Category: Homilies

On God in the Gulag

[Hab.1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2Tim.1:6-8, 13-14; Lk.17:5-10]

The famous Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918- 2008) hated communism.  He often criticised its evils and was severely punished for doing so. 

In 1945, at the end of WWII, he was exiled to Siberia.  For 11 years he suffered in prison camps, doing back-breaking work watched over by armed guards.  He was starved, allowed little rest, and forbidden to talk with anyone. He became so isolated and miserable that he thought everyone, including God, had forgotten him.

One day he decided to commit suicide.  But he found he couldn’t do it, because as a boy he’d learnt that suicide is wrong.  So he thought he’d escape instead, knowing he’d be shot.  At least then someone else would be responsible for his death.

On the day he planned to escape, he was sitting under a tree.  He checked the guards’ positions, and just as he was about to run, a prisoner he’d never seen before appeared in front of him, blocking his way.

Solzhenitsyn later said that when he looked into that man’s eyes, he saw more love than he’d ever seen before in any other person.  That prisoner bent down and with a stick silently drew a cross on the ground.  

When Solzhenitsyn saw that cross, he knew that God had not forgotten him. He knew that God was there beside him in that awful place.  What he didn’t know, however, was that Christians all over the world had been praying for his release, and within three days he was a free man in Switzerland. [i]

It’s not unusual for us to sometimes feel abandoned.  Life can be tough.  In our first reading today, the prophet Habakkuk complains about the misery and injustice that’s so widespread in the kingdom of Judah.  In frustration he asks God why he’s not listening or doing anything about it.

But God is listening, for he gives him a reply.  God tells him to have faith and to be patient, for the day of justice will come.

Some of us find that our experience of faith is strong when everything’s fine, but it starts to weaken when we’re struggling.  Like Solzhenitsyn and Habakkuk, we wonder where God might be or if he even exists at all.

But the message for us from Solzhenitsyn and from Habakkuk is that God is listening.  He does care.  He’s with us all the time.  So we must keep our faith, especially when times are tough.  For faith means trust; it means being patient.  Faith means understanding that God is always working, even when we think he’s not.

At the end of WWII, in Cologne, some words were found scrawled on a wall in a cellar where some Jews had been hiding:

I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it.
I believe in God, even when he’s silent.

Most of us would like an instant solution every time something goes wrong, but God’s ways are not our ways (Is.55:8).  Sometimes it’s better for us to work through a problem and learn from it.  We know that’s true, don’t we?  We can see it when we look back on our lives and discover that we’ve not only survived the hard times, but the experience has also made us better people. 

As someone said, there’s more growth in the valleys than on the mountain tops.

When Solzhenitsyn saw that cross etched in the dirt, he knew that God had not abandoned him.  In 1963, after he became famous, he wrote this prayer:

How easy for me to live with you, Lord!
How easy to believe in you!
When my mind casts about
Or flags in bewilderment,
When the cleverest among us
Cannot see past the present evening,
Not knowing what to do tomorrow –
You send me the clarity to know
That you exist
And will take care
That not all paths of goodness should be barred.
At the crest of earthly fame
I look back in wonderment
At the journey beyond hope – to this place,
From which I was able to send mankind a reflection of your rays.
And however long the time
That I must yet reflect them
You will give it me.
And whatever I fail to accomplish
You surely have allotted to others.[ii]

It’s faith that sustains us through the hard times, and it’s prayer that nourishes that faith. 

Our faith might only be small, like a mustard seed, but that doesn’t matter. God is happy with small things (Lk.17:5-6). 

Tiny seeds of faith grow into mighty trees when watered with prayer.

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[i] Joe B Brown, Battle Fatigue. Broadman & Holman, Nashville. 1995:136.

[ii] https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-writings/miniatures-prose-poems

On the Great Reversal

(Am.6:1a,4-7; 1Tim.6:11-16; Lk.16:19-31)

In today’s parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man is enjoying life with fine food, expensive clothes and a beautiful home.  And outside his gate is poor, sick Lazarus, hungry and covered with sores. 

At one level the story is simple – surely Dives [i] could have offered Lazarus a crust of bread.  But at a deeper level, this story isn’t just about the rich helping the poor.  It’s much more than that.

In the second half of the story, both men die and their roles are reversed.  The rich man is shocked to find himself suffering in hell.  And Lazarus is delighted to find himself in heaven, with Abraham.

Jo Fiore, our parish poet laureate, has kindly penned this poem for us:

A rich man lived a privileged life of opulence and greed.
His eyes were blind, his ears were deaf, to everyone in need.
And at his gate a poor man lay and begged for food each day,
but the rich man kept his distance and looked the other way.

The beggar’s name was Lazarus; he suffered grief and pain,
but through it all he kept his faith and blessed God’s holy name.
‘Have mercy! Spare a scrap of bread’ old Lazarus would say,
but the rich man chose to eat his fill, and look the other way.

When both men died the rich man found with great despair that he
would be cursed with fire and torment, for all eternity.
And in the gleaming distance through his stinging eyes he saw
both Lazarus and Abraham – their faces filled with awe.

