Some of you may have noticed that you could not find frbobscorner.com. While doing some maintenance on the website, I erased some very important files. For a while I thought I had lost everything, and would have to start from scratch. Fortunately, my server, ‘Host I Can’ was able to search their archives, and restore the site. I am ever so grateful. Now I am trying to put into place a procedure to keep all my posts etc.. safe. Apologies to all of you for disappearing for a while.
The Diocese has just published a new Newsletter. Download as a pdf file:
Gospel – Luke 12:32-48We can call ourselves Christian because we were baptized as babies, but unless God becomes real to us, and is part of our life’s journey, we are Christian in name only.
God implanted in the human heart the need to search for God on our personal life’s journey. God constantly seeks us, and wants us to sincerely seek God, truth, and God’s ways until the day we die. And of course, if we honestly do this, the God that dwells within us will be revealed, and make a big difference in how we live our lives.
Presently there is a great search and hunger for God in China (formerly an atheist nation by government decree), and it is thought by some that China will become one of the largest Christian nations in the not too distant future. (Proof to me that God never gives us up, and of who we are as human beings.) At the same time we find that citizens of many Christian nations are turning away from their faith, and dismissing their need for God. Partly, is it because we have mistaken our Christian identity and religion itself for God and God’s ways?
Most of us were baptized Christian and Catholic as babies, and it is easy for us to take God forgranted and forget that faith is an active personal relationship with God, other believers, and all we meet. It is not just a name or religion that we call ourselves, and it is far more than dogma, community, clergy, rituals, and buildings (albeit important). God wants me and you to know him in our hearts and to be very much a part of our lives.
The challenge of living in this time of history is somewhat overwhelming for the vast majority of us. On a daily basis we are confronted with a myriad of choices, from selecting a couple of apples from a huge glorious display in a fruit store with hundred of varieties, to deciding which medical procedure we should have for a serious illness. There are experts galore with all kinds of advice and opinions to help us, but who should we believe? Even in the fruit store, if we begin seeking advice, we are just as likely to find shoppers and store clerks either as confused as we are, or with differing personal opinions. Most of us manage to get by, but sometimes we just give up. On such occasions we trust neither ourselves, nor the advice of others, and just close down and refuse to choose or trust.
This Sunday we listen to the rationale given by Luke to write his Gospel: “I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you…, so that you may know the truth……” Then he reports that Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth and taking a scroll read these words. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
And Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then Jesus began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
There was a time not too long ago that we would hear these words and know in faith, and believe in our hearts that Jesus, both human and divine, had spoken these words at the beginning of his ministry. And we would study these verse to grow in our understanding of our faith. Today, however, many begin to unconsciously question. Now who was Luke? When did he write? Why did he write? What did the people understand when he spoke? As we explore the passage this way, we may find ourselves lost in a series of multiplying questions, and divergent expert opinions.
Sort of like trying to pick out a couple of apples in the store, and not knowing what to choose or who to believe, isn’t it?
As Christians we must recognise this phenomena of choice and experts for what it is, and know that it is merely one of the challenges of the times in which we live. We must not allow all the clutter to distract, confuse, and close us down. We must hold on to and cherish our faith, seeking answers yes, but always in a humble manner when we are dealing with the mystery of God. This time and challenge will pass, and new challenges will arise, but one thing is for sure, God will be there ready to help and lead the way.
“Those who pause in meditation before the Son of God lying defenseless in the manger cannot but marvel at this humanly incredible event; they cannot but share the wonder and the humble abandonment of the Virgin Mary, whom God chose as the Mother of the Redeemer precisely because of her humility.
“In the Child of Bethlehem,” all mankind discovers itself to be gratuitously loved by God. In the light of Christmas, the infinite goodness of God is made plain to each of us. In Jesus, the heavenly Father inaugurated a new relationship with us: He made us ‘sons in the Son’.”
“However, the joy of Christmas does not make us forget the mystery of evil (mysterium iniquitatis), the power of the dark that seeks to obscure the splendor of divine light, and unfortunately we experience this power of darkness every day. … This is the drama of the rejection of Christ which, today as in the past, shows and expresses itself in many different ways.” Indeed, “perhaps the ways of refusing God in the modern age are even more insidious and dangerous: from outright rejection to indifference, from scientistic atheism to the presentation of a modernized or post-modernized Jesus, a human Jesus, reduced in various ways to being a simple man of His time and deprived of His divinity; or perhaps a Jesus so idealized as to appear as a character of legend.”
