22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

The word seduction is defined in the dictionary as: leading someone out of the way, persuading them into surrender.

In our readings today there seems to be quite a lot of seduction going on.

• Jeremiah is seduced by God into speaking the difficult word of repentance to his stubborn people.

• The pagan world of St Paul's era was seducing Christians into behaving like pagans.

• And Peter is trying to seduce Jesus out of the way of his plan of suffering – which is the plan of God.

And where is the battlefield in which this struggle to seduce one another takes place?

Paul warns: Do not model your selves on the behaviour of the world around you but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind.

The battlefield is the mind; change a man’s way of thinking and you change his behaviour.

To Peter Jesus says: Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God's way but man's (Mt 16:23).

To convert his followers Jesus has to lead them out of their mind; he had to persuade them to surrender their way of thinking; this is not easy to do.

As a priest I try my hardest to show people the importance of thinking the way God thinks which is the way the Church thinks; I practically beg them to let God form their minds. What stands in the way is always that most treasured possession of ours - our own opinion!

We all love our opinions; we are terribly attached to them; we treat them as the final word on any subject. Nothing is more sad than the man or woman totally trapped in his or her own opinion, victims of what they think they know. They are like people floating in an ocean filled with sharks, oblivious to the dangers, and treating would-be rescuers as wicked enemies. How tragic!

A survey conducted by the Pew Forum between May and August 2007 on more than 35,000 American adults revealed that 48% of Catholic respondents favour legal abortion (16% in all cases, 32% in most cases), while only 18% agree that abortion should always be illegal. 58% said that society should accept homosexuality.

At the very least these figures show that a huge number of Catholics no longer think as Catholics; although they vigorously insist on identifying themselves as such. Their thinking is now ‘man’s way’, the thinking of the world. They do not understand, or perhaps they do, that they have broken with the Catholic Church; they are no longer in communion with the Catholic Church’s teaching; they have become something else!

The thinking of the world has invaded our Catholic Church and it terrifies me.

Are the words of Jesus only ‘his opinion’? Is the teaching of the Church only ‘her opinion’? Am I standing here week after week, year after year, telling you ‘my opinions’? Well if I am, you must have a lot of time to waste; you must have a very boring existence; I suggest you need to go and get yourself a life.

Opinions cannot save you! They may entertain you but they cannot save you. Truth alone can save you; only absolute truth can lead you to God. And let me remind those of you who call yourselves Catholics and yet obstinately, wilfully, deliberately express your erroneous opinions to the young and the ignorant, and cause them to fall into sin, that Jesus said: Anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck (Mark 9:42).

If you have been keeping up with the events at St Mary’s Catholic Parish in South Brisbane you have there a prime example of exactly what I am speaking of. Two priests leading an entire congregation out of communion with the Catholic Church. They justify themselves with specious ‘feel good’ arguments but all the time they are drifting away from truth, the authority of the Archbishop, and disappearing over the horizon, taking many with them.

Archbishop Bathersby has written: St Mary’s seems to be an authority to itself. Despite the good that it does, it places itself outside the practice of the Catholic Church. Therefore we might well ask is it a parish in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, or a community in schism. [ .. ] In reality St Mary’s South Brisbane has taken a Roman Catholic parish and established its own brand of religion.

Let me ask you here today: Have you established in your mind your ‘own brand of religion’; your own brand of the Catholic faith? Is your thinking Catholic?

It is not important how great the number of people who think the wrong way, it’s still the wrong way. If the whole world believed abortion or any other grave sin was acceptable, it would still be a grave sin. To put it another way, the truth has never depended on the number of people prepared to believe it, it is still always the truth. I would hate for any Catholic to live, or worse still to die, on the wrong side of the truth.

Our task as Catholic Christians is to ‘put on’ the mind of Christ. We do this by thinking as the Church thinks, by believing what the Church believes and living the moral life of Catholic disciples, following in the footsteps of the Master. I urge all of you to ‘think again’ and if you have drifted, clinging to your ‘opinion’, swim back to the truth, to the barque of Peter, the Church; this is the place of salvation.

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 31:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

Hierarchy comes from two Greek words, hieros, meaning sacred, and archein, meaning rule or order. Hierarchy, therefore, means sacred order. It is essential to the Church. We have spoken of it before.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, whose cause is underway in Rome, used to speak on the three signs of the diabolic, three signs which accompany the presence of the devil. Can you imagine what they might be? Archbishop Sheen said they were nudity, violence, and confusion (disorder). Without delaying to go into the first two let’s look at the last one because that touches on our subject of sacred order.

