5th Sunday of Lent

5th Sunday of Lent 2025

Isaah 43: 16-21; Philippians 3: 8-14; John 8: 1-11

“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more.” Why are so many people so eager to condemn others? And in particular, why are self-styled Christians so often the first to condemn? Surely, if we pay attention to Our Lord’s words and actions, we should be the last people to utter condemnations….and yet….

The history of the Church is riddled with anathemas: “If anyone…. Let him be accursed”. “Heretics”, “schismatics”, people with various new theories, have over the centuries been quick to incur the Church’s wrath, often with terrible consequences for their bodies, allegedly for the good of their souls. Everyone has heard of the terrors of the Inquisition, torture and burning at the stake inflicted on all manner of people by men who genuinely believed that they were doing God’s will. One wonders if they had ever read the Gospels.

Today that mindset still exists, though it is found more often among fundamentalist evangelicals than among Catholics, and it has, thank God, effectively disappeared from pronouncements by the Magisterium, the Church’s teaching office, with the Inquisition transformed into the Holy Office, then into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and currently into a dicastery. Nevertheless, those of a certain age will recall the harsh penalties inflicted, mostly upon priests, if dissent was suspected following the issuing, in 1968, of Humanae Vitae, the encyclical which, contrary to expectations, reaffirmed the Church’s official ban on artificial birth control.

One of the most notorious cases involved the distinguished British theologian Fr. Herbert McCabe OP, who suffered a year’s suspension after beginning a leading article in the Dominican publication “New Blackfriars” with the words “Of course the Church is corrupt”. His reinstatement coincided with the notorious “nun running” scandal which affected the Church in part of India, and which led Fr. McCabe to begin his first leading article on his return “As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted…”. His books, including “The New Creation”, “God Matters”, and “God Still Matters” should convince anyone that Herbert McCabe was a faithful son of the Church.

What really raises hackles, and sets condemnations flying, is anything relating to sexuality. It has been said, not untruthfully, that “today’s society has sex on the brain….which is a very strange place to have it”. Yet the same remark could, I feel, sometimes be applied to the Church, and to religious people in general.

Some months ago, I stumbled across a discussion on Facebook. It was clearly based in America, where these issues are more inclined to have people manning the barricades than is the case on this side of the Atlantic. It was also clearly rooted in the Evangelical community.

A mother had posed the question, which I suspect that most Catholics have by now settled reasonably calmly for themselves: “What should I, as a Christian, do if my child has come out as gay?” One would have thought that the first answer would have been, in the light of Jesus’ words and behaviour: “Keep loving your child. Be accepting. Above all, do not judge or condemn him or her”.

Not a bit of it! Not only did most responses insist that the child in question was destined to burn in Hell: they seemed to relish the thought. Basing their answers on their own interpretation of passages in the Book of Numbers and St. Paul, they took delight in the prospect of torments in store for gay people. Eventually someone--a man, whereas most previous contributors had been women of a particularly vindictive disposition--raised the question “Has no one looked at the Gospels?”

Shock and horror ensued. It was as if someone had broken wind very loudly in church. These people, who regarded themselves not only as Christian but as Evangelical ie. rooted in the Gospel, were horrified that anyone would invoke the Gospels, and Jesus Himself, to question their convictions and their delights.

Yet we must. Elsewhere Jesus is reported as saying “Do not judge: do not condemn…so that you may not be judged, not condemned, yourselves”. His attitude towards the adulterous woman underlines His words for all of us, for we are, ourselves, sinners.

4th Sunday in Lent

4th Sunday of Lent 2025

Joshua 5:9-12; 2Cor 5:17-21; Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

You know that parable, don’t you? Where do you fit into it? Are you the younger son? I suspect that most of us would instinctively identify with him. We know that we have sinned, and that we have a genius for keeping on sinning, even when we have resolved not to. There is something of the selfish, self-centred younger son in all of us.

Perhaps you are someone who can identify with him still more closely. Perhaps you have been out of contact with God, unaware of Him, defiant of Him, or following a lifestyle not in keeping with His will, for some time. If so, then in some ways, so much the better. You will be better able to rejoice in your homecoming, in your return to the embrace of the Father. The confession which has given me the most joy over the years was the one which began “It has been thirty seven years since my last confession”. I wanted to jump through the screen and embrace them.

