Sunday August 30th. to Saturday September 5th.

Sunday August 30^th. to Saturday September 5^th.   Reflections on the Readings at Daily Mass.

 

Sunday August 30^th.  Twenty Second Sunday in Year One.

 

Readings

Jeremiah 20/7-9     :     Paul’s Letter to the Romans 12/1-2     :     Matthew16/21-27

In last Sunday’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel we saw Peter making his great profession of faith in Jesus who he declares is the Christ, the Promised One, and the Son of the Living God. Jesus congratulated him on his faith and told him that he would a rock on whom the Church, the community of his followers, would be built.

Today, however, we see Peter behaving in a very different fashion. Having told his disciples that, although Peter was correct in his confession of faith, they must keep this to themselves for the time being he begins to spell out what being the Messiah will mean. He tells them that he is destined to suffer and to die in Jerusalem at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the scribes but on the third day he will rise. Matthew changes what Mark has said in his Gospel ‘after three days’ to on the third day’. This is because, traditionally, this marks a turning point as in the story of Jonah (Jonah 1/17, 2/10) and in the prophet Hosea (Hosea 6/2). Matthew is always anxious to show how, in Jesus, the Scriptures are fulfilled and he sees in this the divine plan. Rather than ‘destined’ it would be better to translate this as ‘it is necessary’ to fulfil this plan.  It is quite possible that Jesus did have an intimation of what would happen to him, given the political climate at that time in Jerusalem and the attitude to ‘prophets’ and other popular leaders. It is unlikely though that Jesus was as precise in his description as the Gospel writer makes out when we see how the disciples react.  They don’t seem to have heard what he said about ‘rising’ perhaps because they were so appalled at what preceded that.

From being the rock on which the Church would be built, Peter now becomes a stumbling block for Jesus. Addressing Peter as ‘Satan’ that is ‘the Tempter’  (Job1-2 and Zechariah 3/1-2). Jesus indicates that Peter’s false interpretation or misunderstanding of what it means to be the Messiah is a temptation for him which he must resist. Peter is seeing things from a human point of view and not from God’s.

Jesus then turns specifically to his disciples to instruct them as to what it means to be his follower. It is unlikely that Jesus had any clear picture of how he would die but the cross was an instrument of torture that was very familiar to the Jews. It was the Romans’ favourite way of dispatching criminals. They did this at an almost industrial level so that the roads would be lined with crucified criminals and the sight of someone carrying the bar of their cross would have been commonplace. For the disciples then, Jesus was telling them that to follow him would involve suffering and, possibly, painful death. The idea of losing one’s ‘life’ implies that to follow Jesus the disciples must give themselves totally to him.  To ‘win the whole world’ implies having access to all riches and worldly goods but these are as nothing compared to finding one’s true self and the fullness of life which goes with that discovery.

The final phrase about the Son of Man coming in glory must refer to the coming fullness of God’s Reign but, since Matthew places this episode immediately before the transfiguration it may well refer to that.

The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah speaks very clearly of how the prophet found the ‘seduction’ of God irresistible. He speaks very powerfully about how when he resisted this urge to speak out about God it was like ‘fire burning in his heart’. ‘The effort to restrain it wearied him’ he says, he ‘could not bear it’.

Jesus too could have failed in his mission to proclaim the coming Reign of God which was so challenging for both the religious and the secular authorities. He knew that if he did pursue his mission this would most probably end in his execution, but he could not keep silence. Though he was divine we must always remember that he was truly human and the urge to ignore the insistence of the inner voice  to proclaim the Good News  would have been very powerful. Like Jeremiah though he was ‘seduced’ by the Father and could not give in to Peter’s tempting him. He had to fulfil the Divine plan.

Paul, in his Letter to the Romans today, echoes Jesus’ words. He enjoins the Roman Christians to worship God by the way in which they live. They are to live in a way ‘worthy of thinking beings’. They are not to model their lives and their behaviour on that of the world around them. They must change their behaviour and it must be modelled on the ‘new mind’ which they have received. That  ‘new mind’ is the mind of Christ which they have received in their baptism through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If they allow this to happen, using their God-given conscience and modelling themselves on the Lord they will be able to discover what is the will of God for them and what is the perfect thing for them to do.

This fits perfectly with what Jesus has been saying. They, disciples of Jesus, are called to ‘take up their cross’ and to follow him. They must use their God-given conscience to work out what that means for each one of them and to live their lives in this way will be to worship God.

Today then Jesus invites us allow ourselves to be ‘seduced’ by him and to resolve to follow him ever more closely, to open our hearts to his Spirit in our prayer and to use our God-given consciences to work out what is the right thing for us to be doing.

