9th May 2019

Throughout the Old and New Testaments we hear of messages delivered by angels, by the Spirit, in dreams and even of direct communication with God himself.

How come this doesn’t seem to happen to us?

Perhaps we need to look at the ‘human element’ in the story. All those who received messages, lived in close communion with God – Abraham, Moses, Samuel…. Mary, Joseph….. Philip. They were all attuned to His voice.

The world is filled with distracting sounds that vie for our attention and we, sometimes, contribute to this noise that filters out what we really need to hear. If we make the conscious effort to find silent space and commune with God, we will hear His voice: in our own hearts, through messengers, signs and incidents.

Hearing God’s voice is not the privilege of a few, it is a gift that is given to all of us. All we need to do is listen!

8th May 2019

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.

Wednesday in the 3rd week of Easter. The persecution that followed the martyrdom of Stephen scattered the first Christians everywhere. Just like the death of Jesus and Stephen, this persecution was no accident.

We have all experienced death: the passing of a parent, a child, a spouse, a loved one, a friend or a member from our community. The moment of death to interment in the grave brings home the implacable message – life has been extinguished. No one has returned and told us otherwise and one is reminded of Dives’ impassioned plea to Father Abraham ‘if someone from the dead goes to them…’

But if we have faith in the Resurrection, we need no messenger from beyond the grave. Christ has promised us eternal life if we believe in Him. And He has provided us the way: in the Eucharist, in the Sacraments and in ‘the least of our brethren’.

“The resurrection of Jesus changes the face of death for all His people. Death is no longer a prison, but a passage into God’s presence.” – Clarence W. Hall

There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a “hardness of hearing” where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own time. Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God-there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age. Along with this hardness of hearing or outright deafness where God is concerned, we naturally lose our ability to speak with him and to him. And so we end up losing a decisive capacity for perception. We risk losing our inner senses. This weakening of our capacity for perception drastically and dangerously curtails the range of our relationship with reality in general. The horizon of our life is disturbingly foreshortened.

7th May 2019

I am the Bread of life

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (John 6: 35).

Tuesday in the 3rd week of Easter. In the Bread of life Discourse, Jesus told those who were beginning to develop faith in Him that [I AM + BREAD OF LIFE]. I AM is of course the name that Yahweh revealed to Moses in the Burning Bush as His sacred name.

One of the most haunting scenes described in stories of the holocaust is of the children clinging to their mothers crying out their hunger and thirst, little knowing that their lives were about to be extinguished forever. Hunger for food is a very real need.There is another kind of hunger – one that cries out for nourishment of the spirit. That seeks love and understanding. That looks for hope in the darkest moments. A hunger that is even deeper than hunger for bread. And this is the hunger that Christ speaks of. If we partake of him in the Eucharist, in faith, we receive our nourishment to meet the day. Cloaked in His love and protection, we are strengthened to face the most exacting situations.

Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man will give us Himself as our Bread. Not just bread but Bread of life. What does the Church teach about the Bread of life?

“It [Eucharist] refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the “medicine of immortality,” without which we have no life within us……The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes it a bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body and made members of him, we may become what we receive. This also is our daily bread.” (CCC 2837)

In the Eucharist, we receive who we are, the Body of Christ. Now we must become what we receive, the Body of Christ.

And, strange though it may sound, deep and abiding faith does result in every kind of hunger being met. Christ is indeed the bread of life!

The Gospel invites us to realize that we have a “deficit” in our capacity for perception. Initially, we do not notice this deficiency as such, since everything else seems so urgent and logical; since everything seems to proceed normally, even when we no longer have eyes and ears for God and we live without Him. But is it true that everything goes on as usual when God no longer is a part of our lives and our world?

THE THIRD DEGREE

  “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” —John 21:16  

Three times Jesus addressed Peter not as “Peter,” the name Jesus had given him, but as “Simon, son of John,” Peter’s name before he met Christ (Jn 21:15, 16, 17). 

Jesus asked Peter three times: “Do you love Me?” Was Jesus questioning Simon about his love? Two weeks ago, every Catholic in the world who went to Easter Vigil or Easter Sunday Mass renewed baptismal promises by rejecting Satan and professing faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What if Jesus asked you today to renew again your baptismal promises? What if He asked you to renew them again tomorrow? Would Jesus seem unconvinced about our commitment to Him?

