13th SUNDAY (C) 30 June 2013

Fr. Tom Richie

We read in the Gospel to-day about Jesus and the Apostles going up to Jerusalem and wanting to stay at a Samaritan village. But the Samaritans refused to let them stay because they said that they were going up to Jerusalem, the city of the Samaritans’ enemy. By the time of Jesus Samaritan and Jews had been enemies for five centuries, ever since the people of Judah returned from the Babylonian exile. The Samaritans claimed that they preserved the original Jewish religion and the returning people brought new changes that the Samaritans rejected and from then on fought over bitterly. The reaction of James and John to being rejected was great indignation. They wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. They misunderstood the mission of Jesus. Jesus told them “no”, that is not what our mission is about, destroying people and punishing them for lack of respect and cooperation. James and John and the other Apostles have to learn they have come to serve, to be humble, to accept rejection as a way of converting their enemies.  It is when we humble ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable before our enemies that we can win them over.

I remember when I first went to work among the indigenous people in Papua New Guinea there were some fundamentalist protestant missionaries who hated Catholics living about 4 kilometres away from my parish. The only walking track from one of my churches where I said Mass each week went right past where they lived. It was a five hour walk and one day when I was walking past their house I was thirsty and I had an inspiration to ask them for a drink of water. The woman who opened the door was shocked to find a Catholic priest standing at her door. At first she could hardly speak but she gave me a drink. It was difficult for me to ask the first time but I think it was an inspiration from God. Then each week when I was walking past their house I called in and asked for a drink of water. Gradually the woman became more friendly and after about a month she asked me to sit down in the shade and brought me an orange drink and her husband came and started to talk to me. That was the beginning of breaking down their terrible prejudice even hatred against Catholics.

Pope Francis has told us to accept others. In May during a homily he said: “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone, even the Atheists. And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace.” The Pope has appealed to us to recognise the good that others do and to let them know that we appreciate the good that they do. He does not want us to focus on what separates us but to see what bring us together with those of other beliefs and even those with no beliefs. For a long time we have focused on the things that have separated us: differences in doctrine, differences in the way we do things, but always we believe we are right and they are wrong. Now we are asked to look at the good things that they do and appreciate them.

This should apply to all areas of our lives. Instead of being so quick to judge and condemn others among our families, our friends, our church community and others let us listen to them and learn of the good things that they have done and the goodness that is in their hearts even if they see things differently from us. We can help to bring about the peace that Jesus came to bring.

12th SUNDAY (C) 23 June 2013

Fr. Tom Richie (OFM)

 “We are baptised into Christ” St. Paul tell us in the second reading today. When we are baptised we become Christians, we become a part of Christ.  It is the Gospel which tells us something about what that means. Jesus said to his Disciples: “If any want to be my followers let them deny themselves take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  To be baptised, to be a Christian means to share in some way in Christ’s Cross.

There is a film that I saw last year, that some of you may have seen which tells a story about carrying our cross. The film is called “The Way”.

It is the story of a Father who went to identify and bring home the body of his son who died overseas in the Pyrenees on the French/Spanish boarder. It was there that unknown to his father he was beginning to walk the pilgrim Road to Compostela which finishes at the great Church of St. James in Spain. It is a famous pilgrimage that countless Christians have followed. Many make the journey carrying a cross. His Father found out a little about the significance of the pilgrimage and because he had not been on good terms with his son he decided to complete the journey for his son in a way to make up to him by carrying his son’s ashes and leaving some of his ashes at significant points along the journey.

As he journeyed resolutely on he met various people whom he tried to ignore and treated rudely. But circumstances kept throwing three other walking companions together with him. The father was an American ophthalmologist. The other three were a fat Dutchman loud mouthed and prone to take drugs who said he was making the journey to lose weight so he would not have to buy a new suite for his brother’s third wedding; an American woman who was angry and talkative and said she was there to give up cigarettes; an Irish writer fond of drink and very talkative who has lost his ability to write. At first they clashed and argued and separated several times, but somehow always came back together.

Gradually they learned each other’s stories and the cross each was carrying: The American grieving for the son he regretted not understanding better; the Dutchman whose wife refuses to sleep with him and he wants to change his life and be more acceptable; the woman who was abused by her husband and who had had an abortion and now grieves the loss of the daughter she longed for; the Irishman who had lost meaning to his life along with his faith and could no longer write. They gradually learned tolerance and compassion for each other and a bond of friendship and love grew between them which helped transform the life of each one. Each one was able to support the other in carrying their cross and they were able to find meaning in their lives through the love and friendship they experienced.

