Author: Peter McCulloch

Our Four Deaths

(Acts 10:34, 37-43; Col.3:1-4; Jn.20:1-9)

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Happy Easter!

Every year the Church’s greatest celebration is Jesus’ resurrection. But how do we know that Jesus really rose from the dead? There are many reasons, but here are three:

Firstly, it’s significant that all four Gospels say that women were the first to witness the empty tomb. In ancient times women weren’t allowed to witness anything. It was illegal. Had the resurrection been faked, women would never have been mentioned.

Secondly, it’s significant that there had been no forced entry into the tomb, and that Jesus’ linen wrappings were left lying on the floor. If Jesus’ body had been stolen, his wrappings would have gone, too.

Thirdly, and most importantly, what really points to Jesus’ resurrection is the change in the disciples’ behaviour. Previously, they had been grieving and frightened. That’s why they locked themselves inside the Upper Room.

But once they see Jesus return, their lives are utterly transformed. Nothing – not the threat of gaol, torture or even death – could stop them from spreading the good news.

This is how we can be sure that the Resurrection really happened. But what does it mean for us today?

Jesus’ resurrection is significant, because it’s the foundation of our Christian faith. It proves that Jesus is God and that everything he’s been saying is true. As St Paul says, ‘If Christ had not been raised, then our preaching has been in vain, and your faith is in vain’ (1Cor.15:14).

But we know that our faith is not in vain. Easter tells us that there is always hope, even in our worst moments, because if Jesus can survive the most terrible suffering, then we can too. He teaches us that any trials we might have are temporary and that God always works for the good of those who love him (Rom.8:18; 2Cor.4:17).

Indeed, Easter is the guarantee of our own resurrection. As Jesus says to Martha at Lazarus’ tomb: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies’ (Jn.11:25-26).

Now this is really important. If you think about it, we all die many deaths during our lifetimes. We all suffer losses of some kind, as well as transformations and transitions where something in us dies. However, we too can have our own ‘mini-Easter’ where new life always follows.

The theologian Michael Pakaluk tells us that Christians typically die four deaths. [i]

The first is baptism. Baptism is a form of death because it represents the death of sin, the end of our former self, and our new birth into the life of Christ.

In a very personal way, our Baptism mirrors Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.

Our second death occurs when we embrace our chosen vocation, either the married life or a single life devoted to God. In 1981, Pope St. John Paul II wrote that marriage ‘takes up again and makes specific the sanctifying grace of baptism.’ What he meant is that on our wedding day we must die to ourselves as single individuals, and be reborn as an interdependent couple. [ii] 

Our third death occurs when we have children. Every parent knows how devastating the birth of a first child can be to their way of life. For the sake of our children, we die to ourselves; we make great sacrifices for them. And while this means the end of one kind of life, it also means the beginning of a new life as a parent, with all the joys and heartaches that brings.

And finally, the fourth death occurs at the end of our mortal lives. For the faithful Christian, this is where we really can be confident of our own resurrection.

I recently chatted with a friend about this, and he said, ‘What? Only four deaths? What about all our other endings and beginnings?’

He was right; we do experience many other deaths. We leave our childhood behind; we lose friends; we change careers; our dreams die, and so do the people we love.

But that is never the end of the story. Thanks to Jesus Christ, we can all have many mini-Easters where we get to live again.

So, here’s the good news: Jesus Christ has conquered death, and now death is simply part of the rhythm of life, as new always follows the old in our journey towards eternal life.

Thanks to Jesus, darkness and death are now replaced by light and life.

---

[i] Michael Pakaluk, ‘The Four Deaths’, The Catholic Thing, March 30, 2022. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/03/30/the-four-deaths/

[ii] St John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, n.56. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.pdf

Silent Embrace

(Is.50:4-7; Phil.2:6-11; Lk.23:1-49)

(Thanks to Fr Don from The Word This Week, here is a podcast discussing today’s homily:)

Many of us struggle with silence. We are so used to noise that we think we cannot live without music, TV and other sounds, including our own voices.

Yet, in our hearts we know that’s wrong. Pope Benedict XVI once observed: ‘We are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears.’ [i]

Silence is not emptiness; it’s an invitation to go deeper into our lives, and most especially into our relationship with God. This is a message we can take from the harrowing story of the Passion of Christ.

Jesus suffers the cruelest of abuse: betrayal, false accusations, insults, imprisonment, mockery, theft, beatings, scourging, crucifixion and even a stabbing. And how does he respond? He is silent. He doesn’t even complain.

What would you have done? Would you not have screamed, kicked, cursed, argued, struggled and done everything else you could to defend yourself? Jesus doesn’t even try. Why?

