Deacon Peter

On the Paschal Mystery

[Jer.31:31-34; Heb.5:7-9; Jn.12:20-33]

In 1963, when he was only 21, Stephen Hawking learnt that he had Lou Gehrig’s disease. The nerves controlling his muscles were dying and his doctors gave him just over two years to live. He was shattered.

He thought his life was over, but he was wrong. He became a professor of physics and mathematics and he wrote 15 books.  He died 3 years ago, aged 76.

Hawking said that before his diagnosis he wasn’t much of a student; he’d been bored with life. But when he learnt that his life would be cut short, he worked hard to complete his research into black holes. [i]

Stephen Hawking’s disease gave him new life. It helped him become another Albert Einstein.

Ron Rolheiser tells us that there are two kinds of death.  There’s terminal death, which represents the end of life and the end of all possibilities.

And there’s paschal death, which is real death because something precious dies. It ends one kind of life, but it’s followed by a new, deeper and richer experience of life. [ii]

Paschal death is what Stephen Hawking had experienced as a young man.

Sometimes something in us has to die, before another part of us can flourish. 

That’s the paschal mystery, and Jesus talks about it in today’s Gospel. He’s in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, talking to some Greek pilgrims. He says, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.’

What Jesus is saying is that if we want to live fulfilling lives, then we must be prepared to let go. We need to surrender ourselves to God, and allow him to work through us. Like grains of wheat, we must let our shells break open and expose our interior lives to God’s transforming grace. 

Jesus says that when we die to ourselves and let God work through us, we’ll start producing a bountiful harvest of fruit.

So, what part of us needs to die? It’s anything that keeps us away from God’s creative spirit. Anything, like our pride, our selfishness, our unhealthy obsessions and our fear. These things stop us from growing.

This paschal mystery is the rhythm of life, and it’s all around us. It’s in every sunrise and in every spring. It’s in the green shoots after every bushfire. It’s in the start of every new career, and whenever a broken heart finds new love.

It’s also in the story of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. His tragic life is transformed by a bishop’s surprising gift. And Oskar Schindler, the Nazi who discovers his soul and sacrifices everything he has to save 1,200 Jews. 

But the greatest paschal mystery of all is Jesus Christ himself. He is crucified, dies and is buried, and rises again to new life.

And it’s not only Jesus who is given new life; so are Mary and all the disciples who witness his resurrection, and everyone else who has followed Jesus ever since.

This is the joy of Easter: it’s the start of new life.

Henri Nouwen wrote that we are the people of the resurrection, living our lives with great vision that transforms us as we are living it. [iii]

Every now and then, something in our own lives dies and we’re left feeling shattered. But that’s never the end of the story.

There’s an old Japanese legend of a 15^th century shogun warrior who broke his favourite tea bowl.

He sent it away to be repaired, but it came back full of ugly metal staples. He was disappointed, and asked a craftsman for a more elegant solution. 

This craftsman tried a new technique, mending every crack with a resin mixed with gold. The shogun was delighted. Streaks of gold ran through his tea bowl, telling the story of what had happened and adding to its beauty and value. 

They call this method Kintsugi, which means ‘golden seam’. It reflects the Japanese philosophy that an object’s value is not in its outward beauty, but in its imperfections and the story behind them. Every repaired piece is unique and its history is something to celebrate, not hide.

The art of Kintsugi shows us that there is both beauty and value in brokenness. [iv]

By God’s grace we are healed and restored to new life. Our faith in the resurrection is the gold that not only binds us back together, but gives us even more life, depth and meaning.

That is the paschal mystery.

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[i] Stephen Hawking. My Brief History. Random House, London, 2013.

[ii] Ron Rolheiser OMI. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, Crown Publishing, N.Y., 1999:146.

[iii] Henri Nouwen, Our Second Birth, Crossroad NY, 1998:150.

[iv] https://mymodernmet.com/kintsugi-kintsukuroi/

On Darkness and Light

[2Chron.36:14-16, 19-23; Eph.2:4-10; Jn.3:14-21]

In the ‘olden days’, the good guys in cowboy films often wore white hats, while the baddies wore black hats. [i] Do you remember that?

Film-makers, writers and artists have long used darkness and light as symbols in storytelling. They’ve used light and white to convey positive things like joy, hope and life, and darkness to signal bad things like fear, evil and death.

We can see this in the Lord of the Rings movies, where the good wizard Gandalf usually wears startling white, while his nemesis, the dark lord Sauron, appears in threatening shades of black and grey.

This theme of darkness and light is present all through the Bible, as it records the universal struggle between goodness and evil. Indeed, the Old Testament begins in darkness, when God creates light and calls it good (Gen.1:4). And in the New Testament, Jesus says, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness’ (Jn.8:12).

So many biblical stories mirror this model of light following darkness. Joseph, for example, is locked in a dungeon before Pharaoh calls him to public service (Gen.41:14). Jonah is trapped in the dark belly of a whale before he’s freed to become God’s messenger (Jon.1-4). Daniel is locked in a dingy lions’ den when he discovers God’s power and becomes an evangelist (Dan.6).

