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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)

 

Abbot Christopher Dillon: It is a safe enough observation, I think, to say that our number one consideration is life and the quality of our life. Well, we are celebrating today the feast of life as God’s most precious gift to us, God being absolute life and the source of all life. Experience tells us that essential to the maintenance of life, as we know it, is food; and the first reading recounts the Hebrews’ experience of receiving that food in the desert. Then, the words from the Gospel of John that we have heard just now have Jesus speaking of his body and blood as providing the essential food sustenance for life. And then, logically, St Paul’s words to the Corinthians speak of the bread and wine which form the matter of the eucharist which we are celebrating as a communion in the body and blood of Christ. 

It is strange combination of simple images to convey the much more complex proposition which is Jesus’ teaching; for it is his words which are the bread of life, teaching us how to live as we should.

Behind it all is the enormous truth that God, the quintessence of life and source of all life, is self-giving love in action. This God, who gives himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ who is the very image of God, his and our Father, gives us further his life-giving, life-maintaining, presence in this ritual which we call the Mass. 

Jesus, having spoken about all this to his followers, when he spoke of himself as “the living bread”, used the occasion of the Last Supper to make it all happen. As you remember, after the meal, he blessed and broke the bread  and passed it around, saying, ‘Take this and eat it of it; this is my body, which is given for you”; and the same with the cup of wine, “Take this and drink of it , for this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the covenant which will be poured out for you.” 

That this should have been Jesus’ parting gift to the disciples says much about its meaning for him and his intention for us. Two days after his first ritual sharing of his body and blood at the Last Supper, he repeated it with the two disciples in the inn at Emmaus, to demonstrate how the ritual made him present to them and so it is for us today, at every celebration of the Eucharist. Jesus wanted then and wants now not to leave us orphans but to nurture us by his presence; and it is by means of this particular sacramental ritual that he achieves this continuous miracle.

This remains Jesus’ ultimate gift to us, ultimate in every sense, in all its mysterious wonder, summing up all that has gone before, in his human life, his teaching, his suffering and his resurrection; all of it for us, as the pledge of his love and the promise of our future life with him, to mould us and to form us to be truly human, realising the divine image in which we were called into being. 

Our task is to embrace all this in loving trust and to live our lives accordingly in self-giving love. In joyful love and gratitude, let us embrace this gift of his sacramental presence with ever deeper appreciation and live by it!

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman: It is a cruel irony that the first detonation of a nuclear weapon by the United States on July 16th 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project, was code named ‘Trinity.’ Oppenheimer, who assigned the name ‘Trinity’ to this death-dealing operation says that he was influenced by the poetry of John Donne [1572-1631] Donne seemed to claim that unless the Trinity used its almighty power to overcome and subdue us we would never come to heel and behave towards God in a mannerly fashion. 

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you 

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; 

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend 

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 

Take me to you, imprison me, for I, 

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, 

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. 

 

Unless God’s love is weaponised into a nuclear explosion on our planet, we won’t pay any attention. Less than a month later, on the 9th of August, 1945, a plutonium bomb, resulting from the Trinity experiment, was dropped on Nagasaki in Japan killing 75,000 people instantly. The world certainly sat up and took notice. We now had unheard of power in our hands. Today’s Feast reminds us of an alternative power, an alternative energy, the power of love which we can, each one of us, switch on or off, whenever we wish, at will.

Going back to the beginning of the world as we know it, the explosion which was the creation of the universe at the beginning of time – sometimes described as ‘the big bang’ – was a Divine, life-giving experiment, also with the code name Trinity. The Trinity brand is imprinted on all things that exist, and every last particle, is in relation with every other. We are relational beings and love is our connection.

Ever since it has been revealed to us that the God who created this marvellous universe is a three-personed unity which we call The Trinity, whose feast day we celebrate today, the greatest brains of humanity have tried to explain what this might mean.Theologians have built geometries and theological constructs to work it out, or so they think.  Diagrams were sketched and maps were drawn. Augustine spent sixteen years writing his De Trinitate starting in the year 400. 

 These were mostly men, using their heads. Let us skip the head work and get down to the heart work. There are people in this world who spend at least two hours a day in conversation with the makers of the universe who, they believe, are dwelling deep in their hearts.  I think of the Carmelite order of contemplatives who have sixteen communities at this time in Ireland. I am influenced especially by a young French Carmelite who called herself Elizabeth of the Trinity especially to emphasize today’s particular feast.  She was seven years younger than Thérèse of Lisieux. Although less well known than the little flower, she was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016, ten years ago. She died at the age of 26 in the year 1906 and her feast Day is on November the 8th 

Elizabeth promised to spend the eternity she now enjoys helping any of us to find the three persons of the Trinity in our hearts. She has taught me, more than anyone else, that the God of love is an immensity, an abyss, an ocean, into which we can plunge at every moment, without endangering our own personal identity or interrupting the rhythm and integrity of our way of life here on earth. God is the tsunami of love that sweeps each one of our surf boards to heights where we can enjoy the company  of the extravagant Trinitarian Three . . . . ‘I would like to whisper this secret to those I love, she writes, that they too might cling to the great silence within until it reveals its song.’

