6th Sunday Ordinary Time

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

Jeremiah 17:5-8; I Cor 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26

I suspect that most of you escaped the fate that fell to me, of being introduced at the age of 12 to the questionable delights of ancient Greek. Actually, it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds, because the alternative was Geography, so it was definitely the lesser of two evils, and it became even better a year later when it entailed dropping Physics, thus becoming the least of three evils.

If, by chance, you were a sharer in those delights, you will be aware that ancient Greek loves contrasts—"on the one hand…on the other hand”—so much so that, instead of the lengthy phrases of modern languages, it expresses contrast by two very short words, namely men…de.

That came to mind because today both First Reading and Gospel revolve around contrasts, as indeed does Psalm 1, which responds to Jeremiah’s First Reading. Jeremiah contrasts those who trust in earthly things with those who trust in God: for the first there is a curse, for the second a blessing. Similarly, the Psalm contrasts the just with the wicked: the former are guarded by the Lord, whilst the latter are headed for doom.

It is quite surprising that we find a similar contrast in the Gospel, because this is Luke writing, the scriba mansuetudinis Christi, the one who writes of the compassion, the gentleness, of Christ. Luke picks out some of the Beatitudes, with which we are more familiar from Matthew’s account, but he makes them, in a sense, less spiritual, and couples them with contrasting woes.

What do I mean by suggesting that Luke makes them less spiritual? Well, whereas Matthew reports Our Lord as saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, for Luke it is simply “Blessed are you who are poor”. In Matthew, it is “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”, whilst Luke records a blessing for the physically hungry.

Luke then goes on to point the contrast: “Woe to you….woe to you….woe to you…woe to you….” four times over. Who are those who face woe? They are the rich, those who have their fill, those who laugh, those of whom people speak well.

Ouch! That doesn’t allow us much leeway, does it? In comparison with much of the world, we are rich, we ae well fed, we have plenty to laugh about—there is only the well speaking where we may be able to raise a query.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so disturbing if this were Mark’s Gospel, or Matthew’s. We expect them to report hard sayings of the Lord, but when it is Luke, we have to sit up and take notice. Is there actually any hope for us?

There has to be. The Gospels speak to us of a Father who loves His children, of a shepherd who goes the extra miles to rescue His straying sheep, of a Lord who calls to Himself those who are overburdened. How then do we fit the “woes” of Luke’s Gospel into that context?

It seems to me that we have to return to Jeremiah and to the psalm. They speak of trust, of reliance: where do we put our trust? On what, or on whom, do we rely? Jeremiah contrasts the one who TRUSTS in man with the one who TRUSTS in the Lord. The psalm contrasts a deeply rooted tree with flying chaff: the former represents the one who trusts in God. The refrain during the psalm, drawn from Psalm 39 (40) reinforces the point: “Blessed are those who have placed their TRUST in the Lord”.

Here perhaps we find an answer to the conundrum posed by the Gospel. Do we TRUST in our riches, in being well fed and comfortable, or do we sit lightly to them? There is a slogan “Live simply that others may simply live”. Are you and I conscious of the needs of the poor? Do we take those needs into account when shopping, when consuming the goods of the earth? We cannot suddenly transform ourselves into people in the developing world, but we can endeavour to ensure that our lifestyle choices do not have a negative effect on them. And we must be people who give freely.

It appears that the recently elected American President plans to scrap his country’s overseas aid budget. There are many in this country who wish the United Kingdom to do the same, and who are supporting a new extremist party which, if elected—and that is not impossible, given the mood of nationalist selfishness which is sweeping the world—would follow America’s example. That would justifiably bring upon us all the curses to which God’s word refers in the prophets, the psalms, and the Gospels.

Where then is our trust? Is it in self-interest, and in the politicians and demagogues who promote that self-interest, or is it in the God who demands that we place that trust in Him, sitting lightly to material well-being? On the basis of that decision will we face blessing or curse, both individually and as a nation.

5th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

Isaiah 6: 1-2, 3-8; 1Cor 15: 1-11; Luke 5: 1-11

“Here I am. Send me.” That’s the response which Isaiah gives after his vision in the Temple. In effect, it is also the response of the first disciples after the miraculous catch of fishes.

Oh, that’s all right then. I haven’t had a vision and I haven’t seen a miracle, so I can carry on as normal.

Hang on a minute. You have actually seen a miracle, and you will shortly see it again. You will see bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ; and if your mind and heart are open, you may feel the presence of the living God within you. I suspect too that, without realising it, you have seen many more miracles, even though you didn’t recognise them as such. Likewise, you have probably had a few visions, those moments when you sensed that God was very close to you. Just think about that.

Leaving that aside though, what else has happened to you? You have had your sins forgiven. (You have been to Confession, haven’t you?)

Oh yes, but that’s just a matter of finding a few things to say “Sorry” for. I was finding that it was the same things every time, so I gave over bothering. It was nothing like either Isaiah or the disciples.

Are you sure about that? How did you go about preparing for Confession?

Well, I just had a quick think about the things I had done wrong, and then said “Sorry” for them.  Same old, same old….

Okay, but did you ever look at the other side of things?

How do you mean?

Well, instead of poking around inside your own mind, did you ever look at God, realise that you were standing/kneeling/sitting before Him? Did you ever think of His plan for the world, His plan for you, His sending of Jesus His Son—the awesomeness of all that?

You see, both Isaiah and the apostles were sorry for their sins, but properly sorry. They realised that they were in the presence of someone who was bigger than them, and bigger than their petty lies and gossiping, and the other fiddly little things they would normally admit. And they realised that, compared with the Being that they were encountering, they were behaving like silly little oiks who were capable of so much better; that God had a plan and a call for them which would rid them of their pettiness, and help them fulfil their potential.

Have you noticed that Isaiah and the fishermen all went to Confession? And have you noticed how they went about preparing for it? They didn’t look into themselves, to see what they might be prepared to admit. They looked at God, whether in the Temple or in the person of Jesus, and they allowed God to look at them, and to reveal them to themselves. Is that how you prepare yourself for Confession?

First, Isaiah looks on the awesomeness of God, and that look reveals his own inadequacy, and he makes his Confession: “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips”.

Likewise, Peter looks at the miracle which Jesus has performed, and the presence of Jesus reveals PETER’S inadequacy, and HE makes HIS Confession: “I am a sinful man, O Lord”.

Having made their respective Confessions, they receive absolution. The seraph touches Isaiah’s lips with the coal and says “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for”. Our Lord says to Peter “Do not be afraid”.

So far, so you and I—potentially! But there is something more. They are each given their own mission: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” “From now on, you will be catching men and women.” They accept that mission: “Here I am! Send me.” “They left everything, and followed Him.”

If you and I approach Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in that frame of mind, God may have a mission for us. Will you and I be alert enough to recognise it, courageous enough to accept it?

Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas)

Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas) 2025

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

I moved to the distinctly rural parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Claughton-on-Brock, in the July of a certain year, and the following Candlemas I was leading an Assembly in the parish primary school, a tiny school with fewer than forty pupils, most of them from farming families.

“What do you think,” I asked, “that I found most difficult, coming as a townie to live in the country?”

One lad put his hand up: “The smell of the cow muck”, he ventured, with an embarrassed giggle. It was a reasonable answer, but not the correct one. Various other replies were offered, till eventually someone hit the spot: “The darkness” they suggested.

That was exactly right, and I related how, in the autumn, I had walked up the lane in the early evening to visit a family. As I was leaving, the lady of the house asked “Have you got a torch”?

“Why would I want a torch?” I wondered, but I accepted the loan of one without demur. No sooner had I stepped out into the lane than I understood why. Having spent all my life aided and abetted by street lamps (gas at first; later electric, though on our road, which was an A road, they were always electric) I had never lived in a place where people lived in lanes which lay in total darkness. Oddly enough, there is one street lamp, at the entrance to the parish cemetery: why the people in there need one, I have no idea.

Light is something which we take for granted. The candles which we have carried today are purely symbolic: we don’t need them to light our way.

That is not the case everywhere. A Ugandan priest, who lodged with me in Preston, was puzzled by the concept of different lengths of day at different times of year. Living close to the Equator, he found this a strange phenomenon. “Do people go to bed at half past three in winter?” he asked, a reasonable question from someone used to living with little or no artificial light.

