SS Peter and Paul, Apostles

We cannot choose our family, we may not like them, we may find them difficult to get along with, it is not always easy to get along with them, but we do so because of the ties of blood and kinship, because blood is thicker than water. The Church is a family rather than a society of friends, we are related to each other through our baptism: we have been clothed with Christ and share in his death and new life. Living in the Church means being part of a family where our relationship with each other flows from our relationship with Jesus Christ.

            In this morning’s Gospel Jesus asks his disciples ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ and he asks us ‘Who do you say that I am?’  It is a question which we have to answer. The world around us can provide us with any number of answers – there are those who deny that Jesus even existed, that he’s made up, a figment of an over-active religious imagination, there are those who say that he was a human being, a prophet, a charismatic healer and rabbi, misunderstood, who died, but whose resurrection is doubted. This will not do: either Jesus is exactly what he says he was, or he is a liar and a fool. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God, who brings freedom and liberation, he is God, the God who created the world and who redeems it, by giving himself for us.

            Can we give this answer? If we do that’s not the end of the story, but only the beginning. At the end of John’s Gospel, Our Lord asks Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ he asks it three times, and each time he replies, ‘Feed my sheep’. Peter replies, ‘Lord you know everything, you know that I love you’ Our Lord knows that Peter loves him because he shows this love by feeding the sheep given to him to tend. We show our love for God by living out our faith in our lives, by bearing witness to what we believe in our hearts in what we say, and think, and do in our lives. We bear witness, we are not afraid to confess our faith in a world which demands that we compromise it, that we sacrifice to its idols.

            In the Acts of the Apostles we see King Herod persecuting certain members of the Church. We too have to expect persecution in our lives as it is what the powers of this world want to conform us to their will. They can try, but they will never win: Christ’s victory over sin, the world, and the devil, wrought upon the altar of the Cross, where he as priest and victim offers himself for us, is complete and total, its effects extend through time and space. We who are called to follow him are called to take up our own Cross daily and to bear witness to our faith and risk all for love of him who died for us. This is what being baptised means – it isn’t something ‘nice’ we do to children as the excuse for a party or substitute for a wedding – it is sharing in Christ’s death and new life, it is taking a stand against those who wish us to worship false gods: money, power, sex, the European Court of Human Rights, the High Court of Parliament, pleasure, influence.

            This is why St Peter is a firm foundation upon which to build the Church: he is not a man of power or intellect, but he trusts in Christ, he is rooted in him, he recognises and proclaims his divinity to the world, just as St Paul trusts and proclaims Christ to the world, as he says in his Letter to the Galatians, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (Gal 2:20) As Christians, Christ is our identity: we share his death and new life and proclaim his saving truth to the world.

            Our faith is precious, just like the Word of God and the Sacraments of the Church – they are precious and they nourish our body and soul, we celebrate them as God’s transforming presence among us – a gift which transforms us by God’s grace, his free gift, so that we can become like him and have eternal life in him. It is the transforming power of our faith which frightens the world: for two thousand years it has transformed the lives of countless billions of people just like you and me, like nothing else before or since. It cannot be silenced, political regimes cannot eradicate it, other faiths cannot stamp it out, thanks to the courage of those who bear witness to their faith, who live it out it in their lives. We are here today to celebrate God’s saving love, a saving love which transformed the lives of men like Peter and Paul, which transforms bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, so that we may feed on Him, and be transformed by Him, given a foretaste of heaven, strengthened for our earthly pilgrimage and the journey of faith, bearing witness to Him who loves us.

            There is something quite subversive about this: it stands in opposition to the power of this world, it is something which the world cannot contain or control, because it is of the Holy Spirit. So let us come to be fed by Him who died for love us, fed with Him, with His Body and Blood, to be strengthened by Him to live out our faith in our lives, to confess that Jesus Christ is God to the glory of the Father, to proclaim him to the world, so that the world too may believe and that all humanity may repent and believe in the God who loves them and saves them. Let us transform the world so that it may serve God, and Him alone, and resound with the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

A thought for the day from Mother Mary Clare

You are dedicated to love and reconciliation. Your life is dedicated to that end, and you must learn to stand at the Cross. It is a long learning, a long road, but a sure road, if it is up the hill to Calvary.

