August   2004


Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time C


     Scripture today:   Ecclesiastes 1:;2:21-23;   Psalm 89;    Colossians 3:1-5.9-11;     Luke 12:13-21

 If there is one thing the modern world encourages us all to do, it is to do well materially and to be successful financially. We are encouraged to make good money, to have a good home, to have a good car, plenty of possessions, a good business, and in general to reach absolute material security that leaves us dependent on no-one.  Of course there is an element of validity in a goal this. God does want us to gain and use those things we do need in life. But the danger is that we become materialistic, which is to say that we allow our lives to revolve around material goals and possessions, making absolute material security the goal of our life’s efforts. These are the values of the world, and we can be very easily influenced by them. 

  It is this danger of materialism which, in a special way, the second reading from St Paul warns us against. St Paul puts it in very stark terms. He says ‘you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.’ (Colossians 3:1-5.9-11) We might ask, what are the things that are in heaven? Well, the Lord’s Prayer gives us an answer. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Looking for the things that are in heaven means above all looking for God’s will to be done as perfectly as possible in our daily life, just as it is done perfectly in heaven.

  And St Paul immediately goes on to explain in specific terms what this involves. He says, ‘That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; and never tell each other lies.’ In St Paul’s terminology here, to commit any of these sins is to have one’s thoughts on the things of earth. But notice that he emphasises one of those sins: he says ‘especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god.’ We are warned against devoting ourselves to acquiring material possessions in such a way that those possessions come to displace God at the centre of our lives.

  So then, what are we striving for day by day? Is it to serve God, doing His will day by day here on earth, just as it is in heaven? Is this the reason why we are trying to earn our living,  and is it the reason why we use our material possessions the way we do? Or are we rather spending our lives simply to gain absolute material security, a security based on material wealth, so that we will be dependent on no-one? We forget that absolute material security is an illusion anyway. It is impossible that material things make us absolutely secure. Only God can do this. And this is exactly what today’s Gospel teaches us. ‘Watch, and be on your guard,’ our Lord said, ‘against avarice of any kind’, - note that: avarice of any kind. Then he gives the reason for his warning. ‘For,’ he says, ‘a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’

  And that is so obviously the case, if only we choose to think about the matter. No matter how secure a person might seem to be financially, no matter how successful that person may have been in life from a material point of view, that person could drop dead any instant. He is not secure. And have we not seen this happen time and again over the years with leading millionaire businessmen? I remember some years back one of Australia’s most successful and wealthy businessmen, who at the height of his business fame suddenly died at 52, and was cremated. He could not take a cent with him, and all there was left were ashes. What did he go to God with?

   Our Lord puts this very point so vividly in his story in today’s Gospel (Luke 12:13-21). ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them. Then I shall be able to say to myself, “I am completely secure for good now. I can now settle back and enjoy myself.” But God said to him, “You fool! You do not realize that this is the last day of your life. And when you go tonight, all this stuff you have worked for, someone else will have it.” Our Lord describes such a person as a fool. He is very foolish indeed. We must, rather, seek in life the great thing which is in heaven where Christ is. And what is that? It is the perfect fulfilment of God’s will in our daily life. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

  The fulfilment of God’s will is to be the source of our security. Doing God’s will is our true wealth. Of course we must devote ourselves to our business or profession or calling in life whatever it may be. Of course we must earn our living and make money and find some material security for ourselves and those who depend on us. But the purpose of all this is so that what God wants done will be done. It is God’s interests, His plan for us, His will in all our daily duties whatever they might be, that we must be working for every day. It is this that gives us security here on earth and for ever in heaven. St Thomas More when he was being led to the scaffold to become a martyr said, though I lose my head, I’ll come to no harm. That was because he was doing God’s will.  

  Let us all be on guard against the values of the world which can infect our whole mind. Rather as St Paul says, let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.
                                                                                                                      (E.J.Tyler)

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    Scripture today:   Ecclesiastes 1:;2:21-23;   Psalm 89;    Colossians 3:1-5.9-11;     Luke 12:13-21

    Thoughts on vocation: the calling to serve God exclusively   

  It is an obvious understatement to say that each of us has only one life, and then it is forever gone with all the opportunities and possibilities it offers. So the critical question is, how are we going to live it? Like water running through one’s fingers, time rapidly passes on. If we are to use well the time given us by God, it will come down to the decisions we make, the big decisions and the daily little ones. The first thing to recognise is that we have a vocation from God, all of us. That fundamental vocation common to all is the call addressed to each of us by God at our baptism to belong utterly to Christ and to share in his holiness and in his mission. It is critical that each discover this. Having discovered, one must decide to live it.

 But then within this basic calling to live the Christian life generously, each will have a particular vocation. Very many have made their choice of a particular vocation. Perhaps your particular vocation is to the married life with spouse and children. Your calling in life has been decided, and so the daily decisions you make in life will be connected to that particular vocation.

  But there are others, many others, and especially those who are young, who have yet to discover their particular calling in life. If this is your case the first discovery you must make is your calling by God to belong to  Christ. This vocation springs from your baptism and confirmation. Indeed, even if you have already discovered this, all your life you must be rediscovering it. I invite you to place yourself each day in the presence of our Lord and listen to him calling on you to be his disciple in a genuine sense and not in name only. You will only discover this if you make the effort to listen to our Lord speaking to you in prayer and in the words of the Gospel and of the Church. So I say to you, discover your fundamental calling in life, and make the decision to live it out. I say to any parent, help your children to discover this basic calling from God.

  But then there is this consideration for the one who is young. Apart from your fundamental vocation to love and follow Jesus, there is your own particular calling to be discovered too. By that I mean the way you will serve and follow our Lord in life. You ought ask yourself repeatedly, what does God want me to do with the life he has been good enough to give me?  To gain an answer to this, I would recommend that you place yourself repeatedly in the presence of our Lord in prayer, with our Lord before you, and then imagine yourself at the end of your life, perhaps with hardly any more time left. Then with the help of God, ask yourself in that imagined situation, how will I have wanted to spend my life, with God’s judgment and an eternity just ahead of me? That is to say, think of the final things in life, the last things that you must face and that will come sooner than you think, for life is short. There is death and God’s judgment ahead of you. Think of this, and ask yourself, what is God drawing me towards? When I look back at that moment, what path will I have been glad to have chosen? You may be surprised at what comes to you.

   In this context let every young person to consider the possibility that God may be calling you to give your life to him exclusively. For a boy, consider the possibility of being a priest, of being another Christ in the midst of his people, of saving souls. For a girl, consider the possibility of a life of belonging exclusively to Jesus, in any one of so many ways in which this can be done. But especially I recommend to any young boy or young man that he consider the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood, and in particular to the diocesan priesthood. What a beautiful vocation. I invite you to cultivate such a hope within your family, and to foster a profound reverence for the priesthood and for the life of belonging exclusively to Jesus. This will be most pleasing to God.
                                                                                                                                      (E.J.Tyler)


            Further thoughts on vocation: the calling to serve God in the priesthood

 Each year the Church in Australia devotes a Sunday to vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Let us in this reflection think in a special way of the priesthood. Just before he ascended into heaven our Lord said to his disciples that they were to go to the whole world and make disciples of all the nations. Then he added, that he would be with them till the end of the world. Our Lord promised to be with the Church till the end of the world. And the disciples, the Gospel tells us, went forth preaching everywhere, the Lord working with them. How is the Lord with the Church, working as her head and shepherd? In many ways, but one very  especial way is in the ordained priest. When the Church acts and ministers, it is Christ who is acting. As members of the Church, we are all members of Christ our high priest. He acts through each of us, provided we are living in union with him. All members of the Church share in his priesthood in the ordinary sense of being able to offer the gift of their daily lives as a sacrifice for themselves and for the world, in union with the sacrifice of Christ.

But there are some who are called from among the faithful to an essentially different share, a unique share, in Christ’s priesthood. They are the ordained priests, who act in the person of Christ in a way essentially different from that of the rest of Christ’s faithful. And it is this doctrine which most of the protestant churches denied at the time of the Reformation, and which the Catholic Church insisted on in her doctrines set forth in the Council of Trent. Christ acts in the priest in ways that the rest of Christ’s faithful depend on for their entire spiritual life. For example and most obviously, our spiritual life depends enormously on the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the summit, the high point, and the very source of the Christian life. And the Eucharist can only be made present by and received from the priest. Where there is no priest, there is and can be no Eucharist. And the Eucharist is Christ himself, whereas in the other sacraments Christ not so much gives us his entire self, but in and through the priest, acts on us by the gift of his grace and in that action of grace unites us to himself.

 The Gospels give many instances of Christ’s actions. For instance, we read how at various times he was brought into the presence of someone who had died, such as Lazarus, or the daughter of the synagogue official, or the son of the widow of Nain. He then acted on that dead person. He raised him from the dead by his own action: he simply spoke and life returned to the dead person. These miraculous actions were signs of greater actions to come. The raising from the dead was a sign of the raising from spiritual death which Christ effects every time a person goes to Confession and confesses with sorrow a mortal sin. Christ acts through the person of the priest, for Christ is continually in the priest, and the priest is continually in him. Christ acts in the words of the priest who absolves from sin, raising that person from spiritual death. And only the priest can say those words, only he can raise from spiritual death. But in the Eucharist, Christ acts through the priest giving his very self, and not just his grace with its powerful effects, to those participating in the Mass.

The whole Church depends on the ministry of the priest. And so the spiritually minded Catholic, the Catholic who loves and appreciates his Faith, will love and appreciate the priesthood. Such a person will shun saying or doing anything which will lessen in the minds of others this appreciation which ought distinguish the Catholic. And the true Catholic will pray for an abundance of vocations to the priesthood, for this will in turn be a source of abundant grace for the Church and the world. Let us then commit ourselves to being persons who are marked by a great love for the priesthood.
                                                                                                                                      (E.J.Tyler)


             On vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

  Consider how widespread is the need in society for advice and guidance. In the world of commerce there are numerous kinds of consultants - management, personnel, even chaplaincies. In the general community there are psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage counsellors. Professional and non-professional guidance is everywhere and serves a tremendous human need. But who is the greatest guide of all? The Guide of guides is Christ who described himself as the Good Shepherd. In the days of our Lord a shepherd did not drive his sheep ahead of him with dogs and vehicles. He guided his sheep, the sheep heard his voice and followed.

