In our second reading (2 Cor 5:14-17) we heard St Paul say, "from now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh". And he proceeded to contrast "knowing" Christ in the flesh, with a knowing Him as a Christian knows Him. And there is an application of this in each of our 3 readings.
To "know” Christ in the flesh, is to know part of Him but not know all of Him. It is to know what the flesh can know: to see His humanity, to, as the first Christians could, touch Christ's human flesh, feel the grasp of his hand. And all of this is to "know" something that is true of Christ, namely, that He was and is fully human.
However, if we ONLY know Christ in the flesh then we only PARTLY know Him. He is not only human, is also fully God.
We saw an example of this partial knowledge of Christ in our gospel (Mk 4:35-41). The disciples were in a boat with Jesus, and they were experiencing a terrible storm, and they were with Christ. They already knew Christ: they had seen Him cleanse the leper (Mk 1:42); they had seen Him heal the paralytic (Mk 2:12); they had witnessed Him cast our demons (Mk 3:11); and they had heard Him teach, and issue His call to repentance, the call addressed to sinners and the outcast. They knew many THINGS about Christ, but, it seems, they did not yet know Christ Himself.
They knew enough, however, to realise that when the boat was going down in the storm that Christ might be able to help them, and so they turned to Him, saying, “Master, do not care? We are going down!"(Mk 4:38).
Jesus, as we know, then calmed the storm. But He did more than just calm the storm: He helped open their eyes to faith. He berated their lack of faith, “How is it that you have no faith?" But this reproof was also an invitation, an invitation to judge no longer according to the flesh but with the sight of faith. To see not just what the flesh can see, but to have that piercing discerning sight that can see truths, and The Truth, that lies beyond what can be immediately perceived.
To judge according to faith and not just according to the flesh is not always easy. We heard the disciples trying to do this but still seemingly struggling, "Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him" –they saw that He was something more, but didn’t yet fully see, didn’t yet say, “My Lord and My God”(Jn 20:28) as they would say by the end of the Gospels.
We, too, need to always be yearning and straining to judge according to faith, to see with the full light of faith, and not to see merely what the flesh can see. This is part of what it means to be the “new creation” that St Paul spoke of: to have our minds renewed.
Of course, seeing with the eyes of faith, even though it means we see more, does not mean that we are not left with some questions. In our first reading we heard about Job, the man who suffered, and wondered WHY he was suffering, the man who was offered 1000 faulty explanations by his philosopher-friends. And in the end, what he got from God was not answers but more questions: Where were you when I made the universe? Who are you are ask me why and how I do things? And even though these were questions and not answers, wiser men than me have noted that Job found the questions of God more satisfying than the answers of men.
The questions of God were more satisfying, at least in part, because they invited him to look beyond merely his own understanding, and judgements, and what he could see according to the flesh, and to look instead with the eyes of faith. Because part of what faith involves is the submission of the human intellect to what God has revealed, rather than what the human intellect alone and unaided can understand by itself. To realise this, in humility, is to open our minds to see MORE because we no longer see only according to the flesh.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Corpus Christi, Year B, Shaftesbury
Today we keep the great feast of Corpus Christi: the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. By coincidence, today is also a day when we will not be administering Holy Communion in the chalice: the Bishop informed us on Friday that because the swine flu has been raised to a pandemic status, the chalice is not to be administered to the congregation for the foreseeable future. This is a precautionary measure and not a reason to panic; it is also, as the Bishop suggested, an opportunity for us to clarify our catechesis on receiving Our Lord fully in just the host.
I want to put 3 simple questions to you. When you receive Holy Communion do you think that you receive a ‘ thing’ or do you think you receive a ‘ person’? Do you think you receive a part or a whole? Do you think you are receive a gift that comes without conditions, what do you think that reception is a COMMITMENT to a covenant, a covenant with very definite conditions? The answer to all three of these questions can be seen in contrasting the Old Testament covenant with the New Covenant in Christ.
In our first reading (Ex 24:3-8) we heard how Moses established the Old Testament covenant with the chosen people; this was a covenant (which is a type of contract) between God and the people God had chosen as His own. To be a "covenant" meant that not only was God committing Himself to His chosen people but also, those chosen people were committing themselves to Him: which meant that they had to commit themselves to abide by, as we heard in that reading, "the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances". Like other covenants it was sealed with two things: a sacrifice and blood. And like any sacrifice it was completed or "consummated" by the sacrifice being eaten, consumed.
In our second reading (Heb 9:11-15) we heard how Christ is “the high priest" of the New Covenant: the sacrifice He offers is the sacrifice of Himself; and the blood He sheds is His own blood, which as we heard in our gospel text is "the blood of the covenant"(Mk 14:24), as we hear in the Eucharistic prayer: "the blood of the new and everlasting covenant". This sacrifice is consummated when we receive Holy Communion. And this blood is not sprinkled on us externally but we partake of its merits by receiving it internally in Holy Communion.
And just as the Old Testament covenant involves committing oneself to the commands of the Old Covenant, the New Testament covenant involves committing oneself to all of the ritual and moral life of the new Christian way of life: when we say "amen" to receive Holy Communion we are saying “yes” in committing ourselves to this new covenant. Committing ourselves to the ritual: to receive Holy Communion means to commit oneself to attend that sacrifice of the Mass each and every Sunday, to do otherwise is to commit the sin of sacrilege against Holy Communion. And committing ourselves to the Christian moral life means committing ourselves to those ethical imperatives, including those of sexual morality, those imperatives that separate the Christian way of life from that of our secular world around us.
