Week 02 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; Psalm 39; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

'I did not know him', says John the Baptist in today's gospel. He says it twice and yet he also points him out as the Lamb of God. In Matthew's account of the baptism of Jesus, which we read last week, John knows him very well. So how are we to take these two declarations, 'I did not know him'?

They have to mean something like this: 'I needed him to be pointed out to me first so that I could point him out to you'. Or: 'I did not know the full significance and meaning of his coming'.

One can have knowledge of Jesus Christ, know about him, and this knowledge can be extensive and accurate. A person might know a lot about the Biblical titles that are given to Jesus: Messiah, Lamb of God, Servant of the Lord, Chosen One of God, Light of the Nations. It is relatively easy to gather this knowledge and to understand how these titles are used throughout the Bible, how they were developed by Christians, how they might have been used by Jesus himself.

Perhaps John means 'I did not know how he would fill and complete and expand the meaning and content of ancient prophecies and titles'. It is only from what we know already that we can move to the knowledge of something new. So even with the knowledge of these Biblical titles, there is nothing apart from the Spirit of Jesus that would enable a person to conclude from them to the fact of Jesus, his work, his identity.

We might even claim to know more than John the Baptist in knowing what Jesus himself revealed and what the Church later came to believe about Him.

'I did not know him myself' is how one translation puts it. It then seems to mean 'I did not know him by myself', or 'I did not know him out of myself'. John needed a particular help of the Holy Spirit in order to recognise Jesus. And we can put on his lips these words also: 'I did not know the full reality of His divine mystery because that would be to claim to know God'. Whatever knowledge of God we can claim to have is only had through signs and witnesses and the inner teaching of the Holy Spirit. How else could we come to 'see' not just the human being pointed out by John, Jesus from Nazareth, but who He is?

Nevertheless John pointed him out. The defendant in a courtroom is the one pointed out by witnesses, to be sure of his identity. It is a particular person that is indicated. There is a famous pointing of the finger by Jesus in Caravaggio's Call of St Matthew. John, without knowing many things about Jesus, was nevertheless the one who picked him out, presented him to society, we might say.

'I did not know him'. I did not then know his significance for my life and for the life of the world. Knowing by addition will never get me there. It is another kind of knowing that we seek, another kind of enlightenment, the knowing we call faith. All who believe can endorse what the Baptist says: 'I did not know him by myself'. A particular kind of help is needed if we are to believe. It is with other eyes that we see the One on whom the Spirit remains and from whom the Spirit is given. But coming to believe, like all ways of knowing, requires teachers, signs and God teaching within, He who is the source of our capacity to appreciate truth. All who believe in Him become children of God which means witnesses in the power of the Spirit that illuminates, clarifies and brings to light, the Spirit of truth.

You will find here another homily for today

Saint Antony of Egypt - 17 January

THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE DESERT FATHERS AND MOTHERS

With the ending of the time of persecution and the ‘peace of the Church’ the kind of idealism and total dedication in following Christ that were available to Christians throughout the centuries of persecution were no longer offered in the same form. A desire for complete dedication and a radical following of Jesus led many to the edges of normal, civilised life and even into the desert to seek to be with Christ there.

Forms of ascetical and monastic life were not unknown even before this time in pagan as well as Jewish contexts. Augustine in his Confessions tells us about some of these, reporting in particular how what he heard about the dedication of monks in Egypt affected his own life. In Confessions Book VIII 6.14 he tells how a fellow African, Ponticianus, came to visit him in Milan and told him about ‘the monk Antony of Egypt, whose name was illustrious and held in high honour among (God’s) servants, though we had never heard it until this moment’. Augustine and his friends were amazed at what they were being told, while Ponticianus was amazed that Augustine had not yet heard of Antony:

His (Ponticianus’) discourse led on from this topic to the proliferation of monasteries, the sweet fragrance rising up to you from the lives of monks, and the fecund wastelands of the desert. We had known nothing of all this. There was even a monastery full of good brothers at Milan, outside the city walls, under Ambrose’s care, yet we were unaware of it (Confessions VIII 6.15).

