For the Children

Homily for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B at St Paul’s.

“I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t be standing up here talking to you. There are other people much more capable. In fact, I’m not sure why they ever picked me for this job…”

Don’t worry. I haven’t gone mad. I’m just trying to give you a flavour of what’s going on in the head of a person suffering from chronic anxiety or what the psychologists call “impostor syndrome”.

Lots of famous people suffer from just these kind of feelings. TV presenter and model Alexa Chung recently told the BBC that she did. Although she’d been commissioned to write for Vogue fashion magazine, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was about to be “found out” as a fraud.

This week, Claire Foy – who played the young Queen Elizabeth in Netflix’s The Crown – admitted to similar feelings of anxiety.

Have you ever felt underqualified for the tasks you have to take on regularly? It’s a very common reaction. Sometimes we have a false sense of Christian modesty, that we shouldn’t receive compliments at all. But Jesus said the “truth would set us free” and there are times we need to learn to accept the praise given to us.  Not long ago I met a member from a Christian community which had a rule about accepting compliments – when someone praised you, you were only allowed to give one of three answers. “Amen!” – “Praise God” – or “I receive that!”

Picture those 70 elders invited to go up the mountain with Moses. This story from the Hebrew Bible comes after Moses has spent some time alone with God in the mists atop a mountain… in fact someone on Facebook pointed out to me that Moses was the very first person to download information to a tablet from a cloud! But now the invitation comes down to the camp – the same God who has been speaking face-to-face with Moses now wants to speak directly to the elders of the people – they were to meet with God too! I wonder how many of them felt they had been wrongly picked for this privilege? But if God chose to show himself to them… that puts things in a new light. Does God make mistakes about things like that?

At first sight, the 12 apostles had no trouble accepting their exalted position. Last Sunday, we heard them arguing about who was the greatest! This week, they’re trying to stop someone who’s not a member of the inner circle from doing God’s work. But I wonder, deep down, were they motivated by pride in being the “chosen ones” – or were they, too, insecure about being chosen, and trying to keep rivals at arm’s length?

It’s very easy to find reasons to not do things for the parish we belong to.

Perhaps we feel unworthy.

Perhaps we expect a put-down from others in positions of authority.

Perhaps we’re afraid of criticism or that the work will go horribly wrong.

Or perhaps we’re afraid of being sucked in to a place where we can’t say no.

These fears are real. But God is love, and perfect love casts out all fear.

Jesus made it clear time and time again that God has high expectations of us. The steward entrusted with talents is expected to return with a profit. The “sheep” who do good receive a reward in heaven; the goats, who do nothing, are sent to eternal damnation.

He told parables about a master returning to check on the state of his vineyard, or a servant who only received a small punishment because he didn’t understand what his master expected of him. Among all the false fears we face, there is only one real fear we should cling on to – that at the end of our life we will meet God, and have to explain why we didn’t use our gifts to bless God’s people.

And what exactly does God expect us to do? Love our enemy – be willing to forgive. Love our neighbour – help the people whose needs are most obvious to us. Love God with all our heart – giving time to personal prayer and church services. But also – “Go into the world, teach them to obey everything I taught you,” says Jesus. Today he is teaching us that many volunteers are needed, and we should not be put off by the objections of others or a false sense of our own shortcomings.

Successful churches ask people to build on their strengths. Maybe at school you were told to focus on things you did badly, to get better – or at least less bad. But when we are older, we have a good sense of our true strengths and weaknesses. I’ve got news for you – whatever your strengths are, God gave them to you so you could bless the Church and help other people.

So ask yourself: What gifts have I been given? What’s stopping me from using them here?

Today, Christ warns us not to be an obstacle to children who have faith. It’s easy to blame flawed bishops and abusive priests for setting an appalling example, and yes, each church leader will one day answer to Christ for the choices they have made. But who are the greater obstacles to our young people? Prelates in faraway place they will never meet? Or those of us here today who allow doubts and fears to stop us from offering to serve our young people? If we don’t give our children the experience of church which will best help them grow in faith, what thanks can we expect from God?

In every parish, there is a great need for volunteers to work with children – First Communion, Confirmation and Children’s Liturgy of the Word. For all the reasons I’ve talked about this morning, we might be hesitant to volunteer. But if we allow our fears to defeat us before we begin, we will never become the Church God is calling us to be.

