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.