21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

My father went to see the priest about the Baptism of his first child. He had not been looking forward to the interview. He wasn't practising the Faith.

The priest asked him to go home and pray and to ask God to help him decide whether he believed or not. He told my father to consider:

• If you don't believe, stop pretending!
• If you do believe - practise your faith!
• Don't drag your faith around like a dead cat on a piece of string.

This question of choosing is just as much a crucial question for you and me as it was for my father, or for Joshua and the Hebrews at Shechem.

Joshua called the People together and said: ... choose today whom you wish to serve ... .

As Bob Dylan sings in Gotta Serve Somebody - 'It may be the devil,or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.'

All we have to do is choose - but this is not as easy as it sounds - even when the People say with one voice: We ... will serve the Lord, for he is our God.

Their decision to serve (we will serve) goes hand in hand with their statement of belief (for he is our God). It makes it very clear that the modern distinction between believing and serving (practising) is totally unscriptural.

'Oh, of course, Father, I believe, and so does my husband. It's just that, well, we don't go to Mass because we don't believe it's necessary. We pray at home. We have our faith.'

Note what the couple is really saying: 'We believe ... it's just that ... well ... we don't believe.'

Ok, so what's going on here? Let me ask this couple some questions:

• Do you believe you have a grave obligation to attend the Eucharist with the faith community each Sunday? - NO!
• Do you believe it's a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday? - NO!
• Do you believe you need to confess missing Mass deliberately before you can go to Holy Communion? - NO!

So now at least we know one thing clearly - this couple do not, in fact, believe what the Church teaches. This is why they do not practise. They may be baptised, they may have been brought up in a Catholic home, they may have attended a Catholic school, but they do not believe what the Church believes.

Please understand me, this is not an accusation! I'm not judging this couple. I have no idea of their spiritual journey and what has brought them to this point. I am merely making a very important diagnosis. This couple does not hold the faith of the Church.

They are living according to their faith but not according to the Faith.

Well, what now? What are some of our options?

• Go ahead and baptise the child and hope the parents will find faith at some later time and raise the child as a practising Catholic?
• Give the parents an hour's worth of instruction on the meaning of being a Catholic and then hope for the best and baptise the child?
• Tell the parents how important it is to attend Mass on Sundays and then baptise the child?
• Delay the Baptism till the parents come to some faith of their own?
• Refuse the baptism because they have no intention of raising the child in the practice of the Faith?

My own answer to this very difficult question is that we should offer this couple an opportunity to choose.

This is what my father was offered; this is what Joshua offered the People; this is what Jesus offers his followers in today's Gospel: What about you, do you want to go away too?

On a practical level this will involve a prolonged, prayerful, gentle catechesis similar to the Catechumenate - during which couples can be renewed in their understanding of the Catholic Faith.

Somewhere within this process the couple will choose.

If they choose not to enter the process they have still chosen. All concerned will find this a difficult decision to accept but it must be respected. Jesus, too, experienced the disappointment of watching people walk away.

Faith is a grace-filled choice. We cannot make it for others, nor can we insulate people from the need to make it. This has been one of our most unhelpful tactics in the determination we have to keep people somehow attached to the Church at all costs. We sacramentalise them because we don't know how to evangelise them.

My father chose for the Church he knew so well but which he had left. The faithfulness with which he lived his decision over the years was an example and an encouragement for each one of his children, all eight of whom still practise the faith.

I thank that priest for allowing my father to choose.

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

1 Kings 3:5.7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

How does a man or woman living in the midst of a modern, technological world with all its material attractions and preoccupations and pleasures come to believe in the existence of a soul? How does God communicate himself to them?

This is the third week in a row that Jesus offers the crowds a parable containing the image of a field.

1. First there was the field in which the seed of God's word was sown.
2. Then came the field into which the enemy sowed the darnel seeds.
3. This week we are presented with a field which contains a hidden treasure.

