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18th August >> Fr. Martin's Homilies/Reflections on Today's Mass Readings for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) (Inc. John 6:51-58): ‘Whoever eats me will draw life from me’.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Gospel (Except USA)John 6:51-58My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Jesus said to the crowd:

‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,for the life of the world.’

Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they said. Jesus replied:

‘I tell you most solemnly,if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,you will not have life in you.Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my bloodhas eternal life,and I shall raise him up on the last day.For my flesh is real foodand my blood is real drink.He who eats my flesh and drinks my bloodlives in meand I live in him.As I, who am sent by the living Father,myself draw life from the Father,so whoever eats me will draw life from me.This is the bread come down from heaven;not like the bread our ancestors ate:they are dead,but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.’

Gospel (USA)John 6:51–58My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

Jesus said to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Homilies (7)

(i) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the verses in Patrick Kavanagh’s well-known poem, ‘A Christmas Childhood’, goes as follows, ‘A water-hen screeched in the bog, Mass-going feet Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes, Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel’. He is nostalgically looking back at the Christmases of his childhood in his native Monaghan. I have always been struck by the line in that verse, ‘Mass-going feet crunched the wafer-thin ice on the pot-holes’. There may be less ‘Mass-going feet’ these days that there were when Patrick Kavanagh wrote his poem. Yet, many of us still feel drawn to gather to celebrate Sunday Mass, as we are doing here this Sunday.

Why do we come to Mass on a Sunday when there are many other things we could be doing? Perhaps in the past, people went to Mass because it was something everybody did. There was an element of cultural and family pressure. That is certainly not the case today. You have come to Mass this Sunday because you have chosen to do so. In many ways it is a counter cultural choice. It is going against the general trend. People may ask you, ‘Why are you still going to Mass on a Sunday?’ It is a question that is worth asking and pondering over. Perhaps today’s gospel reading points us in the direction of an answer. There Jesus calls on us to eat his flesh and drink his blood and promises us that if we do so we will draw life from him. His language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood is quite startling and provocative. The question people asked in the gospel reading is an understandable one, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Jesus is clearly referring to what we have come to call the Eucharist. His words point ahead to the last supper, when he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘This is my body’, and when he took a cup of wine, blessed it and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘This is my blood of the covenant’. In speaking of his flesh and blood, his body and blood, he was referring to his whole self, who he was and what he stood for. He gave his whole self to us out of love for us on the cross. At the last supper he gave his whole self to his disciples under the form of bread and wine, in anticipation of the gift of himself he would make the following day on the cross. At every Mass, the risen Lord continues to give us the gift of his whole self. There is no greater gift he could give us. He gives us this gift of himself to nourish us spiritually, just as a baby is physically nourished their mother in the mother’s womb. As the unborn child draws life from the mother, so, in the words of Jesus in the gospel reading, when we receive him in the Eucharist we draw life from him, just as he draws life from God his Father. The life that we draw from him is not just physical life but the life of God, a life that endures beyond this earthly life.

Why do we go to Mass, especially on a Sunday? We go because the Lord has left us this wonderful gift through which he continues to give himself to us in love so that we may have life and have it to the full. We go because we recognize that we need this gift to sustain us on our journey of faith, just as the unborn child needs the mother’s flesh and blood for physical sustenance. The Lord gives himself to us in the Eucharist to nourish our relationship with him, to sustain that relationship in a world where that relationship is so often put to the test. He renews the gift of his whole self to us at every Eucharist so that we can renew the gift of our whole selves to him. In the words of the gospel reading, through the Eucharist he comes to live in us, so that we can continue to live in him. The only reason we come to the Eucharist is because we have personally chosen to be in relationship with Jesus and we want that relationship to be sustained and nourished. We gather at the Eucharist as a community of disciples, all of us at different stages of our faith journey. Our relationship with the Lord is personal and unique to each of us. Yet, wherever we are on that journey, we all have a place here. We are all welcome here. The Lord wants to give the gift of his whole self to all of us because we all need the spiritual sustenance that only he can give. Like the Woman Wisdom’s feast in the first reading, the invitation is extended to all from the city’s heights.

The Lord gives his whole self to us in the Eucharist to empower us to bring his whole self to others. We receive the Lord’s body in the Eucharist so that we may be his living body for others. We are sent forth from the Eucharist to live lives that redeem the present age, in the words of the second reading, lives that allow the Lord to be present to all whom we meet.

And/Or

(ii) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

It can be tempting to give out about the age in which we live. We can be very aware of the shortcomings of our time and culture. We often complain of falling standards in all walks of life. We are conscious of a breakdown in community, a decline in moral values, a fracturing of family life. The increase in the suicide rate, especially among young men, is disturbing evidence that many people experience our times as devoid of meaning. We could easily get discouraged about our contemporary society.

I was struck by the statement of Paul at the beginning of the second reading, ‘This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it’. In his letter to the Romans he says something similar: ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’. Paul was well aware of the dark side of his own culture. Yet, that reality did not discourage him. He was convinced that the lives of believers could redeem the age in which they lived. We don’t often think of ourselves as redeemers. We tend to reserve the term ‘redeemer’ for Christ. Yet, Paul is prepared to extend that term to all those who have been baptized into Christ. He recognizes that the Lord working through us can redeem the time, the age, in which we live. In so far as we are in relationship with the Lord, our lives can make a difference for the better. We can never underestimate the extent to which the Lord can make us a force for good, a source of life and light, in our world. Jesus addresses his disciples in the gospels as the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

As Christians we recognize that if the Lord is to work in a redeeming and life-giving way through us, we need to keep our relationship with him alive. That call to a close relationship with the Lord is strongly present in the readings this morning. In the first reading, the Wisdom of God calls on people to come to her so as to eat the bread and drink the wine of her teaching. In the gospel reading, Jesus, the true wisdom of God, goes further and calls on his disciples, not only to come to him, but to eat his flesh and drink his blood. This kind of language must have seemed a bit shocking at the time. We can sympathize with the Jews who asked, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Indeed in the verse immediately following where our reading ends, some of Jesus’ own disciples say, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Yet, in spite of the hostile reaction to his words from the Jews, and even from some of his disciples, Jesus did not try to speak in a way that was more acceptable to his hearers. The language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood was not up for negotiation.

The call of Jesus to come to him raises no hackles, but his call, ‘Eat me’, still has the power to make us sit up a bit. In calling on us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, Jesus shows us just how deeply he wants to be in communion with us. It is the Eucharist that makes possible that depth of communion between us and the Lord that he desires. The Lord wants us not merely to come to him, but to consume him. He wants us to take him into ourselves, to really digest him, in the sense of making our own his outlook on life, his values, his attitudes, his way of relating. In absorbing him in this way he promises that we will come to share in his very life. As Jesus says in the gospel reading, ‘Whoever eats me will draw life from me’. Jesus gives himself to us as food and drink so that we may live with his life. Whenever we eat food, the food becomes part of us; it lives in us, but when we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, he does not become part of us in that sense. Rather we become part of him; we live with his own life. This is a life that never ends. ‘Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’.

The Lord offers us this level of communion with himself so that our own lives may redeem the times in which we live. The life that we receive from the Lord in the Eucharist is to flow through us and enhance and ennoble the world of which we are a part. When we say ‘Amen’ before receiving communion, we are not only saying ‘I believe this is the body of Christ’, but we are also saying ‘Amen’ to the Lord dwelling in our lives so that he may carry out his life-giving mission in the world through us.

The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life. Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter on the Eucharist puts it this way, ‘The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work’. We receive the Lord’s gift of himself in this Eucharist so that his saving work can continue in our world through our lives. He comes to us as food and drink in the Eucharist so that the age in which we live might be redeemed by our presence and our lives.

And/Or

(iii) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

You may remember that we had a sister from the Medical Missionaries of Mary speak at all the Masses a few Sundays ago. I was struck by her comments about the good work that various church agencies were doing throughout the world. I was reminded of what she said by a verse in this morning’s second reading where Paul says, ‘This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it’. Paul was clearly of the view that the lives of those who have been baptized into Christ are capable of making a difference for the better to the world in which we live. He is reminding us that as members of Christ’s body, we can all bring something of Christ’s life-giving love to others. We may be inclined to think, ‘What difference could I make?’ We may feel that we are not good enough to make a real difference for the good in our world. Yet, even if we can be slow at times to take ourselves seriously as people who can redeem the age, the Lord does take us seriously. He has great work to do in and through us, if only we make ourselves available to him, and if only we trust that, in spite of our many weaknesses and failings, he can and will work powerfully through us.

The Lord wants to work through us, but before he works through us, he gives himself to us. The Lord equips us to share in his redeeming and life-giving work. He gives himself to us so that we can then give him to others. That is the message of this morning’s gospel reading. Jesus speaks there of giving us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. It is hard to conceive of a more striking way for Jesus to speak about giving himself to us. In fact, Jesus’ way of speaking was so shocking that many of those who were listening to him could not take what he said seriously. According to our gospel reading, some asked, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Even some of Jesus’ own disciples, according to the evangelist, found this language of Jesus intolerable. Immediately after where our gospel reading ends, we are informed that some of Jesus’ disciples said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’

The teaching of Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading is challenging. It can be as difficult for us today, two thousand years later, as it was for some of Jesus’ contemporaries to take fully on board his insistence that we eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus gave his flesh and blood for the life of the world on the cross. He gave everything he had for the life of the world - such was his love for the world, his love for all of us. Jesus not only gave his flesh and blood on the cross for the life of the world, but according to our gospel reading he wants us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. This is clearly a reference to the Eucharist. The flesh and blood that Jesus gave for us on the cross he gives to us at every Eucharist, under the form of bread and wine. At the last supper, on the evening before he died, Jesus took bread and said to his disciples, ‘take and eat. This bread is my body, my flesh’. He then took a cup of wine and said, ‘take and drink. This wine is my blood of the covenant’. At the last supper, Jesus gave his disciples his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, under the form of bread and wine. The Lord who gave himself totally for us on Good Friday, gives himself totally to us at every Eucharist. That has been the faith of the church since that first Holy Thursday and Good Friday. According to this morning’s gospel reading, he gives himself to us in the Eucharist so that we can draw life from him. ‘As I draw life from the Father’, he says, ‘so whoever eats me will draw life from me’. In the Eucharist we draw from the Lord’s risen life, and that is why he can say, ‘anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’. We generally think of eternal life as life after death, buy according to today’s gospel reading, eternal life can also be ours before death. We begin to share in the Lord’s own life here and now when in faith we receive the Lord in the Eucharist.

In receiving the Lord in the Eucharist, we are at the same time receiving all that he stands for; the values by which he lives; we are receiving his teaching or, in the language of the first reading, his wisdom. Just as in the first reading, the Wisdom of God says ‘Come and eat my bread’, in the Eucharist, Jesus, the Wisdom of God, says, ‘Come and eat my flesh and drink my blood’. The Eucharist calls on us to imbibe the Lord fully, to take into ourselves all that he is, all that he lived and died for - his values, his attitudes, his mind and heart. If we do that, then our lives will redeem the age in which we live. The Lord will continue his redeeming and life-giving work through us.

And/Or

(iv) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

After people have moved into a new house or do some refurbishment on their home, they often have a little celebration in the house to which they invite people. Once the house is ready to their satisfaction they open it up to others and provide some refreshments. We often call it a house warmer. It is as if the house needs a good presence of other people to be properly launched. When you look at today’s first reading you find something similar happening. We have this woman by the name of Wisdom. She builds herself a house, clearly a very elegant house; it has no less than seven pillars. She then throws a feast of fine wine and good meat and sends out her maid servants into the streets to gather people to her table. In that reading the building of a house, the making of a feast, the invitation to come and eat and drink, is an imaginative way of speaking about God as the wise host who invites all of humanity to learn from his wisdom. It is interesting that God is portrayed as a woman in this reading, Woman Wisdom.

That image of Woman Wisdom who says, ‘Come and eat of my bread, drink the wine I have prepared’ finds an echo in the figure of Jesus in the gospel reading who declares, ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever’. Like Woman Wisdom Jesus invites us to come and eat of his bread, but unlike Woman Wisdom he declares himself to be that bread. We are to eat of him, to drink of him. More specifically he calls on us to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. This goes far beyond anything Woman Wisdom calls for in that first reading. Jesus’ language of eating his flesh and drinking his blood is shocking in many respects. We can sympathize with those who object, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ We cannot hear this language without thinking of the words of Jesus to his disciples at the last supper when, taking bread, blessing it and breaking it, he gave it to them saying, ‘Take, eat, this is my body’, and taking and blessing a cup of wine he gave it to them, saying, ‘Take, drink, this is the new covenant in my blood’. He gave himself to his disciples, his body and blood, under the form of bread and wine. The last supper became the first Eucharist. We cannot but hear the language of the Eucharist in this morning’s gospel reading, the Eucharist which we are now celebrating together.

We invite people to our home and we place food and drink before them and we invite them to eat and drink. Jesus invites us to his table and he puts himself before us as food and drink and invites us to eat and drink. In language that is very daring Jesus declares himself to be our food and drink, the one who can satisfy our deepest hungers and thirsts, our hunger and thirst for life. Jesus declares in that gospel reading, ‘anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’. We tend to think of ‘eternal life’ as a life that only begins after death. Yet, it is clear from the gospel reading that by ‘eternal life’ Jesus does not just mean a life that begins after this earthly life ends. He understands eternal life as a life that we can begin to experience in the midst of this earthly life. That is why he says in that gospel reading, ‘as I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me’. Just as in the course of his earthly life, Jesus drew life from God, so in the course of our earthly lives we can draw life from Jesus through our communion with him in the Eucharist. The life Jesus drew from God and we draw from Jesus is eternal life; it is the life of God. Here and now through our communion with Jesus in the Eucharist we can enjoy a first taste of eternal life. What is eternal life only the life of God, the life of Love, of a love that is unconditional and eternal? It is that life which we begin to taste in the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is the celebration of God’s love for us in Christ. In the Eucharist God’s loving gift of his Son is made present over and over again. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

We come to the Eucharist to draw life from the risen Lord to draw God’s life from him, God’s love. We are then sent from the Eucharist to be channels of that life, of that love, for each other. We come to the Eucharist hungering and thirsting for life, for authentic life, the life of God, the love of God, and we are sent out from the Eucharist as life givers, as agents of God’s life and love within our homes, our society, our world.

And/Or

(v) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Last Sunday I spoke about Francis Xavier Van Thuan who was archbishop of what is now Ho Chi Min City. For thirteen years he was imprisoned in North Vietnam, spending nine of years those in solitary confinement. On one occasion, a copy of the New Testament was smuggled into the prison for the Catholic prisoners. To ensure that they could all share God’s word, the prisoners ripped the New Testament into little sheets which were then distributed among the prisoners. Each prisoner memorized by heart the sheet that he or she received. Every sunset, the prisoners took it in turn to recite aloud the part that they had memorized. Archbishop Van Thuan recalled after his release from prison how moving it was to hear the Word of God recited with such strength of faith in the silence and the darkness. He said that no one could doubt at that moment the presence of God in his Word. I was reminded of that story again by a verse in today’s second reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, ‘This may be a wicked age but your lives should redeem it’.

Paul was aware that the values of his surrounding culture were in many ways hostile to those of the gospel. He knew how easy it was for members of the church to be influenced by those values. Yet, he also knew that they could witness to the values of the gospel in that culture by how they lived. In doing so, as Paul puts it, they could redeem the age in which they lived. It might seem strange to think of ourselves as redeemers. We acknowledge Jesus as the redeemer. ‘To redeem’ is ‘to set free’, to deliver from all forms of enslavement. We look to Jesus as the one who delivers us from all that works against what Paul calls the glorious freedom of the children of God. Yet, Paul was very aware that Jesus wanted to continue his redeeming, liberating, work in and through his followers, the church. The church is the Lord’s body, where the Lord’s redeeming work is to find expression in every age. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul says, ‘do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’. We are to be faithful to the gospel even in environments where it is being rejected so that the Lord’s work of redeeming the age can continue through us.

Those prisoners in Ho Chi Min city were victims of a culture that denied religious freedom. Yet, they found their own way of standing up against it. When an unexpected opportunity came their way to feed their faith, in the form of the smuggled New Testament, they seized this opportunity with courage and imagination. They devised a way to ensure that everyone could feed on the God’s Word, the Bread of life. They knew that here was bread that could nourish their spirits, and satisfy their deepest hungers and bring freedom even in their imprisonment. When Jesus says in today’s gospel reading, ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven’, he is saying that he alone can satisfy the deepest hungers of the human heart, the hunger for a love that is unconditional and all forgiving, for authentic freedom. One of the ways he comes to us today as Bread of Life is through his Word. The church speaks of the lectern from which the word of God is proclaimed as the table of the Word. In feeding ourselves on the Bread of the Lord’s Word, we create an opening for the Lord to continue his redeeming work in us and through us, his work of overcoming evil with good.

The prisoners’ action of tearing up the New Testament into sheets and passing around the sheets so as to ensure that every prisoner could have a personal encounter with the Lord’s word reminds me of what happens at Mass with regard to the consecrated bread. It is broken into small pieces so that all can share in it. The prisoners broke the bread of the word because they had no access to the bread of the Eucharist. We are fortunate to have access to both. The prisoners entered into communion with the Lord and with each other in and through their breaking of the bread of the Lord’s word and their sharing it. This is something we can all do whenever we gather to share and hear the Lord’s word. Unlike the prisoners, we can also enter into communion with the Lord and with each other in and through our breaking of the Eucharistic bread and our sharing in it. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus offers us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. This is an even deeper form of communion with the Lord and with each other than is possible through the sharing of the bread of the word. Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist to nourish our faith, hope and love. He gives us himself, under the form of bread and wine, so that we can more truly be his body in the world. He draws us into this very intimate form of communion with himself and with each other so that our lives are empowered to redeem the age in which we live.

And/Or

(vi) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Francis Xavier Van Thuan was archbishop of Saigon, now Ho Chi Min City. For thirteen years he was imprisoned in North Vietnam, spending nine of those years in solitary confinement. On one occasion, a copy of the New Testament was smuggled into the prison for the Catholic prisoners. To ensure that they could all share God’s word, the prisoners ripped the New Testament into little sheets which were then distributed among themselves. Each prisoner memorized by heart the sheet that he or she received. Every sunset, the prisoners took it in turn to recite aloud the part that they had memorized. After his release from prison, Archbishop Van Thuan recalled how moving it was to hear the Word of God recited with such strength of faith in the silence and the darkness. He said that no one could doubt at that moment the presence of God in his Word. I was reminded of that story by today’s second reading where Paul says, ‘This may be a wicked age but your lives should redeem it’.

Paul was aware that the values of his surrounding culture were in many ways hostile to those of the gospel of the Lord. He knew how easy it was for members of the church to be influenced by the values of the pagan culture. Yet, he also knew that they could witness to the values of the gospel in that culture by how they lived. In doing so, as Paul puts it, they could redeem the age in which they lived. It might seem strange to think of ourselves as redeemers. ‘To redeem’ is ‘to set free’, to deliver from enslavement. We look to Jesus as the one who delivers us from all that works against what Paul calls the glorious freedom of the children of God. Yet, Paul was very aware that Jesus wanted to continue his redeeming, liberating, work in and through his followers, the church. The church, the community of disciples, is the Lord’s body, where his redeeming work is to find expression in every age. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul says, ‘do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’. We are to be faithful to the gospel even in environments where it is being rejected so that the Lord’s work of redeeming the age can continue through us.

Archbishop Van Thuan and the other prisoners were victims of a culture that denied religious freedom. Yet, they found their own way of standing up against it, of redeeming the atheistic culture around them. When an unexpected opportunity came their way to feed their faith, in the form of the smuggled New Testament, they seized it with courage and imagination. They devised a way to ensure that everyone could feed on the God’s Word. They knew that here was bread that could nourish their spirits, satisfy their deepest hungers and bring freedom even in their imprisonment. When Jesus says in today’s gospel reading, ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven’, he is saying that he alone can satisfy the our spiritual hunger, the hunger for a love that is unconditional, for authentic freedom. One of the ways he comes to us today as living bread is through his Word. The church speaks of the lectern from which the word of God is proclaimed as the table of the Word. In feeding ourselves on the Bread of the Lord’s Word, we create an opening for the Lord to continue his redeeming work in us and through us, his work of overcoming evil with good.

The most privileged way the Lord comes to us as living bread is through the Eucharist. The prisoners’ action of tearing up the New Testament into sheets and passing them around so to ensure that every prisoner could have a personal encounter with the Lord’s word reminds me of what happens at Mass with regard to the consecrated bread. It is given out in small pieces so that all can share in it. The prisoners broke the bread of the word because they had no access to the bread of the Eucharist. We are fortunate to have access to both. The prisoners entered into communion with the Lord and with each other by breaking the bread of the Lord’s word and sharing it. This is something we can all do whenever we gather to share and hear the Lord’s word. Unlike the prisoners, we can also enter into communion with the Lord and with each other in and through our breaking of the Eucharistic bread and our sharing in it. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus offers us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. This is an even deeper form of communion with the Lord and with each other than is possible through the sharing of the bread of the word. Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist to nourish our faith, hope and love. In the words of the first reading, Jesus says to us, ‘Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared!’ He gives us himself, under the form of bread and wine, so that we can more truly be his body in the world. He draws us into communion with himself and each other to empower us for our task to redeem the age in which we live.

And/Or

(vii) Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Recent statistics show that the percentage of Catholics in Ireland who go to Sunday Mass is in decline. The same pattern is to be found in many other countries of Western Europe. There are probably many complex reasons for this, such as, secularism, disillusionment and anger with the church, loss of faith, poor quality celebration of liturgy. When going to Sunday Mass is no longer the norm, even among baptized Catholics, it invites the question, ‘Why do the rest of us go to Mass on Sunday?’ ‘Why do I go to Mass on Sunday?’ Today’s gospel reading gives us an approach to answering that question.

When Jesus speaks in the gospel reading about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the reference is clearly to what came to be called the Eucharist. At the last supper, Jesus identified his body or his flesh with the bread that he took, broke, blessed and gave to his disciples. He identified his blood with the wine that he took, blessed and gave to his disciples. He was giving his body and blood, his flesh and blood, his entire self to his disciples, under the form of bread and wine. He called on his disciples to ‘do this in memory of me’, to keep doing what Jesus had done at the last supper, his words and actions, so that he could continue to give himself fully and completely to all future disciples under the form of bread and wine. That is why Saint Paul, writing about twenty five years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, could say, ‘the cup of blessing that we bless is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ?’ Paul is clearly referring to the Eucharist as it was being celebrated and understood within a few decades of Jesus’ life. In taking the bread that has been blessed and broken and the wine that has been blessed we are entering into communion with the body and blood of Jesus, we are uniting ourselves with the risen Lord.

Jesus says something very similar to Paul in the gospel reading. He declares that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood in the Eucharist live in him and he lives in them. Through the Eucharist there is a deep communion between ourselves and the Lord, a mutual indwelling. Jesus goes on to say that because of our deep communion with the Lord through the Eucharist, we can draw life from him. ‘Whoever eats me will draw life from me’. That is one of the reasons we go to Mass, to draw life from the risen Lord, a life that impacts on us here and now, and also endures into eternity. Jesus is talking about the life of the Spirit, the life of God, a life that enhances our human living and endures into eternity. It is because Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist to give us life, in this sense, that he speaks of himself in the gospel as ‘the living bread which has come down from heaven’ or, more simply, the ‘Bread of life’. We probably don’t appreciate the importance of bread in the time and place of Jesus. Today, as we wander around a supermarket, we can buy any kind of food we fancy, provided we can afford to do so. I can choose a menu every day from a vast array of options. In this world of full consumer choice, it is difficult to grasp the full significance of Jesus describing himself as the Bread of Life. In the biblical world, including the world of Jesus, the key to life was ready access to grain which can be turned into bread. Grain meant bread and bread meant life; its absence meant famine and death. Everyone understood and felt their dependence on bread. When Jesus declares himself to be the bread of life, he is presenting himself as the heavenly equivalent of bread. To survive in this life, people needed access to God. Jesus was saying that to survive in the presence of God, to survive spiritually, we need to rely on him.

It is clear from the gospel reading that many of Jesus’ listeners did not recognize their reliance on him for spiritual survival, did not accept his claim to be the Bread of Life. ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’, they asked. We come to Mass because we recognize Jesus as our Bread of Life. At some deep level, we know that we need to be in communion with him if we are to be spiritually alive, and, therefore, fully alive as a human being. We recognize our dependence on Jesus for true life, for what he calls elsewhere, life to the full. We come to Mass not because of custom or culture or, much less, coercion, but because we want to respond to Jesus’ wonderful invitation to come to him and eat of his flesh and drink of his blood so that we may draw life from him, the same life that he draws from the Father. That is the statement we are making every time to go to Mass, whether the Mass is a small gathering of people in a room or the huge gathering that will take place in the Phoenix Park next Sunday. We are then sent out from Mass to bring something of the Lord’s life we have received to those we meet. We are sent to become bread broken for others by reaching out to others in love.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

17th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 19:13-15) ‘Let the little children alone’.

Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 19:13-15Do not stop the little children coming to me.

People brought little children to Jesus, for him to lay his hands on them and say a prayer. The disciples turned them away, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children alone, and do not stop them coming to me; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ Then he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

Gospel (USA)Matthew 19:13-15Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Children were brought to Jesus that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” After he placed his hands on them, he went away.

Reflections (7)

(i) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

I always read this gospel reading on the occasion of a baptism because it seems so appropriate for baptism. When children are baptized, the Lord is welcoming them into his family, the community of believers we call the church. They are being greatly blessed and graced by the Lord. In today’s gospel reading Jesus wanted to welcome the children whom the parents brought to him for a blessing, but the disciples were turning the children away. Perhaps they thought that Jesus only had time for adults. However, they complete misread Jesus who replied to them, ‘Let the little children alone, and do not stop them coming to me’. Jesus wanted children to be central to the life of the community he was gathering about himself. He would want them to be central to the life and worship of the church. Jesus goes on to declare in the gospel reading that the kingdom of God belongs to them as much as to anyone else. They have the same right to receive the gift of the kingdom of God as adults. Jesus wants them to be blessed by God who is working powerfully through him. The risen Lord wants us all to open up the riches of the gospel to children. Unlike the disciples in the gospel reading, he wants us, his disciples today, to bring children to himself for prayer and worship. He wants us to help children to come to know him as a friend, so that they can draw strength from his loving presence to them all through their lives.

And/Or

(ii) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

I have always been struck by the little scene in this morning’s gospel reading of parents bringing children to Jesus. It is a gospel reading I always use on the occasion of baptism. When parents bring their children for baptism they are doing what the parents in this morning’s gospel reading are doing, they are bringing their children to Jesus. Most of us are here this morning because our parents brought us to Jesus on the day of our baptism. It is strange that Jesus’ own disciples should try to turn the children away from Jesus. They probably reflect the cultural attitude of the time which regarded children as without status or significance. This was very much at odds with Jesus’ own attitude. He not only insisted that the children be allowed come to him, but he declared that children have a privileged place in God’s kingdom. ‘It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs’. By implication, they should have a central place in the life and worship of the community of his followers. Jesus’ words and actions in today’s gospel place an onus on all of us to do whatever we can to bring children and young people to Jesus, to open them up to the riches of the gospel and of the whole Christian tradition. As a sign of how central children are to God’s kingdom and to the community of believers Jesus went on to lay his hands on them in blessing. We are all called to be channels of the Lord’s blessing to our children.

