31st Sunday Yr B (Gospel: Mark 12:28b-34) Heaven, Hell and Purgatory

 

 

At this time of the year we focus on the dead and we pray especially for them. The feast of All Saints reminds us of all our loved ones who are in heaven. Everyone in heaven is a saint. We celebrate particular saints, canonised saints, because of their witness and holiness of life, but everyone in heaven is a saint. The day after All Saints, is The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, also known as All Souls day, when we remember those who have died, but are not yet in heaven. I like this time of praying for the dead, because for me it is a kind of healthy focus on reality.

 

The one thing all of us are sure of is that we will die and it is good to be reminded of that every so often. Since we believe that we are destined for heaven, then we have nothing to be afraid of if we try to do what is right, but it is important not to take it for granted. Jesus tells us many times in the Gospels that we can lose heaven, if we are foolish. We must never take it for granted.

 

When we die, probably not many people are ready to come directly into the intense holiness of God’s presence. It would be too much for us. Think of when you wake up in the morning and you turn on the bed-side light. You turn away your eyes because you are not used to the light yet. Imagine getting the direct light of the sun? It would be unbearable for us. We have to gradually get used to it. Purgatory is something like this. It is the last stage of being made ready, before we can come into God’s presence; a purgation, or purification. It is also when we may have to atone for sins from our lives. People often scoff at this idea, but think of it this way: imagine someone who has lived a life of terrible evil, like Hitler, or Stalin. Millions of people died because of their evil choices. Suppose that shortly before they died, they looked back at their life and realized how much evil they had done and repented of it. They begged God for mercy. God promises his mercy to anyone who sincerely repents. So if they died the following day, would they go straight to heaven? That doesn’t make any sense. They would need to atone for their sin. That is what purgatory is. It is a final stage of purification or atonement.  

 

The Lord has also taught us that we can help those who have died by praying for them. That’s why we dedicate a whole month to remembering them.

There was a lady from Austria by the name of Maria Simma (1915-2004). For many years of her life she experienced a very unusual gift, that is, she was visited by the Holy Souls (souls in purgatory), who asked her for prayers. God granted her this gift of interceding for them, no doubt also to help us to believe in the reality of what happens after death. There is a short book about her called, The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory: An Interview with Maria Simma. I think it is worth reading.

 

The first time it happened she was in her twenties. One night she woke to find a man in her bedroom slowly pacing up and down. She said, ‘How did you get in here? Go away!’ but he ignored her. She tried to grab him, but there was only air. The following day she went to her priest and told him what had happened and asked what she should do. He told her that if it happened again she should ask him what he wanted from her. It happened again the following night and when she asked, What do you want from me?’ he said, ‘Have three masses offered for me and I will be delivered.’

 

When the souls came to ask her for prayers, many of them would tell her why they were in purgatory. What comes across more than anything else is the mercy of God.

 

One of the encounters that she had really struck me. She recalls that one night a young man of 20 appeared to her, asking her to pray for him. He told her why he was in purgatory. He had been quite a wild young man, with a bad reputation. He lived in the Alps and one winter his village was hit by a series of avalanches and many people were killed. One night when another avalanche struck, he heard the screams of people nearby for help and he ran down stairs to help them. His mother tried to stop him from going outside, knowing there was a good chance that he would be killed. When he went out he was in fact killed, but God allowed him to die at this time, because he was in the middle of doing something so good. In other words, God took him when he was at his best. I think that this is a wonderful way to understand what happens when people die. God does everything He can to help us. Such is the mercy of God. God will always give us the benefit of the doubt.

 

When she was asked to explain her understanding of purgatory, she said:

Suppose one day a splendid being appears, extremely beautiful, of a beauty that has never been seen on earth. You are fascinated, overwhelmed by this being of light and beauty, even more so that this being shows that he is madly in love with you—you have never dreamed of being loved so much. You sense too that he has a great desire to draw you to him, to be one with you. And the fire of love which burns in your heart impels you to throw yourself into his arms.

But wait—you realize at this moment that you haven’t washed for months and months, that you smell bad; your nose is running, your hair is greasy and matted, there are big dirty stains on your clothes, etc. So you say to yourself, “No, I just can’t present myself in this state. First I must go and wash: a good shower, then straight away I’ll come back.”

But the love which has been born in your heart is so intense, so burning, so strong, that this delay for the shower is absolutely unbearable. And the pain of the absence, even if it only lasts for a couple of minutes, is an atrocious wound in the heart, proportional to the intensity of the revelation of the love – it is a “love wound.”

 

That was her description of purgatory.

 

St. Pius of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, also experienced the same gift and he said that more souls came to him from Purgatory asking for prayers, than pilgrims on earth. While it is natural to shed tears for them, it is more important to pray for them. We can help them by praying for them and offering the mass for them, which is the most powerful prayer there is.

 

How do we atone for sins? First we must ask for forgiveness: confession. Then we need to pray and perhaps to do penance of some kind. Also, almsgiving atones for sins.

