Faith

People sought Jesus to ‘hear the word of God’ some perhaps also sought him for the miracles (4:23). The phenomenon of the crowds pressing in on him is reflected constantly in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). To escape the crowds Jesus often hops on to a boat (Mark 4:1,4:36, 5:1 etc.). Today, was no different except he sets his eyes on not one but two boats, boats that were briefly abandoned by the fishermen who were washing their nets post a failed catch.

Interestingly Jesus makes a choice to get into one of the two boats and we are told that it belongs to Simon the fishermen. I believe that Jesus was making a clear choice. He picked Simon’s boat because he wanted to ‘catch’ Simon for his mission; this on a day when Peter had no catch, and here in lies the catch!

I don’t know how we would respond if someone walked into our home or our personal office and began to use it as a make shift Church. Jesus never asked for Simon’s permission, he just spied a boat and decided he need to use it. Yet ironically Jesus did not need Simon’s boat; as we will see later, Simon needed Jesus’ blessing. Does Jesus really need our home or our place of work or whatever our boat may be? He is the Lord, he walked on water. Jesus could have razzle and dazzled the crowd by standing on the water and preaching. The crowds would have swelled at this miracle. It seems that on this day Jesus wanted to ‘catch’ Peter. So, he sits in his boat within ear shot of Simon and spoke, knowing clearly that Peter was listening.

Jesus knows that Simon has caught nothing but don’t forget that Jesus knows where the fish are! Simon who has been listening to the Lord from a distance is drawn closer to the Lord, now by a personal request; ‘duc in altum’, put out into the DEEP water. Perhaps most of us are fishing too and we catch nothing and here in lies the problem; it is not what we are looking for but where we are looking for. Simon was told to go into the deep, the shallow may be safe but God wants us to fish in unchartered waters, in the deep. That is where the mission field is. As a Church we pay in safe waters but Christ wants the nets of the Church to be thrown wide and in unchartered waters. Fishing in the harbour is safe but that’s not what harbours were primarily built for and that’s where you might just end up with small fry; the big fish are out there!

Simon must have seen this unfolding request as odd if not impertinent. Jesus was a carpenter and he was a fisherman; what would this carpenter turned into Rabbi know about fishing. It’s not like Simon gave Jesus some tips on wooden pegs and latest furniture tips. But Simon is not disrespectful, “Master” he says, ‘we have worked all night long and have caught nothing,’ Perhaps that’s the reality of our lives, we have worked and worked and nothing seems to work because WE have become the source of instruction and inspiration, not the Lord. All it takes for us to haul in that catch is to take a cue from Simon, “yet if you say so.”

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Faith

Feast of St John Britto – John 12:20-32

John de Brito who renamed himself Arul Anandar is often called ‘the Portuguese St Francis Xavier’ by Indian Catholics. He was born of Portuguese aristocracy on 1 March 1647 and became a member of the royal court at age nine and a companion to the young prince later to become King Peter II. His father, Salvador de Britto Pereira, died while serving as Viceroy of the Portuguese colony of Brazil.

When de Brito was young, he almost died of an illness and his mother vowed he would wear a Jesuit cassock for a year if he were spared. He regained his health and walked around court like a miniature Jesuit. De Britto truly desired to become a Jesuit. Despite pressure from the prince and the king, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Lisbon on December 17, 1662 when he was only 15 years-old and studied at the famous University of Coimbra.

He wrote to the superior general in 1668 asking to be sent to the east as a missionary. When John’s mother knew that her son was going to India, she used all her influence to prevent him leaving his own country, and persuaded the Papal Nuncio to interfere. “Not to answer the vocation as I ought, would be to provoke the justice of God. As long as I live, I shall never cease striving to gain a passage to India” was the reply of the future martyr.

He was ordained in February 1673 and left Lisbon for Goa in mid-March, arriving the following September. Father de Brito worked in the mission field of Madurai. When he studied the Indian caste system, he discovered that most Christians belonged to the lowest and most despised caste. He thought that members of the higher caste would also have to be converted for Christianity to have a future. He became an Indian ascetic, a pandaraswami since they were permitted to approach individuals of all castes and established a small retreat in the wilderness

He was one of the earliest Jesuit missionaries in India to adopt elements of the local culture in his evangelization. The Madurai Mission was a bold attempt to establish an Indian Catholic Church. As such, Britto learned the native languages, went about dressed in yellow cotton, and lived like a sanyasi, abstaining from every kind of animal food and from wine. St. John de Britto tried to teach the Catholic faith in categories and concepts that would make sense to the people he taught. This method, proposed and practiced by Roberto de Nobili, met with remarkable success. As he became well-known, the number of conversions greatly increased.

