I wonder how many times over the years we have prayed together the words ‘Thy kingdom come.’ But what do they mean? What is the kingdom of God? How would we recognize it? Where is it, and what would it be like to be, if you like, ‘in it? Well, these are the questions I would like to reflect on this morning in the light of this week’s readings. In general terms, to enter the kingdom of God, to experience the kingdom of God, is to see the world as God sees it, to understand the world as God understands it and relate to the world as God relates to it: in other words, to think as God thinks, love as God loves and act as God acts. It is, to quote St Paul, to have in us the mind that is in Christ Jesus, to be like Jesus and live by his teaching, all of which is only possible through the power of the Spirit living in us, doing what, left to ourselves we could never do. But what does that mean in practice. Well, the clue is in today’s Gospel story.
In it, we see Jesus attempting to create some quiet time with his disciples, to find a lonely place where they could be by themselves for a while, only to be confronted by crowds of people waiting for him as he stepped ashore from the boat he had travelled in. And St Mark tells us that, when he saw the crowds, he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He was not angry at them. He did not blame them in any way. There was no sense that they were bothering him or putting him out, even although they were. He looked at them, saw in them the whole of humanity down through the ages, and was filled with compassion. And in this attitude of profound compassion for the crowds we have the key to the kingdom of God. To enter this kingdom is to view the world and its people at all times through loving and compassionate eyes. It’s not to judge. It’s not to condemn. It’s to understand the world and its people and love them the way God does. And we have to choose to do it. Whether it be those who commit crimes, those who hurt us, those who perpetrate acts of terrorism, those who simply think differently from us, there is always a choice to make. We can look at what they have done wrong and blame or criticise them, or we can seen them as God sees them. This applies to all kinds of groups and individuals who pass every day before our judgement seat, but I thought I would choose just one example today and look at it more closely. And the example I settled on in the end was the story of MPs and their abuse of the expenses system which generated so much heat just recently.
And the first obvious thing to say is that many, or at least some MPs, did things that were wrong. And in some case they were very wrong. The anger felt by so many people around the country was perfectly understandable and in no sense does what I am about to say attempt to justify in any way what happened or try to explain it away. In many ways, they were not unlike the shepherds described by Jeremiah in the first reading. These were the religious and political leaders of their day and the prophet speaks of how badly they had failed the people, a theme which is taken up even more vigourously later by the prophet Ezekiel. But having said that, we still have a choice to make. And its a choice between the way of the world, a way which comes very naturally to us and so is easy to make, or a choice for the way of the kingdom, the way of compassion and understanding which does not come at all easily, is not natural, and so has to be very deliberately chosen.
As far as the first choice is concerned, we heard plenty of it when this whole issue was in the News. The sheer delight the papers took in exposing people in the way which would have the most effect and be most humiliating for them. They were all at it, of course, even although they weren’t. All politicians, we told ourselves, were crooks, even although they aren’t. They’re just in it for the money, we said, even although many of them could make far more money in other walks of life than they do in politics. And so a mood came over the country, a kind of feeding frenzy, during which all politicians were subjected to the modern equivalent of the stocks where anybody and everybody felt free to throw more and more mud at them. And I repeat, many of them had committed very serious offences. There was no justification for what happened in many cases. But I am talking this morning about what they did. Its about our response to it.
Because there was an alternative. And it was the way of the kingdom, in which, through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we could choose to move beyond our natural human response and see, not politicians, but individual human beings who had failed so badly and made such a mess of things, as God saw them. How would we feel, for example, if all our indiscretions, mistakes and acts of dishonesty were exposed for all to see. God, the saying goes, is the one who forgives all because he understands all. But how willing were we to try and understand how this whole debacle happened, how men and women, many of them good people who went into politics for the best of reasons, finished up the way they did. Were we at any time willing to understand or try to do so? What would it be like, for example, to have it all over the papers that your husband had been watching blue movies at the public expense? The Jesus who stepped off the boat that day would, I suggest, have looked at it all and felt pity for those concerned.
