Parish of Hoyland Saint Andrew
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Week Commencing 28th November 2021

11/30/2021

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Forthcoming Events
Special St Andrews Saints Day Service Tues  30th Nov 12noon following the Coffee morning.
Thursday 2nd December 10.00am Feria
Sunday 5th December 9.30am Parish Mass


Coffee mornings every Tuesday from 10.00am. All are welcome.

ADVENT 1
“Watch yourselves”, says Jesus.  “Stay awake.”
   I don’t know about you, but I find that I need a bit more help waking up at this time of year when it is cold and dismal in the mornings.  I rely on my alarm clock a bit more than I do in the summer.  It’s a clock radio, because I don’t like too rude an awakening.  At times I have been tempted to get one of those alarms that you can throw at the wall and that just bounce off without breaking.  But far better to be woken up by any kind of alarm than to continue to slumber and to miss important things.
    The wake-up call in St Luke’s gospel today comes at the end of a rather daunting list of things that Jesus says will come upon the earth and upon its people.  But at the end of these things he does change to a more hopeful tone, when he says that this means our liberation is near at hand.  It is clear that Jesus is not speaking to us as helpless bystanders in all of this.  He is calling us to be watchful and to ensure that our hearts are not coarsened or our vision clouded by worldly preoccupations.  This is not all about the future, but about the times in which we live.  For this reason, how we are living now makes a difference, as does the condition of our hearts and minds.
    The dramatic language of the gospel today might not seem quite so far from our experience as it might have done, say, a couple of years ago.  Our country and the wider world have been battered by a pandemic;  it is not yet over, as the emergence of the omicron variant has helpfully reminded us.  The clamour of the ocean and the waves can easily conjure up the imagery of climate change.  It also brings to mind the displacement of people from various countries and the tragic drowning of people in the Channel in recent days.  The words of Jesus seem to be urging us to read the signs of our times.  We don’t have to think of these things as though they were heralding the end of the world.  But if we pretend that these things have nothing to do with us and if we live our lives as though nothing had changed, then we are deep in slumber and need to wake up.
    The alertness and watchful spirit that Jesus is speaking about is also something that speaks directly to our own spiritual lives.  In some ways, the church’s year can seem out of tune with the pattern of the world around us.  Advent is a season for clearing a path and making a straight highway for the coming of the Lord, not only in the world around us, but first of all in our own lives.  It is a time in which we are called to greater simplicity and to liberation from the cares and obsessions of a consumer-driven society.  But we know that at this time of year, that consumer society is more hectic than ever – Black Friday is a striking reminder of that.  We have to live in this world and there may be many things that we can rightly enjoy about it.  Christians don’t have to be killjoys.  But maybe we can ask ourselves whether this is the high-point of our lives – or is there something more important that guides our way of living?
   The prophet Jeremiah speaks of virtue, honesty and integrity – three things that can be sadly lacking in our political life, in the media and in our own culture.  Even to mention those things today can make us seem self-righteous.  But all who try to follow Jesus will know that first of all we have to start by being honest with ourselves.  Integrity for Christians can only be gained by being honest about the steps we need to take to be more like the person we follow.  There are always things in our lives that we need to put right.  Advent is not as much of a penitential season as Lent and is more a time of hopeful expectation.  Even so, we can make use of the means of self-examination and repentance that the church provides in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We do not have to carry around with us a burden of guilt but can experience the inflowing grace of God that renews our lives from within.
    Jesus speaks of the anxieties that can so easily cripple us as we face an uncertain and sometimes threatening world.  The antidote to that fear is love.  So St Paul in the first letter to the Thessalonians voices a prayer:
“May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you.” 
   Maybe we could try substituting the word “I” for “you” and make that prayer our own, as we pray that our hearts may become more hospitable and more generous.  In this way we prepare not just for the celebration of Christmas but for receiving Christ once more into our lives.  His love will make us new, shedding light and warmth into our hearts and into our relationships, so that we can be agents of change in our world today.
   The Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is the sacrament of integrity – of wholeness and unity.  Christ enters into our lives just as he came into our world when the “Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”.  We can celebrate and enjoy the secular treats of this time of year.  These are not all opposed to what we believe.  But let’s set our sights higher as we look to Jesus for our liberation.  In this beautiful, hopeful season, let’s remind ourselves that we are a people of hope in a world that stands in need of that message of hope that Jesus brings. 
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Week Commencing 7th November 2021