Some people think that silence in the face of adversity and injustice is weakness, but it’s much more complex than that.

All through his public ministry, Jesus encourages silence. He often invites his disciples to ‘come away’ with him to a quiet place (Mk.6:31; Mt.11:28). He knows how important it is for them to refresh and refocus by spending quiet time in prayer (Ps.46:10). And he knows that when we clothe ourselves in silence, like his Father, we are close to heaven.

In his own silence, Jesus isn’t being weak or even passive-aggressive. He is actually communing with his Father, drawing on the strength he needs to understand and endure his terrible ordeal (Jn.10:30).

He knows how healing and strengthening a silent embrace can be. 

How different we are from Jesus when we suffer. We writhe and squirm; we grumble and complain, and sometimes we agonise over those we think are responsible. And yet we don’t even consider resting quietly in God’s loving embrace.

For many of us, our most precious moments are when we’re being lovingly caressed by someone special – perhaps a parent, grandparent, friend or lover. A warm hug, wrapped in silence, can be a profound moment of safety and comfort that strengthens and heals.

This is what God offers us.

Sometimes our prayer might seem fruitless, as though nothing is happening. But prayer is not telling God what we want. Rather, it’s about accepting his loving embrace in deep faith and trust. And it’s accepting that whatever God does, or doesn’t do, for us is ultimately ‘for our good’ (Rom.8:28) because he truly loves us.

Jesus faces all his sufferings in silence, because he completely trusts his Father. He is always in close communion with his Father (Jn.8:28-29), and his first responsibility is to always do his Father’s will before anything else: ‘The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing’ (Jn.5:19).

Indeed, the Blessed Virgin Mary does the same thing. She suffers mightily when she sees Jesus carrying his Cross, and when she sees him suffer and die. She is in agony at the sight of her dead son’s body. And how does she respond? She is totally silent.

She, too, is in God’s silent embrace.

In his book In the School of the Holy Spirit, Jacques Philippe writes that the Spirit of God is a spirit of peace, and he speaks and acts in peace and gentleness, never in tumult and agitation. He can only penetrate our spiritual consciousness if we have within ourselves a calm zone of silence and peace. If our inner world is noisy and agitated, the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit will find it very difficult to be heard. [ii]

Our challenge is to find that calm zone deep in our hearts, and to stay there.

Silence is not emptiness.

St. Teresa of Calcutta understood this well. She often said, ‘Silence is the seed of prayer. Prayer is the seed of faith, and faith is the seed of service.’

Everything begins with silence.

The more we embrace silence – the more we rest in the loving arms of God – the closer we’ll get to him.

And the more we’ll live the life our hearts desire.

---

[i] http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20060910_neue-messe-munich.html

[ii] Jacques Philippe, In the School of the Holy Spirit, Scepter Publishers Inc., Strongsville OH, 2007:37.

Immaculée’s Story

(Is.43:16-21; Phil.3:8-14; Jn.8:1-11)

(Thanks to Fr Don from The Word This Week, here is a podcast discussing today’s homily:)

In 1959, Joseph Gitera, a politician from Rwanda’s Hutu tribe, called for the elimination of the country’s Tutsi minority. [i]

This began a long process of dehumanisation that in 1981 led to the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing in the small town of Kibeho, warning that if the people didn’t change their ways, blood would flow.

Sadly, they didn’t change, and in 1994 almost a million Tutsis were massacred.

During this time, a woman named Immaculée Ilibagiza hid with seven others in her pastor’s tiny bathroom, measuring just 0.9m x 1.2m (3’ x 4’). In absolute silence and terror they hid for 91 days.

During this time, an interior voice kept telling Immaculée, ‘Open the door, end the torture! They’re going to kill you anyway.’ While another voice said: ‘Don’t open the door. Ask God to help! He can do anything.’

One day, she promised God: ‘I don’t know everything about you, but I will continue to seek you. I will never doubt your existence again.’

She asked the pastor for a Bible, and began reading it. She learnt about Jesus and God’s love, and even started praying the rosary. Every day she prayed 27 rosaries and 14 Divine Mercy chaplets, and as she prayed, she started to feel a deep sense of peace.

However, she couldn’t accept Jesus’ command to forgive, and in the Our Father she struggled to say, ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ so she left these words out. But another voice said to her, ‘…Our Lord’s prayer is not man-made. Jesus himself said those words, and he can’t make mistakes.’

It was then that for the first time she understood the meaning of surrender, and she felt God telling her, ‘You don’t have to know how to do it all on your own. Give it to me.’ She agreed to say the full Our Father, but prayed that God would teach her how to forgive.

