Author: Brendan Coffey

Lovers often use a secret language which only they can  understand. We might, each of us, develop such a language, for holding conversations with our God.  How do we address the Trinity in prayer? Are we lost for words?

As Christians, we believe, we’ll be saying it in the Creed in just a few minutes time, that God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, became one of us, became a human being, and lived for thirty-three years, as we do now, here on earth. That is why we study him so deliberately, examine his every action, scrutinize his every word. Although there are some, mostly in France I imagine, who claim that the three persons of the Trinity speak French among themselves, we are pretty sure that Jesus Christ, even though he is the Word of God, did not speak any of our European languages. He hadn’t a word of Irish, not even the proverbial Cúpla Focal. He never wrote anything himself, except one time with his finger in the sand. Everything we know about him was written down later, by others, and in Greek, which was the most universal language of the time. Whether he spoke Greek himself is disputed. Strange that the Word of God should be so tongue-tied.

So, what language did he speak? The answer, we are told, is Aramaic, a Semitic language, no longer spoken in the same way, or with the same prevalence, as it was back then. The Gospel this morning tells us that Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. These were Aramaic speaking communities as this had become the lingua franca of most of Western Asia at this time.

  About ten times in the New Testament actual words in Aramaic are recorded. In prayer, Jesus used the word Abba to address his Father and our father.  We too can use this word when we go into our rooms and close the door  to pray to our father in secret [Matthew 6:6], as we have ben advised to do.

The moment Mary Magdalene recognized Jesus, after his resurrection, when he called  her by her name in the garden, she spoke to him in Aramaic:  Rabbouni, she said, which is something like a  pet name for ‘my Lord and my God.’

We can use the word ourselves,  to  address the Second Person of the Trinity, our brother, our maker, our master, our friend. The First Epistle to the Corinthians [16:22] gives us an Aramaic salutation to the Holy Spirit which as a word is almost a song in itself: Maranatha it sings. Try it out for yourself.

This  Gospel of Mark, which we heard this morning,  gives us three other phrases for our teach yourself Aramaic course.  Hosanna  (Mark 11:9) which the people sang for the triumphal entry to Jerusalem,  is useful for singing praise. Talitha cum (Mark 5:41) which Jesus spoke to the little girl that everyone thought was dead. It could means more or less “arra get up out of that!”  And finally, today, this word spoken to us this morning and to the man in the Gospel who was blind and deaf and dumb. Ephphatha! Be Open.

It could well be that Jesus Christ came on earth to say only this one word; it is certainly being said to each one of us who hear him this morning.  Its Aramaic but it’s also pretty obvious. Be open wide: open  to everything, with  everything, for everything. Don’t be blind, don’t be deaf,  don’t be dumb. Sharpen every one of your senses to experience the world as it is, in all its glory.’The glory of God is each one of us fully alive, fully open.’ And through our openness the world can enter in and the world can sing. 

Armed  with our little book of useful phrases in Aramaic, we can make our way through the land of the living:

Abba, Rabouni, Talitha cum; Ephphatha, Hosanna, Maranatha, Amen.

 

The subject of discussion between the Pharisees and Jesus, the notion of clean and unclean, is unfamiliar. It has nothing to do with hygiene. It has to do with an understanding of God’s holiness, where everything is ordered and in its place. Dirt on food utensils is out of place, but dirt in a field forms part of the fertile soil. Everything has its place. The people who follow God’s Law live within this system which orders all of life. Only those who are clean may participate in public worship.  This system served Israel well maintaining the people’s identity in the face of external pressures from the dominant pagan culture of the first century Roman Empire. Jesus by challenging the purity laws, threatens the protection and security provided by these Laws to Israel. The hostile reaction of the Pharisees is not unexpected.

Many might be tempted to see in this Gospel a simple criticism by Jesus of external observances of the Law, or of external observances of the faith, attendance at Mass, praying the Angelus or the rosary, attending novenas. Jesus’ challenge is much wider than this – it speaks to all who try to manage their relationship with God. A common example of such management are the oft quoted remarks, “I live a good life”; “I don’t need to pray, because I help others”; and “Avoiding offending others is enough.” The measure of goodness is not always clear. Jesus warns of what comes when we put ourselves front and centre – our hearts ultimately become sources of vice.

