14th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12.17-20

As a child I used occasionally to lament my misfortune at having been born into a Catholic family. We were bound by so many rules and regulations - Sunday Mass, fasting before Communion, abstaining from meat on Fridays, not to mention the daily Rosary. But then there were those moments when it was good to be a Catholic, like on Holy Days of Obligation, when the non-Catholic kids had to go to school and we didn't.

Of course these were only childhood and childish 'feelings' rather than thoughts. Nowadays I am not only pleased to belong to the Catholic Church, but also deeply grateful and immensely blessed.

The Catholic Church is my Mother; she brought me to birth in Baptism, she feeds me with the Bread of Life in Holy Communion, she forgives my sins in the sacrament of Confession, she brought me into spiritual maturity in Confirmation, and anoints me when I am ill. Most of all she leads me to the altar of God where the words of the priest change my poor offering of bread and wine into the glorious offering of the flesh and blood of my Saviour. All this, and more, is expressed in the powerful image of today's reading from Isaiah. God gives us the Church, the New Jerusalem that we: may be suckled, filled, from her consoling breast.

To the Church comes flowing a river of peace from the Lord, like a flooding stream, and then, like a mother she takes her children and: at her breast will her nurslings be carried and fondled in her lap. Like a son comforted by his mother will I comfort you. (And by Jerusalem you will be comforted.)

This image is as humanly personal and intimate as it is confronting; a mother feeding her infant at the breast and instead of milk she is feeding it peace. Still, those of you in the know will readily agree, ‘Yes, that’s exactly how it is between us and the Church.’

And yet there also an anonymous or, rather, transpersonal dimension to the saving transaction between us and the Church. This is somewhat reflected in the language of Luke (Jesus) in the Gospel.

Undoubtedly the person of Jesus is paramount. He is our Saviour, the head of the Church, the one who satisfies our thirst. Nevertheless, he appoints and sends those merely described as ‘others’. He places them between himself and us. He calls them ‘labourers’ and refers to us simply as ‘the harvest.’ The language points away from us to the Kingdom which alone is absolute. Some may welcome the disciples, some may reject them, but all must know: the Kingdom of God is very near.

In this sense the fate of the disciples does not really matter. They are indeed, essentially, only labourers. Their mission is bigger and more important than they are. They are servants of the Kingdom which stands before them, beckoning, and the Lord of the Kingdom will take care of them and reward them when the proper time comes.

The practical expressions of this transpersonal aspect of the Christian journey are everywhere in the Catholic Church today. I marvel at the way people don’t even know the surnames of the priests and religious who have served them. ‘Oh, you know, Fr Bill, the short one with the grey hair. He’s probably dead by now.’ And this is as it should be because Fr Bill was not commissioned to bring himself to us, he was commissioned to bring us Christ - in word and sacrament.

Catholics generally understand this very well, at least they used to. In recent years there has developed an unfortunate cult of the priest. Not only does Father have to bring us Christ, he has to be ‘nice’ as well. And when popularity is at stake it's easy for service to become self-service.

Add to this the equally toxic cult of the parishioner which obliges Father to ‘keep his parishioners happy at all times’, and pretty soon we, priest and people, make ‘ourselves’ the content of the Christian life.

We are the ‘containers’; not the ‘contents’. As the Gospel Acclamation today states: May the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and the fullness of his message live within you.

The peace of Christ – not the approval of some clique or other; the fullness of his message – not the comforting group-think of the majority. We are wrong to make ‘us’ the journey because then we run the risk of making ourselves its goal. That would indeed be sad – to arrive at my destination and find only ‘me’.

The great St Paul boasted solely of the Cross of Jesus: through whom the world is crucified to me and I am crucified to the world. Surely this is the perfection of the Christian life, a life which is wholly joined to that of the Master.

We seek this perfection within the Church and from the Church. We are both labourers and harvest: suckled, filled, from her consoling breast... .

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

1Kings 19:16.19-21; 5:1.13-18; Luke 9:51-62

As the time drew near .... is a rather arresting phrase.

There is a time for everything in our life. Many an elderly patient in hospital would say to me, 'the time is getting closer, Father.'

Jesus had a strong awareness of this time that lay in his future; it seemed to animate him, to spur him on. It was from this awareness that all his activity took its urgency. He hastened to complete his work before this time came; he feared it and longed for it. A time of suffering, sorrow, death - the cross. Now he could sense it was drawing near and he resolutely goes forward to meet it: Now the time has come.

Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem ...

lf the time of his suffering and death was closer, Jerusalem, the place, was also closer. This was the place where he was to fulfil his destiny. Luke's gospel is dominated and held together by this long journey Jesus is making to the place of his suffering and death - Jerusalem.

Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem ...

He always 'took the road' that led to Jerusalem. Roads are important, aren't they? They can lead us to our destination or they can take us away from it. We've all had the experience of discovering that we've been on the wrong road, that we were not heading in the right direction. Jesus never took a wrong road. His road map was the will of his Father and he followed it faultlessly.

Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem.

He had to be resolute because along the way there were so many trying to sidetrack him, stop him, tempt him to diverge. Herod wanted to kill him before he could begin his joumey; Satan wanted to tempt him to walk other roads; Peter wanted him to go only halfway.

We could spend some time applying this thought to our modern world and to our own personal life. Today, if the Pope and the teaching of the Catholic Church can be believed, the world is walking the wrong road, a road leading to catastrophe and death for the world. One has only to read the last few Encyclicals from Rome to see this. Jesus is the road we walk and the destination we must reach. Only the Church can still guide us safely along this road. No one else is to be trusted because only the Church speaks with the voice of Jesus.

Well, along the road, along his road, Jesus meets three would-be followers.

The first is told to have no illusions. The call to serve never ends. There never will be a time when one has the right to say 'I've done my bit, I'm going home now. Let the younger ones do it.' Jesus has no home, or rather, his home is the road.

The second wants to follow but do something else first. If the kingdom is not first then one has not chosen the kingdom. Jesus gives a striking example. What could be more sacred than burying the dead? The disciples' task is bringing new life. Jesus does not bury the dead, he raises to life.

The third would-be follower wants first to say goodbye to his family and friends. But disciples do not say goodbye to people. On the contrary, they have to be very close to them. A disciple does not chose between a relationship with God or a relationship with others. God is the one who gives our relationships with others depth and meaning so that we turn every stranger into a friend like the good Samaritan.

These may seem heavy demands but that is not so. Jesus does not demand that we follow, he invites. He invites and offers us the path of life. At the same time he makes it clear what we will encounter as we walk the path of life. He will be with us. We will learn how to love and serve. We will discover our true selves. We will set others free. We will discover eternal life in the kingdom which is our destination.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Zechariah 12:10-11,13:1; Galatians 3:26-29; Luke 9:18-24

One day, Jesus was with his disciples but praying alone.

At a certain point he raises his head and asks them a question: Who do the crowds say I am?

Note how he distinguishes between his disciples and the crowd? They are two distinct groups. The crowd is all those busy people of the world who have no real grasp on the things of God; at best they are still searching for him, at worst they are not interested. They readily gather when there is something to be ogled at, such as one of Jesus’ miracles, and will applaud wildly when he does something which wins their approval.

On the other hand, the crowd can turn very quickly and brutally, and even demand the crucifixion of an innocent man. This is because the crowd can be manipulated rather easily by clever individuals who understand the dynamics which move it. It’s called ‘working’ the crowd.

Jesus does not call the crowd. He calls individuals from or out of the crowd to become his disciples, to follow him. He does not exclude anyone but invites them to willingly accept the uncompromising demands of discipleship.

The crowd lives its own kind of life and thinks its own kind of thoughts. Today we call it ‘group think’ which is made up of many and varied rumours and stories circulating around an issue. As we see by the answers it gives, the crowd has no idea: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the ancient prophets come back to life.

We, the disciples of Jesus, are not the crowd. We are called to stand apart from the crowd. We must not act like it nor must we think like it. When we do it is a major tragedy.

As disciples we are bound tightly together by one truth to which we give total allegiance. This truth is revealed to us by the Lord himself. It is a truth not just to be believed but a truth to become. Nothing can be more personal than this.

It is Peter who announces, 'You are the Christ of God,' but because it is not yet the full truth Jesus gives them strict orders not to tell anyone anything about this. They have yet to understand that the Christ must suffer grievously, must be rejected and put to death, and be raised up on the third day. And as if this were not enough of a shock they have yet to understand that they are being called to walk the same path.

Jesus spells it out: If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me.

Jesus is not ordering us to be disciples; he never forces. He is simply setting forth the uncompromising demands of discipleship. As he proposed to the rich young man: If you would be perfect … so now he proposes to would be followers: If anyone wants to be a follower of mine … .

Discipleship is our grace-filled response to the person of Jesus; we have to come to know the one we are following. ‘Who do you say I am?’

The answer to the question ‘who?’ must be mine. Your answer will only be for me knowledge about Jesus. My following must be based on my natural, spontaneous, personal response to the person of Jesus as I know him. Listen to St Paul writing about his own, personal difficulties in his second letter to Timothy (1:12): I have not lost confidence, because I know who it is that I have put my trust in… .

I know who it is that I have put my trust in … I, I, my.

