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.

Week 15 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19; Psalm 102; Matthew 11:28-30

Living creatures that we are, we struggle to give birth and then bring forth nothing but wind. By contrast God's power raises the dead and by that same power the land of shades gives birth.

Chastening stuff. The gospel reading is more encouraging. Yes, the yoke is heavy and the burden is demanding but love makes it easy. Love makes all things easy. The most onerous tasks become easy when they are undertaken out of love. This is the divine power of a God who is love, a God who creates out of nothing and who can even restore the dead to life.

The yoke is used to refer to the law and its function of guiding the animal along the right path, keeping it moving in the right direction. The harness makes the animal obedient but it is an obedience imposed from outside, by another mind and another will. The new law, the gift of the Spirit, enables us to love the good so much that the work of pursuing the good and making it present no longer feels like work. It becomes a task, no matter how onerous, that is undertaken freely. Now obedience comes from within, from the mind and will of the one who acts. He is no longer like an animal needing to be kept in harness so that it stays on the right path and is more like the lover, who sees his beloved from afar, the one he wants to be with, and moving towards her he will overcome whatever obstacles lie in his path.

So much for the single yoke, the one made for one animal, and how its meaning is transformed by what Jesus says. If we think of it as a double yoke then our companion in it is Jesus himself. He asks us to take his yoke upon us, does he not? So it is the Cross, our participation in it, and when we look to see who is bearing it with us, who is our Simon of Cyrene, we see that it is Jesus himself. Once again love is making all things possible. As Isaiah says in the first reading today 'you have accomplished all we have done'. It is a key text on the mystery of grace. It is our work, of course, that remains clear. But it is not at all our work, that also remains clear. How can we say both? Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, jumps in to try to explain it but in the end gives up and says 'show me a lover, he will understand'.

This tremendous lover, Jesus, enters the land of death and sterility and he transforms it by his presence. It becomes the land of life and fruitfulness. We are called to share in this wonderful experience, this mystery of the transformation of all things by the power of the Divine Love. It is a land of peace and rest - and there is so much yet to be done by those who love Him.

Week 15 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16; Ps 94; Matthew 11:25-27

A lesson in school many years ago has stayed with me ever since.

It was one of my first lessons in commerce, as it was called, or business studies, I suppose, later on. In this lesson we were told that the two most powerful words in advertising are the words 'new' and 'free'. Although that was many years ago, it seems to be still the case, judging from the frequency with which products have these words attached to them, new and free.

The good news about Jesus is new and it is free. God is ever new and always free. And so the message about Jesus, the message about God, ought to be the easiest product in the world to sell.

So what is it about children that allows them to receive this news when the learned and the clever cannot? Well, one thing, I suppose, is their openness to novelty. The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh has a lovely phrase in his poem about Advent when he talks about the wonder there was in every stale thing when we looked at it as children. There's a sense of wonder and adventure, of possibility and hope in the life and in the eyes of the child, a wonder which too many adults, unfortunately, lose.

And in children we see great freedom. Also, we admire it, envy it perhaps, the freedom and spontaneity of the child, their ease in calling a spade a spade. They're not yet fixed in their ways.

They haven't become experienced in the world's currencies. And so there is a kind of trustingness, an openness, a readiness to learn in the child. Of course, there are dangers in this of which we've become only too aware in recent years.

But it is still something that we admire in the child, a freedom, an openness and a trust. The older folks among us become learned and clever in the ways of the world, become experienced. And it becomes more difficult then for us to receive Christ, the message of Christ, with wonder and with freedom.

Augustine, in his Confessions, has a famous passage in which he laments that it was late that he loved God. 'Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient and ever new.' He was converted at 32.

He's writing at the age of 45. Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient and ever new. So as life proceeds and many things happen, and our sense of wonder and our sense of freedom are both challenged by the experiences of life, it's crucial to remember that Jesus is talking about a spiritual childhood, a readiness, an openness, a freedom, which allows entry into the kingdom of God.

He's talking about the level of life in the spirit, as Paul speaks so eloquently about that in Romans chapter 8. Not about chronological age then, but about a disposition of the spirit, where we find a sense of wonder and freedom, not in ourselves, but in God, living a theological life, a God-centred life. God who is ever ancient, but ever new. God who is absolutely faithful and yet infinitely free.

That's the source of our freedom, of our openness to what is new, if we live a life that is theological, rooted in God, ever ancient and ever new, absolutely faithful and infinitely free. A God of surprises then. Children, of course, love surprises.

Adults tend to become apprehensive and suspicious about surprises. But we must be ready for new things as we seek to follow the way of Christ. We must be ready for new freedoms that we did not suspect, even in our maturity.

You can listen here to this homily being preached.

Week 15 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 7.1-9; Psalm 48; Matthew 11:20-24

A friend returned from a visit to the Holy Land shocked by two things. One was the way in which Christians jostle each other at the holy places. This is at its worst in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where centuries-old feuds between different Christian groups are re-enacted in how they relate to each other in the building even today. It is good to be warned about that beforehand as otherwise it can be quite scandalising. It confirms, if confirmation is needed, that the Holy Sepulchre is not a place in which to look for the presence of Jesus!

