I was to say a few words about two things: the Trinity, and the movies Star Wars.
I was very very young when the first Star Wars movie came out, and it made a big impression on me, as it did on many of my generation. My Mom sewed me a Star Wars pyjama case, and my Dad bought me a plastic light saber. I used to dream of training in a Jedi academy, becoming a Jedi knight, and summoning the power of the all-pervading life energy of the universe called "The Force".
Instead, when I grew up, I went to seminary to train to become a priest.
Trendy "New Age" philosophy might try to equate the two: priesthood-JediKnight, battling the dark side of the Force-preaching repentance from sin, and Star Wars is full of such dodgy thinking.
And that brings me on to the Trinity.
Because the basic point I want to make to you is that today’s feast of the Most Holy Trinity is not just about some abstract doctrine, but it actually teaches us what God Himself is like, and he’s very very different to modern popular notions.
If you read contemporary literature and movies, a popular image of God today is pretty much summed up in the movie Star Wars. The God of Star Wars, is "The Force", the supposed sum of the spiritual energies of the universe, and that’s how many people today mistakenly think of God.
BUT the doctrine of the Trinity tells us what is different. “Three persons in One God”. It’s all about being a person, being personal, and being able to love.
God is not just an energy, He is personal. That’s why we refer to Him as “he”, and not just “it” –and that’s why He revealed Himself as a “he”, a person.
An energy cannot love you, an “it” cannot love you, cannot relate to you in personal way, cannot care for you, cannot choose to create you, and an energy cannot die on the Cross for you, cannot give himself to you in Holy Communion at every Mass.
When Jesus came down from heaven, He didn’t just hover around us as a force. He assumed a human body, He became a real man, something only a person can do. He ascended up to heaven with that body, which is a sign that He is still a person –it’s what He is.
The Holy Spirit that Jesus promised is also a person, a person promised to us by Jesus, “I will send you another helper”, He said, to help inside our hearts.
And the Father Himself, is a person. The whole Trinity is a community of three loving persons.
Only a personal God can exist in relationship. Only a personal God can love us. Energies and forces cannot do relate to you, cannot love you; and this is what makes our Faith so different to the other religions of the world.
Final thought: we are made in the image of God. The Trinity is a community of love. Three distinct persons, all equally God, all one, and yet existing in relationship with each other.
We are made in the image of God, and that means we too are made to love,
and to be loved,
to exist in relationship with others.
If we, mistakenly, think that God is just an energy then it changes what we think about ourselves.
That’s why being a priest is NOT like being a Jedi knight. A priest exists to make a person present, Christ the Lord. That’s why 4 times during the Mass the priest or deacon says, “The Lord be with you”, not “The Force be with you”. May a PERSON be with you, a person who loves you, and who gives much more to you than the energy of the so-called “Force”.
Sunday, 18 May 2008
Sunday, 27 April 2008
6th Sunday of Easter, Year A, Shaftesbury
Jn 14:15-21
We heard Jesus’s goodbye words, and as I’ve said before, when we say goodbye to someone, especially if we're not going to see them for a while, people often try and say something important, something that they want the other person to remember while they are separated. Such words can be particularly important when someone is dying.
The words in today's Gospel are such farewell words. Jesus knew that he was going to die on the Cross, that he would be rising and ascending to heaven, leaving his disciples. And at the Last Supper he gave them his farewell discourse.
Part of what he said was a simple, but final, request, and Jesus emphasised it by saying, "IF you love me...". His love for us requires a response from us. And what he asks of us is total, "If you love me, keep my commandments". And he had earlier summed up his commandments saying, "I give you a new commandment: love one another just as I have loved you"(Jn 13:34).
What’s different about the part of the text read this year is: His final wish that we keep his commandments is linked with the two things that we heard him announce. He said that he would send his Holy Spirit, and that he would come again.
Part of the reason why we want to keep Christ's commandments is that we hope to see him again. If you never expect to meet someone ever again, then you are naturally going to be less concerned about what they wanted, because they'd never know whether or not you'd done what they asked. But with Christ we believe he will come again, because he has told us so, and if he will come again then it does matter that we do what he asked of us. We hope to continue and perfect that relationship which the apostles enjoyed while he was on earth, but the promise of eternal life with him only holds if we keep to the commandments he gave us.
