Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
To be a vibrant Catholic Community
unified in its commitment
to growing disciples for Christ
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Jenny Garnsey
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Parents are asked to contact the Parish Office to make arrangements for attending a Baptismal Preparation Session and booking a Baptism date.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am)
Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm – 5:45pm)
Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is sick or in need of assistance in the Parish please visit them. Then, if they are willing and give permission, could you please pass on their names to the Parish Office. We have a group of parishioners who are part of the Care and Concern Group who are willing and able to provide some backup and support to them. Unfortunately, because of privacy issues, the Parish Office is not able to give out details unless prior permission has been given.
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Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Weekday Masses 20th - 23rd June, 2017
Tuesday: 9.30am Penguin 
Ministers of Communion: Vigil M
Heazlewood, B Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, P Shelverton
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Readings this week The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) – Year A
First Reading: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16;
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:16-17
Gospel: John 6:51-58
PREGO REFLECTION:
I try to put aside any worries I might
have in order to focus completely on this time with him.
I ask the Spirit to
open my mind and heart.
In time, I read this passage slowly, stopping where I
am drawn.
I may find some lines difficult; if so, I ask the Lord to help me and
show me their deeper meaning. Perhaps I focus more particularly on the
life-giving relationship between Jesus and his Father.
I ponder.
I need food
and drink to keep physically fit; what do I need to be spiritually fit?
I turn
to the Lord and tell him of the times I feel he gives me strength and courage,
the times when I feel alive and energised to do his work; or perhaps those
moments when I feel tired and dispirited.
I listen.
Perhaps I become aware of a
desire to spend some time in wordless adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.
When the time comes to end my prayer, I thank the Lord for being with me and
for giving me life through his Word and the Eucharist.
Readings next week – Twelfth Sunday
in Ordinary Time – Year A
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: Sr Marie-Therese OCD, Fr Peter Cryan OCD, Pat Wood, Robert Windebank, Mary Hutchinson, Fr Laurie Bissett MSC, Victoria
Webb & …,
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Betty
Roberts, Fr Liam
O’Brearthuin OCD, Anne Elliott, Chad Lewis, Joan Singline, Irene Renkowski, Barbara
Kelley, June Morris, Dorothy Hamilton, Earl Williams, Lourdes Lupango, Jean
Horton, Peter Hutchinson, Martin Healy.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 14th – 20th
June
May they rest in peace
Weekly
Ramblings
At the PPC Meeting on Wednesday evening we looked at some
challenging issues but after a great deal of discussion we came back to – What
needs to Change? As I’ve been saying over the past two weekends, quoting
Cardinal Chaput from Philadelphia, the question really needs to be – Who needs
to change? And the answer really is - ‘I’ am the one who needs to change.
Our reflection earlier in the meeting was from Pope
Francis’ address to the youth gathered for the Prayer Vigil during World Youth
Day in Rio in 2013 – Today too, as always, the Lord needs you, young people,
for his Church. My friends, the Lord needs you! Today too, he is calling each
of you to follow him in his Church and to be missionaries. The Lord is calling
you today! Not the masses, but you, and you, and you, each one of you. Yes he
is addressing the youth at that gathering but he is also speaking to each one
of us.
This weekend we celebrate(d) the ordination to the
Diaconate of Fidelis Udousoro – by the grace of God he will be ordained to the
Priesthood next year. His vocation is special but the vocation of each one of
us is also really important. I hope that this weekend we will all wonder, even
for just a moment - if I want to be more faithful in my vocation as a disciple
what do I need to change?
On that challenging note, please take care on the roads and
in your homes and have a great week.
CARE AND CONCERN:
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM – AIRS 18 June
2017
This week on the Journey, Fr Graham Schmitzer reflects on
the gospel and the Feast of Corpus Christi. Our very own Trish McCarthy talks
about Intimacy with God (part 1) in her Milk & Honey segment, Bruce Downes,
‘The Catholic Guy’ encourages us to Pray for Yourself, and Fr Dave Callaghan
encourages us to listen to ‘The Call’. Threaded together with amazing Christian
music artists, to create a show for you that is all about faith, hope, love and
life. Go to www.jcr.org.au or www.itunes.jcr.org.au where you
can listen anytime and subscribe to weekly shows by email.
Standing at the Cross
This article is a collation from the Daily email series sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to these emails by clicking here
There’s a popular notion which suggests that it can be helpful to compare every century of Christianity’s existence to one year of life. That would make Christianity twenty-one years old, a young twenty-one, grown-up enough to exhibit a basic maturity but still far from a finished product. How insightful is this notion?
That’s a complex question because Christianity expresses itself in communities of worship and in spiritualities that vary greatly across the world. For instance, just to speak of churches, it is difficult to speak of the Christian church in any global way: In Africa, for the most part, the churches are young, full of young life, and exploding with growth, with all the strengths and problems that come with that. In Eastern Europe the churches are still emerging from the long years of oppression under communism and are struggling now to find a new balance and new energy within an ever-intensifying secularity. Latin American churches have given us liberation theology for a reason. There the issues of social injustice and those advocating for it in Jesus’ name and those reacting against them have deeply colored how church and spirituality are lived and understood. In Asia, the situation is even more complex. One might talk of four separate ecclesial expressions and corresponding spiritualities in Asia: There is Buddhist Asia, Hindu Asia, Moslem Asia, and a seemingly post-Christian Asia. Churches and spiritualities express themselves quite differently in these different parts of Asia. Finally there is still Western Europe and North America, the so-called “West”. Here, it would seem, Christianity doesn’t radiate much in the way of either youth or vitality, but appears from most outward appearances to be aged, grey-haired, and tired, an exhausted project.
How accurate is this as a picture of Christianity in Western Europe, North America, and other highly secularized part of the world? Are we, as churches, old, tired, grey-haired, and exhausted?
That’s one view, but the picture admits of other interpretations. Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, along with many Enlightenment figures, saw Christianity as a spent project, as a dying reality, its demise the inevitable death of childhood naiveté. But Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, looking at the same evidence, saw things in exactly the opposite way. For him, Christianity was still “in diapers”, struggling still to grow in maturity, a child still learning to walk; hence its occasional stumbles. Contemporary spiritual writer, Tomas Halik, the recent winner of the prestigious Templeton Award, suggests still another picture. For Halik, Christianity in the West is undergoing a “noon-day fatigue”, a writer’s block, a crisis of imagination. In this, he is very much in agreement with what Charles Taylor suggests in his monumental study, A Secular Age. For Taylor, what we are experiencing today is not so much a crisis of faith as a crisis of imagination and integration. Older Christian writers called this a “dark night of the soul”, and Halik suggests that it is happening to us not at the end of the day but at noontime.
