HOLY FAMILY

              FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

                 Cycle “A”: Mathew’s Gospel

Christmas is not necessarily a time of perfect harmony and happy families. It is a time when probably some of us spend too much, drink too much, and eat too much. More families than we care to imagine are torn apart by violence, alcoholism and abuse at Christmas. The lonely feel lonelier than ever, the bereaved experience their bereavement more acutely than at any other time. All this is true; and yet it is here in the family and nowhere else that we experience God’s gift of life. God comes within the chaos, within the discord, the failures, and he sits with us in all the lumpy, wrinkly, pimply, sweaty bodies that we feast with and fight with.

To strive for a better world, for a better family where every child finds welcome and shelter - that is our gift to the world. Of course, we will fail. Even Mary, perfect in her love and faithfulness, was a “failure” in the eyes of the world. From the moment Mary said “Yes” to God, her life was plunged into the kind of traumas that only the most vulnerable and marginalized people experience  -  the traumas of homelessness, of persecution, of becoming a refugee, and finally of watching her son being tortured to death. Mary belongs among those who have nothing to give this Christmas but themselves. Some years ago the bishops of south Asia had their conference in India. At the Offertory of the Mass each bishop brought a gift characteristic of his region: a flower or fruit or some cultural artefact. One of the bishops of Indonesia, whose region had been ravaged by cyclones and floods, came forward with upraised hands. He prayed aloud, “O God, my diocese has been devastated and I come empty handed with nothing to offer but my loss and sadness.” I’m sure God accepted his gift with compassion. When I have tasted my own nothingness, then I am more ready to help someone who has nothing.

The true gift holds nothing back. Because Mary gave herself, the Son of God became truly man and a member of a family. And because Mary gave of her best, she could keep the Holy Family together. Are parents and children giving of their best to keep the families together? The pressures on families today are pretty much the same since the time of the Holy Family of Nazareth.

I was watching a programme on TV one evening. At precisely 9.30 p.m. there was a break, and it wasn’t a commercial. But a message was flashed on the screen. It read: “It’s 9.30 p.m. Where are your children?” Where are the children after 9.30 p.m.? Where are they at other times? Times for meals, for prayers, for evening study? Can the whole family sit together for the principal meals, and pray together for its own stability and happiness? Or is the home a cheap hotel where people come and go as they please, without permission or information?  Have obedience, discipline and punctuality become unmentionable words?  Shall we insist that our children be educated into integral and competent human beings or turn out to be half-baked specimens of humanity, unable to face a highly competitive world? Again, shall our children learn from us our prayers and refined vocabulary or monosyllabic expletives and words of destructive criticism? People, especially children, do not become good by being told to; they must be charmed into goodness, which, like love, is caught, not taught.

The environment in which we have been raised and in which we raise our children is essential to our formation and development. A family is a very human environment; in fact, the first to which a child is introduced: the happiness, the pain, the drama and the day-to-day events of our lives are lived within the confines of the family. God chose to mould and form his Son within the environment and culture of a particular family. He hasn’t broken the mould, since, and thrown it away, because in his mind the family continues to be the place of goodness, love and emotional sustenance.

The Holy Family of Nazareth tells us that in God the Christian family is not extinct.

PRAYER by Thomas Ken (1637 – 1711):

O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and friendship, but narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride, and malice. Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children, nor to straying feet; but strong enough to turn away the power of evil. God, make the door of this house a gateway to your eternal kingdom. Grant this through Christ, Our Lord.

NEW CREATURES IN CHRIST

NEW CREATURES IN CHRIST                  New Year's Eve is always a bittersweet time. "Out with the old; in with the new!" Yet even the hard times that we experienced over the last year often had something about them that we wish to remember. That's one reason why it seems so appropriate to mark the New Year by celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. Saint Luke tells us that, after being visited by the shepherds after the birth of Christ, "Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart." Yet only a few verses later, Simeon tells Mary, "thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed." The mystery of our salvation encompasses both joy and sorrow, and no one exemplifies that truth more than the Mother of God herself. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18–19) God’s Word is wonderful, telling us continually that he is in the renewal business. It is exciting being a Christian because we anticipate that God will always do something new and exciting in our life. Our responsibility is to place ourselves in a position so God can work through us. How do we do this? First, we need to stop dwelling on the past. When we dwell on the past, it is like trying to drive a car always looking in the rear view mirror. There is nothing we can do about our past except to put aside the parts that pull us down, and to learn not to make the same mistakes in the future. God is always moving. He is in the creation business. He is in the renewal business. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV) We are new creatures in Christ: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV) If we walk in faith, he will provide “the way in the wilderness” and streams in the spiritual desert of this world. If we are sensitive to his leading we will recognize that he is in the process of doing a new thing in us and through us. When this happens, it exciting to know we are in the centre of God’s will. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…” (Philippians 3:12–13, NIV)

May the coming year be one of increased riches of grace—hearing His voice more clearly, knowing His heart more deeply, resting in His love more fully, trusting His care more completely, walking His pathway more peacefully, knowing His presence more intimately, blessed by His goodness more abundantly.

