Sunday Mass, Our Rock

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C

What would you be willing to do, to win a prize?

On the day I sat down to write this homily, I received a message from Tesco. I had until 13 June to trade in my Clubcard points for vouchers worth 3 times their value – otherwise the offer dropped to 2 times value. So I spent the next ten minutes scrolling through all their reward partners until I found something worthwhile buying. Was that worth 10 minutes of my life on a busy day? Yet for a small reward, we might make considerable effort!

There is a much greater prize set before us, and that prize is the Lord himself. The psalmist today says:

‘O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;

 it is you yourself who are my prize.’

If you listen carefully, the word “prize” comes up in the prayers of Mass every month or two. Most recently, the solemn blessing of Easter implored our Father in Heaven to “endow you with the prize of immortality.”

Like most prizes, we have to do something to win the prize God offers us. We cannot earn a ticket to heaven – only someone who never sinned can pay that price – but we can receive one in return for entering God’s competition. That’s the race called “faithfulness” where we walk with God by avoiding sin, going to confession when we fail, and faithfully attending Mass on Sundays (and whenever I say Sunday here, I include Saturday night). There the Lord feeds us with Holy Communion to sustain us.

Attending Mass hasn’t always been easy. For the first 300 years, our forebears often had to worship in underground catacombs, evading Roman persecution. More recently, after King Henry VIII separated the Church in England from Rome, Catholics again faced imprisonment or even death for daring to attend Catholic Mass. Those of you with Irish heritage will be well aware of how Catholics had to celebrate rapidly on “Mass rocks” in the middle of nowhere before a sentry spotted the British redcoats coming to break up the gathering.

When someone is actively opposing our religion, we’re strongly inspired to fight back. “No one stops ME from being a Catholic!” None of us like being constrained by our enemies. If you ask what motivated the many martyrs of the past, it is most likely some mixture of their passionate commitment to the Church and their human reaction to the threat of our opponents!

But today, my friends, we face a much more subtle enemy. We’ve lived through sixty years or more of convenience. As rules have changed in the Catholic Church, we were first able to have Mass on Sunday evenings and then on Saturday evenings. More men than is typical put themselves forwards for priesthood in the 1960s and 70s in England and Wales, and we were well-supplied with priests. So we could choose the time, and place, and style of Mass that we liked best. We were able to approach our duty to worship as consumers, who had plenty of choice in the matter. And when we are offered convenience and comfort, we become our own worst enemies. We don’t want to change from the time, or the place, or the priest who suits us. Add that to the natural warmth many of us feel for a church where family events took place, and something in us strongly objects to having to make any change at all.

Isn’t that strange! Our human nature, which says “I’m getting to Mass even if it’s on a cold wet rock in the middle of nowhere” when our enemies are outside the church – that rebels and says “Don’t you dare change things” when the need to change comes from within the church!

Friends, it is time for us to face change. Several priests in South Wales are retiring in the next year or two. After Dale, who you may have met at Easter, we have no more seminarians so there will not be more ordinations for at least four or five years. You might ask whether we can bring in priests from other countries, and we can and do so – there are three priests from Ghana working in South Wales, and you’ve met Fr Valentine who came from Nigeria and is now chaplain to Cardiff Prison. He will soon be needed elsewhere to cover for new retirements. Even with the help we can get from other countries, Archbishop Mark has decided that the “fair share” which our four churches can have for the foreseeable future is just one priest, and that one priest is me.

Four churches. One priest. Under Canon Law – and to avoid burnout – I am allowed to celebrate two Masses on a Saturday and three on a Sunday. No more. I need to keep some capacity on a Saturday to celebrate weddings and for other special events. So realistically, that means across our four churches I can celebrate one Mass Saturday night, two on Sunday morning and one on Sunday evening, or late afternoon – or possibly on a Sunday morning spaced something like 8, 10 and 12.

My desire is to choose a pattern of Masses which enables as many people as possible to keep coming to Mass. I know there are practical questions – public transport, the availability of friends to give lifts, weekend work and family duties. But I need to say this clearly: the days when we could plan Mass around our weekend are ended. As followers of Jesus, knowing that God himself is the prize we seek, we are now required, once again, to plan our weekends around Mass. The enemy is not a soldier turning us away. The enemy we face is our own desire for comfort and convenience, and it is this which God is asking us now to sacrifice upon the altar.