Consequently, when Simeon pointed to the infant Jesus as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” this would have made a far greater impact than it does for us. Perhaps only during power cuts—or if we live in the country—do we appreciate how dependent we are on light; and therefore how dependent we are on Jesus.

His light shines less on our eyes than on our minds. Without Him to reveal Himself to us, we wander in a spiritual darkness which deprives us of true understanding, and indeed of life. One of my favourite hymns is St. John Henry Newman’s “The Pillar and the Cloud” better known as “Lead Kindly Light” which is one of those recommended by the Church for use at Night Prayer.

“Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on…..

Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see the distant scene,

One step enough for me.”

(Incidentally, Canon Gibson has a couple of lines from that hymn inscribed on his gravestone, which is ready and waiting for him in Yealand churchyard: there is nothing like being prepared.)

We need Jesus to light our way, step by step, day by day, through the shadows and occasional blackness of life. We need to keep in mind also some other words of Simeon, who prophesies that this child, although He brings and is light, will be rejected. He will be a semeion antilegomenon –a sign that is opposed, a sign that is rejected, a sign of contradiction—literally, a sign that is spoken against.

If we are genuinely following the light that is Christ, it won’t be a smooth and simple journey. We will encounter opposition and rejection; we shall come up against worldly values which are at odds with our own; like our mother Mary who is, in all things, the model of the Church, we shall find that our souls are pierced. Like her, and with her, we shall stand at the foot of the Cross, but the light of Christ, though it may sometimes shine dimly, will never be extinguished in us.

3rd Sunday Ordinary Time

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

Nehemiah 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10; I Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Ezra read from the Law from early morning until noon, and from the lengths of those readings it seems that the compilers of the Lectionary want us to emulate him. The Jewish people were in tears as they listened to Ezra, and I was almost in tears as I listened to the length of that Second Reading: to my shame, I have to confess that it reminded me of a long ago episode of Monty Python, which referred to “naughty bits”. This is the Sunday of the Word of God, but I feel that it is being slightly overdone.

Anyway, let’s look at that First Reading, which paints a magnificent picture of the powerful effect which the Scriptures had on the assembled people. We need some context. It is set at the end of the sixth/beginning of the fifth centuries BC. The Jewish people have returned from their seventy year Exile in Babylon—except, of course, that they haven’t.

Think about the length of seventy years. How many, if any, of the original exiles would have been still alive? Even their children would, in many cases, have died. It would have been their grandchildren and great grandchildren, by and large, who trekked from Babylon to their ancestral homeland, to Judah and Jerusalem, the place of their hopes and dreams, but for them as individuals an unknown quantity, a run down and neglected place, bearing little or no resemblance to the magnificent territory of their grandparents’ stories.

Apart from tales, what would the Exiles have kept alive? There were songs of lament, such as the psalm “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we remembered Sion”—and as we saw it through rose-tinted spectacles. There was no Temple in which to worship. How much of their ancient faith had they retained? How many had maintained the practice of that faith? And how much of what they retained would have been folk tales, rather than the word of God handed down in the scriptures?

Now thanks to Ezra, to Nehemiah the legal authority, and to the scribes, they are hearing the Book of the Law—presumably the first five books of the Bible—read and explained. (Did they have to listen to Leviticus and Numbers, with their endless lists, rules, and statistics? That would reduce anybody to tears.)

Bear in mind too that they are gathered in great numbers. They would feel the solidarity, the strength, the encouragement which comes from being part of a like-minded crowd. Did you attend any of the events of the papal visits of either John Paul II or Benedict XVI? As a young priest, I was at Speke Airport when JPII’s helicopter flew over and landed and, after a short trip in the Popemobile, he addressed the crowd.

One incident remains embedded in my mind. A few rows in front of me was a young couple. As the wife or girlfriend strained to see, the young man lifted her up onto a convenient railing. After watching the Pope for a few minutes, she jumped down, and the couple shared a brief embrace, a moment of joint joy, enthusiasm, and delight. Some shared moments have that effect.

Of course the crowd effect can be dangerous, even evil. How many football hooligans, how many rioters, would have remained peaceful, well behaved citizens had they not been swayed by the power of the crowd? Think of Hitler’s Nuremberg Rallies, or of Trump’s demagoguery which led to the attack on the US Congress on the Feast of the Epiphany four years ago.

Ezra and his companions ensured that the crowd gathered at the Water Gate (a name embedded in the mind by the nefarious activities of another American President half a century ago) remained peaceful and positive. How lasting an effect did this event have?

Today’s Gospel reminds us how fickle a crowd can be, how short lived a positive effect. In the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus is doing what Ezra and his companions had done five hundred years earlier. He is re-introducing the people, in a new and fresh way, to the word of God, and the people are enthralled, for a time. Yet we know that, as soon as Our Lord began to tell them home truths, they performed a complete volte-face, and sought to kill Him.

What is all of this saying to us? We need to be refreshed and renewed constantly by hearing the word of God. It is good to find the encouragement of a crowd of like-minded people, especially when those people are gathered for worship, to be nourished by God’s word, and by the Body and Blood of Christ. But remember always the potential of a crowd for harm, and beware demagogues and rabble-rousers. And remember too how quickly enthusiasms can fade if not sustained and nourished.

2nd Sunday Ordinary Time Year C

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

Isaiah 62:1-5; 1Cor 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

YABADABADOO! We’ve got it! This is the one year in three when we have all three elements of the Epiphany: the showing forth of Jesus to the Gentiles, in the persons of the Wise Men; His showing forth as the Beloved Son of the Father at His Baptism; and the showing forth of His glory at the Cana marriage feast.

Before I become too excited though (I say “I” because I don’t suppose that this excites you at all, even though it does me) I should point out that the Cana miracle (or sign) isn’t presented as part of the Epiphany, as it should be. This is Ordinary Time, celebrated in green vestments, and we won’t have this Gospel again for another three years, though in the intervening two years there is a sort of unofficial element of Epiphany as John the Baptist shows forth the Lamb of God.

While dealing with practical matters, I should point out that the change of Bible edition hasn’t eliminated all bad translations. Our Lord doesn’t actually say to His mother “What has this to do with me?”. What He actually says, when translated literally, is “What to you and to me?” Make of that what you will.

Right. Let us consider the event itself. An abundance of wine is foretold by the prophets as one of the signs of the Kingdom. Jesus produces a superabundance, revealing that He is the one who embodies the Kingdom. The way in which this plays out is remarkable.

Our Lady’s role in this miracle cannot and must not be overlooked. Firstly, we notice her compassion with the embarrassed bride and groom, and the short-changed guests. Compassion is demanded of His followers by the Lord, and His Mother, the model of the Church, demonstrates that she has it. She demonstrates something else too: an influence on her Son, of which she is well aware.

Initially it appears that He is turning down her implied request, and for the best of reasons: His “hour” is not yet come. The “hour” is crucial (if you will pardon the pun) in St. John’s Gospel: it refers to His exaltation through His Cross and Resurrection. For John, the Crucifixion, no less than the Resurrection, is a sign of Jesus’ glory, His sharing in the Godhead, and that glory is not to be revealed before its time. Yet we are specifically told, at the end of this episode, that He “manifested His glory” in performing the miracle. In other words, at the instigation of His mother, Jesus brought His “hour” forward.

Such is the influence of Our Lady, and we, the Son’s disciples, would be extremely foolish not to take advantage both of her compassion and of her influence. Those Christians who refuse to seek Mary’s help are doing a successful job of cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

Notice too how well the mother knows the Son. Despite His apparent rebuff, Mary knows that Jesus will do something. Consequently, she has no hesitation in alerting the servants: “Do whatever He tells you”. She knows her Son, and she is aware that her wishes carry influence with Him.

Bear in mind that this is John’s Gospel. He doesn’t use words carelessly: they often carry a deeper meaning than is apparent on the surface. Thus, when He comments on Jesus’ words from the Cross, stating that “the disciple” made a place for Mary in his home, by “the disciple” he understands, and we are to understand, everyone who is a follower of Jesus. All disciples need to make a place for the mother of the Lord in our homes.

Similarly, Mary’s words to “the servants” are not addressed only to those who are helping with the feast. They are intended for all the servants of the Lord. To each of us Mary says “Do whatever He tells you”. That is an injunction for all time. Each of us is to do what Jesus tells us in the Gospels, and to make the carrying out of His commands the driving force of our lives. Only thus will His hour be fully realised, and His glory fully revealed.

