I love Spring Watch, Autumn Watch and Winter Watch on BBC TV.  It opens my eyes to the variety, interdependence and mystery of the world.  I’m still horrified when I watch Pine Martin’s and Woodpeckers raiding bird’s nests and eating the chicks.  Nature isn’t as kind as I like to imagine.  Last week was the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ letter on “Caring for Our Common Home” – Laudato Si. 

I came across this poem by the Jesuit Priest, Scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955).  It suggests the Holy Spirit entered far more than the Apostles and “the people from every nation under heaven and living in Jerusalem” Acts 2,5.

FIRE IN THE EARTH 

It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth.
Not with the sudden crash of thunderbolt,
Riving the mountain tops:
Does the Master break down doors to enter his own home?
Without earthquake, or thunderclap:
The flame has lit up the whole world from within.
All things individually and collectively
Are penetrated and flooded by it,
From the inmost core of the tiniest atom
To the mighty sweep of the most universal laws of being:
So naturally, has it flooded every element, every energy,
Every connecting link in the unity of our cosmos,
That one might suppose the cosmos to have burst
Spontaneously into flame.

Fr Gerry, May 29th 2020.

“A FAREWELL PRAYER” 

A couple of you have been asking me about how I’m progressing with the police and my speeding fines.  Well, I’ve paid £100, got 3 points on my licence and am doing a speed awareness course this Thursday.  That costs £90 too!  I’m hoping I’ll be able to mend my ways and drive more safely.

Last Sunday I was talking about Jesus promising to send us “another Advocate”, the Holy Spirit.  That Advocate is normally understood as someone who stands beside you and pleads your case.  Today we meet Jesus himself praying for his original disciples and for all of us who follow them.  What do people traditionally say in their Farewell Speech? 

Imagine yourself talking to your family before you die.  What would you say?  My guess is that you would tell them to stick together, to be united, to remain true. 

This is essentially what Jesus does in this highly poetic, massively intimate prayer to the Father that we have heard today.  He raises his eyes to heaven and opens his heart to God whom he calls Father.  He knows he has an audience and he tries to impress upon them, the night before he dies, what really matters.  He speaks about being given and sharing with them eternal life.  He tells the Father he has glorified him on earth and asks that he himself will be glorified in his passion and death.  He gives an account of his ministry and his shepherding of his disciples.  He prays for them.  That they might be light in a dark world.  That they might be united in a world of division and injustice.  Jesus continues to make this prayer for us the people of the church today.  That we might be one and not divided.  That we might be salt and light in how we live.
We see the early Christians beginning to live this out in today’s First Reading.  After the Ascension, the 11 Apostles go back to the Upper Room.  There they meet with two more groups of disciples, the women from Galilee and also Mary, the Mother of Jesus and his brothers.  These 3 groups of disciples gather into one Community to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Look at all of us gathering today, virtually, from our many homes in Buxton, in Nottingham, wherever we are.  We’re doing what they first did.  We’re overhearing once again the prayer Jesus made to the Father for us.  May we be one. May we be true.  This is what really matters. 

Fr Gerry, May 23rd 2020.    

“A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER!” 

Well, I am in trouble at the moment.  Not just with my knees but with the Police.  About two months ago I received a speeding fine from the Motorway Safeguarding Unit.  I was half expecting it but had conveniently forgotten!  I was doing 50 miles an hour in a 40 limit.  Hurrying home from golf, trying to miss the forecast snow.  I was still pondering whether to pay the fine and take three points on my driving licence when I received another fine.  A new one!  Speeding on the way to golf this time – by the Waterloo Pub on the A6.  I needed help!  I took advice from a solicitor friend. 

