Sacred Heart Catholic Parish, Teddington

Homily

Homily:  Sunday 16 Year C

This is Fr John’s final homily before leaving the Sacred Heart Parish to take up a new appointment.

As I was preparing for this Sunday’s liturgy I began to wonder what I said on the first occasion I preached here and I tried to find the homily I gave.    Unfortunately, while I am very good at hoarding things, I am pretty awful at filing them properly, so I gave up the search.     I do, however, remember one of the central points, and that was my hope that during my time here all of our parishioners would feel a greater sense of responsibility for our parish.     This was not just about, or even about, parishioners taking some of the workload off their priest, it was to do with the very mission of our church, which is to speak the good news of Jesus Christ, both to ourselves and those we come into contact with.

If there is a central point, or two, to the gospel of Luke that we are reading this year, it would be first that the task of every Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, to let Jesus guide our lives, and to share our knowledge of him with others, not to hold it for ourselves or be afraid or ashamed to utter his name outside of the safe confines of the church building.  In other words, if we are to be real Christians, we need to have a missionary spirit, and if we try to have that spirit, God will turn it into something good..

The second central point of Luke’s gospel, I think, concerns hospitality.    In today’s gospel passage we find Jesus receiving hospitality from Martha and Mary.    Invariably in Luke’s gospel we find Jesus either giving or receiving hospitality, and this is no coincidence, I believe, because the first quality of a missionary will be the capacity to give and receive hospitality, not just to and from those we feel comfortable and familiar with, but with the stranger, with the awkward person, with the one who does not fit into my culture.   And a missionary parish will be, by its very nature, an hospitable one.

By a very happy coincidence our Old Testament Reading today is the story I used when we had those sessions on Sunday afternoons around the corner in the Lion pub, to which every parishioner was invited a couple of years ago.    That story was a story about hospitality, about how Abraham gave hospitality to some mysterious guests who arrived at his tent in the noon day sun just as he was settling down for his siesta.    In the sessions we noted how the great Russian painter of Icons, Rublev, saw this event as an image of the three persons of God giving and receiving hospitality to one another, and how we come to Mass to receive the hospitality of Christ, the image of the invisible God.   Hospitality is more than a human phenomenon, it is a pointer to the very nature of God.  And hospitality is at the heart of the missionary spirit too.

Last week we listened to the story of the good Samaritan and discovered that we do not have to be at home to offer hospitality.   The good Samaritan displayed his missionary spirit by his compassion and his active assistance to someone in need, not someone he was bound to by ties of family and friendship, but to one to whom in normal circumstance he might not give the time of day, because the God of hospitality does not recognise the boundaries of race or creed or class.

   In today’s gospel Luke offers us a different lesson about hospitality and the missionary spirit.   Hospitality is not something superficial, going through the motions, like a cocktail party where we keep on the move, circulating in order to see and be seen, or to improve our network or just  to find someone more interesting.   Hospitality involves being still and doing some serious listening and not getting so caught up in the necessary peripherals that clear the ground for hospitality that we end up missing  the point of the exercise.   ‘Martha, you are busy about so many things, when one thing is necessary?.    Was Martha’s frustration with Mary not the fact that Mary was giving her full attention to Jesus, but that Martha had become so caught up in the peripherals that she was no longer capable of stopping, and sitting with the Lord, and she missed that..    In her busyness and relentless activity she had lost something supremely important, which Mary still retained.   Martha was jealous for what she had lost, and the only way she could find to compensate for her loss was to hit out at Mary.

This gospel passage is a reminder to us that our parish hospitality and missionary activity is not just a matter of programmes and events.    It must always be rooted in prayer, in stopping and listening to the Lord.    This is the thing that gives every Christian activity its flavour.

  But the story of Martha and Mary also offers a hint to us would-be missionaries, when the world seems to be against us, that perhaps at times the hostility of the world comes from a certain jealousy, a jealousy that in our relationship with Christ we have discovered and clung to something important that the world has given up, or lost, for the sake of more superficial things.   In our faith and life with Christ we have something very special that the world longs to have, but cannot admit it, so instead the world focuses on our faults and shortcomings.   ‘You are no better than us’, says the world. ‘Leave your prayer, leave your life with Christ.    Don’t waste time with God, spend it more profitably with us and you will be as happy as we are’ (which is not to be very happy at all).    Martha represents the values of the world lurking in the very heart of the Christian community, even wanting to claim divine authority for their point of view and unsettling us.     Next time we think about praying, but don’t, or go through a day without a thought for God, or are tempted not to come to Mass one Sunday, we might  bring to mind  Jesus’ response to Martha, the Martha that is in us all,  ‘Martha, you are busy about so many things, when only one thing matters’.    

