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.’

 

2nd Sunday of Easter (Gospel: John 20:19-31) Peace be with you

 

In December 2005 it was announced on the news that a man called Denis Donaldson, one of Sinn Féin’s top men (Sinn Féin was the political wing of the IRA), confessed to having been a British spy for the previous twenty years. People were shocked that this could have happened. It seems that he could not live with this secret any longer and so he went public and confessed what he had done. He then had to go into hiding, and sadly, though not surprisingly, he was found and murdered four months later. God be merciful to him. I remember thinking at the time that he must now be living in terrible fear: fear of being hunted down and killed. He had betrayed many and now he would be afraid of what they would do to him. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

 

2000 years earlier on Holy Thursday night, out of fear, the Apostles had all abandoned Jesus, who they believed was the Son of God. Judas had betrayed him for money. Peter tried to be faithful but ended up publicly swearing that he never knew Jesus. They all betrayed him. Now after Easter they are locked in the upper room, afraid. Why are they afraid? First because they could face the same punishment as Jesus since they were his close friends and disciples. If you remember in St. John’s Gospel, after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it says that some time later they had a dinner for him. Many people came, not only to see Jesus, but also to see Lazarus who had been raised from the dead. Wouldn’t you?! But it also says that the authorities decided it would be best to get rid of Lazarus as well as Jesus. Tie up any lose ends, as we would say. So, the Apostles had good reason to be afraid, from a human point of view.

 

Perhaps they were also afraid of what God might do to them. They had betrayed the Son of God. It is a very human response to be afraid of God when we feel we have betrayed him in some way, by the way we live, or by something we have done. Remember what Jesus said about Judas, whom he knew was going to betray him. ‘The Son of man indeed goes [to his fate] as it is written of him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born’ (Matt 26:24). They are frightening words.

 

Then something beautiful happens. Jesus is suddenly standing with them in the room and he says: ‘Peace be with you.’ The first thing he does is to take away their fear. There are no words of condemnation for having abandoned him a few days before. There are no words of judgement, about how they were unable to be faithful. Instead: ‘Peace be with you.’ ‘It’s alright.’

 

I don’t know about you, but I can certainly say that I have often felt that I have betrayed Jesus and indeed sometimes wish I was not a priest, when my own sinfulness gets the better of me. And in case you think I am just trying to be pious by saying this, I am not. I am a sinner, just like anyone else. I struggle and get tempted, just like everyone else. That is one thing that God has left me under no illusions about. Sometimes I think it would be better for me not to be a priest as I would not have to deal with the sacred. It would be easier to run and hide, so to speak. Think of Peter when Jesus worked the miracle of the great catch of fish. Peter’s reaction was, ‘Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man.’ He was afraid because he was aware of his sinfulness in the presence of someone holy and what was Jesus’ response? ‘Do not be afraid.’ Now, after the resurrection, after the betrayal, injustice, panic, when Jesus appears to the Apostles, the first thing He does is to put them at ease. ‘Peace be with you.’ 

 

Each time in the mass when we recall this wish of Jesus to give us his peace—which is not just a universal prayer for peace, but a reminder of what Jesus said to his followers—He is saying, ‘Do not be afraid, because I am not here to condemn you, even if you deserve to be condemned. Peace be with you.’ God only wants us to draw us closer to himself and to know that He is not going to act as we do to each other, with frowns, or giving out. He knows what we are like. He knows that we betray him, but He still tells us to be at peace, as long as we are willing to repent. I find that very comforting. Remember the good thief on the cross. In the last few moments of his life, he asks Jesus to remember him and Jesus promises him paradise that day. What a wonderful reminder of the mercy of God.

 

Think too of Thomas, who in his grief at the death of Jesus, would not allow the words of others to convince him that Jesus was alive. When you are grieving you don’t want someone else to give you false hope, because it is too painful. And then when Jesus did appear to him, He was so kind in helping him to believe. No giving out, but instead Jesus offered Thomas to put his finger into his wounds, so that he would believe. No condemnation for not believing; only encouragement. That is so characteristic of how Jesus dealt with people. Always with compassion, mercy, love and encouragement.

 

Today is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday, a day when we focus on the infinite mercy of God. God is perfectly just, but God is infinitely merciful. God will not be mocked by those who presume on his mercy: ‘I can do what I want, so long as I repent at the last minute.’ That is presuming on God’s mercy and is a mockery of God and God will not be mocked: ‘Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked’ (Gal 6:7). But God is infinitely merciful to anyone who sincerely asks for his mercy.

 

The Emperor Napoleon had a rule that any soldier who deserted would be shot if captured. This rule was enforced without exception. One young soldier who was tired of war, deserted, but was caught. He was to be executed. He also happened to be the son of Napoleon’s cook. When he was captured, his mother begged Napoleon for mercy. She told him that she was a widow and he was her only son. If he was shot she would lose everything, her only reason to live. He said, “Woman, your son doesn’t deserve mercy.” She replied, “Yes, of course, you’re right. He doesn’t deserve mercy. If he deserved it, it would no longer be mercy.” Napoleon responded, “Well, then, I will have mercy.” And he spared the woman’s son.

 

Mercy is a gift. God’s mercy is a gift. We don’t deserve it, but God longs to show us his mercy and that is one of the reasons He appeared to St. Faustina and asked her to spread this devotion to his mercy, because God does not want us to live in fear, but to be assured that any effort on our part to live as He asks, is enough. We will never manage to live perfectly, but as long as we are striving to grow closer to God, that is enough. God has created us to be with him and God has done everything to make that possible. There is nothing we can do which God will not forgive if we ask him. That is God’s promise to us. All we have to do is reach out to him.

