Displaying items by tag: Celebrating At Home

On this night we recall Jesus’ commandment to love one another, his washing of the disciples’ feet and the breaking of the bread of his own life, not just at table, but also on the altar of the Cross, for the healing and nourishment of the world.
The liturgy on Holy Thursday is a meditation on the essential connection between the Eucharist and Christian love expressed in serving one another. Christ is not only present in the Eucharist but also in the deeds of loving kindness offered to others through us.
We are the ones who make ‘real’ the presence of Jesus in every smile, kind word and loving action.

The Passion of Jesus according to Mark

First thing in the morning, the chief priests together with the elders and scribes, in short the whole Sanhedrin, had their plan ready. They had Jesus bound and took him away and handed him over to Pilate.
Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “It is you who say it” he answered. And the chief priests brought many accusations against him.
Pilate questioned him again. “Have you no reply at all? See how many accusations they are bringing against you!” But, to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply.
At festival time Pilate used to release a prisoner for them, anyone they asked for. Now a man called Barabbas was then in prison with the rioters who had committed murder during the uprising. When the crowd went up and began to ask Pilate for the customary favour, Pilate answered them: “Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?” For he realised it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over.
The chief priests, however, had incited the crowd to demand that he should release Barabbas for them instead. “But in that case, what am I to do with the man you call king of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” “Why? What harm has he done?” But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” So Pilate, anxious to placate the crowd, released Barabbas for them and, having ordered Jesus to be scourged, handed him over to be crucified.
The soldiers led him away to the inner part of the palace, that is, the Praetorium, and called the whole cohort together. They dressed him in purple, twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on him. And they began saluting him, “Hail, king of the Jews!”
They struck his head with a reed and spat on him; and they went down on their knees to do him homage. And when they had finished making fun of him, they took off the purple and dressed him in his own clothes. They led him out to crucify him. They enlisted a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull.
They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he refused it. Then they crucified him, and shared out his clothing, casting lots to decide what each should get. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The inscription giving the charge against him read: “The King of the Jews.” And they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.
The passers-by jeered at him; they shook their heads and said, “Aha! So you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days! Then save yourself: come down from the cross!” The chief priests and the scribes mocked him among themselves in the same way: “He saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, for us to see it and believe.” Even those who were crucified with him taunted him.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” which means “My God, My God, why have you deserted me?” When some of those who stood by heard this, they said “Listen, he is calling on Elijah.” Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink, “Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.” But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, “In truth this man was a son of God.”
There were some women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary who was the mother of James the younger, and Joset, and Salome. These used to follow him and look after him when he was in Galilee. And there were many other women there who had come up to Jerusalem with him.
It was now evening, and since it was Preparation Day, that is the vigil of the sabbath, there came Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent member of the Council, who himself lived in the hope of seeing the kingdom of God, and he boldly went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate, astonished that he should have died so soon, summoned the centurion and enquired if he was already dead. Having been assured of this by the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph who brought a shroud, took Jesus down from the cross, wrapped him in the shroud and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of Jesus were watching and took note of where he was laid.

Quiet time for reflection

The first reading this Sunday tells us that our journey to transfiguration happens from within, by our hearts being changed. The prophet Jeremiah looks forward to a new covenant between God and his people. This covenant will not be written in stone, but in human hearts. This new covenant cannot be broken since God always forgives and never remembers our sins. It is in our hearts that we learn the truth about the strength of God’s love for us and recognise ourselves as God’s own people.
There is a lovely phrase in the preface of Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I which captures this sense: You have bound the human family to yourself through Jesus your Son, our Redeemer, with a new bond of love so tight that it can never be undone.
The words of John’s Gospel help answer the question about how this covenant is made. God’s love is revealed in a weak and suffering human being through whom God offers his own life as the pledge of love and forgiveness which seals this new covenant.
When some Greeks come asking to see Jesus he knows his preaching is complete and that ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’.
Unless the grain of wheat dies, it remains all alone. If it dies it yields a ‘rich harvest’. Jesus’ death yields a rich harvest of followers with whom and in whom he is always present. We are not left to make the journey from temptation to transfiguration alone - Jesus is our constant companion. He is the way by which we get from one to the other.
Faith in (seeing) Jesus, draws us out of temptation and into transfiguration – to be the living presence of God in the world, the meeting places between human need and God’s compassion, to be light and life for one another.
If we, too, ‘want to see Jesus’ we must look into our own hearts. It is there that God writes his law of love in the person of his Son. It is there that we discover the presence of One who loves us beyond death and who gently refashions us into the image and likeness of his Son.

