Baptism of the Lord

Baptism of the Lord  2026

Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38; Matthew 3:13-17

“This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Who is? “Don’t ask daft questions,” I hear you cry. “It’s obvious. It is Jesus Christ Our Lord, and this is the central part of the Epiphany, as He is SHOWN FORTH as the Beloved Son of the Father.”

“100% correct” I respond, “Or rather, 99%. Is there anyone else?” “Yes, of course”, you reply. “There are thee and me, because we have been baptised into Jesus, and therefore we too are beloved sons and daughters of the Father”.

“Spot on!” say I. “But what are the implications of that, apart from knowing that we are loved with the greatest love of all, which is huge in itself?”

“That is easy to answer”, comes your return of serve. “As St. Peter said in his sermon which we have just heard, because we have been baptised into Jesus, and anointed like Him ‘with the Holy Spirit and with power’ we too have to go about doing good ‘and healing all who are oppressed by the devil, because God [is with us]’”.

Right, so that is our gift, our privilege, and our task. We have been anointed as beloved children of God, and so we have the responsibility of loving and serving others, building the Kingdom to the best of our ability. Does that cover everything?

Well, essentially it does, but we still need to listen to the prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah) in order to fill in some of the details. There are words and phrases which occur and recur, which we must take to heart.

For instance, the prophet three times uses the word “justice”. Is there justice in our world, our country and our society, in our own actions, words and thoughts?

Certainly not in our world, we would have to admit. The gap between rich and poor is increasing, both in the world at large, and in our own country. Pope Leo recently denounced a situation in which billionaires, and even a trillionaire, are encouraged to thrive, whilst many go hungry.

Our government has slashed overseas aid, and the Leader of the Opposition is committed to slashing it still further, while the Reform Party wishes to abolish it altogether. Where is justice there? At home, the gap between rich and poor is increasing by leaps and bounds. When the Chancellor made a half-hearted effort in the recent budget to reduce it, she was denounced by opposition parties, and by the right-wing press. It seems that justice is not a priority for our politicians, who are responding to what they believe is the mood of the people. As sons and daughters baptised in the Lord, we have an obligation to demonstrate that our mood is very different.

Around the world, we see injustice prevailing in Europe, where Putin continues to seek control of Ukraine and other countries, and in the western hemisphere where tyranny is pursued by an American administration, many of whose members claim to be Catholic, whilst having no regard for the Scriptures, or for Catholic Social Teaching. Further afield, the Israeli government, along with Islamist groups such as Hamas, reject the entire concept of just and peaceful co-existence.

Within the Church, despite Deutero-Isaiah’s description of the Messiah, and therefore of His Church, as not breaking the bruised reed, or quenching the faintly burning wick, there is a mood of intolerance, frequently, it seems, among younger members of the clergy, who seek to lay heavy burdens on the anawim, the “poor of the Lord”. Jesus was baptised as the Beloved Son of the Father, and we have been baptised in Him. How well are we living our Baptism by working for justice and right?

2nd Sunday of Christmas

2nd Sunday of Christmas 2026

Sirach 24: 1-2, 8-12; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 15-18; John 1: 1-5, 9-14

Do you remember “the Last Gospel”? In the Tridentine Rite of Mass, with which some of us grew up, at the end of Mass the priest would turn to the people and proclaim “Ite, missa est”, from which (the word “Missa”) the Mass takes its name. Literally, it means “Go, she (presumably the Church—ecclesia) has been sent”.

However, we didn’t go. Instead, the priest moved to the “Gospel side” of the altar, and proclaimed the prologue to St. John’s Gospel, a shortened version of which we have just heard. Clearly, this had been tacked onto the Mass at some point in history—the liturgists could tell us when—presumably in response to some heresy which denied the divinity of Christ, or His two natures (divine and human) or something similar. It also serves as a reminder that what is sometimes described as “the traditional Latin Mass” was itself subject to change, and in its form was actually much further from the tradition of the early Church than the rite of Mass which we have today.

What is John doing when he gives us this, at first sight, somewhat abstract introduction to his Gospel? He is doing theology—literally, the study of God—which is one of his hallmarks. Specifically, he is putting flesh on the bones of the Christmas narratives of Matthew, and especially Luke, drawing out the inner meaning of the events which they describe.

From Matthew, we learn of a child descended from Abraham, via King David, who is conceived virginally by the Holy Spirit, born at Bethlehem, visited and worshipped by Gentile Wise Men who speak of him as “the King of the Jews”. Herod implies that He is the Messiah, the Christ, yet seeks to kill Him.

Luke gives us a fuller account. His genealogy, delayed until the beginning of the public ministry, traces Jesus’ family tree right back to Adam. He also describes events leading up to the birth of John the Baptist, whom he identifies as a blood relation of Jesus, and pictures for us the Annunciation and the other events which form the Joyful mysteries of the Rosary.

We find that Jesus is given His name through the angel Gabriel, and is proclaimed by the same angel as everlasting ruler of the House of Jacob, though He is also to be called “Son of God”. It is also through Luke that so many details of the birth and infancy of the child are presented to us.

So far, so powerful, but John’s prologue takes us further and deeper. Famously, he begins “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Thus, we have a being known as the Word, who is God and is co-eternal with God. Everything which exists is made through the Word, who is light and life.

We are then told that the Word has come into the world, and to a people, described as His own, who have rejected Him, though some have accepted Him, thus becoming children of God. How, though, has the Word come into the world? This is the theological climax of the whole Christmas story: Ho logos sarx egeneto—verbum caro factum est—THE WORD BECAME FLESH.

In those few words, the underlying meaning and significance of Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts are revealed, clarified, and set in context. The whole narrative of the angelic visits, the work of the Holy Spirit, the virginal conception, the birth of the child Jesus, the visits of shepherds and Wise Men amount to this one simple, yet earth-shattering reality, that God has become one of us, taking our human flesh in the person of His Word, becoming the man Jesus the Christ. Thus, the last, and vital piece of the jigsaw is provided by John.

Christmas Masses 2025

Christmas Night and Dawn 2025

Night Mass

Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

In October 1959, my home parish welcomed a new parish priest. I was nine years old at the time, and five months into my long career as an altar server. By the time our new priest retired and left the parish, I had myself been a priest for thirteen years.

The priest in question had many good qualities, but patience was not among them. This lack showed up particularly during the great Feasts of the Church. I think that nerves were to blame: he was anxious to get things right, and consequently would work himself up into something of a cold fury. Holy Week was the worst time for us altar servers: no Holy Week was complete until Father had blown his top.

Christmas was a slightly different proposition. It wasn’t we servers who experienced his wrath, but the world in general. His homilies at Midnight Mass were notorious. I still have vivid memories of Christmas 1969, the year of the first moon landing, when US President Richard Nixon became the target of his rage.

Apparently, Tricky Dickie, as he was known to his fellow countrymen and women, had described the arrival of man on the moon as the greatest event since Creation. Admittedly, it was a fairly daft thing to say, but does anyone seriously expect politicians of any shape, size, or nation to talk sense? Apparently, Father had, and hurled darts of fire at the unwitting head of Mr. Nixon.

His real tour de force, though, came a few years later, when I was enjoying my Christmas break from the seminary. Rocking on his heels, a sure sign of an impending explosion, our priest announced, in a voice rising to a falsetto, “Christmas is NOT A TIME for eating until you are SICK, or DRINKING UNTIL YOU ARE STUPID !!” Oh, right! I am glad you told me that.

So we know what Christmas is not a time for. We might be tempted to add that it is not really a time for bellowing at the flock, but we will let that pass. Perhaps it would have been more helpful to explain what it IS a time for.

Both Isaiah and the angel tell us that it is a time for JOY. The prophet states this, then repeats it, then repeats it again. “You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its JOY; they REJOICE before you as with JOY at the harvest, as they are glad…”

The angel calls to the shepherds: “I bring you good news of great JOY, that will be for all the people”. His fellow angels reinforce the message with their chorus of praise: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased”.

Have you got the message? Christmas is a time for joy. What is joy? It is not the same as happiness, which is a passing thing, something which HAPPens: happiness may depend on the weather, on the state of our digestion, on the form of our local team. Joy goes far deeper.

We may be UNhappy, we may be grieving, we may be depressed, but we may still have joy, because joy goes to the root of our being. Joy tells us that, despite everything, life is worth living, because ultimately God is in charge, and that He has come into our world, has taken on our human nature, with all its laughter and tears, all its triumphs and disasters, and because He has taken that nature in the child of Bethlehem, He will never be absent from the world.

Closely allied with joy is hope, as in the letter to Titus; hope, confident hope, that this God who is one of us, thanks to His Nativity in Bethlehem, will return in glory when all is made new. Life may be tough, but deep down we know that, as Mother Julian of Norwich, the great mediaeval English mystic wrote, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”. Christ is born, God is with us—Emmanuel, and we have every reason for joy.