Augustine and his friends had been considering how they might withdraw from ordinary life and live together with leisure for study and the pursuit of wisdom, as a community of friends sharing their resources, while also recognising the difficulties presented by celibacy and chastity (Confessions VI 11.18 – 16.26). Now Ponticianus told them about some friends at Trier who had come across The Life of Antony and were so moved by it that they gave up their plans to pursue careers in the Emperor’s service and gave themselves instead to the pursuit of friendship with God.

Hearing of Antony, and the effect of his example on others, provided the impulse for a fresh departure in Augustine’s journey of conversion. Now he was hearing about a more radical form of religious life, not one centred on the desire for leisure and study but one given in the first place to the love of holiness and to the service of God. Note that there are already ‘desert mothers’ included among the desert ‘fathers’: among the sayings of the early Christian monks are contributions from Sarah, Theodora, Syncletica, Matrona and Mary of Egypt.

It was above all the life of Saint Antony of Egypt (251-358) that made the desert form of religious life known throughout the Church, East and West. The life is attributed to Saint Athanasius, the great Bishop of Alexandria, and was translated into Latin by Jerome’s friend Evagrius. At about the age of twenty Antony chose to live a life of seclusion. He had already been thinking about the freedom needed to live a spiritual life when, listening to the gospel being read in church one day, he heard the Lord Jesus say to him ‘if you would be perfect go and sell all you have and then come, follow me’. He took this as the sign that he should seek to implement what he had been considering, sold all he had, gave the money to the poor (having first seen to the economic security of his sister), and then moved to the outskirts of town to live as far as possible without distractions.

The stages of Antony’s spiritual life have been identified as the reordering of life, spiritual warfare, and spiritual fatherhood. The reordering of life meant his disengagement, as far as possible, from the affairs of the world, in order to free himself from the attachments and duties that bound him to the world up to then. What happens initially on doing this, as Antony’s experience teaches so clearly, is that a person becomes aware of just how distorted and disordered their thoughts and desires have become. Saint Paul too had spoken about this in writing to the Romans:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot (Rom 8:5-7)

The asceticism required to help ‘the mind’ gain mastery over ‘the flesh’ involved manual work, charity, and prayer. The first helped him meet the necessities of living, the second was possible because he needed less, and the third was nourished particularly on Scripture. He realised very quickly how much he needed a discipline or training appropriate to the project he had undertaken.

This first stage of re-ordering life involved a twofold process, firstly coming to know himself better and the ways in which his thoughts and desires were confused, distorted, and directed; and secondly, through the grace of the Spirit coming to have thoughts and desires worthy of the calling to which he had given himself. The various ascetical practices in which he and the other desert monks engaged were designed to facilitate this change of mind, this ‘metanoia’, and to turn their thoughts and desires away from the world and towards Christ and his kingdom. The penitential disciplines, especially prayer, were aimed at keeping the mind pure in thought so that God could be known and even seen (Matthew 5.8).

This initial stage of ascetic purgation was followed by a second, that of spiritual warfare. Here the one seeking to follow Christ and to grow into Him has greater strength and so is ready for a deeper exploration of the roots of sin. This experience, particularly among the Desert Fathers, contributed to their understanding of the deadly sins (see section 2E below). What is involved is a battle with Satan and his angels whose points of entry into human hearts and lives are the places of vulnerability and weakness in human nature – fears, insecurities, conflicts, self-deceptions.

The people of Israel, in the course of their wandering in the desert, learned about these things in themselves. In the temptations of Jesus he is presented with these possibilities of pride, gluttony, and vainglory. But in him we see a human nature that has greater power than any of these things and he proves victorious over them all. The early chapters of the Gospel of Mark, for example, show us how Jesus has authority over all the forces of nature, whether these forces are animal, cosmic, or demonic.

