Ex Rus Ad Mundum [From the village to the world]

The Ascension of Our Lord

29 May, 2014

FROM THE VILLAGE TO THE WORLD, was the commission of the Apostles. A truly formidable mission considering who they were: fishermen, labourers, artisans and a tax collector – lowly men with a lofty task.

We are not talking about particularly exemplary men but rather of very ordinary folk like you or I. The eleven disciples gathered with Jesus on the Galilean mountain top were not men of particularly unshakable faith, nor of particularly strong evangelical fervour. They were not, at that time at least, the glorious Apostles of saintly memory that we celebrate today.

The story of salvation, which takes a new turn today with the departure of the physical presence of Jesus from the world, is to be brought to completion through the mission of those he leaves behind. The salvation Christ wrought was not in the moment and just for those at that moment but for all time. 

The Ascension shows us that the life, death and resurrection of Christ is not just an historical fact affecting first-century Jews but an eternal reality for the whole world. In the Ascension, Christ returns to the Father not just as The Word, as he was in the beginning, but as The Word Made Flesh. He takes with him no-one and yet everyone, for he ascends in the flesh alone on this day but with the promise of his return, when all that are his will return to the Father’s house with him. 

In the Ascension, Christ sanctifies the flesh to which he chose to be born; immortalising it for eternity, by the glory of God, uniting for all time a perfected creation with its Creator. And in so doing, he elevates all men, body and soul, into perfect communion with the Godhead.

His saving work accomplished, how easy would it have been for Christ, the agent of creation, to bring an end to all things on the day of his Ascension, taking those few, who understood and truly believed, with him into eternal life? Had it been so, I wonder how many of the eleven would have gone with him that day. Certainly not the un-named few in Matthew’s Gospel account, who hesitated when they saw the Lord.

Instead, God has desired in Christ to extend a new covenant to men of all nations, that all may come to know and love him. And so here we are today, remembering the day on which our Blessed Lord ascended to heaven, making the very flesh with which we are made one with God. And we remember on this day, how his salvation is to be brought to all nations – not through glorious manifestations of the risen Christ as powerful proof, but through men of flesh to men of flesh with the power of faith.

And so let us think of the eleven on the top of that mountain, alone, with their Lord departed and a mission imparted. A seemingly impossible mission to bring an improbable truth from the towns and villages from which they came, across seas and mountains, to all nations.

That we are here today celebrating the Ascension of Christ on every continent of the world is a testament to the success of the mission of these eleven ordinary men and, more so, to the power of the Holy Spirit to lift the lowliness of our weak flesh; to take our knowledge and inspire in it faith; to take our faith and move us to conversion of life; to take our lives and use them for evangelisation – that the Church of the Lord, of which we are the body and he the head, may grow in number and strength of faith to greet him, when in the same way as he has left us today, he comes again in glory to lead our mortal bodies to immortal life in the presence of God.

Pray then, my brothers, for we stand on the mountain top with the eleven, with a mission to fulfil and imperfections aplenty that make us unworthy messengers of the good news of salvation and hesitant in the presence of our Lord. Pray not for strength in yourself, but for receptiveness to the grace of the Holy Spirit, who alone guides us, Christ’s body the Church, to continue the saving work of Christ for the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Eum, Ego, Vos, atque Eum

6th Sunday of Easter
25 May, 2014

HIM, ME, YOU, AND HIM: this is what Christianity will be all about, Christ tells his disciples. The redemption we receive through Christ is affected and manifested by and through the series of relationships that Jesus reveals through our Gospel today.

'Him, Me, You and Him’: the formula of our salvation.

The first ‘Him’ is the Father. Our Father, revealed through his Son Jesus Christ, uncloaks the heavy mantle of the austere fatherhood of the Old Covenant to manifest his deep love for creation; as Zechariah the father of John the Baptist proclaimed: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel … He has raised up for us a mighty saviour … So his love for our fathers is fulfilled and his holy covenant remembered … The loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high.”

Our Father is a God of love. So much so that, never despairing of his creation and always remembering the love with which he first brought us in to being, he has, since the fall of Adam, devised a plan of salvation that would show the limits of what man can achieve on his own in his adherence to the law, contrasted with the limitless power of God’s love in sacrificing himself for the forgiveness of sins and to unite all of creation in the perfection of his eternal glory.

And we learn of the Father’s love through his Son – the ‘Me’ in our formula. The first relationship in the formula of salvation is that between the Father and the Son. There is nothing in the words and actions of Jesus that is not from the Father, because he and the Father are one. Thus when Jesus gives the new commandment for his disciples to "love one another as I have loved you” he is reaffirming the chief commandment to ‘Love the Lord your God’ as he has loved you in Christ – with all his heart, soul, strength and mind – but with a new twist – that the chiefest demonstration of our love for God should be in how we love one another.

This is the command that Christ urges us to keep in today’s Gospel: to acknowledge the great love of God for man and to reflect that love in our lives and interactions in the world. And by keeping this commandment we fulfil the second relationship in the formula of salvation – the ‘You’ in the formula is you and me and all mankind, and the relationship I speak of is with God himself. For, by keeping his commands, we dwell in God and God in us: “I am in my Father and you in me and I in you."

And the words of the fourth Eucharistic Prayer reveal the identity of the final ‘Him’ in our formula of salvation: “That we might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as the first fruits for those who believe, so that, bringing to perfection his work in the world, he might sanctify creation to the full.”

The Holy Spirit, then, becomes the final bond or relationship in the formula of salvation, without which there would be no Christianity. For it is the Holy Spirit through whom we have been reborn with the bond of union between man and saviour; and it is the Holy Spirit who makes us aware of God’s presence in us and, through us, to the world by fulfilling the command to love one another.

