May 29, 2013

image

HOMILY for Wednesday 8th Week per annum (I)

Sir 36:1. 4-5. 10-17; Ps 78; Mark 10:32-45

James and John do not know what they’re asking for because, of course, the Lord’s glory is not manifest on a golden throne or even in heavenly splendour, as the apostles might be thinking, but, rather, in what he’s just described to them: his Passion (cf Jn 12:23). As such, the apostles are unknowingly asking to be seated on either side of Christ when he reigns from the Cross. But those places, as we know, have already been granted to the two thieves. Hence Jesus says: “To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared” (Mk 10:40).

Instead, what Jesus grants to his apostles, and indeed, to each of us, is another way of sharing in his Passion: we are baptized into Christ’s death, and we drink the Eucharistic chalice of his blood. Just as Christ asked his apostles if they are “able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mk 10:38), so, too Christ asks us this. And each time we enter the church, and make the sign of the Cross with the holy water, and say “Amen” before receiving Holy Communion, we are saying “Yes” to Christ’s invitation to share in his glorious Passion.

This sacramental sharing in Christ’s Passion, which leads us to final glory, when our bodies are raised with Christ to reign with him in heaven, is God’s great act of mercy towards us. For in the First Reading, God’s people ask him for mercy (cf Sir 36:1). Hence, God, in response, spares us the bloody anguish of the Cross, and institutes a sacramental means by which we too can, like the good thief, stand on either side of Christ in his glory. For this is what we do when we approach the Altar of the Eucharist, this most sacred banquet in which, as St Thomas Aquinas put it, “the memory of Christ’s Passion is renewed”.

 

7:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txm6u4HG
(View comments) 
Filed under: Eucharist glory Cross Passion discipleship apostles sacraments 
May 14, 2013

HOMILY for the Feast of St Matthias

Acts 1:15-17,20-26; Ps 112; John 15:9-17

preached during a Mass with the Confirmation & First Communion of a student

 

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit” (Jn 15:16). For the Lord chose us even before we were born, he called us into being, and then, in our baptism and confirmation he appointed us to go and bear fruit. He called us, just as St Matthias was, to be a witness to the whole world of the resurrection; to be his friend, able to delight in his company and have the joy of eternal life. We get a foretaste of these heavenly delights in the Eucharist, and through the sacraments of the Church, we encounter the living Lord Jesus. 

St Matthias was not one of the Twelve to begin with, but he was one of Christ’s disciples who followed him, who knew and saw Jesus; he walked in the company of Christ and his apostles. So, in a similar way, through our communion with the holy Catholic Church, in which the preaching and teaching of the Twelve apostles continues in an unbroken Tradition to this day, we also become one of Christ’s disciples. We follow Jesus, and we come to know and see him with the eyes of faith, in the faith of the apostles. 

For it is within the community of the Church, as sharers in the living memory of the Church, that we experience and see the Lord Jesus, that we abide in his love (cf Jn 15:9). As we read the Church’s Scriptures, listen to her teaching and reflection of the Word of God, and are nourished by her sacramental and liturgical life, we come to know and see the authentic Jesus Christ, the Living One whom the apostles knew and saw, and to whom they bore witness, down to us today.

But if we dwell in the Church, we don’t just know and see Christ, we also learn to love him. For although faith precedes charity, because we cannot love what we do not know, love is more important, because charity takes us right into the heart of God to participate intimately in the life of God who is love. So, the apostolic faith that we receive in baptism, is strengthened by the personal gift of God’s Love, his Holy Spirit, in the sacrament of confirmation. And our faith bears fruit when we receive the Eucharist with proper dispositions. For through this sacrament, which is the beating heart of the Church, we can come to know, see and experience God’s love for us. We will receive his love, given to us abundantly in Holy Communion, so that we, in turn, can love one another as Christ has loved us (cf Jn 15:12b) – with a self-giving sacrificial love for others. This is our mission in the world, given to us in Confirmation, that we should be witnesses of God’s love to all peoples, calling them to become God’s friends, loving others as Jesus does. 

