Sean Loone's Blog

My new book -‘Servants of the Word - Th Gospel of Christ and the Call to Discipleship,’ is now available from Waterstones.

You want to try my new book, ‘Servants of the Word - The Gospel of Christ and the Call to Discipleship.’
It’s all about loving God and your neighbour. The style, I hope, makes it readable and accessible. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

As I’m preaching at Mass this weekend I thought I would just offer my main point here. Whilst we are still very much in the Easter season it is important to remember that God’s love breaks through, literally, everything. The fullness of God’s love is, of course, revealed in Jesus and the fact that his body still retains the wounds of his crucifixion is crucial to our understanding of what it all means. God’s love breaks through the pain and suffering of the cross, the denial and betrayal of the disciples, the jeering and mockery of the crowd, the power of Rome and ultimately even death itself. This is the Good News of Easter, that ‘nothing can come between us and the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus Our Lord.’

As we are in the Easter season something simple and profound to think about and reflect upon this week. Perhaps when Peter and John stood in that empty tomb on that first Easter morning we could sum up their reaction by saying, ‘We saw nothing but found everything.’

We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:17, ‘Anyone united to Christ is a new creation. The old order has passed away. Behold, all has become new.’ But what does this mean in real and practical terms? The answer is complete transformation in the way in which we live our lives or in other words to become living flames of God’s love in the world by bringing, ‘Love where there was only hate, forgiveness where there was only thirst for revenge, truth where there was only lies, compassion where there was only indifference, mercy where there was only hard-heartedness and justice where there was only unfairness.’ (pages 58-59) As we follow Our Lord through the streets of Jerusalem to his cross, we would do well to remember that to accept his invitation to discipleship is nothing less than a call to action.

‘For those early Christians Jesus was at the heart of their lives giving meaning to everything they did. We too are called to live our lives like that, to be motivated by what motivated him, to serve just like him, to be merciful just like him, to forgive just like him, to be compassionate just like him and, of course to love just like him.’ (pages 35-36) As we prepare to enter the final weeks of Lent these words provide much food for thought and reflection. Above all else we need to stay close to Christ, to be warmed by the fire of his love and guided by He who is the source of the light towards calvary and beyond; the resurrection.

As we journey through Lent towards Easter it is important that we set time aside to spend with the Lord and one of the best ways to do this is through the scriptures. We often forget that Christ is as present in the scriptures as he is in the sacraments. You know Jesus only ever gave ONE commandment and it is this, ‘Love one another in the same way that I have loved you.’ G K Chesterton once said, ‘It is not so much that we have tried Christianity and failed but rather that we have never really tried it at all!’ Perhaps Chesterton had Jesus’s commandment to love in mind when he said this. Now it’s over to us as we continue our journey through Lent but can we love like that?

Lent – (Part III) So we come the final temptation of Jesus to bow down and worship Satan who will then give him ‘all the kingdoms of the world.’ I wonder what we would do if we were offered, literally, anything we desired. If then we are to become authentic witnesses to the Gospel and accept the invitation to ‘Come follow me,‘ we too need to resist any obsession with status, ambition and wealth. ‘Would it be too much to say, therefore, that whenever or wherever the Church or its members seek to use power, manipulation or domination to control others it is, in fact, being unfaithful to Jesus?’ (page 52) Perhaps as we journey through Lent towards Easter we all need to pause again and gently but purposefully review our own lives and ask, ‘where do our true priorities lie?’

Lent (Part II) – We now come to the Second Temptation of Jesus to throw himself off the Temple so that God, his Father, would send his angles to save him. This I would suggest is an attempt to persuade Jesus to bathe in his own glory or putting it more simply to ‘show off’ by revealing his power to the world. I can’t help but wonder how much I give into such temptation by emphasising my own self-importance. ‘So would it be too much to say that whenever or wherever the Church or its members seeks to put its own glory before God, it is being unfaithful to Jesus?’ (Page 50) Loving service is, in fact, the only way to follow Christ but how often does our own self-importance get in the way?

LENT – As we enter this Holy season let us be prepared to be challenged by the power of the Gospel. When Jesus said, ‘Come, Follow Me,’ (Matthew 4:19) what did he actually mean and how do these words impact our lives now? Reflecting on the first temptation of Christ in the desert therefore, ‘Would it be too much to say that whenever or wherever either the Church, or its members, put self-interest first, it is being unfaithful to Jesus?’ (Page 48) So this week I am going to reflect on how I put my own interests before others because putting others before self is the way of Christ. ‘Whenever, we practice this same virtue we are doing nothing less than, ‘Sharing in the Life of God.’ (page 48) Care to join me?