by Vincent | Nov 8, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion
Occasionally, Fr Ronan Drury (Editor of “The Furrow”) asks me to contribute homily material for the publication. Most recently he asked me to submit some homilies for the month of November. This is the homily for 32nd Sunday of The Year
I’ve always had a feeling of pity for the youngest brother!! I’m sure emigration must have crossed his mind!
It seems to me that today’s passage has less to do with the story of the seven brothers and more to do with our understanding of resurrection. A clear divide existed then, as it does today, between those who believe in life beyond the grave and those who don’t. Even for those who believe, there can be a varying understanding of what form it will take. Will it be life as we know it now or a totally different existence?
This is something I’ve wondered about, not least since my parents died. Like all my family, and indeed the families of all who have died where there is a belief in resurrection, Heaven and a “new day”, I hope to one day see my parents again. That said, I have wondered what it will be like. My mother, in particular, had a number of difficult years before her death, with her mobility and alertness of mind profoundly affected. If I am to see her again, is that the woman I see? I’d prefer to think of her in the full flush of youth, energy, love and fullness of life that her earlier years must have afforded her. Truth told, I didn’t really know her then. She was always my mother – older and wiser than me – and I’m not sure what version of her the afterlife might present. The one freshest in my mind is the mother I knew nearing her end, the mother I attended on the day she died but that’s not the image I want to hold on to. Likewise my father, and many who have died, changed over the years and age had its way with their looks, health and energy. What version of them does the “resurrection of the body” present? It’s a real question. At the end of the day, like much of the journey we walk in this life, the answer is beyond us. We rely, and continually so, on faith.
Jesus, in replying to the cynically charged question of the Saduccess, seeks to answer us too. He is saying that there is resurrection. We need have no doubt about that. He quotes the “burning bush” story and the recognition, in that moment, of famous giants of our past, still present and involved in all that was happening.
Could it be that we arrive at a sense of peace in the belief that there will be recognition for us? Maybe, like Mary Magdalene on that Sunday morning, resurrection will be revealed not in a face we instantly recognise but in the intonation of a name. That intonation, that intimacy of relationship will, I believe, answer our questions, unwrap the hidden mysteries of our faith and bring us “home” to the eternal truth that those we love, those we miss, continue to know us and whisper our names – to call out to us, “not to cling to them” but to have certainty that they are “caught up” in God and that we will be together again.
At day’s end, there are questions asked today whose answers are found and will only be truly answered in eternity.
It is perfectly acceptable to ask questions and to ponder these important issues. The hope for us is that we’re starting our questioning from a place where the line of the Creed is found:
“I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come. Amen”
by Vincent | Nov 8, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion
Occasionally, Fr Ronan Drury (Editor of “The Furrow”) asks me to contribute homily material for the publication. Most recently he asked me to submit some homilies for the month of November. This is the homily for 31st Sunday of The Year
Yesterday we celebrated All Souls’ Day and, throughout this month, we will remember in a special, on-going and prayerful way all those gone before us “marked with the sign of faith”. In most of our churches and parishes, Altars reserve a special place for the names of our loved ones written on “November Lists” and there will be a variety of remembrance services held throughout the church to recall the lives of those who have died. It is, without doubt, a month as necessary as it is solemn, as hopeful as it is sad and as powerful as it is vulnerable. We do well to remember, to pray, to hear again those precious names and to find direction for our grief and onward journey.
Today we meet Zacchaeus, the low-sized tax collector who wanted desperately to catch a glimpse of Jesus. Feeling neither popular nor tall but anxious to see what kind of man Jesus was he climbed a sycamore tree, hid in its bark and branches and felt he was out of view. How wrong he was ….. What seemed hidden and closed was rendered wide open. The hidden one takes centre stage and is called, by Jesus, from the place of hiding into a deep, lasting and practical friendship – “I must stay at your house today ……”
That “Sycamore” tree speaks to me of casket and coffin. The branches of hiding are the closed and tightened lid. To all it may well seem the one is gone beyond viewing, beyond contact, beyond reach but not so for Jesus. Just as Zacchaeus is seen and called so also, the deceased. There is no hiding place from the Lord. He knows those who are anxious to see him. He knows those from your family, from our parish – from our present and past who have died – and invites them to join him in an eternal friendship.
It’s great the way Zacchaeus hurries from the tree. He knows he’s safe, knows he’s wanted and needed and that life will never be quite the same again. The sycamore was a temporary stop on an on-going journey of faith and discovery. Likewise – the coffin or casket.