We’re called, in other words, to be true icons, faithful images, of Christ to the world. Which is what your Confirmation name, Veronica, means. Indeed, every Christian is called to be a veronica, a true image and likeness of Jesus Christ in the world. And if we are like Christ, loving as he does, and united to him in love, then we shall bear fruit: the fruit of everlasting life in communion with the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

12:32pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txkywoqY
(View comments) 
Filed under: sacraments ecclesiology discipleship saints 
April 7, 2013

image

HOMILY for 2nd Sunday of Easter

Acts 5:12-16; Apoc 1:9-13. 17-19; John 20:19-31

It sometimes appears that there are many reasons for one to be fearful. One only needs to read the newspapers, and one can feel the surge of fear, and perhaps, not a little anger, rising – the threat of nuclear aggression from North Korea; the fragile economy and the financial squeeze on millions of people because of welfare ‘reforms’; the terrifying attacks on Christian communities in Pakistan; the strange weather patterns we’ve been experiencing due to climate change. And on a personal level, we might fear for our own health or the well-being of someone we love; worry about unemployment and redundancy; fear for the future, our falling investments, our relationships, and what might happen. So many fears, all legitimate and genuine, can close in on us, locking us in so that we feel helpless, and our efforts futile. Like the disciples huddled together, our doors can be shut for fear of something or someone, and we’re barricaded within, fearful and confined.

But Jesus, too, carries the wounds of all our fears, of all that scourges and torments us. He has endured the terror of the Cross with us, and descended to the dark pit of death for us. And he is risen. Alleluia! And the risen Lord carries his battle scars on his glorified body for ever, as a sign that he is always united to us in our struggles and fears. And because he knows our sufferings and fears, our worries and weaknesses, he can enter through the shut doors and stand beside us. Jesus, having conquered death itself – Man’s greatest enemy and fear – can now transcend all the locked doors of our fears, and say to us – to you and me – “Peace be with you”. 

However, the peace that the risen Lord Jesus gives does not secure immunity from life’s problems and pain, as such. Rather, Christ’s peace enables us to face the painful realities of our life, our fears and anxieties, with faith in his resurrection, with hope of finally conquering death and sin, and with secure confidence in God’s saving love. Christ’s peace reconciles sinful humanity to God, safely held in the embrace of God’s divine mercy, from which nothing can separate us. As St Paul says: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Nothing. So, because of Christ’s victorious resurrection, we need not fear. As we hear in our Second Reading: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Apoc 1:17b-18). 

And yet, how is it that eight days later we find the disciples “again in the house” and again with the doors shut (cf Jn 20:26)? This time the doors are not shut for fear, but closed because of unbelief, shutting out faith. And without faith, there can be no peace. Indeed, as St Augustine says: “There is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither hope nor love without faith”. 

Hence, the risen Christ comes again, standing in the midst of our doubts and fears, entering the ‘Hades’ of our lives where God seems absent and distant, and faith is remote. Thomas, refusing to believe, is in such a situation. But, as we affirm in the Apostles Creed, Jesus “descended into hell”, into the abyss where God is absent, and he has broken the stranglehold of sin and of unbelief. He, the Living One, has the keys of Death and Hades. Thus, with great mercy, the risen Lord comes especially for Thomas, entering through the shut doors, and stands beside him. And again he says: “Peace be with you”. Christ, who is our peace, now offers his wounds to Thomas to touch. So, we see that God puts his faith in Man, entrusts himself to him, so that Man can put his faith in God and find peace. Paraphrasing St John, we could say: ‘we believe, because God has first believed in us’ (cf 1 Jn 4:19). 

For this is what the interaction between the risen Lord and St Thomas shows. Christ offers him his forgiveness, his friendship, and his love by inviting him to touch his wounds. And it is this divine initiative that elicits St Thomas’ faith, so that he can say: “My Lord and my God”. Moreover, by placing his hand in Christ’s wounded side – wounds which speak so eloquently of God’s love for humanity – Thomas’ fears and doubts are cast out by this experience of, this contact with, God’s perfect love (cf 1 Jn 4:18b).  

Each time we come to Mass, Jesus entrusts himself to us in the Eucharist. We’re invited to touch him, to handle him, to come into intimate contact with the Lord’s Body and Blood, and so, to have faith in him. This sacrament of the Eucharist, as such, is the sacrament of faith par excellence, inviting us to believe in Jesus Christ. And as we receive our Eucharistic Lord with faith, it is he who touches our wounds and fears so that we can be healed, loved, and find peace in God. 

