A superstar who hit rock bottom and came up again

I want to tell you about someone whose life was changed - a man in the depths of despair who found new life and hope. He had been a great musician. As a child he had overtaken all his teachers. He had begun composing in childhood, and by his twenties he was fabulously wealthy - the highest paid composer in the world, packing in the crowds wherever he went.

FROM RICHES TO RAGS

At the same time, he was rude, arrogant, and self-opinionated. He drank too heavily, and he could swear like a trooper in three different languages!

For forty years he composed breathtaking music for the royal family. But musical tastes change, and his works fell out of fashion. He tried everything, but he couldn’t resurrect his career. He became bankrupt, poverty-stricken, depressed and physically ill. Things were so bad that he thought he might end up living out his days in a London debtors’ prison.

Who am I talking about? George Frederick Handel (1685-1759). As if things couldn’t get worse, in 1737 he had a cerebral haemorrhage which left him paralysed down his right side and unable to walk or write. Very slowly he managed to regain some of his strength.

One night in 1741 he shuffled listlessly down a dark, creepy London street, bent over - a man seriously old before his time. England was in the grip of an extremely cruel winter, and Handel was physically and emotionally worn out.

As he trudged on he came to a church. He paused, and suddenly from the depths of his being he cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Eventually he went home to his very modest lodgings. On his desk was a package - a set of words that he had promised a friend he would try to do something with musically. In fact the words were all Bible verses arranged in such a way as to emphasise the salvation won for us by Jesus. Handel opened the package and his eyes fell on the verse, ‘He was despised and rejected of men.’

THE GLORY OF GOD

He reached for his pen and began to write. Then something mysterious - even ‘miraculous’ - happened to him. He just kept writing . . . page after page after page! He actually worked non-stop for twenty-four days, hardly eating, and having almost no rest. He refused to see friends. But on the day he finished, a friend managed to get in. Handel was sitting at his piano, sheets of music strewn all around him, and he had tears running down his face. ‘I do believe I have seen all of Heaven before me, and the great God Himself,’ he said to his friend. He then flopped onto his bed and slept for seventeen hours. He woke up renewed in body and in soul. Looking back on this experience, and borrowing a phrase from the Apostle Paul, he said, ‘Whether I was in my body or out of my body I know not. God knows it’!

  

Right from its first performance, Handel’s Messiah has been regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces ever composed. It has stunned multitudes. To this day it is performed at Christmas and Easter all over the world, and people who know nothing else about classical music always recognise the Hallelujah Chorus! More than that, Handel’s music has brought a vision of the glory of the Lord to countless unsuspecting souls.

WHAT ABOUT US?

Why have I recounted the story of George Frederick Handel? Simply because I know that so many of us find ourselves exactly where he was. We think that life is useless. We feel that there is no hope. Maybe it’s related to a business failure or the disintegration of our relationships. Or we might be successful financially, in our careers and in our family life. But for reasons we can’t understand we’re there, right at rock bottom in other ways.

Of course we can speak to friends. And professional counselling is a good idea, too. Medication can often make a big difference. These things are important.

How bizarre it is, though, that we so easily neglect the ‘spiritual’ aspect of our being, when ‘God . . . has put eternity into man’s mind’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11). There are even in our universities today professional observers of human behaviour who agree that we seem to have an inbuilt instinct to reach out to ‘the transcendent’. So many people discover that ‘giving in’ to that instinct is the most important life choice we ever make, because in the context of the relationship with God that develops, deep spiritual and emotional healing begins to take place. 

On the other hand, if we refuse to come to terms with our deeply spiritual needs, all other measures are a bit like putting sticking plaster on symptoms rather than treating the real illness. (Sticking plaster is, of course, handy. But on its own it’s not going to heal us!)

Those facing big issues in our lives, or who are on the brink of despair - as many are right now at this stage in the ‘lockdown’ - ought to need very little encouragement to open up to the Lord’s love and healing. Maybe the story of George Frederick Handel will inspire us to do it!

JUST DRIFTING ALONG?

An intriguing insight in the Bible is that we can drift spiritually without even realising what is happening to us.  One of the saddest bits of the Old Testament is when Samson, so full of promise and raised up by God to deliver his people, became captive to his lusts. Do you know what it says? Judges 16:20 tells us, ‘He knew not that the Spirit of God had left him.’ Isn’t that so sad. He drifted. 

