Renewing the heart in Lent (Ember Friday in Lent)

Ember Friday of Lent

(a day of prayer and fasting)

Ezekiel 18 : 21-28  ;  Ps 129  ;  Matthew 5 : 20-26

Let us pray

WE BESEECH thee, O Lord, mercifully to have compassion on thy people: that they, who by thee are enabled to serve thee in all godliness, may ever be comforted by thy gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever One God, world without end. Amen.

In today’s gospel reading (Mt 5:20-26) taken from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds us that His Way is not the easy way. It is tempting to think that it would be better if our religion were less demanding and easier to practice – and sometimes we even try to make it so.

Although our Lord demands much, He also shows us the Way to fulfil those demands. In the Sermon on the Mount, He points us to where the key to this fulfilment is located: the heart. It is from the heart that our motivation, ideas, and thoughts emanate. So renewing the heart is a key part of the gospel message, hence why He calls us to repentance and belief.

So we must consistently examine our hearts. From this examination we must give thanks to God for His grace in the good virtues we show, and we must confess and ask for forgiveness for the sins we have committed; not only that, but our relationships with others must come from the heart. If we even harbour anger against a brother or sister we must be reconciled. If we are filled with lust towards a brother or sister, then we must confess the sin - it is adultery in our Lord’s eyes. If we harbour anger we must deal with that even if we haven’t expressed it.

It is at the level of the heart that we must work, and perhaps the most important part of that work is confession and thanksgiving. This Lent why not examine your hearts more often than you would usually and also make a point of regularly thanking God for His goodness and His grace at work in your life?

Let us pray

O LORD who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit; we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. 

Fr Ian is a catholic priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England. He is by papal dispensation married. He lives in a former convent with his wife and children in Devon, near the sea.

The dead, the lukewarm and the hated

"I will spew you out of my mouth..."

The dead, the lukewarm and the hated

In the Book of the Apocalypse we heard of those of Sardis (3:1-6) who claimed to be Christian but did not live according to the teachings of Christ. “You have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” Christ exhorted these Christians-by-name-only to repentance; and Christ also warned them – He would come to judge them unexpectedly.

In Laodicea there was a different problem among Christians (3:14-22): their relative affluence, and sense of self-sufficiency and comfort from their relative wealth, had made them “lukewarm” or indifferent towards the faith. Christ warns them that in fact they are far from being rich and comfortable, at least in terms of the kingdom – the truth is, He says, is that they are pitiable, wretched, poor, blind, and naked. They needed to face up to the truth!

The Truth visited Zacchaeus in person. The account of Zacchaeus in the gospel is a real-life example of what Jesus taught about repentance and conversion. In repentance we essentially turn away from our sin with resolve to change, and conversion is about actually changing our lives.

Like most tax-collectors of his day, Zacchaeus was basically hated by most Jews for cheating them and for collaborating with the occupying armies of the Roman Empire. Yet when Christ sought Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus responded. What is crucial here is the response of Zacchaeus to Christ, not the magnitude or gravity of his sins. Zacchaeus responded to Christ with a repentant spirit and a desire for conversion.

Zacchaeus pledge himself to several life changing things: to detach himself from his wealth, to compensate those he had cheated, and thus providing reparation for the injustice he had committed and satisfaction for his sins. And through these actions he welcomed the love of Christ and, not only that, but desired to respond to Christ in still greater ways. His repentance was complete. He was restored to the grace of God.

This movement of the heart in repentance resulting in conversion is the fundamental change we all need. Let us approach Christ in this Eucharist as Zacchaeus approached Christ; let us do so in repentance seeking the grace for the true conversion of our lives. Let us not be Christians-by-name-only; and let us not be found by Christ to be lukewarm!

Apocalypse 3:1-6,14-22  ;   Luke 19:1-10

Climbing that mountain - reflections for All Saints

Reflections on the Solemnity of All Saints

Trying to live the Christian life is frequently likened to climbing a mountain. In the gospel for All Saints we hear our Lord delivering his main teaching about discipleship from a mountaintop. It is not easy being a Christian, and it is like climbing a mountain. But why?