           Christmas Dawn Mass

Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20

Why shepherds? Why is the Good News of the human birth of Jesus, the Son of God, made known first to shepherds? After all, they weren’t considered to be particularly devout. Why were they chosen to be the first to hear the tidings of great joy? the first to encounter God in our human flesh?

I suppose that you could point out that they, at least, were awake and available to receive the message. That is more important than it may seem, because it raises a question for us. How awake am I to the presence of Christ? How open am I to receiving Him? This takes us back to the beginning of Advent, and that repeated refrain “Wake up! Stay awake!” Perhaps that is the first insight which the choice of the shepherds gives us.

Is there more to it than that? Well, the shepherds, despite carrying out an important job, were not highly regarded. We have heard, in the last few days, the Magnificat, Our Lady’s hymn of praise, which the Church prays every day at Evening Prayer (Vespers). This hymn tells us that God raises the lowly, and casts down the mighty. The adult Jesus, in His preaching and His prayers, would hammer home the same message. Are you and I humble of heart? Do we give special attention and care to the poor and the lowly?

Another thing: how often are shepherds mentioned in the Scriptures? More often than I could count, I would say. And how often is “Shepherd” used as a term for God? “The Lord is my shepherd” declares the most famous of all the Psalms: “O Shepherd of Israel, hear us” pleads another. And how much space does Jesus Himself devote to speaking of Himself as the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep, who knows His own, and they know Him?

How conscious are we of the Good Shepherd’s care and sacrifice for us? How open are we to His desire to know us intimately and deeply? How eager are we to know Him? How much time and attention do we devote to him?

Taken together then, there is a whole raft of reasons why it was appropriate for shepherds to be the first recipients of the Good News. Having received that News, those tidings of great joy, what do they do? They hurry to look for Jesus. Having found Him, they spread the Good News which they have heard—“they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child” says St. Luke. After that, they go back to work “glorifying and praising God”.

Does that present us with three tasks? Firstly, to look for Jesus: secondly, to make Him known: thirdly to glorify and praise God. In the evening Mass at Yealand, I hid the crib figure of the Lord, then sent the children to look for Him. I next put the question “Where do we find Jesus today?” and teased out the answer. [That is the plan. I am writing this in advance.] We find Him, don’t we, in His word proclaimed in the Scriptures, in the Sacrament and Sacrifice of His Body and Blood, in His abiding presence in the tabernacle, in other people, in the daily round.

How well do we make Him known, by the manner of our lives, by our words—not hitting people over the head with the Bible, but witnessing to Him when opportunity arises—by not hiding our identity as Catholic Christians? And do we glorify and praise God by joining with others, our fellow members of the Body of Christ, in prayer and worship, especially at Mass; and by giving time to Him in private prayer, going into our room and closing the door as He told us to? If we imitate the shepherds in these ways, our Christmas will bear fruit.

4th Sunday Advent

4th Sunday of Advent 2025

Isaiah 7:10-14; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24

I am in “Do you remember?”  mode again today. Do you remember Flanders and Swann, a somewhat aristocratic duo who regaled us with comic songs through the 1950s and 60s, and into the 70s?

Always formally dressed in dinner suits, they would sit, the bespectacled Donald Swann at the piano, the large and heavily bearded Michael Flanders in a wheelchair as a result of adult polio, interspersing their songs with light comic patter. Their most famous ditty is probably the “Hippopotamus Song”, with its refrain “Mud, mud, glorious mud: nothing quite like it for cooling the blood”.

About ten years ago, I was given a double CD of their programmes, the collections bearing the titles “At the Drop of a Hat” and “At the Drop of Another Hat”. I received them with glee, anticipating a feast of entertainment; but having listened to them, I found myself thinking “Oh! Is that it?” Their humour hadn’t aged well, but I was mostly irritated by the concert hall audience who would laugh uproariously at every remark, however banal.

I mention them because one of their songs concerned “The Unsung Heroes of the World”. This had stuck in my mind when I first heard it around 1970, because one of these heroes was “The Football Referee” in whose number I counted myself, then at the lowest level. To me, however, the greatest unsung hero of all time is St. Joseph, who features prominently in today’s Gospel.

Do you know how many of St. Joseph’s words are quoted in the Gospels? Not a single one, yet he played such an important role in the Incarnation, the coming in flesh of the Son of God, as the protector and spouse of the Blessed Virgin, and the foster father of God-the-Son-become-man.

Joseph is the archetype of the strong, silent man, seen but not heard, yet exercising considerable influence by his mere presence. He is harried from pillar to post by angels, who are constantly invading his dreams with their commands: “Do this. Do that. Take Mary as your wife. Go here. Go there. Take the Child and His mother.” I can almost imagine that he would be afraid to go to sleep, frightened of what he might be told to do next. In his dreaming, he is the New Testament fulfilment of another Joseph, his ancestor the patriarch, the son of Jacob, “the man of dreams”, who by his obedience rescued his tribe from famine, and drew them into Egypt, thus furthering God’s plan for His people.

This latter-day Joseph, another man of dreams, plays a not insignificant role in the rescue of the whole human race, as he fosters, protects, and brings up the Saviour of the world. He is enabled to do this by his faith, which justifies him, as it justified another ancestor, the patriarch Abraham.

The new translation, not for the only time, corrects a mistranslation from the Jerusalem Bible. In recounting Joseph’s initial resolution to renounce his claim to Mary, but to do it quietly, the Jerusalem Bible describes him as “a man of honour”. This completely misses the point. The Greek original has dikaios, which means “just”. What makes someone just? “Faith” says St. Paul. Thus, this singe word dikaios carries a weight of meaning: Joseph is just, because he has faith, and the phrase “of honour” fails to convey the significance of the word.

Joseph demonstrates his faith by his acceptance of the angel’s message, and his subsequent obedience to every demand which the heavenly visitors make. Imagine his feelings at this time: his hopes of a happy marriage appear to have been dashed; his fiancée is seemingly not the good and responsible girl of his imagination. Delight and relief, no doubt, upon learning that his faith in her was, after all both justified and justifying, but a need to come to terms with the reality that this is not to be a normal, consummated marriage, and that he must undertake the responsibility of bringing up a child who owns fatherhood in God alone.

Perhaps the most poignant moment for Joseph was the finding of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple. Flooded with relief and joy at the successful outcome of the three day search, and standing helplessly by during the exchange between the lad and his mother, Joseph receives a harsh reminder of his status when the former speaks of being busy with “the things of my Father” by which he effectively states “Sorry, Dad, you are not my Father and can never have first place among my responsibilities”.

On the other hand, we are told that Jesus was obedient to both Mary and Joseph, and the bond between the growing youth and his foster father was underlined when Jesus was spoken of as “the carpenter’s son”. Indeed, in all of this, Joseph showed himself to be the greatest unsung hero of them all. During your Christmas celebrations, when the feast arrives, don’t forget to reserve a special “thank you” for him.

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2nd Sunday Advent Year A

2nd Sunday of Advent 2025

Isaiah 11: 1-10; Romans 15: 4-9; Matthew 3: 1-12

Where is the Kingdom (the Reign) of God? Isaiah prophesies it, but where is it? Bells ring when we hear the first half of today’s prophecy. Jesus is the shoot from the stump of Jesse, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests: thus, we know that God’s reign has begun.

John the Baptist bears witness to that in the Gospel. Jesus is the one about whom John preaches, the one who comes after John, the one who will “baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire”.

To that extent, John’s assertion is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, which is why the Gospel writers are so keen to stress Jesus’ membership of David’s line, as David was the son of Jesse. Both Matthew and Luke include a genealogy, which differ from each other, but which agree in insisting upon that descent from David, however questionable it may appear.

We can say then that the testimonies of Isaiah and the Baptist agree, and that the Kingdom is here, at least in embryo, but that it is far from being fully realised. Where is that universal harmony described in the second half of the Isaiah passage? Do we see lions opting for a vegetarian diet? Are lambs and wolves the best of pals? Not as far as I am aware: animals continue to prey on one another, and the most violent predator of all is man, the summit of God’s creation, whose prey is so often his fellow human beings.

Look around the world as it is, a quarter of the way through the twenty first century since the First Coming of Jesus inaugurated the Reign of God, and more than a century after the “War to end war”. Increasingly, the world is soaked in blood, the land of Jesus providing one of the most brutal examples.

In his journey from Turkey to Lebanon, Pope Leo insisted on a two-state solution as the only possible way forward for Israel/Palestine. Will Netanyahu and the extremists in his cabinet agree to that? They may, if Trump bullies them into it, but what is the likelihood of that? Jews, Christians, and Muslims continue to bicker over the Holy Places, and ethnic cleansing looms large. The Kingdom cannot be fully realised without genuine harmony in that most holy place of the earth.

