One of the most effective ways we have of keeping God at a distance and not allowing him into the centre of our lives where he might do something radical and new, is to tell ourselves that the people we read about in the Scriptures are different from us and so what happened to them could not possibly happen to us. But this is not true. Just as Abraham was called to leave the place he was in and go to another place that God would show him, so each one of us is called to make that same journey of faith in our own lives. And just as Isaiah or Jeremiah were called to interpret the times they lived through and proclaim God’s truth to a people unwilling to hear it, so we are called to interpret these times and proclaim God’s truth to the people who share them with us. And the oldest question known to humanity, why bad things happen to good people, a problem explored in the Book of Job, is one we all struggle with at various times in our lives.
But what is harder to understand is that this is also true of the things that happened to Jesus. At Christmas, we celebrated the fact that, in Jesus, God becomes one of us and shares our human experience to the full. What happens to him happens to us too, and this includes the experience described by St Matthew in today’s Gospel. Every single one of us has ‘seen’ – in inverted commas – the Spirit of God descend on us, and we have all ‘heard’ – again in inverted commas – a voice from heaven say ‘This is my son or daughter, the beloved; my favour rests on her/him. God, as Peter realised in the Second Reading, has no favourites. He does not do for one what he does not do for another, and if you tell me today that you have never had the kind of experience Jesus had that day in the Jordan, then I can promise you that you have. It’s just that you have forgotten it. And so my prayer today is that, with God’s help, you will remember it again.
My own outstanding experience of this kind happened in the spring of 1957 when I was only eleven years of age. And it might be helpful to know that there is evidence that many, if not most of us, have our most powerful experiences of God when we are young. Teenagers, contrary to what we might think, are extremely open to such experiences, even if they rarely happen in an overtly religious context. Mine happened, in fact, as I walked in the back door of our house in Muirkirk after several hours of playing football on a piece of waste ground across the road. It had got too dark to play and I remember so vividly the bright yellow light as I walked in to find my mother standing at the cooker making chips. And as I walked past her into the living room, she spoke the fourteen most important words of my whole life. ‘Father Conway was here’ – she said -he was the parish priest at the time - ‘to see if you do want to go to Blairs.’ Blairs was the national minor seminary just outside Aberdeen and the reason for the question was that, ever since we had started school, three of us in our class, Michael O’Brien, younger brother of Mary, Canon Matthew’s housekeeper, Andrew Moreland and myself had said we wanted to be priests. And as I walked past my mother, while I had one foot in the kitchen and the other in the living room, I had the single most powerful experience of God in my whole life. It lasted less than a second, but in that short time I knew with absolute certainty that the answer to Kevin Conway’s question was yes. And so began a long and sometimes difficult journey which has brought me here to West Kilbride. That fraction of a second in 1957, my Jordan experience, has shaped my whole life and, no matter what has happened over the years I have always known that I had to be faithful to it.
And this, of course, is the key to the whole thing. As I said earlier, God has touched us all in some way in the course of our lives. The experiences we have had will be very different from each other. No two will be the same, so there is no point in comparing them. But at some point in all our lives we have all been touched by God in a way that moved us deeply. It may have been the day you were married, the day a child was born, the day someone close to you died; but it could equally well have happened in Tesco’s, at the pictures or as you crossed the road. But what matters is that we remember these moments, trust them and live our lives out of them. The danger is that we forget them and live our lives as if they had never happened.
And we can see the importance of remembering such moments in the life of Jesus himself. What happened at the Jordan was something he would have had to hang on to during the darkest moments of his passion, especially at that most human of moments when, hanging on the cross, he felt abandoned by God. Sometimes in our lives we can feel that way too, and when this happens it is so important that we remember the times of consolation and trust them. If God touched us once and that touch was real, then that same God continues to be real even if every bone in our body and every thought we have tells us the opposite.
And we see the same in Mary. Her great experience of being touched by God was the Annunciation when the Angel told her that she was to be the mother of the Messiah. But then, St Luke tells us, the Angel left her. The experience was over and for the next thirty years of nappy changing, cooking, cleaning and drudgery, right to the foot of the cross, Mary had to remain faithful to that brief moment. And how difficult it must have been at times! But she did it. She kept on trusting. She kept believing that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled and by doing so came to the fullness of the kingdom.
And it’s the same for us all. God has touched each of our lives deeply. Maybe you have forgotten. But if you have, ask the Spirit today to take you back, to remind you, and give you the grace you need to live out of that experience now.
BIDDING PRAYERS
It is not only possible, but very common, for people to have quite deep and powerful spiritual experiences of God only to forget them within a few days, sometimes even a few hours. And so we ask the Spirit of God to move deeply among us this weekend, stirring our memories as only God can, so that we can bring back to mind moments, possibly from many years ago, when we have known and felt the presence of God in our lives, so that we can draw strength and encouragement from them again now..............Lord hear us
Not everything that sounds like God, quotes the Bible or uses pious, holy language is from God. Satan himself, in the story of the temptations in the wilderness, quotes the Scriptures at Jesus. Nor is every apparently good thought we have of God and we should be very wary of gods who agree with us all the time. They are mere projections of ourselves. And so we ask God to pour into our lives the gift of discernment by which we begin to recognize in our lives what is of God and what is not............Lord hear us
One sometimes surprising sign of God moving in us is that after we have experienced his presence, we begin to doubt it and wonder if we made it up or if it ever really happened. God has given us the gift of freedom and remains deeply respectful of it. He never forces himself on us and so, no matter how profound the experience may be, he leaves us free to believe or not believe, accept the experience or not accept it. And so we pray for the grace to see how this has been happening to us all our lives............Lord hear us
The story of Cornelius in the Second Reading this weekend marks a very important moment in the history of the early Church. Peter, through a revelation from God, has come to understand that God does not have favourites and that people from every part of the world are acceptable to him. The gospel message is for every human being. There are no more barriers between peoples. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so we pray that the world will finally hear this message and understand it...........Lord hear us
The first reading from the unknown prophet of the Exile in Babylon speaks of one who does not cry out or shout aloud or make his voice heard in the street. He does not break the crushed reed nor quench the wavering flame, but faithfully brings true justice. And so we pray for the Church at this time, that it will be both a sign of God’s deep compassionate love for humanity in all its weakness and at the same time a voice speaking up for victims of injustice everywhere..........Lord hear us
This weekend, a great opportunity is on offer to the families of our parish. Through a programme called Living Faith in Family life, which we will hear more about at the end of Mass, parents and children are being invited to reflect on ordinary daily experience of life as the place where we meet God. This is a new course and we are the first parish to experience it. And so we ask God to bless it and stir in us a desire and a willingness to be involved for the sake of the parents and children in our midst.......Lord hear us
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Friday, 31 December 2010
THE EPIPHANY
On 30th September last year, 2010, Pope Benedict published a document entitled, in Latin, Verbum Domini, the Word of the Lord. It’s the latest in a long line of documents in the last sixty to seventy years which call on Catholics throughout the world to put the The Word of God back where it should always have been, at the centre of our lives. But the bible is a complex series of books and there are a variety of different approaches to it. We need to study it and learn to undertand it, not least because the failure to do so, hanging on to often infantile ways of thinking about it, which we reflected on in relation to the Christmas, make it very difficult for people in a modern scientific world to take it seriously. But as well as studying the bible, we need to do something even more important with it. We need to pray it, and one of the ways we can do this is by entering imaginatively into its stories. Imagination is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. We use it when we read a novel or watch a film and without it, without the capacity to imagine new things and new ways of doing things, humanity would still be living in the stone age. These stories, as we also said at Christmas, are like bottles with a message inside them floating through history, just waiting for us to pick them up and enter prayerfully into them. And so I invite you to join me in an imaginitve journey through the story of the Magi.
And as we begin, the first thing which strikes me is to wonder how many people other than those who finally got there had the same initial urge to follow the star Westwards in search of the infant King of the Jews and what happened to them. We know from sometimes painful personal experience that not every thought or inclination leads to action. Many good ideas come to nothing and, in my imagination, this must have happened to many in the place the Magi came from. Like the seed that fell among thorns, they would have been so caught up in the cares of life that what began as a good idea remained no more than that and came to nothing; an invitation to reflect on how often this has happened in our own lives.
But for those who did begin the great journey in search of Jesus, many problems lay ahead. The journey to Bethlehem was a long one and would take them through many different lands. In my imagination many of those who set off would never have been abroad before and so, just a few days into the journey, would have taken cold feet and returned home. Unable to cope with new, unfamiliar experiences, they scurried back to where they were comfortable, seeking refuge in what they had always known and reminding us of the times when we have started journeys or projects only to give up on them when the going got a little bit tough.
But for those who resisted the temptation to turn back, the frontier of a very difficult land to pass through soon loomed ahead, the land of confusion and uncertainty. To leave one place and go to another where Jesus is, involves more than an outward physical journey. Even more difficult than that journey, the journey from one place to another, was the inner journey each person had to make, the journey from one way of thinking to another which inevitably involves a period in the middle when nothing seems certain and everything seems in doubt. And at the centre of this land lies a great crossroads which no one passing through it can avoid. To the left, the signpost tells the traveller, lies certainty, something very attractive to the confused traveller, but in reality this is no certainty at all. It is only apparent certainty in the form of simple answers to complex questions and the name of the town which lies along this road is religious fundamentalism. And many today seek refuge in it. But Jesus is not to be found there. And to the right lies another town which offers some respite to the weary traveller. Its a kind of biblical Benidorm offering all kinds of attractions to distract the traveller and take his mind off the challenges of the journey. And so many who wanted to meet Jesus but didn’t want it enough settle down there and go no further. But for those who are brave enough and committed enough, the road ahead point towards Bethlehem and along this road go the Magi.
