22nd Sunday Year C (Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14) Talking to God

 

All through our life we are continually in relationships. It’s what we are about. Different relationships can have different demands, but ultimately it is meant to be a two way thing. Can you imagine having a relationship with someone who eventually only came to you when they were in need of something, but no other time? I guess we would hardly even call it a relationship. Relationships also require work. If we don’t work at a relationship it breaks down.

 

The way we relate to each other and the way we relate to God is very similar. If we don’t communicate with God, there will be no relationship and the way we communicate with him is through prayer. Just like a relationship with another person, it isn’t just limited to certain times or places and it takes as many different forms as any relationship. We speak to God, we listen, we ask favors, we do things that God asks us to do because we love him, we spend time in his presence.

 

How do I speak to God, you might ask? the same way you would speak to anyone else. Through devotional prayers, like the rosary, the divine mercy chaplet and similar prayers, through reading Scripture. What often surprises people is that when we begin to communicate with God, God also communicates with us. God is in fact communicating with us all the time, but we often don’t hear it, because we are not listening, but as soon as we begin to pray, we start to notice it much more.

 

The best way to learn about prayer is to look to the Scriptures and see how the people of the Bible prayed. It says that God spoke to Moses face to face as a person talks to his friend. As well as talking to God directly, Moses continually interceded for the people when God was angry with them. Then he also defended God’s actions when the people were rebelling against God. Moses continually stepped into the breech between God and the people. He interceded for both sides. We are also called to intercede for the people around us and indeed for so many different needs in the world. I think we often underestimate the importance of our praying for other people.

 

Every so often we have a bad encounter with someone, who is just nasty, or hateful, or evil and it can be upsetting. I have found the Lord saying to me, ‘Now that they have your attention, pray for them.’ If someone is full of anger and hatred, they need spiritual help. Maybe the upsetting encounter we have had with people is also a sign to us to pray for that person. You may be the only one who does pray for them. This is where it is good to remember that God has us exactly where He wants us, at this exact time in history and the people we interact with are meant to be there.

 

Another form of prayer that we see very often in the Bible and it’s one we don’t usually think of, is prayer of praise, where people simply acknowledge, praise and thank God, for all that He does for us. One of the most beautiful examples is the Magnificat, where Our Lady meeting Elizabeth gives thanks for all that has happened:

‘My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.’

 

When we speak to God, we don’t usually begin by praising and thanking God, but that’s what all the great figures of the Bible did, even in desperate situations.

 

Daniel

In the prophet Daniel, when God reveals to Daniel the answer that the king is looking for, his first reaction is to praise God:

May the name of God be blessed for ever and ever,

since wisdom and power are his alone...

To you, God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise

for having given me wisdom and strength (Dan 2:20, 23).

 

The three men in the furnace

In the same book, Daniel and two others refuse to worship a statue of the king. As a result they are thrown into a fire to be burnt alive.  As they begin to pray to God to help them, Azariah begins:

May you be blessed and revered, Lord, God of our ancestors,

may your name be held glorious for ever. (Dan 3:26)

 

Then the other men begin to sing as well:

May you be blessed, Lord, God of our ancestors,

be praised and extolled for ever.

Blessed be your glorious and holy name... (Dan 3:52)

 

The message to us is to praise God no matter what and not just for what suits us, which is what we are inclined to do. 

 

 

Tobit’s prayer when he goes blind

When Tobit goes blind, he prays to God to restore his sight to him, but notice how he begins the prayer:

You are just, O Lord, and just are all your works.

All your ways are grace and truth,

and you are the Judge of the world.

Therefore Lord, remember me... (Tobit 3:2-3)

 

Sarah cries out to God in her distress

You are blessed, O God of mercy!

May your name be blessed for ever,

and may all things you have made

bless you everlastingly.

And now I turn my face

and I raise my eyes to you...  (Tobit 3:11-12)

 

Tobias and Sarah pray on their wedding night

You are blessed, O God of our fathers;

blessed too is your name

for ever and ever.

Let the heavens bless you

and all things you have made for evermore (Tobit 8:5b)

 

‘In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thes 5:18)

 

In Ireland people always talk about the weather because it is constantly changing. People tend to say, ‘It’s a beautiful day, thank God.’ But if it’s a rainy dark day, people tend to just say that, ‘What an awful day.’ I like to add, ‘Yes. Thank God.’ People look at me surprised. But why should we only thank God when things suit us? God should be praised in all circumstances, no matter what.

 

Our Father

When the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them the Our Father. But notice that they didn’t ask Jesus to teach them a prayer, but how to pray. So the Our Father isn’t just a prayer, but it is a structure of how to pray and if you think about it, the first half of the Our Father is all about acknowledging God’s greatness and holiness. Only in the second half do we ask for our needs and this is what Jesus taught them when they asked how to pray. So the Lord is telling us always to acknowledge and praise God first.

 

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

If you think of the Sunday mass, the first thing we do after acknowledging our sins is to glorify God: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you…’ Only after praising God and then listening to God’s word and then stating what we believe, then we ask for our needs.

The greatest prayer we have is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is nothing greater than this. You may not even think of it as a prayer, rather as something you just go to. But there is nothing else like it, because it is the offering of God the Son, to God the Father, at Calvary. In each mass time stands still and we are present at Calvary with Jesus being offered to the Father. That’s why it is so powerful and that’s why we pray for everything and everyone in each mass. Then we also receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. There is no more intimate meeting with God than this. His body is united with our body.