My own sympathies are very much with Halik. Christianity, the churches, and the spiritualities in Western Europe and North America aren’t old and dying, a spent project. Rather they are young, figuratively speaking only twenty-one years old, with still some growing up to do. But, and here is where I agree with conservative critics, growth into that maturity is not guaranteed but is rather contingent upon us making some clear choices and hard commitments inside a genuine faith. As any parent can tell you, there are no guarantees that a twenty-one year old will grow to maturity. The opposite can also happen, and that’s true too for Christianity and the churches today. There are no guarantees.
But, inside of faith and inside the choices and commitments we will have to make, it is important that we situate ourselves under the correct canopy so as to assign to ourselves the right task. We are not old and dying. We are young, with our historical afternoon still to come, even as we are presently suffering a certain “noon-day fatigue”. Our afternoon still lies ahead and the task of the afternoon is quite different than the task of the morning or the evening. As James Hillman puts it: “The early years must focus on getting things done, while the later years must consider what was done and how.”
But the afternoon years must focus on something else, namely, the task of deepening. Both spirituality and anthropology agree that the afternoon of life is meant to be an important time within which to mature, an important time for some deeper inner work, and an important time to enter more deeply our own depth. Note that this is a task of deepening and not one of restoration.
Our noon-day fatigue will not be overcome by returning to the task of the morning in hope of refreshing ourselves or by retiring passively to the evening’s rocking chair. Noon-day fatigue will be overcome by finding new springs of refreshment buried at deeper places inside us.
KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Taken from the Blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore. The original Blog can be found here
Last week we are in Austria for a Rebuilt Conference. We love our friends and partners here and greatly enjoy working with parishes in this beautiful country.
Recently we took the morning to visit one of the most popular tourist attractions here, the Schonbrunn Palace, the home of the Hapsburg monarchs and their family. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place.
It is also an object lesson in leadership. Built in stages over centuries, it was alternately a quiet retreat, hunting lodge, summer palace, and eventually principle and preferred residence for the Emperor. It is not in Vienna, it’s outside Vienna, well outside. It’s safely outside, a cocoon of privilege and pleasure intended to be completely removed from the realities of the rest of the capital. A strange way to rule for sure, but not unknown in European history. The Russian Tsars did the same thing at Tsarskoye-Selo, their palace complex outside St. Petersburg, and, of course, the French kings did it at Versailles. These dynasties all have something else in common. None of them exist today.
As I was touring the splendid spaces of Schonbrunn, I couldn’t help but think of many churches I have visited. Beautiful, sometimes exquisitely beautiful buildings designed for the edification and inspiration of the people in the pews. And carefully isolated from the community around them. And some of the parish staff I’ve met serve just like museum curators, or palace retainers, seeking to serve pampered parishioners.
That’s not leadership and it’s not what we’re suppose to be doing in our church.
Healthy, growing parishes, need to know their neighborhoods, they need to be a part of the life of the community and actively involved in the transformation of their communities.
Otherwise, however beautiful our churches, we’re doomed for disappointment, as the Hapsburg’s learned a long time ago.
The Shape of the Sermon on the Mount
Fr Jack Mahoney looks again at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, describing how the structure of the sermon can help us to understand what Jesus wanted to tell his disciples. What are we to make of the new righteousness, which ‘exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees’, to which Jesus is calling his followers? Fr Jack Mahoney SJ is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in London University and a former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London. His next book, Christianity in Evolution: An Exploration, will be published this autumn by Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. You can find the original of this article can be found here
In a previous article for Thinking Faith I discussed ‘The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount’, and explored its background and its role in the context of St Matthew’s Gospel, which is the only place in the New Testament (Matthew 5-7) where the sermon appears. Readers may care to refresh their memories of the previous article, or read it as a preparation for this one on ‘The Shape of the Sermon on the Mount’ and a concluding one to follow entitled, ‘Living the Sermon on the Mount.’
In ‘The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount’, I summarised the structure of the sermon thus:
Whatever be its ecclesial provenance, from its content and inner structure Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is evidently aimed at presenting an authoritative portrait of Christian discipleship. After a description of Jesus’s introductory healing ministry the scene is set in his ascending the hill and solemnly sitting down to address his disciples and the crowd of interested bystanders. In the opening section of his address he sketches in the Beatitudes a portrait of his followers … The main body of the sermon can then be identified as containing three sections to do with [their] relationship with God: one contrasting traditional Jewish moral teaching (of the scribes?) with new moral principles enunciated by Jesus; a second on the practice of ‘righteousness’ (Mt 6), religious and devotional practices as performed by the Pharisees, to be rejected now in favour of Christian practices; and a third section, less clearly composed than the previous two, which can be read as describing the true righteousness which is henceforth to be found and practised in the kingdom of God, and the complete trust and single-minded devotion which God’s sons and daughters are invited to manifest to their loving and protecting Father.
The sermon as a whole, then, describes what the followers of Jesus are expected to be like (5:3-16 [all references are to Matthew’s Gospel, unless otherwise stated]), and then how they are expected to behave, both in their moral lives (chapter 5), and in their spiritual and devotional lives (chapters 6 and 7). The comparisons that Jesus draws between what he is exhorting his followers to do and the ethical and devotional practices of the Jewish leaders are summarised in what is meant to be the key sentence of the whole sermon: ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (5:20).
The Beatitudes
The opening section of the sermon is the famous passage known traditionally as the ‘Beatitudes’ (5:1-17), the word introducing each sentence in the Latin version being beatus, which means happy, or blessed, or even lucky or fortunate (macharios in the Greek). ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn… Blessed are the meek… Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Blessed are the merciful… Blessed are the pure in heart… Blessed are the peacemakers… Blessed are those who are persecuted.’ It seems a strange list of characteristics for which people are blessed, or happy; but it actually provides a series of challenges posed by Jesus to those who wish to follow him then or later, making clear where their priorities in life should lie. If being a Christian means being poor, or downtrodden, or victimised, as Jesus was; if it involves trying to be gentle, understanding and reconciling, as Jesus himself set out to be; then Christians are all ‘blessed’, that is, fortunate, for they are imitating their Master in all these ways. They belong to God, and God is on their side: ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’
The very first beatitude gives us an important clue as to what they are all pointing to. It is commonly observed that the equivalent in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain begins more simply, ‘Blessed are you who are poor’ (Luke 6:20), exemplifying Luke’s concern to show Jesus as particularly concerned for the economically poor and vulnerable in society. By contrast, Matthew writes, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’, giving Jesus’s teaching a more spiritual dimension which is consonant with the Old Testament teaching on ‘the poor of God’, the anawim, who were recognised as those who put all their trust in God and in his care for them. At the very opening of the Sermon on the Mount, then, Jesus invites all who aspire to follow him to be ‘poor in spirit’ in many ways – that is, never to be totally dependent on themselves or their worldly resources and assets, but relying always on God and on God’s love for them, whatever happens.
