Week 22 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Psalm 119; Luke 4:16-30

The heroes of Greek and other militaristic cultures are always the soldiers. These are the characters in these cultures regarded as showing the greatest courage and they receive the greatest honour for it. There is a transformation of courage in Christianity. There it is the martyrs who are the great heroes, men and women ready to die in witness to Christ and the faith, and to do so, like Christ, non-violently.

This transformation of courage is one of the consequences of the gospel as Paul summarises it in today's first reading. I came among you in fear and trembling, he says, knowing only Jesus and him as the crucified Christ, so that my preaching might get its strength not from any worldly kind of power or persuasion but might be simply a demonstration of the power of the Spirit.

Nevertheless, the classical Christian account of courage as we find it in St Thomas Aquinas, for example, is developed not just from the Bible but also taking hints from Aristotle. There are two sides to courage, the ancient Greek philosopher indicates, an assertive and a sustaining side. One is the courage to put oneself forward in the world, to undertake great projects and to take action in spite of fear and apprehension. The other is the courage to be patient and persevering in the face of experiences that generate other kinds of anxiety and fear: coping with illness, enduring long-term challenges, living with rejection or mockery, martyrdom. 

For Christians this second side of courage is the higher one. St Teresa of Avila even says somewhere that it takes more courage to persevere in prayer than to die as a martyr.

So courage is required if we are to follow Jesus. One kind of courage is the kind he showed in the synagogue at Nazareth when his preaching was rejected and denigrated. The other kind of courage is enshrined forever in the mystery of the cross, a courage like that of the soldier facing death with its whole weight of fear, but doing it without returning violence, freely accepting it out of love for the Father and the Father's plan for the world's salvation.

Week 22 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 62(63); Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

It was only last week, so still quite fresh in our memories. 'Who do the people say I am?', Jesus asked. And then 'who do you say I am?' Peter's confession - 'you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God' - seemed like a kind of climax. They had arrived at a true understanding of who he is. It was followed by Jesus' declaration that Peter's understanding came not from flesh and blood but had been revealed to him by the heavenly Father.

Strong stuff. Nothing stronger could be imagined. He had revealed himself to them and they, by God's grace, had understood and believed. What a shock, then, that Jesus' next words to Peter refer not to the heavenly Father, nor even to flesh and blood, but to Satan as the source of Peter's next words to him. 'This must not happen to you, Lord'. 'Get behind me, Satan.' What was happening? It seemed as if Peter's confession was a point of arrival. Now it seems as if they are not even at the beginning of understanding.

All three synoptic gospels have this turning point after Peter's confession of faith. 'He began to teach them' (Mark 8:31). 'He began to show them' (Matthew 16:21). 'He set his face to go to Jerusalem' (Luke 9:51). The first act of the drama of Jesus' life is over, the second act is beginning. They have learned something but in another way they still have everything to learn - he began to teach them, he began to show them. Has he been with them this long, already shown them and taught them so many things, and still ... he begins?

Peter's confession of faith, which last week seemed like such a wonderful point of arrival - and it was and is: on this rock Jesus builds his church! - we now see that same confession to be also a point of departure. Jesus is ready to move on to the next stage and to try to take them with him.

The first act had opened 'after John had been arrested' (Mark 1:14; Matthew 4:12). It is a first darkening of the story with the shadow of the cross. The second act opens with Jesus beginning to initiate his disciples into the deeper mystery: if he is the Messiah then his mission will be accomplished through what the prophets had foretold as the birth-pangs of the Messiah and which he sketches as follows: his rejection, his suffering, his death, and on the third day his being raised. This last bit goes over the heads of the disciples for the moment, it fails to register. They discussed among themselves at other moments what rising from the dead could mean. But not here. They do not say, 'oh that's all right then, there will be a happy ending after all!' They hear only the talk of suffering and death. 'God forbid', says Peter - the same God who had revealed to him that Jesus is the Christ, and God's Son. May this same God forbid that things should happen in the way Jesus foretold.