Jesus points to another way, a way already indicated by the Law. Moses speaks of how other nations will admire Israel – the greatest source of admiration is Israel’s closeness of God. This closeness is not a fixed possession but only becomes apparent when the people call to him. This potential closeness noted by Moses, comes to a new intensity with the arrival of Jesus, God made flesh, God among us. The letter of James speaks of this relationship in perhaps one of the most intimate ways in the whole Bible – the Word is planted in us. When we call to God, we discover that he is not merely close, but within us, speaking to us his Word which leads to salvation and life. 

This Word invites us into a living relationship. The Word is not a possession to be hoarded and ignored. As we call out to God, the Word responds and invites a response from us in turn. Jesus wants us to walk the road to salvation with him.  If we acknowledge our failings, he will speak words of consolation. If we lose our way, he will cry out to us and call us back. If we stumble, he will raise us up. In short, Jesus wants us to be close to him, so that he can be close to us. It is through prayer, that he comes close and invites us into an ever deeper living relationship with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TODAY IS ALL-IRELAND HURLING FINAL DAY. ONE OF THE BIGGEST DAYS IN THE IRISH SPORTING CALANDER AND WITH LIMERICK’S INVOLVEMENT A GAME OF HUGE INTEREST TO EVERYONE IN THE COUNTY. LUIMNEACH ABU: WE WISH THEM – AND INDEED CORK – THE VERY BEST THIS AFTERNOON.

YOU MAY THINK THAT BECAUSE I AM WEARING GREEN VESTMENTS THAT I AM SUPPORTING LIMERICK.  NO, GREEN IS THE LITURGICAL COLOUR FOR THIS SUNDAY. AND ANYWAY, THERE ARE SOME RED ROSES BEHIND ME SO THAT CORK COLOURS ARE ALSO REPRESENTED!

BUT YOU KNOW SPORT CAN BE CRUEL AND FICKLE AT TIMES. THE HIGHER THE LEVEL OF SPORT, THE MORE FICKLE IT CAN GET. 

THERE IS NO DOUBTING THE MANY BENEFITS FOR ALL THOSE WHO PARTICIPATE IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. BUT THE DOWNSIDE IS THAT SPORT CAN SOMETIMES HARM PEOPLE – FROM YOUNG SPORTS PEOPLE TO PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES – SPORT CAN BE FICKLE.

UNDERAGE SPORT CAN BE FICKLE. AT A SCHOOLS HURLING SEMI FINAL A 15 -YEAR-OLD PLAYER HAD A FREE TO WIN THE GAME. 

THE FREE WAS THE LAST PLAY OF THE GAME. IT WAS BESIDE THE TOUCHLINE.

IT WAS AN ENORMOUS BURDEN TO PUT ON HIS YOUNG SHOULDERS.

WHAT A FRIGHTENING SITUATION FOR ANY 15-YEAR-OLD TO FIND HIMSELF IN!

HE STRUCK THE BALL AND IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS ON ITS WAY BUT AT THE LAST MOMENT A GUST OF WIND MOVED IT OFF COURSE. NOW IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS GOING WIDE BUT THE BALL THEN HIT THE UPRIGHT. IT WENT UP IN THE AIR AND ON ITS WAY DOWN IT HIT THE CROSSBAR – IT WENT UP IN THE AIR AGAIN – AND THEN LO-AND-BEHOLD – BOUNCED BACK OUT. GAME OVER. HIS TEAM LOST THE REPLAY

THAT 15-YEAR-OLD WAS OFTEN REMINDED IN LATER LIFE OF HIS MISSED FREE TO WIN THE GAME – AS IF THIS WAS AN INDICATION OF SOME KIND OF A FLAW IN HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER.

INTERNATIONAL SOCCER IS AT THE PINNCALE OF PROFESSIONAL SPORT.

