The battle for the sexes

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

The Catholic Church does not ordain women to the priesthood.

How misogynistic!

Clearly, the Catholic Church is wrong to stop women from taking roles of leadership within the Church. A woman is just as good as a man, isn't she? Whatever a man can do, a woman can do, right?

But then...

"A woman's place is in the home." "A real man doesn't show his feelings." "Don't be such a girl!"

[PAUSE]

Do you notice that in all of these statements, love is not mentioned once.

The Church has a bit of a chequered history when it comes to understanding the difference between men and women and how that difference is to be expressed.

There have been times that even members of the Church who should know better have seen women as inferior. They have seen wives as the possessions of their husbands. 

This is a pagan idea. It is most notably the idea of Aristotle who sees a woman as an incomplete man. His ideas have been hard to shake off. Look how recently it has been that women have been allowed to vote as if they don't have the brains to operate politically.

Does the Church really treat women as being inferior?

[PAUSE]

Certainly the Church believes that there is a difference between men and women. The priesthood always has been male from the beginning of the sacrificial system. That is how God arranges it. The differences between men and women go beyond the obvious arrangements of the body. They are written in every cell of the body. They are written in the hormones and other chemicals that make the body work. Medicines that work on men do not work as effectively on women and vice versa. These are scientific facts. Science says that men and women are different. Science also says that men and women are both human.

[PAUSE]

And then St Paul says, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."

Submit? How misogynistic! Women again being dominated by men!

Well here's the problem. Secular society reads St Paul's words as a question of power, of one sex having control and authority over the other, of one sex being a slave of the other.

And indeed that's how women have been treated, even by members of the Church.

But if that's how people understand St Paul, then they are not listening to him. What does he say?

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."

The relationship is clear. It's nothing to do with power and domination. It's nothing to do with servanthood or slavery. It's to do with love, trust, responsibility and support.

If the man is the head of a woman as part of one flesh then what's the use of a head without a body? That question has been answered horribly by the guillotine.

The head cannot digest food. It cannot walk. It cannot pick things up or play the piano.

The body cannot see, hear, smell or taste. It cannot think or guide.

Heads and bodies are necessarily complementary: they cannot exist without each other. The head must use its faculties to care for the body so that the body can support the head. To talk of the head dominating the body is nonsense.

Holy Scripture is clear from the beginning when Eve is taken from Adam. Men and women have different capacities on which the other relies. If only men can be priests then women have to support that in order to receive the nourishing grace of God. But then, priests have to give that nourishing grace not as an example of power-play but for their own salvation.

[PAUSE]

Ideas of superiority and inferiority are pagan in origin. They arise as issues of power not of love. Only men can be priests and lead the liturgy and St Paul bids women to submit to that for the love of the Church. That is the way God has ordered things. On the other hand if a priest sees his position as one of power and domination over his flock then he is inperilling his soul gravely. If a priest cannot be a servant to his flock then his view of the priesthood is contemptible - even in the eyes of God who said that he who exalts himself shall be abased.

Misogyny is the hatred of women. There can be no greater hatred of women than for a Society to destroy what it means to be a woman by treating her as a man in issues where that difference is important. There can be no greater hatred of women than to force arbitrary expectations upon them in order to demonstrate that they are women.

 The Church sees the difference between men and women as important: there are things that men can be that women can't and vice versa. The key ingredient is not social conformity but nothing less than Love and obedience to God.

[PAUSE]

We are all to submit to Christ as our head for we are the Church. Our relationship with Him should be the pattern for our relationships with each other for that is how we know love.

There is no battle of the sexes in the Church. If there is then it is purely pagan!

Settling for lesser laws

Sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Do you feel part of the Church? Do you feel part of Society? Can you be part of both?

The relationship between the Church and the secular world has been very rocky and it is perhaps not surprising that many people who say that they feel part of the Church feel marginalised or even outcasts from Society.

In Australia, one state is passing a law to try and force priests to report any instances of child abuse mentioned to them in the confessional.

Members of the Church are appalled.

Victims of abuse are relieved.

What do you think?

[PAUSE]

In many ways the government of this Australian state are trying hard to protect the vulnerable and so we should not blame their intentions.