As the weeks passed, Immaculée came to realize that holding onto anger, hatred and bitterness would not bring healing or peace. But it was only when she read Jesus’ words, ‘Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they’re doing,’ that she truly understood what forgiveness means.

Jesus was telling her, ‘The people who are trying to kill you don’t get it – they don’t consider the consequences that will come to them… Being like them won’t change anything. Learn from me!’ she recalled.

She realized that people can always turn from hate to love with God’s grace – just as she had. ‘I knew then that I’d spend the rest of my life praying for people who are on the side of hate,’ she said.

After three months, the slaughter stopped and Immaculée emerged as a new woman. But she needed God’s grace to accept that so many had been killed, including her parents, brothers, cousins and friends.

Yet, through it all, God had never left her: “I felt that he was holding me tight and telling me: ‘The journey of your loved ones is over here on earth, but your journey is not over yet… What is in your power is how you chose to live your life, however long it may be.’”

Immaculée later met with other survivors and she even personally forgave those who had killed her family – she had grown up with some of them.

‘I know the pain and damage of unforgiveness,’ she says, ‘So I plead with you: dare to forgive. Hold on to God, pray the rosary, read the Bible, go to Mass… There is so much joy, so much freedom in forgiving. Dare to do it!’ [ii]

All through Scripture, God frees people from impossible situations, making things new again. He frees the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, he heals the blind, the lame and the deaf, and he brings Lazarus back to life.

And in today’s Gospel, Jesus gives new life to a desperate woman. Some Pharisees bring her to him, saying, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in a terrible act of sin. The Law of Moses says she should be punished by stoning. What do you say?’

These men aren’t interested in her; they only want to trap Jesus. But Jesus knows what they’re up to. He says that whoever is without sin should throw the first stone.

They must have felt ashamed, because they all leave, one by one. In the end, Jesus forgives the woman and says, ‘Go, and from now on don’t sin anymore.’

She must have been overjoyed, because she, too, is given new life.

Today, so many people feel trapped by sadness, disappointment, sin and fear. They can’t move forward. But they forget that God works wonders with broken people.

God does amazing things when we open ourselves up to him.

---

[i] Kennedy Ndahiro, ‘In Rwanda, We Know All About Dehumanizing Language’, The Atlantic Magazine, April 2019.

[ii] Immaculee Ilibagiza, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, Hay House, Carlsbad CA, 2006.

The Prodigal Son in the Key of F

(Jos.5:9-12; 2Cor.5:17-21; Lk.15:1-3, 11-32)

(Thanks to Fr Don of The Word This Week, here is a podcast discussing today’s homily:)

According to Charles Dickens, the greatest short story ever told is Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s a tale of loss, hurt, forgiveness and love, and it’s so well known that it’s refreshing when someone approaches it in a new way.

That’s what Todd and Jedd Hafer have done in their book Mischief from the Back Pew. They’ve given us another version of this story, which they call The Prodigal Son in the Key of F. Here it is, with a few modifications. [i]

Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow forces his fine father to fork over his share of the family finances. He then flies off to foreign fields and fritters away his fortune, feasting fabulously with faithless floozies and fickle friends.

Fleeced by these foolish fellows and facing famine, he finds himself feeding farmyard animals. And feeling famished and frail, he feels forced to fill his frame with frightfully filthy foraged food.

‘Phooey,’ he figures, ‘My father’s flunkies fare far fancier.’ After fuming feverishly, the frazzled fugitive faces the facts frankly. Frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding, he flees the foreign farmyard back to his family. From faraway, his fretful father sees this phantom fugitive’s familiar form framed on the far horizon. He flies to him and fondly flings his forearms about him.

Falling at his father’s feet, the forlorn fellow affirms, ‘Father, I’ve failed and fruitlessly forfeited my family’s favour.’ But the faithful father forestalls further flinching and flags his staff to fetch the finest fatling and fix a feast for all.

While the father and former fugitive feel festive, the father’s faithful first-born son is in a field fixing fences. The foreman informs him that a familiar family face has forsaken his foolishness. But this brother finds fault with his father’s forgiveness and favour towards this fraternal fugitive, and his fury flashes.

He’d never faltered, he’d never fled the family farm. He’d forever been faithful. 

‘Forsooth! Father, flee from this folly!’ he fumes. ‘Frankly, it’s unfair. That fool forfeited his fortune!’

But such fussing proves futile. His far-sighted father philosophises that filial fidelity is fine, and the first-born will one day be furnished with the full family fortune, so what forbids fervent festivity? 

‘The fugitive is found!’ the father says. ‘Unfurl the flags, with fanfares flaring! Let fun and frolic follow! For failure is forgotten, folly is forsaken and forgiveness forms the foundation for a fine future.’

