Week 16 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Jeremiah 7:1-11; Psalm 84; Matthew 13:24-30

I still have the catechism we used in school over fifty years ago, 'approved by the archbishops and bishops of Ireland', with the imprimatur of John Charles McQuaid given on 2 February 1951. As in all catechisms since the Council of Trent the doctrinal part follows the articles of the Creed and the moral part is organised according to the commandments of God and of the Church. Among the sins forbidden by the first commandment of God are those against the theological virtue of hope summarised in three short questions and answers: 202. What are the sins against hope? The sins against hope are despair and presumption. 203. What is despair? Despair is the refusal to trust in God for the graces necessary for salvation. 204. What is presumption? Presumption is a foolish expectation of salvation without making use of the means necessary to obtain it.

The readings of today's Mass invite us to reflect on this virtue of hope since the first reading, from Jeremiah, is a warning against presumption, and the gospel reading we can take as an encouragement not to despair. All who regard themselves as specially chosen by God run the risk of one day presuming on that choice and thinking that they no longer need to bear the fruits appropriate to it. It is what is happening in Jeremiah's time and he sees what is coming as a result of the people losing contact with reality. No point, he says, in taking your stand on your election, running to the temple, and assuming that all will be fine. What is needed is a thorough reform of your ways and your deeds. The Lord is not impressed with your presumption. Rather what he wants to see is just action towards the migrant and the poor, that you give up adultery, lying and stealing, that you turn away from false gods, that you cut through the false persona you have made for yourselves to live in the light of the truth once again.

Jeremiah lives up to his name as a prophet of doom and despair. But the gospel reading about the wheat and the weeds being left to grow together until the harvest is a gospel of hope at least in the sense that there is still time. Yes, the weeds are allowed to grow along with the wheat, that is an interesting fact in itself and worthy of reflection. The weeds are not halted in their growth until the harvest, they are allowed to go on growing until the harvest. Does it mean evil too will increase as the kingdom is more strongly established? It seems so. But there is time for the thorough reform Jeremiah calls for. And the basis on which that reform can be carried through is not anything we will find in ourselves but is precisely God. That's what a theological virtue always has as its direct object and if we continue to hope in anything less than God we are not yet exercising this particular virtue.

My old catechism answer puts it this way: 'trust in God for the graces necessary for salvation'. And don't be foolish enough to presume on your salvation if you are not making use of the means necessary to obtain it. Between the two readings then comes this call to live in hope, a gift of God's grace which enables us to negotiate our way wisely between presumption on the one side and despair on the other. Just like Peter trying to walk on the water we need to keep our eyes fixed on God. If we allow ourselves to dwell on anything else, whether our own sins or our own righteousness, then we are in danger of sinking.

My old catechism also included 'A Short Act of Hope': O my God! I hope in you for all the graces that I need for my eternal salvation and for heaven itself, because you are infinitely powerful, good and merciful and because you are faithful to your word.

Week 16 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Jeremiah 3:14-17; Jeremiah 31:10-13; Matthew 13:18-23

Finally, Jesus gives an interpretation of the parable of the sower. This interpretation is simple and well-known. The text from Isaiah which he quotes between the first telling of the parable and this interpretation speaks of seeing, hearing and understanding. It refers to different levels of appropriation of the presence and action of God - one can look but not see, listen but not hear, one can receive the word but still fail to understand.

The first reading today, from Jeremiah, speaks of how things might reach the heart or fail to reach the heart. This is the concern of the parable also. The word by the path, on the rocks, and in the thorn bushes, has the potential to bear fruit since it is the word of the kingdom, the Word of God, but for different reasons it fails to reach the heart. Only the seed that falls on the good soil, that is seen, heard and understood, bears fruit. It is seed that has reached the heart, has taken root there in knowledge and understanding, and so bears the fruit of the word.

'I will give you shepherds after my own heart', the Lord says through Jeremiah, shepherds who will help to find a way through the hardness of heart that prevents the word from bearing fruit. Later Ezekiel will carry it one step further, saying that the Lord himself will come to shepherd his people: he will give up altogether on human shepherds, it seems.

But the goal is the same in all these texts: to see how the word of the kingdom might find its way through the hardness of heart which is the final and most resistant obstacle to its flourishing. Heart wants to speak to heart (it is the motto of Saint John Henry Newman, cor ad cor loquitur) but the human heart is often blind, deaf, and closed to the appeal of the Word.

A salutary exercise for us is to meditate on what aspects of modern life prevent us seeing, hearing and understanding the Word of the Kingdom. Many of these obstacles are as ancient as human nature itself but there are surely some particular challenges in the times in which we are living.