And/Or

(iii) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary time

We often ask people to pray for us and people ask us to pray for them. In this morning’s gospel reading, parents bring children to Jesus so that he may lay his hands on them and pray for them. Parents always want what is best for their children and, recognizing Jesus as a man of God, they wanted to open their children up to God who was at work through Jesus. It is strange that Jesus’ disciples would try to prevent this from happening, turning the children away. In the time of Jesus, children were way down the pecking order; they were without rights or status. Perhaps the disciples thought that these children were not ‘worthy’ of Jesus’ attention. If so, they had a great deal to learn about the values of the kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim. Jesus insisted on allowing the children come to him. He identifies them as those to whom the kingdom of God belongs in a special way. In the upside down world of God’s kingdom present in Jesus, those who have little or no status or importance in this world have a special place in the kingdom of God. St Paul was true to the teaching and actions of Jesus when he stated in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong’. In the previous chapter of Matthew’s gospel to this morning’s reading, Jesus had told his disciples that they would not enter the kingdom of God unless they become like little children. Jesus seems to be saying that when it comes to our relationship with God, those who appear to have least of what the world considers important can have most to teach us.

And/Or

(iv) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Parents bring children for baptism to most parish churches, just as in this morning’s gospel reading parents bring children to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them and say a prayer with them. On that occasion the disciples attempted to turn the children away and, as a result, Jesus had to rebuke them. Clearly their attitude towards children and Jesus’ attitude towards children differed. The disciples may have felt that children were not important enough for Jesus to bother with. Yet, Jesus’ words show that he wanted children to be at the centre of the life and prayer of the community of disciples, ‘Let the children alone, and do not stop them coming to me’. Not only did he want children to be at the centre of the church’s life but he also declared that adults within the community have a great deal to learn from them, ‘it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs’. Children’s instinctive openness and trusting nature models for us how we are to relate to God. It is to those with an open heart and a trusting spirit that will be able to receive the gift of the kingdom from God.

And/Or

(v) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading we have just heard is the reading that is often proclaimed during the liturgy of baptism. In that reading parents are presented as wanting to bring their children to Jesus, but the disciples, of all people, turn the children away from Jesus. Jesus immediately rebukes his disciples and publicly declares that children are not to be stopped from coming to him. The Lord wants children to come to him; he wants them to relate to him and he, in turn, wants to relate to them. In the gospel reading he relates to them by placing his hands upon them in blessing. When parents bring their children for baptism, they are responding to Jesus’ desire for children to come to him. Children have a natural curiosity about what Jesus refers to in the gospel reading as ‘the kingdom of heaven’. By nature and by instinct they are open and responsive to the Lord and all he has to offer. It is greatly to be regretted if, like the disciples in the gospel reading, we do or say anything to cut across that openess. Whenever any of us do anything to open up the treasures of the gospel to children, we are doing what Jesus wants and desires us to do.

And/Or

(vi) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel reading parents bring children to Jesus for him to lay his hands on them and say a prayer of blessing. Parents instinctively want what is best for their children. They recognize Jesus as someone through whom God is working in a life-giving way, and so they bring their children, their loved ones, to him. In our own times, parents who have an appreciation of Jesus and his message and life will have the same desire to bring their children to him. They recognize Jesus as God’s unique gift to us and they want that gift for their children because they want what is best for them. When parents try to bring their children to Jesus they often meet with obstacles of various kinds. In this morning’s gospel reading those obstacles take the form of Jesus’ own disciples who tried to prevent parents from bringing their children to Jesus. The disciples are resisting the desire of the parents for their children. In the midst of this struggle, Jesus is not a passive spectator. He insists, against his disciples, that the children be allowed to come to him. The gospel reading assures us that in our own struggle to bring our loved ones to the Lord, and to bring ourselves to him, the Lord is always working with us. The strength of his desire for us to meet with him and, thereby, find life will overcome the various obstacles that are placed in our way. We need to trust that the Lord will find a way of bringing people to him, in spite of the resistances that may be there, of whatever kind.

And/Or

(vii) Saturday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Very often in the gospels we find Jesus and his disciples at odds with each other. We have a good example of that in today’s gospel reading. Children were brought to Jesus, presumably by their parents, for Jesus to lay his hands on them in blessing. The disciples turned them away and Jesus has to rebuke them, calling on them not to stop children from coming to him. Why the disciples would try to stop parents from bringing their children to Jesus is not clear. What is clear is Jesus’ insistence that children be allowed have free and complete access to him. He is upholding the dignity of children and declaring that they are to have a central place in the community’s life and worship. Whenever parents or grandparents or teachers bring children to Jesus in any way, they are doing something that the risen Lord delights in and strongly desires. As a community of faith, we have a calling from the Lord to open up the treasures of the gospel to our children and our young people. We have to keep searching for new and creative ways of doing this. Jesus goes on to declare that not only are children to have a central place in the community’s life, but that as adults we have something to learn from them. It is to such as these children, Jesus says, that the kingdom of God belongs. He is suggesting that, if we are to enter the kingdom of God, we need something of that trusting and open response to the gift of the gospel that comes natural to children.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

16th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 19:3-12): ‘They are no longer two but one body’.

Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 19:3-12Husband and wife are no longer two, but one body.

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and to test him they said, ‘Is it against the Law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that the creator from the beginning made them male and female and that he said: This is why a man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two become one body? They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’They said to him, ‘Then why did Moses command that a writ of dismissal should be given in cases of divorce?’ ‘It was because you were so unteachable’ he said ‘that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it was not like this from the beginning. Now I say this to you: the man who divorces his wife– I am not speaking of fornication– and marries another, is guilty of adultery.’The disciples said to him, ‘If that is how things are between husband and wife, it is not advisable to marry.’ But he replied, ‘It is not everyone who can accept what I have said, but only those to whom it is granted. There are eunuchs born that way from their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs made so by men and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.’

GospelMatthew 19:3-12Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” His disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Reflections (10)

(i) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus turns to the opening chapters of the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, when he is put on the spot by some Pharisees regarding the question of divorce. The Jewish law made provision for divorce. The only issue of debate among the religious leaders was the grounds for divorce. One school of thought favoured very lenient grounds; another school insisted on much stricter grounds. However, both schools followed the Jewish Law in asserting that it was only the man who could initiate divorce proceedings, whatever the grounds. The woman was not free to do the same. The divorce laws gave a freedom to men that it did not give to women, and it left women very vulnerable to being cut adrift by their husbands, for the flimsiest of reasons. In that context, Jesus’ teaching on marriage was intended to protect women. It reminded men of their obligation to love and honour their wives as they would their own body. Jesus went back beyond what the Jewish law allowed to God’s original intention as expressed in the Book of Genesis, according to which husband and wife are to become one in love, faithful to each other all the days of their lives. It is a wonderful vision for married life and, yet, we all know from experiences that people’s marriages don’t always reflect this vision of Jesus. Some marriages irretrievably break down. Jesus has a desire for all our lives, whether we are married or single; it is that we would love one another as he loves us. We don’t always live out of that vision of Jesus, but it is always worth striving towards, and if we open ourselves to the help of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord’ love, we will be empowered to give expression to this vision, at least from time to time. Whenever we do so, the kingdom of God is at hand.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading Matthew gives us Jesus’ teaching on marriage and celibacy. Even though within the Jewish tradition the Book of Deuteronomy allowed for divorce, Jesus refers back to the original intention of the Creator as expressed in the Book of Genesis, according to which the union between man and woman in marriage was to be enduring. We are all only too well aware that marriages break down. Many of us will know that from our own families. Yet if the church is to be faithful to the teaching of Jesus it must keep promoting God’s vision for marriage as the giving of a man and a woman to each other for life. Jesus also acknowledges the value of celibacy, for those to whom it has been granted, for those who have the graced capacity for celibacy from God. Jesus declares that it is a value given with a view to a greater value, God’s kingdom. It is to be lived for the sake of that kingdom, to further the coming of God’s kingdom and the doing of God’s will. Whether married or single we are all called to work together in the service of God’s purpose for our world and our lives, as revealed to us by Jesus.

And/Or

(iii) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The opening verses of today’s gospel reading are often chosen as the gospel reading for a wedding Mass. They give us Jesus’ vision for married life, which goes back to the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Jewish Scriptures. According to this vision, a man and woman become one body in marriage, understanding body as the physical expression of the whole person. This vision of two individual lives becoming one shared life is what couples who come to be married in church aspire to, which is why this gospel reading speaks to them. Even though, in practice, those who come together in marriage do not always stay together, the vision for marriage that Jesus articulates remains God’s will for married life. Not everyone, of course, gets married or is called to marriage, as Jesus acknowledges in the concluding part of our gospel reading. Indeed, Jesus himself was not married. Married or single, we are all called to bring the Lord’s love into the world, to love others in ways that build communion or community. Insofar as we allow something of the Lord’s love to become flesh in us, the Lord will be able to continue his work through us. He once described that work as gathering together the scattered children of God, building communion among people.

And/Or

(iv) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading, the religious leaders are presented as testing Jesus. They were aware that his teaching often went much further than the Jewish law required, even, at times, to the point of undermining the Jewish law. On this occasion the Jewish leaders wanted to test how faithful Jesus was to the Jewish law on marriage. They suspected that Jesus’ teaching would go against what the Jewish law permitted in relation to marriage, namely, divorce in certain circ*mstances. Their suspicions were well founded. Jesus’ teaching on marriage was more radical than that of the Jewish law. He called on men and women to marry for life, and went back to the book of Genesis to support his teaching. We are all aware that many marriages do not last for life; relationships break down, and people go their separate ways. That is the reality. The gospels show that Jesus knew how to accept the reality of people’s lives; he engaged with people as they were. He relates to all of us in the concrete situation of our lives. Yet, he also shared God’s vision for human life, including married life. He proclaimed that vision while continuing to relate in a loving way to all who could not reach it, for whatever reason. That includes us all, because none of us lives up fully to the values Jesus proclaimed and lived. There will always be that two-fold aspect to Jesus’ relationship with us; he loves us where we are, but keeps calling us beyond where we are.

And/Or

(v) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Very often in the gospels Jesus is presented as taking a much more relaxed attitude to the Jewish Law than the religious leaders of the time. He is much less strict about the Sabbath law of rest than they are, for example. Jesus heals on the Sabbath, even though this would have been considered work and, therefore, a violation of the Sabbath Law. When it comes to marriage and divorce, however, Jesus seems to have taken a more strict line than the religious leaders of the day. They understood, from the Book of Deuteronomy, that a man could divorce his wife, although a woman could not divorce her husband. This was the interpretation of the Law that was in vogue in the time of Jewish; it left women very vulnerable. Jesus, however, goes back behind the Book of Deuteronomy to the Book of Genesis and declares that God’s original will was that a man and a human who become one flesh in marriage should not then go their separate ways. His vision of marriage was of a faithful relationship which reflected God’s faithful relationship with his people. Jesus must have been as aware as we are today that, in reality, many marriages did not last. When that happens, people have to manage their lives and find love as best they can. We can certainly never judge. Yet, in faithfulness to the teaching of Jesus, the church has to keep on proclaiming his vision of two lives becoming one in marriage, in a self-giving love. At its best, such a love is an ‘incarnation’, with a small ‘i’. It is God’s love in human form. In that gospel reading Jesus also speaks of the single life, those who are single for the sake of kingdom. That is a different expression of God’s love in human form.

And/Or

(vi) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ teaching on marriage in this morning’s gospel reading was not the standard understanding of marriage in the Jewish world at that time. The Pharisees who put a question to Jesus to test him took it for granted that divorce was permissible in certain circ*mstances, as was clear from the Book of Deuteronomy. Jewish men were allowed to divorce their wives, although Jewish women could not divorce their husbands. The only question was on what grounds a Jewish man could divorce his wife. This is why the Pharisees asked Jesus if a man could divorce his wife ‘on any pretext whatever’, as some Jewish teachers held. However, in his response to their question Jesus showed that he did not accept their premise that divorce was permissible and the only issue was on what grounds. Instead Jesus went back beyond the Book of Deuteronomy to the Book of Genesis to show that God’s original intention for marriage was that a man must cling to his wife so that the two become one body for life. Jesus’ teaching on life-long fidelity within marriage would have been considered quite radical at the time. In the gospel reading, even Jesus’ own disciples declare in response to Jesus’ teaching, ‘if that is how things are between a husband and wife, it is advisable not to marry’. Jesus believed that a man and woman were capable of a love that lasted until death. The teaching of Jesus, not just in this area of marriage but in other areas as well, must have seemed too demanding, too idealistic, to many of his contemporaries. Yet, Jesus’ vision for human living, whether it is married life or single life, always appeals to what is best in us. The way of life he puts before us may be demanding but he assures us that it is what we were created for and, therefore, it is the path of life.

And/Or

(vii) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading, Jesus upholds both the value of life-long fidelity in marriage, and the value of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The Jewish tradition did not place great value on celibacy, and divorce was quite common and acceptable. The Pharisees quote from the Book of Deuteronomy which was the basis of the Jewish divorce law. That law in the time of Jesus was very much weighted in favour of the male. Men could divorce their wives but wives could not divorce their husbands. One school of thought within the Jewish tradition held that husbands could divorce their wives on any pretext whatever. A second school held that husbands could divorce their wives only on certain pretexts. That is why the Pharisees ask Jesus the question, ‘Is it against the law for a husband to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever?’ Their question took divorce for granted; they simply wanted to know which of the two schools of thought Jesus favoured. In his answer, Jesus went back beyond the Book of Deuteronomy to the Book of Genesis, to what Jesus considered God’s original intention, ‘a man must leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two become one body’. In highlighting the value of life-long fidelity in marriage, Jesus could be understood as protecting women in marriage from being cast aside at the whim of their husbands. Jesus proclaims the value of a love between a man and a woman that is constant and faithful unto death. We are all aware that marriages break down. Most families in this church, including my own, are aware of this reality from personal experience. There will always be a tension between the ideal and the real, between the goal and what is reached. Jesus wants us to live with that tension and not collapse it. He keeps holding before us the value of a human love that is a reflection of God’s faithful love, whether such love finds expression within marriage or in the single life.

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And/Or

(viii) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospels show that Jesus was often tested by his opponents. They sought in various ways to trip him up. We have an example of that in today’s gospel reading. The Pharisees put a thorny question to Jesus, ‘Is it against the Law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever?’ There was a school of teachers of the Law who held this view; a man could divorce his wife for any reason. There was another school of teachers who held that a man could only divorce his wife on certain grounds. Jesus was being tested as to which school he favoured. It is simply presumed that it is the man who divorces the woman. There was no provision in Jewish Law for a woman to divorce her husband. This left women in marriage rather vulnerable. As often when Jesus is asked a testing question, he doesn’t answer directly. Instead, he goes behind the divorce law which is to be found in the Book of Deuteronomy to God’s original intention for marriage, which is be found in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. When a man and woman marry, they are one body, one flesh. In other words, a husband is to treat his wife as if she were himself, and the wife is to treat her husband as if he were herself. Man and woman are equal in marriage; they belong to each other equally. This original intention of God for marriage was much more enlightened that the current divorce law, regardless of how that law was interpreted by the two schools. Jesus speaks here as the authoritative interpreter of God’s will for marriage. We can broaden that out and say that Jesus is the authoritative interpreter of God’s will for our lives in regard to every issue he speaks about. He is the one who lights up God’s purpose for our lives and our world. That is why, as followers of Jesus, we always read the Jewish Scriptures in the light of Jesus’ teaching and way of life.

And/Or

(ix) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, Joshua reminds the people of Israel of the many ways they have been blessed and graced since God first called Abraham. The land they had recently entered with its towns, vineyards and olive groves was not the result of their own efforts but was much more by way of a gift from God. We all need to be reminded of how much we have received, the extent to which we have been graced by God. The more aware we are of the giftedness of life, the more thankful we will be. Saint Paul often called upon the first Christians to be thankful. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, which is the earliest Christian document that has come to us, he says, ‘give thanks in all circ*mstances’. We are to live out of a sense of gratitude to God for what we have received from God. We express our gratitude to God in prayer but also in life, by our willingness to give to others out of what we have received from God, by seeking to love others in the way we have been loved by God. In the gospel reading, this is the kind of love Jesus calls for within marriage. For a couple to give to each other as they have received, to love one another as they have been loved by God, is to be faithful to each other for life, as God is faithful to us throughout our lives. Married love has the potential to be the greatest living sign of God’s faithful love. Not everyone marries, of course, as Jesus recognizes at the end of the gospel reading. Those who are not married can equally reflect the faithful nature of God’s love in the way they live, through the love of friendship which they extent to others, and through their loving service of the community. Regardless of our state in life, we are all called to acknowledge how much we have received from God, and to give from what we have received.

And/Or

(x) Friday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The teaching of Jesus on marriage in today’s gospel reading can seem very challenging and uncompromising today, especially in the context of the high proportion of marriages that do not last. His vision of marriage can seem far removed from the reality of married life for many couples. Yet, perhaps it is precisely because so many marriages do not last today that the teaching of Jesus on marriage is all the more important. Jesus calls for a love between husband and wife that is faithful and enduring, a love that lasts in good times as well as bad, a love that is generous and ready to forgive. His vision of how a man and woman are to relate to each other in marriage is shaped by his insight into how God relates to all of us. God loves us with a faithful and enduring love. God’s love for us never changes; it lasts through good times and bad times in our lives; it is a love that is generous and ready to forgive. This is the quality of God’s love that is reflected in today’s first reading from the prophet Jeremiah. In that reading, the Lord accused his people of breaking the covenant he made with them. Yet, in spite of that infidelity, the Lord promises them, ‘I will remember the covenant that I made with you… I am going to renew my covenant with you… you will be reduced to silence when I have pardoned you for all that you have done’. Jesus calls on married couples to relate to one another in the way God relates to us. That call is addressed to all of us, whether we are married or single. We are to love one another in a way that reflects how God loves us. Maximilian Kolbe whose feast we celebrate today is a wonderful example of God’s love in human form. As a celibate man, he laid down his life in love for a married man, a father of a family. As Jesus says, ‘no one has greater love than this’.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

15th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Inc. Luke 1:39-56): ‘Of all women, you are the most blessed’.

Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Gospel (Except USA)Luke 1:39-56The Almighty has done great things for me.

Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’And Mary said:

‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lordand my spirit exults in God my saviour;because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid.Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed,for the Almighty has done great things for me.Holy is his name,and his mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him.He has shown the power of his arm,he has routed the proud of heart.He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away.He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his mercy– according to the promise he made to our ancestors–of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back home.

Gospel (USA)Luke 1:39-56The Almighty has done great things for me; he has raised up the lowly.

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”And Mary said:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;my spirit rejoices in God my Saviorfor he has looked upon his lowly servant.From this day all generations will call me blessed:the Almighty has done great things for me,and holy is his Name.He has mercy on those who fear himin every generation.He has shown the strength of his arm,and has scattered the proud in their conceit.He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,and has lifted up the lowly.He has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.He has come to the help of his servant Israelfor he remembered his promise of mercy,the promise he made to our fathers,to Abraham and his children forever.”

Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Reflections (2)

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary’s assumption points to our own heavenly destiny, the glorification of our whole humanity in heaven. Her earthly life reminds us of our baptismal calling. In today’s gospel reading, Mary physically carries Jesus in her womb to Elizabeth, her older cousin. As disciples of the Lord, we are all called to carry Jesus to others. Our baptismal calling is to become bearers of the Lord’s presence to all, to allow the Lord to live in us so that he can speak and act through us. Mary gives expression to our own baptismal calling. As the first disciple of her son, she shows us what it means to answer the Lord’s call. Mary could bring the Lord to Elizabeth because, at the moment of the annunciation, she gave herself over to God’s purpose for her life. She consented to allow God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to overshadow her, to take hold of her. Insofar as we give ourselves over to God’s purpose for our lives and allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow us, we too will become people who bring the Lord to others. It is the Holy Spirit who brings the Lord to birth within us.

When Mary reached her destination and greeted Elizabeth, we are told that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary’s way of relating to Elizabeth helped Elizabeth to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We too are called to relate to others in ways that help them to become filled with the Holy Spirit, that open them up more fully to the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The Holy Spirit at work in our lives can bring the Holy Spirit to life in the lives of others.

In response to Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth, in the power of the Spirit, declares Mary blessed because of her faith, ‘Blessed is she who believed’. Mary’s faith showed itself in love, in a journey of loving service to her older, more vulnerable, pregnant cousin. She shows us that genuine faith always expresses itself in loving service of others. When we give ourselves over in faith to God, we open ourselves up to his Holy Spirit and the primary fruit of the Spirit is love. As Saint Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, ‘the only thing that counts is faith working through love’.

Just as Mary’s presence filled Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth’s way of relating to Mary filled Mary with a spirit of prayer. Because of the way that Elizabeth welcomed Mary, Mary was moved to pray her great prayer, the Magnificat. The content of Mary’s prayer shows her to be a woman who hungers for a new justice on earth, where the lowly are exalted, the hungry are filled, and oppressive powers are overcome. Mary shows us that genuine faith expresses itself not only in love but in a hunger and thirst for God’s justice on earth.

If Mary’s earthly life of loving service and prayer shows us the shape of our own faith journey, her assumption reveals our ultimate destiny beyond this earthly life. The feast of her assumption celebrates her full embodied sharing in the risen life of Christ. She gives us hope that, in the words of today’s second reading, ‘all will be brought to life in Christ’. As one who now shares fully in the Lord’s risen life, we can confidently turn to her, asking her to pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death, so that we too can come to share in the Lord’s risen life to the full.

We need her prayers, because our faith, and all that flows from it, is often put to the test. Mary’s faith, her relationship with the Lord, was certainly put to the test. That is one of the messages of that strange first reading from the Book of Revelation, which is so full of symbolism. When the woman adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, with twelve stars for a crown was about to give birth to her child, the red dragon stood in front of her so that he could devour her child as soon as it was born. However, God protected both the woman and her child. There will always be forces hostile to our faith in the Lord and to our efforts to give birth to the Lord in our lives. That is why Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. He foresaw our struggle. We need a faith that perseveres through the struggles of life. On this feast of Mary, we can look to her as a woman of persevering faith, who remained faithful to her Son, standing by the cross as she watched him been cruelly put to death. She is a prayerful presence on our own faith journey, helping us to persevere in faith, until our faith in her Son gives way to seeing him face to face.

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(ii) Feast of the Assumptionof the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today’s feast celebrates Mary’s full sharing in the risen life of Christ. In the words of Mary’s prayer in the gospel reading, ‘the Almighty has done great things for me’. This feast also reminds us that the Almighty wants to do the same great things for all of us. In the words of today’s second reading from Saint Paul, we are all destined to ‘be brought to life in Christ’. Paul wrote to the members of the church in Philippi, ‘I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion’. God has brought his good work in Mary to completion in heaven. God’s good work was well underway in Mary before she came to share in Christ’s heavenly glory. We can see evidence of God’s good work in her in today’s gospel reading. When her older cousin, Elizabeth, was pregnant with John the Baptist and in need of support, Mary set out and went as quickly as she could from Nazareth to the hill country of Judah, even though Mary was pregnant herself with Jesus. According to the gospel reading, she ended up staying with Elizabeth about three months. God’s good work in our lives shows itself in the kind of loving service that Mary showed to Elizabeth. Whenever we go on a journey to support someone in need, God’s good work is coming to pass in us. In response to Mary’s opening greeting, Elizabeth asked, ‘Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?’ Mary physically brought the Lord to Elizabeth. We are all called to bring the Lord to others by our goodness and kindness, and whenever we do so we are honouring them. God’s good work in Mary also found expression in her prayer, which has come to be known as the Magnificat. Mary was a woman of prayer as well as a woman of loving service. Her loving service of others flowed from her life of prayer. Whenever we give time to God in prayer, God’s good work is finding expression in our lives. Our calling is to keep opening ourselves up to God’s good work in our lives, expressed in loving service of others and in prayer to God, so that God can do for us what he did for Mary, bringing his good work to completion in our lives, by leading us to share fully in Christ’s risen life.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

14th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 18:15-20) ‘Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’.

Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 18:15-20If your brother listens to you, you have won back your brother.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.‘I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.‘I tell you solemnly once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 18:15-20If your brother listens to you, you have won him over.

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

We can all take a wrong turning in our lives. We say or do something that hurts another person. It can be helpful at such times if someone, preferably someone we know and trust, gently points out to us where we have gone wrong. It takes courage to bring a wrong to someone’s attention and it takes humility to recognize that what the person is trying to show us is correct. In the gospel reading Jesus says that we sometimes have to bring a wrong that someone has done to their attention. He clearly saw this as one expression of the responsibility we have for one another. We are to help one another towards virtue. We are to support one another in our efforts to do God’s will. However, what Jesus says here has to be seen in the light of something he said elsewhere in the gospels. He tells us not to be trying to take the speck out of our brother’s and sister’s eye when we have a plank in our own eye. In other words, we are to be far more aware of our own failings than the failings of others. If we try to bring some wrong to someone’s attention, we do so out of a very deep sense of our own moral weaknesses. We are all sinners trying to help one another on the path towards the Lord. Jesus also states in today’s gospel reading that our journeying together, our efforts to help one another towards virtue, has to be rooted in prayer. ‘Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’. In prayer we open ourselves up the Holy Spirit, and it is only in the Spirit of the Lord that we can really support one another in our efforts to live as true disciples of the Lord.

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(ii) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the time of Jesus, various Jewish rabbis claimed that, when two pious Jews sat together to discuss the words of the Jewish law, the divine presence was with them. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus is presented as making a related but different claim. He declares that where two or three are gathered in his name, he himself is there in their midst. Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel, is Emmanuel, God-with-us. He himself is the divine presence among us. When his followers gather in his name, on account of him, he is with them as Emmanuel, God-with-us. Only two followers are necessary to ensure the presence of Emmanuel. When we gather in the Lord’s name to prayer, whether it is the prayer of the Eucharist or some other form of prayer, the Lord is there. We don’t have to enter into the Lord’s presence on such occasions, we are already in it. We only have to become aware of the one who is present among us. That is why attentiveness, awareness, is always at the heart of prayer, especially communal prayer.

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(iii) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jewish rabbis claimed that when two pious Jews sat together to discuss the words of the Jewish Law, the divine presence was with them. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus declares that where two or three of his followers meet in his name, he shall be there with them. The meeting in his name that Jesus refers to is a meeting for worship, for prayer. As a church we gather not around the words of the Jewish Law but around the words of Jesus, and when we do that Jesus will be among us, and he will be among us as Emmanuel, God-with-us. The first reading portrayed the ‘glory of the Lord’, the presence of God leaving the Jewish temple; the gospel reading speaks of the presence of God, the presence of Jesus, God-with-us, among the disciples of Jesus. For the Lord to be with us whenever we gather to worship is a great privilege, a great grace. Yet, we are called to live in a way that is worthy of such a grace. The Lord who is present among us when we gather for prayer calls on us to reveal his presence to others when we rise from prayer and go about our daily tasks.

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(iv) Wednesday, Nineteenth week in Ordinary Time

The last verse of this morning’s gospel reading is one that has spoken to believers down through the generations, ‘For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’. The saying highlights the value of believers coming together in the Lord’s name, whether for liturgical worship, other forms of prayer or some form of communal activity. No number is too small; any more than one will do. Even when two people gather in the Lord’s name, he is there in the midst of them. There is a real value in coming together in faith, even if it is only two people, because in doing so we create a space, as it were, for the Lord to be present. This saying of Jesus is one that gives tremendous value to all our gatherings, especially our gatherings for prayer, no matter how small those gatherings are. We can easily get preoccupied with numbers in the church. We bemoan the fact that fewer people are coming to Mass or to gatherings of faith whether for prayer or for other purposes. Yet, if even a minimum of two people ensures the presence of the risen Lord between them, then there is something there to truly celebrate rather than bemoan. Whenever the Lord is present in our midst, he is not there in a passive way. His presence is always an active, life-giving, transforming presence. There is a great deal going on when even two gather in the Lord’s name. There is so much more happening than just the physical coming together of people. The Lord is at work in their midst. We need never underestimate the value of our gatherings or their power to transform, no matter how small they are.