In practice that means doing something about which we hear little these days and that is examining our conscience. To do this we must first open our hearts to the Spirit of Jesus  and, using our intelligence, to try to see what God is asking of us, what taking up the Cross means in this or that particular situation. Maybe it is something very simple like whether it really need those new clothes or ought I to give the money to the needy? Maybe it is something much more serious like can I continue to keep silence when I know that there is some grave injustice or gross corruption in the firm for which I work? Should I risk losing my job by speaking out? Or ought I to do more to create a sense of community in my neighbourhood or even more in my parish?

So it goes on but this must become a daily habit of looking at our life and trying to see, honestly, how best I can be a true disciple and follower of Jesus. That is what taking up our cross means in our daily life. Just getting the urge to do something and then believing that God has told me to do this is very dangerous. We are rational beings and God has given us an intelligence and a conscience to guide us and it is in these that God speaks to us.

 

Monday August 31^st.  Monday Week Twenty Two Year two.   Memory of Aidan of Lindisfarne.

 

Readings

First letter to the Corinthians 2/1-5     :     Luke 4/16-30

Today we continue to read from the first letter to the Corinthian Christians. The first part of the letter addresses the problems arising from the factions within that church. Paul has been informed by members of Chloe’s household, almost certainly a house church, that there were divisions among the members of the churches caused by their allegiance to those who had proclaimed the Gospel to them.

The existence of these divisions reflected different personal loyalties among the Christians. It may have been that in choosing a particular preacher like Apollos some of the Christians were opting for what sounded like greater wisdom whereas Paul, without eloquence, had preached a foolishness that was really wiser than human wisdom, ‘Christ, and him crucified’. This was the mysterious wisdom of God and Paul had proclaimed it with words taught by the Spirit.

These words remind us of something very important. The Gospel is very simple. It is not about working things out philosophically with clever arguments. It is a simple but extremely difficult truth. God has come among us in flesh and blood like our own, sharing our human condition even to dying on a cross. This is the folly of a God who is love, that Paul will insist upon. From that everything else devolves. Jesus has shown us a God who is foolish enough to die for love and he calls us to the same folly. We are called to love without reserve and that is madness but it is God’s way and the only way to complete fulfilment as human beings. That is what brings wholeness and wholeness is holiness, when we are ready to lay down our life for another. The reason the Corinthian Christians had listened to Paul was because they had recognised the power of God in what he told them.

Today we begin to read from Luke’s Gospel on weekdays and we shall be doing this until Advent. We begin at chapter four because we have already read the preceding chapters during Christmastide dealing, as they do, with Jesus’ infancy through to his Baptism by John and his time of temptation in the wilderness.

Luke’s Gospel is usually dated about the year 85 C.E. and it has been, traditionally, attributed to Luke, a physician, the fellow worker and travelling companion of Paul.  Some believe that Luke may have been of Syrian origin from Antioch. Luke was an educated Greek speaker and a skilled writer and story-teller. He knew the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek but he had not been an eye-witness to Jesus’ ministry. In composing his Gospel, Luke drew on Mark’s Gospel and on another collection of sayings of the Lord  as well as some other available traditions, both oral and written.

It is likely that Luke was not raised as a Jew but converted to Judaism before becoming a follower of Jesus. He was not a Palestinian and his Gospel would seem to be addressed, in the main,  to the churches that had been affected directly or indirectly through others by Paul’s missionary journeys. There are serious proposals by some scholar’s that Luke intended his Gospel firstly for areas in Greece and Syria but there can be no certainty about this.  There is a very definite unity in the Gospel though some of the Western Greek manuscripts lack significant passages that are found in others.

As has already been said, the first part of Luke’s Gospel covers Jesus’ infancy and boyhood with stories that are not found in the other Gospels and it ends with the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism, his genealogy and his time in the wilderness.

We begin today to read from where Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, has returned from his temptations and news of him has spread around the whole area.  He had begun teaching in the Synagogues already and today we see him arriving in Nazareth where he had been brought up and going to the Synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath. In other words we see Jesus behaving as any devout Jew would.

The origins of the Synagogues are uncertain but by the first century they existed throughout Palestine and the Empire and were the focus of Jewish life. They functioned as a meeting hall, a place of prayer and a house of study.  The passage from Luke’s Gospel that we read today is of great interest because it shows us the structure of worship in the early Synagogue. This is particularly important for us because early Christian worship was also based on this same structure which we still see in the Eucharist today in what we call the Liturgy of the Word.

