A GREAT CROWD OF WITNESSES

PRAYER PAUSE

Thursday 1 December 2016, Edmund Campion and Companions

A GREAT CROWD OF WITNESSES

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “With so any witnesses in a great cloud around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Reflection. The general meeting of the Jesuits in Rome, just ended, took up the call of Pope Francis to have “the audacity to do the impossible.” It is a cry from the depths of our modern anxiety in the face of the pressures that almost crush us in our headlong society. We are called to break out of the grip of fear and paralysis that makes us feel so insignificant before the forces that seem to crush us. In another age, Emund Campiou and his companions rose to challenge the flow of history and were indeed crushed as martyrs. But their magnificent spirit has inspired us for 400 years.

Prayer. Lord, give u8s the audacity to face the forces ranged against us that drag us down. May the Holy Spirit give us courage! Amen.

THE FOOTSTEPS OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS

PRAYER PAUSE

Wednesday 30 November 2016, Andrew

THE FOOTSTEPS OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “The footsteps of those who bring good news are a welcome sound.” (Romans 10:9ff)

Reflection. Entering deeply into the good news is a personal journey but it is also a communal one. As reports reach us of the mood behind the words of the recent Jesuit general meeting in Rome it becomes clear that struggled with this tension. How we want an answer to our question, “What should I do?” And yet we know we must make up our own mind. But then again we want help from others; we want to discern with them. Jesus chose his helpers and gave them the task proclaiming the good news. What happens then is a personal – but also a collaborative – process.

Prayer. Lord, we give thanks for Andrew and the countless people who have “proclaimed” the good news to us. But then help us to make our choices. Amen.

MANY DESIRED TO SEE

PRAYER PAUSE

Tuesday 29 November 2016

MANY DESIRED TO SEE

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and never saw it, to hear what you hear and never heard it.” (Luke 10:21-24)

Reflection. Jesus announces the time is here that many have longed for.  The kingdom has come. They look around and nothing looks any different. Where are the signs of change, of the new era? We could look around today. Politicians and prophets say things are different. But are they? And yet everything has changed. Now there is real hope for those who have eyes and ears. Now there is nothing to stop us changing everything – if we have the will. The only thing stopping us is our own dull desire that everything stays as it is.  

Prayer. Lord, may we hear the Advent message. May we open our ears and hearts to receive it. Give us the courage to act. Amen.

FROM EAST AND WEST

PRAYER PAUSE

Monday 28 November 2016

FROM EAST AND WEST

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Many will come from east and west to take their places with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 8:5-11)

Reflection. Why this reading to kick off Advent? Well, it says “Jesus was astonished” to see the faith of the pagan centurion and he immediately links it with the faith of people all over the world in every age who would live by the values of the kingdom. He rejoices in astonishment at this realisation. Each of us can think of countless similar moments. It is what Advent is all about.

Prayer. Lord, we rejoice in the faith – often anonymous - of the nations. May it grow within us for the transformation of the world. Amen.

EXPECTANT

“How out of joint the whole world must have appeared to the Gael of the eighteenth century! Where or how was there any prospect of relief, of ordered life, of achievement of ideals? He was in a pit of sorrow and the gates were closed.” Daniel Corkery wrote these words in The Hidden Ireland, in 1924, as his country was finally emerging from seven centuries of English occupation. Corkery’s major focus was not politics or religion but the cultural life of his nation enshrined in the living tradition of poetry. The poets’ words were memorised more than written and they kept alive a hope, an expectancy of better days to come.

Hope can be stirred in many ways and expectancy is part of our make-up. As children we longed for the holidays – though today children often look forward to school! What a revolution! Lovers look to each other in hope and mothers are “expectant.” Voters bight their nails on election night and investors tense up before the financial index. Living through years of Rhodesia I remember the euphoria with which we looked ahead to Zimbabwe.

