28th Sunday of the Year

Last week’s homily, which you may or may not remember, was, on the face of it, about divorce. But, in reality, it was about something much more profound and far-reaching. Having heard what Jesus had to say about divorce, we certainly spoke about the appalling way in which divorced and remarried people have sometimes been treated in our parishes over the years, often rejected even by family and friends and made to feel that they could not attend Church, even although many longed to do so. We saw, too, how there was never any justification for this; how it was completely against the teaching of the Church as expressed in Pope John Paul II’s 1981 document on the family in which he speaks of how the divorced and remarried must be made part of the parish community and encouraged to play their part in its life.

But while we did talk about these things - and they took up half the homily - the real point of what I was saying came after that when I asked what thousands of divorced and remarried people in our parishes are to do in the face of what the Pope says about divorced and remarried people not going to Holy Communion. This led us to reflect on something which traditional Catholicism has not prepared most of us for, the world of discernment based on an intimate, personal relationship with God and on the century-old principle of Catholic moral teaching, that conscience is the ultimate norm of morality. And I spoke of that lonely place where law is no longer able to answer all our questions and we have to stand before God with our personal moral choices and trust him with them. What this means in practice, of course, is not always simple. As one parishioner asked me on Monday morning after the homily ‘Does what you were saying yesterday mean that, if I do something and don’t think it’s wrong, that I am not committing a sin?’ Well that, I’m afraid, is one of those questions to which the answer is ‘Yes and No!’

When push comes to shove, of course, the answer is ‘Yes.’ Even as a small child I was taught that if a person believes that what he is doing is right then he cannot commit a sin. But to try and express such a profound idea as we are dealing with here in such simple terms is to leave it wide open to misunderstanding and abuse. And so, from being a matter of moral principle and spiritual maturity, the whole concept of conscience and discernment can very easily and very quickly degenerate into an excuse for self- indulgence, for just doing what we like or what suits us at any given moment: the modern ‘truth is what you think it is’ approach to morality. Personal discernment and conscience, however, have nothing to do with this mentality. They are, instead, about opening ourselves up more and more to the Will of God in every situation we face in the course of our lives. If we want to live as mature, adult, discerning individuals, we will discover very quickly that the ‘conscience is the ultimate norm of morality’ principle will demand more of us, not less. To allow the Spirit of God to guide us on our journey through life - which is what we are talking about here – will always mean being drawn ever more deeply into the following and imitating of Jesus. It will mean learning to love as God loves and this in itself will mark the end of the religious stage of our life – when we live by rules and do the minimum necessary for salvation - and the beginning of a life of faith which will ultimately lead us into the very heart of God himself, a journey which in some semse will mean dying to our self-centred selves and being born into God.

But if this is ever going to become a reality for us, then there is one word which sums up the journey we must undertake. And it’s the word Freedom. St Ignatius talks about it at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. We are, he says, created to share the life of God. Everything on the face of the earth is gift from God, but it is not God. And so, while using and enjoying the gifts of creation, we must never fall into the trap of turning them into gods or making them ends themselves. We must never become attached to any created thing, as the young man in today‘s Gospel clearly had, but must use them in ways which lead us to God and not away from him. And so when Jesus tells our young man to sell everything he has and come and follow him, what Jesus wants for him is the freedom to go where God leads and so become the person he was created to be. And it was the same in the Gospel of two weeks ago which I know confused some of you. When Jesus spoke that day about cutting off hands or tearing out eyes, he is not advocating some form of self-harm. He is speaking of this same freedom and the need to let go of anything, no matter how good it may be in itself, if it is threatening to come between us and God. Some of these attachments can be to material things: to money, to a certain life-style, to material comforts, to a career or a job. But they can be to less tangible things like our own opinions, our own ways of thinking, our own world-view, our own prejudices and so on. But it is when we are attached to them and so lack the basis freedon to go where God leads that personal discernment can very quickly become that excuse for self-indulgence and doing what we like. Our capacity for self-deception then knows no bounds and when that happens there is almost nothing that we cannot justify to ourselves.

And yet this freedom is what we are created for. At certain points in our moral and spiritual development we need rules and regulations to guide us. But if we live our whole lives in this way we are like a tree that never produces fruit or a plant that never flowers. We are made for more than rules. We are, in the end, created, not to obey, but to choose freely, out of love, what God offers. This is the wisdom the first reading spoke of, a wisdom which the author esteemed more than sceptres and thrones and compared with which he held riches as nothing. He prayed, he says and understanding was given him. He entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to him.

May it come to you too.


BIDDING PRAYERS


In a world where relativism has run riot - the idea that truth is what the individual thinks it is and there is no truth outside or beyond ourselves – there is a greater need than ever before in history for people who have the moral and spiritual maturity to make good choices for themselves rather than just do what everyone else around them is doing. And so we ask God to give us the wisdom we need at this time, the wisdom the author of the first reading valued above all other things.........Lord hear us

To become free of all attachments so that we can freely go where God leads us is itself a gift from God. Left to ourselves we could never come to such freedom. But we can prepare for it by becoming more aware on a daily basis of our un-freedoms. And so we ask God, through the power of his Spirit living in us, to enable us to see more clearly than ever before where our deep-rooted attachments lie so that we can begin the process of becoming free of them............Lord hear us

Un-freedoms come in manyforms. In our modern consumer-driven society many of us are hooked on buying things and acquiring more and more material possessions. The world of our time tells us that along this road lies happiness, and millions travel along it only to discover that it is an illusion which, in the end, leads only to disappointment and unhappiness. And so we ask God to show our world the way out of the trap we are in....Lord hear us

Perhaps the most powerful example of un-freedom in our world today are the many forms of addiction which bedevil our society. And so we pray today for all who suffer from such addictions, especially to drugs and alcohol. These can completely take over a person’s life, robbing them of the very freedom and will-power they need to escape from the deep, dark dungeon they live in. And so pray for them and ask God to do in them what they cannot do in themselves......Lord hear us

In the story of the rich young man, we see a reflection of the world we live in. He wants to know, love and serve God, but is not yet free enough in himself to be able to do so. Our world, too, longs for the things of God - justice, peace, freedom, deeper more spiritual ways of living which go beyond the old, redundant religions – but, like the young man, it is unable or unwilling make the changes necessary for this to happen. And so we ask God to stay with us and guide us......Lord hear us

This week’s passage from the letter to the Hebrews speaks of the power of God’s Word. It can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, we heard. It can judge secret emotions and thoughts. Through it everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give an account of ourselves. And so we pray for the grace to live in such a way that, in the end, we can come into God’s presence with lives lived to the full and free from all fear......Lord hear us