Third Sunday of Advent - JOY

Last week we were introduced to John the Baptist as part of our Advent journey. We hear his story again today and in this account, from the fourth Gospel, we hear John’s voice and his testimony about Jesus. Light and darkness is a key theme of the fourth Gospel and in its opening verses proclaims that this light has always shone in the dark; the darkness cannot overpower it. The evangelist goes on to tell us that John the Baptist’s mission is that he has been sent by God to ‘speak for the light’. John is a light bearer, he is not the light, but he points to the light. He is a witness to the light of God in our world, a light that cannot be put out.

We celebrate this light today on Gaudete Sunday, Gaudete which means ‘rejoice’, we light the pink candle and we celebrate with joy. It might be a good opportunity to ask today ‘who have been the light bearers on your own faith journey’? Who testified to the Light of God and passed the torch on to you? We thank God for them.

“Lord there is much darkness in society and in our church… We become cynical and settle for mediocrity. We thank you that someone always comes on the scene, sent by you as a witness to speak for the light….teachers, community leaders, grandparents, children, a friend….they bear witness to the rest of us that somewhere in the dark a light shines that darkness cannot overcome.”(Michel de Verteuil)

First Sunday of Advent ~ 2nd Dec 2017

"Keep Awake"

We are surrounded these days by the commercial ‘circus’ of Christmas shopping and ‘getting ready’? It might seem far removed from the story that we are celebrating; the story of a poor refugee family 2,000 years ago who had a very special delivery. The story of God choosing to intervene in human history in such an intimate and shocking way; God choosing to be born into a situation of poverty and danger. It is good to ask ourselves at this time of year, what are we getting ready for? Advent is a wonderful season which invites us to use our waiting to grow spiritually. We are invited to make space for ourselves and for God in the midst of the rushing. Can we stop and be still and ask ourselves: ‘Where do I see God being born around me today?’ In those I meet? In kind words and gestures, in my community, in my own heart? 

Have a more ‘aware’ advent. Be mindful in all you do. Be aware in your rushing, be aware as you stand in that queue, be aware as you eat, be aware of your feelings, be aware of your thoughts. By watching all of this we become more awake, more able to recognise our true selves and more able to see God being born continuously each day within us and around us. Our awe and wonder grows and we can be prepared for the coming of the Gift himself. How we prepare determines what will be. 

Jesus the Bread of Life ~ June 18th 2017

John 6:51-58

Jesus gives His whole self to us and invites us to a deep union with Him. We often imagine God up in the clouds in heaven looking down at us, maybe distant, maybe disconnected. The Eucharist shows us that God is involved in the messiness of human life, present to us in Jesus’s body and blood. Bread is nourishing, bread is for life, bread is food for the journey. Jesus is all of these things for us. His blood is a reminder of his death, of the brokenness of this world, of the struggles of people’s lives. Christ invites people to connect their own sufferings with His.

Jesus, present with us in all of life, invites us into a deep union with Himself. Flesh and blood means the whole person; ‘the living bread’ invites us to an even deeper intimacy. It can be a difficult passage to understand, but perhaps today you might reflect on times you felt sustained by God, strengthened by God through joyful times and sorrowful times. You might also reflect on who has been Jesus for you? Where have you seen Christ in this world, in flesh and blood?

3rd Sunday of Advent Matthew 11:2-11

 “What did you go out to see?”

Jesus asks the crowd in today’s Gospel why they ran to see John the Baptist? Sometimes when we go to hear a famous speaker or go to someone we admire we are looking for answers. Our expectations are often not grounded in reality. Jesus asks the people what did they expect when they went to see John? Were they looking for someone nicely dressed? No, they were looking for a prophet and John was the greatest of these. Jesus’s words are almost like a eulogy for John.

John announces and makes way for Jesus, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. John announces a new time. John names the question we so often ask when a new exciting leader comes on the scene: Is this the one? Is this the person we’ve been waiting for? And if it is, how will we know? Our expectations can often be so great because we are constantly in need of renewal. Where in your life today do you need to experience fresh hope and newness?

The Gospel ends with a paradox: John is the greatest that has ever been born; yet the people who are considered the ‘lowest’ or the ‘least’ in this world are considered even greater than John by God. A statement that no doubt would have left a few people scratching their heads.

