Jer 17:5-8
Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.

Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6
(40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked,
nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
but delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

1 Cor 15:12, 16-20
Brothers and sisters:
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Lk 6:17, 20-26
Jesus came down with the twelve
and stood on a stretch of level ground
with a great crowd of his disciples
and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false
prophets in this way.”

February 6 we celebrate the St. Paul MIki and twenty-five companions who were martyred at Nagasaki in Japan in 1597. The Emperor of Japan believed them to be enemies of the state. Some accounts suggest that a Spanish ship captain in order to get back his stranded ship from the Emperor, denounced the Japenese Christians as foreign insurrectionists, apparently in an effort to curry favour with the Emperor. Whatever the circumstances, St. Paul Miki and the others were crucified, dying in the manner that our Lord suffered and died. They considered it an honour. Here’s an excerpt from a commonly quoted account of their deaths;

The crosses were set in place. Father Pasio and Father Rodriguez took turns encouraging the victims. Their steadfast behavior was wonderful to see. The Father Bursar stood motionless, his eyes turned heavenward. Brother Martin gave thanks to God’s goodness by singing psalms. Again and again he repeated: “Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my life”. Brother Francis Branco also thanked God in a loud voice. Brother Gonsalvo in a very loud voice kept saying the Our Father and Hail Mary.

Our brother, Paul Miki, saw himself standing now in the noblest pulpit he had ever filled. To his “congregation” he began by proclaiming himself a Japanese and a Jesuit. He was dying for the Gospel he preached. He gave thanks to God for this wonderful blessing and he ended his “sermon” with these words: “As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly: there is no way to be saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves”.

Then he looked at his comrades and began to encourage them in their final struggle. Joy glowed in all their faces, and in Louis’ most of all. When a Christian in the crowd cried out to him that he would soon be in heaven, his hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed on him.

Anthony, hanging at Louis’ side, looked toward heaven and called upon the holy names – “Jesus, Mary!” He began to sing a psalm: “Praise the Lord, you children!” (He learned it in catechism class in Nagasaki. They take care there to teach the children some psalms to help them learn their catechism).

Others kept repeating “Jesus, Mary!” Their faces were serene. Some of them even took to urging the people standing by to live worthy Christian lives. In these and other ways they showed their readiness to die.

Then, according to Japanese custom, the four executioners began to unsheathe their spears. At this dreadful sight, all the Christians cried out, “Jesus, Mary!” And the storm of anguished weeping then rose to batter the very skies. The executioners killed them one by one. One thrust of the spear, then a second blow. It was over in a very short time.

Over the centuries Christians have persecuted and martyred for the faith. If we look at Jesus’ words of the gospel today, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.” He knew then that this would happen. In fact, he points out that the same thing happened to the prophets of old before Jesus came to earth.

There is a simple plain fact that we must recognize. The only way that the world will like us is if we go along with them. There have been long periods of great peace, usually because the kings and queens of the land were Catholic and the people were not only allowed but encouraged to practice the Catholic faith. But as we have seen, those kingdoms were either attacked from outside, or became corrupt from the inside; or usually a combination of the two and in the end the practice of our faith has encountered hardship, persecution and sometimes martyrdom.

In recent times, from the beginning of the American experiment with Constitutional self-government and the movements all over the world toward democratically elected governments, we have come to believe that the answer to all of the problems of religious freedom have been solved. In fact, there are those who have praised democracy to the point that they have put it before the worship of God. They think that it is the solution to man’s problems.

Let us be absolutely clear. There is no system of government that is the solution to the problems of mankind. We have had a good run at democracy and it is not dead yet. But what we have forgotten is that the ingredient that made it work and still does, although it is fading, is the moral and spiritual character of the people who make it work. As a society gets further and further from God democracy reflects that fact and becomes increasingly less democratic and more and more Autocratic.

This is not a lesson in political theory. It should be as plain as the noses on our faces. We can never put our faith in a political system, no matter how great we think it is. We can never put our faith in a political party, no matter how great we think it is. And we can never give over our responsibilities to follow the command of our Lord Jesus Christ to any state or government. Regardless of what the state does for or against it’s people, we must remember that our responsibility is to the commands of Jesus, to first love God with all our hearts and then to love our neighbour as ourself. We must live and proclaim Jesus Christ.

Already, we have seen instances in our own society wherein Catholic bishops and priests are taken before civil tribunals for standing firm for the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is possibly only a beginning. If large numbers of the people of our nation return to faith in Jesus Christ we may well see a reversal of the trend. We need to pray to God to give us that. But it may not happen. That is up to God who speaks to the hearts of men. We are required to live it and speak it. That’s all.

There is no compromise that will stop those that hate Jesus Christ. If we belong to him they will hate us too. If we try to compromise it only compromises us and our own faith. They do not become like us through negotiation; we just become like them and endanger our own salvation. They will become like us only through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells us that there will be great reward for those of us who persevere. When it is easy to be a Christian we tend to get slack. When there is opposition we must be stronger, and know our faith better, love Jesus all the more and cling to him. He will win out in the end, even though it seems we are losing the battle. We need to remember that when we face persecution, mild or severe, it is not unusual, and when we do all in the name of Jesus, he sees it, makes note of it and remembers us on the last day.