  Our Lord on various occasions spoke of himself as the good shepherd. In the Gospel of St John our Lord also says that he is the sheepgate, the gate into the fold. In calling himself the gate he allows for no other gate at all. There is only one gate, and he is that gate. ‘All others who came before me,’ he says, ‘are thieves and marauders.’ That is to say, unless we pass through this gate, which is Jesus himself, we shall not be safe from deadly attacks, nor will we ever gain access to the pasture of eternal life. But if souls are to pass through this gate, there must be shepherds to guide them through it. And so we think of the need of shepherds of Christ’s sheep. Among the shepherds who guide the sheep of God there are first and foremost the priests, led by the Church’s chief pastor the Pope, and the bishops united with him. A sheep without a shepherd may never get to the gate and pass through it. So there is need for more priests. Some countries are worse off in this respect than others, but everywhere there is the need of more and more priests, so that more and more people will be led through the gate of the sheepfold, and that gate is Christ.

  We could ask, what needs to be done? Obviously,  vocations to the priesthood and religious life depend considerably on the religious formation being given to the young in families. Each home is meant to be a little domestic church. Pope Pius XII said that if mothers and fathers are giving an example of true Christian virtue, their families will be the first seminaries, the first religious novitiates. St Therese of Lisieux came from a family of several daughters, and I think almost all of them became religious. In the case of that family, the parents were very holy. In fact, the process of canonization has been introduced for both of them. Sadly, very often the parents of children secretly do not want any of their children to be priests or religious. They do nothing to foster such a thought in the minds of their children. Pope Pius XII once said that parents should put aside their fears in this matter and by daily example of Christian life attempt to bring about the greatest honour they will ever possess.

  Our Lord wants all who love the Church to do all they can to increase priestly vocations. What can be done? Pray, lead a holy life, live by the teaching of the Catholic Church. Especially, respect priests, love them, and impart this respect and love to one’s children. If parents inculcate a deep love and respect for the priesthood, vocations will flourish. Children will then be open to a vocation and if they are not granted one, they will place high value on their own children being granted one. But if parents have little respect for the priesthood, children will grow up with the same attitude, and will scarcely value a vocation should God grant them one. The priesthood is a high vocation, and this thought is what every parent ought impart to their children.

                                                                                                                                            (E.J.Tyler)

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You asked me to suggest a way for winning through in your daily struggles, and I replied: When you lay your soul open, say first of all what you wouldn’t like to be known. In this way the devil will always end up defeated. Lay your soul wide open, clearly and simply, so that the rays of God’s Love may reach and illuminate the last corner of it.
                                             (The Forge, no. 126)

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Monday of the Eighteenth Week

August 2   Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop.  Born in Sardinia at the beginning of the fourth century. He became a cleric at Rome and in the year 345 he was chosen to be the first Bishop of Vercelli. He spread the true faith by his preaching and he set up the monastic life in his diocese. He was sent into exile by the emperor Constantius and suffered much for the sake of the faith. When he returned to his own country he worked unceasingly for the restoration of religion against the Arian heresy. He died at Vercelli in the year 371.
 

The Church the oracle of God (Jeremiah 28: 1-17)

In Jeremiah 28: 1-17 we have two prophets, one false (Hananiah) and the other true (Jeremiah). The true prophet, Jeremiah, told the false one that the prophets before them told of unpleasant and unpopular things: "the prophets who preceded you and me prophesied war, famine and plague for many countries and for great kingdoms." We ought remember this in our own age.

Time and again the Church teaches what appears to be unpleasant and unpopular to the age. Witness the reception in many quarters given to the Church's latest lengthy teaching on the collaboration between men and women in the Church and in the world. The Church time and again is called upon to teach that if people keep on doing what they are doing and do not repent, disaster will come, if not immediately then ultimately.

The Church with her teaching is the oracle and prophet of God. Her head is Christ the Prophet long foretold and now come. Her teaching comes from God. it is lifegiving and a warning. Let us always love to receive it and to be true instruments of its transmission to others. For we are called - and especially the lay member of the Church - we are called to be the Church in the world.
                                                                                                                                 (E.J.Tyler)

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If that dumb devil mentioned in the Gospel gets into your soul, he will spoil everything. On the other hand, if you get rid of him immediately, everything will turn out well; you will carry on merrily, and all will be well. Resolve firmly to be "savagely sincere" in spiritual direction (always keeping your good
manners) and to be sincere immediately.
                                                                (The Forge, no. 127)

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Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week

The blessings of repentance   (Jeremiah 30: 1-2.12-15.18-22)

In a passage not long before this one of today (Jeremiah 30: 1-22) - I am referring to that read at Mass yesterday (Jeremiah 28: 1-17) -  the prophet spoke of disaste coming to the people because of their sins. He speaks again of God's punishment now (30: 1-22), but there is also here a wonderful hope and optimism introduced. God's people had been punished for their sins, but they will be admitted back into his presence and he will be their God.

It is surely a reminder of the brightness of repentance and of the joy it will bring. Jeremiah's words remind us of the parable of the prodigal son who decided to return repentant to his father. It is in our interest very greatly to work on repentance all through our life, especially on repentance from venial sin, and to have that effort at repentance crowned and assisted with the Sacrament of Penance frequently and regularly.

Repentance is a great blessing for each of us, and it is a great apostolate and ministry to assist others to repent. Parents ought assist their children to turn in repentance to God, teachers their students, those in hospitals their patients. We ought all make an apostolate of bringing the blessing of repentance to others, as did Jeremiah to his people.

Especially let us take care to repent of what is generally considered as of little importance - deliberate venial sin. To fail to repent of deliberate venial sin will destroy any prospect of holiness.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Love and seek help from the person who guides your soul. In spiritual direction lay your heart completely open - if it were rotten, show it as it is, rotten - with all sincerity, with the desire to be cured. If you don't, you will never get rid of that rottenness. if you go to a person who only cleanses the wound in a superficial way, you are a coward, because you will be going along to hide the truth, and that can only do you harm.
                                                                (The Forge, no. 128)

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Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week

August 4 St John Vianney, parish priest of Ars (1786-1859). He was born near Lyons (France), ordained priest in Grenoble, and was assigned to the parish of Ars where he spent forty-two years. He was outstanding for his steadfast care of souls, for his spirit of prayer and mortification, but above all, for his tireless dedication to the Sacrament of Penance. He spent most of his life in the confessional, drawing energy from his intimate and constant friendship iwth our Lord in the Eucharist. Pius XI declared him Patron of the universal clergy.

The Sacrament of Penance

Apart from the weekday readings for today (as set out below), the Church provides special readings which may be used at Mass on this feast of St John Vianney. In the Gospel for St John Vianney's feast (Matthew 9: 35 - 10:1) we are presented with the image of our Lord full of compassion for the crowds who were like sheep without a shepherd. We can take those crowds our Lord gazed upon as symbolic of the world of humanity. he is the Good Shepherd God would send to the world, and only in him would men find peace - in his person and in his teaching.

Thinking of our Lord's compassion for souls, we think of the apostolic zeal which the Church's members are called to make present in every situation in which they find themselves. Today we think of a saint who relived our Lord's apostolic compassion in a very special way, through the preaching of the word of God and the administration of the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Penance. Through these ways, the word and the sacraments, the Good Shepherd was brought to countless people in the life of this priest.

Let us renew our appreciation of the Sacraments and of the word of God, but especially of the Sacrament of Penance, opening our hearts to the Good Shepherd in them. Let us ourselves become apostolic in the sense bringing others to Jesus in the Sacraments, and especially the Sacrament of Penance, preparing people for Confession and bringing them to it.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Never be afraid of telling the truth. But don't forget that sometimes it is better to remain silent out of charity towards your neighbour. However, you should never be silent out of laziness, or love of comfort, or cowardice.
                                                                (The Forge, no. 129)

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Thursday of the Eighteenth Week

August 6   The Transfiguration of our Lord   (Luke 9: 28-36)

In this dramatic event of our Lord's public life, witnessed only by the three who would be the future 'pillars' (St Paul) of the infant Church, our Lord is manifested in by the Father in his real glory. he is the culmination and fulfilment of the Old Testament (represented by Moses and Elijah), and the Son of God  whom all mankind is called upon by the Father to listen to.

So in our mind and heart we ought let the person of Jesus stand forth before everything else in all creation as the object of attention for the whole universe. Nothing is to be compared with the person of Jesus, and nothing is to take his place in our mind and heart.

Let us resolve to listen to Jesus before everything else and to measure all else according to his teaching. And that teaching comes to us in the teaching of the Church his body. The Church is Christ made present in our day, the oracle and prophet of God. So to her we are called to listen as to Christ.
                                                                                                                             (E.J.Tyler)

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The world thrives on lies even twenty centuries after the Truth came among men. We have to tell the Truth! This is precisely what we have to do as children of God. When men get used to proclaiming and hearing the truth, there will be more understanding in this world of ours.
                                                                                                        (The Forge, no. 130)

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Saturday of the Eighteenth Week

Saint Sixtus II, pope and martyr, and his martyr companions (martyred about 268 AD). Pope Sixtus was persecuted by the Emperor Valerian. While he was celebrating the Eucharist he was taken prisoner and put to death together with four of his deacons. His name is included in the Roman canon.
  Saint Cajetan, priest (1480-1547). He was remarkable for his spirit of prayer and charity. Cajetan's great zeal in seeking the salvation of souls earned for him the title of "hunter of souls". He is the founder of the Congregation of Clerks Regular, the Theatines.