Meanwhile, war rages in Sudan, and threatens to break out again in South Sudan, while other parts of Africa are involved in spasmodic conflicts and the Northern Hemisphere looks the other way, with governments, including our own, slashing Overseas Aid and opposition parties threatening to go further because, according to the Leader of the Opposition, “it is not a priority for voters”. Shame on the Government, shame on the Opposition, shame on voters. No sign of the Kingdom there!

In Europe, Putin plays with the notion of peace, whilst maintaining his determination to control Ukraine as a first step towards re-creating the Soviet Empire and threatening the West; and the supposed “free world” has become the plaything of a seemingly deranged would-be dictator. Even the earth itself is threatened with destruction by its inhabitants who, in their acquisitive greed, foul their own nests to say nothing of the “hole of the cobra”: so much for the “living in harmony” which St. Paul describes as a pre-requisite of the Kingdom.

What is the answer? How can the Kingdom which is, after all, what Jesus preached, be brought to fulfilment? John the Baptist offers one word: repentance. What does that mean?

You are probably fed up by now of being told that “repentance” is a translation of the Greek metanoia which is literally a fundamental re-orientation, often expressed as a “change of heart”. From where will that change of heart come? It can come only as a gift from God, from the Spirit of the Lord who rested on Jesus, and with whom Jesus baptises us.

Where will it begin? It must begin with us who have been baptised. We must live according to the Spirit—in other words, in accordance with the gifts of our baptism. If WE do not live in that change of heart, there is no hope for the world. If, on the other hand, we become attuned to that Spirit who lives within us, if we live in harmony with others, if we become people of deeper prayer, at peace with ourselves, with God, with other people, and with the whole of creation, then the Kingdom will grow, will spread, and we may begin to hope that its fullness may be brought ever closer. The Kingdom, like charity, and measles, begins at home, but does not end there.

1st Sunday Advent Year A

First Sunday of Advent 2025

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24: 37-44

Those of you of a certain age may remember the Billy Cotton Band Show, which was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme early on Sunday afternoons through most of the 1950s and 60s. After “Two Way Family Favourites” a request programme for members of the armed forces serving overseas, and the News, there would be a bellow of WAKEY! WAKEY! followed by the Billy Cotton theme tune.

That shouted WAKEY! WAKEY!” was Billy Cotton’s trade mark. It could also be the trademark of the beginning of Advent. Today we have St. Paul telling the Christians of Rome that “the hour has come for you to wake from sleep” and Our Lord urging us to “Stay awake!” (By the way, you also have to give up orgies and drunkenness. Sorry about that!)

Why this emphasis on wakefulness? Because “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect”. What does that mean? Isn’t Advent a time to prepare for Christmas? Well, up to a point. The emphasis on the First Coming of God the Son at the First Christmas doesn’t really begin until 17th December. Until then, there is more focus on His Second Coming at the end of time, which we await, and for which we must prepare; and still more on His present coming, which we are called to recognise, but which will elude us if we are not awake.

Today’s Gospel may strike us as somewhat confusing. Is it talking about the end of time? Apparently not, because some people will be left alive: twice we are told “One will be taken, one left”. What then is it talking about? It is preparing its immediate hearers for two comings of the Son of Man, the glorified Christ. There will be His coming in the events of 70AD, when the Jewish Revolt against their Roman rulers will be ruthlessly crushed, and the Temple destroyed. Some people will survive that. Yet there will also be His constant coming in the events, the circumstances, the people of every day. Our response to that constant coming will dictate our outcome at His final return as our judge.

This is where wakefulness comes in. If we are not awake and alert, we shall never notice the Christ who comes to us every day of our lives. This is the Christ who will say at the Last Judgement “Whatever you did to the least of mine, you did to me”. Are you alert enough to recognise Christ in every person that you encounter? The faces around you in church—each of them is the face of Christ. The people you encounter in the street—the good, the bad, and the ugly—each of them is Christ for you.

What about your experiences today? Will you be sufficiently awake to recognise Christ in each of them, to see each of them as an opportunity to grow, to be renewed, to be drawn closer to Christ? And your prayer—will you have the courage to be still in the presence of God, to avoid the temptation to fill your prayer time with endless talk, which may prevent God from speaking to your heart? Will you give ANY time to prayer today? If not, your spiritual sense will be lulled into sleep, and at the Last Judgement you or I may find ourselves asking “When was that, Lord? When did we see you and not recognise or serve you?”

These are questions for the whole of Advent—indeed for the whole of our lives. What is required of us is wakefulness, rather than activity, alertness rather than busyness, openness, not only to the God who HAS come, but to the God who WILL come at the end of time, and who DOES come, here and now, today.

And as we are alert to this God, let us also have one eye on the prophet Isaiah, the prophet par excellence of Advent, who will bring us, each weekday, in the First Reading at Mass, a prophecy of the Kingdom, which we will see, in the Gospel, fulfilled in the person of Jesus, though not yet in its fullness, for Advent is the season of the Kingdom, of the “already” and the “not yet”. The Kingdom is among us, though not yet in its glory, the ultimate sign of this being the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, which IS Jesus, but not yet in the fullness of His Kingdom, His Reign.

Today Isaiah sees Mount Sion, Jerusalem, as the focus of peace for the world. Even the most cursory glance at the News will tell us that this is far from being currently the case, yet the seeds are there, which we must nourish with our prayer, and with our own justice and peacefulness. If we, and the world, are awake, there are opportunities to be seized, both in Jerusalem and in our own lives, in order that Advent may be a living reality. So WAKEY! WAKEY! and STAY AWAKE!

Christ the King Year C

Christ the King 2025

2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

I have to begin with a confession: I struggle with this Feast. Perhaps that is no bad thing. Jacob wrestled with the angel, and sometimes God sets us puzzles through which we deepen our faith and understanding, so I don’t regret this particular struggle: perhaps it will prove beneficial. So, without more ado….

  Forty five years ago this weekend I took a football team from Upholland College, where I was a member of staff, to Ushaw College, where I had trained for the priesthood. The principal celebrant at Sunday Mass was a Zimbabwean priest who began his homily by explaining that he found the concept of Christ the King a difficult one to grasp, coming as he did from a socialist republic. (This was before President Mugabe in Zimbabwe “went rogue” and established a dictatorship in all but name.) Father went on to claim that the only kings with whom he was familiar were Old King Cole, and Elvis.

Most of the world is in a similar situation. Very few kings remain, and those who do tend to have little or no power, though in our own case we have to admit that at least our two most recent constitutional monarchs, as they are known, namely Elizabeth II and Charles III, have shown considerable wisdom in national and international affairs—indeed, rather more than a succession of elected politicians.

Nonetheless, this feast, established one hundred years ago this year by Pope Pius XI, is something of an anachronism. It was established in the context of a particular political situation, the claim of Soviet communism to command absolute obedience: the Pope, by instituting the Feast of Christ the King, was asserting that Christ alone can make such a demand. It isn’t even the case that it has always been seen as providing an end to the liturgical year; some of you will remember when it was celebrated on the last Sunday in October. It is a liturgical sore thumb, and a movable thumb at that.

To be fair to the liturgists, they have done their best to move away from the triumphalism which originally marked this feast, by emphasising the role of Jesus as a suffering king, a martyred king. In one year out of three, we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ role at the Last Judgement, separating sheep from goats, but in the other two years, the focus is on the Passion of Christ. Last year, we heard John’s account of the interrogation of Jesus by Pilate: this year, He is already hanging on the Cross, subjected to the mockery of the crowds, the soldiers, and even one of his fellow-sufferers.

Over His head is a title which is itself a form of mockery—the King of the Jews. We are used to seeing this title represented by its Latin initials, INRI--Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. Luke presents it in Greek, while John states that it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, presumably to reach as wide a spectatorship as possible.

It is an insult to Our Lord Himself, mocking Him for His supposed claims. Still more is it an insult to the Jewish people. Firstly, it implies that a crucified vagabond is the sort of king that the Jews might produce. More seriously, it is a blasphemy. There had been no kings in Judaism since the Exile to Babylon more than half a millennium before. For the Jews, God was, and is, their only king. Admittedly, Herod the Great had used the term, but he was a puppet of the Romans, and his claim to kingship had increased the hostility of devout Jews towards him. After his death, the Romans had divided his kingdom among three of his sons, two of whom were also called Herod. They were not accorded the title of “king”.

Thus, today’s feast provides a stark reminder that the kingship of Christ confers no earthly glory, and that this is no triumphal occasion. Those who will enter His Kingdom are those who share in His crucifixion. He is a king whose earthly throne was a cross, whose crown was made of thorns, whose sceptre was a reed, whose sole courtier was a crucified criminal. Only on those terms does this feast have any meaning or relevance, and I am far from sure that this is universally grasped. Hence, I can’t help feeling that little would be lost if it were to be quietly removed from the calendar. Unless this happens, it is important that we try to penetrate its deeper meaning.