MARKUS RASHFORD IS A BRILLIANT YOUNG SOCCER PLAYER FROM MANCHESTER. BY ALL ACCOUNTS HE IS A REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN: A COMMITTED CHRISTIAN WHO FUNDS A CHARITY WHICH GIVES FREE LUNCHES TO UNDERPRIVILIDGED CHILDREN IN THE MANCHESTER AREA. 

RECENTLY HE LEARNT HOW FICKLE SPORTS FANS CAN BE WHEN HE MISSED A PENALTY THAT MIGHT HAVE WON ENGLAND THE EUROPEAN CUP. AS A RESULT OF THE MISS ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE FOR MARKUS.

BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CUP HAD EVEN BEGUN A SHRINE HAD BEEN ERECTED TO MARCUS IN MANCHESTER WITH THOUSANDS OF NOTES WITH GOOD WISHES ATTACHED TO IT.

WITHIN HOURS OF HIS PENALTY-MISS THE SHRINE WAS DESECRATED WITH RACIST AND HATE-FILLED MESSAGES.  A FOOTBALL HERO WAS NOW SEEN BY SOME AS A VILLAIN.

MARCUS’ REACTION TO IT ALL WAS TO SAY “I WILL NEVER APOLOGISE TO ANYONE FOR WHO I AM OR WHERE I COME FROM”.

BY THE WAY, THE RESPONSE OF THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE OF MANCHESTER TO THE VITRIOL AGAINST MARKUS RASHFORD WAS TO SMOTHER THE ABUSE WITH EVEN MORE AND MORE MESSAGES OF SUPPORT.

IN TODAY’S GOSPEL WE SEE THAT SOME OF JESUS’ FOLLOWERS CAN BE QUITE FICKLE AS WE SEE THEY ABANDON HIM.

I SUSPECT THAT ANY OF US WHO FOUND OURSELVES IN A SIMILAR SITUATION WOULD PROBABLY WANT TO CALL THEM BACK. BUT JESUS LETS THEM GO. HE GIVES THEM THE FREEDOM TO WALK AWAY FROM HIM.

AFTER ALL THE MIRACLES, THE WONDERS AND SIGNS HE PERFORMED BEFORE THEIR VERY EYES – THEY DESERT JESUS. THEIR MESSIAH IS NO MORE FOR THEM.

AND TO BORROW A PHRASE FROM MARCUS RASHFORD JESUS COULD WELL HAVE SAID TO THEM: “I WILL NOT APOLOGISE FOR WHO I AM”.

PRIOR TO TODAY’S PASSAGE IN JOHN’S GOSPEL – AFTER THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES – THE SITUATION WAS REVERSED BETWEEN JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS:  JUST AFTER THAT MIRACLE HIS FOLLOWERS WERE SO ECSTATIC THEY WANTED TO MAKE HIM THEIR KING.  JESUS HAD TO GET AWAY FROM THE CROWD BEFORE THEY COULD DO SO.

IN TODAY’S GOSPEL MANY OF THE SAME ADORING CROWD WHO NOT SO LONG AGO WANTED TO CROWN HIM KING  – NOW ABANDON HIM.

SOME SPORTS FANS AND INDEED SOME OF JESUS’ FOLLOWERS CAN BE QUITE FICKLE FOR SURE.

SO, FROM THE START OF JESUS’ MINISTRY WE CAN SEE THAT PEOPLE ABANDONED HIM AND INDEED HIS CHURCH. 

IN THIS COUNTRY LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE HAVE TURNED THEIR BACKS ON THE CHURCH.  AND MANY HAVE HAD STRONG REASONS TO DO SO.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US WHO HAVE DECIDED TO STAY WITH JESUS AND HIS CHURCH? LIKE PETER WE SAY TO JESUS: “MASTER TO WHOM ELSE SHALL WE GO? YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE.

WE HAVE COME TO BELIEVE AND ARE CONVINCED THAT YOU ARE THE HOLY ONE OF GOD”.

DESPITE SOME OF THE DREADFUL THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN PERPETUATED IN JESUS’ NAME THROUGHOUT THE AGES – WE STILL BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS INDEED THE HOLY ONE OF GOD. 

