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Christ the King

On November 23rd 1927 the last words uttered by Blessed Miguel Pro SJ before he was murdered were, ‘¡Viva Christo Rey!’ “Long live Christ the King!’. The Mexican regime of that time was cruel and went out of its way to persecute Christians, including Miguel Pro, a twentieth century Christian martyr who died confessing Christ’s sovereignty over all things. His words are powerful, and inspiring. When we acknowledge Christ as King we are saying that He is above all human power and authority, and we affirm that God is supreme. We, as Christians, declare that our primary allegiance is to God alone, and not to the things of this world. Secular power is threatened by this, because it wants to assume for itself something that rightly belongs to God alone. The Church resists this out of a desire to honour and worship God, and to see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

In our first reading this morning from the prophet Ezekiel we see God speaking as a shepherd caring for His flock. This image lies behind Jesus’ description of Himself as the Good Shepherd in John’s Gospel (Jn 10:11-18). Jesus uses imagery from Scripture to show us that it is fulfilled in Him, that God’s promises are coming true. Jesus the Good Shepherd is a hopeful and encouraging image, one which we need as much as ever. God is not absent or disinterested in us or how we live our lives, quite the opposite:

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak (Ezekiel 34:15-16)

This vision of care, healing, and reconciliation, is exactly what Jesus promises and demonstrates in the Gospels. This should not surprise us, as there is a continuity between the Old and New Testaments. What is promised in the Old is fulfilled in the New. The Word of God finds its fullest expression in the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ. Christ takes the image for His Parable from the words of Ezekiel’s Prophecy:

“As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats.” (Ezekiel 34:15-16)

So this morning we come to the last of Jesus’ parables concerning the end times, that of the Sheep and the Goats.  

As those involved in keeping animals will know, sheep and goats need to be separated. Sheep are hardier than goats, so they can sleep outside, whereas goats need shelter. Normally it is easy to distinguish them from each other since sheep’s tails point down, and goats’ tails point up. 

Once they are separated, Jesus speaks to the sheep:

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ (Mt 25:34-36)

Jesus singles out those who have put their Christian faith into action in their lives. They have not simply believed in Jesus, but they have let their belief inform their actions, and done good works. They have fed the hungry, given refreshment to the thirsty, welcomed strangers, and visited the sick and prisoners. This is what God wants us to do, if we want to go to Heaven. The advice is clear, as with the other parables which we have been reading over the past few weeks. God is telling us how Christians should live in the world, making their love visible and demonstrating it in acts of service. 

God expects a lot from us. The Christian life is demanding, and a high standard is set for us. Likewise the choice is a stark one: eternal life or eternal punishment. It is important for us to remember that this morning’s Gospel is a parable which is meant to warn us, and give us the opportunity to live the way God wants us to, here and now, so that we can be prepared for the life to come. Each and every one of us can choose to try and live Gospel lives or not. God does not force us, we are free to reject His love, or to accept it and live lives which demonstrate that love to the world around us. It is clear that actions have consequences, and how we live our lives matters. That’s why Jesus’ teaching is clear and uncompromising.

We are faced with the question of how to live out our faith so that we are living lives of generous love and human flourishing. Can we manage on our own? No, alone we will not succeed. We need to rely upon each other, for help and support, but most importantly we need to rely upon God, and His Grace, as without it we are doomed to fail. Today we celebrate Christ’s universal kingship, that He is sovereign in Heaven and on earth, and that He rules in the hearts and lives of men and women everywhere. We serve him out of love, rather than obeying Him out of fear, and seek to make that love a reality in the world through acts of loving service. But we do this first and foremost because of our relationship with Christ. In showing mercy to others we are showing mercy to Christ, who in turn will be merciful towards us.

‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Mt 25:40)

In the Beatitudes Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy’ (Mt 5:7). Now we see what this looks like in reality. The Kingdom of God is above all else a place of love, freely offered. The throne of God is in fact the Cross: here Christ is raised up and reigns in glory, the glory of self-giving generous love. Christ bears forever the marks of the nails and the spear because they are the marks of love. As a well-known hymn puts it, ‘Crown him the Lord of love! Behold his hands and side,— Rich wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified’. This is glory of the Kingdom, and we are called to share and participate in it, to make it a reality here and now. 

So let us try to live in such a way, that Christ may rule in our hearts and lives, and that we may all be built up in faith, hope, and love together, and share in the joy and generosity of the Kingdom, so that all may know and love God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen. 

Diego Velázquez, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Easter VII (The Sunday after Ascension) Acts 1:12-14, 1Peter 4:13-14, John 17:1-11

So that they may be one, as we are one

The ten days between Ascension and Pentecost is something of a strange time, a time of waiting, of anticipation, which speaks very powerfully to our present predicament. It is a time to wait and pray, which feels particularly apposite at this moment in time. Likewise the advice of the First Letter of Peter speaks powerfully when it says, ‘But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, … because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you’ (1Peter 4:13-14 ESV) We receive the Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation. He lives in us, and we can unite our sufferings with those of Christ, and be drawn ever closer to Him.

The Gospel this morning has taken us back to the Garden of Gethsemane, where in the seventeenth Chapter of John’s Gospel , after celebrating the Last Supper with His disciples, Jesus goes out to spend time in prayer. It can seem strange to suddenly look back to Maundy Thursday seven weeks after we have celebrated Jesus’ resurrection, but there is a very good reason to do such a thing. The prayer we have just heard is a conversation between God the Son and God the Father. It is a moment of intimacy, a private moment which shows us their relationship, something extraordinary, something wonderful, we don’t often think of prayer in these terms, but currently there is a world-wide initiative, called ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ which calls upon Christians everywhere to do something wonderful together. Between the Ascension and Pentecost we are asked to be like the Apostles in the first chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, just like they did, and for us all to do this together, to pray for unity and the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

Prayer is a funny old thing, and most people probably think of it as asking God for things: please watch over my parents as they travel, please help me pass this examination, hopefully in our language of prayer we can also find time to say thank you for all the good things of this life, and to say sorry for when we’ve not been good enough, and also time to say, ‘I love you’ the prayer of adoration that we may be drawn closer to God. It’s a powerful thing, and a wonderful thing. It is ordinary, yet able to do amazing things:

It can be all to easy in life to think that what God wants is something big and difficult, when actually the opposite is what is required. The key to it all is humility: knowing our need of God. Those who are poor in Spirit, those who are humble can be filled with God’s Spirit, because they rely upon Him, they know their need of him. They know that God can do what we cannot, and they trust Him.

There it is plain and simple: prayer, it can change the world, and for the last two thousand years it has been changing the church and the world, one soul at a time, the wonderful revolution of God’s love at work in the world. In His prayer before his Passion, Jesus prays that we may be one, as He and the Father are one. He prays for unity, it is Jesus’ will for the church, and it is clear that the first apostles did what Jesus wanted them to do, as we can see form the Acts of the Apostles. They listened to Jesus, and did what He told them to do. We have to do the same.

