Prayer and Lent: 2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A

Mt 17:1-9

Today I want today a word about the importance of prayer, in Lent:

It’s one of the 3 remedies for sin we focus on in Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

In Lent we go with Jesus into the desert, as He went into the desert for 40 days.

We go into Lent as a means to Easter:

Easter manifests the “New Man” having put the “old man” of sin to death.

Lent, therefore is about a transformation -using the three remedies.

There is a risk, however, that we seek this transformation as an act of will power:

I see that I need to change, and to DECIDE to change.

That would make our fasting more like dieting -maybe a good thing, but not really a Christian thing.

The transformation we seek, however, it not about MY willpower,

Rather, it’s about HIM becoming active in me: and that requires PRAYER.

We, today, live is a busy noisy world – a world lacking peace.

A world full of distractions, with mobile phones, TV and so forth.

While many people see the problems this leaves us with, most of us struggle to resolve those problems.

To find peace amidst this noise, it’s not enough to try and remove the CAUSES of NOISE.

We need to look BEYOND to that which gives us PEACE.

We need to LOOK beyond to HIM, a person not a thing, that gives us peace.

Prayer is defined as the ‘raising of the heart and mind to God’ (Catechism 2559, St John Damascene).

To gaze upon Him transforms us,

To gaze upon Him orients our whole being back to our origin: back to our goal.

This isn’t just about stillness, it isn’t just about mindfulness, it isn’t the ABSENCE of something 

-true peace comes from the PRESENCE of the “One Thing Necessary” (as the Lord called Himself, Lk 10:42). 

Prayer is about encountering the Lord, being with the Lord.

And the transformation we seek in Lent depends on it.

Let me, in particular, commend to you coming to the Lord Jesus in the Tabernacle.

It’s a beautiful thing, all through the week, for me to come into the church at random moments and find parishioners in here alone, praying.

Here, in the church, the Lord is before us in the Tabernacle.

Here in the Eucharist, we can be especially close to Him

 -so, building a routine of coming into the church when you’re out doing your shopping or whatever is a precious thing.

Next Friday-Saturday we have our 24 hours of Adoration.

The Lord will be, not just present in the Tabernacle, but Exposed on the altar for us to gaze upon.

There are many special graces available at such a time, so COME!

A final word on prayer in Lent:

It can be hard to carry our cross, our Lenten cross.

If we carry our cross ALONE it can feel miserable and hard.

It IS miserable and hard if we carry it alone -but when it is part of our prayer it becomes something else:

It becomes a moment of UNION with the Lord:

A moment of spiritual JOY, even while it is a physical lack of PLEASURE.

Peter, James and John gazed upon the Lord on the mountaintop.

Peter, James and John had a precious moment of prayer that was given to strengthen them through the horror of the Crucifixion that lay ahead.

Prayer, in Lent, is that vital part of the triple-package that transforms us in this season.

Let us, too, gaze upon the Lord.

Desert not Dessert, 1st Sunday of Lent, Year A

Mt 4:1-11; Gen 2:7-9.3:1-7

I was thinking earlier this week, before Lent began, that it’s going to be a HARD Lent for me this year.

It’s going to be hard because I’ve been COMFORTABLE for a while now, 

and Lent is the opposite of comfortable.

Lent is about us going into the desert,

 to be in union with the Lord who spent 40 days in the desert fasting and praying.

-and when I typed that, my computer changed ‘desert’ into ‘dessert’ 

-even my autocorrect is used to comfort and seeking comfort!

I’ve been reading about the English Reformation martyrs 

of how they were hung drawn and quartered in their execution, 

and even before that were frequently tortured to try and make them renounce the Faith. 

I’ve been reading too, about their lives of self-denial and fasting, that prepared them for this torture.

What of us?

Our comfortable modern living makes even a little self-denial in Lent seem too much;

our comfortable modern living can make even the minor disagreeableness of being Christian seem too much.

We live in an era when we’ve tried to make being Christian comfortable.
But, to use the oft-quoted phrase of Pope Benedict: The world promises you comfort.  But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.

