Easter Sunday - Year C

Acts 10:34. 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

After the numbing senselessness and cruelty of Friday afternoon and the bleak despair of the day and night which followed we come to the experience of Sunday morning - when life, unexpectedly, once again takes on meaning.

Although the tomb is empty this is no proof that Christ is risen. Mary of Magdala saw the empty tomb and says: They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.

Peter went into the tomb and 'saw' the linen cloths …

Before the bewildering reality of the empty tomb neither Peter nor Mary profess faith in the resurrection.

John the Beloved Disciple did believe and this was because he saw the empty tomb and understood the teaching of scripture …

As is always the case, the realities of life can only be properly understood in the light of the word of God. In this light everything makes immediate sense, even, and especially, those confusing and seemingly meaningless circumstances which come unannounced into human lives.

John saw and he believed: Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

The First Reading presents a picture of Peter at work - preaching. By this time he too believes, his sermon bears adequate testimony to that fact. Peter is now confident of his faith and full of the Holy Spirit of fearless readiness to speak the name of Jesus.

Again it is interesting to note the same formula in action which made John a believer in the resurrection. Peter saw (now I, and those with me, can witness to everything) and he recalled the scripture (it is to him that all the prophets bear this witness).

The message here is very clear for our own lives. With monotonous regularity I meet people, non-Catholics and Catholics alike, who seem to be able to make no sense of what is happening in their lives. They are so angry with God or puzzled by God, as they imagine him to be, they are so frustrated and confused with their life situation and they so often teeter on the brink of a despair which would rob them of any hope that life could ever recover some meaning.

How fortunate we are, those of us who have received the gift of love for the word of God, the Sacred Scripture, and who allow it to tell us the meaning of our lives and of the painful circumstances that inevitably arise!

The word of God, meditated upon and absorbed, gradually, day by day, so structures our inner world that we truly begin to live in the Easter faith of God's people. When this comes to some sort of maturity in us there is little that can unseat or take away the happiness which is the unfailing fruit of trust in God's word.

John and Peter and the rest of the disciples came to believe in the resurrection and to understand its meaning to the extent that they understood the Scriptures. For them knowledge of the Scriptures was knowledge of Christ - and so it is for each one of us.

St Paul speaks of looking for the things that are in heaven and these are the very things of which the Scriptures speak. They can infallibly direct our lives to the road which is Jesus, the way, the truth and the life.

Our life is hidden with him in God and all that the Scriptures say of him will be true for us also, so that as Jesus rose, in accordance with the scriptures, so too will we rise with him, in accordance with the scriptures, and in him, our glory too will be revealed. Alleluia, alleluia!

Easter Vigil - Year C

Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12

It would have been very cold so early on that spring morning when the women left their houses laden with their spices and cloths. They had a job to do and they knew how to do it. Most probably they had done it many times before.

The narrative of our Gospel moves along with the same sort of confidence:

• On the first day of the week
• at the first sign of dawn
• the women went to the tomb
• with the spices they had prepared.

There is a matter-of-factness about the text which seems to click along routinely like a train which knows where it's going and how to get there. Their destination was the tomb in which Jesus had been laid on Friday. They were going to complete the burial preparations for him which they had hastily begun but were not able to finish before the sun set for the Sabbath.

Then comes the first surprise - They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. Who would want to do such a thing, and why?

But an even greater surprise awaits them. On entering the tomb they they discovered that the body of the Lord Jesus was not there!

Suddenly the train comes to halt; it had run out of track - they stood there not knowing what to think. In an instant, everything was different. No body, no Jesus!

Almost immediately two men in brilliant clothes appeared at their side. This is getting weird, bizarre, they were terrified. Who are these men? What's going on?

The men speak: Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? Before they have time to explain that they are not looking for someone who is alive the men continue - He is not here he is risen.

The women stand there, dumbfounded. He is not here he is risen. He is not here he is risen. Try as they might their poor minds cannot process this new information - he is risen? How can that be?

The two men come to their aid: Remember what he told you ... Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee ...

The women struggle to push their minds back in time to the many things Jesus had told them, beautiful things, powerful things, things they were never likely to forget.

Again the two men in brilliant clothes come to their aid: Remember what he told you ... that the Son of Man had to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified, and rise again on the third day?

