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)

 

 

 

Pentecost Sunday, Year C (Gospel: John 20:19-23) The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will teach you everything

 

There is a priest friend of mine—one of my classmates actually—who does a lot of work with the Legion of Mary going from door to door, speaking to people about faith. He was a quantity surveyor before he became a priest and he is the most amazing organizer. He often said to me that the hardest places he found to work in, were usually the wealthier areas. When people felt they had all they needed they were generally not as open to hearing about God. In the poorer areas people were usually more open to what he had to say.

 

From all the upheaval in our world at this time, one of the good things that is coming from it, is that it is making people ask a lot of questions and to search for God in a new way. Economic crisis and wars help us to realise how vulnerable we are. Religious crisis and terrorism—such as we are seeing at the moment—help us to remember that while religion is really important, it can be deadly if it is misused. Any religion is simply a way to help us live out what we believe in, but unless it is completely focused on God and unless God is at the centre, it can become an end in itself and a very dangerous one at that.

 

There is one crucial thing that is needed for faith to be alive and that is the gift of God’s Spirit. For me the best way of explaining it is to compare the Spirit to electricity. In any building like this one, we have all kinds of useful equipment, such as microphones, lights, projectors, but none of these things would be of any use to us if we didn’t have electricity. The power that goes into them is what transforms them into something wonderful. You could say that the Holy Spirit is the electricity that makes us alive.

 

Without God’s Spirit we are dead, the Scriptures are just words in a book; the mass is just an empty ritual; marriage is just a legal way of being together, but with the Holy Spirit our faith comes alive, the Scriptures become the living word of God, which speaks to our hearts and challenges us to grow; the mass becomes the living presence of Jesus among us in the Eucharist, where we can have the most intimate encounter possible with Jesus. With the Holy Spirit marriage involves a third person, present to support, strengthen and encourage every couple, as they try and live out their married life together. With the Holy Spirit, marriage goes from being a civil contract to a covenant. A covenant can be described as a sacred, family bond.

 

We are nothing without the gift of God’s Spirit. We would not be able to believe, or pray, or even know God. I could stand at the altar and pray all day long, but nothing would happen if the Holy Spirit didn’t transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. The same is true with confession. It is the Spirit who forgives people. The priest is just an instrument, an important instrument, but only an instrument. It is an extraordinary thought that the Holy Spirit acts on the words of a human being! When a priest says the words of consecration at the mass, ‘This is my Body which will be given up for you,’ the Holy Spirit immediately and humbly transforms the bread into the body of Christ. And when the priest says the words, ‘I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ the Spirit blots out the sins of that person. Such is the amazing generosity and humility of God.

 

When we see scandals coming to light in the Church, that is also the work of the Holy Spirit, purifying and renewing his people. That is happening because the Lord loves us and won’t allow his people to be overcome with disease. All the poison is being taken away and this is painful, but essential. We are always better off because of the purifying work which God is bringing about. God is forcing us to rely much more on the power of his Word and of his Spirit, something which we should already be doing. And perhaps one of the most important things to remember is that God’s work is always beautiful and God will make things beautiful again, because God is the master craftsman.

 

The Lord doesn’t wait until we are ready either. God acts when the time is right. He doesn’t just wait for the hierarchy of his Church to decide what to do. God sends his Spirit, who inspires people and moves people to act. That’s not to say that God doesn’t work through his bishops and priests, but God knows how best to act and so He sends his Spirit to inspire and move people to step out in faith and live the Gospel, and they in turn move others, until soon the people are alive with faith again.

Despite our best efforts we continually need to be helped back on the right track, no matter what we are doing. This is why Jesus told us before he ascended into heaven, that the Father would send us this ‘Helper,’ who would be with us forever, and who would teach us everything. The Lord knew that we would need help and so He sent us the best help that we could have, his own Spirit, to guide us and teach us and God teaches us through the example of people He inspires, through the Word of God, through prayer, and in many other ways we will never even be aware of. The Spirit is very gentle and that is why we don’t notice him sometimes.

