5th Sunday of Easter - Year C

Acts 14:21-27; Apocalypse 21:1-5; John 13:31-35

It's good to stand outside the church before Mass and say hello to you all as you come in. You drive your car, you walk, some of you even come on a bicycle. You smile at me and greet me. Many of you I know - some of you I know well. Some are visitors - from interesting places like Singapore, Indonesia, Mauritius, USA, Ireland, Canada, and from other states of Australia.

You come in and take your place, your favourite seat. Some wave to friends at the others side of the church, some greet friends close by, some kneel and cover their faces and pray.

I hope you don't mind that I watch you. I do it with admiration and affection. I marvel at the call from God which has brought us all together, people who are so different and yet all saying yes to the same call: Come and worship.

I am here for the same reason. I want to worship too. In fact, the Church has appointed me as an 'elder', as it says in the first reading from Acts - to lead you all in worship.

Then it comes time to begin Mass, we stand, all together, and we read the Entrance Antiphon together. The Church puts these words on our lips. They are different each week. This week, today, we all said: Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous deeds; he has revealed to the nations his saving power, alleluia.

Sing to the Lord, a new song ... an Easter song, a song of new life and hope and joy, because God has revealed to all the nations, every one of us, his saving power.

This verse was said at every Mass in this parish this Sunday. In fact, it was said all over Victoria, all over Australia, and in every parish throughout the world. Isn't that wonderful?

If we have any kind of imagination at all we could imagine a huge church building, with one, single huge Mass, attended by all the people in the world who said these words this weekend. What a sight! What an experience!

And if our imaginations were really good we could gather at this one Mass all the believers of all times, past and future. Oh my, how awesome that would be! It would be like what St John has been describing each week in the Second Reading from the Apocalypse.

Then we all made the sign of the cross together and I greeted you for the first time with the words: The Lord be with you. And you answered: And also with you.

A lovely transaction - worth meditating on!

We all considered our unworthiness before God because of our sins and we asked mercy and pardon. Every time we celebrate Mass we do this, confident that our everyday sins, that is our venial sins, are forgiven.

Next we sing the Gloria. We sing it even when we say it. It's a most charismatic prayer which demands to be said joyfully with all our hearts: Glory to God in the highest .. we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you ... for you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the most high Jesus Christ ...

The opening prayer follows. Today we prayed that God our Father would look on us with love - his children - and give us true freedom.

Then we sat down and listened to the readings from Sacred Scripture.

What sticks in your mind? I guess it's probably that new commandment Jesus gave us - love one another as I have loved you - how beautiful! It's the hallmark of the Church, our love for one another.

Paul and Barnabas are so energetic in their ministry. Is that the hallmark of our faith - whether we work hard in the Church? No. It's love by which we shall be known as his Church.

Paul and Barnabas taught the faithful. Is that the hallmark of our faith - whether we teach it to others? No. The hallmark of our faith is love, whether we love one another.

Paul and Barnabas encourage the disciples in their sufferings. Is that our hallmark - whether we suffer patiently? If it expresses love for God and neighbour - yes. Otherwise - no. We are a community of disciples known by their love for one another.

Paul and Barnabas appointed 'elders'. Is that the sign we've arrived; when we can say 'Look! I'm a priest'? No. It's always and only love which makes us Jesus' true followers.

Paul and Barnabas prayed and fasted. Surely this must mean something. No, not really. It's love which is the hallmark of Jesus' Church.

They came to believe - now that must get us a few points. No, even the devil believes. The hallmark of true belief is whether we love one another as Jesus has loved us.

And how has Jesus loved us?

As the Father has loved me so I have loved you.

Do you see?

• from the Father
• to the Son
• to us
• to others,

and then back to the Father.

And if we love one another then we can apply to our parish what the loud voice in the second reading proclaims: You see this city? Here God lives among men. He will make his home among them; they shall be his people, and he will be their God; his name is God-with-them.