We are warned about that happening to us in Hebrews 2:1: ‘... we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.’ In his commentary on this verse, William Barclay points out that in the original language the expression for ‘drift away’ is meant to conjure up the idea of a ship drifting to destruction because the pilot is asleep!

COMING BACK

We matter to God. He loves us with an everlasting love. He doesn’t want us just to drift along. Whatever tangles or trauma we are in the middle of, he wants to help us, support us, strengthen and sustain us, so that we come through. We don’t have to drift. Nor do we have to be strong enough or wise enough in our own strength and wisdom. We can rely on him. We can let his love reach us through prayer, through the Scriptures, through receiving the Sacraments, through the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We really can open up our lives to his healing love.

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah God says to us: ‘You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart.’ (Jeremiah 29:3)

S. James says, ‘Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.’ (James 4:8)

And Jesus himself said: ‘Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you . . . for he who seeks finds.’ (Matthew 7:7)

George Frederick Handel had his life turned around and put on track because he encountered the Lord in a new way. Isn’t it time for each of us to seek the Lord with our whole heart, to draw near to him, and to experience his love and healing more deeply than ever before?

Handel's memorial in Westminster Abbey

BY GRACE THINGS CAN BE BETTER - Archbishop Anthony Fisher's Christmas Homily

One of the truly great Christian leaders of our time is Anthony Fisher OP, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. In 1985 he entered the Dominicans, (the “Order of Preachers”), dedicated to preaching the Catholic faith in the context of a life of study, prayer and community. He studied for the priesthood in Melbourne, receiving an honours degree in Theology, having already received degrees in History and Law from the University of Sydney and practising law in a city firm. He gained a Doctorate in Bioethics at the University of Oxford, lectured at the Australian Catholic University and was an Adjunct Professor at The University of Notre Dame Australia. Archbishop Fisher has published extensively in bioethics and moral theology. He was the Foundation Director of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Melbourne, and served as Chaplain to the Parliament of Victoria. He became an Auxiliary Bishop in Sydney in 2003, Bishop of Parramatta in 2010, and Archbishop of Sydney in 2014.

Following is the homily Archbishop Fisher preached in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, on Christmas Day, 2017. It has been reproduced from the Sydney Catholic website.

Genealogy is all the rage. There are plenty of websites and search companies to help: some search birth and death, migration and marriage, council and electoral records for you; others even investigate your DNA. People construct family trees, join historical societies, organize big reunions. Europeans look for the blood of aristocrats or great historic figures in their veins, whereas Aussies hope to find a convict or bushranger in the family line! 

The first words of the New Testament are in fact “The genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham” and thereafter follows a long list of Jesus’ ancestors, often recited at the Christmas Masses before midnight (Mt 1:1-25). St Matthew sought thereby to highlight that the Baby born of Mary was indeed “of the Holy Spirit” but was also a real human being, with an extended family, history, culture and geography. His account picks and chooses a bit, as it traces 14 generations of ancestors between Abraham and David, when they became the royal family of Israel; 14 more until the exile, when they lost their position; and another 14 generations until kingship was definitively restored in Jesus Christ. Jesus is presented, then, as the cause and site for the reign of God. Make Him yours, make yourself His, as “God’s kingdom comes, on earth as it is in heaven”.

And so we meet the greats of Jewish history: Abraham, our Father in faith; the patriarchs Isaac and Jacob; the illustrious king David; Solomon the wise and Josiah the pious; the honourable Joseph and faithful Mary. Jesus is presented as the culmination of all that is best in our history, the patriarchs, prophets, priests, potentates and parents. It seems a rather European style of family tree, then, full of the great and good. Yet beneath the surface is a rather more Aussie-looking family gumtree: for Jesus’ tree is full of non-entities, and those whose names mean anything to us are a very mixed bunch indeed!

At the top of the tree are, of course, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, later known as Israel. But Jacob, we know, conspired with his mother to trick his blind father and thus steal his place in the line from his brother Esau. He was conned in turn, taking the wrong girl for wife, and so fathered Judah. Judah was also tricked, in his case by his own daughter-in-law Tamar; having lost several husbands, most recently the infamous Onan, she played the harlot, lured Judah to her bed and so conceived Perez, her son and brother-in-law. Hearing his daughter-in-law was a pregnant lush, Judah ordered her execution, only to learn he was the father. So there’s a lot packed into an innocent-sounding line like “Isaac was the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, Tamar being their mother.”