Faith amid sufferings (Habakuk 1:12-2:4)

The prophet Habakuk presents us with a great and perennial problem. He cannot understand why God is treating his people in the way he is, nor can he understand why the good are allowed to be mistreated by evil men. And so he stands on his watchtower, waiting for an answer to his complaints.

There are very many in life who are profoundly puzzled and disturbed at the way God appears to be
treating them. They have tried their best in life, they feel, and now htey appear to be treated terribly by life. It could be an awful sickness involving a lot of pain and in convenience. It could  be some sudden and unfair loss of possessions. Whatever it is, there seems to be no explanation.

Now Habakuk received an answer to this question (2: 4). It was not an explanation of the problem as to why God allows such things to happen, but it was guidance as to what to do. The person whose souls in not at rights will not be able to cope, but the upright man will live by his faithfulness to God. Cleave to God amid the sufferings, cleave to him in faith.
                                                                                                                                   (E.J.Tyler)

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To give way in matters of faith would be a false charity. It would be a diabolical, deceitful charity. We must be strong, firm in faith, as St Peter demands. This is not fanaticism, but quite simply the practice of our faith. It does not entail disliking anyone. We can give way in all accidental matters, but in matters of faith we cannot give way. We cannot spare the oil from our lamps, otherwise when the Bridegroom comes he will find they have burned out.
                                                                            (The Forge, no. 131)

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Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time C  

The apostolic spirit: seed-bed of vocations

  It is often said what the child comes to value and love will affect what he may well value and love for his whole life. Reflection on what one loves and values in adulthood can give us a  glimpse of the truth of this. For instance, an adult might notice that he does not like to use bad language, despite what others around him do. When he asks himself why this is so, he realises that this comes from his childhood and the upbringing he was given. Or he might notice that even in adulthood there are characters of fiction he instinctively enjoys. On reflection he realises this stems from his childhood. Much that one values stems directly from one’s childhood. Parents ought remember that the values they transmit will affect their children’s entire life.

  It goes without saying that the life of a Christian family ought be marked by one great value: it is the love of and following of Christ in everyday life. Many families take up this challenge. It springs directly from their baptism. And so, love for family prayer, Sunday Mass, frequent Confession, instruction in the Catholic Faith at home, reverence for the priesthood, love for all the elements of Catholic life, all this should dominate the values of a Catholic family.

  But there is one value, a fundamental aspect of Catholic life, which is very widely ignored even by the best of families. It is the call and the responsibility to be apostolic, to share and spread one’s faith with others. The result of this neglect is that the children of these families never themselves become apostolic in their everyday lives. They never come to love this aspect of the Christian life, so fundamental as it is. It always seems to them to be the calling of others, but not of themselves. This is because it was never a value in their own family, in their own home, in the life of their own parents, devout though their parents may have been. Another result of this lack is that a vocation that God grants the family just might never come to fruition, because a religious vocation involves a call to an apostolic life. So let’s ask ourselves, am I apostolic? Is my family in any sense apostolic, trying to spread the Catholic Faith? Are my children ever likely to pick up the call to them to be apostolic? What lead am I giving in this?

   All too many baptised persons consider that their religion is a purely private matter and that any work of influencing others in the direction of Christ and his Church is the work of priests and special religious workers alone. But the Catholic Church teaches that the Christian family is a domestic church. Therefore, just as the Church was given the task by our Lord to go to all the nations and make disciples, teaching them to observe what he had told them, in a word to be apostolic, so also the family as such, being a domestic church,  is called to share in this responsibility. They are called to make it the love of their life. If a family is doing hardly anything about this serious responsibility to bring Christ to others, an essential aspect of a good Catholic life is missing from the life of that family. In all probability the children will always have difficulty realising the importance of being apostolic, just as their parents never did.

   The Church teaches that an essential element in the Christian life is the apostolic spirit, the endeavour to bring Christ to others. If this is largely missing in one’s life, one must regard oneself as lacking an essential element of the Christian life. The same applies to the family.

  Now the parish is a wonderful field for apostolic action, providing excellent opportunities for any family, including both parents and children, to learn to be apostolic. Parents should have as part of their ambition for their children that they learn to become Christ’s apostles in everyday life. But so few parents wish this of their children, and those who fail to want this for their children are failing both our Lord and their children.

   The most wonderful vocation to the apostolic life is that of the priest. Today is vocations Sunday. I invite any young person reading this to consider the possibility of a life given to our Lord and his work. This means, for the boy or young man, considering the possibility of being a priest. It means, for the girl or young woman, considering the possibility of belonging exclusively to Jesus in one of the many ways this can be done in the life of the Church. I invite every family reading this to be a seed-bed of vocations, and to have a high esteem for vocations to the priesthood and the life given exclusively to Jesus. They will be if the family resolves to become more apostolic.
                                                                                                                            (E.J.Tyler)


        A second reflection on the Gospel of the nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

       Scripture today:   Wisdom 18:6-9;     Psalm 32;     Hebrews 11:1-2.8-19;    Luke 32-48

  In the Gospel of today Our Lord makes a great point repeatedly. We are to live in such a way as to be ready at a moment’s notice were our time suddenly to come. ‘Be like men waiting for the master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks,’ our Lord says. ‘You too,’ he continues, ‘must stand ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’ (Luke 32-48)  The thought of the coming of the Lord to ask of us an account of our time is prominent in our Lord’s teaching.

   What then, should we do in order to live in a way always ready for Jesus?  To be ready always, our life must be characterised by work and prayer. We should be working at both. The first thing is that we should be working at our prayer. Our Lord said that we are to pray always. How can we grow in a prayerful life? We become more prayerful through two forms of prayer: fixed times of prayer, and then moments of fleeting prayer. Fixed prayer is the period for prayer that we regularly set aside just for praying. I would recommend that there be fixed times. What then, might be a schedule of fixed prayer? I would recommend each day, say, ten minutes praying with a scene from the Gospel. It might be the Gospel of the day which one can read in the daily missal. It would be a good idea to read it over the night before just before you get into bed, and, as it were, sleep on it. Then as you rise, after making your morning offering, turn your thoughts to Jesus in that Gospel scene you are about to pray over.
 
  I would recommend you give ten minutes to simply being with our Lord in that Gospel scene. Just be with Jesus, watching him in the scene described in the Gospel passage, considering his words, quietly and prayerfully thinking of him as if you were present personally. Remember, he is actually with you during your prayer. So is Mary our mother, and your guardian angel. Be with Jesus. You will find that something in the Gospel passage will strike home, something our Lord says, or something the passage says about our Lord himself. A new realization will come over you in your prayer, and a new closeness to Jesus. Your ten minutes has come to an end, and the day’s duties must now be taken up. You then take with you in your heart what you have seen, felt and realized briefly in your ten minutes of prayer. Don’t let it just fritter away. Remember what is said of our Lady in St Luke’s Gospel. St Luke said that she remembered these things and pondered them in her heart.

  So then, the day’s duties having begun, you keep in your heart what you gained from your brief meditation right at the start of the day. As I said, this brief meditation at the start of the day will be better if you have disposed yourself a little for it the night before, and if you have truly entered prayerfully into that ten minutes of meditation. It is a great beginning to the day. During the day your brief meditation will be the resource from which numerous moments of fleeting prayer will come forth during the day. During the day’s work, get into the habit of briefly renewing and building on the contact with Jesus which you had during that first ten minutes meditation at the start of the day. These need only be fleeting moments but they are necessary to preserve constant contact with Jesus. They enable you to live for him. Often during the day pray briefly to Jesus, and to Mary, to your Guardian Angel perhaps, to St Joseph. Use favourite short prayers, say, like just “Jesus!”, or “Mary”, making those brief prayers a frequent glance at Jesus, in which you express the desire you have of showing your love for him by doing your best in the work you are currently performing, whether it is for your family or employer or whatever. It could be some dreary and difficult housework chore, it could be a dull period at school, it could be some unpleasant stage of things in your workplace. It could be intractable difficulties in research or writing. Whatever it is, it should be done as well as possible, and for Jesus. Everything we do we should do in such a way that God will be honoured and glorified the more.

  And this reminds us of the other side of life, which is our life’s daily work. Prayer is essential. But our daily work is also fundamental if we are to please God and be ready for his coming. Our prayer enables us to sanctify our work, and our work is very important in God’s sight. He has given each of us a work to do - we may not know very clearly what our work in life will amount to, but if each day we try to fulfil the duties of the work of that day as well as we possibly can, we will indeed be gradually fulfilling the work in life that God has given us to do. We should be busy about our tasks, looking on them as tasks entrusted to us by God himself, by God who will be pleased with us if we do them well for him. We should try to make our work holy, we should try to make ourselves holy by our work, and we should try to make others holy by our work. It is a great thing to sanctify our work.

 Daily work and daily prayer, all for Jesus. That is the key to being constantly ready for the coming of Jesus.
                                                                                                                     (E.J.Tyler)


 
                  Some thoughts on the propagation of the Faith

  I remember when I was working as a missionary in Peru, in the small town of Huancarama high up in the Andes mountains, I was sitting in the town plaza. A little Indian child was walking nearby chewing some gum. He looked at me, slowly walked towards me, stopped in front of me, put his hand into his mouth, pulled out the gum he had been chewing, and offered it to me for me to eat. He was a little child of about three. That simple action showed the affection he and so many had for the priest. They realised that they depended on the priest for their spiritual sustenance, for the sacraments and for the word of God. The priest brought them to God.

   Let us often think of the mission of the Church - in which we all share - which is to bring Christ to all mankind. We have a mission to live in union with Christ ourselves, and to bring Christ to all in our own community. And there are many in each parish who in a variety of ways are endeavouring to do just this. But we also share in the universal mission of the Church. When our Lord was about to ascend into heaven, he said to his disciples, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I shall be with you to the end of the world. By our baptism and confirmation we are called to play whatever part we can in this great world-wide undertaking.