The treasure can be understood in different ways. We are told a number of things about it:

• It is hidden in the field, buried within it – they go together.
• We have to take possession of the field if we wish to own the treasure.
• The field will cost us everything we possess.
• This treasure for which we give everything is the ultimate riches.

Jesus' parable tells us the treasure is hidden in the field and that it can be found. This should give us hope. On one level the field can represent our body and then the treasure is our soul. Deeper still, the field can represent our soul, and the treasure is then the indwelling Trinity. However we take it the parable points us inward to that invisible, interior part of us which we all need to recognise if we are to become spiritual men and women.

To put the whole matter very plainly we can say that Jesus tells us in his parable that deep inside each of us there is a treasure and that it can be found. But how? To answer this question we will consider the way most of us, but not all, seem to find it.

Usually, our experience begins to tell us that the material world is not enough. This is often a slow, gradual discovery which dawns in our consciousness after many years of searching for happiness in all the places the world points out to us - possessions, pleasure, leisure time, power, prestige, financial independence personal freedom to do what we want when we want. The young are very much preoccupied with these things.

We have all heard of contented cows. You put them in a paddock with sufficient grass, you give them a tree to stand under and a water trough to drink from and you have contented cows. They want nothing more.

Humans are different. We are acquisitive by nature and we have the ability to reflect on our own behaviour. As the new house is built, as the perfect wife or husband is found, as the dream job comes along, as the children (usually no more than two of them) are born, as each one of our hopes and dreams comes to fruition, why is it that we find ourselves asking: Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets?

We begin to realise that the noisy, modern, technological, material world we live in has made us a promise of happiness which it can't really deliver. We come to realise that the world has lied to us.

The voice which asks these questions speaks deep within us at first and it can, in fact, be overpowered by our hectic lifestyles or by the sin in our lives. Nevertheless, some people eventually have to admit, and sometimes they do it out loud: I’m looking for more, and I don't mean more of the same.

This 'there-must-be-more' moment is a wonderful intersection in life which is full of hope and profound possibility but it is not yet the discovery of the treasure; it is merely the discovery that the treasure is not ‘out there’ in the world.

At first this often only increases our dilemma. If we allow this inner voice to have its say in our lives we cross a painful threshold which puts all the familiar, practical, material things in our lives into a new perspective. Every spoonful of food we put into our mouths now speaks of a much deeper hunger within us, which cannot be satisfied by food. Every glass of water - or wine (even the most exquisite) - speaks to us of a thirst which lies deeper than water or wine can reach. The shiniest car, the ideal partner in life, the dreamiest home, the ultimate holiday - begin to carry within themselves a little sign saying .. 'I'm not enough for you because I won't last'.

As all that the world has to offer is found wanting we begin to ask - Where then is my happiness?

If we allow this inner voice to speak - if we allow the volume of this inner voice to increase in our lives - we find ourselves entering the world of the spiritual. We become spiritual people on a spiritual search. You might ask how the volume of this inner voice can be increased and I would reply that it is actually not so much a matter of turning up the volume as of decreasing the background noise - the silence of prayer and a gentle withdrawal from unhelpful preoccupations.

Having honestly and humbly entered the world of the spiritual, the world of the hidden treasure within us, we now begin to experience a strange new confidence. We begin to grow in confidence that the spiritual hope we have discovered within ourselves, our longing to love and be loved in a perfect manner, our longing to live forever, to experience perfect happiness and peace, joy and acceptance - we grow in confidence that all this longing and hope was placed in our hearts as the good gift of a good God and that he means one day to fulfil it. This is the beginning of religious faith.

We begin now to search for the name of this good God and will eventually come to the proposition that it is Father, Son and Holy Spirit who dwells within us. To accept this proposition in faith can be an arduous journey in itself. How can we know it is true?

If I were to propose to you that mankind came from a golden egg laid by a golden snake on the banks of a magic river you would probably find it easy enough to discount. All I can say is that the Christian proposition, we call it revelation, makes entire sense of my life, its hopes and its sufferings. It is not just that it makes better sense than the other propositions, it is that it makes perfect sense of human existence.

