4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28

Moses said to the people: I will raise up a prophet like yourself for them from their own brothers; I will put my words into his mouth and he shall tell them all I command him.

Cast your mind back over the gospel incident we have just read and ask yourself ‘What were the words, what was the teaching, that prompted people to marvel at the authority of Christ?'

There were only six words reported: Be quiet, come out of him!

It was not so much what Jesus said but the power with which he said it; his words were full of power; he could do anything with a word.

To a demon, he could say: be quiet, and the demon would be quiet; come out of him, and he would come out.

To the leper: be cured; to the cripple: get up and walk; to the deaf and dumb man: be opened; to the dead Lazarus: come out.

Jesus could also say to a sinner: Your sins are forgiven; to a fig tree: May no fruit ever come from you again; to bread and wine: This is my Body, this is my Blood.

The people were astonished at the words of Jesus. Truly it could be said of him what Isaiah spoke as a revelation of God himself (Is 55:11): …the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.

Jesus’ words have power because they are God’s words which cannot be opposed or sidestepped. This is what left a deep impression on the people.

I will raise up a prophet like yourself for them from their own brothers; I will put my words into his mouth and he shall tell them all I command him.

Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of this prophecy. Indeed, he fulfils it in a most unexpectedly complete way because Jesus not only speaks the word of God, Jesus IS the Word of God made flesh.

We know all this now but in the synagogue on that Sabbath which the Gospel speaks of, the people were just beginning to discover the true identity of this man.

We heard just now that Jesus and his followers came to Capernaum, and we remember how those men became his followers; Jesus had simply said to them: Follow me, and they followed him.

Now Jesus is confronted with a demon-possessed man. The demon is rather garrulous and noisy (we sense its fear). It shouts 25 words at Jesus who ignores them totally and responds sharply with two: Be quiet. Goodness does not engage in conversations with evil; authority rarely shouts; truth is not verbose.

He orders the demon: Come out of him. There are no long incantations with song and dance, just a simple order: Come out!

I will raise up a prophet like yourself for them from their own brothers; I will put my words into his mouth and he shall tell them all I command him.

The demon leaves the man and the man is free. Jesus’ word is always liberating; it actually gives us the freedom to which it calls us. This is the reason Jesus is greater than the Law, which ordered people to become free through obedience but which, at the same time, could not offer them the power they needed to reach it. Jesus always provides the power to reach the goals he sets us. As the saying goes: His Will will not take you where his grace cannot keep you.

Jesus had spoken to the demon and the demon was constrained to obey. But Jesus’ words were also heard by the people standing round. The word of God is all things for all men; when it is spoken there are no ‘bystanders’.

The man who does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name, shall be held answerable to me for it.

The Word of God cannot be ignored. It can be listened to or it can be disobeyed - but it can never be ignored. That is why Jesus’ word is judgment: …he who rejects me and refuses my words has his judge already: the word itself that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day (John 12:48).

And what is more, Jesus’ word does not make mistakes in judging because, as Hebrews 4:12 tells us: The word of God is something alive and active; it cuts like any double-edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts.

Jesus came to draw all men to himself. Note from the last line of the Gospel today that it was his reputation that grew, and this is precisely what the Father wanted. He had sent his Son as Saviour of all mankind and his mission was to gather his flock into one.

And his reputation rapidly spread everywhere, through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.

The word of God is, indeed, alive and active, even today. It is still powerful, liberating, empowering and judging, even today. It comes to each one of us in this Mass, seeking us out, lighting up the hidden, dark places of our soul, determining whether we belong to his flock or not, calling us to become his.

May our astonishment become a simple and total yes.

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

The tag-line for Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign was ‘Change we can believe in.’ Like all good marketing labels was short, easy to remember, and resonated deeply with the electorate. 

 The most appealing thing about it was that Obama was going to do it all for us; we could just sit back and he would make it all better.