And in all things, may you know the shalom peace of God—encouraging you to move forward, empowering you to boldly take each step, greeting you as you turn a new corner, calming your heartbeat as you walk through dark valleys, softening each footstep as you climb rugged mountains, and increasing your courage as you follow your Shepherd wherever He leads.

You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness become a lush pasture, and the hillsides blossom     with joy.

Psalm 65:11-12

IT’S CHRISTMAS AGAIN

IT’S CHRISTMAS AGAIN !

 Christmas Day is here, and once again we kneel near the manger crib of our Infant Saviour. No angels have we heard on high carolling his praises, no brightness has paled the starts of night to herald the birth of the Child of eternal years. Only the steady light of faith has dispelled the night of our hearts. And it’s Christmas again ! Last Christmas is long ago; and perhaps the slow-going year had brought an unexpected load of sorrow into our lives. We may have had days and weeks of anxiety that none could share with us. Perhaps it was on us the others leaned, and we had to hide the gnawing care of our own hearts. It may be the bright days have been few and the dark days many. It may be the shadow of the Cross was hard against our path, even as it falls across the crib of Bethlehem.

But all that is hidden now as we join the silent, wonder-struck adorers of the first Christmas night. Mary, our Mother is here; and good St. Joseph. And yet, because we are slow in virtue we may feel out of place with them. Mary’s untold love and Joseph’s unfailing devotion seem so far beyond the reach of our faint efforts. Somehow it is best to take our place among the lowly shepherds, content just to be there and happy just to find comfort in the presence of our King and Maker, baby as he is. We shall join the wide-eyed hillside herdsmen and say our simple prayers with them, wondering at “that which has come to pass, which the Lord has shown to us.” In childlike broken speech with them we shall tell our God that we too have come to welcome him, the days of austere anticipation now over. With them we shall offer the gifts of the poor of the earth: the weakness of our bodies, the darkness of our ignorance, the poverty of our people. Then with deep trust we shall lay the future at the manger’s edge; the future hidden with its unknown freight that only time will bring to light. And we ask the Infant to strengthen our hearts and make them more like his as the days slip by into eternity. And as the gift of prayer makes us more receptive, we can listen to him. Nothing great he puts before us to achieve except to love him, to be faithful to him, to love one another for him, to believe in his love for us, and witness to him faithfully.

For many people at Christmas there is great emphasis on what they are going to get. So it’s good to remind ourselves on that gift that was wrapped up in circumstances of deepest poverty: a hayrack for a bed, an ox and ass for nurses, the cobwebs for canopy.

There were quite a few donkeys involved in the life of Jesus: his birth, flight in to Egypt, and triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Perhaps the Gospels wish to give us an idea of the type of people Jesus Christ had to deal with! And even though each Christmas I find myself between the doctrine and the donkey, I trust I know enough to realise that life consists may be in gifts, but certainly not in gots. And the best and noblest gift is that of the self. So it’s a good idea, especially at a time when we are expecting things from people, to check on what we can do without, to detach ourselves from all created things, and help bring about that day when words like pleasure, power and possession will not mean more to us than ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. The challenging meaning of the Christmas story reveals this.

It tells us that even though God is infinitely different, he remains the God of the Christmas night, coming close to us on his own initiative and saving us the need to rend the heavens to access him. “The Word became flesh.” God has entered human history in Jesus Christ as Mary’s Child and his own Son. He carries the history of all peoples now. And yet God remains very unobtrusively present in the world, nowhere forcing himself on people but standing at the door and politely addressing himself to man as he did at the Annunciation. He is as defenceless as a child, his steps as hesitant as a stranger’s finding his way in this world. For God is so great that he can allow himself to become a child. He is so strong that he can appear weak. He is overwhelmingly attractive that he draws everyone without force or compulsion. He is that almighty he can bind people to himself without limiting their freedom.

I was struck by Mary’s response to all the excitement she witnessed around the birth of the baby Jesus. The Angel of the Lord brought “good news of great joy for all people” to the shepherds, and they “went with haste” to find Jesus. They told everyone around them about the good news – including Mary. But she didn’t jump up and down like she’d won the lottery, she didn’t high-five everyone who crowded into the stable, she didn’t burst into song or do a victory dance. She “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

So let us look at the Babe again. He comes into this world, dispossessed Infinity, naked and cold that we may restore him everything: the universe for his stable, and for his manger our hearts and their warmth.

“May the little hand of Christ bless our year,

And the great heart of Jesus hold us dear.

And all blest and happy things

Which the love of Immanuel brings

Be ours until another Christmas is here.”

“TANNENBAUM” AND TINSEL

“TANNENBAUM” AND TINSEL

(Christmas Myth and Fact)

          G.K.Chesterton, that humanist and wit, was asked to write some words on the flyleaf of a child’s book, and after a moment of thought he wrote these lines:

 “Stand up and keep your childishness,

                                    With all its shrieks and strictures.

                                         And don’t believe in anything

                                         That can’t be told in pictures.”

And Lewis Carroll has Alice saying, “What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations.”

