Life After Death

Homily at St Paul’s for the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C.

“When I awake, I shall be filled with the sight of your glory!”

What does happen to us when we die? Many people who have been brought back from the brink of death talk about seeing a “light at the end of the tunnel”. Some report meeting God and being told it’s not their time yet. A few people have reported a vision which seems more like Hell than like Heaven.

It’s good to keep an open mind about these reports. Science suggests good reasons why a brain starved of oxygen might experience “tunnel vision” and human imagination is quite capable of wishful thinking or self-condemnation. Even so, there are certainly some powerful stories around, not least from an Anglican vicar I know who prayed for a 19-year-old teenager killed in a motorcycle accident… the boy woke up in the morgue the next morning having had such a powerful religious experience that he joined a church and got baptised soon afterwards!

If we put our trust in what God has said through the Bible, what can we be sure of? When our church leaders put together all the relevant bits of the Bible, what we know goes like this:

• On the day we die, our souls are judged immediately by God – or some would say that we judge ourselves in comparison to the pure love we see in God. Either way, we can go in one of three directions.
  • For those truly repentant of their sins who do not need to be greatly purified, they go straight to heaven. These are the souls we celebrated on All Saint’s Day.
  • For those who call on God’s mercy but who need significant purification, they go to Purgatory until they are ready for heaven. Those are the souls we remember on All Soul’s Day, and for whom we offer Masses.
  • For those who have not chosen God’s mercy, God allows them to be separated from his loving presence, and this we call Hell.

• We believe that Our Lord and Our Lady already have bodies in heaven – this is why we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus and the Assumption of Blessed Mary. The rest of us live there as souls without bodies. We may be full of questions about how that works – the Sadducees in today’s Gospel certainly were, and they tried to trip up Jesus. But he insisted that heaven was real, and left the details to God. Will husbands and wives be re-united in heaven? As long as they have accepted God’s mercy, yes – but not to live as a couple in the heavenly Jerusalem. Like all the saints, they will be members of the body of Christ. They will not love their earthly spouse any less; but the love they give to Jesus and receive in return from Jesus will be immeasurably greater than we can know in even the best marriage on earth.

• One day in the future, this world as we know it will come to an end. Will that happen through a natural disaster or by God intervening in an amazing miracle? We don’t know. But we are so certain that this will happen that every Sunday in the Creed we assert: “We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” When this happens, God will raise every soul who has ever lived and give them a new and everlasting body – or for those who are still alive on earth when this happens, their earthly body will be transformed. This is the moment we call the Last Judgement. Those whose souls were already in Hell, or were alive at the end of the world but had not chosen God’s mercy, will be sent bodily into Hell. Everyone else will be welcomed into what the Bible calls the “new heaven and new earth”.

What Our Lord says today is an uncomfortable message if you are married, even more so if you are widowed. But… don’t panic! If you are in a second marriage, relax. There can be no jealously in heaven. You can hope to be there with both your earthly spouses, and there will be no unpleasantness.

Our Christian faith is not wishful thinking. If it were, we would believe that married couples live happily-ever-after in heaven, and the Sadduccees would have a valid point. So here is a useful check of where your faith comes from. If you believe in heaven because the alternative is too horrid to imagine, open your ears to Jesus! Believe in it because he rose from the dead. If you need to, ask him to increase your love for Him!

Today’s reading also reminds us that there is such a thing as a “fate worse than death”. When a human being is martyred, that is a tragedy for the family they leave behind, but a triumph in being faithful to God. As the familiar reading from Wisdom says, “their going seemed like a disaster, but they are at peace”. And remember that Leon Bloy once wrote, “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”

Your loved ones are alive to God. The dead will rise again. Not only will you see them again, but you, and they, are destined to be given new and glorious bodies which will never perish. As for where that body goes, that’s up to the choices you make on earth. Whatever happens, we can be sure of this: “When we awake, we shall be filled with the sight of God’s glory!”

Great Expectations: Peacemaking

Homily at St Philip Evans for the 31st Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church and the start of the parish Sion Community Mission – 22 & 23 October 2016. 

At the start of Mass: Our Church was solemnly dedicated by Archbishop Ward on 25 October 1985. Today, on the nearest weekend, we celebrate another year of the life of our parish community, but we also mark a new beginning, as we enter our Parish Mission. Previously, on this Dedication festival, I have asked you to make a point of exchanging the sign of peace by name. This year, not only for today but throughout our Mission, I am inviting you to take one more step. On the pews in front of you are pens and name badges. I invite you to write your name on a badge and wear it not only today, but whenever you come to a church event throughout the next two weeks of our Parish Mission.

Now please turn to greet, by name, the people in front of, and behind you.

Normally, we would call to mind our sins at this moment. I’m going to hold that back until the middle of Mass today – so let us enter into our celebration with a great song of praise, the Gloria!

• There will be special readings today.

Homily: This church is full of sin!

Look! There is the confessional! Every week, sinners come and leave their sins at the feet of a priest.

