Time for Prayer

Homily at St Dyfrig’s, Treforest, All Hallows’, Miskin and Ss Gabriel & Raphael, Tonypandy, for the 1st Sunday of Lent, Year A.

You must worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.

How are you doing with that?

Apart from what you’ve just done at this Mass, when did you last pray?

For most of us, prayer is an invitation, not an obligation.

Unless you’ve joined a religious order or made a private vow, you are under no obligation to pray in any particular time or in any particular way, apart from coming to Mass on Sundays.

When you are preparing to make a good confession, do you ask yourself, “Did I say my morning prayers?” Maybe that’s not the most helpful question, because prayer is a lifestyle, not a labour.

What’s important is not that you spend 2 or 5 or 10 minutes saying certain words when you wake up or before you go to bed, but that you give God the place He deserves in your life – which is first place.

The most useful advice I was ever given in seminary was: “If you don’t pray first, you won’t pray.”

Now that could mean praying as your first act on regaining consciousness in the morning. But it could mean the first 10 minutes when the kids have headed off to school, or 5 minutes at the end of the working day before you drive the car home. When is the first opportunity in your daily rhythm to give God a few quality minutes of your time? A better question to ask ourselves is “Did I put my relationship with God first today?”

Jesus went off to the wilderness not only to fast, but to pray. He made space in his life to reconnect with God. Later he would spend whole nights in prayer. We too have the possibility of going off to a monastery or convent to spend time away – and next Saturday we’ll also have a chance to spend a few hours in prayer at our parish Day of Recollection. But a day of prayer needs to be balanced with daily prayer. So how might we start?

We all have to eat. Giving thanks for food is one of the most basic prayers. The Jewish people had many special blessings for meals, and we know whenever Jesus ate, he first gave thanks to God. If you aren’t sure what prayer to use, but you like variety, you can get a grace cube with six different prayers so you can “roll a prayer” at each mealtime.

Giving thanks for food leads us to giving thanks for nature. In Genesis, we heard that the fruit of garden was “enticing to look at and good to eat”. Many people find a walk in the open air is a very contemplative thing to do, and yes, we can find God in a garden. But the beauty of the fruit led humanity into a trap, the trap of putting the delight of their eyes before the Word of God. For though one fruit looked delicious, God has said “don’t eat it”.

We find the Word of God in the pages of the Bible and the ancient Tradition of the church which dates back to the Apostles. Jesus had to know the Bible really well to avoid falling into the trap of the Devil quoting verses out of context. Maybe this Lent is an invitation for us to pick up the Bible and start reading. There are lots of good study aids around, not least the Bible In A Year podcast – and you can take more than a year to do it!

In our second reading today, the Bible reminded us that we are all sinners, but Jesus has the power to restore us. So an important prayer for each of us is asking mercy from God for our sins – for the little daily sins, a prayer is enough, though it’s good to come to confession at least once a year, especially in Lent. There are two benefits to confession: first, you will leave certain that all your sins are forgiven, and second, because it is a sacrament, God promises you divine help to fight against future temptation.

Perhaps when you think of prayer you think first of asking God for things. That’s OK. Jesus did teach us to ask for our daily bread. But let’s be careful of falling into the trap of bargaining with God: If you do X for me, I will do Y for you – as Jesus said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test!”

When we start asking God for things, let’s remember to ask for other people. Pope Francis has taught about prayer using our fingers: Thumb for those closest to us, pointing finger for our teachers, tallest finger for our leaders, weakest finger for those in most need, and the littlest finger for ourselves.

All of these ways of praying are important. But what’s most important is that we pray in a way which feels natural and fits into our daily life. Prayer doesn’t just happen; it’s a choice. We all have to wait in queues from time to time; with a rosary in your pocket, every delay can be a moment to pray. If you have a mobile device and you find yourself wasting hours mindlessly scrolling, why not put a prayer app on your phone and give those hours to God?

Today’s message is an invitation to growth, not despair. I am not here to condemn anyone for prayers which haven’t been said. I am here to encourage you to do one small thing to grow in love for God, and that love is shown best by giving God some quality time each day.

