Love is stronger than death, fiercer than the grave

EASTER SUNDAY

Readings: Acts 10:34,37-43; Psalm 117; Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; John 20:1-9

What are we celebrating on Easter day? What broke the numb silence of Holy Saturday? The resurrection of Jesus is the central mystery on which our faith is founded; yet it is mystery, it surpasses our attempts to grasp its full meaning. We are all of us not so far, maybe, from the hapless supermarket employee who was recently reported as supposing that the Easter eggs crowding the shelves were for celebrating Jesus’s birthday.

Some time ago the then bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, provoked a similar furore when he remarked that the resurrection was not “a conjuring trick with bones”. Jenkins’ concern, crudely and cruelly caricatured by the media, was to stress the difference between resurrection and resuscitation: Jesus has been raised not just to life, as was Lazarus (John 11: 41-44) or the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7: 11-17), but to new life, to life in God. The earliest descriptions of the resurrection emphasise that this was God’s action: God has raised Jesus. To assert this, as we do every Sunday when reciting the creed, is to assent to a particular understanding of reality and history: God has created our world, and acts in our history to save us. And, as Paul insists to the Romans, he saves us through Jesus, on whose behalf he has acted “because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10: 9).

In grappling with the meaning of the resurrection we need to avoid two extremes, firstly, seeing it as something that happened to Jesus in the past and does not especially involve us - yet we “who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death” and to the extent we remain an organic part of the Body of the Lord, in communion with Him in the church through the Spirit, we, too, “might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6: 3-4) The second might be to think that our resurrection will happen after our death. Rather, it is happening now, to the extent that we are living out the life of the Spirit; we can think, as Herbert McCabe suggested, of Christ’s resurrection and ours as the victory of love over death, seen either within history (that is Christ’s resurrection) or beyond history, in the fullness of the kingdom (that is the general resurrection).

Uncomfortably numb ...

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is the great, the supreme, solitude. Everything is empty. There is no meaning. Nothing makes sense. God is dead and all meaning with him. Our lives are like clocks without hands. With Jesus’ death on the Cross, the whole of humanity has lost its aim. When humankind kills God, nothing can make sense anymore. Since we seem to have had the last word, we have in our finiteness the root of all destruction. If the end of the story is humanity’s own destruction, what can we hope for?

Good Friday showed us that in order to be human, we have to accept our own frailty, fundamentally our humanity, and to live it until the end. But today, there is no suffering. Holy Saturday reveals our need to give meaning. But what meaning can we give? Everything is calm and empty. After the storm, our ship is lost on a calm sea, a lukewarm sea without tide. No meaning. No map. No compass. We are facing something much more pernicious than suffering: insensibility. It is painful to cry for someone we love, a friend, a brother. But, surprisingly, it is even more difficult to have nobody to cry for, to have nothing to believe, no risk to take! It entails a more profound and more painful sense of emptiness …

Sometimes, in our lives, suffering is so deep that we become numb. We do not feel pain. All has become uncomfortably numb! We are lukewarm, neither cold as we were on Good Friday, nor hot as we will be at Easter. This is a most distasteful feeling (cf Revelation 3:16). Nevertheless, this feeling of emptiness is sometimes necessary. The black and white portrait of our humanity has to be accepted and integrated into our lives if they are to be drawn with the colorful divine ink. Though difficult, Holy Saturday is absolutely necessary. Were Easter to occur directly after Good Friday, this would lead to perverse theologies trying to give sense to our sufferings. They do not have meaning by themselves.

Holy Saturday is given to us to tame the meaninglessness, to tame the emptiness of our lives. We have to tame what is an empty tomb without testimony … Holy Saturday then is highly important, theologically and anthropologically. It rules out fanaticism, thwarts theologies giving simple meaning to suffering, destroys any concept of deism, and makes space for 'not knowing', a form of agnosticism which is necessary to our freedom. In that respect, Holy Saturday underlines a deep reality —often forgotten— of our faith. There is a kind of distance between God and us. There can be an absence of God. God can become superfluous. Hence, paradoxically, he will be able to become necessary for us ...

We Must Glory in the Cross

Good Friday

Readings: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 30; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

What is so good about this Friday? With bare altars and empty tabernacle, we meditate on the horrific drama of the cross, thinking of the events of Good Friday. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.