Week 33 Year C

33rd Sunday 2025

Malachi 4:1-2a; 2Thess 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

The year is dying, and so are we. A fortnight from now, the Church will begin a new year with the First Sunday of Advent: you and I may not pop our clogs so soon, but then again we may. None of us is guaranteed to see tomorrow, let alone a new year, whether in the calendar of the Church or of the world.

Do you remember the Beatles’ song “When I’m 64”? More to the point, do you recall when you first heard it, when it seemed to you, and no doubt to the Beatles, to refer to some unimaginably distant date in the future? How does it strike you now, when for many of us, 64 is rapidly disappearing in the rear-view mirror.

At this time of year, the Church always reminds us, in the liturgy, that we are not built to last: we have built in obsolescence. Far from frightening us, though, this should encourage us. The prophet Malachi speaks of the Day of the Lord, which will bring the destruction of evil, but he then goes on to say “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in its wings”. There will be an end to our lives in this world—indeed to the world itself—but we were created not for this world only, but for eternity. The Day of the Lord will be for us a new beginning, the fulfilment of what we were created and called to be.

St. Paul too reminds us of this, but reminds us too that we must prepare for that fulfilment by the way in which we live our lives in this world. The new translation neatly captures a pun which Paul makes: meden ergazomenous alla periergazomenous—“not busy at work but busybodies”. Nice one! Even if we are not as young as we were in the days of the Beatles, we still have our responsibilities as others have theirs. God’s call is still new for us every morning: it may be different in degree from the call which He gave us in the 1960s, but it is still a call to live and move and have our being in Him as it was then.

Our Lord too reminds us that nothing lasts. Today’s Gospel may strike us as confusing, because it is warning of two different endings. There will be the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and the end of the order of things with which the Jewish people have been familiar; but this will be a preparation for the end of all things, which will happen who-knows-when?

Although the Temple was the focal point of the faith of the Jewish people, and seemed indestructible, it would be destroyed by the Romans in the course of the Jewish Revolt in AD 70, yet the people and the faith would survive. There would be, there is, and there will be, persecution of Christians, in which many will die, as so many Jews have died in persecutions through the ages, but the faith will survive.

What remains of the Jerusalem Temple today? Nothing but the Western, or Wailing, Wall. How much of our Christian heritage has been destroyed? Yet both Jews and Christians survive. As Jesus told His hearers, “The end will not be at once”.

Yet there will be an end. We hear of wars and tumults every day: earthquakes, famines, and pestilences are regular occurrences. Tsunamis, bush fires, destructive storms and floods, many of them the result of careless or selfish human activities, may be seen as “terrors and great signs from heaven”. They bring death and destruction to many, and they are reminders of our frailty and of the frailty of our world.

Amidst all of this, says Jesus, “not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance, you will gain your lives.” How can that be when, as He has already declared, “some of you will be put to death”?

Are there not two lives and two deaths? Our lives on earth will be ended by death, but we were created for eternal life. And as there is death of the body—temporal death—there is a possibility of death of the soul—eternal death. Our earthly lives must be lived in such a way, in faith, hope, and love, that we are spared the second death, and taken up into the second life. The signs of mortality among which we live—not least the death of the year—should remind us to live each day in the light of eternity, committed to the love of God and of our neighbour.

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 2025 (Replacing 32nd Sunday)

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 2025 (Replacing 32nd Sunday)

Ezekiel 47: 1-2, 8-12; 1 Cor 3: 9-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22

Who was St. John Lateran? That was a question which troubled me as a child, and I was probably an adult before I discovered the answer: he was no one; he didn’t exist. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is actually the church—indeed the Cathedral—of St. John on the Lateran Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome. It is regarded as the mother of all churches because it is the Cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, and hence the focus of unity for the whole Church.

Just as the whole month of November can be regarded as one great Feast of the Communion of Saints, beginning, as it does, with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, and thus encompassing all who have gone before us, so today’s Feast celebrates our communion with the whole Church on earth, in communion with the Pope, the successor of St. Peter, the visible head of the Church on earth. Jesus is the actual head of the Church, the true Temple, replacing the Jerusalem Temple, but He has left us visible signs: the Pope as a human sign of unity and communion; and church buildings, especially the Lateran, as reminders of His, and our own, role as Temples of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, today’s Feast continues that November theme of communion, union, and unity, with special emphasis on the role of Peter and his successors. Like the whole of God’s people, Popes come in different shapes and sizes, and vary in quality. Some have been great saints; some have been great sinners, bringing the Church into disrepute and so contributing to schisms in the Church, great wounds in the Body of Christ, rents in what should be the seamless garment of the Church. Probably, most have been similar to the rest of us, a mixture of the good and the bad, and occasionally the ugly, men subject to weakness, yet burdened with the task of carrying on their shoulders not only the whole Church, but even the whole world.

Stalin is alleged to have asked contemptuously “How many divisions has the Pope?”. The answer would have shocked him. The Pope’s physical army may consist only of the ceremonial Swiss Guard, but his followers are counted in billions, and his influence permeates the globe, outlasting the power of “Uncle Joe” and all his battalions. Spiritually and morally, nobody has the potential to reach and to affect so much of the world as does the wearer of the Shoes of the Fisherman.

It is remarkable that in recent years two blockbuster films involving famous actors have had the Papacy as their focus. Apparently the future Pope Leo XIV watched the film “Conclave” in order to gain some idea of the role he would have to undertake as a cardinal-elector, while “The Two Popes” imagined the sort of relationship which may, or may not, have existed between his two immediate predecessors, Benedict and Francis.

Like many of you, I have lived in the Church under the leadership of eight Popes: Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Bendict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV, four of them Italians, two from other European countries, and one each from South and North America. That sentence contains a number of elements which would have been unthinkable to most Catholics until they happened, reminding us that God’s ways are not our ways; that the Holy Spirit blows where it will.

Who would have expected the smiling Pope John Paul I to die a little over a month after taking office? Who, after 450 years (I think) of an unbroken run of Italians, would have expected four successive non-Italians? The author Morris West, in his 60s novel “The Shoes of the Fisherman”, may have envisaged a Pope from behind the Iron Curtain, but did anyone expect it to happen in reality? A Pole followed by a German within 60 years of the end of the Second World War would also have seemed improbable. No one would have expected the abdication of Benedict XVI, or the election of a Pope from a different continent. I am sure, also, that I was far from being the only person to rule out mentally a Pope from the United States because of that country’s role on the world stage. Candidates from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are now routinely mentioned as likely Popes: surely that is only a matter of time.

What has all this to do with today’s Feast? Whatever the shape, size, colour or temperament of a future Pope, he will be the Bishop of Rome, with St. John Lateran as his Cathedral. He—will it always be “he” or might the Holy Spirit spring another seemingly impossible surprise?—will be called by God to build the Temple which is the Body of Christ on earth, while carrying the Cross and leading God’s people on their pilgrim journey. Pray for him, for Pope Leo XIV today, for his successors in time to come, and for his predecessors—the good, the bad, and even the ugly.

All Saints

All Saints 2025

Apocalypse 7:2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

The Feast of All Saints 1971 gave me my first taste of seminary liturgy at its almost best. Not quite all the stops were pulled out—that was reserved for the Easter Vigil—but it was highly impressive nonetheless. Actually, I had been impressed by my first experience of Mass in Ushaw, when I had made a sort of exploratory visit during the previous Lent. At quarter past seven on a weekday morning, the college clock had chimed, the organ had struck up, and a hundred and twenty-something male voices had belted out an opening hymn. It struck me that a place where people sang enthusiastically at that time of the morning had something going for it.

Since then, I had become familiar with Solemn High Mass each Sunday morning, with its dignified entry procession, antiphonal singing between schola and church, and enough smells and bells ((though more of the former than the latter) to set the cherubim and seraphim jigging in the heavenly choir. A Feast Day though, was something else.

During the 1980s, “celebration” was to become a buzz word. Every Mass was announced as a “celebration”, usually by priests who would then produce the most mind-numbingly dull liturgy imaginable. On that long-ago First of November, however, I discovered something of what the word really meant.

It wasn’t just the Mass: the whole day was kept joyously. There were no lectures, there was a special meal, and the afternoon was free to do whatever one wished. On that day, I discovered how our forefathers and foremothers in the faith had celebrated Feasts.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I--and I suspect, many of you—had experienced Feasts as rather grim affairs, especially if they were Holy Days (or Holidays) of Obligation. The clue should have lain in that word “holiday”. A “holiday” was originally a Holy Day, on which people were free from work to attend Mass and to enjoy themselves in honour of some religious occasion, or some favourite saint; and such days were frequent in Catholic Europe.

Much of this came to an end with the Reformation. Saints’ days were abolished, and all that remained, especially on the island of Great Britain, was a dour Sabbath, a day not for recreation or enjoyment, but for reading the Bible, all punctuated by frequent visits to church to hear long sermons largely devoted to the topics of sin and damnation.

