In the 2nd century when Christians were persecuted some local Roman officials ordered a manhunt for an elderly man Polycarp. He was an 86-year-old bishop. We may wonder what made that fragile man such a threat to the powerful empire that a manhunt for him was launched. The reason was that Polycarp was one of the last people who knew the Apostles of Christ. He himself was formed by St John the Apostle. When he was captured the officials proposed a deal: his life would be spared if he renounced Jesus Christ. The elderly bishop answered: “Eighty and six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour? – and he went on saying: I bless you Father for judging me worthy of this hour, so that in the company of martyrs I may share the cup of Christ.”
            A few days ago I couldn’t help thinking that our time, which is presumably secular, has resembled the time of those great martyrs of the early days of our Church again. An 84-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel was martyred in a French town, while celebrating a morning Mass. When he went to the local church to celebrate the Eucharist he didn’t know that he would join the priests of the past, like St Thomas Beckett or Blessed Oscar Romero, who during the Sacrifice of Mass sacrificed their very life for God’s glory and for salvation of the souls.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The blood of Fr Jacques which soaked the floor of the church where he served like the blood of St Polycarp was the culmination of their long and dedicated ministry to God and God’s people. For many years, day after day, they were choosing Christ by giving themselves for spreading of the Gospel. As St Paul wrote to the Colossians: “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth.” Those two elderly priests chose Christ not only when they accepted martyrdom but every day when they chose to serve God and God’s people. In recent days many people have expressed their solidarity with the church community where Fr Jacques ministered because they were impacted by the killing but the life and death of that priest is a song about faithfulness and commitment. St Paul in the same passage we heard at this Mass reminded us: “You have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.” I believe that the recent martyrdom of Fr Jacques, that his martyr’s blood, will be like a rain to fall on our daily life, which most of the time is hidden like the life and ministry of that priest was hidden, discreet. However in this hidden and discreet daily life God’s glory is revealed too by our faithfulness and commitment to God and to those whom God has placed in our life.
Let me finish with the prayer St Polycarp prayed when he was tied up to be burnt: “Lord God Almighty, Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received knowledge of you, God of angels and powers, of the whole creation and of the whole race of the righteous who live in your sight, I bless you, for having made me worthy of this day and hour, I bless you, because I may have a part, along with the martyrs, in the chalice of your Christ, to resurrection in eternal life, resurrection both of soul and body in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. May I be received today, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, among those who are in your presence, as you have prepared and foretold and fulfilled, God who is faithful and true. For this and for all benefits I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you, through the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom be to you with him and the Holy Spirit glory, now and for all the ages to come. Amen."
May we strive to live this prayer every day so that every day God may be glorified by our faithfulness and commitment to the vocation He has given us.

            A few weeks ago I watched a movie called Alexander. That’s the story of a powerful king from the 4th century BC. A successful soldier and politician, Alexander was able to bring under his rule the most of the world at that time. How many of you could tell something about him now? Not many I presume. That’s powerful empire is gone and forgotten.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! It is not an isolated case. How many empires have emerged and then fallen apart. The first reading from the Book of Genesis gives us the story of the end of the wealthy and influential society of Sodom and Gomorrah.
                The Bible tells us that Abraham’s nephew Lot chose to settle in Sodom and Gomorrah as they were very prosperous cities located in the most fertile part of the land. The location of the cities and the skilfulness of the citizens made the places a dream destination for refuges, like Lot and his family. However from the midst of the wealth and prosperity emerged a moral decadence. “How great an outcry there is against Sodom and Gomorrah! How grievous is their sin!” As we listened to the unfolding story it was explained to us that economic skills were not the only common thing there. The Genesis tells us that in that society an attempt to find 10 just people failed. The whole society was corrupted by their immoral way of living. Were they the only sinful people on the Earth? They were not. However they got to the stage when they started calling evil good. On the first pages of Genesis we are told of the first people being tempted to know evil and good. It had nothing to do with the ability of telling good from evil. On the contrary it was all about reaching for the authority which is reserved to God alone. The authority of deciding what is good and what is evil.
             Imagine living in Sodom or Gomorrah and proposing to have a democratic system. All evil laws would be passed unanimously, as evil mentality; evil attitudes and evil practises were their new “normal” way of living. Probably it is hard for us to imagine that but they were so corrupted that even God’s message for repentance made no impression on them at all. They were not able to repent but they were skilful to train the next generations in their own decadence.
             Is it a story of the past? Recently in the media the expression “The Divided States of America” has been used more and more often. The solidarity rallies and speeches of leaders express hope and confidence but at the same time the division is growing more and more. As I listened to those news reports the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta occurred to me. In 1994 in Washington DC she spoke to a gathering which included the then President Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary. In her speech the little nun said: “How can you advise nations to stop killing if you advise mothers to kill their own babies?”
