We celebrate today the great feast of the Assumption of Our Lady. Our Lady is often referred to as "our hope" and I want to point how the truth we see manifested in Our Lady’s Assumption indicates WHY Our Lady should give us hope
-and in each case to understand hope we need to understand is the opposite which is fear.
In Our Lady we see the defining example of how Our Lord deals with humanity, so what we see happen to her indicates how we can expect Our Lord will also treat us.
Now, the most simple truth we see in Our Lady's Assumption is the fact that God rewarded her for her goodness: she was not only conceived "full of grace" but she chose to continue, and each moment of her life, she chose to cooperate with that grace, to continue in grace, to continue free from sin.
And because she never allowed the corruption of sin to touch her soul, it was fitting that corruption should similarly not touch her body in death.
When we acknowledge as Catholics that “at the end of her earthly life" she was assumed "body and soul" up into heaven, we are acknowledging that God rewarded her to her faithfulness to His graces, that God rewarded her for consistently cooperating with the graces He bestowed upon her.
So although it is possible to fear that God will not reward us to our own goodness, for our own faithfulness in the midst of difficulty, for our own persevering in virtuous acts even when it is difficult to be patient, difficult to be loving, difficult to be what God calls us to be, what we see in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, what we see in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, gives us reason for us to have hope that our goodness will also be rewarded.
Particular aspects of this "rewarding" for goodness can also be traced in our three Scripture readings:
Our second reading (1 Cor 15:20-26) refers to the fact that Christ's resurrection from the dead made Him the "first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep" -the first fruits of a vast hoped-for harvest of the virtuous resurrected to eternal life. Our Lady’s Assumption gives her the place as the most VISIBLE one to have followed Christ in this resurrection -as is fitting for the one who most perfectly cooperated with His plan.
Our first reading (Apoc 12:1-6.10) referred to the "great sign” that appeared in heaven, the "woman" crowned with 12 stars. And again, this public displaying of her glory is fitting for her who sinlessly cooperated with His plan.
Lastly, our gospel text (Lk 1:39-56) included Our Lady’s great hymn the “Magnificat” –“my soul glorifies the Lord". And, in particular, she proclaimed the greatness of the Lord for the fact that He had exalted the lowly, He had lifted up her who had lowered herself in service to Him and to others. So, in as much as we fear that our lowliness just leads us to being trampled upon and ignored and taken advantage of by others, the Magnificat of Our Lady, and the Assumption of Our Lady, gives us hope.
I started by saying that Our Lady is stereotypically calls our "hope". On one hand she is our hope because we can turn to her powerful motherly intercession to rescue us in our difficulties. But my primary point to you today, is that she is our hope because in her life and Assumption we see that God is faithful to His goodness and that He rewards those who are faithful to Him. Thus none of us should despair even when being good seems tough: God gave her a grace, she cooperated with it, and she was rewarded. The Lord gives us, too, the graces we need, and if we cooperate with them we too will be rewarded.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Sunday, 9 August 2009
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Jn 6:41-51: "I am the living Bread which has come down from heaven"
I recently heard something I found quite disturbing. A quotation. Something that disturbed me in that it reminded me that I am not what a should be. I heard a quote from a saint talking about what made him happy, and it made me realise that it is rarely what makes me happy. The quote was from St John Vianney, the Cure D’Ars, and it was about how the Eucharist is what gives us happiness. And the quote goes like this:
“Without the Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be intolerable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and happiness”.
At one level, that quote seems impossibly pious. Many of us might hear such a thing and wonder how it could possibly be true. Most of us grasp at happiness in mundane things like food and TV, and so the type of happiness that this saint is speaking of seems impossibly removed from us. So, one of the ways we need to understand such a saying is to see it in the context of that person’s life, to see the type of holiness and the type of happiness that he is speaking of. So let me refer to some elements of his life.
St John Mary Vianney died 150 years ago this year. He lived in France shortly after the bloody French Revolution, at a time when it was frequently dangerous to be a priest. He was assigned to the small village of Ars by his bishop who told him: “There is not much love for God in that place; you will put some there”. And St John Vianney did indeed bring love of God to that place and by his death it was a village transformed from moral laxity and indifference to fervent devotion and love of God.