Baptism of Our Lord Year C

Baptism of the Lord 2025

Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11; Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

I may have told you this before. If so, put it down to my being in my anecdotage, and offer it up for the Holy Souls.

At St. Gregory’s, Preston, there are—or, at least, there were, when I was there from 1990 to 1995—two cribs, a conventional one in the side chapel containing all the familiar figures, and a simple wooden one under the altar comprising just the three figures of the Holy Family. One morning during Christmastide, I went into church to pray before Mass, and as I did so, I flicked a couple of lights on.

Here, I need to add that there is also a huge wooden crucifix which hangs above the altar. As I walked into church, I observed that the shadow cast by this crucifix fell across the crib under the altar, and I suddenly grasped the significance of this feast of the Baptism of the Lord. The shadow of the Cross falls across the crib—and the Baptism is the hinge point between them. (REPEAT)

What does that mean? From the moment of His birth, Jesus the Saviour is pre-ordained to die on the Cross, and the Baptism is the point at which He begins to fulfil His destiny, to move from the crib to the Cross.

Let us look at the crib first. The scene is already one of rejection. There was no room for the Holy Family at the inn, and so they must dwell as outsiders, beyond the walls within which they might have expected to find welcome. Similarly, Jesus is to die outside the walls of the city, rejected by the very Jerusalem which He had come to save.

There are a few who will come to honour Him at His birth, the Jewish shepherds and the Gentile Magi, just as a few will stand by His Cross, whilst the general mass of the people remains unwelcoming, indifferent or hostile. Among the Jewish people, it is the poor and lowly, in the form of the shepherds, who come to adore Him, as it is always the anawim the poor of the Lord, who recognise Him crucified and risen. Even when the wealthier Magi appear, one of their gifts is myrrh, traditionally used to anoint bodies for burial, as the women were to bring spices to the tomb. It has been suggested that among those spices might have been that myrrh, kept lovingly by Our Lady since the wise men’s visit.

Move forward forty days, and we see the infant Jesus presented in the Temple, His Father’s house, which He was later to liberate from the activities of the buyers and sellers, but whose destruction He would prophesy, as it was to be replaced by the true Temple of His crucified and risen body. There, Simeon’s own prophecy would foretell the child’s future role as a sign of contradiction, or a sign that is rejected, literally “a sign that is spoken against”, which is the original meaning of contradiction.

In all of these ways, then, the shadow of the Cross falls across the crib: the scene of the Lord’s birth is already marked by signs of His death. In what sense, though, is the Baptism the hinge point between crib and Cross?

The Baptism is the hinge in that it sets the process in motion, marking the point at which Jesus moves from the one towards the other. The liturgical hymn from the Divine Office expresses this move:

“When Jesus comes to be baptised, He leaves the hidden years behind,

The years of safety and of peace, to bear the sins of all mankind”.

 In accepting baptism, the Lord sets out on the road to the Cross, His descent into and rising from the water foreshadowing His descent into and rising from the tomb.

And so the weekly, indeed daily, question arises: what about us? As St. Paul tells us in the course of the Paschal liturgy, “when we were baptised in Christ Jesus, we were baptised in His death” and Paul also unites our own descent into and rising from the water at our baptism with Our Lord’s descent into and resurrection from the tomb. All of this we can face with confidence and without fear, because, like Jesus, we are anointed with the Holy Spirit; and to us, as to the Lord, the words of the Father are addressed: “You are my Beloved Child. With you I am well pleased”.

Epiphany

Epiphany 2025

Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

I am not quite sure of the correct version of the penultimate line of the first verse of “We three Kings”. I know that we have “one in a caravan, one in a car” but is the next line “one on a scooter, honking his hooter” or “one on a bicycle sucking an icicle”? Answers on a postcard!

Who were they anyway, and where did they come from? Someone suggested on Facebook that they came from Yorkshire, because, allegedly, “They came from the East Riding on camels”. As a loyal Lancastrian I must point out that this cannot be true. To find one wise man in Yorkshire would be a miracle: to find three would be impossible.

According to the Greek text, they were magoi which comes into English as “Magi”. That could be translated as “wise men” or “soothsayers” or even “astrologers”. They were people who searched the skies and studied astronomical charts: in a fairly primitive way, they were seeking to use scientific methods.

St. Matthew doesn’t say that they were kings. That idea comes from the First Reading and the Psalm. The prophet known as Trito-Isaiah (Third Isaiah) prophesies that there shall come “kings to the brightness of your rising”. Meanwhile, the Psalm speaks of “the kings of Tarshish and the islands”, and claims that “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring him gifts”. As the prophet declares that the gifts from Sheba will include gold and frankincense, and as the Wise Men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the connection was made and, rightly or wrongly, they became kings.

In effect, “who they were” is not the point.  What matters is who they were not. You know the answer to that, don’t you? They were not Jews, not members of the Chosen People. Their visit, and this feast, mark an extension of the franchise. Christmas, as you will have noticed, was an entirely Jewish affair.  Mary and Joseph were Jews: Jesus is a Jew. The first witnesses of the Nativity were Jews, in the persons of the shepherds, and any other visitors.

Thus far, the newborn could have been the Jewish Messiah, and nothing more, a person of immense importance, certainly, but no concern of ours. The Epiphany, the “showing forth”, reveals Him as so much more, as the Redeemer of the Gentiles, the non-Jews, as well as of the original Chosen People. At one level, even more than Christmas, Epiphany is OUR feast, the feast of the outsiders, the also rans, the Goys.

This is spelt out in the Letter to the Ephesians. “The mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same Body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” Through the Incarnation, the taking by God of our human flesh, the world is redeemed: the Epiphany leaves us in no doubt that we are sharers in this redemption.

Christmas Day Mass

Christmas Dawn Mass 2024

Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20

“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God……………” And then what? Did life return to its old routine, with the memory of what they had seen and heard gradually fading? Or was a lasting impression made on them? Would they continue to glorify and praise God? Might they have been changed, internally if not externally?

Would they have tried to follow the exploits of the Messiah whom they had seen? Likely enough, that would have been impossible, since he faded from view for thirty years, by which time they would probably have died. Would they have been disappointed that he hadn’t made a mark in that time, perhaps overthrowing Roman rule, or might they have understood things at a deeper level, touched in the depth of their being by the God whom they had been privileged to encounter in human form? Surely the latter must have happened to a greater or lesser degree: to some extent, this event must have marked them for life.

What about us? I suspect that all of us must carry memories of Christmases past, especially childhood memories: making Christmas decorations in primary school, learning the exacting and often witty lines required for the Nativity Play, nowadays tragically reduced to a pageant for the Infants, to be left behind at the age of seven, rather than a stimulating challenge for Top Juniors.

You may remember the thrill of being allowed to attend Midnight Mass for the first time. Then there was Christmas Day itself, and the magic of opening the presents: the new toys, and for me, especially the books. I still remember lying full length on the hearthrug, devouring every word of “Treasure Island”. After that came Christmas dinner, with shandy to drink from tall glasses, followed by the sweet and actually thrilling aroma of Dad’s cigar. I haven’t smelt cigar smoke in years, but if ever I do, it takes me straight back to Christmas past.

And then what? The new toys would take their place alongside their older fellows in the toy box: the books would be finished, and lined up on the bookshelves. Down would come the decorations, with the Christmas tree baubles and the crib figures wrapped and stored for next year. Soon would come the horror of going back to school.

I actually started school in January, seventy years ago. It was snowing, and I wore a pair of my Mum’s zip up long boots. As I was putting them back on to go outside at playtime, a big girl told me that they were on the wrong feet, which was silly, because they were the only feet I had.

Christmas faded into the background for another year, but not everything disappeared. My toy soldiers, my cars, and my cowboys and Indians reappeared regularly, and my plastic sword, eventually repaired with Sellotape, was well used as I, mounted on my trusty steed (aka the arm of the settee) and with a tea cosy (metal on the outside) on my head as a helmet, reproduced all the duels as I reread King Arthur, acting out both parts in turn. As for Treasure Island, I have read it more times than I have had hot dinners, and was given a new, very smart copy a few Christmases ago.

Has anything else remained? I think, I hope that my understanding of the feast has deepened, and continues to do so. I hope that I have come a little closer to grasping the reality of the Incarnation, of God stripping Himself with glory and taking on Himself our human flesh, with its hopes, its fears, its, joys, its pain, and its capacity for mental and physical suffering beyond anything imaginable by us lesser characters—but also for ultimate transcendence of everything, even death.

