 Every day I give thanks to God for the blessing of serving as priest in our community. Every day, I am given many chances to be grateful again when I witness the wonderful works that are being done by so many, inside and outside of the Parish.
This weekend, your leadership team will be clearly visible and available. They are an amazing team. Working with them over the last six months has been very satisfying. I have been moved to tears at times by the depth of their understanding and their love for the Lord and for His church. I have been humbled by the amount of time they have given to bring a whole range of life giving opportunities to birth in the parish. This team is growing all the time as we ask the Lord to enrich our understanding of the real situation we are living in and respond to it with love. The vision I am asking everyone to ponder and to embrace, 'To be with Christ and to be sent by Him to relieve the suffering of the world', is not hard to grasp or understand. That each one of us chooses, really chooses, every day, to draw closer to Jesus and to ask Him to send us to relieve the suffering of our sisters and brothers. Here too we must include all sentient beings and Mother Earth herself who call to us for help. This vision has not been plucked out of thin air. It comes straight from the mouth of God. Jesus makes the first move. His horizon touches ours. We are elevated and begin to see everything with new eyes. This transformation doesn't happen automatically. It needs us to welcome the gift and to try to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and what He is teaching. If you like, we have to choose to abide in Him as he chooses to abide in us. Jesus points to a wonderful possibility but it will only become real if we work with Him to make it real. There is an old saying that goes, "Make all your cares into a single care and God will see to all your cares". In the fifth Sunday in Eastertide, Saint John's Gospel lays before us the image of the vine, the vineyard and the vinedresser! Just as the vine connects the plant to the nourishing earth, Jesus is the connection between God and Creation. He asks us to be more aware of this connection in our daily lives. He is the true vine because He never forgets or loses this flow of life from the Father. His horizon now and is Eternal, His gaze on us and on the face of God. Just as the vine grows, so He calls us to grow. Being a disciple is not static and it is not a status. It is a process, a journey. We have to want this horizon and we have to work hard with what we have been given. The vinedresser knows the laws of spiritual and biological growth. He cuts away the dead and dying branches because He can see there is no effort to grow. But where people are trying to grow, His pruning shears are life giving. The possibility of more and better fruit is what guides the hand of the vinedresser. Anything that blocks the flow of life between us and Jesus will be cut away. He sets us free from competing agendas so that we can focus on the one thing necessary. The contrasting images of "branches bearing much fruit" and "withered and burned branches" set out the options. The word of Jesus will, if we let it, create in us a single wish. The wish to be close to His Abba. The wish to mediate the flow of Love, which flows into us, out and into the world. He calls us to look up. To see more than we had ever seen. The new horizon grows and becomes even more attractive. Can fruit be far behind?
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 The Beloved Son of God, loves without regret, loves without end, loves to breaking point. His life is 'given' into the life of His friends. He loves unconditionally and has the safety of His friends always in His Sacred Heart. His love does not recede or vanish when trouble arrives. The Shepherd dies. The sheep live. This is what makes Him the Good Shepherd.
His disciples know well what it is like to be carried by hired hands; who really have no care for their sheep and abandon them when trouble arrives. They are only interested and concerned with themselves and are motivated by rewards. The appearance of the wolf is like a bright light which shows them in their true colours. The sheep die. The shepherd escapes. The Good Shepherd has seen that when He is "lifted up" He "will draw" other sheep to Himself. What is so attractive about Him? Is it not that He reveals the kind of loving that transforms death into life. The power of this truth will be a magnet that will create one community from the vast diversity of people on the earth. This is how His Fathers' life works in and through His Beloved Son. Jesus freely enters the realm of death. On the surface, it might look as if His life is in the hands of His enemies. But at a deeper level, the act of, "laying it down" and "taking it up again" has always been His choice, His work. Two lovers gaze into each other's eyes on their wedding day and say without any reserve in their hearts that their love will be true, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. A mother and father hold their new-born baby in their arms for the first time, and from some vastness of Love within themselves say, "I would lay down my life for you." A friend sits at the bedside of a friend who is dying and says, "I'm not going away". Life presents us with many moments, large and small, where we commit ourselves without reserve to another person’s life. But these are not moments that we choose. They are simply something we are. We do not boast of this love since it does not appear to be something of our own making. We can only humbly accept it for what it is. We can only accept to be unconditional love. We might say, this love chooses us. It seems that Jesus had many ways to try and give us an insight into who He is. Perhaps this week you could look at some of these themes which always begin with the words "I Am"...... the Bread of Life, the Light of the World and so on. But perhaps there is no image as clear as the one offered in this week’s Sunday Gospel. He is most Himself when He is laying down His life for His sheep. His "I Am." is carried on the same breath as a "May you be." And so, it is with us. Perhaps the glimpses we catch of our true self are rare. But we do see them, and they are real. The joy this brings makes us attractive. It is the magnet Jesus said it would be. If you are drawn to this revelation, you might be interested to know that the Greek word for good, 'kalos', can also be translated as Beautiful |
Father Danny
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CATHOLIC PARISH OF ST JOSEPH & ST MARGARET CLITHEROW
St Joseph’s Church. 39 Braccan Walk, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1BE (Directions)
Tel: 01344 425729
Email: stjb@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk
South Berkshire Pastoral Area
The parish is part of the Diocese of Portsmouth.
Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust registered charity 246871
St Joseph’s Church. 39 Braccan Walk, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1BE (Directions)
Tel: 01344 425729
Email: stjb@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk
South Berkshire Pastoral Area
The parish is part of the Diocese of Portsmouth.
Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust registered charity 246871