There is a moment of deep, thoughtful silence, of dawning comprehension and then - they remembered his words.

Oh, those words - those words we didn't understand - those strange words we didn't dare ask him about. Yes, I remember those words. He told us he would die and rise again on the third day, but we had no idea what he meant.

Slowly the pieces fall into place and the reality around them, the stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the angels before them, begin to make sense as they remembered what the Lord had told them when he was still with them.

But now everything is different. This is a new reality, a new world. This a world in which the promises of salvation have been fulfilled - eternal life for those who believe, for those who become followers of the living Lord of life.

The women return from the tomb to the Apostles and the other disciples. Now it is their turn to come to terms with what has happened but they are, as yet, unable to grasp the truth the women are putting before them. Their story seems pure nonsense and so it will continue to seem until they too find faith.

But Peter goes running to the tomb. What is he thinking? What is driving him?

He bent down and saw the binding cloths, but nothing else. Why would someone steal the body and why would he unwrap the body first?

We can't tell what was in Peter's mind but we can imagine that he, like all those faced with the news of the resurrection, would have been grappling with the meaning of this new 'fact of life' which had entered the world - Christ has died, Christ is risen. Alleluia, alleluia!

Good Friday - Year C

Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12; Hebrews 4:14; 5:7-9; John 18:1 - 19:42

The struggle of our age, because it is the struggle of the human person, is the struggle of obedience. ‘Whom or what shall I obey?’

In practice this boils down to the question ‘Whom or what shall I believe?’ The options are endless. Shall I obey the teachings of my Church? Shall I obey public opinion? Shall I obey the latest fad? Shall I obey myself?

To do something out of obedience to a higher authority is to accept the rights of the higher authority.

This is the struggle of our times, this is the struggle of all human beings. Who to obey? Who shall be my higher authority?

We Catholics have chosen to obey the teachings of God, as they are taught us by Jesus through his Church. When we obey the Church we know we are obeying Jesus, and when we obey Jesus we know we are obeying the Father.

Today we struggle with obedience perhaps more than at any other time in human history. We have become used to choosing for ourselves the bits and pieces of various ideologies we find attractive and we follow them. In a particular way this is the sign of the end times when 'men and women will follow the dictates of their own hearts.'

This, of course, was the sin of Adam and Eve - they disobeyed.

God spoke a word to them which set a limit to their human rights. Of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat.

Adam and Eve disobeyed the word of God, they followed the lies of the serpent and ate.

Their sin was disobedience and could only be redeemed by obedience. Have you considered that we were actually saved by obedience?

For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

Someone should make a bumper sticker: Obedience Saves.

It is through the pipeline of obedience that salvation flows. Jesus understood this: Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done. (Luke 22:42

My will. How we love our will!

But I want this ... I want that ... Let my will be done! I will accept this teaching but not that one. I will obey that commandment but not that one because in my opinion that commandment is wrong. The Church teaches that's a sin, but I don't agree. The Church says I have an obligation to do this, but I don't think so.

How sad! And how impossible to correct such attitudes. People are very attached to their opinions. I have my opinions, you have your opinions, the Church has her opinions, and Jesus has his opinions. But my opinions are the best of all!

When we disobey grace does not flow, salvation does not happen. Disobedience is the hallmark of Satan and his followers who proclaimed: non serviam! - I will not serve!

Obedience is the hallmark of true disciples. Mary said: fiat! - Let it be done to me!

Jesus obeyed! Jesus served! Jesus gave up his own will to obey the will of God, his Father. Obedience is the hallmark of those on the road to salvation!

St Paul in his preaching and teaching spoke about the obedience of faith (Romans 1). May this phrase push aside all our beloved opinions so that we may walk the path of life.

Holy Thursday - Year C

Exodus 12:8. 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Tonight I take my thoughts from Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Exhortation called Sacramentum Caritatis which some of you may already have read.

The institution of the Eucharist and of the priesthood took place at the Last Supper. It took place within the context of a Passover meal about which we just read in the First Reading. This meal commemorated the core experience of the people of Israel, their deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

This ritual called for the sacrifice of a lamb. It was a remembrance of what God had done in the past but over the years it became also the proclamation of a deliverance yet to come. This was because the people gradually came to realize that their liberation as slaves in Egypt was not yet true or complete liberation because their history continued to be marked by slavery and sin. So they began to look forward to a deeper, fuller, and more lasting salvation.