The Spirit is given to us to enable us to keep his commandments. Alone, by ourselves, we are weak and we sin -we break his commands, we fail to love. We can be selfish and petty, impatient and irritable, careless and thoughtless of the needs of others. It’s only with the strength of the gift Christ promised us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we can hope to keep his commands. That's why one of the titles given to the Spirit is "another helper", the Advocate who remains at our side. The apostles had Jesus physically with them to encourage them, teach them, and correct them. We do not, but as Christ said, "I will not leave you orphans". This is true not only because he will come again, but because while he is gone his Holy Spirit is here with us.
That passage spoke of the Trinity, of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are a communion of mutual love. The action of the Spirit in us forms us into the likeness of Christ, drawing us into the life and love of the Trinity. If we’re faithful then Jesus's words will be true of us at the end of time when he comes again, "On that day, you will understand that I am in the Father, and you in me and I in you". But this can only be true if we have kept his commands, if we have responded to his farewell request, if we have shown that we love him.
Christ's farewell request could hardly have been simpler: to love. But the motive calling for us to follow it is demanding and uncompromising. He says, IF you love me, and he said that on the night he was preparing to die for love of us, to show us what true love really means. When we look at Christ on the Cross, as we see him on every Crucifix in every Catholic Church, we see his love for us, and surely this must awaken a response in us, a response that seeks to return love for love. And the response he asks is clear enough: keep my commandments.
We heard Jesus’s goodbye words, and as I’ve said before, when we say goodbye to someone, especially if we're not going to see them for a while, people often try and say something important, something that they want the other person to remember while they are separated. Such words can be particularly important when someone is dying.
The words in today's Gospel are such farewell words. Jesus knew that he was going to die on the Cross, that he would be rising and ascending to heaven, leaving his disciples. And at the Last Supper he gave them his farewell discourse.
Part of what he said was a simple, but final, request, and Jesus emphasised it by saying, "IF you love me...". His love for us requires a response from us. And what he asks of us is total, "If you love me, keep my commandments". And he had earlier summed up his commandments saying, "I give you a new commandment: love one another just as I have loved you"(Jn 13:34).
What’s different about the part of the text read this year is: His final wish that we keep his commandments is linked with the two things that we heard him announce. He said that he would send his Holy Spirit, and that he would come again.
Part of the reason why we want to keep Christ's commandments is that we hope to see him again. If you never expect to meet someone ever again, then you are naturally going to be less concerned about what they wanted, because they'd never know whether or not you'd done what they asked. But with Christ we believe he will come again, because he has told us so, and if he will come again then it does matter that we do what he asked of us. We hope to continue and perfect that relationship which the apostles enjoyed while he was on earth, but the promise of eternal life with him only holds if we keep to the commandments he gave us.
The Spirit is given to us to enable us to keep his commandments. Alone, by ourselves, we are weak and we sin -we break his commands, we fail to love. We can be selfish and petty, impatient and irritable, careless and thoughtless of the needs of others. It’s only with the strength of the gift Christ promised us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we can hope to keep his commands. That's why one of the titles given to the Spirit is "another helper", the Advocate who remains at our side. The apostles had Jesus physically with them to encourage them, teach them, and correct them. We do not, but as Christ said, "I will not leave you orphans". This is true not only because he will come again, but because while he is gone his Holy Spirit is here with us.
That passage spoke of the Trinity, of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are a communion of mutual love. The action of the Spirit in us forms us into the likeness of Christ, drawing us into the life and love of the Trinity. If we’re faithful then Jesus's words will be true of us at the end of time when he comes again, "On that day, you will understand that I am in the Father, and you in me and I in you". But this can only be true if we have kept his commands, if we have responded to his farewell request, if we have shown that we love him.
Christ's farewell request could hardly have been simpler: to love. But the motive calling for us to follow it is demanding and uncompromising. He says, IF you love me, and he said that on the night he was preparing to die for love of us, to show us what true love really means. When we look at Christ on the Cross, as we see him on every Crucifix in every Catholic Church, we see his love for us, and surely this must awaken a response in us, a response that seeks to return love for love. And the response he asks is clear enough: keep my commandments.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
4th Sunday of Easter, Vocations and Shepherd, Shaftesbury
We had our parish meeting of Sunday, which I’m happy to say seemed to go very well –a positive and constructive spirit seemed to characterise the whole event. The immediate follow-on from that is the survey form you’ve each been given –please fill it in and return it, it will enable us to know where our parishioners come from, why you come here, and where in N. Dorset we should have and not have our future churches.