And there was another element to it all, the element of revenge: the desire to make them suffer for what they had done. Well, I read something recently about revenge. ‘If you want a moment of happiness’ it said, ‘Seek revenge. If you want eternal happiness, open your heart to forgiveness.’ And there’s an oriental proverb which says; ‘If you seek vengeance, you need to dig two graves; one for the other person and one for yourself.’
So, during the recent MPs expenses crisis, whose grave were we really digging?
BIDDING PRAYERS
To sit in judgement on others and find fault with them comes naturally to us as human beings. We do it all the time without even thinking. And yet this is not the way of the kingdom. It is not the way God sees the world and invites us to see it through the power of the Spirit living in us. And so we ask God to lead us beyond this deep-rooted tendency in our nature and open us up to much more positive and loving ways of viewing the world and the people in it...........Lord hear us
But if we are to begin to see the world as God sees it, we must choose to do so. God will invite. God will show open up new possibilities. But God will never force us. In the end, moved and led by the Spirit, we will have to choose to see the good in others rather than the bad. We will have to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. We will have to choose to put the best and not the worst interpretation on everything they do or say. And so we ask for this grace..........Lord hear us
What proves that God loves us, St Paul says in the letter to the Romans, is that Jesus loved us while we were still sinners. And so the great challenge for those who seek to enter the kingdom of God is to love those who do what is wrong without demanding that they change first as a pre-condition of our loving them. To love as God loves is to face the sin in others and love them in that sin, no matter what they have done. And we ask God to enable us to do this.......Lord hear us
The Press today take great pleasure in exposing to the full view of everyone the faults and weaknesses of those whom they catch out in embarrassing or compromising situations. They do this to sell newspapers, in the full knowledge that we, the public, enjoy it and take delight in it. But for this to happen to any person must be a terrible experience and we pray today for all who have suffered from it in the past or who are suffering from it this weekend............Lord hear us
In the first reading this week, the prophet Jeremiah attacks the religious and political leaders of his day whom he sees as shepherds who have failed in their duty to look after their sheep. And in our own day, many leaders both in the Church and in the Government have failed in the same way. But we pray for them today, that, whatever they have done, they will ultimately find in the Church and in the country, not just condemnation, but understanding and forgiveness....Lord hear us
In the second reading this week, St Paul speaks of how Jesus has broken down the barrier which had existed between Jew and gentile. This was to create what he calls ‘one single man’ out of what had previously been two separate parts and symbolizes the breaking down of barriers between peoples in every age which is at the very heart of the Gospel message. And so we pray that where people are separated today by hatred and the desire for revenge, God will bring peace and unity.............Lord hear us
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Saturday, 11 July 2009
15th Sunday of the Year B
Prophets come in all shapes and sizes. Last week we met Ezekiel, in many ways the strangest of all the Old Testament prophets, a priest who preached against the political elite in Jerusalem in the period just before the Exile in Babylon and who, himself, was one of those carried off by Nebuchadnezzar in 598 BC. He saw this disaster as the inevitable result of the political ambitions of those who held power in Jerusalem at the time, but, in Babylon, where he continued to prophesy, his message of doom gradually changed as he began to discover grounds for hope in the midst of what had seemed like a complete disaster.
And now, today, we meet the prophet Amos, the first of the prophets whose sayings have come down to us in the form of a book, a man who lived two hundred years before Ezekiel, in the middle of the seventh century BC. Amos, as he told us himself this morning, was a shepherd in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, called by God to preach against the abuses and injustices being perpetrated in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. His message against those who feasted lavishly and indulged themselves constantly while the poor starved was uncompromising and has earned him in our own day the title of the Prophet of Social Justice. But, of course, his message did not go down well at the time and the reading we heard just now put into words the response of people in every age to those who speak unwelcome truths and say things they prefer not to hear. ‘Go away seer; get back to the land of Judah... Do your prophesying there. We want no more prophesying in Bethel. And it’s no different today. Our modern world is filled with prophetic voices. Some are politicians, some are scientists, some are angry and disillusioned young people, but the most recent example has been the publication last Tuesday of Pope Benedict’s third Encyclical, called, in Latin, Caritas in Veritate or, in English, Charity in Truth. It’s the latest in a long line of papal Encyclicals on social and economic matters going back to Pope Leo XXIII’ Rerum Novarum in 1898. In particular, it builds on Pope Paul’s VI’s 1967 Encyclical Populorum Progressio, a document so challenging that it has been gathering dust on shelves all over the world for more than forty years. And so, in the week where the Pope has added to this rich prophetic tradition, the obvious question is: Will we pay the slightest bit of attention or will we treat this Encyclical the way we have treated all the others? Well, the least we can do today, on this first Sunday after its publication, is take a look at what it says.