This is the context in which Jesus introduces the Eucharist.

The lamb of the Exodus was a male in the prime of its life, unblemished. The blood of this lamb, sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of the house, was sufficient to save the Jews from the avenging angel of God which killed the firstborn of the Egyptians.

The blood of this lamb brought them out of slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land. It is significant, too, that this lamb was eaten, strengthening the people for the journey ahead and binding them together as God's people.

At the Last Supper, the first Mass, Jesus reveals that he himself is the true sacrificial lamb who takes away the real slavery of the world, the slavery to sin. He is the spotless, unblemished lamb in the prime of his life and he sets the people free definitively, once and for all, and offers himself as their food of life.

By substituting himself for the paschal lamb in the context of the Jewish Passover Meal Jesus shows us the meaning of his death and resurrection - true and everlasting freedom for all.

In this way Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant and establishes the New Covenant of Love.

By his command to "do this in remembrance of me" he asks us to respond to his gift and to make it sacramentally present. Not only does he ask his Apostles to make his gift present by celebrating the Mass, but he also asks us to do what he did and give ourselves in love to one another. This will require of us a readiness to enter into his sufferings and to offer ourselves as victim in the concrete circumstances of our life.

In this way the Eucharist begins the process of our transformation as truly as the bread and wine are changed into his Body and Blood. Pope Benedict calls this radical change ... a sort of "nuclear fission," which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all.

The Pope goes on to say: With his word and with the elements of bread and wine, the Lord himself has given us the essentials of this new worship. The Church, his Bride, is called to celebrate the Eucharistic banquet daily in his memory. She thus makes the redeeming sacrifice of her Bridegroom a part of human history and makes it sacramentally present in every culture.

Tonight we celebrate also the essential relationship between the Eucharist and the sacrament of Holy Orders. This connection originates from Jesus' own words in the Upper Room: Do this in memory of me.

On the night before he died, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and at the same time established the priesthood. However, every priest shares in the priesthood of Christ but note that I say shares.

It is always Jesus, priest, victim and altar, who offers himself to the Father. No one can say "this is my body" and "this is the cup of my blood" except in the name and in the person of Christ, the one high priest.

Pope Benedict VI makes some interesting connections in this regard and we priests do well to take them to heart.

1. The Church teaches that priestly ordination is the indispensable condition for the valid celebration of the Eucharist. This means that without a validly ordained priest there is no Eucharist - no real presence of Christ, no offering of the Sacrifice, no Holy Communion. [In this day when many people consider other so-called 'masses' of other denominations no different from the Catholic Mass we need to remember this teaching of the Church.]

Whenever a priest offers Mass it is really Christ himself who acts. Christ stands at every altar in the person of the priest at every Mass.

The Pope then goes on to draw some conclusions from this. They are not new but they are challenging to us priests.

2. As a result, priests should be conscious of the fact that in their ministry they must never put themselves or their personal opinions in first place, but Jesus Christ. Any attempt to make themselves the centre of the liturgical action contradicts their very identity as priests. The priest is above all a servant of others, and he must continually work at being a sign pointing to Christ, a docile instrument in the Lord's hands.

This is seen particularly in his humility in leading the liturgical assembly - avoiding anything that might give the impression of an inordinate emphasis on his own personality.

Let me finish with a startling point made by the Pope. He says that the Mass is ordered to making us like Christ. This is not news to us. Every day we are called to live the Eucharist, becoming bread for others. But what I found astonishing was the matter of fact way he concluded that therefore the Eucharist ultimately will make us ready to be martyrs! I had never realised this or at least never spoken the thought. But it stands to reason that since Jesus gave his life for us to the point of shedding his blood, so we, if we allow the Eucharist to do its work in us, should find ourselves, one day, ready to shed our blood for love of God as he did.

Palm Sunday - Year C

Isaiah 50:4-7: Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14 - 23:56

In today's world there is suffering everywhere, especially on our TV screens, and we have learned to close our senses to most of it. Our hearts remain unmoved by all but the tiny proportion which occasionally manages to get under our guard.