What are the birds that whip away the seed before it begins to grow?

What is the rocky terrain that gives it a false start, growing quickly for a bit but soon perishing?

What are the thorn bushes - riches and distractions - most likely to suffocate the Word now?

Above all what are the things that harden our hearts, that lead us to close them down, prevent us from seeing clearly and hearing accurately, and so prevent us entering into the knowledge and understanding which alone will give us freedom, joy and conviction?

Feast of Saint James - 25 July

Readings: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 126; Matthew 20:20-18

The Letter of St James comes to mind when thinking about community life. Invariably young men coming to find out about the Dominicans mention community life as one of the things they want, one of the things that attracts them to our way of life. But then we know from experience that community life often becomes problematic later on, some come to find it heavy, unhelpful, and a burden that seems not worth bearing. The Letter of James is about this, about people who believe in Christ trying to live together, and the difficulties they experience. He has many comments relevant to community life in his discussion of vices and virtues, of anger and partiality, of control of the tongue, of jealousy and ambition. It is a very practical letter.

James puts his finger on the attitudes and dispositions that make life together difficult. People are usually relieved to be given a diagnosis for a problem even before they are told whether there is any treatment for it and what that treatment might involve. To understand where problems arise, why there are problems in the first place, is already a growth in wisdom. James does this for us. The letter belongs firmly within Jewish traditions of practical wisdom, drawing on the sapiential and prophetic literature of the Old Testament. This brings him close to much of the earliest gospel material. His teaching is similar to what we find in Matthew and Luke, about beatitudes and woes, attitudes to the Law, not judging others, prayer, the danger of riches, and so on.

James is very clear that problems in communities arise as a result of problems within individuals: 4:1ff. So it is not a Marxist-style analysis that we find here, seeing problems originating in systems or structures or other people's use of power, but rather a spiritual and even psychological analysis, seeing how problems for living together arise from conflicts internal to individuals. This is why desire is such a central concern in the letter. He is referring not just to lust but to 'having' in general, and to 'wanting' in general, to the kind of having and wanting that can only be fulfilled at the expense of others. ‘Where you find jealousy and ambition you find disorder’, he says in 3:16. This is where things go wrong. In Old Testament terms it is foolishness, manifesting itself as bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. I want to have - but my wanting to have sets off these negative things in me: jealousy and ambition. His analysis seems to anticipate the kind of thing René Girard talks about in his analysis of desire and its destructive consequences for human societies.

There is, however, also a 'socio-political' level to the analysis we find in James. He speaks of the danger of riches, and power, the way we are with the rich and powerful, and the way we are with the poor and lowly. It is still the case that we respond differently to neat and tidy well-dressed people, and to dirty and untidy smelly people. We will find ourselves reacting differently to people whom the world has decided are important and to those whom it has decided are not important. We can translate that into our dealings with each other in families and communities: who counts? what’s the pecking order?

So what to do? Prayer is one of the things to do and James talks about it quite a few times for such a short letter, and not only in the famous passage which the Church sees as establishing the sacrament of anointing, the prayer of faith for the sick person. And there is an interesting twist because James warns us that we can even put our prayer at the service of our desire. You might say, 'well, is that not what we are supposed to do?' Thomas Aquinas calls prayer 'the interpreter of desire'. But, James says, ‘you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions' (4:3). The passions he has just been talking about are jealousy and ambition so we have to watch out that we do not try to put our prayer at the service of these.

As we read through the letter we will probably find ourselves wanting James to be more Christian – to say something about Christ, and about love, and about grace. He does not say much about Christ, he mentions love of neighbour as the ‘royal law’, and he echoes Old Testament passages which say that God gives His grace to the humble.

For one who talks a lot about mercy, his analysis is fairly merciless. He invents a word for his readers – you are dipsuchos, he says, double-minded, split, your desire fragmented, and here is the root of your problems. ‘Above all’, he says in 5:12, and we expect something big after that, ‘above all do not swear by heaven or earth or anything else. Let your yes be yes and your no be no’. It is a bit disappointing after the lead in ('above all'), but the world would be transformed, and our community life improved remarkably, if we used our tongues with the care James recommends, and if when we did speak we did it with the integrity and directness he encourages.

Although he does not get round to spelling out solutions as clearly as other moralists of the New Testament (Paul, 1 Peter), James brilliantly diagnoses the problems of community life and reminds us of the need to cast ourselves humbly on God’s grace: James 4:7a,8,10.

