PLACES AT TABLE

PRAYER MOMENT 

Saturday 1 November 2014

PLACES AT TABLE

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “When you are a guest make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, ‘my friend move up higher.’” (Luke 14:7-11)

Reflection. It sounds like a rather crude story about how to make a good impression, but the punch line is in the final saying, ‘Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.’ We recognise a humble person when we see one. There is a genuineness, a truth, about such people. Julius Nyerere was such a person. Pope Francis is another. And we know lots of less famous people who were humble.. There is no pretence about a humble person, no fear, no worry about, ‘how do I look?’ How did I do?’ The humble person is close to the truth. There is nothing to be proud about. Everything is a gift. Life gives everything and for believers, ‘God gives everything.’ The humble person is marvellously free and joyful. He/she knows the truth. People who exalt themselves are really being rather silly. They are promoting something that does not exist.

Prayer. Lord, teach us to be humble, to recognise that everything is your gift. We rejoice in using what you give us and so giving it back to you increased. Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ

THEY COULD FIND NO ANSWER

PRAYER MOMENT 

Friday 31 October 2014

THEY COULD FIND NO ANSWER

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Which of you here, if his son falls into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on a Sabbath day without hesitation?” And to this they could find no answer. (Luke 14:1-6)

Reflection. Bafflement! They did not know what to make of him. Who is this man who defies the leaders? He cures on the Sabbath and they have nothing to say. We are reminded, when we read the scriptures, that they are always fresh. We may feel, ‘I know this passage’, and we pass on saying to ourselves subconsciously, ‘there is nothing special here.’ The challenge is always to read the bible afresh, aware that there is always something new that has not struck us before. Here, for example, we might notice the astonishment of the listeners at this meal in the house of “the leading Pharisees.” We can sense the tension in the air as these leaders are challenged – and have no answer. It is obvious you rescue your child from danger on the Sabbath. And yet the whole pharisaic tradition is now under threat from this man. What is going on? Could it really be that a new age is being announced?  

Prayer. Lord, teach us always to see the “freshness deep down things” (Hopkins). Help us to wonder at the words we read, savour them and draw life from them. Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ

AS A HEN GATHERS HER BROOD

PRAYER MOMENT 

Thursday 30 October 2014

AS A HEN GATHERS HER BROOD

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused!” (Luke 13:31-35)

Reflection. The “scattering” of the Jewish people into Egypt after the human trafficking of Joseph and into Babylon after they broke the covenant stand as images of the scattering that continues among us. People flee Syria because of war and others, like our own in Zimbabwe, migrate for a better life elsewhere. Often families are divided with a son or daughter in all the continents of the planet or, worse, husbands and wives are divided by thousands of miles of land or sea. The gathering of Israel, of which the prophets speak, stands for the gathering of all the people of God, the healing of families and nations and the coming together of people. It is something longed for as we see in the father of the prodigal son and in Jesus as he looks at Zacchaeus in his tree. Sin scatters us. Forgiveness gathers us. Jesus would have often seen hens in Nazareth clucking to call their chicks to shelter under their wings. As so often, he uses a simple image from daily life to teach us what the kingdom of God is like. .

Prayer. Lord, you long to gather your people into one. Help us to break down the barriers that divide us and move closer to your dream and make it our dream too.. Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ

I DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU COME FROM

PRAYER MOMENT 

Wednesday 29 October 2014

I DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU COME FROM

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “You may find yourself knocking at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us.’ But he will answer, ‘I do not know where you come from.’” (Luke 13:20-30)

Reflection. Knowledge, in our ‘western’ scientific understanding – and we are all influenced by this whether we like it or not – is a matter of facts and exams. To know something, or even someone, is often simply to know facts about it or them. But in other understandings – and especially in the Jewish tradition – knowledge is relationship, I can only know someone when there is a bond between us of love and mutual service. Our passage from Luke today points to this difference. Jesus’ hearers were like those Christians today who ‘know’ the church and for whom it is important to be known as a Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and so forth. But it ends there. There is not yet this deep relationship with God which shows itself in a passionate commitment to the values of his reign. Religion becomes a convenient part of my identity, not the whole of it.