Lent, as our prayers on Ash Wednesday especially reminded us, is a spiritual “battle”, a “campaign”.

And the “weapons” of this season, as our prayers will repeatedly remind us,

those 3-fold weapons are: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

And I want to spend a minute elaborating about how these three are inter-related, and thus why you can’t just do one of them:

you can’t just “do something positive for Lent”-if it’s going to be LENT.

“do something positive for Lent” -was a phrase in vogue when I was a child, when people were trying to make Christianity more and more ‘comfortable’ and easy 

-but Lent should be authentic, not easy.

And this holds even when our ‘fasting’ is the minor forms of ‘giving something up’ for Lent.

Prayer -we need to pray when we fast,

otherwise fasting becomes only self-control, and can leave us grumpy.

Fasting -we need to fast when we pray

this is what gives POWER to our offered prayer -a spiritual sacrifice offered to the Almighty.

Almsgiving -the fruit of fasting and praying is a more generous heart

fasting detaches me from SELF, and thus FREES me to love other more easily, to give more easily.

The liturgy of the Church for Lent thus quotes St Peter Chysologus [Lent Wk 3 Tues Officer Readings] saying, 

“Prayer, almsgiving and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.  Fasting is the soul of prayer, almsgiving is the lifeblood of fasting.  Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated.  If you do only one of them or not all together, you have nothing.” [Lent Wk 3 Tues Officer Readings].

In our readings today we heard how Adam and Eve were tempted and failed.

In contrast, the Lord Jesus came to un-do their failure, to enter the same battle and WIN:

He was tempted in the desert, and won.

We can be united with Him, we can WIN.

But to do so, we need to enter the battle, and to take up the weapons: prayer, fasting, almsgiving.

We’ve got to be bold enough to put aside a false ‘comfortable’ Christianity,

we’ve got to face the desert, not just live for dessert.

For me, at least, I sense this isn’t going to be any easy battle.

But it’s a battle we don’t fight alone -we join Him in His fighting it      
-and He has already won

Gossip: Love your Enemy, 7th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A

Mt 5:38-48

We just heard the Lord Jesus Jesus give us the command to “Love your enemy”.

This is one of the most beautiful, but most difficult, parts of the Lord’s teaching.

Today I want to focus this on the issue of gossip, on what we do with our WORDS, because this is one of the primary examples of how we can fail to love our enemy.

And this, in different ways, is very easy for us to fail to do.

In the Gospel, the Lord spoke about those we “hate”(Mt 5:43).

Most of us tend not think that we “hate” people:

We might dislike people we find disagreeable,

We might feel hurt and wounded by people who have done us harm.

But, we tend not to think that we “hate” them.

However, let’s think about what hatred is.  

The great master and teacher of the moral life, St Thomas Aquinas, says that hatred is when we wish ill to someone.

I want someone to lose his job,

I rejoice when someone’s fence blows down, etc.

Love, in contrast, wishes the opposite:

Even though that person cost me my job, I want him to get a pay raise.

Even though that son-in-law is bad for my daughter, I want him to be healthy.

["To love is to will the good of another"(CCC 1766, citing St. Thomas, ST I-II q26 a4).]

Sometimes, it can be really difficult to love someone, 

It can be really hard to will-the-good for someone.

The model here is God:

God wills good weather to both the evil man and the good man (Mt 5:45),

God wills salvation to both; He wants both to convert and be saved.

And the Lord tells us that we must be perfect as He is perfect (Mt 5:48).

How does this work with speech, with words?

When there is someone we dislike,

When there is someone who is opposing what we want,

It can be hard to speak well of him,

It can be hard to think well of him,

It can be hard to love him.

To speak evil of someone, however, is to do evil to them.

To criticise someone’s character, is to DAMAGE them. [C.f Summa Theologica II-II q73]

St Thomas notes that a person’s most valuable social possession is his reputation, his “good name”.