None of this commitment to new covenant implies that we are already perfect –we all need to repent and prepare ourselves anew for Holy Communion. And in particular, in as much as we fail in these “bottom line” respects we should not come to Holy Communion until we change our life, repent, go to confession and receive the renewal to adhere anew to the covenant.
I want to explain, using the standard Catholic theological analysis, why it is that each host fully contains the WHOLE Jesus Christ: His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity. I.e. why it is enough to receive Our Lord just in just the host, why we don't need to receive Him from the chalice. Explaining this involves pointing out another key difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant:
The sacrifice of the New Covenant is not a dead sacrifice, not an animal that was slain, but a living sacrifice: the living Lamb of God, who was slain, but was raised to new life, so that he can never die again. He is what the Eucharistic prayer calls the "LIVING sacrifice". In a dead sacrifice body and blood are separate by the very fact of death; each ceases to live by the separation of body from blood. But Christ is risen and can die not more. And so in the living sacrifice there can be no more death, and so Body and Blood can no longer be separated.
I just said that in the living sacrifice of Christ His Body and Blood can no longer be separated. He is living forever, He is whole forever. What does this mean practically? It means that in Holy Communion the Lord Jesus’s Body and Blood cannot be separated: where one is the other is fully too. We have two different signs but we do not have two different realities. What was bread, after it is consecrated, is changed into Jesus Christ, with its APPEARANCE having the sign value of ‘Body’. While, what was wine, after it is consecrated, is changed into Jesus Christ, with its APPEARANCE having the sign value of ‘Blood’. Two different signs, but the same reality in each.
Just as receiving two hosts does not mean you get twice as much Jesus, or twice as much grace, similarly, receiving from the chalice after the host does not give you more reality –it only gives you another sign, a symbol.
So, when you receive the chalice, as is common in much of this Diocese but is not common in most of the world, you receive an added sign but you do not receive an added reality. You receive the Lord fully in just the host. You receive a ‘whole’ not a ‘part’ because you are receiving a ‘person’ not a ‘thing’.
This great gift is SO great that the gift we are offered in Holy Communion is an offer that only comes with the expectation of commitment to the life of the New Covenant. The New Covenant cost Christ the sacrifice of Calvary, and it costs us the commitment to adhere to it.
I want to put 3 simple questions to you. When you receive Holy Communion do you think that you receive a ‘ thing’ or do you think you receive a ‘ person’? Do you think you receive a part or a whole? Do you think you are receive a gift that comes without conditions, what do you think that reception is a COMMITMENT to a covenant, a covenant with very definite conditions? The answer to all three of these questions can be seen in contrasting the Old Testament covenant with the New Covenant in Christ.
In our first reading (Ex 24:3-8) we heard how Moses established the Old Testament covenant with the chosen people; this was a covenant (which is a type of contract) between God and the people God had chosen as His own. To be a "covenant" meant that not only was God committing Himself to His chosen people but also, those chosen people were committing themselves to Him: which meant that they had to commit themselves to abide by, as we heard in that reading, "the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances". Like other covenants it was sealed with two things: a sacrifice and blood. And like any sacrifice it was completed or "consummated" by the sacrifice being eaten, consumed.
In our second reading (Heb 9:11-15) we heard how Christ is “the high priest" of the New Covenant: the sacrifice He offers is the sacrifice of Himself; and the blood He sheds is His own blood, which as we heard in our gospel text is "the blood of the covenant"(Mk 14:24), as we hear in the Eucharistic prayer: "the blood of the new and everlasting covenant". This sacrifice is consummated when we receive Holy Communion. And this blood is not sprinkled on us externally but we partake of its merits by receiving it internally in Holy Communion.
And just as the Old Testament covenant involves committing oneself to the commands of the Old Covenant, the New Testament covenant involves committing oneself to all of the ritual and moral life of the new Christian way of life: when we say "amen" to receive Holy Communion we are saying “yes” in committing ourselves to this new covenant. Committing ourselves to the ritual: to receive Holy Communion means to commit oneself to attend that sacrifice of the Mass each and every Sunday, to do otherwise is to commit the sin of sacrilege against Holy Communion. And committing ourselves to the Christian moral life means committing ourselves to those ethical imperatives, including those of sexual morality, those imperatives that separate the Christian way of life from that of our secular world around us.
None of this commitment to new covenant implies that we are already perfect –we all need to repent and prepare ourselves anew for Holy Communion. And in particular, in as much as we fail in these “bottom line” respects we should not come to Holy Communion until we change our life, repent, go to confession and receive the renewal to adhere anew to the covenant.
I want to explain, using the standard Catholic theological analysis, why it is that each host fully contains the WHOLE Jesus Christ: His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity. I.e. why it is enough to receive Our Lord just in just the host, why we don't need to receive Him from the chalice. Explaining this involves pointing out another key difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant:
The sacrifice of the New Covenant is not a dead sacrifice, not an animal that was slain, but a living sacrifice: the living Lamb of God, who was slain, but was raised to new life, so that he can never die again. He is what the Eucharistic prayer calls the "LIVING sacrifice". In a dead sacrifice body and blood are separate by the very fact of death; each ceases to live by the separation of body from blood. But Christ is risen and can die not more. And so in the living sacrifice there can be no more death, and so Body and Blood can no longer be separated.