‘And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.’ (Acts 1:13-14 ESV)

Here is unity, unity of will and purpose, and we hope to share that here and now. They are devoted to prayer, and we can be too. While the church is not as united as we would like it to be, or as God would like it to be, we can at least say that we are trying to do God’s will. It is something that we can all try and do together. So let us do it. Let us pray for unity, and the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit, to fill the Church with love, with grace, with forgiveness, with reconciliation, that we can heal the wounds of the past, and be drawn into unity and love, by the power of the Holy Spirit, knowing our need of God, and our reliance upon Him. If we ask, God will both hear our request, and grant it (if it is His will). 

So as we stay put, and wait and pray with the Apostles for the gift of the Holy Spirit let us pray that God may be at work in us, that He will fill us with his love, and transform our lives, building us up, and giving us strength to live His life and to proclaim His truth, to offer the world that which it most earnestly desires, a peace, a joy and a freedom which pass human understanding, and the gift of eternal life in Christ. Let us pray that we are strengthened so that we can proclaim in word and deed what wonderful things God has done through his Son, Our Saviour Jesus Christ. That all that we are and do may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father, and that the world may be filled with his love so that all may come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen. 

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Easter 2020 [John 20:1-9]

Easter is for Christians a time of celebration, a feast which we continue to celebrate for fifty days until Pentecost. We do this because it is the most important day of the year for us, because Jesus Christ not only died for us on the Cross, but rose again from the dead. For Christians Death does not have the last word, it is not the end, quite the opposite, it is the start of New Life.

We are used to hearing the proclamation of the Easter message, to the point that we can run the risk of becoming immune to the strangeness of what we are celebrating. Easter is odd: bodies don’t usually rise from tombs. In today’s Gospel, Mary of Magdala simply cannot understand what is going on. St Peter goes into the tomb and sees the cloths lying there, but only the other disciple, St John, both sees and believes, because he looks with the eyes of faith. John has listened to what Jesus has said, and understands what has happened, and how it has been foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. He sees and understands because he LOVES.

This Easter we are not able to worship together, as we usually do. Instead, for our own safety and the safety of others, we have to worship on our own. But this does not mean that our worship ceases, not at all. This is a hard and a painful time for all of us, because as Christians we are a family, we worship TOGETHER. But while we are not able to do this together physically, we can still be united spiritually. So what can we do? We can read scripture, and we can pray: for the church, for the world, for each other, for all dealing with the current pandemic, for the sick and suffering, and for the dead and dying. We do this because God hears our prayers, and because prayer changes us. It makes us more loving, more generous, more forgiving, and more keen to seek forgiveness. 

This is how we grow in faith, and we can do it whether we are together, or we are apart. It is difficult in this current isolation, but it is by no means impossible. We are an Easter people, and ‘Alleluia’ is our song. We are called to rejoice, regardless of what is happening, regardless of what we may face in this life, because the source of our joy is God, as the prophet Nehemiah says, ‘Go on your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ (Nehemiah 8:10 ESV) God does not disappoint us, and Christ’s resurrection is as true today as it ever was. Christ has conquered sin and death, and risen victorious from the grave, breaking down the bars of Hell and leading souls to Heaven, so we rejoice. As St Paul writes to the Church in Rome: ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8:35-39 ESV) So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, ‘Pasg hapus i chi gyd!’ ‘A Happy Easter to you all!’ May the joy and peace of the Risen Lord fill your hearts and lives, both now and always. Amen. 

If you wish to, you can make a Spiritual Communion: the means of grace by which someone, prevented from sharing in a celebration of the Eucharist, nonetheless shares in the communion of Jesus Christ. Please pray the prayer below:

My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

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Quinquagesima (7th Sunday of Year A)

Generally speaking the ageing process is not one that people tend to enjoy: you cannot do what you used to do, and you ache more than you ever did when you were young. There are however great consolations: chief among them is wisdom, and in particular the wisdom of not bearing a grudge, anger, or hatred. Life is too short, and they do no good. In fact they harm us, far more than others. Over time they can eat us up, and it isn’t pretty or good, or healthy. 

This is why our first reading this morning tells us in no uncertain terms how we are to live our lives: not in hatred, bitterness or anger, not with vengeance or grudges, but with love, for we are to be holy as God is holy, and God is also love, so we are to love. It is easy to forget this, and we do regularly, which is why we need forgiveness. 

The church in Corinth knew this all too well. They had given themselves over to bitterness and quarrelling, forming cliques, and setting rich against the poor. That is why St Paul is writing to them. In this morning’s reading St Paul begins by reminding the Corinthian Christians that they are living stones, built into the temple of God, and filled with the Holy Spirit. It is as true for us as it was for them. We too are called to holiness, and love. Love and forgiveness can look quite foolish to the world around us. The world tells us that we should get angry, and the media encourages this: in print, on the television, on the internet. It sells, and it makes us feel lousy. It creates a problem which we attempt to solve through retail therapy, or some other means, to dull our senses, and take away the pain and misery. Thankfully God knows better. While God’s wisdom looks like foolishness, it is the world that is truly foolish, while God is truly wise. The only way to heal our many wounds is through God who gave His only Son Jesus Christ to die for us, and rise again, that we might have life in Him. As St Paul says: ‘For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’ (1Cor 1:21-25 ESV) For two thousand years our message has been the same, and may it continue until the Lord comes again. 

In the Gospel this morning, Jesus turns accepted wisdom on its head. While the Law of Moses allowed for limited revenge to take place, Jesus deepens the moral law, and makes it much more demanding. We are not to offer any resistance to mistreatment, and we are to be generous to anyone who asks of us, regardless of who they are. Only gentle non-violent love can truly change the world. It is exacting and challenging. God asks a lot of us who follow Him, so that we might live lives of love. But by so doing we can be a powerful witness to the world, calling it back to the path it should tread, and proclaiming the values of the Kingdom.

It was accepted in the ancient world that you would love your friends and hate your enemies, it is, after all, human nature. But Jesus demands that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and in the first three centuries of the church there was quite a lot of persecution. There still is today. We continue to pray for those who persecute our brothers and sisters in Christ, that God would turn their hearts, and that they might come to know the love and forgiveness of God. It might seem foolish to do such a thing, but as Christians we know that prayer works, it changes things, and also that the example of Christians living out their faith, bearing witness to it in the world draws people to Jesus Christ. This authentic witness is powerful, and proof that the church will outlast unjust regimes. 

It isn’t an easy thing to do. It is much easier to give in to feelings like hate. That’s the problem: loving your enemies is difficult, it takes effort, it is an act of the will, to will the good of another, one who has hurt us. But only love and forgiveness have the power to heal and restore, to make the world a better place. There is a cost, certainly, but it is what we are called to do, by a God who loves us, for our sake. We are called to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect, to live out love and forgiveness in our lives, to make them a reality in the world. This is what the Kingdom of God looks like in practice. This is how we change the world, one soul at a time, by living out the same love which sees Jesus die on the Cross for us. It is difficult, and costly, and we can only do it through the love and mercy of God, in His strength and not our own. By letting God be at work in our lives, trusting Him to be at work in us, through His Grace.

