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Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 5:7-9, John 12:20-33

The great feast of Passover was about to start, and Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean world and beyond. Jesus was among them, together with his disciples, and knowing that he was about to be sacrificed as the true Paschal Lamb, he announced his imminent death to the crowd who surrounded him: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (Jn 12:23) – he said – And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32).

It is typical of Saint John´s gospel to emphasise that the glorification of Jesus took place at the much anticipated “hour” of his death, and that by being raised upon the cross the Son of Man became the King of the Universe. But what did Jesus actually mean when he declared that he would draw all people to himself (cf. Jn 12:32)?  This question is further complicated by the fact that according to the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, Jesus is reported to have said: Et ego si exaltatus fuero a terra omnia traham ad me ipsum. – And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself (Jn 12:32).

Clearly the intricacies of biblical exegesis are best left to Scripture scholars and other experts, but I think we might gain some insight into this most extraordinary statement if we compare it with the following verse in chapter 11 of Saint John’s gospel: Jesus was to die for the nation – and not for the nation only, but also to gather together into one the scattered children of God (Jn 11:51-52). The nation is the Jewish people, and the children of God are all those who believe in Jesus as the Messiah, according to what is stated in the Prologue to Saint John’s gospel: to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name (Jn 1:12). So if we bring all these elements together, we may infer that when Jesus declared that by his death on the cross he would draw all people to himself, he meant that he would unite both Jews and Gentiles alike into one and the same family of children of God, a family of believers in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah sent by God, so that there would be only one flock and one shepherd (Jn 10:16).

But we have seen that in the Latin translation of Saint John’s gospel Jesus declares that he will attract all things to himself – and not just all people. Therefore the question now is: can these two different versions be reconciled with each other? 

I would argue that the Latin version simply emphasises the cosmic dimensions of a promise made to all children of God. To put it another way, in the Greek text Jesus says that by his death on the cross he will gather to himself all who believe in him, but in the Latin translation he states that in fact all beings – that is to say, even the material world – will be drawn to him together with those who believe in his name. And this is very much of a piece with what Saint Paul says in the Letter to the Romans – namely, that creation itself will be set free from its slavery to corruption and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Rom 8:21).

So the restoration and renewal of the entire cosmos was irreversibly set in motion by virtue of the sacrifice of reconciliation that Jesus offered on our behalf. And this ought to make us more keenly aware of the fact that we believe in Christ and obey his commandments not simply to save ourselves individually, or to help others achieve salvation, but rather to gradually bring the whole of God’s creation to that point at the end of time when all evils will be wiped out for ever, giving way to incorruptibility and perfect freedom. To follow Christ, therefore, means to assume full responsibility for the care of creation, and also to believe and proclaim that despite all appearances to the contrary, the final destiny of the universe is to be renewed by Christ and in Christ, who was handed over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification (Rm 4:25).

Fr Lino Moreira OSB

Our fifth Lenten talk on the theme of Benedict and the Paschal Mystery with Mark Patrick Hederman OSB is now available to watch again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tXmVLzYIoo (🎙️ Audio-only: https://bit.ly/3c4Hz9L)

St Joseph hardly gets a mention in the gospels: just two oblique references to him in Luke, one stating his being of the House of David and the second, anonymously, of his being a carpenter. Otherwise we have only today’s gospel and references to him on the finding of the child Jesus in the temple. But, paradoxically, Joseph must be the most prolific saint of all time in his patronage of hospitals, schools, stadiums, etc! Not to mind being the personal patron saint of so many individuals, of monasteries (like our own) & religious congregations, as well as of the universal church! Clearly Joseph stands at the heart of something very central for Christians. 

Above all Joseph highlights the incarnation! Here it is his very inaction which underlines the pure gratuity of God becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ. “Before they came to live together”, the gospel reads, “Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”  The sovereign God of grace required only the cooperation of Mary, nothing from Joseph! This, as St Augustine would later write, revealed to us the sovereign grace of God”, that the salvation offered to is no fruit of human endeavour; it is gift from God, and there was no other reason or cause for it but His love. 

However Joseph’s active cooperation was required on another level: We have heard in the gospel: “She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.” And this Joseph did! and then proceeded to care for them, in the long term. Joseph is the man of faith who entrusting himself to a mystery which he could not understand but of which he was nonetheless part, proceeded with the work of God. 