This Sunday marks a change in the Lenten focus. We are no longer so absorbed by our own limitations and weaknesses in faith. We are more confident of God’s kindness, forgiveness and healing without which we would never dare embark on this journey. We look forward to the Easter celebrations with joy and hope.
On our journey from temptation to transfiguration we are becoming, through faith in Christ, the living presence of God in the world, the light in the darkness.
The first reading today speaks about the re-building of the temple in Jerusalem – a reference back to last Sunday’s Gospel. For the ancient Jews the re-building of their temple was a moment filled with hope and expectation.
Last Sunday Jesus promised the building of a new temple to house the living presence of God and to be the meeting place between God and us.
Our Lenten journey is rebuilding us into the living Body of Christ, into dwelling places for God and meeting places between human beings and God. This is clearly seen when human needs meet God’s compassion through us. That’s when God’s love and light shine in the darkness of human lives.
Today’s Gospel contains a number of important statements of our faith: God loved the world so much that he sent his Son, not to condemn, but to save; the Son must be lifted up (crucified and resurrected) so that all who believe might have eternal life; those who do the truth come out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that their good deeds are done in God.
The Gospel reassures us of God’s love and our salvation in Christ, and calls us to be the Light, to do the truth of God’s love by being God’s heart in the world.

The Gospels of the last two Sundays showed us that the Christian journey is from Temptation to Transfiguration. The Gospels of the next three Sundays of Lent present Jesus as the road (or The Way, as the early Christians referred to him) from temptation to transfiguration.
In the Old Testament scriptures the idea of the people of Israel being ‘the people of God’ is clearly established. By their behaviour they were to be a ‘light to the nations’, and the dwelling-place of God’s presence. Only much later did the idea of God dwelling in a building called a temple develop. Even so, the Jews never lost the sense that they were to be God’s own people.
The reading from Exodus commonly known as the Ten Commandments gives a pattern for God’s people to live in right relationship with God and neighbour; to be the dwelling-place of God’s presence.
In today’s Gospel we find a deeply passionate Jesus causing a near-riot in the outer precincts of the Temple. In John’s Gospel Jesus’ prophetic actions have less to do with ‘cleansing the Temple’ than with saying that the Temple is no longer the way to be in right relationship with God.
According to John, Jesus is the new, living temple of God’s presence and the meeting place between God and his people. Jesus is the way to be in right relationship with God and neighbour.
In our Catholic tradition we often refer to ourselves as ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’. We recognise that
we are sacred beings destined for union with God, people in whom the reign of God’s goodness
should be clearly seen in word, thought and action.
Lent is a time to decide what our life is about and what is important. Like Jesus in the Temple maybe we need to put an end to ways of thinking and behaving which clutter our lives, obscure God’s presence and fail to bring life to others.
As members of the Body of Christ we, too, are to be the place where God is found on earth.

This Sunday’s Gospel of the Transfiguration completes the ‘little parable’ formed by the Gospels of the first two Sundays of Lent.
These Gospels tell us what Lent is about and what Christian life is about: a constant journey from temptation and doubt to transfiguration and faith.
Transfiguration means to be ‘shot-through’ with the presence of God. Being transfigured is about allowing the presence of God to completely transform us. It is a revolution of mind and heart driven by God’s Spirit and enabled by our open heartedness. Our life as Christians is about being transfigured by the Spirit of God so that God is seen in, and experienced through, us. That is what Peter, James and John saw in the transfigured Jesus.
The journey to transfiguration requires faith and perseverance. The story of Abraham in the first reading is a story of great faith and trust. Abraham faced the loss of his dearly loved son, the source of all his hope for the future. He trusted and his son was spared. That was a clear sign to Abraham that God is about bringing life, not death, to his people.
It takes faith and perseverance to dare to allow ourselves to be driven by the passion, hope and vision of God rather than our own desires and wants.
Listening to the living word of the ‘Beloved Son’ forms in us the heart of God.

Our great Lenten journey has begun! It’s a journey which begins in ash and ends in water. Fire is a profound part of our experience. We know its power to destroy, blacken and reduce to ash.
We know that evil can do the same - destroy our wholeness of spirit, blacken our lives and reduce the beauty of human life to so much dust.
We begin Lent in the ash of acknowledging our own part in harbouring, creating and doing evil - those places in our hearts where the fire of anger, bitterness, selfishness or narrowness of mind and heart has left nothing but cold ash.
The ash is a reminder that our true life is not found in mortal things which eventually turn to dust, but in eternal things. We also know that out of ash new life can bud, grow strong, bloom into fullness - that’s the Easter miracle.
As always, the Gospels of the first two Sundays in Lent provide a road map for our Lenten journey from temptation (this Sunday) to transfiguration (next Sunday).
We allow ourselves to be tempted out of the ash of selfishness and narrowness of heart and into a life of open-hearted goodness. We celebrate God’s graciousness to us by sharing what we have with those in need whether it be food, wealth, time, love, friendship or compassion. That’s what it means to ‘repent and believe the Good News’.
In these days when we are so conscious of the impact of human life on God’s creation, perhaps we could think about some permanent fasting from our excessive consumption of power, food and petrol in order to allow our earth to heal, to breathe and to continue to be a source of nourishment and life for the whole human family.

Following last week’s Gospel, Jesus has set out to preach and heal in the other towns of Galilee when a leper comes to him and pleads for healing.

