Our Spiritual Home

Somebody was asked once, ‘Why do you bother staying in the Church?’ The answer is, ‘I’ve no other spiritual home.’ We’ll hear the word and return, often during Lent. We stray away from God in small journeys or big ones. We might not feel like returning, but when we do, we know we’re home.

Church is home because it is where Jesus lives – not in the building only but in the people. Jesus lives with each of us, as ‘he makes his home with us’. He also lives among us in community, ‘wherever two or three are gathered in my name’.

We need to make the building and the spirit of our gatherings a homecoming. In our Church home we can hear each week of different needs and celebrations of the parish. We remember especially the sick, the dying and the ones gone before us.

Everyone helps build a home. The priest cannot do it alone. Can we ensure that every parish has a welcoming group, a group that keeps in touch with locals and plans future events?

Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, February 2023

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Listening to the Gospel

Most weekends, I say Mass in one of our local prisons. Usually, about 10 to 15 percent of prisoners come to Mass, which is much more than you would expect. They divide roughly into three groups: the first are the ‘cradle Catholics’, the people who are meant to be there and the only ones who ever give any trouble; the second are members of various reformed traditions who didn’t make it out of bed in time for the Anglican service; the third are people who look like they may never have been inside a church in their lives. Maybe the third group come out of curiosity, just to have something to do. They have no idea where they are or how to behave, but they are also the ones who listen the hardest.

I used to wonder why until one of them, Kolo, a Ghanaian, said to me,
‘Father, coming into prison is a pretty clear sign in anyone’s life that Plan A isn’t really working. And if you have a Plan B that might work, they may or may not believe you, they may or may not agree with you, but they’ll always give you a fair hearing.’ That’s the moment when I thought to myself, ‘Yes, that’s why I got up this morning. I knew there was a reason.’ There is something very humbling in knowing that the people you are preaching to may well be hearing the Gospel for the very first time.

The men’s task, no different from our own, is to be the presence of Christ within the place they live and work. I do not think there is any Church that could not learn something from the Catholic Christian communities of the ‘inside’.

Paul O’Reilly SJ, Hope in All Things

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What is the Kingdom of God?

What is the Kingdom of God? This is not an easy question to answer. Once it was described in terms of somebody witnessing a downpour in a busy city on a crowded shopping day. The rain caught people off guard, and as people huddled together for shelter, it was noticed that young lads walked towards a boy in a wheelchair and helped his mother get him out of the rain. Another man held his jacket over his wife’s head as the icy rain soaked through his shirt and inched its way down his back. A girl stood from her sheltered and cherished doorway to offer the space to an elderly woman. A young mother wrapped her coat around her little children to shield and protect them.

It is so simple, but for the one observing, every act speaks of God’s Kingdom as being fully alive; it’s about putting the other first. The Kingdom of God is not a geographical location nor is it a walled garden. It’s not somewhere to be reached but a reality to be lived. It is not about a future address but living life in the now, living it fully and alive, living it freely and cheerfully, living it for others and with others so that God’s glory can reveal itself again and again, even in a winter’s cloudburst.

Vincent Sherlock, Let Advent be Advent

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Our Relationship with God

The first Easter shattered all the disciples’ expectations. Easter continues to shatter our expectations. The risen Lord continues to take us by surprise. He stands among us even when all hope seems lost; he touches us with his presence when we least expect it. When we are most aware of our failure to follow him, he speaks his word of peace to us, because even when we are faithless, he remains faithful. Easter announces that the story of our relationship with the Lord never ends, because his relationship with us never ends. He continues to stand among us, assuring us of his presence, offering us his gift of peace and sending us out as his messengers of hope.

Martin Hogan, The Word is Near You, on Your Lips and in Your Heart

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Coming together in Christ

There are two bowls of water in the story of the Passion. One is Pilate’s, used to scrub himself of all responsibility. The other is the one with which Jesus bathes others, soaking them in lavish love.

The two bowls are always before us in life. Jesus shows us that when you take the side of the dispossessed, your spirit deepens and grows. When our self-obsession is reduced, your life expands and your horizon enlarges. To pick up the towel is not to become a doormat. We are called, not to serve people’s wants, but their needs. We serve others in the name of Christ. We share what we have, but, more importantly, who we are, especially with people who are rejected and alienated. They are the life presence that transforms us by showing us the heart of God, the prophets, preachers and provocative witnesses of the Gospel. They challenge us with questions that disturb and disquiet us, as they lead us into looking at the Passion and Easter with new eyes and hearts.