You must worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone. We have an Enemy who doesn’t want you to do that. But it’s your choice, not his. So why not choose one new opportunity? A prayer before your journey home? Grace at your next meal? A look back at this day at bedtime? Disappoint the devil. Today is a good day to pray.

Candidates for Candour

Homily at the Rhondda Parishes for Ash Wednesday.

“They commissioned an investigation into themselves – and they found themselves guilty!”

I was listening to the news last week, when a report came on about the Champions League Football Final in May 2022. Real Madrid played Liverpool in Paris, but the security team handled the crowds badly – there was nearly a crush or a stampede, and it almost became a tragedy. A report was commissioned and earlier this month it was published. Who was to blame for what happened? The European football union, UEFA. And who commissioned the report? UEFA! I wonder if that is what UEFA expected to happen?

Lent is the season where each one of us is invited to commission an investigation into ourself. We do so expecting to find ourself guilty. Indeed, the best way to approach Lent is to look for that one fault or sin we’ve been avoiding tackling for some time. We don’t want to go there. But if not now, then when?

If we can’t acknowledge what’s gone wrong, we can’t put it right. And there’s something in all of us which doesn’t want to accept that we’re wrong. Just the other day, someone pointed out to me a fault, that I’d omitted to do something I was supposed to do. My first reaction was to find someone else to blame – “Oh, that wasn’t printed in the instructions!” But I thought about it for a bit longer and realised it was my fault, because I had missed a page. And so I knew what I had to do – apologise to the person affected.

In some industries, there’s a duty of candour. When something goes wrong, professionals have a responsibility to speak up and say so, to stop it happening again. Airline pilots have to be honest about faults, because lives are at stake. And the NHS says this:

The … duty of candour is a professional responsibility to be open and honest with patients and families when something that goes wrong with their treatment … causes … harm or distress. This includes saying sorry and taking action to put things right where possible. It is always the right thing to do and is not an admission of liability.

In other words, when something goes wrong, the NHS will say “We’re sorry, but we’re not saying it’s our fault.”

It’s not so hard to say “I’m sorry that happened.” It’s much harder to say, “I’m sorry, and yes it’s my fault.” Of course sometimes admitting fault gets the lawyers involved and we have to be careful what we say. I’ve been in minor car accidents where my Christian instinct was to say “I’m awfully sorry, that was clearly my fault” but I know what my insurers would say if those words came out of my mouth!

What it comes to our relationship with God, we don’t need a lawyer. We already have two advocates. The Holy Spirit whispers to our hearts that we have sinned and need to repent. Our Lord Jesus pleads our case before the Father: “Yes, m’Lord. Gareth has admitted that he is guilty and asks for a lenient sentence. In fact, I am willing to pay his fine so that he can go free.”

It’s no good trying to get into an argument with God protesting that we are innocent. God knows. He sees all. But he loves us, and offers us hope. Hear these words from the prophet Ezekiel:

Repent, renounce all your sins, avoid all occasions of sin! Shake off all the sins you have committed against me, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why are you so anxious to die, House of Israel? I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – it is the Lord who speaks. Repent and live!

Ezekiel 18:30-32

So why do we do the things we do today – placing ashes on our heads and limiting what we eat? They are our admissions of guilt. Unless we admit that we are sinners, we can never receive God’s mercy. And we do these things together as a community, praying for one another as we repent and turn to God on our path to holiness.

Pope Clement I summed up God’s mercy this way: “If our sins should reach from earth to heaven, if they are brighter than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, we need only turn to God with our whole heart and say, ‘Father,’ and He will listen to us as a holy people.”

So this Lent, let’s support one another. As we come forward for ashes, pray in your heart that each person receives the grace to turn from sin and become the saint God is calling them to be. Let’s be kind to one another, rejoice in one another’s honesty and if someone apologises for their sin, thank them and support them in doing the right thing.

So commission an investigation into yourself. Expect you will be found wanting. Decide what action to take. But above all, put your trust in God and support one another in this work, for together, we can overcome sin. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!

Saints Like Us

Homily at All Hallows’, Miskin and Ss Gabriel & Raphael, Tonypandy, for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A.

(Context: National Marriage Week 2023 and the day after World Day of the Sick 2023.)

Every saint has a past… so every sinner has a future! The difference between a sinner and a saint is one good confession.

