Saturday, July 05, 2025

It's just one...


Sermon for the third Sunday after Trinity

"Oh it's just one..."

"...just one biscuit 
that's been dropped 
on the floor."

"...just one page 
that's been torn."

"... just one person
who missed the bus."

"It's just one..." is a 
handy little phrase
that we like to use
so that we know 
we don't have to care anymore.

Just one thing 
is lost, broken or won't fit,
so we can put it aside
and worry about
the other things 
that aren't lost or broken
and which fit into our scheme 
nicely.

That surely seems reasonable.

We can't worry 
about every little thing.

If we do
then we will
burn ourselves out
with too much worry,
caring too much about
things we can't control,
sweating the small stuff.

If we worry about 
every little thing
then it hurts us,
we become exhausted
and fearful.

Some of us 
are like that
and they need reassurance 
and care
for a condition that 
afflicted their lives.

Indeed,
the people who worry
so much 
that it becomes 
a disorder
must themselves 
not be written off.

"It's just one
of those people
with OCD."

This makes for
an uncomfortable dilemma. 

Do we care about things
too much
or too little?

[PAUSE]

The Pharisees
care a lot about 
the observance 
of the Law.

They are rigorous
and will let neither
t be uncrossed
or i undotted.

But woe betide anyone
who does not observe the Law,
the sinners, 
the publicans,
the prostitutes, 
even
the leprosy,
the maimed,
the sick.

They are completely 
written off.

"Oh they're just sinners. 
Not worth the time of day."

Human beings
who have no worth?

Human beings
in their God-given complexity 
in their God-given dignity
that have no worth?

And the Pharisees 
are effectively saying,
"Jesus, don't corrupt yourself 
with these sinners.
Just associate yourself 
with us, instead."

These sinners 
have been completely written off.

They have no value.

There is no chance 
of forgiveness,
reconciliation 
or rehabilitation.

Once a sinner
always a sinner. 

Oh doesn't that 
sound utterly dismal?

[PAUSE]

Where the Pharisees 
write people off,
Our Lord seeks to 
write people on.

Anyone 
who comes to Him
will be heard,
will be healed, 
will be loved.

No exceptions.

"Ah," say the Pharisees, 
"you just said,
that it would be 
harmful to care too much
about things."

"Things," Pharisee? 

People aren't "things!"

While we simply 
cannot worry about
the needs of everyone,
we don't see people 
as things.

If Our Lord speaks 
of the joy of finding
a lost sheep,
or a coin,
then how much more joy
can there be
for finding 
just one lost human being?

That joy makes
the Universe rattle
with millions of angelic feet
dancing in jubilation 
on the head of a pin.

And that's just one human being.

Just one human being
returning to God
sets heaven ablaze
with delight.

Just one human being.

Just you.

If that's the joy 
you cause God
when you return to Him
then imagine 
the joy of so many other
people who repent.

There are infinities
too small to contain that joy.

[PAUSE]

It's very true
that we human beings
can care too much.

We can stress,
overwork 
and forget about ourselves 
in order to care for 
absolutely everyone.

We can sweat the small stuff.

But perhaps we just need
to look at what we are valuing.

Just as the Pharisees 
value the Law 
above the spiritual 
and physical needs
of those around them,
so can we value the wrong thing
in helping other people
to the extent 
that we burn ourselves out.

God gives us two commandments
and one is certainly,
"love thy neighbour 
as thyself.

But the first commandment
is to love the Lord our God
with all our heart and soul 
and mind and strength.

Love God before Man.

Why?

Because it is 
in loving God first
with all the faculties 
that He has given us
that we learn to love
our neighbours 
as part of our own being.

And this regulates us.

We cease to dismissal others 
as just one of the crowd
and we cease to dismiss ourselves 
as just one of the crowd too.

In our prayers,
we present ourselves to God
Who doesn't see our prayer
as just one among many
but values it
because He values us
as individuals
and refuses to turn us away.

He possesses every magnitude 
of infinity 
to care intimately 
and fully for
every single human being
in every aspect
of their lives.

And he will not let us go.

In our prayer,
we bring our tears, sorrows,
cries for forgiveness,
cries for justice,
our bitterness,
our grief,
our loneliness
our longing for someone 
to love us just as we are.

And God hears
each of these
and, in the invisible mystery 
of His action
finds us and
brings us home,
not writing us off,
but writing us on His Sacred Heart.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Clearly apostles


Sermon for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul

There is just 
so much noise.

A million voices
ricochet around us
spreading confusion 
and misinformation. 

We hear so much
that claims to be news
but isn't.  

It's fake news.

And that which is called
"fake news"
sometimes turns out
to be true.

And we don't know 
what to believe.

[PAUSE]

We don't know 
what to believe 
until we hear a voice
"Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the Living God."

A moment of clarity. 

The clouds of confusion part.

Not St John the Baptist.
Nor Elias. 
Nor Jeremiah.
Nor another prophet.

But the Christ!

Peter's words
might just be more words
among so many.

Just another statement 
of fake news.

What makes them different?

[PAUSE]

It's the truth!

If Our Lord tells us
that He will rise from the dead
and then does so.

If He preaches,
and then backs up His words
with miracles. 

If He touches the hearts of people
and inspires them to love
and go to their deaths for love, 
then He is telling the truth. 

His is the voice 
that we should believe.

And St Peter 
confirms that with his words.

