Week 8 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Sirach 27.4-7; Psalm 92; 1 Corinthians 15.54-58; Luke 6.39-45

Speaking up, speaking out, speaking in public - they all make people more or less nervous, depending on the circumstances, the audience, what is being talked about, people's experience, etc. When we speak we inevitably expose ourselves, revealing what is on our minds and in our hearts. What will the reaction be? Will what I say be considered stupid? Has it been said already? Is it relevant to the discussion? Will it be heard and considered or simply ignored? Often enough the doubts raised by these questions are enough to keep us silent.

There is good advice in today's readings about this. The psalm tells us that it is good to give thanks to God, to praise him and to declare how just he is. This is a speaking that is always relevant, always to the point, always wise and necessary. So let's imagine that this 'speaking to God' is the deep down music beneath and behind all our speaking. Not that we articulate or express it in words in ordinary conversations. But this ongoing conversation - what we call prayer - is forming and educating our desires, purifying our minds and setting our hearts right so that when we do speak it will be a good speaking coming from a good place within us. It will come out of the fulness of a heart fixed on God and its concern will be to serve truth and goodness.

If we do that then, like the sower going out to sow his seed, we can share our thoughts and feelings generously and straightforwardly, not being held back by the fears that come on us, and leaving it to God's providence to determine what fruit our speaking might bear.

Be firm, steadfast and devoted, St Paul says in the second reading, even in the face of great anxiety. In fact the greatest anxiety, death: what are we to say to that? 'Thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ', Paul says. It is a declaration that is always 'good fruit', welcome in any and all circumstances, even in the face of death. Whatever we may be discussing - serious or banal, whatever and wherever and with whomever - if we remain steadfast and devoted to the background 'deep down' conversation of prayer, then whenever we speak with others it will be from a clear mind and a pure heart.

In that way our words will build up, they will dissolve obstacles, they will shed light on the way ahead, and they will bear other good fruit that contributes towards building up God's kingdom of justice and love.