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, come forth from deep within me with Christmas luminous beauty. For my heart has become the sacred crib, the birthing place of God among us.” Edward Hays (Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim)

June 26th 2016 Gospel: Luke 9:51-62 ‘Not a straight path’

The Gospel text today begins a new section of Luke’s Gospel, one where there are many ups and downs for Jesus and the disciples as he ‘set his face towards Jerusalem’. This journey to Jerusalem will not be a straight path for them. It will be filled with many banquets and opportunities for teaching but also filled with moments of rejection and struggle; and so it is for the Christian journey, it is not a straight path.

Why do the Samaritans reject him? There was no love lost between Jews and Samaritans and the disciples want to punish them. But perhaps the Samaritans were fearful of the consequences of associating with ‘heretics’ who were on their way to Jerusalem to challenge a particular system that held power over them. It is interesting how Jesus deals with the disciples who want to rain down fire on the Samaritans, he rebukes them and not long after this he will tell the parable of the Good Samaritan in which the Samaritan becomes the hero of the story. This has much to say to Christians today about the right kind of attitude towards those we consider to be ‘heretics’ or who differ in opinion from ourselves. Jesus respects their position and moves on to the next village.

The second part of the Gospel is harsh but reminds us that His call is one that radically uproots people and it is a difficult walk that should deeply challenge us if we are really living the message of the Gospel. 

April 17th 2016: Fourth Sunday of Easter ~ John 10:27-30

“I know them and they follow me”

During this Easter season we are celebrating the presence of the Risen Jesus in our lives and in our world. Jesus tells us that he knows his flock and because of this ‘knowing’, they follow him.

As Christians, we are called towards ‘knowing’ God more intimately and more deeply. Each of us, on our own journeys and paths, vocations and ministries, are part of this ‘flock’ because of the deep desire to ‘know’ God more deeply. It is a very special thing. No matter what our role is in our community, parish, church and so on, it is important to remember what it is that brings us together  – the desire to know God, to know God’s love and to share that love and ‘knowledge’ with others, especially those who are lost and at the margins.

Very often, those most ‘lost’ in our communities do not experience the presence of the Christian community as they should; they can be cast aside and excluded. Jesus tells us here, no one can snatch them out of His hand.  

This week can you try to recognise that deep desire within you to know God more fully? What does that mean for you? What does that mean for those you meet in your day to day life?

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us go together” (Aboriginal Woman, anonymous). 

"Come and have breakfast" ~ Reflection for Sunday 10th April 2016

During these Easter weeks we read from St. John’s Gospel. The passages are very deep and in today’s text (Jn 21:1-19) there are many things going on. Perhaps we might focus on Peter and the journey he has made:

We all have experience of friendships and relationships that break down. When that happens it feels like a death - we grieve, we get angry, we have regrets, we wonder ‘what if..?’ Three times Peter denied Jesus and today we hear Peter express his love for Jesus three times. Jesus welcomes Peter back into community with him. Peter experiences resurrection; he is given new life. There is no situation, no matter how terrible, that Jesus cannot transform, forgive, welcome back, restore. Peter says to Jesus – ‘Lord you know everything’ and we too must remember that Jesus knows our hearts, He knew Peter’s heart. The questioning here is perhaps so that Peter can hear it for himself. The relationship is restored and we, like Peter, are once more invited in to “Follow me!”

“Lord, we thank you for people who have forgiven us, not a mean, calculating forgiveness, not harping on the ways in which we wronged them, but forgiving with the forgiveness of Jesus, so that it was like coming back from a hard night’s work, and seeing some bread there and a charcoal fire with fish cooking on it and the very person we had hurt saying, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ And we not having to ask any questions because we knew that everything was forgiven.” (Michel de Verteuil)

Fifth Sunday of Lent 2016: John 8:1-11

Jesus never condemns sinners. In today’s Gospel he refuses to condemn the woman, caught in adultery, to the death penalty as was demanded by Old Testament law (the man would have been subject to the same law by the way!). Once again the Pharisees are trying to trick Jesus. We may wonder what Jesus was writing on the ground as they continued to question him, but he delivers the winning statement in this debate and the condemners are forced to leave one by one.

We live in a stone-throwing society which cares little for the circumstances that cause people to make wrong choices. We want someone to blame, and the sooner the better. Those who accuse others often do so from a lack of self-knowledge and laziness, because it is very easy to be negative. We have all had a part to play in creating climate injustice, but the blame game won’t solve the issue. We need to be proactive and challenge complacency on this issue wherever we see it. We make mistakes but we can always start again. When we relate compassionately to those who are in difficulty we can rediscover our common humanity.

"Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning … No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us. Laudato Si’, 205

Fourth Sunday of Lent: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 Sometimes we can be so familiar with a particular Gospel passage we tend to switch off after the first few sentences. That would be a shame, especially when this is one of the great blockbuster parables. The Pharisees were a group obsessed with ritual purity and Jesus’ parables of things lost and found is his response to these barriers which excluded people from community and from God. The real challenge in this parable is what happens after the lost son returns. The elder brother has ‘worked like a slave’ all those years and is understandably upset. But the point the Father makes is that his outreach to the younger brother will not change his inheritance. It will cost him nothing to reach out. He has nothing to lose by welcoming home the lost. The Father’s behaviour towards the younger son would have been considered extremely foolish by those around him. But the message is clear: no matter how far we wander from home, God is still a loving God. The elder brother has a choice, to come to the party or to sulk in the corner. Luke, being the excellent storyteller that he is, leaves the reader to decide the outcome.

Today, we can try to place ourselves somewhere in this parable. Where do you stand? We might even think of the thousands of refugees who are displaced around the world. Can we open our hearts and our communities to them? Today’s parables shows us that God returns the lost to the community, regardless of the boundaries that we have put in place, and teaches a lesson in radical hospitality.

"God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight. Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live". Laudato Si’, 246

February 7th Reflection 2016

7^th February Luke 5:1-11 “Put out into the deep”

Jesus is preaching at Lake Gennesaret (the Sea of Galilee) in today’s Gospel. This is Luke’s account of the calling of the First Disciples which takes place in the context of a miraculous catch of fish. Jesus is using Simon’s boat as a sort of platform from which to address the crowds who had gathered around him. Already Jesus is gaining popularity and the crowds are ‘pressing’ near to him. Clearly they see something in Jesus that is attractive and fulfilling.

Simon is most likely being polite when he agrees to try again for a catch, possibly thinking that Jesus should leave the fishing to the professionals. Simon obeys, takes the risk, lets go of his pride, and the result is an overwhelming catch of fish. It can be hard to trust others at times; it can be difficult to let go of what is familiar to us. We are constantly being challenged to do this. The big challenge is to trust that God knows what God is doing and is constantly urging us to pull away from the shore.

“A boat is safe in the harbour; but this is not the purpose of a boat” ~ Paulo Coelho

Sunday 24th January '16 ~ Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

The prologue to Luke’s Gospel is almost like the opening credits of a major blockbuster movie, there’s something exciting about it. We don’t really know who Theophplis was, possibly a patron of Luke’s, but his name also means ‘Lover of God’ and in that sense this Gospel is addressed to all ‘lovers of God’.

In the synagogue, Jesus is handed the scroll from Isaiah. It is one of the most powerful passages in the New Testament as Jesus sets out his mission, his manifesto. The uncomfortable truths contained within the passage cause the crowd to reject him. We know that in our world today good news has still to reach the afflicted, captives still await liberation, the oppressed are not free. So this is not a passage read in the past, it is very much alive, very much a vision for all to have and to work towards. Just as the scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus, they are also fulfilled in each of our lives. There are many causes we can be involved in, the refugee crisis, climate justice, homelessness, neighbourliness, community involvement. Wherever we are, in our own small ways, we can strive to make this dream a reality.

“Lord of the universe, look in love upon your people. Pour the healing oil of your compassion on a world that is wounded and dying. Send us out in search of the lost, to comfort the afflicted, to bind up the broken, and to free those trapped under the rubble of their fallen dream.” (Sheila Cassidy)

World Day of Migrants & Refugees ~ Sunday 17th January 2016

During this past year we have watched, in almost disbelief, as hundreds of thousands of people flee their homes in Syria and other parts of the world.  The image of three year old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach last August, as his family attempted to reach safety, caused complete outrage around the world. For a while we reacted and acted and called for an immediate response from our governments. Not since WWII have so many people been forced from their homes. So much can be said today about this crisis and we must continue to ask ourselves: how can we respond?

We must always be ready to welcome the refugee and migrant. Our faith is one of hospitality, compassion and mercy. In the Gospel today, Mary urges the disciples to ‘do whatever He tells you’ and we see Jesus perform a sign that shows he has come for the transformation of that which causes barriers to God’s Kingdom. 

