REFLECTION FOR TRINITY SUNDAY

Every year, on the Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. The word itself seems to make no sense: Trinity, from tri-une, meaning three-in-one. What does this mean? All attempts to explain it seem only to make it more complicated. It is a point on which Christians are often challenged by non-believers; how can you believe in a God who is both three and one? Surely it is illogical? How do we answer this challenge?

Firstly, we must stress that however much we do understand about God, he will always be beyond our comprehension. Even in heaven, with all eternity before us, we will never be able to fathom the depths of God. He is infinite. Otherwise

, eternity would be unendurable. Never being able to comprehend God fully is a blessing, considered from the perspective of eternity. But in fact, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not difficult to understand. It depends upon our grasping two different aspects of God one by one,

First, we worship ONE GOD. So we confess every Sunday at Mass. Christianity does not worship a multiplicity of Gods. God is One, Simple, Indivisible. We share with Judaism the declaration, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord, your God, the Lord is One” and with Islam, “There is no God but God,” He is One, Absolute, Eternal, All-knowing, All-seeing. There can be absolutely no doubt or question about this at all.

Secondly, and here Christianity differs profoundly from both Judaism and Islam, we encounter and experience this one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of the three is for us a distinct person, not merely one person appearing in three different forms. Each of the three plays a different role in the story of our salvation, in the history of the Church. They speak of themselves as distinct: “He who has seen me has seen the Father…I will send you another Advocate…we will come to him and make our home with him” and so on. Nor do we see any one of them as superior to the others; all three are co-equal.

As long as we see either our faith in the One God, or our relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit independently, there is no problem. It is when we try to combine the two that the divine mathematics defeats us. We believe in One God; we encounter him as Father, Son and Spirit; let this be sufficient for us, for the rest is unfathomable mystery. We may understand it better in eternity; we can be sure we will never understand it now. But faith carries us beyond understanding, and though we may not understand, yet we can believe in him, we can love this three-in-one God. In the words which follow our quotation from Deuteronomy above.”…and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your strength…”

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 27 MAY 2015

"The covenant of love between man and woman, a covenant for life, is not improvised; it is not made from one day to another"

Continuing these catecheses on the family, today I would like to speak about the [time of] engagement. Engagement -- we hear it in the word – it has to do with trust, confidence, reliability -- confidence in the vocation that God gives, because marriage is first of all the discovery of a call from God. It is certainly a good thing that today young people can choose to marry on the basis of mutual love. However, the freedom of the bond in fact requires a harmonious awareness of the decision, not only a simple understanding of the attraction or of the sentiment, of a moment, of a brief time ... it requires a course.

In other terms, the engagement is the time in which the two are called to work hard on love, a participated and shared work that goes in depth. As they discover one another, that is, man “gets to know” woman by getting to know this woman, his fiancée; and the woman “gets to know” man by getting to know this man, her fiancé. We must not underestimate the importance of this knowledge: it is a fine obligation, and love itself requires it, because it is not only a light-hearted happiness, an enchanted emotion ... The biblical account speaks of the entire creation as the fine work of the love of God; the Book of Genesis says that “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Only at the end did God “rest.”  From this image we understand that the love of God, which gave origin to the world, was not an extemporaneous decision. No! It was fine work. The love of God created the conditions of an irrevocable, solid alliance destined to last.

The covenant of love between man and woman, a covenant for life, is not improvised; it is not made from one day to another. There is no express marriage: one must work on love, one must journey. The alliance of love of man and woman is learned and refined. I allow myself to say that it is a crafted alliance. To make two lives only one life, is also almost a miracle, a miracle of freedom and of the heart, entrusted to faith. Perhaps we must make more of an effort on this point, because our “sentimental coordinates” have become somewhat confused. One who pretends to want everything immediately, then yields also on everything – and right away -- at the first difficulty --  (or on the first occasion). There is no hope for the trust and the fidelity of the gift of self, if the habit prevails to consume love as a sort of “integrator” of psychic-physical wellbeing. This is not love! The engagement puts in focus the will to protect together something that must never be purchased or sold, betrayed or abandoned, no matter how tempting the offer might be. However God also, when he speaks of the alliance with his people, does so at times in terms of engagement. In the Book of Jeremiah, speaking of the people that had distanced themselves from him, he reminds them when they were the “bride” of God and says thus: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride” (2:2). And God undertook this journey of engagement; then he also made a promise: we heard it at the beginning of the audience, in the Book of Hosea: “I will make you my bride for ever, I will make you my bride in justice and in law, in love and in benevolence. I will make you my bride in fidelity and you will know the Lord” (2:21-22). Long is the way that the Lord travels with his people in this course of engagement. In the end God marries his people in Jesus Christ: he marries the Church in Jesus. The People of God is the bride of Jesus. But what a long way! And you, Italians, in your literature have a masterpiece on engagement [I Promessi Sposi]. It is necessary that young people should know it, that they should read it. It is a masterpiece, which tells the story of an engaged couple that suffered so much pain; they travelled a path full of difficulties until they arrived in the end at marriage. Do not leave aside this masterpiece on engagement that Italian literature has in fact offered you. Go ahead, read it and you will see the beauty, the suffering, but also the fidelity of the engaged couple.

In her wisdom, the Church keeps the distinction between being engaged and being married – it is not the same – precisely in view of the delicacy and depth of this verification. Let’s be careful not to scorn light-heartedly this wise teaching, which is nourished also by the experience of conjugal love happily lived. The strong symbols of the body hold the keys of the soul: we cannot treat the bonds of the flesh with heedlessness, without opening some lasting wound in the spirit (1 Corinthians 6:15-20).

