Author: Simon Sleeman

Fr. John O’Callaghan: Today’s readings concern immigration, immigration into the kingdom of God! The  readings all highlight the porous nature of the borders of that kingdom but also points to a few requirements for entry.

Tyre and Sidon were pagan cities, part of the gentile world and largely avoided by Jesus. And we are told that the woman who approached him was of Canaanite origin. That means she was of the people ousted from those Canaanite lands when the Israelites moved in. They were worshipers of the main rival to Israel’s God, namely Baal, the god who controlled the rain and fertility of the land. She couldn’t have had worse credentials! However she had “great faith”, Christ says, not only in approaching him but also in holding him to what he said about the house-dogs! She had enough faith to recognise that this ‘son of David’ could cure her daughter. St Augustine says that  ‘Every saint has a shady past’, and this woman surely had, but it was not the whole the story. Christ would make the most of the faith she had. 

The prophet Isaiah speaks about such outsiders. His words unambiguously proclaim, in the name of God: “my house will be a house of prayer for all peoples!’ Jewish prophecy had moved beyond religious exclusivism and opened up a universal perspective: it was a harbinger of the salvation offered to all in Christianity. Christianity is not exclusivist, not the privilege only of a specific race or ethnicity. Christians are a motely collection of all types, but they have to have a pass, a passport, like the Canaanite woman. The one which Isaiah identifies is:  ‘to care for justice and act with integrity’. Such basic human values give access to the kingdom. And there are many ‘holy pagans’, perhaps unknown to themselves, working undercover for justice in the most troubled spots of the world today. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be recognised as children of God’. 

Thirdly, Paul’s letter to the Romans echoes the same universal message: God’s purpose, as he writes, is to ‘show mercy to all mankind’. The ‘open borders’ policy was made explicit in Paul’s mission to the gentile world, beyond ‘the pale’ of old Israel. Did he not arrive in Athens and soon praise the Greeks’ recognition of ‘the  unknown God’?  In our own times the philosopher Edith Stein counselled to “Accept nothing as the truth if it lacks love; and accept nothing as love which lacks truth“. These twin values she found united in Christianity and they brought her to baptism and to be revered today as St Benedicta of the Cross. 

So, back to immigration! The borders of the kingdom of God are porous and God’s invitation extends to all. But one must rise to it by at least faith or hope or love. In our society where ultimate hope can be replaced with a superficial, short-term optimism, let us retain the deeper hope that there is meaning in life and it is worth the journey to a kingdom beyond this one. And let us show that friendship and love can endure; that our relationships are called to something more than a transient utility for a more or less selfish purpose. Love is possible. Finally, let us keep alive the faith that makes for a God-centered life, a life has ultimate meaning and can even overcome suffering and death, as we saw in the case of the woman from Tyre. We have no reason to despair, as revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. 

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman OSB. Elijah bursts onto the Biblical scene without so much as a by your leave. We know nothing of his background or his forbears. We just hear his thunderous voice coming from the 9th Century before the era of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From the harsh silence of the desert, his voice is almost as if heaven itself had broken the silence. With Elijah a line was drawn in the sand. On one side is the living God; on the other everything that has replaced the living God. The scene of our first reading this morning has this prophet holed up in a cave at Mount Horeb. He has just murdered 450 rival prophets and called on his God to reveal himself by scattering thunder and throwing down fire. Elijah is complaining that his enemies have it in for him, that life as a hell-fire preacher is not worth living. The message from the living God, both to him and to us, is clear. Turn down the volume and listen for the silence.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Paul Simon wrote the words of  “The Sound of Silence” when he was 21 years old. He was in the bathroom, where he turned off the lights to better concentrate. “Because, he says, the bathroom had tiles, it was a slight echo-chamber. I’d turn on the tap so that water would run (I like that sound, it’s very soothing to me) and I’d play in the dark. ‘Hello darkness, my old friend / I’ve come to talk with you again.'” He finished the lyrics on February 19th 1964. 

But ‘the vision that was planted
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

When King Ahaziah asked for a description of the prophet whom he had never met, he was told that Elijah was a hairy man who wore rough clothing made from animal skins, that he had a wild unkempt appearance about him. 

Elijah was certainly an angry person, ranting and raving, basically a rough diamond.  The living God, the God of mercy and compassion,  had to  slow him down, soften him up, and above all, get him to reduce the volume. 

Earthquake, catastrophe, disaster are not the idiom or the media of divine self-revelation. We have to learn the language of stillness and the sound  of silence if we want to communicate with the God who is, who was, and who always will be.  ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ 

God is God and cannot be otherwise. 