The other thing that shocked my friend was how ordinary and how small the Holy Land is. The shock here is interesting for different reasons. The mysteries of redemption and the history of human salvation were enacted in this small and ordinary corner of the world.

One implication of this is that any small and ordinary place might have been the setting for those mysteries and that history. In fact every small and ordinary place has become the setting for those mysteries and that history. Wherever human beings are to be found these mysteries - of creation and grace, sin and redemption - are being enacted and are being enacted each day.

It means also - following today's gospel reading - that we can say 'Woe to you Sligo! Woe to you Arezzo! Woe to you Bradford! Woe to you St Louis, Missouri!' There is no need to go to any special place to find the mysteries of redemption and the history of salvation. The place in which I find myself is the Holy Land because it is a place where the Word is preached and the sacraments are celebrated. The place in which I find myself is the centre of salvation history because here too the drama of sin and the call to repentance are played out.

The text condemning Chorazin and Bethsaida was first composed by Isaiah to express delight at the fall of a tyrant, an enemy of Israel and of God's people. Jesus applies it to those quaint lakeside towns, those harmless lakeside towns we might say, in which his preaching was ineffective.

So let us not presume one way or the other. Our own ordinary place is as important as any other from the point of view of redemption or damnation. We cannot presume to stand on what has been the case up to now. It is easy to apply to our own situation, then, what Jesus says about Gentiles (not the chosen people) acceping the Word of God in Tyre and Sidon (pagan cities, modern Sodoms and Gomorrahs). Prostitutes and tax-collectors are entering before the ones who think they should be entering first.

It is familiar stuff, strongly put. By all means visit the Holy Land - there are many blessings to be received by doing so. But don't forget that everything essential that you find there is already available where you are. And if you feel that you live in a special place, special from the point of view of holiness or salvation, then think again. Your privilege, if you think you have one, means at least a more severe judgement.

Week 15 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: Isaiah 1.10-17; Psalm 50; Matthew 10.34-11.1

Even God, it seems, and especially God, gets tired of religion. It would be difficult to find a more powerful critique of religious practices than the one which God himself inspires in the prophet Isaiah in the first reading. Sacrifices and chanting, festivals and assemblies, seasonal celebrations and ordinary prayer, all the panoply of religion: it is all distasteful and unwelcome when it is done by people whose hands are full of blood. 

It is not blood from the sacrifices, however, but the blood sucked out of those who have been exploited by the people who then present themselves as religious. 'Make justice your aim', the Lord says, 'redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow'.

It is a frequent refrain from the prophets of the Old Testament, taken up again in the New - 'what I want is mercy, not sacrifice' - and carried on into the life of the Christian church - in the Letter of James, for example, and in the writings of Fathers of the Church such as John Chrysostom.

Against that background it becomes easier to understand the teaching of Jesus in the gospel reading. If justice is the aim then we know from our own experience that there will be trouble. The sword of justice, the cutting edge of integrity and concern for the poor, the challenge to power and to money - this never goes down well, a mission guaranteed to bring the sword rather than peace. 

But we must listen and we must review our own treatment of the poor. There is a temptation to, once again, spiritualise it, turn it into something religious, to say that it is of course really Jesus himself who is the poorest of the poor and how am I treating him? But he calls us back to concrete decisions and actions: the good Samaritan, the Last Judgement scene. You must take up your cross and follow after him. 

You must be ready to give a disciple a cup of cold water - that sounds manageable, perhaps a reprieve when we feel guilty about our service of the poor: I have at least done one kind act for a disciple. So perhaps there is hope for us after all, if we have not lost completely a sense of compassion, however faint, for our brothers and sisters.

But the stark warning still stands: cut out the religious nonsense because it is nonsense as long as we are without compassion, as long as we are aiming at something other than justice. Only with that as our aim will we not lose our reward even if it is only small acts of kindness that we can manage.

Week 15 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 64; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

The good soil on which the seed of God's Word falls must have three characteristics. It must have the capacity to hear the Word of God. It must have the capacity to understand the Word of God. And it must have the capacity to put the Word of God into practice. The earlier kinds of soil on which the seed might fall - by the wayside, on rocks, among thorns - all lack one or more of these characteristics and so the seed cannot take root, grow strong and bear fruit, in any of them.

It means there are three critical moments for the life of faith. When we reflect on the well-being of our faith - how strong, how healthy, is my faith? - it is useful to give attention to each of these moments.

Firstly the Word of God must be heard. So what are the difficulties, internal and external, that get in the way of hearing the Word of God? How can we hope to hear a Word from God if we do not put ourselves in the way of receiving such a Word?  Perhaps we rarely go to Church and rarely read the Bible. But life itself often conspires to wake us up, to bring us back to reality, and to get us thinking about it all again.

Our reflections will show that there are many things, very practical things, which we can do if we want to hear better the Word which God wants to speak to us. We need to dedicate time and space in order to be available to God. We need to be in places where we can hear or read the Bible. We need to clear our lives of distractions that will interfere with clear reception of the Word. We need to put to one side for the moment doubts and hesitations that might arise in our hearts and minds, undermining our confidence in what we are trying to do. All too often such doubts succeed in preventing us entering into the necessary kind of silence in which we can listen out for what God wants to say to us.

