The origin and destination

Acts 6:1-7 ‘They chose seven men full of the Holy Spirit.’

1 Peter 2:4-9 ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.’

John 14:1-12 ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’

 

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Popular culture has got very interested, in recent years, in exploring the ‘origin stories’ of fictional characters, real people, movements and ideologies.

‘Origin stories’ help us make sense of things.

Our first two readings give, what you could call, ‘Christian origin stories’.

These accounts reflect the way in which the first Christians began to order themselves, under the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and help us understand why patterns of Christian life developed as they did, so as to serve the Gospel and the needs of the Church, to this day.

In his first letter, the Apostle St Peter connects the identity of the church with Christ’s crucifixion.

His death on the cross was then, and is now, a stumbling block to many when it comes to faith in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour of the world.

But that stone, that many trip over, is for those of faith, in fact, a foundation stone, on which God builds the spiritual house that is his Church.

The foundational identity of the Church, and of the Christian, is to be found in baptism.

Baptism is the common identifier of the Christian, but the Christian is never a Christian in isolation, but always in connection with the whole, that is why the Church is catholic.

That word, which we often translate as meaning ‘universal’ is from the Greek kata-holos: kata, meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘about’, and holos, meaning the whole, think of the word holistic.

The Church is concerned with the whole: the whole picture of the salvation of God and our identity as Christians.

As part of the whole, we are not Christians in isolation: my salvation is not a private matter between me and God; I am part of a Body not the sum of it.

As St Peter puts it:

you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession (1 Peter 2.9a)

And that is not just so we can feel good about ourselves – “we’re on God’s side” or “God’s on my side” - but we are baptised into this, ‘chosen race, royal priesthood, and holy nation’ for a purpose.

And the purpose is clear:

that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2.9b)

That contrasts with those who stumble and disobey and fall into darkness.

So there is the call to make your life built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And what we also find going on here is that the general task of proclaiming the greatness of God, which is the task of every single one of us, is worked out in particular ways.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see that an ordering of ministries flows from the task of mission and proclamation.

It is recognised that the Apostles need to be released to focus on apostolic tasks and not to be distracted by tasks that others can do equally well as them, if not better.

The twelve Apostles gathered the whole body of believers together to say, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables’. (Acts 6.2).

That is not because serving tables is beneath them, but so that the Apostles can devote themselves to what is proper to them, which is ‘to prayer and to the ministry of the word.’ (Acts 6.4).

It is like me, as a priest, spending all my time doing things I am not very good at: managing projects; scrutinising budgets; repairing church plumbing.

My call is not to that but to celebrating the sacraments, preaching the Word and leading the Church here: thanks be to God others bring their skills and calling to the Church to manage projects, deal with numbers and practical tasks.

What we see in the Acts of the Apostles is a sacred order developing, under the guidance of the Spirit, not just a pragmatic allocation of jobs.

These seven men named in the passage are to serve after the example of Christ who ‘came to serve and not to be served’. (Matthew 20:28)

These seven are the first deacons, in Greek διάκονος (diakonos), which primarily means ‘servant,’ ‘waiter,’ or ‘minister.’

And theirs is an ordered ministry because before they took up their task to serve at table the Apostles prayed and laid their hands on them.

To this day this is the pattern of ordination of deacons, priests and bishops, and the same action used at confirmation too.

Overarching this ordering of the Church - with the Apostles and deacons serving the baptised in priestly and practical service - the purpose of Jesus Christ’s mission in the first place is to lead us home to our heavenly Father, to the dwelling place of God, where we find our true home.

Here’s not just the ‘origin story’ but the ‘destination story’ too!

This is what Jesus is pointing us to when he says to Philip, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’

He is saying quite plainly that God is unknowable without Him, and that to see Jesus is to see God: as St Paul puts it elsewhere, ‘Christ is the image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 3.12).

See him and you see the Father; and when you to walk in his way, rejoice in his truth, and share his risen life then you are walking in the ways intended by God for human beings.

This is our ‘destination story’ as a Christian people on the path, the road, the route, the way with Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.

If we are not on the path that is Christ, then we are not on the way to the Father’s house, our heavenly dwelling, and worse we trip up over the foundation stone rather than build our lives on it.