Everybody didn’t rejoice with Zacchaeus of course. There were some who resented him, thought him incapable of change and not meriting this special attention. The “little man” knew all too well his faults and went about making amends. There’s no doubt that must have pleased the Lord greatly. “If I’ve cheated anyone ……” It wasn’t too late to make a change to wander a new way. God’s mercy is everlasting to all who call on him, who seek to know him and who journey with him. “Life is changed not ended.”
There’s something going on here, in this month of November, about letting the deceased rest in peace and letting them be “in God”. Something in the old saying about it not being right to speak “ill of the dead” and something too, in our own time, to acknowledge the need for change should it be required.
At the end of the day, the one who climbed the tree to get a bird’s eye view met the Lord face to face. He had nonetheless to have that desire in him – that “pilgrimage” that took him to the heights so that he could come down again, be transformed and raised to a new life.
In this month, we continue to pray for all gone before us in the belief they’ve been noticed in the Sycamore, called down and are now “at table” with The Lord.
by Vincent | Nov 8, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion
Occasionally, Fr Ronan Drury (Editor of “The Furrow”) asks me to contribute homily material for the publication. Most recently he asked me to submit some homilies for the month of November. I was in Knock yesterday at a Day of Recollection for priests from the Tuam Province (Tuam, Achonry, Clonfert, Elphin, Galway and Galway) and it was nice that two of the homilies were mentioned to me by priests there – I thought I might include them here as well for anyone that might have an interest.
This is the homily for All Saints’ Day
I remember a priest of our diocese who used always name, in its entirety, the list of saints given in Eucharistic Prayer 1. He had a slow and solemn delivery and when he’d say “and all the saints”, you’d be inclined to ask “are there any you didn’t mention?” That list seems to be getting longer – soon to be added Pope John Paul 11 and Pope John XX111 – but maybe that’s no bad thing. Maybe we need to be reminded that saintliness is still in vogue and that good people are found in every generation and in every place.
A few years ago I was doing some work on the weekend parish bulletin – okay, a bit of last minute work – and it was the weekend of All Saints so I decided to consult Google for an image I might use. I simply typed in “ALL SAINTS” and every image presented to me was of four girls who make up the band of the same name! Even going down through the pages, I didn’t come across one religious image representing All Saints.
Could this be an all too sad sign of the times? Maybe X-FACTOR is the new creator of saints. Perhaps the “Judges” panel is the new assessor of miracles – not settling for three but rather the millions of albums and downloads that must be sold before a band is deemed to be worth its salt and deserving of a spot in the limelight.
Our “All Saints” though speak of countless people who lived good and faith-filled lives and are now numbered among the “Holy Ones” in God’s presence. We need to dig deep into all that is good and honest in us to recognise their story and imitate their life choices. They are, in absolute truth, our “role models”.
A slightly deeper “Google” dig, including the word “Day” with All Saints, brought forth a different set of images. Google did the trick though. What’s needed is there to be found and sometimes finding it involves just trying a bit harder and giving it a bit more time – adding another word!
The addition of the word “day” took me to images that spoke to and of the Feast Day we celebrate. Maybe it’s not an accident. Maybe “day” has to be synonymous with saintliness for it’s in the “daylight” we live at our most honest. St Paul told us to “cast off the works of darkness” (Rom 13:12). It’s certain that those remembered today lived life “in the day”.
Miracles are associated with saints. People who may never have known or met them benefit from their lives through miracle or cure and that link of benefit helps lead the sainted ones to the Church’s moment of recognition and canonisation. It is a lovely way of acknowledging the connectedness of the ages in our on-going story of faith and pilgrimage. We look to and learn from those gone before and they too are blessed in the remembrance.
Back to my friend of Eucharistic Prayer 1, who, in the opinion of many, is now numbered among the sainted ones, thank you for the listing the names and reminding us of our “Holy Past” and calling us to a faith-filled present.
by Vincent | Oct 27, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion
Today, we meet two praying men in the temple. One stands before God, listing all the good things he has done and thanking God for not making him like other men. He “ticks” all the boxes of the right things to do but maybe there’s a question of the “why” they’re being done. He knows the how but possibly not the why ….
The second man almost hides himself in the temple. Certainly he does not open his eyes to its reality or surroundings. His “inner” vision is focused on God and his prayer, intense; “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner”.
We’re told that this man went home at rights with God whereas the other did not.
