June 2013

GOSPEL COMMENTARIES

1 JuneMk 11:27-33As Jesus was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.’ They argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven”, he will say, “Why then did you not believe him?” But shall we say, “Of human origin”?’—they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’

I know someone whose last line in every argument (no matter what the subject) is: “Yes, but not the in the South.” He uses it so often that we know by now that he means he has tired of the argument. Jesus’ reply in today’s reading sounds a bit like that.

It is very clear that the group of men who approached Jesus were an official deputation from the Sanhedrin. “The chief priests, the scribes and the elders” were the three component sections of the Sanhedrin, the supreme religious authority of the Jews. They questioned his authority to teach. When authorities are quick to question people’s authority, it is because their own authority is the uppermost thing in their minds. Jesus had innate authority, but theirs was borrowed: that is why they felt so threatened. The weaker a man is, the more he will insist on his authority and privileges. Jesus was in no way intimidated by them, though they had power of life and death over him, as they proved in the sequel. He seems rather to have been bored by them. They had failed to make a connection with him. St Augustine: “They said, ‘We do not know.’ And because they had shut themselves up against him, by asserting that they did not know what they knew, the Lord did not open up to them because they did not knock. For it has been said, ‘Knock and it will be opened to you.’ But they not only had not knocked that it might be opened, but by their denial they barricaded the door against themselves. Then the Lord said to them, ‘Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”

2 June [Body and Blood of Christ]Lk 9:11-17The crowds… followed Jesus; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured. The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.’ But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, ‘Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.’ They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

There is an early Christian document called the Didachè, discovered only in 1873, though Christian writers through the ages always knew of its existence. It was written sometime between the years 50 and 100, and so it is even earlier than some of the New Testament. It contains the very first use of the word ‘eucharist’. It is very moving to read this and to imagine the lives of the Christians who spoke and heard those words in the infancy of the Church.

Here is part of what it says: “At the Eucharist, offer the eucharistic prayer in this way. Begin with the chalice: ‘We give thanks to you, our Father, for the holy Vine of your servant David, which you have made known to us though your servant Jesus. Glory be to you, world without end.’ Then over the broken bread: ‘We give thanks to you, our Father, for the life and knowledge you have made known to us through your servant Jesus. Glory be to you, world without end. As this broken bread, once dispersed over the hills, was brought together and became one loaf, so may your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.’”

I remember that distant day when I ‘made my First Communion’. I remember waking up, having nodded off during the Mass, to find my candle dripping grease. But they had got on with things while I slept. Looking back today I think: During the half-century and more since that time they have got on with lots of things while I slept! And I have to admit that I'm not very repentant about it. Some of the best things can happen to you while you sleep. The Scriptures say that God “pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber.” And Jesus said that the Presence of God (the “Kingdom of God”) is like seed that a farmer scatters in his field and that grows even when he’s asleep. “Night and day, whether he sleeps or wakes, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark 4:27). We ourselves grew like that, when we were in the womb, and later: by day and by night our mothers watched over us; we were so sure of them that we could go sound asleep when we knew they were around. God mothers us.

We experienced our mother first as a source of food, and through that visible channel we experienced her as a source of love. God is mothering us, attracting us, trying to tame us frightened creatures. How do you tame an animal? By feeding it. Gradually the animal begins to trust you, begins to believe in your goodwill. We were (and maybe we still are) like little frightened animals. We have to be tamed into human society. Love is invisible and needs a visible channel. That visible channel is originally food. This wisdom of the body is taken up and exalted in the Eucharist. The food which is the Eucharist has the deepest significance. It is about our relationship with God, the ultimate womb from which our existence came.

At the heart of that relationship, for Christians, is Jesus. The 14 th-century mystic, Julian of Norwich, not only called God our ‘mother’, but she called Jesus our mother! This may seem very strange, even weird. But, as always, she meant something luminous, and she had profound reasons for saying it. She did not mean that Jesus is like your mother. She meant the reverse: your mother is like Jesus. Your mother fed you from her own body. Our mother’s care for us may well be the best image we have of God - and of Jesus.

On this feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord don’t be too grown up to let the visceral images of the Eucharist play around your mind.

3 JuneMk 12:1-12Jesus began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'?" When they realised that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

The vine was a symbol of the people of Israel. Israel was the vine, a special object of God's care.

You brought a vine out of Egypt;to plant it you drove out the nations. Before it you cleared the ground;it took root and spread through the land. (Ps 80: 9,10)

Jesus took up this image and made his own of it. As always, there is a snag in the story. This is what makes it a story about life rather than a piece of escapism. Life may have brief passages of plain sailing, but the whole journey is not plain sailing. Jesus echoes a passage in Isaiah. “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (5:1-2).

In his treatment of this image Jesus identified himself not as the vine but as the son and heir to the vineyard. This version has a special poignancy for readers of the gospel, who see it with hindsight. Mark says, “They killed him and threw him out of the vineyard” (v. 8). But Matthew reverses the order: “they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him” (21:39). Likewise Luke 20:15. They must have been thinking with hindsight about the way Jesus actually died. He was led out of Jerusalem and killed outside the city, not killed inside and then thrown out.

How they see Jesus in every detail, and every detail in Jesus!

4 JuneMk 12:13-17Then they sent to Jesus some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.

Because Judea and Samaria were troublesome areas the Romans imposed direct rule on them - and as part of the programme, this census tax. This was the cause of deep anger and resentment among the people. Judas the Gaulonite, for example, had proclaimed that taxation was a form of slavery, and he called for violent resistance. His rhetoric influenced many, and taxation was a burning question.

The question they asked Jesus was a trap, concealed under a layer of flattery. If he said it was right to pay the tax, he would incur the anger of the people; and if he said it was not right, he would be reported to the Romans as a revolutionary. There seemed to be no way out of the dilemma.

In the ancient world, coinage was considered the property of the ruler, since it had his image on it. Jesus asked them to show him a coin. This was clever, because by possessing a Roman coin they were already showing themselves to be collaborators with the Romans. This was a sore point, especially for Pharisees. He only had to say, “Give back to Caesar this worthless thing that belongs to him in any case.” Then he added, “Give back to God what belongs to God,” as if to say, “You were made in God's image: you have his image stamped on you, just as this coin has Caesar’s image stamped on it. You don’t owe your souls to Caesar.”

This principle has served societies well, when it has been observed. This saying, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” was of great importance to the early Christians, because they were often accused of disloyalty to the state; see, for example, Acts 17:7: “These people...have broken every one of Caesar’s edicts.” Paul wrote an exhortation to loyalty to the state (Rom 13:1-7). Clearly there is a tradition of civil loyalty that goes back to Jesus himself.

5 JuneMk 12:18-27Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.’

Just like yesterday, there is a cunning question, a deceitful ‘why?’ in today’s reading. If you thought that questions were always neutral requests for information, these passages show you otherwise. The Sadducees didn't believe in life after death; but here they are, asking a question, the point of which is to reduce such a belief to absurdity. But Jesus didn't tailor his answer to please them: the dead, he said, will be “like the angels in heaven.” He knew that the Sadducees didn't believe in the existence of angels, any more than they believed in a next life! It is a lesson in how to deal with dishonest questions: don't give up your ground, don't backtrack.