Prayer. Lord, you know how easily we use our belonging to a church as an outward part of our identity. Help us to really know you in mutual love and sharing. Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ

SIMON CALLED THE ZEALOT AND JUDAS, SON OF JAMES

PRAYER MOMENT 

Tuesday 28 October 2014, SS Simon and Jude

SIMON CALLED THE ZEALOT AND JUDAS, SON OF JAMES

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’; Simon whom he called Peter … Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James …” (Luke 6:12-16)

Reflection. They are just names to us, Simon and Jude; we know nothing about them beyond that they were counted among the twelve. This was the new Israel and they would symbolise the new ‘twelve tribes.’ The number twelve never occurs again after the brief mention in Acts  Chapter 1, because it had fulfilled its function of making the link between the old and the new. What is key for us is that Jesus, right at the beginning of his ministry, called disciples. He needed them if he was to proclaim the reign of God. We know the names of a few but the vast majority, including us, are hidden. No one knows our names except a few people around us  - and God. It makes us pause when we consider that the whole project of Jesus depends on us - disciples freely choosing to respond to his call; ‘follow me.’ We have done that, each in our own way.  He is so dependent on us!

Prayer. Lord, you call us to share in the great work of proclaiming the reign of God by our lives. May we rejoice in this and truly witness to your truth and love in our world! Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ

WATER ON TH SABBATH

PRAYER MOMENT   (a bit late today, apologies!)                     

Monday 27 October 2014

WATER ON TH SABBATH

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Hypocrites! Is there one of you who does not untie his ox or his donkey from the manger on the Sabbath and take it out for watering?” (Luke 13:10-17)

Reflection. These words of Jesus were used in the recent Synod in Rome to focus attention on the call the Church is facing to show compassion, for example, to re-married divorced people who want to receive the sacraments, while at the same time upholding the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. Pope Francis has faced the tension squarely that the Church has inherited through her interpretation of the gospel teaching on marriage and on mercy. The Sabbath had a purpose: it was a day of rest when Israel would recall its covenant relationship with God through thanks and praise. What that meant was laid out in some regulations which had hardened into becoming laws to control the people – something that was never the intention of the Sabbath. So too with our rules concerning marriage: the Church invites us to set out on the road of mercy and discover how this can be displayed while also safeguarding the teaching on marriage..  

Prayer. Lord, we tend to settle for law rather than compassion. Lead us into the ways of mercy while at the same time helping us to safeguard our inheritance. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

A flash of fire

A flash of fire

I have just come from celebrating a wedding and I am reminded again of the wonder of it. The Christian faith gives a solemnity and air of eternity to something which, I suppose, was not there before. Traditionally, and in our modern way, you can withdraw from a marriage after a time if it is not working. And many do not even enter into a formal marriage. It is seen as an agreement between two people; something they feel will enrich their lives. If it works out; well and good. If it doesn’t, well, I can try again with someone else. We no longer condemn people for the decisions they make. We start from the premise that they do what they do for good reason, even if their choices make us uneasy.

An understanding of marriage evolved in the Church as people reflected on the words of Jesus. Despite the perceived understanding that the Catholic Church in particular should keep out of the bedroom and back off forever insisting on regulations governing marriage, recent teaching, say since the Second Vatican Council, has pointed to a horizon of marriage which is far beyond the daily round normally experienced by husband and wife. Their love, ‘merging the human and the divine, leads the spouses to a free and mutual gift of themselves, a gift proving itself by gentle affection and by deed. Such love pervades the whole of their lives’ (GS.49). And in the recent Synod in Rome, someone spoke of the family as ‘a sanctuary of holiness.’

While trying to show deep respect for the choices people make the Church raises our minds to the divine behind the ordinary, and often messy, reality of daily married life. The couple, whose wedding we had today, chose for their first reading a passage from the Song of Songs (8:6). ‘Love is strong as death, passion as relentless as Sheol. The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh himself.’ How many married couples in the intimate expression of their passionate love see what they do as a, ‘flash of fire, a flame of God’?!

