A week ago Fr Paul Rout, a Franciscan who lectures in London, gave a talk at the Catholic University in Brisbane. In his talk he said: ‘We are in danger of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing…. Wisdom comes about through our values, and not everything can be explained by the scientific method of enquiry.’
Listening to the first reading we from the Book of Wisdom we were given an insight into the situation of the Jews who found themselves living outside the Holy Land. They were in the same country like their ancestors at the time of Moses. They lived in Alexandria, an important and wealthy Egyptian port city. It was the time close to the coming of Jesus Christ. However it was also a situation which was presenting challenges to remaining faithful to God, as those who wanted to be faithful were under pressure to give up their beliefs. In fact, as today’s First Reading tells us that some Jews drifted away from living their faith and with their pagan collaborators were mobbing those who chose to love God and to live according to God’s Word. ‘Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man… Let us test him with cruelty and with torture… Let us condemn him to a shameful death.’ Despite being targets of mobbing the believers didn’t only recorded the difficulties they faced to remain God’s followers but they voiced a prophesy about the virtuous man, which brought them close to the New Testament not only chronologically but theologically as well. When St Paul and St John were searching for expressions to present the profoundness of Jesus Christ they turned to the Book of Wisdom.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The sufferings of the virtuous man, as described by the author of the Book of Wisdom, this Sunday are paralleled by Jesus’ own prediction of his suffering and death. It is the second time he talked about the approaching time of betrayal, torture, death and his resurrection. Jesus’ words on his approaching suffering and death must have been striking as his disciples overlooked his words on resurrection. When we listen to Mark’s account we get a sense that the disciples still hoped they belonged to a new powerful party following Jesus. It was so strong in them that after some time of silence following Jesus’ announcement of his approaching death they argued about their own significance in the group gathered around Jesus.
If the Book of Wisdom was in close proximity to the New Testament the events in today’s Gospel were the final moments before the Holy Week.
The disciples misunderstood the power of Jesus’ death and because of that they overlooked that Jesus’ death was to pave the way for his resurrection. The misunderstanding of the Lord’s death is our problem too, though it is from a different perspective. We know that we cannot change the past in which Jesus’ was captured, thrown into dungeon, scourged, crowned with thorns, burdened with the cross and nailed to it. However we need to ask ourselves: Do I think and talk about our Lord’s death on the cross always in connection to his resurrection? The whole spectrum of very physical suffering cannot be separated from the glory of his resurrection. At the same time the glory of his resurrection will never fully shine without the darkness of Good Friday. The value of the both events is God’s love for us.
As we pause in silence now in reaction to Jesus’ words about his death and resurrection it is not a contention of his death’s necessity or his resurrection’s reality but as an expression of our awe that ‘we are precious in God’s sight, and honoured and because he loves us.’
My Dear fellow believers. The disciples in the Gospel wanted to be important among others. Jesus however gave a different spin to their appreciation of being important. It is the importance of a child in the sight of its mother and father. It is the importance which is not earned but established by the parent’s love for their child.
This is our importance, this is our value.

When I reflect on a passage from the Scriptures I look into its context. It gives me a chance to see the passage as a part of a bigger unfolding mystery of God and man, not just an isolated event. However the context of a Scripture reading is not only the page before and the page after. A reading from the Gospel of Mark needs all sixteen chapters of the Gospel as its context. Only then we can appreciate it. Moreover a reading from the Gospel of Mark needs the whole of the Bible to communicate to us its Divine message as God speaks from the first page of the Genesis to the last page of the Apocalypse. I also turn to our saints and spiritual writers who have contemplated on a given passage. It reminds me that I am not a spiritual orphan in my pursuit of the will of God. That’s what the Gospel for this Sunday reminds me of as Jesus asked a question about his identity: ‘Who do you say I am?’ The question he asked has a plural form. It wasn’t addressed to a singular person. It was addressed to the twelve people, to a community which was a nucleus of the future Church. ‘Who do you say I am?’ cannot be answered by an individual. When Peter gave an answer, he spoke from the midst of that community of the Twelve, from that nucleus of the future Church. Peter and the eleven other Apostles must have had discussed it before among themselves. They must have talked among themselves what they saw and heard as they followed Jesus. They did hear what the people spoke of Jesus but they also heard what Jesus was saying himself. They saw what Jesus was doing both publicly and away from the crowds. They also remembered the prophecies of the Old Testament.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Listen to this: ‘You are the Christ.’ Whom do you hear here? Some could say: ‘It is Peter.’ It is a correct answer but it is not the complete answer. In what Peter said we can hear the voices of the other Apostles as well. When every Sunday a Catholic says after the homily ‘I believe in one God’ the Catholic professes that, he or she personally believes in God who is loved, worshiped and believed by this family called the Catholic Church. We speak like Peter did in todays’ Gospel we speak from the midst, from the center, from the heart of the Church which grew around that original nucleus which was made by the Twelve Apostles of the Lord.