One point I indicated at the parish meeting was that our diocese faces a huge crisis in priestly vocations and thus in the huge of available priests. At present we have 65 priests. We know who they are, their ages, and when they will reach 75 to retire. We know that in 10 years time 33 of them will have retired. That means our number of priests will drop in half. That’s going to be a big problem. That brings me on, very urgently, to today’s sermon.
Today, across the world, its vocations Sunday, the day when the church calls on us to pray for vocations to the priesthood especially.
If we think where priestly vocations come from, we might think of many natural factors, like family. But ultimately a vocation, a calling, is supernatural, it is the result of a call form God. And God tells us that those callings come as a result of our prayers.
Jesus said, ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest’. .
This time last year I was in my home parish of Paignton, and I was very aware that prayers of people there are a major reason why I received my vocation.
How often do we pray for vocations? How often do YOU pray? You want a priest in this parish. Do you say a rosary every week for the specific intention that one be called?
And if you don’t pray, are you still going to complain if you don’t get a priest? If in 10 years or 5 years or 2 years there is no priest here –will you complain if you didn’t pray?
I’d like to make a point of comparison: in the USA they used to be in the same situation as us, it seemed that numbers of priestly vocations were in terminal decline. But NOW, numbers are up, and the average age of vocations is down, i.e. more YOUNG men are coming forward.
But this statistic is not uniform, it varies from diocese to diocese. And when people compare the difference between the successful diocese and the ones that are failing is frequently attributed to Eucharistic adoration for vocations. Some dioceses promote it heavily, and their vocations have returned. Other dioceses are dying instead.
A priest friend of mine is in Kansas, and his diocese is about the same size as ours, it has 65 priests, and it used to be like ours, without vocations. But now, while we have 2 seminarians they have 36. I.e. Your PRAYER can make a difference.
If the heart and soul of a parish and diocese is turned to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament then priests will come.
Encouraging Vocations. Sometimes people are reluctant to encourage vocations because they think young men today will not be happy as priests. They envisage loneliness, or lack of money. Or, they see a young man and think: He could be something BETTER than a priest.
Sometimes these thoughts are well-intentioned, but they are misguided. There are lonely marriages, there are poor people who are not priests –these are not reasons to be embarrassed about the priesthood. But most fundamentally, they are reasons that, to some extent, are based on a lack of faith.
If I have faith, then I know that my own priesthood is one of the greatest gifts I’ve been given. But I can only see that if I have faith. If I seek to follow the Lord but am looking backwards over my shoulder at the glamour of the world, then of course I will not be happy. But the glamour of the world will pass, the beauties of flesh fade, power and money are not things worth sacrificing a vocation for. They do not last. Only love of the Lord lasts.
(pause)
God calls most people to love Him by means of loving their spouse (cf JPII teaching).
There are others he calls to cleave to Him directly, with what Scripture calls “an undivided heart”. And for a priest, that means that I must love the Church His spouse as MY wife too, because I am configured to Him. I don’t love perfectly, but I know that I will find happiness nowhere else.
One point I indicated at the parish meeting was that our diocese faces a huge crisis in priestly vocations and thus in the huge of available priests. At present we have 65 priests. We know who they are, their ages, and when they will reach 75 to retire. We know that in 10 years time 33 of them will have retired. That means our number of priests will drop in half. That’s going to be a big problem. That brings me on, very urgently, to today’s sermon.
Today, across the world, its vocations Sunday, the day when the church calls on us to pray for vocations to the priesthood especially.
If we think where priestly vocations come from, we might think of many natural factors, like family. But ultimately a vocation, a calling, is supernatural, it is the result of a call form God. And God tells us that those callings come as a result of our prayers.
Jesus said, ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest’. .
This time last year I was in my home parish of Paignton, and I was very aware that prayers of people there are a major reason why I received my vocation.
How often do we pray for vocations? How often do YOU pray? You want a priest in this parish. Do you say a rosary every week for the specific intention that one be called?
And if you don’t pray, are you still going to complain if you don’t get a priest? If in 10 years or 5 years or 2 years there is no priest here –will you complain if you didn’t pray?
I’d like to make a point of comparison: in the USA they used to be in the same situation as us, it seemed that numbers of priestly vocations were in terminal decline. But NOW, numbers are up, and the average age of vocations is down, i.e. more YOUNG men are coming forward.
But this statistic is not uniform, it varies from diocese to diocese. And when people compare the difference between the successful diocese and the ones that are failing is frequently attributed to Eucharistic adoration for vocations. Some dioceses promote it heavily, and their vocations have returned. Other dioceses are dying instead.
