Sunday Evangelium in Ordinary Time
Here are homilies given by Father Andrew Pinsent & Father Marcus Holden during 'ordinary time' eg when we're not preparing for / celebrating Christmas or Easter. Liturgical 'Year A' began on the 1st Sunday of Advent, 1 December 2013.
You can subscribe to this Totus2us podcast here on the RSS web feed or here on itunes. Plus you can download the free mp3 audio recordings individually by right / double clicking on the blue play buttons.
2nd Sunday of the Year
by Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year A
Conversion and the call to holiness
"Just as Jesus' own life was hidden for so many years, the real battle for holiness is largely conducted in the human heart and in secrecy. Blessed John Henry Newman refers to 'secret prayers, secret deeds, secret self-denials, secret struggles and secret victories.' As we begin this new year I would like to suggest we renew our commitment to at least the following 3 actions of the life of genuine holiness, actions that are invisible to others but visible to God. 1st, the practice of confession, by which God heals our hearts from sin. 2nd, the practice of secret, personal daily prayer, by which we come to know and love God intimately. 3rd, the practice of at least a little secret self-denial, by which the root of selfish love is gradually killed within us. May God grant we make use of the extraordinary opportunities for genuine holiness that He has given us, that we come to know and love Him more deeply, and be ready one day to enter His heavenly kingdom."
Readings: Gospel - John 1: 29-34 - “John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’”"
3rd Sunday of the Year
by Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year A
John Paul II, suffering & the power of the Cross
"This warning not to empty the power of the Cross was the title of the 3rd and final part of the most important document Pope John Paul II ever wrote on the moral life. That document was called 'Veritatis Splendor' (The Splendour of Truth) and Pope John Paul II witnessed to that truth by becoming a kind of icon of the Cross in the last days of his life. His body was crucified by suffering and disability, the lingering effects of an assassination attempt and Parkinson's disease. In the words of that chilling phrase, heard ever more frequently in today's society, the last days of the earthly life of the Holy Father might have been considered a 'life not worth living'. Yet the evidence for the supernatural power of his last days were shown especially in the signs that followed his death. In a great outpouring of grief over 5 million people came to Rome to pay their last respects in person, and his funeral was watched on television by over 2 billion people. Rather than being a life that was 'not worth living' the last days of Pope John Paul II were marked by miraculous and very visible fruits in this world. Yet Pope John Paul II was clearly suffering intensely during his last years and this fact draws attention to a long-standing problem. This problem often takes the form of a popular question: "Why do bad things happen to good people if there is a good God?""
Readings: 2nd Reading - 1 Cor 1: 10-13, 17 - “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power."
by Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year B
"Many Christians however still live with divided hearts, adding some practices of the City of God to lives that are still shaped to some degree by the City of Man. As a result many Christians are less effective and fruitful in this world than they should be. The step which most Christians find difficult is to surrender all things to God as revealed in His Son Jesus Christ, and to surrender things to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This surrender may or may not involve a physical abandonment of our possessions, as the Apostles did in today's Gospel, by abandoning their fishing nets and following Christ. But this surrender does involve putting God first, whatever our walk in life, to devoting significant time to daily prayer and the Sacraments, to following our God-given vocation and seeing the passing things of this world from the perspective of our true home which is in heaven."
Readings: Gospel: Mark 1:14-20: After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." Then they abandoned their nets and followed him."
by Father Marcus Holden, in Year B
"Our task therefore is to awaken our age out of its apathy and indifference to consider that life may be worth living, that there may be some meaning to our being born into this colourful world, that there might be something a little more profound about those whom we love than a random mutation of chemicals, that death may be questioned and need not be seen as the end. This is the way of Job. There is perhaps more to people than the next pleasure, the next honour, the next victory. Our job is to convince people to see further, to question more, to offer the goodness that St Paul speaks of. ... I invite you, finally, to listen to the words of Pope Benedict: 'Only where God is seen, does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we begin to know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God: each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ; there is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him."
