Ascension Day

 

The feast of the Ascension is about letting go and living a new life as well.

 With the departure of a friend to another country we have al experienced the strange new sensation of going back to ordinary tasks and routine in their absence. There is a lingering sadness at their departure and a ‘picking up of the pieces’ as we re-arrange our house of guest room to the way things were. With Jesus however there is a newness, things are not the same as before. We are to live a new life with new ways of doing things and with a new joy.

Jesus takes the disciples to the outskirts, to the edge, to the periphery if the city – symbolic – to be taken aside, away from the crowd, to experience silence, quiet and to be blessed. We too must continually draw apart from the bustle and the noise to the periphery of life, even for a short while, to once more  hear the reassuring words of Jesus and to be strengthened and renewed for our mission in life.

We cannot have our heads stuck in a cloud. We have work to do. Christ has ascended into heaven and where He has gone we hope to follow, where our loved ones, please God, await us. We are not to be so heavenly minded so as to be of no earthly use. Recently Pope Francis was asked what do think of priests wearing cassocks or soutanes –‘ I don’t mind so long as they have their sleeves rolled up!’

He will judge us in the measure that we have loved and have shown compassion.

Who?

Us .We are witnesses to His death and resurrection.

We are witnesses to this - to the repentance for the forgiveness of sins – the joy of being forgiven is the greatest joy of all.

There is a sense of a handing over of a special task – an office of responsibility, an inheritance – something to be handed on –‘something I want you to have’.

Witnesses when and where?

At every opportunity at home, in the family circle, in the workplace and above all our social responsibility in society. God is to be found in the pots and pans as well.

What?

To speak the truth in charity – a difficult and important and delicate task – to those who need to hear the truth of change. Anyone who has lived or worked alongside an addict knows the difficulty in speaking of the need for change, and the criticism that ensues. Having the duty and responsibility to tell the truth hurts, but the truth sets us and others free. As Catholics in particular we are called to speak up for the most vulnerable members of society, the poor, the disadvantaged and those whose lives are threatened – especially the defenceless unborn.

It is then that we realise that there is a cost. To be a witness for the truth is to be cross-examined, to be public, to be scrutinised, and observed, to be open to the possibility of contradiction and ridicule. In fact nearly every one of the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ ascension witnessed to the point of death. The Greek word for witness is MARTYR. We must be credible witnesses. In the year of faith we must endeavour to learn more about our faith in the Year of Faith. The book YOUCAT is a great resource for just that.

 The last command of Jesus is related to the lives we are called to lead at the final dismissal at every Mass - Go the Mass is ended – glorifying the Lord by your life.

 

Sixth Sunday of Easter

When two friends or relatives unavoidably separate for what they know will be a considerable length of time, they make a commitment to stay in touch somehow. There are fewer excuses not to do so in the modern world - cards and letters have given way to faster and immediate means of communication such as Facebook and besides texts and emails, we have Skype and the like. While often ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ somehow over the passage of time, both people's lives change as newer lives and work commitments take shape, and newer friends are made. The same regularity and enthusiasm  for contact isn’t there for some reason. Eventually birthdays and Christmas are the only reminders of the friendship. How are we to keep the spirit of friendship alive?

But added to that, the permanent separation of death as I discussed last week brings even more challenges to keep the memories alive. To somehow remember the one loved and lost but yet to let go and move on as well is a delicate challenge. Not to dwell in the past but to see the preciousness of life at all, of living life to the full, the fullness of life that the parted one would want for us, not squandering time or talents, but being the best version of myself that they would want me to be and to keep the spirit of love for them alive.

This is what Jesus asks of us in the Easter season.

 There are as it were, two departures of Jesus, His death on Good Friday, and his ascension into heaven which we re-commemorate next week.

We are in the middle of these partings.

And if we can imagine Jesus ‘packing to go’ as anyone close to us leaving us to go on a long journey, there are the last minute jobs, the parting instructions and the personal words of re-assurance that we will see each other again. There are also parting gifts. Today Jesus’ last words of advice and comfort are ‘do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.’ And ‘peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give.’

External (worldly) things – not wrong in themselves – can and do give temporary, but not lasting, peace. And only Jesus gives us peace we all seek.