That, of course, is easier said than done. Encyclicals are never easy reading. This one is full of the kind of stuff which makes most people reach for the remote control and change over to Coronation Street or East-Enders. It engages with economic questions, philosophical question and political questions and makes no apology for doing so. We live in complex world. The publication of this Encyclical has been delayed for more than a year to enable the Pope to respond to the financial crisis facing the world. And so it is a serious document addressing serious issues. But there are three things I would say about it today which I hope will help us understand better what the Pope is talking about. And the first is in the title itself.
All Encyclicals take their name from the opening words of the original Latin text. They are designed to give, right at the very beginning, a sense of what is to come. And in this case, veritas/truth is the key to understanding the mind of Benedict XVI. For years he has been arguing against the idea that truth is relative, that it is what we think it is, that each person has their own truth and so on. The truth he is speaking about here is the truth that God is love; that every human being is created in the image and likeness of this God and so is called to love as God loves; and that that any attempt to address the great issues of our day must begin from this position. Love must be the basis of all political and economic thinking, the Pope says. It must direct everything we do and this understanding of the purpose of all human activity is, for him, the unique and specific contribution that Christianity has to offer the world at this time. The Pope questions, for example, the doctrine that a company’s first duty is to its share-holders. It also, he says, has duties and obligations to God, to the environment, to its employees, to the local community and so on, an interesting idea given the current situation at Johnnie Walker’s.
But the Pope goes on to say something very important about the nature of love. To love someone, he says, is to desire that person’s good AND to take effective steps to secure it. It is not enough to wish the poor well. We must do something about it. We cannot wish the end if we do not wish the means, and for the world of our time, facing things like poverty, global warming and the current financial crisis, this means change. We cannot go on doing what we are doing and behind the change he is speaking about lies, not just an economic or a political imperative, but a theological and spiritual imperative which arise from who we are in relation both to God and to his creation. What is required is not just economic or political change, but deep and profound spiritual change.
But what does that mean for the man or woman in the street? What does it mean for you and me? Well, one of things Pope Benedict says which has huge implications for the way we go about our business each day and which we could put into practice without becoming experts on economics, is that every purchase we make is a moral and not just an economic act. And so, no matter what we buy, there are certain questions we could or should be learning to ask. Who made this? If it is cheap, why is it cheap? Where does it come from and how much were those who made it paid for their labour? There is, as the saying goes, no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody, somewhere is always paying for it and, with so many of the things we use each day, it is the world’s poor who are picking up the bill.
But read the Encyclical yourself. Just go onto the parish website where the full text is just two clicks away.
