Week 10 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 18:20-39; Psalm 15; Matthew 5:17-19

As children, at school, there was a lot to hold our attention in the stories from the Bible, especially from the Old Testament. There were so many big characters and colourful and dramatic stories. We had Moses and Samson, Joshua and Elijah, Jacob and David, supermen easily placed alongside Batman and Superman. There were mighty women also - Delilah and Deborah and Judith, to go with the super-heroines of the comics we read. It all fitted very easily with what we were also seeing in the cinema - cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, heroes and villains.

'When I was a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child' (1 Corinthians 13:11). The world was enchanted but also dualistic (even though we would not then have understood the term!), the children of light engaging in warfare with the sons and daughters of darkness, to save the world, save civilisation, save humanity.

'When I became a man I gave up childish ways'. Well, did I, really? It is still much easier to think in dualistic terms and we see it being done all the time - rich and poor, north and south, black and white, Christian and Muslim, left-wing and right-wing, conservative and liberal. It seems that even when the world loses its enchantment for us, and we become more skeptical about the arrival of any heroic deus ex machina to save the day, we still go on thinking in dualistic terms. 

The story of Elijah's confrontation with the priests of Baal is therefore one with which we will be very comfortable, at least from the point of view of its simplicity. One faithful prophet against four hundred and fifty pagan priests. An absent and/or powerless god who can do nothing with a dry bull ('perhaps he is on the loo', Elijah taunts) compared with an always present, always powerful, always ready to act Lord, the God of Israel, to whose devouring fire the bull soaked in water presents no difficulty. There are goodies and baddies, and it is clear who they are, the odds are stacked against the goodies, but they have the Superhero of all superheroes rooting for them and so all is well - 'the Lord is God, the Lord is God' echoes along the slopes of Mount Carmel and across the beautiful valley of Jezreel. (You can still hear the echo if you visit there today!)

Fast forward to another Galilean hillside and another prophet, speaking to a crowd of followers and others. It is less dramatic, less colourful, less noisy or smelly, there is no bull. Very soon Jesus will make a series of contrasts between the old law and his new law - 'you have heard that it was said ... but I say to you'. It is all too easy to place this within the simple familiar pattern with which our minds are most comfortable - old is bad, new is good; Jewish law bad, Christian law good; ancestors limited, we enlightened; former times primitive, our times sophisticated.

But this prophet will frequently challenge, subvert, upend our easy, lazy, dualistic way of thinking. It is as if this is the heart of his preaching. Who goes home justified? Who is chosen? Who enters first into the kingdom of heaven? Who will be first and who last? Who wins and who loses?

So he prefaces this series of 'you have heard ... but I say' with a warning which obliges us to think again and to think hard. It  directly confronts our tendency to separate into 'goodie' and 'baddie', our childish way of thinking. We can say simply that it calls us to think, to think deeply and consistently, perhaps to think seriously for the first time. His mission is all about metanoia, a change of mind, a revolution in how we think. So do not imagine, he says, that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. Think this instead: I have come to complete them, in every last detail. It you want to be great in my kingdom then keep these laws in every detail and teach others to do the same. (Is he being serious?)

It is not by being childish in our way of thinking that we are to be like little children so as to enter his kingdom, thinking the world is a showdown, understood simplistically, between the good and the bad (with you and I always among the good, of course).  It is all much more interesting, more complicated, more of a challenge to human imagination and thought, more dramatic spiritually - how to understand this world and the providence unfolding within it, how to stay with this prophet in all the confusion that can gather round, how to have 'the mind of Christ' and to stand with him as he brings all law, all prophets, all promises, all covenants, to unimagined completion.

Elijah and Moses, those two great superheroes of our childhood, will soon confirm this, appearing with him on yet another Galilean hill, pointing to him, only to fade away quietly, leaving only Jesus. And the quiet echo of the Father's voice, 'listen to him'.

Week 10 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 17:7-16; Psalm 4; Matthew 5:13-16

Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story which consisted of just six words: 'For sale: baby shoes. Never used'. Another great author of the last century, John Steinbeck, pointed out how we use very short words for the most significant human experiences: war, peace, life, death, love, hate.

Today's readings are simple in this way. Elijah is hungry and thirsty, the woman offers him what she has, meal and oil. Add a little water and there is bread. Jesus speaks about salt and light, simple words and simple realities but things of great power.

