Are you listening to the call of the Lord?

Reflections for this Sunday's Liturgy

Some years ago, when I began my discernment for the priesthood, the vocations director I was working with at the time asked me to make sure I was reading some books about the priesthood. Being already something of a 'fan' of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, I turned straight away to reading his classic work The Priest is not his Own. When I told him, the vocations director said he thought the book was 'a little dated', yet nevertheless I persevered. In it, I read what I have come believe is the most important thing I ever read; I read about the Holy Hour.

For Archbishop Fulton Sheen the Holy Hour was a big deal. He encouraged every priest, seminarian and consecrated person to spend one hour a day in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and he described it as the 'hour of power', from which all the graces of ministry and consecration flow. I was deeply inspired by this advice - not least because it was so practical. He was not selling some skill to be attained, or asking me to experience something that he experienced, but which I might not. He was simply saying to spend an hour each day before the Lord, in silence. While he made some suggestions for how to spend the time - he was very keen that we should all meditate more on the Scriptures - in the end the most important thing was that we should spend the time.

Once I entered seminary - training for the priesthood - I took up his advice, and in nine years of formation, I am convinced it is the most important thing that I did. Seminary formation is not ideal. I wish I could say that the years living in that community were a seamless, joyful formation in wisdom, virtue and the love of God; but, that was not my experience. I experienced much good, but also my fair share of struggle and trial. There were some outstanding people involved in my training, but also some who were not. And, as with all periods of studying (again, in my experience), in priestly formation there exists the danger of growing in a sort of myopia, which can be counterproductive to virtue and holiness.

Yet, through all the ups and downs, dangers and turmoils of living for seven years alongside and in obedience to people with whom one probably would not have chosen to form community, the Holy Hour remained, for me, a constant and a bedrock; a daily encounter with the Lord. Over the door to our chapel was written the words magister adest et vocat te (the Master is here and is calling you. cf. John 11.28) and above the tabernacle were inscribed the words non vos me elegistis sed ego elegi vos (You did not choose me, I chose you. cf. John 15.16). In the chapel, each day, I would give space to the Lord to renew His call to me in accord with His choice; and by giving Him that space I was renewing my resolve to respond.

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What does Jesus say that the rich man must do in order to inherit eternal life? There's a pretty good chance that you are thinking - go and sell all he owns and then come follow. However, if you go back to the text you will see that that is not what he says.

‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’ 

In response to this important question, Jesus' answer is essentially to keep the commandments of God. The most basic call that every human being experiences in his or her conscience is to do good and avoid evil. The Commandments of God, handed down to us through the teachings of the Church clarify for us the good to be done and the evil to be avoided. However, this is known to everyone if they they search inside themselves, because the commands have been implanted within us by God.

Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart. (Catechism of the Catholic Church §2072)

Every human person has a basic call to live according to the commandments, or not; and their decision expresses something real about their desire for God, or not.

However, for the Christian, desiring a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Father, there should be a desire to go beyond this basic level of command. Rather than simply doing good, the question might be what good, specifically, do you desire of me, Lord? In which way of life, or, in which service, can I give myself more fully to you? If we have come to know God, it is only natural to want to place these questions before Him.

And it is in this context that the young man responds to Jesus.

‘Master, I have kept all these [Commandments] from my earliest days.’ 

Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

Some Christians are called to follow Christ in this radical way. Many do renounce all that they have embrace vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. However, others are called to serve God in the secular world and many are called to marriage and family life. Furthermore, within our states of life, God also extends certain invitations to serve him in many and various way; through teaching, proclaiming and sharing the faith, through serving the Church's mission and worship, or, through manifesting God' love for the poor in certain, definite ways.

Yet, without creating space in our lives to listen to God, how will we ever know that to which God is calling us? If we never ask, we will never find out.

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In a world that is so full of 'busyness', with so much work to be done and so much entertainment to consume the rest of our time, where do we set aside the quality time to be with God and listen to his call on our lives? Even when we are very busy, we find time to eat; but, do we find the space to feed the hunger of our souls?