It is then, through these bonds of love that we are redeemed. The love shown for us by the Father, through the sending of his only begotten Son. The love of the Son for surrendering himself to suffer death for the salvation of the world. The love received through the Holy Spirit, which forms in us a bond of kinship with Christ in baptism and further fills the hearts of the faithful in the sacrament of confirmation to anoint us as true witnesses to the love of God through our words and deeds. 

And it is then, through our words and deeds that we embrace the salvation wrought by Christ. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us for the fulfilment of God’s loving purpose? Do we complete the bonds of love that bind us to God, by both returning and reflecting that love?

Let us pray, then, firstly for faith: that we may see the Father’s great love for us in his Son, Jesus Christ. Let us pray for openness to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives – that Spirit which binds us in kinship with God and frees us from looking to ourselves by affixing the gaze of our hearts on the love of God. And let us pray for strength: the strength to be true witnesses to the love of God through our lives, and the strength to love God as perfectly as he has loved us, through our love for all his people.

It is then that the formula of salvation is accomplished: The Father’s love made manifest in his Son for the forgiveness of sins and the coming of the Holy Spirit to raise us to become adopted Sons in Christ, and to send us forth to complete God’s saving work on earth and bring all men to know and love him as we do ourselves.

Et Invenietis Requiem

5th Sunday of Easter
18 May, 2014

Recording

AND YE SHALL FIND REST from the long sojourn of life, in the Father’s house, where The Son has gone ahead of you to prepare the way for all the sons of God.

The place was Jerusalem, the time was Passover, and thousands of pious Jews had descended, as they did every year, on the Holy City to celebrate the great feast of their liberation from Egypt. They stayed in cramped and overcrowded homes and hostels, and in make-shift tents pitched in every open area around the city. They travelled there to worship God in his holy dwelling place, the Temple. 

Their journeys from across the Holy Land to Jerusalem were reminiscent of the 40-year sojourn of the Israelites and a deliberate reminder of their history as a wandering people in search of the Promised Land. Their celebration was under the shadow of occupation, as it had been since the fall of Israel and Judah. The heavy cloak of impermanence and the transience of their lives was only lifted by the permanence of their God and their hope for better times with the prophesied coming of the Messiah.

And so Jesus told his disciples how they should understand the events that would happen in the days ahead: his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, as the willing action of God to reconcile all men to himself and to permit the eternal inheritance of the kingdom of God for all that would be co-heirs in him.

Of course, Christ was acutely aware of the sinful nature of his disciples and of all men who share the human condition. He was aware that divine justice would not permit a single one of us to gain entry to the Father’s house on our own merits in adhering to the law. This is why God himself had to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world. No other immolation would suffice, nor indeed ever be required again to appease the just anger of God.

And so we find Jesus at pains to emphasise that he and the Father are one. To look upon Jesus is to see the Godhead. For any, like Philip, who might have any uncertainties, Jesus gives the unequivocal answer that he is in the Father, and the Father in him – true God from true God, he is one being with the Father.

It is therefore, so that their hearts will not be troubled, that Jesus – with death only hours away – comforts his disciples by saying that he leaves them to go and prepare a place for them in the Father’s house. He commands them to believe in him as they believe in God – for he is God – so that they need no longer wander in search of the Promised Land, like shepherd-less sheep scattered in vain search of pasture. The time for wandering is at an end. They have reached, in Christ, their home and obtained their inheritance – the Promised Land, the Father’s house.

Our own lives too, are no less a sojourn than for our ancestors in the faith. Ours may be lived at high speed, compared to the Israelites who walked 40-years in the desert. We may have homes, for some, where we and generations before us have lived. But our lives are no less fleeting and impermanent than for those we read about in the bible. If anything, we have made a celebration of transience – everything from our cars and our phones to our relationships and our careers is becoming ever more transitory. Many of us are fortunate that we do not have to fear for lack of sustenance, or shelter. But in the security of the Goodlife, we are no less at risk of losing our souls.

For in the frenzy of modern life we risk losing the abiding permanence of God. Sunday Mass is something we conveniently box in between shopping and a movie. And God forbid that a Holy Day of Obligation is not translated to a Sunday. Prayer is for time of need; and love of God and neighbour becomes a means to an end. Indeed, we live life in the fast lane, but it is all to easy to lose one’s sense of direction and lose sight of our ultimate destination.

Take comfort, then, in the assurance of our Blessed Lord that our lives – sometimes so full of to-dos that they become aimless – have a higher aim secured for us in the Father’s house, where Christ both leads and waits for us, to grant rest from our assiduous quest for gratification in this life, in an eternal abode from which we may partake in the one thing that was from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be – God.

So, my brothers, in your earthly wanderings, keep always in sight the house of our Father. And when you fear that you are losing your way amidst the fleeting distractions of the world, do not fear to ask – as did Thomas in today’s Gospel, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” And listen to the reply of your Lord, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” 

The Way, is to acknowledge The Truth that Jesus reveals about Himself, His Father and His Kingdom, to which he now goes. Living in the light of The Truth means that the gift of The Life eternal is ours.

Vitam Abundantius Habeant

4th Sunday of Easter

11 May, 2014

THEY WILL HAVE LIFE ABUNDANTLY, who recognise and follow the true shepherd. For the good shepherd does not flinch or run at the sight of the wolf, but rather lays down his life to save his sheep. 

This Sunday, known as Good Shepherd Sunday, is a good time for us to reflect on the flock that we are each a part of. In the preceding weeks we have heard a great deal about the earliest Christian communities in readings from the Acts of the Apostles. The sense of community was central to the propagation of the faith— the bonds between pastor and flock and among the sheep of the flock were intimate. The survival of the Church depended on these bonds of love and trust. And in those turbulent times, it would not be unusual for a pastor to lay down his life for his sheep, for his faith, for his Lord, just as the Lord had done for him. 