 

As well as reading the Scriptures, which are the living and inspired Word of God, there is also praying in silence, or just being still in God’s presence. It is just the same as a couple being together without needing to talk. We are not used to silence and often not comfortable with it, but this is where it can be a great help to learn some method to help you be still in prayer.

 

I know it is tempting to say that we don’t have time, there are just too many demands on us in daily life, but if you think about it, no matter how busy we are we never stop sleeping or eating, because we know they are essential for our bodies. Prayer is essential for our spirit, which is just as real and which is the part of us that will live on after our bodies die. We will be with God for all eternity, God willing, and now is the time to begin that relationship.

 

One of our difficulties when it comes to praying is that we are not so good at relating to or believing in the world of the spirit. In the western world we tend to be much more at home with the material world. In the east, they are actually more at home with the spiritual world.

 

If you feel that you can’t pray, or don’t want to pray, just ask yourself this: would you really expect to have a relationship with someone without speaking to them at all, or only asking them for your needs? Do you really expect to have a relationship with God without communicating with him at all?

 

‘In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thes 5:18)

 

 

 

21st Sunday Year C (Gospel: Luke 13:22-30) Try your best to enter by the narrow door

 

 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” St. Pope John Paul II

 

All of us are looking for happiness and Jesus reminds us that we will only find that happiness and fulfillment in him. Things of earth will never fulfill us, no matter how wonderful they may seem. Not even the person we love most in the whole world is capable of completely fulfilling us, but once we realize that, it makes it easier, because then we are not expecting earthly things to fulfill us and in fact then we will be able to enjoy our world and our loved ones even more, because we are not asking the impossible from them. God has given us a beautiful world and many wonderful things to enjoy. Have fun. He wants us to.

 

Jesus also says that the path that leads us to him, to our fulfillment, is not an easy one. Why is that?

 

Child prodigy Akim Camara plays with Andre Rieu

Great athletes, or musicians, are not that way when they are born. They are born with gifts in those areas, but it is only after years of training and guidance that they reach their full potential, even extraordinary people like Mozart. He still had to learn how to play the piano and how to write music.

 

God sees our full potential as human beings and He wants us to reach our full potential, because we will give him the greatest glory by becoming our best selves. ‘The glory of God is man fully alive.’ – St. Irenaeus. The more we develop our gifts and talents, the more glory we give to God, because we are then reflecting God’s goodness. But as with any great artist or musician, it takes years of training, in fact a lifetime of training and that is a big part of what our life on earth is about. The daily trials we go through are the main part of our training, of our being formed and that’s why Jesus says it is a narrow winding path.

 

Being faithful to God’s Commandments in the middle of things going wrong, family members becoming sick, or dying at a young age, marriage breakdown, being attacked or exploited by other people. Each time we are faced with difficulties we have a choice as to how to respond to them. We can seek revenge and turn to evil, or we can try and sort it out justly, with the least damage all round. We always have the choice to bless or to curse. Each time we are willing to keep going, without wishing evil, or seeking revenge, we grow another bit.

 

When we become demoralized by our own weaknesses, we have the choice to give up, or to get up again and again and again. That is the narrow winding path. Being faithful and persevering is one of the biggest challenges. Being faithful to God’s Commandments and teachings when the world around us calls us to take the easier way, that is the narrow winding path.

 

What we see as things going wrong in our life, are part of the narrow winding path. They play a crucial part in how we are formed. We don’t see that at the time, but that is what is happening.

 

You may remember the story of Roy Shoeman, a Harvard professor and atheist who became a Catholic. We had him here to give his testimony. He grew up in a practicing Jewish family, but after going through college he lost his faith. At the age of 29 he had become a Harvard professor and reached the top of his career, but then he began to fall into a deep depression. He felt he had achieved all he could, but that he didn’t have any purpose. One day when he was out walking in nature, God granted him an extraordinary experience and pulled back the veil between heaven and earth, allowing him to see the whole spiritual world. He saw his whole life and how God had been with him through everything. He saw how every part of his life played its part, especially the most difficult times. He saw that God was with him through everything and that his purpose was primarily to serve and worship God, as it is for all of us. Needless to mention this experience brought about his conversion. But I thought it was interesting how God showed him that the times of suffering he went through were some of the most important times in his journey. We tend to see them as failures, or things not working out. From God’s perspective they play a vital part in our journey. The most difficult experiences we go through, are the ones where we have the potential to grow the most. That was one of the things that God showed him.

 

Roy Shoeman, Harvard atheist become Catholic 

Our relationship with Jesus, is what gives us the strength to keep going on the winding path that leads us to heaven. We often think that we are on our own, but we are not. That is why it is so important that we keep coming back to the mass to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, to listen to his teachings, to repent of our sins through confession. Every time we do that, we are staying close to him, so that He can help us, which is all He wants to do.

 

Many people are afraid they won’t be good enough to get to heaven. I think it is a very normal fear. The truth is none of us are good enough by ourselves, but God isn’t asking us to follow this narrow winding path by ourselves. God is with us and even though we don’t always feel his presence, that doesn’t mean He is not there. If God really wasn’t with us, we would cease to exist. The sad thing is seeing so many people turning to everything except Jesus, to find happiness, but of course they don’t find happiness.