 

In the book of Tobit, the angel Rafael is sent by God to heal Tobit who has gone blind, and to his son Tobias’ new wife who has been tormented by a demon. At the end of the book Rafael reveals himself to Tobit and Tobias. They had thought he was a stranger who helped them. This is what Rafael said to them:

Bless God, return thanks to him, proclaim his glory and render him thanks before all the living for all he has done for you. It is good to praise God and exalt his name… Do not be slow in giving him thanks… It is a good thing to accompany prayer with fasting, almsgiving and justice… Almsgiving preserves from death. It purifies from all sin. (Tobit 12:6 ff).

 

When we die there can only be three things: heaven, hell, or purgatory. We are created for heaven. The death and resurrection of Jesus happened so that we could go to heaven when we die. If heaven is real and we have free will, then we must be able to lose heaven too. If we had no option but to go there, then we wouldn’t have free will. If heaven is the total fulfilment of being in God’s presence, light, beauty, happiness and the company of other people we love, then to lose it would be to be left with the opposite, that is, darkness, pain, isolation, hatred and the knowledge of knowing that we have lost the possibility of eternal happiness. God does not send people to hell. People choose hell by the way they live, rejecting God and everything to do with God. God respects the choices we make. Many places where Our Lady has appeared, she has shown the visionaries heaven, hell and purgatory, to remind us they are real. It is not something we should take lightly.

 

What about people who no longer go to Church, or no longer practice their faith? Just because they don’t practice, doesn’t mean they don’t believe in God or try to live the right way. It may mean that they cannot relate to organised religion as we do, but we should pray for them, because having a framework is a great help. Continually going to church is going to help us stay tuned in to what is important, to what God is asking us to do and reminding us of what is right and wrong. It is not so easy to do this by yourself.

 

What about people who have never known Jesus? People primarily accept or reject God by the way they live. Just because they don’t understand God as we do, doesn’t mean they don’t believe, or that they reject God. Only God can judge us. Our job is to pray for those who don’t know God and hopefully to help them come to know him, by they way we live. Most of the people Mother Teresa’s sisters take in off the streets in places like Calcutta, are not Christian, but they don’t try to convert them. They simply love them and allow them to die with dignity. They say more about what they believe by those actions than by anything you could say.

 

If we make even the smallest effort to live for God, to live as God asks us, then we have nothing to be afraid of. The Lord continually assures us of his love and mercy for all who seek him. The important thing is that we remember that our choices have consequences.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You have faith in God, have faith also in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back to take you with me, so that where I am, you also may be. Where I am going, you know the way.”

Thomas said to him, “Master, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:1-7)

 

 

 

30th Sunday, Year B (Gospel: Mark 10:46-52) What do you want me to do for you?

 

You know the story of the man trapped in a flood after a hurricane. The waters are rising fast, but he is a man of faith and prays to God for deliverance, confident that God will rescue him.

 

As the waters reach the second floor, he is at the window and sees a rescue boat coming. They call to him to get in, but he refuses saying, ‘It’s ok, God will rescue me.’ Try as they might, they cannot convince him and eventually have to leave.

 

As the waters continue to rise he climbs onto the roof. Another boat shows up and calls to him to get on board before it’s too late, but again he refuses, confident that God will rescue him.

 

Now he is at the pinnacle of the roof with the waters still rising. Then a helicopter appears and lowers a rope to rescue him, but again he refuses the help, assuring them that God will rescue him.

 

Not long after, he drowns. When he comes before God, he asks, ‘Lord, why didn’t you rescue me?’ The Lord replies, ‘I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more do you want?’

 

Imagine for a moment if at one time before you die, the Lord himself appeared to you and asked you one question: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ the same question he asked the blind man. Notice how He didn’t presume the blind man wanted healing, but asked him. What would you ask him? Maybe it would be a cure for a physical illness, or for someone you know. Maybe it would be to resolve a difficult situation to, like a marriage that’s in trouble, or maybe for help for your children. Perhaps it would be for more faith. If you are foolish it might be for lots of money.

 

I think I might ask God to give me more faith, faith to recognise what we already have, to see what is in front of me. We ask for help all the time, we ask God to be present to us, we ask God to forgive and heal us… and He does, but we often don’t recognise it.

 

Often we feel alone on this journey and wish that God was closer to us and not just observing us. We would like to know that Jesus is looking after us: and He is. In every mass Jesus becomes present to us in the Eucharist, when the bread and wine really and truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. We can receive Jesus into our own bodies every day if we wish. There is nothing more intimate than this. God is not just observing us from a distance to see if we measure up, He is present to us every step of the way.

 

We want to know that we are forgiven, so that we can be at peace and we want to be healed. Many people live in dread of the sins of their past. God offers us his forgiveness and healing through confession, but we often see it as a burden, something the Church tells us we have to do. If we could really see what it is, no one would have to tell us that we need to go. Everyone would want to go, because each time we go to confession we experience the forgiveness and healing power of God’s grace. Confession is one of the sacraments of healing, but Satan is clever and has managed to convince many people that this is just a power trip for the priests and that we don’t need to confess to anyone except God directly. Satan does not want us to go to confession because he knows how powerful confession is and how close it brings us to God. It always makes me sad when I visit people who are dying and I ask them if they would like to make a confession and they say ‘no.’ God has sent them a priest, but they don’t take advantage of it.