Brendan Byrne SJ has described this parable one of the Gospel passages ‘that have truly shaped our Christian identity.’ But what does it mean to be prodigal?

To be prodigal is to be recklessly wasteful. So, who is the prodigal one in this story?

We tend to think it’s the younger son, because he squanders his inheritance. But that’s not all he wastes. He also trashes his father’s love and every other blessing he has, like a secure home and a prosperous future. And he suffers the ultimate indignity of feeding pigs, which for a Jew is utterly shameful.

But the older son is prodigal, too, because he doesn’t appreciate anything he has. He is entitled, self-righteous and judgmental, and he deeply resents his father and brother.

However, to be prodigal is also to be recklessly extravagant, and that describes the father himself, for he freely gives all he has to his sons, even when they don’t deserve it. He lavishly shares his love, forgiveness and blessings, and he even celebrates extravagantly. That fatted calf could feed dozens of people, so his party is likely for the entire village.

This is why the Eastern Orthodox church calls this story the Parable the Loving Father. They emphasise the father because he represents our loving God. 

Now, it’s significant that the prodigal son isn’t given a name, because he represents us all. We are all prodigals. At some point in our lives, we have all turned away from our heavenly Father. We have all arrogantly thought we could succeed in life without God. We have all taken his blessings for granted, and sometimes even expected more.

How fortunate we are that God is so patient with us. He gives us time to wake up and realise what he means to us. But our time is limited, and if we haven’t already, it would be wise for us to come to our senses and return to his merciful embrace as soon as possible.

For sure, if you fancy a fine fulfilling future, then fully focus on our heavenly Father’s love and forgiveness.

The effects will be fabulous!

---

[i] Todd & Jedd Hafer, Mischief from the Back Pew: and You Thought You Were Safe in Church, Bethany House, Minneapolis, MN, 2003.

Disaster!

(Ex.3:1-8, 13-15; 1Cor.10:1-6, 10-12; Lk.13:1-9)

Every year, accidents, natural disasters and war bring death, destruction and despair to countless people around the world.

When such tragic events occur, people understandably seek answers, and sometimes they ask, ‘Why did God let this happen?’ Or even ‘why did God make this happen?’

They think that God uses disasters to punish people.

Today, I want to remind you that God is love (1Jn.4:8), and that he does not use disasters to punish us. There are always other reasons for the bad things that happen. The terrible landslide that occurred in Papua New Guinea last year wasn’t God’s doing. It was caused by heavy rainfall.

The fires that devastated Los Angeles recently were caused by sparking power lines, heavy winds and unusually dry conditions.

There are always other reasons for the bad things that happen.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks to his disciples about two disasters. The first involves several Galileans who were killed in the Jerusalem Temple. We know what happened because the Jewish historian Josephus tells us about it.

Jerusalem was short of water, and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, wanted to solve the problem. He planned to build an aqueduct, but didn’t have the money. So, he decided to take it from the Temple. The Jewish people strongly objected, however, and one day a mob gathered to protest.

Pilate gathered his troops and told them to hide clubs under their cloaks. He instructed them to mingle with the crowd and on his signal to break up the mob. When the riot began, the soldiers were ruthless and several people died.

When Jesus heard this news, he said, ‘don’t think that those who were killed in the riot were greater sinners than the others in the mob.’ In other words, there is no connection between sin and punishment in this life.

Jesus then mentions an incident where a tower on the south-eastern wall of Jerusalem collapsed, killing 18 people. Again, he says, ‘do you think they were more guilty of sin than everyone else in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you.’

In other words, don’t think that God deliberately punishes people for their sins.  When someone suffers from some hurt, misfortune or serious disappointment, don’t blame it on God. However, many people do blame God. They blame his anger for tragedies like the Indian Ocean tsunami and the floods in India.

But Jesus says that’s not right, and then in the second half of today’s Gospel, he goes on to explain the nature of God’s love in his Parable of the Fig-tree.  

This is the story of a tree that has produced no fruit for three years. The owner wants it cut down, but the gardener wants to give it another chance. He promises to dig around it and fertilise it, and see if it does better next year.

The point Jesus makes is that God is this compassionate gardener, and he’s always patient towards us, even when we don’t do the right thing. He’s not out to punish us.

This is the same message we get from Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is in next week’s Gospel (Lk.15:11-24). A young man commits two terrible sins: he rejects his father and he squanders his inheritance on sinful living. Then, totally destitute, he is forced to return home.

But his father isn’t angry. He is disappointed, but he doesn’t seek to punish his son. Instead, he waits patiently for him to return, and when he finally sees him, the father rushes out to greet him, kisses him and calls for a celebration.

