The sum of all is that God the Lord of all, out of fervent love for his creation, handed over his own Son to death on the Cross. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for its sake’ (Jn 3:16). This was not because he could not have saved us in another way, but so that he might thereby the better indicate to us his surpassing love, so that, by the death of his only-begotten Son, he might bring us close to himself. Yes, if he had had anything more precious he would have given it to us so that our race might thereby be recovered. Because of his great love, he did not want to use compulsion on our freedom, although he would have been able to do so; but instead he chose that we should draw near him freely, by our own mind’s love.
Living the Life of the Kingdom
At one level, God is completely beyond our understanding, we cannot comprehend the majesty of God, the depth of God’s love for us, and yet in Christ, the Word made flesh, we catch a glimpse of what God is like. Likewise Christ speaks in parables to explain what the Kingdom of God is like – to convey in words and images which we can understand, something of the majesty and wonder of the life lived in union with God.
This morning’s gospel gives us four images to ponder: the Kingdom is like a mustard seed, a small thing, a couple of millimetres across, which can grow into a plant large enough that birds can nest in it. Likewise our faith may be small, we may not think that we’re terribly good at being a Christian, at following Jesus, but if we live out our faith in our lives together, then our faith can, like a mustard seed, grow into something amazing: it can be a place of welcome, a place that birds can call home. It becomes a reality in the world, something which we share, a place of joy, filled with the Holy Spirit.
The kingdom is like yeast – a small bit can rise an awful lot of dough. It’s alive, and it makes bread – a basic foodstuff – that nourishes us, that gives us life. It reminds us that Jesus is the living bread who came down from heaven, which is why we are here, now, today, to share in that same living bread, to partake in the feast of the Kingdom, where Christ gives himself for us, under the outward forms of bread and wine, so that we may have life in him, and have it to the full, it gives us life, it nourishes us, and gives us a foretaste of heaven, and of eternal life in Him.
The kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field, or a pearl of great price, it is something so wonderful, so valuable, that it becomes the single most important thing in our life: it comes before everything else, because it is about our relationship with the God who created us, who loves us, and who redeems us. We celebrate the single most significant event in human history, which shows us how much God loves us, the riches of His grace poured out upon us, and the wonder of having faith in Him.
The kingdom is like a net full of fish – good and bad. It hasn’t been sorted out yet, it is a work in progress – we should not be so presumptuous to think that we are good fish, nor so pessimistic to think that we are bad. Rather we show our faith by living it out in our lives – the kingdom is here among us, right here, right now, we are to live resurrection lives and to proclaim the truth of our faith to the world, so that it too may believe.
The kingdom is like someone who brings things out, both old and new – rooted in scripture, the Word of God, and in the tradition of the Church – rooted, grounded, authentic, recognisable, not making things up as we go along, or going along with the ways of the world, because it suits us. There is something refreshing and new about orthodoxy, because it is rooted in truth, the source of all truth, namely God. It is old and new, a well which never runs dry, because it is fed by God, which can refresh us, and which gives true life to the Church.
The challenge for us, as Christians is to live out our faith in the God who loves us and who saves us, to live it out in our lives, not compartmentalising our lives so that our faith is a private matter, but rather so that it affects all of who and what we are, what we think or say or do, something primary, and foundational, not an optional extra, not some add-on, but the very ground of our being. It is a big ask; and if it were simply up to each and every one of us, then we would, without doubt, completely and utterly fail to do it. Yet such is the love and forgiveness of God, that His mercy is never-ending, and as people forgiven by God, we likewise forgive each other and are built up in love together, so that the work of the Kingdom is a corporate matter, a joint effort – we’re all in it together – it is what the church is for – a bunch of sinners trying to love God and serve Him, and likewise loving and serving each other, and the whole world.
We can do it in the strength of the Holy Spirit of God, so that we can pray, so that we can to talk to and listen to God. The Spirit is poured out upon each and every one of us in our baptism, whereby our souls are infused with all the spiritual grace we need to get to heaven. We can follow in the footsteps of the Apostles, and likewise spread the good news, and live the life of the Kingdom. We can be confident in Christ’s victory, over sin, death, and the world, and strong in the power of His Spirit, live out our faith and share the joy of being known and loved by God, so that the world may believe and 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.
Trinity III ‘Cast your burden on the Lord’
‘There’s just no pleasing some people!’ If one wanted to sum up the opening of this morning’s Gospel then it would be hard to find better words. It is a truth as true now as it was two thousand years ago: it’s a facet of human nature, and something which God can redeem. The people of Israel have had the last of the prophets, John the Baptist, who came to them preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins, living a simple life in the desert. His message is too hard for people, they think he’s mentally ill or possessed by an evil spirit. When Jesus comes, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, someone who clearly enjoys a party, as we see in the wedding at Cana in Galilee where he turns 180 gallons of water into the equivalent of 1100 bottles of wine, he’s a glutton and a drunkard. If you’re harsh and abstemious, it’s wrong, if you’re the life and soul of the party, that’s wrong too. The people of Israel are not searching for a golden mean, the midway between two extreme positions; they are simply unable or unwilling to accept either the difficult moral demands or the all-consuming joy of the Kingdom of God. ‘Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’ Both John the Baptist and Our Lord bear witness to the truth of the Kingdom of God in their lives and in their deaths, and those who take no offense at Him will be blessed (Mt 11:6).
The Kingdom of God preached by John and brought about by Jesus is not something for the wise and the intelligent – it does not require intellectual effort or knowledge. Instead it needs to be received like a child, simply, humbly and with trust. The key to it comes when we say ‘Yes’ to God, when we accept that we are loved and redeemed by Him, that His Love can save us from our sins, from pride, from intellectual arrogance, of thinking that weknow better, of being judgemental and unwilling to accept the harsh message of the prophet or the joyous celebration of the Messiah. At the heart of our faith is the mystery of the Incarnation, it’s why we celebrate Christmas, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. In Christ, God takes our humanity, so that He can redeem it.
At the heart of this morning’s Gospel is the astounding statement “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:28-30) Christ will bear the burden of our sins, the sins of the world, of the past, the present, and the future, upon Himself on the Cross. The message of the Gospel is to lay down your burden, to rest in the Lord, to bear Christ’s yoke and learn from Him. We do so with child-like trust in the God who loves us and saves us, we do so with humility, knowing our need of God, to cast ourselves upon his love and mercy. We cannot win our way to heaven, or gain salvation through our own efforts but rather in and through Christ, through our Baptism, nourished by His Word and His Body and Blood, so that we can have life in Him.
There is something truly refreshing about the simplicity of the message – Christ says to each and every one of us, to the whole world, lay down your burdens and find life in all its fullness in Him.
So let us come to Him, let us be fed by Him, fed with Him, to have life in Him. Let us take His burden and follow Him, learning from Him, freed from sin, freed from the ways of the world, from hardness of heart. Let us enter into the joy of the Lord, and encourage others to do so, so that they may believe and 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.
St Peter
I don’t know about you, but I for one, when faced with the saints, am confronted with my own sense of inadequacy and sinfulness – I just don’t think that I can live up to the example, I can’t quite come up to the mark. This need not however be sucha bad thing insofar as it points out our (your and my) need to rely upon God, and to trust in His mercy and grace, to trust in God to work in and through me, to trust in something which I do not deserve, but which nonetheless is poured out on me, so that in all things God may be glorified.
There is something wonderfully transparent about St Peter: a man of imposing strength and stature, handy for the physically demanding life of a Galilean fisherman, a man of little learning (unlike St Paul) but much love and faith – a man who speaks before he thinks, but whose instincts are often right, a man who loves and trusts Jesus.
In this morning’s Gospel Jesus asks His disciples ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ They report what people are saying ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ Jesus then asks them the question ‘But who do you say that I am?’ The question He asks His disciples He asks each and every one of us ‘Who do we say that Jesus is?’ ‘A prophet?’ ‘A well-meaning holy man?’ ‘A misguided revolutionary?’ Peter’s answer is telling: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Saviour, the one who saves and rules Israel, and the Son of God. Peter is the first to confess the divinity of Christ, the first to recognise his Lord and Saviour. We need to do the same: to have the same faith and trust and love, to recognise Christ and confess Him as Our Lord and God.
Our Lord’s response is simple ‘you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’ In his confession of the Divinity of Christ, in his reliance upon and trust in God, Peter is empowered to bear witness to the Messiah and to carry on God’s work of reconciliation. He will fail: in the verses which follow this passage he argues that Jesus should not suffer and die. After Our Lord’s arrest Peter, the rock, will deny Jesus not once, not twice, but three times. He will need to be reminded to ‘feed Christ’s sheep’. There is the story that during the first persecution in Rome under Nero, Peter flees, he tries to save his own skin. And yet in the end he bears witness to Christ, he feeds the flock, he values Christ above all things, and bears witness to Him even at the cost of his own life.
St Peter is not the person one might choose to be in charge – that’s the point, he’s not a success, he doesn’t possess the skillset for management – he’s not a worldly leader, he probably wouldn’t get through the modern Church’s selection process (and that’s sadly telling), he’s basically a cowardly failure, someone who speaks before he thinks, but he’s someone who knows God, who loves Him, trusts Him, and confesses Him, who proclaims Him in word and deed. He’s someone that God can use and be at work in, to be a herald of the Kingdom.
Above all else, and despite his failings, Peter bears witness to Christ, and we the Church are called to do exactly the same, some two thousand years later: we are to be witnesses to Christ: who He is and what He does, so that we can proclaim the Gospel, the Good News of God’s saving love. That is why we are here today, this morning, to be nourished by Word and Sacrament – to be fed by Christ, with Christ, with His Body and Blood, to witness the re-presentation of the offering of the Son to the Father, the sacrifice of Calvary, which restores our relationship with God and each other, which takes away our sins, which pays the price which we cannot, which gives us the hope of eternal life in Christ, so that we like St Peter can be healed, restored, and forgiven and strengthened in soul and body for our work of witness, so that God may be at work in us, in the proclamation of His Kingdom.
So let us be like St Peter, and when we are asked ‘Who do you say that the Son of Man is?’ let us confess that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the God who saves us and loves us, 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.
Trinity Sunday
“One in essence, distinction of persons, such is the mystery of the Trinity, such is the inner life of God. The three angles of a triangle do not make three triangles but one; as the heat, power, and light of the sun do not make three suns but one; as water, air, and steam are all manifestations of the one substance; as the form, color, and perfume of the rose do not make three roses, but one; as our soul, our intellect, and our will do not make three substances, but one; as one times one times one times one does not equal three, but one, so too in some much more mysterious way, there are three Persons in God and yet only one God.”Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Divine Romance)
Anglican Clergy can be strange. Amongst their peculiarities possibly the most galling has to be the habit of finding someone other than themselves: a curate, a visiting preacher, a lay reader, to preach this Sunday. On the First Sunday after Pentecost, since at least 1334 when it was granted an official place in the Calendar of the Western Church, and in some form since the Arian Controversy of the 4th Century, the Church has celebrated the mystery of God’s very self: a Trinity of Persons, consubstantial, co-equal and co-eternal.
I suspect that the problem lies with fact that the clergy themselves are frightened of the thought of preaching about a theological concept which they do not really understand, and which they fear their congregations will not either. I cannot claim to understand the mystery of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, but I’m certainly not going to patronise you by assuming that you cannot or do not wish to understand it. At the start of this morning’s Eucharist our worship began by invoking the Name of the Trinity and making the sign of the Cross, just as Christians have done for two thousand years. As Christians we are baptised in the name of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. We will soon say the Nicene Creed to profess our faith in the Triune God – it’s what makes us Christians and we express that faith in our worship of Almighty God. In the Offices of the Church, Psalms conclude with the Doxology: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. This is because we SAY what our worship DOES – we give Glory to God, who created us, who redeemed us, and who sanctifies and strengthens us. Thus we celebrate not a theological concept or philosophical proposition, but rather a relationship. When we say ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost’ we are expressing what we as orthodox Christians believe. You cannot truly worship God and deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, or the procession of the Holy Spirit, for what we say and believe affects our lives and our relationship with God.
At the end of his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul says to them ‘The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all’. They are words which we continue to use, to this day because they encapsulate our faith. We celebrate the fact that God the Father loves us, and spared not His Only Son for love of us, that His Son saves us by grace, through faith, so that we are built up in love, by the Spirit.
