Week 32 Saturday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9; Luke 18:1-8

It is tempting to take this parable as a kind of self-contained teaching about prayer, in which case the final comment of Jesus, ‘when the Son of Man comes will he find any faith on earth?’, will seem like a kind of retaliation in advance in case you have not received what you’ve prayed for: ‘well did you have enough faith’, something like that. But this is to misunderstand the parable and the significance of that final comment which is not just tagged on. Because what it does, this final question from Jesus, is bind the parable securely into the longer section of the gospel that precedes it and which we have been reading at Mass all this week. That whole section is about the coming of the Son of Man and the parable is about the kind of attitude we ought to have in relation, not just to anything we might want or desire, but in relation precisely to that coming, the coming of the Son of Man. We are to long for it, and seek it from God, as earnestly and as confidently as the widow pesters the unjust judge.

If this is the context then it is not accidental that what the widow is seeking is justice. She is not looking for a new washing machine or a Christmas holiday in the Canary Islands. There is another time and place to think about that kind of praying. But the kind of praying she is involved in here is eschatological. It is about the end of the world as we know it. What she is looking for is justice, in other words the judgement of God, that final act in which God will reveal himself as the champion of the poor and oppressed, the Father of the orphans and the widows whose God he has long promised to be. In a parallel parable in Luke about a man disturbing his friend at night we read that God will give not just ‘good things’ to his people as Matthew puts it, but ‘the Holy Spirit’. In Luke it is very clear that God knows what we need and that we can be brought to pray not just for what we want but for what we need: in the one case the Holy Spirit, in this case justice.

The unjust judge is a kind of foil, an absurd comparison with God, so that Jesus can underline that we can confidently look to God, a judge who is absolutely just, to hear the cry of those who call out to Him for justice. He will answer speedily. Or will he? The text gets a bit confused and the translations vary because it seems to say that God will answer speedily even if he delays. But when he does answer it will be quickly. Or something like that.

This confusion about what we might call the timeline involved here is another thing that alerts us to the fact that what Jesus is speaking about is the coming of the Son of Man. When will this widow’s prayer be answered? It will be answered on the day of the Lord, for it is the justice of that day that she seeks. At what time will this widow’s prayer be answered? It will be answered at an hour you do not expect. Just as we heard earlier this week that the kingdom of God is neither here nor there but is in the midst of us, so the kingdom of God is neither now nor then but is coming upon us. Space and time are refashioned as we are taken into this kingdom of God that is already among us and for whose consummation we are to pray.

The first reading speaks of the power of God’s Word to leap from his throne in heaven and to come as a stern warrior carrying the sword of death and with the power to re-fashion creation. This strange world, the world of the end times, the world of the apocalypse, is the world in which this widow is praying. Surely she is another feminine figure representing the Church, representing all of us. Jesus presents her to us as an example of the faith and confidence we need to persevere in prayer in this world. She is praying in a wild world of corruption and justice seeking, where goodness and evil do battle, and where cries of distress call out for a re-fashioning of things that can only come, it seems, from God himself. The world in which she is praying is a terrible one that seems God-forsaken and yet she continues to cry out for justice. She keeps faith and hope that she will surely be vindicated even though the world in which she prays is this world in which we are living.

Of course we could continue these reflections in the direction of Jesus’ own experience of dereliction and injustice, his cries of distress in Gethsemane and from the Cross. In that hour in which goodness and evil are most dramatically ranged against each other we believe that the justice of our just judge has been revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The divine re-fashioning of creation has begun. We enter into that strange world which is already here whenever we celebrate the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

And we try to be obedient to what Jesus teaches us in this parable because each time we celebrate the sacred mysteries we declare ourselves to be waiting in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Sun of Justice.

Week 32 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 13:1-9; Ps 19; Luke 17:26-37

On the face of it, the instruction of Jesus that we should ‘remember Lot’s wife’ (Luke 17.32) is a bit strange. ‘Do not forget the one who was turned to salt because she could not forget’, is what he seems to be saying to us. Keep in mind this woman who suffered because she was keeping something in mind, turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back.

Although it is found in that section of Luke that is most distinctive (Luke 9.51-18.14), the passage in Luke 17 in which Jesus refers to Lot’s wife has a parallel in Matthew 24. Both texts speak about the coming of the Son of Man and the events associated with it. Both refer to the days of Noah when people ate, and drank, and married until suddenly the flood came and destroyed them all (Luke 17.27; Matthew 24.37-39). The warning is given in apocalyptic terms: life will go on pretty much as normal until suddenly the end comes.