As Jesus entrusts himself to us in the Eucharist, he also invites us to entrust ourselves to him; to have no fear, and to go to him in the beautiful and intimate sacrament of Reconciliation. For these two sacraments – Eucharist and Confession – complement each other. It is principally there, in the sacrament of Reconciliation, that we receive God’s divine mercy; there, that Christ offers us again his forgiveness, friendship, and love; there, that the Holy Spirit is sent “among us for the forgiveness of sins” (Formula of Absolution). Through that sacrament of mercy, Christ takes on himself our fears, our sins, and our wounds, and in exchange, he gives us his peace and unites us to himself in love, through the grace of the Holy Spirit. So, as we heard in today’s Gospel, the Spirit is breathed upon the apostles; breathed upon Church so that, through the sacrament of Reconciliation, we may be healed and come to share in the peace, forgiveness, and new life of the Risen One. 

So, let us open the doors of our hearts to Christ, let his perfect love transcend our fears, and let us say to him: “Jesus, my Lord and my God, I trust in you”. 

9:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txi6Jryg
(View comments) 
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: divine mercy love reconciliation sacraments Eucharist Confession forgiveness fear faith 
April 3, 2013

HOMILY for Easter Wednesday

Acts 3:1-10; Ps 104; Luke 24:13-35

The journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus is one we’re all making, and each of us is at a different stage of the journey. It’s a walk from despair, doubt and despondency to a life-giving faith, resurrected hope, and evangelical joy. And at every point along this journey, whether we are lost in sadness and confusion or inflamed with love for the Word of God, Jesus is with us. The difference is whether we recognize him or not. For today’s Gospel reminds us that Christ, the Risen One, is in fact always with us, walking alongside us even when we do not recognize him; he is the Stranger in our midst who calls us his friends. He is present and stays with us, especially in the evening of our days. When the darkness encroaches, and the cold and lonely night is drawing in, as the warm light of faith seems to recede, and we feel too weary to carry on the journey, Jesus remains with us when we just say to him: “Stay with us” (Lk 24:29). Yes, stay with us, Lord!

But if we pray like this, then we must also stay with him, inviting him into our lives, opening up our hearts and minds to be taught and nourished by him. For the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus is also the journey from the disciples’ own limited notions of how Christ was to redeem Israel, from their false hopes and illusory projections of who Jesus is, to the truth and full reality of Jesus Christ – the truth and reality of the Risen Lord who reveals himself to us, who is really present and makes himself known in his Body, his holy Church, through her Scriptures and her sacraments. Alive and active in his Church for all time, Christ remains with Mankind in order to continue to teach and nourish us, opening to us the Scriptures, and feeding us with his own Body and Blood, so that we can truly know and experience God’s goodness and love, and walk with him on the road to salvation.

So, if we stay with Christ in this house, in his holy Church, we gradually grow in love and understanding of God’s Word and of what Jesus has done for us. Our hearts burn within us, inflamed with the love that is God’s Holy Spirit. But this same Spirit also comes to purify us, refining our personal experiences and expectations, stretching our ways of thinking so that we mature in faith and come to share the mind of Christ; so that we become his friends. This conversion is the journey of a lifetime, an Emmaus journey we need to make again and again, so that we are more authentically and completely converted to Christ. 

Thus we are raised from old and deadening ways of thinking and behaving to a new risen life with the Living One. Only then, being alive in the Spirit, can we do as those disciples did. We become missionaries and evangelizers, rushing back to Jerusalem, into the city and world from which we’d come, to witness joyfully to the Risen Lord in both what we say and do. 

1:27pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txhoVgbm
(View comments) 
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: Church ecclesiology sacraments Scriptures magisterium resurrection conversion 
March 4, 2013

image

HOMILY for Mon in Week 3 of Lent

2 Kings 5:1-15; Ps 41; Lk 4:24-30

A classic medieval logical argument for God is that God is ‘That-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’, which becomes paraphrased and misunderstood by many, as ‘the greatest being we can possibly imagine’. Hence, God is typically envisaged as being big, powerful, super intelligent: the super hero to beat all other super heroes, endowed with every glorious super power and force. Except that God isn’t like that, really. Or at least, not in our Christian understanding of God. For God’s greatness, to begin with, is shown in how small he becomes: a human baby in Mary’s womb. 