In this Joseph shared in the tradition of the patriarchs, from Abraham, father of faith, through Joseph, who fed his brothers in Egypt, to David, from whom St Joseph could share his lineage with Jesus. The righteous patriarchs of Israel find their culmination in St Joseph. None of them knew the great mystery of which they were a part – but, in that twilight zone, they did their share. And this must be true for us too. We do not understand, and cannot demand to understand, in full, God’s workings even in our own lives but, trusting in Him we can follow His way and He will fulfil his purpose in each and every one of us. 

Thirdly and finally, we heard: that “Joseph, being a man of honour and wanted to spare her publicity.” At that time the penalty for adultery, of which the Blessed Virgin Mary ran the risk of being convicted, was stoning,  But Joseph was not one to pursue that; we see his ‘humanity’, his respect for Mary, though he did not understand her.  Joseph thus could be a counter-cultural inspiration for our times, inside and outside the church, supporting a long overdue movement of our times. Respect, loyalty, moral fibre, and resilience, add to the attractiveness of this man of faith who can still inspire us.

Fr John O’Callaghan OSB

Too much time spent in narrow focus is both draining and bad for our health 📱💻😞 Father Simon takes a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDQ_RsilWTw

St Patrick’s Day 2021

Who am I? And, who are you?

And who are we, all of us gathered into this space today?

Growing up, we had an old leather bound photo album at home. Every so often it was taken it down to insert the most recent family photographic record; a first communion, a confirmation or some family event. I was always more interested in turning those board pages back, back to pictures that peered from the past; ones in which I wasn’t present, to people I never knew and places I’d never been. I loved mam and dad telling us about who and where and when, each remembering into life a particular photograph. When I look back, I think I deliberately used to lure them into story time. They were great tellers and I loved listening.

Memory is central to who we are, to our identity and informs our experience of family, community, parish, world.

Today, as we do at every Mass we remember, we retell the story, that story that now, makes present the saving action of God in our life through Jesus Christ. We re-member ourselves, re-insert ourselves into this story. We re-present ourselves now that like the bread and wine offered, we too may now be transformed.

And on this day, as we remember, we open another page in our family album of faith. 

Pádraig, Aspal mór na hEireann. Annually, we tell the story and keep the memory of Patrick, slave, keeper of sheep, bishop, miles Christi, Apostle and Patron of Ireland 

We re-tell and in some cases rehabilitate his story, that we might understand something more of our own identity, of our own living, through the prism of his. This telling is complex, as much of what we have come to know of the man and his life is drawn from an amalgam of fact and legend. Many voices and causes have shouted down the centuries, rallying Patrick to their particular cause, painting him for their own image and likeness. But take away the air-brushing, the dear little shamrock, the crozier-stabbed snakes and the sweet-smiling mitred prelate, smash the glass and crumble the stone and all that is left is … well the man, as in his own words he reveals himself to us; Ego Patricius peccator – I am Patrick. a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers, utterly worthless in the eyes of many. 

His principal writing, his ‘Confession’, is far more than a mere apologia to his critics, but rather a testimony, a declaration of his faith, and of God’s grace at work in his life. Here we meet the raw humanity of a man bearing no resemblance to that caricature, absent again this year from public display. A man, whose struggle with life events resonates in a much deeper way in reality with ours, particularly during this time of pandemic.

Patrick was a man of the now. A slave for six years from the age of 16, his only day was today. Slaves didn’t have a future, they didn’t generally get away, so there was no wiling away his lockdown ’till it was over and he could get back to how things used to be. No. ‘today’ was all he had; life or death. And it was into this today of tedium and isolation that God became known to him. The trappings of what was a life of privilege at home now stripped, he had all the time in the world for nothing as it were, and God made his way in. Isn’t it often the case for us, that when all which is not essential has been stripped away, at our simplest, deepest, sometimes loneliest, and desolate selves we find God, or having cried out, we encounter the God who in fact has never been absent from us. Dia i gcónaí ar na sleibhte, na gleannta ‘s ar na maighe, that ever-present-God in the highs, the lows and the even-plains of our daily living. This is the God, that, for Patrick, as for us, truly frees us from our ‘stuck’ places; ‘..like a stone lying in the deep mud,’ Patricks describes it, ‘ the Lord heaved me up and placed me on top of a wall.’

And, it wasn’t just that God, for Patrick, was ever present. God was the centre. 

Patrick was clearly well versed in scripture, and prayed by day and by night, in rain, hail, and snow. But beyond this, he was, I think, deeply contemplative. It’s clear that prayer was not simply an activity, but the very attitude of his being; as if his breathing pulse was the Spirit, and every moment, movement and word were of Christ. This God to Patrick, as to Jeremiah in today’s first reading, was the fount and source, the one who formed, who knew, who consecrated, who appointed, who commanded, who put his words in Patrick’s mouth…it was not by my own grace, but God working in me…Patrick regularly says. 