And so, further along this journey to faith we discover that the human face of the invisible God is Jesus. We discover the followers of Jesus, the Church, and its teachings. We discover the living truth of the word of God in the hierarchy of the Church and in the Sacred Scriptures. We discover the Sacraments of Jesus which give joy and strength and build divine life in our souls. In short, we have discovered the Kingdom of God and are now ready to give our all to embrace it.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Jeremiah 31:7-9Hebrews 5:1-6Mark 10:46-52

[This reflection on the gospel of Mark is made in the light of the deep concern I share with many others for the renewal of our parishes. There are no simple solutions but I believe Bartimaeus gives us a paradigm for one area of the renewal of parish life.]

As Jesus left Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd ...

Jesus was going away from Jericho. He was leaving.

Today, in the experience of our diminishing Catholic communities throughout Australia it somehow seems that Jesus is leaving us. I know this is not really true but it is somewhat the same sensation. When we leave Jesus it somehow seems he has left us.

Bartimaeus (that is, the son of Timaeus), a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road.

This is a picture of a sad individual. He is blind, he is a beggar, and he is sitting at the side of the road. This is a rather desperate situation. Like many others, our parish finds itself in somewhat similar circumstances.

From Jesus’ point of view which, would you say, is the worst of these three afflictions?

• Being blind?
• Being a beggar?
• Sitting at the side of the road?

From the perspective of the kingdom the last of his three afflictions is the worst.

Why? Because the road is the road to the kingdom and Bartimaeus is sitting beside it rather than travelling it.

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and to say, `Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me'.

Jesus reveals his presence to blind Bartimaeus through his sense of hearing. Jesus always reveals his presence somehow to those who seek him. Bartimaeus begins to shout. Do you notice that?

Bartimaeus knows that he is a blind beggar who cannot travel the road. He knows he is being left behind and so he does what he can. He does what he can. He makes a beginning. He cries out.

As a parish we too need to do what we can and to make a beginning. We must do what Bartimaeus does, we must begin to call on Jesus to help us.

And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder, 'Son of David, have pity on me'.

You can almost hear them: 'Pull your head in, mate! Give it a rest.'

If I asked all of you in this Church right now to raise your right hand a number would do it. Some would scold me and say, 'No, this is silly, I’m not going to raise my right hand'. Some others would say, 'Not the right hand, the left.' And some would say, 'Not the hand, the foot'. Aren't we a funny lot? It's an amazing thing how few people will allow themselves to be led.

Although it's plain as the nose on our face that our parishes need a new beginning, a new plan of action, whatever plan is finally suggested some will scold. 'That’s a silly idea! Keep quiet!'.

And which people will they be? The very same people who scolded Bartimaeus - the ones following Jesus.

Jesus stopped and said, `Call him here.'

Jesus stopped. Jesus always hears our call.

But why did he not go over to the man himself? Why did he send others to bring the man to him? This is a big question. There is an important principle involved here.

• When we get sick why does God not heal us himself? Why does he send us to a doctor?
• Why did God not just part the waters of the Red Sea? Why did he ask Moses to raise his staff over it first?
• Why does God not just forgive our sins? Why does he send us to the priest?

So they called the blind man. `Courage,' they said `get up; he is calling you.'

Now they are evangelising! Now they are participating in the mission of Jesus. Now they are truly co-operating with him. They are going out to the needy person, encouraging him, and telling him that Jesus is calling him. Wonderful! That’s how we should all be.

So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus.

When we begin to go to Jesus we always have to leave something behind. That is why Mark includes this detail. The cloak stands for that thing we wrap ourselves in to keep us warm. He wants us to ask ourselves: What is my cloak?