If you are in that situation—and even if you are not—notice one or two things about both the younger son and the Father. The son doesn’t have what used to be spelt out to us as “perfect contrition”, that is sorrow purely out of love for God. He is sorry for what he has done, he does want to be reconciled with his Father, but in the first place, he is hungry: he wants to be fed. That is his prime motivation.

Then, look at the Father. He doesn’t carry out an interrogation. He doesn’t say “No, you are only out for what you can get”. He doesn’t demand a promise of good behaviour. Firstly, he is on the lookout for his wayward son. He sees the lad while the latter is still “a long way off”, while he is still imperfect, still only on the way. Then he feels compassion: the original Greek says that “he was moved in his entrails (in his guts)”. He feels completely for this scapegrace son.

What does he do next? He takes the initiative. He doesn’t wait for the lad: instead he runs—daft old buffer; he could have done himself a mischief running at his time of life—embraces him (literally “falls on his neck” and kisses him.

What’s that about? The son—perhaps you or me—has been a bad lad. The Father—God—doesn’t care. He is so overjoyed to have him back that he makes a fool of himself. He cuts short the lad’s Act of Contrition, and lavishes favours on him: rings on his fingers, and bells on his toes; roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Do you remember Meatloaf singing “Bat out of Hell”? “Like a sinner before the gates of heaven I’ll come crawling on back to you.” There’s none of that. It’s sheer jubilation. So if you do identify closely with the younger son, you are in for a treat. Get yourself to confession, quick as you like.

But what if you are less like the younger son and more like the older son? You have done your best to be faithful. That is excellent. You have tried not to sin—also excellent. (Incidentally, in the most common form of the Act of Contrition, I would always say “I will try not to sin again” rather than “I will not sin again”, because you will, however hard you try.) There is nothing wrong with the dutiful elder son. Well, except….

Except what? Is it only duty? What about love? Duty can be a dry and bloodless thing: we need more. The alternative title given by Gilbert and Sullivan to “The Pirates of Penzance” was “The Slave of Duty”. Who wants to be a slave? And who wants a slave? Duty is good, but God wants us to love Him, and not merely do our duty by Him. “Why did God make you?” “God made me to know Him, LOVE Him and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.” Duty needs love to accompany it, otherwise it can be lifeless.

The elder son lets himself down. He gives the impression that he is merely dutiful, rather than dutiful and loving. Perhaps this is a superficial impression. Maybe he is merely put out by what strikes him as unfair, but he makes a meal of it (or rather, he refuses to make a meal of it, or to have a meal out of it). Does his attitude ring any bells? Do you or I ever resent favour shown to others, especially if they are “no better than they ought to be”? In human affairs we may be justified, but not where God is concerned. Peevishness, resentment are destructive, and, as with the elder son, they may cause us to miss out on the good things on offer. Last week, we were warned “Don’t grumble”; today it is “Don’t be resentful”.

3rd Sunday in Lent Year C

3rd Sunday of Lent 2025

Exodus 3:1-8; 1Cor 10: 1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

Today’s Gospel strikes me as a strange choice for a Sunday of Lent. On the equivalent Sunday next year (Year A), we shall hear of Our Lord’s encounter with the woman of Samaria: the following year, it will be His cleansing of the Temple. Both of these were significant events in the life and mission of Jesus. Here, by contrast, we have no event recorded. Instead, we have a warning and a parable; important indeed, but lacking that powerful descriptive force which we associate with Lenten Sundays.

(Incidentally, I do recall that thirty years ago, I had gone to stay at Boarbank Hall in the middle of a particularly severe attack of clinical depression. There, the priest who presided at Mass had the invariable habit of picking out one sentence from the readings to repeat before the dismissal, in order that the people could take it away and ponder it. On this occasion, he lighted on the sentence “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did”, exactly what I needed to hear—I DON’T THINK—as I was wallowing in the depth of misery.)

Repentance, a change of heart, mind, and outlook, a rearrangement of our priorities, is an important Lenten theme. The parable too is significant. Am I bearing fruit by my way of life? Can people see that Christ is living in me? If not, how will I repent, and change, and when? The time is growing short.

Nevertheless, I feel that the First and Second Readings may provide more material for reflection. In the Book of Genesis, Moses encounters God in the burning bush, a significant milestone in salvation history. Why was the bush aflame, but not consumed by the flames? Is this an indicator of God’s love, which sets us ablaze, but doesn’t burn us up—instead, it fires us up, and continues doing so.