Jesus described Simon Peter as a disciple who “went about” as He “pleased” (Jn 21:18). However, Simon Peter needed to be a disciple who would allow himself to lose his life and even die for Jesus (Jn 21:18-19).

Do you deserve to be addressed by your baptismal name? Is your love for Jesus convincing? Are you Jesus’ disciple on your terms or on His?

5th May 2019

Third Sunday of Easter

Today is the 3rd Sunday of Easter. During the Holy Week 3 weeks ago, we stood in the crowd and watched the Passion of the Christ. On Easter Sunday, we were huddled in fear with other disciples when the Risen Jesus appeared and said to us: “I was dead but behold I am alive forever.” (Cf Revelation 1: 18). We rejoiced and danced for joy.

Today, “the true and faithful Witness” is inviting us to bear witness to what we have seen and heard. Are you ready? What does it mean to bear witness or to be sent on a mission? What does the Church say?

“The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known.” (CCC 2472).

Today’s Gospel is one that we remember well; a moment crystallized in time for all people of Christian faith. It is the moment when Peter – the man whom we recognise as our first Pope – is called to shepherd Christ’s flock.

‘Feed my lambs’ has a particularly poignant connotation during the season of Spring, when shepherds need to be alert. It is lambing time and the flock is most vulnerable to predators. The Christian community that would spring from Christ’s mission and the Resurrection would also have been a fledgling flock in need of a strong caretaker. Peter has come through hard times, doubt and faithlessness to resolute faith and great love. He is now ready to do God’s will. And he will be a strong and fearless shepherd.

We have much to learn from Peter. We, too, will travel through difficulties, doubts and wavering faith from which we can emerge stronger for the experience. And while we count ourselves among the flock, we can help to feed Christ’s sheep, shelter his lambs and be disciples by our example.

WHEN SHEEP MAKE SHEPHERDS

“Look around among your own number, brothers, for seven men acknowledged to be deeply spiritual and prudent.” —Acts 6:3

Did you notice that the leaders of the early Church placed the responsibility for finding deacons on the “community of the disciples”? (Acts 6:2) That’s us! We are to be on the lookout for those who would make good leaders in the Church.

This was new for the early Christians. Jewish priests and Levites were born into their positions. The apostles were called and chosen by Jesus Himself. The early Church, however, called the whole community of disciples to raise up future leaders from “among [their] own number” (Acts 6:3).

Our priests and bishops today cannot possibly know each person who may have a call to religious life and other forms of leadership in the Church. They depend on each one of us to do our part in building up the Church. We can do this by:

-asking God to reveal to us those “spiritual and prudent” men and women,

-pointing out to these people their gifts,

-frequently encouraging (Heb 10:25) and praying for them,

discipling them so they can be more “spiritual and prudent,”

-presenting these people to church leaders by offering to introduce them to vocation directors, paying for them to go on retreats, etc. and

-making disciples (Mt 28:19) by having as many children as God calls us to have and raising them in the faith.

The leaders of the Church are depending on you. “Look around” (Acts 6:3).

WE MUST MOVE beyond the concept of processing our personal pain to the place where we can reach out to others around us who are in pain. We can do this in our personal relationships. And we can create those types of safe and sacred spaces in our faith communities where people can share the stories that lie behind their tears. If we rise to this challenge, we become Easter people in a Good Friday world.

Paul, writing to the Corinthians, gives us one of the earliest forms of the Creed: that Christ died, was buried, rose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and appeared to the Apostles and disciples. Then, in the phrase “as one untimely born”, he encapsulates his sense of his unworthiness in sharing in the apostolic mission, especially since he was the one who persecuted the Church.

The Gospels do not paint a very encouraging picture of the apostles. They seem no different from ordinary people in their squabbling for powers and favour; they are easily angered. But after the Resurrection, they are changed into people whose minds were opened by Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. They believed what Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

Like Paul, their lives were transformed in the meeting with the Resurrected Jesus, reoriented as it were, towards the Father by imitating Christ.

Saints Philip and James, Apostles

Philip was born at Bethsaida and started as a disciple of John the Baptist. After the Baptist’s death he followed Christ.

James, a cousin of the Lord, was the son of Alphaeus. He ruled the Church at Jerusalem; wrote an epistle; led an austere life; and converted many Jews to the Faith. He was crowned with martyrdom in the year 62.

As we celebrate the feast of the apostles Philip and James, may we remodel our lives on the example of Christ.