ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY - 2017

Carlo Maratta - The Virgin appearing to St Philip Neri

The Scriptures have much to tell of the Mother of Jesus, and indeed, much more to tell us when we study her very few words to us and the events surrounding her life.

The angel tells her, “Hail, full of grace”. This literally means “You who are already filled with grace,” for the Greek perfect tense in which it is expressed implies a present situation arising from something that has happened in the past. If Mary is “filled with grace,” there is no room for any sin within her. Mary’s flesh is already sinless when Jesus is conceived, so that he might truly be “One like us in all things but sin.”

From this follows the teaching that Mary never bore another child but Jesus. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time claimed membership of God’s holy chosen people by virtue of their genetic descent. John the Baptist tells them that this means nothing, that “God can raise up sons of Abraham from these very stones.” Our only claim to a relationship with Jesus is through baptism, by which we are reborn as adopted sons and daughters of God.

Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth her cousin, six months pregnant with John the Baptist, has a profound message to us as well. When Mary arrives and greets Elizabeth, Elizabeth says, “The moment I heard your voice, the child in my womb leapt for joy. How blessed am I to receive a visit from the mother of my Saviour!” The unborn John the Baptist recognises the presence of the barely conceived Saviour, Jesus. This should certainly make clear to us the preciousness of human life, and the evil of abortion.

Finally, there are Mary’s words to the angel and at the wedding at Cana. “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let what you have said be done to me.” An engaged fourteen-year-old girl accepting a pregnancy by no human agency; who would believe her? And facing a penalty of death by stoning? What faith to accept God’s call in the face of such a situation! Yet she did, and placed her faith, her life and her future completely in God’s hands.

The other, at the wedding at Cana, when Jesus turns water into wine, applies these words to our own lives. What an embarrassing situation at a Jewish wedding; to run out of wine! Mary knows that Jesus will act despite his reluctance, and tells the steward, “Do whatever he tells you!” — “…whatever he tells you!” A strong command, but one which saves the honour of the groom and allows the guests to continue to rejoice.

How often do we complain that God doesn’t help us, that he seems to leave us high and dry? But do we do whatever he tells us? Or only something of it, just in case God messes up and we have to take things into our own hands? Mary placed her all in God’s hands, and as a result her words “All generations shall call me blessed!” have become true in a way she could never have imagined. Like Mary, doing whatever God tells us might lead us to things we might never have imagined. And like Mary, we, too, will be blessed in ways beyond our imagination if only we would do “whatever he tells us.”

Fr Phillip

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: 19TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 2017

“How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?” goes the old joke, to which the answer is, “Only one; but the light bulb must really want to change.” There is more to this joke than meets the eye, for what it says is true of our faith. Faith is a gift from God; but in order to receive that gift, we must really want to receive it. We must want it strongly enough that we are prepared to take a step out into the unknown in order to find it.

God has revealed much of himself through his Creation. When we look at the beauty, the design built into everything around us, from the skies and plants and animals to the artistic and mental products of human beings, it is near impossible to imagine that this is all a blind accident. Behind it all we become aware that there must be an intelligence, a Someone who has designed it all. No-one can look at a watch and think it an accident; we intuitively know that there must be a watchmaker. So with the Creation; there has to be a Designer who thoughtfully put it all together.

But if we are to know such a vast and powerful Creator, we can only know him is he reveals himself to us. And in order for us to know him, two things are required: a desire to know him, and a way to do so. This way of knowing him is what we call faith. If we really want to know God, he will show himself to us. But he wants us to take the first step beyond knowing about him to actually knowing him, ourselves. We have to step out in faith, believing that he exists, and that we will meet him and experience him if we do this.

C.S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully: When a mother teaches her toddler to walk, she begins by holding his little hands and leading him to walk in front of her. Most babies gurgle with delight at the discovery that they can walk on only two legs. But there comes the day when he must learn to walk on his own. So she lets go of his hands, takes a small step backwards and calls him to come to her. That first, unsupported step he takes is a big one for a tiny baby, but the mother will coax him until he takes it. If he stumbles, she will be there to catch him before he falls and hurts himself. And how happy will that mother be that he has taken his first unsupported step, no matter how hesitant and awkward it might be.