Look! Here is our altar, dedicated 31 years ago. Whenever we gather around this altar to celebrate Mass, we begin with a moment to “call to mind our sins”. The Lord forgives all our little sins, and we leave them here.

Look! Above us, the great Crucifix, the sign of Christ taking on his shoulders all the sins of the world! When we celebrate Mass, Calvary becomes present on this altar, making present not only our personal sins, but all the sins of the human race!

Look! Gathered here, a throng of people! I don’t know what sins you are conscious of in your heart, but you do – and God does, too.

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, we must acknowledge a terrible truth: our Church is a magnet for sin.

But I have good news. God can do something about it!

Why do we have a solemn celebration for the Anniversary of the Dedication of a Church? It’s a natural, human thing to want to mark another year of our being here with a celebration, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s another reason, too. In the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people were commanded to keep an annual commemoration of the Dedication of their Temple – the solemn observance of Yom Kippur. Our First Reading today was an extract from the instructions given for that day.

Yom Kippur was the one day in the year when the High Priest was commanded to enter the Holy of Holies, the inner chamber of the Temple. First, the High Priest offers a sacrifice for HIS OWN SIN – it’s a bull. (You may be pleased to know that I myself went to confession on Friday; you may also be relieved to learn that no livestock were injured on my behalf!)

Next, the High Priest makes an offering to take away the sin of all the people of Israel – it’s a goat. But what happened to the other goat? If I had included a longer reading from Leviticus, we would have heard how the priest was to speak all the sins of the people over the head of that goat, and it would then be driven out into the wilderness. It was the original scapegoat. That’s where the term comes from!

Today, we mark the Dedication of our own Temple, this Church of St Philip Evans. It’s also the beginning of our first ever Parish Mission. It struck me that today ought to be for us a new beginning. God doesn’t want us to be tied down by sins and problems from the past. We haven’t had a perfect history as a parish. Before I became your parish priest, the life of this parish was marked by some very serious disagreements. As human beings, our natural reaction is to ask “Who started  it?” and seek an apology. But that’s not God’s way. No, the question God asks is “Who is willing to end it?” – in today’s Gospel we heard these words:

“If you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first.”

This matters! In fact, it matters so much that St Paul wrote that “anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be behaving unworthily towards the body and blood of the Lord.” The Communion that we receive at Mass is only a Holy Communion when we have made peace with all the members of our community.

Making the first move for peace might seem unfair. What Our Lord did on the Cross was not fair – it was the greatest act of generosity in the history of the human race. He took on himself all our sins. We are asked to imitate him in a very small way, making peace without the satisfaction of an apology.

Often enough there’s no possibility of an apology. We are human beings from different cultures, different nations, and different ways of thinking. Two people can approach the same situation, or even hear the very same words spoken, and interpret things in very different ways. Each person has their own integrity, and might do what they believe to be right – and still conflict comes, because our perspective is so different. This is why God doesn’t ask “Who started it?” but only “Who will make peace?”

Let me begin with myself. At seminary, we’re taught to become aware of our own character faults and weaknesses. I know that I have strong gifts for organising things, but I’m not always sensitive to other people’s feelings. It’s quite possible that at times I have been insensitive and not even realised the hurt I’ve caused. If I have hurt anyone in the three years I have been here by things I have said, done, or failed to do, I ask your forgiveness.

Then, on behalf of all the clergy. All priests and deacons are human beings, capable of having bad days and being tempted. To anyone who has ever been offended by the words, actions or inactions of any minister, I apologise in the name of the Church.

Finally, on behalf of Mother Church herself. Sometimes we feel let down by what the Church has done as an institution, or its failure to be the kind of Church we hoped it would be. But whenever we are part of something bigger, things won’t always go the way that we wish for, and this calls for great patience on our part. Will you forgive the Catholic Church for not being perfect on earth?

The Book of Leviticus lists many kinds of sacrifice that could be made in the Jewish Temple. Some were for the cleansing of individual people. Some were for the whole community. Some were even for the cleansing of the land. God waits for us to ask, before He uses His divine power to free us from the consequences of sin. So today, let us ask! If we are involved in any conflict, great or small, with people inside or outside this parish, let’s decide, right now, to make the first move for peace.

I’m going to celebrate, now, the same rite of blessing and sprinkling holy water which we keep at the Easter Vigil. One of the questions I will ask is whether you believe in “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins”. When I come among you sprinkling Holy Water, this will be a prayer for cleansing of the parish, that God will free us from all the spiritual effects of all the sins confessed in this church in the past, and all the spiritual baggage from conflicts which we, as members of the body of Christ, have been part of. If you are ready to make peace, if you are ready to receive this new beginning of spiritual cleansing, I invite you to receive the gift of Holy Water with open palms.

After the sprinkling rite:

There’s one loose end from our First Reading. What about the two rams, one for the priest, one for the people? These were “holocaust offerings”, every part was to be offered in sacrifice to God, holding nothing back. God had great expectations of the people of Israel – they were to be totally dedicated to God, trusting God for everything, giving God the very best of what they owned.