4th Sunday of Easter - Year C

Acts 13:14,43-52; Apocalypse 7:9,14-17; John 10:27-30

Put very simply, jealousy is a resentful belief that someone else has what should rightfully belong to you. The word is first used in the Bible about Rachel, the second wife of Jacob, son of Abraham.

• Jacob's wife Rachel: seeing that she herself gave Jacob no children, became jealous of her sister.' And she said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or I shall die! (Gn 30:1)

Note how death goes hand in hand with jealousy: Give me children, or I shall die! Jealousy is, in fact, a kind of greed. It wants more than it is entitled to but is blind to the truth that it is actually not entitled to anything.

The Letter of James puts it neatly:

• You want something and you haven't got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. (Jms 4:2)

Jacob had twelve sons. His favourite was Joseph.

• Joseph's brothers were jealous of him ... they made a plot among themselves to put him to death. (Gn 37:11.18)

When King Saul and David came back from fighting the Philistines the women danced and sang: Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.

• And Saul turned a jealous eye on David from that day forward. (1Sam 18:9)

Predictably Saul tries many times to kill David himself or to have him killed by others; full-blown jealousy stops at nothing. The Book of Proverbs warns the adulterer, for example:

• For jealousy inflames the husband who will show no mercy when the day comes for revenge...(Pv 6:34)

Jealousy is a powerful force which drives us even without us being aware of it. Though the writer of Ecclesiastes overstates his case a little he speaks with penetrating insight when he laments:

• I see that all effort and all achievement spring from men's mutual jealousy. This, too, is vanity and chasing of the wind. (Eccl 4:4)

Mutual jealousy! One individual trying to outdo the other; achieving great things merely to rise above his neighbour, or in order to provoke him to jealousy. Ernst Becker, in his book The Denial of Death, aptly calls this a 'second-hand drivenness'. And yet, when death comes:

• Their loves, their hates, their jealousies, these all have perished, nor will they ever again take part in whatever is done under the sun. (Eccl 9:6)

When the Jews brought Jesus before Pontius Pilate he was reluctant to put Jesus to death. Even this pagan could see into the motives of the chief priests and elders who so blindly sought to kill the Lord.

• For he realised it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over. (Mk 15:10)

We should not be surprised that the Apostles suffered the same fate as their Master.

• So many signs and wonders were worked among the people at the hands of the apostles that the sick were even taken out into the streets and laid on beds and sleeping-mats in the hope that at least the shadow of Peter might fall across some of them as he went past. People even came crowding in from the towns round about Jerusalem, bringing with them their sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were cured. Then the high priest intervened with all his supporters from the party of the Sadducees. Prompted by jealousy, they arrested the apostles and had them put in the common gaol. (Acts 5:12a-18)

This, finally, brings us to today's reading from Acts. Once again we learn:

• When they saw the crowds, the Jews, prompted by jealousy, used blasphemies and contradicted everything Paul said. (Acts 13:45)

The final occurence of the word jealousy in the Bible is to be found in the Letter of James:

• Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done... . (Jms 3:16)

Again, James links jealousy and that frantic drive to achievement which all too often disguises it. If we find it difficult to identify jealousy in ourselves or in a community of believers we should cast our eyes around for its tell-tale presence: disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done ..

How foolish we would be to apply all this to others but not to ourselves. Jealousy causes a kind of blindness which only vanishes when it is too late. No, we must say: All this applies to me first, and only then to others.

Let us prayerfully examine our motives for ambitions we strive so hard to achieve; the opposition we make to some people and for the attempts we make to 'deal' with them. Do we bring real harmony to a community, or a false harmony dependent on us having our own way?

Let us always remember that jealousy is truly a terrible curse from which we must all pray to be spared.

3rd Sunday of Easter - Year C

Acts 5:27-32, 40-41; Apocalypse 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

Lectio Divina is the art of reading the Sacred Scriptures. It has four main steps:

• Reading
• Meditation
• Prayer
• Contemplation

You just take your Bible and sit in a quiet, comfortable place, open at page one and begin reading. That's not so difficult. Don't read too much - just enough to fill your mind. It's a bit like taking a glass of water from the tap, just enough to satisfy your thirst. You wouldn't try to drink the tap dry, would you?

