ISAIAH 66: 18-21
PSALM 116 R. Mk 16:15
HEBREWS 12: 5-7, 11-13
LUKE 13: 22-30

God has blessed us in so many ways with his gifts, the greatest of which is to live in love for God has created us all in His own image. And God has given us the gift of free will to choose, for it is in our free will to choose that we can come to know what love is.

But our love today is not perfect. God’s perfect love is offered to us through Christ’s death and resurrection. It is in heaven where that love becomes perfect.

Our pilgrim journey on earth is about making choices today for God’s love. A life that chooses for God’s love today will reach for that perfect love in the end. We will become what we choose today.

The first step is to recognise our need of God’s mercy and love, for we cannot in ourselves attain the perfect love and eternal life but depend on God. It is about being humble before God. Hence, the sacraments are God’s gifts today to help us choose for God. Choosing for God’s love today is longing for God and so making time for God in prayer. But choosing for God’s love is more than just words.

Jesus in speaking about God’s judgement said that those who fed the hungry and thirsty, who clothed the naked, who visited the sick and those in prison are the ones who have lived in God’s love.

It is about always seeking to care for those in need.
It is about treating others with respect and love.
It is about living in God’s love.

And so today as we place the plaque professing that we believe and respect all life, let us speak out for all who have no voice, the unborn, the terminally ill, the elderly, the foreigner, refugees, the asylum seeker, the poor, the lonely, the hungry and the oppressed. They are all God’s gifts to us to help us to teach us how to love.

Our Gospel reading is all about being ready to enter Heaven. Heaven is all about living and being in God’s love. If we spend a lifetime rejecting this love, why would we want that love when we die. We wouldn’t even recognize it or what it meant. It is not God’s who shut us out of heaven but we shut shuts heaven from our hearts

JEREMIAH 38: 4-6, 8-10
PSALM 39: 2-4, 18 R v.14
HEBREWS 12: 1-4
LUKE 12: 49-53

In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about his message causing divisions in the World. He knows that his message will be rejected by many; it will result in persecution and death, that it will cause divisions even in families.

The Church for which Luke wrote this Gospel account would have seen the same divisions and that is why probably Luke would have inserted this saying of Jesus as they ask, “Why does the Good News cause friction among love ones?” Even today, Jesus teachings can cause divisions, even amongst good people in the Church

How difficult it is today to talk about some Christian morals without being attacked in return. We see this when the pope or the bishop speak out. Sometimes people feel that the Christian message is too harsh and feel a personal attack on their goodness or even feel judged. How often is our rejection of the commands of God due to what we want and not what is true, right and good?

We can become like children who do not like to eat their vegetables because they do not like it though it is good and necessary.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus also said, ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already.’ Fire destroys what is there. With it though comes regeneration.

Jesus uses this metaphor to speak about a need to let him purify us of our sinful way to be less self-centered and more focused on God. It is then that we will become a new being in the image of God.

Next weekend we will be placing a plaque in the foyer recognizing that we believe in the sanctity of life from conception to its natural end. Even Amongst Catholics the legislation on abortion and euthanasia have caused arguments and friction and division.

There are two important things that we need to consider: One is that we should respect that the Church is the voice of Christ on faith and morals. We may struggle with what is taught but let us not ignore what is said. If we are not willing to listen to what our God teaches through the Church, then who among us would like to raise their hands and claim that authority.

Two is that whenever we speak let us do so with charity. We all struggle in different life issues, we are all sinners. When we speak it is never to judge others but to guide and support each other in being faithful to God.

When I reflect on my faith journey, I find my greatest growth in my relationship with God has been when I was challenged in life. In the end, the fire that Christ speaks of is a fire that will refine our souls to become a greater gift to God.

WISDOM 18: 6-9

PSALM 32: 1, 12, 18-20, 22

HEBREWS 11: 1-2, 8-19

LUKE 12: 32-48

Today is the last day of the National Vocation Awareness Week. The Australian Church invites us this week to discern God’s call to each of us. How are we to do that?