BIDDING PRAYERS
The modern world does what those before us have always done. It persecutes the prophets and rejects their message because it disturbs us and demands that we make changes in the way we live that we are unwilling to make. And so we pray for the prophets of the 21st century, men and women who can see that our current lifestyle in the developed world is unsustainable, that they will continue to challenge us no matter how badly we treat them and how often we reject them..................Lord hear us
The Social Teaching of the Church is often called our ‘best kept secret.’ Rich in wisdom and in a spirituality fit for our modern age, it lies on book shelves gathering dust while the world struggles to make sense of the great issues facing it. And so we ask God to stir in us a desire to know this teaching and to implement it in our lives. We pray especially that this latest Encyclical from Pope Benedict will find a place in the hearts and minds of people everywhere...........Lord hear us
The message which we have to offer to the world at this moment in our history is that the problems facing humanity will not ultimately be solved by politicians or economists. What we need most of all is a change of heart, a spiritual revolution, a recognition of the fact that, since we are created by God and for God, only God will ultimately satisfy us. And so we ask the Spirit to move deeply in our world so that, in time, we may recognize this truth........Lord hear us
The issue of truth is central to all that is going on in our world at this time. There are so many versions of it on offer that we have become confused about what it actually is. And yet, as the Pope says in his new Encyclical, no attempt to make sense of the great questions facing us today can possibly succeed if the truth that lies behind it is not valid. And so we ask God to guide the men and women of our time into the fullness of truth found in Jesus and in his teaching............Lord hear us
If every purchase we make in the course of our lives is a moral as well as an economic act, then the implications are far-reaching. What we do with our money, what we buy or don’t buy, becomes part of our spirituality. It affects what we eat, what we wear, how we travel and so on. God truly is in all things and there is no part of our lives untouched by him. And so we ask God to lead us more deeply into this relationship with himself, with his creation and with other people.....Lord hear us
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the twelve that, if people do not listen to them or do not accept their message, then they are to shake the dust from their feet and move on. Their job is to proclaim the Gospel. What happens after that is for God to deal with. And so we pray in a special way this week for those in the Church who worry and fret about the state of the world that they will do what they can and leave the worrying to God...Lord hear us
And now, today, we meet the prophet Amos, the first of the prophets whose sayings have come down to us in the form of a book, a man who lived two hundred years before Ezekiel, in the middle of the seventh century BC. Amos, as he told us himself this morning, was a shepherd in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, called by God to preach against the abuses and injustices being perpetrated in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. His message against those who feasted lavishly and indulged themselves constantly while the poor starved was uncompromising and has earned him in our own day the title of the Prophet of Social Justice. But, of course, his message did not go down well at the time and the reading we heard just now put into words the response of people in every age to those who speak unwelcome truths and say things they prefer not to hear. ‘Go away seer; get back to the land of Judah... Do your prophesying there. We want no more prophesying in Bethel. And it’s no different today. Our modern world is filled with prophetic voices. Some are politicians, some are scientists, some are angry and disillusioned young people, but the most recent example has been the publication last Tuesday of Pope Benedict’s third Encyclical, called, in Latin, Caritas in Veritate or, in English, Charity in Truth. It’s the latest in a long line of papal Encyclicals on social and economic matters going back to Pope Leo XXIII’ Rerum Novarum in 1898. In particular, it builds on Pope Paul’s VI’s 1967 Encyclical Populorum Progressio, a document so challenging that it has been gathering dust on shelves all over the world for more than forty years. And so, in the week where the Pope has added to this rich prophetic tradition, the obvious question is: Will we pay the slightest bit of attention or will we treat this Encyclical the way we have treated all the others? Well, the least we can do today, on this first Sunday after its publication, is take a look at what it says.
That, of course, is easier said than done. Encyclicals are never easy reading. This one is full of the kind of stuff which makes most people reach for the remote control and change over to Coronation Street or East-Enders. It engages with economic questions, philosophical question and political questions and makes no apology for doing so. We live in complex world. The publication of this Encyclical has been delayed for more than a year to enable the Pope to respond to the financial crisis facing the world. And so it is a serious document addressing serious issues. But there are three things I would say about it today which I hope will help us understand better what the Pope is talking about. And the first is in the title itself.
All Encyclicals take their name from the opening words of the original Latin text. They are designed to give, right at the very beginning, a sense of what is to come. And in this case, veritas/truth is the key to understanding the mind of Benedict XVI. For years he has been arguing against the idea that truth is relative, that it is what we think it is, that each person has their own truth and so on. The truth he is speaking about here is the truth that God is love; that every human being is created in the image and likeness of this God and so is called to love as God loves; and that that any attempt to address the great issues of our day must begin from this position. Love must be the basis of all political and economic thinking, the Pope says. It must direct everything we do and this understanding of the purpose of all human activity is, for him, the unique and specific contribution that Christianity has to offer the world at this time. The Pope questions, for example, the doctrine that a company’s first duty is to its share-holders. It also, he says, has duties and obligations to God, to the environment, to its employees, to the local community and so on, an interesting idea given the current situation at Johnnie Walker’s.