 

When I was working in Venice (Florida), I came to know a lady whose family were originally from my home town, so she felt a special connection to me. When I moved to Fort Myers she asked if I would come and see her, which I did. I ended up visiting her twice. Her family were originally from my hometown of Galway, in Ireland, so she felt we had a special connection. Each time she complained that her Church had abandoned her and would not come to her need. I pointed out both times that not only had God sent her a priest, twice, but a priest from her hometown, but she still complained, ‘My Church has abandoned me.’ She couldn’t see what was right before her.

 

I visited a young lady (40s) in the hospital one time. She said she didn’t want to see me, or talk to me, which is fine. A few hours later she died. God sent her a priest, but she turned me away. I’m not judging her on that, but God often sends us help that we don’t recognize.

 

There is a temptation to want to see God in a spectacular way, which would be nice, but usually that is not how God works. God’s presence is subtle.

 

We wonder if God hears or answers our prayers. Jesus says ‘Ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will be opened to you, seek and you will find. Whoever asks always receives…’ (Matt 7:7-8). God always hears us and always answers us, but it may not be the answer we were hoping for, or we may not recognize the answer. God knows what we need the most, even though we may not see it. If your seven-year-old son asks for a chainsaw for his birthday, hopefully you won’t give him one. He may be angry and think that you are mean and don’t care about him, but because you are older and wiser, you know that that is not what he needs.

 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, ‘So, do not say, what are we to eat, what are we to drink, what are we to wear? Your heavenly Father knows all your needs. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be given to you as well.’ (Mt 6.31). God must be at the center and then everything else will fit into place.

 

Several times I have led the OCIA course (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults), for people who want to become Catholic, or who have been baptized but never received their confirmation. The course runs from October through Easter. It is always a joy for me to see the eagerness and excitement as we come near Easter and they are about to come into the Church. They can see all that God offers us with new eyes. Last year a lady was baptized, confirmed and received her first Eucharist at Easter. She said it was the most memorable day of her life, and it was really a joy to see.

How do we become more aware of this presence of God around us? Through prayer. That’s why Jesus spent so much of his time trying to teach people to pray, so that they would become aware of the reality of God with them and around them. When we pray and give time to God and the things of God, we start to recognise how much God is all around us, in everything we do, in people we meet. I always think it is great to see so many people calling into the church during the day, sometimes just for a moment; to be silent, or to speak to the Lord, or to ask for something. These are all different ways of praying, of being with God and simply acknowledging God’s presence.

 

We talk about God sometimes as if God were an optional extra in our world. You can choose to believe in God or not. The truth is the other way around. We are the optional extra. God is there one way or the other, whether we acknowledge him or not, but we are only here because God has created us and keeps us in existence. We need not exist, but God exists no matter what.

 

I heard a priest say once, ‘If God isn’t in your money He isn’t in your life.’ In other words God is meant to be in every part of our life, if He is there at all. Otherwise we are practical atheists. We can know that God is there but do nothing about him. That is practical atheism. You know that your next-door neighbor exists, but if you never speak to him, or meet him, or bother with him, he or she might as well not be there. That is practical atheism and there are a lot of practical atheists around. 

 

If God is to be part of our life, we have to continually communicate with him. That’s what prayer is. If you find yourself saying that you don’t have time for prayer, ask yourself how much time you give to your cell phone. When was the last time you decided that you would no longer eat or sleep, because you don’t have time? We make time for what is important to us.

 

Talk to God in your car on the way to work; that is prayer. Being aware of God in your home, even if it is noisy, is prayer. Reading the word of God; spending some time in silence. God has plenty to say, if we take the time to listen. The more we pray, the more we will recognise that God has already given us everything we need. God is deeply concerned about us, about every aspect of our lives and God always answers us when we pray. We have his word for it. ‘Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks, always receives’ (Luke 11:9).

 

 

 

28th Sunday Year B (Gospel: Mark: 10:17-30)

 

There is a priest by the name of Benedict Groeschel from New York, he died in 2014. He founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a reformed branch of the Franciscans. Fr. Groeschel is an excellent speaker and in one of his talks he was saying that there is a man he knows in New York who is a multi millionaire, with more money than he could ever spend, or knows what to do with.  Benedict goes on to say that he was talking to this man at a particular conference and he—let us call him John Goldman—was saying to Benedict that he would like to put his money to good use, but he didn’t know what to do with it.  He admitted straight out that he had more money than he could ever spend.  Benedict said that if he wanted he could give a donation to one of the orphanages that they run in the Bronx, as it would make a big difference to them.  In spite of the fact that it was John Goldman himself who brought up the subject and admitted that he didn’t know what to do with all his money and wanted to put it to good use, by the end of the conference he still hadn’t agreed to part with one cent of his money. Benedict was saying that it was as if he was possessed by his wealth. He had no freedom. His wealth controlled him.

 

Most of us don’t have that kind of problem. In fact, most people have the opposite problem, but it is still very easy to become consumed even with the desire for money, or riches, or indeed anything. The problem is not the riches themselves, but our attachment to them.

 

In the Gospel, see how Jesus responds to the rich young man who is keen to live the right way.  When he asks Jesus what he should do to get to heaven, Jesus doesn’t say ‘You should sell all your possessions,’ first He says, ‘You know the commandments; live them.’ It is only when he is pressed further that Jesus says, ‘Go and sell all you own...’  What is he doing? Jesus is showing the young man that he is not as free as he thinks he is. In spite of the fact that he could probably buy anything he desires and do anything he wants because of his wealth, he is in fact a slave to his riches. Jesus is not trying to make the young man feel bad, or guilty, rather, since he did ask, Jesus is pointing out where the problem is for him. The problem is not in having riches, since riches are neither good nor bad, but that we get so attached to them that we are no longer free. No doubt the young man felt he was living a good life and probably was, but the Lord wanted him to see that he was not as free as he thought. You don’t have to be very wealthy for that to happen. 

