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.”
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.
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 notto 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, thereseems 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 andb) 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?
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.’
Holy Family mosaic at All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt.
The question of immigration has become increasingly charged both at home and abroad in recent years, and World Refugee Day later this month offers a timely moment for reflection. The Irish government has announced that Ukrainian refugees will no longer receive housing supports, and is also considering financial incentives to encourage Ukrainians to return home. This is striking, given that the human cost of Russian aggression has not diminished. In response to domestic pressures, the government appears to be asking people to return to a country still at war.
Over in the United States, over 60,000 people are being held without charge by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the question of immigration becoming central to US politics. Meanwhile, across Europe, anti-migrant rhetoric is driving politics and causing turbulence – notwithstanding the demographic collapse in birth rates. For example, in Greece this year the government has closed over 5% of schools in the country and similar closures are imminent across the rest of Europe.
Here I don’t propose to set out a case for immigration reform, to condemn some, or to exonerate others, but rather on the basis of Ireland’s own history of emigration and – more recently – immigration to discern three broad principles:
“People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families;”
“A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration,” since this concerns the common good, and;
“A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.”
The Church has long spoken out on immigration and there are good reasons why she teaches what she does. For this, an examination of some pontifical documents is helpful.
The Encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of New Things) by Leo XIII, 1891
Leo XIII’s encyclical was the “first social encyclical.” Grafting itself onto a tradition hundreds of years old, it signals a new beginning and a singular development of the Church’s teaching in the area of social matters. This encyclical marked the beginning of what we could call the Church’s “social doctrine.” It’s not that the Church ignored social problems before Leo XIII; rather, with this encyclical, the Church began to speak, from Gospel values, her large doctrinal history, and her wealth of experience, to the social issues and ills of the day.
To summarise the document would be too much, so I wish only to point out that, even if it does not do so explicitly, Rerum Novarum laid the basis for the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. These two principles are cornerstones of the Church’s social teaching and are integral to the later establishment of the EU.
Subsidiarity means that action should be taken at the lowest level possible. If, for instance, a family can provide for its children just fine, there is no reason for the state to intervene. If the lower-level falters, then the higher level of authority can come to assist, but the preference is that the lowest level look after its concerns. Solidarity encourages all to work together, since we are all the Body of Christ. This phrase most often refers to the mystical body of the church and also applies to the whole of society.
The Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana (The émigré Holy Family of Nazareth) by Pope Pius XII, 1952
This little remembered document speaks about the historical undertakings of religious communities to provide spiritual care for immigrants. Pius XII provided a summary of his interventions in recent years and also speaks of the benefits of immigration.
“For this reason, on June 1, 1951 in a radio address on the fiftieth anniversary of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, we did speak of the right of people to migrate, which right is founded in the very nature of land. “If the two parties, those who agree to leave their native land and those who agree to admit the newcomers, remain anxious to eliminate as far as possible all obstacles to the birth and growth of real confidence between the country of emigration and that of immigration, all those affected by such transference of people and places will profit by the transaction”… In this way, the nations which give and those which receive will both contribute to the increased welfare of man and the progress of human culture.” He goes on “the sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations, provided of course, that the public wealth, considered very carefully, does not forbid this.”
The Encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) by Saint John XXIII, 1963
In this encyclical, John XXIII explicitly said that “every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own State. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there. The fact that he is a citizen of a particular State does not deprive him of membership in the human family, nor of citizenship in that universal society, the common, world-wide fellowship of men.”
The Pope speaks of a right to movement and to immigration, but always when there are just reasons for doing so. This is very similar to the right to Freedom of Movement which is one of the fundamental rights set out in EU law. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is direct: “the political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially… the right to private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate” (2211).
The Catechism recognises that states have a legitimate right and a real responsibility to regulate borders in service of the common good. This isn’t a concession to politics. It’s basic Catholic social thought. Pope Leo XIV put it simply in saying that“I think every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter.” He went on to say that migrants’ dignity as human beings must be respected.
A nation fails its own obligations when enforcement becomes an end in itself, when procedural violations are treated as more serious than human dignity, when people who came out of genuine necessity have no path to make things right, when families are torn apart without serious justification, or when a permanent underclass of working people is simply left in legal limbo because it’s economically convenient. The question isn’t only whether laws are enforced. It’s how they’re enforced and whether personal dignity is honoured in the process. It’s important that families are kept together not as a favour but as a moral priority. Similarly special attention should be paid to the most vulnerable; children, refugees and people who didn’t choose their circumstances. The human person is not a problem to be managed, and their dignity has to be upheld.
The right to migrate is real, and it flows from the dignity of the human person. The Catechism says that wealthier nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome those who can’t find safety at home (CCC 2241). Gaudium et Spes(65) grounds this in the universal right to seek the conditions for a dignified life.
The Church asks something genuinely difficult of us: to hold two things at once that our political culture wants to treat as opposites. Human dignity must be protected and social order must be preserved. Ignore either one and you risk injustice. Hold both together and something better becomes possible.
Leo XIV, speaking last year on World Refugee Day, said the “link between migration and hope is clearly evident in many contemporary experiences of migration. Many migrants, refugees and displaced persons are privileged witnesses of hope. Indeed, they demonstrate this daily through their resilience and trust in God, as they face adversity while seeking a future in which they glimpse that integral human development and happiness are possible.”
The Pope went on to say that “migrants and refugees remind the Church of her pilgrim dimension, perpetually journeying towards her final homeland.” Ireland’s history of migration to the UK, North America and in our own day to Australia has ingrained the value of international travel and the possibility of seeking a different life away from this island. Having benefitted to such an extent from the hospitality of others, it is paradoxical and embarrassing that this country is struggling to offer hospitality to people arriving here.
Our response must return us to the Gospel, where Christ identifies himself with the stranger, the hungry, the displaced and the vulnerable. World Refugee Day is not only an occasion for political reflection, but for an examination of consciencewhich asks whether our homes, our parishes, our monasteries and our nation still have room for those who knock at the door in need. The migrant and the refugee remind us that we too are pilgrims, dependent on mercy, journeying towards a homeland not made by human hands. To welcome them with justice and compassion is not simply an act of generosity, but rather a way of recognising Christ himself on the road.
Holy Family of Nazareth, pray for us.
William Fennelly OSB
+ World Refugee Day is celebrated annually on 20th June.
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.