Homily

Day for Life

This weekend the Bishops of all the British Isles have asked us to reflect upon the meaning of human life, and in particular human life at its very beginning. The idea of a ‘Day for Life’ was a response on the part of the Bishops to an encyclical written by Pope John Paul in 1995 entitled, ‘The Gospel of Life’. Put simply, the message of the encyclical is that the good news that Jesus brings us is that every human life has value and dignity, and every life is a gift from God, but we have to preach and live out that good news in what the late Pope called ‘a culture of death’. When the Church speaks about human life it is not speaking about life in the abstract, but about real human persons. In previous ‘Days for Life’ the bishops have proposed that we reflect on the life of older people and the terminally ill, the life of the disabled, or the life of the family. This year’s theme, on life at its earliest beginning, was chosen because this year marks the 40th year since the passing of the Abortion Act in this country. In the mind of the late Pope the growth of facilities for terminating the life of the unborn, especially in democratic state health care systems, is a particularly sinister manifestation of the culture of death. There is an early Christian writing by an anonymous author, called ‘The epistle to Diognetus’, where the author asks, ‘what is the difference between Christians and the rest of mankind?’ There is a difference, he says, but it is not a matter of language, nationality or customs. Christians don’t dress or eat or observe a different kind of social life from their neighbours. Yet there are features of their lives that are quite remarkable or surprising. Though they take their full part as citizens, yet in a certain sense they appear to be just passing through. Like other people, they marry and beget children, but they do not expose their infants. They obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. In that assessment of the writer of the letter to Diognetus what makes Christians different, and stand out, is their regard for life and their witness to the sanctity of life, and to the sanctity of particular forms of human life which people in general regard as expendable. They simply do not do what others in the culture take for granted, and throw out their unwanted children, a common practice in the culture of the Roman Empire, although they would be within their rights to do so. The Letter to Diognetus seems to presume a Christian community united in its defence of human life, more so I suspect than the Christian community is on the matter of abortion today. There are many conflicting voices in our society, and some of those voices are particularly potent, especially when they say that it is better to provide a safe abortion in an NHS or private clinic than to consign women to back-street abortionists. Many Christians now echo these voices, as do many who say that the fundamental right is the right to choice and this overrides the right to life. I am not sure, however, that either of these arguments have been proved beyond reasonable doubt, or even beyond the balance of probablilities. One of the things that is often said on the pro-choice side of the argument is that nobody decides to have an abortion lightly, and I respect that. If that is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then it seems to me that there must be a deep reason why even people who decide on an abortion struggle with the decision. It certainly cannot be because they are working on the principle that removing a foetus is the moral equivalent of taking out an appendix. If they were, then abortion would not be a problem demanding a second thought. In the end, I believe, for many it must come down to a decision about whether this is about the taking of an innocent human life, and whether they are prepared to do so lest they have to face something worse. In the end it is not the foetus, or whatever we call it, that is the cause of fear, but the child who will inevitably emerge unless it is stopped. The fact that questions are still raised, 40 years after the passing of the Act, seems to me to indicate a real struggle going on in the consciences of people in this country. 40 years ago, when the Act was passed, it was easier to make out a case that perhaps the foetus wasn’t a human being at all. With the development of ultra-sound scans, this becomes much less of an option. Some time ago I watched a programme that traced the growth of a baby from almost the point of conception, and it was pretty clear that what we were seeing was the growth of a human being, even though it started as barely the size of a pin. As a pastor, I feel I could not possibly encourage someone to take the path of a termination. I must say, however, that I have never, thanks to the grace of God, been in a situation where myself or someone very close to me in my family has been in that position, but I can well imagine the fear and the temptation there can be to take a decision in favour of termination, and I can well understand the strong temptation to take the path of a termination when it is available. To have to face a pregnancy without support can be a lonely, terrifying experience. As a pastor I may not be able to convince someone not to go down that path, but what I can do is to help that person receive the forgiveness of God, and come to some peace, through the sacrament of Reconciliation. So what might I say to a politician if I found myself asked for my opinion? I think I would have to say, ‘Legislating for abortion is the equivalent of saying to the person, ‘You have a problem, we will help you solve your problem by taking the life of your child’. I would prefer to ask the politician to say, ‘You have a problem, and short of taking the life of your child we will do all we can to ensure that your child will not be a problem, and that if you act in favour of life we will support you and help you make your life meaningful and worthwhile. Isn’t that, after all, the least we should expect from a society that calls itself inclusive? Many people, faced with a crisis pregnancy, feel that there is no alternative to a termination. There are alternatives, but they are not well known. As you leave the church today there will be a collection, at the Bishop’s request, partly for an organisation called LIFE. LIFE is a non-denominational charity, but it depends a lot on the support of Catholics Life offers free confidential advice, pregnancy tests and practical help to women in crisis pregnancies. It runs a helpline which takes about 1500 calls a month and encourages callers to visit one of its 80 pregnancy care centres. Many of the women who call have little support, and their partner may have thrown them out. In such circumstances, LIFE can offer accommodation and support. This is the only part of the work for which LIFE gets any government aid. Women who need to can stay on after birth, and LIFE also offers counselling to woman who have gone through abortions. The other organisation helped by today’s collection will be the Linacre Centre. This is a Catholic foundation which helps Catholics and others to explore the Church’s position on bioethical issues. It prepares expert research papers, and submissions to government, has a large library and organises teaching and seminars throughout the country.

