The Narrow Door

Let me tell you what happened in the parish where I supplied a while ago. It was my fifth Sunday there and I had two more Sundays to go. They had no parish priest and it was gratifying for me to be there as people generally appreciated my preaching over the previous weeks and made me really welcome.

The gospel was most challenging that Sunday.

Sir, will there be only a few saved?

Once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you may find yourself knocking on the door, saying, "Lord, open to us" but he will answer, 'I do not know where you come from’.

Away from me, all you wicked men!

Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, ..

All was going fine as I read: And men from east and west, from north and south, will come to take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.

I said to the congregation: And that is what you have done this morning, from your farms and houses, from east and west, north and south, you have come to take your place at this feast on the altar of our Eucharist. You are rehearsing for eternity, when you will take your place around the banquet feast in the Kingdom. Well done!

And these seats here, these empty seats, they belong for the most part to people who have decided not to take their place. People who are hurt, who have lost hope, who are discouraged .. and it is our task, to go out and find these people, to give them hope, to encourage them.

So far, so good - approving looks, nods of the head, smiles, but then: It is so important for us to meet each Sunday for the Eucharist, to take our place, to turn up for practice, that the Church teaches that anyone who deliberately and knowingly, for no good reason, fails in their obligation to attend Mass, commits a grave sin, a mortal sin.

There is a movie called The Day After Tomorrow which begins with a scene depicting a crack, a huge split suddenly forming in the arctic ice sheet right under the feet of the main characters. That is what happened in that church the moment I mentioned Sunday Mass obligation.

I noticed the community ‘leader’, and her husband exchange disapproving looks. One of the parishioners mouthed the words ‘Bullsh-t!'. Two friends who were visiting me and who had come to Mass said: Father, the moment you mentioned the Sunday Mass obligation, and mortal sin, the lady behind us just groaned!

I was terribly upset after Mass. A parishioner came over to me and said, Father, you should learn to use more carrot and less stick, and walked away.

Less stick! That man felt I had hit him!

Others might call it bullying or harassing.

After Mass I unvested and on my way to the car noticed that man standing nearby. I went over and said: N., you may not want to talk to me but maybe we should chat a bit about what I said in the homily.’ He said: Father, you made all of us who had missed Mass feel that we were in mortal sin. Anticipating my response he added: Yes, yes, I know you did say deliberately and knowingly.

He then went on to say: Look, I miss Sunday Mass. Sometimes I have things to do .. and I sometimes go to the Anglicans and celebrate with them. And now I read in that new document that I shouldn’t do that either! Some people want to take us back to a point in time that has long passed.

He was very angry. His face was flushed and his mouth trembling. He told me we were turning people away and excluding them. He gave me an example of a lady who was divorced and remarried outside the Church - ‘she would dearly love to come to Mass and Communion but we are excluding her.’ Finally his wife came and they left, very angry.

I got into the car with my friends and we talked. I was so distressed. I imagined the bishop of the diocese saying ‘Well, he’s managed to upset the parish in only five weeks! Ineffective ministry!’

My friends knew immediately how I was feeling. One of them said: Do you know why they were so angry, Father? They suddenly discovered they might be on the wrong side of that door Jesus was speaking about. They thought they were inside and your homily caused them to fear it might not be so. Isn’t that what a good homily should do? I would say that was a very effective homily because you brought them the true teaching of the Church.

I asked them if I had said it too callously, accusingly, strongly? They assured me that I had nothing to worry about there. It was not the way you said it, Father, it was what you said. They have been going in and out of the wide door for so long they didn’t like you narrowing it.

A priest friend of mine once said to me: You are a John the Baptist, he didn’t know how to tell the message either! And neither did Jesus, apparently!

It makes me wonder, if only John the Baptist and Jesus, and St Stephen the first martyr had attended a personal relationship course, or a tactful preaching course, perhaps they wouldn’t have made so many enemies.

Well, I am content. Preaching unpopular truths will always provoke opposition, that is what happens when you try to evangelise a culture, and I believe that to be a sign of its effectiveness.

My sister said to me the same morning: So many priests think their job is to get people to come to Church so they can have full churches, and then forget that they have souls to be saved.

This thought echoed a recurring suspicion of mine. Perhaps the popular, easy going, crisis-free, uncontroversial ministry of so many priests in the contemporary 'liberal' Catholic Church is less a sign of effectiveness than of an unacknowledged scandal.

34th Sunday - Year C - Christ the King

Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

The Crucified One hangs on the Cross – centre stage.

He is nailed to the Cross, nearly naked, covered in blood and spittle and open wounds, exhausted.

Above his head is a sign which reads in three languages - Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. This is puzzling. How are we to understand this man on the Cross?

• Firstly we need to absorb and understand what the good thief says: This man has done nothing wrong.

From the moment of his conception in the womb of his mother this man has done nothing wrong. He has never committed a single sin.