 

I have no doubt that one of the reasons why the suicide rate is so high, is because so many people have lost faith and so they don’t see any purpose to their life and they don’t know where to turn to when things go wrong, especially if they are going through times of struggle. If we have a sense of why we are here and what awaits us, that gives us the strength to follow the narrow winding path, which is the only one that leads to God.

 

In the Gospel Jesus says, ‘Not everyone is strong enough.’ The strength we need is the willingness to keep getting up each time we fall and that strength itself comes from God. It doesn’t matter if you fall six times, so long as you get up seven times.

 

Jesus also says here that not everyone will go to heaven. There is a point where the door will be closed and waiting to the last minute to put things right, is too late. ‘But I love God and I’m a good person.’ This is something you hear a lot, and what it implies is that that is enough. But Jesus says that is not enough. ‘It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven’ (Mt 7:21). To say I know God, or believe in God, is not enough. That is what Jesus is saying in this Gospel. We are called to do as God asks us, not just say that we know him. To love God is to keep his Commandments. ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn 14:15).

 

Jesus says, ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door.’ He doesn’t say, ‘You must enter by the narrow door,’ but strive to, or ‘Try your best,’ in another translation. What is important is our effort, not our success. It is God himself who makes up the difference

 

The narrow winding path is not an easy one, but it is the only one worth while, because it is the one that leads to our happiness.

 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted.” St. Pope John Paul II.

18th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 12:13-21) ‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul’

 

After the tsunami in Indonesia 2005

Whenever there is a natural, or human disaster, especially when it affects us directly, it makes us stop and think. In Feb 2018, in Parkland, Florida, there was the horrific school massacre, where seventeen students were shot dead. One minute they were just at school as normal, the next minute they were dead. Think of any one of those teenagers who died. One moment they were just getting on with their school day, then suddenly they were before God in another world, knowing what their whole life was about. That could be any of us.

In hurricane Ian in 2022, 160 lost their lives. One minute they are just preparing for the hurricane, not expecting anything other than a normal hurricane. The next minute they find themselves before God for their judgement.

C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘God shouts to us [in our] pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’

If you were suddenly told, as in the Gospel, ‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul,’ What would you focus on for the rest of the day? Would I be worried about paying bills, or loans, or focusing on a new car I had just bought? I doubt it. I’d imagine my focus would turn to the people I love and also to wondering how I have lived my life so far.

 At the moment, many people in our society—including Christians—are living as though there is no after-life, as though our life on earth is everything. At funerals I often hear people talking about the dead person as though that were it. Their existence is over. You hear people say, ‘I will never be able to speak to them again, or see them again.’ If that were so, then we might as well grab all we can and make our life as comfortable as possible, because we only have one chance. 

But our faith tells us something completely different. Perhaps the most important thing it tells us, is that we will not find full happiness in this life, but in the next, if we choose God. Complete happiness is not to be found in this life. We will have moments of great happiness, and hopefully we will find overall contentment, but that’s about as good as it gets. Once we realize that, it makes things easier as we won’t be expecting to find complete fulfilment here. St. Paul wrote: ‘If our faith in Christ is for this world only, then of all people we are the most to be pitied.’ (1 Cor 15:19).

The grotto in Lourdes where Our Lady appeared in 1858

When Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes in 1858, one of the things she said to her was, ‘I cannot promise you happiness in this life, but in the next’ and in Fatima she said, ‘If people knew what heaven was like, they would do everything to change their ways.’ The point of that message and of the teachings of Jesus, is to remind us not to ‘miss the bus,’ so to speak. It is important that we don’t forget what our life is really about. We are only on this earth for a short time. It is a time of preparation for the world to come. Use it well.

Jesus used various parables addressing this. The parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30). A man going on a journey entrusts his property to three servants. To the first he gave ten talents, which actually meant money. To the second five talents and to the third, one, each according to his ability. The first two invested what they had and made more. They used the gifts God had given them, as God expects us to do with whatever gifts, talents, money He has entrusted to us. The third man didn’t invest it. He just buried it and then gave it back to his master as he received it. He was condemned for not doing anything. The Lord is telling us that He expects us to make good use of what He has given us, whether a great amount or very little. God holds us accountable and we should take it seriously. It is not something we should be afraid of, but responsible for. It is interesting that in the Bible people who love God are referred to as God-fearing people, not God-loving. There is a certain loving-fear, you might call it, when our faith grows.

There is also the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), where those who lived righteously—the sheep—are commended by God for how they lived. Jesus says, ‘When I was hungry you fed me, sick and you visited me, naked and you clothed me.’ They ask, ‘Lord when did we feed you, or come to your aid when you were in need?’ Jesus says, ‘Whatever you did for the least of my brothers you did for me.’

Then the other group—the goats—who did not take care of those around them are condemned. They say, ‘Lord when did we not feed you, or clothe you, or sick and in prison and visit you?’ And Jesus says, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.’ And it finishes by saying they went off to eternal punishment and the others to eternal life.’ God holds us accountable. It’s interesting that one of the satanic symbols is the goat.

In Jesus’ time greed for money was just as much a problem as it is now and it will probably always be that way. When this man said to Jesus, ‘Tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance,’ Jesus pointed out to the disciples the danger of this desire. He said, ‘Watch out for this.’ ‘A person’s life is not made secure by what he owns.’ The problem is that our society tells us the opposite. We are all the time being told that if we have enough of everything, we will be happy, but that is not what the Lord teaches us. That’s not where our happiness comes from.