 

Jesus said to the Apostles, ‘I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at this time. But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.’ (John 16:12)

 

God keeps revealing himself to us in deeper and deeper ways. God wants to teach us everything, just as we want to teach the next generation what we have learnt. The more open we are to the Holy Spirit, the more that will happen. How do you become open to the Spirit? Just tell him your desire. ‘Holy Spirit of God, please come into my life. Teach me and reveal yourself to me and make my faith alive.’

 

Every time I am about to preach, I ask the Holy Spirit to anoint the words I speak, so that they will speak to your hearts and that you will hear what the Lord wants to say to you. Every time I go to visit someone sick, or in any difficult situation I always ask the Holy Spirit to guide me and give me wisdom. Wisdom is one of the gifts of the Spirit. Keep praying for wisdom and that the Lord will make himself known to you. Every time you read the Bible, ask the Lord to teach you, because He wants to teach you, but He also wants us to ask him for it.

 

Think of a time one of your children, or any young person, asks you to explain or teach them something. Usually we are happy to do so. There is a joy that comes with passing on knowledge, but the student has to be open. There is a Chinese proverb that says, ‘When the student is ready, the master will appear.’ It is much harder to pass on knowledge if the other person is not interested or open to it, but once they open their heart to it, then it is easy to teach. It is the same for all of us. The Lord wants to reveal so many things to us, and the more open we are to him, the more He will show us. God does this through the teachings of his Church, but also individually. Keep asking God to reveal himself to you.

 

When I was nineteen, I was searching for God and someone put in my path a book called Power for Living. This was a Protestant book and it gave a series of personal testimonies of people who had opened themselves up to God and how it had transformed their lives. At the end of the book it said, ‘If you want God to become part of your life, ask him now to make himself known to you’ and I did exactly that. I remember I was in my bedroom and I sat on the end of my bed and said, ‘Lord if you are there, please make yourself known to me.’ Then I put away the book and forgot about it.

 

Several days later I met a classmate who told me that a mutual friend of ours called Louise, had gone to Medjugorje on pilgrimage and that she had had an awakening of her faith.  His description of her was, ‘She has become all religious and holy.’ Louise was my own age and from a very similar background to myself. So I called to her and asked her what had happened. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but I listened to her for about an hour and a half and I could see that something profound had happened to her. At the end of the conversation she asked me if I would like to go to a prayer group in another friend’s house. I wasn’t that interested, but she asked another girl who I had a crush on, to ask me. Naturally I went. Now those two ladies are married and I am a priest!

 

When I went to the prayer meeting I was surprised to find about fifty young people, singing hymns, praying the rosary, praising God out loud and reading Scripture. I was intrigued and I could see that their faith was alive. I knew I wanted what they had. So I began attending these meetings and it got me praying and going to mass more often.

 

After a few weeks they had what is called a Life in the Spirit seminar. Over the course of about six weeks there are teachings on the reality and power of the Holy Spirit. I heard different testimonies from other young people of how their lives had been transformed when they really invited the Holy Spirit to come into their hearts. On the fifth night of the seminar they always pray with people individually, that they will experience an outpouring of the Spirit. When they prayed with me, nothing really happened and I was disappointed. I felt very peaceful, but not unduly so. However, in the weeks and months that followed I suddenly found that my faith was coming alive. I had a profound desire to spend a lot of time in prayer. I found that the Bible had also come alive and was speaking to me as I had never experienced before. I also found that I began to hear the words of the mass as though I had never heard them before. I had received an outpouring of the Spirit. That was in October 1988 and it was when my faith really came alive. I continue to pray to the Holy Spirit to teach me and God continues to reveal things to me. The more open I am the more I receive.

 

The conviction of our faith is also a gift of the Holy Spirit. ‘I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at this time. But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.’

 

The gift of God’s own Spirit is really the greatest thing God can give us after life itself, because when we have the Holy Spirit, we have everything. Keep praying to the Holy Spirit asking him to set your hearts on fire. This is the Lord’s desire for us, but God never forces himself on us. The more open we are, the more God gives himself to us. If you find that your faith seems dry and uninteresting, ask God to give you the gift of his Spirit and you will be surprised what will happen.

