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– Fr. Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB

These are turbulent times. We have lived through the banking crisis of 2008, the COVID crisis of 2020, the climate crisis of this present age, the war in Ukraine is regrettably ongoing and the Christian community in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world continue to suffer persecution. St Benedict is someone who can speak today into a time of crisis. Although the word PAX is written over the doorway of his great Abbey at Monte Cassino, just as it is written over our archway here, Benedict lived through several global crises in his lifetime.

The last fifteen years of his life on earth were a time of war, destruction and hardship with shortages of food and basic goods. In the year 536 there was a climate crisis caused by volcanic eruptions. This led to global cooling and floods, food shortages and earthquakes. Before his death in 547, there was a pandemic of bubonic plague: the plague of Justinian, which swept through the Byzantine Empire and is estimated to have killed between 30-50 million people. Added to this was the constant threat of invasion by the Lombards from the north. In this time of crisis, St Benedict forged a rule to help his monks live together before God and in peace. St Benedict’s life and the attraction of his Rule, continues to inspire men and women to follow the monastic vocation and to listen to the call of God – why?

The prologue of the Rule opens with the words, ‘Listen, my son, to the precepts of the Master and incline the ear of your heart’. If we wish to learn, then we have to listen. We must listen to the Scriptures, to preachers, teachers, philosophers, to the writers of the past and present, and dedicate our mind and heart to learning, as to God.

The example of the patience of the monks of old, who copied medieval manuscripts is set before us, perhaps years of work knowing that each stroke of the pen would benefit future generations. I am sure some of them were often tired, but they knew they were engaged in an enterprise that was greater than themselves. Patience is not something we are good at today.

St Benedict also reminds us that the discovery of God begins on our knees. He teaches us to pray and offer our work to God, ‘First of all. Every time you begin a good work, you must pray most earnestly to bring it to perfection’ This is wise advice for our age. He also teaches us to use the gifts of creation wisely, with moderation, not over-consuming or acting as though everything belonged to me.

Fortunately, the human spirit has the capacity to rise to the challenges of today, as it did in the past. Consider the response made to Ukraine, the openness to families of refugees. St Benedict writes, ‘“Distribution was made as each had need.” We also retain the capacity to fix our mind and heart on God, preferring nothing whatsoever to Christ.

These few reminders tell us that we must consider the good of every human person. In this way, each can play his or her part using their gifts for the good of others and then be welcomed home to heaven at the end of life like St Benedict, with those words of welcome, ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’

– Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman OSB

Carrauntoohil is the highest mountain in Ireland at 3,407 feet. Jerusalem is 1,200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, you are 2,200 feet below sea level. So someone going down from Jerusalem to Jericho might be going down Carrauntoohil. Not only is it seriously steep but when Jesus was using this imagery, it was both dangerous and difficult; robbers and bandits peopled the hillside, it was known as the ‘Way of Blood.’

And that is the trajectory of all our lives, whether as individuals or as our world-at-large. We all went downhill at some point. Jerusalem is the password for ‘a place that is at peace.’ Shalom is the greeting: ‘peace be with you.’ Jerusalem is where we all hope to be.

The readings this Sunday take us through the whole history of Judeo-Christianity. The first from Deuteronomy is taken from the speech given by Moses to the Jewish people about to enter the promised land, the place of God’s eternal peace. Moses was God’s spokesperson 13 centuries before Jesus Christ. His was a very splendid view of humanity and the possibility of our being in close relationship with God. The Jews were a chosen people; this became a nationalized  religion. Samaritains, in their reckoning, were outside the pale. Jesus Christ rejected all such ostracization; he will establish a new Jerusalem, a community without borders, divisions, all-too-human sectarian divides. Not colour, not creed, not gender, not nationality, could ever exclude us from the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. The meaning of the word Ukraine is ‘border’ both historically, etymologically and especially now. We are asked to be ‘neighbours.’

The hero of Christ’s parable in our Gospel story is deliberately chosen by Jesus as an identifiable pariah: a Samaritain, as such, represents all those who have been left out of any previous  dreams about the human race. Samaritains were despised and hated ‘outsiders’ who worshipped falsely and desecrated true religion.