Those parts of the continent which resisted the Reformation fared better. Hilaire Belloc, whose view of European Catholicism was admittedly somewhat romanticised, expressed it in various ditties. The one which sticks in my mind runs “Wherever a Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so: Benedicamus Domino”.

On this island, those Catholics who survived, and who gradually were enabled to emerge from hiding, kept the saints’ days, but without the freedom from labour which had previously marked them. Now, as victims of the “Protestant work ethic”, Catholics found that the emphasis was no longer on “holiday” but on “obligation”. It became a matter of “fitting Mass in” wherever one could, before or (later) after work, or during the dinner hour, with the priest tending to hurry Mass through, conscious that the majority of the congregation had to be away quickly, to begin or to return to work.

So, through no fault of people’s own, Holy Days became a matter of duty, not celebration, with the laity forced to clockwatch through Mass, whilst the priest had to celebrate Mass shorn of all the “trimmings”, probably more frequently even than on a Sunday, in an attempt to meet people’s needs. What we have now is practically the reversal of the original concept of a Feast Day.

What is the answer? I do not know. Many years ago, a priest whom I used to help out on a Sunday, and who was far from being a radical or a revolutionary, used to maintain that, if there was no holiday, there could be no obligation. I can understand the logic of that.

This year, and today, however, for most people, with this Feast falling on a Sunday, there is an opportunity to celebrate as we should. And it is a Feast worth celebrating, as we rejoice in all those fellow-members of the Body of Christ who have gone before us and who dwell eternally in the presence of Christ, and as we prepare for a day and a month in which we devote ourselves to supporting those for whom the process of perfection is still a work in progress. Today, follow the injunction of the prophet Ezra: “Eat the fat, and drink the sweet wine”. A joyous Feast to one and all.

30th Sunday Year C

30th Sunday 2025

Sirach 35:15-17, 20-22; 2Tim 4;6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14

I am going to confuse you even more than usual this week, as I am going to focus less on the Gospel than on the First Reading. The latter is taken from the Book of Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus, a title with which you may be more familiar. My reason is that Sirach is writing primarily about justice which, incidentally, features also in Our Lord’s explanation of the Gospel parable.

Bishop Swarbrick’s (the Bishop of Lancaster) motto is borrowed from St. John Henry Newman, and reads in English “Holiness before peace:” in other words, “Let me be concerned with doing God’s will, rather than with being comfortable”. I would propose an appendix to the Bishop’s motto, which would read “Justice before peace”.

Peace is a weasel word, covering a multitude of sins. When people talk about or pray for peace, they are sometimes asking simply to be left alone, not to be disturbed. We do not like to be disturbed, but sometimes it is necessary. From time to time, the status quo needs to be challenged, in our own lives, in the Church, in the world.

I suspect that not many of you will have read Tacitus’s “Agricola” recently, though, for all I know, it may be discussed endlessly in Warton, the Yealands, Carnforth, and Silverdale. I have never read it from choice, but it was a set book for Latin A-level in 1967, so I had to study it avidly at that time. You may be aware that “agricola” is the Latin word for farmer, but in this case it is a man’s name. Cnaeus Julius Agricola was the Roman Governor of Britain for six years during the First Century AD, and his career was described by Tacitus, his son-in-law.

One quotation from the book sticks in my mind: “They make a desert and call it peace”—“solitudinem faciunt et pacem appellant”. It is put by the author into the mouth of a British chieftain, who is denouncing the Pax Romana, the “Roman peace” which the conquering Romans claim to have established throughout their Empire. This chieftain claims that what the Romans call peace is actually subjugation.

A genuine approach to peace was spelt out by Pope St Paul VI in his 1975 exhortation “Evangelii nuntiandi”. The Pope wrote “If you want peace, work for justice,” insisting, like that Briton long ago, that peace without justice is no peace at all.

Let us look around our contemporary world. Politicians are speaking about peace in Israel/Palestine. What we have is a temporary ceasefire, which has already been violated. Even if it holds, can we really speak in terms of peace when Hamas, whose murderous raid two years ago was evil beyond words, seeks the destruction of Israel? When Israel, having reduced Gaza to ruins, reserves the right to bomb and shell indiscriminately what remains? When ethnic cleansing continues unchecked on the West Bank of the River Jordan?

What about Ukraine? (Not THE Ukraine, by the way, which Ukrainians themselves reject as being a description of their former status as a puppet state under Russian control.) If the guns fall silent now, if the drones and missiles stop wreaking havoc, will that be peace, while Russia holds swathes of Ukrainian territory, where it is imposing Russian language and culture, and delivering a Russian version of recent history? “They make a desert, and call it peace.” “If you want peace, work for justice.”

In our own country, does justice hold sway in all aspects of society? If not, can we truly speak of peace? What can you and I do? Let us pray always for “peace founded on justice”, or for “a just and lasting peace”, for without justice, there can be no peace. Let us pester politicians to seek justice for all people at home and abroad; let us not be selfish when we vote, but rather seek to establish just government; though it isn’t easy, at present, to establish which party, if any, will achieve or even desire that; let us make sure that we ourselves always act justly, and that we put holiness before the comfort of an illusory peace.

29th Sunday Year C

29th Sunday 2025

Exodus 17: 8-13; 2Tim 3:14-4:2; Luke 18: 1-8

Perseverance—are you good at it? Do you have stickability? I ask because perseverance seems to lie at the heart of all our readings today. Moses perseveres in keeping his arms raised, with the help of Aaron and Hur, throughout the day, to enable the Israelites to defeat the Amalekites. Timothy is urged to persevere in studying the scriptures, in preaching and in teaching. Jesus tells the parable of the importunate widow and the unjust judge to encourage us to persevere in prayer, and ends by asking “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

I have a feeling that perseverance is in short supply today. That isn’t entirely people’s fault: it has much to do with the pace of change in our world. There are few, if any, jobs for life in our society. At one time, well within living memory, young people would begin a job or an apprenticeship upon leaving school, and remain in that same job until the end of their working life.

Generations would work in the same mill or factory, go down the same pit, sit in the same office. Around here, if your grandfather had worked at Storey’s or Williamson’s, so might your father, and so, in your turn, might you. Now Storey’s, Williamson’s, Lansil, Nelson’s Silk, Nelson’s Acetate, Gillow’s, have all vanished without trace, though some of their buildings have remained, either to be converted into small units, or to moulder away.

When I was in Sixth Form, I accompanied my father on a day trip to York arranged by the Lancaster and Morecambe Retail Confectioners, for a tour of the huge Rowntree’s factory, in the course of which we also met representatives of Rowntrees’ rivals, Terry’s of York. Rowntree’s and Terry’s are now names from the past, their factories, which once employed thousands, largely demolished. Their workers would, no doubt, have happily persevered in their jobs, as would steelworkers, dockers, carmakers, all manner of people in manufacturing, but those jobs no longer exist. Now even university staff face an uncertain future.

What about relationships? Do we find perseverance there? I would readily admit that, in the past, people—especially women—persevered in abusive marriages when it would have been better to leave in spite of financial difficulties or social stigma. Even taking such cases into account, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there is sometimes an unwillingness to persevere in the face of difficulties which may be surmountable.

There is a similar situation in the priesthood and religious life. Here, I have to admit that I am hardly  a shining example of perseverance. Four times I have had to resign appointments because of mental breakdown, though, by the grace of God, I have managed to cling on to priesthood itself.

Similarly, in matters of faith and the practice of faith, we see a reluctance to persevere. You who are here are something of a faithful remnant: so many of your contemporaries are nowhere to be seen. Forty years ago, my then parish priest commented “When people left the Church, they used to storm out in anger because of something which had happened (which may still be the case) but now they just tend to drift away”.

In more recent years, the child abuse scandals have contributed, but there are at least a couple of other factors. The Sunday Trading Laws and the tendency for children’s and youth football leagues to hold their fixtures on a Sunday morning have played their part. Even among practising Catholics, there may be a lack of perseverance in daily prayer, which can lead to a disconnect between what happens in church on a Sunday, and their life during the rest of the week.

So to Our Lord’s question “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” Neither you nor I know the answer to that question, but we are aware that there is a widespread loss of even the notion of God. Only last week, I came across a Youtube post of Stevie Winwood singing that beautiful Easter hymn, translated from the French, “Now the green blade riseth”. Many of you will remember Stevie Winwood as the lead singer of the Spencer Davis Group, and will recall him belting out “Keep on Running” a song which has stood the test of time, as a teenager in early 1966. He is now 77 years old, and gives to “Now the Green Blade” a reverent and gentle treatment.

Before, in dismay, I stopped reading them, I found that all the comments on Mr. Winwood’s performance missed the point completely. People saw the hymn as praise of the environment, as an ode to nature, as reproducing the myth of John Barleycorn. Although the reference to the Resurrection of the Christ is as specific as can be, people simply failed to notice or to understand it.