Drop a few lines down and we’re told “Salmon was the father of Boaz, Rahab being his mother. Boaz was the father of Obed, Ruth being his mother.” Again it sounds ordinary enough until we realize that grandma Rahab was another notorious prostitute who betrayed her own people to massacre. And as for Ruth, so determined was she to carry on the line that she slipped into Boaz’s bed though she was not his wife. But because the baby Obed was to be King David’s grandfather, all was forgiven as the family line wound its serpentine way towards Jesus. It seems that God can indeed “write straight with crooked lines”, working not just through the great and the good, but also despite and even through the not-so-good.

As the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recently revealed the shocking deeds of some clergy, religious and lay church-workers and inaction of some church leaders, we ache with shame and sorrow for the young people who were so terribly hurt; we rededicate ourselves to bringing such justice and healing to them as we can; and we resolve to do all in our power to ensure this is never repeated. But we are confronted yet again with the fact that there have been more-than-a-few rotten apples in our Church’s history, all the way back to Jesus and before, and more than a few failures of leadership. Ours is a family that needs periodic and radical renewal… a family that needs Christmas.

So much for Part One: Part Two of the genealogy turns out to be equally seedy. David is Jesus’ most famous ancestor, a shepherd-boy become king, poet-musician, slayer of giants, all-round great guy. But scratch the surface and you find a ruthless bandit who through various intrigues and murders secured power for his family. A voyeur, he had an affair with a married woman, murdered her husband, took her for his wife, and sired Solomon by her. Unsurprisingly, Solomon was no great example of “family values”: he took 700 princesses as wives and kept 300 commoners on the side as concubines!

No wonder he had so many descendants! But next in the line that stretches to Jesus is Rehoboam, a reprobate who introduced pagan rites and male prostitution into the Temple. The royal descendants continued thereafter as a most unseemly crew: idolaters, assassins, a mass murderer or two, even a wizard who engaged in child sacrifice, as well as more mundane examples of lust and ambition, greed and mismanagement… As our culture is riven by debates over life and love, and our politics all-too-often descends into fiasco, we might recall that God’s plan has often been worked out not just by the peace-loving and pure-hearted, but in polities and cultures muddled about values and led by the ruthless and irreligious…

So the line of Jesus carries forward, until we come at last to the sentimental story of Christmas, with angels, shepherds and kings, with fields, animals and manger, with mother, father and Babe (Luke 2:1-20). Yet even that romance is far from tidy: the mother is dogged by suspicion and snub; the angels sing of joy and peace even as Herod sets about killing the little children; the kings of earth shower gifts on the Babe, yet the family find no welcome at the inn and ultimately flee to Egypt. Their story echoes through the ages to our time, in which asylum-seekers, including desperate young men, pregnant women and newborn babies, still risk all in search of a safe inn. It resonates in the emotional complexities of Christmas for many, where families are hurting or bored, where someone is missed or would like to be. It resounds in our time in the terrorist killings of children this year in Manchester, Mogadishu and Manhattan, leaving populations grieving and terrified as in Bethlehem of old. And it echoes still today in Bethlehem, where high concrete security walls and check points confront residents and pilgrims alike… When I was there recently I saw a painting on the wall of a white peace dove wearing a flack-jacket and jailhouse graffiti saying “Make hummus not walls”.

The Christmas story, then, has everything. All human life is there, gathered around the cradle of a Child: light and dark, joys and heart-breaks, hopes and fears, angels and devils. And so the patriarchs are there beside the three kings, the nobodies and worse with the shepherds, all attending this Vigil in search of hope, good will, peace. If you are ever disappointed with your family, your country, your Church: that some lack faith or don’t practice what they preach; or if there’s mental illness, addiction or abuse, feuding, promiscuity or poor communication; if there’s financial stress or work stress, cooling passion or too much passion: whatever it is, rather than imagining you and yours are uniquely cursed, remember it was all there, and worse, in Jesus’ own family tree. Rather than the perfect, Jesus came to join a family just like yours; indeed, yours is the very family He connects with this Christmas.