How does one hold belief in the resurrection? With the mind alone? If so, then it would be no more than what Pascal called “the big bet” (le grand pari). It goes as follows: You can't really lose by believing in it, for if there is life after death, you will not be disappointed; but if there is not, again you will not be disappointed – because to experience disappointment you would have to exist. But Jesus did not come to proclaim the Safe Bet; he came to proclaim the Good News. When he said as he died on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” he was not taking a bet on the resurrection; he was entrusting his whole being, body and soul, to the Father. Unless I am trying to do that, as far as I am able, I don’t really believe in the resurrection – neither that of Jesus nor of anyone else.

6 JuneMk 12:28-34One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’

Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’

Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself” — this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’

When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

At last a man with a fairly honest question! It was a much debated question among rabbis. As they tended to expand the Law into thousands of regulations, they also tried to pick out its essence and express it in the shortest form. (A rabbi was once asked to instruct someone in the Law while standing on one leg!) The scribe in today’s Gospel passage came with the usual question. When Jesus answered, the scribe said, “Well spoken, Master!” It was like a teacher saying, “Good boy!” He sounded more like an examiner than a questioner. But he was better than the ones we saw yesterday and the previous day. “You are not far from the Kingdom,” said Jesus. The Kingdom is more than reciting the correct formulas; it is God’s grace invading us like a great wave and sweeping us out of our depth.

To love your neighbour as yourself is called The Golden Rule. Sometimes we hear people say that it is the heart of the Gospel and a distinctively Christian teaching. It doesn't take long nowadays to discover that it is common to practically all religions and quite a few philosophies. Four or five centuries before Christ, Plato wrote, “May I do to others as I would that they should do to me." In today’s gospel passage Jesus was replying to a question about the Mosaic Law; he was giving his interpretation of it; he was not giving his own teaching. When he spoke from himself he did not say, “Love your neighbour as yourself;” he said, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Many people love themselves in ways that are twisted and destructive. This would not be a very reliable guide to how we should love one another. His love for us, and not our love, is the measure of love.

7 June [Sacred Heart of Jesus]Lk 15:3-7Jesus told this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

In modern languages the heart is associated with the emotion of love. But in the Scriptures it was not associated with any emotion in particular; it was rather a symbol of the whole inner life of a person. Great damage has been done to religious sensibility by forcing and feigning the emotion of love. It has put simulation where there should be a relentless truthfulness.

The religious images we grew up with were of the ‘repository art’ kind. They are being replaced by far superior images from the many schools of iconography originating in the Eastern Churches. There are many icons of Christ, many designating him the “Pantokrator” – the all-powerful one. Among these icons you could, if you wished, choose one that could be called “the Sacred Heart.” It is an image of the Sacred Heart, in a sense, but this is visible only in the gesture; the heart remains within. The hands draw one's attention to the heart. There could hardly be a greater contrast between such icons and the images of repository art. These show a wounded heart that has been displaced from within the body. This is a caricature of interiority; it is the inner world turned out, like a pocket. Such a heart, like such a pocket, could hold nothing at all. The icon, in contrast, does not beg your pity or whine about your sins. It shows the strong Lord of the Gospels revealing the inner world in which God's Kingdom must strike root.

Having said that, we have to remember that faith is much more than art-appreciation. Countless people came to God despite the religious art available in their time – and even through it. But it is probably equally true that countless people were repelled by it. A picture says more than a thousand words, and therefore religious images that make Christ and the saints look weak and unreal are destroying something more precious than all art.

8 June [Immaculate Heart of Mary]Lk 2:41-51Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he said to them.

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

Mary’s “pondering in her heart” is surely the headline for Christian contemplation. Therefore it may be appropriate to let Meister Eckhart interpret today’s gospel passage for us in his distinctive way. “They had lost the child Jesus in the crowd. And so they had to go back to where they had come from. And when they got back to their starting-point, the Temple, they found him. And so in truth, if you would find this noble birth [of God in the soul] you must leave the crowd and return to the source and ground whence you came. All the powers of the soul, and all their works - these are the crowd. Memory, understanding and will, they all diversify you, and therefore you must leave them all: sense-perceptions, imagination, or whatever it may be that you find or seek to find yourself in. After that, you may find this birth but not otherwise - believe me…! All must well up from within, out of God, if this birth is to shine forth truly and clearly, and all your activity must cease, and all your powers must serve His ends, not your own. If this work is to be done, God alone must do it, and you must just allow it to be. Where you truly go out from your will and your knowledge, God with His knowledge surely and willingly goes in and shines there clearly.”

9 June [10th Sunday in Ord. Time]Lk 7:11-17Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favourably on his people!"

This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

This story is found only in Luke's gospel. It is difficult to tell where the story ends and the interpretation begins. The story is told against the background of the first reading, I Kings 17:17-24. There, the prophet Elijah, after some elaborate rituals and intense prayer, raised the son of a widow to life. It is an exact match for the gospel story - except for a few details that prove to be significant later. First, Jesus needed no elaborate rituals; he simply said, “Young man, I say to you, Rise!” Secondly, more often than any of the other gospel writers, Luke shows Jesus at prayer; but on this occasion he does not say that Jesus called on God, as Elijah had done; on his own authority he ordered the young man to rise. Something extraordinary is being said about Jesus here. After Elijah raised the widow’s son, the widow said, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth." Luke is telling us that Jesus does not simply have the word of God, but that he is himself the word of God. Elijah “cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again." But in the gospel story, for the first time in the gospels, Jesus himself is called ‘Lord’ (verse 13), a title hitherto reserved strictly to God.

This story is like a thumb-nail sketch of the whole of Jesus’ life and its meaning. He was sent by the Father to bring life to a dead humanity. He raised the widow’s son to life, because he is himself the resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life: those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25). In a curious phrase the Old Testament story says that Elijah “stretched himself on the child.” In a similar story the prophet Elisha (Elijah’s disciple and successor) also raised a child to life. “He came into the house, and saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and closed the door on the two of them, and prayed to the Lord. Then he got up on the bed and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and while he lay bent over him, the flesh of the child became warm. He got down, walked once to and fro in the room, then got up again and bent over him; the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes” (2 Kings 4:32-35). We can see this as a symbol of the Incarnation. This is what Jesus does for the whole of humanity. He has taken on our flesh, matched us limb for limb, become one of us. He has taken on all our afflictions, even death itself. Even more: he has taken on the thing that is farthest from God, sin. “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

10 JuneMt 5:1-12When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

“After he sat down....” This is a significant detail. Rabbis would assume any posture as they discussed matters with their students; but when it came to teaching officially – expounding the Law – they always sat. In saying that Jesus sat down, Matthew is telling us that what follows is no small talk but the heart of the matter. The Beatitudes are the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, as the Sermon on the Mount is the heart of the whole Gospel.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Another translation says “How happy are the poor in spirit.” But there are differences between ‘blessed’ and ‘happy’. You can be blessed without knowing it. I saw this clearly as I watched a young couple almost competing with each other to hold their baby, while the blessed baby slept through it all. And you can be blessed without appreciating it. “You’re blessed with good health,” someone says to you; but you don’t feel blessed at all, you feel just normal. It is only when you fall ill that you appreciate health. “When you have a toothache,” said Thich Nhat Hanh, “you appreciate how wonderful it is not to have a toothache.”