‘Who is my neighbour?’ the wise guy in the parable will catch us out. Christ’s answer is as much a challenge for us today as it was to the Jewish lawyer of his time on earth.

Saint Paul, who provides us with the extraordinary text of the Second reading, was himself a Jew and a Pharisee to boot. He saw that great cosmic dimension of Jesus Christ, trying to lift us out of all such identification and particularity. No matter who you are, Paul tells us in today’s Epistle, walk tall and aim high  as high as Carrauntoohil. Jesus Christ, who invented this story, is God come on earth as a human person to offer God’s love to every single human being that ever lived, or ever will live on this planet. He is not some well-meaning philosopher, some benign social reformer, ‘he is   the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  In him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together.’ ‘God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,  and through him to reconcile us to himself.’ We have all been called to the new Jerusalem, to this place of peace and of love. Do not imagine that you have been left out. You are both the one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and the one who was looked after by the Good Samaritain.

 

– Fr. Denis Hooper OSB

Steve Jobs who passed away in the early two-thousands was the Chief Executive of the Apple Corporation – one of the most successful companies in the world. He had a unique approach to selling Apple products. He told his sales executives that they were not to try and sell the Apple computers – rather they were to sell “a dream”. A very clever approach to marketing.

The problem with dreams is that they seldom live up to expectations.  When our dreams are realised they so often seem to be a letdown – they aren’t quite what we expected. The singer Peggy Lee released a song in the nineteen sixties titled “Is That All There Is?”

The song is about when her dreams actually  became realities – all the milestones of her life – they were always a disappointment:

“is that all there is, is that all there is?

If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing”

Closer to home, Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries and an occasional attendee at vespers here had a similar sentiment when she sang “and oh my dreams. It’s never quite what it seems never quite what it seems”

In today’s gospel, Jesus sends out seventy two desciples to bring his word to the Jewish world of Judea – half a million people.

The number seventy two – biblical scholars tell us – represents the number of nations in the world then. Scholars also tell us that the reason the number seventy two is used – in anticipation of Jesus’ message one day reaching the whole world.

There are one hundred and ninety five nations in the world today – compared to seventy two. The population of the entire world at the time of jesus was three hundred million. Today the population of the world is just short of eight billion. “the harvest is plenty but the labourers are few”

I am not so sure that seventy-two desciples would have been enough to cover the enitre region of Judea at the time of Christ let alone cover all nations in the world today: “the harvest is plenty but the labourers are few”

The fact that Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs is interesting: “where two or more are gathered in my name, I am with them”

It is evident from this that Jesus does not want his followers being “loners” or for them to go on solo runs. Look what happened to the two disciples who did go on solo runs: Judas his betrayer and Peter his denier

Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is for everyone to discover – and always in the context of the world we live in. Jesus’ message is more powerful when it is communicated and listened to along with others: “Our Father” not “My Father”

The seventy two disciples were christ’s representatives to the whole world – as indeed Christians are his representatives in the whole world today. Jesus gives the disciples a list of rules to abide by when they are on their Mission – which basically says that they should offer everyone the chance to hear the word of God.

And if they refuse God’s word then so be it. The disciples are to move on. Jesus wants his disciples to be like him in the way they represent him – in the way they live their lives. And we are called in the same way: to live lives that others can see – we are today’s representatives of Christ. It doesn’t matter what our station in life is – as christians we seek to live the reality of Christ.

If we fail to live out the reality that Christ offers us we will never be able to persuade others to do the same. And they will reject us outright. And rightly so as we are only offering them a dream.

Steve Jobs offered people “the dream”. We Christians don’t offer the dream; we offer the reality – and that reality must be evident in how we live our lives – following the example Jesus gave us.

So, at every opportunity we Christians are called to live our lives Christ’s reality. Often we fail to live up to the example Christ has given us. But we must call on Christ, we must call on one another for the grace we need to be Christ’s representatives – every single day of our lives.

 

-Fr. Henry O’Shea OSB

If you listen you will hear, from east to west,
Growing sounds of discontent and deep unrest.
It is just the progress-driven plough of God,

At a first reading of today’s gospel, with its four brief altercations, Jesus can seem to be cavalier, even bad-tempered, in his dismissal of what he appears to regard as petty human reactions and concerns.

