Parish of Our Lady & Saint David, Cwmbran

A sower went out to sow

The Gospel today is the beginning of a new section in Matthew, called ‘The Parabolic Discourse’ – a section of parables Jesus tells the crowd, which we will read over the next three weeks. A parable is a story with a hidden meaning: we can easily remember the story, and gradually the true meaning becomes clearer and clearer. Today is a famous example: the Parable of the Sower. In itself it is a story that would easily be understood by Jesus’s audience – people who lived in an agricultural economy. Jesus uses their understanding to make an important teaching about the message he has brought: it is like a seed that is thrown out and received in different ways – the ideal is when the seed finds good soil, and produces a crop that can be seen and harvested: so the ideal listener to the word is one who allows it to lodge in the heart, but also produces a visible result. What is the harvest we should yield, when we have heard the word?

First Reading: Isaiah 55:10-11

Res: Some seed fell into rich soil and produced its crop

Second Reading: Romans 8: 18-23

Gospel: Matthew 13:1-23

I am gentle and humble of heart

Today’s Gospel in an answer to a very simple question: who is this Jesus we follow? What is he like? He tells us himself: he is gentle, and humble of heart. There is a simplicity about this Gospel which speaks very clearly to tired hearts. Indeed, it is often the case that we overlook the simplicity of the Gospel message – which is why it is valuable to be as children, constantly wondering and marvelling at the beauty and fascination of Jesus. How much God must love us: the message of salvation is so easy to receive, the promise is so welcome. This is a Sunday to wallow in the wonder of a God who is ‘kind and full of compassion.’

First Reading: Zechariah 9:9-10

Res: I will bless your name for ever, O God my King

Second Reading: Romans 8: 9, 11-13

Gospel: Matthew 11: 25-30

You are Peter, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Peter and Paul are the two great heroes of the Apostolic Age ‑ Peter for leading the first Christian communities and binding them in unity, a role that springs from his profession of faith in Caesarea Philippi, and Paul for travel­ling throughout the Roman Empire as the Apostle to the Gentiles, ensuring that the Gospel could be heard by all. They both ended up in Rome, the heart of the Empire, where they crowned their lives of witness by shedding their blood for Christ. As the ancient hymn for this feast day (“Decora Lux aeternitatis”) says: “”Rejoice, O Rome, this day; thy walls they once did sign With princely blood, who now their glory share with thee.  What city’s vesture glows with crimson deep as thine? What beautyelse has earth that may compare with thee?” In celebrating the death of these apostles and martyrs, we celebrate the triumph of life and death offered fully to God.

First Reading: Acts 12: 1-11

 Second Reading: Timothy 4: 6-8, 17-18

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-19

My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink

The Eucharist – the Body and Blood of Christ – is a mystery with so many layers and a depth that takes more than a lifetime to penetrate. It is not just a “thing” that we receive – however reverently – it is a person, a relationship, a belonging and a transformation that we consume, that becomes part of us: “Receive what you are – the Body of Christ”. The readings invite us to reflect on how our celebration of the Eucharist brings Christ’s words to our reality: “…who eats my flesh and drink my blood lives in me and I live in him.” The people of the Old Testament had God living in their midst, walking with them on their journey, feeding and nourishing them with the gift of manna from heaven. Jesus walks with us, not looking on from afar, journeying “in communion” with us – living within us, as we eat and drink the gifts he extends from the Last Supper. And as Saint Paul reminds us, our communion with the One Christ is also a communion with each other – God lives in us as the Church, as we become His Body.

First Reading: Deut 8: 2-3, 14-16

Res: O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!

 Second Reading: 1 Cor 10: 16-17

Gospel: John 6: 51-58

God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved.

