Wheat or Weeds?

I'm trying the 'no-dig' method in the garden right now. The theory is simple: don't keep disturbing the soil. Feed it from above, let the worms and microbial life do their work, and resulting healthy soil will produce vigorous plants. It remains to be seen whether it’s a sufficiently Biblical method, but today's Gospel reminds us that Our Lord was certainly interested in the conditions of the soil. First we meet the path - here the soil has been trampled by human or animal traffic. I don’t think we’re talking Connecticut Bluestone here. Instead, the crumbly earth has been compacted so that there’s no room for the seed to germinate, and the soil has no capacity for light, air, or moisture. It resists new life by its unyielding texture, leaving the seeds vulnerable to being picked off by the birds. Secondly we meet the rocky ground - here there is open soil, and capacity for some light and air, but there are two major problems: first, the rocks, do not permit space for growth in exactly the same way as the compacted path; but secondly their presence means the soil has reduced capacity for water, meaning a seed that germinates quickly withers, because it cannot be sustained. Thirdly the thorny ground. Let’s look at this more deeply. Thorns are not a different kind of thing from the plant that the seed will produce. Thorns are plants too, and they come from seeds, just like all vegetal life. But they jostle for space and resources with the seed the Sower wishes to have grow in the soil, and because of their inherent qualities of vigor and hardiness, they choke the delicate seed and cause it to fail. In Greenwich the thorns are rarely obvious sins. More often they are perfectly respectable things: careers, investments, children's schedules, college admissions, athletics, houses, vacations. None of these is evil. Indeed, many are good. But if they occupy the best soil of the heart, they become thorns. Finally, the rich soil. The jury’s out on whether this is a ‘no dig’ lasagna sheet of cardboard and compost - but what we do know is that this has optimal conditions for the seed once sown to germinate; there are no inherent obstacles in the structure of the soil, like the path or the rocky ground, and there are no competing plants as with the thorns. But note two things that are very important: First of all, from the previous examples we can be sure that the seed of the Word takes longer to germinate and grow than the seeds of worldly anxiety or lure of riches. How often this is the case with prize seeds - gardeners know very well things of little value grow quickly and easily, but things of great value take time to establish themselves, and put down strong roots before top growth. Secondly, note the the aim of this growth is to produce fruit. Stems, leaves and flowers are secondary to the aim of the sower, which is to reap a harvest. Therefore, the Word sown in us is supposed to bear fruit, and as we know, fruit contains seed that is of the same species as the plant which bore it. So, Our Lord tells us about seed and soil, but every gardener knows there are other necessary conditions for growth. We know from biology that even a good seed sown in soil will not grow without adequate moisture, air, and light. Whilst they are not part of the Parable itself, what might these represent? Well, I think the moisture is straightforward. Water is grace, which appropriately enough for our image comes from the heavens and is poured out on the earth without exception: the path, the rocky soil, the thorns and the rich ground all receive this outpouring of God’s goodness. The difference between the soils is their capacity to receive it - what makes a path hard is its resistance to moisture, what makes a soil rocky is its lack of capacity to retain it, what makes the thorns thrive is their ability to divert God’s goodness for their own ends, whereas what allows us to describe soil as ‘rich’ is in direct proportion to its ability to manage the reception of moisture. So too with grace. Over time the soil of our hearts can become compacted and resistant to God’s grace, so that it flows over and around us, without penetrating the soul, or perhaps part of our soul is rocky soil, with boulders of resistance and dusty silt that has no capacity to retain grace. The seed of the Word is perfectly sufficient in itself, but the Sower is not content just to produce seeds, he wants fruit. Air represents something intrinsic to the structure of the soil that permits receptiveness to grace; something within us, and shared naturally by all of us, if our soil is in good condition, but also something that can be damaged, as in the examples of the path or the stony ground. I think a good candidate for this must be reason. To respond to grace requires us to think, logically, rather than simply dart about, reacting to our emotions. When the Sower sows the seed of the Word in our heart, if we act irrationally, it would have no space to put out its roots and tendrils into our nature. Finally, what about the light? Anyone who has started their dahlias in the basement will know a seed can germinate in the darkness, but quickly degenerates without light. What could the light be? Well, think of the structure of any plant. They are, if you like, natural solar panels, oriented to the light. They produce energy from the light itself, and the leaves are designed to receive it and the plants flourish because of it. For the soul, the light must be God’s glory: his very presence is magnificent, and the seed of the Word exists to reflect his glory. In all eternity we need not lamplight, nor sunlight, because God himself shines on us. If we allow the seed of the Word to grow in our soul, we become a fruitful plant, whose very existence tells of the glory of God.  I've no idea whether the 'no-dig' gardeners are right. I’ll let you know another time. But I do know this: the Sower is still sowing. The question today is whether our hearts are becoming the kind of soil that will bear fruit. And perhaps that's the question each of us should take away today: what, in my own life, is the fruit the Sower has been trying to grow?