The entrance antiphon for Holy Thursday, taken from St Paul, began: ‘It is our duty to glory in the cross of Christ’. Is that what we mean by calling today Good Friday? Perhaps it should be called Bad Friday, a day when we rightfully beat our breasts in reparation for the sin of humanity against our God, a sin professed in the crucifixion of Christ and prolonged in the many transgressions of our daily lives. Emptiness, brokenness, and pain – these are all poignant themes for this day.

And yet, we call it Good Friday. We call it Good Friday because our Lord mounts that cross in love for us. It is the act of pure and total love, and it is this pure and total love that cannot be destroyed. The cross becomes the symbol of this supreme act of love, and today we commemorate that cross, the symbol of love that pervades the misery and sorrow of our human lives.

Recently I shared a day of recollection with some members of the Legion of Mary. It was the Feast of the Annunciation, falling in the week leading up to Palm Sunday. Looking to the veiled cross in the sanctuary of the church we occupied, I invited those present to reflect on the love that is poured out on the cross. Each day when we recall the incarnation of Christ in the Angelus, we implore ‘that we to whom the incarnation of Christ was made known by the message of an angel may by his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection.’ One woman felt there was too much emphasis on the misery and suffering of the cross, but in our lives we meet pain and struggle constantly. In the frailty of our human nature, the love displayed on the cross is our hope and fulfilment. The blood that gushes forth from the crucified Lord washes clean our defilements, and brings us into the glory of the resurrection.

Without the cross, there can be no resurrection. Without the sufferings and sorrows that we experience, we cannot taste the love of the cross. This is why we are duty-bound to glory in the cross. This is why we are celebrating Good Friday. We are remembering the love that changed the world – the love that we share.

I keep in my breviary a little card. The card was left on the door of my room when I was a novice. I was going through a bewildering time, and a priest of my community wanted silently to preach to me the depth of Christ’s love for me – to show me that the love of Christ would cause us to weep tears of joy. ‘I asked Jesus’ it reads, “How much do you love me?” “This much” he answered; and He stretched out his arms, and died.’

…on the night he was betrayed

Holy Thursday

Readings for Mass of the Lord's Supper: Exodus 12:1-8,11-14; Psalm 116; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

By the time of the last supper, it is all finished for Jesus. The preaching mission has ended; he is, in effect, on death-row. He is about to face a show-trial of a kind which is not unfamiliar. People in these extreme situations often go to pieces or become absorbed in their own affliction. Yet Jesus’ words and actions shape the meaning of what will happen to him in a way quite unlike anyone else.

Jesus is about to be led into a trap, but before being given over in betrayal, he gives himself over to the disciples. He puts himself into their hands when he takes and breaks bread. ‘This is my body…this is my blood…take it’. Those who sit down to eat with him, who will themselves soon betray, deny and abandon him, find that Jesus has already abandoned himself to them, before they abandon him to others. He has made a covenant with them, and this covenant is a kind of forestalling of the betrayal. Jesus makes room in advance for all that will happen to him. Those who will abandon him are, in an important way, frustrated as betrayers. It is as though there is nothing for them to do. The victim has already given himself to them; their work is over. Whatever they do is rendered powerless, because nothing they can do destroys or removes the covenant already made.

Jesus has made of his betrayers something they could never make of themselves. He has turned them into his guests. In Jesus God has promised a kind of fidelity that he will never turn his back on. A constant open door, if you like, a continual welcome. What we are being told is that God’s promise anticipates and outlives betrayals. The most complete betrayal is anticipated in a simple and unfathomable gesture of acceptance. Future betrayals – our betrayals - are also encompassed by this sign, we too may be transformed from betrayers to guests.

The last supper is the climax of Jesus’ hospitality to the sinner and the outsider throughout his ministry. Repeatedly Jesus sits down among those who have done nothing to deserve his company. What they need to do is to remain seated and listen to their unexpected host. The covenant is just the final guarantee of the same hospitality. God’s last word is, ‘do not be afraid, I will not withdraw my love from you, there is nothing you can do to destroy that tender care’. There is no promise that people will not be unfaithful to each other, but there is an assurance that a welcome is always offered us, a welcome whose roots are deeper than we can guess.

The readings for the Chrism Mass - Isaiah 61:1-3a,6a,8b-9; Psalm 89; Revelation 1:5-8; Luke 4:a6-21 - are available here

The grace of Christ's suffering

Wednesday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 68; Matthew 26:14-25

Of all the texts of the Old Testament, none resonate more clearly with the image of Christ than the passages in Isaiah portraying God’s Suffering Servant. The righteousness and innocence of this figure in the face of censure and insults is claimed as the means of redemption; the way in which the deserved condemnation of the guilty is removed.