God is infinite, eternal, without beginning, without end.

We are the work of God’s hands: we are created, we did have a beginning and we will have an end. 

The strange and wonderful possibility is that God, having created the universe, fell in love with it. God wishes to make us part of God’s livelihood, which means being with God forever and ever. So, we must learn a new language, the one that God speaks. We hold ourselves out to the darkness with complete trust and love. We know that the darkness is not such because God is hiding or withdrawn or playing some game. It is the way God is in relation to the way we are. All our normal ways of loving, of expressing love,  must shrivel. We hold ourselves, as we are, in His presence. We offer our attention to the darkness. We stand still in the humility of our desire. 

This requires that we attune to the difference, acclimatise to the emptiness, adjust to the refinement of this Divine presence, which may register on our radar screens as total blankness [“is dona linn an briseadh seo”]. 

The butterfly lands in the semi-darkness on our thoroughfare; The leaf falls at our feet in the empty forest. Elijah had to learn, between Mount Carmel and Mount Horeb, that the words of a prophet are heard in ‘the sound of silence.’

Fr. Henry O’Shea:

The dripping blood our only drink

The bloody flesh our only food

In spite of which we like to think

That we are sound substantial flesh and blood.

T.S. Eliot

If the crowds gathered all over the world, and particularly in Europe and the United States, in the second week of November, 1918, were agreed on anything, it was on the phrase, ‘Never again!’ This is a natural reaction to the shock of what civilized people did to other civilized people in the first quarter of the twentieth century. 

But now, in the second quarter of the twenty-first century – and several ‘never-agains’ later – we who imagine ourselves to be civilized people have nearly exhausted our capacity for astonishment at the ever-developing inhumanity of modern warfare in whatever form it takes. Too great an exposure to scenes of violence, be that violence, domestic, continental or in video-games accessible to the youngest children – this exposure is blunting our capacity to imagine, our ability, to grasp the reality, the horror, of it all. Too much reality, real or virtual, is bad for my health, or more likely, shrugging out shoulders,  bad for my peace of mind and comfort.

Except, perhaps, when the anaesthetic of the soundbite wears off, when the avalanche of facts and statistics becomes ripped-open-flesh in the face of a person one might have known in a shot-down plane. Except, perhaps, when someone one knows is prevented from returning home because he or she is a Christian, Except, perhaps, when one experiences the trauma of a priest who sees 200 of his parishioners blown up in front of his church. Except, perhaps, when we see the devastation of the neighbouring family who have lost a loved one through suicide, perhaps when we read the annual statistics for abortion every year. 

Then, there are the realities of our own society’s dealings with the most vulnerable – and this in every period of our history. Women, perhaps, unmarried mothers, perhaps, orphans, perhaps, the homeless, perhaps, believing and practising Catholics, perhaps.  

Most awfulnesses remain other peoples’ awfulnesses, remain at a remove, until, or even after, we come into contact with them.

This is one reason for feeling a certain reserve, a certain reticence, about today’s second reading from St Paul to the Romans. It can be too easy, too glib, to proclaim to the distraught, to the traumatized, to say to those who have been or really are put to the test, that theirs are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of him who loved us. 

But, this reticence, or reserve does not make it any less true that, ‘… neither death nor life, no angel, prince…can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.’  Expect, perhaps ourselves. Except we who claim to believe in him, to love him, to be the only hands he has. 

With his unerring instinct for popular Marxist trivialization and profanation, Berthold Brecht, in his Threepenny Opera makes one of his characters sing, Erst kommt das Fressen dann kommt die Moral or: Grub first, then morality.  Eat your fill – and not just of food – and then you can think about other, even higher, things – poetry, music, even love. For all his mockery and cynicism, Brecht has a point. We all need to eat, we all need a minimum of security to live truly human lives. But, having one point does not mean missing another, missing every other. 

Clearly, the disciples in today’s gospel were not thinking in a Brechtian sense when they came to Jesus with advice about the catering arrangements – or lack of them – for the crowds that had followed him to the lonely place. Remember that Jesus went to that lonely place when he had heard of the swinging party in Herod’s palace, with wine, dancing – think of Salome – and, as the climax of the entertainment – John’s beheading, even if this had been part of the original programme for the evening.  What kind of banquet can there be in a lonely place? The disciples are practical people. 

As usual, Jesus is good for a surprise. The New Testament contains six stories of Jesus feeding the crowds. In every case, Jesus involves the disciples. In every case, Jesus instructs them to organize the crowds and to feed them. In every case, Jesus gives thanks over the loaves and fishes – that is, blesses them – in some cases raising his eyes to heaven, and then tells the disciples to distribute from the resulting abundance. 