A priest friend of mine is in Kansas, and his diocese is about the same size as ours, it has 65 priests, and it used to be like ours, without vocations. But now, while we have 2 seminarians they have 36. I.e. Your PRAYER can make a difference.
If the heart and soul of a parish and diocese is turned to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament then priests will come.
Encouraging Vocations. Sometimes people are reluctant to encourage vocations because they think young men today will not be happy as priests. They envisage loneliness, or lack of money. Or, they see a young man and think: He could be something BETTER than a priest.
Sometimes these thoughts are well-intentioned, but they are misguided. There are lonely marriages, there are poor people who are not priests –these are not reasons to be embarrassed about the priesthood. But most fundamentally, they are reasons that, to some extent, are based on a lack of faith.
If I have faith, then I know that my own priesthood is one of the greatest gifts I’ve been given. But I can only see that if I have faith. If I seek to follow the Lord but am looking backwards over my shoulder at the glamour of the world, then of course I will not be happy. But the glamour of the world will pass, the beauties of flesh fade, power and money are not things worth sacrificing a vocation for. They do not last. Only love of the Lord lasts.
(pause)
God calls most people to love Him by means of loving their spouse (cf JPII teaching).
There are others he calls to cleave to Him directly, with what Scripture calls “an undivided heart”. And for a priest, that means that I must love the Church His spouse as MY wife too, because I am configured to Him. I don’t love perfectly, but I know that I will find happiness nowhere else.
Sunday, 6 April 2008
3rd Sunday of Easter, Year A, Shaftesbury
I'll only offer a brief thought today because we have a mission appeal at the end of Mass:
Do we take in the reality of the Res’n, or is it just a rumour, as it had been to those 2 men on the road to Emmaus? They’d already heard, but they only treated it as a rumour.
When Jesus Christ appeared to the 2 disciples on road to Emmaus, it made a big change in them:
From Despair to hope”
“faces downcast”
“Our hope HAD been” –past hope
“so SLOW to believe the full message of the prophets”
changed to:
“Hearts burned within us”
“set out that instant” –late, dark, dangerous road to travel
but urgent and full of joy
They understood the Scriptures –that ordained that Christ should suffer, and so enter into his glory
What impact does faith in the Resurrection make on us?
Change us?
Cause for hope?
Focus of whole understanding of life?
Is Resurrection central to our thinking? Or is it just a rumour, like to the 2 men.
Do we understand that death and resurrection is the plan of God? As the 2 men came to understand?
That it is His victory over the sin and suffering that man has inflicted on himself and on God’s once perfect creation
There are many reasons to believe: There are many records of those he appeared to
Do we let it change us?
If not, then we are ultimately despondent, like the 2 men on the road, and Jesus’s words to them also hold to us: “You foolish men”. Foolish because not paying attention, not seeing what he has done for us, “so slow to understand”
Do we take in the reality of the Res’n, or is it just a rumour, as it had been to those 2 men on the road to Emmaus? They’d already heard, but they only treated it as a rumour.
When Jesus Christ appeared to the 2 disciples on road to Emmaus, it made a big change in them:
From Despair to hope”
“faces downcast”
“Our hope HAD been” –past hope
“so SLOW to believe the full message of the prophets”
changed to:
“Hearts burned within us”
“set out that instant” –late, dark, dangerous road to travel
but urgent and full of joy
They understood the Scriptures –that ordained that Christ should suffer, and so enter into his glory
What impact does faith in the Resurrection make on us?
Change us?
Cause for hope?
Focus of whole understanding of life?
Is Resurrection central to our thinking? Or is it just a rumour, like to the 2 men.
Do we understand that death and resurrection is the plan of God? As the 2 men came to understand?
That it is His victory over the sin and suffering that man has inflicted on himself and on God’s once perfect creation
There are many reasons to believe: There are many records of those he appeared to
Do we let it change us?
If not, then we are ultimately despondent, like the 2 men on the road, and Jesus’s words to them also hold to us: “You foolish men”. Foolish because not paying attention, not seeing what he has done for us, “so slow to understand”
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Easter Vigil, Year A, Shaftesbury
Mt 28:1-10
Turn off lights, leave Paschal candle and altar candles lit, read sermon using a little candle.
I want to say a few words about 2 things: hope, and the symbolism of the Easter Candle.
Pope Benedict recently wrote an encyclical on hope. He commented on the fact that many people in our modern society live without hope, they live thinking that this world is all there is, they live thinking that things can’t really get better, or, if they can get better only as a rather limited this-worldly utopia. Many of us will know people who have this kind of existential despair. Some of us will have known it ourselves, or may periodically feel bouts of it.
