Week 4 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Samuel 24:2, 9-17; Psalm 32; Mark 6:1-6

Jesus comes to his own country, literally to his 'fatherland', to what belongs to his father. The word is used twice in this short gospel passage (vv.1,4). And perhaps this is the root of the problem in his own country: what he has come to is not, truly, his fatherland. They think they know him, that he belongs to them, that they have made him. They say they know his mother, his brothers, his sisters. Notice that they do not mention his father. Is this because they do not know who his father is? In a deeper sense, of course, that is precisely the problem: they do not know who his Father is. They do not know where he has come from, his origin, his nature. He does not belong to them in the way they think he does. In Luke's gospel, as an adolescent, he says to his mother, 'did you not know that I must be about my father's business, in my father's house, in my (true) fatherland?'

They know he is a carpenter, a tekton. They know what his job is, therefore, what he is meant to produce. So where do these mighty works come from? He is a craftsman, skilled with his hands, not a teacher. Whence comes the wisdom that shines in his words as in his actions? One of their own, yet they do not know him. They are unsettled, tripped up by him (the literal meaning of  'scandalised'). A familiar face, and yet he is a stranger to them. He is a craftsman, yes, a poet, author, and master, but they fail to put two and two together. Who is the author of these mighty works he does, works that renew, heal and re-create broken humanity? It cannot be him, they say, because we know who he is, and where he belongs, and what is to be expected of him.

Jesus has come to reveal his Father to them. That means he has come to introduce them to their true homeland (their true fatherland). He is present with them as the witness of the Father, teaching them marvellous things, and as the Father's instrument in a work of re-creation. In the chapters just before this one we have seen his power over all the levels of creation. His own people fail to see that he is indeed a tekton, a craftsman and more, the one through whom all things were made. It is too much to expect that they would understand so much, so quickly. The Church took a long time to realise all it has about the nature and person of Jesus. And we continue to explore His mystery centuries later.

The sad thing is that his own country, his own kin, his own house, has the power to disempower him, to block the marvellous teaching and the wonderful works. We might be tempted to think, 'well that was them and we are we and he belongs to us in a different way'. That would be to make him a citizen of our fatherland rather than agreeing to follow him into his Fatherland. We must keep alert to the temptation of thinking that now it is we (and we alone) who are his own country, his own kin, his own house. It seems like a sure road to misunderstanding him, a way of failing to grasp his teaching, in fact a way of tripping ourselves up because of him and, in the process, placing the obstacle of faithlessness in the path of his saving power.

Presentation of the Lord -- 2 February

Readings: Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 24; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

In celebrating the birth of the Word as a man, we are celebrating a new kind of knowledge, a new light, a new understanding of human life, that has come into the world with him. He is God's eternal wisdom. But this is not just an intellectual change, a new piece of information: it is a new praxis, a new possibility for living, for this new light is a new life and a new love.

In some ways it is an old commandment, the wisdom he brings, the original commandment, since the law given through Moses is already a revelation of this same wisdom. But in other ways this is a new commandment, because of Christ's birth, since now the true light is already shining.

It is not just that God gives us a new and more attractive example of good living. It is not just that God gives us a more compelling motive for good living. God has done a new deed, acted in a new way, and thereby given Himself to the world as never before, establishing in a moment of the world's history a new beginning and a new destination for humanity.

The presentation of Jesus in the Temple shows very clearly how this change comes about. Everything is done in accordance with the law of the Lord - this is stressed, more than once. But everything is done also by the prompting of the Spirit who rests on Simeon, reveals new things to Simeon, and prompts him to come to the Temple to meet God's new act, the salvation that will enlighten the pagans, and the glory of Israel - a glory long promised to Israel but whose realisation is in a way nobody could ever have anticipated.

So the Spirit manages the change from the old to the new, working in these good people, Elizabeth, Joseph, Anna, Simeon, and, above all, Mary. So the new commandment - that we can only be sure of understanding things truly if we love our brother - is planted in a soil well prepared by fidelity to the original commandment.

The Word made flesh is, as Thomas Aquinas puts it, 'the word that breathes love'. It is not just that love is the meaning of this word. Love is the power and the life of this word. Love is the reality of this word. He is a word that is only understood and only received where there is love, where people are living the same kind of life as Christ lived.

This new light, the Word of life, the Word breathing love, is destined to encounter opposition, difficulty, and rejection. All who follow him must be ready for a struggle. But where they have received him, and given the Word a home, they can walk without fear of stumbling. These are people who have come to know Christ and so live as he did. They live in the light. Their lives are established on the Word of life. They love their brothers and sisters. These are the people we call 'saints' and it is in them that we see perfectly clearly that knowing God and loving humanity are one and the same reality.