Today, the call to an intimate communion of the faithful is no less urgent than it was for our founding fathers. For sure we need pastors, good pastors, strong pastors, capable of leading and defending their flocks. But evangelization is not the function of pastor alone. Rather, we, the flock that is led by the hand of The Lord and anointed with his Spirit are charged with building his Church through the testimony of our faith and the example of our lives; thereby accomplishing our commission to gather sheep who are from other pastures into the one flock of Christ. 

The life that we have gained in Christ the good shepherd, who leads us to green pastures, must be lived to the full; as a true witness to the love of our shepherd, who died that we may live. And such a life is not to be lived looking inward at ourselves but with an ostensible joy that reveals the gift of peace and love that Christ left us — a love and peace to be shared among the family of the faithful and to be carried to all people — the first-fruits of the Spirit that draws-in the unbeliever, softening even the hardest of hearts to be receptive to the Good News of salvation. 

Let us look, then, at the way we live and at the way we come together as a flock to celebrate the paschal mystery of our salvation — if our Heavenly Father were to send a lost sheep into our lives or into our church community, what would he see? Would we be able to bring this lost sheep home, into the flock of Christ?

Today is indeed a good day to pray for vocations. But not just for priestly vocations. The whole flock of Christ has a vocation — a calling to have life so abundantly that it shines forth from us like a beacon to guide all whom the Father sends to us, away from the wolves, thieves and robbers into the safe and loving embrace of Christ the true shepherd. 

Let us pray, then, for our pastors, that their vocation to lead, love and protect us may be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. And let us pray also for our own vocation, that as sheep in the flock of Christ, we may recognise the voice of our shepherd and more readily heed his call to follow him, to have life in him, and through this life to bring all people to know and love him. Amen. 

Cognosce Donum Domino

3rd Sunday of Easter

04 May, 2014

RECOGNISE THE GIFT OF THE LORD in the Eucharist. When the darkness of doubt, fear, grief and defeat approaches, journey to that familiar place in your soul, which is the abode of Christ, and fortify it with His presence against the assault of the world.

It speaks for their authenticity, that the accounts of the days following the Resurrection in Holy Scripture include moments of doubt and confusion. Last week, we heard the story of Thomas’ doubt and the Lord’s revelation of His resurrected body to him and the apostles. In today’s Gospel we meet two other disciples whose state of weariness and dejection we might all have experienced at some time.

They were journeying away from the sad confusion of Jerusalem, where their master had just been killed and cruel rumours were circulating that he might have escaped the crucifixion and live. They had had high hopes. Everything had seemed right: the preaching, the miracles, the growing number of followers, the symbolic fulfilment of ancient prophecy … They had been sure that he was the one sent to free Israel from Roman occupation, and their disappointment showed.

They journeyed west, into darkness. The symbolism here is rich; the children of Israel had always sojourned east, towards the rising sun. West was always held as the source of darkness and as they walked towards Emmaus, darkness gripped their souls.

Today we can see most clearly that Christ’s Gospel is nothing if not the good news for Everyman. These are two ordinary men, not one of the Eleven – the inner circle of Jesus’ closest companions. No, Cleopas and his companion that day were you and I. And that’s the beauty of their encounter with the Risen Lord – it could have happened to anyone – and the fact that the Lord chose these two characters for such a remarkable revelation means that he chooses you and I, today, for the same intimate experience of his presence.

Darkness comes in many forms. The darkness of sin that separates us from God’s grace and causes us to lose our way. The darkness of doubt that is the pall of faith, shrouding and suffocating the light of hope. Then there is the darkness of despair – a place we go when we have lost the hope that genuine faith gives, and choose to rely on ourselves only to discover our own frailty and mortality.

Where is your darkness? Even the Saints encountered it. Even the Saviour was not spared. So often this account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is presented in such a positive light that we fail to see the profoundly human side of it. "Have you found your Emmaus?” many will ask. Don’t worry, Emmaus will find you – darkness always does.

But when darkness descends – this is what this narrative is about – wherever there is darkness, there too is Christ our light. Remember that fire we lit two weeks ago? Thanks be to God for the Light of Christ! For the resurrection of Christ is the dawn of a new creation when God pronounces again “Let there be light” – the first and most powerful expression of the creative act, which dispels darkness and brings all of creation to the knowledge of God.

And how shall you or I, the most unremarkable among the ordinary followers of Christ, feel His presence in our dark moments of sin, doubt and despair? You do not need to call out. You do not need to search for Him. He will be there. He will come to you. The Lord, who knows the secrets of our heart, in His compassion, will always be there, walking with us, though our path be the dusk of our soul coming on night.

And we shall know His presence through His gift of Himself to us; His abiding companionship on our long sojourn through life; His promise that where two or three are gathered in His name, He will be there; in the gift of bread and wine that becomes for us no mere sign or symbol of a historical man but a living presence that is the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation – for all men, be they apostle or saint or just a nameless follower walking through the days and nights of our life on Earth.

Viderant Dominum

Sunday in the Octave of Easter

27 April 2014

THEY HAD SEEN THE LORD, is it any wonder that the disciples believed and spread the message of His resurrection? But what about us? Is it possible to survive on faith alone?

Newspaper reports abound this week on the falling numbers of practising Christians and, even among the ‘faithful’, a shocking number who do not profess a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ. Is it, perhaps, a sign of the times that we need something tangible on which to anchor our beliefs?

The answer is ’no'. Human nature has always been this way. Modern minds are far from alone in their hunger for substantive evidence to justify belief, as today’s Gospel amply demonstrates. Thomas, oft dubbed the ‘doubting’ disciple, is representative of most of us at some point in our journey of faith. Indeed, his doubt of the testimony of the other disciples speaks volumes for their collective disposition post crucifixion. Unaware of the reality of the promised resurrection, they were all clearly dismayed by the death of their master; disoriented and fearful for their own lives.