How consoling and encouraging it is that none of us is a spiritual orphan or a Christian kind of Robinson Crusoe. That’s why having this realization of following Jesus with others who make the Body of Christ, the Church I also put the Scripture readings in the context the Church reads them day after day. If I love the Scriptures I love the Church too. It was the Church which had the words of the New Testament engraved in her heart and memory. The first copies of the Gospels were the Christian communities. Before the Gospels were written down in ink on paper they were written in Spirit on the hearts and minds of the people who made the Body of Christ in those early days of the Church. That’s why when I read the Mass readings I also focus on how the readings are given to us during the liturgical year.
This Sunday I would like to draw your attention to the sequence of readings over last three days. On Friday we had the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross. On Saturday the Church commemorated Our Lady of Sorrows. Today the Church proclaims to us the Gospel in which our Blessed Lord foretells his crucifixion. In all three Gospel readings the cross stands out. One could say that we are having now a September Cross Triduum. Today as we are completing these three days focused on the Cross of the Lord we are given a mission: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.’
My Dear fellow believers! Jesus doesn’t send us to search for crosses. He asks us to take up the cross which is growing in our life. Let us look at the first disciple, the first follower of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Gospel for yesterday’s memorial of our Lady of Sorrows we heard that ‘Mary stood near the cross of Jesus.’ She was not fainting. She was not despairing. She, a strong woman of faith, stood there. She didn’t choose that situation she found herself in, there at the foot of the cross on which Jesus was. She didn’t choose that situation. She chose, however, to stand in the midst of that situation as a disciple of the Lord. Each one of us at some stage of our life faces something similar. We find ourselves in situations we don’t choose. Then the calling of our Lord from today’s Gospel becomes our calling too, to choose to stand in these situations, to deal with the situations we didn’t choose, as disciples of the Lord. If the Lord calls us to do that it is because he will not leave us orphans. He will be there like he was in the midst of the two men crucified with him. Then in our own life the unfolding mystery of God and man will occur too.

Last Wednesday there was a thanksgiving Mass at All Saints Church in Fitzroy to commemorate the second anniversary of the canonisation of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. During the procession with gifts my attention was drawn to a tiny little old sister, a Missionary of Charity, who was bringing a ciborium with bread. Wearing her white and blue habit, from a distance she looked like Mother Teresa. When she approached the altar I had an impression that she was offering not only the bread. I thought of the many years of her service, her daily offering of her life to Jesus and the poor.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Listening to the Gospel about Jesus healing a deaf man, who had also troubles with talking, one could think that Jesus was a good otologist and a good speech pathologist. He was also cheap. To be honest he offered his services for free. However it was cheap for the people who came to him it wasn’t cheap for him. He paid an ultimate price: the crucifixion. Our Lord Jesus Christ didn’t only do good things for people, he gave himself, and he gave his life for them. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus said: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ His giving away his life fills every page of the Gospel and finds its culmination on Golgotha.
            When I was reflecting on this Gospel I thought about St Maximilian Kolbe. We know that he offered to die in place of another prisoner in the German death camp of Auschwitz during the World War II. However many of us, who admire him, don’t know that Fr Maximilian was a passionate evangelist. Before he died to save his fellow prisoner he worked tirelessly to spread the Gospel. First in Poland where he established a Franciscan convent where he published a magazine called the Knight of the Immaculate. His passion to make Jesus known and loved was so contagious that within a few years the convent had 800 Franciscan brothers working together to spread the Gospel. However Fr Maximilian couldn’t be satisfied. He wanted to take the message to the people who knew nothing about Jesus. That’s why he and three other Franciscans went to Japan. They had no money. They knew no one in Japan. They didn’t speak Japanese. However in a month after their arrival they published the first issue of the Knight of the Immaculate in Japanese.
