1st Sunday of Advent - Year B

Isaiah 63:16-17; 64:1, 3-8; 1Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

If we have been attentive to the Gospel readings over the last three weeks we will have noticed a certain pattern emerging.

Firstly, they all speak about a certain 'time' that will undoubtedly come - the time of the return of someone important who has been absent.

• Three weeks ago it was the time of the arrival of the bridegroom.
• Two weeks ago it was the time of the return of the master.
• Last week it was the time of the coming of the Son of Man.
• This week it is the time of the return of a man from abroad.

Secondly, we notice that in each of these Gospels there are those who are waiting for this return.

• Three weeks ago it was the bridesmaids.
• Two weeks ago it was the servants with the talents.
• One week ago it was 'all the nations' - the sheep and the goats.
• This week it is the servants and the doorkeeper.

Thirdly, we notice that the exact time of this moment of return is uncertain. Those who are waiting for it do not know when it will happen - evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn - who knows?

Fourthly, each of these Gospels sees this moment of return as a decisive moment for those who are waiting. In fact, it is a moment of judgment for them.

And so, finally, these Gospels, either explicitly or implicitly, offer us a warning - So stay awake! Be on your guard! Stand ready!

Now all that is simple enough.

• Jesus is the absent Master.
• We are the waiting servants.
• Jesus will return unexpectedly.
• We will be finally judged.

Of course we are powerless to stop any of this happening. There is only one part of it that depends on us and that is - the decision to be ready or not, to be awake or asleep.

The prophet Isaiah makes the difficulty very clear. Left to ourselves, waiting for the Lord, we all tend to face the same temptation - to start amusing ourselves while we wait.

Little Red Riding Hood couldn't resist picking the flowers on her way to grandma's house and got herself lost. Our temptations are not much different. It's hard to keep working while the boss is away - the servants give themselves all kinds of liberties until finally they forget the boss completely.

Isaiah cannot understand why the Lord is so slow in appearing.

Why, Lord, leave us to stray from your ways and harden our hearts against fearing you?

Isn't that well put ... to harden our hearts against fearing you? That's exactly what happens when the thought of God goes out of our minds - bit by bit we lose our remembrance and our 'fear' of him and so we stray from his ways.

No one invoked your name or roused himself to catch hold of you.

Isn't that the truth? It is prayer, invoking the name of God, which keeps the remembrance of God alive in us. Faithfulness to Sunday Mass, the family rosary, Lectio Divina - all make God real in our life and strengthen our faith.

And isn't it true that so often we have to 'rouse ourselves' to pray. Life can be so comfortable or we can be so tired. We have to make a decision .. Get up! Stay awake! Pray! It really is like 'catching hold of God'!

The prophet can see it happening all around him just as we can see it happening today. People forgetting God and straying from the path - old people, young people, of all kinds.

And so Isaiah prays that beautiful, anguished prayer: Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down.

As the antiphon to the psalm says today: Let us see your face and we shall be saved.

Let me leave you with one final thought implied in this Gospel.

If we do not know what time Jesus will come then he may come at any moment - even now. This means that we must be ready NOW! Are you?

This is the message of Advent - prepare yourselves for his coming - be ready now because 'yeah-yeah-in-a-minute' may be too late.

Christ the King - Year A

Ezekiel 34: 11-12.15-17; 1Corinthians 15:20-26.28; Matthew 25:31-46

The crisis of today is the refusal to believe in moral absolutes. We believe that truth cannot be known with certainty. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t!

Today we no longer have truth, we have opinions. And the question arises: How can one be a Christian who is a person of faith in absolutes, in this climate of disbelief, or at least uncertainty? What is right? What is wrong? Who is right? Who is wrong? Is there an absolute right and an absolute wrong or is everything relative?

And perhaps the most crucial question of all: Does man decide what is true or does he merely discover what is true?

And yet, this has been to some degree the crisis of every age. As soon as you get more than one idea in your head you have to ask “Which is right?”

In this age of rejection of absolutes the Catholic Church is taking an unmerciful beating. The Church stands like a lofty mountain island in the midst of a constantly changing sea. The Church does not share the uncertainty of the world and goes on stubbornly proclaiming the truth she receives from Christ, in season and out of season. It is this conviction that she is passing on the truth God has revealed to her which gives her strength and confidence in the face of a disapproving world.

Look at her teaching on contraception and abortion and homosexuality and, to take a contemporary example, her stance on the heroin ‘safe’ injecting rooms for addicts. Here in Sydney, years after the event, many are still angry with the Church for banning this proposal.

The Church takes no notice of how many people believe her teachings, or how many votes her teachings win her among the people. She has a mandate from Christ to teach the truth. Indeed, the Church teaches the truth as Christ is described as teaching it in Matthew 22:16: Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you. That is how the Church teaches as well, because she teaches in the person of Christ and with the voice of Christ.