Luke adds a further Old Testament reference. ‘Just as it was in the days of Lot’, he says, ‘they ate, drank, bought, sold, planted and built. But on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulphur destroyed them all and so it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed’ (Luke 17.28-30). The message is the same as that drawn from the reference to Noah: life will go on pretty much as normal until suddenly the end comes.

On that day, Jesus continues in Luke 17.31, people will be on the housetop or in the field. They are not to re-enter the house or turn back. This instruction is mentioned elsewhere in Luke (21.21) and also in Matthew 24.17-18 and Mark 13.15. The immediately succeeding verse, however – ‘Remember Lot’s wife’ (Luke 17.32) – is unique to Luke who then strengthens the general warning by citing two sayings familiar from elsewhere in the gospels. The first of these is that ‘whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it but whoever loses his life will preserve it’ (Luke 17.33; Matthew 16.25; John 12.25). The second is ‘there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left … there will be two women grinding meal together, one will be taken and the other left’ (Luke 17.34; Matthew 24.40).

This is the only reference to Lot in the gospels and there is only one other reference to him in the New Testament (2 Peter 2.7). It is easy to see why Lot’s wife comes to mind in a text warning that the appearing of the Son of Man will be as unexpected, for most people, as was Noah’s flood or the destruction of Sodom. The instruction to leave what you are at and not turn back brings Lot’s wife immediately to mind.

The other New Testament reference to Lot is also an apocalyptic text, a warning about wrath and judgement to come (2 Peter 2.7). God, we are told, is quite capable of sifting and picking out the few or solitary righteous ones from a mass of sinners. We know this from the stories of Noah and Lot (2 Peter 2.4-10).

Lot’s wife is to be remembered as one who looked back to, and was held by, what she was being asked to leave behind. It paralysed her and meant that she missed the moment. This is how preachers have often used Lot’s wife and the warning of Jesus to remember her. A certain kind of attachment makes it impossible for us to enter the kingdom. We must be alert, watchful, detached, ready to go out to meet the Son of Man when he comes.

Jesus had already made the point earlier in the gospel of Luke when he said that ‘no one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of heaven’ (Luke 9.62). According to Jeremiah 46.5, warriors fleeing in terror do not look back, and there are other Old Testament texts which speak about ‘not looking back’ in situations of fear, terror and threat (Exodus 14.10; Joshua 8.20; Judges 20.40; 1 Samuel 24.8; 2 Samuel 1.7; 2.20).

Luke 17.20-37 contains elements that are found elsewhere but combined with elements that are not, and in an order that is distinctive, it gives us a unique teaching about apocalyptic and vocation. For example, although Luke 17.31 and 17.33 are found elsewhere in the New Testament, they are never linked in the way that they are here and it is the instruction to remember Lot’s wife that provides the link. The saying of Luke 17.33 about losing one’s life and gaining it is a very familiar saying of Jesus but nowhere in the New Testament, perhaps, is its radical requirement so clear as it is here, illustrated by the case of Lot’s wife.

Week 32 Thursday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 7:22-8:1; Psalm 119; Luke 17:20-25

We find intimations of the Blessed Trinity throughout the books of the Old Testament. The Lord, the God of Israel, is revealed in His wisdom and in His spirit. At times it is a question of Wisdom and Spirit, with capital letters, personifications of qualities or characteristics of God that refer to different aspects of God's presence in creation and of creation's relationship to God. And at times these aspects are spoken of in 'personal' terms, in terms of awareness, responsiveness, and action.

Today's first reading is a remarkable hymn to Wisdom, a litany of her qualities and activities within creation. But at times it might be regarded also as a hymn to the Spirit of God. In fact it opens by telling us that 'in wisdom is a spirit, intelligent, holy, etc', and wisdom is 'a spirit that pervades all spirits'. Mobile beyond all motion wisdom penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity. While renewing all things - a work of the Spirit according to other texts of the Bible - Wisdom herself remains.

Who says that the Hebrews were not as well able for philosophy as the Greeks! Who says that the 'primitive' peoples of the ancient world were not as capable of sophisticated thought about theology as modern people consider themselves to be! Here is an effort to describe the divine presence in creation. God is not one of the things within the creation but stands before all of them. God is not an aspect or power or element or force within the creation but stands beneath all aspects, all powers, all elements, all forces. God is not finding himself in creation but stretches from end to end of it: in other words is its goal as much as he is its source. But this is not to push God out of the creation, to say that God has no place in it just because he is not part of it. It is to say rather that while God is transcendent of the creation, above and beyond it (obviously not in any spatial sense: this would be to pull God back into the universe and place him somewhere), God is also immanent, the deepest reality at the heart of all things.