This is what our Father God is like. He is full of mercy and compassion; he is light and not darkness (1Jn.1:5). And he is just like his Son Jesus, who we know is the loving Prince of Peace. ‘The Father and I are one’ (Jn.10:30), Jesus says. He also says, ‘If you really know me, then you know the Father’ (Jn.14:7).

Jesus’ life is all about healing, not pain; it’s about making all things new, instead of destroying them. And as we heard in Psalm 102 today, ‘the Lord is kind and merciful.’

This is our God. He is love itself; he does not cause disasters. There are many other reasons for them, like natural forces, or our own human foolishness and sin.

But God does let these things happen. Why? It’s because he wants us to learn from them. He wants us to let go of our worldly obsessions; to put our faith and trust in him, instead of in things. He wants us much closer to him.

And through Jesus, he teaches us how to respond at these difficult times – with deep patience, profound mercy and compassion, and unfailing love.

Just like God himself.

The Gentle Art of Pole-Sitting

(Gen.15:5-12, 17-18; Phil.3:17 – 4:1; Lk.9:28-36)

In 1924, in a publicity stunt for a new movie, a man named Alvin ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly was hired to sit on a pole outside a Hollywood theatre for as long as he could. He lasted for 13 hours, 13 minutes.

Kelly made a career out of this, but he was an amateur compared to the hermits of the early church. St Simeon Stylites the Elder, for example, climbed a pillar near Aleppo in Syria in the year 423, and there he stayed for 37 years. (His pillar was reportedly destroyed by a Russian missile in 2016.)

It was said that St Simeon knew he could not escape from the world horizontally, so he decided to do so vertically.

Some years later, St Simeon Stylites the Younger (521-597 AD) lived high up another pillar for over 60 years. As a boy, he had learnt about pole-sitting from a hermit named John, and he spent most of his life in prayer and penance atop a pillar near Antioch, in Turkey. He lived on fruits and herbs and said Mass up there, on a raised platform.

God must have blessed these two Saints Simeon, because they performed many miracles, and people came from all over for spiritual advice and healing.

Of course, they weren’t the only hermits to live atop pillars. In the 5^th Century, St Daniel the Stylite did so for 33 years in Constantinople, preaching, praying and giving spiritual advice.

They were called ‘Stylites’ because that’s the Greek word for ‘pillar-dweller’.

But what inspired them to live this way? It was the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration in today’s Gospel.

As Luke tells us, Peter, James and John go with Jesus to the top of Mt Tabor to pray and reflect, and for a brief moment they see Jesus’ clothes turn dazzlingly white, and his face shines like the sun.

On one side of Jesus stood Moses, the great lawgiver, on the other was Elijah, the greatest of the prophets. And out of a cloud, they could hear our heavenly Father say, ‘This is my Son, the chosen one. Listen to him.’

The disciples are utterly amazed. For but an instant, they get to see who Jesus really is – the Son of God – and they are given a taste of the mystical joy of heaven.

Peter wants them all to stay there, but this is an experience that’s not meant to last. Rather, its purpose is to encourage them in their faith, and to help them focus on God’s promise of eternal life.

Having received the endorsement of Moses and Elijah, Jesus then turns towards Jerusalem for his final journey, from Mount Tabor – the hill of light and joy, to Mount Calvary – the hill of sorrow and pain. But of course, his journey doesn’t end there, for it’s followed by the glory of Easter.

This is what drove saints like Simeon and Daniel to become pillar-dwellers. They wanted to go somewhere quiet where they could meditate on the life of Christ and the mystery of their faith.

Living high on a pillar lifted them above the ordinary concerns of everyday life. It symbolised their physical and spiritual elevation towards God. It was a form of penance for their sins. And it gave them a vision: as they looked down towards earth, they could see how empty and passing the things of this world really are.

Every Lent, we are all invited to do the same – to go somewhere quiet to pray, to reflect on our lives, and to strengthen our relationship with God.

And as we do this, it’s worth remembering that heaven awaits those with true faith. Too many of us tend to take heaven for granted, or we simply forget about it altogether. But heaven is something we all need to prepare for, for we will not get there without the mercy of God.

This is a good thing to think about during Lent, as are the traditional spiritual practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

We don’t have to retreat into a desert to do this, or even climb up a pillar or pole.

However, it is important that we find somewhere quiet, away from our day-to-day distractions, where we can reflect deeply on our lives, and think about what we need to do to live a holy, God-centred life.

40 Days in the Desert

(Deut.26:4-10; Rom.10:8-13; Lk.4:1-13)

Once again, we’ve arrived at another season of Lent. Someone asked me recently why this season lasts for 40 days.