I first set foot on American soil in 1997. I was a teenager, visiting family friends in an affluent town outside of Boston. It was around this time of year, because I remember the incredible 4th of July Fireworks that seemed to go on for ever, but an abiding memory was an enormous American Flag hanging from a colossal arch by the waterfront in the city. It turns out Old Glory was everywhere - from bunting in the suburbs to sentinels on the hilltops. America was confident, inquisitive, and positive. I’m glad I witnessed this America, because when I next visited the dust still clung to the nostrils in lower Manhattan. It was just a few months after 911, and New Yorkers were trying to rebuild lives that had been torn apart. Even here in Connecticut, the parking lots of the Metro North bore witness to the biggest challenge to our Union since Pearl Harbor. Everyone was affected. This America was different: still confident, but wounded, and more cynical than it was before. In the quarter-century following, the world has changed yet again - and we are on the cusp of a new Technological Revolution that will inevitably alter how we live, work, and play. Change is never something we can insulate ourselves from - it happens, whether we like it, or not. But what we can reflect upon this weekend is whether we have as the Psalms say a ‘goodly heritage’ allotted to us. I believe we have. And this semiquincentennial anniversary is a time to look both backwards to history, and forward to the future. As the Lord himself teaches us - an inheritance is morally charged. Think of the Parable of the Talents, or even the Parable of the Unjust Steward. Doing nothing with our inheritance is, in fact, to squander it: the moral equivalent of cash in a checking account, or even worse - under the bed. Our country has become what it is today because the foundations, though imperfect - nothing made by human hands could ever claim perfection - are nonetheless sufficiently strong to admit the creative influx of successive waves of people who have moved here to seek a better life. Because new generations continue to arrive and contribute, the country is constantly changing, but hardwired into the Constitution is the ability to self-correct, and to become stronger in the process. The idea of a country formed on the story of immigration has deep Biblical roots. God first speaks to humanity in a part of the world where human beings consider a people and a nation to be two separate things. They may be intrinsically related, but they are not the same. Of the two, it is clear from Scripture that God’s priority is to the former, but without denigrating the latter. This is because God knows the human heart - that nation more often comes before people when our allegiance is tested. Let’s remind ourselves that God personally called Abram the Chaldean to migrate from Ur (in what is now Iraq) to the land of Canaan, where he would become the father of a great nation, but God does not want to stop there. He wants more. The covenant is expanded to become a multitude of nations, and God changes his name to Abraham to reflect that fact. At last, God reveals that Abraham will himself be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Thus Providence is revealed as a pathway to perfection stretching beyond the boundaries of nation, indeed beyond the boundaries of time and space, into eternity. The Pilgrim Fathers considered their migration to the New World was similarly providential. They were English, but because they were radical Protestants, they were persecuted in their homeland. Through their deep trust in the Lord’s goodness, they took a risk, believing that God would make of them a blessing, just as he did Abraham and his descendants. But there are key points of divergence in the story. Abraham was one man, and his having descendants at all was a miracle in itself. The story of this nation is one of cumulative enrichment, over centuries, by people from every corner of the world, and every walk of life. It is an ongoing story. Consider for a moment the striking paradox that the ancestors of most people who celebrate Independence Day today were still at home in Europe when those momentous events took place in 1776. But we are the rightful inheritors of that story, and we stand, as Edmund Burke might say, between those who are dead, and those who are to be born, with solemn obligations to both. As Catholic Christians we should be at peace with the idea of being good Americans, and good Catholics. You see, one relates to time and space, and the other to eternity as well - and this encapsulates the distinction between people and nation. As Christians we are called to be both: being the people of God in the here and now, belonging to a nation whose strength and stability allows us to prepare for ultimate citizenship of Heaven. Our nation belongs to history; the people of God already participate in eternity while still journeying through history. By God’s Providence the Constitution provided a political order in which people of all faiths or none, through the virtues of liberty, ordered by prudence, may pass their days on this earth in peace. That peace, which is itself God’s gift, allows his Spirit to move, and enlighten us with his grace. The American adventure has therefore offered Catholics not merely freedom from persecution, but the opportunity to embrace the faith deliberately, intelligently, and courageously. The deepest parallel between Abraham's journey and the story of immigration to America is not that we are somehow favored because of something we have done. Scripture warns repeatedly against pride. Instead, we are favored by God because we put our trust in him. Abraham trusted the promise. The Founders trusted that liberty was worth a sacrifice, and we must trust that we are in the right place, at the right time, too. Thus I urge you, at this historic moment, to spend time to locate yourselves in the tapestry of history. One of the great temptations of our age is to allow ourselves to be defined by perpetual outrage. Every day someone tells us whom we should fear, whom we should resent, and whom we should blame. But this is to keep our eyes downcast and fixed on the ground, rather than to the hills, from whence comes our help. Anger keeps us watching, clicking, and arguing. But it rarely makes us wiser, and it never makes us holier. These are the deceits of the evil one, who wishes to keep us under his control; they are also the deceits of his henchmen who wish to exert power, because angry people are easier to manipulate. Instead, we should embrace higher ideals: seek to live a virtuous life, be inquisitive, and grateful that God’s Providence has delivered us to the beginning of this new day - as he does all the days of our lives, until he calls us to himself. The question is not whether our age is more difficult than our forebears. It is whether we shall prove as faithful with what has been entrusted to us, and whether we will pass anything meaningful on to the generations that follow us.

