Daily Mass - the twelfth Sunday of Ordinary time

Mass was offered today for the people of the Parish.

Do not fear. Be not afraid. That's what today's readings had to say, even as God sent his prophets and apostles on difficult missions. Just this afternoon, I got towards the end of the first book of Saint Bede's history of the English people, where the mission of Saint Augustine to England at the end of the sixth century is recounted. When first sent out by the Holy Father Gregory, the mission from the monastery on the Coelian hill in Rome quickly became discouraged and the monks sent Augustine, then only their prior (first among the priests), back to the pope to plead that this mission was too difficult, and could they please return to Rome? They had heard horror stories on the way, you see, about the barbaric people who lived on our islands, and they thought it too dangerous. The Holy Father quietly consoled Augustine and sent him back on his way, with a letter to the whole mission saying that Augustine was now their abbot and they owed him religious obedience.

Do not be afraid. It is a frightening thing indeed to stick one's neck out, especially in our present society and culture that is now by nature irreligious, and more likely than not anti-Catholic as well. Some of us try to use the new media, social media (you know, e-mail, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.) to produce a message for broadcast from the security of our homes; most of us don't do even that, and few indeed of us are on the streets and in the marketplace (in ordinary circumstances!) with an unpopular message. In the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the people of Jerusalem had become complacent, convinced of the impregnability of their city, with her great Temple to the living God. Jeremiah cried out aloud, warning them that all was at an end, that the city was on the verge of destruction, that they had to turn back to God. 

And he made lots of enemies. In our first reading today, Jeremiah (chapter 20) complains about his persecutors, those who did not want to hear him. Let us terrorise him, say these people, let us trap him and revenge ourselves upon him. But Jeremiah is mostly calm, for he has God on his side and his counsel to all would-be prophets is to sing to God, to praise God. Our reading ends there but, pulling out our Bibles to see what the Mass book leaves out, we find this startling moan from the heart of the prophet:

"Sing to the Lord yet, praise the Lord yet; he does not leave a defenceless life at the mercy of the wicked. Cursed be the day of my birth! A time for cursing it was, not for blessing, when my mother brought me into the world. Cursed be the man who told my father a son had been born to him, and brought gladness, ay, gladness, into his heart! For that good news, be he rewarded with the noise of battle-cry at morn, dirge at noon, like some city the Lord overthrows in anger unrelenting! Why did he not slay me yet unborn, the womb for my tomb, and frustrate my mother’s hope eternally? Why must I come out into the light of day, where only labour and sorrow greet me, and in disappointed striving all my life is spent?" - Prophecy of Jeremiah, 20:13-18

Jeremiah curses himself for having been given what seems to him to be an impossible mission. The mission is not supposed to be easy and we're not called to be unafraid because all will be well. As the history of all prophets and missionaries shows, the mission is not supposed to be easy. Neither was it easy for Saint Augustine and his men to Christianise and form the several tribes of post-Roman Britain. We recognise their efforts today, but Augustine may have wondered at his chances back then. The doughty Hebrew prophet expresses himself in a way Christian missionaries will not. They throughout our history have been martyred in various ways for their boldness, for their determination. Today's gospel message honours them when it says:

"Are not sparrows sold two for a penny? And yet it is impossible for one of them to fall to the ground without your heavenly Father’s will. And as for you, he takes every hair of your head into his reckoning. Do not be afraid, then; you count for more than a host of sparrows. And now, whoever acknowledges me before men, I too will acknowledge him before my Father who is in heaven." - Gospel of S. Matthew, 10: 29-31

It's a public mission, and we dare not fail. There will always be Catholics who are ashamed of being Catholics, because they don't like something the Church teaches, they think the certain Catholics have behaved badly in the past, or because they think the Church is behind the times, etc. But we cannot be among their number. We have to be faithful until the end with our unpopular message.

Tomorrow is a big day for Catholic England, for we celebrate several important martyrs. First of all, tomorrow is the traditional anniversary of the deaths of the British Roman Saints Alban, Julius and Aaron, who are honoured in the Mass on the 20th of June, and who perished all during the persecutions of the Roman emperor Diocletian. But tomorrow's Masses honour the great bishop of Rochester, Saint John Fisher, the only English bishop to stand up to the tyranny of King Harry in the sixteenth century. And we remember, alongside him, Saint Thomas More, the king's chancellor, who insisted that he be faithful first to God our Lord, and only then to the king.

Do not be afraid. Make like the great Saints of our history. There is a reason we call them Saints: they lived the Gospel we hear every day at Mass. They acknowledged Christ before men, and He acknowledged them before His Father.