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Commentary on Joshua 5:9,10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

Lent is a time for renewal. Part of that renewal requires that we become aware of the disorder, the disharmony and the distortions in our life, in other words to become aware of the areas of sinfulness and of the evil in our behaviour. We cannot change unless we are first aware of what needs to be changed. Many of us go through life not prepared to take a really objective look at the kind of people we are, although we may spend a good deal of time being very aware of what is wrong with others.

Once aware of the areas of our lives which are ruled by negative forces like hate, anger, resentment, greed, vindictiveness, injustice or violence we need to repent. ‘Repentance’ in the Gospel calls not only for expressions of regret and sorrow; it also demands a radical change in my future behaviour and a profound change in the way I see God and people and other things. It calls for a re-ordering of my relationships with God, with Jesus, with other people and with myself. It means a real turning round of my life, a real conversion.

Looking to the future
Many have the good habit of making a serious confession during Lent or before Easter. However, we must be aware that such a confession entails not just clearing the decks of past wrongdoings; it also involves a genuine desire for a reform of life and a real change in our behaviour. If my confessions over the years do not seem to change very much, it may well be that in making them, I have paid too little attention to the present and the future. As we will see, God is not really interested in our past.

Part of the renewal experience of Lent is to try to become more truly disciples of Jesus and to share more deeply his values, his outlook and his attitudes. As St Paul told the Philippians, we are to have the same mind and same way of thinking as Jesus had.

God’s way of thinking
In today’s Mass, we have one of the most graphic descriptions of Jesus’—and therefore of God’s—thinking. We are confronted with the attitude of God to the wrongdoer, i.e. his deep desire to forgive and to be totally reconciled with the one who has severed relations with him.

The context of today’s passage is important. Luke tells us:

…all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.

The Pharisees and Scribes, who were the ‘good and religious’ people, were shocked and disturbed:

This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

By their standards, a ‘good’ person avoids ‘bad company’. To be quite honest, don’t we think the same? If so, then we are not thinking like God or like Jesus.

Jesus answers the Pharisees by telling three parables, only one of which is given in today’s Gospel. The first parable is about a shepherd who has lost one of his sheep. He goes to extraordinary lengths, even leaving all the other sheep, to find that single one that has gone astray. That is a picture of God and the sinner. When he finds the sheep, he has to share his joy with all his companions. The second parable is about a poor woman who loses a coin. It may be only one coin, but it means a lot to her. She turns her house upside down till she finds it and when she does, she joyfully tells all her neighbours.

The Prodigal Son’s Father
But the most striking story is the third parable. While it is normally referred to as the parable of the “Prodigal Son”, in fact, the emphasis is less on the son than on the father, who clearly represents God and Jesus.

No one can deny the appalling behaviour of the younger son. He took all that his father generously gave to him as his inheritance and used it in leading a life of total debauchery and self-centred indulgence. Eventually, he had nothing. He was reduced to living with pigs and even sharing their slops—something utterly abhorrent to the Jewish mind and something even we would find appalling. The reaction of many, especially the ‘good and morally respectable’, might be, “It served him right.”

This, however, is not the reaction of the father, who has only one thought in his mind—how to get his son to come back to where he belongs. The father does not say: “This son has seriously offended me and brought disgrace on our family. May he rot in hell.” Instead, we can almost see him standing at the door of his house watching and waiting for his son to return. And we can almost hear him say, “My son went away and is lost, and I want so much to have him back.” His love for his wayward son has not changed one iota.

No force
There is no force involved. The police are not sent out. Servants are not instructed to haul him back. No, the father waits. It is up to the son himself to make the crucial decision—does he want to be with his father or not?

Eventually the son “came to his senses”, that is, he realised the wrongness of what he had done. He became aware of just how good his father had been. The process of repentance had begun. He felt deeply ashamed of his behaviour and then, most significantly of all, he turned round to make his way back to his father.

The father, for his part, filled with compassion for his son’s experiences, runs out to meet him, embraces him and brushes aside the carefully prepared speech the son had ready. If the son had known his father better, he would have realised that such a speech was unnecessary. Immediately, orders are given to bring the very best things in the house and a banquet is laid on.

This is forgiveness, this is reconciliation and, on the part of the son, this is conversion and repentance, a real turning around of his life and a return to where he ought to be.

All this, it is important to remember, is in response to the comments of the Pharisees and Scribes about Jesus mixing with sinners. This story reveals a picture of God which, on the one hand, many of us have not yet fully accepted and, on the other, illustrates a way of behaving that does not come easily to us in our own relationships with others.

No understanding
And this is where the elder son comes in. He simply cannot understand what is happening. He was never treated like this and he had always been a ‘good boy’. What kind of justice is this? One brother stays at home keeping all the rules (i.e. Commandments) and seems to get nothing. His brother lives riotously with prostitutes in a pagan land, and when he comes back, he is treated like royalty. The elder son could not understand the mind of his father, and some of us may have such a difficulty as well.

In some ways God is very unjust—at least by our standards. He is corrupted by love! But fortunately for us, he is like that. Supposing we went to confession one day and the priest said, “Sorry, that’s it. There can be no more forgiveness, no more reconciliations. You’ve used up your quota. Too bad.” Of course, it is not like that. There is no limit to God’s forgiveness.

As was said earlier, God is not interested in the past, but only in the present. I am judged not by what I have done or not done earlier. Nor need I be anxious how I will behave in the future. I am judged by my relationship with God here and now. It was on that basis that the murderer crucified with Jesus was told:

Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
(Luke 23:43)

Despite all he had done, he is promised eternal life that very day. It was on the same basis that the ‘sinful woman’, presumably a prostitute, becomes totally reconciled with Jesus, and there and then all her past behaviour is forgotten:

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. (Luke 7:47)

All I have to worry about is whether, right now, I have a loving relationship with God and with all those around me through whom I come in contact with him.