But Jesus joins you this Christmas not to say that sin and sadness are all there is, that human beings are doomed to be mired in such things, and the best He can offer is to stand beside you. No, God-made-Baby says that by grace things can be better: humanity can be united to divinity and transformed by it. A new page is turned today; a new start given. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham continues: for of Him was born the Church and onto that family are grafted all the baptised and our hopes for every person.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Word of Thanks after the Mass of the Day of the Lord's Nativity St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney Thanks to all those who contributed to today’s beautiful celebration of the Lord’s Nativity, especially our deacons. Our Dean Fr Don Richardson, Master of Ceremonies Fr Emmanuel Seo, Precinct Manager Helen Morassut and Sacristan Chris Backhouse, and their teams of celebrants and confessors, acolytes and servers, extraordinary ministers and lectors, ushers, staff and volunteers, ensure that our liturgical and devotional life are worthy and our cathedral always welcoming. Our Director of Music, Thomas Wilson, and our wonderful choir and organists, let us glimpse the glory of God in the highest and the harmonies possible amongst people of good will. Many others assist in the daily life of this great cathedral and I thank them all.

Some of you are regulars here; others less frequent; some visitors from overseas, from other parishes, even from other faith traditions. Please know that you are always welcome in this basilica and the other churches of Sydney. The God whose family tree has room for everyone wants you to be grafted onto his family, especially through acts of worship and then action to make our world a more just and loving place.

On behalf of all of us at St Mary’s Cathedral I wish you and your loved ones every blessing of this holy season of Christmas and of the New Year of Grace 2018.

Saying "Yes" to God

 

For some years, the logo used by the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham had embedded in it the words, "Say Yes to God." It was in every Walsingham Review, and turned up on everything else they published.

As part of our preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Church reflects today on the coming of the angel to Mary and Mary’s “Yes”. Saying “Yes” to God is sometimes very hard. We are apprehensive, fearful, and worried that stepping out in faith and obedience will have disastrous consequences, humanly speaking. Well, the bad news is that sometimes it does!  It can mean sacrifice, pain, misunderstanding, and cruel opposition from those closest to us, as Jesus himself predicted.

Mary uttered her "yes" at a cruel and difficult time in Middle Eastern history. St Luke’s Gospel tells us that Mary was “greatly troubled” at the angel’s greeting. But it also tells us that “the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary . . .’” It is a recurring pattern in the  Scriptures, that when a new epoch of salvation history is about to begin, God reveals himself in a special way, and this revelation is accompanied with an encouragement not to be afraid.

Mary is our hero. As Wordsworth put it, she is “Our sinful nature’s solitary boast.” She became the Mother of Jesus. She is our Sister in Christ. She is the Mother of all her Son’s people. We seek her intercession as we so often struggle in our response to God’s love. 

But, while we recognise Mary's unique role in the story of salvation, we don't see her as being APART from us and our experience of grace. Indeed, her life of saying "yes" to God is the primordial Christian life of discipleship. The Gospel account strongly emphasises that God's work in her life - the fulness of grace she had been given - did not mean that she was free from having to exercise sometimes trembling faith in God’s promises just as we do. She really WAS “greatly troubled.” 

There has been nearly two thousand years of Christian meditation of the way that her “Yes” to God, began the great reversal of all that had gone wrong through the “No” uttered by Eve, the mother of all the living.  From this angle Mary is known as the “second Eve” or the “new Eve”, the mother of all who have been brought to life by the dying and rising of her Son.

May each of us be moved to "Say yes to God" afresh, not just for ourselves, but so as to become - like Mary - channels of his healing love for others.

It is in connection with these thoughts that I share with you the amazing crayon and coloured pencil drawing at the top of this post. Originally drawn to illustrate a Christmas card, it is the work of Trappist Sister Grace Remington of the Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey. In 2005 Abbess Columba Guare of the same community wrote this poem to accompany the drawing. Mary addresses Eve with hope and gladness:

O Eve!
My mother, my daughter, life-giving Eve,
Do not be ashamed, do not grieve.
The former things have passed away,
Our God has brought us to a New Day.
See, I am with Child,
Through whom all will be reconciled.
O Eve! My sister, my friend,
We will rejoice together
Forever
Life without end.

Also capturing the immensity of our Lady's fiat is this passage from today's Office of Readings. It comes from a sermon of St Bernard (1090-1153):

"You have heard, O Virgin, that you will conceive and bear a son; you have heard that it will not be by man but by the Holy Spirit. The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for your word of compassion; the sentence of condemnation weighs heavily upon us.

"The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life.

"Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in their exile from Paradise. Abraham begs it, David begs it. All the other holy patriarchs, your ancestors, ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death. This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. 

"It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

"Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.

