How can we extend a real welcome to all? Here’s today’s reflection for Mass

Readings for Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter here

In the movie, Heavens Above, Peter Sellers plays the role of a priest who is mistakenly appointed to a parish because he shares his name with another priest who was, it seems, far more “appropriate” for the landed gentry who make up the church. Soon, true to his calling, his socialist beliefs and his empathy for working class people, the church begins to be peopled by those who don’t quite fit in. He creates social ructions by appointing a black dustman as his churchwarden, taking in a family being evicted from their illegal encampment, and persuading local landowner Lady Despard to provide food for the church to distribute free to the people of the town. It all leads to disastrous and humorous consequences.

In the first reading of the Acts of the Apostles, we have one of the first real disputes within the church. Is the gospel for Gentiles as well as Jews? There is some heated debate, but soon Peter is convinced that it is, when he is given a vision from God which impresses upon him the inclusiveness of the church. From then on, the trajectory of the church changes, and they can be true to the calling of Jesus to go out into the whole word and proclaim the good news.

It can be very easy to be possessive about our faith and our church. Some people may look suspiciously upon newcomers particularly if they begin to become more active. Or others may feel uncomfortable if someone very different from them sits alongside them. Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Who is missing from our churches? Do we reflect the communities in which we live, or do some people, for whatever reason, feel they won’t fit in? Jesus is looking not jus at the sheep he has gathered, but to those outside it, and so should we.

In South Cardiff Ministry Area, we aim to be a welcoming, faithful and just community. How can we extend that welcome to all, and how can we help all to know that God loves them?

Mass today is in St Dyfrig and Samson at 630pm.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer, check out our Day By Day pages.

Organisations are prone to develop long and convoluted mission statements which can mean very little. By contrast Jesus in Mark’s Gospel gives the church a mission which is simple, clear and direct. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.

Readings for the Feast of St Mark the Evangelist can be found here.

A feature of the last 20 to 30 years has been the rise of the corporate mission statement. The time was when a bookseller’s mission was to sell books, and a shoemaker’s was to make shoes. Now every business needs a lengthy document to say what it’s for. Often, they’ve been written by committee and are hard to make sense of. Take this example: “By integrating agile methodologies with customer-centric paradigms, we aim to co-create sustainable impact through proactive, insight driven collaboration”. Any idea what that actually means? Okay – it was written by AI specially for this homily, but it sounds just like it could come from the corporate world.

Far clearer, and more direct, is the mission statement for the Church given by Jesus in today’s Gospel. “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation”. These words could serve as a summary of the entire Gospel of Mark which they conclude. Jesus’ final speech in Mark’s Gospel is strikingly similar to what he says right at the start: “The kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news”. Mark, whose feast we celebrate today, bookends his Gospel with the imperative for the message of Jesus to be proclaimed and heard everywhere. The author of our first reading also gives advice to his readers as to what should be at the heart of their life. They are to remain faithful and steadfast, even in the face of difficulties and persecutions.

We might laugh at the corporate mission statements which sound like gobbledygook, but the Church too is not immune from such things. While it’s no bad thing to have a sense of purpose, it’s all too easy to create a fancy statement and then for it to gather dust on the shelf. We could do worse than to follow the commands from our readings today: proclaim the Gospel everywhere, and remain faithful. In all this, we know that we do not rely on our own strength. Mark tells us that the risen and ascended Lord worked in and through the disciples as they sought to continue his work. We know that in the same way he strengthens and sustains us as we seek to serve him today.

Mass today is in St Mary’s at 11.30am, preceded by the Rosary at 11am.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer, check out our Day By Day pages.

God frequently confounds our expectations and does things we might find shocking. But he does this in order to demonstrate more clearly his purposes. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.

Readings for Friday of the third week of Easter can be found here.

Think of one of the world’s mega-rich, the multi-millionaires and billionaires, and you probably imagine someone obsessed with amassing more and more money, growing their fortune and enjoying the luxurious life which comes with it. Every so often, however, someone comes along who confounds expectations. Chuck Feeney was the founder of duty-free shops in airports around the world. In 1984 he secretly transferred his entire $500 million stake in the company to a charitable organisation he had founded. It’s estimated he gave away $8 billion in his lifetime, and was known for always flying economy and wearing a $10 wristwatch.

God is often in the business of confounding human expectations, and we see this in our readings today. He doesn’t choose a faithful follower of Jesus to be the next leader of the early church’s mission. Shockingly, he calls Saul, someone who sought to eradicate the new faith and approved of the killing of Stephen. This is all too much for Ananias, who protests to God “I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem”. How on earth could Jesus call such a one to be a missionary of his? In the Bread of Life discourse in John’s Gospel, the people are shocked by what Jesus is telling them: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Yet Jesus continues with his message: “… unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”.

Why does God do things which can often be seen as shocking? In the case of Saul, it is surely to remind us that it’s not just the righteous who can serve him. Deeply flawed people also have something to offer; indeed their experience of moving from darkness to light can be crucial for ministry. Jesus’ graphic words about eating his flesh tell us that the Eucharist is not just a symbol or reminder of what Jesus did; it is a participation in his very life. We cannot get closer to him than we do when we receive his true body and blood in the sacrament. May we always be ready to be shocked by God so that we may understand more fully his purposes and his love.