            When I reflect on Fr Maximillian’s sacrifice in the concentration camp I believe it wasn’t an accident. His decision to give his life to save a fellow prisoner was the fruit of his many years of being immersed in the Word of God. Fr Maximillian didn’t simply publish a religious magazine. He lived the message of the Gospel first. It was his daily bread.
            My Dear fellow Catholics! Most of us here present don’t have a problem with hearing. Those who do they have got a hearing aid. However even the most sophisticate hearing aid will not help to hear God. I believe each one of us needs to repeat ‘Ephphatha – Be opened’ daily. Prophet Isaiah can teach us this lifestyle of striving to be attentive to what God wants to communicate to us: ‘The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue. So that I may know how to reply to the wearied he provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear.’
            I would like to say ‘Ephphatha’ over the young people in this church, ‘Be opened’ to Jesus’ invitation to give your life to him. I know that you want to make your life meaningful so ‘Be opened – Ephphatha’ to Jesus. If deep down, in your heart, you are hearing his voice calling you to serve him as a priest, a brother, a nun or a missionary don’t panic. Pray, have prayers said for you, talk to someone you trust. Look at Jesus who teaches us that happiness is not about making most of our life but it is about giving all our life to God and others. That’s is life.

think that all of us have our favourite prayers. Prayers we love. Prayers we treasure. Prayers we pray often. I would like to share with you one of my favourite prayers which I was taught when I was a little child. If you know the prayer you can join in:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall not have strange gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Honour your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods.
Isn’t a beautiful prayer? I would highly recommend making it your daily prayer. Why do I recommend it?
Firstly it teaches us that praying isn’t about us talking all the time. Whose words were we saying as we prayed the Ten Commandments? They were God’s words, weren’t they? We allowed God to speak to us, maybe for the first time in a long time. By saying them we listened to God. How often we want God to listen to us. How rarely we want to listen to what God speaks to us. When Moses, in our First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, was speaking to the People of God at the end of their forty-year-wandering through the desert, just before they were to enter the Promised Land, he said to them: ‘Now, Israel, take notice of the laws and customs that I teach you.’ Why was he demanding their attention? Because God gave him a message of eternal life. The people of Israel were to be a listening people. Like Our Blessed Mother who was ‘treasuring all these things in her heart.’ When St Jerome translated the Bible for the first time into Latin he put it in this way: ‘she was having a conference in her heart.’ Mary was confronting her thinking with the words of God. What a life-giving conference.
It is the second reason I recommend praying the Ten Commandments daily. Because when we listen to God with an open heart, believing that his ‘words are spirit and life,’ we receive the best gift from God: our life is changed, our life is transformed. In the Gospel Our Blessed Lord said: ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand’ and thus he invited his listeners to become his disciples, his followers. Jesus’ disciple is the one who listens to the Word of God and welcomes it like fertile soil. You may remember the parable about the sower and the different kinds of soil. To understand is to welcome the Word of God like the fertile soil. Then the Word, like seed, starts growing in us. Does it make us immune to sin? It doesn’t. But it protects us from becoming a hypocrite, someone who instead of admitting his or her sin believes that it is OK.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers!  Someone said that the Catholic Church has got the strictest moral commandments and the most lenient penitential system. Why do we treasure those strict commandments? Because they come from God, they are not just strict but good commandments. They are good for us. When we fail them it is not God’s fault but ours. It means that we have little faith, little courage, and little perseverance. But even when we fail the good commandants we believe that it is worth picking ourselves up from the misery of sin and to approach Jesus in his Sacrament of Reconciliation. By doing this we also send an important and life changing message to other people who at some stage of their life may be confronted by their own sin and weakness. We don’t want them to end up like Judas in despair. We want them to be like Simon Peter who realised how low he fell, when he denied his Lord and Master. Peter cried bitterly over his sins but Peter also turned to his Lord and Master for forgiveness and new life.
I pray so that the Ten Commandments, the Good Commandments, can become you favourite and daily prayer. Pray them in such a way that your praying is listening to what you say. There is spirit and life in it.

