Missionaries of the Right Religion

Homily at the Catholic Parishes of Maesteg and Aberkenfig for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B.

A transatlantic airliner lost power in both its engines. The terrified stewardess saw a priest wearing his collar in the front seat and cried out: “Help! Do something religious!” Eventually the engines restarted, but not before the priest had taken a collection and raised £99!

These days, being “religious” has a bad name. One in five British people might call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, believing that it’s good to connect with God, but not necessary to follow any rules about it. In Afghanistan we see the threat of the Taliban, who have extreme religious values they want to impose on wider society. In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenged the ritual washing taught by certain Pharisees, saying their religious customs were not needed.

Now please don’t stop keeping good hygiene! In the 18 months since our Prime Minister went on television to show us how to wash our hands properly, we’ve all become acutely aware of sanitising both our hands and the things we touch. What Jesus was criticising wasn’t basic hand hygiene, but much more elaborate rituals of washing hands up to the elbow, and perhaps even after each course of a meal! Perhaps these customs were based in fear about our values becoming corrupted by the world around us… so Jesus points out that the values which are already in our hearts reveal what kind of person we are. What is clear is that Jesus said those washing customs were made up by human beings, and were not part of a commandment given by God.

So what commandments ARE given to us by God? It’s a very great responsibility to claim that the Maker and ultimate Judge of the Universe has given us instructions that we are expected to follow. If we put false instructions in the Lord’s mouth we’ll be guilty both of manipulating vulnerable human beings and of insulting the Most High God! This is why Moses – who had a very good claim to know exactly what God wanted – solemnly warned the Jewish people about altering the laws he was passing down. And yet many of those Jewish laws no longer apply to us as followers of Jesus – or some scholars would say that Jesus keeps them on our behalf.

What laws do apply to us? Jesus was asked what the “greatest commandment” was, and found it neccessary to give us two. Love God, and love our neighbour. Later he celebrated the Last Supper, and showed us how the best way to love God was to “do this in memory of me”. The whole life of Jesus is a study of what it means to love our neighbour – and in particular, to forgive even people who don’t deserve our forgiveness.

Religion is not a bad thing. We’re doing something religious right now – we’re part of a celebration of Mass. We are obediently doing what Our Lord asked us to do, and we’re using set forms of words given to us by the leaders of our Church. That’s part of our religion, too – we have priests, and bishops who have inherited the authority of St Peter. 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 when it’s safe to do so, to go to confession and receive communion at least once a year, and to receive the Church’s blessing when we get married.

But rules and rituals can give us a false sense of security. Just going to Mass or following all these religious rules won’t get us all the way to heaven. We must also check the values in our hearts. That’s why St James wrote that “Pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.”

Friends, we are God’s ambassadors to Aberkenfig, his messengers to Maesteg. But to be credible witnesses we must “walk the walk” as well as “talk the talk”. Who are the “orphans and widows” in our families and in this local community? Are we seen to be people who help others who are in need? And what are the worldly contaminants which are in danger of corrupting us?

A few verses earlier, St James wrote “Do what God’s Word tells you, don’t just listen to it.” God has given us a great gift, the freedom to choose to do the right thing even though our darker feelings might be trying to lead us astray. Many of the unclean things Jesus warned us about are temptations to harm other people with our words, attitudes or actions. Others are the temptations to satisfy ourselves with material things or sexual pleasure. When we become aware of these dark forces within ourselves, we can do two thngs. One is to come to a priest in confession. The other is to make a prayer to God, declaring that we renounce these sinful attitudes and we ask Jesus for freedom from future temptation. and deliverance.

So as we move into September and begin a new cycle of activities, here are some questions to ponder

• 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. But do something religious – worship at Church and help someone in need – even if you have to take a collection!

Missionaries of the Master

Homily at the Catholic Parishes of Maesteg and Aberkenfig for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B.

Friends, what are you doing here today?

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m very glad you ARE here today, especially in this difficult season. But I wonder, if we stop ourselves to ask why we came today – what would be motivating us?

I’m guessing that some of us are here because we’re afraid that God will be angry if we don’t turn up. I know from my experience as a priest that it’s very easy for Catholics to feel guilty about missing Mass, even if the reason is that there’s six feet of snow on the ground or you’re lying in bed with flu. It seems, at least for those of us who are older, that it was beaten into us – I hope not literally – that we must be at Mass on Sundays if we don’t want to go to Hell.