“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” I do not know. Let us at least ensure that we play our part by our perseverance in prayer, in reception of the sacraments, in proclaiming the Gospel by word and example, whatever difficulties we may face.

28th Sunday Year C

28th Sunday 2025

2Kings 5:14-17; 2Tim 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

Do children still read “The Black Arrow” by Robert Louis Stevenson? I suspect not, as there is so much recent children’s literature available. I recall reading “The Black Arrow” at the very time that a serialisation of it appeared on children’s television, and I can still feel the horror which gripped me as the supposed leper, hooded and cloaked and ringing his bell to keep people away, suddenly turned to chase the young hero and heroine. I suspect that the episode ended there, leaving us on tenterhooks until the following week.

In the end, this turned out to be no leper, but Sir Daniel Brackley, later to be revealed as the villain, in disguise, but it showed the deep fear of leprosy which persisted until recent times. That fear was justified: leprosy is highly contagious, and you may remember that St. Damian of Molokai, whose story I also learned in Primary School, and whom RL Stevenson greatly admired, himself contracted leprosy from those whom he was nursing.

One of the great curses of leprosy was the isolation to which it gave rise. Lepers had to live apart, avoiding all contact with society. For Jewish lepers in biblical times there was the added handicap of being ritually unclean, barred from the religious life of the community.

People would therefore go to great lengths in search of a cure. Naaman, whose leprosy must have been less severe at this stage, as he was an army commander and travelled with a retinue, came to Samaria to seek a cure from the prophet Elisha. Why, having been cured, did he ask for two mule-loads of earth?

This was a result of the belief in tribal gods. People were expected to worship the gods of the land in which they were: hence Naaman, who has been converted to faith in the God of Israel, wants a quantity of the soil of Israel, in order that he may stand on it when he prays, and so technically be in Israel. As a footnote, it is worth considering that he, a foreigner and until then, a pagan, returned from his cure to thank Elisha and to worship God.

Why then do the nine Jewish lepers fail to return to praise God and to thank Jesus? Is it ingratitude on their part? That may be a factor, reminding us of the importance of gratitude—gratitude to God and gratitude to other people.

How much do we take for granted, especially where God is concerned? How much of our prayer is prayer of thanksgiving? Our central act of worship is the Eucharist, which the Second Vatican Council described as “the source and summit of the Christian life”, and “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving”; to this day, the Greek word for “thank you” is efcharisto. As Christians, and especially as Catholics, we are a Eucharistic people: an ungrateful Catholic is a contradiction in terms.

There may, though, be another factor involved, and that, ironically, is the religion of the Jewish lepers. The very thing which should make them grateful gets in the way of their gratitude. You remember the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which the priest and the Levite pass by the injured man. The reason was probably fear of ritual contamination, which would have disqualified them from carrying out their religious duties.

Here, another religious element is involved. Jesus has told the cured lepers to show themselves to the priests. This was to obtain an official declaration that they were free of the disease: without it, they could not return to the life of the community. Hence, they were so focused on being ritually declared clean, that every other consideration was left aside. Again, religious duty stood in the way of what should have been a higher priority.

On the other hand, the Samaritan, being outside the pale of Judaism, has no need of, and is probably not entitled to, such a declaration. Hence, he is free to give rein to his natural inclination to praise God and to thank Jesus.

What is this saying to us? That Judaism is bad? Surely not! It is the religion which Jesus Himself practised. That religion itself is bad? Again, not so! Without formal religion, without the community of the Church, we lack cohesion, and a context in which to love and serve God, and to receive His greatest gifts. Rather, it is the old truth that rules, including religious rules, are a means to an end. Once they become an end in themselves, they turn into an idol, because they betray their proper function. Let us by all means keep the rules, but always remembering their purpose. Let them lead us closer to God, and enable us to express and celebrate that gratitude which is at the heart of all worship.

27th Sunday of the Year C

27th Sunday 2025

Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10

“We are useless servants: we have only done what was our duty.”

Three cheers for the new translation, which has corrected the carelessness of the Jerusalem Bible, which we formerly used. The JB often flowed more smoothly than the present translation, but it was sometimes slipshod.

This is a case in point. The Jerusalem Bible has “we are merely servants” which glosses over the actual text. The Greek word is achreioi meaning “useless”. In other words, not only are we “merely” servants: we are no good even as servants.

Thus, we are warned not to give ourselves airs but, perhaps more importantly, not to attribute any success to ourselves. On our own, we would achieve nothing: it is God who accomplishes the work, not us. All that we have is faith in God, and not reliance on our own efforts or our own virtue.

The prophet Habakkuk makes a similar point when he writes that the righteous shall live by their faith, something on which St. Paul insisted. When the latter speaks of “justification by faith”, he is not saying that we shouldn’t do good works: rather, he is making the point that these works come from God, so we shouldn’t claim the credit for them. Instead, we put our faith in God, who enables us to carry out the good works. Neither our own efforts, nor the keeping of the rules, can give life to ourselves or to others.

All of which leads me to a story which I have told more than once before, but for which I make no apology, as it deserves to be retold. It dates back to my first term in seminary, more than half a century ago.

When I entered the seminary in 1971, there was still a Junior Seminary on the same premises, and the priests on the staff of the latter would alternate with the Senior Seminary staff in presiding and preaching at Sunday Mass. Among the former was Fr. Tony Pearson, a priest of the Leeds Diocese who, in a Sunday homily, recalled the advice which he, as a young man about to enter the seminary, had been given by his parish priest.

It was only a few years ago that I discovered that the parish priest in question had been Fr. John O’Connor, who received GK Chesterton into the Church and on whose personality, though not his appearance, Chesterton based his priest-detective, Fr. Brown. No wonder he gave wise advice.

“Tony” he had said to the young Anthony Pearson. “When you go to Ushaw, there’ll be lots of things you’ve got to do, and lots of things you’ve not got to do, and if you do all the things you’ve got to do, and you don’t do all the things you’ve not got to do, then they’ll make you a bishop. And Tony, you’ll be no bloody good.”

It was long after Fr. Pearson’s time in Ushaw, and also after mine, that these words proved prophetic. There came a student who, apparently, kept every rule, not deviating by an iota from even the pettiest regulation. In vain, his fellow-students attempted to humanise him, even on one occasion sticking his head down the toilet and pulling the chain—not normal seminarian behaviour, I hasten to add, but a sign of desperation—but all to no avail. He remained an irredeemable model student, and in due course was made a bishop—not in this Diocese, I hasten to add.

Since then, he has fulfilled Fr. O’Connor’s prediction to the letter, being, as many believe, “no bloody good”. He has turned back the clock in his Diocese by several decades, unpicking the good work undertaken by his predecessor who, while always demonstrating deep pastoral concern, had also spent years working with priests and lay people to implement the vision of the Second Vatican Council.

I have not a shadow of doubt that this onetime model student is a very good and dedicated man, thoroughly devoted to the service of God, but he does appear to me to underline Jesus’ description of all of us as “useless” servants. If we rely on our own virtue, our own fulfilment, as we see it, of God’s will, we shall come unstuck, or perhaps we shall be too stuck for God to use us as He wishes. I am not implying that we should be anarchists, but that we must always be open to God’s leading us, because He alone knows what will bear fruit, whereas we are indeed “useless servants”.

26th Sunday Year C

26th Sunday 2025

Amos 6:4-7; 1 Tim 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

How does that parable of the rich man and Lazarus strike you? Does it encourage you? Does it alarm you? Does it leave you unmoved? I have to say that it frightens me.

Why should that be? It frightens me because the rich man isn’t a bad man. He doesn’t ill-treat Lazarus, doesn’t shout abuse at him, doesn’t have him arrested. Even in Hades he is concerned for the well-being of his brothers. There is something quite likeable about him, and yet he is condemned.

What are his faults? Essentially they amount to complacency, insensitivity, lack of awareness. He falls into the same category as the complacent, self-centred, self-indulgent people who are condemned by the Prophet Amos. They live in luxury with no concern for the well-being of others, and particularly of those closest to them.

(Incidentally, I am not thrilled by the expression “those who stretch themselves out”. It sounds like some form of aerobics. The Jerusalem Bible expresses it as “those who sprawl”, depicting it as another instance of luxurious idleness, which I find easier to understand.)

That luxurious idleness, the fault which Amos targets, is the fault too of the rich man of the Gospel. It blinds him to the presence, indeed the very existence, of the poor man Lazarus. Even the dogs show more awareness, comforting him by licking his sores. By the rich man, Lazarus is every bit as overlooked as the crumbs falling from the table. It is even possible to imagine the banqueters feeding the leftovers to the dogs, while Lazarus remains unnoticed until he fades away and dies. It is what the moral theologians call “culpable ignorance”, an ignorance for which there is no excuse, and its outcome is punishment in Hades.