Taking the long view, the fruits of hope outweigh the tears of disappointment. Take Ireland or Zimbabwe – the two countries I know best. The up-swings have elated and energised us; the down-swings have crushed and dispirited us. But I would hold that the former have an enduring effect while the latter, however painful, are no more than a pruning hook. Zimbabwe is in bad shape at the moment but there are multitudes of educated and more realistic, humbler people ready to galvanise the country with their imagination and commitment once the gates are opened on the “pit of sorrow”.

Isaiah combines poetry and prophecy when he speaks of “the nations streaming to the mountain of the temple of the Lord … and they will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles. (We used those words in Zimbabwe, in 1980, but we did not mean them!) The Church calls this season ‘Advent’, meaning the moment the Lord came to make clear his plan now that “the times had run their course.” All the expectancy of the ages was now about to have its answer.

But his coming would create new expectancies. We now have the plan of the building and know its general outlines. But we still have to build it.  This is the stage we are at now. We still wrangle a lot in the forums of the world. And we still try to push our way by force, though it is becoming ever more apparent how counter-productive this method is. Each Advent we get a boost to our commitment to build; to build a society where there is justice, compassion, peace and love; a society where each one, no matter how poor or disabled, can find his or her place.       

November 27, 2016    Advent Sunday 1 A

Isaiah 2:1-5                 Romans 13:11-14                   Matthew 24:37-44

STAND WITH CONFIDENCE

PRAYER PAUSE

Saturday 26 November 2016

STAND WITH CONFIDENCE

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “That day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap. For it will come on every living person on the face of the earth. Stay awake, praying at all time … and stand with confidence.” (Luke 21:34-36)

Reflection. All the warnings, towards the end of the gospel, about being awake, do not mean we have to stand around like police ready to hold up the traffic when the President is passing. It is not that kind of waiting. It calls for another type of alertness. “That day” is every day because at every moment there is a decision to be made calling for attention, being awake. The last days of the year is just a good time to alert us as they evoke the end of the world but they are not, primarily, about the end of the world – but the present moment.

Prayer. Lord, teach us what it is to be alert at every moment, attentive like a bird to every movement around and within us. Amen.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NEAR

PRAYER PAUSE

Friday 25 November 2016

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NEAR

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “As soon as you see the fig tree bud you know that summer is near. So with you when you see these things happening: know that the kingdom of God is near.” (Luke 21:29-33)

Reflection. Near? How near? For centuries people have got excited about “the end.” And yet we can say it is “near”; dreadful things keep happening and each of them portends a final resolution. But, more immediately, there are the daily events of my life. Each of them either draws the end nearer or farther. I can ‘grasp the moment’ or let it slip. Each moment, fully lived, brings the fulfilment of God’s plan closer.

Prayer. Lord, help us so to live that your kingdom comes closer. Amen.

THE SON OF MAN COMING

PRAYER PAUSE

Thursday 24 November 2016

THE SON OF MAN COMING

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When you see these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your head high, because your liberation is near at hand.” (Luke 21:20-28)

Reflection. As we race towards the end of the Church’s year the images multiply. First we are reminded of Jesus’ words about the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD69/70 and all the suffering it caused. Then we extend the calamities to the great distress at the end of time, and, in the first reading from Revelation, to the fall of “Babylon”. And finally in the midst of all this the Son of Man will appear with great power coming to judge the world and gather his people into joy of the now complete Kingdom of the Father. It is disturbing – and thrilling.

Prayer. Lord, give us the courage to be steady when we experience turmoil and to trust in you. Amen.

YOUR ENDURANCE

PRAYER PAUSE

Wednesday 23 November 2016, Michael Pro

YOUR ENDURANCE

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Not a hair of your head will be lost. Your endurance will win you your lives.” (Luke 21:12-19)

Reflection. Endurance can be a hard call. When Obama had the task of welcoming Trump to the White House two weeks ago he had to show a steely attitude of acceptance of a totally uncomfortable situation. All his staff were depressed but he rose above his own deep disappointment to say some healing and hopeful words. That takes endurance. At times we are faced with painful events and our temptation is to hit out and blame and complain. But that gets us nowhere. The call is to be cool, focused and strong and remain full of patience and hope that all will work out for the best.       

