Tuesday, 31 October 2023

 November 5th 2023. Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 23, 1-12

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

GOSPEL: Matthew 23, 1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
"The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. 
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example. 
For they preach but they do not practice. 
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people's shoulders, 
but they will not lift a finger to move them. 
All their works are performed to be seen. 
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. 
They love places of honour at banquets, seats of honour in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation 'Rabbi.'
As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.'
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. 
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called 'Master';
you have but one master, the Christ. 
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

 

Kieran’s summary . . . This Gospel sets before us the image of the Pharisee, a person who knows how to talk piously but who does not know how to act. Reflection on this figure challenges us to make a distinction that is of fundamental importance in life: we often understand the right thing to do; we can express it well in words; but the fundamental thing is to do it. "They talk but they do not act" - this is the terrible condemnation from the Gospel that can be justly applied to many of us. To summarize Don Fabio’s homily, let us reflect on the answers we would give to the following questions:

1. Who benefits from our pious talk: the Lord, or ourselves?

2. What brings true happiness: the praise of others, or acts of love and service?

3. What is of greater value: a single act of love, or an entire convention on theology?

4. Are we asked to choose the tree of knowing/talking, or the tree of living/doing?

5. Was redemption won for us by words, or by a concrete act on the part of Christ?

We do not need to look too far to discern what act of obedience we are asked to accomplish in any given moment. The Lord constantly reveals to all of us our next opportunity for doing, obeying, loving, serving; for going beyond the little cubicle we live in. Do such acts make our lives difficult or dull? No, on the contrary, they bring fulfilment and happiness. Such acts of obedience represent the firm ground upon which we can stand securely amid the swamps of our existence.

 

The Pharisee as an example of one who knows how to talk but does not act

This Gospel sets before us the paradoxical image of the Pharisee, a person who knows how to talk piously but who does not know how to act. Reflection on this figure challenges us to make a distinction that is of fundamental importance in life: we often understand the right thing to do; we can express it well in words; but the fundamental thing is to do it. "They talk but they do not act" - this is the terrible condemnation from the Gospel that can be justly applied to many of us.

 

Who benefits from our pious talk, the Lord or ourselves?

At the end of the passage we are confronted with the issue of who the real master is when it comes to spiritual matters. Real teachers always have something to learn; are always capable of being surprised; and are always in danger of being shaken from their own certainties and awoken to things that are more authentic. If, instead, a person lives for the admiration of others; covets the most privileged places at public functions; loves being greeted in public with honourable titles; then his real master is not God but his own status. He has lost his grip on what is essential in life. He may be able to speak about love, but is not able to love; he can wax eloquently about the importance of service, but he may have never served anyone in his life.

 

Acts of love and service bring true happiness, whilst the praise of others is of little use

It is commonplace to seek honour and admiration from others. But does it bring one jot of real happiness? The Pharisee knows how to speak well and gain the admiration of others, but the fact that he does not know how to act means that his life is an empty and unfulfilled one. What does it count in life if a person is given tributes and honour that are empty? What use is the attention of others and praise for achievements that are not authentic? It is no use at all! One might think that a life dedicated to service is a life of drudgery, but in reality it is a far more beautiful and fulfilling life. If we think of it, we will realise that every time we have sought to obey God we have been happy. Every time we have tried in the slightest way to follow the Gospel we have experienced healing, grace, and peace that cannot be obtained by mere words.

 

A single act of love is of more value than an entire convention on theology!

The inspiration of this Gospel should lead us to make a definite change of direction in life.  It should encourage us to stop talking and start acting. A single act of love towards God or neighbour is of more value than an entire theological conference. Of this there can be no shadow of doubt. To seek to obey God and to be faithful to his word is of much greater value than anything we might do of a theoretical sort. Real life is made up of concrete things. Love itself is not an idea but an act. Service is not an abstract thing but a concrete attitude, an exercise of the noblest characteristics of our being. To seek admiration for our pious words, whilst failing to act, is to waste time on one of the most useless exercises of our existence.

