Mary, Mother of the Church (Monday after Pentecost Sunday)

Readings: Genesis 3:9-15, 20 OR Acts 1:12-14; Psalm 87; John 19:25-34

There are few enough homilies that are really memorable. For each person I suppose there are a few that stay in the memory, perhaps more because of a personal significance they have for each person than for anything else about them. Sometimes, though, it is the originality of a homily that causes it to stick.

One such homily for me was given by Herbert McCabe OP, preaching on today's gospel reading, chosen for this new memory of Mary, Mother of the Church. We normally work with this text in its final form, as it is in our Bibles, in which Jesus sees his mother and the disciple he loved, and says something to each of them, things that seem like a neat pair of sayings going perfectly together - woman (Mary) behold your son (the beloved disciple), behold (beloved disciple) your mother (Mary). But Herbert proposed that the original form of this word from the cross was simply between Jesus and Mary: seeing his mother he said 'woman, behold your son'.

His comments about it are in a homily entitled 'The Wedding Feast at Cana' (God, Christ and Us, 2003, pp.79-82). He develops his thought about it from the fact that the words of Jesus to Mary and to the beloved disciples in John 19 has many echoes of the wedding feast of Cana in John 2. There are many links between the two texts, most notably Jesus addressing his mother as 'woman' and speaking of his 'hour'. In saying 'behold your son', referring to himself, he is showing her what she was really asking when, at Cana, she asked him to anticipate this hour.

It remains a very apt reading for today's memory, whether we go with the normal interpretation or the more eccentric McCabe one. Mary is Mother of the Church as mother of Jesus, for the Church is the Body of Christ. Mary is Mother of the Church in her care for and her being cared for by the disciple Jesus loved, for the disciples of Jesus, baptised into him, are members of that body which he had from her and so they are entitled to Mary's maternal care.

'Behold your son' Jesus says to Mary, showing her and all of us the kind of Messiah he was destined to be. Here is the hour in which the Father is glorified by him. Mary has a particular place in that story, in relation to Jesus and in relation to all who belong to Jesus. Mary is with the members of Christ's body in prayer and in charity but she is also with them in suffering as each one is asked to take up his or her cross and to follow the way of her Son. She has first place among the disciples in this also.

And it is what the McCabe interpretation seeks to underline. Mary is Mother of the Church, yes, but only because she is in the first place Mother of Jesus, mother of the Messiah, sharing his hour with particular force so that she could be maternal in her care for the beloved disciple, for all the apostles and disciples of the Lord, for all men and women who have been, or are, or will be, members of his Body.

It is because of her relationship with Jesus that Mary is Mother of the Church and, each day, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

Pentecost

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7,12-13; John 20:19-23

The Jewish feast of Pentecost, the feast of the 50th day, comes seven weeks after Passover. It recalls the giving of the Law whose purpose is to establish good relationships, binding the people to each other and to God. The Christian feast of Pentecost, the feast of the 50th day, comes seven weeks after Easter. It recalls the giving of the Spirit whose purpose is to establish good relationships, binding the people to each other and to God. Because it is the Spirit sent by Jesus from the Father, the Spirit's work is to seal these relationships in and through Jesus Christ.

Following Paul and the Letter to the Hebrews in what they say about the replacement of the law by the Spirit, of the old covenant by a new covenant, Christian teachers - Augustine, Aquinas, for example - set up a contrast between an 'old law' which was written on stone, worked its effect from outside the person, was effective through coercion, and depended on fear and a 'new law' which was written on the heart, worked its effect from within the person, was effective through attraction, and depended on love.

It is essential to stress immediately that both kinds of law are known already in the Old Testament. It would be all too easy, and it has often been done, to turn this into a contrast between Judaism and Christianity. But the witness of wise and holy Jews across the Christian centuries, and the scandal of unwise and unholy Christians across the same time period, is enough to warn us off making that move. It is Jeremiah who provides the key text for the Christian teachers, the text that promises a new covenant written on the heart and a new law working in the way described. What God promised his people through the Hebrew prophets is now fulfilled in the preaching of the Jewish apostles: this is what Christians believe. Thomas Aquinas was clear that people living in the 'time of the old law' might already be living according to the new law and that people living in the 'time of the new law' - as we all now are - might still be living according to the old law. (We only have to think of the many kinds of legalism, puritanism, Jansenism, etc. that have blighted, and still blight, people's experience of Christianity.)