We have the simplest words for the most important things: God, Abba, God is love.

And yet we move towards complication. Why do we need to complicate our lives so much? Is this something sin wants to do, to pull us away from a simple appreciation of the gifts we have?

I had a vivid experience of recovering the simple during a Holy Week retreat at Quarr Abbey some years ago. The place was cold, the hours of praying were long, and the food was Lenten. After two days the simple breakfast of homemade brown bread, butter and coffee was the tastiest and most satisfying meal imaginable. I knew again what it meant to be hungry. I knew again what it meant to be tired and appreciated sleep. I knew again what it meant to be cold and appreciated heat. And - this is what we hope for in going on retreat - I knew again what it meant to be without God, and appreciated the need to seek Him.

We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It is perfectly simple and so easy to understand. But something else enters in. The salt loses its savour. When we experience empty blandness again we return to appreciating salt. The light is allowed to weaken and even to go out. When we experience darkness again we return to appreciating light.

The widow of Zarephath, who helped Elijah, gets honourable mention in the preaching of Jesus. Her jar of meal and jug of oil have been taken to symbolise the sacramental life of the Church. These sacred mysteries are always on offer - reconciliation and the Eucharist - to restore and sustain our life, to make us salty again, to make us radiant again.

Corpus Christi (Year A)

Readings: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; Psalm 147; 2 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58

Jesus tells his disciples that the difference between the bread given to the Hebrews in the wilderness and the bread he gives, which is his own flesh for the life of the world, is that the people who ate the first are dead whereas the people who eat the second will live forever. Clearly it does not mean that physical dying can now be bypassed. Everybody dies and everybody who eats the Eucharist also dies. Jesus acknowledges this as well: ‘I will raise him up on the last day’, he says, and it is only people who have died who need raising up on the last day.

So whatever the difference is between the two kinds of bread it is not that one allows its eaters to avoid physical death. What kind of immortality, then, is bestowed by eating the real food which is his flesh and drinking the real drink which is his blood? The bread given to the Hebrews in the wilderness was a miraculous sign to sustain them physically as they were being initiated into the covenant relationship with God. The bread given to the disciples of Jesus, which is his flesh for the life of the world, is a sacramental sign to sustain them in the new life they receive from Him.

In baptism the disciples die and rise to new life, and it is this new life that is sustained by the bread which is the flesh of Jesus for the life of the world. It is not simply a prolongation of our animal life, even on the far side of death, nor is it simply a new level given to this same life. It is a new and eternal life, the life which the Son draws eternally from the Father. The principle of this life, its power and energy, is the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son, to animate the body which  is the Church, to embrace the world, to open the door to eternal life for all.

In the sacramental realization of this feeding the Church twice invokes the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is called down on the bread and wine so that by the power of the Spirit they might become the body and blood of Christ. The Spirit is called down on those who receive this communion in the bread and in the blessing cup, so that by the power of the Spirit they might become one body, one spirit in Christ.

The feast we celebrate today focuses on this sacramental realization of the gift of a new and eternal life. Already received in baptism it is sustained in the Eucharist. Any life requires an initial birth and then an ongoing sustenance, likewise the new life received from Jesus requires the initial birth of baptism and the ongoing sustenance which is the Blessed Eucharist.

This way of communicating life to us is adapted to the kind of creature that we are. It is we who know hunger and thirst. It is we who know the difference between longing and satisfaction. It is we who know when we are far from the energy of this life and when, by God’s grace, it is flowing strongly in us. We know all this physically. It is also how we know what is in our inmost heart and it is how we come to understand that we do not live on bread alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of God.

There is also this analogy between the miraculous gift of manna in the desert and the sacramental gift of Christ’s body and blood. In each case the food given sustains its recipients on a journey. For the Hebrews it was the journey through a wilderness full of physical dangers. For the disciples of Jesus it is a journey through a world full of challenges. The disciples are not taken out of the world and the bread we eat is the flesh of Jesus given not just for us but for the life of the whole world. His work, and our participation in his work, is the transformation of the world.

This is a work of love, yes, but it is also an onerous task. Our participation in this onerous task of love requires, in the first place, the transformation of our hearts and souls if they are to be worthy dwelling places for Him. We need to deal with our own serpents and scorpions also.

