Father’s Sunday Homily

One of my favorite Christmas Christian slogans, along with “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season”, is this one: “Wise men still seek Him”. Wise men still seek him. Seek who? Justin Trudeau? Donald Trump? No, no, no, wise men still seek Jesus, to be their Lord, their Savior, their King. It is true wisdom to seek Christ.

It turns out, according to an article I was reading on X (formerly “Twitter”) online, this saying is not just true, as it were, spiritually, but also, literally. According to the writer, many intellectuals, having started out as atheists or agnostics, are now converting to faith in God. Many of these intellectuals are scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, who, hitherto, believed that all the secrets of the universe could be explained by recourse to science and reason. In other words, reason and science have revealed most of the facts behind the making of our universe, and those things that remain unexplained, will be answered in the near future. It turns out, according to the article I was reading, that, not only are there still many more secrets to be explained than first believed, but even the questions  that science thought had been solved, have created many more sub-questions to be investigated 

 Furthermore, these former atheists have discovered that, while science and reason can explain a lot about human existence, there is a whole dimension to human life which they cannot. That dimension embraces the whole realm of the spiritual, this instinctive reaching out on behalf of humanity to that which is beyond the limitation of the human senses, the innate search to “touch the face of God”, as one poet described it, All the mainstream religions of the world, of course, have always understood this, and sought to trace the contours of that search over thousands of years.… Read more...

There was a pop song put out a few years ago, with the title “You say it best when you say nothing at all”. The song is a love song from the man to the woman in his life, describing the different ways she communicates her love to him without needing to say a word. He picks up on all the unspoken signals of her love she is putting out. Myself, I have always thought that this title would make an excellent caption for all the events we are celebrating at this time. God is demonstrating his great love for us without needing to say anything, or hardly anything, at all.

This afternoon, during the 4.30 pm Masses, we had our Christmas pageant. My gosh, we had dozens of shepherds, wise men, sheep, cattle , as well as the familiar figures of Joseph and Mary, with her little baby, Jesus.  Each of the characters did have a few words to say for themselves, but not much. And indeed, the great tradition of the Christmas pageant, stretching back hundreds of years, would not have had any words at all, or any need to. Everybody watching those tableaux knew what was being depicted, without anybody having to explain it. Just looking at the scene as it was displayed was enough to evoke memories and feelings of heavenly joy, love, peace and warmth in the spectators. Many of those watching, way back in history, would not have any education, or not much and would not have been able to read the events of the Christmas event in the Bible. And so, for them, the pageant was a “silent witness” to the wonderful, magical events being celebrated.

 Indeed, whenever I saw the manger scene in the church in the week before Christmas Eve came round, and noticed the empty crib, because the time to celebrate the birth of the Christ-child had not yet come about, I felt the emptiness of the scene.… Read more...

When, in our gospel today, we see Elizabeth, who is old and barren, meeting Mary, who is young and virgin, and both are pregnant, what we are witnessing is the dawn of SALVATION!! God is doing what no one else can do. He is taking that which is barren and hopelessly desolate, and that which is virgin and uncultivated, and making both fertile. Those of us who are older, and think we have lost the chance to do something useful with our lives, and those who are younger and untried, and wonder if they have anything worthwhile to contribute to the world, now find hope for the future, and the possibility of having fruitful lives. 

The key to the realization of our hopes is faith, faith and obedience. What brings the hope for the virgin Mary that she, though young and humble, can indeed, beyond all likelihood, be about to bring forth from her womb, the Son of God, is because, as Elizabeth affirms, “she believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”. And believing, she obeyed. As Mary says at her annunciation: “Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to his word” (Luke 1:38). What brings hope to the barren Elizabeth that, though old and past child-bearing age, she can indeed, beyond all possibility, bring new life into the world, is again her faith and obedience. Her husband Zechariah doubted and disobeyed when the angel Gabriel told him his wife was going to bear a child and he must name him John, and, as a result, is struck dumb. He remains stuck in his rebellion against God, unable to perform his priestly duties, until he repents of his disbelief and disobedience and submits to the will of God for his new-born son’s life: “His name shall be John”  he writes (Luke 1:63) , and immediately, he regains his speech, and is able to praise the Lord, and prophesy in his name.… Read more...

It is surely impossible not to be thrilled by the ringing tones of joy in our first reading today. Listen again to the words: “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem … The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.”  The whole of that first reading is vibrant with hope for salvation and victory. It is all the more remarkable, because the rest of the prophet Zephaniah from which this is taken, is of a very different tone indeed.  Other prophecies in the short book of Zephaniah warn of the coming Day of the Lord, seen as a day of doom and disaster. The difference is that it will be a day of doom and disaster for all those who have persistently defied the Lord God and persecuted his faithful ones. But for those faithful ones of the Lord, that Day will be one of victory and rejoicing instead. 
The prophets of the Old Testament consistently talk about the Lord saving a “remnant “of his people. These are called the anawim, the poor ones of the Lord. They are the ones who have continued to remain faithful worshippers of God, and consistently sought to please Him with the holiness of their lives and obedience to His will. Often, that means they are overlooked, marginalized, and despised by the world, because they refuse to compromise the Lord’s commands in order to get on in the world. Because they stand up to the world in defense of God’s teachings, they are often persecuted, ridiculed and hated by the world’s elites, the rich and the powerful. I subscribe to a Catholic website, Centre for Family and Human Rights, a non-profit NGO, which fights at the level of the United Nations as a lobby group for Catholic teaching on marriage and family.… Read more...

As you heard in our announcements at the beginning of Mass, we are about to hold our Advent parish mission, entitled “Does God still heal today?”. Appropriately, then, for such a theme, our readings today celebrate the coming “Day of the Lord”, that time in history, when God will intervene decisively in the affairs of humanity to overthrow the powers of evil and usher in his  kingdom, a kingdom  marked by peace, justice, righteousness and healing. 

So the prophet Baruch, writing when the vast majority of the inhabitants of Israel were in exile from their homeland, predicts a time to come when those who were devastated to see their capital city, Jerusalem, destroyed, its Temple burned down, and vast numbers of its citizens deported to Babylon, will be able, as he says, to “take off  their garment of sorrow and affliction and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God”. Baruch foresaw a time when God would act to throw down their enemies and bring them back home to their beloved city and homeland. I should imagine that those who are living today as refugees, having had to flee their homes because of wars, would take great comfort and consolation in hearing the words of Baruch’s message of hope and promise, which they would easily be able to apply to their own situation.

Indeed, brothers and sisters, the whole point of us listening to the word of God at Mass, is for us to understand that the message this word conveys can, and does, apply to us and our situation. It is not a dead word of history; it is the living word of God. St Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, declares that what we call the word of God, that is, the Bible, is not “a human word, but … GOD’S WORD … which is always at work amongst those who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2: 13). … Read more...

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...