow to give all. It cost a lot for Jesus to give all. What does it cost us to give ourselves to God and others? We may not have much money to spare, but what of our time, our care and concern for others? Do we spend time with people whom we find boring, unattractive, people from whom there is no gain financially or emotionally?  

What set the widow’s offering apart was not just its proportion to her means; there was something in her character that lifted the gift out of routine into the realm of sacrifice. No gift of love is too small, and nothing escapes the notice of God from whom no secrets are hidden.

The readings today tell of two stories of generosity. Both concern two very poor people-two widows. We wonder how someone who was as poor as the widow in the gospel was able to perform such an act of spontaneous goodness. One needs to have been faithful over many years to the practice of generosity to have had a heart like hers. It is not achieved by as few great deeds but by a lot of little ones.

To be confronted by the call of Jesus, whatever the plight of the world or the Church, is to discover that which needs to be done within our reach. Despair of the world or of the Church is a dishonourable escape route leading to nowhere. Jesus would have none of it. Like the widow he gave all that he had, one life among many. Yet behind and within his life lay the total love of God for each one of us. All the life, death and resurrection of Jesus show what can be achieved, not out of abundance, but out of the very little each may seem to have.

“Lord Jesus, in the gospel today, you present us with a choice. To be a slave to what others think of us and all the games we may choose to play to gain their approval or to be like the poor widow, quietly giving of ourselves generously to God and to others in gratitude to a God who gave his all for us? Help us to choose your way by the power of the Spirit. Amen”.

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

28 October 2012

Jeremiah 31.7-9
Hebrew 5.1-6
Mark 10.46-52

A man died and in his will he donated his eyes to his wife. Due to modern medicine and technology she was able to see for the first time at the age of 64. Her first words on being able to see apart from gratitude to God and to her late husband were: ‘incredible, but how can all you people who have always seen be so calm and seem so unaffected by all the beauty that surrounds you. Can’t you see the beauty in the faces of all others, be amazed at the different colours; look at the different shapes of all the trees, everything!’   Isn’t it probably true of most of us? – we seem to take it all for granted.

In the gospel today Jesus heals the blind man Bartimaeus and gives him back his sight. Bartimaeus is not only cut off from the beauty of the world; he is also cut off from other people. Some people believe that his blindness is due to his sin or the sin of his parents, so they think that he is also cut off from God.

It was as Jesus was about to leave the historical city of Jericho that the healing takes place. Jesus is now only 15 miles from Jerusalem where he will die shortly because of the blindness of the Jewish religious leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees. Bartimaeus sees what these others are unable to perceive. Very often the one who acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah come from the insignificant people of society, from those at the roadside; the marginalised, from people some try to silence.

Many of the readings of recent Sundays deal with blind people, people who look at life from their viewpoint only, so they remain totally blind to other possibilities. The eyes of the Pharisees are totally glued to the Law and the Commandments but seem blind to matters of the heart. The Rich Young man is blinded by his wealth and fails to see what Jesus is offering him. The disciples led by Peter are not much better. Their eyes are on the best places and they fail to see what Jesus is teaching them. So now today Mark tells us about Bartimaeus who was begging by the side of the road. So who really are the blind people? Who are those who see? Maybe those including ourselves who consider tranquillity and security the highest values and want to avoid all risks and to cling desperately to the old and familiar. Do I see or has Jesus still to open my eyes. Do I ask him to do this? Maybe I am afraid to.

Even though I may see physically, is it possible that I am blind spiritually, emotionally or psychologically? Physical blindness is not necessarily the worst kind. But the Good News of today’s gospel is that Jesus can do for us what he did for Bartimaeus if we have faith. Jesus said to Bartimaeus: ‘your faith has saved you’. But first of all we may need to ask Jesus to show us, if we really want this, to show us where we are blind and give us the healing. But if it is just to indulge ourselves maybe he won’t. Will we be prepared like Bartimaeus to follow Jesus along the road behind him – a road that could lead to suffering too?

So in the story we see Bartimaeus at the side of the road. He is not yet a follower of Jesus. He is blind so who told him it was Jesus? Who told you, me? Have I told anyone? Some people try to shut him up and prevent him from going to Jesus and so follow him. Have we had this experience? Or in any way by word or example done it to others. Above all, in the story we have Jesus. The crowd is all around him, shouting, pushing. Yet look at the sensitivity of Jesus who in spite of all this hears Bartimaeus shouting after him, maybe the only chance Bartimaeus will ever have. So Jesus calls him over. Others relay the invitation of Jesus, so again Jesus uses people to pass on his invitation today too. The man doesn’t delay but jumps up even throwing aside his cloak as it might hinder him. And when he reaches Jesus he is asked by Jesus ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ We might think, ‘Come on Jesus, the man is blind’. But no, that is not our God. He doesn’t force what might be our obvious needs on us against our will. Again the sensitivity and delicacy of Jesus. So he responds to the request of Bartimaeus because he knows that his faith leads him to trust that Jesus can heal him. God never forcefully enters into our lives but waits to be invited. Don’t you as parents and teachers have the same experience? Sometimes you know what is best for your children but you allow them the freedom necessary even to refuse and make mistakes.            