‘Have mercy, Father Abraham.  Send Lazarus I pray
with a single drop of water! Quench my thirst this wretched day!’
But Abraham replied ‘Alas! Our worlds apart must stay,
and we must keep our distance’.  Then he turned his head away. 

‘But wait! I have five brothers and if someone from the dead
were to warn them, they would change their ways and never share my dread.’
Said Abraham, ‘They have the Law, but if they choose to stray,
not even someone from the dead could change their evil way’.

When Jesus told this parable, He taught us that we need
to turn our backs on evil things like selfishness and greed.
With open eyes and open ears and open hearts we can
reach out and have compassion, for our needy fellow man.              

In this parable, Jesus isn’t condemning the rich man for his wealth.  Rather, the issue is that he’s so self-obsessed that he doesn’t even notice the suffering of others.  Do you know people like that?

In our first reading today, the prophet Amos paints a picture of the ‘wrong life’, where people sit around being lazy, selfish and complacent, and eating too much.  He reminds us that such a life is self-destructive, and that God calls us to do something more with our lives.

And in our second reading, St Paul tells Timothy about the ‘right life’, where people are righteous, faithful, loving, patient and gentle.  He says we should grab these gifts of eternal life now, while we can, because the ‘Kingdom of God is at hand’ (Mk.1:15).  It’s foolish to wait, he says, because we just don’t know how long we’ve got.  Tomorrow might be too late.

And what happens when it’s too late?  That’s when we discover that the tables have been turned.  That’s when the first find themselves last, and the last find themselves first (Lk.13:30).  That’s when those who ‘had it all’ are left with nothing, while those with nothing are given the keys to the kingdom (Lk.6:20-26; Lk.14:11). 

We see this in the stories of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Lk.1:46-55), Zacchaeus (Lk.19:1-10), and the Prodigal Son (Lk.15:1-32).  We see this in the washing of the feet (Jn.13:1-17) and in the glorious resurrection of Jesus the humble carpenter.

This is what’s known as ‘The Great Reversal’, and it horrifies the Rich Man in today’s parable.  His problem is that the rules of this world don’t apply in heaven.  He shouldn’t have been surprised, however.  We know that God’s ways aren’t our ways (Is.55:8-9).  In God’s kingdom, the lowly are lifted, the hungry are filled, the high and mighty are torn down and the proud are scattered (Lk.1:51-54; 1Sam.2: 1,4-5,7-8).

Are you prepared for The Great Reversal?  If not, there’s no time to waste. 

Take a look around:  who is Lazarus waiting at your gate?  Who are the poor you’ll see today?  They might not be materially poor, but they could be poor in friendship, poor in health, poor in hope, poor in joy ….

Reach out to them.  Welcome them in.

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[i] St Jerome in the fourth century called the rich man ‘Dives’.  It simply means ‘rich man’ in Latin.

On Serving Two Masters

(Am.8:4-7; 1Tim.2:1-8; Lk.16:1-13)

Carlo Goldoni’s play The Servant of Two Masters (1746) includes a scene where the character Truffaldino (‘Little Trickster’) tries to serve his two masters at simultaneous banquets, without either being aware of the other. It’s a farcical situation that highlights the absurdity of trying to please two masters at once.

This is like the old Japanese proverb that says, ‘A loyal soldier cannot serve two lords’.  It’s impossible for us to please everyone and to always be in two places at the same time, so from time to time we all have to choose between competing priorities (Rom.12:2).  But that’s not always easy to do.

In Return of the Jedi (1983), Luke Skywalker has to choose between the goodness of the Force and the evil of the Dark Side.  In Ben-Hur (1959, 2016), Judah has to choose between his Jewish heritage and the glory of Roman power.  Neither man can have both, and they have to fight for their choices.

In sixteenth century England, St Thomas More and St Margaret Clitherow had to choose between the whims of King Henry VIII and their Catholic faith.  That took great courage, and both died for their choices.

It’s not surprising then that some people avoid making important decisions.  They’d rather wait for a crisis, such as a health problem or losing their job or marriage, before doing anything.  But sometimes it takes a crisis to bring out the best in us.  Crises can be very useful turning points in our lives.

In today’s Gospel, a landowner finds that his steward (his estate manager) has been squandering his property, and he dismisses him. The steward had, in effect, two masters: his employer and himself, and his employer expected loyalty.  In those days, stewards had the right to charge a commission on every transaction they handled for their landholder.  We don’t know what he did wrong, but he’s fortunate in only being dismissed and not imprisoned or fined. 

But this is a moment of crisis, and he has to make a decision.  He knows his prospects are limited because he’s too old to dig, and too proud to beg.  So what does he do?  Does he hide in shame or does he take this opportunity to turn his life around?  He decides to do the latter.

This steward knows he has a little time before others hear about his sacking.  So he calls in the master’s debtors and he offers to reduce their debts.  He appears to do this by deleting from each contract the commission he would have earned for himself. 

