Christianity: Meet the family!

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis, Rochester on Fathers’ Day 16^th June 2013

 

In your opinion,

what is the most important thing

a father has to have?

 

Does he have to be loving?

 Kind?

 Fun?

Able to change a dirty nappy

without the need for a clothes peg

on his nose?

 Generous?

Firm?

 Even-tempered?

Patient? Able to be able

to withstand being hit on the nose

by a well-aimed doll?

 

Actually,

the most important thing a father has to have

 is a child in the first place.

 

You cannot be a father,

or a mother for that matter,

without a child.

 

What makes a father a father,

and a mother a mother

is having someone to call son or daughter.

 

Of course,

it is the quality of that relationship

that determines whether

you are a good father or mother.

 

 

Most of us would agree

that to be a good parent,

you need to be loving,

kind and self-sacrificing,

and very, very patient.

 

Is it possible to be loving,

 kind, self-sacrificing and patient

 and not be a parent?

 

[PAUSE]

 

It is while Jesus is teaching

 Pharisees, Scribes and the general people

 that someone comes up to him and says,

 "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without,

 desiring to speak with thee."

 

And Jesus makes the strange reply,

"Who is my mother?

and who are my brethren?"

 

He stretches out his hand to His disciples and says, 

"Behold my mother and my brethren!

 

For whosoever shall do

the will of my Father which is in heaven,

the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

 

So it seems that whoever is loving

is indeed a brother or sister

or even mother of Jesus.

 

 

 The Lord is clearly talking about 

a family relationship that

He has with each of His disciples.

 

We might be able to understand

what it is to have the Lord as a brother,

but can we really see ourselves as His mother?

 

The Blessed Virgin cannot be described

as anyone other than Jesus' mother,

 but she is mother in a deeper sense

 that just a human family relationship.

 

She is Mother of God

and that fact cannot be denied.

 

She is not the mother of the just human bit of Jesus,

 because the Lord's human bit and divine bit

simply cannot be separated like that.

 

In calling his disciples his mother, 

Our Lord is not cheapening

Our Lady's relationship with Him

but rather extending her relationship with Him

 to us.

 

If we are the Lord's brethren,

then Mary becomes our mother too.

 

Nonetheless,

if we love one another

-      which is the will of God, after all,

we are His brothers,

sisters and mother.

 

But not father.

 

Why not?

 

[PAUSE]

 

 

To His local community of Nazareth,

Jesus will always be the son of St Joseph,

and yet have you noticed how little we hear

 about St Joseph after the Nativity stories?

 

It seems reasonable to accept the tradition

that St Joseph died before Our Lord started His ministry

and so ceases to be counted among the disciples.

 

It's also true to say that

whenever the Lord mentions His Father,

He is referring to The Father

– God the Father Almighty,

 Maker of Heaven and Earth.

 

It seems, then,

that we can never be regarded as Jesus’ Father

even when we are the best disciples

and this would be right.

 

The relationship between

God the Father and God the Son

 is utterly unique in all of reality.

 

Even so, we know that

God the Father cannot be a father without God the Son,

and God the Son cannot be a son

without the Father.

 

If the disciples can never be regarded as Jesus’ Father,

why do priests get called “Father”?

 

[PAUSE]

 

We know that Jesus teaches to “call no man father”.

 

He thus denounces anyone who seeks to be called “father”

 simply for the respect and status that it appears to give.

As we have seen, we can’t even call God,

 “Father” without realizing that He has a Son.

 

So to a good priest,

 being called “father” can only call up thoughts

 of having people for whom he has a duty of care.

 

When a good priest hears “father”,

he hears “father of whom?”

and remembers that he is under the direst penalties

 if he fails to look after anyone

whom the Heavenly Father

has entrusted to Him.

 

Those direst penalties will come

from within the priest himself.

 

A good priest truly loves his congregation

as his own flesh and blood.

 

It goes the other way too.

 

If we want good priests to thrive in our Church,

 then we have to support them fully in their ministry

in the same way that a child would want

 their good father to be able to continue

 to support them.

 

The respect that comes with being a father

is fundamentally conditional on the love

that the father invests into his children.

 

 Often, this is not always done and the results are deeply painful.

 

Fathers and priests are not perfect

and neither are children and congregations.

 

That’s a fact and not an indictment.

There are character flaws

and mistakes

and even the most grievous unkindnesses

 that come from the fallenness of our nature.

 

If we want our community

– our family –

to grow then both fathers and children

need to be aware of their duties to each other.

