4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Zephaniah 2:3;3:12-13; 1Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12

How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I’m sure we have all experienced that some people are somehow special and that when we speak with them, or work with them, or fight with them, the expression poor in spirit comes spontaneously to mind. But what does it mean to be poor in spirit?

The expression applies first and foremost to Jesus who is the archetype of the poor in spirit, and, therefore, the kingdom of heaven is his.

To reach within ourselves an awareness of our own poverty let’s do an exercise together using our imaginations.

Let each one of us go and stand before God and then hand back to him everything that does not really belong to us. In this exercise we can keep only what truly belongs to us.

We could hand back firstly our house, made of God’s wood and stone, and our furniture, and so on. Get the idea? How does it feel to you to have no house to live in? You are certainly a lot poorer, aren’t you?

And now hand back your car, your clothes, in fact, to cut a long story short, hand back everything – all your possessions. Wow! There you are! Not even a shirt on your back.

How do you feel? Poorer?

Now hand back to God your children, grandchildren, your parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, friends, and your husband or wife. They all belong to God, they are not yours. Hand them back.

So now, there you are, all alone in the world, penniless, naked.

But we haven’t finished. Now hand back to God all your achievements and good works. You might be very proud of your good works but really they were done using the body and mind and the gifts of nature God gave you, and the grace which inspired you and made it possible to do good. Hand them all back - they belong to God, they are nothing more than our duty and were done for his glory.

Now give him all that’s left that does not belong to you - that includes your mind, your soul, your body. These things are all God’s gift. And so now, in the place where before you stood there is nothing! Oops, wait a minute, that’s not true!

In the place where you stood there is a pile of something. What is it?

Sin!

All your sins are there because these truly belong to you. They do belong to you and God did not help you to commit them. They came about not because you used what God gave you but because you abused what he gave you.

Can you now understand why the saints always say to God: Lord, I am nothing but sin?

Truly, we are nothing but sin.

I think now we are able to understand that a person truly poor in spirit is a person who carries within them a permanent and deep awareness of their own nothingness and who lives every moment of the day and all their relationships with others in the consciousness of this truth.

But there is something more we should realise. Jesus mentions the poor in spirit as the first of the beatitudes, not the second or third. This is because it is only the poor in spirit who can truly be all those other things he mentions.

Only the poor in spirit can be gentle, can truly mourn, can truly hunger for what is right, be merciful, and peacemakers, and so on. The poor in spirit have a first option on these virtues because they claim nothing for themselves.

Finally, and this is the best part of the story, the poor in spirit are the richest people of all because to them alone belongs all the fullness of God. All that God has he gives to the poor in spirit and this includes all that he has made.

A practical lesson from all this for our prayer? Let us, every day, make ourselves richer, by meditating more deeply on our nothingness.

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 8:23-9:3; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.17; Matthew 4:12-23

We are contemplating in our liturgy, in the Word and in the Eucharist, the face of Jesus - the human face and the divine face of Christ, asking, as we gaze at him: Who is this man?

Just as the presence of an invisible heavenly body can sometimes be detected by the deflection it causes in the orbits of other heavenly bodies, we now look at the effect Jesus has on the lives of others and we come to understand him as we watch others change the direction, the orbit of their lives.

Hearing that John had been arrested ...

This news comes as a shock. Why was John arrested? If we were to ask him he would most likely say: I was only doing my job.

You see, John was a prophet. It was his vocation, the purpose of his life, to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.

It was to reveal him to Israel that I came ...

When all is said and done, there is only one way to prepare for the Lord and that is to repent of sin and do good. So it was John's job to get the people ready. They asked him: What must we do then? (Lk 3:10) He told them: Share with the poor, be honest, don't intimidate, don't extort. Be content with your pay.

It's very hard to speak the truth to people. Not many will do it. It means going out of our comfortable orbits, changing direction. John did it even though it must not have been easy for him, but he loved Jesus, who was the invisible star around which his life circled.

Then one day he had to take his life in his hands and tell Herod it was not lawful for him to marry his brother's wife. How do you do a job like that? Do you write a letter? 'Dear Herod, I am writing about your wife and all those other crimes you've committed ...'

Do you stand under the bedroom window and yell it out? 'Hey, Herod, I know you can hear me!' and then run away.

Or maybe make an appointment for an interview and break it to him gently. 'Now, Herod, I don't mean to offend you, and please don't get upset, but ...'

I don't know how John did it but he did it and found himself in deep trouble.

Herod the tetrarch, whom he criticised for his relations with his brother's wife Herodias and for all the other crimes Herod had committed, added a further crime to all the rest by shutting John up in prison. (Lk 3:19-20)

We priests often have to tell people difficult truths. 'You mustn't receive Holy Communion till your annulment is through. You can't be a lector till you stop living with your boyfriend. If you deliberately miss Mass you must first go to Reconciliation before you receive Communion again. I am not able to offer you Holy Communion because you are not a Catholic. If you want to be an altar server you must come to Mass every Sunday.' On and on the list goes.

It's difficult to tell some people unpleasant truths but that's the vocation of a prophet and every priest is a prophet through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Some people take the truth easily. They like it. They are even grateful. But others can get very, very angry when you tell them the truth.

Do not rebuke the mocker, he will only hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you for it. (Pr 9:8)

I remember a young couple who were living together and still coming to Communion. I told them it was against the law and displeasing to Jesus. They got very upset. They went home and complained about it to mum. Fortunately their mum was a believer and backed me up all the way. Next day they came back and admitted I was right. They arranged to set a wedding date. The day before the wedding he went to Confession and as soon as she can the bride will attend the catechumenate and become a Catholic.