Fr. Lino Moreira: In his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul says that God showed the full extent of his power by raising Jesus from the dead and enthroning him at his right hand in the heavens (cf. Eph 1:20). According to the Acts of the Apostles, this enthronement of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah and Son of God, took place forty days after his resurrection, when he was lifted up before the eyes of his disciples and a cloud took him out of their sight (cf. Acts 1:9). 

Some, however, dismiss this mystery of the Lord’s ascension into heaven as mere fiction. Their argument is usually twofold: first, they point out that the Earth is round, and therefore ‘being lifted up’ simply means moving away from our planet in whatever direction the observer perceives as ‘up’; second, they emphasise that even if it were possible for someone to travel to the farthest reaches of the universe, they would not be able to find a physical place where Jesus is literally sitting at the right hand of God’s throne, surrounded by a court of angels and saints.

No one, of course, can take issue with any of this, but the Bible is not primarily concerned with science and often relies on imagery and symbolism to convey spiritual truths that can only be partially grasped by human intelligence. Every word of Scripture carries a deeper meaning. In his reflection on the Lord’s ascension into heaven, one of the greatest fourteenth-century mystics, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, helps us to see something of what lies beneath the surface of the New Testament account. This is what he says: “Since it was the case that Christ was to ascend in body, it was more appropriate that it should be upwards and from below; but if it were not for this appropriateness, he would no more need to go upwards than downwards, for the main and shortest road to heaven is travelled by loving desire and not by footsteps” (Chapter LX).

When people still believed that the Earth was flat and that Paradise lay somewhere above the stars, this insightful author evidently understood that, at his ascension, the man Jesus was not transported to a different cosmic location; rather, he entered into communion of life and power with the living God, to whom he had always been united by love. Admittedly, instead of saying that Jesus entered the mystery of God, Luke reports that he was lifted up in the presence of his disciples, and a cloud took him out their sight; but here the cloud symbolises God’s presence and action. As for the New Testament assertion that Jesus is seated at God’s right hand – an echo of Psalm 110 – it means that the glorified Jesus shares God’s dominion over all creation and, like his divine Father, is everywhere without being bound by the constraints of time and space.

This, in fact, is what Jesus says about himself in today’s gospel: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18, 20). As is typical of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus addresses not only his immediate audience but the entire church. The promise he makes to the Eleven after his resurrection extends to all believers throughout the centuries. He says he will be with them until the end of time because, as the glorified Messiah, he can now be as close to them as only God can be.

Paradoxically, then, by departing from this world, Jesus took the final step towards becoming Emmanuel, God with us (cf. Mt 1:23). It is no longer possible to encounter him in his mortal flesh on the roads of Palestine or anywhere else in the world, but we can find him ever present within our innermost being and among those gathered in his name. We can recognise him above all in the Eucharist, where he speaks to us through the words of Scripture and gives himself to us under the signs of bread and wine. He is our brother, accompanying us on our pilgrimage through life. If we are not too self-absorbed, we will be able to hear his voice gently guiding us along the way until he finally welcomes us into his kingdom, where he lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman: In this heady time after Easter we are full of talk about Resurrection and everlasting life; most of our official prayers are about joining Jesus in his risen state and remaining with Him for ever. Another big topic of conversation is the journey to the far side of the moon which happened very recently. Artemis II carried the first astronauts to travel to the Moon in more than half a century. These came back to Earth last Friday week after a record10-day journey that took them the farthest distance from the Earth ever reached. I have to say that I keep asking myself what is the point of it all, especially when it costs four billion dollars a pop?

Getting beyond the time/space orbit of our natural biological lives requires a rigorous training programme. To become an astronaut, you often spend months lying in a tilted bed with your feet 6 degrees higher than your head without ever standing or sitting up.— this gives a physical reaction akin to weightlessness. “Human beings on the way to Mars, for instance,  have to become halfway between a fish and a bird,” the experts say. 

The largest human-made object launched beyond earth’s gravitational pull is The International Space Station (ISS). It is about the size of a football field, and contains living quarters about the size of a six-bedroom house. Two years ago a pair of American astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were launched up there for what was meant to be an 8 day mission. However, because of technical problems, they were left there for eight months. They came back to earth in March of last year. What would your weightlessness do up there floating around six bedrooms for eight months? 