 

 Tolerance of each other’s failings goes both ways;

patience goes both ways;

respect goes both ways,

and, of course,

love goes both ways.

 

The more love we invest in our family,

and this does mean our family in God,

then the more that family makes

 the love of God real in our society.

 

[PAUSE]

 

It may be a tiny Church in which we worship,

 but is its very existence not proof

of the love of the Heavenly Father

and the love of human beings

committed to the family?

 

 How can we help that love to grow?

 

The worst magic trick in the world.

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on 2nd June 2013 on the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi and at the Parish of St Augustine, Canterbury on 9th June 2013

What’s the worst magic trick in the world?
Sawing a lady in half?
Rabbit out of  a hat?
Coin out of your ear.

Tubbo the clown shows you a pencil,
waves his hands over it and says,
“Pow! It's now an apple!"
You say quite reasonably "but it still looks like a pencil to me!"
Tubbo replies, "ah! it looks like a pencil
but really it's an apple!"

 Naturally,
you would hope that Tubbo's act
would get better comedy value later on.

Those outside the Church claim that this is exactly
what happens in the Mass.
Some folk seem to think that the Mass
 is nothing more than a superstitious magic trick.

During the consecration,
the host and the wine become
the real Blessed Body and Precious Blood of Christ.
To us, it's "hoc est corpus"
(this is [my] body),
to them it's hocus pocus,
a sham, mere pretend.

 Does it worry you that
 people think you kneel before
a little bit of unleavened bread and claim it to be God?

[PAUSE]

This has been the dividing point
between Christians for centuries,
and some very Protestant Christians
would accuse us of idolatry,
worshipping wafer and wine,
rather than God Himself.

We know full well
that we are not worshipping material objects,
but rather we are worshipping
the very God whom we profess.
What can we do?

[PAUSE]

There is only one answer: obey God.
If we are truly obedient to God,
then we need fear nothing at all.
So what does God really say?

Our Lord Jesus is God
and so we listen to his words:
"Take, eat: this is my Body,
which is broken for you:
 this do in remembrance of me."

Also, taking the cup, Our Lord says,
 "this do ye, as oft as ye drink it,
in remembrance of me.
For as often as ye eat this bread,
and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death,
till he come."

We are told to do the very thing
which we are here to do.
The Mass is a commandment to us.
Does this explain
why we treat a consecrated host
 the way that we do?

[PAUSE]

Christ always commands us
in order for something definite,
something truly beneficial
to happen.

This is the nature of what a Sacrament is.
God and human beings enter into a sort of contract.
If we do our part, God does His part.
 If we celebrate the Mass faithfully,
God gives us nothing less than His very self.

The Lord says "This is my body", "this is my blood"
Further still, in St John's Gospel,
Our Lord Jesus says,
"Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,
 and drink his blood,
 ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.

 For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him."

That's the promise that we are given
and it certainly is a great comfort
to know that we eat of the Bread of Life
- the Bread of True Life!

This is not the dead flesh of animals or plants
 which only sustain our earthly bodies
that will only die anyway.
It is the living Eternal flesh of God
 which we take into ourselves.

 Christ gives us food
so that we can become like Him
and thus like His Father.
 This is the bread that gives us
 an existence in Eternity itself
in the tender love of a God
Who wants us to know Him.

Why, then, is it not more dramatic?
Why not make the change more obvious
so that everyone can see the effects?

[PAUSE]

Being members of the Church,
we are people of faith.
We trust in God because we love Him
and also because we have
neither grounds nor means to hold Him to account.

 He is not a tame God but he is faithful to us!

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us
 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.”

 God cannot be seen
because He is completely different
from all that we even begin to imagine Him to be
with our fleshly eyes and our fleshly minds.

God cannot make the change more obvious
because to do so would change who He is!
It is not possible for us to understand everything,
though God permits us to try.

Many people have tried to find theories
all based on speculation and philosophy
with some fascinating and uplifting results.

However, these theories are just theories.
They are not necessary for us to believe
otherwise only those who have
 the right knowledge would go to Heaven
 and God wants us all to be saved.

He desires not the death of a sinner.

All we need to know is that,
before the prayer of consecration,
we have really the wafer and wine,
 and, after the prayer,
 the Real Body and Blood of Christ
 that He Himself promised us.
But we have to trust Him.

[PAUSE]

To those who do not believe,
 what we do is ridiculous!
St Paul recognized this.

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we are of all men most miserable.”

 We kneel before a wafer of bread
in a performance of the world’s worst magic trick
 because this is Sacrament and not magic!

But we do believe God and He will reward our patience.