Now you can begin meditating, just thinking about what you have read. Some people find this difficult. There are different ways to meditate and you have to find your own doorway into this activity. Practice makes perfect. I sometimes like to use what I call the 'snapshot' method.

Take, for example, St Peter in today's Gospel. It's evening. Jesus is risen, they have seen him, but where is he now? What's happened to him? What are they supposed to do? Suddenly Peter says to the others present, 'I'm going fishing' and off they go together.

They fish all night and catch nothing. I can just imagine what he looked as it began to get light - cold, wet, tired and dishevelled. When John the Beloved says, 'It is the Lord', Peter immediately wraps his cloak round himself, jumps into the water and after a short swim climbs up to meet Jesus. The two men, separated by the fire, stand facing each other, motionless. That's when I raise my camera and 'click'. A fine shot, if I may say so.

Peter remains awkwardly before Jesus. He is cold and the fire is warm but he keeps his distance. I mentally flip back the pages of my photo album. Something about the scene is drawing my memory to another fire. Aha! Here it is, taken only a few nights ago! This fire burns in the courtyard of the High Priest's house and again Peter is there, this time sitting and warming himself. That was the night he three times denied being a follower of Jesus. It was a night of shame for Peter and perhaps the attractively warm fire on the sand is an unpleasant reminder to him of his weakness that awful night.

So there they stand on the beach facing each other - Master and disciple, good shepherd and wayward sheep.

I recall the words of the gospel of Luke when Peter denied the Lord for the third time and the cock crew: At that instant, while he was still speaking, the cock crew, and the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered what the Lord had said to him, 'Before the cock crows today, you will have disowned me three times'. And he went outside and wept bitterly. (Lk 22:60-62)

In my snapshot Jesus is still looking 'straight at Peter'. St Faustina used to comment when Jesus was 'gazing' at her that not the smallest speck of dust escaped his attention. We can only imagine how St Peter might have felt. What was going on in his heart? What was he thinking? Naturally, the memory of his recent infidelity would be causing him considerable discomfort under the penetrating eyes of his Master.

Happily the other disciples now come ashore and crowd the beach. Jesus asks for someone to bring some of the fish. Simon Peter goes back to the boat and drags the net to the shore, full of big fish, one hundred and fifty-three of them, and the net was not broken. Did Simon have a sudden flashback to that day when Jesus borrowed his boat to preach from (Luke 5:1-11), and then afterwards directed them to such a huge catch of fish that their nets began to tear? Or maybe he recalled the twelve baskets of scraps gathered from the five thousand on the hill? At any rate he knew he was again in the presence of the one he had called the Christ, the Son of the living God - the one he had denied.

After the meal Jesus turns once again to Simon. They have some unfinished business and Jesus means to remedy that. Three times he asks Simon 'Do you love me'; three times Simon responds with a yes. It was, of course, the third time that upset him the most. The servant girl had caused him to deny the Lord, now the Lord was, with utmost delicacy, giving him an opportunity to affirm his love, and his sorrow. What kindness from Jesus! What relief for Peter!

Our reflection on this snapshot of Peter with Jesus at the fire has been brief, but it allows us to move on to step three of our Lectio Divina - we pray. We will take our time, use our own words, speak our own thoughts. It may be that we, too, have experienced the 'gaze' of the Lord during this meditation, and come to realise that we have denied Jesus in some way. It may be that we, too, have experienced the compassion of Jesus in some way. It may be that we need to ask forgiveness from Jesus, and to allow ourselves to receive forgiveness from him.

Whatever our prayer may be we open our hearts completely to Jesus there on the beach. Those moments with him will become precious and will transform us as well as please him enormously.

Divine Mercy Sunday - Year C

Acts 2:42-47; 1Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Each of us must die and face our particular judgment. This is not news to anyone here. Depending on this judgment we will go to eternal happiness in heaven or eternal damnation in hell. If you need to be reminded of this watch the video testimony of Fr Steve Scheier.