And God’s greatness and presence is mediated through the small and ordinary, through anonymous people and simple mundane acts, through the familiar. So, an anonymous Israelite slave girl becomes the instrument of Naaman’s healing, an ordinary act of washing removes a humiliating and debilitating disease, a simple Nazarene craftsman speaks God’s words of prophetic challenge. Indeed, he is God’s Word. 

But it takes faith to see God at work in the plain, small and ordinary. Not so much faith in God, I think, but, first of all, faith in created things and in people; trust that something so simple and familiar can achieve what we can barely imagine possible. Can ‘That-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’ really be thought to be something so humble and prosaic? In fact, the struggle to believe is fundamentally a struggle to trust, and as we grow older, life and circumstance seem to teach us to trust less and less, as people, institutions – banks, supermarkets, and so on – and, even our own passions, can let us down. So, we can barely trust the ordinary, trust that basic Tesco’s beef burger, trust other human beings… how can we trust God whom we don’t see? 

Meanwhile, the world tells us to trust in big, grand tangible things: money, power, possessions, celebrity lifestyles. These are the things many aspire to because at least we can trust the stuff we have – they make us happy… don’t they? That, too, is Naaman’s perspective. He goes to the king of Israel to buy health and happiness, armed with over a fortune and a powerful army to back him up. But all that is unnecessary; they do not bring happiness and health. Only faith does, as Naaman learns. 

Faith, trust in small things, in the ordinary, in other people. Why? Because trust of this kind is a restoration of relationships, and we are created as relational social animals. We’re made, ultimately for love because we are created and held in being by Love, by God. So, if we can grow in trust of others, and indeed, take the risk to love another person, our eyes are opened to recognize God in the small and ordinary, in the human and mundane. Hence, in bread and wine, and in this shared meal, we recognize the real presence of God as we are drawn through the Eucharist into a relationship with God and one another. We become one communion of love. This is our faith, and it brings with it happiness – beatitude – and health – salvation. Through small things our God works wonders greater than can be thought.  

 

12:02pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txfUbHnd
(View comments) 
Filed under: sacraments God grace faith 
March 3, 2013

image

HOMILY for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (C)

Ex 3:1-8. 13-15; Ps 102; 1 Cor 10:1-6. 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

In our trek across the Lenten desert today, we encounter not just one but two bushes. For the parable in today’s Gospel can be juxtaposed with our First Reading, which recounts Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. For the early Christians, the burning bush came to be seen as a symbol of the Virgin Mary, who was consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit but whose virginity remained untouched. But, by co-operating with God’s grace, Our Lady became most fruitful, and she bore the most beautiful fruit of all: Jesus Christ. 

In contrast, the parable presents a tree or bush which is barren; for three years it has produced no fruit at all. As such, it is fit only to be cut down and burnt up. This bush, I think, could well stand for us sinners if we do not co-operate with God’s grace. For although our loving God is ever-ready to save us from the barrenness of sin, God can only do so with us, and never without us. This means we have to engage our human freedom and act; we need to choose to co-operate with God’s grace. 

This involves a change of heart, acknowledging our need of God’s forgiveness. Co-operating with grace entails repentance and willing a conversion of life that is made concrete in the sacramental means that God has chosen. And for some, this means will be as strange and as startling as the burning bush! But, it is the way that God has established. So, it is ordinarily in the sacrament of Confession that we truly encounter the living God (as Moses did), and we come into contact with God’s purifying fire; we are opened to his transforming grace, and receive his mercy and forgiveness. In the holy ground of the confessional, God says to each of us: “I have seen your affliction and heard your cry, and I am here to deliver you”. And, like Moses, we can choose to go to the Lord. Or we can choose to turn away and not co-operate with God’s grace, remaining fruitless. But if we go as Moses did, then we will see a great sight, and experience the wonders of God.