Well, the number 40 is mentioned over 150 times in the Bible, so one would think it must be significant. Some say that 40 is Biblical code for ‘a very long time,’ but if you look carefully, you’ll see that it’s often connected with an experience of hardship or trial and preparing for something new.

Certainly, Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days and nights before starting his public ministry (Mt.4:2). And he ascended to heaven 40 days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). 

But going further back into history, Noah’s flood lasted for 40 days (Gen.7:17), the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years (Dt.8:2-5), and Moses waited for 40 days and nights on Mt Sinai for the Ten Commandments (Ex.34:28).

Each time, this waiting always preceded a new beginning of some kind. After Noah’s flood, a new civilisation began. After crossing the desert, the Israelites started a new life in the Promised Land. Moses’ Ten Commandments marked God’s new Covenant with all mankind. Jesus’ public ministry marked the beginning of a new way of life for everyone. And his Ascension opened the way for the Holy Spirit to descend on his disciples (Jn.16:7).

Just as we spent 40 weeks in our mother’s womb before being born, so we can see that Lent is a special invitation to us to spend some time preparing for something very new.

Deep down, we all yearn for a life that’s rich in meaning, purpose and love.  And most of us recognise the need to rise above the selfishness, greed and unhealthy behaviours of our world. But our secular society doesn’t encourage this. It would rather we were distracted and entertained than face our real selves.

So, we tend to put off dealing with the mess of our private lives. 

Here, Lent is something very special. It’s an invitation for us to look honestly at ourselves, to work through our weaknesses and to open ourselves up to the freshness of Jesus Christ. 

But before we can be filled with God’s blessings, we must first be emptied, and that’s what the desert does for us. In the desert there’s silence, peace and few distractions, and in the sharp sunlight it’s easy to see things clearly.

In the early Church, many religious men and women literally went into a desert for a while. Today, however, the desert is more of a mystical place deep in our hearts which we can access anywhere. But we still need to take time out to prepare ourselves for a new way of living.

To some people the desert seems a threatening place, but if you have the courage to stay there, good things will happen to you. Slowly and silently, and with God’s grace, you’ll be transformed.

Pope Francis once described Lent as the season of penance, but it’s not a time of sadness or mourning. Rather, it’s a time of joy and returning to grace.

‘In our life,’ he said, ‘We’re always in need of conversion… In fact, we’re never sufficiently oriented to God and we must constantly direct our mind and heart to him. To do this, it’s necessary to have the courage to reject all that leads us outside the way, the false values that deceive us, attracting our egoism in a sly way.’

Instead, he said, we must trust the Lord, his goodness and his plan of love for each of us.

‘Lent is a time of penance, yes, but it’s not a sad time…’ he said. ‘It’s a joyful and serious commitment to strip ourselves of our egoism… and of renewing ourselves according to the grace of our Baptism.’

‘God alone can give us true happiness,’ he added. ‘It’s useless for us to waste time seeking it elsewhere, in riches, in pleasures, in power, in a career… The Kingdom of God is the realisation of all our aspirations because it is, at the same time, the salvation of man and the glory of God.’ [i]

Lent, then, is a precious gift to each of us. It’s a personal invitation to spend some time in the mystical desert, preparing ourselves for a new life after the joy of Easter.

It’s 40 days set aside for prayerful reflection, fasting, almsgiving. And asking God to help us start afresh.

---

[i] https://zenit.org/articles/angelus-address-on-the-need-for-conversion/

The Power of Words

(Ecc.:27:4-7; 1Cor.15:54-58; Lk.6:39-45)

‘Sticks and stones,’ they say, ‘may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’ Is that true? Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, an army of frogs was hopping through the woods, when suddenly two of them fell into a muddy pit. The other frogs looked into that pit and said it’s much too deep. They can’t escape.

The two frogs ignored these com­ments and tried hard to jump up out. But the other frogs kept telling them: ‘Give up! You’ve got no hope!’

Finally, one of the two frogs listened to the other frogs’ words and did give up. He fell down and died.

But the other frog kept jumping as hard as he could. The crowd at the top however kept yelling at him to stop. ‘You can’t get out!’ they said. But he kept jumping even harder until he finally escaped.  And as he got out, the other frogs asked, ‘Didn’t you hear us?’

The frog replied that he’d had mud in his ears and couldn’t hear them. ‘I thought you were encour­ag­ing me,’ he said.

This story tells us that words are powerful. They can help and heal. But they can also hurt and harm. What we say can so easily build someone up, or tear them down.

When we speak, people not only hear the sounds we make, but they can also feel our attitudes and sense our deepest meanings. 