Lazarus is dead and buried before Jesus gives him new life (Jn.11:38-44). St Paul is blinded before becoming an apostle (Acts 9:1-19). And of course, Jesus dies and is buried before his dramatic resurrection to new life.

This light-after-darkness pattern is also reflected in today’s readings. In our first reading, the Jewish people have been living in exile in Babylon for many years, until the Persian king Cyrus allows them to return home to resume their lives.

And in today’s Gospel, Nicodemus, a wealthy Pharisee, wants to meet Jesus. However, it’s dangerous to be seen talking to him, so they meet under cover of darkness.

There they discuss faith and divine power, and Jesus explains that his incarnation is a sign of God’s profound love for the world.

He puts it this way: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (Jn.3:16).’ This one sentence summarises the whole Bible.

Nicodemus emerges from that dark place a changed man. He has been touched by the light of Christ and he’s on the road to conversion.

Later in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus reminds the Jewish leaders that Jesus is owed a fair hearing (Jn.7:50-52). And after the crucifixion, Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus’ body for burial and he donates some very expensive aloes and myrrh (Jn.19:38-42).

Darkness is a natural feature of life. It comes in many forms, from the simple absence of light through to the deepest pain and anguish. Some people try to avoid it altogether, while others try to hide it under a mask.

The British writer HG Wells lived in London during WWII. One evening during the Blitz, a friend found him outside shaking with fear. ‘It’s not the bombs,’ Wells said. ‘It’s the dark. I’ve been afraid of darkness all my life.’

And yet, Kahlil Gibran wrote that the only way to reach the dawn is by the path of night. Everything, from creation and pregnancy to new ideas, begins in darkness. It’s just a question of how you react to it.

The Spanish mystic St John of the Cross (1542-91) was imprisoned for nine months in a tiny, dark and windowless cell in Toledo. The heat, the cold and the hunger were unbearable, but he didn’t become bitter. Instead, he used his time writing poems, including his most famous works, The Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul.

In Dark Night of the Soul, St John explains the steps involved in the journey of the soul from its bodily home to union with God. He calls it The Dark Night because of the difficulty we so often have in letting go of our worldly attachments. It’s not easy burning away our faults and imperfections.

But here’s the thing: it’s in losing that we gain (Mt.10:39), and what we gain is so much more than what we lose.

St John writes: ‘Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!’ [ii]

After escaping from prison, St John said he was forever grateful to his captors. He had learnt that darkness is a gift; it’s an invitation to new life.

He had learnt the truth of Jesus’ promise: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness’ (Jn.8:12).

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[i] In the Western movie 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Christian Bale’s good guy wears a white hat, and Russell Crowe’s bad guy wears a black hat.

[ii] https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Dark-Night-of-the-Soul-Saint-John.pdf

On Cleansing the Temple

[Ex.20:1-17; 1Cor.1:22-25; Jn.2:13-25]

Early in John’s Gospel, after his first miracle at the wedding in Cana, Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

This Temple is a sacred place. According to the Hebrew Bible, it’s the place where God lives. It’s where sacrifices are made for the forgiveness of sins, and it’s where huge numbers of pilgrims gather to worship God, especially at Passover time.

But when Jesus gets there, he’s horrified.

The Temple has become a noisy bazaar, focussed more on money than on God. The moneychangers, the animal traders and the high priests are all making great profits out of the people.

Jesus is furious. He cracks a whip and tells them all to get out. ‘Stop making my father’s house a marketplace!’ he says. The tables are turned, the animals panic, and coins and pigeons fly everywhere.

The first of the Ten Commandments, which we heard in our first reading today, says, ‘I am the Lord your God… you shall have no gods except me’. But here in the Temple, they are doing just the opposite. Instead of worshipping God the Father, they’re worshipping the false god of money.

Jesus says this must stop. The Ten Commandments aren’t suggestions, they’re commandments, and his mission is to put everyone back on track.

The Jews ask Jesus to justify what he’s done, but they don’t understand his answer. In essence, what Jesus says is that the Temple’s days are numbered.

For hundreds of years, the Temple had been the place where people came to meet and worship God. But God had long promised that he would come one day to live among his people (Ez.43:7; Zech.2:10). He fulfilled that promise by sending us his son, and after his resurrection, Jesus became the new Temple (Jn.2:21; Mk.14:58).

So, Jesus is now the sacred point of contact between heaven and earth. We no longer need to go to the Temple for worship; we simply go to Jesus, for he is the new sanctuary. The Body of Christ, the Church, is now where God lives, and when we are spiritually united to his body, God lives in us, too (Jn.14:23).  

St Paul said to the Corinthians, ‘Don’t you know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … God’s temple is holy and you are that temple’ (1Cor.3:16-17).

What all this means is that Jesus is actually speaking to us in today’s Gospel.

He’s telling us that we are now his temples, and just like the original Temple, we should be serving God through worship, prayer and sacrifice.

So, here’s the question: do our temples need a good clean out, too?

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal once said that there’s a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and we’re always looking for something to fill it.