But before they reach the place where the child lay, the biggest challenge of all still lies ahead. In search of the infant King of the Jews, they, naturally, expect to find him in a palace. And so they visit Herod. But the one they have come so far to see is not there. They have been seeking him without realising who it is they seek. Unknown to them, the child they are looking for is infinitely more than they could ever have imagined. He is God made man and living among us. He is Son of God and son of Mary. He is something totally new in history with the result that all the expectations and all the pre-conceived ideas the Magi have brought with them from the East – up to now the place where people have gone in search of wisdom -have to be left outside at the entrance to the stable. What lies inside this stable is not power but powerlessness; not riches but poverty: not human wisdom but divine foolishness. The Magi brought their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh expecting to offer them to the new infant King, only to discover that, far from being the bearers of gifts, they are, in fact, the receivers of the greatest gift history has ever seen: God’s gift of himself. And so, as Matthew tells us, they went home by a different route, their whole lives transformed by the experience of meeting Jesus.
At this point, of course, you might imagine that they would take home with them the story of what had happened to them and who it was the star had led them to. But in my version of the story this is not what happened. There are some things which cannot be shared. We have to discover them and experience them for ourselves. And so when the Magi arrived home, no one even noticed them. By then the memory of the great journey so many had begun had faded. Life had moved on and, just like today, very few people would have known what they had missed out on. ....
So do you know?
BIDDING PRAYERS
On this Day of Prayer for Peace we begin by holding up before God the whole of humanity, torn apart, as it still is, by conflict and division. The journey through history in search of the peace we long for is slow and painful. Bogged down in ancient prejudices and century-old disputes, the world repeats over and over again the mistakes of history and so remains trapped in its past. And so we ask God today to lead us out of this trap into a new way of relating to each other.........Lord hear us
The peace we speak of is a peace the world cannot give. It is a peace only God can give. It is not the result of diplomacy and can never come about through warfare, no matter how many times we delude ourselves into thinking it can. It’s only possible when, through grace, the hearts of men and women throughout the world are changed and we begin to think as God thinks and love as God loves. And so we ask God to bring about this transformation through his Spirit at work in history.........Lord hear us
The Church, like the Magi, is itself involved in a great journey, this time through history. Many times over the centuries, however, it has wandered from the path and become bogged down in one mess after another of its own making. The great sign of this in today’s world is the tragic state of division which exists between the followers of Jesus, and, on this day of Prayer for Peace, we ask God to heal these divisions as a sign to humanity of an even deeper healing among nations............Lord hear us
Our own parish, too, is on a journey. Rooted in the teaching of Jesus and in the tradition of the Catholic Church – especially the documents of the Second Vatican Council – we are moving slowly but surely from religion to faith, from being a people who have heard of God to a people who know God intimately. And so we thank God for the progress we have already made on this great journey and ask him for the courage and faith we need to persevere in it to the end.............Lord hear us
But in the end, it is each one of us who is on this journey. Each one of us is called, like the Magi, to follow the star wherever it takes us. But no two people follow exactly the same path. We journey within the context of the Christian community to which we belong, but, since God has a unique dream for each one of us, we must have the courage to discern our own individual vocation and follow it. And so we pray for the courage and maturity we need to do this, no matter the consequences..........Lord hear us
When St Matthew wrote the story of the Magi – and it is unique to his Gospel – he saw them as a sign, right at the beginning of Jesus’ life, of his mission to all nations. In Jesus there are no longer any divisions between one nation and another. In him all men and women are equal and every person on the face of the earth is our brother or sister. And so we ask God to free us from every trace of racism or xenophobia and fill us with a desire to reach out to every person on the face of the earth.........Lord hear us
And as we begin, the first thing which strikes me is to wonder how many people other than those who finally got there had the same initial urge to follow the star Westwards in search of the infant King of the Jews and what happened to them. We know from sometimes painful personal experience that not every thought or inclination leads to action. Many good ideas come to nothing and, in my imagination, this must have happened to many in the place the Magi came from. Like the seed that fell among thorns, they would have been so caught up in the cares of life that what began as a good idea remained no more than that and came to nothing; an invitation to reflect on how often this has happened in our own lives.
But for those who did begin the great journey in search of Jesus, many problems lay ahead. The journey to Bethlehem was a long one and would take them through many different lands. In my imagination many of those who set off would never have been abroad before and so, just a few days into the journey, would have taken cold feet and returned home. Unable to cope with new, unfamiliar experiences, they scurried back to where they were comfortable, seeking refuge in what they had always known and reminding us of the times when we have started journeys or projects only to give up on them when the going got a little bit tough.
But for those who resisted the temptation to turn back, the frontier of a very difficult land to pass through soon loomed ahead, the land of confusion and uncertainty. To leave one place and go to another where Jesus is, involves more than an outward physical journey. Even more difficult than that journey, the journey from one place to another, was the inner journey each person had to make, the journey from one way of thinking to another which inevitably involves a period in the middle when nothing seems certain and everything seems in doubt. And at the centre of this land lies a great crossroads which no one passing through it can avoid. To the left, the signpost tells the traveller, lies certainty, something very attractive to the confused traveller, but in reality this is no certainty at all. It is only apparent certainty in the form of simple answers to complex questions and the name of the town which lies along this road is religious fundamentalism. And many today seek refuge in it. But Jesus is not to be found there. And to the right lies another town which offers some respite to the weary traveller. Its a kind of biblical Benidorm offering all kinds of attractions to distract the traveller and take his mind off the challenges of the journey. And so many who wanted to meet Jesus but didn’t want it enough settle down there and go no further. But for those who are brave enough and committed enough, the road ahead point towards Bethlehem and along this road go the Magi.
But before they reach the place where the child lay, the biggest challenge of all still lies ahead. In search of the infant King of the Jews, they, naturally, expect to find him in a palace. And so they visit Herod. But the one they have come so far to see is not there. They have been seeking him without realising who it is they seek. Unknown to them, the child they are looking for is infinitely more than they could ever have imagined. He is God made man and living among us. He is Son of God and son of Mary. He is something totally new in history with the result that all the expectations and all the pre-conceived ideas the Magi have brought with them from the East – up to now the place where people have gone in search of wisdom -have to be left outside at the entrance to the stable. What lies inside this stable is not power but powerlessness; not riches but poverty: not human wisdom but divine foolishness. The Magi brought their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh expecting to offer them to the new infant King, only to discover that, far from being the bearers of gifts, they are, in fact, the receivers of the greatest gift history has ever seen: God’s gift of himself. And so, as Matthew tells us, they went home by a different route, their whole lives transformed by the experience of meeting Jesus.
At this point, of course, you might imagine that they would take home with them the story of what had happened to them and who it was the star had led them to. But in my version of the story this is not what happened. There are some things which cannot be shared. We have to discover them and experience them for ourselves. And so when the Magi arrived home, no one even noticed them. By then the memory of the great journey so many had begun had faded. Life had moved on and, just like today, very few people would have known what they had missed out on. ....
So do you know?
BIDDING PRAYERS
On this Day of Prayer for Peace we begin by holding up before God the whole of humanity, torn apart, as it still is, by conflict and division. The journey through history in search of the peace we long for is slow and painful. Bogged down in ancient prejudices and century-old disputes, the world repeats over and over again the mistakes of history and so remains trapped in its past. And so we ask God today to lead us out of this trap into a new way of relating to each other.........Lord hear us
The peace we speak of is a peace the world cannot give. It is a peace only God can give. It is not the result of diplomacy and can never come about through warfare, no matter how many times we delude ourselves into thinking it can. It’s only possible when, through grace, the hearts of men and women throughout the world are changed and we begin to think as God thinks and love as God loves. And so we ask God to bring about this transformation through his Spirit at work in history.........Lord hear us
The Church, like the Magi, is itself involved in a great journey, this time through history. Many times over the centuries, however, it has wandered from the path and become bogged down in one mess after another of its own making. The great sign of this in today’s world is the tragic state of division which exists between the followers of Jesus, and, on this day of Prayer for Peace, we ask God to heal these divisions as a sign to humanity of an even deeper healing among nations............Lord hear us
Our own parish, too, is on a journey. Rooted in the teaching of Jesus and in the tradition of the Catholic Church – especially the documents of the Second Vatican Council – we are moving slowly but surely from religion to faith, from being a people who have heard of God to a people who know God intimately. And so we thank God for the progress we have already made on this great journey and ask him for the courage and faith we need to persevere in it to the end.............Lord hear us
But in the end, it is each one of us who is on this journey. Each one of us is called, like the Magi, to follow the star wherever it takes us. But no two people follow exactly the same path. We journey within the context of the Christian community to which we belong, but, since God has a unique dream for each one of us, we must have the courage to discern our own individual vocation and follow it. And so we pray for the courage and maturity we need to do this, no matter the consequences..........Lord hear us
When St Matthew wrote the story of the Magi – and it is unique to his Gospel – he saw them as a sign, right at the beginning of Jesus’ life, of his mission to all nations. In Jesus there are no longer any divisions between one nation and another. In him all men and women are equal and every person on the face of the earth is our brother or sister. And so we ask God to free us from every trace of racism or xenophobia and fill us with a desire to reach out to every person on the face of the earth.........Lord hear us
Saturday, 18 December 2010
FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT
It’s easy to understand the dilemma Joseph faces in today’s Gospel. He’s betrothed to Mary, but before they come to live together he discovers she’s expecting. So what’s he to do? Joseph, Matthew tells us, was a man of honour, a technical term in those days for someone who observed every detail of the law. And so Joseph’s first instinct would have been to turn to the OT. And there, in chapter twenty two of the Book of Deuteronomy, he would have found the guidance he was looking for. The relevant section begins by pointing out the obvious; that there are two ways in which Mary could have become pregnant. Either she has consented to have sex with another man, in which case she is guilty of adultery; or she has been forced to have sex against her will, and so is innocent. And to establish which of the two is the case, Joseph, according to the Law, was entitled to call for a trial. Joseph, however, chooses not to go down that road but to divorce Mary informally, in other words, without a trial. In this way, he will spare her publicity, another technical term which meant she would not be ‘exposed to public disgrace’ or ‘made a public spectacle of.’ In the end, of course, Joseph does not go down this road either. This upright man who, up to now, has lived his whole life according to the law, rejects the old religious solution and takes Mary home to be his wife. So why did he do this?
