27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16

A happy marriage is heaven; and an unhappy marriage .. well ...

Marriage is a sacrament, a work of God. It gives a man and a woman an opportunity to live out in their own lives the forgiving, understanding, committed, fruitful love the Father has for them and, as we all know, it’s not easy.

The word sacrament comes from the Latin word sacramentum or oath. In every sacrament God makes an oath, namely, that in every sacrament he will meet us in the community, touch us, and change us. Let us apply this to a sacrament, for example, our most important or central sacrament, the Eucharist.

Jesus commanded his Apostles to do what he did at the Last Supper namely, to take the bread and say `This is my Body' then to take the wine and say `This is my Blood'. He promises us on oath (sacramentum) – I will meet you there!

Every Eucharist is therefore a meeting with the Lord. He promises us that he will meet us there in the form of bread and wine. He becomes truly present at the consecration and offers himself to us in Holy Communion. This explains why Catholics go to Mass - to meet Jesus in the sacrament.

A protestant pastor friend of mine in another parish used to say to me he couldn’t understand why Catholics seem to be able to get to Mass Sunday after Sunday. He would say, ‘Catholic Mass is so boring! There is often no singing, the words are always the same, the people don't smile at each other much, and often the priest is boring to listen to, and there are two collections, and the church is cold, and they all go home straight afterward', and so on and so on....

But what he didn't understand was that Catholics don't go to Mass to be entertained by a priest, or swept off their feet by wonderful singing or a wonderful homily, or even to have fellowship with all their friends. Catholics go to Mass primarily to meet Jesus (God) in the sacramental action of the Eucharist. If the priest delivers a wonderful sermon or the singing is particularly good that is only icing on the cake for them.

What is more, it doesn't matter all that much to Catholics whether the priest is likeable or not. The priest is an essential part of the Mass and we couldn't have Mass without him, but whether he is nice or not, even whether he is a good priest or not (perhaps he has a problem with drink, etc), is not our primary concern. We are there to meet Jesus who has promised - I will meet you there!

By the way, this promise of Jesus to be there for us helps us to understand what a serious thing it is for a Catholic deliberately to miss that meeting with the Lord in the community on a Sunday when he calls us together. He is there waiting for us and we are guilty of a serious offence if we ignore his invitation.

Let us take another sacrament, for example, Reconciliation. Again the same promise is made by the Lord - I will meet you there. If we have committed some serious sin the Lord asks us to name this sin to the priest and resolve to overcome it. When we do this he promises - I will meet you there! It may be a priest who is sinful himself, or a priest who lacks understanding, or an impatient priest who does not even listen properly, or a priest we don't like. We don’t go to meet the priest - we go to meet Jesus - and to receive his forgiveness through the priest. If the priest is patient and gentle and understanding this is a great thing but it is not necessary. It is Jesus whom we meet there and who gives us his forgiveness.

So, every sacrament is a meeting with the Lord.

If we examine the scriptures and study the various meetings that people had with Jesus we can begin to understand the next point we can make about sacraments. Jesus met tax-gatherers, cripples, blind people, prostitutes, deaf, dumb and insane people, demoniacs and even dead people. In each case he touched them. Not necessarily with his hands, although he did do this too, as with the leper who said, ‘Lord, if you want to you can cure me.’ Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.

Sometimes Jesus touched people with a word or a look or even his mere presence. And it is interesting to note that people too, wanted to touch Jesus, as did the sick woman who came up through the crowd wanting to touch just the hem of his cloak.

So we can say that in every sacrament Jesus touches us - his forgiving touch in Reconciliation; his sanctifying touch in Baptism; his healing touch in Anointing; his strengthening and uniting touch in the Eucharist, and so on. Of course Jesus heals and strengthens us in Reconciliation as well as forgiving us our sins but usually each of the sacraments celebrates one or other dimension of the touch of the Lord without excluding the others.

It is a really interesting exercise to go through the scriptures noting how in every meeting Jesus touched and then changed the person who met him.

• The leper whom Jesus touched and then changed. ... "and he was cured."
• Peter, who had just betrayed the Lord three times and who caught Jesus' eye as He was being led out to Pilate. This look from the Lord touched Peter deeply and he went out and wept bitterly. He was changed from sinner to penitent.
• Zacchaeus met the Lord and was touched by his kindness in wanting to stay in his house. Zacchaeus was changed from a dishonest man into an honest man.

In every sacrament we, too, meet the Lord, are touched by him, and are changed by him.

It is perhaps in Marriage that we see most easily this ‘changing’ that God does when he touches us. John and Betty come before his altar in the Church. They say the words of consent and God promises - I will meet you there. God is present and touches the couple and the two become one.

We see the change that God works in them through this meeting and we know that it is something God has done for them. That's why the priest says 'What God has joined man must not divide.'

There are three sacraments which change us for eternity - Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. There is one sacrament that lasts for life - ‘till death do us part’. The other sacraments can be renewed many times during our life.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

Words can be little devils. They sneak around the place insinuating themselves into sentences they have no right to be in, giving meanings they have no right to give. Naughty words! They spread their deceiving odour like the nectar of a flesh-eating plant and gradually the words properly appointed to guard clarity and truth slide into oblivion.