He was ordained a priest in 1973 but did not live his priesthood in any serious way. He was more interested in popularity from his parishioners and brother priests than in fulfilling the mission given him at his ordination. Shortly after a near fatal car crash Fr Steve had a meeting with Jesus who showed him every detail of his past life and accused him of all his various sins.

Although Fr Steve had regularly confessed his sins he lacked a firm desire to amend his life and began to realise his confessions had done him no good and were perhaps not even valid. He had convinced himself there would be time to convert later but now suddenly and unexpectedly found himself before the judgment seat of God.

What is more, Fr Steve had always thought that he would be able to ‘chat’ with Jesus about his life and explain why he had done this or that or why he had failed to do this or that but he discovered to his dismay the reality was very different. He quickly realised that Jesus already knew the full truth of his life and all its details and all his motives and difficulties, and so on and, as he revealed each sin, Fr Steve could only say ‘Yes, Lord, that’s true.’

Finally Jesus said ‘The sentence is hell.’

Once again Fr Steve could only reply, ‘Yes, Lord, I know.’ It was the only thing he could say since he had been judged by Truth itself.

Then a woman’s voice said, ‘Son, please spare his life and his immortal soul.’

Jesus said, ‘Mother, he’s been a priest for twelve years for himself and not for me, let him reap the punishment he deserves.’

Mary replied, ‘But Son, if we give him special graces and strengths then he may bear fruit, if not, your will be done.’ After a short pause Jesus said, ‘Mother, he’s yours.’

Fr Steve experienced firsthand what we call the particular judgment which awaits each of us the moment we die. He discovered that we will all stand quite alone before the Lord at that judgment. There will be no negotiating, no excuses, no changing the channel. For some reason Fr Steve received, through the intervention of the Blessed Virgin, a special mercy, the grace of another chance. He feels it is now his mission to tell those who will listen not to delay to prepare for that moment of truth. He tells us that hell exists and that people go there. He tells us also that Divine Mercy exists – which brings us to today’s feast.

Like the second chance Fr Steve received we, too, are offered in our lives a second chance: God’s mercy.

The throne of God’s Divine Mercy is the confessional; the sacrament of Confession. This is where a Catholic has his or her grave, or if you prefer, mortal sins forgiven.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, like the unavailability of the sacrament or our physical inability to get there, mortal sin is only forgiven through the sacrament of Reconciliation. Sure we can make a good act of contrition, sure we can tell God we are sorry, sure we can promise to amend our lives – and God will forgive us there and then – but only by virtue of our intention to go face to face confession with a priest as soon as we can. It is not enough just to make an act of contrition without this intention. Moreover, we should not receive Holy Communion until we have made this face to face confession.

The sacrament of Confession is God’s invitation to a mini-Judgment – a judgment in which we receive mercy instead of justice.

• In Confession we take Jesus through our sins and he gives us mercy.

• In the judgment after our death Jesus takes us through our sins and he gives us justice.

Is it any wonder that Confession is so attacked? The ordinary Catholic in the pews is so terribly confused about this sacrament and some have not been for many years. There are all sorts of errors and misconceptions spread about this wonderful and essential sacrament and the biggest and most horrible one of all is that it is no longer necessary. 'Oh, you can just tell Jesus privately that you are sorry for your sins and he forgives them. No need to go to the priest. Tell Jesus direct!' This is pure Protestant teaching. This is not the faith of the Catholic Church!

If you truly believe this lie then you have stopped being a Catholic; you are saying the Church has only six sacraments instead of seven and you have placed yourself outside the Church - and that's not a good place to be.

Usually on this feast day I tell people all about St Faustina and the Chaplet of Mercy and the Novena and the 3 o'clock prayer. This year I am choosing to say only one thing:

If you have not been to confession for a long time, if you are conscious of a mortal sin, do your immortal soul a favour and go. Go quickly! Don't delay!