               Confronted by the Word of God the Church prays: “O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy.” Any society that is to flourish must be built on the foundation of the moral law which God has engraved in the hearts of us all: believers and unbelievers alike. It is not about how many votes a law can get. The number of votes is not going to make evil good. It just reveals the corruption and decadence. If there is not willingness to repent and to reject evil the consequence is destruction and the history of great empires indicates that usually it is a self-destruction.
               My Dear Friends in Christ! To conclude this homily I would like to use this great prayer Jesus Christ taught us to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,  thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The future not only of the Church but also all nations on the Earth is closely connected to accepting and living the law God has engraved in us all. If we manipulate and play with that we are on the way to join those fallen apart and forgotten empires of the past.

       This weekend is overshadowed by the tragic events which took place in Niece in France. The locals and tourists congregated along the sea cost to watch fireworks commemorating the Bastille Day were targeted. More than 80 died and many were left injured fighting for their life. In this tragic circumstance we gather to celebrate the Eucharist and like Mary from the Gospel we sit at foot of the Lord Jesus to listen to his voice. Even if our mind is spinning trying to process the scenes we have seen on TV, the internet and in the newspapers we pause today, as people of faith, to give space for Jesus.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Those two female characters from the Gospel capture perfectly the tension we can detect in the Church as well, the tension between action and listening. The tension will always escalate when we favour one thing over another. Don’t think that Jesus condemned Martha’s attitude and favoured Mary’s. He didn’t, but he rather indicated that what we do should come from our listening to the Lord. As doing things without being grounded in the Word of God can have little to do with God as listening to the Word of God without putting it into practice can have little to do with God as well.
            Next week we will see Jesus in one of those intimate moments of prayer. It must have been so captivating that his disciples asked him: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” The outcome of that request is the prayer we all know so well: Our Father. Did Jesus pray this prayer before or did he compose it after being asked by his Apostles? We cannot answer this question but we can identify with confidence  a prayer he prayed at least twice a day, the prayer which has been a framework of day and life for the Jewish people for millennia: “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonal Eloheinu Adonai Ehad” which can be translated as: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is One!” or “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God – the Lord alone.” As the Bible prescribed it the Jews have prayed it at their rising in the morning and at their resting at night. Can you notice here that the accent is on listening? Isn’t a powerful and motivating way to start your day? To be open to the Lord speaking in various ways, through various events and various people? Then the actions we perform flow from God himself. They are not simply our actions but they are rather the continuation of the Lord’s creation story which was worded in the Genesis. Isn’t also a powerful and reassuring way to conclude the day, to look at the finishing day with an intention to recall God’s inspirations which came to us?
            Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and Mary, which St Luke described so vividly, is an encouragement to us all: to begin what we do with listening to the Lord our God, that’s what Martha overlooked, and to put into practice what we have heard, that’s what hopefully Mary later did.
            However there is another aspect which links both Shema and Our Father, they are not private or individualistic prayers. They are prayers of someone who belongs to a faith community. I am  at awe when I think about a little Jewish child, or an elderly Jewish lady, or a hard working Jewish father, saying Shema upon waking up or going to bed and saying it as a part of the community which is united by listening to the same Father in heaven. I am also at awe when I think about a little Christian child, or an elderly Christian lady, or a hard working Christian father, saying Our Father upon waking up or going to bed and saying it as a part of the community which is united by listening to the same Father in heaven.
            My Dear Friends! There are people grieving at this time as they come to terms with what has happened in Niece but the greatest grievance is caused by realisation how divided our world has become. Various modern social and political structures which were to ensure the unity of human kind are collapsing. Why is the world so divided? Why are those modern social and political structures collapsing? As an answer to those two questions let me articulate this question: Are those various modern social and political structures the outcome of listening to the Lord?

            Do you know what happened in Orlando on June 12, 2016? 49 killed and 53 wounded.
          Do you know what happened in Paris on November 13, 2015? 89 killed and nearly 400 wounded.
          Do you know what happened in Lahore, Pakistan on March 27, 2016? 78 killed and nearly 400 wounded.
          Do you know what happened in Agatu, Nigeria on February 24, 2016? 300 killed.
         Do you know what happened in Garissa, Kenya on April 2, 2015? 148 killed and 79 wounded.
         How many of you are able to tell stories of Lahore, Agatu and Garissa? How many of you know that in Lahore Christian families gathered in a park to celebrate Easter Sunday were targeted by a massive suicide blast which left 78 dead, more than half of them children? How many of you know that in Agatu Islamic arm forces went through Christian villages slaughtering 300 followers of Jesus? How many of you know that in Garissa a group of Muslims stormed a Christian college and in cold blood executed those who admitted they were Christians?
        After Paris shooting there were solidarity rallies, buildings lit up in France’s colours: blue, white and red. After Orlando shooting there were solidarity rallies, buildings lit up by rainbow. After Lahore shooting there was ignorance. After Agatu shooting there was politically correct silence. After Garissa shooting there was tactful omission in media reports.