As we prepare to begin the season of Lent, we look to the Cross as our only hope, the greatest demonstration of God’s love for us. May we live out the love and forgiveness which we see in Christ. May we turn away from our sins, and live out the perfection of Christ, to proclaim the truth of His Kingdom, and to call men and women to live lives from hatred and anger, filled with love and forgiveness so that they and all creation may sing the praises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now, and forever. Amen.

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Trinity 18

What’s the point of it all? It’s a question people ask, and thankfully the church has an answer. Humanity exists to love God and serve him in this life, and to enjoy Him in the next. We are made for worship. Nothing else matters: work, family, friends. They’re not bad in themselves, but compared to our relationship with God, they are secondary. Worshipping God is a way of saying that God is the most important thing in our lives. We love God more than our family, our friends, even ourselves. It’s radical and counter-cultural, because it says that our immortal soul matters more than wealth, or power, or prestige. What we are doing is the most important thing we can ever do. It’s what we are made for. To worship God.

In the first reading this morning from Exodus we see what prayer can achieve. Our life is a battle, just like that fought between Israel and the Amalekites. And we can conquer in spiritual matters by keeping our arms raised in prayer, and helping others by supporting them. The church is a community where we help each other, where we bear each other’s burdens. We pray for ourselves and others, and we are prayed for, so that all around the world, every moment of every day, we are surrounded and upheld by Christians praying for us, not to change God’s mind, but to change us.

It is something which Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy shows us is something we need to learn, to believe, and to continue doing. Prayer isn’t grand, it’s a bit of a slog, it takes a lifetime. It has to be taught, it is what preaching is for. Teaching the faith, and telling people who Jesus is (the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary) and what He does (preaches repentance, the forgiveness of sins, dies on the Cross, and rises again). It is easy to pervert this into a message which makes few demands upon us, that says, “yes, you’re all fine, you don’t need to do anything”. Christianity makes demands of us. We have to do certain things, which we might prefer not to do, and not do things we might rather like to do. We all need to reminded about this regularly, to help us stay on track. This also helps us to pray well together. 

In this morning’s Gospel Jesus teaches us ‘to pray and not lose heart’ (Lk 18:1) It is important advice. Especially when times are difficult. He teaches us with a parable. There is an unjust judge. He’s corrupt, and he’s fed up, so he gives in, for a quiet life, with the result that the widow receives what is right. God can indeed use many things The point is that the widow is persistent: she keeps on, so that he has to listen to her in the end. So likewise Christian prayer should be unceasing. The widow’s prayers turn wickedness and injustice into mercy and justice. Likewise our prayers do not change God, but instead they change us. That’s the point of prayer not to change God’s mind, but to change us, into what God wants us to be. Persistent prayer can, and will change us. It is how saints are made: through prayer. It takes WORK, but it is wonderful, and worth it. 

The parable reminds us that God hears prayer. He may not always answer it in a way we might like. Sometimes God says no, or not yet, which we might not want to hear. It teaches us patience and wisdom, and even if we suffer, we grow through it. Our growth in holiness can be painful and difficult. In the first reading from Exodus, Moses is clearly tired, he has to be held up by Aaron and Hur. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he is not advising something popular, but something unpopular, that people will not want to hear. 

The Gospel ends with the question (v. 8): ‘Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ It’s an important question. If we look at statistics, then people in this country are becoming less religious. Fewer people have faith. There are many reasons for this, and this is not the place to explore them. Solutions are likewise not simple, or straightforward. We can do many things, but we need to make sure that our own faith is strong and attractive, and be prepared to bear witness to it, regardless of the cost. Our faith can only be attractive when it is REAL. This is what will encourage people to follow our example, and come to know and love Jesus Christ. Only in this way can real living faith be transferred so then when Christ comes, as He surely will, He will find faith on earth. So let us trust Christ, knowing that His promises are true, that He feeds us with His Body and Blood in the Eucharist to give us life in Him. Let us love the one who loves us, who gave His life for us, to take away our sins, to heal us and restore us. And healed and restored by Him, let us bear witness to Him, so that the world may come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.

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17th Sunday of Year C

It would be all too easy to see this morning’s first reading, where Abraham tries to save Sodom and Gomorrah, as being concerned with bargaining with God. Prayer doesn’t work like that. Prayer changes us, it doesn’t change God. What the reading from Genesis shows us is that we are in a covenant, a relationship with God, and that God is generous and loving. He wants the best for us.

This same understanding of God lies behind Paul’s advice to the Colossian church. They have received Christ Jesus the Lord, and these few words express the heart of the Christian Faith. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour, the one who saves us. He is Lord. That is to make a particular and important claim. In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament used widely by Jews and Christians, ‘Lord’ is a title for God, the Lord God. In the world in which Paul wrote it could be used to refer to the Roman Emperor. But Nero, the emperor at this time, isn’t ‘Lord’, Jesus is. So calling Jesus ‘Lord’ means that we accept both His divinity, and His authority, which is higher than anything of this world, even the Roman Emperor. Lord is used over seven hundred times in the New Testament, to reinforce the point that Jesus is God, and our supreme authority. These are bold claims to make. Yet, as people who have died with Christ and been raised to life in our baptism, we glory in Christ who has saved us from our sins by the Cross. Christ, who is the head of every ruler and authority. He loves us and has set us free. 

In today’s Gospel the disciples ask Jesus, ‘Lord teach us to pray’. Their words are our words. We want to know how to pray, what to say to God, how to have a conversation and a relationship with our Heavenly Father –- one that is meaningful and has value. They ask Jesus, and he shows them what to do and what to say.

The prayer, which we now call The Lord’s Prayer, starts with the word ‘Father’, it defines our relationship, our connection. It presupposes love, as a parent has for a child. It continues with the petition that the name of God, Our Father, may be ‘hallowed’, which means kept holy. It is the loving response of a child to a parent. In stressing holiness the prayer places God in His proper place, it ensures that things are done reverently. Then the prayer looks forward, ‘your kingdom come’ it looks for the coming of God’s kingdom. This goes hand in hand with ‘your will be done’ God’s kingdom is about doing God’s will, and it is our responsibility to do the Father’s will.

We then pray that we may be fed. That we may be nourished, that we may have bread for the journey of faith. This feeding connects to the petition that our sins may be forgiven, in the same way that we forgive those who sin against us. The two are linked –- feeding and forgiveness. Just as they are in the Eucharist, and so they should be in our lives. As those who are forgiven and forgiving we pray that we may not be led into temptation, that we may continue as forgiven and forgiving human beings.