After welcoming his listeners by listing the blessings through which his followers can identify themselves with him, Jesus commends his disciples as ‘the salt of the earth,’ making it wholesome through their discipleship (cf. 2 Kings 2:21; Col 4:9), and as the ‘light of the world’ (5:13-16), enlightening others in their Christian witness. The commendation concludes paradoxically with a remark of great theological significance, the observation by Jesus that whatever good they do as his disciples they will in fact be doing through the power of their Father: ‘let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’ (5:16).[1] Matthew then concludes this introductory section of the sermon by having Jesus reassure those of his disciples who have come to him from Judaism that the Mosaic Law will not be set aside in his and their ministry. On the contrary, Jesus says, he has come ‘not to abolish but to fulfil’ the law and the prophets (5:17).
Commentators differ on what Jesus’s work of ‘fulfilment,’ or bringing to completion, amounted to, mainly on whether he did this in his teaching or in his life. In fact, it appears to have been in both. The mission of Jesus shows a basic continuity and fulfilment of the history of Israel, such that the death and resurrection of Jesus bring to completion the history and divine destiny of God’s people and fulfil the prophecies foretelling the coming Messiah. Not only does Matthew’s account of the passion and death of Jesus claim prophetic warrant from the Old Testament (‘the Son of Man goes as it is written of him’ [26:24; cf Mk 9:12]); in addition, in the following main section of the sermon he has Jesus pick out salient points of the Law, Old Testament moral teaching and religious practices, and give them a fuller, authoritative interpretation and commentary of his own.
The ‘righteous’ moral teaching of the scribes?
As we have already observed, in the main body of the sermon we can see three sections which spell out the new ‘righteousness’ expected of Christian disciples in their relationship with God: first, an updating of the Ten Commandments in the light of Jesus’s moral teaching, making it quite clear that they were not being dispensed with; then, an exhortation that disciples give a new quality to their regular religious practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which is superior to that of the Jews; and finally, a stress on the need for total trust in God throughout their life. The first section, in the remainder of Matthew 5, contains six moral antitheses, contrasting the traditional Jewish teaching of the Ten Commandments with radical moral principles enunciated by Jesus, each introduced by ‘I say to you’ (Mt 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). These go behind the letter of the commandments to the core of the external actions and behaviour which were forbidden by them, internalising morality and showing how it begins in the heart, long before the action takes place.
In addition, each new command enunciated by Jesus acts as a sort of magnet to attract other sayings by him on the subject and a point from which to expand into a mini-treatment of the topic being considered. Thus, in place of the Old Testament commandment forbidding the murder of a personal enemy (Ex 20:13), we are presented with a little treatise on anger towards others and what it can lead to, in terms of hatred, hostility and contempt (5:21-22). In addition, we are exhorted to be reconciled with anyone who has a complaint against us, even in preference to performing some act of religion (5:23-26). Again, in place of the commandment forbidding the act of adultery (Ex 20:14), we are given a discourse on interior and external chastity which has its basis ‘in the heart’ and which avoids occasions of sinful looks or contacts (5:27-30), with a corollary forbidding divorce (5:31-32).[2] Thirdly, in place of the Mosaic commandment forbidding false oaths (Ex 20:30:7), we are instructed by Jesus to avoid all taking of oaths and any circumlocutions, to simply tell the truth in all we say (5:33-37).
Finally, the Old Testament lex talionis, or legal provision for due compensation for injury in terms of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ etc. (Ex 21:24), which was probably originally aimed at keeping retribution and vendetta within bounds, is rejected by Jesus in favour of total non-resistance towards ‘an evil-doer.’ Here are to be found the famous phrases about turning the other cheek, and going the extra mile. In short, we are to be totally ungrudging to others: ‘give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you’ (5:38-42). In fact, Jesus continues, the old maxim about loving your neighbour – but being allowed to hate your enemy – is now totally subverted for his disciples as they try to live under God’s rule. The term ‘enemy’ is expelled from the Christian vocabulary, the universal rule now being to love even one’s enemies, going well beyond worldly standards (5:43-47). Later theologians and spiritual writers were to take up the following words of Jesus and remove them from their context to construct a whole spirituality and library of religious ‘perfection,’ built on the exhortation of Jesus to his followers to, ‘Be perfect [teleios], therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (5:48).[3] In fact, as the ‘therefore’ confirms, he was simply instructing his disciples to take after their Father in being all-embracing – that is, non-discriminatory and non-partisan – in their love, just as God sends his weather on everyone without exception, however righteous or unrighteous they may happen to be!
The ‘righteous’ practices of the Pharisees?
Having sketched Jesus’s moral teaching for the sake of his Jewish-Christian community, Matthew now turns in chapter 6 to the religious and devotional practices which his followers should pursue as they practice their ‘righteousness’ in almsgiving, prayer and fasting, in deliberate and polemical contrast, perhaps, to the ways of the Pharisees (6:1). It is interesting to note that in the document we possess in the Didache, or ‘Teaching of the Apostles’, written slightly later than the gospels, possibly in Syria, fasting was a regular feature for Christians, but they were warned not to fast like the ‘hypocrites’ (i.e., the Jews): ‘they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but you fast Wednesdays and Fridays’. Nor, according to the Didache, are Christians to pray as the ‘hypocrites’ do, ‘but as the Lord commanded in His gospel’, reciting the ‘Our Father’ three times a day.[4] Here in the sermon, by contrast, Matthew’s concern is that the fasting, prayer and almsgiving of Christians should indeed be different from that of the ‘hypocrites’, differing, however, not so much in quantity or time as in quality or motivation. Their devotions should not be performed ostentatiously, for show or for recognition and admiration by their fellows, but genuinely and ‘secretly’, to be known only to God, who will give all the recognition that is appropriate (6:2-18).
It is in his description of how the disciples should not in their prayer ‘heap up empty phrases’ like the Gentiles, that Matthew gives them and us his version of the ‘Our Father’, the Lord’s Prayer (6:9-13). This is not to be found in the earlier gospel of Mark, but it also occurs in Luke 11:2-4 in a very similar version, suggesting that Matthew and Luke both adopted it from Q, a shared source unused by Mark. There is debate about whether the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ is proposed as the single, formal prayer which it rapidly became, as in the Didache, or was initially a list of the topics on which Jesus instructed his disciples to focus their prayer. The phrase well known to Protestants, ‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen’ is found concluding the prayer in some early Greek manuscripts of Matthew and is best attested to in chapter eight of the Didache. It is not to be found, however, in the earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew, and in modern translations it is regularly relegated to a footnote. Nor did it occur in the early Latin Vulgate version of the Bible which was officially adopted in 1546 by the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent,[5] but it did figure in the Greek manuscript that was used by the composers of the King James Bible during the Reformation in 1611. In 1969 it was introduced, perhaps ecumenically, into the Catholic celebration of the Mass to follow the Lord’s Prayer.