There was a priest called Benedict Groeschel who founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in the Bronx in New York. He was a great preacher and he tells the story of a man he knew, an extremely wealthy man. At a particular function this man spoke to Fr. Groeschel, and he said, ‘You know Father, I have more money than I could ever spend, or use and I would really like to be able to put it to good use.’ Fr. Groeschel suggested that he could make a donation to one of the orphanages they run, or something similar. But by the end of the evening, the man had not agreed to part with one cent of his money. He was possessed by his wealth. He knew he had way more than he could use, but he was still unable to part with it. Jesus said, ‘How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt 19:23)

 In confession I have heard so many heart-breaking stories of families divided over inheritance. It is so sad, because it is not important. Naturally, it is not good when someone in a family is left out of their fair share of what is coming to them, but sooner or later we will leave it all behind anyway. ‘There is no hitch on the hearse,’ as they say! Is it really worth causing such division in a family for this? I suppose it is a sign again that we believe we will find happiness if we have enough of everything materially. Our spirit can never be content with just material things and that is why there is always this deeper longing in us for ‘something,’ although we’re often not quite sure what that something is.

God has made us in such a way that we can only be fulfilled in him. It’s interesting that the third most popular areas of sales in bookstores to do with the spiritual, which is basically the search for God. Everyone is searching, even if we are searching in the wrong place.

A man told me one time that he had worked hard to make as much money as he could for his family and he did. But in the process he alienated himself from his family. Now he had plenty of money, but no family.

Wealth, fame and earthly honors are good and we should use our talents to the best of our ability, but they are not what counts when we come before God for our judgement. We will be judged by how we have lived, how we have loved and how we have honored God.

There is nothing wrong with having wealth and it is a blessing if you have done

Our time here on earth is a time for love and service; to choose for God or not; and this is a choice that each one of us has to make individually. That is why each week we come to listen to the Word of God and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, so that we remember what our life is about. The key is in making sure that God is at the centre. Otherwise we may forget what we are here for.

 

‘Fool, this very night the demand will be made for your soul;

and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?’

 

 

17th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 11:1-13) Ask and it will be given to you

 

 

There is an American writer called Scott Hahn, who used to be a Presbyterian and very anti-Catholic, but through his own studies ended up converting and becoming a Catholic. He is a brilliant writer and teacher of the faith. His own conversion story called Rome Sweet Home, is well worth reading. He now writes and teaches as a Catholic theologian in Stubenville University. In one of his talks he mentions that he had arranged to have a public debate with a Muslim, about the differences between the two faiths. Before they had the debate he met the Muslim and he mentioned to him that he would be talking about the fact that Christians understand God as a loving Father who looks after his children. Before he was able to go any farther, he said that the other man got upset and said that it is not right to talk about God as a Father. He said God is master and that it was insulting to speak about him as Father. The Muslim ended up refusing to have the debate at all. Scott says that this really brought home to him the difference in the way we understand God. 

 

Jesus taught us to talk about and address God in a way that was scandalous for many people then and now. The Jews in Jesus’ time were scandalised that Jesus would talk about God as Father, especially the way Jesus used the word ‘Abba.’ Once when I was in Israel I remember hearing a boy address his dad as ‘Abba.’ It really brought home to me what it meant. The idea of addressing God as ‘daddy’ is still strange to us, and yet that’s what Jesus did.

 

Recently a deacon friend of mine told me that a Muslim friend of his was asking him about our Church and about the mass. The deacon was explaining to him that in each mass we believe that the bread and wine really and truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. The Muslim asked again, ‘You really believe that God become present in a piece of bread and wine?’ And my friend said ‘Yes.’ And the Muslim’s response was fascinating. He said, ‘And this is how they dress?!’

 

God is all-powerful and doesn’t need us in any way, yet God invites us to play a part in what happens in the world. He asks us to take part in his creation, especially by interceding for each other, by being responsible for our actions. That is the action of a good parent with their child. Any parent doesn’t need their children’s help, especially when the children are small, but they love to allow the children to take part in things, for the sheer joy of having them there and helping them to learn. God does the same with us, even though there is the risk of us making a mess of things, which we regularly do. God invites us to be part of his work on earth.

In the first reading it says that God went down to see if what He had heard about Sodom and Gomorrah was really true. That is saying that people should always be given a fair chance to have their side of the story heard. God doesn’t act by hearsay and neither should we.

 

It also says that God is a moral God, who will hold us accountable for our actions. The idea that God was a moral God was something completely new for that time. People believed that the gods did whatever they wanted, with no sense of right or wrong and no regard for people’s wellbeing. God is showing us that there is a universal moral law, which cannot be changed. A modern-day error, is that we can decide what is right or wrong. If enough people decide that something is acceptable, such as abortion, then it is acceptable. But God says no, what is wrong is wrong and doesn’t change, even if the majority of people decide that it is ok. In Isaiah it says, ‘Woe to those who call good evil and evil good’ (Is 5:20). Doing that is twisting God’s word, but we see it happening all the time in our society.