The reading from Jeremiah and the Psalm both lead up to exactly what Jesus is saying in the gospel. He doesn’t just remind us of the rewards of being faithful, he also warns against that compromise with the world; “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” We are called to be salt and light in this world but we cannot compromise with it. If we find that we are being praised by the secular world, we should search our conscience, for it is quite possible that we have fallen into compromise.

St. Paul Miki and Companions, pray for us.

Is 6:1-2a, 3-8
In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above.
They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it, and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8
(1c) In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
Because of your kindness and your truth;
for you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth;
and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:
“Great is the glory of the LORD.”
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.
Your right hand saves me.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands.
In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

1 Cor 15:1-11 or 15:3-8, 11
I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:
that Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he was buried;
that he was raised on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures;
that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
After that, Christ appeared to more
than five hundred brothers at once,
most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
After that he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one born abnormally,
he appeared to me.
For I am the least of the apostles,
not fit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace to me has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.
Therefore, whether it be I or they,
so we preach and so you believed.

Lk 5:1-11
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening
to the word of God,
he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.
He saw two boats there alongside the lake;
the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.
Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish
and their nets were tearing.
They signaled to their partners in the other boat
to come to help them.
They came and filled both boats
so that the boats were in danger of sinking.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;
from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore,

they left everything and followed him.

Here am I, send me.

This is the response God wants from all of us. This is the attitude of heart that Jesus seeks from us. How many times in the Gospels do we read that Jesus says to someone to give it all up and follow him? That is how it is done.

He is not seeking just a piece of our lives. Not just a Sunday morning mass, not just a meeting or two during the week, not just service to the Church in whatever large or small way that we are able. All of those things are a part of it, and without them we could not run a parish, or have charitable organizations or do any of the many, many good things that we do in the service of God through and for his Church. Those things require the help of everyone, and they are part of what our hearts tell us we must be doing, and rightly so. Jesus commands it.

Haven’t we seen over the past several weeks St. Paul the apostle pointing out to us that every one of us has a role in the Kingdom? Some are more obvious than others, some are frankly out of sight and often we don’t even think that they matter. If our part and contribution to the Kingdom is small and not very noticeable, it is easy for us to think that it is unimportant to Christ. That is what St. Paul has been reminding us, that every part of the body of Christ is important. We cannot all do the same things but each has a place, and one cannot say to the other that it is more important.

But we must never forget what it is that comes first. Let us pause here and focus on it. This is very important, vital to our salvation, to our very future in the Kingdom of God. All those things that we do will get us nowhere without this. What are we talking about? Let us look at this very carefully once more.

From Isaiah today we read that God made his presence known in the temple, and with him were the Seraphim, higher angels whose job it is to surround the throne of God and praise him. This was completely astonishing to Isaiah, and a miracle. That God would fill the temple with his presence, that heaven, as it were, would come right down there in the temple in a way that was unmistakable to Isaiah.

There are many lessons to learn from this. This first being that in the temple, the Holy of Holies, God did dwell among his people. They knew this and believed this, yet the high priests went in once a year and this was normal. They paid due reverence, as was proper and owing to God, but the presence of God to them was understood by faith, as St. Paul said, not by sight. But this time, God made his presence known to Isaiah in a very powerful way. This was no ordinary day.

The first lesson that we learn here is that God is in control of how he makes his presence known to us. It can happen even to us today. We may not have the same experience as Isaiah, yet if we are truly experiencing the presence of God, by his Holy Spirit, there is a sure sign that this is what is happening. Isaiah noticed right away how small, how insignificant and how sinful and unclean he was before God. How many people have had this same sort of experience, not just saints of the past, not just holy people that we know of, but ordinary folks like you and I who have experienced the Lord God through his Holy Spirit, getting our attention and making his presence known. We often refer to such things as a “conversion experience.” Why? Because the presence of God is so pure, so holy, so powerful, that we know immediately how sinful we are. His presence cuts through all of our self-delusions, all of the excuses we make for ourselves and we know ourselves at least partly, as we truly are. And this is only a glimpse of God. If he were to make himself truly known in all of his glory we would not survive the experience. It would be too much for us. No man has seen God and lived. Even Moses, on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments could not look at God directly.

Let us be perfectly clear. In a world that seeks out mystical and spiritual experiences and is all mixed up and doesn’t know who God really is, we can know that it is God when he makes his presence known. We will have an instant and overpowering sense of how sinful and unclean we are. If we are messing around with spiritual forces that seem to build us up and confirm us in our sin, that tell us that we are not so bad; that we don’t need to get concerned about the evil that we do; then make no mistake, it is not God’s presence we are experiencing. In the light and radiance of God’s purity, we know how sinful we really are, and quite frankly it is not pleasant to see ourselves that way.

And what was the response of Isaiah? Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. He knew he was not holy right away. He was afraid because he knew that such a sinful man as himself could not survive in the presence of God. It was not a matter of training, although he undoubtedly knew in his head as much as was known about God. It was instantaneous. He knew himself instantly.