What limits do we set?
There is clearly much to reflect on in today’s readings as to how we deal with those we feel have ‘offended’ us. In wanting to experience God’s forgiveness, we also need to learn how to be forgiving to others. Do we set limits to our forgiveness? To be reconciled with God, we need to learn how to be reconciled with all those who are sources of conflict or pain in our lives.

We thank God that we have a Lord who is so ready to forgive and welcome us back again and again, but we cannot stop there. We have to learn to act towards others in the same way:

…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…

We, too, need to see a person in the here and now and not continue to dredge up past hurts and resentments, anger and hatred.

By imitating Jesus more, we find that our relationships improve. In so doing we are coming closer to having the mind of Jesus, but we are doing something else as well. We will find that life will become a far more peace-filled and harmonious experience. It is a perfect win-win situation.

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Commentaries on Exodus 3:1-8,13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6,1-12; Luke 13:1-9

One of the recurrent themes throughout the Lenten season is the compassion and mercy of our God. It is something that we constantly need to be reminded about. Our God is always faithful and consistent. His love for us never changes, no matter how we behave, no matter how serious our sins may be. It has to be that way because our God not only loves, he IS love. Love is of the very essence of his being; he cannot not love.

His love is like the sun which gives its warmth to good and bad alike; like the gentle nurturing rain which falls on good and bad alike. And we are called, as far as possible, to imitate him in this—to love always and unconditionally. Because we find that difficult, it is hard for us to think of God loving that way. We do need to get rid of the idea of an angry, disappointed, vengeful God threatening catastrophe on a wicked world—an idea still being fostered by those who claim to have had special revelations.

Does anything matter?
If God’s love for us is so constant and unchanged by our behaviour, does that mean we can do anything we like? Does it matter whether we lead good or bad lives or whether we sin or not? It is very doubtful if we would be justified in drawing that conclusion.

Today’s readings seem to be saying three things to us:

1. We cannot find our salvation and wholeness as persons without the love and the help of God.
2. God does not punish people because of their bad behaviour.
3. God will not save us against our will or without our co-operation.

It is absolutely true—and we should never have doubts about this—that if we sin, God continues to love us as he always did and does. But it is also true that, if we sin, we are not loving him. And so we become separated from him. Love is essentially mutual; it is a two-way process—a bonding. Love is not complete until it is reciprocated on both sides. So God’s love is not perfect, is not fully effective in me until I have opened myself to receive it and to give mine in return. When we sin, God does not stop loving us; it is we who stop loving him. It is we who break the relationship—always.

Does God kill people?
In today’s Gospel, some people approach Jesus and tell him of how some Galileans had been killed by Roman soldiers in the Temple sanctuary. Did they want Jesus, as a Galilean himself, to denounce the Roman authorities? Jesus responds by taking another tack altogether. Instead, he mentions another incident, apparently a sheer accident when a building fell on some purely innocent people and killed many. Jesus asks his questioners:

…do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem?

It is quite common to meet people who believe that such events are acts of punishment by God. Perhaps even more frequently one meets people who ask why a loving God does not prevent such things happening—as if God was a kind of puppet master who rules the world by pulling strings.

When an airplane crashes and everyone is killed, is it because those passengers were more deserving of death? When thousands are killed or made homeless as the result of some terrible natural disaster, an earthquake or a cyclone, are we to read it as an act of punishment for those people or even for the whole country?

Does God love some people more?
Does God love those victims less? Are those who escape such disasters more loved by him? Maybe it is the other way round. Those who died may have been ready to meet their God, while those who survive are being given an opportunity to put things right with their lives. Jesus gives a clear warning:

I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.

‘Repent’ (Greek, metanoia) implies not just regret for the past, but a radical conversion and a complete change in our way of life in responding to and opening ourselves to the love of God.

What Jesus is saying is:

• If I am regarded as very ‘successful’ in my life (e.g. I have money, career or status), it does not at all mean that I am a good person, a person without sin or that God somehow loves me more. Jesus makes that quite clear in the Gospel.
• If I suffer in my life, it does not at all mean that God does not love me or that I am more sinful than others.

In fact, every single experience I have is a sign of God’s love. If I am showered with blessings—spiritual, emotional or material—they are given that I may share them with others, so that I become a channel of God’s love to others. If I am struck down with disaster, disease, pain or failure, it is again a message for me to seek and find there the presence of a loving God. Paradoxically, it is often only through such experiences that we can grow and come closer to God and others. Disease and serious illness can draw out of relatives and friends extraordinary depths of compassion and care. Unhealthy behaviour and material prosperity can often lead to selfishness, individualism and neglect of others. Where there is love, there is God. Where there is no God, one is not likely to find much real loving.

No unconditional guarantees
Jesus is also saying that, just because I am a baptised Christian and call myself ‘Catholic’, it is of itself no guarantee that I will experience salvation and wholeness as a person. In today’s Second Reading, Paul, speaking of the Israelites in the desert with Moses, says:

…[they] were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

Having an identity card or passport is no guarantee that I am a good and responsible citizen. Being baptised, even my presence at Mass or my going to Confession is again, of itself, no guarantee that I really love God and love my brothers and sisters. For we know well we can go through these rituals in a very mechanical and meaningless way. After years of attending Mass or ‘going to Confession’ our lives may show little sign of progress in spiritual or interpersonal growth and responsibility. So, if I find myself consistently giving out the same laundry list in Confession or if I don’t go because I have nothing to say, then it may be time for me to ask myself what exactly is happening in my Christian life.