The desert fathers saw a reference to the deadly sins in Jesus’ account of a house that has been swept and put in order only for the demon that had been driven out of it to return with seven demons more evil than himself (Matthew 12:43-45). The monk in the desert became aware, through this spiritual warfare, of the ways in which his house was still occupied by the enemy. He learned that he needed to re-double his efforts at prayer and rely ever more deeply on the grace of God’s Holy Spirit.

What resources did they have for responding to the challenges of the demons? One of the most important ones is what they call ‘talking back’. In this they followed the example of Jesus who in response to the temptations of Satan ‘talked back’ to him, and did so by quoting the scriptures. it is therefore the Word of God which is the main weapon of the monk in his struggle (Ephesians 6.17; Hebrews 4.12). Talking back is also what David does in many of the psalms which are particularly powerful in seeking God’s help and for repulsing demons. The psalms are Christological, they reveal human nature in all its different moods and moments, and are therefore formative of the person seeking to live towards union with God. So the recitation of the psalter moved to the centre as one of the central elements in all monastic spirituality.

When these two stages have been negotiated – ascetic purgation, spiritual warfare – the monk is ready to engage once more with the world. He is not now in danger as he was before he entered the desert. At the same time the danger is never completely removed: many of the stories from the desert are about monks who think they have finally gone beyond one or other of the deadly sins only to discover that they are still all too prone to it! But in this third stage they become teachers, even if they are still sinners and still engaged in the spiritual warfare. They have reached the stage of spiritual fatherhood (or motherhood) where they can gather disciples, as Antony did, and teach them what is involved in the spiritual journey.

Week 01 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Samuel 8:4-7, 10-22a; Psalm 89; Mark 2:1-12

Who were the four men who carried the paralytic to Jesus? The gospels do not give us their names but some of the Fathers of the Church were sure that they must have been Peter, Andrew, James and John. We heard earlier this week about the calling of these first four apostles. In Mark's gospel this passage about the healing of the paralytic comes not very long after the calling of the apostles. Matthew's gospel tells us that they not only left everything to follow Jesus but that they did it immediately. It is not a crazy idea, then, to think that this is who brought the man to Jesus, the apostles getting down to the business of helping Jesus in his work.

If we follow this line of thought then we see what the apostolic task involves: it means bringing people to Jesus. This is all that the apostolic Church needs to do, the whole of its task. It is the task of those who belong, as Dominicans do, to a religious order that regards itself as apostolic (living the lifestyle of the apostles). In fact it is the task of every Christian because all who are baptised and confirmed in Christ are by that fact commissioned to be His witnesses and to do what they can to bring others to him.

The men need to be creative to get this particular individual into the presence of Jesus. He is paralysed and lying on a bed. The crowd has filled the place where Jesus was. There is no way they can squeeze in, not with a load as awkward as they are carrying. But someone thinks of the roof. It is another way to get the man into the presence of Jesus and this is what they do.

The gospel tells us that Jesus was preaching the word to the people gathered round him. In writing about the ministry of the Word, our service of the Word of God as preachers of the gospel, the Dominican constitutions use a lovely phrase: part of our work is to seek 'new ways to the truth', they say. The truth, of course, is Jesus. Our task then is to continue searching for new ways to get to Jesus, new ways to bring people to Him and to bring Him to people. There are many obstacles that can obscure our access, block our path, cloud our vision, and tempt us to turn away and give up trying to get to him. But the preachers, the apostles, those called to accompany Christ in his work must be ever active and endlessly creative, on the lookout for new ways of helping people to get into His presence.

We can become weighed down by the many difficulties and disheartened by the many challenges. Questions come from science and philosophy, questions come from politics and social trends, questions come from scandals and the counter witness of so many of us. Sometimes it can seem impossible, the task of speaking well about Jesus in the modern world, the task of witnessing to Him by a life that is prayerful and holy. But we must keep at it and like the men in the gospel be active, be creative, be imaginative about our work. And then be prepared for wonderful things to happen.