Jesus is invited to read, as any visiting Rabbi would be and it seems that he himself chose the passage that he would read. He unrolled the scroll because, at that time and even now in the present day Synagogues, the Scriptures were written on parchment or vellum which was rolled on two spindles.  To find the place, a spindle had to be held in each hand, one hand unrolling the other rolling up. The quotation from what Jesus read shows the importance of the later Isaiah for the early Christians.  It is interesting that Luke gives us a selection of quotes from Isaiah 61/1, 58/6 and 51/2 leaving our Isaiah’s ‘to heal the broken-hearted’. Luke is adapting the text to serve his purpose of proclaiming what kind of Messiah Jesus would be. He would be a prophetic Messiah and he had been anointed with the Spirit for the task. What was said by the prophet about the ‘servant of the Lord’ was being fulfilled in him, Jesus says.

The quotations from Isaiah define Jesus’ ministry. He will announce the Good News to those who are blind, poor, in captivity and oppressed. Luke’s Gospel will show this Messianic programme being carried out in the stories he tells about Jesus. The mention of the ‘year of the Lord’ has suggested to some scholars that Jesus is announcing the great Jubilee Year at the end of time when all debt would be remitted and slaves set free. Though this is possible it is not supported by the rest of the Gospel.

Rather than portray Jesus’ work in terms of political or economic reform, Luke shows his liberating work in terms of personal exorcisms, healings and the teaching of the people. The radical character of Jesus’ mission is that it is offered to and accepted by those who were the outcasts of the people.

Jesus’ words astonish his hearers and they question his authority since they know his family and his background. Already the prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2/34), when the baby Jesus was presented in the Temple, begins to be fulfilled and Jesus declares that no prophet is ever acceptable to those who know them and their origins. He reminds them of two instances where those who accepted a prophet were pagans and not Jews. It is this that turns the people’s astonishment into rage and gives them murderous intentions. It is Jesus’ daring to compare his ministry with the great prophets, Elijah and Elisha that enrages the people and makes them even want to kill him.

In this episode we see already an intimation that Jesus would be for all peoples and not just the Jews.  Earlier, in the proclamation of John the Baptist (Luke 3/6) the Gospel writer has shown how God’s visitation would be for the poor and the oppressed of all nations and not just for Jews. In this way Luke gives us the last element in the prophetic nature of Jesus’ ministry, that of rejection by his own people. This theme, foretold by Simeon when Jesus was only a small child, will be worked out in Luke’s Gospel in terms of those in Israel who do and those who do not accept Jesus as a prophet for all the peoples.

Today what does this Gospel reading say to us? It makes us ask what the Church is all about?  Is it the gathering of those who are saved and so, the place where we ought to bring as many people as possible? Or is it, as the Second Vatican Council teaches us, a sign and sacrament of God’s purpose for all humankind? Most of us have not been brought up with this teaching though it is now over fifty years old. It may be difficult for us to accept that God might find Hindus, Muslims and even atheists just as acceptable as Christians. So often we feel that, because we have accepted the Gospel, we ought to be privileged in some way because of that but what we have to remember always is that the Gospel is not a set of beliefs and practices but a way of life. This life is being lived out by people of every faith and of none and it is through them that the Kingdom or Reign of God is being built up in our world. Our role is to be, in our communities and in our personal lives, the sign and sacrament of all this. How must we do this? By creating open and welcoming communities characterised by the love that we have one for another and for all those who come our way.

This is an ominous beginning and it already suggests why many Jews later in the Acts of the Apostles (for example Acts 13/44-52) would reject the Gospel precisely because it was meant for everyone.

Just as the Corinthian Christians had difficulty in accepting the simplicity of Paul’s message so we see the Jews here having difficulty in accepting that the salvation that Jesus brings is not just for them but for everyone.

We too often fail to accept the simplicity of the Gospel message  because it is so difficult to accept the madness of love and, even more, to accept that that love is for everyone even those who we would expect to be rejected without question.

This is the sort of Church we are called to build, a church where the message is simple but infinitely profound in its meaning that god is love and that love is madness. Part of that madness is that no-one is excluded and all are welcome.

 

Memory of Aidan and the saints of Linidsfarne.

 

Born in Ireland, Aidan became a monk of Iona and was sent to Northumbria when King Oswy asked for help to bring his Kingdom to the Christian faith. Aidan established his monastery on the isle of Lindisfarne. From there, aided by King Oswald and later King Oswy, Aidan went about preaching the Gospel, building churches and establishing monasteries and throughout the kingdom he freed those who were slaves.