At a meeting with Pope Francis a little boy wanted to say something. This is what he said: ‘My Dad has died. He was an atheist. Is he in heaven?’ As he asked that he started crying. Before I tell you of the Pope’s reaction I would like us to think what would be a cheap and superficial answer to the question of the little boy. I think it would be saying straight away: ‘Don’t worry. Your father is in heaven.’ The Pope asked the boy to come up to him first. Next he had a quiet conversation with the boy. After that, with the boy’s permission, he explained that the boy’s father, although he was an atheist, he had all his children baptized. He supported their Catholic upbringing. He was also a caring and committed husband and father. The Pope finished by saying: ‘I explained to the boy that all these things he told me of his father give us hope that his father is in heaven.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! This Sunday we are concluding the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John we have been listening to over last few weeks. The chapter is called often the Eucharistic chapter as it began with Jesus breaking of bread and fish to feed a big crowd of hungry people and then the chapter showed us our Blessed Lord teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum about the necessity of eating his body and drinking his blood. We who often attend the Mass connect the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel with the Eucharist easily. It can be so obvious to us that we can overlook Jesus’ announcing eternal life for those who eat his body and drink blood. The eternal life which begins here and now so powerfully that even death cannot destroy it.
We believe that because of what happened to Jesus Christ, as the angels announced to the women who came to Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning: ‘Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen.’ That Sunday morning God assured the first disciples of Jesus, and us as well, that Peter was right when he said: ‘Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.’
We say that one needs to have faith to receive the Eucharist, but one needs the Eucharist to sustain his or her faith too. We need it particularly when we start thinking about Jesus like some people from the crowd: ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Our mind, our emotions may revolt at times but look at our Crucified Lord who sacrificed heaven to be with us and who sacrificed his life to save us, could we find anyone more trustworthy? Could he, who sacrificed so much for us, be a deceiver? Could the Father, who raised him from the dead, be playing tricks with? Nothing of the sort. Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, speaks the words which are ‘spirit and they are life.’ His words can bring you out of your own grave which is any situation which takes away a reason for living and believing. If Jesus’ words, the words which ‘are spirit and life,’ brought Lazarus out of his grave they can resurrect us here and now for eternal life.
Jesus also wants us to be his missionaries who can speak from their own experience of having been given new life, having been redeemed. You and only you can proclaim what the Lord has done for you, how he raised you to new life, how he has redeemed you. Some of you may have big stories to tell, some may have little stories to tell, but all these stories can give other people a reason for living and believing.
My Dear fellow Christians. As I think about the meeting of that little boy with Pope Francis I also think of other people who still search for some who can hear them up, someone who can see the presence of the Lord in their life, someone who can give them more than cheap and superficial answers, someone who can give them words which ‘are spirit and life,’ the words which give a reason for living and believing. Can you be this person?

Could you describe me as the worst sinner? It sounds like judging, doesn’t it? But tell me what you can make out of the words I said at the beginning of this Mass: ‘I confess… I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.’ I can think of two options: I meant what I said and I am the worst sinner or I didn’t mean what I said and… I am a liar (it still gets me close to the first option, doesn’t it?). Probably we could come up with a third option: I don’t take seriously what I say. It means you better leave as there is no point listening to me.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Last week we mediated on the mystery of eternal life. The life which as the Scriptures remind us, happens here and now not after our death. Our Blessed Lord said at the Last Supper: ‘Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.’ We could read many books about Jesus Christ and still don’t know him because knowing Jesus Christ is following him and making him the most important person in our life. The Gospel for this Sunday allows us again to hear the big conversation some Jews were having with Jesus. However it also shows us a group of people who instead of talking to Jesus they started ‘arguing with one another.’ They distanced themselves from Jesus. They didn’t include Jesus. How can you know someone if you distance yourself from the person? How can you know someone if you don’t include the person?
If we don’t know Jesus we don’t know his Father either. If we don’t know Jesus we don’t know ourselves either. When we come to know Jesus we come to know our sinful condition, like Peter who, after Jesus’ command had a great catch of fish, recognised that he was in the presence of divine and said: ‘Leave me Lord; I am a sinful man.’
There is another passage in the Gospel of Luke about a Pharisee and a tax collector who came to the Temple to pray. The tax collector ‘stood some distance away’ and prayed: ‘God be merciful to me the sinner.’ The man stood away from the Pharisee who defined his condition by comparing himself to others. That’s why he thought that some people were worse sinners than him. The tax collector, the one who stood away, distanced himself from the attitude of comparing himself to others. Instead he placed himself in the presence of all holy God and thus described himself as ‘the sinner’ as if there weren’t any other sinner on the earth. He didn’t look for some other worse people to make himself feel better but he stood in the light of Truth and Love, in the light of God himself.
