You can’t hide love

2024 2^nd Sunday Lent (B)

Have you ever had a mystical experience?  You know, something extraordinary. Something you didn’t understand and certainly weren’t expecting. I ask this strange question in the knowledge that I know some of you have had. It may simply have been seeing a ghost. I say simply!  But it is strange and can be frightening. Did you tell anyone?  Probably not. Who would believe you.  

I bet the 3 apostles never told anyone what they saw: no one would believe them; just as they didn’t when the women said we saw Jesus risen from the dead.  You can imagine three apostles coming down from the mountain. Pinching themselves to see if they were dreaming.  But a collective dream?!   Who would believe their story: “listen up lads. We were on the mountain top with Jesus. We saw him go all funny. It was like a light shining out of him. And, oh yes, we saw Elijah and Moses talking to him.  Yes, that’s right: that Elijah who died one thousand years ago. And Moses, who was even older. How did we know it was them?  Well, we just did.    These things happen don’t they?  

Imagine the reaction of the others. “Well lads, I think you need a good holiday, a good rest. You’ll soon get over it.”  What happened on Mount Tabor was an extraordinary event; literally something out of the ordinary. But it does happen in life.  You can look at some people an there’s a glow. Take a bride walking down the isle. Isn’t there a glow coming from her?  I remember my mother’s 80^th birthday; again, there was a glow coming from her.  Inside each and everyone of us there is something extraordinary, something so beautiful; that is God and it is love.  

We need reminding sometimes that life isn’t just about what you can see and feel and taste. There is another dimension to life. There is more to life than Strictly Comes Dancing, or Coronation Street or Match of the Day. Today’s gospel is a reminder of that. Jesus extraordinary experience.  Lent is a time to reflect more on him. To get to know him better. To know that he loves us. And when we know we are loved it brings the best out of us. Sometimes we say, when we see someone smiling for no apparent reason, you must be in love. Because love does that. It makes us smile. It makes us feel good about ourselves. In Lent Christ wants us to feel good about ourselves; to know that we are loved. To know that in our hearts and above all our souls there is God. God who is love. Our clothes may not shine brighter than any earthly cleaner but there will be a difference.  When you believe this, when you know that you are loved, you instinct will be to share it with others. In fact, you have a duty to do that. Every baptised Christian is called to share the love of God with others. Let His love transform your lives, then you transform other peoples’ lives. 

“Dream Singles” won’t make you happy.

2024 1^st Sunday of Lent (B)

Jesus says, “Repent and believe the good news”. But why not just say, “believe the good news?”  It’s surely a more attractive message.  Repentance can bring up all sorts of negative images. We may be familiar with such messages as:  “Repent for the end of the world is nigh”, or, “Repent before it’s too late”. These sound like threats.  However, Christ’s message of repentance is not a threat. On Ash Wednesday people turned up in droves to receive the ashes. Why is this?  If you know, answers to me on a postcard!  They heard the priest say, “Turn away from sin, which is another way of saying “repent”, and believe the good news.” So, Christ’s message is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago: we are called to repentance and to believe the good news. 

They are two sides of the same coin; one does not make sense without the other. To repent requires you to think: to think about yourself, about life, about the past. But simple as that sounds, so many of us would rather not think.  We would do anything but think. No thank you! Switch the radio on, let’s have noise, some sort of distraction, anything but silence. The world we are living in is full of distractions to stop you thinking. Pubs and cinemas and sports stadiums are full of people looking to be distracted. Is this wrong? It may be if this is all we do to stop ourselves thinking. To be a good Christian you need to think, to pray, to reflect. Why is this so difficult? Who do so few people do it?  Could it be because we all have a past and we’d rather not go there, thank you very much. 

Jesus message isn’t just about repentance, it’s also good news about our future. It is called “good news” because it is.  By definition, “good news” will make you happy.  Who doesn’t want to be happy?  When I open my iPhone I am bombarded with invitations to make me happy. One that keeps occurring has the heading: “Dream Singles: Find your ideal partner internationally with Dream Singles – Join, Browse and Find your Match Today.”  There are others too inviting me into friendships and maybe more. Such invitations are exploiting our vulnerabilities and our need for love.  It is part of our human condition to want to be loved. However, they won’t fulfil that need or make us happy. But Christ’s does. 

Christ knows us better than we know ourselves. He sees our past, he sees our sins and failings, our weaknesses, but in spite of them, he loves us. Some people find this difficult to believe, they don’t like themselves never mind love, so how can God love them.  There is a famous saying: “If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true.” But not in this case: it is true: God loves us as we are.   During Lent we are asked to think about that, or as the gospel says, ‘repent’.  “Repent and believe the Good News”.  Give some time to prayer and reflection this Lent. You won’t regret it. 

Cheer up. Don’t be like Job

2024 5^th Sunday of the Year (B)

Job is not a companion you’d like to be with on long winter months, such doom and gloom. What does he say: “…months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief… Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”   However, it’s hard to be happy and joyful when you are ill, and Job was ill. 

One of our friars in Ireland has just had a stroke. So, we have sent him a get-well card to cheer him up, as you do. I remember when my mother had a stroke. It was a shock and not just for the victim. Yes, being ill is not much fun. I knew a nun who had some form of cancer for many years.  She hated going into hospital. Pain was 24/7. She told me on one occasion the doctor put a needle in her and asked if it was painful; she said she couldn’t tell; she had got so used to pain.  I was so impressed that, unlike Job, she didn’t let it get her down; though there were times when it did. Who could blame her. 

Illness is something we all have to face, and if you don’t then you will know someone who does. It is at such times that our faith is put to the test. It would be so easy to turn away from God because someone you love, and have prayed for their recovery, dies.  I met a woman recently who lost a child. She turned back to God, her husband turned away. Two people, two different attitudes to grief. One of the classical arguments against the existence of God is precisely in this area: if God is so powerful and good, why does he allow us to suffer so much. 

Going back to Job. What he didn’t know was God had allowed him to suffer. He was putting Job to the test: would Job eventually curse God?   You’ll have to read the book of Job to find out. Is this what suffering is for: to put us to the test?  If this is true, I think most of us would be found wanting; we would be more miserable than Job.  In today’s gospel we see how people brought the sick and suffering to Jesus for him to heal them; he healed ‘many’ we are told. Are we being put to the test when we are sick?  I don’t know. There are things in life that are a mystery, and suffering is one of them.  

Later this year we are organizing a pilgrimage to Lisieux, to visit the place where St Therese of Lisieux died.  She contracted TB one Easter Sunday, and eighteen months later, after a lot of pain, she died.  She was only twenty-four.  She had told her sisters that she was in pain but that deep down she was at peace. Her dying words were: “My Jesus I love you.”   This was not despair, on the contrary. Job didn’t understand why he had to suffer. He didn’t know he was being put to the test. When we suffer are we being put to the test?  Do we turn in on ourselves, like Job did, or are we like St Therese?   Like her we must believe that God is in control, that nothing happens to us in life that He doesn’t allow, even suffering and yes, even death.