Without a good reputation we cannot function in society

-no one will engage with us, we are alone and bereft, or at least partially so.

[c.f. Catechism n.2477: "Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury."]

When we damage someone’s reputation, we steal from them something we have no right to take.

Gossip is thus sometimes compared to theft, 

though other saints compare it to murder -wounding another; social death.

The saints teach us that gossip is a mortal sin, a sin so serious that we can go to hell for committing it.

Sometimes people say to me, “I don’t gossip, I just say what it is true”.

BUT,  usually it’s not our place to say something, even if it is true.

AND, frequently, things we think are true are only partially true,

Or we don’t know some other fact that changes the overall assessment.

Why am I saying all this?

In part, because I think there is serious habitual problem with gossip in our parish, something that seems to have been in this parish for many years.  [Postscript: I was told after this sermon that Canon Patrick Chrystal preached one of his last sermons here on the problem of gossip in this parish, a 'much stronger' sermon than this one.  This reinforces the impression that this is a long-standing issue in this parish.]

Two weeks ago I praised our parish (see here), for all the good that has been done and is done here:

the charitable work, the food bank support, the visiting of the housebound etc.

-all that is real and true, but sadly there is a darker side to our parish life.

This week, I need to do the opposite of praising this parish.  I am saying this about gossip, here in this parish, because I think this is a particularly big problem in our parish:

Gossip;

speaking ill of others.

Now, some of you, I know, will hear this and be surprised 

-you never gossip, and the parishioners you mix with don’t.  If so, that great.
-there are some truly beautiful souls in this parish who are either oblivious to this, or, better yet, see it and rise above it.

Others of you, however, will hear this and deny it 

-you’ll say that your words of criticism are needed, you’ll deny that you gossip.  

I have been amazed, in my nearly 4 years in this parish, how blatantly people will speak ill of others 

-in front of the priest!

Not one occasion, but many occasions, by many people, continuing over 4 years.

So, Gertrude will say, “The problem with George is that…”

And George will say, “The problem with Peggy is that…”

And, when I, as parish priest, have gently tried to correct the lack of charity in someone’s speech, my words have been either brushed aside or not even understood

-the gossip and criticism and wishing-evil-to-others are so HABITUAL that the criticism isn’t even understood.

So, what I am asking today, is that we all examine ourselves carefully on this point:

Does what I am saying DO GOOD for the person I am speaking ABOUT?

Do I really have a right to say such a thing?

AND, because it always takes two people for gossip to happen:

Have I LISTENED to gossip?  

Have I interrupted and told someone that they shouldn’t be criticising others?

God causes sunshine to pour down on the evil man as well as the good,

Who am I to DO evil to someone that God does good to?

Who am I to SPEAK evil of someone that God does good to?

Who am I to tolerate it when someone else speaks evil of another?

Re-Consecration of England as our Lady's Dowry: 'Go deeper'

Mt 5:17-37

Today I want to speak about one particular method to, in those words of the Lord, make your virtue ‘go deeper’.

That method is the national ‘consecration’ that our English Bishops are urging us all to prepare for, about a month from now (see here and here and here).

Many of us can realise that we need to “go deeper” with the Lord, but not be sure where to begin.

Part of the answer is to realise that we have to “go deeper” with a power that is beyond ourselves, and the consecration our bishops are calling us to roots us in our BAPTISMAL power, our beginnings.

To consecrate something means to SET IT ASIDE for something.

In baptism, every Christian is set aside for God.

In baptism, every soul says “yes” to God.

But this “yes” is something we need to keep renewing.

Especially for those of us who were baptised as infants, this is something we need to renew personally, and repeatedly.

Who can best help us say “yes” to the Lord?

Surely, the one who most perfectly said yes to Him herself:

The Blessed Virgin Mary, who said “yes” in response to the request made of her via the angel, 

who agreed to be the Mother of God.

A “Marian Consecration” is a special way of uniting ourselves to her perfect “yes”,

a special way of “going deeper” in our following of the Lord.