The point is often made at Pentecost that the gift of the Spirit, enabling people to understand each other across cultural and linguistic differences, reverses the experience of Babel. At Babel, the Lord scattered a united people who were building a city to make a name for themselves. At Pentecost, the Lord unites a scattered people to live in the city of God for the glory of God's name. Babel is a babble, the city of man without God, a place of confusion and disunity. It is what Jesus often refers to in John's gospel as 'the world'. Pentecost is another babble, the city of God in the hearts of human beings, a place of diversity and unity. Each person understands in his or her own language. Each one receives the one Spirit differently (different gifts, different forms of service, different workings) but united in the common faith that 'Jesus is the Lord'.

When human beings do find unity the principle of that unity is often external, an enemy who generates fear, a common project which generates pride. The Church has its unity from an internal principle, the Spirit, which is as internal as our breathing, as a drink we have consumed and incorporated into our flesh, as a fire burning in our hearts and needing to find expression on our lips. The gift of the Spirit achieves what Ezekiel promised, that the Lord would remove the heart of stone from His people's bodies and give them hearts of flesh instead.

In the Sequence for the liturgies of Pentecost we pray:

Light immortal, light divine, / Visit thou these hearts of thine; / And our inmost being fill:
If thou take thy grace away, / Nothing pure in man will stay; / All his good is turned to ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew; / On our dryness pour thy dew; / Wash the stains of guilt away.
Bend the stubborn heart and will; / Melt the frozen, warm the chill; / Guide the steps that go astray.

Easter Week 7 Saturday

Readings: Acts 28:16-20, 30-31; Psalm 11; John 21:20-25

The world continues to fill with books about Jesus. As I write this, for example, there are thousands of people around the world reading or even writing new books about Jesus. All aspects of the mystery of Christ are studied, prayed over, and written about: the doctrine He taught as well as the doctrines about Him which the Church later formulated; His spiritual and moral teaching; the parables, miracles and sayings; His passion, death, resurrection, glorification and sending of the Spirit; His grace in the life of Mary and in the thousands of saints whose lives we can read; the writings of preachers, teachers, bishops, monks, nuns, mystics, pilgrims, historians, artists, poets, musicians; the living books which are the individual lives of millions of believers in every century since then, each one a 'fifth gospel'.

The world cannot contain the Word even though it is but one, simple, Word, the Word eternally uttered by the Father, the Word that heals human souls and re-creates them, the Word that breathes Love.

Likewise as I write, there are thousands of people around the world preaching and teaching as we see Paul doing at the end of Acts. Like him, their subject is Christ the Lord, the Kingdom of God which is established in Christ, the fulfillment of the hope of Israel. This writing, reading, preaching and teaching will continue as long as human history lasts.

Long before he arrived in Rome and was able to speak with the Jewish leaders there face to face, Paul had written to the Christians of Rome and concluded his meditation on Christ and the hope of Israel by saying, 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways' (Romans 11:33). The gift of the Spirit, however, reveals the depths of God to us so that Paul can elsewhere pray 'that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fulness of God' (Ephesians 3:18-19).

St John of the Cross writes that 'there are depths to be fathomed in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many recesses containing treasures, and no matter how people try to fathom them the end is never reached. Rather, in each recess, people keep on finding here and there new veins of new riches'.

So the year continues to run on, and year succeeds to year, and even the course of a long life is not enough to explore fully the riches of Christ. It is not enough even for reading all the books already written about Him. But we continue to mine those depths, to savour one rich seam after another - in deepening love, in growing wonder, in endless, nay, eternal, joy.

Easter Week 7 Friday

Readings: Acts 25:13b-21; Psalm 103; John 21:15-19

The white wine produced in the Italian town of Montefiascone has the unusual name of Est! Est!! Est!!!. The story is that a German bishop on his way to Rome, a connoisseur of wine, sent an assistant ahead of him to track down good wines for his lordship. Where he found a good wine he was to write Est! to mark the place, and where he found a very good one Est! Est!!. (The Latin word means 'it is'.) Arriving at Montefiascone sometime in the year 1111 the bishop saw the words Est! Est!! Est!!! written in praise of the local wine. At least this is the story and the local wine bears this name ever since.

It is a theme in the Bible that something confirmed by three witnesses, something to which there is a triple testimony, is beyond doubt. We read in Deuteronomy that a charge can be sustained only on the evidence of two or three witnesses (19:15), a text quoted in Matthew 18:16 as a principle to guide relations within the Church as well. Where something is said three times it means we have not heard incorrectly, there is no ambiguity about what we are hearing, it is definitely the case.

