The gospel reading for traditional Catholic Mass, today, the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, is from Mark’s Gospel, chapter 8:

At that time there was a great crowd, and they had nothing to eat. Calling his disciples together, Jesus said to them: ‘I have compassion on these people. They have been with me now for three days, and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; for some of them came from a great distance.’ His disciples answered him: ‘Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?’ He asked them: ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said: ‘Seven.’

He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to hand out, and they distributed them to the crowd. And they had a few little fishes; and he blessed them, and commanded them to be distributed also. And they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up the scraps that remained — seven baskets-full. The number of people who had eaten was about four thousand.

Then he sent them away.

* * *

We are more fortunate that that crowd. Jesus offers to us — any who are willing – to enter into us sacramentally, and reside within us lifelong, if we receive him regularly in the Eucharist.

Jesus wants that. He wants what is best for us.

Do we think we know better than he what is best for us?

* * *

We look around the world and see so much that needs to be changed: greed, laziness, political back-stabbings, unfaithfulness to vows etc.

No  need to look far. Look in the mirror next time you brush your hair.

There’s a case needing changes, urgently.

* * *

Do you have any besetting and re-occurring sins in your life that you’ve given up on trying to quit?

God is almighty. He can change us. The only thing stopping him is that we are frauds.

We don’t feel like paying the price of saying No to our passions and instincts.

But if we really love God we can succeed.

Today’s Gospel reading in traditional Catholic churches is an incident early in Our Lord’s public life.

Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered: “Master, we laboured all night and caught nothing: yet at your command I will let down the nets.”

When they did, they enclosed such a great number of fish that their nets began to tear. They signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help. They came, and both boats were filled with fish, almost to sinking point.

When Simon saw this, he fell at Jesus’s knees, saying: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For he was wholly astonished, and so were they all, at the catch of the fish which they had taken.

But Jesus said to Simon: “Do not be afraid: from now on you will be catching men.”

(Saint Luke’s Gospel, chapter 5)

* * *

This story explains how it came about that Jesus’s first disciples were fishermen.

It also has a symbolic side, as Jesus himself explained.

The Church’s job is to trawl for — and to haul in — human beings into God’s Church, pictured as a boat full of fish sailing towards God’s Kingdom.

* * *

Yes, you might say, but hasn’t this vision blown up in our faces now – what with priestly child abuse etc?

Observe how the media speak about the Church today.

A generation ago, stories embarrassing to the Church would have been written with a tone of respect and/or sorrow — not with glee and mocking as now.

Those who might show loyalty to the Church today, don’t.
Check Mr Abbott entering Opposition leadership with a reputation for being a Catholic.

Not now. Regarding Catholic family values, he has become arguably the Church’s worst enemy — down there in the anti-Catholic gutter with the Greens and Julia Gillard.

* * *

Mr Abbott says a Coalition government would introduce six months paid parental leave — then back to work. Full-time motherhood he will destroy. Any insisting on giving children real mothering will face crippling financial punishment.

He is making even Mr Rudd look good.

There is no way back from all this except Catholic obedience and humility, both inside and outside the Church.

The bodies of two dead Australian soldiers, Sapper Darren Smith and Sapper Jacob Moerland, are expected to arrive in Brisbane tomorrow.

The pair had been returning from a foot patrol looking for weapons in the Mirabad Valley when a roadside bomb exploded, killing them and their bomb-sniffer dog, Herbie,

Predictably, Australia’s Greens Party have taken this opportunity to push for withdrawal of all Australian troops from Afghanistan. Senator Brown says he believes the majority of Australians agree.

So are there votes in this sorry event for the Greens?

What do Australians really think?

* * *

Before getting on to that, we might ask, what do the people of Afghanistan think?

For a start, a lot of Afghani people are converting to Christianity.

Abdul Sattar Khawasi, Deputy Secretary for the lower house in the Afghan Parliament, the other day called for the execution of Afghanis who convert from Islam to Christianity.

This followed a video broadcast by an Afghan television network, Noorin TV, showing Christian men being baptised and praying in the Farsi language.

The broadcast also prompted protests by students at Kabul University, who, in the hundreds, shouted threats of death to Christians.

Many national Christians are now in hiding, fearful of execution. Under government pressure, some Afghans have reportedly revealed names and locations of Christian converts.

This is the same government for which soldiers like Sappers Smith and Moerland are losing their lives.