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit “the Advocate” in today’s Gospel Story.  It’s a technical word which describes the one who pleads your case in court.  This is the first of four references to the Holy Spirit in John 14,26: 15,26; 16,7.  He’s also called “The Paraclete” and “counsellor” or “intercessor” in 1Jn 2,1.  I love these pictures of the Holy Spirit – God really pleads my cause even when I make a mess of things.  God is really on my side even when I feel weak or lost or all at sea.  Jesus tells his worrying disciples once again that “I will not leave you, orphans, I shall come to you” verse 18.  He comes not as a fair-minded, objective judge but as ‘the advocate’, the one who is biased towards us and will always find and highlight our redeeming features.  He comes as a parent figure, as a mother and father, for us who often feel let down, all on our own, stood up by our loved ones.  Instead of being orphans, the Holy Spirit invites us to discover ourselves as ‘daughters’ and ‘sons’ of our heavenly Father. 
I’m intrigued by Jesus talking about “I am in my Father and you in me and I in you”.  What do you make of it?  It reminds me of my experience of family, of my experience of a love that makes me who I am.  Jesus has the experience of God (the Father) falling in love with him.  He accepts and responds to that love and lives it out with the tax collectors and sinners.  Don’t we each catch a glimpse of this in our own relationships?  Don’t we experience it in the faithfulness and humour and care of our husbands, wives, partners and close friends?  Could it be that the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, is even pleading our cause with them, especially when we’re in trouble and don’t totally deserve it?

I’m so thankful that people keep “turning up” in my life especially when I’m in trouble.  I have that mysterious sense of “never walking alone”, of not being an orphan of being adopted by the Holy Spirit who lives in me and invites me to live in him and share it with the world. 

Fr Gerry, May 17th 2020.    

“EVEN SAT-NAVS FAIL?” 

Boris Johnson has promised to give us a Road Map into the future this Sunday night.  The whole country has been asking for some guidance about the future for the past few weeks.  If we are over the peak of the epidemic what comes next is the natural question.

This is exactly the question the disciples of Jesus are asking in today’s Gospel.  Jesus has just eaten the Last Supper with them, washed their feet, despite Peter’s protests, and told them to do to each other as he has done to them.  He then tells them he is going to suffer and die and they feel orphaned.  He’s leaving them high and dry.  They can’t manage alone.  They think it’s all been in vain.  That’s why he speaks to their “troubled hearts”. The cure is to trust in God and to trust in him more deeply.  He then goes on to explain his death, resurrection, ascension, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He does this poetically.  “I am going to prepare a place for you.  I shall return to take you with me.  Where I am you may be too.”  These are deceptively simple ways of describing the Easter Mystery!

Fortunately, his disciples don’t understand and so we have both Thomas and Philip telling him so and trying to draw him out.  Thomas does not know where Jesus is going, and so doesn’t know the way.  Philip doesn’t understand the mutual “indwelling” of Jesus and the Father and thinks the Father is another God in the sky.  Jesus tells them “I am the way, the Truth and the Life”.  Like the disciples, we might feel none the wiser but stop and think.  They have just had their feet washed by him, their Lord and Master.  They have accompanied him to Lazarus’ funeral and seen him cry before raising Lazarus from the dead.  They had asked him about whether it was the blind man’s fault or his parents that he had been born blind.  They had witnessed Jesus spitting and making a paste and putting it on his eyes and then step by step the blind man coming not just to sight but to faith.  This is the Way of Jesus that they had been walking with him every day.  The way of compassion, the way of service, the way of having not just sight but INSIGHT about life and who Jesus is.  In the face of death, they forgot all this and so we now hear Jesus reminding them of his WAY, which is both the truth (the unveiling of God) and the life.

We tend to imagine that Jesus should have given them and us a detailed Ordnance Survey Map of the future, of the way ahead.  That’s what some people are hoping of Boris tonight and I fear they will be disappointed!  Jesus gives them no map with specific routes clearly arrowed.  Instead, he gives us a compass with himself as the way.  “Remember my ways”.  “Realise to have seen me is to have seen the Father”.  “Receive my Spirit”.  We think we need more detail but actually we don’t.  Instead, we are invited to learn to trust that he has shown us the way and that he will accompany and guide us on ours. 

Fr Gerry, May 8th. 

“Some Questions About The Good Shepherd”
John 10, 1-10

What part of the story most strikes you?  Why?