 

Redemption was won for us by an act on the part of Christ, not by words

The desire to understand whilst refusing to act is an ancient contradiction that goes back to the beginning of man. In the Garden of Eden there were two trees, the tree of understanding, and the tree of living. Man was destined for the tree of living/doing, but instead he chose the tree of understanding/calculating/pondering, and in this way he lost the tree of living. In order to bring healing to a person, it is of little use explaining things that may be genuinely beautiful in themselves. In the end, it is concrete action on the part of another that brings healing to a person's being. That which heals all of us is not a discourse, but an act. Christ, after many acts of teaching, finally submits himself in obedience to the Father. Our redemption was accomplished by a concrete act, not mere words that may have been wonderful in themselves.

 

Acts of obedience to the Lord bring meaning and stability to our lives

We do not need to look too far to discern what act of obedience we are asked to accomplish in any given moment. The Lord constantly reveals to all of us our next opportunity for doing, obeying, loving, serving; for going beyond the little cubicle we live in. Do such acts make our lives difficult or dull? No, on the contrary, they bring fulfilment and happiness. Such acts of obedience represent the firm ground upon which we can stand securely amid the swamps of our existence.


Tales of unexpected blessings, hilarious true stories, unique perspectives on the lives of the saints. An original, entertaining and orthodox presentation of the Catholic faith. You won’t be able to put it down!
"Captivating."
— Elizabeth Lev, Professor of Art History, Rome.

“Entertaining.”
— Cardinal Seán Brady, 
Ireland.

"I laughed out loud many times, and told the stories to others who laughed just as hard."
— Sally Read, Author.

"Enchanting."
— Bishop Brendan Leahy, Diocese of Limerick.

"Unique and insightful."
— Archbishop Kieran O'Reilly, Cashel and Emly.

October 29th 2023. The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 34-40

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

 

GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they got together and,

to disconcert him, one of them put a question,

‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ 

Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

The second resembles it:

You must love your neighbour as yourself.

On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets also.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

 

Summary . . .  In the Gospel, Jesus proclaims the shema, so central to the orthodox faith of every devout Jew, the commandment to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind. Then he tells us that a second commandment “resembles” the first: you must love your neighbour as yourself. What does Jesus mean by “resembles”? Is he pointing out some kind of structural similarity? No, what Jesus is saying is that this second commandment belongs irreplaceably with the first. To obey one commandment implies obeying the other. If I “love” God and forget my neighbour, then my love is false. If I “love” my neighbour and ignore God, then my love is false. Authentic love requires both the “vertical” and “horizontal” elements. Sometimes in the Church we find people who focus on the relationship with God to the exclusion of the people around them. Often, they are preoccupied with precise liturgical norms and rubrics. But the relationship with God is deficient if it is not translated into the tenderness of fraternal love. On the other hand, if I am devoted to fraternal love and charity without reference to the invisible, then my “love” will also be deficient. To the extent that my “love” is founded purely on human considerations, then that love will be as small as we are ourselves! Love needs to be open to the greatness of that which transcends us. Christ banished the darkness of this world by showing the love of God for us from the cross. I need to be open to the love of God in order to love my brothers and sisters in the right way. I must love my brothers and sisters in order to love God genuinely. These two commandments are inseparably united in the person of Jesus. In him, the relationship with God became a relationship with our brothers and sisters. As Jesus says in the last line, on this love for God and neighbour everything depends. If the things we do are not done out of love, what sense have they? This great Gospel puts all the secondary and trivial things in perspective. Nothing matters but love for God and neighbour.  

 

At the end of our lives, the only question we will ask is: Did I love?

The question from Sunday’s Gospel: “What is the greatest commandment?" What is the most important thing to do? What is it that decides everything? It is not so difficult to answer: when events prompt us to look at our lives - and this can happen for a thousand reasons – the first question we ask ourselves is if we have loved others genuinely, if anyone is happy because of us. Often, when a priest hears the last confession or the last worry of a dying person, there is only one real question: did I love? Have I been a good father, a good mother, did I leave anything good to those around me?

 

The devil tries to distract us from the priority of love. He does not need to make us do evil to achieve his purpose. It is enough to distract us and make us fixated with secondary, empty, things.

Jesus is right: loving God and loving one's neighbour is all that matters. Everything depends on this. This insight can illuminate the futility of a thousand secondary things. We are constantly distracted from this priority by the work of the evil one. He does not need to make us do evil. It is enough for him to distract us from doing good. He keeps us engaged in secondary things, gets us caught up with activities that are not bad in themselves, but which simply are not love. Outside of love there is no happiness, but only substitutes for happiness.

