Fr. Simon Sleeman: A friend gave me some advice when I told him I was preaching at the Parents Day Mass. ‘Good luck with that’ he said….’I know you have a great message, a message of peace, of freedom and living without fear but, but your congregation will have other things on their minds… BBQ’s and bacon, sunshine and showers, music and sports, prizes and awards. Here’s what you do.’ Make your introduction concise, the ending abrupt with nothing in between.” So here goes…
We are here on assignment. The Christian assignment is not about getting more, it is not about doing more or even knowing more.It is about ‘becoming more’. Bearing fruit. Fruit that will last. Growing up into the full stature of Christ.
‘Becoming more’ is not getting bigger – Pliny the elder said that the Romans when they couldn’t make a building beautiful, made it bigger. ‘Becoming more’ is not bulking up with steroids or weights. It is not even becoming nicer… ‘Becoming more’ is, ‘growth in the sense of the other’ – be that other my neighbour, or my God. Space for the other.
Before your mind takes you down the rabbit hole of ‘do-it-yourself becoming’, or asking yourself, ‘how can I get this done with ‘just one click’? know that this growth is the work of the Holy Spirit of God, the Divine Artist who teaches you everything – an almost impossible proposition to hear, convinced as we are, that we can self-engineer anything we want or desire.
Our assignment is to cultivate that delicate instinct that responds to the slightest movement of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives leading us to life… and then hold onto your hats.