Week 15 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16; Ps 94; Matthew 11:25-27

A lesson in school many years ago has stayed with me ever since.

It was one of my first lessons in commerce, as it was called, or business studies, I suppose, later on. In this lesson we were told that the two most powerful words in advertising are the words new and free. Although that was many years ago, it seems to be still the case, judging from the frequency with which products have these words attached to them, new and free.

The good news about Jesus is new and it is free. God is ever new and always free. And so the message about Jesus, the message about God, ought to be the easiest product in the world to sell.

So what is it about children that allows them to receive this news when the learned and the clever cannot? Well, one thing, I suppose, is their openness to novelty. The Irish poet Patrick Cavanagh has a lovely phrase in his poem about Advent when he talks about the wonder there was in every stale thing when we looked at it as children. There's a sense of wonder and adventure, of possibility and hope in the life and in the eyes of the child, a wonder which too many adults, unfortunately, lose.

And in children we see great freedom. Also, we admire it, envy it perhaps, the freedom and spontaneity of the child, their ease in calling a spade a spade. They're not yet fixed in their ways.

They haven't become experienced in the world's currencies. And so there is a kind of trustingness, an openness, a readiness to learn in the child. Of course, there are dangers in this of which we've become only too aware in recent years.

But it is still something that we admire in the child, a freedom, an openness and a trust. The older folks among us become learned and clever in the ways of the world become experienced. And it becomes more difficult then for them to receive Christ, the message of Christ, with wonder and with freedom.

Augustine, in his Confessions, has a famous passage in which he laments that it was late that he loved God. 'Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient and ever new.' He was converted at 32.

He's writing at the age of 45. Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient and ever new. So as life proceeds and many things happen, and our sense of wonder and our sense of freedom are both challenged by the experiences of life, it's crucial to remember that Jesus is talking about a spiritual childhood, a readiness, an openness, a freedom, which allows entry into the kingdom of God.

He's talking about the level of life in the spirit, as Paul speaks so eloquently about that in Romans chapter 8. Not about chronological age then, but about a disposition of the spirit, where we find a sense of wonder and freedom, not in ourselves, but in God, living a theological life, a God-centred life. God who is ever ancient, but ever new. God who is absolutely faithful and yet infinitely free.

That's the source of our freedom, of our openness to what is new, if we live a life that is theological, rooted in God, ever ancient and ever new, absolutely faithful and infinitely free. A God of surprises then. Children, of course, love surprises.

Adults tend to become apprehensive and suspicious about surprises. But we must be ready for new things as we seek to follow the way of Christ. We must be ready for new freedoms that we did not suspect, even in our maturity.

You can listen here to this homily being preached.

Week 15 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 7.1-9; Psalm 48; Matthew 11:20-24

A friend returned from a visit to the Holy Land shocked by two things. One was the way in which Christians jostle each other at the holy places. This is at its worst in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where centuries-old feuds between different Christian groups are re-enacted in how they relate to each other in the building even today. It is good to be warned about that beforehand as otherwise it can be quite scandalising. It confirms, if confirmation is needed, that the Holy Sepulchre is not a place in which to look for the presence of Jesus!

The other thing that shocked my friend was how ordinary and how small the Holy Land is. The shock here is interesting for different reasons. The mysteries of redemption and the history of human salvation were enacted in this small and ordinary corner of the world.

One implication of this is that any small and ordinary place might have been the setting for those mysteries and that history. In fact every small and ordinary place has become the setting for those mysteries and that history. Wherever human beings are to be found these mysteries - of creation and grace, sin and redemption - are being enacted and are being enacted each day.

It means also - following today's gospel reading - that we can say 'Woe to you Sligo! Woe to you Arezzo! Woe to you Bradford! Woe to you St Louis, Missouri!' There is no need to go to any special place to find the mysteries of redemption and the history of salvation. The place in which I find myself is the Holy Land because it is a place where the Word is preached and the sacraments are celebrated. The place in which I find myself is the centre of salvation history because here too the drama of sin and the call to repentance are played out.

The text condemning Chorazin and Bethsaida was first composed by Isaiah to express delight at the fall of a tyrant, an enemy of Israel and of God's people. Jesus applies it to those quaint lakeside towns, those harmless lakeside towns we might say, in which his preaching was ineffective.

So let us not presume one way or the other. Our own ordinary place is as important as any other from the point of view of redemption or damnation. We cannot presume to stand on what has been the case up to now. It is easy to apply to our own situation, then, what Jesus says about Gentiles (not the chosen people) acceping the Word of God in Tyre and Sidon (pagan cities, modern Sodoms and Gomorrahs). Prostitutes and tax-collectors are entering before the ones who think they should be entering first.

