4 Sunday Lent, 18 March 2012, John 3:14-21

God Loves You!

 God loves each one of us
Pope Benedict put it like this in his first homily as Pope on the 24th April, 2005: "Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." The love of God is not just a nice sentiment. It has huge implications for how we understand and love our own self, how we love our neighbour and how we love God by giving thanks, praise and glory to him.

Jesus is in profound relationship with God 
and so, through Jesus we are brought into that relationship with God, firstly by being human, like Jesus was. All of humanity is somehow invited into a new relationship with God because God's Son became a human being.

However, God does not force us to be in relationship with him
so, there is a second way that we are brought into relationship with God through Jesus. This is the free choice we make to 'buy in', instead of 'opting out'. And that free choice was ours at our baptism. For most of us that choice was taken by our parents before we were ever aware of what was happening. Like many choices that our parents make for us, we may find ourselves having issues with those choices at some point in our lives. The moment we discover that we have these issues is a moment of possible growth for us.

We cannot go through life blaming our parents for choosing to have us baptised
We accept our own freedom to 'opt out' or 'buy in'. There comes a point in our lives when we must make that decision our own. Either we accept what God has done for us in Christ and freely choose to buy in, or we do not accept what God has done and we choose to opt out. Many of us live our lives in a kind of default position of in-between. We are neither in nor out. And sometimes this is a sign that we have not matured as an adult. We may choose to dwell on the 'issues' we have with our parents, or for that matter with our Church, with our school teachers, or indeed the government, bankers, developers or whoever. Having a scapegoat to blame all our woes on is a convenient default human position.

The Cross - how much God loves us!

Choosing to accept what God has done for us in Christ challenges us to grow up, to be an adult and to take responsibility for our own decisions in life
Choosing to 'buy in' is a distinct choice for life rather than death, grace rather than sin, hope rather than despair. Choose life. It is a decision that no other person can make for us; not parent or grandparent, teacher or priest. As those who have made the decision to accept what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, we are 'believers'. Believers are people who buy in. As believers we must demonstrate our belief. It is not enough to be believers, we must be seen to be believers! Baptism is a profound sign of our belief, as are all the Sacraments. Gathering with the community of faith every Sunday to worship God is a profound sign of our belief. Actively participating in and contributing to the life of our parish is another profound sign of believing in God. Imitating the love of God in reaching out to those who are less well off than we are is a profound sign of our belief.

This Sunday is a good Sunday to ask ourselves how Lent is going for us
As we make the journey through Lent, of course we can give up on some of our Lenten promises. We fail. This Sunday is a good time in the middle of our journey through Lent to offer ourselves anew to God as God offers himself to us. "... God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son...".

St Patrick's Day, 17 March 2012, Mark 16:15-20

The Google Doodle for St Patrick's Day, 2012

How do we know that there is a God?
This was the question posed to me by a young girl of twelve years of age in a small rural school near Castlerea a few years ago. I was still training for the priesthood, and out getting experience in parish and school. I asked the class could they tell me the proper name of the parish. One young fella put up his hand: 'Kilkeevan', he said. I said, 'Thats right.' I then showed them how that name actually meant Church of Kevin. I mused with them that there must have been someone called Kevin who had founded a Church here at some stage. How do we know there is a God? Because other people share God's story with us. They preach it to us, they teach it to us, and they are instrumental in allowing us to mysteriously, or rather, sacramentally enter and maintain a relationship with God.

Patrick was sent to preach
Not only did he leave his homeland of Britain, but he went back to a place that had enslaved him. This was not only a crossing of a national boundary – it was a profound crossing of a personal boundary on Patrick's behalf. We can only imagine what this was like for Patrick. The link between him and Christ through his prayer seems to have been the force that enabled Patrick to set out on his mission to preach the gospel of freedom to the very people who had taken his freedom away.

There is a radicalness to Patrick's preaching
because he did not identify himself as being a narrow-minded, parochial person. As a Roman, Patrick had a truly global worldview, and because of that worldview, Patrick was able to go beyond his own family, his own country and homeplace to share the story of freedom with a people not his own. And that is a core expression of the universalism that is at the heart of Catholicism. It is a global, international, universal expression of Christ's instruction to: 'Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation.'

Before Patrick left his homeland for our homeland, Christ left his Father
Christ emptied himself of his divine inheritance for a time in order to become one of us, that Christ might be God for us and that we might become part of the great relationship that God is, the Trinitarian relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that Patrick illustrated with the Shamrock.

Christ went on mission from heaven to earth and back again
Patrick was taken from freedom into slavery and back again. Strengthened by his experience, Patrick copied Christ once more, this time voluntarily and returned to Ireland, this time bearing the mission of Christ and the commission of the Church.

St Patrick

The greatness of Patrick is shared by all of us who cross great personal boundaries to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others
The greatness of Patrick is shared by all who cross great personal journies from addiction to recovery, from slavery to freedom, from sin to redemption, from death to life. The greatness of Patrick is shared by all those who have historically left these shores to make a new life for themselves and their families – and not just historically but also those who are emigrating in the hundreds and thousands right now to eek out a new life for themselves.

