Practice Homily : Homily_Cycle C_ 2nd Sunday of the Year.

As part of our formation we have periodic homily practice. Here's the one I gave at our practice session last weekend.

• I can make you thin! Drop a dress size in a week! Be wealthier, healthier and more successful in 2010! Be Happy without a partner! Ditch the dross and fly! The Buddhist Way to Beat the Blues! And of course, the perennial Dale Carnegie classic, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”


• Yes, my friends, as you can probably imagine I was indeed lost in the self-help department of my local book store - scary stuff!


• However it did set me thinking that a peculiar characteristic of the start of every calendar year is that it is often a time when many people feel a little lifeless , dull and lacking in general zest for life, perhaps overcome with Christmas excess in terms of to much turkey, mince pies and Christmas pudding, and the consumer excess of more junk and stuff that no one really needs, but perhaps gives us some short consolation and distraction from the cares of life, by virtue of its own short lived novelty.


• I don’t know how true it is, but allegedly, The Samaritans experience a peak in calls at this time of the year, as people turn to them in the emptiness of despair, and numbers of suicides increase.


• The post Christmas days of January and February appear dank and dark, as we begin what can seem, for some a very slow and seasonaly affected, disordered approach to a far distant spring.


• It’s no wonder that my local bookshop is commercially aware of this aspect of human psychology and makes such a feature of it!


• GK Chesteron said that ” the object of a New Year was not to have a New Year, but to have a new soul.”


• Wise words indeed, but how can one acquire this ‘new soul,’ or even a ‘new nature’ that is not just something acquired from the superficial and cosmetic offerings of the ‘self – help’ industry? An industry, that in many ways seems to be indicative of a new pelaginiasm, that is, that we can some how pull our selves up by our own bootstraps and be the agents of our own salvation.


• Not, I suggest the basis for a real personal restoration, a real new beginning. Therefore where is the basis for the real personal restoration and change that many today crave, and are led to believe they can find in various forms of self-help or related New Age philosophies?


• Today’s Gospel has the answer. We have Jesus, his mother and disciples present at a wedding feast at Cana. And following the intervention of his Blesssed Mother, Jesus changes water into wine, as the bridegroom has run out of wine.


• This was the first miracle or sign that Jesus is recorded by John as performing, and the way that John narrates it, seems to suggest that it happens almost as if in passing, no particular drama or public display, such as with many of his other miracles.


• However, the lack of peripheral drama enables us to focus on the simplicity of the miracle , and the message that God wants us to see and hear.


• That is, that just as Jesus changed the water into wine , has the power to change one substance into something else, he also has the power to change us in the very core of our being into something new.


• Only Jesus can bring about the changes that we desire in our lives. No amount of self helpology can save us, make us whole, transform us, at the very depths of our being, no matter how thinner we get, , drop a dress size or win new friends and influence even more people in 2010 and beyond.


• Only Jesus can change us into being the fulfilled people that our hearts desire. He is our Loving Lord, Friend and Brother, he loves us and wants more for us in this life, here and now, despite its daily grind, more for us than we can imagine for ourselves!


• The words we heard in the first reading from Isaiah as applying to Jerusalem, foreshadowing the love of Jesus for humanity gathered together in his Church, can equally be appropriated for ourselves on a personal basis, because at the start of a new year Jesus addresses those words to us.


• “No longer are you to be named Forsaken, nor Abandoned, but My Delight, as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride so will I rejoice in you!”


• Jesus wants to give you the new wine – the best wine – of his love now, he’s been keeping it for you. So to really experience change in your life, at the beginning of the new year, personal restoration that will last, come to Jesus in prayer, ask him to fill the different stone jars of your life with the new wine of his love.


• Ask through his Blessed Mother, and you’ll discover the secret of happiness and personal fulfilment in 2010 and beyond, experience the sense of emptiness being removed, the richness of the new wine in your life that is the Holy Spirit of Jesus. And what is this secret? It’s quite simple really. The Blessed Mother has already told us in the Gospel we’ve heard today.

• “Do whatever he tells you.”

Formation Update!

Journey to ordination - Formation Update from Brian McMahon


I should have been at a ‘Formation Sunday' a couple of weeks ago, but it was cancelled because of all the snow. St John’s seminary is in the middle of the Surrey countryside and, as you can imagine, it was snowed in. Apparently the seminarians were running low on food, so I guess that they wouldn’t have been very happy if we’d all turned up and ate their meagre rations! Anyway, we don’t get a relaxation in the deadlines for our essays and assignments! I’ve just handed in my second essay of the academic year and now have another one lined up in the pipeline, for submission by 28th February 2010. The title of the essay is, “How can my parish get more out of the Liturgy of the Hours?”  So,  I have to produce the 1500 word essay, with some nice juicy references and pithy insights! Perhaps you have some thoughts that can help me? I have lots of thoughts, but I’m sure yours will be better! Do share!

Some parishioners, my family, friends, and my parish priest, Fr Roger, came to the Candidacy Mass at Westminster Cathedral celebrated by Archbishop Vincent, just before Christmas.  I’ve never processed out at Westminster Cathedral before, with the Archbishop in all his fine regalia, priests, permanent deacons and Candidates etc, and like most of the other candidates, having to wear an alb for the first time. I must admit that my main concern during the ceremony, as well as ensuring I made the right responses to the Archbishop’s questions, and bowed in all the right places, was not to trip up over my new alb! Of course Candidacy for Holy Orders is not just for men who are destined to become permanent deacons, but also for men who will go on to become priests. In this Year of the Priest, we should be very grateful for the ministry of priests. Without priests we would have no Mass. So perhaps we should all be doing what we can to promote vocations to the priesthood. If we don’t – no one else will. Surely we can find at least one young man in each parish to come forward?! And of course let us not forget to pray for our parish priests during this Year of the Priest, in thanksgiving for their ministry. Joe's asked to write something a little more personal about my journey so far, that is, how it all started and my thoughts. I'll post on that soon. I remember you and your intentions at Mass during Formation Days.