 

St. John of the Cross says that if you become too attached to your rosary beads, get rid of them. He also says there is no point in taking a vow of poverty if you are still consumed with the desire for the things that you have given up. The freedom from them is what is really important.

 

There is a story of two monks out walking on a journey. They come across a creek and they meet a young lady who is trying to get across, but she is afraid. So one of the monks offers to carry her across. She accepts and he carries her across the creek, lets her down and then they part ways. After some time the other monk says, ‘You shouldn’t have carried that lady across the creek. You are a monk!’ The first monk says, ‘When I carried her across, I left her down and walked away, but you are still carrying her in your mind.’ We can become obsessed with anything.

 

Thank God for what you do have, but ask yourself are you free from it, or a slave to it? Because if you are a slave to it—thinking that you could not do without it—then it is the master. Think of your cell-phone. Most of us would find it pretty hard to do without it.

 

God wants us to be free to open ourselves up to God and to enjoy this beautiful world that He has given us, but God is the only thing that is really important. Everything else is going to be left behind when we die, even our bodies. They will disintegrate. That is why Jesus is telling us not to get caught up with what is ultimately trivial and forget the only thing that matters. We should enjoy what we have, but don’t let it become the master.

 

For those of you who have children. How much time and energy do you put into preparing them for this life, which is temporary? Probabaly a lot! But how much time do you put into preparing them for the world to come, which is eternal? Probably not as much.

 

When people hear this gospel, many people only hear the part where Jesus says, ‘How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ But perhaps the most important part of this Gospel is the last part. When Jesus says, ‘How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,’ the apostles are astonished, just as most of us probably find this hard to understand too, since the general thinking is that if we had enough money, it would resolve most of our problems. But when the Apostles ask, ‘Then who can be saved?’ or in modern English, ‘Who can get to heaven?’ then Jesus says, ‘For people [by their own strength] it is impossible, but not for God.  Everything is possible for God.’ That is the really important thing to remember. Everything is possible for God. By our own strength we are very limited in what we can do, despite our best efforts, because we are weak and we easily get distracted by wealth, or work, or relationships or whatever. God knows that we often get caught up in all the wrong things, just like the rich young man in the story, but God is bigger than all of this. God is bigger than the mistakes we make, bigger than the mixed motivations for what we do. That is why we just keep coming back to him and asking him to help us, to forgive us, to guide us: and He does. The wonderful thing that God continues to teach us, is that it is never too late to come back to him.

 

The disciples said: ‘If that is the case, then who can be saved?’ Jesus said: ‘For people it is impossible, but not for God; because everything is possible for God.’

 

26th Sunday Year B (Gospel: Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48) Different paths to God

 

 

One of the things I was very blessed with as a young priest, was getting to know a Baptist minister and his wife who worked in Galway: Kelly and Susan Curry. He and his wife came over from the States, because they felt the Lord was calling them there on a mission, although they didn’t know exactly what He was asking them to do. They ended up in my hometown and they set up a centre to encourage people to come back to their faith. They weren’t trying to convert people to become Baptist, rather this centre was about encouraging people to take their faith more seriously and since most of the people who came there were Catholic, they ended up helping more Catholics than anyone else. They started giving retreats in high-schools and they have had more and more requests from the schools. At this stage they are giving retreats to several thousand students every year. He also said that the schools are asking them to come to their schools because they have so many problems, but they also ask them if they can give the retreats without talking about God. And they said ‘no,’ they will be talking about God.

 

I have always admired Kelly and Susan’s open-mindedness, but the reason I feel very blessed to have come to know them is because it opened my mind to different ways of faith. I got to know Kelly best. He was obviously a man of God and filled with the Spirit. Kelly has been a great source of encouragement and support to me as a Catholic priest. As I got to know him it helped me to realise that God was working in and through him, just as much as through any priest I knew. Maybe that should be obvious, but when you grow up in one particular way of faith, without much exposure to many other ways of faith, it is not always obvious and often we can be suspicious of people who don’t see things as we do, but God works through different people in many different ways. Many people I know have been greatly helped by the work they do there in that centre. It is called An Tobar Nua which means The New Well.

 

I know that at this time, many of you as parents and grandparents are distressed as you see your children no longer practicing their faith, or going to church. While it is a tragedy to us, it doesn’t mean that they have no faith. We believe God offers us an extraordinary treasure in the mass and through the different sacraments and of course we would like that for others, especially for our children, but at this time many young people have become disillusioned with the Church and with official religion and often for very understandable reasons. In many ways it is hard to blame them, they have probably more reasons than most to be turned off by it, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have faith, or that they are not searching for God. People are always searching for God. It is an instinctive need God has given us. While they may find it difficult to relate to the Church at this time, that doesn’t mean that God is not reaching out to them, or guiding them.

