It’s so easy not to notice or listen to people calling out for help, especially those on the margins of what might be thought of as “normal” living. Parents of children in poverty and those forced to use food banks, the homeless, those suffering domestic abuse, prisoners crammed into tiny cells with no chance of rehabilitation. And there are those with no voice – unborn babies, children with unaddressed special needs, old people and those with terminal illness in need of adequate care, migrants in search of a new life.

Often those off radar are told to ‘be quiet’ or ‘it’s your fault’ or ‘not yet, be patient.’

This is essentially what this Sunday gospel is about. Blind Bartimaeus calling out, “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.” Mark 10:46. The crowds following Jesus ignore him and tell him to keep quiet. His plight in their eyes was due to his or his family’s sin.

But Jesus notices and everyone is obliged to stop while Jesus reaches out to the man and heals him with the words. “Go your faith has saved you.”

God loves everyone equally and all are called to do likewise. Yet we have to see, to hear and take notice. The light of Christ has come into the world and in this light we can reach out to others.   

Dear Jesus help me to notice those in need; may I have the courage and determination to help where I can and may I have the faith of Bartimaeus and call out to you when I need you most.            

In the Gospel for this Sunday which is also “World Mission Day in the Catholic Church, we hear something quite startling. James and John who along with Peter were the inner circle among Jesus’ apostles, ask Jesus for a favour. They ask if they can sit on either side of him in his glory. Jesus replies that they do not know what they are asking and that such places are, “not mine to grant.”

The other apostles are understandably quite indignant about this.

Jesus calls the apostles to him and turns leadership on its head. They must not be like the rulers among the pagans and lord it over everyone. Greatness is about being servants and Jesus adds, “The Son of Man himself did not to come to be served but to serve.”

The heart of the matter

What is most important is our motivation, our inner life – the kind of person we are, our soul.

Would we dare to aspire to be the kind of servant leader Jesus was and which led him to the cross?

This challenge to be a servant leader is for each of us and also those who govern.

Perhaps one of the greatest Englishmen to accept this challenge was Thomas More who became Lord Chancellor in 1529 in the reign of King Henry VIII but was executed in 1535. He resigned when King Henry declared himself supreme head of the Church in England which enabled him to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

There are many similar examples of heroes who have forfeited their lives as servant leaders. No doubt we have our own examples.

Each day we are called to serve – our families, those we work with, friends and neighbours and society-  in one way or another. Many are martyrs by what they take on each day.

This Gospel is indeed a challenge for us all and if it was commonplace for individuals and world leaders to be servant leaders, the world would be very different.  

Before Thomas More was executed he proclaimed, “I die the Kings good servant but God’s first.”

How can we have eternal life? For those who believe in God, this is the key question. We cannot earn eternal life by good deeds as a right. We cannot achieve that state of life or righteousness which is necessary to be acceptable to God. We are just not good enough and never will be.

Eternal life is a free gift won by Christ, Son of God who died on the cross for us.

Yet by the grace of God we can grow more like Him so that we become recognisable as His children.

In the gospel read at Sunday Mass this week we read, “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17) A rich man kneels before Jesus – what he should do? He recognised the importance of this fundamental life question as a practicing Jew.

Jesus lists the commandments. “You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and your mother.” (v19)

The man says he has always kept all these. We read Jesus “loved him.” and urges him to give all he has to the poor and follow him. But the man goes away sad because he cannot be parted from his wealth. The man could have become a regular follower of Jesus!  

The apostles are shocked when Jesus tells them that is very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. For the Jews, wealth was a sign of doing well in God’s sight. So they asked one another, Who can be saved?” (v26) So Jesus then adds, “everything is possible for God.” (v27)  

What about us, Peter says. We’ve left everything? Jesus then gives them the well known teaching about the hundred fold. They will be repaid a hundred times over but, “not without persecutions now in this present time and in the world to come, eternal life.” (V 30)

This Gospel teaching is focussed upon one particular man who is dominated by his riches and perhaps lacks concern for those in need. There is nothing wrong with having possessions if we see ourselves as caretakers for what we have. The really important thing is that God occupies first place in our lives so that His love can shine through us through all we do.