The reference in these accounts of feeding to the Eucharist, to the Mass, to what we do at every Mass, is unmistakable. 

Unmistakable, too, is Jesus’ entrusting to his disciples the task, the duty of feeding the crowds. Is it purely by chance that most accounts refer to there being twelve baskets of leftovers from this Eucharistic superabundance, all having eaten as much as they wanted? Twelve baskets, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve tribes of the new Israel, the Church, twelve apostles. Us. 

The first reading from the Prophet Isaiah is one of the classic texts of the kingdom to come. Brecht might mock and, yes, food is mentioned, its importance is not denied – why spend money, the prophet asks, on what is not bread. But what, in the long run is bread? What fails to satisfy? The same Lord who feeds the five thousand says, ‘Pay attention, come to me, listen and your soul will live.’ This me, this I, who am calling, who am promising, is word and bread. 

In all our living, there is a spiral of poetry and prose. Prophecy and promise have to be rooted, have to be made concrete in response and responsibility. Prophecy and promise have to be made real in attentive, fruitful, action. Concrete response and responsibility have to be inspired by the poetry of the everlasting covenant made out of the favours promised to David.

We are called, commissioned to become shockable, to be astonished, astonishable, once more, called, commissioned, to fertilize the prose that we have become with the poetry of a loving, hoping, believing doing. ‘Never again?’

How many say: I would like to see his face, his clothes, his sandals!
Well, here you see it, here you touch it, here you eat it.

He is given to you not just for you to see,
But that you may touch it and receive it within you.

St John Chrysostom

 

Abbot Columba McCann: People sometimes ask me, ‘Why did you want to become a monk?’  They don’t get a straightforward answer!  We could also ask another question:  ‘Why are we all here this morning at Sunday Mass?’  Why are we here?  Go back fifty years, and going to Sunday Mass in Ireland was, for most people, simply part of Irish life, like the GAA and Guinness and having potatoes with your dinner.  That’s not to trivialise the Catholic tradition in Ireland and the real deep faith of many people.  But what I am saying is that being at Sunday Mass is no longer part of ordinary Irish life for most people.  So why are we here?

Each of us would surely give a different answer.  I’m wondering if the following kinds of answers might touch on the reality of why we are here?  We’re here because somehow we get a taste, a hint of the flavour of something that is deeply satisfying, even if sometimes we get bored or distracted at Mass; because here we sometimes get the echo of a voice that is familiar and attractive; because we sense a connection that really matters; because something bubbles up that refreshes us; because, when we are here, something simple and wonderful occasionally dawns on us, or descends on us from out of nowhere; because we get an intuition of something that is actually more satisfying that all the many good things life has to offer; because there is a hint here of what really makes us happy.

Jesus says it’s like treasure buried in a field, or a pearl of great price.

When people ask me why I am a monk, they sometimes raise questions about apparent difficulties:  no money of your own; no bank account; a celibate life; stuck in the same place; stuck with the same people; all that prayer; having to answer to a superior, and so on.  I would say that all those limiting factors are put there simply to help us enjoy the treasure more fully.

Very similar demands, and sometimes far more, are made on people in family life, and also on single people living alone.  The monastery is more like a learning support unit that makes it easier for some of us to see the treasure buried under our noses, if we want to see it.

King Solomon was asked, what do you really want?  He asked God for the wisdom.  He didn’t ask for other gifts like wealth or military success .  Typically, God gave him wisdom, but also gave everything else along with it.

Jesus himself pointed out that if we give priority to the buried treasure, the pearl of great price, then we will also be given everything else we need for life.

So if each of us were asked, ‘Well what would you really like God to give you?’  There may be some very important and very good things we might be asked for:  good health for ourselves and others, an end to financial worries, healing, reconciliation between people who are estranged, and more besides.  But I could decide to aim for something bigger that will not exclude any of that.   I could say, ‘Lord, there are many gifts that you already give.  There are many more that I could ask for.  But I dare to want more than that:  I want the giver himself. I want you!’  As it says in the Book of Psalms, ‘The Lord is my portion and cup, it is he himself who is my prize.’

What do I ask of the Lord?  I could say, ‘I want to live in daily companionship with Jesus Christ .  If I have him, if I am always with him, then I have happiness and everything else in my life will have the best possible outcome. I ask also that the God will help me to let go of anything that gets in the way of that daily companionship with Christ, the pearl of great price.

And what happens at this altar is Jesus’ way of saying, ‘That’s what I really want to give you:  here I am, for you, with you. Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find.  You have knocked on the door: I am opening it for you. Come, let us live our lives together.’  Here is the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price.  It’s here for the asking.  It’s presence is so subtle, so discreet, so humble, that you might overlook it.  But life with Christ is a life of abundance.