 

Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful people,

Send forth your Spirit and we will be created,

And you will renew the face of the earth.

 

 

 

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C (Gospel: John 14:23-29) If anyone loves me he will keep my word

 

Think for a moment of someone who means a lot to you, someone you really love. It might be your husband or wife, it might be a very good friend. When you love someone you will do things that they ask you, because you love them. They may ask you for a favour which doesn’t really suit you, but you will probably do it anyway because you love them. Trying to please them is a way of showing that you love them.

 

Our relationship with the Lord works the same way. We try to follow the way of life that He taught us, because we love him. We try to keep his commandments, because we love him and we believe in what He has taught us. Trying to follow his teaching is how we show God that we love him and not just because we love him, but also because we believe what God teaches us gives us life. The path that He shows us is the one that will help us the most and lead us to the greatest happiness.

 

Because of what we call Original Sin, we do not enjoy the harmony within ourselves that God originally intended for us. There is a struggle going on within us and one of the effects of that, is that we don’t always see things as clearly as we should. We often find it difficult to choose even what we know is right. We are often suspicious of God and his teachings. After Adam and Eve’s rejection of God, it says they were afraid and they hid from God. They had never done that before. They were no longer con We are not always convinced that God is trying to help us. Think for a moment of times when you see some situation of terrible suffering on the news, a natural disaster, or with someone you know, and you find yourself saying, ‘How can God allow this to happen?’ as though God were to blame. We often see his Commandments as a burden, instead of a blueprint, or plan, that will lead us to the most fruitful way of living. We are not always convinced that God is good and indeed that is one of the most common arguments that people give to deny the existence of God: ‘If God were real, He would not allow the suffering that we see and experience.’ If we choose to do evil, others will suffer. If God stopped us each time we were going to cause suffering, we would not have free will.

 

The Jewish people, were chosen by God to make him known to the world. Over hundreds of years, God formed a people, made himself known to them, gave them his law and showed them that God is a moral God, who loves us, who is interested in us, who created us to share in his happiness and will also hold us accountable for our actions. That understanding of God was completely unique for ancient times.

 

God gave us his Commandments, to guide us and help us, but they are Commandments, not suggestions. In the Old Testament, when God gave the law to Moses, He said to the people, ‘Choose today blessing or curse, life or death.’ One way leads to life, the other to death. Each of us still has that choice.

 

What is our primary task on earth? It is to praise and glorify God, to serve the people around us and also to live our lives in the fullest way; to develop our gifts in the greatest way. St. Irenaeus, one of the early Christian writers, said, ‘The glory of God is man fully alive.’ The more we develop and blossom as people, the more we give praise to God. Animals and other parts of creation give praise to God just by being there. But because of the free will and intelligence that God has given us, it requires more of us. We must choose to give glory to God and we must choose to develop our gifts, as God has given them to us. The way to do this is by listening to what God tells us. That is what will lead us to our greatest potential as human beings and God pushes us to grow, because God knows the full potential that each of us have, better than we ourselves know.

 

There is always a temptation to believe that we can just pick the parts of our faith that suit us and ignore the other ones. I’ve often heard people saying, ‘God will understand,’ or, ‘I’m sure God doesn’t mind’. But why would God give us commandments if He doesn’t mind? Nowhere in Scripture does it say that God doesn’t mind. In fact it says the exact opposite.

 

Much of what we see on TV is telling us that God’s Commandments are not necessary and that everything which goes against his Commandments are quite normal. And if we are told something often enough, we will begin to believe it. That’s how advertising works. If you keep repeating the message it will stick.  It is de-sensitizing us to sin and to what is wrong.