Homily for Trinity Sunday 2007

It’s a Tuesday morning, its 7.30 and I’m on my way to the Midlands.   I pull in at the petrol station to fill up for the journey.    I get to the pumps and discover that all the unleaded ones have a label on saying that there is no petrol available.    Not a little irritated I curse under my breath and set off again.

As I speed away I notice that my irritation hasn’t disappeared, yet it doesn’t occur to me to ask, ‘Why was there no petrol?’    Was the problem here at the petrol station, or somewhere along the supply route?    Was the driver of the tanker involved in a crash and brought to hospital?  Nor does it occur to me to think about the people in Iraq who queue sometimes for hours for petrol.     I’m just irritated because there was no petrol here, at this particular time, when I wanted it.   Well I will have to wait until I get to the next place, and whatever the brand, and whatever the price, I will have to fill up, as the tank is getting very low.

The less laid-back among us may well identify with my feelings.   In that scenario I am acting as a typical consumer.      I have grown up in a culture where I expect goods and services to be available as and when, and most of the time I give little thought to the complex processes and managerial miracles, often spanning whole continents, that go into satisfying my needs, as long as the end product is there when I need it.   My needs are very personal, but my expectations of how my needs are satisfied are quite impersonal.

That consumerist way of thinking can very easily pervade all our thinking and reactions when it comes to religion as well.    Today people shop for different religions, looking for the one that fits in with their expectations, preferably something not too organised, as they say, a religion that welcomes them and listens to them and affirms them where they are at.

Many people, on entering our church, may feel themselves to be in a strange country, where what they want is not on offer.   It may feel like a strange country  where people speak a different language which lays claim to a knowledge that is different from the knowledge of the scientific mind.   It is a country where we seem to be encouraged to listen rather than be listened to, at least in our formal public gatherings;  a country where  the leaders may say, ‘If you do such and such a thing, you should think about whether you really belong’, as our two Cardinals did this week’.   Such language jars with the inclusive culture of consumerism, where everyone is equal provided they have enough in their bank account to pay, or a good enough credit rating and  demonstrate their being included by being part of the brand.     Our church is a country where people are encouraged to heed the word of Jesus and follow the narrow road and avoid the motorways with their infinite choice where everything and anything can be bought and sold.   A rather strange country -  Yet membership of this rather eccentric community can be attractive and can have its uses, like a good catholic education for example - a perfect buy for the discerning consumer.   But that is to miss the point.

Rather than thinking of the Church as a different country and myself as a stranger in it, I see myself rather as a stranger in my own country searching for my roots, the roots that tell me who I am and what I am to be..    What I find in this church are fellow strangers on a similar quest, searching together for roots that go down to the very heart of our being, to a place that no created thing can reach, and which has no name like other names - a mystery to which we give the name God..   it is not a mystery I can relate to in an impersonal way.   I can only relate to it as a person, although when we speak of God as three persons we are not talking about a person in the normal sense of the word, because the mystery that is God cannot be reduced to anything or anyone we know already.  What I find in this church is a language to express the quest for the mystery and a community to share the journey.   

But fathoming out how the petrol reaches or does not reach the pump is child’s play compared with fathoming out the mystery that is God.    Indeed I cannot fathom the mystery out, I can only enter into it in faith, I can only enter into communion with it, and that is why, if I try to approach God and the things of God as a consumer, I am bound to be disappointed.    I choose to remain within this rather eccentric community we call the church not because it is cool, or welcoming, or well organised, or its members  more morally upright than other religious organisations, I do not choose the church because it conforms to my expectations or affirms my lifestyle;  I enter it and remain in it because only within it can  I find the Truth, and the truth I find  is a person, Jesus Christ, and only in Jesus Christ do I find the One who can lead me on the journey into this mystery we call God, and know I will not be deceived.   Indeed so rooted is Christ in this ineffable mystery that he himself can be known by the same name we give to the mystery, and we can say that Jesus is God, and that Jesus himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

And it is Jesus who shows me what is at the heart of this relationship that unites Jesus with the mystery; it is love.   Without the revelation of the mystery brought by Jesus I could not know anything meaningful about God.   All I would be left with is my own opinion, for what that would be worth.    I could not have invented this revelation  or constructed it for myself, and all the money in the world could not have bought it, all the work I do could not have earned it, nor could I demand it as a right, or because I deserve it, because it comes to us as a free gift, the knowledge that the gift of love is the deepest and most basic of all human realities.       Moreover I can do more than just know this love, I can share in it, thanks to the Holy Spirit who bridges the gap between Christ and me, and bridges the gap between me and my fellow seekers.   Thanks to the Holy Spirit the seekers can become not just a gathering of seekers, but a community of seekers, united in heart and soul as they search together for the mystery that is given them.