          The Christmas story is told in the most vivid colour pictures: bright angels carolling “Glory”, startled shepherds hurtling downhill to see the babe, exotic magicians (“magi”) riding in from the East on bouncy camels. Take that bit about the shepherds, that notorious bunch of congenital liars. Through that cameo God was thought to be telling his people that the much awaited Messiah would have the caring qualities of a shepherd; a shepherding king who would put the finishing touches to his ancestor David who was guarding his father’s flock when summoned to kingship. When the shepherd had seen and worshipped the Infant Messiah they had something new to talk about. The gospel says that “everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds said to them.” Understandably, since they were hearing the good news from the mouths of inveterate fibsters !

          Believers know the story well and have often let their sentimentality enhance the details. Painters, hymn-writers and poets have helped to make the baby Jesus narrative as familiar as the accounts of Christ’s death and resurrection. The Bible’s picturesque language to describe the birth of Jesus is quite different from the workaday talk of people. We use language to make the literal statements to convey precise information, like the Mumbai Mail will get into Howrah Station at the scheduled 7.20 a.m.(a modern miracle !), like there’s a traffic snarl on Main Street, like there was an uproar in the Lok Sabha yesterday (ho hum). This language is literally and easily understood, with a clear reference to the business of living. Most of our language is factual, prosaic and unimaginative, the sort of medium to cope with daily events. We want to know when the train is going to arrive, or what took place in the Lok Sabha. But what happens when we try using language literally to describe extraordinary experiences or extraordinary people ?  If you were asked to describe a friend, and you answered, “He’s a gem”, literally understood, you would take your friend to a jeweller to be valued. Or if you describe a particular dish as “out of this world”, literally understood, are we to think you went into orbit to taste it ? When we want to talk about people or experiences that have made an impact on us, literal language is utterly inadequate, and to try testing what is said in literal terms is absurd.

          So if we are going to read the Christmas story properly, we must be able to tell the difference between the precise information and the picturesque language in which it comes wrapped. The Christmas story is as simple as it is stunning; and a common carol has it:

                             “The Maker of the stars and sea

                              Became a child on earth for me.”

The common language we would use to describe the arrival of a train or the price of a cup of tea cannot begin to do justice to that. The language of the Bible is often like the language of poetry or classical music that needs imagination or acquired taste to be relished. Unfortunately, our age is not so much of imagination as of precision. In this computer wonky world everything is reduced to exact data, and the idiot box has taken over our fancy-free function. So, what hope for the Christmas story ? None at all, unless it is understood that what was written with imagination must be grasped with imagination. And then the fact of the Babe Messiah enfleshing the God of help and healing could make sense.

          So why pack the myths and metaphors of Christ’s coming away with the Christmas tree and tinsel ? First of all there is a time for revelling in the myth and a time for facing the truth. If we carry the myth into our precise world we would be tempted to rhapsodise the message of Christmas as other-worldly: angels and shepherds with no mud on their boots, and “the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” (which would certainly make his parents rush him to the post-natal clinic in a panic !). Bishop Hugh Montefiore once started his Christmas sermon with the startling question: “What would have happened if Mary had had a miscarriage or if Joseph had stood the baby on its head ?” If we take what Christmas was all about seriously and don’t let the vivid pictures say it all for us, then Christmas is about God taking the risk of coming among men and women without any insurance. God’s willingness to run risks for the sake of one risky delight called Christmas might boggle our minds. So God risked miscarriage, disease and death. And he got a very cruel death, and that on a day that some people have since dubbed “Good” Friday. Incarnation is not without its price, because the incarnation of God means what it has always meant - something messy, noisy, smelly, bloody and painful. And that is the real world where we live, the world of every man and woman whose common denominator is suffering. So long as people want to imagine that the reality of God’s world can be restricted to a candyfloss realm of myth and make up, the message of God’s coming among people can be dismissed as something that “don’t belong here.” Perhaps the colourful pictures that people the Christmas story are needed, but only because they dress up a soul shattering truth.

CHRISTMAS DAY

CHRISTMAS  DAY

“Oh little town of Bethlehem,

how still we see thee lie.”

That’s how one much loved carol begins. Today we can make an imaginary journey to  the Bethlehem that we sing about at Christmas.  As you enter the town, you are greeted by a large banner across the road. In Hebrew it says “BERUCHIM NABAIM”  --  “Blessed is He who comes”;  and in Arabic another banner proclaims “AHALAN  veSAHALAN”  --  which means “My tent is yours.”  What a graceful welcome home, because this place is where our Christian family had its beginnings. Then there is the Church of the Nativity. It stands in the centre of the town. It was built more than 1600 years ago, i.e. third century.  It was built over the cave which the early Christians venerated as the place where Jesus was born. The solid wooden beams which you will see above were put in a thousand years later, i.e. in the 14th. Century. These beams are made of English oak donated by King Edward III.  The main entrance of the Church was solidly walled up; that was to stop soldiers from riding in on horseback. So now the only way to enter into the vast church is through a tiny postern gate. You have to bend almost double to avoid banging your head.

It is a sort of parable, it has seemed to me, that no one can come to see the place where Jesus was born without bowing low, making this act of humility and submission. It is as if the very stones were saying to you: “You’ve got to stoop here, pilgrim, in this place where God has stooped so low for you.”

