2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) - Year A

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

By coincidence a few weeks ago I was puzzling over what to say for Divine Mercy Sunday this year when a friend knocked at my door. I put my problem to him and his answer was interesting. He told me he had been to many Divine Mercy celebrations in his parish and the one thing he had never heard the priest speak about was the topic of indulgences. I promised him I would do my best this year and so here goes.

To understand an indulgence we have to understand sin. There are of two types of sin:

Firstly, the kind of sin that is so grave it deprives us of the life of God within us. We lose our friendship with God and become incapable of eternal life – and for this reason this sin is called mortal.

The second kind of sin is called venial. It wounds our relationship with God but does not deprive us of communion with him.

These words, mortal and venial, are not dreamed up somewhere in a Vatican office they are part of every person’s experience of sin. Every married couple know, for example, as does every young person in the school playground, that there are some actions they can do to their friends, or which their friends can do to them, which destroy friendship and some which only wound it. The same applied to our relationship with God.

So, if you want a working definition of sin you can say: Mortal sin destroys our relationship with God, venial sin weakens or wounds it.

Naturally, many questions remain to be answered on this subject of sin but we don’t have time to go into them here. Above all we remember that mortal sin is forgiven in face to face confession and venial sin is forgiven in various other ways – through a good act of contrition, at the penitential rite at Mass, through Holy Communion, and so on.

To understand indulgences we have to realize that sin has a double consequence.

Since mortal sin makes us incapable of eternal life we say that it carried with it an "eternal punishment" unless, of course, and hopefully, it is forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession. But every sin, even venial sin, has its corrupting effect within us which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory.

To give a simple example, I might decide I’m going to give up smoking or drugs. The decision I make is a good and wonderful decision but, generally, a huge battle will take place in the following months as my body and mind and will come to accept that it can no longer have the cigarettes or the drugs. Sin is like that.

We have within us a tendency or an attachment to certain sins. Try making a resolution to forgive someone who has hurt us. That’s the easy part. The battle to ‘become’ that forgiving person can often be long and difficult. What the Catechism is wisely saying is that if we don’t complete the process here on earth, the merciful God will give us time to complete it in Purgatory. I, for one, thank God for giving us Purgatory, when he does for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves, and removes every last vestige of attachment to sin in our hearts and minds, since nothing impure can enter heaven.

So we see that the eternal punishment of hell goes on forever; the temporal punishment of Purgatory comes to an end when the soul has been purified from all attachment to sin. There is a difference between having been forgiven for our sins and having been purified of those sins. Or again, there is a difference between having the guilt of sin removed and the punishment due to that sin remitted.

Take another example from daily life. Imagine a man or woman who had stolen money from their workplace for many decades, so that it eventually added up to a very considerable sum. One day they confess their sin. The guilt is removed but justice requires the money be repaid; the guilt is removed but the punishment remains. This money can be repaid here on earth, or, if this is not possible, real prayer and penance can be undertaken until eventually this ‘temporal punishment’ is remitted.

This is precisely where indulgences come in. An indulgence is a gift from the Church by which a person, who fulfils certain conditions and is properly disposed, gains a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to his or her sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.

We must not doubt that the Church has the God given power to do this. The treasury of Christ’s redemption has been put in her charge and she, like her merciful Master, shows mercy to us poor sinners by ‘indulging’ us in this way.

There are two kinds of indulgences: a partial indulgence or a plenary. A partial indulgence removes part of the temporal punishment due to sin and a plenary indulgence removes all punishment due to sin. Furthermore, we can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.

So now you are going to ask, ‘Ok, so what are the ‘certain conditions’ we have to fulfil and what are the proper dispositions?’

The usual conditions for every plenary indulgence are:

1. sacramental confession, within abut 20 days before or after.

2. Eucharistic communion, preferably on the day, or the days before or after.

3. prayer for the intentions of the Pope (the prayers are not specified).

The specific conditions for the plenary Indulgence offered for the Feast of Divine Mercy are:

1. in any church or chapel, in a spirit that is completely detached from the affection for a sin, even a venial sin, take part in the prayers and devotions held in honour of Divine Mercy.

2. or, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus (e.g. Merciful Jesus, I trust in you!").

The Easter Vigil - Year A

Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

When God made us he drew us from the depths of the immense ocean of his love. He set us on this earthly shore and invited us, by means of a deeply embedded desire for him, to freely return to him in love.

From the very beginning our existence, therefore, our deepest essence, was ordered to a relationship with God. Every tribe and nation from the very commencement of human history has somehow lived this truth and expressed it culturally as religious seeking.

God created us and established us in an inescapable relationship with him – inescapable because it is part of our very constitution, like our need for oxygen and water, sunlight and food.

And God saw that it was good.