As lay-people living full lives, I would never expect you to find an hour a day, nor necessarily to be able to be able to come and be in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament everyday. However, a man or woman seeking the heart of Jesus Christ should be giving Him some meaningful time, each day.

How much time will vary according to your circumstances. I would suggest being generous, but realistic. But, as a bare minimum, I would venture that 20 minutes is the place to start. 1/3 hour in a 24 hour day - surely that is not too much to ask for the God who made you, sustains you, and offers you the way to eternal life? And yet, it is enough time to be a sacrifice. It will not be easy, if you are not used to it, and it may take time, effort and perseverance to acquire the habit and routine. But, I promise you that it is worth it.

 

It really does not matter when you spend the time, or where - as long as you have created, as best you can, space for interior silence. Turn off your phone, go away from people who will disturb you, and simply be with God. I strongly commend turning to the Scriptures, and for a very practical way to do this, I commend to you The Better Part, which is a superb guide to praying with the Gospels.

I am quite, quite certain that I am a very different person, today, for that decision I made well-over ten years ago to make the Holy Hour a part of my life. I am equally certain that anything good in my priesthood, through the prayers of Our Lady, flows from that hour of power. We will never know what good might have happened in the life of that rich young man if he had followed Our Lord's invitation. Perhaps he later changed his mind, or perhaps not - and that is very sad.

However, sadder still, would be, if we, today, knowing Our Lord's goodness chose not to ask Him what good we should do. Let's not make that mistake; let's make a firm resolution to find meaningful space for Him in our lives each day. In a few years, you will not be the same - but I promise you, you will not regret it!

There is a Kindle^TM version of The Better Part available here, at the very reasonable price of £6.52, or click on the picture for the print volumes.

Jesus' Teaching on Marriage & Human Sexuality

Within the Jewish community of Jesus' day there were different schools of thought about marriage, and, in particular, about the vexed question of divorce. The two dominant schools were those of Rabbis Shammai and Hillel. Shammai took the view that a man needed a serious reason to issue his wife with a writ of divorce; whereas, Hillel said that any trivial reason - for example, if she burnt the dinner one evening - would suffice. It is worth noting, of course, that the rights were all in the hand of husband. The woman did not a say.

Given that this debate was happening, it is unsurprising that people wanted to put the question to Jesus. Jesus, by now establishing a reputation for being something of a radical, a man who ate with sinners and seemingly stretched the law of the Sabbath to breaking point, might well have been expected to give a fairly liberal answer concerning the law of divorce. What Jesus, in fact, comes up with is an answer even more conservative than Moses.

‘What did Moses command you?’ ‘Moses allowed us’ they said ‘to draw up a writ of dismissal and so to divorce.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘It was because you were so unteachable that he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body. They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’

The level of the surprise is evident from the fact that the disciples felt the need to clarify the matter when they were alone. 

Back in the house the disciples questioned him again about this, and he said to them, ‘The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.’

If Jesus' answer seemed conservative to His first hearers, of His own day, then, in our time it will seem radically reactionary to the people of our day. Ours is an age where men and women seem to be finding ever more creative ways to live contrary to the chastity to which Jesus calls them through the Church. Yet, in the midst of it all, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Church must continue to faithfully hand on the teaching of Jesus Christ, namely that marriage is a sacrament, a holy and indissoluble bond between one man and one woman for life; and, that the only proper context for sexually intimacy is within such a bond between two people and open to the procreation of new life.

Whilst saying this, the Church continues to proclaim the compassion of Jesus Christ to those who are finding or who have found it hard to live out. Christianity is not easy, and it is not meant to be. Carrying the Cross may save our souls, but there are times when the Cross will be very heavy. All Christians should be there to journey with their brothers and sisters in difficulty, and the Church is always ready to minister God's mercy and forgiveness to those who need it.

However, there is nothing merciful about hiding the truth from people. And the truth is that when we engage in sexual activity outside of marriage it wounds us spiritually. The marital act expresses self-gift; the action itself expresses that I am giving myself to you completely. When we make that expression outside of the context of a relationship where we have definitively committed our lives to the service of the other person, then we are lying with our bodies. 

