Intercom Newsletter Resources – November 2018
Sunday, 4 November 2018
SEEING YOUR LIFE
THROUGH THE LENS OF THE GOSPELS
Mark 12:28-34
1. Today’s gospel brings us right to the heart of what a Christian life involves: love of God and of neighbour. Jesus tells us that having life both now and in the future is the fruit of living in a spirit of love. How have you experienced the power of love given, and received, as a source of life and vitality?
2. If you were asked what is most important in life, what would your answer be? Recall the experiences and relationships you have had. Which are the ones that you treasure most? What has particularly enriched your life? How would you encourage another person who asked you how s/he could live a full life?
3. Jesus praises the questioner as one who had answered wisely. Recall some of the wise people you have known, people who in their words and actions impressed you with their capacity to see and treasure what is important in life.
John Byrne osa
Email jpbyrneosa@gmail.com
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MUSINGS
Listen, Israel: The Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These ancient and sacred words are for the faithful Jew the key source of individual identity and social cohesion… Those of us who are older remember a time when we Catholics derived a similar confidence in our personal identity and our community belonging from the private piety and public worship of the tradition handed down to us. I remember too as a child being truly impressed at the sight of Belfast Jews, the men and boys sporting their skull caps, as they took the bus to the Synagogue on Saturday mornings. Nowadays it is our Moslem brothers and sisters who take the prize in our cities for an easy, unselfconscious fidelity to their religious practices.
Fr James O’Kane,
Shortish Homilies for 2017/18 (Year B)
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THE DEEP END: The greatest commandment of all
Today we hear a very famous Gospel passage which we might dismiss easily because we feel we know it so well. Love God. Love your neighbour. It sounds simple, yet it can be so difficult. Loving God in our world today means being counter-cultural; often we are afraid to even admit that we are believers. Finding time for God can be impossible due to our hectic lifestyles; we are addicted to ‘busy’ and have become ‘time poor’. Yet we can learn to see God in the everyday, right before us, in each task, in nature, in our friends and family. We might ask ourselves today, what prevents me from loving God, for making time for God in my life? For nourishing my relationship with God?
The love of neighbour which Jesus speaks of is a controversial love. It involves a love of people we don’t know or like. It is a radical love of those that society wants to dismiss: love of the migrant, love of the homeless family, love of the drug addict, love of the prisoner, love of the earth, love of the climate refugee. Love God and Love Neighbour – it sounds so simple yet these are the toughest, most radical lines in the Gospel. It sounds like two commandments and yet they are one, interconnected and inseparable, for to love God we must love our neighbour. And by loving our neighbour we are loving God. Today let us all ask ourselves how we can live more fully this great commandment and be a shining example of Christ’s love in the world.
Jane Mellett
Email mellettj@gmail.com
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Sunday, 11 November 2018
SEEING YOUR LIFE
THROUGH THE LENS OF THE GOSPELS
Mark 12:38-44
1. The scribes are presented as ostentatious and devious, acting more out of self-interest than the love of God or people. There can be an element of self-interest in each of us. Perhaps there have been times when you have been disturbed by glimpsing in yourself ‘other motives’ in your doing good. Recall when you were awakened to this fact. Where was the good news for you in that awakening?
2. In material terms, what the widow had to offer was very little. Recall when you felt yourself called to give, and gave even though you apparently had very little. Perhaps you have had the experience of finding that what you thought was little and insignificant meant a great deal to another person. Recall some of those moments.
3. The widow ‘gave everything she had, all she had to live on’. In doing so she placed herself in a very vulnerable position, trusting that things would work out. Have you ever found that what seemed a generous but reckless giving of yourself proved life-giving for yourself and others?
John Byrne osa
Email jpbyrneosa@gmail.com
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MUSINGS
If Jesus draws our attention to the generosity of the poor widow captured forever in this splendid Gospel page, it is no doubt because it is an image of his own redemptive generosity. Everything has been given. There is nothing left to give. Jesus surrenders himself totally in his death on the cross and in that act of redemptive generosity he opens up for us the way to salvation. If we are to share with him the glory of resurrection we will need, first of all, to share in the sacrificial generosity of his death. Our generosity, our surrender, needs to match his. This is the promise of our Baptism, what we commit ourselves to afresh every time we involve ourselves in the dynamic of the Mass.
Fr James O’Kane,
Shortish Homilies for 2017/18 (Year B)
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THE DEEP END: The Widow’s Mite
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is courageously speaking out against the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time. He is encouraging all his followers to engage in a reality check. The hypocrisy of the scribes is in total contrast to the humility and generosity of the widow in the second part of the Gospel. She gives not of what she has to spare, but everything she has. She is freer than the others. We can be quick to make judgements about another person’s commitment based on what we see happening on the outside. Those leaders who acquire the best seats and show up in all the frills may not actually be all they appear to be. Jesus is urging us to look into the person’s heart for what is there is far more important than all the trappings on the outside. The widow gives everything and this does not have to be about money. We might recall those today who give us their time, their support, who pray from the heart and give of themselves expecting nothing in return. We might thank them, pray for them. We can also look into our own hearts today and challenge our motivations for what we do. Can we give more of ourselves to God or to someone we love? A listening ear, ‘wasting time’ with people, looking at how we spend our money. Jesus calls us to search our hearts and the hearts of others in today’s gospel. The widow models Jesus’ way of discipleship in contrast to the those in positions of leadership and power.