What a shock then to hear Jesus' words: 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are not on the side of God but of man'. Other translations say something like 'your way of thinking is not of God but of man'. Praised for his divinely-inspired way of thinking last week, Peter is condemned for his diabolical way of thinking this week.

The glory of the Son of Man, of the Messiah, of this Son of the Living God, is the glory of love in a sinful world. What shape will that glory take - must that glory take? - in a sinful world? If the world so loved by God is to be redeemed and healed? Jesus has just given them a sketch of the glory and it is nothing like what they - or we - would count as glory. They should have had some preparatory understanding - the experience of Jeremiah (see today's first reading), the words of Isaiah (the Suffering Servant, the birth pangs of Messiah), the very recent experience of John the Baptist. But not for Messiah himself: surely he would be the one to bring all such injustices and oppression to an end? Yes, but to end it by embracing it, by entering into it more deeply than any prophet or martyr before or since, by drinking the cup of the world's suffering - this they did not expect and they could not accept.

As Act Two of the drama of Jesus' life opens, the disciples still have everything to learn. We still have everything to learn in the face of human suffering, of the world's evil, of the reality of sin and death. 'God forbid, Lord, this must not happen to you, to us!' But notice how the apostles and disciples did quickly come to understand when the events foretold by Jesus actually took place. Paul sums up so well what they had learned from Jesus - 'offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, let yourselves be transformed, renew your whole way of thinking, so that you will discern the will of God' - not of Satan, not of flesh and blood, not of this world - 'and so know what is good, acceptable to God and perfect.'

This is today's so apt second reading. And this is what Jesus is beginning to teach them and to teach us who are always at the beginning of this understanding. At first he teaches them in words, later in his actions and in his passion. The same for us - we learn the way of Jesus not just by understanding his words but by entering into the mystery of the Cross, through prayer, through our own suffering, through sharing the suffering of others, through seeking to understand what it means truly to love another. It is a wisdom we learn only through the renewal of our minds - over and over again - and the transformation of our hearts - over and over again.

Passion of John the Baptist - 29 August

Readings: 1 Corinthians 1:26–31; Psalm 33; Mark 6:17–29

Herod feared John the Baptist, and whenever he heard him speak, he was perplexed. He was afraid because he knew that John was holy and righteous, yet he enjoyed listening to him. Herod is the classic example of an indecisive person, drawn to what is good, perhaps even capable of seeing what is right, yet lacking the strength of character or moral maturity necessary to follow what he knows to be right and to order his desires accordingly. In a sense, Herod is ‘the man in the street’.

How common is this ambivalence in the face of holiness and righteousness? The Bible speaks of it often, in very different moments and contexts throughout the history of the people. ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’ (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8). ‘Purify your hearts, you who are double-minded’ (James 4:8). ‘How long will you waver between two opinions?’ (1 Kings 18:21). ‘I do not do the good I want to do, but I do the evil I do not want to do’ (Romans 7:19).

Herod is not a likeable figure, and we might easily dismiss him as pathetic and ineffective. The frequency with which the Bible exhorts the people to resolve their wavering, reminding them of their own duplicity, is enough to assure us that the problem is not Herod’s alone, and that where we say ‘his’ or ‘theirs’, we should in fact say ‘mine’ and ‘ours’.

We see Herod’s problem in dramatic terms; indeed, it has often been dramatised by composers, playwrights and painters. For us, however, it is more useful to reflect on our own duplicity, on how this problem is present within ourselves. In what ways do I waver between different opinions? In what ways do I see what is good and yet do what is wrong? In what way do I continue to profess in words that I follow Christ whilst my heart, at least in part, is elsewhere?

We might find John the Baptist admirable but a little off-putting, a man of integrity, yes, but somewhat fierce in his manner and his teaching. As long as we see him in this light, we are more or less on Herod’s side, fearful of what John asks of us and yet eager to listen to him. For what he proclaims is simply the kingdom of God, the good news. His message is the message of Jesus, just as demanding and uncompromising. ‘Wretched man that I am,’ concludes Paul, reflecting on his own indecision. ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’ (Romans 7:24).