Week 3 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Samuel 12:1-7a,10-17: Ps 50; Mark 4:35-41

In Mark's account of the calming of the storm the disciples are afraid only after Jesus has stopped the storm and calmed the sea. What frightens them is not the storm: we can take it that as fishermen (some of them) they would have been familiar with storms on the lake. What frightens them is the divine power working through Jesus: in the Bible the One who commands the seas and sets limits to the waters and controls the winds is the Creator and Lord. This is why they are 'frightened with a great fear', filled with awe.

The forces of nature obey their Lord as the demons have obeyed him, as illnesses have obeyed him, as the Gadarene pigs will obey him (next Monday's gospel). All creatures are obedient. That is, they hear the voice of the Lord, they 'understand' it somehow, and they respond to it.

So what about the human creature? 'Have you no faith?', Jesus asks the disciples. Faith is the distinctively human response, the distinctively human obedience, to the Word of God. Having ears do you not hear? Having eyes do you not see? Having minds do you not understand? So what then about your faith, your free decision to assent to the truth of what you hear and see and understand?

Jesus is engaged in the work of establishing and sustaining faith in the disciples. We know from personal experience that there are moments when we must, once again, choose to believe. There are situations and events that present us very clearly and very directly with Jesus' question: 'have you no faith?' Even when we 'practice our faith' every day, we are still faced with these moments of decision and choice.

It is sometimes suggested that people are religious because religion offers comfort and consolation. Well it may, at times, but more often it seems to offer discomfort and perplexity. More often it brings us back to our freedom, or lack of it, and how we are exercising that freedom. Freedom is a great gift. Without freedom there would be no responsibility, no credit, no friendship, no love, no faith, no poetry; there would be no blame, no sin, no morality; artistic creativity would mean nothing.

When the prophet Nathan exposes his sin to him, King David, to give him credit, does not attempt to justify his actions. He does not seek refuge in excuses or mitigating circumstances, nor does he try to blame Bathsheba or anybody else. He simply says, 'I have sinned against the Lord'. There is something noble in this free admission of guilt. Just as we see human freedom in the confession of faith in God, so we see human freedom in the confession of sins. It is one reason why confession is good for the soul: we are acting nobly when we confess our sins.

On the other end of the spectrum is the freedom of Mary in the moment of the Annunciation, one of the central icons of the human participation in the work of salvation. 'Let it be done to me according to your word', Mary says, aligning her freedom with the will of the Heavenly Father. We celebrate her today, Saturday, and it is for this above all that we celebrate her. At the heart of her vocation, of her grace, is this free response to God's Word, this act of faith and love. In this she is a supreme model of the human being listening, understanding, and freely assenting.

'Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?'

You will find here another version of this homily.

Week 03 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Samuel 11:1-10, 13-17; Psalm 50; Mark 4:26-34

These two parables are quite like the seeds that they're about.

They're very short, but they have borne much fruit in the history of Christian reflection on the Gospels. For example, that first parable about the blade and the ear, and the full grain in the ear, has often been used as a parable for the history of salvation, for God's dealings with the people over time, dealing with them first in one way, then in a more developed way, in a further way, through the prophets, through the apostles, of course with the coming of Christ, and on towards the Last Judgement. It can also be used as a parable for individual spiritual journeys, people looking back across time, and seeing, hopefully, some development in their understanding of Christ, and their participation in the life of the Church, seeing how grace works in the soul, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

The second parable about the mustard seed is even more famous, and has been used more. The mustard tree is the Church, that shrub that sends its branches out, large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. Often this is how it has been understood as referring to the Church, the community of those who believe in Christ, who are to be found in all parts of the world.

That life which continues to flow, which continues to build up the Kingdom of God in those who believe, takes its origin from the beginnings with Christ, and his teaching and his life with the apostles. And we know what a substantial tree it has become, how it has reached out to find its way to every place and to every time. Or the seed is faith.

The seed is faith, just as the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds. The gift of faith can seem like a very fragile thing, something that might easily be overwhelmed, something that might easily be crushed. And yet the paradox, as many of the fathers of the Church point out, is that precisely when it is crushed, it becomes powerful.

When it is bruised, the seed grows. The seed becomes the bush, the tree, sending out its branches, becoming shelter and food and shade for the birds of the air, welcoming all people to itself. Or the seed is Christ.

The seed is Christ himself, crushed. But in being crushed, coming to life, bringing new life, seasoning the earth, seasoning humanity, preserving human life, doing all those things that a mustard seed will do, bringing a flavour, bringing a challenge, bringing preservation, bringing new life. So, these little seeds of parables, which are dropped for us by the Church today, have themselves turned into substantial trees, substantial shrubs, and they continue to inform the reflection and the understanding of Christians, thinking about Christ as the seed, or faith as the seed, or the Church as the mustard tree, or the history of God's dealings with his people, as a community and as individuals, and how grace grows slowly, quietly, in hidden ways, bringing, please God, bringing a maturity in faith and hope and charity.