It is familiar stuff, strongly put. By all means visit the Holy Land - there are many blessings to be received by doing so. But don't forget that everything essential that you find there is already available where you are. And if you feel that you live in a special place, special from the point of view of holiness or salvation, then think again. Your privilege, if you think you have one, means at least a more severe judgement.

Week 15 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 1.10-17; Psalm 50; Matthew 10.34-11.1

Even God, it seems, and especially God, gets tired of religion. It would be difficult to find a more powerful critique of religious practices than the one which God himself inspires in the prophet Isaiah in the first reading. Sacrifices and chanting, festivals and assemblies, seasonal celebrations and ordinary prayer, all the panoply of religion: it is all distasteful and unwelcome when it is done by people whose hands are full of blood. 

It is not blood from the sacrifices, however, but the blood sucked out of those who have been exploited by the people who then present themselves as religious. 'Make justice your aim', the Lord says, 'redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow'.

It is a frequent refrain from the prophets of the Old Testament, taken up again in the New - 'what I want is mercy, not sacrifice' - and carried on into the life of the Christian church - in the Letter of James, for example, and in the writings of Fathers of the Church such as John Chrysostom.

Against that background it becomes easier to understand the teaching of Jesus in the gospel reading. If justice is the aim then we know from our own experience that there will be trouble. The sword of justice, the cutting edge of integrity and concern for the poor, the challenge to power and to money - this never goes down well, a mission guaranteed to bring the sword rather than peace. 

But we must listen and we must review our own treatment of the poor. There is a temptation to, once again, spiritualise it, turn it into something religious, to say that it is of course really Jesus himself who is the poorest of the poor and how am I treating him? But he calls us back to concrete decisions and actions: the good Samaritan, the Last Judgement scene. You must take up your cross and follow after him. 

You must be ready to give a disciple a cup of cold water - that sounds manageable, perhaps a reprieve when we feel guilty about our service of the poor: I have at least done one kind act for a disciple. So perhaps there is hope for us after all, if we have not lost completely a sense of compassion, however faint, for our brothers and sisters.

But the stark warning still stands: cut out the religious nonsense because it is nonsense as long as we are without compassion, as long as we are aiming at something other than justice. Only with that as our aim will we not lose our reward even if it is only small acts of kindness that we can manage.

Week 15 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 64; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

The good soil on which the seed of God's Word falls must have three characteristics. It must have the capacity to hear the Word of God. It must have the capacity to understand the Word of God. And it must have the capacity to put the Word of God into practice. The earlier kinds of soil on which the seed might fall - by the wayside, on rocks, among thorns - all lack one or more of these characteristics and so the seed cannot take root, grow strong and bear fruit, in any of them.

It means there are three critical moments for the life of faith. When we reflect on the well-being of our faith - how strong, how healthy, is my faith? - it is useful to give attention to each of these moments.

Firstly the Word of God must be heard. So what are the difficulties, internal and external, that get in the way of hearing the Word of God? How can we hope to hear a Word from God if we do not put ourselves in the way of receiving such a Word?  Perhaps we rarely go to Church and rarely read the Bible. But life itself often conspires to wake us up, to bring us back to reality, and to get us thinking about it all again.

Our reflections will show that there are many things, very practical things, which we can do if we want to hear better the Word which God wants to speak to us. We need to dedicate time and space in order to be available to God. We need to be in places where we can hear or read the Bible. We need to clear our lives of distractions that will interfere with clear reception of the Word. We need to put to one side for the moment doubts and hesitations that might arise in our hearts and minds, undermining our confidence in what we are trying to do. All too often such doubts succeed in preventing us entering into the necessary kind of silence in which we can listen out for what God wants to say to us.

It can seem a bit spooky to say 'listen out for what God wants to say to you'. How can a human person actually hear the voice of God? It means reading the Bible or listening to it being read. It means attending liturgies where the scriptures are proclaimed and explained. It means attending to the ruminations in our hearts and minds to see what is on my mind? what is weighing on my heart? Such things might be distractions, getting in the way, but more often than not they are telling us 'where we are' and what it is we would like to speak to God about. Perhaps he wishes to speak with us about those things, or perhaps he wants to draw our attention to something we are forgetting.

Secondly the Word of God must be understood. Some of the less favourable soil succeeds in hearing the Word but cannot make the move to understanding it. This requires study and prayer. We must make some effort to understand the nature of the Bible, the different kinds of texts it includes, the ways in which the different books relate to each other historically and in regard to what they teach. We must put ourselves in the way of hearing people speak about it, see what the Church's tradition says about it, reflect on some representations of Biblical characters and events in art or in music.