The passionate love, expressed by poets, artists and novelists, includes a place for tragedy. Jesus’ ‘love one another as I have loved you’ (John 15:12) means loving unto death. Jesus died for love and that is love’s horizon. Think of Romeo and Juliet. The ‘as I have loved you’ was Jesus’ passion and death. That is what it is all about. ‘No one can have greater love that to lay down his life for his friends.’ That is what he did and that, ultimately, is what married people do for one another and for their children.    

26 October 2014                     Sunday 30 A

Exodus 22:20-26                     I Thessalonians 1:5-10                        Matthew 22:34-40

FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Saturday 25 October 2014

FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Set me like a seal on your heart, like seal on your arm. For love is strong as death, passion as relentless as Sheol. The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh himself.” (Song of Songs 8:6-7)

Reflection. We have a wedding today in our parish. Marriage has been there since the beginning but we can say, as with so much of our human story, it has gone through many stages. Desire and passion have always been there but marriage was not always a free contract that two people entered without pressure from society and family. Sometimes the emphasis has been on a traditional and social convention. Even today we have “arranged” marriages, which is not to say they are not often happy. But “love as strong as death” has not always been the mark of marriage. The marriage that fills us with awe is the one where husband and wife really live for one another and their children, “in season and out of season”, “in sickness and in health,” when things go well and when they do not go well. The passion that is “a flash of fire” is lived out daily in forgiveness and fidelity, graduating to a state beyond words and gestures to a deep union – something like our relationship with God.  

Prayer. Lord, help us and all married couples to live the fullness of our calling, manifesting the strength of your relationship with us. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

HOW TO INTERPRET THESE TIMES

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Friday 24 October 2014

HOW TO INTERPRET THESE TIMES

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “You know how to interpret the face of the earth and the sky. How is it you do not know how to interpret these times?” (Luke 12:54-59)

Reflection. Jesus sounds deeply puzzled that people do not seem to see what is happening before their eyes. They hear his words and witness his “signs” but they do not draw the conclusion. Why can they not see that everything is changed now? The times are fulfilled, meaning the human race has come of age, and God has inaugurated something new. Can they not see it? Perhaps an historical equivalent presented itself in modern times in Southern Rhodesia in 1961. There was a “wind of change.” Could they not see it? They didn’t and we had twenty years of violence and death. And today? How do we interpret these times? Are we also guilty of just waiting and hoping for the best? That we won’t actually have to make any decisions ourselves? Others will do it for us. What Jesus seems to be saying is that we have to make a decision. Something new is happening. Have we eyes to see it?   

Prayer. Lord, help us to understand what is going on in our midst. Give us eyes to see, hearts to discern and wills to act. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

PRAYER MOMENT Thursday 23 October 2014 I HAVE COME TO BRING FIRE TO THE EARTH Pause. Be still in God’s presence. Reading: “I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already … I have come to bring division …mother-in-law against daughter-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53) Reflection. “I have come to bring division” and “Peace is my gift to you” are, as we know, not two contradictory sayings of Jesus. Peace comes from doing what is right, from what is deepest within us. This may cause hurt and division. Franz Jugengetter (I am sure I have the spelling wrong) was an Austrian peasant farmer called up into Hitler’s army but he refused to serve. His wife pleaded with him but he told her he had to make this decision. He was jailed and then executed and of course his wife was devastated. But years later she understood and was proud of him. “Peer pressure,” “following the crowd” and “everyone does it” are familiar sentiments. How hard it can be to follow what, at the deepest level, we know to be right. We don’t like – most of us – to be different. Yet every leap forward for humankind – and we only know the big ones, like Copernicus and Einstein – meant, at the time, division and often ridicule and persecution for individuals. In big ways and small, this is the way to peace. Prayer. Lord, teach us to have courage and do what your Spirit, deep within us, calls us to do. Amen.. David Harold-Barry SJ

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Thursday 23 October 2014

I HAVE COME TO BRING FIRE TO THE EARTH

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already … I have come to bring division …mother-in-law against daughter-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53)