The power of physical intimacy is a deep power of our soul, and when we use it wrongly it does real damage to our relationships with others and with God, which is why the Church teaches that if we have sinned in this way it is essential that we go to confession before returning to Holy Communion.

But some people still object - this teaching does not sound like the merciful teaching of Jesus, who always loved the people and reached out to the marginalised.

Doesn't it? 

Well it depends on your standpoint.

If you were a first century Jewish woman, this teaching was extraordinary. Suddenly, you were no longer the property of your husband, to be put away if, for a serious or even trivial reason, you upset him. Here, for the first time in the debate, someone was thinking about female dignity. Christianity, today regarded by so many feminists as misogynistic, was, in its inception the beginning of rights for women, affirming in various places in the New Testament the equality of men and women before God.

And today? Who does a liberal attitude to relationship morality serve today?

Go and speak to people on the streets and you will find that the breakdown of a casual relationship is the most likely, immediate cause of their homelessness. Separation of a relationship is an expensive business, and often it is the children who lose out. According to the Joseph Rowntree foundation children of separated families have a higher probability of:

• being in poverty and poor housing;
• being poorer when they are adults;
• behavioural problems;
• performing less well in school;
• needing medical treatment;
• leaving school/home when young;
• becoming sexually active, pregnant, or a parent at an early age;
• depressive symptoms, high levels of smoking and drinking, and drug use during adolescence and adulthood.

This is absolutely not to pass judgement on anyone whose relationship has broken down. Every situation of relationship breakdown is utterly unique, and very often people find themselves trying to do their best in an impossible situation - if that's you, then the Church stands with you, and will do all that we can do to support you.

However, this is the context for Jesus' teaching on marriage. He knew that a culture which widely undermines marriage and treats relationships as transitory and recreational would have losers. Bad ideas have victims, and in this case the victims are usually the poorest. The poorer a child is, the more likely he or she is to grow up with one parent absent from the lives.

In the end, brothers and sisters, if Jesus' teaching today seems challenging to the world, then that sets you and me with a mission. That mission may, at times, mean explaining to others where Jesus is coming from in what He says about this. However, most of all, especially to those of you who are married to demonstrate and incarnate the beauty of Jesus' call to live marriage as an indissoluble sacrament, open to new life. Perhaps, only then, will the world have a chance to see.

Unmasking the Devil

I preached a homily, this week, for the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel & Raphael. Afterwards a parishioner requested a copy of the thoughts from the homily...

On 13th October 1884 the story is told that, after offering Mass, Pope Leo XIII had a vision. He apparently "turned paled and collapsed as though dead." He later shared that he had seen a vision of Satan boasting about his plan to destroy the Church. 

According to Pope Leo XIII the Lord reminded him that his Church was imperishable. Satan then replied, “Grant me one century and more power of those who will serve me, and I will destroy it.” Our Lord granted him 100 years.

The Lord then revealed the events of the 20th century to Leo XIII. He saw wars, immorality, genocide and apostasy on a large scale. Immediately following this disturbing vision, he sat down and wrote the prayer to St. Michael. For decades it was prayed at Mass until the 1960’s. Like many of the Church’s spiritual defenses, it was discontinued in the second half of the 20th century. (The New (& the Old) Evangelization: The 100 year test, Joe Tremblay, Catholic News Agency)

The prayer to St. Michael is a beautiful prayer that the great Archangel, through the power of God, would defeat the work of Satan. There is a long version and well as the better known short version. As noted above, the shorter form was frequently, publicly recited before the liturgical reforms in the '60s, as part of the 'Leonine Prayers' said in the vernacular at the end of low Masses. Some have certainly seen a link between the removal of these prayers and the rise of destructive forces in the Church.

While I make no comment on the spiritual link here, I think it is unarguable that the roots of the current crisis in the Church can be found in the tumultuous movements emerging out of the 1960s. 