This explains why so many people today seem to worship things like money, pleasure and sport. But doing these things is like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Ultimately, nothing will satisfy us except God himself. [i]

That’s why St Augustine wrote, ‘you made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you’. [ii]

We are now in Lent, and Lent is the perfect time for us to clear out our false gods. It’s the perfect time for us to focus instead on loving God and our neighbour, just as Jesus commands us to (Lk.10:25-28).

But temples are also about prayer, and prayer had become impossible in the noisy Jerusalem Temple. That upset Jesus. Has prayer become impossible in us, too? As Psalm 46 says, ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Ps.46:11). We must find some quiet space each day for prayer.

And finally, temples are about sacrifice. When Jesus clears the Temple, he effectively declares that the days of animal sacrifice are over, and that a new kind of sacrifice is coming: personal sacrifice. As Jesus said, ‘If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me’ (Mt.16:24).

If we truly love God and each other, then our first priority cannot be ourselves. This means sacrificing our selfishness, laziness and greed. It means living our lives for others, just as Jesus did.

So, why did Jesus get so angry? It’s because he’d had enough. God loves each of us totally, but unconditional love isn’t the same as unconditional approval.

We are all temples of God. A temple is a very special place, filled with love, prayer and genuine sacrifice.

Does your temple need a good clean out?

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[i] Blaise Pascal. Pensees VII #425. Penguin Books, New York. 1966:75.

[ii] St Augustine. Confessions. Image Books, New York. 1960:43.

On Heaven’s Edge

[Gen.22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Rom.8:31b-34; Mk.9:2-10]

‘Stop the car!’ my wife said, as we drove through the red desert of outback NSW. She got out and mysteriously vanished down a track.

I was quite bewildered then, but I understand now. She had been drawn towards a sacred space where she had an intense spiritual experience. She had found a ‘thin place’, a holy moment where the gap between heaven and earth is so thin that she briefly experienced God’s awesome presence.

This idea of ‘thin places’ comes from the ancient Celtic Christians. They had a saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that gap is much narrower. In Gaelic, they call it caol áit (‘kweel awtch’). [i]

The poet Sharlande Sledge describes it this way:
‘Thin places,’ the Celts call this space,
Both seen and unseen,
Where the door between the world
And the next is cracked open for a moment
And the light is not all on the other side.
God shaped space. Holy. [ii]

A ‘thin place’ is a time, place or event where the veil separating heaven and earth is lifted, and just for a moment a person gets a taste of God himself.

The author Mary DeMuth describes thin places as ‘snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. They are aha moments, beautiful realizations, when the Son of God bursts through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh…’ [iii]

My mother experienced this once, in her lounge room. For only an instant, she said, an invisible veil lifted in front of her and she found herself surrounded by hundreds of shimmering, fluttering angels. It was a moment of mystical wonder at heaven’s edge, and it filled her with immense joy. But it didn’t last.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus goes with three disciples to pray on Mount Tabor. This must have been a ‘thin place’, because Peter, James and John briefly witness Jesus talking with Moses and the prophet Elijah. They’re dazzled as the light of God’s glory shines through Jesus’ face, and his clothes are as bright as the sun. For only a moment they see Jesus as he truly is: The Son of God. 

Peter wants this moment to last forever, and suggests that they stay. But such mystical moments aren’t meant to last. Their purpose is to give us a taste of God’s awesome reality and to encourage us in our journey towards heaven.

So, Jesus and his disciples leave the mountain.

But where might we find these ‘thin places’ today? They can be anywhere. For some people, they’re in sacred places like St Peter’s in Rome, or in Bethlehem, Lourdes or Fatima. However, you really don’t have to travel far to find them.

They can also be on a beach or in a park close to home. And our experiences can be thin places, too, wherever we are. Listening to inspiring music or seeing a remarkable painting can transport us to heaven’s edge. So can sickness, grief and suffering.

I once experienced one of these mystical moments after Mass in our Cathedral, and the feeling was almost electric. But if you think about it, this shouldn’t be so surprising because everything about the Church and the Christian life aims to help us find thin places.

Consider the silence, the prayers, the music, the art, the Holy Eucharist, and of course, the Bible itself. All these things are thin places, inviting us to encounter the awesome mystery of God.

Indeed, the sacraments are thin places. Many people sense that something very special happens at baptisms, weddings and at Mass, for example, but they can’t quite explain it. That’s because God is always present at these times.

No-one can control when or where they experience such mystical encounters; they are always a gift from God. It’s God who decides how he reveals himself to us.

But we can make ourselves more open to them. We can do this by creating more space for peace, quiet and reflection in our lives; by slowing down our lives, and taking more time to pray; and most especially, by opening our hearts to Jesus, because that’s the one place where God most wants to be.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘There’s an indefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I don’t see it. It’s this unseen power that makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it’s so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.’

Lent is the ideal time for us to think about thin places.

Let’s prepare our hearts and minds for a mystical visit from God.