For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face.
The wafer and the wine are just the dark glass
 through which we glimpse God
and indeed truly receive Him.

How are you going to approach the altar rail today?

Sacred Heart, Sacred Synecdoche.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It's a feast that I've only recently begun to appreciate more fully as life changes. Many Protestants really balk at the idea of this feast with a deep, visceral revulsion and yet they themselves espouse and seek to espouse what this feast means to all Christians.

One thing that distinguishes a Catholic expression of Christianity is an objective, something that really focuses the senses and thus the attention on realities that are too nebulous to define. The Sacred Heart stands for all of the profound and inexpressible mercy that God the Son has for His Brethren and the adopted children of His Heavenly Father. It's a wonderful synecdoche, and Catholics have the means to do synecdoche very well if they choose to.

The Feast of the Sacred Heart focuses our attention on one profound image - the heart of Christ exposed to the world. We know that this must have happened at the crucifixion. When the lance pierced our Lord's side it pierced His heart, thus exposing its very interior to the world. Christ literally opened His heart for our sake.

This is not an image for the squeamish. Indeed, it is an image that should disquiet each one of us as it shows such an awful truth. Could we go so far as to suffer such an deep, violent injury for the sheer love of another?

Some of us can cope with pain better than others. Such people earn my respect as I certainly squeal if I stub my toe. The trouble is that it is so easy for the pain of those who can bear it well to go unnoticed, especially when they suffer such horrible injuries for others. All around the world, there are those whose duty to saving others transcends horrible pain, disfigurement, debilitation and injury, and that this happens unnoticed by the world.

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is the recognition of the Divine Love of Christ in the wounds that He received for us. It is a time to remember those who follow His example and who risk so much for our way of life, even when we do not deserve it one little bit.

To become wounded, there necessarily has to have been a failure of a defensive mechanism. The Lord's defensive mechanism was His Divinity. He could simply have made it all stop by calling fire down from Heaven to consume Scribe and Pharisee. He did not. He lowered his defences, emptied Himself, restricted His Divinity so that Our Salvation could be complete in His pain and death. There is a love that will, for the sake of the beloved, allow that beloved to mutilate the lover, like the spiders that are consumed by their young, or the male praying mantis which is eaten, in flagrante delicto,  by his mate. There is an instinctual or deliberate suspension of any defensive mechanism for the continuation of the species or for the good of the community.

Our Lord shows us that if we truly want to love, then we have to open ourselves to the possibility of the greatest pain and to have that pain caused by and even ignored by the beloved. It is a truly horrible, horrible thought and we truly have to be brave in order to allow this to happen. It is only in such a situation that the extent of how unconditional our love can be made obvious. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Further still, what unconditional love can there be that a man lay down his life for one who shows not the slightest gratitude for this wonderful sacrifice?

The Feast of the Sacred Heart brings this whole idea of unconditional love in the sacrifice of Christ in to sharp focus. We may hate the imagery, but nonetheless the reason beneath it underpins Christianity for every single Christian, that "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" and that this love has not the slightest condition upon it. It is a love that can be spurned but will continue, despite being spurned.

To all those out there who labour tirelessly, thanklessly and painfully for the good of mankind and for the propagation of true love, who brave the greatest pain, who suffer the greatest losses and who are wounded to the very depths of their being, may God bless them and reward them fully.

I mitre known

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Whitsunday 2013.

You may have noticed
         that clergy have a habit
                  of wearing strange hats
- birettas, zucchetti, galeri, saturni,
trenchers, tiaras and mitres.

How many of these have you seen,
or even heard of?

Of these,
the mitre is perhaps the most iconic.

 

 

 You'll no doubt have seen
 some splendid examples of these,
especially those worn by recent popes.

As you know,
a mitre is a hat worn only
by a bishop or an abbot,
and so there must be something
about being an abbot or a bishop
which this hat especially signifies.

 What does it look like to you?

Does it remind you of anything?

[PAUSE]

In the West,
the shape of the mitre
gives the answer quite quickly.

It is meant to represent
the cloven tongues of fire
that descend upon the heads of the apostles
on the day of Pentecost.

This is the coming of the Holy Ghost,
the other Comforter
that Our Lord Jesus has promised us.

He tells the disciples,
"For John truly baptized with water;
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost
 not many days hence."

God gives to us the gift of Himself again
and each of Jesus's disciples is baptized
in the Holy Ghost.

Of course,
we too have been baptised
in the same way
in water and in the spirit.

You will have noticed
when you were baptised with water,
but when were you baptised in the Holy Ghost?