 

Then Abraham intercedes for the people of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God is threatening to destroy and in the classic Middle-Eastern way, he bargains his way down to the best deal. Abraham actually challenges God and God allows him to. God showed him what He intended to do, so that Abraham would intercede for those people. He wanted Abraham to be involved. God also wants us to be involved in his world. He wants us to pray and intercede for the world around us. You are in exactly the right place God wants you to be and part of what God calls us to do is to pray for those around us. You may be the only one who is praying for those people. Take it seriously. We have been blessed with the gift of faith and that is part of what God asks us to do; to intercede for those around us.

 

People often ask, ‘Does God have a particular plan for me?’ The answer is yes, and part of that plan is to intercede for those around you. It is a real mission and an important one.

 

Think for a moment. What is the most important thing that we can pray for each day? The most important thing to pray for, is for those who will die today, that God may be merciful to them, so that they will go to heaven. In 1917 in Fatima, Our Lady gave the children a prayer and asked that it be added to the rosary at the end of each decade:

‘O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell.

Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of your mercy.’

The fact that the Church added this prayer to the rosary says a lot. It is saying that heaven and hell are real and people who reject God can go to hell, which is why it is so important that we pray for those around us.

 

Everyone around us who dies each day, goes somewhere; either to be with God forever in heaven, or to lose God forever because of how they have lived and what they have chosen. Many people probably won’t be able to come directly into God’s presence, because of sinfulness that they have not asked forgiveness for, or have not atoned for and so God allows them to go through a final purification, or purgation that we call purgatory. That is one of God’s gifts of mercy to us.

 

Sadly, many people reject the idea of purgatory. But think of it this way and this is an extreme example, but it makes the point. Suppose that the day before he died, Hitler realized all the evil he had done and repented and sincerely begged God for mercy. God has told us that He is infinitely just, but also infinitely merciful and that anyone who sincerely repents will experience his mercy. So does that mean that the next day when he died he would go straight to heaven? That would be a mockery of God’s justice. So where does he go? There must be some way for him to atone for what he has done. That is what we call purgatory.

 

Then comes the question that everyone asks: ‘Does God hear my prayers? And does God answer my prayers?’ From what Jesus says in this Gospel passage, God always hears and God always answers. If that is not true, then Jesus was lying. ‘Ask and you will receive… The one who asks always receives.’

 

Now the question comes up with most of us, ‘How come I’m always praying for certain intentions and they often aren’t answered?’ God sees a bigger picture than we do. God sees the whole picture. What we ask for is not always the wisest thing to ask for. If your five year old son asked for a chainsaw for his birthday, hopefully you wouldn’t give it to him. The child may think that you are really mean and never give him what he asks for, but you can see a bigger picture than he can, because you are older and wiser. God is the same with us. God always answers our prayers, otherwise Jesus is a liar, but He doesn’t always answer them in the way that we expect, or understand, or even recognise. That is where we have to believe and trust that God knows what He is doing and God is looking after us. God always hears us and God always answers us.

 

When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gives them the Our Father. Note, they didn’t ask him for ‘a prayer’, but how to pray. So the Our Father is not just a prayer, but it is teaching us how to pray.

 

The first half of the Our Father is acknowledging God, his holiness and that his will may be done. Only in the second half do we ask for our needs. So even if you only take that much away from the Our Father, remember to always start by praising and thanking God for all that we have before you ask for what you need. That’s why at the beginning of the mass each Sunday, we pray the Gloria. We praise and acknowledge God. It is only after listening to the readings that we ask for our own needs in the intercessions. This is how God teaches us to pray.

 

Perhaps the most unexpected thing of all is that Jesus teaches us to pray to the point of being annoying, the way a child will keep asking you for the same thing until you give in. This is how Jesus tells us to pray. Be persistent, until God gives in!

 

'Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you.'

 

14th Sunday, year C (Gospel: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20) The body is not meant for immorality

 

Marino Restrepo

There is a man named Marino Restrepo, who was born in 1950 in Columbia. His family owned a large coffee planation and were quite well off. Although he was brought up Catholic, he stopped practicing at the age of fourteen. During his teens in the 60s he met up with two different American girls from California, who introduced him to the idea of ‘free love’, helping him to be sexually ‘liberated’ and to drugs. He eventually married the second girl when she became pregnant. They moved to Germany and later to the US. He became a successful producer, actor and songwriter, in Hollywood. Gradually he got into all kinds of New Age and pagan practice and an increasingly hedonistic lifestyle, a life of pleasure and drugs. Being promiscuous, sleeping around, was just part of his life-style and he said that this was the world of Hollywood.

 

In December 1997, at the age of 47, he visited his home in Colombia for Christmas. His sisters were going to mass and they invited him to come along, which he did, even though he hadn’t been in a Catholic church for 33 years. During the homily the priest was talking about devotion to the Infant Jesus and about a novena of prayer to the Infant Jesus which began on December 16^th and concluded on Christmas Eve. The priest said that anyone who prayed this novena with faith would receive a special grace. Marino asked one of his sisters if this was true and she said yes. So he decided to ask for a special grace, but out of pure greed, not devotion. He prayed that the Infant Jesus would change his life and that he would be able to retire with great wealth to an Indonesian island he had seen pictures of, with at least three women. God did change his life, but not in the way he was expecting.

 

After partying with his family, he left to visit one of his uncles. When he got to his uncle’s house he found the gates locked, which was unusual. Just then he was surrounded by armed, masked men. He was kidnapped and after a couple of days found himself deep in one of the jungles not far from where he grew up. He had been kidnapped by FARC rebels, who were hoping to get ransom money from his family.

