Sermons
January 29, 2017
We distinguish people according to the color of their skin, according to their age, their sex, their for-mation, their social position, their achievements, their political opinion: people come in very different ways. From time to time we may encounter someone who impresses us, not because he or she is white or young or male or female, because he or she is wealthy or sportive or has a university degree. No, just someone who makes an impression on us. Who are these people? In today’s gospel, Jesus shows us people who may make an impression on us. Jesus presents people as models for us: those who are poor, who mourn and grieve, who manage to live their lives without violence, who seek to make the world a more just place. People who ask for God, who can wait for God. People who know that God can fulfill their hopes. Jesus speaks well of those who are humble and merciful, who make peace, who suffer because of their wish that everyone be treated right. This is how the friends of Jesus ought to be: humble, merciful, promoting peace, and working for a more just world. Our faith marks our lives – at least our faith should mark our lives. So, if we believe in a God who is merciful, sincere and just, we cannot be unmerciful, insincere and unjust. Faith finds its expres-sion in our lives, in the lives of people who believe in God. We are certainly people with a sense of reality – otherwise we would not be fit for our modern socie-ties. We do need this sense of reality, but I think people with faith also need a sense of potentiality: potenti-ality – I looked it up in several dictionaries – and I came to like this word: “latent or inherent capacity or ability for growth, fulfilment”; “state of being not yet evident or active”; “an aptitude that may be developed”; my definition would be: “a sense of what is possible, what is desirable, what we can aspire to.” As believers, we do not only see what the world is like now, but we also see what the world could be like, what the world should be like. So, we do thirst for justice, we want everyone to be treated right. We do see the possibilities, the potentiality for change and we aspire to it. In our eyes, the future is not determined and fixed and finished and automatic like a machine. We do not capitulate in front of the future. As believ-ers, we can leave out-trodden ways – without being mere dreamers. As believers, we see hope and future and open horizons where others don’t. As believers, we see the potentiality of our world – and we try to follow and live up to what Jesus says about his friends: we do not use violence, we are merciful, we have a pure heart, we promote peace and justice. At least this is the wish, the vision Jesus has for his friends. People with a sense of reality and at the same time people with a sense of potentiality – this is what we should be or become. In the light of faith, we can see the potentiality of our world. And we know our world embedded in God’s hands. This leads me to the words of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. In a book called “Igna-tian workout”, an American theologian [Tim Muldoon] formulated a thought of Ignatius in modern words: “With regard to any project, we must put ourselves in God’s hands as if our success depended on Him, but with regard to choosing the means and doing the work, we must labor as if everything depended on us.” Isn’t this the good mix between the sense of reality and the sense of potentiality? Choose the means we need to make the world a more just world, or at least a less unjust world with our sense of reality. And at the same time admit that it is God who created everything, who holds the world in his hands, who inspires us this sense of potentiality when we see the world through the eyes of God.
Fr Wolfgang Felber, SJ
January 22, 2017
I don’t know in what kind of Catholic community you grew up in. Where I grew up, in the most southern part of Bavaria, today’s gospel was the gospel about Jesus’ call of the first apostles, but it was also the gospel about Jesus’ call to his first four priests. And now, with some decades of distance, it is clear to me that nothing could be further from the theology that Matthew is trying to convey in his gospel. When Matthew composed his gospel – in the mid to late 70s of the first century – the priesthood as we know it today simply didn’t exist. All gospel “calls” by Jesus are simply calls to be a Christian, to be a friend of Jesus, calls to imitate him, to be aware the we are sons and daughters of God, that we are brothers and sisters. These calls certainly are not addressed to a specific group of people who exercise one particular ministry in the community. On the contrary, these calls are addressed to every reader of the gospels. That's why it is essential to look carefully at each element of today's call in the gospel. Because it is also addressed to us! First, these initial disciples are called to follow a person, not an institution. They are not called to follow an institution with particular sets of rules or regulations or even some philosophic or theological concepts. And these initial disciples have no idea where this person Jesus is leading them. They are just to “come after” him, wherever and whatever that entails. All they know is that people, not fish, will now be the most important element in their lives. There is no delay, no looking back. They immediately leave their boats, nets, even their father, a nd “follow him.” Jesus’ call marks a new beginning of their lives. Their response to Jesus’ call is the concrete “repentance” he demands of all his followers: a total change of their value systems. A total change of their value systems – strong words… What I mean is that they open themselves for God working effectively in their lives - around them and among them. Or in a different expression: they will eventually experience the “kingdom of heaven” in their lives by opening themselves to God’s presence and God’s working in their lives. One way to experience God is to make people, not things, the focus of our lives. This is what Jesus teaches his friends, his followers. Not a call to priesthood, but a call to openness is what Matthew describes. To come back to the beginning of this homily: Matthew did not want to show Jesus calling the first priests, he wanted to show Jesus calling his first friends, his first followers, the first Christians. We, like Jesus' first four disciples, are called to make people the focus of our lives, not things or laws or institutions. And this call is still addressed to us – every day, time and again. cf https://www.dignityusa.org/bots/january-22nd-2017-third-sunday-year
Fr Wolfgang Felber, SJ
January 15, 2017
The remarkable film “I, Daniel Blake” tells the story of a hardworking carpenter who after a heart attack is no longer able to work. The attempt to get his social welfare benefits proves to be an endless heart-renting battle against a merciless bureaucracy. Only a second heart attack saves this kind, honest man from ending up on the street. Since I saw that film I look at the homeless with different eyes, realising that I too, with a bit of bad luck, could be one of them. Even more precarious than people who lose their job and fall through the social net are migrants and refugees who lose all they have and find themselves in a foreign country trying to find their way in a foreign culture among often hostile or indifferent neighbours. The hardest hit among them are the children. In his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis appeals to us to be especially concerned about refugee children who often are not only traumatised but also abused and exploited. The coming of a million refugees and migrants in 2015 has caused a social and political earthquake. Many Germans have responded with great generosity and openness. But there is an increasing part of the population that reacts with fear and even hatred to the foreigner. What causes that fear which we might feel ourselves at times? I think that there are two reasons. The images of endless streams of men, women and children walking along roads and railway lines or reaching our shores in make-shift rubber boats gives the impression that they will keep coming for ever. You get the feeling of being drowned by these unending waves of human beings. The other reason is the realisation that most of them are Muslims and while most of them are peaceful persons who simply seek security and a place to live in peace, there is an increasing upsurge of young Muslims who interpret the Koran as a mandate to conquer the world and eliminate all other religions and cultures. Both fears are real, even if sometimes they are exaggerated. The crucial question is how we react to them. There are two levels of action to be taken. One is political. The challenge is to strike a balance between the legitimate need to maintain security and public order and the duty of the state to protect its citizens on one side, and our human and Christian duty to assist people in need and respect their rights. We can only pray for our politicians for the wisdom to maintain that delicate balance. If we lose it, we risk to lose our humanity and become a selfish, a hard-hearted people and to destroy the core values on which our open, democratic society is built. At a personal level the great challenge is to overcome our innate fear of strangers, to reach out to them and to listen to their story. As I experienced watching the film about Daniel Blake and changing my view about homeless people, it is by meeting refugees and listening to their story that we realise that they are human beings like ourselves. If we should allow our hearts to be poisoned by fear and hatred, we betray the central message of the Gospel, and find in the end that there is in our hearts no more room neither for our neighbour in need nor for God.
Fr Wolfgang Schonecke, MAfr