Our relationship with the Divine is intimate: the name Father speaks of a relationship, His Son taught us to pray to Him as Our Father, and dies for us, to heal us, restore us and save us from our sins, and sends His Spirit to strengthen us. This is the faith of our baptism, by which we enter the Church, in which we are nourished by Word and Sacrament, and which gives us the Hope of eternal life in the embrace of a loving God.
The words we use to worship God matter in that they express the faith which we believe, they form us into a community of belief where what we believe affects who we are and what we do. The gift of faith, and the life of love, and the hope of eternal life are something which we do not jealously guard but rather share with the world – we are called to make disciples, to share what we have received, so that others may experience the love of God.
And like all relationships, this goes beyond words, it is something which needs to be experienced, and which we can share. It is only in our experience of this relationship that we can begin to come to understand, and we will only do so fully when we experience this in heaven, in our contemplation of the beatific vision, when we see and experience the fullness of God’s love. So then let us prepare for this by sharing in God’s self giving love at this Eucharist – where God gives himself for us, to feed us, to strengthen us, to bind us together in love for one another and him, our bread for the journey which finds its end in the contemplation of God’s love in all its fullness, and which calls us to share with the world so that it 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.
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.
A thought for the day
From the Jerusalem Catecheses
The bread of Heaven and the cup of salvation
On the night he was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: “Take, eat: this is my body.” He took the cup, gave thanks and said: “Take, drink: this is my blood.” Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, This is my blood, who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood?
Therefore, it is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and blood with him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.
Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life in you. This horrified them and they left him. Not understanding his words in a spiritual way, they thought the Saviour wished them to practise cannibalism.
Under the old covenant there was showbread, but it came to an end with the old dispensation to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is bread from heaven and the cup of salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the body, the Word, to the sanctification of the soul.
Do not, then, regard the eucharistic elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact the body and blood of the Lord, as he himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you, be strong in faith.
You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man’s heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.
May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that by contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Easter 2014
What is most peculiar about Easter is that although the followers of Jesus had heard him say he would break the bonds of death, when he actually did, no-one believed it …. The followers were not expecting a Resurrection and, therefore, did not imagine they saw something of which they were ardently hoping. Even Mary Magdalene, who within that very week had seen been told about the Resurrection when she saw her own brother raised to life from the grave, did not believe it. She came on Sunday morning to the tomb with spices to anoint the body—not to greet a Risen Saviour. On the way, the question of the women was: ‘Who will roll back the stone?’ Their problem was how they could get in; not whether the Saviour would get out.Fulton Sheen The Way to Inner Peace
Early in the morning on that first Easter Day, Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John come to the tomb. They have seen their Lord and Saviour betrayed by a close friend, falsely accused, flogged, and killed. We can scarcely imagine what’s going through their minds: grief, anguish, bitterness, Peter’s regret at having denied Jesus, of not being brave enough to say that he was a follower of Jesus, Mary and John who stood by the Cross, just want to be close to him in death as in life. They can’t quite take in what has happened: a week ago he was hailed as the Messiah, God’s anointed, the successor of David, now he has been cast aside: all his words of God’s love have fallen on deaf ears, he has been cast aside, ignored, a failure, a madman who wanted to change the world.
Mary sees the stone rolled away, in the darkness, she doesn’t understand but says to Simon Peter ‘they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre and we know not where they have laid him’ her concern is for the dead body of Jesus. She does not know, she does not yet believe. As Mary has run away from the tomb, John and Simon Peter run towards it. John sees the cloths but does not go in. Peter goes in first and sees everything. Then John sees and believes: God has raised Jesus from the dead. It is John’s love for Our Lord and Saviour which allows him to see with the eyes of faith, to make sense of the impossible, the incomprehensible.
As Christians we need to be like the Beloved Disciple: to love Our Lord and Saviour above all else, to see and believe like him, and through this to let God work in our lives. For what happened on that hillside nearly two thousand years ago, early in the morning, on the first day of the week is either nothing at all: a delusion of foolish people, a non-event of no consequence or interest, something the world can safely ignore or laugh at, mocking our credulity in the impossible, poor childish fools that we are, or it is something else: an event of such importance that the world can and will never be the same again.
In dying and rising again, Jesus has changed history; he has changed our relationship with God, and our relationship with one another. He has broken down the gates of Hell to lead souls to Heaven, restoring humanity to the loving embrace of God, to open the way to heaven for all humanity, where we may share in the outpouring of God’s love, which is the life of the Trinity. His death means that our death is not the end, that we have an eternal destiny, a joy and bliss beyond our experience or understanding: to share in the life and love of God forever – this is what God does for us, for love of us, who nailed him to a tree, and still do with our dismissals or half-hearted grudging acceptance, done for propriety’s sake.
There can be no luke-warm responses to this; there is no place for a polite smile and blithely to carry on regardless as though nothing much has happened. Otherwise, we can ask ourselves: why are we here? Why do Christians come together on the first day of the week to listen to the Scriptures, to pray to God, to ask forgiveness for our manifold sins, to be fed by Christ, with Christ: His true body and His blood, and for Christ: to be his mystical body, the Church in the world?
We are to be something different, something out of this world, living by different standards and in different ways, living lives of love not selfishness, self-satisfaction and sin. In baptism we died with Christ and were raised to new life with him, we are to live this life, and to share it with others: ours is a gift far too precious to be kept to ourselves, it is to be shared with the whole world, every last human soul, that they too may believe, perfecting creation, and bringing all of prodigal humanity into the embrace of a loving Father, filled with His Spirit, conformed to the pattern of His Son. This is our life, our calling, to have that same singularity of purpose of those first disciples, who saw and believed, who let God in Christ change their lives and share this great free gift of God’s love with all the world.
So let our hearts be filled with joy, having died with Christ and raised to new life with him. Let us take that new life, and live it, in our thoughts, our words, and deeds, and share that life with others that the world may believe, that what happened outside a city two thousand years ago has changed all of human history and is still changing lives today. Christ died and is alive so that we and all the earth may have life and have it to the full, sharing in the life and love 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.
The Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Since our Divine Lord came to die, it was fitting that there be a Memorial of his death. Since he was God, as well a man, and since he never spoke of his death without speaking of his Resurrection, should he not himself institute the precise memorial of his own death? And this is exactly what he did the night of the Last Supper….His memorial was instituted, not because he would die and be buried, but because he would live again after the Resurrection. His Memorial would be the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets; it would be one in which there would be a Lamb sacrificed to commemorate spiritual freedom; above all it would be a Memorial of a New Covenant…a Testament between God and man.
Fulton J. Sheen Life of Christ
My brothers and sisters, on this most sacred night Our Lord and Saviour did three things: He washed his disciples’ feet, he instituted the Eucharist, and inaugurated the priesthood of the New Covenant. We have come together on this most holy night to enter into the Mystery of Our Lord’s Passion: to be with him in the Upper Room and in the garden of Gethsemane, and to prepare to celebrate his suffering and death – to behold the glory of the Lord and his love for the world he created and came to save.
Obedient to the Old Covenant, Our Lord and his disciples prepare to celebrate the Passover: the mystery of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt to the new life in the Promised Land. While they are at table Our Lord lays aside his outer garments and takes a basin and a towel and washes the Apostles’ feet. He then says to them ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.’ (Jn 13:12–16 ESV) God, who created the universe and who will redeem it, kneels and washes the feet of sinful humanity. This is true love in action. Only having done this can Jesus say ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’(Jn 13:34–35 ESV) What he says to his disciples he says to us here tonight. As Christians we are to love him and one another, we are to show this love in all that we say, or think, or do, so that the world may believe.
Christ then takes bread and wine and blesses them and gives them to his disciples. Again, this would look and feel like the Passover celebration to which they were accustomed. Except that before he broke and distributed the bread he said ‘Take, Eat. This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And before the Cup was distributed he said ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ He feeds his disciples with his own body and blood to strengthen them, to show them what he is about to do for love of them and of the whole world. When, earlier in his public ministry, he has fed people he taught them in the synagogue at Capernaum ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.’ (Jn 6:52–7 ESV). ‘Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, …. just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God’ [Dix The Shape of the Liturgy 744] Our Lord institutes the Eucharist, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, to feed us, to nourish us, so that we may become what he is, that we may have a foretaste of heaven and the divine life of love, of the beatific vision of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy, Eternal and Consubstantial Trinity. It re-presents, it makes present again, here and now, the sacrifice of Calvary, where upon the Altar of the Cross, as both priest and victim, Christ sacrifices himself for the sins of the whole world. He is the Lamb of God, foreshadowed in the ram offered by Abraham and Isaac, in the bread and wine offered by Melchisedek. In the blood and water which will flow from his side we are washed and creation is renewed. Christ gives the Church the Eucharist so that his saving work may continue, so that people may be given a pledge and token of their eternal life in him.
Christ sets apart his disciples so that they may be priests of the new covenant in his blood, so that they may continue to share in the offering of himself for their sins and those of the whole world. They are washed, and fed, and taught – prepared for the work of the Gospel: spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ and feeding his faithful with his body and blood. They are told to do this and they still do. Never have such words and actions had such a profound effect in all of human history. This is the glory of God: in transforming bread and wine into his very self for the life of the whole world – a sign of love and a pledge and foretaste of eternal life. This is love that we can touch and feel and taste – given for us so that we might have life in him.
So let us come to him, to be fed by Him, and with Him, healed and restored by Him, through the sacraments of the Church, his body, so that we may be prepared to share in his Passion and Death and to celebrate with joy the triumph of His Paschal victory, so that we and all the earth may give praise 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.
Palm Sunday 2014
Most people rather like the idea of a Royal visit: crowds, flag-waving: a chance for a celebration, a bit of a do. Yet what we are celebrating is far more than that.
And so it begins: a week which begins with Our Lord and Saviour making a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, hailed as the Messiah, a cause for celebration and joy. It is a week which will see Him betrayed, arrested, tried and killed as a common criminal. Strangely enough, the world around us can still be just as fickle, just as quick to turn someone from hero into pariah. Lest we think that somehow we’re better, more advanced, more civilised, as though we’ve learned our lesson. The plain unvarnished truth is that we’re not. We need the annual reminder which the church gives through its liturgical year – a chance to be confronted by stark realities, and to be brought up short by them. What Christ says and does in this coming week He says to us, he does for us – to HEAL us, to RESTORE us, so that we can live His risen life here and now, as the people of God, fed by Him, fed with Him, sharing in His Death and Resurrection though our baptism, trusting in Him.
In our pilgrimage through Lent, through our prayer, our fasting, we hope to increase our closeness to Christ, so that following Him, and meditating upon His Passion, we may be transformed by His love, following in His footsteps, entering into the mystery of God’s love poured out on the world. In the next few days we will go to the Upper Room, to have our feet washed, we watch and wait with Christ, we walk the way of the Cross, we gaze upon Christ crucified to see just how much God in Christ loves us – the lengths to which God will go to demonstrate that love, and make it a reality in our lives. Let us prepare to celebrate Easter: Our Lord’s rising from the tomb, His conquering death, so that we may have new life in Him.
A thought for the day from Br Roger
Assured of your salvation by the sole grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you do not impose discipline on yourself for its own sake. Gaining mastery of yourself has no other aim than to render you more available. No pointless abstaining; keep to what God asks. Bear the burdens of others, accept the minor hurts each day brings, so as to to share concretely in the sufferings of Christ: this is our first discipline.
from the Rule of Taizé
Lent III Yr A (John 4:5-42)
‘God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us’
People can be strange, stubborn creatures, and the picture given to us of the Israelites in Exodus should strike something of a chord – we can recognise something of ourselves in it. But lest we get too disheartened it is important to recognise that Moses strikes the rock at Horeb, as the Lord commands him, and out flows water. This water, like the parted water of the Red Sea prefigures our baptism, through which we enter the Church, through which we are regenerate, born again to eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, whose side was pierced on Calvary, and whence flowed blood and water, this water speaks to us of the grace of God poured out upon us, his people, to heal us and restore us, to help us live his risen life.
So as we continue our Lenten pilgrimage, we can do so joyfully because God’s love has been poured into our hearts – what matters is what has been done to us, by God, out of love, so that we can be like him. He is the reconciliation which achieves what we cannot: restoring our relationship with God and each other, healing our wounds, and giving us eternal life in Him.