The Bible adds a personalisation of the Divine Wisdom to what theologically minded philosophers already saw. This refers not just to those biblical texts where God's Wisdom is spoken of as a woman who invites her clients to come, be wise, learn from her, eat her bread and drink her wine. It refers also to the ways in which the Divine Wisdom comes to dwell in holy souls, lives and works in them, dwells in human persons to produce friends of God and prophets. It refers to the ways in which God dwelt in Abraham and Moses, in David and Isaiah - the Word or Wisdom of God placed in them by God's Spirit who thus spoke through these prophets.

Christians reading through these texts see a wonderful build up to what is revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Here is one who is more than a friend of God or a prophet. Here is the one who is the Messiah. More than that, here is the one in whom the Spirit of God is at work in a unique way, one who is himself the Wisdom or Word of God. The end of today's first reading tells us that wisdom takes precedence over light, for light is conquered by darkness whereas wickedness cannot prevail over wisdom: this re-appears in the prologue of Saint John's gospel which tells of the Incarnation of the Word of God - the light who has come into the world, through whom all things were made, the life of human beings, a light that the darkness cannot overcome.

'Wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and governs all things well'. It is the only biblical text quoted in the famous work of Boethius On the Consolation of Philosophy. Wisdom governs all things well and reaches from end to end.

Today's gospel reading fits perfectly with this. The kingdom of God (God's presence and power) is not here or there but is present among us. It cannot be identified with this or that because it is in and through all things. The revelation of that kingdom in the presence and the return of Christ fulfills what is spoken of in the text from Wisdom. 'Just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.'

Here is the final personification of the Wisdom of God, revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. But - strangest mystery of all - he is destined first to suffer greatly and be rejected. In the wise foolishness of God Jesus stretches his arms on the cross, from one side to the other, governing all things sweetly from that master's chair, carrying us beyond anything revealed before then about God's Wisdom and Love. All philosophy is contained there, all our understanding and knowledge of God. It is why Edith Stein wrote about the knowledge that comes only through the cross. It is why Thomas Aquinas says that he learned everything, all his philosophy and theology, from his contemplation of Christ crucified.

Week 32 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 6:1-11; Psalm 82; Luke 17:11-19

Jesus travels along a borderline, between Galilee and Samaria, on his way to Jerusalem. He encounters a group of people obliged to live permanently on a borderline, a group of ten lepers. Lepers were required to live outside, though it is clear that there were moments when they came close to healthy people and healthy people came close to them. It must have been a tense, anxious kind of existence. How was traffic across this social border to be regulated?

They cry out to Jesus as other lepers do, as well as countless people who come to Jesus looking for healing. All ten are physically healed, the gospel tells us, but it seems that only one is spiritually healed. Only one came back to give thanks. To be capable of gratitude is to be graced in a more profound way. It means recognising the giftedness of what we have and are. More importantly it means acknowledging the giver of all gifts that come from the kindness and generous love of God our Saviour.

It is an important transition in the spiritual life when people come to focus on the giver of the gifts rather than on the gifts that the giver gives. It is another borderline along which we find ourselves travelling: thinking of ourselves and our needs, thinking of the other and his gifts. The capacity for gratitude means freedom to receive, to be indebted, to be dependent, and to acknowledge the bonds that hold us across all kinds of borders.

The freedom to receive is also the source of the freedom to give. In receiving graciously we not only learn to give thanks, we also find the confidence and the power to give, to share what we have and are (because we are continually receiving what we have and are).

'What's the magic word?', parents say to children when teaching them to be grateful. 'What are the saving words?', we might say. They are kindness and generous love, mercy and renewal richly poured out, grace and eternal life, from the Father's Son, in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Week 32 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 2:23-3:9; Psalm 33(34); Luke 17:7-10

It's complicated. Not because of that little parable itself, but because just a few weeks ago we heard another parable about a master and a slave that seemed to say the exact opposite. The first parable is found in Luke 12 and tells of a master who returns and finds his servant awake, doing what he should be doing, which is watching for the master's return. The master seats the servant at the table and, reversing roles, serves him. Here, in Luke 17, this is not the case. The servant should expect nothing more from his master than to be treated as a servant should be treated: to serve the master and then sit down to eat. “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”

How do we put these together? Because the life of faith and prayer, the life of friendship and love, is a life that needs attention day after day. It is not something that is established once and for all, forever. Our appreciation of these gifts - of faith and prayer, of friendship and love - has a history. There is a dynamism, a journey, a development, as these realities continue day by day and face the changing demands and challenges of each day. Sometimes our need to maintain a clear sense of what we have received will be threatened from one direction, sometimes from another. These different parables are a way of keeping us on the right track, of ensuring that we remain steadfast in receiving these gifts and living them out.

