Following two years of preparation, which have focused on Vatican II and Prayer we are now invited to embark on a Jubilee Year as Pilgrims of Hope.
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On 12th December Fr Dominic lead the annual Carol Service the Glastonbury Care Home.
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Today is the 3rd Sunday of Advent and is known as Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday. (Similar to Laetare Sunday which marks the half way through lent). Now it’s time to be a little bit honest. We as human beings aren’t always incredibly joyful! In fact there are even times when we can be utterly miserable!
It’s difficult for us as humans, to always be happy. After all we are walking paradoxes. Half physical half spiritual. All wrapped up in the psychological. Living most of our lives in a weird kind of existential battle often of our own making.
Projecting accusations onto others that it turns out only we ourselves are actually suffering from. Still upset over something our parents told us 50 years ago…And so many factors can affect our mood: stress, light levels, illness, diet, arguments, perceived slights from others and expensive dentist bills And the list goes on…
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So we’ve had storm Darragh. Which seemed to go on for exactly 12 hours 3am to 3pm. Very ominous.
Somebody said that it was God’s response to the assisted suicide bill. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Now what on earth is going on in the Gospel reading today? A list of weird names that at first glance are totally meaningless to us. Just sound very complicated. Tongue twisters. Trachonitis even sounds like a throat condition.
So what’s it all about?
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We hear a lot about artificial intelligence. Chat GBT as you know is an online programme. It uses vast amounts of data and processing to give human like and accurate answers to practically any question within seconds. It’s virtually indistinguishable from human responses that would take hours or even days to do the same thing.
You can use it to ask existential questions like does God exist and is there life on other planets. Students use it for essays and this sort of thing. Recently somebody asked it by using all its data to say which religion is the most authentic in terms of all its teaching and historical evidence and within seconds it responded “Christianity”.
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Bishop Bosco MacDonald’s Pastoral Letter to the Diocese
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Here are details details of four online series the the Diocese are offering in partnership with ‘Light of Truth’ over the next few months. Parishioners are welcome to sign up for any of these.
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Today Jesus is speaking about two things: the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that will happen within one generation after his death. But also he links this to the end of the world. Why does he do that?
Well to the Jews the temple represented a mini universe. A microcosm. The Temple building represented the earth, the bronze floor represented the ocean and the huge curtains were painted with stars and represented the sky. So when the disciples ask him about what will happen to the temple he then relates its impending destruction to the end of the world.
If the Jewish authorities had accepted Jesus and believed in who he was would their temple still have been destroyed? We don’t know. But it was the Romans who completely obliterated it along with over a million Jews and Jesus warned them that this was going to happen.
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It is said that whatever you need in this life – give it away first and you will receive it back even more generously.
Jesus teaches today that real giving must come from the heart. A gift that is given with a grudge or simply for effect loses its value. But a gift given out of love, with a spirit of generosity and sacrifice, is precious.
In the Gospel today Jesus contrasts the high status of the scribes with the humility of the widow. We actually have two widows in the readings today – one in the first reading whom the prophet Elijah encounters and one in the temple who Jesus watches as she makes a donation.
They were very poor and vulnerable – they had no inheritance when their husbands died they depended completely on others.
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There were hundreds of commandments in Jewish law. These were the source of constant discussion: what is allowed and what is not allowed, which of all these laws was the greatest, the most important, the most binding.
A scribe (a modern day professor in law) in today's gospel wants to get Jesus into this sort of a discussion so he asks Jesus, "Which is the greatest of the law's commandments?"
Rabbi Hillel was a contemporary of Jesus. He was well respected and Jesus probably knew him well also. His answer to this question was “Do not do unto others that which you would hate done unto you.”
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Today we have this beautiful passage about Bartimaeus who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah without even seeing him.
Most people need to see first in order to believe. However Bartimaeus believes first which then allows his sight to return.
When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by he had to make a choice. He could just sit there and let Jesus pass him by or he could grab the moment and ask to be healed.
It would have been a lot easier for Jesus to go to Bartimaeus but Jesus requested him to come. In order for Bartimaeus to come and meet Jesus he had to literally take a blind leap of faith.
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Did James and John really know what they were asking for? How do we pray to God if we really want something?
If we want true peace in our hearts then we need to say something along the lines of:
Lord give me what I need to come closer to you in this world – not just what I want.
Lord you know I really want this but your will be done
We get the idea that this world isn’t just about us but it’s actually about God and we are just small players in his great plan of salvation.
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Today we have the parable of the rich young man. And as always there is a lot packed in to this little Gospel of Mark.
The man approaches Jesus and kneels before him. Why would you kneel before Jesus? If you were to ever meet Jesus would you kneel before him? You might not be able to but I am sure you would make some kind of form of reverence.. Of course you would – because he is God. And by the way we do actually meet him every Sunday at Mass…
So he says to Jesus what must I do to inherit eternal life? It’s a good question. How does Jesus answer? Does he say that you just need to accept me as your personal Lord and you will be saved? No – as always he answers the question with another question. “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
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Everyone here has probably been affected by divorce in one way or another. It’s not an easy topic to tackle.
The Pharisees corner Jesus with this question. They are trying to trap him by getting him to contradict the Torah in which Moses allowed a writ of dismissal to be made. But this was mainly to protect the women so that they could legally move on in society. It had reached a point where Jewish men were using utterly frivolous reasons to divorce their wives.
So Jesus as always answers their question with a question and deals with the issue of divorce by taking his hearers back to the source and beginning of creation and God's original plan for the human race.
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Today we hear about Moses and the Israelites in the desert. The people are complaining about everything. They wished they were back in Egypt where they had proper food to eat.
The pressure is too much for Moses so he asks God if he can appoint 70 elders to help share some of the responsibility. So there is a kind of ordination of the people he chooses to help with this.
We hear that two of the elders missed the ceremony (or were late arriving) this often happens amongst clergy! Yet however God’s grace still alights upon them and they receive the gift of prophecy.
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