Picture the scene – it’s the middle of the day, the sun is blazing overhead, he’s been walking for hours, days even. Jesus is tired – as a man, a human being, he is no different from you or me – he ate and drank, and was knackered. Mid-day is no time to be drawing water from a well – it’s something you do first thing in the morning. He asks the woman for a drink – he’s defying a social convention – he’s breaking the rules. She’s surprised – Jews are supposed to treat Samaritans as outcasts, they’re beyond the pale, they’re like the Roma in Eastern Europe. Jesus offers her living water, so that she may never he thirsty again. The woman desires it, so that she will never be thirsty again, or have to come to the well to draw water. Jesus knows who and what she is – he recognises her irregular lifestyle, but also her need of God – her need for the water of grace to restore her soul, and inspire her to tell people the Good News. Her testimony is powerful because she has experienced God’s love as a living reality and she simply has to tell people about it. She brings them to Christ so that they can be nourished, so that they too can experience the grace of God.
To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often. If we are changing into Jesus Christ, then we’re on the right track. If we listen to his word; if we talk to him in prayer and let him talk to us; if we’re fed by Him in the Eucharist, by Christ both priest and victim, to become what He is – God; if we’re forgiven by Him, through making confession of our sins, not only do we come to understand Jesus, we become like him, we come to share in his divine nature, you, me, all of humanity ideally. We, the People of God, the new humanity, enter into the divine fullness of life, we have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
Lent should be something of a spiritual spring clean, asking God to drive out all that should not be there, preparing for the joy of Easter, to live the Risen Life, filled with God’s grace. In our baptism we died with Christ and were raised to new life in the Spirit. Let us prepare to live that life, holding fast to Our Lord and Saviour, clinging to the teachings of his body, the Church. Let us turn away from the folly of this world, the hot air, and focus on the true and everlasting joy of heaven, which awaits us, who are bought by his blood, washed in it, fed with it. So that we too may praise the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever…
A thought for the day from Sr Mary Clare
Today we can easily become paralysed by a sense that there is nothing we can do in the face of so much suffering, such a 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.
Homily for Lent II (John 3:1-17)
The sight of a crucifix has a continuity with Golgotha; at times its vision is embarrassing. We can keep a statue of Buddha in a room, tickle his tummy for good luck, but it is never mortifying. The crucifix somehow or other makes us feel involved. It is much more than a picture of Marie Antoinette and the death-dealing guillotine. No matter how much we thrust it away, it makes its plaguing reappearance like an unpaid bill.
Fulton J. Sheen Those Mysterious Priests1974: 101—102
Baptism is a wonderful thing, and it is why each and every one of us is here today. It is how we enter the Church, how we become part of the body of Christ, sharing in His death, and His resurrection. It is something for which people have traditionally prepared during this season of Lent, for Baptism and Confirmation at Easter, so that they can die with Christ and be raised to new life with Him. We enter into the mystery of Christ’s saving work so that we may conformed to it and transformed by it, believing and trusting in him, publically declaring our faith in Him, and praying for His Holy Spirit, so that our lives may be transformed – living for Him, living in Him, and being transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.
To be drawn into His likeness means coming closer to His Cross and Passion: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (Jn 3:14). Just as the serpent in the desert brought salvation to the people of Israel, so now the Cross is our only hope – the sacrifice of God for humanity, not something we can give God, but something he gives us – a free gift of infinite value. God gives it to us and to all the world for one simple reason – love, for love of us – weak, poor, sinful humanity, so that we might be more lovely, more like Him. God sends His Son into the world not to condemn it, but so that the world might be saved through Him – an unselfish act of generosity, of grace, so that we might be saved from sin and death, from ourselves, so that we can share new life in Him.
It is that same sacrifice which we see here, which we can taste and touch, which we can eat and drink, so that our lives and our souls can be transformed to live Christ’s risen life. It is something which we treat with the uttermost reverence because it is God, given for us, because it can transform us to live as children of the Holy Spirit, freed from the shackles of this world, free to live for Him, to live as He wants us to, His new creation, of water and the Spirit. This is what the Church has done on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, in memory of Him, to make the holy people of God. To make us holy: so that everything which we say, or think, or do, may be for His praise and glory, living out the faith which we believe in our hearts, as a sign to the world that the ways of selfishness and sin are as nothing compared with the generous love of God.
So great is this gift, that we prepare to celebrate it with this solemn season of prayer, and fasting, and abstinence, to focus our minds and our lives on the God who loves us and who saves us. We prepare our hearts and minds and lives to celebrate the mystery of our redemption, so that our lives may reflect His glory, so that we may live for Him, fed by Him, fed with Him, with our lives and souls transformed by Him. We are transformed so that we can transform the world so that it may live for Him, living life in all its fullness: living for others, living as God wants us to live. Living the selfless love which saves us and all the world, living out our faith, and encouraging others so to do, can and will conform us to Christ, so that we may be like Him, and become ever more like Him, prepared for eternal life with Him, so that we 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.
Homily for Quinquagesima
“Three important scenes of Our Lord’s life took place on mountains. On one, He preached the Beatitudes, the practice of which would bring a Cross from the world; on the second, He showed the glory that lay beyond the Cross; and on the third, He offered Himself in death as a prelude to His glory and that of all who would believe in His name”
Fulton Sheen The Life of Christ 1970: 158
The world around us has a good idea of what it thinks glory is: most of the time it looks like success and triumph, just think of people winning a gold medal at the Olympics, people waving flags – a bit like St Davids on St David’s Day but a lot more noisy.
Rather than concentrate on human ideas of glory, this morning’s readings give us a glimpse of God’s glory. In the Book of Exodus we see Moses going up Mount Sinai to receive the Law, the Ten Commandments – to show Israel what to believe and how to live. Moses spends time in the closer presence of God, so that when he comes back down the mountain he is shining.
Jesus takes his closest disciples with him to show them something of the glory of God, he appears with Moses and Elijah to show them and us that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets; he is the Messiah, and the Son of God. Peter responds in a moment with a very human response, he knows that it is good to be here and it helps to change his life. When God speaks he tells us three things about Jesus: he is the Son of God, he is loved and we should listen to him – what he says and does should affect us and our lives – we have to be open to the possibility of being changed by God. Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone about this until after he has risen from the dead. The detail is important: Jesus will suffer and die upon the cross, taking our sins upon Himself, restoring our relationship with God and each other – this is real glory – not worldly glory but the glory of God’s saving love poured out on the world to heal it and restore it.
That is why we are here this morning – to see the self same sacrifice here with our own eyes, to touch and to taste what God’s love is really like – to go up the mountain and experience the glory of God, what God is really like, so that God’s love may transform us, given a foretaste of heaven, and prepared to be transformed by God. This is true glory – the glory of the Cross, the glory of suffering love lavished upon the world. The Transfiguration looks to the Cross to help us prepare for Lent, to begin a period of fasting and prayer, of spiritual spring cleaning, of getting back on track with God and each other, so that we may be prepared to celebrate Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, to behold true majesty, true love and true glory – the kind that can change the world and last forever, for eternity, not the fading glory of the world, here today and gone tomorrow, but something everlasting, wonderful.
So let us behold God’s glory, here, this morning, let is touch and taste God’s glory, let us prepare to be transformed by his love, through the power of His Holy Spirit, built up as living stones, a temple to God’s glory, healed, and restored, reconciled, and given a foretaste of eternal life with him, so that God may take our lives and transform us, so that everything that we say, or think, or do, may proclaim him, let us tell the world about him, so that it too may believe and trust and have new life in 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.
A thought for the day from Mother Mary Clare SLG
You are dedicated to love and reconciliation. Your life is directed to that end, and you must learn to stand at the Cross. It is a long learning, a long road, but a sure road if it is up the hill to Calvary.
It is a road on which you, by being stripped of all self, may mediate to the world the dawning knowledge of the glory that descends.
Sexagesima Evensong
Paul had to begin with the Cross and then retrace his steps backward to Calvary. To him and to his people, the prophetic connection between suffering and glory were repugnant. The Jew and the Greek both had a horror of death; to the Greek there was a physical aversion; to the Jew it was a moral shame. And yet the glorified Christ began Paul’s conversion with the Cross—at that very point where all national characteristics were assailed. He had to see Christ repersecuted, recrucified, renailed. And when he asked who it was who questioned, there flashed the vision, ‘I am Jesus, Whom you are persecuting’ (Acts 26:16)Fulton Sheen Those Mysterious Priests 1974: 10
There is something truly wonderful in the fact that one of the foremost persecutors of the Early Church, Saul of Tarsus, is converted and becomes the Apostle to the Gentiles. It reminds us of the fact that no-one is beyond God’s reach, that a second chance, a fresh start, and a new beginning is on offer for each and everyone who turns to Christ. The Gospel is truly Good News, and the saving work of God in Christ Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour, is something which we should both celebrate and share, with everyone whom we meet, at all times, and in all places.
As a result of his conversion experience upon the road to Damascus, the man who had clamoured for the stoning of Stephen now prizes Christ above all else. When he writes to the church in Colossae he begins by singing the praise of the God who loves him and who saves him.
Christ is the image of the invisible God, the God whom we cannot see, cannot know, and cannot understand becomes visible and vulnerable in the person of Christ Jesus – he is born as a baby in Bethlehem, he needs his parents love and care. He is tempted, but he resists in order to show us how to live our lives. He preaches the Good News of the Kingdom, calling humanity to repent for the Kingdom is close at hand, he heals the sick to show us what God’s love is like in action. But most of all, He suffers and dies for us – he pays the debt which we cannot. God is Christlike and in Him is no un-Christlikeness at all – Jesus shows us who and what God is. He is the invisible made visible, the incomprehensible made comprehensible, the remote made personal. He is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten not made, consubstantial, co-eternal, and co-equal divinity. As the Word of God He is the creative force through which the World was made, God spake and it was done, it is through the Word of God that all Creation springs into being. All that there is owes its very existence to God – the God who suffered and died for love of us.
As well as stressing the supreme majesty of Christ, Paul is at pains to stress how it is that in Christ all things hold together – this is the cohesive power of God: to unite, to hold together, to reconcile, to redeem, to love. Christ is the head of the body, the Church. We are all baptised into Him, into His Death and Resurrection, we are nourished by Him in Word and Sacrament, we are fed by Him, fed with Him, with His Body and Blood under the outward forms of Bread and Wine, to share His Divine life, and to be given a foretaste of Heaven, so that our lives and souls may be transformed by Him, so that we may grow together in Unity and Love, which is His Will. He is the beginning and the end of all things, the Alpha and the Omega, firstborn from the dead so that we might share His risen life. We honour Him, we honour God, in our praise and worship, and in our lives when we live out our faith, when we live as God wants us to, so that in all things God might be pre-eminent – so that God is the most important thing in our life.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell – he is true God and true man: two natures, two wills, united without change, division, confusion, or separation. ‘Was pleased to dwell’ for such are the loving purposes of God – and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. This is the heart of our faith, and the Good News of the Gospel, God became man for our sake. And if we want to know how much God loves us, we can see in Christ – God loves us this much (extends arms) the arms of God are flung wide upon the Cross to embrace the world with God’s love – this is what it takes to reconcile to himself all things on earth or in heaven. This is the price God pays for love of us – for you and me, each and every one of us, everyone who has ever lived, or who will ever live. In this God makes peace by the blood of His Cross, this is true glory, this is how God reigns in majesty, and shows that He is supreme, and over all things, through dying the death of a common criminal, through suffering for our sake, and so we can say with St Paul in his Letter to the Galatians “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection; through him we are saved and made free.” (Galatians 6:14) 
To him be all glory, now and forever,
To him be all glory, now and forever,Homily for Sexagesima
‘Set your heart on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness’
In the Gospels over the past few weeks Jesus has been telling us quite a lot about how we should live our lives. This concentration should alert us to two facts: it is important and it isn’t easy. How we live our lives matters, as it is how we put our faith into practice and also it forms our moral character: we become what we do. Living a Christian life isn’t a matter of giving our assent to principles, or signing on the dotted line, it’s about a relationship with God and each other, which we demonstrate not only by what we believe, but how our beliefs shape our actions.
The call to holiness of life is rooted in the goodness of the created order: God saw all that he had made and it was good. The path to human flourishing starts with the response of humanity to the goodness of God shown in the goodness of the world. It continues with the hope which we have in Christ that all things will be restored in Him, for in this hope we were saved.