Let us now turn to the Gospel of today and listen to Christ teaching us. Let us accept his teaching as absolute and receive it with certainty.

Jesus said to his disciples …

Are you convinced that Jesus, who spoke these words 2000 years ago to his disciples, is still speaking them today to you - to all of us here in the Camperdown church today? The word of Jesus does not go stale and out of date. Heaven and earth will pass away, says Jesus, but my words will not pass away.

When the Son of Man comes …

We note that Jesus is not speaking about a possibility here but a certainty, an absolute reality, that we will all experience. He does not say if or maybe; he says when the Son of Man comes…

… in his glory.

This is an important matter. When Jesus came on earth 2000 years ago as the helpless infant born of the Virgin Mary, he came as the merciful Saviour. Now however, Jesus is speaking about an entirely different time. Now he is speaking about the time when he will come no longer as merciful saviour but as just Judge. This will be a terrible time of truth for the whole cosmos! Our God, who is truth, will gather all the angels and all the nations into his presence. He will be seated as King on his throne of glory. No longer the helpless infant of Bethlehem or the gentle lamb who opened not his mouth before his accusers during his Passion, now Jesus comes in glory with all the nations assembled before him.

It will be a terrible moment of truth because all that is hidden will be laid bare. As Jesus told his disciples in Luke 12:2: Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear.

It will be a terrible moment of truth also because it cannot be avoided. We are used to having many options in our lives. We are able to choose what pleases us most and we are able, most often, to avoid what displeases us. It's often as simple as changing the channel to avoid that unpleasant bit of film we don’t want to see. But when Jesus comes in his glory to judge the whole of creation we won’t be able to change the channel or take a sleeping tablet. It will be a moment of reckoning, where whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetops.

To conclude I make one more point. The presiding Judge, seated on his throne of Justice, will judge according to the two main commandments of the Law - love of God and love of neighbour.

It is always a temptation to reduce the moral life to love of neighbour as a means to avoid things like personal prayer, reading and praying Scripture, and going to Mass on Sunday. This is not the intention of the parable at all.

It does not absolve us from our duty to love God nor should we allow it simply to reduce love of God to love of neighbour. Jesus told many parables and gave many teachings. Not only will those who refused food and clothing and love to the hungry, the naked and the lonely find themselves turned away from the Kingdom but also those who heard the word of God and failed to keep it, those who hid their talents, those who were not ready at the Master’s coming, those without a wedding garment, those who worshipped false gods, those who rejected Jesus as Saviour.

But having said all that I think we would be foolish not to allow the message of this parable to sink deep into us. We will be judged according to the way we have loved God and neighbour. And one of the ways God loves to be loved is via our neighbour.

… in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine you did it to me.

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Proverbs 31:10-13.19-20.30-31; 1Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30

Our attention in today's Gospel is immediately drawn to the third servant - the one who was given only one talent. This servant seems to be a rather unfortunate man and he makes us uncomfortable because, in some ways, he reminds us of ourselves.

'... I was afraid ...'

Not only did he receive less than the others but he also ended up being punished most severely for his timidity, laziness and lack of wisdom.

It is worth reminding ourselves that this poor servant finally receives exactly the same punishment as the five foolish bridesmaids of the Gospel of last week, and of the goats in the Gospel next week - he was excluded from his 'master's happiness' - he ultimately found himself on the wrong side of the door.

But Hell is is not the thrust of our reflection this week. We need, rather, to ask ourselves what this servant's big mistake really was so that we can avoid making it ourselves.

Usually, when we leave something with someone to look after, as the master does in today's Gospel, we are glad enough to get it back in one piece when we return, and if it is a goldfish in a bowl or the family pet, we are glad to get it back alive.

The master is angry, however, not because he lost the talent he had left with the servant but because the servant didn't make it grow.

The other servants each doubled the money the master had left with them but the third servant merely saved it for him - because he was afraid.

In the first place this fear came from a misunderstanding of the master.

The servant thought he had the master all worked out but he was wrong. This is probably because his judgment about the master was based on hearsay.

'Sir,' said he 'I had heard you were a hard man ...'

The master throws his servant's judgment back in his face and condemns him out of his own mouth. So you had heard this, had you, so then why didn't you at least put my money in the bank?

In the second place his fear prevented the servant from accepting and using the talent he was given.

'It was yours - you have it back' or, in other words - I don't want it.

Thirdly, we can say that because this man did not trust the master he was, essentially, refusing to be his servant.

He went and hid the talent in the ground. He hid it from thieves, and tragically, from himself. He never accomplished what a good servant should have accomplished - which is to increase the happiness of the master.