   Pope John Paul II wrote an important encyclical on the Church’s mission to all the peoples of the world. In it he says that this mission is very far indeed from being completed and that in fact it is only beginning, and we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service. He reminds us of the words of St Paul, who wrote, “For if I preach the Gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. Rather, it is a duty. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.” Over the years there has been much talk of the Second Vatican Council. That Council stressed the Church’s missionary character, and pointed out that it springs from the mission of the Blessed Trinity itself. The Father initiated the divine mission to save the world, sending his Son to fulfill it. The Holy Spirit was then sent by both Father and Son to bring Christ’s redeeming work to the world, and by his power the Father and the Son dwell within us and enable us to live in God. The Church shares in this mission to the world, and we are members of the Church. Pope Pius XII decades ago stressed that being apostolic and missionary is of the essence of being a good and practising Catholic.

 For all too long it has sadly characterised many Catholics that they are not apostolic or missionary. Many are, but many are not. Each of us ought ask ourselves, into which group do I fall? I invite you to put to yourself the famous questions St Ignatius asks in his Spiritual Exercises: what have I done for Christ? What am I doing for him? What will I do for him? The Pope has often pointed out that one’s faith is strengthened when it is given to others. This means that if you are regularly engaged in doing something designed to bring the faith, the Church, and Christ to others, your faith will be strengthened. Every  parish and all members of it should aspire to be distinguished by love for Jesus and for a desire to bring Jesus to others both in the surrounding community and all over the world.

 In the first half of the nineteenth century, an obscure woman in France felt the sense of urgency in doing just this, and so she began a movement, an association, of people who would contribute what they could of their modest earnings and savings, so as to support the work of the Church and priests in the foreign missions. Her association grew and grew, consisting of little yet regular givers, and it became the pontifical society for the Propagation of the Faith. Contributing to this pontifical society is a fine practical way to engage in a world-wide missionary effort. You can pray for the foreign missions and make a financial contribution also. Your contribution is then administered by the Pope through this pontifical missionary society for the support of missionary priests and religious and other necessities of the foreign missions. The pope has written that missionary activity appears to be waning. This is one practical way the ordinary parishioner can do something concrete about this.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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Humility and obedience are the indispensable conditions for acquiring good doctrine.
                                                                 (The Forge no.132)

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Monday of the Nineteenth Week

Our God is ever present   (Ezechiel 1: 2-8.24-28)

Consider the account of Ezechiel's vision of the Lord, and its setting. Its setting "was the fifth year of exile for King Jehoiachin" - the fifth year of exile in Babylon for the children of Israel, including the king. One can imagine the temptation to give up hope after five years. It was surely a forlorn situation.

And yet in that bleak situation God in all his reality, power and glory was present, though hidden from sight. Then, as a special grace for his exiled people, he suddenly made his presence known to one of their number and endowed him with a mission to speak on his behalf to his people. Not only did he make his presence known, but his power and his glory as well in the imagery of the vision (Ezechiel 1: 2-28).

Let us always remember that whatever be our situation in life, whether it be due to our own making and fault or not, God is present in all his power and glory, though hidden. he can be relied upon, and we must always trust him in obedience, ready for any grace he may suddenly grant us with the call it may involve.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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Welcome the Pope's words with a religious. humble, internal and effective acceptance. And pass them on.
                                                                 (The Forge no.133)

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Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week   

(August 10)  Saint Lawrence

Power to do more good from being generous  (2 Cor. 9: 6-10)

There are many benefits and blessings that come to us from being generous. But let us notice one blessing that St Paul speaks of in the first reading for this feast of St Lawrence. God loves a cheerful giver, he says. He will reward such a giver by granting him all he needs, and still have something for all sorts of good works. Indeed, he will "make the harvest of your good works a larger one." (2 Cor. 9:10).

Our time is given us in life to do good work for God, to fulfill the share alotted us in the work that God himself is doing. Christ referred in the Gospel of John to himself as working, and to the Father as working. Our dignity is to spend our time in life collaborating with God in God's own work. We do this by our own daily work. By giving generously, St Paul says, we will receive the blessing, the grace to be able to do more good still, to produce a harvest of good works.

Let us resolve to do all the good we can by our work in life. The key is to give generously to God and to others, confident that God will enable us to do even more good and even better work.
                                                                                                                            (E.J.Tyler)

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You must love, venerate, pray and mortify yourself for the Pope, and do so with greater affection each day. For he is the foundation stone of the Church and, throughout the centuries, right to the end of time, he carries out among men that task of sanctifying and governing which Jesus entrusted to Peter.
                                                                 (The Forge no.134)

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Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week    

(August 11) St Clare, virgin. Born at Assisi in the year 1193. She followed her fellow countryman Saint Francis in his life of poverty, and was the founder and ruler of an order of nuns (Poor Clares). She led a very austere life, abounded in works of piety and charity. She died in the year 1253.

Being good or being evil    (Ezechiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22)

One of the distinctive features of our age is the general feeling that sin is not a very serious matter at all. It is a purely personal thing, with little objective reality, and largely a matter of taste having few ultimate consequences.

Now, one way of regaining a sense of the offensiveness of sin is to read those many passages of Scripture in which God speaks harshly of sin and inflicts harsh punishment on the sinner. Sin very obviously offends God - nothing offends God so much as sin.

One such passage is in Ezechiel 9, in which God describes in visionary form the punishment of the wicked and the preservation of the good: 'I heard him say to the others, "Follow him through the city, and strike. Show neither pity nor mercy; old men, young men, virgins, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the old men in front of the Temple.'

In the sight of God, what is ultimately important is moral and religious goodness, and what absolutely offends him is moral wickedness. Each brings its reward or punishment. So let us make our choice, living out day by day these great and simple facts to their ultimate consequences.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Your deepest love, your greatest esteem, your most heartfelt veneration, your most complete obedience and your warmest affection have also to be shown towards the Vicar of Christ on earth, towards the Pope. We Catholics should consider that after God and the most Holy Virgin, our Mother, the Holy Father comes next in the hierarchy of love and authority.
                                                                                   (The Forge no.135)

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Thursday of the Nineteenth Week

The imperative to forgive    (Matthew 18: 21-19:1)

Let us notice how time and again  in the Scriptures God is warning of the dire results of disregarding his holy will. Punishment will assuredly come if there is not repentance. Consider Ezechiel 12: 1-12. And we see it again in our Lord's words in Matthew 18: 21-19:1. In our Lord's parable in this passage the master hands his unforgiving servant over to the torturers till he should pay his impossibly largge debt. And our Lord concludes by saying that that is how our heavenly Father - our Father! - will deal with us unless we forgive from the heart.

So, however difficult it might be, we just must strive every day to forgive all those who have injured us in any way. The thought of a coming judgment and punishment for failure to forgive may help. The thought of God's forgiveness of us, with our far larger debts, should help. So should the very example of our Lord, forgiving to the last those who injured him. But we simply must go to our judgment before God having forgiven all, if we want to be forgiven ourselves.

Let's make that our life's ambition: to forgive all and to forgive everything.

It will require great renunciation.
                                                                                                                           (E.J.Tyler)

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May the daily consideration of the heavy burden which weighs upon the Pope and the bishops move you to venerate and love them with real affection, and to help them with your prayers.
                                                                                                                       (The Forge no.136)

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Friday of the Nineteenth Week   

<>(August 13) St Pontian, pope. St Hippolytus, priest, martrys. Pontian was ordained Bishop of Rome in the year 231, and in the year 235 ws exiled by the Emperor Maximinus to Sardinia, together with the priest Hippolytus. Here he abdicated the papacy. After his death in Sardinia his body ws buried in the cemetry of Callistus, while the body of Hippolytus was taken to the cemetry on the Via Tiburtina. Both these martyrs have been venerated by the Church of Rome from the beginning of the fourth century.

Personal Responsibility    (Ezechiel 16: 59-63, alternative first reading)

From the dawn of human history one of man's greatest failings has been the avoidance of personal responsibility for his actions. Someone or something else is seen to be responsible, to  be the cause, and so something or someone else is to be blamed. We see it in Adam ('the woman gave me the fruit to eat'), down to our own day.

But God tells Ezechiel that Jerusalem will be judged by her deeds (Ezechiel 16: 59): "Jerusalem, I will treat you as you deserve, you who have despised your oath even to the extent of breaking a covenant..."

So we must take responsibility for our lives, and if we do not we will be held accountable by God for this failure. What does this mean in the concrete? It means taking responsibility for the use we make of time as the preparation for eternity. We cannot halt or delay the inexorable march of time towards its end. Every moment of time that passes is a jewel that has gone from sight, and the question is and will be, how have we used the time that was ours. We are responsible for its use.

We must use time to lovingly fulfill the work given to us by God and to avoid offending him by sin. We can expect our work to be ordinary work fulfilled in an ordinary round, just as it was for the Holy Family those many years in Nazareth. Let's not waste time. Let's do our work in life for God.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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Your love for Our Lady should be more lively, more supernatural. Don't just go to the Virgin Mary to ask her for things. You should also go to give; give her your affection; give her your love for her divine Son; and show her your affection with deeds of service to others, who are also her children.
                                                                                                                       (The Forge no.137)

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Saturday of the Nineteenth Week     

St Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr (1894-1941)  Maximilian Mary Kolbe was born in Poland. He consecrated himself to the Lord in the Franciscan Order. Filled with love for the Virgin Mary, he founded the Militia of the Immaculate Mary and, with preaching and writings, undertook an intense apostolic mission in Europe and Asia. Interned in Auschwitz during the Second World War, he offered himself in exchange for t he father of a large family who was to be executed. He died of hunger in the concentration camp. John Paul II proclaimed him the Patron of Our Suffering Century. His life reminds us of the many problems of our time: hunger, peace and reconciliation among men, and the need to give meaning to life and death.