When Adam and Eve turned from God they turned also from their own inner self as well as from each other. We could say they found themselves in dis-grace. Their destiny to return to God could now no longer be accomplished. They, and we, were doomed to live in a profound inner frustration which could never be resolved; made for union with God it was now no longer possible to reach him – ever.

The story of Adam and Eve's rejection of God was repeated many times throughout history. Every time God made overtures of love towards us we, so to speak, ran away:

… the more I called to them, the further they went from me (Hosea 11:2).

The correct word for this running away from God is sin. It started with Adam and Eve and it continues to this present day, in fact, it's everywhere. And strangely, as Lent made clear, just as, humanly speaking, the desperate awfulness of the Cross makes sense only when we realise that its victim is totally innocent, so too the ecstasy of Easter makes sense only if we remember that we are sinners.

If on every page Sacred Scripture reveals the incomprehensible love of God for his people, it also reveals their determined and reprehensible refusal to respond.

Awareness of sin doesn't put a damper on the joy of Easter, it is part of its essential glory, the very foundation of its victory. Those of us who suffer from the modern reluctance, even refusal, to allow the reality of sin onto the stage of the human drama, will inevitably find that their celebration of Easter is reduced either to a vague and impoverished notion of 'poor Jesus on the Cross', or to a hunt for chocolate eggs with the children and a big sleep in the afternoon.

Easter is all about what God should have done to us sinners but didn't.

What do you do with a dog who, despite your best efforts, refuses to obey you? Who even bites you? What do you do with a fruit tree that won't bear fruit? What would you expect God to do with a people who, century after century, continue to defy him to his face? What would you have done?

Easter is about what God should have done to us sinners but didn't.

We might put the dog down or pull the fruit tree out by the roots but God says: My heart recoils from it, my whole being trembles at the thought. I will not give rein to my fierce anger … for I am God, not man: I am the Holy One in your midst and have no wish to destroy (Hosea 11:8-9).

And so God himself, the heavenly Father, sent to us a man called Jesus born of a woman named Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. This man came to do the will of God his Father and to give him the loving obedience we refused him.

All that God had been looking for in the human race he finally found in Jesus; and finding it in Jesus he found it in mankind. Finally God’s yearning for a true relationship with his people was satisfied.

We killed Jesus; the most loathsome expression of our sinfulness. The passion and death of Jesus were the ‘test’ God had in store for him and we were the ones who put him to that test. God was taking our own evil and making it a part of his plan, to show us how much He loved us, how much we are worth in his eyes.

And now he is Risen! He has conquered death .. and in Him .. we have all conquered death. Alleluia!

Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday) - Year A

Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14 - 27:66

The Gospel of our Lord's Passion which we have just heard read began with these words: One of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said: What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?

It all begins with a betrayal. It has to begin with a betrayal. Jesus has done nothing wrong so the only way to get him is to betray him. And so he is betrayed, and by one of his own.

No one knows better how to betray than a disciple, one of the trusted inner sanctum. No one knows how to hurt the Church better than an ex-Catholic. St Bernadette Soubirous was once asked what frightened her most and, surprisingly, she answered, ‘A bad Catholic.’

Have you noticed that a seemingly disproportionate number of the world’s great villains of history are former Catholics? Our prisons are full of Catholics; men and women who, by and large, no longer take their faith seriously. They have let it all slip away from them.

What could Judas have been thinking? And all for thirty pieces of silver. What could he have been thinking? What drove him to betray the Master? He probably imagined he had some cause, some reason, but he doesn't seem to have thought it through.

Many Catholics imagine they are justified leaving: 'The Church has let them down; the priest was rude to them; the principal at the school didn't listen to them, all they want is your money....' But in the end, when all is said and done, it is betrayal of Christ. St Paul's words in other circumstances (Gal 5:4) can fittingly be applied here: You are separated from Christ ... you have fallen from grace.'

Everyone who turns away from Christ loses much more than he can ever hope to win. When Judas realised what he had done all his so-called 'reasons' came to nought and he went out and hanged himself. What unkindness from a priest, what hurt, real or imagined, from a fellow Catholic, could ever justify walking away from Christ?

When they handed him that money, from that moment he became a traitor; from that moment he looked for a way of handing him over. Judas was bought and paid for; no longer free. He had sold himself. He was a slave.

The Gospel sums it up neatly when it tells us that Judas 'went to the chief priests'; while on the other hand, 'the disciples came to Jesus.'

Judas asked 'What will you give me?' - The disciples asked what can we do for you?

Jesus, from whom nothing can be hidden, is fully aware of Judas' betrayal and he announces that betrayal to the Apostles, not only to let them know that his time is near but to give Judas a chance to repent. Instead of humbly thinking the matter through and recognising his mistake Judas continues to pretend: Not I, Rabbi, surely! Judas has made up his mind. He no longer loves the Master.