Reflection. “I have come to bring division” and “Peace is my gift to you” are, as we know, not two contradictory sayings of Jesus. Peace comes from doing what is right, from what is deepest within us. This may cause hurt and division. Franz Jugengetter (I am sure I have the spelling wrong) was an Austrian peasant farmer called up into Hitler’s army but he refused to serve. His wife pleaded with him but he told her he had to make this decision. He was jailed and then executed and of course his wife was devastated. But years later she understood and was proud of him. “Peer pressure,” “following the crowd” and “everyone does it” are familiar sentiments. How hard it can be to follow what, at the deepest level, we know to be right. We don’t like – most of us – to be different. Yet every leap forward for humankind – and we only know the big ones, like Copernicus and Einstein – meant, at the time, division and often ridicule and persecution for individuals. In big ways and small, this is the way to peace.

Prayer. Lord, teach us to have courage and do what your Spirit, deep within us, calls us to do. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

MANY STROKES OF THE LASH

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Wednesday 22 October 2014

MANY STROKES OF THE LASH

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “The servant who knows what his master wants, but has not even started to carry out those wishes, will receive very many strokes of the lash.” (Luke 12:39-48)

Reflection. In vivid imagery, that no doubt reflected every day realities in the ancient world –and not only the ancient – Jesus tries to shake up his hearers to recognise there is little time left. They have to make a decision. How many teachers have tried to shake up their students to realise the time of exams is close.. How often people prefer to hide from themselves the coming reality? The coming time when a response is needed should not, of course, be seen as threatening. It is an opportunity – the opportunity! This language of retribution is unusual. Jesus normally invites. But at this stage of the gospel Jesus is anxious that people are letting slip the moment of decision. They do not seem to realise the urgency of the times. They are not choosing; they are missing out. And they are missing out on issues that are the heart of being human. Not to decide is not to be alive..

Prayer. Lord, teach us to see that we have little time left. Help us to be fully engaged in the issues that face us. Open our hearts to be imaginative and creative. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

HE HAS BROKEN DOWN THE BARRIER

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Tuesday 21 October 2014

HE HAS BROKEN DOWN THE BARRIER

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier that used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the law.” (Eph 2:12-22)

Reflection. But the barriers remain. You see them in the streets of Hong Kong between the Chinese government and the students. You see them in the wall dividing Israel and Gaza. You see them in our own society – walls and barriers. And they are not just the ones made of iron and bricks. They are in the attitudes we have between those who have and those who have not and between the healthy and the sick and disabled. Jesus broke down the barriers but we keep rebuilding them. We find it too threatening to live with this person who is different. The call to change my way of thinking and believe in the way Jesus is inviting me to is just too hard. Let us stay as we are and look for more secure systems of keeping others out.

Prayer. Lord, open our hearts to see that we cannot build a new society on security alone. Help us to take those little steps to reach out to those who are different. Help us to catch up with you and break down the barriers between us. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

HE BROUGHT US TO LIFE

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Monday 20 October 2014

HE BROUGHT US TO LIFE

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “He brought us to life with Christ … not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God.” (Eph 2:1-10)

Reflection. In the broad sweep of the first chapter Ephesians lays out the hidden plan of God now revealed in Jesus. In this chapter we have the emphasis on gift. It is all gift. When we pray, “Hallowed be your name,” we may think we are praying that people will respect the name of God. But, more than that, we are praying that God will make his name known – as he did with the Israelites when he led them back from Egypt or gathered them again after they were scattered after the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile. The media reaction to the Synod in Rome yesterday was perhaps predictable. They sought for a drama. Perhaps it was too much to expect they would see the way God works among us. But if we have eyes to see we can know the gift of these times in the Church..

Prayer. Lord, hallowed be your name! May you make your name known among us so that people everywhere may be drawn to the great gift that your offer us in Jesus. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God!” This saying of Jesus (Matt 22:21) has been understood in different – often contradictory -  ways. It has been used to mean Jesus taught a strict separation of politics and religion; “the church should keep out of politics.” Leave politics to the politicians! It could also mean the exact opposite: that Caesar and God have different but complementary roles in building a just society.

The saying arose in response to a trap the Pharisees set Jesus, “Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” It was a question coming from fear. Those who posed it could not control Jesus. His teaching did not fit into the dominant religious and social status quo by which the Pharisees, with the connivance of the Romans, enjoyed a delegated power over the people. Jesus was disturbing this and so any means that could bring him down should be tried.

This fear of unknown forces energises the cry that the church should keep out of politics. It betrays an insecurity in political leaders which prevents them from saying openly, “Well, actually, there are some things we don’t know how to handle and we do need help.” In the name of freedom and respect for human dignity many governments today legislate on matters that would have made our forefathers and mothers shudder. Governments struggle to promote and protect the family as the basis of society while at the same time they try to satisfy the desires of those who wish to enter relationships quite different from the traditional family.

A healthy society is one where everyone is listened to: no one is excluded. This is not just a formality but based on the belief that everyone has something to offer and should have a way of being heard. Ultimately it comes down to trust that a consensus will always emerge around the most rational and life giving ways of ordering human affairs. If this is what we can expect from Caesar what can we hope for from God?

In the 1960s the bishops of the Vatican Council wrote, “Whoever labours to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble and steady mind, is, even unawares, being led by the hand of God, who holds all things in existence and gives them their identity.” (GS 36)  God always walks “with us” (Matt 28:20). There is a role for Caesar and a role for God, but it is the same work and it cannot be broken up into Caesar’s bit and God’s bit. The two “bits” interpenetrate. Ultimately it is all one work.

If we do not accept that God is with us if Caesar tries to march alone, then we are heading nowhere because this is God’s project. Our joy is to be part of it.

19 October 2014                                 Sunday 29 A

Isaiah 45:1, 4-6                                   I Thessalonians 1:1-5              Matthew 22:15-21      

SEARCH AND YOU WILL FIND

PRAYER MOMENT  Next appearance on the 19^th. I will be out of range of internet in the meantime.                   

Thursday 9 October 2014.

SEARCH AND YOU WILL FIND

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:5-13)

Reflection. These three sayings of Jesus emphasise the call to intelligent faith. We cannot simply cruise along, fulfilling functions. It is not enough to take our faith for granted, saying our prayers, going to church, listening to and immediately forgetting the preacher. Jesus wants us to stretch out and search for ways of living our belief in him. For generations Christians have been receivers; hearing the message and doing what they are told. But since the age of the enlightenment, since the age of Newman, we are called to use our mind in matters of faith. Never before has the laity been consulted so widely as it was for the present meeting in Rome on the family. The church wants everyone in on the act: to search for ways in which the message of the gospel can reach families today. It is the responsibility of all of us now..

Prayer. Lord Jesus, teach us to search for the way forward; help us to be part of a pilgrim church seeking to find her way in an ever changing world. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

OUR DAILY BREAD

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Wednesday 8 October 2014.

OUR DAILY BREAD

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Give us each day our daily bread.” (Luke 11:1-4)

Reflection. There is some uncertainty what the original language meant by the words normally translated as “daily bread.” It certainly did not mean just our daily food although it included that. It had the wider meaning of expressing all that we need for our daily life. So it could include all of Maslow’s ‘basic needs’, - for food, shelter, clothing, work, dignity, freedom and so forth. And it could also include our need for stretching ourselves by accepting challenges we encounter along the way and working through these no matter what the difficulties. So, if we were to sum up, the words probably mean, “give us each day all that we need to grow as human being into your divine likeness.” That is rather a mouthful so it is easier and much more poetic to say, ‘our daily bread’. Yet it is good to be aware of the wider meaning and recognise the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’. The Father will not give us all that we want – because what we want may not be good for us. He will give us all that we need, if we pray for it.  

Prayer. Lord Jesus, teach us to pray to be conformed to the Father’s will in all things. We believe that in so doing we will achieve our real happiness. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

WITH MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Tuesday 7 October 2014, Our Lady of the Rosary.

