St. Philip Parish and St. Clare Mission

There is a tendency for us to play down the second of the two comings of Jesus that I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, so as to give emphasis to his first coming, over 2000 years ago. While it gives us a warm feeling, and gives our children a lot of excitement, to prepare for the Christmas event, we must never forget that due emphasis must also be given to Christ’s return at the end of time, when he will bring world history to a close and usher in the fullness of the kingdom of heaven. We live in between those key moments in history. Note that the word “history” can be spelt as “his story”, in other words, Christ’s history. Pope St John Paul II once wrote that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment and center of all history, the world’s history and our own personal history. If our lives are centered simply on what happens to us, and what we can achieve in this world, we have missed the essential point of our life and our history.  Put simply, our life and our story are determined by Christ’s life and his story. The beginning of our real life and our personal story happens not at our natural birth, but at our new birth, our supernatural birth, in other words, at our baptism. That primary sacrament, coupled with confirmation, consecrates us to God, adopts us into His family as his sons and daughters, brings forgiveness of the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and our own personal sins, restores the life of the Holy Spirit, the life of grace within us and qualifies us for everlasting life in heaven. 

The consequence of our baptismal anointing,  if we build on it, means that, when Christ does come at the end of time to usher in the kingdom of God, it should not be a time of mortal fear for us, as it will be for many, as Jesus says in the gospel today: “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world”. … Read more...

We have had, in the course of world history, many kings and queens, especially in my home country of England. Some of them have been good rulers, saintly even (e.g. St Stephen of Hungary, St Edward the Confessor, Queen Margaret of Scotland). But many have not been quite so saintly. True is the saying of Lord Acton over a century and a half ago: “Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. There is something about earthly power and authority that can go to a person’s head, and when that power belongs to an absolute monarch, with life and death in their hands, it can lead to some terrible atrocities. It is why countries with traditional monarchies have long understood the need to establish various restrictions against abuse of power in their leaders. 

Pilate understood the danger of allowing a king to arise in Israel, which would be a threat to him and to the Roman emperor. In our gospel today, Pilate questions Jesus to see if he represented a danger to Roman rule. In answer to such an accusation, Jesus states that the kingship which he wields is of a different order to earthly rule. It looks to an allegiance of the heart and a spiritual sovereignty which in no way is competitive with earthly power. But there is a self-awareness and an acknowledgement from Jesus that he is a king, that he does come to bring in the reign, the kingdom, or rather kingship of God. To deny that would be to deny the supreme truth of who he is, and since Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, (John 14:6), he cannot lie, he has to speak the truth. Pilate realizes that he is in the presence of greatness and a true majesty, although he declares to the Jewish leaders that he sees no political threat in Jesus.… Read more...

Our first reading, describing the final judgement before the throne of God, talks about those being saved, who were found “written in the book”.  God, it seems, has a book of names of those who are going to heaven.  This book, called the “book of life” or “the book of the living” is mentioned in several places in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New. In the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, for instance, we are shown a vision of “a great white throne and the one who sat on it; …with the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books” (Revelation 20: 11,12).

That image, of the whole human race, myself included, standing before the throne of God at the end of time for judgement, haunted me throughout my young years. I could so easily picture myself, sweating and trembling, as the recording angel skimmed through the pages of the book, searching for my name in it. It didn’t help at all that I was an altar server as a boy, and used to serve at funerals. In those days, before the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council, funerals were dreadful, gloomy occasions. Everyone wore black vestments, there was a black pall on the coffin, the readings all spoke of punishment and hell, the music was dirty, and there was, above all, the intoning of the “Dies Irae” (Latin for “The Wrath of God”), from the prophet Zephaniah: “The great day of the Lord is near … that day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry” (Zephaniah 1:14-16). … Read more...

The great Franciscan saint, Padre Pio, was raising money to build a hospital in the area where he lived, in Italy. One day, he was approached by an elderly widow, who pressed a few lira notes into his hands for his fund. The donation only amounted to a few dollars, but that wasn’t the reason Padre Pio was reluctant to take it. He knew that it was probably all of the woman’s savings, and she didn’t have any money left to take care of her needs. So, when he tried to return her money, the widow nodded and sighed “Yes, Father Pio, I guess it isn’t very much money, is it?” At which Padre Pio changed totally and snatched up the money, saying “Dear lady, this is the best gift I have ever received for my fund”.

Perhaps at that moment, Fr Pio remembered the story of the widow in our gospel today, and of the widow in our first reading also. Perhaps he also recalled the words of our responsorial psalm, that God “upholds the widow and the orphan”, and he stopped worrying how the woman before him, proffering her life’s savings, was going to be able to live without any money. God would take care of her, as he always seems to do for the poor and needy, who put God first in their lives. We are not told what happened to the widow in the gospel after she left the temple, having deposited into the treasury “all she had to live on”.  In a way, we really don’t need to know. I would bet the last dollar I own that she was taken care of thereafter. Because one of God’s titles in the Bible is “Yahweh Jireh” – “God provides”. “God upholds the widow and the orphan”, says our psalm today, Psalm 68 echoes that thought: “God is the father of orphans and the protector of widows”, it says, “in your goodness, O God, you provide for the needy”.… Read more...