4 Sunday Easter, Year A, John 10:1-10

When we were children, my father would bring us to Croke Park for All-Ireland Sunday, especially if his beloved County Cork were playing in the football or hurling final. Very often, he would have a ticket for himself and another ticket to cover two of us children and sometimes three of us! Hard as it is to believe today, at that time children were very often let in with a nod and a wink. But, after the Hillsborough disaster at Sheffield in 1989, the attitude to unticketed supporters changed all around the world, including in Croke Park.

However, the changes hadn't come yet, and we would arrive at the turnstiles to get in. The trick was to jump the turnstile before the ticket operator had a chance to stop you and we became very good at that. Then, we were in! That was how we got to see Cork beat Meath in the All-Ireland football final of 1990, 11 points to 9, sitting on the steps of the Cusack Stand.

Jesus tells us today that he is the gate of the sheepfold. The language seems a bit cryptic.
If we take a moment though to reflect on it, a gate is something that we encounter on a regular basis. The turnstiles at Croke Park, the gate into the driveway of your house, the front door of the Church. In the IT where I minister during the week, we have a thing called the 'Staff Portal' which only staff members can access on the college website. The Staff Portal keeps us up to date on all that is happening in the life of the college. All websites are a 'way in' to whatever we are browsing for. We can check out what the latest fashion is, or browse for historical trivia, or indeed to buy tickets for the All-Ireland!

Gates, doors and portals are things that we are very familiar with. While there are many gates and doorways in our world, Jesus tells us that he is the gate of the sheepfold. If he is the gate, then we are the sheep. And, if we are the sheep, then we need good grazing, good pasture to sustain us and nurture us. We need that good pasture.

In the book "Alice in Wonderland", when Alice follows the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, she finds herself in a room with many locked doors of different shapes and sizes. She must make a choice. Finding a key she matches it to it's door only to find that the door is too small for her to fit through. She finds a bottle with the label "Drink Me". It makes her shrink too small to reach the key. Then she finds a cake labelled "Eat Me" which causes her to grow into a giant! She must measure out just enough of the liquid in the bottle and the cake to make herself the right size to pick up the key and fit through the right door.

Today is also the Sunday when we offer prayers especially for vocations to priesthood and the religious life. Finding our vocation in life can be a little bit like zooming down the rabbit hole like Alice. We find ourselves looking at many different doors, wondering what adventures lie beyond them for us. Many of us will try different doors only to retreat back and pick another one. As Christians we find that we don't really choose our own vocation, but rather that we discover it.

If Jesus is the gate of the sheepfold, then he is also the doorway into our deepest calling in life. And that gate is to be found in our own hearts rather than outside ourselves in some distant place. We discover that the Lord of all Life resides deep within our very self, and there God plants a dream that is beyond all our own dreaming, an idea beyond all our own imagining, a call beyond all callings, a vocation beyond all vocations.

Like Alice in the wormhole, initially we may find that we have some work to do before our true vocation seems right. And, we discover that we do not have to force ourselves to be someone else, but to radically be true to our own self. We don't have to jump the turnstiles of life to be happy. All we have to do is discover the turnstile that fits, and we can sail right through. 

2 Sunday Easter, Year A, John 20:19-31

Peace – The Scarlet and the Black – Gregory Peck as Monsignor O'Flaherty, Christopher Plummer playing the Commander of Nazi forces in Rome, Colonel Kappler – Kappler worries for his family's safety from vengeful partisans, and, in a one-to-one meeting with O'Flaherty, asks him to save his family, appealing to the same values that motivated O'Flaherty to save so many others. The Monsignor, however, refuses, disbelieving that after all the Colonel has done and all the atrocities he is responsible for, he would expect mercy and forgiveness automatically, simply because he asked for it, and departs in disgust. The figure of Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, attending the Beatification of John Paul II is presented in a similar way in our own time.

War – In our own time: Lybia, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq – War as the opposite of Peace

Tyre meets the road – Are we people of peace or people of war? Our language, jokes, songs, prejudices all tell us who we are, the person of war that we harbour in our hearts? Or do we seek to harbour radical peace?

Peace is radical, it is much more difficult to achieve than war. It is complex. In "The Scarlet and the Black" as the Allies enter Rome, Monsignor O'Flaherty joins in the celebrations of the liberation, and somberly toasts those who did not live to see it.