He’s taking a loss, but he’s also taking care of his future by making the most of what little he has.  The debtors are delighted and the landowner’s reputation is enhanced.[i]  Everyone benefits.

Like all parables, this one’s meant to surprise us and to make us think.

Now, why is Jesus praising the steward? He’s not praising him for his dishonesty.  Rather, he’s praising him for solving his problem in a way that benefits everyone.  He’s put aside his greed and he’s chosen to use what he has to help others, as well as himself. And is it wrong that he himself might benefit? No, not at all. Jesus promised us that whenever we give, we’ll receive even more in return (Mk.4:8).

Bishop Robert Barron says that Jesus admires this man for three reasons, and each is of great spiritual importance.  Firstly, the steward finds himself in serious trouble, but he’s not complacent about it.  He knows he has to make a choice.  Secondly, he makes an honest assessment of his situation, and thirdly, he acts decisively.  He decides to make amends, by doing something that benefits all the stakeholders, including himself.

Bishop Barron says we need to do the same.  He says that we all live in a time of crisis, and it’s time to wake up.  We must stop deceiving ourselves, saying that everything’s OK when really we’re being far too complacent. 

It was Karl Barth who said that the greatest of the deadly sins is sloth, where people simply don’t care about their spiritual life.^[ii]  St Thomas Aquinas described sloth as ‘sluggishness of the mind’ which is evil because it stops a person from doing good deeds (Heb.6:12).

Many people today say they love Jesus and call themselves Christian, but do little or nothing about it.  At the same time, they live very secular, self-indulgent lives.  Are they serving two masters?  Are they trying to embrace two competing goals?  Jesus says you cannot be the slave of both God and mammon (Mt.6:24).

At this time of crisis, it’s time to wake up, to make a clear decision: are we with Jesus or against him (Mt.12:30)?  There’s no room for complacency; the stakes are too high.

Every crisis gives us an opportunity to turn ourselves into something better than we were before. Has the time come for you to revisit your priorities?

What changes will you make?

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[i] John J Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus. Liturgical Press, Collegeville.1997:139-141.

[ii] https://wordonfire.podbean.com/e/the-unjust-steward-1466014215/

On Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son

(Ex.32:7-11,13-14; 1Tim.1:12-17; Lk.15:1-32)

Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Return of the Prodigal Son has been called one of the greatest paintings of all time.[i]  I saw it last year at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.  It’s much bigger than I expected, at 262 x 205 cm (8.5’ x 7’).  Rembrandt painted it shortly before he died, penniless, in 1669.

This painting gives us a snapshot of the action in Jesus’ famous parable, from Luke’s Gospel today.  But it also depicts some of Rembrandt’s own story.

Look closely.  There are six people in front of a dark archway, but we can only clearly see three.  On the left, the elderly father is embracing his younger son who has just returned home, feeling deeply ashamed.  He has squandered his inheritance on a life of debauchery and now he’s desperate.  His clothes are filthy and torn.  His shoes are ruined.  Like a convict, his head has been shaved.  His eyes are swollen and his skin looks sickly.  He has a rope for a belt and a dagger for protection from the outside world. He’s kneeling and begging his father for forgiveness.  He wants to come home.

There’s a warm glow about the father.  He looks wise and gentle.  His left eye is blind and his right is fixed on his son.  His red robe symbolises the pain of martyrdom, the fire of the Holy Spirit and the blood he shares with his two sons. 

The father, of course, represents our loving God.  He’s delighted to have his son back. We can see the love, mercy and forgiveness flowing down from his bowed shoulders into his hands as he caresses and blesses the boy.  One hand is soft and feminine, the other is broad and masculine.  These healing hands remind us that God is both our mother and our father, and that God is always so much more than we can ever imagine him to be.

Emerging from the gloom on the right is the elder son, dripping with envy.[ii]  We can see this in his rigid back, his lowered eyes, his wringing hands and his distance from his brother.  He has served his father well – he’s never once disobeyed him. Yet, now this sinner, this brother of his, is being rewarded for doing just the opposite.  

The other three people in the darkness are unknown.  One might be the mother; the others could be servants.  But Rembrandt often used light to emphasise the presence of goodness and love and the power of God’s divine mercy (Jn.1:5; Jn.12:46). He also used shadow to indicate the presence of sin (Jn.3:19-20; Rom.13:12).

We can see this in the elder son’s hands. One is dark, the other is light. He’s clearly struggling with the two sides of his nature.

Now, this isn’t Rembrandt’s only painting of the Prodigal Son.  Over a period of thirty years he etched, sketched and painted many different scenes from this parable.  

In an earlier painting, The Prodigal Son in the Tavern [iii] (c.1637), Rembrandt portrayed himself as the prodigal son.  It shows him carousing with his wealthy wife Saskia, drinking from a huge wine goblet and wearing extravagant clothes. The peacock on the left symbolises vanity and opulence.  

Rembrandt revelled in Saskia’s money, expecting it to last forever.  But Saskia died in 1642, aged only 32, and three children died as well. Then he took on a mistress, but Dutch society disapproved and he found himself shunned, unemployed and, in time, destitute.