This shepherd goes ahead of the sheep rather than driving them from behind.  How did Jesus do that?  How does Pope Francis?  Which of his actions or words most inspire you?

Jesus repeats several times that he is “the gate”.  Passing through a gateway is much easier than climbing a wall or fence.  How is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus “the gateway to the fullness of life?”
Presumably, the Scribes and Pharisees are “the thieves and brigands”.  Have you ever experienced Catholic clergy or lay people behaving like them?

Who are the people in our Parish who most inspire you?  How are they like the Good Shepherd?

Who are the good shepherds in our society?  Start with those working for the N.H.S., Nursing Homes and Care Services.

The reputation of Catholic Shepherds has been seriously damaged, if not wiped out, by clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by the Bishops.  We have been personally wounded at St Anne’s. Is there anything you think we should do as a parish community to say sorry and make amends?  

Fr Gerry, May 3rd, 2020.
 

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveller, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same;

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves, no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost 1874-1963

Some Questions

• Could the disciples who decided to come back to Jerusalem from Emmaus have written this poem?

• What did they see when they “looked down one road as far as they could to where it bent in the undergrowth?”

• The second road was grassy and wanted wear.  What was attracting them?  What made their hearts burn?

• Is the religious road “the road less travelled by” today?

• Does the “breaking of bread” make “all the difference”?

Fr Gerry April 24th 2020. 
 

“IS SEEING BELIEVING?” 

The phone is saving me at the moment.  I’ve never spoken to so many old friends.  Never done so much catching up. I got caught out badly by one particular phone call last week.  “Hello,” the woman said, “Happy Easter!” and then she waited. I hesitated and waited for a moment before I said: “Hello Teresa, how are you?” “It’s not Teresa”, she said, “It’s Pauline”.  I got the wrong person! I mistook her for someone else. I didn’t recognise her. This is exactly what happened to the followers of Jesus after his Resurrection. Nobody recognised him. Nobody knew who he was.  They all thought he was somebody else. Mary of Magdala thought he was the gardener. Peter thought someone had stolen his body. The other disciples were so unimpressed by Mary and Peter’s stories that they locked their doors and put the bolts on.  Why did the Risen Jesus appear so hidden and so disguised?

In today’s story, Jesus shows the frightened disciples his hands and side.  Then they knew him and are filled with peace and joy when he breathed on them and calmed their fears.  What’s happening? It’s still the evening of the first day of the week, and the new creation is still breaking out.  Jesus breathes on them first as God breathed life into Adam in the book of Genesis. They look at his side and it’s a reminder of birth and especially the birth of Eve from the side of Adam.  They look at the wounds in his hands and they know he has laid down his life for them. They breathe in his new life and along with Mary of Magdala walk with Jesus in the new Garden of Eden. But, but, Thomas wasn’t there.  “Unless I see the holes, I refuse to believe”, he says. There’s something wonderfully modern about Thomas. He wants to think for himself. He really wants to understand. He doesn’t want to believe second hand. Today we would call him “authentic”.  The problem is that he’s naive. He’s one dimensional. He’s imprisoned by the physical. He thinks he can come to a belief by physically seeing Jesus. Then he suddenly discovers his heart, his soul, his imagination and knows the hands and side of Jesus no longer need to be fingered.  The penny drops. He recognises that Jesus continues to give life even beyond death. He confesses Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God’ maybe the most personal act of faith in the New Testament.

What about us? What about us in this time of Corona Virus? Like Thomas, we’re tempted to settle for the physical dimension of life.  The daily record of so many new deaths and so many new cases. How many more weeks or months, we’re starting to ask ourselves? We’re invited to discover the Risen Jesus showing us his hands and side in the middle of all of these fears and troubles.  He’s telling us to learn to look not just with our physical eyes and ears but with the eyes and ears of our hearts. Discover the love and care and sacrifice that is real. It’s often hidden and unnoticed. It can’t be easily measured or counted. Tune into the spiritual dimension of life like Thomas.  Learn to trust each other more and depend less on yourself. Learn to listen to God speaking to us at this Mass through the people, in the Scriptures, in yourself. Don’t get caught out and simply think the one who’s talking to you is just the gardener. 

