Catholic Homilies By Fr Linus Clovis

We live in an age, where idealism, elitism is frowned upon. It seems as if everything has been dragged down and our religion with it. So that, even the idea of saying that Christianity is different from every other religion, is regard as a kind of arrogance. Nevertheless it is true, and this is something we need to remember, that the founder of Christianity, the giver of Truth is Himself God, that He claimed to be God. There is no other founder of any religion which has every made the claim to be God. The best that they could say is that they are prophets. Even in the Old Testament which also comes from the true God. Moses made no claim to be God, he saw himself merely as a prophet, one who was entrusted with a task, one who was sent. The apostles likewise never claimed to be God, but rather they claimed to be servants. To be ones who were sent by He who came to redeem us… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

St. John the Baptist appeared at the river Jordon, unexpectedly, dressed in camel skin with a very meagre diet; locust, wild honey and water. He came preaching a gospel of repentance. He spoke about the axe which was already laid to the root of the tree. He called the Pharisees who came to the Jordon a set of vipers. To the people, his language is a little more gentle but non the less, he warned them unless they repented they would perish. He worked no signs, he just preached. When asked who he was, he said, ‘I am the voice of one crying the wilderness.’ He says he is not the Light, but only a witness to the Light. He called himself a voice, not the Word, not even the sound but the voice. Like every voice, it is heard briefly and then fades away. But what the voice carries is the word and the voice carries the word from one heart to another. In many of the hearts that heard the Baptist, the word settled and there was a change. The change is expressed in what the peoples ask John, ‘What must we do?

On this the forth Sunday of Advent, the Church gives us the visitation of our Blessed Lady to Elisabeth for our meditation. As with all the scriptures, there are many threads and it’s always difficult to choose one particular or even two threads that would do justice to the nativity of our Lord. But joining the passage we’ve just heard to that, the letter to the Hebrews, we see in the Church gives us the restoration of the human race, how so? What brought about the fall of the human race? God after all had created us, and created us perfect, in as much as, all that was necessary for our existence had been given to us. In particular there was the harmony between the body and the soul and so the senses were under control. There was a clarity of intellect, so it was not possible for the man to be deceived. There was also the strengthened will, an inclination towards doing good. There was original justice, God’s grace in us. There were many other similar gifts. What was lacking? How did our first paren

Our most blessed Saviour had gone into Jerusalem; this is the last year of his life on earth. Going straight to the temple, He cleansed it for the second time of those who were trading in it. Then retiring to Bethany the following day He returned to the temple and He was teaching. The chief priest and the elders were rattled by His behaviour. This up start, He does not belong to the priestly line, He is from the provinces a country bumpkin and here He is acting as someone with authority. Even to the point of cleansing the temple. They cannot stand by and watch this kind of threat to their authority. To make matters worst, the children, the little ones were praising what He had done, ‘Blessings on He who comes in the name of the Lord.’ And they tried to silence them, the children on that account. ‘What authority have you, for acting like this and who gave you this authority?’ It was an insidious remark, in as much as, when He had cast out daemons they attributed this to the work of Beelzebub. Who ga

The feast of the presentation of our Blessed Lady is in commemoration of the dedication of the temple in the Jerusalem. The temple of course to our Blessed Lady was built in the year 543AD. Our Lady’s presentation of course corresponds very much to the presentation of Our Lord in the temple. The presentation of the child to God, was an acknowledgement that God had given to the parents a gift. In the case of our Blessed Lady, she was the greatest gift to the human race, in as much as she was to be the mother of the Saviour. She of all creatures was to have a unique relationship to the Blessed Trinity. In as much, she is the most excellent daughter of the Father, the mother of the Son and of course the temple of the Holy Spirit. On one occasion, our Lord was preaching and He worked a miracle casting out daemons. Some Pharisees said that it was through the power of Beelzebub that He cast out daemons. The Lord immediately went on to warn them about blasphemy, that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,

