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Homily for Epiphany III Matthew 4:12-23


Epiphany III Mt 4:12-23
If you go to S. Paul’s Cathedral in London or the Chapel of Keble College, Oxford, you can see one of the most popular and reproduced works of Religious Art: Holman Hunt’s painting, The Light of the World. It shows our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ standing at a door with a lantern. The door has no handle; it needs to be opened from the inside: Jesus may be the Light of the World, but he does not force himself upon us, we have to welcome Him into our hearts and our lives. His coming into the world which we celebrate at Christmas, which was made manifest to the world at Epiphany, was not the entry of a tyrant, forcing himself upon the world, but as a vulnerable and loving baby, entirely dependent upon the love and care of others, God comes among us. His coming is foretold by the prophet Isaiah, He is the light of the nations, and a cause of great joy: to be a Christian, to follow Christ is not be filled with the joy and love which comes from God, we can be serious, but should never be miserable, our vocation is to live out our faith, in love, and hope, and joy.
There is nothing worse than to see strife and division amongst Christians, as S. Paul found in Corinth: it has no place in the church, it isn’t what God intended for us, it’s not how things should be; it has to be resisted, wounds have to be healed, transgressions forgiven. It’s part of how we live out our faith in our lives. If we turn to the words of this morning’s Gospel we see Jesus saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” To repent is to turn away from what separates us from God and each other, it is to turn to God in Christ, to be close to Him in Word and Sacrament, to be fed by Him, to be fed with Him, with His Body and Blood, so that we might share His divine nature, so that we might be given a foretaste of heaven, so that we may be strengthened to live out our faith in our lives, so that the world may believe – the Kingdom is close at hand, and Christ calls us, the baptised people of God, to share in the work of His kingdom. He asks that we follow Him, that we go where He goes, that we do what He does – it sounds easy enough, but it’s not, it’s something which we need to do together, and while I can help you to do it, I cannot without your help, your prayers, your love, and your support. As Christians we are inter-dependent, we rely upon each other.
We need to be like those first disciples who heard what Jesus said, who listened, and did what He told them, who were close to Jesus, so that our faith is a reality in our lives, strengthened and fed by Him who is the greatest medicine for our souls, who comes to us here, this morning in His Body and Blood, to heal us, to restore us and strengthen us to follow him, so that the world may believe and and 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 Epiphany


What Christ did in his own human nature in Galilee, he is doing today … in every city and hamlet of the world where souls are vivified by his Spirit. He is still being born in other Bethlehems of the world, still coming into his own and his own receiving him not, still instructing the learned doctors of the law and answering their questions, still labouring at a carpenter’s bench, still ‘[going] about doing good’ (see Acts 10:34–43), still preaching, governing, sanctifying, climbing other Calvaries, and entering into the glory of his Father.
Fulton J. Sheen In the Fullness of Time
The Manifestation of Our Lord to the Gentiles, which the church celebrates today, is a deepening of the splendour of the Incarnation – the mystery is made manifest. With the arrival of the Wise Men from the East, the entire World is told that God is with us. Gentiles are made co-heirs, ‘members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel’. The Good news is for everybody.
          The promise is made through the words of the prophet Isaiah in this morning’s first reading. The light which is shown by the star which the Wise Men follow is the Light of the World: the true light, which gives light to all. Kings and the nations come to its brightness, they come to worship God made man; they come to pay their homage to the Saviour born among them. They come with camels, bringing gold and frankincense to worship their king and their God. They come to a stable in Bethlehem, to kneel before a manger where animals feed, and not to a royal palace, not to a throne. This is what true kingship is, true love, true glory: that of God and not of humanity.
          Herod is afraid, he fears for his own position; he worries about power, and commits infanticide to make sure of it. This very human response should stand as a warning to those who wish to follow the ways of the world. Herod clings to power; God becomes a vulnerable baby, totally dependent on others. Herod can only bring death; whereas Christ comes to bring life and life in all its fullness. Herod says he wants to worship, but it is the Wise Men who kneel before God incarnate and worship Him. They offer gold to honour a king, frankincense to worship God, and myrrh which speaks of His death. At the moment when Christ is made manifest to the world we are to look to the Cross, where the love of God will be shown must fully, and to the tomb in which his body will be laid, which will be empty.
          Likewise as we celebrate the Epiphany we also look forward to Our Lord’s Baptism in the River Jordan and his first miracle at the Wedding at Cana. He who is without sin shows humanity how to be freed from sin and to have new life in Him. In turning water into wine we see that the kingdom of God is a place of generous love, a place of joy, and of life in all its fullness.
It is a sign of the banquet where Christ feeds the faithful with the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, where God, who came to share our human nature, gives himself to us so that we might share His Divine nature, a treasure far greater and more valuable than gold, or frankincense, or myrrh – a treasure which can transform our souls and our lives, which can transform the entire world.
          So let us be filled with joy and love, may we live lives of joy, and love, and service of God and one another, which proclaim in word and deed the love of God to the world, that it may believe: so that all creation may resound with 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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The Holy Family