Most of what we know about Aida is due to Bede (673-735) who describes him as a man of prayer who loved study, lived humbly and peaceably and spent himself in the care of the poor.

The Church of Aidan’s day was split on the date of Easter and the way it was calculated. Aidan continued to use the method he had learnt in Ireland while others followed the Roman way. So often, it is comparatively trivial things that divide the Church, especially when it comes to customs inherited from others. We must be always on our guard about this and seek to build a Church where we can have different customs and even beliefs about non-essential matters and yet live together in peace and love.

With Aidan we remember today all those abbots, bishops, monks, teachers and missionaries that Lindisfarne produced which made it the cradle of English Christianity.

 

There are proper readings for Aidan and the saints of Lindisfarne but, almost certainly , those of the day will be used.

 

Tuesday September 1^st. World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Tuesday Week 22 Year 2

 

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew had already promulgated the observance of this day some years ago. In the Calendar of the Orthodox churches today is New Year’s Day and Bartholomew asked that it be kept as a Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Partly as a result of Pope Francis’ Encyclical letter ‘Laudato si’ he and the Patriarch agreed in 2015 to promote this day as a day of joint prayer and celebration for the Catholic and the Orthodox churches.

This was an enormous step forward for our two churches since together we can have an enormous influence in the world when it comes to concern for the environment. Sadly, it still doesn’t seem to have been widely observed but it is of the utmost importance so do bring it to the attention of others, both those who are members of various churches and those who are not. It is something which can bring us all closer together.

More than just the observance of today, there is now a ‘Season of Creation’ running from today until October 4^th., Saint Francis’ Day.

In various places ‘Laudato si’ groups have been set up to study the Encyclical ‘Laudato si’ and to find ways and means of promoting the care of our planet in our daily lives and in society. You might want to Google this and think about setting up such a group.

If you want to find out more about this day and season Google ‘World day of Prayer for the care of Creation’ and why not spend some time today in reflecting on the wonders of the Universe and, in particular, our planet which is our ‘common home’ and asking yourself what more you might be able to do to care for it.

Readings

First Letter to the Corinthians 2/10-16     :      Luke 4/31-37

In today’s extract from Paul’s letter, he speaks about the Spirit, the mysterious wisdom of God about which we heard yesterday, which has been hidden from the rulers of this present age, those who had crucified the Lord of glory. It is by that wisdom that Paul is enabled to proclaim in words taught him by the Spirit spiritual truths in spiritual words. It is the Spirit who makes it possible for us to understand God’s gifts. It is only those who allow themselves to be enlightened by the Spirit who can understand the wisdom that Paul preaches, to others it seems nonsense. The mind of God is unfathomable, Paul says but we are given the mind of Christ. This enables us to grasp something of the wisdom of God, revealed in the folly of the Cross but, ultimately, the mind of God is an utter mystery to us.

It is worth reflecting on the words ‘Who can know the mind of the Lord?’ When we have said all that we can about God we have, in truth, said nothing because God is completely unknowable and beyond our understanding. In Jesus, however, we have seen God in our own human likeness so that we can know something of God in a way that we are able to grasp with our limited human faculties.

In the Gospel reading today we see Jesus beginning his ministry without delay. Luke makes it clear that Jesus teaches in the Synagogues regularly on the Sabbath and that his teaching makes a deep impression on the people because he speaks ‘with authority’. Jesus doesn’t quote other people or texts unless it is to confirm what he is saying. His teaching comes from his own conviction and not from others, from deep within himself and he backs it up with action .

The programme that Jesus had announced in the Synagogue at Nazareth begins straight away. His announcement that he comes to ‘free captives’ is immediately demonstrated in the liberation of the man who was possessed by an ‘unclean devil’. The unclean spirit recognises who Jesus is and Jesus then proceeds to silence him or, translating the text more correctly, Jesus ‘puts a muzzle on him’. Luke adds a telling note that does not appear in Mark’s version of the even that the process is painless and the devil leaves the man without hurting him!

This episode ends with the admiration of the surrounding crowd who, impressed by Jesus’ teaching, recognise that his words have power to cast out unclean spirits and demons which gives his teaching all the more authority.

The final sentence of this passage is translated more correctly by ‘echoes’ or ‘sounds’ of him spread throughout the surrounding countryside. People were talking about him and telling one another what they had seen and heard.

It is important that when we share our faith what we say must come from our own inner conviction if it is to have real authority. It is no good quoting from the Catholic Catechism or even the Bible, we must say what we truly believe and we ought not to be afraid that we don’t know or we have doubts. That gives all the more authenticity to what we say.