          My Dear Sisters and Brothers! It is nothing new. Followers of Christ have been persecuted right through the centuries. In fact Jesus warned us saying: “People will hand you over to councils and flog you. You will be dragged before governors and kings because of me. (…) Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have put then to death, and you will be hated by all because of my name.”
         I don’t expect an acknowledgment from the leaders and powerful of this world. However it becomes a question for us, who share the same faith in Christ with those sisters and brothers of ours, how we treasure and preserve their memory. When I saw my friends marking their Facebook pages with French colours or the rainbow after Paris and Orlando I asked them whether I missed the symbols of their solidarity with slaughtered Christians before. Actually I didn’t miss them as there were no signs of solidarity. However it wasn’t about the Facebook. It was about the lack of knowledge.
        In this time of trial for many followers of Christ I feel that we, comfortable Christians in countries like Australia, have become like that priest and Levite from the Gospel. We pass the suffering of our fellow Christians silently. We don’t gather and treasure the stories of those who paid the ultimate price for their love for Jesus Christ. If we don’t hold their memories as precious and sacred they will be totally ignored by the society. The society cannot understand their sacrifice as our society looks at faith as something like a hobby you do after hours, probably even as a strange hobby. However faith is not something additional to our life it is the essence of who we are. Those two men from the Gospel ignored a suffering human being. Today a suffering believer is ignored.
         Let me finish with another date. Do you know what happened on August 9, 1945? Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. The area where the bomb exploded was the suburb inhabited by the local Catholic community. There were 12 thousand of them living there. 8,500 died on that day. Rumours were spread that they were so badly hit because they abandoned their old religion to become Christians. However the support they had from each other and from the foreign missionaries allowed them to accept the tragedy not as a punishment but as imitation of Christ who took upon himself the sins of others. Let’s gather and treasure the memories of our contemporary martyrs.

            It is said that Copernicus through his research in astronomy “stopped the sun and moved the earth” as before the earth was believed to be the centre of the Universe. Although no one believes that the earth is the centre of the Universe any more there is still another discovery to be appreciated. St Paul in his concluding remarks to the Galatians wrote: “The only things I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.”
            St Paul reveals to those early Christians, in what is part of Turkey today, that the centre of his life is not he himself, not his plans and not his desires but Jesus Christ. The Apostle declared that he was crucified to the world and the world to him so that the sinner who lived in him could die and a new child of God could be raised to life. How different it is to what the world has been preaching to us all the time: that our desires are the most important and we have right to fulfil them. The world stimulates our ambitions and assures us that we have right to accomplish them. However it creates a disastrous world for us when we expect things to go around us. Maybe for non-believers it makes sense but we who believe in Jesus don’t need to place ourselves in the centre of the Universe as we believe that we are already in the centre of God’s attention. Can anything else make your day better than this belief?
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The Lord Jesus sent seventy-two of his disciples ahead of him. The number wasn’t random. It was believed to be the number of the nations in the world. If someone were picky today they could laugh at that outdated knowledge. However the number which reflects the limitation of the scientific comprehension of the people of that time can be a serious challenge for those who reflect on it deeply. Jesus’ approach indicates that there is no nation on the earth that could be excluded from the evangelisation mission. Today Jesus would send 196 disciples in order to speak to our mind the need for reaching out to those peoples with the message  of the Gospel.
Let’s look at what he said to those 72 people. His very first words were: “The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.” St Luke’s word for send is a strong one here.  It means to drive out, cast out, or thrust out.  Does it remind you something? That’s what Jesus did when he cast out demon. That’s what Jesus did when he drove the money changers from the temple with a whip of cords.  Translating it as a gentle “send” doesn’t do the word justice. In fact Jesus told His disciples to pray that God would cast out, drive out, and thrust out labourers into the harvest field.  It doesn’t simply apply to some other people but it is the prayer for ourselves too: to be cast out, driven out and thrusted out into the harvest field. It becomes dramatic when we consider that Jesus speaks of God as the “Lord of the harvest.”  Imagine a landowner and his crops are ready for harvest. He has labourers too, but they don’t feel like working.  The sun may be hot or it might be raining or conditions may not be just right for working that day.  Is the landowner going to let the harvest rot in the field, or is he going to find some special motivation for his workers that day?  I vote for special motivation: drive out, cast out, thrust out.  Wonderful motivation, isn’t it? This motivation includes me and you too.
            Copernicus is believed to move the earth from its passive position in the Universe though he actually didn’t move it he discovered that it was moving. The reason Jesus asked his disciples to pray for the labours of the harvest to be cast out, driven out and thrusted out was because to move a person out of their self-centred world into the Christ-centred and mission-centred needs God’s grace. Are you ready to pray for that?