It reminds me of a boy who got angry and said some hurting things to his mum. When his emotions subsided he realised what he said and he was heartbroken. He could have said that some people did worse things to their parents but it didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that he wronged his own mother. It was the worst wrongdoing because it was done to the person who loved him the most.
My Dear fellow believers. One of the prayers I love is the one inspired by the man who ‘stood some distance away.’ It goes like this: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me the sinner.’ This prayer reminds me not to compare myself to others but to stand in the presence of all holly, all loving Lord Jesus Christ. It is a prayer which reminds me that my sin is directed against the person who loves me the most:  my Lord and my God.
Today as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, ask yourself where you stand. Are you standing some distance away from those who justify themselves? Are you standing some distance away from those who look for worse people to feel better themselves? Are you standing some distance away from those who compare themselves to others? Are you standing some distance from those people so that you could stand in the presence of the person who loves you the most: your God and your Lord?
 That's why I am not afraid to call myself the worst sinner or the sinner.

Last year a research revealed that an average Australian spends every day 9 hours and 40 minutes on electronic devices. It means more time in front of the screen than sleeping or working. At the same time it was also found out that half of the population distrusts social media. Among the young users, who spent more time on their devices than average, the distrusts towards the social media reaches nearly 70%. However this distrusts doesn’t lead to deserting the social media. Despite the fake news, false statistics, etc. people are still drawn to the social media.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! I am not here to analyse the impact of the electronic devices on our health, etc. Instead what I would like to do is to listen to and discern in the light of the Scriptures the insight which comes from this new situation. What does the Holy Spirit tell us when it is more common to see a person glued to his or her smartphone than having a face to face conversation?
Let me begin with what Jesus spoke in the Gospel. ‘Everybody who believes in me has eternal life.’ To appreciate this we need to put aside our modern understanding that eternal life happens after our death. Pope Benedict in his book Jesus of Nazareth reminded us that eternal life can be lived in the present age. What people find attractive in the virtual life is that they can escape the reality of everyday living or they can create their idealistic image.
It isn’t a new thing. In our First Reading, about the Prophet Elijah, we see that people faced similar things well before computers were invented. The Prophet who first proved that his God was the true God had to run away as the queen vowed to kill him for leading people away from her god. The prophet, who before brought fire from heaven, cowardly run away. It upset him so badly that when he realised his weakness, which he first despised in his compatriots, he wanted to die. He said to God: ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ However in the midst of his disappointment with himself and with his fellowmen and women he had to face it. The angel of God who appeared to Elijah didn’t come to make him feel better. The angel stepped into the social, emotional and spiritual misery of Elijah to give him food which would sustain the prophet on his journey to meet God on the mountain called Horeb. What happened on that mountain was one of the most profound encounters with God recorded in the Bible. However the reading for this Sunday doesn’t take us there yet. Instead we follow Elijah on his forty-day-journey as he is still burdened by the misery of his situation. That forty-day-walk of the prophet is something we can relate to. It is a heavenly gift to us. Most likely our life is not perfect like the life of Elijah was not perfect. However it is not the reason to run away into whatever the modern technology has to offer. Instead take the heavenly food consecrated and distributed at Mass: Jesus’ Body and Blood to continue your life with its various commitments.
During the Last Supper Jesus said:  ‘Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.’ Who does know Jesus? The person, who takes up his or her cross and follows the Lord. Pope Benedict, in the mentioned book Jesus of Nazareth, reminded us that the first followers of Jesus Christ called themselves ‘the living.’ Believe Jesus, trust him, give your life to him and the eternal life will be yours here and now, you will be among the living and it will take you through the gate of death into the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Jesus said: ‘If anyone believes in me, even though he will die he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’
The prophet Elijah is God’s gift to us to recognise that our dark moments are moments filled with God’s presence. We don’t need to substitute them with creating a virtual reality where we can pretend or show off. It is fake life and it is as destructive to us as the fake news is. Fake life on the net is fake news. Jesus Christ is the Good News. Jesus Christ is life. He is our Good News. He is our life.
If an average Australian spends every day 9 hours and 40 minutes on electronic devices imagine how much faith growing we would experience if we spent such amount of time praying, reading the Scriptures and contemplating it.