How often do we find ourselves dismayed, disoriented and fearful as we walk the path of life? That is when we, like the disciples, are greeted by the words, “Peace be with you.” – for the disciples, words that ushered-in a startling and joyful new reality. But maybe for some among us, the same words ring true but somewhat stale.

Last week, in the splendour of the solemn Easter Vigil and in the grandeur of the Easter Day Mass, each of us renewed our Baptismal promises – promises that affirm a believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead. We all said “I do” but how much do we believe in the reality of the resurrection? More, perhaps, than doubting Thomas? 

Seven days later and for the coming 48 Sundays before the next Easter, we will affirm the same belief in the Creed we recite. But how real is the resurrection to each of us? We are not talking about some kind of abstract resurrection followed by ghostly apparitions. We do not profess a belief in a purely spiritual resurrection, neither can we subscribe to the assertions of detractors that Jesus was just resuscitated or replaced on the cross and never died. 

No, the reality of the resurrection is the belief that a man, like us, suffered in the flesh, died and then rose – physically – as much in the flesh as when he breathed his last – and that the same will happen to our bodies, when he comes again in his glory to judge the living and the dead.

Let us ask ourselves again: is this what we truly believe? Because if it is, then this changes absolutely everything. For, if God has done this, then what may the world do to harm us, to dishearten us, to disorient us from the truth, to instil fear?

But sometimes, we allow the world to get the better of us. The unimaginable reality of Christ’s resurrection becomes dulled, rendered mundane by the trails of this life. There will be Sundays, for all of us, when the Creed is recited without heart, without the startling and joyful realisation of the disciples faced with their Risen Lord. We will forget, amidst our trials and tribulations, that Easter joy, that certain knowledge that we are unconquerable because Christ rose from the dead.

We will forget. And we will doubt. And when we do, let us not look at the locked door and hope that Jesus will appear to cast out all doubt as he did for Thomas. 

Let us instead encounter the Risen Christ in ourselves, for each of us have been baptised into his death, each of us has been anointed with his Holy Spirit, each of us has been given new birth as the sons and daughters of God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are living witness to the Risen Christ. The reality of the resurrection is in each of us. So, in times of doubt do not ask for signs from without, but instead look within. There you will see Christ Victorious because he lives in you.

For if God can raise Jesus from the dead, and in the fullness of time, raise our own corruptible bodies into incorruptible glory with him in heaven, then how should we doubt his power to guard us in this life? As the Apostle says:

“This is a cause of great joy for you, even though you may for a short time have to bear being plagued by all sorts of trails; so that, when Jesus Christ is revealed, your faith will have been tested and proved like gold – only it is more precious than gold.”

Cleave then, my brothers, to the reality of Christ’s resurrection in your lives. He is truly risen. His peace, then, be with you all days.

O Felix Culpa

Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection

19 April, 2014

O HAPPY FAULT! This night, a blessed end to a wretched story is wrought for us. It is the story of The Fall, when Adam and Eve, tempted by Satan, gained knowledge of good and evil from the tree of the forbidden fruit, and with it sin and death. Unable to taste from the tree of immortality, they and all generations after them have lived, not in God’s image of perfection but under the penalty of death.

But God did not despair of those whom, in the beginning, he had breathed life into. Through the ages he reached out to them to guide them back to Himself, sending Godly men of great holiness to prophesy the coming of One who would conquer death for all men and restore the perfection of creation, by breaking open the doors of Sheol and transforming death into eternal life.

Tonight, Christ rises from the underworld revealing the fullness of the mystery of our salvation. God has died in the flesh and Sheol cannot confine the incandesce of His glory. Adam face to face again with his Creator, not to suffer condemnation but to witness the unimaginable depths of God’s love to raise him from that fateful fall; and with him, his descents for all time.

For the God of Adam has become Adam's son. The Master of all creation has become a slave. From above the heavens He came to Earth and, suffering death, He descended even below the Earth, to rise in glory; completing the perfect sacrifice and fulfilling the eternal covenant of redemption. And all to save Adam from his fall; and with Adam, all men who seek the face of God with sincere hearts.

Rejoice, then, with me on this most sacred of nights. Rejoice that so great a fault should have wrought a far greater act of love; for what was lost to us in Adam has been regained in even more abundance in Christ Jesus risen from the dead.

O felix culpa,
quæ talem ac tantum méruit habére Redemptórem! 

O happy fault,
that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!

Quomodo Negamus Eum?

Holy Thursday 2014

HOW DO WE DENY HIM? Is it directly, like Peter’s denials? Or are our denials more insidious – professing kinship on the outside, while denying Him from within?

There are many ways that we can be identified as Christians. In Peter’s case, even his accent gave him away. For us, today, it may be as simple as turning into a church carpark, wearing a cross, saying a prayer before starting a meal, having a bumper sticker that acknowledges Jesus as Lord, abstaining from meat on Fridays, or even having a prayer card in our wallet or a bible on a coffee table. Indeed, there are many ways to identify a Christian by outward signs and symbols that exhibit our faith.

Perhaps this is why, when we read the accounts of Peter’s three denials of Christ, we are apt to think that, at least in this regard, we exceed the Prince of Apostles in steadfastness of faith. After all, which of us would wantonly deny our faith when asked? In a world where, by and large, there are no repercussions to fear for professing our beliefs, we are able to wear the badge of faith proudly on our chests.

We may not face many situations where we might be ashamed of our Lord or our faith in Him, as Peter was, but we are reminded on this Holy Day that living up to our identity as Christians means we are tasked with more than just outward symbols or even vocal declarations of faith.