On the weekend of 13/14 May, you will be handed a survey form at Mass. It will ask you a very simple question. It will list all the possible times in all four of our churches, and the question is: “When is it possible for you to come to Mass?” That’s not “When would you like Mass to be”. No. Think of it as asking this about each slot: If this place and this time were the only Mass available, would I be able to arrange my weekend so I could come to it regularly? To find a solution which serves all of us, we have to work with what’s possible, but inconvenient, otherwise we will have no solution at all.

If you can’t be at Mass on 13 or 14 May, you can ask me at the end of Mass today for a consultation form. It’s important that everyone who worships here gets a chance to comment. I’m preaching this message today to give you time to think, because I won’t be preaching at this Mass time in this church again before the survey day. The good news is that this Church is guaranteed to have one Mass every weekend for the foreseeable future. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, let’s rejoice that Christ is still with us – that’s a prize worth more than comfort, splendour or wealth!

Mercy Me

Homily at All Hallows and St Dyfrig’s for Divine Mercy Sunday 2023.

I’d like to begin with a story. It’s about Paddy – a man who was very active in his church community, and died in his 70s.

When Paddy reached the Pearly Gates, he expected them to swing open in front of him. Instead, he was rather bemused to find St Peter standing in front of him with a clipboard.

“OK,” said St Peter, “here’s how it works. In order to get into heaven, you need 100 points. You tell me all the reasons we should let you into heaven, and I will add up the points.”

“Right,” said Paddy. “For starters, I have never missed Mass on a Sunday. Every weekend of my life, I’ve been at church.”

“Excellent,” said St Peter. “One point.”

Paddy’s face fell. “Only one?” he thought – but he didn’t say it out loud.

“I’ve always supported church,” said Paddy, “and ever since I started earning a decent wage I’ve given 5% of my income to church. And I used Gift Aid!”

“Great,” said St Peter. “That’s another point.”

Paddy was beginning to feel rather desperate now. What would earn him another 98 points? He had one more thing…

“I’ve always been a peacemaker,” he said, “stepping in to stop fights. And if I’ve been arguing with someone, I’ve always been the first to step forward to make up.”

“Wonderful,” said St Peter, “the boss is really keen on that sort of thing. That gets you another three points – you’ve scored five so far.”

“FIVE POINTS?” scowled Paddy. “For all that, just five? If I’m ever going to get through those gates, it will only be by the grace of God !”

At that moment, a fanfare played and the gates opened. “That’s the correct answer,” said St Peter, “only God’s grace is worth 100 points. Come on in!”

If we wish to become saints – and if our goal is to enter heaven, then we must all plan to become saints – our first step is to recognise that we need God’s help. “Grace” is just a fancy name for God’s help. When God gives help to people who don’t deserve it, that’s called “mercy”.

It’s easy to get the wrong idea about “mercy”. There’s a playground game where children wrestle until one shouts “mercy” because it hurts; or in a movie, the bad guy might have some terrible torture to inflict on the victim, who calls out for mercy. Do we really believe God is like a Hollywood villain, out to punish us?

It’s true, there’s a prayer which we might have learned to use in confession, where we acknowledge that because of our sins, we deserve God’s “dreadful punishments”. This might fool us into thinking that God is some kind of sadist who delights in handing out justice. But we know that Jesus came to show us that God is the most loving of Fathers, who always wishes to forgive rather than punish. If God speaks of punishments, it’s because they are the automatic and just consequences of unforgiven sin. When our doctor warns us of consequences, we don’t blame the doctor for our illness – neither should we blame God for the reality of Hell.

God doesn’t want us to go to Hell.

Even in the Hebrew Bible, long before Jesus walked the earth, we find declarations of God’s unending love, like the ones in today’s psalm.

The whole life of Jesus was one of declaring the Father’s love and undeserved mercy to whomsoever would listen. This is why the first Christians, as in today’s first reading, tried to live a merciful life meeting one another’s practical needs. St Peter – who penned our second reading – knows that following Jesus isn’t going to guarantee us a trouble-free life, but was utterly convinced that following Jesus was the sure route to eternal happiness, and this filled him with great joy. But like Paddy, we so easily take our eyes of Jesus, start looking at our own behaviour, and succumb to a false anxiety that God really wants to inflict dreadful punishments upon us.

Why, then, did the Church ever come up with a prayer which talks about “dreadful punishments”? It’s because we know that, like Paddy, we could never deserve to go to heaven because of our good deeds. Only someone who had never committed a sin in their life could deserve to go to heaven. No sinner could be worthy to spend forever in God’s company. But if we missed out on being with God – if we know there is a God who loves us, and yet we are separated from Him for eternity – that would be truly dreadful! So that prayer is a reminder that none of us deserve to go to heaven. Heaven is a gift – a grace – a free gift offered to us by the Heavenly Father who loves us.