Unfortunately others don't respond so well and call you all sorts of names - conservative, backward, confrontational, a bully, and worst of all, divisive. It is my experience that however gently and lovingly you tell some people they will become your enemy if you correct them. Well, that's the price of being a prophet and, of course, John the Baptist paid it in full.

John was a witness to Christ. He did not care about what people thought of him. He had come to call people to repentance and that is what he courageously did. He did not care about peer pressure. He did not care what the other members of the golf club, the mother's club, or even the Bible Study group said about him. He didn't even care what the leaders thought of him: 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit .. '(Mtt 3:8)

John bore courageous witness and, as the Mass Preface for his feast says, his death was his last and greatest act of witness to your Son.

When John came out of the wilderness of Judea and spoke his raw message with the challenging command: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand, one might be forgiven a feeling of disquiet, for thinking 'Hmm, this fellow had better tone down a little or he'll get people upset and angry with him. He could even find himself in trouble.'

If this is so, what do we feel when we hear from Matthew? - From that moment Jesus began his preaching with the message, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand' (Mtt 4:17).

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 49:3.5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

Today we begin what the liturgical calendar describes as Tempus Per Annum which, literally translated, means Time Through The Year. In other words, the time of the year which is not taken up with some special celebration like Advent, Lent, or Easter.

The English rendering of Tempus per Annum is simply Ordinary Time and can be a bit misleading, as though it were somehow less important, or as though there were less happening, than at other times of the year. Of course this is not so. Ordinary Time is like all the other seasons of the Church's liturgical calendar - it is a time for getting to know Jesus, and for drawing closer to him.

Getting to know Jesus is like getting to know someone you discover, bit by bit, is going to become a good friend. The only difference is that Jesus never disappoints us, he just keeps getting better and better, and our love for him grows and grows, the more we come to know his love for us. (This can be challenging because Jesus' love does not always involve having 'good feelings'.)

Getting to know Jesus is terribly important. It is by drawing close to him, observing him, listening to the things he says, watching how others react to him, and how he reacts to those who oppose him, that we learn to love him.

When we find ourselves having to admit to this love we begin ourselves to respond, to follow him as disciples, and live his commandments. When all is said and done the Christian life is nothing more than our response to the goodness of God who loves us with an almost embarrassing lack of restraint.

Well, let's look at the Gospel, noting that Isaiah (1st Reading) and St Paul (2nd Reading) also speak to us about the Lord, leading us further into the mystery of who he is and why he came to us.

John sees Jesus approaching - Jesus - the Lord of the universe. To what, on this earth, can he be likened - how shall we describe him? John raises his finger and points: Look ... the lamb ...!

How curious! John calls Jesus - the lamb.

And he tells us a lot more about him:

• He is the lamb of God.
• He will take away the sins of the world.
• He is a man.
• He comes after me but ranks before me.
• He existed before me.
• He is to be revealed to Israel.
• The Spirit came down on him - resting on him.
• He is going to baptise with the Holy Spirit.
• He is the Chosen One of God.

Each one of these expressions could be the subject of much reflection. Let's just look at this single phrase lamb of God a little more closely.

Did you know that in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, Jesus is referred to 28 times as the lamb? Here is one example: Then I heard all the living things in creation - everything that lives in the air, and on the ground, and under the ground, and in the sea, crying, 'To the One who is sitting on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever and ever'. (Rev 5:13)

The first time the word is used with some deeper significance is in Genesis 22:7-8 when Abraham is taking Isaac his son out to offer him in sacrifice to God. Isaac doesn't know yet that he is to be the sacrifice and naively he says to his father: Look, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

Abraham answered, 'My son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering' ...

Without realising it both father and son were speaking in prophecy. The question Where is the lamb? has been the desolate cry of sin-stricken humanity ever since the disobedience of Adam and Eve - and the answer of Abraham, God himself will provide the lamb, reveals both our incapacity to find that fitting sacrifice and God's loving desire to come to our rescue.

Once we become aware of the fact that Jesus is the lamb of God we begin to reread the Old Testament with an entirely new alertness and each time a lamb is mentioned, in whatever context it appears, we find ourselves asking: Could this be an image of our Saviour?

The Passover lamb, still offered each year by Jews today, is a clear figure of the perfect Lamb who was to save us from all that would enslave us. As the blood of this lamb sprinkled on the door posts saved the Hebrews from the angel of death and slavery in Egypt, so the blood of the true lamb, Jesus Christ, saves us from slavery to sin and eternal estrangement from God.

And there are other ways in which Jesus is like a lamb. Those of us who have owned a pet lamb understand what Jeremiah means when he says 'like a gentle lamb'. Yes, our Jesus, our Lord and Master, came among us like a gentle lamb.

At the end of his life he fulfilled Jeremiah's prophecy, like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. That's how he went to the Cross - without complaining - without anger and hatred - but always gentle, loving, and above all, innocent.

Listen to his beautiful words:

• To the women on his way to the Cross - 'Weep not for me ...'
• To those who sought his crucifixion - 'Father, forgive them ...'
• To the thief crucified beside him - 'This day you will be with me in paradise ...'

As St Peter says in 1Peter 1:18-19: Remember, the ransom that was paid to free you from the useless way of life your ancestors handed down was not paid in anything corruptible, neither in silver nor gold, but in the precious blood of a lamb without spot or stain, namely Christ ...