20th Sunday, Year C (Lk 12:49-53) I have come to bring fire to the earth

There is a place near my home town in Ireland (Killoran, Balinasloe) called ‘The Bishop’s Chair’. My father brought me there a few years ago (14th Jan 2000). It is a hard place to find, as it really is out in the middle of nowhere. This ‘chair,’ which is in the middle of a field, was where at least two bishops, between 1679-1701, ordained many priests in secret. At the time it was illegal to be a Catholic priest and if they were caught they could have been executed, so they had to ordain them in secret. It is very moving to visit it, even though there is not much to see today, but just to think of the sacrifice that so many men and women were prepared to make at that time, to pass on their faith. Priests were prepared to risk their lives so that the people could have the mass, because they had the faith to believe that the mass was everything. The people were prepared to risk their lives by going to mass. The mass had to be celebrated in secret, often on what were known as ‘mass rocks’ out in the countryside. Many priests did die for the mass, because they were caught. But now all that sort of thing is in the past, right? 

Just a few years ago in 2007, a priest friend of mine, who was my nextdoor neighbour in the Irish College in Rome for a year and a half, was shot dead after celebrating mass in Mosul, northern Iraq. He was just 35 years old. He had been threatened several times, but he remained on in his parish, in order to be there to celebrate mass for the people, even though he knew the danger. On the Sunday after Pentecost in 2007, after celebrating mass in the parish church, Ragheed and three deacons were ambushed by several gunmen. They forced them out of the cars they were driving and shot all four of them. Persecution for our faith is never far away.

At the moment we don’t live with that kind of persecution in this country, thank God, though we are living with a different kind of persecution, where our faith and our Church is constantly being put down, mocked and lied about. Maybe it seems strange that the Christian faith, which preaches peace and justice, love of neighbour and respect for all people, should face such ongoing persecution and it still does in many parts of the world. Then we have this line in today’s Gospel:

I have come to bring fire to the earth...

Do you suppose I am here to bring peace on earth? 

No I tell you, but rather division.

This line seems to be a contradiction to what we usually associate with what Jesus spoke about. ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth.’ What about peace and tolerance and all that? Preaching the message of Jesus Christ, which is about peace and justice, etc, brings persecution with it, because not everyone wants to hear it. The teaching of Christ is a very challenging teaching at the best of times. It confronts us when we are not living according to the Lord’s teaching and that often makes people angry. We don’t like to be shown up. No one likes to be confronted, but it is because the Lord loves us that He confronts us, to help us become better people. In the last 7 years, 23 priests in Mexico have been murdered, no doubt because they are speaking against the drug cartels, which are pure evil. They are challenging them with God’s word. They have the choice to turn back to God, or not. Instead many of them choose to kill the people God sends.

It says in John’s Gospel: ‘People have preferred darkness to the light, because their deeds were evil’ (Jn 3:19). There is a tendency in us which draws us to what is wrong.  We usually know what the right thing to do is, but sometimes we find it hard to choose it. And if we have done what is wrong, or if we are living in a way that is against what God teaches us, then we are not going to be happy with the teachings of Christ, because it will confront us, just as a parent will confront their child if they have done wrong. That is why the message of Jesus always brings persecution with it, because it challenges us to follow one path or the other. There is no middle ground. But perhaps what is most important to remember is that the Lord’s teaching, difficult though it often is, is there to help us, because the Lord knows what will make us blossom.

I always find it consoling when I read about the calling of any of the prophets in the Bible. Nearly all of them resisted. And even if they didn’t resist initially, they usually asked God after a while if they could quit, as it was so difficult. They suffered for speaking the truth about God. The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘You have seduced me Lord and I have let myself be seduced... For me the Lord’s word has meant insult and derision all day long’ (Jer 20:7, 8b). The prophet Elijah, after working one of the most extraordinary miracles then finds himself on the run because the Queen is trying to kill him and he says: ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors’ (1 Kg 19:4-5). ‘I wish I was dead. I can’t go on.’  Who would blame them?

If you want to be faithful to Jesus, it will cost you. Not everyone in your family is going to like it. Many of the people you work with won’t like it. But that is no reason for us to be afraid, because the Lord assures us that He is with us and that He will help us. I know of many parents whose adult children challenge them about their faith, but we have nothing to apologize for and we have a right to ask others, even our children, to respect what we believe, just as we try to respect what others believe. For our part, we just try to be faithful and live what we believe in, as best we can. We follow this path because we believe it is the most worthwhile path, the path that leads to God. 