[PAUSE]

In the Western Rite,
after we are baptized,
we are anointed with the oil of Chrism
and this is the outward sign of
the Baptism with the Holy Ghost.

Not all of us have been baptised
in the Western Rite
and have actually missed that anointing,
but it isn't a problem.

When we are confirmed,
the grace that we have received at baptism
is strengthened by the Holy Ghost
at the hands of the Bishop.

Certainly by our Confirmation,
we will have been baptized in the Spirit.

If we've all been baptised in the Holy Spirit,
shouldn't we all be wearing mitres?

We have all received
the same baptism as our bishops,
so why is the mitre only for bishops?

[PAUSE]

On the day of Pentecost,
the effect of that baptism
is quite profound.

The disciples are launched
immediately into action,
speaking in tongues
as the Spirit gives them utterance.

There is noise and kerfuffle
as they speak in different languages
the wonderful works of God
for a cosmopolitan society to hear.

This is something
that we certainly don't expect to see
when we get baptised or confirmed.

But this very activity
is responsible for three thousand people
becoming Christian in a single day!

St Peter's eloquent sermon
speaks to the hearts of thousands
and the result is that that
the Christian Church is born.

It is this that sets the pattern
for the building of the Church.

The Apostles,
those who are closest to Christ Jesus,
receive power of the Holy Ghost
to form the bedrock of the Church.

Into their hands falls
the oversight of the Church
and the building up of the body of Christ.

Indeed, the word Bishop means
"one who has oversight",
but this is only one aspect
of the needs of the Church
which must be met.

These Apostles were chosen by Jesus
specifically to receive
the baptism of the Holy Ghost
and this baptism completes
their ordination as well.

They have been trained for ministry
with the Lord Jesus before His Death;
 they receive the commission for this ministry
 before His Ascension
and they receive the wherewithal
to perform their ministry directly
 from the Holy Ghost.

For those of us
who have not been chosen
to be apostles
or successors to the apostles,
the baptism we have completed
at our Confirmation
enables us to follow our own vocations.

"God hath set some in the church,
first apostles,
secondarily prophets,
thirdly teachers,
after that miracles,
then gifts of healings,
helps,
governments,
diversities of tongues."

The mitre is only worn by bishops,
 just as the barrister wears his wig,
the queen her crown, mayors their chains,
blacksmiths their aprons,
and railway workers
their bright orange jackets.

In the Eastern Church,
however, the mitre takes on
a different appearance.

 

 

It looks more like a crown
decorated with icons  and with a cross on top.

What have crowns to do with the Holy Ghost?

[PAUSE]
The mitre-crown is a symbol of authority
and we know that Our Lord
gives his apostles authority.

It is an authority
which they do not possess by themselves,
but by God Himself
and, as we read in the Revelation
to St John,
each apostle has to give
that authority back
by casting their crowns
before the One Who sits
upon the Throne.

It is Christ's authority and Christ's crown.

The same is true for us
who are not called to be bishops.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power
to perform the vocation
with which God has created us.

It's not our power,
it is God's and He has every right
to withhold it as He sees fit.

St Paul specifically warns us
that we should grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God,
whereby we are sealed
unto the day of redemption.

To do so
means that we fail
to become who we are meant to be.

With God we become our real selves,
without Him we can do nothing
with any authority.

[PAUSE]

Only a few of us will wear mitres.

This is a heavy burden to bear
as "for unto whomsoever much is given,
of him shall be much required:
and to whom men have committed much,
of him they will ask the more. "

However,
the burden of our baptism in the Holy Ghost
is no less serious.

How is that baptism affecting your life?

Christian Resources Exhibition: Dull Doulia or Loathsome Latria?

I published my latest post on the Anglican Catholic Blog that Fr. Chadwick has set up.

The exhibition has been a great success and I really wish I'd been there. Well done to Bishop Damien Mead and the clergy and laity who helped with this!

Bishop Damien's diary of events can be found here.

Religion versus the Spirit?

 Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis, Rochester on the fifth Sunday after Easter

You've been meeting your friend, Susie,

      for about six weeks now.

One day, while having tea,

       you invite her to come along to Church.

"Oh no," she says, "I am spiritual,

       but not religious."

How does that strike you?

[PAUSE]

Many people describe themselves

       these days

             as spiritual

                    but not religious.

What can they mean?

We know that to be spiritual,

      we believe that there is 

            more to life than what we see.

A spiritual person usually believes

      in the existence of the soul

            life beyond material goods,

                  money, tellies and the Daily Mail.