Because it is a very strange thing that we Christians have to preach to the world:  that you can no longer look for God where people mostly look  -  up there, out yonder, up in the heavens.  No, he is here, in something as utterly human as the birth of a baby.  “But that doesn’t look like God,” we can hear ourselves saying.  And the reply comes back: “Who knows what God looks like ?”  Then again you say, “Well, this is nothing like my  idea of God !”  And the reply comes back:  “Very likely, and it  is your  idea of God which has to go.”

How odd that our way of thinking should always have insisted that God is power, domination, infinity, and awesomeness. Why is that odd ?  Because when we actually reach the moment of truth, what we find is weakness, helplessness, powerlessness and dependency.  For us, the birth of Christ means that the indescribable mystery we call God can only be found in someone as utterly human as you and me.  And as utterly open to hurt, disappointment and failure. A new-born baby is one of the weakest forms of animal life. It is so easy to kill a baby.  Mere neglect will do that. (God forbid !)  God has put himself into our hands.

Today, what we are saying to God is, “We believe in you.”  Today, what God is saying to us is, “And I depend upon you. “ 

Finally, there are some people who say sadly that they would have better appreciated the birth of Christ had they lived 20 centuries ago. This is rubbish.  Even those who will live at the end of the world will not have been born too late.  Jesus is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.  John Betjeman stresses the same point in his carol:

“No love that in a family dwells

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells,

Can with this single truth compare

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in bread and wine.”

I wish everyone a Christmas filled with joy and a life as gentle as only a four year old can picture it.  Do remember, though, this advice of a sage:

“Peace is so much more than a season

It’s a way of life and a state of reason.”

PRAYER poem  of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)

Moonless darkness stands between

Past, O Past no more be seen !

But the Bethlehem Star may lead me

To the sight of him who freed me

From the self that I have been,

Make me pure, Lord, Thou art holy;

Make me meek, Lord, Thou wert lowly;

Now beginning, and alway;

Now begin, on Christmas Day.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                               FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Cycle “A”

Mathew 1, 18-24

Today’s Gospel is focussed very closely on Joseph. He was an “upright” man, a “Tzaddik”, one of those quietly decent people who, in Jewish thought, keep the world from coming apart. You must have noticed that Joseph says not a word in the Gospels. Yet, with Mary, he was to be charged with the task of bringing up, nurturing and protecting the Saviour of the world. He was most probably between the ages of 17 and 26 when engaged to Mary. As a devout observer of the law, he could not take Mary as his wife. Whatever qualities he possessed, it is clear that he loved Mary, for he refused to subject her to the public shame of her unforeseen pregnancy by disowning her openly. He would take upon himself the responsibility for the divorce. His heart must have been heavy and his dreams of marrying the girl he loved shattered as he prepared to take this course of action. His response to this deeply distressing and puzzling situation was generous and openhearted. In refusing to condemn Mary in public, he knew he was leaving himself open to the criticism of being weak and ineffectual in the gossip which would have inevitably followed the cancellation of the marriage. Happily he was saved that embarrassment by a special intervention of God. Here we can also see that Joseph was a deeply spiritual man, with the Holy Spirit speaking to his subconscious mind. Joseph’s plans for divorce are interrupted by the appearance of a messenger from God in a dream. The angel comes to reassure him. In spite of the mystery of Jesus’ virginal conception, Joseph has a role to fulfil. He is immediately obedient to the divine message, despite the continued problems that his unusual situation must have presented.

We might think that Joseph’s obedience was a sort of automatic reaction on his part. But knowing his obvious sensitivity and kindness, we can deduce that he struggled with his emotions in dealing with this strange command. His obedience, though unquestioning, cannot have been without cost.

In the Jewish tradition, membership of the family is established by legal recognition, not necessarily by biological descent. Joseph, of the house of David, adopts Jesus into the family. Jesus was not the son of Joseph by blood. But thanks to Joseph, Jesus can be called “son of David.” Luke’s, genealogy, on the other hand, traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary (his natural bloodline) who also was a blood descendant of King David. Thus, Luke presents David’s actual physical descendants, one of whom was Mary. Hence, Jesus was of the line of David both by title and by blood.

The evangelist Mathew cites the prophet Isaiah to show that the birth of Jesus is the fulfilment of the promise made by the Lord. The phrase “Emmanuel” (“God with us”) is a reminder of the covenant between the Lord and his people. The inclusion of Jesus among the descendents of David is also a sign that God is faithful to his promises.

The name Jesus is the anglicised form of “Jehoshua”, a combination of two words, “Yahweh” and “Hosea”. “Yahweh” means God, “Hosea” means Saviour. So Jesus means “Saviour God.”

There wasn’t much that was cosy and familiar about Joseph’s decision to hear and obey the word of God. It was a lonely decision. All the big decisions in your life and mine are taken in utter solitude. And while new life brings hope, the birth of a child must have filled Mary and Joseph with the same fears and worries that any parent feels. The message of Christmas is not that God became a member of an impossibly perfect family, but that he shares all the fears and feelings we have, some of which can be pretty shattering. As members of our own families, we might think that whatever things are like the rest of year in our homes, Christmas is the one day of the year when it’s reasonable to expect things to be perfect. Yet that is hardly the message of the Gospels regarding the birth of Jesus. The first Christmas was pretty messy!