I just said that in the living sacrifice of Christ His Body and Blood can no longer be separated. He is living forever, He is whole forever. What does this mean practically? It means that in Holy Communion the Lord Jesus’s Body and Blood cannot be separated: where one is the other is fully too. We have two different signs but we do not have two different realities. What was bread, after it is consecrated, is changed into Jesus Christ, with its APPEARANCE having the sign value of ‘Body’. While, what was wine, after it is consecrated, is changed into Jesus Christ, with its APPEARANCE having the sign value of ‘Blood’. Two different signs, but the same reality in each.
Just as receiving two hosts does not mean you get twice as much Jesus, or twice as much grace, similarly, receiving from the chalice after the host does not give you more reality –it only gives you another sign, a symbol.
So, when you receive the chalice, as is common in much of this Diocese but is not common in most of the world, you receive an added sign but you do not receive an added reality. You receive the Lord fully in just the host. You receive a ‘whole’ not a ‘part’ because you are receiving a ‘person’ not a ‘thing’.
This great gift is SO great that the gift we are offered in Holy Communion is an offer that only comes with the expectation of commitment to the life of the New Covenant. The New Covenant cost Christ the sacrifice of Calvary, and it costs us the commitment to adhere to it.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Requiem Mass Elizabeth Jean Torrance, 12th June 2009
Jn 6:41-51; Isa 25:6-9; 1 Jn 1-2
Elizabeth chose the readings and hymns that we have at Mass today, which gives us a precious insight into what she wanted to say to us today.
Often we can know someone, but we don’t always articulate what we believe. We might know that someone goes to Mass every Sunday, but not be sure why, or quite what it means to them. But in giving us these funeral readings and hymns Elizabeth has, in a very real sense, expressed what her faith was, and, in particular, what her HOPE was for this very moment.
In our opening hymn we sang “My soul proclaims the Lord my God”, repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin. And those words surely indicate to us that despite whatever difficulties she had she wanted to express gratitude to God: she had a long life, she passed peacefully with friends and family having seen her in hospital, she’d had the chance to prepare herself to go; and this hymn surely indicates that she wants us to thank God for these and other blessings. Our blessings come from somewhere, from some-ONE, and that is why we call them ‘blessings’, and this is the significance of this hymn at a funeral.
There is one theme in particular that runs very strongly through Elizabeth’s choices, and that is Christ as the Bread of Life. It is our Communion hymn, it was our Gospel, and it was in our first reading.
Our Catholic hymns speak often of “the bread of angels” and the “banquet of heaven” that we heard from the prophet Isaiah. That is what we hope for now for Elizabeth, and her choices indicate that it was the hope she had for herself.
Our hymns also speak of that Bread as the “food of travellers”, the food to sustain them on the way. Elizabeth sought that Bread faithfully and regularly. My clearest picture of her was of her needing me to come down to her on the front row to bring her the Bread of Life, of her having to be helped to walk in here for Mass every Sunday, ANY YET, her perseverance in coming for that Bread of Life even when she was frail –and this shows us that she knew it to be important. It is the “food of travellers” in a particular way to sustain us for the final journey, in “viaticum”, the journey through death to eternal life.
But as a Catholic, the KEY thing, is that this ‘Bread’ is NOT ‘bread’ in the ordinary sense. In the Gospel text Elizabeth chose Christ said, “I am the bread of life... and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world”. It is Christ for whom we were created, it is Christ who is the goal and end of our striving, the model we must pattern ourselves upon. But Christ is not only our beginning and end, He is also with us on the way. And He is with us not just in some figurative sense, but in a physical sense, in his “flesh” –He changes the bread and wine into His very self, as we Catholics hold: into His Body and Blood, His soul and divinity. He said, “This IS my body” and we hold Him to mean what He said.
And, in particular, this is what Elizabeth knew to be true. And she knew it was important to recall today because as her Gospel text indicates, the promise of Heaven, of the Heavenly Banquet, holds for those who have sought to be nourished by Christ in His earthly banquet, the Mass, in Holy Communion, “that a man may eat of it and NOT die”. This is the foundation of our hope for her today –Christ promised this.
One final thought, on Elizabeth’s second reading (1 Jn 3:1-2). That text said, “we are already children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is”. As long as we live in this world we have something limited in our knowledge of God. Christians hold that we DO truly know God, we know God as He really is, and we know Him because He Himself has made Himself known by becoming one of us: Jesus Christ. If we in faith accept the truth of what He did and taught then we truly know God. But our sight is still limited; the glory of God and the glory of heaven is still beyond our ability to exhaust. We see God, now, but, as St Paul puts it, “through a glass darkly”(1 Corinthians 13:12). However, what the text Elizabeth chose rejoices in is that, for God’s faithful ones, in Heaven, “we shall see Him as He really is”. This is the hope, the completion and fulfilment of the Christian journey, the journey we are sustained on with the Bread of Life, this is the hope that Elizabeth held for herself and that gathers us her to pray for her today, to pray that that hope will become readily fulfilled.