Personal freedom   (Exechiel 18: 1-10.13.30-32)

It is not often noticed how influential philosophical thought is on the thinking of society. One philosophical position that has had inflence is the view that ultimately we are not free. Our so-called decisions are the product, so this view goes, of a variety of forces within and without, and in the last analysis man is not responsible for his actions. Such a view has a certain simplicity to it, it does away with the complication involved in the mystery of freedom and morality, but it flies in the face of sheer experience. We are aware that we are free.

Whatever about the testimony of man's own consciousness, hundreds of years before our Lord, God revealed very clearly and had it taught and written down (in Ezechiel 18: 1-10.13.30-32, for instance) that each man is indeed responsible for his actions and will be held to account for them.

Our Lord said that the one who sins is to that extent a slave. So the greatest form of slavery, the greatest loss of freedom, is due to the enslavement that comes from deliberate sin. We must therefore take responsibility for our lives and live for the pursuit of holiness, determined to avoid sin. The key, surely, is to strive to avoid deliberate venial sin, and to repent of venial sin when it is committed.

Let us love our freedom, and protect it by resisting deliberate sin.
                                                                                                                                 (E.J.Tyler)

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Jesus is our model. Let us imitate him. Let us imitate him by serving the Holy Church and all mankind.
                                                        (The Forge no.138)

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Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time C

      Scripture today:   Jeremiah 38:4-6.8-10;    Psalm 39;    Hebrews 12:1-4;     Luke 12:49-53

  In our Gospel today we read our Lord’s words in which he tells us why he came among us : ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!’ (Luke 12:49-53) He came to set alight a fire and have it blazing. What is that fire? It is the fire of God’s love, a love which filled his own heart and which he wishes to see fill the heart of each of us. On one occasion our Lord was asked, Which is the first of all the commandments? He said, This is the first, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Our Lord came to see that command fulfilled. His mission was to fulfil it in himself, and to see it fulfilled in the hearts of each of us. It was to be a blazing fire.

  Whenever we think of the fire of that love, in the first instance we should think, not of our love for God, but of God’s love for us. The first source of love, the foundation of all love, is God’s love. It is the basis of our lives. We live and move and have our being only because God loves us. All that we have in life, we have only because God loves us. We have been redeemed from the terrible consequences of our sins, only because God loves us. The revelation and expression of this love is Jesus, and if we wish to come to know the love that God has for us and be filled with love for him in return, we must come to know Jesus.

  That is to say, the knowledge and love of Jesus is to be the foundation of our lives. It is the teaching of the Church and the testimony of the entire Christian tradition that Jesus loves each of us with a personal and individual love, just as if we, each of us, were the only object of his love. Now this great truth has to be discovered in a personal sense by each of us. Of course we all know that Jesus loves us, but this knowledge has to become personal, it has to be deepened and made vivid. We have to realize it in a personal sense. We have to arrive at an appreciation of it. To arrive at a personal realization that Jesus loves me, and loves me with a very great love, requires that we ourselves, each of us, be working at acquiring that realization. This is the role of what are called spiritual exercises, such as a brief daily period of meditation, a little spiritual reading, the rosary prayed with real attention on the mysteries of each decade, a daily examination of conscience, being careful about how we attend our Sunday Mass and then regular Confession. What is the purpose of all these spiritual exercises?  More than anything it is to build up a personal relationship with Jesus, and the core of this relationship is the love that he, Jesus, has for me. The personal realization of this is the basis of a strong Catholic faith.

   So then, if you want to love Jesus you must make a personal decision to work on getting to know Him, which means getting to know how much He loves you. This means thought and above all prayer, thinking about Jesus as he reveals himself in the Gospels, and being with Him, I repeat, being with Him, as He reveals Himself in the Gospels. We have to work on this daily all through life, as the whole purpose of life is to know Jesus, to love him, and on that basis to serve him. The fire our Lord sets alight begins with the knowledge and love of Him. I have come to bring fire to the earth, our Lord said, and how I wish it were blazing already. That fire is the fire of love for God. If we do our bit by each day working on gaining a personal knowledge of Jesus, then he will do His bit which is by far the greater. That bit which he does is to reveal Himself to us more and more by the light and grace of the Holy Spirit, and holiness is especially God’s work.

  That brings us to the second and much more important component of this fire which our Lord wishes to set ablaze on the earth. It is true that the fire is the fire of our love for God, but even more, that fire is the Holy Spirit. It is the fire of the Holy Spirit which our Lord wants to set blazing on the earth. The Holy Spirit is the love of God, the love the Father has for the Son and which the Son has for the Father. This love of God which is the Spirit of God is the Gift of the Father and the Son to mankind. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who was sent at Pentecost to the infant Church gathered around Mary, and who appeared on each in the form of tongues of fire. It is He, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus wishes to cast on the earth. So let us pray to the Holy Spirit to help us come to know the love that God has for us, that love which is revealed in the person and the work of Jesus his Son. Let us resolve to work every day at coming to know and love Jesus, but with the help and grace of the Holy Spirit who is himself the love of the Father and the Son. Personal holiness does indeed require our own daily work, but far more so is it the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

  Let us ask that the Holy Spirit will come. Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Let us make our own a prayer to the Holy Spirit written by St Augustine: “Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, That my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love only what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy.
                                                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)


         A second reflection on the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time C

Scripture today:   Jeremiah 38:4-6.8-10;    Psalm 39;    Hebrews 12:1-4;     Luke 12:49-53

  Each Sunday we gradually proceed through the chapters of a particular Gospel, and our Gospel for this year is the Gospel of St Luke. For the past two weeks we have been following in that gospel an instruction of Jesus in chapters 12 and 13. We have read Jesus’ judgment on the values of this world and his account of the Christian life. Today’s gospel speaks of the urgency of our Lord’s mission. “I have come to cast fire on the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how I am constrained till it is  accomplished.” (Luke 12:49-53) The baptism he refers to here is his coming suffering and death. The fire is the fire John the Baptist spoke of , the Holy Spirit. “He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”  This fire cannot be kindled till he has suffered.

    But the full accomplishment of his mission requires that many others be baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire, uniting themselves with him in his passion and death. That touches the lives of believers down through the ages right to each one of us, and with that our Lord tells us that there will be problems. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you but rather division.” Is not Jesus the prince of peace, we can hear it being asked? Did not the angels announce at his birth, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace”? Yes indeed, but when our Lord said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” he immediately added, “Not as the world gives do I give to you.” In closing his last discourse with the words, “I have said this to you that in me you may have peace” he immediately added, “in the world you have tribulation.” That is to say, the peace Jesus gives is for those who believe. And this immediately sets up a division between those who believe and those who do not. For he says, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you,” and again, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as one of its own; but because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

In that sense Jesus has indeed not brought peace but rather division. He has brought a great division between those willing to hear his word and to stake their lives on it, and the rest of the world which thinks all this to be stuff and airy nonsense, dreams and illusions. Every Sunday in the Creed we proclaim that “we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” But if we do, then according to many, we are just sick - sick in the head.  If the father wants to give to the poor some of the inheritance all of which the son was expecting; if the daughter-in-law encourages her husband in generous service, rather than along the course his ambitious mother had planned for him - then there will be trouble. Jesus’ own relatives came to get him shortly after he began preaching, wondering if he was going mad. How much more other families?  Such fierce opposition to the one who embodies God’s message is what is behind the action in today’s passage from Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38:4-6.8-10). The army of the Chaldeans was threatening Jerusalem, and Jeremiah was consistently preaching to the king and people what God had revealed to him, that they should surrender. Those who did not believe him tried to have him put to death. Such is the typical lot of the prophet at the hands of those who cannot understand nor accept the message from God.

  And in the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12:1-4), Jesus is described as the one who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, and we are exhorted to follow his example. Even as Jesus looked forward eagerly to casting his fire and completing his baptism of suffering and death, in that same Letter we are urged to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Can we endure this ongoing baptism as a true disciple of the master, determined to do God’s will day by day? He, as we read in Hebrews, “for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame”; yet,  as the same letter goes on, “you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” 
 
  Let us resolve to unite ourselves with Jesus in his sufferings so as to share in his resurrection. But for this we need the fire of his Holy Spirit.
                                                                                                                                                    (E.J.Tyler)

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The Assumption of our Lady into heaven    (August 15)

Mary and the grandeur of the ordinary life

  Today (August 15) we think of our Lady at the end of her mortal life being taken up body and soul into heaven in glory, as did her divine Son after he had risen from the dead many years before. One of the things our Lady’s glorious assumption into heaven can teach us is the grandeur of the ordinary life.

   At times when we think of outstanding historical figures, or various people we know of who achieve prominence in life, a prominence much beyond the average, we can find ourselves wishing we could achieve similar notoriety. The life of most of us is filled with a lot of ordinary repetition that brings little praise or prominence, with a daily round of ordinary duties common to many people, and that are to be fulfilled in little ways day after day. Most people live fairly unnoticed beyond their own circle, and die with little trace left after them. There is little that seems to be special, let alone spectacular in their life’s path. They sink, we could say, like a stone with scarcely a ripple. That is to say, their lives are ordinary. Now, the temptation is to think that such a life is fairly fruitless, and of little value to God or to the world.

  But consider her who is now more glorious than any other creature, her who is the mother of God and of every disciple of Christ, Mary. All mankind can call on her as the glorious mother who will help them attain eternal glory too. Now, what did her life consist of? It consisted of a very ordinary and unspectacular round of family and village duties. She grew up relatively unknown and spent her years in Nazareth as a humble wife and mother, teaching the growing Jesus, cooking, cleaning, carrying the water from the well, attending the synagogue, doing everything that the average villager would have been doing. She was not especially noticed.