If life consists only of life in this world, and, as it evident, there is much suffering in this world: How can we hope? What can ‘hope’ possibly mean?
The light in the darkness, is the sign of the reality that is our Hope, and that Hope has a name, and His name is ‘Christ’.
The light in the darkness is a sign that the darkness has not triumphed. Even when darkness seems to have nearly encompassed everything, the light remains. Darkness is real, but it has not triumphed.
To move from the sign to the reality, we must look to the Empty Tomb. The Empty Tomb contains the clearest sign that Death has not triumphed, in fact, Death has been defeated.
Death, judging by the rules of what those without faith think they know, there is no overcoming Death.
But if we look to Him who left the Empty Tomb, then Faith teaches us that Death can be overcome because Death HAS been overcome.
Death and suffering are real, but they are not the final word, and they will ultimately be extinguished by the light that was not extinguished.
We heard in that Gospel text, angel said, “He is not here. He has risen as He said He would.”
“as he said he would” –these words are pivotal.
These words tell us He is Lord, he is the master of time and Lord of History.
“as he said he would” –He knows what He is about, and He is doing it.
To come back to the candle: The blessing words I said as I traced the symbols on it:
He is the “alpha and omega”, Greek for: He is the Beginning and the End
“All time belongs to Him” –why every year the date of the year is put on the candle: 2008.
He is the cause of creation, and He is bringing creation to Himself.
Not even the death and suffering that entered this world with sin can stop His plan.
He took death in His hands on the Cross and defeated it.
Five grains of incense, for the five wounds of the cross, were pressed into the Easter Candle
Why? To show that He has sanctified suffering
He has made it an offering to the Father
He has made it the means of our transition to new life.
The light of the Easter candle is not yet spread through the whole world, and has not yet spread through the whole if any one of us here
But it is the sign that the light cannot be extinguished
And will, in fact, be triumphant and extinguish darkness.
Faith knows this in the mind, grasps it as the truth that endures in darkness.
Hope, the hope that Pope Benedict reminds us must characterise a Christian in our modern world, hope does not just know this in the mind, but in the will, sets the heart on the goal of Christ, on the goal of the Light that cannot be extinguished, the light that enables us to hope even in darkness, the hope that enables us to make sense of the angel’s words: “Do not be afraid”.
This is what the candle shows us.
Turn off lights, leave Paschal candle and altar candles lit, read sermon using a little candle.
I want to say a few words about 2 things: hope, and the symbolism of the Easter Candle.
Pope Benedict recently wrote an encyclical on hope. He commented on the fact that many people in our modern society live without hope, they live thinking that this world is all there is, they live thinking that things can’t really get better, or, if they can get better only as a rather limited this-worldly utopia. Many of us will know people who have this kind of existential despair. Some of us will have known it ourselves, or may periodically feel bouts of it.
If life consists only of life in this world, and, as it evident, there is much suffering in this world: How can we hope? What can ‘hope’ possibly mean?
The light in the darkness, is the sign of the reality that is our Hope, and that Hope has a name, and His name is ‘Christ’.
The light in the darkness is a sign that the darkness has not triumphed. Even when darkness seems to have nearly encompassed everything, the light remains. Darkness is real, but it has not triumphed.
To move from the sign to the reality, we must look to the Empty Tomb. The Empty Tomb contains the clearest sign that Death has not triumphed, in fact, Death has been defeated.
Death, judging by the rules of what those without faith think they know, there is no overcoming Death.
But if we look to Him who left the Empty Tomb, then Faith teaches us that Death can be overcome because Death HAS been overcome.
Death and suffering are real, but they are not the final word, and they will ultimately be extinguished by the light that was not extinguished.
We heard in that Gospel text, angel said, “He is not here. He has risen as He said He would.”
“as he said he would” –these words are pivotal.
These words tell us He is Lord, he is the master of time and Lord of History.
“as he said he would” –He knows what He is about, and He is doing it.
To come back to the candle: The blessing words I said as I traced the symbols on it:
He is the “alpha and omega”, Greek for: He is the Beginning and the End
“All time belongs to Him” –why every year the date of the year is put on the candle: 2008.
He is the cause of creation, and He is bringing creation to Himself.
Not even the death and suffering that entered this world with sin can stop His plan.
He took death in His hands on the Cross and defeated it.
Five grains of incense, for the five wounds of the cross, were pressed into the Easter Candle
Why? To show that He has sanctified suffering
He has made it an offering to the Father
He has made it the means of our transition to new life.
