Proclaiming a Year of Mission

Homily at St Philip Evans for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

This word is being fulfilled in your hearing!

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed a “year of favour from the Lord”.

Pope Francis has declared this year a Year of Mercy. And today I proclaim to you that in this parish, we are celebrating a year of Mission!

Oh no! More religious stuff!

Sometimes, religion has exactly the wrong effect on us. Our First Reading told how Ezra the High Priest read the Book of God’s Law to the Jewish People. They wept! Nehemiah the Governor and Ezra the Priest said “Do not weep today, rejoice!”

The psalm we have just chanted proclaimed “The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul.”

When God’s law seems heavy, it’s because we are not listening properly. We are broken people, wounded by the failings of others and our own sins, so we zero in on those parts of the law which tell us we are unworthy, we are sinners. We totally miss those parts which are about God wanting to bless and restore us. Yet what was the main work of a priest in ancient Israel? Performing rituals to make unclean people, clean!

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed a “year of favour from the Lord”. What does the Lord’s favour look like?

“The blind will see.”

Some of us come faithfully to Mass because it’s what “we do”. We’re part of the tribe of Catholics, and besides, our friends come to this church. So we turn up and try not to think too much about God. But you have a Father in Heaven who thinks you are amazing. He wants to open your eyes!

“Captives will be released.”

Some of us are here today because we’re afraid God will be angry with us if we don’t show up at Mass every Sunday. If we’re in bed with flu one weekend, we rush to confession because we haven’t “done our duty”. Now it’s true that we are called to show “fear of the Lord”, but that means a healthy respect for God, not quaking in our boots thinking we have failed to meet impossible demands!

“The downtrodden will be set free.”

Some of us are here today out of another kind of duty. We’re not afraid of God punishing us, but we are here out of a rather cold sense of “ought”. Coming to Mass is “the right thing to do”. That’s better than fear, but it’s still not the best God has in store for us.

“I bring good news to the poor.”

Do you think you are worthy of God’s love? Do you think you deserve to be part of this Church? If you are a Reader, or an EMOC, or a catechist, do you think that other “more qualified” parishioners should be doing those jobs? Jesus has news for you. You have been chosen. Not because you deserve it but because he loves you. Look at the people he chose to start his church: tax collectors and prostitutes, fishermen and reformed terrorists. Pope Francis has called the Church “a field hospital for sinners”. There is only one condition for membership – you must be willing to live your life in the way Jesus asks you. And when you fail, because Jesus doesn’t stop asking, pick yourself up and have another go.

These are big ideas – far too big to explore in a few minutes on a Sunday morning. This is why, at the end of October this year, we are holding a Parish Mission. This will be a whole week to take a fresh look at who God really is, what God expects of us, what we can expect of God – and above all, to help ourselves accept that God’s message really is soul-reviving Good News.

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed a “year of favour from the Lord”.

This year we are invited to move from belonging to believing, from fear to love, from duty to joyful service. This word is being fulfilled in your hearing!

 

Room for One More!

Homily at Nazareth House for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Sometimes, religion has exactly the wrong effect on us. Our First Reading told how Ezra the High Priest read the Book of God’s Law to the Jewish People. They wept!

Nehemiah the Governor and Ezra the Priest said “Do not weep today, rejoice!”

The psalm we have just heard proclaimed “The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul.”

When God’s law seems heavy, it’s because we are not listening properly. We are broken people, wounded by the failings of others and our own sins, so we zero in on those parts of the law which tell us we are unworthy, we are sinners. We totally miss those parts which are about God wanting to bless and restore us. Yet what was the main work of a priest in ancient Israel? Performing rituals to make unclean people, clean!

Nehemiah the Governor and Ezra the Priest said “Do not weep today, rejoice!”

Throughout the Hebrew Bible, we see time and again this combination of a Governor and a Priest.

Abraham was the head of his tribe, but God sent the mysterious priest Melchizidek to receive his sacrifice.

Moses received the Law for Israel, but his brother Aaron was the ancestor of the priestly line.

Solomon built a Temple, but Zadok was its High Priest.

In the books of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the governor Zerubbabel and high priest Joshua are called to rebuild Jerusalem together.

It is the task of a Governor to give us a Law for what to do and what to avoid.

It is the task of a High Priest to offer sacrifices when we have failed to keep the Law, because God wants us restored to a spiritual cleanliness we simply cannot achieve on our own.

Only in Jesus do the two roles come together. Jesus preached the Law of God with unusual authority. He gave his own body on the Cross to be the perfect sacrifice, at once High Priest and Victim.

Although every Catholic bishop and priest “stands in” for Jesus, it is very difficult for one person to embody both things. You will either be known for being demanding, or for being soft. In our age, the Catholic Church has a reputation for very high moral standards – and then the Press work hard to catch priests and bishops who have not lived out those high standards. Rightly so, for the Lord hated hypocriscy!