Fr. William Fennelly: Today’s readings highlight a virtue that seems under-appreciated in our world: the virtue of patience. Patience seems to be a forgotten virtue. Our society values ambition and action above all else…. Waiting, even for a very short time, has become so unbearable that much of our economy is geared at eliminating “dead time”.’ However, patience along with its inseparable companions self-control, humility, tolerance, generosity and mercy is an essential ingredient of God’s world.

The God we worship, as our first reading teaches, is both loving and patient: a God ‘who cares for every good thing’; a God who is ‘mild in judgement’ and who governs us ‘with great lenience’ (Wisdom 12:13,17). Today’s gospel reading from Matthew also underlines the patience of God. Extending the parable of the sower, in last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that when the good seed begins to sprout, weeds (darnel) appear among the wheat, much to the consternation of the servants who would like to root them out immediately. However, the wise farm owner asks them to be patient, and to wait until harvest time. He points out that, if they try to remove the weeds now, they ‘might pull up the wheat with it’ (Mt 13: 29). So, he tells them to let both grow together till the harvest. Then, the reapers can collect the weeds and burn them before gathering the wheat into the barn (cf. Mt 13:30).

The parable depicts a world with which we are all familiar – a world where evil is mingled with good – weeds among the wheat. While the world is still God’s garden, it is not as God intended it to be. God planted only good seed. The Book of Genesis reminds us that, when God had finished the work of creation, he ‘saw all that he had made and indeed it was very good’ (Gen 1:31). The presence of weeds is evidence of an enemy who has sneaked into the garden while the labourers were sleeping and planted bad seed (Mt 13: 25). Thus we have all kinds of evil in the world, from the most banal everyday variety, such as lies, jealousy, deceit, egotism and selfishness, to the most egregious – wars, human trafficking, mindless exploitation of earth’s resources, labour camps and torture chambers.

Today’s gospel is not telling us that we should do nothing about these weeds in God’s beautiful garden. As Edmund Burke reminds us ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing’. There is much we can and must do, but we may not act prematurely to try and eliminate all evil from the world. We must not hasten the final judgement, which belongs to God alone. It is not for us to put ourselves in God’s place, as Joseph reminded his brothers who feared he might seek revenge for what they had done to him (cf. Gen 50: 1519). Unfortunately, history provides many examples of the disastrous outcome of ill-conceived attempts to rid the world of evil. More recently we have seen the tragic consequences of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, more recently, Iran. Even good people rarely get it right when they try to remove the weeds from God’s garden.

The history of the Church, too, has been marred by arrogant efforts to rid the Church of those regarded as propagators of error and confusion, resulting in witch hunts and regular purges that continue right up to our time. I am thinking particularly of those theologians under appreciated by one group only to be later rehabilitated. In his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas Pope Leo apologised for the Church’s silence and wrong-headedness concerning the question of slavery. As we were reminded in our first Reading, the lesson we need to learn from the patient and tolerant manner in which God treats everyone is to always treat one another with kindness and understanding (cf. Wisdom 12:19). This must include those who differ from us or are even hostile to us.

The good news is that we have a master gardener (God) who assures us that all will be sorted out in the end. God’s kingdom grows slowly but surely, as the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast in the Cake illustrate. This assurance should free us from a dangerous preoccupation with getting rid of the weeds in God’s garden, and lead us to focus instead on sowing seeds of the kingdom. We can confidently leave the problem of the weeds to the master gardener and look forward to the day when he will gather the wheat into his barn. I conclude by leaving you with the wise maxim of late nineteenth century writer Scottish writer Ian McLaren:‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle’.

Fr. Jarek Kurek: “Why do you speak to the crowds in parables?” the disciples ask Jesus. In other words: “Why are you so elusive with those who follow you and seem eager to listen?”

It is a fair question. Why does Jesus conceal these things from them instead of speaking plainly?

Yet, if we play the devil’s advocate for a moment, the crowds may appear to listen—but what are they really seeking?

There is a story about two Jewish boys playing hide-and-seek. One of them hid and remained in his hiding place for a long time, convinced that his friend would come looking for him. Eventually, he came out, only to discover that his friend had already gone home without ever searching for him. His hiding had been in vain. The boy ran to his grandfather, the esteemed Rabbi Baruch, crying and complaining about his friend. Upon hearing the story, the old rabbi burst into tears and said, “God, too, says: ‘I hide, but there is no one to look for me.’”

