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

1 Sunday Lent, 26 February 2012, Mark 1:12-15

Crisis

A crisis is a time of opportunity.
When we are in the middle of a crisis, it is very difficult to see the opportunity that it presents. But, nonetheless, the wisdom goes: A crisis is a time of opportunity.

We are burnt out with 'crisis'.
Economic Crisis; Crisis in the Middle East; Crisis of Faith; Crisis of Vocations; Personal Crisis; Family Crisis.

A desert time is a time of opportunity.
When we go on retreat we consciously place ourselves in the way of a crisis encounter with God, a desert encounter with God. When something painful happens in our life, we may not have chosen it for ourselves and yet the painful, suffering moment can be an opportunity to encounter God in a way that I could not encounter God before the suffering became part of my life.

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness ..."
Jesus does not voluntarily walk out into the crisis, wilderness, desert place. But he knows that he is beloved of God: "You are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased." If we know that God loves us – loves us so much that he would give his own Son for us – then like Jesus we can trust God, even as God leads us into a difficult or painful chapter on our life's journey.

Then: "Jesus entered Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God"
The Son is affirmed in love, led into crisis, and in this way is prepared to proclaim the Good News of God. If we do not know that we are beloved of God, then we have not heard the Good News and we will not be able to share it with others: you cannot give what you have not got. If we realise that we are be-loved of God, then we cannot help but share this Good News with others. In fact, it will bubble up and overflow out of us!

The desert is a strengthening moment in the life of Jesus,
and so the desert is a strengthening moment in the life of the follower of Jesus. If we know that we are beloved, then we know that we can trust God. If we trust God then we have nothing to be afraid of. And without fear, we will be free to be evangelised, touched and changed by the Good News of God. And, immersed in the Good News we will become the best version of ourselves that God wishes us to be.

New Life

A crisis is a time of new life.
Sometimes we may wish that we didn't live at a time in Ireland when being a Christian and in particular being a Catholic could be so problematic. We could wish for a bygone era to come back. We may feel that we have the answers to where it all went wrong. Naturally, we would rather not enter into the wilderness at the urgings of the holy Spirit. It is a time of deep crisis in the Church. But a crisis is a sign that we are deeply be-loved of God. And a crisis is also a sign of hope for the future, but only if we enter into the crisis willingly and allow God to transform us into the people he wants us to be, into the New Evangelisation that is possible.

Lent is the time in the Church's liturgical year when we re-focus and re-prioritise.
We get an opportunity to be spiritually re-newed in our personal and communal commitment to Christ. The spiritual disciplines of Lent: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving, are all ways for us to consciously enter into the desert place that God has prepared for us because of his love for us in Christ Jesus.

7 Sunday Ordinary Time, B, 19 February 2012, Mark 2:1-12

Star of Life

"Medical Priority". I think that many of you will understand the term much better than I do. I understand it to mean that the patient with the greatest medical need gets the priority in hospital, and in particular the Emergency area. Many patients with relatively mild injuries have found themselves frustrated, waiting around because of the 'Medical Priority' system. It means that another patient can arrive just as I am about to be seen by the medical team and just like that I can find myself back in the waiting area. 'Medical Priority' is frustrating for some patients but it is very necessary to save lives.

The paralytic in this morning's gospel is first on the medical priority list. He needs The Physician, and quickly! There has to be a way around the queue, around the crowd of people that have gathered to greet the Powerful One who has returned to Capernaum. The crowd are a hindrance in getting the person with the most need to Jesus. The crowd are selfish, crowding out the needy, paralysed one.

What is it that has paralysed this man? We can easily jump to  conclusions. We might assume the paralysis to be physical in nature and it may well have been. But, it takes courage to hear the Good News of the gospel addressed to me and you personally: what is it that paralyses you? What paralyses me?

It may seem strange to you but a short while ago we were all paralysed! Well, at least those of us who were asleep were! During some of our sleep state our brain temporarily paralyses our body so that we don't act out whats happening in our dreams!

(You may have seen this happen to a dog who is in deep sleep: they may give partial yelps or growls and even you can watch their paws twitch as if they were running in their sleep!)

So, waking from sleep is a coming around from a form of paralysis. Sometimes we can hear the gospel in a new way that wakes us up from our slumber: indeed some have commented that the vast majority of Christians are in a kind of 'sleep-state' in regard to their faith – they are duped into a kind of paralysis. Sometimes this paralysis can lead us into the darkness of sin, walking along with blinkers on. Sometimes it is other people, sharing their faith with us that can wake us up to the reality of God.