Well, the answer to that question takes us to what we have been reflecting on since Advent began. Essentially, the choice facing Joseph was between trusting what came from outside of himself, the law, or what came from inside himself; what, for weeks, we have been calling a deep interior knowledge which comes, not from external evidence but from the Spirit of God moving in us. And this is clearly happening in the story. The text talks about dreams and angels, but there’s no need for us to take those words literally. What else are they but attempts to describe something much more ordinary and much more profound, namely the deep, gentle but persistent movement of God in each one of us. The religious law which had governed the people’s life for centuries was pointing him in one direction, but Joseph chooses instead to trust the truth we see emerging from deep inside himself. And in this simple but profound moment, a moment intimately linked to the equivalent moment in Mary’s life, which is the Annunciation, husband and wife become one in their openness to God. And in this way God enters our world and becomes part of human history. Joseph trusts the movement of the Spirit. Mary trusts it too. Each of them in their own way says, ‘Let it be done unto me according to your will,’ and as these two acts of human freedom come together, the New Testament begins. And it is a moment which tells us everything we need to know about what it is to be a Christian today.
As the 21st century begins, you see, we, too, are being called by God to give birth to Jesus in the world of our own day. But just as neither religion nor the law were enough to bring Jesus to birth 2000 years ago, so they are not enough today. They were inadequate then and they are inadequate now. For Jesus to be born in the world of the 21st Century, millions of us who call ourselves Christians have to make the journey Joseph made in this week’s Gospel. It is simply not enough to keep rules and perform religious actions. It’s not enough to come to Mass each week and go away untouched by what we have done. Something profoundly new has to happen in us. It is not enough to have heard about God or believe in his existence. What we are called to is a personal relationship with the God who lives and moves in us too, and only if we allow this relationship to develop and grow; only if we learn to listen to the God whose Spirit speaks deep within us – as Joseph and Mary did - will it be possible for Jesus to born in us again today.
But there’s a problem. And it’s this. Deep within the Catholicism many of us have grown up with, there is a deep resistance to the very idea of such a relationship. Brought up to think that being a Catholic is about going to Mass and the sacraments and observing a series of rules, many, because they have no experience of personal faith and cannot imagine what it would be like, actually fear it and think it is taking the whole business of God far too seriously. And so thousands in our parishes live shallow, religious lives, ignorant of the intimacy God offers. But things will not always be like that. God is doing a new thing today and I would like to give you an example of it.
A friend of mine who teaches RE to a fourth year class in St Matthew’s Academy showed them recently the second episode of the programme called the Big Silence which some of you have seen. It follows five people, none of whom were Church-goers, as they make an eight day silent retreat in St Beuno’s, a Jesuit spirituality centre in North Wales where I did the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius myself as a thirty day silent retreat over twenty years ago and where I have directed many retreats since. Dealing with the silence was a huge struggle for all five of them, but by the end of the retreat they had come through that struggle and arrived at a deep spiritual place they had never been to before. Each in his or her own way had met God in the silence and it had changed their lives. And when the programme had finished, my friend asked the class how many of them would like to have that kind of relationship with God. And to his utter amazement, every single person in the class put up their hand.
And yet this should not really surprise us. Many young people today have rejected traditional religion. But that will not be the end of the story. Created to share the life of God the desire for God will surface in them again in new ways and our job is to be the kind of Church which will have something deeper than mere religion to offer them when it does. My friend’s story is a glimpse of the future. The question is; do we want to be part of it or are we too scared of what it might involve?
BIDDING PRAYERS
Joseph, in today’s Gospel, is a model of how to listen to the movement of God deep within himself. Three times in St Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus he decides on one course of action and ends up doing the opposite when asked to do so by God. It is not only Mary who is open to God’s will in her life. Joseph, too, has his Annunciation experience and, like Mary, is willing to go where God leads. And so we pray for the grace we need to be more like them both in the way we respond to God in our lives…...Lord hear us
So long as we take literally things like angels appearing to people in dreams, it is easy to tell ourselves that such things only happen to other people. And so we pray for the courage we need to develop more accurate and more mature ways of reading the Scriptures which enable us to see that the whole of both the Old and New Testaments is actually about ourselves. What God has done in the past he continues to do today and we pray for the wisdom and insight we need to recognize this......Lord hear us
Led to believe that being a Catholic was about going to Mass, receiving the Sacraments and keeping the laws of the Church, the idea that we are called to a deep, personal and intimate relationship with God is difficult for many to come to terms with. To some traditional Catholics it sounds ‘protestant’ or ‘evangelical,’ not at all the kind of thing Catholics do. But while there are historical reasons why this has happened, it is a deeply mistaken notion and we pray for the grace to leave it behin........Lord hear us
The Church itself has a long history of resisting the movement of God. Time and again over the centuries it has wandered away from the Gospel and embraced the values of the secular world. And so, in every age, the Spirit has called her to renewal, a call which has always been resisted and continues to be resisted in our own day. And so we pray for the grace we need to read the signs of the times and accept the many challenges of the Gospel at this moment in history without fear or anxiety................Lord hear us
Many today worry about the faith of the young. Born into a deeply secular society very different from the one many of us who are older were born into, the Church as we knew it means nothing to them. But God continues to work in their lives. The very shallowness and emptiness of our consumer-driven society can itself, in time, become the place where a desire for something deeper begins to stir, and we pray that when that happens our parishes will be places ready and able to respond to their needs.......Lord hear us
Being pregnant put Mary in a very vulnerable position. A male-dominated world with double standards in this area has always been very severe on women who find themselves pregnant and alone. And so we pray for single mothers today, especially those who are used as scapegoats for the sexual sins of men. And we pray in a particular way for women who, in the not too distance past, were judged and condemned within our Catholic parishes and who still carry the pain of that experience.........Lord hear us
Well, the answer to that question takes us to what we have been reflecting on since Advent began. Essentially, the choice facing Joseph was between trusting what came from outside of himself, the law, or what came from inside himself; what, for weeks, we have been calling a deep interior knowledge which comes, not from external evidence but from the Spirit of God moving in us. And this is clearly happening in the story. The text talks about dreams and angels, but there’s no need for us to take those words literally. What else are they but attempts to describe something much more ordinary and much more profound, namely the deep, gentle but persistent movement of God in each one of us. The religious law which had governed the people’s life for centuries was pointing him in one direction, but Joseph chooses instead to trust the truth we see emerging from deep inside himself. And in this simple but profound moment, a moment intimately linked to the equivalent moment in Mary’s life, which is the Annunciation, husband and wife become one in their openness to God. And in this way God enters our world and becomes part of human history. Joseph trusts the movement of the Spirit. Mary trusts it too. Each of them in their own way says, ‘Let it be done unto me according to your will,’ and as these two acts of human freedom come together, the New Testament begins. And it is a moment which tells us everything we need to know about what it is to be a Christian today.
As the 21st century begins, you see, we, too, are being called by God to give birth to Jesus in the world of our own day. But just as neither religion nor the law were enough to bring Jesus to birth 2000 years ago, so they are not enough today. They were inadequate then and they are inadequate now. For Jesus to be born in the world of the 21st Century, millions of us who call ourselves Christians have to make the journey Joseph made in this week’s Gospel. It is simply not enough to keep rules and perform religious actions. It’s not enough to come to Mass each week and go away untouched by what we have done. Something profoundly new has to happen in us. It is not enough to have heard about God or believe in his existence. What we are called to is a personal relationship with the God who lives and moves in us too, and only if we allow this relationship to develop and grow; only if we learn to listen to the God whose Spirit speaks deep within us – as Joseph and Mary did - will it be possible for Jesus to born in us again today.
But there’s a problem. And it’s this. Deep within the Catholicism many of us have grown up with, there is a deep resistance to the very idea of such a relationship. Brought up to think that being a Catholic is about going to Mass and the sacraments and observing a series of rules, many, because they have no experience of personal faith and cannot imagine what it would be like, actually fear it and think it is taking the whole business of God far too seriously. And so thousands in our parishes live shallow, religious lives, ignorant of the intimacy God offers. But things will not always be like that. God is doing a new thing today and I would like to give you an example of it.
A friend of mine who teaches RE to a fourth year class in St Matthew’s Academy showed them recently the second episode of the programme called the Big Silence which some of you have seen. It follows five people, none of whom were Church-goers, as they make an eight day silent retreat in St Beuno’s, a Jesuit spirituality centre in North Wales where I did the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius myself as a thirty day silent retreat over twenty years ago and where I have directed many retreats since. Dealing with the silence was a huge struggle for all five of them, but by the end of the retreat they had come through that struggle and arrived at a deep spiritual place they had never been to before. Each in his or her own way had met God in the silence and it had changed their lives. And when the programme had finished, my friend asked the class how many of them would like to have that kind of relationship with God. And to his utter amazement, every single person in the class put up their hand.
And yet this should not really surprise us. Many young people today have rejected traditional religion. But that will not be the end of the story. Created to share the life of God the desire for God will surface in them again in new ways and our job is to be the kind of Church which will have something deeper than mere religion to offer them when it does. My friend’s story is a glimpse of the future. The question is; do we want to be part of it or are we too scared of what it might involve?