It can seem a bit spooky to say 'listen out for what God wants to say to you'. How can a human person actually hear the voice of God? It means reading the Bible or listening to it being read. It means attending liturgies where the scriptures are proclaimed and explained. It means attending to the ruminations in our hearts and minds to see what is on my mind? what is weighing on my heart? Such things might be distractions, getting in the way, but more often than not they are telling us 'where we are' and what it is we would like to speak to God about. Perhaps he wishes to speak with us about those things, or perhaps he wants to draw our attention to something we are forgetting.

Secondly the Word of God must be understood. Some of the less favourable soil succeeds in hearing the Word but cannot make the move to understanding it. This requires study and prayer. We must make some effort to understand the nature of the Bible, the different kinds of texts it includes, the ways in which the different books relate to each other historically and in regard to what they teach. We must put ourselves in the way of hearing people speak about it, see what the Church's tradition says about it, reflect on some representations of Biblical characters and events in art or in music.

The internet now offers countless commentaries on the Bible, many of them spoken, many of them written. Go surfing and see what you find. If there is a text you find difficult to understand put it in a Google search and see what comes up. Of course there will be a variety of interpretations, and not all interpreters speak with the same authority. But it is part of the richness of the Word of God that it evokes such diverse echoes in the minds and lives of so many people.

Don't be afraid to add your own interpretation, asking God's Holy Spirit to guide and inspire you. After all we are thinking now about what it is God might want to say to you in his Word. Be attentive also to what is happening in the world around you, in your own life and relationships and activities, as well as to what is going on in the world at large. God speaks to us also through things and events and people, often in combination with the Biblical texts we are thinking about at any particular moment.

Thirdly the Word of God must bear fruit. In his letter Saint James says we are to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. In saying this he is simply repeating the teaching of Jesus, that the one who builds his house on rock is the one who not only hears (and perhaps also understands) the Word but who puts it into practice.

Just as we must put to one side voices and distractions that would undermine our confidence in trying to hear the Word or in trying to understand the Word, we must do the same when those voices and distractions try to undermine our confidence in living out what the Word asks of us. A voice might tell us that we are hypocrites or pretentious, that we are looking for notice or acting out of pride, that is simply another form of egoism or of imposing ourselves on others. The demons are very inventive in the ways in which they try to upset us. But God is infinitely creative even if to ourselves we feel we are 'without form and empty'.

Just as the sower will presumably have to persevere through clouds of insects, sweat, challenging terrain and other physical distractions, so we need to persevere through these three stages in the life of faith: hearing, understanding, bearing fruit. We will discover quickly also that it is not a straight line, this journey of faith. Sometimes we are putting the Word into practice without fully understanding it or when, for some reason, we have become hard of hearing. Or we may be puzzled and perplexed by a Word, not yet understanding how it is a Word of God to me. But very often it is in doing the Word that understanding finally comes.

In the life of faith it is always the season for sowing, always the season for letting the crop mature, always the season for reaping the harvest. Let us give ourselves to its demands once again, listening in prayer and attentiveness, seeking to understand through study and reflection, putting it into practice in mercy and charity. By God's grace each one will bear even richer fruit, thirty or sixty or even a hundredfold.

Week 15 Saturday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 12:37-42; Psalm ; Matthew 12:14-21

It was a night of watching by the Lord. This is one translation of a verse in today's first reading. It is another way of thinking about what is happening in the night. It may be the night of faith or the night of hope, the night of love or the night of birth, the night of sickness or the night of death, the night of mystical encounters or even the night of sin. Whatever the night in which human beings find themselves, it is a night of watching by the Lord. Like a parent anxious about its sleeping child, or its sick child, or its child worrying about the next day's events, so the Lord watches over Israel and pours gifts on his beloved while she slumbers.

And not just on Israel. There is the temptation to hear the story of the Exodus as a nationalist epic, a celebration for the children of Israel who are led to freedom, while the Egyptians (also children of the same God as Israel's own prophets teach us) are clobbered, routed, massacred, in the returning waters of the Red Sea. The Lord who watches over Israel, what is he to the Egyptians? It presents a difficulty, especially on Easter Night, as we sing the triumph of the Lord over the enemies of his people.

But the people leaving Egypt and seeking freedom include, we are told, 'a crowd of mixed ancestry'. That is a relief, for which of us, at this stage of the genetic melting pot that is the human race, can claim to be of pure ancestry? In Nazi Germany as in apartheid South Africa, human beings drove themselves (and each other) mad by trying to determine who was 'pure' and who was not. In each place, arbitrary criteria were eventually introduced, sub-divisions within racial categories, to try to take account of the inevitable mixing of the races. In the apartheid museum in Johannesburg the visitor learns about this and other forms of madness. How did people ever end up at the point they did? How did they begin thinking in a way that inevitably led to that? Paul Wittgenstein, a brother of the philosopher, was told that one of his children was 'Jewish' because she was born after a certain date whereas the other, a child of the same parents, was not, because she was born before that date.

That way madness lies. Instead the God of Israel, who is the God of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, always described his covenant with a particular people as a promise of blessing for all the nations of the earth. Within Israel this universalist meaning and destiny of her election was sometimes lost to sight. Even still there seem to be people in all races and creeds who need to think of others as excluded by God before they themselves can feel properly included.