The superior righteousness of the Kingdom
The third section of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:19-7:28) is more obviously a stringing together of earlier sayings of Jesus. It can be read, however, as addressing the inadequate righteousness of the scribes’ reading of the Commandments and the inadequate righteousness of the Pharisees in their religious and devotional practices. Here are to be found the well-known sayings of Jesus about where one’s true treasure is to be found (6:19-21), the need to serve God rather than wealth (6:24) and the graphic description of how the disciples of the Kingdom are not to be worried about their future (6:25-34). What counts above all is what we have identified as the key topic of the whole Sermon, to ‘strive first for the kingdom of God and his [or its] righteousness [diakaiosune], and all these things will be given to you as well’ (6:33).
Nor, on pain of being judged similarly themselves by God, must Christians judge others or concentrate on the speck of dust in their neighbour’s eye while ignoring the beam of wood in their own (7:1-5). The puzzling injunction not to give to dogs what is holy, nor to throw pearls before swine (7:6), appears to be a warning against profaning the sacred – perhaps enjoining care about who is to be admitted to share the community’s Eucharist, as the Didache interprets it.[6] Disciples should be confident that their asking, searching and knocking for attention will all be satisfied by their Father in heaven (7:7-11), and concern recurs about their attitude to others, with the famous ‘golden rule’ added: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets’ (7:12).
This ethical maxim is recognised as widespread, existing in a number of variations in many of the world’s religions and philosophies; it may seem strange to find it cited here as summing up the entire treasury of Jewish religion and morality, especially since later in Matthew, Jesus identifies all the law and the prophets as hanging, not on the golden rule, but on the great commandment(s) of love of God and love of neighbour (22:36-40). The Sermon appears to be degrading the supreme moral maxim of Israel, and of Christianity, in equating it simply with the need for reciprocal respect with other people, treating them as one would have them treat oneself.Surely more needs to be said; and this has to be done in terms of filling out in what ways such mutual respect is to be expressed. If I am a drug addict, the golden rule cannot imply that I generously provide drugs for others on the grounds that I would hope they will keep me supplied also. If I am a masochist, it cannot mean that I treat others cruelly because that is how I like to be treated myself. The indispensable supposition that makes the golden rule work ethically is that I possess certain moral values and standards about how I wish to be regarded and treated by others, in terms of respect for my personal and unique dignity and of concern for my best interests; and these identify in what way I ought therefore to act towards everyone else.
As the Sermon on the Mount moves to its conclusion (Mt 7:15-27), it contains some closing warnings on how seriously it must be taken, on the need to avoid ‘false prophets’ (teaching otherwise in the community?) and on the importance of actually putting into effect Jesus’s instructions, which are daringly identified with ‘the will of my Father in heaven’ (7:21). The parable of the two houses, one surviving and one collapsing depending on their contrasting foundations, confirms the need for action and not just listening (7:24-27); and in conclusion, ‘the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes’ (7:28-29). This, if we look to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, is the ‘authority’ in heaven and earth which the risen Jesus claims he has been given, as he sends his apostles to share his teaching throughout the world, confident that Jesus will be with them ‘until the end of the age’ (Mt 28:18-20).[7]
The shape of the Sermon on the Mount, the first major teaching of Jesus at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, thus confirms its purpose as describing for the followers of Jesus who are being formed into the new people of God how they are to live and behave as they come under God’s rule and enter God’s kingdom. For centuries, the sermon has also been considered as providing the epitome of Christian morality and religious devotion. Yet many people are known to have found it difficult, if not impossible, to observe in all its requirements, with the reaction that attempts to explain it are charged with actually explaining it away! This dilemma will be explored in my final article, ‘Living the Sermon on the Mount’.
[1] On how this idea was developed in John’s Gospel, see J. Mahoney, ‘The Glory of God in St John’s Gospel’, The Way, January 2011, 21-37.
[2] ‘Except on the ground of unchastity’ (5:32), on which see J. Mahoney, ‘Grounds for Divorce in St Matthew’, Thinking Faith, 25 August 2009.
[3] When I was training as a Jesuit, we were expected to become familiar with the two-volume 17th century classic by the Spanish Jesuit, Alphonsus Rodriguez, entitled The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues.
[4] Milavec, A., The Didache: Faith, Hope & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. (New York: Newman Press, 2003), chapter 8.
[5] Decree on the Vulgate Edition of the Bible, DS 1506.
[6] Didache, §9.
[7] On God’s being ‘with’ one, see J. Mahoney, ‘God with us’, Thinking Faith, 12 August 2009.
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: - first Friday of each month.
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – meetings will be held on Monday evenings in the Community Room, Ulverstone from 7pm.
Weekday Masses 20th - 23rd June, 2017
Tuesday: 9.30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9.30am
Latrobe … St Aloysius
Gonzaga
Thursday: 12noon
Devonport … Sts John Fisher & Thomas More
Friday: 11:00am Ulverstone …The Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus
Next Weekend 24th & 25th June, 2017
Saturday Vigil: 6.00pm Penguin
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 24th & 25th June, 2017
Devonport:
Readers: Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye
10:30am: K
Von Bibra, K Douglas, K Pearce
Ministers of Communion: Vigil M
Heazlewood, B Suckling, G Lee-Archer, M Kelly, P Shelverton
10.30am: M Sherriff, T & S Ryan, D & M Barrientos
Cleaners 23rd
June: K.S.C. 30th June: P & T Douglas
Piety Shop 24th
June: R Baker 25th June: K Hull Flowers: B Naiker
Ulverstone:
Reader: D Prior Ministers of
Communion: M Byrne, D Griffin, K Foster, R Locket
Cleaners: M
McKenzie, M Singh, N Pearce Flowers: M Byrne Hospitality:
M Byrne, G Doyle
Penguin:
Greeters: S Ewing, J Garnsey Commentator: J Barker Readers: A Lander, A Guest
Ministers of Communion: S Ewing, J Garnsey Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J
Setting Up: S Ewing Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Eden Ministers of Communion: M Kavic, M Mackey Procession of Gifts: J Hyde
Port Sorell:
Readers: M Badcock, P Anderson Ministers of Communion: B Lee Cleaners/Flowers/Prep: C Howard
Readings this week The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) – Year A
First Reading: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16;
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:16-17
Gospel: John 6:51-58
PREGO REFLECTION:
After settling myself in a place where I like to spend some
time with the Lord, I take a deep breath and then breathe normally, aware of
his presence around me and within me.
I try to put aside any worries I might have in order to focus completely on this time with him.
I ask the Spirit to open my mind and heart.
In time, I read this passage slowly, stopping where I am drawn.
I may find some lines difficult; if so, I ask the Lord to help me and show me their deeper meaning. Perhaps I focus more particularly on the life-giving relationship between Jesus and his Father.
I ponder.
I need food and drink to keep physically fit; what do I need to be spiritually fit?
I turn to the Lord and tell him of the times I feel he gives me strength and courage, the times when I feel alive and energised to do his work; or perhaps those moments when I feel tired and dispirited.
I listen.
Perhaps I become aware of a desire to spend some time in wordless adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.