Living out our faith in the world can be a tricky business: we cannot serve both God and money. A world which cares only for profit and greed, for the advancement of self, is surely a cruel uncaring world which is entirely opposed to the values of the Gospel. The Church has to speak out against poverty, injustice, and corruption, in order to call the world back to its senses, to say to it ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is close at hand’. The kingdom is the hope that we will live in a world where the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, and all humanity lives in the peace of God. Christianity is a radical faith which looks to nothing less than the complete transformation of the world – you may see us as idealistic, as dreamers not rooted in reality, but this Kingdom is a reality here and now, and it’s up to us to help advance it.
Such is the power of advertising that we are forever being bombarded with enticements to buy new clothes, to diet, to celebrate, to spend money so that it makes us happy, but also so that we feel guilty, we take out loans to finance our extravagance. Against this we need to hear the words of Jesus ‘Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing’. But, I hear you cry; you’re wearing fine clothes, and standing in a pulpit telling us about this. Indeed I am, but priests and deacons wear beautiful vestments not to point to themselves, not as a display, put to point us to God, the source of all beauty, to honour Him, in all that we do or say, to remind us why we are here today, to be fed by God, to be fed with God, in Word and Sacrament, so that we may be strengthened and transformed. A God who loves us so much that he died for us on the Cross, the same sacrifice present upon the altar here – given for us to touch and taste God’s love, this is the reality of God’s love in our lives.
So how do we respond to it? This is the kingdom of God, right here, right now, we’re living it, and we need to trust the God who loves us and saves us, and live out our faith in our lives, we need to embody the values of the Kingdom, and help others to live them so that we can carry on God’s work. Every day when we pray the Lord’s Prayer we say ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. As we look towards Lent let us all encourage each other to do God’s will in our lives so that we may hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom and do His will, living out our faith in our lives, helping each other to do this and inviting others in to share the peace and love and joy of the Kingdom, so that the world around us 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.
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Year A (Septuagesima)
Septuagesima, roughly seventy days before Easter, or three weeks before the start of Lent, reminds us that in the Church names and time are important things: they are used to divide and to mark, to draw our attention to things. Historically, the countdown to Lent is a chance to change our focus, with Candlemas our celebration of Christmas drew to a close, and we began to look to the Cross, to Our Lord and Saviour’s Passion. So we begin the countdown to our Lenten observance of prayer and fasting, we begin to get ready to prepare for the most solemn part of the Christian Year: Holy Week and Easter. It’s the Church’s equivalent of an advanced warning – we need to be on the lookout, we need to be prepared, rather like dealing with the current spate of bad weather and power cuts.
What we do and how we do it are important things, and they matter – there are times when we make the sign of the Cross, when the names of the Trinity, the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit are mentioned, we bow our heads at the name of Jesus, and we bow or genuflect to altars and aumbries, from which we are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ to honour the God who loves us and who saves us. Many of us may have received flowers or other tokens of affection this week – they demonstrate in a physical way the feelings which we have inside. The church’s ritual is just like this – it enacts what it represents and allows us to make a physical demonstration of the faith which we have inside us. The gestures are not empty; rather they are full of meaning, and full of faith.
What we say, and what we do matter. For a start being a Christian isn’t something we just do for an hour on a Sunday morning, without any connection to the other 167 hours in a week. We enter the Church through baptism, and through prayer and the sacraments, being fed with the Word of God and His Body and Blood, we can be transformed to be like the one who saves us, and who loves us. It doesn’t cost us any money, it’s free, it’s all gift – the grace of God, poured out on us, on you and me, to heal us and to restore us. You’d be a fool to turn this down, wouldn’t you?
It is free, but with it there comes a commitment: a commitment to Christ and His Church, to living our lives in a way which is recognisably Christ-like. This morning’s Gospel tells us that we need to be careful – even the words which we use matter. To be a part of the Christian community has as its basis and starting point reconciliation: reconciliation to God and each other – we need to confess our sins, our faults, and our failings to God, and using the ministry of a priest. It isn’t something which we should leave to the secular courts, or the law of the land, because what is at stake is the state of our souls and our relationship with Christ and with His Body, the Church.
All of our life matters, even the smallest thing, even a glance. It matters because we are what we do, and what we do helps to form our moral character – we get used to it, it becomes normal and instinctive, it is how we put our faith into practice in our lives. It’s not easy, it’s difficult, and I’m not standing here as a moral super-hero telling people off, but rather as a sinner redeemed by God’s love and mercy, who knows that it’s something which we cannot do alone, we need God, and we need each other – it’s a community effort, and through God’s mercy, and our prayer and support we can be built as living stones as a temple to God’s glory. We can do it together, we are doing it, but we need to keep on trying, together – living simple, transparent lives, letting our ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and our ‘No’ be ‘No’, so that the whole of our lives together proclaims the faith of our hearts, that we are set free to live the life of the Kingdom here and now, that we are prepared to keep renewing our commitment to God and each other, so that the world around us 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.
Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Year A
A friend of mine, who doesn’t go to church or call themselves a Christian once said to me ‘There’s something strange about Christians’ I agreed with them as they had, however unwittingly, stated a profound truth: we should be something other, there should be something strange, or unusual about us – to be a Christian is to be profoundly counter-cultural and to stand up for something profoundly different to the world around us.
What we believe as Christians and how we live our lives are intrinsically linked: our actions should be grounded in our beliefs, and they should be a demonstration of our faith in our lives. In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus says that we are the light of the world: we should not be hidden under a bushel, hiding away our faith as a matter of private devotion which does not affect our lives, so that it cannot be seen by others. By putting a light on a stand it can shed its light around and shine in the darkness. By living out our faith in our lives we let our light shine, so that others may both follow our example and give glory to God for the life of a faithful Christian.
In Matthew’s Gospel we have over the last few weeks been following the beginnings of Jesus’ public ministry, he has preached repentance, for the Kingdom of God is at hand, he has called disciples, he has healed the sick, and now in the Fifth Chapter he has shown the world how God wants us to live in the Beatitudes. We are to be poor in Spirit, to know our need of God, to rely up Him, rather than ourselves, we are to show mercy, to be pure in heart, peacemakers, and for all this we shall be persecuted. It was all going rather well up to that last point, but it is an uncomfortable truth that in living out the faith of the Gospel in our lives will cause us to face persecution and ridicule. We will be hailed as hypocrites whenever we fail, and fail we will – but surely a hypocrite is someone who fails but who denies it, who carries on as if nothing has happened, whereas Christians are open about it – we confess our sins, our failures, our shortcomings, we seek God’s mercy and rely upon Him, in His love and grace to heal and restore us, to help us onward in our journey of faith.
Jesus calls us to live the life of the Kingdom, here and now – it’s radical, it’s dangerous, and it has the power to completely change the world – the values of the Kingdom are radically counter-cultural in that we do live our lives by the values of the world, but rather those of the Kingdom of God: love, mercy, forgiveness, generosity, there is no place here for fear, greed, anger, or the like. We are called to live like Jesus, to live in Him, to enter into new life in Him, through Baptism, to be fed by Him in Word and Sacrament – to be fed with Him, with His Body and Blood, to that He shared our human nature might transform us, might give us a foretaste here on earth of Heaven, to prepare us for life with Him. That is why we, the people of God are here, today, to feed in this sacred banquet, our souls’ true food. From the start of Jesus’ public ministry He talks about persecution and rejection, even now He is looking to the Cross, to Calvary, where the relationship between the human and the divine is healed and restored. That sacrifice is present, here, today, under the outward forms of bread and wine, to heal us, to restore us, to strengthen us so that we can live out our faith in our lives.
Christ calls the disciples, he calls us to be salt, salt which enhances the flavour of food, which preserves it, and saves it from decay. We are called to show through the living out of our faith in our lives that to be in Christ is to have life in all its fullness, all its richness, in Christ who loves us and saves us we can be freed from sin, we can turn away from the moral decay of the world around us, to live the life of the Kingdom here and now, so that our faith and lives proclaim the truth of God’s saving work, in us, the holy people of God, ransomed, healed, restored forgiven, and fed with the bread of angels, to invite the world to share in the heavenly banquet 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.
A thought for the day
The test today is whether the Church will be identified with any culture. One thing is certain, if the Church marries the spirit of the age, she will be a widow in the next one. Those who are seeking to make the Church wholly an institution of ‘good works and social service’ need to recall that in the Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation, Christ says: ‘I know your works.’ Works are important, but they cannot save souls, nor deliver us from the wrath of God.
Fulton Sheen Those Mysterious Priests, 1974: 139
Homily for Candlemas
Today the Church celebrates the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and commonly called Candlemas. We are not quite so used to ideas of ritual purity inherent in the Thanksgiving for a woman after Childbirth, which used to be described as the Churching of Women. The Holy Family go to the Temple to give thanks to God and to comply with the Law: they demonstrate obedience, they listen to what God says and do it – as such they are a model for all Christian families to follow.
When they go to the Temple the Holy Family encounter Simeon, a man of faith and holiness, devoted to God, and looking for the consolation of Israel, he knows that he will not die until he sees the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, and the Saviour of the World. As he takes the child Jesus in his arms he prays ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.’ The promise made to him by, revealed through His Holy Spirit has been fulfilled in the six-week-old infant in his arms. As Christ was made manifest to the Gentiles at Epiphany, so now His saving message is proclaimed, so that the world may know that its salvation has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Simeon speaks to Our Lord’s Mother of her Son’s future, and the pain she will endure. Before he dies Simeon is looking to the Cross, the means by which our salvation is wrought, the Cross at which Mary will stand to see humanity freed from its sin through the love and mercy of God, through grace, the free gift of God in Christ. So as Candlemas concludes our Celebration of Christmas, of the mystery of the Incarnation, so to it points to that which gives it its true meaning: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That is why we are here this morning, to be fed by Christ, to be fed with Christ, truly present in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity – God whom we can touch and taste. A God who shares His Divine Life with us, so that we can be transformed by Him, built up as living stones as a temple to His Glory, given a foretaste of Heaven here on Earth. This is our soul’s true food, the bread for the journey of faith, a re-presentation of the sacrifice which sets us free to live for Him, to live with Him, through Him and in Him.
The significance of what is happening is not just recognised by Simeon, but also by Anna, a holy woman, a woman of prayer, a woman who is close to God – she to recognises what God is doing in Christ, and she proclaims it, so that God’s redemption of His people may be known. Let us be like her, and let all of our lives, everything which we say, or think, or do, proclaim the saving truth of God’s love to the world. Let us burn, like the candles which God has blessed to give light and warmth to the world, so that it 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.
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.
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.
Advent IV (Year A) Still Waiting
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.
Fulton Sheen Seven Words of Jesus and Mary
The world around us can get things so wrong: with all the build-up around us we might easily think that it was already Christmas Day, that the true message of Christmas was one of conspicuous consumption, and spending money. Every year it seems that the decorations go up a bit earlier, and yet here we are in church, still waiting. I don’t know about you, but I for one am not overly keen on waiting, and yet it is what the church is called to be, to live out in the world. We are to be a people who watch and wait, in joyful hope and expectation – we are to be like Mary and Joseph – people who are waiting for God. In the prophesy of Isaiah we see the hope of salvation dawning in God-with-us, Emmanuel. God’s promise is fulfilled through the patience of Mary & Joseph, and their obedience to God’s will: ‘he did what the Angel of the Lord told him to do’. It is an obedience to the Father’s will borne out through suffering, death & resurrection which characterises the mission of the Son, this is what brings about our salvation. We in obedience look for his second coming as our Saviour and our Judge, and as the Church we have an opportunity to ponder these mysteries – to stop for a while amid the business of our modern existence and reflect upon the wondrous nature of God’s love for us and all humanity: we can stop for a moment and consider both what it means and how it affects our lives.
As the Church, the people of God, which we enter through our baptism, we are called to proclaim the Good News, to live out the story of Jesus in our lives, and we call the world to stop and to consider exactly what we are celebrating at Christmas: a free gift, of hope and salvation for all people, in a baby, born in a stable, among the poor and the marginalised.