Riches make you comfortable, but not happy. There is no geographical cure for worry.

The amazing thing about peace is that it is somehow gently infectious. We see people calm and collected in a crisis, people unperturbed at a delay in traffic or in an airport or shopping queue, a patient parent with a stroppy child, a person – maybe a saintly person – who radiates joy and peace and kindness. We see a parent with a special needs child, and somehow our worry (and our lack of patience) pales into significance. They have inner peace. And we want that for ourselves! Not that their lives are cross-free, but they have some ‘secret’ of happiness and contentment amidst the trials of life. They do not seek, or do not need to seek, peace through diversion into addiction or compulsive behaviour.

The Spirit that Jesus will give is the Spirit of peace. Jesus first words to His disciples at his resurrection were ‘peace be with you’ as He breathed the Spirit on them.  The peace He gives them then is tied up with the forgiveness of sins. And that is a step all too few make – to seek the peace that a guilt-free conscience can bring in the sacrament of Reconciliation (confession).

The Spirit gives us peace through the sacraments that we receive of Baptism and Confirmation and the Eucharist – and we keep the spirit alive in our hearts also in the practice of fidelity to daily prayer.  

We must ask ourselves therefore what kind of spiritual lives we lead. The acid test is the level of worry and anxiety we experience and what means we turn to in order to cope in the long term. The modern world offers us counselling and meditation techniques instead of what God through His Church, i.e., the sacraments and prayer, can offer for free! A peace the world cannot give - that is my gift to you. The Spirit of peace – Christ’s parting gift - keeps our relationship with Christ alive in our hearts. As we prepare to say farewell at His Ascension we thank Him for the gift of the Spirit in our hearts.

Peace be with you!

Fifth Sunday of Easter

We have all had the experience of hearing the death of a friend or colleague – and are left reeling. We are shocked and try to recall our last meeting or encounter with the person we will never see alive again. It is awful, and yet we run and deep down we know we cannot hide from the inevitability of even our own death.

These sombre thoughts come to mind when we recall Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper in today’s Gospel –‘I will not be with you much longer.’

These terrifying words are on our minds when we hear the news of someone’s diagnosis of a terminal illness. Now everything in our relationship with them changes, be it months or weeks, now every meeting could be our last. We go gently with them. And when the illness takes a terminal and rapid downward spiral, everything stops. All the things we considered important are now side-lined, and we keep vigil. Every word and gesture is crucially important and indelibly stamped on our memory.

So it is with the Last Supper. The words we hear today are put in that context. Jesus begins his Last Supper Discourse as it is known, when Judas departs, with these solemn words:

I will not be with you much longer. Where I am going you cannot come.

This is what we are commemorating in the Easter season. It may seem strange to refer back to the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night when in fact we have celebrated Christ’s resurrection and all the subsequent appearances in the Easter Octave and we are now in the Fifth Sunday of Easter.

Now however, we are being prepared (liturgically) for Christ’s departure at His Ascension and He will send us His Holy Spirit. So these words: ‘I will not be with you much longer. Where I am going you cannot come‘  take on a new significance other than on their own in the circumstances in which Jesus first uttered them before His impending death. There is not the same ‘mourning or sadness’ or weeping (as described in the Apocalypse also) when we hear them now.

Yet when someone we love has gone from our sight, their spirit remains. We somehow ‘feel’ them around us in a new way. Conscious reminders, photographs, songs, sayings, milestones, and even unexpectedly too,  the loved one comes back to us forcefully in a way we cannot readily put into words as these are deeply felt and deeply personal to each individual, even in members if the same family.

Going back to the feeling and atmosphere of vigil,  after the person has gone we try somehow to honour their memory afterwards in a mortuary card, the words chosen for the headstone, and even trying to honour them in a particular way if they asked something of us. I think of people – siblings – who reconcile – at the request of a dying parent. They do so out of respect and love.

The words: ‘do this for me’ are embedded in us, and that is why we hear those solemn words: ‘Do this in memory of me’.

At every Mass, therefore, we commemorate and honour Jesus’ final request at the solemn moment of His last get-together with his friends and disciples, and He becomes tangibly present to us in the Eucharist.

We are called each day – and again this week -  to follow Jesus’ new commandment and as we depart from Mass too, to live out those words we heard today, which Jesus asks of each of us (three times) ‘Love one another’.