WE CAN TAKE OUR LEAD FROM MARKUS RASHFORD WHEN WE SAY:

“WE WILL NOT APOLOGISE FOR WHO WE ARE OR WHERE WE COME FROM”.

ALONG WITH JOSHUA IN TODAY’S FIRST READING FROM DEUTERONOMY WE ALSO SAY:

“AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSEHOLD WE WILL SERVE THE LORD”.

WE HAVE JESUS‘S WORDS OF ASSURANCE WHEN HE SAYS TO US:

“DO NOT BE AFRAID, I AM WITH YOU UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD”.

TO FINISH – NOW WE ALL KNOW THAT GOD HAS NO FAVOURITES WHEN IT COMES TO HURLING ALL-IRELAND FINALS. BUT IF HE DID…….

GOOD LUCK TO BOTH SIDES AND MAY THE BEST TEAM WIN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a Catholic in Ireland right now is not particularly easy.  Revelations about abuse of various forms over the decades has brought waves of sadness and anger.  The number of Catholics who regularly go to Mass has gone down.  The number of priests and religious is falling.  Expressions of Catholic faith in Ireland evoke responses of benign indifference in some quarters and outright hostility in others.  We don’t seem to be able to spread the good news of our belief in Jesus Christ.

Let’s now turn the clock back to the end of the first century, around the time when today’s first reading was written.  What was it like back then?  The Church was very much a minority group.  Christians were on the edge of things.  There was outright persecution in some quarters.  There was also the seductive power of the Roman empire where, if you really wanted to get ahead, it was important to play along with the various pagan religious rituals.  Opting out of the ways of the empire was the road to nowhere.  And there was no lack of problems within the Church too: factions, divisions, disputes over doctrine and Church discipline.  Great fervour in some Church communities and very half-hearted faith in others.   Not a particularly rosy time either.  What image might one use to describe this state of affairs, this Church struggling to get on its feet, with pressures both from inside and outside? What image would you pick?

The image used by the author of the first reading is amazing:   a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, crowned with stars and crying aloud in childbirth. Awesome indeed.  Beautiful almost beyond description, yet bringing forth life in pain; under the constant threat of evil, yet kept safe by God.  The scholars tell us that this woman represents the people of God of both the Old and New Testaments.  God’s people as Mother.

It was from the people of the Old Testament that the Messiah was born.  We know that theirs was a painful history, of love and rebellion, of exile and loss. If Israel was the mother from whom the Messiah came, she was a mother in travail over many centuries.  Likewise the Church of the New Testament, the Church of which we are a part, is in constant travail giving birth to the life of Christ in its members. 

You might say:  I thought today’s feast was all about Mary!  It is indeed.  The faith of Israel reached its culmination in her.  The motherhood of Israel came to fruition in her, it burst into flower in an unprecedented way, and through the consent of her faith, the Messiah was born, the Son of God.  From the moment of his physical birth her birthpangs took on a new dimension as she watched him grow and begin to walk in paths that were strange to her, even in his childhood.  She struggled to understand.  She learnt that being his disciple was more important than being his mother.  Her journey of faith brought her to the foot of the cross.  There she took part in the birth, out of suffering, of the Church:  Jesus says to her, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to the beloved disciple, ‘behold your mother’. As Jesus hands over his Spirit, the Church is born, with Mary present as mother, and remaining as mother from then on. 

So this glorious woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, crowned with stars and crying out in childbirth is Mother Church.  But Mother Church is most of all Mother in the person of Mary.  That’s there the motherhood of the Church is in its purest and most radiant form.  Mary is, so to speak, Mother Church in person.

In the book of Revelation Jesus promises, ‘To the one who conquers I will gave a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.  That’s where Mary is.  That is where Mother Church is. 

The Second Vatican Council said that ‘the Mother of Jesus in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come.  Likewise she shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God.’

When it came to winning Olympic gold medals in boxing and rowing, it wasn’t just certain individuals who won.  Ireland won.  We all won.  When we look at Mary assumed into heaven, her glory is ours.