 Vocation is about God calling us to serve Him and the Good News in the world today. Today we are bombarded with so much happening in our lives that it can deafening. Amidst all that is happening, it can be difficult to hear God speaking to us. The business of life and the placing of importance on material things and wealth can make us deaf to God speaking to us.

 In our second reading, Abraham is presented to us as one who heard God’s Word and responded to that Word. An important way to be open to God speaking to us is the need to withdraw from the business and desires of our lives and just be with God in reflection and prayer. In this way we surrender ourselves to God. This was what Abraham and Sarah did.

 Often too we want to do things for God rather than let God tell us what He wants to do for us.We can so easily become self-centered and not God centered.

 In the Gospel reading, Jesus calls us to seek the ways of God and His Kingdom. Some people would like to keep their work and private life separate from their spiritual life. This cannot be, Jesus says.

 Wherever we are, whatever we do, we must be at God’s work. Jesus is saying that our faith in God should affect every aspect of our lives. It is in discerning God’s will in our daily routine that we can see and hear more clearly God’s call to us in life. Only in this way can we be ready for the Lord when he comes knocking.

 It is one thing to hear God’s call though and another to respond to that call. Abraham followed God’s call to leave his home because of God’s promise to him. He could not see the total fruits of that promise but it was in following God’s Word in trust that he came to understand and what that promise meant.

 Some people want full certainty before they are prepared to follow. But the knowing can only come with the journey;………..and the relationship with God become real through trust.

 Sometimes people can get disillusioned with their effort to follow God. They may not be able to see the fruits of their expectation. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel, like Abraham again, we will only see clearly if we are focused on God and not ourselves. We may not see what we would like to see but we will see what God chooses to do through us.

 On another level let us reflect too on how we have responded to God’ call as a parish. How have we as a parish tried to be witness for God.

 And so today in this last day of our Vocations week, let us make our lives an offering to God, that God’s will may be our will and that God’s work may be done through us.

ECCLESIASTES 1: 2, 2:21-23
PSALM 89: 3-6, 12-14, 17 R. v. 1
COLOSSIANS 3: 1-5, 9-11
LUKE 12: 13-21

This Gospel story would have been a great challenge to Jesus’ listeners. For the understanding of the time is that wealth was a sign of God’s blessings. In fact, there are Christian groups who still have this understanding: that God will bless the person who has faith with success and wealth.

A man comes to Jesus to ask him to be an arbitrator between him and his brother. After all, he would say that this is only just, and that is what Jesus should agree to.

But Jesus sees in this, the grave danger we open ourselves to when we seek the things of the earth before all else. The consequences is petty quarrels, broken relationships, hatred, conflict, and sometimes even physical death.

Our readings today speak of the wisdom of seeking first the things of heaven, the things of God. God has blessed us with so many things, but the best of all blessings and the one that last forever, is love. And love does not come through wealth but through relationships. And the most important relationship is that with God.

The happiest person is not the one who is the richest in the world but the one who knows that he / she is loved, especially where he / she knows God’s love for them. Jesus was the happiest human who walked on this earth because he knew the Father’s love for him and shared that love with others.

Contrast that with the problem of quarrels between peoples because of money and property.
In all that is going on there, it is love that loses out.

Today’s Gospel story would be a great challenge to us too. I guess all of us would like a bit more too in life. Something for a rainy day and for things we would like to have.
There is no problem with that so long as it doesn’t draw us away from God.

Jesus in today’s Gospel is telling us to seek right relationship with God and neighbor. This is what matters most in life. And wealth and the things of the world can be an obstacle and not a help. But with a right relationship with God and neighbour, wealth is seen differently in our life.

Wealth will not last but God’s love will last forever. Let us reflect on how well we know God’s love for us. Let us seek to know God’s love for us.

The yardstick of this and our happiness is how we come to share our love for others.

To know God is to love God.
To love God is to follow God
To follow God is to make his love known through our lives.