I hope too that I have learned to take seriously the word Emmanuel—God with us—and to realise that this is an ongoing reality; that God is always with us, here and now in our mundane, always messy, often painful existence. In my better moments I strive to see Him in others, in the events of life; to respond to His presence in His word, in the sacraments, and in the often distracted struggle of my private prayer.

The underlying message of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is that Scrooge’s experiences changed him forever. May our celebration of this feast, year by year, have the same lasting effect on us. “And so, as Tiny Tim observed: God bless us, every one.”

Midnight Mass

Christmas Night 2024

“I’m sorry mate, but I’m absolutely rammed. I’m sorry about your lass too, but I haven’t got a spare inch. Isn’t that right, Edith?”

What’s that? Oh, look at you, lass! You’re ready to pop! No, Bert, we can’t send them away. She’ll have the baby in the street if they don’t get a shelter.

Hang on! We can fit them into the stable. There’s clean straw, and Daisy can warm them with her breath, and even top up Mum’s milk if she’s struggling.

Come on, luv, you lean on me! And you, feller—what’s your name? Joe? Right Joe, you bring the donkey along. There’s room for him too.

Right lass, you just rest on that straw. And there’s plenty more in the manger for when the baby pops out. Joe, the moment the contractions begin, you run like the wind for me. Young Mary will be all right for those few minutes.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She’s started has she, Joe? Right oh, don’t panic. I’ve heated some water, and I’ve got some clean towels. You take the basin. DON’T SPILL IT!

Now then, lass, you bite on this strap, and push for all you are worth. I know it hurts: I’ve had five. You can’t tell me anything. I’ve got gallstones too, and they’re as bad. I’ve told Bert: sometimes I don’t know if I’m having a baby or a gallstone attack. Keep pushing! Now Joe, don’t you go fainting on me: I need you to cut the cord.

Shove, lass! Shove! Good girl! The head’s coming. God alone knows why He made childbirth such a messy business. They say as how God is going to come to us as a human being. I hope He’ll be a woman: then He’ll learn a few things. If God has a baby Himself, He’ll know about it; then maybe He’ll change a few things. Keep pushing, lass!

Good lass! You’ve done it! Oh, I’ve got bad news for you—it’s a lad. Ah well, your husband looks as if he has a head on his shoulders, so maybe this one will be the same. Now what do you lot want? I don’t want any smelly shepherds hanging around here. And keep your hands in your pockets. If owt goes missing, I’ll know who to blame. Now clear off!

What’s that you’re saying? You saw an angel? Aye, and I’m the Queen of Sheba! And he told you you’d find a babby here? And the babby would be the Messiah? Ruddy funny place for the Messiah to be born. Are you sure it wasn’t a pink elephant you saw? Come here! Let me sniff your breath. No, you seem to be all right.

And then there were a load more angels and they were praising God? Aye, well they would be, wouldn’t they? I must admit, you do look as if you’ve seen something--sort of scared and bouncing happy at the same time. Are you sure you haven’t been taking something?

By ‘eck! Now I’ve seen everything—shepherds bringing presents and handing them over. Look, you daft hap’orth! There’s no point giving him a lamb. What’s he supposed to do with it? Play with it? Well, all right, if you say so. But won’t your boss miss it? It’s newborn, so he won’t know. All right, but don’t think I’m going to feed it. I’ve got enough on my hands. Joe, do you know owt about lambs and sheep? Everyone where you come from knows a bit about ‘em? Where’s that then? Nazareth? That’s a rum sort of place from what I hear about it.

What do you do for a living? You’re a carpenter?  Well, I should have guessed from t’size and t’shape of your hands: they’re like sides of beef. Looks like you’ll have a ready made apprentice in a few years’ time, and he’ll cost you nowt.

Oy, you shepherds, don’t you be telling anybody about this, or we’ll be crowded out wi’ folks. What’s that? The angel told you to share the good news? Great! That’s all we need at this time of all times. Ah well, if they come, they come. Maybe we’ll make a few bob out of them.

Well, that’s been a right to-do and no mistake. Very impressive—I might say awesome! One thing bothers me though. Why did God have to come as a lad?

4th Sunday of Advent Year C

4th Sunday of Advent 2024

Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

What is Our Lady doing when she goes to visit Elizabeth? Perhaps she is withdrawing from her own neighbourhood for a time while she adjusts to her pregnancy. Certainly, she is going to support and help her elderly relative as the latter comes to terms with her own pregnancy at a late stage in her life. We recall that Mary is always the model of the Church, the eschatological ikon, the exemplar of what the Church should be doing, so we ask what lesson she is here presenting to us.

Is there anybody to whom you or I should be bringing help and support, particularly at this time of year? Do you have a relative, a friend, a neighbour, who may be struggling with loneliness, bereavement, illness, anxiety, and who would benefit from a visit, a phone call, an email? Sometimes, visits can be a burden, rather than a help, for the person visited: we need to be discreet, to consider the old question cui bono? (who benefits?) whose needs are being met? Are we visiting for the other person’s benefit, or for our own? Could their needs be met better by a message than by a personal visit? Make sure that concern for the other is the driving force.

What else does Our Lady do? She greets Elizabeth, presumably with a cheerful shout through the doorway: “Ey up, Aunty Betty!” Our demeanour is important. Are we bringing joy, or misery? Will our visit be a benefit, or a burden?

Mary also brings Christ, the Saviour, to her relative and to Elizabeth’s unborn child.  John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb, recognising, while yet unborn, the presence of the unborn Jesus. Do you or I bring Christ to others, not by preachiness but by being a presence of Christ? Jesus Himself promised that, if anybody loves Him, He and the Father will make their home in that person. So, if we are doing our best to love Jesus, then He will be living in us, and we should radiate His presence, not consciously, but simply by being ourselves. The question which each of us needs to ask ourselves is “Am I a presence of Christ for others?”

The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, has also been poured into us, and so we should bring the Holy Spirit to those whom we encounter. Above all others, Our Lady is filled with the Holy Spirit who preserved her from sin, and who overshadowed her in the Incarnation. Hence, whilst the baby leaps in his mother’s womb, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, conveyed to her by Mary, and is able to prophesy. We are not likely to endow others with the gift of prophecy, but if we are indeed bearers of the Holy Spirit, then that same Spirit will be conveyed to those whom we meet.

Elizabeth’s prophecy relates both to Mary and to the unborn Jesus. She pronounces both of them to be blessed, applying the same word to each. Consequently, it should be unthinkable for anyone who claims to be Christian to withhold honour from Mary who is described, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by the same term as is applied to her Divine Son. Hence, she is indeed Our Blessed Lady, and is rightly called such.

“The Mother of my Lord” is the other term applied by Eliabeth, who expresses wonderment that such a person should come to her. Again, there is a clear message that Mary is someone whom we should view with reverence, and the reason for her blessedness is described: “Blessed is she who believed” states Elizabeth.

It is Mary’s faith which is the source of her blessedness: it is a spiritual motherhood which precedes and makes possible her physical motherhood. In this, Elizabeth anticipates Jesus Himself, who was to declare “Blessed rather those who hear the word of God and keep it”. No one heard and kept the word of God so completely as did His Mother, and for this reason she is blessed beyond all others.

Once more, we are left in no doubt that we must honour the Mother of the Lord, and again it is Our Lady who shows the way for the Church. “Anyone who does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and MOTHER” Jesus was to declare. To the extent that we do the Father’s will, we are mothers of the Son, bringing Him to birth in our world today, and by our faith sharing in the blessedness of her whom all generations are to call blessed.

3rd Sunday Year C

3rd Sunday of Advent 2024

Zephaniah 3:14-18; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18

Did you know that there are two “Rejoice Sundays” in the year? This, the Third Sunday of Advent is one of them, the other is Mid-Lent Sunday. Today is Gaudete Sunday: Mid-Lent is Laetare Sunday. Well done, Latin, having two words for “Rejoice”, encouraging us to have plenty of joy.

(Incidentally, if you Google “Gaudete” it may refer you to Steeleye Span’s version of the hymn “Gaudete” which Maddy Prior sings entirely in Latin—well worth checking up on. Also incidentally, if you are in a parish which is totally lacking in taste, you may be faced with “rose coloured” vestments—essentially pink—on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays: not a pretty sight, as Eric Morecambe used to say.)