We can give the time and energy to work for justice and peace. Meeting the needs or others in poverty goes beyond charity to challenging injustice in society and the world. In so doing we can fulfil God’s plan for us and by means of his grace and attain to eternal life which is the reason we are here.

So we do this not to earn eternal life by our own efforts but to live the love of God who is love.

Eternal life begins in the here and now.  

Answers to the really big questions of life can be found in the teaching of Jesus Christ.

In last Sunday’s gospel we find the following;

“But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body.”

(Mark 10:1-19)

In this reading the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, asked Jesus if it was right for a couple to get divorced. The question must have provoked great interest as Jews were permitted to divorce. Jesus asks, “What did Moses command you?” ‘“Moses allowed us,” they said, ‘to draw up a writ of dismissal and so to divorce.”’ “It was because you were so unteachable that he wrote this commandment for you,” Jesus replies, and Jesus quotes our opening verse which comes from Genesis 2: 18 – 24 which is the first of the Sunday readings at Mass.

Once formal consent is given (validly) and the marriage consummated it cannot be dissolved the church teaches. Marriage is for life.

So when a couple say, “I do” at the altar in front of witnesses including the priest who is there to witness on behalf of the Church because the couple confer the sacrament on one another, they begin this amazing journey with all its ups and downs joys and sorrows. It is total permanent and exclusive giving which is open to children and family life. Family life of this quality is God’s plan for our happiness and is the bedrock of society and the continuation of human life. Children are meant to grow up in a loving caring and secure setting to become all that God has planned for them and achieve their full potential and play their part – their unique and indispensable part – in God’s creation.

What a wonderful vocation and for Christians and God will be ever present to guide them in their roles as mother and father to this end.

Society should nurture and protect family life socially, economically and politically because the health, wholeness and wellbeing of individuals depends upon it and thereby all of humanity collectively.

But couples need support and things don’t always work out. Organisations like ‘Marriage Encounter’ and ‘Care for the family’ are among many which can offer this, and ‘Marriage Care’ when relationship ‘first aid’ is needed.

Marriage is for life and a spouse who is elderly or suffering from a serious ailment of even terminally ill is most likely to wish to stay the course so as to go on feeling the love that surrounds them from a loving partner and be with family for as long as possible. It would be cruel to make them feel a burden which is what assisted suicide may leave them feeling.

Life is sacred and love is for life.

“Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him.” (Mark 9: 38)

So begins the gospel reading for this Sunday’s Mass.

Jesus replies, “You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9: 39 – 40)

Do we make others outsiders? When we strive to collaborate with others intent on good, whoever they  are, much can be achieved. That is, those who work for justice, freedom, and who show mercy and kindness.

Those who love in the true sense of the word.

Traditionally Catholics fast this week and donate the money saved to CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development); a charity which brings together people of good will to alleviate poverty.

Dear Jesus, forgive me for not welcoming others and for treating others as outsiders when you love everyone equally. May I be more willing to work with others who are different so as to build a more just and fair world.

In the Sunday Gospel at Mass this week Jesus speaks of service when he hears that the apostles had been arguing about who is the greatest. Instead, Jesus says, if anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all. (Mark.9: 30 – 37)

This stands in stark contrast to what we see around us especially perhaps, in politics and Government.

Seeing and wanting what is best for others involve empathy, having a listening ear and a listening heart.

This text begins with Jesus prophesying his death. Jesus gave his life so that all might live. Elsewhere, he invites his followers to take up their cross and follow him. (Matthew 16: 24 – 26)

We take a lead whether in small acts of love or in government for the sake of others. This invariably involves sacrifice even suffering. Yet as we do this we become more and more immersed in God’s love which is why we are here rather than to control, dominate and put ourselves first.

This is true stature in the eyes of God who will welcome those who have trodden this path in the footsteps of Jesus who, by the cross, has won salvation for those who call on his name.