"Why do you delay, why are you afraid? Believe, give praise, and receive. Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident. This is no time for virginal simplicity to forget prudence. In this matter alone, O prudent Virgin, do not fear to be presumptuous. Though modest silence is pleasing, dutiful speech is now more necessary. Open your heart to faith, O blessed Virgin, your lips to praise, your womb to the Creator. See, the desired of all nations is at your door, knocking to enter. If he should pass by because of your delay, in sorrow you would begin to seek him afresh, the One whom your soul loves. Arise, hasten, open. Arise in faith, hasten in devotion, open in praise and thanksgiving.

"Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, she says, be it done to me according to your word." 

Ex Homilíis sancti Bernárdi abbátis in Láudibus Vírginis Matris (Hom. 4, 8-9: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 53-54)

Today's gospel: "Who touched me?" (Mark 5:25-34)

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with crowds. They can be terrifying, but they can also be great reservoirs of energy. When we're with a lot of people, the push and shove becomes part of the big day out. 

That’s what it was like when Jesus came to town. 

I remember when I first read this story being struck by the irony of how Jesus looked around at the jostling crowd and asked, “Who touched me?” 

The disciples reacted predictably. But what we see clearly is that a supernatural encounter had taken place in which JESUS KNEW THE TOUCH OF FAITH. 

For me, the lady with the gynecological bleeding problem ranks among the greatest of the Bible’s heroes. 

Not only was she desperately sick. She was poor, having spent all her money on doctors “and was no better but rather grew worse.” Also, she would have been treated by society as “unclean” according to the law and custom of the day. So, she'd have been lonely as well as sick . . . in fact, an outcast. I'm sure there were times when she wished she could die. 

But she heard about Jesus . . . about his love, about how he was going around teaching, preaching and healing. What she heard awakened a spark of faith within her. And by faith she could just manage to see that her life could be different if only she got to Jesus. Surely he would do for her what he had done for so many others. 

She was determined to get to Jesus. But she had to avoid being noticed, because in her condition she could be stoned to death for touching anyone at all. She would have crawled on the ground, in the dirt, through the crowd, because that's where she had to be to reach the hem of his garment. 

And as she got closer she said to herself, “If I touch even the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole." 

Can't you imagine her repeating over and over again as she strained and reached out with every ounce of strength she had left, “If I touch even the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole." 

That affirmation of faith in Jesus was her strategy for battling discouragement. 

The lady in today’s Gospel did well with what she had.

What about us? What about OUR struggle to get to Jesus? Do we repeat affirmations of what Jesus can do, or the promises he has made, under our breath - or even out loud - when we are struggling? All too often we forget to keep on saying to ourselves the things we know to be true that will build up our faith, and before long we are crushed by discouragement.

Holding on to the promises of God n our darkest moments can actually be therapeutic, and help us rise above despair. 

IT HAPPENED! Against all the odds the lady–actually made it to Jesus, touched the hem of his garment, and the bleeding stopped. Her life was changed.

But she got more than she had bargained for. We have already said that Jesus felt a surge of healing power flow from him. In other words, it was REAL! It wasn’t “just symbolic", any more than the sacraments are “just symbolic"! Jesus wanted the lady to face him and acknowledge what had happened to her. No sneaking off anonymously as she probably wanted to do, and as we might well have done! Jesus turned around and said, “Who touched me?” 

She “fell down before him” in “fear and in trembling.” This is an interesting expression. It is used elsewhere of humility before God (cf 1 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 7:15; Ephesians 6:5; Philippians 2:12). It indicates the lady's response of awe and gratitude. Jesus then addressed her affectionately as “daughter”, and told her to go in peace. He said to her, “Your faith has made you whole.” 

That is a really BIG expression in the original language, for it goes well beyond the physical healing of one ailment. It is about the totality of her life.

The important thing for us is to understand that when we gather as a church community, by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the outward and visible signs appointed by Jesus himself, we encounter him in as real a way as the lady in today's Gospel, and we receive his love and healing. So, in Holy Communion, in the sacrament of anointing, in the laying on of hands or when we go to confession we really encounter Jesus. If we believe that, we will be open to ALL the possibilities, including miracles.

In the Sacraments, Jesus is objectively present to share his life with us. We don’t “create” his presence by our faith. But, as with the lady in the Gospel, IT IS BY FAITH THAT WE DRAW ON THE BLESSINGS he has for us.

“If I touch even the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole."