What does God mean when He speaks of holy ground? Is all ground holy because, as the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote “The world is charged with the grandeur of God”? And are there particularly holy places, such as churches where Christ abides in the tabernacle, which are to be entered with particular reverence? I strongly suspect that the answer to both that second and that third question is “Yes”.

This passage is important too because it sets in train the events which will culminate in the Exodus, the escape of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, and their pilgrimage to the Promised Land. This in itself symbolises, as St. Paul explains to the Corinthians, our own escape from slavery to sin, and our pilgrimage to the Kingdom.

Moses wants to know God’s name, in order that the Israelites may have their own tribal god, like those of the Egyptians and the tribes which surround them. God will have none of this. He is not a tribal god: He is I AM, the true, living and only God. He does not have a name like the false gods of the nations: He alone IS.

That makes a nonsense of the practice, popular a few years ago, of filling in the vowels in the title by which God reveals Himself and giving Him the name Yahweh. That is to do what God explicitly refused to do—to give Himself a name and so reduce Him to the status of one of the tribal gods. It is a practice which has been banned by the Church, not only because it is offensive to the Jewish people, but also because it is indeed nonsensical. Hence God’s title is rendered as “THE LORD”.

This in turn gives rise to the I AM sayings attributed to Jesus in St. John’s Gospel: “I AM the bread of life”, “I AM the way, the truth and the life”, “I AM the resurrection and the life” and so on. In His use of I AM, Jesus is claiming identity with the God of the burning bush.

Turing to St. Paul, we find him depicting the Exodus as the template for our pilgrimage to the Kingdom. He reminds the Christians of Corinth that God led the Israelites through the wilderness in a pillar of cloud, which in time took them through the sea. He regards their journey under the cloud and through the sea as a form of baptism. He then mentions “the spiritual food and the spiritual drink”, as they were fed with manna and drank water from the rock. Here we have a foretaste of the spiritual food and drink of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

Paul specifically states that Christ was the rock from which they drank, and that Christ followed them through the wilderness. This refers not only to Moses’ striking of the rock at Meribah to draw water from it, but to an ancient legend that this rock followed them. Finally, we have an important warning which we all need to heed: “Do not grumble”, because nothing is more destructive. If I were to leave you with something particular to take away, it would not be “You will all perish” but “DO NOT GRUMBLE”.

2nd Sunday of Lent

2nd Sunday of Lent 2025

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36

“Master, it is good that we are here.” Is it? Of course it is., because we are in the presence of God, of that God who spoke to the apostles on the mountain of Transfiguration, of that God who is the Beloved Son, of that God who is the Spirit who enlightens us and guides us, leading us to the mountain.

Where is the mountain of Transfiguration for us? It is here, where Jesus gives Himself to us as food and light. It is everywhere that He gives us a glimpse, however limited, of His glory.

For Martin Luther King, assassinated in 1968, it was in Memphis, where he met his death, and where he apparently had some sort of vision of his own. Do you remember the speech which he made on the eve of his death?

“I’m not fearing any man tonight. Like Moses, I have been to the mountaintop, and I have looked over, and I have seen the Promised Land….mine eyes have seen the glory of the company (sic) of the Lord.”

On the Second Sunday of Lent in 1994, I was asked to preach at the Chaplaincy Centre at Lancaster University. I had in mind my own experience of chaplaincy life more than two decades earlier, and I suggested to the congregation that, for them, this was the mountaintop, that it could be a Transfiguration experience.

I was at university, though not Lancaster, from 1968 to 1971, and those were heady days, though also disturbing days. They were the days of student revolution, of the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, and of the immediate aftermath of Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical which reaffirmed the ban on artificial birth control.

At times, I didn’t know whether I was on my Catholic head or my Catholic heels, but it was an experience which brought about a deeper understanding of my faith, a new awareness of the Church as community, and a greatly enhanced inner vision of the person of Jesus and of my relationship with Him. For me, the chaplaincy was a mountain of Transfiguration, and I suggested to the new generation of students that it might prove to be the same for them, enabling them to recognise Jesus in a new and brighter light.