In case we were still in doubt, Jesus appeared many times to the Polish mystic, St Faustina Kowalska, a hundred years ago. It was in Vilnius, Lithuania, that he first asked her to commission a painting of Him with pale and blood-red rays flowing from his breast, which we now know as the “Divine Mercy” image. Jesus also made special promises about this Sunday, the Sunday after Easter: “The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.” Usually when we go to confession, our sins are forgiven, our relationship with God is restored, but the consequences of our sin are set aside for us to deal with in Purgatory. But just as those baptised on Easter Sunday face no eternal consequences of their sin before Baptism, so the Lord offers us on this Sunday the grace of almost a “second Baptism”. All that is asked of us is that, having made confession recently so that we are in a state of grace, on this great feast we receive communion and make an act of prayer entrusting ourself to Christ’s mercy. It’s as easy as saying: “Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you.”

Today’s story is not original! You can find versions online by Carey, Mascarenhas and that most prolific of authors, Anon.

The author is seen above (at right) concelebrating Mass at the shrine of Divine Mercy in Vilnius, Lithuania, August 2022.

It Begins With Water

Homily at St Dyfrig’s for the Easter Vigil.

It begins with water.

On the very first page of the Bible, creation sees the Spirit hovering over the face of the water. When Jesus is ready to start his public mission, he enters into water, and the same Spirit descends upon him. His first miracle is to turn water into wine. He calmed a storm, walked on water and restored the sight of a man born blind with his own spittle. Jesus wants us in no doubt of his power over water.

Water is itself a miracle of nature. It has power to crack rugged rocks when it freezes, and to wash away mighty boulders into specks of sand. But God can take this amazing creature, water, and add to it divine powers.

This night we have heard much of water. By divine command, the Israelites passed dry-shod through the sea. Ezekiel promised God would wash our hearts clean. Isaiah declared God’s invitation: “Come to the water!” – and added that the rain and snow will surely accomplish God’s purpose.

For us too, life begins with water. Before our first breath, water broke so we could be released into this world. When we were brought to church for Holy Baptism, we were born again of water and the spirit. Each time we enter church, we bless ourselves with holy water to remind ourselves that though we may have sinned, God’s mercy is new every day. But on this night there was no water for us on the way in, because we must first renew our commitment to God before we may receive that purifying water again.

There are three people here tonight for whom water will accomplish even more! Kelly, Corlinus and Ross are to be baptised. Without needing to confess a single sin, all the faults of their past will be washed away. In ancient days they would have been immersed in water almost to the point of drowning, as a sign that we die with Christ and so rise to new life. I’m not sure that modern health & safety rules would permit this, but in any case our font is too small. One does not need to be immersed; and I am reminded of the story of a conversation between a Catholic priest and a Baptist minister.

Baptists, of course, believe that only adults who already believe should be baptised, and tend to use full-body immersion. The Catholic priest asked the Baptist minister if a baptism would count if someone was only plunged in up to the waist. “Nope,” said the Baptist. “Well what if you plunge them in up to their neck?” asked the priest. “Still not good enough,” said the Baptist. “Ah, said the priest, so what is really important is to get water on their head!”

Ross, Kelly, Corlinus, in a few moments I will pour water on your head and our Catholic tradition assures us that this is good enough to accomplish all that Christ wishes to do in your life. But we will not stop there. You will also be confirmed; as the apostles laid hands on the newly-baptised so they could receive all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, so I, representing Archbishop Mark, will lay hands on you.

This too is profoundly connected with water. On the last and greatest day of a Jewish festival, Jesus cried out: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me! From his breast shall flow fountains of living water. He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive.”

Now remember that your baptism is both an ending and a beginning. It is the end of your preparation but only the beginning of your relationship with Jesus Christ, Our Lord. He loves you just as you are, but loves you far too much to allow you to remain as you are. He wishes to see you formed, shaped, moulded ever more closely into his image. Remember that water has power to crack rugged rocks when it freezes, and to wash away mighty boulders into specks of sand.

If you truly allow God’s Spirit into your heart, the hardness in your heart may be cracked, the rough corners of your life smoothed away. This does not happen on day one of the Christian life. It is why each year we come before God to renew our baptismal promises and give Him permission to take us deeper. Any one of us, who needs a deeper touch of God’s spirit on our lives, can ask God right now, right here, to do this, for the first time or the umpteenth. It is as easy as answering “I do” when asked if you believe in God, and making a secret invitation in your heart for Christ to transform your life.