The light of the Easter candle is not yet spread through the whole world, and has not yet spread through the whole if any one of us here
But it is the sign that the light cannot be extinguished
And will, in fact, be triumphant and extinguish darkness.
Faith knows this in the mind, grasps it as the truth that endures in darkness.
Hope, the hope that Pope Benedict reminds us must characterise a Christian in our modern world, hope does not just know this in the mind, but in the will, sets the heart on the goal of Christ, on the goal of the Light that cannot be extinguished, the light that enables us to hope even in darkness, the hope that enables us to make sense of the angel’s words: “Do not be afraid”.
This is what the candle shows us.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Maundy Thursday, Shaftesbury
Tonight we remember 2 of the greatest gifts Christ had given us. And, how they were given to us at a crucial moment. Jesus knew what lay ahead of him, he knew that he was leaving his disciples behind. And often, when we leave someone, we try and give them something, something to remember us by, something to continue to make us present. And the gifts that Christ gave the Church at the Last Supper are the gifts of the Mass and the priesthood.
I spent many of the earlier years not knowing why it is that Catholics always have Mass when we gather. Is it because we can’t think of anything better to do? Catholics say Mass because this is the thing that Christ commanded us to do: “Do THIS in memory of me” he said at the Last Supper. He commanded us to do this because this is where he gives himself to us. And this is also where he gives us the perfect prayer.
One of the things that makes us human is our need to pray. All through human history, humans have tried to find a suitable way to pray. We can see this in the pagan temples of so many ancient ruins. But humans have struggled to find an act of worship that is worthy of God. They’ve offered crop sacrifices, animal sacrifices, even human sacrifices. All trying to find something that is worthy of an infinite and all-powerful God.
The perfect prayer could only be offered by Jesus Christ himself. As perfect God his prayer has infinite value. As perfect man he can offer his prayer on behalf of all mankind. This perfect prayer is what he offered on the Cross. All prayer is a gift of self, and he offered his whole self in his life on the Cross. So, as the Catechism says(CCC2606; 2746ff), his prayer on the Cross summed up and drew together all the prayers, all the intercessions that have ever been expressed in human history –those offered before he died, and even those offered afterwards, like those we offer now (because God is beyond our limits of time).
But that perfect prayer on the Cross, that perfect act of worship, isn’t just a dead thing in the past –it’s a living thing in the Church today. When we pray, we are praying through it. And Christ has given us a way to unite ourselves to it, and that’s the Mass. The Mass isn’t a prayer separate from the Cross, it is not a different prayer that Christ left us. The sacrifice of the Mass is the very same as the sacrifice of the Cross. It is, in fact, the sacrifice of Jesus made present again on our altars, and offered up again to the Father on our behalf. This is his great gift to us in the Mass.
Any sacrifice involves death, and as St. Paul said, each time we do this, we proclaim his death (1Cor 11:26). On the Cross, the sign of Christ’s death was his blood separating from his body, draining out of the wound in his side. The sign of that separation is renewed in every Mass when the priest says, “This is my Body”; “This is my Blood”. And this isn’t just a sign –it’s the reality too. The bread totally becomes his Body, the wine becomes his Blood.
And this isn’t a dead sacrifice. Because of the resurrection, it is a living sacrifice. When his Body + Blood are made present, they are the sacrifice of Calvary, offered again on our altar.
There are many things that link the Last Supper with the Cross. It was at the Last Supper that Jesus predicted Judas would betray him, and it was from the Last Supper table that Judas went to do his dirty deed. What happened that night was looking ahead and anticipating the events of Good Friday. And what he gave us in the Last Supper, what he gave us in the Mass, is the memorial of his death on the Cross.
There is a desire in us, as human beings, to offer a suitable prayer to God. And this most perfect and most suitable of all prayers is what he has given us in the Mass:
“Do THIS in memory of me
I spent many of the earlier years not knowing why it is that Catholics always have Mass when we gather. Is it because we can’t think of anything better to do? Catholics say Mass because this is the thing that Christ commanded us to do: “Do THIS in memory of me” he said at the Last Supper. He commanded us to do this because this is where he gives himself to us. And this is also where he gives us the perfect prayer.
One of the things that makes us human is our need to pray. All through human history, humans have tried to find a suitable way to pray. We can see this in the pagan temples of so many ancient ruins. But humans have struggled to find an act of worship that is worthy of God. They’ve offered crop sacrifices, animal sacrifices, even human sacrifices. All trying to find something that is worthy of an infinite and all-powerful God.