Every Eucharistic communion is therefore viaticum, food for the journey. Our final Eucharistic communion is food for the journey from this world to the Father. But every reception of Holy Communion is food for the journey of the Christian life. There are serpents and scorpions, hunger and thirst, that afflict and distract us. Often their trick or their effect is simply to turn us in on ourselves and away from our neighbor and so away from God also. But the new and eternal life, the divine life we receive from the Holy Spirit, is always an ecstatic life. This does not mean that it brings strange and unusual feelings with it. It is ecstatic because it is a life that carries us beyond ourselves, to live like Christ, always for others and for the Father. The divine life flowing in Jesus led him to give the whole of his human life, to pour it out as a sacrificial offering, expressing his love and obedience to the Father. Before that he spent his days at the service of others, teaching and healing, strengthening and redeeming. So his flesh was given for the life of the world and his blood was poured out so that people might be washed in its healing streams.

Remember, says the first reading at Mass today, and do not forget, what the Lord did for you in the forty years of your wandering in the wilderness. Do this in memory of me, Jesus says in every celebration of the Eucharist. Remember and do not forget how the new and eternal life has been won for you. Remember and do not forget how the new and eternal life is sustained in you. Remember and do not forget the body in which you share this new and eternal life, those who sit at this table with you, and all who are called to share one day in the supper of the Lamb.

Week 9 Saturday (Week 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 4:1-8; Psalm 70; Mark 12:38-44

The poor widow who gives her whole living to the Temple is mentioned in Luke's gospel as well as in today's passage from Mark's gospel. For some reason the Christian tradition decided that Jesus was praising her for what she did. It is more likely, when we look at the context, that her appearance at a time when he was criticising the corruption of the Temple system simply provided him with a perfect illustration of the kind of clericalist exploitation of the poor that he was talking about.

In one moment he is criticising the clerics for their love of display and honour while at the same time they 'swallow the property of widows'. In the next breath he points out such a widow, who happens to come along, giving more than she can afford. In Luke's gospel whenever a person is praised by Jesus he makes a comment such as 'go and do likewise', or 'she went away justified'. But there is no such word of praise for the widow either in Luke's gospel or in Mark's.

What seems to have happened is that the call to follow Jesus, and to give our life for his sake, along with the self-giving of Jesus himself in his passion and death, have come to colour the donation of the widow who puts in everything she possessed, all she had to live on. It seems as if Jesus must be praising the widow for doing this because it seems to be in line with the call to follow him, seeking to live what T.S Eliot called 'a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything'. But look again at the context in which the widow appears, whether in Luke or in Mark, and you will see that it is not what Jesus is teaching at that moment.

Today's first reading on the other hand is an unambiguous presentation of the complete dedication to which Jesus calls his followers. Paul is saying, in effect, that he has put in everything he possessed, all he had to live on. He has given all his time and energy to the task of preaching the gospel. His words are among the best known and most beautiful in the Bible and we hear them from time to time especially at funeral masses: 'my life is already being poured out, I have fought the good fight to the end, I have run the race, I have kept the faith'.

Concerning his own economic support from the communities he founded the evidence from Paul's correspondence is complex. Jesus had said that the labourer deserves his wages and Paul returns to this point from time to time. But he also wished to preach the gospel freely without making economic demands on his listeners. He was anxious also, in the face of his critics, to head off any possibility that he might be charged with preaching in order to make money (Acts 18:3; 1 Corinthians 4:12; 9:6; Philippians 4:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9).

So let us stand with the widow in thinking about justice and injustice, exploitation of people's sensibilities whether religious or political or cultural or of any other kind. And let us stand also with Paul in thinking about generosity and self-giving, as he writes those stirring words, 'my life is being poured out as a libation'. How do we put it together, the call to generosity and self-sacrifice, and the call to defend what is just and not allow ourselves or others to be exploited? Be careful always to choose the right course, Paul says to Timothy, and be brave under trials. We can imagine him saying the same to us, at the same time not giving us an easy answer about how to live up to the demands of the gospel in certain particular circumstances. He simply reminds us that we must live our lives seeking to be generous, even at some cost to ourselves, while at the same time seeking to remove any system that oppresses or exploits the poor.

It is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong, there is no doubt about that (1 Peter 3:17). At the same time the religion acceptable in God's eyes means not just keeping ourselves unstained from the world but also engaging with its corruption and injustice, if we are to come to the aid of widows and orphans in their need (James 1:27).

