REFLECTION FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

A scientist I once knew used to quote today’s First Reading as the scientific proof for the existence of God. The scientific method, he said, of observing a phenomenon and then investigating it was used by Moses here. He saw a bush burning without being consumed, and when he went to investigate it, he discovered God. My friend was joking, of course; yet there is some truth in what he said. The burning bush was a supernatural sign of God’s presence.

We are finite beings; limited, confined to one place and one time. God is limitless, in all places and beyond time. How does such a mighty Being meet us? He has to break into time, to meet us in history, so to speak. But when he does, extraordinary things happen. Therein lies the real mystery of the burning bush. As one modern hymn puts it, “We are a moment; you are eternal.”

How does such a God come to meet us? For it is certain that we could never go out to meet him. He comes to us as one like us. And he comes to us in the only way in which we can learn to know him. He does not just shine through the fabric of our history, as at the burning bush. In his fullest appearance to us, he actually enters into our history as one like us. The Lord Jesus is the ultimate reaching out of God to us to save us from the sinful mess into which we have plunged ourselves. We can not only learn to know God; in Jesus we can learn to love him, and with the same intense love with which we can love another human being. “He who has seen me has seen the Father…love one another just as I have loved you.”

We also encounter him in his self-sacrificing love as he dies on the cross. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” And in those comforting words which were spoken to a criminal dying alongside him, the only person, as G.K. Chesterton tells us, to whom Jesus ever uttered them: “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Or the words he spoke to his disciples the night before he died: “A man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

Finally, we encounter him as the Risen Lord, who has destroyed death. Last week we saw him transfigured, revealing for an instant his heavenly glory. And through the glory of the Resurrection we see that his heavenly glory becomes something he wishes to share with us, for he has destroyed death and sin by dying for us to make it possible for us to share in that heavenly glory, in the everlasting life he has attained on our behalf.

God came amongst us in Jesus because it is the only way in which we could ever learn fully to know him. “There is no other name in heaven or on earth by which we can be saved” is how Peter puts it in the very first Christian sermon (Acts 2). Jesus needs to become a real, powerful, constant presence in our lives. As we relive the events of our salvation this Holy Week and Easter, may he become an ever more present reality in our lives and hearts.

Fr Phillip.

REFLECTION FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT

The Transfiguration of the Lord is what is generally referred to as an epiphany, a moment in which the tremendous glory of God shines through into our human reality. In it, Jesus’ heavenly glory is closely linked with his suffering and death.

Strange, is it not, that the terrible suffering and death which Jesus was to pass through in Jerusalem, should be spoken of in the same breath as his glory. And yet it is true; in Jesus, glory and suffering become one and the same thing. Jesus is glorified on the cross. It is an act of self-emptying, of complete obedience to the Father.

Today, we too often think of glory as the human achievements of famous people. We speak of “fame and glory” when we think of Hollywood film stars in sparkling dresses with flowing blonde tresses, walking along red carpets on their way to the Oscars, fixed public smiles on their faces and adoring fans gushing from either side at the ropes while thousands of camera bulbs flash and light up the night. But it is only a step from this to the scandal-mag reports of drug and alcohol abuse, messy divorces and wild self-indulgence. Fame it may be, but glory it is not.

Glory is something quite the opposite; it is the light of God’s holiness, unbearable to sinful human beings. It is a promise and pledge of the eternal future which can be ours if we seek the holiness of God with all our hearts. And it is linked with suffering because only the death and Resurrection of Jesus can open the way to glory for us. If sin is not dealt with, we remain excluded from God’s glory precisely because in our sinful state it is unbearable to us. When he sent his Son to die for us, God decided to pay the price of sin which we could not afford, in order that we might share in his glory.

What a far cry this holiness, the blaze of God’s unmediated and sinless presence is from the cheap, tinselly glory of earthly powers! CS Lewis once described the delights of the world as being “…as the half-nauseous attractions of a raddled harlot would seem to a man who hears that his true beloved whom he has loved all his life and whom he had believed to be dead is alive and even now at his door.” What an expression of the reality of heavenly glory over and against that of the world!

Jesus wants us to share in that glory. And if we really want him, then the pains of purification will not deter us. We will welcome then, to quote Dorothy Sayers, as a sick man welcomes the healing pains of surgery. The vision of the transfigured Jesus in today’s gospel is a pledge of hope, a small sign that the glory of heaven is real. We should follow that hope with all that is within us, and should allow nothing, not even the difficult process of purification from sin, to deter us from achieving it.