Last week the Church celebrated the great saint of the 14^th century, Catherine of Siena.

Catherine has many wise and ‘tough love’ sayings and here’s one beautiful one, that reminds us that our ‘destination story’ is also to be lived out today:

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way”.

Our true ‘origin story’ and ‘destination story’ is when Jesus says, ‘I am the Way, and I am the Truth and I am the Life’.

The Church, the company of the baptised, served by its bishops, priests and deacons, exists to walk that way, invite others to walk that way and at the last to come by that way to the Father, to whom we pray in the words of Psalm 143:

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,

    for in you I put my trust;

show me the way I should walk in,

    for I lift up my soul to you. (Psalm 143.8)

The Good Shepherd calls

 Acts 2:14a, 36-41‘God has made him both Lord and Christ.’

1 Peter 2:20b-25 ‘You have returned to the Shepherd of your souls.’

John 10:1-10 ‘I am the door of the sheep.’

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Today is traditionally known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ because our scripture texts give different aspects and implications of the fact that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, a title he gives himself in St John’s Gospel.

Woven into calling today ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ it is also known as ‘Vocations Sunday’ when we are invited to hear afresh, or for the first time the vocation, the call from the Lord that is placed upon our lives.

The voice of the shepherd of the sheep, the true shepherd, the Good Shepherd will be heard and responded to when we are led to good pasture.

That is contrasted with a voice we may well hear, a seductive, enticing voice, that leads us away from all that is of Christ, that is good and beautiful and true.

And Jesus deploys a metaphor to contrast two sorts of shepherd, with two very different ends.

The true shepherd calls and leads the flocks to good pasture; the false shepherd will call and lead to arid and deathly places, which will not nourish the body or the soul.

That sort of shepherd is rightly called a ‘stranger’ because that sort of shepherd is utterly estranged from the needs of the sheep.

The contrast appeared in our first reading too as St Peter addresses the crowds in Jerusalem, alongside the Eleven who are the foundation of the pastoral office of the Church.

The one who is no stranger to your needs of body and soul, for your forgiveness and healing is Jesus Christ.

The Lord is calling people to himself – that is our first and fundamental vocation – calling people to himself with the promise he holds in store, the promise of ‘good pasture’ in this world and the next.

That is contrasted with the ‘crooked generation’, estranged from human flourishing, that calls us, and keeps us, in the valley of the shadow of death, as Psalm 23 puts it.

This replicates the first call to life with God or death without him that we see in the garden of Eden, and the human response.

Resist the serpent’s gentle whisperings for they estrange us from the voice of the Beloved, of Christ. And as the first letter of Peter puts it, and well known from Handel’s Messiah, ‘all we, like sheep, have gone astray’ but also reminds us that we hear the call to return.

Our second reading was from a letter of St Peter.

He was writing to persecuted Christians, scattered across Asia Minor, Turkey today.

He was being a pastor to those people, modelling himself on the example of Christ to lead these suffering people through the valley of the shadow of death.

The sad irony is that today in those same lands Christians are persecuted, not by the Roman authorities, but by the Islamist regimes currently in control.

So Peter, echoing Jesus, calls us through the valley of the shadow of death and the suffering that accompanies it, into the green pastures promised by the Psalm, ‘for to this you have been called’ he says (1 Peter 2.21).

Peter speaks of our return to ‘the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls’.

Overseer in Greek is episcope from which we get the word, ‘episcopal’ meaning things to do with a Bishop.

The Bishop oversees the Church.

The task of the shepherd can be seen in the staff a shepherd carries, carried also by a Bishop in the Church.

This staff, or crook (because of its hooked end), signifies protection, guidance and salvation.

It protects by being used by the shepherd to ward off wild animals who prey on the sheep.

In the Church that is the staff of good doctrine and teaching that protects us from the seductive voices that don’t want to hear Christ’s call to life, but offer a pale imitation of it which is pale and deathly.

Jesus said, ‘I came that they [the ones who hear his call] may have life and have it abundantly’. (John 10.10)

The staff is used by the shepherd to guide the sheep to green pastures and abundance of life and stop them straying from the good path.

