23rd November, 2014 Christ the King

23rd November, 2014 Christ the King

 The gospel this weekend is very special.  I have always found that it goes to the heart of Jesus’ message and mission. How different the world would be if all people took this gospel on face value. Quite literally. “just as you did it to one of the least of these…  you did it to me”..

I think of a shocking example where this did not happen….     Such as the when an internationally acclaimed opera singer lay helpless at a bus stop for more than five hours after suffering a stroke . Delmae Barton, 66, was ignored by about 1000 people when she collapsed and became violently ill several times at a bus stop at a university campus in February 2006. Although a passer-by twice alerted security officers to her predicament, no one called an ambulance or checked on her well-being until a group of Japanese students found her and sought help.  Ms Barton was employed as an Aboriginal elder at the  same Brisbane university.  People thought that she was merely drunk…    (which even itself is odd, because people who are collapsed, are also at risk of dying). But the assumption was wrong, and she was not at all drunk, just very ill.   //  That was virtually Christ lying on the ground, stricken, ignored by 1000 people…..   For the words of Christ ring in our ears…  “just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me”

 

-      On a much milder example…  there is the possibly apocryphal story of Queen Victoria, who when on vacation once took a walk on one of her estates.  On the country walk, the Queen was dressed very discretely in walking clothes. A storm blew up and Queen Victoria retreated to a neighbours house and asked if they would kindly lend her an umbrella.  The neighbour begrudgingly lent the umbrella, but when the Queen walked off and opened it up it was full of holes and quite useless.   The next day, the Queen sent one of her attendants back to return the umbrella, with polite thanks.   When the neighbour saw the regal attendant and realised the truth, they were mortified and said. I am so sorry, if I had known it was Her Majesty, I wouldn’t have given her that umbrella.”   (well, whether that situation happened or not, the point is a good one.)  what did it matter WHO it was, why would you give someone a hole-ey umbrella that was useless irrespective of who they were or not.   “That person was virtually Christ … and this gospel calls upon us to treat everyone with the reverence and graciousness we would reserve to God…  // why are we at times tempted to make distinctions in the ordinary matters of human dignity and respect which is due to all people.

-      Closer to home, a trivial, almost funny situation.  I have been a student for priesthood in a parish south of Brisbane, and I have been trying to be more involved in the local parish school, but hadn’t much luck. I did one or two small projects there, but the year was coming to an end. I was invited to the school graduation dinner and I was looking forward to at least being part of that.    But as I walked into the place where the dinner was being held…. My glasses fell apart and the lenses rolled into a nearby garden. I was completely helpless.. I couldn’t see a darned thing!!    I was bent over with my hands over the ground feeling desperately for the lenses… and calling out politely for help from the guests who were attending the same dinner, asking or help….    And the blurry shapes just kept walking in…   no one came to my help…  eventually I went inside..  unable to see a thing.   I didn’t enjoy the night because (being unable to see made me effectively deaf as well, because I didn’t know who was speaking and if they were talking to me, and so…  I was very confused).   Being short-sighted, I couldn’t borrow anyone else’s lenses, they didn’t work.  Fortunately at the end of the night someone came out with me and helped find the lenses but I couldn’t get them back in, so they also had to drive me home in my car, as I couldn’t see to drive.  My mum had told me to keep a spare st of glasses in the car, which I do now always.   But the incident at the start of the night, was amusing but also sad…  ‘what you do to even the least of these.. you do it to me.”

If the world took this very seriously and literally, we could change the world… All humans would have the dignity and respect befitting our God. Which, I believe is the intention of Our Lord.

-      The reading from Ezekiel… is also very fitting. The Lord will be our shepherd, lead us, guide us, heal us, …seek the lost, feed us,  and he shall set up a servant (and his successors by implication) who will serve the people on  behalf of the shepherd….  (The fat sheep come in for some very negative comment here in this gospel, because in this narrative they have pushed around the others and not let them eat and have pasture. The Well-off ones have scattered the poor needy sheep and the master is very unhappy with this.).… 

In that first reading, God recognises that among the people (among every group or people)  there are some who are struggling and experiencing weakness, (all of us do in different ways)… and some who are feeling lost and disconnected and injured…    as well as strong and satisfied….   And the co-responsibility of people to support and encourage each-other is an expectation of the Kingdom.

 

-      In the epistle today….   From the Ephesians..    I had not noticed before, but the wording of it indicates that St Paul has probably not directly visited the people he is writing to..//  He has “heard good reports and is filled with thanksgiving to God for the good news that he has received about them.”  It is inspiring,  even to us these two thousand and more years later. God is truly great. The gift God has given us is beyond full comprehension. It makes us want to strive to be the best person one could be.. and the church is spurred on to put its best foot forward…    The church is called to be a beacon of goodwill, compassion and justice for the inspiration of the world.  This is no small responsibility, and we pray to God for forgiveness and strength for the times we have failed to be that shining beacon. With God’s help, we persevere and ask for renewal and guidance.

Do you want to know what the face of God looks like????…..