This prayer is a model of what to say to God. What to ask for, and how to ask for it. It is both concise and profound. It is not lengthy or wordy; it does not ramble or drone on, but says what needs to be said. The prayer defines our relationship with God and with each other. It defines our spiritual life as one where we are fed and forgiven. It characterises what we are doing herein church today. We seek God’s forgiveness and forgive others, and we come to be fed by Word and Sacrament, to give us the strength to do God’s will and bring about God’s Kingdom. His kingdom of love and forgiveness is radically different from what might be if humanity were simply left to its own devices. God’s kingdom calls us forward to something greater, something more wonderful than we can imagine. And yet it is a reality. God forgives our sins , and gave His life for us, nailing our sins to the Cross, and suffering in His flesh so that we who have died with Christ in our baptism may also share His risen life. God loves us, and wants to help us. That’s why Christ can assure us that God listens to prayer and answers it, giving us the good things we need. Our prayer can be divided under four basic headings: ‘please’ ‘thank you’ ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’.

Our prayer is a generous response to a generous and loving God, it takes people who know their need of God, and shows how those needs are satisfied at the deepest possible level. We ask God to teach us how to pray, and he shows us in a way which both defines and transforms our spiritual life. We are given this prayer to help us to bring about the Kingdom of love and forgiveness which is shown to us in the person, teaching, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are also given His Holy Spirit, to nourish us and transform us and all the world, so that it may believe and sing God’s praise and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

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James Tissot The Lord’s Prayer, Brooklyn Museum

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Living the Life of the Kingdom: Micah 3:5-12, 1Thess 2:9-13, Matt 24:1-14

Our blessed Lord began His public life on the Mount of the Beatitudes, by preaching, ‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the earth.’ He finished His public life on the hill of Calvary by practising that meekness: ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’

Fulton J. Sheen The Cross and the Beatitudes, 1937: 3

The Prophet Micah has some tough words this morning for those who lead people astray. Those who tell people what they want to hear will be the downfall of Israel. It is something which can easily be the downfall of any organisation: just tell people what they want to hear, don’t make any demands on them, just make them feel comfortable, all motherhood and apple pie. The church can and does easily fall prey to this and its fruit is apathy. People don’t want a church to make them feel comfortable, but to challenge them, and inspire them to be something better, by the grace of God. Thus we are called to holiness of life, or as St Paul puts it, ‘to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.’ (1Thess 2:12) We put our faith into practice – walking the walk and talking the talk, together in an act of witness to the world, to call it to repentance, and to be formed as part of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of love, where we are forgiven and built up in love.

It is probably a good thing that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was not an advertising executive. Fundamentally He tells it like it is – there is a simplicity and a directness to Him that is not always comfortable. He does not tell us what we want to hear, but rather he tells us what we need to hear, which is often far from pleasant or comfortable. He has been teaching in the Temple, about the Kingdom of God, and how to live out the faith in our lives and now He turns to the future.

The Temple was the single most important place on Earth for religious Jews, it was the centre of their life; it was where they came close to God. The prospect of its destruction was surely the most dreadful prospect, something not to be countenanced at all. Yet it would happen, and rather than hide behind the false hope of a pleasant image, he teaches people the plain unvarnished truth. Rather than a sugar-coated pill he gives us a bitter draught, so that we can be prepared.

False teaching is always a possibility for the Church – people want to pervert the Gospel, to twist it for their own ends and to suit their own agenda – it is happening now, and has always happened. We need, therefore to be vigilant, to know what we believe and why, so that we can discern the true from the false, the good from the bad.

In human terms, the future looks bleak – human beings have an immense capacity for doing the wrong thing, and yet in the midst of all this we know whom we can trust, whom we can look to, where we can place our hope and our confidence. The possibility of being tortured or killed for professing faith in Jesus Christ is still very real, here and now, in the world in which we live. It’s a deeply unpleasant thought, and while none of us I suspect would like to undergo such treatment, we have to be prepared for the possibility, we have to be willing to stand up and be counted, to know that we place Christ before and above all things.

At one level it is quite understandable, what Christ stands for, what we stand for: love, forgiveness, selflessness, are never going to be popular in a world obsessed by power and wealth. But we’re not here to win a popularity contest, but rather to bear witness to the truth of Christ, and to know that we are set free by it. The love of many may grow cold; indeed it has, so we need to be that love in the world to make Christ known and to call others into His loving embrace. Against a human nature which takes a perverse delight in selfishness and sin, in not living how God wants us to, we need to take a stand.

Fundamentally the calling to be a saint is there for each and every one of us. We are called to be like Christ, and through our baptism to die to the ways of the world and live for him. In our baptism we are given the grace of God and His Holy Spirit, we are given all that we need to get to Heaven, because Christ loves us, and gave Himself to die for us, to take away our sins, to show us what love and forgiveness really look like, so that we can do the same.

On our own, each one of us individually doesn’t stand much of a chance, it’s far too difficult, it’s not how it is supposed to be.Rather we need to live out our faith together, as a community of believers, helping each other, supporting each other, praying for and forgiving each other, being built up in love together, so that together we can truly be the people of God, forgiving each other, loving each other, and helping to make the Kingdom a reality here and now.

We come to be nourished by Him, to be fed by the Word of God, nourished in our faith, to be fed with His Body and Blood, to be given a foretaste of heaven, fed by Him, fed with Him, to be built up in love together, strengthened and nourished to live out our common calling to sainthood, and to encourage others to join us, as this is what God wants us to do – this is life in all its fullness, following the Truth which sets us free from the ways of the world – its selfishness, its lust for power and control, its fear and anger, all those things which separate us from God and each other.

So let us come to Him, let our lives be transformed by Him, so that we can live out our faith together, in our common calling, and encourage others so to do, so that they too may believe and give Glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

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from Priesthood in Liturgy and Life by Fr Alban Baverstock SSC

The Christian priest pre-eminently exercises his priesthood at the Christian altar, offering the Christian sacrifice.  But it is surely clear that the Christian priest cannot satisfy the obligations which his share in the Eternal Priesthood lays upon him by the sole act of celebrating, occasionally or frequently, the Christian Mysteries.  At the altar or away from it, he is still a priest; and this priesthood must express itself in a life which is throughout an ordered ministry to God.  In other words the life of the priest must be liturgical.  His mass must be the summary for him, as for the great High Priest, of a life of self-oblation.  In the mysteries he offers himself in Christ.  His whole life must be a showing of Christ, impersonated in him, to God.  He must always be saying Mass.

A ready parallel meets us here in the apostolic injunction to ‘pray without ceasing’ [1Thess. 5.17].  This is rightly explained to mean more than that Christians are to be often at their prayers.  It means that the whole life of the Christian should be in a sense prayer, a coming to God, an energizing towards him.

And the parallel suggests an important conclusion as to the relation of the formal liturgy to the liturgical life, parallel to the relation between formal prayer and the life which is itself a continual prayer.  For the life of prayer, as experience abundantly proves, involves of necessity a due and constant attention to formal prayer.  Similarly the liturgical life, the life which is throughout a ministry to God, an oblation by the priest of himself in Christ and of Christ in him, depends very much on his formal celebration of the holy mysteries.  And the converse is true.  We shall never pray as we ought in our formal prayers unless our whole life breathes the spirit of prayer.  The priest will never say mass as he ought unless his whole life is imbued with the spirit of the mass, the spirit of oblation.