So each day we rededicate ourselves to God and we try to be faithful as best we can. It is not an easy path, but it is the most worthwhile path.  We will meet resistance, but that is how the Lord said it would be.

‘I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already.’

The Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven: God asks Our Lady to put aside her plans

The feast of the Assumption that we celebrate today means very simply that Our Lady is in heaven. The teaching itself says: ‘At the end of her earthly life, the Immaculate Mother of God, ever Virgin, was taken to Heaven body and soul in heavenly glory.’ It doesn’t say how it happened or when it happened, but just that it did happen and that Mary is now in heaven, in body and soul. It is a way of saying that because of the extraordinary position that Mary was given, by being the Mother of Jesus, she shared in his sufferings and she also shared in his resurrection and so was taken up to heaven at the end of her life.

In many countries there is still a strong devotion to Our Lady. We have always found great consolation in Our Lady and still do. Mary is completely a human being and very much sympathizes with us in our struggles, because she has been through the same struggles. She has appeared in many different places in the world and always to guide us back to the right path.

When the angel Gabriel came and told Mary that God was asking her to become the Mother of Jesus, the first words of the angel were: ‘Mary, do not be afraid, you have won God’s favour.’ The few lines that the angel said to Mary, might be summed up in a different way. You can imagine that the Lord was saying something quite startling to Our Lady: ‘Mary do not be afraid... God is asking you to put aside all your plans for the future and do his will instead. Do you accept?’ In a way, this is what the angel was saying to her, but he started it off with ‘Mary do not be afraid.’ ‘God knows what he is doing.’

No doubt all of us have had various ideas as to what we hoped our lives might involve; different plans and indeed often very good plans. I believe that one of the greatest challenges facing anyone who tries to be faithful to God, as most of us do, is when God dramatically changes what we thought He was going to do.  God asks us, ‘Will you leave aside all your plans for serving me, and take on my ones instead?’ The thing is we probably weren’t even aware that we had our own plans, until He asked us to give them up, by making our lives take all kinds of unexpected turns. And then what did actually happen may have turned out to be quite disappointing. ‘I had hoped it would be much more.’ Think of the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection when Jesus suddenly joined them walking along the road. They talk about what had happened and add, ‘Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free’ (Luke 24.21). ‘We are so disappointed.’ What must Our Lady have been thinking when she watched Jesus take his last breath and then bury him? What about all the promises of the prophets and the angel? Now he was dead.

The plans we had may have been really excellent ones. I have no doubt that Our Lady probably had really beautiful plans as to how she would serve the Lord. But the Lord may ask us at some stage, ‘Will you follow my plans for you?’ ‘Are you prepared to give up this brilliant work that you are doing at the moment, because I have a different one?’ ‘Are you prepared to accept this disappointment in your family, or your marriage?’ I think that this can be a key moment in anyone’s life. Two things can happen from it. We can accept it in faith and go with it, thereby opening the door to allow Jesus to transform us, or we can fight it and resent the fact that ‘it all went wrong for us’, which may lead us to become bitter. 

If we really remain open to accept what God asks, to the many twists and turns  that God takes us through, He will bring the greatest good out of us, because He will transform us through these things. This is really the only thing that is important, that we allow God to transform us. God’s purpose for us is so that He can fill us completely with himself, unite us to himself at a far deeper level than we may have ever imagined and then use us a hundred times more effectively in the world, but God asks for our openness.

To sum up: If we are open to following God, to trying to do his will, He may continually ask us to take different directions, often having to let go of plans or ideas that we thought were very good. The more open we are, the more quickly the Lord can transform us within. So if you do find yourself thinking sometimes, ‘Everything seems to have gone wrong. I never managed to do this or that,’ remember that if you just stay open and allow the Lord to guide you, then not only have your plans not been wasted, but in fact you have allowed the Lord to do far more in you than you might have imagined.

‘I am the handmaid of the Lord said, Mary. Let what you have said be done.’