Fr Phillip.

REFLECTION FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

Today we focus on the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus was fully human, and therefore subject to all the temptations that humans are. The difference lies in the way he handled them.

He is tempted to turn stones into bread, to satisfy the hunger of his long fast. To use his miraculous powers for his own personal benefit. He refuses. So are we called to use the gifts God has given us for spreading his good news, not just for personal satisfaction. Like Jesus, our special gifts are for the service of God and others.

He is asked to bow down and worship Satan – just once – for the possession of the whole world. Satan is the prince of the world, so it seems this is within his power. But Jesus knows that God’s kingdom cannot be built on a compromise with evil, even a small evil. We, too, cannot do evil that good may come of it. In the end, the foundations of our efforts are rotten, and they will crumble.  We can never compromise with evil; we are set on this world to follow good and avoid evil.

Satan tempts Jesus to use his privileged position with God by throwing himself off the Temple walls, knowing the angels will rescue him. This is the temptation to take the easy and superficial way to win followers. But Jesus is called to win followers by suffering and dying for their sins. To take the easy way means that he will not die, and that our sins will not be forgiven. We, too, must follow what God has called us to, no matter what. It is the only path to eternal life with him.

So, like Jesus, we are tempted. And like Jesus, we must resist temptation. This is what we are called to, and this is one of the special graces of Lent. Through our fasting, almsgiving and prayer, God works within us to overcome temptation, to achieve within ourselves the victory of Christ over the devil. May this be your achievement during this blessed and holy season of Lent 2016.

Fr Phillip

REFLECTION FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

The world today, more than ever, likes to speaks of love. We all know the old cliché “It’s love that makes the world go round”. But it doesn’t take much watching for one to come to the conclusion that by “love,” the modern world really means “sex” and all the short-lived, superficial passions that accompany it in contemporary relationships.

What can we say of human love? Broadly, three things. First. that human love loves only what is lovable. Today, it is striking just how often lovability is reserved for the young, good-looking or wealthy. We humans all seem to find these things particularly attractive. Pity the poor, ugly, elderly person! And yet, are people in the “unlovable” categories any the less in need of love, or any less deserving of it, for that matter, than the rest of the world? Second, human love loves in order to possess. Having fixed our desire upon something or someone, we go all out to possess the object of our desire and to share it with no-one. Human beings can be driven frantic with the jealous fear that the object of their affections might be sharing that affection with someone else. There is very little that human beings will not stoop to in their desire to possess the object of their desire. We love in order to enslave. Third, and most important, human love is a highly perishable commodity. Have enslaved the object of desire, human beings tend to drain the life out of it, and quite often to cast it aside in favour of another, fresh object of passion.  Worst of all, our love does not readily forgive slights, hurts or infidelities. Intense passions burn to cold cinders, or at the very worst they turn into their opposites, as can be seen in the vengeful and messy end to which countless human relationships have come. Great literature and folklore is full of people who have killed for love.

St Francis of Assisi Embracing the Crucified Christ
Murillo

All said and done, human love is a pretty poor, feeble and sorry emotion. How different is the Love of God from the love of man! First, the love of God does not only love what is loveable. It simply loves. In fact, the love of God does the exact opposite of human love in this regard; where we take what is loveable and drain it dry, God can take what is ugly, empty, even hateful, and pour his love into it, so that it becomes loveable. Secondly, the Love of God does not set out to enslave; it is the love of God above all else that sets us free. God knows that the only love worth having is that which is freely given. God, therefore, sets us free of all obligation, taking the risk that we may love someone or something other than Him. Lastly, the love of God does not come to an end. Despite the wickedness, insults, treachery, scorn and even hatred heaped upon him, God continues to love us. When God’s Son hung dying on a cross, the people for whom he was dying stood at the foot of his cross, ridiculing him, mocking him, despising him. Yet he continued to the death, overflowing with love for them. That was the love that ultimately has changed the hard hearts of millions, and continues to change them still.

If you ever wondered what was wrong with the world, think of that figure on the cross, selfless, dying to set us free, giving us a love that rescues us from our ugliness and hatefulness – yes, rescues even the young, the beautiful and the rich – and makes us truly beautiful and lovable. Is even a choice as to which kind of love the world needs? Let us bring to our lives the everlasting hope and salvation offered only by the Love of God. In a word, let us submit our lives, our hope our all, to the God of Love.

Fr Phillip.