On the other hand,

      when we say that we're religious,

            we mean that we are bound

                   to a particular way of life,

                       a particular set of beliefs,

                       a particular community.

If we say that we're spiritual

        but not religious, 

              then we're saying that

                    we believe in the spirit

                            but we're not bound to follow

 a set of beliefs.

That sounds okay, doesn't it?

Perhaps we should all be like Susie?

[PAUSE]

The trouble is,

      if you are spiritual,

            then you already have a set of beliefs!

You believe in the spirit,

  and that belief shapes the way you live life.

You cannot actually be spiritual 

    and not religious!

So what does Susie really mean

when she says she's spiritual

but not religious?

[PAUSE]

Many people like Susie,

reject religion because 

it takes away the control they have

of their own lives.

They want to make the decisions in their lives,

not some set of rules 

that they really don't understand.

So, they make up the rules as suits them.

They decide what's really spiritual.

Indeed, many people 

believe in the spirit,

but live their lives as if that spirit didn't exist

so that they don't become 

religious.

They hear from Christianity,

the truth about the soul,

about Everlasting life

about redemption from all that is Evil,

and they believe it,

because it cheers them up!

But they won't live a Christian life.

St James tells us,

"for if any be a hearer of the word

and not a doer,

he is like unto a man

beholding his natural form in a glass.

For he beholdeth himself,

and goeth his way

and straightway forgetteth

what manner of man he was."

We cannot truly know even ourselves

if we do not practice what we preach.

We cannot know the spiritual

if we continue to live as if 

there was no spiritual life.

If we are truly looking for things

beyond what we see,

so that we might escape from 

the Evils of this real world,

then it is not enough to listen

and be cheered up

with the fact of life

beyond Death.

We have to commit to that hope,

we have to do what we believe

in order to be saved from Evil 

and Death.

We are saved by our Faith,

but not by faith alone.

[PAUSE]

We believe in God, Father, son and Holy Spirit.

If we truly believe that,

then we have to live it.

Belief is not about some nice ideas.

"Belief" literally means

"hold something dear"

Belief in God is not a theoretical nod

to the existence of a Creator.

It is a commitment

to communicating with Him in prayer

to obeying His commandments

to repenting of sin.

To believe in God as King of the Universe,

means we have to treat Him as the

King of the Universe!

You only have to read the prophecy of Jeremiah

to understand that, at times,

Judah thought of God

as just a nice idea.

"Judah hath not turned unto me

with her whole heart, but feignedly,"

says God to Jeremiah.

There is no commitment to treating

God as real in either

Judah or Israel.

Indeed, this is exactly 

how Our Lord Jesus finds Israel

paying lip-service

choosing what to believe

rather than really

believing in God.

You can see this in the Church today.

When we cease to believe 

that Our Lord Jesus Christ

is really and actually present at Mass

sacramentally in the Blessed Host

and in the Precious Blood,

it stands to reason

that our worship turns into whatever we want it to be

rather than God-centred.

People seem to think that

when "nasty religion" is away

the "nice spiritual people" will play.

This shows exactly the wrong idea

that people have about 

what religion really is.

[PAUSE]

St James reminds us,

"Pure religion, and undefiled 

before God and the Father 

is this:

To visit the fatherless and the widows

in their affliction

and to keep oneself

unspotted from the world."

The Christian Religion involves looking for

the well-being of others,

caring for those 

who have no-one else to care for them;

supporting those

who have lost support and help them

to find peace.

We should indeed apply this 

to those who have lost earthly parents

and earthly spouses.

However, it is also true for those

who have lost a Heavenly Parent

and a Heavenly Spouse.

All human beings need love.

Those outside the Church need it 

especially,

precisely because they are

outside the Church.

Think of Susie,

"spiritual but not religious" Susie

who has lost God,

and can't see where He is.

Should we force her into the Church?

No!

This would deny her freedom to choose,

and push her further away!

Should we persuade her with

clever arguments?

It's possible, 

but she may feel pressured that 

we're trying to convert her

and push her further away again!

Should we persuade her 

by showing her where she has gone wrong in life?

Well, would you be persuaded 

with a catalogue of your errors?

The only thing that will persuade her

is if she freely sees in us

the God that she seeks

but does not yet know.

If she sees what she is really looking for

in your life

then she stands a chance

of making up her own mind freely.

God always presents Himself

but never forces Himself.

There is always a choice.

If we truly bind ourselves to Christ,

being both spiritual and religious

then we will shine with His light

and radiate His love.

Just how are you going

to help Susie

to see the light in you?