 

He spent the following six months bound, with a cover over his face, lying in a cave. He almost died from malnutrition and the psychological torture that he was put through. His kidnappers were not able to get the money they had hoped for from his family and he was sure they were going to kill him.

 

FARC Rebels

One night during this ordeal, he had a spiritual experience which lasted about eight hours. He was given an illumination of conscience, where God showed him his whole life up to that point and how far he had separated himself from God. God allowed him to see the state of his soul before God. He was able to see the exact moment when he rejected God during his teens and began to live a sinful life. In the world’s eyes he was becoming liberated and very successful in his career, even though he was living a more and more sinful life. God showed him that if he had died at that time, he would have gone to hell, because of his total rejection of God by the way he was living. He had been living in mortal sin for thirty-three years. As you can imagine this experience brought about his conversion.

 

After six months in captivity he was unexpectedly released and reunited with his family. He was so traumatized that he wasn’t able to be with people in public for quite some time. Finally, after a time of readjustment, he went to confession and poured his heart out. After that, he gave up his career in Hollywood and has spent the last 27 years of his life travelling around the world giving his testimony.

 

During his illumination of conscience God also revealed to him in great depth, the nature and seriousness of sin, which he wrote about in a book called From Darkness into the Light. One thing that God showed him was especially how damaging sexual sin is. The ‘free-love’ movement of the sixties, which seemed to be progress and liberation in the eyes of our world, was in fact demonic, as it began to lead more and more people into serious sin and farther from God. What was once considered sinful, sleeping with someone outside of marriage—that is, fornication—gradually came to be seen as normal. Sin was normalized. But God showed him that sexual intimacy is only meant for marriage, something that would be considered old-fashioned today.

 

God made marriage a sacred bond between a man and a woman, which is meant to support them both and give them the security for new life in the right environment. When a child is conceived outside of marriage, it is usually seen as a problem. When a child is conceived within marriage it is usually seen as a gift. Marriage provides the right loving environment into which children can enter the world. The sacrament of marriage also has God’s blessing and grace, to help the couple. I know it does not always work out this way, but this is God’s plan for us.

 

Artificial contraception also encouraged fornication, which in turn leads to more and more abortion. I have no doubt that abortion is probably one of, if not the greatest sin against God, because it is the destruction of life which comes from God, at its very beginning. If sexual relations were kept within marriage, abortion would drop drastically, as would sexually transmitted diseases. God in his wisdom knows what works and keeps showing us what works, but we must listen.

 

The first step to ending abortion is to help our young people to understand that it is not ok to sleep around before they are married; that it is in fact a serious sin in God’s eyes and every time it happens we separate ourselves more and more from God.

 

When Mother Teresa came to the States in 1994, she was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast. Most of her talk was about abortion and how it is destroying our society. ‘If we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other?”

 

Why is sexual sin more serious than other sin? God made us in his image and God’s Spirit dwells within us from baptism, which means our body is a sacred thing. When a child is conceived God creates a soul for that new life, which is immortal. The love between a man and a woman has the potential to become another life, which is imitating God. The love between the Father and the Son, is another life, the Spirit. Human sexuality mirrors God, which is why it is so sacred. That is also why Satan attacks it so much. Satan does everything to try and lead us away from God, simply because he hates God and hates God’s creation.

 

The Lord also showed this to the Apostles, which is why they wrote about it. St. Paul writes:

“Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body. But the immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Cor 6:18)

 

“Do you not know that neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexual acts… will inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

(1 Cor 6:9)

 

The Apostles didn’t just decide this themselves. The Lord revealed this to them, just as He showed Marino Restrepo the exact same thing in his experience. It is easy to get the impression that these teachings just applied to cultures centuries ago and that they are no longer relevant, but that’s why the Lord continues to give people different experiences, like Marino Restrepo and many others, so that we will realize it is just the same today. What was sinful remains sinful. What used to separate us from God will still separate us from God and it is only in God we will find our happiness, which means that anything sinful we need to take seriously.

 

Marino Restrepo was not a bad person, but the life he was living was extremely sinful before God and would have cost him losing heaven forever if he had died then. The Lord does not want that for any of us.

 

One of the lines in Scripture which I believe we need to hear often, is this:

[Jesus said] “It is not those who say, “Lord, Lord…” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)

 

Everything that God shows us is to help us. God’s design works, which is why He gave us the Scriptures, to show us in detail what to do and what to avoid. God wants us to be with him when we die. That is what He has created us for. But for this to happen we must try and live as the Lord tells us to live.

 

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Cor 6:19-20)

13th Sunday, Year C, The feast of Saints. Peter and Paul. ‘This is what I received from the Lord…’

 

It is interesting what different cultures consider important qualifications for leadership. In 2015 when Rodrigo Duterte was president of the Philippines, he was challenged by a journalist that he was known to have killed three men when he was mayor of Davao for twenty years. The journalist asked, ‘Don’t you think that makes you unsuitable for being president? But he said, ‘No.’ He thought they were important qualities, as it showed that he was tough and that’s what the country needed in fighting drugs.

 

In Italy when the billionaire Silvio Berlusconi was running for president, one of the things he did was to show off his multi-million dollar yacht, indicating what power and wealth he had. They considered that an important quality.