He brought the love of God to that village, not least, because he knew for himself that there is no other way to happiness. As he said, “Man has a noble task: that of prayer and love. To pray and to love, that is the happiness of man on earth”. We are not like the stones, or the plants, or the beasts: we can pray, this is what we have been made for. Stones, and plants, and animals don’t pray because they can’t pray –its not in their nature. For us, however, to love and to pray are two sides of the same coin, because prayer is an act of love, time spent with the one who loved us and died for us.
When he arrived in his parish his people were indifferent to God and indifferent to him. He started his work with years of days and nights spent in long hours of prayer. When he was asked what he was doing, when he was asked how one prayed, he said, “I look at the good God, and he looks at me”. He said that to be with God was not hard, “prayer makes time pass swiftly”, and it passed swiftly because he was with Someone he loved. He would often be known to walk long hours on lonely journeys through the snow, and yet he said he felt no sorrow, because he spent the time in prayer, lost in prayer “like a fish in water, because [he] was absorbed in God”. Whereas you and I might seek out happiness in food, he would boil a pan of a few potatoes and then live on the same saucepan for ages, even as the potatoes went mouldy, eating nothing else for week and week, year after year.
There is a particular act of prayer that I want to remind you of, however, and that is prayer to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Eucharist, as he is present continually in our tabernacle. As I started by saying, St John Vianney, said that there is no happiness on earth without the Eucharist. And he said this because he knew that it is in the Eucharist that God is among us, it is in the Eucharist that we can come to God and God can come to us. When he said that there is no happiness but in prayer and love, he didn’t say this meaning some prayer to a distant God, or some love to an abstract god we cannot know. Rather, he said this meaning love and prayer for the God we DO know, and who we can love personally, and who we can lovingly pray to personally as he makes Himself present to us. And it is only here that we can find true happiness.
True happiness is NOT shown in those people who possess many things, or those who have many sensual pleasures, or in those who are most successful in the ways that this passing world measures success. Rather, true happiness is shown in the saints, the saints who manifested their true happiness by the fact that they continued to be joyful even eating mouldy potatoes and trudging through the snow -when you or I would be grumbling. True happiness is seen in the saints because they lived the essence of true happiness, love and prayer, and found the Lord where He has made Himself available to be found: “Without the Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be intolerable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and happiness”.
I recently heard something I found quite disturbing. A quotation. Something that disturbed me in that it reminded me that I am not what a should be. I heard a quote from a saint talking about what made him happy, and it made me realise that it is rarely what makes me happy. The quote was from St John Vianney, the Cure D’Ars, and it was about how the Eucharist is what gives us happiness. And the quote goes like this:
“Without the Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be intolerable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and happiness”.
At one level, that quote seems impossibly pious. Many of us might hear such a thing and wonder how it could possibly be true. Most of us grasp at happiness in mundane things like food and TV, and so the type of happiness that this saint is speaking of seems impossibly removed from us. So, one of the ways we need to understand such a saying is to see it in the context of that person’s life, to see the type of holiness and the type of happiness that he is speaking of. So let me refer to some elements of his life.
St John Mary Vianney died 150 years ago this year. He lived in France shortly after the bloody French Revolution, at a time when it was frequently dangerous to be a priest. He was assigned to the small village of Ars by his bishop who told him: “There is not much love for God in that place; you will put some there”. And St John Vianney did indeed bring love of God to that place and by his death it was a village transformed from moral laxity and indifference to fervent devotion and love of God.
He brought the love of God to that village, not least, because he knew for himself that there is no other way to happiness. As he said, “Man has a noble task: that of prayer and love. To pray and to love, that is the happiness of man on earth”. We are not like the stones, or the plants, or the beasts: we can pray, this is what we have been made for. Stones, and plants, and animals don’t pray because they can’t pray –its not in their nature. For us, however, to love and to pray are two sides of the same coin, because prayer is an act of love, time spent with the one who loved us and died for us.
When he arrived in his parish his people were indifferent to God and indifferent to him. He started his work with years of days and nights spent in long hours of prayer. When he was asked what he was doing, when he was asked how one prayed, he said, “I look at the good God, and he looks at me”. He said that to be with God was not hard, “prayer makes time pass swiftly”, and it passed swiftly because he was with Someone he loved. He would often be known to walk long hours on lonely journeys through the snow, and yet he said he felt no sorrow, because he spent the time in prayer, lost in prayer “like a fish in water, because [he] was absorbed in God”. Whereas you and I might seek out happiness in food, he would boil a pan of a few potatoes and then live on the same saucepan for ages, even as the potatoes went mouldy, eating nothing else for week and week, year after year.