 

Vocations Sunday

Perhaps you can picture the scene – two or three young people at a table in coffee shop or restaurant – all ignoring each other’s company, but there is free WiFi so they are busy texting or playing games or surfing the internet for emails or Facebook alerts or tweets. None of them are in conversation with each other. A similar incident was remarked on by a friend of mine who saw three girls on their respective phones to other people – but not to each other in the present moment. We can all get up in the false and illusory hope that we are missing something – where in fact we are by ignoring the present moment and present company.

I remember walking in to a person’s house a couple of years ago where I was about to say a house Mass – a member of the family was too busy or lazy (but also definitely too rude) to get up and greet me – and he was a grown man – the person they were on-line with so far away was more important than a flesh-and-blood visitor to the house.

All of us have an inner voice – we can’t describe it but all of us can relate to the idea of an inner spokesperson for what is true and right and morally preferable – as well as for what is above all, the truth.  The inner promptings of the voice of conscience – that inner voice we might call our good angel on our shoulder – and the call to be more than I am at times of frustration, bewilderment, confusion and restlessness ; the call and the challenge to be stretched – beyond the boredom of so many young people today.

It is difficult however to hear any interior voice over and above the clamouring for attention in the media superhighway - the internet traffic, the email alerts and so on. We are in danger of becoming distracted by technology as well as artificial deadlines to what really matters. But in a world of instant tweets, there is much lack of true communication – and there is no instant button for changing the mood of loneliness depression or sadness.

Even through conversations – do we really take the time to listen to others? Or is it all about me and waiting for others to stop talking so that I can get my spake? People complain to me often how hard they find it to find someone who will really listen to them and engage with them instead of competing with them for attention.

But if we are too busy to listen to each other and end up ignoring each other, where can God enter?

Today therefore is an appeal to listen, to put down the phone or the remote control, to turn off the TV and not just mute it! To stop for a change, and to listen for God’s voice – in the silence, in what the poet Seamus Heaney calls ‘the music of what happens’; to reflect, and to discern what God wants of us now and from this day forward.  

What therefore is my vocation?

The voice of conscience – that strange indescribable yet inescapable inner voice - the call to be more than I am - the call and the challenges to be stretched – beyond the boredom of so many young (and not-so-young) people today – the call to do what God wants (as well as what others may want) – the call to follow – the way of the Cross – the way of salvation – and the way to heaven.

All of us are called in particular way to follow and are confused and bewildered by competing voices.  If you have ever had the experience of hearing your name being called above other names in a crowd of people – it may in fact be someone else and then you realise in semi disappointment that it is not you who is so popular or wanted, that it is somebody else instead…

But today God is calling each of us by name even in the crowd. We must strain to listen

To sum up

We are called today to make time to listen

1.    Firstly, to make time to listen to others

2.    Secondly, to listen to the inner voice of conscience in the silence of our hearts

3.    Thirdly, to listen to what God might be telling us if we just make the time and effort to switch off competing noise

Jesus says: The sheep that listen to me listen to my voice – and a necessary and crucial step is silence.

 Make time for silent prayer today – you might be surprised to what the Lord has been trying to say!

 

Post script

·       The measure of the strength of the faith of any country is the quantity as well as the quality of priestly and religious vocations. God blesses abundant faith with an abundance of vocations. It is in a sense an annual recruiting drive of the Church, the sales pitch, the call to hear the voice of God

·       We pray too for those whom God may be calling even in our parish towards a priestly or a religious vocation. We pray that young people especially those in school or college may be open to where God may be leading them to serve Him and others

 

March 19th: Solemnity of St Joseph

We have all heard the expression ‘if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans. ‘ [See also the movie’ Evan Almighty’!]

How many days are we just about coping? How many times, I wonder, do we go to bed at night truly satisfied that we accomplished everything we had set out to do that morning?

Often a day does not turn out as planned. There are upsets, unexpected twists, disappointments and adjustments which may be unforeseeable. It is good to have contingency plans, and to qualify our expectations according to what God might want for us. Sickness or a sudden visit to the hospital, an unexpected death of someone, a traffic jam or even bad weather shatters our schedules and our comfort. We know in our hearts that we cannot see ahead, that we cannot plan for every contingency or for everything that might put our plans astray and yet we live as if we are in total control. It is not that we begrudge others what is urgent but what is interesting is that we never cease to be surprised that things just won’t always go our way.