Both readings today remind us that although God is totally beyond our understanding the Gospel message is simple and powerful. It is not about power and authority in the worldly sense but about authenticity in its deliverance and simplicity in its proclamation. It is, above all, the way in which we live, caring for others as Jesus did and seeking to rid the world of the evils of our day, power, greed, selfishness and so on that will give authenticity to anything we may say about what we believe. Jesus backed up what he said by his deeds and so must we if we are to be listened to.

 

September 2^nd.  Wednesday in Week twenty Two in Year Two

 

Readings

First Letter to the Corinthians 3/1-9     :      Luke 4/38-44

In today’s extract from Paul’s letter, Paul is trying to deal with the squabbles that were going on in the Corinthian churches, more especially Paul is trying to deal with the arguments between those who are his supporters and those who support Apollos. Paul reminds the Corinthiian Christians of how, when he came to them, he treated them like infants not ready for grown-up food and how they still seem immature in their faith. Paul uses two images to describe what he sees as his function and that of Apollos. He tells them to think of their church as a garden where it was neither he nor Apollos who caused the mysterious growth but God. He then uses the image of a building to describe the Corinthian church and he reminds the Corinthian Christians that they are God’s building not Paul’s or Apollos’

This is a problem that is still with us. How often is the Christian community split by those who follow this or that devotion or this or that person or teaching? We have those who make Medjugorge an absolute ‘must’ and those who follow Padre Pio or the Divine Providence and Sister Faustina or Fatima. These are all trivial things compared to the Gospel message and in seeking to impose them on others or in trying to present them as essential there are those who divide the Church. We must get back to the simplicity of the Gospel and stop arguing about things which come and go  and are often very suspect in themselves.

In today’s Gospel reading we continue to follow Jesus’ ministry on the same day about which we were reading yesterday. Leaving the Synagogue Jesus goes to the house of Simon Peter where he exercises the same authority over the sickness from which Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is suffering as he had done over the ‘unclean spirit’. Typically, the woman gets up and occupies herself with serving everyone!

Luke brings the day to an end with those who had friends suffering from diseases of one kind or another, bringing them to Jesus so that he may lay hands on them and cure them.

It is interesting that Luke has re-arranged the material from Mark’s Gospel so as to place an account of a day in the life of Jesus before the call of the disciples.  

We can only suppose that Luke’s reason for doing this was to give a clear profile of Jesus’ ministry before he calls anyone else to join him in that same ministry. It also seems that Luke’s intention was to link Jesus’ preaching and teaching with his activities of exorcising and healing.

This fulfils what Jesus had proclaimed as his programme in the Synagogue at Nazareth, to bring freedom to those who were captive to either spiritual or physical sickness.

Luke makes no apology for presenting Jesus as a wonder worker, since this was very much part of the Greek world where people were generally convinced that great men, philosophers and heroes, had divine power in them. It is the same power that Jesus will share with those whom he sends out to continue his mission. The wonderful works that Jesus does validate his preaching. It is fitting then that the ‘devils’ or ‘evil spirit’s that Jesus casts out acknowledge him as the ‘Son of God’ and this is the first time that this is mentioned apart from Mary having been told this before his birth.

Luke makes it sound as if Jesus had spent the whole night ministering to those who had been brought to him and then, exhausted, at daybreak he makes for a quiet and deserted place to recover. Mark’ Gospel has him praying but Luke’s Gospel leaves him in peace for a while.

However, the crowds give Jesus no peace and they seek him out again. Jesus’ response is to tell them that he must move on to proclaim the Good News to other towns.

Luke seems to get confused at this moment and has Jesus preaching in the Synagogues of Judea whereas he was in Galilee. One explanation is that Luke was using the term Judea to mean the whole of Palestine or is it just a slip? In any case, that was Jesus’ purpose, to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom, the Reign of God as widely as possible with all that that entails.

This Gospel reading makes us realise how people had faith in Jesus because of his ability to bring them healing and he himself saw this as part of his proclamation of the Good News. If we are be Jesus’ disciples then, it is no good talking about the ‘Reign of God’, we have to show it in our lives and in the way that we are with other people. In other words, it is by our love that we proclaim the Gospel first and we must ask ourselves the question. Am I living the Reign of God and does my life authenticate what I say?

Even more must the Church live the Gospel before proclaiming it. The Church must be first and foremost concerned, not with what people believe but with whether they are able to live decent human lives, free from war, from disease and so on. It means being deeply involved in the world and its needs. It means that our first objective as a church is not to make converts but to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to fully involved in the building up of that Kingdom with all of goodwill who are involved in the same task. Can I do more to make this a reality?