That is so nearly right, and at the same time so terribly wrong. What you should have been taught contains one word which is very easy to miss. It is CHOOSING not to go to Mass that sends you to Hell. That may sound dramatic, but look at it like this: Heaven is living in God’s house. Hell is living outside God’s house; and we get a choice where we are going to live. There are times in our lives when we don’t have a choice and that’s when it’s bad weather or illness or a government lockdown that stops us from coming to Sunday mass. We have no choice at all; and where there is no choice there can be no sin. There can, however, be lots of regret. If you ever find yourself on a Sunday wishing you were at Mass and regretting the circumstances which are stopping you from being there, take time to pray, offer the Lord your regret, and that will be a very worthy sacrifice of praise for the Lord’s Day.

Being scared of God is a terrible motivation. Can you imagine sharing this message? “Hey, why not join the Catholic Church! We can teach you to feel afraid of God, and then you can spend every Sunday in fear and trembling worrying that you have to get to Mass or else be damned to hell.” I don’t know about you but that doesn’t seem to me to be a very attractive way to present the Good News of Jesus.

Some of us will be here today because of a sense of belonging; this church community is like family, and we gather to be with the people that we love. That’s a good reason to be here! But it doesn’t always motivate us to open the doors of the house and invite all our friends. Family can be a safe place, the house we run to behind closed doors. But this is the Father’s house, and his doors are open wide to all. So let’s be careful, in case our sense of belonging becomes selfish and stops us from inviting other people to join our family.

I’m not going to take a show of hands, but I wonder, if I did, how many of you would say “Yes the reason I’m here today is to serve the Lord – I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and I’ve come to worship him?” That is the best reason to be at Mass. And if we know why we’ve chosen to be followers of Jesus, we can share that story with other people. How does knowing Jesus change my life for the better? How has following him helped me find spiritual safety? How have I experienced Him feeding me through the Word proclaimed at Mass and the Bread of Life?

Joshua reminded the people what God had done for them, rescuing them from slavery in Egypt. Today, take a moment to remember who God is and who you are. God is a loving Father, who sent his Son, Jesus, as a teacher and sacrifice. Because Jesus died on the Cross, anyone who follows him can go to heaven despite their sins. Don’t ask me how it works! I’m not God! All I know is this was so important that Jesus came to say “follow me, and you will find safety in heaven”. You are a sinner, plagued by guilt and regret. When you have made truly wrong choices, you can run to Jesus and say “I’m sorry!” and he will always forgive you! When you regret things in your life which were beyond your control, you can run to Jesus and tell him “This hurts!” And he will reply: “I love you.”

Now, my friends, see what these words are saying to your hearts. Is Jesus the Holy One of God? Is following him the path to eternal life? We do make a bold claim. Not all religions are equal. Following Buddha or Krishna or the Qu’ran will teach you something about living a good life, but will not take you all the way to heaven. Jesus is the only one who can take away our sins. This is why the Church offers baptism, confession, Anointing of the Sick and holy communion.

Friends, you are God’s messengers to Maesteg, his ambassadors to Aberkenfig. The most important message you will ever carry is the invitation to follow Jesus. And the best way to carry the message is by telling the story of how Jesus forgave your sins and changed your life for the better. So ask yourselves today: Am I here to please an angry father? Am I here to be with my friends? Or am I here to follow Jesus on the road to eternal life?

Perhaps you’ve never looked at things this way before. Perhaps you need a moment of prayer in your heart. Jesus, help me see that God is not angry, but doesn’t want me left outside his house! Jesus, help me see that the Father’s house is not only for me but for all the people in this town. Jesus, help me make a decision today that I will serve you out of love, not fear, and invite others to do the same. 

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Missionaries of the Blessed Mother

Homily at the Catholic Parishes of Maesteg and Aberkenfig for the Solemnity of the Assumption, 2021.

“Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?”

These were the words of St Elizabeth when the newly-pregnant Virgin Mary arrived to meet with her. But they could also be the words of anyone who receives the Mother of Jesus into their daily life.

Today we rejoice that the Virgin Mary entered into heaven, body and soul. This means that she is in a perfect position to be God’s messenger to earth.

During the last 200 years, many people – believers, and some unbelievers – have claimed to have been visited by the holy Mother of God. The Church authorities are always careful to investigate, because there will be false claims as well as true ones. But in the claims which pass the test of truth, Our Lady usually comes to ask us to pray, and often to pray the rosary.