The internet now offers countless commentaries on the Bible, many of them spoken, many of them written. Go surfing and see what you find. If there is a text you find difficult to understand put it in a Google search and see what comes up. Of course there will be a variety of interpretations, and not all interpreters speak with the same authority. But it is part of the richness of the Word of God that it evokes such diverse echoes in the minds and lives of so many people.

Don't be afraid to add your own interpretation, asking God's Holy Spirit to guide and inspire you. After all we are thinking now about what it is God might want to say to you in his Word. Be attentive also to what is happening in the world around you, in your own life and relationships and activities, as well as to what is going on in the world at large. God speaks to us also through things and events and people, often in combination with the Biblical texts we are thinking about at any particular moment.

Thirdly the Word of God must bear fruit. In his letter Saint James says we are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. In saying this he is simply repeating the teaching of Jesus, that the one who builds his house on rock is the one who not only hears (and perhaps also understands) the Word but who puts it into practice.

Just as we must put to one side voices and distractions that would undermine our confidence in trying to hear the Word or in trying to understand the Word, we must do the same when those voices and distractions try to undermine our confidence in living out what the Word asks of us. A voice might tell us that we are hypocrites or pretentious, that we are looking for notice or acting out of pride, that is simply another form of egoism or of imposing ourselves on others. The demons are very inventive in the ways in which they try to upset us. But God is infinitely creative even if to ourselves we feel we are 'without form and empty'.

Just as the sower will presumably have to persevere through clouds of insects, sweat, challenging terrain and other physical distractions, so we need to persevere through these three stages in the life of faith: hearing, understanding, bearing fruit. We will discover quickly also that it is not a straight line, this journey of faith. Sometimes we are putting the Word into practice without fully understanding it or when, for some reason, we have become hard of hearing. Or we may be puzzled and perplexed by a Word, not yet understanding how it is a Word of God to me. But very often it is in doing the Word that understanding finally comes.

In the life of faith it is always the season for sowing, always the season for letting the crop mature, always the season for reaping the harvest. Let us give ourselves to its demands once again, listening in prayer and attentiveness, seeking to understand through study and reflection, putting it into practice in mercy and charity. By God's grace each one will bear even richer fruit, thirty or sixty or even a hundredfold.

Week 14 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 93; Matthew 10:24-33

For the most part the prophets of the Bible are reluctant prophets. It is the case with Jeremiah, Amos and Jonah, for example. Isaiah responds positively to the call but only after his lips have been cauterized by a burning coal from the fire. If that was the initiation required then it is easy to see why so many would be reluctant to undertake the task.

Of course it is a symbolic representation of what is required in the life of the prophet if he is to be a loving servant of the Word of God.. The real anxiety for those called to be prophets was about the reaction of people when they began their preaching. To be a preacher at all can provoke disdain and rejection. To be the bearer of bad news was even worse and to be asked to call people to change their lives worse again.

What consolation can be offered these men and women called to be prophets? They will have some assurance that they are serving God in what they do although there may be times when this assurance becomes weaker and they are not so sure. They have also the company of fellow prophets, those who were called across the centuries to bear witness to God's Word in a myriad of situations. And they have finally the company of Jesus, the greatest of the prophets, the prophet like Moses, who is not just a bearer of the Word to the people but is himself that Word Incarnate.

The service of Truth - to be what Catherine of Siena calls 'the bride or groom of Truth' - is never an easy task. To speak of holiness and justice in a world that is more comfortable with compromise and lies can provoke the strongest reactions, even to the point of persecuting and killing the prophets. The disciple can expect to be received and treated in the same ways in which the Master has been received and treated.

But we are not to be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot touch the soul. The only real fear to entertain is the fear of those powers that can kill the soul. The hairs on the prophet's head are numbered and he is worth more than many sparrows. It means his fate can never fall outside the knowledge and concern of the Heavenly Father. We can be confident that the Father will stay with the ones who bear witness to Him in the world even as he stayed with the Son and vindicated him in the glory of the resurrection.

We have only to acknowledge God before men and women, and we will be acknowledged by him.

Week 14 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Hosea 14:2-10; Ps 50/51; Matthew 10:16-23

There is a puzzle set up by the fact that we hear these two readings together. Hosea tells us to prepare words to say and return to the Lord. In the gospel reading Jesus tells us not to worry about how or what we should say. Obviously the contexts are different. We can fruitfully reflect on this puzzle, I think, taking that well known saying about Saint Dominic, that he spent his time speaking either to God or of God.

These are two ways of serving the Word of God, in prayer and in preaching. The fundamental one is prayer and the other comes after. Often we are tempted to do the opposite. Even this morning, I gave more energy to worrying about what I was to say in this homily than I did to trying to find words with which to pray to God. Presumably if I had spent more time in prayer the homily would have a different character, a depth or flavour that comes from something informed by prayer. We know it when we taste it. We know that our preaching becomes superficial, a bit ritualistic, where it is not originating in the freshness of prayer. And prayer is then instrumentalised: I do it when I am stuck, when I am at a loss for words, rather than for its own sake.