Do you get worried when you hear talk of saints? The Church holds up these role models who don’t seem anything like me! I’m never going to go and live in the slums of Calcutta and tend the dying like Mother Teresa. Nor will I ever found a religious order – I’m not St Francis of Assisi, or St Ignatius of Loyola. So many of the saints seem to have been priests, even bishops, but that’s probably not your calling either. Instead, let me tell you the story of Henry and Claire.

This young couple met on a pilgrimage in 2002; each immediately intuited that the other was ‘the One’. Five months later, they shared their first kiss. Four years after that they quarrelled badly and realised they could not live together peacefully; so Claire went away for a few day’s retreat.

On her return home, a message from Henry demanded the return of the exercise weights he’d left in her house; what he didn’t expect was that she’d return them in person. They talked; and slowly, they began to rebuild their relationship. The following spring they broke up again, and turned to their spiritual director, an Italian priest.

Together, they began to understand that choosing marriage means taking responsibility for one’s own weaknesses and shortcomings. A relationship which is not lived with this depth is not the vocation of marriage – but merely accompanying another person until death. They realised that in marriage, only God, not your beloved spouse, will become the ultimate source of your happiness and fulfilment. Quickly, Henry and Claire understood what they needed to do, became engaged, and were married the same autumn.

The path God had chosen for them was a hard one. In 2009, Claire gave birth to their first child, born with a terrible deformity of the skull. They had known this day was coming, and a scan had warned them that the child would not live long after birth; their devout faith meant there was no question of choosing abortion. Yet at the funeral of Mary Grace Joy*, her parents were found not in the front pew for family mourners, but seated among the choir, leading songs of praise that their firstborn had already joined the saints in heaven.

Further joys and sorrows followed. Claire quickly conceived again… but the following June, they celebrated the funeral of their second child, David John**, born with a totally unrelated birth defect. This time, the funeral found Claire leading bidding prayers for all mothers and future mothers.

In the summer of 2012, Claire herself lay on her deathbed. She had been diagnosed with cancer at the same time as becoming pregnant with a healthy child. She postponed aggressive treatment so her third child, Francesco, could be born safely; but the cancer was not treatable, and Claire passed into God’s hands on June 13th, after 28 years of life and four of marriage.

Claire and Henry’s story sounds like a tragedy, but everyone who knew Claire spoke of her great joy. Five years after her death, Henry was interviewed and shared these words:

Faith, like life, is a journey, and if you want to die happy like Claire, you need to walk that path. During this voyage, God sends you things you must embrace, because He knows He can ask them of you; He wants what is good for you, and doesn’t give you a cross to crush you, but rather, to make you open to something else, to something you have not even imagined. We had no doubt that was the case here. … Faith and courage are not the same. The opposite of fear isn’t bravery, but faith. When you have faith, your strength comes from Someone else; when you are brave, you are the one who makes the effort alone. She had Someone else’s strength.

Claire and Henry – or to give them their proper Italian names, Enrico Petrillo and Chiara Corbella – knew the agony and ecstasy of having God as a Father who was preparing them for heaven. Chiara had the joy of knowing her children were safely in Heaven and we have little reason to doubt that she too, as one who laid down her life for the sake of her child, will be there; her cause for canonization is open and she may soon be recognised by the Church as a saint.

Today’s readings all point us to holiness. St Paul once wrote “Be angry, but do not sin.” Feelings of anger are not sin – but they are temptations. With God’s grace, we can respond differently. Asked by a journalist, Enrico said: “I’ve never gotten angry, because the Lord was in our life and we knew that He is a kind Father.”

Lust is also part of our fallen human condition. But we do not need to follow our sexual temptations – and I’ve put some useful online links in the Newsletter for anyone who is struggling in this area.

Saints are not only people who do things we could never do – they are also people like us. Consider Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux, canonized for the holiness of their marriage. Or Blessed Carlo Acutis, who died as a teenager after publishing a website about miracles involving the Blessed Sacrament. Or Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, another who died before the age of 20, recognised for her holiness in bringing light to all her friends.

What’s the difference between a kind person and a good person? A good person puts God at the centre of their lives. Without prayer and a relationship with God, a person can be thoroughly kind, but never wholly good.