Now is the time. God can take your small offering and do great things with it. And remember – professionals built the Titanic, but Noah’s Ark was built by an amateur!

In Praise of Virgin Martyrs

“The Catholic Church thinks it’s better to be a dead virgin than a rape survivor.”

That’s how I saw the Church’s stance on Christian women martyred ‘in defense of their chastity’ summed up by a critic in newsprint a few years ago, and it came back to mind with the beatification of Anna Kolesárová earlier this month.

In 1944, a Soviet soldier tried to rape and then murdered the devout 16-year-old Slovak. Anna was a daily Massgoer who had taken over domestic chores following the death of her mother. When the soldier came looking for food and took hold of her to satisfy another appetite, she broke away from him and cried her farewell to her father before she was fatally shot. The memory of Anna’s death survived throughout the period of communist rule in Slovakia, resulting in growing public interest in the post-communist nation, culminating in this month’s beatification.

But this kind of holy role model is controversial. A Catholic critic in Commonweal asked, ‘Are we still doing this?’ Even a more sympathetic commentator on Alateia conceded the weakness of trying to tell school children that Maria Goretti was a saint because ‘she refused to let herself be raped’. A hostile Slovakian, Ria Gehrerová, questioned the implication that being murdered is preferable to being raped.

Gehrerová noted that on Anna’s grave, it is written “better death than sin”, which has also been used by the church when promoting Kolesárová’s story. But “would Kolesárová have sinned if the soldier had raped her? A spokesperson of the Slovak church said no.”

Let’s first acknowledge the blindingly obvious. Anna was sexually assaulted and killed by a violent man through no fault of her own. If the soldier had succeeded, she would not have committed any sin – any wilful, personal, choice – against purity. The only choice she was faced with, in the heat of the moment, was whether to consent, acquiesce, or resist – and her choice to resist was a reflection of who she was as a person.

‘Consent’ given under duress is never true consent, whether to an act of sexual abuse or to some other act of manipulation such as a hostage situation. Nevertheless, there are moral questions around co-operation, and the Church holds (based on the writings of St Paul) that we cannot do evil that good may come of it. No sin (wilful co-operation with evil) committed under duress can be mortal; there is likely hardly any culpability at all. But there is still a moral choice to be made between co-operating and acquiescing – that is, saying ‘no’ but not actively resisting – or indeed putting up a heroic show of resistance. And I write these words conscious that it is easy to pontificate about an abhorrent situation in which I have never found myself.

We could be distracted, at this point, by a long exploration of the goodness of virginity per se. The Book of Revelation (14:4) gives us a glimpse of a special category of saint, who died as virgins for the sake of the Lord – ‘men who have not defiled themselves with women’. There is a difficult history, from St Augustine of Hippo until righted by St John Paul II, of Christian scholars suggesting that even within marriage, the sexual act is intrinsically impure. The Vatican recently ruffled feathers by suggesting (88) that women who were not virgins could be admitted to the Order of Consecrated Virgins. This reveals the tension between the sign given by a woman pledging perfect chastity from now on against the spiritual value of always having been a virgin (the subject of heated mediaeval debates about whether Our Lady could have theoretically had children after bearing Christ). Derek Carlsen believes the Torah gives no compensation to a raped virgin because, in God’s eyes, she has not lost her virginal status. Suffice it to say that the Bible drops hints that there is some spiritual and eternal significance in always having been a virgin but there is not enough evidence to pronounce on the heavenly status of a woman who loses her virginity against her will.

Does it matter, from a spiritual point of view, if a person chooses to resist sexual assault and pays with their life, rather than acquiescing as a survival strategy? The Catholic viewpoint, of course, holds that there is an afterlife and heroic deeds do receive their reward there. So the calculus for a Catholic faced with mortal peril looks very different from the plight of an atheist who believes they face a choice between eternal annihilation or living out one earthly lifespan bearing the trauma of being a survivor.