There is a particular act of prayer that I want to remind you of, however, and that is prayer to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Eucharist, as he is present continually in our tabernacle. As I started by saying, St John Vianney, said that there is no happiness on earth without the Eucharist. And he said this because he knew that it is in the Eucharist that God is among us, it is in the Eucharist that we can come to God and God can come to us. When he said that there is no happiness but in prayer and love, he didn’t say this meaning some prayer to a distant God, or some love to an abstract god we cannot know. Rather, he said this meaning love and prayer for the God we DO know, and who we can love personally, and who we can lovingly pray to personally as he makes Himself present to us. And it is only here that we can find true happiness.
True happiness is NOT shown in those people who possess many things, or those who have many sensual pleasures, or in those who are most successful in the ways that this passing world measures success. Rather, true happiness is shown in the saints, the saints who manifested their true happiness by the fact that they continued to be joyful even eating mouldy potatoes and trudging through the snow -when you or I would be grumbling. True happiness is seen in the saints because they lived the essence of true happiness, love and prayer, and found the Lord where He has made Himself available to be found: “Without the Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be intolerable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and happiness”.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Ex 16:2-15; Jn 6:24-35
In our Gospel today Jesus refers to hunger, refers to our being hungry for the Bread of Life that is Himself. The hunger he is speaking of in a SPIRITUAL hunger. And its importnat to note that it is easy for us to think that we’re not really hungry in our own spirit, just no doubt as there were many people like the Pharisees in Jesus's own time who thought they didn't need this Bread of Life, thought that they were not hungry in their soul, that they were just fine. But, even if we don’t realise that we are hungry, that our soul is ‘skinny’ and unhealthy, Jesus us tells us that our souls ARE hungering for this Bread of Life.
Being hungry in our soul is not something that is necessarily self-evident. If we compare the body to the soul: When we need to feed the body, REALLY needs to feed the body, this is something that is pretty self-evident just by looking at the state of the body: we look overly thin, pale, pasty. But when we need to feed the soul how can we tell what the state of the soul is? Well, there ARE indicators of the state of our own soul, and our need for Jesus, and the way that our soul is better than being with Jesus: so I want to refer to 3 factors that we need to recall.
First, most drastically, there is the fact of sin. In as much as sin is in us then we are in dire need for being fed by Jesus –even though this means we need to get to confession and be forgiven so that we are fit for receive Jesus as the food of our souls.
Second, more subtly, there is the question of EVERLASTING life. Jesus says, "Do not work the food that CANNOT last, but work the food that endures to eternal life". Now, while the existence of a life after death may not be self-evident to those who lack faith, nonetheless, it is self-evident that food for the body does not last for an everlasting life. It is self-evident that the most material food can be is, as Jesus put it "food that cannot last". So, if there is an everlasting life, and there is, then we who recognise this fact need the type of food that only Jesus promises to give, the food that is Himself, as the Eucharist.
And that brings me to the third and last factor, which is not so much a life that is eternal, but a life that is UNSEEN. As we Catholics say in the creed at every Sunday Mass, we believe in the Creator of things "seen and unseen" -we believe that there are things that are unseen even if they are not unknown. “Holiness” is a thing that can be publicly manifest, but it is not something that can be precisely MEASURED. Similarly, the life of grace, the strength that comes from the sacraments, the ability to fight sin and grow in virtue: these are things that relate to our whole life, including our visible life, even are they an effect that cannot be measured.
To come back to the question of us being hungry in our soul even when we do not realise it, to being hungry for the Eucharist.
The vast majority of people recognise that there is more to us than just the body, and there is something that endures beyond death. The issue Jesus raises in these gospel passages, is the FOOD that relates to this life -if there is such a life, and Jesus assures us that there is, then it is only reasonable to acknowledge that this life within us needs feeding.
Jesus is the one who not only tells us that we are hungry, not only tells us that we are ‘skinny’ without Him, but also tells us how we can be fed, namely, by Him, in the Eucharist.
In our Gospel today Jesus refers to hunger, refers to our being hungry for the Bread of Life that is Himself. The hunger he is speaking of in a SPIRITUAL hunger. And its importnat to note that it is easy for us to think that we’re not really hungry in our own spirit, just no doubt as there were many people like the Pharisees in Jesus's own time who thought they didn't need this Bread of Life, thought that they were not hungry in their soul, that they were just fine. But, even if we don’t realise that we are hungry, that our soul is ‘skinny’ and unhealthy, Jesus us tells us that our souls ARE hungering for this Bread of Life.