But the Pope goes on to say something very important about the nature of love. To love someone, he says, is to desire that person’s good AND to take effective steps to secure it. It is not enough to wish the poor well. We must do something about it. We cannot wish the end if we do not wish the means, and for the world of our time, facing things like poverty, global warming and the current financial crisis, this means change. We cannot go on doing what we are doing and behind the change he is speaking about lies, not just an economic or a political imperative, but a theological and spiritual imperative which arise from who we are in relation both to God and to his creation. What is required is not just economic or political change, but deep and profound spiritual change.
But what does that mean for the man or woman in the street? What does it mean for you and me? Well, one of things Pope Benedict says which has huge implications for the way we go about our business each day and which we could put into practice without becoming experts on economics, is that every purchase we make is a moral and not just an economic act. And so, no matter what we buy, there are certain questions we could or should be learning to ask. Who made this? If it is cheap, why is it cheap? Where does it come from and how much were those who made it paid for their labour? There is, as the saying goes, no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody, somewhere is always paying for it and, with so many of the things we use each day, it is the world’s poor who are picking up the bill.
But read the Encyclical yourself. Just go onto the parish website where the full text is just two clicks away.
BIDDING PRAYERS
The modern world does what those before us have always done. It persecutes the prophets and rejects their message because it disturbs us and demands that we make changes in the way we live that we are unwilling to make. And so we pray for the prophets of the 21st century, men and women who can see that our current lifestyle in the developed world is unsustainable, that they will continue to challenge us no matter how badly we treat them and how often we reject them..................Lord hear us
The Social Teaching of the Church is often called our ‘best kept secret.’ Rich in wisdom and in a spirituality fit for our modern age, it lies on book shelves gathering dust while the world struggles to make sense of the great issues facing it. And so we ask God to stir in us a desire to know this teaching and to implement it in our lives. We pray especially that this latest Encyclical from Pope Benedict will find a place in the hearts and minds of people everywhere...........Lord hear us
The message which we have to offer to the world at this moment in our history is that the problems facing humanity will not ultimately be solved by politicians or economists. What we need most of all is a change of heart, a spiritual revolution, a recognition of the fact that, since we are created by God and for God, only God will ultimately satisfy us. And so we ask the Spirit to move deeply in our world so that, in time, we may recognize this truth........Lord hear us
The issue of truth is central to all that is going on in our world at this time. There are so many versions of it on offer that we have become confused about what it actually is. And yet, as the Pope says in his new Encyclical, no attempt to make sense of the great questions facing us today can possibly succeed if the truth that lies behind it is not valid. And so we ask God to guide the men and women of our time into the fullness of truth found in Jesus and in his teaching............Lord hear us
If every purchase we make in the course of our lives is a moral as well as an economic act, then the implications are far-reaching. What we do with our money, what we buy or don’t buy, becomes part of our spirituality. It affects what we eat, what we wear, how we travel and so on. God truly is in all things and there is no part of our lives untouched by him. And so we ask God to lead us more deeply into this relationship with himself, with his creation and with other people.....Lord hear us
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the twelve that, if people do not listen to them or do not accept their message, then they are to shake the dust from their feet and move on. Their job is to proclaim the Gospel. What happens after that is for God to deal with. And so we pray in a special way this week for those in the Church who worry and fret about the state of the world that they will do what they can and leave the worrying to God...Lord hear us
Saturday, 4 July 2009
14th Sunday of the Year. B.Anniversaries, when you think about it, are strange things. Forty years ago, on 5th July 1969, I was ordained a priest in S
Anniversaries, when you think about it, are strange things. Forty years ago, on 5th July 1969, I was ordained a priest in St Thomas’, Muirkirk, a fact that feels deeply significant to me this morning. I have been aware of it coming for months now and found myself this week taking out photographs of the ordination and looking at them. But, at another level, I have been asking myself why we do this. Why are anniversaries so important to us? Why do they have the power to stir us so deeply that we virtually re-live the original event, feeling, in the case of bereavement, the most obvious example, the same pain and sense of loss we felt at the time. Certainly, this anniversary has stirred quite deep things in me.