Fr Gerry - 19th April 2020

"MARY OF MAGDALA"

I want to invite you to come on a journey to the back of the church. Imagine we’re going to the tomb with Mary, Peter and John.

We’ve experienced Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday with Jesus. The men had run away but the women had watched it all from a distance. They’ve seen the lifeless corpse of Jesus being placed in the tomb. Mary had gone home late. She probably couldn’t sleep so she came back before daybreak, when it was still dark, preoccupied by her loss.
Here is Mary in the garden, her hands on her chest.
Is she carrying the spices? Look at her eyes. Is she holding back tears?
What is she looking at?
Our story says at the start that she sees the tomb empty. She thinks they’ve stolen the body of Jesus. She tells Peter and John that, and they look inside the tomb themselves.
Today’s gospel leaves out half of the story. Mary stays at the tomb weeping when they leave. She meets the gardener.
‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ he asks. ‘Who are you looking for?’ She repeats her theory. ‘Mary’ the gardener says. Mary answers ‘Rabbuni’.
She knew then that the gardener was Jesus, raised to new life. Look at her face. I don’t think she’s crying, but she might be talking to the gardener. The penny might be about to drop!
Look at her clothes. The rich orange, yellow and gold robe over a purple dress. The fringes of the robe, all embroidered, dance with hope. 
Look at the garden. Start with the green grass at the bottom. 
Notice the trees: dark and light greens, red berries on the left.
Work your way up. See the purple mountain. Dark and light trees stand even higher. This is a really beautiful garden. Why?
It’s a new Garden of Eden. Mary is walking in it with Jesus, replacing God, Adam and Eve. It’s a new creation. The old one has crucified Jesus, the new one will save the world. The story begins by saying “it was very early, still dark, the first day of the week”

We’re now three weeks into lockdown, into self-isolating, into shielding those with serious conditions.
It’s still EARLY, it’s still DARK, but it’s the beginning of the first day of the week. The risen Jesus is meeting us in our gardens, in our homes, at our work: promising hope where there’s despair, smiles where there’s tears,life where there’s death.
Pope John Paul famously said: ‘We are an Easter people; Alleluia is our song’ We return now to the sanctuary to renew the promises of our Baptism, to walk with Mary and all the church, to water and the light of new hope.
“When the lonely find friendship, when the fearful find strength, when the worried find peace, the stone has been rolled away”.

Fr Gerry’s homily: 
12th April 2020, Easter Sunday

“JUMPING THE GUN?” 

Boris Johnson talked about “green shoots” at the beginning of this week.  It’s hard to believe when almost 700 people in the UK died of the virus yesterday.  Maybe his “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” is much nearer the mark and much harder to swallow?  It’s strange that Holy Week begins with the green shoots but then is totally derailed by Good Friday when things get a lot worse.

There seems to be a party atmosphere about Palm Sunday. The crowds throwing their hats in the air, laying their cloaks on the road.  There’s cheering, noise, jubilation.  They cut branches from the trees to wave-like scarves and shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna in the highest heavens” Hosanna is the Aramaic word meaning “Save us”, “Rescue us”.  When people asked who is he the crowds’ answer “This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth, in Galilee”.  These really were green shoots.  Even if Jesus came from the wrong part of the country, even though he was a northerner, surely there were the beginnings of faith here?  So what went wrong?  How come it turned out so horribly different? 

Before suggesting some answers perhaps we could linger a little on Jesus’ decision to enter the Holy City like this.  Why does he insist on going there?  Why not pull his horns in now and compromise?  He knows, just like we do that prophets are killed there.  Why does he “have” to go there?  The Spirit seems to drive him there just as it once drove him into the desert.  He sticks to his guns!  He knows his anger with the religious authorities is justified and that their greatest talent is inventing new burdens, new regulations.  He chooses to ride a donkey!  How disarming is that?  Pilate could well have passed by the day before, riding his white horse, flanked by an army of soldiers, their armour all glistening in the sun.  Donkeys were a very different sign – a beast of burden; always put upon; the property of the poor.  These were the very people Jesus had set his heart upon from the beginning of his public ministry.  Was he going to pull out now?  No, he had to go to Jerusalem to be true to them, and true to himself.