  And yet no other human person lived so holy a life, hidden, unknown, obscure as it was. Everything she did was done with a pure love for and obedience to God. In the midst of this ordinary life, she never in the slightest way sinned in thought, word, or deed. She fulfilled God’s will absolutely and with a perfect love for him. There were women in the Old Testament who were holy and whose path in life was much more prominent and notable. But the greatest of all women, indeed the greatest of human beings, was given a path in life that on the face of it was very, very ordinary. And what did it result in? Because of the way she lived it, it resulted in unimaginable glory in heaven, being taken up body and soul to where we hope eventually to be.

   This surely tells us that the path that God in his providence has given us to tread, no matter how ordinary and humble, no matter how repetitive, has great value in God’s sight if it involves doing his will. If we do his will, striving to fulfill as best as we can the various humble and ordinary responsibilities he has given us in life, we will share in our measure the glory that Mary our mother now has. There is no need to aspire to something beyond the ordinary, if that is the path God in his providence has given us to tread.

   The thought of our mother Mary, assumed body and soul glorious into heaven, should give us hope every day as we toil at our duties of every day. By thinking of our Lady in glory we are able to capture a sense of the grandeur of our ordinary life, for Mary’s life was an ordinary and obscure one, but lived extraordinarily well. By living well our ordinary life we are living as true children of Mary, her children - remembering that our Lord said that we are to become little children if we wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

   Let us day by day keep close to Mary now taken up body and soul in glory, asking her to help us to be like her who is the first and greatest of Christians. On the Cross, our Lord gave his beloved disciple to her to be his mother, and in doing this he gave each of us to her. She continued after that to live her seemingly ordinary life. We are her children. Let us follow her ordinary path to glory, thinking of the glory that awaits us when the ordinary path God has given us to tread has been completed.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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When contemplating the scene of the Incarnation, strengthen in your soul the resolve to be “humble in practice”. See how he lowered himself, taking on our poor nature. That is why every day you need to react, right away, with God’s grace, accepting - and wanting - the humiliations the Lord may offer you.
                                                                    (The Forge, no.139)

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Monday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time   

Saint Stephen of Hungary (969-1038).  Born in Hungary, he received baptism and in the year 1000 was crowned King of Hungary. He was a just, peaceful and religious king, keeping strictly to the laws of the Church and always seeking the good of his subjects. He established many dioceses and did much to strengthen the life of the Church. He died at Szekesfehervar at the age of 69.

True human perfection   (Matthew 19:16-22)

We are endowed with a natural, instinctive desire to perfect and develop ourselves, and it is a great sign of personal vitality if it is a desire to perfect oneself as much as possible. Parents instinctively want this for their children as much as for themselves. There is something very tragic about a person who no longer cares for his own development, and even more tragic if a parent does not care about the development of his children.

But the question is, what is true development, what is it to aim to be as perfect a person as possible, what are we to do to reach our full potential and so not waste the gift of human life? There are many answers to this and different people have different notions. Some see physical prowess, others pecuniary wealth, others the acquisition of position in society, as the key to personal development, perfection, fulfillment.

Our Lord gives us the answer to the question of what we must do if we want to be perfect. If we wish to be perfect, we should detach ourselves from all else and follow him (Matthew 19:16-22). The form that this detachment will take and what concretely it will involve will vary according to a person's calling in life, but the one thing necessary is to love and follow Jesus totally, with nothing interfering in this love. The love of Jesus and the generous following of him in the path that God has given us to tread is the secret to perfection.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Live your Christian life with naturalness. Let me stress this: make Christ known through your behaviour, just as an ordinary mirror reproduces an image without distorting it or turning it into a caricature. If, like the mirror, you are normal, you will reflect Christ's life, and show it to others.
                                                                                                                 (The Forge, no.140)

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Tuesday of the Twentieth Week

The love of possessions  (Ezechiel 28: 1-10;  Matthew 19: 23-30)

There are occasional passages that enable us to get inside the mind of Satan, and the passage of Ezechiel in which God addresses Tyre, is one such (Ezechiel 28: 1-10). Tyre is accused by God of considering herself the equal of God because of her intelligence and wealth. This shows the danger - granted our fallen condition - of possessions, possessions in the broad sense of the word. We notice that monarchs of various periods of history, perhaps especially ancient history, were prone to think of themselves ad divine. It was the temptation that Satan put before our first parents, that they would be like God.

While we may not be tempted to think we are equal to God in such stark terms, there can be degrees of this attitude. St Paul tells us to put on the mind of Christ who humbled himself, divesting himself of his divine "form" and becoming as men are, and ever humbler still. And in the Gospel of Matthew (19:23-30) our Lord tells us of the danger of riches, and we ought interpret that word (riches) in a broad sense.

It all gets down to the imperative of being detached from all that can hinder us from a total love for Jesus. Jesus must become our passion in life, and all that we have or that comes our way we ought use for him and for the fulfillment of his will.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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If you are fatuous, if all you can think of is your own personal comfort, if you centre everyone else and even the world itself on yourself, then you can have no right to call  yourself a Christian or to consider yourself a disciple of Christ. He set the level of what can be demanded of us when he offered, for each of us his own soul, his whole life.
                                                      (The Forge, no.141)

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Wednesday of the Twentieth Week

Seeking out the lost    (Ezechiel 34: 1-11)

God speaks to the shepherds of the House of Israel and condemns them because they have "failed to make weak sheep strong, or to care for the sick ones, or bandage the wounded ones." They had "failed to bring back strays or look for the lost." (Ezechiel 34: 1-11). This is a warning addressed also to us all. We remember how our Lord said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and on  another occasion said that he was not sent to the virtuous but sinners to repentance. He was making the point of what was the priority. He was sent to save the world from sin.

Now as baptised and confirmed members of Christ's faithful we share in our Lord's mission. Our Lord continues to search for the stray and to look for the lost, and he does so through the members of his body the Church. This means each of us. In our living of our Faith day by day in family, workplace, and parish, is there anything of this concern for those straying or lost, or are we contenting ourselves with trying to live a devout life in the company of other devout people, and leaving it at that? Perhaps we are not doing even this much - perhaps we are a long way indeed from searching for the lost.

If we do not take responsibility for this, God says we will be held to account. Let us pray for a share in Christ's love for the lost sheep, for a christlike compassion for those straying from God, and the wisdom to know what to do about it. Let us be truly apostolic in our everyday life.
                                                                                                                            (E.J.Tyler)

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Try to make "intellectual humility" an axiom in your life. Think about it carefully. Isn't it true that it just doesn't make sense to be "intellectually proud"? That saint and doctor of the Church put it very well when he said: "It is a detestable disorder for a man to see God become a little child, and yet still want to appear great in this world."
                                                      (The Forge, no.142)

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Thursday of the Twentieth Week

The coming of the Sanctifier   (Ezechiel 36: 23-28)

One of the keystone passages of the Old Testament is that of Ezechiel 36: 23-28, as it foretells the coming of the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier. He would be Christ's Gift not just to particular individuals enabling them to fulfill certain key missions on God's behalf such as to prophesy (as a prophet) or to rule (as a judge such as Samson, or a king such as David). He would be sent to make holy the hearts of God's people and cleanse them of their sins. He would come as the great Sanctifier.

But let us notice in the passage that God would do this to manifest his holiness: "I mean to display the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them." So having received the Holy Spirit, as we have at our Baptism and Confirmation, let us be resolved every day to seek personal sanctity through his grace, knowing that we will thus glorify God and show forth his holiness.

In a world of sin that has lost the sense of sin and that cares not greatly for holiness as such, while it passingly refers to god, let us bear witness to a God who is present and who is holy. Be holy, God said, for I am holy.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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The moment you have anyone - whoever he may be - at your side, find a way, without doing anything strange, to pass on to him the joy you experience in being a son of God and living as such.
                                                                                                                      (The Forge, no.143)

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Friday of the Twentieth Week

August 20:  St Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church.  Born near Dijon in France in the year 1090. He was brought up religiously and joined the Cistercians in 1111. Soon afterwards he was elected Abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux. He was outstanding in directing the monks in virtue both by his work and by his example. On account of divisions which had arisen in the Church he travelled through Europe trying to restore peace and unity. He wrote many works dealing with theology and the spiritual life. He died in 1153.

The promise of the Sanctifier   (Ezechiel 36: 23-28)

One of the most striking of the Old Testament prophecies is that in which Ezechiel is granted a vision of the condition of God's people. They are a valley full of bones (Ezechiel 36: 23-28). But the prophecy itself is about the power of God and how God will manifest his power in his mercy. These bones will take life and will become an immense army through the breath coming from God.

This powerful breath coming as a gift of God is surely an omen of the Holy Spirit who would come to the new people of God, Christ's Church, and through the ministry of the Church to mankind. He comes to give life where there is little or no life. We have been given that Holy Spirit, and we ought therefore look upon our weakness, especially our spiritual weakness, with hope and optimism born of faith in the power of God. God shows us his power in his deeds of mercy. The greatest deed of divine mercy is the gift and the work of our sanctification, to which we are all called.

So every day we ought begin again the great quest of life, with high aims and great desires, the quest for personal sanctity. It will come through our daily efforts and the grace of God.
                                                                                                                           (E.J.Tyler)

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The mission to serve which the Divine Master has entrusted to us is a great and beautiful mission. That is why this good spirit - which entails great self-mastery - is perfectly compatible with the love of freedom that should pervade the work of all Christians.
                                                                     (The Forge, no.144)

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Saturday of the Twentieth Week

August 21: St Pius X, pope.  (1835-1914). He was born near Venice to a very humble family. He was distinguished for his continuous service tot he Church and to all souls; first as priest, later as bishop and Patriarch Archbishop of Venice and finally as Roman Pontiff. He strongly defended the purity of Catholic doctrine against modernist heresies. He instilled dignity to sacred liturgy, extended the practice of frequent Communion, and strove for the sanctity of the clergy.

