It's Movember

For those of you wondering why I look different it because the beard has temporarily gone. It Movember and as such I have shaved the beard and will be concentrating on growing the Mo. I think I an going to go for a Connoisseur look, which is somewhere between Hercule Poirot and a British army officer from the days of empire.

The photo is over ten years old and was the last time I had a mustache. The plan is to be a little more excessive this time if I can.

So what is Movemeber, well it a month long mustache growing event that's in it's 13th year. It raise money and awareness of men's health issues. Until a couple of years ago I had no idea what my prostate was, or what the symptoms of prostate cancer could be. I had no idea how to check myself for signs and I never thought and speaking to doctors with question like like. Being a typical man I assumed I wouldn't get ill, and lucky so far I haven't but friends of mine have. When they got ill I realised how little I knew and did some reading to change that.

There are many issues that men should think about health wise, and many diseases that we need to find cures to and that take money. Movember is about raising the awareness of men's health, it's about raising some money to help research and support and it's about having a little fun. I'll post photo's as we go through the month and would ask that you find out something you didn't know about staying healthy and if you have some spare cash think about donating. The following link lets you do either.

http://uk.movember.com/mospace/6677145

And just in case you forget what the beard looked like this is me just before it got shaved.


God Bless,
J

Homily - 27th Sunday OT Year C - What's Next Lord?

Homily (Sermon) - What's Next Lord?

The Readings for the twenty seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4
Psalm 94
Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
Luke 17:5-10
[These readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.]

We have become exceptional good at hiding the servants in today modern cultures. Few of us today have servants working in our fields or waiting on us at table. The analogy used by Christ, of a master expecting his servant to serve, is a little lost and strange. As I read it I felt I would be quite happy to let my servants eat first if they had had a hard day in the fields ploughing or sheep herding.

Then I started to ponder my life and my servants. I have gas, electric and water on tap. I have machines and tools. I can buy prepared food. I don’t need to sow to put clothes on my back. My servants are scattered all over the world.  I do expect my car, my fridge, my oven, my television, my computer all too just work. I expect them to be made well. I expect the people providing the power to run them, just to do their job. I don’t thank them; I just expect them to work.

That is what God expects of us. We are expected to do what we are asked. Not for thanks or praise, just because we are asked.

That is the rather cold message of the second half of our gospel, you are expected to work. You are expected to serve. You are expected to do your duty. You are a useless servant expected to do your duty.

Take a few seconds now to ask yourself a few tough questions. Are you looking for thanks? Are you looking for praise? Are you looking for ways to avoid doing your duty? Have you already found ways to avoid work, avoid service, avoid doing your duty to God? Do you have good excuses that make you feel better about doing less? Do you feel hard done by because you don’t get the recognition you think you deserve?

I fall short on all of those questions. I love the nice things you tell me when I preach, I sometimes feel hard done by when no one says, “I enjoyed your homily”. I work hard as a deacon, but I also steal time back for myself. Before writing this homily I spent time reading and playing games. It’s human, but we are asked to be better, we are asked to serve and serve humbly.

But the lesson isn't quite as cold as it seems right now. We have been promised an eternal life; we have been called sisters and brothers by the son of God. We have been given the gift of Grace, the gift of eternal life, the gift of forgiveness. Christ isn't bargaining with us. He has told you to serve, He has told you, that you are family and loved. They are not linked. You can’t earn his love, you already have it. If you know this, if you feel this, your mustard seed sized faith will enable you to do great things. You will do them because of love not to earn love.

Today’s tough lesson is about humility. It’s about doing what you are called to do? It’s about doing it well. It’s about finishing it and asking what’s next. So let me try and put today’s gospel into context with a short story from a couple of years ago.

My wife Gail and I were renovating a house just down the road from us, for my mum-in-law, Hazel. Actually, when I say Gail and I, I really mean Gail, as she did most of the work and organising. However, at the weekends we were both round there working, but being a man I am not capable, of looking round and seeing what the next task is, so I have taken the safe route and each time I complete a task, I go and find Gail and ask, "What's next love?".