'But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed' (Is. 53.5). This is from the fourth ‘song’ (Is. 52.13-53.12) observing the state of this man. However the passage we read today, the third song of God’s servant, presents a different perspective. Here the figure speaks of his own situation. He feels that his sense of honour and love and dignity is maintained by the Lord God, even in disgrace and ignominy. He thus bears his trials ‘like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame’ (Is. 50.7).

But the treatment this man describes is insulting and debasing: it is behaviour that denies the dignity of humanity. He is beaten; his beard is pulled out. He is spat upon. Such treatment is the fruit of hatred. What is it about God’s help that renders this shame, shameless; that renders disgrace, graceful? The Servant accepts his trials because he believes that God is his help, therefore he is not disgraced. It is more than mere assistance given by God, as someone standing on the sidelines: the help received is precisely the gift of God himself.

Christ’s disgrace is graceful and his shame, an exultation because he is God. The Creator who made man in his image takes this flesh to himself to renew its lost dignity. The damage, the despoiling that is suffering, is transformed into a life-giving action because it is the Creator who undergoes it. And this recreating grace is presented to all humanity who share God’s image. 'And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself' (Jn. 12.32).

Weakness and strength

Tuesday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 70; John 13:21-33,36-38

All four 'servant songs' are read in Holy Week, the first three on Monday (Isaiah 42:1-7), Tuesday (today's first reading) and Wednesday (Isaiah 50:4-9), and the fourth on Good Friday (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).

The servant is a paradoxical figure. On one side he is weak and vulnerable: not crying out, not lifting up his voice, giving his back to the smiters, a lamb led to the slaughter, a sheep dumb before its shearers. On the other side he is strong and powerful: a sharp sword, a polished arrow, his face set like flint, challenging his adversary to come forward for the struggle, given a portion with the great and dividing the spoil with the strong. It is God's strength that sees him through, enabling him to embrace weakness, and so to become the source of a salvation reaching to the ends of the earth.

We might then be sympathetic as we see Jesus' closest disciples struggling with this paradox. What were they to make of what was happening in the last days of Jesus' life? At times the reactions of Peter and Judas are very close - get behind me Satan; Satan had put it into the heart of Judas to betray him - but the demand on their faith and understanding must have been enormous. The difference between them in the end is between two forms of betrayal, a passive, cowardly one and an active, calculating one. Except that Peter was always ready to repent, to learn again. The beloved disciple seems calmer. Perhaps, like Mary in yesterday's gospel, his love for Jesus is sufficient to carry him through what is to come. And (at least according to John's Gospel) we do find him, alone of the men, remaining at Calvary.

The human characters in the drama are dwarfed by something bigger going on within but also beyond them. The glory of God is to be revealed in the heart of Satan's night. To a certain extent we are participants in this drama and its outcome is certainly crucial for us. But at a certain point we are spectators rather than participants, looking on from a distance, filled with wonder and fear. We pray for encouragement and perseverance in engaging with the paradoxes of love and faith, particularly when we see how prone we are to betrayal, whether it is from cowardice or from calculation. But there is time to repent, and to learn again. More than ever in this week of salvation.

The cost of Christian discipleship

Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 26; John 12:1-11

Saint John interprets the event of the anointing of the feet of Jesus at Bethany, which we are given as today’s Gospel reading, as a foretelling of Jesus’ death. This episode in the life of Christ can, therefore, serve to remind us of the events that we are about to commemorate during this Holy Week. Furthermore, in considering the roles of Mary and Lazarus in this Gospel story, we can also gain some insight into the nature of Christian discipleship.

Both Mary, who anoints the feet of Jesus, and Lazarus, who is a guest at the table of the Lord, are, each in their own way, drawn into the drama of growing resentment and hatred at the life and message of Jesus Christ. The enemies of Jesus even seek to kill Lazarus, who had been raised to new life by Christ, because he is such a powerful witness and the cause of many believing in Jesus. Similarly, Mary is criticised for wasting her energies and resources on Jesus when there are others who appear to be more deserving of her time and possessions. Her piety is considered to be a distraction from the main business of service to the poor.