Certainly today’s culture and society have become rather indifferent to the delicacy and the seriousness of this passage. And on the other hand, it cannot be said that they are generous with young people that are seriously intending to start a home and bring children into the world! Rather, they often put a thousand obstacles, mental and practical. The engagement is a course of life that must mature as fruit, it is a path of maturation in love, until the moment it becomes marriage.

The pre-marital courses are a special expression of the preparation. And we see so many couples, that perhaps arrive at the course somewhat against their will, “But these priests makes us do a course! But why? We know!” – and they attend against their will. But afterwards they are happy and thank us, because in fact they found there the occasion – often the only one! – to reflect on their experience in terms that aren’t trivial. Yes, many couples are together for a long time, perhaps also in intimacy, sometimes living together, but they don’t really know one another. It seems strange, but experience shows that it is so. Because of this, the engagement is re-evaluated as a time of getting to know one another and of a sharing a plan. The course of preparation for marriage is marked in this perspective, also making use of the simple but intense testimony of Christian spouses. And pointing here also on the essential: the Bible, to be rediscovered together, in a conscious way; prayer, in its liturgical dimension, but also in “domestic prayer,” to be lived in the family, the Sacraments, the sacramental life, Confession, ... in which the Lord comes to dwell with the engaged couple and prepares them to truly receive one another “with the grace of Christ”; and fraternity with the poor, with the needy, who stir us to sobriety and sharing. Engaged couples that work on this grow and all this leads to preparing a lovely celebration of Marriage in a different way, not in a worldly but in a Christian way! We think of these words of God that we heard when he spoke to his people as the fiancé to his fiancée: “I will make you my bride for ever, I will make you my bride in justice and in law, in love and in benevolence. I will make you my bride in fidelity and you will know the Lord” (Hosea 2:21-22). May every engaged couple think of this and say to one another: “I will make you my bride, I will make you my husband.” To wait for that moment; it is a moment, it is a course that goes slowly ahead, but it is a course of maturation. The stages of the course must not be burnt. Maturation is done like this, step by step.

The time of engagement can truly become a time of initiation, to what? To surprise! -- to the surprise of spiritual gifts with which the Lord, through the Church, enriches the horizon of the new family that prepares to live in his blessing. Now I invite you to pray to the Holy Family of Nazareth: Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Pray that the family will undertake this course of preparation; pray for engaged couples. Let us pray all together to Our Lady a Hail Mary for all engaged couples, that they may understand the beauty of this course to Marriage. [Hail Mary ...] And to the engaged couples that are in the Square: “Have a good course of engagement!”

REFLECTION FOR PENTECOST SUNDAY

The coming of the Holy Spirit is a dramatic event in the New Testament. One moment the Apostles are alone in the Upper Room, then the Spirit descends and they are driven out into the streets to proclaim the Risen Lord Jesus. People from all over the world hear them as though they were speaking in those people’s languages. The division of people by language at the tower of Babel, where human beings thought they could get to heaven without God, is reversed, as the Holy Spirit unifies the languages of people brought together by the action of Jesus through the Spirit. As Peter tells them, “There is no other name (apart from Jesus) by which we can be saved.” The arrogance of Babel is replaced by the humility of those whose desire is to be saved through the Resurrection of the Lord.

The modern world really thinks it can be saved, achieve perfection, by its own effort, that we can, in fact, save ourselves. But la lunatic cannot heal himself, nor an insolvent pay his own way out of debt. We all need help from outside; and that is what salvation means. We cannot save ourselves, as men thought at Babel; but we can be saved by God himself. Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2 makes this clear, for his message is simple: He is Risen! He is Lord! He has ascended! He will come again! Repent, believe and be baptised. This is the simple apostolic message which the Church has handed down faithfully through the ages, which by the work of the Holy Spirit, has been spread throughout the world for 20 centuries. It is our work still; to proclaim Jesus as Lord, the only source of salvation, the only source of true unity and peace, a peace “the world cannot give.”

On this celebration of Pentecost, let us take this message to heart. We are the bearers of the Good News, we are called by God to be his witnesses throughout the earth. Let us go forth from this Mass today and become just that. He is Risen! He is Lord! Let us carry this message to the world by both word and deed.

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 20 MAY 2015

"The Christian communities are called to offer support to the educational mission of families, and they do so first of all with the light of the Word of God."

Today, dear Brothers and Sisters, I wish to welcome you because I have seen so many families among you. Good morning to all the families! We continue to reflect on the family. Today we pause to reflect on an essential characteristic of the family, namely, its natural vocation to educate the children so that they grow in responsibility for themselves and for others. What we heard from the Apostle Paul at the beginning is so beautiful: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:20-21). This is a wise rule: the child is educated to listen to his parents and to obey his parents who must not command in a bad way, lest they discourage the children. The children, in fact, must grow without being discouraged, step by step. If you parents say to the children: “Let’s go up that flight of steps” and you take them by the hand and step by step you make them go up, things will go well. But if you say: ”Go up! – ‘But I can’t” – “Go!” this is called exasperating the children, asking the children to do what they are not capable of doing. Therefore, the relation between parents and children must be one of wisdom, of very great balance. Children, obey your parents, this pleases God. And you, parents, do not exasperate your children, asking them to do things they cannot do. And this must be done so that the children grow in responsibility for themselves and for others.

It would seem to be an obvious observation, yet even in our times, difficulties are not lacking. It is difficult for parents to educate their children when they see them only in the evening, when they return home tired from work – those who have the good fortune of having work! It is even more difficult for separated parents, who are weighed down by their condition: poor souls, they have had difficulties, they have separated  and so often the child is taken as hostage and the father speaks badly to him of his mother and the mother speaks badly to him of the father, and so much harm is done. But I say to separated parents: never, never, never take the child as hostage! You have separated because of many difficulties and motives, life has given you this trial, but the children must not bear the weight of this separation, they must not be used as hostages against the other spouse. They must grow hearing the mother speak well of the father, even though they are not together, and the father speaking well of the mother. For separated parents this is very important and very difficult, but they can do it.