Isaiah, the prophet, on the other hand, describes a disciple who listens each day to the lessons of pain so that he can speak words of consolation and encouragement to those whose faith is flagging and whose spirits grow weary.

He speaks in the person of one who suffers willingly, not turning away, not resisting, because he has utter faith in the saving love of God. This person is not Isaiah himself and therefore we see in these words the Saviour, Jesus, who suffers for our salvation.

For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle. The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults. So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.

Hebrews 2:10 further tells us: As it was his purpose to bring a great many of his sons into glory, it was appropriate that God, for whom everything exists and through whom everything exists, should make perfect, through suffering, the leader who would take them to their salvation.

We are advised by the saints that there is nothing more useful to our spiritual progress than meditation on the Passion of Jesus. When we do this we come to understand the love he has for us and we find our love kindled in return.

A deep, true, transforming love of God is the fruit of regular meditation on the Passion.

The Passion Readings from Luke put before us the sufferings of the man Jesus who is also our Lord and our God. As a man Jesus allows himself to experience all the sufferings that should be ours because of our sins. He allows the awfulness of our sins to fall upon him. It can truly be said that in Jesus, God suffers for love of us.

• At the Last Supper he gives himself completely to us.

• He takes his Apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane and begins his Passion … they fall asleep.

• Judas arrives, one of his chosen Twelve, and betrays him.

• The disciples, his special friends, run away.

• Peter, his chosen leader of the Apostles, denies him three times.

• The religious leaders oppose him and seek to kill him.

• Those who come to apprehend him come for him as though he were a robber .. they do a surprise “swoop”, binding him with ropes and chains, dragging him to the High priest.

• He is paraded before the gentile ruler (the State) as a common criminal and mocked, spat upon, struck and humiliated.

• He was flogged for crimes he didn’t commit; though totally innocent of any wrongdoing he was punished.

• A convicted murderer, Barabbas, was preferred to him by the very people to whom he had brought truth and healing.

• He was crucified between two thieves.

Jesus’ soul must have grown darker and darker and yet he continued to love us, and trust in his Father's love.

Father, forgive them.

Into your hands I commit my spirit.

Finally Jesus experienced the full effects of sin, a punishment whose awfulness we cannot begin to imagine, even though he was innocent - he felt even the abandonment of his Father who turned his face away from his Son. This is the final effect our sins have on God.

5th Sunday of Lent - Year C

Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

Who remembers last Sunday's Gospel? Of course, you do, it was the parable of the prodigal son. This week's Gospel is remarkably similar, the story of a woman caught in the act of adultery.

• Each Gospel presents a sinner - a bad sinner.

A son who insults his father by asking for his inheritance before the father dies and then wastes it on a life of debauchery; a woman caught in the act of being unfaithful to her husband.

• Each presents an accuser - heartless accusers.

An elder brother who would have preferred his younger brother to have stayed lost; some 'far-from-perfect' Pharisees out to trick Jesus and eager to stone a woman.

• Each presents a judge - a judge who stands for God.

The father of the two boys who is all understanding towards his wayward son, and Jesus, the Son of God, who came not to judge but to save.

In this shootout between the warring parties Jesus and the father stand back to back brandishing their weapons - compassion, mercy, love, forgiveness. They seem to be attacked from all sides.

Both sons would like their father to treat them as he would a servant or slave - the one because he believes he has lost the right to called son and the other because he preferred being an obedient slave to a loving son.

The elder would like to see the younger punished as a debauchee while the Scribes and Pharisees want the woman punished as an adulteress.

The elder son is unable to see his own failure to live properly as a son of his father. The Scribes and Pharisees are unable to see themselves as the hypocrites they really are.

The elder son, for all his self-proclaimed righteousness, refuses to go in to the banquet to celebrate with his brother and father. The Scribes and Pharisees, for all their self-proclaimed righteousness, went away from Jesus, the Lord of Life, one by one.

Only the vagrant son, the one who recognises his sin, ends up being with the father in the feast, while it is the adulteress who is left alone, in the company of Jesus, her sins forgiven. Truly the first will be last and the last first.

So where does all this leave us?

I think it leaves us standing before Jesus who wants to hear from us.

Do we say to him: Jesus, I am a good person. I go to Mass every Sunday, I keep all the commandments, I fast and pray. I really think I deserve to go to heaven.