 

Just as getting to know my Baptist friend Kelly helped me to realise that here are many ways God speaks to people, it is good for us to remember that God continues to speak to them and reach out to them, often in ways that we do not recognise, or would never have imagined. I am often struck by the great goodness that I have met in so many people, often people who have no interest in the Church at all, but they do their best to live good lives and help the people they meet, often with great generosity. Many do believe in God, but they don’t relate to God through the means that we are used to.

 

It is also surprising how people are still being drawn to the Church and to religious life. Nine years ago I spent a year with the Dominican order in Ireland. That year 5 young men joined the Dominicans in Ireland. The previous year 6 entered. The year before that 2 entered and the year before that 13. God is at work around us all the time and that should help us take heart.

 

The readings today remind us how God gives his Spirit to whomever He wishes, often in ways that we don’t expect. The Apostles were surprised, just as the men in the time of Moses were surprised, when they found others teaching and healing in God’s name, but Jesus said to them, ‘Don’t stop them…If they are not against us, they are with us.’ They were also surprised when the Gentiles—those who were not Jewish—received the gift of the Holy Spirit, sometimes even before they had a chance to pray with them. God was showing them that He is bigger than all of us and not just there for one group of people.

 

Peter and the other apostles were unclear about this in the beginning. When Peter was praying he had a vision of something like a big sheet being let down from heaven, which had all kinds of birds and animals on it. Then he heard a voice say, ‘Get up Peter. Kill and eat.’ Peter replied, ‘Certainly not Lord, I have never eaten anything profane.’ The voice said, ‘What God has called clean, you have no right to call profane.’ (see Acts 10:9-16). This vision helped him to understand that God was there for all people, not just the Jewish people.

 

Later on when challenged about this Peter said, ‘What I have come to realize is that all people who fear God and do what is right, are acceptable to him.’ (Acts 10:35).

 

Mahatma Gandi

Does that mean that all religions are the same? No. God uses different ways to guide people to himself, but Christianity is different because it is what God revealed to us. And what God has revealed is that ultimately no one can come to him except through Jesus. Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ (Jn 14:6). Does that mean that everyone has to be Christian to go to heaven? Not necessarily, but when everyone dies, they will instantly know who Jesus is and that it is because of his death and resurrection that we can go to heaven. During their life, even if they don’t know anything about Christ, what is important is what Peter said: ‘What I have come to realize is that all people who fear God and do what is right, are acceptable to him.’ (Acts 10:35).

 

We believe that the path we follow as Catholics, is directly from God through Jesus and we are blessed to know these things. Jesus has given us the most extraordinary gifts to help us: above all the Eucharist, the gift of his Body and Blood; the Word of God; the healing we receive through confession and many other things.

 

We hope and pray that others will come to know these treasures too, but God goes on reaching out to people all around us in many ways which we will probably never know about until we get to heaven. Part of what we are called to, is to pray for the people around us that they will come to know God too. We are blessed to have been given the gift of faith and the more we live it seriously, the more we will be a signpost to God, to the people around us.

 

I remember hearing a story of an elderly woman living in the suburbs of New York. Each morning she walked to church to go to mass and receive the Eucharist. There was also a lawyer who drove past her each morning on his way to work and scoffed at this old woman and her superstitious beliefs. On her way to the church she had to make her way up a steep hill and she was slow on her feet. One morning in winter there was a lot of snow and ice on the roads. The lawyer didn’t expect to see her. But then he passed her on the way up the hill on her hands and knees. Her faith and desire to receive the Eucharist was so strong, that she was willing to do this. He was so astonished that this lady would not even let ice and snow stop her, that it actually brought about his conversion.

 

Living our faith seriously is one of the most powerful ways we can help other people, especially during times of scandal. When people see that we are just as committed to our faith despite scandal or division in our Church, it makes them think. They may not say anything, or they may even make sarcastic remarks, but people do notice. If you want excuses to walk away from the Church, you have 2000 years of scandal to choose from.

 

At this time people need the witness of those who have faith more than ever, because so many have lost faith and don’t know where to turn. God has made us in such a way that we are not complete without him and even if people are not aware that God is what is missing, they know something is missing. In wealthier countries such as ours, people will try to fill that void with material things, but that can never satisfy. We may hope that our spouse will be our total fulfilment, but no matter how much we love them, even they cannot totally fulfil us, because only God can do that. I have no doubt that one of the reasons the suicide rate is so high is because of a lack of faith. If you don’t believe in anything beyond this life, then where do you turn to when everything seems to be going wrong? When you do have faith, even when everything is going wrong, we do not give up, because we have the hope of knowing that this world is temporary. We have what people are looking for and the best way we can help them, is through prayer and by living our faith as well as we can.

 

‘Jesus said to the Apostles, “What about you? Are you going to go away too?” Peter said, “Lord where else can we go? You have the message of eternal life. We believe and know, that you are the holy One of God.”’ (John 6:67-69)

 

‘There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name, who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us, is for us.’

25th Sunday, Year B (Gospel: Mk 9:30-37) Abortion

 

By the time the average child has finished elementary school, they have seen approximately 8,000 murders on TV. By the time they reach 18 they have seen approximately 30,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence on TV. That means that we are being told that life is cheap, killing is a normal part of our society. Saint John Paul II called it a culture of death.