• Tradition? Oh, we’ve never done it like that before. This is something new! And so often we reject the thing that could save us.
• Fear? I’m not going to do that. What will people say? Where is it going to lead?
• Comfort? I’m ok. What’s he going on about? I’m fine, just as I am.
• Pride? Look, I had a plan. I suggested we held a bush dance and everything would be all right but they wouldn't listen so now I am taking my bat and ball and I’m going home.

We have to throw our cloak aside and jump up and go to Jesus because he is calling.

Then Jesus spoke, `What do you want me to do for you?'

Last week Jesus asked this question of his disciples James and John. They asked for honour but they didn’t get it. This week the answer to the question is 'Lord, give me vision! Give me sight, Lord, so that I can follow you.'

'Rabbuni,' the blind man said to him `Master, let me see again.' Jesus said to him, `Go; your faith has saved you'.

What saved him?

His faith!

What faith?

The blind beggar believed that if he called out to Jesus and asked for something that would help him follow Jesus along the road to the kingdom he would get it. And Jesus did not let him down.

And immediately his sight returned and he followed him along the road.

What is the lesson for us in all this? I believe that we, as a community, are like Bartimaeus. We don’t know where the road is anymore. We are slowly growing smaller and weaker. We can't see the way ahead, we are blind. The future is dark for us.

Bartimaeus knew he was blind and he called out to Jesus. This is the beginning of all renewal. Jesus answered Bartimaeus; Jesus will answer us.

Can you see why I am always asking you to spend one hour a week before the Blessed Sacrament? - calling out: Jesus, our parish is stuck! We don't know the way anymore! We need your help! Lord, that we might see!

We could call this hour the parish's Bartimaeus Hour.

By the way, have you done yours this week?

13th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-242 Corinthians 8:7.9.13-15Mark 5:21-43

Wherever Jesus went he was sought out by individuals and crowds and no wonder - Jesus had power; power to feed the hungry, power to restore sight and hearing, power to cure the crippled, to set the demon-possessed free, power over wind and sea, power to forgive sin, and power to raise the dead. Jesus had power to set us free from the two realities which we humans most fear - suffering and death.

Today again the Gospel insists on the milling crowds. They sought him out and pressed closely round him, each eager to get close enough to secure some blessing from this astonishing Teacher and Healer.

A synagogue official desperate for his daughter’s welfare and a woman suffering a haemorrhage succeed in reaching the Lord. These two represent each one of us while the crowds represent the whole of poor, struggling, helpless humanity.

I love the way Mark describes the woman’s plight: Now there was a woman who suffered a haemorrhage for twelve years; after long and painful treatment under various doctors, she had spent all she had without being any the better for it, in fact, she was getting worse.

Each phrase of the sentence is another link in the chain binding this poor woman to her desperate situation.

Now there was a woman who suffered a haemorrhage
for twelve years;
after long
and painfulvtreatment
under various doctors,
she had spent all she had
without being any the better for it,
in fact,
she was getting worse.

Jairus, too, is in an awful predicament. He is braver than the woman and approaches Jesus directly. His daughter is about to die. Aren’t we all?

He fell at his feet and pleaded with him earnestly, saying, `My little daughter is desperately sick. Do come and lay your hands on her to make her better and save her life.'

Death was never God's plan for us, and neither was its prelude, suffering. As the first reading tells us: Death was not God's doing, he takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living ... it was the devil's envy that brought death into the world ... Both suffering and death entered the world because mankind, through the temptation of the devil, turned away from God and this turning away had dire consequences, one of the worst of which was that we refuse to take responsibility for our sin. So we blame everyone except ourselves – [Adam] replied, 'It was the woman you put with me….' and [Eve] replied, 'The serpent tempted me …'. (Genesis 3:12)

And some hospital patients will say: 'Why is God doing this to me?'

We accuse God of failing us because he doesn't just simply take it all away, make it all better, fix it, which, of course, is precisely what he has done and in a way which wonderfully satisfies both mercy and justice.

Jesus took upon himself the very scourge we ourselves brought into the world through Original Sin. He took upon himself suffering and death and made them a path to eternal life for those who follow his steps. In other words, the very suffering and death which led to our ultimate destruction now leads to eternal life - but we have to believe!

