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.”