Maybe you can think of four people who have carried you to the Lord in some way, just like the four people in the gospel who went to great lengths to get the paralytic to Jesus. Think of those who have shared their faith with you, especially those who were gently encouraging and not forceful. Think of those who have had a Mass celebrated for you, or offered to pray for you. Maybe someone who has listened to you and shared some problem or burden. Those who may have sympathised with you in your grief at the death of a loved one.

The wisdom of the gospel today is to not so much be cured in the medical sense as to be healed in the heart sense: 'My child, your sins are forgiven.' Sometimes we don't even know we have sinned until it is revealed to us afterwards. Sometimes we don't even recognise that we are paralysed. Today is a day to allow our hearts to be healed by the Lord, to be set free from whatever paralysis affects us.

6 Sunday Ordinary Time, B, 12 February 2012, Mark 1:40-45

Trocaire Sign, Kampala, capital of Uganda

As many of you know, a month ago I had the privilege of travelling to Uganda with Trocaire (the Irish Church's outreach to developing countries) . There are many things that I would like to tell you about the trip and I will share much of it with you during Lent. Today, however, I would like to tell you about a particular group of people that we met during our trip.

The focus of Trocaire's work in Uganda is in the North of the country. One of the main towns in that area, with a population of about 200,000 people, is the town of Gulu. We met the Archbishop of Gulu, Most Rev John Baptist Odama, when we were there. He is famous for being instrumental in uniting all the Churches and other faith groups together in the face of the war that was going on there from 1986 to 2006. Archbishop Odama was highly instrumental in beginning the peace process between the rebels and the national government. He was also involved as a mediator between the various parties to the peace process when the talks were difficult.

Sean Farrell, Trocaire, Archbishop Odama, & Yours Truly!

One of the most destructive aspects of the war in Uganda was that very soon after it began the rebels began to abduct children and force them to become child-soldiers. This happened to both boys and girls. One of the horrific ways that the rebels would initiate these young children was by forcing them to return to their families and communities to murder, rape and pillage. By forcing these young children to do this the rebels ensured that in the child's mind they could never return home to whatever was left of their family or community. You can imagine how devastating and de-humanising this was for the children and for the communities concerned.

In Uganda, many of the dioceses have radio stations. It is a way for bishops and priests to preach the gospel to far-flung chapels and parishes that may only see a priest once every few months. One of the ingenius uses of these Church radio stations in areas affected by the abduction of children was to invite families and communities to broadcast a welcome back to those children who had been abducted and forced to do horrendous things to their own people.

The child soldiers out in the bush often had small transistor radios and they would listen to the broadcasts. The message being sent was very clear: even though you have done the most terrible of things, the most horrendous of crimes, you are still loved and you are welcome to come home.

We met a group of young people in their twenties, all of whom had been child-soldiers, all of whom had made their way home. There stories were amazing and wonderful, terrible and beautiful.

They had a phrase that they used for when a child would return back to the community after having committed desperate crimes against the community. The phrase was 'reconciliation without justice'. They knew that there was nothing that any of these children could do to make amends for what they had done. They recovered the traditions of their tribe which acknowledged that horrible things happen in war and that there is no way of putting that right. And so, they have a ritual where the offending person is reconciled to the community, without justice, because there can be no justice in the situation that the child finds himself or herself in.

Daniel Okweng - on this year's Trocaire Box

Leprosy, as described in the Old Testament reading from Leviticus today, was known as the 'living death'. This was for two reasons: firstly, the colour of the affected person was kind of jaundiced and reminded the onlooker of a dead person, and secondly, the leper was banished from the community until such time as the leprosy might leave them.

In biblical times, leprosy was seen as a sign of sin, although we must be careful not to interpret any kind of sickness in this way today.

The leper had to stay outside of the community. As such, a healing from leprosy was seen as being on the same level as a raising from the dead. This was because there was no known cure for leprosy. Therefore if someone was cured of it, it was interpreted as an act of God. Interestingly, the cure of leprosy allowed the former leper to be admitted back into the community. For Christians, this echoes the action of forgiveness of sins: it is an action that can only be done by God and it restores the person to full relationship with the community and full relationship with God.

The work and ministry of priests, and of the Church in general, is profoundly connected to the ministry of Jesus in the gospel. It is a ministry of reconciliation: reconciliation to the community and reconciliation to God. There can be no separation of these two types of reconciliation. If I am reconciled to God, then I am reconciled to the community. If I am not reconciled to the community, then I am not reconciled to God either. This profound ministry, that priests share in in a particular way in the Sacrament of Confession, is a ministry of God alone. Only God can forgive us our sins and restore us to full communion, full relationship again.