So we see that anyone who wishes to be associated with Jesus Christ risks experiencing the wrath and anger of his enemies. Some of the criticisms aimed at the followers of Jesus can be very subtle, for instance, the charge that the poor should be our priority. Certainly there is an important place for service to the poor. Indeed, it is a fundamental aspect of Christian conduct. Yet, because Mary recognises who Jesus really is – 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world' (John 11:27) – she understands that he too must be given due honour. Taking some time to recall and to enter into the events of the Passion of Christ during this Holy Week is one way in which we can, at this time, give honour to God and express our own Christian discipleship.

Learning to love

Palm Sunday

Readings: Luke 19:28-40; Isaiah 50: 4-7; Psalm 22:8-9,17-18,19-20,23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56 or 23:1-49

The Gospel reading given by the Church for the procession with palms at the beginning of today’s Mass reports the end of a long journey which started when Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:51). Jesus had made the decision: he was prepared to journey towards his death. And when he arrives in Jerusalem, he is acclaimed by his disciples as a Son of David, as the Messiah, the bringer of salvation. His entry into Jerusalem fulfils the prophecy spoken by the prophet Zechariah: ‘Behold, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey’ (Zechariah 9:9). By entering on a colt and not a horse, he declared himself to be a bringer of peace and not of war. However, we know all too well how his message of peace is received. The message is seen as threatening by the Pharisees who were watching his entry. This is the beginning of the end, the beginning of Jesus’ passion and death, which we hear of in the second gospel reading.

What is it about the peace of Christ that is so threatening to those encountering Jesus? Perhaps the message of peace threatened both the authority of the Pharisees and that of the occupying Roman forces. The Pharisees could not accept him as the Messiah King – perhaps they could not see anything in him beyond a man who just couldn’t stop causing trouble, a man whose questioning always challenged their authority. But I think that the Pharisees had recognised something more than just a trouble maker. Jesus seems able to expose their vulnerability at a personal, deeper level, not merely the level of authority. One of the brethren of our Province, the late Fr. Herbert McCabe O.P., wrote that an encounter with Christ makes us fear because we are made aware of our own humanity, a humanity which we fear. We are, it seems, just like the Pharisees after all. To be fully human is to love perfectly, so in encountering Christ we are also made aware of how often we fall short of our calling to love: to love God, to love ourselves and to love others. Love involves risks, but by not taking the risk of loving God, ourselves and others more, we cannot fully realise our humanity. The events of the coming week are an invitation to look more closely at the face of Christ crucified, that we might learn how to love more.

Books by the late Fr. Herbert McCabe O.P., including the recently published 'Faith Within Reason' can be purchased here.

Jesus is high priest that year

Saturday 5 of Lent

Readings: Ezekiel 37:21-28; Psalm: Jeremiah 31:10-13; John 11:45-57

Why does John tell us three times that Caiaphas was 'high priest that year' (John 11:49, 51; 18:13)? He was high priest for nineteen years (18-37 AD), so to be told he was high priest in the year of Jesus' arrest is no help in knowing exactly when it was. That, of course, is not the point. John's interest is theological in the first place. Not that the history is unimportant, especially when we recall how Caiaphas' fear about the destruction of the holy place and of the nation came to pass. It made no difference, on that level of secular history, that one man had died for the people. But on other, deeper levels it makes every difference in the world, every difference to the world's history, that in that year this one man died for the nation, and not just for the Jewish nation but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

For John, the year in question is not just another year in the high priesthood of Caiaphas. The year in question - and this is why he refers to it three times - is the year in which the High Priest of the new creation entered onto his office. It is the new day, the eighth day, on which the new creation begins. It is the hour in which Jesus passes from this world to the Father. This is more than a paradigm shift, to use a current cliché. In time and beyond time, that year is the moment when Jesus, our great high priest, enters the sanctuary, not one made by human hands, but the true sanctuary that is in heaven, carrying not the blood of bulls and goats, but his own blood, to seal the new and everlasting covenant (Hebrews 9:11-15). That year is the year of Christ's high priesthood and it is a year that never ends, just as the hour of Jesus' intercession with the Father lasts forever.

So Jesus turns his back on the temple made by human hands and goes down to the country, near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. It is not known where this town was but its name means 'fruitful'. Jesus goes down to the wilderness that is fruitful. It is fruitful because he is there. The people, on the other hand, go up from the country to Jerusalem and stand in the temple looking for Jesus. The place in which we do not expect to find life is now fruitful whereas the place to which we look for life has become sterile. Jesus is ready for the climax of his work. He had announced it at the beginning of his public ministry: 'destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up' (John 2:19). 'But he spoke of the temple of his body' (John 2:21) from which the Spirit, the water and the blood will flow, the three witnesses that confirm the sacrifice of love offered by our High Priest so that we might have life (John 19:30, 34-37; 1 John 5:6-12). It is to him that we must now journey, to him that we must go up, this year and always.

