Catholic Homilies By Fr Linus Clovis

Our Blessed Lord, having sent out the twelve. He told them after having giving them power over evil spirits, He told them He was sending them out like sheep among wolves. He told them that they would bare witness to Him but they could expect nothing but trouble and suffering from those whom to they were sent and yet at the same time, promising a reward from the one who had sent them. He had said that even brothers would betray brothers so their father, their children and that they themselves would be hated by all on the count of His name. And then to give them the model, the example they were to follow the Disciple is not superior to his teacher, nor the slave to his master and that if they call the master of the house, Baalzebub, then they would say even worse things about the servants. Yet He says everything He has taught them will be made clear in due time. And that despite the opposition they would necessarily face, they should not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. And th

Our Lord sending His Disciples out, not only gives them the ability to preach the Gospel but He also gives them warnings against what they’re going to encounter. And He adds now, He finally promises to the completion of the task. So He says first of all to remind them that they are His Disciples, we are His Disciples and so we should not expect any better treatment than Our Master Himself received. The Disciple is not superior to His teacher, nor the slave to his master. It is enough that the Disciple should grow to be like his teacher, the slave like his master. What did the Master suffer? He suffered calumny, people ill speaking Him, a tribute in the good that He did to the power of evil, criticised Him, obstructed Him, blocked Him, constantly trying to undermine the good that He did. He sent us out as servants, more than servants; even as friends and so we should expect to receive the same treatment. The good that we attempt in Christ’s name, will be opposed by the world flesh and the devil. So He says, “E

Does God have favourites? And of course we know from the Scriptures which we should always quote, we know from the Scriptures, “God has no favourites”. However, the Scriptures also go on to say that, “Anyone who has a sincere heart and sincerely seeks God is acceptable to Him.” However God does choose certain people and certain groups of people to perform special functions for Him and these functions are called vocations. We should never mix up the idea of vocation with salvation. They are two quite independent things. A vocation is a calling to do a particular work for God for the salvation of ourselves but more important, of others. A vocation is given by God freely. Being acceptable to God is essentially a disposition of the heart. Are we available to Him so that we might fulfil His will and in so doing, become Holy which is what God requires of all of us, “Be Holy as I, your God am Holy”. In the case of a vocation we’re called to do something in addition to. Now if we fail to do that which we are called

Having spoken the beatitudes, those eight propositions of which the Christian world, the Christian civilisation, the Christian life is founded. Our Lord tells us what flows from their observance, the poverty of spirits and gentleness, the grief the anguish we go on an account of our sins, those who mourn and now desire for what is right for true righteousness, which is essentially to be living the divine life, pleasing to God. Our expression of gratitude to God for what He has done by our showing of mercy to others and the purity of our intentions, the purity of heart and our desire that we be at peace with God and with our neighbour and most important the special grace of fortitude by which we’re able to endure every kind of persecution because of our deep solid attachment to the person of Christ and to follow in the path mapped out for us by His Father with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. If we are able to withstand persecution, then we are truly the salt of the earth. Enduring persecution is a special

Blessedness means to be well spoken of, in particular to be well spoken of by God and God who is truth can only speak that which is true, and so He will speak well of us if He can see certain qualities in us and these qualities are none other than the qualities shown, practised, demonstrated by His only begotten Son to us. The first Psalm, Blessed the man that fears the Lord, is a beginning of praise of the Psalms to God by David. Our Lord, who is Holy wisdom who Himself is the heir of David, who has come begins his public life with a praise of God or rather of God’s work in us or how in fact, our being faithful to Christ will lead us to fulfil God’s work in us, so God can see Himself in us. And so He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” not Blessed are the poor, but the blessed the poor in spirit, which means that it is not just the matter of not having material goods that makes us blessed or well-spoken of by God, but rather the poverty of spirit which is total dependence on God. Poverty has three degrees