What do we see in regard to all this when we see Jesus? He stands in the place of Israel, that is very clear. He represents the children of Israel. He is Israel, the child of the covenant, the bearer of the promise, the one to lead the people to salvation. He is the servant of the Lord. But he is also the Egyptians since in passing through the waters of the new Red Sea, he is drowned. He places himself in the situation of the enemies of the children of Israel at the same time as he is himself Israel. And so the reconciliation becomes possible, in him and through him, the peace that is made through his blood on the cross.

This is the world's darkest night, this night of Calvary, for it seems as if in this night, as his children sleep, God is dead. But within the dark mystery of the Blessed Trinity a new kind of victory is conceived. The waters close in, the depths swallow their victim, the sun and the moon are extinguished. From this most holy night, in which Jesus passes from death to life, a new creation emerges. This victory is not won in arms or battles, this triumph is not at the price of humiliating and oppressing an enemy. The children of Israel, any crowd of mixed ancestry, the Gentiles too, have justice proclaimed to them, a new kind of justice established on a new kind of reality. The children of Israel, any crowd of mixed ancestry, Egyptians and all other Gentiles, now hope in his name, the only name given to human beings by which they might gain salvation.

Soon the Jubilee of Youth will be celebrated in Rome. Like World Youth Day it is a sacramental anticipation of the kingdom that is coming. Children of all races, more or less mixed, more or less pure, watch with the Lord in the vigils of the night. They will be praying for all humanity. They will be seeking to deepen their love for all humanity. They will be learning about the Son of David, the prophet like Moses, the new Elijah and Joshua. He steps up from the depths of darkness, from beneath the waves of sin, and shines a new light. He introduces a new dawn, leading justice to victory, and bringing, out of that deepest darkest night, a new and everlasting hope.

Week 15 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 11:10-12:14; Psalm 116; Matthew 12:1-8

The sentence in the gospel on which comment is usually made is the last one, 'the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath'. It could be that the more radical statement in this passage comes a little earlier, although at this point in the ministry of Jesus its full implications are not clear, either to the Pharisees or to the disciples. Jesus says 'there is something greater than the Temple here'.

We know - because we know how this story develops - that this was the claim that would be brought against Jesus at his trial: he said he would destroy the Temple and replace it.

We can easily imagine the debates and arguments of scribes, pharisees and lawyers about the application of sabbath laws. Jesus himself appeals here to two exceptions from the history of Israel which show that those laws were not absolute. We can imagine other teachers doing the same. Jesus takes a position on the interpretation of those laws which might encourage people to think of him as liberal rather than rigid in his interpretation of them. But there is nothing there to provoke wrath and fury.

His comment about the Temple is more radical, and is seen as such when its implications begin to sink in. The Temple was the place of prayer, sacrifice, and the presence of God. 'There is something greater than the Temple here', Jesus says, meaning himself. So he is claiming to be the new place of prayer, of sacrifice and of the presence of God. When we think about prayer or sacrifice now we cannot do it without reference to Jesus, without reference to his prayer and to his sacrifice. Any prayers or sacrifices we might imagine can only be made now 'through him, and with him, and in him'.

Similarly for the presence of God. If we wonder now where God is to be found the answer is 'in Jesus'. This is the place of God's presence in the world. What about creation, history, my neighbour, other people, the presence of God in my heart and soul? Yes, God is present in all these places, but once again we cannot understand that presence, we cannot appreciate it, except with reference to God's presence in Jesus, to what God did in the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And the way in which God has called all men and women to find Him there.

Week 15 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 3:13-20; Psalm 105; Matthew 11:28-30

It is a short gospel reading with a strange invitation: if you are tired and burdened, come and take this yoke on your shoulders, a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. So what is this new weight which actually makes lighter, this yoke or harness which actually brings freedom?

If you do a Google Images search for 'yoke' you will find that the first set of pictures are of a double yoke, the kind that binds two oxen together as they plough or pull a cart. Only on scrolling down do you begin to see the single yoke for one animal, or perhaps for a person carrying two buckets, that kind of thing.

So there are double yokes and there are single yokes.

In the Bible the single yoke is an image of the Law. The readings from Exodus these days are moving inexorably towards those two great events, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. The Law was spoken of as a yoke laid on the people which was, yes, restricting but which was also the guarantee of the covenant which the Lord had made with them. This yoke gives guidance and direction, keeps the people on the straight path, helps them to live well.

This yoke becomes easy and light when it is carried out of love. If it is understood as a burden imposed from without, and its reasonableness is not understood, then it will be experienced as a heavy weight, a demanding master. But where its purpose is seen, and the life it protects is valued, and the relationship it seals is the centre of our lives, then to carry this yoke is not a burden. 'He ain't heavy, he's my brother' found its way into a popular liturgical song many years ago. Carrying one another's burdens not only fulfills the law of Christ, as Paul says, it is also easy when it is inspired and enabled by our love for one another. Carrying burdens becomes easy and light; we even find rest in doing so because it is an experience of love, and it is in love that human beings delight and find joy.