Being hungry in our soul is not something that is necessarily self-evident. If we compare the body to the soul: When we need to feed the body, REALLY needs to feed the body, this is something that is pretty self-evident just by looking at the state of the body: we look overly thin, pale, pasty. But when we need to feed the soul how can we tell what the state of the soul is? Well, there ARE indicators of the state of our own soul, and our need for Jesus, and the way that our soul is better than being with Jesus: so I want to refer to 3 factors that we need to recall.
First, most drastically, there is the fact of sin. In as much as sin is in us then we are in dire need for being fed by Jesus –even though this means we need to get to confession and be forgiven so that we are fit for receive Jesus as the food of our souls.
Second, more subtly, there is the question of EVERLASTING life. Jesus says, "Do not work the food that CANNOT last, but work the food that endures to eternal life". Now, while the existence of a life after death may not be self-evident to those who lack faith, nonetheless, it is self-evident that food for the body does not last for an everlasting life. It is self-evident that the most material food can be is, as Jesus put it "food that cannot last". So, if there is an everlasting life, and there is, then we who recognise this fact need the type of food that only Jesus promises to give, the food that is Himself, as the Eucharist.
And that brings me to the third and last factor, which is not so much a life that is eternal, but a life that is UNSEEN. As we Catholics say in the creed at every Sunday Mass, we believe in the Creator of things "seen and unseen" -we believe that there are things that are unseen even if they are not unknown. “Holiness” is a thing that can be publicly manifest, but it is not something that can be precisely MEASURED. Similarly, the life of grace, the strength that comes from the sacraments, the ability to fight sin and grow in virtue: these are things that relate to our whole life, including our visible life, even are they an effect that cannot be measured.
To come back to the question of us being hungry in our soul even when we do not realise it, to being hungry for the Eucharist.
The vast majority of people recognise that there is more to us than just the body, and there is something that endures beyond death. The issue Jesus raises in these gospel passages, is the FOOD that relates to this life -if there is such a life, and Jesus assures us that there is, then it is only reasonable to acknowledge that this life within us needs feeding.
Jesus is the one who not only tells us that we are hungry, not only tells us that we are ‘skinny’ without Him, but also tells us how we can be fed, namely, by Him, in the Eucharist.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
Mk 6:7-13
We just heard a Gospel text telling us to do what seems to be impossible: carry nothing for the journey, no food, no money, no spare clothing. So, I want to say a few words about how the Church has interpreted this text.
This Saturday was the feast of St Benedict, and this week I've been on a pilgrimage to one of the great Benedictine monasteries in France, Fontgombault. It’s an abbey where the monks live poverty, chastity, and obedience, VERY strictly. They have no personal possessions, and they have no range of spare clothing to choose from, just the black habit or the black habit! There is something very inspiring about seeing people who, even in the midst of a very modern materialistic Western lifestyle, can put all that aside to live simply with Christ and for Christ. And I mention this to indicate that there are people today who do live the Gospel poverty, the Evangelical poverty, in a literal sense, even today.
But, back to our gospel text, how has the Church interpreted this text down the centuries? Basically, there is a threefold interpretation. First, this text had a meaning and relevance that was applicable directly to the people it was addressing, and thus it was of a temporary meaning: a literal interpretation that held for the 12 apostles to whom was addressed.
Second, this text refers to a way of life that is not temporary in the church but permanent in the Church, in every era of its existence, but a way of life, a vocation, that is specific to some of us and not to others. A way of life that is addressed to those who live out the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in a literal fashion: those we call Religious brothers and sisters, and those Benedictine monks I visited one of many examples. The Gospel texts make a number of references to these three Counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In what we just heard, Jesus said, carry no bread, no coins, no spare tunic, and they live holy poverty possessing nothing of themselves, holding everything in a common possession of the community. Jesus "summoned" the 12, and those monks live this out in holy obedience, surrendering their will at all times to the superior of the community. And Jesus sent the 12 “out in pairs", leaving family and friends behind, and those monks live holy chastity, with no spouse or family, loving God with what Scripture calls "an undivided heart”(1 Cor 7:32ff).
