Dear Brothers and Sisters, In this Sunday's gospel Jesus tells us something important about love. Love; one of the great preoccupations of humanity. Love is a concept, a thought, an experience that we cannot seemingly do without. We are surrounded by love, or at least the word, which is something we attach to many things, even down to what we eat, what we drink, or the clothes we wear. Sometimes love is part of the deepest emotions of our heart and soul enmeshed into the very fibre of our being, but perhaps more often than not we use the term carelessly where it is something that proves to be shallow and meaningless. Have you ever taken a moment to think about what it means to you? Have you ever been in love? What is it? Have you ever taken time to think about it, to try to understand it? Many philosophers and theologians – those who study the science of thought and religion – have looked at this over centuries, to try to understand the meaning of such a tiny word which has an enormous impact. The late Pope Benedict in his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" – “God is Love” – helps us. He describes love as having three elements – 3 Greek words. The first is termed “eros”, this concerns the fundamental attraction that one feels towards the other, perhaps looks first, perhaps then common interests, perhaps a common view of the world. In essence this is the most intense phase of love; intense but often it is relatively short lived and can be no more than superficial. The second building block is termed “philia”, where the initial attraction becomes a strong and enduring attachment, where those that love are in effect each other’s best friend, but it is deeper where there is always concern for the other’s feelings and welfare. The third element is “agape”. This is where love reaches its fullest form of maturity, it is the point in a relationship where one will give anything and everything for the other, including their lives. For example I have been is situations where a person would willingly give their own life in place of the one dying of illness. God is truly, madly and deeply in love you, with us. Heaven knows we let God down enough times throughout the history of humanity and in our personal history too. But God reaches out across history to embrace us in the fullest form of agape, coming to us in the person of Jesus, in His life, death and resurrection, to enable us to die to the poison of sin and to rise to a new and eternal life in an endless embrace of eternal joy where the shadows in our imperfect love here in this life simply vanishes forever to be replaced by something immeasurably beautiful and glorious. Love is always about a relationship, it is always about reciprocity – it’s a two-way street. What has brought you here today? Do you love God? How can you show that you do? It’s quite simple really “if you love me you will keep my commandments” – the core of this love is love of God and love of those around us. This is easy to say but hard to do; we are surrounded by influences that want to pull us towards ourselves, where we put ourselves in prime position, though we always experience that this is something that leaves us feeling unsettled, anxious, detached from what we feel our true selves to be; someone who created in the image and likeness of God – the image and likeness of love. But in the paschal mystery – the life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven of Jesus and the decent of the Holy Spirit – we are not left as orphans to struggle on alone. As Jesus is in the Father through the Holy Spirit, we too are one with all three persons of the Trinity through the sacraments. We are not alone, Jesus is always with us. If we stay close to Jesus we experience His love in our hearts and souls. In the love of Jesus we are always embraced too by the love of the Father; the Holy Spirit has been given to us. The victory of love over sin has been won for us by Jesus; it is up to us to make that victory our own. Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. God bless and keep you always. Fr Chris

Dear Brothers and Sisters, For believers of all religions living in the world there are many dilemmas. One of these is living in the structures of society. In the Christian church the dynamic between church and state goes back as far as Christianity being adopted as the state religion of the later Roman Empire, this was not plan sailing and often this took the form of conflict between what the emperor saw as their legitimate authority and what priests and bishops saw as theirs. Sometimes, often, it played itself out in martyrdom and exile. For that matter Popes were not above humiliating secular rules when they got a chance too. In this country it culminated in a violent separation in the 16 th century, when the king at the time, Henry VIII, took full control of the church in England. Our King, Charles III, is still the Supreme Governor of the Church of England; part of his oath taken at his coronation is still to defend its position as a church and in society. Elsewhere, for example, Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow seems to be hand in glove with President Putin. What are we to make of this? All this points towards the near impossibility of church and state being too close to each other. Where this is attempted in any way compromises are made, either where the power of the state is concerned or where the power of the gospel is diluted. Though at different times, and in different places, with difficult and sometimes horrendous consequences, the separation of the Catholic church from state structures makes it a free agent of the good news, enabling it to be faithful to the liberation of our hearts, minds and souls offered by Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection. However, during his life on earth Jesus was also a pragmatist. In the fullness of his humanity he knew that there had to be an every day modus vivendi to make life possible. We see today how his enemies try to exploit this in this Sunday’s gospel. For them, though they tolerated Roman rule, their religion ultimately did not accept a secular ruler such as the emperor. There was one ruler – God alone. In the early days of their liberation from Egypt in fact they had no king, God himself was their King – the King – who travelled with them on their journey to the promised land. It was only later that they wanted a king to be like other nations. In a sense, in doing this, they rejected the Kingship of God. But the Jew’s dislike of the idea of a secular ruler continued in one form or another. The currency they preferred to use was not that of the Romans, because it had the graven image of the emperor on it with a claim that the emperor was “son of god”, but coins locally made. But this Sunday Jesus in a masterful way draws out the hypocrisy of their position by seemingly innocently asking for a coin. Though they publicly avoid Roman currency, surprise, surprise, one of his critics just so happens to have one on him. You can imagine the faces of the others who were there when their cover is blown! They seek to entrap Jesus whilst engaging in the same behaviour themselves. But Jesus makes a deeper point. Firstly, it is God who is truly sovereign, our primary duty is always to return to God what we belongs to him. We belong to God; our destiny is to return to him, to be fully and wholly united to him in the life of the Trinity. That is the first duty of our lives here on earth. It is something that should inform every thought, word and deed. Yes, we have a duty to be good citizens, Saint Paul and Saint Peter tell us this in their letters to us from the beginning of the Christian era. But we will encounter times when the state may make demands on our morals and ethics which cannot be squared with what society seems to demand of us. When we are faced with this, perhaps that familiar question is helpful, “what would Jesus do?”. Don’t be afraid to ask Jesus what to do, listen to His answer in your heart and respond. It may get you into trouble but will win you your life – eternal life. Please accept an assurance of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions. God bless and keep you always. Fr Chris