Jesus and hospitality: God’s footprints

The half door on the old Irish houses had many functions. It kept the animals out while allowing the family to look out. It also made for openness and hospitality for all who passed by. The traveller was welcomed and the one walking by could rest for a while. We were open to the world and the world to us, and we felt safe.

Hospitality was important in Jesus’ time. He made many a visit to the house of Martha and Mary, staying there when he wanted to go to Jerusalem. They enjoyed having him – Mary just sat there listening to him – the stranger, now a friend, who told stories of how life could best be lived. I can imagine him telling the parables in their house.

The people then had a belief in the travelling and pilgrim God, the one who came our way often. The first reading is about strangers being entertained and the people didn’t know that the Lord was visiting them. When we open our heart and home to the stranger and to the neighbour we are receiving God into our lives.

The Indian poet Tagore writes – ‘and when you left I saw God’s footprints on the floor.’

Our fear of break-ins and of robbery today is destroying an easy accessibility in our neighbourhoods. Casual hospitality is more difficult than in the days of the half-door. Maybe Facebook and Twitter and other social media fulfil some of this function, impersonal though it may be. We cannot live in isolation. ‘Self knows that self is not enough‘ writes the poet, Brendan Kennelly.

For friendship and love, especially
when I find it in unexpected places and people,
I thank you, Lord.

Donal Neary S.J.

The teller of the story

Is this the best story ever written! Because we know it so well, we may gloss over it. It challenges us on many levels – the inclusiveness of everyone as our neighbour; the way we can pass by human needs, and how the most rejected people can respond positively. It is a story of how many of us miss tragedy under our noses, and how many suffer because of the cruelty of others. It’s mainly a story to ask us to respond as positively as we can to all human need.

It also points to the person who told the story. Jesus could tell this story because he was the good Samaritan himself. His heart went out to those who were suffering most at the hands of others. He could tell it also because he knew what it was like to be an outcast – rejected by his own people, and in danger all the time of being victimised even to death like the man at the side of the road.

He brings it farther also – saying that the commandment of God is seen in the way the Good Samaritan responded. The second great commandment is to love the neighbour, and the neighbour is the one of any colour, nationality, age or family who may be in need.

We can ask who are the ones thrown to the side of the road today?
–The former prisoner,
–The asylum seeker and refugee,
–The forgotten young person, the addict, among others.
All can be helped to their feet and to carry on in life through the help and care of another.
The final words to take from the gospel today are simple yet difficult – ‘Go and do the same yourself.‘

Lord, help me to go and do the same myself.

Donal Neary S.J.

Hand over to God

In the smallest of the details of our love, and the biggest, God is near. God is near with love and also with care. We might think of it as a powerful care – power not for himself but for us.

God’s Power enables us to do what we can’t do ourselves, like people in AA who hand their lives over to the higher power each day. Sometimes we find when we are at our lowest God is at his strongest in our lives. Augustine wrote that ‘when we love ourselves least, God loves us most.’

Where do we find him, or rather where does God find us? God is present in all things – we don’t have to go to Church or read the bible to find God, as God is present to us in many ways.
God is in all of creation – love and friendship, a sunset or sunrise. His hand is in our food and drink, our work, study, reflection and insights. He is ever present in our efforts to live well, to stay clean of drugs, alcohol or crime. God is in the midst of real life and in the centre of the soul is a space where nobody can enter without our welcome and invitation, and where God dwells.

When we see Jesus in action we know the kingdom is very near.

At Christmas we welcomed the kingdom, in the love for the poor, in the miracle of human birth.

At Easter we welcomed the kingdom as the place of eternity, of victory over death and pain, of justice over injustice. All the time welcoming the kingdom whose real power is love and whose hope still today is the coming of justice and peace.

Lord, may your kingdom come, and your will be done on Earth.

Donal Neary S.J.

Sts Peter and Paul 

Peter and Paul were two very different people who on at least one important issue in the early church were seriously at odds with one another. Peter wanted pagans who entered the church to submit to the Jewish Law, whereas Paul insisted that this was an unnecessary imposition on them.

Peter Vs Paul
Peter was a fisherman from Galilee, a predominately rural area.
Paul was from the university city of Tarsus, in the south of modern day Turkey.
Peter was an Aramaic speaking Jew;
Paul was a Greek speaking Jew.
Peter probably just had the very basic education of his time and place;
Paul was clearly a very well educated and literate person.
Peter, of course, knew Jesus personally and was with him throughout his public ministry.
Paul only ever encountered the risen Lord.
Peter’s mission was primarily to preach the gospel to the Jews.
Paul’s mission was to preach the gospel primarily to pagans.

According to Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, he met Peter for the first time in the city of Jerusalem, some three years after the risen Lord appeared to Paul,
‘after three years, I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days’. No doubt, on that occasion, Peter had an opportunity to share with Paul his own experiences of Jesus during his public ministry. In spite of their many differences, they were both equally dedicated to serving the Lord.

In the first reading for today, Peter was imprisoned for his work of preaching the gospel.
In the second reading Paul speaks as one who is already ‘being poured away as a libation’, a drink offering in the Temple. They were each put to death because of their faith in Christ during the persecution of the church in Rome ordered by Nero, who it is said, blamed the Christians of Rome for the great fire in the city.

The Lord worked very differently but very powerfully through each of them. The Lord wishes to work through each of us and will do so in a way that is unique to each of us. The Lord needs diversity, not uniformity. Yet, he needs us to work in harmony, like the different parts of one body. Sometimes our diversity can cause tension, as sometimes happened between Peter and Paul, but such tension can be healthy and can ultimately serve the Lord’s purposes. Our tensions can be resolved if, like Peter and Paul, we keep our eyes fixed on the risen Lord whose servants we are.

Fr Martin Hogan

Sacrifice and gift

Many people have memories of the Corpus Christi procession when the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament was brought around the parish.  All groups in the parish were represented. Children scattered petals before the host and houses were decorated. The meaning of the feast was to bring the Lord into the streets of his people and to appreciate the gift he gives us of himself in the Eucharist. This procession still takes part in many places.

On Holy Thursday we also celebrate the Eucharist, but in another way. It is more of the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary. We unite ourselves with his offering that brought him to death, and look forward to the resurrection when the risen Lord would be present in many ways among people, including in the form and shape of bread and wine. On the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, the emphasis is more on gift than on sacrifice.

This is what he wishes to leave us as a gift forever. It is the way he could give himself forever in a very close way, so that this is his gift of ‘food for the journey’.    

We need this gift. We need to know certainly that God is close with us in life, and the Eucharist at Mass gives us this certainty. We need to know that God is really present in our lives, and we know this in the real presence of the Eucharist.

Lord in this Eucharist today, I welcome you into my life; help me to live like you and love like you. Amen

Donal Neary SJ