3 Sunday Lent, 11 March 2012, John 2:13-25

Noah's Rainbow

1st Reading
Exodus 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments are given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. They are the substance, the 'stuff', of the Mosaic Covenant. Two weeks ago we recalled the first Covenant, between God and Noah. Last week we heard again the second Covenant between God and Abraham. And now we remember the Covenant that God made with Moses in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land. This covenant is the most specific covenant that God makes. Noah's covenant had been with all creation; Abraham's covenant was with him and all his descendents, while Moses' Covenant is with a particular people whom God has called to be his own. From the Mosaic covenant forward there is a people called the 'People of God'.

Abraham's Ram

2nd Reading
1 Corinthians 1:22-25
"... the Crucified Christ..." is the basic building block of the New Covenant that God makes with the new 'People of God' that the Church is. There is a new covenant, a new Moses, a new people. Now there are four covenants, and four signs: Noah's rainbow, Abraham's ram, Moses' tablets of stone, and Christ crucified. This sign of the new covenant that forms the new people of God is the most radical sign because it is not just a symbol like the others. Rather the sign of the new covenant is a man, sent among us, "to the Jews an obstacle" and "to the pagans madness".

The Ten Commandments of Moses

Gospel
John 2:13-25
The Temple cleansing or purification juxtaposes the concepts of "my Father's house" and "market". The market is something that we are very familiar with in contemporary living. The collapse of the market a few years ago showed us just how unreliable it is in meeting the demands of justice. Jesus does not have a problem with 'the market', but he does have a problem when it takes over "my Father's house". The market can be contaminated with human greed and individual self-interest. For that reason it has no place in the Temple, and the Temple here can be interpreted in three ways – as the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the setting for the gospel story; as the Sanctuary that is Jesus' body; and Jesus' body, the Church, in all times and places, including our own time and place. Money and the market are good things, it is what the human heart does with them that contaminates them and makes them contemptible.

Homily Notes

The Cross of Christ

'Covenant' is a term that we can study for many years and still not come to understand fully. It is a promise of an agreed future, a contract for generations to come. A 'Covenant' is a sign of hope. Marriage is often explored as a covenantal relationship because it is by sticking together that a husband and wife can carve out a future that they and their children can rely on. Very often we find ourselves focusing on the 'how' of that covenant relationship, forgetting that the answer to that 'how' is not found in either person, but in the partners together. As a team, as a partnership, as a covenantal duo, they can take on any challenge. They are greater than the sum of their parts. It is in the midst of the partnership, the togetherness of the people involved, that God's grace enters and bears fruit.

Daniel's parents, Betty and Joel (featured on the Trocaire box this year), have been through many traumatic events in their thirty years of married life. By sticking together, even after they were forceably separated, Joel and Betty are creating a future for Daniel. Their covenant to each other, before God, is bearing rich fruit. In the tough and testing times that we are living through here in Ireland, it is by sticking together, and living out our covenants that we will create a future filled with hope for the generations to come.



Homily Notes for the Trocaire Lenten Liturgy Resource
also published in 'Intercom' the monthly Pastoral Resource of the Irish Episcopal Conference
by Fr John Coughlan, CC, Roscommon

2 Sunday Lent, 4 March 2012, Mark 9:2-10

The Transfiguration, by Jyrki Pouta, a teacher from Vaajakoski

 

What would it be like to meet God?
At some point in our lives we may have wondered what it would be like to actually meet God. You know, like without having to go through religion or Church, but just to meet God straight up. What would God look like? If I knew that I was going to meet God, should I dress up in my best clothes? Or should I just go in my ordinary work-clothes. Or should I go to the shops to get some nice biscuits or cakes or something special for God?

The disciples don't know that they are going to meet God
As they began to follow Jesus up the mountain, Peter, James and John did not have a clue that they were going to meet God. Neither did they know that they were going to see Moses and Elijah. They were caught off-guard. As Jesus clothes become gloriously and dazzlingly white, they remain in the shabby clothes that they have just climbed a mountain in! They're sweating, tired, red in the face, out of breath.


Meeting God is a very confusing experience
For Peter, James and John, meeting God is very confusing. They haven't a clue what is going on at all. And if we think we have a clue, then we've made the first classic mistake of a proud disciple. To be a humble disciple of Jesus is to recognise that we haven't got a clue what's going on. As God tells us who Jesus really is from the cloud, we haven't a clue what that really means in our lives.

Meeting God is the most real experience of our lives
If we were going to meet God today, we wouldn't have a clue that it was about to happen. But, if it happened it would cut to the chase very quickly. All the pretence of our lives would fall away to the nothingness that it really is. And, the one thing that really matters, God, would come sharply into focus: 'This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.' If we met God today we would have no problem listening to him. But the experience would leave us with palpitations, confusion, bewilderment. We might have to try to remember what the experience was like in order to really hear what God said to us.

We meet God especially in the poorest of the poor
Travelling out to Uganda in January with Trocaire, I didn't wear my Sunday best. I was wearing jeans and T-Shirts, and an old hat to shield my eyes from the sun. But there, I was reminded time and again by the confusing, bewildering experience of meeting people who had had everything violently taken from them, that I was meeting Jesus in them. I wasn't dressed like I would be for a job interview, but sweaty from the travel, covered in the dirt of the dust from the road, and meeting people in the dignity of their homes.

Knowing the one thing necessary puts everything in perspective
When we encounter God it leaves us bewildered. It turns our world upside-down. Everything we thought that we knew suddenly is turned on its head. But, the priorities of our lives are put in the proper order. God first, people second, everything else third. We can give away everything we own when people are more important than things.

Credit to Rev Patrick Comerford for the image and information. See his blog at revpatrickcomerford.blogspot.com