But perhaps we are to think also of the double yoke, the one that binds animals in pairs as they work together on a common task. If, in inviting us to take his yoke on us, Jesus means a double yoke of this kind, then when we look to the side to see who is in the harness with us, it is Jesus himself since it is his yoke. We are alongside him and partnering him in this work of being obedient to the Law. He is alongside us and partnering us and so, once again, it becomes easy, light, desirable, and joyful.

Take my yoke on you and learn from me, he says. What is it we are to learn? We learn that the heart of all reality is God who is love. We learn that God has set his heart on a people and that he seeks them out. As today's first reading puts it, God is concerned about His people. We learn in this yoke of Jesus that God has first loved us, taken on himself the yoke of our sins, so that anything we do in partnership with Him always has the character of a response, an acceptance, an act of gratitude for far greater gifts won through a far more demanding sacrifice than any we might be asked to make.

This double yoke in which we are harnessed with Christ so as to share in His work then clearly anticipates that moment in the passion when Simon of Cyrene stood alongside Jesus and helped him to carry his cross. He is with us always. If we take his yoke on us and learn from him then we are with him always, shaping our lives according to his way, and giving our hearts according to a love that is, in the first place, his.

Week 15 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12; Psalm 103; Matthew 11:25-27

What is it about children that allows them to receive when the learned and clever cannot receive? One of the things I remember clearly from my schooldays was our commerce teacher (later the subject was called 'business organization') telling us that the two most powerful words in advertising are 'free' and 'new'. It is still the case, to judge from the frequency with which these words appear in advertisements. So the gospel, which is 'new' and 'free', ought to be one of the easiest products in the world to 'sell'. God is always new and always free - the kind of joy in the Word that is infectious flows from this newness and freedom of the gospel.

Patrick Kavanagh, in his poem called Advent, catches one aspect of the childlikeness that enables children to receive. He speaks of the wonder there was in every stale thing when we looked at it as children. Any stale thing, any old thing, any familiar thing, is wonderful in the eyes of the child. Perhaps the child is seeing it for the first time. Certainly the child comes to the world with a sense of wonder, ready for adventure, open to possibilities, strong in hope (the child has a long life ahead of it and so is naturally full of hope, says Thomas Aquinas). 

So too for freedom. We may find ourselves, as stale adults, envying the freedom and spontaneity of the child. Not yet fixed in their ways, children are not restricted to the world's currencies, the established and obligatory protocols that reduce possibilities, restrict freedoms, shorten horizons. There is a trustingness, an openness, a readiness to learn in the child. Of course carrying dangers with it, and it is partly as a result of those dangers that we become cautious, and careful, and less spontaneous. 

Growing up, we become learned and clever and it becomes more difficult to receive the gospel with the wonder and freedom of the child. Augustine laments that he comes late to the love of God - 'late have I loved you, O Beauty, every ancient and ever new'. He is writing at the age of 45 about his late conversion at the age of 32! What hope for those in their 50s, or 60s, or worse. And yet my father, for example, kept a sense of childlike wonder to the end of his life, when he was almost 80.

As life challenges our sense of wonder and our sense of freedom, it is crucial to remember that we are talking about spiritual childhood, the level of life in the Spirit, where we draw our sense of wonder and freedom not from ourselves but from God who is 'ever ancient and ever new', who is absolutely faithful and yet infinitely free. What if God is the tiniest thing around, asks one of the Greek fathers, trying to loosen the hardening arteries of our theology. What if God is the youngest thing around, we can add. What if it is as if He has just arrived on the scene?

One way of trying to get at this is to talk about a 'God of surprises'. He certainly surprised Moses by appearing and speaking in a burning bush - what a wonder! Children love surprises where adults tend to be apprehensive. ('Stay away from it, dear.') Children like the thrill of the unexpected where adults wonder what's behind it. But we must remain ready for new things if we are to remain open to conversion. How are we to have a new mind about anything if our learning and cleverness shut down all flexibility, all uncertainty? Learning and cleverness are all very well but will they help us to remain free as we mature?

Those who knew him say that the French Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu retained, even into his 90s, a childlike enthusiasm and wonder about things. He certainly celebrates Thomas Aquinas as 'an innovator in the creativity of a new world'. In the article where he speaks of the newness in Thomas's theology he quotes a poem by the Flemish Beguine, Hadewijch of Antwerp. It catches very well what today's gospel reading invites us to think about:

May God give us the new sense of a freer and more noble love

that in Him our renewed life may receive every blessing;

that the new life give us a fresh taste

as love can give it in its pure freshness;

love is powerful and is the new reward

for those in whom life is renewed for Him alone,

you who desire to know anew,

in the new springtime, the new love.

Week 15 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 2:1-15; Psalm 68; Matthew 11:20-24

The names of these towns - Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum - are beautiful and have nothing of the negative associations that still attach to the names 'Sodom' and 'Gomorrah'. And yet Jesus says that those infamous cities of the Book of Genesis will be judged less severely than the pretty towns dotted around the lake. It is not that the lakeside towns have sinned more but that they have been offered more and have been indifferent to it.

A parallel today might be between the richer parts of the world (or of a country or a city) that regard themselves as more developed and more civilized than many poorer places but that remain indifferent to the needs of those poorer places.