Just so, God wants us to take that first step towards him, a “leap of faith,” as it is often called. And we need to take that first step, difficult though it may seem, with the assurance that God, like the mother, will be there to catch us, and that in that very first step of living and acting as though we believe in his existence, God will reveal himself to us. This is what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews means in today’s Second Reading when he speaks of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When we place ourselves in God’s hands, we not only discover that he exists; we discover that he loves and cares for us, that he will do, and has done, anything to save us, even to the death of his only-begotten Son Jesus on the cross.

Chapter 11 of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us of the faith of Abraham. It is worth taking time to reflect upon this passage, which reveals both the depth of Abraham’s faith in God, and the extent to which God blessed him through his faith. The leap of faith is not a once-off action, but a choice which carries us throughout life and beyond. If we are to see at last, when we reach eternity, the face of God who has revealed himself to us, then we must continue to hold on to the gift of faith that he has given us, the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Abraham had faith, and followed God in all that he commanded.” So must we.

Fr Phillip.

ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION: TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD - 2017

For most people, suffering and glory are two opposites. They would never think of them as two sides of the same coin. Yet that is just what the gospels communicate to us the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus.

The story of Jesus’ Transfiguration appears in all of the first three Gospels. It is a brief, flashing moment in which the glory of God is seen directly by the naked human eye. In Luke’s Gospel, we find the following strange sentence: “Suddenly there were two men there talking to [Jesus]; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking to him of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

Moses is the great Lawgiver of Israel. Jesus speaks with Moses of his “passing” in Jerusalem. The word Luke uses for “passing”, interestingly, is exodoV. It was in the Exodus that Moses Led God’s people to freedom, on the way to Sinai to receive God’s Law, the Ten Commandments. Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, in which God drowned Pharaoh’s army. The Exodus is a passing out (of slavery) and a passing through (the Red Sea), and passing is associated with passion, and passion with suffering.

The Good Friday service, in fact, contains these lines: “I opened the Red Sea before you; but you opened my side with a lance.” Jesus appears here with Israel’s greatest lawgiver, and shows that he fulfils the entire Old Testament Law, by leading his people from the slavery of sin to freedom with God, through the waters of baptism.

Elijah is regarded as the great Prophet of Israel. A prophet is someone sent by God to call his people back to faithfulness to the Law. Since his words are the words of God, they must be fulfilled. The prophets also promised the coming of the Suffering Servant of God, the Messiah. The suffering of the Messiah becomes a way from death and sin to life with God. Jesus speaks with Elijah of what he was to “accomplish” in Jerusalem; his suffering, death and rising. Jesus appears here with Israel’s greatest prophet, and shows that he fulfils all prophecy by suffering and dying for the sins of others. It is also the path he calls us to follow: “If anyone would be my disciple, he must daily take up his cross and follow me.”

But Jesus’ death is much more than just an example for us to follow. It is something which he alone can do. Luke speaks of “All that he was to accomplish.” He uses the little Greek word pleroun, which means, literally, to fulfil. From it comes pleroma, fullness. It is the Biblical word used to describe the dazzling glory which surrounds God when he appears to Israel in the Old Testament. It perfectly describes Jesus’ appearance in the Transfiguration.

Strange, is it not, that the suffering and death which Jesus was to pass through in Jerusalem, should be spoken of as a fulfilment, using the same word that is used to speak of God’s glory? It is this word that links the two; in it, suffering and glory become one and the same thing. Jesus is glorified in his suffering and death, which is his complete obedience to the Father. Through it our salvation is accomplished.

Do you see how closely woven is the story of our salvation, from the Flood to Calvary and the empty tomb? Do you see, too, how Jesus’ all the incidents of Jesus’ life up to this point are brought together into a perfect whole. From this moment, his life moves quickly forward on the road to Calvary. The Transfiguration is a single lightning flash of blinding truth which lights up everything, and allows us for a moment to see everything clearly.

On this feast day, then, we share the vision which the three chosen disciples were privileged to see. We see Jesus in his glory, an unbearable sight for sinful human eyes, and in it we see a his promise of glory for us. But we also see the suffering and death that forms part of that glory: His suffering and death. And it is made clear to us that without Jesus’ suffering and death, there is no hope for us. And we have to follow him, sharing in our own way in his suffering and death. But in that flash of glory we see the one hope to which we can cling; that because of what Jesus has done for us, if we can only take up our own small crosses daily and follow him, the glory which for a moment he reveals today, is the same glory which he has promised us forever, living with him.