The Epistle this weekend is Romans 6, where St. Paul explains the effect Baptism has on us, with a very vivid image: that we are baptized into Christ’s death, and are buried with him, in order we might also rise with him to newness of life. The idea being, through the Sacrament we follow Christ into his Paschal Mystery, and thus our old life, tied to sin, is buried and gone, whereas our new life, tied to Christ, is not just with God, but in God. To explain this beautiful passage more fully I’m going to contrast one of the more challenging healing miracles uniquely found in Mark 8:22-26: the ‘double healing’ of the blind man. In brief, the Lord spits on his eyes, and lays hands on him, and the man’s eyes are partially opened, so he sees “people, but they look like trees, walking” - the Lord lays hands on him again, and then his sight is fully restored. It’s a fascinating story in itself, but for our purposes, it gives a sharp insight into the way God chooses to enlighten us through the Sacraments. Redemption is a process, a journey we are invited into, one that requires our cooperation - it’s not a one-and-done thing. It’s not magic. St. Paul puts it a different way - when we first enter into the life of grace, we see things, but dimly - he describes it in First Corinthians as seeing through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. We are invited into a new kind of life by Baptism, but one that requires daily recommitment, until that moment the veil is lifted and we know, even as we are known. This cooperation with grace is uniquely appropriate to the human person, made up as we are of body and soul. Part of our nature is earthly, and directs us to the ground, whilst the other part is heavenly, and invites us to soar. But there’s no internal dualism - it’s actually through our engagement with the earth that we discover the likeness of heaven in us. We engage with the world through our senses, just like any other animal, but there’s a danger in concluding we’re the same as them, that we have a life, and then we die and cease to exist. The technical term for this is annihilation - the idea that there’s no life after death - that we came from nothingness and return to nothingness once our synapses stop firing. But to live our lives resting (either consciously, or subconsciously) on this foundation is to ignore ample evidence to the contrary. The human spirit is capable of greatness because it has imagination - the ability to think beyond itself, to conceive of a world that doesn’t exist yet, and to uncover the higher principles of being just through observation of Creation. Who hasn’t marveled at a beautiful sunset, a towering mountain, the soft sand on the seashore, a babbling brook, an ancient forest? These are not simply nice things to look at - they tell us much more about ourselves than they reveal of the world. Though our bodies are made up of mere atoms and molecules, we can extract the truths behind all that we see, and even imagine things that are impossible. Perhaps a deer or a bear may truly enjoy a sunset. But beasts cannot ask why beauty exists, nor imagine a sunset that has never been seen; you and I by contrast can take that information, and imagine something that cannot exist - for example, a green sunset - or a blue one. But if we had one complaint against God, just one, that he might entertain for a moment it would be that we are designed to be incomplete. God would entertain it, because it is true. By our own powers we can go a long way, but we cannot become ourselves by our own means. There’s a chasm we cannot cross, a chasm that is bridged by something that derives from God’s own life, namely his grace, which is not optional, but rather, essential, to us, if we are to become who are intended to be. As a direct and necessary consequence of the Paschal Mystery of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we can now identify three phases in the life of man, where previously we might say there were only two. The junction between each phase has a name so weighty it makes the primordial man in us shudder - it is, of course, death. Death is the bridge between each phase - and it’s remarkable isn't it, that even before Christ we imagined death as a journey, or even a river, that we had to be guided across, and from which there was no possible return. We have always instinctively known that death is not simply an event, but a passage. What St. Paul’s teaching on Baptism reveals to us is that the first crossing has already begun. If the life of grace begins with the spiritual death of Baptism, it consists thereafter of a series of, what we might call, ‘micro-deaths’ - every time you endure suffering, put yourself last, bear patiently with trials, act kindly without counting the cost, forgive someone who has wounded you, you are dying to self over and again. What Christ teaches us supremely by his death on the Cross, we imitate in our own discipleship, day by day, helped at each moment by the ready access to grace the Sacraments open up for us. The ‘double healing’ of the blind man is thus seen by the Fathers as a ‘type’ of our Redemption. It’s not that Christ’s healing was not powerful enough the first time around - instead, it recognizes the value of looking through a glass, darkly, training us to accept that full vision, face to face, after we die. You and I thus find ourselves in the second phase of man - dead to sin, but alive to God through Christ in Baptism. The novelty of the Christian life is not simply that grace exists, but that in the Sacraments we are united to the person of Christ while still on the pilgrimage. That's exactly the point St. Paul is making in Romans: we are already buried and raised with Christ. Our physical death, at the end of our years, is thus for Christians thoroughly remade: far from being a tragic eventuality, it is the completion of our training; a graduation, if you will, from limitedness to limitlessness. The worst thing that can happen to us is not to die physically. All of us will do that. The worst thing that can happen to us is never to have died the first death…

Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. This passage from Matthew seems rather simple, doesn't it? But from it, theologians have deduced quite a remarkable fact about eternity: our sins are known. If nothing is concealed (and the Lord means nothing) there is no carpet under which to sweep our major transgressions, nor our embarrassing foibles and misdemeanors. I will level with you - I find that conclusion quite discomfiting. You see, quite fundamental to our human nature is the idea that my thoughts are private, and I have a private sphere of action. If we hear the Lord’s teaching on heaven, and are disquieted by the idea of universal disclosure, it can lead to two major spiritual problems: aversion, and despair. Aversion is when don’t like the idea, we harden our hearts against the teaching, saying to ourselves: “well, I don’t want that kind of heaven”; and despair: “if that’s what heaven is really like it sounds impossibly hard, and I won’t make it.” There may be others, but those are the two reactions I naturally have, and they need to be worked through, if we are to come to terms with the teaching. To do that we need to examine what unspoken assumptions we’re bringing to the party. What have I assumed is the case about the community of heaven that makes me so uncomfortable with the idea of no secrets. Well, this one is easy - it’s our experience of people on this earth. If we were to reveal our secrets in an earthly society it would certainly makes everyone feel uncomfortable, but we would also