19th Sunday of Year C (Gospel: Luke 12:32-48) Eucharistic Miracle in Buenos Aires

Probably one of the strangest things we believe, is that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ during the mass. It is a bizarre teaching. How are we supposed to understand this? We are not, but we are asked to accept it in faith, because Jesus himself taught us this at the Last Supper. All down through the ages people have struggled with this teaching, because it is so extreme. Protestants generally don’t believe that the Eucharist really is the Body and Blood of Christ, but a symbol, or representation of, or sometimes that Christ is present with it, but not that it is actually his Body and Blood. It is very easy to be skeptical about such a teaching. That is why, every once in a while, the Lord gives us a miracle to help us believe. Today I would like to tell you about a very recent one that happened in Argentina.

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 candle-holder 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, to let it dissolve naturally.

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 the time; now Pope Francis), who gave instructions that the Host be professionally photographed. The photos were taken on September 6. They clearly show that the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown significantly in size. For several 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 where it came from. One of these scientists was Dr. Frederic Zugibe, a well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist. He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA. Zugibe 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. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains 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.”

Dr. Frederick Zugibe

The flesh was still alive when the sample was taken, three years after it had been found and it was taken from a body that had been under severe stress, such as a beating, or torture: Jesus on the cross.

Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero, witnessed these tests. Knowing where sample had come from, they were dumbfounded by Dr. Zugibe’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. Zugibe 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. Zugibe’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. Zugibe 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. Zugibe 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.”

St. Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)
who used to suffer the Passion, while celebrating mass.

Only faith in the extraordinary action of 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 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 (he 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.

God gives us these wonderful and mind-blowing events, to help us believe. We cannot explain them, only accept them on faith, but they are a reminder to us that the Eucharist is the living Body and Blood of Christ, just as that heart tissue was alive at the time sample was taken from the consecrated host, three years after it had first been discovered.

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

Whenever there is a natural, or human disaster, it makes us 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, knowing what their whole life was about. That could be there for any of us.

If I was suddenly told, like in the Gospel, ‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul,’ I wonder what would I focus on for the rest of the day? Would I be worried about paying off 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 were everything. At funerals I often hear people talking about the dead person as though that were it. Their existence is over. 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.

When Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes 150 years ago, one of the things she said to her was, ‘I cannot promise you happiness in this life, but in the next.’ The point of that message and of the teachings of Jesus, is to remind us not to ‘miss the bus’, so to speak. It’s 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.

In Jesus’ time the problem of greed for money was just as much of 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,’ right away 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 is a priest called Benedict Groeschel who founded the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in the Bronx in New York. He is 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. 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.

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 is the spiritual, which is basically the search for God. Everyone is searching, even if we are searching in the wrong place.

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 center. Otherwise we will forget what we are here for.

‘This very night the demand will be made for your soul;

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

17th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 11:1-13) Ask and it will be given to you

There is an American writer called Scott Hahn, who used to be a Presbyterian and extremely anti-Catholic, but through his own studies ended up converting and becoming a Catholic. He is a brilliant writer and teacher on the faith. His own conversion story called Rome Sweet Home, is well worth reading. He now writes and teaches as a Catholic theologian in Stubenville University. In one of his CDs he mentions that he had arranged to have a public debate with a Muslim about the differences between the two faiths. Before they had the debate he met the Muslim and he mentioned to him that he would be talking about the fact that Christians understand God as a loving Father who looks after his children. Before he was able to go any farther, he said that the other man got upset and said that it is not right to talk about God as a Father. He said God is master and that it was insulting to speak about him as Father. The Muslim ended up refusing to have the debate at all. Scott says that this really brought home to him the difference in the way we understand God. 

Jesus taught us to talk about and address God in a way that was strange and almost scandalous, for many people then and now. The Jews in Jesus’ time were scandalised that Jesus would talk about God as Father, especially the way Jesus used the word ‘Abba’. Once when I was in Israel I remember hearing a boy address his dad as ‘Abba’. It was amazing for me to hear this and it really brought home to me what it meant. The idea of addressing God as ‘daddy’ is still strange to us, and yet that’s what Jesus did.

While God is all-powerful and doesn’t need us in any way, yet He chooses to have us involved in what happens in the world. He asks us to take part in his creation, by interceding for each other, by being responsible for our actions. That is very much the action of a good parent with their child. Any parent doesn’t need their children’s help, especially when the children are small, but they love to allow the children to take part in things, for the sheer joy of having them there and helping them to learn. God does the same with us, even though there is the risk of us making a mess of things, which we regularly do.