So, while the Church must also walk the path of reform and coversion,  it is an utter waste of time to start worrying about the Church. We have been promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.   Better to think about living the gospel together; not just think about it, but do it.  As we take our little steps to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit makes us part of something that reaches to the heavens, shining like the sun.  With Mary as Mother, our struggling Church shares already in the glory of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

Elijah ‘asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”’ And he lay down under a tree and went to sleep. It’s a startling image – a great prophet praying for death. It’s even more startling when you consider what happens immediately before this in the Bible. We might expect to read of abject failure or defeat, or some terrible calamity having befallen him, leaving Elijah so miserable that he wanted to die. But in fact, the preceding chapter is quite an amusing account of prophetic derring-do, in which Elijah challenges 450 prophets of the pagan deity Baal to a contest, to see whose god was true. His solitary prayer to the God of Abraham achieved what the combined prayers to Baal of his 450 devotees did not, drawing down fire on a sacrificial offering of a bull. The true God was vindicated, Elijah was triumphant, and the 450 prophets of the false god were slaughtered.

Unluckily for Elijah, while his actions might have brought glory to the God of Israel, they infuriated the Queen, Jezebel, who sent word that she would have him killed. And so, Elijah went, as it were, ‘on the run’. And so starts today’s first reading, with him going a day’s journey into the wilderness, and giving up. His depressed desire for death might seem shocking to hear about in the Bible, even though we know all too well how tragically real that feeling can be for many people.

If we read on beyond Elijah’s declaration that he has had enough, we see how gently the Lord reaches out to him. An angel wakes him, and encourages him to eat and drink, and somehow a cake and a jar of water have appeared at his head. He does so, but goes back to sleep. The angel touches him again and says, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ It is such a beautiful and tender moment. God has recognised Elijah’s utter exhaustion and despondency, but he doesn’t chastise him for his self-pity. Instead, he draws near to Elijah and offers him comfort through the ministry of an angel. It is as it he is saying: ‘You need to continue your journey, but you won’t be able to without me. You need to continue, but you won’t be able unless you allow me to nourish and sustain you. So eat and drink what I have provided for you, and you will be strengthened. Allow me to fill you, to strengthen you and sustain you’…. Elijah did just that. He ate and drank what the Lord had provided. Then, the reading says, ‘he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mountain of God’. Truly, the Lord had provided viaticum – food for the journey – a journey that reached its fulfilment in Elijah encountering the Lord himself, as a sound of sheer silence.

To Elijah, God sent an angel and provided food and drink. But to those who read the Gospel, the message and the nourishment are provided by God himself – for Jesus is both God’s Word and God’s food. ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven’ and ‘the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

He gives his flesh… offering it for the redemption of humanity through his death on the Cross, and giving it for the life of humanity under the appearance of bread. Just as the bread and wine are transformed as the priest gives thanks at the altar, so too are we called to be transformed when we encounter him. As one early Christian writer put it: ‘Our palate will put up with no other taste when it has tasted the good Word of God, and his flesh, and the bread that comes down from heaven. Because he tastes so sweet and so delightful, all other flavours will seem harsh and bitter.’

A deep encounter with the Bread of Life changes everything. If only, then, we could encounter him more deeply, and taste his sweetness more fully, how different the world would be! Maybe that should be our prayer today, that we will allow the Lord to feed us, that we may taste and see his goodness. We would do well to take the advice of St Gregory the Great, who said: ‘Touch the food of life with the taste buds of your heart, so that trying it may make you capable of loving its sweetness.’

The words I imagined the Lord whispering to Elijah could just as easily be the words that Jesus would whisper to us today as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist: ‘You need to continue your journey, but you won’t be able to without me. You need to continue, but you won’t be able unless you allow me to nourish and sustain you. So eat and drink what I have provided for you, and you will be strengthened. Allow me to fill you, to strengthen you and sustain you’.

Jesus offers himself to heal all that is broken in us, to supply all that is lacking in us, to satisfy every hunger in us and to slake every thirst in us. In the Eucharist, ‘the medicine of immortality’, Jesus offers himself as balm to cure every ailment, complex or syndrome that causes us to live lesser lives than we were made to live, so that we may, like Elijah, go in the strength of that food to the mountain of God. He offers us food for the journey, to keep us safe for eternal life. How blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!