As Christmas draws closer we keep hearing God’s promise of sending us Immanuel. But life is such a mixture of sorrows and joys that we are left in confusion. Different people ask different questions that arise from an anguished heart. Has God really sent his Son when my child is crippled and maimed? Where is Immanuel when my husband drinks and wastes our family’s resources? Where is your Immanuel when I shuffle through the streets looking for a job and coming home empty?  Nor should we believe that messy families are somehow inferior to tidy ones. What was remarkable about the Holy Family was not that they didn’t have problems, but that, like Joseph, they dealt with them graciously. Even if our Christmases don’t go as we might like, we can still, with the help of God, who “arrives”, cheerfully capitalise our troubles as opportunities to demonstrate God’s omnipotence. For God has said, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called Immanuel.” Only faith and hope are the final solutions in our anxiety. Let us renew more profoundly our faith and hope that will make the coming of Christ more meaningful. As one of the poets has said, “Grow old with me, and the best is yet to come.”

PRAYER (author unknown)

If every part of my life is with you,

And in you, Lord,

Then everything is made good:

Even the things I struggle not to resent,

Even the draining and hurting encounters.

Let every moment of my life be your moment,

Whether or not I consciously remember you;

And make me more open

To the pulse of your life

and the breath of your love.

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                                THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Cycle “A”: Mt 11, 3 – 11 

Down in the dumps

“Are you the one who is to come or have we got to wait for someone else?” (Mt 11, 3)

It was the year 28 or thereabouts. Summertime, and the heat was stifling. John the Baptiser was finishing his 6^th. month as a convict. His dungeon was located in the fortress of Machaeus overlooking the Dead Sea in southern Palestine. His jailor was the loony King Herod. John’s crime was that he had correctly and publicly accused the king of seducing his brother’s wife and walking out on his own. The king, like most royalty, was not amused and threw him into a maximum-security prison. Down in solitary lock up, the Baptist was as restless as a caged lion. His home had been the desert that knew no boundaries. Yet it was more than claustrophobia that caused him sleepless nights. John the Baptist was the “prophets’ prophet” - strong, fearless, unstoppable - but from his prison cell he, too, seemed to be undergoing a “dark night”; a silence heavy with doubt and possible self-loathing and recrimination.

 Amazingly, he was having disturbing thoughts about Jesus, the supposed Messiah whom he had introduced to the multitudes, the one for whom the Jews had longed for centuries. He had promised his vast audiences that this Messiah would enter their lives not with a whimper but with a bang. John was convinced too that he had even met this Messiah, and amazingly had even baptised him. But, for reasons not clear to the Baptiser, not even once did Jesus openly declare himself the Messiah. Besides, he wasn’t putting the axe to the tree as John has foretold, or wielding the winnowing fan or burning the chaff; he wasn’t knocking the fear of hell into the people. So could he be the Messiah? Did John baptise the wrong candidate? Was it all a colossal blunder? Not a sliver of light from on high.  So when next his disciples were allowed that rare visit to the prison, he told them to search for Jesus in the hamlets and hills of Galilee, and ask the all-important question: “Are you the one who is to come or are we to expect someone else?” Jesus would be compelled to answer that question, as he could not lie.

Well, Jesus didn’t answer by saying, “What cheek!” or, “I like your sauce.” He did not deny that he was the Messiah but neither did he affirm it. Jesus’ response is gentle but enigmatic. As is so often the case, he does not answer his questioners directly; instead he invites them to open their eyes and ears and hearts: “test the evidence for yourselves - come to your own decision.”

Signs of presence

  As an answer, Jesus borrowed the beautiful lines of Isaiah, “Go and tell your leader that the blind are enjoying looking at beautiful colours and shapes, the deaf are hearing the latest news and hottest gossip, the lame are leaping, and the dumb are screaming their heads off.” Those who were stumbling now walk with dignity. Those who walked with shoulders hunched now walk proud, walk tall.   Jesus was transmitting his answer to John in code. Jesus was telling John that the prophecies of Isaiah had indeed been fulfilled in himself; so he was owning up to being the Messiah.

We are not informed how John reacted to the news in his prison cell, but I suspect he felt relieved that his vocation was accomplished. He could face his executioner with thankfulness.

We must admire Jesus, the master of his situation. He would reveal his Messiahship in his own good time and on his own terms. And there was going to be no substitute for raw faith either for John and his disciples or for anyone down the centuries. John, like all others, like you and me, would have to say of Christ, “I believe even though I look through a glass darkly.”

Deeds, not words

But there is one other important issue here, and it concerns all of us. You must have noticed that John’s disciples recognised the Messiah not through verbal bombast and blustering, not by threats of damnation, but by the signs of humble service to deprived humanity, to the poor and the sick. Jesus, I’m sure, is telling us that we must make his presence known and felt by continuing his ministry of mercy to our deprived children, our brothers and sisters. Those were the signs of his presence in the time of John the Baptist, and they have not changed since.