Giving glory to God   (Ezechiel 43: 1-7)

One of our favourite prayers ought be that which we repeat during the Rosary: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit." We are created to give glory to God, and our happiness will lie in giving god more and more glory. St Ignatius gave to the Church the great programme for the generous Christian: All for the greater glory of God.

One of the striking features of the visions of the prophet Ezechiel is their revelation of God's glory. In ch.43: 1-7, the prophet tells us that he "saw the glory of the God of Israel approaching from the east." The "vision was like the one I had seen" previously. He tells us that "the glory of the Lord arrived at the Temple", and he "saw the glory of the Lord fill the Temple." So through the prophet God was making a point of impressing upon his people his glory, and their vocation to recognise it especially as connected with his presence in the Temple. We remember how our Lord drove out the buyers and sellers from the Temple.

We ought sustain in our hearts a great desire to do all for the glory, the greater glory of God. Among other things, it will involve recognising and honouring with profound reverence his very presence, wherever it is - and we are enlightened in this by our Faith. He is present in our souls if we are in the state of grace. He is present in the Tabernacle of our churches, in the sacraments, in the priesthood and its ministry. He is present in so many ways in his body the Church. Let us live each day in such a way that God will be glorified, and that through us he will be enabled to glorify his name.
                                                                                                                                (E.J.Tyler)

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You must never treat anyone unmercifully. If you think someone is not worthy of your mercy, you should realise that you don't deserve mercy either. You do not deserve to have been created, or to be a Christian, or to be a son of God, or to have the family you have....
                                                                                                (The Forge, no.145)

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Twenty First Sunday of Ordinary Time C

Entering by the narrow door    (Luke 13: 22-30)

Our Lord tells us in the Gospel of Luke 13: 22-30 that we are to try our best to “enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.” Now, what does it mean to try our best to enter by the narrow door? In the first instance, I suggest the narrow door is the following of a correctly formed conscience.

  Our conscience is the judgment we make on whether what we are intending to do, or are now doing, or have already done, is morally good or bad. At the heart of our conscience and pervading all its judgments is the instinctive awareness that we are obliged to follow faithfully whatever we know to be objectively just and right. What is objectively just and right is revealed to us by God in the teaching of Christ and his Church, and by the prudent exercise of our moral sense of things. If we are aware that we do not yet know what is morally right in any particular matter that we are to act upon, our conscience tells us that we should try to find it out from the most authoritative and reliable sources. If we do not form our conscience in this way when we sense that we should, our conscience testifies that we will be held to account for the good we have failed to do and the evil we have done by our action.

 It is so important in everyday life that we learn to live by a sensitive and upright conscience. It is the first narrow door that our Lord refers to in the Gospel. One of the things I have noticed in the weekly ABC television programme Four Corners, a programme that has been running for a very long time, is that the current affairs issues it discusses are overwhelmingly ethical and moral ones. It could be some malpractice in a large company. It could be some element of corruption in a government department or in some police department, or whatever. This is not to say that the moral judgment the programme makes on such ethical issues is even generally correct. But it does show how fundamental is the moral and ethical dimension to all human activity, be it personal, be it in the family or in society at large. Moral judgments and the lack of them lead to great good or evil in society, war, massive company frauds, infidelity in the home, or by contrast, great and beautiful developments in society. The whole life of individuals and of human society, depends for its true happiness and spiritual wellbeing on being obedient to a properly formed conscience.

  There are two dangers. Firstly, there is the danger of choosing to ignore one’s conscience when following it will be inconvenient or costly. The voice of conscience in this case is ignored in one’s mind and other considerations are allowed to hold sway. We must be on guard against this danger, and faithfully attend to our best conscience, whatever be the cost. The second danger is to fail to take steps to enlighten one’s conscience by consulting the best sources so that one’s conscience will be a true guide to what is good. For instance, the failure to consult a reliable priest in some moral matter touching on family life, or some other aspect of life, when it is a question of knowing well the Church’s teaching. We must guard against these dangers.

  This is most important because as Cardinal Newman once wrote, the properly disposed Conscience is, in terms of our human nature, the original (or, to use his word, “aboriginal”) vicar of Christ. That is to say, just as Christ is God-with-us and deals with us through his messengers and his representatives, conscience is his original and natural messenger and representative. The conscience I refer to here is the properly disposed and prudent conscience, the conscience which is committed to being properly informed, which is to say the conscience equipped to grasp objective moral truth. Therefore our union with Christ and our path to sanctity will depend on our fidelity to the following of our conscience in all its detail, provided we  understand the conscience in the way described. That is to say, it must ever desire to be informed and guided by what God has revealed as it comes to us through Christ and his teaching Church. A sincere but badly formed conscience can cause immense harm. We simply have to think of the sincere terrorist to realise this.

Let us ask our Lord and our Lady to help us every day to try our best to enter by the narrow gate.
                                                                                                                                  (E.J.Tyler)

Further reading:  Catechism of the Catholic Church nos. 1776 - 1785


                            Further reflections on the twenty first Sunday: Migrant-Refugee Sunday

  Once a year the Church sets aside a Sunday as Refugee and Migrant Sunday, when we think of our obligations before God towards those suffering and fleeing from their homelands. One of the great modern phenomenons is the vast migration going on in the world, a great deal of it forced. Many hundreds of thousands are fleeing from persecution and difficulty in their own homelands. Who wants to leave their own homeland unless forced to do so? And by comparison with the numbers fleeing to countries other than Australia, only a very small proportion of these are coming to Australia, hoping to find respite and peace for their families. It has been pointed out that it takes enormous courage to embark on a rusty boat somewhere in Asia and sail across the seas to Australia. Australia is one of the hardest countries for a refugee to reach because of its distance, and then to gain entry to.

  Today we are invited to ask ourselves, what should be the attitude of Christ’s faithful to migrants, and especially to those seeking refuge from strife and persecution in their own homelands? The question ought rather to be put this way: what would be the attitude of Christ himself, and what are his teachings in this matter? Our Lord teaches us that we are to treat the least person, but especially the one who is suffering, just as we would treat Jesus himself. If we knew it was Jesus himself who was arriving as a refugee, how would we treat him? Our Lord tells us that at our final judgment we shall hear the words, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. Or on the contrary, we may hear the words, I was hungry and you never gave me anything to eat. And we might find ourselves saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or in prison? And we will hear the reply, whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine you did to me. That consideration should guide our whole approach to anyone in need, and among the neediest in the whole world are the refugees of the world. The Pope is continually appealing to countries to do all they can to assist refugees.

  Of course this can be most inconvenient. But we are continually being called on to sacrifice our convenience in all sorts of little ways. Even to stop to help someone with our time and attention is a call on our convenience. Just the other day I was in a shopping centre and had cause to pause from what I was doing. A poor old tramp was walking not far from me and I was interested to see a man who obviously had his own work to do - for it was a working day - stopping to show him some kindness by talking to him in a genuinely interested way. I could not help thinking what a wonderful thing he was doing. He was treating him with real respect, a respect that that man probably seldom received.

  In our own attitude to migrants and especially to refugees, we must treat them as persons deeply loved by Christ, as children of our common Father in heaven, and not simply as a big problem for us. Many are looking on the refugees arriving in Australia just as a problem. Rather their arrival constitutes a great opportunity for the moral life of our nation. Think of how pleased God would be with our country, and how our country would be blessed in its moral life by God, were we to treat refugees as ones loved by Christ, as people with whom Christ identifies.

  In all of this, let us think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man was left half dead by bandits on the roadside, and people passed him by, except for that Good Samaritan. When Our Lord finished the story, he said, now go and do the same. We Catholics ought be like beacons, shining examples of how the refugee, the person in difficult straits, is to be treated. We ought regard it as a duty to be well informed as to the refugee’s plight and as to the more humane methods of treating him. Let us then try to be truly like Christ to the refugee. And let us remember that our Lord himself was once a refugee, together with Mary and Joseph, fleeing to Egypt from the murderous designs of Herod, without documents and without any capacity to prove prove anything. For that reason again, our Lord and our Lady and St Joseph would identify with every refugee. 
                                                                                                                                        (E.J.Tyler)

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Don't neglect the practice of fraternal correction, which is a clear sign of the supernatural virtue of charity. You may find it hard, for it's easier to be inhibited. It's easier to behave in that way, but it's not supernatural. And you will have to render an account to God for such omissions.
                                                                                                                      (The Forge, no.146)

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Monday of the Twenty First Week of Ordinary Time II

August 23: St Rose of Lima   Born at Lima in Peru in the year 1586. She advanced in virtue in her daily life at home, and after taking the habit of the Third Order of St Dominic she made great progress in a life of penance and mystical contemplation. She died on 24 August in the year 1617. She was a contemporary in Lima of St Martin de Porres, St Toribio (the Archbishop), and St Francis Solano.

The cross the prelude to glory   (Thessalonians 1: 1-5. 11-12)

Let us notice in the passage of St Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians ch.1: 1-5.11-12 the pride he takes in the Thessalonians for their constancy and faith under all their "persecutions and troubles". But notice also what he says to be the purpose of it all in terms of the judgment of God. The "purpose of it is that you may be found worthy of the kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now."

So their sufferings are intended by God as the prelude of their glory in Christ - "in this way the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will  be glorified in you  and you in him". The suffering of the Christian mirrors and shares in the pattern of our Lord's life. The cross was the prelude to glory. We ought pray for the great grace of appreciating this profoundly so that when suffering comes we will know that it has been permitted by God for our sanctification, and that will be for his glory. Knowing this we will not be resentful and unforgiving, but grateful. This will be the result of faith and will result in greater faith.

The saints knew that the cross is a blessing. St Rose of Lima, whose feast is today (August 23), wrote that the Lord communicated to her that "without the burden of affliction one cannot arrive at the height of glory; that the measure of heavenly gifts is increased in proportion to the labours undertaken;.. without the cross there is  no road to heaven." She continues: "I tell you most solemnly: no grace without suffering." (Second Reading from the Office of Readings for this day).