 

Thursday September 3^rd.    Feast of Gregory the Great, Apostle of the English (c.540-604).

 

Son of a Roman Senator Gregory entered the service of the state as a young man. By his early thirties, however, he had sold his enormous properties, founded six monasteries in Sicily and a seventh in Rome and given generously of his wealth to the poor.

In 570 Gregory entered the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome which he himself had founded. Here he distinguished himself by his austere life which may have been the cause of ill health in later life!

The then bishop of Rome, Benedict Ist. called Gregory to be one of the seven deacons of Rome whose job it was to care for the poor and the needy of the city and to be one of the Bishop’s right hand men. Benedict ‘s successor, Pelagius 11nd., no doubt recognising Gregory’s great talents, sent him to be his Apocrisarius or Ambassador in Constantinople where he remained for six years.

On his return to Rome Gregory was elected Abbot of his monastery, convinced, it would seem, that the future of the Church lay with the monastic movement rather than with the declining Eastern Empire. Gregory’s own ambitions to take a group of monks to bring the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons were frustrated when he was elected Bishop of Rome during the plague of 590. He was at once faced with crisis, floods, famine, plague, a Lombard invasion all of which called for urgent attention. In the longer term there was the dominance of Byzantium or Constantinople in Church affairs and the need to take the Gospel to the barbarian peoples which occupied him greatly.

In the West Gregory re-organised church life and administration in spite of the critical times and he sponsored the reform of the worship of the Western Church. Most importantly for us in this country, Gregory initiated the evangelisation of the English. In 596 Gregory sent Augustine with a band of monks from his own monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome on their mission to the Anglo-Saxons. He provided them with ongoing advice and support and in 601 he sent reinforcements to help them in their task. It was probably Gregory’s continued concern for the English Church that made it, in many ways, much closer to the Pope and the Roman Church than  many other European churches.  It was also Gregory’s initiative in sending monks to these shores that gave the English Church and, especially, its Cathedrals a monastic ethos which was unique in Europe and remains so to this day.

Gregory is also remembered for his intensive writings on pastoral care, spirituality and morals which have earnt him the title of Doctor or Teacher of the Church.
It was Gregory who first called himself the ‘Servant of the servants of God’ a title which has been retained by the Bishop of Rome ever since but which, sadly, has more been a title rather than a reality. Gregory always remained a monk at heart and it was from this that his wisdom and compassion sprang o that he never saw himself as someone who would lord it over the Church but rather as someone who served.

 

Readings

First Letter to the Thessalonians 2/2-8     :     Matthew 16/13-19

The first reading speaks of Paul’s proclamation of the Good News and the unassuming way in which he behaved which echoes Gregory’s calling himself the ‘Servant of the servants of God’. Paul further says that his care for the Thessalonian Christians was like that of a mother caring for her children and this was very much like Gregory’s care for the Church. This was especially notable in his care for the English Church which Augustine had begun under his commission. Gregory maintained his solicitude and care for the newly-born church throughout his life.

The Gospel reading contains Peter’s confession of faith and Jesus’ assurance that it is on that faith that the Church would be built. As the successor of Peter, Gregory was a man of great and rock-like faith in a time of all sorts of troubles and that faith was firmly founded on Christ.

Today we pray for Christian churches of England and for a greater growing together so that with our common faith in Christ, we may be able to proclaim the Gospel to the people of our land by our presence among them and our united efforts to build the Kingdom of God in our fractured and needy society.

 

Friday September 4^th.  Friday in Week Twenty Two Year Two. Memory of Cuthbert (c.6346-687)

 

Cuthbert came from a fairly well-to-do Anglo-Saxon family and was born about 634. In 651 he became a monk at Melrose Abbey. With Abbot Eata he moved to Ripon to found a monastery there but because the local Lord insisted on the monks following Roman customs  they moved back to Melrose and Wilfred became the Abbot of Ripon. About 661 Cuthbert became Prior of Melrose and he spent the next few years in making missionary journeys in the vicinity for a week or a month at a time. After the Synod of Whitby in 663-4 Cuthbert adopted Roman customs and became Prior of Lindisfarne where he gradually won the monks over to his point of view. For a while he lived as a hermit on Saint Cuthbert’s Isle close by Lindisfarne and in 656, relinquishing his post as Prior, he withdrew to Inner Farne  where Aidan used to spend Lent in order to live in complete solitude.