Love given, love received, and love shared.    In the Church we discover that God is a community of love, and we are called to be part of that community.   That is the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Feast we celebrate today.    And our only response can be one of praise.  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.    As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.   

Homily

27 May 2007

Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2.1-11, Psalm 103,

1 Corinthians 12.3-7 and 12-13 (or Romans 8.8-17), John 20.19-23 (or John 14.15-16 and 23-26)

The Holy Spirit is the gift of the risen Jesus and makes us into reconcilers

It is often hard to breathe in our world. Closed doors can prevent the free flow of oxygen, and environmental pollution can pollute our lungs.  There are also barriers of sin and prejudice which can pollute our spiritual and moral lives. We should be able to celebrate the differences between cultures and peoples, but, too often, these differences lead to conflict. When the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples they were behind closed doors, ‘for fear of the Jews’ (By ‘Jews’ John means the Jewish religious authorities opposed to Jesus).

In the Holy Land today a wall separates Palestinians from Jews. Pope John Paul II said that the Holy Land needs bridges and not walls, but fear seems to have triumphed again. In the Holy Land and in neighbouring middle eastern countries the ecumenical charity Living Stones founded by our late friend Father MP works to build such bridges—particularly bridges between the Christians in Britain and those in the places where it all began. The Christians in the Holy Land, and even more perhaps those in Iraq, are afraid. The very survival of these communities is in doubt.  When Peter had finished his sermon on the day of Pentecost the people asked ‘What can we do?’ And we can ask what can we do to help the Christian communities in the Holy Land and in Iraq…and you will not be surprised to hear I can make some suggestions…to help Living Stones in its work: join, come on pilgrimage, give money and sign a tax form; come to memorial lecture and, not least, pray for the LS and for all the peoples and religions of the Middle East. As Paul reminds us, ‘We are all part of ‘the same body’ (1 Corinthians).

Having made an appeal on Pentecost Sunday I cannot leave the message there

—the same fear that puts up barriers in the Holy Land, in Lebanon and Iraq puts up barriers between peoples in all the conflicts and wars that plague our world.

Barriers can also exist in the same workplace, the same family, even among the same church congregation! There is an absence of peace. People are afraid and unable to be reconciled with God and with each other. Fear is the enemy of peace--and Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you” and he breathed the new life of the Spirit upon them, giving them authority to be reconcilers, breaking down barriers. God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the risen Jesus, can change everything.

The Holy Spirit is the gift of the risen Christ.  On the day of Pentecost, the people who heard the preaching of Peter and the apostles came from different places and spoke different tongues but everyone heard the message in their own language. When we think of the risen Jesus breathing on his disciples we are reminded of the story in Genesis where God breathes life into the lungs of the first human being. As he breathes on them Jesus speaks words of peace and ‘peace’ (Shalom/Salem), is something that brings new life and breaks down barriers and walls and makes those who receive it into witnesses for Christ.

The risen Jesus speaks words of peace and reconciliation to our own fearful hearts but he goes on to charge us with a mission to reconcile. At the exchange of the peace in the Eucharist we reach out first to those that are nearest to us in our own community-- to others who have been baptised into the same Spirit. And when we go out share his message of peace with the wider community,  those who accept it will find God's forgiveness and those who refuse it will not: ‘the sins you forgive will be forgiven and the sins you retain will be retained.’  Through the risen Jesus, God gives us his Holy Spirit to unite and to reconcile human beings with God and with each other. And those who hear us will say, ‘We hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.

homily

Feast of the Ascension

When one looks back at some of the most brutal dictatorships of the twentieth century, one of the most common strategies for keeping the dictator in power was the cult of personality.     No public square, no public office and often no private home was complete without a picture of the dictator looking down upon his people.     The leader would ensure that artists and the media always presented them in the most favourable light.    Their decisions would be presented as infallible and dissent of any kind would not be tolerated.     Political correctness was the order of the day;  careless talk was dangerous because one did not know who was listening, suspicion of one’s neighbour and a readiness to denounce them was encouraged  and a culture of dependency by the people on their leader was fostered, so that a myth could be created that people’s salvation depended upon the leader always being in control.   If the ideals fostered by the myth were to slip, then the secret police were there to bring everything back on course.