The ‘Mandatum’ from which ‘Maundy Thursday’ gets its name, is a new ‘commandment’ from the mouth of the Lord Himself; a commandment that will serve as the identifier of all those who are called to follow Him: for “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” And that commandment is to love one another just as perfectly as Christ has loved each of us.

Christ loved us even enough to die for us. Peter, despite his denials that fateful night, was to follow in those sacred footsteps. We may not be so privileged as to be called to lay down our lives for our faith, but in order to be identified as Christians and refrain from denying our Lord in our lives, we must love, all the more, in the fashion demonstrated by our Saviour in his every action on earth.

We are called to love through service. This Maundy Thursday night, our Lord washed the feet of his disciples and calls on us to repeat this humble service, not just for those to whom it pleases us to perform it, but to the whole world. For did not Christ wash even the feet of the one who would betray him? We owe humble service to every person that God brings into our lives, for, “very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” And through his example we are taught that humility is not limited by station, nor does it devalue our station. That we are chosen by the Lord does not mean we should not humble ourselves even before those who are not redeemed by His blood, as our acts of humility do not diminish but rather enhance our state of grace before God.

The call to love as He has loved is a call to love who He loved, in witness to our faith. To do less would be a denial of our faith, a denial of the Lord Himself. And who did Jesus love in the world? Of course he loved those closest to Him, even when they misunderstood Him, let Him down, betrayed Him, denied Him, and deserted Him. But it was not just those closest to Him that Jesus loved. (How easy a mandate would it be to just love our families, friends, and fellow believers?) No, Jesus loved the sinner and the outcast; the poor and the sick; the Roman and the Samaritan; and those who despised and rejected Him. If we cannot demonstrate the love of God to even the least of these people, then we do not bear the mark of Christ that identifies us, through our actions of love, as His own. And such a denial is far worse than Peter’s denials, for which he wept bitterly and regretted, even unto laying his own life down in the name of His Lord.

Tonight then, my brothers, as we watch and pray with Christ in Gethsemane and await His handing-over to those that would take His life most cruelly, let us think about how we have responded to the challenges of our faith. Have we stood up in loving action to prove that the religious symbols we outwardly bear are genuine reflections of inner faith and an eagerness to embrace the mandatum novum to love one another as He has loved us? May we, as did the Prince of Apostles, weep bitterly for the times that we have denied our Lord in the people we have treated with anything less than Christ-like humility and love. And through our tears of remorse may we ever more readily appreciate our Blessed Lord’s love for us in bearing the cross for our sakes, and commit ourselves to being a vessel of that love in the world.

Non Cognoverunt Eam

Holy Week 2014

THEY DID NOT KNOW IT, but this was going to be one bad week.

The Christian faithful and non-believers alike often question the variances in the accounts of Jesus’ passion and death as written in the four canonical gospels. Those that seek to undermine the Christian faith label them ‘inconsistencies', which call into question the veracity of the written accounts and aim to discredit the historical authenticity of Jesus’ last days on earth. Believers, also, often wonder why the four accounts of Christ’s Passion are occasionally different in the details. Although, for us, faith unites these discordances in the sure belief that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead to bring us salvation.

The truth is not, as our detractors would like us to believe, that the gospel writers are unreliable at best and fabricators of works of total fiction at worst. If the early Fathers of the Church had wanted to propagate a lie about the death and resurrection of Jesus, how difficult would it be to make sure all the stories were the same in every detail? After all, it is these same Church Fathers who formed the New Testament as we know it today.

Indeed, the differences in the details of Jesus’ death and resurrection are our guarantee of authenticity because they reflect one of the fundamental facts about Christianity as a new religion in fulfilment of Judaism: No one was expecting it to happen this way.

The gospel accounts are recollections that are endeavouring to make sense of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus in the context of His resurrection. If the disciples had understood the plan from the start, no doubt their recollection of events would be precise to every detail that points to Jesus being, in fact, true God made man, born to live and die among and for His creation so that those formed by God’s Word could achieve the status of Sons of God, capable of for all eternity gazing upon the glory of God in His heavenly kingdom.

Rewind to the Passover of AD33. The disciples had no idea of the events they were about to be caught up in. For all the miracles, the teachings, the words of Jesus – both veiled and direct – about Himself and His mission, and despite the abundant vault of Hebraic prophecies about the Messiah, none of them knew that they walked by the side of God Himself or could conceive of God’s plan to unite all men to Himself through such a shameful death. 

The disciples believed that their master was the Messiah, the chosen one of God; and their concept of the Messiah was already radically different from what most of the Jews were expecting. The vast majority of Jews were expecting a warrior-messiah, who would free them from Roman occupation. The disciples, on the other hand, believed that their master was a more pacifistic messiah, somewhat religio-political, sent to renew Judaism from within. They were not expecting, nor would they have believed the messianic story which was just about to unfold in the death of Jesus.

We begin Holy Week with the disciples on quite a high note, as their master is hailed “Son of David” and the one who “comes in the name of the Lord”. They couldn’t really have asked for a better reception. They were fearing that the Jewish authorities might try to arrest Jesus as soon as He set foot in Jerusalem, for some of the really amazing miracles he had performed in the weeks prior and the way Jesus had confronted the Pharisees about, among other issues, breaking the law of rest on the Sabbath. So, they were most pleased by the turnout of the crowd of supporters who gathered to greet Jesus, and they hoped that this would stop the religious authorities from doing anything too drastic. And so the disciples busied themselves with preparations for the Passover Feast without much of a care in the world.

