Jesus always new

The lamp is the light of love and hope, and at its centre is the light of Christ. The light is given to us in many ways in our lives – it shines within as an eternal joy, and outwards to many others. Jesus often advises, ‘keep your lamps burning’ and ‘Let you lights shine’.

Like when the bulb goes out when the electricity fails, the lamp can go out without oil. The people of the gospel felt foolish that they had not brought oil with them to light their way. The oil is prayer and our relationship with Jesus. This is the essence of the Christian life. Our Christian life is following a real, loving person: it is an invitation to get to know Jesus, and to find ourselves drawn from our hearts to follow him. Without this living relationship with Christ, words sound empty. We sometimes hear someone speaking of their Christian faith and cannot help wondering if it comes from the inside or is just a list of things to be believed and read.

Ignatius of Loyola’s famous prayer is the prayer of the follower of Jesus; ‘Lord, teach me to know you more, love you more and serve you more faithfully in my life.’ (Spiritual Exercises). The more indicates that this is never a finished product: like love and friendship it grows in our lives. It is exciting that Jesus is never gone from us.: risen from the dead he is always alive, always new. Our reading of the gospel, our sharing at Mass and the sacraments and our personal prayer keep this relationship always alive, always new.

Thinking of a bright lamp, or imagining one,
ask for an ever-brightening light of Christ in your life.
Lord, teach me to know, love and serve you more faithfully every day.

Donal Neary SJ

Today, November 1st, the feast of All Saints is a distinctive day in our Catholic list of feast days. The Church has a very precise process, called canonisation through which it feels confident to say that somebody has lived a life in tune with the will of God and has now reached the kingdom of heaven.

However the Church knows too that we can’t limit the number of people who have reached eternal happiness in continuation of their holy Christian lives. They are people known to us – family, friends, colleagues and people like ourselves who have helped the thirsty, the hungry, those without clothes and shelter. The love of neighbour that, after our death leads to God’s right hand. These were the gestures that carried weight with Jesus.

The Book of Revelations

“After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”” (Rev. 7:9-10)

The feast of All Saints is a day of great hope and inspiration for us. As the Epistle to the Hebrews states “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let  us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us.” (Heb. 12:1)

Mass attendance
A holy elderly priest was once asked  “how many people attended the early morning Mass today”?
He responded “There were three old ladies, the janitor,
several thousand archangels,
a large number of seraphim,
and several million of the triumphant saints of God”.
But we always have room for one more!
We should always keep in mind the great cloud of witnesses that surround us at every Mass.

So on this feast we remember the many good people gone before us whom we’ve met in life and without embarrassment pray to them to help us on our journey. May we join them one day in the communion of saints.

All Saints’ Day is also also known as All Hallows, Day of All the Saints, Solemnity of All Saints, or Feast of All Saints. It is a solemnity celebrated  by the Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations in honour of all the saints, known and unknown. In Catholic theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.

*The ultimate object of the veneration of the saints is the glory of God by celebrating the the lives of those who were pre-eminent disciples of the Lord we celebrate God’s influence in our lives.

In the Western Church: In the early days the Christians were accustomed to solemnize the anniversary of a martyr’s death for Christ at the place of martyrdom. In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses began to interchange feasts, to transfer relics, to divide them, and to join in a common feast; as is shown by the invitation of St. Basil of Caesarea (397) to the bishops of the province of Pontus. In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407). At first only martyrs and St. John the Baptist were honored by a special day. As early as 411 there is in the Chaldean Calendar a “Commemoratio Confessorum” for the Friday after Easter.

On 13 May 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, ordering an anniversary; the feast of the ‘dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres’ has been celebrated at Rome ever since. There is evidence that from the fifth through the seventh centuries there existed in certain places and at sporadic intervals a feast date on 13 May to celebrate the holy martyrs.

A November festival of all the saints was already widely celebrated on 1 November in the days of Charlemagne. It was made a day of obligation throughout the Frankish empire in 835, by a decree of Louis the Pious, issued “at the instance of Pope Gregory IV and with the assent of all the bishops”, which confirmed its celebration on 1 November. The octave was added by Pope Sixtus IV

The feast of All Saints achieved great prominence in the ninth century, in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor, Leo VI “the Wise” (886–911). His wife, Empress Theophano – commemorated on 16 December – lived a devout life. After her death in 893, her husband built a church, intending to dedicate it to her. When he was forbidden to do so, he decided to dedicate it to “All Saints”, so that if his wife were in fact one of the righteous, she would also be honored whenever the feast was celebrated. According to tradition, it was Pope Leo who expanded the feast from a commemoration of All Martyrs to a general commemoration of All Saints, whether martyrs or not….

The Energy of True Religion

‘To love God and love your neighbour – this is one of the most attractive of the sayings of Jesus. It is an encouragement to live fully with what brings the greatest joy in life – true love of God and the neighbour. It is at the heart of good religion, and what attracts many to Jesus.

Bad religion puts law above love. Bad religion fights for the partial truth of religion. We risk being victims of bad religion, just as we can be victims of bad nationalism, bad psychology or any other bad way of living. Jesus’ life was to propose good reli­gion and to live by it. The religion of some of the Pharisees was bad, in that it was incomplete in its scope.

 We admire those who give energy in love and service. We are proud of people we know whose lives make a great and good difference to others. We know that our family and neighbour­hood, parish and school, workplace and leisure time have been enriched by the self-sacrificing love of many people, young and old.

‘He gave it his all’ – we say that of a good player at the end of a match. We say of parents that they “were always there for the children. May we give all we have in our lives, giving in love, knowing that all we give is itself a gift from God, the giver of all good gifts.

Picture Jesus with a sick person; watch him touching the person.
This would he against the law! What would you say to him?
Lord, let love be the guiding principle of all I say and think.

Donal Neary SJ

 A place for everything!

My mother used always say – put things where they belong. Newspapers, food, the bicycle not in the hall, and other such homely advice. Jesus says the same here – give what belongs to where it belongs and to whom.

So Jesus is being asked about taxes and politics. He knows he is being trapped about money. He moves on to higher questions. Something about the answer of Jesus asks us — where do we belong?

Belonging can sound heavy – as if we are being controlled, or our money belongs to us and we can do what we like with it. But for Jesus it’s the belonging of love, not of power and control.

Much is not in our control. We are born and die at God’s time. This reminds us that we are not the masters of our lives, we come from God and go to God. This belonging is the centre of our human family and community. God doesn’t want to control us but to love us.

But there’s an addition: belonging to God means belonging to each other. We have rights and duties of love.

To give to oth­ers what belongs to others; give to the poor what belongs to the poor. Everyone has a right to the food of the earth and the food of the mind, and shelter for the body.

It’s not charity when peo­ple are given food, education, a home, freedom of religion, free­dom of speech – it is justice. To give to God what belongs to God is to share the goods of the earth!

Think of a time when you made a decision for the common good –
money given away, cleaning the neighbourhood,
joining a parents’ group etc. Remember and be grateful
Lord, may your will that we share well the goods of the world be done.

Donal Neary SJ