How different in spirit is the myth behind the feast that we celebrate today.   Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus to heaven.     Whereas the dictator maintained his power and influence by taking steps to ensure that he was always present to the people, Big Brother style, Jesus did precisely the opposite.    He relinquished any personal control over people and departed from the midst of his disciples, not leaving behind any system or institution or means of control that might promote his message or his influence.

In the gospel of John we see Jesus having a long conversation with his disciples on the night before he died.    Much of that conversation was about his impending departure, and it is clear from the conversation just to what extent the disciples felt dependent on Jesus.    They feel like orphans, bereft of a parent, leaderless and rudderless.   They cannot understand why he should chose to let go of his life, rather than become an even stronger leader consolidating his power.

Why indeed?   Precisely because Jesus was not in the business of keeping power to himself and creating around him a network of people caught up in dependency.   Rather he wanted to depart and by departing share with them that deep inner freedom which he reveals in the words, ‘No one takes my life from me.    I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.   Like the good shepherd, laying down his life is an integral part of his strategy to save those under his care.    Clinging onto life would be like allowing the disciples to continue in a state of dependency, like children who cannot leave home or live without a parent figure in their lives.

In this conversation in the gospel of John it is clear that the disciples do not understand this at the time.   The Ascension of Jesus marks the moment when the disciples come to terms with the fact that Jesus is leaving them and they will never see him in the old familiar way again.

And yet the Ascension of Jesus is not a moment of desolation but a moment of hope.   It is a moment of growing up for the disciples, when they must step out on their own with no one to hold their hand, so to speak, no one to speak for them.      Only by seizing that moment are they able to discover that while Jesus is departed they are able to meet him again, but in a more mysterious way than before.   ‘Why stand looking up into the sky?  Jesus will come back in the same mysterious way you have seen him go.’     In other words Jesus will come back in the gathering of the little Christian community.     He will come back in the words of Scripture and in particular the words of the gospel; he will come back in liturgy and in prayer, he will come back in the lives of those who are drawn to him in faith, no longer in a small community in Jerusalem, but anywhere in the world where Christians are called to gather.

Homily

Homily Sunday 6 in Eastertide c.

At one point in the gospel of John Jesus says to his disciples, and to us, ‘I no longer call you servants, but friends’.   Why does Jesus make this distinction?   Because the role of a servant is to obey, without questioning, but with a friend it is different.    A friend is one with whom we share our intimate thoughts, and our plans, and we allow friends to ask questions.   So Jesus does not treat us like servants and keep us in the dark about God’s plans;  he reveals to us the plan of God which the Father shared with him.

In our second reading from the Apocalypse that plan of the Father takes expression in the image of a city he calls the new Jerusalem.    It is an image of what we might all be one day in the future, but the visionary who wrote the Book of the Apocalypse wants to say that while it is a city full of people just like us, it is still a city like no other.   What distinguishes the new Jerusalem from all other cities is not that it has less crime or better transport facilities or better schools or hospitals, but that it is a city unlike anything that human beings can build, left to their own resources.

Notice how the writer tells us that the city is one that is built by God, land given to us.     So it is described as a city that has come down from heaven, and it is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the Lamb, in other words on the risen Christ and those who first witnessed to Christian faith.   We are reminded here of the words of the psalm, ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do the builders labour; in vain is your earlier rising, and your going later to bed’.    Building this city, a civilisation founded upon divine love, is not something we can achieve by our own human efforts alone.     Building this city involves more than getting our politics right, or our technology right.    We can only do so if we co-operate in the building with God, the master builder.    The new Jerusalem is about spiritual endeavour.

An interesting feature of the new Jerusalem is that it has no temple, no trappings of religion.   In the best sense of the word it is a secular city, not because it has banished religion, but because in this city religion has fulfilled its task and done what it was meant to do.   The principles and values of religion have become fully internalised by those who inhabit the city.    So the city no longer needs street lighting for security, because everyone is enlightened from within, or in the words of the gospel, everyone keeps the word of Jesus which enables us to be open to the guidance and the love of the Father.    In this city the things that threaten peace and happiness are no more.

Just recently a leader of a country in the developing world was told that if he did not give his attention to a certain ecological project then disaster lay just round the corner.    Some of his advisers offered him a way forward, but others said, ‘If you undertake that project, it will take twenty years to complete’.    ‘If that’s the case’, the leader replied, ‘We’d better begin now’.

For us too, the new Jerusalem may seem a long way off, and the project too demanding.    But in faith we can make a start, and we do that by starting where we are, whatever our work and calling, but being attentive to the words of Jesus as we go about our life, internalising them with the help of the Holy Spirit, and living our lives by those words.    If we do so, God the master builder will be using us to build the new Jerusalem, right here where we are.