Everything was looking rosy until Jesus started doing things to sabotage Himself. It started with the (quite violent) clearing of the Temple – sending the money-changers and pigeon-sellers packing. Jesus seemed different, agitated almost. The next day, when Jesus was on his way back to the Temple, he cursed a fig tree because he couldn’t find any fruit on it. The tree instantly withered. It was the first time Jesus had done something like this – using His miraculous powers for no observable benefit. Something was definitely troubling him.

In these days, the disciples witnessed a Jesus who was far more harsh in his dealings with the chief priests, elders, Sadducees and Pharisees; far more direct in his assertion of His status and impending death; far more prolific in his teaching and provocative in his speech, as if there was some great urgency to his message.

Today, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week might seem a bit uneventful compared to the Thursday and Friday, but in AD33 they were a frenzy of activity that left the disciples worried and not quite sure what to think. 

Is it any wonder that they so vehemently denied Jesus’ accusation that one of them would betray him? They could be pretty certain that the Jewish authorities would now arrest Jesus, but this is something that Jesus seemed, Himself, to provoke. The disciples didn’t want it to happen and didn’t want to be blamed for it either.

Is it any wonder that they fell asleep when Jesus prayed at Gethsemane? They had no idea what Jesus was going through; that he was knowingly facing an imminent death, a death He Himself had engineered so as to fulfil the will of the Father. 

The disciples were troubled, confused, mentally exhausted and spiritually ignorant of their master’s true identity and purpose. Is it any wonder, then, that they dispersed into hiding and deserted their master when he was arrested and the crowds rose up to condemn him to the most horrifying and shameful public execution?

Brothers, we are indeed fortunate that we are living today, when the full revelation of Christ’s life, death and resurrection can be laid so clearly before us. We know the whole story. What is left for us but to believe, even in this most improbable of stories: that God would humble Himself not only to live among us as a man like us, but to accept with such deep love for us the scorn of the world, being despised, rejected, tormented, tortured and murdered, at the hands of men whom He Himself had created?

In the words of the Apostle Paul:

“The Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, but we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and wisdom of God.”
[1Cor.1:22-24]

As we are called, so let us witness, this Holy Week, the folly of the Cross: this ultimate contradiction that through submitting to the seeming failure of a humiliating death, God has gained for us the ultimate victory.

Flevit Super Illam

Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

13 April 2014

HE WEPT OVER IT; the city of Jerusalem and its people, who had suffered so much and had cried out to God for deliverance and the fulfilment of God’s Holy Covenant with his people. He wept because their cries had melted the very heart of God –HIS heart – overflowing with such love and compassion that God would do the unimaginable; the impossible in the eyes of men; the only thing that would once and for all time unite God and man, restoring the perfection of creation.

It is often asked why, on Palm Sunday, we have to listen to both the Gospel account of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem and, in addition, to a full reading of one of the accounts of the Passion of our Lord. Are we not jumping the gun a bit by not allowing ourselves to bask in the glory of Christ with the great crowds of people who came out to greet him that day?

The answer can be found in Luke's account of Jesus' approach towards Jerusalem from the top of the Mount of Olives. There were already crowds acclaiming Him and throwing their cloaks down in the path of the donkey that carried Him. But Jesus paused as the city of Jerusalem came into sight in front of him. He paused to look at the city. And He wept.

We need to appreciate today's feast through the eyes of Christ, not through the eyes of the excitable crowds known for their desperate expectation of an imminent saviour; nor through the eyes of the disciples hoping that their master would at last gain the status they believed he deserved. 

What do we see, then, through the tears in Christ's eyes? Remember that these are the eyes of the all-knowing God and at the same time the eyes of an all-feeling man. 

The prophetic vision of the destruction of Jerusalem that follows and would be fulfilled in less than 40 years, is a pitiful allegory for the relationship between God and the Israelites, His chosen people. The eyes of God looking over His Holy City see with pain how His chosen people will continue to misinterpret His Holy Covenant. They will reject even His only begotten Son and will rise up in defense of an earthly city made of stone and mud while turning away from their true inheritance – the heavenly city of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God Itself. 

The tears of Christ the man, inseparable from the Godhead, tell us of the huge physical and emotional burden borne, the real and painful sacrifice which every action in the life of Jesus leads to and facilitates. When Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives later in the week and prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see an echo of those tears shed today. Tears of a man betrayed, abandoned, mocked, tortured, crucified and killed mercilessly, of his own volition, but not for his own sake.

So let us begin Holy Week as we mean to go on. Let us not just observe but, rather, live Holy Week as a perfect witness to the sacrifice that brought about our salvation. May we see with His eyes, through His tears, and weep with Him not just for the Jerusalem of AD33 but for the people of God in our time who continue to reject the loving sacrifice of God for mankind.

As Jesus rides into Jerusalem today, He is not rejoicing with the crowds but fulfilling God’s plan as revealed through the prophets, to live among and die for each and every one of us – no matter how we in our own lives betray Him, abandon Him, mock Him, torture Him and crucify Him – so that we may be redeemed by His Blood, spared the just punishment for our many sins, and share in the glory of His resurrection.

The palms that  you are holding in your hands today, many of you will fold into crosses. That is the true meaning of Palm Sunday; that is why we need to stand through the reading of the Passion – Because today begins the unfolding of the most sacred mystery of our salvation: that God, to Whom all glory in heaven and on earth belongs, would humble himself to death, even death on a cross … so that you may be saved.

Walk, then, with Him, that you may bear witness, in your life, to the love of Christ.

Ut Peccatis Mortui

5th Sunday of Lent

05 April 2014

TO DIE TO SIN, and fear, and doubt is to rise through Christ; with Christ; in Christ. For through Christ our sins are forgiven; with Christ we need not fear the sting of death; and in Christ our faith finds the fruits of eternal life.