Martin OSB

8 August 2021

 

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Glenstal, 01.08.2021, 10 a.m.

Ex 16:2-4, 12-15, 31a 2 Ephesians 4:17, 20-24 John 6:24-3

In the New Testament the Greek word zoë, which means ‘life’, usually refers to the imperishable life that can be found in God alone, and Jesus uses the term precisely in this sense, when he says: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me (Jn 14:6). And also: I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live, even if he dies (Jn 11:25). The main point of these two statements is that through faith in Jesus Christ – upon whom God the Father has set the seal of the Spirit (cf. Jn 6:27) – we come to share in the very life of God and his only begotten Son, or – to use the language of later Theology – we become partakers of the life of the Trinity

In today’s gospel Jesus uses the term zoë again to make yet another extraordinary statement: I am the bread of life – he says –; whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty (Jn 6:35). The implication here is that there are two kinds of bread – one that is perishable like the earthly life it nourishes, and another that endures for eternal life (cf. Jn 6:27). To the first category belonged both the manna that Moses gave to the people of God in the wilderness (cf. Jn 6:31, 49) and the two loaves that Jesus multiplied and distributed to the five thousand by the Sea of Galilee (cf. Jn 6:26). But the other kind of bread is entirely unique – it is a person, it is Jesus himself, who said: I am the living bread which has come down from heaven; anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world (Jn 6:51).

By describing himself as the bread of life (cf. Jn 6:35) and the living bread (cf. Jn 6:51) Jesus is saying that he is the only one who has the life of God in himself to bestow upon the world as a gift. And this is so, because he has come down from heaven (cf. 6:51) – that is to say, he is both the Word that became flesh (cf. Jn 1:14) and the grain of wheat that fell into the earth and died, to yield a rich harvest (cf. Jn 12:24) for God the Father.

While he is explaining all this to the crowds, Jesus insists on the need to eat the true bread from heaven that his Father gives (cf. Jn 6:32). If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood – he says – you have no life in you. (Jn 6:53) But how are we to understand this urgent invitation to eat and to drink?

In his Confessions, Saint Augustine refers to a personal experience that helps us to find an answer to this question. He reports that once he felt as if Jesus was telling him: “I am the food of the mature: grow then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food, but you will be changed into me” (Confessions VII, 10, 18). This means that to eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood is essentially to believe in him, it is to allow ourselves to be transformed into him by a faith that embraces a new kind life – a life no longer centred on our own self, but on Jesus Christ and his body, the Church, of which we are the members.

We are therefore urged to put away our old self, corrupted and deluded by its lusts (cf. Ep 4:22), and to clothe ourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God (cf. Ep 4:24). And this appeal to be innerly renewed and live for God alone becomes all the more pressing every time we celebrate the Eucharist, and literally eat the body of Christ and drink his blood under the species of bread and wine; for if Jesus Christ so gives himself to us as our daily food and drink, we can only repay his gift by offering our own lives to God in union with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next five Sundays the Gospel readings are taken from the Gospel according to John. For most of this liturgical year we have been listening to readings from The Gospel according to Mark and will return to these again on the 22^nd Sunday of the year. The reason for this interruption of sequence is that the passages from John fit in very well with Mark’s accounts of the crowds that have been following Jesus and the things he has been saying about himself. 

As in last Sunday’s gospel, the crowd is still following Jesus. Everyone is running after him. One must ask: is it really Jesus they are seeking? The suggestion of the author of the gospel is that the crowd follows Jesus because of the signs he performed by curing the sick. Here we have an example of the irresistible attraction of the human heart to the marvellous, the exciting, the entertaining and indeed the attraction, the lure, of potential benefit.

But Jesus does not despise this psychological reality. He does not dismiss it and least of all despise or reject the people who follow him. However ambiguous peoples’ motives may be, Jesus uses these motives as a starting-point. The question he puts to Philip is intended to test the depth, the perceptiveness, of Philip’s faith.  But, towards the end of today’s passage, when the crowds try to take advantage of his miracles and seize him, even make him king, Jesus flees from them. 