So where did it all go wrong?  Holy Week is the story of two processions.  One into the City of Jerusalem.  One out of the City, to Golgotha, the place of the Skull.  In the first Jesus is feted by the crowds and his disciples.  But in the procession to Golgotha, he will be on his own, with just soldiers and spectators.  Crowds will dissolve. His disciples will run away.  Judas will betray him with a kiss.  Peter will deny him 3 times.  He will be left alone with his God.  Look at today’s other scripture stories.  Paul tells us that Jesus “did not cling to his equality with God.”  Instead “he emptied himself, and became a slave”. We see this emptying of himself on the cross when Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He let go of everything, even his certainty in God was tested. He had become a “slave”, especially a slave of the poor who were longing for a different God and a new world. 

Does this give us some hints about why the crowds changed their minds and later preferred Barabas to Jesus?  Do we begin to guess why the disciples ran away, betrayed and denied him?  Jesus is a very hard man to follow!

It’s common to call these crowds of his followers “fickle”.  It’s easy to forget that we too are fickle!  We want to follow Jesus, but the easy way without the challenge of the cross.  We have the chance today and this week to follow the story in a new way, at a time when we’re all suffering.  We’re all missing each other; we’re all wanting to hold and touch our grandchildren; we’re all fearful about the future.  This is the time for us to go inside ourselves. Meet yourself deeper down.  Admit you compromise, you hold yourself back, you don’t give all of yourself.  This is the time to meet the “Peter” inside ourselves;  We’re tempted to play safe and avoid risk and danger.  This is the time to admit that yes, we do know him, that he is our strength in this time of threat from the virus. 

Fr Gerry
Friday, 3rd April 2020. 

“SOME OF OUR LOVED ONES WILL DIE” 

These words of Boris Johnson have been haunting me this past two weeks.  How timely to find that this is the content of today’s Gospel – 5th Sunday of Lent, Year A.  We read and listen once again to the story of the greatest “sign” of Jesus – the raising of his close friend Lazarus (John, Chapter 11).

Sickness and death are often times of regret and self-reproach – “if only I had done this, said that”.  We tell ourselves off.  We want to bring our loved ones back.  We imagine we could have done something to prevent their passing.  We think we are in charge!  Dying can also be a time of deepening and healing. 

Those conversations we keep putting off can actually happen.  We express our love and gratitude to each other and ask forgiveness for the wrongs and misunderstandings.  We can even dare to broach that very delicate subject of terminal care and funeral arrangements.

Rereading this story of Lazarus I discover how similar I am to Martha and Mary.  Perhaps, more surprisingly, I realise that I am more like Jesus than I thought!  These two women sound like “family” to Jesus.  They’re all really dependent on each other. He “has” to be told that Lazarus is very ill. He is “expected” to come immediately.  He “has” to be there. 

Jesus then arrives four days late and has to listen to their blaming him; realising his own loss of Lazarus, Jesus weeps. 

It’s the shortest and most extraordinary sentence in the whole bible.  Jesus was “distressed”, “sighed straight from the heart” and “wept tears”. 

St John repeats the fact of his being so upset twice, presumably because it’s so important and makes such a difference to us the readers.  He really wants us to know that Jesus is “like us in all things but sin”, and that he grieves, and cries, and feels in his body the loss of his dear friend Lazarus. 

This story nudges me to prepare to face the prospect of personal and parish grief in the coming weeks.  We each ask ourselves “is there anything specifically I need to do to get my family ready?”

The story begins by telling us it is about “a man named Lazarus who lived in the village of Bethany with his two sisters, Mary and Martha”.  Lazarus means “God helps” and Bethany means “the house of the afflicted.”  So this is a story of how God helps all those in the house of the afflicted.  Not just Lazarus and his sisters but as it turns out, gentle reader, you and I too, in this present time of crisis and pandemic.

Fr Gerry
29th March 2020.