Indeed, were certain priests following their calling and not their sinful ways, were certain bishops better at dealing with abusive priests, were certain establishments more willing to engage with the problem than sweep it under the carpet, the need for this law would not be necessary. 

However understandable this new law may be, it is not right. The seal of the Confessional must not be violated. Those who do so leave the Church completely and cut themselves off from God.

We have a choice: God's law or secular law.

[PAUSE]

St Paul is quite clear on the solution to this.

"walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks."

The Church has been given higher standards than the world. These standards tell us about God and what He is like. They tell us how we must behave in order to live out the life of Christ.

It is not illegal to commit adultery, but it is contrary to Christian living. Stealing is illegal but if we follow the commandment not to envy one another, we are less inclined to steal. The less we engage in filthy talk the less we will destroy the reputation of our neighbour.

The more we commit to the standards of Christian living the more irrelevant the laws of society become for us because we are committed to following God and not Man. Following God will usually mean obeying secular law and will always benefit Society. Where the law of God differs from the law of Man, we follow the former and take the consequences willingly as a sacrifice to God.

[PAUSE]

Of course we are not perfect. We have to accept the consequences of our sin, but the Church also believes in forgiveness. Forgiveness is the way we accept people back into the Church when they fall from God. Forgiveness is the way that the Church demonstrates its belief that human beings can be transformed into the likeness of God. The standards of Christian living do not change but human beings have to grow.

What must not happen is that the Church adopt the standards of the world. The standards of the world are motivated by power, pleasure and greed. The standard of the Church is Love and nothing less. Where members of the Church have followed Society as in the cases of slave trading, divorcing spouses or engaging in sexual immorality, that is where the Church is damaged in the eyes of the world. It is where St Paul's warning demonstrates its force.

[PAUSE]

The world will never love the Church and we must accept this. The moment that we prefer lower standards, the further we distance ourselves from God. The more we decline to forgive the more we will in turn be denied forgiveness.

We are the Church destined for a transformed world as people transformed into the likeness of God. Why settle for anything less?

Mindful of Man Volume I

For a while, I have been trying to collect my thoughts on moral matters and traditional church teaching. Poor Bishop Damien and Fr Raymond were expecting a short work but I felt that the issue is much more involved.

I have just published Volume I on Lulu and expect to complete Volumes II and III when time and children and Diocesan work permit.

Unfortunately, Lulu have forced higher prices than I would like. I would therefore advise any interested parties to make use of the discounts that Lulu offers.

Paperback

Hardback

Called to be one

Sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Many people present themselves to the Church claiming that they have have heard a call from God and that they are meant to be a priest in His Church.

Many people are told by the Church that they are not called to be a priest and go away bitter and resentful, blaming the Church for not hearing God's call that they have received.

Who gets to say who gets to be a priest? The person who receives a call or the Church which administers the sacrament of ordination?

[PAUSE]

Obviously the answer is God. God calls and we answer, and everyone is called by God. Indeed that's exactly what being in the Church means. The Greek word ecclesia means Church and we get the word ecclesiastical from it. Ecclesia literally means "those who have been called out". God calls everyone out from the world which refuses to recognise Him and into His marvellous light. We are called out from the world to be the Church.

We all have a vocation to be Christians. There are particular ministries within the Church but, for the most part, we are called to be the people God created and not the people whom the world expects us to be, nor the people the Devil tricks us in to believing we want to be.

The life of the Church is that of repentance towards God and away from falsehood.

So what about the call to the priesthood?

[PAUSE]

As St Paul says there are many ministries, many ways of doing things, but there is only one Church. All those ministries are for the good of the Church even at the cost of one's health. The priesthood is for the good of the Church, not for the person. There is only one true priest and that is Our Lord Jesus Christ Who offers Himself as a sacrifice upon the altar of the Cross. The priesthood we have consists of those men whom God calls to participate in His priesthood.

True, St Paul talks about the priesthood of all believers but he does not talk about the priesthood of every believer. This is the priesthood of the whole Church, the Catholic Church on behalf of all humanity. All Christians participate in the sacrifice of the Mass, but only Christ in the person of the priest can offer it. Only Christ in the person of the priest can give out the good Grace of God to keep the Church healthy and alive.