expose ourselves to judgment, ridicule, gossip, and possibly, estrangement. Heaven is not like that. First of all, with the exception of Our Lady, no human being is in heaven who has not been in need of God’s mercy, so the ‘audience’, for want of a better word, is inherently sympathetic. Secondly, judgment, ridicule, gossip, and estrangements are themselves symptoms of sin - the saints in heaven do not (and cannot) sin, so we can be sure that would not be their reaction. Thirdly, if (please God, when) you and I find ourselves in this situation, it will be because we, too, are saints, and therefore the history of our life will be viewed from the perspective of victory - that we fought against sin, and won. That we were lost and now are found. Remember, we have the evidence of the Risen Lord - his body bears the marks and scars of his Passion - so too, we are who we are, not in spite of our struggles, but because of them. Turning to the other spiritual danger, that of despair: the idea this all seems impossibly hard. Not only do I have to consider my public record, and try to do good in all that I do, but I don’t even have the luxury of private space, where the eye of God will not survey my every deed. Well, that’s already true. The eye of God not only sees your every deed, but God can also peer into the depths of your soul. One of the first mistakes humans made in the Garden of Eden was trying to hide from God. We cannot. He never averts his gaze. But having never averted his gaze, he constantly chooses us, no matter what stupid things we do (and he has, of course, seen it all). His will is constantly engaged with our good, and there is, as St. Paul says, nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Why are we frightened by disclosure in the first place? Because we instinctively assume that if people knew the worst things about us, they would know who we really are. We imagine that our sins reveal our essence. But that assumption is profoundly unchristian. A murderer is not murder. An adulterer is not adultery. A liar is not a lie. Human beings are not reducible to their sins, because sin is not a thing in itself; it is a wound in something that is good. The revelation of our sins is not the revelation of our identity. It is the revelation of God's victory over what wounded us. To see this clearly, we need to understand that what we conveniently call ‘evil’ is not a thing in itself - it is the absence of a thing - it is the absence of good. But even in the most evil acts we can imagine, what we see is a distortion of good, not a rival competing ‘lowerarchy’ of malice. When we say things are ‘evil’ - it’s actually a shorthand for saying something is ‘not good enough’. When we choose to do evil, what has actually happened is one of two things either (a.) I am in error as to what a particular good entails - my understanding, e.g. of loyalty, is disordered, or (b.) I am in error as to the relative weight of competing goods, e.g. I have wrongly concluded e.g. loyalty is a higher good than, say the sacredness of life. These two factors - disorder in our understanding of the goods themselves, and misprioritizing the order of goods - are the ‘name of the game’ when it comes to sin. For St. Thomas, every sin boils down to a disordering of love - and indeed, since God is love, we can see how disordered love is opposed to God - the very definition of sin. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed says the Lord. For the sinner who refuses mercy, that is a terrifying prospect. But for the saint, it is a cause for hope. For when everything is finally revealed, the story that to be told is not the story of our sins. It is the story of grace. The story of a God who never stopped loving us. The story of wounds that became scars, and scars that became trophies.  The reason heaven contains no secrets is not because God is indifferent to sin. Heaven contains no secrets because sin no longer has the power to define anyone there. In heaven, my sins will not be hidden. But neither will they be the most important thing about me. The most important thing about me will be what Christ has done for me. Thus the story of our life will be viewed from the perspective of victory.

I hope your novena is going well! Which novena? I hear you ask. The original one! The one after which all novenas are named… You see we’re in the middle of this most interesting time between Ascension and Pentecost and where do we find the Church? Gathered with the Apostles, in the Upper Room, in prayer. Thus the theme of this sermon is receptivity. When I’m feeling mischievous (which I often am) I remind people that God has no gender. It’s true. It’s fundamentally lazy to assume gender in the revelation of God as a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The words certainly don’t help - because our everyday experience of both human fathers and human sons are of people who are, by their nature, male. But before I lose the half the congregation that thinks I’ve gone quite mad, quite Jesuit, or both, I say this as someone who, quite frankly, marvels with delight at God’s creation of mankind in his image as male and female. On Thursday you discovered a little more about me that I find Physics fascinating. Well I also find Biology fascinating too, so here’s a quick science recap: When we look at human sex selection, which is determined by our chromosomes, we discover that men and women are not (after all) from different planets, but that the Y chromosome and the X chromosome share a common ancestor. In fact, the Y chromosome is in a slow process of degrading - it has lost much of its genetic information. Other creatures do not have XY sex selection; contrary to humans, birds use the ZW system, where male birds have two copies of the Z chromosome, where females only have one. Let’s not get started on duck-billed platypuses - they’re quite bizarre. But what of novenas? Well, one feature of Catholic life (that withstands anecdotal scrutiny) is that novenas, and indeed most forms of popular piety, are more popular with women than men. I’ve often wondered why that is. Perhaps you have too. Indeed, I would go further, in my experience (and, given the danger of generalizations is that you have to generalize, please forgive me…) women tend to have a deeper spirituality and find contemplative prayer comes more naturally. Why might this be? I don’t have the answer to that, but might I suggest that the beginning of an answer comes from the idea of receptivity. I truly believe men struggle with receptivity much more than women. At worst, it can be seen almost as an affront to masculine identity that I should be receptive to ideas that I did not come up with. But underlying that is a kind of insecurity that too often manifests itself in a forceful reaction - ‘I’ll show them how manly I am!’ and thus the seeds of chauvinism begin to generate. Again, I don’t have all the answers, but perhaps Holy Church has it right after all - the seemingly ‘unfair’ and unequal division of labor in the Church may have absolutely nothing to do with capability, or even suitability, and everything to do with the fact that men need more help to develop the kind of spirituality necessary to be truly open to the promptings of grace. Thus I stand before you a priest, not because I’m better at praying (I’m not) not even because I look more like Jesus because I’m man with a beard, but because if I weren’t called to be a priest, I probably wouldn’t have a Faith. When I lived in a monastery, it was interesting to hear the older brethren talk about the funny things people say to monks. Things such as you must be really