Taking a close look
So today’s readings are asking us to take a good look at ourselves. We are like that fig tree that Jesus speaks of in the parable in today’s Gospel. It is alive but it bears no fruit. It should be cut down. The man responsible for the tree asks the owner to give it one more year. If after that, there is no fruit, it should be cut down.

Every Lenten season is our chance to fertilise our tree and to see how it can be more fruitful. For some reading this, it may indeed be their last year, their last Lent to take care of their tree.

I am being called not merely to survive personally as a Christian, to ‘hang in there’ (just staying out of sin and being in the ‘state of grace’). I am being called to grow continually in being a truly loving person, loving God and loving all those around me.

For instance, let us look at a few examples:

• What kind of influence am I within my family circle?
• In work, how do I relate with my colleagues and is my presence a positive element in our workplace?
• What is my attitude towards strangers, that is, people I do not know and who are not ‘useful’ to me?
• What kind of contribution (apart from giving money and being physically present in church) do I make to the life of the Christian community in that part of the world where I live?
• In general, what kind of contribution could I be said to be making in my society, or do I expect society to satisfy only my needs and those of my immediate family?

Two-way love
On the one hand, I need to realise that God always and everywhere loves me. But that love is only fully completed in me when I become a genuinely loving and caring person, one who loves both God and others in word and action.

There is no need for us ever to be afraid of God. He will never directly punish us or the world around us. But we do have the choice to come closer to him, to experience that love he is reaching out to us, to open ourselves to that love or, like the Prodigal Son, go our own way, separate ourselves from him and wallow in the cesspools of life. The choice is up to us. God’s love is there for the taking. What are we waiting for?

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Commentary on James 2:1-9

There is some very straight speaking from James today and there will be few of us who will not feel a twinge of conscience as we read or listen.

He begins by reminding us that our faith in, our commitment to Jesus Christ means that all forms of favouritism or discrimination must be removed from our hearts.  God himself shows no favouritism.  “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:45-48).

He gives a very practical example in the way that the rich and powerful are treated in contrast with the poor and uneducated.  The scene is the place where Christians meet.  The word used is ‘synagogue’.  James is writing to Jewish Christians so it is possible they may even have still been attending Jewish synagogues, or it may be his word for the Christian ‘assembly’ for liturgical worship.  The word ‘synagogue’ (from the Greek sunagwgh) literally means a place where people gather together.

Two people walk into the Christian assembly at the same time.  One is rich and well-dressed, the other is poor and shabby.  The rich person is treated with a great deal of respect and deference while the poor person is ignored or shoved into a corner.  A very similar situation is described very critically by Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s Supper.  For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk… Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?… For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves” (1 Cor 11:20-21,22,29).  Have we not seen this happen umpteen times?  Have we not done something like that ourselves?  Do we not associate wealth with respectability and poverty with fecklessness and crime?  When we act like this, James asks, are we not practising discrimination and setting ourselves up as judges purely on the basis of external appearance?

James then gives three arguments against our bias towards the materially rich.  The third reason does not appear in our reading.  The three reasons are:

1. the rich persecute the poor – who are specially loved by God;

2. favouritism violates the royal law of love and thus is sin;

3. favouritism will be judged.

From 1, “in God’s eyes are not the poor called blessed” (happy, fortunate)?  They have nothing to give but everything to receive.  They have no sense of self-sufficiency which the rich can sometimes boast of, thinking they are independent.  “‘Lucky man!  You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’” (Luke 12:19-20)  Yet, it is the poor that we look down on and treat so badly.

But Paul told the Christians of Corinth: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:28-29). It is a fact that the Christian faith originated from people who had no power or status in their society.

The poor, as poor, have nothing to be ashamed of; the rich, as rich, have nothing to boast about.  The poor may be poor materially but they can be rich in faith.  And, of course, in the kind of situation James calls for in this letter, their real needs will be taken care of.

In 2, “Are not the rich oppressing you?” are not those very people we treat with such courtesy, the rich and powerful, the ones who really exploit us?  How come so many of them become rich in the first place?  Often by taking and keeping to themselves what in justice belongs to others.  In the Scripture that is the real definition of a rich person – not just one who has a lot of material wealth, but one who holds on to that surplus wealth while surrounded by many who are denied the most basic needs.

“Do they themselves not haul you off to court?”  They are the people who can afford the big lawyers to crush their opponents and use every legal technicality to avoid punishment for their own most serious and damaging behaviour?

Is it not the rich “who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you”?  In the Old Testament the name of Yahweh pronounced over someone dedicated him to the divine protection.

Also from today’s Gospel, it is the poor, the needy, the unjustly deprived who have God’s name over them.  But it is a protection the possessive rich do not recognise, although they are the ones most in a position to give it.

It is for all of us then to observe the “royal law”: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”  It is called ‘royal’ because it is the supreme law that is the source of all

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Commentary on James 1:19-27 Read Wednesday of Week 6 of Ordinary time – First Reading »

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Commentaries on Genesis 15:5-12,17-18; Philippians 3:17—4:1; Luke 9:28-36

We are faced in today’s readings with a paradox of our Christian faith—we belong here and we do not belong here. It is in this world and through this world that we are to find our God. Yet, this is not our permanent home; we are pilgrims on a journey to a more permanent dwelling place, a place of total union with our God of Truth and Love. That is the goal of living and we need to keep it constantly before our eyes. It is so easy to get obsessed with things on the way: our career, our financial security, the education of our children, the house we want in some desirable area or other needs or luxuries. These are mere stepping stones to a life beyond. We must not, like Lot’s wife, look back nostalgically at the past and become petrified into stone.

Life, as one writer put it, is like watching a movie in a cinema. One cannot cry out: “Stop! I want to stay in this scene!” No, the movie goes on. And life goes on. And it is important to know where it is headed. Both the First Reading and the Gospel speak of striking interventions by God in people’s lives. Let us take the Gospel first.