 

Here in the United States, when someone is running for president, the opposite party always tries to find some dirt on the candidate, to prove that they are unsuitable to be a president, even going back to mistakes they may have made in their teens, as though you could find someone with a perfect record.

 

Then we are presented with the kind of people God chooses to be his instruments and leaders in his Church, often the most unexpected people. Often the kind of people that we would never consider suitable.

St. Peter was a fisherman, probably uneducated, which was normal for the time. Very few people could read or write then. He was zealous and quick to jump into action, but also full of himself. He seemed to continually put his foot in it and as we know he publicly denied Jesus, in spite of his best intentions to be faithful. Fear got the better of him. Yet that did not stop Jesus from choosing him as the first leader of his Church. His betrayal didn’t disqualify him, because God sees the heart and not the outside.

 

This Gospel passage is another account of where Jesus appeared to the Apostles after the resurrection. It says He was waiting for them on the shore after they had been out fishing. When they were coming back in, Jesus called out to them, ‘Have you caught anything, friends?’ When they said ‘no’, He told them to put the nets out to the right of the boat. When they did, there was another miraculous catch of fish. I’m sure it immediately reminded them of the miraculous catch of fish three years before, when he called Peter and the others to follow him. They then realized it was Jesus.

 

When they came ashore, it says that Jesus was there and he had made breakfast for them. They didn’t just see him in a vision, but he was actually there with them on the shore and they ate breakfast together. After the meal Jesus challenges Peter: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ Asking Peter this question three times was addressing the three betrayals. It was making Peter face his mistakes, so that he could be healed of them and move on. Peter needed to be humbled, so that he would recognize that he needed to depend on Jesus for everything and that is how the Lord wanted it to be. He didn’t need someone with a perfect record, but someone who was open to him and was aware of how fallible he was as a human being. That made him the ideal instrument, because he was then completely open to Jesus and not depending on himself. That is why all of the Apostles were able to do such amazing work, because they had come to rely completely on Jesus.

 

Then we have St. Paul, who was almost the opposite. He was a Pharisee, which meant he was highly educated. He was also what we would call a religious extremist. He was determined to wipe out the Christians and he was in the process of doing just that, by whatever means necessary, killing and imprisoning as many of them as he could find. He wasn’t just dealing with any Christians he came across, he was out hunting for them. Then Jesus appeared to him and everything changed. Overnight he came to understand everything differently, as Jesus revealed everything from him.

 

He says that after Jesus appeared to him, he went off to Arabia by himself for some time. Only after three years did he go to Jerusalem to meet some of the Apostles and he only met Peter and James. He spent two weeks with them and he wanted to check that what Jesus had revealed to him, was the same as what Jesus had taught the Apostles during his life on earth and of course it was.

One line in the second reading today (Vigil readings) is interesting. St. Paul says,

‘I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.’ (Gal 1:1).

This was before he met any of the Apostles.

 

He also describes the mass by saying, ‘This is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to you, that on the night He was betrayed the Lord Jesus took some bread…’ (1 Cor 11:23). He didn’t get this from the Apostles, but directly from Jesus.

 

But his conversion was so dramatic that many of the Christians were afraid of him. They couldn’t believe his conversion was real.

 

Imagine if we heard that one of the leaders of ISIS had become a Catholic and wanted to come to our church to speak. Would you trust him. I would certainly be very wary, until we knew for sure that he was sincere.

 

Something you will often hear from people who disregard the message of Christianity, is that it is just a story. It is unlikely that anyone would give up everything they were doing and dedicate the rest of their lives to preaching this message, unless they were absolutely convinced it was true. Apart from St. John, all of the Apostles were martyred for passing on the teaching that Jesus had given them.

 

It is good that every so often we are reminded of this. People don’t sacrifice their lives for a story, but they will sacrifice something they believe is truth. All down through the centuries people continue to dedicate their lives to God and pass on the message Jesus commanded the Apostles to preach. And most of those people, including me, have never seen Jesus or actually heard his voice, but they have been completely convinced of it by God’s Spirit.

 

In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus said to the Apostles, ‘There are many things I want to share with you, but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit comes, He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.’ (Jn 1612). God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, continues to teach us and give us that conviction that what Jesus taught was true, is true.

 

Why is it so important that we know this? Because the message of Christianity is what makes sense of why we exist, where we come from, why we struggle with sin and what awaits us, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Everyone should know this. They don’t have to accept it, but everyone should know it and that’s why Jesus told the Apostles to go out and ‘teach all nations.’

 

The messengers who pass on this message, like me and thousands of others, are not always the best witnesses because of our own human weakness, but Jesus knew that when He called us.

 

Jesus said, ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees occupy the seat of Moses. Therefore, you should listen to what they say, but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach.’ (Mt 23:2).

The same applies to all of us messengers, bishops, clergy. What is important is the message that is passed on, even if the messengers don’t give the best example.

 

Think of the first leaders of the Church, St. Peter, St. Paul and so many others. All that mattered is that they were open to God, not that they were perfect. God doesn’t need our greatness, but our openness to him. And all of us pass on this message to those around us, mostly by the way we live. Our witness is far more important than anything we could say.