It is always easier to tabulate sins committed than sins omitted. Moses experiences this in the first reading today - his killing of an Egyptian becomes known and he must flee. They know what he has done. It is easy for others to condemn him, others whose sins are not 'in the public forum', whose sins are perhaps of omission rather than commission, and how is that to be measured?

But the Lord sees the heart and does not judge as human beings judge. So he sees not only deeds and words but thoughts and even omissions. Someone has said wisely that the balance of good and evil in the world, the balance of justice and injustice, is as it is not so much because of the amount of evil that is done as because of the amount of good that is left undone. We have been offered so much more, but if we remain indifferent to it, and to the needs crying out, then the last state of our house is worse than the first.

As we begin to read about Moses, another of the great heroes of God's people, we will see that he is a far from perfect man, just like Jacob before him and David after him. They are all men of action, however, not afraid to do what they see needs to be done. It means running the risk of failing, even of offending. But the alternative is worse - to stay on the sideline, a spectator in life, hoarding our gifts, held back by cowardice or selfishness, blind to the possibilities for good that surround us.

The one who never made a mistake never made anything, we say. So let us keep an eye out for the wonderful things the Lord is doing in our neighbourhood, and seek to collaborate with him in those.

Week 15 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Exodus 1:8-14, 22; Psalm 124; Matthew 10:34-11:1

The 'shrewd' strategies devised by the new Pharaoh are not original. Across the centuries we see tyrants and oppressive regimes engaging in all the things he decides to do in his mistreatment of the children of Israel, subjecting them to what the reading calls 'the whole cruel fate of slaves'. Even the final atrocity, the killing of all their newly born boys, brings to mind the later persecution of boys by Herod in his panic to eliminate the boy who is to be the King of the Jews. It is a logic that is all too familiar.

The psalm jumps ahead to the moment of the liberation of these slaves. Like a bird from the fowler's snare, the people of Israel are brought out of the land of Egypt, and they sing of that liberation: 'our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth'. Just as the creation is the first moment in the story of salvation, so the great acts of redemption are always new creations. It is the same Lord whose power is engaged in the one as in the other, in all acts of creation and in all acts of redemption.

If the logic of Pharaoh is tragically familiar, the logic of the sayings of Jesus recorded in today's gospel is much more difficult to understand. The one we celebrate as the Prince of Peace, who comes to establish a kingdom of love, justice and peace, says that he has not come to bring peace but 'the sword'.  He has come, he says, to set one against another, to sow division in families. And if someone who wishes to follow him loves a parent or sibling more than he loves Jesus then he is 'not worthy of him'. To find your life is to lose it and to lose your life for his sake is to find it.

The last part of his sayings is gentler and easier to comprehend: receiving him, or a prophet, or a righteous person, even giving a cup of water - all such acts will merit a reward.

What kind of shrewdness is operating in the first part of those sayings? what kind of wisdom is this? Matthew's gospel tells us that these sayings are 'commands' of Jesus, directing his disciples as to how they should live. It is easy to see how the command to receive people worthily and to treat them kindly is of Christ, the command contained in the second part. But what of the first part? There he is speaking of the attitude or disposition that is necessary if the good deeds of the second part are to have their true significance as the acts of people who are really following him.

It is the 'logic of the cross', a kind of 'divine shrewdness', which aims at the most radical liberation of all, freeing ourselves from ourselves. He calls his followers to find their identity and their sense of belonging most radically, most fundamentally, in Him. So it means finding our identity and belonging not in the first place in family and the relationships it values, but in the freedom to remain faithful to Jesus no matter what comes and no matter what the impact of that faithfulness on all our other relationships and commitments. Otherwise to find my life will be to lose it, because my true life is to be found only in Him. And so to lose my life for His sake is the way, truly, to find it. And with Him to find all those relationships and commitments again.

The fowler's snare, the hunter's trap of egoism is the most subtle and shrewd of all because it can put even our noblest aspirations at the service of its own concerns, to fix us on ourselves and to keep us fixed on ourselves. Whereas the cross is the key that opens the door of this trap and allows us to emerge, not without suffering and struggle obviously, but into a new light and a new life, into a new creation.

Week 15 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 69; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the perfect stories we find in the gospels, so perfect that further words can seem redundant. Which does not prevent those further words from being uttered, even here.

The lawyer's intention is to test Jesus, to disconcert him as another translation puts it. Jesus will have disconcerted the lawyer far more fundamentally than the other way round. First of all by his radical answer to the lawyer's question 'who is my neighbour'. Cutting through whatever debates might have been going on about this in scholarly or religious circles Jesus simply says 'anybody and everybody you happen to come across who needs your help'. There is no question of trying to decide where the boundaries of neighbourliness are to be set: anybody, everybody, in need of your help, is someone who calls on you to be a neighbour.

And that is the second way in which the reply of Jesus is disconcerting. As so often he turns the question round turning it into an active rather than a passive one: 'who is my neighbour (so that I should be kind to him)' is the lawyer's question; 'which of them was neighbour to the man who fell among robbers' is Jesus' question. The passive aspect of the question has been cleared up: anybody and everybody can be someone to whom you should be neighbourly. Now what does it mean to be neighbourly and how do we find the resources within ourselves to live like that?