To be prodigal is to be recklessly wasteful and extravagant.  Rembrandt saw that in himself.  His tragic life had left him broken and desperately needing mercy and forgiveness.  That’s why he painted The Return of the Prodigal Son.  He painted this masterpiece while suffering the agony of the death of his last beloved son, Titus. ^[iv]  It was an autobiographical statement.

But it’s also a word of caution for the rest of us, because Rembrandt’s situation isn’t so unusual today. Too many people continue to revel in self-love, self-indulgence and self-righteous pride.

Rembrandt saw himself in all three characters of this parable.   He was the younger son, ruined by self-indulgence.  And he was the elder son, guilty of resentful pride.  But he also knew that his biggest challenge was to become like the father.  Having suffered so much in the darkness, he understood the importance of having someone to turn to.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us to ‘be compassionate just as your father is compassionate’ (Lk.6:36).  Henri Nouwen says that this is the core message of the Bible.  In his book The Return of the Prodigal Son, he explains how much he has learnt from Rembrandt’s tragic experience and he declares, ‘I now see that the hands that forgive, console, heal and offer a festive meal must become my own.’ ^[v]

This is our challenge, too. 

So, where are you in this picture?  Are you the younger son?  Are you the elder son? 

Or are you now the wise and compassionate parent, offering unconditional love and acceptance to those who suffer?

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[i] http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/return-of-the-prodigal-son.htm

[ii] Madeleine Stebbins, Looking at a Masterpiece. Emmaus Road: Steubenville OH. 2017:18-21.

[iii] This painting is also known as The Prodigal Son in the Brothel, as The Happy Couple, and as Rembrandt and Saskia in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

[iv] Stefano Zuffi, Gospel Figures in Art. Getty Publications, Los Angeles. 2003:225.

[v] Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. Image Books, N.Y. 1992:126.

On our Deepest Longings

(Wis.9:13-18; Phlm.9-10, 12-17; Lk.14:25-33)

In his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton recalls that he’d just converted to Christianity and was walking through Greenwich Village with the poet Robert Lax. Lax asked him, ‘What do you want to be, anyway?’

Merton hadn’t much thought about it.  He replied, ‘I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.’  But Lax wouldn’t accept that.  He said, ‘What you should say is that I want to be a saint’. 

‘How do you expect me to be a saint?’ asked Merton.

‘By wanting to,’ Lax replied.  ‘All that’s necessary to be a saint is to want to be one.  Don’t you believe that God will make you what he created you be, if you’ll let him do it?  All you have to do is desire it.’ [i]

Napoleon Hill said something similar in his book Think and Grow Rich (1937).  He said that the starting point for all achievement is desire.  Keep this constantly in mind, he said, because weak desire brings weak results. But he wasn’t just talking about money; he was talking about living a rich, fulfilling life.

It can be hard to understand our own desires, because there’s often so much noise, pressure and control around us.  It can be hard to read our own hearts.  This is where we need to find time for silence and prayer (Mt.6:6).

And desire itself comes in many different forms, from simple wishes through to sudden impulses and our deepest longings.  A wish is a desire that’s unlikely to happen, and an impulse is something we haven’t much thought about.  But a longing is a strong and continuing desire, especially for something that’s hard to achieve.

Peter van Breemen SJ says that if we could all realise our most authentic longings, then the Kingdom of God would already be here.  He says the will of God isn’t something strange and terrible that gets laid down on top of us and to which we must blindly bow.  On the contrary, it corresponds to our true deepest being.

‘Just as … God is the deepest foundation of our nature … so in the realm of the will, God’s will is identical to our own deepest personal will (Jn.15:8).  God wants to see the unfolding and true fulfilment of our person – much more than we ourselves want to …  (His) will for us to live is stronger and more authentic than our own.’ ^[ii] That’s why Jesus says, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (Jn.10:10).

So desire is where sainthood starts. But as St. Philip Neri once said, ‘One should not wish to become a saint in four days, but step by step’.  

Today’s Gospel is useful here, for Jesus outlines some of these steps.  He says, ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’.

Now, Jesus isn’t encouraging us to actually hate our family, because the 4^th Commandment [iii] tells us to ‘honour thy mother and father’.  Jesus’ language, Aramaic, didn’t have a word for ‘prefer’.  In Aramaic, if you preferred one thing over another, you’d say you ‘loved’ one thing, but ‘hated’ the other.  But it doesn’t mean ‘hate’ as we use the word today. [iv]

So, what Jesus is saying is to get our priorities straight.  Put Jesus first.  Be prepared to leave people and things behind when he calls us, because they can distract us.  They can stop us doing what we should be doing. 

Similarly, Jesus tells us to hate our own lives (Lk.14:26).  In other words, be prepared to resist our own human failings, because pride, laziness, selfishness and fear can stop us doing what we should be doing.

Jesus then talks about a man building a tower, and a king going to war.  The point he’s making is that before doing anything significant, we must first think carefully and then make a decision.