In his determination to make his way to Jerusalem – as the time draws near for him to be taken up to heaven, St Luke tells us – he seems to have no time for what his disciples consider a fitting retribution on unwelcoming Samaritans. Just a quick flash of fire from heaven and a little incineration to teach them a lesson. Jesus rebukes the disciples and keeps on walking.

Possibly intuiting that one person who addresses him is really looking for a certain kind of security, Jesus tells him that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He probably shocked another interlocutor by telling him that his duty is not to bury his father – a sacred duty for an observant Jew – but, rather to spread the news of the kingdom of God. In another exchange, Jesus is equally shocking when he tells a person that if he wants to follow him, he has to forget his family – again, unthinkable for an observant Jew – and not turn back.

It is not difficult to do an ‘Ah, yes, but..’ rationalisation of these rather abrupt and certainly sobering exchanges. Can it really be the case that Jesus sees no place for taking revenge on one’s enemies? Can it be that he regards the most basic of human reactions and behaviour as of little importance? Can it be that he allows no scope for change of mind, for doubts about oneself and one’s purpose and one’s way in and way of life? It is only to the first of these questions, the question concerning revenge, that one can give a resounding yes. Revenge is not on. But the other questions need to be teased out.

Given the apparently uncompromising tone of Jesus’s last statement about the plough and turning back, it may come as a surprise that today’s reading are really about freedom or liberty. This freedom is proclaimed succinctly in the first line of today’s second reading from the letter to the Galatians: ‘When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.’

What does this freedom, this liberty, mean? How does it compare to or with what we commonly believe to be freedom – if we have ever really thought about it?

Everyone needs to ask her- or himself: Do I understand freedom as a wearingly terrible-twos or adolescent laissez-faire that denies any boundaries – except those imposed by criminal and civil law, the infringement of which could lead to trouble? Beyond these tiresome constraints, am I free to think, do, say, want, strive for, enjoy, destroy, accumulate, whatever I like? Does freedom, does liberty, as I understand – and even try to exercise – it, include accountability, responsibility?  Does choice, do my very own choices, reign supreme.

Is personal choice my king, as a certain kind of marketing would have me believe?

And so we end back with the ‘Ah yes…but..’ and a potentially endless circle of assertion and counter-assertion.

It is part of the classical discourse on freedom, in disciplines ranging from political science to moral theology and beyond, to distinguish between freedom/liberty from and freedom/liberty to. In effect, this is a distinction St Paul makes in our second reading. He tells us that Christ has saved us from the yoke, from the choking burden, of slavery. This slavery is the kind that comes from giving free rein to self-indulgence. I can choose to be tyrannised by my own desires for power, possessions, pleasure. And in some cases, the kinkier the better. I need to be freed from that kind of enslaving liberty.

The alternative St Paul presents is that of a serving love. A freedom that allows itself to be open to and led by the Spirit becomes part of my way of thinking, my way of being, my way of acting. It is expressed in love of others, which is at one and the same time, a loving doing that, when practised, increases my capacity to love others and to love myself as I ought. St Paul gives us a very practical, if obvious, negative example when he says, ‘If you go snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, you had better watch or you will destroy the whole community.’

One might ask if there is a difference between the attitude and behaviour of the prophets Elijah and Elisha in today’s first reading from the book of Kings and Jesus’ dictum about turning back from the plough.

Both stories deal with freely-taken decisions to commit. Elijah, having already invited Elisha by draping him in his cloak, is almost churlish in his apparent rejection of Elisha, ‘Go, go back; for have I done anything to you?’ We are not told that Elisha did in fact go back to kiss his mother and father before chasing after Elijah. But we are told that he slaughtered his twelve yoke of oxen and used his plough as firewood to cook the oxen with which he fed his workers. Such a dramatic, such a drastic, action by a rich man in an agricultural society, indicates a radical decision to leave all, to break with the past and follow a new way of being. ‘Elisha then rose, and followed Elijah and became his servant’.

He brought me forth into freedom,

he saved me because he loved me…

my God who lightens my darkness.

