Parish of Hoyland Saint Andrew
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Week Commencing 25th July

7/26/2021

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Forthcoming Events
PCC Meeting Tues 27th July 7.00pm
Communion Thurs 29th July 10.00am
Communion Sun 1st Aug 9.30am



Reflections
   In our own time, we know that a lot of food gets wasted.  People are encouraged to buy more than they really need or can even use.  Supermarkets have to throw away edible food too, because it is past its “best before” date.  In earlier days it seems that people were better at using what they already had and making it last.  At the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, where I trained for the priesthood, unfinished meals, such as stew, would sometimes re-emerge as, for instance, soup.  It was quite impressive how it all got used.
  Looking at the passage from St John’s gospel today, it seems that Jesus was good at making food stretch.  One of his disciples, Philip, could see that two hundred denarii would not go very far with a large crown of people.  Another of his disciples, Andrew, said to Jesus that there he had only found a small boy who had five barley loaves and two fish.  It would not go very far between five thousand people.
   This sign that is given to us in John’s gospel is sometimes explained away by saying that in fact people probably had food that they had kept to themselves and that Jesus inspired them to be generous.  Well, no doubt Jesus did inspire many people to go beyond their normal boundaries.  This has been called the “nice thinking” interpretation.  It would be good to think that a huge crowd of people could find it in themselves to share all that they had for the good of others.  The reality is that many have very little and the ones who have more than enough all too often want to keep it to themselves.
   No, there is more to this gospel passage than a message of innate human goodness.  We are told that Jesus wanted to test Philip when he asked him where enough food could be found to feed the multitude.  This feeding of the multitude also followed on from the accounts of how Jesus brought healing and peace to people in need.  What we see here is a sign of the true nature of Jesus.  We see the presence of God transforming what the earth produces and what human beings have to share.  We see the power of God at work among us, meeting the hungry, the sick and the sinful in their time of need.
   The feeding of the multitude, above all, points us to the Eucharist, the sacred meal that Jesus would share with his disciples and that he gave us as a memorial of his Passion and the sacrament of his living presence.  The gospel tells us today how Jesus took the loaves, blessed them, broke them and shared them.  This follows the pattern of the Eucharist: take, bless, break and give.  Jesus is not just sharing earthly bread, but he is sharing himself, his very own life, with us.
   Afterwards, Jesus tells his disciples: “Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing gets wasted.”  There is nothing wasted in God’s provision.  This is true of the people of God – the Body of Christ.  We may often feel that we have little to offer, just as St Andrew had wondered whether five barley loaves and two fish were worth throwing into the mix.  But nothing is wasted or overlooked.  It was not that the people on the hillside had enough to feed themselves, but that Jesus took what modest amount they had to offer and then provided for everyone’s needs.
   In the Eucharist our spiritual hunger is satisfied by the real presence of Christ among us, bringing healing, peace, hope and courage into our lives.  The living word of God and the sharing of the sacrament remind us of our common humanity and our unity in Christ.  We are reminded that those around us are our brothers and sisters.  This surely transforms the way we see the world and other people.  We cannot feed a hungry world alone, but together with the Lord whose presence we share, each one of us can play our part in bringing whatever gifts we have to offer.

 
 
 

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Covid Update 24th July 2021

7/24/2021

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Dear friends,
   As you will know, our country has entered the fourth stage of the journey out of lockdown. This means that most public freedoms have been restored. However, the virus remains among us and local rates of Covid are still high.
Public buildings, including churches, have to make their own risk assessment as we move forward. It is important that we do continue to move forward and that we do so with a healthy balance between our concern for safety and our desire to worship freely.
   With this in mind, we ask everyone for the foreseeable future to continue to wear face coverings in the building, to maintain a safe distance from others and to use the hand sanitiser provided.
For the time being, there will be no congregational singing or sharing of the sign of Peace. Communion will also continue in one kind only.
   These arrangements will be regularly reviewed and we move forward step by step over the coming weeks. Updates will be provided. The pandemic will not last forever, and by the grace of God we shall in time be free of its constraints. In the meantime, thank you for your understanding.
                                                            Fr Richard

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Week Commencing 11th July 2021

7/13/2021

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Forthcoming Events
There will be no service again this Thursday due to holidays but the will be the normal Parish Mass on Sunday 18th July. Due to the easing of restrictions it is hoped church services will be back to normal the following week.