The Church celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not as an excuse for the saccharin-sweet pictures of babies and family much loved by advertising executives, and secular descriptions of Christmas and the family in general. We celebrate the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the paradigm of human life and love. The union of husband, wife, and child is the basis of human life, human society, and the church. It brings both rights and responsibilities – it shows us how to live and how to flourish. It is rooted in love – it is costly, it requires sacrifice. As parents and children we know this all too well. The loving care and nurture we see embodied in the Holy Family reminds us of our duty to live out the same in our lives, so that we may truly flourish as human beings made in the image of God through walking in His ways.
This morning’s Old Testament Reading reminds us of the need to respect and care for our parents, to do for them what they did for us. Such gentleness and care is at the heart of our faith insofar as it allows us to live out in our lives something of the love and care shown to us by God in Christ, the love and care shown to Him by his own mother and father – the care for Him, His safety and well-being which define the relationship of love. As opposed to the fear of Herod who can only see the coming of the Christ-child as a threat to his own earthy power, in Joseph we see a father who is protective, who puts his family’s needs before his own. This generous self-giving love lies at the heart of our faith: it is shown in every part of Our Lord’s life: from the Annunciation, in his Birth, His life, His proclamation of the Good News of the Kingdom, in His healing of the sick, His forgiveness of sins, in His Passion, His Death and Resurrection.  It is central to S. Paul’s understanding of how Christians should live together: in love – letting everything we say or think or do be rooted in that genuine, costly, self-giving love which comes from God.
          This love lies at the heart of our faith, of our understanding of the human family, and how we seek to live out our faith in our lives, fashioning human society as one rooted in generous love. It makes us as the Church, a family, all equal, loved and redeemed by God, a family which we enter through our baptism, where we are clothed with Christ, where God enters a new covenant with humanity, a new covenant in the body and blood of His Son, which is given to us in Communion, so that we feast in the Banquet of the Kingdom, where humanity is given a foretaste of heaven, where we come to share in the divine life of love shown to the world in Christ Jesus Our Lord and Saviour. So let us live out this love in Our lives, may all that we think, or say, or do, proclaim the love shown to us in Christ and the Holy Family, for our good, and that of the world, that it may see and believe and 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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Advent II (Year A) Repent


It is easy to find truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it…. The only people who ever arrive at a knowledge of God are those who, when the door is opened, accept that truth and shoulder the responsibilities it brings. It requires more courage than brains to learn to know God: God is the most obvious fact of human experience, but accepting him is one of the most arduous.
Fulton Sheen Lift Up Your Heart
Why do we bother to read the Bible? It’s a serious question. It’s just a load of stories isn’t it? It’s all made up; we don’t have to believe all that stuff, do we? That’s what the world would have us believe. Jesus is something half-way between a hippie and a social worker, and so on and so forth. The Church gives us a very simple answer, it points to Christ, who is the author and fulfilment of scripture, this is why Scripture teaches us, and gives us hope. Unlike those people who keep saying that the Church doesn’t need to read the Old Testament, that the picture of God is all wrong, that it’s all about patriarchal oppression – men being nasty to women, we affirm the whole of Scripture and its truth and divine inspiration, because it points us to Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the Word of God, the beginning and the end of scripture, and its fulfilment, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When the Church reads the Bible we see Christ foretold, perhaps nowhere more than in the prophesy of Isaiah, who points to Jesus’ life and death so completely that he is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Gospel. He points to Christ, so that we can live in the way God intends us to.
          In this morning’s Gospel John the Baptist fulfils the message of the prophets, he has a message which is as true now, here, today, as it ever was ‘Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand’ He calls us to make a spiritual u- turn, to turn our life around, to turn away from what separates us from God, our sins. He calls us to the waters of baptism, so that we can be healed and restored by God, filled with his grace, and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:11). The problem with the Pharisees and Sadducees who come to John is that they do not show the repentance necessary, they haven’t made the u-turn, they don’t have the humility to recognise there sinfulness, and the need to be washed in the waters of baptism. They are confident that they are children of Abraham; they don’t have the right attitude for God to be at work in their lives.
          As well as seeing Jesus as our Saviour, John the Baptist sees Jesus as Our Judge, he points to the second coming of the Lord when, as St John of the Cross puts it, ‘we will be judged by love alone’.  It is love that matters – in Christ we see what love means – costly, self-giving and profound. As we are filled with His Spirit, nourished by Word and Sacrament, we need to live out this love in our lives. This is how we prepare to meet him as we prepare to celebrate His Birth and look forward to his Second Coming. So let us be prepared, let us live out God’s love in our lives, let us turn away from everything which separates us from God and each other, let us live out that costly, self-giving love in our lives, as this is what God wants us to do. It is through doing this that the world around us can see what our faith means in practice, how it affects our lives, and why they could and should follow Him.
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Something to ponder

All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God.