“The Good News I preach is not some human message that I was given by men, it is something I learned only through revelation of Jesus Christ.” Saint Paul, who speaks these words to us today reminds us that our whole own mind, all our thoughts, our desires, our aspirations should be focused on our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He tells us also that whilst we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we know Him like this no longer. He also says to keep your eyes fixed on heaven where Christ is. Speaking about himself, I strain for what is ahead and forget everything behind. If we are engaged in a race, we will lose, if we keep our eyes fixed on the next step in front of us. For those who want to succeed, we have to look at the goal, the end and keeping our eyes fixed on the goal, we should surge, urge our bodies so that we might arrive at the goal. When Our Lord walked on the water, the Disciples had been on the boat and Peter asked, “If it is you Lord, let me come to you” and the Lord said, “Come”. Peter got

That’s a very difficult Gospel, but we might understand a little bit with the talk where going to have today which is, the Creed – the part which says, “He suffered under Pontus Pilot”. Who is this Pontus Pilot? Certainly he’s a weak man and like other weak men, he always wants to keep everybody happy. Pilot wanted to keep the Priests and the Jewish mob happy, he wanted to keep his wife happy, he wanted to keep Herod and his flunkies and flatterers happy, he really wanted to keep Caesar happy and he even wanted to keep Jesus Christ happy. He wanted to set Him free, but Pilot like most weak people, who want to keep everybody happy, ended up keeping nobody happy. After he finished in Judea, Palestine the Jews went to Rome to complain about his bad governance, his career finished in shame. Us Christians – from then until now until eternity, we condemn him in the Creed. That leads me to another question though. Regards the Creed, of all the villains who were involved in the sufferings of our Lord, who made Him s

Jesus Christ clearly in today’s gospel wants us to meditate upon death. He wants us to help us prepare for it. This is the point of the parable we’ve just heard. Today I’ll talk about a couple of characteristics of death and then give air to a few objections which are held by people, it’s fair enough in an optimistic manner, about talking about such a morbid topic. First though the question, are their any benefits when talking about death? Very simple, one super benefit, it discourages us from doing bad and encourages to do good. To do good while we can. You know, there was a convert to Judaism many, many years ago, a king named Moabaz. A famine entered his kingdom. He sold all the treasures that he had and he fed the poor. The young princes, his brothers, they were scandalised; they said ‘What have you done. You have not only sold all of your own treasures, but all the treasures that our fathers have gathered up before.’ Moabaz responded, ‘Our fathers gathered up treasures for here below, for th

Our Lord sent out the twelve to preach the Good News of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. He gave them power over unclean spirits, power to cure the sick. He gave them power to cure the sick, to cast out demons and all of these powers; these gifts were given to prove the truth of what they were saying, to confirm the testimony of their witness. But the Lord also warned them that there would be opposition, in this way in telling them I’m sending you out like sheep amongst wolves, He’s telling them that danger is serious. He didn’t just say like sheep in the presence of wolf, but amongst wolves, so all around the enemies were there, ready to attack and destroy. But He says, “Since they’re sheep, they had to be as cunning as serpents, as harmless as doves”. In other words, there task were to change these wolves in to sheep, and that they themselves should not be turned in to wolves for that is where the victory lies – in the wolves becoming sheep. So how were they to do it? As cunning as serpe

Our most Blessed Saviour sends out the twelve – the twelve who are the foundation stones of the Church, the twelve wise companions who are witnesses to all He had done and all that He had taught. And He sends them out to His own people, to the Israelites – Israelites like themselves, instructions not to go either to the pagans or to the Samaritans, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Prophets had spoken about the Messiah, who would come from Israel and would be sent to Israel. Therefore Our Lord needed to certainly fulfil this prophecy, but also to give the Jews the opportunity to listen and to hear and to embrace the Gospel. Their rejection of the Gospel would not be because of anything the Lord failed to do, but on that hard heartedness that is spoken of them in so many places in the Old Testament, but the Lord also knows even as the Jews, the Israelites reject His message, the Gentiles will accept it, will embrace it, and so He will dissolve the two. The Jews were as the Gentiles so that the