But because we are known for proposing the highest moral standards, it was crucial for Pope Francis to proclaim a “Year of Mercy”. Yes, the Church is against abortion – but we also have organisations that provide practical resources to women otherwise unable to keep their babies. Yes, we warn people against trying out fortune telling or “New Age healing” practices – but we also offer prayers for spiritual cleansing for people who’ve discovered that turning to these things can leave you spiritually messed up. Always, the Church wants to be seen as a loving mother ready to give a word of warning, and to kiss us better whenever we fall over.

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed a “year of favour from the Lord”. Our task this year is to communicate a clear message: the Catholic Church is a field hospital for sinners. The church is, in fact, full of sinners and there is always room for one more!

Baptised by Fire

Homily at St Paul’s for the Baptism of the Lord, Year C.

“You’re dead! And you’re dead! And you’re dead! And you’re dead!”

When I was an undergraduate, the bursar at my college decided to carry out an unscheduled fire drill – at 6 o’clock in the morning! Bleary-eyed students pulled on dressing gowns and coats, and made for the exit. As soon as the statutory 2 minutes for evacuation was up, the bursar stood opposite the main doors and greeted each exiting student with a wagging finger and the unsettling words that they were dead!

Today’s Gospel offers us something equally unsettling – a baptism of fire. John had been baptising people with water – the Greek word baptizo meant ‘to plunge in’. He was literally ducking them under the water as a sign that they were ending their old life of sin and rising to something new. But Jesus was to offer us something more – that we would be plunged into fire and into the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus hadn’t died on the Cross, no human being could go to heaven. But because Jesus took on himself the punishment due for every wrong action committed by human beings, the doors of heaven were opened. There’s a famous icon of Jesus pulling Adam and Eve out of their graves, with the gates blocking heaven being kicked down into the void below. I can’t help wondering if the artist who made the logo for the Year of Mercy was thinking of those gates by drawing the two dark blocks under the Lord’s feet.

So we rejoice that the gates of Heaven are open for us, but what is it like to pass through them? The Bible speaks about entering heaven as undergoing a painful experience. Our Lord said it would be like a Master returning unexpectedly to inspect the work of his household servants. And Jesus – our Saviour Jesus, our loving and caring Jesus – once chose a very strong image, and one we might not expect to hear on his lips: the servant who did not do what the Master required is punished by the strokes of a whip! The one given clear instructions receives a severe beating, but even the one who didn’t know what the Master wanted receives a beating, though less severe. What are we to make of this?

Each one of us will stand before God on our judgment day and see the perfect love which is God’s nature. We will compare ourself with this pure love and becomes painfully aware of our own failures to love unselfishly. And for us who were Christians, who heard God’s message preached in church, the pain is even greater, for we will become fully conscious of having ignored, at least in part, the pleas of our loving and heavenly Father.

This pain is real, and the Bible uses different ways to describe it. Jesus uses the image of a beating and of a soul which is “put into prison until it has paid the last penny”. St Paul has written of our life’s work being “tested by fire”. And today I would like to suggest that the baptism by fire promised by Jesus refers to the same thing – that he will purify our souls so that we can go to heaven.

Now that we are in the Year of Mercy, we will hear much talk of the ‘indulgence’ on offer for pilgrims who pass through a Holy Door. But what does this mean? Didn’t indulgences go out with the reformation?

No, they didn’t. An indulgence is, in fact, a baptism of fire.

It seems to me that none of us human beings are perfect, and all of us need to undergo some kind of purification so that we can enter heaven. But perhaps there are different ways that we can be purified. First, imagine that when you die, you meet only Jesus and you see his perfect love for you. You know full well you don’t deserve it. But you accept the gift.

Next, imagine that when you die, you not only meet Jesus but he shows you a vision of everyone on earth who ever prayed for you, saying their prayers for you. Surely this will be even more embarrassing! The more intense the love focussed upon your soul, the more quickly your pain passes, leaving you free to enter the happiness of heaven.

Now the Lord zooms in on a few people who have decided to pray for you by undertaking a special spiritual exercise. You see that a few souls who love you have gone out of their way to travel to a special place of pilgrimage, walk through a Holy Door, attend Mass and go to the sacrament of reconciliation. And all of this they have dedicated for you! Not only that, but the Pope has solemnly asked all the saints already in heaven to notice every time this is done, and offer a special prayer for you. How embarrassing is that?

And that’s the indulgence.

What went wrong in earlier centuries was that the Popes also asked all the saints in heaven to notice and say prayers for you when a benefactor donated money to the church. That meant financial giving got tangled up with spiritual blessings, and looked like you could ‘buy’ a soul’s rapid purification. Nowadays, the Pope doesn’t ask heaven to notice financial gifts – only acts of significant personal sacrifice.

My college bursar wanted to shame us into being as ready as possible to survive a fire. In this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis also wants us to be ready to survive a fire – not on our own but by securing indulgences for those souls already being purified. And as we remember each one in prayer we declare: “You are loved! And you are loved! And you are loved! And you are loved!”

The door of mercy is open. Which soul will you walk through for first?