Year A 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

[SPEAKER_00]: A reading from the prophet Jeremiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah said, I hear so many disparaging me, terror from every side.

[SPEAKER_00]: Denounce him, let us denounce him, all those who used to be my friends watched for my downfall.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps he will be deduced into error, then we will master him and take our revenge.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero.

[SPEAKER_00]: My opponents will stumble, mastered.

[SPEAKER_00]: confounded by their failure, everlasting, unforgettable disgrace will be theirs.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you, Lord of hosts, who probe me with justice, who scrutinised the loins and the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see the vengeance you will take on them, for I have committed my course to you, sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for He has delivered the soul of the needy from the hands of evil men.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word of the Lord,

[SPEAKER_00]: The response is, Lord, in your great love, answer me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is for you that I suffer tounts that shame covers my face, that I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons, I burn with zeal for your house, and tounts against you full on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, in your great love, answer me.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is my prayer to you, my prayer for your favor.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your great love, ontsame, or God, with your help that never fails.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, ontsame, for your love is kind, in your compassion turn towards me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, in your great love, ontsame.

[SPEAKER_00]: The poor when they see it will be glad and God's seeking hearts will revive.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the Lord listens to the needy and does not spun his servants in their chains, let the heavens and the earth give him praise, the sea and all its living creatures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, in your great love, answer me.

[SPEAKER_00]: a reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, sin entered the world through one man and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sin existed in the world long before the law was given.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was no law, so no one could be accused of the sin of law breaking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet death framed, overall, from Adam to Moses,

[SPEAKER_00]: Adam prefigured the one to come, but they gifted self considerably outweighed the full.

[SPEAKER_00]: If it is certain that through one man's full so many died, it is even more certain that the vine grace coming through one man Jesus Christ came to so many as an abundant gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus instructed the twelve as follows.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: For everything that is now covered will be uncovered and everything now hidden will be made clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I see to you in the dark, tell in the daylight, what you year in whispers proclaim from the house stops.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

[SPEAKER_01]: can you not buy two sparrows for a penny?

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet not one falls to the ground without your father knowing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[SPEAKER_01]: Every here in your head has been counted.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there is no need to be afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my father in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the one who decones me in the presence of men, I will decone in the presence of my father in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: our readings this week on the 12th Sunday and ordinary time are on courage and it's courage both internally and also externally as we face the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to focus today on particularly the first reading from Jeremiah and then I'll touch on the gospel at the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: The text from our first reading is a follow on from an outburst from Jeremiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, Jeremiah has just been released from being put in stocks, you know, by the priest pasture, you know, the stocks where your arms and your legs are sort of locked in place, and he was putting those stocks at the entrance to the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: In any way, it's just been released, but Jeremiah's now, he's sick of getting persecuted,

[SPEAKER_01]: And he has a sort of interior crisis, and so he just absolutely lets God have it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just lets RIP at God, and so in the first part of the passage, I guess, which we don't read today, but I just want to read it because it creates a context for the passage that we have today, he just says to God, you seduced me, Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: and I let myself be seduced.

[SPEAKER_01]: You were too strong for me, who, big, strong God, and you prevailed.

[SPEAKER_01]: All day long, I am an object of laughter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone mocks me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I speak, I must cry out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't just preach, I must cry out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Violence and outrage, I proclaim.

[SPEAKER_01]: The word of the Lord has brought me reproach and vision all day long.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then Jeremiah says to God or about him, I say, I will not mention him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will no longer speak in his name.

[SPEAKER_01]: but then it is, as if fire is burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones, I grow weary holding back, I cannot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then today we read the second part of that pack of passage, and he carries on as

[SPEAKER_01]: Tehran every side, and the guys who are trying to accuse Jeremiah, is like, denounce.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let us denounce him.

[SPEAKER_01]: All those who were my friends are on the watch for any mistake of mine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps he can be tricked, then we will prevail and take our revenge on him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we can see here that Jira's mind is just like a vortex from one side of the other because he's in real danger, he's in crisis mode inside and out, you've got this, this external threat, these are men in the outer corner of the temple who are only waiting for one clear instance of false prophecy so that they can pounce on Jira Maya and nail him.

[SPEAKER_01]: but it won't happen because Jeremiah is not a false prophet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is on his side.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is on his side and He will be vindicated.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we see at the end of the passage how He and His sense of mission are renewed, even as He fights and wrestles with His internal doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you look at the last few verses, which says, but the Lord is at my side.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then we're Jeremiah then goes on to praise God and some scholars thought that because this was such a contradiction of emotions you know with the prophet now who's been going what for God suddenly expressing such a deep confidence in God that the passage must have been inserted.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like so many other passages in the Bible, instead of this inclusion of this sort of sudden change in Jeremiah making it less likely to be true, it actually rings with authenticity because I don't know if you've ever had a spiritual or an existential crisis like Jeremiah's.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the experience of that experiencing, like having a crisis like that, it's not a logical or calm and considered or thoughtful sort of experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a torrent of self-confitting emotions.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a disorientating storm.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a moment of rational consideration.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went into the seminary straight from school when I was 18 to study to become a priest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as part of our formation, we would see an external psychologist once a month, like a secular person, in addition to our monthly meetings with the spiritual director.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd finished the first year of spirituality at the two years of philosophy and one and a half years of theology.

