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.’

 

21st Sunday Yr B (Gospel: John 6:60-69) What about you, will you go away too?

 

When I was a deacon I was sent to a conference in Los Angeles. I spent two extra days in a parish there. The pastor was an Irish man and he was explaining how things work over there. He said that for years there was a man in the parish who used to lead the folk group. He played the guitar. Then one day he decided to start his own church. So he rented a building down the street and started his own church, just like that. That’s how it works in LA.

 

What if you could change whatever parts of the faith you wanted to? You could have women priests, married priests, divorce, contraception, etc. You could change some of the more difficult teachings like having to love your enemies, which seems a bit extreme after all and you could tailor it just to suit your own needs. You could believe what you wanted to believe. What would you end up with? a feel-good religion of nice ideas, of wishful thinking. It would mean nothing. It might make you feel better, but it would be empty. Why? because it would be man made, not God made.

 

The word of God and the teachings of God are demanding, but they are God’s teachings, not just something we made up. We are free to either take it or leave it, to accept it and struggle with it, or to walk away from it. When we come across parts of the Bible that are difficult, we tend to say it must be wrong, because it doesn’t make sense to us. I think it would make more sense to say it is right because it is the word of God, but I don’t understand it. Therefore I have to try and understand what it means, rather than discard it.

 

In this Gospel passage, Jesus is just after teaching about the Eucharist. He said, ‘I am the bread of life’ (Jn 6:48) and ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not have life in you’ (Jn 6:53). And the people said, ‘This is too much, who could accept it?’ and they walked away. But Jesus’ response is even more interesting. He didn’t go after them and say, ‘Let me explain’. Instead, He just let them walk away. The only thing He did was say to the Apostles, ‘Are you going to go away too?’ (Jn 6:67). In other words, ‘This is my teaching, take it or leave it.’ And it says that ‘As a result of this many of his disciples returned to their former way of living and no longer accompanied him.’ They couldn’t accept what He said, so they left, but He didn’t change anything He had said. How could He, if it is the truth? and this applies to all of the teachings of Christ, handed down to us. They don’t change. They cannot change, because they are truth, but we are free to accept them or not.

 

Jesus says to us, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn 14:15). Above all this means putting God above everything else; above your wife, or husband, above your children, above your work and above your politics. God must be first and God assures us that if we put him first, everything else will follow. ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be given you as well’ (Matt 6:33). ‘If you put me first, I will take care of all your needs.’ The problem is that we usually think we have to get everything else in our life in order first and then we can turn to God. But the Lord is saying it must be the other way around. He must be first in everything. This also applies to the election. My faith comes first, politics second. I am a Catholic first, then a supporter of which ever party. My faith should be what guides me in how I vote.

 

Recently, on the back window of a car, I saw this Scripture reference: 2 Chronicles 7:14. I didn’t know what it was, so I looked it up. It is a perfect Scripture for our times. It says:

“If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

 

Look at what is happening across the country and all over the world. Huge fires, floods and many volcanoes coming to life which have been dormant for years, even centuries. There is chaos in our society, with people turning against each other in acts of madness. More and more road-rage incidents are turning into shootings. ‘Oh, it’s just climate change.’ Is it? Perhaps it is exactly what it says in Scripture. When the people turn away from God and worship other gods, God’s blessing is lifted from the land. The people no longer have God’s protection.

 

Nature is part of God’s creation and is subject to him. Remember when Jesus fell asleep in the boat and the boat began to take water because of the storm? The Apostles were panicking and woke Jesus. He commanded the sea and wind to calm and it did! The Apostles said, ‘Who can this be, even the wind and the sea obey him?’ (Mk 4:41).

 

The flood during the time of Noah came and killed thousands of people, because they had become so evil. It was an instrument in God’s hands and part of how God purified his world. It is his world, not ours. We are currently seeing nature begin to do the same thing.