In the first reading Abraham intercedes for the people of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God is threatening to destroy and in the classic Middle-Eastern way, he bargains his way down to the best deal. The wonderful thing is that God is happy to let him do this. God showed him what He intended to do, so that Abraham would intercede for those people. He wanted Abraham to be involved. He wants us to be involved in his world. He wants us to pray and intercede for the world around us and you are in exactly the right place to pray for those around you. You may be the only one who is praying for those people. Take it seriously. We have been blessed with the gift of faith and that is part of what God asks us to do; to intercede for those around us.

In the New Testament, Jesus brought this idea to a new level. He taught us that of course God is going to help us and listen when we ask him for help, and he spoke about it in terms of parents looking after their children. ‘Ask and you will receive. The one who asks always receives.’

Now the question comes up with most of us, ‘How come I’m always asking for things and they often aren’t answered?’ God can see a much bigger picture than we can, and what we ask for is not always the wisest thing to ask for. If your eight year old son asked for a chainsaw for his birthday, would you give it to him? of course not. The child may think that you are really mean and never give him what he asks for, but you can see a bigger picture than he can, because you are older and wiser. God is the same with us. God does answer our prayers, otherwise Jesus is a liar, but He doesn’t always answer them in the way that we expect, or understand, or even recognise. That is where we have to believe and trust that God knows what He is doing and God is looking after us.

When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gives them the Our Father. Note, they didn’t ask him for ‘a prayer’, but a way of praying. So this is teaching us how to pray; a question which people often ask. The first half of the Our Father is acknowledging God, his holiness and that his will may be done. Only in the second half do we ask for our needs. So even if you only take that much away from the Our Father, remember to always start by praising and thanking God for all that we have before you ask for what you need. That’s why at the beginning of the mass each Sunday, we pray the Gloria. We praise and acknowledge God. It is only after listening to the readings that we ask for our own needs in the intercessions. This is how God teaches us to pray.

Perhaps the most unexpected thing of all is the way that Jesus teaches us to pray to the point of being annoying, the way a child will keep asking you for the same thing until you give in. This is how Jesus tells us to pray. Be persistent, until God gives in!

For everyone who asks, receives;

and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

16th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 10:38-42) Only one thing is necessary

A few years ago, something like 35 people working for French Telecom, took their own lives. The company finally began to take a serious look at what was going wrong and realised that they were just pushing their employees too hard and they couldn’t take it anymore. So the company began to change their work policy and take some of the pressure off. It is terrible that it would come to that, but I think it is also a good reminder that we are not machines and we are not just meant to be worked to death. Apparently something similar has been happening in China where people were also being pushed too hard. We are not machines and there is a spiritual side to us which is just as real as the physical, and which also needs to be cared for if we are to be healthy.

Much of our society has gone like this, working like ‘the hammers of hell’ as the expression goes. We don’t seem to know when to stop, or even how to stop. And now because Sunday is a shopping day there seems to be no beginning or end to the week. Business people will tell you that Sunday is now one of the busiest shopping days of the week. Even apart from a religious point of view, this cannot be good for us, because we need to be able to rest, to just stop and do nothing. We are not machines.

‘Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things.’ In this Gospel, look at what Martha was saying to Jesus. ‘Can’t you see how much work there is to be done? Tell my sister to be busy too. She shouldn’t just be sitting there.’ But Jesus’ reply is interesting. He says that only one thing is necessary. He doesn’t just say that there is nothing wrong with her sitting and listening to him; he says it is necessary and that she shouldn’t be stopped from doing that. Stopping and listening is not just a nice idea. It is necessary. Why is it so important?

There is an order to God’s creation. It will work a certain way and the Lord knows what we are able for, better than we do. The third commandment that God gives us is to keep the Sabbath, or Sunday, holy. It is to be a day of rest, where God is acknowledged and worshipped, where God is given priority; but also a day where we can rest and recover, because we need it ourselves.

