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