It would not have been a sin (on her part) for Anna to have been raped. It clearly was a heroic act to resist and break away as she did. It would have been a sin to wilfully co-operate with the rapist. That seems to leave acquiescing as the ‘morally neutral’ response – which could also be interpreted as another kind of heroism, that of planning to ‘get through’ the horrible circumstances so she could continue supporting her father and brother. We might also ask whether her decision to resist, in the heat of the moment, was motivated by a Christian sense of purity – or was it the kind of reaction any young women, of any or no creed, might make given that kind of provocation?

By raising up Anna as a role model, are we proclaiming that choosing to be a living survivor is less heroic?

The history of the early church is marked by a different kind of virgin martyr – the women who decided to entrust their virginity to Christ and then faced pressure from powerful relatives to enter marriage. In today’s climate we might focus on the abuse of human dignity represented by any kind of forced marriage rather than the Christian motive of these particular women. Nevertheless, it seems right to say that those women were martyrs both for human dignity and for Christ.

There are martyrs who choose to lay down their lives for others – the purple martyrdom of a Maximilian Kolbe or Gianna Molla.

There are martyrs who are killed simply for being Christian – think of the 21 Copts murdered by ISIS, the 7 Tibherine monks or those attending Mass in Pakistan or Indonesia caught up in the blast of suicide bombers. In some cases, martyrs are put to the further test of being given an ‘out’ if they renounce their Catholic faith, but simply being in the right place at the wrong time is enough to qualify you as a ‘red martyr’.

Then there are those who are killed for standing up for their values – values endorsed by the Catholic faith but also held by many non-Christians of the utmost integrity. For example, Blessed Marcel Callo (Nazi-occupied France) and Blessed Francesco Aleu (Spanish Civil War) were martyred not for attending Christian worship but living out their Catholic values in strained times.

When Cardinal Newman was declared ‘Blessed‘ a few years ago, Radio 4 broadcast a play about Newman’s life. The playwright imagined that Newman’s guardian angel met him at the moment of his death and declared to him – ‘You are to become a saint!’

‘Oh no!’ said Newman. ‘Not a saint! I shall be sliced up like salami and made into bite-sized lessons for schoolchildren!’

There’s always a danger with a beatification, that we take the one, most dramatic fact about the person being raised up and turn it into an over-simplified lesson. Simcha Fisher has likened these moral slices to the ‘bathwater around the baby‘ who is actually a living person with love for Christ at their heart. Ultimately, the Virgin Martyrs remind us not only that Christians are called to chastity but that we are called to resist evil and confront it heroically, without compromise.

Should we teach children that Maria Goretti is a saint because she didn’t want to be raped? No. Is Maria Goretti a saint because she thoroughly resisted being raped? Yes – but that’s an incomplete answer. First, the moral goodness is not that she kept her virginity intact, but that she never even acquiesced to evil. Second, when she showed the heroism of not acquiescing but resisting – she did this in the context of a life which was already devoted to Christ and which culminated in trying to persuade her attacker not to sin, for the good of his soul. Similarly, Blessed Anna is beatified not only for the moment of her death but the manner of her life. The short, ‘teachings to children’ version might be ‘resist evil and never compromise, even if it costs your life’. The longer answer requires a commitment to living out the Catholic faith in its fullness, which finds its fruition in this moment of crisis.

“The Catholic Church thinks it ‘s better to be a dead virgin than a rape survivor?”

“Being murdered is preferable to being raped?”

When I am caught up in the violent choices made by others, I have only one choice – how to respond. The Catholic Church thinks it’s better to enter into heaven as a hero of the resistance than to remain on earth as a wounded soldier. Most societies honour their heroes precisely because they have gone ‘beyond their duty’. May not all of us, who are wounded in some way by the sins of others, honour the few who went above and beyond?

For The Planet

Homily for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B at St Philip Evans.

Oh no! Pope Francis just made a statement about caring for the environment!

That was the reaction of someone I’m connected to on Facebook. Surely saving the planet won’t get us to heaven? Why is the Pope bothering with stuff like that?

Well, my contact was right. Saving our planet won’t automatically save your soul. But we’ve only got one planet, and our well-being is interconnected. St James spells out clearly this week that if we truly have faith in God, that faith must pour forth in actions which show that we care for our neighbours. Pope Francis says, rightly (see #217), that caring for our planet is not an optional extra or a second-rate duty for us. It’s a measure of our love.