The world around us is quick to judge, it wants to do the right thing – it is a bit like Joseph trying to save Mary the embarrassment and the shame. Thankfully God has other ideas, because he who will be born will save his people from their sins – what wonderful news this is. Those sins which separate us from each other and from God, this falling short of what we know we could or should be – this is what Jesus saves us from. We are to take this opportunity to stop and to ponder this wondrous fact, to reflect upon what ‘God-with-us’ means to us and our lives.
The act of love which we will experience in Our Lord’s Nativity should draw us to love God and our neighbour, to live out the love which becomes flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, which will become flesh and blood that we can touch and taste, here, this morning, to feed us, so that we might share His divine life. So let us imitate the mystery we celebrate, let us be filled with and transformed by the divine life of love, let us like Mary and Joseph wait on the Lord, and be transformed by him, to live out our faith in our lives so that the world might 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.
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.
Advent I (Year A)
Let Christ Be Formed in YouAs God was physically formed in Mary, so he wills to be spiritually formed in you. If you knew he was seeing through your eyes, you would see in everyone a child of God. If you knew that he worked through your hands, they would bless all the day through.… If you knew that he wants to use your mind, your will, your fingers, and your heart, how different you would be. If half the world did this, there would be no war!Fulton Sheen How to find Christmas Peace
It is the easiest thing in the world to forget that Christianity is, at its very core, a radical and revolutionary faith. We are charged with nothing less than the complete transformation of the world: conforming the world to the will of God. We can, and indeed should, look around us and see that things are not utterly terrible; but equally we must be careful not to kid ourselves that everything is just fine. We have to start with the expectation that the world is called to know God and to serve him, that the world will come to the mountain of the Lord and his temple, so that he may teach us his ways, not ours, and so that we may walk in his paths, and not those of our own devising. We are called to the way of peace and love, real, genuine, costly love. The vision in Isaiah’s prophesy is of a future where humanity grows into a peace which comes from God, where instead of the ways of the world, humanity, obedient to his proclamation, grows up, and lives according to the divine vision of human flourishing.
It is a matter of urgency, something which should occupy the Church: we are called to be people of the light and not the darkness. We are not to live riotously, in drunkenness, in fornication and sexual immorality, but instead to have put on Christ – through baptism, through being close to him in word and sacrament, fed by him, nourished by him, strengthened by him, and formed into his likeness, prepared to be with him. This is truly radical in the eyes of the world, it represents a complete turning away from the ways of selfishness, sin and self-indulgence, which people are now told is all that matters.
That is why in this morning’s Gospel, Jesus starts with the story of Noah – as a warning to people that simply carrying on regardless, as if nothing is happening or going to happen simply will not do – this careless existence cannot lead to life, and life in all its fullness. It is an urgent matter, we need to be prepared. As a church we have a double preparation in Advent – to prepare for our yearly celebration of Our Lord’s Incarnation, and to prepare for his second coming, when as King of the Universe he will come as Our Saviour and Our Judge. We need to be prepared both physically and spiritually, we do need to look around us in order to try and work out when something is going to happen: what we need to do is to live so that we are prepared at any time. We need to prepare our hearts, our souls, our minds, all of our life, we need to live and act, to think and speak like the people of God, fully alive in him, having turned away from the ways of the world, to live fully in him, we are to live this way, and invite others so to do, so that the Kingdom of God’s peace and love may truly be found here in earth, where humanity is truly valued, where violence, death, murder, and immorality are no more. God wants us to live like this so that we can be truly alive in him, grown up, not childish slaves to sinful passions, but rather walking in the light of the Lord, clothed with Christ and ready to greet him when he comes again, so that he may find us and all the world both ready and doing his will. We know that he will come, we do not know when, but this cannot lead us to say, ‘Oh it doesn’t really matter, he’s not coming yet, we’re all ok’ or ‘I’m sure that God’s fine with …’ or ‘We don’t need to bother with that any more’. For these are all symptoms of an attitude which doesn’t take God at his word, which doesn’t take him seriously, which doesn’t truly value his word to us, and does not want humanity to be fully alive in him, which prefers darkness to light, which is not for God, but against him – turned in on itself, presenting itself as modern and forward-thinking, but instead it is a manifestation of the oldest trick in the book, one of turning away from God.
The time is short, the time is now, it really matters; we need to come to the Lord, learn his ways and walk in his paths, living decently, living vigilantly, preferring nothing to Christ, and inviting all the world to come to the fullness of life in him. This is how we celebrate his coming at Christmas and as Our Saviour and Judge, by following him, fed by him, restored and healed by him, and sharing his church’s message with all the world, so that it too may believe 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.
Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King (Yr C)
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
Today the Church celebrates the last Sunday before Advent as the Solemnity of Christ the King, before we start Advent, the season of preparation for our yearly remembrance of Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem; we stop to ponder his majesty, his kingship, and what this means for us and for the world. As someone of the House of David, it is good to start by looking back. Just as the Lord said to David ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel’ (2Sam 5:2) this also looks forward to Christ the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. In him we see true kingship, and true sacrifice.
In this morning’s epistle, St Paul praises his Lord and Saviour as ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.’ (Col. 1: 15–20). It places Christ before and above everything, it sets the scene for our worship of him.
Jesus Christ shows the world his kingship when he reigns on the Cross. It bears the title ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’ but those who are standing by cannot understand – if he is the Messiah, who saved others, why isn’t he saving himself? His kingship is not marked by self-interest, he rules for the sake of others, or as St Paul puts it ‘making peace by the blood of his cross’. Thankfully in Luke’s Gospel the penitent thief can say to him ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (Lk 23:42). He recognises Jesus’ kingly power, he acknowledges it, and puts himself under it. We need to be like him. We need to acknowledge him as our Lord and King; we need to recognise who he is and what he does. We need to, the whole world needs to, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.
Jesus’ kingship is not the ruthless exercise of power by a dictator; it is rather shown by sacrificial self-giving love, to reconcile God to all things. It is costly, and his body still bears the wounds of love, transfigured, and glorious, so that we can have confidence in whom we worship. As he gives himself for us on the Cross, he gives himself to us under the forms of bread and wine; he feeds us with himself, so that our nature may transformed, and given a foretaste of heaven. So let us worship Him, let us adore him, let us acknowledge his universal kingship, the Lord and Redeemer of all. What looks like defeat is God’s triumph, it opens the gates of heaven, it inaugurates God’s kingdom of peace and love, into which all may enter. So let us enter, and encourage others to do so, enter into the joy of the Lord, that they may believe and 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.
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.
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
Homily for All Saints of the Order of St Benedict
There are two things that we need to know about all the Saints of the Order of St Benedict: that there are lots of them, and that they’re all on our side – they’re praying for us. When we consider the saints, especially in large numbers there can be something decidedly off-putting about it: we’re filled with a sense of our own inadequacy, that we’re not good enough, that we’re not up to the task – sainthood isn’t for us.
And so I would like to begin by spending a few moments considering the portion of the Rule which is appointed to be read today, from the second half of Chapter 35 – it concerns those appointed to serve at table for the week. It is quite mundane and practical: they are to eat early, before they serve the brethren so that they do not grumble and it isn’t too hard for them. Before they begin or finish their week of service they are to give thanks to God. It is this reliance upon God which undergirds all that they do from start to finish which provides us with an important spiritual lesson: in knowing upon whom we can rely we can be truly thankful, we can be built up in love, with generous, thankful hearts.
That is why in the Prologue to the Rule our Holy Father St Benedict expresses his aim as follows: Constituenda est ergo nobis Dominici schola servitii – we have, therefore to establish a school of the Lord’s service. It is a school: somewhere where things can be both taught and practised, it is a place to learn to serve God and others. To love and to serve God and our neighbour is we are all called to by virtue of our baptism; it is how we live out our faith in our lives. This then is the path to heaven, for saints are sinners who, through God’s love and grace, keep trying, who stay close to Him.
So, as we keep trying, we can do so in the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:39). That’s what the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection achieve: a relationship of such depth, such love, which has such power to heal and transform our human nature. For all things are possible with God (Mk 10:27) this is why the first word of the Prologue is Ausculta ‘Listen’ we listen so that we might learn; in listening we focus our attention on what really matters so that we can sit lightly to the things of this world, all the superficial stuff that the world tells us is important or valuable, so that we might discard it and concentrate on what really matters. Our listening informs what we are, what we do, and what we shall be.
So as we sing the praises of those who have followed in the footsteps of St Benedict, let us imitate them, in the Lord’s service, strengthened by Word and Sacrament – fed by God, fed with God, so that our nature may be transformed, so that through prayer and service we may honour the God who created us, who redeemed us, and who sustains us, so that we may live out our faith 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.
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.
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.
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.
A thought for the Day
It is one of the paradoxes of Christianity that the only things that are really our own when we die is what we give away in His name. What we leave in our wills is snatched from us by death; but what we give away is recorded by God to our eternal credit, for only our works follow us. It is not what is given that profits unto salvation; it is why it is given.
Fulton J Sheen The Seven Virtues 1953:72-73
A thought for the day
Be watchful of time and how you spend it. Nothing is more precious than time. In the twinkling of an eye heaven may be won or lost.
Time is made for man, not man for time.
I hear you say sadly, ‘How shall I fare? And if what you say is true, how shall I give account of each moment of time? – I, who am now twenty four, and until now have never paid heed to time … Help me now for the love of Jesus.’
That is indeed well said: ‘For the love of Jesus.’ For in the love of Jesus you shall find your help.
So then love Jesus, and all that he has is yours. Knit yourself to him by love and faith.
from The Cloud of Unknowing Chapter 4
A thought for the Day
It is easy to find Truth; it is harder to face it, and harder still to follow it.
Fulton Sheen Lift up your Heart, 1942:106
Homily for the 25th Sunday of Year C
True generosity never looks to reciprocity; it gives neither because it expects a gift in return, nor because there is a duty or an obligation to give. Charity lies beyond obligation; its essence is the ‘adorable extra.’ Its reward is in the joy of giving.
Fulton Sheen Way to Inner Peace, 1955: 108
‘What shall I do?’ (Lk 16:3) As Christians we are charged with nothing more than the transformation of the entire world and its conversion to Christ. In this we do the will of him ‘who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ (1Tim 2:4) It is something which is rooted in prayer, which should characterise our lives, which fills our hearts with love so that we may lift ‘holy hands without anger or quarrelling’ (1Tim 2:8). We live such lives so that our faith is lived out, and that it may be attractive, inviting and so that it may convert the world.
The world around us is cruel, selfish, and unfair. Profit is everything. The behaviour criticised by the prophet Amos is still widespread. It is something which we have to combat as we live out our faith. In Amos’ prophesy we hear ‘we will buy the helpless man for silver’ (Amos 8:6) and we know that he was bought for thirty pieces of silver. This was his price; he was bought and suffered for us, to take away our sins, to transform the world, giving Himself out of love so that humanity might share His Divinity.
Such is the generous love that redeems the world, giving ‘Himself as a ransom for all’ (1Tim 2:6). This too is the generosity which we see in this morning’s Gospel. It’s something of a shock to the system to see Our Lord condoning unjust or immoral behaviour. He has been charged with wasting his master’s possessions, so he goes to the people who are in debt to his master and writes the debts off. He shows a generosity and love which is reckless, which does not count the cost. At one level he does what he is accused of doing and is commended by his master. We’re expecting him to be condemned for acting like this, and yet he is praised. It reminds us that we are called to be generous, even to the point of being reckless, sitting lightly to the things of this world, and holding no store by wealth, or position, or influence, but instead giving it away, sharing it with others. If we cannot serve God and money, then as Christians we are to serve God. In this we can show that we are faithful in small things and hope to receive a place in the eternal dwellings.
This sort of behaviour looks completely mad in the eyes of the world, but we are not to conform ourselves to the ways of the world, but rather to those of the Kingdom of God. This is how we can transform the world around us, and conform it to God in Christ. It starts with our baptism; it continues with prayer, with reading Scripture and receiving Holy Communion, so that God’s grace may be poured out on us, to transform our human nature, so that His Kingdom may be a reality, so that the world may believe and be saved. So let us live out our faith, practising the same generosity which God poured out on us, shedding His Blood to take away our sins. Let us transform the world so that it may turn away from the ways of greed and selfishness and put its trust in the true riches of the Kingdom. If ‘no servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money’ (Lk 16:13) we have to choose between money and God. We cannot take it with us when we go, we cannot put pockets in our shrouds; money is no use once you’re dead, other than for buying you a fancier coffin or a grander funeral. Let us rather love God, and fashion our lives after the generosity which God shows to us, sparing not even His only Son, who died for our sake, so that we might live, and have eternal life in Him.