 

This is what happened time and time again with the people of Israel. When they got comfortable, they turned away from God and worshipped other gods. Chaos followed, their society began to fall apart and their enemies took over, until eventually they recognized their sin and turned back to God asking forgiveness. Are we worshipping other gods? Yes, the gods of money, pleasure, self. We have child sacrifice, which is abortion. All these things are abhorrent to the Lord. That’s what the word of God says. These things are detestable to the Lord..

 

In February 2021, in congress, a congressman publicly said, ‘…God’s will is of no concern to this congress.’[1] Thankfully someone immediately pointed out that on the wall behind him was written, ‘In God we Trust.’

 

To restore God’s blessing on the land, we have to do what God asks of us, which is to put him first, to repent of our sins, to confess our sins and to live by the ways of God.

 

People keep saying, ‘I don’t need to confess my sins to a priest. I can tell God I’m sorry myself.’ Sure you can, but that’s not what God asks us to do. God asks us to confess to his priests, because that is the gift He has given us and that way we are being held accountable to another person. There is no sense of accountability if we just tell God we are sorry by ourselves and it doesn’t take any humility to do that. That is why God established the gift of confession, which is one of the sacraments of healing. He wants to heal us. It is also interesting that any place where Our Lady has appeared, she always says, ‘Tell the people to go to confession.’ She doesn’t say, ‘Tell the people to tell God they are sorry for their sins.’

 

I find it interesting that at this time, many Christian leaders, Protestants, Catholics and Evangelicals, are all saying the same thing. God is telling us to repent and turn back to his ways and what we are seeing happening around us in society and in nature, are signs that we need to wake up.

 

If it were impossible for us to follow God’s teachings, He wouldn’t have given them to us. So it must be possible, but it does require a definite decision on our part. Trying to do it on our own can seem impossible, but God doesn’t ask us to do it on our own. He asks us to continually turn to him and use the help He offers us, which He gives us above all through the Eucharist, through Confession, through the Scriptures. God gives us all the help we need, if we ask for it, so we have no excuse to say it’s too difficult.

 

‘Lord where else will we go, you have the message of eternal life and we believe, we know you are the holy one of God.’

 

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[1] Congressman Jerry Nadler, Feb 27^th, 2021:

“What any religious tradition ascribes as God’s will, is no concern of this congress.”

 

20th Sunday Year B (John 6:51-58) The Body and Blood of Christ

 

Sometimes when I think of some of the different things that people of different faiths believe, and how strange they seem to me, it also makes me think of the Eucharist. For those who do not believe as we do, it must seem like the craziest notion of all; that God makes himself present through the hands of a priest, in a tiny piece of bread and some wine. What could be more bizarre than that? And we don’t just believe that it is a reminder of Jesus or that it represents Jesus, but that it really and truly is the body and blood of Christ. I also think that it is a teaching so extreme that only God could come up with it and get away with it, so to speak. What human being would try to convince others that a piece of bread actually becomes the body of Christ when a priest says certain prayers over it?

 

To help us believe, the Lord has also given a great number of Eucharistic miracles, to date over 200 all over the world and they are the ones that have been officially recognized. In many of those miracles, the host has miraculously turned into a piece of bloody flesh. And with modern technology many have been studied by scientists and it has always shown that is the real flesh and blood of a man’s heart.

 

The first time that Jesus gave the people this teaching— “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot have life within you”—it says that many of the people who had followed him up to that point left him. They said “This is madness. Who could accept it?” It is interesting how Jesus responded to them. He didn’t say anything. He just let them walk away. He then turned to the disciples and said, “What about you, are you going to go away too?” In other words, “This is my teaching. Take it or leave it.”