This is what is so singular about Jairus and the woman with the haemorrhage – they both really believe. In fact, the power of their faith stands in stark contrast to their powerlessness over the circumstances of their lives. It is this faith which touches Jesus and moves him to grant their wishes.

The miracles of Jesus never failed to astonish the crowds and made them even more eager to be near him. For us, who read of these miracles our faith in the Lord grows too. For us they are signs, signs of what is awaiting our faith when we reach our heavenly homeland. His earthly miracles were meant precisely to teach us to believe that the same wonders would one day, unfailingly, be worked for us.

Occasionally our faith is renewed by reports of contemporary miracles at Lourdes or some other shrine. I occasionally meet sick or dying people who suffer cruel pains but who jokingly reassure me it will all be made good in heaven. One lady who lost both feet through diabetes said smilingly ‘Don’t worry, Father, I’ll get a new set when I reach heaven'.

Jesus invites us to a faith which transcends present suffering and future death. He invites us to the peace and joy of total faith in a future which is in his loving hands. No matter what we may suffer, even death, he invites us, not to fear, but to rejoice and trust in him.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Job 38:1,8-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:35-41

Jesus came to lead his followers to his Father’s Kingdom. His concern was to make them spiritual men and to ground their spirituality in the truth.

Already we must pause and take note that many people claim to be spiritual, even deeply spiritual, but their spirituality has been somehow ambushed by false teaching, human teaching, and actually leads nowhere. I recall a woman who asked me to attend her sick husband who, she claimed, was deeply spiritual. It turned out he studied at some length the Star Signs column that appeared in the daily paper. It all seemed to begin and end there.

Jesus’ mission was to bring mankind to the fullness of truth; no easy task.

To open the eyes of a man born blind was far easier than opening the stubborn or obtuse eyes of those among whom he walked. It seems that he failed with some, but his genuine followers soon began to learn that the Kingdom of God was among them. And so, as they accompanied their Master from village to village, heard his instruction and witnessed his actions, they began to see that he was the Teacher of the Truth they longed to learn. They opened their hearts and minds to him and learned to trust him, though not without doing violence to their own preconceptions.

Jesus always seemed to be catching them by surprise. It was as if, in their walk with him along the familiar pathways of their world, he would, every now and then, and unexpectedly, nudge them off the track into the rough terrain of the unknown. In this respect Jesus would have been a most disconcerting companion to travel with. Just when everything is going so well he says: Let us cross over to the other side. Oh dear! What’s he up to now? Couldn’t he have waited till morning? Doesn’t he see there is a storm brewing?

Jesus’ whole aim was to show them who he was and that he had been sent to bring them to God. When he fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, when he walked on the water, when he healed the cripple with a word or the haemorrhaging woman simply by allowing her to touch him, he was showing himself to be the Lord, the one God, walking in their midst as a man.

If the Apostles were slow to catch on we should be grateful for the mirror they hold up to us. We cling to the material world whose comforting solidity directly under our feet seems far more real than the promises of the Spirit. What is the eternal measured against the here and now? What is faith in God compared to these gigantic waves breaking into the tiny boat? Are these waves the truth, or is it the sleeping Jesus in the stern?

So Jesus rebukes the waves and then he rebukes his anxious disciples. Quiet now! Be calm! The command could be equally applied to his companions in the boat but Jesus speaks it to the turbulent sea.

To his Apostles he asks a question which should resonate in each one of us present here today because it is actually addressed to each one of us: Why are you so frightened?

The Apostles might have answered, ‘Well, Lord, you saw the size of the waves and you saw the size of the boat and you know we were on the point of sinking.’ And Jesus might have said ‘Yes, I did. So why are you so frightened?’

When the promises of Jesus meet the concrete circumstances of the world we live in we all need to make this choice – where is our true safety? Where is our true life?