Throughout the Old Testament, bread is a symbol of God’s providence. It is literally the staff of life. Its availability in abundance is seen as a sign of God’s support of his people, its lack a sign of his punishment. In time, bread came also to represent and be a source of community, of sharing, and in the Temple the very presence of God himself among his chosen people.

The Jesus of the New Testament loses no opportunity to point out that the human person cannot live on bread alone. We eat, we survive – and then what? Jesus not only tells us that we need to go beyond living from physical bread – essential though it be – to live from every word that comes from the mouth of God. There is another hunger that only Jesus himself can satisfy. He goes so far as to tell us that he is the one who can satisfy that spiritual, existential, even cosmic, hunger. He goes so far as to point out that he is even the cause of that hunger, that longing, and at the same time the very bread that alone can satisfy that hunger. 

In today’s story, some people give help in the preparations for the meal. Andrew draws attention to the presence of a small boy who gives what little he has – five barley loaves and two fish. And so, if what happens is far from ordinary, the natural order of things is somehow respected. The loaves are not conjured up out of thin air, but thanks to the sharing, and then the multiplication of what a child has in his bag, however inadequate that was, there is enough for all and even some left over.  Whoever among us desires to be a blessing for others should bring to Jesus whatever she or he possesses. The master does not ask us for what we have not got; but in the hands of Jesus, what we are prepared to share works miracles, it fills and satisfies.

The gift of God, superabundant though it be, is not any less precious, none of it should be wasted. This is true of the bread multiplied in the Eucharist. It is also true of ourselves, for all of us are given one to another: the child to her or his parents, brother to sister, bridegroom to bride, friend to friend. Nothing of what Jesus has given should be allowed to be wasted. In today’s second reading, Paul describes the kind of community that results from this sharing: lives worthy of what Jesus calls us to be. ‘Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness. Gentleness and patience. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together…’.

Mention was made above of God’s chosen people. Remembering that no phrase in the Gospels is there purely by chance, we might note that when the hunger of all was satisfied, twelve baskets of food remained. Some scholars interpret this as indicating that the twelve tribes of the chosen people remain, but have now been joined by the rest of the human race, all chosen to feed on the new bread which is Christ.

Everyone should be gathered around his table so that while each shares with others what she or he has received – each his or her own five loaves and two fish –  the gifts of God never cease to multiply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s first reading and the accompanying gospel, present us with the image of the shepherd. Israel’s prophets and kings were often portrayed as shepherds and then some of them were berated, even cursed, ‘Doom for the shepherds who allow the flock of my pasture to be destroyed and scattered’. But in today’s gospel, when Jesus steps ashore and sees ‘a large crowd… like sheep without a shepherd’ we are told ‘he set himself to teach them at some length’. He is presented as the good shepherd. And his disciples, who have clearly just been engaged in similar work, are also good – to the extent that they are faithful co-workers with him.

This is meant to speak to us today so that we follow the good shepherd but also become shepherds in our time by spreading the Good News. Let us remember that the people to whom Jesus was preaching beside the lake were Jewish. But we, here, today, are of gentile stock, occupying the place similar to that of the Ephesians whose letter from Paul we heard quoted. Paul told them, as he could have us, ‘ do not forget, I say, you were separate from Christ, excluded from membership in Israel; aliens, with no part in the covenants of the Promise; limited to the world; without hope and without God.’ Such was the  mission territory of Paul and it applies to us, here and now, where the Good News continues to need to be preached and witness given by disciples.

In ancient times and to this day, in various parts of the world, the shepherd’s primary function was to see that his sheep had plenty to eat and drink. ‘In fresh green pastures he gives me repose, near restful waters he leads me, to revive my drooping spirit.’ That, metaphorically, is precisely what Jesus was doing in Galilee by his teaching and healing. Coming humbly, as a servant, not for power or possessions, not for him fanfare and the financial gains of the false prophets of his time. Christ was that longed for saviour, sent by the Father to respond to the needs of wayward humanity, peoples stumbling in the dark, not knowing what direction to take or having the strength to pursue paths of peace. With Christ that waywardness, running after shadows, could be overcome.