When the time comes to end my prayer, I thank the Lord for being with me and for giving me life through his Word and the Eucharist.
I try to put aside any worries I might have in order to focus completely on this time with him.
I ask the Spirit to open my mind and heart.
In time, I read this passage slowly, stopping where I am drawn.
I may find some lines difficult; if so, I ask the Lord to help me and show me their deeper meaning. Perhaps I focus more particularly on the life-giving relationship between Jesus and his Father.
I ponder.
I need food and drink to keep physically fit; what do I need to be spiritually fit?
I turn to the Lord and tell him of the times I feel he gives me strength and courage, the times when I feel alive and energised to do his work; or perhaps those moments when I feel tired and dispirited.
I listen.
Perhaps I become aware of a desire to spend some time in wordless adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.
When the time comes to end my prayer, I thank the Lord for being with me and for giving me life through his Word and the Eucharist.
Readings next week – Twelfth Sunday
in Ordinary Time – Year A
First Reading: Jeremiah 20:10-13
Second Reading: Romans 5:12-15
Gospel:
Matthew 10:26-33
Let us pray for those who have died recently: Betty
Roberts, Fr Liam
O’Brearthuin OCD, Anne Elliott, Chad Lewis, Joan Singline, Irene Renkowski, Barbara
Kelley, June Morris, Dorothy Hamilton, Earl Williams, Lourdes Lupango, Jean
Horton, Peter Hutchinson, Martin Healy.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 14th – 20th
June
Edith Crabtree, Jimmy Dunlop, Valmai McIntyre-Baker, Kath
Bennett, Joseph Last, Joan Jeffrey, Kevin George, Ruth Lewis, Pauline Croft,
John Ellings, Audrey Bound, Ray Dawkins, Moira Rhodes and Thomas Kelly Snr.
May they rest in peace
Mersey Leven Parish Community
welcome and
congratulate
Oliver & Ava Mitchell, son and daughter of Kyle
& Nicole
on their Baptism this
weekend at
Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Devonport.
Weekly
Ramblings
Last weekend in my Ramblings I mentioned that I would
invite anyone, and everyone who might want to, to make comments about our Pentecost Sunday celebration with suggestions for improvement in any and all areas of the day. I
have some thoughts about what we might do to improve our gathering and
celebration and I would welcome any of your thoughts. I have heard anecdotally
of some comments but would really welcome any feedback.
At the PPC Meeting on Wednesday evening we looked at some
challenging issues but after a great deal of discussion we came back to – What
needs to Change? As I’ve been saying over the past two weekends, quoting
Cardinal Chaput from Philadelphia, the question really needs to be – Who needs
to change? And the answer really is - ‘I’ am the one who needs to change.
Our reflection earlier in the meeting was from Pope
Francis’ address to the youth gathered for the Prayer Vigil during World Youth
Day in Rio in 2013 – Today too, as always, the Lord needs you, young people,
for his Church. My friends, the Lord needs you! Today too, he is calling each
of you to follow him in his Church and to be missionaries. The Lord is calling
you today! Not the masses, but you, and you, and you, each one of you. Yes he
is addressing the youth at that gathering but he is also speaking to each one
of us.
This weekend we celebrate(d) the ordination to the
Diaconate of Fidelis Udousoro – by the grace of God he will be ordained to the
Priesthood next year. His vocation is special but the vocation of each one of
us is also really important. I hope that this weekend we will all wonder, even
for just a moment - if I want to be more faithful in my vocation as a disciple
what do I need to change?
On that challenging note, please take care on the roads and
in your homes and have a great week.
CARE AND CONCERN:
“Siloam” is the name of a group which meets under the
banner of Care and Concern. We focus on aspects of grief and loss often
experienced following the death of a loved one by offering the opportunity
simply share and talk about where we are at this time. The next meeting will be Tuesday 20th
June - 2.00 pm at MacKillop Hill, 123 William Street, Forth. Anyone is
welcome to join us. If you require transport please phone Mary Davies
6424:1183 or 0447 241 182.
Spirituality
in the Coffee Shoppe:
Join us
for a chat on topics of interest to YOU over a cuppa! Monday 26th June 2017 10.30am – 12 noon
Phone:
6428 3095 Email: mackillophill.forth@sosj.org.au
PLANNED GIVING PROGRAMME:
New envelopes are being distributed
during June. If you are not already part of this programme and would like to
join, or do not wish to continue giving, please contact the Parish office.
Please note: The new envelopes (Yellow in
colour) should not be used until starting date 2nd July, therefore once you start using them you need
to discard any old envelopes (pink in colour) – thank you!
FOOTY
TICKETS: Round 12 (9th June)
footy margin 57 – Winners; Charlies
Angels, Pauline Burnett
BINGO - Thursday Nights - OLOL
Hall, Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm Callers for Thursday 22nd
June – Tony Ryan & Terry Bird.
NEWS FROM ACROSS THE ARCHDIOCESE:
THE JOURNEY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAM – AIRS 18 June
2017
This week on the Journey, Fr Graham Schmitzer reflects on
the gospel and the Feast of Corpus Christi. Our very own Trish McCarthy talks
about Intimacy with God (part 1) in her Milk & Honey segment, Bruce Downes,
‘The Catholic Guy’ encourages us to Pray for Yourself, and Fr Dave Callaghan
encourages us to listen to ‘The Call’. Threaded together with amazing Christian
music artists, to create a show for you that is all about faith, hope, love and
life. Go to www.jcr.org.au or www.itunes.jcr.org.au where you
can listen anytime and subscribe to weekly shows by email.
Standing at the Cross
This article is a collation from the Daily email series sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM. You can subscribe to these emails by clicking here
Picture yourself before the crucified Jesus; recognize that
he became what you fear: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability, and failure. He
became sin to free you from sin. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.) He became what we do
to one another in order to free us from the lie of punishing and scapegoating
each other. He became the crucified so we would stop crucifying. He refused to
transmit his pain onto others.
In your imagination, receive these words as Jesus’
invitation to you from the cross:
My beloved, I am yourself. I am your beauty. I am your
goodness, which you are destroying. I am what you do to what you should love. I
am what you are afraid of: your deepest and best and most naked self—your soul.
Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’.
You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should
love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself,
and I am all of humanity.
And now respond to Jesus on the cross, hanging at the center
of human history, turning history around:
Jesus, Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death.
You are my beauty, you are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are
everything I want, and you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I
desire, and you are everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and
neglected soul.
Jesus, your love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody
love me for nothing. Intimacy with you or anyone terrifies me.
I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of
what is happening everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the
violence toward myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need ever again
to create any victim, even in my mind.
You alone, Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost
of being crucified. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim
or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness.
We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not
you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must
stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and
sisters.
Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are
inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus
crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter
into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Jesus: Forgiving Victim,
Transforming Savior,” Richard Rohr on Transformation, Collected Talks, Vol. 1,
disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).