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(v) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

We can often be impressed by numbers, and that is true even within the context of the church. We look to see how many are coming to Mass or how many are signing up to this event or to that ministry. Jesus’ way of looking at things is somewhat different to ours. Numbers did not seem to be an issue for him. He understood the value of the one; he spoke of the shepherd who left the ninety nine sheep to go in the search of the one who was lost. In this morning’s gospel reading he declares that where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst of them. The smallest gathering in a tiny church is just as significant as the huge congregation in one of the great Cathedrals or Basilicas of the world. In these days of declining numbers within the church, the gospel teaches us to appreciate the significance of those present, regardless of how few, rather than allowing ourselves to become too discouraged by those who are not present. The Lord is present where two or three are gathered in his name, and if we are open and responsive to the Lord’s presence among us, few though we may be, he will draw others to himself through us.

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(vi) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ message in today’s gospel reading takes it for granted that within the community of his disciples, people will invariably take a wrong path. He was very aware that the church he was forming would not be a community of the perfect. It would always be a community of sinners who are striving to be better. As a result, Jesus suggests a procedure for helping others who do wrong to come back to the right path again. The one to whom the wrong is done is to have it out with the person responsible for the wrong. If that doesn’t work, one or two others are to be brought along to address the person in the wrong. If that doesn’t work, the whole community of believers is to get involved. Jesus’ suggested procedure may not be valid in every situation for every age. Yet, the underlying principle holds true. Jesus is declaring that we have some responsibility for each other’s well-being, not just physical well-being but moral well-being. He looks to us to help each other towards goodness. We have a role to play in helping one another to be more loving in the way Jesus was loving. It is not that some of us are the moral superiors of others. We are all sinners and we each need other members of the believing community to help us on our way towards God. Being human, being Christ-like, being loving, is a complicated business and we all make mistakes in the process of learning to do it right, and we need to find a way of standing together in that process. When we stand together in this vital work of helping each other become all that God wants us to be, Jesus promises us in today’s gospel reading that he will be with us. We are not on our own. ‘Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’.

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(vii) Wednesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The last line of today’s gospel reading, in particular, has spoken to believers down the centuries. Jesus says, ‘For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them’. Even when we are on our own, we know that the Lord is with us and within us. When older people were isolating early in the pandemic, they were never away from the Lord. He doesn’t do social distancing. Yet, Jesus clearly saw a special value in people of faith meeting together in his name. The Lord’s way of being present to us when we gather in his name is different to his presence to us on our own, having its own distinctive quality. Believers have always felt the need to gather; it is as if the Lord is drawing us together. We are members of his family of faith; in the gospels he refers to his disciples as his brothers, sisters, mother. It is natural for family to gather together, and that is just as true of the family of faith. What Jesus says in the gospel reading suggests that the numbers who gather isn’t so important. He seems to set the bar very low when he speaks of two or three gathering in his name. Yet, he clearly sees a great value in such a small gathering. We tend to be big into numbers. If a gathering falls below a certain number, we can be tempted to think it isn’t worth continuing with it. Yet, Jesus values any gathering in his name, even the minimal gathering of two or three. It is worth holding on to that truth, especially in these times when we can be preoccupied with the fall in the numbers coming to Mass. A gathering of two or three matters to the Lord and it doesn’t have to be for Mass. Any gathering of people in the Lord’s name, because they belong to him, mediates the Lord’s presence.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

13th August Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14) ‘Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’.

Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14Anyone who welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me.

The disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ So he called a little child to him and set the child in front of them. Then he said, ‘I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.‘Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.‘See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually in the presence of my Father in heaven.‘Tell me. Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray? I tell you solemnly, if he finds it, it gives him more joy than do the ninety-nine that did not stray at all. Similarly, it is never the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14See that you do not despise one of these little ones.

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

Reflections (4)

(i) Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Sometimes the kinds of questions people ask reveal their values, their priorities, what they think important. The question that the disciples put to Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ suggests a certain interest on their part in status and standing. In response to their question, Jesus both did something and said something. He first of all called a child over and placed the child in front of them; he then informed them that they needed to become like that child just to enter the kingdom of heaven, never mind become the greatest in the kingdom. Jesus was calling on his disciples to become child-like not childish, child-like in the sense of having child-like trust in a loving Father, a trust that awaits everything from God and grabs at nothing, including status and standing. Greatness comes to those who make themselves as dependent on God as children are dependent on adults for their existence and well-being. Jesus’ response to the question of his disciples is a kind of a commentary on the first beatitude which he had spoken earlier in Matthew’s gospel, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.

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(ii) Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The question the disciples ask Jesus, ‘who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ reveals a preoccupation with status and honour. In his response, Jesus cuts across this preoccupation, which is far removed from his own concerns. He does not answer the question directly but declares that disciples will not even enter the kingdom of God unless they become like little children. In that culture, children, although loved by their parents, were considered to have no rights, no status, no honour. They are completely dependent on others for everything. In calling on all of his disciples to become like little children, he is calling on us to cast off all notions of status and honour and to recognize our complete dependence on God for everything, our poverty before God. As Jesus says elsewhere, it is those who humble themselves who will be exalted (by God). Humility is not about putting oneself down but about being grounded or earthed (‘humus’ is Latin for ‘earth’) in the reality of our creaturely status. The humble are those who recognize the truth of their reality as beggars before God, dependent upon God for all that is good. As a result, the humble will not promote themselves over others but recognize the common humanity that they share with all people. They will recognize and welcome the Lord in the weakest, those without status or position, such as the child. The conclusion of the gospel reading suggests they will go further and set off in search of such ‘little ones’ when they stray.

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(iii) Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospels are full of questions. Some of the questions are asked by Jesus; others are asked by his opponents and some are asked by his disciples. In this morning’s gospel reading a question is asked by one of Jesus’ disciples, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ It is a question that reveals something about our human nature, an interest in status and position and prestige. Behind that question of the disciples perhaps stood another question, ‘How do we get to become the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ The answer of Jesus to his disciples’ question gave them, and gives us, much to ponder. Jesus in his answer speaks about something more basic than becoming the greatest in the kingdom. He says that in order just to enter the kingdom, his disciples have to change and become like little children. Children in those days had no rights; they had no status in law. They were completely dependent on others for everything, especially on their parents. Jesus is recommending a child-like trust in a loving Father, a trust which awaits everything from God and grabs at nothing. Jesus is making a sharp challenge to the will for power and status that exists in every human community, including the community of disciples. Rather than seeking to exalt ourselves we entrust ourselves to God who exalts the humble.

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(iv) Tuesday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading this morning Jesus’ disciples ask him, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ In response to their question, Jesus does not say the greatest are the most successful, the strongest, those who outdo others in skill and power. Rather, he took a child, one of the least significant in the culture of the time, and declared that children are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Those who, in Jesus’ time, had no status or power or influence or expertise or skill are the greatest in the kingdom of God. What makes them great in God’s kingdom is their openness to receive God’s presence in Jesus. Today we can still recognize that openness to the Lord in children. Jesus then goes on to call on his disciples and on all of us to become like little children, and declares that unless we do so we will not enter the kingdom of God. Children can be our teachers. As adults we need to be as open to the Lord’s presence as children are. Then we will be great in the kingdom of God.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

12th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 17:22-27) ‘The sons are exempt’.

Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 17:22-27'They will put the Son of Man to death'.

One day when they were together in Galilee, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men; they will put him to death, and on the third day he will be raised to life again.’ And a great sadness came over them.When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel came to Peter and said, ‘Does your master not pay the half-shekel?’ ‘Oh yes’ he replied, and went into the house. But before he could speak, Jesus said, ‘Simon, what is your opinion? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from foreigners?’ And when he replied, ‘From foreigners’, Jesus said, ‘Well then, the sons are exempt. However, so as not to offend these people, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that bites, open its mouth and there you will find a shekel; take it and give it to them for me and for you.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 17:22-27They will kill him and he will be raised. The subjects are exempt from the tax.

As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were overwhelmed with grief.When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes,” he said. When he came into the house, before he had time to speak, Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their subjects or from foreigners?” When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him, “Then the subjects are exempt. But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and for you.”

Reflections (9)

(i) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The half-shekel tax was a tax that devout Jews sent to the Temple every year to support the cost of the Temple activities, especially the various sacrifices that were offered there. Jesus suggests that the new family he is forming about himself are free from paying this tax, ‘the sons (and daughters) are exempt’. The King of heaven does not tax members of God’s new family that Jesus is in the process of creating. However, Jesus goes on to say to Peter that even though they are exempt from paying this Temple tax, they should pay it anyway so as not to give unnecessary offense to those collecting the tax. In this case, consideration for others requires the disciples to renounce a legitimate freedom that they have. For Jesus, freedom is not the ultimate value above all others. Rather, love is the ultimate value, loving concern for the wellbeing of others. It is love of others that is to shape how we exercise our freedom. Out of consideration for others, it may be necessary to renounce a freedom that we have. Jesus is the supreme example of someone who gave up his freedom out of love for humanity. He had no freedom as he was nailed to the cross, but at that moment he was demonstrating God’s unconditional love for the world. This kind of radical freedom is what Saint Paul calls the freedom of the Spirit. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Cor 3:17). It is the Spirit who frees us to renounce our legitimate freedom when the good of others is at stake. The well-being of the stranger, the refugee, the asylum seeker, often requires that we renounce some freedom we possess. In doing so we are revealing the Lord’s self-emptying love.

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(ii) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There are two parts to this morning’s gospel reading. In the first part Jesus announces his coming suffering and death. As a result, we are told, a great sadness came over the disciples. Sadness is the normal response when we are faced with the departure or the death of someone we love. We have all known that kind of sadness, the sadness that engulfs the disciples in today’s gospel reading. To some extent, we live with it all the time. Yet, we cannot allow such sadness to dominate us. We have to keep going in the strength the Lord gives us. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus and the disciples keep travelling on after this moment of harsh reality. Eventually they come to Capernaum, the home of Simon Peter. There, a strange little incident takes place. The half-shekel tax is the tax that every Jew in the time of Jesus paid annually towards the upkeep of the temple. On the one hand Jesus says that he and his followers are exempt from paying this tax, because Jesus himself is now the new temple. On the other hand, Jesus tells Peter to pay the tax so as not to offend the religious leaders. In other words, Jesus declares freedom in this regard but then recommends putting this freedom to one side for the moment so as not to give unnecessary offense. In that way Jesus reminds us that although we may be free in regard to certain matters, sometimes it can be right not to use our freedom when the good of others is at stake.

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(iii) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the time of Jesus, every Jew, regardless of where they lived, had to pay an annual tax towards the expenses of the temple in Jerusalem. In this morning’s gospel reading, those who collect this tax approach Peter to ask whether or not Jesus intends paying this tax. Peter instinctively answers ‘Yes’. However, when Jesus is alone with his disciples, he puts a little parable to Peter which suggests that Jesus and his followers are not obliged to pay this tax. They are sons (and daughters) of God the Father in heaven and, sons, unlike slaves, are free. Jesus has a very different view about the payment of this Temple tax to those who collect the tax. Yet, even though in theory Jesus and his disciples should consider themselves free from the obligation of paying this tax, Jesus instructs Peter to go and pay this tax for both of them, so as to avoid giving unnecessary scandal or offence to others. This issue is not our issue but Jesus’ way of coming at it has still something to say to us today. Jesus implies that just because we are free to do something does not mean that it is right to do it. Freedom is a very important value, but the gospels suggest that the exercise of freedom has to be governed by higher values, such as the value of loving the other, being considerate of the other, avoiding giving unnecessary offence or scandal to the other. Jesus teaches us that sometimes we have to renounce our legitimate freedom when the well being of others is at stake. In the world of God’s kingdom proclaimed by Jesus the question, ‘What is my entitlement?’ becomes less important than the question, ‘How can I best serve others, including those who see things differently to me?’

And/Or

(iv) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel this morning centres on the payment of the half shekel tax. This was an annual tax that all Jews paid for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem. The question is whether Jesus and his disciples were free from having to pay this tax. After all, Jesus had declared that ‘something greater than the Temple is here’. The ‘something greater’ was Jesus himself. He is the new Temple of God, the one in whom God is present. He is Immanuel, God-with-us. If he is the new Temple, then strictly speaking the tax to the old Temple in Jerusalem does not need to be paid. That is what Jesus means when he says, ‘the sons are exempt’, the sons being the sons of God’s kingdom, Jesus’ disciples. However, even though in theory Jesus and his disciples are free from having to pay the tax, Jesus declares that they should pay the tax so as to not to offend the Jewish tax collectors, so as to avoid giving scandal. The issue of the Temple tax is not our issue today, but the way Jesus deals with it can continue to speak to us. Jesus is declaring that just because we are legitimately free not to do something does not mean that we should not do it. Similarly, just because we are legitimately free to do something does not mean that we should do it. Freedom is not always the most important value for Jesus. The value of love is always more important in his eyes. Whatever promotes the well being of others always guides how we exercise our legitimate freedom. One expression of the love of others is not giving unnecessary offense or scandal.

And/Or

(v) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the time and place of Jesus, people laboured under the burden of taxation. Perhaps that much has not changed! There were various taxes to be paid to the Roman authorities. There was also an annual half-shekel tax to be paid for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem. In this morning’s gospel reading, those who were responsible for collecting this Temple tax were curious to know whether or not Jesus paid it. Peter assures them that he did. However, when Jesus had the opportunity to speak with Peter, he conveyed to him, in the words of the gospel reading, that ‘the sons are exempt’ from this tax. The ‘sons’ were the members of the new family that Jesus was gathering about himself. Yet, even though, Jesus no longer saw the Temple tax as obligatory for himself or his disciples, he instructs Peter to go and pay it, ‘so as not to offend these people’. Although Jesus was not afraid to offend people when something of consequence was at stake, he didn’t go out of his way to offend people when the issue was not so important, as in this instance of the Temple tax. There were issues on which he took a stand and other issues which he let go. We all have to learn to make that distinction. When are we called to stand and fight and when can we just let things be? We look to the Holy Spirit to give us the wisdom to make that judgement.

And/Or

(vi) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel reading makes reference to the half-shekel tax. This was not a tax imposed by the Romans. Rather, it was a Jewish tax. Devout Jews paid the half-shekel tax to the Temple in Jerusalem every year to defray the costs of the sacrifices that were offered in the Temple. Peter is asked by the collectors of this tax whether his master, Jesus, paid it or not. They were testing Jesus’ credentials as a devout and orthodox Jew. Peter did not hesitate to say that Jesus did pay this annual tax. In the conversation that Jesus subsequently has with Peter, Jesus suggests that neither himself nor his disciples are bound to pay this tax. This seems to be the meaning of his statement, ‘the sons are exempt’. Jesus, of course, was the supreme Son of God, but his disciples were called to share in his relationship with God as Son and to that extent were sons and daughters of God. Even though ‘the sons are exempt’, Jesus instructs Peter to pay the tax for both of them, so as not to give an offence to the collectors of the half-shekel tax. Jesus suggests that just because we are free in relation to some matter does not mean it is always a good thing to exercise that freedom. Jesus implies that freedom is an important value but it is not an absolute value. There are other values which take precedence over the value of freedom, such as consideration for the sensitivities of others, or what we would call the value of self-emptying love of others. For Jesus and for the Christian tradition that flows from him, love, the primary fruit of the Holy Spirit, is a higher value than freedom. Such love of the other shapes how we give expression to our freedom. As Saint Paul puts it so succinctly, ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’.

And/Or

(vii) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Taxation has always been a contentious issue from ancient times until today. How much tax should we pay? Who should pay tax? In the time and place of Jesus, there were taxes due to Rome and there was also a religious tax due to the Temple in Jerusalem, the half-shekel tax. It is this religious tax that is the issue in today’s gospel reading. Jews paid this half-shekel tax to the Temple every year to defray the cost of the sacrifices that were offered there. Those who collected this tax come to Peter and ask him if Jesus pays it or not. They wanted to know whether Jesus behaved as a good Jew should in this matter. Peter answers ‘yes’, assuming that Jesus would fulfil this requirement of the Jewish Law. However, Jesus goes on to show that the situation is not quite as simple as Peter’s answer suggests. Jesus’ comment to Peter, ‘the sons are exempt’, suggests that the sons and daughters of God, those who call God ‘Abba’, Father, as Jesus does, are, in fact, exempt from this tax. After all, as Jesus says elsewhere in this gospel of Matthew, with reference to himself, something greater than the Temple is here. The Temple has lost its significance as the privileged place of God’s presence now that Jesus, who is Emmanuel, God-with-us, has arrived to proclaim the powerful presence of God’s reign. Yet, Jesus goes on to declare that, even though, in theory, he and his disciples are free from this Temple tax, Peter should pay the half shekel tax on their behalf. Jesus implies that being free in regard to something does not mean that it is always good to exercise our freedom. Sometimes, other values take precedence over the value of freedom. In this case, what was of greater value was sensitivity towards the collectors of the tax by not offending them, or giving unnecessary scandal. For Jesus, consideration for others, love of others, takes priority over the exercise of legitimate freedom. Within the Christian tradition, freedom is always shaped by love of others, that self-emptying love that places the good of the other before our own, the kind of love that Jesus revealed in his life and his death.

And/Or

(viii) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The story in today’s gospel reading about the half-shekel has been described as one of the more curious stories in the gospels. The half-shekel was a tax that every Jew paid for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem. The collectors of this half-shekel tax came to Peter to know whether Jesus paid this tax or not. In other words, was Jesus a good Jew? Did he support the Temple like every committed Jew? In the conversation Jesus subsequently had with Peter about this tax, Jesus says, ‘the sons are exempt’. Jesus was in the process of forming a new family of disciples, who would be his brothers and sisters, and, thereby, sons and daughters of God. We all belong to that family. On the principle that fathers do not tax their children, Jesus concludes that the members of his new family do not have to pay a tax to God, their Father. However, even though in principal Jesus’ disciples are free from this tax, they should pay it, so as not to give unnecessary scandal to those for whom it is important. Jesus is talking here about a deeper freedom, the freedom to renounce one’s legitimate freedom out of love for others. This is what Saint Paul would call the freedom of the Spirit. It is the freedom to love, even if that entails renouncing our legitimate freedom. For Jesus and Paul, loving consideration for others is a higher value that freedom. For us as followers of Jesus it is love that shapes how we exercise our freedom. The fundamental question for us as Jesus’ disciples is not so much ‘What am I free to do or not do?’ but ‘How can I serve the other in love, especially the most vulnerable?’ When we live out of that question, then we reflect something of God who, according to our first reading, ‘sees justice done for the orphan and widow’ and ‘who loves the stranger’.

And/Or

(ix) Monday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel has a vision of God. He found it very difficult to describe this experience. He uses the phrase, ‘something that looked like’ and ‘what looked like’. It looked like a sapphire, a throne, fire. It looked like all of these elements but it wasn’t any of them. It is very tentative language. Ezekiel is aware that his description doesn’t do justice to what he saw. God is always beyond our words. Human words fail us when it comes to speaking of God. Yet, God has spoken a powerful word to us to help us to see who God is, and that word is Jesus. To see Jesus is to see God. How Jesus relates to us shows us how God relates to us. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus shows great sensitivity in the way he relats to those who put a hostile question to Peter, ‘Does your master not pay the half shekel?’ This was a tax paid to the Temple in Jerusalem for its upkeep. It is clear from the gospel reading that Jesus felt no obligation to pay this tax and, yet, he told Peter to pay it, ‘so as not to offend these people’. Even though Jesus felt totally free in regard to this Temple tax, he paid it because he didn’t want to offend those for whom the tax was very important. There was a great sensitivity there to the feelings of others. Sensitivity to others, to what is important to them, to what they hold dear, is one of the expressions of love. There are different ways of expressing our relationship with God. Some people’s way of relating to God, their way of praying, for example, may not appeal to us, but we are respectful of it and sensitive to their feelings around it. Jesus revealed God’s love, a love that was full of sensitivity for others. Through the Holy Spirit he empowers us to give expression to this sensitive love in our own lives.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

11th August >> Fr. Martin's Homilies/Reflections on Today's Mass Readings for The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) (John 6:41-51): ‘I am the bread of life’.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Gospel (Except USA)John 6:41-51Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.

The Jews were complaining to each other about Jesus, because he had said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ ‘Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph’ they said. ‘We know his father and mother. How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ Jesus said in reply, ‘Stop complaining to each other.

‘No one can come to meunless he is drawn by the Father who sent me,and I will raise him up at the last day.It is written in the prophets:They will all be taught by God,and to hear the teaching of the Father,and learn from it,is to come to me.Not that anybody has seen the Father,except the one who comes from God:he has seen the Father.I tell you most solemnly,everybody who believes has eternal life.

‘I am the bread of life.Your fathers ate the manna in the desertand they are dead;but this is the bread that comes down from heaven,so that a man may eat it and not die.I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,for the life of the world.’

Gospel (USA)John 6:41–51I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets:

They shall all be taught by God.

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Homilies (6)

(i) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We can all have the experience of thinking we know someone really well and then coming to realize that we didn’t really know them at all. Our way of seeing one another can be quite limited. What we see in someone can be a great deal less than what is there. What others see in us can also be much less than what is there. We can be labelled on the basis of some past experience people had of us and we are never allowed to move on from that labell.

This was the experience of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. Many people thought they knew him well, ‘Surely, this is Jesus son of Joseph? We know his father and mother’. Yet, there was much more to Jesus than being the son of Joseph and Mary; he was also the Son of God. He was the Word who was with God in the beginning, who was God, and who became flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. He may have come from his parents’ home in Nazareth, but, more fundamentally, he came down from his Father in heaven. He speaks of himself in our gospel reading as ‘the bread of life that came down from heaven’. He came from God into our world to nourish us with his presence, to feed us with his word and his teaching, and also by all that he did, by his life, death and resurrection. He came to satisfy the deepest hungers of our heart, our hunger for love and acceptance, for forgiveness, for meaning and purpose, for happiness and joy, for beauty and truth. There was so much more to Jesus than people realized. He was more than just the son of Joseph and Mary. There is always more to Jesus than we realize.

He is among us today as Bread of Life, feeding the deepest hungers of our heart. That is why he is always calling out to us to come to him. He has so much to give us, but we have to come to him if we are to receive it. Jesus says in the gospel reading that our coming to him is always in response to God our Father drawing us to him. ‘No one can come to me’, he says, ‘unless drawn by the Father who sent me’. God the Father is always drawing us to his Son and our calling is to allow ourselves to be drawn by God. When I was a child, I loved to play with a magnet and some nails, and to see how the magnet drew the nails to itself As I moved the magnet closer to the nails, they would jump towards the magnet. God draws us towards his Son in whom he is fully present. Our coming to Jesus is always in response to being drawn. We just need to surrender to God’s drawing power. God doesn’t wait for us to be morally good to draw us to his Son. God is always drawing us to his Son regardless of how we have been in the past or how we are in the present, because God knows that it is only when we come close to his Son, when we entrust ourselves to him, that we will be empowered to change for the better. God draws us to his Son so that our spirits, our hearts and minds, can be nourished by his Son who is Bread of Life for the world. The risen Lord who is God-with-us draws us to himself so that he can feed us with his loving presence. He once said, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself’.

We all need the Lord to nurture us with his loving presence on the journey of life. We cannot go it alone. In the first reading, Elijah discovered that he couldn’t go it alone. He was journeying towards Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, but on the way, he lost the energy to keep going. All he wanted to do was sleep. As we journey towards the heavenly mountain of God, we too can lose heart. The struggles and disappointments of life can leave us feeling drained. When Elijah was at his lowest ebb, God sent an angel to give him the sustenance he needed to keep going until he reached his destination. God has sent us so much more than an angel to enable us to keep going when the journey becomes too much for us. God sent us his Son as Bread of Life and God is constantly at work drawing us to his Son, our risen Lord. God invites us, in the words of today’s psalm, ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’. The risen Lord, in his goodness, journeys with us, and if we come to him in response to God drawing us, we will discover him to be food for the journey, not perishable food, but food that endures to eternal life. In the words of the psalm, ‘the Lord is my Shepherd’, ‘Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life’. The Lord wants to feed us with his loving presence, so that we, in turn, can be bread of life for each other, God’s angel or messenger to those who are finding life’s journey a struggle.

And/Or

(ii) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We are all prone to discouragement from time to time. The difficult economic climate in which we live can leave us discouraged, especially when it begins to impact on us personally. Some have lost their jobs; everyone is, to some degree, in the process of belt-tightening. We can find ourselves discouraged for all kinds of other, more personal, reasons. Some relationship that we have high hopes for may not be working out for us. Sometimes we can feel very discouraged without really knowing what that is so. We are just very aware that our energy levels are low and that our enthusiasm for life is not what it used to be. We seem to be dragging ourselves along. Joy seems to elude us.

Even people of strong faith can get discouraged and disconsolate. Elijah was one of the great prophets of Israel; a strong man of God who proclaimed God’s word fearlessly and challenged the paganism of his time. Yet, in today’s first reading we find him deeply discouraged. He went into the wilderness and after a day’s journey he sat under a furze bush and wished he were dead. His prayer reflected his frame of mind, ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life’. The most extreme form of discouragement finds expression in people taking their own lives. We are all aware of how the suicide rate has gone up in recent years, especially among young men. Elijah was not tempted to take his own life, but he asked the Lord to take his life. The Lord responded to Elijah’s prayer, but not in the way that Elijah wanted him to. Instead of taking Elijah’s life, he gave Elijah the strength to face into life and to continue the journey. The Lord’s response to Elijah’s prayer found visible expression in the angel who provided food and drink for Elijah in the wilderness. Because Elijah had a strong relationship with the Lord, he was able to share his deep discouragement with the Lord in prayer. As people of faith, we can take our lead from Elijah. We tend to share what is deepest in us with the people who are most important to us. If we are people of faith, the Lord will be important to us, and we can share what is deepest in us with him. One of the older catechisms of the church defined prayer as the lifting up of the mind and heart to God. That remains a very good definition of prayer. In prayer we lift up our minds and hearts to God, including everything that is in our hearts and minds, and that may include discouragement, desolation, deep sadness. We pray to the Lord out of the reality, sometimes the dark reality, of our lives. The Lord does not ignore our heartfelt prayer; it may not be answered in the way we asked for it to be answered, but it will be answered. In our weakness, we will be able to draw on the Lord’s strength. In our discouragement, we will be able to draw on the Lord’s courage. In our sadness, we will be able to draw on the risen Lord’s joy. You may have noticed in that first reading that the Lord’s first response to Elijah’s prayer, the first visit of the angel, did not make much impact on Elijah. He took and food and drink, but he went back to sleep again. It took a second visit from the angel to get Elijah back up on his feet. Prayer does not work miracles over night. Even with prayer, we need to give ourselves time to respond to what the Lord is offering us.

In the first reading, God speaking through an angel says to Elijah, ‘Get up and eat’. In the gospel reading, God, speaking through Jesus, says to all of us, ‘I am the living bread … and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world’. Jesus declares himself to be our food for the journey of life. We can turn to him in our weakness, our discouragement, our frailty, and draw from him nourishment, strength, courage, hope, joy. We know from our experience that if we go walking, if we use up physical energy, we need physical food to replenish our strength. For the journey of life with all its trials and tribulations we also need another kind of food, the spiritual food that the Lord provides. Jesus not only provides this spiritual food, he is this spiritual food; he is the living bread that has come down from heaven. The Eucharist is the privileged place where the Lord comes to us as the bread of life. It is above all in the Eucharist that the Lord says to us what was said to Elijah, ‘Get up and eat’. Today’s second reading, however, suggests that the Lord also comes to us as bread of life in and through each other. In that reading, Paul calls on us to follow Christ by loving as he has loved us. When we love others as Christ has loved us, we make Christ, the bread of life, present to others. The Lord wants to work through us to give strength to those who are weak, courage to those who are discouraged, hope to those who are despondent. When that happens, we become bread of life for each other.