I spoke to a woman once who was about to have an abortion. She told me there was nothing wrong with the baby but she was afraid because the doctors had told her there was a serious risk she and the child might die if she proceeded. I could almost see the gigantic waves pounding her little boat. What would the Lord have said? Most certainly he would have asked: Why are you so frightened?

Jesus plainly said: For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it (Mtt 6:25). This is not just a nice thing to say, it is the truth, the truth which we are all called to live.

The martyrs for the faith were warned not of the risks, but of what would most certainly happen; they would be shot, beheaded, hanged, crucified, eaten by animals, and so on. They joyfully made their choice and were not frightened by suffering or death. They put their trust in Jesus.

Jesus asks his student Apostles: How is it that you have no faith? He had nudged them off the path into new territory and had discovered their faith was not sufficient. This is a discovery we all make from time to time and we should not be ashamed if the experience leads to a deepening of trust.

They were filled with awe and said to one another, ‘Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.’ One thing is for sure, the Apostles, and hopefully we, have learned that where the Lord is, there is nothing to be afraid of.

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

1 Kings 19:9.11-13; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

Every hospital bed is a little boat floating alone on a vast and dangerous sea.

It is little because it is entirely at the mercy of the waves, defenceless. It is alone because it is little; there is room for only one passenger. Family members can come and sit on the shore offering comfort but they can’t get into the boat - and so it’s often a place of great loneliness and fear.

The passenger is usually someone like you or me, someone who never expected to be in that little boat - at least not today, not now.

The waters are mostly choppy, rarely calm, and occasionally a category five storm breaks out.

Whatever the 'weather' you can be sure that the faith of each patient in a hospital is being deeply tested – strengthened or weakened.

Curiously, some patients tell me God is to blame for their predicament - Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. It seems to many that pain and suffering are somehow God’s fault. They tell me with a baffling kind of faith, ‘he could stop it if he wanted’.

It’s always the same question in varying disguises: Where does suffering come from?

I always tell them it comes from Original Sin yet, even as I speak, there is this look of incomprehension or disbelief, and I ask myself why this answer satisfies me and not them? For me it’s all our fault – for them it’s always God’s.

Even people of great faith are occasionally tormented by the absence of God who seems to have gone up into the hills by himself to pray. Funnily enough, this reminds me of Jesus who told the fickle Peter that he had prayed for him so that when he had recovered he might strengthen his brothers.

Not only is God far away but so many feel isolated and alone as they experience the loss of their family life, daily routine and pre-occupations. Perhaps they blame God for this too – that he has sent the crowds away.

And so they find themselves far out on the lake … battling with a heavy sea and struggling against a headwind … all alone. They had set off in daylight but now it is night, in fact, the fourth watch. All seems lost and the other side, the good health for which they had set out, is now far from their mind; the suffering is immense, unbearable.

Where are you, Jesus?

In the fourth watch of the night he went towards them, walking on the lake …

That Jesus came is no surprise because, in actuality, he never leaves us. What is surprising is the way he came – walking on the water. Jesus comes to the disciples walking on the very waters that threaten to overturn and destroy their lives. They were the same waters which would soon take his own life and, in a kind of foretelling of his resurrection, he comes in power to his terrified followers. No wonder they don’t recognise him; they do not yet know the ‘Crucified Christ’, the one who has conquered the turbulent, fearful waters of suffering and death.

The disciples cry out in fear and terror but Jesus at once says: Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.

When Jesus began to teach his disciples that he was destined to suffer and die Peter could not accept it. He took Jesus aside and said: Heaven preserve you, Lord … this must not happen to you. How often have I not heard the same words from the families of patients, and the patients themselves: No! This must not happen! It can’t happen!

But every now and then, unexpectedly and with deep gratitude, I meet patients who, like Peter, rather than fleeing the wind and the waves cry out to the Lord and seek to come to him through their sufferings: Lord … if it is you, tell me to come to you across the water.

'Come' said Jesus. Come, come to my crucifixion and you will find your resurrection.