Well, I think I found the answer to my question this week in a quite unexpected way. And it happened in conversation with two parishioners suffering from Dementia. And what struck me so forcibly was how utterly lost they were. They were like people wandering in a wasteland totally devoid of landmarks or signposts. Without memory, they had no idea who they were or how they had got here. It was as if someone had pressed the delete button in their minds and everything they had ever done, the relationships they had had, the whole story of their lives had been obliterated, leaving them lost and confused in a present which made no sense to them. It was a desperately sad thing to see, and as I reflected on it it became so clear to me why anniversaries are important. Memories are the glue which holds our lives together. They are what enables us to make sense of them. Without memories our lives have no structure, no coherence, no shape. And amidst the many thousands of memories stored away in our minds, the anniversaries, which mark special moments, are the landmarks and signposts, the junctions and crossroads which form the backbone of our personal life-stories. And for people of faith, they are a time, not just for remembering, but for giving thanks to God for his presence in all that happens to us. And so, on this fortieth anniversary of mu ordination to the priesthood, I would like to tell you some of the things I am grateful for today.
And we begin with today’s first reading which speaks to us of how the prophet Ezekiel was sent by God to the people of Israel to speak to them in his name. And the first thing I thank God for today is the particular form that call has taken in my own life. Or to put it another way, I am deeply grateful for my vocation to the priesthood. After forty years, I would not change it for anything. It began in Muirkirk all those years ago and through many different stages has been the most wonderful journey into the mystery of who God is; or more accurately very often, who God isn’t. Always slowly, and sometimes painfully, the God who touched my life so deeply in the spring of 1957 when I had one foot in the kitchen at home and one in the living room, has revealed himself to me as a God who is always different from and infinitely more than anything we could ever say about him. He has shown me that he is a God, not of religion, but of faith, who, as a new century begins, is calling the world to something infinitely deeper and better than anything we have known up to now and for the grace of being part of this I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
But there’s a price to pay for this, and St Paul refers to it in the second reading where he speaks first about the thorn in his flesh which keeps him from becoming too proud and then about his having to be content with insults and persecutions. It sounds ridiculous, not to mention arrogant, to compare my experience over the last forty years with St Paul’s. And at one level it is. But at another level, anyone who takes the following of Jesus seriously is bound to experience something of what Paul speaks of and what happened to Jesus himself throughout his ministry. And like Jesus’ experience in Nazareth in today’s Gospel, my version of it has its roots in my home town of Muirkirk. Mining communities have always had a tendency to be, by instinct, ‘agin the government’ and for years were viewed with deep suspicion by those in authority. And so, throughout most of my life, there has been a little Arthur Scargill inside me trying to get out. And for this, too, I thank God. Without it my whole experience of priesthood would have been so different. It’s the thing which has saved me from so many of the things in the Church which I detest and abhor and who knows where I would be without it. But it has had its difficulties. A book I read recently described the typical Israelite prophet as a man who, having met God and armed with conviction is an outspoken and merciless critic of the establishment. And in my own small way that is the kind of priest I have always felt called to be. It’s in my nature to challenge, disturb and question and I have admired so much over the years those of you who have engaged with the sometimes difficult things I say and have become part of this community’s great journey from religion to faith.
But it may surprise you to know that I have not always found this easy. I remember in those early days, twenty four years ago, watching the numbers at Mass each week fall. I often walked out of the sacristy afraid to look up to see if there were more spaces than the week before.The desire to be accepted and approved of was very strong both here and within the diocese where, on one occasion, a priest actually followed me home to say how much he had agreed with what I had said during a meeting. At the meeting itself, however, he had said nothing. But I was never seriously tempted to give up and say more acceptable things. Instead, the whole experience took me into two and a half years of counselling and psychotherapy designed to help me understand what was happening to me and why. And it was that experience that led to the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, the greatest of all the gifts I have received from God during these forty years.
So I don’t regret any of it. Looking back, it has been wonderful. God has been so good to me and I invite you to join me today in thanking him.