Jesus sets about celebrating the Last Supper and despite the now sinister and ugly presence of the betrayer in their midst there's a kind of unstoppable serenity in his words. He knows exactly what he's doing. Judas hears the words of Consecration but is unmoved.

The betrayal of Judas is a betrayal of the Eucharist. Every bad Catholic betrays the Eucharist.

Jesus speaks of Judas' betrayal in terms of the Scriptures and now, after supper, he speaks of his disciples' loss of faith 'in accordance with the Scriptures'. Peter and the rest of the disciples contradict him; they claim they will never lose faith. They contradict not only Jesus but also the Scriptures!

But let us hasten to acknowledge that every betrayal is redeemable. No one ever needs to be lost. The road back to Christ is open to all - to Peter, to the other disciples, and even to Judas.

Jesus must have felt very lonely at that table. On the one hand sits Judas who would betray him and on the other hand sit the disciples who would desert him. Even now they reject his prophetic word which is, even though they do not realise it, essentially a rejection of Jesus himself, the Word of God.

Judas has now left the community of the disciples. He has become the first bad Catholic. He has betrayed the fellowship, the community of the Lord, the Church.

But Jesus has a work to complete. He heads off to the Garden of Gethsemane, followed by his dazed and disheartened disciples. Let us go too, in all our weakness and hesitation. Perhaps we will, with the Eleven, learn what he wishes to teach us; to become what he wants us to become.

5th Sunday of Lent - Year A

Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus: a cave with a stone to close the opening. There are tears in his eyes. Not long now and he will be the one in a cave and there will also be a stone to close the opening.

That’s the thing about death, isn’t it? It takes us prisoner, into the darkness, and locks us away forever until every trace of our human selves has disappeared. It destroys us.

The painful journey to that day still lies before Jesus but, in a way, he is standing before his own tomb, gazing at his own future. I wonder what is going through his mind?

This miracle of the raising of Lazarus was no ordinary miracle. It was the final one before his own death; it was the one they would use against him to justify the killing. And Jesus knew it. Didn’t he say to his disciples a few days ago: This sickness will not end in death but … through it the Son of God will be glorified? He knew his turn was coming, that he would soon be ‘glorified’ on the Cross.

They were right, those ‘some’ who said: …could he not have prevented this man’s death? He could have prevented it, easily, if he had just come when he first heard the news. But he didn’t. He had deliberately delayed for two more days, as though he actually wanted to find his friend dead.

Ironically, this is precisely what his heavenly Father would do to him. Though he could have sent him more than twelve legions of angels (Mtt 26:53) to save him he won’t. He will delay to save him – and Jesus will die alone.

Did Lazarus, perhaps, cry out in his lonely agony, ‘My friend, my Lord, Jesus, why have you abandoned me?’

At any rate, Lazarus is dead; he has been in the tomb for four days. The Jews believed that the human soul leaves the body after three days and then decomposition begins to set in.

Mary Magdalene may have wanted the body of Jesus early on that first Easter morning but Martha protests when Jesus wants the stone rolled away from her brother’s tomb. Despite her awe inspiring affirmation of faith in Jesus a few moments earlier, her practical, human, dare I say, feminine side, momentarily reasserts itself and she blurts out: Lord, by now he will smell…

Death is a big deal for us, in fact, it's the biggest deal in our life. It is the biggest hurdle, the biggest issue we have to face. Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross the great clinician of death and dying maintains that very few people, even among Christian believers, accept death without great fear.

As he stands before the cave in which his friend Lazarus is lying, he, Life itself, is standing before the ugly reality of the very foe he has come to destroy – death.

Jesus is weeping but why?

When he went to raise Jairus’ dead daughter he had said to the those who were weeping: Why all this commotion and crying? (Mk 5:39). And standing beside the bier on which lay the dead son of the widow of Nain his eyes were dry, even though we are told he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry' he had told the weeping mother (Lk 7:13).

The anguished recrimination of Mary: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, must have pierced his heart. John tells us it was at the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who followed her that the Lord’s emotions began to overwhelm him.

Could it be that in the eyes of this woman who loved him so deeply Jesus, for an instant, saw the bitter torment and distress of his own mother, and through her, the unbearable sorrow of every human being as their loved one is torn from their arms by death?

The stone is rolled away; Jesus lifts his eyes in prayer to his heavenly Father: Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer. At the loud cry of Jesus the stench of death becomes the sweet fragrance of eternal life.

As he uttered those words: Lazarus, here! Come out! did Jesus hear, in his own heart, the voice of the Father as he, only a few days from now, would cry out in a loud voice: Jesus, my Son, my Beloved, here! Come out?

We, too, long to hear those words of the Father calling our name. This is the great Christian hope. At those words we will step out of the darkness of death into the light of eternal joy and peace.