Now imagine yourself standing by the lake among that great multitude, listening to Jesus speak from the boat. Like everyone else, you are drawn to him—to this wonder-worker, this remarkably charismatic preacher. It feels good to be there.

You listen eagerly to his words, yet it seems that the essence of his teaching—the mysteries of the kingdom—is not being given to you. Why is that?

Then comes the decisive moment. Jesus suddenly turns his gaze toward you, and without speaking, he seems to ask: “Why are you here? Are you here just because you have witnessed miracles? Or is there a deeper longing in your heart? Tell me, are you truly seeking God?”

Jesus asks these questions because he knows that the crowd surrounding you will not remain faithful to him. Their short-term expectations, their superficial desires, and their spiritual inconstancy will soon lead them to abandon him and forget the message of the kingdom.

That very fickleness is why Jesus remains reserved and elusive. He is, as it were, both near and hidden. Along with the message he brings, he remains veiled, revealing himself fully only to those who persevere. He does not admit into the inner circle of his disciples those who have not shown themselves worthy—those who lack the perseverance and single-mindedness to seek a deeper understanding of his message.

What, then, must be done? Is it too much to suggest that you must step away from the crowd, with all its questionable mentality, and embark on your own solitary—almost monastic—journey of faith? A journey marked by an earnest pursuit of God, truly Benedictine seeking God? Leaving behind what is familiar is certainly risky. It will bring many challenges. There is no doubt about that. Yet perhaps this is the one thing that is necessary in our own time.

The moment you resolve to make that shift, you show yourself to be a true seeker of God. You demonstrate that you genuinely desire to break through the veil that conceals this deeper understanding, that you truly long to become “one who hears the word of the kingdom and understands it.”

So go and seek. Search for the One who hides. Be steadfast in your search, and you will find him. The mysteries of the kingdom of God will be opened to you, and you will bear fruit—a harvest thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

 

Fr. Senan Furlong: Samuel Pepys is best known for the diary he kept during the 1660s. In it, he recorded not only the major events of his age, such as the Great Fire of London, but also, with remarkable vividness, the texture of everyday life in seventeenth-century England. In his entry for 14 October 1663, he describes visiting a synagogue in London. What he witnessed both surprised and shocked him. Instead of the sober solemnity he expected, he found the synagogue alive with singing, dancing, and rejoicing. Men embraced the Torah scrolls and carried them through the congregation with exuberant joy. Pepys found the whole scene irreverent, even scandalous. What he did not know was that he had arrived on Simchat Torah, the festival marking the completion of the annual cycle of reading the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. What looked to Pepys like disorder was, in fact, celebration. All the rejoicing was not directed simply at the scrolls themselves; it was directed towards the God whose love the scrolls proclaimed.

Exuberant joy is perhaps the last thing we associate with the Torah. Yet for the Jewish people, the Torah was never merely a set of laws. It was the sign of God’s covenant with his people. It revealed his wisdom and bore witness to his faithful love. It shaped the people’s identity, sustained their hope, and reminded them that, despite everything, they belonged to God.

This understanding of covenant—of enduring love and belonging to God—forms the background to today’s Gospel. In Jesus’ day, people spoke of taking upon themselves the “yoke of the Torah.” A yoke was a wooden frame placed across the necks of two working animals so they could walk together and share the same load. Properly fitted, it did not make the work disappear, but made the burden lighter and easier to bear. Jesus takes this familiar image and gives it a new and personal meaning: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” His yoke is light because he bears the burden with us. He is no distant taskmaster, but the Lord who walks beside us. As we learn from him, what once seemed heavy becomes lighter, and we discover the “rest” that he alone can give.

Today’s Gospel is about the Son who reveals the Father. That revelation is given not to the self-sufficient or the proud, but to those humble enough to receive it. The deepest answers we seek to life’s questions are not found in a book, but in a person. Everything we know of the Father comes to us through the Son. To be yoked to Jesus is to learn from him, to become gentle and humble of heart as he is. The “rest” he promises is not freedom from life’s burdens, but the peace that comes from carrying them with him. For he is God’s Wisdom made flesh, and the faithful love celebrated with such joy in the synagogue is the same faithful love we encounter in him.

In a few moments we will be invited to receive the Eucharist. What appears so small carries so much. In this simple gift of bread, Christ gives himself to us. We come with burdens known perhaps only to ourselves. We leave strengthened to take up his yoke once more. And because he walks beside us, our restless hearts begin, at last, to find their “rest.” 

Praise him with timbrel and dance;

praise him with strings and pipes!

Fr. Henry O’Shea:

The womb
Rattles its pod, the moon
Discharges itself from the tree with nowhere to go.