Corlinus, Ross, Kelly, there is another gift for you this evening – the gift of Holy Communion. Without water, flour could not be baked into Hosts, grapes could not grow. A tiny drop of water is always placed in the chalice of wine before it is consecrated, as a sign of God’s desire for our littleness to be added to His greatness. If you ever find yourself thinking, “Who am I to God? A mere drop in the ocean” – know that every drop is precious to Him. In Communion, we do not see water, but we see what water his produced. And when you receive the Lord in Holy Communion, remember that He also receives you – and you also are a product of the Holy Water of Baptism and the Holy Spirit welling up within you.

I wish to leave you, and everyone here this evening, with a memorable image: An angel, sitting on a rock. The Gospel we’ve heard this evening has this angel proclaim the risen Christ to the weeping women – and then it almost feels like an afterthought that they also meet the Risen Christ himself.

An angel, sitting on a rock. A messenger of good news, secure on something firm. This is what each one of us is called to be, whether our baptism is minutes or decades away. We are messengers, standing on a rock of faith – and in the Bible it is not unknown for God to summon water from a rock. What we remember tonight, we are to proclaim to the nations. Death is defeated. Christ is alive. The living water of good news must flow from us, and out to our family, our friends, to Wales and to the world. The water from our hearts is what God does within us. The water from the rock is what God adds to our act of faith. When we act in faith, God will act for us. So now let those who believe come, come to the water! It begins with water. It starts now. Come!

Betrayed

Homily for Palm Sunday.

Today, we remember acts of betrayal.

Jesus was betrayed by Peter. “I do not know the man!”

Jesus was betrayed by Pilate. “I am innocent of this man’s blood.”

Jesus was betrayed by Judas. “What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?”

And Jesus has been betrayed so many times by each one of us, each time we sin.

But we in our turn are betrayed by our own fallen nature. There is a voice within us which accuses us of being unworthy of God’s friendship, of God’s forgiveness, of all the gifts which were showered upon us from the Cross of Christ. That voice is a lie!

Do you feel like an imposter in church? Everyone else is worthy of being here, but not me? That too is a lie.

God is our judge. The Cross is our judgment. As Pope Francis once said, the message of the Cross is that God has judged us worthy of love and poured out that love through the Blood of His Son.

When you hear that little voice saying, “God could never love me” – that is a lie.

When you hear that little voice saying, “Jesus cannot save me” – that is a lie.

When you hear that little voice saying, “I have committed the unforgivable sin” – that is a lie.

The only unforgivable sin is to stand before God and declare “I am innocent!” – for if you have pleaded “Not Guilty”, the Blood of Jesus cannot pay the price of your sins.

But on this day we rejoice that we are loved, we are forgiven, that all who accept God’s call to repentance are truly washed clean by the Blood of the Cross.

So today commit an act of treachery. Betray the world which would lead you away from God. Betray the Devil, whose words are lies. Betray your flesh, which wrongly claims you are not worthy. Betray evil and embrace the God who loves you even unto death.

If you have trouble accepting this, make this next prayer your own, for it asks the Lord to grant that we may love him. Only by grace can we receive what the Cross has to offer.

I love you, Jesus, my love above all things. I repent with my whole heart for having offended you. Never permit me to separate myself from you again. Grant that I may love you always, then do with me what you will.

Ask Not…

Homily at All Hallows for Maundy Thursday.

Ask not what Jesus has done for you, but what you can do for Jesus.

Tonight is a holy night, a solemn remembrance of what God has done for us, but also an invitation to action.

“This day is to be a day of remembrance for you, and you must celebrate it as a feast in the Lord’s honour. For all generations you are to declare it a day of festival, for ever.”

The Jewish People kept, and still keep, the Passover to remember how the Lord rescued them from slavery in Egypt.

Ask not what Jesus has done for you, but what you can do for Jesus.

“This is my body… This cup is the new covenant in my blood… do this as a memorial of me.”

We celebrate Mass every Sunday and on high Holy Days like today because this was Our Lord’s command. Yes, we are fed and sustained by his Body and Blood, and we receive many graces because of this. But to be able to do what we do tonight, many people have to do many things.