Elizabeth chose the readings and hymns that we have at Mass today, which gives us a precious insight into what she wanted to say to us today.
Often we can know someone, but we don’t always articulate what we believe. We might know that someone goes to Mass every Sunday, but not be sure why, or quite what it means to them. But in giving us these funeral readings and hymns Elizabeth has, in a very real sense, expressed what her faith was, and, in particular, what her HOPE was for this very moment.
In our opening hymn we sang “My soul proclaims the Lord my God”, repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin. And those words surely indicate to us that despite whatever difficulties she had she wanted to express gratitude to God: she had a long life, she passed peacefully with friends and family having seen her in hospital, she’d had the chance to prepare herself to go; and this hymn surely indicates that she wants us to thank God for these and other blessings. Our blessings come from somewhere, from some-ONE, and that is why we call them ‘blessings’, and this is the significance of this hymn at a funeral.
There is one theme in particular that runs very strongly through Elizabeth’s choices, and that is Christ as the Bread of Life. It is our Communion hymn, it was our Gospel, and it was in our first reading.
Our Catholic hymns speak often of “the bread of angels” and the “banquet of heaven” that we heard from the prophet Isaiah. That is what we hope for now for Elizabeth, and her choices indicate that it was the hope she had for herself.
Our hymns also speak of that Bread as the “food of travellers”, the food to sustain them on the way. Elizabeth sought that Bread faithfully and regularly. My clearest picture of her was of her needing me to come down to her on the front row to bring her the Bread of Life, of her having to be helped to walk in here for Mass every Sunday, ANY YET, her perseverance in coming for that Bread of Life even when she was frail –and this shows us that she knew it to be important. It is the “food of travellers” in a particular way to sustain us for the final journey, in “viaticum”, the journey through death to eternal life.
But as a Catholic, the KEY thing, is that this ‘Bread’ is NOT ‘bread’ in the ordinary sense. In the Gospel text Elizabeth chose Christ said, “I am the bread of life... and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world”. It is Christ for whom we were created, it is Christ who is the goal and end of our striving, the model we must pattern ourselves upon. But Christ is not only our beginning and end, He is also with us on the way. And He is with us not just in some figurative sense, but in a physical sense, in his “flesh” –He changes the bread and wine into His very self, as we Catholics hold: into His Body and Blood, His soul and divinity. He said, “This IS my body” and we hold Him to mean what He said.
And, in particular, this is what Elizabeth knew to be true. And she knew it was important to recall today because as her Gospel text indicates, the promise of Heaven, of the Heavenly Banquet, holds for those who have sought to be nourished by Christ in His earthly banquet, the Mass, in Holy Communion, “that a man may eat of it and NOT die”. This is the foundation of our hope for her today –Christ promised this.
One final thought, on Elizabeth’s second reading (1 Jn 3:1-2). That text said, “we are already children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is”. As long as we live in this world we have something limited in our knowledge of God. Christians hold that we DO truly know God, we know God as He really is, and we know Him because He Himself has made Himself known by becoming one of us: Jesus Christ. If we in faith accept the truth of what He did and taught then we truly know God. But our sight is still limited; the glory of God and the glory of heaven is still beyond our ability to exhaust. We see God, now, but, as St Paul puts it, “through a glass darkly”(1 Corinthians 13:12). However, what the text Elizabeth chose rejoices in is that, for God’s faithful ones, in Heaven, “we shall see Him as He really is”. This is the hope, the completion and fulfilment of the Christian journey, the journey we are sustained on with the Bread of Life, this is the hope that Elizabeth held for herself and that gathers us her to pray for her today, to pray that that hope will become readily fulfilled.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Pentecost Sunday, Shaftesbury
I think that most of us know the feeling of having tried to do something that is beyond our ability. There are some things that are only beyond our ability at the moment, so that the first time I tried to ride a bicycle it was beyond my ability, and I fell down. But that's the kind of thing, the kind of inability, that we can overcome -we can acquire an ability we don't yet have. But there are some things that are simply beyond our power, full stop. For example, I am unable to fly, and it doesn't matter how hard I practice flapping my arms I will never be able to fly -it is simply beyond human ability.
Today, on Pentecost, we think of the Holy Spirit. And it is His role to enable us to do what we are unable to do without Him. And there are two ways we can think of this: here on earth; and in heaven.
Here on earth, there are many things that we should be able to do, but we are unable to do because of our fallen human nature -because we have inherited original sin, and are inclined to sin. So, patience should be something that comes naturally to us, to me. I should be able to have my eyes set on goal before me, and happily and lovingly and patiently endure whatever it takes to get there. But, in my fallen human nature, patience does not come easily to me, I do not happily endure things. However, this is only beyond my ability at the moment: with the Holy Spirit, I can gradually acquire this ability. The Holy Spirit is rightly called "another helper" by the Lord Jesus. And He is also called "the sanctifier” because He is the one who makes us holy. And this is how the Holy Spirit helps us here on earth.
What about in heaven? Well, it may not have occurred to you, or maybe it has occurred to you: but even if we get to heaven there is at least one thing that we will be unable to do: we will be unable to comprehend God, and thus unable to adequately love Him. Even in heaven, our intellects will be small and limited, while God is infinite, and we cannot comprehend Him. Only God can adequately comprehend God. Only God can adequately love God.