When we confront this problem head-on within ourselves, we arrive at the same question. Is it a problem of character or of upbringing? Is it a problem of nature or of nurture? Is it a matter of good fortune or misfortune? Is it simply a desire that proves too strong for reason?

Herod does not know whom to turn to for help, and the tragedy of John’s martyrdom ensues. Paul, on the other hand, knows whom to turn to: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.’ Let us, too, continue to look in that direction, towards the One whom John the Baptist pointed to as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Our hope is that He may also deal with the sins of my indecision. He teaches us not to be afraid, but to seek, to ask and to knock. He asks us to open the door to Him and to allow Him to strengthen us in holiness. He can do this, even though at times we may be like Herod.

Saint Augustine - 28 August

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)

As Dominicans we mention three saints in our formula of profession, Mary, Dominic and Augustine. Of course if the provincial of the day or the Master of the Order turns out to be a saint then we mention one or two more, but we are unlikely to be around to see them raised to the glories of the altar.

We make profession according to the rule of Blessed Augustine. It is the first part of the contract we make with each other in the Order, to live together according to this rule, one of the shortest of the monastic rules and the one chosen by St Dominic for his new community of brothers. Just as Augustine, as someone has put it, ‘exceeds all other theologians in the consistency and clarity with which he makes caritas, love, the focal point of the Christian life, so too the whole of life in the religious community that lives by his rule is to be a living expression of Christian love’.

Love which remains forever is to prevail in everything, the Rule says in its fifth chapter. The opening statement of the Rule – at least in the Latin edition of our Constitutions: in the recent English translation this first sentence has disappeared – is that before all else we are to love God and then our neighbour, for these are the chief commandments given to us. So the first thing our rule asks of us is nothing more, and nothing less, than observance of the great commandment in which Jesus summarised the whole of the law.

Augustine’s moral theology is centred on charity, love. His understanding of the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude is that they are different expressions of love. In different situations and circumstances what is asked of love is that it be just or temperate, prudent or courageous, but it is all basically love. It is as if he sides with Socrates in agreeing that there is one fundamental virtue to which all others can be reduced, wisdom for Socrates now baptised to become caritas or love for St Augustine.

In his commentary on the first letter of John, Augustine at one point says ‘love and do what you will’. Sometimes people assume that he must have said ‘love God and do what you will’ but he actually says ‘love and do what you will’. Of course he meant that one who loves truly must end up loving God and neighbour. ‘Let love’s root be within you’ is how he concludes this section of his homily (In I John VII.8), ‘and from that root nothing but good can spring’. Because St John says in that first letter that God is love, Augustine concluded that love is the surest guide and the most reliable criterion for us in seeking to follow Christ. He was convinced that love in the true sense is from God and leads to God.

It was their life of love together that impressed Augustine when he visited Christian religious communities soon after his conversion. He writes of them that: 

Love before all else is practised there. It is the norm for food and speech, dress and one’s entire behaviour. All are united in a single love, all breathe a single love. An offence against love is regarded as an offence against God; anything that is opposed to love is rejected and cast out; if anything offends against love, it is not allowed to remain for even a day. For they know that love is so emphasised by Christ and the apostles that if it is lacking, everything else is in vain, and if it is present everything else is made perfect (The Catholic Way of Life, 33.7). 

The Rule by which we live is very practical too in matters of food and clothing, work and companionship, and all at the service of love. For Augustine love is the rule of faith both in matters of doctrine and in matters of practice. Echoing 1 Corinthians 13 he says: 

All may sign themselves with the sign of Christ, all may answer Amen, all may sing Alleluia, all may receive baptism and enter the church … the difference between the children of God and the children of Satan is love alone. Those who possess love are born of God. Those who do not possess it are not born of God … Without it everything else is useless, no matter what you have; it suffices by itself, even if you have nothing else (On I John 5.7). 