Finally Bartimaeus had to risk. As a beggar he was sure of a certain daily income. He had his place in the society of his time among his family, friends and fellow beggars. Now in following Jesus he takes the great risk of leaving that behind to follow Jesus not knowing where it might lead or what will happen to him. But he considers it worth the risk. Would you or I?

“Lord Jesus, we praise and thank you for the many gifts you give us, including the gift of sight. Open our eyes to all the areas of our lives where we are blind and unfree. Give us the Holy Spirit to take the risk of letting go of all that prevents us from following you more closely and having the fullness of life, beginning even now. Amen”

Fr. Jim Kirstein, SMA

SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS

Sr Philomena McGuinness SSL shares some thoughts on the Feast of All Saints and the readings chosen for the Mass of that day.

In the times of great persecution of the early Church, there were so many martyrs that it was impossible to commemorate each one on an individual day. Eventually, when the Church was given an old Roman Temple dedicated to “all the gods”, the Pantheon became became a place to honour “All the Saints” and today’s feast was born.

The entire collection of Roman gods was called the ‘Pantheon’ and in ancient times, you could worship any of the gods whose statues were located in the niches of the building. The Pantheon was converted into a Catholic Church in 609 A.D. and dedicated to Our Lady and all the Martyrs.

On this feast of All Saints, we honour in a special way all the holy men and women who in their day-to-day lives have been challenged by the Gospel and have lived it generously.

First Reading             The Book of the Apocalypse 7:2-4, 9-14

A vision of the faithful followers of Christ rejoicing in his presence in the heavenly kingdom.

The Book of Revelation was written for Christians who were being persecuted for their faith towards the end of the first century. It is built on the promise that, after persecution, those who are faithful to God and to Christ will be delivered and gathered into the peace of God’s presence. At the time of writing, the persecuting force from which they were to be delivered was the might of the Roman Empire with its immorality, its materialism and above all, its demands that all its subjects should worship the Emperor as God.. All would have to cry ‘Caesar is Lord.’

Many Christian churches of Asia (a Roman province in the south-west region of Turkey) were under threat; the Christians there needed encouragement. A number of them had become martyrs; others would soon be killed and many of them were harassed by local authorities or even put in prison. The whole Book of the Apocalypse (Revelation) is a powerful message for persecuted Christians of the late first century for whom the great test was whether they would accept the standards of the Empire or remain faithful to the demanding standards of Christianity in a hostile world.

In today’s extract, after witnessing visions of the cosmic upheaval as the moon turns to blood and creation is clothed in darkness, the seer, John, hears the divine voice mandating the destroying angel to wait until a group of people are claimed as God’s own. He then has a first vision of an angel coming from the east, holding the seal of the living God and putting the seal on the foreheads of the Lord’ servants, that is, those who are ‘saved’.

Their number is 144,000, a symbolic number that should not be taken literally. It is not the exact number of those who will enter heaven. It refers to those members of the tribes of Israel who were faithful to the Covenant and benefit from God’s saving activity in the past through events like the Exodus and the return from exile. For the Jewish people this number signified completion: it meant twelve thousand people assigned to each of the twelve tribal units.

After this first vision, the second vision moves to the heavenly throne. It describes a great multitude that no one can count, of those saved by the blood of the Lamb, which is an image of Christ. These come from every nation, race, people and tongue. They all stand before God and in front of the Lamb; wearing white robes symbolising joy and innocence and holding palm branches in their hands as a sign of victory. They share in the victory that Christ has won over the powers of evil by his death on the cross.

Words of praise and victory are spoken and sung by a huge assembly. They are happily celebrating a heavenly Feast of Tabernacles (the most joyous of Jewish feasts.)

An interpreting elder confirms that that the victorious are those who have come triumphantly through tribulation and have not apostatised under threat of persecution.

Reflection

• Do I connive at and approve standards of behaviour that are built on a morality far from that of Christ? More pressingly, do I accept those standards for myself?
• The aim of the Apocalypse is to strengthen its audience’s commitment in the face of rejection and persecution. It attempts to bolster faith by assuring that everything has its place in the plan of God and that a final triumph is certain.
• In the late first century, people are already beginning to see more clearly that the Church is a community in which the dignity and value of each person is recognised as a child of God, without distinction of race, colour, sex or status.
• The heavenly court is an international assembly of ordinary people who have been faithful to God; real people whose struggles and frustrations come to a merciful end in the peace of God’s house. Dare I let myself hope for such a finale, the unity of all mankind, nations, tribes, peoples, languages?

Second Reading                                 1 John 3:1-3

In his love for us, God has made his children and destined us one day to see him as he is.

In this passage John invites his readers to be attentive to the fact that even in this life; they are really and truly children of God. As Christian believers we belong to God because they have been adopted in Christ. We are God’s children and in case there should be any doubt about it, John adds: ‘and this is what we are.’ We have been born to a new life and share, mysteriously but really, in the life of God. Therefore, we can be sure that each one of us is loved by the Father.