It seems reassuring, therefore, that we read in the British newspaper, the Guardian, that sitting behind the desk at the Oval Office at 8.35am after a late night of inauguration balls:

President Barack Obama devoted his first full day at the White House to ditching in quick succession one discredited Bush administration policy after another - proposing the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison and offering a new relationship to Iran.

Out with the old, in with the new! It was important that he be seen changing things - and ‘in quick succession’. But can we believe in it? And what is the goal of the change? Will it actually lead to greater justice and peace, and truer freedom, or is it just peace and freedom ‘Obama-style’?

Underlying all the euphoria and optimism is the already sadly failed but still very popular idea that ‘we can fix it!’ Of course, this implies that we are certain it’s broken. One thing is for sure, Obama will leave his mark on every facet of society. My own hope, not well founded, is that his wisdom will learn to reach beyond facile legislation, money-throwing, or that ultimate sign of human powerlessness, war.

Until we find a leader who truly understands what a human being is in all his God-given dimensions nothing will change, absolutely nothing, because change we can believe in ultimately comes from within the heart of man.

By the strangest of coincidences another aspiring world leader hits the campaign trail this week. Like Obama he is not well known and, like Obama, he has inherited a gigantic mess. He’s campaigning under the same tag as a former Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, who used it with great success - ‘It’s Time’ - but to this appealing little phrase he’s added another borrowed word, a word which takes us totally by surprise – ‘Repent.’

Repent is an interesting word with interesting synonyms – turn away from sin, atone, be sorry, do penance. Imagine Obama on the hustings speaking to the gathered millions under a banner reading: Change you can believe in – repentance! The shift is from we can fix it to you can fix it - but it would never work. Why? Because it tells us that we are the problem and therefore, unavoidably, the solution. People don’t like hearing this; they want politicians to fix it for them; they want to be left alone.

Jonah preached repentance to the Ninevites as John the Baptist preached it to the Jews at the Jordan. Jesus preached it incessantly on his mission of salvation not because he lacked originality but because he knew there was no other hope for humanity. Repentance is, in fact, the only change we can believe in because it puts God and humanity back into a right relationship; the fundamental precondition for all real growth.

Undeniably, the world is in a mess and it’s getting worse. You may think I’m speaking about the global financial crisis or global warming and I am, but not primarily. Primarily I am referring to the normalisation of fornication, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and so on; the blind contempt shown, even celebrated, in a multitude of ways, for the rights of God and the dignity of the human person. This is the real disaster of our modern times.

Fortunately, the unquenchable human thirst for goodness, absolute truth and beauty cannot be destroyed. We were created by God for God and there is nothing we can do to change that spiritual DNA. The really sad thing is that we stubbornly go on ignoring our roots and seeking to make ourselves into something which doesn’t need God.

Obama can offer all the change he wants and beg us to believe in it; George Bush did it before him and so did Bill Clinton, as well as our own Kevin Rudd. None of them dare to say the words ‘repent’ and ‘believe in the Gospel’. To hear these words we have to go to the only leader capable of delivering what he promises, Jesus Christ, the one who makes all things new.

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

Samuel 3:3-10,19; 1 Corinthians 6:13-15,17-20; John 1;35-42

The theme of the readings this week is crystal clear: God calls us. If we had ears we would hear God calling all day long. He calls adults, children, sick people, people at work, people on holidays, sinful people, holy people. God never stops calling - all day long - and sometimes during the night too.

We don’t always realise that it is God; Samuel thought it was Eli calling him.

When mum or dad asks for help with the dishes or the gardening children can be tempted to think that it’s only mum or dad calling; and mum and dad can think: it’s only the boss telling me to turn up to work on time. Young couples might say: Oh, it’s only the Church that wants us to behave in this way - and all the time it’s God calling.

Eli then understood that it was the Lord who was calling ….

• God calls us individually and by name - Samuel! Samuel!

The Lord calls us the same way he loves us – as individuals. We are not called en masse and we are not saved en masse. We are saved one by one. The Lord desires from me the one thing I alone can give him – a relationship with me. No one else can give him my yes! He wants to hear it from my lips alone. And so also with you; only you can give him your yes.