WITH MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “With one heart all these joined constantly in payer, together with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” (Acts 1:12-14)

Reflection. It is an uncomfortable feast today – Christians celebrating a victory over Islam in 1571 – but we can quickly pass over its origins which were highly influenced by the culture and politics of the charged atmosphere in sixteenth century Europe. The core of the feast that has come down to us is to celebrate “Mary with” the disciples after the Ascension. She is there praying with them in the upper room, pondering with them, “what next?” This bunch of anxious people knew they had a mission but were too frightened to think about it. Mary was there with them in their questioning and their waiting. And so it has been ever since, up to this day, the first full working day of the Synod in Rome where another group of disciples are gathered “with Mary” to discern and see where the Spirit of God is leading the Church in her desire to encourage and strengthen the family.

Prayer. Hail Mary, full of grac; the Lord is with you and blessed are you among women Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.   Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

THEY ROBBED HIM, BEAT HIM AND LEFT HIM HALF DEAD

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Monday 6 October 2014, S Bruno.

THEY ROBBED HIM, BEAT HIM AND LEFT HIM HALF DEAD

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “The brigands took all he had, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead.” (Luke 10:25-37)

Reflection. Jesus gives us the story of the Good Samaritan and leaves it like that. He doesn’t comment. It does not need comment. The message is glaringly obvious. It has happened every day since the time of Cain and Abel. And the response of people has been like the three travellers on the road. Two of them passed by. One helped. It is not hard to look into the heart of the two – and the one. In the face of the suffering of people today two out of three don’t want to get involved. It is too inconvenient, too risky. It is not my problem. But there is often,  perhaps nearly always, one who will stop and look and be moved by compassion. He or she may not be ‘religious’ or belong to a church. But they are people whose heart is moved by compassion and they do something. There are many thoughts that come in the face of this story but one is the astonishing response of people to suffering. Take the Ebola crisis. Locals and foreigners are risking their lives to help others and they are often not thanked for it. Some are even attacked and killed for trying to help.  

Prayer. Lord Jesus, give us a compassionate heart like yours to open ourselves to the suffering around us.   Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

Your children are not your children

Your children are not your children

It was Kahlil Gibran who wrote the memorable saying, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.” We love to own things, even people, ‘My son, my daughter!’ How we long for them to behave as we would wish! But property, any property, carries warning signs. Modern societies have moved away from communal ownership of land and people. The saying, ‘it takes a village to rear a child,’ is slipping into history. Private property is being enthroned as a new indisputable. And it is true that ownership is a way of imprinting human personality on nature. If you own a farm or a house you can work it or arrange it as you want. Ownership brings motivation.

But we also know that we are only owners ‘for the time being.’ True ownership is the ability to pass on just as ‘possession’ of the ball on the football field makes no sense unless it is to pass and pass again. There is ambiguity about ownership. True ownership is for giving away. We possess our life in losing it. Our cultures teach us that but we still want to ‘own’ things even if we don’t do anything with them. ‘Indigenisation’, for example, becomes a god in itself. What you actually do with it once you have it is not part of the script.

Jesus found this among his people. They were only interested in owning their traditions and using their knowledge of the details as a way of control and maintaining their power. He drew on a traditional image from Isaiah 5; ‘my friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.’ He expected it to yield grapes but all he got was sour grapes. Jesus develops this into a picture of the kingdom of God. It had been promised to his people but they were just sitting on it and not using it. So, he says, ‘it will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.’ (Matthew 21)

Family, society, church – all can become inward looking, intent only on their own security, status and power. Pope Francis, on the eve of his election, when asked what kind of church he looked forward to, said, we need ways that “will transform everything so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” The church must lose herself in order to find herself.

And this is true for all of us. We possess ourselves in giving ourselves away.

Every flower speaks this truth to us.    

5 October 2014                       Sunday 27 A

Isaiah 5:1-7                             Philippians 4:6-9                     Matthew 21;33-43     

HAPPY THE EYES THAT SEE WHAT YOU SEE!

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Saturday 4 October 2014, S Francis of Assisi.

HAPPY THE EYES THAT SEE WHAT YOU SEE!