You are gods (John 10:34)

Friday 5 of Lent

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 17; John 10:31-42

What does it mean to say that we are gods? St Thomas Aquinas, following a long Christian tradition, says that Jesus “assumed our nature, so that he, made human, might make human beings gods.” How is this wonderful exchange, as the Christmas antiphon puts it, possible?

It is fitting to recall Christmas during Passiontide. Earlier this week, the feast of the Annunciation reminded us of the wonder of Christ’s incarnation, for as Holy Week approaches, we recall that the path of Christ’s life runs from the crib to the cross. Jesus was born for a purpose, so the creed says: “for our salvation, he came down from heaven”. That purpose was perfected in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us of this. He has been sent into the world to accomplish the Father’s works; he is a man on a mission and his quest is nothing less than our salvation. As he says earlier in John’s gospel: “God sent the Son into the world… that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17). This salvation is the fullness of life, for Christ also says: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10), and this abundant life is our sharing in the divine life of God. Christ gave us this eternal life through his death on the Cross and we may ponder this mystery in the words of the venerable Passiontide hymn Vexilla Regis.

On the Cross, Christ accomplished his Father’s works and poured out his Spirit to give us new life, so that by water and blood – baptism and Eucharist – we are adopted as co-heirs with Christ and become participants in the life of the Trinity. Hence the Easter vigil is focused on the baptism of new Christians, for in the Church’s womb, the baptismal font, new gods are born! This marvellous work of God’s grace that makes us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4) is cause for us to praise and thank the Lord, for as Jeremiah says in the first reading: "he has rescued the poor from the power of the wicked", from sin and death.

As we prepare to celebrate the 'week of salvation', let us pray for those who will be re-born in baptism and pray for grace to live as God's children, so that those who see us may "believe the works" (Jn 10:38) that Jesus Christ does in us, and thus also come to know and love him.

******

The window above from the former Dominican priory chapel at Hawkesyard depicts the link between the Annunciation, the Cross and the Trinitarian life.

Inspiring Truth

Wednesday 5 of Lent

Readings: Daniel 3:14-20,91-92,95; Psalm: Daniel 3:52,53,54,55,56; John 8:31-42

What is shocking in today’s lesson from John is that it is those who had believed in Jesus that were trying to kill him. Why is that? I think it is because they grew accustomed to the idea of being God’s faithful people. In a sense they petrified their religious life and practice and so, unlike Abraham, they failed to accept God’s refreshing word, God’s truth (John 8:40).

The truth they refuse to accept is the divine plan of salvation. It is made manifest to them in the person of Christ: he preaches the word and teaches in synagogues, he heals the sick and raises the dead.

Jesus says to his listeners: ‘if you continue in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free’ (John 8:31-32).

I think that there is a temptation for all human beings and especially for faithful, religious people that once we reach certain truths, we want to relax comfortably. We want to possess truth, tame it, give it a tag and have it nicely categorised and shelved in the storeroom. We want to fence it round with laws and rules, so that what we’ve already found is protected. Very often, however, those rules and laws become our centre of focus. It is no longer truth that we strive for, but what seems to be our security. That becomes our ‘golden idol’ and we expect everybody to bow down and worship it, just as king Nebuchadnezzar wanted all his subjects to worship the golden image.

But to continue in Christ’s word is to be a disciple, never to cease from searching for truth, to find it ever fresh and ever new.

Some believed ...

Tuesday 5 of Lent

Readings: Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 102; John 8:21-30

At the centre of our faith is the conviction that the cross of the Lord is become the tree of life for us. In today's gospel reading Jesus speaks about two ways of seeing. One is 'of the world' and is distorted by sin. To such eyes the death of Jesus is just that, a death, perhaps even a kind of suicide since he could have removed himself from the situation when he saw how it was developing.

The other way of seeing is that of faith. This enables us to see his death in a completely different light, to see a meaning in it that is hidden from the worldly vision distorted by sin. Faith sees the cross as the tree of life, not because believers have access to some unusual mathematics which enables them to turn suffering into joy, darkness into light, or death into life. The new way of seeing comes about because faith sees whose death this is: that of the one who always does what pleases the Father, the one who is from above and has been sent by the Father, the only Son from the Father, the one who can say 'I am he'.