Oh no! Pope Francis just made a statement about caring for the environment!

OK, so perhaps the environment is something that popes should be talking about. But why is he talking about this now, when the Church is facing so many other problems? It’s not surprising really. For many years, the Eastern Orthodox churches have focussed on these issues around September 1st, and three years ago Pope Francis pledged the Catholic Church to mark the same date. So we should always expect the Pope to say something about green issues at this time of year.

Oh no! Pope Francis has just made a statement about the way we should care for the environment!

Oh yes! This means it’s time to take a fresh look at the way we care for our common home, Planet Earth.

I know it’s easy to become cyncial about the things we might do, and ask whether they really make a difference. Here in Cardiff, we have to put out our waste in green bags and food caddies. But we often hear rumours that our carefully separated waste ends up in landfill anyway. Is this true? The Council says that the contents of the green recycling bags are “separated and sent on to different recycling factories for paper, plastics, glass etc”. This is true, but according to the Western Mail, some of the “sending on” takes the waste to countries as far away as China and Indonesia – 11 thousand tonnes of paper waste went to China – and there some of it may not be recycled but could be dumped with other waste.

So there’s room for improvement, but our food waste is being compsted and much metal, plastic and paper waste is being recycled. Of course, the system won’t work at all unless we sort our waste properly at home. Cardiff’s current recycling and composting rate is 60 per cent – which means we’re doing better than all nine comparable cities in England and Scotland! But we can’t rest there. The council needs to recycle another 20,000 tonnes of the city’s waste by 2025 to meet an all-Wales 70% target. One big problem is that broken glass damages the machines used to separate metal, plastic and card, so we will soon get blue wheelie bins for glass. Rather than groaning at “another thing to do”, let’s embrace this as a positive act of love for humanity and the planet. And if any of us aren’t sorting our waste properly, the Council and the Pope would both like you to start doing so now!

What else can we do? On Friday I rang a few people to ask if there was just one thing they’d recommend you do to make a difference, what would it be?

Friends of the Earth replied: “That’s a wonderful question, and I’m glad you asked it today, because it’s plastic-free Friday!” Could you go one day a week without using disposable plastic – no straws, cups, cling-film or bottled water?

The Cardiff office of Christian Aid also suggested reducing plastic – or else switching to a green energy provider. Our parish is already part of a national consortium of Catholic organisations buying electricity and gas from renewable suppliers. We all have power bills to pay, and by choosing suppliers who are building turbines and solar panels, we can drive investment in the right kind of energy. Yes, I recognise that might make our bills a little more expensive – but we can also do things to save energy, and therefore save money. You can get advice on free energy-saving measures from an all-Wales organisation called Nest.

Evangelical charity Tear Fund suggested we could eat less meat. (They have other suggestions online, too.)

But the most challenging suggestion came from the local office of CAFOD. “Buy less, and use less! Don’t consume more than your fair share! Aspire not to have more, but to be more!”

Now, it’s not always easy to work out what our fair share us. But perhaps we can start by asking “how much is more than we need?” Do we need to put so much water in the kettle before we boil it? Do we buy more food that we can use before its expiry date? Can we freeze half a loaf, rather than wait for the last slices to go mouldy? And when we do need to spend money, every puchase is a vote for the kind of world we want. If we can afford the premium, can we pay extra for goods which are fairly traded or kinder on the environment?

Sometimes the right answer is not to buy something at all. If we want something with a designer label or simply for the sake of having it, have we made a good choice? Do we need the latest technology, or can we use an older model for a couple more years? Even if we’re not ready to totally give up eating meat or flying on holidays, every time we choose an alternative is a step in the right direction.

None of us can save the planet on our own – but together we can take small steps. Jesus challenges us to carry our cross every day, even though we are far from the end of our journey. We might feel daunted and ask, “Can I really make a difference?” Yes! Every positive decision matters to God and will be noticed in heaven. So make one positive decision today, and carry your green cross home.

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You can make a personal green pledge at LiveLaudatoSi.org!

The Bishops of England and Wales invite you to consider Our Common Home.

Ephphatha! Be open! (Sunday edition)

Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B at St Philip Evans (Sunday morning Signed Mass, and anticipating Home Mission Sunday 2018).