Eventually Colonel Kappler is captured and questioned by the Allies. During his interrogation, he is informed that his wife and children were smuggled out of Italy and escaped unharmed into Switzerland. Upon being asked who helped them, Kappler realizes that it must be O'Flaherty, but responds simply that he does not know.

Radical peace is a difficult thing to achieve.

In the film "Karol: A Man Who Became Pope", Piotr Adamcyzk plays the character of Karol Wojtyla and Ken Duken plays the character of Adam Zielinski. Adam is a student of Fr Karol's at Lublin University and he gradually inserts himself into the group of young intellectuals that Fr Karol gathers around himself. Adam, it turns out, is a Communist Spy, working on behalf of the Communist government.

The story takes a twist when, at a certain point in the film, Adam climbs up over the confessional that Fr Karol uses and inserts a microphone to record the conversations that occur there.

Later on, Adam tell his commander that Fr Karol has never spoken against the Communist government, even in the confines and sacred seal of the confessional. He has never instigated or condoned any action that amounted to uprising. This is, by any standards, quite amazing.

This is portrayed in the film as the way by which Fr Karol became a bishop because of the Polish government's view of him as one who would not lead an uprising, as one who had never spoken against them, and finally as a member of the working class rather than the traditional noble background of the Archbishop of Krakow.

It should be obvious to us all that being people of peace, and being authentically true to that peace at all times has a radical quality to it that can really change our world and make it a better place. And, it should be just as obvious to us that we are unable to achieve that peace on our own. We are like the disciples locked in the room of fear. It requires the Lord Jesus himself to break through those locks of fear to inspire us with the words: Peace be with you.

These are the words that we share with one another just before we receive communion. We take these words of the Lord, and pray them to each other, declaring ourselves to be people of peace, just as the Lord is the Lord of peace. "Peace be with you" means that we are not jealous, we do not covet our neighbours goods; "Peace be with you" means that we honour ourselves and we honour the other person; "Peace be with you" means that we are people of love entering into the most profound relationship of love that is available to us.

Peace be with you.

5 Sunday Lent, Year A, John 11:1-45

There are a few aspects of our Christian faith that many of us find difficult to understand. Some of the moral requirements that are made of us can at times feel like a burden. And then there are aspects of our faith that we can find ourselves wondering about. Resurrection is one of those things. Sure, there may be moments when it is crystal clear, but by and large we don't fully understand it: either what exactly it means or why it would happen.

This Sunday we gain an insight into the resurrection. In our first reading from Ezekiel we are presented with the Jewish understanding of the resurrection on the last day. The image given is of God opening the graves of the chosen people and returning them to the soil of Israel. For many of us, this is an image of the resurrection that we can at least imagine. It makes sense, even if it is a supernatural image.

The second reading from St Paul's letter to the Romans offers us a dimension of the Christian understanding of the resurrection. Here, St Paul tells us that if God's holy Spirit dwells in us, then God will come looking for his holy Spirit and we will be resurrected because of that. Kind of like turning up with a VIP to an important event, because we are friends with this most important of people, we will be allowed in.

And then, in the Gospel we hear a story of love. This story is of Jesus' particular and personal love for Martha, for Mary, and for their brother Lazarus. One of the beautiful lines of our Gospel reads:
'Jesus said in great distress, with a sigh that came straight from the heart, "Where have you put him?"'

This tells us something further about the resurrection promised to us in Christ: it is because God loves us that he comes to bring us out of death.

And so, today, we have three images for the resurrection:
1.God opening the graves of his people and leading them back to Israel
2.God's holy Spirit, dwelling in us, the VIP that ensures our entry into the resurrection
3.The personal love that Jesus has for each one of us that causes him to sigh with distress and weep, but most of all it causes him to raise us up.

3 Sunday Lent, Year A, John 4:5-42

Water of Life

A good friend of mine, who was a priest of my home diocese, didn't like tea. Now, I'm not sure if any of you are Father Ted fans, but a priest who doesn't drink tea is something of a rarity, right?

My friends dislike of tea led to many uncomfortable moments for him in ministry, when people would offer him tea, or coffee (he didn't like coffee either) and he wouldn't accept it. It was like he wasn't accepting their hospitality – like he didn't really want to be there.