But the transforming work of God’s grace is often slow and gradual, and sometimes hard and messy, too. It is like gardening, and we have to repeatedly return to the confessional just as we repeatedly dig up and weed our gardens, and even, pile on the manure. So, in the Gospel parable, a gardener asks for a year’s reprieve for the barren tree. Here, I’d suggest that the gardener is the divine Vinedresser, God himself, and the year given for the barren tree to bear fruit is our lifetime. As such, each day of our lives is God’s grace-filled time, in which he patiently cares for us and coaxes fruit from our barren, sinful state. 

God’s desire and plan is that, over a lifetime’s co-operation with his grace through repeatedly using the sacrament of reconciliation, we, the barren bush would become a burning bush. For, as we co-operate with grace, the Holy Spirit will inflame us with charity, divine love. And God’s grace is a holy fire that does not consume and destroy our human nature. Rather, grace perfects us and elevates our humanity. The result of co-operating with God’s grace is that we will flourish as human beings and flower in virtue, so that, we too, like Our Lady, will bear that most wonderful fruit, Jesus Christ. For grace transforms us so that we become Christ-like, partakers in the beauty and being of God.

Spring is a time for gardening, so, Lent (coming from the Old English word for spring) focuses our minds on God’s cultivation of grace in our hearts, and the vital role of confession in that, so that we are fruitful. The journey towards holiness, of course, takes not just forty days but the entire ‘year’ of our lives. But none of us knows how long that – our lifespan – will be. So, in the time we have, each precious day, let us make good use of the means God gives us, the sacraments, to receive his mercy and forgiveness, and to grow in his love. 

9:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txfP03Nq
(View comments) 
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: forgiveness repentance confession sacraments mercy grace holiness 
January 19, 2013

HOMILY for 1st Sat per annum  (I)

Heb 4:12-16; Ps 18; Mark 2:13-17

It is sometimes said that Christianity is a “religion of the book”, that our faith is founded on the Bible, which is the word of God. But this isn’t entirely accurate. The Word of God, properly speaking, is not a book but a person, the Risen One who is thus “living and active” (Heb 4:12). So, Christianity is about following the person of Christ; our faith is founded on Jesus, the eternal Word incarnate. As St Bernard said: “Christianity is the “religion of the word of God”, not of “a written and mute word, but of the incarnate and living Word”.

The very beginning of Hebrews speaks of this incarnation of the Word: “in these last days [God] has spoken to us by a Son” (1:2). The letter then picks this theme up again, speaking of the “good news” spoken to God’s people of Israel and also to us [cf 4:2], but “the Word which they [the people of Israel] heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith” (4:2b). So, we are exhorted to do differently: to believe in the Word, in Jesus Christ, to obey him, and, so, to enter into God’s rest (cf 4:3, 11). 

But Hebrews also says that this Word of God judges us, searches us, and knows us intimately; we are “laid bare” before him. This would be frightening were it not that Jesus, because he is just and because he knows us so well, also knows what we long for, what humanity needs. Ultimately, what the restless human heart desires is to rest in God. What the sick need is a doctor; sinners need a Saviour. Hence we’re exhorted to believe in Christ who is the Saviour and Physician given to us by God. We’re exhorted to obey him and take the medicine prescribed, namely, to enter into communion with him, to enter and rest in him, in his “living and active” Body, the Church. For is it not here, through the Church and her sacraments, that we “may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16)? 

Recently, I’ve been to watch Les Misérables the movie a second time, and I would recommend it to you. Some words sung by the saintly Bishop seem to sum up the message of God’s Word, and of his holy Church, whose duty is to continue Christ’s mission of healing and mercy so that we can enter into God’s eternal rest. He says: “There is wine here to revive you, there is bread to make you strong, there’s a bed to rest ‘til morning – rest from pain and rest from wrong”.


9:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txc6Y6L2
(View comments) 
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: grace mercy sacraments Church Word of God Christ rest 
January 16, 2013

imageHOMILY for the 1st Wed per annum (I)

Heb 2:14-18; Ps 104; Mark 1:29-39

I recently mentioned in conversation that someone I knew refused to have medical check-ups or see the GP (General Practitioner); he hadn’t seen one for almost 20 years. I know someone else – a family member, actually – who refuses to see the dentist, preferring tooth decay, and waiting for his tooth to fall out rather than to seek medical help! Both these approaches, I think we’d agree, are somewhat irresponsible but perhaps we can be sympathetic and accept that they stem from some kind of irrational fear. Nevertheless, such fear needs to be confronted and gently and gradually overcome, for the sake of a greater good, namely, bodily health and dental hygiene. But if this is advisable for our bodily health, what about our spiritual health? 

