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.’