Today’s feast is a celebration of one of the great popes, with which Christ has blessed his Church, Leo called the great. He was of aristocratic origin and has befitted his rank at the time; he was an ambassador for many parts of the empire. He was elected a deacon of the Church and on the death of the Pope in 440 he was elected unanimously by the clergy of Rome to be the pontiff. Immediately he set himself the task of securing the Church. We are talking at a very difficult time in Church history, all times are difficult, some more than others. At that time there were many threats to the autonomy of the Church. The empire had been split, the emperor lived in Constantinople, the bishop of Constantinople claimed to be the head of the Church simply because he was the bishop of the most important city. St. Leo withstood him, maintaining in fact that the head of the Church was none other than the one Christ had selected and his successors, namely the bishop of Rome. He spent a great deal of his pontifica

Today the sixth of December, the second Sunday of Advent. Of course we are preparing for several feasts of Our Lady, the feast of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th and then we have Our Lady of Guadalupe which will be on Saturday, and then there is the feast of the expectation of Our Lady and we’re moving slowly toward the feast of Christmas the birth of Our Saviour. So it is quite fitting that we should focus on the Mother of Our Saviour. There are many images found in the old testament of Our Lady. They are called types, St. Paul in fact referrers to them as types in the letter to the Galatians. That is, events in the Old Testament which happened in the ordinary run of things in history. But they were very symbolic, highly symbolic of a spiritual truth which is being unveiled. And several books of the bible you could say almost exclusively concerned in bringing out this imagery ‘the type’. Among them is the book of Esther. The Story of Ester is relatively simple. King Ahasuerus had Queen Vasht

Christmas having passed, we’re already celebrating the feast of the holy family, on this Sunday, the octave of Christmas. At the feast of the nativity of Our Lord, which we call Christmas, the reason being that it is the Mass of Christ or the presence of Christ among us. We celebrate in that feast the incarnation, that is God who became man and dwelt among us. God could have chosen many ways in which to redeem us. We must believe that, however, He chose the best possible way. He chose a way that would demonstrate to us, prove to us, show to us the depth of His love. And so His Son whom He love, whom He loves, whom He will always love, assumed in the womb of the virgin, human nature. Without mixing His divine nature and His human nature, the two remaining distinct and separate, yet united in one person. This person who for all eternity is the Son of God, became the son of Mary, or as the Gospels will call Him the Son of man, as He Himself would refer to Himself. He came into a family, again He could

‘I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the Truth.’ What is Truth? Does truth exist? If it does, does it matter? Perhaps an easy definition of truth is reality. And if we’re talking about reality, there’s only one reality, God is, God exists. And everything that God speaks exists. ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. ‘Let the waters separate into those above and those below’, and it happened. ‘Let the earth come forth’, ‘let trees and the seeds in them spring out of the earth’ and so it was. This is reality. ‘Let the waters bring forth living creatures and the air bring forth the birds’, and these things happened. These are the realities. ‘Let the ground be filled with creeping creatures of all kinds’ and the animals came forth. And then God said, ‘let us make man in our own image and likeness. And he fashioned man out of the soil of the earth and breathed into his nostrils and man became a living being’, another reality, perhaps the greatest reality – becau

We celebrate the birth of St. Steven into eternity today. Yesterday we celebrated the birth of the Saviour in our world. Today the birth of his first martyr the proto martyr. We can say birth because Steven now rejoices in the presences of God and he has eternal life. The birth of the Saviour was a consequence of His love for us. It was out of love He came into our world to save us. Steven was born as a consequence of love. That is he loved God above all things. He loved the Incarnate Word and for the sake of the Incarnate Word he loved his neighbour as himself. How did he manifest that love? Through the practice of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Steven was a deacon chosen by the early church, so that the apostles could continue to preach the Word. Steven was to minister to the needs of the faithful, in particular the widows. Steven was one of the seven deacons who were chosen. And so he practised the corporal works of mercy, the feeding of the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty a