 

‘Peace be with you. It is I. Do not be afraid.’

 

 

 

Easter Sunday

 

 

The greatest desire that everyone has, is to find happiness/fulfillment and to be with the ones we love again. This is what Easter is all about.

 

We believe that God created everything we know: the visible universe and the invisible world of the spirit that we cannot see yet, which was created before the material world. We will see it when we die. Some people get glimpses of it in this life.

 

We also believe that God’s greatest creation was the human being, because we were made in the image of God, with the gift of free will, the ability to love and the ability to suffer. God created us because He wanted us to share in his happiness. When you have a time of celebration, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, a graduation, or something like that, our natural instinct is to reach out to others that they may share our happiness. It is the same reason why God created us, to share in his happiness. When God originally created us, He gave our first parents that happiness, which is explained through the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of paradise. It says that they had everything they could ask for.

 

God gave them one restriction: they were not to eat of the tree of good and evil. In other words, they must not play God, deciding what is right and wrong, good and evil, male and female. Only God is to determine that. They needed to recognize their limitations as human beings. But Satan deceived them and talked them into playing God and going against what God told them. He said, ‘If you eat of the tree of good and evil, you will be like God. You can play God, deciding what is good and evil.’ And they gave into that temptation and stepped across that boundary that God had forbidden them to cross. The reason why God had commanded them not to do this, was because they were not able to play God. It was too much for them. God had told them this for their own good. He showed them their limitations as human beings. If they tried to go beyond their limitations, it would only bring suffering.

 

Why would Satan, who is a being far more powerful than any of us, want to deceive us? Because he hates God and what God created, especially the human being, because we are created in his image and also because we can rise higher than the angels in heaven. Our Lady is higher than any of the angels and Satan hated this idea that he would have to bow down to a human being. So, to get at God, he tries to destroy what is precious to God, that is, us. Satan has no interest in us and in fact despises us.

 

The problem with the sin of our first parents, was that there was no way that they could undo the damage. They could not reverse it. They had opened the door to sin and suffering in our world. It says that after the Fall, sin began to happen, beginning with the murder of Abel, by Cain. And then it spread and spread, because our first parents did not listen to God and respect the parameters which God had given them.

 

However, because God loves his creation, He would not let it remain that way. So, God the Son, took on human nature in the person of Jesus and atoned for that sin. His sacrifice atoned for that sin and undid the damage, thereby reopening the possibility of happiness once more. But because God respects our free will, He doesn’t force that on us. Rather, God offers it to us: ‘I have done this for you and this happiness awaits you if you want it, but you must choose it.’ It is a free choice and a very real choice and we must make that choice. Jesus spoke about this choice many times. It is a real choice and one we must take seriously.

 

Baptism is the most important way of making that choice. When we are baptized we are saying, ‘Yes, I believe this, I accept what God has done for me and is offering me. Let me have it all. Let me be soaked in it, baptized in it.’ But this is a choice that all of us have to make. That’s why as part of baptism the person is asked, ‘Do you reject Satan and do you believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth,’ etc.

 

Then you might ask, ‘Why baptize an infant, since an infant doesn’t know what is happening?’ We baptize an infant, because we want the grace of baptism, the possibility of heaven for them, from the beginning of their life. But an infant is baptized on condition that the parents promise to teach them the faith as they grow up. Otherwise it is hypocrisy. So if you have had your child baptized, remember that you made a promise to God to teach that child all about God and God will hold you accountable for that promise.

Easter is all about the choice of baptism, because the death and resurrection of Jesus was what reopened the possibility of heaven for us and we must accept that or not, but it is a real choice. God will not force anything on us, because He has given us free will. We must choose.

 

If we look around at our world, we can see what happens when we try and play God. There is chaos. We cannot handle it. Today we are deciding what is good and evil, who lives and who dies, what is male and female. If we listen to God, then we do not do that, because we know that only God can do that. When we live by what God teaches us, commands us, then our life works, our society flourishes in the right way. When we ignore those Commandments, we end up with chaos, which is what we are seeing right now. There is an order to God’s creation and if we follow it, it works.

 

If you think all this is just silly religious stories, then Jesus was lying, the resurrection was pointless, the mass is meaningless, because this is what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that God is real, heaven and hell exist and we must choose what we want.

 

There is a modern error which says, everyone goes to heaven. That’s not what Jesus taught. 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.’ (Mat 7:21)

‘But I’m a good person and I love God.’ But do you do God's will?

 

So it keeps going back to what Easter celebrates, not just the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also the choice to accept that or not. To accept it, is to recognize what God is offering us, the possibility of happiness and being with the ones we love once more. Jesus continually spoke about this choice in all that He taught. It is a real choice and all of us are free to make it. We either accept or reject God. We must take it seriously, because God takes us seriously and when we die, we will be given what we have chosen: life with God, which is what we call heaven, or without God, which is what we call hell and if you think the idea of hell is ridiculous, then Jesus must have been lying when He spoke about hell and Satan. It is a reality.

 

That’s what the event that began at Christmas and culminated 33 years later with the resurrection is about: the promise of happiness that we long for, if we choose it.

 

‘Look, I am coming soon. My reward is with me and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’ (Rev 22:12)