This brings home to us even more sharply what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13: I may sign myself with the sign of the cross, I may answer Amen and sing Alleluia, I may receive baptism and enter the church, I may even take vows of religion and promise to live according to the rule of Blessed Augustine and the institutes of the Friars Preachers – but if I am without love then I gain nothing and I am nothing.

As regards doctrine Augustine is equally clear and consistent in referring to the great commandment as the rule of our faith. In his work On Christian Doctrine Augustine has this to say: 

If it seems to anyone that he has understood the divine scriptures, or any part of them, in such a way that by that understanding he does not build up that double love of God and of neighbour, he has not yet understood them (De Doctrina Christiana I, XXXVI, 40). 

Here is a first principle of biblical interpretation. Even the letter of the gospel kills, Augustine says elsewhere, if the healing grace of faith is not present within.

So the first thing our Rule does is send us straight back to the gospel and to the heart of the gospel. Our life is all about growing in the love of God and neighbour. We are here because we believe that this is where we are called to follow Christ. To follow Christ means to love God and our neighbour. And it is here that we must practise this, do it, and become better at it. It is not at some future time, in another situation, with different people, that we might grow in charity. It is here and now, in this community and with these people, that it must be done or it will not be done at all.

The Rule of St Augustine concludes: 

The Lord grant you the grace to observe all these things as lovers of spiritual beauty, the good life you share together rich with the good fragrance of Christ, the life no longer of slaves under a law, but of free people established under grace.

Saint Monica - 27 August

The Mother of Saint Augustine

Among the many personalities who appear in the course of Augustine’s life no one gets more space or more affection in his Confessions than does Monica, his mother. An intellectual reading of that work often omits Book Nine, more than half of which is an account of Monica’s life, her influence on him, and her death and funeral at Ostia. ‘I am passing over many things because time is short’, Augustine himself says, ‘but I will not pass over anything that my soul brings forth concerning that servant of yours who brought me forth from her flesh to birth in this temporal light, and from her heart to birth in light eternal’.

Augustine is as honest in recounting his memories of his mother’s life as he is in recounting those of his own. God’s providence used an angry servant to give Monica a shock which saved her from becoming even more addicted to alcohol than she was as a young woman. Her strategy for dealing with her unfaithful and potentially violent husband was to see him always in the light of God, to give him the example of her own way of living, and to wait patiently and mercifully for his conversion to the faith and so to chastity. (One wonders how like his father Augustine might have thought – and perhaps feared – he himself was.) Monica used the same virtues of devotion, patience and gentleness to win over her mother-in-law whose relationship with her was being poisoned by others in the household. Instructed by God in the school of her heart, Monica acted as a peacemaker and reconciler when tensions and hatreds exploded between people. The way in which Augustine speaks about this makes one think of Monica as a saint for our time, one who was able to chart a steady course through a sea of malicious gossip, lying slander and angry people. In the immediate aftermath of Augustine’s conversion Monica took care of him and his friends ‘as though all had been her children and she served us as though she had been the daughter of all’.

Most famously Augustine and Monica get locked down in Ostia, trying to find a boat to get back to North Africa, but hindered by a war which effectively shut down the port. Together they talk about eternal life and what it would be like. There follows the kind of intellectual / spiritual ascent which is familiar from other places in Augustine’s writings, ‘lifting off’ from the beauty of the cosmos, travelling ‘by inward thought and wondering discourse beyond the summit of our own minds, to touch the land of never-failing plenty where God pastures Israel for ever with the food of truth. That Life is the Wisdom through whom all things were made and, says Augustine, as we talked and panted for her (Wisdom) ‘we just touched the edge of it by the utmost leap of our hearts’. Sighing and unsatisfied ‘we left the first-fruits of our spirit captive there and returned to the noise of articulate speech’. And how beautiful that articulate speech is as Augustine takes off again into one of the most poetic passages in the Confessions, retracing the ascent to Wisdom and speaking of how desirable it is.

