This Sunday’s Gospel reminds us that Christian life is a life of relationship. Jesus calls us not to allow hurt or misunderstanding to grow, but to have the courage to speak to one another, listen to one another and seek reconciliation. We are not meant to live as isolated individuals. We belong to one another. As St Paul reminds us, “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rm 13:10). Sometimes the greatest expression of love is taking the first step towards another.

A few parish updates:

• our First Holy Communion preparation begins on Monday, 21st September at 5.30 pm. Applications are available online for children aged 7 and above.
• On Sunday, 4th October at 10.30 am, we will once again celebrate our Pets’ Blessing Mass in the garden in honour of St Francis of Assisi. All creatures, great and small, are welcome!
• Our parish development planning application is now with Kingston Council. The statutory notice has been displayed outside the church and neighbouring properties have been notified. We will give you a fuller update next week.
• I am also delighted to share some photographs from the opening of the new school building in my home village in India.

Above all, thank you for being who you are

and for making St Ann’s such a warm and caring community.

Fr James Raj, Parish Priest (jamesraj@rcaos.org.uk)

Homily for 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a beautiful old Indian spiritual story about a young man who went to a master because his heart was deeply troubled. Someone close to him had hurt him, and he could not let it go. The incident had happened some time ago, but in his mind he kept returning to it again and again.

The master listened quietly. Then he gave him a handful of salt and said, “Put this into a glass of water and drink it.”

The young man tasted it and immediately said, “It is terribly bitter.”

Then the master took him to a lake. He asked him to throw the same amount of salt into the lake and drink from it.

“How does it taste now?”

“Fresh,” the young man replied.

The master said, “The salt has not changed. What has changed is the space that holds it.”

My dear friends, there will always be some salt in life: hurt, misunderstanding, disappointment, careless words, moments when even those we love deeply wound us.

But the question is: how large is my heart?

When the heart becomes small, one hurt can fill everything. We keep replaying it, and slowly bitterness grows. And the more bitterness grows, the more we ourselves suffer.

There is a well-known saying: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

That is exactly what bitterness can do. The other person may have moved on, but we continue carrying the pain within us.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, gives us a different way.

He says: “If your brother sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

Go.

That is important.

Do not simply withdraw. Do not immediately cut the person off. Do not wait for them to come first. Go and speak. Listen. Try to understand.

Sometimes one honest conversation can save a friendship. One act of forgiveness can save a marriage. One humble step can restore a family relationship.

Very often the relationship is not destroyed by the original mistake, but by the silence that follows it.

And sometimes we wait for the other person to make a mistake so that we can prove ourselves right. But love is not about winning a case. It is about recovering communion.

Jesus then says something even more beautiful: “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”

Agreement is not easy. Two minds coming together is not easy. Two people accepting each other, especially after hurt, is not easy.

But that is precisely why reconciliation is sacred.

When two people who were divided begin to speak again, when husband and wife begin to listen again, when brothers or sisters choose relationship over pride, something of heaven begins to enter the situation.

And Jesus ends with this wonderful promise:

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Christian faith is never just “me and God”.

It is also us.

Together.

One tree does not make a forest.

We need one another.

We are healed through one another.

We become more fully human through one another.

So perhaps the question today is not simply, “Who has hurt me?”

The deeper question is:

What relationship is God asking me to restore?

Because sometimes the greatest miracle is not that the hurt disappears.

It is that two people, after the hurt, are able to sit together again.

And where that happens, Christ says:

“I am there among them.”