What we NEED if we are to know God as He knows Himself is to actually have God Himself dwelling IN us, and this “indwelling” is the role appropriated to the Holy Spirit: His dwelling in us causes us to exceed our natural capacities:
In Heaven, the role of ‘idea’ we will have of God is the role appropriated to the Son, the “Word” of God (Jn 1:1), the “image” of the Father (Col 1:15; Heb 1:3).
But the role of loving, of ‘love’ personified, is another of the roles appropriated to the Holy Spirit.
So, even in heaven, we will need the Holy Spirit, the “Helper” to help us do what we cannot do alone.
To say that differently: Those of you who remember the old Penny Catechism will remember that you were taught as a child that the reason we were created is "to know Him and love Him". What you were almost certainly not taught as a child was that you were and are inherently unable to do the thing that you were created to do! This is what theologians mean when they talk about our "supernatural" calling -we are called to do something beyond our ability, beyond our nature, something SUPER-natural. We are called to do what we can only do with the help of the Holy Spirit. This will apply in heaven, and it applies here on Earth. And our need for the Holy Spirit in heaven is the model of our need for Him here on Earth.
In heaven, we will know God by seeing Him in what is called the Beatific Vision, but we will only become able to see this immense vision by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. Similarly, on earth, I know God, but not by my own power: I know God through faith, faith which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And knowing God in faith, knowing God by that response of to His self-revelation in Christ Jesus, I am now able to love Him.
All of this is worth knowing because it is a model of how we need to Holy Spirit in ALL kinds of things.
So how should I feel when I realise that I am unable to do something? How should I feel when I realise I am unable to do something that I know I need to do? If I believe in the Holy Spirit, then I should not feel despair. Rather, each time I have this realisation, I should recognise that this is just another example of the fact that I'm called to BE something that is beyond my power and had to DO something that is beyond my power. But by the gift of Him, the Holy Spirit, I am able to do what alone I cannot do.
Today, on Pentecost, we think of the Holy Spirit. And it is His role to enable us to do what we are unable to do without Him. And there are two ways we can think of this: here on earth; and in heaven.
Here on earth, there are many things that we should be able to do, but we are unable to do because of our fallen human nature -because we have inherited original sin, and are inclined to sin. So, patience should be something that comes naturally to us, to me. I should be able to have my eyes set on goal before me, and happily and lovingly and patiently endure whatever it takes to get there. But, in my fallen human nature, patience does not come easily to me, I do not happily endure things. However, this is only beyond my ability at the moment: with the Holy Spirit, I can gradually acquire this ability. The Holy Spirit is rightly called "another helper" by the Lord Jesus. And He is also called "the sanctifier” because He is the one who makes us holy. And this is how the Holy Spirit helps us here on earth.
What about in heaven? Well, it may not have occurred to you, or maybe it has occurred to you: but even if we get to heaven there is at least one thing that we will be unable to do: we will be unable to comprehend God, and thus unable to adequately love Him. Even in heaven, our intellects will be small and limited, while God is infinite, and we cannot comprehend Him. Only God can adequately comprehend God. Only God can adequately love God.
What we NEED if we are to know God as He knows Himself is to actually have God Himself dwelling IN us, and this “indwelling” is the role appropriated to the Holy Spirit: His dwelling in us causes us to exceed our natural capacities:
In Heaven, the role of ‘idea’ we will have of God is the role appropriated to the Son, the “Word” of God (Jn 1:1), the “image” of the Father (Col 1:15; Heb 1:3).
But the role of loving, of ‘love’ personified, is another of the roles appropriated to the Holy Spirit.
So, even in heaven, we will need the Holy Spirit, the “Helper” to help us do what we cannot do alone.
To say that differently: Those of you who remember the old Penny Catechism will remember that you were taught as a child that the reason we were created is "to know Him and love Him". What you were almost certainly not taught as a child was that you were and are inherently unable to do the thing that you were created to do! This is what theologians mean when they talk about our "supernatural" calling -we are called to do something beyond our ability, beyond our nature, something SUPER-natural. We are called to do what we can only do with the help of the Holy Spirit. This will apply in heaven, and it applies here on Earth. And our need for the Holy Spirit in heaven is the model of our need for Him here on Earth.
In heaven, we will know God by seeing Him in what is called the Beatific Vision, but we will only become able to see this immense vision by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. Similarly, on earth, I know God, but not by my own power: I know God through faith, faith which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And knowing God in faith, knowing God by that response of to His self-revelation in Christ Jesus, I am now able to love Him.
All of this is worth knowing because it is a model of how we need to Holy Spirit in ALL kinds of things.
So how should I feel when I realise that I am unable to do something? How should I feel when I realise I am unable to do something that I know I need to do? If I believe in the Holy Spirit, then I should not feel despair. Rather, each time I have this realisation, I should recognise that this is just another example of the fact that I'm called to BE something that is beyond my power and had to DO something that is beyond my power. But by the gift of Him, the Holy Spirit, I am able to do what alone I cannot do.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Ascension Sunday, Year B, Shaftesbury
Mk 16:15-20, with third alternative second reading: Eph 4:1-13 (shorter version)
If one of you decided that my sermons were getting too long and decided to poison me, then I would probably die. Similarly, if a snake bit me I would probably die. In addition, I have never yet knowingly healed someone or cast out a devil.