 

(artists, painters, sculptors, movie makers, writers….   throughout the generations have tried to capture what Jesus face is like……   what his physical form might have looked like…..   There have been some very inspiring movies which tried to portray Jesus…. and what he might have looked like…  and acted like….. //  some have been great….//  most fall a bit flat.,.. // because they often make Jesus look like an actor with a bad hair day…. or a really awful wig… that just doesn’t look real…..//  most fail to capture that Jesus would have had Palestinian looks and complexion…. and not light brown hair and blue eyes…… )…

 

but in any case….  this weekend’s gospel takes another angle on this question……  Do you want to know what Jesus’ face really looks like??…….  

 

Well, this weekend’s gospel gives us the answer…. but it is a surprising and unexpected answer……. ……    Jesus instructs us that……every time you look into the face of one who is hungry, the face of a person who thirsts….  The face of a stranger…..   the face of someone in need, or someone who is ill…..   or a prisoner….   any time you look at anyone, even those who might be regarded as ‘the least’ (by some)………There…  you are looking and seeing the face of the Lord... //And how we respond to these people is how we are taken to be responding to the Lord himself.

 

Jesus tells us this parable because he wants us to take this message quite literally….     and act upon it……   

 

In the parable…. everyone gets a surprise about this news…..  the ‘sheep’  and the ‘goats’ alike…..  neither realised that when they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, visited the prisoner…. welcomed the stranger… that they were helping Christ himself…..    the wicked certainly didn’t know this…..    but in this parable… even the righteous….  (they helped these people)…but even THEY didn’t realise that by acting in this way, they were serving Christ himself, in these needy people…..

 

As we come to the end of the church’s calendar year, and prepare to enter into the season of Advent, from next weekend, these readings this week speak of “judgement”…..    but interestingly….  “Scriptural ‘judgment’ seems to be really about …two types of judgments – about WHO  we are and how we have ACTED…how we have LIVED…. 

 

in this modern day and age, we can be tempted to separate our sense of self from our actions….  but Jesus reminds us….  our actions cannot be separated from who we are…. they are often the better sign of who we are and what our values really are….. because in the end, where our actions are… there our heart is too… 

 

The Gospel from Saint Matthew reminds us that we will be judged on how well we loved.It is the way that we love one another that reveals whether we love God or not.  It is this love for one another that will confirm whether we are truly close to God or far from God…

 

In that sense… God’s judgement is no more than confirming the truth of our who we are and who we have become…..   rather than creating a new reality or changing our status or standing with God….

 

This Gospel passage is reportedly the passage of Scripture that really captured Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. as pope John Paul wrote about Mother Teresa:  “ This Gospel passage, so crucial in understanding Mother Teresa’s service to the poor, was the basis of her faith-filled conviction that in touching the broken bodies of the poor, she was touching the body of Christ….. Mother Teresa highlights the deepest meaning of service – ‘an act of love done to the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, prisoners….. is done to Jesus himself.’” ….. 

 

we have the most wonderful role model in Jesus….  God made flesh…….. He is a King…..yes…..  and the greatest leader ever…. true….. but (at the same time)…..such a wonderful, compassionate, loving, and totally involved person too……   / the first reading gives a superb image of the good shepherd…… This image of God as the shepherd is truly beautiful…….    God, the good shepherd,  is very much involved in the lives of his sheep……    God is “IN there” and “at work”,,,,   right in the middle of his sheep……    God is keeping everyone in his sights……    rescuingthem, allowing them rest….  feeding them……   searching for strays……   bandaging the injured…….   strengthening the weak……..    watching over the fat andf the healthy…….    NOW THAT is a TRUE shepherd……..  //  and finally….. one who is able to tell the difference between the sheep and the goats….

 

We are all brothers and sisters in Christ…..   and we ask for God’s guidance and grace as we look out for others..  especially the most vulnerable…….   We move forward, joyfully remembering always that the Lord is Good…  his mercy and faithfulness endures from age to age!!”

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

REFERENCES:

·                     FR. PAUL W. KELLY

·                     New Jerome Bible Handbook. Geoffrey Chapman Publishers. 1992.

·         [Read more:  http://www.news.com.au/national/opera-singer-ignored-after-collapse/story-e6frfkvr-1225942042995#ixzz1dp32vlLF]

 (Sources:  Paul Kelly;/  also “2008 – a Book of Grace-filled Days,” by Lavonne Neff;  “Monastery of Christ in the Desert,” Abbott’s Homily, http://christdesert.org ; “Vision – Praying Scripture in a Contemporary Way. Year A” )

 

 

 

 

To unsubscribe click here.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "frpaulsritasmessages" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to frpaulsritasmessages+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to frpaulsritasmessages@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/frpaulsritasmessages/be8f1652e6967e83c2f2604f01ca725f%40localhost.localdomain.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Year A 9th November, 2014

Homily Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.  Year A  9th November, 2014     




 

 

I remember one of the unexpected highlights to a pilgrimage to Rome that I did in 2007  was a guided tour to the “first of all churches in Catholic Church: John Lateran Cathedral.”

 

On the front of the door was inscribed the Latin: Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput ("Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head."