Water is mentioned quite a lot in our gospel for this Sunday. The Samaritan woman goes to Jacob's well to draw water. Jesus is thirsty. He asks for a drink. The ice is broken, and the conversation unfolds. It is a heart moment. Jesus is quiet and calm; the lady, bemused and wondering. Jesus speaks in what seem like riddles about the water of life.

And something clicks. She gets it. She runs to tell the others.

Like many of the stories of the gospels, if we pause for a moment; hear some of the words and follow some of the actions, we too can find ourselves 'getting it', even if its just for a moment.

'Water' is one of those words. Water is life. Unclean, dirty water, is death. This week we have heard about water contaminated by radiation in Tokyo and the measures taken by the authorities there to distribute bottled water to families with infant children. 'Water' is life. Not one of us would wish to give our child contaminated water.

Water is also the means by which we are all brought into the life of Christ and the life of the Church at our baptism. Some among us may be preparing to celebrate their baptism this Easter. Water of life, and words of life: "I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Our baptism with water calls us into the new life of Christ. It reminds us of who we are as children of God. We realise that nothing can or should separate us from the new, eternal life offered us in Christ; not sectarian divisions or other things that divide us, including our sins.

We are all welcomed and invited. It is up to us to allow ourselves to listen carefully and be moved enough to follow.

2 Sunday Lent, Year A, Matthew 17:1-9

About a year after my ordination as a priest, I was sitting outside the adoration chapel next to the Cathedral in Sligo town, talking to a couple that I am friendly with. At the time they were preparing for their wedding.

The lady, who had been involved in a prayer group at IT Sligo when I was there as a student, commented to me that she knew that something was going on in me about the call of priesthood because of the way I led prayer there at that time. She mentioned that on one particular evening, I had called on everyone present to offer themselves with a full heart to the will of God in their lives.

A short time later, I was in Maynooth.

Our readings today are all about call. Our first reading which comes from the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, is about father Abram. Before he becomes Abraham, he is called Abram, and here we have one of the first moments that Abram does what God asks him to do by leaving 'your country, your family and your father's house, for the land I will show you. ... So Abram went as the Lord told him.'

The second reading, from the second letter of St Paul to Timothy, one of the earliest letters of the Apostle Paul, reminds Timothy, and the Church he oversees, that we are called to be holy.

Finally, our well known gospel of the transfiguration reminds the apostles and us: 'This is my Son, the beloved; he enjoys my favour, listen to him.'

In short, we hear the primary call of God like father Abram and we take a core action: leaving the familiar and the known to journey into the unfamiliar and the unknown – we realise like the apostle Paul that it is not enough to listen and to act, but that, having been saved in Christ, we are now called to holiness. And, what is holiness in today's gospel? It is listening carefully to Jesus Christ, who, according to the voice of God in today's gospel is in the first place, before anyone or anything else.

This journey is the most frightening journey of all, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the comfortable to the uncomfortable, from the known to the unknown. Who knows what will happen if we listen to the call of Jesus deep in our hearts?

This is the journey of the heart. It is a journey from our heads into that place inside us all where God dwells, transfigured, and lighting us up. The journey of the heart is one that is undertaken by priests and prophets, poets and artists. It is a journey that we are all invited to be a part of.

Sometimes we have to do something to begin the journey inside – like Abraham and the apostles, we go to a place like a mountain to retreat, to reflect, to pray and to come close to God. Here in Sligo, we are spoiled for choice – we have religious sites by the dozen, and beautiful places in nature that allow us access to our hearts.

Stand at the top of Ben Bulben on a fine day and tell me that you are not touched deep inside. Tip your toes in the ocean that is on our doorsteps. Make a pilgrimage to the holy well at Tobernalt near Carraroe. Make a visitation to our beautiful Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Pray in the chapel of Adoration at the Cathedral, or down at St Bernadette's on the riverside. Make a trip out to Skreen and to the community of prayer at Holy Hill hermitage. Book your place for this summer's season on Lough Derg. Plan a pilgrimage to Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje, or maybe World Youth Day this August – how's about a day at our beautiful national Shrine at Knock? Read a spiritual book. Learn a new way to pray, or renew an old one. Pick up your rosary beads. Ponder on the Stations of the Cross. Ask someone to show you if you don't know how.