Ps 18 (17): 20.29a

And this is what Jesus is demanding:

a radical burn-my-bridges decision to follow him, to allow myself to be transformed by the Spirit;

a radical burn-my-bridges decision to recognise and love my past, with all its shortcomings;

a radical burn-my-bridges decision to acknowledge and love my present with its concrete opportunities to stick in there and in loving service let my heart expand;

a radical burn-my-bridges  decision to look with love-filled hope to future glory – however grim the immediate outlook might seem.

It is just the progress-driven plough of God,
Tearing up the well-worn custom-bounded sod;
Shaping out each old tradition-trodden track
Into furrows, fertile furrows, rich and black.
Oh, what harvests they will yield
When they widen to a field.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

 

 

 

– Fr. Lino Moreira OSB

Every single day, from the time of the apostles until now, the Church never ceases to repeat the words and gestures of Jesus at the Last Supper in joyful obedience to his commandment: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Co 11: 24.25). According to Saint Paul, the Lord Jesus said, after breaking the bread: “This is my body which is for you” (1 Co 11: 24). And then, holding the cup in his hand, he declared: This cup is the new covenant of my blood (1 Co 11: 24). What was ordinary bread was thus turned into the body of Christ offered upon the altar of the cross for the redemption of the world; and what was simply wine became the blood of the true Paschal Lamb, a blood which sealed forever the new covenant between God and his people. And this miracle of making a reality in the here and now of the one single sacrifice for sins that Jesus offered (cf. Heb 10:12) as High Priest of the order of Melchizedec (cf. Heb 5:10) continues whenever an assembly of believers comes together to celebrate the Eucharist. In fact, our daily Mass is also called the Memorial of the Lord’s Passion for the very reason that it brings into the present of our concrete lives the sacrifice of reconciliation whereby we have been saved. As Saint Paul reminds us today: as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Co 11: 28).

So what we vividly experience at every Eucharist is that – for our sake and for our sake only – the Lord Jesus became a grain of wheat that fell into the earth to die (cf. Jn 12:4). Is there anything we can do in return for so much love? Jesus answered this question when he said at the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34). We are invited then to emulate the one who came into the world not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mt 20:28) – and in today’s third reading Saint Luke shows us how we should respond to this extraordinary invitation. So let us now turn our attention to the gospel account, albeit very briefly.

Jesus said to the twelve apostles, who were worried about the hungry crowds:  – “You give them something to eat” (Lk 9:13). On hearing these words, the disciples immediately thought that five loaves and two fish were hardly enough for themselves, let alone for a crowd of about five thousand men. Jesus then revealed himself as the one who can feed the whole of God’s creation: taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and had their fill. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces (Lk 9:16-17).

The first lesson to be learned from this miracle is that the Son of God will always put more than enough into our hands to satisfy our needs and the needs of others; if only we are willing to share our material possessions. But we should also note that in order to feed the five thousand at Bethsaida Jesus performed the act of breaking bread, which he would repeat at the Last Supper, saying: “This is my body given for you” (Lk 22:19). Therefore another lesson to be learned from today’s gospel is that to imitate Christ – to emulate his love for us – is not merely a question of sharing what we possess, but much more a matter of giving ourselves to others just as he gives himself to us in the form of bread and wine every time we celebrate the Eucharist. Saint Teresa of Calcutta is reported to have said: “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” But she never lost hope, and neither do we, because Jesus gave us both the power and the means to satisfy all forms of hunger, he who said of himself: “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst” (Jn 6:35).

-Fr. William Fennelly OSB

All over Europe there are mediaeval cathedrals that are famous for their stained glass such as Notre Dame de Paris. When you look at these windows on these great buildings from the outside they look fairly unremarkable, but when you go inside, you enter a different world and what a wonderful world of colour it is. I think the mystery of the Trinity we’re celebrating today has a similar quality to it. The Holy Trinity is difficult to understand, and that is how it should be. The huge increase in our scientific knowledge about our world has perhaps made us over-confident about our ability to understand other areas of our lives. The Trinity isn’t going to be accessed by a cold abstract dictat anymore than it can be comprehended by a mathematical theorem. Wisdom has always combined reason and a variety of ways of knowing to help us to learn who we are and how we are to live and how we can live love. Today’s really wonderful first reading from the book of Proverbs gives us a good starting point. The Wisdom of God cries aloud:

‘I was by His side, a master craftsman,

delighting Him day after day,

ever at play in His presence,

at play everywhere in the world,

delighting to be with the sons of men’.