            Last Sunday, when St John the Apostle showed us Jesus going to the other side of the Lake of Galilee and the crowd of people following him, we could recognize in that the image of the Good Shepherd and his flock. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus took care of his sheep. He provided food for them. However the breaking of five barley loaves and two fish for a few thousand hungry people was also a divine teaching which was to satisfy the hunger of the soul. The crowd’s focus only on the bread and fish could have made Jesus popular but Jesus was not looking for popularity. That’s why he left them or better to say, as the Good Shepherd, he made his sheep to move again. He moved them back to Capernaum, to the synagogue, to the place which was all about listening to God’s Word. It was their opportunity to feast on the Word of God this time. As we will see over the next few weeks it was a lengthy teaching. St John wrote fifteen verses about the miracle of the feeding of the people but he dedicated three times more verses to pass onto us Jesus’ teaching based on that event.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! We who follow Jesus are now in our privileged place where the Word of God is proclaimed and broken for us. Our Blessed Lord, our Good Shepherd has led us here like he led the crowds in the Gospel. It is not only about the journey measured by miles or kilometers but about the journey measured by our faith in Jesus. Christ himself reveals to us, like he had revealed to the people who found him in the synagogue in Capernaum: ‘This is working for God, you must believe in the one God has sent.’ He is the One sent by God so that by believing in him we could have life to the full.
            The people who looked for Jesus wanted to have life to the full too. However for them it meant having someone who would make their lives easy by providing them with daily free meals. It is not what Jesus would support. On the contrary he said that: ‘The way that is easy leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many.’
            At a University a research was conducted when students were given a test to do. Some days later they were given a new test of similar difficulty, but this time the quality of paper and ink was poor which made really difficult to read the questions. When the results were compared it was discovered that the students did much better at the second test. The extra difficulty they had to face made them pay a better attention to the questions and subsequently to think more carefully about the answers.
            We can find a similar insight in what Jesus said at another time: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ Our Blessed Lord didn’t speak about a University test but about our life which is more important. In the life marked by challenges and difficulties we encounter our God who gives us grace not simply to overcome or to survive those challenges and difficulties but to stimulate us to enhance our life.
            I pray so that we may trust our Blessed Lord when he leads to the green pastures which are not idyllic places and situations but the places and situations which can stimulate our human and spiritual growth like he led the crowd in the Gospel.

A man told of a Mass he attended when he was young. It was the time when he stopped going to Church. That day somehow rather he ended up at Mass with his mates. After the homily when a collection was being taken up he realised that he had no money to give. The last few coins he had spent on beer. Looking at the plate in front of him he said in his head: ‘God, I don’t believe in you. I don’t believe that you exist. But just in case you do exist: you know that I don’t have any money, instead you can take me.’ You know what? God did listen to that prayer. That man is now an Oblate priest and for many years he has been ministering as a prison chaplain.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! In today’s Gospel reading, this opens the chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel, ‘Jesus went off to the other side of the Sea of Galilea… and a large crowd followed him.’ What does it remind you? Isn’t it an image of a shepherd leading his flock? Then ‘Jesus Christ sat down.’ The One who would call himself the Good Shepherd is going to take care of his sheep that followed him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He is going to teach them. This time his teaching will have a few words only but still it will be life giving, powerful teaching. Let us pay attention to that teaching. Let us take place among the crowd which followed Jesus in the Gospel. After all we call ourselves followers of Christ too, don’t we?
The first point of Jesus’ teaching today is captured by the little boy or the little servant. That little fellow reminds us of what Jesus said to his Apostles another time: ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.’ (Mt 20: 26-27) How did the little servant from today’s Gospel serve? He gave his life. Five loves and the two fish was the food to sustain one person for one day. Remember the poor widow who was praised by Jesus for giving two small coins. Why did Jesus praise her? Did she give a lot? She gave everything. The five loves and the two fish taken from the boy were like life taken from him. He was left with nothing to sustain himself. He had given everything he had.
The second point of Jesus’ teaching today is exemplified by the barely bread. Such bread was the food of the poor. Such bread means simply life. It is not to entertain a delicate palate. It is to keep one going. That barley bread reflects the gift of manna, which sustained the people of God on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land. Simple food is life. It keeps you going. The sophisticated food makes you lazy and selfish like it made lazy and selfish the man who partied every day while the poor Lazarus was dreaming of the scraps from the table.