Wherever the devil is there is confusion. In fact, one of the classic ways of discerning whether a supernatural experience or vision or locution is of God or of Satan is to discern whether it brought peace or confusion. Satan does not like hierarchy because the peace which sacred order brings makes it easier to recognise truth and he passionately hates truth. So in order to successfully spread error he needs to first create confusion.

Now we may need to pause here and let this sink in. Order makes it easier to see truth, to recognise it, and to immediately identify its opposite - falsehood. Hans Urs von Balthazar said that truth is much like a symphony. All the notes have their proper place - all are arranged in order. It is precisely because of this order that a false note can be easily spotted. It draws attention to itself because it is not 'in order', so to speak.

If all the notes of the music were scrambled up and confused so that each musician played them in whatever order he liked, the false note would be almost impossible to spot.

Everything in the world is hierarchical because God made it so.

The plants are higher than the rocks and the water; the animals are higher than the plants; humans are higher in the hierarchy than animals; angels higher than humans - and all are infinitely lower than God himself.

And everything in the Church is hierarchical - because Jesus made it so. The Church has the sacred order Jesus gave to it - to his teaching, to the Mass, to authority, the Magisterium, prayer, and so on; it’s all hierarchical.

The opposite of hierarchy is either anarchy, or dictatorship.

Anarchy is no order at all and dictatorship is a false order, usually imposed with the gun. Naturally enough, Satan loves both anarchy and dictatorship. Hierarchy is true order and it alone leads to peace, health and growth. Therefore we should love hierarchy and protect it and thank God for it.

Remember I told you on the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul how when the Anglicans first started the debate on the ordination of women my Anglican minister friend told me with great distress: It's tearing our communion apart and we have no one with the authority to stop it.

Today we see Jesus in the Gospel giving Peter hierarchical authority in the Church. Peter professes the truth of who Jesus is and this becomes the foundation of our Catholic faith: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

This truth came to Peter from above – hierarchically - from God the Father himself. The democratic, consultative model with which some of us want to adorn the Church failed dismally to recognise who Jesus was: Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. In other words: we haven't got the foggiest idea who he really is.

Truth, like revelation, true authority and true communion, comes from above.

Jesus gave Peter custody of the Church and sole authority over it - and what a great blessing it has proved to be down the centuries! With one word the Pope can settle any dispute or doctrinal debate. When he teaches ex cathedra, i.e. from the chair of Peter, on a matter of faith or morals, he cannot be contradicted. When he speaks definitively, as he has on a whole range of issues, his teaching must be assented to.

At times this can be difficult for some but this hierarchical authority of the Pope has ensured the survival of the Catholic Church down through the ages and given it a guarantee of truth for those seeking full communion.

The Pope can make mistakes in his private life. He can do all sorts of things that show he is only a human being. Benedict's glasses, sitting very crookedly on his nose when he read his first speech after becoming Pope, made me smile with the realisation, ‘Yes, he’s just a man, but given an extraordinary task.’ Crooked glasses, or even actual sins, will not spoil the guarantee God has given in the gift of the papacy: 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.

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Isaiah 56:1.6-7; Romans 11:13-15.29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

Almost every Monday night at 7pm we have an evening in the presbytery for those who wish to become Catholics or who wish to update their knowledge of the Faith. Actually it’s one of my favourite times of the week.

Last Monday we studied the doctrines of the Catholic Church on the Blessed Virgin: the Immaculate Conception, Mary as the Mother of God, the virginity of Mary, and the Assumption. We read also from the book of Genesis where God said to the serpent: I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel (Gen 3:15).

The serpent is Lucifer, the fallen angel now known as Satan.

In her mystical book City of God Mary of Agreda tells us that when God revealed to the angels that he intended his Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, to become man through a human woman, Lucifer objected and grew angry with God. He claimed that since angels were higher than humans and since he was the greatest of the angels he, Lucifer, should be chosen for this honour. For this rebellion Lucifer was cast out of heaven and ever since has been working to ruin the plan of God.

Indeed there is enmity between Satan and the woman. She is totally without sin; he is pure wickedness.

By the merest coincidence we are taking a break from the hard work of the catechumenate this Monday to watch a movie – The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It is about diabolical possession and is based on a true story but handled in a very honest and acceptable way. It can be said to be a wonderful story, in fact, and has a wonderful ending. There is a growing number of visitors to the grave of the young hero and even reports of miracles.

Well, since the Gospel this week conveniently speaks of a woman coming to Jesus and shouting, 'Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.' I thought I would continue the theme today and say something about the Church’s teaching on the devil. Actually, for the most part, I’ll let the Catechism of the Catholic Church do the talking and just make some comments.