In 685 because Cuthbert’s holiness had become well known  he was chosen by King Egfrith and Archbishop Theodore to become Bishop of Hexham. Almost immediately, however, he exchanged that diocese with Eata for Lindisfarne from where he taught and preached and visited the diocese. Cuthbert was also famous for his powers of healing and prophecy but he was also known as a man of great charm and ability.

After only two years as a bishop and after a painful illness, Cuthbert died on March 20^th., 637. Eleven years later when his body was moved to a shrine in the church it was found to be incorrupt. After the Vikings destroyed Lindisfarne, several of the monks carrying Cuthbert’s remains with them, travelled around Northern England  and South West Scotland for many years and, eventually, in 995,the community that they had become arrived in Durham where they settled. There a Saxon church was built and Cuthbert’s relics placed within it in 999. These were moved to the new Norman cathedral in 1108 on this day which is why we celebrate  Cuthbert today. His relics still remain in the Cathedral next to those of Bede.

We pray for the Church in the North of England and for a greater unity between all the churches there.

 

Readings

First Letter to the Corinthians 4/1-5     :     Luke 5/33-39

Because we did not read the extract from Paul’s Letter yesterday, due to the feast of Saint Gregory, it would be good to read it (1 Cor. 3/18-23)before reading that for today. In it Paul is once again saying what he has said before that the wisdom of the world is ‘foolishness’. The message of the Gospel does not depend on any human wisdom since it is about God who is ‘foolish’ in the eyes of the world. In the verses that we have not read (1 Cor.3/10-15) Paul has laid down a solid foundation, indeed, the only possible foundation, Jesus, the Christ, and on the Day of Judgement, he says, everything else that has no substance will be shown up and burned off. The Corinthian Christians must realise that they are God’s Temple in which the Spirit lives. They must despise the wisdom of the world as foolishness in God’s sight. The ‘foolishness’ of God they have seen in Christ who was crucified.

This is the life to which they are called, to live as servants of Christ since they belong to him and he belongs to God. Nothing else is of any importance whether it be Paul or Apollos or Peter or the world, life or death, the present or the future. Only Christ matters. This must be true for us also. So much of our Catholic religion has been taken up with worrying about our beliefs, our practices or our sins but Paul says, only Christ matters. As we try to follow him even though we fail all the time, that is all that matters, to seek to belong totally to him and to let him guide and direct our lives.

In today’s reading from Paul’s Letter he speaks of himself and the other Apostles as stewards’ entrusted with the mysteries of God’. This is how the Corinthian Christians ought to view their pastors. The word used here often has the meaning of ‘official witness’ but it is also a term applied to religious functionaries. What are the mysteries of which Paul is speaking? Here he is talking about that mystery ‘hidden from the beginning’ but now revealed, the mystery of the Son of God, made flesh and dwelling among us in order to share the Divine Spirit with us and to raise us with himself to new life, the life of the Spirit. This is the mystery that we, the Church, have still to safeguard and while there are those among us who have been chosen to guide and care for us, we are still responsible for safeguarding that essential mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemptive work of Christ.

Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians that he did not appoint himself and they did not make him an apostle so their judgement is meaningless. But paul says that although he has a clear conscience  he affirms that it is the one true judge who will decide and pass judgement so that no one must judge another. Paul is obviously thinking of that final judgement and judgement must be left to God alone.

In the Gospel reading today we have passed over two stories of healing and the call of Lev, the tax collector with the attendant criticisms of Jesus eating and drinking with sinners. Jesus reply to his critics is that the healthy don’t need a doctor but only the sick and that he has not come to invite righteous people to repentance but sinners.

This leads on to today’s extract where the Pharisees question Jesus about prayer and fasting. The Oharisees, like the disciples of John the Baptist were in the habit of fasting in the traditional Jewish way but Jesus seems to indulge in banquets with doubtful friends. How can he be taken seriously?

Jesus’ response combines elements of tradition in an original way.  Using standard medical imagery Jesus saysthat he is the physician who calls the sick to health and so he must be near them. Now, in today’s reading he applies to himself the Biblical imagery of the bridegroom There will be days in the future when the bridegroom himself will not be around and then his companions will fast, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles but the time that Jesus is with his disciples is symbolised by the wedding banquet.

These stories of Jesus illustrate the gap that there was between the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus and the religious perceptions of the Pharisees and others. Jesus says that his message is the new garment and the new wine. Worse than useless to try to match them with old forms of piety and politics. To try to compromise here would lead to the loss of what is new and the destruction of what was old. Putting it simply, Jesus’ proclamation of good news to the outcasts with its accessibility to all cannot be fitted into the perceptions and rules of a separatist piety like that of the Pharisees who would see themselves as perfect and with no need of change.