This parable is not so much about the money - only one talent more would have pleased the master - it's more about the servant who doesn't do his job. He proved himself unworthy of the master's gift and so his punishment consisted in not being given any gifts. He did not strive for the master's happiness, as a good servant should, and so his punishment was that he was not given a share in the master's happiness.

The other two servants, on the contrary, were told, '...come and join in your master's happiness.' Surely this is the greatest of all gifts a servant can receive - surely there are no words more wonderful than these to hear.

At the end and at the beginning of each liturgical year Holy Mother Church invites us to think about such things as these, the four last things - Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.

There is no use for a useless servant who has made himself useless. He is given the sack. He is thrown out, into the dark, and the door is closed on him. The happiness and light stay within - weeping and grinding of teeth without.

The message is clear and we shall hear it again next week and then again during Advent: Stay awake! Stand ready!

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica - Year A

Ezekiel 47:1-2.8-9.12; 1Corinthians 3:9-11.16-17; John 2:13-22

A seminary lecturer of mine was always telling us how important it was ‘to know what you’re doing when you’re doing it’. It was that consciousness of what we were doing which we should all have at all times.

Knowing what you’re doing is more than ‘concentrating’. It is rather more to do with knowing the meaning and significance of what you’re doing at the very time you are doing it.

If we apply this notion to today’s feast we will make an effort to discover what exactly we're celebrating. However, first some necessary facts from the Catholic Encyclopaedia:

• The Basilica of St John Lateran is the oldest, and ranks first among the four great "patriarchal" basilicas of Rome. The other three are Santa Maria Maggiore, St Paul Outside the Walls and, of course, St Peter’s.

• The site was, in ancient times, occupied by the palace of the family of the Laterani. When one of the family members was accused of conspiracy the site was confiscated.

• It came eventually into the hands of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who must have given it to the Church no later than about 311.

• From that time onwards it was always the centre of Christian life within the city of Rome; the residence of the popes and the cathedral of Rome. St John Lateran is still the Pope’s cathedral but no longer his home. She is known as the mother and head of all the churches in Christendom.

Today, then, we are celebrating the ‘motherhouse’ of our Catholic Church; the cathedral of the whole world and, by implication, every single church in Christendom, particularly our own.

• We celebrate our rightful place in world as those who follow and worship Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Just as St John Lateran stands there in Rome in full view of its citizens and, indeed, of the entire world so do we Christians stand proudly in our particular place and before the rest of the world as disciples of Jesus.

• In a real way we are today celebrating very consciously, and unselfconsciously, our identity as Catholics. We are children of the Catholic Church; she is our mother. Despite our many failings and flaws we need not apologise for being sheep in the flock of Christ’s Church. Today we look to Rome and hold our heads high.

• We celebrate our right to worship and our right to that freedom which we in the West exercise every day. Not every country has this freedom. In China there are severe restrictions, as there are in many Moslem countries. When we walk through the door today we should ‘know what we are doing when we are doing it’; we are exercising and giving joyful thanks for freedom of worship.

• We celebrate today also the long history of Christianity brought to us by the Apostles and those who succeeded them. We are part of that history; leaves on the branch of that tree. We celebrate the faith of the Apostles by celebrating the mother church of the first of the Apostles, Peter and his successors.

• At the same time we celebrate the history of our local parish church. This church is a gift to us from our ancestors whose commitment and hard work established it for us. They remained faithful to their worship and sacrificed to build this church in which we now worship. It is a beautiful church, despite the ravages of time and the need for repair.

• As we celebrate the building we celebrate also the community, and even more importantly, we celebrate communion. The community of ‘regulars’ is not large in this church but it is there nonetheless; faithful members of Christ’s flock who come here as to a home which belongs to them. And it is within these four walls that they express, together with the ‘visitors’ (although no Catholic is really ever a visitor in a Catholic church), their communion with Christ and with one another; a reality even deeper than community.

• We celebrate today also our communion with Rome, with the successor of Peter and all the bishops united with him. Today we look beyond the grounds of St Joseph’s to the mater et caput (mother and head) of the whole Church, as we rejoice at her universality and the unity we share. This unity originates in and is nourished by the food of the Word and Eucharist with which we are fed at the table of the Lord. This table is found only in the Church.

• Finally, by celebrating this feast today we celebrate also our mission, the call we have from the Master to go out from this church to our local community and ‘preach the Good News’ by our words and deeds. This mission cannot be overlooked or bypassed. It is our task and our privilege and we rejoice in the love of God who entrusts it to us.

Let this be a joyful day for us as we celebrate with the Universal Church the goodness of God in Jesus his Son. As he took on flesh for us, so the material walls of our churches point back to him, our Divine Lord, who is the source of our hope.