Believers move between these two ways of seeing. To sin is to prefer the darkness to the light. But to the eyes of faith a new and radiant vision of God's glory has been revealed, God's love, in the body of Jesus Christ given for the life of the world.

Let what you have said be done to me ...

The Annunciation of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 40; Hebrews 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38

Mary is often presented as the archetype of faith. According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, for instance, Mary made, through her ‘yes’ to God, the perfect nuptial response of faith. This ‘yes’ - may it be done to me according to your word­ - given to the angel by the handmaid of the Lord is the fundamental act of Mary's entire life. It is also the fundamental act of the Church in each of her members. In a sense, Mary’s answer is the archetype and principle of the faith response of the entire Church. Fair enough. But what does it mean for us? And how do we understand these words?

It seems to me that today’s gospel presents three important dimensions of our faith.

First of all, Mary is not pictured in this gospel as having a blind faith, but a faith not afraid of asking questions. Her first reaction was to say “how can this be?” In Mary’s faith, as well as in ours, questions have to precede our “yes”. This means there can be no faith without doubt, without questions.


Secondly, if Mary’s ‘yes’ can be described as the summary of her entire life, it is of course not only the summary of her speeches, but more deeply of her deeds. “Let us not love in word or in tongue but in deed and in truth” says John in his first letter (1 Jn 3:18). Therefore, if our yes has to be expressed in deeds, doubt and questions are found not only in our speeches but also in our deeds! Our acts and deeds also reveal our doubts and questions. Our deeds also express this “how can this be?” We can be amazed but also annoyed, puzzled, even revolted at God’s call. There are inconsistencies in our lives of which we ought not to be afraid. Rather, and surprisingly, they can shed light on our quest for truth.

Thirdly, it is interesting to note that the Angel Gabriel did not directly answer Mary’s question. With us the question of how things are to be done takes most of the time. But the answer of Gabriel explains why things have to be done ...

Who can cast the first stone?

Sunday 5 of Lent (First Sunday in Passiontide)

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

We are very good at condemnation. Generations of people have occupied 'street corner' positions, from which they would analyse the virtue of their neighbours' lives. In our modern age, 'gutter press' journalism has adopted the mantle of supreme moral authority. Nobody is safe from this scrutiny – from bishop to prince, footballer to pop-star. It is hard not to get drawn in by this. We all enjoy a good 'tut-tut', a disapproving shake of the head. People like these are to be scorned upon, and we feel it is our duty to do the scorning.

Our Lenten observance should teach us differently. In confronting our own weakness, we ought to feel compassion for others, and refrain from judging them. When we look closely at our own lives, we recognise that there is much for which we ourselves could be condemned. God has forgiven us our transgressions – who are we to condemn others?

Today's gospel contains a beautiful moment that encapsulates this. Jesus sees some men preparing to stone a prostitute. He is in no doubt concerning the gravity of her sin, but neither is he in doubt of the sinfulness of her condemners. In a phrase that has become a well-known saying, he invites 'the one who is without sin to cast the first stone'. None of them feels able to condemn the woman after this, and they retire from the scene. Jesus approaches her. None of the others have condemned her and he tells her that he will not condemn her either. He tells her to 'go, and sin no more'.

Two profound lessons are given in this passage. We are forgiven, despite the gravity of our transgressions. We shall never be deserted by God in all our sinfulness. But this imposes an obligation upon us. We must never see ourselves as worthy to condemn other people. When we see people in the shame of sin, we should not sit and gloat in our self-righteousness, ready to condemn. We should step aside and let the one who is without sin cast the first stone. We see in today's gospel the response of him whom we know to be the sinless one.

Are you led astray, you also?

Saturday 4 of Lent

Readings: Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 7; John 7:40-53

Somewhere near the heart of faith is the belief that something or someone meets me that is greater than anything I can imagine for myself. I do not meet with something that has been thought up, but something given, and given again and again. In the gospels, it is always that way around. It is the Christ who seeks human beings, not primarily human beings who seek God: the shepherd calls the sheep, not the sheep the shepherd. Faith always involves being attentive and ready to follow, to set out again on a path. There is a feeling of the inadequacy of your own resources and a readiness to let yourself go.