When the people of Israel (who represent all of us) were wandering through the desert, initially they had nothing to eat. So God provided them with ‘manna,’ a food that they could collect each day. This sustained them each day. But He also told them that they should go out and collect just enough for that day; but on the day before the Sabbath, they should also collect enough for the Sabbath, so that they could rest and give God priority that day. To put it in modern English, He said, ‘Do enough shopping on Saturday so that you don’t have to go shopping on Sunday.’ Sunday is to be a day of rest from unnecessary work, where we can worship God, relax, take a walk with family or friends. Why? Because we need it. It is necessary for our sanity. It is part of the order that God created, because God knows what works best for us.

God also asks us to rest so that we can continually learn how to listen to him.  I often hear people say that they wish God would speak to them more. The truth is that God is speaking to us all the time, but mostly we are not listening. To a large degree we don’t even know how to listen any more, because we have gotten used to being so busy and having so much noise around us. 

You might be thinking that that is just how society has gone now and we should just get used to it. But the point is that if we are following the way of Christ as we say we are, then we need to listen to what God is saying to us, even if the rest of society doesn’t. We are told to be obedient to God. The word ‘obedience’ comes from two Latin words, ob audire, which means ‘to listen intently’. God is telling us to keep listening to him because He knows exactly what we need to do.

Christians have always been different and we will be different if we follow the path that God shows us. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Do I believe in this or not?’ Do I believe this is what God is saying to us or not?  If we believe this—as we say we do—then we need to listen to what God asks of us and follow his directions, because they are what will help us more than anything else. The order that God has given his creation, is not to make life difficult, but to help us blossom because God knows better than any of us what will help us grow.

Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things; only one thing is necessary. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.

15th Sunday Yr C (Gospel: Luke 10:25-37) There is good in everyone

I remember hearing a story of a priest who went to stay with his niece and her husband. They were a young couple and were both into occult practice, so it was going to be awkward and they were a bit nervous about him staying. But when he came and stayed with them, he never said anything to them about it. He was just very loving and considerate of them both and their needs. They were so moved by this, that it actually brought about their conversion. The power of love and seeing good in others before anything else. 

All of us grow up with a lot of prejudice. We aren’t even aware of most of it, but it is there. Before we see ‘people,’ we tend to see someone who is American or Irish, black, or white, Muslim or Christian. But these are all human categories that we put on people, and even though they will tell us something about a person, we have a lot of associations with each category. We tend to think that if they are our own nationality, they’re probably ok. If they are from somewhere else we may think we have to be careful, if they are a priest maybe we have to be careful too. But if you take away all the different labels, then first of all you have another human being and that is really the only thing that matters.

This was really brought home to me visiting two prisoners in Dublin over two years.  One was in for a very serious crime, a brutal murder, which he deeply regretted. If you were to make a picture of him from the papers, you would write him off as a monster, but he was one of the most decent guys I’ve ever met. It was a freak meeting and a tragic crime.

It says in Genesis that ‘God saw all that He had made and indeed it was good.’  God’s creation is basically good and every human being is basically good. The good in them/us may have gotten buried because of the different hurts we have encountered, or because of what we were taught growing up, but there is good in everyone and that goodness is the thing that we must try and tap into in each person. We are not born with prejudice, we learn it as we grow and our family and environment forms us into who we are.

In this parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus was showing the people that there could be good even in someone like a Samaritan. Ironically, we now associate the name Samaritan with someone who does good to others, but at the time that Jesus gave this parable it would have been the opposite. It would have been like trying to convince us that there could be good in an Islamic extremist, or vice versa. In Jesus’ time they would have found it impossible to believe that there could be any good in a Samaritan.  But Jesus in his wisdom used this parable to force them to admit that there could be good even in someone that they were totally prejudiced against. 

All the people around us, no matter what they believe, or where they come from, are human beings before they are anything else. Ordinary people trying to raise their families and make their way in the world just like the rest of us. Even if they have a totally different understanding of God to ours, or indeed don’t believe in God at all, there is still goodness in them.

The teachings of Jesus teach us to try and see people as people, before anything else. Each week we keep coming back to the Lord in the mass, because it is in him that we find strength to live with and love the people around us. That is where our strength comes from; from Jesus himself. Every time we receive the Eucharist we are renewing our bond with the source of love, the one who is Love itself, because all love comes from God, not from us. 

So if you want to tell other people about God as we understand him, the best thing we can do is to love them.  That will say more than anything else.

I will finish with the words of Saint Francis: ‘Let us go and preach the Gospel, and only if necessary... use words.’