In today's gospel reading Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to confirm his love for him by a threefold testimony. 'Do you love me?' Jesus asks him three times. 'You know that I love you', Peter answers three times. Obviously it gives Peter the opportunity to undo his threefold denial of Jesus. I do love you, it is true, I definitely love you, Peter is given the space to say. Three times Peter was given a vision in support of his preaching to the Gentiles (Acts 10-11), three times Samuel is called until Eli is no longer in doubt, three times Paul prays to God about the thorn in his side (2 Corinthians 12). These are only some examples of the place of threefold testimony in the scriptures.

But the love we preach is not our love for God, it is God's love for us, and it is fair to ask whether there is a threefold testimony also to this love. The First Letter of John tells us that there is: the water, the blood, and the Spirit, three witnesses, and these three agree (5:8). The water is baptism, and therefore faith, the blood is the Eucharist and love, the Spirit is the love of God poured into our hearts. Here is a threefold confirmation of God's love for us. We have not mis-heard. There is no ambiguity. It is clear and certain. All three testify to Jesus' love on the cross: he gave up his spirit, and water and blood flowed from his pierced side (John 19:28-37).

Or we can appeal to the most profound threefold testimony of all, the Father who speaks to us in creation, the Son who is with us with his wisdom and his saving power, the Spirit whose coming we await in these days and who transforms and renews us in the love of God. Thinking of this Trinitarian confirmation of the truth God has revealed about himself we can say in a much more profound and serious sense, Est! Est!! Est!!!

Easter Week 7 Thursday

Readings: Acts 22:30; 23:6-11; Psalm 16; John 17:20-26

'Divide and conquer' is Paul's strategy facing the chief priests and the Sanhedrin. He knew better than most the make up of that body, on one side the Sadducees of the priestly families with their liberal, reductive, style of theology, and on the other the Pharisees, more zealous and religious, believing not only in angels and spirits but also in 'the resurrection of the dead'. Whether the Pharisees understood this as yet another kind of 'spiritual' reality is not clear. Perhaps they did, while Paul had come to believe in the resurrection in quite a different sense.

But that did not matter for the moment. Strategically, the most important thing is that Paul set them at each other's throats. From the perspective of the Divine Strategy of Acts the most important thing is that Paul, having borne witness to the Lord in Jerusalem, is told (by the Lord, in a vision) that he must now also bear witness in Rome.

It is fitting that Paul of Tarsus, citizen of the Roman Empire, one of the most significant figures of the ancient world, should end his career in the capital city of that world. In him will be fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus at the beginning of Acts, that the apostles would bear witness to Jesus in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Paul thought of going to Spain (another kind of 'end of the world') but the Spirit of Jesus led instead to Rome.

Today's gospel passage brings Jesus' 'high priestly' prayer to an end. It is, fittingly, a doxology, celebrating the glory which the Son has with the Father before the foundation of the world. A mysterious unity in mutual knowing and loving (what we usually call simply 'the Holy Spirit') is shared with human beings through the life and teaching, death and glorification of Jesus. It is an intimacy in knowing and loving, a union of life and love, for which our most fulfilling experiences of love are invaluable but still very poor analogies.

It is clear in what the glory does not and does consist - not a shining light and rolling thunder, not a blazing storm or a shattering earthquake, but something like a still, small voice, or a lamb led to the slaughter. Unity, loving, mutual knowing. What are such things in a noisy world of conflict, struggle, argument? Paul has no hope of getting round to teaching his accusers something about this rich mystery which is the Father in Jesus, Jesus in us, and so the Father in us. There is the gospel and the rich promise of eternal life which it carries, a shared life even now in the Blessed Trinity. But there are always also the hearers and receivers of the message. Something has to happen in them too if they are to believe what they hear, something like a conversion, a new heart, a veritable resurrection of the spiritually dead.

Easter Week 7 Wednesday

Readings: Acts 20:28-38; Psalm 68; John 17:11b-19

There are striking similarities between the two texts read at Mass today. They are both farewell speeches that have turned into prayers. Paul takes leave of the presbyters (elders, later 'priests') of the Church of Ephesus. He speaks of grace and the gift of the Spirit who has appointed them overseers (episkopoi, later 'bishops') of the flock.

Jesus continues to pray in John 17 for the apostles and for those who believe in him through their preaching.