good at prayer. One wise monk, let’s call him Fr. Ambrose, gave me that line in the calefactory one day, and his response to that casual visitor was “I’m really not. I’m not a monk because I’m good at it; I’m a monk because I’m bad at it, and God knows if I weren’t a monk, I wouldn’t pray at all…” Back to Biology. Since human men have both X and Y chromosomes, I’d wager a bet that the gene for receptivity - or maybe let’s call it the ‘God gene’ - is found on the X chromosome. But if this is true, we cannot escape the conclusion that whilst spirituality may come more easily for women, it’s available to men too. So if we can agree the Word of God is not by nature a man, but when the Word takes Flesh of the Blessed Virgin, he takes on a male human nature, we can reasonably conclude that in Jesus is found a complete human experience. And if what is not taken up is not redeemed as St. Gregory Nazianzus reminded us, then Jesus has to be a man, if the Y chromosome part of humanity is to be redeemed at all. But curiously, this in no way forces a false binary system upon us. What is common to all human beings is a soul, and the soul’s relationship to God is always receptive, and in fact, is always feminine. This need not cause an identity crisis in men, if we come to the realization that we are all a lot more complex than stereotypes would seem to suggest. We need balance - and that balance understands that receptivity, and collaboration is not weakness, but neither is assertiveness or heroism ‘toxic masculinity’ - the Catholic position is, and always has been, complementarity - shades of grey, rather than black and white. In this gap between Ascension and Pentecost, let’s take a lesson from the Apostles instead - they listened to the Lord and waited on his Word, and when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they went out to the ends of the world. But before they went out, they took time to pray, to contemplate the promises of Christ in the company of the Blessed Virgin, the icon of receptivity. Whether this comes easily to you, or not, your soul waits on the Lord in the same way as her. Go to your Upper Room, feed on his Word, and pray that your commitment to the Gospel be strengthened by renewed receptiveness to the Spirit’s sevenfold gifts. The Spirit comes not to erase our differences, but to deploy them and fill them with divine life. He turns waiting into contemplation, dependence into courage, and humility into strength.

Two of the strangest things the Lord ever said have dominated my prayer this week: “ Do not touch me ” (Jn 20:17) “ It is to your advantage that I should go away ” (Jn 16:7) Both come from John’s Gospel. One belongs to the ‘Farewell Discourse’ on the night of the Last Supper; the Gospel we hear today forms part of that discourse. The other is the Lord’s surprising retort to Mary Magdalene when she recognizes him after his Resurrection. Looming over our Paschal joy this week is the upcoming Feast of the Ascension, when the Lord will be taken from our sight and from our touch. After forty days of Resurrection appearances to the apostles in Jerusalem and Galilee, he leaves them with a final promise: “ You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you .” Those are the very last words he speaks on earth, until he comes again in glory. But all these things only make sense when we fix our hearts on the truth that he will come again in glory. We profess it each week in the Creed - but do we really live it? Are we watching for the signs of his coming? Would we welcome it? In Acts we see the Lord lifted up, and a cloud covering him, so that he could no longer be seen. The two angels who appear to the witnesses instruct them to remember how he left, because it’s important: “ This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. ” Acts 1:11 Brothers and sisters: angels don’t mess around. They don’t titillate our idle curiosity. We are told (1.) that Jesus is coming back, and (2.) how he is coming back: “ in the same way as you saw him go into heaven ,” that is to say the clouds will unveil him, and he will descend upon the earth, in glory, in the flesh, where every human eye will see his full deity revealed. Just to put that into context, we are now thirty minutes closer to that event happening, than we were when Mass began - and when it happens, spare a thought for the priest who first told you. Only in the light of his return do these enigmatic sayings finally make sense. “ Do not touch me ” (or “ cling/adhere to me ”) is not a repudiation of Mary Magdalene’s love, but rather an invitation to a deeper relationship. She may not hold on to the risen Lord the way she held the earthly Jesus. He must ascend. The relationship must change. Similarly, “ It is to your advantage that I go away ” only sounds like abandonment until you hear the rest of the promise: “ I go to prepare a place for you …” “ I will not leave you orphans …” “ I will come to you …” “ I will bring you to myself …” “ Where I am, you also may be .” He is not going away from us, he is going ahead of us. Preparing a place for us in heaven is not the celestial equivalent of home renovation. Preparing a place for us in heaven happens because the Holy Spirit is sent upon the Church. The Spirit of Truth, the Advocate, the Comforter is sent to make us ready to share God’s own life in eternity. Everything we need to know about the Lord’s plan has already been revealed, but it is not always revealed plainly. The words must simmer in the soul, so that what he is saying can be gently unveiled. It’s too much all in one go. And yet in this gap, the Lord has not left us comfortless. When he says to Mary, “ Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father ,” that little Greek word oupo (“ not yet ”) is doing a lot of heavy lifting, because it carries a hidden promise. If she cannot cling to him now because He has not yet ascended, then when he ascends, she will, bu the manner of clinging will be different, and it will be better. She clung to Him while He walked the earth, and rightly so. But His power then was localized in time. When He ascends and sends the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, Christ’s power is ‘atomized’ throughout the his whole Body, beyond time and space, because it’s now made up of believers. This interior union, made possible by the Holy Spirit, is far more intimate than anything possible before the Ascension. This new clinging happens in the Sacred Liturgy. It's what we're doing right now. The Liturgy of the Church is the principal work of the Holy Spirit in this world, because it is where the Sacraments take place. The Liturgy is not optional, not something nice to have. It is not the icing on the cake—it is the cake. Here we may cling to him, because all his power has passed into the Sacraments. When you receive the Holy Eucharist, you cling to him in a way far more profound than if you were able to tug at his garment. There, you might touch his body; here his body touches you. This participation in the work of Redemption is more intimate, more immediate, than physically standing at the foot of the Cross, or peering into the empty Tomb. Such participation prepares us for that day when the clouds will part and we will see him once more. No one has expressed that mystery better than the Oratorian priest and poet, Edward Caswall, in a hymn that captures the paradox of the Ascension: Christ’s ‘blessed departure’: O Jesus Christ, remember, When Thou shalt come again, Upon the clouds of heaven, With all Thy shining train; When ev’ry eye shall see Thee, In Deity revealed, Who now upon this altar In silence art concealed.

“Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: ‘Just as many as you say, Father.’ Then again I asked him: ‘Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said “It’s going to rain,” would that be bound to happen?’ ‘Oh, yes, Father.’ ‘But supposing it didn’t?’ He thought a moment and said, ‘I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.’” Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1:7) This week’s sermon is challenging for a different reason. I’m not preaching to the choir this week, I’m preaching to the lukewarm, to the half-outs, the pessimists, and the frustrated. ‘Oh that’s not me, Father!’ Oh but it is. There’s a little pessimist in all of us. When preaching, we usually presume full adherence to all the propositions of the Faith - a perfect scorecard of straight-As. But what about when that doesn’t describe our Faith life? What if I have questions about the Faith? What if I don’t fully accept what the Church teaches on X, Y or Z issue? It can sometimes feel like being (or remaining) a Catholic is about checking a whole heap of boxes. If I’m Catholic I believe this, this, and this - but what if I don’t? And what if I say I believe it, but secretly, in my heart of hearts, I struggle? It can feel a bit keeping up with the Joneses at times. It’s that secret, silent gap I want to help you with this week. What to do when you feel obliged to toe the party line, but in reality, you don’t - or at least, you struggle with it. You can feel like a phony - a fraud - that everyone else ‘gets’ it, and agrees with it, but I just don’t. This feeling of being a secret phony, or even living a double life, is really dangerous to the practice of the Faith, because it’s precisely here - at our weakest point - that we succumb to temptation. Let’s take any of the third rail issues. What if...I’ve heard the Church’s teaching, I understand what I’ve heard, but it still doesn’t sit right with me? I carry on, I put it to one side and try not to think about it. But what happens when you get that new job, you have to move to another city, maybe another part of the country, and you look for a new church. You can’t seem to find one that feels right - they’re either too liberal, too old, too snooty, too 'ghetto'…whatever it may be. Exasperated, you just quietly, and slowly, give up. Ah well, I don’t really miss it. I can worship in my own way. I’m still ‘Catholic’ but I don’t really go any more - or, as the Italians put it, ‘sono cattolico, ma non fanatico’ - I’m Catholic but not a fanatic. The reason you no longer go is not because you couldn’t find the right church, it’s actually because you didn’t have the tools to deal with your difficulty over that 'third rail' issue. Everybody who wants to practice the Faith has a difficulty with something or another. But far from undermining the practice of the Faith, it’s a feature of it. Someone who actively engages with the Faith will stumble across something or other that triggers them. Let me tell you mine - when I was a new Catholic, someone told me that the Blessed Mother was ‘Coredemptrix’ - horror of horrors for this former Anglican. It sounded like a blasphemy! It sounded like Catholics were trying to say Our Lady redeems us in the same way her Son does. It took me years to understand what this title meant. [ 60 second teaching moment - the title is apt to be misunderstood, but the Theology is perfect - that humanity is called to cooperate with the Lord’s work of saving the human race: by our Baptism, and participation in the Eucharist, we make present Christ’s saving work in our time and space - we’re all called to coredemption, but Our Lady was first, and best at it. The title is still unhelpful for many. ] Back to the point - even though I had a difficulty with this corner of Marian Theology, I didn’t give up. I prayed through it, over time - I did my homework, and I came to understand it in a new way. The worst thing I could have done at this moment would have been to conclude, like Rex Mottram, the Church was teaching spiritual rain , because that would have been inauthentic and inhuman. What I was experiencing then, and what perhaps some of you are experiencing even today is a crisis of conscience . Conscience is not your feelings or emotions, it is the inner sanctuary of every soul, where God’s voice can be heard - but also where there can be interference on the wires if we don’t do the job of forming our conscience. We’re not Rex Mottrams. We are not automatons called merely to obey with blind Faith, we’re meant to see with the eyes of Faith instead: “ come now, let us work it out together says the Lord ” (Is. 1:18) St John Henry Newman called conscience the aboriginal Vicar of Christ - but it needs to be tuned, and played with skill - just like a violin in a symphony. Anyone can pick up a fiddle and make noise - how do you make music? So how do we form our conscience? First - trust. The Church has two thousand years of human history, and has outlasted all empires, kingdoms and dictatorships. She knows a thing or two about life, so if she teaches something clearly, even if we find it difficult to accept, there must be something in it. Secondly - invite the Lord in. He wishes to sent the Spirit to lead you into all truth. Ask him: “I believe, help thou my unbelief”. Screen everyone and everything else out - seek him where he can be found - in Word and Sacrament. Thirdly - study. We live in an age where almost all human learning is available in the blink of an eye - but go to trusted sources. If in doubt - ask someone who has the Church’s authority to teach: that could be a priest, but it could also be a lay person trained in Theology - there’s a reason we call their degrees ‘licenses’ - like a driving license. Finally - persevere. The Church is of course made up of sinners, but she is not corrupt or trying to hurt you. She is the Body of Christ, and enjoys the protection of God the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Many great saints also struggled through with serious difficulties, and, as Msgr. Ronald Knox once said: “The true business of faith is not to produce emotional conviction in us, but to teach us to do without it.” Your goal is not to become a mastermind, understanding every nuance, but knowing enough of the Lord to desire him, and to desire to walk with him even when the path is foggy. Some of you may be carrying a heavy difficulty right now. Maybe it’s women’s ordination. Maybe it’s divorce and remarriage, or gender ideology, or the Church’s sexual teaching, or simply the scandalous behavior of some clergy. Don’t bury it and become a secret phony. Don’t drift into “Catholic but not fanatic.” Bring it into the light. The Church is big enough to handle your honest struggle. Christ is patient with you; be patient with his Church. And if, like me with the title Coredemptrix, it takes years, then let it take years. The saints didn’t become saints by never having difficulties. They became saints by never quitting.

Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us? I never used to believe in ‘acid reflux’ when I was younger. I was a heartburn skeptic. I’d listen to adults complaining about it, and quickly conclude they were moaning, or simply weak. Then (well over a decade ago now) I turned 30…and the story of the Road to Emmaus, never quite sounded the same to me again. Fascinating then: the onset of middle-aged ailments gave me a totally new perspective on the story. When I first heard it, I assumed Cleopas and his companion were describing the fire of unbridled joy igniting within them - the thrill of discovering something for the first time. Perhaps that is what they meant—it could be—but it could also be a different kind of fire: the kind that consumes the chaff and stubble; the refiner’s fire, that strips away what is earthly, and leaves behind what is divine. That kind of refining is never comfortable. But let’s take a moment to locate ourselves in the Easter story - this week, we are back on Easter Day in the evening. The Lord is risen and has appeared to some of the women, and “to Simon” - but Cleopas and his companion have not accepted their testimony. They are on their way out, to the spa town of Emmaus: the destination mentioned so we know they’re going nowhere good. Note some crucial details - first and most obviously, Jesus does not introduce himself, he simply draws near and asks questions. Neither do they ask him who he is, but they are quite happy to share their woes with him. Quite a dangerous move, when you think of it - the death of Jesus was viewed by the authorities as a failed insurrection - who’s to say this inquisitive stranger wasn’t a spy? They have identified themselves as part of his group. It’s a remarkably foolhardy thing to do. Secondly, Jesus walks with them in the wrong direction. He is prepared to head into that ‘nowhere good’ - in fact, he’s prepared to go beyond it. He doesn’t stop until they ask him to. Only then does he reveal himself in the breaking of the bread, and as soon as this happens, he vanishes. Recognizing Jesus means they turn back on their planned itinerary - but Jesus never commands them to do it - they come to that realization themselves. Thirdly, even though they had rejected the testimony of the women, and of the Apostles, they were still open to hearing the Word. They didn’t try and silence the stranger, but when he opened the Scriptures to them, their hearts burned within them. St. Ambrose already noted the ambiguity of this burning I alluded to in the opener. He tells us this is the fire of divine love, which has a dual effect - it strengthens and purifies what is heavenly within us, but consumes and destroys what is earthly. Isn’t this often how we hear the Scriptures? Sometimes the fire of God’s Word comforts us, and sometimes it sears what needs to die in us. But even more - do you think there have been times in your life when the Lord has accompanied you when you were traveling in the wrong direction? Did you feel your heart burn within you as the Spirit of Jesus reminded you of all that he has said and done? You know it’s right, but you don’t want to hear it. It’s uncomfortable - it challenges you to change. I like to call these ‘2:20 AM moments’ because they often happen in the quiet of the night - but maybe I should call them spiritual reflux instead. Sometimes spiritual reflux, and the Pepto-Bismol kind even coincide these days. But what does this accompaniment sound like? It’s the ‘still small voice’ gently questioning your assumptions - is that really right? Are you really in the right there? Could there be a better way? It’s those moments where we desperately need to pray our eyes be opened, so we can recognize who it is doing the questioning. These are the ‘Emmaus moments’ that all of us experience in our pilgrimage along the way. Emmaus is where our disappointments and frustrations take us. Emmaus is being let down when we thought we could rely upon someone. Emmaus is when God’s plans do not align with our plans, but we stubbornly cling to old ideas, anyway. To return from Emmaus is hard work. It requires the humility of coming to terms with that fact I’m on the wrong path. But I have some good news for you. The ‘breaking of the bread’ the two travelers mention is, unambiguously, the Eucharist. Breaking bread is a euphemism for the Mass from the earliest days of Christianity and cannot reasonably be understood any other way. The stranger who walks with you in the dead of night on your road to Emmaus is the very same who offers to break bread for you. He has called you to that table right here, right now. And in the breaking of the bread, even if you are not only on the road to Emmaus, but a fully paid-up, registered citizen of Emmaus - in the breaking of the bread you will recognize the Lord if you believe in his name. When you see him in the breaking of the bread he will vanish from your sight, not because he wants to hide, but because he wants you to carry him on the way back from Emmaus. As St. John Henry Newman put it: “ He vanished from sight that He might be present in a sacrament… He removed his visible presence and left but a memorial of Himself ”. On the way back from Emmaus, Jesus doesn’t walk alongside you, but within you, instead. When we recognize the Lord in the breaking of the bread, we also recognize the call he makes of us: to become living Tabernacles of his presence in the world. If we accept that call, we should not be surprised if he also asks our hearts to burn - sometimes with joy, other times with correction. That burning is the Spirit of Jesus stripping away our delusions and false hopes so that truth can take root instead. Because of the breaking of the bread (which is of course the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ) the stranger who walked beside them in their wrong direction now lives within them. He breaks himself and gives himself to them. The fire that had burned from the outside, in on the road now blazes from the inside, out - illuminating the path back to Jerusalem in the dead of night, making the travelers into torches guided by the inner light of Christ’s presence. My dear friends, wherever your Emmaus is; whatever disappointment with God, the Church, or life has led you down the wrong path, hear this: the same Lord who met them brings you here. He still walks with us when we’re headed in the wrong direction. He still opens the Scriptures until our hearts burn. And he still makes himself known in the breaking of the bread.