It is this generous God who comes to us today in Word and Sacrament, to heal us and restore us, to give us life in him. He entrusts to us the true riches of the Kingdom so that we may share them recklessly, generously with the world so that it 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.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles.
Fulton J Sheen The World’s First Love 1956: 88
It is a fair thing to say, and I am certainly not embarrassed to admit the fact, and hopefully she is not too embarrassed to hear it, but I love my Mum! I am lucky to be the son of such a lovely lady, and in an ideal world, all of us would like to or are able to say a similar thing. It is a relationship of love, of nurture, and support, which gives rise to human flourishing; it is a building block of human society, it is something fundamental, which should be both valued and celebrated.
As great as human motherhood is, in the Church we celebrate something even greater: the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, the world’s Redeemer, who entrusted her to the world, and the world to her care, as He hung on the Cross at Calvary. As such she is the mother of the Church, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and the Queen of Peace. Today the Church celebrates the birth of the one of the Saviour of the World was born. She is one special lady! We cannot praise or honour her enough for the simple reason that her saying Yes to God at the Annunciation undoes the No of Eve in the Garden of Eden. She is obedient, and likewise her husband, S. Joseph, when he hears the angel’s message, trusts and obeys. In them both we see true love and obedience, a model for humanity in how it relates to itself and to God.
Mary (and Joseph) listen and obey, which brings about the birth of Him who restores humanity’s relationship with God and ourselves, who gives us the hope of heaven, who gives Himself out of love, sharing our human nature so that we might share His divinity. That is why we have come here this morning, to he nourished by Him, and with Him, with His Word, with His Body and Blood, under the outward forms of bread and wine, so that through grace, the free gift of God, He might transform our nature so that we might share His nature.
It really is the most wonderful news – the good news of the Gospel, that God loves us, dies for us, and rises again, so that we and all who turn to Him can be saved, and have life in its fullness. It is not without its cost, as Our Lady found out, in the prophecy of Simeon a sword would pierce her own soul when she saw her Son dying on the Cross. Yet here too she is obedient, she has been told that he will save His people from their sins. Here too she trusts in God, and through her trust snd obedience we can enkoy the fruits of her Son’s saving work. This is something which we can and should celebrate: the fruits of her obedience and trust. It should encourage us to imitate her and be obedient to God, to trust Him, and fo what He tells us to do. She is the model Christian, living the model Christian life; she receives the reward promised by her Son in her Assumption, sharing His risen life and glory at His right hand in Heaven. She shows the world what it means to be obedient to God and to trust in Him, and what the rewards of God’s promises are.
It is not easy to be like her, to be obedient to the will of God: more often than not humans are more inclined to follow their own will, their own desires or pleasures, because they want to, and because such self-gratification is all that matters. In our modern capitalist consumer society we are taught want things and to get them, even if we have to borrow to get them. It is enticing, but where does all this self-gratification lead? Nowhere! Other than death and emptiness: you cannot simply buy your way into heaven. You can pay to have your body frozen, but it cannot save your soul: nothing we can say or think or do can. It’s that simple, and thanks to the obedience of the woman whose birth we celebrate today, we are given something which money cannot buy: the love of God poured into our hearts, restoring our lives and relationships, forgiving our sins, helping us to become the people God wants us to become, to prepare us to share the joy of paradise, in God’s presence for ever.
Such a wonderful free gift should have a serious effect upon our lives, who and what we are, and how we live our lives here and now. If we are willing to accept the free gift of God, we have to accept that it has consequences for who and what we are, and yet we know that the service of God is perfect freedom: we are not faced with tyranny or oppression but love and mercy. Do let us live, following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary and aided by her prayers, so that we may transform our lives and the whole world, so that it 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.
Such a wonderful free gift should have a serious effect upon our lives, who and what we are, and how we live our lives here and now. If we are willing to accept the free gift of God, we have to accept that it has consequences for who and what we are, and yet we know that the service of God is perfect freedom: we are not faced with tyranny or oppression but love and mercy. Do let us live, following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary and aided by her prayers, so that we may transform our lives and the whole world, so that it 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.
Homily for the 21st Sunday of Year C
To the bad conscience God appears always the God of wrath. The boy who broke the vase by throwing a ball at it says to his mother: ‘Now Mummy, don’t get mad.’ Anger is not in the mother; anger is in the boy’s projection to his mother of his own sense of justice. Anger is not in God; anger is in our disordered selves.
Fulton Sheen Preface to Religion, 1946: 50
The Cross of Calvary stands at the crossroads of three prosperous civilizations as eloquent testimony to the uncomfortable truth that the successful people, the social leaders, the people who are labelled niceare the ones most capable of crucifying the Divine Truth and the Eternal Love.
Fulton Sheen Peace of Soul, 1954: 69
Growing up is probably best described as not an easy or indeed a pleasant process. Learning right from wrong, what to do and how to do it, takes time and invariably involves mistakes. The problem comes not from making mistakes themselves but rather from not learning from them. Learning lessons requires humility – knowing that you do not know everything, that you have much to learn, that you are not the finished article but rather a work in progress. That through God’s grace working in you, you may become something greater, something better than you are.
This recognition of one’s limitations and failings opens up a space where God can be at work in our lives, transforming us to live the Divine life of Love. This is the narrow door of this morning’s gospel: narrow because if we have a sense of our own self-importance or our worth which is too big then we cannot enter – our sense of who and what we are gets in the way. It’s not enough to have eaten and drunk in God’s presence, to have been around when he taught in our streets – it’s a question of engagement – are you a bystander or have you been fed by God, with God, and through the grace of the sacrament lived out your faith in your life – living out the love of God in your life? Have you been around when the Gospel has been taught, or have you both listened to it and lived it out in your life?
It isn’t an easy thing to do – it is costly, difficult, and hard and it is something which we need to do together. That’s after all what the Church is for – it’s a collection of sinners trying to live in response to the love of God which has been poured out on us. It’s something which we have to do together – loving each other, loving our enemies, living out forgiveness as we have been forgiven and loved by God. It’s a radically different way of life to that which the world would encourage us to practice. It isn’t easy, it’s really difficult, and we willfail at it, but that’s the point! The point is not that we fail and that’s it, but that we keep trying, loving and forgiving, together, built up as the body of Christ, humble enough to let God be at work in us, transforming our nature by his Grace – making us the people of God, living out his love in the world.
We have come here this morning to be fed by Word and Sacrament, to be nourished by God, with God, to have false ideas of who and what we are stripped away, and recognising our dependence upon God and each other, to try and live out our faith – to grow in holiness together as the people of God, loved, healed, and restored by him – and through this to grow up into the full stature of Christ and to transform the world that it may reflect more fully the glory of God. The Gospel really is this radical, it’s not nice, or comfortable, it’s challenging and difficult, and utterly wonderful, releasing people from the slavery of this world and its false ideas to live in the freedom and love of God.
We have to look to Jesus and to His Cross to see God’s love for us. What is shameful in the eyes of the world, we can see as glorious – true love which gives regardless of the cost, which forgives sins, which heals and restores broken sinful humanity, which gives us the hope of heaven. This is grace the free gift of God, giving Himself who shared our humanity so that we might share His divinity, strengthened by Word and Sacrament to live out our faith.
The world cannot understand this, it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t logical, it shouldn’t happen. But it does, and it calls the world to something different, something radical and world-changing, which can re-form human society in the image of God and His Love. It will be hard: the world will laugh at us and our feeble attempts to follow God. Yet, we believe in a God who loves us, and who would never laugh at us, or belittle our feeble efforts to follow Him and conform ourselves to Him. So may the fire of God’s love be kindled in our hearts and lives, that we may be ablaze for Him, aflame with love for God and neighbour, love our enemies and our friends, and lets us change the world, not just this village, or this county, but all of God’s creation, all of humanity, that they may know God’s love and that it may rule in their hearts and lives.
God takes the initiative in Christ to help us to have life in its fullness – it’s not a life without rules, or discipline, it isn’t easy, it’s costly and difficult, but it is good and rewarding. It may not feel like that, we may struggle to experience its goodness or even its rewards in this life, but it prepares us for an eternity with God, in his closer presence. Humility is the key – in it we recognise our utter dependence upon God, our own sinfulness, our need to be loved and to share that love with others. God loves us not because we are loveable, but that through His love we might become lovely. So let us hasten to enter through the narrow gate, so that God may continue to transform our human nature, that his saving love and power may be at work in our hearts and our lives, so that we can transform ourselves and all the world so that it may 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.
A thought for the day
O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen
Admittedly it is the collect for Quinquagesima (The Sunday before Lent) but it’s something to live by all year round, if we’re honest!
Homily for the 20th Sunday of Year C
… it has been said that Christianity does not suit the modern man, therefore scrap Christianity. Now let us say, Christianity does not suit modern man, therefore let us scrap modern man
Fulton Sheen Philosophies at War, 1943: 98–99
We are more than used to seeing Christianity as a religion characterised by love: love of God and love of neighbour, which is quite right. It can be all too easy for this to be transformed into a religion of niceness, but at no point in the Sermon on the Mount does our Blessed Lord say ‘Blessed are the nice, for they will have a nice warm fuzzy feeling deep inside’. We are not called to like people but to love them. It is costly and difficult, and the religion of nice offers us syrupy sentiment in place of costly love. It plays down the cost and difficulty of living a Christian life, and offers us something superficial and worthless.
It is difficult when we read passages like this morning’s gospel. Our Lord comes not to give peace but division. Given the massive strides made in the last fifty years towards Christian unity and healing the wounds of our past and divisions, this can sound shocking or even wrong. And yet what Christ comes to bring will cause division because it forces people to make a choice – do we wish to follow the ways of the world or the Gospel? These two can never be reconciled – only in the City of God can we see the rule of love. Only by choosing Christ over the world can His love rule in our hearts and our lives. It is a difficult and a costly choice – we will face ridicule, we will be considered fools, who have chosen a hard and difficult path over the easy path of the ways of the world.
People have always rejected Christianity, ignored it, or treated it with contempt, because it is difficult and costly, it asks a lot of us, and what it offers can be easily mocked – when we proclaim it by our words and actions we have to expect to be treated like Jeremiah and thrown down a well, what we stand for is dangerous and awkward, a truth which the world does not wish to hear. It isn’t as though living the Christian life is easy – we will fail often, we will be like Jeremiah sinking in the mud – but the love and grace of God can lift us up, this can heal and restore us, and help us to continue our pilgrimage through this life and the next.
We are, as this morning’s epistle puts it, surrounded by ‘so great a cloud of witnesses’ martyrs, those who have borne witness to the faith, the saints whose life and prayers can strengthen and inspire us – they show us the path we should tread. We have to look to Jesus and to His Cross to see God’s love for us. What is shameful in the eyes of the world, we can see as glorious – true love which gives regardless of the cost, which forgives sins, which heals and restores broken sinful humanity, which gives us the hope of heaven. This is grace the free gift of God, giving Himself who shared our humanity so that we might share His divinity, strengthened by Word and Sacrament to live out our faith.
The world cannot understand this, it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t logical, it shouldn’t happen. But it does, and it calls the world to something different, something radical and world-changing, which can re-form human society in the image of God and His Love. It will be hard: the world will laugh at us and our feeble attempts to follow God. Yet, we believe in a God who loves us, and who would never laugh at us, or belittle our feeble efforts to follow Him and conform ourselves to Him. So may the fire of God’s love be kindled in our hearts and lives, that we may be ablaze for Him, aflame with love for God and neighbour, love our enemies and our friends, and lets us change the world, not just this village, or this county, but all of God’s creation, all of humanity, that they may know God’s love and that it may rule in their hearts and lives.
That is why we have come here, today, to be fed in word and sacrament, to be fed by God, to be fed with God, with His Body and Blood and His Word, so that it may nourish us and prepare us for heaven, so that it can transform our human nature and fill us with the Divine life of love and forgiveness, which we can start living out here and now and change all 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.
Trinity XI Evensong
To be worthy of the name Christian, then, means that we, too, must thirst for the spread of the Divine Love; and if we do not thirst, then we shall never be invited to sit down at the banquet of Life.