In the Sacrament of Confession, Christ is our healer; the confessional is his clinic and surgery. He invites us to come to him, and he desires that we should go to him in Confession, like those crowds in the Gospel, for his healing and forgiveness. In Christ’s response to the mother-in-law of Simon, we see how he treats us if we go to him. At once, he stretches out his hand to lift us up. This is a hand of friendship, of compassion, and of mercy; he wants to help us up. And then, when we are raised up from sin, completely forgiven in the sacrament of anything we confess, we are empowered by God’s grace to serve others, that is, to love and obey Christ, and to love our neighbour.

But even if we’re not sick, not suffering because of serious, or mortal sin, we’re encouraged by the Church to go regularly, as we would for medical check-ups, and confess our everyday faults. As the Catechism says: “The regular confession of our venial sins helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the life of the Spirit” (CCC 1458). So, regular and frequent Confession keeps us spiritually healthy, and I would recommend at least once a month.

However, it may be that some people are still reluctant to use this Sacrament. It cannot be because of impeccability. Because as St Paul says: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Hence, St John says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1:8). So, perhaps, it is because of some previous bad experience, or fear of the sacrament. This is perfectly understandable; I feel a little worried, too, sometimes, when I go to Confession as a penitent. But, as with the fear of the GP or the dentist, this fear (or whatever the obstacle is) has to be confronted and gently and gradually overcome, for the sake of a greater good, namely, our spiritual health and our eternal salvation.  

And today’s reading from Hebrews offers us some perspective and encouragement. It tells us that “because [Christ] himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (2:18). This is what he longs to do for us in the sacrament of Confession: to help us, to heal us of sin’s fever, and innoculate us with his grace. And if Christ has been tempted so that he can be sympathetic, this is even more true for the priest who is not only tempted but is in fact, like everyone else also a poor sinner, also in need of Christ’s forgiveness, and who also finds himself, often, on the other side of the confessional as a penitent. The Catechism reminds the priest, as such, that he is “not the master of God’s forgiveness, but its servant” (CCC 1466). Thus, like Simon’s mother-in-law, we priests have also been given Christ’s hand of friendship, raised up by God’s mercy from sin, so that we can serve God and serve you, our brothers and sisters, by being instruments of “God’s merciful love for the sinner” (CCC 1465) in the sacrament of Confession.


9:16am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txbuFjac
(View comments) 
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: confession sacraments mercy forgiveness Penance Reconciliation healing grace 
January 14, 2013

imageHOMILY for the 1st Mon per annum (I)

Heb 1:1-6; Ps 96; Mk 1:14-20

The opening verses of Hebrews are a beautiful meditation on God’s revelation – his gift of himself in time and space, God’s involvement in our human history, and his dialogue with humanity. And God gave himself most completely to us at Christmas, when his Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. This is the revelation of God’s own self that we have been celebrating these past weeks. 

We celebrate that in Christ, God has spoken definitively to Mankind, so that everything that we need to know for our salvation has been given to us, shown to us in what Jesus said and did in his life, culminating in his death and resurrection. Through him who alone is the Truth, we know the surest Way to live so that we may enjoy eternal Life. As the Catechism says “Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one” (CCC 65). 

Hence, through baptism, we have been privileged with a call to listen to this Word, to follow Christ and learn his Way, and discover God’s way to be human. This is essentially a way of love and mercy, a Word of compassion and encouragement which our world – and we, personally – are desperately in need of. So, as ‘Ordinary Time’ and the new year begins, we’re called to come away from our work and busy-ness as the apostles did, and spend time with Jesus. We’re invited again, especially in this Year of Faith, to get to know Jesus Christ as a personal friend by listening attentively to the Scriptures, by learning from his Church and the lived examples of his saints, and by meeting him in the sacraments. 