In the Church that is the staff of the Scriptures that guides us to an ever deepening and intimate union with Christ: pray for bishops and priests to hold the scriptures before Christ’s flock and preach faithfully and well.

The staff is used by the shepherd to save stranded and lost sheep and those who are stuck.

In the Church this is the staff of the sacraments that are channels of God’s grace: the saving waters of Baptism; the presence and life of Christ in Holy Communion; the spiritual strengthening of Confirmation; the restorative forgiveness of sins when the believer opens his or her heart to the Lord in Penance; the soothing balm of Unction, the anointing of the sick and dying; and for those so called, the sacrament of Matrimony, marriage, echoing the marriage of Christ to his Bride the Church; and some the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Protection. Guidance. Salvation.

Each for the body, mind and spirit.

This is the great gift of Christ through his Church, and something all priests and pastors should seek to offer Christ’s people too. After the example of the Good Shepherd, as we are told at Ordination.

So, Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the true shepherd who leads to spiritual nourishment and calls us to reject false shepherds or the voices that lead astray.

Jesus cares for your soul and seeks to nourish you with abundant life.

As the Good Shepherd he protects, guides and saves your soul

As the Good Shepherd calls and those who are his know his voice: he continues to call you and me to service in His Name.

And what is the Good Shepherd calling to you, asking of you?

Ponder God’s call in your life, whether afresh or for the first time.

Be sure that you have given a general call to follow the voice of Christ amidst competing and misleading influences of the world as a disciple of his.

And be sure that he has a particular call to you to serve Him through his Church for the salvation of the world: what will that look like for you?

The measure of any authentic call is that it brings the one called, and those they serve, to the abundant life of the Good Shepherd revealed in beauty, goodness and truth, and to whom we ascribe all mighty, majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen.

By his holy and glorious wounds

Acts 2:42-47 ‘All who believed were together and had all things in common.’

1 Peter 1:3-9 ‘He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’

John 20.19-31 Eight days later, Jesus came

Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him,

you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 3.9)

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By his holy

and glorious wounds,

may Christ the Lord

guard us

and protect us. Amen.

These words are used at the Great Vigil of Easter as the Paschal Candle is prepared.

The priest or bishop will have marked the sign of the cross on the candle, and then, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega, signifying Christ says of himself in the Book of Revelation, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’ (Revelation 22.13)

Then he pushes five grains of incense, on what look like sharpened pins, into the wax of the candle.

Those pins signify Christ’s wounds: the wounds he incurred on the cross, and the wounds he showed his disciples after His Resurrection from the dead: wounds we call holy and glorious, and wounds of mercy and healing.

Why five wounds?

Two in each hand; two in each foot; and one in his side, made by the soldier’s lance, from which flowed blood and water. (John 19.34,37)

These wounds recall the pain and agony of crucifixion, pinning Christ to the cross, which He endured out of love for us and for the salvation of our souls.

These wounds also are a form of guarantee of two really significant things that are integral to our Christian faith:

1.    Jesus is no ghost; ghosts don’t bear wounds, no more than they eat and drink as we know the Crucified and Risen Lord did;

2.    These wounds also guarantee that there is no discontinuity or rupture between the man crucified and the man who is raised.

It is entirely wrong to speak of ‘the crucified Jesus’ on one hand and the ‘Risen Christ’ on the other, as if there are two different people, or that there is a ‘before and after’ Jesus.

We should speak of the Crucified and Risen Lord.

It reminds us that what we commemorated on Good Friday relates profoundly to what we celebrate at Easter and through these fifty days of Eastertide.

And these wounds, along with his breaking of bread and breathing of peace, are what makes Jesus recognisable is his wounds.

His Resurrection does not airbrush out the pain and agony as if that was incidental or not real: it was real pain, real agony, and it was necessary to reveal to us the depths of Christ’s love and power to save.

So, the wounds of Christ are not a peripheral interest but are, as the words that accompany the piercing of the paschal Candle say, they are ‘holy and glorious wounds.’

And this is not theory it’s personal, in the best way, as we see from that merciful and loving encounter Jesus has with Thomas.