BIDDING PRAYERS
Joseph, in today’s Gospel, is a model of how to listen to the movement of God deep within himself. Three times in St Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus he decides on one course of action and ends up doing the opposite when asked to do so by God. It is not only Mary who is open to God’s will in her life. Joseph, too, has his Annunciation experience and, like Mary, is willing to go where God leads. And so we pray for the grace we need to be more like them both in the way we respond to God in our lives…...Lord hear us
So long as we take literally things like angels appearing to people in dreams, it is easy to tell ourselves that such things only happen to other people. And so we pray for the courage we need to develop more accurate and more mature ways of reading the Scriptures which enable us to see that the whole of both the Old and New Testaments is actually about ourselves. What God has done in the past he continues to do today and we pray for the wisdom and insight we need to recognize this......Lord hear us
Led to believe that being a Catholic was about going to Mass, receiving the Sacraments and keeping the laws of the Church, the idea that we are called to a deep, personal and intimate relationship with God is difficult for many to come to terms with. To some traditional Catholics it sounds ‘protestant’ or ‘evangelical,’ not at all the kind of thing Catholics do. But while there are historical reasons why this has happened, it is a deeply mistaken notion and we pray for the grace to leave it behin........Lord hear us
The Church itself has a long history of resisting the movement of God. Time and again over the centuries it has wandered away from the Gospel and embraced the values of the secular world. And so, in every age, the Spirit has called her to renewal, a call which has always been resisted and continues to be resisted in our own day. And so we pray for the grace we need to read the signs of the times and accept the many challenges of the Gospel at this moment in history without fear or anxiety................Lord hear us
Many today worry about the faith of the young. Born into a deeply secular society very different from the one many of us who are older were born into, the Church as we knew it means nothing to them. But God continues to work in their lives. The very shallowness and emptiness of our consumer-driven society can itself, in time, become the place where a desire for something deeper begins to stir, and we pray that when that happens our parishes will be places ready and able to respond to their needs.......Lord hear us
Being pregnant put Mary in a very vulnerable position. A male-dominated world with double standards in this area has always been very severe on women who find themselves pregnant and alone. And so we pray for single mothers today, especially those who are used as scapegoats for the sexual sins of men. And we pray in a particular way for women who, in the not too distance past, were judged and condemned within our Catholic parishes and who still carry the pain of that experience.........Lord hear us
Saturday, 11 December 2010
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Between chapter three of Matthew’s Gospel, where we met him last week, and chapter eleven of the same Gospel, where we meet him today, John the Baptist has made a thoroughly modern journey. Last week we saw him emerge from the wilderness of Judaea so sure of himself and his message that wasn’t afraid to confront even the Pharisees and the Sadducees. A brood of vipers was how he described them. People flocked to hear him, news of him spread everywhere, and as he baptized the people in the Jordan John was a man at the peak of his powers. Now, however, just a few chapters and a few months later, it’s a very different John we meet. He’s in prison now. News of what Jesus is doing is filtering back to him and, clearly, he’s disturbed. John, with his garment of camel hair and leather belt round his waist, was every inch the Old Testament prophet. Fire, brimstone and dire warnings about the future were the tools of John’s trade and he fully expected the Messiah to be the same. Things weren’t working out like that, however. Jesus was not living up to John’s expectations, and as he lay there in his dark cell, dark thoughts were surfacing in him. He had gone into the desert convinced that God was leading him there. He had emerged from it convinced he was doing God’s work. His whole life was about ministry. He had sacrificed everything for it and now he was having to confront some truly terrifying questions. What if he were wrong? What if he had been deceiving himself all these years? What if it was Satan and not God he had met in the wilderness? What if his whole life had been a mistake? And so, in desperation, John sends some friends to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or have we to wait for someone else?”
John’s struggle, of course, is the struggle of many in today’s world. Like him, we are living through a time of transition and many things are not turning out as we had expected. For John, it was the movement from the Old to the New Testament. For us, it’s the movement from one way of thinking and one way of being Church to another and it is proving as disturbing for many good people today as it was for John. Our whole way of thinking about God is in turmoil. Old images of who God is, images which, like the OT itself, sustained people’s faith for centuries, are proving totally inadequate for the world we live in. We have lived through a period of change in the Church the likes of which few generations in history have had to deal with, at least in terms of the speed with which it has happened. All kinds of thing we once believed and held dear are questioned now and our faith in the Church itself as an institution to be trusted has undergone serious re-evaluation in the light of things which have emerged in recent years. And so it is hardly surprising that that there are people around today who feel pretty much the way John did in his prison all those centuries ago. What is going on? What, if anything do I believe any more, about God, about Jesus, about being a Catholic? Is the modern world right when it says religion is a thing of the past. Do I really want to be part of it anymore? These are serious question requiring serious answers.
For some, of course, Jesus’ answer in today’s Gospel is not a real answer at all. Jesus, however, has too much respect for John to give him the kind of answer we, deep down, would like God to give. He doesn’t resolve John’s doubts. He simply invites him to look around and observe what is happening. The answer, he is saying, is all around you. It’s in your own experience. You don’t need me to answer these questions for you. You can answer them for yourself. And the reason Jesus has such confidence in John is that he recognizes in him a man of great personal maturity. John, he says, is no reed swaying in the wind, blown about by every passing breeze. Worldly honours mean nothing to him and so he cannot be bought and sold. John is a prophet who makes up his own mind about things and that is what Jesus invites him to do now. Reflect on your experience, he tells him. Engage with these doubts and questions. Don’t be afraid of them and they will lead you to the truth.
At the heart of what Jesus says, of course, is the notion of maturity. It is absolutely vital for men and women of faith today and without it we will struggle to survive the times we are living through. Faced with so many unanswered questions and, even more importantly, unquestioned answers, there are two main places where the fearful immature person can seek refuge. The first is to retreat into old certainties, the most extreme form of this being the religious fundamentalism which all religions suffer from today and which is causing so much trouble in the world. And the second is to avoid the questions, follow the line of least resistance and go along the road, not so much of unbelief – that at least would be a decision – but of shallow, un-reflected living, the road of un-thought-through lapsing.
In between, of course, is the way of faith-filled reflection. Look around you, says Jesus, and you will see. And what I see is a new infant Church being born. Unlike the one which went before, a Church which enjoyed great worldly power for so long, it’s being born into a world which rejects it and has no room for it in its Inn. But born it will be. Nothing can stop the process even when the labour is long and painful. And when the child is born there will still be plenty of modern day Herods anxious to do away with it. But, despite everything, there are people around who understand what is happening. Most of them are not powerful or important in the ordinary sense of the word but they know with that deep interior knowledge that comes from God that this new Church with its emphasis on faith and justice rather than religion and power is our hope for the future; that the birth we are witnessing is Good News for people everywhere. That’s what I see and invite you to see it too.
It may be, of course, that you cannot see it...yet. Maybe, like John, you, too, are confused and uncertain. Well, that’s OK. Keep an open mind and, in time, it will become clear. I promise you.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin this week by holding up before God all who, because things in life have not turned out the way they had hoped for or expected, have lost faith in God. We pray that they will have the courage and maturity they need to engage with the disappointments of life, finding meaning, not in what might have been, but in what has actually happened. God can only be found in what is real, no matter how difficult or painful this may be at times, and we pray for the courage we need to accept this..........Lord hear us
We pray in a special way this week for any priests who, like John the Baptist, have given their whole lives to ministry and now, seeing what is going on around them, are left sad and disillusioned, wondering if they have wasted their lives. We pray that, in the words of the first reading, God will “Strengthen weary hands, steady trembling knees and say to all faint hearts, “Courage! Do not be afraid.” While in Scotland, the Pope urged the bishops to care for priests and we pray that his words will be heard......Lord hear us
Maturity, sadly, is not something that has always been encouraged in the Church. Often in the past the very opposite was seen as virtue in people. Rather than ask questions and so explore the meaning of faith, we were encourage to be quiet and, like children, do what we were told to do and believe what we were told to believe. And so we ask God to help us become a more mature Church which encourages adult faith in all its members and so becomes more and more fit for purpose in the modern world.........Lord hear us
When it comes to the things of God, there will always be more questions than answers. This is because anything we say about God can only be partially true. The full truth will always be beyond us. And so we pray for the wisdom to see that unanswered questions are not as big a problem as unquestioned answers. There are many issues today to which people of faith have no answer and we pray for the wisdom we need to accept this, come to terms with it and live joyfully with its consequences......Lord hear us
In the second reading, St James speaks of the farmer who waits patiently for the autumn rains and spring rains so that his precious harvest can bear rich fruit. And so we pray for the patience, sense of perspective and breadth of vision we need to allow a new way of being the Church to be born in the world today. Like many new births, it can be a long and painful process. Things have to be given time to run their course. There is always a time of waiting. But we pray that, in God’s time, a new Church will be born....Lord hear us
A week on Tuesday, we will, God willing, celebrate our Advent Penance Service. By celebrating the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation in this way, we acknowledge to ourselves and to each other that there is a constant need for conversion both in our personal lives, in the life of the Church and in the world itself. And so we pray for the grace we need to prepare prayerfully for this event, and that, when it comes, it will be a time of deep faith for us, both a individuals and as a parish........Lord hear us
John’s struggle, of course, is the struggle of many in today’s world. Like him, we are living through a time of transition and many things are not turning out as we had expected. For John, it was the movement from the Old to the New Testament. For us, it’s the movement from one way of thinking and one way of being Church to another and it is proving as disturbing for many good people today as it was for John. Our whole way of thinking about God is in turmoil. Old images of who God is, images which, like the OT itself, sustained people’s faith for centuries, are proving totally inadequate for the world we live in. We have lived through a period of change in the Church the likes of which few generations in history have had to deal with, at least in terms of the speed with which it has happened. All kinds of thing we once believed and held dear are questioned now and our faith in the Church itself as an institution to be trusted has undergone serious re-evaluation in the light of things which have emerged in recent years. And so it is hardly surprising that that there are people around today who feel pretty much the way John did in his prison all those centuries ago. What is going on? What, if anything do I believe any more, about God, about Jesus, about being a Catholic? Is the modern world right when it says religion is a thing of the past. Do I really want to be part of it anymore? These are serious question requiring serious answers.
For some, of course, Jesus’ answer in today’s Gospel is not a real answer at all. Jesus, however, has too much respect for John to give him the kind of answer we, deep down, would like God to give. He doesn’t resolve John’s doubts. He simply invites him to look around and observe what is happening. The answer, he is saying, is all around you. It’s in your own experience. You don’t need me to answer these questions for you. You can answer them for yourself. And the reason Jesus has such confidence in John is that he recognizes in him a man of great personal maturity. John, he says, is no reed swaying in the wind, blown about by every passing breeze. Worldly honours mean nothing to him and so he cannot be bought and sold. John is a prophet who makes up his own mind about things and that is what Jesus invites him to do now. Reflect on your experience, he tells him. Engage with these doubts and questions. Don’t be afraid of them and they will lead you to the truth.