In many assisted living homes for the elderly, where they are so well looked after materially, there is often terrible loneliness, because people are often abandoned by family. We need the love of other people because we have been created for love.

St. Teresa receives Nobel Peace Prize

In 1982 Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa, received the Nobel Prize for Peace. She was also invited to speak at Harvard University and at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. She primarily spoke about abortion. She said that abortion is the greatest threat to peace in our world.

“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.” 

“As long as mothers are prepared to kill their own children, how can we ask grown adults not to kill each other?” - Mother Teresa of Calcutta 

In India, her sisters—The Missionaries of Charity—continually ask women not to have abortions, but to give up those children for adoption to so many couples who long to have a child, but are unable.

I saw a video of a young couple receiving a newborn baby for adoption. It was such an amazing sight. Everyone in the room was in tears for the joy of what was happening. That is what God wants for us, the joy of life. 

As long as a child is seen as an inconvenience, it means that we are focused only on ourselves. But God is asking us to give of ourselves until it hurts. Jesus completely gave of himself for us, even to the point of death and we are called to imitate him. An unexpected pregnancy may turn a woman, or a couple’s plans on their head, but this is a sacrifice that God asks us to make. With love comes responsibility.

Couple seeing newly adopted child for the first time.

We believe that at the conception of each human being, an immortal soul is created by God and given to us, a soul that will be in God’s presence for all eternity. All of us have souls, given to us by God and that is the part of us that lives on for eternity. Remembering that can change our outlook on how we see a pregnancy. Every time a child is killed, the role that God had given them in this world, is taken away from them. When Andrea Bocelli the—world renowned tenor—was in the womb of his mother, she was advised to have an abortion because of complications. But she refused and now the world has that wonderful singer. How many other people of great talent and knowledge have been lost?

The other side of this is that many women, probably the majority, have abortions under severe pressure from boyfriends, or family. How do I know that? because so many women have told me this in confession. I have yet to meet any woman who didn’t regret it. Even several decades later many still carry that terrible pain, because we instinctively know that it is wrong. This could never come from God. Part of our work is also to help women heal from this. God is always the one to create life and the one to heal us. 

If you were able to ask Jesus if an abortion was the right decision in any situation, what would He say to you? The answer is obvious. He would say, “never.” I have no doubt whatsoever, that it is the greatest evil in our world and the greatest sin against God. Satan wants to destroy God’s creation and what better place to start than at the very beginning of human life, because it is God’s creation.

Think of the words of the consecration at mass: ‘This is my body, which will be given up for you.’ The thinking behind abortion is the opposite of that: ‘This is my body and it will not be given up for you.’ That is how you know what is behind it is evil. 

In Sep 2019, a group of pro-abortion activists tried to burn down the cathedral in Mexico city. Why attack a Catholic church? There are plenty of other groups that oppose abortion too. Doesn’t that tell you something? Satan rages against God and will continue to try and destroy everything that God creates.

Another part of it, which is largely overlooked, is that we must teach our young people that sex is only for marriage. If that was really lived, it would drastically reduce the amount of abortion. But that has been lost sight of and often seen as old fashioned. However, it’s not. It is called fornication and is a sin. But the problem we are up against is that in every kind of media, sleeping around is considered the norm. Yet God tells us that it is a sin and offensive to him.

It always goes back to listening to what God teaches us, which is always for our good. 

We will continue to work hard for the preservation and dignity of life at all its stages. It is God’s greatest gift to us.

You have seen the various signs saying Vote No on 4^th. This is about changing the 4^th amendment of the constitution of Florida. If passed it essentially says that no law can be passed that will restrict abortion in any way. That would be the most extreme law in the country regarding abortion and the bishops are strongly encouraging us to vote against it. Since I was ordained 26 years ago, I have never seen the bishops take as strong a stance on anything as this. They have asked us to say the St. Michael prayer at the end of each mass especially to defeat this bill. As is often the case, the language of the amendment is misleading. Voting 'no' is voting against abortion and against this bill from being passed. We must protect life at all costs.

God is all about life. God keeps creating and God has made it possible for us to be part of that creating, which is a great privilege and a wonderful thing, but we must never let ourselves be complacent about it.

‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.’ (Gen 1:28)

‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10)

24th Sunday Year B (Gospel: Mk 8:27-35) “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

 

There is a tradition I came across from Bosnia, where a couple getting married bring a crucifix to the church. The priest says a special prayer of blessing over the cross and when the wedding is over the couple bring the cross to their new home and place it in a prominent position. The idea is that they will come before the cross in their sufferings and difficulties and ask Jesus to help them. They will not run away from their problems, but face them and ask for God’s help to work through them and most importantly, that Jesus be at the center of their home. One of my sisters did this at her wedding. 

 

Today we are constantly being told that my life is about my fulfillment and that you shouldn’t have to suffer, that you should be able to have everything your way, that you shouldn’t have to make sacrifices, sometimes not even for your children. That is the opposite to what Christ teaches us, which means we have to decide who we are following. Am I following the way of Christ, which is difficult, but so worthwhile, or am I following the way of the world, which tells me I should have everything I want? This has also become a modern mentality with marriage. We are told that if things are not working out, then move on. That is not the teaching of Christ. Yes, sometimes marriages don’t work out, but divorce and separation should be the last possible resort. It always troubles me when I hear a couple who are not long married, going through difficulties and the word divorce is already being used. The problem is that it has become part of our thinking, but it is not a healthy way to think. Currently in the US, one in four marriages break up within five years. That means that marriage is in crisis in this country.