On the Day of Resurrection itself, when the Crucified and Risen Lord had appeared to everyone, but when Thomas had not been present, Thomas famously, and somewhat impetuously, says:

“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (John 20.25b)

Eight days later, the following Sunday, i.e. today, Thomas is with the others when the Crucified and Risen One, breathing peace, comes to them again.

And Jesus’ means of convincing Thomas on His Resurrection is the wounds on His Body from the cross.

He didn’t subject him to a lecture, he didn’t suggest that the Resurrection wasn’t about his body being raised from the dead, as if the other disciples just had a warm feeling of memories of Jesus that made them think he is raised from the dead: no, the wounds are what Jesus uses to convince Thomas that he is the crucified and Risen Lord.

“Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

That act of seeing and touching the wounds is what transformed Thomas’s incredulity into belief:

‘My Lord and my God!’ (John 20.28)

What a declaration!

Thomas really has got it!

The wounds of pain, agony and torment, are holy and glorious wounds, and they are wounds of mercy and healing.

Divine Mercy always relates to Divine Judgement: without judgement there is no mercy.

In the wounds of Jesus there is judgement because there we see marks of human sin and brutality and there is Thomas’ lack of belief, something we are all prone to share.

Christ’s wounds are more than enough to condemn us.

But, this is the thing, Christ’s judgment of humanity, of Thomas, of you and me, is merciful, not because Christ is a soft touch, not because he is woolly and let’s anything go, but because he wills us to be saved, he wills us to be one with Him and the Father, in the power of the Spirit, at peace with Him.

And that mercy flows to us, who, ‘have not seen and yet have believed.’ (John 20.29b)

What great mercy we are shown, that we are called blessed who have not seen, have not touched, but rely on the witness of Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, and yes, of Thomas, of saints through the ages, and yet have believed.

The poet Gerard Manly Hopkins, in a translation of words of St Thomas Aquinas puts it beautifully:

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

(Adoro te Devote, St Thomas Aquinas, trans Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ)

 

Shaken and stirred: An Easter Day sermon

Acts of the Apostles 10.34a,37-43 ‘We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.’

Colossians 3.1-4 ‘Seek the things that are above, where Christ is.’

Matthew 28.1-10 ‘He has risen and he is going before you to Galilee.’

 

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

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The Gospel proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is, quite literally, earth shaking news.

When someone hears dramatic news they often describe themselves as being shaken by it, and we know what they mean.

Often others can see it too: ‘so and so looked very shaken by the news.’

Being shaken by news means one has a total shock to the system: adrenaline, cortisol and dopamine flood the body, your heart rate increases and you feel quite unlike yourself.

Actually ‘shaken’ is an understatement in what Mary Magdalene and the other Mary encountered.

They were terrified and the guards, we heard, ‘trembled and became like dead men’ (there’s an irony, because this otherwise is a scene of overwhelming life), but then this was very bad news for them, they now had to account for the fact that the body they were guarding was missing.

But those women could be reassured, yes, they were afraid, but underneath we sense that they knew something like this might happen: after all, Jesus had been very up front about it throughout the gospels.

Nevertheless, the angel told them not to be afraid; Christ was risen from the dead.

The Easter proclamation includes soothing our human fears and insecurities in the face of Divine Power, as well as the fundamental message: he is risen.

And the earth itself was so shaken that it could not rest still, it quaked and shook.

So, what shook the earth; what shook up those women?

The earth shook because the one who declared ‘let there be light’, who brought the sun and moon and stars into existence, who made the very earth, and all that dwells in it, had been buried in the earth, like the grain of wheat - and the earth could not hold him.

Nothing could restrain or contain his Resurrection life and resurrected body.

There are echoes of the book of Jonah, the great fish ‘vomited’ (yes, that’s the word used) vomited Jonah onto dry land. Jesus speaks of the sign of Jonah (Matthew 16.4) and here it is.

Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and Christ in the deep, dark earth and on the third day was raised: earth cannot restrain or contain the Crucified and Risen Lord.

And the two Marys had seen him buried on the eve of the Sabbath Day.

The Sabbath is of course the day of rest, given to us by God who rested on the seventh day after six days of creation.