Week 01 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Samuel 4.1-11; Psalm 44; Mark 1.40-45

Sometimes people say they do not believe in God because he is not Santa Claus. Of course those are not their exact words. But because God does not behave in the way they think he should they decide that he does not exist. He is making a terrible mess of things. There is so much innocent suffering which he does nothing about. If he is either useless or perverse, what's the point of believing in God? If you are good or bad you get or do not get what you deserve from Santa Claus. And the same with God. If he does not perform as a supposedly good and all-powerful deity ought to do, then he is either a perverse monster or he does not exist at all.

Today's scripture readings bring us straight into the heart of this perplexity. Having suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Philistines, the Israelites decide to bring the Ark of the Covenant - their holiest object, the presence of God himself - into the midst of the fight. They are buoyed up by this and the Philistines are terrified. But then the Israelites suffered an even more catastrophic defeat, losing not just 30,000 soldiers but the two sons of Eli the priest and even the Ark itself. What kind of God is that? It is a loss that foreshadows the even more radical defeat of the Babylonian Exile.

Saint Paul describes the Mosaic Law as a teacher, preparing the people for the fuller revelation of God which comes with Jesus. We can say that the whole of the Bible is a teacher, a pedagogical journey, which leads us on to an ever deeper understanding not just of morality but, more fundamentally, of the nature of God himself and the character of God's relationship with us. We are learning more and more about what God is not, often through seeing the mistaken understandings of God expressed not just by 'the peoples round about' but by the chosen people themselves. They are in relationship with God but constantly misunderstanding. They try to fit him into their concepts of what 'God' ought to mean and how 'God' ought to behave, and they fail continually.

As we fail continually also. We believe that a definitive revelation of God has been given in the life and teaching, the actions and sufferings, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God has never come nearer to human beings. In today's gospel reading we read of Jesus stretching out his hand to touch the leper. Horror of horrors! As a consequence they change places, the leper restored to human society and Jesus unable to go openly into any town, as if he were a leper. Jesus tells the cured man not to speak about it, a command which the man immediately ignores. The theme recurs throughout the gospel: even the disciples continually fail to understand.

The issue of understanding and misunderstanding God and God's actions continues, even though Jesus is the one closest to the Father's heart who has made him known. The journey continues, with the scriptures as a guidebook to what we can expect along the way. Perhaps the fundamental problem is that we, inevitably, try to fit God into our world, we reach out to touch him and to bring him in. But the reality is that God is God and we are creatures. So it is more a case of God fitting us into his world, he reaching out to touch us and to bring us in. If we set the terms of the relationship - the terms in which we decide God ought to be and to act - then, just as inevitably, we misunderstand. Only by letting God set those terms, accepting that he knows better what is for our happiness, can we enter into a new space. In that new space we will 'let God be God', allowing him to reveal his face beyond all the idols we set up, idols which serve only to obscure and hide God's true face.

Week 01 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Samuel 3.1-10,19-20; Psalm 40; Mark 1.29-39

The young Samuel answers the call and enters into his prophetic ministry. Because the Lord was with him, his words had their effect, as the Lord's word itself always achieves that for which it is uttered. Jesus is at the beginning of his public ministry also and we are given more information about the effects of his speaking - the sick are healed, demons are cast out.

Both are preachers, commissioned to speak, accredited prophets. The demons on the other hand, although bearing witness to who Jesus is, are not allowed to speak. What they say is true but they are not in right relations with God, the source of truth, and so they must stay quiet. Once again truth is more than brute fact, it is not just information, it has a moral and a spiritual significance also.

Samuel is in right relations with God - before he speaks he listens in prayer. Likewise with Jesus, we are told that prayer is as much a part of his 'typical day' as is the work of healing and exorcism, as is his engagement with the forces of evil, as is the preaching of the gospel.