Homily

Homily:  Easter 3

In today’s gospel we are invited to consider and experience the new risen life of Jesus through the eyes and mind of Peter.   If we cast our minds back to just three weeks ago, to the events of Palm Sunday, Peter had seen Jesus entering Jerusalem acclaimed by the crowds.   As he watched that spectacle, he would have been very proud of Jesus, and might even have been looking forward to a life of glamour and security, basking in the glory of Jesus, and being associated with such a powerful celebrity, even if to others Jesus appeared as a big fish in a small pool.

And then everything changed, and Peter’s dream fell apart.  Overnight Jesus fell from grace.   Glory had turned to shame, security to fear.   Jesus was crucified and buried.   The game was up and there was no way back.

As Peter licked his emotional wounds he was told by a group of women that Jesus had risen from the dead.   So he went to the tomb to inspect it, and it was true, there was no body.   But so what?  All that demonstrated to Peter was that there were people around who would stoop so low as to rob the bodies of the dead.

But real life beckons.   Peter had no option but to get a job, and the only job he knew was fishing.    So he went back to it, but his heart was not in it.    He had enjoyed the buzz of seeing the Master heal people and trounce the Pharisees in debate.    He could see himself doing the same.    Now his companion and hero was gone and only he was left – and the fishing was tedious.    And now even the fish were against him.  He fished all night, and not one fish swam into the nets.

And then a stranger appears on the shore, preparing a sort of primitive bar-b-q.   Peter has no idea who the stranger is, but the stranger offers him some words of encouragement.   So Peter tries again, gets his fish, and the stranger turns them into breakfast.    As all this is going on something is happening within Peter too.  He is slowly making connections – the miraculous catch of fish – where did that happen before?    The meal of loaves and fishes……?     As Peter begins to make connections the other disciple, whose name we are never told, puts it all together for him.    The stranger is the Lord, but you have not yet recognised him.

This simple, quite charming gospel story tells us how our faith in the risen Jesus can grow from what is to all intents the darkness of unbelief to the point where we begin to recognise the presence of Jesus in strangers and symbols, and in the community that is the Church.      The problem the story addresses is not the presence of Jesus, but our capacity to recognise him.   The story of Peter recognising Jesus is like the passing of the night into the light of dawn.    Even  as the day breaks Jesus is present but Peter fails to recognise him, until the other disciple tells him once again what the women had already told him, ‘It is the Lord’.    Only then does Peter begin to recognise Jesus himself.

For every Christian there is a challenge to move from being told by others that Jesus is present with us in a new way, to actually beginning to see it for ourselves.    And that is just as true for us today.    We are challenged to believe and discover for ourselves the good news that the risen Jesus is present in the action of the Mass, in the breaking of Bread that is the Eucharist, in the stories of Scripture and in the gathering of strangers whom Jesus feeds and invites to become friends.

For many of us that may mean that like Peter we have to go through a period of darkness, disbelief and disillusion, in order that Jesus can break down those attitudes within us that we may think of as faith but are actually preventing us from seeing the risen Jesus.

Peter had to go through his own ‘dark night of the soul’ and be stripped of certain props and dependencies within his life – the attraction of glamour, security, the need to fulfil his own agenda in his own way – only then was he ready to recognise the risen Lord.    Only then could he say to Jesus, ‘I love you’, and be prepared to let Jesus lead him, rather than wanting to make Jesus fit into his own agenda.    And only then was Peter in a position to be able to say to others in his turn, ‘It is the Lord’.

Homily: Easter Sunday 2007

In a few moments we will be taking Liam and Archie to the Baptismal Font.    For most families a Baptism is the first occasion for family and friends to gather together and rejoice at the birth of a child, and to wish the Parents well as they begin a family or extend their family circle.

The rite of Baptism itself is about new birth and families.   In earlier times the ritual made this especially clear.    The person to be baptised was brought to a pool within the Church and immersed deep within the waters, before rising up and being clothed in a new white garment.

This ritual of immersion evoked the person coming out of the waters of the womb of mother earth to begin their life – the miracle of birth.   It also evoked the memory of the Israelites passing through the Red Sea to escape from their condition as slaves in Egypt so that they could travel to a land of freedom – the miracle of escape.    And most important of all it evoked the memory of Easter, of Jesus being drowned in the waters of suffering and death, only to be raised by the Father to new life – the miracle of resurrection.

Just before the baptism the Parents and Godparents make a profession of faith on behalf of the Child.    Today, on Easter Day, they will make that profession with the whole community here.  When they have said it the priest says, ‘This is our faith, this is the faith of the Church, and we are proud to profess it, in Christ Jesus our Lord.’     This shows us that baptism is about family too.   These children will form part of a larger family than their birth family.     After Baptism they will belong to the family of the Church, with Christ at its head.