And/Or

(iii) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We all do our fair share of complaining, and sometimes with good reason. We complain about the weather a great deal. We complain about all kinds of things. If we are not careful we can find ourselves complaining about nothing in particular, just complaining. We can easily get ourselves into a very negative frame of mind. We see the problems but we see nothing else. We fail to see the bigger picture which will nearly always have brighter shades in it. Our vision can restricted to what is wrong or missing or lacking.

The gospel reading this morning opens with the Jews complaining to each other about Jesus. As far as they were concerned, he was a problem, and they could not see beyond the problem. They had always known him as the son of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth; they knew his family and his mother. Yet, here he was claiming to be the bread that came down from heaven. They were scandalized that one of their own could make such claims for himself. Their response to Jesus was to complain about him. Complaining on its own is rarely an adequate response to anything or anyone; it is certainly not an adequate response to the person of Jesus.

In the gospel reading, Jesus calls for a very different kind of response. He speaks of this response initially as coming to him. To come to Jesus is the first step on the way to faith. In the first chapter of John’s gospel, when Jesus meets the disciples of John the Baptist for the first time he says to them, ‘Come and see’. They came, they saw, and eventually they went on to believe in him. Jesus’ call to come to him is given even to those who already believe. He calls those who believe to come closer to him so as to believe more fully, more deeply. As followers of Jesus, we spend our whole lives coming to him. We never fully arrive to him in this life; we never fully grasp him, either with our minds or with our hearts. We are always on the way towards him. No matter where we are on our faith journey, the Lord keeps calling on us to come.

Jesus declares in the gospel reading that nobody can come to him unless drawn by the Father. We cannot come to Jesus on our own; we need God’s help. The good news is that God the Father is always drawing us to his Son. When Jesus says to us, ‘Come’, we are not just left to our own devices at that point. God the Father will be working in our lives helping us to come to his Son; he will draw us to Jesus. There is always more going on in our relationship with Jesus than just our own human efforts. That should give us great encouragement because we know from our experience that our own efforts can fail us in the area of our faith as in other areas. Our coming to Jesus, our growing in our relationship with him, is not all down to us. God the Father is at work in our lives moving us towards his Son, drawing us towards Jesus. There is a momentum within us that is from God, a momentum that will lead us to Jesus if we are in any way open to it.

Jesus calls on us to come to him with a view to our feeding on him. The language of the gospel reading is very graphic. Jesus speaks of himself as the bread that comes down from heaven and calls on us to eat this bread. When we hear that kind of language we probably think instinctively of the Eucharist. Yet, it might be better not to jump to the Eucharist too quickly. The Lord invites us come to him and to feed on his presence, and in particular to feed on his word. In the Jewish Scriptures bread is often a symbol of the word of God. We may be familiar with the quotation from the Jewish Scriptures, ‘we do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’. We need physical bread, but we also need the spiritual bread of God’s word. We come to Jesus to be nourished by his word. The Father draws us to his Son to be fed by his word. The food of his word will sustain us on our journey through life, just as, in the first reading, the baked scones sustained Elijah, until he reached his destination, the mountain of God. When we keep coming to Jesus and feeding on his word, that word will shape our lives. It empowers us to live the kind of life that Saint Paul puts before us in this morning’s second reading, a life of love essentially, a life in which we love one another as Christ as loved us, forgive one another as readily as God forgives us. That, in essence, is our baptismal calling.

And/Or

(iv) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

People of faith often say that they are angry with God when they have been hit with something that leaves them broken and drained. It might be an experience of illness which affects either themselves or a loved one, or some deep loss after the sudden death of a loved one. All sorts of dark and painful experiences can leave us feeling that God has abandoned us. We may feel that we have served God well and that God has let us down. We can barely face God in prayer. We struggle to go to church and, especially, to Mass. People of faith have always had these dark emotions towards God. Many of the psalms are prayers out of the depths of some dark experience that often reveal anger and confusion.

We find an example of such a prayer at the beginning of today’s first reading, on the lips of the great prophet, Elijah. He went into the wilderness and prayed, ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life’. Elijah is often portrayed in the Scriptures as the strong, fiery prophet, whose witness of God’s word made him powerful enemies. Yet, in our reading today, we find Elijah at a very vulnerable moment of his life. Everything is going against him. He is having a crisis of faith. The life has been drained out of him. All he wants to do is sleep. Even more preferable to sleep would be death. Yet, he does not keep these dark moods to himself. He speaks out of his inner darkness to God, even though it meant speaking to God in anger, expressing his deep disappointment with God. Prayer does not have to be polite. Genuine prayer is always real; it is always true to who we are. Elijah’s angry prayer kept the lines of communication to God open. In response to his heart-felt prayer, an angel of God touched him and invited him to get up and to eat. Elijah responded to this invitation, but promptly went back to sleep again. God was touching Elijah’s spirit but his mood was not going to change quickly. A further visit from one of God’s messengers, a further invitation to get up and eat, a further response from Elijah and he was finally on his feet once more and ready to face the journey that lay ahead.

We can all find ourselves in a similar situation to Elijah at some point in our lives. Life has a way of knocking the stuffing out of us, whether it is something distressing that happens to us or the way someone treats us or the sense we might have of our own personal failure. A withdrawal from life, in one form of another, can seem a tempting option. Today’s first reading reminds us that when we are in that wilderness space, we are not alone and we do not have to struggle alone. The Lord is with us, and we can turn to him even if it is in our anger and despair. If we share our darkness with the Lord, we will be opening ourselves up to the light of his sustaining love. Like Elijah, we can come to discover that his angel, his messenger, comes to us in our need, very often in the most ordinary of ways – a phone call, a visit from someone, an invitation to a meal or a cup of coffee. The Lord will not leave us alone; he will provide for us.

The Lord is especially present to us in and through the community of believers, the church. When we are at our lowest ebb, we need to put ourselves in the way of that community, even though that may be the very time when in our anger we are tempted to walk away. In the first reading, Elijah is told to get up and eat. In the gospel reading, Jesus declares himself to be the Bread of Life, the living bread come down from heaven. He wants to give us life; he is Bread broken for a broken people. He comes to us as Bread of life in and through the community of believers especially when we gather to listen to his Word and to receive the Eucharist. The power of the community of faith to sustain us in our wilderness moments is powerfully expressed through a story shared by Francis Van Thuan who was once archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City. For thirteen years he was imprisoned in North Vietnam, spending nine of those years in solitary confinement. On one occasion a copy of the New Testament was smuggled into the prison for all the Catholic prisoners. So that they could all share this gift of the Lord’s word, this Bread of Life, they ripped it into little sheets that were then distributed to everyone and each one memorized their sheet by heart. Every sunset, the prisoners took it in turn to recite aloud the part they had memorized. Van Thuan recalled that it was so moving to hear the Word of God in the silence and the darkness, recited with such strength of faith. No one could doubt the presence of the Lord in the Bread of his Word shared by this little community of believers

And/Or

(v) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I remember reflecting together on a passage from the gospels with a little group in the Pro-Cathedral parish some years ago. We were talking about the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives. One of the women present, who was from the Pro-Cathedral parish said at one point, ‘the Holy Spirit is a great person, but you can’t discommode him’. I thought it was a great turn of phrase. I was reminded of that remark by the opening of today’s second reading, ‘Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God’. Paul goes on to spell out what not grieving the Holy Spirit entails. It means not having grudges against others, not losing our temper with them, not calling others names, not acting towards them out of spite, forgiving others as readily as God forgives us, and loving them in the way Christ loved us all by giving himself up on the cross for us. As I reflected on that reading it struck me that it makes for a rather challenging review of life.

The way of life that Paul outlines may even seem beyond us. How can we possibly love one another as Christ has loved us? Perhaps the gospel reading this Sunday points us in the direction of an answer to that question. Left to ourselves, we cannot live in the way Paul outlines. It is only through our communion with the Lord that we can live in this way. When Jesus says in the gospel reading, ‘I am the bread of life’, he is inviting us to keep nourishing ourselves through our contact with him. If we are to live the life that Paul portrays, life according to the Spirit, we need to keep nourishing ourselves spiritually through our constant coming to the Lord in faith. Having declared himself to be ‘the bread of life’, Jesus goes to say that ‘the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world’. When we hear that word ‘flesh’, we might think spontaneously of the Eucharist, calling to mind perhaps Jesus’ remark about the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which we find in next Sunday’s gospel reading. However, in today’s gospel reading, the ‘flesh’ of Jesus refers to his whole life. In the opening chapter of John’s gospel, we have that profound statement, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’. ‘Flesh’ there refers to the full reality of Jesus’ life, his whole story. Jesus is saying in today’s gospel reading that his flesh, his whole life, all he said and did, is bread of life, given for the life of the world. We are invited to nourish ourselves spiritually on the whole wonderful mystery of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. In nourishing ourselves spiritually on all the Lord said and did for us, we will be empowered to live in the way that Paul outlines in today’s second reading. Such life according to the Spirit is a way of life that is true to what is best in us; it is a way of life that is worthy of our dignity as sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Christ.

We can sometimes think that we know the story of Jesus, that we are familiar with all that Jesus said and did. Yet, none of us ever really fully plumbs the depths of the richness that is Jesus. We can always return to his words, his deeds, his life, death and resurrection, and experience them afresh, as fresh bread for our souls. There is always more to the Lord than we realize. In the gospel reading, some of Jesus’ contemporaries thought that they knew Jesus well. ‘Surely’, they said, ‘this is Jesus son of Joseph. We know his father and mother’. It can be tempting to think that if we know someone’s parents, we know them. Yet, none of us can be fully understood on the basis of knowing our parents, or our grandparents, because we are each a unique image of God. It was true to an even greater of Jesus that he could not be fully understood on his basis of knowing his parents, because, although he was the son of Mary and Joseph, in a more fundamental sense, he was the Son of God. None of us ever knows Jesus fully; there is always more to be discovered. We can always return to the gospels, the story of his life, death and resurrection, and be nourished anew. When we go there, it is never the same meal. It is a fresh meal for our spirits every time. We can all feel a little bit like Elijah in the first reading. Elijah’s faith had been put to the test by other people’s hostility towards his message. He fled into the wilderness and asked God to take his life. Like Elijah, our own faith is often put to the test, especially in these times. There can be many reasons for discouragement. However, to give in to discouragement would be to grieve the Holy Spirit in the words of the second reading. The Lord will always provide for us, as he provided for Elijah. He says to us what he says to him, ‘Get up and eat’. He is always offering himself as the bread of life, as food for the journey, so that we can keep walking in the way of the Spirit.

And/Or

(vi) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We are all prone to discouragement from time to time. Many of us probably found ourselves feeling discouraged during the lockdown. We were all impacted negatively by it in various ways. At times, it was just hard to keep going, especially for those who lost jobs or, even worse, loved ones to the pandemic. At any time in life, we can feel disheartened, discouraged, dispirited. Sometimes we can feel very discouraged without really knowing why. We are just very aware that our energy levels are low and that our enthusiasm for life has drained away. We seem to be dragging ourselves along. Joy seems to elude us.

Even people of strong faith can get discouraged, disconsolate. Elijah was one of the great prophets of Israel; a man of strong faith who proclaimed God’s word fearlessly, as he tackled the pagan gods of his day. Yet, in today’s first reading we find him deeply discouraged. He abandons his mission in life and heads into the wilderness. He opts out. Elijah had experienced great hostility to his mission from Jezebel, the pagan wife of the king of Israel. Her opposition discouraged him to the point where he wished he were dead. After a day’s journey into the wilderness, he lies down under a furze bush and cries out to God, ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life’. When we find ourselves in a dark place, we need to express how we are feeling to someone. If there is no one around we feel we can trust with our dark feelings, Elijah shows us that we can at least express how we feel to God. Elijah’s prayer was a prayer out of the depths. It was real prayer, because it was true to who Elijah was at that time. He was completely honest with God. When I was in primary school, we learned from the catechism that prayer was the lifting up of the mind and heart to God. Elijah lifted up his heart to God; he poured out the dark feelings that were in his heart before God. The Lord wants us to be ourselves when we pray. In prayer we can trust the Lord with whatever is going on in our lives. When we entrust ourselves honestly to the Lord in prayer, he will respond to our heartfelt prayer, as he responded to Elijah’s prayer.

Initially, Elijah sought refuge from the dire situation in which he found himself by going to sleep. We can all be tempted to take to the bed when life is difficult. Yet, what ultimately enabled Elijah to keep going was not sleep, but what the first reading calls, ‘an angel of the Lord’. This was the Lord’s response to Elijah’s prayer. This messenger from the Lord touched Elijah and brought him very simple provisions, a baked scone and a jar of water. Yet, these simple resources enabled Elijah to journey on, until he reached his destination, which was the mountain of God. In response to Elijah’s prayer, the Lord provided for him in the wilderness. In our own wilderness times, the Lord will also provide for us, if we entrust ourselves to him, inviting him to give us the strength we do not have in ourselves. He will say to us what he said to Elijah, ‘Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you’. God drew close to Elijah in his hour of need. God has drawn close to each one of us and continues to do so, in a way that Elijah could never have imagined. God has drawn close to us in his Son, Jesus, who, as risen Lord, promised to be with us until the end of time. God the Father gave us his Son as food for the journey of life. That is why Jesus speaks of himself in the gospel reading as ‘the bread of life’, as ‘the living bread that comes down from heaven’. When God sent his Son into the world, he was saying to us, ‘Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you’.

We need physical food to get through the day, but we need spiritual food to get through life, and God has given us Jesus as bread of life. The whole of Jesus’ life from birth to death and resurrection, all he says and does, has the power to nourish us deeply, to keep us going when all else fails. Jesus is God’s greatest gift to us, but we can sometimes fail to appreciate this gift, to really believe that God has been so generous with us. In the gospel reading, when Jesus offered himself to people as God’s bread of life who could satisfy their deepest hunger, some people complained, asking, ‘How could this Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know, have come down from heaven?’ They were asking, ‘How could someone like ourselves be the messenger of God?’ Yet, Jesus was so much more than God’s messenger. He was God in human form, Emmanuel, God with us. He was and remains the very embodiment of God’s life, who, as bread of life, stands ready to enliven us, when the shadow of death falls over us. Jesus is present to us as bread of life, especially in those wilderness places of our lives that seem devoid of life.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

10th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for the Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr (Inc. John 12:24-26): ‘If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him’.

Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Gospel (Except USA)John 12:24-26If a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it yields a rich harvest.

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘I tell you, most solemnly,unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies,it remains only a single grain;but if it dies,it yields a rich harvest.Anyone who loves his life loses it;anyone who hates his life in this worldwill keep it for the eternal life.If a man serves me, he must follow me,wherever I am, my servant will be there too.If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him.’

Gospel (USA)John 12:24-26The Father will honor whoever serves me.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

Reflections (11)

(i) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

I have always liked that saying in today’s first reading, ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. There are various ways of giving. We can give grudgingly, in the words of Saint Paul in that reading. My mother had a habit of saying when we did something she asked us to do but moaned and groaned about it, ‘Don’t take the good out of it’. We can take the good out of our giving by doing it with a face on us, as they say. People sense that we are going through the motions of giving but our heart is not in it. A cheerful giver is someone who gives willingly, gladly. This is the way Jesus gave. He gave with the joyful freedom of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul in today’s reading assures us that when we give in this way, there is no limit to the blessings which God can send us. Giving cheerfully and willingly opens us up to receive God’s blessings. In giving in this way, in the Spirit of the Lord, we discover that we end up receiving far more than we gave. This is reflected in the image Jesus uses in the gospel reading of the grain of wheat that dies but in dying yields a rich harvest. There is a certain dying to ourselves when we give cheerfully. We are not looking for anything for ourselves, such as sympathy or appreciation. When we die to ourselves in this ways, our life yields a rich harvest, both for ourselves and for others. When there is no selfish concern in our giving, the Lord can enrich us with his blessings and greatly bless others through our giving.

And/Or

(ii) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence, a deacon of the church in Rome, was martyred for his faith in Christ in the year 258 during the persecutions under the Emperor Valerian. In the gospel reading Jesus speaks of himself as the grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies, and in dying yields a rich harvest. Addressing us, his followers, he declares that, for us too, it is in giving our lives away, for his sake, that we find our lives. In the same vein, Paul declares in the first reading that it is in giving of ourselves generously and cheerfully that we experience God’s blessings in abundance. This is the heart of the Christian message. It is in dying that we find life, it is in giving that we receive, it is in serving the Lord and his people that we find honour from God. We pray on this feast of St Lawrence that we would be as generous and as cheerful in our giving as he was.

And/Or

(iii) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Lawrence. He was a deacon of the church in Rome in the middle of the third century and was martyred in the year 258 under the emperor Valerian. One of the Basilicas in Rome, Saint Lawrence outside the walls, is built over what has always believed to be his tomb. In the words of the gospel reading, having served Christ as a deacon, he followed Christ to the end, being put to death for his self-giving service as Christ was. The image Jesus uses in that gospel reading of the wheat grain that falls to the ground and dies and in dying yields a rich harvest was, firstly, an image of Jesus himself. He was the wheat grain who fell to the earth and died and in dying yielded a rich harvest, passing through death into a new and fuller life and opening up that life to us all. It is also an image of all who would follow him. Jesus is saying to us that if we share in his self-giving love, if we die to our own selfishness, we will yield a rich harvest, both in this life and in eternity. Saint Paul in today’s first reading expresses the same truth. He first declares, ‘God loves a cheerful giver’ and then states that if we become cheerful givers, there is no limit to the blessings which God can send us. It is not enough to be a giver, Paul is saying, but we need to be cheerful givers. We are to share in the Lord’s self-giving love not grudgingly or as if under compulsion but willing and gladly, in response to the Lord’s abundant love of us. The church and the world need ‘cheerful givers’. That is our calling.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence, a deacon of the church in Rome, was martyred for his faith in Christ in the year 258 during the persecutions under the Emperor Valerian. In Rome there is a basilica built over his tomb, called Saint Lawrence outside the walls. In the gospel reading Jesus speaks of himself as the grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies, and in dying yields a rich harvest. Addressing us, his followers, he declares that, for us too, it is in giving our lives away, for his sake, that we find our lives. It is in serving the Lord, and in serving others through him, that we come to live with the Lord. ‘Wherever I am’, Jesus says, ‘my servant will be there too’. In the same vein, Paul declares in the first reading to the church in Corinth that if they give generously and cheerfully to the needy church in Jerusalem, they will experience God’s blessings in abundance. As Paul says, ‘the more you sow, the more you reap’. This is the heart of the Christian message. It is in dying that we find life, it is in giving that we receive, it is in serving the Lord and his people that we find honour from God. We pray on this feast of St Lawrence that we would be as generous and as cheerful in our giving as he was.

And/Or

(v) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence was a deacon in the church of Rome in the early part of the third century. He worked closely with Pope Sixtus II. Both of them were martyred in the year 258 during the persecution started by the Roman emperor Valerian. In Rome there is a Basilica dedicated to him which is built oven what is believed to be his tomb, Saint Lawrence outside the Walls. Few historical details of his life are known, apart from his reputation for almsgiving which was part of his work as a deacon. Both readings chosen by the church for his feast contain the image of the seed. The gospel speaks of the seed which falls into the ground and dies and in dying yields a rich harvest. In the first reading, Paul declares that those who sow seed generously will reap generously. In that reading Paul calls on the church in Corinth not only to give generously but to give cheerfully, for God loves a cheerful giver. Paul was calling on the church to be generous in their support for the collection he was taking up for the church in Jerusalem. Giving generously and cheerfully is the way of the Lord, it is the way of the gospel. Both the first reading and the gospel reading assure us that if we follow that way we will reap a generous harvest for ourselves and for others; we will receive more than we give.

And/Or

(vi) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence, a deacon of the church in Rome, was martyred for his faith in Christ in the year 258 during the persecutions under the Emperor Valerian. In the gospel reading Jesus speaks of himself as the grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies, and in dying yields a rich harvest. Addressing us, his followers, he declares that, for us too, it is in giving our lives away, for his sake, that we find our lives. In the same vein, Paul declares in the first reading that it is in giving of ourselves generously that we experience God’s blessings in abundance, ‘the more you sow, the more you reap’. Paul also says there that God loves a cheerful giver. There is a kind of giving that is doleful and even resentful. This is not the giving that the Spirit inspires in us. We can take the good out of our giving if it is not done with a light heart. In another letter when Paul spells out the fruit of the Spirit in a kind of a list, he first mentions love and joy. We pray this morning that we would be cheerful givers after the example of Saint Lawrence.

And/Or

(vii) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence was a deacon in the church of Rome in the early part of the third century. He worked closely with Pope Sixtus II. Both of them were martyred in the year 258 during the persecution started by the Roman emperor Valerian. In Rome there is a Basilica dedicated to him which is built oven what is believed to be his tomb, Saint Lawrence outside the Walls. Few historical details of his life are known, apart from his reputation for almsgiving which was part of his work as a deacon. Both readings chosen by the church for his feast contain the image of the seed. The gospel speaks of the seed which falls into the ground and dies and in dying yields a rich harvest. Jesus was the seed that fell into the ground and died and in dying yielding a rich harvest of a new and risen life for himself and all who believe in him. He is the servant who emptied himself so that others may have life and have it to the full. In the gospel reading, Jesus calls on his servants, his disciples, to follow him, to be ready to lose their lives in service of others. In becoming the seed that falls to the ground and dies, in dying to ourselves in the service of others, we too will reap a rich harvest. In the first reading, Paul declares that those who sow seed generously will reap generously. In that reading Paul calls on the church of Corinth not only to give generously but to give cheerfully, for God loves a cheerful giver. Paul was calling on his Gentile Christian church in Corinth to be generous in their support for the collection he was taking up for the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. Giving generously and cheerfully is the way of the Lord; it is the gospel way. Both the first reading and the gospel reading assure us that if we follow that way, as Lawrence did, we will reap a rich harvest; we will receive from the Lord more than we have given.

And/Or

(viii) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence was a deacon in Rome who was martyred for his faith in Christ in the year 258. There has been continuous devotion to him since shortly after his death. The Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, publicly honoured his grave with a chapel. The basilica of Saint Lawrence outside the walls in Rome stands over the site today. Today’s gospel reading is very suited to the feast of this early Christian martyr. There Jesus refers to himself as the wheat grain which falls to the ground and dies and in dying yields a rich harvest. The rich harvest that came from his death and resurrection was the community of believers, the church. Jesus’ self-giving love, even though it led him to death on a cross, was life-giving for himself and for all humanity. He did not try to preserve his life at all costs; he was prepared to empty himself out of love for others and in doing so he gained life for himself and others. Jesus goes on to state that this pattern of life through death applies equally to his followers. If we love our lives above all else, if our primary goal in life is to preserve and protect ourselves, then we risk losing ourselves. We fail to become our true selves, the self that is the image of the Lord. If, like Jesus, we are willing to lose ourselves, to give of ourselves, in the service of the Lord and his people, then we will become alive with the life of God and our presence will be life giving for others. This is the paradox at the heart of the Christian life. It is in giving that we receive and, as Paul reminds us in the first reading, our giving is always to be cheerful. ‘God loves a cheerful giver’.

And/Or

(ix) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Jesus often used the image of the sowing of seed to speak about God’s relationship with us and our relationship with God. Several parables come to mind in that regard, such as the parable of the sower going out to sow, the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the seed growing secretly, the parable of the wheat and the weeds. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus again speaks of the sowing of seed, declaring that ‘unless a wheat grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest’. The seed that is sown has to die to being a seed if it is to grow to its potential as a wheat stalk which can be used for the making of bread to feed the hungry. It is often the way with life generally that something has to die for something new to emerge. In the gospel reading, Jesus is addressing us as his potential followers and servants, and he is declaring that we need to die to ourselves if we are to become fully alive with the life of God. We have to die to ourselves in the sense of dying to our self-centred selves, that tendency in us to live for ourselves alone. If we love our life in that self-centred, self-regarding, way, Jesus says that we will lose our life; we won’t be alive with the life of the Spirit. In the first reading, Paul echoes what Jesus says, declaring that if we give generously and cheerfully, if we reach beyond ourselves, then we will open ourselves up to God’s blessing, ‘there is no limit to the blessings God can send you’. The deacon, Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today, exemplifies that truth in a striking way. He gave his life generously for the Lord, and, in doing so, yielded a rich harvest, not just for himself but for the whole church. In less dramatic ways, we are all called to die to ourselves so as to live for God and for others. In doing so, we not only find life for ourselves but also bring life to others.

And/Or

(x) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrencewas a deacon of the Church of Rome anddied in the persecution of the Roman Emperor, Valerian, in the year 254, fourdaysafter Pope Saint Sixtus II and his four fellow-deacons had been put to death. He was buried on the Via Tiburtina, one of the major roads of out Rome. Over his tomb, the Emperor Constantine the Great later built a basilica. With various modifications made over the centuries, it remains today as the Basilica of (St Lawrence outside-the-Walls and is just one of seven major churches in his honour in the city. Lawrence has been venerated throughout the Church from the fourth century. The tradition about Lawrence is that he was a deacon from Spain in the service of Pope Sixtus II. He was put in charge of the administration of Church goods and care for the poor. He is also regarded as one of the first archivists and treasurers of the Church. In the words of today’s first reading, he was someone who gave of himself, not grudgingly, but generously and cheerfully, to the Lord and to the church. In the words of Jesus in the gospel reading, he is the wheat grain that fell to the earth and died and in dying yielded a rich harvest. In that gospel reading, Jesus is addressing his disciples, all of us. He is reminding us that we find life by giving our lives away, by dying to our tendency to live for ourselves alone. Jesus is the supreme expression of the wheat grain that fell to the earth and died and in dying yielded a rich harvest. In giving his life for his flock and for all humanity, Jesus rose to new life and that new life has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who is the foretaste, the first fruit of eternal life. That pattern of gaining life for oneself and for others through the giving of our life is to be the pattern of all our lives as people baptized into Jesus. As Paul says in our first reading, when we give of ourselves generously and cheerfully, there is no limit to the blessings that God can send upon us.

And/Or

(xi) Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr

Lawrence was a deacon of the church of Rome who was martyred in the year 258. He was remembered for his generosity to the poor. There is a story told of him that he dispersed the church’s monies to the poor of Rome, declaring that they were the church’s true treasure. In a homily, Saint Augustine said of him, ‘In his life he loved Christ; in his death he followed in his footsteps’. When Jesus speaks in the gospel reading of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies and in dying yields a rich fruit, he is really talking about himself. As a seed empties itself of its husk and produces a plant or flower, so he emptied himself of his life so that all who believe in him would reap a harvest of eternal life. His self-emptying unto death reveals his love for the world, a love that draws all people to himself so that they may have life and have it to the full. In using the image of seed that falls to the ground and dies, he was also speaking of his followers, declaring that if we die to ourselves, if we give of ourselves, out of love for others, our love will bear rich fruit in our lives and in the lives of those for whom we give of ourselves. In the first reading, Saint Paul says that his dying to ourselves so as to give of ourselves in love to others is something we are to do cheerfully rather than grudgingly, because ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. Cheerful gives help to make the world a better place, more like the kingdom of God. Paul also reminds us in that reading that if we give of ourselves generously and cheerful, ‘there is no limit to the blessings which God can send you’. As Jesus says elsewhere in the gospels, ‘Give and there will be gifts for you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap’.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

9th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for

the Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) Virgin, Martyr (Matthew 25:1-13)

And for

Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Matthew 16:24-28).

Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) Virgin, Martyr

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 25:1-13The wise and foolish virgins.