 

In his first letter to the Christians in Corinth (1 Cor 11:23-26)—which is the oldest account of the mass that we have, written about 54 or 55AD—St. Paul says, “This is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to you…” He doesn’t say that he received it from the other Apostles, but from the Lord himself. Jesus, as you probably remember, appeared to St. Paul while he was persecuting Christians and the event turned his life around. Jesus appeared to him several other times as well and Paul was so affected by what happened to him that he dedicated the rest of his life to preaching about this man Jesus, but the line that always strikes me is where he says, “This is what I received from the Lord…” He is saying, “I didn’t make this up and neither did any other person. Jesus himself taught us this and taught us to do this in his memory.” So, every time an ordained priest says the words of consecration at mass, “This is my Body… This is the chalice of my Blood…” Jesus becomes present in the form of bread and wine. How are we supposed to understand this?  We aren’t!  I do not understand it at all, but I believe it. That is why we are meant to fast for an hour before receiving Holy Communion and why we don’t eat or drink, or smoke in the church, to remind us that this is something unlike anything else in the world. It is also a beautiful sign of how close God is to us, that He would continually come to us in the middle of our lives, each week, each day, to help and encourage us. He comes to us as we are, not as we should be, but as we are. It is also God himself who makes it possible to receive him, because we could never be ready or worthy enough to even come close to the divine presence, not to mention receive him. That is also why we always say the prayer: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed” (just as the Roman soldier said when Jesus offered to come to his house to heal his servant). It is also why we begin every mass by acknowledging that we are sinners and asking God’s forgiveness.

 

There are two extremes that I come across with regard to the Eucharist. One is where someone will say to me, “Father, I don’t receive the Eucharist because I really am not worthy enough.” Correct! No one is worthy enough, nor ever could be, but since the Lord himself is happy to come to us this way, we should not be afraid to receive him. The other extreme is where people feel they have a ‘right’ to receive the Eucharist without any kind of repentance, or need to confess their sins, or change a lifestyle that is sinful. That is also wrong. There is no question of this being a ‘right’ on our part. The Eucharist is pure gift from God and for our part we must try to approach it as worthily as we can, especially by confessing our sins every so often. But the most important thing to remember is that Jesus wants to give himself to us, and so we should not be afraid to come to him. Remember that ultimately it is God himself who makes it possible for us to receive him. “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

 

St. Paul also warns us to be careful not to receive unworthily, or we will bring condemnation on ourselves.

Each person must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks condemnation on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick and some have fallen asleep (1 Cor 11:28-30).

 

If we are living in any way that is not in line with God’s teachings, we need to address it. Several years ago, after I spoke about this, a couple came to me who were 48 years married. They said they had both been previously married, but never got an annulment, so they were never married in the Church. They realized that since they wanted to receive Communion, they really needed to put this right. So, after 48 years, they both applied for annulments, got them and were then married here in the church. I found that so inspiring. And that is the right approach. If you find yourself in a second union, without having got an annulment, then you should try and put it right. Come and talk to me and I will help you sort it out. All of us need to make every effort to do what the Lord asks. Receiving the Eucharist casually is a big mistake and it is sacrilegious, that is, a sin against what is holy.

 

Margaret Clithero: Martyr for the Eucharist

In the late 1500s there lived a woman named Margaret Clithero in the town of York in England. She was a convert to Catholicism at a time when it was against the law to be a Catholic. Priests used to come to her disguised as cloth sellers, bringing her the Eucharist and she would hide them. She never saw mass in a public church or heard a Catholic hymn being sung even though she lived next to York Minster Cathedral. It was an Anglican (Episcopal) church at the time.

 

She was eventually found out and she was dragged from the butcher shop where she worked and brought before magistrates and ordered to plead guilty or not guilty, so that she could go on trial. She refused as she didn’t want her innocent blood to be on the head of twelve jurors. She said, “If you want to condemn me, condemn me yourself.” The judge said, “Because you are a woman I will let you go free, but you must promise never to hide these priests again.” He then handed her the bible and told her to swear on it.  So she took the bible in open court and held it up in the air and said, “I swear by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you let me go free, I will hide priests again, because they are the only ones who can bring us the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

York Minster Cathedral, England.