That can make the parable seem like a moral tale purely and simply: follow the example of the Samaritan in the story, go and do the same yourselves. Where to find the ability, though, to act like this, and particularly where our neighbour is not someone towards whom we have any natural attraction. This is where a very ancient interpretation of the parable can help us. According to this interpretation the Good Samaritan is Jesus. The one who has fallen by the road is Everyman, the human being in need of salvation. The Word of God, the Eternal Son, comes to help lift us up and restore us to health and to life. Other aspects of the story are then interpreted to fit with this: the oil and wine are the sacraments of the Church that heal and strengthen, the inn is the Church, the innkeeper the ministers of the Church, and so on.

Placed as it is with the readings from Deuteronomy and Colossians, it seems appropriate to recall this ancient Christological reading of the parable. The Word is very near to you, we hear in the first reading. Yes, in the neighbour, we can say, the call of neighbourliness is right beside me, in front of me, coming around the corner. But in the Word Incarnate, the law has come very near to us and through the Scriptures that we hear and the sacraments that we receive, the Word comes into us and abides in us. So the more we come to know Jesus and his way of being towards us, the more we belong to Him and live from his Spirit, the stronger our hope of finding within ourselves the resources to live like the Good Samaritan.

He is the image of the unseen God, we hear in the second reading. God present in Jesus comes to our assistance to lift us out of our difficulty and set us on our feet again. So it is not just a moral tale, an encouraging story of an admirable deed to encourage us to be moral in our turn. On this interpretation today's liturgy taken as a whole is also a reminder of how we can become like Christ, getting to know him, remembering the ways in which we have been helped when we have been needy and distressed, finding the capacity within ourselves to bring comfort to others who are afflicted just as we have ourselves been comforted.

It is a perfect story then, not just as a wonderful moral tale from the ancient world. It is also yet another door to the Perfect Story, the coming to dwell among us of the Word of God, full of wisdom and compassion, sharing his life and his spirit with us so that we might have some hope of living according to the great commandment he has identified.

Week 15 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: Amos 7:12-15; Psalm 85; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

A first meaning of Jesus' instruction seems obvious: take nothing for the journey because you are to move freely and quickly. There is an urgency in the work you must do. You need to be unhampered, uncluttered, in order to do it effectively.

Another meaning sees this simplicity, even poverty, as essential for the credibility of a teacher or preacher. The Cynics, philosophers of the ancient world, supported their words with a lifestyle of dramatic simplicity and austerity. In the time of Saint Dominic, the Cathars of southern France lived lives of similar poverty and asceticism. Dominic realised that if Catholic preachers were to have any hope, they would have to embrace similarly poor and penitential ways. The credibility of their message depended on it. And was it not, in any case, simply returning to the simplicity of the first apostolic missions?

There is a danger in this of course: 'my guru is more ascetic than your guru'. Monastic communities were not always free of this kind of rivalry, as if asceticism were some kind of end in itself. What's the poverty for? what's the simplicity about?

The only acceptable answer in a Christian context is that it is in order to come closer to Christ, to imitate him more completely in how we live and work. The apostles are being formed for their mission. Christ instructs them not just through his words but through his lifestyle. Like him, they are to preach repentance, cast out demons, and anoint people with oil in order to heal them.

We may think that these things can still be done from a position of wealth and power. But the teaching and practice of Jesus, and the experience of the Church, says the opposite. A moment's reflection confirms that our own most convincing teachers of the gospel impressed us by their simplicity, their sincerity, their non-attachment to wealth or power. Their freedom in the service of truth enabled them to teach, and reconcile, and heal, as they did.

Christian simplicity needs to be physical and material, not just an idea or a notion. On the other hand it is never an end in itself. It serves the preaching of the Word, prepares the way for the power of the Word to show itself, and follows inevitably on our repentance and our acceptance of the Word.

We know from the other gospels that this experience of simplicity and its effectiveness filled the apostles with joy.

Weeks 15-21 Sundays (Year B)

The Letter to the Ephesians

Starting this Sunday, and continuing for seven weeks, the second reading at Sunday Mass is taken from the Letter to the Ephesians. 

Oprah Winfrey has said that the most important book in her life is the Letter to the Ephesians. Scholars of the Bible tell us that Ephesians is more accurately described as ‘school of Paul’ rather than coming directly from the pen of Saint Paul himself. Nor does it seem like a letter in the ordinary sense. Its first half(chapters 1-3) is a majestic prayer and its second half (chapters 4-6) a homily or exhortation to worthy living. It begins with a brief greeting and ends with a brief farewell as if someone, in sending on the prayer and homily, adds a short covering note. In between is a wonderful summary of Christian ‘doctrine and life’.

The first half of Ephesians is one of the greatest Biblical texts on the theme of ‘grace’. Grace is God’s kindly love turned towards humanity, God’s generosity and forgiveness, God’s initiative in creating and re-creating. This kindly love is a blessing for us who receive it but is also a reason for us to bless God in return. In fact God’s grace is itself the source of our capacity to give thanks to God in a way that is fitting.

God’s grace is not just a sentiment or a thought in God: it is something powerful and effective, a mystery hidden in God from all eternity but revealed historically in the election of God’s people, the coming of Jesus Christ and the founding of the Church in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.

