22nd Sunday Year C (Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14) Talking to God

 

All through our life we are continually in relationships. It’s what we are about. Different relationships can have different demands, but ultimately it is meant to be a two way thing. Can you imagine having a relationship with someone who eventually only came to you when they were in need of something, but no other time? I guess we would hardly even call it a relationship. Relationships also require work. If we don’t work at a relationship it breaks down.

 

The way we relate to each other and the way we relate to God is very similar. If we don’t communicate with God, there will be no relationship and the way we communicate with him is through prayer. Just like a relationship with another person, it isn’t just limited to certain times or places and it takes as many different forms as any relationship. We speak to God, we listen, we ask favors, we do things that God asks us to do because we love him, we spend time in his presence.

 

How do I speak to God, you might ask? the same way you would speak to anyone else. Through devotional prayers, like the rosary, the divine mercy chaplet and similar prayers, through reading Scripture. What often surprises people is that when we begin to communicate with God, God also communicates with us. God is in fact communicating with us all the time, but we often don’t hear it, because we are not listening, but as soon as we begin to pray, we start to notice it much more.

 

The best way to learn about prayer is to look to the Scriptures and see how the people of the Bible prayed. It says that God spoke to Moses face to face as a person talks to his friend. As well as talking to God directly, Moses continually interceded for the people when God was angry with them. Then he also defended God’s actions when the people were rebelling against God. Moses continually stepped into the breech between God and the people. He interceded for both sides. We are also called to intercede for the people around us and indeed for so many different needs in the world. I think we often underestimate the importance of our praying for other people.

 

Every so often we have a bad encounter with someone, who is just nasty, or hateful, or evil and it can be upsetting. I have found the Lord saying to me, ‘Now that they have your attention, pray for them.’ If someone is full of anger and hatred, they need spiritual help. Maybe the upsetting encounter we have had with people is also a sign to us to pray for that person. You may be the only one who does pray for them. This is where it is good to remember that God has us exactly where He wants us, at this exact time in history and the people we interact with are meant to be there.

 

Another form of prayer that we see very often in the Bible and it’s one we don’t usually think of, is prayer of praise, where people simply acknowledge, praise and thank God, for all that He does for us. One of the most beautiful examples is the Magnificat, where Our Lady meeting Elizabeth gives thanks for all that has happened:

‘My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior.’

 

When we speak to God, we don’t usually begin by praising and thanking God, but that’s what all the great figures of the Bible did, even in desperate situations.

 

Daniel

In the prophet Daniel, when God reveals to Daniel the answer that the king is looking for, his first reaction is to praise God:

May the name of God be blessed for ever and ever,

since wisdom and power are his alone...

To you, God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise

for having given me wisdom and strength (Dan 2:20, 23).

 

The three men in the furnace

In the same book, Daniel and two others refuse to worship a statue of the king. As a result they are thrown into a fire to be burnt alive.  As they begin to pray to God to help them, Azariah begins:

May you be blessed and revered, Lord, God of our ancestors,

may your name be held glorious for ever. (Dan 3:26)

 

Then the other men begin to sing as well:

May you be blessed, Lord, God of our ancestors,

be praised and extolled for ever.

Blessed be your glorious and holy name... (Dan 3:52)

 

The message to us is to praise God no matter what and not just for what suits us, which is what we are inclined to do. 

 

 

Tobit’s prayer when he goes blind

When Tobit goes blind, he prays to God to restore his sight to him, but notice how he begins the prayer:

You are just, O Lord, and just are all your works.

All your ways are grace and truth,

and you are the Judge of the world.

Therefore Lord, remember me... (Tobit 3:2-3)

 

Sarah cries out to God in her distress

You are blessed, O God of mercy!

May your name be blessed for ever,

and may all things you have made

bless you everlastingly.

And now I turn my face

and I raise my eyes to you...  (Tobit 3:11-12)

 

Tobias and Sarah pray on their wedding night

You are blessed, O God of our fathers;

blessed too is your name

for ever and ever.

Let the heavens bless you

and all things you have made for evermore (Tobit 8:5b)

 

‘In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thes 5:18)

 

In Ireland people always talk about the weather because it is constantly changing. People tend to say, ‘It’s a beautiful day, thank God.’ But if it’s a rainy dark day, people tend to just say that, ‘What an awful day.’ I like to add, ‘Yes. Thank God.’ People look at me surprised. But why should we only thank God when things suit us? God should be praised in all circumstances, no matter what.