It is a road on which you, being stripped of self, may mediate to the world the dawning knowledge of the glory that descends.

St Paul's Advice to a Bishop (today's Epistle)

4 Διαμαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, καὶ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ· 2 κήρυξον τὸν λόγον, ἐπίστηθι εὐκαίρως ἀκαίρως, ἔλεγξον, ἐπιτίμησον, παρακάλεσον, ἐν πάσῃ μακροθυμίᾳ καὶ διδαχῇ. 3 ἔσται γὰρ καιρὸς ὅτε τῆς ὑγιαινούσης διδασκαλίας οὐκ ἀνέξονται, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισωρεύσουσιν διδασκάλους κνηθόμενοι τὴν ἀκοήν, 4 καὶ ἀπὸ μὲν τῆς ἀληθείας τὴν ἀκοὴν ἀποστρέψουσιν, ἐπὶ δὲ τοὺς μύθους ἐκτραπήσονται. 5 σὺ δὲ νῆφε ἐν πᾶσιν, κακοπάθησον, ἔργον ποίησον εὐαγγελιστοῦ, τὴν διακονίαν σου πληροφόρησον.

4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.

Fulton Sheen on Mary

Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that Our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to the Apostles

The World's First Love, 1956: 88

... she is what God wanted us all to be, she speaks of herself as the Eternal blueprint in the Mind of God, the one whom God loved before she was a creature. She is even pictured as being with Him not only at creation but before creation. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers – she is the world’s first love.

The World's First Love, 1956: 11

A Thought for the Day from Fulton J. Sheen

The Mass causes the historically past events of His life to emerge here and now in their eternal reality. Here there is no subjective recollection, but the re-emerging of Christ's Death and Resurrection into our contemporaneous situation. The Lord opens the bridge between the eternal and the temporal; that which was past is re-summoned for active operation here and now.

Those Mysterious Priests, 1974: 148

A Thought for the Day from Fulton Sheen

"When John the Baptist saw Our Blessed Lord approaching, he said: "I must decrease; He must increase". Herein lies the secret of mental and spiritual stability. It is only by making ourselves little that we become great; it is only by creating an emptiness that Heaven has a place to fill."

Homily for the 12th Sunday of Year C: Zech 12:10–11, Gal 3:26–29, LK 9:18–24

Christianity does not begin by reforming society; it begins by regenerating men.

Fulton Sheen Missions and the World Crisis (1963) 62

To be in the Church is surely the most wonderful of all things, it may not really feel like it, in fact it may well feel the complete opposite, but that may in fact be the point: the Church is not simply made up of people whom I like or whose company I keep, but rather of all the baptized. Through our baptism we enter the Church, we put on Christ, we share in his death and resurrection, we are regenerate: born again of water and the Holy Spirit to share new life in Him and to live out that new life and love in the World.

        This is what Christ gives us freely, as a gift through his offering of himself upon the Cross. Thus, the prophet Zephaniah in this morning’s first reading can say that ‘I will pour out a spirit of grace and a plea for mercy when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced’ it anticipates the saving work of Christ, it is a prophesy which finds its fulfilment in Him. That is why a few verses later at the start of Chapter 13 he says ‘On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness’. Our baptism and the death of Christ on the Cross is that fountain which washes us from our sins and uncleanness, which heals and restores us to live Christ’s risen life.

        This is why St Paul in his letter to the Galatians can extol the wonderful nature of baptism – we are all equal in our common baptism, there are no distinctions whatsoever between those who are saved in Christ, who have put on Christ. There is then an equality in baptism and salvation, which makes Christianity radically different, we are the new Israel, the body of Christ, and the community of the baptized is open to all those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ. In becoming his we are called to be like him and to share in both his joy and sufferings, so that we find our true identity and true meaning in our lives when we put on him.

