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
Saturday, 20 November 2010
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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