The relevance to us of this parable strikes me as disturbingly, worryingly clear. In our world today there are more Lazaruses than you could shake the proverbial stick at—try expressing that without ending your sentence with a preposition. They are to be found in the streets of our cities sleeping in doorways. They risk death, trying to cross the Mediterranean and the English Channel in leaky boats. They lie starving in the bombarded hospitals of Gaza; bleeding from the assaults of jihadists in Syria, in Nigeria, in Mozambique; mortally wounded by civil war in Sudan and South Sudan; languishing in the prison camps of Russia and Belarus; hiding from the raids of the Border Force in the United States.

Lazarus is everywhere. If, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins so beautifully and so truthfully wrote, “Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His,” so Lazarus, and indeed Christ, struggles in ten million places, wasting in limbs and anguished in eyes not His.

What is our response? The response of governments is to slash overseas aid, thus ironically multiplying the numbers of refugees prepared to risk their lives, not as the naysayers claim, in order to live in luxury at taxpayers’ expense, but to eke out a fear-filled existence among a hostile population.

In many ways, we are more blameworthy than the rich man of the parable. Unlike him, we are not unaware of Lazarus’s existence, his presence both at our door and on the other side of the world. Our society is familiar with Lazarus, and despises him, yelling at the government to “look after our own”, but then decrying attempts to do even that.

If the rich man went to hell for culpable ignorance, what about us who cannot claim his excuse? Even the one who rose from the dead has come back to warn us as the rich man begged would happen. What response are we making to Him, present in all the Lazaruses of the world?

25th Sunday Year C

25th Sunday 2025

Amos 8:4-7; 1Tim 2:1-8; Luke 16:10-13

Beware easy targets: take special care in front of open goals. Programmes of sporting bloopers are full of people shooting wide of empty nets, dropping undroppable catches, failing to score unmissable tries. I recall a Scottish striker rushing to tap the ball into the net, and somehow clearing it off the line; Shane Warne being regaled with chants of “What’s it like to drop the Ashes” after spilling a dolly of a catch in the crucial final Test of 2005; Don Fox missing the simplest of conversions in front of the posts, and thus handing the Rugby League Cup to the opposing team.

All of this occurs to me as I ponder today’s Readings. Surely, they are a gift to the preacher? All you have to do is to condemn the big bankers and the city slickers, the monopoly capitalists and the politicians who support them, the other politicians who fiddle their expenses, and the millionaires who, to the applause of sections of the press, use legal but immoral means to avoid paying their share of taxes; and you can sit down again, basking in a sense of virtue?

No, you can’t. You never can. The scriptures never make things that easy, because they demand self-examination; and the parable of the man who sees the speck in his brother’s eye whilst ignoring the log in his own always looms large.

What then is the log which obscures our vision here? the stumble which will keep the unguarded net intact? Is it not that same lack of self-awareness which so often blinds us to our own faults? How many of us who decry the greed of others nonetheless do business, for the sake of cheapness, with a company which is notorious for not paying its share of taxes and for treating its workers badly? How many of us vote for a party because it promises “wealth creation”—surely a euphemism for greed? Why does a majority of the population allegedly support the slashing of overseas aid on the grounds that we should “look after our own” while at the same time denouncing those who are dependent on benefits as scroungers, regardless of the battle for survival which so many endure?

It is fascinating that the main political parties are terrified of offending pensioners—and I speak as a pensioner myself who am extremely grateful for my pension, but who cannot see any justification for the triple lock, at a time when swathes of the younger generation struggle to make ends meet. It simply adds to the conviction that we baby boomers are selfish.

I wonder how many of the people who bemoan the decline of town centres—and is there anyone among us who hasn’t done that?—have contributed to that decline by our own shopping habits, first abandoning the high street in favour of cheaper out-of-town supermarkets, and then shifting again to shopping on line. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in changing our shopping habits, but we cannot then moan because town centre shops are closing—and do we ever pause to consider those who lose their livelihoods, whether shop workers, bank employees, or whoever, as a result of our actions?

Before the 1997 General Election, the Bishops of England and Wales produced an excellent document entitled “The Common Good”, not telling people how to vote, but pointing to the moral factors which voters should consider. It was immediately denounced by the then editor of the Times, himself a Catholic, as being “economically illiterate”. What have we come to when Catholics place economics above moral justice? What price the Gospel if even we begin to think in those terms. DO WE?

Incidentally, a couple of days ago, I came across a couple of snippets from the forthcoming biography of the Pope, based on interviews with him. In them, Leo expresses regret that some Catholics place economic considerations above the demands of justice—so at least I got that part right.

Exaltation of the Cross (replaces 24th Sunday)

Exaltation of the Cross 2025

Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

What a pity the name of this feast has been altered. It used to be known as the Triumph of the Cross, rather than the Exaltation of the Cross.

“Why is that a problem?” you may ask. “Don’t the two words amount to the same thing?” That, I assume, is what the liturgists thought, but they were not entirely correct, which I attribute to the decline of the Classics. Ototototototoi  as Aeschylus and Aristophanes would have said—in effect, “Woe is me!”

There is a subtle difference, arising from the nature of a Triumph in the Roman Republic, and subsequently in the Empire. St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, knew the difference. In 2 Corinthians 2:14, he writes about “God leading us in Christ’s Triumphal Procession”.

That is because, in Rome, a Triumph was a special event. It was an honour bestowed on a particularly successful general, who was allowed, in contravention of normal law, to lead his army, fully armed, through the streets of Rome. In the Triumphal Procession, which was greeted enthusiastically throughout the city, would be carried the booty which had been gained, often including exotic animals, wild or tame, and a group, representative of the prisoners whom he had captured, especially their tribal chiefs, who would subsequently be executed or sold as slaves.

Thus, the Triumph of the Cross meant, not only that the Cross has been exalted—raised up high—but that it brings in its wake all those whom it has captured and taken to itself: ourselves first of all, but also the powers of evil which have been overcome by Christ’s death on the Cross.

Notice that it is the Cross which is awarded this Triumph. It is not only the Resurrection which marks Christ’s victory, or achieves it, but his submission to, and acceptance of, His Passion and Death. The Resurrection may be regarded as the fruits of victory, but that victory, and hence the Triumph, are achieved through the Cross.

This is pointed out in that passage from the Letter to the Philippians which we have just heard. This is thought to be an early hymn, used in the liturgy, celebrating Christ’s self-emptying, beginning with His taking human flesh, but carried to its full extent by Jesus’ acceptance of death. It is because of this total self-emptying, in His acceptance of the Cross, that God the Father has raised Him, via that same Cross, to Resurrection.

Exaltation, raising up, is certainly a major aspect of this Feast. Jesus, lifted up on the Cross, is both the sign and the means of our healing and salvation. He refers, in today’s Gospel passage, to the episode described in our First Reading from the Book of Numbers, when the grumbling Israelites were attacked and bitten fatally by the “fiery serpents”. The bronze serpent, lifted up on a pole by Moses, was the sign and source of their healing, their rescue from death, but it was also a sign of the far greater rescue and healing which were to be achieved by Christ, lifted up on the Cross.

What is the significance of all this to us? It seems to me that both the Triumph and the Exaltation concern us. By His acceptance of the Cross, Christ has captured us, leading us in His Triumphal Procession, not to be enslaved or executed, but to be liberated into new life. Through being lifted up on that same Cross, He has become both the sign and the means of our healing. St. Paul tells us that he glories in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and so should we, always looking upon the Cross, every cross or crucifix, with reverence.

23rd Sunday Year C

23rd Sunday 2025

Wisdom 9:13-18; Philemon 9-10, 12-17: Luke 14: 25-33

We have another tramstopper of a Gospel today. We begin with a call to “hate” our nearest and dearest, move to a demand to take up our own Cross, and conclude with a warning that discipleship entails “renouncing” (literally “separating ourselves from”) all our possessions. Sandwiched among them are those two parables which don’t appear to belong, of the tower-builder and the warlike king. What do we make of it all?

Firstly, we have to ask what Our Lord means here by the word “hate”. Is He really asking us to hate anyone, especially those closest to us? That would make no sense, if taken in its literal English meaning. In particular, it would contradict that Second Commandment which Jesus insists is similar to the First, namely to love our neighbour as ourselves.

The point is that Jesus wasn’t speaking in English. He was a Jew, a Semite, and the word miseo (I hate) is here what is described as a Semitic usage, effectively an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis. Our Lord is insisting that we must not put anyone before Him, that we must not put the Second Commandment before the First, that love of God must always have primacy. Elsewhere in the Gospels, He expresses the point in a more easily comprehensible way, saying that “anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”. It is not a matter of hating: it is a matter of sorting out our priorities.

As for taking up the Cross, that is a call to follow in the Master’s footsteps, as Simon of Cyrene did when he helped to carry the Cross of Jesus. It is interesting that Jesus here speaks of the disciple taking up his/her OWN Cross. The Cross comes to each of us in a different way: it is uniquely our own, yet in taking it up we are, in a mysterious way, taking up Jesus’ Cross too, as did Simon.