However, above all, is the question: how to educate? What tradition do we have today to transmit to our children?

“Critical” intellectuals of all kinds have silenced parents in a thousand ways, to defend the young generations from harm -- real or imagined -- of family education. Among other things, the family has been accused of authoritarianism, favoritism, conformism, and of emotional repression that generates conflicts.

In fact, a rupture has been opened between the family and society, between the family and school; today the educational pact has been broken. And thus, the educational alliance of society with the family has entered into crisis because reciprocal trust has been undermined. The symptoms are many. For instance, relations between parents and teachers in the school have been damaged. At times there are tensions and mutual mistrust and the consequences naturally fall on the children. On the other hand, the so-called “experts” have multiplied, who have taken the role of parents even in the most intimate aspects of education. On emotional life, on personality and on development, on rights and duties the “experts” know everything: objectives, motivations, techniques. And parents must only listen, learn and adapt themselves. Deprived of their role, they often become excessively apprehensive and possessive in dealing with their children, to the point of not correcting them ever: “You can’t correct your child.” They tend increasingly to entrust them to the “experts,” even for the most delicate and personal aspects of their life, putting themselves in the corner, and thus parents today run the risk of excluding themselves from the life of their children. And this is very grave! Today there are cases of this type. I don’t say it happens always, but there are cases. The schoolteacher reprimands the child and writes a note to the parents. I remember a personal anecdote. Once when I was in the fourth year of elementary school I said a bad word to the teacher and the teacher, a good woman, had my mother called. She came the next day, they spoke together and then I was called. And, in front of the teacher, my mother explained to me that what I had done was a bad thing, which I must not do, but my mother did so with such gentleness and she asked me in front of her to ask the teacher for forgiveness. I did so and then I was happy because I said: the story ended well. However, that was the first chapter! When I returned home, the second chapter began ... Imagine if today the teacher does something of the sort, the next day the two parents or one of the two reprimands her, because the “experts” say that children must not be reprimanded like that. Things have changed! For this reason parents must not exclude themselves from the education of their children.

Evidently this approach is not good: it isn’t harmonious, it isn’t dialogic, and instead of fostering collaboration between the family and the other educational agencies, the school, it opposes them.

How have we arrived at this point? There is no doubt that parents, or better, certain educational models of the past had some limitations, there’s no doubt. However, it is also true that there are mistakes that only parents are allowed to make, because they can compensate for them in a way that is impossible for anyone else. On the other hand, we know it well, life has become stingy of time to talk, to reflect, to deal with one another. Many parents are “kidnapped” by work – father and mother must work – and by other preoccupations, hampered by the new needs of the children and the complexity of present-day life – which is like this, we must accept it as it is – and they feel paralyzed out of feart of making a mistake. However, the problem is not only to speak. In fact, a superficial “dialogism” does not lead to a true encounter of the mind and of the heart. Rather, we should ask ourselves: do we try to understand “where” the children really are in their journey? Do we know where their heart really is? And, above all: do we want to know it? Are we convinced that, in reality, they don’t expect something else?

The Christian communities are called to offer support to the educational mission of families, and they do so first of all with the light of the Word of God. The Apostle Paul reminds us of the reciprocity of duties between parents and children: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:20-21). At the base of everything is love, what God gives us, “it is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, ... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:5-6). Even in the best families it is necessary to endure one another, and so much patience is needed to endure one another! But life is like this. Life is not made in a laboratory, it is made in reality. Jesus himself went through family education. In this case also, the grace of the life of Christ leads to fulfillment what is inscribed in human nature. How many wonderful examples we have of Christian parents full of human wisdom! They show that a good family education is the spinal cord of humanism. Their social radiation is the resource that makes it possible to compensate for the lacunae, the wounds, the voids of paternity and maternity that touch less fortunate children. This radiation can do genuine miracles. And these miracles happen every day in the Church.

I hope that the Lord will give Christian families the faith, the freedom and the courage necessary for their mission. If family education rediscovers the pride of its leadership, many things will change for the better, for hesitant parents and for disappointed children. It is time that fathers and mothers return from their exile – because they have exiled themselves from the education of their children --, and reassume fully their educational role. We hope that the Lord will give parents this grace: not to exile themselves from the education of their children. And only love, tenderness and patience can do this.

REFLECTION ON THE SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

What does the Ascension of Jesus really mean to us? The Acts of the Apostles puts it thus: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” It seems clear enough in English, but it is a nightmare for new students of Greek to translate. In fact, the complexity of the Ascension is belied by its apparent simplicity, so that the language problem reflects the reality. Even the explanation given by Jesus, “I go to prepare a place for you…and I shall return for you,” or “I will come back to you, and your hearts will be filled with joy” only seem to go so far in explaining the mystery of the Ascension.

Perhaps the best place to begin is “…and a cloud took him from their sight.” This is at least an image to which modern people can relate. We could be seeing someone off on a flight to Germany. There, on the apron, stands a colossal Lufthansa A-380. As we watch, it taxis to the runway. It lifts off and in seemingly no time at all it is a speck against the sky; then it enters a cloud layer and we see it no more. The plane and our loved one inside seem just to have vanished. But we know that this is not the case; plane and loved one still exist as surely as if they were with us. And we know that, on the appointed return date, we will be there at the airport to welcome back our loved one as the great plane lands.

There is a lot of this in the Ascension. The Apostles are saddened because Jesus is leaving them, and because in their lifetime on earth, they will not see him again. When he returns, it will be at the end of time, at the end of all things. Until then, they will be on their own. Or will they?