There can be a subtle shift in statements such as “he is my Lord”, “she is my friend”, “he is our God”. If we emphasise the noun, then everything seems fine: Lord, friend, God. These are realities to be celebrated and honoured, and for which we give thanks every day. But if we begin to emphasise the possessive pronoun—my Lord, my friend, our God—then a not-so-subtle change occurs, and we have transformed the gift into something it is not.

We always need to remember loud and clear the grace of the gift, which is totally free, undeserved, beyond our imagination. ‘Love welcomed me,’ says George Herbert, insisting that I sit at his table, and ‘so I sat and ate.’ We always need to remember strongly and clearly that transforming this gift into a kind of possession, into a kind of currency of exchange between me and God, or between me and my friend, will mean losing precisely what makes it so wonderful: its gratuitousness, its undeservedness, its freedom.

As always, when faced with perplexities in interpreting the Gospels, it is useful to apply this parable to the Servant of servants, to put it in a Christological key. How would it read if the servant/slave in question were thought of as Jesus? Then (putting the two parables together) we can imagine the Father welcoming the Son to the eternal banquet and saying to him: ‘Come, sit down and eat, and I will serve you.’ And we can imagine the Son, arriving in the presence of the Father, saying: ‘I am a useless servant, I have only done what I was asked to do.’

This ‘uselessness’ is the point of faith and prayer, of love and friendship. It is what gives them their wonderful character. To commercialise these things or use them in some other utilitarian way is to destroy them. We therefore live between the need to be certain that we are loved totally and freely and the need to be certain that the One who loves us remains completely free in doing so. For otherwise, how could it be the gift we need? And for this divine gift, we thank God deeply every day.

Week 32 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 1:1-7; Psalm 139; Luke 17:1-6

You will find here a talk that might be helpful 

in thinking about today's gospel reading.

Week 32 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: 3 John 5-8; Psalm 111; Luke 18:1-8

There is an unusual Greek term in today's gospel reading. The judge gives in to the woman because she keeps bothering him and he fears that she will 'finally come and strike me'. It seems unlikely. One imagines a little widow and a big judge, a small and persistent little lady against a strong and stubborn man. Another version has 'she will wear me out by her continual coming' and other translations have her 'attacking' him, 'embarrassing' him, 'worrying him to death', or 'plaguing' him. Whatever it is she is doing to him he finally gives in.

In fact the term comes from the world of boxing. We find it again in St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where he compares the Christian life to athletics. Just as athletes exercise self-control in order to achieve the goals they have set for themselves so ought the Christian be focused on the imperishable goal that is promised. I do not run aimlessly, Paul says, 'I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified' (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). The term translated as 'pommel' is the same term used by the judge about what the widow is doing to him.

Where boxers are of significantly different sizes and weights one of the few strategies the smaller, lighter one can use is to land a series of irritating blows on or around the eyes of his (or her) larger and stronger opponent. This is what it means to pommel, and this is what the widow is doing to the judge. She persists and cannot be shaken off. She is not strong and powerful but she is persistent and annoying. She will 'give me a black eye' is another translation which gets the point exactly.

So another way of taking this parable is to see the contrast between the widow and the judge as pointing to the contrast between the one who prays and God to whom he or she prays. The distance here is infinitely greater, as the small and weak creature turns to the almighty and eternal God. What weapon can the one who prays possibly use to bridge such a distance and to storm such a citadel? It brings to mind some phrases in a poem by George Herbert entitled Prayer: it is probably the most beautiful poem on prayer in the English language. Among the litany of images Herbert uses for prayer are these pugilistic and militaristic ones:

Engine against th'Almightie, sinners towre, / Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear

'Christ-side-piercing spear': this is what the needy widow's prayer succeeds in doing, piercing the side of the Incarnate Lord, not in the end because of the strength of her fists but because of the depth of his compassion. Mystically inclined writers will dare to say that the Lord becomes helpless and powerless in the face of human need, once again because of the depth and tenderness of His love. We may be like the widow in the story but Our Lord is not really like the judge for He is ready to respond, and to respond speedily.