In Biblical times people with any kind of shiny, scaly skin condition were usually considered to have leprosy. This is not Hansen’s Disease - the proper name for leprosy as we know it today.

Anyone suspected of being leprous had to live outside their town for fear of spreading the disease to others.

They had to leave their home and family, their job, their community and their synagogue. They were dependent on others to bring them food and water.

This sense of fear and suspicion about lepers is a stark contrast to the welcome given by Jesus to the man in the Gospel.

He comes to Jesus and asks him to make him clean, to cure him. Jesus is deeply moved and touches the man (which must have required great compassion) and cures him. In healing the man, Jesus has done much more for him than simply relieving him of a distressing ailment. Jesus has literally given the man his life back. Now he can go home to his family, take up his job again and renew his religious practice in the synagogue.

In Jesus’ day many people took illness, disease and disability as a sign that people were also morally ill, that they had sinned, done something wrong. By healing the sick, Jesus removes the taint of evil from them as well.

Interestingly, there is a kind of ‘role-reversal’ in this Gospel. In the beginning it is the leper who is the outcast, the one who must live outside the town.

Because the cured man tells the story everywhere, Jesus now becomes the one who has to stay outside the towns and villages. Never the less, the people, like the leper, still come to him for healing.

Aware of our need for healing, we, too, can take the initiative by approaching Jesus. We will be met with welcome, compassion and love. We can be restored to our rightful place as beloved sons and daughters. We, too, can tell the story of what God has done for us.

The story of Jesus’ first day of ministry in Capernaum continues in the Gospel for this Sunday. After leaving the synagogue where he has healed the possessed man Jesus goes to Simon’s house. He heals Simon’s mother-in-law and restores her to her rightful place as hospitality provider - a sacred ministry in Jewish households. No words are spoken. Jesus simply holds her hand and helps her up. In doing so he would have broken taboos about touching a sick person, and touching a woman to whom he was not related. But in Mark’s Gospel law and custom cannot stand in the way of God’s healing power.
That evening, after sunset, after the Sabbath day was over, people begin to bring the sick and possessed to Jesus for healing.
Notice how ‘local’ all these elements of Mark’s story are: a local man in the local synagogue, a local woman in her own house, local people crowd around the door, local people are brought for healing.
In all the healing stories, Mark presents Jesus in conversation with each individual. There are no ‘en masse’ healings – each person gets individual treatment – sometimes with words, sometimes by touch, sometimes both. There is a sense of intimacy in Jesus’ healing ministry.
Interestingly, the devils seem to know exactly who Jesus is, but the human beings take much longer to recognise Jesus.
In the early morning Jesus goes off to pray by himself.
Jesus prays both in public worship in the Synagogue and in moments of quiet communion with God. Mark helps us understand that both are necessary for would-be disciples. Jesus begins and ends his day in prayer.
When they find Jesus the disciples beg him to return to the town, but Jesus has other ideas. His preaching and healing is not only for the people of Capernaum, but for the whole people of Galilee.
No doubt, the disciples enjoyed being in the presence of such a wonder-worker as Jesus! But Jesus’ focus is not himself; it is his mission of proclaiming the Good News of God’s love through healing words and actions. The healing stories underline the idea that contact with God through the person of Jesus brings healing and wholeness, not death and destruction.
The preaching of Jesus together with the healing/ wholeness stories is fundamentally about the transformation of real, living human beings into the new People of God.

Following directly from the call of the first four disciples in last week’s Gospel, this week we are plunged into the ministry of Jesus. The gospels of the 4th, 5th and 6th Sundays detail Jesus’ ministry in Capernaum.
Last Sunday the Gospel highlighted the disciples’ call to live and work in active partnership with Jesus. To become ‘fishers of people’ they left behind all that was known and familiar to them, including their thriving fishing businesses and families. They took ‘a leap of faith’, not knowing where their journey with Jesus would take them.
Over the next three Sundays we get some insight into who Jesus is and what that journey is about.
Today’s gospel finds Jesus and the disciples arriving in Capernaum, a small town on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, which will be Jesus’ base for his ministry in Galilee.
On the Sabbath Jesus and the disciples attend the Sabbath service during which Jesus gives a teaching.
His words strike the people as authentic and having the ‘ring of truth’ about them. Jesus’ words not only move the people but also release a man from an unclean spirit. Jesus’ action is in response to the question the man poses, ‘Have you come to destroy us?’ Rather than destroy, Jesus liberates the man from the unclean spirit, restoring him to health and wholeness.
Jesus’ way is not about crushing people with the power and authority of God, but about bringing freedom and liberation from the evil which holds them bound.
Many people are afraid of God, but Jesus keeps saying and showing that we don’t need to be afraid of God.
God is about doing good for his people, not about punishing them. God’s power heals, restores and frees so that we can grow into the people God has always dreamed we might become.
The disciples are learning something new about who God is through the words and actions of Jesus. There is a call here to greater faith and trust in the goodness of God.