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Opinion

Fidelity bears fruit – A pastoral message on the occasion of the parish feast

My dear parishioners,

The feast of St Stephen our patron falls on December 26th each year. Somehow the Christmas season, with its festivities, overshadows this day. The day after Christmas, with its spiritual and social demands exhausts us and the thought of a parish feast the very next day has been the reason why pastorally this celebration has often been postponed to a Sunday in January

Just when we thought we had the covid virus tucked under our belt, a new variant, Omicron, took us by surprise. Mercifully, this wave was not as bad as the last one; yet we are mindful that lives were lost and we can’t let our guard down.

On the feast day I want to greet each of you, those who will attend mass over the week end and those who will join us on line. Personally, for me, the last seven months here at St Stephen’s has been a roller coaster and while we would all like to wish that things are fine, they are not. The reality of the parish, administratively, pastorally and spiritually is far from where it should be. Today, I wish to speak of a few key areas of concern that we as a parish could work together.

One of the saddest realities that dawned on me was that post the second wave of covid, the attendance at weekend mass, on the best Sunday, was just fifty percent of the parish. This means that more than five hundred parishioners continue to be absent. I acknowledge that of these many will be senior citizens and children but the reality is that there are many able-bodied people, who I am sure continue with daily work normally, who skip Sunday Mass.

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Faith

“We are perishing” – a prayer of deliverance- Saturday, 3rd week in ordinary time – Mark 4:35-41

Jesus has just finished teaching a series of four parables on the kingdom of God. He did this in Capernaum (2:19b) to ‘very large crowd’(4:1). Now he decides to leave the crowds behind, desiring to go to the other side of the lake of Galilee (4:35).

What strikes us immediately is the odd hour that Jesus chooses to make this trip; it was already evening. Jesus gives no explanation for his desire to travel across the Sea of Galilee in the evening instead of waiting until morning, which would make for a safer voyage. What seems clear is that this trip, for some reason, was made in haste. No preparations were made for the trip for we are told that the disciples took him ‘as he was’. Yet even though they left in haste they were certainly not going to be left alone for we are told, ‘other boats were with him.’

What the disciples thought would be another ‘boat ride’ across the Sea of Galilee turned out to be a ‘titanic experience’. Out of nowhere a ‘great windstorm arose’. The translation of this word, great wind storm could best be described as a mega storm. Remember that Jesus was in the boat with fishermen who had traversed the Sea of Galilee regularly; this was a sea they were familiar with, waters that had not deterred them. Yet, they who were familiar with the sea were now terrified.

It is amazing how in moments of terror we can either forget every detail or let those details be embedded in our head. The Gospel writer, to whom this narrative was told, seems to have every detail in place; a windstorm arose, waves beat into the boat, the boat was being swamped and Jesus was asleep! What makes these memories so clear was where he was sleeping and how. He was in the stern with a cushion. The whole episode reminds us of Jonah asleep in a similar manner while the sailors battled the sea.

While the sea and storm were understandable, the actions of Jesus seemed to be bizarre. He has not only chosen a spot to sleep but has a cushion to rest his head; this when the rest were possibly going to lose more than just their head. This called for drastic action and the disciples who were quite besides themselves dropped their titles of reverence. No more Master, no more Messiah, they address him as teacher, rabbi.

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Faith


Who Were Timothy And Titus?

Timothy

Timothy was a teenager when he met Paul. His family lived in Lystra so he was a Galatian. His father was a Greek man; we know nothing of his faith. But, Timothy’s mom and grandmother were faithful Jewish women who taught the Old Testament scriptures to this boy they loved so much (Acts 16:1; 2 Timothy 1:5). As the women heard Paul preach, they believed in Jesus, and so did Timothy. Timothy may have seen Paul heal a lame man in his town. That would have been exciting! He may also have watched as an angry mob threw stones at Paul and left him for dead (Acts 14:8-20). Yet, he also knew Paul survived. When Paul came back to Lystra a couple of years later on his second journey, Paul invited Timothy to travel with him.