* * *

Here in Australia, a group calling itself “Set My People Free” has been set up — a network of individuals, churches and organisations trying to work for the freedom of religious converts to live and practice their faith in their home countries.

It has organised what it calls a “worldwide protest march” on August 28, 2010 in Sydney.

It also has an online petition campaign.

Its coordinator is a Dr. Ramsis Gayed, who quotes Martin Luther King Junior, who apparently said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

* * *

So should readers of this blog sign such a petition?  Should they march on August 28?

It’s up to you.

The petition can be accessed at  : www.petitiononline.com/2010smpf/petition.html

To non-Catholics, what goes on at Catholic Mass (the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Holy Communion) must seem a bit of a mystery.

Catholics believe that at Mass they receive on their tongue the Body and Precious Blood of Christ — yes, literally, the Presence of Christ himself.

The reality of one’s Catholic-ness must also remain after the Mass in changed lives — lives full of love for God and for our brothers and sisters whom we meet every day.

* * *

Today is the Second Sunday after Pentecost.

It falls a few days after the feast of Corpus Christi (last Thursday) which honours the Body of Christ in the Eucharist . . . .

and a few days before the feast of the Sacred Heart (next Friday) which honours the divine and human love of Christ shown in his redemptive suffering and death on the Cross.

* * *

At Mass today, the priest reads words from the First Epistle of Saint John:

Do not be amazed, brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. He who does not love, remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

The proof of the love of God is that Our Lord laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Anyone who has sufficient worldly goods and sees his brother in need, and refuses him compassion: how can the love of God remain in him? My little children, let us not love merely in words or in talk, but in deeds and in truth.

* * *

That’s today’s take-home message — religious people are always in danger of being quick to talk love but slower to help out in real life.

Likewise, of course, non-religious people — perhaps even more so.

God, in Christ, has shown us an example of infinite and supernatural love . . . .

He offers us supernatural help through his sacraments, especially the Mass, to practise the love that we preach, willingly and generously.

There is one God.

Obviously.

To say there is no God would be escapism —  or head-in-the-sand-ism.

To believe in more than one God would be paganism.

Christians believe in one God, and that he is a Trinity.

God, who is one and unique in his infinite substance or nature, is three really distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost

* * *

Today, the Sunday after Pentecost, is set aside as TRINITY SUNDAY.

In the Gospel passage read in all churches today, Jesus affirms to his disciples the unity of the divine nature and the trinity of the divine persons.

From Saint Matthew’s Gospel:

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the consummation of the world.”

* * *

So do Catholics and Muslims worship the same God or not?

The key Christian beliefs about God are that God is a Holy Trinity, that God became man through the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, and that Jesus died by crucifixion for our sins.

Muslims deny each of these four beliefs.

* * *

The Bible says, “Whoever does not continue in the doctrine of Christ does not have God”. (Second Epistle of St John, chapter1)

God, as introduced to us by Jesus, is, therefore, emphatically NOT the being talked about when Muslims speak of God.

Yet the Second Vatican Council taught that “together with us they (Muslims) adore the one, merciful God.” (Lumen Gentium, 16)

What a betrayal of the Faith – enough to make you wonder whether the Second Vatican Council was perhaps not a genuine Catholic council, but an act of treachery

.

“Jesus presented himself alive to the apostles by many proofs after his Passion, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God . . . .

They asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’

He answered, ‘It is not for you to know the times or moments that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.’

When he had said this, as they looked, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight . . . .

Suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.

They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking up into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way . . . .’

Then they went back to Jerusalem . . . and devoted themselves with one accord to prayer.”

(Book of Acts, Chapter 1)

* * *

That’s how the Bible records what happened on the first ASCENSION DAY – the events we commemorate today, the 40^th day after Easter.

Another ten days later, it all happened.

The Holy Spirit did come upon them on the day called PENTECOST.

To a Catholic, these two days (Ascension and Pentecost) are all-important.

To other people they are practically meaningless.

A Catholic isn’t somebody with the same basic view of the world as other people — just happening to have a few extra beliefs about God . . . .

* * *

The Catholic’s world and the non-Catholic’s world are different.

They are alien to each other.

They are incompatible with each other.

You have to make up your mind which one is real.

The Catholic’s focus all day, in all decisions, is dominated by that Man who ascended that day . . . .

And by his Catholic Church which came into existence ten days later.