 

The word sacrifice is at the heart of what we believe. Jesus sacrificed himself for us. He gave everything. We are called to sacrifice ourselves for each other. A husband and wife are meant to lay down their lives for each other and sacrifice themselves completely for their children. I am meant to sacrifice my life for the people God asks me to serve. That means that it is not about me being fulfilled, but about me giving of myself.

 

After Moses had given the Ten Commandments to the people he said, “Choose today whom you wish to follow. Choose life or death, blessing or curse. Follow the Lord or not, but make up your mind.”

In the book of Revelations, Jesus uses very strong words.  He says:

Here is the message of the Amen, the trustworthy, the true witness… I know about your activities: how you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other, but since you are neither hot nor cold, but only lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth’ (Rev 3:14-16).

 

In another translation it says, “I will vomit you out of my mouth.” That is very strong language. The Lord is not afraid to shock us and challenge us. He simply wants to make us wake up to reality. In order to grow, our focus must be on the Lord and not just on our own fulfillment.

 

Christianity is unusual in that it does not try to run away from suffering, or to rise above it, in any way. Rather it teaches us that suffering is part of the path that brings us to God. This is something people have always found difficult to understand. Two thousand years ago it was just as hard to understand. Peter is horrified when Jesus announces to them that he is going to suffer and be put to death and he tries to talk Jesus out of it. He says, “Lord, this must not happen to you. People won’t believe you, people will turn away from you. You are to be the King and all people will bow down to you.” And Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan (enemy), for the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s.” Jesus was saying to him, “You don’t understand this, but it has to be this way. If you want to follow me, you will suffer too.” Suffering has its place, even though it makes no sense to us.

 

When we suffer we often cry out to God, “Why have you done this to me? I shouldn’t have to suffer.” I used to hear this all the time when I worked in the hospital. People say, “Father, why has God done this to me, what did I ever do wrong?” as though this was a punishment. We forget the line from Scripture that says, “If anyone wants to follow me, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24). Does this mean that we shouldn’t try to get rid of suffering? Of course not. We should do everything we can to help those who are suffering and to make our world a better place, but we will never be fully rid of it, it is part of this life.

Perhaps what is most important is why the Lord asks us to follow this path. It seems to be a doorway we have to pass through, which helps to form us as people, and which brings us closer to God. It is not just suffering for the sake of suffering, which would be sadistic. The death of Jesus atoned for the sin which separated us from God and led to his rising from death and winning eternal life for all people. If we are allowed to suffer, it is because through it, God will lead us to something greater, although we may not see this until the next life. Padre Pio used to say that if we understood how powerful suffering was, we would pray for it.

 

We say that we are followers of Christ? Do you have a crucifix in your home? If you don’t, maybe it’s time you got one. By having a crucifix in your home where people can see it, you are saying “I belong to Jesus Christ.” I believe in what he has done for me; Jesus Christ is Lord for me.” We have no reason to be ashamed of what we believe in. Acknowledging the way of the cross is also a recognition of the world to come. If there was nothing after this life, then the way of the cross would be meaningless. But what it is saying is that the struggles we go through and the sacrifices we have to make in this life are worthwhile, because they are leading to something greater. That’s why we keep our eyes fixed on the world to come. If that is our ultimate destiny, then everything we have to sacrifice in order to follow the way of Jesus, is worthwhile.

 

I saw a documentary about how they caught Joaquin Guzman, “El Chapo,” the brutal drug lord who ran the Sinaloa cartel. What was so sad about him and the others caught up in these drug cartels, is that they invested so much in gaining everything for this life, for now. They were found with huge quantities of cash and jewels and they were prepared to kill and butcher others to get it. They don’t seem to have had any sense of the purpose of our life here on earth. Apart from being evil, it is also very sad. Ironically, many of them also had big chapels built in their homes. What a contradiction!

 

“Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.”

 

 

 

 

22nd Sunday Year B (Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23) We must love one another, but God first.

 

 

After mass one Sunday a young man came up to me and said, ‘Father, I think that at the mass you should be talking about loving each other and not just talking about things from the bible which people don’t understand.’ Another time at a wedding a man said almost the exact same thing to me.  He said, ‘You should just be telling us to be good to each other. There is no need for all these words from St. Paul to the Corinthians, etc.’ They are both right about the need to talk about loving each other, because that is one of the most important things that Jesus asked us to do, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ That is how Jesus told us that people would recognise us as Christians, by the way we love each other. But there is another part to it which is easy to forget.

 

If we are to love one another, and that is what the Lord God tells us to do, where are we supposed to get the strength to do that? How are you supposed to love people who are difficult, or who are unjust to you, who do you wrong, or steal from you, who have cheated you out of money, or offended your family? Since they are in the wrong, are we still expected to love them? Yes, we are. ‘Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, bless those who curse you.’ It seems to be a lot to ask.  In fact, it can seem quite unrealistic. This is where we have to go back to the Scriptures to see what God is saying to us, to try and make sense of this. When Jesus was asked directly, ‘Which is the most important commandment of the Law?’ Jesus answered by giving two commandments: ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mat 22:36-40). Why did Jesus mention two commandments, when he was asked about one? Because the two are directly related. The strength to love our neighbor as ourself, comes from loving God before everything else, with all our heart.