 

Our Father

When the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them the Our Father. But notice that they didn’t ask Jesus to teach them a prayer, but how to pray. So the Our Father isn’t just a prayer, but it is a structure of how to pray and if you think about it, the first half of the Our Father is all about acknowledging God’s greatness and holiness. Only in the second half do we ask for our needs and this is what Jesus taught them when they asked how to pray. So the Lord is telling us always to acknowledge and praise God first.

 

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

If you think of the Sunday mass, the first thing we do after acknowledging our sins is to glorify God: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you…’ Only after praising God and then listening to God’s word and then stating what we believe, then we ask for our needs.

The greatest prayer we have is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is nothing greater than this. You may not even think of it as a prayer, rather as something you just go to. But there is nothing else like it, because it is the offering of God the Son, to God the Father, at Calvary. In each mass time stands still and we are present at Calvary with Jesus being offered to the Father. That’s why it is so powerful and that’s why we pray for everything and everyone in each mass. Then we also receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. There is no more intimate meeting with God than this. His body is united with our body.

 

As well as reading the Scriptures, which are the living and inspired Word of God, there is also praying in silence, or just being still in God’s presence. It is just the same as a couple being together without needing to talk. We are not used to silence and often not comfortable with it, but this is where it can be a great help to learn some method to help you be still in prayer.

 

I know it is tempting to say that we don’t have time, there are just too many demands on us in daily life, but if you think about it, no matter how busy we are we never stop sleeping or eating, because we know they are essential for our bodies. Prayer is essential for our spirit, which is just as real and which is the part of us that will live on after our bodies die. We will be with God for all eternity, God willing, and now is the time to begin that relationship.

 

One of our difficulties when it comes to praying is that we are not so good at relating to or believing in the world of the spirit. In the western world we tend to be much more at home with the material world. In the east, they are actually more at home with the spiritual world.

 

If you feel that you can’t pray, or don’t want to pray, just ask yourself this: would you really expect to have a relationship with someone without speaking to them at all, or only asking them for your needs? Do you really expect to have a relationship with God without communicating with him at all?

 

‘In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thes 5:18)

 

 

 

21st Sunday Year C (Gospel: Luke 13:22-30) Try your best to enter by the narrow door

 

 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” St. Pope John Paul II

 

All of us are looking for happiness and Jesus reminds us that we will only find that happiness and fulfillment in him. Things of earth will never fulfill us, no matter how wonderful they may seem. Not even the person we love most in the whole world is capable of completely fulfilling us, but once we realize that, it makes it easier, because then we are not expecting earthly things to fulfill us and in fact then we will be able to enjoy our world and our loved ones even more, because we are not asking the impossible from them. God has given us a beautiful world and many wonderful things to enjoy. Have fun. He wants us to.

 

Jesus also says that the path that leads us to him, to our fulfillment, is not an easy one. Why is that?

 

Child prodigy Akim Camara plays with Andre Rieu

Great athletes, or musicians, are not that way when they are born. They are born with gifts in those areas, but it is only after years of training and guidance that they reach their full potential, even extraordinary people like Mozart. He still had to learn how to play the piano and how to write music.

 

God sees our full potential as human beings and He wants us to reach our full potential, because we will give him the greatest glory by becoming our best selves. ‘The glory of God is man fully alive.’ – St. Irenaeus. The more we develop our gifts and talents, the more glory we give to God, because we are then reflecting God’s goodness. But as with any great artist or musician, it takes years of training, in fact a lifetime of training and that is a big part of what our life on earth is about. The daily trials we go through are the main part of our training, of our being formed and that’s why Jesus says it is a narrow winding path.

 

Being faithful to God’s Commandments in the middle of things going wrong, family members becoming sick, or dying at a young age, marriage breakdown, being attacked or exploited by other people. Each time we are faced with difficulties we have a choice as to how to respond to them. We can seek revenge and turn to evil, or we can try and sort it out justly, with the least damage all round. We always have the choice to bless or to curse. Each time we are willing to keep going, without wishing evil, or seeking revenge, we grow another bit.

 

When we become demoralized by our own weaknesses, we have the choice to give up, or to get up again and again and again. That is the narrow winding path. Being faithful and persevering is one of the biggest challenges. Being faithful to God’s Commandments and teachings when the world around us calls us to take the easier way, that is the narrow winding path.

 

What we see as things going wrong in our life, are part of the narrow winding path. They play a crucial part in how we are formed. We don’t see that at the time, but that is what is happening.