In both cases there is sadness at parting and in both cases also a certain reserve, even more, a warning, about 'the world'. Experience informs both texts that the Lord Jesus and those who follow His way are vulnerable to various kinds of attack. Paul warns his listeners about 'savage wolves' who will not spare the flock. He is referring to people from within the community who will pervert the truth and seek to lead them astray.

Jesus speaks in similar terms: the world has hated his disciples, he says, because they are the bearers of the Father's word, like him witnesses to the truth, and they do not belong to the world. He prays not that the Father will take them out of the world, but that he will protect them from the evil one. The evil one is also the 'father of lies'. The contrast is between a community living by the truth and a society built on lies.

'It is more blessed to give than to receive' is a saying Paul attributes to Jesus. He commends the leaders of the Church of Ephesis to God and to the word of his grace (a phrase that recalls the reactions of the crowd to Jesus' preaching at the synagogue in Nazareth, all wondering at his 'gracious words').

And both texts end with a reference to consecration, being made holy in the service of God in the world. We tend to react to any kind of exclusivity these days but there it is. 'Consecrate them in the truth', Jesus prays, make them holy in the truth as I made myself holy - set myself apart, dedicated myself - in the truth.

The contrast is underlined, between a life in truth which means justice, honour and love, and a life flawed or even corrupted by lies which means confusion, dishonour and ultimately hatred. The promised Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The prince of this world is judged. Jesus has overcome the world. It does not mean the disciples are spared. In fact it means that they will excite and attract the anger and hatred of those who prefer the darkness to the light. Jesus in his agony, and Paul in his weeping at Miletus, were seeing the ways in which the ones they loved would be asked to suffer.

Saint Matthias - 14 May

Readings: Acts 1:15-17, 20-26; Psalm 113; John 15:9-17

St John Chrysostom says that Peter could have appointed someone to take Judas's place but he chose not to and consulted the disciples. 'In any case he had not yet received the Spirit', Chrysostom adds. Thomas Aquinas says that it was acceptable to choose Matthias by casting lots because the Spirit had not yet been poured on the Church. After Pentecost, however, it is not appropriate to choose spiritual leaders in that way. Now spiritual leaders must be chosen through the reflection, conversation and decision of colleges of human beings because this is the normal way in which the Spirit works in the Church.

It is a politics of friendship, if you like. It is a fulfillment of the friendship with God which Jesus has established. From it arises also a new kind of friendship between human beings, all of whom share the same Spirit. It is not just a new friendship with God that Christ makes possible but a new kind of friendship among men and women.

No longer servants, we are friends of Christ and so friends of God. Friendship with God is another way of naming grace. It implies equality, mutuality, sharing, communication, loving. But it implies all those things understood Christologically. We can sometimes fall back into reducing the Christian faith to a kind of philosophy, a set of ideas which have a certain, abstract, truth, ideals that it is good to aspire to and to live by.

But the Christian faith is qualitatively different from even the best philosophy because it is centred not on an idea or even on an ideal but on a Person. It is about persons in relationship: the Father with the Son in the Holy Spirit; the Father and the Son come to dwell in the disciples by the power of the Spirit; Jesus in the disciples and they in him; the Blessed Trinity abiding in the hearts and minds of those who love Him; human beings called to abide in the word and commandment and life and love of Jesus, and to bring all that into their relationships with each other.

Put much more simply, keep an eye out for the little word 'as' in the discourses of Jesus recorded in John's gospel. In today's gospel passage alone we find it a few times. As the Father loved me so I have loved you. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love as I have kept the Father's commandments and remain in his love. Love one another as I have loved you. Christ is the key, the link, the mediation between the Divine Love and Friendship and the human participation in that Love and Friendship.

An apostle is one who has been with Christ from the beginning. He has been in the community of formation that is the band of disciples and apostles, witnessing and hearing everything from the baptism of Jesus by John to his resurrection from the dead. It is not just a matter of time spent in the company of Jesus. It is about being one of the friends to whom Jesus has made known everything he has learned from the Father. One of the greatest blessings of friendship is the joy of knowing and being known, trusting enough to share oneself with one's friend, experiencing the security of entrusting oneself completely.

The Church is Apostolic in this sense, a community of men and women who have become the friends of Jesus, who have spent long years in his company, who have entrusted their lives and their hearts to him as he has entrusted his life and his heart to us. It is only ever through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, experiencing things as He experienced them, knowing as He knows, seeing as He sees, doing as He does, being as He is, loving as He loves. And persevering in this friendship until we know even as we have been known, and then become capable of loving even as we have been loved.