        It is not then for nothing that Our Lord asks ‘But who do you say that I am?’ It is a question which he asks his disciples and which he also asks each and every one of us, ‘Who do we say that he is?’ Some long-haired proto-hippie communist? A prophet? A misunderstood charismatic healer? Or God? The Creator and Sustainer of all, begotten of his Father before all worlds; con–substantial, co–eternal, and the only name under heaven or earth by which we may be saved, the gate, the sheep–fold, the Good Shepherd, Our Great High Priest and willing victim, pierced for our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities, to cleanse us and all humanity of its sin and uncleanness, to heal and restore us, so that we may share his risen life, and have eternal life in Him.

        Our response to this has to be to take up our Cross and follow him – we have to be ready to be crucified, to suffer and die just like He did, and to live in a world which sees us and our faith as of no relevance or importance whatsoever, where we are to be pitied and blamed by ‘enlightened’ secularists and atheists who with a patronising sneer despise us and all for which we stand. Their attitude is not different from those Roman magistrates who condemned our forebears for refusing to worship a human being, the emperor, and saving that honour for God, and God alone.

        As Christians we honour and worship the God who loves us, who gave himself for us, gladly and willingly, to heal and restore our human nature, so that we might be born again not of the flesh but by water and the Spirit, so that we and all the world might be transformed and have the fullness of life in him.

        Since we are all one in Christ Jesus let us follow him, let us live lives where we carry our Cross each and every day and love him and serve him, in that knowledge that whatever happens there is nothing which can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Our lives may not be easy, but whatever we face good or ill we do so in the knowledge that we are loved by God, and that in living out our faith in Him in the world, His grace is at work in us, transforming us through the sacrament of his Body and Blood which we have come here to receive, to be strengthened for our journey of faith, proclaiming Christ’s truth and saving love to the world, and following him, by taking up our cross, and losing our lives for his sake, for what indeed would it profit someone to gain the whole world but lose his own soul? Power, wealth, possessions, position, honour, all the things of this world are empty and without meaning or worth compared with Christ.

        Let us follow him, and deepen our trust and faith in Him, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and pray that his grace may be at work in us So that we may believe and be transformed, and share our faith with others that they too may believe and be transformed and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

Sermon for Evensong Trinity III

“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  Our Lord asks this question to the disciples and he asks it to us – to challenge us to live out our faith amidst the storms of this life. This year the Third Sunday after Trinity also falls on the Feast of the Translation of St Richard of Chichester, Bishop and champion of the church against the state. I like many people came to know him through the words of his prayer, most of which was recited by him upon his deathbed: Thanks be to thee my Lord Jesus Christ for all the benefits Thou hast given me, For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me. 

Richard had a difficult and eventful life, trying to reform the life and practices of the clergy, and defending the church from interference by the state – some things it would seem in this country never change! In the face of a secular power who wished to tell the Church what to do, Richard said No. He was a man of great learning and sanctity, a great friend to the poor who lived out his charity in his life, but above all else he was a man of principle who resisted the encroachment of secular power into matters which belong to the Church. Oh that we had his like amongst our bishops nowadays! Someone to tell the lower House of Parliament to mind its own business and not meddle in matters which do not concern it, that the Church cannot be bullied into accepting the will of such a godless brood of vipers: corrupt, amoral, and enslaved to a godless ideology – seeking to conform the Church to the world and to make up a perversion of the Gospel after their own tastes.  And may God have mercy on their souls.

The only way to resist is by being both polite and firm, but most of all by practising that charity which lies at the heart of the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – in our care for the poor and the downtrodden, in our living out of our faith. If we follow the example of St Richard, and refuse to compromise the Gospel and live out our faith we can truly said to be following Christ, who came to call the world to repentance, to turn away from selfishness and sin.

We cannot let the light of our faith be hidden under a bushel, it has to shine as a light to the world, dispelling the darkness of sin and sloth, or that polite indifference so inimical to the zeal of the gospel. Only through this can the Church grow to be like the mustard tree so that all may be safe in its embrace, freed from sin, and rejoicing in the new life of Christ. It’s not easy, but that’s the point, when was anything worthwhile easy to achieve? Let us remember that we have that greatest of treasures, the pearl of great price which is faith in Christ, so let us share it, unafraid of the storms of this world since we trust in Him, who has overcome this world, sin and death, for our sake. Let us trust him, and love him, and each other, so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now, and forever.