Jesus told this parable to his disciples: ‘The kingdom of heaven will be like this: Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were sensible: the foolish ones did take their lamps, but they brought no oil, whereas the sensible ones took flasks of oil as well as their lamps. The bridegroom was late, and they all grew drowsy and fell asleep. But at midnight there was a cry, “The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him.” At this, all those bridesmaids woke up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones said to the sensible ones, “Give us some of your oil: our lamps are going out.” But they replied, “There may not be enough for us and for you; you had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves.” They had gone off to buy it when the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall and the door was closed. The other bridesmaids arrived later. “Lord, Lord,” they said “open the door for us.” But he replied, “I tell you solemnly, I do not know you.” So stay awake, because you do not know either the day or the hour.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 25:1-13Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise ones replied, ‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’ While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’ But he said in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Edith Stein was born on the 12th October, 1891 to a Jewish family in Breslau, Germany. Though she became agnostic in her teen years, through her passionate study of philosophy as an adult she searched after truth and found it in reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. In 1922, she was baptized a Catholic, and in 1933 entered the Discalaced Carmel of Cologne where she took the name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. During the Nazi occupation she was sent to the Carmel in Echt, Netherlands. When the Nazis occupied the Netherlands all Jews and Jewish converts were arrested. Sr. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa were arrested at this time. She was gassed and cremated at Auschwitz on 9th August, 1942. A woman of great intelligence and learning, she left behind a body of writing notable for its doctrinal richness and profound spirituality. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II at Cologne, Germany on May 1, 1987 and canonized on October 11, 1998. The gospel reading chosen for her feast day is the parable of the ten bridesmaids from Matthew’s gospel. The lamp of Teresa’s faith burnt brightly from the moment she gave her life over to the Lord, having read the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila. Her faith in the Lord was a light in the awful darkness of Auschwitz. When the Lord came to her at the hour of her death in that inhuman place, she was there ready to meet him with the lamp of her faith burning brightly. That same light was lit in our own lives at our baptism. Our calling is to keep that light of our faith, the light of the Lord, alive in our hearts, no matter how great the darkness that bears down upon us. If we are to be faithful to that calling we need to keep turning in prayer towards the one who spoke of himself as the light of the world and promised that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness.

And/Or

(ii) Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, was born a Jew in 1891 in Poland. She had abandoned her Jewish faith by the time that she was thirteen and declared herself an atheist. A brilliant student, she gained her doctorate in philosophy at the age of twenty three. In the wake of the awful slaughter of World War 1 Edith began to feel a growing interest in religion. This culminated one night in 1921 when she happened upon the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Carmelite nun. With fascination, she read through the night and by morning concluded, ‘This is the truth’. She was baptized a Catholic on the following New Years Day in 1922. Edith felt that by accepting Christ she had been reunited, by a mysterious path, with her Jewish roots. She went on to obtain an academic post in the University of Munster in Germany in 1932. However, with the rise of Nazism she was dismissed from her post because she was considered a Jew. The loss of her job enabled her to pursue her growing attraction to the religious life. She applied to enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne and was formally clothed with the Carmelite habit on April 15, 1934. She took as her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Believing that her presence in the convent endangered the sisters, she allowed herself to be smuggled out of the country to a Carmelite convent in Holland. In 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland. She was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on August 9, 1942. In the words of this morning’s gospel reading, she was ready when the bridegroom came, and went with him into the wedding banquet of eternal life. In 1998 she was canonized as a confessor and martyr of the church by Pope John Paul II. She sensed her forthcoming death and came to understand it as an act of solidarity with her Jewish people, an act of atonement for the evil of her time, and a conscious identification with the cross of Christ. She is an inspiration to all who are seeking the truth today. Her life inspires us not just to seek the truth but to live the truth of Christ, even if it means the loss of everything else. She calls out to us to keep our lamps burning, to keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts, even in the darkest night. She invites us to share her gospel conviction that the light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

And/Or

(iii) Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

The gospel reading for the feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins from Matthew’s gospel. Of the ten virgins, only five of them had their lamps burning to greet the arrival of the bridegroom at the house of the bride. They were wise enough to have sufficient oil to keep their lamps burning for the long haul, so that, when the bridegroom was unexpectedly delayed, they were not caught out, unlike the five whose oil had run out by then. The image of the wise women calls out to us to keep faithful watch until the end so that our light continues to shine and never dims. A earlier verse in Matthew’s gospel at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount suggests what this involves, ‘let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’ (5:16). When we are faithful to the good works called for by the Sermon on the Mount the light of our faith and love will shine for all to see. The challenge is to be faithful in our good works so that, even though our light may grow dim from time to time, it never goes out, and, when the Lord comes to meet us at the end our lives, we are there to greet him with his light shining through us. Such as person was Edith Stein. She was born a Jew in 1891 in Poland. She had abandoned her Jewish faith by the time that she was thirteen and declared herself an atheist. A brilliant student, she gained her doctorate in philosophy at the age of twenty three. In the wake of World War 1 Edith began to feel a growing interest in religion. This culminated one night in 1921 when she happened upon the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Carmelite nun. With fascination, she read through the night and by morning concluded, ‘This is the truth’. She was baptized a Catholic on the following New Years Day in 1922. She obtained an academic post in the University of Munster in Germany in 1932. However, with the rise of Nazism she was dismissed from her post because she was considered a Jew. The loss of her job enabled her to pursue her growing attraction to the religious life. She applied to enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne and was formally clothed with the Carmelite habit on April 15, 1934. She took as her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Believing that her presence in the convent endangered the sisters, she allowed herself to be smuggled out of the country to a Carmelite convent in Holland. In 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland. She was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on August 9, 1942. The light of her faith and love continues to shine for us today.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, was born a Jew in 1891 in Poland. She had abandoned her Jewish faith by the time that she was thirteen and declared herself an atheist. A brilliant student, she gained her doctorate in philosophy at the age of twenty-three, in 1914. In the wake of the awful slaughter of World War 1 Edith began to feel a growing interest in religion. In 1921 when she happened upon the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Carmelite nun. With fascination, she read through the night and by morning concluded, ‘This is the truth’. She was baptized a Catholic the following New Year’s Day in 1922. Edith felt that by accepting Christ she had been reunited with her Jewish roots. She went on to obtain an academic post in the University of Munster in Germany in 1932. However, with the rise of Nazism she was dismissed from her post because she was considered a Jew by the Nazis. The loss of her job enabled her to pursue her growing attraction to the religious life. She applied to enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne and was formally clothed with the Carmelite habit on April 15, 1934. She took as her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Believing that her presence in the convent endangered the sisters, she allowed herself to be smuggled out of the country to a Carmelite convent in Holland. In 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland. She was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on August 9, 1942. In 1998 she was canonized as a confessor and martyr of the church by Pope John Paul II. In the parable Jesus tells in today’s gospel reading, only some of the bridesmaids had their lamps lighting when the bridegroom arrived. When a child is baptized, the priest says to the parents, ‘keep the flame of faith alive in his/her heart’. The parable calls on us to keep that flame of faith alive in our hearts, in good times and in bad. The dark experiences of life can sometimes cause the flame of our faith to flicker or even go out. Saint Teresa Benedicta kept the flame of her faith burning brightly in the most difficult of human situations, and she is an inspiration for us to do the same. There was a time in her life, in her youth, when the flame of her faith did go out. It was the reading of a saint’s life which fanned her faith into a living flame again. Her experience reminds us that when the flame of our own faith grows weak or is even extinguished, it can always be relit. The Lord can relight that flame once more. He can touch our hearts through some human experience, such as the reading of a saint’s life, as in the case of Saint Teresa Benedicta. The Lord is always working to find a way through to us.

And/Or

(v) Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, was born a Jew in 1891 in Poland. She had abandoned her Jewish faith by the time that she was thirteen and declared herself an atheist. A brilliant student, she gained her doctorate in philosophy at the age of twenty-three, in 1914. In the wake of the awful slaughter of World War 1 Edith began to feel a growing interest in religion. In 1921 she happened upon the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Carmelite nun. With fascination, she read through the night and by morning concluded, ‘This is the truth’. She was baptized a Catholic the following New Year’s Day in 1922. Edith felt that by accepting Christ she had been reunited with her Jewish roots. She went on to obtain an academic post in the University of Munster in Germany in 1932. However, with the rise of Nazism she was dismissed from her post because she was considered a Jew by the Nazis. The loss of her job enabled her to pursue her growing attraction to the religious life. She applied to enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne and was formally clothed with the Carmelite habit on April 15, 1934. She took as her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Believing that her presence in the convent endangered the sisters, she allowed herself to be smuggled out of Germany to a Carmelite convent in Holland. In 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland. She was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on August 9, 1942. In 1998 she was canonized as a confessor and martyr of the church by Pope John Paul II. Edith Stein responded to the Lord’s call. In the end it brought her into a wilderness, the awful wilderness of Auschwitz. When Jesus responded to the call of God the Father, it led him to the wilderness of Calvary. We can all find ourselves in something of a wilderness because of our commitment to the Lord and his way. Yet, in today’s first reading, God promises his people that he will speak to their heart in the wilderness. The Lord does not abandon us in our wilderness; he speaks to our heart when we are at our most vulnerable. God spoke a word of love to Jesus on the cross which brought him through death into risen life and he did the same for Edith Stein in her wilderness. The Lord will speak a word of love to our heart in our own wilderness moments. The Lord remains faithful to us, especially when we walk through fire. The life and death of Edith Stein encourages to remain faithful to the Lord in bad times as well as good. In the language of the parable in today’s gospel reading, she inspires us to keep the lamp of our faith burning brightly when all seems dark.

And/Or

(vi) Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Edith Stein was born in 1891 in Poland, the youngest of seven children of a Jewish family. She was a brilliant student and gained a doctorate in philosophy at the age of 25. She lost her Jewish faith as a teenager. At the age of thirty she came upon the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila. It captivated her and she became a Catholic a year later. In her forties, she felt a call to the religious life and she became a Carmelite in 1932 in the convent in Cologne. Both Jewish and Catholic, she fled to Holland when the Nazis came to power. When the Nazis invaded Holland, she was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on 9th August 1942. There were key moments in her life when, in the words of today’s gospel reading, she heard the call, ‘The bridegroom is her! Go out and meet him’, and, having heard that call, she was ready with her lamp lit to go and meet him. Her reading of the life of Saint Teresa of Avila was one such moment, her becoming a Catholic was another, as was her decision to become a Carmelite nun. At different moments in her life, she heard the call of the bridegroom and responded generously. Gradually, over time, she came to see where the Lord was calling her. From a declaration of atheism in her teens she became a martyr of the church, a woman who lived and died for the heavenly bridegroom. Her life reminds us that if we keep seeking after truth, the Lord will respond to our search and will draw us to himself. Our journey to the Lord may have many twists and turns, as it did for Edith Stein, but if we are faithful to the deepest desires in our heart, we too will hear the call, ‘The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him’, and we will be ready to respond.

And/Or

(vii) Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, was born a Jew in 1891 in Wroclaw, present day Poland. She had abandoned her Jewish faith by the time that she was thirteen and declared herself an atheist. She showed great ability in her philosophical studies and gained her doctorate in philosophy at the age of twenty three. She became a popular lecturer and writer. In the wake of the awful slaughter of the First World War, Edith began to feel a growing interest in religion. This culminated one night in 1921 when she read the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Carmelite nun. With fascination, she read through the night and by morning concluded, ‘This is the truth’. She was baptized a Catholic on the following New Year’s Day in 1922. Eleven years later she joined the Carmelites at Cologne. She took as her religious name, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was moved to the Carmel of Echt in the Netherlands, to avoid the growing Nazi threat. However, in 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland. She was captured and sent to Auschwitz where she died in the gas chamber on August 9, 1942. The bridesmaids in today’s gospel reading kept their lambs burning through the hours of darkness as they waited for the bridegroom to arrive to celebrate the wedding banquet with his bride. Saint Teresa Benedicta kept the light of her faith burning brightly through the dark times of the rise of the Nazis. There could be no darker place that Auschwitz and yet there were various lights in that awful darkness, the light of faith, the light of hope, the light of loving kindness. Saint Teresa’s light of faith, hope and love burned brightly in that darkest of places. She inspires us to keep the light of our faith burning brightly when the times are dark. Her prayerful communion with the Lord kept her faith burning brightly. When the darkness of evil puts our own faith to the test, it is our prayerful communion with the Lord that will keep the flame of our faith burning brightly, until that final day of our earthly life when the Bridegroom comes to meet us and invites us to the wedding feast of the Lamb.

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Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 16:24-28Anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life?‘For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and, when he does, he will reward each one according to his behaviour. I tell you solemnly, there are some of these standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming with his kingdom.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 16:24-28What can one give in exchange for one’s life?

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

Reflections (5)

(i) Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospels Jesus often speaks in the language of paradox. One of the most striking instances of that is to be found in this morning’s gospel reading, when Jesus says, ‘anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it’. Another way of expressing that is to say, ‘if we seek ourselves only, we will lose ourselves, whereas if we reach beyond ourselves towards God and towards his Son Jesus we will find our true selves’. If we look to ourselves alone and our own needs and preferences, we risk losing ourselves, whereas if we look towards the Lord, which will always mean looking towards others, we will find life in this world and eternal life in the next. Jesus expressed this fundamental paradox of his teaching in another way when he said, ‘give and it will be given to you’. In other words, it is in giving that we receive. Our own experience of life teaches us the truth contained in this paradox. It is when we look beyond ourselves to others, to the Lord present in others, that we experience the Lord’s own joy, the Lord’s own life, which is a foretaste of the joy and life of the kingdom of heaven.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus declares that if anyone wants to become his followers they must be willing to deny themselves and take up their cross. Self-denial is not greatly in vogue at the present time. You are more likely to hear talk of self-fulfilment. In calling for self-denial Jesus is not trying to extinguish all joy or fulfilment in life. The self we are to deny is what we might call the false self, a way of life that is self-centred and self-absorbed, in which everything revolves around myself. This is the self that wants to be at the centre of everything and is constantly seeking its own satisfaction and gratification. Jesus declares that if we are to follow him, we must lose this false self. The loss of this false self will be painful; denying our self in this sense will entail a way of the cross. Yet, Jesus declares that this saying ‘no’ to our false self is the way to true life, to discovering our true self, ‘if anyone loses his life for my sake, he will find it’. Our true self, our best self, is the self that is open to the Lord’s love, that allows itself to be constantly transformed by that love and so, as a result, becomes a loving person, a self that puts the interests of others before one’s own. This is life in the true and full sense that Jesus promises to all who follow him and allow themselves to be led by him.

And/Or

(iii) Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus asks a thought provoking question in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘What will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life?’ Jesus is suggesting that we can gain a great deal of what the world has to offer and values, and, yet, lose out at some more fundamental level of our being. We can gain the whole world and, at the same time, lose our life, lose that which makes us truly alive with the life of God. Jesus declares that the opposite is also true. People can lose a great deal of what is highly valued in the world and yet preserve their life, be fully alive with the life of God. Jesus tells his disciples and all of us in this morning’s gospel reading that it is in following him that we will find this fullness of life. Following the Lord will often mean often mean having to renounce ourselves; in that sense it will mean losing out in the eyes of many. Yet when this is done for the Lord’s sake, out of love for him, out of our desire to be faithful to his values, we will grow into our true selves, the self that is made in the image and likeness of our Creator. The call to renounce ourselves can sound very negative to modern ears. Yet, the Lord’s call is a call to fullness of life. Our self-denial is in the service of that fullness of life which he desires for us all.

And/Or

(iv) Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus often speaks in ways that strike us as strange, such as in today’s gospel reading when he declares, ‘anyone who wants to save his life will lose it’. We might find ourselves wondering, ‘How could this be true?’ ‘What does Jesus mean by this?’ It is one of those sayings that requires a certain amount of teasing out. When Jesus speaks about the ‘one who wants to save his life’, he is probably referring to the person who selfishly seeks self-fulfilment, who grasps at life in a very self-centred and self-regarding way. Jesus is declaring that such a person will not live a truly fulfilled life; at the end of the day, they will lose their life. In contrast, those who lose their life for the sake of Jesus will find it; those who are prepared to give their lives away in love, because this is what Jesus did for us and asks of us, will receive the fullness of life as a gift of God. They will receive this fullness of life in eternity, but they will begin to experience it already here and now in this earthly life. Jesus is saying that we don’t find ourselves, our true selves, by focusing on ourselves. Rather, we find ourselves by focusing beyond ourselves, by focusing on others in love, by focusing on the Lord present in others and calling out to us through others. Jesus declares that it is possible to gain the whole world and to lose our very self, our true self, the self that is made in God’s image. The reverse is also true. We can lose everything, out of love for God and others, and, yet, find life to the full. It is above all the life and death of Jesus that reveals this to be so.

And/Or

(v) Friday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus declares in today’s gospel reading that becoming his follower will not always be easy. What does it mean to follow the Lord today, to walk in his way? The Lord’s way is the way of self-giving love. It is the way of generous service of others. I celebrated a funeral during the week and the woman’s family summed up her life by stating that she was a giver not a taker. I thought it was a wonderful tribute to their mother. To be a giver rather than a taker is what becoming a follower of the Lord means today. He was the supreme giver. In the end, he gave everything, his very life, out of love for us. In the words of today’s gospel reading, he lost his life. However, in losing his earthly life, he found eternal life, not just for himself but for all of us. His love which led him to give his earthly life for us all was life-giving for us all. Whenever we give of ourselves in love for others, we become more alive ourselves, as human beings, and we bring life to others, we help them to become more alive as human beings. Becoming a follower of the Lord will often mean renouncing ourselves in some way for the sake of others, in service of the well-being of others. Yet, Jesus assures us in the gospel reading that such renouncing of ourselves in service of others is not something negative. Rather, it is the path to true life for us and for all whom we serve.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

8th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 16:13-23): ‘Who do you say I am?’

Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 16:13-23You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said, ‘the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’ Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.From that time Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. ‘Heaven preserve you, Lord;’ he said ‘this must not happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 16:13-23You are Peter, I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Reflections (6)

(i) Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

According to today’s gospel reading, just at the very moment when Jesus gave Peter a very special role, as the rock on which he would build the church, Peter became not a rock but a stumbling stone, an obstacle, to Jesus. Jesus knew that if he was to remain faithful to the mission God had given him, it would lead down the path of suffering and death. However, Peter tried to tempt Jesus to take an easier path, ‘This must not happen to you’. This was a very powerful temptation and, so, Jesus had to confront it in a very uncompromising way. He turned to Peter and said, ‘Get behind me Satan’. Peter who had just expressed a wonderful insight into Jesus, a God-given insight, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’, is now addressed by Jesus as Satan. Peter who was inspired by God as one moment, according to Jesus, was being inspired by Satan in the next moment. Peter was a mixture of the good and the not so good. He was both a man of deep faith who could be entrusted by Jesus with great responsibility and a man who become a block to the work that Jesus wanted to do. We are all a little like Peter, a mixture of wheat and weed, to use the imagery of one of Jesus’ parables. After addressing Peter as Satan, Jesus did not go back on Peter’s calling to be the rock on which Jesus’ church would be built. Jesus continued to invest in Peter, to trust that he would turn out well in the end. Indeed, Peter went on to become a good shepherd who laid down his life for his flock, like Jesus. The Lord never gives up on us either. Even after we fail him, he continues to invest in us. He keeps calling us to become the person he wants us to be and knows we can be with his help, the help of the Holy Spirit.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel we see the two sides to Peter. Initially he shows great insight into Jesus, identifying him as the Son of the Living God, and in response Jesus addresses him as the Rock on which he will build his church. However, Peter then goes on to rebuke Jesus for speaking about his passion and death, and in response Jesus addresses him as Satan and as a scandal, a stumbling stone, and obstacle in his path. From Rock to stumbling stone! It is hard to conceive of a greater contrast. Something of that same contrast, even contradiction, is in all of us when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. We have moments when we are in harmony with the Lord’s will for us and other moments when we are in conflict with his will for our lives. Yet the Lord kept faith with Peter, in spite of his failings, and the Lord keeps faith with us too, even when we show ourselves unfaithful to him. According to today’s gospel reading, Jesus built his church on a rather flawed rock, a rock that could quickly become a stumbling stone. When addressing Peter as the rock Jesus refers to the church as ‘my church’. Because it is his church, it will endure, even when those with pastoral responsibility for his church fail. Because the church has the risen Lord present within it until the end of the age (Mt 28:20), the gates of the underworld, the powers of evil and death, will never hold out against it; they will not ultimately triumph. Paul declares that Jesus is the ultimate foundation on which the church is built (1 Cor 3:11). Even when in our weakness as disciples we become stumbling stones, he at least remains our rock.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus addresses Peter in two very contrasting ways. He initially addresses Peter as the Rock, ‘You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church’. However, within the space of a few verses, Jesus then addresses Peter as Satan, ‘Get behind me Satan! You are an obstacle in my path’. Having addressed Peter as the rock on which he can build, Jesus then identifies him as a stumbling stone, an obstacle on Jesus’ path, because he was not thinking in God’s way. The fact that Peter could be a stumbling stone did not mean that he ceased to be the rock. Peter, like every human being, was complex. He was a mixture of wheat and weeds, to use an image from one of Jesus’ parables. In spite of his failings, Jesus appointed Peter as the rock, the focal point, of the new community he came to form. The Lord keeps faith in us even after we have failed him. The Lord can work powerfully in and through flawed human beings. What he does ask of us is that we keep striving for God’s way, as against a merely human way.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Eighteenth week in ordinary time

In this morning’s gospel reading, Simon Peter shows great insight into Jesus, when he confesses him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is the insight of faith. Jesus tells Peter that his insight is a graced insight. It is given to him by God. Faith, including the insight that faith gives rise to, is not just a human quality. It is a gift from God. It is because of Peter’s faith that Jesus declares him to be the rock on which he will build his church. Peter will have a foundational role in Jesus’ church. Jesus gives him a special authority, symbolized by the keys, and then indentifies this authority as a teaching authority. The task of binding and losing refers to Peter’s authoritative role in interpreting the teaching of Jesus for the community of believes. We have here a very exalted portrait of Peter as a man of deep faith which equips him for a teaching role in the church. Yet, this teacher immediately shows himself to be a slow learning. Jesus began to teach his disciples about the need for him to go to Jerusalem where he would suffer and die. Peter would have none of this talk; he rebuked Jesus for it. Peter’s faith in Jesus did not embrace the cross. The Son of the living God could not suffer and be put to death – be crucified. Because of Peter’s resistance to this suffering and vulnerable dimension of Jesus’ identity, Jesus now addresses him as an obstacle, a stumbling stone, an agent of Satan. The rock becomes a stumbling stone to trip Jesus up. Within one short reading, we see the best of Peter and the worst of Peter. He clearly had a lot of growing in faith to do. We are all people of faith here this morning. Yet we all need to grow in faith as well. We can never become complacent about our faith; we are always on a journey. God may have begun a good work in us, but he has yet to bring it to completion. Like Peter we can all have our bad moments when it comes to our relationship with Jesus and the living out of that relationship. Yet, the Lord continues to invest in us, as he continued to invest in Peter. We are not defined by our failures. They do not block the Lord from continuing his good work in our lives of bringing us to an ever deeper relationship with himself.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The first question that Jesus asks of his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ is a relatively easy one. Even today we probably all feel we could say something about how other people see Jesus. Jesus’ second question is a more difficult one, because it is much more personal, ‘Who do you say I am?’ The question invites us to give our own personal confession of faith in Jesus. ‘Who is Jesus for me?’ We might struggle a little more to answer that question. We don’t always find it easy to articulate our own personal faith in the Lord. In the gospel reading, Peter comes forward to give his own personal answer to Jesus’ question, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. It is a great answer really and Jesus declares Peter blessed because of this God-given insight he has into the identity of Jesus. Because of his answer Jesus sees in Peter the rock on which he can build his church. Peter can be the firm foundation on which the community of believers relies. He can be entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven which allows him to bind and loose. The image of ‘keys’ suggests authority. The language of binding and loosing specifies that authority as a teaching authority. Peter is being given a very important role in Jesus’ church. Yet almost immediately Peter, the rock, because a stumbling stone for Jesus. When Jesus explains the kind of Christ or Messiah he will be, namely, one who is to suffer grievously and be put to death, Peter rebukes Jesus and tries to deflect him from this path. The one whom Jesus declared blessed is now identified by Jesus as Satan. Jesus did not take back the role in his church he had given Peter, but he was reminding Peter in no uncertain terms that he had a lot to learn. We all have a lot to learn when it comes to Jesus. We are constantly having to surrender to who Jesus is in all his mysterious reality, rather than trying to shape him in accordance with our own wishes.

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(vi) Thursday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a striking contrast between the first part of today’s gospel reading and the second part. In the first part, Simon Peter shows great insight into the identity of Jesus, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. In response, Jesus gives Peter a hugely significant leadership role in his growing community of disciples. Peter is to be the rock on which Jesus will build his church. Peter will have authority in the church, symbolized by the keys. The language of binding and loosening suggests this is primarily a teaching authority; he will have authority to declare which elements of Jesus’ teaching are binding and which can be interpreted more loosely. There is no other person in the gospels to whom Jesus gives such a significant role. However, in the second part of the gospel reading, this same Peter who is to be the rock is declared by Jesus to be an obstacle, a stumbling stone, in his path, and he is addressed by Jesus as Satan. It is hard to imagine a greater fall from grace in such a short space of time. What had changed? Peter’s inspired insight into Jesus’ identity as the Son of living God had given way to Peter’s rebuke of Jesus when Jesus declared that the Son of the living God would also be the suffering Son of Man who would be put to death by his enemies. Peter’ fall from grace reminds us that we have to allow Jesus to tell us who he really is, rather than trying to impose on Jesus who we think he should be. Jesus is both the glorious Son of God and the suffering Son of Man. We cannot fully understand Jesus apart from the cross. As Son of God, he revealed God’s unconditional love for all, a love that would cost him not less than everything. Such a love makes us truly beloved, but also calls on us to love others in the same self-emptying way as the Lord has loved us.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

7th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections/Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 15:21-28): ‘Woman, you have great faith’.

Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 15:21-28The Canaanite woman debates with Jesus and saves her daughter.

Jesus left Gennesaret and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.’ But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him. ‘Give her what she wants,’ they said ‘because she is shouting after us.’ He said in reply, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.’ But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. ‘Lord,’ she said ‘help me.’ He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again.

Gospel (USA)Matthew 15: 21-28O woman, great is your faith!

At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Reflections (9)

(i) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The two cities mentioned at the beginning of today’s gospel reading, Tyre and Sidon, are still know to us today as cities on the coast of modern-day Lebanon, a much troubled country at present. Jesus was in the region of Tyre and Sidon, with his disciples, beyond his usual area of ministry, in a district mostly inhabited by pagans. He had probably withdrawn there in the face of recent hostility from the Jewish authorities. It seems that Jesus’ reputation as a healer had spread to these parts, because he is approached by a local woman, a pagan. She pleads with Jesus on behalf of her seriously disturbed daughter. She identifies so fully with her daughter’s plight that her prayer to Jesus is ‘Take pity on me… help me’. Jesus’ response to her desperate pleas for help is very untypical of him. His first response is one of silence. His second response is to state that for the present his mission is only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. His third response is in the form of a mini parable, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house dogs’, the children being the children of Israel. With great wit and persevering faith in Jesus, the woman turns his little parable to her advantage, ‘even the house dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table’. The untidy eating habits of children allow the house dogs to eat alongside the children. Jesus has to acknowledge that God is speaking to him through this woman’s persistent faith in him and her passionate love for her daughter. He grants the request of this pagan woman, even though his own people were his present, primary, focus. The gospel reading reminds us that God can speak powerfully to us through the most unexpected of people, including through people whose faith is different to ours. God’s purpose for our lives and the lives of others is always so much greater and broader, than our plans and mindsets. Our sometimes narrow outlook is always in need of stretching so that it reflects more fully something of God’s outlook which embraces all humanity.