[PAUSE]

To be called to the priesthood means to work for the unity of the Church. It is for the Church to discern the call to the priesthood because it is for the Church that the priest must direct his efforts. Those who want the priesthood for themselves to do as they please do not want the Catholic priesthood but a priesthood of their own making, a priesthood of their own doctrine to suit themselves.

There are plenty who call themselves bishops and priests who are on it only for themselves, or for politics, or for social reasons or even for an expression of a confused understanding of what a priest is. There are those who want to wear fancy robes, call themselves doctors of Divinity and be seen to be clergymen. You can see that they are not working for the Church because they disregard what the priesthood of the Church has been since her beginning. The priesthood is a call to servitude and carries dire penalties for those who damages the Church family.

 There is only one Church and she stretches from the Incarnation of Our Lord, throughout all History - One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One Priesthood. Anyone who makes a change to any of these damages the unity of the Church. No wonder the poet Danté foresees horrible punishments for priests who do damage their brothers and sisters inside or outside the Church.

[PAUSE]

There are many people who are disappointed in finding that they aren't called for the priesthood. Of course, that is painful but this doesn't mean that they are in any way shape or form less of a human being. Being told that you are not called to be a priest in the Catholic Church carries absolutely no shame at all. You are called to be what God wants you to be and, as you walk humbly with Him, you will find your happiness in his service.

It is God Who gives each one of us dignity - that is the calling of every human beings.

Faith working gracefully

Sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

In the darkness of a sleepless night, your mind can go through many weird and wonderful questions.

What happens if nobody at all votes in an election?

If Time Travel were possible wouldn't we already know it?

Is there a place on earth where all the missing socks disappear to from the tumble dryer?

How do I know that I am going to Heaven?

Good point. How do you know?

[PAUSE]

St Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus reminding them that they are all part of God's family and that they are meant to be sons and daughters of God by adoption. It is by being members of this family that we will find ourselves eternally joined with God.

Yet, as Our Lord's parable of the Prodigal Son shows, we can separate ourselves from our family, especially from Our Father. St Paul reminds us that human beings were once slave to the "prince of the power of the air" - the spirit of disobedience to God. 

It is true that when we sin, we are lured away from God and that we don't always recognise it. We can be tempted even to call good evil and evil good, and when this happens, it is difficult ever to recognise God again. When we sin we are effectively dead because we are cut off from the One Who gives us life.

How can we ever come back? How can we ever hope to rise from the death that our sins cause?

For the Prodigal Son, there is a memory. There is the memory of a Father's love. This love always has been there and, for the Prodigal Son to return to the Father, he has to believe that his Father will take him back even as a slave. The Prodigal Son has to have faith in his Father and that faith comes from the Father's character. It is knowing that the Father loves the Prodigal Son that gives the son the strength to repent.

This is why St Paul says, " For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

The Prodigal Son is not saved from his life in the pig sty by demonstrating whose son he is. His parentage means nothing to those who take his inheritance away. Works of the Jewish Law do not mean anything to the prince of the power of the air. If we are separated from God, the Law does nothing for us. It just tells us that we are separated from God.

What saves us is God the Father who reaches out to us through the Son and gives us the Holy Ghost. We are saved by God's Grace which is His active presence in our lives. We are saved through Faith because God has reminded us of His love and we trust in Him to save us. We are saved with good works because we allow Christ to live in us and He does good. It is Christ who makes things right: He justifies.

This is how the Church becomes part of the God's plan to save us. Through Christ being the Head of the Church, the Church has God's grace to give to bring to all who repent and seek after God.

If we sin we separate ourselves from the Church and from God. If we repent then we return to the Church, to God's grace and to His Life. We return through the grace of our Baptism into the family of God. As members of the Church we need to hold out our hands in love so that those who do repent can cling on. 

[PAUSE]

We cannot presume to know that we are going to Heaven. However, we can trust in God's love for us and know that any love we have for Him will not be forgotten especially when that love for Him is expressed for our neighbours.

That is faith and through this faith we are saved by God.