Happiness, on the other hand, is just a passing feeling. The word ‘happiness’ is related to ‘happen’ and ‘perhaps’: it is about randomness, about hit and miss. Feelings (like the weather) come and go and are constantly changing. You can't stake a claim to happiness because it is not firm ground and stakes take no hold there.

Jesus doesn’t tell you that you are happy. He tells you that you are blessed. He tells the poor in spirit that whether they know it or not, whether they appreciate it or not, they are blessed. Blessedness comes from beyond the changeable world of feelings and ideas. The mediaeval theologians spoke about ‘beatitudo’. It was not the subjective feeling of happiness but the objective state of being rightly aligned in one’s life.

As we go through our phases we are to know that there is a loving God who cares for us with the love of a father and a mother. It is especially when we are weak and without resources of our own that we come to know it. It is when we ourselves begin to embody some of God's own qualities, made visible in the face of Jesus – that we know it. The Beatitudes are the best portrait we have of Jesus himself, and he honours us by telling us they are our portrait too.

11 June [Barnabas, apostle]Mt 5:13-16‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’

"A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden." If you go to Italy you see towns and cities built on hilltops and mountaintops. Throughout the world, in fact, this is the preferred location. How inconvenient for old people! Was it for the view that people built in such awkward places? Yes and no: it was not to admire the landscape but to get a view of approaching enemies. It would be hard to hide a city, so you make it fully alert instead: full of eyes, full of consciousness.

As you have guessed, this is not only about cities; it is about human beings. The valley is a symbol of sleep and unconsciousness, the hilltop is a symbol of wakefulness and watchfulness. Most religious sites are high places: Jerusalem, Mount Tabor, Mont St Michel, Croagh Patrick, Skellig.... The list could go on and on. And not only Christians have this instinct; most people do. Hindus have said that Shiva lives on Mount Everest....

When you choose unconsciousness you descend into the valley of darkness. Sleep is a kind of valley. In sleep you lose your awareness of everything. But our world now finds this kind of sleep no longer enough: it creates TV that enables you (if you spend too much time watching it) to turn even your waking hours into a kind of sleep; it creates drugs that send you into even deeper sleep; it creates a strange suicidal instinct in some of the young. Popular culture is addicted to sleep and unconsciousness. Everything becomes a flight and a kind of merging of the self that caricatures the religious merging of the self. Music, drugs, alcohol and sex have all now taken on this significance.

Why all this flight? It is because consciousness is painful. To be on a hilltop in some sense - to have to be awake, to be exposed, to be vulnerable and to know it - all that is painful. Or perhaps what makes it painful for me is that I am only partly conscious, fluctuating say between 5% and 10%, or even less. That is enough to provide a glimpse of the 90% or 95% unconsciousness in me. So I bury my head. I blot out that 5 or 10% consciousness. I am an ostrich. An ostrich is said to bury its head (which, as it happens, looks about 5% of its body size) when it sees danger, thinking that it is hiding itself completely. But that is not being fair to ostriches, who are every bit as intelligent as any other bird, and more so than we are at times. Any creature – bird or human – that buries its head is helping its enemy. Let me look at yesterday, or even this morning, and count all the times I took flight from direct experience into unconsciousness….

A city on a hilltop cannot be hidden. "You are the light of the world," Jesus said. I don't feel like that, do you? Much of the time I'd like to climb under a tub. I can accept it when he says that he himself is the light of the world (John 8:12), but when he tells me that I too am the light of the world I feel deeply puzzled. It forces me to look again.

Jesus can hardly have been stroking my ego, saying, "Ah, you're not as stupid as you think!" He was referring to something that is lodged in me whether I want it or not, something that is there before I ever perform either badly or well, something that I can

never quench: the light that St Paul described as 'the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.' "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining in the face of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:7).

12 JuneMt 5:17-19‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

“Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter.” Older translations in English used to say, “not one jot or tittle.” ‘Jot’ is from ‘iota’, the Greek letter ‘i’ which diminishes to a sort of comma in one of its forms; or perhaps from the tiny Hebrew letter ‘yod’, which looks just like a comma; and ‘tittle’ is related to ‘tilde’ (~). In other words, not only will no letter of the Law be changed, he says, but not even part of a letter. Why is Jesus – the One who sends the Spirit – talking about the letter of the Law, and even parts of a letter?

As you can well imagine, ancient Christian writers found ingenious ways of looking at this. Origen (3rd century) wrote: “The ‘one dot’ is not only the ‘iota’ of the Greeks but also the letter that the Hebrews call ‘yod’. And the ‘one iota’ or ‘one dot’ can symbolically be said to be Jesus, since the first letter of his name in Greek is iota, and the first letter of his name in Hebrew is yod. So Jesus is the one who will not pass away until all is accomplished.” On the cross he uttered the words “It is accomplished,” and then passed away. Chromatius (5th century) had a similar understanding: “Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets in this way: He brought to pass those things that had been written about him in the law and the prophets.”

The broad vision of these early writers takes us far beyond the observance of external rules. We need to go beyond a religion of rules, because by itself it could never be a full programme for life. The strange paradox is that the very people who insist most strongly on rules are so often the least respectful of rules in their own case. I have noticed this many times. The scribes and Pharisees adhered to the letter of the Law, yet Jesus accused them of “setting aside the commands of God and clinging to human traditions” (Mk 7:8). Fidelity to rules is a rather impersonal programme for a human life, but fidelity to a person is something that most people can understand.

In the meantime what do we do with laws and rules? Don’t cast them aside, Jesus says. We will enter into life not by tampering with the Law - either to make it stricter (as the scribes and Pharisees liked to do) or more lax (as we all might like to do) - but by a very different way. Leave the law just as it is, on the page. There is nothing wrong with it. Don’t expect too much of it. It is law, but it is not life nor the secret of life.

13 JuneMt 5:20-26I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Law without justice is superficial; it is only about words and appearances of justice. We use all kinds of substitutes for wisdom. If a court doesn’t know how to decide, it consults precedent. But that precedent was either based on another precedent, or it was someone’s guess at justice in a particular case in the past. Yesterday’s guess, then, becomes today’s justice.

The scribes and Pharisees loved to quote other scribes and Pharisees. One translation says, “If you are not righteous in a better way than the scribes and the Pharisees....” The present translation (NRSV) says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees....” Another translation says, “Unless your virtue goes deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees. ‘Better’ is a rather neutral word; ‘deeper’ says more. It is clearly the sense of the passage. The law doesn’t go down to the roots of things: to the mind and heart. It is in the mind and heart that all our actions are conceived and born. Murder is the ultimate flowering of an anger that grew unchecked in the mind and heart. If we never look into those sometimes dark places, we could find later that we have been breeding monsters there.