Peter is willing but not yet able. He begins to sink and cries out for help. He momentarily loses faith in Jesus’ power to save but still Jesus saves him - and calms the wind.

Jesus is gradually strengthening Peter’s faith, and ours, until we can say with St Paul: I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20).

I have met patients in deep suffering who can say these words with full conviction. It is always an awe inspiring moment. These singular people are an encouragement and an invitation to follow in their footsteps. They are an open window giving a glimpse into the Father’s house. Their faith has conquered the fear of death and they point us to the one who makes it possible. With the men in the boat they are bowing down before him and saying: Truly, you are the Son of God.

Let us do the same.

9th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Deuteronomy 11:18.26-28.32; Romans 3:21-25.28; Matthew 7:21-27

When the desire to love God meets the demands of true love there is usually a crisis. Most people have a genuine desire to love God – we could almost call it ‘genetic’ – a deep, existential longing for God, the source of all that is good.

What draws us to God is love – our need to receive it and our need to give it. Each of us longs to love in a total and unrestricted manner. Some would say we have a deep-seated longing to love ‘madly’, even to death, and so to be loved in return.

This kind of love, heroic love, totally maturing, healing and freeing love, comes at a price. It requires that we shift the entire focus of our being away from ourselves and our own needs to the welfare and happiness of the beloved. Only love demands we make this shift and, at the same time, only love makes the shift possible. To put it in other words, the happiness of the beloved becomes our greatest need. Love like this is rare, but it does exist in many places.

When a person begins to understand the total cost of the love they aspire to give and receive there is always a crisis – followed by a moment of decision. It does not usually come at the beginning of love. At the beginning there is infatuation, beguilement, euphoria and an ‘exchange of gifts’. No, it comes later on in the relationship when time has settled the turbulent waters of the emotions and immature fascination has dissipated. Then the choice to love becomes somehow ‘a price to be paid’ – not a choice between two thing but of two things – love and suffering.

It is here that true love rises to greatness, conquers all fear, and gives assent to the beloved. This is a human being’s finest moment, the moment he or she becomes a human person.

In very different terms Moses puts all this before the people in the reading from the book of Deuteronomy. He proposes the choice as a blessing or a curse which he then restates in a series of oppositions: blessing – curse; obedience – disobedience; true God – false gods; observe the commandments - or leave the way. Jesus, in today’s Gospel will do the same thing.

The decision to love heroically is actualised in an utterly simple way; the lover must obey the demands of love. Keep, observe, obey the commandments are the words Moses uses. The verbs are active because love is not a feeling. Love is an act and the blessing is realised when we keep the commandments.

Jesus tells us today: It is not those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, who will enter the kingdom of heaven… . Real relationship, i.e. to enter the kingdom of heaven, is not built on words alone. We must obey the very word of love we speak – we must do it.

Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock.

Whether we enter the kingdom of heaven or the house built on rock (these expressions are metaphors for our relationship to God), the foundation must be laid in keeping, observing, doing.

From this perspective we can perhaps view the Catholic / Protestant divide more clearly.

Protestants profess salvation through faith. This is not wrong, just incomplete, and certainly misleading. Catholics profess salvation through faith made real in action or works. For us, and for Jesus, faith that is not expressed in action is not saving faith, and risks the sad words: I have never known you.

To drive the point home let me quote from Sacred Scripture: Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me … (John 14:21)

Anyone who says, 'I know him', and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. (1John 2:4)

Even our father Abraham, who believed God’s words, went as Yahweh told him (Genesis 12:4). He did what he believed. He listened to God’s words and acted on them and so we call him the father of our faith.

The Apostle James tells us: But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves. To listen to the word and not obey is like looking at your own features in a mirror and then, after a quick look, going off and immediately forgetting what you looked like. But the man who looks steadily at the perfect law of freedom and makes that his habit - not listening and then forgetting, but actively putting it into practice - will be happy in all that he does (James 1:22-25).