And yet, all these are things that, in our Gospel text, Jesus said would be “associated with believers”. And I want to make two points about that.
First, though Jesus did not say that ALL believers would do these things, these things have indeed been associated with believers. For example:
Being bitten by snakes: The most famous example is in Acts 28:3-6 which tells how St Paul was bitten by a viper and yet unharmed, it tells how the people gathered around waiting to see him drop down dead, and were amazed.
Drinking poison: there are numerous account of this. The great monk St Benedict, and St John the Apostle, St Julian, St Hermias, St Photini and her companions. England’s protector St George was twice poisoned by a pagan sorcerer who was so amazed at his survival that he converted to Christianity.
Healing the sick: this, is a phenomenon so common down the history of the Church that describing incidents could literally take all day –many recent one in Lourdes are well documented.
And, casting out devils: I’m not an exorcist myself, this is a task that a bishop only entrusted to one priest per diocese. But I have known those who have done such exorcisms, who have described the power of the occult, and the sign of possession. But they have described even more the power of Christ, and who the devils flees before Him.
Second, these signs are only a PART of what Christ gives to help spread the Gospel –to convince they need to be seen as part of something else.
We often think today that we Modern people are the first ones to ever be sceptical, the first to ever question whether such miracles really happened or happen –but this is a very foolish and arrogant attitude. People have always questioned.
People have always witnessed that SOMETIMES normal people get bitten by a snake and survive.
These signs, these miracles by saints, are only deemed REALLY significant because there was SOMETHING ELSE about their lives that suggested that there was something else going on: their manner of life seemed different, the message of Christ they taught was different, and so these signs fit into a context –so that people might think “something new is at work here”. So, St George’s poisoner was not converted to worship George but rather to worship the Christ whom St George lived by.
So, Jesus said, these “signs will be associated with believers”, he didn’t say these signs alone will ‘prove’ believers –they were and even today sometimes still are, part of a package.
I might go further, and say that the ‘signs’ that prove Christ are the saints of His that loved the poor, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta; that cared for the sick and set up hospitals for them, like countless Christian saints down the ages. Of course, many of us have also proved that a Christian can be a hypocrite and not live a life radically different to his fellow non-Christian, but nonetheless the greatest miracle of the Church should be charity, a love that means “they will be one, that the world may believe”(Jn 17:21) as Jesus said.
So, to conclude where I began: I would die if you poisoned me, I would convert no-one on the basis of my ability to survive poisoning.
The challenge for each of us here, is whether our lives might become such that they are recognisably different to the world around us, recognisably witnessing to the power of Christ in us. Living, as our second reading said, “a life worthy of your vocation”(Eph 4:1) so that people would see “the Lord working in them and confirming the word by the signs that accompany it”(Mk 16:10).
If one of you decided that my sermons were getting too long and decided to poison me, then I would probably die. Similarly, if a snake bit me I would probably die. In addition, I have never yet knowingly healed someone or cast out a devil.
And yet, all these are things that, in our Gospel text, Jesus said would be “associated with believers”. And I want to make two points about that.
First, though Jesus did not say that ALL believers would do these things, these things have indeed been associated with believers. For example:
Being bitten by snakes: The most famous example is in Acts 28:3-6 which tells how St Paul was bitten by a viper and yet unharmed, it tells how the people gathered around waiting to see him drop down dead, and were amazed.
Drinking poison: there are numerous account of this. The great monk St Benedict, and St John the Apostle, St Julian, St Hermias, St Photini and her companions. England’s protector St George was twice poisoned by a pagan sorcerer who was so amazed at his survival that he converted to Christianity.
Healing the sick: this, is a phenomenon so common down the history of the Church that describing incidents could literally take all day –many recent one in Lourdes are well documented.
And, casting out devils: I’m not an exorcist myself, this is a task that a bishop only entrusted to one priest per diocese. But I have known those who have done such exorcisms, who have described the power of the occult, and the sign of possession. But they have described even more the power of Christ, and who the devils flees before Him.
Second, these signs are only a PART of what Christ gives to help spread the Gospel –to convince they need to be seen as part of something else.
We often think today that we Modern people are the first ones to ever be sceptical, the first to ever question whether such miracles really happened or happen –but this is a very foolish and arrogant attitude. People have always questioned.
People have always witnessed that SOMETIMES normal people get bitten by a snake and survive.
These signs, these miracles by saints, are only deemed REALLY significant because there was SOMETHING ELSE about their lives that suggested that there was something else going on: their manner of life seemed different, the message of Christ they taught was different, and so these signs fit into a context –so that people might think “something new is at work here”. So, St George’s poisoner was not converted to worship George but rather to worship the Christ whom St George lived by.
So, Jesus said, these “signs will be associated with believers”, he didn’t say these signs alone will ‘prove’ believers –they were and even today sometimes still are, part of a package.
I might go further, and say that the ‘signs’ that prove Christ are the saints of His that loved the poor, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta; that cared for the sick and set up hospitals for them, like countless Christian saints down the ages. Of course, many of us have also proved that a Christian can be a hypocrite and not live a life radically different to his fellow non-Christian, but nonetheless the greatest miracle of the Church should be charity, a love that means “they will be one, that the world may believe”(Jn 17:21) as Jesus said.