A moment of truth
Luke today gives the story of the Transfiguration, a story that can be found also in Mark and Matthew. It is important to be aware of where it comes in the Gospel account.

Just before this, Peter, in the name of his fellow-disciples, had made the dramatic acknowledgement that Jesus, their teacher, was the Messiah, the Christ, the Saviour King expected by Israel. It must have been an awesome and heady moment for them all to realise that they, among all their fellow-countrymen, should be privileged to be his chosen companions. One can imagine how they began to have visions of power and glory because of this relationship (not altogether unlike rebels on the run who suddenly find their leader is now president of the country).

But almost immediately afterwards, they are brought very rudely down to earth. Jesus begins to instruct them about what it will mean to be companions of the Messiah. There will be no great palaces; there will be no prestigious offices. On the contrary, things will from that very moment seem to go very wrong. The Messiah, their Jesus, will become a hunted figure, hunted not by foreigners, but by the rulers of his own people. He will be arrested, tried, tortured and eventually executed.

This was not the expected scenario for the Messiah’s appearance on the world’s stage and it quite clearly left the disciples in a state of shock and total incomprehension. It just did not make sense and Peter, surely reflecting the feelings of his companions, objected strongly. In return, he got a good scolding:

Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. (Mark 8:33)

A privileged experience
It is in this context that the scene in today’s Gospel takes place. Three of Jesus’ most intimate disciples are brought to “the mountain”. We do not know which mountain, but in general, mountains in Scripture are holy places, places where God is especially felt to be present. Although traditionally Mount Tabor is identified as the mountain in question, it really does not matter. Here Peter, James and John have an experience of Jesus totally transformed in his appearance. The light of God shines through him.

Suddenly he is accompanied by Moses and Elijah, two pillars of the Hebrew Testament, representing the Law and the Prophets, the whole Jewish tradition. Luke says they spoke with Jesus of his coming experiences in Jerusalem. What is obviously implied is that Moses and Elijah fully recognised what would happen to Jesus as totally in conformity with the tradition they represented.

The disciples, however, are still not fully understanding what is happening; they were “weighed down with sleep” (as they would be later in the Garden), but just managed to keep awake (which they failed to do in the Garden). Note that their sleep is paralleled by the experience of Abram in the First Reading.

As Moses and Elijah seemed to go away, Peter—impetuous as ever—blurted out:

Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents [‘shrines’]: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah…

The Gospel comments that Peter did not know what he was saying. Clearly, this scene was not for keeps. It was wonderful for them to be there, but there was another world, another reality awaiting their Master—and them also.

Then, even as Peter spoke, a cloud came and covered them with a shadow and the disciples “were terrified as they entered the cloud”. Naturally! This was no morning mist. They recognised the cloud immediately as the close presence of God himself. And they heard God speak from the cloud:

This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!

First, there was the support of Moses and Elijah and now Jesus gets the solemn endorsement of the Father himself!

Listen!
“Listen to him”—they are being told to remember the words Jesus just told them about the Messiah, who would be rejected, suffer and die shamefully. If they cannot understand and accept those words, they do not know the real Jesus, then they cannot be his disciples. As Jesus will say later:

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. (John 12:24)

The suffering and death of Jesus are the seeds of new life for all of us.

After the “voice” had spoken, they found themselves with Jesus alone, the same ‘ordinary’ Jesus they always knew. But they kept silent. They had nothing to say, but much still to learn and to understand about the Person and the Way of Jesus. What they needed was the gift of faith and total trust in Jesus and in God.

Abram’s experience
There are some parallels in the experience of Abram. Abram (later to be called Abraham) had been asked to leave his homeland and to go and live in a strange place. If he did so, he was promised a great future for his family and descendants. Without any further guarantees, Abram sets out. His readiness to put his trust in God’s word became legendary in the tradition of Israel and is echoed again in the New Testament. We are told that Abram:

…believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

That is, Abram was ‘put right’ with God.

But although ready to do what God asked of him, Abram asked for some confirmation. He was told to make an offering of some animals and to cut the animals in half, putting one half on each side. At sunset, as Abram fell into a deep sleep and as the sun set and darkness came on, a blazing furnace and a firebrand (signs of God’s presence) came between the divided offerings. From this experience Abram knew his trust in God was justified. He never lived to see the day when his descendants were as numerous as the stars, but if only he could see now how his God is worshipped “from the rising of the sun to its setting” (Third Eucharistic Prayer) by countless people in every corner of our planet!

Our transfiguration
There is still one thing we need to consider and that is how these Lenten readings are to touch our own lives. The key linking the First Reading and the Gospel is a passage from the Letter to the Philippians in the Second Reading. The transformation or transfiguration of Jesus that the disciples experienced was not simply something they were to see and experience as happening to him alone. It was also an invitation for them to undergo a transformation and transfiguration of their own.

Paul says in today’s reading:

…our citizenship is in heaven…

The goal and destination of our life is to be one with God; there is no other goal.

And, Paul continues:

…it is from there [i.e. heaven, meaning from God] that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

How is that transformation or transfiguration to take place? It is possible if we listen to Jesus and cooperate with all that he invites us to be and to do, however much it may seem to go against the conventions we were brought up on. It means especially listening to those words which caused such difficulty for Peter and his companions and integrating them into our own vision of life. It means having a total trust in walking his Way, a total trust that only his Way brings us into full union with God, the source of all Truth, Love, Happiness and Peace.