 

WOW.  A very profound claim…    (Many may be forgiven for thinking that Saint Peter’s Basilica was the mother church..  but it is definitely not….  It’s the Church we celebrate in a special feast..  a feast so important that when it lands on a Sunday it overrides the usual Sunday readings..  which does not happen for most feast days… only really important ones such as last weeks feast of All Souls and this weeks feast.

 

This Church, now known as John Lateran (actually it has two co-patrons because it has been dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at different times in its history) actually has as its official name and head patron, Christ himself. The official title of this church is the “Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour.”
So, we start to see why this feast is so important.. it is regarded as a Feastday of Christ our Saviour…

Emperor Constantine gave this land to the church as residence of the Pope and for a church in around 312 AD and it was officially dedicated in 324. It has undergone many changes but is regarded as the seat of the Bishop of Rome, thus symbolising the seat of the Bishop and the mother church of the universal church. It ranks in importance over all other churches, even St Peter's Basilica. 

This was the very first Christian church built in the West and the first church built when Christianity was not outlawed and underground. So, this first church presented a new challenge to the newly legalised early Christian church. What kind of building should a public church be?  They did not want to build something that was like the Roman temples, which were beautiful outside and designed to be looked at by people from outside, and fairly empty on the inside (with usually a statue to some Roman or Greek god or goddess). The early Christian church wanted to distance itself from comparisons with temples of the pagans. Also, Christianity needed large public space for people to gather and also room for different spaces where people at different stages of initiation could come, somewhat apart from others. Thus, the early Christians looked around for similar buildings and decided that the closest in practical style to what they were looking for were the Roman public buildings of the time, the Basilicas, which were enormous spaces for public civic gatherings which could allow for different sub-spaces within for people to gather as well. The church deliberately went the opposite way to the pagan temples: the Christian churches were plain and ordinary looking on the outside and beautiful and inspiring within.  This church of John lateran was orginally built as a temple to the God who enabled victory for the Roman Emperor Constantine, and there has always been a sense of victory about this church. This is why it was dedicated to Christ the Saviour. This church symbolises Christianity coming out of the shadows and now standing openly as a publicly accepted and victorious presence in the community. 

The church has been rebuilt and extended many times, the most significant change was the interior in which large columns were built and in-between the columns were placed huge statues of the twelve Apostles, as if to say that just as these statues form part of the support beams of this church, so too the Apostles are the support pillars on which Jesus has built his church. The main altar is built above relics of the original wooden altar which Saint Peter and Paul are believed to have celebrated Mass, and above the altar is an ornate covered canopy…   called a “baldachino” with golden statues of Peter and Paul which are actually reliquaries containing fragments of the skulls of Sts Peter and Paul, so Mass on this altar occurs in the midst of the these symbols of the church's history. 

The Bishop's chair, The seat of the Bishop of Rome….    Which is the chair of the Pope, is in the Apse directly behind the altar.  This chair is a symbol of the Bishop’s pastoral care and oversight of the diocese of Rome and his role as universal pastor to the churches throughout the world. 

When I visited, we got to celebrate Mass in the chapel of the Baptistry at St John Lateran. This was a special blessing for us and was very meaningful. WE started mass with a renewal of our Baptismal vows, in this Baptistry (at the Catholic Church's mother church) representing Baptisms all over the world. 

I prayed then as we continue to pray now, for  parishioners, family and friends and for the universal church,   Christ’s church, to which we all belong….

 

It is wonderful to belong to something much bigger than what we can see….    Its excellent that all the local Catholic church communities spread throughout the world are also at the same time “in communion’  with the universal church, represented by the unity we share with the Bishop of Rome, the pope. It reminds us that we are truly part of a bigger picture and we act in union with the church.  Because we belong to a wider communion, we act in the knowledge that we are both local and universal in our membership….   And this is why we are careful to ensure that the necessary local flavour of our community here also synchronises with what we share in common with the wider universal church and its actions…   It is so moving to be part of a communion that grounds us in the here and now, and at the same time calls us to look outward and upward into the worldwide mission of Christ’s church…..  

+++

This feast we share, of course is not really about a building..  bricks and stones… although that is a focal point for prayer and presence…  but we know from the Gospel that Jesus is the true temple and we are all bricks in the fabric of Christ… we are part of the body of christ, the church.  Saint Paul tells us too that the "temple" is the church, the gathered body of Christians, the body of Christ. Each of us is a living stone building up the church on the foundation of Jesus. Today's feast is as much a celebration of a magnificent physical structure as it is our unity as Christians in the church. We also celebrate our vocation to stay focused on the church's mission, which is the building up of the kingdom of God.

 

++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

REFERENCES:

 

·          FR. PAUL W. KELLY

·          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_St._John_Lateran

·          Prepare the Word (internet service)

 

 

P Save a tree. Don't print this e-mail unless it's really necessary

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

To unsubscribe click here.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "frpaulsritasmessages" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to frpaulsritasmessages+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to frpaulsritasmessages@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/frpaulsritasmessages/b65849e2a05dee5751dee1780502b809%40localhost.localdomain.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.