Why are words so powerful? It’s because they flow from our hearts (Lk.6:45). Whether written or spoken, our words reflect who we really are. They reveal our character, our innermost thoughts. They expose what’s deep inside us and they unveil what we really think about the world and the people around us. 

Rudyard Kipling once described words as, ‘…the most powerful drug used by mankind. Not only do (words) infect, egotise, narcotise, and paralyse, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain…’ [i]

Yes, words are powerful. They create and shape everything, even the universe.  As John’s Gospel tells us, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…’ (Jn.1:1).  Everything around us began with God’s divine Word, and today our world is shaped by the words we use.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us three brief parables. Firstly, he asks if the blind can lead the blind.  Then he warns us about noticing a splinter in someone else’s eye, while overlooking the log in our own. And finally he says that a healthy tree cannot produce rotten fruit.

Together, these three parables remind us that if we are teaching or leading others, then we must choose our words very carefully and make sure that we know what we’re talking about. It’s so easy to harm people. It’s so easy to lead them astray if we ourselves are misled.

Our first reading today says something similar. It tells us that just as the rubbish is left behind when we shake a sieve, so our faults become obvious when we speak. And just as a fiery kiln tests the work of a potter, so our conversation is the test of our own personal quality and purity.

But the point is that all this starts with our hearts. For our words to be good, our hearts need to be well-formed.

As children we learn from our parents and teachers, and hopefully they’re wise. And as adults we keep learning, but ultimately we all need God’s guidance because only he offers us the way, the truth and the life (Jn.14:6).

As Jesus says, we draw what’s good from the goodness in our hearts, and we draw what’s bad from the badness we store there as well. Like the water in a well, we must make sure that it’s always pure and fresh and life-giving, both for ourselves and for others (Jn.4:14).

Most people speak thousands of words every day. That gives us plenty of scope to help or to hurt others, for words aren’t just sounds. They are powerful symbols of life, of culture, of everything we think and feel. They express our lives, our souls, our dreams and our fears.

Mother Teresa once said that kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

The same can be said of unkind words.

Yes, sticks and stones may break my bones, but cruel and thoughtless words can be far more damaging.

---

[i] http://www.telelib.com/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/BookOfWords/surgeonssoul.html

The Parable of the Three Questions

(1Sam.26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23; 1Cor.15:45-49; Lk.6:27-38)

Today, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us. But how might we actually approach this? Leo Tolstoy helps us to understand in his famous Parable of the Three Questions.

There was once a king who wanted to know how to always make good decisions. He decided that if he could answer three questions, he’d always know the right thing to do: When is the right time to do something? Who is the most important person to listen to? And what is the one thing I should always do?

He offered a reward for the best answers, but received no useful replies.

Then the king heard of a wise and holy hermit who lived on a mountain and would only see the poor. So, he disguised himself as a peasant and went to ask him his three questions.

Leaving his soldiers below, he climbed the mountain and arrived hot and thirsty. The old hermit was working in his garden. He bowed silently to the disguised king, and kept on working.

Feeling awkward, the king said, ‘I’ve heard you are wise and understanding. I hope you can help me with three questions: When is the right time to do something? Who is the most important person to listen to? And what is the one thing I should always do?

The hermit looked at him silently and kept on digging. After a while, the king took the shovel, saying, ‘Let me do that. You are tired.’ He repeated his questions, but again there was no answer.

The sun was hot and the hermit offered to resume digging, but the king kept working. At sunset, the king wiped the sweat from his brow and said, ‘I came to see if you could answer my three questions. I struggle with them all the time. Can you help me? If not, I’ll just return home.’

Just then, startled by a noise, the hermit asked, ‘Did you hear that? I think it’s someone running.’ A man emerged from the woods, running towards them. He was badly wounded, and fell in front of the king.

The king ripped off his shirt and tried to stop the bleeding, but the wound was deep. There was a spring nearby. The king ran to it, washed the shirt, and returned to press it against the wound. He did this three times, and the bleeding stopped. The man asked for a drink. The king went to the spring, and brought back some water.

It was dark, and the old hermit and king carried the wounded man into the hut where they all slept well. When the sun rose, the king woke to find the wounded man looking at him intently. ‘Forgive me,’ the wounded man said.

‘Why should I forgive you?’ the king asked.

‘I’m your sworn enemy,’ he replied. ‘I planned to kill you. You killed my brother years ago and took his property. I’ve hated you ever since. When I heard you were coming here, I intended to ambush you, but when you didn’t come down the path yesterday, I came out of hiding. One of your soldiers down the hill recognised me and wounded me. I was escaping when I ran into you. You saved my life! Please, forgive me. I’m ashamed and grateful to you. From now on, I promise to serve you faithfully.’