We say in both the Apostles and the Nicaean creeds, as you will say in a few minutes time: ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.’ But the truth is that we weren’t really made for long-term capability. Half the beauty of a sunset on this planet is that it doesn’t last. We can only put up with short-term entertainment. ‘Beatific Vision for all eternity is a no-no for those who find a three hour movie too long and too  tedious. What can it mean to be blissfully happy for all of eternity? Think of any pleasure you really enjoy and then imagine it going on forever. The ice-cream that you crave on a summer’s day – if it’s stuck in your gob for a fortnight it kinda loses its flavour. 

There are over 8 billion persons in the universe as we speak. The 15th November, 2022, was the “Day of Eight Billion.” From that day onwards our human family comprises that number all expecting to be resurrected when their time comes. Calculations which have become possible in our day also suggest that since human persons have emerged on earth there have been about 117 billion bodies formed. Do we think these are kept in some deep-freeze in the sky? Nothing of the material body in which I now stand is going to endure for eternity. Every single particle of me has been renewed during each ten years of my life. I have none of the limbs, joints or bones I started out with. 

Anyone who wants to become anything in this life has to undergo rigorous training whether to be an athlete or an astronaut. When we say that Easter means resurrection, we mean that resurrection has already happened; our task is to be plug into that fact. Resurrection is divine energy, divine power and divine love meeting with and transforming each one of us as human persons. Resurrected living is a form of love. In ourselves, in our bodies, in our lives, it shows itself as being in full flow. We are and we act from the true centre of ourselves which is the Holy Spirit of Divine Love. We have to train ourselves for such a life style, and one that goes on forever. Here is the best description I have found: Your personal identity, established in and through an embodied history, is raised up into a trans-physical reality. This means fuelling ourselves with the love of God, becoming lovers of that calibre. We have to begin living that way as of now, no matter what age we are, or what situation we are in. 

Homily 6^th Sunday of Easter 2026

Fr. Simon Sleeman: ‘If’ you love me and keep my commandments I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth…

When I began looking at the readings for today, sometime ago,  it was that ‘if’, right at the start, that stopped me, in my tracks. I found it hard to move past it. I wondered why?

Maybe it was because those little words provide the meaning while the big ones look after themselves. The little ones that drive the big words into action; if’, ‘no’, ‘to’ ‘in’, ‘go’.  If you lose them you lose the lot. ‘If’…. you love me and keep my commandments …I will….

Maybe it was because my Mother  often quoted Rudyard Kipling’s poem ,‘If’ to us when we were children, the last lines of which are .

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

A mother talking…

‘If you love me and keep my commandments I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you…that Spirit of truth…’ Jesus talking.

‘If’ ….and it seems to be one of those BIG ‘Ifs’…implies there are conditions – implies there is something required of me,  …‘ if you can fill the unforgiving minute’…then….

There are conditions to enter the large world of God and have it enter us. ‘If’ you love me and keep… then’…God protecting himself from us; protecting himself from our pride and our futile, but constant attempts to be god.

‘If’ ….the gauntlet thrown down, the invitation received, the challenge set, …a huge entry point to the divine opening before us, life on the line… the Trinity of God, beckoning….to us to participate in their life of love.

‘On the whole’, Annie Dillard says, ‘I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.’ But even the biologists among you will know the need for conditions if a seed is to germinate and grow- oxygen, warmth, water….

Oh… but we don’t like conditions or even recognise the need for them.

Conditions, commandments – no thanks – just give me the goodies, skip the conditions….the ‘ifs’…especially the big ‘ifs’…conditions cramp my style…commandments – no thank you….just send me that other Advocate…just one click should do it…Muscle and  memory. I’ll take the love, Yes…. ‘that feeling you feel, when you feel, that what you feel, is a feeling you never felt before – oh that’s it… Yes….now we are talking.  Good luck with that…

Carl Jung, the Swiss Psychoanalyst, says that modern human beings no longer fulfil the necessary conditions  to see God – that they don’t see God because they no longer bend low enough…they are not sensible of conditions – we’ve got way above our station…busy building Towers of Babel, chasing our wild dreams and perpetrating outrageous evil.

There is something required of me as a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ and recipient of the Holy Spirit;  a commitment to look beyond the small cramped world of me where our culture would have us hang out – hungry…for stuff. And Jesus seems confident we can do it…

Jesus speaks, ‘If’ … but he also sets the ‘if’ into action.

At this last supper gathering, where he is speaking, of the ‘ifs’….he gets down on his knees and washes the feet of his disciples.

That gesture, that generous response to the BIG ‘if’. This doesn’t seem like much of an invitation but rather a degradation…especially to those who no longer bend low enough to see ….the Spirit of Truth…..beckoning….