Prayer. Lord, give us courage and hope when things go wrong. Amen.

SUDOKU AND THE ART OF BEING A KING

SUDOKU AND THE ART OF BEING A KING

In 1973, Robert Pirsig wrote a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It became famous for a while as an exploration of how to reach enlightenment by doing our daily tasks with the discipline of Zen. I would like to write a book called Christianity and the Art of Doing Sudoku! But I am being frivolous. Still there is a tiny truth hidden there.

Sudoku, for the uninitiated, involves putting the only possible number in each of the empty squares on a grid of 81. You are given 25 numbers, more or less, scattered around the grid as markers. The puzzles can take five minutes or a month, depending on how tough they are and how apt you are at solving them.   

God is gentle with us. He gives us milk to begin with. That is all we can digest. Then we move on to solid food but we can baulk at it. The going gets tough and we turn aside to easier things. There is always that line that we fear to cross. Yet we know that if we cross it it will open a way to life.

TV camera crews at the Rio Olympics constantly played on the huge statue of Christ the King overlooking the harbour and the city. They did not comment on it. How could they? There would be so much to say. Suffice it to recall here that Fr Michael Pro, the moment before he was executed in Mexico ninety years ago, called out, “Long live Christ the King!”

This Sunday Catholics will be celebrating the feast of Christ the King as a final moment of the Church’s year. And, as with Sudoku, we are given a progress of readings from easy to hard. For a start we see David anointed king at Hebron. Nothing difficult there! We know what it is to crown a king or swear in a president. But then the gospel has Jesus proclaimed king by a Roman governor with a plaque nailed to his instrument of torture and death. And not only that, one of the criminals with him says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

That is harder to take: a “king” proclaimed by a pagan – half in mockery but perhaps with a tiny bit of prophecy – and earnestly implored by a bandit to ‘remember him.’ All the gospels make these moments of weakness, humiliation and death the turning point in the announcement of the kingdom of God. “From now on you will see…” But it is a hard message.

And then the letter to the Colossians goes wild about what “you will see.” “He has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom.” And then it goes on in baffling language, which make you gasp that people could write these things about Jesus of Nazareth only a few decades after his death. “He is the image of the unseen God… the first born …in him were created all things … before anything was created he existed … he holds all things in unity…” Phew! We’ve moved on a long way from Bethlehem.

We have been taken far beyond the simple ceremony at Hebron. But it was all contained there, as in a seed, all those years ago when the Jews struggled to discover who they were. We are still on that journey. But it is not an impossible puzzle. It is all gradually and wonderfully unfolding. And we have our part.     

20 November 2016        Christ the King

2 Samuel 5:1-3             Colossians 1:12-20        Luke 23:35-43

ALL ARE ALIVE

PRAYER PAUSE

Saturday 19 November 2016

ALL ARE ALIVE

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Now he is a God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all people are in fact alive.” (Luke 20:27-40)

Reflection. It is a theme of the great novelists; what is it to be fully alive? So many settle for something less – satisfied with the trinkets of wealth and status. But Dostoyevsky or Lawrence search through their many pages for what it is that makes a person truly alive. Migrants risk everything to “have a better life.” They flee from the grinding poverty or oppression of their own countries in the hope that they will be welcomed in another which promotes freedom and opportunity. And even those who have these things still search. Teresa Cox, the British MP who was killed for her political beliefs earlier this year, was said to be “a person fully alive.”       

Prayer. Lord, may we not settle for just being alive but seek always the fullness of life which you give. Amen.

THEY DID NOT SEE HOW

PRAYER PAUSE

Friday 18 November 2016

THEY DID NOT SEE HOW

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “They tried to do away with him, but they did not see how hey could carry this out.” (Luke 19:451-48)

Reflection. So it was not decided till the very end – like the US election. The Jewish leaders were determined to “do away with him” but could not find a way. And Jesus, even in the garden, hoped it could be avoided. Few martyrs go to their deaths willingly. Death is the great enemy. But if there is no other way of working through the truth – whatever it is – then it has to be. Jesus “set his face like flint”, meaning he calmly and determinedly accepted the price of witnessing to the truth, and the truth set him, and sets all of us, free.   

Prayer. Lord, help us to be faithful each day in all the little events of life. Amen.

HE SHED TEARS OVER IT

PRAYER PAUSE

Thursday 17 November 2016, Elizabeth of Hangary

HE SHED TEARS OVER IT

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “As Jesus drew near to Jerusalem and came in sight of the city he shed tears over it and said, “If you in your turn had only understood on this day the message of peace. But, alas, it is hidden from your eyes!” (Luke 19:41-44)

Reflection. And Jesus is still weeping over the cities of Syria and Afghanistan because the way of peace is, despite all our education, communication and imagination, is still hidden from us. We cannot seem to rise to embrace the way of peace which is always available. We prefer to insist on what we want by force. But there is another image – that of the laughing Christ on the cross in the medieval castle of Xavier in Spain – which proclaims the victory of Jesus over all the dark forces we know so well. 

Prayer. Lord, may we open our eyes to the message of joy and peace that you offer us each day. Amen

HE WAS NEAR JERUSALEM

PRAYER PAUSE

Wednesday 16 November 2016

HE WAS NEAR JERUSALEM

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Jesus went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and they imagined that the kingdom of God was going to show itself then and there.” (Luke 19:11-28)

Reflection. It is a strange violent parable which was not selected for the round of Sunday readings during the year. There is a sense of urgency, rejection and the good use, by the majority, of their gifts. How they would have loved for the kingdom to “show itself then and there.” It would be the end of all their problems and struggles. They could just sit on their hands and things would happen around them. But God invites our engagement in the struggle. He wants to share the outcome with us. We have a choice. Americans are either rejoicing or mourning over the choice they made last week.  

Prayer. Lord, teach us to choose wisely, with courage and imagination. Amen

HURRY, COME DOWN

PRAYER PAUSE

Tuesday 15 November 2016, Albert the Great

HURRY, COME DOWN

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Zaccheus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay in your house today.” (Luke 19:1-10)

Reflection. This is one more of those colourful scenes in the gospel where Jesus takes the slightest hint of a response from a person and blows it up to become a life changing moment. Zaccheus only wanted a glimpse of Jesus, no strings attached. But that doesn’t work with Jesus. If we get involved – even a little bit – it leads on to great things. People look at us sometimes and hidden in their look there is often a cry for help. Sometimes we notice, sometimes we don’t. Jesus always notices.

Prayer. Lord, teach us the pain and the questions of people we meet. Amen

HE SHOUTED ALL THE LOUDER

PRAYER PAUSE

Monday 14 November 2016, Joseph Pignatelli

HE SHOUTED ALL THE LOUDER

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “The people in front scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he shouted all the louder, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” (Luke 18:35-43)

Reflection. We are familiar with blind Bartimaeus. He hears Jesus is passing by and pleads with him persistently despite the people around who want a quiet life. Jesus delights in his persistence and says, “Your faith has saved you.” Commitment. Perseverance. We know these words. And we know they bring us through. Joseph Pignatelli joined the Jesuits around 1750 and when the Society was suppressed in 1773 he just remained a Jesuit in his heart despite people round him saying, “Forget it! Do something else.” He persevered forty years and had the joy of seeing the beginnings of the restoration of the Society.

Prayer. Lord, teach us focus and perseverance, despite obstacles in our way.  Amen

THE DAY IS COMING!

THE DAY IS COMING!

There was the day we sat our first big exams and the day we heard we had passed – or failed. There was the day we started work or the day we were laid off work. There was the day we knew we had found someone to share our life or the day it all fell apart. And there was the day our country chose to join Europe and the day we decided to leave it. Then there was the day we made peace in Colombia and the day we rejected the peace. And now there was the day, this week, when we voted for Hilary and we got Trump.

This weekend some of us will hear the words of Malachy, “The day is coming now, burning like a furnace.” I remember a day last March when it suddenly became possible that Trump, who, up to that time, was considered a wild card – almost a joke, might somehow make it. I remember thinking, ‘he has got his way most of the time all his life. How would he get his way if faced with the Russians or the Chinese?’ I don’t want to claim to be a prophet but the thought did flash across my mind, ‘this guy could get things done.’ I still wished he would not be chosen.

But he was. And this poses a weighty reflection. To clear the ground, let’s just once again remember we have to live with our choices. If we voted for Hitler in 1933 – or even if we didn’t but enough others did – we have to live with that. God gives us a world where we make choices and we have to accept the results. We can moan that people vote for comfort and security and not for risk and generosity. But that is how it often is. It will delay our movement towards building community on earth but it won’t, ultimately, thwart it.

What the Trump event does bring into stark relief is the - may I use the word? – awesome power we have to influence the direction of world history. What has been bothering me these past few days is, not the decision that was made in the US, but the fact that men and women can make such decisions and have such colossal influence on the rest of us. The furnace Malachy is talking about is of our own stoking, not God’s.

Getting on in years and looking at my own life, I am appalled by the number of occasions I have let slip to make courageous decisions. I avoided them. It prompts me to set out, even at this eleventh hour, and lay hold of “the day” the Lord gives,  and take courageous and generous decisions that mirror the heritage we all have of being made in the image of God.

13 November 2016     Sunday 33 C

Malachy 3:19-20        2 Thessalonians 3:7-12          Luke 21:5-19  

SHE KEPT ON COMING

PRAYER PAUSE

Saturday 12 November 2016, Josaphat

SHE KEPT ON COMING

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “There was a woman who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice’.” (Luke 18:1-8)

Reflection. Jesus’ parable is about a judge who delays to treat a case. He keeps “losing the file” and making other excuses. But she persists. She has a strong civic sense of what should happen in the country. She doesn’t just say, ‘There is nothing I can do.’ She will “worry him to death.” The original language said something like ‘She will box my ears.’ A tough lady! And Jesus holds her up as a model of focus and prayer.

Prayer. Lord, help us to have focus. When we are pulled this way and that, may the needle of our compass keep returning to you.  Amen

DO NOT TURN BACK

PRAYER PAUSE

Friday 11 November 2016, Martin

DO NOT TURN BACK

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either.” (Luke 17:26-37)

Reflection. We hear a lot about “the day” as we approach the end of the year. For months many have followed the US election and it came down to one day and one decision. Now we live with the consequences. We realise that making a decision changes everything: it either blocks off options or opens doors. We may argue back and forth but it remains “awesome” what impact our decisions have. Take the German people’s choice of Hitler in 1933. And in each of our lives we make decisions which affect everything. God shares his creativity with us.

Prayer. Lord, we pray that the decisions we make may be for the best and lead us to the day when “all manner of thing will be well.” Amen

THE KINGDOM AMONG YOU

PRAYER PAUSE

Thursday 10 November 2016, Leo the Great

THE KINGDOM AMONG YOU

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “For, you must know, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-25)

Reflection. The people I know are disappointed and even distraught at the US election results. But I do not know anyone laid off work in Ohio. We often don’t find too much comfort in our politics and those of us, affected by Brexit or Trump, have to go deeper to find what holds us together. Quickly we come to that enduring truth that God has inaugurated his kingdom among us. All these twists and turns will work their way out like a stream finding its way down a mountain. The overall direction we are taking will impose itself on the up and down events we experience.

Prayer. Lord, teach us to trust the dynamic of your kingdom above all other events we daily experience. Amen

THE HOUSE GOD BUILDS

PRAYER PAUSE

Wednesday 9 November 2016, Dedication of S John Lateran

THE HOUSE GOD BUILDS

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “You are the house which God is building.” (1 Cor. 3:9…17)

Reflection. Why are we remembering today a house built in the year 320? It was part of the euphoria of the Christians after the peace of Constantine and was the first church to be built and became a symbol of the unity of the Church. Further, it became a metaphor for the “living stones”, a church built not of bricks and cement but of people and the Spirit. Visits to St Peter’s in Rome are good but they do not have the force that Muslims give to their journey to Mecca. Our journey is one of faith to reach out to people that we may all take our place as part of the “building” God is constructing.

Prayer. Lord, may we, as your people, become living stones in the bouse you are building each day. Amen

THE APPEARING

PRAYER PAUSE

Tuesday 8 November 2016

THE APPEARING

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “while we are waiting in hope for the blessing that will come with the Appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour Christ Jesus.” Titus 2:11-14)

Reflection. While searching for an appropriate second reading for the Mass on Christmas night the people in Rome chose this one. He made his appearance in Bethlehem and we celebrate that in six weeks. But the early church of the letter to Titus was conscious we are waiting for his second and final appearance. But, before that happens, he makes his appearance every moment and in every place. Our joy is to notice - and to welcome his coming. “Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes. Every moment and every age, every day and every night, he comes, ever comes …” (Tagore)  

Prayer. Lord, may we be awake to your footsteps as you come to us every moment and every hour.. Amen

INCREASE OUR FAITH

PRAYER PAUSE

Monday 7 November 2016

INCREASE OUR  FAITH

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea.’ And it would obey you.” (Luke 17:1-6)

Reflection. Hyperbole? Perhaps it was a Jewish way of emphasising a teaching? Faith is the gateway into the life God offers us here and now. We don’t have to ‘cross the seas’ to discover it. It is available to all. But it requires nourishment. I know a family – one of many – who gather each evening for a moment before the evening meal to pray. They ask Jesus to help them understand the events of the day, with its joys and disappointments, and to prepare for what will come tomorrow. It is not complicated. Anyone can do it.

Prayer. Lord, help us to know the gift you offer (John 4:10) and to live in gratitude and praise. Amen

LIFE BEYOND BOUNDARIES

LIFE BEYOND BOUNDARIES

In our part of the world nature defies the long dry season with a blaze of colour before the new rains arrive. Blue Jacarandas, red Flamboyants and white mauve Frangipanis appear round the corner of the road. They lift the heart and hint at the bright future that draws us on.

The cries of children kicking a ball in a refugee camp, or even a besieged city, defy the expected.

You might expect a person so physically handicapped they cannot bend enough to sit on a chair but have to lie on a mat on the floor to feel sorry. And when her physical disability is joined to an intellectual disability you might say what point is there in such a life? Many ask that question and think, “It would be better she had never been born.” But if you spent time with Innocente and looked into her eyes you would have seen her amazing smile - a smile like a window into another world – and you would see the point of her short life.

God gives us countless hints of what is to come – what we call, ‘The Resurrection.’ The poet William Wordsworth wrote an ode on, “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” He gives a long and detailed description of the countryside in a corner of NW England, evoking thoughts “too deep for tears.”

We can all recall such intimations even if they were fleeting. I remember a huge skid on a main street in Harare when I was going a little too fast after the first rains and the road was coated with seven months of oil drops. I visited all four lanes and ended up facing the way I had come. If there had been any other car near me that would have been my last day. But it flashed across my mind and heart that my late mother had something to do with my escape.

I find it hard to believe that everything could have ended for me had I died that day. Yet there are many Sadducees today who deny there is any such thing as a resurrection or life after death. When you die, that’s it. It’s over. You no longer exist.

As we move to the close of the Church’s “dry season” – the long period “after Pentecost” – we have a sudden blooming of witness to the Resurrection. God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. “He is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all people are in fact alive.” (Luke 20:38) Jesus speaks of two ages or two worlds; the one we know so well and see and touch each day, and the one we do not see but all our being resonates with our faith and tells us there is something unimaginable to come.

6 November 2016                   Sunday 32 C

2 Maccabees 7:1-14               2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5                   Luke 20:27-38