Mass today is in St Saviour’s at 10am.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.

The story of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch reminds us that the good news of Jesus is for everyone, regardless of nationality or background. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.

Readings for Thursday of the third week of Easter can be found here.

Have you ever had the experience of being excluded from or left out of a group or community? For my part, I am scarred by my experiences of team games in PE at school. The two best boys at sport would be the team captains, and had to pick players one by one from the rest of the class to be on their team. Needless to say, I was always left right until last. Team sports not being my forte, no-one wanted me on their team. In the course of human history, many groups have experienced much more serious forms of ostracism or discrimination, whether it be on account of race, gender, religion, disability or sexuality.

One such group in the ancient world was eunuchs, castrated males who often served as court officials, such as the one we see in today’s reading from Acts. The book of Deuteronomy said that eunuchs could not be part of the community of Israel. Yet this eunuch is clearly a believer in the God of Israel, since he has been on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and is reading the book of Isaiah on his way home. Demonstrating the inclusive nature of the Christian Gospel, the Holy Spirit prompts Philip to go and explain the good news of Jesus to him. In a few short verses we see a beautiful journey of faith on the part of the eunuch, though his poignant words may carry a hint of his outsider status: “is there anything to stop me being baptised?” Happily Philip consents and the Ethiopian’s joy is complete. Two key lines in today’s Gospel reinforce these points. “Everybody who believes has eternal life”, says Jesus; “anyone who eats this bread will live forever”. Everybody; anyone … no exceptions.

In his life on earth Jesus broke down many barriers and reached out to the untouchables of his day. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, Christ died for all so that all may be one in him. Let us then seek to build a church and a world where everyone is included, no-one is left out, and all can come and know the wonderful redeeming love of God.

Mass today is in St Dyfrig & St Samson, Grangetown, at 10am.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.

Stephen the first Christian martyr gives us a wonderful example of how to follow Jesus is his closeness to God and his willingness to forgive. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.

Readings for Tuesday of the third week of Easter can be found here.

Think of some of the greatest painters from the history of art and you might come up with names such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio, Titian. Many of these masters had a “school” or group of followers who not only admired their work but imitated their style. In fact, so closely did many of these students follow the master that art historians often have a hard job deciding whether a particular painting is a genuine Old Master or the work of a follower. Not only is this of academic interest, it can also vary the value of the painting by several million pounds!

The martyrdom of Stephen that we hear about today has very strong echoes of the crucifixion of Jesus. When Stephen says “Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit”, it makes us think of Jesus on the Cross declaring “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit”. As Stephen cries out “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”, we are taken back to the moment when Jesus prays “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”. The disciple is so closely following the Lord that it is impossible to tell what is Stephen the man and what is Jesus working in and through him. How did this come about? In the same way that the art student spent years studying the master in order to paint like him, so Stephen has been fed by the bread of life that Jesus talks about in the Gospel. In feeding on Jesus he was able to become like Jesus.

Not many of us will be called to lay down our life in the way that Stephen did. But all of us are called to witness to Jesus by becoming like him, so that we might show forth his love to the world. We do this especially by demonstrating our utter reliance on him, and also by modelling the forgiveness shown by both Jesus and Stephen in their final moments of life. Few of us will be able to paint like Caravaggio or Rubens, but all of us can love like Jesus so that our lives become one with his, for in this and every Mass he comes to us, feeds us, and fills us with his very self, the true bread of life.  

Mass today is in St Mary’s at 6.30pm.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.

Sometimes our efforts in this life run into difficulties or opposition, and this can leave us feeling discouraged. Stephen, however, gives an example of focussing on the eternal not the transient. Fr Richard reflects on today’s readings from Mass.

Readings for Monday of the third week of Easter can be found here.

If it hasn’t already, then election fever will soon be gripping Wales as we approach the Senedd election on 7th May, just over two weeks away. Sometimes, when an election is approaching, the result is too close to call, which makes election night more exciting. On other occasions, it’s more of a foregone conclusion, where we all know who’s going to win and who’s going to lose. In the latter situation, one can perhaps feel a little sorry for the ordinary canvassers and leaflet deliverers of the party that is going to lose. They know that defeat is coming, but they carry on campaigning regardless. It must feel somewhat futile.

We might sometimes feel like that as Christians in the modern world as we seek to proclaim the Gospel. We are continually putting in lots of effort, and it can feel like there is little reward. This feeling of futility could have been one that affected Stephen. Last week in our readings we learned that he was one of the seven deacons appointed by the early church to help the apostles in their work. Today we are told that “he was doing great wonders and signs among the people”. However, his ministry has led to opposition from various groups in Jerusalem, and he is seized and brought before the council on false charges. We know that this will ultimately lead to Stephen’s death. He might have thought that his ministry had all been for nought, but it seems as though he had a serene confidence. We are told that “all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

How did Stephen maintain his composure and confidence in the face of such impossible odds? The answer lies in today’s Gospel. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you”, Jesus says. Stephen had his sights set on the things of eternity. The council and its members, and even Stephen’s own life, would pass away, but the things of God will endure for ever. Unlike even the best political party, we too are working for the bread that endures for ever. May we keep that vision before us through all the changes and chances of this fleeting life.

Mass today is in St Dyfrig & St Samson at 6.30pm.

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.