Superficial virtues are the opposite of virtue. They are an attempt to prove that I am not what I am. Cowards become daredevils (If you are familiar with the Enneagram take a look at what it says about the ‘6’ type of personality), weak people look for a way of having power of some kind…. Such ‘virtues’ are an over-reaction to the unpalatable truth of what I am; they hide their opposite within themselves.

But then how are we to understand St Paul’s statement “When I am weak then I am strong!” (2 Corinthians 12:10)? He was not speaking of a false strength that is only a denial of weakness, but of real strength that comes from accepting one’s weakness. Virtue that does not grow out of the truth is like a plant with no roots: it looks all right for a while.

14 JuneMt 5:27-32You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

As we saw yesterday and the day before, Jesus is not adding more rules, but rather looking more deeply than the scribes and Pharisees. What he sees is not the Law but the heart of the person who is trying to observe the Law.

It is often repeated that there is a diminishing sense of sin in modern times. This is certainly puzzling, for the past century has witnessed some of the greatest atrocities of all time: genocide, cities devastated by nuclear bombs, widespread destruction of the environment and even of unborn children, rich countries storing and destroying food while others starve.... How is it that we have a diminished sense of sin?

Today we know about atrocities in every part of the world, and we know about them as soon as they happen. These sins of the world are so vast that our own seem puny beside them. If we have a diminished sense of sin, it is not because we think we are better than before; it is because we feel powerless and ineffectual. It is necessary to reflect on this state of mind, because it is the hatching ground of extensive evil.

15 JuneMt 5:33-37Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

"I swear by the hole in my coat" is an Irish expression. It is more subtle than it looks. If there is no hole in your coat you are swearing by nothing; and if there is, you are still swearing by nothing because a hole is a nothing.

Shakespeare mentioned “a good mouth-filling oath.” And as far as I remember he says elsewhere that a terrible oath, spoken in the right way, makes you seem more a man than any action could. Perhaps this is just the point: swearing is language pretending to do more than language can do. But something said with the emphasis of an oath isn't more true than it would have been without the oath. The oath doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t fill the horizon – it only fills the mouth. Far from bolstering the truth, it weakens it. It has often been remarked that the more swearing of oaths, the more lying.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no, said Jesus. If the truth cannot stand by itself, nothing can. In fact other things are meant to stand only by virtue of the truth that is in them. In an age of advertising, when every wavelength is full of exaggerated claim and lying persuasion, we have to protect a space in which to say yes when we mean yes, no when we mean no.

16 June [11th Sunday in Ord. Time]Lk 7:36 – 8:3One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner."

Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "Speak." "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."

Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Where do you look if you want to see someone’s theology? On his or her bookshelves? No, that's other people’s theology. Or to be more exact, that's other people’s descriptions and interpretations of what theology is. Real theology, like the Word, has become flesh. So you have to look in people’s lives to see their theology. Don’t forget to notice how they see and treat other people. One’s way of seeing others and one’s way of seeing God are all of a piece.

The Pharisees were devout good-living people. (Devout good-living people tend to let themselves off the hook by demonising the Pharisees.) They had a simple theology: God loves devout good-living people and hates sinners; so they felt they should do the same.

The Pharisees were in disagreement among themselves about Jesus (see John 9:16), so Simon wanted a closer look. He was reserving judgment. There were three points of courtesy to observe when you invited a Rabbi to your house: you placed your hand on his shoulder and gave him the kiss of peace, you bathed his feet (it is a very dusty country), and you burned a grain of incense or put a drop of attar of roses on his head. Simon pointedly did none of these things on receiving Jesus into his house; he was not for calling him a Rabbi. These omissions did not go unnoticed by Jesus.

All went well until the woman arrived. No doubt Simon’s theology had taken flesh in him: his flesh began to creep at the sight of a sinful woman touching Jesus. Here was proof that his reservations were justified. “He said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.’" Jesus had been gaining a reputation for keeping company with people of disrepute; here he was at it again, in the very house of a devout good-living man; the flea-infested dogs had followed him in. How could this be a man of God?

The most annoying thing about Jesus, from the Pharisees’ point of view, was that he not only associated with disreputable people and took liberties with the Law, but that he was clever as well: he was able to defeat them in argument, though he had never been to rabbinical school. He was able to show that the sinful woman had observed the courtesies that Simon had omitted. And by means of the story he told he tricked Simon into praising the woman.

The worst was still to come. Totally ignoring the Temple rituals and protocols for cleansing from sin, he declared that the woman’s sins had been forgiven. He was refusing to work within the proper channels. He disregarded the proper channels because mercy was not flowing through them. For him, every channel was a channel of mercy. He was himself, as Leo the Great said, “the hand of God's mercy stretched out to us.”

From Simon’s house he went on his way through the cities and villages, accompanied by the Twelve and a group of women who through him had experienced the mercy of God. Let’s look carefully at the procession. Most of the group would have earned nothing but contempt from the devout good-living people who thought they had God in their keeping. It forces the question on me: What kind of procession am I part of?

17 JuneMt 5:38-42You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

If today’s reading were put into practice, all war would cease immediately; and not only war but every kind of conflict, even minor domestic squabbles. It is highly improbable, to say the least, that that will ever happen.

François Mauriac, the great French all-round man of letters, wrote that society always remains criminal – even while many saints live within it. “[Society] cannot be excused because in every age there has been a Vincent de Paul or a Francis of Assisi to remind them of it – not so much by their words as by their lives of sacrifice. But the course of history has not been influenced by the saints. They have acted upon hearts and souls; but history has remained criminal.” It can hardly be right to make such a clear distinction (amounting in this case to a separation) between the individual and society: individuals are part of society. But still there is something in what Mauriac said. Many people absorb every influence around them without question, but others are shaped by their reaction to those same influences. The same conditions produce couch potatoes and prophets.

Society will never be improved by everyone telling everyone else to improve. A wise friend said to me once, “Let’s not waste our energy criticising what is wrong; let’s just do our own work to the best of our ability. If it’s any good it will displace what is bad.” This must be true not only of work but of everything.

18 JuneMt 5:43-48You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Today’s reading is the most perfect formulation of Christian love. “Love your enemies” is the summit of love. The New Testament writers used the word ‘agapè’ – an obsolete word to which they were able to give a new meaning – to refer to the kind of love that moved Jesus. They could have used the word ‘philia’, meaning ‘friendship’, but this new kind of love was even wider and deeper than friendship: it was so vast that it would include even one’s enemies. “Love your enemies,” is something so astonishing that it has to be the voice of God and none other. It is normal in some religions to wish (and even to pray) for vengeance on one’s enemies, and to gloat over their suffering. Agapè breaks new ground. It is God’s kind of love: unconditional and unlimited. Perhaps we should be surprised that there is so much of it in the world, rather than so little.

Thomas Merton wrote: "Our task now is to learn that if we can voyage to the ends of the earth and find ourselves in the aborigine who most differs from ourselves, we will have made a fruitful pilgrimage.  That is why pilgrimage is necessary, in some shape or other.  Mere sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time.  We have to come to the end of a long journey and see that the stranger we meet there is no other than ourselves – which is the same as saying we find Christ in him."