Today, then, we are called to rejoice, and not only to rejoice but to exult. Why? Because, according to the prophet Zephaniah, “The Lord has taken away the judgement against you; He has cleared away your enemies”. This is fascinating because, earlier in his prophecies, Zephaniah fiercely rebukes the people, for turning away from God: now he is looking forward to a time when they will turn back to God.

Has that time arrived? Have people turned back to God? Looking around us, we may find it hard to think that it is so. This is where hope comes in, the most neglected of the trio of cardinal virtues—faith, hope, and charity. We are called to be “Pilgrims of Hope”, the title given to the Holy Year of 2025. We, with the whole people of God, are called to make our pilgrim way towards the fullness of the Kingdom, and we do so with hope, trusting that God will accomplish what we cannot. He WILL clear away our enemies: He WILL call people back to Him; and so we rejoice and we exult in anticipation.

Yet it is not only in anticipation that we do this, because the Kingdom is already here, though its glory is not yet. Whenever someone obeys the instructions of John the Baptist, the Kingdom is present and at work. Whenever people share with those in need, whenever they take no more than their due, whenever they refrain from extortion, from threats, from bullying, and from false accusations—and how many of those there are at the present time—the Kingdom is present, and we have cause to rejoice and exult.

The Christ has come, and He is always coming, because He is an Advent God, and we live in the time of His coming. Like the people who followed John the Baptist, we are “filled with expectation”: and expectation is another word for hope. For us, as for them, our expectation is already partly fulfilled because Christ has come, and He is here, in the gathering of His people, in word and sacrament, in people and events, and so we have reason to rejoice and exult, so long as we are open to His coming.

We rejoice too because, as Zephaniah tells us, the Lord rejoices over us. He is pleased with His creation; He rejoices over the people whom He has created, and whom His Son has redeemed. “Great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel,” as we proclaim in the psalm: “the Lord is at hand,” as we are informed in the Letter to the Philippians. He has come in the person of His Son, and He is here, and He rejoices to be in us and among us.

Because God and His Christ rejoice in us, we can, should, must rejoice in Him. “Rejoice in the Lord always” we are told, and then, in case we have missed the point, we are told again. Incidentally (again) this is one passage where the new translation scores over the Jerusalem Bible, which had a reading from Ken Dodd to the Philippians: “I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord, (Missus)”—no, no, no, no! We are then given useful advice: listen to it again, then ask yourself “Do I heed it?”

“Do not be anxious about anything.” Do you heed that? Do you worry and fret about things which you cannot resolve, or do you trust in God? “In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Do you pray for your needs, and are you thankful? And do you realise and recognise the closeness of God to you? Are you aware that Christ is here?

If you are doing these things, you have plenty of cause to rejoice.

2nd Sunday of Advent Year C

2nd Sunday of Advent 2024

Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 125 (126); Philippians 1:3-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6

I am going to tell you a story. I have probably told it to you before, but so what? I watch lots of repeats on iplayer, so it is unlikely to do you too much harm if you listen to something which you have already heard. As a priest once said to me when I apologised for re-using material which I had used previously: “The same sun rises every morning and we don’t complain about that”.

This story dates back to the equivalent Sunday to this one in 1986. I was based at the time at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre at Castlerigg Manor in Keswick, and I had been asked, on this Sunday, to celebrate Mass at Windermere, where the parish priest was ill.

The priest in question was the late Fr. Joseph Haydon, known to the brethren as Smokin’ Joe, not because of any resemblance, real or imagined, to the original Smokin’ Joe, the heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frasier, but simply because, except when he was on the sanctuary, he never had a ciggy absent from between his fingers. Now, Smokin’ Joe was ill—perhaps not surprisingly with pneumonia—and I had been asked to “supply” for him on this particular Sunday morning.

It was a glorious morning, as close to perfection as ever a morning can be. It was frosty, but the sun was beating down from a cloudless sky, creating those shadows and effects on the fellsides which only a winter sun can provide. On the Lakes which I passed—Thirlmere in particular, to which the road runs parallel—a slight breeze made the wavelets dance as they reflected the sun’s sparkle, and as I headed down Dunmail Raise, the sheer tranquility was breathtaking.

As I drove, I was rehearsing in my head the homily which I was to base on the readings of the day. “For God has commanded that every mountain and the everlasting hills be made low.” “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places shall become level ways,” and all I could think was “Oh no, Lord! Not these hills, please! They are far too beautiful.”

It is all a matter of context. Baruch is writing of the return of the Jewish exiles from their seventy years’ enforced absence in Babylon. For the individuals involved, it would not actually have been a return. The original exiles would have died, and it would have been chiefly their grandchildren and great-grandchildren who were making what was, for them, a trek into the unknown. Baruch promises that their journey will be made easy, all obstacles removed, everything done to make this a genuine homecoming.

We find similar comfort and rejoicing in the psalm: “When the Lord delivered Sion from bondage, it seemed like a dream”. You are familiar with the exiles’ psalms of lament—“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Sion”—now their tears are replaced by songs.

Luke picks up this theme in the Gospel. After providing precise dates—clearly a man after my own heart—he applies the prophecy to the work of John the Baptist, who is preparing a way for the adult Jesus. Notice that this all relates to the proclamation of the Kingdom: we are still not thinking about the Christmas event. It is too early in Advent for us to focus on that.

So the way for Jesus is to be made more straightforward by the Baptist’s teaching, as the way for the exiles had been smoothed more than five centuries earlier. What about us, as we make our own pilgrim journey towards the Kingdom? Is our way to be smoothed? Are the obstacles to be removed from our path?

I would like to pose a rather different question: would we want them to be? In some respects, we might answer “Yes”. If, as the pilgrim people of God, we were to have an easier journey, that might sometimes be desirable. Yet, if life and, in particular, the Christian life, were to have suffering removed, if the struggles which we face in following Christ—and for some people in merely existing—no longer afflicted us, would we walk more rapidly, achieve the Kingdom more securely?

Think again of those Lakeland hills and valleys. If somehow the Keswick to Windermere road were to be flattened, would we feel that we had gained, or lost? The struggles and difficulties, the obstacles and hardships, provided that they do not destroy or severely damage us, are part of the journey, whether in the Lake District or in life. If our way was to be totally smooth, it would not be a pilgrim road; it would not be taken in the footsteps of, and in company with, Christ. It is because Christ has walked, and does walk, this route, and not because it is flat and straightforward, that we are truly enabled to be pilgrims of hope.

1st Sunday of Advent Year C

1st Sunday of Advent 2024

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Pope St. John Paul II was fond of reminding us that we are the Easter People: an important concept because we live always in the light of the Risen Christ. At the same time, we are the Lenten People, journeying through the wilderness with God’s Chosen People, and with Jesus, who faced and overcame the temptations which afflict all of us in our different ways.

We are also the Pentecost People, called into life by the Holy Spirit, who has been and is poured out upon us. And we are the Advent People, to whom and in whom Christ is always coming: Christ who came, veiled in flesh; Christ who will come, throned in glory; Christ who does come, quietly, secretly, unnoticed, to those who have eyes to see, ears to hear.

What are we doing, when we keep the season of Advent? We are waiting, preparing, being alert. Waiting, preparing, being alert for what? For whom? For the coming of Christ, yes, but how, when, where? The thoughtless will answer “at Christmas”, but what does that mean?

Christ CAME at the first Christmas, of course, to be the Messiah, the righteous branch promised by Jeremiah; and we do indeed prepare to recall, to celebrate, that First Coming: the advent of God in our human flesh, the breaking through of eternity into time, of the divine into the human. This indeed was awesome, earth-shattering, world-changing, deserving to be recalled and celebrated year after year after year, as long as time lasts.

But can we actually say, as is sometimes said, that we are preparing “for the coming of Christ at Christmas”? In what way will Christ come at Christmas differently from the way that He comes every other day of the year, every day of our lives? His coming is always fresh, always new, always incomprehensible, and on Christmas Day He will come in word and sacrament, in the gathering of His people, in the events which unfold for us—AS HE COMES EVERY DAY.

Rightly, we prepare to recall that God-filled event, and to pray that Christ may be born in us anew, but Advent, if it is to be true to itself, must be more than that. What more must it be?

As well as a making present again of a past event, it must be a longing for, and an openness to, the future. Our Gospel today calls us to be alert to the coming of Christ, but not as a baby in a manger. Its whole emphasis is on the return of Christ in glory, and on our need to be prepared and awake to face that; indeed, to welcome it as our redemption, for it will mark the fulfilment of God’s purpose for the world.