He’s talking about our faith.  If we’re serious about being Christians, then we need to reflect on it and make a decision.  Our Christianity isn’t just a label; it’s a way of life.  It’s a relationship with Jesus, and we must put him first.  That’s why Jesus says ‘you cannot be my disciple unless you give up all your possessions’ (Lk.14:33). 

The French novelist Marcel Proust wrote that desire makes everything blossom, but possession makes everything wither and fade. 

This is great wisdom.  If we want to achieve our deepest longings, we must be prepared to let things go.  Mother Teresa left her family.  St Therese of Lisieux gave up a comfortable life.  St Katherine Drexel gave up a huge inheritance.

Jesus Christ sacrificed his life.

What are you prepared to let go?

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[i] Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain. Harcourt, Orlando, 1998:262-263.

[ii] Peter van Breemen, The God of our Deepest Longings.  Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN. 2009:11.

[iii] It’s the 4^th Commandment in the Augustinian system, but the 5^th in the Philonic (Protestant) system of counting.

[iv] Brendan Byrne, The Hospitality of God. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 2000:125.

On Living Upside Down

(Sir.3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Heb.12:18-19, 22-24a; 11-13; Lk.13:1, 7-14)

I once commented to a friend that it’s a radical thing to live as a Christian today, but she just laughed.  ‘That can’t be,’ she replied, ‘Christians are conservative!’  So I had to explain.

It’s true that many Christians do live quiet, unassuming lives, but it needs to be said:  to live as Jesus wants us to live is to seriously challenge the status quo.  

Through his life, his words and his death and resurrection, Jesus deeply challenges the way our world thinks.  He doesn’t try to foment popular rebellion, because he’s apolitical.  But he does emphasise the kingdom of God over the obsessions of man, and he does espouse moral values that confront many people.  He speaks against hypocrisy (Mt.7:1-5) and adultery (Mt.5:28), and he tells us to love our neighbour, even when they hate us (Mt.5:43-44).

He tells us to turn the other cheek (Mt.5:39) and not to worry because God will provide (Jn.15:7).  He tells the rich young man to give everything to the poor and to come follow him (Mk.10:17-27).  And he says it’s not the rich, the powerful and the famous who are the greatest, but the least among us (Lk.9:48).

These ideas are counter-cultural.  Indeed, they’re revolutionary!

In today’s Gospel, a leading Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner.  Why?  So he can keep a close eye on Jesus; he wants to witness him making mistakes.  But Jesus isn’t afraid.  He wants everyone to discover the love and mercy of God – even the rich and the powerful.

Now, these Pharisees have strict rules about what people can and can’t do; they have a strong sense of honour and shame.  They’re always seeking public honour and they work hard to avoid shame. To them, pride is everything.

So it’s not surprising that when the banquet starts, Jesus notices the guests scrambling for the best seats at the table, close to the most important people. 

Jesus isn’t particularly interested in the meal; he’s more interested in the guests, so he says to them that when you grab a seat that’s not yours you risk being embarrassed if the host asks you to move.  It’s better, he says, to wait until you’re asked to sit down, because then you might be offered a good spot. 

The Pharisees feel offended, but Jesus goes on to say something more: ‘Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted’. 

He said something similar in last week’s Gospel: ‘There are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last’ (Lk.13:30).

This isn’t the way the Pharisees thought back then, and it’s not the way people tend to think today.  Most people want to be at the top of the ladder, not the bottom.  They don’t like putting themselves last, either for God or for their neighbour.

In his book The Selfless Way of Christ, Henri Nouwen says that our lives in our highly competitive society are characterised by a universal drive for upward mobility.  Our whole way of life is structured around climbing the ladder of success and making it to the top.  Our very sense of vitality, he says, depends on being part of this upward pull and on the joy we get from the rewards on the way up. [i]

Jesus, however, sees things very differently. He says it’s better to be downwardly mobile.  That’s why he came as a baby in a manger rather than as a king in a castle.  That’s why he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, rather than on a war-horse.  And that’s why he spent time helping the poor, the sick and the marginalised, rather than partying with the Pharisees  

Something that makes saints special is the way they see the world from God’s point of view.  They see it the way it’s supposed to be: upside down, with the poor at the top and the rich and the powerful at the bottom.  This upside down is actually the right way up.

That’s why St Francis of Assisi gave up his father’s wealth and lived a life of poverty and service.  800 years later he’s still doing good work.

That’s why Mother Teresa refused to accept a huge dinner to celebrate her winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.  Instead, she asked the organisers to give her the $10,000 to feed the poor in India.  They did.

When the Apostle Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica to teach the people about Jesus, the locals said, ‘These men are turning the world upside down’ (Acts 17:6).

That’s what Jesus is asking us to do.

He wants us to turn 180° and change the way we live. 

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[i] Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY. 2007:23.

On the Narrow Door

(Isa.66:18-21; Heb.12:5-7; 11-13; Lk.13:22-30)

In Luke’s Gospel today, someone asks Jesus, ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He wants to know how many people will get to heaven.  But Jesus doesn’t say. 