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(ii) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this morning puts before us a pagan woman of tenacious faith. The initial response of Jesus to her desperate cry for help was one of silence. When the woman persisted with her request and Jesus addresses her directly for the first time, he seems to dismiss her request in a rather harsh fashion. Just as the woman was not put off by Jesus’ silence, she is not put off by his seemingly harsh refusal. She takes Jesus’ image of feeding the children rather than the house-dogs, the people of Israel rather than the pagans, and turns it to her own advantage. Eventually Jesus acknowledges her persistent and humble faith and grants her request. The gospel reading suggests that as far as Jesus was concerned the time had not yet come to bring the gospel to pagans; it would come later, after his death and resurrection. Yet, this woman succeeded in bringing forward that timetable by her persistent faith in the face of the Lord’s great reluctance. Jesus spoke at one point of a faith that can move mountains. This woman’s faith certainly moved Jesus. This pagan woman encourages all of us to remain faithful, even when the grounds for faithfulness seem to be very weak. She inspires us to keep seeking the Lord, even when the Lord appears to be silent and distant.

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(iii) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The meeting between Jesus and the pagan woman in today’s gospel reading is unusual in that Jesus seems to be much colder towards her than is usually the case in his dealings with people who approach him for help. He seems to go out of his way to avoid responding to her plea, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’; ‘it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house dogs’, where the ‘children’ are the people of Israel and the ‘house dogs’ are the pagans. It seems that Jesus is not ready to engage with pagans; his focus for the moment is his own people. Yet, the woman will not take ‘no’ for an answer. She persists, in the face of Jesus’ stone walling and even identifies with the house dogs who eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table. She shows wit as well as faith. Eventually, she breaks down Jesus’ resistance and Jesus has to acknowledge her great faith and so grants he request. When people are desperate, as she was, they are not easily deflected. This woman encourages us all to keep seeking the Lord, even when he seems unresponsive and distant. The Lord’s seeming unresponsiveness can be an opportunity for us to keep giving expression to our faith, just as it was for the woman in today’s gospel reading.

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(iv) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The unnamed pagan woman in this morning’s gospel reading has been described as one of the great heroes of the gospel tradition. It is not easy for us as readers of the gospels today to appreciate the barrier between Jews and pagans in the time of Jesus. Jesus himself shows an awareness of that barrier when he says to the pagan woman who approaches him for healing for her daughter, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel’. In Matthew’s gospel it is only after the resurrection that Jesus sends his disciples to proclaim the gospel to all nations, Jews and pagans. Up until then, the focus of Jesus would be the renewal of Israel. However, this pagan woman is not prepared to wait. In spite of Jesus’ great reluctance to respond to her request, her persistent faith in Jesus and her great wit finally brings crashing down the barrier between Jesus a Jew and herself a pagan. A woman of outstanding faith brings forward Jesus’ timetable for proclaiming the gospel to the pagans. The woman stands in for all of us; she is a wonderful example for all of us of persistent faith. She kept on believing, even in the face of the Lord’s silence and resistance. As a result, her faith created a space for the Lord to work in a powerful and unexpected way. She teaches us that the Lord needs our persistent faith if God’s purpose for our lives and for humanity is to come to pass.

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(v) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

This morning’s gospel reading strikes many of us as surprising. Jesus’ attitude towards the pagan woman seems harsh and unfeeling. When she approaches him to heal her sick daughter, she is first met with stony silence. When she continues to shout after Jesus and his disciples, Jesus informs her that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When she comes closer to Jesus and kneels at his feet pleading in great simplicity, ‘Help me’, Jesus responded with what sounds to our ears like a harsh parable, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and through it to the house-dogs’. The ‘children’ here are the children of Israel, the ‘house-dogs’ are the pagans. Yet this woman won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. She takes Jesus’ parable and with great wit turns it to her advantage, declaring that even house-dogs often get to eat the scraps that fall from the children’s plates at table. In that way, the children and the house dogs eat at the same time. The gospel reading suggests that Jesus was not ready to begin his ministry to the pagans; that would come later. His work of renewing Israel came first. Yet this woman’s love for her daughter would change Jesus’ timetable. He could not remain unmoved by her great faith. Her daughter would be healed. The woman encourages us to keep on seeking, to keep on knocking, to keep on asking, even when the Lord seems silent and unresponsive. Jesus once spoke of a faith that moves mountains. Her faith moved Jesus; it was a faith that created an unexpected space for Jesus to work in a life-giving way. That is the kind faith that is needed more than ever today, from all of us.

And/Or

(vi) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The pagan woman in this morning’s gospel reading has been described as one of the great heroes of the gospel tradition. She displays a mother’s identification with her child. Although it is her daughter who is in need, her prayer to Jesus is ‘take pity on me... help me’. Her daughter’s distress is her distress; her daughter’s need is her need. Twice she appeared to be rebuffed by Jesus. On the first occasion, he responded to her plea with silence. On the second occasion, Jesus declared to her that his mission was to the people of Israel, that the food intended for God’s children cannot be thrown to the house-dogs, the pagans. Yet, this desperate woman sees an opening in that image of children and house-dogs that Jesus uses. She declares that the children and the house dogs can eat together as happens when the house dogs eat the crumbs that fall to the ground from what the children are eating. This witty and ingenious interpretation of Jesus’ image finally brings Jesus to grant her request, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your request be granted’. Jesus may have wanted to limit his mission to the people of Israel during his earthly ministry, but this pagan woman could not wait and in the end Jesus could not but grant her request. She displays the kind of faith that moves mountains; her faith certainly moved Jesus. She shows us what persevering faith against all the odds looks like. Here is a faith that endured in the face of silence and resistance from the Lord. It is perhaps the purest form of faith imaginable. It is the kind of faith that endures the dark night of the soul and waits patiently for the dawn.

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(vii) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Many of us find that gospel story just a little disturbing. Jesus’ way of responding to the pagan woman seems so out of character. This mother’s desperate pleas for her sick daughter initially meets with silence from Jesus, ‘he answered her not a word’. As we know from our experience silence from others can be as difficult to deal with as anything they might say. Indeed, sometimes silence can be harder to deal than even difficult words. The woman, however, was determined to break through Jesus’ silence; she continued to shout after Jesus and his disciples. When Jesus finally did break his silence, it would not have given this mother much hope, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. The gospel of Matthew in particular, from which our reading is taken, portrays Jesus’ ministry as addressed primarily to his own people. The people of Israel needed to experience the gospel first; Israel needed renewing, and it would be a renewed Israel who would bring the gospel to the pagans. It is only in the last verses of Matthew’s gospel that the risen Lord finally sends his disciples, the core of a renewed Israel, to preach the gospel to all the nations. The implication was that this distraught mother would have to wait a little longer. But, she wasn’t prepared to wait. In response to her dogged persistence, Jesus speaks a mini parable which sounds harsh to our ears today. Just as children have priority over house dogs when it comes to food, the people of Israel have priority over pagans when it comes to Jesus’ ministry, at least for the moment. The woman’s witty response to Jesus’ mini parable shows that she recognizes the priority that the people of Israel have in Jesus’ ministry, but she suggests that pagans like herself can at least have some of their scraps. Jesus must have felt he had met his match, because he immediately granted her request. There is something about this woman that we find very appealing. We like her gutsy faith that won’t take no for an answer, not even from Jesus. We probably that kind of stubborn faith in these times, a faith that does not give up even when the Lord seems silent and unresponsive.

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(viii) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Sometimes in the story of the gospels, it is not the disciples chosen by the Lord who display great faith but the minor characters, those who appear once in the gospel story and then are never heard of again. It is these minor characters, rather than the leading ones, who are often the most attractive and inspiring. We have an example of one such minor gospel character in today’s gospel reading. We never hear of this pagan woman again, outside of this story, and, yet, she displays a depth and strength of faith in Jesus, persuading him to do something he was initially very reluctant to do. At this point in his ministry, Jesus’ focus was the people of Israel. He wanted to proclaim the gospel in word and deed to his own people first, so that a renewed Israel could then bring the gospel to the pagans. This is what Jesus means by his very short parable that seems harsh to our ears, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’. The children, the people of Israel, have to be fed first. However, this persistent woman was not prepared to go along with Jesus’ timetable. Her daughter was desperately ill, and she couldn’t wait. Jesus came to recognize that her need was more important than his timetable, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wise be granted’. This woman displayed a determined, passionate, unflinching faith, in the Lord’s healing power, even in the face of his initial refusal to respond to her. We need something of her faith today. We need a quality of faith that keeps us engaged with the Lord, even when the Lord seems unresponsive. In reality, the Lord always responds to us when we engage with him, even if it is in ways we don’t fully understand at the time.

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(ix) Wednesday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is no stronger bond than that between a mother and her child. In today’s gospel reading, a pagan woman approaches Jesus on behalf of her seriously ill child. It is striking that she says to Jesus, ‘take pity on me’ and ‘help me’, rather than ‘take pity on my child’ and ‘help my child’. She identifies fully with her child’s condition. The suffering of her child is her own suffering. In the gospels, Jesus is generally very well disposed to children and he always responds to parents who approach him on behalf of their children, such as Jairus, the synagogue official, whose daughter was on the point of death. Yet, on this occasion, Jesus seems detached from this pleading mother. His initial response is one of silence. He explains to his disciples that, for now, his primary mission is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, rather than to the equally lost pagans. When he finally speaks to the woman, his words seem harsh. In a mini parable, he declares that children cannot be deprived of food to feed the house dogs. In other words, the children of Israel have to be fed first, before pagans whom many Jews referred to as ‘dogs’. The woman cleverly turns Jesus’ image around, declaring that the untidy eating habits of children often allow the dogs to feed off their scraps and crumbs. She identifies with the house dogs and declares that she would be happy with scraps from Jesus’ table for the sake of her daughter. Jesus recognizes what he calls her ‘great faith’. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus often addresses his own disciples as people of little faith, but here is a woman of great faith. Jesus cannot but respond to such great faith. This woman inspires us all to keep knocking on the Lord’s door, to keep seeking, to keep asking. This is how great faith expresses itself and the Lord will eventually work powerfully through the opening which such great faith creates.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

6th August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Inc. Mark 9:2-10) ‘There in their presence he was transfigured’.

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Gospel (Except USA)Mark 9:2-10This is my Son, the Beloved.

Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter spoke to Jesus: ‘Rabbi,’ he said ‘it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ Then suddenly, when they looked round, they saw no one with them any more but only Jesus.As they came down from the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They observed the warning faithfully, though among themselves they discussed what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.

Gospel (USA)Mark 9:2–10This is my beloved Son.

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

Reflections (11)

(i) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

The second reading for today’s feast speaks of a ‘lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes’. That seems like a good description of the disciples’ experience of Jesus being transfigured on the mountain. Jesus had just spoken of himself to his disciples as the Son of Man who would be rejected and put to death; he was just about to set out with them on the road to Jerusalem, where he would be crucified. There were heading into a valley of darkness. The experience of Jesus transfigured on the mountain was like a lamp for lighting a way through the dark which lay ahead. It would help to sustain Jesus and his disciples, until the dawn came, the dawn of Easter Sunday, which would proclaim the triumph of light over darkness and of life over death. We are all familiar with the experience of darkness in one shape or form. We have all spent time in some valley of darkness or other, because of suffering and loss. Within our darkness, the Lord will always be a lamp for lighting our way through the darkness until the dawn comes. The Lord is always coming to us as light in our darkness. If we can open ourselves to his presence, even in our valleys of darkness, we might find ourselves saying with Peter, ‘it is wonderful for us to be here’. As we pray in the psalm, the Lord is my Shepherd, ‘you are there with your crook and your staff’. At those moments, when the Lord makes himself present to us as light in our darkness, God the Father is saying to us what he said to his disciples in the gospel reading, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him’. The Lord speaks to us in the darkness if we open our ears, our hearts, to him at such times. Such experiences of the light of the Lord’s presence in our dark times are an anticipation of the dawning of eternal light beyond this earthly life.

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(ii) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

On the mount of transfiguration, the disciples had a memorable experience. They saw Jesus as they had never seen him before, transfigured, his clothes dazzling white. As Peter says in today’s second reading, ‘We saw his majesty for ourselves’. They were captivated by the mystery of Jesus’ identity, ‘This is my Son, the beloved’. They saw that there was more to him than they had realized. That is why Peter said, ‘it is wonderful for us to be here’, to be here in this place. So often, there is more to the place we are in, and to the people we are with, than we realize. Sometimes our way of seeing where we are and who we are with can be somewhat restricted. In one of our acclamations at Mass, we say or sing, ‘Heaven and earth are full of your glory’. We acknowledge in that acclamation how the created world is charged with God’s presence. That is especially true with regard to the human person who alone is made in the very image of God. God could say of each person we meet, ‘This is my beloved’. As God invited the disciples on the mountain to see Jesus more deeply, he invites us to see each other more deeply, to relate to each other in a way that acknowledges the wonder of our being. We can fail to appreciate what is all around us. God calls us to cherish and celebrate the wonder of life all around us, as the disciples celebrated the wonder of Jesus on the mountain.

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(iii) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

In this morning’s gospel reading Peter is enchanted by the vision of the glorious Jesus, flanked by Moses and Elijah, and he wants to prolong this experience for as long as possible, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here’. Peter struggled to learn that there could be no glory without the cross. The voice from the cloud called on Peter, and on James and John, to listen to Jesus, the beloved Son of God, especially when he spoke of himself as the suffering Son of Man. It took a long time for Peter and the other disciples to understand that God was as present in the darkness of Calvary as he was in the wonderful light of the transfiguration and resurrection. Hopefully we have all known transfiguration moments when, with Peter, we say, ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’. We will certainly have known Calvary moments when such a sentiment would have been very far from our lips. The Lord is equally present to us in both of those very different experiences. In both our moments of darkness and of light, God says to us, ‘this is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him’, because the Lord speaks as powerfully to us in the darkness as in the light.

And/Or

(iv) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

The transfiguration scene in the gospels comes immediately after Jesus had spoken of himself of the Son of Man who must undergo great suffering and be killed. Jesus and the disciples had just set out on the journey to Jerusalem, the city where Jesus would be crucified; it was the beginning of the way of the cross, the way to the cross. Shortly after they began that journey, three of the disciples have an extraordinary vision of Jesus in which they saw him not as the suffering Son of Man but as the glorious Son of God. They were, in a sense, given a glimpse of what lay beyond the crucifixion and death of Jesus, a glimpse of the resurrection. Sometimes on our own faith journey, our own way of the cross even, we too can be given a glimpse of the resurrection. It might take the form of a consolation that we experience in prayer, or an act of love and kindness that someone shows us, or just a sense of the Lord’s presence as we go about our daily tasks, perhaps his presence in nature. We are journeying ultimately towards the Lord, journeying towards resurrection, but the risen Lord is also journeying with us, and every so often he will make his presence felt if we are alert and awake to him, if, in the words of the gospel reading, we try to listen to him.

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(v) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

We often say of people that they were beaming. Some joy they experienced left them radiant in some way, if only for a short while. Perhaps you might be able to think of times in your own lives when you might have appeared like that to others and call to mind what it was that brought it about. Today’s feast recalls a moment in the life of Jesus when he appeared radiant to his disciples. Today’s gospel reading is from Mark; it is only Luke among the gospel writers who tells us that Jesus went up the mountain to pray. Jesus’ prayerful communion with the Father left him radiant; in the words of the gospel reading, he was transfigured. Perhaps at the heart of this transforming experience was the sense that Jesus had in prayer of God’s unconditional love for him, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’. If we could grasp with our hearts that sense of God’s unconditional love for us, we too would be transfigured. Bathed in the light of God’s love from which nothing can separate us, we too would be radiant. To some extent that is what we mean by heaven, that unmediated experience of God’s unconditional love, the fruit of which is transformation, the bringing to perfection of our humanity. The disciples shared in some sense in Jesus’ transfiguring experience. ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’, Peter said. They anticipated the experience of heaven. The Lord will grant us too those moments which anticipate our ultimate destiny, if we are open to receive them from his hands. They may come to us on the mountain of prayer or in some unexpected way in the midst of our daily activities.

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(vi) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Today’s gospel reading is Luke’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration. It is only Luke who tells us that Jesus was transfigured ‘as he prayed’. He had taken Peter, John and James up a mountain and they saw Jesus transfigured while he was at prayer. As Jesus opened himself in prayer to his loving Father, his divine glory shone through his humanity, and his disciples saw him as they had never seen him before. It was, in a sense, a glimpse of heaven, which is why Peter exclaimed, ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’. Every experience we have of the Father’s love, of God addressing us as beloved son or daughter is an anticipation of heaven, our ultimate destiny. Such moments can come to us on the mountain of prayer; they leave us transfigured in some sense. We cannot manufacture such moments. They come as pure grace, as sheer gift, as we try to open themselves to the Lord in prayer. We do not pray in order to receive such graces. In prayer we seek the God of consolation rather than the consolation of God. Yet, when we come before the Lord in prayer, we will find ourselves wonderfully graced at times. Like Peter, we will want to prolong the moment. Yet such moments are only ever glimpses of what awaits us beyond this life. The mountain of prayer is not an escape from the journey of life with its share of sorrows, disappointments and struggles. Luke tells us that on the mountain Moses and Elijah spoke to Jesus about his passing that he was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Even on the mount of prayer Jesus was very aware of his passion and death which awaited him in Jerusalem. His prayerful communion with his Father strengthened him to walk that journey in a spirit of total faithfulness to God. Our prayerful communion with the Lord strengthens us to walk the journey of life in a way that is faithful to what the Lord desires for us.

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(vii) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

This morning’s gospel reading describes an extraordinary experience that Peter, James and John had of Jesus on top of a mountain. Jesus had just spoken about himself as the one who must undergo great suffering at the hands of his enemies and be put to death by them. There can be no doubting Jesus’ humanity. He entered fully into the human condition, to the point of sharing our darkest experiences. However, on the mountain, Peter, James and John had an experience of the other side to Jesus, his affinity with the heavenly world, his intimacy with God who calls Jesus ‘my Son, the Beloved’. His divinity shone through his humanity and it transfigured him. Our gospel reading is taken from Matthew’s gospel, and at the very beginning of that gospel the child Jesus is given the name Emmanuel, ‘God with us’. In Jesus, God walked among us, but Jesus’ full humanity made it difficult for people to grasp that Jesus was the Son of God as well as the son of humanity. However, on the mount of transfiguration, the disciples were overpowered by God’s presence breaking through Jesus’ humanity. It was such a wonderful experience that Peter wanted to prolong it. Having caught a glimpse of heaven, as it were, he didn’t want to come back down to earth. Yet, the disciples didn’t need to remain on the mountain to experience God’s presence in Jesus. Jesus remained God-with-us when he came down the mountain, even as he hung from the cross. We believe that Jesus was unique among all human beings because he was God with us in human form. That is why the word that came from God to the disciples on the mountain was, ‘Listen to him’. We listen to Jesus in a way that we listen to no one else, because of who Jesus is, the suffering Son of Man who is also the beloved Son of God. We can’t all have the experience that Peter, James and John had on the mountain. However, we can all listen to Jesus, allowing the words he spoke to shape our lives, to inform our consciences, to warm our hearts, to guide our steps. Jesus’ words found expression in the life he lived. He not only proclaimed God’s word; he is that word. His life, death and resurrection is a word that continues to speak to us. God the Father continues to say to all of us, ‘Listen to him’.

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(viii) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Peter’s comment in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here’, can find an echo in our own lives. It can remind us of those moments in our lives when we too felt it is wonderful to be here. Each of us is likely to have at least one experience when we could have said with Peter, ‘Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here’. The experience that moved Peter to say this was the vision of Jesus transfigured on the mountain. The gospel reading says that Peter and the other two disciples saw Jesus’ glory. They sensed God’s presence in Jesus in a way they had never sensed it before. It could be said that this was an experience of heaven, of Jesus’ heavenly glory. Those who get a taste of heaven in this life do not want to let it go. Peter too wanted to preserve this experience, ‘Let us make three tents...’. This vision needed to be preserved, Peter felt. However, it could not be preserved. Jesus, along with his three disciples had to come down the mountain. He had to face into what the gospel reading calls ‘his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem’, his passing over from this world, his death. His disciples had to face into it too. This was just a momentary grace given to sustain them. Such graces are given to us all if we are open to receive them. Every so often the Lord will give us too a sense of his presence in our lives, to sustain on our life journey.

And/Or

(ix) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

There are very few incidents in the life of Jesus that have a feast of their own. We have the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the feast of his Baptism; we remember his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. The transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain in the presence of three of his disciples has its own feast too, which we celebrate today. It suggests the importance of this incident in the life of Jesus and in our own understanding of Jesus. Just before Jesus’ transfiguration, he had spoken to his disciples for the first time about his forthcoming passion and death. The disciples, and Peter in particular, struggled to accept and understand what Jesus had to say. Perhaps, through this experience of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, Jesus wanted to give his disciples a glimpse of what lay beyond the passion and death that awaited him in Jerusalem. In the words of the voice from heaven, Jesus was God’s beloved Son. He remained God’s beloved Son as he hung from the cross. The loving hands of God would reverse what human hands had done to Jesus. God would bring Jesus, his beloved Son, through the suffering and death that had been inflicted on him, into a new and glorious life, of which the disciples on the mountain were now given a glimpse. The disciples were transfixed by what they saw on that occasion; Peter, in particular, wanted to prolong this vision of the glorified Jesus, this vision of heaven. I suppose if any of us had such a vision of heaven, we wouldn’t want to let it go either. If Jesus is God’s beloved Son in a unique sense, we are all God’s beloved sons and daughters. As Jesus declares in John’s gospel, ‘as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you’. Just as God ensured that suffering and death would not have the last word in relation to Jesus, God will ensure that suffering and death will not have the last word in our regard either. When we look upon the transfigured Jesus, we are also looking upon our own ultimate destiny. Saint Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians suggests that something of this glorious destiny that awaits us can become a reality in our lives here and now, ‘all of us… seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another’.

And/Or

(x) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Today’s second reading contains a lovely image. It speaks of a ‘lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes’. The author understood the lamp as the words of the prophets, the word of the Lord. We all need a lamp or light to shine through the dark until the dawn comes. Blessed John Henry Newman will be canonized in a couple of months’ time. We are familiar with his prayer which has been put to music, ‘Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on’. He was addressing the Lord as his kindly light amid the gloom that seemed to encircle him at that time. The Lord is our kindly light too. He lights our way through the dark until the dawn comes. In today’s gospel reading, Peter, James and John had a wonderful experience of Jesus as a kindly light in the darkness. Jesus had just been speaking to them for the first time about the darkness that lay ahead, the great suffering he would soon undergo, how he would be rejected by the religious leaders and put to death by Rome, and how they too would have to take up the cross as his followers. As Jesus and his disciples were about to set out on the journey to Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets, there was this moment of glorious light on the mountain for Jesus and his disciples. A light was shining in the darkness and would continue to shine there. Peter’s response to this experience of God’s heavenly light shining through Jesus was one of wonder and gratitude, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to be here’. The transfigured, risen, Lord continues to journey with us today. The light of God’s life-giving love continues to shine through him on all of us, regardless of where we are on our life journey, no matter how great the darkness that seems to envelope us. That heavenly light continues to shine upon us every moment of every day until the dawn of the eternal day comes and eternal light shines upon us.

And/Or

(xi) Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

When people came back to Mass after the church had been closed for public worship many must have said like Peter in today’s gospel reading, ‘Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here’. Watching Mass on the webcam is not quite the same as gathering with members of the parish community to celebrate Mass together in our parish church. It was good to be able to gather again physically. There was both a heavenly and an earthly dimension to Jesus. He was both Son of God and Son of Man, Son of Humanity. In today’s gospel reading, Peter and the other disciples had an experience of the heavenly dimension of Jesus, while on a mountain in Galilee. The world of heaven shone through him in a very striking way, and as a result, his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light. The disciples had a brush with heaven. They soon had to come down the mountain and would have to set out with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, where he would be crucified and his face would look very different, broken and pained. On the cross, on the hill of Calvary, he was truly Son of Man, sharing our human brokenness and vulnerability. Yet, Jesus was just as much Son of God on the hill of Calvary as he was on the hill of the transfiguration. Peter and the other disciples experienced Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, on the mount of transfiguration. Yet, Jesus was just as much God with us on the hill of Calvary. Jesus is God with us both in those really happy moments of our lives when we easily say ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’, and in those troubled moments of our lives when we might find ourselves praying, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’. The Lord is always with us in all his heavenly and risen glory. In every situation of our lives, the bright and dark ones, God the Father is saying to us, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved… Listen to him’.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

5th August Fr. Martin's Reflections/ Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 14:13-21): ‘They all ate as much as they wanted’.

Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 14:13-21The feeding of the five thousand.

When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But the people heard of this and, leaving the towns, went after him on foot. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them and healed their sick.When evening came, the disciples went to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place, and the time has slipped by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘There is no need for them to go: give them something to eat yourselves.’ But they answered ‘All we have with us is five loaves and two fish.’ ‘Bring them here to me’ he said. He gave orders that the people were to sit down on the grass; then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing. And breaking the loaves handed them to his disciples who gave them to the crowds. They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining; twelve baskets full. Those who ate numbered about five thousand men, to say nothing of women and children.

Gospel (USA)Matthew 14:13-21

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over– twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.

Reflections (7)

(i) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

We can easily get upset when our plans don’t work out. We might plan for a time of rest and something comes along unexpectedly that we have to deal with. We feel ourselves getting annoyed. In the gospel reading, Jesus planned to go away with his disciples to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. However, a crowd of people got there ahead of them, wanting to be in the presence of Jesus. Far from getting upset or annoyed, the gospel reading says that he had compassion on the crowd and began to heal their sick. The needs of others always come first for Jesus; his own plans will always come second to their needs. The Lord is always there for each one of us. When we come before him, we are never disturbing him. He lives to serve us just as much today as during his public ministry. As the day wore on, Jesus disciples recognized that people were getting hungry. The obvious solution to this problem for the disciples was to send the crowds away to buy food in the neighbouring villages. However, Jesus saw a different solution to their need for food; he would feed them himself, with the help of the disciples. The disciples brought the little food the crowd had to Jesus and, in some mysterious way we don’t understand, Jesus fed the crowd so that everyone was satisfied. Having served the crowd by healing their sick, he now served them by feeding them, satisfying their hunger. The actions of Jesus over the bread - taking, blessing, breaking, giving - remind us of what Jesus would go on to do at the last supper and of what happens at every Mass. At every Mass, Jesus in his compassion continues to feed us, not with bread and fish, but with himself, the Bread of Life. If the Lord is always there for us, he is there for us in a very special way at every Eucharist. He then sends us out from Mass to feed others with his presence, as the disciples fed the crowd with the food Jesus provided.

And/Or

(ii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading, in response to Peter’s invitation, Jesus called Peter to step out of the boat and to come towards him across the water. Surely it would have been safer for Peter to stay in the boat, given that the sea was rough and the wind was strong. Why would Peter want to step out of the relative safety of his boat and to walk towards Jesus, and why would Jesus encourage him to do so, calling on him to ‘come’? Perhaps the evangelist is reminding us through this story that following Jesus will sometimes mean stepping out of our boat, the place where we feel relatively secure, and launching out into the deep. Today’s gospel reading invites us to reflect on the ways that the Lord may be calling us to take some new step in our relationship with him. The Lord is always calling us to ‘come’; he is constantly inviting us to grow in our lived witness to him. The Lord’s call to ‘come’ will take different forms for different people. Today’s gospel reading assures us that whenever we respond to the Lord’s invitation to ‘come’, he will be there to support us when the journey becomes difficult. He will reach out to us when, like Peter, we cry out to him, ‘Lord save me’. The Lord who calls us to journey towards him journeys with us as our strength in times of weakness.