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[i] https://tadhgtalks.me/2020/06/17/experiencing-thin-places-as-the-ancients-did/

[ii] http://www.explorefaith.org/mystery/mysteryThinPlaces.html

[iii] Mary E DeMuth, Thin Places: A Memoir. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI. 2010.

On Our Shadow Side

[Lev.13:1-2, 44-46; 1Cor.10:31-11:1; Mk.1:40-45]

‘Man is not truly one, but truly two,’ Dr Jekyll says in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1868).

Dr Henry Jekyll is the kind and respected scientist who conducts experiments on his shadow side. He tries to control his dark self, ‘Mr Hyde’, but he fails because he underestimates the power of evil. He wreaks havoc on London and in the end, he’s destroyed. [i]

In writing this book, Robert Louis Stevenson understands what psychologists recognise today: that everyone has a shadow side, a dark alter ego they prefer to hide from public view.

We all have personality traits we’d rather not admit to, like our weaknesses, temptations and sins. We tend to hide such things because we perceive them to be bad and we’d rather be seen as good people.

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, was a pioneer in this field. He said that everyone carries a shadow, and the less it’s embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. And if we don’t control this side of ourselves, it will unconsciously influence our thoughts, feelings and actions. [ii]

But how can we control our shadow? It’s by bringing these dark urges out into the light. By acknowledging them and dealing with them honestly (Lk.21:8, 28).

If we don’t do this, we risk our shadow taking control, forcing us into self-destructive behaviours, like Mr Hyde. Perhaps it’s stealing, gambling, drinking, drug-taking, pornography or violent anger. Maybe it’s greed or laziness or resentment. But we know these things are wrong, and we can end up fighting ourselves.

Who wins, though? Is it our conscious personality or our shadow?

Today is the First Sunday of Lent, and every Lent we are given forty days to prepare our hearts and minds for the extraordinary joy of Easter. [iii]

Every year, too, on this day our Gospel reading is about temptation. This year, Mark’s Gospel tells us about Jesus going into the desert for forty days to face his temptations. There, in the bright sunlight, Satan tries to draw Jesus into the dark side (Mt.4:1-11; Lk.4:1-13). However, Jesus holds firm. Helped by the angels, he survives the desert and goes on to preach the good news of God’s kingdom.

But here’s the point: it’s only after facing and rejecting these temptations that Jesus can begin his divine mission.

It’s the same with us. If we are to live our very best lives, we, too, must learn to control these temptations.

That’s why every Lent we are encouraged to follow Jesus into the desert. Not a physical desert, but a spiritual one, a quiet place where we can be alone with Jesus in our hearts. The beauty of the desert is that it’s a place of silence and solitude, where everything slows down, where there are few distractions and where the truth is plain to see.

There in the desert, we’re invited to look honestly at ourselves, to see what needs to change. This is what repentance is all about. It means changing the way we think, feel and do things. It means filling our hearts and minds with the light of Christ, and no longer living in the dark.

To help us achieve this, the Church encourages us to fast, give alms and pray. Each of these actions is a healthy response to our shadow self.

Fasting is giving up something we tend to overdo. It’s bringing some moderation into our lives. It means giving up something that’s clearly not of God, but that too often takes his place in our lives. By cutting back we can redirect our time and energy into something much more positive.

Almsgiving is the way we respond to our self-centeredness.  It means focusing on the needs of others, rather than our own selfish desires. It means admitting that life isn’t all about me, and that other people are actually more important.

And finally, Prayer is acknowledging that God is the centre of everything. It’s recognising that the only way to achieve anything in life is with his help (Jn.15:4-5). Genuine prayer unites us to God, and it opens up our hearts, minds and lives to the amazing power of the Holy Spirit.

In his book Yes…And, the Franciscan theologian Richard Rohr says that most people focus on denying their shadow self – to keep feeling good about themselves – and their ego then enjoys a perpetual holiday.

‘It’s a massive misplacement of spiritual attention,’ he says. ‘You can (have) a totally inflated ego, while all your energy goes into denying and covering up your shadow – which then gets projected everywhere else. What you don’t transform, you will transmit.’ [iv]

All this represents unfinished business for so many of us.

This Lent, get serious. Ask Jesus to help you tackle your shadow self.

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[i] R L Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43/43-h/43-h.htm

[ii] https://academyofideas.com/2015/12/carl-jung-and-the-shadow-the-hidden-power-of-our-dark-side/

[iii] Lent is 46 days if we include the Sundays.

[iv] Richard Rohr, Yes…And. Franciscan Media, Cincinatti OH. 2013:255.

On Our Healing Hands

[Lev.13:1-2, 44-46; 1Cor.10:31-11:1; Mk.1:40-45]

How did Helen Keller (1880-1938) learn to speak, read and write, when she was blind and deaf? How did she become a famous lecturer, author and campaigner for people with disabilities when she could neither see nor hear?

It was through the loving hands of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Anne began teaching Helen by ‘fingerspelling’: tracing words such as ‘d-o-l-l’ onto the palm of her hand, when she was seven.

