Homily for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Blessed are those who mourn (Matthew 5 )

At the beginning of last week I went to a most wonderful celebration. One of the most inspiring and uplifting masses I had ever attended. It was a moment of great joy and celebration. The Church was full - over 200 people perhaps more than 300 gathered on a cold and wet Monday morning. There were two bishops and about 60 priests. The singing lifted the roof. The homily raised our hearts (one of the best homilies I have ever heard). And I do not think I exaggerate at all when I say no one left that Church who was not encouraged and heartened by that celebration.

So what was it - an ordination? a wedding? the consecration of a new Church? the celebration of an anniversary of some kind?

No. It was a funeral. And a funeral with a particularly tragic dimension. Of a young priest - in his early 40s - a priest whose best friend at seminary had died of cancer - a priest who contracted a degenerative brain condition just a couple of years after his ordination and who had gradually over four years declined and withdrawn much to the distress of his parents and his friends.

But despite this cruel tragedy, and this wasted potential, this funeral mass was uplifting and filled with hope. Oh yes, of course there were tears. And moments of great poignancy. No one supposed that this was not a tragic and sad loss.

But we all knew that this was not all. That this pain that was felt - real pain, real sorrow, real loss - was taken up in hope, in a certainty that the life that Fr John Bentley had lived, in the offering of his own life he had made, was indeed a preparation for this day - as surely all our lives are a preparation for our day of departure.

It is not that all those at the funeral were suffering from some mass delusion that John had not in fact died. Oh yes, we knew that only too well. And we knew what death is - and more importantly, we understand what Life is - because that, after all, is the very point.

If we do not understand what it means to live, we will never comprehend what it means to die.

Homily for 32nd Sunday of the Year

They are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. (Luke 20:34)

When we think or talk of those who have died, those who were close to us, loved ones, parents and children, friends, wives, husbands, those we love, we might often think of them as like the angels in heaven - no longer seen yet still very present. And, when we try to explain such things to children, this is often the language that we use: no longer on earth, they are with the angels.But I wonder if we ever think about what this really means. Are angels the same as the holy souls? And if not, then what?[I notice with surprise that angels seem to be more and popular and talked about. People who are not really religious may refer to angels, have pictures and jewellery of angels. I notice that on the Christmas trees nowadays you hardly ever see a fairy - which is what we had when I was a child - now they are always angels. ]But for those who have gone before us things are not quite like that. In fact, if we think they are become angels, then we are selling them short. The faithful departed, the holy souls will be much  more wonderful like that.When we say we believe in angels we are saying that we know that the created world is far more than just what we see and touch. We are saying that the creation is visible and invisible, seen and unseen, physical and spiritual. And the angels are spiritual beings created by God. We might picture them, in one way or another, but in reality they have no physical form.But we, human beings are very different. We are not and will not be angels, because we are made in the image of God. We are both spiritual and physical. We are part of earth and heaven. We are not exactly the same as the angels (the translation here is not quite right, I think) but we are partly like them, because like them we are spiritual. But when we are fully united to God, we become not angels, but something far more: Children of the Resurrection, Sons of God. That is much greater, much more wonderful than being an angel.

And this is our great hope and our great comfort. For to hope in the Resurrection means to hope in a new creation where both body and soul, physical and spiritual, are united in God’s love. When earth and heaven will be made new there will no longer be any distinction, and no veil between them. This will be no parallel world - as if the angels sit on clouds and look down on earth - but a new world, a new existence, where all are the same and yet everything is changed.It is the perfection of God’s creation: the end of disease and suffering, the end of war and conflict, the end of hatred and envy, the end of sorrow and loss. It is dwellling in Love which lasts for ever.