The refugee crisis may challenge us but as people of the Gospel of Mercy, we must respond: “Mercy nourishes and strengthens solidarity towards others as a necessary response to God’s gracious love…Each of us is responsible for his or her neighbour: we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live.  Concern for fostering good relationships with others and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear are essential ingredients for promoting the culture of encounter, in which we are not only prepared to give, but also to receive from others.  Hospitality, in fact, grows from both giving and receiving.” (Pope Francis)

 

Hundreds gather on Sandymount strand, Dublin last year to spell out 'Refugees Welcome' #solidarity

Sunday 10th January ~ Baptism of our Lord

In Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus we hear that Jesus was at prayer after his baptism, when the heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. This is main focus of Luke’s account of this story, he is the only Gospel who says that Jesus was at prayer before ‘heaven opened’ and God’s voice was heard. A call to do God’s work can often be preceeeded by a deep prayerful experience of God. Luke’s focus is on the experience of Jesus in this account but we are also called to see the revelation of God in ourselves and in others. Perhaps you can recall when you suddenly saw a divine spark in someone you know or noticed a change in yourself because of a deep experience.

We can recall moments in our own lives when we experienced God tenderly and lovlingly saying to us, ‘you are my son/daughter’; ‘you are my beloved’; ‘my favour rests on you’. Very often experiences such as these are simple events. They can also call us to a greater commitment to our faith and our relationship with God.

“The descent into the waters of our spirit, is a journey into the presence of divinity…all human beings are children of God but not all live in the awareness that there is ‘that of God’ within them” (W.L. Wallace)

January 6th ~ The Feast of the Epiphany

Whether they were philosophers or astrologers, the Wise Men were certainly ‘seekers’. Looking to the skies for signs and guidance, with their hearts and minds set on finding God, the Wise Men embark on an amazing journey, determined. The thought of some new religious insight, a change or even a threat, forces Herod to call together all those considered to have authority on religious matters.  All are concerned with their own power and afraid of how the new could affect their traditions and structures; the possibility of a new King is too much for them. In contrast to this, the Wise Men are humbled before the leaders and genuinely seek to learn from them. We are told that the sight of the star ‘filled them with delight’.

This story has so much to say to us today, we are all on a similar journey, striving for the same goal: ‘going into the house the saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage’. This scene describes a moment of great joy, of grace and is in total contrast to the scene of Herod frantically calling the religious leaders together: God is found in the simple spaces. The Wise Men represent all peoples, all cultures, a clear message that God is for all regardless of nationality, culture and even faith. Today we might think about our own journeys to moments of epiphany. What ‘star’ had brought us there? What gifts did we leave there? What gifts were we given there?

First Sunday of Advent 2015 (Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36)

Happy New (church) Year! Today is the First Sunday of Advent and we begin the season of ‘waiting’. 

The Gospel today has powerful (and perhaps distressing) images of great signs that will appear. For many of us this year we saw lots of signs that Christmas was coming, even as far back as September, which is more distressing than any of the images in the Gospel today. Some people love that feeling of expectancy, of waiting for someone or something to arrive. It can be quite an exciting time or even one of anxiety. Very often we are on high alert during such a time, and often quite creative. We are asked to enter into the season of preparation, to celebrate God in our lives and in our world. It is a season of great joy and of hope and while waiting is not always seen as a good thing, it can be an interesting time of growth. So, what will our preparations be like? In the middle of the crazy, busy days in the run up to Christmas, can we stop and invite God into our hearts and lives once more?

“As with madness we prepare for this festive time of year, as we rush and count the days, Advent passes in a haze, So may our feet take us to places where we will meet You” (Janet Lees)

Sunday November 22nd ~ Christ the King

The Feast of Christ the King is the final Sunday in the liturgical calendar. In the Gospel today, Pilate is concerned with what type of King Jesus is and what kind of Kingdom he is talking about? To understand what type of kingship Jesus is talking about we need to lay aside a lot of the cultural baggage that we have about Kings and Kingdoms. There are no palaces, no pomp and ceremony involved here. Jesus’ Kingdom is concerned with justice for the weak and the oppressed.

At our baptism we were each anointed as ‘priest, prophet and king’ and therefore we share in this kingship that Pilate is wondering about. We are called to show the world that Jesus’s followers are concerned with love and service of others; that Jesus’ Kingdom is built on a different kind of foundation. With so much brokenness in the world we are called to transformative service. There are no shortage of causes: the refugee crisis; homelessness; climate justice…

At the end of this month, world leaders gather in Paris at ‘COP21’ to try to come to a universal agreement on addressing climate change. We pray that the ‘Kings’ and ‘Presidents’ of this world take strong action to protect our planet. “We pray for the representatives of the nations meeting in Paris, and in every government everywhere—and all business leaders and consumers—that we will see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. (LS 12)” #pray4cop21 

All Saints Day ~ Matthew 5:1-12.