So just over 400 years ago, she was brought to St. Michael’s bridge in York and given the punishment, worse than being hung, drawn and quartered. It was called in English law, ‘the punishment most severe’. She was pressed to death under heavy weights. It was to take three days and she was to receive only a little muddy water to drink to keep her alive. The executioner was bribed, and he put a stone under her head so that she died within an hour as her neck was broken. She was the mother of eight children, and some of them were there when she was executed.

 

In the little chapel that is there to her memory in York today, there is an inscription over the door, which is a message for our times. It says ‘She died for the mass.’

 

So the next time that you find yourself bored with the mass, or just not too bothered to go because you are tired, think of her and think of the many priests and men and women who have been executed for carrying the Eucharist or for saying mass. God has given us an extraordinary treasure in the Eucharist. May He give us new eyes to see what is here before us.

“I swear by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you let me go free, I will hide priests again, because they are the only ones who can bring us the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” – St. Margaret Clithero.

 

Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires

At seven o’clock in the evening on August 18, 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was saying Holy Mass at a Catholic church in the commercial center of Buenos Aires. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church. On going to the spot indicated, Fr. Alejandro saw the defiled Host. Since he was unable to consume it, he placed it in a container of water and put it away in the tabernacle of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

On Monday, August 26, upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Auxiliary Bishop at that time, now Pope Francis), who gave instructions that the Host be professionally photographed. The photos were taken on September 6, 1996. They clearly show that the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown significantly in size. For three years the Host remained in the tabernacle, the whole affair being kept a strict secret. Since the Host suffered no visible decomposition, Cardinal Bergoglio decided to have it scientifically analyzed.

Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires 1996

On October 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr. Castanon took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he purposely did not inform the team of scientists of its provenance. One of these scientists was Dr. Frederic Zugiba, the well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist. He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA. ‘For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.’ (John 6:55)

Zugiba testified that, “The analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body. In other words, it is the action that keeps the body alive. ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have life within you’ (John 6:53).

Dr. Zugiba also said that the heart muscle was in an inflammatory condition and contained a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.” ‘I am the living bread, that comes down from heaven.’ (John 6:51)

Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero, witnessed these tests. Knowing where the sample had come from, they were dumbfounded by Dr. Zugiba’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the scientist how long the white blood cells would have remained alive if they had come from a piece of human tissue, which had been kept in water. They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr. Zugiba replied. The journalist then told the doctor that the source of the sample had first been kept in ordinary water for a month and then for another three years in a container of distilled water; only then had the sample been taken for analysis. Dr. Zugiba’s was at a loss to account for this fact. There was no way of explaining it scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform Dr. Zugiba that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white, unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human flesh. Amazed by this information, Dr. Zugiba replied, “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a mystery totally beyond her competence.”

Only faith in the extraordinary action of a God provides the reasonable answer—faith in a God, who wants to make us aware that He is truly present in the mystery of the Eucharist.

The Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires is an extraordinary sign attested to by science. Through it Jesus desires to arouse in us a lively faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He reminds us that His presence is real, and not symbolic. Only with the eyes of faith do we see Him under the appearance of the consecrated bread and wine. We do not see Him with our bodily eyes, since He is present in His glorified humanity. In the Eucharist Jesus sees and loves us and desires to save us.

In collaboration with Ron Tesoriero, Mike Willesee, one of Australia’s best-known journalists (who converted to Catholicism after working on the documents of another Eucharistic miracle) wrote a book entitled Reason to Believe. In it they present documented facts of Eucharistic miracles and other signs calling people to faith in Christ who abides and teaches in the Catholic Church. They have also made a documentary film on the Eucharist—based largely on the scientific discoveries associated with the miraculous Host in Buenos Aires. Their aim was to give a clear presentation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject of the Eucharist. They screened the film in numerous Australian cities. The showing at Adelaide drew a crowd of two thousand viewers. During the commentary and question period that followed a visibly moved man stood up announcing that he was blind. Having learned that this was an exceptional film, he had very much wanted to see it. Just before the screening, he prayed fervently to Jesus for the grace to see the film. At once his sight was restored to him, but only for the thirty-minute duration of the film. Upon its conclusion, he again lost the ability to see. He confirmed this by describing in minute detail certain scenes of the film. It was an incredible event that moved those present to the core of their being.