And/Or

(iii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Different people react in different ways to the same situation. In the gospel reading this morning, there is quite a difference between the reaction of Jesus and the reaction of the disciples to the sight of a large hungry crowd in the wilderness. The disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowd away. Jesus wanted his disciples to make some effort to feed the crowd. ‘Give them something to eat yourselves’, he said. Even though they protested that they would not be able to find enough food to feed the crowd, Jesus persisted, and got them to bring the little food they could find to him. Then with that little, with those few resources, the Lord fed the crowd with the help of his disciples. The gospel reading suggests that the Lord will always encourage us to take on some service of others, even when we may feel that our resources are inadequate. If we are generous with those few resources, the Lord will then work with them and through them in ways that will surprise us. The Lord can work wonders through the very ordinary and sometimes unpromising looking resources and gifts that we possess. We have to do our bit, like the disciples in the gospel reading, but the Lord always does much more. Yet, if we are not willing to do the little we can with what we have, the Lord’s own capacity for ministry to others is curtailed. The Lord needs our resources, small and inadequate at they may seem, to continue his good work among us and in the world.

And/Or

(iv) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading, Peter stands out from the other disciples in wanting to step out of the safety of the boat so as to journey towards the Lord who, himself, had journeyed towards the disciples in the boat. Peter’s precarious journey went well until he took his eyes off the Lord and began to notice the force of the wind instead; at that point he began to sink. Matthew the evangelist may be reminding the church of the importance of keeping our eyes fixed on the Lord especially when the elements are against us. There are times in our lives when the force of the wind threatens to overwhelm us and when our feet do not seek to stand on firm ground. It is above all in such moments that we need to keep our gaze fixed on the Lord who always stands before us saying, ‘Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid!’ Even if we do take our eyes off the Lord and find ourselves going under we have only to cry out to the Lord like Peter, ‘Lord! Save me’ and he will reach out to hold us and keep us from sinking. The Lord is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and he is always stronger than whatever threatens to overwhelm us.

And/Or

(v) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Our plans do not always turn out as we would want them to. Our initial reaction to things not working out as we had planned is generally one of frustration and disappointment. Yet, it often happens that some unexpected good can come to pass as a result of our plans not working out. When that happens, it is a reminder to us that we need to hold our plans lightly. In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus planned to withdraw with his disciples to a lonely place, but his plans did not work out. The lonely place became a surprisingly crowded place. Yet, something wonderful resulted from Jesus’ plans failing to come to pass. The feeding of the multitude is one of the few gospel stories to be found in all four gospels. The reaction of the disciples to a hungry crowd in a lonely place is to call on Jesus to send them away so that they can buy food for themselves. However, Jesus wants to give them food freely, not have them go off and buy it. Making use of the small resources of food to be found among the crowd, Jesus somehow feeds everyone present so that they all get to eat as much as they wanted. The evangelist is giving us a image of Jesus as a generous host who freely gives to those in need. The same generous host graces us at every Eucharist. There, Jesus freely gives the gift of himself under the form of bread and wine to all who are hungry and thirsty, without distinction. Having received the gift of the Lord, we are then sent out from the Eucharist to give that gift of the Lord to each other by our way of life.

And/Or

(vi) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Many of the prayers in the Jewish Scriptures may strike us as very daring. There are a large number of psalms where the person praying complains bitterly to God and seems to hold God to account. This kind of prayer of complaint, or lament, is often punctuated with questions addressed to God, ‘Why?’, ‘How long?’, ‘Where?’ We have a very good example of such a prayer on the lips of Moses in today’s first reading, ‘Why do you treat your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour with you?’… ‘Where am I to find meat to give to all this people?’ Within the Jewish tradition, this was considered a perfectly acceptable way of addressing God. It was a valid form of prayer. People trusted God sufficiently to address him honestly from the heart. They didn’t think they had to tip-toe around God, talking politely to him so as not to anger him. The exchanges between believers and God very often had quite an edge to it in the Scriptures. The exchange between Jesus and his disciples has an edge to it in today’s gospel reading. The disciples call on Jesus to send the people away so that they can buy themselves some food. Jesus replies that there is no need for them to go and that the disciples should give them something to it. The disciples reply that all they have at their disposal is five loaves and two fish, as much as to say, ‘How can you be serious?’ Yet, somehow, Jesus went on to feed the crowd with these few resources. The crowd didn’t have to buy anything, as the disciples suggested. Jesus would feed them freely and abundantly. The early church understood this scene as pointing ahead to the last supper and to the gift of the Eucharist. At the Eucharist, the risen Lord continues to feed us freely and abundantly, with the gift of himself, his body and blood. It is above all in the Eucharist that the Lord gives, without charge. Having received without charge, we are sent from the Eucharist to give as we have received.

And/Or

(vii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

We know from our own experience that different people can react to the same situation in different ways. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples reacted very differently to the challenge of a large hungry crowd in a deserted place late in the day. The disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowd away so that they could buy some food for themselves somewhere in the vicinity. Jesus seems to have reacted to the word ‘buy’. ‘There is no need for them to go’, he says. Rather than sending them away to buy food, Jesus was going to feed the crowd freely, without charge, thereby revealing God’s generosity. Jesus would need the disciples to help him to feed the crowd, getting the disciples to bring to him whatever little food was out there among the crowd. However, he fed them abundantly out of his own generous love. They say ‘there is no such thing as a free dinner’. Well, that calculating mind-set does not apply to Jesus. He fed the crowd freely and abundantly without asking or looking for payment. There is an image here of how the Lord relates to us all. He pours his love into our lives freely and generously, without asking us to do anything to earn or deserve it. As John’s gospel puts it, ‘from his fullness we have all received’. What Jesus did on this occasion anticipated what he would do at the last supper, taking, blessing, breaking and giving bread. At the last supper Jesus freely and generously gave of his love to his disciples, and he does the same at every Eucharist. Every Mass is pure gift. It is the sacrament of the Lord’s freely given love poured out abundantly into our lives. All that is asked of us is that we receive what the Lord generously gives us and then live out of that abundance in our dealings with each other.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

4th August -Fr. Martin's Homilies / Reflections on Today's Mass Readings for The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) (Inc. John 6:24-35): ’Work for food that endures to eternal life’.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Gospel (Except USA)John 6:24-35It is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven; I am the bread of life.

When the people saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into boats and crossed to Capernaum to look for Jesus. When they found him on the other side, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’Jesus answered:

‘I tell you most solemnly,you are not looking for me because you have seen the signsbut because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.Do not work for food that cannot last,but work for food that endures to eternal life,the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you,for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.’

Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.’ So they said, ‘What sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus answered:

‘I tell you most solemnly,it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven,it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven,the true bread;for the bread of Godis that which comes down from heavenand gives life to the world.’

‘Sir,’ they said ‘give us that bread always.’ Jesus answered:

‘I am the bread of life.He who comes to me will never be hungry;he who believes in me will never thirst.’

Gospel (USA)John 6:24–35Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

Homilies (6)

(i) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Irish people carry a collective memory of the great famine. We may not always think about it or speak about it, but the memory of it is deep within us. My grandparents were born in the 1880s but their parents were born at the time of the famine, or just immediately after it. So, it is not so long ago really. That collective sense of our own famine helps to make us very sensitive to contemporary famines, which are so often the result of war. We have all been horrified by news of children dying of hunger in the Gaza strip in recent months.

Jesus often spoke about the need to feed the hungry. On one occasion, he identified fully with the hungry, declaring, ‘I was hungry and you gave me food’. He was critical of the very wealthy who were indifferent to the plight of the hungry. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the hungry Lazarus sat at the gate of the rich man longing to be filled with scraps that fell from his table. His longing was only satisfied after his death when he had a place of honour at Abraham’s side at the banquet of eternal life. However, Jesus was saying in the parable that Lazarus’ hunger should have been satisfied before his death. In last Sunday’s gospel reading, Jesus responded to the hunger of a large crowd in the wilderness by feeding them with the five barley loaves and two fish that a young boy offered to him. Jesus was deeply concerned about the physical wellbeing of those in greatest need. The heart of the risen Lord continues to be broken by the cries of the hungry today. He rejoices in the efforts of various groups to provide food for the hungry. We can think of the Capuchin day centre in Church Street, Dublin, and the various food banks. In our own parish people do great work bringing hampers of food to families who struggle to put food on the table. All of these people are doing the Lord’s work. He is working through them all to continue feeding the hungry.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus speaks about a different kind of hunger that he was also very concerned about. The crowd whom Jesus fed abundantly in the wilderness went looking for him after he had left them. They crossed the Sea of Galilee in boats to find him. They wanted him to repeat the miracle that he had done the previous day. When they finally caught up with Jesus, he spoke very directly to them, ‘Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you’.

Jesus was very concerned about ‘food that cannot last’, the physical food we all need to survive, and he was deeply troubled when people were deprived of it. However, on this occasion, Jesus is reminding people whom he had recently fed about the importance of another kind of food, the food that endures to eternal life. Apart from our physical hungers, there are deeper hungers in our lives that we also need to attend to. There is a kind of emptiness in our heart and spirit that physical food cannot fill. There is a longing within us, a deep hunger and thirst that nothing material or physical can fully satisfy. Jesus claims in the gospel reading to be able to fill that emptiness, to answer that longing, to satisfy that deeper hunger and thirst within us. He declares himself to be the bread of life, and he promises that those who come to him will never be hungry in that deeper, spiritual, sense. It is a very powerful claim. Saint Augustine once said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Because Jesus is the fullness of God, God-with-us, we can say that our hearts are restless until they rest in him. In the gospel reading Jesus is calling on us to come to him, to believe in him, as the Bread of life who alone can fully respond to our deep spiritual hungers and thirsts.

When Jesus calls on the people in today’s gospel reading to ‘work for food that endures to eternal life’, they understandably ask, ‘What must we do to do the works that God wants?’ In other words, if we are to work for this food that endures to eternal life, what works are we to do? In response to their question, Jesus gives a very striking answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent’. More important than any good works, Jesus is saying, is faith in him, a trusting, faithful, loving relationship with him. It is only such a relationship that will satisfy our deepest hunger for food that endures to eternal life. The Lord wants to have a deeply personal relationship with each of us, and he calls us into such a relationship. If we respond to his call, our deepest longings will be satisfied, our longing for a love that is faithful, our longing for truth and beauty, our longing for life. Also, if we grow in our relationship with the Lord, all sorts of good works will flow from it, including the good work of feeding the physically hungry.

And/Or

(ii) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We all have needs which drive us to seek to have those needs met. At the most basic level, we need food and water in order to live. We have other, less physical, needs, such as the need for communion. We all need friends, people we can confide in and share our lives with. We have spiritual needs, the need to reach out to a greater power beyond ourselves and others, drawing us towards ultimate values, such as truth, freedom and justice.

The first reading this morning is set in the context of the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. The people of Israel had lived in Egypt, a foreign land, for many generations, where they were slaves of the Pharaoh. Their need and longing for freedom was finally responded to when God called Moses to lead them out of slavery in Egypt towards the Promised Land. Freedom is, indeed, a basic need, both personal freedom and communal freedom. When it is denied, it can give rise to deep resentment and even violent revolt. A person whose needs for food and drink are fully met, but whose need for freedom is denied, will be deeply unhappy. In today’s first reading, however, whereas the people’s need for freedom had been responded to, their more basic need for food and water was not being met. They expressed the view to Moses that slavery in Egypt where they were well fed was preferable to freedom in the wilderness where they were starving. Important human needs can seem of little consequence if still more basic needs are not being met. According to our reading, the Lord went on to respond to the people’s cry for food in the wilderness. The Scriptures suggest that the Lord works on the principle of first things first. Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, meeting those basic human needs, come before other forms of ministry to people.

You might recall last Sunday’s gospel reading, where Jesus met the basic need of the multitude in the wilderness for food, feeding them with bread and fish. Today’s gospel reading is set in the context of the day after that feeding. The same crowd approach Jesus looking for more of the same. On this occasion, however, Jesus attempts to move them beyond their preoccupation with physical food towards deeper realities. He seeks to lead them beyond too great a focus on their physical needs towards a greater attention to their spiritual needs. ‘Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life’. The sense of what Jesus is calling for might better be expressed as, ‘do not work only for food that cannot last, but work also for food that endures to eternal life’. Jesus is calling on them to pay attention to the deeper hungers and thirsts in their lives. That call of Jesus remains very relevant in our part of the world where most peoples’ basic needs for food, clothing and shelter are met, and where the danger is that people will immerse themselves in the pursuit of the material to the neglect of the spiritual. This is also Paul’s concern in today’s second reading: ‘Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution’.

Jesus goes on in the gospel reading to present himself as the bread of life, as the one who can satisfy those deeper hungers and thirsts in our hearts. It is in coming to him, believing in him, that our hunger for the food that endures to eternal life will be met. Our deepest longings can be satisfied by Jesus the Bread of Life. Our longing for truth, for ultimate meaning, can be met by the one who said of himself, ‘I am the truth’. Our need for a love that is enduring and reliable can be met by the one who displayed a ‘greater love’ on the cross. Our need for reassurance that we are forgiven and accepted in spite of past failures can be met by the one whom John the Baptist addressed as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. Our longing for a life that will never end is met by the one who declared himself to be the resurrection and the life. Our longing to serve others can be met by the one who washed the feet of his disciples and who empowers us to do the same for one another.

In the gospel reading, Jesus calls on the crowd to ‘work’ for the food that endures to eternal life. They are to give themselves to the task of ensuring that the deeper, spiritual hungers in their lives are satisfied. In response to that call, the people ask the obvious question, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ The reply of Jesus to their question is striking in its simplicity, ‘you must believe in the one God has sent’. The works that God wants can be boiled down to this one work of believing in Jesus, responding to his call to ‘come and see’. In responding to that call of the Lord, in seeking to grow in our relationship with him, we will indeed be engaging in the task of responding to the deeper hungers and thirsts in our lives...

And/Or

(iii) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

It appears that many things that are made today are not made to last. We could take buildings as one example of that phenomenon. We are very fortunate to live in a city which has some beautiful buildings that are hundreds of years old. The old house of Parliament, now the Bank of Ireland, in College Green comes to mind; it is almost three hundred years old now. I wonder how many of the building that have gone up in recent years in the city will still be there in three hundred years time. Much of what we buy on a smaller scale, like furniture for our homes, does not seem to last very long either. The clothes that we wear have a shorter life span compared to a generation or two ago. Yet, some of what is being made today will last into the future. Some books of the past have an enduring value. There are probably some books of our own time will have an enduring value too; they will be read into the future. The same could be said of a small number of films that are presently being made. People will watch them well into the distant future. Some plays that are presently being written will be watched and enjoyed for generations to come. We always retain the capacity to create something of enduring value, something that has the capacity to engage people not just in the present but into the future. They last because their value is great.

On our journey through life we tend to seek out what might be of lasting value because we sense that it can enrich us and make us better human beings. Having found something of real value we often return to it, whether it is a book, a poem, a piece of music, a painting or a building. We know from our own experience that what we really value are not so much objects or things but people. A good friend is worth so much more to us than a good book, or a good piece of music, or a good painting. There is nothing more valuable to parents than their children. For those who are in love, their treasure is the beloved. Everything else is on a much lesser scale of value. We want the people we value to last forever, which is why the death or the loss of a loved one is such a devastating experience.

In the gospel reading this morning, the crowds of people whom Jesus fed in the wilderness come looking for him. They want more of the bread he had provided. Jesus takes the opportunity to point them towards more enduring. He says to them, ‘do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life’. The horizon of Jesus here is not just the horizon of this world but the horizon of eternity. When he speaks of what it is that lasts he means what it is that lasts into eternity. For Jesus what is of lasing value is not just what will continue to be valued by generations into the future, but what will continue to have value in eternity. It is difficult for us to keep that horizon of eternity before us, especially in these times. We find all that pertains to his life sufficiently absorbing. Yet the horizon of Jesus is the horizon of eternity. He certainly takes this life very seriously; he has invested himself in showing us how to live in this life, by his teaching, his way of relating to others. He gave himself over to meeting the basic needs of those he met. He healed the sick; he comforted the bereaved; the fed the hungry; he befriended the lonely. He told us to do the same and declared that what we do for the least we do for him. Yet, all the time the backdrop was an eternal horizon. In living in this way, we are preparing ourselves to live forever. Those who live by the values of the kingdom of God will inherit the kingdom of God.

Jesus spoke of himself as the way. He is the way to live in this life; he shows us how to life well. Thereby, he is also the way to eternal life; those who follow in his way will live forever. Jesus is concerned about what endures not just into successive generations but what endures into eternity. He understood that we have been created by God to live forever and he came to show us how to attain that eternal life and to empower us to attain it. That is why he speaks of himself in the gospel reading as the bread of life. He endures into eternity and those who receive him in faith and walk in his way will also endure into eternity. If we come to him and remain with him our deepest hungers and thirsts will be satisfied in this life and more fully in the next. When we think about what endures, we are to think first of him. He is the gateway to enduring life, for ourselves and for all we love and value.

And/Or

(iv) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

At any time of our lives we can recognize that we are living our lives at a certain level and we feel a call to go to a deeper level in some way. I may be doing the usual things well but sense that there is something more that I am being called to. In this morning’s gospel reading, the crowd who had been fed in the wilderness by Jesus with bread and fish a short time before come looking for Jesus. They want him to keep doing what he had just done, providing them with food. They go looking for him to get more of the same from him. They recognize him as someone who can provide for their basic physical needs. They are very much fixed at the level of the material and the physical.

When they find Jesus, he doesn’t respond to their request for more of the same but invites them to go to a deeper level. ‘Do not work for food that cannot last’, he says, ‘but work for food that endures to eternal life’. Jesus took food that cannot last very seriously. He fed the hungry and, indeed, identified himself with the hungry, ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat’. He spoke a parable against the self-indulgent rich who were blind to the starving Lazarus at their gate. Jesus insisted that the basic physical needs of people be met by those who had more than they needed. This was an important part of his message and until this happens the kingdom of God will not have fully come. Yet, he was also very concerned with the deeper hungers and thirsts of people, their hunger for an unconditional love, for a forgiveness with no strings attached, for an experience of community where they would be valued not for what they possessed or their status but for who they were as human beings, for a healing that embraced their body, soul and spirit. It is to these deeper hungers of the human heart that Jesus speaks in this morning’s gospel reading when he says, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never thirst’.

When we hear Jesus refer to himself as ‘the Bread of Life’, we tend to think immediately of the Eucharist. The children who prepare for their first holy communion are taught that Jesus will be coming to them as the Bread of Life. All of this is true. Yet, in claiming to be the Bread of Life, Jesus is also making the very bold claim that he alone can satisfy those deeper hungers and thirsts of the human heart with which we are born and which never leaves us, even though we can lose touch with them. Many people experience a kind of spiritual awakening at some point in their lives. They may have been very successful and accomplished at all sorts of levels and yet sense that there is some deeper level that they have never really attended to. They sense a deeper hunger that hasn’t really been satisfied. The Lord is always offering us spiritual food but we don’t always have much of an appetite for it. We can take it or leave it. Then something can happen that puts us in touch with some deeper hunger within us that has not been satisfied. Jesus offers himself to us in the gospel reading as the one who can feed that deeper hunger.

When Jesus called on the people in today’s gospel reading to work for food that endures to eternal life, the people respond by asking him what kind of work is involved - what are the works of God you are asking us to do? Jesus replies by stating that there is only one work necessary – believe in the one that God has sent. It is a faith relationship with Jesus that allows us to experience him as the Bread of Life who satisfies our deepest hunger. The question of the crowd, ‘What work do we have to do in order to find this food that endures to eternal life?’ is a very understandable one. ‘Tell me what to do’. Jesus is saying that there is something more fundamental required than doing and that is being in a faith relationship with him. The Christian life does not consist primarily in faithfully complying with a list of practices and observances. Rather, at the heart of our identity as Christians is a living and trustful relationship with Jesus. All that God wants is that we believe in his Son, because he is the great gift God has sent to the world in response to our deepest longings. This is what we need to work at, entering into and deepening our relationship with the Lord. All the rest is secondary and will flow from this personal relationship. This relationship, which personal, is not private. We must come together with other believers if we are to grow in our relationship with the Lord. It is in and through the community of believers, the church, that we experience the Lord offering himself to us as the Bread of Life and that we respond to that wonderful offer.

And/Or

(v) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the games that we loved to play as children was hide and seek. One of the group of children would hide and the rest of us would try to find him or her. There was a certain thrill about the search and there was the excitement of finding the one who had been hiding. It seems to be a game that never really goes out of date in the world of children. Maybe the game appealed to us as children because it spoke to something deeper in us. There is a sense in which we remain people who seek after something or other all through our lives. We seek after contentment, peace of mind and heart. We seek to be creative in some way so as to contribute to the well-being of others. We seek to receive love from others and to give love to others. We seek after goodness, truth and beauty. We are aware of deep desires in our lives, spiritual hungers and thirsts, and we seek to have them satisfied. Saint Augustine said that underpinning all our seeking and searching is the search for God. He wrote in his Confessions, ‘our hearts are restless, until they rest in God’.

The people in today’s gospel reading are portrayed as seekers. As we heard in last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus had just fed the people in the wilderness with bread and fish. They were deeply impressed by what Jesus did, so much so that they wanted to make him their king, there and then. Jesus had to escape into the hills to prevent this from happening. However, Jesus was not going to escape that easily. The people got into boats and crossed the Sea of Galilee to look for Jesus until they found him. There was something praiseworthy about their search for Jesus. Yet, Jesus’ opening words to them suggests that they were searching for him for the wrong reasons. He tells them that they are looking for him because they had all the bread they wanted to eat. They see Jesus as the one who can provide for their basic physical needs, which is why they wanted to make him their king. Yet, Jesus does not see himself primarily in that role. Yes, it is clear from the gospels, that Jesus was very concerned about people’s basic bodily needs, their need for food and drink, for shelter and clothing, for health and wholeness of body and mind. He called on his followers to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to cloth the naked, to welcome the stranger, to take care of the sick, to visit those in prison, and he goes so far as to say that in that in so far as we do this for others we do it for him. All of those good works remain at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and at the heart of the life of his followers.

In today’s gospel reading, however, Jesus wants people to recognize that there is more to him than someone who works to satisfy people’s basic bodily needs. He calls on the crowd to see him as someone who can provide not just physical food, but food that endures to eternal life. He is inviting us to reflect on our deeper, spiritual hunger, the hunger and thirst for eternal life, for a sharing in God’s life. This spiritual hunger is not always experienced as pressing and urgent, in the way our physical hunger is. We cannot ignore our physical hunger, but we can ignore our spiritual hunger. Jesus is being true here to a very important strain in his own Jewish tradition, which finds expression in the Scripture verse, ‘humans do not live on bread alone’. When Jesus says to the people, ‘work for the food that endures to eternal life’, he is calling on us to attend to this deeper hunger in our lives. We are not to get so absorbed in satisfying our many bodily desires, that we ignore this deeper, spiritual, desire that is within us all.

In response to Jesus saying, ‘work for food that endures to eternal life’, the crowd ask the very understandable question, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ You have told us to work for the food that endures to eternal life, what works of God, what good works, are we to do? It is the question of people who are genuinely searching. It is often our own question, ‘What are we to do? What is God asking of us?’ In response to that question, Jesus gives a striking answer, ‘this is the work of God; you must believe in the one whom he has sent’. The first thing Jesus asks of us is that we believe in him, that we be in a loving, trusting relationship with him; this is the one work that God wants. At the end of our gospel reading, Jesus uses the language of coming to him, ‘whoever comes to me…’ He is inviting us into a personal friendship with himself. Our good works will then flow from our relationship with him. In our gospel reading, Jesus is bringing us back to what is most fundamental, our personal relationship with him, our daily coming to him and believing in him, in response to his invitation and call. This is what will really satisfy our deepest hunger.

And/Or

(vi) Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

As you may be aware, Fr William Stuart, a native of this parish, is running a school in Southern Lebanon for children from Syria who are living in tents in a refugee camp. He made an appeal to the people of the three parishes for clothing for the children. We received a wonderful response which will enable William to help meet the basic need children have for clothing. The school he runs is meeting a deeper need the children have for education, to help them to realize their potential as gifted human beings. I suspect the school is helping to meet an even more basic need of the children, their need for people to invest in them in a loving and selfless way. Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, ‘There are many in the world who aredyingfor a piece of bread but there are many moredyingfor a littlelove’. She went on, ‘It is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's ahunger for love, as there is ahungerfor God’.

It is this deeper hunger of the human heart for God that Jesus speaks about in today’s gospel reading. In last Sunday’s gospel reading, Jesus fed the physical hunger of a huge crowd in the wilderness. He was always very concerned about people’s basic, material, needs. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan traveller who attended to the basic, physical, needs of the man left for dead by the roadside was an image of Jesus himself. At the end of the parable, Jesus said to his hearers, ‘God and do likewise’. Jesus also declared that the various corporal works of mercy done for others are done for him, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, welcoming the stranger. Jesus identifies himself very closely with those whose basic, material, needs are crying out to be met. Yet, he was also aware that there are deeper hungers and thirsts in the human heart. In today’s gospel reading, the crowd who had benefited from the feast that Jesus provided in the wilderness want more of the same from him. However, when they eventually catch up with Jesus, he doesn’t offer them more of the same. Rather, he offers them a different kind of food, saying to them, ‘Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you’.

Jesus makes a distinction there between perishable food, and food that transcends this perishable, earthly, life. He is making a distinction between two different kinds of hunger, a hunger that can be satisfied by perishable food and a deeper hunger for what cannot perish. Jesus goes on identify the bread that can satisfy this deeper hunger as ‘bread from heaven’, ‘the bread of God’. In conversation with the crowd, Jesus brings them to the point where they ask for this bread, ‘Give us this bread always’. It is in response to their request that Jesus finally identifies himself as this bread of God, the one who can satisfy the deepest hungers of the human heart. ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never thirst’. Jesus is very aware of the need within us for a larger nourishment that reaches beyond stomachs to hearts and souls, beyond earth to heaven, beyond time to eternity. He offers himself to us as that larger nourishment. He calls us into a living relationship with himself so that he can feed the deep, spiritual hunger in our lives. He calls on us to come to him, to believe in him. When Jesus initially called on the crowd to work for the food that endures to eternal life, they wanted to know what works were they to do so as to acquire this bread. Jesus did not reply to their request with a list of works they were to do. He declared that there was only one work needed, to believe in him as the bread of life and to come to him. Jesus is declaring that a living relationship with him is more fundamental than any work we might do. Our personal relationship with Jesus as the bread of life is what is fundamental; all sorts of works will then flow from that relationship.

Loving human relationships have the potential to satisfy some of the deep hungers in our lives, such as the hunger for acceptance, for understanding, for a love that is faithful. Hopefully, we can identify people who have been bread of life for us. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus offers himself to us as the ultimate bread of life, as the one who can fully satisfy our deepest hunger for what is eternal, for a love that endures even beyond this earthly life, our hunger to see God as God truly is. Only Jesus can satisfy that deep spiritual hunger that we all experience from time to time. That is why he offers himself, he gifts himself, to us as Bread of Life. We don’t have to do anything to earn this gift. We only have to accept it freely by coming to him and maintaining a vital contact with him.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

3rd August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 14:1-12): ‘John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it’ .

Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 14:1-12The beheading of John the Baptist.

Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus, and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus.

Gospel (USA)Matthew 14:1-12Herod had John beheaded; John’s disciples came and told Jesus.

Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

Reflections (12)

(i) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah is almost put to death because he spoke God’s word to the people, a word they did not want to hear because it required them to change their ways. In today’s gospel reading, John the Baptist, another prophet, is put to death because he spoke God’s word to Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, a word he didn’t want to hear, because it would have required him to change his ways. Both readings show that God’s ways are often in conflict with human ways. What God asks of us can sometimes be heard as too demanding from a human point of view. Jesus was understood as a prophet in his lifetime. Indeed, in today’s gospel reading Herod thought that Jesus was the prophet John the Baptist come back to life. Like the prophets before him, Jesus’ proclamation of God’s word was often heard by others as too demanding, too disturbing, and, as a result, he suffered the same fate as many of the prophets before him. Like John the Baptist, Jesus too was executed. Yet, Jesus was more than a prophet who proclaimed God’s word. He was the word of God incarnate. He could speak God’s word in a fuller way than any prophet before him, including John the Baptist. Sometimes we will hear Jesus’ word as demanding and disturbing; he can set the bar very high indeed. At other times, we will hear Jesus’ word as reassuring and comforting; he reveals God to be merciful and patient with human weakness. Behind every word Jesus spoke, both the demanding and the consoling words, stands the love of God for the world. All of Jesus’ words are words of love and life; they reveal God’s loving desire that we would have life and have it to the full. We are called to welcome every word Jesus speaks with the same love with which they have been spoken.