“Only the Child lying in the manger possesses the real secret of life. For this reason He asks for acceptance, for space to be made for Him among us, in our hearts, in our houses, in our cities and in our societies,” In this “we are helped by the simplicity of the shepherds and the quest of the Magi, who through the star scrutinized the signs of God, [and by] the docility of Mary and the prudent wisdom of Joseph.”
This Sunday’s first reading is one of comfort and encouragement to God’s chosen people who had strayed, lost their way, and been scattered and enslaved. The ever faithful God sends Isaiah to speak words of comfort and hope to a people in despair. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” (Isaish 40:1) Isaiah, go tell the people that their time of suffering is coming to an end, and that God will feed his flock like a shepherd. Don’t loose hope for God will fill every valley of despair, and remove every mountain – obstacle to hope.
In a simlar fashion the opening chapter of Mark’s Gospel speaks of God’s faithfulness and compassion. John the Baptist announces the coming of the Messiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord ….repent….for one more powerful than I is coming….he will baptize you with the Holy spirit.
Advent is a time to remember that we are people who wait in joyful hope for the Lord to come again in glory. Yet, as our Christian communities in the western world shrink in size and people seem to loose faith, we are tempted to discouragement and despair. All research indicates that all Christian denominations are experiencing similar difficulties. In a recent study (Link) recently presented to the Anglican Bishops of Canada, it was estimated that the crisis of decline was so severe that only one person would be Anglican in Canada by the year 2061.
These two poems (source unknown) reflect the admonition from Jesus this weekend to stay alert:
NO TIME
I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.
So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease.
All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer.
No time to speak of Christ to friends,
They’d laugh at me I’d fear.
No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time, the time to die.
I went before the Lord,
I came, I stood with downcast eyes,
For in his hands God held a book;
It was the book of life.
God looked into his book and said
“Your name I cannot find
I once was going to write it down….
But never found the time.”
(Unfortunately I do not know the source.)
(more…)
The Gospel this weekend encourages us to see Jesus in all those that suffer. What would our parishes, our cities, etc. be like, “if we allowed those most in need to determine our words and our actions,” asks one of the commentators in our Sunday Missal (Living with Christ). An interesting question in deed, and one we should all probably think about.
Jesus tell us this Sunday to see him in all those that suffer: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to Me.” We have so many interesting portraits-paintings of Jesus, but it is hard to find him portrayed as sick, imprisioned, homeless, and hungry. Yet, when he comes in Glory, he will invite us into His eternal Home because we helped him in our brothers and sisters who suffer. We need more images of Jesus that depict human suffering. I’m sure such images would help us recognize and reach out in love and compassion.
I’m posting an interesting site with lots of pictures depecting suffering humanity in America. I’m sure there are many such sites, but I found this one, as I searched on the net for artistic expressions of Jesus. Maybe, you really don’t need to see these pictures, with all the suffering we see on the media, but sometimes we begin to shut down because of over-exposure. All of us need to remind ourselves when we see individuals in suffering that we need to see Jesus, and have been told by Jesus to pray for and help those in need. I have to warn everyone that some of these pictures are kind of upsetting, graphic, and even quite lurid. The exercise or challenge I am proposing is to ask yourself, if you can see Jesus in the people you see. Quite a challenge! See Pictures
My homily was brief this past Sunday, as Sister Christine spoke to the Parishioners at the end of Mass. However, I will try to relate the basic theme of what I said. The Gospel was about a ‘trick’ question posed to Jesus: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor, or not?” You can almost hear the glea behind the pretend sincerity of those who asked the question! They were sure that no matter how Jesus answered, he would be in trouble with some or all of the following: his followers, the emperor, the religious and civil authorities, and anyone else that heard his reply. Fortunately, Jesus avoided a disastrous situation when he asked his inquisitioners for a denarius (which they gave him), and asked: “Whose head is this, and whose title?” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
It is diffiult to deal with people who ask questions with closed minds, hardened hearts, and hidden agendas. Just before Mass on Sunday one the parishioners gave me this joke:
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