 

‘I am the living bread come down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (John 6:51)

 

 

 

 

 

19th Sunday of Year B (Gospel: Jn 6:41-51) Making Sense of Baptism: a choice for God.

 

If you stepped outside into one of our summer showers here in Florida, you would be baptized/soaked/drenched! That is what baptism means. To be immersed in, or soaked in something. I have to confess that for years I never fully understood what priests meant when they would talk about taking our baptismal promises seriously.

 

I would like to try and make sense to you of what baptism is and why we baptize a child, or adult. Is it just because we are Catholic and we have to? Hopefully there is more to it than that. To make sense of baptism we have to go right back to the beginning.

 

We believe that God created everything: the visible universe that we can see and the invisible world of the spirit, which we will see when we die. People get glimpses of it here and there through different experiences which God allows us from time to time. Why did God create us at all? We have proved to be a lot of trouble. God created us because God wanted us to share in his happiness, his fulfillment. When we have a celebration in our life—a marriage, the birth of a child, a graduation—our instinct is to reach out to others and invite them to celebrate with us, to share in our joy.

 

It says in the creation story in Genesis that the last thing that God created was the human being. That is a biblical way of saying that we are the most important thing God created, his masterpiece, because we are created in his image and God created us to enjoy life with him, to be completely fulfilled in every way. It says that God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God was with them and close to them. They shared in his life.

 

We also believe that somewhere back at the beginning, something went wrong. We don’t know exactly what happened, but we call this Original Sin. It was a rejection of God’s word and what God offered us and this is explained through the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

 

God gave Adam and Eve every delight they could have, but He also gave them clear guidelines. ‘You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you do, you will surely die’ (Gen 2:17). In other words, don’t play God. Recognize your limitations as human beings and listen to what I tell you. You must not be the ones to decide what is good and evil, what is male and female, who lives and who dies. Only God can decide these things. But instead, they listened to a lie.

 

Satan is cunning and he convinced them that they could be like God and that they could make these decisions themselves. This was also what Satan wanted when he rejected God. He wanted to be like God, but by his own power and not with God’s help, but because of this he lost his place in heaven. And now, out of his hatred for God, Satan tries to destroy what is precious to God, especially the human race. Satan also hates us because we can rise higher than the angels when we die, depending on how we live. Our Lady is the perfect example. Because of her openness to God and what God did through her, she is now higher than the angels, which means that they have to acknowledge that she is higher than they are and the demons hate that.

 

Exorcists will tell you that the demons especially hate Our Lady, because she is higher then they are and that is a great humiliation to them.

 

Satan convinced Adam and Eve to reject God’s word. As a result, everything fell apart. Sin entered the world, chaos followed. The generation after Adam and Eve produced the first murder. The harmony that existed between them was lost. Now they found themselves suspicious of God and there was tension between them. They were no longer at peace with themselves.

 

Because of this rejection of God, we lost the happiness that God created for us and the greatest catastrophe was that we had no way of winning it back, no way of undoing the damage. How could any human being make up anything to God, since we owe everything to God in the first place? But because God loves us so much, He did not leave us in this situation. He would not allow his own creation to go to ruin because of our sin.

 

And so, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, He won back that possibility for us. To undo the damage the sin needed to be atoned for. The atonement had to be a human offering, to make up for a human sin, but it also needed to be a divine offering, since nothing else could be acceptable to God. That is why the sacrifice of Jesus was the perfect offering, because He is both fully human and fully divine. Jesus became the bridge between heaven and earth. That is why the symbol of the crucifix is so important and so powerful. The demons hate the symbol of the crucifix, because it is the symbol of their defeat. That’s why it is also good to wear and display a crucifix, not just a cross. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus we are now offered eternal life with God, which will be our ultimate happiness.