And he goes on to say: ...and I have no doubt at all that he is able to take care of all that I have entrusted to him until that Day.

I have no doubt … I have entrusted...

Nothing is more personal than discipleship but it is not a personal achievement. It is only a personal achievement when we fake it. Then our discipleship is like the role played by a movie actor. If we play it well we can win applause but it's not real. True discipleship is as real as a flu virus or a gastro bug when it gets into your bloodstream. You can’t fake that.

Discipleship is never static, it grows, because the answer to the question ‘Who do you say I am?’ is never static. It must be answered anew every day just as the cross of our life must be hoisted anew onto our shoulders every day.

As the answer to the question deepens so does our following and, then, our becoming.

A final insight - the Church, the Catholic Church, teaches us about Christ through her Sacred Scripture and through her Tradition. In the Church the answers are given and in the following, they are confirmed.

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

2 Samuel 12:7-10,13; Galatians 2:16,19-21; Luke 7:36-8:3

Jesus always sees things as they really are; we don't. We generally see things as we are. We pick and choose the bits of reality we are going to allow to remain on our horizons, the rest we just discard, or ignore, or deny. And so we live our lives from day to day with a distorted and incomplete knowledge of ourselves, of others and, of God.

A symptom of this blindness is the tendency to use labels. Labels then become for us a kind of simplified reality, Reality For Dummies: she's a prostitute, he's a prophet, I'm a Righteous Pharisee. This tendency takes a few facts and builds them into a worldview which simplifies life, but it cannot know the truth.

King David had a very interesting visit from the prophet Nathan who told him a story. A rich man with many sheep slaughtered the only lamb of a poor neighbour in order to feed a guest. David was outraged and loudly condemned the rich man to all sorts of punishment. Nathan took the wind out of David’s sails by revealing to him that he, David, was, in fact, the rich man: You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, taken his wife for your own, and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. (2Sam 12:9)

King David was, to use the vernacular, sprung, and sprung bad. What Nathan had done was tear away the veil that prevented the king from seeing things as they truly were. David was dragged into a fullness of reality to which he had been blind and immediately, and wonderfully, hung his head in shame and exclaimed: I have sinned against the Lord.

It was this fullness of repentance from King David which so pleased the Lord. His sin was real and terrible, there was no denying that, but his humility and repentance before God was truly admirable.

How I wish that those Catholics who tell me they don’t feel worthy to go to Church anymore because of their sins would learn the lesson King David learned and which, indeed, St Peter the first Pope learned. Repentance destroys sin – over and over and over and over. No one need despair, no one need give up. Every time there is sin (and I do mean every time), there is the possibility of repentance, and God always welcomes and always forgives. He never grows tired of forgiving and amply blesses the sinner who has faith in this mercy of the Master. As Jesus told St Faustina, 'The bigger the sinner, the more right he has to my mercy.'

Jesus always sees things as they really are.

Jesus knew them all and did not trust himself to them; he never needed evidence about any man; he could tell what a man had in him. (John 2:24-25)

I guess this is why some people found him seriously challenging, even intolerable. Some deserted him because he spoke of realities too far beyond them. Some tore their robes and some blocked their ears. Others crucified him.

Simon the Pharisee was probably not aware that his beloved image of himself was about to change when he invited the Lord to dine with him. The woman who ministered to him was a known sinner. It scandalised Simon to see her touching the Lord, weeping over his feet and drying them with her hair. All Simon could see was the fact that she was a woman of ill repute, but Jesus could see the truth.

Simon was very fond of another label which we should not overlook – good name. The woman had a bad name and Simon believed he had a good name and that Jesus should have a good name too. Jesus, however, either didn’t care for his good name or didn’t know what kind of name the woman had.

• Do you see how simplistic and unjust this kind of thinking is?
• Would you say it is still common?
• Would you say that you are occasionally guilty of it?

Very gently and with great discretion Jesus leads Simon into the reality behind the labels. He speaks to Simon of indebtedness, of sin (many sins), of forgiveness, of faith, of great love. He is inviting Simon to let go of his labels, the facts, and to see what Jesus is looking at, the truth.

We don’t know how Simon responded. Was he touched or did he withdraw like a snail into his shell? We do know one thing: Those who were with him at table began to say to themselves, ‘Who is this man…?’ Labels ask the question ‘What?’ What is this woman? What is this man? The truth asks ‘Who?’ Who is this woman? Who is this man?

The same Jesus who was present at the banquet will be present today at ours. He will look at each one of us. He will know us intimately. He will know our souls. Nothing will be hidden from his gaze and his gaze will be full of mercy. That same mercy he sought in Simon the Pharisee but he didn’t find it. Let him find it in us.