At first Helen couldn’t connect the letters she felt with the objects she held. Then one day Anne put Helen’s hand under running water. On the palm of her other hand, she spelt ‘w-a-t-e-r’ and Helen understood immediately. Excitedly, she then touched the earth and wanted to know its letter name, too. By nightfall she had learned 30 words. [i]

Our hands, and our sense of touch, play an important part in our lives. Scientists tell us that touch is the first sense we develop in the womb, and that social touching is critical to every child’s development. As well, they say that our fingers are more sensitive than our eyes, and touching often communicates emotions more effectively than voice or facial expressions. [ii]

As the American doctor and poet Spencer Michael Free (1856-1938) wrote:

‘Tis the human touch in this world that counts.
The touch of your hand and mine
Mean far more to the fainting heart,
Than shelter or bread or wine.
For shelter is gone when the night is o’er,
And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of a hand and the sound of a voice
Sing on in the soul always. [iii]

Jesus understood the power and importance of healing hands. He touched the eyes of the blind (Mk.7:32-35), the ears of the deaf (Mk.7:31-37), and the hand of a young girl who had died (Mt.9:25), and he healed them all.

He also touches a leper in Mark’s Gospel today.

In ancient Israel, anyone with leprosy or any other skin complaint was considered highly contagious and ritually unclean. They were banished by law from their family and community. But this leper is desperate. He risks being stoned to death for approaching Jesus. And Jesus breaks the law, too, by touching him.

‘Be cured!’ Jesus says, and the man is cured. He can now return to normal life. He’s so excited that he tells everyone.

But why does Jesus touch him? It’s because he needs more than a physical cure. He needs spiritual healing, too. He needs to feel whole again.

Have you ever noticed that every sacrament involves touching? In Baptism we trace the sign of the cross on the forehead. In Confirmation we do the same, but using the Oil of Chrism. In the Holy Eucharist we touch the body of Christ with our hands and our tongues. In Reconciliation, the priest places his hand on or close to the penitent’s head. In Matrimony, the couple hold hands during their vows and they exchange rings. In the Anointing of the Sick, the head and hands are anointed with oil. And in Holy Orders, the bishop places his hands on the ordinand’s head.

Love, and our Christian faith, are both communicated by touch. Our life of faith today has been literally handed on to us by successive generations over 2,000 years, all the way back to the sacred touch Jesus gave his apostles, and the mystical touch God gave Mary when she bore Jesus.

Every day St Teresa of Calcutta used her hands to express Jesus’ love for the sick and poor. She once said, ‘We have drugs for people with diseases such as leprosy. But these drugs don’t treat the main problem, the disease of being unwanted. That’s what my sisters hope to provide.’

‘An alcoholic in Australia told me,’ she said, ‘that when he is walking along the street, he hears the footsteps of everyone coming towards him or passing him becoming faster. The feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty of all.’

A loving touch, however, can change all that. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, when the wayward son returns home, his father runs to him, throws his arms around him and kisses him (Lk.15:20). They both feel whole again.

In the 14^th Century, St Catherine of Siena tried to help an unhappy woman who had leprosy. The woman abused her constantly, but by gently caring for her with her hands, St Catherine won her over and the woman died in her arms. [iv]

Today, Jesus has no hands but ours, and he wants us to use them to heal hurts and help change lives. We can do this in so many ways; perhaps by writing a nice note, or by simply giving a wave or a hug, or by offering someone a helping hand.

We all have healing hands. How might you use yours to help someone?

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[i] https://www.afb.org/about-afb/history/helen-keller/biography-and-chronology/biography

[ii] https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201303/the-power-touch  

[iii] https://allpoetry.com/poem/8579885-The-Human-Touch-by-Spencer-Michael-Free

[iv] http://catholicism.org/saint-catherine-of-siena.html   

On Digging for Gold

[Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1Cor.9:16-19, 22-23; Mk.1:29-39]

What’s the best-selling book of all time? According to the Guinness Book of Records, it’s the Bible. So far, over 5 billion copies have been sold, and it’s been translated into 349 languages. [i]

As an old hymn says: God has given us a book full of stories, made for his people of old. / It begins with the tale of a garden, and ends with the city of gold. [ii]

But what’s the world’s dustiest book? It’s probably also the Bible, because few people today actually seem to read it. [iii]

When asked to explain why, some people say it’s because it’s out of date, or they’re too busy, or they simply don’t understand the Bible. And yet, lots of people today are searching for meaning and purpose in their lives. They’re looking for answers to the big questions of life.

It’s for this reason that Pope Francis has been encouraging us all to get to know the Holy Scriptures so much better. In 2019 he declared the 3^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time each year to be the Sunday of the Word of God. In Australia, this day clashes with Australia Day, so it has been moved to the first Sunday in February. [iv]

Pope Francis said that the purpose of this celebration is to help us to ‘better appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people’. However, he said, it’s not to be seen as a yearly event, but a year-long event, for we urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the risen Lord himself. [v]

Now, some people are turned off by the size of the Bible. But remember that it’s not one single book; it’s actually a small library of books, and you don’t have to read them all. It includes all kinds of literature, from history, prophecy, poetry, law, wisdom, letters and parables, to the greatest stories of all time. It has inspired saints; it has led to miracles and it has given hope and meaning to countless people across the world.

