Author: Justin

“C’est une éducation vraiment chrétienne” – Le Père John parle de la vie monastique, de l’enseignement à l’école et de projets au Kenya et en Tanzanie #MeetTheMonks

The noise and distraction of daily living reaches a crescendo at this time of year, but Advent is a time to clear the decks and prepare for Christ’s coming:

Although the Church year comes to a close this week, we never cease to live and witness to our faith. The Holy Spirit renews and sends us forth, as at Pentecost:

Walking in nature, time for reading and adopting a greener lifestyle are some lockdown lessons for Father John:

Christ the King Year A

The title of today’s parable, namely the parable of the last judgement fails to fully grasp what is at stake. Firstly, the judicial metaphor is only one of several metaphors at work here. Secondly, the impression is that the parable will only be of relevance in a dim and distant future. Jesus speaks this parable not for people at the end of time but for people here and now, such as you and me. There is much repetition in this parable to alert us to the fact that what we do here and now while living with those around us has consequences. 

The two dialogues in the parable result in Jesus being associated four times with the hungry, the thirsty, foreigners, the naked, the sick or those in prison. Of all the people in the world surrounding us, Jesus is first to be found among those in need and importantly also among us when we are in need. Isn’t it strange that Jesus so closely identifies with us in our weaknesses rather than our achievements? Jesus even identifies with us when we go badly wrong and land ourselves in prison. The mention of prison suggests some guilt, and yet prisoners are among the privileged group with whom Jesus also identifies. The judgement of which Jesus speaks in this parable is nothing like human justice. 

In this parable, as through his ministry to the poor and the oppressed, Jesus reveals God’s interest in the least in this world. Many of us will recognise that when we were at rock bottom at various points in our lives, somehow we pulled through – by experiencing the closeness of the Lord both directly and indirectly through others. 

Jesus employs the metaphor of the shepherd to speak of his role with the sheep. This metaphor when used for the divine evokes God’s great care for his sheep, his seeking the lost and binding the wounds of the sick. This complements the repeated association of Jesus with the weak and oppressed, since Jesus as Shepherd now models the positive behaviour of care towards those in need. 

When we return to the repeated situation of which Jesus speaks – being hungry, thirsty, a foreigner, naked, sick or in prison – we find Jesus associating with those down on their luck, but also modelling the response of loving care towards them. Christ is at either side of every encounter enabling both the giving and the receiving of love and so enter into the dynamic of eternal life. 

God’s intended desire from the beginning of creation is to welcome us into the kingdom as shown in the first words spoken by the king in the parable: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Let us recognise Christ’s closeness in our weakness. So we will be able to imitate Christ in coming close to those in need around us. 

An excellent way for us to remember this double association with Christ, in both receiving and giving Christ’s love, is the prayer which Saint Patrick has given us: Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I arise today. 

Christians East and West celebrate the Presentation of Mary today, illustrated on our Russian Festal Icon:

Brother Anthony talks about our magnificent woods and the role they’ve played in his monastic life in this episode of #MeetTheMonks

To be gentle with oneself; to be compassionate to oneself; not to expect too much of oneself; to have awareness – today’s episode of The Mindful Monk:

SUNDAY 33A GLENSTAL 15TH NOVEMBER 2020

Prov: 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31: I Th 5:1-6; Mt 25: 14-30

From the late 1960s right up to the mid-1990s here in Ireland we had an annual contest for the so-called Housewife of the Year, sponsored initially by the Electricity Supply Board and latterly by a major gas-company.  While never completely without its critics, the competition was, at least for some years, hugely popular. Today, its criteria for the ideal housewife are more likely to cause at least apoplexy and possibly cardiac arrest to a ‘woke’ generation both female and male. 

The perfect wife as described in today’s first reading is clearly the homebody as seen not only by the Housewife of the Year contest but by Article 41 of our constitution from 1936 which tells us that, ‘the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.’ 

The more economically conservative among the ‘woke’ – if the designation ‘conservative’ is appropriate to such persons – may be slightly consoled by today’s gospel from St Matthew. At a first reading this passage seems to provide a sound business-attitude, not least to the banking sector. One tries to get out much more than one puts in and when things go well, then the winner takes all. The rest of you, of us, are fired, some more, some less. This is only partly a caricature, as survivors of 2008 and its aftermath, not least in recent years and days, will testify. 

Last week we heard of the prudent and foolish bridesmaids and of the watchful wisdom that comes from above. Today is the second-last Sunday of the Church’s year. Through all the readings at Mass on these last Sundays before the end of the liturgical year, runs the common theme of a waiting for the last days, not only waiting for the time when the world’s time will run out, but also for the time when our own time will run out. In the now we prepare, we make ourselves ready for, the not yet. 

It would be fooling ourselves to pretend that readings such as today’s first reading are not conditioned by the attitudes of the times in which they were written. But beyond the immediate context of a particular reading and the understanding of the respective roles or identities of women, and indeed men, that it portrays, there is a higher, a deeper meaning. 

We are told by most biblical scholars, that parables in the gospels have always just one main point to make. Today’s parable is not about good or bad financial practice but about making good use of the gifts God has given us during the time he has given us. These gifts, certainly, may include material gifts, but more importantly, the gifts he has given us are not only life itself, but the possibility of sharing in his divine life, and of doing that sharing with our sisters and brothers, now and in eternity. God gives us much so that he can give us so much more. Grace, is indeed gift, but a gift to be grown into and not simply put away safely where it can do me or others neither harm nor good.

Returning to the first reading – and making all the necessary allowances for attitudes at the time and in the place in which it was written – one can argue that the skills, good deeds and attitudes it describes apply equally to all women and men – people who already share, through Baptism, in God’s life. Among these are: doing no harm to others; seriously working for one’s self and those for whom one is responsible; openness and generosity to the poor; both the materially and spiritually poor. And then there is wisdom. There is the expansion of the heart so beloved of St Benedict, a vision of the true and discernment of what is necessary. The capacity for life-giving worship and prayer.

And this brings us to today’s second reading from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. The fact that Paul is not really interested in what he calls ‘times and seasons’ in the sense of special feast-days or times of penance or celebration to be punctiliously observed as was the case in the society in which he lived: this lack of interest does not mean that Paul was not interested in time as such. But for Paul, the most important time is now. Paul was indeed convinced that the Lord was going to return very soon and for that reason he had, he has, no interest in the postponed life. He tells us that now is the time for making our own the life, the new life, we have been given in Jesus Christ, with all its possibilities, challenges, contradictions. This is why he urges us to stay awake, to be realistic, not to hide from the light, not to postpone our lives until it is too late by imagining that we can safely store away the gifts we have been given. 

There is a kind of sleep, or even sleepwalking through life in all its aspects, that is foolish, complacent, sometimes arrogant, sometimes opinionated. There is a lazy somnolence that can overtake us like a thief and steal or fritter away the one ‘now’ we have been given with its possibility of opening out to an eternal now. 

The Christians do not have to be Housewife of the Year. But the Christian can be ‘woke’. Indeed, are summed to be ‘woke’ – but to be ‘woke’ to what really matters.

Rediscovering what was already known, was taken for granted, or had been forgotten – Br Colmán’s lessons from lockdown: