Weekly Reflection

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – “A” – January 26, 2014

From the Pastor /

Today’s Gospel story teaches us how simple the whole notion of a vocation is. Jesus approaches the people He wants to be His followers, asks them a question, and their response is immediately to leave everything and follow Him. He meets them where they are, in their everyday lives, in the workplace, and puts the question to them. He only asks them to follow Him. There are no questions asked by the four men, no conditions laid down by them, nor is there any form of procrastination: “Let me sort a few things out first.” They just follow. It is only when they follow Jesus that they get the chance to see what He and His ministry are all about. If Jesus were to come into your workplace and give you this simple invitation, what would your response be? What answer would you give to the Lord? We feel unworthy or unprepared for the things God asks us to do. If we are feeling like this, we can remember the response of the first four disciples, their immediate decision to get up and go, to follow the Lord.

The question is really not “What answer would I give to the Lord?” but “What answer have I given to the Lord?” If today were “Everybody’s Vocation Sunday,” what vocation would you be thanking God for at this moment? What vocation has God blessed you with in your life? What opportunities and circumstances have you in your life that have made you a better person, a more enriched person? Let us all take time today to consider our own vocation, our own calling by the Lord. We may be amazed as we realize the many paths that the Lord has opened up before us. Perhaps we often think of our life as one where things just happen for no particular reason, but when we stop to think and pray we realize that the Lord has been there in the background directing all things. When Jesus invites us to follow Him, He does not leave us to get on with things on our own. No, He remains close to us, gently guiding and directing our footsteps. The Lord never abandons us. Today each one of us can hear the Lord calling out to us, “Follow me.” What will our response be?

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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – “A” – January 19, 2014

From the Pastor /

Just as Jesus begins His public life in the presence of the Holy Spirit, so He will end it in an outpouring of that same Holy Spirit on His disciples. The challenge for us is how we too receive that gift with open hearts and what we do with it in our lives. We have first of all to be aware of what the gift of the Holy Spirit entails. When we are confirmed we receive the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord (wonder and awe). When we make mistakes, when we misunderstand, when we make wild accusations or unfounded criticism, we can begin again by using the gifts of the Spirit to expose our errors, heal the wrongs we may cause and set us off again on a truer path.

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Baptism of our Lord – “A” – January 12, 2014

From the Pastor /

Today’s Gospel takes place years later, when Jesus arrived at the River Jordan where His cousin John practised a baptism of repentance and foretold the coming of the Messiah. How well did Jesus and John know each other? They probably knew the stories surrounding each other’s birth, but just as every human life is an unfolding of a mystery known only to God in its totality, so also with the two cousins. Jesus’ baptism is an awakening for John and also for Jesus, for whom this is the start of His public ministry. Jesus’ awareness of His vocation has grown from the time when, as a boy, He was found with the teachers in the Temple. Now God acknowledges Jesus, the man, as the beloved Son.

Discerning one’s vocation in life does not normally happen in one blinding flash of enlightenment. It is something that unfolds gradually, during the many events and encounters of ordinary daily life. This special calling often needs years of careful thought before it becomes clear. What a young person may believe is his or her path may, at the end of life, have turned out to be very different as that vocation matured. Jesus, as a boy, knew that He had a special relationship with God, a relationship confirmed and directed at His baptism. Yet, in the Temple in Jerusalem and on tha banks of the Jordan, it was not automatically clear that His proclamation of the kingdom of God would lead to Calvary.

Our own vocation mirrors that of Jesus: moments of revelation and understanding mixed with confusion, uncertainty and, occasionally, opposition as we live out God’s unique call. The Holy Spirit fills Jesus. The same Spirit, deep within our heart, leads and guides us, helping us also to be faithful witnesses and messengers of God’s kingdom of love. We do not know where obedience to God’s call will take us. Our understanding of our own vocation will change and develop in living it out on our unique path. Where Jesus leads us, we are called to follow.