I wonder therefore about St Joseph and his plans. To me he is the saint for people who are struggling to cope with whatever life throws unexpectedly at them. What HAD Joseph planned for himself? If we imagine for a moment that he had thought that he would marry Mary, settle down with a trade and steady income; that if God blessed him that he would have children who he would raise up in the Jewish faith and who would follow him in the family profession; that he might be fortunate to live to see grandchildren; and that he would never have to travel very far except to Jerusalem; then we know with the benefit of hindsight that he would have been completely off the mark. Everything important in life - marriage, childbirth and home - took an unexpected turn. He had to cope with unique situations, never to be repeated and never to be experienced by any one else - ever.

He had to learn to cope with unforeseeable changes to his plans but he was prompted and guided in extreme situations of danger and crisis.

Therefore, maybe it is not so much what I set out to do that is of most interest to the Lord, but how I cope when things do not go according to my plans. It is not only in the faithfulness to the many little things that occupy me that interests Him but how I prioritize them and how promptly I can leave aside what I consider important so that I am ready and willing to turn to a more pressing immediate need of another. This does not mean that God is ‘playing games’ with us, but rather that He may be challenging us to see how much we realistically think we can accomplish by our own efforts alone. 

Maybe God is not just calling me to fidelity in small things but sanctity is in how I handle crises that may be or not be of my own making. He may want me to see today how when things go wrong how I might be inclined to apportion blame and accept none; how I might give into rage and impatience; how I might blurt out something I may instantly regret (but may not be willing to acknowledge that I may be wrong or that I jumped to conclusions). Maybe humility and honesty is the way after all that God is calling me to live this day, and to greater trust and surrender to His will no matter how things turn out.

There are no recorded words of St Joseph – maybe he was a man of few words in reality, but we definitely are not! Maybe it is his silence rather than any words of wisdom that speaks volumes. His silence is his eloquence. May we follow his example in patience, understanding, and endurance. May he lead us to share in the constant company of Jesus and Mary which he had the privilege to enjoy in his earthly life because he silently, promptly and perseveringly obeyed what the Lord required of him at every given moment.

4th Sunday of Lent Year C

The story of the Prodigal Son

Of all the parables this one needs no introduction. It is the most popular of parables and as well known as the Good Samaritan.

What can we say that we have not already been said?

It is of course the greatest parable of forgiveness. Seen alongside the parable of the fig tree in last Sunday's Gospel, it is about giving someone another chance, even when in all human wisdom they are undeserving.

The question is - who can we relate to immediately in the story? The patient forgiving father, the reckless waster of a son, or the diligent yet resentful brother who did no wrong?

Can we relate the parable to any incident in our own upbringing about a family member?

Is there an incident of forgiveness in my life where I was forgiving or forgiven, or still resentful and refusing to forgive another?

How willing and ready am I to reconcile or be reconciled? Is there something I have yet to to do to repair a broken relationship?

Have I experienced the joy of being forgiven? Am I prepared to 'pay it forward?'

Am I in conflict with anyone? Have I sought to clear up a misunderstanding, or at least made a reasonable effort at home, in the workplace, in my family, in my marriage, among my siblings, my neighbours?

Can we relate it to our Western society or Irish society with the present economic downturn. We had it good for a while, yet mistakes were made and now like the Prodigal Son we all 'feel the pinch'. We might even feel like the resentful brother paying the price it seems for the mistakes of others. We can allude to the waste spending of the so called good times and the ghost estates, boarded up businesses and full planes to Australia and Canada with unemployed graduates. Are we 'coming to our senses'?

Are we returning to the Father having strayed from His paths?

Finally I think this parable is about three understandings of freedom. The boy at the beginning of the story thought he was free to do as he pleased. At the end he had made a decision internally and was free in his decision to return to the Father free from his passions. With the father's ready forgiveness he was externally free as well.

Jesus said 'you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.'  May we experience the joy and freedom forgiveness brings in our relationship with God and with one another. Then, in the immortal words of Martin Luther King, we can say: 'Free at last, thank God  I am free at last!'