All Catholics worthy of the name rejoice on this, the greatest feast of our most blessed Lady. Christians naturally should rejoice, in fact Heaven itself is full of joy from that first moment that the Mother of the Lord was conceived. This great mystery has so many aspects, that it is impossible to cover them all, in a life time or indeed many lifetimes. And so all we can do is to pluck a single thread, and let us look at just one thread. As we heard in the first reading, when the Lord God called Adam, Adam was hiding and came out and said ‘I was afraid because I was naked and I hid’. And when the Lord asked further questions, the man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me, she gave the fruit and I ate’. So the woman gave to the first man the fruit. Fruit that brought disaster to the whole human race. The man received the fruit in the garden, the garden of paradise. A garden which contains many other kinds of fruit, all meant for the delight of the human race. That is what fruit means, to be d

The Saviour offers a universal invitation, ‘come to me’. And then He describes those in particular whom He wishes to come, ‘all you who labour and overburdened’. And He promises us a reward or a consolation for our journey to Him, ‘I will give you rest’. And so the first thing we ask is, what is this labour? What is this burden? Oh, not burden, but overburden... We work… Our works which are not the works of God - and consequently we carry a burden which does not belong to God. We carry our own burden, the talent of lead, that is spoken of by the prophet. Sin is a talent of lead, it is our work. And so the Lord tells us, because we are struggling, fighting, doing our own will and reaping a harvest of it - that we should come to Him. And what does He say that He gives us, He’s offering us a burden, but it is not the kind of burden which is overbearing, it is a light burden. And from this we learn that necessarily we have to carry a burden. The choice is who’s? Ours? Or His? But He goes even further

John the Baptist was in prison because he said to the King ‘it is against the law for you to live with your brother’s wife’ in other words he was condemning adultery. And so he is arrested for defending marriage. Certainly he is a prophet for our time. In prison, John knows that his days are numbered. He is concerned for the salvation of his own disciples. He wishes them to follow the Light. He himself is only a witness for the Light. And so he sends them to our Lord to ask a question, ‘Are you the one who is to come? Or must we wait for someone else?’ And the Lord well aware of John’s intention makes the response to the disciples of John “Go and tell John what you see, what you hear; the blind receive their sight, the deaf - hearing, the lame - walk, the dead are raised etc... And so John’s disciples depart with a message, and more than a message, because they now are witnesses for Christ. Our Lord begins to praise John, ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swaying in the wind,

Our Saviour is teaching. We’re told that He was doing so in a house. We are also told that His audience consisted of Pharisees and doctors of the law. That is experts in scripture, experts in law, in the prophets. What was more, that they came from every village in Galilee, from Judea as well as from Jerusalem. So there is a sense that these Pharisees and doctors had come to examine our Lord, since they came from right across the country. We are told that the power of the Lord were behind His works of healing. In other words these works were divine acts, they were not just a case as in the prophets, but there were so many and they were so astounding that it was necessary the authorities examine them. There is nothing unusual in that at all. We have the same procedure, when there is some apparition, it is natural for the bishop to setup a commission to examine the circumstances and to declare whether it is from God or not. So in that sense, there is nothing unusual. What however is of concern is the

The rebellion of our first parents resulted in them being cast out of paradise and as a consequence, we who are destined to be in paradise were cast out with them. The gifts which God had given to our parents, the gifts of integrity; that is first and foremost the clearness of intellect, secondly, the will to do that which we wish; that is the good for which we were created, thirdly the control over our senses and our body and of course we must not forget the gift of God’s own life in our souls. These and other things are the preternatural gifts, which we lost. And so we were cast out into the world. A world that is angry with us, that is, we would have to struggle with the soil to get our daily bread. God saw us in this condition perishing. But even as He punished our first parents by casting them out of the garden, He promised them a redeemer. The offence against God is necessarily infinite. A finite act indeed it is, but the effects are infinite because of whom we have rebelled. We have rebelled