First, there is his promise: “Know that I am with you until the end of the world.” Then there are his words in John: “Unless I go, the Advocate, that is, the Holy Spirit, cannot come” What a difference these two factors make! That Jesus’ message must spread throughout the world; that it is our task, our privilege, to participate in this; that the Holy Spirit will lead us, guide us, bring us to that goal; that in all this, through the presence of the Holy Spirit among us, Jesus is made present in our hearts, in our lives.

“I will come back to you, and your hearts will be full of joy.” That is the motivation for the Christian life in its fullest sense. We are not alone in the world; he is with us. And the world is not our final home; that will be in the place he has gone to prepare for us, a place beyond our wildest imaginings. In the meantime, filled with his Spirit, we are the privileged bearers of the Good News of Jesus Christ risen from the dead, to the whole world. Let us rejoice in that task, and carry it out to the very best of our abilities, knowing that wherever we go, whatever we do in his name, he will be with us.

REFLECTION ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

The story in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is a familiar one. The eunuch in the chariot is clearly a high and important official of the Queen (Kandake) of Ethiopia. This is revealed not only by the fact that he is riding in a chariot, but also because he is reading, meaning that he had his own servant steering it. From the fact that he is reading the prophet Isaiah, we can also tell that he is a convert to Judaism. The story also gives us to understand that he is returning to his native land, having made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, probably to participate in the Passover that has just passed. He is reading the oracle in Isaiah 53 about the Suffering Servant of God, of the Servant’s death on our behalf. He is perplexed by it. The Spirit sends Philip to enlighten him. This Philip does before disappearing from the eunuch’s sight.

The incident is one of several in Acts in which the disciples are seen to be sharing in the powers of the Lord Jesus, of doing the same things he did, from healing to mysterious appearances and disappearances. The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is strongly reminiscent of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. There, Jesus joins them as they are perplexed over the prophecies about the Messiah, of how they had hoped that Jesus was that Messiah, and of their disappointment when he had come to such an apparently sticky end. He explains to them the true meaning of the messianic prophecies. At the inn, when he prays the blessing over the bread at supper and breaks it, they “recognise him in the breaking of the bread,” but in that moment he vanishes from their sight.

In the incident of the eunuch, Philip explains the meaning of the oracle in Isaiah, so that the eunuch understands that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Suffering Servant of which he was reading at the very moment in which he met Philip. As a consequence he is baptised by Philip. As the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus burned within them, so the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing. And at the very moment in which the eunuch recognises the crucified Jesus as Lord and Saviour, Philip vanishes from his sight, carried away by the Holy Spirit. We could say that “he recognised the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the Word.”

We, too, are brought to faith by such moments of conviction in the real presence of the Risen Lord. It could be is a verse, a phrase of Scripture. It could be a special moment in which we received the Eucharist, or were inspired by a word from a holy person. There are many other moments in which, in a flash, we might see and recognise the living Lord. And how often, in the moment in which we recognise him, he seems to vanish from our sight. But those moments are also moments in which our faith is inspired and strengthened, so that our hearts, too, burn within us, so that we, too, can go on our way rejoicing. In life as we know it, we may never be continuously aware of his abiding presence. But we have his promise: “I am with you until the end of time.” Let us praise him for those brief glimpses of his glory which strengthen and inspire our faith, then, and let us ask him earnestly to bring us at last to that place where we will experience for ever, as the blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby put it, “our wonder, our rapture when Jesus we see.”

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 29 APRIL

"Today it does not seem easy to speak of marriage as a celebration that is renewed in time, in the different stages of the whole life of the spouses."

After having considered the two accounts of the book of Genesis, our reflection on God’s original design on the man-woman couple is now addressed directly to Jesus

At the beginning of his Gospel, the Evangelist John recounts the episode of the Wedding at Cana, in which the Virgin Mary and Jesus, with his first disciples, were present (Cf. John 2:1-11). Not only did Jesus participate in that marriage, but he “saved the celebration” with his miracle of the wine! Therefore, the first of his prodigious signs, with which he revealed his glory, he carried out in the context of a marriage, and it was a lovely gesture for that nascent family, solicited by Mary’s maternal concern. This makes us recall the Book of Genesis, when God finishes the work of creation and makes his masterpiece; the masterpiece is man and woman. And here, in fact, with this masterpiece is where Jesus begins his miracles, in a marriage, in a wedding feast: a man and a woman. Thus Jesus teaches us that the masterpiece of society is the family: man and woman who love one another! This is the masterpiece!

Since the time of the Wedding at Cana, so many things have changed, but that “sign” of Jesus contains a message that is always valid.

Today it does not seem easy to speak of marriage as a celebration that is renewed in time, in the different stages of the whole life of the spouses. It is a fact that persons who marry are always fewer; this is a fact: young people do not want to get married. Instead, in many countries the number of separations increases, while the number of children decreases. The difficulty to remain together – be it as a couple, be it as a family – leads to breaking the bonds with ever greater frequency and rapidity, and, in fact, it is the children that are the first to bear the consequences. But let us think that the first victims, the most important victims, the victims that suffer most in a separation are the children. If you experience from the time you are little that marriage is a bond for “a determined time,” it will be so for you unconsciously. In fact, many young people are led to renounce the project itself of an irrevocable bond and of a lasting family. I think we have to reflect very seriously on why so many young people “don’t feel like” getting married. There is this culture of the provisional ... everything is provisional, it seems there is nothing definitive.

This fact of young people not wanting to marry is one of the concerns that emerges today: why don’t young people marry? Why do they often prefer to live together and, so often, with “limited responsibility”? Why do many – also among the baptized – have little trust in marriage and the family? It is important to try to understand, if we want young people to be able to find the right way to follow. Why don’t they have confidence in the family?