Some people have also found the language in the Bible difficult to follow, but this was never meant to be. These books were written over a period of about 1,000 years by simple people, like fishermen, tentmakers and shepherds, who wanted to record their personal experience of God’s active involvement in the world. They never intended their language to be mysterious, but cultures do change over time.

Thankfully, there are now many different translations, dictionaries, commentaries and maps available to help us understand what it’s all about.

But Richard Rohr, the Franciscan theologian, gives us a warning.

He says that for all its inspiration, all its marvellous one-liners, and all the lives it has changed, there’s still a problem with the Bible, and that’s because some people misuse it. History shows us that some people have used Scripture to justify things like genocide, slavery and the burning of heretics.

Rohr says that when we put the Bible in the hands of egocentric, unloving or power-hungry people, or those who’ve never learned how to read spiritually inspired literature, it’s almost always a disaster. Only converted people can be trusted with spiritual writings, he says. [vi]

So, to properly understand the Bible, it’s important that we read it with the mind of Christ (Rom.12:2; 1Cor.2:16). We need to use Scripture in the same way that Jesus did, by approaching it prayerfully and seeing everything through his lens of mercy, justice, love and forgiveness.

The Bible was never meant to hurt or harm. It was never meant to help one group exercise power over another. The Scriptures were meant to be refreshing and life-giving, to encourage wholeness and love, and to bring us all closer to God and each other.

With that in mind, let’s close with a story.

The Beta Hunt gold mine in Kambalda, Western Australia, has been working for almost 50 years. After all this time, many thought that it must be nearing the end of its useful life.

But in recent years, miners there have discovered two of the biggest gold specimens in recorded history. One rock contained 65 kg of gold, and another had 60 kg of gold. The combined value was nearly $7 million. [vii]

Despite its age, that mine clearly has plenty of life left in it.

This is just like the word of God. People have been mining it for centuries, but it still hasn’t given up all its treasures.

So, today, let’s all do the same. Let’s dust off our Bibles and start digging for some real spiritual gold.

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[i] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction

[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiU4FtPJLvw

[iii] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/frequency-of-reading-scripture/#religious-tradition

[iv] https://mediablog.catholic.org.au/sunday-of-the-word-of-god-set-for-february/

[v] http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio-20190930_aperuit-illis.html

[vi] Richard Rohr, What Do We Do with the Bible? CAC, Albuquerque, NM. 2018.

[vii] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-10/rich-gold-seam-half-a-kilometre-deep-in-kambalda/10219576

On Breaking the Chains

[Deut.18:15-20; 1Cor.7:32-35; Mk.1:21-28]

Today in Mark’s gospel, Jesus begins his public life in Capernaum by preaching in the synagogue, and it’s clear that he’s engaged in a war against the cosmic forces of evil.

While Jesus is preaching, a man possessed by an ‘unclean spirit’, a demon, calls out, ‘What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come here to destroy us?’ Jesus commands the demon to leave that man’s body. The demon obeys, and the poor distressed man finally gets his life back.

Some people are fascinated by the demonic. C.S. Lewis once wrote that some people make two mistakes when it comes to demons:  they either ignore them, thinking they don’t exist, or they give them too much attention. [i]

What Lewis means is that denying the existence of demons is unwise. It’s like pretending that terrorists don’t exist, and that means you won’t be alert when you need to be.  

But he’s also saying that giving them too much attention is also unwise, because it can distract you from healthier and more important things in life.

Whatever the source, though, there are dark forces lurking about in our lives.  There are forces of evil both inside and outside us that can control our life. They can make us sick and miserable and sometimes they make us behave badly.  We see this in people trapped by things like crime, addictions, guilt, toxic relationships and fear.

Some people think they can fix such situations by themselves. They believe they have the capacity to think themselves into psychological and spiritual freedom. But very often that’s impossible.

Consider, for example, the story of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the Austrian psychoanalyst who researched the subconscious mind.  He tried to develop a method to free people from the dark urges and desires that control their conscious lives. 

Freud believed that we can all think ourselves into good health.  But despite all his knowledge and research, he couldn’t stop himself from smoking cigars and he died of mouth cancer. He simply didn’t have the power to control himself.

That’s so often the case.  Many people want to change their lives; they want to break free from something, and they even know what they need to do. But all too often they’re powerless to do so.  That’s where we need the grace of God (Eph.6:10-18).

The Bible is full of people who found themselves in situations they couldn’t control. Moses, Paul, the Woman at the Well, Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus the tax collector and the Ten Lepers were all trapped by something awful and they needed God’s help to escape.

The Apostle Peter was in an impossible situation when Herod locked him up in Jerusalem. He was chained by the wrist to two guards, he had another two guards at his cell door, and he was destined for trial and execution. But one night as he slept, an angel silently arrived, removed his chains and quietly led him through unlocked gates out into the street (Acts 12:1-17). God had set Peter free to begin again.