The king was stunned. He offered to compensate the man for his suffering, and said he didn’t want his service, only his friendship and trust. He promised that his doctor would take care of him, and they left the mountain together.

The king later returned to the hermit and said, ‘Old man, please answer my three questions.’

‘Your questions have all been answered,’ he replied. But the king was puzzled.

‘Look,’ said the hermit, ‘yesterday when you asked your questions and I didn’t answer, you took pity on me because I was old. Instead of leaving the mountain and being killed by your enemy, you helped me dig my garden. So, the right time was when you were helping me, because you had pity on me, and I was supposed to be the person to remember and work with, and the one thing you should always do is have compassion.

‘Later, you took care of the wounded man. He didn’t die and you were reconciled with an enemy and found a grateful friend. It was the right time to help him, he was the one to attend to and what you had was compassion.

The king still didn’t seem to understand, but then it hit him.

‘Oh, the right time is now, for it’s the only time I can control. The person is whoever is right in front of me, and the one thing I should always do is to tend to their needs, doing whatever I can.

The old hermit smiled, ‘Yes, if you bend in appreciation towards whatever is before you, you will always know what to do.’ [i]

---

[i] Leo Tolstoy, The Parable of the Three Troubling Questions, quoted in Megan McKenna, Luke – The Book of Blessings and Woes. New City Press, New York, 2009: 194-199. (Abridged).

The Road Less Travelled

 (Jer.17:5-8; 1Cor.15:12, 16-20; Lk.6:17, 20-26)

In Lewis Carroll’s story Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road and is puzzled. She asks the Cheshire Cat, ‘which way should I go?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ he says.

Alice says she doesn’t much care where she goes, so the Cat replies: ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.’

Today, our world is a confusion of roads going in countless directions. Some clever people have invented GPS to help us get around, but where should you go when you reach a fork in the road of life?

In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah says that there are basically only two roads in life, and they go in opposite directions. One crosses a salty desert towards death, and the other follows a refreshing stream towards life.

Which one is which? Jeremiah says the wrong way is when we put our trust in man and the things of the flesh, for that’s when we’ll end up like dry scrub in a wasteland.

But the person who puts his faith in God will be blessed like a tree that flourishes, even in heat and drought.

Now, Jeremiah doesn’t say that those who trust in God will escape the heat and drought. Rather, he says that they will stay fruitful and green despite these trials.

In other words, when you turn to God in deep faith and prayer, you’ll find yourself blessed with the strength you need to keep going, even in hard times.

Psalm 1 today says something very similar. Happy is the person who chooses God’s law of love, and avoids the way of sin and scorn. For he will be like a fruitful tree near fresh waters. But those who choose the way of the wicked will be like winnowed chaff, blown towards their doom.

Essentially, then, there are only two roads in our journey through life, and Jesus talks about them in his Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s Gospel today.

He’s speaking to a large crowd near the Sea of Galilee, and he says that God’s first priority is the poor and hungry, and those who weep and suffer from hate. Those who follow the way of God will be blessed, he says, for one day they will inherit his kingdom.

But those who choose the way of the world, those whose lives are all about selfish indulgence, will be left behind. ‘Woe to you rich,’ Jesus says, ‘woe to you who have your fill, woe to you who laugh, and woe to you when the world loves you.’

Here, Jesus is giving us a radical choice: we can either take the high road and live by the values of God’s kingdom (in a spirit of poverty, compassion and mercy), or we can take the low road and live by the values of this world (pursuing money, pleasure, power and prestige).

Only one of these roads leads to eternal life, and sadly, that’s the one least travelled. Robert Frost writes about this in his poem The Road Not Taken:

‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.’

Why is this road less travelled? It’s because too many people have been seduced by the hollow promises of the material life. It’s because our world has taught us to seek immediate comfort and satisfaction, instead of seeking lasting joy in heaven. And it’s because our obsession with physical things has blinded us to the spiritual.

The Cheshire Cat is right. It doesn’t matter which way you go if you don’t care where you’re going.

But if you do care, if you are serious about eternal life, then there’s only one road that will take you there, and you need to choose.

Let’s close with some verses from Choose this Day, by an anonymous poet.

Choose this day whom you will serve,
The world, with its fleeting way?
Or Christ, who calls with a gentle voice,
And offers eternal day?

Choose this day whom you will trust,
The treasures that fade and decay?
Or the Rock that stands through storm and flood,
And guides in the narrow way?

Choose this day, for time is brief,
And the soul is a gift to keep.
One path leads to life and peace,
The other to sorrow deep.