To St Catherine Labouré in 1830, she simply asked us to invoke her prayers for ourselves: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.” Her promise was that if we entrust ourselves to her, we will receive the help we need from heaven to live lives pleasing to God.

Ten years later, at the same convent in Paris, Our Lady asked us to pray for those who had fallen away from the Catholic faith, or have not yet embraced it. She gaves us these words: “Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”

The heart of Mary is burning with love for all of us – those who follow Jesus faithfully, those who struggle to do so, those who have turned away and those who have not yet heard of him. Her heart is open especially to those who suffer – for she herself knew great suffering. When she said YES to God’s plan, she was saying yes to the stigma of being an unmarried mother, the years of exile as a refugee in Egypt, and the heartbreak of seeing her only son crucified before her eyes. But she was also saying yes to the glory and reward offered to all who are faithful to God.

When she appeared to St Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, she said, “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.” Indeed, the young visionary entered a convent but died of tuberculosis at the age of 35.

In 1917, she appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima. They passed on to the world her invitation to pray the rosary every day, for peace in the world. They also passed on a new prayer from heaven to be said at the end of each decade: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Your Mercy.” Two of those children died soon afterwards in the influeznza pandemic which swept across Europe; one, Lúcia, was left to live into her 90s as a witness to the world.

During the last hundred years, there have been many more claims that Mary has appeared with messages (here’s one in India). The Church has authenticated some and reserved judgment on others. But it is safe to say that the Mother of God continues to visit us to invite us to pray for sinners, to ask for her heavely asisstance for ourselves, and to lead us gently to follow her beloved son, Jesus Christ.

What happens when we are honoured with a visit from the mother of our Lord? All too often we rush to the holy place and start telling our Blessed Mother what WE want. “I need a job! I need healing for a broken relationship! My best friend has cancer – please do something!” Now it is never wrong to ask Our Lady and the saints to pray for our human needs – but it is rude to speak and not listen to what they want from us. Our Blessed Mother is asking us to pray the rosary for peace in the world. She is asking us to pray for the conversion of sinners. She is asking us to turn to her with open hands, seeking the graces we need to live better Christian lives.

I know it’s not easy to make time for prayer… you might have children or grandchildren at home who aren’t interested. Maybe your spouse isn’t catholic. But try. If you can’t pray a whole rosary, pray a decade. I know one family with a disabled child who make it a priority to pray the rosary at about 6 o’clock each evening. When the children are in a difficult mood they might have to settle for each child leading a single Hail Mary – but they don’t make excuses. Any prayer is infinitely better than no prayer!

So, brothers and sisters in Christ, what are you going to do about this?

You are heaven’s ambassadors to Aberkenfig, heaven’s messengers to Maesteg. When did you last pray a rosary for peace in the world? When did you last invite a member of your family or circle of friends to pray a rosary with you? I know that in this parish, the rosary is said on Monday evenings. Thank you to those who pray the rosary faithfully. If you haven’t been recently, what is stopping you from joining? If the place and time don’t work for you, do you choose to pray at another time?

Of course, no Catholic is required to pray the rosary. It’s not a sin if you don’t. But Our Blessed Mother is inviting us to do this. She is already in heaven – and one day, when you go to heaven, you will meet her. What will you have in your hands when you do?

Prepare a place for the Virgin Mary in your life. Ask for her help. Entrust to her the people you know who have fallen away from our faith, or not yet embraced it. And above all, call your mother – she’s waiting to hear from you!

Missionaries of the Eucharist

Homily at the Catholic Parishes of Maesteg and Aberkenfig for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B.

Friends, you are Our Lord’s messengers to Maesteg, his ambassadors to Aberkenfig.

You are the people he trusts to make his church grow here.

Priests come and go. You might have a priest from Ghana for a few years, or a priest from Llanelli for a few weeks – but you are heaven’s permanent representatives in this place. What, then, is the message which heaven wants to send through you at this time?

In our Sunday gospel two weeks ago, Jesus showed his divine power by feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves and fishes. Last week we heard him preach to the same congregation and declare, “I am the bread of life!” Now if that was the only thing Our Lord said about bread, we could shrug it off as a metaphor – “Hey! I’m the person who’s going to sustain you!” But in what we heard today, Jesus begins to show his listeners that this message is much more literal:

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;
and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,
for the life of the world.

If you read even further on in St John’s Gospel, you’ll hear Our Lord use even stronger language! A literal translation would say that “You must chew on my flesh and quaff my blood in order to have eternal life within you!”