At the heart of what Jesus says, of course, is the notion of maturity. It is absolutely vital for men and women of faith today and without it we will struggle to survive the times we are living through. Faced with so many unanswered questions and, even more importantly, unquestioned answers, there are two main places where the fearful immature person can seek refuge. The first is to retreat into old certainties, the most extreme form of this being the religious fundamentalism which all religions suffer from today and which is causing so much trouble in the world. And the second is to avoid the questions, follow the line of least resistance and go along the road, not so much of unbelief – that at least would be a decision – but of shallow, un-reflected living, the road of un-thought-through lapsing.
In between, of course, is the way of faith-filled reflection. Look around you, says Jesus, and you will see. And what I see is a new infant Church being born. Unlike the one which went before, a Church which enjoyed great worldly power for so long, it’s being born into a world which rejects it and has no room for it in its Inn. But born it will be. Nothing can stop the process even when the labour is long and painful. And when the child is born there will still be plenty of modern day Herods anxious to do away with it. But, despite everything, there are people around who understand what is happening. Most of them are not powerful or important in the ordinary sense of the word but they know with that deep interior knowledge that comes from God that this new Church with its emphasis on faith and justice rather than religion and power is our hope for the future; that the birth we are witnessing is Good News for people everywhere. That’s what I see and invite you to see it too.
It may be, of course, that you cannot see it...yet. Maybe, like John, you, too, are confused and uncertain. Well, that’s OK. Keep an open mind and, in time, it will become clear. I promise you.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin this week by holding up before God all who, because things in life have not turned out the way they had hoped for or expected, have lost faith in God. We pray that they will have the courage and maturity they need to engage with the disappointments of life, finding meaning, not in what might have been, but in what has actually happened. God can only be found in what is real, no matter how difficult or painful this may be at times, and we pray for the courage we need to accept this..........Lord hear us
We pray in a special way this week for any priests who, like John the Baptist, have given their whole lives to ministry and now, seeing what is going on around them, are left sad and disillusioned, wondering if they have wasted their lives. We pray that, in the words of the first reading, God will “Strengthen weary hands, steady trembling knees and say to all faint hearts, “Courage! Do not be afraid.” While in Scotland, the Pope urged the bishops to care for priests and we pray that his words will be heard......Lord hear us
Maturity, sadly, is not something that has always been encouraged in the Church. Often in the past the very opposite was seen as virtue in people. Rather than ask questions and so explore the meaning of faith, we were encourage to be quiet and, like children, do what we were told to do and believe what we were told to believe. And so we ask God to help us become a more mature Church which encourages adult faith in all its members and so becomes more and more fit for purpose in the modern world.........Lord hear us
When it comes to the things of God, there will always be more questions than answers. This is because anything we say about God can only be partially true. The full truth will always be beyond us. And so we pray for the wisdom to see that unanswered questions are not as big a problem as unquestioned answers. There are many issues today to which people of faith have no answer and we pray for the wisdom we need to accept this, come to terms with it and live joyfully with its consequences......Lord hear us
In the second reading, St James speaks of the farmer who waits patiently for the autumn rains and spring rains so that his precious harvest can bear rich fruit. And so we pray for the patience, sense of perspective and breadth of vision we need to allow a new way of being the Church to be born in the world today. Like many new births, it can be a long and painful process. Things have to be given time to run their course. There is always a time of waiting. But we pray that, in God’s time, a new Church will be born....Lord hear us
A week on Tuesday, we will, God willing, celebrate our Advent Penance Service. By celebrating the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation in this way, we acknowledge to ourselves and to each other that there is a constant need for conversion both in our personal lives, in the life of the Church and in the world itself. And so we pray for the grace we need to prepare prayerfully for this event, and that, when it comes, it will be a time of deep faith for us, both a individuals and as a parish........Lord hear us
Saturday, 20 November 2010
FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING
The Feast of Christ the King is not one of those that goes back hundreds of years. It was established by Pope Pius XI as recently as 1925 in the aftermath of the First World War in the midst of poverty and deprivation all over Europe the likes of which we cannot imagine today. Like the doctrine of the Assumption in 1950, after the Second World War, it was meant to give hope and encouragement to those who had lived through those terrible years and, in the light of the way things are today, it is interesting to hear what the Pope had to say at that time. Proving once again that there is nothing new under the sun, he wrote in 1925 that ‘the manifold evils’ in the world of his day are due to the fact that, ‘The majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his laws out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics,’ and that as long as this state of affairs continued, ‘there would be no really hopeful prospect of lasting peace among nations,’ words which to a very large extent were echoed by Pope Benedict when he addressed the joint houses of Parliament only a few weeks ago. So much, then, for the idea that the world is in a worse state today than in the past. Human nature is the same in every age and what Pius XI offered the world in 1925 is the same thing we offer it today, Jesus; the Jesus we have been meeting throughout this latest journey through the Church’s year; the Jesus we will meet again next year; the Jesus St Paul speaks of so eloquently in that second reading.
And what he says about Jesus – what we have to say about him to the world today – is that, ‘in Jesus, God has brought us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves, and in him we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins’ And how important that message was in 1925. The First World War had been an experience of the most profound darkness. Nothing remotely like it had been seen before in history. Millions had died in the trenches and those who were left were struggling to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. And to that world Pius XI offered the only hope and encouragement he had to give; the Feast of Christ the King. And who could say that in the age of Iraq, Afghanistan and the ever present threat of economic collapse, we don’t need that same message of hope and encouragement. The whole world needs to hear those same words and, as Christians, it is our task to speak them again to the brand new century in which we live.
And that is why, as I have said to you so often over the last year, that there is no place whatsoever in the lives of those who follow Jesus for the pessimism and negativity about the world which we so often find in Church-going people who claim to believe in the Jesus St Paul speaks of today. Yes, there are lots of problems in the world. There are many things which are not right about it. There are days when the News is so filled with doom and gloom and we can feel discouraged and even depressed about it. But from a place of faith deep inside ourselves, from a place far beyond passing emotion, ever-changing mood or mere feeling, we are called upon to speak to the men and women of our time words of hope and encouragement like those Jesus spoke from the cross to the good thief. No matter what goes on in the world: no matter what happens; no matter how desperate things may appear – and to people who lived through the first World War things were pretty desperate – men and women of faith in every age will always be encouragers of those around them. But to be able to do that, we need to be encouraged ourselves, and in that context I would like to say a few words about the Church History Course which begins a week on Wednesday and continues on a monthly basis from February through to June next year.
Now at first sight, a course on the history of the Church might not seem the best place to start if our aim is to encourage each other. It is, after all, a pretty unedifying story at times and as the leaflet I offered you several weeks ago says, there will no punches pulled and no avoiding of unpleasant truths. The scandals and abuses which have existed alongside all that has been good will be faced up to without fear or embarrassment. The story will be told as it was and I know from experience that, counter-intuitive as it may seem to some, this will fill those who take part with the hope and encouragement we speak of. We ran a longer version of the same course two years ago in Kilmarnock attended by around fifty people, and as they were exposed, in some cases for the first time, to the more sordid aspects of the story, without exception their faith in Jesus was deepened and their commitment to the Church, in all its weakness, strengthened.
And to understand how this happens, all we have to do is reflect on our own experience. As small children we think our parents are wonderful and can do no wrong. I remember very well as a six- year-old telling another boy how my Dad could fight anybody. As time passes, however, we learn, sometimes, very painfully, that our parents are flawed human beings and are not quite as wonderful as we thought. In adolescence it is sometimes hard to see any good in them at all until maturity arrives and we finally see them as they really are: human beings like ourselves with their faults and weaknesses whom we love dearly. And something very like that needs to happen with the Church. We need to face up to the truth about it, move beyond both an infantile relationship when we put it on a pedestal and an adolescent relationship when we could see no good in it at all, to maturity when we see it as it is and love it.
The Feast of Christ the King is about the ultimate triumph of Jesus over even our most successful attempts to mess things up, and there is no better place to see this at work than in the history of this sometimes wonderful and sometimes maddening Church which we all belong to. So come along and learn about it. It will be good.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer this week by holding up before God the world at this moment in its history. As we enter into a new century and a new millennium there is much uncertainty about the future. The problems and challenges of our time are global. There are many tensions among nations and between different parts of the world as we struggle to come to terms with these challenges which will shape the future of humanity. And so we ask God to guide the peoples of the world at this time.............Lord hear us
In parts of the world where economies are in crisis or in long-term decline, millions of young people face a future without any real prospect of meaningful work. Worry and anxiety about pollution and the environment leave many feeling fearful about the future. Some feel hopeless and alienated from society, with all the problems that brings. And so, on this Feast of Christ the King, we ask God to stir in the heart of the young a deep sense of hope about their own and society’s future..........Lord hear us
Even today, millions of our fellow human beings live in the midst of violence and warfare. Some of these conflicts have been going on for many years. Whole generations have never known anything else and can hardly imagine what peace might even feel like. And so we pray that, as Pope Pius XI spoke words of comfort and encouragement to the world of the 1920s, the Church throughout the world today will continue that tradition and bring hope into the lives of those who have none.......Lord hear us
At the root of the hopelessness felt by many in the developed world today lies a way of thinking which deeply influenced the century which has just passed. Many writers and philosophers during that time painted a picture of a world without meaning. There was no God, no life after death, no point in living. This way of thinking was reflected in many novels, films and art and has had a profound effect on all of us without our always realising it. And so we pray that the world will discover again the God who gives meaning to everything.......Lord hear us
And we pray for the Church as it makes its long pilgrim journey through history. It has gone through many stages, faced many crises, confronted many challenges, made many mistakes and got lots of things wrong. But it has also profoundly influenced the world for the better. It has produced some of the greatest and most influential men and women in history and done immense good for humanity. And so we ask God to guide it today as it faces up to the challenges of the modern era...........Lord hear us
We pray, too, this week that God will bless the History Course that is about to start in the parish. There is a huge need for adult education in faith at this time and this course is just one part of this. But we pray that all those who take part in it will come to a more mature and adult faith which will enable them, by studying and understanding the past, to understand also the issues and challenges which face the Church at the present, and so enable us to play our full part in responding to them..........Lord hear us
And what he says about Jesus – what we have to say about him to the world today – is that, ‘in Jesus, God has brought us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves, and in him we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins’ And how important that message was in 1925. The First World War had been an experience of the most profound darkness. Nothing remotely like it had been seen before in history. Millions had died in the trenches and those who were left were struggling to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. And to that world Pius XI offered the only hope and encouragement he had to give; the Feast of Christ the King. And who could say that in the age of Iraq, Afghanistan and the ever present threat of economic collapse, we don’t need that same message of hope and encouragement. The whole world needs to hear those same words and, as Christians, it is our task to speak them again to the brand new century in which we live.