What happened after the Transfiguration? Peter had wanted to linger, to stay there forever; hence his suggestion of building three tents. This was not to be: the vision faded, and Jesus was found alone. Peter, James and John had to make their way with Him down the mountain to the valley of everyday life. They were to see Jesus, no longer transfigured, but sweating as if with blood, in the Garden of the Agony, where their memory of the Transfiguration should have sustained them with hope for the future; but it didn’t, their sleepiness on Mt. Tabor matched by their sleepiness in Gethsemane.

My point was that the student congregation too would have to head back down the mountain to the valley of ordinary parish life, to sustain their vision, to recognise the Transfigured Christ in the perhaps less dramatic context of their local parish, among people not of their own age, not always sharing their vision. There they could and should play their own part in rekindling the vision of the Transfiguration, if it had grown dull among perhaps less inspired and less inspiring priests or people.

Interestingly, the chaplain, the late Fr. Joe O’Connor, remarked to me that, for him, the University was the valley, and he looked forward to his return to parish life. I could sympathise, because, in spite of my experience from the student side of the fence, the thought of being a university chaplain filled me with horror. Like Fr. Joe, I found my Mt. Tabor in parish and secondary school life.

So, we come to the inevitable question: what about us? Have you had your Transfiguration moments, the times when you have said “Master, it is good that we are here”? They may not have been overtly religious occasions. Any experience, however apparently secular, which brings us real joy is a sharing in the Transfiguration, because Jesus and His Father are in it, transforming it for us.

It may be falling in love, spending time with a friend, watching a sunrise; there we encounter the Transfigured Christ. In reality, it occurs whenever we gather as God’s people, to be nourished with them by His word and by His body and blood, to share in the sacrifice of Calvary, and in the Resurrection.

It would be too much to expect to have a conscious experience of Transfiguration joy in every celebration of Mass, in every encounter with God’s people. Those “felt” moments are rare. Even the deepest love entails more routine than ecstasy. Two sayings come to mind:

“The glances over cocktails that seemed so sweet, don’t look so amorous over Shredded Wheat”

“After the ecstasy, go and do the laundry”.

Life and love contain more Shredded Wheat than cocktails. Like Peter and His companions, like chaplaincy students, we have to head back down the mountain. Nonetheless, let the memories of our own Transfiguration experiences sustain us, and let us be awake and alert to receive and rejoice in such moments when they come to us again—as they will.

1st Sunday of Lent

1st Sunday of Lent 2025

Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

Where are you going? Where are WE going? This is Jubilee Year, Holy Year, and it has been given the overall label “Pilgrims of Hope”. Pilgrims are people who are going somewhere, and so it is fair to ask “Where are you going?” and “Who is going with you?”

The Israelites, led by Moses, and later by Joshua (but ultimately by God) knew where they were going: they were going to the Promised Land. Jesus “full of the Holy Spirit”, we are told, knew where He was going: He was going into the wilderness, led by that same Holy Spirit. There He would learn more about His ultimate journey, to Jerusalem, to the Cross, and finally to Resurrection.

So I ask again “Where are you going? Where are WE going?” The simple answer is: “We are going with them; we are going with Him”. We are going through the wilderness to the Promised Land. We are going into the wilderness, we are going to Jerusalem, to Death, and to Resurrection. AND WE ARE GOING TOGETHER.

Why do I say that? I say that because we are a People. We are the Pilgrim People of God, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us. We are Pilgrims of Hope, as we are told especially this year, and we are journeying, together, to the Kingdom.

Have you ever been ambushed by those people who will seize you, metaphorically, by the throat, and will demand to know “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour?”? I haven’t been so grabbed, but if I were, I think that I would reply “Well, not too personal”. I do, I hope, have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I am saved by Him, not in isolation, but as a member of a People, of that Pilgrim People which journeys together, in the footsteps of the children of Israel, in the footsteps of Jesus the Lord, supported by the whole People of God, the Communion of Saints, those who are with us now, who worship with us now, but also those who have gone before us throughout the ages, the saints and faithful departed, who support us on our way.

It is fascinating that, in what is described as a secular age, this concept of the Communion of Saints lingers, albeit unrecognised. A few years ago, I attended a Humanist funeral. At one point, the teenaged grandchildren of the deceased were invited to speak, and they all uttered what amounted to prayers, trusting that their grandad was watching over them—and you find similar sentiments in Facebook posts. The reality of the Communion of Saints is rooted deeply in the human psyche, even if it is not called explicitly by that name.