We are all, I’m sure familiar with the story of the good Samaritan; and I’m sure we could repeat it without a moment’s reflexion because it’s a story that immediately catches our imagination. But everything our Blessed Lord says, has many meanings. It can be interpreted in many different ways and in each interpretation, if done with the mind of the Church; we will discover rich fruits for our own way of living. The other thing we find is answers if He’s asked a question, on many occasions, He never answers the question in the same way; because the other occasion when He’s asked, ‘Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said, ‘Keep the Commandments.’ In that case, it was the rich young man that came to Him, ‘Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Our Lord’s response, ‘Keep the Commandments.’ To which the rich, young man responded, ‘Which one?’ And the Lord said, began with certainly a very important one – the most important one as far as neighbour is concerned because He said, ‘Thou

St. Luke in today’s Gospel tells us of the lawyer who wished to embarrass our Lord, to disconcert Him. And he chooses to do so in a very subtle way, yet at the same time the question that he asked is of the utmost importance, not only for himself, but even for us today. What must I do to inherit eternal life? That’s the question all of us must ask. We must ask ourselves this question, and of course we must ask the Lord, who has already given us the answer. It is not the first time that our Lord was asked this question, remember the rich, young man “Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And what did our Lord respond? “Keep the Commandments. Which one?” replied the young man “Thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not steal, honour your father and your mother”. “But” said the young man, “I’ve kept all of these.” “Very good”. The lawyer asks the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life.” And the Lord asks him, “What do you read in the law?” John the Baptist was

Perhaps these words, “You are Peter and on this rock, I build my Church” are best known by Catholics. It gives us that sense of security that Christ is with us. We know in the Eucharist that He is with us according to the promise that He made. But when He spoke to Peter, so many hundreds of years ago, He gives us the conviction, the certainty that He continues to speak to us even today, through the one whom we call His vicar. Our Lord had taken His Disciples away from Judea, from the region where the Jews were highly influential. Already there was opposition to Him and the authorities were looking for an occasion so that they could have Him arrested and put to death. It would be ideal if somehow He could be found to be in opposition to the emperor and certainly to claim to be the Messiah was a good enough reason. Remember they came with a coin asking whether it was lawful to pay tribute to the emperor. So away from the Jews, Our Lord could freely ask the question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is”? A val

Always we read scripture in context. If we attempt to interpret any text of scripture without considering to whom it is been spoken, where it is spoken, who has spoken it etc, it will certainly go astray and we will certainly not understand what the Holy Spirit Himself is saying to us. Our Lord, having sent out the 12 then complains about the fact that the very cities in which He had performed the greater number of His miracles, refused to repent. And yet, from these same cities came nearly half of the Apostles. And so the Lord makes that remarkable distinction that salvation is not achieved by learnedness or cleverness or power or any of those human qualities, but rather by those who are mere children, little children before the Lord, and specifically before the Father in heaven. And then immediately our Lord goes on to say that He is God – “Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father”, which is a declaration of divinity because everything includes everything that the Father has. His very nature and He

We now see a change in our Lord’s approach to His ministry. Before He worked, at the beginning of His ministry, He worked many miracles and many signs and His words were for the most part were gentle and inviting. Then we’re told that after He sent the twelve out, and they came back – there was a change. The Lord Himself was not taken by surprise, in fact He had said to the Disciples, “If you enter any town that they do not make you welcome, then shake the very dust from your shoes as you leave it”. But where was the Lord Himself working – throughout Galilee, we’re told He began to reproach the towns in which most of His miracles had been worked and the reason was because of the hardness of hearts, the refusal to repent. These towns were also the place that the majority of the Apostles came from, after all Phillip had come from Bethsaida, Andrew and Simon-Peter as well as James and John, so five of them we know for sure came from Bethsaida or the region. So some certainly had believed what our Lord had said,