CHRISTIANITY AND NOON-DAY FATIGUE
This article is taken from the Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
There’s a popular notion which suggests that it can be helpful to compare every century of Christianity’s existence to one year of life. That would make Christianity twenty-one years old, a young twenty-one, grown-up enough to exhibit a basic maturity but still far from a finished product. How insightful is this notion?
That’s a complex question because Christianity expresses itself in communities of worship and in spiritualities that vary greatly across the world. For instance, just to speak of churches, it is difficult to speak of the Christian church in any global way: In Africa, for the most part, the churches are young, full of young life, and exploding with growth, with all the strengths and problems that come with that. In Eastern Europe the churches are still emerging from the long years of oppression under communism and are struggling now to find a new balance and new energy within an ever-intensifying secularity. Latin American churches have given us liberation theology for a reason. There the issues of social injustice and those advocating for it in Jesus’ name and those reacting against them have deeply colored how church and spirituality are lived and understood. In Asia, the situation is even more complex. One might talk of four separate ecclesial expressions and corresponding spiritualities in Asia: There is Buddhist Asia, Hindu Asia, Moslem Asia, and a seemingly post-Christian Asia. Churches and spiritualities express themselves quite differently in these different parts of Asia. Finally there is still Western Europe and North America, the so-called “West”. Here, it would seem, Christianity doesn’t radiate much in the way of either youth or vitality, but appears from most outward appearances to be aged, grey-haired, and tired, an exhausted project.
How accurate is this as a picture of Christianity in Western Europe, North America, and other highly secularized part of the world? Are we, as churches, old, tired, grey-haired, and exhausted?
That’s one view, but the picture admits of other interpretations. Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, along with many Enlightenment figures, saw Christianity as a spent project, as a dying reality, its demise the inevitable death of childhood naiveté. But Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, looking at the same evidence, saw things in exactly the opposite way. For him, Christianity was still “in diapers”, struggling still to grow in maturity, a child still learning to walk; hence its occasional stumbles. Contemporary spiritual writer, Tomas Halik, the recent winner of the prestigious Templeton Award, suggests still another picture. For Halik, Christianity in the West is undergoing a “noon-day fatigue”, a writer’s block, a crisis of imagination. In this, he is very much in agreement with what Charles Taylor suggests in his monumental study, A Secular Age. For Taylor, what we are experiencing today is not so much a crisis of faith as a crisis of imagination and integration. Older Christian writers called this a “dark night of the soul”, and Halik suggests that it is happening to us not at the end of the day but at noontime.
My own sympathies are very much with Halik. Christianity, the churches, and the spiritualities in Western Europe and North America aren’t old and dying, a spent project. Rather they are young, figuratively speaking only twenty-one years old, with still some growing up to do. But, and here is where I agree with conservative critics, growth into that maturity is not guaranteed but is rather contingent upon us making some clear choices and hard commitments inside a genuine faith. As any parent can tell you, there are no guarantees that a twenty-one year old will grow to maturity. The opposite can also happen, and that’s true too for Christianity and the churches today. There are no guarantees.
But, inside of faith and inside the choices and commitments we will have to make, it is important that we situate ourselves under the correct canopy so as to assign to ourselves the right task. We are not old and dying. We are young, with our historical afternoon still to come, even as we are presently suffering a certain “noon-day fatigue”. Our afternoon still lies ahead and the task of the afternoon is quite different than the task of the morning or the evening. As James Hillman puts it: “The early years must focus on getting things done, while the later years must consider what was done and how.”
But the afternoon years must focus on something else, namely, the task of deepening. Both spirituality and anthropology agree that the afternoon of life is meant to be an important time within which to mature, an important time for some deeper inner work, and an important time to enter more deeply our own depth. Note that this is a task of deepening and not one of restoration.
Our noon-day fatigue will not be overcome by returning to the task of the morning in hope of refreshing ourselves or by retiring passively to the evening’s rocking chair. Noon-day fatigue will be overcome by finding new springs of refreshment buried at deeper places inside us.
KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Taken from the Blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore. The original Blog can be found here
Last week we are in Austria for a Rebuilt Conference. We love our friends and partners here and greatly enjoy working with parishes in this beautiful country.
Recently we took the morning to visit one of the most popular tourist attractions here, the Schonbrunn Palace, the home of the Hapsburg monarchs and their family. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place.
It is also an object lesson in leadership. Built in stages over centuries, it was alternately a quiet retreat, hunting lodge, summer palace, and eventually principle and preferred residence for the Emperor. It is not in Vienna, it’s outside Vienna, well outside. It’s safely outside, a cocoon of privilege and pleasure intended to be completely removed from the realities of the rest of the capital. A strange way to rule for sure, but not unknown in European history. The Russian Tsars did the same thing at Tsarskoye-Selo, their palace complex outside St. Petersburg, and, of course, the French kings did it at Versailles. These dynasties all have something else in common. None of them exist today.
As I was touring the splendid spaces of Schonbrunn, I couldn’t help but think of many churches I have visited. Beautiful, sometimes exquisitely beautiful buildings designed for the edification and inspiration of the people in the pews. And carefully isolated from the community around them. And some of the parish staff I’ve met serve just like museum curators, or palace retainers, seeking to serve pampered parishioners.
That’s not leadership and it’s not what we’re suppose to be doing in our church.
Healthy, growing parishes, need to know their neighborhoods, they need to be a part of the life of the community and actively involved in the transformation of their communities.
Otherwise, however beautiful our churches, we’re doomed for disappointment, as the Hapsburg’s learned a long time ago.
The Shape of the Sermon on the Mount
Fr Jack Mahoney looks again at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, describing how the structure of the sermon can help us to understand what Jesus wanted to tell his disciples. What are we to make of the new righteousness, which ‘exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees’, to which Jesus is calling his followers? Fr Jack Mahoney SJ is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in London University and a former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London. His next book, Christianity in Evolution: An Exploration, will be published this autumn by Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. You can find the original of this article can be found here
In a previous article for Thinking Faith I discussed ‘The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount’, and explored its background and its role in the context of St Matthew’s Gospel, which is the only place in the New Testament (Matthew 5-7) where the sermon appears. Readers may care to refresh their memories of the previous article, or read it as a preparation for this one on ‘The Shape of the Sermon on the Mount’ and a concluding one to follow entitled, ‘Living the Sermon on the Mount.’
In ‘The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount’, I summarised the structure of the sermon thus:
Whatever be its ecclesial provenance, from its content and inner structure Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is evidently aimed at presenting an authoritative portrait of Christian discipleship. After a description of Jesus’s introductory healing ministry the scene is set in his ascending the hill and solemnly sitting down to address his disciples and the crowd of interested bystanders. In the opening section of his address he sketches in the Beatitudes a portrait of his followers … The main body of the sermon can then be identified as containing three sections to do with [their] relationship with God: one contrasting traditional Jewish moral teaching (of the scribes?) with new moral principles enunciated by Jesus; a second on the practice of ‘righteousness’ (Mt 6), religious and devotional practices as performed by the Pharisees, to be rejected now in favour of Christian practices; and a third section, less clearly composed than the previous two, which can be read as describing the true righteousness which is henceforth to be found and practised in the kingdom of God, and the complete trust and single-minded devotion which God’s sons and daughters are invited to manifest to their loving and protecting Father.