Monica, perhaps getting a bit concerned at the other-worldliness of her son’s discourse (and Augustine himself says ‘well I didn’t actually use those exact words in that moment’) is characteristically concrete and concerned for others: she has now received the last gift for which she had prayed, she says, to see Augustine a Catholic Christian before she died. ‘What now keeps me here?’, she asks. Five days later she became ill, Augustine and his brother were distraught, hoping that she might survive to return to Africa and be buried there alongside her husband. But she said it did not matter and in words that have become classic in Catholic piety concerning the dead added ‘one thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be’. ‘Nothing is far from God’, she said, ‘There is no danger that at the end of the world he will not know where to find me and raise me up’.

What a contrast the practical mother is in these last moments compared with her ever so intellectual son who is immediately thrown into a fierce inner conflict as he tries to contain the grief that fills him. He was profoundly displeased to find how powerfully he could be affected by these human experiences! What a consolation to us that he was so powerfully affected – the practical wisdom of our time would simply say to him ‘let it out, let the tears flow’. He thinks a bath might help but it doesn’t. Sleep does though and some words of Saint Ambrose which he recalls as he falls asleep: ‘I went to sleep and on awakening felt a good deal better’. It brings to mind an earlier moment in his journey when God soothed his head (the Latin term is the one used to describe a mother turning her infant towards her breast) and closed his eyes, he slept in God and woke to a new vision of things (Confessions VII 14.20). There it seems to have a deeper significance, a moment of insight or realisation about the reality of God. Here it seems more like a more ordinary human breakthrough as Augustine finally gives himself up to tears, though privately, in the presence of God alone. ‘If only humans would acknowledge that they are human’, he says, which is a bit rich considering the effort he was making not to cry and the efforts his friends were presumably making to help him acknowledge the very same thing, that he too was a member of the human race!

And he finishes with a wonderful prayer for his mother, that the Lord will be merciful to her, and to his father, as he asks all those who read his Confessions to join him in praying for them.

As we remember Saint Monica we remember those we have loved and who have died, and in a particular way our mothers, who from their flesh brought us to birth in this temporal light and who from their hearts would bring us to birth in the eternal light.

I have used the very beautiful translation of Augustine's Confessions done by Sister Maria Boulding OSB and published by New City Press, New York in 1997.

Week 21 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10,16-18; Psalm 128; Matthew 23:27-32

One of the best known of the Monty Python sketches is the one about the Ministry for Funny Walks. A translation in the first reading today might seem to be objecting to such a Ministry, as Paul encourages the Thessalonians to shun any brother 'who walks in a disorderly way'. Other translations say 'walking in idleness' or 'living a disorderly life'. 'Walking' is a term used elsewhere in the New Testament to speak about a way of living - 'walk in love,' for example, we read in Ephesians 5:2. the other term used here, and translated either as 'disorderly' or 'in idleness', seems to be closer in meaning to disordered or undisciplined. It is presumably what follows that leads translators to identify idleness as the particular form of disorder involved here.

The reason for the idleness is the issue considered earlier in 2 Thessalonians. Some were saying that the day of the Lord had already come and so, with a certain reasonableness, some had already hung up their boots and packed away their tools. What was the need to work if the world was coming to an end?

It is an approach we might be tempted to take for other reasons, a kind of giving up on the world. One sometimes hears of people who decide not to have children because the world is in such a terrible state that it would be wrong to oblige children to live in it. One might be tempted not to engage in the political process, for example, on seeing the alternatives on offer and finding them all unsatisfactory. One might be tempted to become cynical about all teachers and religions, perhaps drawing on Jesus' words in Matthew 23 as he condemns the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. And there may be other reasons also ... the threat of war, the future of the planet, the persistence of the covid virus, increasing violence in speech and action ...

As with yesterday's advice from Jesus - get down to cleaning the inside of the cup first - Paul's advice to the Thessalonians may seem too small for the big problems just mentioned. In fact it is omitted from the first reading as it is given to us in the lectionary! Edited out ... What Paul says to those tempted to 'walk in a disorderly way', to give up on their engagement in this world and its problems, is that they should go on quietly working and earning their own living (2 Thessalonians 3:12). They are not to grow weary of doing what is good (v.13).