And Christ makes of us his disciples to continue his work which is one of witnessing, at a minimum. The church is full of  examples of this: the married couple is a powerful witness to love because nothing less than unconditional love is required of married partners. A temporary contract, until one of them finds something better, will not do for a Christian marriage.
Secondly, it is a Christian service, a holy service to mankind, to recall core Christian values that make fraternal community relations possible: speaking the truth in the public arena, seeking the common good beyond personal profit, justice and reverence towards all as we face common challenges. Never before has the need been so great, in these climate changing times.

Thirdly, to distinguish right from wrong, endow society with a moral compass, is a Christian testimony for all to share. Morality reminds us that an action is not right simply because it is legal. Nor is everything good although it may be technically possible.
And as for the challenges at the end of life, death is not made dignified by personal scheduling or choosing when we have crossed a subjective threshold of being a burden on society. Death can only be dignified, if at all, by entrusting oneself to the love of the Father, after the manner of Jesus. For the believer death opens onto eternal life by God’s gift. Our testimony is to teach that hope.

However it was not only by teaching the Way and the Truth that Jesus was the good shepherd but also by giving his life for us. The mystery of the cross was at the heart of Jesus’ mission as the Good Shepherd. It was the great service he rendered us. He gave himself. And it was not just once in a distant past. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the union with God that it brings and the life that it transmits to us, is made present for us daily. It is for us every Sunday on the altar, in the eucharist.

To conclude: in ancient times the sculpure of a shepherd bearing a lost sheep on its shoulders evoked an ideal and gentle world. For Christians it naturally became an image of Christ who had set out in search of fallen humanity. It became the image of Him who seeks us, in our meanderings through the sparse deserts and darker valleys, only to put us on his own shoulders and return us to the true pasture. He continues to be our shepherd and invites us in turn to show the Way, the Truth and the Life, to others in these difficult times – to find those ‘green pastures which give true repose.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The life of St Benedict revolves around two recurring themes, being in love and being on the move.

As a young man, Benedict fell in love with learning. To follow his love, he left his family and the familiar surroundings of Nurcia and went to seek out that learning in the schools of Rome. The decaying city of Rome proved a disappointment for Benedict, but during this time, he slowly nurtured a new love, the love of righteousness. Eventually this love drove him out of Rome in a search for solitude, which he found in a cave near Subiaco looking down on the ruins of the Emperor Nero’s villa, a constant reminder of the decaying ancient world all around him.

His years of solitude fostered the growth of a third love, a love of intimacy. This intimacy with God led him to abandon the austere solitary life as followers began flocking around him. He formed them into small communities of twelve monks each and later, after much torment, found himself on the move one last time to Monte Cassino, where he established his largest community and finally wrote his Rule for monks.

That Rule opens with famous words taken from the Book of Proverbs, ‘Listen my son to the precepts of the Master…’ The Rule is the fruit of Benedict’s love and his journey. He did not come up with the precepts of his monastic Rule in one sitting, but in one lifetime. The Rule speaks from Benedict’s own monastic journey of seeking and loving God. It is full of learning, the fruits of years spent in solitude with God, lessons learned from leading a community of monks and the wisdom and discretion of old age. It charts a long journey encompassing many new beginnings. Benedict can truly say with St Peter “Lord, we have left everything to follow you”.

Benedict insists that the love of Christ must come before all else, finding expression within the dynamics of community life in the love of others, where mutual obedience and care in all humility are live out, as described in the Acts of the Apostles.

Today, we face the challenge of being faithful to that love of Christ while adjusting to a fast-evolving world. We are living with a global pandemic and the challenges of a rapidly changing society. What does it mean for us to constantly love and leave behind the familiar and our personal preferences for the sake of this love? No matter how effective former ways may have been, we are urged to embrace the new ways that God invites us into: new ways of praying, of working, of relating with one another, of using the earth’s resources; but always for the sake of the love of Christ. For only then, does leaving the familiar behind and embracing the newness of life make sense.

Benedict has shown us the way. He felt the urge to leave behind the familiar in the pursuit of this love. He had the strength and courage to do so only because he loved God first. This is the key for all of us if we truly yearn for life and desire to see good days.