What then was the solution for Isaiah? The seraphim took a hot coal and purged his lips with it. Why his lips? This is what guilt that came to Isaiah’s mind immediately. He is the one that said, I am a man of unclean lips. But in the symbolic and very real act of purging we see that Isaiah was purified of his sin before God. This could very well be a metaphor for purgatory, the place of purging that those of us will pass through who still have some of the stain of sin on us, who are saved but cannot enter the presence of God as we are.

And for Isaiah, this purging of his lips was also a sign of his vocation. He was to be a prophet and speak the words of God to the people. From then on his lips were sealed by God for God’s work, for God’s word. It is often in our moments of true penance, of self-knowledge of our own guilt, of recognition of our own sinfulness that we find the clues of our vocation. And that is not surprising when we think about it. God has a job for us to do, small or large, but it is first through repentance and capitulation before God that we will find it. How can we know God’s will for us when we are puffed up in our own importance, when we are living in self-delusion about our own piety? God waits for us to fall on our knees in repentance and sorrow for our sin, so that then, when we are ready, when we have given ourselves over to him completely, we can hear his call and say with Isaiah, “here am I, send me.”

From the Gospel today we read about the calling of St. Peter, as well as James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Have you ever wondered what would make such men just drop everything, their business, their livelihood and follow Jesus? We read that James and John were partners with Simon. They were running a fishing business together. And all at once they give it up?

They same thing happened to these men as happened to Isaiah. They were visited by the presence of God. Jesus performed a miracle right in front of their eyes and they knew, at least Simon recognized right away that Jesus was God. He was a fisherman by trade and he knew those waters. He knew it was no accident that where there were no fish to be caught beforehand, suddenly there was more than they could haul into the boat. Too many years on the water spending his time casting nets told him right away that this was a miracle.

Again, what was Simon’s response when God was made known to him? It was the same as Isaiah and the same as our response should be. He fell on his knees before Jesus recognizing that his own sinfulness. He knew that he was not fit for the presence of God and that here, indeed was the presence of God. And here again, like Isaiah, he received his vocation in the moment of humility and repentance before God. Jesus called him to follow and he dropped his fishing business just like that and followed. His action was suited to the words of Isaiah, “here am I, send me.” Jesus said follow me, and he followed, along with James and John, who perhaps recognized the divine presence with them, or perhaps were merely following Simon’s lead.

And there is a valuable lesson as well. Occasionally, we are called to follow the lead of someone else, in this case the first Pope of the Holy Catholic Church. Occasionally our faith is not fully formed but we go into action nevertheless, following the examples of others, and it is only later on we come to the realization that we are personally called to duty. It is only later that we experience the presence of God and in full realization of our sins and in repentance we confirm our vocation, or rather, God confirms us in our vocation.

How like that is our baptism and confirmation in the Church. As an infant we have no idea what faith is, yet we are baptized on the strength of the faith of our parents and godparents. For us, they are our leader, our Simon. Later as we learn more and learn to seek out God we find ourselves convicted of our own sin and come to him in repentance and sorrow. When we are able to do that, we are ready to be confirmed in the faith and strengthened in the Holy Spirit, renewing and locking down, as it were, that original grace of baptism, as God’s presence becomes very real to us.

But let us make no mistake. There is no salvation for us without first that repentance and sorrow before God for our own sinfulness. Until we see ourselves as unclean before God, and fall on our knees in sorrow, we cannot enter into heaven. Perhaps we will not experience something so dramatic as Isaiah or Simon. Thanks be to God that we have their example before us, and we may not have to be knocked to our knees to get it. Our Lord Jesus has given us such an abundance of riches in the Church and in the sacraments of the Church that we can come before God and give ourselves to him without having to find ourselves in grave sin, and in dire need of repentance. There is no need to ever be far from him in order to get down on our knees in recognition of who we are and to give ourselves over to him heart and soul. But either way, that is the way. We have to give up ourselves completely to him first to find our salvation and find our vocation. Perhaps for some of us, sad to say, because of our thick headedness or something, we need to fall away from him into sin to be able to re-awaken and come back in repentance.

His greatest gift to us is his presence here in the Eucharist. We can always come before him with docile hearts and he will be here. If we really discern the body and blood of Christ here in the blessed sacrament, we will be disposed to see ourselves as we really are. What a marvelous gift Jesus has given us that we can recognize, like Simon, the divine presence right before us and fall on our knees before him.

And he has given us the sacrament of confession for that very reason as well, so that we can come to him and confess our sinfulness before him and receive absolution from those sins, just as Isaiah was purified in the temple. Everything we need is right here for us. All that is required is that we recognize our sin, repent of it in sorrow and ask for forgiveness. Clearly, such repentance and sorrow requires that we have what is called a firm purpose of amendment. We learn when we are young that this is a condition of our absolution. What does that mean? Clearly, if we have every intention of doing the sin again we really have not repented of it and we are not truly sorry. We have not seen ourselves as sinful and unclean before God.