In the Church these little monsters have infiltrated with remarkably destructive vigor. The otherwise harmless little word 'our' for example, as in our faith, our parish, our Church has, bit by bit, nudged the definite article into the trash can. 'Our' faith is now far more important than 'the' Faith; and instead of us belonging to this or that parish, or to the Church, they now belong to us - our parish, our Church!

Another far more dangerous one is the 'all-things-bright-and-beautiful' word community. Like a Crown of Thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef it has spread its tentacles over the word communion leaving behind a meaningless collection of dead letters.

What makes it all so insidious is that to the unaware it all seems so good and true. One now discredited parish programme had as its mantra and aim: From Crowd to Community. Yes, of course, community is good, and so much better than a crowd, so let's get to work, let's build community! And we invest hours of time and loads of money on meetings and structures and 'leadership training' and all the time we should be working, not on building community, but on understanding and achieving communion.

Communion in the Church does not flow from community, it's the other way round - first communion, then community. Anything else is doomed to failure; a body without a soul.

Confusing words makes other errors possible, errors which would not have been possible had we used the right words. For example, the tiny word sin still stands with extraordinary tenacity against the giant words psychological dysfunction. And speaking of sin is only really meaningful when we speak of communion. Sin, by definition, destroys communion, first with God and then with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Community, on the other hand, does not challenge sin except in its most destructive manifestations. In fact, community is quite comfortable with sin; just witness the accolades accorded deceased public sinners by the Australian community.

Then again, community is inclusive; communion is exclusive.

I am compelled to admit that I am more than weary of hearing the silly call to 'build welcoming and inclusive communities' made by so many diocesan pastoral plans. I always thought this was the task of the Bowling Club, the School Board and the local Shire Council. But, of course, once we have fallen for the lie that we should be building up community in the Church then it goes without saying that we should be building inclusive communities.

Finally, since a community relies on the qualities and achievements of its members to make it strong, it tends, when it celebrates, to celebrate itself. I have attended Masses at which the priest could have been most accurately described as leading the community in its celebration of itself. Even the homily at some of these Masses could be said to be an 'anointing' or affirmation of the community rather than a call to attentiveness to and worship of God. How sad!

Christian community follows almost effortlessly from real communion but can never substitute for it. Where it does we get lots of bush dances, picnics and bingo nights, but very little relief for the soul or the profound loneliness we all struggle with.

Eternal life, peace, true joy come from communion with Christ in his Church on earth, with the suffering souls in Purgatory, and with his angels and saints in heaven.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Wisdom 2:12. 17-20; 3:16 – 4:3; Mark 9:30-37

A God who suffers – how can this be?
A God who is servant – that’s too much for me!

The question ‘Who do you say I am?’ was correctly answered by Peter last week. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit he stated: You are the Christ.

Jesus immediately orders them, and orders them strictly, not to tell anyone about him because another important question remains unanswered, ‘What is the Christ?’

The word Christ is Greek for the word Messiah. It was in common usage in Jesus’ day but it had been given meanings which Jesus did not want to associate with himself. Many people, for example, were looking forward to a political Messiah, while others thought he might be a military hero.

So Jesus had to define the word rather than let it define him. How could he expect his disciples to follow him if they were not sure of his identity? How could they announce the Messiah if they were not sure of his nature?

Peter had already shown his limited, human understanding when he made it clear he did not want a suffering Messiah. Jesus rebuked him quickly; then he set about instructing them.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly.

When Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, came to the cinemas I was warned to take a box of tissues. ‘Oh, it’s so heart-wrenching, so sad. They just went on scourging him, it was terrible, I cried and cried.’

Well, I didn’t take any tissues, though I did have a handkerchief in my pocket, and I did find it heart-wrenching, but in a surprisingly different part of the movie. What brought a lump to my throat and moisture to my eyes were the little snippets of scenes in which Jesus was instructing his disciples; for some reason I found those enormously moving. Perhaps you did too.

To hear the word of God from the lips of the Word of God must have been a wonderful experience. Hebrews 4:12 reminds 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.

When Peter heard the Lord predict his passion he had what we might call a ‘Hebrews moment'. He was not ready for a suffering Messiah. Jesus’ words slipped into that part of Peter he still needed to come to terms with, and the ever-honest Apostle reacted instantaneously. It had never entered his head that suffering might be part of the salvation the Messiah was to bring. Jesus was adamant, however, that no one would form, or shape, or instruct the Messiah; the Messiah would form them.

This is a good place to pause and ask ourselves the very challenging question, ‘Do I know the Christ, or do I follow a Christ of my own making?’ Many times have I heard Catholics, even priests, say that Jesus never judged, and that he never excluded anyone. Others say Jesus will never let a soul go to Hell. Others again, say that Jesus wants women priests and approves of homosexual activity.

To follow a Christ who never allows a soul to go to hell is a vastly different thing from following a Christ who, on the last day, when he returns in glory, will send to hell all those who have died wilfully rejecting him.