As missionary disciples we are to be 'accredited prophets' also, men and women who speak effective words of healing and liberation. But that is only possible if the Lord is with us - as he always is - and if we are with God - that is less certain. So the prophet or preacher must be, first and always, a listener, one who spends time with the Lord in prayer, receiving in their own heart and mind and life what they are then called to share with others.

Week 01 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Samuel 1.9-20; 1 Samuel 2.1,4-5.6-7,8; Mark 1.21-28

We can speak of our relationship with God as the encounter of two freedoms. It is a rich thought and opens the path to many essential reflections. The readings today, however, invite us to consider our relationship with God, our life of faith, from another perspective, as the encounter of two truths.

Hannah teaches us about the power of truth in prayer. The priest standing by thinks she is drunk, but no, she explains, just intoxicated by a deep sorrow and misery. Giving expression to her distress, and expressing the desire for what she believes will heal it, gives her prayer its power. We are tempted to say its 'infallible power', for God must attend and respond to prayer coming in that way. Her prayer is clearly, as George Herbert says, an 'engine against the Almighty'.

In the gospel reading we hear of the power of truth on the lips of Jesus, the authority and 'infallibility' of his words: 'he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him'. Jesus speaks the words of God, the truth God desires to reveal and communicate to us. Even more, he is, we believe, the Word of God himself, incarnate, and so the presence of the Truth God is in our flesh and in our history.

Note that in each case - Hannah and Jesus - we are not dealing with 'cold' truth, with brute facts, but with a truth that springs from deep desire, with words that interpret that desire, in Hannah's case for a child, in Jesus's case for the healing and salvation of people, their freedom to live towards the fulness of life he came to bring us.

Our task for today then is this: live in the power of these two truths that encounter each other within us, the truth of our need and desire, perhaps our sorrow and misery, and the truth of God's address to us, the revelation of his desire that we should be well, and free, and powerful in serving his kingdom of love, justice and truth.

 

Week 01 Monday (Year 2)

 Readings: 1 Samuel 1.1-8; Psalm 116; Mark 1.14-20

In the work of Jesus there is always continuity and discontinuity. The relationship of God and the people already established is the basis on which a new reality is built and from which that new reality springs. We saw it throughout the Christmas season and we see it again in a number of ways in today's readings.

The mother of Samuel, Hannah, anticipates Mary, the mother of Jesus, and will provide many of the words and ideas we find later in Mary's Magnificat. Hannah is sterile, and suffers as a consequence of that, but her sterility confirms that it is through divine action that Samuel is conceived and born: nothing is impossible for God. So later Elizabeth conceiving John the Baptist and, even more wondrous, Mary conceiving Jesus.

Jesus himself is at first a follower of John the Baptist and continues his preaching mission. He accepts baptism at the hands of John. The message he preaches is exactly the same: 'the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the gospel'. But 'after John had been arrested' - it is a very significant moment, a 'game changer' as we might say - Jesus not only continues the preaching mission of the Baptist but begins to establish a new reality with the calling of the first four disciples: his own organisation, his own movement, his own community.

John asked people to act justly in whatever profession or activity they were engaged in. Jesus asked people to give up what they were doing, to leave everything, and to follow him. It is a more radical call as the disciples have their profession transformed: from now on they are to be in the first place 'fishers of men'. They are to 'follow Jesus' who now places himself at the centre of the preaching mission in a way that the Baptist did not do but which he had prophesied for the 'greater one' coming after him.

So what about ourselves? Expect continuity and discontinuity always seems to be one lesson for us to take from these readings. Live from what is old into what is new. Sterility of whatever kind is no obstacle. Repent - be ready to change your mind. Believe - entrust yourself to the one who calls you. Follow Jesus - have that mind in you that was Christ's, his way of seeing things, his way of receiving people and responding to them.

We are back in ordinary time, that is, the time of fulfilment.