Today’s solemnity is a celebration of the wonder of God, and of our delight in having revealed to us, the depths of the life of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and our share in that divine life. These notes of celebration, wonder and delight help us to grasp what’s happening. And yet as we celebrate the Holy Trinity, our first reactions might be along scientific or mathematical lines. You know this kind of approach; “just give me the facts”, “I’m a one page man myself”, it’s like the apostle Thomas all over again, “if I can’t see it, touch it and have it, then I don’t want it”. It would be better to begin less inadequately and more wisely from somewhere else: with people and with love. In a spirit of wonder.

We could start by accepting both the strengths and the limits of reason, especially in this broken world of ours. We need to be lifted up by God to have revealed to us certain truths about Him and who He is. A mystery may be  revealed only partially but still be reliable. People sometimes say that our Christian faith is a leap in the dark, a letting go of rational knowledge and venturing into darkness.

But mystery in our faith does not mean we are faced with the kind of puzzle that faces a scientist. A better start in considering mystery in a Christian sense, might be to stop thinking that we can’t see because we have leapt into the dark. Is it possible that we can’t see the entire depth of mystery, not because it is dark, but because there is too much light for our weak eyes. Faith is having our eyes strengthened and opened further by God about his life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and our sharing in the life of the Holy Trinity. A life of persons in love. Jesus rather than draw or bind his followers to Himself, directs them to the Father, from whom he himself draws his life. Ultimately He gives, not just Himself, but journeys with us, as one of us, to the Father. That inner strength, His Spirit guides us towards the fullest truth. He teaches his disciples no less than us how to live the meaning of Christian history and this is our salvation.

The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of those three persons in love, and graciously and marvellously choosing to share their love with us. If we were to celebrate the Holy Trinity using only our natural or scientific knowledge we’d ignore the mystery, and so we’d risk just staying in the shallows. Each and every human person is in themselves a mystery. There is a depth to relationships between people that we call love. Instead of starting with a kind of mathematical puzzle, let’s start with these personal relationships. Start with the mystery which is every person, and the depths involved in love. Deep calls upon deep when the immense and unfathomable God reveals to us humans how we’re related in love to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus in today’s gospel says to his disciples:

‘I still have many things to say to you

but they would be too much for you now.

But when the Spirit of truth comes

he will lead you to the complete truth’.

The Holy Spirit has come, and He’s constantly leading us ever deeper into an ever fuller truth. We are accompanied from within to the wonder inspiring extent that it is given to us to plumb the depths of a fuller truth about God and about ourselves. We could say that really the whole history of salvation is identical with the history of how the one true God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – reveals himself to us. We have never been abandoned by God even when we’re at our most lost.

This adventure is as much if not more about love as it is about knowledge. It will not end at death, but will continue on into eternal life. We are not alone in the dark, we are in a relationship, we’re in a communion and we’re bathed in light.

Still feeling a bit lost? Then be lost in wonder.

Fr. Abbot Brendan Coffey

Last Sunday a man disguised as an elderly woman in a wheelchair, wearing a wig and lipstick, threw a cake at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting was unharmed in the incident as it sits behind bulletproof glass. The episode was a publicity stunt to get attention for climate change. We all know what the Mona Lisa looks like, right down to that enchanting smile; but there is still something very special about being able to go and see the real thing, the original, in person.

Today we celebrate another original, the birthday of the Church, the day of Pentecost, and that birth occurred among the Jews. The Holy Spirit descended on the Church on the day Israel recalls the gift of the law and the covenant to show that the Spirit is the new law sealing the new and eternal covenant.

In May 1975 Pope Paul VI asked, “Have we forgotten the Holy Spirit?” The Church is not an institution; it is a mystery and even a miracle – it is original. The Church is a mystery, something that can be known only through communion with God. The Church is a miracle, because we could never have expected such closeness to this divine reality.