Week 9 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Timothy 3:10-17; Psalm 118; Mark 12:35-37

When Christians gather to celebrate their faith the central and most important of those celebrations is the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the summit of the Christian life, the highpoint of the community's week. It is also the source of that life, because there we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, this extraordinary sacramental gift. And there too we are consecrated as the priest calls down the Holy Spirit first on the bread and wine, that they might become the Body and Blood of Christ, and second on all who share in Christ's Body and Blood, that they might become one body and one spirit in Christ.

But we are also 'consecrated in the truth' during the celebration of the Eucharist because its first part is the 'Liturgy of the Word' in which we are fed on the Word of God in the scriptures. When it has been proclaimed in the readings we hear it explained in the teaching of the homily, we receive it in joy by singing psalms and alleluias, we respond to it by professing our faith in the love song that is the Creed, and by praying for the Church and the world, for all in special need and for the dead. The proclamation of the Word also has a sacramental character - it brings about what it signifies because Christ is really present with us in His Word as it is proclaimed and taught among us.

The readings today focus on this aspect of our life of faith. The short gospel reading shows us Jesus teaching in the Temple, explaining a verse of scripture, and using it to put to the people a provocative question: how can the Messiah be the son of David when David calls him 'Lord'? Why the majority of the people hear this 'with delight' may be a bit puzzling for us. In the context it is Jesus' first chance to put a question of his own after a series of questions addressed to him by various groups - Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, scribes, lawyers - they have all had a go at him and now he stands on his own ground and puts his own question to the people. Perhaps it was the thought of enemies being put under the feet of the Messiah that delighted the crowd. Or they were simply enjoying the conflict especially now that Jesus, having survived a series of ambushes, was beginning to fight back.

To ask good questions is one of the tools of teaching and Jesus does it here as he often does it elsewhere. In fact his usual way of responding to a question put to him is to ask a better one in response. He also says this: David wrote this verse under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so we are dealing with something true. He is taking his stand on the holy scriptures of Israel's faith. Paul emphasises the same thing in the first reading. Scripture is the foundation of your teaching, he says to Timothy, as it is the foundation of what we know and what we believe. All scripture is inspired by God, Paul says, and so is useful for teaching, for refuting, for guiding people's lives, for teaching holiness. The scriptures carry to us a wisdom that leads to salvation and to know them is to be fully equipped and ready for any good work. But expect opposition too, Paul says, which inevitably comes the way of anybody who tries to live in devotion to Christ.

So we have two short readings but rich in reminding us of the essential source of our faith, the holy scriptures, the Bible. Its authors were inspired by God as they wrote. And all those texts bear witness in some way to Christ, to who he is and to his mission. We have the chance to be fed and watered at this source every Sunday - every day if we wish. Through the Word of God in the scriptures we come to know truth, learn how to live and are shown at what we should aim. Christ is with us each day in his Word, comforting and challenging, illuminating and inspiring, teaching and guiding. How could we not run each day to such a spring, and there drink deeply with delight?

Week 9 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Psalm 24; Mark 12:28-34

Some years ago an English actor did the round of theatres in Britain and Ireland with a one-man show. He simply spoke the King James version of St Mark's Gospel from beginning to end. As an actor, an interpreter of scripts, he brought out all kinds of subtleties and shades of colour that our normal public reading of scripture never captures. Where most liturgical reading is solemn and a bit monotonous, he illuminated the story in a remarkable way bringing out the humour, anger, irony, sarcasm, gentleness, poignancy, bitterness, and many other things that lie hidden in the text. It was a stunning performance.

So what about today's gospel reading from Mark, what moods or shades of colour might be found in it? The scribe seems a bit patronising or perhaps he is simply naive. Is he condescending? His repetition of Jesus' summary of the law adds to it and changes it in subtle ways: is he correcting the amateur rabbi from Galilee? Is there a barb in Jesus' answer - you are not far from the kingdom of God - effectively telling him that he has hit the nail on the side? Is this what the scribe is saying to Jesus, you got it almost exactly right? Is it what Jesus is saying to the scribe, you are 'not far' from the kingdom? How near is 'not far'?