 

‘I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.’ (Gal 1:1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feast of the Holy Trinity (Gospel: John 16:12-15) Created for happiness

 

We believe that God was completely fulfilled, perfectly happy and content, not in need of anything, before God created the universe and the human race. Wouldn’t it make you wonder why God bothered to create us at all, since we have proved to be so much trouble?  And God would have known about all the trouble we were going to cause. So why did God create us?

Think for a moment of some time when you were very happy about something: the birth of a child, a wedding, or graduation. Usually our instinct is to share our joy. We want someone else to be a part of that happiness. That’s why most people have a big party at to celebrate these occasions, because they want others to share in their happiness. That is one of the reasons why God created us, simply because in his goodness he wanted others to share in his own happiness. And so He created the spirit world, that we understand as the angels and then He created the human race, in order that we could share in his own happiness. The book of Genesis says that we were the last thing that God created which is a biblical way of saying that we were the most important thing, the masterpiece of God’s creation. We are God’s greatest creation! God also created us to be like him, with the ability to love and reason and free choice.

However, there was one ‘catch’ as it were. In order for us to be able to love God we had to be free, so that we could freely choose to love God, otherwise it wouldn’t be real love at all. Real love has to be free, since you can never force someone to love you. You can encourage them, but you certainly can’t force them. Love has to be free or it isn’t love. So God made us with free will, which meant that we would have the freedom to love God and gradually find our way to happiness, or to reject God which would ultimately mean we would lose the happiness that God had intended for us. It’s a strange paradox. God created us and gave us freedom, even though He knew that some of his own creatures would reject him.  

A friend of mine, a very devout Catholic, after he was married and had children, said to me one time that when he looks at his children, he couldn’t believe that God who is so loving would let people go to hell, that God would create hell? How could any parent allow their children deliberately to suffer? But the paradox is that no matter how much you love your children, you cannot force them to love you in return. You know the pain of falling in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, or pushes you away. Hell is the pain that people who reject God end up with, because they reject the only One who can give us total fulfillment. If you push away total happiness, you get total misery. If you reject all joy, then you end up with all pain. That’s what hell is: losing all that can fulfill us and bring us joy. God doesn’t send us to hell. We choose it if we reject God. If we have real freedom and heaven is real, then hell must also be real. If heaven was guaranteed for everyone, then we are not truly free, because to be truly free means we have the choice to love or not to love to accept God or reject God.

I think the most beautiful image we are given of how God loves us, is in the story of the prodigal son. In this story, a father has two sons. One of them demands his inheritance before the father has died, which is the equivalent of wishing him dead to his face. He then goes off, wastes all the family’s hard earned money and finally comes back to his father ashamed. While the Son has been away, his father is constantly waiting and hoping that he will return and when he does finally return the father just celebrates. There is no giving out, no warning that ‘This must not happen again,’ just celebration and rejoicing. The story of the prodigal son is teaching us how God is with us, how God sees us. No condemnation, only God’s desire for us to find happiness. God only wants us to come to him, to be with him. That is why He created us. God has created us to be with him for eternity and God will make that happen unless we reject God. We accept or reject God by the way we live. Jesus says, ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments. (Jn:14-15)

The Lord knows how difficult it can be for us to make the right choices and so He gives us many different ways to guide us: the holy Eucharist, which is the gift of Jesus himself, the Commandments, the teaching of his Church, his own Word in the Scriptures and many other things to help us along the way, so that we won’t be short of the direction and encouragement that we need. God also sends us holy people every so often, like Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Theresa and many others, sometimes people we know, because they radiate God and they are a real sign to us of the Lord’s presence among us. These people seem to radiate God and so many people are drawn to them because they sense that presence. I know of several people who worked with Mother Theresa and it completely changed their life, because they experienced God through her.

The feast of the Holy Trinity is a celebration of divine love. The Holy Trinity is a community of Persons who share total love and joy between them, and this Holy Trinity reaches out to us with that same love and invites us to join them. If we respond to the Father, the Son and the Spirit, then we are gradually drawn more and more into that love. It starts in this world and it will be fulfilled in the next. The greatest way that we imitate God is by loving the people around us, sacrificing ourselves for others. That is what God did for us and that is what God invites us to do for each other.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

So that everyone who believes in him might not perish

but might have eternal life. (John 3:16)

 

A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

 

I often come across people who are afraid that they cannot, or will not be forgiven by God, because of a sinful past, or mistakes in their past. That is why Jesus used so many stories of forgiveness and mercy, to encourage us and so that we won’t lose heart. God’s mercy is something that we don’t experience from other people, which makes it all the harder for us to grasp. That is why Jesus used so many stories and parables to try and help people understand this.

 

God wants us to be with him so much, that even though our first parents rejected God and lost paradise, God himself won it back for us, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. If God is willing to go to that length to re-open the gates of paradise for us, that should give us great courage. It means there is nothing that God won’t forgive.

 

Yet Jesus also said, ‘Every kind of sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.’ (Mt 12:31).

 

What does that mean? He said this when the Pharisees were claiming Jesus was healing people by the power of Satan. In other words they were calling God’s love evil.

The Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son. To blaspheme against the Spirit is to reject God’s love. If we reject God’s love, we ourselves are cutting ourselves off from God and God respects the choices that we make. It doesn’t come down to one instance of calling God evil, but a continual rejection of God. But it keeps going back to the same thing: God has created us to be with him and that is what will happen unless we deliberately reject God.

 

A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you keep my commandments. (John 15:13-14)