This is why priests will sometimes ask questions in the confessional, to try to determine if the penitent is truly repentant or not. He cannot read minds so occasionally he will try to clarify the state of heart and mind of the penitent. Priests have been known to refuse absolution where it is clear that the person fully intends to go back to the sin they are confessing. Even so, he may grant absolution without knowing those intentions, but that person has not received the sacrament if the conditions were not met. It may be possible to fool the priest, but not God. Why is it that in the Act of Contrition we say that we are sorry for having offended God? For the very same reason some like Simon and Isaiah fall on their knees and say “woe is me.” Because our sin is an offense before God more than anything else. We are unclean and unfit for his presence. And that is why we should never receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin. It is our soul that is in danger by such arrogance before God.

Before his experience in the temple Isaiah was just like we are so many times when we come into this place. We genuflect, we make the sign of the cross, we make all the gestures that signify that we know that it is Jesus truly present here in the Blessed Sacrament. Yet perhaps often we don’t really internalize that, we know with our heads but not our hearts. Sometimes it takes a minor miracle to bring it to our attention. What we must do is what the Church teaches us to do, and that is to take the time before the mass to meditate upon the sacred mystery of the real presence of Jesus in Blessed Sacrament. Only then can we be properly disposed to understand just where we stand before God.

If these Scriptures were not enough to make the point, the Church has also given us today the passage from St. Paul in which he reminds the Corinthian Church that what he taught them, the message of the gospel that he gave them is the same gospel as that taught by Cephas, (which is the Greek version of the Aramaic name that Jesus gave to Simon, Kepha, which in Aramaic means rock). There is much in the passage we could discuss but for our purpose here we go down to verse 9 where he says;

[9] For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

This is the attitude of the man that wrote much of the New Testament at the inspiration of God. He looked at himself with no illusions. Yes, he says, he works harder than the rest but still he remembers that it was the experience of God blinding him on the road to Damascus that caused him to repent and serve God. In the presence of the resurrected Christ he gave himself over to him in repentance and the grace of God purified him in baptism. And then he too, with Isaiah, was able to say; “here am I send me.”

Jeremiah 1: 4 – 5, 17 – 19
4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
17 But you, gird up your loins; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.
18 And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land.
19 They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.”

Psalms 71: 1 – 6, 15 – 17
1 In thee, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame!
2 In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me!
3 Be thou to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
5 For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
6 Upon thee I have leaned from my birth; thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of thee.
15 My mouth will tell of thy righteous acts, of thy deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge.
16 With the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD I will come, I will praise thy righteousness, thine alone.
17 O God, from my youth thou hast taught me, and I still proclaim thy wondrous deeds.

1 Corinthians 12: 31
31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
1 Corinthians 13: 1 – 13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4: 21 – 30
21 And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
22 And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, `Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Caper’na-um, do here also in your own country.’”
24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.
25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eli’jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land;
26 and Eli’jah was sent to none of them but only to Zar’ephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli’sha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Na’aman the Syrian.”
28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
29 And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong.
30 But passing through the midst of them he went away.

Over the past two Sundays we have spoken a little of the fact that we must be the means of renewal in the Church. St. Paul told us that each of us has a job to do, as part of the body of Christ, just as each part of our bodies has its own job to do. If we are to continue this theme of renewal of the Church we have to realize that there will be people who are skeptical. They may be those who are outside of the Church who have never been to Church at all and they have never really wanted anything to do with it. They may be those who were raised in the Church but have long since left and have had no real interest in coming back. And they may be those that come to Church regularly but are quite comfortable with the way things are and see no need for renewal or anything else that might shake up their lives.

And guess what? All of these people know you in one way or another. They may be neighbours, co-workers or they may sit just one pew over from you at Mass. Perhaps there are also family or friends who are quite happy to be in some Protestant ecclesial communion and have a lot of ready made attacks against the Catholic Church if you so much as breath a word about the faith to them. The point is, you are from their neighbourhood. They may have seen you as a kid, doing whatever it was that you did then, good or bad. They may have seen you in high-school and know what kind of trouble you got up to in those days when you were a rebellious teenager.

In today’s Gospel Jesus is pointing out this problem. Now he was the perfect child. He didn’t get into trouble the way that we did. He didn’t break something of the neighour’s like a window, or hang out with a gang in high-school that picked on some kid or hung out at the mall and generally annoyed everyone. He didn’t run with the jocks and think he was immune to being respectful of other people and their property. He was the perfect child, the perfect son. And you know something, if we had known him we wouldn’t have found him irritating for that, because in his goodness he was humble and good humoured. He didn’t parade his goodness as a reproach to others. But still, here he is in today’s Gospel pointing out that in his own land, the man who becomes a prophet of God is not welcome.

What could they have had to hold against him? There was nothing. Yet because he was from their neighbourhood, they couldn’t take him seriously, at least until he pointed out the same fault in Israel of old and it became apparent to them that he was drawing a direct comparison to them. Then they got angry with him. They couldn’t accept that they might be doing the same thing. But he reminds them that the miracles of God did not happen to those in the prophet’s own country. He mentions Elijah, highly revered as a prophet to the Jews, and points out that even in the time of famine in Israel the Lord sent him to an outsider to perform a miracle. They all knew the account. It is from 1 Kings 17. Perhaps we should read about it.