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Solemnity – Holy Family – “A” – January 5, 2014

From the Pastor /

In writing to the people of Colossae, St. Paul gives a very impressive list of virtues, and he talks about them as if they were the clothes that we wear in everyday life. Every day we have to put these clothes on – compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Do you wear these clothes every day? He goes on telling us to teach and advise one another in daily life. We have a lot of learning to do. And finally he points out that parents must be as good to their children as they expect their children to be themselves. Virtues are not simply “nice things” to have in your life. They are vital to your well-being and to your happiness. They are vital to the peace of the world. Jesus said, “If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” You will never know what the joy of God is. And the point is that every day your virtue will be tested by members of your own family, as well as by people in the street. But the first battle will be fought not in your home but in your heart, because it is there that virtue and vice battle for supremacy.

Some people have nothing but happiness to relate when they think of their family. Others have nothing but sorrow and sadness to speak of. The family in our experience, can be a place of joy, or a nightmare. If our experience of family is good, then give thanks to God for it. Where people’s experience of family is bad, then let us save people from the ruins.

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Solemnity – Humble Shepherds – “A” – December 29, 2013

From the Pastor, PNCC /

Most people in America are familiar with this passage, even though they rarely crack open a Bible. Let’s start looking at the most obvious feature of the story. Who does God announce the birth of His Son to? Who does He invite to come and see the new Baby? A collection of sheep herders! There is only one announcement of Christ’s birth recorded in the Scriptures, only one invitation from God to anyone to come visit Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus. And that one invitation goes to a bunch of uneducated, smelly, low-class, social and religious outcasts, a bunch of shepherds.

Shepherds were the last people you’d expect God to take notice of. First of all, they were religious outcasts. According to the Jewish religious law, these men were unclean. Their line of work prevented them from participating in the feasts and holy days that made up the Jewish religious calendar. Why? Somebody had to watch the sheep. When everyone else was making the trip to Jerusalem to make sacrifices at the temple, or to participate in one of the annual feasts, they were out in the fields, watching over the sheep. A modern day example might be a trucker or a shift worker, whose job keeps them from regularly attending church. It wasn’t really their fault. Not only that but shepherds were boardline social outcasts. Since they were constantly on the move to find new pasture for their flocks, they were looked on with suspicion. Kind of the way people today might look at gypsies or carnival workers. They were often accused of being thieves. If something came up missing – it must have been those shepherds. They were not permitted to give testimony in a legal proceedings, because their word wasn’t considered trustworthy. And on top of all that, they really didn’t have much contact with other people. They didn’t come home at night. They were with the sheep 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A good shepherd could identify each one of his sheep by sight. He knew his sheep and they knew him.

Now imagine you’re God and you want to announce the most amazing, incredible, joyous news ever; an event which will literarlly change the course of history – the birth of your only Son, Jesus Christ. The birth of the One who will be the Savior of the whole world. Finally He has come! Who do you announce it to? Who do you tell? Who do you invite to come and see? The point is that you would expect an event like the birth of Christ to be announced to the most important people in the nation. Political leaders – kings, governors. Religious leaders – priests, rabbis, other officials. Wealthy merchants. Men and women of distinction. The news media. But none of them got the word. None of them were invited. Only these few poor, shepherds, these social and religious outcasts, received the announcement. So why? Why did God do this? Why did He send His angels to announce the birth of Christ to these shepherds to come and see the Child? Several possible answers have been proposed, such as the fact that Jesus Himself is later called the Good Shepherd, caring for us as His flock. But I prefer a simpler explanation. God wanted to show that His love does not discriminate on the basis of class, or wealth, or social standing. He does not respect kings and princes more than hourly laborers, He does not value priests and pastors above the people in the pews. God does not show favoritism; He does not give preferential treatment to one group of people over another. His love is available to all on the same basis – faith in Jesus Christ, and faith alone. God was demonstrating, by His choice of these humble shepherds to be the first to receive the news of Christ’s birth, that Jesus was not going to be the Savior of only the political and social and religious elite. Jesus was not going to be the Savior only for kings and governors, or popes and priests. Jesus is the Savior of all equally; He doesn’t give preference to any group or any class. Nor does He discriminate on the basis of intelligence, or education, or wealth, or profession, or political power, or social standing, or any of the other qualities that human beings judge by. His love is offered indiscriminately to anyone who will repent and believe, anyone who will trust in Him as Savior.