Why, then, do Jehovah’s Witnesses insist that only 144,000 will be saved?

This number comes from the Book of Revelation which says that 12,000 people will be saved from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.  But it’s a mistake to take these numbers literally, for the very next verse describes ‘a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language…’ (Rev.7:4-9).

The actual number therefore isn’t important, and Jesus doesn’t yet know, anyway.  What is important, however, is how to get to heaven, and that’s how Jesus responds.  He says we must try our best to enter through the narrow door, because one day it will be closed and then it will be too late.

Now, doorways are mentioned more than 270 times in the Bible, so which one is he talking about?  Jesus tells us in John 10:9: ‘I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he’ll be saved’.  He says something similar in John 14:6: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no-one comes to the Father except through me’. 

So Jesus is the narrow doorway that leads to heaven, but what does that mean for us? 

Let’s consider the ancient Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built on the spot where Jesus was born.  Originally, its front door was huge, but after robbers invaded on horseback they walled it up. Now the front door is small – only 120cm high and 60cm wide (4ft x 2ft).  Today it’s called the Door of Humility and it gives us a sense of Jesus’ narrow door. 

Small children can easily walk through it, but if you’re any taller you have to leave your pride and possessions outside and bend down to enter.  You also can’t just wander in casually; you have to focus on entering that doorway.

As well, you can’t sneak in with a group.  The Israelites used to think that because they descended from Abraham, they all had the right to enter heaven together and some could even get in unnoticed.  But that’s impossible if the doorway is narrow (Lk.3:7-8; 13:26-27). 

Only one person can enter at a time.  

Many people today avoid Jesus’ narrow door, and excuse themselves by saying, ‘I don’t need it.  I’m a good person, I don’t harm anyone.  I’ll be OK’. 

But it’s not enough just to be ‘nice’.  At the end of his Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes the point that the wide gate and the easy road lead to destruction, but only the narrow gate and the hard road actually lead to life (Mt.7:13-14).

At the canonisation of Edith Stein in 1998, Pope St John Paul II said, ‘This woman had to face the challenges of… a radically changing century (and) her experience is an example to us. The modern world boasts of the enticing door which says: everything is permitted.  (But) it ignores the narrow gate of discernment and renunciation… Your life is not an endless series of open doors!  Listen to your heart!  Don’t stay on the surface, but go to the heart of things!  And when the time is right, have the courage to decide!  The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in his good hands.’ [i]

In today’s first reading, the Prophet Isaiah tells us that the Lord comes to save everyone, if possible.  And our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that we’re all children of God, and the only way to achieve real happiness and fulfillment in life is to live as his sons and daughters by choosing the narrow door that leads to life.

In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the characters squeeze through a narrow wardrobe to enter the magical kingdom of Narnia. 

Jesus’ narrow doorway is similar.  It might seem squeezy at the start, with its focus on unconditional love and forgiveness and worship, but it opens us up to a beautiful life of peace, love and joy (Ps.18:19). 

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

C.S. Lewis once said that if you haven’t chosen the kingdom of God, it will make no difference in the end what you’ve chosen instead, for what does it matter to a man who’s dying in the desert by which path he misses the only well? [ii]

So, in the end will only a few be saved? 

The answer is no.  Many will be saved.  But sadly, many who thought they would be saved won’t be.

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[i] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_11101998_stein.html

[ii] http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/Called_to_Actively_Serve_in_the_Resistance

On Prisoner 16670

[Jer.38:4-6; 8-10; Heb.12:1-4; 8-19; Lk.12:49-53]

What is the opposite of love?   Most people would say it’s hate, but Pope Francis says that many people aren’t aware of ‘a conscious hate’.  So, the more common opposite of love is actually indifference. [i]

This is what Elie Wiesel fought against all his life.  Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) was a Romanian author and philosopher who survived the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and became the world’s leading spokesman on the Holocaust.

In a speech called The Perils of Indifference (1999) he said, ‘In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders.  During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and the death camps… we felt abandoned, forgotten.  All of us did.’

He referred to the many failures that cast such a dark shadow over humanity in the 20^th Century: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless assassinations of Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King…, bloodbaths in Cambodia and Rwanda, the inhumanity of the gulag, the tragedy of Hiroshima and the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka.  All this violence was marked by so much indifference.

‘To be indifferent to that suffering,’ he said, ‘is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony.  One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice.’

‘But indifference is never creative.  Even hatred at times may elicit a response, but indifference elicits no response.  Indifference is not a beginning; it’s an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor – never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees – not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.’

‘Indifference,’ Weisel says, ‘Is not only a sin, it’s a punishment.’ [ii]

Have you ever suffered from the indifference of others?  Sometimes, our deepest wounds come not from what people do to us, but from what they don’t do when we most need them.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says he’s come to spread fire and to cause division. These words disturb some people, because they expect Jesus to always be a peacemaker (Mt.5:9; Lk.1:79; Jn.14:27). 