My landscape is a hand with no lines,
The roads bunched to a knot,
The knot myself,

Myself the rose you acheive—-
This body,
This ivory                               Sylvia Plath: The Childless Woman

Some of us may still be familiar with the old question asked when hearing of the birth of a baby, ‘Is it a boy or a child?’. I think that it is true to say, that despite all our alleged sophistication, our different ideas of what we consider progress, most societies are still obsessed with male succession. Look where it has got China. Look at our own history of land ownership.

The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, has many stories of the longing for a son. In today’s first reading, the story is of the prophet Elisha and of the hospitable woman of rank, who is promised a boy-child.

To this story can be added the stories of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Hannah, to name only a few. Just four days ago we celebrated the Birth of John the Baptist, himself not only a gift to his ageing parents, but also the prophet of one whose birth was the most wonderous of all time,  Jesus himself.

While not denying the social, cultural and economic background and context of these biblical stories, their common thrust is that of highlighting God’s sovereignty and the fulfilments of his promises. In a society, or societies, where a woman’s worth was and can still be measured by her ability to bear children, the biblical accounts of barren women emphasize God’s compassion and intervention, his challenging of cultural norms and his affirming of the value and dignity of every individual, regardless of their ability to be and do things demanded by any prevailing group-think. 

In many cases, the birth of a child to a barren woman signifies a turning point in the biblical narrative, marking the beginning of a new chapter in God’s redemptive plan. The miraculous births underscore the belief that God is the giver of life and that his purposes transcend human limitations. Hence John the Baptist. Hence Jesus.

Seen against this background, we can begin to make sense of what initially might seem to be Jesus’ weird and counter-intuitive instruction to his Apostles in today’s gospel: No one who prefers father and mother to me, son or daughter to me, anyone who does not take the cross and follow in my footsteps, is worthy of me. 

Over the past few Sundays, our readings from St Matthew’s Gospel have presented us with a series of such baffling and apparently contradictory sayings. But, like the stories of the so-called barren women, these sayings, too, have to be read in context.

Recently, while surfing the net, I came across an American evangelical site that offered 50 quotations from the Bible for every theme under the sun, themes from wine to weeping, from love to lust, from hatred to holiness. Virtually all of these quotations were from the Old Testament and virtually all of them were lifted from the context in which they were written. 

The Bible is not simply a quarry that provides verbal stones, stones either to hurl at other people or stones to build castles or fortresses of our own imaginings and built of and for our need for comfort, consolation or, indeed, isolation. The Bible did not arrive in one piece, at one point in time, leather-bound, gilt-edged and ready for instrumentalilsation like a user-manual or holy tool-kit.

The Bible, is the record in many literary genres – compiled over centuries – of God’s gradual, developing and, above all, loving relationship with his people. Its dynamic is sometimes explosive, at other times pedestrian, but it leads us from our past, to Jesus Christ, our present and our future. 

And this is what St Paul is pointing out in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Romans. He invites us to get real and to keep on getting real. The reality he is talking about is that, although baptised persons, we are still human, persons who suffer, die, doubt, wonder, sin, betray, love, aspire and expire. But, as baptised persons we also share not only in Christ’s death, but also in his resurrection. And that reality is the great and challenging game-changer. Death no longer has dominion over Christ and so no longer has dominion over us. 

This reality while focussing us on being alive for God in Jesus Christ, as today’s gospel puts it, does not divert our focus from the concrete realities of our earthly, human, existence. Christ is not telling us not to love mother or father, son or daughter. He is not telling us not to love, notto try to love, the neighbour who is a pain in the neck, hard work or simply plain bonkers. 

What Christ is telling us, inviting us to and making possible for us, is to look at and beyond present realities to the great reality of his saving person, one of us, human, but also God. This focus on the wider reality beyond and out of time, makes sense of all our focusses on and in time.

In a way, we are all, male or female, barren. The miraculous births we recall, remind us of God’s power to bring life and hope where there is barrenness and despair.

Myself the rose you acheive—-

This body,

This ivory.

Fr. Simon Sleeman OSB: This is a tough set of readings -sin, death, people whispering against Jeremiah, and even sparrows seem to be getting scarce  –  and three times the gospel tells us,  ‘Not to be afraid.’ I am told,  by the experts that this occurs 366 times in the bible. I am sure the congregation in the church in Smyrna, (referred to in the Book of revelation) were a bit taken aback when they were told one Sunday morning, to sit up and ‘not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer and not  to stop believing even if it should cost you them their lives.’  And this despite their dire poverty and imminent persecution.