Through these means, and above all, through gathering here around the Lord’s Altar for the Mass, we will remain focussed on Christ, so that, we will be converted by his grace, and become faithful witnesses of God’s Word – a living Word that has become flesh in our world, and indeed, in our lives, our flesh.  


10:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txbkdjJL
(View comments) 
Filed under: sacraments scriptures Tradition encounter Jesus Christ conversion faith Word discipleship 
January 13, 2013

imageHOMILY for The Baptism of the Lord (C)

Isaiah 40:1-5. 9-11; Ps 103; Titus 2:11-14. 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16. 21-22

On the first day of Christmas, the 25th of December, we celebrated Jesus’ birthday, and since then, throughout Christmastide, which lasts until today, the Church’s Liturgy has been meditating upon, and slowly disclosing to all, who it is that was born in Bethlehem and what his birth means for Mankind? In the Middle Ages this wonderment was dramatized – Before the Mass of Christmas day, clerics dressed as midwives asked: “Whom do you seek in the crib, shepherds, tell us?” And the shepherds replied: “The Saviour, Christ, the Lord, the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, as the angel said”. And so, on the first day of Christmas, our true love, that is, God, gave to us, a baby; the Saviour, Christ, the Lord. 

On Christmas day, we marvelled at this gift, the Word made flesh. And the Liturgy focussed on the wonder of Jesus Christ being born in time and space, born with a mortal human nature like ours, born of a woman. The Liturgy lingered over this beautiful human relationship of Mother and Child on the feast of Mary, Mother of God. But it never forgot the significance of Christ’s birth for humanity, that through him, our true love gave to us the gift of divine life. So, one of the antiphons for that feast says: “O wonderful exchange! The Creator of human nature took on a human body and was born of the Virgin. He became man without having a human father and has bestowed on us his divine nature”. 

But every child, rightly, naturally, has a father and a mother. So, on the feast of the Holy Family, our perspective widens from looking at just the Mother and Child to consider, who, really, is this Child’s father. The Gospel stresses that it’s not St Joseph. Because although in the Gospel of St Luke, Mary says “your father [i.e., Joseph] and I have been looking for you” (Lk 2:48), the boy Jesus points quite clearly to God as his Father. Hence, in Spain the name José is typically nick-named Pepe, which comes from ‘padre putativo’: the ‘putative father’, or, we might say, foster-father. For that is who St Joseph is to Jesus. So, on the feast of the Holy Family, the Child Jesus claims God as his Father. But, so far, it’s just a one-sided claim.

Nevertheless, beginning with the Epiphany when wise men arrived from the East to worship the Christ Child, the Liturgy presents a series of signs that back up Jesus’ claim to divinity. Hence the past week has seen one Gospel account after another pointing to Old Testament manifestations of God in the work of Christ – he heals, walks on water, and feeds the hungry in the wilderness. And this series of epiphanies culminates today with the Baptism of Christ. We have, in fact, a theophany – a revelation to Mankind of God’s own self. For Jesus’ claim of divine Sonship is confirmed by the Father’s voice from heaven and by the descent of the Holy Spirit: “This is my beloved Son”. And so, Father, Son and Spirit – God the Most Holy Trinity – is revealed to us all. 

Whereas at the beginning of Christmastide we marked the birth of Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, in time and space as true Man, so now, at the end of Christmastide, we celebrate the revelation that Jesus Christ is also true God. Thus, he is eternally Son, eternally begotten in love of the Father, and of the same divine ‘substance’ as God his Father. And it is because Jesus Christ is true God and true Man that he can share his divinity with us. Hence, during the Mass when I prepare the chalice and mix a little water with the wine, this prayer is given to the priest to say: “May we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity”.  

But how do we come to share in Christ’s divinity? How does that wonderful exchange of God becoming Man so that Man can become God take place? It takes place in a way suited to our human nature, through visible material tangible signs. Notice that the Holy Spirit takes bodily form, “as a dove”. So, too, in the sacraments, God can be said to take bodily form, and he is present and active, objectively giving us his grace, through the visible material tangible signs of water, oil, bread, wine.

Read More

9:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z_p5txbex7FR
(View comments) 
Filed under: sacraments baptism grace divinization 
Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »