Friday, 26 July 2013
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Travelling Lght
Last week I walked the pilgrimage route to Beagle Bay that we
will take in a few weeks. The small group walked slowly, leaving plenty of time
for reflection, prayer and noticing the country around us as we passed through.
We were pilgrims walking through a sacred land, not that this land was any
different to any other, it is just that the speed we walked and the reflection which
was afforded us by that pace enabled us
to see the wonders that God had placed on our track. We travelled light, not worrying
about material goods, trusting in God and in our support person.
The prophet Isaiah, extolling the wonders of Jerusalem, was
a man who was tuned in to god and to his country. Jerusalem was the mother who nursed and cared
for all who respected her. Those who visited Jerusalem were filled with hope
and carried light hearts. Pilgrims to Jerusalem carried little material goods,
but were filled with faith and expectation: they knew that God would do
something, so they were looking for signs.
They believed, as Isaiah says, that: To
his servants the Lord will reveal his hand.
When we travel light and have a destination in mind, we are
able to claim the status of pilgrim. It is not just people who go up to Jerusalem
or travel to beagle Bay who are pilgrims. True, those people take part in pilgrimage
and are pilgrims, but all of us can be pilgrims by our attitude and the way we
approach our lives. The Lord appointed the seventy-two to go out and bear
witness. They were told to travel light. As Boniface Perdjert, the first aboriginal
permanent deacon teaches, Christ did not
get worried about material things. He was born in the countryside in a cave,
like so many of us have been born. He walked about like so many of our people die
with nothing.
Freedom comes with detachment, and it is in this that our Aboriginal
brothers and sisters can teach so much to the wider Australian society that is
so bent on material gain that we squeeze the spiritual element out of our lives
so effectively that it becomes so tame and so to interfere with our hectic
lifestyle.
Jesus sent his materially poor and detached disciples out
with a mission. The freedom gained in this enables the disciples to concentrate
on that which is important and to leave behind that which is unimportant. The same
call is given to you and me.
Today, Aboriginal Sunday, we are asked to appreciate the land
that has been given to us all to share, land that has Aboriginal people as its
custodians. We are called to live in this land together, in harmony and peace,
letting go all that would hold us back from freedom and peace. In so doing we
are able to listen to God speaking in our land and its people, we are able to
follow God in simplicity showing peace and mercy to all people. We will be able
to let affronts and slights go past, and to acknowledge the spirit of God
active in our world. In the words of the psalmist, we can say:
Come and hear, all who fear God
I will tell what he did for my soul
Blessed be God who did not reject my prayer
Nor withhold his love from me.
Homily 13th July 2013 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time year C
Aboriginla and Torres Starit Islander Sunday
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Saturday, 15 June 2013
The Fall of the Proud Pharisee
Yesterday I was in a class at St Mary’s. I was to talk with
the class about the seven deadly sins. Remember them? Pride, Greed, Lust,
Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth. I started by asking why we should be talking
about such negative things when maybe we should just know that God loves us. The
answer came back that we needed to know that we had choices; we needed to know
that bad choices would result in sin and a decrease in our happiness and
freedom. Wow! All of a sudden, looking at sin went from being unhealthy navel
gazing to a serious look at ourselves so that we could move forward as people
of integrity.
St Luke presents us with a story of two people who have been
offered forgiveness. As in many places in Luke’s Gospel, there is a triangular
pattern at play.[i] Simon
does not realise what is happening and remains proud in the denial of his
sinfulness, whereas the woman fully realises and acknowledges what is happening
with deep appreciation. Jesus uses the
whole scene to teach me and you.
It was a great honour to be invited to the distinguished person’s
house, but Simon ‘violates all the rules of hospitality’. [ii]
The Pharisee probably asked Jesus to his house to trap him, after all, since how
many ‘sinful women’ (whatever that means) would be allowed to waltz into the
dining room of a Pharisee who was not allowed to have the slightest contact
with sin. She provides the hospitality the host refused to provide. The trap
was sprung when Jesus allowed this woman to touch him, bathe his feet and dry
them with her hair, something only done to one’s husband.[iii]
The drama increased and Simon’s pride was appeased: If this man was a prophet
he would have rebuked this woman. Therefore Simon had proved that Jesus was a
fraud, or had he?
Jesus is a prophet and he knows that this woman is on the
outer of society, but even more, he can see what is in Simon’s heart, and
brings it out in the parable. Simon is so puffed with pride and wanting to
score points that he can’t see what is in front of his face. His answer
justifies the presence of the woman, yet he still cannot see even his own
sinfulness: So Jesus takes it apart, stage by stage, gently allowing Simon to accept
forgiveness. We are told that the woman accepted forgiveness. We are not told of
Simon’s final reaction.
Simon and the woman both needed forgiveness, they both
needed salvation. Simon did not realise this, and so remained aloof and
superior. The woman has experienced the depths, where she has met God. The
experience has led her to appreciate the total gift of God’s love and its
transformative power. Simon was yet to experience this, and was poorer for it.
I can’t help thinking that it would have been good if Simon
the Pharisee was in that class at St Mary’s listening to the Year Nine students.
In studying the seven deadly sins, those students were being invited to be fearlessly
open and honest in pursuing a life of integrity and justice. Jesus invited the woman and the Pharisee to do
the same, and today he invites you and me to do likewise.
May he find in us
willing and brave followers.
Homily, 16th June 2013 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time OLQP Broome.
[i]
Brendan Byrne, The Hospitality of God: A
Reading of Luke’s Gospel, (St Pauls, 2000), 74
[ii]
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke,
(Sacra pagina series v.3) (Michael Glazier, 1991) , 129
[iii] Michael
Fallon, The Gospel According to Saint
Luke: An Introductory Commentary (Chevalier, 1997), 153
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