‘Do not be afraid.’  It is not a suggestion, or a nice idea or a request –  IT is an imperative,  the briefest, clearest, least ambiguous way to formulate a verb – a command.

Yet, there  seems lots to be afraid of, Goliath’s everywhere, inside us and outside us. And this fear is not just a symptom of our age – there are fearful people in the gospels – Peter comes to mind….the witnesses at the resurrection…And we are biologically set up to fear of Goliath – our brain didn’t evolve to have happy thoughts but to help us survive – to recognise Goliath and run!

We do our best to keep Goliath out – install better alarm systems, build higher walls….but fear is inside and sin too – ‘our minds conformed to the ways of the world’ – a world running on fear. Yet, ‘Do Not be Afraid is the gospel command.

What are we to make of this serious, oft repeated command? The message seems to be, a) that this is possible and  b) we, as Christians, are meant to live free from fear – our lives transformed by the renewal of our minds, for we, as Jeremiah says, ‘have God at our side a mighty hero.’

And we have ALLIES and EXEMPLARS who can help us grapple with this …particularly the poets…David and Jeremiah, Isaiah…Heaney and De Chardin.

We don’t live in an age of poetry which is unusual in the overall scheme of human history, and I am a recent convert, so it is easy to miss the message of much of the poets and much of the biblical message.

We live in a time of prose, journalists set the agenda, obsessed with information, facts and data…And all the data tells us is,  ‘be afraid’! Petrol is running out, toilet paper running out… scramble in fear….

Poets call us to another reality – what our eyes blurred with too much gawking and our ears dulled with too much chatter… easily miss….

David, perhaps the greatest biblical poet, surrounded by people paralysed by fear as he stood facing Goliath in the valley of Elah.  He was incredulous – people of God, cowering before this infidel giant – their minds conformed to the moment –  dominated by Goliath, by Amazon.

David…his God-dominated imagination – ‘free to worship him without fear’  – he had no giants. There was God.  He downed Goliath.

Jeremiah, one of the great poets, knows our senses are dulled by sin. He wants to drag us into the deeper reality – the God reality – the basement where we can walk without fear and, as he says; ‘Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord.’

Seamus Heaney  – invites us to go ‘another level down’, into the underground –  beneath the fear. He knew.  The last text he sent his wife from his hospital bed as he lay dying …read: Noli temere….Do not be afraid…

Teihard de Chardin discovered…. there was no need to be afraid when he heard the voice of the gospel.

For the first time in my life perhaps (although I am meant to meditate every day), I took a lamp and, leaving the zone of my everyday life where everything seems clear, I went down into the abyss whence I feel, dimly, that my power of action emanates. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came -arising from I know not where -the current which I dare to call ‘my’ life. Stirred by my discovery, I wanted to return to the light of day and begin living again at the surface without plumbing the depths of the abyss. But then, beneath this very spectacle of the turmoil of life, there reappeared, before my newly-opened eyes, the unknown that I wanted to escape. And if something saved me, it was hearing the voice of the gospel, speaking to me from the depth of the night: Ego sum, noli timere (Do not be afraid, I am here). Yes, Oh God, I believe it: and I believe it all the more willingly because it is not only a question of my being consoled, but of my being completed.

Fr. Denis Hooper: IN 2014, THE IOWA STATE FAIR IN THE UNITED STATES WAS VISITED BY A POLITICIAN WHO ARRIVED IN A HUGE HELICOPTER AND A VERY LARGE ENTOURAGE. BRASH AND ENERGETIC – HE DIDN’T HAVE MUCH IN COMMON WITH IOWAN FARMERS. THEY WERE DOWN TO EARTH AND HARD-WORKING PEOPLE. BUT IN 2014 THEY WERE IN DESPAIR AND AT THE END OF THEIR TETHER. MANY OF THEM WERE STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE. A COMBINATION OF  SUCCESIVE YEARS OF DREADFUL WEATHER, AND THE RISING COSTS OF FARMING WERE PUSHING MANY OF THEM TO EXTREME MEASURES. SOME WERE TOTALLY BROKEN AND HAD TO SELL THEIR FARMS FOR A FRACTION OF WHAT THEY WERE WORTH TO SO-CALLED “VULTURE CAPITALIST FUNDS”. THESE WERE GOOD PEOPLE. IN 2014, THEY FELT THAT NOBODY GAVE ANY HEED TO THEIR PLIGHT. 

 

ENTER OUT OF THE SKY THE ORANGE-HAIRED POLITICIAN AND HIS CRONIES – THEY EXUDED CONFIDENCE AND WEALTH… AND HOPE. 

 

HE BROUGHT WITH HIM A SIMPLE MESSAGE: IT WAS CORRUPT OUTSIDE INFULENCES THAT CAUSED THE PROBLEMS OF THE IOWAN FARMERS: CROOKED POLITICIANS, CHEAP IMMIGRANT LABOUR – TO MENTION JUST A COUPLE ON A LIST OF WHO AND WHAT HE SAID WAS TO BLAME. 

 

AND THE FARMERS OF IOWA LAPPED UP THIS MESSAGE. AT LONG LAST SOMEONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM. SOMEONE WAS DIRECTLY ADDRESSING THEIR ISSUES. HE ACKNOWLEGED THEIR PLIGHT AND THEY WERE OFFERED SIMPLE AND PLAIN ANSWERS TO THEIR PROBLEMS.

 

BUT THE MESSAGE TO THE IOWAN FARMERS WAS BASED ONLY ON THREADS OF TRUTH. THE MESSAGE WAS NOT ACCURATE OR FAIR AND CERTAINLY NOT ANY KIND OF SOLUTION. 

 

TODAY, THE FARMERS OF IOWA SEE AGAIN JUST HOW FICKLE AND FALSE ARE THE MESSAGES SOME POLITICIANS HAVE GIVEN THEM. THEY ARE WORSE OFF NOW THAN THEY HAVE EVER BEEN: THEIR INCOMES ARE DOWN 25% IN THE PAST YEAR.

 

OVER TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO – AS WE READ AT THE START OF TODAY’S GOSPEL – JESUS IS WITH A LARGE CROWD WHO ARE EXHAUSTED, CONFUSED AND SEEKING DIRECTION. JESUS IS “MOVED WITH PITY” FOR THEM. THEY WERE TROUBLED AND FELT ABANDONED – LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD. 

 

JESUS DOESN’T TAKE THE EASY OPTION TO PUT THE BLAME ON ANYONE. HE TAKES ACTION. HE BEGINS A MISSION AND SENDS THE APOSTLES OFF TO HEAL, TO BRING HOPE AND TO PROCLAIM THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

 

JESUS SEES THESE PEOPLE AS BELOVED SONS AND DAUGHTERS. JESUS KNOWS THEM AND DESIRES TO HEAL THEM.

 

HE SAYS TO THEM: 

“COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOUR AND ARE BURDENED

AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST” (MATTHEW 11:28)

JESUS’ MESSAGE WAS NOT A FALSE PROMISE. HIS MESSAGE WAS NOT SOMETHING THAT WOULD BLOW ANY WHICH WAY THE WIND TOOK IT. HIS MESSAGE TO HIS FLOCK THEN, ENDURES RIGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY – AND TO ETERNITY.  JESUS’ MESSAGE IS SIMPLE: IT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD.

 

FOR PEOPLE DOWN THE AGES, FROM THE TIME OF THE ABANDONED SHEEP OF JESUS’ TIME TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TODAY – THE MESSAGE OF JESUS HAS LASTED THE TEST OF TIME.

 

AND WHAT IS THAT MESSAGE? LOVE GOD – AND LOVE YOUR NEIBHOUR AS YOURSELF – LOVE FOR YOUR EMENY. IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT – AND EVERYTHING ELSE WE NEED TO LIVE A LIFE OF MEANING. THE LIFE WE WERE MEANT TO LIVE IS FULLY ENCAPSULATED IN THE MESSAGE OF JESUS.

 

JESUS’ MESSAGE IS RELEVANT FOR ALL PEOPLES IN THE WORLD TODAY – JUST AS IT WAS TWO MILLENIA AGO.

 

FOR THE DECIPLES WHOM JESUS SENT OUT TO PREACH HIS MESSAGE THAT DAY, ALMOST OF THEM WOULD PAY THE ULTIMATE PRICE FOR TEACHING THIS MESSAGE. THEY WOULD LOSE THEIR LIVES BECAUSE OF JESUS’ MESSAGE.

 

MANY PEOPLE TODAY ARE STILL PREPARED TO PAY THIS PRICE. ARE WE?

 

1. PETER, WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR CHRIST AND HIS MESSAGE TELLS US IN A WAY THAT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE LOST SHEEP OF ISRAEL, THE FARMERS OF IOWA AND ALL OF US TODAY. 

 

ST PETER ECHOES THE WORDS OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH WHEN HE TELLS US:

“ALL FLESH IS AS GRASS

AND ALL THE GLORY OF HUMANKIND AS THE FLOWER OF THE GRASS

THE GRASS WITHERS

AND IT’S FLOWER FALLS AWAY

BUT THE WORD OF GOD ENDURES FOREVER”(1 PETER 1:24)