1 Kings 17
“And Elias the Thesbite, of the inhabitants of Galaad, said to Achab: As the Lord lives, the God of Israel, in whose sight I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to the words of my mouth.
2 And the word of the Lord came to him, saying:
3 Get you hence, and go towards the east, and hide yourself by the torrent of Carith, which is over against the Jordan;
4 and there you shall drink of the torrent: and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.
5 So he went, and did according to the word of the Lord: and going, he dwelt by the torrent Carith, which is over against the Jordan.
6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the torrent.
7 But after some time the torrent was dried up: for it had not rained upon the earth.
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying:
9 Arise, and go to Sarephta of the Sidonians, and dwell there: for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed you.
10 He arose, and went to Sarephta. And when he had come to the gate of the city, he saw the widow woman gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her: Give me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
11 And when she was going to fetch it, he called after her, saying: Bring me also, I beseech you, a morsel of bread in your hand.
12 And she answered: As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruise: behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.
13 And Elias said to her: Fear not; but go, and do as you have said but first make for me of the same meal a little hearth cake, and bring it to me, and after make for yourself and your son.
14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruise of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth.
15 She went, and did according to the word of Elias: and he ate, and she, and her house: and from that day
16 the pot of meal wasted not, and the cruise of oil was not diminished according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke in the hand of Elias.
17 And it came to pass after this, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and the sickness was very grievous, so that there was no breath left in him.
18 And she said to Elias: What have I to do with you, you man of God? Are you come to me, that my iniquities should be remembered, and that you should kill my son?
19 And Elias said to her: Give me your son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.
20 And he cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord, my God, have you afflicted also the widow, with whom I am after a sort maintained, so as to kill her son?
21 And he stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord, my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech you, return into his body.
22 And the Lord heard the voice of Elias: and the soul of the child returned into him, and he revived.
23 And Elias took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber to the house below, and delivered him to his mother, and said to her: Behold your son lives.
24 And the woman said to Elias: Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.

This was a reminder that God performed miracles at the hand of Elijah for a foreign woman, a widow of Sidon, and we see that she believed in God when her son was restored to life from grave illness. Jesus points this out because he was performing miracles as well, healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind wherever he went. Even so, they were saying in his home town, “who is this guy? We know him, he’s the carpenter’s son. Who does he think he is?”

How much more are we likely to hear the same thing if we begin to take our faith to those around us? We must expect to hear some of the same sort of thing. Jesus himself took his ministry elsewhere but eventually the ones that crucified him were saying the same thing at his trial. This is the son of Joseph the carpenter. How can he claim to be God? Does this mean that we must be quiet? Not at all. The Scriptures have been reminding us in the past few weeks that we all have a job to do, each person according to his gift, his talents, his abilities. We are not all evangelists in the sense of proclaiming the Gospel on the street corners. Most of us are not. How then are we to proclaim the message?

The first place to start is given to us in the words of St. Paul to the Corinthian Church. This is his famous discourse on love, often used as a reading for weddings. That is a great passage to read at weddings but perhaps not for the reason that we think at first glance. We know that usually the couple being married are “in love.” That is a given. Often I don’t suppose they even hear the words of Scripture during the wedding, so absorbed are they with the ceremony and with each other. This is a glorious day for them, a beautiful day, and there could be nothing that anyone could teach them about love on that day. And we would not have it any other way. It is a beautiful thing to behold, a young man and young woman, sacramentally binding themselves together before God until death. But St. Paul’s passage on love is very relevant to them, if not in that moment, then later on.

The love that St. Paul talks about here is a higher form of love than “being in love” as great as that can be. We all know that for most people, the shine comes off that infatuation over time. But that is not a criticism, it is simply human nature. What St. Paul is talking about is the love that carries us through and becomes very deep between a man and woman, long after the years have passed since the wedding. It is the love we refer to as Agape. It is the love that God has for us, the love that we are supposed to have for each other. This is the love that Jesus speaks of when he talks of the two greatest commandments; first that you love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind; and second that you love your neighbour as yourself. This kind of love does not even require that you like the person. It is the will and the action that is concerned with the good of the other, for no other reason than that they are another human being whom God loves as he loves us. It is the love that seeks the good of the other, primarily that they come to know and have faith in God. This is the love that should drive our evangelization and in most cases is the love that actually is our evnagelization.

The point here is that when we actually take our faith seriously and try to live it, we find that the command of Jesus is facing us at every turn in life. We have not said a thing, but when we treat someone, anyone, everyone with the kind of love that St. Paul is talking about, we are being what we have to be to please God and inevitably there will be those who notice it. If we are genuine and in humility treat people with their good in mind, never mind whether we like them or even really know them, we will find that they will seek us out, either for help, for talk and sometimes even for the truth about God. We should never be shy about letting people know that we are Catholics, in one manner or another, yet our lives should so mirror Christ that people will see Christ or seek him because of us. And it may never be something conscious on their part. It may be much later or never that we hear from them how it was our example that began to bring them to the light.