Week 3 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:18-19; Psalm 131/132; Mark 4:21-25

It is a privilege to be admitted to the prayer of another person and this is what happens with the first reading today. We are allowed to eavesdrop on King David as he prays. He gives thanks to God for what He has done already for David and asks God's blessing for the future. In a few simple words we find the foundation of faith and hope in David's thoughts: 'you are God .. your words are true ..you have made this generous promise to your servant'. Such simple convictions establish and express the virtues of faith and hope.

So what about charity? That God is love and that He wishes to share the love that God is with all people? We must await a Son of David who will appear in that long time that lies ahead and of which King David also speaks in that prayer.

Another way of approaching this is to point to the name David gives God here: 'your name will be forever great .. 'the Lord of Hosts is God of Israel'. The 'Lord of Hosts' or 'God of Armies': we still call God by this name, every day, in the Eucharist. He is the Lord, God of Hosts, Deus Sabaoth. But we know now that he is also Saviour, Redeemer, Mercy, Friend, Bridegroom, Father, Servant, even Slave, of His people, Abba, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Jesus, the Son of David and the Son of God.

This is the mystery hidden from before all time, and later revealed, that 'God is Love'. In these subsequent revelations God is faithful to His promise and answers the prayer of David. God sustained and blessed the House of David and gave him a kingdom that continued. But in the longer term God has done this in a way that completely transcends King David's expectations.

When he prayed for the blessing of his house into the long distant future, there is no way that David could have known the nature of the Son of David who was to come. But a Son of the House of David has revealed to us that God is Love. Jesus has taught us that the Father's intention was not simply to establish a terrestrial house or dynasty for King David, and so give glory to God's name as Lord of Hosts. The far-reaching intention of God was to enable the House of David, and all the people of Israel, and all the nations of the earth, to share God's own life of love, in a heavenly kingdom, forever. And to give glory forever to the name that is above all other names, Jesus, Son of David, Son of God.

Saint Thomas Aquinas - 28 January

The richness of Saint Thomas's thought can be gathered around four beautiful and poetic phrases which we find in his writings.

Providentiae particeps

The human being participates in providence. This gives us an idea of the depth there is in human freedom and in human action for Aquinas (and for the Catholic tradition generally). Among the creatures God has made is a creature created in God's image and likeness. This means a creature capable of knowledge and understanding, capable of conscious deliberation and choice, capable of initiating and creating new things. The human being is not just a passive recipient or object of God's government of the world, the human being participates in God's government of the world. History is unfolding in accordance with God's will but the human being through his actions shapes that history. The human being redeemed by grace is even more a participant in God's providence because then he is not only building the world but building the kingdom of God in the world. This idea of the human being as a participant in providence guides all of Aquinas's moral teaching, all that he has to say about the virtue of prudence, for example, and all that he has to say about natural law. It is in his consideration of natural law that this phrase is found: human beings are subject to natural law not in what they share with other animals (these would be laws of nature) but in what is distinctive about them, the characteristics listed above, intelligence, freedom and creativity. It is these that mean the human being is a participant in providence.

Aquam in vino

Aquinas is always spoken of as one who contributed significantly to thinking about faith and reason, the relationship between revelation, faith and theology on one hand, and science, reason and philosophy on the other hand. Unfortunately we live at a time when many assume that these two hands can only be fists towards each other, that they are opposed ways of seeing the world and of considering human life and affairs. Aquinas considers such arguments at length in many places in his writings. This phrase comes in his commentary on one of the works of the philosopher Boethius. The anxiety is one that comes from the side of believers: mixing revelation and theology with science and philosophy, will it not water down the faith, dilute it, take away its characteristic strength and impact. Is it not a bit like watering down your wine, this use of philosophy by theology? Au contraire, says Aquinas (though not in French), the use of philosophy by theology is not a dilution of theology, but rather a transformation of the water of philosophy into the wine of theology. The image comes, of course, from the account of the wedding at Cana and Thomas's use of it is imaginative and very helpful. He is not despising philosophy by talking about it as water - there are times when water is what you really need rather than wine. Aquinas says as much: sometimes the difficulties we encounter in thinking about what is true require of us, not an appeal to the authority of revelation or theology, but simply better philosophy. Philosophy has its own territory, its own purpose, its own contribution to the search for truth and wisdom. Theology needs it, but needs it precisely as philosophy. The water remains within the wine. Maybe there are better images for this integration of faith and reason but 'water into wine' is a good one to be getting on with.