Week 32 Tuesday

Readings: Titus 2.1-8,11-14; Psalm 37; Luke 17:7-10

It is complicated. Not that little parable in itself, but the fact that just a few weeks ago we heard another parable about a master and a slave that seemed to say the exact opposite. That first parable is found in Luke 12 and tells about a master who returns to find his servant awake - doing what he should be doing, in other words, watching for his master's return. There the master has the servant sit at table and, switching roles, serves him. Here in Luke 17 it is not like that. A servant is not to expect anything more from his master than to be treated as a servant should be treated: serve the master, and then sit and eat yourself. 'We are useless servants, we have only done what we were asked to do.'

How do we put them together? Because the life of faith and prayer, the life of friendship and love, is a life it needs attention day after day. It is not something established forever, once and for all. Our appreciation of these gifts - of faith and prayer, of friendship and love - has a history. There is a dynamism, a journey, a development, as these realities continue from day to day and as they face the changing demands and challenges of each day. Sometimes our need to maintain a clear sense of what we have received will be threatened from one direction, sometimes from another. These varied parables are ways of keeping us on the right path, ways of ensuring we stay steady in our reception of these gifts and in our living of them.

There can be a subtle change in statements like 'he is my Lord', 'she is my friend', 'He is our God'. If we emphasise the noun then it seems fine: Lord, friend, God. These are realities to be celebrated and honoured and for which we give thanks every day. But if we begin to emphasise the possessive pronoun - my Lord, my friend, our God - then a not so subtle shift takes place and we have turned the gift into something it is not.

Always we need strong and clear reminders of the graciousness of the gift, that it is totally free, undeserved, way beyond anything we could have imagined. 'Love bade me welcome', George Herbert says, insisting that I sit at her table, and 'so I sat and ate'. Always we need strong and clear reminders also that to turn this gift into some kind of possession, some kind of currency between God and myself, or between my friend and myself, will mean losing the very thing which makes it so wonderful: its gratuitousness, its undeservedness, its freedom.

As always when faced with perplexity in interpreting the gospels it helps to apply this parable to the Servant of servants, to put it in a Christological key. How would it read if the servant/slave in question here is thought of as Jesus? Then (putting the two parables together) we can imagine the Father welcoming the Son to the eternal banquet and saying to Him, 'come, sit and eat, and I will serve you'. And we can imagine the Son, coming into the presence of the Father, saying 'I am a useless servant, I have only done what I was asked to do'.

That 'uselessness' is the point of faith and prayer, of love and friendship. It is what gives them their wonderful character. To commercialise these things or to use them in some other utilitarian way is to destroy them. So we live between the need to be assured that we are totally and gratuitously loved, and the need to be assured that the One who loves us remains completely free in doing so. For otherwise how could it be the gift that we need? And for this divine gift we thank God profoundly each day.

Week 32 Sunday (Year B)

Readings: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

In the Christian religion there is really only one priest, Jesus Christ, the 'ideal high priest'. This is the clear message of the Letter to the Hebrews which we have been reading at Sunday Mass over the past few weeks. It is a letter addressed, precisely, to Hebrews and so it argues from the Jewish traditions of priestly sacrifices and offerings. Many books of the Old Testament bear witness to the existence and practices of the priesthood among the people of Israel. For those who came to believe in Christ these earlier customs and practices were signs of what was to come. Their meaning and purpose were fulfilled in the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ.

The letter argues, on the basis of the Hebrew scriptures themselves, that the first covenant is fulfilled in a new one, that the old sacrifices are fulfilled in a new sacrifice, that the old temple is replaced by a new one, and that the old priesthood - that of the family of Levi - is replaced by a new priesthood. As Paul appeals beyond Moses to the promise to Abraham, the author of Hebrews appeals beyond the Levitical priesthood to that of Melchizedek, priest-king of Salem. Jesus is not a levitical priest, then, his priesthood is of another order.

In this fulfillment of the Jewish religion, there is only one priest who offers a single sacrifice once and for all. There are a number of factors which place Jesus Christ above any other kind of priest.

Firstly, Jesus lives for ever. The priests of the Old Testament all came from the same family. As one generation died, it was replaced by another. But Christ, our high priest, lives for ever (Hebrews 7:24).

Secondly, the Old Testament priest offered daily sacrifices of bulls and goats to take away sins, both his own and those of others. Christ the high priest offers his sacrifice once, and for all (Hebrews 7:27).