Fulton Sheen The Rainbow of Sorrow, 1938: 70
Living a Christian life can never be said to be easy, or without its surprises. To put it simply it makes demands of us: that we live out our faith in our lives, that we put what we believe into practice so that it affects the world around us. It is not easy, as Mother Mary Clare slg puts it:
You are dedicated to love and reconciliation. Your life is directed to that end, and you must learn to stand at the Cross. It is a long learning, a long road, but a sure road if it is up the hill to Calvary. It is a road on which you by being stripped of all self, may mediate to the world the dawning knowledge of the glory that descends.The essence of the good news of the Gospel is that we are new creatures. In the Transfiguration we see the meaning of the new creation in the light of the Holy Spirit, the perfection of man which cannot be held by death but goes through death to the victory of union with God. God draws us not merely into the dark cloud, but into the tremendous stillness of the height of Calvary and through Calvary to the dawn of the new day.
Thus we can see how divine glory is deeper and more profound than human glory, it aims not at glorifying itself but rather in sharing that glory with others, as a sign of the generous self-giving love which speaks of God’s nature. It is this love which comforts us in our affliction and strengthens us to endure patiently all that this world may throw at us.
Thus we can say with confidence the words of the prophet Isaiah from this evening’s first lesson: ‘“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ (Isa 12:2–3). Just like the vision of messianic peace with which Chapter 11 starts, where the wolf lies down with the lamb, here the prophet looks forward to the peaceful reign of the Kingdom of God. That hope is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, and we, his body, the Church are called to live this out in the world, for great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel. In the feast of the Transfiguration which the Church celebrated on Tuesday we see a glimpse of God’s glory and greatness, the hope to which we are called. It is a glory which is shown to the world most fully in His death on the Cross, which stands as a signal for the peoples, a contradiction which is the antithesis of human glory, which rises from the tomb at Easter – ‘on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again’ (2Cor 1:10) ‘for all the promises of God find their Yes in Him’ (2Cor 1:20).
This is the source of our confidence as Christians – the victory of Christ over death, sin, and the world. We cannot be shaken in this, it is complete and total. It is why we share the good news with others, why we live out our faith in our lives, as a sign of this victory and of the love of God which has been poured into our hearts. What the world sees as terrible cruelty, the slaughter of an innocent man as Christians we can see as the greatest and most pure expression of God’s love, the love which saves and redeems us and all humanity. It is recognising the fact that God loves us, and that his love can transform us, through His Grace, and give us the promise of heaven and sharing His Divine Life – that our human nature may be perfected through His Love. This is what Christ comes to bring, the reason why we celebrate the Incarnation where God takes our flesh to redeem it, the God who gives us His flesh so that we may have life in Him. This simple truth has shattered the world for nearly two thousand years, it has overpowered human empires, totalitarian regimes cannot expunge it, the modern world may turn its back on it, but it is the only lasting cure for spiritual hunger, this supernatural food, this pledge of immortality. This free gift which demands that we share it, and give our lives in His service; this is the greatest consolation for which we could ever ask or receive. So, fed by it, may its divine love transform our human nature, and may we share the gift with others that they may believe and transform the world that it may sing 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.
Sermon for Evensong (Trinity X)
‘Remorse is the negative presence of God in the soul, as grace is the positive presence of God. Remorse is incomplete, for it is self-disgust divorced from God; but remorse can become sorrow, and then hope, the moment the soul turns to God for help.’
Fulton Sheen Lift up your Heart 1942: 17
“Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’
But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
We all of us sin, a lot, in what we think or say or do, or indeed do not say or think or do. If we say that we have no sin then we deceive ourselves. The simple fact is that I am a miserable sinner; I am to be pitied for the wretched way in which I do or do not do things. I am no better or worse than any of you, we’re all the same in this, and yet somehow God has called me to serve him, and to say this to you, and he calls each one of us to live out our baptism in our lives.
Possibly the hardest thing to learn is the fact that God loves us: he heals us, and restores us. Most of us if the truth be told struggle with this world-shattering truth – God loves us. We don’t feel worthy of the love, that we are good enough to be loved in the first place, or that we can do anything back.
It is, I suspect, the work of a lifetime and beyond to try and come to terms with the fact that God loves us, that he gives himself for us, that he loves us so much that he opens his arms on the Cross to embrace the world with his healing love. This is what Grace is, the free gift of a generous God, who loves not because we ARE worthy of His love, but that through His love, we may BECOME worthy of it. His grace perfects our human nature, and because we are loved and forgiven, healed and restored in Christ, we can love and forgive others; we can share in Our Lord’s work of healing and reconciliation. God takes the initiative so that we do not have to, he does what we cannot so that our nature may be transformed by him, but first it needs to be accepted, so that it can transform us, and we can then transform others, and eventually transform the whole world.
This is exactly what the Church has been doing for the last two thousand years, saving it, one soul at a time, showing the world that God loves it, and helping it to experience that love as a reality in its life, the one true reality. It all started with a young girl in Nazareth hearing the words ‘Hail, full of grace the Lord is with you’ this is how much God loves us, a God who takes a risk, and uses ordinary unsurprising people to be extraordinary, to do extraordinary things and live extraordinary lives. It is strange and surprising, and it’s not what we would expect to happen, but that’s just how God works. He can take the raw material that in earthly terms is not terribly promising and do things with it. God uses us the people of God to serve him in the Church and the World, to make us saints who may enjoy his closer presence for all eternity.
God loves us, so that we can love each other and love Him, with a love that is costly and pure and generous, a love which forgives the sins of others just as we ourselves have been forgiven. This is the love that can change the world, by transforming our human nature, perfecting it by the Grace of God, rather than abolishing it, so that we can have life in all its fullness, so that we can be prepared for a life of beatitude in Heaven in the closer presence of God.
It is this radical revolutionary love which lies at the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ, it is from this gospel love that the Church’s concern for the world, and politics, and social action flows, for these are not an end in themselves, but a means of bringing about the Kingdom of God among us in all its fullness. We are called as Christians to participate in something radical, revolutionary, and world-changing, something which scared the Roman Empire, and which has outlived it; it is by no means perfect, or the finished article – that’s the point: the Church is a work in progress called to transform the world. It will fail, it’s made up of human beings like us; the Church has been failing ever since Peter denied Our Lord three times, and it will continue to do so, as it cannot rely upon itself and its own strength, but rather upon the God who loves us, who heals us and restores us. In his strength and his truth, we may live out our faith, our hope, and our love, and through His grace transform the world that it may sing 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.
Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday of Year C: A Sermon about Stuff
The poor in spirit are those who are so detached from wealth, from social position, and from earthly knowledge that, at the moment the Kingdom of God demands a sacrifice, they are prepared to surrender all.
Fulton J Sheen The Cross and the Beatitudes, 1937: 54
There is a profound difference in quality between the possessions that we need and use, and actually enjoy, and the accumulation of useless things that we accumulate out of vanity or greed or the desire to surpass others
Fulton J Sheen Way to Happiness, 1954: 45
The world around us tells us constantly that if you want to be happy, to be yourself fully and most really then what you need is more stuff: a new car, a mobile phone. It’s the latest model – it’s been improved, you can’t do without it! The world tells us this and we listen, we take it in and we do what it says. We all of us do this, I’ve done it myself. It says you can have what you want TODAY, we’ll even lend you the money for it and charge you an interest rate which is usurious and wrong. It will make you and your family happy, in a way that nothing else can.
Nothing could, in fact, be further from the truth. Salvation by stuff has never and will never work. It leaves us empty, craving more and more, never satisfied. Hence Our Lord’s teaching in this morning’s Gospel: ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ (Lk 12:15) Wanting more stuff is never a good idea; Our Lord tells us this and warns us against it, and we do not listen.
So He tells us a parable – there’s a man who’s got loads of stuff, he’s well-off in worldly terms, he has done well. All he’s interested in is keeping his stuff, building bigger barns into which to put stuff, so that he can sit back, and relax and take life easy.
Then he dies, quite suddenly, and learns that important lesson: you can’t take it with you when you go – you can’t put pockets in your shroud, and when you are dead then stuff doesn’t really help you. It may buy you a swankier funeral, a more expensive coffin, a more expensive hearse to transport your dead body, but basically you are dead, and even if you spend thousands of pounds having your head frozen in liquid nitrogen, you are still dead. Money and stuff can’t help you with that. It has never been able to, nor will it. So Our Lord encourages us to be rich towards God, and to turn away from the world and its vanity.
In St Paul’s letter to the Colossians, just after this morning’s second reading finishes we read this:
‘Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’ (Col 3:12–17)
This is the life which stores up treasure in heaven, when we have ‘Set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth’ (Col 3:2) This is what a Christian life really looks like, when lived out in the world. This is the sort of radically different life which can and does both change and transform the world: offering it a way that is different to the way of stuff. It is the way of love and forgiveness, of knowing that as Christians that we are loved and forgiven, no matter who we are or what we’ve done. That we can be a community which lives out this radical love and forgiveness in the world to offer it a new way of being, which turns the ways and values of the world on its head. It is that radical, that revolutionary, and that revolution has to start right here and today. We are listening to Our Lord speaking to us through His Scriptures; he calls us to live this life for our own good and the glory of the God who made us, the God who loves us, and the God who saves us: to be free from the tyranny of stuff and sin, and to live for him.
This then is what the Church is meant to look like, and be, and live out in the world, like a lamp set upon a lamp stand or a city upon a hill, shining, attractive, a light amidst the darkness of this world, a radical alternative, life in all its fullness. So let’s live it, together.
That is why we have come here, today, to be fed in word and sacrament, to be fed by God, to be fed with God, with His Body and Blood and His Word, so that it may nourish us and prepare us for heaven, so that it can transform our human nature and fill us with the Divine life of love and forgiveness, which we can start living out here and now and change all 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.
Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday of Year C
One of the penalties of being religious is to be mocked and ridiculed. If Our Lord submitted Himself to the ribald humour of a degenerate Tetrarch, we may be sure that we, His followers, will not escape. The more Divine a religion is, the more the world will ridicule you, for the spirit of the world is the enemy of Christ
Fulton Sheen, Characters of the Passion, 1946: 56
The people of Israel in this morning’s first reading have known much pain and desolation, exile, misery, the desecration and destruction of the Temple. Here they have a word of comfort, of healing, hope for the future. ‘As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you’ (66:13). It’s intimate, and comforting, in that it speaks of God who shows love and care for us, and who promises a future of peace. It reminds us that true peace and healing are the gift of God, and a sign of his love. It is a love shown in its fullness in the person and life of Jesus Christ; it is His suffering and death which bring us peace beyond our understanding.
In this morning’s Gospel we see something of the early spread of the Gospel, people are sent out by Jesus to prepare the way for Him, they are to be prophets, heralds, announcing the nearness of the Kingdom of God. They are sent out ‘as lambs in the midst of wolves’ it sounds risky and vulnerable, it’s not comfortable, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s the point: only then can we be like the Lamb of God, and proclaim his message of healing and reconciliation. If we’re concerned about the shortage of labourers in the Lord’s vineyard, then we need to pray, to ask God to provide, to trust and rely upon Him, and in His strength alone. Only then are we looking at things the right way: if we trust ourselves, our strength and abilities, we will fail. If we trust in God, all things are possible. It’s a hard lesson, and in two thousand years we haven’t managed to learn it.
The heralds of the kingdom travel light, unlike most of us: they are unencumbered by stuff, and reliant upon others to provide what they do not have. They are dependent upon the charity of others – they rely upon God and his people. They live out a faith which stresses our interconnectedness, our reliance upon those other than ourselves. It’s quite strange for us to hear, we’re used to being told that it’s all about me, what I am, what I can do, what I have. These are the values and ideas of the world; those of the kingdom are entirely different. The interesting thing is that the seventy two listen to what Jesus tells them, they obey Him, and when they return they have done what He asked them to do. Their obedience bears fruit amidst the disobedience of the world, of selfishness and sin. Here then is the pattern for ourlives, Christ calls usto follow in the footsteps of the seventy two, to fashion our lives after their example, so that we too might be heralds of the Kingdom. So that we can say with the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Galatians: ‘But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’ (Gal 6:14).