The difficulties are not only of an economic character, although these are truly serious. Many hold that the change that has happened in these last decades has to do with the emancipation of woman. However, this argument is not valid either; it is a falsehood, it’s not true! It is a form of machismo that always wants to dominate woman. We make the bad figure that Adam made when God said to him: “Why have you eaten the fruit of the tree?” and he <answered>: “The woman gave it to me.” And the fault is the woman’s. Poor woman! We must defend women! In reality, almost all men and women would like affective stability, a solid marriage and a happy family. The family is at the top of all the indexes of satisfaction among young people; however, out of fear of making a mistake, many do not even want to think about it; although they are Christians, they do not think of sacramental marriage, unique and unrepeatable sign of the alliance, which becomes a testimony of faith. In fact, perhaps this fear of failing is the greatest obstacle to receiving the word of Christ, who promises his grace to the conjugal union and to the family. The most persuasive testimony of the blessing of Christian marriage is the good life of Christian spouses and of the family. There is no better way to describe the beauty of the Sacrament! Marriage consecrated by God  to safeguard that bond between man and woman that God has blessed since the creation of the world; and it is source of peace and of goodness for the whole of conjugal and family life. For instance, in the early times of Christianity, this great dignity of the bond between man and woman overcame an abuse held then to be altogether normal, that is, the right of husbands to repudiate their wives, even with the most pretentious and humiliating motives. The Gospel of the family, the Gospel that in fact announces this Sacrament has overcome this culture of habitual repudiation.

The Christian seed of the radical equality between spouses must bear new fruits today. The testimony of the social dignity of marriage will become persuasive in fact this way, the way of witness that attracts, the way of reciprocity between them, of the complementarity between them.

Therefore, as Christians, we must become more exacting in this regard. For instance: to support with determination the right of equal compensation for equal work, why is it taken for granted that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. The disparity is a pure scandal! At the same time, to recognize the maternity of women and the paternity of men as an always valid richness, for the benefit especially of children. Likewise, the virtue of hospitality of Christian families is of crucial importance today, especially in situations of poverty, degradation and family violence.

Dear brothers and sisters, we are not afraid to invite Jesus to the marriage feast, to invite him to our home, so that he is with us and watches over the family. And we are not afraid to invite his Mother Mary also! When Christians marry “in the Lord,” they are transformed into an effective sign of the love of God. Christian do not marry only for themselves: they marry in the Lord in favor of the whole community, of the entire society.

I will speak of this beautiful vocation of marriage also in the next catechesis.

REFLECTION FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

On the day of Pentecost, Peter preaches the first Christian sermon. T a crowd of Jew from many different lands, gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover, he proves that Jesus, who was crucified and is risen from the dead, is the Messiah whom they all awaited. Their reaction is horror – Jesus is the Messiah, and we have killed him! For a Jew, the thought that he has killed the Messiah is about the worst of all thoughts. Peter’s hearers are, they believe condemned for it beyond hope of heaven. Desperately they ask Peter, “What can we do?”

Peter’s answer is one of the most consoling in the whole of Scripture. On Good Friday the crowds called down a curse upon themselves and their children. Jesus’ forgiveness has turned this curse into a blessing. Further, God does not hold the death of his son against them. Jesus had to die. But he died to bring everyone back to God. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross, his rising from the dead, has an enormous significance for Peter’s hearers. “You must repent, and believe in the Good News.” It is not the death of Jesus that brings down a curse upon them; it has, in fact, brought down the blessing of salvation. But only if they accept his saving love into our lives. To refuse to accept Jesus as Saviour, means that they have emptied the cross of meaning in their lives.

This is as true for us today as it was on that first Pentecost. Jesus has died and risen for us, to redeem us from our sins. Actor Mel Gibson, asked if his film The Passion of the Christ did not make the Jews out to be “Christ killers”, held out his own hands and said, “If I were to be asked whose hands killed the Christ, I’d first hold our my own ones and say, ‘These ones did’ ”. In the film, in fact, the hands hammering the nails into Jesus’ hands are Gibson’s. Our sins have indeed nailed Jesus to the cross. By his death on that same cross to which our sins have nailed him, our sins are forgiven. But only if we choose to follow him. And as with those first hearers of the Word, this will only happen if we turn to him, seek forgiveness for our sins and follow wherever he leads us, do whatever he tells us. Otherwise, we empty the cross of meaning in our lives. And it is that which is the worst sin of all. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is thus both promise and warning. It promises us salvation from all our sins. But it warns us that the only path to salvation is through the saving acts of the Lord Jesus. Let us pray, today, that his saving death may become a reality in our lives, and that we might seek him and all that he has done for us, and love and obey him more than anything else, and above all else.

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 22 APRIL

"The social devaluation of the stable and generative alliance of man and woman is certainly a loss for all"

In the previous catechesis on the family, I reflected on the first passage of the creation of the human being, in the first chapter of Genesis, where it is written: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Today I would like to complete the reflection with the second passage, which we find in the second chapter. Here we read that the Lord, after having created heaven and earth, “formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” He is the pinnacle of creation. Then God put man in a most beautiful garden so that he would till and keep it.

The Holy Spirit, who has inspired the whole Bible, suggests for a moment the image of man alone, and that he is lacking something without woman. And he suggests God’s thought, almost God’s sentiment, who looks at him, who sees Adam alone in the garden: he is free, he is lord ... but he is alone. And God sees that this “is not good,” it is as though communion is lacking, plenitude is lacking. “It is not good” – God says – and adds: “I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Then God presents all the animals to man; man gives each one of them its name – and this is another image of man’s lordship over creation -- however, he does not find in any animal one that is like him. Thus, man continues alone.