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Commentary on Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12,16-20; Luke 6:17,20-26

Today’s Gospel says:

Blessed are you who are poor…But woe to you who are rich…

Maybe in church this is very nice to hear, but is it a practical teaching in the real world? The Gospel says that many people from many places came to hear Jesus preach. But these words, we are told, though clearly relevant to all, were meant especially for Jesus’ disciples. Who are his disciples? They are those who have identified themselves fully with Jesus’ mission, with his vision of life. They are those who believe in him, who listen to him, and follow him.

What Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel today is similar to Matthew’s eight beatitudes. When we first hear them they seem like a contradiction: the poor are happy; the rich are to be condemned. Does not the Church always condemn the world’s poverty? And our societies always say that to make a lot of money is the sure sign of a successful life.

A matter of the Kingdom
If we want to understand Jesus’ words, we need to know he is speaking of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is the society that Jesus wants to establish—and not just in some future life. (Matthew’s term ‘kingdom of heaven’ can be misleading in this context.)

When Jesus was beginning his public life, he announced his mission in the synagogue at Nazareth:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)

In the Kingdom, for the poor and the hungry there is only good news, because they enter a society which will protect and care for them. We have still a long way to go in making that Kingdom a reality.

Why so hard on the rich?
On the other hand, it is “woe to you who are rich”. Why? Perhaps the answer is in the First Reading from the prophet Jeremiah:

Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
and make mere flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn away from the Lord.

The rich sometimes feel they are very independent, that they can use their money to control and manipulate others, and they do not need God. If they pray, it is to ask him to help them earn even more money, or to protect the riches they have amassed, or even to console a lonely God—remember the Pharisee praying in the Temple, saying “Thank God I am not like the rest of men.”

On the contrary, Jeremiah says today:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Neither rich nor poor
In fact, in the Kingdom, there is really no place for either rich or poor. To be a rich person means that one has more than others—more than one needs and some of what one has belongs to those in need. To be poor means one does not have enough to eat or wear; one does not have a place to live and in general one’s life is lacking in proper human dignity. In the Kingdom, there can be no rich or poor in this sense, because those who have more will share with those who do not have enough.

It is not just a question of ‘charity’, but one of justice, each one having what is properly due to him. In ‘charity’ I give what I can easily spare; in justice I share what I have. It is not just a matter of pity for the poor, but of seeing them as truly brothers and sisters and sharing with them.

The bottom line is not poverty or wealth, but where we put our security. That is the meaning of the First Reading. Do I put my security in what I have or in an interdependent community where each supports the other and thus all are taken care of? This is the ideal, the vision of the Kingdom; it is the mission of the Church. It is the responsibility of every disciple of Jesus. If we can implement this, everyone will be able to enjoy the happiness of the Kingdom—not only in some future life, but in this world and in this society.

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Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

We have now entered the great season of Lent. In times past, Lent was not viewed as a time to which we looked forward. Fasting and abstinence, not to mention other forms of penance, were in force and it was a serious business. Easter was looked forward to with real anticipation. Our attitudes to Lent tended to be on the gloomy and negative side. Perhaps nowadays we have gone to the other extreme where Lent hardly means anything at all, saying: “You mean Lent has started already? Really, I had no idea! Easter will be on top of us before we know where we are and I haven’t bought a thing!”

Yet Lent has always been one of the key periods of the Church year and it would be a great pity if we were to forget its real meaning. In fact, that is what we ask for in the Opening Prayer of today’s Mass just before we sit down to listen to the readings:

Grant almighty God, through the observance of holy Lent, that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ and by worthy conduct pursue their effects.

Really, the whole purpose of Lent is beautifully summarised in that prayer—to understand the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus and to live that out in our own lives.

An annual retreat
The period of Lent is six weeks to help us do precisely that. The Church provides Lent almost like an annual retreat, a time for deepening the understanding of our Christian faith, a time for reflection and renewal and a time to make a fresh start.

It was a pious custom in the past for people, as part of their Lenten observance, to go to Mass every day during this time. This is even more meaningful now since the Second Vatican Council and the reformation of the liturgy, because we are provided with a magnificent set of Scripture readings from both the Hebrew (Old) and Christian (New) Testaments every day during the Lenten season.

In the First Reading of today’s Mass, Moses speaks to the Israelites at the end of their forty years wandering in the desert and he prepares them for their new life in the Promised Land. That is what the Lenten season is meant to do for us also.

Traditionally on this First Sunday of Lent, the Gospel speaks of the temptations of Jesus in the desert. Jesus has just completed his forty days of preparation in the desert and he now faces one more test before he begins his mission. This incident takes place between the baptism of Jesus and the start of his public mission, beginning (in Luke’s Gospel) at Nazareth.

A time of beginning
In the early centuries of the Church, Lent was seen as a time of beginning. It was—and again now is—a time for forming new converts, preparing them for their formal entry into the Church community by baptism and confirmation during the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection at the Easter Vigil. Today, in fact, is their day of Election. Our catechumens are entering the last six weeks of preparation for Baptism. Let us pray for them and be in solidarity with them during this time.

For those of us who are already baptised, it can equally be a new beginning. Often we prefer to stay with the known and the familiar, even though it does not give us great satisfaction. We can settle into a routine kind of Christianity that goes on basically unchanged from year to year. It is not very inspiring, but we stick with it rather than risk the unknown that radical conversion can bring.

Forty days in the desert
The forty days of Lent correspond to Jesus’ own forty days spent in the desert. For him, it was a period of preparation for his coming mission. At the end of the forty days—as described in Matthew and Luke—Jesus had three encounters with the Evil One.

It might be worth noting that we may not be dealing here with a strictly historical happening, something which could have been video-taped or covered by television. The devil normally does not carry on conversations with people like this. Temptations to evil—and they can be many and frequent—usually come to us in far more subtle ways. (On this, read C.S. Lewis’ marvellously entertaining book The Screwtape Letters—a delightful read with a deadly serious message.)