Every miracle that Our Lord works, carries with it a teaching, a message. The difficulty is that we do not know how to interpret, and therefore how to understand the message. Immediately before this passage we heard, Our Lord had gone down to the house of the synagogue official whose daughter had just died. On the way a woman in the crowd with a haemorrhage said “if I touch the hem of his garments I will be healed.” And she did so and immediately the ailment which she suffered for twelve years disappeared. But Our Lord didn’t leave it there; he looked around and said “Who touched Me?” She only touched his clothes, but He said “Who touched Me?”. And when she came forward trembling, He said to her daughter your faith has saved you. And then going down to the house of the official, He found that the daughter was already dead. But He said, she is not dead, she is asleep. He was laughed at, but what did He do? He simple went and held her by the hand, “little girl I tell you get up.” Now there was a cr

St Paul tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Our Lord Himself said to the crowds, this is working for God, to believe in the One whom He has sent. So faith is necessary for our salvation. Yet faith alone is insufficient, works also are necessary, that is to live the virtuous life. And again St. Paul tells us that there are some that profess Christ with their lips but deny Him with their deeds. And so in today’s gospel Our Lord says to us His disciples “it is not those who say to me ‘Lord, Lord’ that is those who have faith, who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in Heaven”. The works are necessary. Faith alone doesn’t save, in fact St. James tells us that the devils have faith, they believe, but it is of no benefit to them. The Lord therefore tells us how indeed we should govern our lives. Therefore everyone who listens, that is the first act to listen, to these words of Mine, the commandments and acts on them, (the deeds), follow wha

From the prophet Isaiah, we heard the famous prophecy, ‘on this mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines. A food rich an juicy of strained vines, on this mountain He removed the mourning veil covering all peoples and the shroud wrapping all nations, he will destroy death forever.’ This prophecy as we all know has been fulfilled. Which is this mountain of which the Lord has prepared a rich banquet for all peoples? Well from the Prophet Daniel. Remember the famous dream, where there was the great statue, with the golden head and the feet of clay and iron. We’re told that small stone was cut from the mountain and it came down and struck the feet of the statue. The small stone itself destroying the statue became a great mountain. That of course is easily interpreted to be Our Lord Jesus Christ, that small stone, that single stone which smashed the head of Goliath, which we know from the book of Samuel. That small stone became the great mounta

The preaching of the Gospel should bring joy to all of us. The preaching of the Gospel is nothing other than the call to repentance and the conversion of the sinner. The joy of the Gospel is nothing other than the children returning to their father’s home. Of course the joy of the Gospel is nothing other than the possession of the Holy Spirit. And we’re told filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, Jesus explains, ‘I bless You Father Lord of Heaven and Earth’. Our Lord says that there is more rejoicing among the Angels of God over one repentant sinner than over multitude that have no need of repentance. That doesn’t mean it is better to be a sinner, it does mean, however, that sinners should convert; they should believe and possess the life that God is giving. It is this very sharing of life that gives joy. But Our Lord blesses His Father and He rejoices because children are being given the revelation of salvation. It is not those with ability who arrive at salvation because of their ability but rather bec

Our Religion, the Christian religion is rooted in human history. It is not like so many other non Christian religions that have stories of a distant past. Although even in their stories they have elements of truth, for universally every religion there was a perfect, a golden age and something went wrong. Christianity is rooted in human history so that we do not depend only on the scriptures for historical fact, but we can compare it with secular history and see indeed that the two mesh together. And so in today’s reading in the third chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, we hear of specific times and unique individuals being named. So we see Tiberius Caesar has been in the throne for fifteen years, this is a historical fact, there was Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar and then Tiberius. Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. He will be there for ten years and he was appointed in the third year of Caesar’s reign. Herod who was the son of Herod the great who attempted to put Christ to death as an infant was the T