At this point, the Bible tells us that many of his listeners began to scoff. If you’ll pardon my language, they started asking, “What the heck is he talking about?” – and they probably used stronger words that that, which I’d better not use from this pulpit. Even though they had seen a miracle, many decided to stop following him.

Even the 12 Apostles were scratching their heads.

Remember, the Last Supper hasn’t happened yet, so they couldn’t make any sense of how they were meant to eat the flesh and drink the blood of this man standing in front of them, their beloved teacher, Jesus. But of course once the Last Supper had taken place, and Jesus had risen from the dead, all the pieces fell into place for them. Now they could obey his command to take bread and wine and bless it in his memory, so that all his followers could receive his own body and blood as holy communion.

Jesus came to us as a messenger from heaven, to tell us it was important to take Holy Communion, in order to enter eternal life. We are called to pass on that message.

Jesus is not promising that you or I will feel anything special when we receive communion; He simply promises that if we eat the bread of life we will inherit eternal life. And that’s what’s kept me a faithful Catholic since I was received into the Church 31 years ago. I’ve attended many conferences and church services with other Christians, and sometimes they are really good at doing things that we’re not so good at in the Catholic Church. I’ve seen amazing worship bands, and teams of young people bending over backwards to provide hospitality and make new members of the congregation welcome. But I would never transfer my membership to any of those Christian communities, because there’s only one place where I can receive the bread of life, and that’s at the hands of an ordained priest.

I’ve only once has a deep spiritual experience connected to the Blessed Sacrament – three years after I became a Catholic, praying in front of a tabernacle, I sensed Our Lord speaking to my heart, saying that my prayer that day had been accepted. One thing I do know from my own experience is that once I started becoming a daily Massgoer, God began to change something in my heart which helped me move from being a very academic person who didn’t particularly care about other people, to being someone who cared enough that I could eventually enter seminary and embrace the calling of a Catholic priest.

Maybe you’ve had a personal experience of being nourished by the Eucharist. Can you put your hand on your heart and say from your own experience that the blessed sacrament is your bread of life? Some of us can – but others walk by faith alone. It doesn’t matter; both faith and spiritual experiences are God’s gifts to us.

Now, as Our Lord’s messengers to Maesteg, his ambassadors to Aberkenfig, you have a task entrusted to you. It is to remind the friends of Jesus that they must receive the Blessed Sacrament in order to fully enter eternal life.

You will know some Catholics who have stayed away from Mass because of the risk of covid-19. That is quite understandable. There are some who for health reasons still need to shield. But the Bread of Life can be received at home. Do you know anyone who is too embarrassed to ask for communion at home? Please encourage them to ask. Yes, our priests are busy, but there are three requests a priest never wants to ignore. “Please hear my confession. Please anoint a sick person. Please send Holy Communion to someone who cannot come to Mass.”

You’ll know other Catholics who don’t need to shield. Why not have a quiet word, and ask them when they will receive the Bread of Life again? You may also know Catholics who, long before the pandemic, found a place to worship in a different Christian community. Perhaps you could gently ask them, as followers of Jesus, how they obey his command to eat his flesh and drink his blood in the place they worship? You may even know friends who were never Catholic but are asking questions about Jesus. They too are invited to the Lord’s table.

Jesus only preached about the need to eat his body and blood to a crowd who were ready to listen to him. Holy Communion isn’t a great starting point with people who don’t know God at all. In a couple of weeks, I will preach about how we introduce Our Lord to people who don’t yet know him. But the invitation to feast on the Bread of Life is for those who are already friends of Jesus Christ.

Two final thoughts. One is a word to anyone who comes faithfully to Mass even though you can’t receive Holy Communion – either because you are not yet Catholic or because you are living in a relationship the Church has not blessed. To you, I say thank you for your faithfulness and for persevering in living close to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The other is to those of you who will receive Holy Communion at the end of today’s service. We usually speak of us ‘receiving Jesus in Holy Communion’. But have you ever looked at it the other way round – that Jesus wants to receive you in Holy Communion? As you receive His Body, so he receives your body to be physically united with his Sacramental Presence. Our Lord is longing for closeness and communion with you. He’s glad that you are here today – glad that you came to say “I love you”. It may feel strange to receive Holy Communion as you exit the church instead of the usual time, but know that you, Our Lord’s chosen messengers to Maesteg, his ambassadors to Aberkenfig, going out to invite others to the heavenly banquet, will be sent on your way with a kiss from God.