If the unbelieving world does not recognise the true status of Christians, it is because the world doesn’t recognise God either. John means by this that it has failed to recognise Jesus.

We have to await the coming of the Lord, to see him ‘as he is’ before we can arrive at full appreciation of our own identity, our own Christian reality – and only then, will we see clearly that our future state will be like the glorified state of Jesus.         

Moreover, our present relationship with God is only the beginning. Being children of God is a source of hope, but it also demands a response from us. Meanwhile, we must be close se to God in prayer, show the qualities of God in our actions – his generosity, forgiveness and openness – and live as witnesses to the love of Christ.

Reflection

• In the presence of Christ, our eyes will be opened, and we shall then truly understand what God has worked in us. What are the elements you look forward to in heaven?
• Who are the saints who have played a part in your life? In what ways does my sainthood manifest itself?
• How are we supposed to behave as we wait to meet Christ ‘as he really is’? We will be told that in the Beatitudes!

Gospel                                    Matthew 5:1-12

Jesus speaks about the qualities he wishes to see in his disciples. He makes wonderful promises to those who try to follow him.

The familiar Beatitudes are the Gospel reading today. They are the qualities that are to mark the followers of Jesus. They are a summary of the teaching of Jesus Christ. Many have recognised in them a portrait of Jesus himself.

One of the things Jesus is doing in this Gospel is enunciating a set of values that would be foundational in his kingdom he was putting in place. The important ones are poverty of spirit, gentleness, forgiveness, a hunger for justice, a passion for peace, a readiness to suffer in his name. These are very much at variance with pagan or worldly values such as pride, vindictiveness, belligerence, aggrandisement and war.

But more than enunciating a set of values, Jesus is describing (1) the stuff of which saints are made, (2) the characteristics of those who desire to participate in the life that Jesus would live and for which he would die and (3) the kind of people who would be citizens of his kingdom.

Reflection

• We see here the interior landscape of Jesus: poor in spirit, gentle, merciful, hungry for justice, pure in heart, a peacemaker – yet prepared to grieve and to suffer persecution in the cause of right. For most of the Beatitudes, there are gospel incidents in which Jesus sums them up: like the entry into Jerusalem as the gentle king on a donkey, or the love he shows in his welcome to sinners, or his bringing peace to those tortured by disease or contempt, or his purity of heart in his single-minded preoccupation with his Father’s will, and finally his acceptance of persecution for what he knew to be right. Any Christian may suddenly find him/herself face with similar challenges.
• Each of the ‘blesseds’ is a statement about something important in the Christian life. They are an ideal on how to live and how to find God close to us. We might ask for the grace today to live by this vision of life, which was at the root of how Jesus lived.
• If the qualities of the Beatitudes are not appreciated in our world, it is because the Kingdom of God is still to be established on this earth. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your Kingdom come.” (Mt. 6:10)
• Today we rejoice in all the saints of the Church, all the saints in our lives and what is saintly in each of us.   We thank God for all the holy and women who gone before us and those still among us today, who have enriched the Church and the world with their quiet witness to the Gospel, people whose lives are unheralded and whose names are unknown.   And if you feel thanked in the process, don’t feel confused!!
• Today’s feast includes all the saints who were never canonised: mothers and fathers who stayed faithful to one another and their families; single men and women who did good ‘unseen’; those who found God through the pain they endured; all those who never thought of themselves as holy but whose goodness was clear to those to them. Do I belong there?
• We belong to a community that has a history of goodness and fidelity to the Gospel. We are related to those who went before us, those who linked their belief to those who went before them. We are part of a chain of holiness. We belong to the sanctified brethren.
• We have our ancestors in faith who are blessed in heaven ‘a huge number, impossible to count of people from every nation, tribe and language.’ (Rev 7:9). And among them are counted people who know and love us. Today we salute them.
• We are a small part of a marvellous company of believers who struggle into holiness. The saints serve as models for us precisely because they were sinners like the rest of us. They inspire us. The only question is the extent to which we respond. They show us what we are capable of. Their standards and values are pointing in the direction we are to go. We feel their strength helping us and supporting us. This great company of witnesses spur us on to victory, to share their prize of everlasting glory.
• The annual celebration of ‘All Saints’ reminds us that the saints are not all alike. There are many different kinds of saints. It also reminds that the saints are not just those whose names are on some official list somewhere. Many saints, perhaps most saints, are not known to us by name.
• Finally, this feast reminds us that, to the extent that the life of Christ is still with us, we are all saints!! The only question is the extent to which we try to live a godly life as God’s children.

 Prayer

Lord, you have given us many friends in heaven.
Today we are grateful for the lives
of so many people of every age, church and century
who have done their best to live
in the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We ask for the ability to emulate them
and for fortitude in the face of the challenges
that face us in that mission.

In your goodness, give us fellowship with them
and unending joy in your Kingdom. Amen