Thirdly, while the Old Testament priests offered animals and incense and the first fruits of the earth, Jesus Christ has offered himself. It means that the New Covenant, the new promise of God, is sealed in nothing less than his own blood. The law of this new covenant is therefore the law of love, the first and the greatest of the commandments, fulfilled in the love and obedience of the Son who is the perfect image of the Father (Hebrews 1:2-3; 7:12,27; 9:11-14). The widow mentioned in today's gospel is thus a type of Christ: he is the one who has 'put in all he has, his whole livelihood'. This gives him, Hebrews says, a power to save which is utterly certain.

Fourthly, the Old Testament priests were themselves weak and sinful men, mediators of the tradition which had come down from Moses. Christ is the high priest, the one and only true mediator, because he is the Son of God who has been made perfect through suffering. He is 'ideal' for us because, sharing the same flesh and blood as we do, he is without sin (Hebrews 2:10,18; 4:15; 5:8).

Finally, he intercedes for us, not in a temple made of wood and stone, but in the true sanctuary, in the presence of the Heavenly Father, in that spiritual realm where all who believe and hope and love are already present with God and the angels (Hebrews 8:1-2; 12:22-24).

Jesus Christ has thus founded a new religion. Its law is love, its covenant is in the hearts of men and women, its sacrifice is the sacrifice of self so that others might live. All who belong to Christ share in his priesthood. Baptism makes each person a member of the holy nation, God's own people, gathered in worship. We are 'christened' or 'christed', his images in the world. Within this holy nation there are those who serve its needs: the deacons, the presbyters (whom we call 'priests'), and the bishops.

The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews read at Mass today summarises many of these themes. It speaks also of Christ returning not to judge sins a second time - his death on the cross is the judgement of this world - but to bring salvation to all who eagerly await him. As the same letter says elsewhere, 'let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need' (Hebrews 4:16).

Week 32 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Wisdom 1:1-7; Psalm 138 (139); Luke 17:1-6

The most striking image in today's readings is that of the believer saying to a mulberry tree, 'be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it obeys him. But why would anybody want to do such a thing? What would be the purpose of such an action? Does it not seem like some kind of arbitrary display of power, some kind of supernatural magic for no clear reason other than showing off?

It brings to mind a phrase which echoes along the corridors of the Christian tradition, 'credo quia absurdum', 'I believe because it is absurd'. There is a strong modern prejudice that faith is absurd, that it is irrational, that it is in fact the very opposite of reason, of mature rationality, and of all reasonableness. Faith means accepting things as true which are absurd and irrational, and accepting them for reasons that therefore remain obscure and unknowable: on the basis of some authority or tradition telling people that this is what they ought to believe.

Along that road - if we were to embrace it seriously as a starting point for thinking about faith - lie the dangers of fideism with its extremes of fundamentalism and fanaticism, things we would not want ourselves to be found embracing.

Dominicans will tend to think of their traditions about faith as quite different from this. Faith is rational. Faith and reason, far from being opposed, are in fact the two wings of a joint search for wisdom, the wing of scientific and philosophical searching for truth on one side, and the wing of faith with the intellectual pondering that goes with it and that we call theology on the other. We believe because it is reasonable to do so. We accept things because they are credible.

But along that road - if we are not careful - lie other dangers. In our efforts to be rational we could become rationalistic. It would mean reducing our faith, its possibilities and its reach, to what can be managed by our own minds. It would close the door to anything entering that would be beyond the boundaries of what we've known already. It would thereby exclude the God of surprises from our lives. We would not expect anything to happen that has not already happened before. We would not allow anything into our consideration that has not proved itself at the bar of human reason. If such 'rational faith' did not become in effect a practical agnosticism or atheism it would certainly shrink the world to our size.

We live and move between these two dangers, fideism on one side and rationalism on the other. Being a person of faith grounds us in this creation and in the gift of reason with which we are equipped to understand and manage the creation. But it also keeps us open to newness and creativity, to things that might at first seem absurd but which show themselves to be reasonable when the criterion of reason we apply is God as He has revealed himself, God as we believe Him to be.

In fact we have an even more absurd scenario presented in today's gospel which the light of faith illuminates more clearly for us. A person offends another person seven times in the same day about the same matter. Seven times he returns to the person to ask forgiveness and seven times the person forgives him. It seems he is ready to forgive an eighth time if it is necessary. Now by all the criteria of human relating that we know from our experience, that is simply absurd. But it is what we have come to expect of God. And so it becomes reasonable in the world of faith that people should treat each other in that way because it is the way in which they have been treated by God. If I have forgiven you then you also should forgive one another ... and seventy times seven.