St Mary Magdalen - 22 July

Readings: Song of Songs3:1-4 or 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Psalm 63; John 20:1-2, 11-18

The story of Mary Magdalen involves conspiracy, religion, and sex. She always has a place in the (fictional) conspiracy interpretations of Christianity. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code was just the latest in a line of such interpretations. They usually involve also the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, the Priory of Sion, other secret societies, corrupt clergy, secret information, and a Catholic Church desperate to keep hidden some knowledge about its beginnings that would destroy it and bring its historical mission, finally, to an end.

Conspiracy itself is part of the excitement. It seems that we prefer to believe that some of what happens in organisations and institutions is the result of conspiracy (thoughtful and clever planning) whereas what we are trying to explain is often simply the outcome of incompetence, bad management, and disorganisation. But there seems to be a 'paranoia gene' in the human mind that prefers conspiracy. Or perhaps it is a childish wish for security, that somebody somewhere knows what is going on, even if they are not telling us about it. If the conspiracy can be attributed to the Catholic Church, this makes it even more compelling, it seems.

The other two ingredients essential for this kind of best seller are religion and sex. That combination always catches the eye and has a particular frisson that either by itself would not generate. Once again, if the religion involved is the Catholic Church, then it is of even greater interest. If Jesus and Mary Magdalene did get married, and had children who were the ancestors of the Merovingian kings of France, then it is certainly a story worth telling. The predictable reactions of condemnation from the Church usually serve only to generate greater interest in the book or film.

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. And her story, as we see from the gospel reading, really does involve conspiracy, religion, and sex. The conspiracy - somebody somewhere knows what is going on; what is happening is the outcome of thoughtful and clever planning - is one hatched in the mind and heart of God before the ages began. This is how Paul speaks about the conspiracy or, as he calls it, 'the mystery'. The gospel is preached openly, the Word is broadcast for everyone to hear, and there is nothing esoteric in the teaching of the Church. But what that teaching means is continually being uncovered. There are always depths to be explored. There are hidden treasures in Jesus Christ, and our true life is hid with Christ in God. Only very slowly do we come to realise the truth of what is going on.

What better conspiracy could we be involved in? We do not yet know everything about it but we know enough of what it means for us, and we know enough about the One behind it, to embrace that teaching and to enter into that mystery, with confidence and enthusiasm, even if also with fear and trembling.

Mary Magdalen was also, clearly, in a love affair with Jesus. He became the centre of her life. And today's gospel reading is about the most intimate moment in that love affair. One of the readings recommended by the Church for today's feast is from the Song of Songs, in which the bride searches for her beloved, the one her heart loves, the one she has lost. In the early dawn, in the garden, with the guards hovering nearby, a tryst involving anxiety, desire and mystery: this is the atmosphere in which Jesus and Mary Magdalene meet again.

Lovers, we might say, create each other. Love enables us to be more fully, and more truly, ourselves. It creates the space in which the loved one can be, can flourish, and can grow. In the case of Mary encountering Jesus it is not just a matter of a new life - as Dante described the experience of falling in love with Beatrice - it is a matter of a new creation, a new world, a new human being with a new deepest happiness and fulfillment. The conspiracy is unlocked by Jesus saying 'Mary'. This is the magic word, to call her by her name. She recognises him, called by her name she is immediately taken into his world, and she begins to live as a creature of the Resurrection.

Tradition says that Mary Magdalene went on to be a preacher of the gospel at Marseilles before retiring to a cave in the mountains outside that city. In that moment in the garden after the Resurrection, she is the new woman encountering the new man in the garden of the new creation. This is the kingdom of which Jesus had spoken, where they no longer marry and have children, but in which a different kind of communion and fruitfulness are found. 'Do not touch me', Jesus says to her, 'for I have not yet ascended to the Father'. The plot thickens.

You see how the truth of this mystery is far more interesting than the fiction of the conspiracy theorists. You see how the religion and union of persons involved here is far more profound than anything novelists manage to describe. In a way she never expected, Mary Magdalene, searching for the one her heart loved, was found by Him. He called her by her name, 'Mary', as if he had said 'let there be Mary'. And in the light of His recognition of her, she saw the Lord.

Week 16 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ps 23; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

Just in case we do not notice the first time, Mark repeats Jesus’ suggestion to the apostles that they go by themselves ‘to a wilderness place’ to get a break from the crowds (Mark 6:31, 32). By the time they get there a great throng has arrived and they are like sheep without a shepherd. Moved with compassion – this is one of the places where Mark uses a characteristic term – Jesus begins to teach them ‘many things’.

The desert is where many things are learned and it is where the sheep are likely to get lost. The prophets spoke about the need for a new kind of shepherd. In today’s first reading, for example, Jeremiah says that God will set shepherds over them who will care for the sheep (23:4). Ezekiel says that God himself will come to seek out and to look after the straying sheep (34:11). The same desert, where the lost sheep wander, and from which they need to be rescued, is also where Israel will learn again what it means to be faithful to her Lord (Hosea 2:14-15).