What does it mean to us? If you identify with the shepherds, it should be very encouraging. I imagine that many nights, as the shepherds sat out in those cold, lonely fields, with nothing but animals to keep them company, they looked over at the village, saw the lights of the homes and heard the faint sound of families, people laughing, and wished they could be a part of that. Maybe you’ve felt that way too. But I have a great news! The best news possible! God loves you! Just like He loved those shepherds. And you are special to Him. Just like those shepherds were special to Him, so special that He gave them the incredible privilege of being the first to hear of Christ’s birth, being the first people other than Joseph and Mary to layeyes on the Son of God, being the first to tell others about Chirst. When they heard the news, they didn’t seek out the religious professionals for a second opinion. They simply accepted what the angels told them. Will you do that today? God didn’t send an angel to give you the news, but He did send me and He did give you His word the Bible. God is inviting you today, just like He invited the shepherds. Will you receive His love? Will you acknowledge your need of forgiveness and put your trust in Jesus Christ for salvation? Understand that you are accepted before God on the same basis as anyone else – not because of anything you are, or anything you have done, but only because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who gave His life and suffered the penalty for your sin so that you could have eternal life and receive forgivensee. Humble yourself before God, so that He doesn’t have to do it for you. Let us do the same, especially at this time of the year, for the sake of all the others who are still waiting to hear the good news.

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Christmas Day – December 25, 2013

From the Pastor /

When we meet together on Christmas Day for this great solemnity it can seem quite noisy, or at least there may be plenty of talking, music and singing. Just imagine sitting in church and never uttering or hearing a word – there would be only silence. But the Lord, the God of Israel, is a God who desires to communicate, to share His life with us. So He broke the silence and from the very beginning He spoke a Word. And from then on the Lord spoke to us through Moses and prophets, sharing His law and His wisdom. Yet He promised that He would come even closer, as Isaiah tells us today: we shall “see the Lord face to face.” Last night, when we celebrated Midnight Mass, we heard how the angelic light shone on the shepherds and they were told to go to meet their Savior. What did they find? A very human scene. A young Jewish couple expecting their first child, forced to travel to Bethlehem by the dictate of a Roman emperor. And then in the manger in the face of that Child we see God. We could delight in this wonderfully human scene, which touches people’s hearts like the birth of any child. But the Church today wants us to draw out the full implications of this human scene. For, as we listen to the words of St. John’s great prologue, we learn how in that child God’s desire to communicate with us comes to a climax. The Word and wisdom of God had been present in the world has now entered fully into our human condition. God has taken our humanity and the Word has become flesh. If we want to find the glory of God’s presence we do not need to search for it in silence, we do not need a spirituality that takes us out of this world. In the Christmas crib we see the glory of God in the child Jesus. He is the Word, the intimate expression of the Father’s love for us. He shares with us His divine life so that we can truly become children of God.

There is a certainly a place for silence in what we can be the noise and bustle of Christmas celebration. But is is a silence that Mary enjoys as she ponders over the mystery of her newborn son. We receive the bread and wine transformed into the real body and blood of Jesus. We recognize in human flesh the divine presence. And we reverence that presence in the silence of our prayers and also when we greet one another with the peace of Christ. Then we can go home and celebrate this great feast of God’s gift of himself to us in Jesus. We can recognize in the faces of our children, our parents, grandparents, friends and strangers, the presence of God and treat them with love and reverence, for they are made in the image of the God who has today been born of our flesh.