So, to conclude where I began: I would die if you poisoned me, I would convert no-one on the basis of my ability to survive poisoning.
The challenge for each of us here, is whether our lives might become such that they are recognisably different to the world around us, recognisably witnessing to the power of Christ in us. Living, as our second reading said, “a life worthy of your vocation”(Eph 4:1) so that people would see “the Lord working in them and confirming the word by the signs that accompany it”(Mk 16:10).
Sunday, 17 May 2009
6th Sunday of Easter, Year B, Shaftesbury
Jn 15:9-17; 1Jn 4:7-10
As I observed last year, when we say goodbye to someone, especially if we're not going to see them for a while, we usually try and say something important, something that we want the other person will remember while we’re separated from them. Such words can be particularly important when someone is dying.
The words in today's gospel are such farewell words, the words Christ spoke at the Last Supper before he died.
Those words included a farewell request of Jesus, with an added strength, because it is directly connected WITH the death he was about to suffer, the REASON he was saying goodbye. He said,
“Love one another, as I have loved you.
A man can have no greater love, than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends, if you do what I command you.”
Almost every religion in the world has a command to love, to treat our neighbour well. But ONLY Christianity has it rooted in the example of God himself, in dying out of love for us. It is a high standard of love, indeed, there can be no higher one. It’s not just rooted in a piece of ancient wisdom about the best way to get on in life, or seek harmony. It’s not just rooted in a law dictated by a remote godhead.
The command of love we follow is a direct PERSONAL request, from a God who has revealed and given us such love himself, who gave it to us long before we gave any love back to him. It’s a command of love, from a God who IS love itself. Scripture calls God many things, truth, strength, light. But it gives him no name as clear as the one we just heard from St. John’s first letter: “God is love”(1 Jn 4:8).
One of the reasons we keep someone’s dying request is as a memory of the person, as a way of continuing to make them present. Keeping Christ request for us love makes him present by his very nature. God is love, and love is the basis of our sharing in the life of God. As St.John says, “Love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God”(1 Jn 4:7). And this follows from Christ’s promise that, “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love”(Jn 15:10).
(pause)
Love SHOULD come naturally to us. We’re made in the image and likeness of God, and he is love. Humans are made as communal and relational beings -to exist in love with others. But it often doesn’t come naturally to us. We are selfish, we quarrel, we are greedy, we complain and moan and gossip about people.
We fail to love because we sin, and at root because of Original Sin. That’s why, when he gave us this command, Christ also gave us the promise of the strength of his Holy Spirit at the same Supper.
But it’s also why he gave us the SIGN of himself on the Cross to motivate us to love. When we look at Christ on the Cross, we see his love for us. And this must surely awaken a response in us, a response to love as he loved us.
The command to love as he loved is a demanding standard. But it comes with a high reward. The reward not only of having God dwell in us in this life, making his home in us in this life, but ultimately of him taking us home to himself, to the place he went when he died and rose again.
As I observed last year, when we say goodbye to someone, especially if we're not going to see them for a while, we usually try and say something important, something that we want the other person will remember while we’re separated from them. Such words can be particularly important when someone is dying.
The words in today's gospel are such farewell words, the words Christ spoke at the Last Supper before he died.
Those words included a farewell request of Jesus, with an added strength, because it is directly connected WITH the death he was about to suffer, the REASON he was saying goodbye. He said,
“Love one another, as I have loved you.
A man can have no greater love, than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends, if you do what I command you.”
Almost every religion in the world has a command to love, to treat our neighbour well. But ONLY Christianity has it rooted in the example of God himself, in dying out of love for us. It is a high standard of love, indeed, there can be no higher one. It’s not just rooted in a piece of ancient wisdom about the best way to get on in life, or seek harmony. It’s not just rooted in a law dictated by a remote godhead.
The command of love we follow is a direct PERSONAL request, from a God who has revealed and given us such love himself, who gave it to us long before we gave any love back to him. It’s a command of love, from a God who IS love itself. Scripture calls God many things, truth, strength, light. But it gives him no name as clear as the one we just heard from St. John’s first letter: “God is love”(1 Jn 4:8).
One of the reasons we keep someone’s dying request is as a memory of the person, as a way of continuing to make them present. Keeping Christ request for us love makes him present by his very nature. God is love, and love is the basis of our sharing in the life of God. As St.John says, “Love comes from God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God”(1 Jn 4:7). And this follows from Christ’s promise that, “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love”(Jn 15:10).
(pause)
Love SHOULD come naturally to us. We’re made in the image and likeness of God, and he is love. Humans are made as communal and relational beings -to exist in love with others. But it often doesn’t come naturally to us. We are selfish, we quarrel, we are greedy, we complain and moan and gossip about people.
We fail to love because we sin, and at root because of Original Sin. That’s why, when he gave us this command, Christ also gave us the promise of the strength of his Holy Spirit at the same Supper.
But it’s also why he gave us the SIGN of himself on the Cross to motivate us to love. When we look at Christ on the Cross, we see his love for us. And this must surely awaken a response in us, a response to love as he loved us.