But remember, that is not easy to do. It is accomplished one minute at a time, one day at a time through the strength of God’s grace which flows to us when we ask for that grace. When we will it, desire it, and ask God for it, the Holy Spirit will provide the help that we ask for in order to be Christlike every day. We will fail miserably at times. That is where we apologize to anyone who deserves it from us and then we confess to God and ask his forgiveness and carry on.

Sooner or later, however, we are bound to run across the question or something like it, “What, do you think you are better than us?” We will have to take a stand some day, about something relatively minor, or about something very major. It may be something that you do not want your children to be involved in taking place in the community because it will tend to teach them poor morals, atheism or something like that. It may be some organization whether political or charitable that is supporting something like abortion that you cannot support. It may be local politics, it may be union politics. It may be good friends that want to get involved in something and take you along with them. Whatever the scenario, they may respect you and they may not.

We know that sin loves company. It likes to bring everyone to its level. In fact it has a problem dealing with the fact that there actually exists someone who will not bring themselves to go along. This was always the case. We see it in the account of Lot and the angels that came to his house in Sodom to warn him of the coming destruction. The men of the city were at Lot’s door clamouring for the young men, who were actually angels, to come out and party with them. They were not happy with refusal.

This is an important lesson that we must always remember. We like to think that we live in a free and pluralistic society, but it is always moving in one direction or the other, towards God or away from God. It does not stand still. And here is the problem. Satan and his fallen angels do not believe in live and let live. They are not tolerant of us. When Christians had the ascendency in the free world, the forces of evil only wanted tolerance they said. Just leave us alone to do our own thing and don’t punish us. That quickly changed to become more aggressive. On the present course we will be the ones who must ask for tolerance soon, just so that we won’t be persecuted and prosecuted for our faith. We have seen the first stages of that already; a bishop here, a priest there brought before that kangaroo court known as a human rights commission. But we cannot forget, sin is not tolerant of Christ nor his followers.

“Come on, what’s the harm?” “Loosen up a little.” “Just try it once.” “Hey who’s going to know?” “What are you, better than us?” These are the kinds of come-ons that our young people face all the time. We have faced it in our youth and in our working life. We have faced it in our social lives. When we refuse and walk away there are consequences, socially and otherwise. Let us make no mistake. But remember, when those same people are in trouble they seek out the one who is centered in Christ, the one who is humble but moral, the one who listens, the one whose life is not sunk in the same depths of sin as their own. They may not do it publicly, but they will know who to go to for a straight answer. They may not even like the answer, but as always our answer is Christ.

Through all of this, if and when the going gets tough, we can take comfort from the first two readings of today. God tells Jeremiah;

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Is that not reassurance? God tells Jeremiah, and insofar as we are his children, and doing his will, he tells us that he knew us before we were even conceived. Think of that. Before we were even conceived he had a plan for us and knows just what we need to carry out his plan. All we have to do is obey him. Pretty simple. And the psalmist today reminds us that it is God who is our refuge;

3 Be thou to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
5 For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.

Praise the almighty God! Bless his Holy Name! We rest in him and not in our own strength nor the approval of our neighbours.

Nehemiah 8: 2 – 4, 5 – 6, 8 – 10
2 And Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.
3 And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
4 And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden pulpit which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithi’ah, Shema, Anai’ah, Uri’ah, Hilki’ah, and Ma-asei’ah on his right hand; and Pedai’ah, Mish’a-el, Malchi’jah, Hashum, Hash-bad’danah, Zechari’ah, and Meshul’lam on his left hand.
5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people; and when he opened it all the people stood.
6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God; and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
8 And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
9 And Nehemi’ah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.
10 Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Psalms 19: 8 – 10, 15
8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever; the ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

1 Corinthians 12: 12 – 30
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
18 But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
19 If all were a single organ, where would the body be?
20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
22 On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable,
23 and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,
24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part,
25 that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.
29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?
30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

Luke 1: 1 – 4
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us,
2 just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,
3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent The-oph’ilus,
4 that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.
Luke 4: 14 – 21
14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country.
15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read;
17 and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20 And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

If we are to check the background of the reading from Nehemiah we find that the people of Israel had been returning to Jerusalem and the surrounding area from exile in Babylon. This was really the end of the Babylonian exile. But they were sacttered throughout the lands of Israel and they were scattered in their understanding of who they were as Israelites and they definitely did not understand the Covenants of old. They were God’s people but didn’t know God.

How many of us today are really in the same boat? How many of us were baptized in the Church, grew up in the Church, were confirmed, or maybe not even confirmed, yet really know very little of God and who we are as part of his Kingdom? Or perhaps we understand what it is to be a Catholic in a general sort of way, but we don’t understand what it is that God wants from us. That is the difficult part is it not? Knowing what God wants from us.

How easy it is to live everyday in the freedom of worshipping God as Catholics and take it all for granted and not realize just what it is that we really represent, who and what we really are. Lately we have seen increasing signs that it will be more and more difficult for us to be Catholics in our own land and in nations that have been traditionally free. In a sense we are in the opposite position from those people that Ezra spoke to in Jerusalem.