When we recite the Baptism Promise we do so in two parts.   In the first part we are asked if we will renounce sin, the glamour of sin and the source of sin.    This is easier said than done.   Experience will have taught many of us that we may say yes, but we cannot do so by our own efforts.   We need help.  We need a power that comes from beyond our human resources.

The second half of the Profession of Faith points us in the direction from where help will come.   We profess belief in God and in all that God has done for us, through Jesus Christ.   

During his life Jesus asked one of his disciples, ‘Are you ready to be baptised with the baptism I am to be baptised with?’  Jesus was speaking not about a ritual, he was referring to his shameful death on the cross.    Jesus, who was without sin, freely allowed us to vent all our anger, frustration and violence on himself, in order to help us break free once and for all from the cycle of sin and violence.    By loving us to the end, and showing us how to love, he offered us a way out of that vicious circle of egotism and selfishness which we call sin.     The good news we celebrate today is that Sin could not overcome him.   He overcame Sin.     And death itself could not blot him out.   

When I try to explain this I am always at a loss for words, because I am trying to express a mystery too deep for words.     When you bring Archie and Liam to the Font, you will be plunging them into this great mystery, which is the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, and our liberation from sin.    That is not to say that sin is not around us, but we have a saviour to protect us from it.   The lighted candle you will receive later will be taken from the Paschal Candle, our Symbol of the Risen Christ.     It is a sign that something quite extraordinary has taken place in the soul of our children.   Your children have been given the capacity to hear the word of God himself, and respond to him.   Your children have been given the possibility of knowing Jesus Christ and his love for the whole human race.  My prayer for you is that you will do everything you can, by your prayer, example and teaching, to help your children grow into an ever deeper awareness of the mystery that has been planted in their hearts today.

Homily: Easter Vigil 2007

Tonight the Lord has led us to gaze at another empty space, the void which is the empty tomb.   In the temple of Solomon, unlike the later temple in which Jesus worshipped, the Holy of Holies was not completely empty.   It contained a kind of throne, surrounded by the Cherubim, a  throne on which sat the invisible mystery of God.    Tonight, when we gaze in our minds on the empty tomb, we are beholding the throne of the glory of God.

Over these past three days we have reflected on the presence of God in the empty places.    We began on Thursday with the empty tabernacle, and allowed that to lead us to the voids in our own heart and the emptiness that was Christ’s death.   On Friday we venerated the empty cross, symbol of our futile attempts to fill our emptiness with more and more of the wrong things that never satisfy, and we contrasted our lives with the humble obedience of Christ, who allowed the Father to fill the space of his human emptiness.    Christ shows us how to embark on the painful journey of humility that we cannot go by human effort alone.

Tonight we join the women at the empty tomb.    Their hearts are empty with grief.  They have lost the one they love.   They set out to do all they know how to do, to perform the last rites over the body of Jesus.   They try to fill their own void by holding on to the past, to Jesus as they remember him.    Then they hear the announcement of the two men.   ‘He is not here.   He is risen’.

This announcement leaves us with a sense of wonder and many questions.    What is announced to us is a mystery of faith, in the strictest sense of the word – and something that is not shared by any other religion in the world.   This should not give us a sense of having one over on the others – that would be to fill our void with a spirit of competitiveness – but it should engender in us a spirit of awe and wonder, gratitude and thanksgiving.

But it leaves us still with the question, ‘Where is Jesus, since he is not in the tomb?   This question leads us back once more to the temple, to a visit Jesus made when he drove out the money changers.

When asked by what authority he did so Jesus said, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again’.   The people who heard this were mystified.   It was only much later, after much thought and pondering that his disciples remembered these words and began to understand what Jesus meant.   He was speaking, they realised, of a new and different kind of temple, a new and different place where people could encounter God, and that was his Body.

The emptiness of the Holy of Holies, we said, symbolised that void in the hearts of individuals and groups of every kind that can only be filled by God himself.    Because Jesus, the eternal Word of God made flesh, was humbly obedient unto death, his body has now become that place of intimate encounter between God and us.

And where once the eternal Word took flesh in a human body, now the Eternal Word of God takes human form in the Body that is the Church.   But just as the glory of God was present, but in a concealed way, in the body of Jesus during his life on earth, so now the Body of Jesus is present, but in a concealed way, in the Church whose members still struggle with sin.      But with the eyes of faith we can find his presence in the Scriptures, hence tonight the Paschal Candle, symbolising the risen Christ, has remained beside the Book of the Scriptures.   Jesus Christ, risen, continues to reveal himself through the Sacraments of the Church – so after this Mass the Paschal candle will be placed beside the font, which is the gate of entry to the Sacramental life of the Church, ready for the baptism of two children in the morning.