So do not be distracted by the absurdity of a mulberry tree making its way to the ocean. Rather be distracted and amazed by the space, the freedom and the new possibility that is introduced to human relations when people forgive, and go on forgiving, each other.

Week 32 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63 (62); I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Human beings seek knowledge: there is nothing strange or startling in that. Aristotle begins his most famous book of philosophy with this declaration: 'all people by nature desire to know'. It is simply natural to the animal we are that we want and need to know many things.

Our quest for knowledge takes us beyond the immediate needs we share with other animals, where to find food and how to construct dwellings, where to find company and how to understand our environment. Realities such as power and control feed our desire for knowledge. But characteristically human capacities such as art, poetry and music, also feed that desire. We see both already in the most 'primitive' humans and both continue to operate in the most developed human beings (as we like to think of ourselves). We are led by our curiosity, by our desire and hunger for knowledge, into all the realms of science and philosophy, politics and art, games and religion, poetry and music, technology and symbolism.

Today's first reading is just one of many texts in the Bible that speak of our desire for knowledge. There are many such wonderful texts, in Proverbs and Sirach, in Wisdom and in the Psalms, which list the many areas of life in which the fruits of this desire are to be seen. More than knowledge, what we desire is wisdom: once again the philosophers and the Bible agree on this. Wisdom is right understanding and good judgement. It is knowledge which is also always moral and spiritual, not just information, cold knowledge as it were, but an understanding that remains always human. It means we think about things always in their richest possible human setting, about their meaning for us and for our life, about their contribution to a common good of humanity as well as to the happiness and fulfilment of individuals.

But here is something remarkable, strange and startling, which comes to us only through God's revelation in the Bible: not only do we seek wisdom, but Wisdom seeks us. We do not find this in the Greek or in the other rich traditions of wisdom-seeking. Not only do we seek the understanding of truth that we call wisdom, since Truth, Understanding and Wisdom, all give themselves to us if we go about it in the right way. But more than that, 'she (Wisdom) makes her rounds, seeking those worthy of her'. 'She graciously appears to them in the ways and meets them with all solicitude'. She 'hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire'.

What the Gospels, and the New Testament generally, add to this is an identification of this divine Wisdom with Jesus, the eternal Word or Intelligence of God. He has come to seek and to save what was lost, to enlighten all who sit in darkness, to guide all who wander on foolish ways, to nourish the hearts and minds of all who thirst for the wine of understanding and hunger for the bread of knowledge.

There is then a strange contrast between Wisdom as she is portrayed in the first reading, Jesus as he is spoken of in the second reading, and the bridegroom in the gospel parable - arriving late, excluding those foolish enough not to have anticipated his late arrival, refusing to admit them to the wedding feast. The focus of the parable cannot be the character of the bridegroom. Rather the kingdom of heaven is like his sudden arrival, at an unexpected time, and the wisdom asked of us is that of being awake, still alert, watching for his coming.

We could perhaps re-phrase it like this: keep your desire strong; keep your search going; do not allow your curiosity or your thirst for knowledge, understanding and wisdom, to weaken. These things are on their way to you even if they are, as it seems, delayed in coming. The oil in your lamps is this natural desire for wisdom, for the presence of Jesus, and for a life that is wholesome and holy. That will be yours, because it is not only you who are seeking it, it is also seeking you. Wisdom is calling you. She is the 'hound of heaven' tracking you, and longing to sit at table with you. She wants to share her riches with you so as to fulfil at last, and beyond your wildest dreams, your desire for knowledge, your hunger to understand, your longing to see.

All you or I have to do is to stay awake. In other words attend to your desire so as to keep it strong. The bridegroom is coming. May he give us this simple gift: the wisdom to be in the right place at the right time when he appears.

Week 32 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: 2 Maccabees 7.1-2,9-14; Psalm 16/17; 2 Thessalonians 2.16-3.5; Luke 20.27-38

In the ancient world critics of the belief that human beings live again after they die had a number of arguments which they thought showed how absurd such a belief is. Where will everybody fit if we are raised with new bodies, all billions of us? If lands and houses have belonged to different families across the centuries who will own the property or house in the next life? The Sadducees, the high priestly group, present one of these arguments to Jesus in today's gospel: if someone has been married more than once, to whom will he or she be married in the afterlife?