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day and to celebrate this feast the Gospel we read is The Beatitudes. It is an interesting passage to spend time with. Jesus is not moralising in this text, he is not telling us what to do. He is stating facts and we are invited into each Beatitude and given space to draw our own conclusions. The Beatitudes may shock us, but they force us to think and to ponder the paradox in each statement. There is much human experience within each one and as you read them you may recognise your local or ‘urban saints’.

This week can you spend time with each beatitude? There are seven so one per day is totally doable. Who are the peacemakers around you? Who are those who are persecuted? Who is mourning? The beatitudes call us to live life more fully, to see all as connected. Saints are all around us, pointing the way for us, teaching us something about God through their lives. They persevere in all they do for their families and communities, especially those on the margins. They are the blessed ones.

“Saints make our hypocrisy so apparent that we want to change our lives – not because of guilt but because we want to be alive, we want to be more like Jesus…[they] leave us the scent of God, the aroma of Christ. In God’s flirting with humanity, God occasionally drops a handkerchief – and these handkerchiefs are called saints” (Shane Claiborne). 

Sunday 27th September 2015 ~ Remove the Stumbling Blocks

Earlier in the Gospel of Mark the disciples were arguing about who amongst them was the greatest; in any group there is bound to be the occasional dispute! Today they are complaining that people, who are not part of the gang, are performing works in Jesus’s name. The disciples are eager to pass judgement, yet Jesus is asking them not to focus so much on how other people are a stumbling block to the Gospel, but to look inwards and ask themselves how are they doing? What stumbling blocks do they put in their way or in the way of others?

On 4 October we will celebrate the feast of St Francis of Assisi, bringing ‘Creation Time’ to a close. Some parishes have a blessing of animals; others have ‘Eco-Sunday’ and some have achieved the ‘Eco-Parish’ award from Eco-Congregation Ireland. (If your parish is not on the list, maybe you can gather people together to start the process: http://ecocongregationireland.com/eco-tips.)

It is easy to point the finger at major corporations and poor leadership and think that there is nothing we can do about climate injustice. As this season of ‘Creation Time’ draws to a close, let us really celebrate by committing to small actions as parish communities, being part of the solution and not a stumbling block.

‘Common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning… Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life’.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 207.

Sunday 6th September "Creation Time"

'EPHPHATHA’ (Mark 7:31-37)

Between 1 September and 4 October (the feast of St Francis of Assisi) Christian churches celebrate the season of ‘Creation Time’. It is an opportunity for us to reflect on the gift of our world and to look at our relationship with the planet. There is no better time for us as individuals and as parish communities to consider our responsibilities to act on climate change, especially in light of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Laudato Si. 

In the Gospel today, as Jesus opens the ears of a deaf man, he says ‘Ephphatha – Be Opened’. May our ears be opened to the cries of the earth and to the poor who suffer the most because of climate injustice. What a wonderful and prophetic action it would be in celebration of ‘Creation Time’ if each parish community committed to beginning a JPiC (Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation) group? Or perhaps thinking ahead to the feast of St Francis, ask ourselves how can we as parish communities celebrate the gift of creation? Great things can happen when small groups of people come together and act locally. How will your parish celebrate ‘Creation Time’? (For more info: http://ecocongregationireland.com/)

‘I wish to address every person living on this planet… I urgently appeal for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all’.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 1, 14

May 17th: Ascension, Mark 16: 15-20

And the Lord worked with them…

The fear experienced by the women and the disciples at the end of Mark’s Gospel shows us that even when we have profound spiritual experiences, fear can often force us into silence. The account of the ascension in Mark which we read today urges us not to be afraid but to go out. Mark’s Gospel is a Gospel for hard times, for those who are struggling. This ending aims to empower us and give us courage even when the world around us tells us otherwise. It urges us to “Go” and tell.

The disciples ‘went out’; bringing ‘good news’ everywhere. We too are called to be Easter People because we live with an assurance that pain, death and grief will not have the last word and we dare to shine the light of hope and wholeness into the empty tomb. Where have you encountered Easter People in your own life? How do you communicate this risen Jesus to others? How can we be Easter People to others? This is the challenge of the Gospel today. To bring Christ’s love and assurance to all we meet.

‘God has given us the power to create beauty, to make another smile, to be a healing presence in someone’s sorrow, to bring justice to the oppressed, to console those in difficulty, to bring peace and joy to others, to help those in need, to laugh and enjoy life, to do good and turn from evil, to forgive those who have hurt us, and, most of all, to love’ (Iris Perez)