In each of these three vows, vows of what are called the three Gospel or Evangelical Counsels, a Religious "consecrates" a different aspect of his self directly to God, so that with the three together his whole self ease "consecrated" to God. Consecrated "directly" and not through the medium of something else. Each of these 3 Counsels is a remedy to one of the three “causes” of sin, what Scripture calls “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life"(1 Jn 2:16). And in choosing to love the Lord with an undivided heart, embracing these vows, they love God DIRECTLY, and they do so living the Gospel Counsels “in fact”, literally. [c.f.Basil Cole OP & Paul Conner O.P., Christian Totality: Theology of the Consecrated Life (New York, Alba House, 1997), p.27.] And they do so in what the Church thus calls the "higher state of life".
Now, I speak of the beauty and superiority of the Consecrated life as someone who does not himself live it, as you yourselves gathered here to also not live it. None of us here have taken the three vows. However, this way of life DOES have a relevant to us, and that brings me to the third and final interpretation of this gospel text, and other similar texts that speak of poverty so directly: ALL Christians are called to live the three Evangelical Counsels "in spirit", even though we are not all called to live them "in fact" in a consecrated manner. “Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple” (Catechism, 915) What this means is that each of us must manifest in our own lives with the different "Counsels” that we see a monk or nun, it's a monk or nun is living well! As the nun lives chastity by having no spouse but Christ, cleaving to Him with "an undivided heart", ALL Christians are called to love of Christ more we love anything or anyone in this world -and those we love in this world, in Christ tells us that we MUST love, if our love for them is to be pure and selfless, then that love must have its source in the Christ whom we love first. Similarly, obedience, we are all called to obey the Lord with a ready spirit in all His commands and decrees. And finally, poverty: this is the one that perhaps seems most impossible to us in our materialistic age. However, the literal poverty of a monk or nun is a sign to us of how ALL of us are called to value God and the things of God more than the possessions of this world. We are called to live in this world as people who belong to another world, as people who are "citizens of heaven"(Phil 3:20). Those of us who live IN the world MUST have possessions, but we must live as if our possessions do not possess us.
In summary, this apparently impossible gospel text, would be impossible if all Christians were called to live it literally at all times. However, it is a practical text in that it had, first, a literal interpretation for the 12 people to whom it was first addressed. Second, it has a literal interpretation of those specific people in every age of the Church who are called to live it “in fact”. And third, ALL Christians are called to live this poverty, chastity, and obedience, “in spirit”.
We just heard a Gospel text telling us to do what seems to be impossible: carry nothing for the journey, no food, no money, no spare clothing. So, I want to say a few words about how the Church has interpreted this text.
This Saturday was the feast of St Benedict, and this week I've been on a pilgrimage to one of the great Benedictine monasteries in France, Fontgombault. It’s an abbey where the monks live poverty, chastity, and obedience, VERY strictly. They have no personal possessions, and they have no range of spare clothing to choose from, just the black habit or the black habit! There is something very inspiring about seeing people who, even in the midst of a very modern materialistic Western lifestyle, can put all that aside to live simply with Christ and for Christ. And I mention this to indicate that there are people today who do live the Gospel poverty, the Evangelical poverty, in a literal sense, even today.
But, back to our gospel text, how has the Church interpreted this text down the centuries? Basically, there is a threefold interpretation. First, this text had a meaning and relevance that was applicable directly to the people it was addressing, and thus it was of a temporary meaning: a literal interpretation that held for the 12 apostles to whom was addressed.
Second, this text refers to a way of life that is not temporary in the church but permanent in the Church, in every era of its existence, but a way of life, a vocation, that is specific to some of us and not to others. A way of life that is addressed to those who live out the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in a literal fashion: those we call Religious brothers and sisters, and those Benedictine monks I visited one of many examples. The Gospel texts make a number of references to these three Counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In what we just heard, Jesus said, carry no bread, no coins, no spare tunic, and they live holy poverty possessing nothing of themselves, holding everything in a common possession of the community. Jesus "summoned" the 12, and those monks live this out in holy obedience, surrendering their will at all times to the superior of the community. And Jesus sent the 12 “out in pairs", leaving family and friends behind, and those monks live holy chastity, with no spouse or family, loving God with what Scripture calls "an undivided heart”(1 Cor 7:32ff).