Let me start today with a provocative statement: I have not yet met a true atheist. The reason for this is because I have not yet met someone who doesn’t rely on faith for their everyday existence. Don’t get me wrong - I’m all too well aware of people who say they don’t believe in God, and reject the truth claims of Christianity out of hand. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a prior commitment to faith as their mode of being - we all do. It is the underpinning of all science - that we trust the empirical results of people we admire and respect. No-one, for example, walks out their front door disbelieving the laws of gravity - not even being skeptical about them - we go about our day assuming that gravity is true, without testing it. This, my dear brothers and sisters, is precisely what “faith” is - maybe with a small ‘F’. We simply don’t have the time or means to test everything, so all of us operate by faith in unprovable assumptions every single day —whether in our relationships, science, history, or moral reasoning. We live by faith in the reliability of our senses, memory, and often the testimony of others. We trust reports of history; we trust bridges won't collapse under us, we trust our loved ones, friends, and colleagues, which is why it’s so painful when they do. So faith, then, isn’t the exclusive realm of religious people on Sundays - it’s actually how almost all humans operate, every single day. But there’s more: reliance upon things being as they were yesterday is faith in the idea that things don’t arbitrarily change, and that is actually a form of belief in God, too - albeit a very small god, whose only role is to guarantee the laws of physics. But even that everyday trust in a stable, orderly universe quietly points toward a Creator who sustains all things out of love. Faith is not the opposite to doubt, either. Doubting is the name we give to the process of assessing truth claims - and even if we struggle from time to time, all of us are here today because, on balance, we find the truth claims of Christ’s Resurrection to be compelling. So in today’s Gospel, when we meet the so-called ‘doubting’ Thomas, whom we all like to denigrate for his apparent lack of Faith, it is important we define our terms. In demanding empirical data he was not, in fact, denying Faith outright. Before we judge him, it’s important to observe two things: first, he was at a disadvantage in comparison with the other Apostles, because he wasn’t physically present when Jesus appeared that first Sunday; and secondly, the mode of proof Jesus voluntarily offered to the other ten (showing his hands and his side) was the very same condition Thomas required before he would give his assent to the data of the Resurrection. This means that Thomas wasn’t so different from the others, after all. This forms a neat parallel with Cleopas and the other disciple walking away from Jerusalem on the road to Emmaus. They had heard testimony from the women, and (presumably) the Apostles that the Lord had risen and appeared to Simon but they didn’t believe, either. They had literally turned their backs on the evidence, and walked away. Only after encountering the Lord in person, and recognizing him in the breaking of bread, was their Faith restored. When we hear Biblical testimony of the Resurrection like this, we must bear in mind that these stories are not provided as a chronicle, (that we might learn the whys and wherefores of our Faith) but instead they build up a picture. But in the process of weaving those threads together we meet the first ‘crisis’ in the Church - how do we pass on the Faith without a personal encounter with the Risen Lord, without seeing his hands and his side? Without pressing our digits into his wounds? How do I know it was a crisis? Well, because John deals with it explicitly in direct terms: Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. Put aside for a moment clear evidence against Luther’s doctrine of sola scriptura in this passage (I will leave that for another day), this commentary from the Evangelist gives us insight into why the rather embarrassing story of Thomas was recorded and passed down - indeed, why all the stories that show the Apostles in a negative light - Peter’s denials, James and John having their mother ask for thrones at the Lord’s left and right - they are not there for us to think ‘oh, well I wouldn’t have done that’ - they are there so that we might be consoled when, like Thomas, we question our Faith, like Peter, we deny the Lord outright, and like James and John we expect him to do favors for us as a reward for belief. John’s account of the Lord’s encounter with Thomas points to a different kind of proof. You and I hear the Gospel announced to us each week, and each week, the Lord invites us, like Thomas to thrust our fingers into his side, and draw out from him the living water of the Sacraments. To be a doubting Christian is thus revealed to be normal - or perhaps I should perfect this observation using St. John Henry Newman’s famous aphorism: “ Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. ” Christians who take time to assess the truth claims are not suffering a lack of Faith, because they silently recognize their dependance upon grace for the constant affirmation that the story is true. Indeed, honest ‘doubters’ who bring their questions to Christ often become the most steadfast believers in the end. But there was another kind of testimony that the Apostles, who saw the Risen Lord, would later be asked to give. It is, of course, the testimony of martyrdom - of shedding their blood because they refused to deny what they had seen and heard on the Road to Emmaus, in the Upper Room, and by the lakeside of Galilee. The Lord also knew that his followers would be asked to bear witness to him, to the end - and for this, he consoled them with the personal proof of his power over death itself. And this testimony, written in their blood, is the final piece of evidence for you and me that we can rely upon their words: put bluntly - no-one goes to their death for a lie they know to be untrue. No-one. The same men who ran away into the night when the Lord was arrested, tortured and killed - the same ones who betrayed him, and denied him - are those upon whose testimony you and I have confidence to believe, and with Thomas to acclaim: My Lord, and my God when he reveals himself to us in the breaking of the bread.