Lá le Pádraig

The Confession of St. Patrick : extracts



                                             

1. I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many …had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

2. And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

12. I am, then, first of all, countryfied, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future, but I know for certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favours in this world and for ever, that the mind of man cannot measure.

[My mission was] to spread God’s name everywhere with confidence and without fear, in order to leave behind, after my death, foundations for my brethren and sons whom I baptised in the Lord in so many thousands.

15. And I was not worthy, nor was I such that the Lord should grant his humble servant this, that after hardships and such great trials, after captivity, after many years, he should give me so much favour in these people, a thing which in the time of my youth I neither hoped for nor imagined.

16. But after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.

17. And it was there of course that one night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me: ‘You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country.’ And again, a very short time later, there was a voice prophesying: ‘Behold, your ship is ready.’ And it was not close by, but, as it happened, two hundred miles away, where I had never been nor knew any person. And shortly thereafter I turned about and fled from the man with whom I had been for six years, and I came, by the power of God who directed my route to advantage (and I was afraid of nothing), until I reached that ship.
19. And after three days we reached land, and for twenty-eight days journeyed through uninhabited country, and the food ran out and hunger overtook them; and one day the steersman began saying: ‘Why is it, Christian? You say your God is great and all-powerful; then why can you not pray for us? For we may perish of hunger; it is unlikely indeed that we shall ever see another human being.’ In fact, I said to them, confidently: ‘Be converted by faith with all your heart to my Lord God, because nothing is impossible for him, so that today he will send food for you on your road, until you be sated, because everywhere he abounds.’ And with God’s help this came to pass; and behold, a herd of swine appeared on the road before our eyes, and they slew many of them, and remained there for two nights, and the men were full of their meat and well restored, for many of them had fainted and would otherwise have been left half dead by the wayside. And after this they gave the utmost thanks to God, and I was esteemed in their eyes, and from that day they had food abundantly.

23. And after a few years I was again in Britain with my parents [kinsfolk], and they welcomed
me as a son, and asked me, in faith, that after the great tribulations I had endured I should not go anywhere else away from them. And, of course, there, in a vision of the night, I saw a man whose name was Victoricus coming as if from Ireland with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter: ‘The Voice of the Irish’; and as I was reading the beginning of the letter I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and they were crying as if with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.’ And I was stung intensely in my heart so that I could read no more, and thus I awoke. Thanks be to God, because after so many years the Lord bestowed on them according to their cry.

38. I am greatly God’s debtor, because he granted me so much grace, that through me many people would be reborn in God, and soon a after confirmed, and that clergy would be ordained everywhere for them, the masses lately come to belief, whom the Lord drew from the ends of the earth, just as he once promised through his prophets: ‘To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, “Our fathers have inherited naught but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.”’ And again: ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the uttermost ends of the earth.’

41. So, how is it that in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge of God but, always, until now, cherished idols and unclean things, they are lately become a people of the Lord, and are called children of God; the sons of the Irish [Scotti] and the daughters of the chieftains are to be seen as monks and virgins of Christ.

44. So I hope that I did as I ought, but I do not trust myself as long as I am in this mortal body, for he is strong who strives daily to turn me away from the faith and true holiness to which I aspire until the end of my life for Christ my Lord, but the hostile flesh is always dragging one down to death, that is, to unlawful attractions. And I know in part why I did not lead a perfect life like other believers, but I confess to my Lord and do not blush in his sight, because I am not lying; from the time when I came to know him in my youth, the love of God and fear of him increased in me, and right up until now, by God’s favour, I have kept the faith.

58. Therefore may it never befall me to be separated by my God from his people whom he has won in this most remote land. I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.

61. Behold over and over again I would briefly set out the words of my confession. I testify in truthfulness and gladness of heart before God and his holy angels that I never had any reason, except the Gospel and his promises, ever to have returned to that nation from which I had previously escaped with difficulty.

62. But I entreat those who believe in and fear God, whoever deigns to examine or receive this document composed by the obviously unlearned sinner Patrick in Ireland, that nobody shall ever ascribe to my ignorance any trivial thing that I achieved or may have expounded that was pleasing to God, but accept and truly believe that it would have been the gift of God.

And this is my confession before I die.