They had escaped slavery, had escaped captivity and found themselves back in their own homeland, essentially free to worship the God of their fathers. They had just finished rebuilding the gates and the wall of Jerusalem and they were beginning to come together as a people. Nehemiah had done a census of a sort, identifying who belonged to what tribe and was organizing the nation of Israel. He had been successful in making them see that it was in their own best interest to donate to the common cause and to give their fellow countrymen interest free loans to help them get established. They were becoming a nation once more and they were moving toward freedom.

We see what happened when Ezra came out to them and read the Law of God to them. This was their heritage; this was the very Word of God to them. When they heard it they fell down on their knees and worshipped God. If we read into further chapters of the Book of Nehemiah we find that the people were convicted of their own sin and their transgression of the Law of their God. They repented in fasting and sackcloth and came together and confessed their sins, crying out to God for forgiveness for having broken God’s law.

There were those who opposed this rebuilding but when the people of God acted together in cooperation, each one doing his part to build the gates and wall, the opposition realized that this was God acting through his people and they backed off. There will always be people that oppose us, at whatever time in history we find ourselves. Today it may be getting worse but it is always there. The point is that we cannot let that stop us. In fact, it should unite us.

Pope John Paul II spoke of a new springtime in the Church. He expected that there would be a great renewal in the Church, a great coming back to God just like the Israelites of old had come back to Jerusalem and began worshipping God once more. Do we think that we don’t have enough priests? Are we concerned that many of the religious orders seem to be literally dying away? Are we concerned when we see parishes forced to close up and join other parishes due to lack of people and money to support a Church? John Paul II began his pontificate with the words, “Be not afraid.” He expected a renewal of the Church.

If we look at the reading from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians today, we see how it is that God expects us to help in the rebuilding of our Church. God has a job for each of us, just as the human body has various parts with various functions, so we too as the body of Christ have various specific jobs to do as members of the body of Christ. But where does this all start?

First we have to hear the Word of God just as the people of Israel heard the law. It cannot be just a commentary on the news of the day. It cannot be some modern philosophy. It must not be simply soft words and moralizing. It must not be teaching some New Age practices. On the contrary, it must be the Word of God. What is this Word of God? It is not a matter of “what,” it is a matter of “who.” If we look to the very first words of the Gospel of John he tells us that Jesus is the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. As St. Paul says, we preach Jesus and him crucified. That is why we have a crucifix. In fact, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has called for a crucifix to be placed on every altar in every Church, to remind us who it is we worship.

What did the people of Israel do next? They fell on their knees and worshiped God. They repented of their sins and confessed them. If we are to see a renewal in the Church, we must do the same. And we must call on God to give us this renewal. We must be on our knees asking for renewal. We must enlist the help of our Lady, the blessed virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord. She is our mother, the first disciple in faith and she wants a renewal as much as we do. We can also call upon all the saints to entreat the Lord for such a renewal as we have never seen.

Last week, we saw Jesus first miracle that inaugerated his ministry at the wedding at Cana. .In today’s Gospel we see that Jesus began his preaching and teaching ministry by reading from the prophet Isaiah and declaring that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy. He had arrived and as he said on later occasions, the Kingdom was near. We are now part of that Kingdom but we have become slack and we have lost the edge of knowing who it is we worship and why. Many of us have become stuck in the idea that we can accomplish our obligation to Christ in the corporal works of mercy by electing governments to do it for us. If we have a just society, we tell ourselves, we can claim that we have followed Christ’s commandment to love our neighbour. We can get self-satisfied and think that is the way that we are going to make it to the new heaven and new earth that Jesus promised to St. John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse.

Well, governments are run by men and while they may do a lot of good by times, we know also that their good works are tempered by things like abortion and contraception. They don’t recognize God’s Word and they don’t recognize the Church. We must not neglect the corporal works of mercy and we cannot depend on someone else to do it for us. But before any of that is any credit to us we must be in a state of grace before God. He promises us that he will give us credit for what we do in his name by the power of his grace, but faith comes first. We must get ourselves back on our knees and get back into a state of grace. What does that mean?

It means that we have to give up ourselves once more to God, put Christ first in our lives, confess our sins, make a firm purpose of amendment, and begin to live our lives in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we will find out what job it is that God has for us in the re-building of his Church, the renewal. But nothing will happen until we ask, and we will not accomplish anything until we have returned to a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 62: 1 – 5

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the LORD will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My delight is in her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Psalms 96: 1 – 3, 7 – 10

1 O sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!
2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!
9 Worship the LORD in holy array; tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns! Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”

1 Corinthians 12: 4 – 11

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
6 and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.
7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
11 All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

John 2: 1 – 11

1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
4 And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it.
9 When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom
10 and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

At first glance the words today from Isaiah seem a little strange. He is using the familiar imagery of marriage to describe the way that God will restore Israel and even talks of God calling their land “married” or as the New American Bible puts it, “For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse.”

To the mind of the people of Israel, this was not quite so odd. They believed that their misfortunes were a result of previous generations having walked away from their covenant with God. But it was God who was able to reverse their fortunes. He was the one able to cause the land to be fruitful, to cause the seeds to grow for pasture, for vineyards and so forth. Theirs was a society tied very close to the land, in the time of Isaiah and even in the time of Jesus, and their prosperity was directly tied to how fruitful the land was at any given time. They needed grain for bread at the very minimum, even if they did not have much in the way of livestock.