Or do we say: Jesus, even though I go to Mass every Sunday, even though I try to keep the commandments I am still a sinner. I have failed so often in my life, in small ways and in big ways, that I've given up all hope of ever being anything but a sinner. Have mercy on me, Jesus.

• Ask yourself how long it is since you've seriously examined your conscience.

That will tell you how important you think it is to be conscious of sin.

• Ask yourself how long it is since you've been to confession.

That will tell you how aware you are of your sins, and the enormity of every sin, even the ones that are not mortal sins.

• Ask yourself what your three main sins are and see how long it takes you to answer.

That will tell you how in touch you are with yourself.

• Ask yourself when was the last time you judged others or gossiped about them, or thought nastily about them.

That will tell you how good you think you are since we only judge those we believe to be worse than ourselves.

It's an amazing thing, you know, that there are so many people who tell me about how good they are and therefore don't need to go to confession. Some of them have not been to confession for 40 years or even more because they believe they have nothing to confess.

Jesus said (Mtt 9:13): And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.

We all have venial sins, sins which wound our relationship with God and others and self. We need forgiveness for these.

If you are in mortal sin you are lost; you are dead like the son of whom the father said: this son of mine was dead ... he was lost. If the young son's only recourse was to return to his father and admit his sin your only remedy is a good confession to a priest. There we will find the loving Father's forgiveness and a return to life.

4th Sunday of Lent - Year C

Joshoua 5:9-12; 2Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

What a wonderful parable! It's about relationships, a favourite theme of the bible.

Four relationships were wounded by the sin of Adam and Eve:

• our relationship with God
• our relationship with self
• our relationship with others
• our relationship with nature

In fact, sin is defined in terms of what it does to our relationships.

• Mortal sin kills a relationship.
• Venial sin wounds a relationship.

Today we all live with the effects of sin - all of us. Not a single one of us knows how to relate properly. We are all to a greater or lesser extent wounded by the sin of Adam and Eve. Fortunately God our Father does know how to relate. He is not impaired or wounded by sin - his relationship with us, his children, is lived perfectly day by day.

In the parable we have just read the father is, of course, the father of the two boys, but he is also meant to be seen as God, the Father of us all. And so this parable offers us a glimpse into the very heart of God, as we watch him relating to his sons.

The first thing we notice is that this father is not interested in the money. The boy asks for it and he immediately gives it. The boy spends it all and when he returns to the father there is not a word spoken about it. The Father doesn't say 'Okay, where's the money? What did you do with it?'

The second thing we notice is that the father is not interested in the sin. This is remarkable, wouldn't you agree? When his son appears he doesn't question him. 'What have you been up to? What are these rumours about you and wild women and booze?'

Not a word is spoken by the father about the wasted money or the sins; all he wants is his son! So simple!

And yet, without doubt, the younger son has sinned and sinned grievously. There can be no argument about that. He admits it himself: I have sinned ...

But his real sin was that he walked away from, turned his back on, his father. By doing this he:

• dishonoured God - ('I have sinned against heaven ...')
• dishonoured others - ('... and against you.')
• dishonoured himself - ('... he hired himself out to ... feed the pigs.')

One could make a case here that the son, by lowering himself to the level of feeding the pigs whose food he was not even able to share, dishonoured the world of nature by allowing himself to come into this wrong relationship to it, as Jews were to have nothing to do with pigs.

And so we come to the (divine) heart of this parable and like every heart it has two halves.

The first half is the son's repentance. From the moment he asked his father for his share of the estate and left home this boy began a journey which would lead him step by step to this moment of repentance. The journey was filled with pleasures and pain, noise and excitement, and many experiences of his own weakness, until finally, there in the pigsty, he came to that graced moment when he fell to his knees and was able to cry out: I have sinned ... I no longer deserve to be called .. son.

What a wonderful moment this was! What a moment of sheer grace! A moment every parent of a wayward child prays for.

But the recognition of our sinfulness is a brutally painful moment and would be nothing more than unbearable insight were it not for the other half of the heart, the mercy of the father, which catches the sinner as he falls to the ground in despair. Already, in the very awareness that he is able to go back to his father there is the presentiment of that unconditional mercy and forgiveness which embraces him as he meets his father.