19 JuneMt 6:1-6, 16-18Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Some ancient rabbis used to say that the most perfect form of almsgiving is when you do not know to whom you are giving, and the receiver does not know from whom he or she is receiving. Such an act would have no anchor in the ego; it would be like a pure sound, with no echo. If you do something good and another gets the credit, enjoy the pure sound (it may take a little getting used to!) You have an opportunity to experience and study the pure essence of an act in itself, without the fog that usually surrounds it. This is what goodness feels like in itself when it is separated from the ego’s demands (gratitude, recognition, looking good, etc.). At first you may be more conscious of other things: you may have a feeling of injustice or disappointment. But don’t throw away the pure essence for such slight things. Goodness has a more subtle music than these. If your ear is attuned to heavy rock, other music may seem like nothing at first; but wait!

St Bonaventure used to pray just two words, “O bonitas!” - “Oh Goodness!” (That was his name for God.) He used to breathe it over and over; today it would be called his mantra. The mediaevals had an axiom, “It is the nature of goodness to pour itself out” (bonum est diffusivum sui). This is why God created the world, they said. When you do something because it is good and for no egocentric motive, you almost know what God is like.

20 JuneMt 6:7-15When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

It is a great pity that so many Christians for so long have identified prayer with ‘saying prayers’. We do this despite what Jesus said: "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.” The fact that the disciples had to ask Jesus to teach them to pray indicates that he had not given them any set prayers or formulations. Because we have neglected contemplative prayer many Christians now look elsewhere for it. It is being rediscovered in Christian circles in our own time, but with little or no encouragement from Church authorities.

Has it ever struck you that in the Our Father, “the pattern of all Christian prayer,” there is no mention of Jesus, his life, death or resurrection, nor mention of any of the Christian mysteries? This absence indicates to me that it was his own prayer. In prayer he was seized by one single awareness: the Father; he was not thinking about himself. When we pray the Our Father we are not praying to him, but with him; we are praying his prayer. We are so close to him that we do not see him! We are (so to speak) inside his head looking out through his eyes and seeing, like him, only the Father and the world. We are praying in him. All Christian praying is praying “in Christ.” Repeating the words will bring us to the Holy Place, true; but by itself it will not lead us into the Holy of Holies.

21 JuneMt 6:19-23Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

There is nothing so bad for your eyesight as wealth. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) the rich man did not chase the beggar Lazarus from his doorway; he just didn’t see him at all. The eye is the lamp of the body. If you have eyes only for wealth, then you see nothing but wealth. “I am a millionaire: that is my religion,” said a character in a Shaw play. Any other religion you happen to profess is only a cover for this your real religion.

Part of the fascination of money is that it can be counted. You can tell exactly how rich or poor you are. Compared to it other things like virtue seem so imprecise. And as for virtue being its own reward, that would never satisfy a businessman. The mind becomes easily addicted to the idea of gain – more and more. At the crudest level, more money; but it goes on the other things: more knowledge, more spirituality, just more…. There’s a story about a rich man who came to give a gift of money to the Abbot of a monastery. The Abbot said no thanks, we have enough at present. The man was shattered, and he said, “I just realised how poor I am. I have nothing to give you but money.” Riches don’t make you rich; they are a substitute, a cipher…. The real wealth is a generous spirit.

22 JuneMt 6:24-34No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

Imagine a river becoming anxious about where it is going and where the sea is to be found, asking directions, worrying if it’s north south east or west, wondering if it has gone wrong. No, rivers don’t do that; they don’t even think about the sea, they just glide along beautifully; north south east and west don’t matter to them, because the sea lies in every direction.

Rivers don’t do that, but we do. Fear of going wrong can paralyse us. Our age has been called the age of anxiety. The word comes from the Latin ‘angere’, which means ‘to choke’. This expresses exactly the self-defeating nature of anxiety: just at the moment of stress when you would need to breathe fully and freely, you feel choked. It is like having a drowning man’s grip on your own throat. What is the difference between anxiety and fear? It is a matter of usage; people tend to use the word ‘anxiety’ in preference to ‘fear’ when it is a question of unlocated fear - a vague disquiet that goes looking for a reason to be fearful when there is none to hand. If anxiety stays with you habitually it becomes part of you; it gets to be like a second skin, coming between you and everything you do.

“You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious….” It is hardly surprising that our age has been called ‘the age of anxiety’. Part of it is that we have given our soul to different gods.

23 June [12th Sunday in Ord. Time]Lk 9:18-24Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God." He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

Unlike Luke, who refers only to “a certain place,” Matthew and Mark name the scene of this conversation: it took place in Caesarea Philippi, a region about twenty-five miles north east of the Lake of Galilee. The inhabitants were mostly non-Jewish, and the area was scattered with temples of the ancient Syrian worship of Baal. Nearby was the reputed birthplace of the great god Pan, the god of nature. The English word ‘panic’ comes from Pan, who was reputed to be expert at causing it. There was also in Caesarea Philippi a newer variety of paganism: the ruins of a white marble temple to the godhead of Caesar.

It was against this pagan background that Jesus asks the question, “Who do people say I am?” And then the much more difficult question, “Who do you say I am?” That was Peter’s moment. His profession of faith echoes down the centuries, all the more loudly for the pagan background of its first utterance, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Faith is not a hothouse plant. For some, in whom it is very weak, it may need a short spell in a hothouse, but it thrives better outdoors. The Christian faith was born in a hostile environment, and has proved itself capable of thriving in any situation. Strangely, many Christians think of it instead as a delicate plant that has to be protected from all other life-forms around it. This attitude expresses a profound lack of faith, far from the ancient wisdom that said, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Jesus used images of seed, yeast, salt: realities that are nothing if kept in a jar, and become useful only when scattered into the great mass. The Flemish theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx (1914 – 2009) stressed that the ‘deposit of faith’ can remain true to itself only by relating to contemporary transformations of culture and history. Thus it can never become a mere ideology. Many of our contemporaries see it as nothing but a fading ideology. The efforts of some Christians to revitalise it take the form of a rejection of the present world and a nostalgic retreat into the past. D.H. Lawrence captured this to perfection in one of his novels, where he described the faith of an old man, Gerald Crich’s father: “The beautiful candles of belief that would not do to light the world any more…they would still burn sweetly and sufficiently in the inner room of his soul and in the silence of his retirement.”

Like the Word, faith has to become flesh and live among us. We are historical beings, said Schillebeeckx, and our faith has to ‘subsist in history’ (by which he meant the events of our present world), not in a museum. If it is not at work in a practical context, it begins to fade from the picture.

24 June [Birth of John the Baptist]Lk 1:57-66, 80The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, ‘No; he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘None of your relatives has this name.’ Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbours, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.

John the Baptist is like a first draft for Jesus. They were alike in some ways: they were cousins, almost the same age; both came from the desert, urging people to a different way of life; both announced that events were coming to a head. Jesus had called John the greatest man that ever lived (Lk 7:28), and had queued up with the crowds to be baptised by him.

Yet they were different. Despite all his fire, John’s message in the end was rather conventional. “Tax collectors came to be baptised, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’” (Lk 3:12-14). He was, you might say, a moralist. Though there are still disciples of John the Baptist in Israel, the impact of Jesus on history has been infinitely greater.

Jesus is more than a moralist. If he were only a moralist, he would be a very poor one, for his claims exceeded those of any moralist. He claimed that he and the Father were one. Any mere moralist making such a claim would not be credible for a moment. We sometimes reduce him to a moralist. But he alone was able to say, “The Kingdom (the Presence) of God is among you.” This is much more powerful than all the moralism in the world. An ounce of ‘is’ is better than a ton of ‘ought’.

25 JuneMt 7:6, 12-14Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you. In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

It seems the word for ‘wide’ here is a rather obscure word, and one scholar suggested that it might even mean ‘tomorrow’. Whether that is correct is a matter for scholars to argue about, but it would certainly be a very suggestive idea. Tomorrow is indeed a very wide place: it can hold everything we don’t want to face today. Today, by contrast, is very narrow: just now, just this; and it is hard in comparison to the ease of postponement. I remember from my visits to the Philippines that the Tagalog word for ‘tomorrow’ is also the word for ‘open’ (though pronounced differently). Tomorrow is an equally accommodating word in every language.

The spiritual path is narrow at first, Meister Eckhart said, and then it broadens out to include everything. “The more the soul is collected, the narrower she is, and the narrower, the wider.”

Mde Guyon, the 18th-century French mystic made the same point: “How very narrow is the gate which leads to a life in God! How little one must be to pass through it, it being nothing else but death to self! But when we have passed through it, what enlargement do we find! David said (Psalm 18:19), ‘God brought me forth into a wide place.’ And it was through humiliation and abasement that he was brought there.”

Think of a jet of water. It is because of the restriction that it has power. When there is no restriction there is ultimately just stagnant water. Thank God for our limitations, restrictions, disabilities…! When we see a person who has total freedom and no restrictions we often see just stagnation. People who win the lottery, or suddenly shed some restriction, are often seen to fall to pieces as persons. Total freedom has to be hard-earned if it is not to destroy us. Only a spiritually mature person can live with it.

26 JuneMt 7:15-20Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

The fruit is the plain truth about the tree, and everyone can not only see it but test it and taste it for themselves. Likewise human action. Everything becomes visible sooner or later. I feel that the word ‘depth’ can hold us too much in thrall. When we talk too much about depth we give ourselves the impression that it is a whole inner separate world, sufficient unto itself. Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, said once, “The depth is on the surface!” He, of all people, could not be accused of superficiality. There is a very radical truth here: the depth and the surface are one, the inside and the outside are one. The hidden inner part flows towards the outside, as with a tree.

Since the beginning of our race, human beings have been sitting under trees, looking up at them, climbing into them and hiding, playing around them as children, eating their fruit, resting in their shade, relying on them to be there. If you have never sat under a tree in a forest at night, you are missing an essential part of being human. Trees are our great teachers – strong and silent, dependable, able to endure great storms that would blow us away.

Christians down the ages have seen deep significance in trees. In the late mediaeval period it was common to hear of the ‘Axle-Tree’. The stars and planets were thought of as whirling around the Axle-Tree of heaven, the pivot of the universe. This image was applied to the cross of Christ: the tree on which he died was seen as the axle of all that exists.

Something for your imagination: follow Jesus in his lifelong relationship with trees – from the first time he climbed a tree…to the last.

27 JuneMt 7:21-29Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall!"

Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Saying the right thing is not enough. Saying may even be a substitute for doing. Dickens once said, “I hear so much about consciences that I no longer believe in them.” I remember a scene from some novel, where a young man involved himself in very dubious practices, to the consternation of his older brother, who said, “But you took a first class degree in moral philosophy!”

“Not everyone who says to me: Lord! Lord! will enter the kingdom of heaven.” But how is this is to be reconciled with the words of St Paul, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3)? There is a clear difference between ‘just saying’ and ‘really saying’. What does really saying add to just saying? It adds you! – your real mind, your will, yourself. It is very hard, as we know, to put ourselves fully behind everything we say. For a start, we say so much! There is often less in our account than the sum total of the words we utter. They use that word in banking too: ‘to utter a cheque’. The consequences of uttering a false cheque are soon felt, but there are so many false words in circulation that it is often hard to tell true from false.

Let’s change the metaphor. Our words (particularly abstract words) can become like boxes with false bottoms: no one knows what is in there, or indeed whether there is anything there at all.

But the best metaphor is rock and sand. A rock is a single consistent thing, but sand is a billion tiny rocks that have no connection with one another. They are like words that pour away, this way and that, according to the way the wind is blowing.

28 JuneMt 8:1-4When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean." He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

There is some kind of polarity here: between public and private, between manifestation and concealment: “Great crowds followed him,” but he said, “Do not tell anyone.”

Talk (and especially gossipy talk) creates a crowd. Talk is itself a kind of crowd – a crowd of words. Talk is endless, like the sand on the seashore. Like the sand, it drifts and blows here and there. Living today is like walking in a sandstorm of words (and here am I adding more!).

But Jesus told the healed leper to tell no one about his healing. In another passage he took a deaf man “aside in private, away from the crowd” (Mk 7:33). This tells us that sometimes it is necessary to stand in from the storm. Sometimes it is necessary to be alone and think one’s own thoughts. He himself frequently went away by himself to pray: Lk 4:42; 5:16; 6:12; Mk 1:35; etc. And there are moments when he tells others to keep silent about him: Mk 1:44; 8:30; Lk 9:21, and today's passage. And read the wonderful passage, Mt 6, in which everything is divided, so to speak, into two columns, headed "in secret" and "to be seen by others" (see the reading for June 19). Why not meditate on this today: the silence of Jesus?

The ancient world was terrified of leprosy, and in its terror it probably mistook many less harmful skin diseases for it. By Jewish law the sufferer was isolated totally from society: “The leper...shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean’. He shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp” (Lev. 13:45f). No leper would ever have approached an orthodox rabbi, but the leper in this story approached Jesus confidently for help. This was exceptional, but even more exceptional was what followed: “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him....” That touch healed him – healed his disease, yes, but healed also his feeling that he not only had a disease but was a disease; it healed his isolation, his loneliness, his despair, his belief that he was cursed by God.... This is the God revealed by Jesus, a “Father of Mercies.”

29 June [Peter and Paul, apostles]Mt 16:13-19Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350 – 428) commented: “Having said that Peter’s confession is a rock, Jesus stated, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church.’ This means he will build his Church upon this same confession and faith.” This is the “key to the Kingdom of heaven.”

When Jesus asked the disciples who the people believed he was, they gave him a list of dead men: “‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” All dead. Peter alone mentioned life: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is the key to the Kingdom of heaven. It is to see Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He is not a dead man, he is living. There are many who have an interest in keeping him dead: then he is controllable, predictable, even saleable. But he is not dead. The key is to see that he is everywhere: he is looking out of the eyes of the stranger and the sinner and the outsider. But even this key can be turned into an instrument of exclusion and control. It is meant to be the opposite: it is for opening.