The one who speaks to us within, is the Holy Spirit. This is the ‘real deal’, the original. The Spirit unveils before our minds and hearts what the words spoken in the Gospel truly convey. Under the guidance of the Spirit we believe and understand what Christ spoke, because words in themselves are not enough.

Today people are not interested in anything that is not completely honest and original. Saints are not people ‘playing a role’ called holiness; they may very well be characters, but they are not actors. To the deeply observant they are unmistakable, because the presence of the Spirit cannot be faked. Sooner or later the person behind the curtain is exposed and the truth revealed and the world is always the better for it.

The Spirit is called the Paraclete, meaning ‘Comforter’, but most of us have grown perfectly comfortable in our lives. Therefore, we have to ask, have we forgotten the Holy Spirit? Have we settled for a copy instead of the original? Because the original is available, right here and right now.

We are a world where very little is transparent, where humility is confused with weakness, where selfishness reigns, where we are all too easily offended, where there is a lack of compassion and no peace and where I always know best. We are paralysed with shame because of scandals, divided into liberal and conservative camps; we are a world at war – which we rightly and very easily condemn, but what about our private little wars to which we are so committed?

We need the Holy Spirit in our world and in our lives, we need that touch of originality; and let us not forget that when we come to the celebration of these Sacred Mysteries, we stand where no one can stand but the High Priest of all creation. We call on the Holy Spirit to make the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in an act that we can only mediate in obedience to Christ’s command.

The Holy Spirit has written the new law on our hearts by pouring love into them. Love is the ‘weight’ of a soul, which draws it, as if by a law of gravity, to what it loves and where it finds its rightful rest. Christian life is meant to be lived by attraction, not by force, out of love, not out of fear! Pentecost is the door to the fullness and joy of Christian life. It is original, a masterpiece, not a cheap copy.

 

‘Now you see me, now you don’t!’ could be a good description for Jesus’s various appearances to his disciples after his resurrection from the dead. He materialises mysteriously in a garden and a house, on the road to Emmaus and on a lakeshore and it isn’t clear to them at first that it really is Jesus. And then, just as they recognise him and the marvellous reality of his triumph over death finally dawns on them, he disappears again.

But the Ascension – the return of the Eternal Word to the glory of the heavens – is different. This time, he took his leave of them properly. He gave them instructions, and promised that the Spirit would be poured out upon them, and blessed them. This time he was gone for good. There would be no more opportunities to put their hands in his wounded side, or to break bread or eat grilled fish with him. He was gone.

We might expect this to be a cause of great sorrow and grief for them. But the Gospel says the opposite – that they ‘returned to Jerusalem with great joy’. For this parting was not bereavement, but fulfilment. ‘Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled’, he had said. He opened their minds to what they had been hearing in the scriptures all their lives. And then he commissioned them to bear witness to him. Faith always requires a response, and knowledge of God is not something to be kept secret, but is to be shared.

‘Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled’, said Jesus. We heard one such psalm today. ‘Gabhann Dia ’n airde le gártha molta’… ‘God goes up with shouts of joy; the Lord goes up with trumpet blast.’ He is the One the psalmist was talking about. Begotten before all ages, he consented to exist in time and became human, humbling himself even unto death. He shattered the gates of Hades, calling humanity to share in the new life made possible by his resurrection. Now, all is accomplished. As the hymn puts it: ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done; the victory of life is won; the song of triumph has begun.’ And so, he returns to the place that was his from all eternity – the right side of the Father. ‘Tá sé ina Rí ar na náisiúin, tá sé ina shuí ar a chathaoir naofa’: ‘He is king over the nations, he reigns on his holy throne.’ His leaving is not bereavement, but fulfilment and a cause for celebration. As a sixth-century poet wrote:

‘So now, be joyful and radiant… It was for you I came down and went through all . . . It is for you again that I ascend into heaven, to prepare the place where I must be with you.’ [St Romanos the Melodist]

And that, dear friends, is the real good news of today’s feast. Just as his becoming human, his teaching and miracles, his suffering and death, and his resurrection were FOR us, so was Jesus’s ascension FOR us. ‘It was for you I came down and went through all . . . It is for you again that I ascend into heaven, to prepare the place where I must be with you.’