We begin our Summer ‘Ordinary Time’ by celebrating a strange feast – not of a particular saint or event, but of the awesome paradoxes of our God, the Three-in-One, Father, Son and Spirit: so immeasurably distant, yet so amazingly close, so full of power and so full of love. It is love that is the key to the mystery: the revelation of God, to Moses and in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, shows a perfect love – a perfect unity. In the beginning, in the story of Creation in Genesis, God made man and woman ‘in the image and likeness of God’, to live together as a community of love. So too, the Church is an image of this perfection of community which is Father, Son and Spirit. We, as many members of one Church, strive in our everyday lives to imitate God who is Three and One, perfect unity and perfect love.

First Reading: Exodus 35:4-6,8-9

Res: To you glory and praise for evermore

Second Reading: 2Cor 13: 11-13

Gospel: John 3:16-18

As the Father sent me, so am I sending you: receive the Holy Spirit

We arrive at the fiftieth day – the completion of the Easter Season, and the completion of the Paschal Mystery: the Lord has died, is risen, has ascended to heaven and now gives birth to his Church, by sending the Spirit upon the apostles. This feast of the gift of the Spirit is so significant for us, because it marks the handing on of Jesus’s ministry to the Church – in the Church we are guaranteed the presence of the Lord, in his sacraments, in his ministers, in the Blessed Sacrament and in his Celebrated Word. It also marks the fulfilment of our thoughts about baptism throughout this season: the gift of the Spirit which we receive in Confirmation is the ‘seal’ of our baptism, guaranteeing and confirming all that baptism achieves.

First Reading: Acts2: 1-11

Res: Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

Second Reading: Cor 12: 3-7, 12-13

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me

Ascension is not just a feast that happens to fall in Eastertide: it is an integral part of the Easter mystery. Remember the Lord’s words at the Last Supper: “I am going to prepare a place for, and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me.” The resurrection presumes the Lord’s return to the Father. This is therefore a feast of hope: our hope in the Lord’s return, as he went. Our hope that he will take us with him, when our bodies are raised as his was. Our hope that we will take our place in heaven, where he sits on the Father’s right.

I shall ask the Father, and he shall give you another Advocate

By now we are some distance away from Easter, but the season is still permeated with the Easter message: Christ is risen, we are baptised in him. But today a new dimension of the story comes out: Easter is not complete until the risen Lord has returned to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit. So in the Gospel today we begin two weeks of looking forward to the coming of that ‘Spirit of truth’ which sets us apart from the world.  This is a Spirit of power, which flows through the life of the Church, enabling its members to ‘proclaim the Christ’ and, dwelling in our hearts, to live in the midst of the world’s slander and accusations.

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life

We continue to explore the meaning of baptism, of membership of the Church, of living a life which has been immersed in the life and death of Jesus Christ: in other words, we continue our ‘Mystagogy’ – our training in the mystery of Baptism and the other Sacraments. We hear more about ‘who Jesus is’, with another ‘I am’ statement: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. We are baptised into his way, his truth and his life.  We hear about the earliest community struggling with the life they are called to by baptism, and Peter again reminds us that baptism builds us into a ‘spiritual house’ with Jesus as our cornerstone. The mystery of the Church is clearly before us today: the Church is the community of those baptised in Christ, the pilgrim people walking with Christ (who has shown us the Father) to the place he has prepared for us. Today’s reading can perhaps make us think a little about how we form part of this ‘spiritual house’, the Church, as we journey to the Father.

First Reading:Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.

Res: May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all hope in you

Second Reading: Peter 2: 4-9

Gospel Reading: John 14: 1-12

I am the gate of the sheepfold

This Sunday is traditionally called ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’, because of the Gospel references to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is also the day of prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood. On this Sunday we hear one of the great ‘I am’ statements of Jesus from Saint John’s Gospel today ‘I am the gate of the sheepfold’.  Through Jesus we enter into life and safety, and we ‘go through Jesus, the gate’ by baptism. This image is implied in all today’s readings: the people listening to Peter find this gateway and enter through it: Peter writes to remind us that we have come back to the Good Shepherd, who heals us by his wounds.