Such is the power of the Cross: this instrument of humiliation and torture displays God’s glory and saving love to the world. That is why we are here today to see the continuation of that sacrifice enacted in front of our very eyes, to eat Christ’s Body and drink His Blood, so that our human nature may be transformed by His Grace, fed by God, with God, strengthened to live out our faith in our lives, to walk in the light of this faith, as heralds of the Kingdom, proclaiming the Gospel of repentance, of healing and reconciliation, brought about by Christ on the Cross, so that the world may share in the new life of Easter, filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is not an easy task, or indeed a pleasant one, the world will mock us, as it mocked Him. It will tell us that we are irrelevant and turn its back on us, just us it ignored Him. Let us trust in Him, proclaiming His peace and mercy, so that the world may believe and be transformed 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.
A Thought for the Day from Pope Francis (Lumen Fidei 60)
Let us turn in prayer to Mary, Mother of the Church and Mother of our faith.
Mother, help our faith!
Open our ears to hear God’s word and to recognize his voice and call.
Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps, to go forth from our own land and to receive his promise.
Help us to be touched by his love, that we may touch him in faith.
Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and to believe in his love, especially at times of trial beneath the shadow of the cross, when our faith is called to mature.
Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One. Remind us that those who believe are never alone. Teach us to see all things with the eyes of Jesus, that he may be light for our path. And may this light of faith always increase in us, until the dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself, your Son, our Lord!
Homily for the 12th Sunday of Year C: Zech 12:10–11, Gal 3:26–29, LK 9:18–24
Christianity does not begin by reforming society; it begins by regenerating men.
Fulton Sheen Missions and the World Crisis(1963) 62
To be in the Church is surely the most wonderful of all things, it may not really feel like it, in fact it may well feel the complete opposite, but that may in fact be the point: the Church is not simply made up of people whom I like or whose company I keep, but rather of all the baptized. Through our baptism we enter the Church, we put on Christ, we share in his death and resurrection, we are regenerate: born again of water and the Holy Spirit to share new life in Him and to live out that new life and love in the World.
This is what Christ gives us freely, as a gift through his offering of himself upon the Cross. Thus, the prophet Zephaniah in this morning’s first reading can say that ‘I will pour out a spirit of grace and a plea for mercy when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced’ it anticipates the saving work of Christ, it is a prophesy which finds its fulfilment in Him. That is why a few verses later at the start of Chapter 13 he says ‘On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness’. Our baptism and the death of Christ on the Cross is that fountain which washes us from our sins and uncleanness, which heals and restores us to live Christ’s risen life.
This is why St Paul in his letter to the Galatians can extol the wonderful nature of baptism – we are all equal in our common baptism, there are no distinctions whatsoever between those who are saved in Christ, who have put on Christ. There is then an equality in baptism and salvation, which makes Christianity radically different, we are the new Israel, the body of Christ, and the community of the baptized is open to all those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ. In becoming his we are called to be like him and to share in both his joy and sufferings, so that we find our true identity and true meaning in our lives when we put on him.
It is not then for nothing that Our Lord asks ‘But who do you say that I am?’ It is a question which he asks his disciples and which he also asks each and every one of us, ‘Who do we say that he is?’ Some long-haired proto-hippie communist? A prophet? A misunderstood charismatic healer? Or God? The Creator and Sustainer of all, begotten of his Father before all worlds; con–substantial, co–eternal, and the only name under heaven or earth by which we may be saved, the gate, the sheep–fold, the Good Shepherd, Our Great High Priest and willing victim, pierced for our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities, to cleanse us and all humanity of its sin and uncleanness, to heal and restore us, so that we may share his risen life, and have eternal life in Him.
Our response to this has to be to take up our Cross and follow him – we have to be ready to be crucified, to suffer and die just like He did, and to live in a world which sees us and our faith as of no relevance or importance whatsoever, where we are to be pitied and blamed by ‘enlightened’ secularists and atheists who with a patronising sneer despise us and all for which we stand. Their attitude is not different from those Roman magistrates who condemned our forebears for refusing to worship a human being, the emperor, and saving that honour for God, and God alone.
As Christians we honour and worship the God who loves us, who gave himself for us, gladly and willingly, to heal and restore our human nature, so that we might be born again not of the flesh but by water and the Spirit, so that we and all the world might be transformed and have the fullness of life in him.
Since we are all one in Christ Jesus let us follow him, let us live lives where we carry our Cross each and every day and love him and serve him, in that knowledge that whatever happens there is nothing which can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Our lives may not be easy, but whatever we face good or ill we do so in the knowledge that we are loved by God, and that in living out our faith in Him in the world, His grace is at work in us, transforming us through the sacrament of his Body and Blood which we have come here to receive, to be strengthened for our journey of faith, proclaiming Christ’s truth and saving love to the world, and following him, by taking up our cross, and losing our lives for his sake, for what indeed would it profit someone to gain the whole world but lose his own soul? Power, wealth, possessions, position, honour, all the things of this world are empty and without meaning or worth compared with Christ.
Let us follow him, and deepen our trust and faith in Him, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and pray that his grace may be at work in us So that we may believe and be transformed, and share our faith with others that they too may believe and be transformed 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.
Sermon for Evensong Trinity III
“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” Our Lord asks this question to the disciples and he asks it to us – to challenge us to live out our faith amidst the storms of this life. This year the Third Sunday after Trinity also falls on the Feast of the Translation of St Richard of Chichester, Bishop and champion of the church against the state. I like many people came to know him through the words of his prayer, most of which was recited by him upon his deathbed: Thanks be to thee my Lord Jesus Christ for all the benefits Thou hast given me, For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.
Richard had a difficult and eventful life, trying to reform the life and practices of the clergy, and defending the church from interference by the state – some things it would seem in this country never change! In the face of a secular power who wished to tell the Church what to do, Richard said No. He was a man of great learning and sanctity, a great friend to the poor who lived out his charity in his life, but above all else he was a man of principle who resisted the encroachment of secular power into matters which belong to the Church. Oh that we had his like amongst our bishops nowadays! Someone to tell the lower House of Parliament to mind its own business and not meddle in matters which do not concern it, that the Church cannot be bullied into accepting the will of such a godless brood of vipers: corrupt, amoral, and enslaved to a godless ideology – seeking to conform the Church to the world and to make up a perversion of the Gospel after their own tastes. And may God have mercy on their souls.
The only way to resist is by being both polite and firm, but most of all by practising that charity which lies at the heart of the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – in our care for the poor and the downtrodden, in our living out of our faith. If we follow the example of St Richard, and refuse to compromise the Gospel and live out our faith we can truly said to be following Christ, who came to call the world to repentance, to turn away from selfishness and sin.
We cannot let the light of our faith be hidden under a bushel, it has to shine as a light to the world, dispelling the darkness of sin and sloth, or that polite indifference so inimical to the zeal of the gospel. Only through this can the Church grow to be like the mustard tree so that all may be safe in its embrace, freed from sin, and rejoicing in the new life of Christ. It’s not easy, but that’s the point, when was anything worthwhile easy to achieve? Let us remember that we have that greatest of treasures, the pearl of great price which is faith in Christ, so let us share it, unafraid of the storms of this world since we trust in Him, who has overcome this world, sin and death, for our sake. Let us trust him, and love him, and each other, so that the world may believe and give glory to 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.
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity: Luke 15:1-10
There are three different ways in which we may judge others: with our passions, our reason and our faith. Our passions induce us to love those who love us; our reason makes us love all people within certain limits; our faith makes us love everyone, including those who do us harm and are our enemies.
Fulton Sheen Way to Inner Peace (1955) 110.
You can tell a man by the company he keeps, or so the saying goes. The Scribes and the Pharisees certainly subscribe to this idea and in this morning’s Gospel are not afraid to express it. They are more than happy to be judgemental – to only be seen with the right sort of people, certainly not with sinners, outcasts, people who ‘aren’t like us’ It’s a good thing that God doesn’t treat humanity like it treats itself: as to put it simply the human judgement of others, to which each and every one of us falls prey from time to time, has no place in the Christian Faith at all. God in Christ seeks the lost, the outcast, the people outside the religious in-crowd, seeks them out and eats with them. How shocking! It offends our human sensibilities and breaks down human distinctions to show us the radical freedom of the Kingdom of God.
We are each and every one of us sinners, we are not worth of having God come to and eat with us, but that is exactly what happens day by day and week when Christ feeds us with himself, so that we may become what he is, so that we can be transformed by grace and share in the divine life. That is why we are here this morning to be fed by Him and with Him, to be healed and restored by Him, to share in His life. God takes the initiative, He goes to seek out the lost, He doesn’t wait for them to come to Him. The banquet of the Kingdom is one to which everyone is invited, if they turn away from sin, if they repent and believe the Good News of Jesus Christ.
God does the hard work, so that we have the simpler task of turning away from all that separates us from Him and each other. To do this takes humility – knowing our need of God, and his grace and mercy, knowing that without his help we are and can do nothing. Our response to His love is to love Him and our neighbour – to put our faith into practice in our lives. This is a cause of joy in heaven, whereas its opposite, the reaction of the Scribes and Pharisees is to moan and begrudge, to criticise. It is a response of misery and bitterness, a smallness of mind and heart. Such feelings should have no place in the Church.
Christ is the Good Shepherd, who goes after the lost sheep to carry them back on his shoulders – likewise the Church is meant to be there for those outside it, to welcome them back inside the fold rejoicing. Our faith then should be the cause of our joy, a deep happiness that comes from being known and loved by Our Heavenly Father, who sent His Son to die for us, so that we might live.
With our joy there comes freedom, a freedom from being constrained by the ways of the world, from conforming to its ways, a freedom to welcome them to Banquet of the Kingdom, where the clothes that matter are those of baptism a sign of humility, where God gives himself to feed us to transform our human nature, to prepare us for eternal glory. So let us cast our cares on him so that his grace may be at work in us So that we may believe and be transformed, and share our faith with others that they too may believe and be transformed and give glory to 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.
Pentecost (Yr C)
About fifty days ago around the time that the Jews celebrate the Passover from slavery in Egypt to freedom, we celebrate Easter – Our Saviour Jesus Christ’s rising from the dead. Now as they celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. The disciples have witnessed the Resurrection, they have seen Our Lord ascend into Heaven, and now He sends His Spirit on them, so that they may be filled with it, strengthened by it, strengthened to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and the Salvation of mankind.
It is easy to marvel at the thought of the apostles speaking in more languages than the Eurovision Song Contest, but it also marks the transition of the Apostles from men who were afraid, who hid in the Upper Room, to those who spread the Gospel. We do not however simply celebrate the events of the past, but rather the reality of the present. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church, which we receive in the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Order – a gift to strengthen and empower God’s people, the New Israel, the Spirit of life, which raised Jesus from the dead, which gives life to his Church.
In this morning’s Gospel Jesus says to his disciples, which includes you and me by the way, ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments’. We will love God and our neighbour and live lives like Jesus. It sounds simple, but in practice it isn’t. We need to love Jesus and keep his word so He and the Father will make their home with us. In St Paul’s Letter to the Romans we see what life in the Spirit is like. It is a turning away from the ways of the world and the flesh – not despising it, since Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came in the flesh in the Incarnation, it was in the flesh that Our Lord ascended into heaven taking our flesh into the life of the Godhead, so that where he has gone we may also go. We are to sit lightly to the world and its ways, and through submitting to God to find perfect freedom in him. In the service of the Triune God we can be truly free, free to live for him and to proclaim his truth to the world. If we love God this is what we are called to be, how we are called to live. Only in the Spirit can we enter fully into the divine life of love, and live out this love in the world. In the power of this love we can begin to understand the mystery of Our Lord’s Incarnation, his life, death, and resurrection, and we can let these mysteries shape our lives as Christians.
God will make his home with us in his word – Holy Scripture and the sacraments of his Church – outward signs of the inward grace which he lavishes on us in the power of his Spirit. That is why we are here today – to be fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, to see the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary, to stand by the Cross so that we may be washed in the blood and water which flows from his side. In this we see God’s love for us, and we are strengthened to live the life of the Spirit – we can remain close to the God who loves us and saves us. We can be taught by his Spirit to remain in the faith which comes to us from the Apostles who first received the Spirit on this day. Let us live strengthened by Spirit, nourished by word and sacrament, in holiness and joy, proclaiming the truth and love of God, so that the world may believe and give glory to 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.
Novus Motus Oxoniensis 