Is your Messiah the true Messiah? Is your Jesus the real Christ? I follow the Jesus presented to me by his Church, the Catholic Church – through her Scriptures and her Tradition, through her magisterial teachings and through her sacramental worship. For me, the true Jesus is to be found only in the Catholic Church; in other places he is at best, incompletely known or, at worst, a parody of the real Lord.

Today Jesus continues his teaching and moves from a suffering Messiah to a servant Messiah. He catches his disciples arguing about who is the greatest. How embarrassing! He asks them: What were you arguing about on the road?

Mark reports: They said nothing .. the silence of shame. I would safely say that most of us here have experienced this guilty silence somewhere in our lives.

• A young child - did you hit your sister? Silence …
• A teenager - did you smoke again after you promised you wouldn't? Silence …
• A shop assistant – did you steal? Silence ...

This silence comes when we are stared at by truth. Wrong suddenly acquires its true character and accuses us when Jesus is present. Like the sudden awkwardness when we realise we are dressed too casually for a formal dinner. In the presence of God we become conscious.

They were arguing about who was the greatest. How silly they must have felt, how vulnerable! How gently and lovingly Jesus corrects and instructs!

So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all'. He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me'.

When he teaches them about himself he is teaching them what they must become; when he corrects their behaviour he is teaching them who he is; when we meditate on his teaching and put it into practice, we become like him.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Isaiah 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

Walking along the road between villages Jesus asks a deceptively casual-sounding question: Who do people say I am? His disciples tell him, ‘Oh, various people – John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.’ It all sounds like one of those throw-away conversations people have to fill in time, except that the Word of God does not waste words.

But you, who do you say I am? Peter spoke up and said to him: You are the Christ. Then, strangely, Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

What are we to make of this?

Almost thirty years ago I made my first retreat; it was an eight day, silent, preached retreat and the theme was: Who is Jesus for me?

The retreat director warned us, ‘Don’t tell me Jesus is the Son of God, or the Lamb of God, or even the Redeemer of the world. Those titles are not from your personal experiences; I want you to discover who Jesus is for you.'

Firstly, of course, we must understand that Jesus badly wants to reveal himself to us; for us to come to know him. There is nothing he wishes more than to make himself known so that we can come to know his Father.

To reveal the Father is the very reason Jesus came to earth and consequently it does not seem likely that Jesus would withhold this revelation from someone who sincerely asked for it.

And so we were given a prayer to say:

Father, give me in my heart
Your Holy Spirit
That I may come to know
who Jesus is for me.

At this point I need to say that God does not like merely to tell us things about himself; he likes to show us as well. The Second Vatican Council in its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) draws our attention to the fact that God reveals as he accomplishes and that this is realised by deeds and words having an inner unity (Article 2).

Think of the name that God gave himself - I AM WHO I AM. Have you ever noticed that this name is a verb, a doing word? It is almost as if God is saying, ‘I am what I do.’ or ‘I do what I am.’

Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist who came to ask him on John's behalf if he really was the Messiah: Go back and tell John what you see me doing … . He could well have added, ‘then he will know who I am.'

Jesus requires that his words ‘find a home’ in the one to whom they are spoken. God shows Moses who he is by demanding that he act out who he is. He tells him that he can stand up before the pharaoh by making him actually go to the pharaoh.

So now, back to the retreat. I said that prayer for many hours until even in my spare time I found myself repeating it. On a certain day I was walking around an oval just down the road from the retreat centre. Round and round I went saying my prayer.

At a certain point I became aware that Jesus was in my heart and that he was my brother. This was not just something I knew intellectually, it was something I KNEW with my whole being. ‘Jesus is in me; he is my brother.’

I stopped walking and held my hand over my heart. Of course, I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t need to; I KNEW - WAY beyond feeling.

Then it struck me that if Jesus was my brother, then God was my Father! It was for me an awesome moment. ‘God is my Father!’ As this truth asserted itself within me I seemed to have become an entirely different person, in a manner of speaking. I was now the son of a loving God, my Father in heaven. Instantly I realised that in that blessed moment I could ask of my Father ANYTHING I wanted, and he would give it to me. [I still wonder occasionally what would have happened if I had actually asked for something but all I could say was: Father, what more could I want than having you as my Father and Jesus as my brother?]

Then Jesus seemed to speak as if in answer to my prayer. He said: I will tell you who I am, as you let me become who I am, in you.

The last thirty years have helped me to understand this ‘word of knowledge’ more and more. We come to know who Jesus is – by letting him, more and more, BECOME himself in us. The Word of God must "bear fruit" in us or Jesus will say to us as he says to those who merely gave him lip service: depart ... I never KNEW you. I believe this is why he would not let the devils speak about him, and why he ordered the disciples not to reveal him, because they did not yet KNOW him. Peter is clear proof of this as he remonstrates with Jesus and is told: Get behind me.

So, although we have not yet answered the question ‘Who is Jesus for me?’ we now have a new understanding of the question. Through the Old Testament, through the New Testament, through the teaching of the Church, through the whispered revelation of himself in our hearts and in our life experiences Jesus answers: I will reveal myself to you as you allow me to become myself in you.