Those who have the germs of belief in many ways have no real idea as yet who the Christ is, or where he is leading them. Yet they are listening to something other than the chattering and distracting voices all around them. They hear a different kind of voice, ‘No one has ever spoken like this man’. It is a voice that seduces them out of the roles they are meant to be playing. They have at least an intimation of something greater than egoism or habit or career; they sense a happiness beyond their own fabrication.

The moment someone believes he has no need to go any further, no need to be open, he is on the edge of unbelief. The pharisees and the chief priests have a peculiar version of this illness. They are so sure of their interpretation of their religious tradition, that they simply have no need to re-examine accepted and well-tried positions: it is known … it is settled … no need to look any further. They have no need to be called out of themselves, to respond to an invitation, or even seriously to consider it. Though even they cannot entirely lock themselves up in silence; they still have vestigial ears. That is why they get angry.

Word to the wise

Friday 4 of Lent

Readings: Wisdom 2:1a,12-22; Psalm 34; John 7:1-2,10,25-30

Reading this passage from the book of Wisdom might provoke a sympathetic nod of the head. And its familiarity runs deeper than the obvious tendency to read the experience of Christ into the speech. Sometimes doing the right thing marks you out from the crowd. Its very strangeness throws judgement on the behaviour of others.

He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. (Wis. 2.14-15)

In Britain today, this verse could well apply to the practising Christian. A visibly religious way of life confronts the values of others. We often find people against us when we challenge their actions; question their morality. It is easy in a secular society to cast ourselves as ‘the just one’. Just as this passage foreshadows the life of Christ, so the Christian life, by its very existence, illuminates the life of sin.

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed (Jn. 3.19-20)

But who says we are living the Christian life? It is also possible to read our own annoyance, humiliation and anger in the words of the evil men. Nobody likes to be criticised. Do we not more often feel resentment at those whose lives judge us rather than the determination to do better? The wisdom cuts both ways.

If we read this wisdom in the light of Jesus’s life we should not too quickly cast ourselves as sympathisers. Too often we are ‘the wicked’. Lucky for us we are offered salvation through Jesus Christ, the only one whose life is both judgement and redemption.

Living Simply

Thursday 4 of Lent

Readings: Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 106; John 5:31-47

Part of our human condition seems to favour indulgence in things that are less than necessary. We are all guilty of things like eating too much, relaxing too much, watching too much television and the like. But what’s wrong with a little harmless indulgence? Sure we don’t need it, but isn’t life for enjoying? Jesus tells us that he came that we would have life to the full. It is our duty to enjoy life!

It would appear then that our Lenten sacrifices are the pursuit of the miserable, perhaps the inventions of sour-faced clergymen who are not content with their own misery but want to spread it around. Involving ourselves in Lenten practices might not be compatible with joyous Christianity, living life to the full.

But this would be a cruel deception. Far from being an endeavour to make us miserable, our Lenten practice seeks to liberate us from the things that we don’t need, that our being might be lifted to the things that give us most fulfilment.

The greatest joy of our Christian life is to experience God. In him, all our yearnings and desires will be at rest. But this is hidden from us in our earthly lives. Earnestly searching for our fulfilment, we indulge in the things of the world. In Lent, we might learn through our sacrifices that there are many things that we do not need.

The readings of today’s liturgy give a certain shape to this. While Moses speaks with God about the covenant, the people fashion a calf of molten metal and worship it, turning their backs on the God of their salvation. In the Gospel, Jesus rebukes the Jews for looking for the approval of each other rather than the approval of the true God. These things are not necessary. If only we could see the true beauty of the simplicity of God – that we would need nothing else but our rest in him.

It is difficult to attain to such perfection, but through our observance of Lent and our practice of self-denial, may we seek the things which sustain us.

The extravagance of God

Wednesday 4 of Lent

Readings: Isaiah 49:8-15; Ps 144: 8-9, 13-14, 17-18; John 5:17-30

It is tempting to wonder whether the people of the Old Testament, when they heard the words of hope and consolation offered by their prophets, reacted as some of us often do today when we hear our leaders putting forward their plans for a better and brighter tomorrow. For it could not have been easy for a people who frequently saw themselves as abandoned and forgotten by God to accept such words and promises as those voiced by the prophet Isaiah which we hear in today’s first reading – the promise to restore the land, to release those in darkness, and to lead those who are hungry and thirsty to springs of water.