There then we have the overall pattern of the Pilgrim People of God, journeying together through the wilderness of life. What though of the particular wilderness of Lent, which we have entered voluntarily—or have we?

Are we not, in fact, led into the wilderness by the Spirit, as Jesus was? And will we not therefore do what Jesus did and, to an extent, encounter what He encountered?

In the wilderness, Jesus prayed and fasted: must we not do the same? I must confess that I have no patience with the view that fasting, self-denial, giving things up, whatever term we use, is negative, and therefore we shouldn’t do it. BALONEY! Jesus did it. Are we going to complain that He was being negative? That He shouldn’t have done it? Do we know better than Jesus? I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy trying that argument.

Will we also be tempted? I imagine so. What? To turn stones into bread? To worship Satan for the sake of earthly power? To throw ourselves down from the steeple of Lancaster Cathedral or the tower of Lancaster Priory? I doubt that—but in ways that attack our weak points.

If you notice, two of Our Lord’s temptations were aimed at His identity. “If you are the Son of God….” said the devil. He wanted Jesus to doubt His identity, to feel the need to prove it, and thus to abandon His trust in the Father. How might we be tempted over our identity?

“If you were really a Christian, you would be doing such and such.”  “If the Church was of God, it wouldn’t have done A B or C.” “If there was a God, this thing or that wouldn’t happen.” All of those temptations to discouragement, to doubt, to despair, may strike us, either from outside, from what people say, or from within ourselves. We can only put our trust in God, cry to Him for help—and that trust will be vindicated.

The other temptation was aimed at that lust for power which lurks, in some form, in all of us. “I will give you…” not for us, all the kingdoms of the world, but a sense of superiority, the ability to put other people down, to consider ourselves better than them, to believe that we are always in the right.

Satan’s temptations were tailor made for the Lord, and they will be tailor made for us. If we are seriously using those aids which Our Lord gave us in the Ash Wednesday Gospel—namely prayer, giving, and self-denial—we will, please God, be able to resist, especially if we remember that we are a people, journeying together, supporting one another, and supported by the whole Body of Christ, travelling with the Lord as Pilgrims of Hope.

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time

8th Sunday in OT 2025

Sirach 27:4-7; 1 Cor 15: 54-58; Luke 6: 39-45

I once tried to stop a canonisation. I wasn’t the only one, I hasten to add: Cardinal Hume, the late and great, was also involved, and he carried far more clout than I did, but even he couldn’t succeed.

Knowing the Cardinal’s view of the candidate in question, I wrote to him, describing the damage done to my family by this character and the organisation which he founded. Cardinal Hume replied “I think that it is important that Rome should hear the things that you describe” yet he knew as well as I did that we were spitting into the wind. The Pope of the time was a great admirer of the one whom we opposed, and the canonisation went ahead, leading one prominent Jesuit to assert “If that man is a saint, then it proves that everyone gets to heaven”. Interestingly, Pope Francis has drastically curbed the power and the privileges of this gentleman’s organisation.

No doubt this official saint would have defended his harmful effect on families by quoting Our Lord’s words about bringing “not peace but a sword” and His assertion that “anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”: I would counter that this is a matter, not of loving Jesus, but of being trapped by a cult. In writing to Cardinal Hume, I used a quotation from today’s Gospel: “for each tree is known by its own fruit” or “by their fruits shall you know them”.

My claim would be that there is too much cult of personality about this character’s followers, and an obsession with a form of obedience based on a culture of mortification and self-denial which has more in common with the Jansenist heresy than with the love proclaimed by Jesus Christ or with the official teaching of the Catholic Church. At the same time, I would bear witness to the loving care which they have devoted to my sister during her long Calvary of Alzheimer’s Disease.

That in itself makes me conscious of another warning which Our Lord gives us today, when he cautions us against concentrating on the speck in our brother’s or sister’s eye rather than on the plank in our own. I am as liable as anybody to notice other people’s faults: am I equally conscious of my own, perhaps more glaring sins, both of commission and of omission?

When people are suffering from low self-esteem, I sometimes encourage them to look into a mirror and to say “I am infinitely lovable in the sight of God”, a practice which I would recommend to everyone. Similarly, it might be helpful to train our mirror on the faults which we discern in other people, and to ask ourselves whether we see any of our own faults reflected there.