The answer to that question depends on what we are talking about. Augustine in his Confessions tells about a moment when he was not far from the kingdom of God. His spiritual condition was like a man who from a wooded summit can glimpse the homeland of peace for which he has long searched, he has it now in his sights, but there is still the question of how to get into that kingdom from where he is. What will carry us across, bridge the gap, when a person is not far from the kingdom of God? For Augustine it is the cross of Christ by clinging to which he makes the journey from his viewing point home to the kingdom. Charity is established in the humility of Christ, he says. If we want to live by the great commandment we must embrace the humility of Christ, his cross. The pride of man - all that gets in the way of our loving God and loving one another - is only undone by the humility of God. The cross is the key that unlocks the door of our pride and opens us to love.

'Beautiful' is how we might translate the scribe's comment to Jesus when he summarises the great commandment: 'you are right'. Jesus sees that the scribe's answer is wise and intelligent. So perhaps there is more understanding between them than might seem at first. Love opens up the space in which the other can be, and can flourish. It begins with the understanding a person already has and invites him or her to embrace that understanding more fully, to test its depths, to see where its truth leads.

Of course another meaning of 'not far' is that it refers to the scribe's physical proximity to Jesus himself. In John's gospel the great commandment takes the form 'love one another as I have loved you'. The content of the new commandment is not a written law, not even a sacred and hallowed piece of scripture. Most of us can easily quote the text and tell others what the great commandment is. But its content is Jesus Christ, the one who has fulfilled the law in every detail. He loves the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, strength, and he loves his neighbour as himself. He shows us what these things involve but, more than that, he is the only teacher who can enable us to carry it out.

So to be 'not far from the kingdom' is to be not far from Jesus. To be living the life of the kingdom is to be living in Him, sharing the same Spirit, the Spirit of God's love which is the only power that enables us to observe the greatest of the commandments.

Week 9 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12; Psalm122 (123); Mark 12:18-22

Arguments against another person's religious beliefs often take the form of trying to make those beliefs appear irrational, absurd and ridiculous. Even if faith is beyond reason, expanding the horizon of reason and giving it new things to think about, believers still want it to be rational. We believe that what seems to us now to be paradoxical and even contradictory will be seen not to be so when the mysteries are finally illuminated for us.

Jesus is on the receiving end of such a criticism in today's gospel, an attempt to show that what he believes is ridiculous. A woman ends up marrying seven brothers in fulfilment of the Law - whose wife will she be in the afterlife? The Sadducees, who put the question, did not believe in the resurrection of the dead - their question aims at showing such belief to be absurd. Other such arguments in the ancient world asked how there would be space for everyone, or who the rightful owners of property would be if it had been occupied and used by different people at different times.

Jesus responds 'in kind' to the Sadducees. He does not do what he normally does in answering questions, shifting the argument to a deeper level of understanding. He simply compounds what they would have regarded as nonsense by speaking not just of resurrection but of angels - the Sadducees did not believe in them either!

But the main point of his response is the second part, where he invites them to think again about God, and how God speaks of himself, as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here they were on shared ground. The Sadducees would have accepted this. 'And you think He is the God of the dead?', Jesus asks, a question which now threatens their faith with absurdity. They cannot say 'yes, he is God of the dead' but saying 'no' implies that the patriarchs are alive in God.

The encounter is unsatisfactory, perhaps the most unsatisfactory in all of the gospels. Nobody comes to believe in Jesus as a result of it, nobody agrees to follow Jesus onto a deeper level of understanding. It serves to remind us that this kind of religious argument is usually sterile, leaving all the participants in exactly the same place as they were at the beginning.

Jesus does make an effort, even if it seems uncharacteristically restrained. He not only counters their argument but invites them to think again - about their understanding of God, about God's power in creation and what it might reach to (invisible realities as well as visible), about the testimony of scripture (he appeals to Exodus, part of the Torah, the only section of the Bible the Sadducees regarded as authoritative) that Israel's Lord is God of the living.

The Sadducees - the high priestly caste, guardians of the Temple system - were at the heart of the opposition to Jesus and were a main target of his criticism of contemporary religious practice. The encounter we read about today is just the opening skirmish in what was to become an ever more violent rejection of Jesus and an ever more vocal, and even violent, critique by him of what the Temple system was doing to Israel's faith. 

The final answer to their skeptical question comes later, with the resurrection of Jesus himself after they had brought about his death. And - horror of horrors! - the fact of his resurrection will be announced to the women by 'a young man dressed in white' (Mark 16:5). He was, it seems, the angel of the resurrection.