• This was the era of the sexual revolution, when a definitive break took place between the society's conception of the place and purpose of sexuality in the human experience, and that which has consistently been taught and understood within the Christian Church. 'Free love' replaced the idea, in many minds, that sexual intercourse belongs only within marriage (between one man & one woman).
• It was also in this decade that a momentous event in the life of the Catholic Church took place: the Second Vatican Council. This Council, known commonly at Vatican II, ushered in a significant number of changes - most notably for lay Catholics, the reform of the liturgy, with most of its parts being said in the vernacular language of the people, rather than Latin. It must be observed, however, that in many places changes were introduced that went beyond what the Bishops had agreed on at Vatican II. Proponents of the changes appealed to the so called "Spirit of Vatican II", as indeed certain people in the Church do today.
• An important mention must also be made of the episode around Humanae Vitae, which Pope Paul VI issued in 1968. There had been much speculation in the '60s, in light of the sexual revolution and the Spirit of Vatican II, that the Catholic Church might be about to change its teaching on artificial birth control or contraception. Humanae Vitae brought this to an end, when Paul VI reaffirmed this teaching definitively, and essentially said that the Pope would have no power to change this. Many in the Church, however, encouraged by the spirit of change, simply rebelled against this teaching - in spite of the fact that it came from the Church, safeguarded in her teaching by the Holy Spirit.

In many ways the great winner from what happened here is the Devil, who loves to divide. We see today great division in the Church, and it is deeply, deeply saddening; and, more seriously, it is having a devastating effect on the Church's mission to bring others to Christ. It is horrendously unedifying to see Bishops publicly, and often not terribly politely, correcting one another in the Catholic media; and, increasingly, all events in the life of the Church are being seen as a struggle between polarised liberals and conservatives. The fact that the struggle is usually portrayed as being about either sexual morality or the  Liturgy shows us that the damage done in this period was immense.

In 1972, Pope Paul VI preached in a homily "“the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God from some fissure”. There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, anxiety, dissatisfaction, confrontation. One no longer trusts the Church; one trusts the first profane prophet who comes to speak to us from some newspaper or from some social movement to chase him and ask him if he has the formula of true life."

Dealing with the Devil

Now, how does one fight against the Devil. The beginning of dealing with the devil is to unmask him. He is, in the end, a coward, and he can only work in the darkness. When the light of Truth is shone upon him, he runs away. How do we do this?

1. To begin we must recognise the problem. As our culture focusses increasingly on issues of identity, what is subtly occurring is that we are becoming more attentive to what divides us. Polarisation has led many people to quite enjoy defining themselves in opposition to others, even within the Church. We need to see that division is of the Devil - Jesus does not want this.
2. Having seen the division, we need to reject it, acknowledging that there is more to unite us, than to divide. Please God, as men and women seeking the will of God in His Church, our union of faith and sacrament must be genuinely understood to unite us far more than the issues that divide us. 
3. That said, the issues division are real. These issues must be humbly explored in the light of revealed truth. Those who may disagree with us, or oppose us, in the Church may have real and genuine questions. There needs to be an authentic, charitable and humble submission of everyone's questions to the light of revelation found in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

In the end, the defeat of the devil will yield blessing for the Church, if it becomes a means for her renewed commitment to the teaching of Jesus Christ, handed down in Her midst.

Facing the Devil in our own lives

We should be careful never to fall into the trap of looking for demons around every corner in our lives. When sin or darkness begins to take hold of us, the world or the flesh are as likely, as not, the source of the problem. However, sometimes things do happen, for which something a little more supernatural might be an explanation. When division between myself and someone else pops us out of nowhere; where a darkness or sadness grabs me, out of which no ordinary human means seems to shake me - dividing me from myself; or, perhaps where something has caused me to mistrust or be divided from Christ's body, the Church.

If we see something in our lives that hints of the Devil's activity, then we too should unmask him. Name the problem for what it is. In naming devilish division, we cause him to lose his power. We should then, instead, look for the unity, and look for it in the light of the truth. If necessary, do not be afraid to seek help. The devil - again, working in darkness - is terrified when we open the secrets of our hearts, because it brings light to a situation.

As Christians, we should never be afraid of fallen angels. In Jesus Christ we have the victory over all the powers of darkness. However, we need to live that victory in our lives, and bring the power that Christ promises to the forefront of our lives.

St. Michael the Archangel... pray for us.