Praise God If everything is going well for you at the moment. But if like that lady you're as low as you can be, and you feel as if you're more or less dragging yourself along the ground through the dirt as she had to do, at least drag yourself in the direction of Jesus! And when you get yourself up to the altar for Holy Communion, draw on the healing power of his presence in a new and deep way by faith, believing his promises, whatever your deepest needs. The Lord loves you more than anyone else ever has, and he wants you to break through to him afresh by responding in your heart to his Word, and by touching the hem of his garment, expecting to be made whole. It might happen right away. It might take place over time. But that encounter with him is life-giving because Jesus is "the same, yesterday, today and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8).

“If I touch even the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole."

The Risen Christ: shalom, peace, salvation, health

Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP is the ninth Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. He practised law before joining the Dominican Order, and is one of the world's leading bioethicists.

'Cheers,' people say as they raise their glasses, 'Your health'.

We are rarely conscious that such a toast is a prayer - for health, healing, safety, happiness- for ourselves and each other. The Risen Christ returns to us on Easter day and, raising a glass full of the new wine of the kingdom, He says: Shalom. 

Not just "Hi". Not just "I'm back!". No: "Shalom, peace, salvation, your health." Then He shows us His wounds.

Peace and wounds - they seem to go together. Peace negotiations only come amidst tensions, perhaps after terrible violence. The Mass represents the greatest wound ever inflicted, inflicted upon God Himself, and the greatest ever peace-talk. So the bishop or priest begins Mass with the Easter greeting, 'Shalom, peace be with you,' and immediately, just like the Risen Lord, shows us his hands.

We say it many times during Mass: peace, the Lord be with you, God's Spirit be with your spirit. We pray for that peace that heals not just the Victim but the perpetrators.

In recent months I have been blessed to experience a growing sense of this healing Easter peace, amidst the brokenness of my illness. Although it can be difficult to remain at peace while we are suffering, it is often in radical woundedness that we most appreciate the healing peace of Christ. "The peace that only Christ can give" is more than resigning ourselves to suffering. It enables us somehow to consent actively to our burdens and to unite our suffering to the suffering of the crucified Christ.

We all need this Easter peace. No one is exempt. Our resistance to God lacerates our own souls as much as Jesus' body. We see the effects of sin in the dysfunction in ourselves and our society, in the brokenness of relationships and of a world that is clearly not as it should be.

Suddenly, out of the darkness of the grave, steps the Word of light. "Shalom", He says, not just "stop quarrelling" but "here, have my sort of peace, a deep, abiding harmony, that heals division, roots out violence, brings fullness of life."

Easter-time-peace is the kind of peace that calls for healing amidst all the woundedness, for a grace-that-heals even after death. The One who has risen from the tomb shows that every break with God, each other, ourselves, however grave, can yet be healed; that nothing can separate us from the love of God; that whatever we've done He will take us back. His open arms are not just displays of hurt and healing but arms wide open with welcome for the returning soul.

Of course this healing peace has come at a cost. The protestant pastor martyred by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonheoffer, spoke of 'cheap grace', the illusion that such welcome healing and healing welcome can come easy. But there is no Easter without Good Friday, no resurrection without the cross, no healing but for the wounded. Unlike the easy words of a toast, Easter shalom costs. It costs Christ His very life.

Yet even after He has paid the ultimate price for our salvation, Christ does not lord this debt over us. Rather, He shows us His wounds and offers us His peace. He does not force us to accept Him, but He offers forgiveness and mercy and asks that we extend that same forgiveness and mercy to others. 

Sometimes we are sceptical about God's offer of mercy. We think we are unworthy; that we are too far gone or are beyond help or we think we are too worthy; that we don't need anyone's help least of all God's. But it is precisely when we are at our lowest, when we feel most helplessness, that we can most appreciate the crucified Christ who, himself hanging helpless on the Cross, continued to thirst for our salvation. Certainly that has been my own experience during the Lent that stretched for me from Christmas to Easter.

In this Year of Mercy, the Church is being re-called to Her important mission: to forgive sins, to preach the Gospel, and to heal a fallen and anxious world. As Easter comes and goes we can think it is all about a private experience of inner peace. It is that, certainly, but not only that. The Great Co-Mission is to join Christ in extending His arms, His wounded and glorified hands, to all. That's the task of every Christian not just the clergy. What we receive through Easter we must pass on to others.

No end of celebrations of ashen and cruciform repentance, of watery and oily rebirth, no end of pastoral planning and years of mercy, will bring real and lasting Shalom unless we accept that great commission.

"Cheers, Happy Easter, your health", Jesus says, "now get going."

The blessings of this holiest of seasons for you and all your loved ones. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Archbishop Anthony Ficher OP continues to recover

from Guillain-Barre syndrome. On 16th March he wrote:

Dear friends,

Thank you all for the thousands of prayers and expressions of concern for me, that have come by email and letters, with gifts and cards, in so many different ways since I got sick at Christmas time.

As you know, I have had a serious sickness, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which left me paralysed from the neck down. I’ve made significant progress but I still have some way to go. This will require continued patience and courage and hope from me, and also from the priests and faithful of Sydney.

Father Stanton preaching on the Poverty of Jesus

Here is a real treat - a transcript of Father Arthur Stanton's sermon on the Poverty of Jesus, preached at the St Alban's Holborn Monday night mission service on 19th December, 1910. Go HERE for some background on the "slum ritualist" Father Stanton, one of the heroes and evangelists of the Catholic Revival in the Church of England. 

“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

 that, though He was rich, 

yet for your sakes He became poor, 

that ye through His poverty might be rich.” 

(2 Corinthians viii. 9)

Now isn’t that a beautiful text? First of all it is so beautiful because of the “For you know.” When you speak to people about something they know, you interest them at once. If I were to speak to you about something of which you know nothing whatever, you would not be in the least interested; but directly I begin to speak to you about something which you know, you are at once all attention. A young man came up from the country out of Gloucestershire to see me the other day, and he interested me, and I interested him, because he told me all about the country I know. We talked about the valleys and the hills, and the beautiful views, and the broad river Severn flowing all down the valley and opening into the Bristol Channel. He was quite interested in me, and I was quite interested in him. We talked about what we knew.

And so, dear brethren, on this last night in Advent I speak to you in the most simple way I can. It is a subject which we all know. There is nothing uncommon about it, or nothing I have to teach you about it. You and I are on the same platform exactly tonight. I only lead your thoughts back to the old story of Jesus and his love, Whom we know. You and I, every one of us, at least I hope we know the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Why did you come this evening, if you didn’t? Here in the midst of your busy Christmas preparations, you have all come this evening, because you love the sweetness of the old story. 

You know the grace of our Lord Christ — It is the woof and the warp of our religious experience. It is the sweet Gospel story, the music of which calls us away because it is the melody of our souls. It is the joy of our hearts. We say we are saved by grace. If you have got a dear human sympathetic heart, it is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in you. A young man came to me yesterday, he put a sovereign into my hand, and he said: “Give it to some poor chap that wants help.” It was the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Of course that is why men say: “Hail Mary, of grace.”  What is Mary’s grace?“ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we honour Mary “full of grace,” we honour Christ. When we praise the grace of any Saint, we praise Christ. There is no grace beyond the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have gracious feelings in your heart and you love to do some good to someone, to say some kind word, why, it is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ — of course it is. Haven’t you ever noticed that the doxology we say at the end of our service is put into rather peculiar order? When you talk about grace you put the Saviour first. You notice that, don’t you? It is “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.” And the reason is this: It is the grace of our Lord Jesus that comes to us first. It is the way the Trinity touches us, because you can see this: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is the love of God, and the love of God is the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. There you are. Then doesn’t the text open beautifully?

"To know Him not as Angels do above.

They know and sing the wonders of His Love 

To fallen, ruined, guilty, sinful man,

But I would know as Angels never can.

"To know Him in His depth of Love to me,

The poorest, weakest, vilest though I be,

His lost one whom He came to seek and save.

His loved one for whose life Himself He gave.

"To know Him as the All in All to me.

All mine for time, All for Eternity,

And in each gift, of Providence and Grace 

Himself in all His loveliness to trace."

Do you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? I hope you do, for if you know it, you have the gospel in your heart. You come into business with it as an asset — your knowledge can be appealed to.

Then “He was rich.” There is no doubt about that: “He was rich,” very God of very God, Lord of all. When we say rich, we only use the accommodation of terms. We speak of rich and poor. All things were His from the very beginning. The sea is His, He made it. All the treasures of the ocean are His. He made the earth. All the mysteries of creation; all the things which surround us on earth are His. All that is made and was made, and that ever shall be or is, is His. He possesses all things, Lord of all, from the beginning. Lo, He was rich, and when we use that term we say one word explains it all: “God.”  “God.”  “God of Gods.” “Light of Lights,” My God. O God, thou art my God. Behold! He was rich . . .