The eternally begotten Word took on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, and when all had been accomplished, Jesus the Christ took that humanity – our very nature! – with him to the right side of God – to that ‘cathaoir naofa’ to which he has gone up with shouts of joy and trumpet blast.

‘We saw his light break through the cloud of glory whilst we were rooted still in time and place

As earth became a part of Heaven’s story and heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted, he took us with him to the heart of things.’[Malcolm Guite]

After the Lord’s Ascension, humanity has had a place – the place of honour – at the right hand of God for all eternity. Jesus wasn’t abandoning his people, but rather, he was going before them, manifesting the gloriously beautiful fruits of his resurrection from the dead. Paradoxically, in his Ascension, Jesus didn’t become more distant from his people, but instead was making it possible for us to have a closer and more intimate connection with the life of heaven. As the second reading described it, he opened a ‘new and living way … for us through the curtain’. And where Jesus, the Head, has gone before in glory, we, the Body are called to follow in hope…

This joyful and hopeful Good News comes with implications too. In both the first reading and the Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to be witnesses. They are to carry on his mission in the world. Like students reaching the end of their time at school, they must now step up and take responsibility. There’s something almost comic about the two angels appearing as the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven. ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ It’s as if they’re saying that the party is over now and it’s time to get on with the work of being his witnesses. He promised the Holy Spirit, to equip them for that task, and of course he would continue to be present when they gathered for the Breaking of Bread.

Jesus, the Risen Conquering Son, is with us as we gather today, as we listen to his word and as we celebrate the sacrament of his Body and Blood. And we are called to make him present too by loving our neighbours and serving one another. Those men in white robes who chided the disciples for standing there and gawping up at the sky would definitely have a challenge for us too if they appeared in this church this morning.

‘Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours.’ [St Teresa of Avila]

Martin Browne OSB

Fr. John O’Callaghan OSB

In today’s second reading, from the Book of Revelation, there is the image of a city, a ‘holy city, coming down from God out of heaven’. It has all the radiant glory of the presence of God. It is the ‘new Jerusalem’, a spiritual home, the ultimate home where the people of God live in his presence.

We note that this heavenly Jerusalem has twelve gates over which are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There are also twelve foundation stones, and each of them bears the name of one of the twelve apostles. This is obviously very symbolic. The relationship between the tribes of Israel and the apostles is being alluded to.

The Christian church inherited a great deal from Israel: belief in one God only, and that he is the Creator of the universe. The Jewish religion also taught us basic standards of moral behaviour through the prophets as exemplified by the ‘ten commandments’. It led us to hope for a messiah figure, and even to entertain the daring hope of life after death.

In today’s readings the issue is precisely how much Christians were to adopt or leave aside from their Jewish heritage; We cannot perhaps imagine today how momentous it was to abandon traditions which had shorn up Jewish identity for over a thousand years or how humbling it would be for Jewish people to now share table with those of pagan birth.

It is interesting to witness how the decision was made. It involved, as we are told,’ the whole church’, a first synodal action! Delegates were chosen, and even leaders as prominent as Paul submitted their opinions of the the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. The work of the Holy Spirit through the community was recognised by disciples and, to sum it up, we get that amazing phrase ‘it has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves’. The work of the Spirit, hand in glove with the disciples and the leaders, does not fracture its unity. The holy, apostolic church remains one.

Since that council in Jerusalem to this day there is no question of Christians being bound to follow Jewish practices of circumcision, of obeying Kosher food laws of Jews, or observing their feasts and traditions. The foundation of the church, on the contrary, is the teaching of the apostles, namely that God has come to us in Christ, shared our life, died and rose to new life and this as fulfilment of the Jewish scriptures. This is our core belief and what we celebrate at Easter. It is the good news which permeates our lives, giving us the hope we need to live as disciples.

And we recognise that this city, the new Jerusalem, has more to it than what was inherited from Judaism. We would do well to note the intimacy with God it affords its citizens : as today’s gospel says ‘if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.’  It is in God’s presence that we live and move and have our being’. This is our new home, the new Jerusalem, now ‘under construction’!