In Rembrandt's painting of the prodigal son this boy kneels before his father very much a different person from the brash young lad who left home.

I no longer deserve to be called your son.

This is a very important milestone to have reached. It was the experience of Adam and Eve after they had stretched out their hands to the forbidden fruit. It was also the experience of the publican in yesterday's Gospel. He stood at the back of the church beating his breast asking for forgiveness because: I am a sinner .. .

The Pharisee had not yet reached that moment of wisdom about himself. He stood at the front of the church and bragged about his own good deeds. Poor fellow! He was, as yet, blind to himself and his proper relationship to God his father.

Nor was it yet the experience of the elder son who thought of his relationship to his father much the same way as the Pharisee: I have slaved for you .. and never once disobeyed one your orders.

Again we have to say - poor fellow! He spoke to his father as though he were his slave or a servant, which, ironically, is how the younger son intended to invite his father to treat him. Fortunately the father never let the boy get those hurtful words out.

I would say we all need to reach a point where we can recognise our sinfulness and unworthiness to be children of God, a point at which we can say with the rest of mankind: I am sinner! My insistence on this is not a morbid harping but a joyful leaping - into the merciful arms of a loving father.

3rd Sunday of Lent - Year C

Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

Last week we spoke about prayer - one of the three great weapons in our Lenten journey of self-purification. This week I would like to speak on fasting - a way to deepen our prayer, to make our prayer at a deeper level of our lives - joining more of our lives to our prayer.

When we pray we use:

• our lips - like when we say the Rosary or other vocal prayers
• our mind - when we concentrate and really think of what we are doing
• our heart - allowing ourselves to be moved by God and praying with devotion
• and our body - kneeling, joining our hands, closing our eyes

For our prayer to be whole and balanced and powerful we must pray with the whole of ourselves, the whole person - like a professional golfer who brings into each stroke all his faculties and gifts. In a very real way, each of his strokes can reflect what he did the night before and even what he ate, or didn't eat.

So maybe we can now see that fasting from food gives our prayer an added edge because it brings us into our prayer at a deeper level - it gives it another dimension - we pray with more of ourselves.

We see this in many ways but if prayer is at heart a desire to come closer to God we can easily see that the emptying of our lives of unnecessary things can contribute to our longing. There is a saying that it's difficult to pray on a full stomach and I think this is very true. The longing of a body which fasts can join itself more readily to the longing of the soul which prays.

That empty stomach can also give to our prayer a more genuine sense of solidarity with the poor for whom we are praying.

Fasting makes us more free - it purges us of bad habits and liberates us from areas of our life where we are bound up. These areas can involve all the many areas of human weakness and sin; any area, in fact, in which our relationships with other people or things have come adrift. Fasting discovers these areas very quickly and effortlessly.

Food and drink are common areas of human enslavement. But there are others - TV, computers, newspapers, alcohol, drugs, gambling, cigarettes. Fasting begins to set us free from these things. I remember my father who gave up smoking by going on a long water fast at the same time. He drank only water for 28 days and said it really helped him to give up smoking. However, I would get some medical advice, as he did, before I tried that.

One of the spiritual side effects of fasting in which we discover our areas of enslavement is - humility. This has got to be a good thing.

Fasting is also a powerful means of taking control of our subconscious life. Many things happen in us that seem beyond our control.

• Thoughts - angry thoughts, jealous thoughts, lustful thoughts, mad thoughts
• Words - blasphemies, gossip, unthoughtful and unhelpful words
• Deeds - habits of sin which are commonly called obsessive or compulsive

Fasting is taking command of our conscious and this brings us closer to taking a firmer grasp on our subconscious.

Fasting gives us self-esteem and a deeper peace and joy in our lives. It draws us closer to God and all that he offers by making our bodies participate in our love for him.

Fasting gives us a sense of well-being, not only physically, but most of all, spiritually.

Fasting can be difficult. Some people find it impossible. I would advise a little caution. There are some good spiritual books on the subject and it always helps, before you do something new, to get some good advice. I used to keep getting headaches and then discovered it was because I needed a caffeine fix, so I just added a spoonful of instant coffee to some cold water and gulped it down - no more headaches.

I've learned not to argue with people who say they can't fast from food or drink. I just ask "What are you able to fast from?"