In each of these three vows, vows of what are called the three Gospel or Evangelical Counsels, a Religious "consecrates" a different aspect of his self directly to God, so that with the three together his whole self ease "consecrated" to God. Consecrated "directly" and not through the medium of something else. Each of these 3 Counsels is a remedy to one of the three “causes” of sin, what Scripture calls “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life"(1 Jn 2:16). And in choosing to love the Lord with an undivided heart, embracing these vows, they love God DIRECTLY, and they do so living the Gospel Counsels “in fact”, literally. [c.f.Basil Cole OP & Paul Conner O.P., Christian Totality: Theology of the Consecrated Life (New York, Alba House, 1997), p.27.] And they do so in what the Church thus calls the "higher state of life".
Now, I speak of the beauty and superiority of the Consecrated life as someone who does not himself live it, as you yourselves gathered here to also not live it. None of us here have taken the three vows. However, this way of life DOES have a relevant to us, and that brings me to the third and final interpretation of this gospel text, and other similar texts that speak of poverty so directly: ALL Christians are called to live the three Evangelical Counsels "in spirit", even though we are not all called to live them "in fact" in a consecrated manner. “Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple” (Catechism, 915) What this means is that each of us must manifest in our own lives with the different "Counsels” that we see a monk or nun, it's a monk or nun is living well! As the nun lives chastity by having no spouse but Christ, cleaving to Him with "an undivided heart", ALL Christians are called to love of Christ more we love anything or anyone in this world -and those we love in this world, in Christ tells us that we MUST love, if our love for them is to be pure and selfless, then that love must have its source in the Christ whom we love first. Similarly, obedience, we are all called to obey the Lord with a ready spirit in all His commands and decrees. And finally, poverty: this is the one that perhaps seems most impossible to us in our materialistic age. However, the literal poverty of a monk or nun is a sign to us of how ALL of us are called to value God and the things of God more than the possessions of this world. We are called to live in this world as people who belong to another world, as people who are "citizens of heaven"(Phil 3:20). Those of us who live IN the world MUST have possessions, but we must live as if our possessions do not possess us.
In summary, this apparently impossible gospel text, would be impossible if all Christians were called to live it literally at all times. However, it is a practical text in that it had, first, a literal interpretation for the 12 people to whom it was first addressed. Second, it has a literal interpretation of those specific people in every age of the Church who are called to live it “in fact”. And third, ALL Christians are called to live this poverty, chastity, and obedience, “in spirit”.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Feast of St Peter and St Paul, Shaftesbury
Mt 16:13-19
I want to say a few words about why Catholics think we have all the answers, because today is the feast day of St Peter and St Paul, the two “Roman” saints associated with the claims of the Roman Church.
St Peter is the man that Catholics hail as the first “Pope”, the first Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ on Earth. We hail him as the “Vicar of Christ” because he is the one that Jesus called the “Rock”, renaming him from “Simon” (Hebrew) to “Cephas” (in Aramaic), or “Peter” (in Latin). I could give an exegesis on the word-play in “rock”, but, the papal or ‘Petrine’ role it establishes can probably be more easily seen in some other things: For example, Did you know that the name that is mentioned more than any other name in the Gospels (apart of that of Jesus Himself) is the name of Peter? -indicating his leading role. Did you know that though 16th Century protestants denied the Pope’s claim that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St Peter this claim wasn’t denied by any of the ancient Church Fathers? This is significant, because if the papacy was a thing ‘invited’ by the popes then we would expect some ancient historical figure to have said, “No other Bishop of Rome claimed to the successor of St Peter”. And this is because all the ancient sources recognised that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St Peter, and carries the authority of St Peter -Rome being the place where St Peter spent the end of his life.
But, even if the Pope is the successor of St Peter, why do popes claim to teach with authority? The answer to this question is one that connects us back to the Gospel text of today, and connects us back to the importance of the person of Christ Himself.
Many people in the world today say that there is no “truth” and that there is no single “meaning of life”. They say that the truth is different for every person, that each one has to make up his own meaning to his own life. How this can be reconciled with the fact that people come up with radically opposed ‘truth’ claims, and people come up with meanings and aims that threaten and oppose each other –how this can be reconciled is never adequately answered by such people.
And it can only be answered by saying that there IS a TRUTH that we must all acknowledge, there is a meaning to life that we must all discover if we are to be happy. That meaning to life is only to found in the One who created that life, God, and that truth is only to be found in that creator who came among us saying of Himself that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”(Jn 14:6).
It is only in knowing Christ that we truly and fully know where we came from and where we are called to go. As the Second Vatican Council put it, It is Jesus Christ “who fully reveals man to himself” (Gaudium et spes 22, cited in JPII, RH 10.1). He is the one who as God has full truth, and as perfect man shows us what we, as perfected, are called to be. All answers about life are thus to be found in Him, and all other answers are only partial and fragmentary unless they are The Answer found in Him.