Verbum spirans Amorem

This phrase comes in the first part of Summa theologiae, in the question about the missions of the persons of the Blessed Trinity. The Son and the Spirit are sent by the Father into creation. Creation comes about through their work. The history of salvation is their work. The sanctification and deification of human beings is their work. All of it - creation, salvation, deification - is of course the work of the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But we believe in historical events that made present in created time and space, and continue to make present in created time and space, the mystery of God's Trinitarian life. There are visible missions of the Son and the Spirit - the incarnation (enfleshment) of the Word and the visible signs in which the Spirit is 'seen' (the dove, the tongues of fire). There are also invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit, their being sent into human hearts, minds, souls - all that we call grace, the ways in which it heals and strengthens human beings, the ways in which the human heart is prepared for the indwelling of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity. In the middle of his thinking about these questions in the Summa theologiae, Thomas comes out with this phrase, verbum spirans amorem. The Word of God and the Spirit of God can never be separated from each other. The Word that breathes on us is a word that breathes Love - the Word is the Son and the Love is the Spirit. The Word that makes his home in us, dwells in our minds, and knowledge, and understanding, and memory, is always a Word breathing love, and so dwelling also in our affections, in our passions, in our desires, in our will.

O Sacrum Convivium

The Magnificat antiphon for Vespers for the Feast of Corpus Christi has become well known, both as a prayer and as a text set to music by great composers. The sacred banquet is the Eucharist in which Christ is received, his passion renewed, the soul graced, and a pledge of future glory given to us. Aquinas works in all areas of philosophy and theology: moral philosophy and theology, faith and reason, systematic theology, biblical commentary and exegesis, and also sacramental theology, the practices of the Church through which the work of Christ and the Spirit continue to be available to the believer. The greatest of these sacramental signs is the Eucharist, which is why the Mass has such importance for the Catholic Christian. It is the summit and fount of all Christian life, as the Second Vatican Council puts it, the event to which all other moments of our Christian life point and are drawn, the event from which all other aspects of our Christian life get their direction and their significance.

It is a short litany, then, for the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas, the shortest possible Summa theologiae perhaps - the human being is providentiae particeps, our search for truth and wisdom must transform aquam in vino, the One who has come to us is the Father's verbum sprians amorem, and we celebrate these mysteries and enter more deeply into them by our participation in the sacrum convivium.

Week 3 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Samuel 6.12b-15, 17-19; Psalm 24; Mark 3:31-35 

'Blood is thicker than water' is an old and familiar saying. It means that family relationships - the ties of blood - are the ones we return to during the course of our lives. Very few other relationships are as strong or as important in our lives as are our original bonds with our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our children. Yet in today's gospel Jesus claims that there is something thicker than blood: 'Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother'. There is a bond, a relationship, a tie between people, which is deeper, stronger and more significant than family ties of flesh and blood.

What is he talking about? What bond or relationship between people is thicker than blood? He describes it as 'doing the will of God'. Each time the Eucharist is celebrated, this same relationship is called a 'covenant': 'This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant'. To be related to other people 'in the blood of Christ' is the bond, the relationship, the covenant, that is deeper and stronger and more signicant than any ties, even those to my parents.

'Covenant' is a common word in the Bible. Meaning agreement or treaty it refers to the relationship between God and His people. At different times and in various circumstances God established and renewed a covenant with His people - through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and so on.Through these treaties or agreements the people's dependence on God as Creator and Lord is recognized. God's wish to share His own life of love with His people is re-affirmed: 'I will be your God and you will be my people' echoes through the Scriptures; 'I want to be your God and I want you to be my people' is what it means.

God wants to share His life with us, to be bonded with us, to have dealings with us, to share friendship with us. Often the covenant is compared to marriage, with God as the husband of His people and Israel (or creation, or the Church) as God's bride.

A new bond exists between all who are members of the covenant-people, the Church. We can recognise each other not just as fellow human beings but as fellow members of God's family, children together of God our Father, heirs together of life in our Father's kingdom. Obviously my parents remain my parents. But because we are all believers, my mother is also my sister and my father is my brother in this 'family of God' where we all try to do the will of the Father.

The new covenant is the agreement established in the blood of Christ. The word became flesh, dwelt among us, shared our expereince from within, and loved us to the limit of his strength - even to dying on the cross. In Jesus the human race has been faithful, loving and obedient to God. He is the mediator of this covenant. He is the perfect image of God in human form. He seals the relationship between God and us by shedding his blood for us.

All of us who follow Jesus live within this covenant. The bond that is thicker than blood is possible for us. The new covenant demands of us faithfulness to Jesus' way of love. It seals for us God's commitment to His work of creation. It reaffirms in the most striking way that God has loved us with an everlasting love.