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Happy the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and never saw it; to hear what you hear and never heard it.?” (Luke 10:17-24)

Reflection. This is a moment when Jesus is filled with joy because the disciples are beginning to share his happiness. They have had a glimpse of what the ‘kingdom’ really means and have come back rejoicing. Francis of Assisi suddenly realised this and it changed his life. People of the past, Jesus says, longed to see this day when God would visit his people and make all things new. Now the disciples are the witnesses of the irruption of this kingdom coming into the world. Maybe it is hard for us to capture the freshness of this experience although we have all experienced ‘newness’ in one way or another. Some who are older remember the extraordinary events around the time of Pope John and the Vatican Council when huge changes took place. Or the moment of hope we had at the time of Zimbabwean Independence. “Many have wanted to see what you see.” These words of Jesus apply to us today, however tawdry our daily experience may often seem to be   

Prayer. Lord Jesus, teach us to rejoice with you in the new life that you have revealed to us.   Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN ORDERS TO THE MORNING?

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Friday 3 October 2014.

HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN ORDERS TO THE MORNING?

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post?”(Job 38)

Reflection. Often, growing up, I heard adults comment, ‘you would need the patience of Job to live with so and so.’ Job was the ultimate example of patience. He was a prosperous man and he lost everything and what is more he became ill with repulsive sores. ‘Comforters’ came but only made matters worse with their moralising chatter. In his misery Job complained but he never abandoned a deep. trust that somehow God had a purpose in all of this and would bring things to a happy conclusion. And so it turned out. In today’s reading God plays with him, taunting him with his limitations; ‘have you ever given orders to the sun to rise?’ The story of Job is not just one of patient endurance by itself – not just grinning and bearing suffering. It is all about hope. It is about a deep sense that God knows what he is doing in our world and, even if we only see a tiny part of it, there is a wonderful whole – yet to be revealed. 

Prayer. Lord Jesus, teach us patience but a creative patience full of trust in you.  Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

THEIR ANGELS

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Thursday 2 October 2014, Guardian Angels.

THEIR ANGELS

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “See that you never despise any of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven are continually in the preence of my Father in heaven.” (Matt 18:1-10)

Reflection. Angels are marginalised in out rational age. The cannot be studied as the subject of an scientific enquiry. But they are a sign of th great care of God for his people and they can be seen in the many people who accompany us and help us in our lives. I suppose the fullest treatment they ever received was int eh book of Tobias where Raphael accompanies and advbises the young traveller. Tobias does not know who he is untilt he end. We often have no idea of the people who influence our lives and we my give them scant thought. I have just acquired a fancy torch from Chine. For a moment I pondered the many hands that went into its manufacture and the no doubt dangerous work of making lithium batteries and so forth. All for me! We can take an even broader picture and look at the sky, the stars, the animals and say the same three words. Angels come in many forms..

Prayer. Lord Jesus, as we celebrate the angels we thank you for the countless ways you touch our lives. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ

SUCKLED FROM HER CONSOLING BREASTS

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Wednesday 1 October 2014, S Thérèse of Lisieux.

SUCKLED FROM HER CONSOLING BREASTS

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, be glad for her, all you who love her! … That you may be suckled, filled, from her consoling breasts.” (Is 66:10-14)

Reflection. Within a few decades of her death at 24 Thérèse of Lisieux, was revered throughout the Catholic world. She manifested the meaning of what Jesus said when he spoke of ‘becoming like little children.’ But perhaps she was misunderstood. Many quickly thought her ‘little way’ was an easy way. It sounded so simple and cosy. It is true that as a growing girl she felt close to God as if there was only a curtain between her and the Lord. But later she was to say that this curtain had become a solid wall. She experience physical suffering from her illness but she also suffered mental anguish as she wrestled with dryness and desolation. So the words of Isaiah which the church uses for her feast today have to be read as nourishing a person who struggled a great deal in her short life. She appeared to be an icon of charming simplicity, one who went uncomplicatedly straight o God in her youth. But she struggled to attain her goal.

Prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the gift of Thérèse to your Church. May we be inspired by her little way to set our hearts on you and your reign. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