Category: Lent

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26th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

One morning last week I witnessed quite an extraordinary spectacle.

I was sitting having a cuppa at about 10.30 am, gazing at the tree which sits in the middle of an area of lawn outside my lounge.

The tree is naked of leaves at the moment, so the branches are very obvious.

There alighted onto one of the branches a Tui.

 

Now for those who may not know the Tui is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze coloured with a distinctive white throat tuft.

This white tuft has given rise to it being named ‘the parson bird’.

The Tui is also known for its distinctive song type.

As I watched the Tui and was listening to its song, two smaller birds alighted onto tree branches near to where the Tui was.

Suddenly the Tui melodious tones stopped, and the bird’s attention turned to the newly arrived birds.

Tui are very territorial and they can become aggressive. They vigorously chase other birds away with loud whirring wings and Tui was no exception and this is exactly what happened.

The Tui chased the birds away! “This is MY tree!”.

The melodious song had become a noisy warning,

“Stay away, go and find your own tree!”

Reflecting on this Sunday’s First Reading and Gospel, the “Tui incident” became a strong metaphor.

In the first reading (Numbers 11: 25 – 29) we see how Moses regarded the ‘opposition’, and in the gospel reading, we see Jesus.

In the Book of Numbers, we read “The young man ran to tell Moses: ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.'”

Moses’ response showed a wonderful generosity of spirit: “If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!”

The situation in the gospel reading is an exact parallel, and Jesus’ response is just like that of Moses.

In Mark’s Gospel we read, “John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

The response of Jesus, “Anyone who is not against us is for us.”

There is room on the tree for more than one bird! To frighten away I need to stop singing!

In the document Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council stated: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these [non-Christian] religions.

“She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all people.”

This is not a sell-out, as some have claimed; it is in the spirit of Christ, who praised the “faith” even of a pagan Roman centurion (Matthew 8:10).

Only a truth that is very unsure of itself feels always compelled to make an enemy of the other.

There is room on the tree for more than one bird. To frighten away I need to stop singing!

I have a choice, I can be like the aggressive, territorial Tui, vigorously chasing everyone else away; or I can add my voice to the others gifted with the spirit of proclamation, and the song we make is the song of our world awakening to the absolute beautiful sound of our world awakening together and singing praise to God.

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25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

Imagine four persons in a room: The first is a powerful dictator who rules a country.

His word commands armies and his shifting moods intimidate subordinates.

He wields a brutal power.

Next to him sits a gifted athlete at the peak of her physical prowess, a woman whose quickness and strength have few equals.

Her skills are a graceful power for which she is much admired and envied.

The third person is a rock star whose music and charisma can electrify an audience and fill a room with soulful energy.

Her face is on billboards and she is a household name.

That’s still another kind of power.

Finally, we have too in the room a newborn, a baby, lying in its bassinet/crib, seemingly without any power or strength whatsoever, unable to even ask for what it needs.

Which of these is ultimately the most powerful?

The irony is that the baby ultimately wields the greatest power.

The athlete could crush it, the dictator could kill it, and the rock star could out-glow it in sheer dynamism, but the baby has a different kind of power.

We have a new language we only use around babies (usually unintelligible to anyone!), the radio and TV volume are dependent on the sleep pattern of the newborn, as is the time to start up the motor mower.

The baby can touch hearts in a way that a dictator, an athlete, or a rock star cannot.

Its innocent, wordless presence, without physical strength, can transform a room and a heart in a way that guns, muscle, and charisma are unable to.

We watch our language and actions around a baby, less so around athletes and rock stars. The powerlessness of a baby touches us in a deeper moral place.

And this is the way we find and experience God’s power here on earth, sometimes to our great frustration, and this is the way that Jesus was deemed powerful during his lifetime.

Jesus, standing wordless before Pilate might be the most power-filled moment in the entire Gospel story.

The entire Gospels make this clear, from beginning to end.

Jesus was born as a baby, powerless, and he died hanging helplessly on a cross with bystanders mocking his powerlessness.

Yet both his birth and his death manifest the kind of power upon which we can ultimately build our lives.

They are two moments that are still celebrated the world over.

The world stops at Christmas and Good Friday.

Most shops are shut, public transport changes it schedules, usually meaning fewer services, and, maybe ironically, our Churches are most full!

When the Gospels speak of Jesus as “having great power” they use the Greek word, exousia, which might be best rendered as vulnerability.

Jesus’ real power was rooted in a certain vulnerability, like the powerlessness of a child.

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2nd Sunday Lent Year B

Today’s First Reading has one of the most dramatic scenes in the entire Bible.

Yahweh God instructs Abraham to slaughter his son, Isaac as an offering.

Whether the event actually happened I have no idea, and actually find the question irrelevant.

What I do find worth reflecting on is the mythos or sacred story behind what is written.

As Etty Hellisum said in beginning her diary, ‘Here goes then’. Early in 1971 I left my family home and entered the seminary to begin my studies and formation necessary to become an ordained priest in the Catholic Church.

Only in recent years have I reflected on the impact that must have had on my parents.

At the age of 17 I was more like Bilbo Baggins, from Lord of The Rings, taking my hat from the stand, closing the garden gate, and saying, ‘Well, that’s that,’ he said. ‘Now I’m off!’ Bilbo chose his favourite stick from the stand; then he whistled.

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