And/Or

(ii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

We have a lovely mosaic in our church of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. A few years after that event, both of them would end up being put to death by the power of Rome. Jesus was crucified at the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Judea at the time, and John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas, a local ruler who ruled Galilee on behalf of Rome. Jesus more than likely saw his own destiny reflected in what happened to John. John was executed because he had challenged Herod for acting against the Jewish Law by marrying his brother Philip’s wife. John was a courageous witness to the values proclaimed by God’s word. In the story we have just heard, he stands out as a beacon of light compared to all the other characters, that peculiar unholy Trinity of Herod, Herodias, his wife, and her daughter. Between them they managed to eliminate what the gospel reading refers to as a ‘good and holy man’, just as Jesus, the ultimate ‘good and holy man’, would be eliminated by another coalition of darkness. It seems to be in the nature of light that it often finds itself shining in darkness. The light of the Lord’s presence shines in our own darkness, in the dark and difficulty experiences of life. John the Baptist is a great inspiration to us to allow the light of our faith shine, the light of the gospel, even when it is not popular or convenient to do so. We try to keep the light we have received in baptism shining brightly, regardless of the circ*mstances in which we might find ourselves.

And/Or

(iii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

We have become increasingly aware in recent years of those who are being persecuted because of their faith, especially their faith in Jesus. Many have been forced to flee their homes simply because they have refused to deny their faith in Jesus. Many have been put to death because of their faith. There are as many, if not more, Christian martyrs today as there have ever been in human history. We consider Stephen to be the first Christian martyr. Strictly speaking, John the Baptist is not considered a Christian martyr because he was the one who came just before Jesus to prepare the way for him. Yet, he is a martyr for Jesus in everything but name. It was because of his prophetic work of proclaiming God’s will, as a preparation for Jesus, that he was put to death by Herod. He was totally dedicated to proclaiming and doing God’s will, even when that meant incurring the wrath of the powerful, like Herodias, Herod’s wife. He paid with his life for his integrity, his faithfulness to his prophetic calling. John the Baptist remains an inspiration for us today. He encourages us to be courageous in our witness to our faith. Jesus said of John the Baptist that he was not a ‘reed shaken by the wind’. He didn’t simply go in the direction of whatever wind was blowing the strongest. He was made of sterner stuff. We need some of that strength of spirit of John the Baptist today, because our witness to the values of Jesus and his gospel will often mean standing firm against the prevailing winds of the time.

And/Or

(iv) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Two men and two women feature in this morning’s gospel reading, John the Baptist and Herod, and Herodias and her daughter. Of the two men, Herod was a man of power and authority, whereas John was powerless; Herod had the freedom of an autocrat to do whatever he liked, whereas John had no freedom, being locked up in prison. Yet, at another level, John the Baptist had an authority and freedom that Herod did not have. John had a moral authority that Herod lacked, and he had the freedom to speak out of his convictions, whereas Herod lacked the freedom of his convictions; he had John beheaded against his better judgement. You could say that John had the authority of the person who was completely open to God’s Spirit and that he had the spiritual freedom of the children of God. The gospels suggest that this is the only authority and the only freedom worth having, and very often it is to be found in people who might appear on the surface to have very little freedom or authority. The most authoritative and the freest person of all was Jesus, because he was full of the Spirit, and he was at his most authoritative and his freest at the very moment when he appeared to have no authority or freedom, as he hung from the cross. The more our lives are in tune with the movements of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the more we will share in the Lord’s own authority and freedom, and the more we will begin to taste here and now that glorious freedom of the children of God that awaits us in the next life.

And/Or

(v) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading we have an example of that abuse of power with which history is peppered. Herod Antipas was ruler in Galilee at the time of Jesus. He was ultimately subject to the Emperor in Rome and was Rome puppet’s king. He could use his power as he wished, provided it did not bring him into conflict with Rome. In today’s gospel reading he used his power to execute an innocent man. People who abuse their power in this way lose their authority. John the Baptist has no power in this scene; he is a prisoner of Herod Antipas. Yet, he has great authority, a moral authority that is rooted in his relationship with God. That gave him the freedom to confront a man of power like Herod for breaking the Jewish law. Because of that exercise of moral authority, he was put in prison and eventually executed. John the Baptist foreshadows Jesus. As Jesus hung from the cross he too had no power. As Paul says, ‘he was crucified in weakness’. Yet, at that moment he had great authority, the authority of a life of tremendous integrity and goodness, the authority, ultimately, of the faithful Son of God, as the centurion recognized. Even if we have little or no power, we can be people of authority in the gospel sense. Like John the Baptist we are called to be people of the word, who hear the word of the Lord and allow it to shape our values, our attitudes, our whole lives.

And/Or

(vi) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

We can all make rash promises, promises we have very little chance of ever fulfilling. In this morning’s gospel reading, Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, made a rash promise to his step daughter. ‘He promised on oath to give her anything she asked’. When, prompted by her mother, Herodias, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, Herod could not go back on his promise without losing face. He was not prepared to lose face, even though that meant going against his better instincts. In some distress he ordered the guards to carry out the request of his step daughter. Herod comes across as a man who did not have the courage of his convictions, when his own honour in the eyes of others was at stake. In contrast, the man he had executed, John the Baptist, had the courage of his convictions. He challenged Herod’s marriage to the wife of his brother because it was against the Jewish Law. John the Baptist died for his convictions. He foreshadowed Jesus who also died for his convictions; he was put to death because he proclaimed God’s vision for humanity. Both John and Jesus inspire us to be courageous in the living of our faith, in our bearing witness to the values of the gospel. It can be tempting to live up to other people’s expectations, which is what Herod did. Yet, our calling is to live in accordance with God’s expectations, even when that means the way of the cross. Such a way is ultimately the way to true and lasting life.

And/Or

(vii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, King Herod the Great is responsible for the murder of innocent children, in an effort to kill the infant king of the Jews, Jesus. In this morning’s gospel reading, Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, is responsible for the death of John the Baptist. Like Jesus, John the Baptist interpreted God’s will for people’s lives; he interpreted God’s Law for others, regardless of their background or state in life. God’s will had to be proclaimed to all, including the most powerful in the land, people like Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias. Proclaiming God’s will to the powerful was risky, if it conflicted with their own will. John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas and eventually beheaded because John’s proclamation of God’s will challenged the lifestyle of Herod and his wife. Jesus would go on to make the same discovery. His fuller proclamation of God’s will for our lives was a challenge to the religious and political leaders of his time and, as a result, he was crucified. As well as being a consoling word, the gospel also has a sharp edge to it. It confronts us when we are not living as God intends us to live. When the gospel leaves us feeling uncomfortable, rather than rejecting it, as many of Jesus’ and John’s contemporaries did, we need to sit with it and allow it to speak to our heart. The path it puts before us may go against the grain at times, but, ultimately, it is the path that leads to life, both in this world and in the next.

And/Or

(viii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s first reading, Jeremiah warns the people of Jerusalem that if they put him to death they will be bringing innocent blood on themselves, on the city and its citizens. The people heeded Jeremiah’s warning, declaring, ‘this man does not deserve to die’. In the gospel reading, Herod Antipas has no qualms about bringing innocent blood down on himself. He had John the Baptist arrested and imprisoned because John’s preaching was not to his liking and, in particular, was not to the liking of his wife Herodias. During the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias from a previous marriage so beguiled Herod that he made a rash promise to her in public. She could have anything she asked. When, at her mother’s prompting, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a dish, Herod felt obliged to honour his public promise. Yet, the gospel reading says that it distressed Herod to grant her request. The gospels suggest that there was something about John that appealed to Herod’s better nature. He heard some call in John’s preaching. However, he silenced that call rather than bring down dishonour on himself by refusing to keep his publicly made promise. His need to protect his honour led him to shed innocent blood. The dilemma of Herod is a very human one. The Lord calls out to what is best in us but we don’t always allow ourselves to hear his call or respond to it. Other more self-regarding concerns can have greater influence over us, such as the concern to protect our honour, how we appear to others. Yet, the Lord’s call never goes away. The Lord never gives up on our response even though we may seem deaf to it. The Lord keeps pursuing us in his love, appealing to what is deepest and best in us.

And/Or

(ix) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, had married the wife of his brother Philip. John the Baptist confronted Herod Antipas for marrying in contravention of the Jewish Law, much to the annoyance of Herod and to the even greater annoyance of his wife, Herodias. For his faithful proclamation of the Jewish Law, even to the mighty and powerful, John the Baptist was imprisoned and, eventually, beheaded on Herod’s orders, as we hear in today’s gospel reading. At the end of the gospel reading we are told that when the disciples of John the Baptist had buried their master, they went off to tell Jesus. When Jesus heard this news, he must have had a premonition of his own fate. Jesus proclaimed an even more radical version of God’s will than John the Baptist. He was already in the process of making enemies among the powerful in the land. As John the Baptist was executed in Galilee by a client king of Rome, Herod Antipas, Jesus would be executed in Jerusalem by the governor of Rome. The gospel story as a whole and today’s gospel reading especially indicates that the proclamation of God’s word is not always well received, especially when it challenges our self-centredness, our desire to protect ourselves and all we are attached to. It is in the nature of the Lord’s word that it will both comfort us and unsettle us. It will both build up and tear down. We need to keep holding ourselves open to both sides of the Lord’s word.

And/Or

(x) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

The story in today’s gospel reading is one of the darker stories in the gospels. The story of the passion and death of John the Baptist anticipates, in many ways, the story of the passion and death of Jesus. Both John and Jesus were executed by agents of Rome because they proclaimed God’s word to powerful people. John proclaimed God’s word as found in the Jewish Law. Jesus proclaimed God’s word in a new way, which was in continuity with the Jewish Law but went beyond it. Powerful people found God’s word as proclaimed by John and Jesus so disturbing that they wanted the preachers of that word put to death. Jeremiah’s proclamation of God’s word in today’s first reading met with a similarly negative response. Some of the worst instincts of human nature are to be found in the story in today’s gospel reading. Herod, his wife, Herodias, and their daughter, traditionally named as Salome, have been described as a kind of unholy trinity. Between them they conspired to put a holy man of God to death. Even in situations where the worst instincts of human nature are to the fore, there is often to be found some redeeming feature. The redeeming feature in today’s story is the person of John the Baptist himself. He is the light that shines in this very dark scene. His faithfulness to the Lord’s calling shines brightly against the dark backdrop of the worst instincts of human nature displayed by Herod Antipas, his wife and their daughter. John did not allow his goodness to be overcome by evil. The same is true, to an even greater extent, of Jesus. John and Jesus did not allow the light of God’s loving presence in their lives to be dimmed by the darkness in the lives of others. That is our calling too, as followers of the risen Lord. We are to allow the light of God’s loving presence to shine through us, regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves.

And/Or

(xi) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel reading is one of the more violent stories in the gospels. An innocent and good man, John the Baptist, is unjustly executed by a ruler who had wanted to kill John but had refrained from doing so because of his reputation among the people but who eventually ordered John’s execution to uphold his honour, having sworn on oath to give his stepdaughter anything she wanted. John’s only crime in the eyes of Herod and his wife was to proclaim God’s word as revealed in the Jewish Law. What happens to John foreshadows what would happen to Jesus. As John was executed by Herod under pressure from his wife, Jesus was executed by Pilate under pressure from the religious leaders. Jesus’ only crime was to proclaim God’s word, the coming of God’s kingdom, to announce that God’s hospitable love was embracing all of humanity, and not just a chosen few. John and Jesus were innocent victims of self-serving power. There have been many such innocent victims throughout history. At some moments of our lives, we may have been one of those innocent victims of the self-serving actions of others and, if we are completely, we may also at times our own less than worthy motives may have helped to create innocent victims. Of the two great prophets, John and Jesus, it is above all Jesus who shows us that the suffering we endure at the hands of others can be redeemed by love and forgiveness. As he suffered on the cross, his love for humanity was at its most selfless and life-giving, and his capacity to forgive, to share God’s forgiveness was at its most powerful. His Spirit at work in our lives can empower us to be as loving and forgiving as he was, when we find ourselves on the cross because of the attitudes and actions of others. When that happens the mystery of the cross, the mystery of God’s love which embraces all, becomes tangible present in our time and place through us.

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(xii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus ends with the call, ‘Let none of you wrong his neighbour, but fear your God’. ‘Fear’ there is to be understood as reverence for God. We show our reverence for God by respecting our neighbour, by treating them fairly and justly. In the gospel reading, Herod shows no respect for John the Baptist, doing him great wrong, treating him unjustly. Herod had thrown John into prison, at the insistence of his wife Herodias, because he had told Herod it was against the Jewish Law to marry her. During a celebration of Herod’s birthday, as a result of a rash promise he made to his stepdaughter, he felt pressured by his wife and his stepdaughter to have John the Baptist beheaded. Herod, Herodias and her daughter are often referred to as an unholy trinity in this story. One person can do great evil but the greater evils often spring from several people working together. All three co-operated in John’s death, thereby showing that they had no fear of God, no reverence for God, no respect for God’s prophet. The way Herod, Herodias and her daughter worked together to bring about a great wrong is the antithesis of our calling to work together to bring about a great good. The Lord calls us to work together in the service of the coming of the kingdom of God. The Lord wants to work through each one of us individually, but he can work much more powerfully through us as a community of faith and love. We have each been gifted by the Spirit in a different way. It is when we work together in the Spirit, that the Lord can work most effectively to overcome the forces of evil in our world that are so clearly on display in today’s gospel reading.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

2nd August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections /Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 13:54-58): ‘’Where did the man get it all?’

Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 13:54-58A prophet is only despised in his own country.

Coming to his home town, Jesus taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? This is the carpenter’s son, surely? Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? His sisters, too, are they not all here with us? So where did the man get it all?’ And they would not accept him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house’, and he did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Gospel (USA)Matthew 13:54-58Is he not the carpenter’s son? Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue. They were astonished and said, “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house.” And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.

Reflections (11)

(i) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

The question that the people of Nazareth ask about Jesus is one worth asking, ‘Where did the man get it all?’ ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ We can answer those questions because we know the whole story, the story of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit. We know that Jesus got ‘it all’ from God. It was God who was speaking and acting so powerfully through him. It was difficult for the people of Nazareth to realize this. Jesus was too much like themselves. They knew him to be the son of the carpenter. They were familiar with his mother, Mary, and with his brothers and sisters. In many ways, his family was like every other family in the village of Nazareth. Yet, this is how God chose to come among us, through someone like us in every way, except sin. Jesus showed that God could be fully revealed in a human life. He showed us that each one of us can reveal something of God in our human lives, with the help of his Spirit, the Holy Spirit. God came to the people of Nazareth through someone who, in many ways, was as ordinary as themselves and, yet, was extraordinary because of the ways he revealed God’s love. God continues to come among us today through the goodness and loving kindness of people’s ordinary lives. God is present in parents who care for their children, adult children who care for their parents, neighbours who care for one another, people who give time and energy to care for those less fortunate than themselves. So often we stand on holy ground without realizing it.

And/Or

(ii) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

When Jesus returns to his home town Nazareth, the town people recognize him as the son of the carpenter, whose mother, Mary, and whose brothers and sisters are known to them. He is one of their own, just like themselves. Yet, in other ways he is not like themselves. The townspeople of Nazareth are astonished at his wisdom and his miraculous powers. They wonder where he could have got all that from. They were mystified by him. This is the fundamental mystery of Jesus. He was like us in every way, except sin; he was fully human and, yet, there was more to him than that. There was a divine wisdom and power at work within him. The fourth evangelist, John, expressed that mystery of Jesus very succinctly when he said at the beginning of his gospel that the Word who was God became flesh. He was ‘flesh’ like all of us, fully human, the son of a carpenter, from a particular place in Galilee who lived at a particular time in history. Yet, his flesh revealed God in a unique way. This is the scandal of the incarnation that so disturbed the people of Nazareth. God came to us in the ordinary, the familiar, in the life of a carpenter’s son. That son of the carpenter, that son of Mary who is also Son of God, continues to come to us today as risen Lord in and through the familiar and the ordinary. He said to his disciples, ‘whoever welcomes you, welcomes me’, ‘whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ and ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me’. We are being reminded that the sacred and the secular are not all that far apart; we encounter the sacred in the secular, the divine in the human. We are always on holy ground.

And/Or

(iii) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

When people have been away from home for some time, coming home again is not always easy. The people at home may have changed in the meantime; those who come home may also have changed since leaving home. There can be an expectation that things will be as they have always been, and when that does not happen, it can lead to misunderstanding and frustration. In the gospel reading, Jesus comes home to Nazareth after being away from his home town for some time. He had changed in the meantime. He left Nazareth the carpenter’s son, in the words of the gospel reading. He returned a preacher of God’s kingdom and a healer of the broken. The people of Nazareth could not accept this change. ‘This is the carpenter’s son, surely?’ they asked. ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they wondered. The people of Nazareth would not accept Jesus because he was not the person they once knew. We too can be slow to accept people who have moved on in some way or other; we only want them as we once knew them. When it comes to the person of Jesus, like the people of Nazareth, we can see him somewhat narrowly. We can be slow to allow our image of him to be broadened. Yet, more than any human being, Jesus is always beyond our full understanding. We never grasp him completely and we always have to be open to growing in our knowledge and love of him until that day when we see him face to face.

And/Or

(iv) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus had spent the best part of thirty years in Nazareth. During that time he was known by all as the carpenter, the son of Mary. However, after he left Nazareth, Jesus’ life had taken a new direction. He had thrown himself into the work that God had given him to do. He had left Nazareth as a carpenter; in today’s gospel he returns to Nazareth as a teacher and a healer. There was in fact much more to this man that his own townspeople had ever suspected while he was living among them. The gospel reading suggests that they could not accept this ‘more’; they rejected him because of it. They wanted him to be the person they imaged him to be; they would not allow him to move on from being the son of the carpenter. It seems to have been Jesus’ very ordinariness that made it difficult for the people of Nazareth to see that there was much more to him that they thought, to see him as he really was, in all his mystery. God was powerfully present to them in and through someone who was, in many respects, as ordinary as they themselves. God continues to come to us today in and through the ordinary, in and through those who are most familiar to us. It is the ordinary that is filled with God’s presence. That burning bush that fascinated Moses is all around us.

And/Or

(v) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

The people of Jesus’ home town recognized the wisdom with which Jesus spoke and the life-giving powers that were at work through his actions. Both were clearly evident to all. They go on to ask a probing question, ‘Where did this man get it all?’ As people who have come to believe in Jesus we would have no hesitation in answering that question, ‘Jesus got his wisdom and his life-giving powers from God’. ‘It is God who is at work through what Jesus says and does’. However, the people of Nazareth were unable to give a satisfactory answer to their own very good question. His very familiarity to them closed them off from seeing him as in any way different to themselves. They were closed to the revelation of God’s presence in and through someone who was just like themselves in so many ways. In the language of John’s gospel, the Word who was God became flesh without ceasing to be Word. The people of Nazareth were unable to recognize the Word in the flesh of one of their own. We are being reminded that God is often wisely and powerfully present in the familiar and the ordinary. We can be tempted to look for God in extraordinary and unusual phenomena. The mystery of the Incarnation proclaims that God-in-Christ is touching our lives in and through the ordinary, day-to-day experiences of life.

And/Or

(vi) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

We are all familiar with the saying, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’. Like all proverbs, this one expresses a partial truth. Sometimes familiarity can breed contempt. It is also true that the more familiar some people become to each other, the closer they grow together and the more they want to share each other’s lives. Familiarity can breed love as well as contempt. Today’s gospel reading seems to be a case of familiarity breeding contempt. The people of Nazareth regarded Jesus as someone very familiar to them. He was one of their own, the son of the carpenter. They knew his mother, Mary, and his brothers and sisters. They didn’t think of Jesus as in any way different to themselves. Their comments suggest that, at one level, Jesus wasn’t any different to the other people of Nazareth. Yet, there was so much more to Jesus than they realized while he was living among them. It was only when he moved away that his difference from them became evident. It was only then that they began to get reports of his teaching, his ‘wisdom’, and of his ‘miraculous powers’. They couldn’t reconcile Jesus being one of them with him being so different from them. This remains the mystery of Jesus for us today. He was fully human, and, yet, he had a special relationship with God as Son of the Father. He was like us in all things, but sin. His humanity revealed God in a way that was unique among human beings. We need not be scandalized at this, like the people of Nazareth. Rather, we can rejoice that God has been revealed to us in such a human way, in a way that makes God so accessible to us. Jesus has given God a human face. God has drawn close to us in Jesus so that we can draw close to God through Jesus. The Lord humbled himself to share in our humanity so that we might share in his divinity.

And/Or

(vii) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

The journey of faith is one on which we can find ourselves asking questions. At whatever stage of our faith journey we are at, a questioning spirit, mind and heart can leave us open to a deeper and more rooted faith in the Lord. In today’s gospel reading, we find the people of Nazareth asking questions about Jesus. Their first question seems a really good one, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ They are astonished both at what he said, his wisdom, and what he did, his miraculous powers. They knew Jesus as ‘the carpenter’s son’. The implication of their question is that Jesus did not get his wisdom and his miraculous powers in Nazareth, working at carpentry with his father, Joseph. His background, his upbringing wasn’t all that different to anybody else’s background and upbringing in Nazareth, and nobody else had Jesus’ wisdom and miraculous powers. So, where did they come from? It is an obvious question and a good question. It is a question that had the potential to lead those who asked it to faith in Jesus as God’s representative on earth, God’s Son. However, that is not where their question led. The gospel reading simply states, ‘They did not accept him’. Jesus goes on to lament their inability to see him as more than the carpenter’s son. The Lord can lead us to himself through our questions. However, sometimes, as in the case of the people of Nazareth, our questions can leave us thinking that we know more than we do, and, then our questions become an obstacle, a stumbling stone, between the Lord and ourselves. Today’s gospel reading invites us to allow our questions to become stepping stones to the Lord, rather than stumbling stones between us and him. In that sense, we are to question on our knees, in a spirit of prayerful openness to the Lord’s leading and guiding.

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(viii) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

A lot had happened between the time Jesus left Nazareth to travel south to be baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan and the day when he returned to Nazareth some time into his public ministry. In that intervening time his ministry of word and deed had been amazing people throughout Galilee, as well as gaining Jesus many enemies. When he returned to his home town of Nazareth for the first time since his ministry began, today’s gospel reading suggests that some people felt he was getting too big for his boots and wanted to take him down a peg or two. The questions they asked, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? This is the carpenter’s son, surely?’ amounts to asking, ‘Who does this local man, whose family we all know, think he is?’ Many people seemed to think that God could not have been working so powerfully through someone so ordinary, so like themselves in so many ways. The very ordinariness of Jesus prevented some people from recognizing that God was working powerfully in and through him. The kingdom of God was at hand in one like themselves, like us in all things but sin, as the letter to the Hebrews says. Just as God was at work in the humanity of Jesus, the risen Lord is at work in the humanity of us all today. The Lord is powerfully at work in and through the ordinary acts of loving kindness and goodness that we see all around us today. It is the evil in the world that tends to make the headlines, but we, as followers of a living, risen Lord, need to be alert to the signs of his loving presence in our world and to rejoice in them. The power of the Spirit that the risen Lord released into the world is stronger than the evil forces that are there.

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(ix) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Asking questions is an important expression of our faith journey. When we are trying to respond to the Lord’s presence and call in our lives, there will always be room for questions. The Lord is infinitely mysterious; he is always beyond us as well as being present among us and within us. We are always searching for him, as well as responding to his daily presence to us. As we search for him, we will ask questions, and our questions can lead us closer to him. However, in today’s gospel reading, the questions asked by the people of Nazareth did not lead them closer to Jesus. Rather, their questions lead them away from Jesus. When Jesus taught in his home synagogue, the people of Nazareth asked very good and valid questions, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? So where did the man get it all?’ They recognized the wisdom of his preaching and teaching, and the healing and life-giving power of his ministry, and they wondered where it all came from. These were questions that could have lead the people of Nazareth to recognize Jesus as someone who had come to them from God. Instead, their questions led them to reject Jesus. After all, he was one of their own; they knew him as the son of a carpenter; they were very familiar with his mother and the other members of his family. How could someone so like them come from God? How could one of their own be God’s special messenger to them? They had asked good questions, but, in the end, they rejected him. The people of Nazareth could not come to terms with God powerfully present in one like themselves. Yet, this is the mystery that is at the heart of our faith. God became human in Jesus. When we look upon the human life of Jesus, his words and deeds, his ministry, his death, we are looking upon the face of God. Here is a mystery to be delighted in, rather than rejected. Just as God came to us through one like us in all things but sin, so God continues to come to us in and through the ordinary circ*mstances of our day to day lives. The risen Lord who is beyond us, with God the Father, is also present with us to the end of time.

And/Or

(x) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

We used to talk about the tall poppy syndrome. When somebody in a locality is seen to be getting too big for their boots they are quickly cut down to size. There is probably less of that around today. Nowadays, when somebody in a town or a locality does well in the field of work or sport or whatever, everyone in the locality is delighted. It is as if one person’s success is giving everyone a lift. However, that is not what we find happening in today’s gospel reading. Jesus has returned to his home village in Nazareth for the first time since he left to begin his public ministry. In the meantime, his neighbours have come to hear of his miraculous powers and of the wisdom of his teaching. They get to experience the wisdom of his teaching for themselves when he preaches in the local synagogue. However, their response to him is very dismissive. They seem to be saying, ‘He is a carpenter’s son. We know his family. Who does he think he is?’ God was paying them a visit through one of their own, and they couldn’t see it. How could God be coming to them through someone so familiar, so like themselves in many ways? Could a carpenter make present the Creator God? The gospel reading is reminding us that God, the Lord, often comes to us through the familiar, the day to day realities that make us our lives. We sometimes think we have to go on a long journey to some holy place in order to meet the Lord. Yet, the Lord comes to meet us where we are, in our own native place, what Jesus refers to in the gospel reading as ‘our own country… our own house’. We need to keep cultivating an openness to the many ways the Lord can touch our lives through the familiar.

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(xi) Friday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel reading, the people of Nazareth ask important questions regarding Jesus, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ ‘Where did the man get it all?’ We can ask good questions without always being open to the answer to those questions. The answer to the questions that the people of Nazareth asked was that Jesus received his wisdom and his miraculous powers from God. God was working through him in a powerful way because Jesus was Immanuel, God-with-us. However, the people who thought they knew Jesus best could not answer their own questions in this way. Jesus was too ordinary for God to be speaking and acting through him. He was one of their own. They knew his father, the carpenter. They knew his mother and his extended family. He wasn’t all that different to themselves. How could God be working so powerfully through someone who seemed so ordinary? Yet, that is the mystery of Jesus. He was in many ways very ordinary. He spent nearly thirty years of his short life of thirty three years in a small village in Nazareth. As he grew from childhood to adolescence, he worked alongside his father, Joseph, helping him at his trade. All these years living like the other members of his village were preparing him for a unique mission, a mission which made God present to people in a unique way. Jesus was fully human and yet his public ministry showed that he had a unique relationship with God. To be in the presence of Jesus was to be in the presence of God. The carpenter’s son was also the Son of God. God continues to be present to us in and through the ordinary circ*mstances of our lives. The risen Lord comes to us from within our daily lives, the work we do, the people we meet, our day to day activities. The Lord can be powerfully present to others through our own lives, ordinary as they may seem to us and to others.

Fr. Martin Hogan.