Tonight, we give thanks in deep gratitude for the wonderful works of God, who has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and transformed our emptiness with his love.    Yes, we continue to struggle in order to gain the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.  Yes, our faith is weak.   Yes, we sometimes refuse to follow Jesus on the path he calls us to.   But Jesus will never leave us to our emptiness.    He returns in Word and Sacrament, he returns in the heart of our community.    As our invisible centre he bids us join in the new song of the redeemed.   We are the Easter People, and Alleluia, Praise God, is our song.

Homily: Good Friday 2007

‘Christ was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross’.

But what is this humility of Christ?     Humility is not a word that tunes in well with our modern culture.     To get on we must be self-confident and self-assertive.   Young people of an early age do activities with a view to their CV.  Footballers write their autobiography before their mid-twenties.    We are encouraged to push ourselves forward aggressively, lay blame at the door of others and demand apologies when we are slighted.   We are quick to apologise for the failings of our ancestors, but slow to apologise for ourselves.    We are encouraged to live as solitary figures on our plinth of moral self-righteousness.

In this culture humility sounds like something sad, something for losers.  Yet when we look closer at ourselves we may find some sinister dark shadows that are disguised by our public affluence.  Deep down there is much fear and anxiety.   Many people live with a sense of hopelessness.   New forms of slavery in the form of people-trafficking or the sex industry are but the tip of an iceberg which is allowing our lives to be shaped entirely by market forces, where everything has its price and anything can be done provided someone is willing to pay.

So what is this humility?   It is something that is hard to see, particularly in our culture, but it is the basis of everything.   Cardinal Hume once wrote about humility, ‘It is a very beautiful thing to see, but the attempt to become humble is painful indeed’.

Yesterday we reflected on  the empty space, the void that is at the heart of all our lives, where our desires never seem to be fulfilled.     Humility is about recognising that empty space, but not blaming anyone else, or myself, that it is there, and not trying to fill that space with more of anything – money, power, sex or whatever, but making that space a place of silence, a place for God to come and dwell in, so that his glory may be seen, and his love be experienced.

Humility is not about saying, ‘I am worthless’, but it is about saying, ‘I am not at the centre of the world’.   It is about allowing my centre to let go of the selfish and egotistical ‘me’ and allowing myself to be pulled and shaped by God’s grace.  Humility is not about my banging my drum louder and louder, or dancing on my own in the midst of a crowd, but about tuning myself in to the music of God, and dancing with others, not just alongside them, to the music given us by the Lord of the Dance.

Where you find humility, there you find a different kind of world in the making.  It is a world of community – communities where we are liberated from violence and competitiveness and the struggle for power, communities where each person flourishes because each contributes from their own talents, and each values the contribution of the other as if it were their own.   Where there is humility everyone knows that all they have is a gift from God.

Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews spoke to us about the humility of Christ.   You recall yesterday evening we spoke about how Jesus visited the temple in Jerusalem, but was not allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, the innermost room in the temple - that empty space symbolising the void in our lives that only God can fill.

The reading from the letter to the Hebrews today reminds us that even though Jesus was God, and without sin, as a human being he had to learn the path of humility, and it required much prayer from him, much pain and tears.   Learning to be humble is a lifetime’s task. Humility is about learning to want to fill the void at the heart of my life - not with what I desire, not by desiring things because others desire them - humility rather is about accepting with joy whatever God in his providence should send me, in the full knowledge that he loves me more than I can ever know.    When I have learned that, I will know what true freedom means.

    The letter to the Hebrews goes on to say that Jesus, through his life and death of humble obedience, actually passed through the Holy of Holies.   In other words, the writer is saying that Jesus not only entered into a real personal encounter with God, but made that encounter with God possible for us too.

In our liturgy today we do several things to remind us of our call to be humble.   At the beginning of the liturgy we saw the priest prostrate himself on the ground, symbolically becoming one with the clay from which he was created.   In a few moments we will say a long series of prayers.   They are God’s way of reminding us to open ourselves to the whole of humanity, because the freedom of humility is a freedom to be open to others, even those we consider to be our rivals or enemies.

Finally we are all invited to approach the cross, genuflect before it and venerate it.   Our walk to the cross is a symbol of our walk through life.   As we walk to the cross we bring with us the shortcomings and failings of our lives.   When we kiss the cross we are symbolically kissing all those shortcomings and failings in ourselves, because they represent our attempts to fill that empty space within us, that true self within ourselves that God loves, and longs to enter if only we will let him.

Today it is the Cross we venerate, without a figure of Jesus.   Jesus is no longer on the Cross.   He has taken our sins on himself.   He has returned to the Father and entered the real Holy of Holies, of which the one in the temple was only a symbol.   The cross lies empty now.   But we still have to carry our crosses, and we are invited to carry them in faith, and to see in our cross, whatever form it may take, the raw material that God uses to work out our salvation, and fill the void that is at the heart of our existence.