In a moment, we’ll do what we do every week – we will take a collection. Let’s remember that what we give in money is an act of worship, an offering to God. But also, while the collection goes on, I am going to pass around this clipboard. We want to give God an offering of prayer while members of our Mission Team are visiting people at home this week. Could you sign up for half-an-hour of prayer one day this week? If you can, please book your slot – and the clipboard will be brought up with our other gifts as part of our offering to God.

Holy Ground

Homily at St Philip Evans, for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time. 

I found this in the back room. It doesn’t look like much – but it’s very heavy!

We used to have a rule in the Church that we could only celebrate Mass on an altar stone – a dedicated piece of marble with the relics of saints sealed inside it. When the priest was celebrating a house Mass or a school Mass, this would have to be placed on the table, with the bread and wine to be consecrated, placed on top.

In 1983, when the Catholic Church updated its law code in the West, this rule was dropped. Now I can celebrate Mass on any suitable table. Did we need the old rule? Yes and no. Yes, we needed something to remind us that when we celebrate Mass, we’re doing something profoundly holy. No, we didn’t need a rule that created practical difficulties for celebrating Mass when it was needed.

In today’s First Reading, Na’aman does a curious thing. He asks for two baskets of soil from Israel to take home to Syria! He believed that the god who had cured him was a local god in Israel, who could only be worshipped on Israeli soil. But we know that the whole earth belongs to God: wherever we stand, the ground is already holy ground!

It’s good to have special places and things which we recognise as holy. Often, I’m asked to bless rosaries, statues and medals. Doing this gives honour to God. But you can still pray with a rosary that hasn’t been blessed, and if you wear an unblessed medal as a sign of faith, God honours your faith!

When we celebrate Mass now, we don’t use an altar stone, but we do use this – a corporal. The name comes from the Latin for body, corpus. Now, not a stone but a cloth marks the place where the Body and Blood of Jesus will become present. Like many things in our religious services, it has a dual purpose – one is practical, one symbolic. The practical purpose is to catch crumbs, tiny particles of the Blessed Sacrament. This is why our altar servers – I hope you’re listening! – are always supposed to fold it inwards, and then carry it flat away from the altar, never to flick it out into the air! The symbolic purpose is to mark out a Holy of Holies within the space on the altar, just as the ancient Jewish Temple had its Holy of Holies, where the High Priest went only once a year, within the larger Holy Place where the priests offered sacrifice every day.

Do we need holy things? Yes and no. No, we can pray to God any place, any time, any way, without needing any special equipment. God is as close as our next breath. But yes, if we have an Icon Corner or a Bible Corner in our home, or a holy table in our classroom at school, these things can help to remind us to stop and turn to God in our daily life.

In today’s Gospel, ten lepers cry out to Jesus for mercy. He sets them a challenge. “Go and show yourself to the priest!” Now it was written in the Jewish Law that when lepers seemed to be healed, they had to go to a priest who would confirm they were free of disease, and they could make a thanksgiving offering. But here it seems that the lepers only got healed after taking that first step of faith on the journey towards the Temple – daring to go there even while they were still unclean!

Then there’s this one foreigner, who turns back to give thanks to Jesus. Does that mean the point of the story is “Don’t forget to say thank you”? Yes – and no. Yes, Jesus commends him for giving thanks. But perhaps there’s something deeper, too. “Go and show yourself to the priest.” Perhaps the Samaritan recognised that Jesus is truly a High Priest. The others were comfortable with the old law which said the priests were in the Temple in Jerusalem. That wasn’t wrong – but they were so used to doing things that way that they couldn’t see that Our Lord was a priest too!

We get comfortable with our old ways and can feel unsettled when our Church changes the rules about things. Do we have to abstain from meat on Fridays? How long do we have to fast before receiving Holy Communion? Which days, apart from Sundays, are Holy Days when we have to attend Mass? What’s the response to “The Lord Be With You?” Just when we think we know what we’re supposed to do to be a “good Catholic”, the bishops go and change the rules! But these rules are about external things. If we’re bothered by changes like this, it might be telling us that we know how to be a Catholic, but not why. That’s a challenge to us to find out!

Jesus met the lepers when he was on the borderland between Galilee and Samaria. All of us have borderlands, the interface between the things we know and are comfortable with, and things which are unknown and unfamiliar. The Parish Mission coming up at the end of this month is an invitation to expand our borders, to become familiar with new things.

Lots of things will try and get in our way. Our doubts will say that it’s not important, it’s too complicated, and we’re not worthy. But it is important, it’s not too complicated, and although we are unworthy of God’s love, we have the wonderful words from the letter to Timothy: “Christ is faithful, even when you are unfaithful.” Let’s expand our borders, commit ourselves to the coming mission, and get to know our faith so well that we will never feel disturbed at changes to things which are merely external! We don’t need soil from Israel, or an altar stone – but let us always remain faithful to our Rock, Jesus Christ. Amen!