What does it profit a man who gains the whole world but loses his soul. (Matthew 16: 26)

When we get up in the morning our first question might be, “who can I serve today.”   

This quote from the prophet Hosea chapter 8; 7 which was the first reading in Catholic churches today, refers to the Godless actions of the people of Israel. God is a God of mercy, but, mercy can only be received by repentant hearts. God is not a permissive God. Those who transgress the immutable laws of nature – the way we are made and God’s plan for our happiness, will face consequences for their sins.

This applies to those responsible for the carnage and killing of the innocent by those engaged in unlawful immoral and unjust warfare; those who campaign for the right to kill the weakest and most vulnerable – the unborn and those who allow their immoral predilections to split their families leaving their children in a void of lovelessness.

‘So by the help of your God, return, – come back to me. Hosea 12.6

On Tuesday 28 November 2023, Labour MPs Dame Diana Johnson and Stella Creasy tabled amendments NC1 and NC2 respectively to the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill. Both amendments would decriminalise abortion.

On 25 January 2024, these amendments were debated at Committee stage and withdrawn. Now, Diana Johnson has tabled a very similar amendment, in the hope that it will be debated by MPs at Report stage. The earliest this can happen is 4th March.

What does the amendment do?

The text of Diana Johnson’s amendment, New Clause 1, is:

To move the following Clause—

“Removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion.

For the purposes of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.”

This would mean a woman could carry out her own abortion at any time, for any reason. While the explanatory note claims that the amendment “would not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting, including but not limited to the time limit”, more than half of abortions are now carried out by a woman in her own home, under the pills by post policy. A woman who took abortion pills at home at any stage of pregnancy, even just before natural birth, and so ended the life of a full term baby, would not commit any offence.

From the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child SPUC

If this amendment is accepted a baby in the womb is not protected by law in the UK if the Criminal Justice Bill is passed at any stage. So a women can end the life her child immediately before birth but a few days later when the child is born if she takes the life of her child it would be infanticide, she would have killed her child unlawfully. Surely this is nonsense by any reckoning. Pro-abortionists are bent on hi jacking legislation to push forward their ideology that the woman has the right to do as she wishes with her own body. But common sense and medicine cannot reconcile this. The baby has only half the mother’s genes. Twenty three chromosomes from the father and 23 from the mother make up the embryo. The father gets no say and genes are passed down through the generations. The baby is a separate human being albeit nourished in the womb by the mother.

Moreover, the proabortion ideology speaks of the mother’s right to choose and ignores the most basic human right which is the right to life. The baby is human from conception and has this right. Medical science tells us this. Yet the facts are ignored in the face of ideology. This is another reminder of how ideology distorts reality and is de humanising.

I pray that this amendment is rejected. Many lives of innocent human beings could be saved and many mothers saved from years of regret.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, the third Sunday of Lent, we hear about how Jesus drove the money changers out of the Temple with the words, “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.” When challenged by the Jews and asked for a sign to justify this, Jesus says “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” “But Jesus was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this…”

(John 2: 13 – 25)

Pause for thought

“I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” Matthew 25: 40

Today Lent begins where there is special emphasis on prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

For those with no relationship with our loving heavenly Father and Jesus, the only begotten Son sent into the world to save us, prayer is not possible – for those desiring such a relationship, our first prayer might be “speak Lord your servant is listening” or “Jesus I need you.”

Going without food, luxuries, or enjoyment for the sake of others and to discipline ourselves and focus on what really matters in life- loving God and our neighbour above ourselves.

Almsgiving to those in need building fraternity, mutuality, especially when it hurts us.

The opposite of the true spirit of Lent is what is happening in areas of conflict taking place today shown regularly in the news; killing and carnage and depriving others including non combatants- men women and children, of the basic necessities of life.

This can never be in God’s name.

So in Lent we are reminded to be who we truly are as daughters and sons of God made in His image, each of us with an eternal destiny which begins right here and right now.