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Christmas Eve Mass of the Shepherds – “A” – December 24/25, 2013

From the Pastor /

Tonight the Gospel presents us with the family: Mary, Joseph and their newborn child, Jesus. And we are told that this scene is a sign which the shepherds guarding their flocks at night must seek out. The angels tell them that in that child they will find a Savior: “A Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.” This scene is so familiar because we see it so often on Christmas cards and portrayed in school nativity plays. It is so familiar that we can easily detach it from the world of hard political realities. But the words “the town of David called Bethlehem” remind us today that the place of Jesus’ birth is at the heart of an unending conflict. The mention of Quirinius, the governor of Syria, brings to mind another country that has been riven with war and suffering. If a Savior could bring peace to this same Middle Eastern world today, what would be His strategy? You might think that the only way to resolve such conflict would be by superior military force. St. Luke must have been aware of that opinion, for he frames the birth of Jesus in the widest possible context. He reminds us that the world was ruled by another lord, Caesar Augustus in distant Rome. Weapons enforce power and bring protection. But this is not God’s way. Now the royal child, the son of David is borne by a migrant couple from Nazareth to Bethlehem. They are unprotected and are forced to find some sort of housing outside, with a manger for the baby. He takes our human frailty as a vulnerable baby born to poor parents. And it is to those who are poor that the good news of this birth is given. The shepherds, who are on the margins of society, discover that God has sent a Savior not from above or at the centre of power, but from below and among the lowly.

Perhaps the best way we can celebrate our Christmas is for ourselves and for our families to focus on the crib. Amidst all our joyful festivities then we will not lose sight of why we are celebrating. The greatest gift we have received is the gift of God himself as He takes on our human flesh and allows himself to be protected by those young parents. The Lord still brings His peace by coming close to us and making himself present among those who are poor, those who are homeless and refugees. If we are open to His concerns then we will know His presence among us more fully this Christmas. And if we desire a real peace at Christmas it is more likely to come if we put our trust in God’s weapons of humility and compassion rather then those of war.

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Fourth Sunday of Advent – “A” – December 22, 2013

From the Pastor /

The Hebrew sacred scriptures are brimming with the expectation of the justice and peace, the Messiah and the reign of God that will one day come to this world. The Christian sacred scriptures are full of the same expectation and hope. We hear the word “Emmanuel” in our readings twice this Sunday, first in the reading from the prophet Isaiah and then in the Gospel from St. Matthew. It means “God-is-with-us.” St. Matthew not only begins his Gospel with this theme but also ends with it: “And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.” Everything in Jesus’ life – His mission, teaching, miracles and healing, His chasing away of evil, and the events of His last days – are an expression of this “God-is-with-us.”

Advent is a time to prepare not only materially but also spiritually for the coming of the Lord. It is an opportunity to take time out of our busy lives, our tasks and appointments, and simply recognize God’s loving presence in all humanity and in the natural world. Pay special attention to the gift of family and friends, and bless God for all these things. As Christmas draws nearer, we may have a heightened awareness of God’s presence among us and openness to being changed and blessed by it. Become aware of moments, events, encounters, and things you hear, touch, smell. Complaining comes easily to many of us, but as we build up to Christmas Day let us develop a positive approach, appreciating what we have and acknowledging the quiet presence of God in our lives. Recognizing our blessings can change how we look at the day and transmit it. Let us develop a sense of gladness and thankfulness. Let us discover our capacity to praise, making peace with ourselves and with God.

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Third Sunday of Advent – “A” – December 15, 2013

From the Pastor /

The most famous story of Charles Dickens is A Christmas Carol published in 1843, whose central character bears the name that has come to personify all that is mean and misery – Scrooge. The surviving partner of a London firm of moneylenders and now an old man for whom life means no more than making money, when Christmas comes is is all “humbug” and only begrudingly does he let his clerk, Bob Cratchit, take the time from work to celebrate with his family. But that night Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, then by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come, who take him on journeys into his own past, into the present, where he is shown a world of hardship and poverty which he has ignored, and finally into the future. The night ends in the dawn of a new life for Scrooge: his heart has been truned and he has regained his ability to love and to care for others. All ends on high note of happiness.

