From the Pastor

Septuagesima Sunday – “B” – February 1, 2015

From the Pastor /

It is said that the greatest victory the devil has won in our modern age is to persuade people not to believe in him. His greatest skill is to deceive people. C.S. Lewis, who wrote a brilliant book called The Screwtape Letters, made the devil into a rather humorous figure.

In the New Testament the devil is no joking matter. In the first-century Palestine, the world of the demonic was taken deadly seriously. St. Mark sees the world into which Jesus comes. It was not neutral ground but occupied by Satan. The Messiah would have to be involved in a cosmic battle with him. In today’s Gospel the battle begins as he performs an exorcism in Capernaum. Jesus goes to teach in the synagogue. The devil recognizes Jesus not as a healer but as a destroyer: “Have you come to destroy us?” Then he tries to trick Jesus into submission by using two names for Him, Jesus of Nazareth and “the Holy One of God”. But Jesus is not deceived. He casts out the unclean spirit, who violently shakes his victim and screams out in defeat.

Imagine such a scene at a Sunday Mass. What would people make of all that shouting and writhing in the sanctuary? It’s not what we expect in church. In our modern, scientific society we may be embarrassed by all this talk of demons and Satan. Modern medicine can certainly explain a great deal of the sickness and disease that we see in the Gospels. On an individual level many people are taken over by powerful addictions, such as drugs, drink or pornography. They are imprisoned. There can seem to be powers at work that are more than the sum of individual people’s evil. The good news of the Gospel is that Christ has won the victory over evil and we can share in His risen power. Evil will never have the final word. Jesus calls us to stand firm against evil and unjust behavior in this world. We do not need to be afraid, as we can know that He is with us and has won the victory over Satan and all his works.

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III Sunday in Ordinary Time – “B” – January 25, 2015

From the Pastor /

Christ would remind us, “No matter what your past may resemble, your future is spotless. And the saints are saints precisely because they kept trying.” Modern culture dismisses sin. But the Nazarene does not buy into that message. A New Testament concordance contains a dozen columns on the subject of sin and only eight on love. God would remind us that He gave Moses Ten Commandments and not Ten Suggestions. He never said, “Keep My commandments unless of course you have a headache.” The good news brings hope. The good news offers everyone peace. Virtue and evil are constantly fighting for the upper hand in each of us. Morally we are split personalities, moral schizophrenics. St. Paul identifies with our human condition in the famous words, “The good I would do that I do not. The evil I would not do that I do.” If we surrender ourselves to the Christ, those Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities in us can at last become one worthwhile entity.

St. Paul advises: “Let the shoes on your feet be the good news of peace.” If we take his recommendation, our feet will become unbound. We need not fear where they will take us. We will walk over pebbles and feel no pain. Abraham Lincoln was asked what he thought of a sermon. He replied it was good but had one defect. The preacher didn’t ask us to be great. One cannot say that of Jesus in today’s Gospel. We ask the mystic, “How does one get to heaven?” She answers, “The same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice! Practice! Practice!” Go for the golden apple. The aphorism is correct. While it’s risky to go out on a limb, that’s where the apple is.

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II Sunday in Ordinary Time – “B” – January 18, 2015

From the Pastor /

St. John’s version of the calling of the disciples is concerned with how we grow in faith and so become disciples. As in today’s first reading, about the calling of Samuel, it is a process. John the Baptist passes on two of his disciples to Jesus, repeating his declaration from the time of Jesus’ baptism that this is the “lam of God”, the one who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is not just a teacher. He confirms this by His recognition of who Simon is, where he has come from and who he will be. In St. John’s Gospel, faith is at times expressed as a coming to Jesus, and seeing in depth is compared with being blind or missing the point. This is how we too grow in faith. If we come to Jesus and spend time with Him, we too may go beyond thinking of Him as our teacher and come to see Him as the Messiah and more.

To discover our true calling and how to be a disciple we are called to follow the same pattern described in St. John’s account. We bring ourselves, with whatever our particular strengths and weaknesses may be. We can know that we are invited to come to Jesus himself and spend time with Him. This may be time spent in prayer, in learning about Him, in just giving time to being with Him. We may not be the rock Jesus calls Simon Peter to be, but we will have a significant role to play. If we find it difficult to believe God has this special interest in us, we can also help each other discover our callings.

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Lord’s Baptism – “B” – January 11, 2014

From the Pastor /

At the Jordan, Jesus hears the words of His Father affirming and confirming Him is His true identity as beloved Son of God. This powerful affirmation brings to Jesus all the calm confidence of a person who knows who He is. Jesus is able to go out and begin His public life and work. He is fitted for that task by the voice of His Father and the gift of the Spirit. That voice and that Spirit are given to all Christian people. We are baptized people, and gifts have been given to us. As Isaiah’s says, “I have made of you a witness to the peoples, a leader and a master of the nations.” Such is our vocation. We may not remember the day of our baptism, if we were mere babes in arms, but that does not matter: we are baptized and confirmed people, and God has bestowed favor upon us. Today is the day to respond to the favor you have received, God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in you. You are not just a face in the crowd. You are a child of the living God and God’s favor rests on you.

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Holy Family – “B” – January 4, 2014

From the Pastor /

Simeon and Anna only recognized the Holy Family because God was active in the situation. Simeon needed courage to warn Mary that her joy also heralded pain. Joseph would be presented with a responsibility he had never anticipated.