It brings to mind the 'little way' of Saint Therese of Lisieux, that surprising Doctor of the Church. What is important, she teaches us, is not what you have to do today so much as the love with which you can do it. There are many huge challenges and questions for the world today. There are many huge challenges and questions for the Church today. It can all seem too much at times - unsettling, overwhelming, paralysing. Let us continue, with God's grace, to walk in an orderly way, with our eyes fixed on the goal which is Christ, doing every ordinary thing with love. Walking in that way we can be sure that we are following Him and in doing so we are preparing the ground for the kingdom that is coming. For it is also true that the Kingdom of God is very near to us.

Week 21 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3a,14-17; Psalm 96; Matthew 23:23-26

We might think that apocalyptic language belongs to another place and time, that it is a way of speaking that is so foreign to us and requires so much interpretation that it is nearly impossible for us to find in it a message for ourselves that is not either far-fetched at best, crazy at worst. But the current political discourse in the United States of America is becoming ever more apocalyptic.

We are accustomed for some time now to the 'right wing' tribe using this language. There is a great battle under way, we are told, between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Obviously those who identify with this tribe regard themselves as belonging to the forces of good. Ranged against them are those who identify - or whom they identify - with the other tribe, 'the left', Democrats, liberals, lefties, and something called 'the deep state'.

Now it seems that this other tribe has joined them, at least in agreeing with this Manichean view of the world. 'The left' has begun to speak also about a great battle under way between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Except - presumably - that now it is they who belong to the forces of good and the right-wing tribe - or those whom they identify as belonging to it - represents the forces of evil.

Saint Paul, in the first reading of today's Mass, tells the Thessalonians not to be alarmed or shaken out of their minds by such apocalyptic language. 'The day of the Lord has come', 'the end is nigh', 'the great battle of Armageddon is underway' - this is always the burden of such language. Its plausibility in our present moment is strengthened by the plague that has paralysed the world. But, says Paul, you must rely instead on the traditions you have received through the preaching of the apostles. Look to Jesus to encourage your hearts and to strengthen them in every good deed and word.

In the gospel reading we find Jesus himself speaking about the same thing. Don't be deceived by the purveyors of myths promoted to support people's quest for power and don't be deceived by the razzmatazz and the gaudy presentation they make of themselves.  Jesus is speaking in the first place to the Pharisees, the religious party to which he was closest. Forget about presentation which is always more or less hypocritical and focus instead on the weightier things - judgement, mercy and fidelity. Good deeds and words originate inside human beings and do not come from outside. Strive to see clearly and to find teachers and leaders who see clearly regarding these matters of judgement, mercy and fidelity. Far too often our teachers and leaders are more or less blinded by their own interests, their own prejudices, their own desires - they are more or less blind guides.

John Hume, a political leader respected by all who know about him, died recently. He was someone who tried to be a teacher and guide who could see not just the prejudices nursed, the injustices  suffered, and the aspirations sought by his own tribe, but to see those things in the other tribe as well. He sought to see beyond such definitions, to a common humanity which everybody, in more or less distorted ways, was trying to serve. The most difficult change to bring about, John Hume said, is the change in human hearts.

As the pressure mounts for us to 'choose sides' in the great battle - which side of the tennis court are you on, left or right? - it is salutary to remember that both the left and the right have carried their fears and oppression of others to the point of establishing concentration camps. Whether you end up in one or the other does not seem to make much difference in the end, the way you will be treated by your fellow human beings will be much the same.

Obviously something else is needed, another vantage point from which to survey the battlefield. However seeking another vantage point seems to lead, sooner or later, to the hill of Calvary. It was from that our crucified Lord surveyed the human scene, taking on himself all its fears and cruelties, to break down the wall of hostility that divides humanity into tribes, to make both one by the shedding of his innocent blood (the only truly innocent blood?).

But he gives us today a first direction with which we can begin even today: 'cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.' Is it too gentle for a world which is physically violent in many places, and already so violent in language in so many more?