It was a story about life, about every-one’s life. It is about your life and my life. Each one of us has our cross to carry. Often we don’t recognise our cross. It may just seem as if our life is in a mess. It is hard to cope. We may be depressed, we may feel guilty, we may be carrying anger. That is our cross. We need to recognise our cross and realise that we are sharing in the cross of Jesus. The way to find the strength to carry our cross is by trying to help others to carry their cross and by being willing to share the story of our pain with others. We will learn that Jesus walks with us in the pilgrimage of our life. This can change us.

11th SUNDAY (C) 16 June 2013

Fr. Gerard Kelly

As we get to the end of that gospel, Jesus says to the women, “your sins are forgiven.”  This can present a bit of a puzzle for us, as nowhere are we told what her sin was.  Yet, the Pharisee who had invited Jesus to the meal was quite clear that this woman would not be welcome at his table, that she had a bad name in the town.  He was even beginning to have his doubts about Jesus: if Jesus were truly a prophet he would know the woman had a bad name and he wouldn’t have anything to do with her.  However, what we see from Jesus is a true act of prophecy both in what he says and in what he does.  Jesus knows the truth about both the woman and the Pharisee, and he proclaims the truth about how God deals with people.

The first thing we should learn from this scene concerns sin.  The Pharisee seems to be very confident that he knows what sin is and who the sinners are.  He points to the woman.  Jesus never denies that the woman is a sinner.  In fact, in his final words to the Pharisee he acknowledges that she has many sins.  The action of the woman seems to indicate that she too knows that she is a sinner.  There is no indication, however, that the Pharisee ever thinks of himself as being a sinner.  In true prophetic style, Jesus shows him up as a sinner.  So, what is his sin?  His sin seems to be in the way he slots this woman into a category and responds to her in that way.  While this is hurtful to the woman – and, indeed, she has probably long been forced to live the way he has categorised her – it is just as damaging to the Pharisee.  He has created a wall around himself that doesn’t allow other people to enter in.  He is unable to respond to the love that other people show, and only responds to a pre-determined and narrow image that he has of them.  His sin is that he is unable to recognise what his life is like and so is not open to changing it.

When thinking about sin it is easy to focus on the woman in the scene, but less easy to focus on the Pharisee.  When we focus on the woman we see someone whose sin is public and well known.  If we turn to the Pharisee in the story, then Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisee becomes a challenge to us to recognise the sin that is part of our lives but that perhaps we have never acknowledged.  I think Jesus wants us to recognise the sin that is probably bigger than any one of us individually, but which can pervade the group, be it family or society.  Jesus wants us to think about the sin that is all pervasive and for that reason is never acknowledged.

Let me give a couple of examples from recent events in our society.  The first is the incident of the racial slur screamed at a footballer by a young fan at a recent football match.  This led to very wide media coverage and public discussion.  The thing that struck me was the statement, “I didn’t know this was a racist word.”  This is what the Pharisee was like: he didn’t truly recognise the person bent low on the floor near him.  His whole worldview was blind to anyone or anything beyond his immediate circle.  He didn’t recognise that she was a woman who was capable of much love.  The second example I think of is related to the on-going debate in our society about asylum seekers.  Of course, we need to recognise that the arrival of boats presents us with difficult practical and political challenges.  Yet, some in the community easily make judgements about these people without knowing their true story.  It is as though we are blind to the humanity of other people.  This too is a bit like the Pharisee, who failed to show hospitality to Jesus when he arrived after a long walk.  It is Jesus who points this out: the woman washed his feet, dusty from the journey, with her tears; she anointed them with perfumed oil.  She showed him love in a way that the Pharisee did not.  The Pharisee was focused on himself; the woman was focused on Jesus.  Because she showed such love, says Jesus, her many sins must be forgiven her – otherwise she would not show such love.

If the first thing to take from this gospel is Jesus’ prophetic words and actions about sin, there is something else we must notice.  This is how Jesus deals with sin.  He doesn’t yell at people or get angry with them; he simply loves them.  He shows extravagant love – so extravagant that he died on a cross for all of us.  Here once again we see Jesus the prophet.  Encounter with Jesus frees people to begin to love in a similarly extravagant way.  This is what happened to the woman.  There is no doubt that she underwent a conversion.  Her love was the sign of her repentance.  This is what Jesus was calling the Pharisee to do: to let people love, let them show their very best, rather than push them into acting in the worst way.

This takes us to the core of Jesus’ message.  We are all capable of great acts of selfishness and misery just as we are all capable of great acts of love.  Jesus, by his love for us, invites us to renounce what comes from the worst of human nature and to live out of the goodness that resides in each one of us – that goodness given by God when he created us.