Readings: 1st Reading: Job 7:1-4, 6-7: My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again. "
by Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year B
"An extreme version of this fear of illness and suffering seems to be much of the inspiration for the increase in suicides today and the drive to promote the practice of euthanasia, the killing of those deemed unfit to live. Many saints, by contrast, have made a special point of overcoming their natural repulsion or fear for some of the worst diseases, especially leprosy. They've looked beyond the disease to see the person suffering as a beloved child of God. For St Francis of Assisi, a major turning point in his path to extreme holiness was when he embraced a leper. St Damien, who died in 1889 after caring for lepers for many years, is the first officially recognised saint of Hawaii. What then inspires people like St Francis, St Damien and many others, who are largely unknown, to care for the sick and outcast in this way? The most straightforward answer is that, by surrendering to the love of God, they were given the gifts that they needed to accomplish great deeds. Their lives show the fruit of the Holy Spirit called benignity, which is like a holy fire by which a person melts to relieve the needs of others. They also had a special form of courage. The source and keystone of this courage was not a confidence in their own physical survival, indeed St Damien himself died of leprosy, this courage is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a confidence in attaining heaven, the only goal that really matters, so long as one remains in personal union with God. "
Readings: Gospel: Mark: 1, 40-45: A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
8th Sunday of the Year
by Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year A
"In today's Gospel, Jesus says that God will take care of his listeners, men of little faith, more than of the lillies of the field which are, he says, robed more splendidly than Solomon in all his regalia. Solomon asked for the gift of wisdom and by means of wisdom a person puts God first above all of creation. As a result, Solomon invested vast wealth in building the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem, and himself was blessed by extraordinary wealth and riches. Yet there was something cold about Solomon. He began to worship other things besides God, things that made him God's enemy and he treated his people harshly. After his death, his kingdom collapsed, dividing into Israel and Judah, a small remnant around Jerusalem. Solomon knew about God and had the wisdom to put God first, but he either lacked or lost his love of God, leading to the near ruin of his kingdom. The lesson seems to be that it is not sufficient to put God first in our minds unless we also love him with our hearts."
Readings: Gospel - Matthew 6: 24-34 - “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or 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 in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them."
with Father Marcus Holden, in Year C
The Holy Souls & Purgatory
"The Lord in His mercy has given us, those who die in friendship with him, the possibility of purification, of perfecting, after death. And this is good news. It is God's gift to save His imperfect friends… The souls of purgatory are aided by us as instruments, they are held by us in the providence of God. And it is comforting that we are not completely separated from our loved ones once they pass through the vale of death; we can still relate to them, we can still have a hand in their journey. God, in His providence, wants us to look after one another, not just in this world but forever. So the saints pray for us and help us, and we can help the holy souls. The Church extends of course from earth to heaven and includes purgatory. The most powerful thing we can do for the holy souls is to offer Mass for them. In the Mass, heaven and earth are united and the sacrifice which saves us is made really present."
with Father Andrew Pinsent, in Year A
The Parable of the Talents
"What does it mean to be productive with the Lord's wealth? How do we avoid the fate of the wicked and lazy servant and indeed how do we store up spiritual treasure in heaven? All saints are saved and perfectly happy but some have been made capable of even greater happiness than others. In a society accustomed to high levels of material production, it might appear that we have to have productive spiritual lives as well, perhaps generating a certain number of prayers or good deeds. But such an interpretation cannot be correct. There are many saints who seem to accomplish very little during their life times. The thief on the cross beside Jesus did nothing except beg for mercy, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom", for which action Jesus promised him paradise that very day. St Aloysius Gonzage died as a Jesuit novice at the age 23 without even reaching ordination; St Thérèse of Lisieux died at age of 24 and only wrote 1 short book. Many other saints die in infancy, having received baptism but apparently producing nothing in this world. What then does it mean to be productive with the Lord's wealth? A clue to an answer can be seen in the way that the other servants double their master's wealth in this parable... The true work of the Christian is to be conformed to Christ, to become like Christ.'
with Father Marcus Holden, in Year C
Remembrance Sunday & the Gift of Life
"Pope Benedict surprised people on his recent visit to Britain by mentioning the war! The beatification of Cardinal Newman coincided with the 70th anniversary of the battle of Britain. He singled out our national contribution to defeating that evil ideology of Nazism. He gave great praise to our war dead - he honoured them. He reminded us that he lived through those dark days when many did not recognise the evil that had come. From his great wisdom and experience and inspiration he reminded us of new threats, new persecutions and distortions of truth we in our time have to be aware of.
He warned several times against aggressive secularism - a kind of dictatorship he called it - a dictatorship of relativism where definite beliefs about what is true, right and good are put aside. He said this at Glasgow, "There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatise it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty." He exhorted us to be ready "to put the case for the promotion of faith's wisdom and vision in the public forum. Society needs clear voices which propose our right to live, not in a jungle of self-destructive and arbitrary freedoms, but in a society which works for the true welfare of its citizens and offers them guidance and protection in the face of their weakness and fragility .. Do no be afraid to take up this service."
There is still such a thing as valour, as honour, as sacrifice - things which we learn from our beloved war dead - these noble virtues are still possible because truth remains, because hope is still with us, but above all because there is still love in our hearts."