Seven year earlier, Dickens’ story “The Goblins who Stole a Sexton” was published as part of The Pickwick Papers. Here we find Gabriel Grubb, sexton and gravedigger, “a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself”, and who deicdes one Christmas Eve to raise his spirits by digging a grave. Preferring the gloom of a dark lane to the cheerful sights and sounds of the old street as people prepare for Christmas, he enters the churchyard and sets to work, completing the task with “grim satisfaction”. It is then he is confronted by a goblin and then by a crowd of goblins who transport him to a goblin cavern where he is presented with visions of poor people who, faced with life’s adversities, maintain hope and serenity. He awakes in the morning, convinced that it was not a dream; but cartain that no one will believe his experiences, he resolves to seek his living elswhere. He returns 10 years later to find that indeed very few believe him and many attribute his experiences to drink. But he is changed and better man, and A Christmas Carol is partly modelled on this story.

Truth can be found through experience. Scrooge and Grubb discovered the truth about themselves through their “Other-world” experiences. But in the Gospel, when John the Baptist’s disciples ask Jesus if He is the “one who is to come,” He tells them that by experiencing His deeds they will discover the truth of His identity. Those who awaited a Messiah of worldly power stumbled and fell against unfulfilled anticipation. That is why Jesus says that anyone who does not lose faith in Him is blessed.

The ghostly visit of Jacob Marley was a warning to Scrooge to find life’s meaning before it was too late. It was too late for Marley. His ghost was fettered with a chain that he had “forged in life” by never letting his spirit venture beyond the narrow limits of his business, instead of making his “business” the needs of others, especially those who were poor. Thomas Merton, in his book No Man is an Island, says that our purpose in life is to discover its meaning and live according to it, and “that each individual has to work out his own personal salvation for himself”. This means the “full discovery” of who I really am. As the days draw nearer to Christmas, may we find ourselves in Christ and not lose faith in Him.

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Second Sunday of Advent – “A” – December 8, 2013

From the Pastor /

The realities of planting and growth are never very far from biblical texts. The prophetic vision of Isaiah sees the coming Messiah as just that kind of kingdom and is compared to that ruthlessness that all farmers and gardeners know: what is fruitful is nurtured, but what fails to bear fruit is harshly treated. Images of plants and growth are not only beautiful images of God’s mysterious providence; they are also a summons to some hard laboring in the fields. It is in this way that we can hear John the Baptist’s call to prepare the way – and, in particular, his demanding call to repentance and the confession of sin. This turning over of our lives is like the toil of the plough turning over cold, hard ground; it is a necessary work for the blessings of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus brings us, to take root and grow in us. As St. Paul makes clear, it is “when we refuse to give up” that we learn the meaning of hope, and become able to befriend one another properly in Christ. This Advent hope is no passive, weak optimism. Christian hope is what makes sense of the hard labors of our daily life – the digging and the pruning; it is a hope that drives us on to build friendship and unity, to make crooked ways straight, for the coming of Christ into the lives of all people.

The Advent hopefulness that we celebrate today is not only a virtue built on God’s sure promises, but also a hope that calls to action – to the hard work of repentance, of changing the direction of the ways we live. St. Augustine is attributed with saying: “Hope has 2 daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.” Augustine knew that, in the face of our own sins and those of others, we are not, as Christians, lamely to say, “Well, I hope it gets better.” Rather, we are to hope with that passionate action which grows from being rooted in the Father’s will for justice and peace, and conversion towards the kingdom. If we are to really learn hope better, let’s allow ourselves to be properly challenged by John the Baptist’s call to repentance – to know our sins, to repent of them and seek forgiveness from these we have hurt, and from the love of Christ expressed in the sacrament of reconciliation. Let’s actively treat others with the friendship with which God has treated us in Jesus. Perhaps there are 2 or 3 small changes of routine – small “conversions” – which can make this hope a concrete work of preparing the way for Christ to come into the lives of all we meet.

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