 

Now to go back to the words of Christ: ‘If you love me, you will keep my words.’  And then He says, ‘Peace I leave you, my own peace I give you.’ Jesus is saying this is what follows when we live his words. We receive peace, a deep peace which is the assurance of God’s presence, even when we are struggling. The Lord knows how much we struggle to live by his teaching. Everyone who tries to live it struggles, but the Lord is telling us not to be afraid of the struggle, because it is the path that leads to heaven, the only path worth following.

 

When the disciples asked Jesus, ‘Will many be saved?’ Jesus replied,

‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to heaven and only a few find it.’ (Matt 7:13-14).

It is a difficult and demanding path, but it is the only one worthwhile.

 

A lot of what we see going on around us, is the effect of people turning away from God. We see more and more anger, hatred, rage, even just on the roads. It is disproportionate. When people turn away from God, who is our only happiness, then they look for fulfilment in the world, where they will never find it. And so they become more and more frustrated and angry, because nothing earthly satisfies. They are not at peace and that anger and hostility spreads. Road rage has become so bad here, that the Lee County Sherrif’s Office have dedicated a task-force specifically to deal with it. The road rage that comes from traffic incidents has nothing to do with what has happened on the road. It is tapping into the rage that is within people. The traffic incident triggers that rage. It goes to show you how many people have lost their way.

 

Sadly that is also one reason why suicide is so common, especially among young people. Many do not have God, so when the world does not offer comfort and strength for the difficult things that we face, people feel they have nowhere to turn and often despair.

 

‘Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives, do I give it to you.’ Knowing that we are loved by God, that we have a purpose in being here and that there is something wonderful that awaits us after death, that gives us peace. When we have that inner strength, we are more at peace, because we know what we are about and that peace comes from living God’s Commandments.

 

‘If you love me you will keep my commandments.’

 

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C (Gospel: John 13:31-33a, 34-35) 'Love one another as I have loved you'

 

If all the bibles in the world were destroyed except one, and even if that one was badly damaged so that only one page was left. And even on that page if you could only read three words, if those three words were the words in John’s Gospel which say, ‘God is love’, then the whole message of the bible would be saved.

 

This is what the whole teaching of our faith is about and what the whole bible is about, that God loves his people in a way that we really don’t understand and can’t make a whole lot of sense of. But it is from the love of God that we ourselves learn to love. We are only able to love God because He loved us first. He loved us before we loved him. He made himself known to us before we discovered him. And God is constantly teaching us how to love and what it means to love. He teaches us through married life, through religious life, through single life, through relationships and dealing with other people.

 

I once worked in a jewellery store and I learnt that there is a method used to polish precious stones where they are put into a container together with grit and then they are shaken at high speed and they polish each other. They knock the corners off each other, so to speak. I think this is a good analogy for our own lives. We are continually going through different trials and struggles and all of them are forming us for better or worse, depending on how we respond to them. We knock the corners off each other and hopefully come out sparkling. We are formed and shaped by our relationships with each other.  We rub off each other, but that is how we grow.

 

I have often noticed in hospitals that younger people are more demanding. Older people were generally more patient. They have been through so much and it has formed them into better people.

 

Today, the meaning of love has been greatly distorted. Through social media we are mostly being told that love is mainly about erotic, or sexual love and that if you are not sexually active, you cannot be fulfilled. We are not told as much about love as self-giving love: sacrificing ourselves for the other. We are told that love is about my fulfilment and if I am not fulfilled, then I should move on. That is one of the reasons why marriage vows in a church, and religious vows, are so important. It brings God into the equation. When we are struggling, we turn to God and ask God’s help to give of ourselves. Sometimes I say that to a couple when they are getting married: ‘Do you realize that your marriage is not about your fulfilment? It is about you sacrificing yourselves for each other; laying down your lives for each other.’

 

This is what Jesus was teaching the Apostles: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Jesus’ love was all-giving for the other, for us and the ultimate sacrifice of shedding his blood. We tend to say, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Even coming to mass on Sunday, the thinking is often the wrong one. We ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’ That’s the wrong question. The mass is not about what’s in it for me, even though we receive Jesus himself in each mass, but it’s about making the sacrifice of our time to worship and acknowledge God. God asks us to give of ourselves.