 

However, God also gave us free will and so He does not force anything on us. Instead He offers eternal happiness to us, but we have to choose it. It is a gift freely offered to us. When we are baptized we are saying, ‘Yes. I believe this and I want this. I believe that God is real and that God offers me eternal happiness. I believe that God has made it possible for me to have eternal life with him and I want that. I want all that God is offering me, which has been won by the death and resurrection of Jesus. I want it all. Let me be drenched in it, soaked in it, baptized in it.’ That is why baptism is so important. So baptism is essentially a choice for what God is offering us.

 

If an adult came to me and asked to be baptized, first they would have to undergo several months of instruction, so that they fully understood what they were taking on. We have what is called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, for people who want to be baptized, or who have been baptized but haven’t made their confirmation. Every year in this diocese alone over 300 adults are baptized or make their confirmation. Last year was the biggest year ever, which is very inspiring to see. But only after they have gone through several months of instruction will they be baptized.

 

In the Gospels there is the account of Jesus being baptized. It says that when it happened there was a vision of the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven and resting on Jesus. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, but He was showing us that when we are baptized we receive the gift of God’s Spirit, which enables us to live the Christian life.

Why do we baptize a child, since a child is too young to know what is going on? Shouldn’t we wait until they are old enough to make that decision themselves? The reason we baptize a child, is because we want the very best of everything for our children and especially God’s grace. We want them to be free of Original Sin from the beginning of their life. We want this promise of eternal happiness to be theirs from the start. We baptize a child on condition that we will teach them their faith as they grow up. If we don’t, then it is hypocrisy. The oil we use is a symbol of the gift of God’s Spirit.

 

Most of us were probably baptized as infants, when someone else spoke on our behalf. Now that we are adults, we must speak for ourselves. In a moment we will renew our promises of baptism, which is another way of professing the creed that we say each week, but we do it in the form of questions and answers. Now you are adults, listen to these questions and answer them if you believe them. Each of us must claim this for ourselves. No one else can do it for us.

 

The creed is like the pledge of allegiance, but we are pledging our allegiance to God and not just a country. So, the creed we profess each week is saying what we have chosen and who we believe in. That choice also affects how we live and the choices we make. If we believe what we profess, then we should live by always choosing the things that are according to God’s will. Even if the world around us rejects the ways of God, we must continue to do everything to accept the ways of God.

 

God so loved the world that He sent his only Son

So that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life (Jn 3:16)

 

 

18th Sunday Year B (Gospel: John 6:24-35) Work for food that endures to eternal life.

 

A friend of mine was telling me that he was just back from vacation where he had been mountain climbing with a German priest friend of his. They were somewhere in the mountains on the Austrian-German border. His friend had a map, but it was five years old and one of the paths they took turned out to be very dangerous. It was basically no longer usable. He said that for most of it there was a rope on one side for safety, although there was a sheer drop on the other side, but then they came to a place about 15 feet long where there was no rope, so they just had to cling to the side of the cliff on this extremely narrow ledge until they got past it. He told me that it was quite terrifying and a matter of slowly taking one step at a time, then finding proper hand grip, then another step. By the time he got to the far side he was quite exhausted and traumatised, but what interested me was that his friend, who is an experienced mountaineer, then told him to sit down and that they should eat something. When you have been through an experience like that, eating changes your metabolism and calms you down. And he said that it did just that. Within a short time he was fine again. He needed food to sustain him and help him continue.

 

There is a story in the Old Testament where the prophet Elijah is on the run, having just worked a miracle calling down fire from heaven and showing up the false prophets, but now Queen Jezebel is out to kill him. So he escapes into the desert, but at one point he sits down feeling depressed and prays to God, ‘Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors’, or in modern English, ‘I wish I was dead; I can’t do this anymore.’ Then he lies down and goes to sleep. But then he is woken by an angel who tells him to get up and eat, so that he will have enough strength for the journey. He finds food beside him. So he eats and then goes back to sleep. The angel wakes him a second time and tells him again to eat, so that he will have enough food for the journey. So he eats and then sets out on a long journey as the Lord commanded him. He needed the food to fulfil God’s will for him.