As we prepare, this Advent, for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus’  “signs” offered to the Baptist can turn into searching questions, challenging the depth and sincerity of our longing for God. Do the blind see again - do we lead people who are lost, by our words and even more by our lives, to God?  Do the lame walk - what is our attitude to our sick and handicapped brothers and sisters? Has our sympathy and understanding supported them in their struggles and helped them to start a new life? Are the dead raised to life? To those who are near despair have we tried to bring new hope and meaning in life? Do we try to be open to people who do not share our conventional standards of behaviour? The weak are in need of courage; compulsive people, enslaved to drugs and alcohol, must find the power to behave in a new, freer way.

The answer to these and similar questions can tell us about the genuineness of our desire for Jesus Christ. Without a real conversion of heart shown in our attitude towards others, will Advent be anything more than liturgical play-acting?

PRAYER: (Henry Alford, 1810-1871. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and composer of several hymns)

O Lord, give us more charity, more self-denial, more likeness to thee. Teach us to sacrifice our comforts to others, and our likings for the sake of doing well. Make us kindly in thought, gentle in word, generous in deed. Teach us that it is better to give than to receive; better to forget ourselves than to put ourselves forward, better to minister than to be ministered unto. And unto thee, the God of love, be all glory and praise, both now and forever more. Amen

SCRIPTURE: Matthew 11:2-11 (NRSV)

DEVOTIONAL:

What did you go out into the wilderness to see?

Jesus asks this question to a crowd after meeting John the Baptist’s disciples, who were inquiring about Jesus’ identity. Is he the one they’ve been waiting for? Is it true the Messiah had come? Jesus’ answer is to ask them to hear and watch what has come because of his life. The blind see, the lame pick up their mats, the lepers made clean, even the dead awakened. He seems to be saying, “If this is what you’ve been waiting for, then ‘yes.’”

Then, in a whir of rhetoric and analogy, Jesus turns to the crowd and asks, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”

The wilderness, the place where the Baptist dwelt, was a place that I imagine many sought out.

John was a man with disciples, after all.

The wilderness was a place of searching — the arena for answers about life, fulfillment, salvation and prophesy. John lived in the wide-open, strange spaces away from society and the pull of formalities. He wore almost nothing, he ate almost nothing, and everything about him was meager by most standards. His life was so radically weird compared to the standard. Yet, people still wanted to hear what he had to say, and Jesus really, really liked him. He called him the best born among women.

That is, the best. Of all.

Who John was and the place that John dwelt was mysterious. But his life’s work was giving God glory and abandoning his own. Jesus commends him, but also says that anyone who is “least in the kingdom” is even greater than John.

So, I think about this question, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”

In the wilderness — a place that carries us away from our comfort zones and from material — we find answers. We find the radical kingdom that Jesus desires to see on earth — one of making ourselves less and God greater.

In the wilderness, we find God.

Remembrance of Past Mercies

St. John Henry Newman

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2019

“I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant.” Gen. xxxii. 10.

The spirit of humble thankfulness for past mercies which these words imply, is a grace to which we are especially called in the Gospel. Jacob, who spoke them, knew not of those great and wonderful acts of love with which God has since visited the race of man. But though he might not know the depths of God’s counsels, he knew himself so far as to know that he was worthy of no good thing at all, and he knew also that Almighty God had shown him great mercies and great truth: mercies, in that He had done for him good things, whereas he had deserved evil; and truth, in that He had made him promises, and had been faithful to them. In consequence, he overflowed with gratitude when he looked back upon the past; marvelling at the contrast between what he was in himself and what God had been to him.

Such thankfulness, I say, is eminently a Christian grace, and is enjoined on us in the New Testament. For instance, we are exhorted to be “thankful,” and to let “the Word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord.”

The Book of Psalms is full of instances of David’s thankful spirit, which I need not cite here, as we are all so well acquainted with them. I will but refer to his thanksgiving, when he set apart the precious materials for the building of the Temple, as it occurs at the end of the First Book of Chronicles; when he rejoiced so greatly, because he and his people had the heart to offer freely to God, and thanked God for his very thankfulness. . . .

Such was the thankful spirit of David, looking back upon the past, wondering and rejoicing at the way in which his Almighty Protector had led him on, and at the works He had enabled him to do; and praising and glorifying Him for His mercy and truth. David, then, Jacob, and St. Paul, may be considered the three great patterns of thankfulness, which are set before us in Scripture;—saints, all of whom were peculiarly the creation of God’s grace, and whose very life and breath it was humbly and adoringly to meditate upon the contrast between what, in different ways, they had been, and what they were.

A perishing wanderer had unexpectedly become a patriarch; a shepherd, a king; and a persecutor, an apostle: each had been chosen, at God’s inscrutable pleasure, to fulfil a great purpose, and each, while he did his utmost to fulfil it, kept praising God that he was made His instrument. . . .

*

Well were it for us, if we had the character of mind instanced in Jacob, and enjoined on his descendants; the temper of dependence upon God’s providence, and thankfulness under it, and careful memory of all He has done for us. It would be well if we were in the habit of looking at all we have as God’s gift, undeservedly given, and day by day continued to us solely by His mercy. He gave; He may take away. He gave us all we have, life, health, strength, reason, enjoyment, the light of conscience; whatever we have good and holy within us; whatever faith we have; whatever of a renewed will; whatever love towards Him; whatever power over ourselves; whatever prospect of heaven.