Flower arrangers. Sacristans. Musicians, taking time to practice. Altar servers likewise. And just to have a building like this to worship in, time and money must be invested in all sorts of maintenance and health and safety tasks.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the many volunteers who look after all of these things and keep all of our churches operating. But at the same time, there is a challenge placed before us:

“How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?”

I have an invitation tonight to anyone here who does not currently volunteer for the church in some way.

Ask not what Jesus has done for you, but what you can do for Jesus.

Since I came among you three months ago, several of you have come to me with concerns about my well-being. “Please don’t burn yourself out!”

Well, in part I want to assure you that for the last thirty years I have been a high-functioning hard-working adult who gets by fine on 6½ hours sleep each night, and I have learned the balance point of working very hard but not too hard.

At the same time, I want to ask for your help. As the parish priest, I have certain duties which have to be done. The buck stops with me, but I can delegate many of these tasks if I have people willing to share the workload. Many of you do help in amazing ways – but I also hear reports of people who say things like “I’m happy to help but I don’t want to commit.” Maybe someone has a caravan in West Wales and wants the freedom to go down there on a sunny weekend without being tied to a church rota. Some of that freedom could be sacrificed for Jesus. Maybe someone is working shifts and doesn’t know their work rota when the church rota is being drawn up. But anyone who finds themselves able to come to Mass can arrive early and say: “How can I help?”

Friends, we are at a tipping point. The Catholic Church in the UK is declining. It will continue to decline unless we choose to invest in things which will make it grow. There are enough of us left that we can turn things around if we work together.

“If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.”

There are three tasks we must undertake as a church.

First, we must wash one another’s feet – we must minister to the poor, the lonely, the sick and the broken in our community. Sometimes we do this by volunteering as part of charities and community groups – but we must also be seen to reach out as the Catholic community.

Secondly, we must speak about Jesus to a world which has lost sight of Him. This is a day of remembrance, and a nation where nearly half the people profess “no religion” needs to be reminded of what God has done to save them from failing to reach heaven.

Third, in order to “do this” every Sunday and to do it well, we need altar servers, we need new ministers of Holy Communion, we need more help with our growing Children’s Liturgy of the Word.

Ask not what Jesus has done for you, but what you can do for Jesus.

In the months to come, we will be making a census of who worships here and what you are able to do, setting up new ways of reaching out to speak about Jesus, and asking how we can wash the feet of the poor in our community. Be ready for these questions when they come your way.

I will leave you with the words of St Augustine of Hippo:   

This is surely what we read in the Proverbs of Solomon: If you sit down to eat at the table of a ruler, observe carefully what is set before you; then stretch out your hand, knowing that you must provide the same kind of meal yourself. What is this ruler’s table if not the one at which we receive the body and blood of him who laid down his life for us? What does it mean to sit at this table if not to approach it with humility? What does it mean to observe carefully what is set before you if not to meditate devoutly on so great a gift? What does it mean to stretch out one’s hand, knowing that one must provide the same kind of meal oneself, if not what I have just said: as Christ laid down his life for us, so we in our turn ought to lay down our lives for our brothers? This is what the apostle Paul said: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his footsteps.

Tonight, Jesus offers you His Body and Blood. Tonight, Jesus washes your feet.

“How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?”

Ask not what Jesus has done for you, but what you can do for Jesus.

Taking Our Punishment

Homily at St Dyfrig’s for Good Friday.

On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.

It would be wrong to say that Jesus was punished for our sins, because God does not punish the innocent. But it would be correct to say that he took our punishment as a freely-given act of love.

It’s a classic movie move, when the emotional tension has built up at the end of the film, that one of the main characters takes a bullet for a friend. When the plot is well-written, it brings tears to your eyes. Sometimes the willing victim survives anyway, but not always. This is the love we celebrate today.

But wait – I was not sentenced to be crucified. Nor am I Barabbas, spared by Jesus taking my place. Jesus is not freeing me from some Roman prison. In what way is he taking the punishment meant for me?

We are caught in the middle of not the greatest movie ever made, but the greatest story ever told. This is the story of God’s victory not over bodily death, but over eternal death. We do not claim that our faith will prevent our bodies dying – though occasional miracles of healing do happen. Rather, we claim that Jesus accepted death so that we, who are not worthy of heaven, could be pardoned to receive eternal life.

Only the perfect deserve heaven – but the God who loves us, wants us to be with him there for ever. And so the Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreed that Jesus would take our imperfections on himself, so that whoever embraces the Cross of Christ can be made perfect.

This is why we kiss the cross today.

By his wounds, we have been healed.