Will that Second or Final Coming of Christ happen in our lifetime? When we hear the Lord’s account of the signs which will accompany it, we may think that it is just around the corner. Are there not plenty of signs in these days? Natural disasters, conflicts without end, breakdowns of civilisation? Aren’t there many nations in distress and perplexity, so many of them grasping at extreme and extremist political solutions?

We do not, and cannot, know if these are signs of an imminent end. We can and should see them as reminders that there will be an end, for us as individuals and for the world. We should take them as pointers to our own mortality, recalling that we were created, not for this life only, but for eternity, an eternity which is being built in our living out of every day.

So in Advent we are preparing to recall the beginning of the work of our redemption in the First Coming of Christ, and we are sharpening our alertness to the prospect of His Second Coming, both at the end of our own lives and at the end of time. Is there anything else?

Certainly there is, for as St. Bernard, father of the Cistercian renaissance, reminded us, there is a Third Coming of Christ, between the other two, and one which affects us every day. For Christ is always coming into our lives, day by day, moment by moment. He comes, not only in the specifically religious events, but in the people who cross our path, each of them Christ for us; in the painful and joyful events, which give us a share in His Cross and Resurrection; in all that we do or fail to do; in all the gifts and opportunities of His grace. The Advent season reminds us of something which is true day in and day out: Christ is coming to us, here and now, today. Are we awake to recognise Him?

Christ the King Year B

Christ the King 2024

Daniel 7:13-14; Apocalypse 1:5-8; John 18:33-37

I am sorry, but try as I might, I cannot become enthused by the Feast of Christ the King. Perhaps I should. After all, the world desperately needs the Lordship of Christ, the reign of God, as said world appears to be careering to hell on a handcart: but I can’t. It is an anachronism, something out of time, which is slotted uncomfortably into the Church’s calendar. It was established at a particular time to meet a particular challenge: the threat posed by the rising tides of communism and fascism during the inter-war years in Europe.

Even then, there was something strange about it. Kings were already a busted flush in the 1920s and ‘30s. Today, they have practically no significance at all. I remember a Zimbabwean priest preaching on this day, and explaining how alien a concept he found it, coming as he did from a socialist republic, where the only kings of whom he had heard were Old King Cole and Elvis. (I should point out that this was before Mugabe and his successor Mnangagwa had turned Zimbabwe into a dictatorship.)

Here in Britain—now referred to officially as the United Kingdom—another anachronism, as its constituent nations have never been more disunited—our constitutional monarchy wields no genuine power, and impinges less and less on the public consciousness. Admittedly, a glance at the so called Great Power across the Atlantic shows us that there are worse systems—perhaps if the United States had remained loyal to the Crown as Canada did, they might by now have been almost civilised—but since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who was almost universally admired for her diplomatic skills, royalty has moved further to the margins.

What then can we usefully say about Christ the King? Oddly, the irrelevance of kings may be the one thing which gives meaning to the feast, for Christ Himself was effectively irrelevant in relation to the power structures of His day.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” asks Pilate. This pagan Roman governor may have been unaware of the hostility of devout Jews to the very notion of kingship. They had not been ruled by a king since the time of the Babylonian exile, centuries before. Admittedly, Herod the Great is sometimes referred to as King Herod, but the Jews themselves would have rejected the term, and upon his death, his so called kingdom had been split three ways among his sons by the Romans.

Rome was not averse to having petty kings among its subject peoples. They were known as “client kings” and were well aware that they occupied their thrones by permission of the Romans, their usefulness limited to their ability to prevent any rebellion by their people against Roman power and Roman rule.

Hence, when Pilate put his question, he may genuinely have wondered whether Our Lord might be of use to him as a minor and ultimately impotent keeper of order among the unruly populace. If so, he was quickly disabused of the notion. “My kingdom is not of this kind” says Jesus. In other words, I am neither of use to you, nor a threat to you. My kingship takes the form of bearing witness to the truth, a concept which Pilate found incomprehensible. “What is truth?” he asked, and closed the conversation.

In human terms, Jesus was and is the most unkingly king, and if this feast is to be celebrated at all, it cannot be in the triumphalist manner familiar to some of us from our youth, when it entailed a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, with white gloved attendants carrying the poles of a canopy, before the monstrance was enthroned above the high altar. Jesus’ kingship is obscure, hidden, exercised in service among the poor and lowly.

Does this day, then, say anything to us? It does, in an upside down way. We are told in the Apocalypse that Jesus has made us a line of kings and priests. The First Letter of St. Peter calls us a royal priesthood. That royalty, though, must be expressed in the way in which Jesus expressed it; in apparent irrelevance, in seeming insignificance, in service of the poor. As kings, we must be “unkings”. Whether this feast really brings that home to us is another matter.

33rd Sunday of the Year

33rd Sunday 2024

Daniel 12: 1-3; Hebrews 10: 11-14, 18; Mark 13: 24-32

Do you remember the early days of microwaves? There were dark rumours, whether justified or not I do not know, that they emitted radiation which could cause brain damage, and that they might interfere with other electrical equipment.

My father was in no doubt. Whenever their aged TV set spluttered and crackled, he would pronounce, ex cathedra, “Someone is using one of those microwaves”. In vain would my mother point out that the telly in question was past its sell-by date: any interference was caused by a microwave somewhere in the vicinity.

I should perhaps add that Dad’s increasing hearing problems had nothing to do with age, but resulted from people’s muttering, and, admittedly with tongue firmly in cheek, that the holes in his jumper were attributable to moths, and were totally unrelated to the sparks dropping from his pipe. He was NOT growing older.

All of us, I suspect, are reluctant to admit to the effects of advancing years. Our physical and mental powers develop and strengthen throughout our childhood, youth, and early adulthood, and we carry a sort of inner conviction, in the face of all the evidence, that they will continue to do so. When I was transferred, in my mid-30s, from parish and school chaplaincy to the Diocesan Youth Centre, I confidently quoted the Beatles’ song “When I’m 64”.

“When I get older, losing my hair, MANY years from now…” These eventualities lay so far in the future that I could cheerfully scoff at them. I would never lose my hair, and I could laugh at the question “If I came home at quarter to three, would you lock the door?” When did the age of 64 change from being an unimaginably distant event, and become a piece of ancient history? When did quarter to three move from 2-45am to 2-45pm?

At a certain point, the signs of physical and, sadly, mental decline begin to materialise, however much we may deny them. If you are slow to see them in yourself, look around your house. Are your furniture, your kitchen fittings, your paint or wallpaper, the same as thirty years ago? And, if so, are they still in the same condition? “Change and decay in all around I see”, however reluctant we may be to admit it.

Year by year, the readings for this Sunday, the penultimate weekend of the Church’s calendar, remind us of mortality, of the unwelcome truth that nothing in this world, even the world itself, is built to last. We, and all created things, have built in obsolescence. The Day of the Son of Man will come, and that will be closing time.

“Before this generation has passed away, all these things will have taken place.” They have not yet happened in time, but their course is determined in eternity; they are already a present reality. When that reality will occur for us as individuals or for creation as a whole, we do not know—nor, apparently, did the Son of God in His human form—but occur it will. Nothing is more certain.

How are we to react? Do we whistle a happy tune and carry on as if nothing has changed, or will change? Do we take fright, and lapse into pessimism? Neither of these courses really fits the bill. We DO continue with life as normal, because what will happen is normal. We remind ourselves, though, that we live each day in the light of eternity, that our eternity is actually being constructed daily from what we do each day.

What does this mean in practice? It certainly does not mean that we live in a state of constant fear, terrified of the Day of Judgement. Remember that God has created us for eternal life with Him: that, as St. John’s Gospel reminds us (3:16-17) “God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son….not to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved”, that God has “destined us, not for wrath, but to obtain salvation” (1Thess5:9-10). God is on our side.

It means rather that we are conscious of God’s presence in our lives, and of His purpose for us: that we seek to live each day in accordance with that purpose. It is interesting that, in today’s Gospel, Jesus illustrates His words about His return via a parable, not of decay, but of new life, the fig tree which blooms in the summer. However our bodies and minds may be faring, let us be spiritually alert, living fully each day in the light of God’s love, His call, and His eternal plan for each one of us.