It was on the sixth day of the week – what we’d call Friday – that mankind was created: on Good Friday mankind is recreated through the cross, as the New Adam reverses the violation, by the first Adam, of our relationship with God.

The women come at dawn on the first day of the week: this is Creation Day, and it is now New Creation Day, what the Church Fathers call the 8^th day of Creation.

A renewed sense of the earth shaking and quaking impact of the Resurrection of Christ would be a great tonic for the Church today.

In places resurrection hope has faded.

Like a plant that is root bound, some churches have become earthbound looing in on themselves and not to the Risen Lord – pale shadows of the vibrant life Christ gives.

In some churches Christians and Christian leaders fail to follow St Paul’s words in our second reading that raise our eyes and hearts to things heavenly:

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3.2)

Let’s be open to being shaken up again by the Easter proclamation of the Resurrection of the Crucified One.

Let us set our sights and our minds on things heavenly and eternal.

Let us call down heavenly power to restore the earth, reconcile lives and reanimate the Church.

It may be daunting, it may shake you up, but you’re here today to hear what Resurrection is and how earth, and life, shaking it surely is.

‘Do not be afraid’ the angel told the women and then said ‘Go quickly and tell…’

They ran towards life, and met the Lord of Life, Jesus himself said to them, and he says to us, ‘go and tell.’

We come to Jesus now, the Crucified and Risen Lord, the Lord of Life, sacramentally present in his Body and Blood, and from here we will go out into the world that needs His Life now as much as ever.

Be bearers of life where you live and work and share your life.

People will be shaken no doubt: let them be! Let them be shaken to know Christ who calls them to life, life in all its abundance. 

Where do I stand: A Good Friday Homily

Isaiah 52.13-53.12 ‘He was pierced for our transgressions.’

Hebrews 4.14-16; 5.7-9 ‘He learned obedience and became the source of salvation to all who obey him.’

John 18.1-9.42 The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to John

 

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In St John’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus just five people stood by him.

 

His aunt was there. Mary, the wife of Clopas was there (which rather begs the question, ‘where was Clopas?’). Mary Magdalene was there. His bosom friend, the Beloved Disciple was there. Most poignantly of all perhaps, the woman who brought him to birth, his Blessed Mother, was there.

 

They were there. And of course the duty execution team of Roman soldiers was there.

 

Where was Peter? Where were the other members of the inner circle of the Twelve? Where were the crowds who followed him through the Galilee, being fed, healed, taught, reconciled? Where were the crowds who greeted him just days before at his triumphal entry into the Holy City, throwing down their cloaks, waving their palm branches?

 

They were nowhere to be seen.

 

The Passion Gospel of John asks the question of each of us, where are you, where am I, in relation to the Crucified?

 

Thanks be to God we are here this afternoon. We come to associate ourselves with Jesus Christ the Crucified One. We stand with him and we come to kneel to reverence and venerate the cross afresh.

 

We come to the foot of the Cross to stand with countless witnesses to the Way of Jesus throughout the ages: with the nameless, like his mother’s sister; with those who feel solitary in their faith, like Mary the wife of Clopas; we stand with Mary Magdalene, who had sinned much but knew much greater forgiveness; we stand with the Beloved Disciple full of love and faith; we stand with Mary who said ‘yes’ to the call to bring Jesus to birth in the world and heard Simeon’s words that a sword would pierce her soul: now she was at that moment.

 

‘Where do you stand on such and such?’ It’s a question that is asking someone to justify a position, a stance, perhaps an intellectual argument or political opinion.

 

Our response when asked ‘where do you stand on Jesus Christ?’ does not need to be answered with words, however cogent, rational or well-argued; but rather, we stand patiently at the foot of the cross.

 

Where do I stand? I stand at the foot of the cross with Mary’s sister, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the wife of Clopas, the Beloved Disciple, Mary, the Mother of Our Lord and God. I stand there with saints and martyrs, with countless faithful men, women and children throughout the ages and today.

 

I stand there; you stand there, because in baptism we receive the sign of the cross, and are told as bearers of this sign, ‘Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ, against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life’ (Common Worship: Initiation Services).

 

It is the way of fidelity to Jesus Christ, through communion in his sacrifice, in and his Body and Blood, standing with him, kneeling before him, worshipping and adoring him that we become the people we were created to be: at one with God; at one with the creation; at one with one another; at one with ourselves.