To “bear” or “take up” is, in Greek, bastazo, as in St. John’s account of Jesus’ carrying His own Cross. It is almost as if Our Lord lifts the Cross with a flourish, and we are asked to do the same. What though is our own Cross?

I would suggest that it entails the difficulties and struggles which all of us encounter at various points in our lives. It may also include the concept of voluntary penance, but it involves principally those things which come upon us unasked, sometimes because of our faith. How do we respond to setbacks, to failures, to illness, to the approach of death? Do we grumble and complain, blame God, go into “Why me?” mode. We are perfectly entitled to resist our sufferings, but we do so in the light of God’s love, uniting our sufferings with those of Jesus, our Cross with His, refusing to become bitter or negative, recognising that He is with us in our sufferings. If they pass, we thank Him joyfully: if not, we bear them courageously.

In keeping with all of this is that final sentence, calling us to “renounce” all that we have. Like the apparent “hate” which we have encountered, it entails not being dominated by material things, not allowing possessions to possess us, sitting light to the things of this world. We are not to be acquisitive like the capitalists: we are to remember that love of neighbour entails a commitment to justice, to share fairly this earth and all that it offers.

What then of the two parables, which are linked to the instructions by the words “for” and “therefore”? According to the Jerome Biblical Commentary, to which I turn when even more flummoxed than usual, those words do not belong. They have been added to create an artificial connection. If we omit them, and allow the parables to stand on their own, then those parables make more sense.

Jesus is warning us not to charge recklessly into things, promising the earth but failing to deliver even a spadeful of soil. A modern equivalent is the injunction not to bite off more than we can chew. We do not make exaggerated promises to Jesus: we do our best and discover that, with that, He can and will deliver more than we thought possible.

On the other hand, we must not be over-cautious. For instance it seems to me that God is calling more people to the priesthood and consecrated life than are at present prepared to admit it. Some people appear to require cast iron certainty before they are prepared to respond. This is unrealistic. We have to go with the balance of probabilities, trusting God to sort out our future. Let us be sensible, but let us not be timid.

22nd Sunday Year C

22nd Sunday 2025

Sirach 3:17f, 20,28f; Hebrews 12:18f, 22-24; Luke14:1, 7-14.

If you were looking for a key word from today’s readings, what might it be? I would plump for the word “humble”. Does that seem reasonable? Then we have to ask “What does it mean?”

Even if you haven’t read “David Copperfield”, which I thoroughly recommend, you may be familiar with Uriah Heep, a horribly unpleasant and conniving character, who misses no opportunity of claiming that he is “ ‘umble, Master Copperfield” and that his mother, another unlikeable character is equally “ ‘umble”. Inevitably, people who claim to be humble are self-centred, or they wouldn’t be seeking to draw attention to their supposed qualities.

What then is the true meaning of the word, and of its noun “humility”? To learn the real significance of any word, it helps to trace its roots. The word “humble” comes from the Latin word “humus” which means “ground”, “soil”, “earth”. Consequently, to be humble is to be earthy, to have one’s feet on the ground, to be well grounded, and therefore to have a true self-understanding.

It does not mean that you turn yourself into a doormat, or that you despise yourself. Doormats may be laid on the ground, but they are not OF the ground, OF the earth, and they have no self-awareness. In the Letter to the Philippians, we are told that Christ humbled Himself in becoming human, and that He was “humbler yet” in accepting death on the Cross, yet He was always conscious of His true identity. He allowed Himself to be lowly among the lowly, but He never forgot that He was the Son of the Father. His awareness of His true identity, of His true worth, was always present.

When Sirach tells the great that they must humble themselves, he makes it clear that they are aware of their greatness. They ae intelligent, as he goes on to say, and their self-humbling is a conscious act.

Where, in our recent past, do we find an example of such humility? Is it not in Pope Francis’ actions in going into prison and washing the feet of criminals? We find it also in his injunction to pastors to live with the smell of the sheep, to know, love, and serve the people. All of this is in imitation of His Lord and master, Jesus, who associated with the poor and the lowly, and who washed the feet of the apostles.

This reminds us that our humility is to bear fruit in positive action. At the end of today’s Gospel passage, Our Lord tells His host to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” to his feasts. I have mentioned previously the Irish priest, based in London who, when someone knocked at his door asking for money, would instead take them around the corner to a café and sit down to a meal with them.

I recall something similar from St. Mary’s, Morecambe, forty years ago. As the congregation emerged from Sunday Mass, a mentally disturbed man appeared and started begging.  A parishioner took him home and shared her dinner with him, an action as brave as it was generous, as it became known that he had the potential to be violent. On this occasion, overcome by her kindness, he was as meek as a lamb.

Where does, or may, OUR humility manifest itself? That passage from the Letter to the Philippians which I mentioned earlier begins “In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus. Humility begins in the mind. It is an attitude which some people possess naturally, and which the rest of us must cultivate.

It entails recognising out true worth as children of God, and the equal worth of every other person, like us created in the image and likeness of God. It involves remembering Jesus’ own words “Whatever you did to the least of mine you did to me”, and so realising that every face that we see is the face of Christ.

Anther story which I recall came from a parishioner of St. Gregory’s, Preston. This lady’s elderly father-in-law had come to live with them. He insisted on wearing his bed-socks, and sometimes, when approaching the toilet, he would miss the target, soaking the aforementioned item of clothing. Clare then had the unenviable task of peeling off the saturated bed-socks, and washing father-in-law’s feet. She told me “I managed to do it by telling myself “These are Our Lord’s feet that I am washing”. There, I think, were encapsulated humility, faith, and wisdom.

21st Sunday of Year C

21st Sunday 2025

Isaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30

The compilers of the Lectionary have been bowling us some real googlies recently, and today is no exception. My question is: are we to be encouraged by today’s readings, or alarmed?

My suspicion is that the answer to that is “a bit of both”. We should be encouraged, but we cannot be complacent. The encouragement can be found in all three readings, which remind us that salvation, and membership of God’s people, are open to everyone and not only to God’s original chosen people, the Jews.

We begin with the conclusion to the Book of Isaiah. This part of the Book, attributed to a prophet whom we call Trito-Isaiah (Third Isaiah), dates from the period after the return of the Jewish people from exile in Babylon, and their settlement in their own ancestral homeland. It was a time of optimism, expressed by the prophet who foresees “all nations and tongues” being brought into God’s people, including those who “have not heard my fame or seen my glory”.

So far, so positive, and we can, to an extent, recognise the fulfilment of that prophecy in the Church, the new Israel. Or should we perhaps say that we see its potential fulfilment? Very many people still do not recognise the one God; and the Church has, over the millennia, behaved abominably towards the Jewish people, the original People of God.

Steps have been taken to address that wrong, especially in “Nostra Aetate” the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Church’s relations with non-Christian Religions, which recognises that the Jewish people continue to enjoy a special relationship with God through the Covenants. This was reinforced by Pope Benedict XVI who, in his magnificent three volume “Jesus of Nazareth” stated that we are not in the business of trying to convert Jews, who have their own way to God.

“Nostra Aetate” also states that the Church “rejects nothing that is good” in other non-Christian religions, and expresses particular respect for the Muslims. Sadly, we are only too aware of the persistence of antisemitism, exacerbated by the behaviour of the current Israeli government, and of the persistence of jihadism among Muslims who seek to impose Islam on the world by force.

We find further encouragement in the Letter to the Hebrews, which reminds us that we are sons and daughters of God, a breathtaking realisation. Yet much of this passage is spent pointing out that our relationship with God isn’t all wine and roses, or cakes and ale. It involves discipline, something which Jesus Himself expressed in terms of “taking up the Cross”. Attempting a painless following of Christ is a venture doomed to failure.

Turning to the Gospel, we find the greatest challenge of all, as the Lord declares that many who claim to know Him are in for a rude awakening. The Way of the Cross to which we are called entails striving to “enter through the narrow door”. That doesn’t mean that we should be attempting to make life difficult for ourselves: rather, that if we are truly faithful to Christ, then He will give us a share in His sufferings.

If we claim to know Jesus, but do not encounter suffering, then that is not the true Jesus, but a figure of our own making. If the Cross does not chafe our shoulders at times, if our path seems completely smooth, then we are on the wrong path, and we will not find the narrow door to which Jesus directs us. There is no need to go in for self-flagellation; our genuine commitment to Jesus, our faithful carrying of the Cross, will do that for us.

This passage may at first strike us as grim, but once more there is plenty to encourage us. “People will come from East and West and from North and South to recline at table in the Kingdom of God.” Potentially, those people are us, who were not part of the original chosen people, but who have now been adopted as sons and daughters of God. In the last analysis, the question is “What are we making of that adoption?”