Ephesians has much to say about the ‘household of God’, the community of the Church, where the variety of gifts ensures that the needs of the community are met and the unity of ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ means this variety is held together in harmony. The Church is where Jew and Gentile, reconciled through the death of Christ, share a new life of faith, integrity and holiness.

Nobody is a stranger or outsider to this mystery. Each of us is a participant in God’s grace. Each of us is called to be a ‘servant of the gospel’, ‘imitating God’ by loving as he loved us and offering ourselves as a fragrant offering.

Ephesians exhorts us to live lives worthy of what we have received, a translation into Christian terms of Shakespeare’s ‘to thine own self be true’. The motive for right living is that we be true to who we now are, that we ‘walk’ in accordance with our new life, that we grow towards the fullness of God and of Christ in which we already share. Our older, outer self dies as our newer, inner self is built up through faith, hope and love.

Worthy living for Ephesians is about honesty and integrity in speech, sexual relationships, family and business life. The language of Ephesians is marked by the social circumstances of its time but the key values remain pertinent and challenging, not least the placing of human marriage at the heart of the Christian mystery.

At first sight Ephesians might seem like exactly the kind of text we do not need: ‘wives be subject to your husbands’, for example. But it says a lot more: ‘submit to one another’ or ‘husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church and gives his life for her’, for example.

Ephesians stands in a long biblical tradition for which the relationship between God and God’s people is compared to marriage which is then a symbolic or ‘sacramental’ instance of the mutual love of God and God’s people. The focus for Ephesians is the intimacy of the married couple and how that unique human experience might help us to understand how close Christ is to the Church which is his body.

At first sight we might react to the language of Ephesians about married life. Thinking about this text again we might find ourselves wondering what it means for a man to make a woman holy by loving her or for a woman to make a man holy by loving him.

Both parts of Ephesians speak of power and of the Christian calling. God’s love is powerful in raising Jesus from the dead and exalting him above all other powers as head of the Church. Human beings are involved in the same mystery and are called to live it out by renouncing older ways of relating. Walking in a way that is worthy of our new life is only possible if we put on ‘the armour of God’, truth, integrity, faith. Our only strength is ‘in the Lord’ who has made us members of His household and whose grace continues to fashion us as ‘God’s work of art’.

Week 15 (Year B) Sunday / First Mass

Readings: Amos 7:12-15; Psalm 85; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

This homily was given at the First Mass of David Goodill OP on Sunday 13 July 2003

Visiting Caldey Island recently I spent some time in the weaver's shop. It was the first time I had been so close to the process and had it explained to me. And because I was also thinking about this homily, I found myself thinking about the work of the priest as a kind of weaving. His task is to draw in the threads, to gather the community, in that way to work at building up the Church. The people are the threads, each one of us a different hue, a different strength too perhaps, but together they are to make a pattern. The priest must attend to each of us and to all of us, whether we are weeping or laughing, he must be with us encouraging and challenging.

Of course priests are only assistants, servants, to the real Weaver. Even to call us priests is only possible insofar as we represent Christ who is the only true Priest. We have not taken this ministry on ourselves, Paul says, but have received it from Christ. Just like Amos, Jeremiah and so many of the prophets, there are probably times in every priest's life when he finds himself longing for what will seem like a simpler job: minding sheep, tending trees, weaving cloth. But we believe we have been called, through the Church, to serve God whose hidden plan is to bring everything together under Christ as Head.

The pattern for our work is provided by Christ. The one sentence that still rings in my ears twenty five years after my own ordination is the one spoken to the newly ordained by the bishop as he hands them the bread and the cup: 'model your life on the mystery of the Lord's cross'. His death and resurrection is the pattern, the hidden plan, by which we live and by which we try to help others to live. Sometimes the dying side of that pattern is more prominent in our experience, its darkness and loss, and the consequences of sin. Sometimes the rising to new life side of that pattern is more prominent in our experience, its light and joy, and the fruit of God's love. We are 'God's work of art' being shaped according to this pattern, 'becoming like him in his death if somehow we may attain the resurrection from the dead'. 

Christ provides not just the pattern but the tools for our work as priests. He speaks of them in the gospel reading of today. Priests are to preach the Word which leads to the celebration of the Eucharist and to the celebration of the other sacraments, especially those of anointing and reconciliation, the sacraments of healing. This is how Christ forms and moulds us to the pattern of His love - by the Word of His teaching and the nourishment of His body and blood. And he forms and moulds us also by His healing presence. When the thread snaps the shuttle stops, the weaving is suspended. But he is the Servant of the Lord who does not break the bruised reed or quench the wavering flame. Instead he attends to it and takes care particularly of what is fragile, vulnerable and weak.

The priest has many responsibilities in his service of Christ but he has great joys also. Above all he experiences the joy of leading the people in praising the glory of God's grace, in celebrating God's free gift to us in the Beloved. The beauty of the pattern may remain hidden for now. To a large extent it is. And even though we do catch glimpses of it, we must wait to see its full beauty, to see the full meaning of what we do. So much priestly work is quiet and hidden - but we believe it will be made known someday in the kingdom of truth and freedom where Christ will be all in all.