 

Our mission, from God, is to love one another. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’  That is our main task as followers of Christ, to love the people around us.  And Jesus tells us that that is how other people will recognise us as Christian, by the way we love.  It makes us different from many other people, but that is what God calls us to do.

 

Our country and our world is becoming increasingly materialistic and selfish.  Everything is for me only, never mind anyone else.  That is  the opposite of what God teaches us. Does it mean that we have to give away everything we own and join a religious order? Of course not. Only a few people are called to do this. Most of us are simply called to live wherever we find ourselves and bring Christ to people by the way we love.  It is easy for us to be afraid to help or look out for others because it might put us at risk and this is true.  But God asks us to take that risk. 

I remember reading about a man who was visiting Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and was appalled at the poverty he saw. When he got back to his hotel he lay on his bed almost despairing at what he saw and little could be done about it.

At the same time a young religious sister was walking in the slums of Calcutta and came across a group of children. She asked them if they would like to learn how to read. They joyfully said yes! So she took a piece of chalk and began to write on the ground, teaching them how to read. This was Mother Teresa at the beginning of her work in Calcutta. The man was despairing about the whole situation. She began with small steps.

Kolkata

We cannot change the world and all its problems: the poverty, wars, etc. But we can affect the people around us. It is easy to become cynical and say that there is no point, because the problems are too great. But there is always a point, which is what God is teaching us. We are where the Lord has put us and we do what we can in the situation we find ourselves. That is what God calls us to do.

I would like to finish with this reflection, which I think sums all this up. I think it is a great prayer or thought, especially when you find yourself starting to get cynical about everything.

Anyway

(From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan,

the children’s home in Calcutta.)

 

People are unreasonable, illogical and selfcentered.

Love them anyway.

 

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

 

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

 

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

 

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

 

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

 

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

 

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

 

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never

between you and them anyway.

 

(from the book, ‘A Simple Path’)

 

 

 

4th Sunday of Easter (Gospel: John 10:27-30) The New Pope: Leo XIV

 

 

It is always fun to be part of major historical events, positive ones at least. When Pope Benedict was elected in 2005, I had the privilege of being in St. Peter’s square when he came out onto the balcony for the first time. All the cell phones crashed because everyone was trying to use them at the same time.

 

On Thursday we were blessed with a new pope, Leo XIV and from the US too, which is something to be proud of. What does this mean for our Church? Could he make drastic changes? No. Church teaching does not change easily. The basic teachings of our faith do not change, but we are all the time getting a deeper understanding of our faith.

 

Many people thought that Pope Francis changed Church teaching, but in fact he did not. He often gave opinions which unnerved people, but opinions are not the same as Church teaching. He also went into a lot of gray areas, which people didn’t like, but that was also what Jesus did and was heavily criticized for by the religious authorities.

 

In St. John’s Gospel (16:12-13), Jesus said to the Apostles, ‘There is so much more I want to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.’ God continues to reveal himself to us and to help us grow in understanding, not just as a Church, but individually too. The more we are, the more the Lord will teach us, because He wants to teach us, just like a parent wanting to pass on their knowledge to their children.

 

In one of the encounters that Jesus had with the Apostles, He asks them, ‘Who do you say that I am?’  It is Peter who says, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’ Jesus realizes that the Father in heaven has revealed this to Peter. He didn’t come to this conclusion by himself and Jesus knew Peter was the one to lead his Church. Then Jesus goes on to say:

‘You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven.”

 

St. John’s Gospel says something similar, ‘The light shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome it.’ (John 1:5). God’s Church is indestructible, because it is from God. It will often take a beating because of the human side of it, but it cannot be stopped because it is from God.

 

In St. Luke’s Gospel Jesus says, ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you, rejects me.’ (Lk 10:16)

 

The order of grace

There is an order to God’s creation. It works a certain way. If we listen to and are obedient to what God teaches us, commands us, it works. If we recognize our boundaries as human beings and don’t try and play God, creation works as it should and humanity blossoms. If we decide we know better and step out of that order, we are on our own and the order begins to break down, which is what we see happening around us right now.