And that is why, as I have said to you so often over the last year, that there is no place whatsoever in the lives of those who follow Jesus for the pessimism and negativity about the world which we so often find in Church-going people who claim to believe in the Jesus St Paul speaks of today. Yes, there are lots of problems in the world. There are many things which are not right about it. There are days when the News is so filled with doom and gloom and we can feel discouraged and even depressed about it. But from a place of faith deep inside ourselves, from a place far beyond passing emotion, ever-changing mood or mere feeling, we are called upon to speak to the men and women of our time words of hope and encouragement like those Jesus spoke from the cross to the good thief. No matter what goes on in the world: no matter what happens; no matter how desperate things may appear – and to people who lived through the first World War things were pretty desperate – men and women of faith in every age will always be encouragers of those around them. But to be able to do that, we need to be encouraged ourselves, and in that context I would like to say a few words about the Church History Course which begins a week on Wednesday and continues on a monthly basis from February through to June next year.
Now at first sight, a course on the history of the Church might not seem the best place to start if our aim is to encourage each other. It is, after all, a pretty unedifying story at times and as the leaflet I offered you several weeks ago says, there will no punches pulled and no avoiding of unpleasant truths. The scandals and abuses which have existed alongside all that has been good will be faced up to without fear or embarrassment. The story will be told as it was and I know from experience that, counter-intuitive as it may seem to some, this will fill those who take part with the hope and encouragement we speak of. We ran a longer version of the same course two years ago in Kilmarnock attended by around fifty people, and as they were exposed, in some cases for the first time, to the more sordid aspects of the story, without exception their faith in Jesus was deepened and their commitment to the Church, in all its weakness, strengthened.
And to understand how this happens, all we have to do is reflect on our own experience. As small children we think our parents are wonderful and can do no wrong. I remember very well as a six- year-old telling another boy how my Dad could fight anybody. As time passes, however, we learn, sometimes, very painfully, that our parents are flawed human beings and are not quite as wonderful as we thought. In adolescence it is sometimes hard to see any good in them at all until maturity arrives and we finally see them as they really are: human beings like ourselves with their faults and weaknesses whom we love dearly. And something very like that needs to happen with the Church. We need to face up to the truth about it, move beyond both an infantile relationship when we put it on a pedestal and an adolescent relationship when we could see no good in it at all, to maturity when we see it as it is and love it.
The Feast of Christ the King is about the ultimate triumph of Jesus over even our most successful attempts to mess things up, and there is no better place to see this at work than in the history of this sometimes wonderful and sometimes maddening Church which we all belong to. So come along and learn about it. It will be good.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer this week by holding up before God the world at this moment in its history. As we enter into a new century and a new millennium there is much uncertainty about the future. The problems and challenges of our time are global. There are many tensions among nations and between different parts of the world as we struggle to come to terms with these challenges which will shape the future of humanity. And so we ask God to guide the peoples of the world at this time.............Lord hear us
In parts of the world where economies are in crisis or in long-term decline, millions of young people face a future without any real prospect of meaningful work. Worry and anxiety about pollution and the environment leave many feeling fearful about the future. Some feel hopeless and alienated from society, with all the problems that brings. And so, on this Feast of Christ the King, we ask God to stir in the heart of the young a deep sense of hope about their own and society’s future..........Lord hear us
Even today, millions of our fellow human beings live in the midst of violence and warfare. Some of these conflicts have been going on for many years. Whole generations have never known anything else and can hardly imagine what peace might even feel like. And so we pray that, as Pope Pius XI spoke words of comfort and encouragement to the world of the 1920s, the Church throughout the world today will continue that tradition and bring hope into the lives of those who have none.......Lord hear us
At the root of the hopelessness felt by many in the developed world today lies a way of thinking which deeply influenced the century which has just passed. Many writers and philosophers during that time painted a picture of a world without meaning. There was no God, no life after death, no point in living. This way of thinking was reflected in many novels, films and art and has had a profound effect on all of us without our always realising it. And so we pray that the world will discover again the God who gives meaning to everything.......Lord hear us
And we pray for the Church as it makes its long pilgrim journey through history. It has gone through many stages, faced many crises, confronted many challenges, made many mistakes and got lots of things wrong. But it has also profoundly influenced the world for the better. It has produced some of the greatest and most influential men and women in history and done immense good for humanity. And so we ask God to guide it today as it faces up to the challenges of the modern era...........Lord hear us
We pray, too, this week that God will bless the History Course that is about to start in the parish. There is a huge need for adult education in faith at this time and this course is just one part of this. But we pray that all those who take part in it will come to a more mature and adult faith which will enable them, by studying and understanding the past, to understand also the issues and challenges which face the Church at the present, and so enable us to play our full part in responding to them..........Lord hear us
Saturday, 13 November 2010
33rd SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
As our annual journey through the Church’s year draws to a close, - two weeks today is the First Sunday of Advent – the liturgy invites us, forces us even, to confront a tension which runs through the whole history of Christianity. As followers of Jesus we are deeply committed to the world and all that happens in it. As the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World from the Second Vatican Council put it, ‘The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men and women of our time are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their heart. That is why Christians cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history.’ And yet, if only this were true. If only the followers of Jesus throughout the world were as deeply committed to the human race and its history as the Council suggests. If only we were to be found in the front line of every fight for justice and every protest against injustice and oppression. But, sadly, it is not always like that, and the reason for this tragic failure on the part of Christians in every age lies in today’s second reading.
In it, St Paul addresses a problem in the Church in Thessalonica which has been with us in a variety of forms ever since. He tells the Christian community there that those who refuse to work should not be given any food. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of social and economic policies emerging these days from the Coalition Government. Anyone who tries to link this passage to the issue of the long-term unemployed, as Mrs Thatcher did when she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the 1980s, is either grossly ignorant of the Scriptures or guilty of the most cynical kind of dishonesty. Because what was concerning St Paul was not unemployment, but the tendency among some of those early Christians to withdraw from the kind of engagement with the world the Gospels and the Second Vatican Council speak of and retreat into an other-worldly kind of religion which had nothing to with real life. And, of course, it was this kind of religion, which combined piousity with a failure to engage with things like poverty and injustice, which during times like the industrial revolution alienated so many workers from the Churches and led Marx to describe religion as the opium of the people, a drug which dulled the senses of the poor and, with a promise of pie in the sky when they died, prevented them from rising up against the injustices of the day and doing something about them. And to the extent that we still do that; to the extent that we come to Mass, go through the motions and fail to engage in any way at all with, for example, the current cuts and the question of where our spending priorities as nation should lie at a time like this, we continue that long tragic tradition.
But as we engage with the world, we are also called to confront it. To be in the world is not the same as to be of the world. As followers of Jesus, we are called to engage with the issues of our day and bring to them an alternative set of values to those which dominate our current thinking. And the key to understanding this, lies in this week’s Gospel where Jesus addresses the people as they stand admiring the fine stone work and votive offerings of the Temple. All during Jesus’ life, the Temple had been covered in scaffolding undergoing extensive renovation and now that it was revealed again in all its glory, people were flocking to see it. And as they do so, Jesus tells them: ‘All these stones you are staring at now – the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed,’ reminding them, and through them, us, of the need to focus on the things that last rather than on what is passing. We are called to engage with the world and its history, but with our eyes fixed on the values of the kingdom. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be signs of contradiction, challenging the world to move beyond many of the attitudes which have brought us to where we are today and embrace something new. And that is the message the Church presents to us every year at this time as, like people on the highest point of the big wheel on a fairground, we look for a moment into the far distance before quickly returning to earth again.
What it means, of course, to confront the world involves different things at different times in history. But in our own day there is simply no escaping the financial crisis the world is currently facing. At the root of it lies the materialism of our age, the view that only the material exists, that the spiritual is an illusion, and that, as a result the material has within itself the capacity to fulfil our longing for happiness. The result has been consumerism. Living by its rules we have spent more and more money buying things we can’t afford, resulting in a debt crisis which has almost brought the world to its knees, the only solution the economists can offer us being to spend less on helping those in need and spend even more money in the shops.
And in the face of all this, the words of Jesus ring down through the ages: ‘Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ Or ‘Your father knows what you need before you ask. Seek the kingdom of God first and all these things will be given to you.’ So ask yourself today how much you have swallowed the values of the consumer society and bought into its values. Have money or material things become more important to you perhaps than relationships? Do you look to money and material things to make you happy, fantasising about winning the lottery and imagining what you would do with all that money? Do you ever stop and reflect on how quickly your life is passing and ask yourself who are the people and what are things that really matter?
Much of what we see around us every day will, like the Temple in Jerusalem, come tumbling down. Our job, by the way we live, is to show the world what is of lasting value. ‘What’ after all, ‘does it profit a man/woman if they gain the whole world and lose their very self?’