32nd Sunday Year B

32nd Sunday 2024

I Kings 17:10-16; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

What do the two widows of today’s First Reading and Gospel have in common? Extreme generosity, certainly: the one shares the last of her food with Elijah, a complete stranger, while the other dedicates the last of her money to God. Is there anything else involved? Faith, I would say. Essentially, both of them are entrusting their very survival to God, since they have no natural resources remaining.

It is possible, I suppose, to suggest that both are acting in desperation or resignation; to assume that they are both at their wits’ end and are being reckless. I am not convinced by that argument: isn’t it natural to cling onto our resources until the bitter end, rather than share them with a foreigner or effectively throw them away?

There was a similar episode in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. On a visit to Rome, he was apparently shocked at what he saw as the meanness of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Basilica, who were donating very little, and so he emptied his own purse into the collection, and went away impoverished but happy.

This gesture was indicative of St. Francis’ whole attitude. He neither kept, nor allowed his followers to keep, anything by way of savings, but relied entirely on the providence of God and the generosity of wealthier people.

Perhaps earlier than usual, I am going to pose the weekly question: what about us? I don’t think that we are required to give away everything: to rely entirely on the goodness of God and the open-handedness of others. We have responsibilities which we must fulfil. We have an obligation to provide for our own welfare and that of our families. There are demands which society rightly makes of us to contribute to the common good by way of taxation. Like everyone else, I shudder when the envelope arrives marked HMRC, to inform me how much the taxman intends to liberate from my clutches, but I know that taxes are a necessary evil: that without them, society would be unable to function. There is some truth in Benjamin Franklin’s comment that the two certainties in life are death and taxes.

Once these obligations are met, what else is required of us? Is it for us, as for the two widows, a matter of generosity and faith? How much do you and I possess of those two qualities?

Both are demanded of every Christian—can we say “of every human being”? Bear in mind that the widow who looks after Elijah is not a Jew, not a member of God’s chosen people. Indeed, Our Lord Himself, preaching in the synagogue, singles her out as an example of how God’s choice may fall on anyone. “There were any widows in Israel,”, He points out, “but Elijah was not sent to any one of these”.

This remark, illustrating the breadth of God’s mercy, aroused the wrath of the congregation, who preferred to see themselves as especially close to God. How generous were they, in reality? How much faith did they place in God? Generosity to outsiders is still resented today. You can find on Facebook, people complaining bitterly about money being spent, whether by a Conservative or a Labour government, on overseas aid.

Such people will shout loudly “We should look after our own!” I suspect that they themselves do nothing to “look after our own”: they are simply demonstrating their own meanness of spirit.

Do you or I possess a mean spirit, or do we have the generosity to which Christ calls us? Faith definitely should come into it. Explicitly or implicitly, the two widows relied on God to respond with His boundless generosity to that generosity which they themselves displayed.

This isn’t simply a matter of being generous with material things. The real question for us is “To what extent do I entrust myself, my life, my whole being to God?” Do I seek to conform my whole life to His call, His Commandments—expounded in last Sunday’s readings—to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbour as myself? If I am genuinely seeking to fulfil those two Commandments daily, then generosity and faith will arise in me as a natural consequence.

31st Sunday Year B

31st Sunday 2024

Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34

“Shema Yisrael—Listen Israel!”: with those words devout Jews fix their attention on God in their daily prayer, both morning and evening. They continue with the rest of Moses’ command, declaring the oneness of God, and committing themselves to loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

It is no surprise that Jesus, Himself a devout Jew, doesn’t hesitate before reciting the Shema in reply to the scribe’s question. That must have relieved the scribe’s mind, as he tries to establish what Jesus is about. At least this new prophet keeps the basic faith of the ancestors.

Would Jesus’ declaration that the Second Commandment entails loving one’s neighbour as oneself have surprised His listeners? It isn’t the Second Commandment of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) though it occurs elsewhere in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In Luke’s account of this episode, which leads into the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Lawyer, a rather more hostile character than Mark’s scribe, is already familiar with the linking of the two Commandments, but Luke may have done this to help his narrative along.

The scribe of today’s Gospel seems surprised as well as delighted when Our Lord links the two. Enthusiastically, he endorses Jesus’ words, and even adds his own postscript, to the effect that these Commandments are far more important than religious observances, a viewpoint which would have put him at odds with many of his contemporaries, as well as with the modern day Pharisees who want the Church to focus on rules and regulations above all other considerations.

What though do these two Commandments mean, which form the basis of all Jesus’ teaching? Modern day society would claim, by and large, to endorse the Second of them whilst jettisoning the First, but Jesus is insistent on the correct order. Love of God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength comes before all else.

In what does the love of God consist? I remember a Sixth Former at Our Lady’s, Lancaster, many years ago suggesting “Loving God is different from loving people, isn’t it?” Is it? I would say so. There isn’t the physical element for one thing: what about the emotional aspect?

There are people who do become emotional when they reflect on God, on His glory, His love, His generosity, but especially on His self-sacrifice in the person of Jesus, as God took on our human flesh. Perhaps all of us may become emotional at times, as we kneel before the tabernacle, or contemplate the crucified Jesus, or welcome Him into ourselves in Holy Communion. Like the Emmaus disciples, our hearts may “burn within us” as He opens the Scriptures for us.

I would suggest, however, that these emotional uplifts are rare; for most of us, most of the time, our religious experience may verge on non-experience, on the humdrum, even on a struggle against tedium, on routine and even boredom rather than on emotional highs. There is a saying “After the ecstasy, go and do the laundry”; in other words, if you do have such an experience, remember that it cannot last, that it isn’t the heart or the essence of our life in God.

What then is that essence? What do we mean by loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength? The basis, I think, is faithfulness. It is trying to understand what God wants of us, and attempting to live that to the full. St. Francis de Sales urges us to “seek the God of consolations, rather than the consolations of God”, while St. Alphonsus prays “all that I ask and desire is thy holy love, final perseverance, and the perfect fulfilment of thy will”.

It demands prayer, and openness in our prayer: not a monologue on our part, but a willingness to listen. In that listening, we won’t hear a voice, but gradually we may become more aware of God’s presence, of what He is asking of us in the here and now.

There is another question: “How do we love our neighbour as ourselves?” That is usually interpreted as “loving other people as much as we love ourselves”. There may be something shaky in that: many of us, if we are honest, don’t love ourselves very much. To me it seems rather to suggest “loving others AS BEING OURSELVES”, to see them as us, to identify with them. We are brought back, as so often, to that word “compassion—suffering with”, living in the other person’s skin.

Right then! Those are my thoughts on the two greatest Commandments. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

30th Sunday Year B

30th Sunday 2024

Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52

Do you remember the Kray twins? Along with the Richardson gang, Reggie and Ronnie Kray and their henchmen controlled much of the East End of London in the 1950s and 60s by a combination of extortion, torture, and murder, until the Law caught up with them, more than slightly belatedly.

The Krays frequented a pub named the Blind Beggar, invariably referred to on news bulletins, in those more formal days, as “The Blind Beggar Public House” where one of their murders was committed. That pub still exists today, refurbished and newly respectable, but I suspect that many of its customers are attracted by its former notoriety.

According to Google, it owes its name to a legendary 13th century nobleman who fell on hard times and was reduced to begging for his daily crust, but I am sceptical of that. I prefer to think that, like many traditional pub names, such as the Cross Keys, the George and Dragon, and the Red Cross, its name has a religious origin, recalling the blind beggar of today’s Gospel.

Whether that is the case or not, I wonder why the concept of a blind beggar should take such a hold on the popular imagination that it is recalled in a pub name today. We are all familiar with beggars—walk through any town centre of any size and you will see people huddled in doorways with a begging bowl, and often a sleeping bag—but it may be that blindness adds a particular poignancy to their plight.

In biblical times, “the blind and the lame” were often invoked, as today by Jeremiah, as people who would receive God’s special favour. In those days too, begging might be their only resource, as neither employment nor state aid would be available to them.

Hence, Our Lord’s cure of a blind beggar was both an act of mercy to someone in particular need, and the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. In addition, the behaviour of the beggar himself makes his story stand out among Jesus’ other works of healing.

Firstly, we know his name, as he became a follower, a disciple of Jesus. He wasn’t simply one blind beggar among others: he was Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. Secondly, he knows the name of the one who can cure him: not only that, but he recognises Jesus’ Messianic identity. Not one, but twice, he addresses Him, not by His patronymic “Son of Joseph”, but by the royal and sacred title “Son of David” thus acknowledging His particular role.