Chrysostom: “He did not ask ‘Who do the scribes and Pharisees say that I am?’ even though they had often come to talk with him. Rather, he asked, ‘Who do people say the Son of man is?’ as if to inquire about common opinion. Even if the common opinion was far less true than it might have been, it was at least freer of malice than the opinion of the religious leaders, who were reeking of bad motives.” The latter, and their successors throughout the ages, would like to see his tomb sealed, the heavy stone securely in place for all time.

Let’s not say ‘they’; let’s say ‘we’. The Gospel is always about us, not about them; Jesus spoke in the second person; he was not a social commentator or a journalist. The heavy stone represents the past; we live too much under its weight; we interpret the present not as something living and new but as something already dead and old. But there are moments when the stone moves aside, even if only a fraction of an inch, and we glimpse the living Christ, as Peter did. In such moments our faith is in living continuity with his.

30 June [13th Sunday in Ord. Time]Lk 9:51-62When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Alexandre Ledru-Rollin was Minister of the Interior during the 1848 Paris Revolution. Looking down one day from his window at a mob passing by on the street, he said, “I am their leader; I must follow them.” It sounds back-to-front, but is it? In a democracy do we not elect leaders to follow us? Governments have Ministers of this and that: the word ‘minister’ means ‘servant’.

On the one hand, if the people who presume to lead me are not serving any real interest of mine, then they are using me to serve their own interests. But how can they serve my interest when there are so many conflicting interests in society? They try to persuade me that their interests and mine coincide with ‘the common good’. But if they live in a society where few people care about the common good, they have to give each group the impression that they are going to serve that group’s particular interests. Since it isn’t always possible to juggle all these interests successfully we enter a world of persuasion, lies, flattery and spin, with occasional flashes of truth and integrity. Yet, somehow, it seems to work to some degree. Democracy, said Churchill, is a very poor form of government, but we have not found a better.

Jesus said that he came to serve and not to be served (Mt 20:28, Mk 10:45). Many politicians say something similar, but even as they speak, our eyes are drawn to their fat salaries, pensions and perks, and to how little like servants most of them appear. Nobody begrudges them a decent salary: they have families to raise, just like everyone else. But when we see excess we pounce. In some hidden recess of our minds, it may be, they are suffering comparison with a man who really came to serve and not to be served, and who had nowhere to lay his head. We can believe Jesus because he took nothing for himself. It’s a credibility thing.

Jesus is not begging for your vote, and so he can speak the truth to you from a pure mind. He is not asking to represent you, and so he doesn’t need to flatter you. He is taking nothing for himself, and so he can ask you to give everything you have.

He does not come to you talking about economic deals. He never spoke about financial matters, except to say, “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” (Mt 22:21; Mk 12:17; Lk 20:25), and to withdraw from financial arbitration (Lk 12:13-14). He doesn’t speak in abstractions at all. He speaks to what is most personal in you. And so his appeal is universal. This is the paradox: what is most personal is most universal.

Henri Nouwen saw this clearly, and repeated it many times in his talks and his writings. “We like to make a distinction between our private and public lives and say, ‘Whatever I do in my private life is nobody else's business.’ But anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people. That is why our inner lives are lives for others. That is why our solitude is a gift to our community, and that is why our most secret thoughts affect our common life.”

Because Jesus touches the deepest part of your being he touches the whole of your life. And so he has the right to ask you to follow him. He is not leading you a dance, pretending to lead while only following, pretending to follow while furtively leading. When he says he has come to serve you, you can believe him. He poured out his life and so he has the right to ask you to do the same.

1 JulyMt 8:18-22Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Another of his disciples said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Promises are easily made and still more easily broken. The man who said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go,” was saying more than he knew. Maximus of Turin (5 th

century) made this realistic comment: “The scribe’s declaration is prompt indeed, but foolish. The Lord was on his way toward his final suffering, his descent into hell and ascent into heaven. Is human frailty really prepared to follow him ‘wherever he goes’? This is more a foolish presumption than a confession of faith. Later the Lord would say to the apostle Peter, when Peter thought that he would follow him no matter what: ‘Where I am going you are not able to follow me now’ (Jn 13:36). And when Peter obstinately insisted and said that death would not separate him from [Jesus], he heard that he would deny the Lord three times. In this he was censured for his pride. He promised… that death itself would not deter him from following Christ, but he is cut off…by a little girl’s question.” Making a promise is like writing a cheque: anyone can do it, but there has to be something to back it up. Plans and promises and even preparations can sometimes be nothing more than delaying tactics that fool even oneself. Jesus never seems to have bogged himself down with preparations; he simply did what needed to be done at each moment. Preparations can be excuses for delaying, and delaying is a way of not doing something. He sent out the disciples without any feasibility studies, project proposals, pastoral plans or catechetical programmes…. A man who was strong on planning came up and said he would like to follow him, “but let me bury my father first.” His father was not dead; his father was alive and well, but getting on in years perhaps. What the young man meant was: in some indefinite time in the future, after my father has passed away and I have arranged all the family affairs, I will come and follow. And Jesus replied: Follow me now if you are going to follow me. Leave the world of planning and business to look after itself; in fact it is never finished with its own business. If you are going to do something, don't begin by postponing; that is the best way of never doing anything.

2 JulyMt 8:23-27When Jesus got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?"

“A windstorm arose on the sea....” In the original Greek the word is seismos, which means an earthquake. To this day, that would better describe the sudden storms that break over the Lake of Galilee. The boat was “hidden”, the Greek says, in the troughs of the waves.

If the only meaning of this story is that Jesus on one occasion calmed a severe storm on the Lake of Galilee – a long time ago and very far away – then it need not hold our attention for very long. And we would be justified in asking why he doesn’t do the same again. But there are great subtleties in these stories, and in the reasons for their inclusion.

Mark has Jesus reproach the disciples after the calming of the storm for their lack of faith (4:35-41). But Matthew (whose version you read on this page) has him reproach them before the miracle. This is telling us that at least some faith must precede a miracle. It is consistent with Matthew’s general account. Take for example the scene with the blind men. “Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you’” (9:28-29); or the scene where the woman had touched the hem of his garment; “your faith has saved you,” he told her. Have faith and then something will happen – not the other way around.

These simple details carry great weight and a great deal of encouragement for us in our struggles. The Gospel is telling us: Every time you feel your boat is about to sink, just have faith. What does this mean? Does it mean, Put a special holy look on your face? Hardly. Does it mean, Have a special inner feeling? Hardly. I think it means: do the seemingly impossible thing and something greater than you planned will happen. Douglas Hyde (not the Irish president of that name, but the author of I Believed) described his first fumbling steps to faith. He had observed a girl praying in church, had seen the light in her face; and he forced himself to go through the exact motions. “When I was sure no one was about I went, almost hang-dog fashion, down the aisle as she had done. Down to the front, round to the left, put some coins in the box, lit a candle, knelt on the stool – and tried to pray…. The candle spluttered and flickered, growing shorter and shorter but no words came.” Instead, gradually, faith in God dawned on him, replacing his faith in militant Communism.