When, finally, God presents woman to him, exulting man recognizes that creature, and only that one, which is part of him: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Finally, there is a reflection of himself, a reciprocity.

And when a person – it is an example to understand this well – wants to shake hands with another, he must have another before him: if one puts out one’s hand and has nothing, the hand is there, but reciprocity is lacking. So was man, he was lacking something to reach his plenitude, he was lacking reciprocity.

Woman is not a “replica” of man; she comes directly from the creative gesture of God. The image of the “rib” does not express inferiority or subordination but, on the contrary, that man and woman are of the same substance and are complementary. And the fact that – still in the parable – God molded woman while man slept, stresses in fact that she is in no way creature of man, but of God. And it also suggests something else: To find woman, and we can say to find love in woman, to find woman, man must first dream about her and then he finds her.

God’s trust in man and woman, to whom he entrusts the earth, is generous, direct and full. However, it is here where the Evil One introduces in his mind suspicion, incredulity, mistrust and finally disobedience to the commandment that protected them. They fall into that delirium of omnipotence that contaminates everything and destroys harmony. We also feel it within ourselves, so many times, all of us.

Sin generates mistrust and division between man and woman. Their relationship is threatened by thousands of ways of prevarication and submission, of deceitful seduction and humiliating arrogance, even the most dramatic and violent. History bears the imprints. Let us think, for instance, of the negative excesses of patriarchal cultures. Let us think of the many forms of machismo, where woman is considered to be second class. Let us think of the instrumentalization and merchandising of the feminine body in the present media culture. However, let us also think of the recent epidemic of mistrust, skepticism and even hostility that is spreading in our culture – in particular beginning with a comprehensible mistrust of women – in relation to an alliance between man and woman that is capable at the same time of refining the intimacy of communion and of guarding the dignity of the difference.

If we do not find a wave of sympathy for this alliance, capable of establishing the new generations to repair the mistrust and the indifference, children will come into the world ever more uprooted from the maternal womb. The social devaluation of the stable and generative alliance of man and woman is certainly a loss for all. We must reassess marriage and the family! And the Bible says a beautiful thing: man finds woman, they find one another, and man must leave something to find her fully. And for this, man will leave his father and his mother to go with her. It is beautiful! This means to begin a journey. Man is all for woman and woman is all for man.

The care of this alliance of man and woman -- also if they are sinners and are wounded, confused or humiliated, mistrustful and uncertain -- is therefore for us believers a demanding and exciting vocation, in the present condition. The same passage of creation and of sin, at the end, gives us a most beautiful icon: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.” It is an image of tenderness to that sinful couple that leaves us with our mouth open: the tenderness of God for man and for woman. It is an image of paternal custody of the human couple. God himself takes care of and protects his masterpiece. 

FR JOHNSON INSTALLED AS ADMINISTRATOR OF THE CATHEDRAL

On Sunday the 19th of April, Archbishop Nxumalo OMI installed Fr Johnson as the administrator of the Sacred Heart Cathedral. As many already know, this is not the first Cathedral where he has held this position. 

After having converted to Catholicism, Fr Johnson had entered the Oblate novitiate but decided to complete his studies for the Archdiocese of Durban. He was ordained by the late Archbishop Dennis Hurley, and took up posts at the Montebello Mission and then as Chaplain to CATHSOC (the forerunner to ACTS). In the latter posting he had the largest university chaplaincy in the country. As a young priest, Frs Johnson and Nxumalo ran various courses together and went on preaching tours across Natal.

At that time, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate were running most of the major parishes in the city of Durban, but felt that the time was right to pull out of these and allow the diocese to begin taking charge of their own diocese. In doing so, the Oblates could return to the missions. Having had such success in the University Chaplaincy, Fr Johnson was appointed to the administration of Emmanuel Cathedral by Archbishop Hurley. 

In 1989 he resigned his post at the Cathedral and began work on the Afrikaans Apostolate. This entailed a transfer to Pretoria where he led the team who, among other things, were tasked with translating liturgical books into Afrikaans. 

Having had such success on the Afrikaans Apostolate, and having gathered a competent team around himself, he felt encouraged to act on a calling he had so often heard: the Oratorian vocation. He traveled through Europe and America to investigate the possibilities, and then gathered a team together in Oudtshoorn. At that time the St Saviour's Cathedral in the city was in need of care, and so Fr Johnson took charge of the Cathedral. The community in Oudtshoorn continued to grow. 

It was during this time that the St. Philip Neri Collegium was founded. This was established by the bishops of the old Cape province to raise the standard of candidates entering major seminary. At the Collegium, students would be given a sound education in theology, scripture, language, and social skills. Care of the Collegium was vested in Fr Johnson.

By 2002 the community had grown very large and the time was right for the establishment of a second community. The parish of St. Bernadette's in Port Elizabeth seemed to have all the facilities for a community and did not have a priest of its own. Once again, Fr Johnson would take charge of a team and begin the new foundation which was canonically established in 2008. 

Having served as priest in charge of St Bernadette's until 2008, and Provost until 2014, Fr Johnny settled in for semi-retirement (he would, and does, remain rector of the Collegium which had since moved to Port Elizabeth). The community had grown very quickly and most of the brothers had now been ordained to the priesthood, and were ready to assume leadership of the Oratory.

Unknown to the Oratorian community in Port Elizabeth, the Archbishop of Bloemfontein had a problem. The priests who had administered the Cathedral for so many years were due to retire and their superiors had asked for them to be relieved. His Grace was urgently searching for priests able to assume the responsibility of running the Cathedral (which serves the entire City of Bloemfontein). While visiting Port Elizabeth in July last year, the Archbishop proposed the idea of a Bloemfontein Oratory. Despite his advanced years (having turned 76 in March 2015), Fr Johnson answered the call with great enthusiasm, and once again gathered a team around himself, this time to take on the daunting task of running a large metropolitan Cathedral. 