Our Lord in Jerusalem is confronted by several groups of people. The Pharisees come, the Herodians come, and the Sadducees come. Each one attempting to lay a trap for our Blessed Lord. So the Herodians with the coin and the Sadducees with the woman who had seven husbands – each one in turn comes and the Lord answers appropriately. In the crowd, because this is not happening in quiet or in isolation or in private, but in the crowd, we’re told one of the scribes listens and he puts a question to our Lord. It’s a question of importance and significance for there were many disputes about it, “Which is the first of all the Commandments?” The problem was that the Commandments are found in several places in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, in Numbers, Exodus and so they were scattered throughout these books and it was the job of the scribes to try to put them in to some order. Now what kind of order do we use? At least what are the principles of the order that we use? Is it age? Is it Importance? Is sacrifice more importa

The Sadducees were a heretical group of Jews who rejected the idea of spirit or angel or prophecy or the soul for that matter; and consequently they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were materialists that’s how we would describe them today. Only what can be seen, felt, touch, measured exists. So denying the resurrection of the dead, they came to the Lord hoping to put Him in an impossible situation that is being logically inconsistent. They came to Jesus, obviously Our Lord preached the resurrection then otherwise they would not have come to Him with the question. They came to Jesus, Master – they acknowledged that He is a teacher, though of course they did not accept His teachings, “We have it from Moses in writing” and therefore as far as they are concerned, that is the ultimate authority. “Not only from Moses spoken”, in other words they have rejected oral tradition but specifically it is in writing; this is the only thing that they will accepted. In fact they only accepted the first

Saint Mark in this twelfth chapter of his Gospel tells us our Lord began to speak to the chief priest, the elders and the scribes in parables. The purpose of a parable is to teach, it’s a story often built on a real incident or on a certain prescription of law that carries with it another message, a deeper message, in particular a spiritual message. Our Lord made His way up to Jerusalem; He had spoken about His passion to the disciples on the way. He had cleansed the temple and the authorities had challenged Him, “By what authority do you do this?” And He answered appropriately, but they are adamant that He must die and so our Lord speaks the following parables to warn them that they were in fact to the point of losing their independence, their kingdom and everything that God had given them, and even worse they were at the point in losing their relationship with God Himself. The parable is based partly on Jewish law and partly in incidence that rarely did occur. When a rich, wealthy man has property, he does

The visitation of our Blessed Lady is the second of the Joyful Mysteries. The Angel having himself blessed the Virgin, “Hail full of Grace”, goes on to tell her, she is to become the mother of God. She is to bare a Son, she is to conceive and bare a Son in her womb. She asked the manner in which this will take place, to which the Angel instructs her that it will be by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, so that which she conceives, will be Holy and will be called Son of God. And then as a sign, the Angel also mentions to the Virgin that her cousin who was baron for her whole life, in her old age herself conceived a son because nothing is impossible to God. And so the very mystery that had just occurred, the Incarnation of the Word, the descent of the Son of God in to the womb of the Virgin – this mystery which occurred when the Virgin said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord that it be done to me according to thy word” animates the Virgin, she is immediately aware of the filial duty of charity that she has to

We’re told by St. Matthew that the Lord still speaking, teaching when He was interrupted by the synagogue official. We know his name is Jairus from the other Gospels and he comes to our Lord because of his daughter’s condition. The situation is desperate, the child is dying certainly when he left and he could only presume she was dead by now. He comes in faith, he had heard the signs of the miracles of the wonders that our Lord was performing, but his knowledge, his interpretation, his understanding of Christ is still very human. His faith, as you can say is mediocre. He doesn’t have that faith that the gentile, the centurion had, who didn’t even request our Lord’s presence, but knew the Lord, even at a distance could work the miracle of healing the servant. But he comes with faith, the important thing is he has faith. What God seeks from us is faith because it’s impossible to please Him without it. And so with the little faith that he has, he says “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her