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin this week by praying for the Church throughout the world. Called to imitate and make present in society the God who, in Jesus, was made flesh and lived among us, we pray that it will always be faithful to that calling and show what the Second Vatican Council called its feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history. The world faces many challenges at this time and we ask God to pour into the Churches the wisdom they need to play their part in responding to them......Lord hear us
In the world but not always of the world, we are called both as a Church and as individuals to challenge and stand up to forces and ways of thinking in society which are not of God and so cannot bring long-term happiness to the men and women who share this moment in history. And so we pray for the courage we need to do this. We pray, in particular, for the courage we need to resist in our own lives the excesses of consumerism and show the world, by the way we live, the things in life which really matter.......Lord hear us
If the modern world is to find its way back to God then the Churches must become more effective signs of his presence among us. We must demonstrate to people that we have something relevant and worthwhile to say. We must be seen to be a power for good, standing up for justice and not being afraid to challenge the rich and powerful when necessary. We must speak up for the poor who have no voice and defend them in all circumstances, and we pray for the grace to do this....Lord hear us
And we pray for those who govern our country at this time. Every day, announcements are made which have profound implications for the way we live. Everywhere we turn there are warnings of cuts in services and resources which will affect all our lives. And so we pray that those in government who have the responsibility of making these decisions will never forget that the test of any country’s moral maturity is the way it treats its poorest and most needy citizens.........Lord hear us
Within less than thirty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. In time the Roman Empire itself fell. Nothing in history lasts forever. Even now, before our very eyes, we are seeing economic power in the world shift from West to East, and at a personal level many of us are only too well aware that life is passing quickly and that we are growing older. And so we ask God today to give us a deep sense of what is permanent and lasting in life.........Lord hear us
Today is Remembrance Sunday. And so we pray for all those from every nation who have died in war over the last hundred years. But we pray most of all that, as we move deeper into the 21st century, the world will see with ever greater clarity the utter futility of all war and, with God’s help, finally move beyond it. We pray, especially, for the wisdom to see through the age old myths which glorify war and pretend that there is something heroic or noble about young men and women dying because of it..............Lord hear us
In it, St Paul addresses a problem in the Church in Thessalonica which has been with us in a variety of forms ever since. He tells the Christian community there that those who refuse to work should not be given any food. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of social and economic policies emerging these days from the Coalition Government. Anyone who tries to link this passage to the issue of the long-term unemployed, as Mrs Thatcher did when she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the 1980s, is either grossly ignorant of the Scriptures or guilty of the most cynical kind of dishonesty. Because what was concerning St Paul was not unemployment, but the tendency among some of those early Christians to withdraw from the kind of engagement with the world the Gospels and the Second Vatican Council speak of and retreat into an other-worldly kind of religion which had nothing to with real life. And, of course, it was this kind of religion, which combined piousity with a failure to engage with things like poverty and injustice, which during times like the industrial revolution alienated so many workers from the Churches and led Marx to describe religion as the opium of the people, a drug which dulled the senses of the poor and, with a promise of pie in the sky when they died, prevented them from rising up against the injustices of the day and doing something about them. And to the extent that we still do that; to the extent that we come to Mass, go through the motions and fail to engage in any way at all with, for example, the current cuts and the question of where our spending priorities as nation should lie at a time like this, we continue that long tragic tradition.
But as we engage with the world, we are also called to confront it. To be in the world is not the same as to be of the world. As followers of Jesus, we are called to engage with the issues of our day and bring to them an alternative set of values to those which dominate our current thinking. And the key to understanding this, lies in this week’s Gospel where Jesus addresses the people as they stand admiring the fine stone work and votive offerings of the Temple. All during Jesus’ life, the Temple had been covered in scaffolding undergoing extensive renovation and now that it was revealed again in all its glory, people were flocking to see it. And as they do so, Jesus tells them: ‘All these stones you are staring at now – the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed,’ reminding them, and through them, us, of the need to focus on the things that last rather than on what is passing. We are called to engage with the world and its history, but with our eyes fixed on the values of the kingdom. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be signs of contradiction, challenging the world to move beyond many of the attitudes which have brought us to where we are today and embrace something new. And that is the message the Church presents to us every year at this time as, like people on the highest point of the big wheel on a fairground, we look for a moment into the far distance before quickly returning to earth again.
What it means, of course, to confront the world involves different things at different times in history. But in our own day there is simply no escaping the financial crisis the world is currently facing. At the root of it lies the materialism of our age, the view that only the material exists, that the spiritual is an illusion, and that, as a result the material has within itself the capacity to fulfil our longing for happiness. The result has been consumerism. Living by its rules we have spent more and more money buying things we can’t afford, resulting in a debt crisis which has almost brought the world to its knees, the only solution the economists can offer us being to spend less on helping those in need and spend even more money in the shops.
And in the face of all this, the words of Jesus ring down through the ages: ‘Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ Or ‘Your father knows what you need before you ask. Seek the kingdom of God first and all these things will be given to you.’ So ask yourself today how much you have swallowed the values of the consumer society and bought into its values. Have money or material things become more important to you perhaps than relationships? Do you look to money and material things to make you happy, fantasising about winning the lottery and imagining what you would do with all that money? Do you ever stop and reflect on how quickly your life is passing and ask yourself who are the people and what are things that really matter?
Much of what we see around us every day will, like the Temple in Jerusalem, come tumbling down. Our job, by the way we live, is to show the world what is of lasting value. ‘What’ after all, ‘does it profit a man/woman if they gain the whole world and lose their very self?’
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin this week by praying for the Church throughout the world. Called to imitate and make present in society the God who, in Jesus, was made flesh and lived among us, we pray that it will always be faithful to that calling and show what the Second Vatican Council called its feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history. The world faces many challenges at this time and we ask God to pour into the Churches the wisdom they need to play their part in responding to them......Lord hear us
In the world but not always of the world, we are called both as a Church and as individuals to challenge and stand up to forces and ways of thinking in society which are not of God and so cannot bring long-term happiness to the men and women who share this moment in history. And so we pray for the courage we need to do this. We pray, in particular, for the courage we need to resist in our own lives the excesses of consumerism and show the world, by the way we live, the things in life which really matter.......Lord hear us
If the modern world is to find its way back to God then the Churches must become more effective signs of his presence among us. We must demonstrate to people that we have something relevant and worthwhile to say. We must be seen to be a power for good, standing up for justice and not being afraid to challenge the rich and powerful when necessary. We must speak up for the poor who have no voice and defend them in all circumstances, and we pray for the grace to do this....Lord hear us
And we pray for those who govern our country at this time. Every day, announcements are made which have profound implications for the way we live. Everywhere we turn there are warnings of cuts in services and resources which will affect all our lives. And so we pray that those in government who have the responsibility of making these decisions will never forget that the test of any country’s moral maturity is the way it treats its poorest and most needy citizens.........Lord hear us
Within less than thirty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. In time the Roman Empire itself fell. Nothing in history lasts forever. Even now, before our very eyes, we are seeing economic power in the world shift from West to East, and at a personal level many of us are only too well aware that life is passing quickly and that we are growing older. And so we ask God today to give us a deep sense of what is permanent and lasting in life.........Lord hear us
Today is Remembrance Sunday. And so we pray for all those from every nation who have died in war over the last hundred years. But we pray most of all that, as we move deeper into the 21st century, the world will see with ever greater clarity the utter futility of all war and, with God’s help, finally move beyond it. We pray, especially, for the wisdom to see through the age old myths which glorify war and pretend that there is something heroic or noble about young men and women dying because of it..............Lord hear us
Saturday, 6 November 2010
32nd SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
This week’s readings, given that we are in the month of the Holy Souls, are, I think, an invitation to reflect for a moment on death and what lies beyond it. Clearly the Sadducees did not believe there was any life beyond death and we know that their question to Jesus about the woman and the seven brothers was no more than an attempt to ridicule the whole notion and make fun of it. The mistake they made, however, was to imagine that life beyond death is like life as we know it now, and it’s this fundamental misunderstanding that Jesus addresses in his reply, pointing out that things in the resurrection are not the same as they are here. And that is something I suggest we need to be very clear about ourselves if we are to express our belief in life after death in a way that even begins to make sense to the modern world. Because it’s obvious from the way we talk sometimes that we make exactly the same mistake as the Sadducees did.
So what do I mean by this? Well, if you are asking me what kind of life those who have gone before us are living now, my answer has to be that I simply don’t know. I may offer some thoughts on the matter, and will do so later, but, in the end, I don’t know. Even as children, many of us learned that ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for those who love him.’ And yet, despite these words from Scripture, we do exactly what the Sadducees did and speak as if it were merely an extension of what goes on here. And so we talk as though our loved ones who have died are sitting around in heaven drinking cups of tea, reminiscing about old times and waiting for us to join them. But while this way of thinking and the idea that when we die we will see people again in the same way we see them now can be consoling sometimes, it is also, I suggest, one of the main reasons why so many today find the whole idea of life beyond death impossible to accept. They simply don’t believe in these cosy images and fundamentally they are right not to believe them. And this is because the life our departed relatives and friends are now living is quite simply beyond anything we can imagine at this point. And so would it not make more sense if, when death strikes, we were able to just admit this and stand there beside the atheists and agnostics of today in their pain and confusion, neither knowing nor understanding, but believing? In the presence of something so far beyond us, all we can really do is believe. And even that’s not enough sometimes.
But if we could just learn to live with that; if we could just accept the not-knowing, feel the depth of the mystery, and call out to God from that painful place, would our witness not make more sense to the people around us. They, after all, feel the same pain and bewilderment in the face of death as we do and it’s surely by standing shoulder to shoulder with them, sharing their doubts, questions and sometimes their disbelief, that what we have to say about God may one day make some sense to them. I remember once being at the funeral of lady who had loved fruit scones with coffee and the Ayrshire coast. ‘And she’ll be up there now’ said the priest, ‘With her coffee and a scone looking over Ailsa Craig.’ And as I looked at her grandchildren, one of whom had a PhD in Physics, I could have wept.