 

We adore you O Christ and we bless you,

because by your Holy Cross,

you have redeemed the world.

Maundy Thursday - 'Christ loved them to the end'

Exodus 12.1-8, 11-14 Ordinances for the Passover meal

1 Corinthians 11.23-26 ‘For often as you eat and drink, you proclaim the Lord’s death

John 13.1-15 He loved them to the end

 

‘Christ loved them to the end’

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One of my most formative memories as a young Christian is from when I was about 14 years old.

I had sung in my parish church choir for a beautiful Mass, in which I was profoundly aware of the beauty of holiness.

I had with others had my feet washed by our parish priest, whom I looked up to and admired.

I had witnessed the stripping of the altars at the conclusion of the Mass of the Last Supper.

And now I knelt in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, following Jesus’ instruction to his disciples in Gethsemane: watch and pray.

It was, of course, Maundy Thursday.

It was the Watch of the Passion.

The Watch of the Passion, what our Maundy Thursday liturgy concludes with, is an integral a part of tonight as the washing of feet, the breaking of bread and the stripping of the altars.

It is a time of prayer and stillness, something many of us are not all good at.

The Watch gives us an opportunity not to hurry away, but in the words of the psalm:

Wait for the Lord;

    be strong and he shall comfort your heart;

wait patiently for the Lord. (Psalm 27.17)

Watching and praying in stillness is alien to many of us: but it is the most natural thing in the world.

Things that are natural – of our nature – aren’t always easy. Take walking for instance; or talk to new mothers about breastfeeding; and what about dying: all are natural but not easy for us.

These natural, but difficult, things – the foremost of which is union with God - touch our deepest needs and desires.

In the Watch we can connect with our deepest self, come to realise who we really are, yes, and, who Jesus Christ is: the One obedient to the Father’s will.

The thing is with the Watch, and the thing we perhaps find most difficult, is that it confronts us with the darkness – the darkness of betrayal, arrest and condemnation.

How can the disciples betray with sleep or with a kiss, in the case of Judas, the One who has taught them, washed their feet and offered them his whole life in his body and blood?

It’s this that you and I must confront too.

All this takes place in Gethsemane: a garden

Gethsemane evokes another Biblical garden – Eden where the perfect union with God unravels.

In that Garden the man entrusted with priestly care of creation violates that which is of his nature and ours, a perfect relationship with God; in Gethsemane that violation is reversed; and in our garden of repose in this church we are invited to join our ‘yes’ to God with that of the New Adam, the true and faithful high priest, Jesus Christ.

In Gethsemane the disciples are the archetype of you and me, Jesus tells them to stay awake, but they fall asleep.

They are us - either literally or figuratively - when we switch off from the ways of Jesus.

In the Watch we are given space to do some wonderful things and reflect on key questions:

·       I have seen the servant priest and king, Jesus Christ, wash the feet of his disciples: how does he serve me and how do I serve him?

·       I have seen, and heard, Christ offering himself as the sacrifice ‘for us and our salvation’, as victim and as priest as the true Lamb of God: how do I receive him, and how do I offer myself as a holy and living sacrifice to him?

These points for reflection will be in the St Nicholas Chapel and in the pews outside it for you to ponder.

This captivated my young heart and sustains me to this day: and as the Crucified One says to his disciples after his Resurrection, ‘as the Father sends me, so I send you’ (John 20.21).

We are drawn in to the mystery tonight, ready to go out live the mystery and invite others into it.

So do come to the Watch, to watch and pray. Give yourself just that little bit longer than you might.

Come to be with the presence of Christ in his body and blood that he offered once for all, in time and in eternity.

When the moment comes, after the altars are stripped and all is desolate, make your way to the St Nicholas Chapel where the altar of repose is to be found.

There, enthroned on the altar, will be Christ, in his sacramental presence: may we watch and pray with him the Bread of Life and Lamb of God.

 

 

For reflection:

·       I have seen the servant priest and king, Jesus Christ, wash the feet of his disciples:

o   how does he serve me?

o   how do I serve him?