11/8/2021

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Forthcoming Events:
Thursday 11th November 9.30am  Said Mass
Saturday 13th November 9.30am AUTUMN FAYRE St Andrews Community Centre
​Remembrance Sunday 14th November 9.30am Joint Benefice Mass at St Peters
Coffee Mornings are held every Tuesday from 10.00am


Sunday Sermon:
“Beware the scribes who like to walk about in long robes… to take the front seats in the synagogues.”  I read that with a bit of self-awareness, since yesterday I was in cassock, surplice, scarf and hood at the Cathedral, for the installation of the new Dean of Sheffield, Abi Thompson.  Yes, I was seated in one of the seats nearest the sanctuary – the canons’ stalls.  But there were dignitaries present who were greater than I.  At such events, the great and the good come to gather to welcome the newly appointed person.  There is plenty of mingling afterwards, although I hope it wouldn’t have involved obsequious greetings of the kind that Jesus describes.
   Like the Temple in Jerusalem, of course, our Cathedrals are places where not only the so-called great and good come to gather, but where the poor, the homeless and the stranger can find solace.  Our Cathedral is not one of the ones that charges an entrance fee, perhaps because there are fewer tourists than there are in some other cities and many people who have little.
   After warning his disciples against looking to the scribes for an example, Jesus sits opposite the treasury to observe the people coming in and throwing in money.  The rich throw in impressive amounts of money, because they can afford to part with it and still have more than enough to live in luxury.  The offering of the poor widow, which was two of the smallest Roman coins, must have seemed trivial by comparison.  But Jesus sees it in a different way.  He could see that this was all she had.  Far from throwing in a token amount of money or some left-over change, she had made an offering of her own livelihood – her very own self.
   It’s not really possible to know the tone in which Jesus spoke those words, but I can easily imagine that they were spoken with passion.  The offering made by the widow in some way points to the offering that Jesus would make.  The letter to the Hebrews speaks of the sacrifices that were offered in the sanctuary day by day, offerings of animals as tokens of thanksgiving and repentance.  Jesus makes a new kind of offering.  Instead of bringing cattle or sheep, he brings his own self to be offered in sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Jesus keeps nothing back and his self-offering is one which continues to give life and to bring restoration to fallen humanity and to a broken world.
  Our world is still broken and the signs of human sinfulness are never far from our eyes.  We can see the examples of greed, corruption and inequality, not only in distant parts of the world, but also closer to home.  Jesus spoke forcefully about the exploitation of the vulnerable, such as this poor widow.  He saw how many of the rich people, including those who followed religious practices, were content to profit from the poverty of others.  There is no doubt in what he says to his disciples about where Jesus sees the signs of true religion. 
   The poor widow had something in common with the widow from Sidon, in the first book of Kings, who gave of the very little food she had left to share it with the prophet Elijah.  She thought that it would be her final meal and yet she was prepared to share it.  Sometimes it is those who have the least who are prepared to be truly generous.  As Jesus teaches his disciples, our generosity is not measured by how much we give, but by how much we have left over.  Billionaires can give away huge amounts of money and still live lives of great luxury.  It is often the poor who know how to make real sacrifices, rather than just token offerings.
   The words of Jesus are not just about generosity, but also about justice.  Exploiting other people and seeing them as expendable is a rejection of God’s kingdom.  Jesus reaches out to the poor, the outcast and the ignored.  They may have little, but they are precious in the sight of God. 
   Jesus gave his life for us all, whether rich or poor, respectable or despised.  As St Paul puts it in the letter to the Philippians, Jesus did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself.  The widow’s humble offering is a sign that points toward the offering Jesus made of his own life.  As we look to the sacrifice of Jesus we can give thanks that he gives us himself in the bread and wine of the altar that become his Body and Blood.  As we receive these gifts we pledge to give of ourselves in his service and to discover both a hunger for justice and a spirit of generosity.
   Jesus seems to set the bar very high.  Token offerings have no place in his teaching.  God has given us his own Son and the only perfect response is to give all that we have and all that we are.  This kind of generosity is something we are never likely to achieve fully in this world, but we can allow our hearts to increase as we look to Jesus and the eternal sacrifice that he has offered for us and for our world.  The prayer of St Ignatius Loyola seems like a place to start:
 
Dearest Lord,
teach me to be generous;
teach me to serve You as You deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for reward
save that of knowing I am doing Your Will.  Amen.