 

Scripture tells me to love my neighbour as myself. Does this mean that my first priority must be to love myself?

Yet, there is more to love than the popular viewpoint realizes. In reality, everyone talks about love, everyone sings about it, everyone writes about it. But we have to examine what they are talking about, because the world is full of chatter about false, transitory and ambiguous love. In fact, it is not true to say that “love” brings “happiness”. What is true is that only real love brings real happiness. In recent decades, much preaching has focused on the phrase of Jesus, taken in turn from the Book of Leviticus: "You must love your neighbour as yourself". Sometimes the conclusions drawn from this phrase have been appropriate, but at other times a simplistic equation has been made of the sort: the Lord tells us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and therefore if one does not love himself he ends up not loving others either; conclusion: you must first learn to love yourself! 

 

The problem with focussing on loving yourself is that it is impossible using your own strengths. Only the knowledge that we are loved Christ can free us of self-doubt or self-hatred.

Fifty years ago it was urgent to underline this point, because we had to free ourselves from an image of love dominant at that time which only spoke of impersonal obligation. However, this led to further problems: to love yourself, to accept yourself, is not just difficult, it's impossible! The fact is that I need to be loved if I am not to despise myself. It is only when I am loved that I escape the trap of thinking that there is something wrong with me. Only Christ can lead me to look upon myself without horror, without that sense of insufficiency that I carry inside. 

 

The solution is not to focus on love of self, but to see that our true centre is outside of ourselves, in communion with Christ and others.

There is a mystery here! I must love my neighbour as myself, but if the first obligation becomes to love oneself, then I can become so focussed on myself that I forget the neighbour entirely! The task of that sentence is to get us out of the vortex of self-destructive narcissism. Narcissus, in Greek mythology, was the one who dies in the well of his own image because he does not listen to the nymph Echo who calls him to look at her and love her, and this is today's problem: obsession with ourselves. Christ leads us to our true centre, which is love, but this centre is outside of us, it is in relationship, in communion, in unity. Because it is precisely when I am with God and with others that I discover myself. Nowadays there is a big emphasis on teaching children to look for self-fulfilment, but what we really need to teach them is to look beyond themselves and be with others.



Tales of unexpected blessings, hilarious true stories, unique perspectives on the lives of the saints. An original, entertaining and orthodox presentation of the Catholic faith. You won’t be able to put it down!

"Captivating."
— Elizabeth Lev, Professor of Art History, Rome.

“Entertaining.”
— Cardinal Seán Brady, Ireland.

"I laughed out loud many times, and told the stories to others who laughed just as hard."
— Sally Read, Author.

"Enchanting."
— Bishop Brendan Leahy, Diocese of Limerick.

"Unique and insightful."
— Archbishop Kieran O'Reilly, Cashel and Emly.

Saturday, 21 October 2023

 October 22nd 2023. The Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 15-21
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio
 
Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel
 
GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 15-21

The Pharisees went away to work out between them how to trap Jesus in what he said. And they sent their disciples to him, together with the Herodians, to say,
‘Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way,
and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you.
Tell us your opinion, then. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
But Jesus was aware of their malice and replied,
‘You hypocrites! Why do you set this trap for me? Let me see the money you pay the tax with.’
They handed him a denarius and he said, ‘Whose head is this? Whose name?’ 
‘Caesar’s’ they replied.
He then said to them, ‘Very well, give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.’
The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
 