Of course our faith is not in an 'afterlife' if by that we mean something more or less like what we know now except happier, without problems and never-ending. Jesus corrects them, and in doing so reminds us immediately of important aspects of our faith. It is not so much that we believe in a doctrine as it is that we believe in God. Our faith is theological, meaning it has God for its direct object and the doctrines of the faith, or articles of the creed, are believed because they have something to do with God - they teach us something about what God is like, something about how God has acted, something about the hope in God which comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus teaches them that God is not a God of resuscitation or of suspended animation but a God of life, God of the living, a God in whose presence men and women can only be alive, God who wants for us the fulness of life. Sure, that life will be eternal, everlasting, so there is no need for reproduction of the species there.

In what else will it consist then, this eternal life? It means knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. It means being transformed into the glory of the Risen Lord, bringing with us the wounds we have sustained in this life but even those wounds will serve the manifestation of God's glory.  It means knowing as fully as we are known. It means becoming like God because we shall see him as he really is.

'The glory of God is the human being fully alive' is a statement often quoted from Saint Irenaeus of Lyon. But the second part of his sentence is rarely quoted: it says that 'the life of the human being is the vision of God'. This is what Jesus tries to teach his listeners in responding to the skepticism of the Sadducees. Believe in the life of the world to come, he says, but inform yourselves about that world which is coming, the kingdom he is establishing. If you know something about the kingdom of God then you will know something about what our living in that kingdom will entail: knowing and loving God, as we are known and loved by God.

Week 32 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; Psalm 17; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

One of the most important Catholic theologians of the last century, Karl Rahner, wrote that Christianity may be referred to as ‘a hope’ just as easily as it is referred to as ‘a faith’. We can therefore speak about passing on the hope, keeping the hope, practising our hope and teaching the hope to younger generations.

The hope in question is, of course, the hope we have in God on whom we rely to save us from disintegration and despair as he draws us ever more deeply into his life of love. We have the hope of being raised to live with Christ, and with our brothers and sisters, in the kingdom of the Eternal Father. Some historians identify this hope as one of the most important reasons for the rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman world in the first century.

Some Jewish groups were already convinced that the Lord, the God of Israel, would raise the just to everlasting life. Injustice was the last thing experienced by many people in this world, especially those who tried to live good and holy lives. The Lord, the God of Israel, is just above all else and so, they reasoned, he must act to vindicate those who had placed their trust in him. At the time of the Maccabean revolt, about 150 years before the time of Jesus, many faithful Jews died courageous deaths rather than submit to tyranny. They died filled with hope that God would raise them up in the resurrection of the just.

Jesus taught that this strand of Judaism was correct. God is God of the living and not of the dead. God will vindicate and bring to himself those who have lived and died in righteousness.

Socrates, the most famous philosopher of ancient Greece, taught that the human soul is immortal. As he died he asked his friends to make an offering to the god of healing, implying that death was a kind of cure for the difficulties and trials of life, a blessed release and a journey to a better place.

We may not be as philosophical as Socrates in the face of death. We may not be as unconcerned as the heroes of the Maccabean revolt threatened with torture and execution. But many Christian martyrs have been able to give their lives, sustained by their hope in God. The Mass for martyrs speaks of their deaths revealing God’s power shining through our human weakness, God choosing the weak and making them strong in bearing witness to him.

The great difference for the Christian believer is, of course, the example of Christ. It is not an example that remains outside us, something we simply look at and admire and try to imitate. It is something that becomes part of our spiritual being when we are baptised into his death and resurrection. It is nourished in the Eucharist where we proclaim his death until he comes. It is experienced in the sacrament of reconciliation when we actually pass again from the death of sin to the new life of grace.

Saint Paul ties our resurrection with that of Jesus. If Christ has not been raised, he says, then there is no resurrection of the dead. If Christ has not been raised, we are the most foolish of people. If Christ has not been raised, we are still in our sins. So if we are living in the grace of Christ, living ‘by his Spirit’, then we are already living the ‘life after death’, we know what it is like and we know what it is about.

Sometimes people say ‘if only somebody would come back to tell us’. But we have, more than likely, visited the realm of death ourselves. If we have ever wandered from God and lost him in the maze of life, if we have ever given up the search for him and turned aside to selfishness, pleasure or despair, then we have tasted death. If we have ever experienced forgiveness and the prompting of God’s Spirit drawing us back, if we have ever experienced the drawing of goodness and heard the voice of justice, then we have glimpsed the eternal kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world.

Anxious as he is to strengthen the faith of the Thessalonians, Saint Paul reminds them of their sure hope and prays that the Lord may ‘turn their hearts to the love of God and the fortitude of Christ’. We pray with him, that we may not turn aside to any sin but may live in the love of God. When we do we taste already on earth the gifts of the world to come.

You will find here another homily for today