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A thought from Henri Nouwen

All of this is simply to suggest how horrendously secular our ministerial lives tend to be. Why is this so? Why do we children of the light so easily become conspirators with the darkness? The answer is quite simple. Our identity, our sense of self , is at stake. Secularity is a way of being dependant upon the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. ‘Compulsive’ is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by the world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failure and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same – more work, more money, more friends.

These very compulsions are at the basis of the two main enemies of the spiritual life: anger and greed. They are the inner side of the secular life, the sour fruits of our worldly dependencies. What else is anger other than the impulsive response to the experience of being deprived? When my sense of self depends on what others say of me, anger is a quite natural reaction to a critical word. And when my sense of self depends on what I can acquire, greed flares up when my desires are frustrated. Thus greed and anger are the brother and sister of a false self fabricated by the social compulsions of the unredeemed world.

Anger in particular seems close to a professional vice in the contemporary ministry. Pastors are angry at their leaders for not leading and at their followers for not following. They are angry at those who do not come to church for not coming and angry at those who do come for coming without enthusiasm. They are angry at their families, who making them feel guilty, and angry at themselves for not being who they want to be. This is not open, blatant, roaring anger, but an anger hidden behind the smooth word, the smiling face, and the polite handshake. It is a frozen anger, an anger which settles into a biting resentment and slowly paralyzes a generous heart. If there is anything that makes ministry look grim and dull, it is this dark, insidious anger in the servants of Christ.

It is not so strange that Anthony and his fellow monks considered it a spiritual disaster to accept passively the tenets and values of their society. They had come to appreciate how hard it is not only for the individual Christian but also for the church itself to escape the seductive compulsions of the world. What was their response? They escaped from the sinking ship and swam for their lives. And the place of salvation is called desert, the place of solitude.

Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, London: DLT, 1990: 14-16

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A thought for the day from Fulton Sheen

Abandonment to God

We always make the fatal mistake of thinking that it is what we do that matters, when really what matters is what we let God do to us. God sent the angel to Mary, not to ask her to do something, but to let something be done. Since God is a better artisan than you, the more you abandon yourself to him, the happier he can make you.

Seven Words of Jesus and Mary

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Fulton Sheen on the Signs of Our Times

These words were spoken in 1947, and are as true now as they were when they were first spoken. Fulton Sheen preached the truth which the world still does not wish to hear.

What can we do? Love God, and each other, and hold fast to our faith in this time of trial, safe in the knowledge that Christ has conquered sin, evil, and death. Let us be hopeful and confident.

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A Thought for the Day from St Benedict

If we do not venture to approach men who are in power, except with humility and reverence, when we wish to ask a favor, how much must we beseech the Lord God of all things with all humility and purity of devotion? And let us be assured that it is not in many words, but in the purity of heart and tears of compunction that we are heard. For this reason prayer ought to be short and pure, unless, perhaps it is lengthened by the inspiration of divine grace. At the community exercises, however, let the prayer always be short, and the sign having been given by the Superior, let all rise together.

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Homily for Lent I

It is all too easy to see the forty days of Lent, the season of preparation for our celebration of Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection as a time of sadness and misery. Too often it is seen in entirely negative terms: we focus on what we are giving up. Now the practice of abstaining from bodily pleasures is a good and ancient one, not in and of itself, it is not some sort of holy diet, but rather we turn away from something we enjoy so that we may focus upon something else. The other practices of Lent: prayer and almsgiving are there to focus our minds upon God and other people, so that we may enter the desert of repentance with joy, thinking of the needs of others and growing closer to the God who loves us and longs for our healing, our repentance.
     
  In this morning’s first reading we see a covenant between God and humanity, a sign of God’s love for us, and a promise of reconciliation between God and the world which underlies what Jesus does for us, it allows us to have hope, to see things in an entirely positive way, and to see behind what we do, that it is a means, a means to an end, namely our sanctification, rather than an end in itself. In our second reading from the first letter of Peter, he draws the link between Noah’s ark, which saves people through water, and baptism, which is prefigured in it. Lent is a season of preparation for baptism, so that we can die with Christ and be raised like him and with him to new life in him. For those of us who have been baptised it is good to have a chance to spend the time in Lent praying, drawing closer to the God who loves us, and living out our faith in our lives – we can all do better, especially when we try, and try together, supporting each other, so that we might grow in holiness as the people of God.
When St Antony was praying in his cell, a voice spoke to him, saying ‘Antony, you have not yet come to the measure of the tanner who is in Alexandria.’ When he heard this, the old man arose and took his stick and hurried to the city. When he had found the tanner …. he said to him, ‘Tell me about your work, for today I have left the desert and come here to see you.’
He replied, ‘I am not aware that I have done anything good. When I get up in the morning, before I sit down to work, I say that the whole of the city, small and great, will go into the Kingdom of God because of their good deeds while I will go into eternal punishment because of my evil deeds. Every evening I repeat the same words and believe them in my heart.’
When St Antony heard this he said, ‘My son, you sit in your own house and work well, and you have the peace of the Kingdom of God; but I spend all my time in solitude with no distractions, and I have not come near to the measure of such words.’
It is a very human failure, for far too often we make things far too complicated when all we need to do is to keep things simple. In the story from the Desert Fathers, which we have just heard, St Antony, the founder of monasticism, a great and a holy man, is put to shame by a man who spends his days treating animal skins. The key to it all is the tanner’s humility, his complete absence of pride, and his complete and utter trust in God – his reliance upon him alone.
In this morning’s Gospel we see the beginning of Our Lord’s public ministry – he is baptised by John in the River Jordan before immediately  going into the desert for forty days. He goes to be alone with God, to pray and to fast, to prepare himself for the public ministry of the Proclamation of the Good News, the Gospel.
During this he is tempted by the devil: he faces temptation just like every human being, but unlike us, he resists. The devil tempts him to turn stones into bread. It is understandable – he is hungry, but it is a temptation to be relevant, which the church seems to have given into completely: unless we what we are and what we do and say is relevant to people, they will ignore us.
There is the temptation to have power, symbolised by worshipping the devil. It leads to the misuse of power. The church stands condemned for the mistakes of the past, but in recognising this there is the possibility of a more humble church in the future – a church reliant upon God and not on the exercise of power.
There is the temptation to put God to the test – to be spectacular and self-seeking. Whenever we say ‘look at me’ we’re not saying ‘look at God’.
Jesus resists these temptations because he is humble, because he has faith, and because he trusts in God. It certainly isn’t easy, but it is possible. It’s far easier when we do this together, as a community, which is why Lent matters for all of us. It’s a chance to become more obedient, and through that obedience to discover true freedom in God. It’s an obedience which is made manifest on the Cross – in laying down his life Jesus can give new life to the whole world. He isn’t spectacular – he dies like a common criminal. He has no power, he does not try to be relevant, he is loving and obedient and that is good enough.
It was enough for him, and it should be for us. As Christians we have Scripture and the teaching of the Church, filled with his Spirit, to guide us. We can use this time of prayer and fasting to deepen our faith, our trust, our understanding, and our obedience, to become more like Jesus, fed by his word and sacraments – to become more humble, more loving, living lives of service of God and each other.  It leads to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ Words as true now as then, which the world still longs to hear, and which we need to live out in our lives, so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion and power, now and forever.
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A Thought for the Day from S. Anthony the Great