These short sayings of Jesus are so radical that they would seem to have come directly from Jesus with only the lightest of editing  on the part of the Gospel writer. Rarely in the Gospel do we find  such a clear statement of the radical nature of Jesus’ message.

Here is, surely, a message for our church today.  Our church seems to moving in a direction where doctrinal purity and the meticulous performance of religious rites goes together with a harking back to the so-called ‘good old days’ when we all knew exactly what we had to believe and fo to get to heaven This does not fit with Jesus’ radical message  to the poor and his upturning of old ways and man-made customs with a return to simplicity and truth.

 

There are special readings for Cuthbert but, almost certainly, those of the day will be read.

 

Saturday September 5^th.   Saturday in Week Twenty Two in Year Tow.

 

Readings

First Letter to the Corinthians 4/6-15     :     Luke 6/1-5

In the extract from Paul’s Letter today in a highly rhetorical manner Paul contrasts ‘us apostles’ (1 Cor.4/9) to the Corinthian Christians who, in their religious attitudes are proud even though they have nothing which they did not receive (1 Cor.4/7). ‘Here, we are fools for the sake of Christ while you are the learned men(!)in Christ’ Paul says (1 Cor.4/10-13).

This letter is a warning from a father to his children and Timothy is being sent to Corinth to remind them of Paul’s life and teaching before Paul comes himself to test the arrogant (1 Cor. 17-21). It is not clear from the text, though we don’t read these verses today, whether the letter would arrive before Timothy.

At the end of today’s reading Paul tells the Corinthian Christians how he is not sending thi letter purely to make them ashamed but to bring them to their senses since they are his ‘dearest children’.

This passage is once again a reminder to us, the Church today, to beware of the factions can so easilt spring up in the Christian community when we move away from the simplicity of the Gospel into the esoteric domains of visions and private teachings of so-called experts and visionaries. The Gospel is simple but radical and it is important for us to follow Paul’s advice to ‘keep to what is written’ and not go taking sides for this or that devotion or ‘holy’ person.

In the Gospel reading today Jesus continues the dispute with the Pharisees. The disciples are doing what would seem to be a trivial thing in picking ears of corn and eating them as they walked through the cornfields on the Sabbath. The Pharisees and to a lesser extent the Scribes emerge ever more clearly as the arbiters of piety and particularly with regard to the Sabbath.

The Pharisees charge the disciples with an offense which may seem surprising but the observance of the Sabbath was a major pre-occupation for devout Jews at this time. The commandment to ‘keep holy the Sabbath’ (Exodus 20/8-11, Deuteronomy 5/12-15) was a positive rather than a negative command and it invited elaborate expansion by the experts in the Law Hardest to describe was what constituted ‘work’ rather than ‘rest’ and this action of the disciples was in the eyes of the Pharisees a breach of the forty categories of activities determined to constitute ‘work’. Jesus springs to their defence and in the process he shows himself to be an authoritative interpreter of the Law. He appeals to the example of David  (1 Samuel 21/1-6). More than that he reveals himself as the ‘Son of Man’ who is ‘Lord of the Sabbath’.

Again this episode is a warning and Jesus will remind us elsewhere that the ‘Sabbath was made for people’ not ‘people for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2/27) So many rules and regulations have grown up over the years within the Church and we have to admit that most of them are, literally ‘man-made’ having been devised at one time or another by church authorities, inevitably male.  The law that we must go to Mass on a Sunday under pain of mortal sin has no precedent in Jesus’ teaching and is a law made up to try to force people to go to Mass. It is interesting how the Bishops suddenly gave permission to not attend Mass during the recent crisis! Some of us remember when it was mortal sin to eat meat on a Friday, a law which was rescinded many years ago by the same authorities who had imposed under pain of sin.

Of course there are many other examples which could be cited where various matters are declared to be sinful on the authority of those who decide these things. Many of these are in the area of relationships and need to be rethought in the light of our greater knowledge and understanding than when such decisions were made.

Sadly there is often a great rift between what is taught officially by church authorities and what is believed by the vast number of ordinary Catholic Christians and here we must remember that the Holy Spirit is not the monopoly of these church authorities but is, rather, the Spirit who will ‘lead us into all truth’.

Ewe pray today for a more open church where these things can be discussed and prayed about so that we can make sure that what sya is the faith of the Church is truly that and not the convictions of a small group of people who make the decisions and the rules.