Every saint has a past… so every sinner has a future! We cannot become truly good alone, but the only prayer you need is… “Help!” The difference between a sinner and a saint is one good confession. Why not let your sainthood begin today?

* Maria Grazia Lutetia

** Davide Giovanni

Unsalted

Homily at Ss Gabriel & Raphael, Tonypandy, St Mary Magdalene, Ynyshir, and St Dyfrig’s, Treforest, for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A.

Love without Christ is like grit without salt.

How can salt lose its saltiness? The secret is that what was called “salt” in the ancient world was not pure salt as we buy for our dinner tables today, but rather rock salt, like the coarse grit we use on frozen paths – a mixture of sand and salt. So when grit has the salt washed out of it, you still have some sand, and that’s even useful for getting a grip, but you don’t have the salt which lowers the freezing point of water.

In the same way, there are two standards of love in the world today – a general kindness that anyone can practice, and a higher standard of self-sacrifice which is powered by the grace which only God can give.

Jesus once commented that you don’t have to be one of his followers to be kind to your friends, since everyone in the world does that; but we are to love our enemies and go out of our way to do good for those people who can never return the favour.

It’s only when we go above and beyond what other people would do, that the light of Christ shines from us, a light which causes others to ask what is motivating us. But we are called to be light to the world. Jesus Himself is the Great Light, but we too are called to shine. We are members of His Body and so his light will shine through us, if we allow him to do so.

One flicker of light can illumine the darkness. Don’t underestimate the power of light. Your eye, without the help of a telescope, can see the Andromeda Galaxy which is 15 million million million miles away. You can also see a candle flame a mile and a half away on a dark night. Even a little light transforms a dark place – and that is what Jesus expects of us.

Salt reminds us of three gifts that Jesus shares with us. He is King – and each one of us can use the power we have in a kind and considerate way, just as we use the power of salt to keep our roads passable in winter. Jesus is our Great High Priest but we are also called to preserve the world by our prayers, as salt is used to preserve meat. Jesus was the greatest of prophets, God’s Word in flesh among us; and we too have a voice to speak out even when we have no power. Then we are like the salt which gets into a wound, calling for the world’s attention, just as St Paul relied not on the power of his own words but on the power of God.

So how can we be salt and light to the world this week? We can start by avoiding negative comments about other people. We can do even better by looking for things to praise and affirm. We can’t all go out and volunteer for charitable causes, but we can bring the light of Christ to the situations which are part of our day-to-day life. And this means even more than bringing our A-game, being the best versions of ourself. Yes, we do the good that we can do by our own power, but we don’t need to rely just on our own power. By our baptism, and even more by our confirmation, we have access to God’s power. We can pray to the Holy Spirit to work through us a generosity, an openness to God’s prompting, which goes beyond anything we could ask or imagine. Love without Christ is like grit without salt. But empowered by Christ we will have courage to give until it hurts, and then keep on giving. Anyone can share from their surplus. But the light of Christ shines when we choose to be generous even when our own resources are stretched. His resources are boundless. Today we are challenged to add salt.

This coming week is Racial Justice Week. It’s a good time to look again at the connections we have with people from different races or cultures. We might have perfectly amicable working relationships with people from our church, school or workplace – but is there room to add salt? Back when I worked in science, I was invited to a meal in the home of a colleague from a Muslim country but declined; I was afraid of embarrassing myself by cultural misunderstandings. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d had the courage to say yes.

The coming week is also National Marriage Week. You might have been happily married for a long time, and getting along fine – but what would it be like to add salt? There are wonderful resources available to help couples live a deeper, richer marriage – from online courses to residential retreats – but many couples never get to experience them because one spouse says it’s not needed, and so the other is deprived of salt. Why settle for a good marriage when you can have a great marriage?

Jesus warns us not to lose our saltiness, because adding salt is within our gift. We can choose to ask for the Holy Spirit’s power. We can choose to use that power even when it comes at a price. This is what Our Lord is asking of us today.

There’s a story of a little girl who was being shown around an ancient cathedral. She’s never seen a stained glass window before, and had to ask a guide what it represented. That night she went to sleep with a smile on her face. “Now I understand who the saints are, Mummy – they are the people who let the light shine through!”