Jane Mellett
Email mellettj@gmail.com
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Sunday, 18 November 2018
SEEING YOUR LIFE
THROUGH THE LENS OF THE GOSPELS
Mark 13:24-32
1. Jesus speaks of the established order falling apart, but the collapse of the old order opened the way for new possibilities. When have you seen something new and hopeful emerge after the collapse of something that you had expected to endure much longer, perhaps even for ever?
2. The parable of the fig tree. Even in winter, it begins to put forth leaves which give a hint of the fruit to come. Where have you found signs of hope in a wintry situation – in your own life, in the life of some group, in the life of the Church?
3. Jesus proposes no clear time-scale for the events being foretold, so the final sentence (v.32) is a call to alertness, to live the present to the full. What difference does it make to you when you are able to live the present moment to the full?
John Byrne osa
Email jpbyrneosa@gmail.com
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MUSINGS
The Christian tradition speaks of a moment of judgment in which we become who we are once and for all. In death we are thrust out into God. Some find themselves at home with God. That is where they belong – in heaven. Others are not yet ready for God and they experience the purification that we call purgatory. Others still find that they do not belong with God at all but that have nowhere else to go and so they are stuck – as stuck in death as they were in life. Yes, that much at least no one will want to dispute: You don’t have to wait for death to experience hell. Hell is the reality of a great many people’s lives here and now: cut off from God, cut off from their true selves, cut off from those around them in the isolation of compulsion and fantasy.
Fr James O’Kane,
Shortish Homilies for 2017/18 (Year B)
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THE DEEP END: My words will not pass away
This chapter from Mark is part of a farewell speech from Jesus to his followers in the last days of his earthly life. It sounds almost apocalyptic because we are nearing the end of the Church’s liturgical year and so the texts we read take this tone. Jesus is revealing to his disciples something about the new order which is coming. He talks about the ‘end times’ and this can appear frightening at first. However, if we enter into a meditation on this Gospel we might bring to mind something of those moments in our own lives when we felt like our world was ending. Perhaps it was the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, the end of one stage of your life. Things which seemed so familiar and helped keep us secure suddenly changed. These can be extremely difficult periods of one’s life. It is during those times that someone comes to us offering prophecy of better times to come, of words that ‘will not pass away’. Jesus is preparing the disciples for what is about to happen to him and with assurance that God’s kingdom is far greater than any evil that is about to occur. The passage is often interpreted as referring to the seconding coming of Christ or his resurrection. Whenever we experience trauma we keep going with the assurance that resurrection is all around us and a new way of being is on the horizon.
Jane Mellett
Email mellettj@gmail.com
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Sunday, 25 November 2018
SEEING YOUR LIFE
THROUGH THE LENS OF THE GOSPELS
John 18:33-37
1. The feast we have today, and the Gospel, give us an opportunity to reflect on the different ways in which we, and others, exercise influence and leadership. The authority of Pilate came from position and power. The authority of Jesus came from his integrity and what he stood for. Recall leaders you have known whose influence was like that of Jesus.
2. The values of the kingdom of God cannot be imposed. It is never a matter of fighting battles, or forcing others into compliance. Perhaps through experience you have learned the limitations of the use of force, as a parent, a teacher, a group leader. What has been the good news, the learnings for you, in this?
3. Jesus came to bear witness to the truth that we are all created for a purpose. What do you believe is the purpose of your life? Recall times when you have been able to bear witness to this. What fruit has this witness had for yourself and/or others?
John Byrne osa
Email jpbyrneosa@gmail.com
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MUSINGS
Those who are too good, too gentle, too sincere, too meek, too humble, end up, as a rule, exploited and mocked, sacrificed on the altar of expediency. So it is in the kingdoms of this world. The world knows that too much goodness leads to the cross and takes time off from its obsession with personal and collective security to laugh heartily at such naivety. The truth that the world cannot perceive is that goodness leads through the cross to resurrection and life. Pilate thought to survive, but he survived only to live wretchedly and die another day. The secret of Jesus is that those who are willing to die today to the selfish demands of survival at any price will live forever… It is Jesus, not Pilate, who is truly free.
Fr James O’Kane,
Shortish Homilies for 2017/18 (Year B)
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THE DEEP END: ‘So you are a King?’
Today is the Feast of Christ the King and this Gospel certainly gives us an opportunity to lay aside a lot of cultural baggage we may have about kings, leaders and kingdoms. The Jewish leaders want Jesus executed and so they bring him to Pilate who engages in a debate with Jesus on ‘kingship’. Jesus is accused of claiming to be a ‘king’ and this passage plays on both the political and religious meaning of that word. Pilate is concerned with whether or not Jesus poses a threat to Roman rule, while the Jewish religious leaders are worried about the type of ‘Messiah king’ Jesus claims to be. Through his ministry Jesus has shown them that His kingdom is unlike the one that Pilate, or many other earthly leaders know. It is a kingdom built on love, service, justice, reconciliation and peace. Few ‘kings can measure up to this. Jesus is a servant King, a beacon light for today’s world. Who do you know in our world today who is the more living example of this type of kingship? When you look at the world’s political leaders, do they shine like a beacon light striving for peace, justice and care for the earth? On this Feast of Christ the King we celebrate a type of kingship that is a display of radical love. What a different world we would have if all those who hold power and authority led in such a way. Let us pray today that all leaders will be open to listening to the Spirit and strive for a more just world.
Jane Mellett
Email mellettj@gmail.com