“He held the highest place above.

Adored by sons of flame.

Yet such His self-denying love,

He laid aside His Crown, and came 

To seek the lost, at any cost 

Of Heavenly rank, and earthly fame,

He sought me - Blessed be His Name.

“It was a lonely path He trod,

From every human soul apart,

Known only to Himself and God 

Was the deep grief that filled His heart;

Yet from the track He turned not back 

Till, where I lay in sin and shame 

He found me - Blessed be His Name.”

Oh! He was rich. And God shall be the humblest of all, because He came from the highest place. No one feels poverty so keenly as they who have been rich, and Jesus had all at His command. “Yet He became poor,” and the whole history of the Master is one of poverty - just as we read - (that is why I read it to you) - He was born in a stable. The people said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” Then when He went on His ministry, “He had not where to lay His head.” And then they scourged Him, maltreated Him, stripped Him quite naked of everything. He died naked on the Cross, stripped of everything. And then they laid Him in a charity grave. “Who for our sakes became poor.” 

Our dear Master – you can never get away from that - our dear Master was poor. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.” (Philippians ii.5-8) 

“Come, give me rest, and take  

The only rest on earth 

Thou livest within, 

A heart that for Thy sake 

is broken, bleeding, penitent for sin.

“Birds have their quiet nests, 

Foxes their holes, 

and man his peaceful bed. 

All creatures have their rest.

But Jesus hath not where to lay His Head.”

And now I want to lead your thoughts for one moment to “for our sakes,” because there is a sweetness in that “for our sakes.” Why ever did He Who lived in the Deity in Trinity ever wish to create us at all? Why has God made man? It is such an extraordinary thing! The question is why did He do it? Why ever did the Great God Who as the Blessed Trinity made the world, why did He come down and be born in a stable? Why did He do it? And the secret lies in the essence of Deity; because God is revealed to us in His essence as Love. It is not an attribute; it is His essence. God is love, and love always goes out of itself; so leaving His essential glory, He willed to take upon Himself our humanity - Love going out of itself. And mark what love does always: it makes the choice, chooses, and He chose us. 

St Augustine says: “God made man for Himself.” Well, He was perfect, why did he want them for Himself? Because of the overflowing of His Sacred Heart. And having chosen us, as love always will, He devoted Himself to us, for devotion is the second course in love, us you all know from the holy love in your hearts. It is devotion. If love your friend, you will be the devoted friend. 

And then the third attribute of love is this: Union which is the crown - So the Master says: “I go to prepare a place for you . . . that where I am, there ye may be also” (John xiv. 23). He wants us to be in heaven.

“Who for our sakes.” Don’t forget, “for our sakes.” And I tell you straight: if you want a sweet little motto to stir you to a good Christian act, here it is - three words - ”For Christ’s sake.” If you have a picture in your room of the dear Master dying, perhaps you have put underneath: “For my sake” Well, write in your heart this : “For Christ’s sake.” And do all the good you do “for Christ’s sake,” and abstain from doing what is wrong “for Christ’s sake . . . Who though He was rich, for our sakes became poor.” 

And then the last - for I have no time: the last is “that we through His poverty might be rich” - rich not with paltry pelf, but with grace. What do you think are the two best gifts given to mortal man? “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ ” - “ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost”; and immortality too, for to mortal man, to dying man, there is no gift like immortality - and He it is who brought grace and immortality too. By His glorious Gospel we preach immortality. “Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John xi, 26) That is our Gospel. We are sons of God and heirs of immortality.

We are strangers and pilgrims here on earth, but we look for a better country, a heavenly, and God is not ashamed to be called our God, and has prepared for us a city (see Hebrews xi, 16). My brethren, don’t let the sordid worldliness by which we are surrounded keep you down. We are all of the earth earthy, and lose sight of the Lord of heaven.

And last of all, dear brethren, might I say this to you? If you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ Who was rich and for your sake became poor, don’t any of you enjoy your comforts at Christmas unless you have thought of the poor. Don’t sit in your warm room over the fire, smoking your pipe, or reading your paper, and care nothing for the poor who have got no home. Don’t, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who though He was rich, for your sakes He became poor that you through His poverty might be made rich; and may the sweet Gospel text ring in your hearts again and again.

(From Father Stanton's Last Sermons in S. Alban's, Holborn, Ed E.F. Russell, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1916)