Let us pray for the grace to appreciate our Lord's words that being his disciple involves taking up the cross daily and following in his footsteps.
                                                                                                                                (E.J.Tyler)

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When  you have to make a fraternal correction,
do it with great kindness - with charity - in what you say and in the way you say it, for at that moment you are God's instrument.                                                                                   
                                                                                  (The Forge, no.147)

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The feast of St Bartholomew

August 24: St Bartholomew, Apostle. He was from Cana in Galilee, and is identified with Nathanael of John 1: 45-51. He is mentioned in the Gospel as one of the Twelve and was brought to Jesus by his friend, the apostle Philip. According to tradition, St Bartholomew preached the Gospel in Arabia and Armenia where he died a martyr.

St Bartholomew (Nathanael): his dispositions  (John 1: 45-51)

Consider Nathanael's response to our Lord once he heard him speak (John 1: 45-51). Our Lord displayed a little of his power and knowledge beyond the ordinary: "I saw you under the fig tree", he said to Nathanael. And what was Nathanael's response? It went from what would appear to have been something of doubt and possibly cynicism ("Can anything good come from Nazareth?") to a remarkable faith in our Lord and perception of his nature. "You are the Son of God,  you are the King of Israel" - that is, the Messiah. When we remember that the purpose of St John's Gospel was precisely to show that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God, this is an impressive leap of faith at first meeting. What are we to make of it?

We would surely have to say that Nathanael was an Israelite of wonderful religious dispositions. He was so disposed that the slightest revelation of Christ's nature allowed him to pierce beyond the signs to the person of our Lord behind. How different from so many our Lord would have to deal with! Our Lord himself hinted at these impressive dispositions when he said of the approaching Nathanael: "There is an Israelite who deserves the name, incapable of deceit." He was very good soil for the word of God. The seed sown bore fruit immediately. It shows the fundamental importance of right dispositions.

Let us ask God to help us to be rightly disposed for what he has revealed, as coming to us by the Church.
                                                                                                                                (E.J.Tyler)

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When you love other people and you spread that affection - Christ's kindly, gentle charity - all around you, you will  be able to support one another, and if someone is about to stumble he will feel that he is being supported, and also encouraged to be faithful to God through this fraternal strength.
                                                                                                                         (The Forge, no.148)

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Tuesday of the twenty first week of Ordinary Time II

Revelation from "Scripture alone"? No.  (2 Thessalonians 1: 1-5.11-12)

The bedrock reality on which we as Christians base our lives is the call of God addressed addressed to each of us. If we live according to that call to live in Christ we shall share in the glory of Christ. As St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2: 1-3, "Through the Good News that we brought God called you so that you should share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But St Paul gives a directive that we should note well. The classical Protestant position is that we receive the Gospel and the Revelation it contains by "Scripture alone". So widespread is this idea in Christian society that even many Catholics feel it necessary to find the whole support for any Christian doctrine in Scripture alone. It is an assumption that has spread in people's minds.

But St Paul, in the sentence that follows on the one just quoted, says to his readers the Thessalonians to "stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." So they were being instructed by the inspired author himself to be faithful to what they had been told by means of two channels: yes, by his (inspired) letter, but also what he had taught them by word of mouth. They were to "keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." The Church as acting in and represented by Paul, Silvanus and Timothy handed on the Gospel not only by Scripture but by "word of mouth" too.

The Gospel comes to us in both Scripture and the Church's Tradition. Let us then renew our appreciation of the priceless means whereby the Gospel which takes us to glory comes to us: the Scriptures and the teaching Church, both being creations of the Holy Spirit.
                                                                                                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Bring out your spirit of mortification in those nice touches of charity, eager to make the way of sanctity in the midst of the world attractive for everyone. Sometimes a smile can be the best proof of a spirit of penance.
                     (The Forge, no.149)

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Wednesday of the Twenty First Week of Ordinary Time C

August 25: St Louis (1214-1270). His mother, Blanche of Castille, brought him up in a Christian manner. He became King of France, and father of eleven children whom he educated in an exemplary manner. He lived a great spirit of penance and prayer. He showed great love for peace and the temporal as well as spiritual common good of his countrymen. He died near Tunis during his second crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Places in Palestine.
 

Being like God by means of our work  (2 Thessal 3: 6-10.16-18)

In his second letter to the Thessalonians (ch.3: 6-10.16-18) St Paul refers to the work of the Christian. He is severe in his strictures concerning the one who refuses to work. They are to "keep away from any of the brothers who refuses to work or to live according to the tradition we passed on to you." They are to imitate him and his companions, who never ceased to work.

The first pages of the Bible portray God at work, the work of creation. His work is set in a framework the devout reader will easily understand. The setting for God's work is a work-a-day week, as it were, for he is shown as completing the work of creation in six days and then rests on the seventh. All could understand this, that God really does work, and that our daily work, set within the normal working day week with the sabbath rest at the end of it, makes us like unto him. It is unlike God not to be willing to work. On one occasion when our Lord was criticized for doing what the leaders of the Jews said was not permitted on the Sabbath, he replied that his Father was working, so he would too.

It is in our work that we fulfill the duties and responsibilities that God in his providence has given us to fulfill. So we should work with all our heart at it, doing all for the glory of God. In this way through our work we are sanctified, we sanctify our work itself and make it a worthy offering to God, and by means of it we sanctify others - those for whom we are working. Let us be like God then, by filling up our lives with the work he has given us to do, no matter how ordinary it may appear.

Therein lies the grandeur of the ordinary working life.
                                                                                                                                   (E.J.Tyler)

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May you know how to put yourself out cheerfully, discreetly and generously each day, serving others and making their lives more pleasant. To act in this way is to practise the true charity of Jesus Christ.
                                                                                                                 (The Forge, no.150)

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Thursday of the Twenty First Week of Ordinary Time C 

Be always at our "employment"(1 Corinthians 1: 1-9; Matthew 24: 42-51)

There are many facets to the basic attitudes of the Christian. One basic attitude is that of being ever in a state of expectation. The Christian is someone who is waiting, awaiting the coming of Jesus, and day by day he is living accordingly.

St Paul in the reading from his first letter to the Corinthians (ch.1: 1-9) refers to the Corinthian Christians "waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." Our Lord says in today's Gospel that his disciples are to "stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming." (Matthew 24: 42). They "must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

What does this mean? Our Lord goes on to explain that it means being constantly at the employment given by the master: "Happy that servant if his master's arrival finds him at this employment." We must use the time of life to do as good a job as possible with the responsibilities which God in his providence has entrusted to us. Our whole life is to be shaped by this awareness that Jesus is coming. We must be ready.

The philosopher Heidegger wrote his most famous book on "Being and Time." Our being is essentially caught up in time and this time never ceases to pass, never to be recovered. Let us use all the time given to us by God to be at our God-given employment so as to be able to stand ready at the coming of Christ, be this coming in daily moments of grace, be it at our death, or be it at the end of time.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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You should make sure that wherever you are there is that good humour - that cheerfulness - which is born of an interior life.
                                    (The Forge, no.151)

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Friday of the twenty first Week of Ordinary time II

Christ crucified, the wisdom of God   (1 Corinthians 1: 17-25)

There have been various schemes developed by great minds for the improvement of mankind. There have been great philosophers, architects, governors. How many, though, have identified the fundamental problem in human society and in man as being sin, both the original sin and the ongoing sins of mankind? But God has revealed this to be the case. Apart from the problem, how many have come up with a solution to the problem of sin?

 God has not only revealed what the problem is, he has solved the problem, providing us with the solution tghat each person is free to make his own, and apply to his life. The solution was Christ being crucified. That would sound madness to a pagan, foolish to the religious. But it is, as St Paul says, “the power and the wisdom of God”, and we make this solution our own by following in the footsteps of Christ crucified, turning our sufferings into a means of redemption and sanctification by accepting them in obedience to the will of God.
                                                                                                                               (E.J.Tyler)

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Make sure you practise this very interesting mortification: that of not making your conversation revolve around yourself.
                                        (The Forge, no.152)

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Saturday of the Twenty First Week of Ordinary time II

The servant who received but one talent  (Matthew 25: 1-13)

Let us notice a detail in the words of St Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor.1: 26-31), and in particular how  he describes their status. "How many of you were wise in the ordinary sense of the word, how many were influential people, or came from noble families?" That is to say, they were very ordinary people (but called to a divine and marvelous vocation). In another letter, his first to the Thessalonians (ch.4: 9-11), he instructs the Thessalonians to make a point of living quietly, attending to their own business and earning their living (all the while making greater and greater progress in love). That is to say, he expected them to live what other people would call ordinary lives.

It reminds us of the hidden greatness of the ordinary life. Let us only think of the Holy Family all those years at Nazareth. Think of our Lady and St Joseph, not to speak of our Lord himself. They were seemingly very ordinary people immersed in a very ordinary life, yet year after year they made tremendous progress in the life of grace. Their lives were filled with the perfect fulfillment of the very ordinary round of duties God had given them.

Let us now think of our Lord's parable of the talents, and in particular of the servant entrusted with just the one talent (Matthew 25: 1-13). We could call that servant with the one talent an ordinary person living an ordinary life. He did not put his talent to use for his master's interests and was condemned accordingly. So then, whatever be our talents and opportunities, however modest they may be or seem to us and to others, we must work wholeheartedly with them for the Master. Therein lies the grandeur of the ordinary life.
                                                                                                                             (E.J.Tyler)

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Here is a good way of doing an examination of conscience: Have I accepted in a spirit of expiation the difficulties which have come to me this day from the hand of god, or those which came from the behaviour of my colleagues, or from my own wretchedness? Have I managed to offer Our Lord in expiation the very sorrow I feel for having offended him so many times? Have I offered him the shame of all my inner embarrassment and humiliation at seeing how little progress I make along the path of virtue?
                                        (The Forge, no.153)

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