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All Saints Day

11/2/2021

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Forthcoming Events
2nd Nov All Souls 12.00 noon
7th Nov Special Memorial Service 4.30pm
5th Dec Christingle 3,00pm
19th Dec Carol Service 4,00pm St Peters
24th December Vigil Mass St Peters (time tbc)
25th Christmas Day Mass 10.00am
26th Dec (Boxing Day) Normal Sunday Mass 9.30am
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Sermon All Saints
   Many of the saints we venerate today are represented to us as statues.  In the present times, statues can be controversial things.  You may recall that in June last year the statue of Edward Colston, seventeenth century merchant and Tory member of parliament, was toppled and thrown into Bristol Harbour.  Although he was commemorated as a philanthropist, he also had involvement with the slave trade.  Likewise, the statues of Cecil Rhodes and others have been called into question.  Without getting into the political arguments, there are some who claim that the commemoration of such people is wrong; others that we should not erase our history or be ashamed of it.  There is a more subtle argument that says that we can continue to recognise the place these people have in history and their good points, whilst at the same time acknowledging that not everything about them was praiseworthy by the standards of today.
   The saints we give thanks for today were flesh and blood just as we are.  None of them were what we would call “plaster saints”.  Every one of them has a backstory.  Their journey into sanctity is one marked by struggle and by the need to repent and to walk in the way of the Cross.  The former ways of life had to change and their highest ambition had to become that of growing more and more like Christ himself.  When we look to Jesus we see both the fulness of humanity and the presence of God.  He alone is sinless, whereas the rest of us, whether immortalised in statues or not, are in need of forgiveness and of the restorative power of God’s grace.  Our lives tell the story of human fallibility, but at the same time, the light of Christ can be glimpsed through lives of faith.
   When Jesus taught the crowds up on a hill he was also lifting their field of vision to see humanity from a wider perspective.  It was on a hill that Jesus himself was transfigured and seen in the light of God’s glory.  This was a revelation of his true nature, but also a glimpse of what would lie ahead through the events of the Cross.  It was a glimpse of a humanity that would be ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven – transformed by the risen life of Christ.
   Jesus teaches that the way to true happiness and a life blessed by God would not come by following worldly values.  In fact, our expectations are inverted as Jesus teaches that being poor in spirit is the way to happiness, as is a hunger and thirsting for righteousness.  Even being persecuted in Jesus’s name is given as a way to true happiness.  The world seems to hold out something quite different.  From a worldly perspective we might say:
“Happy are those who seem to know everything, for they shall be admired.
Happy are the pushy, for they shall get what they want.
Happy are the greedy and acquisitive, for they shall live in comfort.
Happy the troublemakers, for they shall divide and rule.”
Jesus knew that none of these ways would bring peace to the soul or lasting joy.  The saints we venerate today came to realise that too and let go of worldly ambition to follow Christ in poverty of spirit.
   It’s true that there are plenty of people in the world who are praiseworthy and who do good works for other people.  Not all of them are Christian or religious at all.  But the distinctive thing about the way of Christ is that we are taught first of all to know our need of God.  Although the saints could be called heroes of the faith, they are not venerated first and foremost for human heroism.  They knew their weakness and limitations and knew how wrong it would be to believe too much in themselves or even to take themselves too seriously.  By going to God with empty hands and open hearts their lives were filled with God’s grace, in a way that brought blessings not only to themselves but to everyone they would meet.  No amount of human goodness could be a substitute for this godly presence that changed their lives.
  The story of the saints is not so much a story of extraordinary lives, but of ordinary lives filled with an extraordinary grace.  Like us, they listened to the word of God and allowed it to be fruitful in their lives.  Like us, they received the Body and Blood of Christ and grew in the likeness of the one they were receiving.  Also like us, they tried to reflect the love of God in the way they related to others.  Whether or not this always worked out perfectly, they were steadfast in their faith, refused to give up and knew where true happiness came from.
  The saints remind us that we are, as the letter of St Jon reminds us, the children of God.  This is not something we have to earn, but it is key to our identity.  As the writer tells us: “… what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all that we know is that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.”
   Today, perhaps we could reflect upon the life of one of the saints who especially inspires us or with whom we identify in some way.  Or we could just marvel at this great company of the blessed that we read about in the book of the Apocalypse.  These are human beings like us.  We too are called to be saints.  We may never be remembered in an encyclopaedia of saints and we may not make anywhere near as good a job of it as they did.  But as we ask for their intercession and we look to their examples, surely we can remind ourselves of our need for God and invite the light of Christ to shine more clearly through our lives.

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    Saint Andrew

    I am a rather old Saint.

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