It is a community growing to be the city of God, the city of Peace, as its name indicates. ‘Salem’, a variation of ‘shalom’, means ‘peace’. And our role is to be peace-makers. To contribute by our lives to make this a better world, allowing the Holy Spirit make it a home for all.

Fr. Abbot Brendan Coffee OSB

John Patrick Murphy, Paddy to his family, was born in England on 28 September 1935 to Irish parents, the eldest of five children. Always conscious of his Irishness, which was an important part of his identity, Brian developed a lifelong interest in things historical. On leaving school he entered Douai Abbey where he was professed in October 1955, taking the name Brian after a seventh-century bishop. Throughout a long life, firstly at Douai, then at Trinity College and St Gerard’s School in Bray, and finally here in Glenstal, where he returned to monastic life, he continued his historical research and writing.

As a historian, Brian was not afraid to take an unconventional view. His books, letters and talks, where he expounded the fruits of his own research, often challenged the accepted position. Brian was not shy about expressing his views, as anyone who knew him can well attest. Always the historian, Brian adopted the historical narrative even in his letters. I always recall receiving a letter from him when I was a student in Padova, apologising for having moved into my room. I had to read to the end before I discovered a pipe had burst over his room and the ceiling collapsed on top of him during the night. Most people would have written that first!

We’re told that Herodotus, the father of history, spent his entire life working on just one project. There was a similar unity and focus in Brian’s historical work. It too was the labour of a lifetime. The final chapter of which was written last Monday, when Brian became seriously ill. We thank the staff of University Hospital Limerick for their care for Brian in his final hours. His leaving us was very sudden, but he was at peace.

As we journey through life, many of us develop a hobby or special interest, something we love to do simply for the joy of doing it. Music, reading, exercise or sport. Brian was hugely blessed that his two great interests in life, history and gardening, found a happy intersection here in Glenstal. If God has a hobby, then I think we would have to admit that it is gardening. One of the first things God does in the Book of Genesis is plant a garden.

Every afternoon, without fail, Brian went to the garden here in Glenstal, tending the plants, nurturing seeds and caring for the fabric. In this task, some men of the roads, with whom he built a relationship, assisted him over the years. One of them offered him some advice, of which he became particularly fond – Dum spiro spero, ‘while I breathe, I hope’. In more recent times Brian was ably assisted in the garden by Seamus Hayes.

Most people who met Brian did so in and around the garden. He loved to talk to people and would happily tell you in great detail about its 17^th century walls, the Mulryan castle, Capercullen House and of course the story of the Barrington family, estate and castle.

Today, we have not gathered here to speak about gardening, neither have we come for a history lesson, we have come to ask the mercy of God on our departed brother Brian who, like all of us, is a sinner in need of God’s mercy. Our Lord Jesus laid down his life on the tree of the cross for Brian, for you, and for me. This is what we celebrate in this Easter Season.

Rooted, planted, and grafted onto the Risen One in baptism, the promise to Brian and to us all, is that we will be clothed in greater raiment than all the lilies of the fields. On the day of his Baptism, God planted Brian in the soil of Christ’s death and resurrection.

This is our faith and hope, as it was Brian’s, Dum spiro spero. For he knew what all good gardeners know, no plant can live without being fed and nourished with water, good soil, and sunlight. That apart from Christ, our true Vine, we wither and die. But Brian also knew that God is no ordinary gardener. For unlike most gardeners, who dig up the flowerbed and start over when it is full of weeds, God does something truly amazing. Jesus, the Son of God became sin for us. He became the weed and died on a tree to make his cross our tree of life.

He was planted in our tomb. But this divine Gardener could not and would not stay dead. He rose from the dead in a garden, of all places. And so, we have come full circle, from the Garden of Eden, through the Garden at Glenstal, to the Garden of the Resurrection.

On the 16 May, Brian saw what John saw in the Book of Revelation. The river of life flowing from the throne of the Lamb. The tree of life whose leaves are given for the healing of the nations. And the Lord of life, the Lamb of God, the divine gardener, waiting to welcome him home.

May he rest in peace.