And there is further common ground we share with the men and women of our time. With or without faith, an experience common to most human beings on the planet today is an immense sense of wonder and awe at the sheer immensity of the cosmos. Hardly a month goes by without some new photograph of the universe or some new discovery which leaves our minds reeling. And it’s by plugging into this kind of experience, rather than by hanging on to out-dated ways of thinking and talking about life after death, that we can help nurture faith in today’s scientific and technological world. Ultimately all we can do is substitute one inadequate image for another, but modern theories in physics about perhaps up to nine dimensions, only two of which we are aware of, and which could involve parallel worlds occupying the same space as we do without our being even aware of them, at least shake our old certainties and force us to re-examine a lot of the ideas we have up to now taken for granted. And although it made as much sense as the one the Sadducees asked in today’s gospel, in other words, none, science has also answered the anxiety of the old lady I knew whose great question about life after death was how would we all fit in. We now know that there are enough stars out there, galaxies even, for us to have one each.
But there is one other image – and like all the others, it is only an image - that I invite you to think about today. And it is the one Jesus himself uses. The children of the resurrection, he says, ‘do not marry, because they are sons and daughters of God.’ So what does this mean? Well, it takes us to the very heart of what it means to say that marriage is a sacrament, an outward sign of something much deeper. And what I understand by that is that the love and intimacy which marriage, at its best, brings to people is no more than a sign, a glimpse of what awaits us all in the future. To love in this way is to glimpse in one person what God sees in every human being. Given the limitations of our present existence, of course, it is no more than a glimpse and even now we often lose sight of it. In the fullness of the kingdom, however, there will be no need for the sacrament of marriage because, set free from these limitations, we shall see the whole world and every person in it as God sees them. And what an experience that will be!
So, without understanding it, let’s look forward to it. And as we think of those who have died, whether recently or many years ago, let’s say together that great prayer of the Church in every age.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, May they rest in peace. Amen.
‘Eternal rest.’ Now there’s an image to conjure with.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer today by holding up before God all our relatives and friends who have died over the years. Without understanding exactly how it will happen, and without needing to understand it, we ask God to do in them everything he has promised us through Jesus, his Son, who in his own person is the Resurrection and the Life: to share his own divine life with them, to fulfil all their deepest longings and desires and to give them the eternal happiness which, deep within ourselves we all long for......Lord hear us
And we pray, too, for all who live on a daily basis with the pain of bereavement. We pray, in a particular way, for all those for whom that pain is recent and the wound still raw. We pray that, in the midst of this most fundamental of all human experiences, when we feel what men and women have felt in the face of death since the beginning of time, we will meet God and find comfort in the promise of resurrection and eternal life which he has made to us in Jesus.............Lord hear us
Millions of our contemporaries say that they no longer believe in life after death. The whole idea makes no sense to them. And so, in a world where truth is so often defined by what we can understand, they have rejected the whole idea. And yet, when death strikes, people today experience the same feelings and the same questions faced by our ancestors in every age. And so we pray that, by our facing up to these questions in a new way, the modern world will come again to faith…Lord hear us
If we are to have anything helpful to say about death to the men and women of our time, then we must be willing to let go of images which belong to the past and confront in ourselves the not-knowing, the not-understanding and the not believing which are the experience of so many today. Only if we are able to enter deeply into this experience and be with the people of our time in it, will what we say have the ring of authenticity about it and have meaning for them. And so we pray for this grace........Lord hear us
The discoveries being made today about the nature and size of the cosmos are truly mind-blowing. As a result, humanity is starting to realise how little we actually know about these things. At the frontiers of science and technology we are confronted over and over again by the limits of our knowledge. And we pray that this experience will help us become more humble in the face of truth in all its forms. We pray, in particular, that, as the 21st century progresses, science will bring humanity closer to God again.....Lord hear us
In the first reading today from the book of Maccabees, the story of the seven brothers and their great courage in the face of persecution and torture, was written to encourage the people of the second century BC in the face of the threats they were facing at that time. But in every age there have been men and women willing to suffer and even die for what they believed. And so we pray for some of their courage and commitment in the very different circumstances of our own day.......Lord hear us
So what do I mean by this? Well, if you are asking me what kind of life those who have gone before us are living now, my answer has to be that I simply don’t know. I may offer some thoughts on the matter, and will do so later, but, in the end, I don’t know. Even as children, many of us learned that ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for those who love him.’ And yet, despite these words from Scripture, we do exactly what the Sadducees did and speak as if it were merely an extension of what goes on here. And so we talk as though our loved ones who have died are sitting around in heaven drinking cups of tea, reminiscing about old times and waiting for us to join them. But while this way of thinking and the idea that when we die we will see people again in the same way we see them now can be consoling sometimes, it is also, I suggest, one of the main reasons why so many today find the whole idea of life beyond death impossible to accept. They simply don’t believe in these cosy images and fundamentally they are right not to believe them. And this is because the life our departed relatives and friends are now living is quite simply beyond anything we can imagine at this point. And so would it not make more sense if, when death strikes, we were able to just admit this and stand there beside the atheists and agnostics of today in their pain and confusion, neither knowing nor understanding, but believing? In the presence of something so far beyond us, all we can really do is believe. And even that’s not enough sometimes.
But if we could just learn to live with that; if we could just accept the not-knowing, feel the depth of the mystery, and call out to God from that painful place, would our witness not make more sense to the people around us. They, after all, feel the same pain and bewilderment in the face of death as we do and it’s surely by standing shoulder to shoulder with them, sharing their doubts, questions and sometimes their disbelief, that what we have to say about God may one day make some sense to them. I remember once being at the funeral of lady who had loved fruit scones with coffee and the Ayrshire coast. ‘And she’ll be up there now’ said the priest, ‘With her coffee and a scone looking over Ailsa Craig.’ And as I looked at her grandchildren, one of whom had a PhD in Physics, I could have wept.
And there is further common ground we share with the men and women of our time. With or without faith, an experience common to most human beings on the planet today is an immense sense of wonder and awe at the sheer immensity of the cosmos. Hardly a month goes by without some new photograph of the universe or some new discovery which leaves our minds reeling. And it’s by plugging into this kind of experience, rather than by hanging on to out-dated ways of thinking and talking about life after death, that we can help nurture faith in today’s scientific and technological world. Ultimately all we can do is substitute one inadequate image for another, but modern theories in physics about perhaps up to nine dimensions, only two of which we are aware of, and which could involve parallel worlds occupying the same space as we do without our being even aware of them, at least shake our old certainties and force us to re-examine a lot of the ideas we have up to now taken for granted. And although it made as much sense as the one the Sadducees asked in today’s gospel, in other words, none, science has also answered the anxiety of the old lady I knew whose great question about life after death was how would we all fit in. We now know that there are enough stars out there, galaxies even, for us to have one each.
But there is one other image – and like all the others, it is only an image - that I invite you to think about today. And it is the one Jesus himself uses. The children of the resurrection, he says, ‘do not marry, because they are sons and daughters of God.’ So what does this mean? Well, it takes us to the very heart of what it means to say that marriage is a sacrament, an outward sign of something much deeper. And what I understand by that is that the love and intimacy which marriage, at its best, brings to people is no more than a sign, a glimpse of what awaits us all in the future. To love in this way is to glimpse in one person what God sees in every human being. Given the limitations of our present existence, of course, it is no more than a glimpse and even now we often lose sight of it. In the fullness of the kingdom, however, there will be no need for the sacrament of marriage because, set free from these limitations, we shall see the whole world and every person in it as God sees them. And what an experience that will be!
So, without understanding it, let’s look forward to it. And as we think of those who have died, whether recently or many years ago, let’s say together that great prayer of the Church in every age.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, May they rest in peace. Amen.
‘Eternal rest.’ Now there’s an image to conjure with.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer today by holding up before God all our relatives and friends who have died over the years. Without understanding exactly how it will happen, and without needing to understand it, we ask God to do in them everything he has promised us through Jesus, his Son, who in his own person is the Resurrection and the Life: to share his own divine life with them, to fulfil all their deepest longings and desires and to give them the eternal happiness which, deep within ourselves we all long for......Lord hear us
And we pray, too, for all who live on a daily basis with the pain of bereavement. We pray, in a particular way, for all those for whom that pain is recent and the wound still raw. We pray that, in the midst of this most fundamental of all human experiences, when we feel what men and women have felt in the face of death since the beginning of time, we will meet God and find comfort in the promise of resurrection and eternal life which he has made to us in Jesus.............Lord hear us
Millions of our contemporaries say that they no longer believe in life after death. The whole idea makes no sense to them. And so, in a world where truth is so often defined by what we can understand, they have rejected the whole idea. And yet, when death strikes, people today experience the same feelings and the same questions faced by our ancestors in every age. And so we pray that, by our facing up to these questions in a new way, the modern world will come again to faith…Lord hear us
If we are to have anything helpful to say about death to the men and women of our time, then we must be willing to let go of images which belong to the past and confront in ourselves the not-knowing, the not-understanding and the not believing which are the experience of so many today. Only if we are able to enter deeply into this experience and be with the people of our time in it, will what we say have the ring of authenticity about it and have meaning for them. And so we pray for this grace........Lord hear us
The discoveries being made today about the nature and size of the cosmos are truly mind-blowing. As a result, humanity is starting to realise how little we actually know about these things. At the frontiers of science and technology we are confronted over and over again by the limits of our knowledge. And we pray that this experience will help us become more humble in the face of truth in all its forms. We pray, in particular, that, as the 21st century progresses, science will bring humanity closer to God again.....Lord hear us
In the first reading today from the book of Maccabees, the story of the seven brothers and their great courage in the face of persecution and torture, was written to encourage the people of the second century BC in the face of the threats they were facing at that time. But in every age there have been men and women willing to suffer and even die for what they believed. And so we pray for some of their courage and commitment in the very different circumstances of our own day.......Lord hear us
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