This Weeks Offering
   A couple of weeks ago I paid one of my four yearly visits to the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, where I trained to be a priest up to 1995.  The community church has changed since those days and although people often complain about change, I do think it looks lovely.  Not everyone agreed with the works at the time.  Evidently one objector was a relative by marriage of Charles Gore, the founder and first superior of the Community.  She said she felt that monks should not expect comfortable seating and efficient heating, because their vocation ought to mean that they accept a state of discomfort.  The objection was not upheld and the works went ahead.  Apparently Charles Gore himself felt that it was best not to take the most comfortable seat, but it seemed that his distant relative was taking that approach a bit far - not for herself though!
   It is true that the Christian calling is not to a life where everything is already comfortable and familiar.  Jesus surely gave his disciples a sense of comfort and reassurance, and yet he did not allow them to become too settled.  He was always calling them on.  So in the Gospel passage today we find him telling his disciples to take no bread or haversack or spare tunic.  They were just to go out with the most basic things.  In this way there would be none of the cosy distractions which are so easy to cling to.  They were not to stand still but were to find their role in the Christian mission, which is all about going out into the world to share the message and to carry out the works of Jesus.  This would make them vulnerable at times and they would not always be welcomed with open arms, but they were not to worry about this or about what they were to say.
   Faith is something that could be described as comforting, but not always comfortable.  Its reassurance and inspiration is something which is a joy to receive.  But like the disciples we find that faith has two aspects.  One is the experience of comfort and reassurance.  The other is the way in which faith disturbs us when we become too settled and does not allow us to become too cosy.  If all we seek is our own comfort then we end up becoming stale and losing that sense of God’s living presence among us.  To have that lively relationship with God we have to respond to his call and go wherever he leads us.  It isn’t always easy, because it is quite normal to want a sense of security and familiarity.  We just have to be careful that this doesn’t keep us from growth and above all that it is not allowed to come between us and the God who has called us into his Church.
   In the reading from the Prophet Amos, we hear how the priest of Bethel tells Amos to go away from the national temple and to take his prophecy with him.  Clearly he and his colleagues did not want the comfortable and settled state of their sanctuary to be disturbed by the words of Amos.  After all, Amos was giving voice to what God was really asking of the people.  They had their own culture and customs.  In effect what the priest was saying was that he did not want to allow anything, not even the living God, to spoil any of these things.  This was shocking indeed, but it was just a taster of the hostility and misunderstanding which Jesus himself was to face.  The temple of those days and the Church of our own day is not a man-made institution; it is divinely inspired and built up on the cornerstone that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
   St Paul, in his writings to the Ephesians, reminds us that we are “claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will.”  So it is not for us alone to decide the terms on which we worship and work for God.  It is always God’s plan to which we respond and this is revealed to us in Jesus, through the working of the Holy Spirit.  Faith can be a refuge in time of need, but it is also a way of life rather than just an escape from the troubles of the world.  We do not only receive from God, but also share with others the things we have ourselves been so freely given.  This is the Christian understanding of mission and it is what we find in the sending out of the disciples in the Gospel.
   Christianity is marked by that understanding of mission.  It might sound daunting, but we do not do it alone.  Jesus sent his followers out in pairs as a sign that faith is something we hold in common with others, not just something we possess as individuals.  We are also to know that wherever we go or whatever we do in his name, Jesus is still with us and will remain with us to the end of time.  As we walk with him in the shadow of the Cross we find comfort even in times of trial and we find life in the way of the Cross.  This is not a manufactured experience, but one which comes to us from God.  Like those monks at Mirfield, we are not to go looking for discomfort and hardship, but we are to remember on the other hand not to give up when things do get harder or less comfortable.  Through our struggles as Christians we find consolation, new hope and above all new life.
                                                               Fr Richard


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Week Commencing 4th July 2021

7/7/2021

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Forthcoming Services
There will be no service on Thursday (8th July) but there will be Parish Mass the following Sunday at the usual time.
Sundays' Offering
   “A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house”. Strong words from Jesus!  Everyone has a backstory and when people are in the public eye, the people who know their story better than others are inclined to judge that person by their background story.  Where were they brought up?  What do their parents do?  What kind of school did they go to?  Are they one of us, or are they to be lumped together with the kind of people we look down on or cannot relate to?
    So we see in Mark’s gospel how Jesus did not escape that kind of scrutiny and judgement.  People heard his teaching and marvelled at it, but then, when he was on his own territory, he knew that people were judging him by his background.  It made them less open to what he was actually saying and so they found it easier to dismiss, rather than to be challenged or inspired by his words.  In fact the word used in the original Greek version is the one from which we get the English word “scandalised”.  By what authority did Jesus say all these things, no matter how impressive those things might have been?
   This is the time of year when people often are ordained as priest or deacon.  It takes me back to the beginning, especially with this year being my silver jubilee of ordination as priest.  I think it can be easier in some ways preaching to people who do not know you well than it can in front of family and people who have known you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper.  After all, they know what you are really like!  It can be harder to listen to someone without prejudice when we think we already know all about them.
   So Jesus knew that it would not be fruitful to remain in his home district and felt the call to go and minster elsewhere.  The work he was doing needed a faithful and open response, but if this was lacking, then little would change.  What these people did not realise was that they were not just pushing away a human being, but they were also keeping God out of their lives.  They had the chance to be healed and forgiven and to discover new life, but it was all lost on them because of their hardness of heart.
    We see something similar with the prophet Ezekiel, who was sent by God to an obstinate people.  God’s message was that prophecy should not be silent, whether or not the people were willing to listen.  Probably there would be at least a small minority who would, much the same as with Jesus.  Then there is St Paul, who speaks about the “thorn in the flesh”. Although we don’t know exactly what he meant by that, it seems likely that it would have been the opposition from other people, especially in Antioch.  On the plus side, the criticism and attacks from others seemed to prevent any temptation to become too proud.  It also helped Paul to rely not just on his own abilities, but above all on the strength of God.
   It is that power of God working through human life that brings change and assures us that when our own strength fails, we are upheld by something much greater.  People will always find reasons not to listen to those who challenge their fixed ideas.  It can also be true that the Bible can be used to back up people’s personal or political standpoints.  But its real message will not be silenced and those who build their lives on the teachings of Christ will always find consolation in God, no matter how many others might reject the message.
    Thank God that the gospel message is not limited by people’s backgrounds.  Anyone who lives by it and who allows it to shape their lives and their message to others, will find themselves closer to God.  What the world rejects, the love of God embraces.

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