A whitewashed tomb

As we listen to our Lord it becomes clear that Christ wanted disciples that were not just obedient to laws but who were virtuous. He did not want followers who just kept an outward observance of the Law of Moses. Our Lord was interested in the heart not just visible actions. He was therefore interested in what precedes our actions; He was interested in the source of our actions - the source of our thoughts or motivations. The Christian life is hard because we not only have to strive to do the right thing, but we must also strive to think the right thing and desire the right thing. Our Lord’s greatest criticism was not directed towards those publicly regarded as sinners, but to those whose sin was hidden by outward righteousness. He called them whitewashed sepulchres! Outwardly they seemed clean, but inwardly they were dead!

In the Sermon on the Mount He sets out His moral teaching (i.e. how we are to live) based not merely on outward adherence to God’s laws, but a much more demanding teaching based at the level of the heart. The heart, in the Christian sense is not the seat of our emotions, but it is the mysterious centre of our being where our will is located, and from our heart issues thoughts and desires. We could put it this way, healing our heart is central to becoming the disciple Christ wants us to be – it is central to becoming a saint!

Let us think about a moral command like: do not steal. When morality is brought to the level of the heart, then we are guilty of theft, not just when we perform the action of stealing something, but from the moment we consent to the thought of stealing something. Once we give our will to it in our heart, then we have broken the commandment and committed a sin and possibly a grave sin. We may not ever actually steal anything physically speaking, but by consenting to it in our hearts we have broken the commandment – and this is a very grave matter in most circumstances. The same principle applies to all the commandments. Remember what our Lord taught about adultery? Someone commits adultery by consenting to it in their hearts. Consent is the crucial thing. The moment we say ‘Yes’ to a sinful idea, a sinful thought, a sinful desire, then we have crossed the line. Of course, thoughts come to us, even our Lord was tempted, but the moment we consent in our hearts to that sinful thought we commit that sin, we break that commandment.

Today we remember the Saints in glory. The innumerable hosts of Saints in heaven whose names we do not know. And it can seem that their holiness is very far from us – it seems we are at the base of the mountain, and they are at the top. So it is important that you understand one very important thing: we cannot reach the top by our own effort! The reason our Lord makes such high demands on His disciples, on you and me, is that He provides us with something that is key to climbing the mountain. He provides us with one of two key things to healing our hearts: grace. The other thing is our repentance – we must decide to repent.

So let us climb that mountain towards the Saints with both feet: one repentance and the other grace. Amen.

Last Things Part 2 - Judgment

THE LAST THINGS - part 2

JUDGment

 …it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment… Hebrews 9:27

What is Judgment in the Christian sense?

As we saw in the last session, “death puts an end to human life as a time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.” (CCC 1021) So the opportunity to repent is now over. God’s mercy and compassion is expressed in giving us a life in which to use our freedom of will either to be for Him or against Him. God the Father has bestowed on us, through His Son, many opportunities to cooperate with grace. The more we have been offered, the more is expected of us. Judgment is then the application of truth and justice.

There are two sorts of judgment that occur. One occurs before Christ comes again at the end of time, and the other occurs following His second coming (known as the “parousia” – see diagram above). One form of judgment is applied individually to a person’s life, the other is applied collectively.

Particular Judgment – “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven – through a purification or immediately – or immediate and everlasting damnation.” CCC 1022

General Judgment (Last Judgment) – this occurs after the second coming of Christ and will be dealt with in a later session on the Parousia. It is not judgment of an individual but in a way a corporate judgment.

Judgment is the application of Truth to our lives

Particular Judgment is made by Christ upon our lives. It is the coming of divine truth to the way we have spent the gift of our lives.

Isn’t God being harsh?

The concept of being held to account for our moral decisions can seem to some modern ears as a harsh thing! But divine judgment is not the arbitrary whim of a powerful being who somehow enjoys inflicting punishments. Holy Scripture tells us that God desires all men to be saved. God judges us while desiring all to be saved but also honouring the fact that He has created us all in His image with freedom of will.

It is the consequence of our freedom of will that has made us culpable for our sins. God has given us baptism to free us from the consequences of sin (original & personal). God has given us grace to be able to resist temptation. God has revealed to us in Scripture and Tradition what sin is and how serious it is. But as free beings we have the capability of going against His revelation and grace, and going our own way and sinning.

There are always consequences to our sin. It is never purely just between us and God. Sin affects everything (just as charity affects everything). These consequences of our sin we and others can experience in this life as suffering.  Judgment is about the reality of these consequences being fully revealed.

The apostles said, Who then can be saved?