The sermon as a whole, then, describes what the followers of Jesus are expected to be like (5:3-16 [all references are to Matthew’s Gospel, unless otherwise stated]), and then how they are expected to behave, both in their moral lives (chapter 5), and in their spiritual and devotional lives (chapters 6 and 7). The comparisons that Jesus draws between what he is exhorting his followers to do and the ethical and devotional practices of the Jewish leaders are summarised in what is meant to be the key sentence of the whole sermon: ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (5:20).
The Beatitudes
The opening section of the sermon is the famous passage known traditionally as the ‘Beatitudes’ (5:1-17), the word introducing each sentence in the Latin version being beatus, which means happy, or blessed, or even lucky or fortunate (macharios in the Greek). ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn… Blessed are the meek… Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Blessed are the merciful… Blessed are the pure in heart… Blessed are the peacemakers… Blessed are those who are persecuted.’ It seems a strange list of characteristics for which people are blessed, or happy; but it actually provides a series of challenges posed by Jesus to those who wish to follow him then or later, making clear where their priorities in life should lie. If being a Christian means being poor, or downtrodden, or victimised, as Jesus was; if it involves trying to be gentle, understanding and reconciling, as Jesus himself set out to be; then Christians are all ‘blessed’, that is, fortunate, for they are imitating their Master in all these ways. They belong to God, and God is on their side: ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’
The very first beatitude gives us an important clue as to what they are all pointing to. It is commonly observed that the equivalent in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain begins more simply, ‘Blessed are you who are poor’ (Luke 6:20), exemplifying Luke’s concern to show Jesus as particularly concerned for the economically poor and vulnerable in society. By contrast, Matthew writes, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’, giving Jesus’s teaching a more spiritual dimension which is consonant with the Old Testament teaching on ‘the poor of God’, the anawim, who were recognised as those who put all their trust in God and in his care for them. At the very opening of the Sermon on the Mount, then, Jesus invites all who aspire to follow him to be ‘poor in spirit’ in many ways – that is, never to be totally dependent on themselves or their worldly resources and assets, but relying always on God and on God’s love for them, whatever happens.
After welcoming his listeners by listing the blessings through which his followers can identify themselves with him, Jesus commends his disciples as ‘the salt of the earth,’ making it wholesome through their discipleship (cf. 2 Kings 2:21; Col 4:9), and as the ‘light of the world’ (5:13-16), enlightening others in their Christian witness. The commendation concludes paradoxically with a remark of great theological significance, the observation by Jesus that whatever good they do as his disciples they will in fact be doing through the power of their Father: ‘let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’ (5:16).[1] Matthew then concludes this introductory section of the sermon by having Jesus reassure those of his disciples who have come to him from Judaism that the Mosaic Law will not be set aside in his and their ministry. On the contrary, Jesus says, he has come ‘not to abolish but to fulfil’ the law and the prophets (5:17).
Commentators differ on what Jesus’s work of ‘fulfilment,’ or bringing to completion, amounted to, mainly on whether he did this in his teaching or in his life. In fact, it appears to have been in both. The mission of Jesus shows a basic continuity and fulfilment of the history of Israel, such that the death and resurrection of Jesus bring to completion the history and divine destiny of God’s people and fulfil the prophecies foretelling the coming Messiah. Not only does Matthew’s account of the passion and death of Jesus claim prophetic warrant from the Old Testament (‘the Son of Man goes as it is written of him’ [26:24; cf Mk 9:12]); in addition, in the following main section of the sermon he has Jesus pick out salient points of the Law, Old Testament moral teaching and religious practices, and give them a fuller, authoritative interpretation and commentary of his own.
The ‘righteous’ moral teaching of the scribes?
As we have already observed, in the main body of the sermon we can see three sections which spell out the new ‘righteousness’ expected of Christian disciples in their relationship with God: first, an updating of the Ten Commandments in the light of Jesus’s moral teaching, making it quite clear that they were not being dispensed with; then, an exhortation that disciples give a new quality to their regular religious practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which is superior to that of the Jews; and finally, a stress on the need for total trust in God throughout their life. The first section, in the remainder of Matthew 5, contains six moral antitheses, contrasting the traditional Jewish teaching of the Ten Commandments with radical moral principles enunciated by Jesus, each introduced by ‘I say to you’ (Mt 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). These go behind the letter of the commandments to the core of the external actions and behaviour which were forbidden by them, internalising morality and showing how it begins in the heart, long before the action takes place.
In addition, each new command enunciated by Jesus acts as a sort of magnet to attract other sayings by him on the subject and a point from which to expand into a mini-treatment of the topic being considered. Thus, in place of the Old Testament commandment forbidding the murder of a personal enemy (Ex 20:13), we are presented with a little treatise on anger towards others and what it can lead to, in terms of hatred, hostility and contempt (5:21-22). In addition, we are exhorted to be reconciled with anyone who has a complaint against us, even in preference to performing some act of religion (5:23-26). Again, in place of the commandment forbidding the act of adultery (Ex 20:14), we are given a discourse on interior and external chastity which has its basis ‘in the heart’ and which avoids occasions of sinful looks or contacts (5:27-30), with a corollary forbidding divorce (5:31-32).[2] Thirdly, in place of the Mosaic commandment forbidding false oaths (Ex 20:30:7), we are instructed by Jesus to avoid all taking of oaths and any circumlocutions, to simply tell the truth in all we say (5:33-37).
Finally, the Old Testament lex talionis, or legal provision for due compensation for injury in terms of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ etc. (Ex 21:24), which was probably originally aimed at keeping retribution and vendetta within bounds, is rejected by Jesus in favour of total non-resistance towards ‘an evil-doer.’ Here are to be found the famous phrases about turning the other cheek, and going the extra mile. In short, we are to be totally ungrudging to others: ‘give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you’ (5:38-42). In fact, Jesus continues, the old maxim about loving your neighbour – but being allowed to hate your enemy – is now totally subverted for his disciples as they try to live under God’s rule. The term ‘enemy’ is expelled from the Christian vocabulary, the universal rule now being to love even one’s enemies, going well beyond worldly standards (5:43-47). Later theologians and spiritual writers were to take up the following words of Jesus and remove them from their context to construct a whole spirituality and library of religious ‘perfection,’ built on the exhortation of Jesus to his followers to, ‘Be perfect [teleios], therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (5:48).[3] In fact, as the ‘therefore’ confirms, he was simply instructing his disciples to take after their Father in being all-embracing – that is, non-discriminatory and non-partisan – in their love, just as God sends his weather on everyone without exception, however righteous or unrighteous they may happen to be!