Easter invites us to remember the Lord when we gather as a community for the Eucharist. He entrusts his future in the world to us in the Church.

John Cullen, The Sacred Heart Messenger, April 2022

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Going out to ‘the wilderness’

Lent is a time to respond to that hunger which lies at the core of our being, the hunger for a deeper connection with the Creator, the hunger to experience freshness in our lives, the hunger for what we truly long for. What better place to work all of this out than ‘the wilderness’? From time to time, we are landed in the wilderness. Sometimes it is an unpleasant experience and at other times we crave it, in response to a deep desire to step back from the day-to-day and make space in our lives for reflection, is Spirit-led and we are not alone.

Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark

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‘Taking Up’ for Lent

‘What are you giving up for Lent?’ ‘Sweets!’ Childish? Of course. As a child, though, to go forty days without sweets was a serious commitment. St Patrick’s Day was the only light in a seemingly endless journey of sweet deprivation.

 There is so much more to Lent. The child in us may give up sweets, but the faithful part of us is called to a place of reflection and repentance, where we take stock and accept what we find, a storeroom from which is brought out the old and the new, where we might find memories of more faith- filled and innocent days, when  going to church and blessing our face came naturally.

As well as ‘giving up’ for Lent is there a place for ‘taking up’ too? Taking up a more positive outlook, taking up again the call to Sunday Mass? Is there room on the Lenten journey for a bit of social justice, outreach, charity, volunteerism? Space to make a difference in the lives of others? Maybe, if we can forgive a little, love a lot, share more, pray sincerely, be involved, we will find that instead of giving up sweets, a spiritual sweetness, a true sense of wellness, will envelop us.

Vincent Sherlock, The Sacred Heart Messenger, February 2023

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Lent: A time to listen

The Annunciation brings us back to the source of Lent: the announcement of the Incarnation and Mary saying ‘yes’ to her part in it. It is the announcement of heaven that God’s son will soon be born on earth. The mystery that comes to a close in Lent now begins.

The Incarnation is full of people: Mary, Joseph and Elizabeth and the two unborn babies, in the wombs of their mothers, as we all began. God’s son would not come on earth without human origins. He had a mother like all of us. We are remembering our beginnings.

Maybe Lent can be about people rather than rituals. We can give time to enjoying family life, putting the emphasis on giving to family and community rather than on wondering what we can get. Lent can be a time to share with those who are needy, a time to meet some of the needs of the wider world. During Lent we can volunteer our time and personal gifts to others. Lent can be a time to listen, to God’s word and to one another.

Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, April 2023

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The Mission of St Patrick

Many legends, stories and traditions have grown up over the centuries regarding Ireland’s most famous saint. It is necessary, therefore, to separate the man from the myth by returning to St Patrick’s own writings, including what has become known as his Confession.

In a simple written account, Patrick’s trust in God and his gratitude towards him who had achieved so much through such a weak instrument, shine out. This in no way detracts from the unique light his Confession casts on this humble missionary of Christ who brought his Gospel of love to the Irish people. A great missionary looked back on his life and saw the labyrinthine pattern of God’s wonderful design.

As he reviews his life journey, which he admits was full of faults and shortcomings, and in the apparently haphazard events of his life, so inexplicable when they occurred, he now sees the hand of God at work in which his hidden plan for the salvation of the Irish is realised. No extraordinary wonders marked his progress throughout Ireland, nevertheless, he touched the hearts of young people who flocked to him and committed their lives to following Christ in the priesthood and religious life.

The essential knowledge about a saint lies not so much in dates and places, but rather in his holiness, his values, what inspired him and his spiritual wrestlings. On these points we are well informed. Patrick sets the record straight regarding his mission and underscores the role God had in it. Often misunderstood in the past, Patrick hoped that his readers would finally grasp how he regarded his long, arduous but ultimately successful mission. His story is one of God’s grace that leads to wonder and thanksgiving.

Maurice Hogan SSC, in the Preface to Aidan J. Larkin, The Spiritual Journey of Saint Patrick

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Embrace the wilderness

There is a Zen proverb, ‘Let go or be dragged’, and no one wants to be dragged around the place. Lent invites us to embrace this wilderness time. As we fast from things that are not life- giving for us we are also actively making space for God to breathe life and love into our hearts once more. We do this in the trust that God who loves us wants us to choose life and to clear out the blocks that stand in our way. This is ‘good news’, a true metanoia (a change of heart). God’s Kingdom is being fulfilled in us and around us, not yet complete, but with every trip into the wilderness we edge closer to that reality. May this Lenten season be a period of grace.

Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark

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