On the 25^th of March this year all our bishops are uniting together, and asking us to unite with them,

in consecrating our nation, England, back to Our Lady.

England was once so devoted to our heavenly mother that it was known as “Our Lady’s Dowry”, 

meaning, that is was that part of Christendom especially put aside for HER.

And it meant that she led England especially close to her Son.

The focus of this, physically, is at the shrine in Walsingham.

As many of you know, Walsingham has a life-size replica of the Holy House of Nazareth 

-the house where Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived,

-the house where Our Lady made her perfect “yes” to the Angel.

And our English bishops are uniting themselves through this shrine that once was the focal point of England being close to her, and her being close to England.

-OUR homes can be like THAT home: places to say “YES” to God.

If you want to”go deeper” in your “yes”,

then you can unite yourself to this on two ways:

First, most minimally, our parish will be praying together on the Sunday our bishops will be re-consecrating our nation -so choose now to unite yourself to that.

Second, there are over a hundred copies of a booklet in the porch for you to make a special short daily prayer, every day between February 21^st and March 25^th, to make the special month consecration.  I strongly URGE you to join in this.

It’s rare for our bishops to all come together like this.  

It will be a moment of great grace.  And you can be a part of it.

To sum that up:

We can “go deeper” in renewing our baptismal consecration

by re-consecrating ourselves through Our Lady, a “Marian Consecration”.

Let’s turn to her, who once said “yes” to the Angel, that we might say a more perfect “yes” ourselves.

The Church does Good in the World, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Mt 5:13-16; Isa 58:7-10

Today I want to reflect on that phrase of the Lord: being “the salt of the earth” and “light to the world”.

I want, to make 2 points:

First that, as a Catholic, you are a part of an organisation that is a powerful force for good in the world, an organisation that does SO MUCH good that it merits being called the “light of the world”.

Second, I want to make the point that reminding ourselves of this fact can help motivate us to do more in that regard ourselves.

Now, as we all know, serious scandals have beset the Church in recent years.  

Scandals of horrendous evil-doing.

One of the risks with this is that we get DISHEARTENED and stop doing good ourselves.

We stop doing to Mass;

we stop giving to charity;

we stop praying.

However, stopping going to Mass because there are sinners at Mass is like stopping going to the gym because there are fat people there 

-in fact, the fat people are at the gym because they know they need to do something about it;

-and, sinners are at Mass because they know that this the place to stop them being even more sinful.

The FULLER picture of the Church,

the more AUTHENTIC picture of the Church, is not seen in her scandals, but in her good deeds.

Those of you with the internet, who can look at this sermon text online, can follows some links about this.

Historically, we might note that things like hospitals and health care for the weak we ONLY have because of Christianity:

The ancient world, the Romans & the Greeks, left the weak and poor to die, left them as failures.

the ancient Romans, in fact, were puzzled by the way that Christians would give to the poor 

Even today there are many parts of the world where this pagan worldview remains.

It was Christians who rescued discarded babies in the ancient world 

see here 

and here 

It was Christians who founded the first hospitals and care homes for the sick and the destitute, see here 

Today, the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organisation in the world.

see here

and here

Every day the Catholic Church feeds, clothes, shelters and educates more people than any other organisation in the world,

see here

You can see a list of what the Church does in Africa alone:

see here

and watch youtube here

Feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, educating the poor.  

And you, and your own parish, are a part of this.

Financially, as you can see on the parish website, we recently gave to St Timothy’s project in South Africa, we funded 2000 ‘buckets of love’ -food for the needy at Christmas.

see here

Our parish gives vast amount to our local food banks.
And at a personal level, one-on-one locally, our SVP group visits the housebound 

see here

We heard in today’s Gospel text the Lord Jesus tell us we are called to be "the light of the world"(Mt 5:14).  

Often the work the Church does is not showy, is not really seen, 

it’s more like the other image we heard the Lord use: "the salt of the earth"(Mt 5:13).  

Salt is not something you SEE in food, 

but it is something that affects the whole food item it is within.  