In St Peter,
there is clarity 
a rock on which the Faith will grow.

Christ the chief cornerstone of the Church
and Peter the rock.

And to St Peter 
are given keys 
the authority to bind 
and loose sins.

That authority 
isn't given to St Peter alone 
for St John tells us
that it is given to all the Disciples
when the Lord 
breathes the Holy Ghost on them.

St Peter has the truth
as do the other apostles.

And as does St Paul.

[PAUSE]

St Paul,
the zealous Pharisee
is given the truth 
that blinds him for a while.

He is blinded to 
the cacophony of sights
which,
like the noise,
disrupt and confuse our lives.

The blindness of St Paul
helps him to be
refocused on the truth,
a truth which he once thought
unpalatable 
but now defends 
with his every breath,
with his every word.

And to him
is given authority 
to bind and loose sins
as he becomes 
one of the first bishops 
to receive episcopal consecration 
at the hands of the Apostles.

He is given the authority 
of the Truth
to cut through the swathes
of falsehood 
through the doctrine 
he has received through
the grace of Christ.

[PAUSE]

For us,
the noise is louder than ever.

False gospels are being preached.
The truth is supposedly 
being debunked.
The saints are still being 
contradicted
and even vilified.

For us, 
there is much confusion
and disharmony. 

But for us,
there is also truth
a truth which grounds our Faith.

Our Faith begins
when we say with St Peter
to the face of the man Jesus
"Thou art the Christ
the Son of the Living God."

That is where we put our trust.

That is where we ground 
our knowledge,
our belief, 
our faith.

And we grow 
by reading the first writte documents
of our faith
which are the letters of St Paul:
Gospel written before
the gospels.

This is how we cut through
all the noise.

We shut it out
and listen to the Holy Apostles 
for they speak with greater clarity
than the world can know 
and yet wants to prevent us
from knowing.

Jesus truly is the Christ
the Son of the Living God.

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Articulating Christ's Body

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

"The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
was not by Christ's ordinance
reserved,
carried about,
lifted up 
or worshipped."

Does that sound familiar?

And yet,
we do reserved the Body of Christ,
we do carry it about,
we do lift it up
and we worship Christ
in the Most Holy Sacrament. 

Are we being wrong?
Are we being idolatrous?
Are we blaspheming?

[PAUSE]

One reason why 
we Anglican Catholics 
do not regard 
the Thirty-Nine Articles
as being authoritative 
is because of their ambiguity.

They were designed to appease
polarising factions 
within the Church of England.

They were designed
to stop the struggle 
for the Soul of England
to be a war within the streets.

And that's why 
the Articles have 
a historical importance 
that has allowed 
Anglican Protestants 
to walk with Anglican Catholics 
until comparatively recently.

So they are necessarily ambiguous. 

And this Article 
about the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
which we Catholics 
commonly call the Mass,
is deliberately ambiguous. 

It's true to say
that Our Lord
at the Last Supper
does not tell His Disciples
to reserve His Body
nor to carry it about
nor to lift it up
nor to worship it.

Neither does He expressly 
forbid it
even though He knows full well
the tendency of human beings
to fall into Idolatry.

He remembers the Golden Calf incident 
all too clearly.

And He does not forbid 
the reservation,
the carrying around,
the lifting up
or the worship
of His Body.

Why not?

Why does He not forbid it?

[PAUSE]

There is three underlying factors
behind how we Catholics
treat the Sacrament of the Mass.

Simply, it's Faith, Hope and Love.

By our Faith in Christ
we believe that 
what we behold
in the Sacrament of the Altar 
really, truly and fully 
is the Body and Blood
of Christ.

It is what He promised:
His flesh and blood
so that we might have life within us.

By our Hope,
we believe that showing people 
the Body and Blood of Christ,
displaying our faith
that what seems to be 
a disc of unleavened bread
is truly the Body of Christ,
we may stir in the hearts
of people hungry for hope 
the truth of Christ's presence with us.

By our Love, 
we reserve that Sacrament 
so that those who are unable 
to come to Mass 
may partake of the Body of Christ
and we carry it
to those who are too sick
to receive it.

And we do not worship 
bread and wine
because we believe 
that they have been transformed 
into the true Body and Blood of Christ,
Body, Soul, Mind, Humanity and Divinity
all that pertains to
the Person of the Son.

And the Son is God
and God is to be worshipped 
for our benefit
not His.

[PAUSE]

No. Christ does not command
that we should take the Sacrament 
of His Supper
and reserve it,
carry it about,
lift it up
and worship it.

He does not command that
but He does give us Himself
to be present with us
and to be consumed by us
so that we might love God
and neighbour.

We reserve the Love of God 
for our neighbour to eat.
We carry about the Love of God 
to our neighbour in his frailty.
We lift up the Love of God
for our neighbour to see.
We worship the Love of God
for our neighbour to share.

This is why
we put the Consecrated Host
into a monstrance 
for people to see
and be blessed 
so that one day they might receive.

[PAUSE]

The Articles of Religion 
are not authoritative 
for us Anglican Catholics 
especially when they give the impression 
that what we do is not 
part of the Catholic Religion. 

We don't need to hold them now
because, we pray,
we know better than going to war
with Anglican Protestants
whom we love despite our separation.

Nonetheless,
the Real, Objective and Physical Presence 
of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament 
should draw us closer to Christ
in faith, hope and love for our neighbour.

Food for thought?
Or food for prayer?