But as Elie Wiesel says, the opposite of peace isn’t conflict.  It’s indifference, and that’s what Jesus is talking about today.

The fire Jesus wants to spread is the fire of the Holy Spirit (Ex.3:2, Acts 2:2-4).  It’s the fire of divine love.  It’s burning inside Jesus and he wants to pour it into our hearts.  This fire is the very opposite of indifference. 

When the fire of God’s love fills our hearts, things are never quite the same again.  Our lives are transformed; we start seeing things differently and we act differently.  But our secular world dislikes this and that’s when division occurs.

It happens when those who seek the truth turn to Christ, and those who choose the darkness turn away (Jn.3:20-21).  Division is the natural result of Jesus’ work, and sometimes it even happens in our own families.

In 1941 when a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz, the commandant announced that ten men would die.  He enjoyed selecting them.  As the ten were marched to their deaths, prisoner Number 16670 dared to step forward.  ‘I’d like to take that man’s place,’ he said.  ‘He has a wife and children.’

‘Who are you?’ asked the commandant.

‘A priest,’ he replied.  A stunned silence followed. 

The commandant ordered Fr Kolbe to join the other nine.  In a darkened cell they spent two weeks, naked, starving and thirsty.  But there was no screaming.  The prisoners sang and they prayed.  

By the eve of the Assumption, only four were still alive.  And as Fr Kolbe prayed quietly in a corner, a jailer gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid.

He was canonized as St Maximilian Kolbe in 1982.

In 2013 Pope Francis warned of a growing culture that makes us think only of ourselves. ‘We’ve fallen into globalized indifference,’ he said. ‘We’ve become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business.’ [iii]

Someone once said that love will find a way, but indifference will always find an excuse.

What about you?  What do you think is the opposite of love?

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[i] https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/mass-casa-santa-marta/2019-01/pope-francis-mass-indifference-opposed-to-love.html

[ii] https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html

[iii] http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130708_omelia-lampedusa.html

On Filleted Fish

(Wis.18:6-9; Heb.11:1-2; 8-19; Lk.12:32-48)

In 1907, Robert Baden-Powell used his initials BP to create the motto Be Prepared for the Scouting movement.   He thought that scouts (and everyone else), should always be ready to meet any duty and any challenge.

This is good advice, but it came too late for Captain Sir John Franklin.  In 1845 he led a British Arctic expedition to Canada’s Northwest Passage.  He set off with two ships and 138 men on a dangerous journey expected to last for 2 to 3 years.

And how did Franklin prepare for it?  He packed 12-days’ worth of coal, 1,200 books, a hand-organ, lots of fine china, cut-glass wine goblets and sterling silver cutlery.  And he and his officers were clothed in fine blue cloth uniforms.  They must have been horrified when they discovered that they were totally unprepared for the deadly ice ahead.  They all perished. [i]

What about you?  Have you ever been caught unprepared?

In last week’s gospel, the Rich Man was so busy enjoying his treasure that he found himself completely unprepared for his sudden death.

This is what Jesus warns us about in today’s gospel.  He says, ‘You, too, must stand ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’

Now, we know that Jesus will return one day.  He has said so himself, and it’s recorded in John 14, Acts 1, Luke 21, Matthew 24 and many other places.  We affirm this belief whenever we recite the Creed and whenever we proclaim the mystery of our faith, ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again’.

So, here’s the question: are we ready to meet Jesus face to face?  Are we ready to meet him at the end of our lives and at the end of all time?  And are we ready to receive Jesus in the many other ways he comes to us – through our prayer and reflection, in the Eucharist, in the faces of the people we meet, and in those sacred mystical moments when Jesus actually touches our souls?

If we’re not ready, then it’s time to do something about it. 

St Paul says that if we live according to the Spirit, then we’ll always be ready to receive Christ into our lives (Rom.8:1-14).  But what does it mean ‘to live according to the Spirit’?  

It means opening our hearts, our minds and our lives to our loving God. 

It means letting go of our pride, our selfishness and our worldly obsessions.  (For if we’re too full of ourselves, there’s no room for anything else.) 

It means getting closer to God through prayer and spiritual reading, and allowing him to change us from within (Jas.4:8). 

It means discovering the spiritual gifts he’s given each of us (1Cor.12:4,7).

And it means listening for God’s quiet voice in our lives, as he tells us what he’d like us to do with our spiritual gifts (1Kgs.19:11-12).

When we live in the presence of God and when we actively use the gifts he’s given us, then we’re always ready to receive Jesus.

Sadly, many people can’t be bothered.  They’d much rather pursue leisure and pleasure and every other distraction.  But such people eventually lose their instincts for anything else, and like the Rich Man in last week’s parable, the time comes when it’s just too late.

Fr Greg Jordan describes such people as ‘filleted’.  Just like fish, they’ve lost their backbones and every other bone in their body.  Bones give our bodies strength, structure and protection, and when we’re filleted we’re weak and we’re vulnerable.