The ‘righteous’ practices of the Pharisees?
Having sketched Jesus’s moral teaching for the sake of his Jewish-Christian community, Matthew now turns in chapter 6 to the religious and devotional practices which his followers should pursue as they practice their ‘righteousness’ in almsgiving, prayer and fasting, in deliberate and polemical contrast, perhaps, to the ways of the Pharisees (6:1). It is interesting to note that in the document we possess in the Didache, or ‘Teaching of the Apostles’, written slightly later than the gospels, possibly in Syria, fasting was a regular feature for Christians, but they were warned not to fast like the ‘hypocrites’ (i.e., the Jews): ‘they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but you fast Wednesdays and Fridays’. Nor, according to the Didache, are Christians to pray as the ‘hypocrites’ do, ‘but as the Lord commanded in His gospel’, reciting the ‘Our Father’ three times a day.[4] Here in the sermon, by contrast, Matthew’s concern is that the fasting, prayer and almsgiving of Christians should indeed be different from that of the ‘hypocrites’, differing, however, not so much in quantity or time as in quality or motivation. Their devotions should not be performed ostentatiously, for show or for recognition and admiration by their fellows, but genuinely and ‘secretly’, to be known only to God, who will give all the recognition that is appropriate (6:2-18).
It is in his description of how the disciples should not in their prayer ‘heap up empty phrases’ like the Gentiles, that Matthew gives them and us his version of the ‘Our Father’, the Lord’s Prayer (6:9-13). This is not to be found in the earlier gospel of Mark, but it also occurs in Luke 11:2-4 in a very similar version, suggesting that Matthew and Luke both adopted it from Q, a shared source unused by Mark. There is debate about whether the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ is proposed as the single, formal prayer which it rapidly became, as in the Didache, or was initially a list of the topics on which Jesus instructed his disciples to focus their prayer. The phrase well known to Protestants, ‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen’ is found concluding the prayer in some early Greek manuscripts of Matthew and is best attested to in chapter eight of the Didache. It is not to be found, however, in the earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew, and in modern translations it is regularly relegated to a footnote. Nor did it occur in the early Latin Vulgate version of the Bible which was officially adopted in 1546 by the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent,[5] but it did figure in the Greek manuscript that was used by the composers of the King James Bible during the Reformation in 1611. In 1969 it was introduced, perhaps ecumenically, into the Catholic celebration of the Mass to follow the Lord’s Prayer.
The superior righteousness of the Kingdom
The third section of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:19-7:28) is more obviously a stringing together of earlier sayings of Jesus. It can be read, however, as addressing the inadequate righteousness of the scribes’ reading of the Commandments and the inadequate righteousness of the Pharisees in their religious and devotional practices. Here are to be found the well-known sayings of Jesus about where one’s true treasure is to be found (6:19-21), the need to serve God rather than wealth (6:24) and the graphic description of how the disciples of the Kingdom are not to be worried about their future (6:25-34). What counts above all is what we have identified as the key topic of the whole Sermon, to ‘strive first for the kingdom of God and his [or its] righteousness [diakaiosune], and all these things will be given to you as well’ (6:33).
Nor, on pain of being judged similarly themselves by God, must Christians judge others or concentrate on the speck of dust in their neighbour’s eye while ignoring the beam of wood in their own (7:1-5). The puzzling injunction not to give to dogs what is holy, nor to throw pearls before swine (7:6), appears to be a warning against profaning the sacred – perhaps enjoining care about who is to be admitted to share the community’s Eucharist, as the Didache interprets it.[6] Disciples should be confident that their asking, searching and knocking for attention will all be satisfied by their Father in heaven (7:7-11), and concern recurs about their attitude to others, with the famous ‘golden rule’ added: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets’ (7:12).
This ethical maxim is recognised as widespread, existing in a number of variations in many of the world’s religions and philosophies; it may seem strange to find it cited here as summing up the entire treasury of Jewish religion and morality, especially since later in Matthew, Jesus identifies all the law and the prophets as hanging, not on the golden rule, but on the great commandment(s) of love of God and love of neighbour (22:36-40). The Sermon appears to be degrading the supreme moral maxim of Israel, and of Christianity, in equating it simply with the need for reciprocal respect with other people, treating them as one would have them treat oneself.Surely more needs to be said; and this has to be done in terms of filling out in what ways such mutual respect is to be expressed. If I am a drug addict, the golden rule cannot imply that I generously provide drugs for others on the grounds that I would hope they will keep me supplied also. If I am a masochist, it cannot mean that I treat others cruelly because that is how I like to be treated myself. The indispensable supposition that makes the golden rule work ethically is that I possess certain moral values and standards about how I wish to be regarded and treated by others, in terms of respect for my personal and unique dignity and of concern for my best interests; and these identify in what way I ought therefore to act towards everyone else.
As the Sermon on the Mount moves to its conclusion (Mt 7:15-27), it contains some closing warnings on how seriously it must be taken, on the need to avoid ‘false prophets’ (teaching otherwise in the community?) and on the importance of actually putting into effect Jesus’s instructions, which are daringly identified with ‘the will of my Father in heaven’ (7:21). The parable of the two houses, one surviving and one collapsing depending on their contrasting foundations, confirms the need for action and not just listening (7:24-27); and in conclusion, ‘the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes’ (7:28-29). This, if we look to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, is the ‘authority’ in heaven and earth which the risen Jesus claims he has been given, as he sends his apostles to share his teaching throughout the world, confident that Jesus will be with them ‘until the end of the age’ (Mt 28:18-20).[7]
The shape of the Sermon on the Mount, the first major teaching of Jesus at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, thus confirms its purpose as describing for the followers of Jesus who are being formed into the new people of God how they are to live and behave as they come under God’s rule and enter God’s kingdom. For centuries, the sermon has also been considered as providing the epitome of Christian morality and religious devotion. Yet many people are known to have found it difficult, if not impossible, to observe in all its requirements, with the reaction that attempts to explain it are charged with actually explaining it away! This dilemma will be explored in my final article, ‘Living the Sermon on the Mount’.
[1] On how this idea was developed in John’s Gospel, see J. Mahoney, ‘The Glory of God in St John’s Gospel’, The Way, January 2011, 21-37.
[2] ‘Except on the ground of unchastity’ (5:32), on which see J. Mahoney, ‘Grounds for Divorce in St Matthew’, Thinking Faith, 25 August 2009.
[3] When I was training as a Jesuit, we were expected to become familiar with the two-volume 17th century classic by the Spanish Jesuit, Alphonsus Rodriguez, entitled The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues.
[4] Milavec, A., The Didache: Faith, Hope & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. (New York: Newman Press, 2003), chapter 8.
[5] Decree on the Vulgate Edition of the Bible, DS 1506.
[6] Didache, §9.
[7] On God’s being ‘with’ one, see J. Mahoney, ‘God with us’, Thinking Faith, 12 August 2009.
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