And so on Sunday, Fr John Newton Johnson took the oaths and made his profession of faith in the Cathedral, witnessed by the Archbishop, who then conferred his blessing and led the celebration of Holy Mass. 

The small community of Oratorians have only been in Bloemfontein a little over three months, but already feel settled in the city and in the parish. All feel privileged to be able to work under the leadership of Fr Johnson, who strides the South African Catholic community as a colossus. 

Thanks must again go to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate - past and present - who built our beautiful Cathedral, and who ministered to the faithful in Bloemfontein for so many years. 

REFLECTION FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

On the Second Sunday of Easter we considered Doubting Thomas and the very real and important role played by faith in our encounter with the risen Lord Jesus. The key role of faith is seen even more clearly in the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, which is the focus of today’s gospel. “You believe because you have seen,” Jesus told his disciples on his first appearance in the Upper Room. Yet when Jesus, resurrected and no longer bound by time and space, appears alongside the two disciples on the road, they are unable to recognise him despite actually seeing him with their own eyes.

Why is this? Simply because they are without faith in his promise of the resurrection. There is a delicious irony in their words to him about his death on the cross: “You must be the only one who does not know…” How Jesus must have chuckled inwardly at this statement. But kindly, gently, he proceeds to explain the Scriptures’ prophecy of his Death and Resurrection to them. Arriving at the inn where they were to spend the night – remember, it was too dangerous to travel by night in those days – they see him about to continue on his journey. Something about this “stranger,” however, moves then to invite him to be their guest. Then follows that moving moment when they “recognise him in the breaking of the bread.” In that instant, he is no longer with them, but such is their conviction that they have encountered the Risen Lord, that they get up and travel through the perilous night, returning to Jerusalem to report to the Apostles the Good News.

So, in this story, seeing is not necessarily believing. The two disciples had first to understand  the meaning of his death. Their faith had to be awakened. Only then were they able to recognise the Risen Lord Jesus. And this reminds us that faith is the foundation of Christianity. It is not enough to know the facts about the Resurrection; but it is essential to believe in, and through this to encounter, the Risen Lord.

This story, if we read it carefully, should remind us of the central act of our worship; the Mass. First, Jesus quotes from Scripture, simultaneously preaching to them on its meaning. Is this not just what happens during the first half of the Mass? Then, as he says the blessing over the bread (“Blessed are you, O Lord, king of the universe…” the Jewish grace, prayers which we still use today at Mass), they “recognise him in the breaking of the bread.” – exactly what happens in the second part of the Mass. And the link? “Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road?” Listening to the word of God and its explanation prepared them for the moment in which they recognised him.

We, too, are privileged to travel with Jesus to Emmaus every Sunday when we participate in worship at Mass. That is why we need to follow the Word of God attentively, to listen carefully to the explanation of its meaning in our lives, and to affirm our faith strongly in the words of the Creed. In this way we are prepared, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This is all part of a journey; our journey to encounter the living Lord Jesus face to face, and to know him in faith as surely as his disciples did. Let us enter this journey with joy and hope this Easter; and as did the two disciples, may we come to recognise him in the breaking of the bread and to know him personally as our Living Lord.

Fr. Phillip

POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE 15 APRIL

"God has entrusted the earth to the alliance of man and of woman: its failure makes the world arid of affections and darkens the sky of hope."

Today’s catechesis is dedicated to a central aspect of the subject of the family: that of the great gift that God made to humanity with the creation of man and woman and with the Sacrament of Marriage. This catechesis and the next are concerned with the difference and complementarity between man and woman, who are at the summit of the divine creation; the two following ones will be on Marriage.

We begin with a brief comment on the first account of Creation in the Book of Genesis. Here we read that God, after having created the universe and all living beings, created his masterpiece, namely, the human being, which he made in his own image: “in the image of God He created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

As we all know, sexual difference is present in so many forms of life, in the long scale of the living. However, only in man and in woman does it bear in itself the image and likeness of God: the biblical text repeats it a good three times in two verses (26-27): Man and woman are image and likeness of God! This tells us that not only man in himself is the image of God, not only woman in herself is the image of God, but also man and woman, as a couple, are the image of God. The difference between man and woman is not for opposition, or for subordination, but for communion and creation, always in the image and likeness of God.

Experience teaches it: to know himself well and to grow harmoniously, the human being is in need of reciprocity between man and woman. When this does not happen, the consequences are seen. We are made to listen to and to help one another. We can say that without the reciprocal enrichment in this relation – in thought and in action, in affections and in work, also in the faith – the two cannot understand in depth what it means to be a man and a woman.

Modern and contemporary culture has opened new areas, new freedoms and new depths for the enrichment of the understanding of this difference. However, it has also introduced many doubts and much skepticism. For instance, I wonder, for example, if the so-called gender theory is not also an expression of a frustration and of a resignation, which aims to cancel the sexual difference because it no longer knows how to address it. Yes, we risk taking a step backward. The removal of the difference, in fact, is the problem, not the solution. To resolve their problems of relation, man and woman must instead talk more to one another, listen more to one another, know one another more, love one another more. They must relate to one another with respect and cooperate with friendship. With these human bases, sustained by the grace of God, it is possible to plan the matrimonial and family union for the whole of life. The matrimonial and family bond is something serious, and it is for everyone, not only for believers. I would like to exhort the intellectuals not to abandon this topic, as if it had become secondary for the commitment in favor of a freer and more just society.

God has entrusted the earth to the alliance of man and of woman: its failure makes the world arid of affections and darkens the sky of hope. The signs are already worrying, and we see them. I would like to indicate, among many, two points that I believe must be attended with greater urgency.