Summary . . .  This Gospel passage is sometimes interpreted to refer to the necessity of a balanced division of loyalties: a certain debt is owed to God and a certain debt is owed to the state . . . But this would be a fairly superficial reading. Let us consider the passage more closely. The Pharisees and Herodians are the most unlikely of allies! One is on the side of Rome and the other is against, yet they join forces to try to trap Jesus, asking him if people should pay tax to the Romans or not. As he always does, Jesus lifts the discourse on to a higher level, refusing to be bogged down in questions that ultimately derive from the enemy of humanity, Satan. The Lord takes a coin which bears the image of the Roman emperor, with an inscription that proclaimed him to be divine. And then Jesus says: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God”. The real question the Lord wants us to consider is this: what really belongs to this world and what really is owed to God? The world tries to dominate our lives, our relationships, our affections, our loyalties. It seeks to manipulate and exploit the deepest things within us for motives of worldly gain. In fact, the currencies that we use bear the images of worldly powers, but each one of us is made in the image and likeness of God! Woe to us if we give to the world those things that belong properly to God! Woe to us if we turn the faith into an instrument for advancing our own material wellbeing or power! Let us recall the martyrs of the first centuries who were killed because they refused to acknowledge the emperor to be divine. Let us follow that army of people who exercised their baptismal discernment correctly and gave back to the world, the flesh and the devil what belongs to it. St Francis gave back to his father all of his worldly possessions, even his clothes. Once we belong to God, then we will, quite naturally, give to Caesar what belongs to him. We will be good, law-abiding citizens, but as a consequence of the fact that we are living for heaven. This is a life ordered to what is good and true, the concrete realisation of the fact that we were made in His image and likeness and belong only to him. 

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus demonstrates to us a good technique of discourse. Often we are bogged down in questions that do not lead anywhere. Jesus answers the question with another which lifts the conversation onto a higher level.
In Sunday’s Gospel, two unlikely factions become allies in an attempt to ensnare Jesus. Herod was on the side of the Romans, since they maintained the king in power. The Pharisees were against Roman rule, but they still united with the Herodians to lay this trap for Jesus: "Is it lawful, or not, to pay the tax to Caesar?" If Jesus had answered yes, he would have put himself on the side of the Roman invader and oppressor; if he had said not to pay, he could be denounced to the authorities as an instigator of rebellion. In response, Jesus does what he always does: he brings the discourse on to a higher and more noble level. It is a good opportunity for us to learn from this technique of his: he regularly answers questions with other questions. Often, we are besotted with the wrong questions. Instead of torturing ourselves in searching for answers, we need to jettison the questions that are misleading us. 

What is the higher level to which Jesus raises the discourse? He challenges us to consider what really belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God.
Then Jesus asks to examine the coin used to pay the tax. Normally, the Roman Senate did not permit the image of the emperor to appear on the currency, but, during the very years of Jesus’ public ministry, the emperor’s image was permitted, along with an inscription that affirmed him as "divine". The first martyrs of the Church knew all about this self-deification of the Empire. Many Christians were led to the gallows because they refused to perform sacrifices to the emperor. All regimes, before and after Rome, have some version of the public cult of the absolute leader, up to the most tragic modern examples. When Jesus sees the coin, he replies: "Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God". This raises the question: “What, exactly, belongs to whom?” This is the level to which Jesus moves the discourse.

What is of Caesar? What is of God? Our very selves, our life, our heart, our relationships. Money bears the image and inscription of this world, but humanity bears the image and likeness of God.
An immense group of people in the history of the Church have exercised this baptismal discernment, giving back to the world what belongs to it, while handing over to God what really belongs to him. Francis of Assisi returned even his clothes to his father to take on the clothes of new life, a life that was poor in the things of this world, but immensely wealthy in truth. Money, in fact, bears the image and inscription of this world and its rulers, but man carries within himself the image and likeness of God. From Christ onwards, an army of men and women will restore to the world, the flesh and the devil what belongs to them, while handing themselves over to God to live according to the truth of heaven. What belongs to God? The life and heart of man, his love, his relationships and many other things. The world demands these things only to abuse and exploit them. Woe to us if we give the world what belongs properly to God, if we instrumentalise the faith in the interests of wellbeing or power. In every Christian act, we free ourselves from the world to give back to the Father what is his: ourselves.




Tales of unexpected blessings, hilarious true stories, unique perspectives on the lives of the saints. An original, entertaining and orthodox presentation of the Catholic faith. You won’t be able to put it down!

"Captivating."
— Elizabeth Lev, Professor of Art History, Rome.

“Entertaining.”
— Cardinal Seán Brady, Ireland.

"I laughed out loud many times, and told the stories to others who laughed just as hard."
— Sally Read, Author.

"Enchanting."
— Bishop Brendan Leahy, Diocese of Limerick.

"Unique and insightful."
— Archbishop Kieran O'Reilly, Cashel and Emly.

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Sunday Gospel Reflection