 

You may remember the story of Roy Shoeman, a Harvard professor and atheist who became a Catholic. We had him here to give his testimony. He grew up in a practicing Jewish family, but after going through college he lost his faith. At the age of 29 he had become a Harvard professor and reached the top of his career, but then he began to fall into a deep depression. He felt he had achieved all he could, but that he didn’t have any purpose. One day when he was out walking in nature, God granted him an extraordinary experience and pulled back the veil between heaven and earth, allowing him to see the whole spiritual world. He saw his whole life and how God had been with him through everything. He saw how every part of his life played its part, especially the most difficult times. He saw that God was with him through everything and that his purpose was primarily to serve and worship God, as it is for all of us. Needless to mention this experience brought about his conversion. But I thought it was interesting how God showed him that the times of suffering he went through were some of the most important times in his journey. We tend to see them as failures, or things not working out. From God’s perspective they play a vital part in our journey. The most difficult experiences we go through, are the ones where we have the potential to grow the most. That was one of the things that God showed him.

 

Roy Shoeman, Harvard atheist become Catholic 

Our relationship with Jesus, is what gives us the strength to keep going on the winding path that leads us to heaven. We often think that we are on our own, but we are not. That is why it is so important that we keep coming back to the mass to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, to listen to his teachings, to repent of our sins through confession. Every time we do that, we are staying close to him, so that He can help us, which is all He wants to do.

 

Many people are afraid they won’t be good enough to get to heaven. I think it is a very normal fear. The truth is none of us are good enough by ourselves, but God isn’t asking us to follow this narrow winding path by ourselves. God is with us and even though we don’t always feel his presence, that doesn’t mean He is not there. If God really wasn’t with us, we would cease to exist. The sad thing is seeing so many people turning to everything except Jesus, to find happiness, but of course they don’t find happiness.

 

I have no doubt that one of the reasons why the suicide rate is so high, is because so many people have lost faith and so they don’t see any purpose to their life and they don’t know where to turn to when things go wrong, especially if they are going through times of struggle. If we have a sense of why we are here and what awaits us, that gives us the strength to follow the narrow winding path, which is the only one that leads to God.

 

In the Gospel Jesus says, ‘Not everyone is strong enough.’ The strength we need is the willingness to keep getting up each time we fall and that strength itself comes from God. It doesn’t matter if you fall six times, so long as you get up seven times.

 

Jesus also says here that not everyone will go to heaven. There is a point where the door will be closed and waiting to the last minute to put things right, is too late. ‘But I love God and I’m a good person.’ This is something you hear a lot, and what it implies is that that is enough. But Jesus says that is not enough. ‘It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven’ (Mt 7:21). To say I know God, or believe in God, is not enough. That is what Jesus is saying in this Gospel. We are called to do as God asks us, not just say that we know him. To love God is to keep his Commandments. ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn 14:15).

 

Jesus says, ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door.’ He doesn’t say, ‘You must enter by the narrow door,’ but strive to, or ‘Try your best,’ in another translation. What is important is our effort, not our success. It is God himself who makes up the difference

 

The narrow winding path is not an easy one, but it is the only one worth while, because it is the one that leads to our happiness.

 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted.” St. Pope John Paul II.

18th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 12:13-21) ‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul’

 

After the tsunami in Indonesia 2005

Whenever there is a natural, or human disaster, especially when it affects us directly, it makes us stop and think. In Feb 2018, in Parkland, Florida, there was the horrific school massacre, where seventeen students were shot dead. One minute they were just at school as normal, the next minute they were dead. Think of any one of those teenagers who died. One moment they were just getting on with their school day, then suddenly they were before God in another world, knowing what their whole life was about. That could be any of us.

In hurricane Ian in 2022, 160 lost their lives. One minute they are just preparing for the hurricane, not expecting anything other than a normal hurricane. The next minute they find themselves before God for their judgement.

C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘God shouts to us [in our] pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’

If you were suddenly told, as in the Gospel, ‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul,’ What would you focus on for the rest of the day? Would I be worried about paying bills, or loans, or focusing on a new car I had just bought? I doubt it. I’d imagine my focus would turn to the people I love and also to wondering how I have lived my life so far.

 At the moment, many people in our society—including Christians—are living as though there is no after-life, as though our life on earth is everything. At funerals I often hear people talking about the dead person as though that were it. Their existence is over. You hear people say, ‘I will never be able to speak to them again, or see them again.’ If that were so, then we might as well grab all we can and make our life as comfortable as possible, because we only have one chance. 

But our faith tells us something completely different. Perhaps the most important thing it tells us, is that we will not find full happiness in this life, but in the next, if we choose God. Complete happiness is not to be found in this life. We will have moments of great happiness, and hopefully we will find overall contentment, but that’s about as good as it gets. Once we realize that, it makes things easier as we won’t be expecting to find complete fulfilment here. St. Paul wrote: ‘If our faith in Christ is for this world only, then of all people we are the most to be pitied.’ (1 Cor 15:19).