It's always amusing when people say they have a sister a nun, or a brother a priest, and yet they themselves don’t practise. We will be saved on the basis of our relationship with the Lord, not by our association with someone else who has a relationship with the Lord. Even if we are the Pope’s brother or sister we will never sneak in to heaven in someone else’s shadow.

• God calls repeatedly - Samuel! Samuel! Samuel! Samuel! Samuel! Samuel!

How patient God is! He calls until we say yes at a deeper and deeper level; on and on he goes, calling us deeper and deeper into a life of love and service.

'Are you ready today to say yes to me, to give up that sin, to respond to your neighbour’s need, to make that long overdue confession, to begin being faithful to the Sunday Mass, to change your ways, to give yourself to me?' Over and over he calls, stubbornly refusing to listen to our excuses because he never stops believing in us.

• God calls us to get up.

It’s not surprising that the Lord called when Samuel was lying in the sanctuary of the Lord. Last Wednesday the Gospel saw Jesus taking Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand and helping her up. And what will we hear him saying to Jonah in next Sunday’s reading? Let me read it for you. The word of the Lord was addressed to Jonah: ‘Up!’ he said ‘Go to Nineveh, …’

So many of us Catholics are doing the same thing as Samuel did. We are asleep in the sanctuary of our faith, dozing. The Lord is calling the whole Catholic world to get up on its feet but he is doing it person by person. Right now he is calling each one of us.

What is he calling us to today here in this little parish? I believe he is calling each one of us to rediscover our identity as evangelisers; he is calling us to get up and call others.

In the Gospel we see that the Lord called Andrew and that it was Andrew who went and called his brother Simon to come and meet Jesus. That’s evangelisation; when we bring our brothers and sisters to Jesus!

By and large we have fallen asleep at the wheel in this regard, we are missing in action, and not only the Church but the whole world is suffering the consequences. Evangelisation is an immense and exciting task. God is waiting for my yes, he is waiting for yours.

Samuel answered, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening, and went on to become a mighty instrument of God. It is not beyond us to do the same.

Baptism of the Lord - Year B

Isaiah 55:1-11; 1 John 5:1-9; Mark 1:7-11

When God began the work of creation we are told that the first thing he said was: Let there be light … and there was light.

What was that light? He did not create the sun and the moon and the stars until the 4th day, so what was that light?

I believe it was the light in which God lives, the light which he himself is - but that’s only my answer.

Isaiah 29:15 tells us that evil men like to work in the dark. He says: Woe to those … whose deeds are in the dark. All God’s works are done in the light and so, as he began the mighty work of creation which would culminate in the birth of his only Son, he first of all said: Let there be light - so that this mighty work might be done in the light.

When Adam and Eve sinned, the world, God’s beautiful creation, was plunged into darkness; the sun still shone, the moon still beamed, the stars still twinkled, but ‘the light’ had been eclipsed by sin. God had, in a sense, and only in a sense, been banished from the earth.

Now there was darkness over the earth, a new darkness, which did not come from God. This is not the darkness we find when we turn away from the sun but the darkness we find when we turn away from God, the true Light. This was the dark side of free will.

This darkness lay over all creation and affected all creation, especially human souls. And Satan rejoiced in the darkness. It was his kingdom.

Then, one dark night about 2000 years ago an infant was born into the darkness. St John says, at the beginning of his Gospel: All that came to be had life in him.

All that came to be had life in him …. but, as St John says: the world did not know him.

Into the darkness of the world came the infant Jesus - a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. Satan was very worried.

In a blaze of heavenly glory he was announced to the shepherds. By the light of a star he was found by the wise men. No one lights a lamp to hide it under a bushel basket and neither does God. The Father wants his Son to be known and loved.

And so we come to the Baptism.

Jesus stands on the bank of the river Jordan, looking down at the line of sinners waiting for Baptism from John. He is the sinless one, the light of the world, and yet, and yet, he chooses to be one with us. He steps down off the bank and lines up with sinful mankind. He joins the queue.