The brethren came to the Abba Anthony and said to him, ‘Speak a word; how are we to be saved?’ The old man said to them, ‘You have heard the Scriptures. That should teach you how.’ But they said, ‘We want to hear it from you too, Father.’ Then the old man said to them, ‘The Gospel says,”if anyone strikes you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.”‘ (Mt 5:39) They said, ‘We cannot do that.’ The old man said, ‘If you cannot offer the other cheek, at least allow one cheek to be struck.’ ‘We cannot do that either,’ they said. So he said, ‘If you are not able to do that, do not return evil for evil,’ and they said, ‘We cannot do that either.’ Then the old man said to his disciple, ‘Prepare a little brew of corn for these invalids. If you cannot do this, or that, what can I do for you? What you need is prayers.’

It was revealed to Abba Anthony in his desert that there was one who was his equal in the city. He was a doctor by profession and whatever he had beyond his needs he gave to the poor, and every day he sang the Sanctus with the angels.

He also said, ‘Our life and our death is with our neighbour. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalise our brother, we have sinned against Christ.’

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Trinity XXI The Conversion and Sanctification of Man

Canon Henry Liddon was quite right when he spoke to the clergy saying ‘Our end is the conversion and sanctification of man’. It’s what the church is for, and its ministerial priesthood, sharing in the priesthood of Christ, calls the common priesthood of the baptised to be conformed more and more to the image of the Crucified Lord, Our Saviour Jesus Christ.
       This is achieved by a variety of means, but particularly by prayer: where humanity speaks to and more importantly listens to God. It is a mark of the intimacy of our relationship with the divine that it is to be a regular constant conversation so that God may be at work in us. In our prayer we praise God, not because He needs it, but because it is right and good humanity, the creature to praise its Creator. We intercede for our own needs and for those of the world, and we plead the sacrifice of His Son which alone can heal the wounds of sin which mar our fallen human nature. In our humble talking to God and in the silence of our hearts there can a space for God to speak to us, to transform us, in the power of His Holy Spirit.
       When Paul writes to Titus, in this evening’s second lesson, he is concerned with the ordering of public worship, and particularly prayer. Here in a Cathedral we are not unacquainted with decent ordered worship, as one might well expect. We have standards, which are rightly high, and can serve as an example and an encouragement, but we are first and foremost a community of prayer, which invites people to draw ever closer to the God who loves us, who saves us, and redeems us.
       We pray for the Church and the World, for the living and the departed, for the sick and those in need, which is excellent and acceptable to God. We do so in order that we may strive to live an ordered, quiet, peaceable life, and thus may be drawn ever closer to the godliness which is the path to true holiness of life in Christ. His Salvation which is for all people is both an event – His sacrifice upon the Cross of Calvary, and a process – through the outpouring of His Sanctifying Grace in the Sacraments of the Church, nourished by the Word of God in Holy Scripture, the Revealed Truth of God’s love for us, and through remaining close to God in prayer, that our human nature can be transformed and perfected in Christ. It is the will of God that all people may be saved, the invitation is offered to all, freely, it costs nothing, it may be resisted and even refused, yet God in His love and mercy offers it. We do not deserve it, we cannot earn it, it is a gift which is offered and has to be accepted.
       There is one mediator between God and humanity, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, bearing witness to the love and mercy of God, and offering himself freely as a sacrifice upon the altar of the Cross, where as priest and victim he makes the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This simple world-changing fact is at the heart of our faith: Christ died for our sins, yours and mine, and was raised to give us the hope of eternal life in Him. This is what we preach, it is what we pray, and what we live, so that we may be drawn closer to Him.
       It is wonderful, and yet it is not easy – for two thousand years the church continues to call humanity to repentance, and while our human efforts may be haltering, nonetheless the call to conversion and sanctification is a constant one, of which we need to be constantly reminded, each and every one of us, so that we can support and forgive each other, and pray for and with each other.
       I would like to end with some words of Mother Mary Clare slg:
       Today we can easily become
       paralysed by a sense that
       there is nothing we can do
       in the face of so much suffering,
       such lack of love and justice
       in man’s relationship with man,
       but the Cross of Christ
       stands at the heart of it all,
       and the prayer of Christ,
       now as always
       is the answer to man’s need.

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Be Prepared – Matthew 25:1-13

The Scouting Movement has as its motto ‘Be Prepared’ which rather sums up the message of this morning’s Gospel. As people who live in the countryside we are more than used to having a supply of candles and batteries ready at hand to deal with the inevitable winter power cuts caused by bad weather. It makes sense, so that we are not caught out – having to endure the cold and dark.
      The Gospel speaks of a more serious preparedness, one which we must all face.  Our earthly lives are finite, and we have to be prepared for our end. We know that as Our Lord came among us born as a baby in Bethlehem, so he will come as Our Judge, and we have to be ready to meet Him. Rather than face this future with a feeling of uncertainty, of dread, we can as Christians have hope, we can watch and wait in hope, in the darkness, in the knowledge that Christ loves us, that he gave himself for us, he died to take away our sins, and that we can live for and through Him. It need not catch us unawares, as we have been warned, so that we can be prepared, we can be ready, with the lamp of faith and good works ready, trimmed and burning – a light burning in the darkness.
      It is a very human fear, and clearly the Christians in Thessaly around ad55 were more than a little concerned about what might happen. They can have the hope that ‘so we will be with the Lord forever.’ (1Thes 4:17) and therefore confident in that hope, they can begin to live out their faith here and now. They can live out the justice and righteousness which is pleasing to God, as it is how he wants us to live, so that we can have life in its fullness in Him.
      If what we believe in our hearts and how we live our lives are in perfect sync with each other, then we need have no fear, as the promise of sharing in Christ’s Resurrection is there for us – we do not need to be afraid, and we can get on with the business of living our lives secure in our faith. When we do this we can begin to see something of the just and gentle rule of Christ, as we will transform the world, and will be truly alive, living the life of heaven here in earth. Each day, as Christians, we pray, and we say the prayer that Jesus taught us which includes the petition ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. So that our words are not empty, as well as praying for the coming of God’s kingdom, we have to do something about it – we have to show how prepared we are by listening to God and doing what he tells us.