The grotto in Lourdes where Our Lady appeared in 1858

When Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes in 1858, one of the things she said to her was, ‘I cannot promise you happiness in this life, but in the next’ and in Fatima she said, ‘If people knew what heaven was like, they would do everything to change their ways.’ The point of that message and of the teachings of Jesus, is to remind us not to ‘miss the bus,’ so to speak. It is important that we don’t forget what our life is really about. We are only on this earth for a short time. It is a time of preparation for the world to come. Use it well.

Jesus used various parables addressing this. The parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30). A man going on a journey entrusts his property to three servants. To the first he gave ten talents, which actually meant money. To the second five talents and to the third, one, each according to his ability. The first two invested what they had and made more. They used the gifts God had given them, as God expects us to do with whatever gifts, talents, money He has entrusted to us. The third man didn’t invest it. He just buried it and then gave it back to his master as he received it. He was condemned for not doing anything. The Lord is telling us that He expects us to make good use of what He has given us, whether a great amount or very little. God holds us accountable and we should take it seriously. It is not something we should be afraid of, but responsible for. It is interesting that in the Bible people who love God are referred to as God-fearing people, not God-loving. There is a certain loving-fear, you might call it, when our faith grows.

There is also the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), where those who lived righteously—the sheep—are commended by God for how they lived. Jesus says, ‘When I was hungry you fed me, sick and you visited me, naked and you clothed me.’ They ask, ‘Lord when did we feed you, or come to your aid when you were in need?’ Jesus says, ‘Whatever you did for the least of my brothers you did for me.’

Then the other group—the goats—who did not take care of those around them are condemned. They say, ‘Lord when did we not feed you, or clothe you, or sick and in prison and visit you?’ And Jesus says, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.’ And it finishes by saying they went off to eternal punishment and the others to eternal life.’ God holds us accountable. It’s interesting that one of the satanic symbols is the goat.

In Jesus’ time greed for money was just as much a problem as it is now and it will probably always be that way. When this man said to Jesus, ‘Tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance,’ Jesus pointed out to the disciples the danger of this desire. He said, ‘Watch out for this.’ ‘A person’s life is not made secure by what he owns.’ The problem is that our society tells us the opposite. We are all the time being told that if we have enough of everything, we will be happy, but that is not what the Lord teaches us. That’s not where our happiness comes from.

There was a priest called Benedict Groeschel who founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in the Bronx in New York. He was a great preacher and he tells the story of a man he knew, an extremely wealthy man. At a particular function this man spoke to Fr. Groeschel, and he said, ‘You know Father, I have more money than I could ever spend, or use and I would really like to be able to put it to good use.’ Fr. Groeschel suggested that he could make a donation to one of the orphanages they run, or something similar. But by the end of the evening, the man had not agreed to part with one cent of his money. He was possessed by his wealth. He knew he had way more than he could use, but he was still unable to part with it. Jesus said, ‘How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt 19:23)

 In confession I have heard so many heart-breaking stories of families divided over inheritance. It is so sad, because it is not important. Naturally, it is not good when someone in a family is left out of their fair share of what is coming to them, but sooner or later we will leave it all behind anyway. ‘There is no hitch on the hearse,’ as they say! Is it really worth causing such division in a family for this? I suppose it is a sign again that we believe we will find happiness if we have enough of everything materially. Our spirit can never be content with just material things and that is why there is always this deeper longing in us for ‘something,’ although we’re often not quite sure what that something is.

God has made us in such a way that we can only be fulfilled in him. It’s interesting that the third most popular areas of sales in bookstores to do with the spiritual, which is basically the search for God. Everyone is searching, even if we are searching in the wrong place.

A man told me one time that he had worked hard to make as much money as he could for his family and he did. But in the process he alienated himself from his family. Now he had plenty of money, but no family.

Wealth, fame and earthly honors are good and we should use our talents to the best of our ability, but they are not what counts when we come before God for our judgement. We will be judged by how we have lived, how we have loved and how we have honored God.

There is nothing wrong with having wealth and it is a blessing if you have done

Our time here on earth is a time for love and service; to choose for God or not; and this is a choice that each one of us has to make individually. That is why each week we come to listen to the Word of God and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, so that we remember what our life is about. The key is in making sure that God is at the centre. Otherwise we may forget what we are here for.

 

‘Fool, this very night the demand will be made for your soul;

and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?’