391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice…

Yes, that’s so true - a seductive voice! Satan is above all a seductive voice in our lives, tempting us to take paths other than the one God wishes for us. The devil is a fallen angel and he wants nothing more than to make others fall along with him. This is what the Catechism says:

The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing."268

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.269 This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God."270 The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies".271

393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."272

The tragedy is clear enough. The devil and the other demons were created good but freely chose to reject God and this choice was irrevocable, or, in other words, permanent. Even now, given the chance, the demons would not change their mind. The Catechism continues:

394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father.273

Can you imagine that? Satan, in his pride and conceit, imagined that he could tempt the Redeemer into rebelling against God’s Will, just as he had done. All through history he has been tempting others and ensnaring them in his own evil.

395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature - to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him."275

Now, I’m imagining that some of you are a bit lost in all of this and I want to quickly tell you that it’s not because you are simple it’s because this is really complex and dense writing. It’s meant to be a summary of Catholic teaching, not a leisurely and developed explanation of each of the many points that are involved. To find such explanations we need to go to a good catholic bookshop and do further reading.

Occasionally I hear it said we shouldn’t focus on Satan because it ‘frightens’ people. Well, we should at least be informed and certainly alert to the dangers of his presence. Satan is real and therefore should not be ignored. He is working flat out – 24 hours a day – without sleep, because he doesn’t need sleep.

We should be careful to avoid anything to do with the occult, even so-called ‘harmless’ games involving the occult because they are far from harmless. Stay away from all occult practices. Ouija boards, Tarot cards, mediums, witches, any practitioner of the occult. These things are sinful and an invitation to Satan and his demons to approach us.

Satan leads his victims step by step and the first steps are usually small ones. The more we open ourselves to the occult the greater the danger we are in and then we too might one day find ourselves like the daughter in today’s Gospel – tormented by a devil.

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

1 Kings 19:9.11-13; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

Every hospital bed is a little boat floating alone on a vast and dangerous sea.

It is little because it is entirely at the mercy of the waves, defenceless. It is alone because it is little; there is room for only one passenger. Family members can come and sit on the shore offering comfort but they can’t get into the boat - and so it’s often a place of great loneliness and fear.

The passenger is usually someone like you or me, someone who never expected to be in that little boat - at least not today, not now.

The waters are mostly choppy, rarely calm, and occasionally a category five storm breaks out.

Whatever the 'weather' you can be sure that the faith of each patient in a hospital is being deeply tested – strengthened or weakened.

Curiously, some patients tell me God is to blame for their predicament - Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. It seems to many that pain and suffering are somehow God’s fault. They tell me with a baffling kind of faith, ‘he could stop it if he wanted’.

It’s always the same question in varying disguises: Where does suffering come from?

I always tell them it comes from Original Sin yet, even as I speak, there is this look of incomprehension or disbelief, and I ask myself why this answer satisfies me and not them? For me it’s all our fault – for them it’s always God’s.

Even people of great faith are occasionally tormented by the absence of God who seems to have gone up into the hills by himself to pray. Funnily enough, this reminds me of Jesus who told the fickle Peter that he had prayed for him so that when he had recovered he might strengthen his brothers.

Not only is God far away but so many feel isolated and alone as they experience the loss of their family life, daily routine and pre-occupations. Perhaps they blame God for this too – that he has sent the crowds away.

And so they find themselves far out on the lake … battling with a heavy sea and struggling against a headwind … all alone. They had set off in daylight but now it is night, in fact, the fourth watch. All seems lost and the other side, the good health for which they had set out, is now far from their mind; the suffering is immense, unbearable.

Where are you, Jesus?

In the fourth watch of the night he went towards them, walking on the lake …

That Jesus came is no surprise because, in actuality, he never leaves us. What is surprising is the way he came – walking on the water. Jesus comes to the disciples walking on the very waters that threaten to overturn and destroy their lives. They were the same waters which would soon take his own life and, in a kind of foretelling of his resurrection, he comes in power to his terrified followers. No wonder they don’t recognise him; they do not yet know the ‘Crucified Christ’, the one who has conquered the turbulent, fearful waters of suffering and death.

The disciples cry out in fear and terror but Jesus at once says: Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.

When Jesus began to teach his disciples that he was destined to suffer and die Peter could not accept it. He took Jesus aside and said: Heaven preserve you, Lord … this must not happen to you. How often have I not heard the same words from the families of patients, and the patients themselves: No! This must not happen! It can’t happen!

But every now and then, unexpectedly and with deep gratitude, I meet patients who, like Peter, rather than fleeing the wind and the waves cry out to the Lord and seek to come to him through their sufferings: Lord … if it is you, tell me to come to you across the water.