Salt is a small thing, a colourless thing, but we notice its presence.  Colourless but not flavourless. 

To return to where I began, 

as a Catholic, you are a part of an organisation that is a powerful force for good in the world, an organisation that does SO MUCH good that it merits Christ calling it the “light of the world” and “the salt of the earth”;

reminding ourselves of this fact can help motivate us to do more in that regard ourselves.

The Bible as Guide: Word of God Sunday, 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Mt 4:12-23; Isa 8:23-9:3
Over Christmas, I did a lot of driving.
As usual, I used ‘Google Maps’ on my phone to guide me.
When I left my parents, Google Maps immediately told me there was an accident on the M5 near Gloucester with a 45-minute traffic delay due to congestion.
Then, after about a half-hour, it told me that the traffic had cleared and my predicted arrival time was now reduced
-great!
When I got to Gloucester, however, I discovered that the M5 was not delayed -it was closed!
Google Maps had detected the lack of traffic on the motorway, but hadn’t realised the motorway was only clear because it was closed! It had wrongly concluded that all was well!
And Google Maps offered me no alternative route.
Google Maps failed me.
Fortunately, however, a have another app, Waze which took me on backroads and got me there.

The point is this:
What do we rely on to get to our destination?
Do we rely on the right thing? And how reliable is it?

The most important destination we should be seeking is eternal life.
Death is the roadblock that lies in our way.
But there is ‘an app for that’: the Bible.

The risk, if we don’t know the Bible,
and if we don’t know the teaching of the Church that interprets and explains the Bible,
The risk is this:
We end up following our own imaginary God
with our own imaginary rules,
And it all SEEMS clear, until we get to that ‘roadblock’ and find the way ahead closed.

Our first reading and gospel speak to us today of the people who USED to walk in darkness, but then, saw a great light (Mt 4:12-23; Isa 8:23-9:3).
That light was God revelation:
His revelation manifested IN and AS His Son -the one who declared Himself to be “the light of the world”(Jn 8:12),
His revelation entrusted by Christ to His Church -to be “the pillar of truth” (1 Tim 3:15) to explain His sacred Word down the ages,
The Bible says that the Word of God is “a light to my path”(Ps 118:105)”
-even before cars, and before sat navs, people got lost, people needed “a light for their paths.
The Bible, God’s holy Word, is the light He has given us.

His holy Word guides us in many ways.
It teaches us about life, how to live:
It shows us EXAMPLES of holy living:
The faith and trust of Abraham (Gen 15:5; Rom 4:3)
The faithfulness and friendship of David and Jonathan (1 Sam 18:1-5),
The patience of Job (Job 1:22; James 5:11),
And much more.

It gives us INSTRUCTIONS:
To put other people before ourselves (Phil 2:4),
To not be proud and haughty and full of ourselves (Prov 16:18),
To not look at others lustfully (Mt 5:28),
and not to live by the pleasures of the belly (Phil 3:19).

Pivotally, it tells us about GOD Himself.
It tells us of His faithfulness and generosity to the people His chose and called,
It tells us of His desire to expand that Chosen People to even include the gentile nations like us,
It tells us of His self-sacrificial love that led Him to the cross,
It tells us how He works to the good in all things (Rom 8:28), even through His cross, even though our crosses.

And, maybe most basically, it tells us of the destination: Heaven.
We all know problems in this world,
The Bible tells us of place that makes all this pales in comparison
A place where every tear will be wiped away (Rev 21:4).

To get there, we need to follow the right ‘app’,
The app that is infallible,
His holy word: written in the Bible, explained and taught by His church.

Pope Francis has established today as ‘Word of God’ Sunday, to focus on the Bible.
Our English and Welsh Bishops have established this whole year as a 'Year of the Word'.

In the newsletter I have made three simple suggestion to you for this day and this ‘Year of God’:
(1) Resolve, now, to do a daily reading plan in Lent -we’ll give you leaflets for that when Lent comes;
(2) Plan, now, to attend the Bible School weekend we’ll run in March -the dates are in the newsletter;
(3) Decide, today, which of the 3 study days on the Bible you’ll attend this year.