      We pray, we are nourished by the word of God, in reading the Bible, we are nourished by the sacraments of the Church, by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, so that we may be strengthened in our faith, strengthened to live it out in our lives, living out the sacrifice so that we may be drawn into its mystery, carrying our own Cross, and being conformed ever more and more to the example of Our Lord and Saviour, living in Him, living like Him, living the life of the Kingdom here and now, so Christ’s kingdom may come here on earth, that His will may be done. 
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A thought for the day from St John of the Cross

Wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness, working no violence on yourself lest you disturb the soul’s peace and tranquility. God will feed your soul with heavenly food since you put no obstacle in his way. The soul in this state must remember that if it is not conscious of making progress, it is making much more than when it is walking on foot, because God himself is bearing it in his arms. Although outwardly it is doing nothing, it is in reality doing more than if it were working, since God is doing the work within it. And it is not remarkable that the soul does not see this, for our senses cannot perceive that which God works in the soul. Let the soul then leave itself in the hands of God and have confidence in him. Let it not trust itself to the hands and works of others, for if it stays in God’s care it will certainly make progress. 
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Walking on Water

Fear is a very human feeling, we acquire it through learning, and yet it can be overcome, if we trust in God. Christains in Iraq, China, North Korea & Palestine – they face real danger, real persecution (we’re safe and comfortable by comparison) – and yet they trust, they pray (and so should we) and we should do all that we can to help them.
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
This morning’s Gospel carries straight on from the miraculous feeding last week, as Jesus goes to send the crowds back home, he sends disciples ahead so that they might be ready.
 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.
Prayer is important, it is as important as the food we eat, the air we breathe, because it is about our relationship with God. Throughout the Gospels Jesus spends time alone, spends time close to the Father as this relationship is crucial. Where Jesus leads we should follow, follow his example.
When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.
It’s getting dark, and the disciples are out in the middle of the lake, in deep water; will the boat sink, what can they do?
And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
The disciples cannot believe that they are seeing Jesus, so he encourages them, his presence can give them confidence.
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’
As usual, Peter is the first to react, he takes the lead – Jesus speaks a single word to him, ‘Come’ he speaks it to each and every one of us as Christians, to come, to follow him, to be close to him, to live out our faith in our lives strengthened by prayer.
 So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
 And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’
Peter listens to what Jesus says, and obeys him, and does something miraculous, something extraordinary, until he is distracted by the world around him, and becomes frightened, likewise we, in our lives can in the power of God do wonderful things, if we are not distracted by the cares of the world around us, if we listen to what Jesus tells us and do it.
Peter becomes frightened; he starts to sink, as do we all when the cares of this world overwhelm us. His reaction is to cry ‘Lord, save me’ which Jesus does, indeed, through his offering of himself upon the Cross he saves each and every one of us, taking the sin of the world upon himself so that we might be freed from sin, fear and death, that same sacrifice which will be made present here, so that we the people of God, can be fed by God, with God, with his Body and Blood to be strengthened to have life in him, to be close to him.
Peter is told off for lacking faith, because it is important, we need to trust God, to have faith in Him, so that He can be at work in us and through us.

At the end, once the wind has died down the disciples worship Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’ The end of it all is worship, it is what we as humans and as Christians are for, to worship God, in our love and our prayer, so that all of our lives are an act of worship, drawing us ever closer to the source of life and love. So that all we say or think or do may give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever.

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Dying to Live: Trinity I

The death of Our Lord on the Cross reveals that we are meant to be perpetually dissatisfied here below. If earth were meant to be a Paradise, then He Who made it would never have taken leave of it on Good Friday. The commending of the Spirit to the father was at the same time the refusal to commend it to earth. The completion or fulfilment of life is in heaven, not on earth.
Fulton Sheen Victory over Vice 1939: 99
Living a Christian life is at one level a very simple thing: we follow Christ – we do what he told us to do, we fashion our lives after the example of His. We pray because he told us to, we read Scripture which finds its fulfilment and truest meaning in Him. We are baptised like He was, we come together to do just what He did with His disciples on the night before He died because he told us to ‘Do this’, so we do – to be fed by Himand fed with Himso that we may share His life, nourished by Him and given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.
          He calls us to follow Him by taking up our Cross and prizing our relationship with Him over all the things of the world. It’s a bit more tricky, it’s a bit more of an ask, in fact for many people it’s pretty much impossible – such are the enticements of the world, and the fact that the world around us wants us to relegate religion to the private sphere: it shouldn’t affect our lives, it’s something which one can take out of its neat little box and wear for an hour on a Sunday morning, like a hat or some gloves, and then forget about, having done one’s public duty.
          While this may be tempting, it simply will not do. We cannot truly follow Christ if we are not willing to lay down our lives for the sake of Him who died and rose again for us. Baptism and the Eucharist are free, but living out the faith will cost us our lives. And yet we should give them up gladly, even though the world may well deride us, call us fools. In the Gospel Christ says to His disciples, he says to us ‘Do not be afraid … have no fear of them … Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul’. We can laugh at those who pour scorn upon us for all that they promise is of this world, fleeting, and of no real value; whereas what Christ promises us is of God, will last forever, it is a glory which can never fade – it is ours and is offered to the whole world for free.
          To follow Him we need to die to sin, we need to turn away from all the selfishness which separates us from God and each other, and instead live out the radical love of the Kingdom – a love which forgives, a love which thinks of others before ourselves. It is no good seeing this in individual terms; it affects us as a society: we need to do this together – you and me, each and every one of us needs to live not enslaved to sin, but as slaves for Christ, whose service is Perfect freedom, freedom from the ways of the world and freedom to live the new life of the Kingdom of God, here and now.

          We are called as a church to live out our faith together, praying for each other, supporting one another, and relying upon God, and His grace, that unmerited kindness and free gift, which we do not deserve, but which has the power to transform us, to conform us to the pattern of His Son. This he pours out upon us in the Sacraments of His Church, so that we might be conformed to His will: fed by God, with God, to have life in Him. We can only do this if we rely upon God and do it TOGETHER, built up in love. 
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Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable; His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsivenot initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him that we are loveable.
Fulton Sheen Rejoice, 1984, 9
One of the great things about the Christian faith is that we worship a God whom we can trust, who keeps his promises. The prophet Ezekiel looks to a future when God’s people are sprinkled with clean water and gathered together. It is a promise which finds its fulfilment in the Church – we are given a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone – a generous, loving heart, one filled with the love of God, and are called to share that love with others.
          The event which the Church celebrated on Thursday, and continues to celebrate today: Our Lord’s Ascension, can be a tricky one with which to come to terms. However, just as Jesus came to earth, by the power of the Holy Spirit and took flesh in the womb of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to share our nature, and to heal and restore us, so now Our Risen Lord, having triumphed over death and hell, rises in glory to take our human nature into the Godhead, to point us to our ultimate destiny – eternal life  with God The words of the angels in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles also points to His second coming at the end of time. His words to his assembled followers apply to us as well – you be my witnesses to the ends of the earth and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Their reaction is to constantly devote themselves to prayer – they have an intimate relationship with God. They don’t simply say ‘Oh well that’s lovely, let’s get on with the rest of our compartmentalised life’ but rather they trust in God, they do what he tells them to do, and all of them pray together. In having prayer at the centre of their lives God can be at work in them, and through them in the world, in the power of His Holy Spirit.