In Christ, the Father has given us, His children, in our weakness, the ability to be forgiven and healed in Christ’s Church. As you listen to the gospels, do you not notice how often our Lord says to someone, “Your sins are forgiven”? He says this often even when He is healing a physical ailment. It is His divine Mission to rescue us from the consequences of choosing to sin because without His rescue we are doomed.

However Christ does not compel us to take His medicine. We still have freedom of will. So after Baptism we can still sin. But God has, of course, thought of that. On the day of Resurrection, when Christ breathed the Holy Spirit on the 11 Apostles, He said to them, “Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven, and those whose sins you retain, are retained.”

In this life God has given the baptised the means, through His Church, of being forgiven and healed of our sin. The means consists of doing the following:-

1.      Examining our lives with a view to repentance – using Holy Scripture, Tradition and the teaching of the Church to determine if we have disobeyed God’s Law ;

2.      Compunction - being sorry for our sins, for the way they have offended God ;

3.      Purposing to amend our lives – even if we know we are struggling, we still need this purpose;

4.      Obtain absolution – ‘going to Confession’ with a catholic priest ;

5.      Penance – acts of reparation that show our sorrow and are seeking to make amends ;

6.      Receiving Holy Communion frequently while in a state of grace;

7.      Prayer – maintaining closeness to God and trusting in His Promises.

It is possible that by this way we can be released from all the consequences of our sins no matter what the sins are. We can this way not only avoid hell, but it is possible to avoid purgatory as well.

This gift of our redemption by Christ on the Cross should be something that always amazes us and causes us to rejoice. This tremendous gift of being able to be reconciled with God and being able to do penance now for our sins is one we should never take for granted nor neglect. How tragic it would be to come to our particular judgment with sins that we could have had absolved but for no good reason we didn’t go to confession? This is why the Church requires all its members (who can physically do so) to go to confession at minimum once a year. She makes it a Precept of our life of grace out of love for us!

The result of particular judgment

There are only two possibilities for eternity - they are called heaven and hell. It is either the blessedness of heaven or the damnation of hell. It is either to be with God for eternity or separated from Him for eternity. We may temporarily be held back from Heaven for a time of purification (known as Purgatory), but every soul in Purgatory will come to Heaven sooner or later before the parousia.

Remember that you are dust

On Ash Wednesday ashes are “imposed” in a solemn ritual at masses across the world. The ceremony is unlike any liturgical action performed throughout the rest of the Church’s year.

The ashes are made from the palm crosses that were blessed and handed out the previous Palm Sunday. They are collected and burned and the remains are ground up into powder. I make my own each year.

During the Mass the ashes are blessed by the priest before they are “imposed”. In a procession people step forward and the priest puts the ashes on the forehead in the shape of a cross, saying, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” This is taken from Genesis 3 v 19.

What does the ash symbolise?

1. Death:  We are reminded of our mortality, for when we die our bodies decompose, or “they return to dust”. So we hear Abraham say to God “I am but dust and ashes” in Genesis 18:27. Whether death is just around the corner or many years hence, one thing is certain, we are going to die! So on Ash Wednesday we are asked to face our mortality, but not in a morbid and hopeless way, but in the faith of Christ crucified – which is why the ashes are imposed with a cross. Christ has died and redeemed us so that we have real hope. Yes we will die, but by the grace of Christ we can live beyond this death.

And indeed is death is coming we need to be prepared for it. Let death not catch any of us unprepared! Let us be prepared by living God’s ways.

2. Repentance: When the prophet Jonah warned the Ninevites that God was going to visit judgement upon them for their wickedness (their depravity and corruption) the people of Ninevah covered themselves with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of their repentance – they showed visibly that they were turning away from their evil ways.

So ashes are a plea to God for mercy, pardon and forgiveness. And they are also a public confession of our sin. Other people can see that we admit out sinfulness publicly, but also crucially that we bring them to the cross of Christ. We are sorry for our sins but we know they can only be forgiven through the cross of Christ, the grace He won for us once for all.

(Tip: If someone comments on your ashes, use the opportunity to explain to them something of your faith and why you do it.)

So we begin Lent by publicly saying sorry for our sins, and that we want to use Lent to correct our faults, purify our hearts and control our desires – and thus to grow in holiness, and be better prepared to celebrate Easter with joy filling our hearts.

Fr Ian  16^th February 2015