If I accuse our canonised friend of focusing his followers’ attention on him, rather than on the crucified and risen Lord—something which, I am sure he would have denied—I need to ask myself to what extent I draw attention to myself. It is always said that the best football referee is the one whom nobody notices—perhaps the same is true of priests and preachers. Do I seek popularity rather than draw people’s attention to difficult truths? Do I project too much of my own personality, instead of letting the person of Jesus shine through?

There is an American bishop who has gathered an immense following through his skill in expounding the truths of the Catholic faith in his podcasts and other talks. I have to confess that I really know nothing of this Bishop, whose name is Robert Barron, as I have neither heard nor seen any of his material, but the other day I came across an article in an American Catholic publication which criticised him strongly for allegedly missing a golden opportunity of asserting the demands of social justice which form an integral part of the Gospel, to say nothing of Catholic Social Teaching.

According to this publication, Bishop Barron has yet to say a single word in criticism of the Trump administration’s attitude to migrants, which the Holy Father and many American bishops have condemned, or of its cancellation of foreign aid, which has crippled the work of Catholic agencies which support those in greatest need. Justly or unjustly, he is accused of being more of a culture warrior than an advocate for justice, and of being afraid of offending some of his followers, caring more for personal popularity than for spreading the sometimes unpopular truths of the Gospel.

Whether these criticisms are justified I have no idea. The point though is that we must always be conscious of our own faults, of the planks in our own eyes; and the higher the profile one has, the greater this need becomes. Our look into the mirror, as well as reminding us of God’s infinite love for us, should encourage us to ask two questions: what sort of fruit am I bearing? And do I recognise my own faults before criticising the faults of others?

7th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C

7th Sunday in OT 2025

1Sam 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1Cor 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38

What do we gain by loving our enemies and forgiving our persecutors? What did David gain by sparing Saul’s life? I suspect that the answer is “freedom”. If David had killed Saul, his conscience would have been racked. He would have been plagued with guilt for “putting out his hand against the Lord’s anointed” as he defines it.

As it is, he goes away light of heart, knowing that he has behaved well, something which Saul was to acknowledge. David is free to turn and call across to Saul, enjoying his small triumph, delighting in his “righteousness and faithfulness”; and in the fullness of time, the kingdom would fall into his hands—the Lord would indeed reward him.

What about us? You may say “I don’t have any enemies”, in which case, so much the better. I suspect though, that unless you are exceptionally good natured, which is a gift from God, there will be people who annoy and irritate you; people whom you instinctively avoid, or whom you actively seek out in order to quarrel with them.

Do you ever try to get inside their minds and hearts, to discover what makes them the way they are, to see things from their point of view? That is a major step towards loving them as Jesus calls us to do. We need to see them as children of God, beloved by Him as we are, and our positive engagement with them may help them to change, to enable both them and us to become more fully the people we are called to be.

We may also receive unexpected benefits. Many years ago, during a Diocesan Clergy Retreat, I was on my way to chapel to bother God when I saw another priest bearing down on me. My first instinct was to walk faster, to make sure that I reached the chapel unimpeded. Then I had second thoughts: this priest may genuinely need to talk. He lives in an isolated parish, and may well be lonely. If I ignore him, I am doing what the priest and the Levite did in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

So, against my inclination and my instincts, I slowed down and allowed Father to catch up with me. I was rewarded with a thoroughly entertaining conversation, which included an hilarious story about an encounter with a couple of con merchants. I eventually made my way into chapel in a far better mood than I had previously been, and free from the guilt which would otherwise have plagued me.

What do we do though about those situations which may not affect us personally, but which entail injustice and persecution for others? If for instance we had been presented with an opportunity of killing Hitler, would we have been justified in taking it? There were devout German Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, who wrestled with their consciences, and eventually entered into plots against him, plots which failed, and which cost them their lives. Were they right or wrong?

How do we view people like Putin, Netanyahu, the leaders of Hamas, Trump, Elon Musk, extremists in our own country? Are we called to love them? Yes, we are. We may hate what they do, and we may have a responsibility to oppose them as best we can, but we must never lose sight of their humanity, even when they forget it themselves. We must remember that they too are created in the image and likeness of God, however distorted that image may have become, and we have a duty to pray for them. If we refuse that fundamental obligation of prayer, how can we expect them to change? Mercy, forgiveness, love, are demanded of us. Without them we become little better than the persecutors, and without prayer we cannot hope to improve any situation.

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?