The journey to the heart begins on the outside, but it finishes on the inside. God is waiting for you, don't hesitate to start today.

9 Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A, Matthew 7:21-27

My first appointment after ordination was as curate to the Parish of Ss Peter & Paul, Athlone. As part of that appointment, I served the small community of Clonown, south of Athlone on the west side of the River Shannon. The road from Athlone out to Clonown is called simply: The Clonown Road. It is a road that was built by the army in the 1940s to gather turf during the emergency. The local people would have travelled into Athlone by boat at that time. Because the road was built in a rush, it is built in the middle of a floodplain, and it seasonally floods for about 4 to 5 months each year.

Amazingly, houses have been built along this road, although outside of the seasonal flooding zones. One such house, that  people told me was built about 25 years ago, was built on a raft foundation. As the house was coming to completion, the back of the house began to sink into the bogland that it was built on. Amazingly, because of it's raft foundation, the walls of the house have very few cracks. But the back of the house sits some 6 foot lower than the front of the house! It was like the leaning tower of Pisa on the shores of the River Shannon!

Today, we all know the value of building our house on a firm foundation. We know it in a literal sense, like the house that I just talked about in Athlone; but we also know it in a metaphorical sense, where 'house' is a term that means life, family, career. We know it also in the other metaphorical sense of 'house' as people and nation. At the moment, we are paying a high price for building our 'house' on the sands of greed.

Our Gospel today, with it's warning to build on a firm foundation, speaks to Ireland in 2011. Washed up on the sands of the values of greed, we are forced to take stock. We are standing there, angry, shocked, bewildered. But if we look around us, we will be able to see that what was missing was a firm foundation.

Our Gospel presents to us a core dynamic – that of listening and acting. Like children who listen to their parents, and then go and do exactly the opposite of what was explained to them; so too, in life, we may listen, but rarely act according to what we have heard.

We are to listen to God's Word – which is Jesus Christ. Listening is not simply about hearing. We have to hear God's Word, and then spend time pondering it in our hearts. This is why the core prayer of the Church is God's Word itself. Then, having pondered God's Word, we are to allow ourselves to be shaped by it. Eventually, our lives become so shaped by the Word, shaped by Jesus himself, that we can act in the way that God asks us to.

To listen and to act – none of us would like to be the person who is caught out by the rising flood waters, or by the shifting sands of fortune. Many of us will visit famous places like the tower of Pisa in Italy where the lack of a firm foundation has created a huge tourist attraction.

To be wise in the ways of God is to listen to God's Word, and to build our lives on it as the firm foundation that will never fail.

8 Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A, Matthew 6:24-34

Have you ever been on a train, or on a bus, and quietly observed the people around you? I call it “people watching”. There is a real skill to it, to look at all that is going on around you, without letting them know that you’re interested in the slightest! Watching people, how they dress, what phone they have, clean-shaven or three day old stubble. Fashion conscious, or not fashion conscious. Confident or not confident. There is something of a tradition of people watching here in Ireland at Sunday Mass. We observe each other, where we sit, what we wear, pious and prayerful or talkative and letting on to be disinterested.

Yet, in our gospel this Sunday we are exhorted to focus first on the coming Kingdom of God. Our worries are very often bound up with what will happen next in our world. We are worried about what will happen for the children of this generation, will they be able to live in the Ireland of the future? Will there be a return to mass poverty? Worries like this can inhabit our mind. They can take over and leave us fretful and worried about the future.

Focusing first on the coming Kingdom of God is a life-long task that each one of us must try to do. Having discovered our faith for ourselves, we then have to make a choice to place God in the first place in our lives. This means entering into a relationship with the Other; the Other that God is and the other that my neighbour is. This is what the commandments are all about – relationship with God, relationship with our neighbour, relationship with my own self.

And we have to love all three. We have to strike a balance between loving God, loving my neighbour and loving myself. We come here to Church as individuals, gathered with our nearest neighbours, to worship God together. That three-fold relationship of love between myself, my God and my neighbour is fed in this gathering.

That is why we say that the Kingdom of God is here and yet still coming to be. When we gather as a community of faith, the principles of the Kingdom of God gain an entrance into our world. We get a small insight of the beauty that awaits us in the coming Kingdom of God.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”