 

·       I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. But we worship, money, knowledge, science, as gods and treat the Lord God as an optional extra. God is not an optional extra. We are.

·       Remember to keep the sabbath holy. Many people don’t think it’s necessary to give time to worship God at all. It’s my world and I’ll do what I want.

·       You shall not kill: but now we are deciding who lives and who dies: abortion, euthanasia.

·       God created them male and female. Now we are deciding what is male and female.

 

When I was ordained a priest, I knelt before the bishop and he asked me: ‘Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?’ As long as I do my best to remain obedient to my bishop, I remain in the order of God’s grace, the order which God has established. If I step out of that order and begin to do my own thing as a priest, I am on my own.

 

The word obedience means ‘to listen intently.’ So when we are obedient to God, it means we listen carefully to what God is saying to us and with good reason, because that is what will help us the most, both as individuals and as a society.

 

I suppose none of us like to be told that we have to be obedient to anyone. We feel that we should be able to do whatever we want. We can do whatever we want, but that is not what will lead us to the greatest happiness and fulfillment. What will bring us to the greatest inner freedom, is being obedient to God. The order that God shows us, works.

 

I always find it inspiring to see how many people really wanting to do the right thing and live the right way before God, because many people do.

 

Infallibility

What about infallibility. Isn’t the pope infallible in everything he says? No. The teaching of infallibility is not what people think and in fact has only been used twice in history, both times in declaring teachings on Our Lady: The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven.

 

What it means is that when the pope, in union with all the bishops of the world declare an official teaching of our faith, it cannot be in error since they all agree on it and believe it is from God. Also, that would be a teaching that has been believed for centuries and is now made an official teaching or dogma, for that reason.

 

Name change

Finally, why do popes choose different names? A pope doesn’t have to take a different name, but most popes have. In the bible, the change of a name is usually an indication of a new mission. Abram became Abraham. Simon became Peter, Saul became Paul. A change of name also indicates the direction the pope hopes to take the papacy. Pope Leo XIII was very focused on social justice and wrote various encyclicals to deal with situations of injustice, better conditions for workers, etc. So Pope Leo XIII would seem to indicate that he hopes to follow in the same direction.

 

Even though popes are human and make mistakes like everyone else, it is ultimately God who is leading the Church, which is why it is unstoppable.

You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.

3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C (Gospel: John 21:1-19) 'Do you love me...?'

 

 

I always find it both amazing and amusing how in the presidential election they will go through the history of each candidate with a fine-tooth comb in the hope of finding some small thing to discredit him, or her. It’s as if they are looking for the perfect person who is not allowed to have any defects. If they do find anything in their past such as smoking dope when they were a teenager, or something similar, they present this as a reason for him or her to be unsuitable for president now, as if you could find someone who didn’t have defects. Modern day media tends to do the same, gloating over the sins of an individual while showing no mercy to that person for the mistakes they have made.

 

In contrast to that we have almost the opposite presented to us in today’s Gospel. Peter is confronted by Jesus in a loving but painful way, when Jesus asks him three times ‘Do you love me?’ Why did Jesus do this, since He knew that Peter loved him? Jesus was making Peter face his own weakness, the weakness that caused him to publicly swear that he never knew Jesus. This happened during Jesus’ trial when Peter tried to stay close to Jesus, but he was overcome with fear when individuals realised he was one of Jesus’ followers and then he denied ever knowing Jesus. After this happened it says that Peter went outside and wept bitterly, because of course he didn’t want to do this, but he was overcome by fear. 

 

In asking Peter three times ‘Do you love me,’ Jesus was helping him to heal, but also making him face his sin, his denial. Jesus wasn’t going to pretend that this never happened, because if He did, it would have continued to haunt Peter for the rest of his life. Had God really forgiven him. Would this scandal come to light? Instead, Jesus confronts Peter with it and makes him face it. And then Jesus makes this same Peter the first pope. Jesus was saying, ‘I know you let me down because of your own weakness/fear; but that is not an obstacle for me. Now face it and then I can really work through you.’  It is an extraordinary thought that Jesus wasn’t afraid to make Peter the first pope, even when he knew that Peter had denied him. Our weaknesses are not an obstacle for God.