In the 1700’s, the life of the slave trader John Newton was a complete mess.  One day as he sailed through a violent storm, he was sure he was going to die.  He cried out, ‘Lord have mercy on us!’ and at that point his life changed.  The storm abated, he went on to become a priest and he encouraged William Wilberforce to campaign against slavery. 

Newton wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.  In the third stanza, he says:

Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; / ‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far, and Grace will lead me home. [ii]

That’s what we need to remember.  We all face dangers, toils and snares in our lives, and too often we’re powerless to overcome them.  It’s grace that has brought us safe this far, and it’s grace that will lead us home.

In one of her Letters, St. Catherine of Siena wrote: ‘It’s necessary that we see and know, in truth, with the light of faith, that God is supreme and eternal Love, and he wants nothing else but our well-being’.[iii]

That’s what Mark is saying in today’s Gospel. He’s telling us that Jesus’ mission is to free people like us from enslavement to sin and evil, in whatever form it might take.  He wants us to live life to the full (Jn.10:10).   

The truth is that none of us has the power to control our own lives. We all need God’s grace to lead us safely home (Heb.4:16).

So, if you want to break the chains that bind you, admit your weakness and ask Jesus for his help.

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[i] Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Harper Collins, London. 1996:ix

[ii] http://www.constitution.org/col/amazing_grace.htm

[iii] St Catherine of Siena. The Letters, Vol. 3, Bologna 1999:206 Ep. 13

On Holy Interruptions

[Jon.3:1-5, 10; 1Cor.7:29-31; Mk.1:14-20]

Some people simply hate interruptions. In the movie Darkest Hour (2017), there’s a scene where Winston Churchill shouts at someone: ‘Will you stop interrupting me while I’m interrupting you!’ [i]

We all get interrupted. The phone rings, a child cries or someone calls out our name, and we’re obliged to stop what we’re doing. It can be frustrating.

One day in 1797, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge fell asleep and dreamt of a new poem, including all the verses. When he woke up, he started writing it down quickly, but there was a knock on the door. An hour later, he returned to his poem, but only vaguely remembered the lines. He did his best, though, [ii] and the result was the poem Kubla Khan. [iii]

The spiritual writer Melannie Svoboda suggests three reasons why we don’t like such intrusions. Firstly, they force us to change what we’re doing, and some people don’t like change. Secondly, they infringe upon our sense of freedom and control, and we don’t like being reminded of what little control we have in our lives. And thirdly, they involve some form of sacrifice, and self-sacrifice isn’t always easy to do. [iv]

But interruptions can also be good things. They can help us become more patient, they teach us to let go, they remind us that life isn’t only about ‘me’, and they can be pleasant when we like the interrupter.

There are many interruptions in Scripture. During the Wedding at Cana, for instance, Mary asks Jesus to get more wine (Jn.2:1-12). And while Jesus is teaching in Capernaum, a sick man is brought in through the roof for healing (Mk.2:1-12).

But Jesus never considers anyone an annoyance or an intrusion. Every encounter with every person is always important to him.

And sometimes Jesus interrupts others. In today’s gospel, he approaches four fishermen while they’re working. This turns out to be a major interruption for them, because they suddenly leave everything behind to follow Jesus. And not only are their lives changed, but as we know, the whole world is changed, too.

These stories remind us that every now and then, when we least expect it, God interrupts what we’re doing. He might put an idea in our head, or he might speak through someone, or something really inconvenient might happen to us.

But the point is that God loves us, and he’s more involved in our lives than we might think. He’s constantly trying to change us and shape us (Jer.29:11; Prov.19:21), and he’s trying to use us to channel his grace into the world (Jer.29:11; Jn.15:5).

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that we must allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, for he’ll be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people who claim our attention. However, we may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks, he says, for it’s a strange fact that Christians often consider their work so important and urgent that they’ll allow nothing to disturb them. They think they’re doing God a service, but actually they’re avoiding God’s ‘crooked yet straight path’. [v]

Henri Nouwen used to complain that his work was constantly being interrupted, until he realised that the interruptions were his work. He said that the unpleasant things, the hard moments and the unexpected setbacks carry more potential than we usually realise. [vi]

So, let’s close with a story.  An elderly monk once lived a solitary life in the hills of Italy. He never left his monastery, and he prayed every day that someday he might see the face of God.

One day, his superior asked him to go into the village for supplies. He resisted, saying that he’d never left the monastery. Yet he went, though he was determined to only get the supplies on the list and then return to seek the face of God.

As he approached the village gates, a blind man said: ‘Pardon the interruption, but can you help me?’

‘Oh no,’ said the monk, ‘ask another’. He then went on his way, purchasing the first item on his list when a hungry boy said: ‘Pardon the interruption, but can you help me?’

‘Oh no,’ said the monk, ‘ask another’.

As he came to the last item on his list, an elderly woman in obvious disarray said: ‘Pardon the interruption, but can you help me?’

‘Oh no,’ said the monk, ‘ask another’. He returned to the monastery and said to his superior: ‘I got the supplies, but I never want to go into the village again.’