Rather than just seeing them as three consecutive temptations happening almost simultaneously at a particular moment, we should perhaps see them as three key areas where Jesus was tempted to compromise his mission during his public life. They were not just passing temptations of the moment, but temptations with which he was beset all through his public life.

Some real examples of these temptations can be found in the Gospel accounts:

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. (Mark 8:11)

You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. (Matt 27:40)

And after feeding 5,000 hungry people with an abundance of food, John’s Gospel tells us:

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. (John 6:14-15)

Clearly, in varying forms, these temptations of Jesus can come into our lives too.

Superstar
In today’s Gospel, the first temptation by Satan (to change stones into bread) and the third (to jump from the top of the Temple) try to turn Jesus away from his role as the Servant-Messiah to become an eye-catching, self-serving superstar (‘Follow me because I am the greatest!’). The second temptation (to worship the devil who can give power and wealth) tries to entice Jesus away from the true direction of all human living—the love and service of God and his creation. He is being lured from setting up a Kingdom of love and service, to controlling an empire of minions.

Luke reverses the second and third temptations from Matthew’s version in order to make Jerusalem the climax of the temptations, just as it is the final destiny of Jesus’ mission and the starting point for the Church.

The forty days in the desert eating nothing reminds us of Moses doing the very same. At the end, Moses received and proclaimed the message of God (the Law), just as Jesus will go on to make his mission statement in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-21). Also, the replies that Jesus gives to the Evil One are all from Deuteronomy (one of five books attributed to Moses), and his temptations correspond to those which afflicted the Israelites on their desert journey. The difference is that the Israelites succumbed, but not Jesus. Some examples are:

One does not live by bread alone.

It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’

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Commentary on Isaiah 6:1-2,3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Today, we are asked to consider three interlocking elements of our Christian living: faith, experience and apostleship. Our faith has two elements. The first is expressed by Paul in the Second Reading where he gives the briefest summary of what the Christian message is about. To ‘have faith’ at that level is to accept that message as true and credible. For many Catholics, faith often stops at that point. If a person fully accepts the teaching of the Catholic Church (as opposed, for example, to teachings of Protestant churches), we sometimes hear people say, “She or he has the faith”. Some Catholics like to spend a lot of time spelling out in detail what is orthodox and what is not, and condemning those they believe to be ‘deviating from the true Faith’. For some people, faith can even be a painful matter and lead to scruples.

Faith
However, there is another level of faith which we ignore at our peril. And it is the meaning that predominates in the Gospel. The Greek word for “faith” is pistis. The basic meaning of pistis is “trust”. To have faith in Jesus is to put one’s total trust in him.

That involves a different kind of relationship from the first. We might express the difference as between ‘believing a person’ (what he or she says is true and reliable) and ‘believing in a person’ (I would be ready to put myself totally into the hands of that person). The statements “I believe what you say” and “I completely trust you” are quite distinct in meaning and application. I might well be ready to believe as true what someone tells me, while being not at all ready to entrust my life to their care.

Both levels are at work when we speak of Christian faith, but the second is surely the real test. A real faith not only accepts the content of God’s message, but involves a total surrender of one’s self and all one has and is into God’s hands. A complete letting go. It is something like those group dynamics games where you let yourself fall back into the arms of another person, trusting they will not let you fall to the ground. It will not be enough for them just to say: “I won’t let you fall.” Something more on my part will be needed.

Deep water
This is basically what we see happening in today’s Gospel. Peter and his companions are the experts when it comes to fishing in that lake. But even so, after a whole night’s work they have nothing to show for their efforts. Then Jesus, after he had finished teaching the crowds (giving them the message to believe), suggests that they go out into the “deep water” and let down their nets. There is an element of scepticism and even condescension in Peter’s reply:

Master, we [the professionals] have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.

The result was overwhelming and totally beyond their expectations—their nets could hardly hold the catch. It was their first test of faith in Jesus. The same call comes to us: “Go out into the deep water… Trust me completely… and you will be in for a pleasant surprise.” We really have not learnt to believe until we have reached that level of total and unconditional trust in the Way of Jesus.

It is clear, too, that the huge catch of fish is just a symbol of what they and their successors will do later in drawing people to become followers of Christ. A large harvest will materialise, and it will be the work of the Lord.

Experience
The second key word today is ‘experience’. It is linked with the second level of faith. Too many of us were told to limit our Christian faith to the doctrines we were taught at home, in the church or in school. Church history teaches us that many strange forms of Christianity have emerged from ‘experience’. There are many descriptions of what happens when people get carried away by what they believe to be a Christian experience and end up with very distorted views of the Christian message.

At the same time, an over-emphasis on doctrine is not good either. It can lead to a very impersonal religion, a religion which becomes legalistic or intellectual in the bad sense and often far removed from a close, loving relationship with God and people. You know things are going astray when people are more worried about the kind of vestments the priest is wearing (or not wearing) than about the plight of the poor and needy on their doorstep.

To be a Christian is first and foremost to have an experience of Christ. It is to find oneself in relationship with him in all the circumstances of one’s life. It is to find him challenging us to love, to have compassion, to practise justice, to live in freedom, to be able to forgive and be reconciled, to be kind, gentle and accepting; it is to seek, to find and to respond to him in all things. It is, because of this, to live lives of joy and peace in the midst of pain and turmoil. This is really more important that being able to give an approved explanation of the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception. It was a medieval writer who said: “I would prefer to experience repentance than be able to define it”.