Resurrection, as a concept, was not foreign to the Jews of Christ’s time. Our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us of the physical resurrection of the body when God will open the graves of His people and put His Spirit in them, that they shall live. The hope of resurrection is acknowledged also by Martha in today’s Gospel account when she responds to Jesus’ assertion that her brother, Lazarus, would "rise again”.

Concept and reality, however, are very different. And none in the Gospel account, except the Lord, would have even imagined that the four-days-dead Lazarus would walk himself out of his tomb; not Jesus’ disciples, not his close friends Martha and Mary. To all present at this ultimate miracle, and even to the Jewish authorities who would hear about it, the bodily resurrection of the dead was not to be a reality today and certainly not at the hands of a man, even if some had acknowledged him a prophet, a messiah, or a man of great holiness. Resurrection was for them in the domain of God alone and for a specific time when God would bring the Israelites into His eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem. And it is because resurrection was such a distant and intangible concept that the seeming finality of death causes such pain to those remaining in life.

The Lord ensures two deaths in this Gospel account. First, the death of Lazarus. We are told that the Lord waited two days before acting on the message that his friend was gravely ill. Is it not odd that Jesus wanted to be sure of Lazarus’ death before embarking to Bethany? Martha and Mary certainly thought so. Is it not odd that the Lord told his disciples that he was glad for their sakes that He had not been with Lazarus before his death in order to heal him? In this instance, the disciples did not find it odd that Jesus didn’t want to go to Lazarus’ side. In fact they found it odd that he would want to travel there at all, and urged Him to let Lazarus sleep and not go to Bethany because to be so close to Jerusalem would put their master’s life in mortal danger from the Jewish authorities, for whom Jesus was a marked man. But the Lord went to the tomb of his friend precisely to ensure a second death: His own.

More than a foreshadowing of His own resurrection, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is the means by which Christ offers Himself to be crucified. More than an act of love for his friends Martha and Mary, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is accomplished for the glory of God and as a manifestation not of Jesus’ earthly affection for one man and his two sisters, but the truly Divine love of the Son of God for all men. 

And more than an affirmation of the value of mortal life, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is an affirmation of the necessity of death, to sin, to doubt and to the fear of death itself. It is for this that Jesus wept as Mary took Him to the tomb of her brother. It was not because he was sad at the death of his friend or His failure to heal him as he had the blind man. Jesus wept for the pervasive power that death had on the minds of those around him, those that had been taught, through the prophets, about the resurrection but could not grasp it, and needed God Himself to come among them, to live and die to prove that God’s Holy Covenant, his promise to His people, was not set in life and bound by death but transcends the earthly city of Jerusalem to the eternal city of God.

We must not, then, my brothers, be as the disciples who feared for Jesus’ life and preferred him to stay in safety, away from Jerusalem. We must not be as Martha and Mary, who in their hearts wished that Jesus had arrived in time to heal their brother. We need not be as the crowds outside Lazarus’ tomb who wondered if Jesus mourned the loss of His friend and speculated about whether He was unable to save him from death.

We, who in these days ahead of us, will witness Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, as a direct result of his action to raise Lazarus from death, should rather rejoice in this manifestation of God’s power and love in Bethany today: A love that conquers death, not just for one man, but for all who, in Christ, earnestly receive His Spirit that gives life to our mortal bodies.

May our journey with our Lord to Jerusalem permit us to share, through His passion and death – with His ultimate act of love –  in His resurrection. Amen.

Convertere ad Dominum

Lent 2014

RETURN TO THE LORD! Not for fear of judgement and hell, but because no one loves you more. 

The overwhelming call of the season of Lent is for conversion of spirit and for repentance and return to God. This period of Lent, leading up to the Triduum and celebration of Easter has a great pull for those who have lapsed from the faith. More so than at Christmas, where the secular overtones have already drowned the Gloria of the angel choirs, the final days of Lent and the unfolding of the paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, tug at the heart strings of anyone who was once a witness to these holiest of days but has since turned away from the presence of Christ in their lives. And I speak from experience; the experience of being 15 years away from the faith. The yearning never leaves us completely, no matter how far we stray, even to taking refuge in other religions; the Lord never strays from us.

But returning isn’t easy. Burdened with sin and self loathing we forget that the Lord is unconditional love and compassion. We look to God as judge and rightly think that we can never be worthy, but we forget that God loves us even as we are today, blackened by sin and regret, confused and disoriented on life’s path, and doubtful of and hesitant to reach out to grasp the Lord’s forgiving hands that promise to pull us into his embrace.

We place obstacles in the path towards our return to God, some to trip ourselves, others to block progress completely. We condition ourselves into believing that we cannot reach Him and should not even begin the futile journey. We judge God’s love by the code of human conduct; how, when I don’t even love myself, shall God love me? And then we number our sins and think, how, when I wouldn’t even forgive myself, shall God forgive me? And thus we shrink from the presence of God.

What we do not appreciate is that there is no path, no journey, no obstacle, no obstruction, no distance. All we need do is to turn – where we are standing – to face the One who has always been with us, even when our souls felt furthest from his grace. Turn, turn now; He is there, He never left you, He never stopped loving you, He never stopped waiting for your return.

This is the message of Lent: to turn and see God in the wilderness of our broken lives; to know that His love and compassion is not dependent on our worthiness but solely on our ability to see Him and believe.

And there is no better place to turn and meet Christ than in that much feared, instrument of torture, the confessional. Nothing strikes fear in the lapsed catholic like this little wooden cubical. But nowhere will you encounter the loving mercy of Christ more intimately than inside it. If only you would make it more about Him than you.

My own approach to the confessional after 15 years in the darkness of my life turned from Christ was terrifying. I made a tentative return to the Church, attending Mass (although not approaching communion), periods of adoration of Blessed Sacrament, and praying the Divine Office. I resisted the Sacrament of Reconciliation for a long while, fearing judgement, fearing the shame of confessing so many years of so many sins, fearing that I could not and should not be forgiven, fearing that I could not make a full and accurate confession of my many faults before God.