‘Why?’ asked the superior.

“Well, every time I tried to do something someone said: ‘Pardon the interruption, but can you help me?’ I’ll never see the face of God that way.” [vii]

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[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da_rGzwkls8

[ii] https://adlapidemessays.com/the-man-from-porlock/

[iii] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan

[iv] https://www.melanniesvobodasnd.org/interruptions-can-be-blessings-in-disguise/

[v] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together. HarperOne, NY, 1954:99. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/518c65fee4b0887d9a39138d/t/5827e7aab3db2b0f3d311bf5/1479010229503/Life+Together_Eng.pdf

[vi] Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing. Thomas Nelson, Nashville. 2001:11

[vii] Frank Freitas, Are We There Yet? Catholic Register Books, Toronto. https://www.catholicregister.org/arewethereyet (Abridged).

On Discerning God’s Quiet Voice

[Sam.3:3-10, 19; 1Cor.6:13-15, 17-20; Jn.1:35-42]

One day in Milan, St Augustine heard a child sing: ‘Take it and read. Take it and read’. He wondered, was this God talking to me? He opened a Bible and his eyes fell upon these words: ‘…put on the Lord Jesus Christ… spend no more thought on nature’s appetites’ (Rom.13:13-14). In an instant, his heart flooded with light; it was a message from God. His life changed and he went on to become a great theologian, bishop and writer. [i]

Last week I explained how God speaks to us in different ways, including through Scripture, art, music and nature. But how can we be sure it’s God’s voice we hear and not something else?

Here are some basic principles we should remember when we’re discerning God’s quiet voice in our lives.

Firstly, God is spirit, so he doesn’t have a voice like ours. However, he’s also omnipotent, which means he can communicate with us in many ways, including through images, ideas, events, other people and even through our own thoughts. We just need to keep our eyes, ears and hearts open for him.

Secondly, God is always speaking to us. He’s always expressing his love for us, encouraging us and inviting us to come closer to him, for he is love itself (1Jn.4:8). So, any still and prayerful time we spend listening for his quiet voice has the potential to be fruitful.

Thirdly, the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the ‘exact representation of God’s nature’ (Heb.1:3). So, if we want to understand how God thinks and what he’s saying to us, then we need to get to know Jesus and his teachings (Jas.4:8). Indeed, the more time we spend with Jesus, the easier it will be to identify his voice (Mt.17:5; Jn.10:27).

Next, God is truth (Jn.1:14) and he’s always consistent (Lk.21:33). So, one good way to check if you’re hearing God’s voice is to see if the message you receive aligns with Scripture and the teachings of the Church. [ii] God will never say anything or ask us to do anything that contradicts his Word (1Jn.4:1).

And finally, St Ignatius of Loyola tells us that God’s voice can be identified by two signs: peace and joy, because God wants us to be happy (Jn.10:10). So, if a message makes you feel anxious, sad or angry, it’s not from God (1Cor.14:33). As St. Francis de Sales once said, ‘No thoughts which cause us disquiet and agitation come from God who is the Prince of Peace. They are, rather, temptations of the enemy, and therefore we must reject them and take no notice of them’.

All through Scripture God calls people to do special things, and every calling is different. Abraham was 75 years old (Gen.22:11-13), but Jeremiah wasn’t even born (Jer.1:5) when God called them. Isaiah was of noble birth (Is.6:8), but Amos was a poor shepherd (Am.7:15). And yet they all became great prophets.

In today’s first reading, Samuel is a boy, and he’s sleeping in the temple at Shiloh. Someone whispers ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ in his ear and he thinks it’s the old priest Eli, but it’s not. It’s God calling. Samuel starts listening and he grows up to become a priest, prophet and judge. 

And in today’s Gospel, John the Baptist points Jesus out to Andrew and his friend, saying ‘Behold the Lamb of God’. They follow Jesus and become his first disciples. But note that God doesn’t speak directly to Andrew. He uses John the Baptist to invite them to follow Jesus. 

God often does that. He often speaks to us through someone else. But are we listening?

Let’s close with this story from Max Lucado:

Once there was a man who dared God to speak. Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God. And I will follow you. Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God. And I will fight. Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God. And I will listen.

And the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea and waited for God to speak.

And God heard the man, so God answered. He sent fire, not for the bush, but for the church. He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin. He stilled the storm, not of the sea, but of the soul.

And God waited for the man to respond. And he waited…and waited.

But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts; bricks, not lives, seas and not souls, he decided that God had done nothing.

Finally, he looked to God and asked, ‘Have you lost your power?’

And God looked at him and said, ‘Have you lost your hearing?’ [iii]

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[i] St Augustine, Confessions. Penguin Books, London, 1961:177-178. http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/SpiritualFormation/Texts/Augustine_Confessions.pdf

[ii] St. Joan of Arc once said, ‘All I know about Christ and His Church is that they’re the same thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter’.

[iii] Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder. W Publishing Group, Nashville, 1995. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849911389/chrispsinspirati