Martyrdom is nothing in comparison for it is but the Sacrifice of man to God; but the Mass is the Sacrifice of God for man.

St John Vianney, Curé d’Ars

 
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Sermon for Evensong Trinity XXII

War may be either a crusade or a curse: either a token of man’s love of God, or the fruit of man’s godlessness; either a sign that men are with God, or a token that they are againsthim

Fulton Sheen Whence come Wars? 1940: 1–2

 

There is something about martial or manly language when used in Christian context which is apparently politically incorrect these days. We have hymn-books which no longer allow the faithful to sing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ instead we are supposed to sing ‘Onward Christian Pilgrims’ and other such trite nonsense because well-meaning so-called ‘liberals’ tell us that we should. Despite their best intentions the Christian life is one of constant warfare: spiritual warfare against the powers of this world, and the Prince of Lies, Satan, who though utterly defeated on the Cross still wages a campaign against the Body of Christ. Our vocation, then, is to fight, armed in the way described by St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 6:11–17).
        In this evening’s second lesson we see St Paul giving advice to Timothy, the Bishop of Ephesus. He addresses him as ‘my child’ not only because he is younger but also because the Church is a family, which is one in Christ – we are a family which cuts across gender, race, class, and time. Timothy is strengthened ‘by the grace that is in Christ Jesus’ it is the only source of grace, and it alone can strengthen us, the Church, and her bishops. He is encouraged to pass on to others what he has heard from St Paul in the presence of many others – the teaching office of the Church is something public, to pass on the truth and to share it with others so that they too may pass it on. It is a serious task, one which is entrusted to me, and which I am to entrust to you. We are all part of the greater whole charged with the spreading of the Good News of Jesus Christ by thought and word and deed. It is a serious business, and not to be taken lightly. It is of the utmost importance, so that we all may stand strong in the faith, entrusted to the Church.
        It is something which will lead us to share in suffering – our sharing the Good News will lead us to share the suffering of Christ, we are to be conformed to Him, sharing his pain, his trials, for His sake. The world is always ready to persecute the Church because the message of the Gospel seeks to transform it, to turn away from the ways of selfishness and greed and sin, to establish a kingdom of love. All around the world our brothers and sisters are persecuted for their faith, they have to practise it in secret; they risk imprisonment, torture, and death, all for their allegiance to Christ Jesus. As those who have been baptised, we are to share in Our Lord’s death and new life; we are to place our allegiance to Him before anything else. It is radical; it has the power to change the world. The world is rightly scared of the power of the Gospel – nothing, not even Satan himself, can stand against it.
        We are to approach our faith with the training and resolve of a soldier – we are to be single-minded, and not led astray by worldly things, so that we can do the will of Him who loves us, and who died for us. We are to be like athletes, competing to win a prize, playing by the rules, living out the love which we have received. We are to toil like a farmer – it is hard, back-breaking even, but we will receive our reward. It is through doing this and through thought and prayer that we can come to understand what God has in store for us.
        It is not an easy undertaking, it is not for the faint-hearted, and if we were to rely upon our own human strength then we would most surely fail – but if we rely upon the God who became human so that we might become divine, who understands our weakness, who proclaimed the Gospel of love, and healing, and forgiveness, then we can do marvellous things for the love of Him who loves us. It will be difficult; we will face opposition, from a world which would rather not be transformed into the image of God, but it is our calling. So let us stand firm, and fight the good fight, 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 Ghost, 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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A thought for the day from S. Thérèse of Lisieux

 

‘Love is repaid by love alone’ (St John of the Cross)
I saw that love alone imparts life to all the members, so that should love ever fail, apostles would no longer preach the gospel and martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. Finally, I realised that love includes every vocation, that love is all things, that love is eternal, reaching down through the ages and stretching back to the utmost limits of the earth.
Beside myself with joy, I cried out, ‘Jesus, my love, my vocation is found at last – my vocation is love!’ I have found my place in the Church, and this place, Jesus, you have given me yourself; in the heart of the Church I will be love. In this way I will be all things and my wish will be fulfilled.
But why do you say ‘beside myself with joy’? It is, rather, peace which has claimed me, the calm, quiet peace of the sailor as he catches sight of the beacon which lights him to port. The beacon of love.
I am only a weak and helpless child, but my very weakness makes me dare to offer myself, Jesus, as a victim to your love. In the old days, only pure and spotless victims of holocaust would be accepted by God, and his justice was appeased only by the most perfect sacrifices. Now the law of fear has given way to the law of love, and I have been chosen, though weak and imperfect, as love’s victim.