His persistence too causes Bartimaeus to stand out. The crowd tries to hush him, but Bartimaeus will not be hushed. Indeed, the harder they try, the louder he shouts. Bear in mind that, unlike the leper whom Jesus cured, the recovery of his sight will not be an unmixed blessing. He will lose his occupation as a beggar, and be obliged to find a new source of income, but this does not deter him. He continues to pester, to shout, to make a nuisance of himself.

This persistence of his is rewarded, and we are given a beautiful picture of his eagerness. “Throwing off his cloak” we are told, “he jumped up”, and in this instance we cannot fault the Jerusalem Bible’s translation. Was he so familiar with his blindness that he was able to make his own way to Jesus, or did he need to be helped? We are not told, but make his way he did.

Once there, he was in no doubt as to what he wanted: “Master, let me see again”, and we are brought to realise that this was a double request. He wanted his physical sight restored, but also his understanding. The latter is already strong, as he has shown by addressing Jesus as Son of David, but now it is completed. “Immediately his sight returned and he followed Him along the road.”

Unlike another blind man cured by Jesus, whose sight returned only by degrees, for Bartimaeus the restoration of his sight, both physical and inward, was immediate. Straightaway he sees, and straightaway he becomes a disciple, following Jesus along the road.

As always, the question now arises “What about us?” Does anything prevent our seeing Jesus clearly, seeing what we are to do, how we are to follow Him? And how eager are we to have that blindness removed? Do we persist in praying, in shouting at the Lord, or are we too comfortable, too set in our ways, too afraid of what Jesus may ask of us? Are we willing to jump up, throwing off whatever may hinder us? Are we willing and eager to follow Him along the road.

29th Sunday Year B

29th Sunday 2024

Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45

You and I might be forgiven for thinking we had come to Mass at the wrong time of year as we listen to those readings. They seem to belong to Lent, or even to Holy Week, rather than to the closing weeks of the Church’s calendar. Let’s take another look at them.

We begin with part of one of the Songs of the Suffering Servant, from the prophet whom we know as Deutero-Isaiah, or Second Isaiah. These songs regularly crop up in Holy Week, when they remind us of the sufferings of Jesus the Christ, the true servant of the Father.

“The Lord has been pleased to crush him with suffering” we hear. That fits neatly with the Passion of the Christ. Was the Lord really pleased to make His Son suffer? No, but it was part of the divine plan that a human being should reverse the disobedience rooted in human beings from the beginning, and so restore the equilibrium and the purpose of creation. It was a matter of fairness and balance, not of pleasure.

“If he offers his life in atonement, he shall see his heirs.” I remember being told in Primary School, in Miss Hayward’s class, that “atonement” means “at-one-ment”, being made one with God. That, I think, is a more helpful understanding of the word in this context than its more usual meaning of “making up for a fault”, though in reality, the two meanings go together: it was Jesus’ sufferings, making up by His obedience for the disobedience of the world, which made the human race at one again with God.

“His soul’s anguish over, he shall see the light and be content:” we can interpret that as the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord. Meanwhile, the final two verses express what Jesus has done for us: “By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself”.

In the Letter to the Hebrews, the story is taken further, as Jesus is described as the “supreme High Priest, who has gone through to the highest heaven”. As other parts of this letter make clear, this is a reference to the annual entry of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, taking the blood of sacrificed animals. Jesus, the writer tells us, has entered the true Holy of Holies, in heaven, of which the earthly one is only a model, taking His own blood, the blood of the supreme sacrifice.

Not only that, but because of what He has suffered, and because He has been tempted as we are, Jesus the High Priest is ideally placed to understand our human weaknesses, and to intercede with the Father on our behalf. This is particularly so in the Mass, when His role as High Priest becomes a reality for us, as He makes present on our altar today His once-and-for-all offering of His Body and Blood.

Turning to the Gospel, we recall that the request of the Zebedee boys comes during the final journey to Jerusalem which Jesus is making with the apostles. He knows that it is a journey to the Cross, a journey which will culminate in all the events foretold by Deutero-Isaiah, and interpreted by the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews. Hence, He speaks to the pushy pair in terms of drinking the cup and receiving the baptism which were to be His.

Despite the prophecies of the Passion which Jesus has already give them, James and John cannot grasp that He is speaking of the cup of suffering and the baptism of blood. Neither they, nor the other ten, can fathom what He is revealing, what He is demanding of them.

We do not have the excuse of ignorance to which they, effectively, cling. We have heard the words of Deutero-Isaiah and of the other prophets. We have received the explanation delivered in the Letter to the Hebrews. We know from the Gospels read to us year by year exactly how events played out. We hear now the Lord’s own words “The Son of Man came, not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many”.

What are the practical implications for us? We are to follow in the Master’s footsteps, but what does that mean in terms of our everyday behaviour? That beautiful word “compassion” surely comes into it. We must put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, seeking to see every situation from their point of view. If we set ourselves to do that, we should avoid the apostles’ mistakes. There should be no question of seeking to lord it over others, no room for jealousy. Instead, there should be a recognition of the face of Jesus in every face that we see, whether it be Lent, Holy Week, or October.

28th Sunday Year B

28th Sunday 2024

Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30

“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.” OUCH! It is a very dangerous thing to have Jesus look steadily at you, because then there is no hiding place. It is difficult enough to face the gaze of anyone, because that gaze seems to make us transparent, but the steady gaze of the Son of God leaves us no room for manoeuvre. It must be bad enough when it is a look of censure, but when it is a look of love, it is so much worse because it calls for love in return, and genuine love is always painful, always demanding.

The gaze of Jesus reveals us, not only to Him, but also to ourselves. It shows us our unworthiness, but also our potential. If we respond to that look of love, what may we achieve? On the other hand, what will it cost? We know the answer to that, don’t we? Love of another human being draws us out of ourselves; calls us to sacrifice. Love of Jesus draws everything from us, turns us inside out. As Peter points out, later in this same passage, it is painfully costly: “We have left everything and followed you.”

TS Eliot wrote of “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything”. John Dalrymple Snr., the Scottish priest and spiritual writer, took that phrase “Costing not less than everything” as the title of a book about loving the Lord. A modern songwriter created a very simple, two word title: “Love hurts”.

This is the demand and the dilemma which face the man—the other evangelists refer to him as a young man—in today’s incident. He is a good young man: he has kept the prescriptions of the Law all his life. He has been obedient: now he is being invited to move beyond obedience to love, a love “costing not less than everything”—and he turns away.

Was that the end of the story? It is all that the Gospels tell us, but I wonder if there was a sequel. What happened to that young man subsequently?

I have already mentioned Peter, and I wonder if Peter’s experience offers us a clue. Remember how Peter too was subjected to that searching, penetrating gaze of Jesus. Recall that courtyard scene of Holy Thursday night. Peter has just uttered his third denial of Jesus, and, as prophesied, a cock crows. Then, we are told, “Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter”, and the word here translated “looked straight at” is the same Greek verb (emblepo) which described Jesus’ gaze at the rich young man.

Like that man, Peter is revealed to Jesus in his innermost being, and is revealed also to himself. He has no hiding place. He goes away and weeps bitterly.

What about the young man? He, we are told, went away sad, a word which might also be translated as “grieving”. Peter’s grief led to his conversion: he returned to the Lord determined to make amends, though he wasn’t immune to future backsliding. Might the young man’s grief have achieved a similar result, as he pondered what might have been, and what might still be? Or was his grief of that sort which St. Paul describes as an “earthly sadness”, which produces no good outcome? We are not told.

Inexorably, though, we are led to the weekly question “What about us?” What is this Gospel encounter telling you and me? To look at the question more broadly, it seems to me that Jesus must be calling people today to give up everything and follow Him in the priesthood or consecrated life. He must be gazing at young men and women, and loving them, and inviting them, yet somehow they are not responding to that call. Are they not hearing it? Have they never been encouraged to spend time with the Lord, to allow Him to gaze at them? Or do they have too many equivalents of the rich man’s wealth, attachments which they are afraid or unwilling to surrender? I do not know, but it is a question which calls for much prayer on our part.

Is there anything else? Yes. You and I, each one of us, must allow Jesus to look steadily at us, and to love us. We must give Him time and space to pierce us with His gaze, to reveal our deepest self to Him, and to us. And then we must respond to whatever He is asking of us today, in our present situation, and in the present moment.