·       I have seen, and heard, Christ offering himself as the sacrifice ‘for us and our salvation’, as victim and as priest as the true Lamb of God:

o   how do I receive him?

o   how do I offer myself as a holy, and living, sacrifice to him?

·       I have been drawn into the Mystery of God’s love tonight:

o   Am I ready to go out live the Mystery

o   Am I ready to invite others into the Mystery?

o   If not I am not ready to do one or both of those things, why not – and what can I need to be able to do so?

On Mothering - An evensong homily

 Rich though this evening’s scripture readings are, I want to draw our attention tonight to things maternal, after all one of the (many) titles of this Sunday – fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, Refreshment Sunday – is Mothering Sunday.

Evensong is a good time to reflect on this theme, not in the way the card shops and advertising pitches it, but to go deeper into the origins of Mothering Sunday as a thoroughly Christian practice that originates in our relationship with our mother, the Church.

Unfortunately, Mothering Sunday has been shared by the Church with the wider culture and, over time, in that culture has mutated before re-entering the host organism, the Church, in a somewhat damaging way.

Mothering Sunday cherishes and values mothers, but not with all the attendant pressure of ‘best mum in the world’ which, in my experience, makes most mothers tremble under the weight of expectation, because most mothers know moments of tired frustration, at all ages and stages in the upbringing of children.

At the same time of trumpeting ‘best mum in the world’, secular culture is finding motherhood more and more difficult.

It is hard now to say out loud that motherhood is a task only women can undertake; and to celebrate what a wonder and mystery that it is.

That in no way judges women who are not mothers, or piles pressure on women who might never be, but it is to acknowledge and thank women for the maternal gift and capacity that they have.

Now is a good time to say, thank you to those women whose vocation has been to bear children, bring them into this world and nurture them.

Those children have been born to the praise and glory of their maker, by which I mean their Father in heaven, not simply their earthly mother, and earthly father.

From this we also see, without diluting motherhood, that the whole church has a maternal character.

After all, she is the Bride of Christ, and therefore is a recipient of a gift, that is not generated by her, but that takes her to bring to fruition.

The spiritual disposition of the Christian – female and male – is to be a recipient of the gift and seed of God, and to nurture and bring that gift to birth.

The Christian birth is baptism, and the origin of Mothering Sunday was to return to the place of baptism, one’s mother church, at which one was born as a Christian.

That’s why sometimes the font, the place of baptism, is termed, ‘the womb of the Church’.

The whole church – female and male – is involved in the birthing and nurturing of new Christians, born again by water and by Spirit.

So why then is Evensong a good time to reflect on this?

First it is at Evensong that the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Magnificat is sung.

This takes us to the heart of the joy of this mother.

Mary’s Magnificat is prompted by her cousin Elizabeth’s question:

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  (Luke 1.43)

Mary’s joy and trust in the Lord, the giver of the gift, is unrestrained as she magnifies his presence in her life.

Magnification both expands and intensifies.

God becomes greater in her life; God becomes more intense in her life.

This is why Mary is termed Mother of the Church for she pioneers the greatness and intensity of God in the life of the Church.

It is also because at the evening hour, as the sun is about to set, that we read:

²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” ²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19.26,27)

Mary is the mother of the disciple, not through biology, but through being prepared to accept and receive him.

And she in turn becomes a gift to him.

At the close of the day we might very well give thanks for the woman who carried each one of us in her womb, gave of herself to feed and nurture us and continues to share our lives.

May we now make our prayer, meditating on the Mother who stood patiently at the Cross of her Son using the words of the Stabat Mater hymn:

 

At the Cross her station keeping,

stood the mournful Mother weeping,

close to her Son to the last.

 

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,

all His bitter anguish bearing,

now at length the sword has passed.

 

O how sad and sore distressed

was that Mother, highly blest,

of the sole-begotten One.

 

Christ above in torment hangs,

she beneath beholds the pangs

of her dying glorious Son.

 

Is there one who would not weep,

whelmed in miseries so deep,

Christ’s dear Mother to behold?

 

Can the human heart refrain

from partaking in her pain,

in that Mother’s pain untold?

 

Translation by Edward Caswall, Lyra Catholica (1849)