A body dies when it is separated from the spirit, and in the same way faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds (James 2:26).

Can there be any more doubt? The commandments are a blessing actualised through obedience. To obey the commandments is to love God. Do you hear that? To obey the commandments is to love God. [And if you don't obey the commandments you don't love God - and if you say you love God but you don't keep the commandments you are a liar.]

And so we return to our beginning. Love of God which obeys the commandments is a love which suffers. The silhouette of true love is always suffering and the soul which sees this truth and yet says Yes is an heroic soul, a saint.

2nd Sunday of Lent - Year A

Genesis 12:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Matthew 17:1-9

The Lord said to Abram, leave your country, your family and your father's house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing. 'I will bless those who bless you: I will curse those who slight you. All the tribes of the earth shall bless themselves by you.' So Abram went as the Lord told him.

It's no wonder we call Abraham the father of our faith. He heard the word of the Lord, he believed, he obeyed, and, although he was already old, he set off on a journey into the unknown. He surrendered his life in faith to the plan and promise of God. Very courageous!

First Abraham had to listen to God, to hear. It’s easy to overlook this fact. The ability to listen and hear is not to be assumed. Some of us can’t listen. I was trying to get someone to listen to a short piece of music some time ago and there were so many interjections from this person I finally gave up; they were just not able to listen. Hearing is, of course, a deeper matter still. We might listen to the notes but not hear the music. Abraham listened to the voice of God and then he heard the call addressed to him. In other words, he obeyed.

Abraham obeyed because he trusted and believed. No one listens to a voice he doesn’t trust. When people ask me why I believe the testimony of the Apostles I now realise that it’s because I trust them. They are good men. Their witness holds together in a unified whole. Their message has integrity, in other words, there are no contradictions, just an integrated truthfulness.

Liars are usually easy to spot. First this strange uncertainty, later a suspicion, then a definite conviction – this person is lying! When the proof arrives it is often too late; we already knew, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to believe this person.

So Abraham listened, heard, believed. Then he had to leave. That must have been painful. And it was a comprehensive leaving - country, family and father's house. It's painful leaving even when we know where we are going but Abraham wasn't told that part. He was simply told to leave for the land I will show you.

Now comes the promise: I will make you a great nation ... I will bless you ... make you famous ... I will make you a blessing ... . Five times the personal pronoun I is used. None of this is coming from Abraham; this is something God is planning; this is God's work.

And it is work. Notice how God says: I will make you ... ? The short passage uses the phrase twice. I will make you ... . God means to be very powerfully active here, to shape Abraham, to make him become something he is not yet and which he could not ever become without surrender to God. This is made clear by the fact that Moses has no heir and yet God promises him: I will make you a great nation.

So Abram went as the Lord told him. What I personally admire so much about Abraham is that, at such an advanced age, he managed to change the direction of his life in such a radical way. Not many among us are capable of such heroism as this.

Abram heard God's call; he trusted; he had courage; he obeyed. God changed his name. That's what happens when we follow God – he makes us different, new.

Saul, too, got a new name because he radically changed direction at God's call. Something happened that changed the whole course of his life. On the road to Damascus – he heard, trusted, and obeyed a voice that was believable, a voice that was true. Obedience to this voice set Paul travelling down an unknown path to a destination he could not foresee. The hardships of the journey serving only to show forth God's plan more clearly.

And finally we come to the Gospel reading. The story of another man, a thirty-year-old carpenter. He heard the same voice and he obeyed. Like Abram and Saul he knew there would be hardships, even death. Nevertheless, he heard, trusted, and courageously obeyed. And because he obeyed God changed his name and gave him a name above all other names – Lord.

One of the ways we Christians know that we are listening to the same truthful voice of God is because all the footprints of the people obeying the call of this voice are pointing in the same direction. These are our compass, the steps of the holy men and women who travelled before us, witnessing to the oneness of truth, to the joy of the Christian life and to its ultimate goal.