BIDDING PRAYERS
In the first reading this week, we heard how the prophet Ezekiel, like prophets before and after him, was sent by God to speak unwelcome truths to the people of Israel. The truth is often unwelcome in that it calls us to conversion and change when we would rather be left alone and stay as we are. But there will always be men and women whose task it is to call the world to new ways of living and we ask God to raise up many of them from among this parish community...........Lord hear us
In this week’s Gospel, we heard how Jesus, the one towards whom all the prophets had pointed, was rejected by the people of his own home town. God was in their midst and they did not recognize him. Their minds were closed. They were not open to new things. They were trapped in the limitations of their own narrow understanding. And so we ask God to open our minds and hearts wide to recognize and listen to the prophets in today’s world............Lord hear us
In the second reading, St Paul speaks about the thorn in his flesh which kept him from becoming too proud. He does not tell us what this thorn in the flesh was, but whatever it was, it constantly reminded him of his weakness. But that weakness did not discourage him. It became the place where he met the God whose power is at its best in weakness. It taught Paul that it was when he was weak that he was strong and we ask God to use our weakness to teach us that same lesson.............Lord hear us.
And we pray for priests all over Scotland. We ask God to support and encourage them at a time when, by definition, they are growing older; when there are fewer and fewer of them; and, when, as a result, many are being asked to do more and more; all of this in a world which increasingly sees them as irrelevant. And yet we also ask God, too, to stir in the hearts of men, young and old, the desire to share in this ministry for the sake of the kingdom...........................................................Lord hear us
We also think today about the increasing number of people around us who are suffering from various forms of senile dementia or Altzeimer’s disease. We ask God to touch those parts of their minds which we cannot reach and give them a deep sense of peace beyond anything the world can understand. And we pray, too, for those who live with and care for them, that God will give them the patience and understanding they need so much.......Lord hear us
This week, we have all heard the devastating news about the proposed closure of Johnnie Walker’s with all that that involves. And so we ask God to move deeply within those who make such decisions. The Company involved makes massive amounts of money every year and at a time when the world is having to re-examine its attitudes on such matters, we pray that they, and others like them, will learn to balance economic and human factors in all the decisions they make.........Lord hear us
Well, I think I found the answer to my question this week in a quite unexpected way. And it happened in conversation with two parishioners suffering from Dementia. And what struck me so forcibly was how utterly lost they were. They were like people wandering in a wasteland totally devoid of landmarks or signposts. Without memory, they had no idea who they were or how they had got here. It was as if someone had pressed the delete button in their minds and everything they had ever done, the relationships they had had, the whole story of their lives had been obliterated, leaving them lost and confused in a present which made no sense to them. It was a desperately sad thing to see, and as I reflected on it it became so clear to me why anniversaries are important. Memories are the glue which holds our lives together. They are what enables us to make sense of them. Without memories our lives have no structure, no coherence, no shape. And amidst the many thousands of memories stored away in our minds, the anniversaries, which mark special moments, are the landmarks and signposts, the junctions and crossroads which form the backbone of our personal life-stories. And for people of faith, they are a time, not just for remembering, but for giving thanks to God for his presence in all that happens to us. And so, on this fortieth anniversary of mu ordination to the priesthood, I would like to tell you some of the things I am grateful for today.