The first. It is without doubt that we must do much more in favor of woman if we want to give back more strength to the reciprocity between men and women. In fact, it is necessary that women not only be more listened to, but that her voice has real weight, a recognized authoritativeness in the society and in the Church. The way itself with which Jesus considered women –we read it in the Gospel, it is so! -- in a context less favorable than ours, because in those times women were in fact in second place ... and Jesus considered her in a way which gives a powerful light, which enlightens a path that leads far, of which we have only followed a small piece. We have not yet understood in depth what things the feminine genius can give us, which woman can give to society and also to us. Perhaps to see things with other eyes that complements the thoughts of men. It is a path to follow with more creativity and more audacity.

A second reflection concerns the topic of man and woman created in the image of God. I wonder if the crisis of collective trust in God, which does us so much harm, and makes us become sick with resignation, incredulity and cynicism, is not also connected to the crisis of the alliance between man and woman. In fact the biblical account, with the great symbolic fresco on the earthly paradise and original sin, tells us in fact that the communion with God is reflected in the communion of the human couple and the loss of trust in the celestial Father generates division and conflict between man and woman.

From here comes the great responsibility of the Church, of all believers, and first of all of believing families, to rediscover the beauty of the creative design that inscribes the image of God also in the alliance between man and woman. The earth is filled with harmony and trust when the alliance between man and woman is lived well. And if man and woman seek it together between themselves and with God, without a doubt they will find it. Jesus encourages us explicitly to give witness to this beauty, which is the image of God. 

REFLECTION FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

It is a common accusation of non-believers that Christianity cannot prove the existence of God. But then, neither can non-believers disprove his existence. For the Christian, the argument goes much deeper that a mere disagreement between proof and non-proof. A Christian believes in the existence of God on the very solid basis of faith.

For example, there is no physical proof of the Resurrection of Jesus. There is the historical fact of the empty tomb. That is history! But it is only through faith that the risen Jesus presents himself to us. Reason can lead us so far: it is only when we step out in faith, beyond reason, placing our faith in the existence of God, that we discover He actually does exist.

The disciples accepted Jesus’ teaching that He would suffer and die and rise again on the third day. But they did not accept it literally. It was only when he actually appeared before them, that they saw the literalness of His prophesies. But they, nevertheless, actually saw the Risen Lord before them on that Easter Sunday. It was only Thomas who was not present. It is not surprising that Thomas, like the other disciples, refused to believe unless they were confronted with the evidence. But it is Jesus’ words to Thomas, “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,” that are important. This he meant for us. We are presented with evidence of the Risen Jesus in so many ways: the sacraments, the scriptures, the 2 000 year continued existence of the Church, the Body of Christ. But all of these are pointers, even very strong ones, to the reality of the Resurrection. It is only when we take that step of faith: starting to live as though Jesus is Lord and had really risen from the dead, that He will  become a living presence in our lives. Faith, that wonderful gift of God, is what makes the whole story of Jesus and his revealing of the Father real for us. The Apostles saw and believed: even Doubting Thomas saw and believed: we too, if we begin by accepting the Gift of Faith which God gives us, can, by the gift of that same faith, see and believe. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” The Apostles started with seeing which led to believing: We, who begin with faith and end with believing, are specially blessed. Let us thank God today for the gift of Faith, which enables us to believe. May that faith grow ever stronger in us, that we might see Him more clearly every day, and that in turn, our faith may grow yet stronger in the Risen Lord and that He in turn, may become an ever more powerful presence in our lives.

Fr. Phillip

REFLECTION FOR EASTER SUNDAY

One of the most dramatic images of the Risen Jesus in the New Testament is to be found in the heavenly assembly in the Book of Revelation – also known as the Apocalypse of John. In it, John describes the risen Jesus as follows: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (Rev. 5,6). It is a striking, even terrifying image. The woolly lamb is, in our imagination, the weakest and most helplessly gentle of creatures. Yet here it becomes a divine creature with the fullness of power – seven horns – and the all-seeing vision of God – seven eyes.

Almost all of us would pass over the word “standing” as merely describing the Lamb’s physical position. Yet it is, perhaps, the most important word in the verse. In Greek, the word is hestekos, which comes from another Greek word, anhistemi, which means to “rise up.” In other words, the Lamb “standing” means the resurrected Lamb, and standing “as if it had been slain” is the crucified and resurrected Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The Afrikaans word “opstanding” translates it perfectly.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus, because it is simply, without qualification or rival, the most important event in history. Resurrection is a Jewish idea, the basis for which we first encounter in the Bible as early as Genesis 2,7: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”. For a Hebrew, we are formed from those two most fragile of things; dust and breath. 

And yet, in this image, it is the breath, the Spirit, of God that gives us life. When God takes back his Spirit, life leaves us and we return “to the dust from which we came.” It is easy to see from where this imagery comes.

In other words, for the Hebrews, man is not a spirit trapped is a body; he is a living body. We are dependent upon God for our very existence. And for this reason, eternal life is impossible without a body. Therefore, without a resurrection, there can be no eternal life. And for a Christian, the Resurrection of Jesus makes possible our own resurrection; if he has not risen from the dead, then we cannot rise from the dead, and there is nothing beyond death for us. Paul puts this all exquisitely in 1 Corinthians 15.

And so, during this season of the Church, there is an explosion of joy in the Resurrection. “He is risen! He is risen! He is risen!” For in the Resurrection of Jesus is all our hope, and it is our only hope. It is strange, is it not, that all our hope should be placed in an empty tomb? Yet this is exactly the basis of all our hopes, our longings, our desires. May God grant us a blessed and happy Easter 2015, and may we all experience the life-giving power of his Resurrection in our lives.