Yet if these prophetic pronouncements must have often appeared beyond the comprehension and wildest hopes of Israel, how much more remarkable it is to read in the Gospels that Jesus not only comes to fulfil these prophecies but to realize them in a far more marvellous way than the prophets were ever able to conceive. For Jesus, who reveals himself as the very presence of God among his people, not only discloses something of the mystery of God’s inner life but actually invites each of us to share in this divine life in eternity.

Notice that Jesus does not force us to accept this generous invitation. Just as he waits for the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda to reply to the question “Do you want to be well?” before curing him (John 5:6), so he wants us to respond to his promise of new life by listening to his words and seeking to do good. The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, alms giving and fasting offer us precisely the chance to listen to God, to do good to others and to ourselves. In such a way, we can journey towards Easter full of praise for a God who is ‘kind and full of compassion’, who does not forget his people but rather, in his extravagance, promises to raise us up to share in his own divine life.

Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today...

Tuesday 4 of Lent

Readings: Ez 47:1-9, 122; Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-99; Jn 5:1-16

This chapter of St. John’s Gospel marks the start of a series of confrontations between Jesus and the Jewish people which brought with them persecutions and eventually lead to his death. The question in today’s passage is whether or not the man suffering from illness should be cured on the Sabbath. He had been ill for a long time, yet was not close to death. In the Jewish tradition it was only those who were close to death who were allowed to receive medical attention on the Sabbath. What Jesus recognised was that this man’s illness had kept him in the shadow of death all that time, robbing him of the capacity to live fully and joyfully.

Jesus’ response shows something to us about the importance of the Sabbath – as the Son of God he provides us with the authentic interpretation of God’s law concerning the Sabbath, showing that the Sabbath is not only a day of rest and recreation, but a day of God’s mercy. It is never the wrong time for God to heal, never the wrong time to show mercy. Jesus brings the man healing of his sins, and gives him back the life which he had lacked for so long. We may ask ourselves then what we might be lacking – after all, evil is not a ‘thing’ at all, but an absence of the kind which prevents us from being fully human. What parts of our lives have we hidden away from God for all too long? What long term grievances do we carry around with us? Who do we need to forgive? Can we not ask for God’s healing and mercy right now, in order that Christ may enter, and we may start on the journey to wholeness?

Whose house are you building?

Solemnity of St Joseph

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:4-5, 12-14, 16; Psalm 88; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Matthew 1:6, 18-21, 24

'...the word of the Lord came to Nathan, "Go and tell my servant David, Thus says the Lord...I will raise up your offspring after you...I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name..." ' ( 2 Samuel 7:4, 12-13. RSV.)

The first reading today is taken from 2 Samuel chapter 7. One of the central subject matter is the building of a house. In verse 2 we observe King David expressing his desire to the prophet Nathan to do something majestic for God. He, David, says, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent'. Initially, the prophet tells David to go ahead with his heart's desire. The prophet even adds: 'for the Lord is with you'; seeming to say, since you are the Lord's anointed, and this anointing has brought success in all your undertakings, then this too must be a proper and fitting idea. However, that very night the Lord spoke to Nathan and told him to tell David not to go ahead with his plan. 'Thus says the Lord: You shall not build me a house to dwell in' (1 Chronicles 17:4. RSV).

There are several lessons to be learnt here. It is not the case that because someone is anointed, as all Christians are, that every idea they come up with is necessarily in accord with the will of God. Quite frankly, anointed people can get it all wrong, as was the case not only with David, but also with Nathan. What is more, even anointed poeple need other anointed people in some instances to know the exact mind of God on a particular issue. This should be a serious lesson for us. David had a special relationship with God. His heart was after the heart of God itself, and for this reason, he became the most renowned king of all Israel.

So, if a man like David could get it wrong, it is possible that others can do so too. Nevetheless, this is no excuse for being ignorant of the fact that, no matter how nice our ideas may seem, God has his own ideas. He has his own plans. No matter how holy we might be, and indeed we might truly be holy, if we do not find out what the mind of God is on a particular matter, all that we might do based on our own ideas might just be in vain.

We cannot anticipate the ways in which God will fulfill his promises. On this feast of Saint Joseph we celebrate the fact that God's promise to David many centuries before - that it was he, the Lord, who would build a house for David and not vice versa - this promise is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, the Son of David, the Son of God, entrusted to the care of Joseph the carpenter. He, Jesus, is the man who finally builds a fitting house for God, that temple which is his body, the Church.