Timothy helped Paul to establish churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea (Acts 16:1 – 17:14). When Paul left Berea to go to Athens he left Timothy and Silas behind, but later sent word for them to join him (Acts 17:13-15). Timothy was sent to Thessalonica to strengthen the faith of believers there (1 Thessalonians 3:1-2).

Timothy was a trustworthy friend who carried money collected by the Philippian church to care for Paul’s needs in Corinth. During the 3 years Paul was in Ephesus teaching them about the amazing power of God, Timothy was there, too. When Paul was imprisoned in Rome for two years, Timothy was right alongside him much of the time unselfishly taking care of Paul’s needs. By now, Timothy was a young man of about 30 who for at least 13 years had been learning how to teach about Jesus and serve God’s people well as he watched Paul do it. Paul thought of Timothy not only as a very faithful friend but also as his spiritual son.

After Paul’s release from prison in Rome, Timothy and Paul traveled to visit friends in the churches they had founded. When they got to Ephesus, Paul recognized some men in the church were teaching error about Jesus saying that Jesus could not have been a man and God at the same time. Paul wanted to go on to visit his friends in Macedonia, but he didn’t want to leave the Ephesian church in turmoil. So, he left Timothy to teach truth to the church there while Paul went on to Macedonia. As an “apostolic representative, Timothy had the authority to order worship (1 Timothy 2:1-15) and appoint elders and deacons (1 Timothy 3:1-3). Paul thought he’d get back to Ephesus soon, but that didn’t happen. He was concerned about what was going on in Ephesus, so he wrote Timothy the letter called 1st Timothy around AD 64 from Rome or Macedonia.

Six of Paul’s epistles include Timothy in the salutations. The most tender and moving of Paul’s letters was his last one to Timothy. He was a prisoner in a Roman dungeon when he wrote 2 Timothy, approximately AD 67. He knew he had a short time to live, so the letter is his spiritual last will and testament – his “dying wish” – to encourage Timothy and to request that Timothy join him during his final days of imprisonment (2 Timothy 1:4; 4:9, 21).

According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which was written several centuries later (originally published in 1563), Timothy remained in Ephesus until AD 97. During a pagan celebration of a feast called “Catagogian,” Timothy severely reproved the people in the procession for their ridiculous idolatry. This antagonized the partygoers who beat him with clubs “in so dreadful a manner that he expired of the bruises two days later.”

Titus

During Paul’s first missionary journey, a young man named Titus heard Paul preach about Jesus. Titus was Greek—he had not grown up worshiping the God of the Bible. As he listened to Paul, Titus’ heart responded to the message, and he believed in Jesus. Paul brought him to Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1-4) to show the apostles and other Jewish believers how a Greek non-Jew could love God just as much as they did. Titus represented all the other non-Jewish people who became Christians and were completely accepted by God through their faith in Jesus Christ—like most of us!

Titus continued to travel with Paul on missionary journeys, helping in the work of sharing the gospel. During the 3 years Paul was in Ephesus teaching them about the amazing power of God (third journey), Titus was there. Then, Paul sent him to Corinth to alleviate tension there (2 Corinthians 7:6, 13-14) and to collect money for the poor (2 Corinthians 8:6, 16, 23). Paul thought of Titus not only as a very faithful friend but also as his spiritual son because he had led him to trust Christ.

After Paul was released from the Roman prison where he had been for two years, he and Titus traveled to the island of Crete. Paul and Titus taught the people, called Cretans, about their need for God and the good news about Jesus (Titus 1:4-5). Soon there were enough believers to start churches in several towns. Paul wanted to go visit the church in Corinth so he left Titus to continue teaching the new Christians and to appoint church leaders for each new church. Someone came to replace him in Crete so Titus met Paul in western Macedonia and continued his missionary work northward into what is now Albania (2 Timothy 4:10). The gospel was really spreading into Europe, wasn’t it!

Back in Crete, though, Titus was a busy man as he cared for all the new Cretan believers, especially because the people just didn’t know how to do what is good in God’s eyes. Paul knew Titus needed some encouragement and reminders of what was important to teach the people. Paul wrote to Titus soon after writing 1st Timothy, probably while Paul was in Macedonia, on his way to Nicopolis (Titus 3:12). Paul hoped to join Titus again, but there is no way of knowing whether that meeting ever took place. Tradition has it that Titus later returned to Crete and there served out the rest of his life.

FROM THE SERIES: ADORN YOURSELF WITH GODLINESS: A STUDY OF 1ST TIMOTHY AND TITUS

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