It’s a fairly self-explanatory tale of the need for humility and honesty in approaching God in prayer. There’s something there too about the perils of arrogance and pomposity. The Lord feels the closeness of the confessed sinner but little intimacy with the self-praising and “good deeds listing” temple visitor.
I once heard a priest speak at his First Mass. He talked about a man who had been brought up without religion. In his adult life he began his search for God but was unsure where to look. He studied many religions but none really spoke to him. He described an early morning experience in a church he happened to be passing. He went in to see what was happening and stood at the back of the church. His recollection was clear. There was a priest sharing a few words at the front of the church. In the seats nearest him a few elderly people, mostly women, holding beads in their hands (he did not know what the beads were at the time), a few seats back there were a few young mothers with small children – they struggled to keep the children beside them since the children wanted to wander and explore. Behind these a few people of mixed age sat in different places through the church and, on the back seat, just in front of where the man stood, there lay a man – presumably the worse for a night’s drink, sound asleep. The man said he watched it all for a while and then came to a conclusion “Any church that wants to speak to all these people is the church to which I wish to belong”. His decision was made.
This is the church to which we belong – this church that seeks to speak to “all these people” It is the church of today’s Gospel too for, it seems to me, the Lord heard the prayers of both men. He just needed to respond to them in different ways.
Like both men, the church is there for us and like them too, we need to know the “how?” and the “why?” of our prayer.
At the end of the day, it’s not where we stand that is important – it’s what we say and why we say it.
by Vincent | Oct 19, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion, Video Clips
Just in from Evening Mass – the vigil of Mission Sunday. A bit of a thought to share but need to work it out a bit more in my head …. call back when you get a chance ….
________________________________
The next day …. thanks for calling back!
This is Mission Sunday – that day in the Church’s Year when we think of the work of Missionary men and women with the “young” Church. In the past there was hardly a parish that didn’t have some of its sons or daughters working “on the Missions” – mostly priests, brothers and sisters but, increasingly in recent years, young people – lay men and women – who opted to spend sometime working in far away countries to bring the Gospel Message to people who otherwise might not hear. What took them there? I’m sure they would tell us a sense of “being called”, like Patrick to share the message and bring new hope to people. Called they were! The sharing took place, the hope was given and a real difference was made.
It is said by some, and not without some justification, that Ireland is now “missionary territory” too and that many of us need to hear or hear “again” the call of God to enter relationship with Him. The relationship for some is now non-existent and for others damaged and strained. On Mission Sunday maybe we too need to think about our own “faith” story.
I used to very much like (still do) the TV Series “The West Wing” – the story of a fictional President of The United States and the life he experienced, and lived out of, in the “West Wing” of the White House. His name was Josiah Bartlett (Martin Sheen) and his character was Catholic – the son of an Inter-Faith marriage. His faith featured in a number of episodes where he had to wrestle with his faith and conscience and seemed to be able to do this out of the foundation of his conviction.
There is a great scene in the final episode of one of the series, where he is wrestling with the decision of whether or not he should run for a second term of office. He has been diagnosed with an illness and had already been diagnosed when he ran for election but he had not declared this to the people. Now it looks as if this might be used against him though he has achieved much during his term. He is frustrated by this and nobody knows if he’ll seek another term, risking the exposure that is sure to follow or decide not to run even though he feels he has something to offer the Presidency.
Added to this, his long term secretary, Mrs Landingham, buys a new car. He offers her some money towards the cost but she refused it, feeling it might be seen as a “political gift” so when she goes to collect the car, Bartlett asks her to come back and let him see it. On the way back she is struck by a drunk driver and is killed.
The scene I like takes place following her Funeral Service in the National Cathedral, Washington DC. The president asks his Chief-of-Staff to get the agents to “seal the Cathedral” and you hear the doors slam shut. There is a sense of Bartlett being alone with God and he turns angrily towards God, saying that He is “vindictive” – he uses some colourful language and challenges God’s stance in his life. At one level, it could be regarded as blasphemous language but it is rooted in belief. It is intense prayer and shows, more clearly than ever perhaps, how important God is in Bartlett’s life. If he did not believe in God this moment would not take place. It is absolutely because of his faith that he enters this moment.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/fYcMk3AJKLk?rel=0]
(Just spoke with a friend who looked at this piece and wondered did it give the wrong impression of Bartlett’s Faith. I had to agree as we talked that it may well have done. It seems that he walks out on God and though, I don’t think that’s the case – since I believe his character was a man of deep faith, the point was well made. My friend said the clip reminded him of the Book of Job – so also it reminds me – but that in Job God had the chance to reply. He does not seem to have that chance here. I explained to my friend that in the following scene there is an encounter between Bartlett and Mrs Landingham and that she challenges what has just happened in the Cathedral – in a way, this is God’s answer and the encouragement he needs to make his decision ….)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/2akDd-VoQwI?t=1m46s?rel=0]
Whatever the Cathedral moment speaks out of, it is not “indifference”. Bartlett believes in God, feels let down and annoyed but it’s only because he believes that he can be angry with someone in whose friendship be thought he could trust. Indifference is the enemy of faith, the quencher of enthusiasm and the risk of our age. There seems to be so much of it about.