So my weekends ran something like this; I paint a door, "What's next love?”, I paint a ceiling, "What's next love?", I wallpaper the bedroom, "What's next love?". When Hazel moved in, Gail took great delight in telling the story to her mum, apparently every 5 minutes I would pop up saying "Next?"

Even when I am not spending my weekends decorating a house, my life can feel pretty busy most of the time, and I am sure yours do too. We run around trying to manage all the calls on our time, family, work, school and God’s. Sometimes we just feel crushed by the weight of all the things we need to do, but this does not stack up well against Paul’s message to Timothy, “You have been trusted to look after something precious; guard it with the help of the holy Spirit” So I have to wonder what I am doing wrong.

Then I remembered the decorating. God like Gail has a plan, who am I, to randomly select the things I think need doing. Shouldn't I be trying to work with Christ, rather than by myself? If I work with Him, He'll share the burden. Maybe it's time to go back to God and ask "What's next Lord?"

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About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
Homily Index

Pilgrimage to Birmingham

The following video is for the Children at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School as they prepare for their pilgrimage to Downside. If you have any question you would like to ask me please email me at john@deaconjohn.co.uk

Here are some photos that I took on the day.

Homily - 23rd Sunday OT Year C - Hate

Homily (Sermon) - Hate

The Readings for the twenty third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom 9:13-18
Psalm 89
Philemon 9-10, 12-17
Luke 14:25-33
[These readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.]

This isn't an easy Sunday to preach. The gospel we have today is not easy, it’s not nice, it’s not simple, it’s not comfortable.

It is a startling message that should make you sit up and listen. It’s not what you expect to hear in church. It’s not what you expect to be told by Christ. It’s not how you live your life today.

What was the first thought that went through your mind when I read:
“If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, yes even his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”
For me it was, “How am I going to preach on that!” but followed quickly by “Weren't we told to love one another.” It’s difficult to reconcile the two statements. Love and hate seem so far apart, and our faith is built on love. “You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”

But as with so much of the bible you can’t just take one sentence by itself. You have to read what comes before and what comes after. It helps to know a little about the time and place when these words were said. It helps to know a little history and the full story of salvation.

The great crowds that were accompanying Jesus were following Him to Jerusalem. They thought he was King David’s heir, sent to save them. They were expecting him, to retake the land of Israel from the Romans, they were not expecting him to be arrested, judged and crucified.

They wanted to follow a victorious king. Christ was telling them that victory would cost Him His life and to follow Him could cost them theirs.
He tried to explain this in two stories. The first is about building a tower without enough funds to finish it. The message here is, if I start this, will I finish it. Have I got what it takes to do what needs to be done.

The second story about the small army facing the big army, and the question is, what am I prepared to sacrifice? What will I lose if I go on, am I prepared to lose everything?

Everything that is, apart from God’s love, that is impossible to lose.

So we have moved on from hating your family and yourself, to being prepared to give them up to follow Christ. That is still not an easy message to hear, and it’s still a difficult message for me to preach about too. I have no intention of leaving my wife or turning my back on my family. But I do still want to follow Jesus. What do I do now? Where do I look?

Let us start with our first reading and our psalm. In poetic language they describe our mortal lives, our bodies of clay, our return to dust.

We heard in our psalm, “Make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

We are immortal souls trapped for a time in mortal bodies, mortal bodies that restrict our ability to understand the infinite. It’s the mud and clay that mean nothing; it’s eternity with your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and God that means everything.

Paul’s letter to Philemon adds to our understanding of sacrifice, of mortal and immortal. Paul sends a slave, Onesimus back to his master Philemon. Paul describes this as giving up part of himself, which is his sacrifice. He implores Philemon to make a sacrifice as well, to give up his property, his ownership of a slave. He opens Philemon’s eyes to the eternal, to the soul of Onesimus, to the brother who could be eternally with him, not the mortal body of clay, the body of the slave.