Apostleship
Our third word today is “apostleship”. This word should be distinguished from “discipleship”. To be a disciple is basically to be a follower of some master or guru. The word ‘disciple’ comes from the Latin verb discere, to teach. The noun is discipulus, one who receives teaching. One learns from the master and one tries to incorporate his teaching into one’s own life. Obviously, in that sense, we are called to be disciples of Jesus. However, today’s readings ask for more than that. We are not only to follow and make Jesus’ Way our own. Part of our calling is to become ‘gurus’ ourselves in the sense of transmitting the message of Jesus to others.

After the sensational catch of fish, Peter is absolutely overwhelmed by what has happened. He knows that he is present before the power of God himself. All his arrogance disappears and he is overcome by his own smallness and unworthiness. He exclaims:

Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!

It is, in fact, a true sign of an experience with God. Anyone who truly comes face to face with God must become aware of their littleness and what might be called the shabbiness of their lives.

It is a reaction which we find in all the three readings today. Isaiah says, for instance:

Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!

Paul, not particularly known for his modesty, says:

…I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle…

In spite of that, all—Peter, Paul, Isaiah—were called to be apostles. The word ‘apostle’ means a person delegated and sent out to convey a message or carry out a mission on his or her master’s behalf. These three men were called and, indeed, every person who wishes to be known as a Christian is called not only to be a disciple, a follower, but also an apostle, a herald, a proclaimer. And it is done not just by words, but by the whole witness of what one is and does. Says Isaiah:

Here am I; send me!

As well, Paul says:

…I worked harder than any of them… [in preaching the Gospel of Jesus]

In the Gospel, Jesus tells Peter:

Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.

The message to Peter was: “If with my help you can catch so many fish, just imagine how many people you will draw to become disciples.”

It is a totally natural outcome from the faith that we have in Jesus which leads us to the unique experience and joy of knowing him and putting him unconditionally at the centre of our life. That is an experience that we must share, not because we are told to, but because we cannot help doing so. True discipleship of itself overflows into apostleship. This was what happened on that day when Peter, James and John left everything and went after Jesus.

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Commentary on Jeremiah 1:4-5,17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4:21-30

THE BEGINNING of today’s Gospel repeats some of last Sunday’s. Jesus, at the beginning of his public life, has delivered what today we would call his “mission statement”, using words of the prophet Isaiah. Today, as he speaks, Jesus says that these words are being fulfilled – in him. The Messiah they have been waiting for is now here in the person of Jesus. His Kingdom has begun to be realised in his works of healing, of reconciliation and liberation from evil powers.

At first the crowd is absolutely amazed at Jesus’ eloquence, amazed at his gracious words. “Is not this Joe the carpenter’s boy?” Jesus, a carpenter and the son of a carpenter, can speak like this? What, then, are their expectations now of Jesus? What do they see in him? Maybe, suggests Jesus, they are thinking: “Doctor, heal yourself.” Not in the sense of Jesus healing his own body but in the sense of doing for his own community in Nazareth some of the things he was reputed to be doing in Capernaum and other parts of Galilee.

The prophet’s lot
But, says Jesus to them, a prophet is not normally accepted in his own place. He then gives two striking examples from the Hebrew Testament, one from Elijah and the other from Elisha, two prophets closely linked with the coming of the Messiah.

Elijah was sent to help a poor Gentile widow in Sidon (a non-Jewish area) during a famine caused by three and a half years of drought. Why did the prophet go to her when there were so many Jewish widows in the same plight? Similarly, there were many lepers in Israel but Elisha was sent to Naaman, a Syrian general. The Syrians were the hated enemies of Israel.

Jesus was being quite provocative in telling these stories. Why so? The answer comes in Mark’s account of this incident and he gives two reasons:

a. Because the people of Nazareth knew Jesus’ family so well, they were not ready to receive him or his message about his own identity and mission. It is a good example of familiarity breeding contempt. Because Jesus had grown up among them, they thought they knew who he was. They were not ready to accept that he was something very much more.

b. Secondly, Mark comments that Jesus was able to do very little healing in Nazareth because they refused to believe in him. They had no faith. It is clear on many occasions that Jesus’ healing power only came to those who had total trust in him. “Go in peace; your faith has made you whole again.” And, of course, the response of the people of Nazareth was only a foretaste of the total rejection of Jesus by many of his own people. Jesus’ words were not really provocative. They were simply a description of what was happening.

Amazement turns to hatred
At first, the crowd was amazed that one of their fellow villagers could speak with such grace and eloquence and with such authority. But it was something altogether different to put themselves in his hands. Who did he really think he was? After hearing Jesus’ words about the poor reception of prophets by their own people, they were worked up into a blind rage and hatred. They wanted to push Jesus off the cliff on which their town was built.

But, says Mark, Jesus passed through their midst and left them. These are terrible words and let us pray that such a thing may never happen to us:
– that Jesus should walk right through us
– that we should fail to recognise his presence among us (usually in the people around us)
– that we even reject him,
so that he goes off without us, leaving us behind. It will not be he who has abandoned us; we will have rejected him. And he will never force himself on us.

Gospel contradictions
As Christians, we have to be ready to face certain contradictions in living a Gospel life. The first part of this contradiction comes in the Second Reading, a famous and much-quoted passage from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Paul, after speaking about the importance of the gifts of the Spirit which each one has received, says that love is the most important gift of all.

Love indeed is a gift. Loving is an art which has to be received and nurtured. The ancient Greeks had three words for ‘love’: eros, philia and agape (pron. a-ga-pay). Putting it very briefly, eros is passionate, physical love, the love of young lovers. Philia is the love of friendship and implies a very deep intimate and mutual relationship between two people involving total transparency of one to the other. It is really the highest form of love and finds its best – but not its only – expression in a really good marriage. Agape, which is the love Paul is speaking about here, is a unilateral, unconditional reaching out in love to another, even if it is not returned or even rejected. This is the love that God has for every single person and the kind of love which should be the characteristic of the true follower of Christ in his/her relationship with people everywhere. It is agape which makes it possible to pray for those who curse us and bless those who harm us.