          Thus, the prayer of Jesus before His Passion takes on a deeper significance in that it finds fulfilment in the day of Pentecost. We are called to pray, to stay close to God, nourished by Word and Sacrament, and in the power of the Spirit, poured upon us in our Baptism and Confirmation, to bear witness to Christ in the world. In the Eucharist we are fed by God, and fed with God, so that we can share His risen life, and experience the love of God, the love of God seen in Christ, who gives himself for love of us, as a sacrifice, where he is both priest and victim, to restore us and our relationship with God and each other. Having prayed and being nourished by the word of God we prepare to be nourished by God, to be strengthened to pray for His Holy Spirit, and to share the love of God with others, so that we grow together in love and unity.
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A prayer for the Day


O
 God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised to them that seek first thy kingdom and thy righteousness, all things necessary to their bodily sustenance: Send us we beseech thee, such seasonable weather that we may receive the  fruits of the earth to our comfort, and to thy honour; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Homily for the 32nd Sunday of Year C


God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable; His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsive, not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him that we are loveable.
Fulton Sheen, Rejoice, 1984: 9
At this time of year our thoughts turn quite naturally to things eternal. We have prayed for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed, and remember those who gave their lives in the past century. As Christians we know that our earthly life is not all that there is. This morning’s first reading is, despite its rather gruesome subject matter, one which contains hope – the hope of eternal life, the promise of a loving God, in whose image we are made.
          This hope is part of our faith, which is to be lived out in love: costly, and self-giving. This is our calling as Christians. This is what St Paul is encouraging the church in Northern Greece to live out. As a result of this we are called to prayer and the spread of the Gospel, that the message of God’s love and forgiveness, of healing and wholeness in the message and person of Jesus Christ. Through his giving of himself on the Cross we can have hope; hope that this world is not all that there is, that our destiny is something greater, something richer. The Sadducees can only ask a question to try and support their denial of life after death. Christ can only start from the reality of eternal life with God. It is acknowledged by Moses, it is the heritage of Israel, and thus for the Church as the new Israel.
          This is why we as the Church pray for the living and the dead; it is why we are fed by Word and Sacrament – nourished by God and with God, given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, to prepare us for an eternity with God. Such is the comfort which God gives us, such is the grace poured into our hearts. Such a great gift should provoke in us something of a response – a fashioning of our lives after the self-giving love which is the heart of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In this we can truly become what we were created for. We can realise that Love increases the more it is given, freely, not counting the cost, in the faith and hope that this life is not all that there is – that we are called to live out love in our lives. To live it out so that world may be filled with love, that it may believe, freed to sing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
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Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday of Year C

Humility is not self-contempt but the truth about ourselves coupled with a reverence for others; it is self-surrender to the highest goal.
Fulton Sheen Thoughts for Daily Living, 1955: 121
Most of us, I suspect, almost all of us don’t really like paying taxes; we know that we have to, but we’d rather not. There were taxes in Jesus’ day and tax collectors were privatised in the Roman Empire: they had to pay for the contract to collect the taxes, and recouped the cost of gaining the contract by over-charging people. They were not popular people, they were resented, they were hated, and with good reason.
          We know that in this morning’s Gospel that he’s supposed to be the villain of the piece, the Pharisee, a religious authority, is supposed to be the person to whom we look up, the example one might expect to follow. The parable, then, turns our understanding of the world on its head. The key to understanding the parable lies in Luke’s opening comment regarding those: ‘who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt’ (Lk 18:9). There is a fundamental problem with the difference between how they think of themselves and others. The Pharisee isn’t praying, he isn’t talking to God, he’s praying to himself, justifying what he thinks of himself, saying to God, ‘Look at me, am I not good?’
          But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (Lk 18:13). His prayer is that God will be merciful. He is so conscious of his own sin and need of God that he opens up a space in which God can be at work. It is in this space that we all need to be. We need to recognise that we need God to be at work in us, that we need to rely upon him to change us, to transform us – so that we can become the people that God wants us to be. All the prayer, all the rituals, all the externals of religion, are of no use unless they go hand in hand with an attitude which recognises that we need God, that we are sinful, and need his love and his mercy to transform us.  
          That is why, as Christians, we pray, why we come to Mass each and every week to be fed by word and sacrament, so that God’s grace and transforming love may be at work in us, transforming our nature, making us more like him. Everything that we say or think or do needs to be an outworking of our faith, so that our exterior life and our interior life are in harmony with each other – so that our lives, like St Paul’s, may proclaim the Gospel. This is what we are called to, and how we are to live. Unless we start from the point where we know our need of God and rely upon him, where we too make that space where God can be at work in us, in our souls and our lives, we are doomed to be like the self-righteous Pharisee, talking to ourselves, massaging our own egos, wallowing in selfishness and narcissism, proud and cruel.
          Is this the kind of life we really want to lead? Is this really the path of human flourishing? Or are we called to something better, something greater, something more lovely? So let us put our trust in the God who loves us and who saves us, let us know our need of him and his transforming grace to fill our lives and transform all of his creation so that the world so that it may believe and be transformed to sing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

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A thought for the day from S. Ignatius of Antioch

Constantly pray for others; for there is still hope that they may repent so as to attain God. And so, allow them to learn from you, at least by your deeds. In response to their anger show meekness; to their boasting, be humble; to their blasphemies, offer up prayers; to their wandering in error, be firmly rooted in faith; to their savage behaviour, act civilised. Do not be eager to imitate their example. Through gentleness we should be their brothers. And we should be seen to be eager to imitate the Lord. Who was mistreated more than he? Or defrauded? Or rejected? Do this so that no weed planted by the Devil may be found in you and you may abide in Jesus Christ both in the flesh and in the spirit, with all holiness and self-control.

To the Ephesians 10
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More advice from S. Teresa of Avila

Beware of a certain kind of humility suggested by the devil which is accompanied by great anxiety about the gravity of our sins. He disturbs souls in many ways by this means, until at last he stops them from receiving Holy Communion and from private prayer by doubts as to whether they are in a fit state for it, and such thoughts as: ‘Am I worthy of it? Am I in a good disposition?  I am unfit to live in a religious community.’

Thus Christians are hindered from prayer, and when they communicate, the time during which they ought to be obtaining graces is spent in wondering whether they are well prepared or no.

Everything such a person says seems to them on the verge of evil, and all their actions appear fruitless, however good they are in themselves. They become discouraged and unable to do any good, for what is right in others they fancy is wrong in themselves.

When you are in this state, turn your mind so far as you can from your misery and fix it on the mercy of God, His love for us, and all that He endured for our sake.

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St Isaac of Nineveh on the Mercy of God


 

As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God.

Just as a strongly-flowing fountain is not blocked by a handful of earth, so the compassion  of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures.

Someone who bears a grudge while they pray is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest.

As a flame of fire cannot be prevented from ascending upwards, so the prayers of the compassionate cannot be held back from ascending into heaven.