The perfect prayer could only be offered by Jesus Christ himself. As perfect God his prayer has infinite value. As perfect man he can offer his prayer on behalf of all mankind. This perfect prayer is what he offered on the Cross. All prayer is a gift of self, and he offered his whole self in his life on the Cross. So, as the Catechism says(CCC2606; 2746ff), his prayer on the Cross summed up and drew together all the prayers, all the intercessions that have ever been expressed in human history –those offered before he died, and even those offered afterwards, like those we offer now (because God is beyond our limits of time).
But that perfect prayer on the Cross, that perfect act of worship, isn’t just a dead thing in the past –it’s a living thing in the Church today. When we pray, we are praying through it. And Christ has given us a way to unite ourselves to it, and that’s the Mass. The Mass isn’t a prayer separate from the Cross, it is not a different prayer that Christ left us. The sacrifice of the Mass is the very same as the sacrifice of the Cross. It is, in fact, the sacrifice of Jesus made present again on our altars, and offered up again to the Father on our behalf. This is his great gift to us in the Mass.
Any sacrifice involves death, and as St. Paul said, each time we do this, we proclaim his death (1Cor 11:26). On the Cross, the sign of Christ’s death was his blood separating from his body, draining out of the wound in his side. The sign of that separation is renewed in every Mass when the priest says, “This is my Body”; “This is my Blood”. And this isn’t just a sign –it’s the reality too. The bread totally becomes his Body, the wine becomes his Blood.
And this isn’t a dead sacrifice. Because of the resurrection, it is a living sacrifice. When his Body + Blood are made present, they are the sacrifice of Calvary, offered again on our altar.
There are many things that link the Last Supper with the Cross. It was at the Last Supper that Jesus predicted Judas would betray him, and it was from the Last Supper table that Judas went to do his dirty deed. What happened that night was looking ahead and anticipating the events of Good Friday. And what he gave us in the Last Supper, what he gave us in the Mass, is the memorial of his death on the Cross.
There is a desire in us, as human beings, to offer a suitable prayer to God. And this most perfect and most suitable of all prayers is what he has given us in the Mass:
“Do THIS in memory of me
Sunday, 10 February 2008
1st Sunday of Lent, Year A, Shaftesbury
Gen 2:7-3:7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11.
I’m a Catholic priest, but not all my family are Catholic, and not all my friends are Catholic, and they find some things strange. One of the things they find most strange is us giving things up for Lent –I’ve been giving up chocolate for years, and a friend of mine always sends me a chocolate bar, Dairy Milk, for Easter Sunday. And he does so, I think, because the whole thing baffles him. ‘But you LIKE chocolate’, he says, ‘why not eat it?’ He can understand dieting for the body, but fasting for the soul seems beyond him.
So, why do we do it? Well, if we want an answer why, it’s nicely laid out for us in the readings for the First Sunday of Lent:
Jesus went out into the desert and fasted and prayed for 40 days, and our Lent of 40 days unites us with that time of Our Lord. To be a follower of Christ, is to see in the life of God-made-man the perfect pattern and meaning of our life -and so to desire to imitate him, including his fasting. And Jesus also taught us to fast, which is why Christians have fasted, even in giving small pleasures.
But this might just raise another question: WHY did Christ go to fast in the desert in the first place?
The answer lies in our first reading with the account of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Our First Parents lived in happiness and harmony, but Sin shattered that. And Sin disrupts OUR human existence and damages our hope of happiness. That damage of sin had to be undone, and that is what Christ went into the desert to start.
The symbolism of the desert, and of references to things like bread, show us that Jesus was re-living the temptation of the people of Israel when they were wandering in the desert. They were tried and failed, but Christ was tried and purified. Not purified on his own behalf (he was perfect God), but on our behalf. Christ, the new Adam, faced and overcame the temptations that the first Adam failed. And in our Lent we are also tested and tempted, and can overcome sin, using the threefold means that Lent gives us: Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
When we fast, or do any form of penance, we are denying ourselves some form of pleasure, and so we help to detach ourselves from it. We help to orient ourselves more on God and less on earthly things.
Our Christian Faith teaches us that the good things of this world are given to us by God to enjoy –they are good, and that’s why we only deny ourselves at certain times –I eat chocolate the rest of the year, and I enjoy it, we have feasts as well as fasts.
But our desires are frequently disordered, we want things in a way that isn’t always good for us, in the extreme, we can get addicted.