So we must give time and energy in the first place to trying to find words with which to pray. And in the second place, and on the basis of our prayer, we need not worry about what we are to say or how we are to say it when it comes to speaking to people. In prayer we are with the Word, reflecting on Him, spending time with Him, meditating on the scriptures, seeking to be in the intimacy of that encounter with the Word of God. Having become familiar with Him we can move more easily in the affairs of the world, taking Him with us in our hearts.

But in prayer we also learn about another puzzle that emerges from today's readings. Why is it that the mission of the apostles that we heard about yesterday, a mission to carry the word of peace and grace, a message of compassion and healing, meets such fierce opposition? Why the hatred, the envy, the persecution provoked by the preaching of this good news which Jesus speaks about in today's gospel?

Spending time with the Word of God in prayer gives us an insight into this too. In prayer we realise, in relation to our own lives first of all, that the Word is indeed like a two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). One edge is compassion and mercy and tenderness. The other edge is justice and coherence and truth. We cannot swallow one but not the other.

Only when we become familiar with the Word, and with both sides of its blade, will we be serene in the task of bringing the Word to the world, knowing that one side of God's Word will be very welcome and the other will be rejected, sometimes violently. Our task is to work hard to find words for prayer and to trust in God when it comes to witness and preaching. We learn everything in prayer, Saint Catherine of Siena teaches, the comfort of God's love and grace as well as the fierce clarity of God's holiness and truth.

Week 14 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Hosea 11:1-4, 8e-9; Psalm 80; Matthew 10:7-15

Is there anything original in the teaching of Jesus? The question arises from today's readings. All this week we have been reading the prophet Hosea, prophet of the divine hesed. At the heart of the prophecy is a celebration of God's grace, mercy, compassion, and tenderness. God loves his people, wants to be loved by them, and wants them to share the same love with each other. Today's reading includes what may be the most tender image of God in the Bible: like a father teaching his infant to walk, God reaches down to support Israel, guiding and protecting her with the reins of love. The picture is of the harness used sometimes to support infants as they learn how to walk: this is how solicitous God is with Israel, how delicate and tender.

The gospel reading includes instructions for what the apostles are to lay aside as they set out on their mission. This list of instructions is found also in the Talmud, a collection of Jewish traditions. On entering the Temple, the Jewish man was to leave aside his belt and shoes, his bag and money. Jesus quotes this list, applying it now not to the Jew entering the Temple but to the apostles setting out on their mission.

So what is new with Jesus? Well we can say firstly that he gives us a name for the tender Father, 'Abba'. And he teaches us a prayer, gives us his own words with which to pray to this Father.

We can say also that Jesus makes incarnate - realises - the pictures and images, the promises and anticipations, that we find in the Old Testament. They could remain simply beautiful images and aspirations, but the incarnation of the Word of God, the coming among us of the only Son from the Father means they are real. In Jesus the divine hesed becomes flesh. He is full of grace and truth, St John tells us, full of hesed and emet, the divine faithfulness. These are not simply nice ideas but flesh and blood reality. In Jesus the Father is present among us, we see the face of the hidden Father.

The instructions Jesus quotes to his disciples are all about grace. The Jew entering the Temple leaves everything to one side to show that the relationship with God is not an ordinary business or commercial one, not a relationship like the others we establish in human affairs. The complete trust expressed, the complete dependence on God's goodness, makes it clear that this is a relationship of grace. Freely you have received, freely give, Jesus says to them. It is all about grace.

What Jesus does with this list of instructions about entering the Temple is worthy of long meditation. He teaches us that the whole world is a holy place. Or at least that wherever there are people needing the Word of compassion and grace, there is the divine presence. Wherever the Word of Grace is needed and preached, there is God. Wherever there are people living in faith, hope and love, once again God is there. It is not just in certain places or in certain buildings that God is to be found but wherever grace is at work. True worshippers worship in spirit and truth, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman.

Finally we can say that Jesus in his turn teaches us how to walk. He teaches us the way along which we are to walk. He shares with his disciples his own teaching and saving work. He clearly wants us to grow up, to be the mature and adult children of God, walking the way with Him and participating in His work. We are called to share responsibility in the family of God to which we belong.

A closing thought, requiring another homily. We know too that the way on which Jesus teaches us to walk leads to the cross. Now there is another biblical image, the final revelation, of the divine hesed. Is it beautiful or is it ugly? What is the mystery that explains this particular realisation of the tender love of God for humanity?