• This man, therefore, is a victim. He is being treated most unjustly.
• He is a man of pain, of intense bodily pain, caused by his torturers. He is cold, thirsty, and needy.
• He is a man humiliated - stripped, pinned, spat upon, scorned, helpless.
• He is a man rejected - by his religious leaders, the civil leaders, the people, even, seemingly, by God.
• He is a man betrayed by one of his closest collaborators, his disciple Judas.
• He is abandoned by all but one of his disciples.
• He is a man of sorrows.

If he is King he certainly doesn’t look like one. He looks pathetic. A king is supposed to rule his kingdom and destroy his enemies.

This man seems to have attracted to himself every single one of our 'enemies', all the ones we are afraid of - pain, humiliation, rejection, betrayal, abandonment, injustice, cold, hunger, thirst, nakedness, loneliness, death. They are all attacking him - and they are winning. And not only this but he seems to have put aside all his weapons of defence - revenge, power, comfort, popularity, control. Instead he just forgives. Can you believe that?

Beside him hang two criminals, one on the right and one on the left. Around him stand the people, the leaders, the soldiers. The Apostles are absent except for John. His mother Mary and some women stand close by - agonising - a further source of pain for the Lord.

• The people watched him.
• The leaders jeered him.
• The soldiers mocked him.
• One of the criminals abused him.

What did they say?

• The leaders said: - let him save himself if he is the Christ.
• The soldiers said: – save yourself if you are the King.
• The criminal said: – save yourself (and us) if you are the Christ.

These words spoken so insistently to Jesus are important - save yourself. Come down from the cross and we will believe in you! The three temptations of Satan in the desert at the beginning of Jesus' ministry can easily be reduced to these same words - save yourself!

Now I think we have come to the heart of the matter. In our blindness and ignorance we sinners think that anyone who can, by his own power, escape suffering and death is powerful and to be admired. But Jesus had emptied himself of power. He hung on the cross totally powerless. Instead of making his will prevail over others he had said: Father, your will be done.

Jesus refused to save himself but instead he submitted humbly because he knew that the cry 'Save yourself!' is a lie, an impossibility, that in fact, the man who saves his life will lose it.

On the Cross Jesus was telling us that all power to save comes from God – that we cannot save ourselves - and so he submitted, becoming at the same moment the definitive and flawless icon of the power of God.

A king only becomes King when he conquers and Jesus, helpless on the Cross, conquered everything we most fear and run away from. He humbly submitted to death and therefore God raised him up. In this sense Jesus really became king the moment he died.

We have many difficulties in our life. Some just come upon us and some are our own fault, and there will usually be any number of voices calling out to us: 'Save yourself!'

• When you are hurt – take revenge, refuse to forgive.
• When you are wrongly accused - criticise others, justify yourself.
• When you are insecure - hoard riches, refuse to share.
• When you fear pregnancy – contracept, abort.
• When you feel threatened - shoot, destroy, eliminate.

We must remember the truth which kept Christ on the Cross - the man who saves his life will lose it. We must let God do the saving. We have only to keep still, to do his will, to keep his commandments and he will save us.

Christ is our king - our meek, humble, gentle, powerless King. May we be his true subjects.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Malachi 3:19-20; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

You notice there are two important contrasting images in the Gospel today, one at the beginning - the Temple, and the other, at the end - the hair on your head.

This is an interesting contrast. One will be completely destroyed, the other, not a single one will be lost.

Ultimately God doesn’t care too much for buildings and ‘things’; God is more into people, his children.

I remember in another parish one of the parishioners suggested we saw a bit off each of the pews in the small church to make room for side aisles. This would have made the flow of traffic at Communion time much more simple. The ruckus that followed took me completely by surprise. ‘It’s always been this way, so don’t touch it!’

Jesus could not have said that the time would come ‘when not a single stone will be left on another’ because it was a wooden church, but I am sure he would have found the words to warn against too much attachment to the status quo.

God is not too much concerned with the preservation and restoration of Church buildings; he is more concerned with us – the living Church, built of living stones.

Another opposition in the Gospel is - you and them. This is found in the first reading too. And notice! - there is no one in between. There are only those who are for Christ (as the first reading says: those who fear my Name), - and on the other hand are found - the arrogant, the evildoers.

When Jesus says you he is usually speaking of and to his disciples. We often forget that, especially at funerals. People always choose the readings where Jesus makes all those marvellous promises of eternal happiness but forget the important words with which our Gospel readings usually start: Jesus said to his disciples. The promises of Jesus are made always to you, his disciples; not to them, the arrogant and the evildoers.

So the disciples of Jesus, who fear his Name, do all they can to live as followers of the Lord. The others? Well, they oppose the disciples. In the Gospel they are referred to as your opponents, and then, frighteningly, as parents, brothers, relations, friends!

Jesus came to divide those who are for him from those who are against him. That division, most unfortunately, runs through families and friends and even, the Church. And why do they oppose the disciples? Simply on account of his name!

They will persecute the disciples and bring them before governors, and synagogues ‘on account of my Name’ and also ‘you will be hated by all men on account of my name.’

Notice, too, that they will come 'using my name'. How clever! Ever heresy claims to be the truth from God, and every heretic claims to be speaking ‘in his name’.