“Ephphatha!”

That’s not a word you hear every day.

The Gospels are written in Greek, but Our Lord Jesus spoke Aramaic, and sometimes one of the words he spoke was so powerful, that the Gospel writers wrote down exactly what he said. The disciples who were with him on that day must have sensed God’s power flowing through him strongly at that moment – and a man who had a lifelong impediment of hearing and speech suddenly spoke and heard clearly!

And now he has a voice, what’s the first thing Jesus asks him to do?

“Don’t tell anyone about me!”

Can you imagine having experienced such a mighty miracle, knowing that everyone will want to know the story of how you found your voice, and then not being allowed to talk about it? Ouch!

But we’re told that people ignored Jesus’ request and talked about him anyway.

Any story of healing is a challenge when we experience of lack of wholeness. This week, thousands of Deaf Catholics from around the world are gathering in Lourdes for an international pilgrimage. There are well over 100 recognised miracles of healing from Lourdes – but countless thousands of pilgrims who return without the physical healing they have hoped and prayed for. If God has the power to heal, why do we experience it so rarely? Perhaps God grants miracles especially where they will help people see that a bigger issue is at stake – so this man who cannot hear or speak is a sign to us that there are people who cannot hear who Jesus us or speak of him to others.

During his life on earth, Jesus was keen not to become too famous too quickly. Otherwise he might have been arrested before he had finished his work of preaching and healing. But once he rose from the dead – and try keeping that a secret! – things changed. Before he ascended into heaven, he told his friends and followers to go into the world and spread the good news.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is completing a journey through pagan lands. The people there don’t know about the God of the Bible. Some don’t believe in any god – others believe in various Greek or Roman gods. It’s rather like Britain today, where not so many people are Christian any more. We are called to talk about Jesus in a land which knows little about him!

If you need somewhere to start, I’m going to give you two easy lines. Perhaps you can repeat them after me:

Jesus was executed but rose from the dead. (Controversial, but why did were so many of his friends willing to die for insisting this was true?)

Following Jesus will lead you to Heaven.

There’s much more that can be said – the whole Bible is a love story about God reaching out to the human race. And by healing this man who cannot hear or speak, Jesus isn’t just curing one person, he is sending us a message. “O people of the world, can you hear what God wants to say to you? Are you able to pass on his good news to others?”

“Ephphatha! Be opened!”

Open your eyes! See that Jesus is present in our world. He is there whenever Christians gather in his name, but especially when the bread and wine consecrated at Mass are present. This weekend, thousands our of brothers and sisters are gathered in Liverpool, for a great celebration of our faith in Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament. To mark this “Adoremus” festival, you are all invited to gather with Jesus on Thursday evening to pray for this parish – before Mass next Saturday, to pray for priests – and on the last Wednesday of this month, to pray for protection of human life in the womb. We also have many opportunities during the week for private prayer in our chapel. So I’d like to invite everyone who doesn’t normally visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to come for one hour some time this month – and parents and godparents, please bring your children.

Open your lips! We’re too good at keeping Our Lord’s instruction today – “Don’t tell anyone about me!” We no longer live at a time when Jesus is in mortal danger; now we live under his command to tell the world. That’s why, next month, we’re starting our Discovering Christ course. Only by coming together in church groups where we can talk about Jesus and learn more about him, can we become comfortable sharing this message which people who aren’t church people. There’ll be more about Discovering Christ at the end of today’s Mass.

Open your hearts! Do you love Jesus? Have you experienced his love for you? Have you heard his gentle voice saying that you are his beloved brother or sister, and he wants to walk with you in good times and in bad? Only those who are open to his love can share it with others, but sometimes, through fear or doubt, our hearts are closed.

“Ephphatha! Be opened!” A long time ago, God’s power flowed through Jesus and loosened the tongue of a man who could not speak. Today, God’s power will pour out upon this altar to nourish us anew with the Body of Christ. One day soon, each of us will open our ears to what Jesus is asking us to do and our lips to flow with his praise. Open your eyes. Open your ears. Open your lips! Open your hearts! Ephphatha! In Jesus name, be open!

Ephphatha! Be open!

Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B at St Philip Evans (Saturday evening Mass, with baptisms, and anticipating Home Mission Sunday 2018).

“Ephphatha!”

That’s not a word you hear every day.

The Gospels are written in Greek, but Our Lord Jesus spoke Aramaic, and sometimes one of the words he spoke was so powerful, that the Gospel writers wrote down exactly what he said. The disciples who were with him on that day must have sensed God’s power flowing through him strongly at that moment – and a man who had a lifelong impediment of hearing and speech suddenly spoke and heard clearly!

And now he has a voice, what’s the first thing Jesus asks him to do?

“Don’t tell anyone about me!”

Can you imagine having experienced such a mighty miracle, knowing that everyone will want to know the story of how you found your voice, and then not being allowed to talk about it? Ouch!

But we’re told that people ignored Jesus’ request and talked about him anyway.

During his life on earth, Jesus was keen not to become too famous too quickly. Otherwise he might have been arrested before he had finished his work of preaching and healing. But once he rose from the dead – and try keeping that a secret! – things changed. Before he ascended into heaven, he told his friends and followers to go into the world and spread the good news.

Every Christian is called to be a bearer of the good news. That’s why, as soon as these two children are baptised this evening, I will carry out the “Rite of Ephphatha”. Just as Jesus did in the Gospels, I will touch their ears and their lips, and commission them to hear God’s commands and tell the world about Jesus.

Godparents, that’s where you come in.

How many of you here this evening are godparents to at least one person?

Your highest responsibility is, by your words and example, to teach your godchildren to talk about Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is completing a journey through pagan lands. The people there don’t know about the God of the Bible. Some don’t believe in any god – others believe in various Greek or Roman gods. It’s rather like Britain today, where not so many people are Christian any more. Your godchildren are called to talk about Jesus in a land which knows little about him!

If you need somewhere to start, I’m going to give you two easy lines. Perhaps you can repeat them after me:

Jesus died to save you from Hell.

Following Jesus will lead you to Heaven.

There’s much more that can be said – the whole Bible is a love story about God reaching out to the human race. And by healing this man who cannot hear or speak, Jesus isn’t just curing one person, he is sending us a message. “O people of the world, can you hear what God wants to say to you? Are you able to pass on his good news to others?”

“Ephphatha! Be opened!”

Open your eyes! See that Jesus is present in our world. He is there whenever Christians gather in his name, but especially when the bread and wine consecrated at Mass are present. This weekend, thousands our of brothers and sisters are gathered in Liverpool, for a great celebration of our faith in Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament. To mark this “Adoremus” festival, you are all invited to gather with Jesus on Thursday evening to pray for this parish – before Mass next Saturday, to pray for priests – and on the last Wednesday of this month, to pray for protection of human life in the womb. We also have many opportunities during the week for private prayer in our chapel. So I’d like to to invite everyone who doesn’t normally visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to come for one hour some time this month – and parents and godparents, please bring your children.

Open your lips! We’re too good at keeping Our Lord’s instruction today – “Don’t tell anyone about me!” We no longer live in a time when Jesus is in mortal danger; now we live under his command to tell the world. That’s why, next month, we’re starting our Discovering Christ course. Only by coming together in church groups where we can talk about Jesus and learn more about him, can we become comfortable sharing this message which people who aren’t church people. There’ll be more about Discovering Christ at the end of today’s Mass.

Open your hearts! Do you love Jesus? Have you experienced his love for you? Have you heard his gentle voice saying that you are his beloved brother or sister, and he wants to walk with you in good times and in bad? Only those who are open to his love can share it with others, but sometimes, through fear or doubt, our hearts are closed.

“Ephphatha! Be opened!” A long time ago, God’s power flowed through Jesus and loosened the tongue of a man who could not speak. Today, God’s power will open the fountain of baptism and join two children to the Body of Christ. One day soon, each of us will open our ears to what Jesus is asking us to do and our lips to flow with his praise. Open your eyes. Open your ears. Open your lips! Open your hearts! Ephphatha! In Jesus name, be open!

Impure, Spoilt Religion

Homily for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B at St Philip Evans.

Today I’d like to start with a story. In a school run by nuns, the children were queuing up for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. One of the nuns had left a note next to the pile: “Take only ONE. God is watching.”