It is because the Lord loves us that he challenges us with our weaknesses.  We want to just gloss over them and pretend that mistakes never happened, but that doesn’t really help us.  If we are to heal and grow then we must face up to our weaknesses, which is difficult and painful, but it’s also what helps us to grow. 

 

In the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step to recovery is to acknowledge your weakness/addiction and that you are powerless over it. Only then can you begin to continue in the right direction. This is also one of the reasons the Lord gives us the gift of being able to confess what we have done in total secrecy, so that we can heal. The idea that all our sins are totally forgiven by God if we ask for forgiveness, is a hard thing to grasp, and many of us struggle to believe that this could really be so. And yet that is what the death of Jesus on the cross is all about: the forgiveness of sins. That forgiveness has already been won for us; we just have to ask for it.

 

There is a lot more freedom in admitting that we are weak when we come before God, than in trying to prove we are perfect. If we had to be perfect it would put enormous pressure on us. Part of the freedom that our faith gives us is to realise that it’s ok to be weak, to have made mistakes. Ultimately we rely on the power of God and not on ourselves and that certainly is a relief. It also means that I don’t have to reach a certain standard of perfection to be pleasing to God. All God asks me to do is try and when I fall to repent of it.

 

That is also why God gave us confession, because in his wisdom He knows that we need to confess, to name the sins we have committed. If it was enough to just tell God you are sorry yourself, then why do people come after decades to confess a serious sin and then cry when they hear the words of absolution. They will have told God many times that they are sorry, but it is the naming of those sins that brings the healing. Also it takes humility to come before a priest, God’s instrument, to confess. That humility is part of the healing.

 

At the last supper Jesus also referred to Peter’s fall:

‘Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you Simon that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back you must strengthen your brothers.’ (Luke 22:31-32)

 

Jesus knew Peter would fall, but that fall also served its purpose. It humbled Peter, so that he would be more aware of how much He depended on God’s strength, not his own. It also meant that he would be able to sympathise with the other Apostles who also betrayed Jesus. He would be able to encourage them, as he had the same experience himself. If he hadn’t fallen, he may well have looked down on the others who had betrayed Jesus, but on the contrary, he understood them and was able to strengthen them.

 

In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes:

Praise be to God… who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble, with the same comfort we have received from God. (2 Cor 1:3-4)

 

This is why the Lord keeps inviting us to come back to him, to confess what we have done wrong, so that we can be free and so that we can live in peace. The weaknesses we struggle with, serve their purpose. They keep us humble.

 

We generally tend to think that the less sins we commit, the more pleasing we will be to God and that God is disappointed with us when we sin. I have heard so many people use that word disappointed. God is not disappointed with us and God doesn’t love us any less. In a mysterious way the Lord allows us to struggle with certain weaknesses, as they serve a purpose.

 

Think of St. Paul, who was a highly educated and high energy kind of person. We would call him a high achiever. Through his work many people were converted and many extraordinary miracles were worked, including at least one person being brought back to life. And yet he talks about a ‘thorn in the flesh,’ some weakness that he had, which caused him great humiliation. Like most of us, he felt that he would serve God and be more pleasing to God, if he could get rid of it. He says that he prayed, begged, God to take it away from him:

Because of these surpassingly great revelations, so to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but He said my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ (Cor 2:12-7-10).

 

‘My power is made perfect in weakness.’ What a strange thing to say. To our way of thinking it makes no sense. How could our weakness be useful to God? Because as long as we are aware of our weakness, we are also aware of how much we need God. That is why we should never become discouraged by our weaknesses. Satan tries to discourage us and convince us that we are displeasing to God, a disappointment, but the Lord says the exact opposite. What is important is that we try.

 

‘Peter do you love me?’  ‘Lord you know everything, you know that I love you.’