He gave us relatives, friends, education, training, knowledge, the Bible, the Church. All comes from Him. He gave; He may take away. Did He take away, we should be called on to follow Job’s pattern, and be resigned: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” [Job i. 21.] While He continues His blessings, we should follow David and Jacob, by living in constant praise and thanksgiving, and in offering up to Him of His own.

We are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters. We are God’s property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration. He has a triple claim upon us. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter?

Is it any happiness, or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way,—to depend on no one,—to have to think of nothing out of sight,—to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man – that it is an unnatural state – may do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end. No, we are creatures; and, as being such, we have two duties, to be resigned and to be thankful.

Let us then view God’s providences towards us more religiously than we have hitherto done. Let us try to gain a truer view of what we are, and where we are, in His kingdom. Let us humbly and reverently attempt to trace His guiding hand in the years which we have hitherto lived. Let us thankfully commemorate the many mercies He has vouchsafed to us in time past, the many sins He has not remembered, the many dangers He has averted, the many prayers He has answered, the many mistakes He has corrected, the many warnings, the many lessons, the much light, the abounding comfort which He has from time to time given.

Let us dwell upon times and seasons, times of trouble, times of joy, times of trial, times of refreshment. How did He cherish us as children! How did He guide us in that dangerous time when the mind began to think for itself, and the heart to open to the world! How did He with his sweet discipline restrain our passions, mortify our hopes, calm our fears, enliven our heavinesses, sweeten our desolateness, and strengthen our infirmities! How did He gently guide us towards the strait gate! how did He allure us along His everlasting way, in spite of its strictness, in spite of its loneliness, in spite of the dim twilight in which it lay!

He has been all things to us. He has been, as He was to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our God, our shield, and great reward, promising and performing, day by day. “Hitherto hath He helped us.” “He hath been mindful of us, and He will bless us.” He has not made us for nought; He has brought us thus far, in order to bring us further, in order to bring us on to the end.

– excerpted from Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol. 5, No. 6.

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

                                     SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Cycle “A”: Mt. 3, 1 – 12

“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” (Mt. 3,2)

The story is told about a businessman who proudly told Mark Twain, “Before I die, I want to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mt. Sinai and I will read aloud the Ten Commandments.” Mark Twain observed dryly, “I have a better idea. You could stay home in Boston and keep the Ten Commandments.”

It appears that many people do not buy into the idea of personal sin. We live out our lives in an era that has dry-cleaned sin away. Those who can afford it, prefer to go to a psychotherapist or psychologist when they have a weight on their conscience. The psychologist may rationalise guilt feelings away but cannot pronounce the words of absolution, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” I cannot understand why people don’t want to hear those cleansing and consoling words. Even the pope, priests and bishops have to go for confession. And yet consider, when we repent, the forgiveness that we receive is absolute, leaving no space for guilt.

Sadly, nowadays, you do not want to feel guilty, because it will make you feel guilty. And if you send people on a guilt trip, so much the worse for you.

Today’s Gospel shows us John the Baptist coming in from the desert “proclaiming a baptism of repentance that led to forgiveness of sin.” And the Gospels tell us that people bought his message, repented of their sins, and were baptised. There must have been something particularly attractive about John that made people lay their faults and failings open to him. He was truly a man of God – that’s what they saw – and he provided a personal link with God since he conveyed God’s message.

 Today John the Baptist might well be out of a job, drawing unemployment insurance, if any. There is no insurance in the desert, only total and absolute dependence on God. John might even be locked up for disturbing the peace. As a matter of fact, he was locked up for rattling Herod’s composure and false dignity.

I sometimes worry that those who should know better - parents, teachers and myself, are depriving young people of education in morals. What sort of message are we sending the young people by our example and indulgent smiles ? What would John the Baptist have to say on this matter ? What would he have to say to each of us individually? To airbrush sin away is to reduce religion to sweet sauce. To bury sin with socio-economic buzzwords, or explain it away by blaming it on the environment or genes and chromosomes would be to sell Jesus Christ down the river. When Peter denied Jesus he did not blame it on his mother-in-law! A modern day psychiatrist would probably have traced his defection to faulty childhood toilet training. Mathew’s Gospel tells us quite simply: “Peter went out and began to weep bitterly.” Today, if he were caught weeping he would be slipped a fistful of Vallium and advised to go fishing. And how about Judas ?  He took personal responsibility for his betrayal of Jesus. He felt he did something so rotten that nobody would touch him with a bar of soap; so he handed himself the death sentence.

Neither should we blame our sins on the environment or genes and chromosomes. These things do have an influence, but the decisive choice to commit a sin or not remains with the person in situation.

Repentance challenges us to face those areas of sin and moral blindness within us that are not fully yet under God’s authority. The call of the Gospel is a personal invitation to growth in holiness and communion. What we know of God is but a shadow of what is to be known. Repentance allows Jesus to reign in every area of our lives. Sometimes we carry the burden of sin without even realising it. If you are tempted to do something and feel even a shade of reluctance, ask yourself, “If I do this, how will it affect my life in six months, two years, five years?” See yourself as a vital part of the world, interdependent and affected by the actions of every other person on the planet. Ask yourself, “Will this be good for me and for everyone?” Asking the right question is a step in the direction of the right answer. Advent is about readjusting the lenses, questioning our attitudes, allowing for the huge emotional displacements and rearrangements of ideas.  It’s about looking again at our familiar surroundings and seeing them with new eyes.