According to tradition, Joseph died before Jesus began His adult ministry, so he was no longer around to support Mary when she was most in need of his quiet strength and fidelity. Family life may not be a bed of roses. Every family will have problems to face. Every family will know troubles and sorrows. Sometimes break apart because the problems become too many, or the challenges of living together become too great. There can be an unbreakable bond, a unique friendship and an unflinching strength that carries a family through good times and bad. Every family has moments of great joy as well as times that are difficult, when it is only the love between them that gives them the courage they need as they face things they had never expected and would never have wanted. Mary and Joseph gave Jesus the foundation that prepared Him for Calvary – and also for Easter Sunday. May their example and their prayers bring our families courage in the bad times, and joy in the good.

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Humble Shepherds – “B” – December 28, 2014

From the Pastor, PNCC /

Among the occupations in the Holy Land in the first century, shepherding had a lowly place. Because their work made them ceremonially unclean, shepherds were considered untrustworthy. The text tells us they were “living” in the fields. Their occupation required them to provide water, food, shelter, medication, aid and protection. Shepherding was strenuous, even dangerous work. It was expected that the shepherd would come between the lion or bear when one would attack the flock.

God reveals himself to the downtrodden and despised. They represent the lowly and humble who receive God’s revelation. The most obvious implication is that the Gospel first came to the social outcasts of Jesus’ Day. The entire drama that surrounds the birth of Jesus takes place with no part given to the secular or religious rulers of the land. No politicians. No celebrities. No paparazzi. No athletes. No religious leaders. He is still doing this today. God seeks the forgotten, those who society rejects or ignores – the downtrodden and dejected.

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Christmas Day – “B” – December 25, 2014

Frackville, From the Pastor, PNCC /

Reading this passage about the Word made flesh takes us to a world that is not apparent even in other Gospel’s Christmas stories. The Word who has become flesh is not just the child of Mary, cared for by angels, witnessed first by shepherds and visited by visitors from the East, nor the one who posed such a threat to king Herod. The Word is God reaching out to humanity from the beginning of all things. Stepping back from the canvas of the Christmas stories, we no longer see and hear a story from the past: we come into contact, into relationship with God who from eternity has been reaching out to come into the lives of each one of us. That’s ultimately what we celebrate on Christmas Day.

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Christmas Eve – “B” – December 24, 2014

From the Pastor /

Journey is an important theme throughout the Bible. In the book of Genesis, Abraham journeyed to an unknown land in response to God’s call. The Israelites journeyed for 40 years in the desert before reaching their destination. Jesus calls His disciples to follow Him on His own journey. Biblical journeys are not just about physical travel: they are always about humans journeying in their understanding of God and God’s ways. Mary journeys to accepting the angel’s explanation that this will be done by the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph’s journeys from his initial instinct to divorce Mary, to his decision to take Mary to his home as his wife. Human journeying – whether physical, as in the trek to Bethlehem, or metaphorical, as in the rethinking done by Joseph and Mary – is only half of the story. The wonder of the Christmas story we reflect on tonight is not human journey but the divine journey. With the birth of Christ, God enters the world of humans in a way that had never happened before. If we remain with the idea of journey, we see that, in the birth of Jesus, God enters the lives of humans precisely where they are. Although Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, it is in reality God who is traveling to them in the gift of this unique child they are given. What is even more remarkable is that shepherds, who were forbidden even to enter the synagogue or Temple because they worked with animals, are visited by God’s agent precisely when they are at work with the animals who made them unclean.

Here is where we find the wonder of Christmas: it is about God who comes to our lives exactly where we are at any given time. It is about the birth of Emmanuel, a name used by Isaiah, meaning “God is with us”. The birth of Jesus is about the God who is never far from us, because God is always living among us. It is about the closeness to us of God who never leaves our side, even when we are not sure of where our own journey is leading. On our own, we could never reach God. In the birth of Jesus, God reaches down to us.

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IV Sunday of Advent – “B” – December 21, 2014

From the Pastor /

The message of scripture is a message of hope to overcome such negativity. It, too, is a love story of the Lord our God, loves us so much that He wants to live with us, to build a home with us. David wanted to build a temple in which that dependence could be expressed in worship. But God had other ideas. God wanted rather to make the family of David a lasting sign of God’s care and protection. This would be a house build not with cut stones, but with people who would enter a covenant relationship of lasting love and fidelity. The prophets had taught the people to trust that God would be faithful to that promise to David, and today we hear of that trust finding its fulfillment when Mary says: “Let what you have said be done to me.” God believes that men and women are worthy of God’s love, and so establishes God’s dwelling place on earth among the people of Israel, in the house of David.

In our modern world today, many people think of the Christmas story as just another feel-good fairy tale. Such “happy ever after” stories are only for children, to help them to go to sleep. The real world is much more scary, with real-life monsters, committing real-time atrocities. And yet, for those of us who still believe, behind the glitter and the sparkle of Christmas light, there is the truth of God the Father who loves us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is the abiding sign of God’s eternal love; that no matter how much we might experience human failure and disappointment, God’s love never fails; God will never turn back on the promise to come to us and make a home with us.

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III Sunday of Advent – “B” – December 14, 2014

From the Pastor /

John the Baptist stood between an old world and a new world. He didn’t belong to the old and he had not yet found the new. His mother called him John, and his father, unable to speak since he had doubted the angel’s announcement of this child’s coming birth, affirmed this in writing: “His name is John.” People were astonished by this, as no one in their family was called by this name. John stood in the desert, and the people came to him at the Jordan. There John found the Messiah he had been waiting for; but Jesus was not, perhaps, the sort of Messiah John had expected.

From the beginning of Advent to the end of the Easter season, we are asked by the Church to make a liturgical journey. It is a journey that follows the path of Christ’s life, because that is the pattern of all Christian life. Advent is the time of expectation and hope. Although we follow the path of those who waited for the Messiah, He has already come. So our hope is different from the hope of Israel. Our hope is not a hope for redemption but a hope for the redemption that began in Christ to come to its completion.

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