'Come' said Jesus. Come, come to my crucifixion and you will find your resurrection.

Peter is willing but not yet able. He begins to sink and cries out for help. He momentarily loses faith in Jesus’ power to save but still Jesus saves him - and calms the wind.

Jesus is gradually strengthening Peter’s faith, and ours, until we can say with St Paul: I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20).

I have met patients in deep suffering who can say these words with full conviction. It is always an awe inspiring moment. These singular people are an encouragement and an invitation to follow in their footsteps. They are an open window giving a glimpse into the Father’s house. Their faith has conquered the fear of death and they point us to the one who makes it possible. With the men in the boat they are bowing down before him and saying: Truly, you are the Son of God.

Let us do the same.

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 55:1-3; Romans 8:35.37-39; Matthew 14:13-21

In our gospel today we meditate on the awe-inspiring power of God to use littleness to achieve greatness.

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.

There is a startling contrast here between the great size of the crowd and the small number of the Apostles, twelve men, and very ordinary men they were too by the world's standards – fishermen, tax-collectors - nothing much to work on there.

• The weak, impulsive, unfaithful Peter to make into ‘the Rock of the Church’.
• The sinful taxman Matthew to make into a model of honesty and reliability.
• The 'sons of thunder' James and John to make into meek and gentle martyrs.
• The doubting Thomas to make into a pillar of faith.

Five loaves and two fish really. How did he do it?

It makes me think of the situation here in this parish, in most parishes really. Many thousands of people living in the district and here we are, a small handful of Catholics called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world - five loaves and two fish.

And what about at home, in so many families, where everyone seems to have given up listening to God, given up coming to Mass on Sundays or going to meet him in Reconciliation, or receiving Holy Communion worthily or having any kind of prayer life at all? They don't care and they are constantly inviting the rest of the family not to care either.

What am I among so many? Just five loaves and two fish!

When evening came, the disciples went to him and said, "This 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."

Five thousand people and Twelve Apostles - five thousand hungry stomachs and five loaves and two fish. The Apostles were not stupid. They knew how to divide, add and subtract - only Jesus knew how to multiply - and the figures were not promising. No wonder they told the Lord to send the crowd away. What could they do for them?

And no wonder, Lord, we Catholics give in so easily when it comes to taking our place in the world. What can we do about abortion, euthanasia, pornography, materialism, secularism, relativism, individualism? What can we do when there are so many today who have given up that they even make us wonder whether we are not simply being scrupulous, fanatical or worst of all, pre-Vatican II!

And no wonder so many catholic partners in a marriage give up trying to practise their faith or even hold on to it. No wonder so many of our parents give up trying to discipline their children, pray with their children, or even take an interest in their spiritual development, when they feel that the odds are so stacked against them. No wonder so many of our catholic youth give up trying to hang on to their jobs - or their virginity - when they see that just about everyone else seems to be having a 'good time' but them.

The forces of evil seem just too strong and we can easily develop a saviour complex - waiting for a knight in shining armour to come and solve our problems for us. What can we do? We are just five loaves and two fish.

Jesus replied: There is no need for them to go; give them something to eat yourselves.

The Apostles must have been shocked when Jesus said these words. They must have wondered at him and thought, ‘He can't be serious. He knows as well as we do that five loaves and two fish wouldn't even make an entrée. How can he expect US to do something for these people?’

That was the magic word, wasn't it? That's what frightened these followers of Jesus as they stood there before this gigantic problem, that he should dare suggest that they should, that they could, do something themselves.

Twelve men - five little loaves, two little fish.

So now we have been brought to the sharp point of this gospel - to the real point of what it means to be a Christian in today's world – to what it means to be a true follower of Jesus and rely totally on his power. He has brought his Apostles and all of us to the heart of the Christian challenge.

We have done our arithmetic - stated the problem - pointed out the difficulties - and now he raises his arm and points his finger at us and says, ‘Do something about it YOURSELVES.’

What a frightening word that is - that little word - ME!

My Lord, Jesus, how can I do anything about changing things?

• How can I go and see my member of parliament about this euthanasia business?
• How can I write to the principal about what they are teaching my kids at school?
• How can I do something active in the parish?

and lastly, Jesus,

• How can you expect ME to be a saint?

You obviously don't know how busy I am, how untalented I am, how nervous I get in public, how hard I find it to pray and to be good. You obviously don't know me at all. I am just five loaves and two little fish.

'Bring them here to me,' he said ...

Are you listening?

'Bring them here to me," he said - then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing. And breaking the loaves he 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.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining - twelve baskets full.