Google Maps failed me. It’s not inerrant.
The Bible is about a much more important destination.
and it offers a much surer way.

The Lamb of God, 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Jn 1:29-34

Last week our Gospel text, and my sermon, focussed on WHO the Lord Jesus is and was: the SON.

We just heard, in today’s gospel text, this question of His identity get a different answer, not an answer rooted in His identity (Son), but an answer rooted in His ROLE (what He came to do):

We heard St John the Baptist point to the Lord Jesus and declare He was the “chosen one” of God (Jn 1:34).

But, ‘Chosen’ for what?  St John the Baptist’s immediate answer, to be:

“The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”(Jn 1:29).

This answer strikes at the core of His role, but, it’s a role much neglected in our contemporary society.

The Lord Jesus has come to “take away sin”.

When we look through human history, in all sorts of ancient writings and ancient archaeology of temples (pagan as well as Jewish) there is a constant striving by humans to offer sacrifices to take away sins -to whatever they imagine the god or gods to be:

Animal sacrifices; crop sacrifices; even human sacrifices.

All of this desire to make sacrifices was rooted in an awareness that we do in fact SIN, 

and we need to offer up something to take this sin away.

Any yet, What can we offer that would be worthy of a god?  Let alone the One eternal true God?

Only the one “chosen” by God could be worthy of God.

Only the one sent, the one who is God Himself, can be worthy of God.

Thus Jesus, the eternal SON of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God

-only He can be a worthy sacrifice to take away our sin.

And it should utterly amaze us that God should do this!

Modern society, however, typically denies that we have a sin problem.

Popes since the middle of the twentieth century have spoken about “the loss of the sense of sin” in modern society (for example, click):

We forget that there is a personal God, 

and thus we forget that our behaviour can be a personal offence against Him.

Yet, it’s His world, we are His creatures, and when our behaviour disobeys His commands it offends Him -this is what we call “sin”.

And we need it taken away, we need it forgiven -forgiven by a power beyond ourselves.

“The Lamb of God” is the sacrifice that can take away our sin.

Let me take that in a different direction:

To whom do we come in the Mass?

Into WHOM is the bread and wine converted?

Who, when the priest holds up the consecrated host before the time of Communion, WHO does the priest identify Him as?

“Behold, the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world” 

-the priest quotes St John the Baptist.

In a world that thinks no one sins, in a world that thinks we are all already worthy, the liturgy reminds us of the opposite, as we respond,

“Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof” (c.f. the words of the centurion Mt 8:8).

We are reminded that we need to strive to make ourselves worthy, in the same way that St John the Baptist called the people to do so long ago:

Repent, he told them -so we must repent, continually;

Confess your sins -as they did to him in the river Jordan, so we must do in sacramental confession;

Thus frequent confession is necessary for frequent communion

Otherwise, as St. Paul says, we eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves (1 Cor 11:28).  

Following this teaching of Scripture, the new Catechism(1457) and the Law of the Church (Canon 916) remind us, that if it is a serious sin in question:  we must repent and go to confession before we receive Holy Communion.

Because we cannot acknowledge Him to be the Lamb who takes our sins, if we do not also desire to have our sins taken away.

To receive him who takes away our sins, we must prepare.

And IF we prepare, then it is a blessed thing we can enter into 

-we a share the eternal banquet of heaven even while we live on earth.

“Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb” 

-this being an image from the book of Revelation’s description of heaven (Rev 19:6).

To conclude:

Last week, I spoke of how the core of the Lord Jesus’s IDENTITY was that He is “SON”,

and that we are called to share in that by adoption -to be ‘sons in the Son’.

This week, our liturgy tells us that the core of the Lord Jesus’s ROLE is the “LAMB” who “takes away our sin”

-let’s acknowledge our need to have our sin taken away,

let’s approach Him humbly, in repentance, and confession,

and rejoice to have Him take away our sin.