Fasting disciplines our desires.
But true fasting isn’t just a good human discipline, like dieting. Fasting must go with the other two things that make up Lent: prayer and almsgiving. By praying, we not only make sure our fasting is oriented to God, but we also make it a more direct imitation of Christ –who both prayed and fasted in the desert. Fasting without prayer can just make us grumpy and disagreeable.
Fasting also changes the way we act towards others. If we’re purifying and detaching ourselves, then we should be more free to love. One way we do this is by giving to the poor.
I sometimes hear people say, ‘Oh, I’m not giving up things, I’m doing something positive!’ Well, it would be better to do both, actually to do all three: pray, fast, alms. Choose a small thing to give up, a small daily prayer to add, or weekday Mass, or Stations, and a small work of generosity for Lent.
If you haven’t yet decided what you’re giving up for Lent, decide now. Make the most of what the Church calls “This joyful season” –joyful because we have union with Christ.
We Catholics do things the world counts odd, but I’m not afraid of that –I think the modern world is more that a bit odd! I’m more than happy to stand with 2000 years of Christian tradition, and to stand with Christ who, for me and for you, went into the desert and fasted 40 days.
I’m a Catholic priest, but not all my family are Catholic, and not all my friends are Catholic, and they find some things strange. One of the things they find most strange is us giving things up for Lent –I’ve been giving up chocolate for years, and a friend of mine always sends me a chocolate bar, Dairy Milk, for Easter Sunday. And he does so, I think, because the whole thing baffles him. ‘But you LIKE chocolate’, he says, ‘why not eat it?’ He can understand dieting for the body, but fasting for the soul seems beyond him.
So, why do we do it? Well, if we want an answer why, it’s nicely laid out for us in the readings for the First Sunday of Lent:
Jesus went out into the desert and fasted and prayed for 40 days, and our Lent of 40 days unites us with that time of Our Lord. To be a follower of Christ, is to see in the life of God-made-man the perfect pattern and meaning of our life -and so to desire to imitate him, including his fasting. And Jesus also taught us to fast, which is why Christians have fasted, even in giving small pleasures.
But this might just raise another question: WHY did Christ go to fast in the desert in the first place?
The answer lies in our first reading with the account of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Our First Parents lived in happiness and harmony, but Sin shattered that. And Sin disrupts OUR human existence and damages our hope of happiness. That damage of sin had to be undone, and that is what Christ went into the desert to start.
The symbolism of the desert, and of references to things like bread, show us that Jesus was re-living the temptation of the people of Israel when they were wandering in the desert. They were tried and failed, but Christ was tried and purified. Not purified on his own behalf (he was perfect God), but on our behalf. Christ, the new Adam, faced and overcame the temptations that the first Adam failed. And in our Lent we are also tested and tempted, and can overcome sin, using the threefold means that Lent gives us: Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
When we fast, or do any form of penance, we are denying ourselves some form of pleasure, and so we help to detach ourselves from it. We help to orient ourselves more on God and less on earthly things.
Our Christian Faith teaches us that the good things of this world are given to us by God to enjoy –they are good, and that’s why we only deny ourselves at certain times –I eat chocolate the rest of the year, and I enjoy it, we have feasts as well as fasts.
But our desires are frequently disordered, we want things in a way that isn’t always good for us, in the extreme, we can get addicted.
Fasting disciplines our desires.
But true fasting isn’t just a good human discipline, like dieting. Fasting must go with the other two things that make up Lent: prayer and almsgiving. By praying, we not only make sure our fasting is oriented to God, but we also make it a more direct imitation of Christ –who both prayed and fasted in the desert. Fasting without prayer can just make us grumpy and disagreeable.
Fasting also changes the way we act towards others. If we’re purifying and detaching ourselves, then we should be more free to love. One way we do this is by giving to the poor.
I sometimes hear people say, ‘Oh, I’m not giving up things, I’m doing something positive!’ Well, it would be better to do both, actually to do all three: pray, fast, alms. Choose a small thing to give up, a small daily prayer to add, or weekday Mass, or Stations, and a small work of generosity for Lent.
If you haven’t yet decided what you’re giving up for Lent, decide now. Make the most of what the Church calls “This joyful season” –joyful because we have union with Christ.
We Catholics do things the world counts odd, but I’m not afraid of that –I think the modern world is more that a bit odd! I’m more than happy to stand with 2000 years of Christian tradition, and to stand with Christ who, for me and for you, went into the desert and fasted 40 days.
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