And, who was it that first identified the Christ? Who was it that answered the question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
It was the first Pope: “Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah... because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven”(Mt 16: 17).
It was because the first Pope knew Christ that he knew The Answer, that he was one that no doubt the secularists of our day would mockingly say, “Oh, he talks as if he has all the answers”. Well, in knowing THE Answer he did know all the answers.
And in knowing THE Answer, in inheriting the role of making that Answer known to the world, the successor of St Peter, the Pope in Rome, he too knows all the answers. He doesn’t know them of his own power, rather, like St Peter his infallibility is guaranteed from Above not from below, made know by the Father in heaven through the action of the Holy Spirit.
That is why and how the Pope knows all the answers, and it is why and how WE TOO can know all the answers if we listen and accept what the Pope says, trustfully accepting that his authoritative teaching is guaranteed by the Lord, so that “the gates the underworld will never prevail against it” (Mt 16:18).
I want to say a few words about why Catholics think we have all the answers, because today is the feast day of St Peter and St Paul, the two “Roman” saints associated with the claims of the Roman Church.
St Peter is the man that Catholics hail as the first “Pope”, the first Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ on Earth. We hail him as the “Vicar of Christ” because he is the one that Jesus called the “Rock”, renaming him from “Simon” (Hebrew) to “Cephas” (in Aramaic), or “Peter” (in Latin). I could give an exegesis on the word-play in “rock”, but, the papal or ‘Petrine’ role it establishes can probably be more easily seen in some other things: For example, Did you know that the name that is mentioned more than any other name in the Gospels (apart of that of Jesus Himself) is the name of Peter? -indicating his leading role. Did you know that though 16th Century protestants denied the Pope’s claim that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St Peter this claim wasn’t denied by any of the ancient Church Fathers? This is significant, because if the papacy was a thing ‘invited’ by the popes then we would expect some ancient historical figure to have said, “No other Bishop of Rome claimed to the successor of St Peter”. And this is because all the ancient sources recognised that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St Peter, and carries the authority of St Peter -Rome being the place where St Peter spent the end of his life.
But, even if the Pope is the successor of St Peter, why do popes claim to teach with authority? The answer to this question is one that connects us back to the Gospel text of today, and connects us back to the importance of the person of Christ Himself.
Many people in the world today say that there is no “truth” and that there is no single “meaning of life”. They say that the truth is different for every person, that each one has to make up his own meaning to his own life. How this can be reconciled with the fact that people come up with radically opposed ‘truth’ claims, and people come up with meanings and aims that threaten and oppose each other –how this can be reconciled is never adequately answered by such people.
And it can only be answered by saying that there IS a TRUTH that we must all acknowledge, there is a meaning to life that we must all discover if we are to be happy. That meaning to life is only to found in the One who created that life, God, and that truth is only to be found in that creator who came among us saying of Himself that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”(Jn 14:6).
It is only in knowing Christ that we truly and fully know where we came from and where we are called to go. As the Second Vatican Council put it, It is Jesus Christ “who fully reveals man to himself” (Gaudium et spes 22, cited in JPII, RH 10.1). He is the one who as God has full truth, and as perfect man shows us what we, as perfected, are called to be. All answers about life are thus to be found in Him, and all other answers are only partial and fragmentary unless they are The Answer found in Him.
And, who was it that first identified the Christ? Who was it that answered the question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
It was the first Pope: “Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah... because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven”(Mt 16: 17).
It was because the first Pope knew Christ that he knew The Answer, that he was one that no doubt the secularists of our day would mockingly say, “Oh, he talks as if he has all the answers”. Well, in knowing THE Answer he did know all the answers.
And in knowing THE Answer, in inheriting the role of making that Answer known to the world, the successor of St Peter, the Pope in Rome, he too knows all the answers. He doesn’t know them of his own power, rather, like St Peter his infallibility is guaranteed from Above not from below, made know by the Father in heaven through the action of the Holy Spirit.
That is why and how the Pope knows all the answers, and it is why and how WE TOO can know all the answers if we listen and accept what the Pope says, trustfully accepting that his authoritative teaching is guaranteed by the Lord, so that “the gates the underworld will never prevail against it” (Mt 16:18).
Sunday, 21 June 2009
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Shaftesbury
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.
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, 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.
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