In the same way, Jordan says our personalities have metaphorical backbones.  When we’re filleted, the backbones of strength of character, commitment and motivation are taken from us. [ii] 

Does that describe you? Have you been filleted?

In our secular society, there’s a strong current that’s carrying people further and further away from Jesus Christ, and many people have stopped resisting.  They’ve chosen to simply go with the flow, and they’re not thinking about where this current is taking them. 

We see this in the legislation that’s currently before the New South Wales Parliament. Our politicians are trying to extend legalised abortion to include babies all the way up to birth. It’s utterly disgraceful, but it’s not just happening here – it’s happening in many other parts of the U.S., in New Zealand and elsewhere, too.

They call it ‘reproductive health’, but it’s actually infanticide. It’s state-sanctioned murder, and yet another manifestation of the culture of death that’s pervading our society.

Loads of people will campaign loudly to save the whales, but they won’t lift a finger to save vulnerable human beings.

As W.C. Fields once said, it’s easy for a dead fish to float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.  And to swim against the current today you really need backbone, strength and commitment.

Jesus is coming.  Benjamin Franklin used to say that if you fail to prepare, then you’re preparing to fail.  Are you ready to meet Jesus?

If not, it’s time to prepare.

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[i] Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk. HarperCollins, NY. 2013:29-64.

[ii] Patrick Richards, The Rosewood Table. St Pauls Publications, Strathfield. 2017:242.

On the Rich Fool

(Ecc.1:2; 2:21-23; Col.3:1-5, 9-11; Lk.12:13-21)

Years ago I knew a man who looked so poor that everyone felt sorry for him.  But when he died we discovered that he was actually fabulously rich; indeed, he was the largest private shareholder in a major Australian bank. But he wouldn’t spend a cent.  Why?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns a crowd of followers about the dangers of greed.  A man calls out to him, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance’. In those days, Jewish law said that on a father’s death, the elder son should receive 2/3 of any inheritance, and the younger son 1/3.  So it was probably the younger son calling out, but in any case he seems more interested in money than his father or his brotherly relationship.

Jesus replies by telling the story of a rich man who’d had a great harvest and decided to build bigger barns to hold his new treasure.  And he planned to spend it on a life of leisure and pleasure.  

Now, many people today would admire this man; they’d envy his success.  Yet Jesus calls him a fool.  Why?  Here are three reasons:

Firstly, he thought these riches were his.  But God doesn’t bless us with riches so that we can be selfish.  The truth is that everything comes from God, and God wants us to use what we have wisely, to benefit others as well as our families and ourselves.

Secondly, that man’s barns were full, but his heart was empty.  The only thing he cared about was money and the pleasure it gave him.

And finally, he forgot about time.  He died soon afterwards and had nothing to show for his life before God.

When we think about it, this Parable of the Rich Fool isn’t about money at all.  It’s about our values and how we live our lives.  Having money and worldly comforts isn’t wrong, but what is wrong is being self-centred about them, and not using them for the greater good.

In his book ‘The Gospel of the Heart’ (2005) Flor McCarthy reminds us that Jesus wants us to be rich in the sight of God, instead of storing up treasure for ourselves.  He says that what makes us rich before God is not what we own, but what we are. 

And how do we measure what we are?  ‘By looking at the heart’, he says, for ‘We are what the heart is’.  

Deep down, we all recognise the beauty and wonder of a noble and generous heart.  But sadly it’s not something our world encourages.

In 1945 John Steinbeck wrote a book called Cannery Row, set in a Californian fishing town.  He wrote, ‘It has always been strange to me, but the things we most admire in people – kindness, generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling – are associated with failure in our system.  And those traits we detest – sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest – are the traits of success.  And while (people) admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.’

Our society encourages us to do the wrong thing.  It urges us to be greedy and selfish.  It thinks that the more we have the happier we’ll be.  But we know that’s not true, for great wealth often comes with a great sense of emptiness.  And we know that whatever we have can never last. 

Many people today turn to things like yoga, self-help gurus and ‘feel-good’ seminars to fill that void, while others seek distractions like entertainment, alcohol and drugs.

But we should ask ourselves, ‘How does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?’ (Mt.16:26).

When we die, our wealth, our honours and our fame are meaningless.  What we are, however, lasts forever.  The only riches worth accumulating are the riches of the heart.  These are the only things that truly bring satisfaction, and the only things we take to the next life. 

Let me close with a story.  A wealthy English nobleman once gave his jester a wand.  He said, ‘Keep this wand until you find a greater fool than yourself’.  The jester laughed and accepted the wand, and he used it on festive occasions.

One day, the nobleman lay dying.  He called his jester to his bedside and said, ‘I’m going on a long journey’. ‘Where to?’ asked the jester.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. 

‘What preparations have you made for the trip?’ the jester asked.  The nobleman shrugged, ‘None at all’. 

‘Then’, the jester said, ‘take this’.  And he gave the wand back to him.

‘It belongs to you.  You’re a greater fool than I am’. [i]

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[i] Gerard Fuller, ‘Stories for all Seasons’. Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic CT, 1997:123.