24th Sunday B

When the Bishop phoned me a week past on Tuesday and asked if I would come down and see him, I had a pretty good idea what was coming. I came here twenty four years ago this very weekend, on 13th September 1985, which makes me the longest serving priest in any parish in the diocese, and sure enough, as soon as we had sat down and exchanged a few pleasantries, he asked me if I would move to West Kilbride as parish priest. And, to his evident relief, I agreed, with the result that, if God spares us all, I will leave here on Monday, October 19th, and Father Martin Chambers, who spent a whole summer here as a deacon twenty years ago and has just returned from five years in Ecuador in South America,, will become parish priest of St Matthew’s. So how do I feel?

Well, my initial reaction as I left the Bishop’s house was one of deep peace and a sense that what was happening was right. It quite simply felt as if it was of God, a feeling which stayed with me for the rest of that day. But when I went to bed that night, it all changed. I couldn’t sleep, and as I lay there in the darkness waves of fear and panic came over me. I began to think of all the people and the things I would miss. My Dad and I had nipped up about 8.30. that evening to see where the Church was. There hadn’t been a soul to be seen anywhere, and, as I lay there, I pictured myself sitting in the house at night, growing old, with nothing happening and no one ever coming to the door, not even for a bag of messages. And in the darkness, ridiculous things, like the fact that there is no Marks and Spencer’s in West Kilbride, were doing everything they could to destroy the sense of God I had had earlier. In Ignatian terms, consolation had well and truly given way to desolation, as it so often does for us in the night. The voice speaking to me during that time was the voice of Peter in Matthew’s version of today’s Gospel. ‘This must not happen to you, Lord,’ was what he said to Jesus after Jesus had predicted his own passion and it was that same negative and ungodly voice that I was hearing during that long night from Tuesday through to Wednesday morning. But with the coming of morning it passed and today, although I know that, after twenty four years here, there will be difficult moments ahead for me which will involve an element of taking up my cross and going where God leads, I can say to you with utter confidence that God is in this move, that it is happening at the right time and that it will be, without question, the best thing both for me and for St Matthew’s. And I would like to tell you why.

For a long time, you see, I have been aware that sooner or later I would have to leave here, either in a box or to go to another parish. I’ve also been aware for a long time that, like the rest of you, I’m getting older. Next year I will be a pensioner and four years ago, when I was ill, the consultant told me I must take this fact into account and adapt to it. And I have been struggling to do this, giving up the prison last year and, as I explained to you then, trying to use a Thursday in a different way, being a tentative step in that direction. And now I see this move as a spirit-inspired part of that process. And then there’s the question of the kind of priest God is calling me to be. Ultimately the challenge facing us all is to be the people God created us to be. This is certainly true of priests and it can take many years to come to, the failure to do so being, I know, a source of deep unhappiness to many. And the thing that has become clear to me over the years is that at the heart of my own vocation is the call to the ministry known as Spiritual Direction, the purpose of which is to help and enable individuals to discern and recognize the presence and movement of God in their lives. And part of the Bishops’s reason for asking me to go to West Kilbride is that I should have more time and space to do this. And I welcome that and thank God for it.

And I have no doubt either than Fr Martin Chamber’s coming here will be a great blessing for you. He is a different person from me, called to be a different kind of priest and so will bring to the parish things I cannot bring and which have been missing for the last twenty four years. And the very fact that he is coming at all is a sign of God’s providence. One of the things that has made the whole question of moving difficult for me up to now has been the likelihood that I would not be replaced and you would be left without a resident priest. But at this precise moment that has not happened. This summer Martin has come back from Ecuador and Fr Willie McFadden from being rector in Scotus College. And their return has provided a window of opportunity for me to leave without this happening. And God, in his providence, has grasped it. And if further proof of God at work is required, there’s the way in which our plan to employ a youth worker has dove-tailed so well with the move. Because one of the things Martin has been asked to do is take on responsibility for youth throughout the whole diocese, suddenly leaving St Matthew’s at the centre of the diocese in this respect. And for me God just shines out of this. And I thank him for it.

Of course there will be some difficult times ahead for me, for Martin, for you and for the people of West Kilbride. Change is never easy and few of us really like it. But what is far worse than change is stagnation. This change, if we all embrace it with faith and trust in God will be the beginning of something new and God-filled. There will be challenges. Fr Chamber’s will need time to adjust to the enormous change in his life as he moves from the Third World back to the first. And it will be your task to welcome him and support him through this time of transition.

And with any luck, the people of West Kilbride will do the same.


BIDDING PRAYERS


When Peter remonstrates with Jesus and objects to what he has just said about his having to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and to be put to death, arguing in Matthew’s account that this must not happen to Jesus, he is displaying a very deep tendency in human nature. The way he thinks is not God’s way but man’s. And so we pray for a willingness to move beyond the limits of human understanding and learn to think as God thinks...............Lord hear us.

When Jesus asks the question, ‘Who do you say I am?’ his words are addressed, not just to Peter, but to every single human being down through the ages. Jesus is either who we say he is or he is not. If he is not, then he is the greatest fraud in history. If he is, then he becomes the single most important person in history. There is no third way and no middle ground. And so we pray for the clarity of vision we need to see this and to answer this great question for ourselves...........Lord hear us

In Matthew’s account of today’s story Jesus tells Peter that it is not flesh and blood that has revealed the truth to him but his Father in heaven. Left to our own devices, the mystery of whoJesus is – God living among us – would be impossible to work out for ourselves. Jesus can only be known through faith, a gift from God which enables us to reach far beyond the limits of human thinking and know the unknowable. And so we ask God to pour this grace into our world................Lord hear us

To know Jesus and become a follower of his involves entering in some way into the mystery of death and resurrection. It is a mystery which lies at the very heart of creation. At every level of existence something always has to die so that what is new can be born. It is not possible to be born into what is of God without in some way dying to what is not of God: losing our life in some way so that we can save it. And so we pray for the courage we need to engage with this process................Lord hear us

In today’s second reading, St James tells us that Faith without good deeds is quite dead. There is no point in wishing the poor man well if we are not willing to engage with his poverty and do something about it. And so we pray that God will lead this parish deeper and deeper into this aspect of our faith. We pray that, with each year that passes, we will become more and more willing, not only to give to those in need, but to engage with the roots and causes of poverty itself............Lord hear us

Four priests and nine parishes are involved in the current round of changes happening in our diocese. And so we pray for the parishes, the priests and the people involved. We pray, above all, that all those concerned will have a profound openness to the providence of God deep within what is happening and that, with God’s help, we will accept whatever change is involved and face the future filled with trust and confidence in the God who is always with us and never moves.............Lord hear us