We have mentioned Covenant and for a moment we should look at what a covenant is. First, what it is not. It is not a contract. Here’s the difference. In a contract one person makes a promise to provide a good or service to another in exchange for the other person’s promise to give back some good or service. In other words the contract is exchange of goods or services. A covenant on the other hand is an exchange of persons. That is to say one person gives himself to the other in exchange for that other giving himself in return. That is exactly what God did first for Abraham and several times later with Abraham’s descendants. God always gave himself to them. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” That is not a contract.

The New Covenant that we speak of, is God’s final and complete covenant with mankind, binding all those who will receive it. That covenant was accomplished by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, he gave himself totally to us, and our response, in order to be part of the covenant is to give ourselves to him.

In Latin, the word “covenant” translates as “sacramentum” or sacrament in English. Every sacrament of the Church is therefore a giving of ourselves over to God. The only one that is different is the sacrament of marriage and that is why the man and woman actually perform the sacrament themselves with the priest as representing God as witness. The man and the woman make a covenant, in the truest sense of the word, giving themselves totally, finally and completely to each other. We have all heard the expression, “as God is my witness?” In this case it is true. If there are no impediments to the marriage, then it is a valid covenant and one which cannot be broken.

A covenant does not have an expiry date. That is why the Church teaches unequivocally today as she has always taught, that marriage is for life. No divorce in the eyes of the Church is possible. The only judgment the Church might make is whether or not the marriage actually occured, whether there was ever a true covenant to begin with. If there were serious impediments to the sacrament, then the Church can decide that a marriage never took place and issue a statement of nullity, or as we call it, an annulment.

Here’s what the Catechism says;

1614 In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning permission given by Moses to divorce one’s wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts.106 The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God himself has determined it “what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”107
1615 This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the marriage bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand impossible to realize. However, Jesus has not placed on spouses a burden impossible to bear, or too heavy – heavier than the Law of Moses.108 By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God. It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to “receive” the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ.109 This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life.
Matthew 19:8
Matthew 19:6
Mark 8:34; Matthew 11:29-30
Matthew 19:11

The Catechism elaborates a little more on this in 1639 and 1640;

1639 The consent by which the spouses mutually give and receive one another is sealed by God himself.141 From their covenant arises “an institution, confirmed by the divine law, . . . even in the eyes of society.”142 The covenant between the spouses is integrated into God’s covenant with man: “Authentic married love is caught up into divine love.”143
1640 Thus the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by God’s fidelity. The Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom.144
Mark 10:9
Gaudium et Spes 48 #1
Gaudium et Spes 48 #2
Canon Law canon 1141

But the Church goes even further. Not only is marriage for life, but it must be open to life;

1652 “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.”160
Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: “It is not good that man should be alone,” and “from the beginning [he] made them male and female”; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.161
1653 The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children.162 In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life.163

Gaudium et spes 48 #1; 50
Gaudium et spes 50 #1 Genesis 2:18; Matthew 19:4; Genesis 1:28
Gravissimum Educationis 3
Familiaris Consortio 28

There have been some who would tell us that with Vatican II it is no longer a problem to use contraceptives. That is plain hogwash. If we look at the documents of Vatican II, in particular Gaudium et spes from 48-50 we will find what was later confirmed by Humanae Vitae. Yes, there was a great rebellion in the Church in 1968 when Humanae Vitae was issued by Pope Paul VI. But despite that rebellion, the Church has not changed her teaching on contraception and will not. It is still sinful and as a mortal sin still requires confession in true contrition with a firm purpose of amendment. That is to say, we don’t intend to do it again.

At this point, if we look back on the first reading from Isaiah, we can understand a little better what he is talking about when he speaks of God “espousing” the land. In the context of a marriage open to life, this passage from Isaiah becomes symbolic, and follows the same pattern that God has always presented to us. In the covenant of marriage God presumes our openness to life. The assumption in this passage is that God will cause the land to bring forth fruit. That is a parallel to marriage, which also brings forth life.

It is interesting also that the Catechism mentions our reading today from the Gospel. The wedding at Cana.

1613 On the threshold of his public life Jesus performs his first sign – at his mother’s request – during a wedding feast.105 The Church attaches great importance to Jesus’ presence at the wedding at Cana. She sees in it the confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ’s presence.

The God that Isaiah speaks of and Jesus the Christ are the same God and we say that we are followers of Jesus Christ. The covenant bond and fertility go hand in hand down through God’s revelation to us and that is why the Church takes it seriously and so should we. Oh yes, in this world of technological advancements we can mess around with fertility and reproduction in any number of ways but when we thwart what God has ordered we stand against God.

St. Paul shows us how this same pattern carries over into our spiritual life. It is the same God that creates the fruits of the Spirit, and various gifts that should mark us for his service in the Church. This is a result of our marriage to the Lamb of God. Revelation speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb and when we receive Holy Communion we are participating in that in advance of the final feat. It is a foretaste of the great wedding feast. As a Church we are the bride of Christ and so too we must be the fertile ground to bring for the fruits of that union.