The message for us today is difficult; there is no getting away from that. Following Christ is not about having and easy and comfortable life in this world, it’s about recognising the glimpses of something eternal when we see them, and when you recognise the eternal in your father, mother, wife, children, brother, sisters and even yourself, I am sure you will turn to Christ and follow Him, because how else are we going to stay with them and find our way into eternity.

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About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
Homily Index

Homily - 20th Sunday OT Year C - Called to Witness

Homily (Sermon) - Called to Witness

The Readings for the twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10
Psalm 39
Hebrews 12:1-4
Luke 12:49-53
[These readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.]

A few years ago I saw a documentary about training police officers, I can’t remember too much about the programme but I remember vividly one scene. The trainees were sat in a class room. The door opened and a lady asked if the lecturer could spare someone for a quick errand. The lecturer dispatched a young man and then turned to the remainder of the class and explained that during this lesson they would watch a film depicting a crime. The villains would be obvious but when questioned about it they were to always blame the victim for the crime. They could make up whatever evidence they wanted, but they all had to agree that the victim of the crime was the villain.

The young man returned from his errand after all this had been said, so knew none of it. They all watched the video and then the lecturer started asking the class what they had seen, what crime had been committed and who they should be arresting.

The whole class had seen a woman robbed of her handbag by two young lads, but when the lecturer started asking the class what they had seen, they described a woman shop lifting and two young men stopping her. The lecturer went round the whole class coming to the young man who had run the errand last. When asked to describe what he saw he described a young woman shoplifting and being stopped by two men.

The lesson for the officers that day was the same as our lesson from scripture today. Do not let peer pressure and the views of the majority around you distract you from the truth you know is real!

You are a witness for Christ in the world. You have witnessed something divine, something that has brought you to a faith in Christ. Here in church, surrounded by your fellow witnesses, your sisters and brothers in Christ, it’s easy to believe. It’s easy to once again hear, see, touch and taste the divine. To witness again, to know completely the love of God.

But then you leave here, sent out into the real world, the secular world, the world of challenge and doubt. The world where common sense prevails and you can be perceived as the fool for your beliefs.

It’s not easy being a Christian today. True there have been worse times and places to follow God. Jeremiah got thrown in the well to be left for dead because the King was swayed by the common sense of the people. But the same thing can still happen today, Bishop Óscar Romero, was assassinated in 1980 for his views on wealth and poverty and the work his priests were doing.

We live in a world that is driven by wealth. We are fallen people, greed is a part of us, but it’s not a good part. It’s one of the parts we need to fight. We are taught by a loving God to put others first, to follow His teachings. Love God and Love our neighbour. The problem for us is that we can be very softly persecuted for those views. Our society believes that wealth is success, that possessions define the person, that you should have what you want, when you want it, because you are worth it.

I believe you are worth so much more than that. I believe Christ called you his brothers and sisters. I believe you are the adopted children of God.

Christ tells us today, he didn't come to bring peace on earth. He knew the message he brought would cause conflict, sometimes violent conflict but much more often intellectual conflict, differences between friends and families. Differences between you and the people you meet every day of your life. The peace of Christ is not yet for the world, but it is for you. “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you” words you hear every time you come to Mass. This is what you need to take and hold onto when you venture out into the world. You are called to follow Christ to the Cross, You are called to be Christ in this world today. You are called to witness.

Do you know what the word for witness was back in New Testament times? It was Martyr!

I don’t believe that you will be killed and Martyred for your views today in this country. I do think you might be ignored or laughed at. That your witness to the truth will be belittled as old fashioned and not relevant any more. I do think that Christianity today makes people uncomfortable. And I know that it’s never easy being the one person in the room that disagrees with everyone else.

Today’s readings and today’s lesson are not an easy to hear. You believe, and because you believe you must witness, because you do, others will also be given the chance to believe. But for that to happen you must stay true in your witness, you may not be martyred with violence, you are much more likely to be martyred with indifference and dismissal.

When this happens to you and you feel low and cast down, come back to Church, come back to your family, comeback to the Eucharist, come back and experience again the divine. Know that it is Christ who will pull you from the mud and set you back upon the rock.

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About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
Homily Index