On Mission Sunday, we might think about this. The closing line of the Gospel today raises the question “When the Lord comes, will he find any faith on earth?” It’s a very valid question. If he were to walk into your world or mine, how much faith would he find? Even those of us who consider ourselves as having “the Faith” might well question its degree and intensity. Is there anything in us leaning towards “indifference”? That’s the question for sure ….
During the week I watched two TV shows, both Irish made, they ran very violent story lines. Each ended with the rolling of credits and a voice-over, telling people “If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the events portrayed here ……” and then a list of helplines and websites. I thought it sad, in a way, that programmes intended to be “entertainment” should have the potential to lead people to a dark and frightened place. Of course that does not mean that there are not such places and that they don’t need to be tenderly explored, but the question I had was around the mentality of TV entertainment that runs the risk of causing hurt in the life of someone who just sits down to watch a programme. I sometimes think the violence portrayed can lead us to indifference and indifference takes us to a dangerous place.
We need action rather than indifference, commitment rather than complacency and a Church alive. The image that comes to my mind this weekend is the shopping trolley outside a supermarket. We put in our coin or token, take the trolley, wheel it around the shop, take it to our car, empty its contents and then return it to where we got it and take our “token” back. I think we can be “token” people at times – just putting something in for as long as its useful to us but then taking it back. Of course we have every right to do this and it’s what we do with the shopping trolley but that image has been with me in thinking about “mission” – about “church” and about “Faith”.
It is certain we need people at this time who “stack the shelves” too. Those people who see what’s needed in the store and take it from the storeroom so that its there for those who need it.
What about the parish? What about the local church? Can we have a few more “stackers” of shelves, stock-takers, who look around, identify needs and do something to put in place what is needed?
The “young” Church of the Missions still needs its missionaries and we, as part of the “older” Church are the ones to supply that demand – to bring the “FAITH” to others. Truth told though, we cannot give what we haven’t got so it could be the case we need to develop again our own sense of Faith, even in a God who appears to disappoint and confuse us at times, so that having developed it, we can live it, be it and share it ……
Deliver us Lord, from indifference. Amen!
PS. Okay, this is not totally linked with the above but I’m going to include the closing scene of the episode of West Wing. During the Service in the Cathedral there is a flashback to a conversation between the young student, Jed Bartlett and the school secretary, Mrs Landingham. She is asking him to become socially active and to speak up (to his father, the school Headmaster) about inequality in pay between men and women on the staff. He asks her for figures and she gives them to him. Then she walks away, looks back and tells him, he’s going to do it. He points out that he has said nothing but she says, “you put your hands in your pockets, looked away and smiled” and that when he does that, it means he’s made his mind up to do what is asked of him, expected of him and, in effect, the right thing to do …..
[youtube=http://youtu.be/JMwEd13r9-I?rel=0]
by Vincent | Sep 28, 2013 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion, Photography
On Friday September 27th, the parish of Keash/Culfadda celebrated with its recently retired Parish Priest, Fr Jim Finan, the occasion of his Golden Jubilee of Ordination. The Church of St Kevin, Keash was filled to overflowing for the celebration. Bishop Brendan Kelly was the Principal Celebrant at a con celebrated Mass. Fr Jim was joined on the Altar by a number of priests from the diocese and by his brother, Fr Joe. The local Church of Ireland Rector was also in attendance. It was a wonderful celebration of Jim’s priesthood and the affection in which he is held was clearly visible. Jim recently retired as Parish Priest having spent twenty-three years in the parish.
Fr Jim was one of my teachers when I was in St Nathy’s. He was always, and remains, a very likeable man. I was glad to see him so honoured this evening. He recently moved to Collooney Parish and I know, from my own time there, that he will be made feel welcome and at home. Ad Multos Annos.