Is Jesus here setting a trap for the apostles in order to teach them something about teaching? Just before this, in sending them out two by two, he had not told them to teach or to preach (Mark 6:7-12). He gave them authority over unclean spirits and directions about their lifestyle on the road. We are told, however, that ‘they preached that men should repent’ (6:12) and on their return told Jesus ‘all they had done and taught’ (6:30). They are keen to be like him, and to do all that he is doing, not just casting out demons and healing the sick but, more profoundly, teaching people.

Perhaps we can understand what happens next as Jesus saying, ‘you want teaching? I’ll show you teaching’. Leading them away to a desert place by themselves brings them slap bang into the middle of human distress: a great throng awaits them, whose need evokes in Jesus the divine compassion. Jesus sets about teaching them many things and then says to the apostles, ‘you give them something to eat’ (Mark 6:37). Their impotence is clear for all to see. They do not know what to do. They are unable to meet the needs of the people and have nothing to offer. They cannot be the teachers they want to be. They cannot be the shepherds the people need. So what is to happen first? Jesus must teach them the lesson of the cross and they must learn it. Jesus must give them his Spirit and then send them out to preach in the power of that Spirit.

Is it true that to teach people is ‘more profound’ than to cast out demons or to heal the sick? It certainly seems less dramatic but does that mean it is more easily done? Augustine of Hippo believed that only God could properly be said to teach because it involves doing something within human hearts, not just presenting people with what is true but also enabling them to appreciate and to savour it as true. Thomas Aquinas says that Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the most excellent of teachers’, greater than Socrates, because he can teach interiorly and not just exteriorly as other human teachers do. When Jeremiah says (again in the first reading) that ‘the Lord is our righteousness’ we can understand this to mean ‘the Lord is the one who gives us our hold on wisdom, justice, and truth’. The Lord is the one who enables or empowers us in regard to these things.

Jesus is the ‘righteous branch’ foretold by Jeremiah who makes peace between Jew and Gentile. He did this by preaching peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near, the second reading says (Ephesians 2:17). That peace, shalom, is made up of wisdom, justice and truth. What made his preaching effective when the preaching of so many others remains ineffective? It is because his is ‘a love-breathing word’ (he is himself the love-breathing Word). The lesson he enacts on the cross contains the power of its own being learnt, because in dying he ‘breathed forth his spirit’, the spirit of truth who leads those who follow him into all truth, the spirit of love poured into human hearts.

Augustine says that on the cross Jesus is like a professor on his chair and Thomas Aquinas quotes the phrase: ‘sicut magister in cathedra’. The lonely place where the scattered sheep are finally gathered is around the cross of Jesus. The lonely place where ‘many things’ are learned is at the foot of the cross of Jesus. The lesson is about love and truth, but not just as ideas, as realities. In today’s gospel, leading his apostles to a wilderness place where a restless throng need teaching, Jesus teaches them that there is a lot more involved in being a teacher like him than they yet realize.

Week 15 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: Micah 2:1-5; Psalm 10; Matthew 12:14-21

In response to the Pharisees making plans to have him killed, Jesus withdraws and warns people not to make him known. It is a natural reaction - lie low, head for a quiet place, and try to keep your whereabouts secret. At least for the moment it is like that.

We are told that this was to fulfil what Isaiah wrote in the first of the Servant Songs, Isaiah 42. It is not immediately obvious how withdrawing and staying hidden fulfils what we find in that passage. It talks about 'beholding' someone who will 'proclaim' something to the Gentiles, which makes it seem that he becomes a public figure again. Unless the reference to the Gentiles is the point: if Jesus takes refuge there, in pagan territory, it might be a safer place for him, at least for now.

Or perhaps it is what follows in the passage from Isaiah that is being fulfilled in Jesus withdrawing and lying low. The Servant is meek and very gentle, the essence of what we would today call non-violence. In poetry of great tenderness Isaiah tells us that he will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break the bruised reed or quench the smouldering wick. What is vulnerable and fragile, what is weak and tentative, he will support and sustain. It is like a first movment in the Servant's work which, in its final and climactic movement, will bring justice to victory and give the Gentiles hope.

For the moment, then, the music of Jesus' life is gentle and quiet. But already sounding within it are the darker and louder chords of what will be revealed later, when he does return to engage directly with the forces gathered against him. It can seem that those forces are the ones that are really powerful and they do wreak havoc in people's lives. The first reading from Micah describes that havoc as Amos described it last week: the accumulated fruit of our small injustices and petty lies is a disaster because once it is accepted that justice and truth may be ignored or subverted, in no matter how trivial the way, true communion between people is no longer possible.