[SPEAKER_01]: The total course is like seven years, but at the beginning of my fifth year, although I still felt strongly called to ministry, the loneliness was unbearable.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't just the immediate loneliness, you know, like I'm as my family or whatever, it was the realization that as a priest, apart from God, I would never be the most important person in the world to another human being, to someone else, and that there would be no other person or human being who would be the most important person in the world to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I felt loved by God, and I loved God, but you can't hug a tabernacle.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I felt a deep calling to marriage, and halfway through that fifth year, I couldn't ignore this anymore, and I made the decision to leave.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it sounds all cold and rational now when I say it like that, but it was anything but,

[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I walked calmly and resolutely down to the the rectus office, the rectus the guy that the block the principal he heads up the seminary and an octane the dawny let me in and I closed the dawn I sat down and I told him my decision like I'm telling you now and I suddenly

[SPEAKER_01]: out of the blue just broke down and I started crying uncontrollably and he he was pretty shocked I think it was I'd always been a bit of like a hard headed guy I suppose you know I've probably cried three or four times in my whole life and I was saying Barry's but I couldn't stop crying I don't know what they're just going on and he had no idea what to do so he just like waited until I sort of got a bit of control again and I apologize and he said down

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know what the heck's going on with me man, and I apologize and then I left his office.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're not sort of gotten a bit, you know, sort of settled back in my room.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I felt so broken.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, since I could remember when I was maybe six and I was an altar server, I had wanted to become a priest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I felt so useless to God in that moment that I wasn't strong enough to make it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I finished the academic year and then when I was back in my home city that December, I got a job.

[SPEAKER_01]: But after that initial sense of loss of subsided, I got angry with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: It might have been my way of coping, but I did.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got really angry with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I still went to Massibri Sunday and I prayed and everything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I told God that if he didn't want me as a priest, then I wouldn't

[SPEAKER_01]: You've had your chance and you didn't give me enough strength to do it, so I'm not doing any ministry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'll worship you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I respect you and I love you God, but mate, we're done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I didn't say mate, that time I was South Africa, but just say to you, God, this is not happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to be in any sort of ministry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I prayed the prayer of Jeremiah essentially, I will not mention him, I will no longer speak in his name.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, as he does, God let me have my rent, and then like Jeremiah, he switched me.

[SPEAKER_01]: because I had the same feeling as Jeremiah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was as if a fire was burning in my heart imprisoned in my bones.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grew weary holding back.

[SPEAKER_01]: I could not.

[SPEAKER_01]: And within months I was teaching Catechism again and was involved in music ministry, helped lead Alpha and retreats.

[SPEAKER_01]: So God had won again.

[SPEAKER_01]: These crises, our moments where God can get our attention and let us know He's will.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was an honorable desire of mine to serve God as a priest, but it was not He's will, certainly not at that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I left the seminary, I had no idea where my life was going.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had failed at the biggest project in my life up to that point.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was fearful, I was full of self-dinos, felt unworthy and incompetent, and I was scared that I would be unable to serve him in any meaningful way, which for me meant ministry.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was a really interior crisis for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: In our gospel from Matthew today, we hear Jesus say three times, do not be afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: And each time Jesus addresses the fears that might cause the disciples to abandon their mission, that might cause them to give up their faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he compares God's care for us by using the example of how much he cares for spirits.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, spirits with a cheapest life that could be bought in the market at their time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So how much more would he care for us in whose eye we are priceless?

[SPEAKER_01]: Not only for these interior crisis, but the external persecutions that we will face.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the second aspect of this courage that we talk about today.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are hard days ahead of us for us as Christians here in Australia.

[SPEAKER_01]: The fight between good and evil is within us as a spoken about and without.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we shouldn't fear either neither our weaknesses in terms of crisis like mine that I had in the seminary or without those who will persecute us for our faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: and maybe we won't be put to death in Australia yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: But unless we have a change within the government and that they have a change of heart or we have a change of government, there will be those of us who will certainly be putting jail for expressing the Christian faith in the next few years.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, whoever thought it would have come to this in Australia.

[SPEAKER_01]: Already we've seen the kangaroo court in Tasmania with its comrade commissioner holding the the Archbishop of Tasmania before them to answer for speaking the truth about the nature of marriage or Calvary Hospital in the ACT Canberra, being some merely taken over by the state because they're refused to kill babies.

[SPEAKER_01]: Giving up our lives may very soon mean jail time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so be it.

[SPEAKER_01]: as a shepherd, I will not yield.

[SPEAKER_01]: He who tries to save his life anyway will lose it, but who ever loses his life for my sake will find it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my father, but the one who disones me, I will disown him.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are the words of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't in fact the Protestant martyr James Ellard who put it so well.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said, he is no fool who gives up what you cannot keep for what you cannot lose.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said, he is no fool who gives up what you cannot keep.

[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot keep your life, whether you are a martyr or not you're going to die at some point.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you might die in an old age home, you might die in a car accident, you are going to die,

[SPEAKER_01]: And what you cannot lose, what you cannot lose eternal life if you live as faithfully as you can to Christ, and you live in His love.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so He is no fool who gives up what you cannot keep for what you cannot lose.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus promised us eternal life, but first He promised us a share in the blood of His

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be afraid, I mean.