At the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. There was also a note here, written by one of the children. “Take all you want. God is watching the apples.”

When you heard today’s Gospel, you realised that Jesus was keeping an eye on the Pharisees – but he’s big enough to keep an eye on you, too! He caught the Pharisees in impure religion – emphasising minor things but missing the point of what God wants them to do. Jesus taught his apostles how to keep the key things at the centre, so it’s not surprising our letter today has St James writing to us about “pure, unspoiled religion.”

That got me thinking. What kind of things can spoil our “religion” today?

One trap we can fall into, is paying minute attention to ritual and traditions. After the Second Vatican Council, 50 years ago, the way we celebrate Mass was reformed. The most obvious change was allowing Mass to be said in modern languages – but even if the “new Mass” is celebrated in Latin, it’s very streamlined compared to what we had before. This was a big change – Mass as celebrated in Latin in 1950 was not very different from what would have been celebrated in 1650, and would have even looked similar to what was being celebrated in Rome a thousand years earlier. We know that the way of celebrating Mass evolved greatly in the first four centuries of Christianity, but for some Catholics, adjusting something that has been fixed by Popes for hundreds of years challenged their sense of identity. This was a big reason – though not the only reason – that groups like the Society of St Pius X broke away from the leadership of the Pope.

There’s nothing new about rules about rituals. Some rabbis estimate that the Law of Moses contained 613 laws about things Jews must or must not do – and many of these concerned rituals. Most of those laws no longer apply to us as Christians. And our bishops have not added many “religious” rules that we have to follow as Catholics. We are asked to fast for an hour before communion, to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, to abstain from meat on every Friday, to attend Mass on Sundays and on six extra Holy Days each year, to go to confession and receive communion at least once a year, and to receive the Church’s blessing when we get married. That’s closer to six laws than to six hundred!

Of course, some of us really don’t like having to accept any rules made by other human beings, even if they are church leaders, so let’s remember that all of these little rules are there to help us get better at loving Jesus. We choose to fast or abstain from meat on certain days when we say, “Lord, I thank you for dying for me.” We fast before communion in order to say, “Jesus, I am going to wait for you before I taste common food, because you are my priority”. We come to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days – unless we are sick or the conditions are unsafe – to reaffirm that Jesus is the most important priority in our lives.

But is he?

This brings us to the other trap – the trap of agreeing with Jesus rather than following him.

You often hear the passage from James summed up as “True religion is helping widows and orphans!”

This is true, but – like the message that God’s got his eye on the apples – it’s not the whole truth! Most of us have good hearts and naturally care about other people. You don’t have to have a religion to be a humanitarian – lots of people care about people! Millions of people who call themselves Christians have a religion that works like this: “I care about people. Jesus cared about people too! I agree with Jesus – so I must be a Christian. Perhaps some of us here today, who have grown up in Catholic families, are very comfortable with the caring side of the Church’s work.”

Caring about people is important. Next week we’ll hear St James say that you don’t really have a Christian faith if you aren’t motivated to help people in need. But it doesn’t work the other way round – you can be highly motivated to help people, but not be a follower of Jesus.

“True religion is helping widows and orphans!” – but keep going! James hasn’t finished yet! Pure unspoilt religion is also “keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world”. A few verses earlier, he wrote “Do what God’s Word tells you, don’t just listen to it.” So true religion is also focused on keeping the teachings of Jesus and not allowing ourselves to be influenced by the values of the world around us. Any good person will agree with Jesus when he tells us to love our neighbour. But it takes a follower of Jesus to disagree with the rest of the world!

So as we begin our new cycle of activities, here are some questions:

• How are you doing at loving your enemies?
• How are you doing at forgiving the person who offends you most?
• How are you doing at praying to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit every day?
• How are you doing at keeping the fasts and feasts of the church?

Our religion is about two things: loving God and loving our neighbour. Either on its own is not enough. Our Lord had to give us two commandments, not one, to sum up everything… and the child with the cookies would have needed a larger piece of paper:

God is watching both the apples and the cookies. Please help yourself, leave enough for other people, and share what you have with those in need. Don’t forget to thank him for the food!