3 July [Thomas, apostle]Jn 20:24-29Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

The others said to Thomas, “We have seen….” Thomas said, “Until I have seen….” What's the difference? None. The others believed because they had seen; why shouldn’t Thomas insist on the same?

Thomas has been unfairly nicknamed “Doubting Thomas.” Of course the gospel writer has us in mind. Like Thomas, we’re late on the scene – much later. We have to be reassured; we are the real Doubting Thomases.

He invites us as he invited Thomas to “put your finger here and see my hands; stretch out your hand and put it into my side.” Most of us know the wounds of Christ firsthand. I talked with a woman who lives, you could say, in the side of Christ. Many have lived there, throughout the ages. “We are now dying with him on his cross, in his pains and Passion,” wrote Julian of Norwich in the 14th century, “and when we deliberately remain on that same cross, holding on to the very end, with his help and grace, then suddenly we shall see his expression change and we shall be with him in heaven. Without a moment’s break we shall pass from one state the other – and we shall all be brought into joy.”

4 JulyMt 9:1-8And after getting into a boat Jesus crossed the water and came to his own town. And just then some people were carrying a paralysed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’ Then some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man is blaspheming.’ But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic—‘Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.’ And he stood up and went to his home. When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings.

Orthodox Jews at the time of Jesus believed that all suffering was the result of sin. Rabbi Ami said, “There is no death without sin, and no pains without some transgression.” A sick person was therefore regarded as a proven sinner. With such a belief, no one was likely to be healed in body if he was not convinced that his sins were forgiven. For this reason Jesus said to him, “Your sins are forgiven.” And to the people who objected to this statement, he was able to adduce the physical healing he had just performed.

Nowadays we are quite ready to believe that body and soul are not disconnected; so we can see some sense in this Jewish belief. Sicknesses of the soul can affect the body; we are psychosomatic beings (in Greek psyche = soul, and soma = body). We could go further and call ourselves ‘pneumosomatic’, inventing a word. What is in our spirit (pneuma) affects the body. (This might be a useful way to describe stigmata, etc.)

However, we would not want to take such automatic readings as did those ancient Jews. It remains true, though, that sin cripples us in some sense. It dulls the spirit, hardens the heart, blinds the eye of the mind, limits the imagination, brutalises the feelings.... We need to hear those words, “Get up and walk!”

5 JulyMt 9:9-13As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

St Augustine thinks Matthew wasn’t called at the same time as the others because he had some financial matters to finish off. But a 6 th-century writer took it that Matthew left his affairs in disorder, a thing that greatly impressed him - it must be particularly difficult for someone who deals with figures to leave them unbalanced. Do we have to balance our books before we set out on the Gospel path? Matthew wrote his gospel to convince Jews that Jesus was the fulfilment of their prophecies. Sixteen times in his gospel he uses the phrase “so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled.” He sees Jesus through the lens of the Old Testament: in him are fulfilled all the hopes of the Jewish people. In view of this conviction, his tax-gathering papers must have seemed very unimportant. Financial matters are so precise, so tangible and near…. His must have been a powerful conversion, because he had been in the service of Mammon, God's greatest rival. “You cannot serve God and Mammon,” he quotes Jesus as saying (Mt 6:24). Business people tend to be hard-headed, and perhaps his conversion took a little longer. St John Chrysostom suggested that “Matthew was not called at the same time as Peter and John and the others because he was then still in a hardened state.” Whatever the case, he was called from his tax business to follow Jesus. It was a call from one way of thinking to another. It was a call from security into insecurity, from wealth to poverty, from power to powerlessness. He was called to follow Jesus, the Logos, the Wisdom of God. He was not asked to make a donation from the profits of his business, but to follow in person.

6 JulyMt 9:14-17The disciples of John came to Jesus, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.’

I heard that some famous dietician says to weight-watchers, “It isn't what you eat, it is why you eat it.” He urges them to identify that ‘why’. That is what powers you towards the biscuit tin, he tells them – or the cookie-jar if you live across the water. Unless you can switch off the power at its source, your whole life will be a war of attrition with cookies.

A good idea pops up in more places than one: it connects different things in our life. ‘Not what but why’ is a good idea for any part of our life. It throws light equally on eating and on fasting – pursuits that might appear unconnected and even opposite.

I wonder why John the Baptist’s disciples were fasting. They were followers of a very ascetical leader, and I suppose that had a quenching effect on their appetite. But from the way they asked Jesus’ disciples about fasting, it appears that they also felt rather superior. “It is likely that the disciples of John the Baptist were thinking highly of themselves,” wrote St John Chrysostom, “and because of this Jesus put down this inflated conceit through what he said.” What do you think? I don’t believe that Jesus would engage in such tit-for-tat. It would make him no better than those conceited disciples. And besides, he told them why his disciples were not fasting: they were not fasting because it was not a time of preparation but a season for joy. They were not preparing for his coming; they were celebrating it.

But to get back to the fasters. St Jerome (347 AD – 420), who knew a lot about fasting, wrote, “What Jesus is saying is this: ‘Until a person has been reborn – putting aside the old person, and putting on the new – he or she cannot fast aright.’” The ego, the old self, is the problem; it will use even fasting as a way of fattening itself. Unless we have some inkling of our own Christ-nature our fasting and all our efforts will be expressions of ego.

7 July [14th Sunday in Ord. Time]Lk 10:1-12, 17-20After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

A great spiritual teacher gave this advice to one of her students: “Confess your hidden faults. Approach what you find repulsive. Help those you think you cannot help. Anything you are attached to, let it go. Go to places that scare you.” No trace of smooth salesmanship there! But such a teacher respects you and isn’t trying to flatter and manipulate you. It shows respect.

Every follower of Christ is called to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Even reluctant followers. To the man who was making excuses for not following, Jesus said, “Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God” (Lk 9:60). A little earlier Luke had described the sending out of the Twelve. But the instructions Jesus gave to the Twelve (in chapter 9) and to the Seventy-Two (in chapter 10) are practically the same. From this we are to understand that every Christian is an apostle - a word that means ‘sent’. If you feel like a lamb among wolves, that's the way you should expect to feel: it is written in the gospels.

What sort of qualifications do you need for going out to others? Do you need a diploma in catechetics? No. Not one of the Seventy-Two had a diploma of any kind - nor any of the Twelve. Jesus himself had no diplomas or degrees. But what you have to have is love. If you love genuinely, you are a missionary: you are going out of yourself. If you go out to even one stranger you are, in a way, going out “to the whole world.” And if you go out to an enemy, you are standing on the highest peak of the Christian life.

But what do I say, what do I do? Here is a word of advice from Dorothy Day, who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement: “We do what we can, and the whole field of all the Works of Mercy is open to us. There is a saying, ‘Do what you are doing.’ If you are a student, study, prepare, in order to give to others, and keep alive in yourself the vision of a new social order. All work, whether building, increasing food production, running credit unions, working in factories which produce for true human needs, working the smallest of industries, the handicrafts - all these things come under the heading of the Works of Mercy, which are the opposite of the works of war.”