The command to love as he loved is a demanding standard. But it comes with a high reward. The reward not only of having God dwell in us in this life, making his home in us in this life, but ultimately of him taking us home to himself, to the place he went when he died and rose again.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Good Shepherd Sunday, 4th Sunday of Easter, Year B, Shaftesbury
Jn 10:11-18
This was going to be a sermon about how there are people out there who behave as if they didn’t need a shepherd,
Then it was going to be a sermon about how there are people here among us who carry on as if they didn’t need a shepherd,
But then I remembered: I too carry on as if I didn’t need a shepherd.
Of course, I believe that I need a shepherd; I teach that I need a shepherd;
But in my daily living I all too often carry on as if I only had myself to rely on, and as if I didn’t really need anyone else’s help anyway. I might complain that I don’t have more help, complain that God didn’t make me more talented than did, but I nonetheless carry on as if I was OK alone.
And then things somehow don’t go quite right, in fact, if I acknowledge it, things go wrong –and they go wrong because I have done wrong: I have behaved as if God was an optional extra in my life rather than the beginning, and end, and middle of it.
Fortunately, every time this happens, God is waiting. Waiting for me, and waiting for you.
As we just heard Him say, “I am the good shepherd, I know my own”.
He knows, not only that I fail to use His shepherding, but He knows exactly HOW I fail, He knows it better than I do.
I say this to illustrate the point that it is not only YOU who need a shepherd, but I do too.
We pray today, on Good Shepherd Sunday, for vocations to the priesthood, but it’s also important to pray for your shepherd, your local priest and priests elsewhere, because otherwise we don’t have much chance of doing good for our flocks.
And I need a shepherd in the same ways that you do, and I have the same means that you do: the means that Christ established in the Church by giving us the 7 Sacraments and giving us priests to minister them to us.
I need Holy Communion –I need Jesus to come to me in His full “physical reality”(Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, n.46). Not just a bit of Jesus, not just His spirit, but He Himself. I need Him, and He comes.
I need confession –The Shepherd who knows I wander off, that I carry on as if I didn’t need Him, He’s waiting to forgive my pride, my impatience, my laziness –because a shepherd often has to goad his flock on! I need His forgiveness, and it comes.
I need shepherding in the others ways too: in being taught and being governed and cared for.
I need the pastoral governance that the Pope and Bishop offer me,
I need the teaching of Christ that can only come to me through the Church –in the Bible and official teaching.
-without these things, I think my life is OK, I think I don’t need a shepherd, but I do.
What we recall today, is not just that we NEED shepherding,
not just that we are sheep, and often errant sheep at that,
What we recall today, is that there is a GOOD Shepherd, THE Good Shepherd.
Who manifested His goodness by establishing shepherds in His Church for us,
Who manifested His goodness by giving us Himself in the Sacraments,
And most of all,
Who manifested His goodness by the fact that “the good shepherd is one who lays down His life for His sheep”.
This was going to be a sermon about how there are people out there who behave as if they didn’t need a shepherd,
Then it was going to be a sermon about how there are people here among us who carry on as if they didn’t need a shepherd,
But then I remembered: I too carry on as if I didn’t need a shepherd.
Of course, I believe that I need a shepherd; I teach that I need a shepherd;
But in my daily living I all too often carry on as if I only had myself to rely on, and as if I didn’t really need anyone else’s help anyway. I might complain that I don’t have more help, complain that God didn’t make me more talented than did, but I nonetheless carry on as if I was OK alone.
And then things somehow don’t go quite right, in fact, if I acknowledge it, things go wrong –and they go wrong because I have done wrong: I have behaved as if God was an optional extra in my life rather than the beginning, and end, and middle of it.
Fortunately, every time this happens, God is waiting. Waiting for me, and waiting for you.
As we just heard Him say, “I am the good shepherd, I know my own”.
He knows, not only that I fail to use His shepherding, but He knows exactly HOW I fail, He knows it better than I do.
I say this to illustrate the point that it is not only YOU who need a shepherd, but I do too.
We pray today, on Good Shepherd Sunday, for vocations to the priesthood, but it’s also important to pray for your shepherd, your local priest and priests elsewhere, because otherwise we don’t have much chance of doing good for our flocks.
And I need a shepherd in the same ways that you do, and I have the same means that you do: the means that Christ established in the Church by giving us the 7 Sacraments and giving us priests to minister them to us.
I need Holy Communion –I need Jesus to come to me in His full “physical reality”(Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, n.46). Not just a bit of Jesus, not just His spirit, but He Himself. I need Him, and He comes.
I need confession –The Shepherd who knows I wander off, that I carry on as if I didn’t need Him, He’s waiting to forgive my pride, my impatience, my laziness –because a shepherd often has to goad his flock on! I need His forgiveness, and it comes.
I need shepherding in the others ways too: in being taught and being governed and cared for.
I need the pastoral governance that the Pope and Bishop offer me,
I need the teaching of Christ that can only come to me through the Church –in the Bible and official teaching.
-without these things, I think my life is OK, I think I don’t need a shepherd, but I do.
What we recall today, is not just that we NEED shepherding,
not just that we are sheep, and often errant sheep at that,
What we recall today, is that there is a GOOD Shepherd, THE Good Shepherd.
Who manifested His goodness by establishing shepherds in His Church for us,
Who manifested His goodness by giving us Himself in the Sacraments,
And most of all,
Who manifested His goodness by the fact that “the good shepherd is one who lays down His life for His sheep”.
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