The light stands among them (and among us); unknown to them (and to us). How we should ponder this picture and meditate on its meaning!

Jesus takes off his outer garment and enters the waters. Usually it’s water that washes us clean but now Jesus washes the waters clean.

What a feast of meditation is set before us here! The waters find no impurity in the Pure One, instead he purifies the waters and makes them capable of sanctifying us.

He baptises the waters which were meant to baptise him and creates a holy place in which all humanity can find holiness and salvation.

And then the heavens are torn open. I think here of a certain person who gives me Christmas a gift each year and asks me to save the wrapping paper. I am not allowed to tear open the gift.

But the heavens were torn open - the dividing wall between the kingdom of light and the world of darkness. It was torn, rent open. Obviously that wall wouldn’t be needed anymore. It was destroyed. The Father was so excited he tore open the heavens like he tore open the veil of the Temple at the moment of his Son's death.

You are my Son, I love you. My favour rests on you! And down came the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. What a scene!

Thank you, Jesus, for choosing us! Thank you for lining up with the sinners! Thank you for the waters of Baptism!

Thank you, Father, for sending him to us! For announcing him to us! Thank you for bringing the light of Heaven back to earth, to my heart! Thank you for saving us!

Epiphany of the Lord - Year B

Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Some time ago, I attended a Christmas party and was privileged to meet a young man, about to be married, who had only 2 days earlier made his first Holy Communion. I don’t know if you are like me, but I always feel a certain awe and joy when I speak to people like this. A great sense of gratitude to God for once again showing me that he still speaks to people today and still gives them the courage to act on what they hear.

As this young man told me something of the long journey he had made from out of his non-religious background into the Church, the questions he asked, the yearning for truth that he felt, the fears that held him back, the opposition he experienced, I got a real sense of the great adventure he was on, that I am on, that you are on - a journey towards God across beautiful meadows, through deserts, over mountains - till we reach our goal.

Today is really the day we celebrate those who, like the Magi, seek the Lord - agains all odds.

Listening to this young man’s story – as he followed his star to find God I caught a sense of the Pharisee and the Herod and the Magi who are always present in us as we try to live our Christian lives.

HEROD: the fearful one, defensive, greedy for power, frightened of challenges – frightened to move. I’m king around here and I’m not sharing!

He stifles all opposition, even by murder. His fear makes him crush all opposition. He is the killer of babies. That’s what I call real fear!! He refuses to go and see for himself because to go means to leave behind.

Herod is that part of us that doesn’t want to grow, that clings to security.

JEWISH ELDERS: These are the men of the Book, those who have it all. They hoard the truth like a treasure - the Sacred Deposit – the Law and the Prophets, and believe themselves privileged because they know it all. And it’s true: they do know it all. They know exactly where the Child is to be found but their knowledge makes no difference in their lives; it doesn’t seem to help them get to Jesus. They know all about him but they don’t know him as a person.

There is a Jewish Elder part in all of us. We might even go so far as to call it the Catholic part - the part which has the truth and sits on it. 'We are the one, true Church' we say, but does it bring us any closer to Jesus?

THREE WISE MEN: the pagans! Straightforward, open-minded, open-hearted, adventurous seekers after the truth, wherever it is to be found. They leave behind the comfortable life and head off into the cold, the dark and the uncertainty. Like the young man I met - seeking his Lord. They are not happy with the knowledge of the Elders, they want the Lord and nothing less. And finding him they give him everything, their treasures.

Well, where are we in our journey to Jesus?

• Does Herod have the upper hand in our lives - struggling to keep control and not let Jesus take over?

• Are our Jewish Elders in charge - complacent, static, unmoving, happy with the Law; happy to go to Mass without ever meeting Jesus?

• Are our Three Wise Men in charge - adventurers, seekers, yearning to meet him? Are we ready to give up, daily, what does not lead to him, and seek in the darkness of prayer and simplicity and silence the infant King of the Jews?