What will they do to you?

Firstly, they will invite you to join them in their heresy.

‘Do not join them’ says Jesus, and then, later on ‘Take care not to be deceived.’

You know that this command of Jesus is spoken to us too: Take care not to be deceived.

How do we do that today? How do we take care not to be deceived?

Hans Urs von Balthazar once said the truth is like a symphony and when you have listened to it all the way through, and learned it, and enjoyed it, and come to love it, then, when someone strikes a false note you recognise it immediately. ‘Hey, that doesn’t sound right! One of the musicians has made an error, played a false note.’

The easiest to deceive are the ignorant. Each one of us has to get to know the music of our faith and its authentic expression. Then we will be in no danger of ever being deceived.

Secondly, if you don’t join them they will hate you. They will seize you, persecute you, hand you over, imprison you, betray you, and even kill some of you.

But don’t worry! When they do all this they will be doing nothing more than giving you a marvellous opportunity to do what you are supposed to do as a disciple – to witness to his name.

And remember: Not a hair of your head will be lost.

What does Jesus say will happen to them? – The day is coming now, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and the evil-doers will be like stubble. The day that is coming is going to burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, leaving them neither root nor stalk.

And what does Jesus say will happen to you? – But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

2Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

An elderly woman in the oncology ward of the hospital had asked for the priest to bring Holy Communion. On her bedside table there lay a pair of Rosary beads and a book of prayers; around her neck hung a small golden crucifix on a chain. We chatted for a few minutes before I gave Communion. She told me of some of her circumstances. Finally, by way of conclusion I pointed to heaven and said, ‘Well, we can look forward to perfect health when we reach there.’ She responded, ‘I don’t think so.’

After several years as a chaplain I was no longer shocked; other patients in similar situations had told me the same thing in different ways.

• ‘I don’t believe that.’
• ‘Do you think so?’
• ‘When you die you die.’
• ‘I wish that were true.’

At first I consoled myself with the thought that these poor, suffering people were only struggling with their faith in a dark moment of their life. Though this was certainly true for some I have now realised, like St Paul did two thousand years ago, that there are indeed Catholics who really don’t accept the teaching on the Resurrection! Can you believe it? I always thought this was the hallmark of atheism.

With some exasperation and incredulity St Paul said to the Corinthians: Now if Christ raised from the dead is what has been preached, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? (1Cor 15:12)

What possible sense can the Christian Faith make if there is no resurrection? Why did this woman want Holy Communion brought to her in hospital if she didn’t believe in the Resurrection?

I reminded her ‘But that’s our Faith; we have a wonderful future to look forward to.’ St Paul would have said: If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your believing it is useless. [And so is your receiving Holy Communion!] If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of all people. (1Cor 15:19)

But enough of that! Let’s move on to the readings of today, both of which forcefully affirm the truth of the resurrection.

The first reading from 2Maccabees presents us with seven Hebrew boys and their mother who are asked by the king to eat pig’s flesh, which is totally against the Law. Each stubbornly refuses - We are prepared to die rather than break the Law of our ancestors - and each is sentenced to a cruel death. As each one dies he asserts his faith not only in God’s promise of life beyond the grave, but also in a bodily resurrection.

'Inhuman fiend,’ says the second son to the king, ‘you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again for ever.’

The third son willingly offers his hands to be cut off saying: It was heaven that gave me these limbs; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.

Likewise the fourth son, to the astonishment of the onlookers, declares: Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men's hands, yet relying on God's promise that we shall be raised up by him… .

In this refusal to sin against God, even at the cost of their lives, is contained a number of truths which lie at the heart of the Catholic Faith.

In The Gospel of Life Pope John Paul states: Certainly the life of the body in its earthly state is not an absolute good for the believer, especially as he may be asked to give up his life for a greater good.

This must be the starting point for the Christian – the life of the body in its earthly state is not an absolute good – and so we must be ready to sacrifice this lesser good (our life) for a higher good (God’s law).

In The Splendour of Life the Pope says: It is an honour characteristic of Christians to obey God rather than men (cf. Acts 4:19; 5:29) and to accept even martyrdom as a consequence.

Obedience to God must be a higher good than our human life. Another rather obvious lesson in all this is the same one we learned last week – faith has little meaning unless we practise it.

John Paul II also wrote a Letter to Children in which he told them: How can we fail to be reminded, for example, of holy boys and girls who lived in the first centuries and are still known and venerated throughout the Church? Saint Agnes, who lived in Rome; Saint Agatha, who was martyred in Sicily; Saint Tarcisius, a boy who is rightly called the "martyr of the Eucharist" because he preferred to die rather than give up Jesus, whom he was carrying under the appearance of bread.

The Gospel today restates the reality of life after death. Jesus instructs the proud Sadducees, who didn’t believe in the resurrection, that if God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob they must be living, even though they have died. Otherwise, God would be God of the dead, and this is unthinkable.

So, how about you? Do you believe in the resurrection? What are you prepared to sacrifice for this belief? Your life?

And I guess you would want to ask me the same questions.