Listen again to John in today’s Gospel: as the Baptist walked on to the public scene, the first thing he said was not “Have a nice day”, but “Repent!”

PRAYER (Janet Morley):

God our deliverer, whose approaching birth still shakes the foundations of our world, may we so wait for your coming with eagerness and hope, that we embrace without terror the labour pangs of the new age.

Christ our victim, whose beauty was disfigured and whose body torn upon the cross, open wide your arms to embrace our tattered world, that we may not turn away our eyes but abandon ourselves to your mercy. Amen.

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year "A"

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (YEAR A)

Introduction:      During this period of Advent the readings and the prayers remind us that time is not unlimited. In these reading we look back to the Old Testament and are reminded of how Christ’s coming was foretold. Today’s first reading is a good example of this. But we also see in the New Testament readings that Jesus Christ has in fact already come, and these are supplemented by reminders that he is to come again. The history of the story of our salvation has been worked out in time and will be completed when time as we know passes into eternity at Christ’s second coming. The second reading tells us that the time we have for preparing for the second coming is to be used in rejecting the power of darkness and evil in our own lives.

The Homily         There is a story somewhere about Satan and a young apprentice devil who is to be sent to earth to deceive mankind. Satan questions him about how he plans to proceed in his mission. The trainee devil says that he will try to persuade humans that there is no God. But Satan says that experience has taught him that this ploy does not work. The young devil then suggests that could discredit belief in hell. Satan commends him on this idea but insists that this one will not be wholly effective either. Then the young devil cooks up a third idea, which is heartily accepted by the boss who tells him to go ahead with his plan which is simply to tell men and women that there is plenty of time.

          In time as we know it there is a past, a present and future. It has a beginning and an end. In the Bible, however, there are two kinds of time. The first kind is that which is to do with events in world history. The word used for it is “chronos” in Greek, from which we get the word “chronology.” That Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus is the “chronos” time of the Incarnation. The other kind of time in the Bible is that which is called “kairos”; it is God’s time, a time which humans cannot manipulate or interfere with. You can push people around but you cannot push God’s time around. The Incarnation happened in God’s time too. It was his plan from eternity and humans had no control over it. When Christ comes again it will be in God’s kairos time, and as today’s Gospel says, it will be an hour we do not expect. But Jesus does tell us that it will happen at a time when people are eating, drinking, marrying and in a state of unpreparedness, just as it was before the flood in Noah’s time. A carefree business attitude was typical of the contemporaries of Noah. What they were doing was not wrong in itself, but they had no thought of God. Their end was sudden and unexpected. In the second short parable, Jesus wants to tell us that that people will be judged as individuals and not in batches. Two men, two women, will not necessarily share the same judgement just because they work at the same occupation. One may bring love and gentleness to her work, the other anger and irritation. One may be looking for vainglory and reputation, the other only self-effacing service. One will be taken, the other left, as one was taken aboard the ark for salvation, another left behind for destruction. The third parable is about the householder securing his house against dacoits. Jesus warns us to be alert and steadfast, never slacking in zeal for his work which calls for much endurance and suffering. Warning of his return like a thief in the night is a way of telling us: “be prepared.”

 Jesus certainly is not against eating and marrying, but he observes sadly that God has gone out of the lives of busy people who have become indifferent to God’s plan. How relevant his words are to our own generation.

          I need not repeat the story of the ant and the grasshopper; but the old fable has a lesson for us. We can choose whether to be the ant or the grasshopper. It’s good to dance and sing and enjoy life, but we not neglect important duties. Time is our most precious commodity. It is the one thing we can never hoard, purchase or reclaim. Do you have time on your hands? Lucky you! The best way to kill time is to work it to death. Acting in good time can save us a lot of worry afterwards. A few minutes or even seconds can spell the difference between life and death. Napoleon Bonaparte, after his great battle of Austerlitz, said, “The reason I defeated the Austrians is, they did not know the value of five minutes.”

          So the young devil in the story may have chosen the best course after all by planning to bluff mankind into believing that there is yet plenty of time. It would be much safer to listen to Paul’s words and follow his plan in the second reading: the time has come to rise from sleep and take off the works of darkness.

          Today’s Advent liturgy is an invitation, or perhaps, more accurately, a challenge to look at life and living it from a new perspective. The readings challenge us to look at time, to look at our world with the eyes of God, to realise that he has a plan, a vision for you, for me, for the whole world, and that for God a ‘a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.’ We hear something of that vision in those hope-filled words from the prophet Isaiah: “they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war. Words of hope, indeed. Words, incidentally emblazoned on the walls of the United Nations building because they find an echo in the heart of every human being of good will.

PRAYER

Lord God, teach me how not to live for the pleasure of the moment, but enable me accept the challenge of the truth, to raise my mind to your divine way of thinking, in order that I may derive true strength and security from the promise of salvation that Jesus makes to us all who try, however imperfectly, to follow him.  Amen.