My Dear Fellow Believers! We are blessed because Saint John didn’t overlook the little servant boy in the middle of the hungry crowd first and later in the midst of the excitement due to their satisfied hunger. We read that the people after seeing what happened wanted to make Jesus king. Why? Because they wanted him to be their bread provider all the time, they wanted him to be their servant but they did not want to serve each other. On the other hand the little servant boy illustrates Jesus’ own life as our Blessed Lord said: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.’
As we gather around the table of the Word and the Eucharist Jesus Christ gives us himself in his Body and Blood. Today he also points out to the little servant boy as his walking teaching. Like that little servant boy we walk into this gathering. Our cars, our houses, credit cards, bank accounts may vary but all of us have something in common. It is our life. In a few minutes you will be searching your pockets for some money to put on the plate. As you are holding that coin or note ask yourself if it is all that you are giving the Lord or if you have a determination to make your whole life a gift he could use for the Father’s glory and the salvation of other people.
The Oblate priest I mentioned at the beginning discovered not only a vocation to the priesthood but a call to give his whole life to Jesus. Maybe today that little servant boy with five barley loves and two fish is a walking sermon for you.
Do you give everything as a husband?
Do you give everything as a wife?
Do you give everything as a father?
Do you give everything as a mother?
Do you give everything as a friend?
Do you give everything as a follower of Christ?
Jesus Christ did. Do this in memory of him. Amen.

In 2015 during the Synod for the Family Pope Francis canonised Louis and Zelia Martin, the parents of the Little Flower. Fr Antonio Sangalli, who was supervising the process leading to the ceremony, made the following comment: ‘We wouldn’t have St Therese of Lisieux if it weren’t for her parents.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Last week we heard of the three commissions. The Great and the Little Commission we find in the Gospels. The first commission from the Book of Genesis was given to Adam and Eve: ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth.’
This Sunday we hear of the Apostles’ return from their mission which was initiated by the Little Commission found in the last Sunday Gospel. St Mark tells us that: ‘The Apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.’ You may remember that our Blessed Lord sent them in pairs because as he also said: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name there I am with them.’ As we find those pairs returning from their mission and bearing witness to what happened though their ministry this Sunday I would like to recall the testimony of three pairs from the history of our Church.
The one pair has been already introduced to you: St Louis and Zelia Martin, the parents of St Therese of the Child Jesus. Their mission territory was their family. Their love for Jesus overflew and natured the faith of their daughters. All five of them became nuns. One is already a loved and venerated saint: Therese of the Child Jesus. The life and death of the other: Léonie Martin known as Sister Françoise-Thérèse has been examined in view of declaring her a saint too.
The other pair was Aquila and Priscilla. They were among the first Christians. St Paul wrote of them: ‘my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I but also all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks; greet also the church in their house.’ In Ephesus as we learn they met a certain Jew, Apollos, whom ‘they took aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.’ Here we have a couple who supported St Paul and in a lively manner invited a stranger into their home and into their faith in Jesus Christ.
The third pair I would like to recall is: Joseph and Victoria Ulm. They were a Polish couple who during Wold War II despite the danger chose to hide eight Jews at their farm. When Germans discovered it they shot Joseph and Victoria who during the execution began giving birth to her seventh child. Next their six children were killed. A few years ago the bishop of the diocese they came from began the process which discerns the possibility of declaring the family saints of the Catholic Church. The faith which nurtured the family life of Joseph and Victoria inspired them to stand for life when they welcomed those eight Jewish women and men into their home so that they could survive the time when hatred for life seemed to prevail.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! In a month in Dublin, Ireland, the World Meeting of Families will take place. It will be the time of glorifying God for the men and women who treasure and fulfil the first commission from the Genesis. They are missionaries of life: physical and spiritual.
The World Meeting of Families will be also the time reflecting the event from today’s Gospel when ‘the Apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.’ Next month in Dublin, the married couples with their children will rejoin Jesus and they will tell him all they have done and taught. This time of telling the account of their mission as husbands and wives is also a prophetic insight for our whole Church. We as the Church need the witness of the married couples. We as the Church need to hear of the great things God has done through the ministry of wives and husbands who accept and fulfil the first commission. Our Church is recognising as saints more and more married couples because their family life is a life stimulating gift to the Church.