 

In this Gospel passage Jesus is just after working the miracle of feeding five thousand people with the five loaves and two fish and the people come after him to see more of this wonder-worker. However, as is often the case, the miracle Jesus worked was pointing to something deeper and he says to them, ‘You are only looking for me because you got free food, but you didn’t see the “sign.”  What ‘sign’? What was he talking about? And then he says, ‘Don’t be worrying about temporary food, but look for the food that endures forever.’ The miracle of multiplying the loaves, was a sign of something deeper. Jesus then begins to teach them that there is another kind of food that we need for our whole life; not just material food that you eat, but  spiritual food/nourishment, which brings meaning/purpose/direction. And then He tells them that He is this food which lasts forever. This is the kind of food we need for the journey which is our whole life. Jesus is the one who gives us strength and meaning, to help us keep going. He is the one who makes sense of what our whole life is about. If you don’t have the right kind of meaning or purpose for being here, then it is very hard to keep going, especially when things don’t make sense, as they so often don’t.

 

Sadly we see more and more suicide around us and I have no doubt that one of the reasons is because people have lost faith and don’t have the kind of spiritual nourishment that they need. People are spiritually starving and have lost their way, their sense of purpose. When we are suffering, we need strength that will carry us through. If we have faith in Jesus and what He taught, namely that we are here for a purpose, that everything here is temporary and that our true destiny is in heaven, that changes our whole outlook on life and how we live. If this life is everything, then it is a cruel existence for a great many people, because most people suffer a lot.

 

One of the evils of communism, is that it denies the existence of God and it denies that people have souls. If that were true, then we are just animals that can be used by the government for their purposes. Without God, human dignity disappears. But if we have souls and will live forever, then everything we do here matters and even the worst of suffering that we have to face is temporary.

 

It is interesting that in the second reading (Ephesians 4:17, 20-24) St. Paul says, ‘Don’t live the kind of aimless life that pagans live.’ That is exactly what can happen to us if we lose sight of our faith, or get too caught up in the world and worldly worries.  We forget what the real purpose of our life is about. You see this happening all the time, especially when the economy does well. Many people got completely carried away with money and forget themselves. When times are harder it’s a lot easier for us to focus on what is really important. 

God is showing us that to have the right kind of strength for the journey, we need the right kind of nourishment, and Jesus is this food. ‘I am the bread of life’. That is why Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist and speaks to us through his word, so that we have all the nourishment that we need for the journey. If we know what our life is about, then we won’t get side-tracked by earthly things. There is nothing wrong with the things of the world, or with riches, if we are free to enjoy them and I don’t mean being in a free country, I mean interior freedom. If we understand why we exist and what is coming next, then we can enjoy the things of the world as God intended us to.

 

Passing on the faith to those who come after us is equally important. One of the best things you can do for your children is to give them a good grounding in their faith. They may not be that interested now, but when they get older and they are faced with all the struggles we all go through, they will have the inner strength they need if they have faith. The consequences of not having any faith is what we see all around us, where people have lost hope and many despair. It is not meant to be that way. If children see their parents and grandparents living their faith, it will become real for them too.

 

When they are at school age, there are so many other interests and hobbies pulling them in different directions. When football practices and other sports are on Sunday mornings, it is extra hard for parents to make time for church, but our faith is not just another interest or hobby for them. Our faith is about the purpose of our whole life.

 

If we focus on God first, we will begin to discover that He will look after all of these needs as well.  Jesus must be at the centre, everything else comes second.

 

I am the bread of life. 

Whoever comes to me will never be hungry;

Whoever believes in me will never thirst.