And we begin with today’s first reading which speaks to us of how the prophet Ezekiel was sent by God to the people of Israel to speak to them in his name. And the first thing I thank God for today is the particular form that call has taken in my own life. Or to put it another way, I am deeply grateful for my vocation to the priesthood. After forty years, I would not change it for anything. It began in Muirkirk all those years ago and through many different stages has been the most wonderful journey into the mystery of who God is; or more accurately very often, who God isn’t. Always slowly, and sometimes painfully, the God who touched my life so deeply in the spring of 1957 when I had one foot in the kitchen at home and one in the living room, has revealed himself to me as a God who is always different from and infinitely more than anything we could ever say about him. He has shown me that he is a God, not of religion, but of faith, who, as a new century begins, is calling the world to something infinitely deeper and better than anything we have known up to now and for the grace of being part of this I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
But there’s a price to pay for this, and St Paul refers to it in the second reading where he speaks first about the thorn in his flesh which keeps him from becoming too proud and then about his having to be content with insults and persecutions. It sounds ridiculous, not to mention arrogant, to compare my experience over the last forty years with St Paul’s. And at one level it is. But at another level, anyone who takes the following of Jesus seriously is bound to experience something of what Paul speaks of and what happened to Jesus himself throughout his ministry. And like Jesus’ experience in Nazareth in today’s Gospel, my version of it has its roots in my home town of Muirkirk. Mining communities have always had a tendency to be, by instinct, ‘agin the government’ and for years were viewed with deep suspicion by those in authority. And so, throughout most of my life, there has been a little Arthur Scargill inside me trying to get out. And for this, too, I thank God. Without it my whole experience of priesthood would have been so different. It’s the thing which has saved me from so many of the things in the Church which I detest and abhor and who knows where I would be without it. But it has had its difficulties. A book I read recently described the typical Israelite prophet as a man who, having met God and armed with conviction is an outspoken and merciless critic of the establishment. And in my own small way that is the kind of priest I have always felt called to be. It’s in my nature to challenge, disturb and question and I have admired so much over the years those of you who have engaged with the sometimes difficult things I say and have become part of this community’s great journey from religion to faith.
But it may surprise you to know that I have not always found this easy. I remember in those early days, twenty four years ago, watching the numbers at Mass each week fall. I often walked out of the sacristy afraid to look up to see if there were more spaces than the week before.The desire to be accepted and approved of was very strong both here and within the diocese where, on one occasion, a priest actually followed me home to say how much he had agreed with what I had said during a meeting. At the meeting itself, however, he had said nothing. But I was never seriously tempted to give up and say more acceptable things. Instead, the whole experience took me into two and a half years of counselling and psychotherapy designed to help me understand what was happening to me and why. And it was that experience that led to the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, the greatest of all the gifts I have received from God during these forty years.
So I don’t regret any of it. Looking back, it has been wonderful. God has been so good to me and I invite you to join me today in thanking him.
BIDDING PRAYERS
In the first reading this week, we heard how the prophet Ezekiel, like prophets before and after him, was sent by God to speak unwelcome truths to the people of Israel. The truth is often unwelcome in that it calls us to conversion and change when we would rather be left alone and stay as we are. But there will always be men and women whose task it is to call the world to new ways of living and we ask God to raise up many of them from among this parish community...........Lord hear us
In this week’s Gospel, we heard how Jesus, the one towards whom all the prophets had pointed, was rejected by the people of his own home town. God was in their midst and they did not recognize him. Their minds were closed. They were not open to new things. They were trapped in the limitations of their own narrow understanding. And so we ask God to open our minds and hearts wide to recognize and listen to the prophets in today’s world............Lord hear us
In the second reading, St Paul speaks about the thorn in his flesh which kept him from becoming too proud. He does not tell us what this thorn in the flesh was, but whatever it was, it constantly reminded him of his weakness. But that weakness did not discourage him. It became the place where he met the God whose power is at its best in weakness. It taught Paul that it was when he was weak that he was strong and we ask God to use our weakness to teach us that same lesson.............Lord hear us.
And we pray for priests all over Scotland. We ask God to support and encourage them at a time when, by definition, they are growing older; when there are fewer and fewer of them; and, when, as a result, many are being asked to do more and more; all of this in a world which increasingly sees them as irrelevant. And yet we also ask God, too, to stir in the hearts of men, young and old, the desire to share in this ministry for the sake of the kingdom...........................................................Lord hear us
We also think today about the increasing number of people around us who are suffering from various forms of senile dementia or Altzeimer’s disease. We ask God to touch those parts of their minds which we cannot reach and give them a deep sense of peace beyond anything the world can understand. And we pray, too, for those who live with and care for them, that God will give them the patience and understanding they need so much.......Lord hear us
This week, we have all heard the devastating news about the proposed closure of Johnnie Walker’s with all that that involves. And so we ask God to move deeply within those who make such decisions. The Company involved makes massive amounts of money every year and at a time when the world is having to re-examine its attitudes on such matters, we pray that they, and others like them, will learn to balance economic and human factors in all the decisions they make.........Lord hear us
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