The great struggle of the Servant of the Lord, which unfolds in the later songs of the Servant in Isaiah 49, 50 and 52-53, shows us just how powerful is the gentleness and meekness of the Servant. The scriptures bring us back to this again and again: the forces that are truly powerful will seem at first too gentle and too meek for this world, too fragile and too vulnerable for those other powers that seem really effective, really to count for something in this world, the forces that really get things done: economic, military, political, and all forms of violence and coercion.

But it is the power dwelling in the heart of the Servant, the Spirit of God, that is truly powerful, powerful beyond the boundaries of this world, even beyond sin and death. For the moment these powers will often be quiet, gentle, invisible. Perhaps - we will be tempted to think - too quiet, too gentle, too invisible. But in the end, in the dramatic and climactic final movement of the drama, it is these powers - justice and truth, love and compassion - that rise victorious. Long after tyrants and bullies are dead, the courage and goodness of their victims stands and shines. In that strength, in that light, justice is proclaimed to all the nations as all are called to hope in the name of Jesus Christ.

Week 15 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8; Isaiah 38:10,11,12,16; Matthew 12:1-8

This is not a homily on today's readings but it might be of interest in reflecting on today's gospel reading.

Aristotle alerts us to this difficulty about knowledge, that there is nothing apart from individual things and yet knowledge is universal, drawing things into unity and identity. How there can be universal knowledge of particular things is the hardest difficulty of all, he says (Metaphysics III.4) .

The place where we see this difficulty most readily is in regard to moral action. St Thomas says that human acts are always singular and contingent, infinite in their possibilities. It is therefore impossible to frame a law which will cover all cases: 'it is impossible to institute a legal rule that will not be inadequate in some situation' (Summa theologiae II.II 120, 1). Legislators work with what generally happens but there will be cases where observing the law would be 'against the equality of justice and the common good', precisely the things laws are meant to establish and protect. Aquinas gives a couple of examples of situations where observing what the law requires would be bad: returning his sword to a lunatic, or his assets to an enemy. These are cases where following the law as it is given would be evil. The good, in such circumstances, is established and protected by ignoring the letter of the law (praetermissis verbis legis) in order to be faithful to 'the meaning of justice and to common utility'.

The virtue that enables us to make such decisions well is, in Greek, epieikeia, in Latin aequitas, in English equity. This virtue teaches us when it would be vicious to follow the letter of the law (art.cit., ad 1). It does not mean that we have become judges over the law but we are obliged to make a judgement in the particular situation in which we find ourselves (art.cit., ad 2). This virtue is needed therefore for situations of doubt, exceptional situations (art.cit., ad 3). Aristotle says that equity is a part of justice taken as a general virtue and so is higher than legal justice (Nicomachean Ethics V.10). St Thomas says that equity is thus a higher rule of human acts (superior regula humanorum actuum) than are the positive laws enacted by parliaments and monarchs (Summa theologiae II.II 120, 2). Equity is needed to moderate law which becomes cruel if it is not somehow moderated. (It is a crucial point: elsewhere St Thomas says that justice alone is cruel and must always be tempered by mercy.)

The great virtue of prudence is entirely concerned with the application of universal principles to particular situations and circumstances. It has an ancillary virtue called gnome which seems to be the basis for equity: gnome brings a perspicacity of judgement across the whole of the moral life, enabling a person to know when a higher principle takes precedence over a lower one (Summa theologiae II.II 51,4). Some of this is common sense. In England one drives on the left hand side of the road but if there is a person lying there one does not continue to drive on that side (as the law requires) and may even decide in the circumstances to drive on the right hand side: it is the reasonable thing to do thus serving the spirit of the law while ignoring its letter. Some situations will, however, be much more complex.

Does what Aristotle and Aquinas say about equity, prudence, and gnome, mean that there are no exceptionless norms governing human action? Some moral philosophers and theologians think it does, that one cannot say murder, adultery, rape and cruelty are always evil since circumstances might arise where one of these would be the right course of action. But such a view is only possible where moral norms are understood as purely legal norms, where natural law for example is understood as if it were exactly the same as positive law. There are things that the virtuous person will never do and if such a thing appears as a possible course of action he or she will immediately reject it. This is because moral norms are about more than social good or utility, they are about the values and goods without which human beings cannot begin to flourish and against which one ought never to act no matter what the circumstances.

At the same time what Aristotle and Aquinas say about equity teaches us something very important about the limits of legislation.