I resisted for as long as I could, until the pain of not being able to receive the Lord in communion gave way to a deep yearning to be reconciled. Even then, I spent days preparing my confessional ‘speech’, working through the ‘perfect confession’ in my mind even as I sat next in line to the confessional. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and took a deep breath before entering the dim light within … it was going to be a long one.

Then in the almost haunting silence of the chamber, as I knelt before the lattice grille and looked up at the crucifix hanging above, my eyes welled up with tears. I wasn’t sobbing and everything else about me seemed normal except for the streams running down my face. I broke the silence the way I had been taught as I child, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 15 years since my last confession…”

“Welcome home, my child” came the gentle response and it was then that the sobbing started. I couldn’t get an intelligible word out of my mouth. The priest continued, “Don’t be afraid. The Lord is here and he welcomes you home.” I could not regain control of my emotions and I continued sobbing, struggling to speak. “Fall into Christ’s embrace. Listen to His heart that beats for you and let go of all that troubles your soul. What is it your soul aches to say to your Lord?”

My well prepared and memorised speech left me, “I need the Lord’s forgiveness for so much, too much that I have done” is all that I managed to squeak through by rasping breath. “Your Lord forgave you the instant you turned to him. Your tears are a reflection of the Lord’s own tears. Yours are of sorrow, but His are for joy because the son he had lost has come home. Now when you are ready, pray the Act of Contrition in front of you so that I can give you Christ’s absolution.”

I received Holy Communion for the first time in 15 years that day, and have never felt more loved by God.

I later asked my spiritual director whether I had made a valid confession that day, since I didn’t even get started on my prepared script of sins. He reminded me of the parable of the prodigal son, who returned with a prepared speech 'I have sinned against you and against God…’ but was cut short by the embrace of his all-forgiving father. “You met Christ Himself in the confessional that day. Be at peace and rejoice that Our Blessed Lord has called you home to Himself. I think that the woman who shed tears and wiped Jesus' feet with them, could repeat the same words to you that she heard from the Lord, 'MANY sins are forgiven her, since she has LOVED MUCH’.”

Return, then, to the Lord, all you who have been called by the Lord. Turn to face him and witness a love that will envelop all your fears, your guilt, your doubt, your troubles, and turn them into the pure joy of being the beloved of God.

Gaudete Caeci

4th Sunday of Lent

March 30, 2014

REJOICE MY BLIND BROTHERS! For the light of Christ penetrates the darkness of our blindness, bringing us to the true vision of his glory, that we might believe – first, with our eyes – and then through our lives, illuminated by the light of divine grace.

The connection between sight and light is drawn for us in the choice of the second reading (Ephesians 5:8-14) and the Gospel of the day (John 9:1-41). We are challenged to ask ourselves what is the nature of our faculty of sight? What do we choose to see with our eyes? And it is a choice. We can, like the blind man in the Gospel account, choose to see Jesus, the Son of Man, in the world around us; acknowledging his presence in the light of the created world and the fruits of human endeavour. Or, we can choose to see the law breakers, the evil, the sinners, the darkness of the world and refuse to accept the light of Christ, as did the Pharisees.

The blind man was blinded from birth by sin and ignorance. The Pharisees had sight and full knowledge of the scriptures and yet were blinded by arrogance and self-importance. Who did the Lord choose to heal? The blind man is told to wash in the Pool of Siloam, a name that means 'sent' in Hebrew. In baptism we are called by Jesus, cleansed of sin and ignorance and, more importantly, sent to see and be the light of God in the world of darkness.

Be in no doubt; we are not meant to see our own image in the situation of the blind man in today's Gospel. The message is not that we are blinded by sin and ignorance and consequently healed by the Lord. No! We approach the Gospel account not as the blind man but as the Pharisees, for we have already been called by Christ and sent through the waters of Baptism out of the darkness into the light of the Lord. As St. Paul reminds us, "You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of the light."

The Gospel is a reminder of the saving grace of the Lord, who washes us clean of sin and guilt through baptism and calls us to acknowledge His saving grace. It is equally a reminder that once we have been so called, we have responsibilities. We are responsible for the light we have been given in Christ.

Today I have a choice. I can choose to be the Pharisee. I can keep the light to myself. It is mine because I am special, called. And you are not. I went to Mass today. But you did not. As I stood in line for communion, I saw that you, a sinner, did not go up to receive the Lord. As I was driving out of the church carpark, I wondered why you even bother going to church when you park in such an inconsiderate way. And as I drove home, I scorned the sinners surrounding me driving too fast, too slow, without indicating turns or stopping at junctions, thinking that they, so obviously, had not just come from Mass like me. And I said to the Lord, "Oh that you would convert these sinners, so that I wouldn't have to be surrounded by these people and their evil ways. All around me I see sin and ignorance."

And the Lord replied, "Oh that you were blind. If you were, you would not be guilty. You claim to see but fail to be my light. You responded to my call, but when I healed you of the blindness of sin and ignorance, you refused to be sent to take my light in to the world; to not just see but be my light. And now all you see is darkness because the sight I gave to you, you have blinded with arrogance and hatred."

Rejoice then, my blind brothers, for the Lord will heal your blindness. But with the gift of sight you are charged to not only see the light of Christ but to be the light of Christ. Open your eyes and see the light of Christ's goodness around you. And where you see darkness, be the light that is missing from that place. The light you possess is not yours but the Lord's. And just as the Lord's light penetrated through the darkness, sin and ignorance of your blindness, so too does the light you carry have the power to heal, when in you, the sinner sees not the Pharisee but the light of Christ Himself.

May the blessing of Christ's light be before your eyes now and forever.