Christ as centre, as Thomas Merton says, in whom and by whom one is illuminated.

Any missionary success, he credits humbly to this grace, the power of the Trinity working in him; that very foundation to mission underpinning Mark’s Gospel just read. But it is Patrick’s own life that was possibly the real landscape of mission. That wilderness where the outpouring of God’s unconditional love and grace was sown and rooted, for a lifetime of encounter. Here was the seedbed of God’s action. Patrick, a man all too familiar with adversity and suffering; loneliness for his own family and place, brokenness from betrayal, daily fear of enslavement and death; with God’s grace, becomes resilient, courageous and persevering. How beautiful became those muddied feet, the bringer of good news. 

And this Good news, for us is not simply a memory recalled, it is rather as the Lenten antiphon sings; ‘Now is the favourable time. This, today, is the day of our Salvation.

Dia linn lá ‘gus oiche, ‘s Pádraig Aspal Eireann

Br Pádraig McIntyre OSB

The monks of Glenstal Abbey wish you all a happy Saint Patrick’s Day ☘️

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Laetare Sunday, we call it, today, after the first word of the Introit which has just been sung; Rejoicing Sunday. It is also called Mothering Sunday, since medieval times, when the faithful are invited to re-visit the mother church where they were baptised. Today, it is more generally a celebration of mothers in general and an opportunity to send another card and maybe, even, a flower. Whatever about that, today’s rejoicing is marked by a distinct sobriety of tone. The readings make it feel more like a day of moral accounting. We are sinners, we are reminded; we have sinned and we have suffered the consequences, the first reading tells us. But, following that bald estimate of our situation, the tone changes dramatically, in the Second Reading, with the lapidary statement that, whatever about the past, we have been saved by God’s kind decision to do just that. By God’s grace, sinners though we be, we have been rescued; we have been saved. That is the truth of our situation; and so we have much over which to rejoice, much  for which to be grateful.

The Easter event, inaugurated by Christ’s passion and death, with all its heavy drama and pathos, has given birth and will continue to give birth to new life and a newness of life which will overwhelm and supplant all the suffering and difficulty of this present age; and, God knows, we are all too familiar, today, with suffering and difficulty. We are being reminded, after the past weeks of Lenten effort, that this is the essence of the Christian Good News; in effect, the reason why we bother to be Christian. It is all gift, because God is God. And again, because God is God, it has made sense, in God’s way of thinking and dealing, that this gift of everlasting life should be achieved for us by Jesus Christ’s death, of which the cross over the altar is a constant reminder. The folly of it! The ghastliness of that tortured death! The wonder of it, as the definitive expression of God’s love, of us, of the world, of his universe.

The language of the Gospel which we have heard, just now, speaks repeatedly of light, darkness, truth, belief. Against the backdrop of the assault on truth, across the so-called “free world”, in our day, when we have become familiar with “alternative facts”, QAnon and invented news, many find it problematic to establish any solid basis for truth. How can we be sure of anything? As Pontius Pilate famously asked of Jesus, “What is truth?” Well, as Christians, we  have our criterion for making a decisive answer to that question. Jesus’ own words to those reclining at the table of the Last Supper are, “I am the Truth.” He is the truth about God, who is the touchstone of all truth, the ultimate reality. With God in Jesus, Jesus in God, we have the ultimate foundation of truth; of that, at least, we can be certain sure. And the first certainty, after that, is that God loves us, as He loves His own Son. In expression of that love, God plans no less than that we should share in Jesus’ victory over death, to join him in his everlasting glory. So, yes, we rejoice; there is much for which we have to be joyful; much for which to give thanks, as we do in this celebration of the Eucharist. 

Fr Christopher Dillon OSB

Our fourth Lenten talk on the theme of Saint Patrick, Baptism and the Paschal Mystery with Br. Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB is now available to watch again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ngSX8VqhMA (🎙️ Audio-only: bit.ly/3vtYSc7)

It’s natural for us to hear, but do we really listen? 👂 Father Simon continues some thoughts in this episode of the Mindful Monk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-wK8PFJU_k

Our third Lenten talk on the theme of Life in Community with Fr. Henry O’Shea OSB is now available to watch again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoYm5ZsbMYo (🎙️ Audio-only: https://bit.ly/3c78e4s)