Without this agape, as Paul tells us, none of other gifts of the Spirit have any value. I may speak with extraordinary eloquence about the Gospel message but, if I do it without love, I am like a booming gong – all sound and no substance. I may be able to utter prophetic statements in God’s name, be gifted with the deepest insights, knowledge and wisdom. Without love, it is nothing. I may even have a faith that can move mountains but, if there is no love there, it is nothing.

Qualities of agape
Paul then lists some of the qualities of agape. It is kind, not envious, not boastful, not arrogant, not rude, not self-willed, not irritable, not resentful. It is does not rejoice in wrongdoing but in truth, integrity and wholeness. Agape has a high level of tolerance and is endlessly ready to trust. It endlessly hopes and is endlessly able to endure. In spite of all obstacles, it perseveres. With agape, one refuses, even when faced with misunderstanding and abuse, to stoop to any form of retaliation and one accepts the dignity of every single person, including enemies.

Speaking with a prophetic voice, Paul asserts that all forms of knowledge and learning will some day come to an end. But agape, as part of God’s own being, will go on forever. Now, Paul tells us, we know God and truth as in a clouded mirror but one day it will be face to face. Then there will be no need for faith or for hope. Faith will give way to total vision and hope will yield to realisation. But agape will remain. And when God’s agape meets mine the result is an eternal bonding in perfect philia.

Universally loved?
However, we now come to the other side of the contradiction we mentioned earlier. If we do succeed in becoming a totally loving people, then we will be universally loved in return. Right? Wrong!

There are two ways in which pain can come into our lives:

a. One is the result of our sinfulness, our living in disharmony with truth and love. This can produce physical, emotional or mental pain.

b. But there is also the suffering that comes from following the Way of Truth, of Love, of Compassion, of true Freedom. Following this way will often bring us in conflict with those who fear or are threatened by Truth and Love. Today’s Gospel is a perfect example. Like Jesus, the most loving person who ever lived, we may find ourselves rejected, even hated and destroyed precisely because of our goodness and integrity.

This is the contradiction or paradox: the more loving we are, the more people our love embraces as we transcend labels and prejudices dividing people, the more likely we will be rejected, persecuted and hated – even by ‘religious’ people. (There were few people more religious than the Pharisees of Jesus’ time.)

This was the experience of the poor prophet Jeremiah and it was something the Lord clearly warned him about. He was called by God to be a “prophet to the nations”. He was to brace himself for action and stand up to the people, passing on God’s message to them. He was not to be alarmed at their presence. God would give him all the necessary strength to carry out his task. He will be like a “fortified city, a pillar of iron, and a wall of bronze” confronting people from the king to the poorest peasants. But he should have no illusions: “They will fight against you.”

However, “they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you.” This is an experience which prophets of the Gospel have had again and again. On the one hand their message of Truth and Love has been rejected and they have been attacked and abused but they have experienced a special strength to carry on.

One thinks again of Martin Luther King and his civil rights marchers singing “We shall overcome” as they were carted off to jail, were sprayed with fire hoses and had savage dogs attack them. However, underneath this kind of suffering – unlike the pain that comes from sin – there lies an unshakeable inner joy and firm peace that only Jesus can give.

As the life of Jesus clearly indicates, there is a price to be paid for being an agape-filled person but it is a price well worth paying. The price of going along any other road is even greater.

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Commentary on 2 Timothy 1:1-8 or Titus 1:1-5; Luke 10:1-9

The Gospel reading speaks of the instructions that Jesus gives to 72 disciples as he sends them out on a mission to do the same work that he himself is doing. His opening words are as true now as they were in the days of Timothy and Titus:

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Further instructions gave warnings of the dangers that disciples would encounter in spreading a message of love and peace and fellowship. They were also to travel with the very minimum of bag and baggage, and not to be choosy about the places where they were offered hospitality.

Their message was to be one of healing. Not just physical healing but healing of all kinds, a making whole of people’s lives and of relationships. In doing this, they were bringing the Reign of God into the places where they visited. For it is love and peace and an ability to live together in mutual care and support that are the marks of God’s Reign in our lives.

This was what Timothy and Titus devoted their lives to doing. We—whatever our status in the Christian community—are called on to do exactly the same.

There is a choice of First Readings: the first is from the Second Letter to Timothy and the other from the Letter to Titus.

As mentioned above, these two letters are purported to come from the hand of Paul, but recent studies suggest that they are from a later hand, although they surely reflect Paul’s thoughts and feelings.

In the passage from the Letter to Timothy, Paul expresses his deep affection for Timothy, his companion on many missions, and a strong desire to see him. He thanks God for Timothy’s faith, which he owes to his Jewish mother Eunice and grandmother Lois. At the same time, he reminds Timothy of the gift he received when Paul laid his hands on him. That gift, says Paul, was not one of timidity but one of power, love and self-control, bringing with it the courage of witnessing to the gospel even when, as in Paul’s case, it involved persecution and suffering. Like Paul, Timothy was to rely:

…on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling.

In the alternative reading from the Letter to Titus, Paul reminds his fellow missionary of the duties of an apostolic person. It is:

…to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness…

In the case of Titus, Paul reminds him that he has been sent to Crete to set up the Christian communities in each town, appointing an elder or presbyter as a leader in each one. Titus’ role was one of episcopus or ‘overseer’, to coordinate the Christian witness of these communities, making of them a community of communities, united with Christ and with each other.

In a way that is highly relevant for Church life today, the three readings suggest both the dynamic and essentially apostolic nature of Christian witness, and how it is to be exercised in a community setting.