 

What God is telling us is that if we are rooted in him, if he is at the centre, and we become more and more filled with him and with his love, then and only then will we have the ability to love other people, especially people we may consider enemies for one reason or another.

 

Let me give you one example. There is a woman called Sister Alvera, from Italy.  Several years ago she set up a community to help drug addicts recover. She believed that what these people were missing more than anything else in their lives, was the love of God, and that this was where their problem was really coming from. So she set up a centre to help them recover, a place where they could experience the love of God first hand from other people. They live like a religious community. They have no TV, no radio and no newspapers. They do a lot of physical work and they pray a lot together. The interesting thing is that through this way of life (which is basically a monastic way of life – prayer and work) hundreds of men have overcome their drug addiction, but more importantly they have discovered faith, discovered the love of God for them and begun completely new lives. Sr. Alvera now has 36 different centres all over the world. They are known as the Cenacolo community.

 

There are hundreds of people like Sr. Alvera and not all religious either. The Missionaries of Charity, whom (Mother) St. Teresa founded, are another. How do they do this kind of work? It sounds very noble to work with the poor, but it can be really disgusting and dangerous too. Where do they get the strength to work with people who can be very difficult and sometimes ungrateful? The answer is that they are completely rooted in God. Their own personal relationship with God is where they get the strength and energy.

 

When St. Teresa of Calcutta started off working among the poor in India, first she was on her own. Then there were only a handful of sisters with her. Soon they felt totally overwhelmed with the work. Much of their work is bringing people in off the streets who are dying and allowing them to die with dignity. They clean them and give them a clean bed to lay on, but there were so many people in need. She said that they prayed and asked God to show them what to do. All of them felt that the Lord was telling them to do one hour less of work and to spend that time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. They couldn’t understand how this would help them, but they believed this was what God was telling them and so they decided to do it. They began to set aside an extra hour each day for adoration, being in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. She said that within a short time, many other women began to join them, to help them in their work. Soon they were able to do far more than before. She said that this was a really important lesson for them, that they must always put God first and then everything else would fall into place. Now they won’t open a centre unless they can have daily mass and time for adoration. This is exactly what Jesus says, ‘Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness and all these things will be given you as well’ (Mat 6:33).

 

A few years ago I watched a BBC interview with some of the women fighters in Syria who fight with the YPG, or Kurdish coalition fighters. They are an all-women group of soldiers fighting against ISIS in Northern Syria. The journalist was asking one of them how she felt about ISIS since they were killing her own people. She had been fighting there for two years. She missed her family, but she felt she needed to do this to protect their people. Among other things that she mentioned, she also said ‘We have to remember that they are people too.’ I was really surprised and impressed by this. This lady, although fighting this force of evil, was able to distinguish between the evil and the fact that they were also human beings. She had an inner sense of what is important and the value of each life. I’m sure those women didn’t want to be there, but they felt the need to be there to help protect their own people. ‘We have to remember that they are people too.’

 

What exactly does it mean to love your enemies, to love your neighbors who are difficult, or disrespectful? It doesn’t mean you have to like them, but it means we recognise their dignity as human beings and respect them as human beings. It doesn’t mean you have to let people walk all over you. What is important is to be able to rise above the hatred. If we allow ourselves to become just as hateful or corrupt as they are, then we are no different to them.

 

Our ability to love one another, to put up with and respect those we don’t like, or agree with, comes from our relationship with God. The more we come to know God, the more we will be able to love the people around us, starting with our own families, our spouse, whoever is closest to us. As we come to know the Lord more, our ability to love others also grows. The key is in coming closer to God, nothing else.

 

How do we come closer to God? First, through prayer, through reading his words in the bible, through giving God our time, through receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and also spending time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. We have two hours of adoration here every morning and all-day Friday until 9pm. People come and just rest in God’s presence, reading, or listening, but just being in God’s presence. It is very powerful and no greater source of strength.

 

In the Gospel Jesus warns the people not to get caught up in lip-service. Doing religious things, such as going to mass every Sunday, does not mean you have a relationship with God. It must go deeper than that. Our relationship with God has to be from the heart. A real relationship with anyone has to be from the heart, or else it is not a relationship.

 

As a priest, I celebrate mass every day and pray the Psalms five times every day. That is part of what you promise to do when you are ordained. But just doing these things does not mean I have a relationship with God, any more than wearing vestments. They are important things to do, but they are not going to help me, unless I am living my relationship with God from the heart. My relationship with God is just the same as with anyone I love. I spend time with them, I listen to them, I make sacrifices for them and try to please them, because I love them. If it is important to me, I will make time for it. The more our relationship with God grows, the more we are able to deal with our enemies, the more difficult people in our life.

 

Jesus also says, ‘If you only love those who love you, why should you get any credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them?’ If you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get any credit for that? Even sinners do that.’ (Lk 6:32-33)

 

Remember Jesus’ words on the cross, praying for those who were torturing him to death, ‘Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ (Lk 23:34). Jesus is calling us to be different, and we get the strength to do that from getting close to him.

 

‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. You must love your neighbour as yourself.’